#presented by COLONY

[thethirdbear]

[asmiraofsheba]

"Why are Irish people so quick to defend the Palestinians and to call out Israel?"

This is a list of what the British authorities were allowed to do to the local Irish population in Northern Ireland:

This Act was only repealed in the 1970s.

Violence, oppression, and discrimination against the Irish is not ancient history. Many Irish people are still feeling the effects today. Northern Ireland has one of the highest rates of PTSD in the world. It has some of the worst mental health statistics in general. It's still plagued by political dysfunction, which is a direct result of Britain's colonial activity in Ireland.

So why do the Irish support Palestine?

It's because many of us have lived through very similar things to what they are going through.

[fatehbaz]

Because tuatara are very long lived - between 100 and 200 years by most estimates […] - the founding of Aotearoa/New Zealand as a modern nation and the unfolding of settler-wrought changes to its environment have transpired over the course of the lives of perhaps just two tuatara [...].

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[T]he tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) [...] [is] the sole surviving representative of an order of reptiles that pre-dates the dinosaurs. [...] [T]he tuatara is of immense global and local significance and its story is pre-eminently one of deep timescales, of life-in-place [...]. Epithets abound for the unique and ancient biodiversity found in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Prized as “Ghosts of Gondwana” (Gibbs 2008), or as denizens of “Moa’s Ark” (Bellamy et al. 1990) or “The Southern Ark” (Andrews 1986), the country’s faunal species invoke fascination and inspire strong language [...]. In rounded terms, it [has been] [...] just 250 years since James Cook made landfall; just 200 years since the founding of the handful of [...] settlements that instigated agricultural transformation of the land [...]. European newcomers [...] were disconcerted by the biota [...]: the country was seen to “lack” terrestrial mammals; many of its birds were flightless and/or songless; its bats crawled through leaf-litter; its penguins inhabited forests; its parrots were mountain-dwellers; its frogs laid eggs that hatched miniature frogs rather than tadpoles [...].

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Despite having met a reassuringly temperate climate [mild, oceanic, comparable to western Europe], too, the newcomers nevertheless sought to make adjustments to that climate, and it was clear to them that profits beckoned. Surveying the towering lowland forests from the deck of HMS Endeavour in 1769, and perceiving scope for expansion of the fenland drainage schemes being undertaken at that time in England and across swathes of Europe, Joseph Banks [botanist on Cook's voyage] reported on “swamps which might doubtless Easily be drained” [...]. Almost a century later, in New Zealand or Zealandia, the Britain of the South, [...] Hursthouse offered a fuller explication of this ethos: The cultivation of a new country materially improves its climate. Damp and dripping forests, exhaling pestilent vapours from rank and rotten vegetation, fall before the axe [...]. Fen and march and swamp, the bittern’s dank domain, fertile only in miasma, are drained; and the plough converts them into wholesome plains of fruit, and grain, and grass. [...]

[The British administrators] duly set about felling the ancient forests of Aotearoa/New Zealand, draining the country’s swamps [...]. They also began importing and acclimatising a vast array of exotic (predominantly northern-world) species [sheep, cattle, rodents, weasels, cats, crops, English pasture grasses, etc.] [...]. [T]hey constructed the seemingly ordinary agronomic patchwork of Aotearoa/New Zealand's productive, workaday landscapes [...]. This is effected through and/or accompanied by drastic deforestation, alteration of the water table and the flow of waterways, displacement and decline of endemic species, re-organisation of predation chains and pollination sequences and so on [...]. Aotearoa/New Zealand was founded in and through climate crisis [...]. Climate crisis is not a disastrous event waiting to happen in the future in this part of the world; rather, it has been with us for two centuries already [...].

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[T]he crest formed by the twinned themes of absence and exceptionalism [...] has shaped this creature's niche in the western imagination. As one of the very oldest species on earth, tuatara have come to be recognised [in Euro-American scientific schemas] [...] as an evolutionary and biodiversity treasure [...]. In 1867, [...] Gunther [...] pronounced that it was not a lizard at all [...] [and] placed the tuatara [...] in a new order, Rhynchocephalia, [...] igniting a frenzy of scientific interest worldwide. Specifically, the tuatara was seen to afford opportunities for "astonished witnessing" [...], for "the excitement of having the chance to see, to study, to observe a true saurian of Mesozoic times in the flesh, still living, but only on this tiny speck of the earth [...], while all its ancestors [...] died about one hundred and thirty-five million years ago" [...]. Tuatara have, however, long held special status as a taonga or treasured species in Māori epistemologies, featuring in a range of [...] stories where [...] [they] are described by different climates and archaeologies of knowledge [...] (see Waitangi Tribunal 2011, p. 134). [...]

While unconfirmed sightings in the Wellington district were reported in the nineteenth century, tuatara currently survive only in actively managed - that is, monitored and pest-controlled - areas on scattered offshore islands, as well as in mainland zoo and sanctuary populations. As this confinement suggests, tuatara are functionally “extinct” in almost all of their former wild ranges. [...] [Italicized text in the heading of this post originally situated here in Boswell's article.] [...] In the remaining areas of Aotearoa/New Zealand where this species does now live [...], tuatara may in some cases be the oldest living inhabitants. Yet [...] if the tuatara is a creature of long memory, this memory is at risk of elimination or erasure. [...] [T]uatara expose and complicate the [...] machineries of public memory [...] and attendant environmental ideologies and management paradigms [...].

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All text above by: Anna Boswell. "Climates of Change: A Tuatara's-Eye View". Humanities, 2020, Volume 9, Issue 2, 38. Published 1 May 2020. This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Humanities Approaches to Climate Change. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Text within brackets added by me for clarity. The first paragraph/heading in this post, with text in italics, are also the words of Boswell from this same article. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[hussyknee]

[communistkenobi]

people fawning over the environmentalist themes in tolkien’s work has always made me deeply uneasy but I could never articulate why, and reading orientalism is clarifying a lot of that for me lol

[rolledspinepodcasts]

Dark Horse Presents

Aliens vs. Predator 2

Dark Horse Comics #25 (1994)

Aliens vs. Predator: Duel #1-2 (1995)

Aliens vs. Predator: War #1-4 (1995)

Aliens: Booty #1 (1996)

[muirneach]

idk how annoying ass ppl on here can be “All Old Country Is Good And Leftist” and also “All Westerns Are Racist” and also “All Cowboys Ever Were Latino/Black” and also “All People In The Country Are Conservative” simultaneously like this shit doesnt add up

[storm-of-feathers]

I'm 99% about to get hung drawn and quartered on isq

[scarletiswailing347]

i cant find it anymore but this one post i read about zam caring about lifesteal for lifesteals sake while nobody else really does that inspired an au for me lol

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

The situation in Lebanon today is bleak. Carved out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire and subjected to years of colonialism-lite administration by France, its economy and infrastructure have been devastated by a long civil war, overlapping occupations by Syria and Israel, and corruption on a massive scale. Since 2019, Lebanon has been in the midst of a severe financial crisis, with widespread unemployment and hyperinflation. Now 80% of the population is poor and Lebanon is on the brink of becoming a failed state.

And yet, JD Harlock, Poetry Editor at Solarpunk Magazine, who lives in Beirut, believes in solarpunk. Join us for this episode to find out how that can be and what day to day life is like in Beirut right now.

You can find JD on X and Instagram at @JD_Harlock.

[lyledebeast]

I've just rembered that Jim Carrey's Grinch tells his dog Max after their first excursion into Whoville "We did our worst, and that's all that matters."

Now I can't stop thinking about the other character who always does his worst . . . stealing the militiamen and their families' Christmas . . . tying a deer antler on top of Captain Wilkins' head.

[ordon-shield]

I think a lot of the arguments I’m seeing here on the question of TotK and imperialism comes down to a sort of Doylist/Watsonian divide. I don’t think there’s anyone who’s seriously accusing Rauru of secretly being evil or committing genocide or whatever — the fact is that the story of TotK presents a world in which a more technologically advanced nation came to rule over surrounding nations because they all agreed it was the best decision, and the only guy who disagreed is pure evil and becomes hated by his own people. The issue with TotK is that it follows the exact narrative that imperialism and neo-colonialism use to justify themselves — that the nations they control wanted it, that they benefit from it, that it’s possible for someone to be born in a position that makes them an innately good leader due to their ancestry. Arguing against that with things like Rauru being a good leader and Ganondorf being evil doesn’t make sense because that’s the point. If both characters were portrayed with a bit more complexity, this wouldn’t be an argument at all, because the story wouldn’t be following an imperialist narrative.

[maareyas]

“How are you so good at this?!“ “You’re overthinking your steps, Halley.”

Wanted to practice doing full scenes, so I decided to draw an Arcade Date between Halley and Atom (aka, Comet’s parents!)✨ Included some close-up shots that were partially covered up, so y’all can see some easter eggs I included :]

Thank you to everyone who let me borrow their ocs to use as background extras! (from front to back) On the left: @justanamartins​ , @genotaurus​ , @picardj​ On the DDR screen are @silvershayde​ and @sfelix42​ ‘s characters on the Right: @sergeanticy , @acidbunnyart​, and @/PopularBeast965

[ask-lokiande]

Fun Value

I like my fun.

I like reading, writing, listening to music, knitting and crochet, watching shows and playing games. I don't like when my fun is at the cost of others- when minorities are made the butt of the "joke" as a thing to be mocked, either directly or through having to wrap my head around what's implied. I'm not all that good at catching implied bigotry, and often I will only understand the true meaning of something given enough time away, rereading, or if a third party is willing to sit down and explain what's wrong.

Far too often, or maybe its cause "we live in a bigoted society, therefore the vast bulk of media is going to have some variation of it" is just a given- I will find something fun, only to discover in the process, or after that the author has woven bigotry into their work, and the majority of fans don't care because to do so would impact their enjoyment. I don't want to support such works so I drop them. Most if not all of the stories and games I loved over the years fall into this category.

There was an MMO I played for nearly twelve years called Second Life. It was pretty much my third-space, a place that wasn't home or work where i could chat with people, create cool 3d objects and explore. In recent years I've found far too many on the platform are alright with bigotry and harm towards others as long as it doesn't directly affect them- or if it does well its just a joke, its all virtual so who cares? I tried to report pedophiles, and sims catering to goddamn bestiality [as the tip of the shit iceberg], because in a game where you can be and do anything some will take that to its logical extreme no matter the TOS. Nothing came of it.

Around the start of the year, a whistleblower spoke out and implicated a shit ton of the LL staff as being part of an online pedophile ring with mountains of evidence, because SL is such a niche corner of the internet and being staff members they could look the other way or encourage as they pleased. Of the people I told before i decided to delete my account of "Lokiande Resident", many were horrified- but kept playing and giving the devs money, because where else would they go, where else could they create in such a way? Big name inworld news outlets like SL Newser and New World Notes told me I was lying, that the information had to be fake, it was all slander. The forum managers took down my post linking to the article, threatening me with a ban. Someone I had known for ten years ignored it because "its damaging to my mental health and SL is the one good thing in my life".

Over a decade of gaming, people i knew and things we had created together, plus thousands of dollars in upload costs as well as buying from other artists- and I chose to leave because I finally realized it had been rotten from the very beginning.

Here is the archived version of the article, you will need to copy/paste the text into a document to read it in full, or find some other way to bypass the blur filter: https://web.archive.org/web/20240305033043/https://medium.com/@dantesedmond1844/the-reality-of-second-lifes-ageplay-problem-73de059b4af4

Sidenote! As the Linden Lab TOS isnt binding outside of the game and its forums- fuck you in particular Tapple Gao, Teager, Monstaar and everyone still involved in the Teegle brand.

An extreme example, but I did it to hammer home the point that I will not go back on my morals. If my fun is at the cost of others, fuck it. If that means I'm left with having to find something else that isn't shit- then I'll keep looking. No amount of "oh but this was important to me" will bring me back to something rooted in harm to others.

[ourhouseishaunted]

70% of my trigun thoughts are abt how plants (independent and dependant) work and what they symbolize and their relationships with other characters and the world and stuff and the implications of independent plants coming with the earth forces and what it says about how earth has progressed since SEEDS left the planet, 20% of my thoughts are "hope those guys (meryl milly vash livio ww knives) are having fun" and 10% is rotating trimax Rem Saverem around in my head at all times

[inazuma-fulgur]

Read the damn article before you pretend this is me just auding Trump in getting reelected

Democrats are stopping their own candidate from getting elected ny refusing to put up someone other than Biden/someone equally unfit and racist

The thing is, the difference between Trump and Biden is their fanbase, their image. Apart from a few Bandaids and otherwise empty promises Biden does indeed continue the same politics as Trump or let's things running undisturbed.

So whether you vote blue no matter who or whatever I don't give a fuck.

But what I do give a fuck about it liberals pretending voting Biden is the end all be all of progressive politics and mandatory to prevent 'the Bad™' from happening going forward. Because it isn't stopping anything as far as we can tell from media coverage

In fact, voting third party is an option, nit voting is an option, doing anything is an option. It's probably worth more to give a random houseless person five bucks than vote Biden.

This annoys me greatly because I don't just see USians say this, I see activists and casuals from other countries with similarly corrupt issues spread the same misinformation about the US. And also about their own countries, act the same way.

Having spend a lot of time within my own countries, Germany, activist spaces and being involved I can tell you with certainty that many people have similar attitudes towards our own government. Campaigning and running ads for political parties involved in funding wars, defending police and police murders, etc.

You might have heard about 'der hohe Repräsentant' (lit. the high Representative' but likely not. Because topics like that largely go ignored by not just the media and our fucked up politicians but our fucked up activists and progressives as well.

Leftists here largely hate Palestine, deem any critique of Israel antisemitic.

Heck even small things, like our progressive parties even try to make healthcare and education worse, push for more cars over public transit. Shit like that

And then hearing people pretend they're a solution on their own, that just voting for them is sufficient. I can't. And they'll attack you for criticizing these parties, which even a supporter who believes in a lesser evil should do, has to do.

Because if you don't critique them and discourage critique (often disingenuously framed as helping the opposing parties, the myth of leftists infighting aiding the right more than the left. A liberal lie I might say), you expose yourself for how you don't send letters, don't go to protests, are in no way involved in anything. You just want their hateful and dangerous politics to continue because they protect your cozy life in a rich white 'western' country.

I think that sucks and I want you to rethink your positions. Because I believe with some tiny bit of introspection you'll realize that this is a messed up thing for you to advocate for.

Again, for the people in the back, if you genuinely believe in the lesser evil that's fine idc even if I don't, but you can't assure yourself you've done enough and you should at the very least stop people from leveraging necessary criticism against politicians.

If you keep defending Biden I'll keep thinking you consider murdering brown* people abroad and invading and destroying their countries a necessary evil to stop... *checks notes* stop Trump from starting wars and enacting racist policies?