#when you become an activist

[remembertheplunge]

When you become an activist, you make history

November 25, 2024

I was listening to KPFA radio on the drive home from work in Stockton this evening and heard Delores Huerta talking on a show called Flash Points. Huerta was a co-founder of the United Farm workers along with Ceasar Chavez.

When asked what her message was to young people in these troubled times about how to get involved, she said the following “When Ceasar Chavez talked with students, he wad say that in school, you talk about history, you read about history and you write about history. But, when you become an activist, you make history. The times we are living in now are history making moments. She talked about forming human chains around immigrants so that they cannot be forcibly put in camps to be deported after Trump is sworn in as a  possible example of activism that may be required in the coming days.

To hear the entire interview with Delores Huerta, go to the KPFA web site. Then go to archives. Type in Flash Points in the search bar, and then November in the month search bar that comes up for the November 25, 2024 show.

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

wait i thought i’d seen the full extent of the silm fandom’s misogyny but i guess the silm fandom can always hate female characters more because apparently?? people believe indis the manipulative malicious bitch came onto and cajoled and stalked finwe until he relented and married her all while specifically aiming to make it so that miriel could never come back and she could have finwe's dick for all of eternity and abuse poor helpless feanor to her black shriveled heart’s content??? apparently that is a take that exists and has shooters??? yall are truly smoking that good stuff

[cator99]

I always get detained at da border because PROFUNC never ended but basically I'm like if a targeted individual didn't even care

[katyspersonal]

[wolflover33100aj]

CHOKE

No thank you, I'm good

[featherymainffins]

Because I haven't really interacted with X-Men media in a fairly long time, sometimes I'm like "Why is Magneto a villain again? Because he's radical and brutal or am I forgetting something?" And then I read the words "mutant supremacy" somewhere and yeah turns out that's what I keep forgetting about.

Tho I'm gonna be real I probably keep forgetting that because in the situations they keep putting mutants in it seems like a total non-issue. Like idk imagine if there was someone who was like a REAL damn BEAST when it came to disability advocacy or queer rights and the only problem was that sometimes they'd go "Actually autistic/queer people are superior to everyone else and should be in control." Like idk about you but I'd be all "Hmmm that sounds like something that might not be great in the long-term but rn I'm not even allowed to drive." You know what I mean?

[kyouka-supremacy]

---

[sendmyresignation]

recently watched two trains runnin' which i was so overwhelmingly taken by, the parallel music and political histories forming a kind if implicit ideology without totally overlapping is so cool to me- like extrapolating based on a coincidence in time (that the three murdered freedom summer activists disappeared in mississippi the same exact day a pair of previously unlocated bluesmen were tracked down) this whole theory of black (southern) intellectual involvement in the counter-cultural is really impressive.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

David Tennant interview at the British LGBT Awards, June 2024 (x)

Int: You being an ally to the community isn't something new. You've been doing it, but recently you've obviously really stepped up for trans and non-binary people in a time that's so, so needed. What made you do that?

David: I don't know that I feel like I've done anything that I wouldn't just sort of be normally doing. I mean, it's for me it's just common sense that there's there should be any suggestion that people aren't allowed to live the life they want to live and and to be who they want to be with and to express themselves wholeheartedly. I mean, as long as you aren't hurting anybody else, everybody else just needs to fucking butt out. I don't really understand why...

Int: ...it's controversial.

David: Yeah, there is and the thing... the thing, if there's something that's particularly sobering and depressing, it's that certain debates are being weaponized by certain elements of the political class, often for no... it seems it's not ideological so much as opportunistic. And I just think that's pretty disgusting, really.

Int: I couldn't agree more. What message would you like to send out to trans youth?

David: Please don't feel like you're not loved and that you're not accepted and that you're not... you know, most people in the world are good and kind and just want you to be able to be who you are. Most people in the world don't really care. I mean... you know what I mean?

Int: We're all narcissistic.

David: Exactly. Everyone's so self obsessed that really, the sort of noise that comes from a certain area of the press and of the political class is... it's a minority. It really is. And please don't let that make you feel diminished or dissuaded or discouraged, because, you know, you just... you have to be allowed to be yourself, and you are, and you are yourself and you must thrive and flourish, and we're all here for it.

Int: Amazing. I think, yeah, it's so important .I think sometimes it feels like there's so many people, but it is a minority. It's such a minority.

David: It's a tiny bunch of little whinging fuckers that are on the wrong side of history and they'll all go away soon.

Int: Like what happened with gay people 20 years ago.

David: When I was a kid, when I was a kid, exactly. You know, I was at school when Clause 28 came in and it all felt like being gay was something to be terrified of. And gay men in particular were demonised as paedophiles and now that just feels historic and ludicrous and, I mean, I don't see all those... all those battles aren't won, but we're in a very, very different place. And I feel like.I feel like history is on a progressive trajectory and it might get knocked sideways now and again by people for all sorts of reasons, which are often quite selfish and quite, as I say, not coming from a place of any sort of genuine belief system, but other than a place of opportunism. And that's something that we... I hope that in 20 years time, we're talking about, you know, these culture wars as something of the past.

Int: I believe we will. I'm a huge Doctor Who fan, so.

David: Oh, good, me too!

Int: You are my Doctor.

David: Oh, thank you very much.

Int: But recently, obviously, you came back for the 60th anniversary and you got to work with Yasmin Finney.

David: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Int: What was it like working with her?

David: Oh, she's brilliant. She's fantastic. Yeah. And she's in the show again now, she's back in it, so that's fantastic to see. She's lovely, talented, cool as a cucumber, articulate, brilliant. I learned a lot from her as an actor and also as someone who, you know, who's become a sort of de facto activist just because of who she is and where she is, and she becomes a sort of symbol of hope, and she's wonderful.

[mirkobloom77]

💚🏳️‍🌈🇲🇽 This pride month I want us to remember Jesús Ociel

[Plain text: This pride month I want us to remember Jesús Ociel]

Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo (1984-2023) was the very first non-binary person in Latin America to become an electoral magistrate, being a member of the Electoral Tribunal of Aguascalientes in Mexico since October 2022. They also received the first birth certificate to have the sex registered as Non-Binary, a big achievement in the recognition of Non-Binary people.

Amongst other things, they defended trans youth, gay marriage, the fair hiring of LGBTQ+ people in the INE and overall pushed for a public acceptance and the stop of discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. Jesús was known for going to work with high heels, makeup and their iconic fan with the rainbow flag, often carrying the non-binary flag too, and they fought to give visibility to non-binary people. They won the hearts of thousands.

They are considered a very important figure for the LGBTQ+ movement, specially in Latin America, as they fought very hard to defend the rights of it, both socially and politically.

They were found dead with their partner, Dorian Daniel Herrera, in the 13th of November of 2023 in Aguascalientes, in their home. The prosecutor’s office affirms it was due to a fight the two of them had, but many say it was a hate crime; the murder of activists are not too uncommon in Mexico, and even more considering their gender identity and sexuality. The ‘crime of passion’ judgement is also often put when the death of an LGBTQ+ person happens.

Either way, their death has sparked movements to punish hate crimes, and their figure remains as a symbol of hope for a better future. Mexico has a long way to go for LGBTQ acceptance, but their actions have pushed towards that goal and their memory continues to push forward. I recommend you investigate further about them if you have the time.

And in your fight for LGBTQ+ rights and your celebrations this pride month, please do not forget about Jesús Ociel.

“We are, we exist, we resist and we go for the spaces that by right correspond us and that historically have been denied to us.”

- Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo

Descanse en paz, magistrade 💚 acá a usted no se le olvida

[stil-lindigo]

"Kamala Harris has earned an eleventh-hour show of support from Palestinian, Arab and Muslim community leaders."

On October 24th, a collective statement titled "Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election" was published.

The 100+ signees include current or former leaders of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim organisations, the leader of Phoenix, AZ's largest mosque, Jewish activists and other elected officials. All of them have been listed at the bottom of this post.

You can read the whole statement here but I've also copy-pasted it's entire contents below.

Read. The Whole. Thing.

It is concise and will only take you a few minutes. While you read, recognise that these words are not representative of every single person belonging to these demographics. Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims are not a monolith, and have a right to feel any way they do about this election. To those who do not belong to these groups - refrain from adding your personal commentary in the tags, and understand how excruciating of a place this statement must have come from for both the authors, signees and the communities they represent.

---

Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats and Community Leaders Statement on Presidential Election

As Democrats and leaders in the Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Progressive communities in Arizona, we the undersigned make the following statement, published on 10/24/2024:

This past year has been very difficult for all of us. With over 42,000 Palestinians killed by Israel using American-supplied weapons and no end in sight despite all our struggle for a ceasefire, we approach the presidential election heartbroken and outraged.

We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide. We understand this sentiment. Many of us have felt that way ourselves, even until very recently. Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones.

As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities. We know that some will strongly disagree. We only ask that you consider our case with an open mind and heart, respecting that we are doing what we believe is right in an awful situation where only flawed choices are available.

In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become President again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement. It would be an existential threat to our democracy and our whole planet.

When we think of Trump in power again, we recall that even a genocide can get much worse. Trump just said that Netanhahu must “go further” in Gaza while criticizing Biden for “trying to hold him back.” His biggest donor, Miriam Adelson, who demanded in 2016 that Trump move the US embassy to Jerusalem if elected –– which he then did –– is now telling Trump to allow Israel to annex the entire West Bank. Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and the entire far right in Israel want Trump to win and grant Israel total free reign. We cannot give them what they want.

Trump must be defeated. The only way to defeat him is to elect Kamala Harris.

Voting for Harris is not a personal endorsement of her or of the policy decisions of the administration in which she served. It’s an assessment of the best possible option to continue fighting for an end to the genocide, a free Palestine, and all else that we hold dear.

We are deeply frustrated that Harris has not yet met our movement’s demand that she break with Biden, defy the powerful extremists enforcing the status quo, stand with the majority of Americans, and pledge to uphold US law and international law and condition aid to Israel. Still we believe there are clear reasons to hope that we can win positive policy change with a Harris administration and a Democratic Congress.

Multiple media reports state that Harris’s national security advisors are open to re-evaluating policy and conditioning aid to Israel. On October 13th, the same day the administration threatened to re-evaluate military support if Israel did not improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza and reduce civilian casualties in the next 30 days, Harris tweeted: “Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need. Civilians must be protected and have access to food, water, and medicine. International humanitarian law must be respected.” In Michigan the other day, Harris expressed clear empathy for the suffering of the people of Palestine and Lebanon and the impact of this devastation on Arab Americans. She pledged to do “everything in her power” as President to end the war in Gaza, end the suffering of Palestinians there, and achieve “a future of security and dignity for all people in the region.”

Beyond Harris’s statements, we know that her decisions as President will be shaped by the larger Democratic Party coalition that includes a growing force pushing for Palestinian human rights. Our Arizona Democratic Party passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in January. Every single member of Congress who has publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza or for an arms embargo is a Democrat. The major national unions, civil rights groups, and progressive organizations that have called for a halt to military aid to Israel are all working to elect Harris.

On the other hand, the Republican Party coalition offers zero opposition to unconditional support for Israel and zero support for Palestinian human rights. Instead Republicans urge the US to join Israel in bombing Iran, call to “bounce the rubble in Gaza” and “kill ‘em all,” and would likely support the Israeli far right’s drive to annex Gaza and the West Bank.

What about a third party? Many in our communities believe this is our best option. Unfortunately, there is not a single third party member of Congress or even state legislator in America. In our electoral system, no third party candidate can win this election. But voting for them could make Trump president.

The polls show the presidential election is extremely close and that it will be decided by 7 swing states, including Arizona. While voting 3rd party may be strategic in non-swing states as a protest of the current US Israel/Palestine policy or as a step to qualifying the Green Party for public funding in future elections by winning at least 5% of the national vote, doing it in Arizona or other swing states in such a close election could bring disaster.

Some argue that if Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim voters and our allies vote for a 3rd party candidate and intentionally throw the election to Trump, taking credit for defeating Harris, it will prove our power to decide a close election and “punish Democrats” for complicity in genocide. Unfortunately, this is not how power, politics, or change works in our country. When Ralph Nader helped throw the election to Bush in 2000, he was rejected by millions for whom he was once a hero, banished ever since to the political margins. When Jill Stein helped throw the election to Trump in 2016, she remained relegated to the political fringe, becoming less powerful not more. If our communities ally with the Green Party to defeat Harris, we risk marginalizing ourselves as they did by alienating the tens of millions of voters who support the cause of Palestinian freedom and are fighting to defeat Trump by electing her.

Instead, by helping to elect Kamala Harris, we can say, “Despite it all, we gave you another chance and helped put you in office to defend democracy and uphold our highest American values. Now uphold them: end the genocide and secure Palestinian self-determination. We will fight every day to hold you to it.” If Harris and Democrats win, we will wage that fight with more allies among the American people, Congress, and the White House than ever before. If they don’t deliver, we will have a mandate and mass support to hold them accountable through every nonviolent tool of democracy, including protests, resignations, civil disobedience, primary election challenges, and even potential mass noncooperation. It’s a difficult path, but the one that offers the most hope.

The first step –– and our best choice in this horrible situation –– is defeating Trump by electing Harris. We urge you to join us.

Signers (affiliations listed for identification purposes only):

Maher Arekat, Founder, Palestine Community Center of Arizona

Usama Shami, President, Islamic Community Center of Phoenix

Fadi Zanayed, Vice President, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine - Arizona

Shams AbdusSamad, Secretary, Maricopa County Dem Party; ADP Exec Cmte Mmbr - At Large & SCM

Samir Mufarreh, Palestinian American Christian Community Leader

Jordan Harb, Lebanese American Youth Leader

Stephen Mufarreh, Attorney, Palestinian American Christian Community Leader

Misaal Irfan, Pakistani American Community Leader

Samara Hamideh, Palestinian Youth Organizer

Mohamed El-Sharkawy, Palestinian American and a Muslim leader

Ala Rumah, Syrian American Activist

Dina Hamideh, Coordinator, Arizona Palestine Film Festival

Salauddin Choudhury, Bangladeshi Community Leader; DNC Delegate CD 5; LD 14 SCM

Hani Hani, President, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine - Arizona

Dr. Navid Khan, Pakistani American Community Leader

Deena Mufarreh, Chair, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine - Arizona

Syed Nasir Raza, Progressive Pakistani-American Community Leader; AZ Progressives

Ashraf Elgamal, President, Arab American Organization

Salina Imam, Charity Program Leader

Sawsan Tannous, Chair, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine - Arizona

Saher Afzal, Pakistani American, Arizona Education Association member, and Exec board AEA local

Nathan Mufara, Chair, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine - Arizona

Dr. Jaffrey Khazi, Community Leader

Hashim Hamid , Palestinian American Community Elder and Retired Businessman

​​Ameena Arekat, Palestinian American Health Care Worker

Mo Al Hwan Bahu, Palestinian American Christian

Deanna Dabbah, Former President, Arab American Anti-Discrimination Cmte, Fountain Hills, AZ

Dr. Hazem Jabr, Palestinian American Dentist

Jack Saba, Syrian American Entertainer & Democratic Voter

Ramzi Arikat, Palestinian American Business Owner in Phoenix

Shaikh F Shams, LD13 PC & State Cmte Member, Bangladeshi American Community Leader

Hussein Jabr, Palestinian American Doctor

Md Ibrahim Faisal, Bangladeshi American Progressive Democrats

Dean Dabbah, Community Activist, Fountain Hills, AZ

Mazen Arekat, Palestinian American Business Owner

Sujat Jamil, Bangladeshi American Progressive Democrats

Rocky Francis, Iraqi American Businessman

Hazem Arekat, Palestinian American Businessman

Arif Mahmud, Volunteer

Qumrul Ahsan, Precinct committee member LD13

Shahriar Anwar, LD13

Menassa Abinader, Lebanese American; Owner, Mejana Restaurant

Charlotte Hosseini, Sedona Resident ; Concerned citizen and voter

Tan Jakwani, Muslim Community Leader

William Havel, Iraqi Refugee

Jennifer Loewenstein, Jewish Voice for Peace - Tucson ; Arizona Palestine Network (AZ PAL)

Jessica Burke, Jewish Community Member & Progressive Activist

Bob Lord, Former Arizona Congressional Candidate, Jewish Community Member

Rachel Port, Jewish Voice for Peace -  Tucson

Laurie Melrood, Jewish Voice for Peace - Tucson; LD 20

Rep. Mariana Sandoval, LD 23

Rep. Quantá Crews, LD 26 ; State and Precinct Committee Person

Martín J. Quezada, Former State Senator

School Board Member Patti Serrano, PC and State Committee Member LD 13, 2020 Delegate

Kai Newkirk, Co-Chair, Arizona Democratic Party Progressive Council

Erika Andiola, Immigrant Rights Leader & Bernie 2016 Latino Outreach Press Secretary

Mikkel Jordahl, Attorney

Belén Sisa, Former Latino Press Secretary for Bernie 2020 and DACA Recipient

Salil Deshpande, LD18 State Committee Member; DNC Standing Committee Member

Dan O’Neal, Progressive Democrats of America - Arizona State Coordinator

Armonee D. Jackson, President, Young Democrats of Arizona

Eva Putzova, Former City of Flagstaff Councilmember

Emily Kirkland, PC LD 8; Former Executive Director, Progress Arizona

Melissa Galarza, Chair, LD12 Democrats

Cameron Bautista, Youth Organizer & School Board Coordinator, KeepAZBlue Student Coalition

Nick Collins, LD 12 State Cmte Member, Progressive Council Interim Steering Committee

Ken Kenegos, LD 18 PC, member Progressive Democrats of America

Michael Bradley, Arizona Palestine Network, LD 4 PC

David Higgins, Co-Founder, Arizona Palestine Network (AZ PAL)

Natacha Chavez, Precinct committee person LD 22

Sarah León, Community organizer

Elizabeth Hourican, CODEPINK Phoenix

Emily Verdugo, Community Leader

Kyle Nitschke, LD 6 State Committee Member

Barbara J. Taft, Leadership Team, WILPF US Middle East Peace and Justice Action Committee

Nicole Gutiérrez Miller, State and Precinct Committee Person, LD 12

Dianne Post, International Human Rights Attorney

Lindsay Love, Owner & therapist at TherapyLuv, PLLC ; former CUSD school board member

Joan Etude Arrow, Founder, Arizona Progressive Action Community (AZPAC)

Elizabeth Ogren, LD5 PC and State Committee Member

Jenise Porter, PC and State Committeeperson AZ LD18

Dave Wells, United Campus Workers of AZ, PC LD9

Andreas Clayton La Grow, Community Organizer

Robert Flamida, Palestine Community Center of Arizona, Member

Dr. Marannagan, Autistics for Peace

Bonnie L Lynn, State Committee Member

Frederic Artus, LD 5

Isabel O’Neal, State Committee, PC LD 14, CD 5 Immigration Advocate

Deborah Arekat, Democratic Voter

Asfandyar Khalid, Na

Kathy F. Yontz, PC LD12

Pardis Baradar, LD 12 PC

Grace Wagner Democrat LD8

Laiken Jordahl, Community organizer/advocate

Kathryn Soderquist, Constituent, AZ LD 9

Jana Rose Ochs, Progressive Democrats of America, Progressive Activist

Victoria Eloisa Ramos, Community Leader

Aaron J Essif, LD17 PC & SCM, PDA, Indivisibles

Judith Hilton Coburn, Member, CodePink Phoenix, PDA, Phoenix Anti War Coalition

Dev Gautam Dogra, Progressive social democratic student from The University of Arizona

Peggy Thomas, Progressive Democrats of America activist

Anne Khoury, Concerned citizen and voter 

Emily Williams, Democrat LD 12

Molly Donnelly, PC LD 12

[probablyasocialecologist]

In this book you focus on the idea of gender as a global ‘phantasm’ – this charged, overdetermined, anxiety- and fear-inducing cluster of fantasies that is being weaponised by the right. How did you go about starting to investigate that? Judith Butler: When I was burned in effigy in Brazil in 2017, I could see people screaming about gender, and they understood ‘gender’ to mean ‘paedophilia.’ And then I heard people in France describing gender as a Jewish intellectual movement imported from the US. This book started because I had to figure out what gender had become. I was naïve. I was stupid. I had no idea that it had become this flash point for right-wing movements throughout the world. So I started doing the work to reconstruct why I was being called a paedophile, and why that woman in the airport wanted to kill me with the trolley. I’m not offering a new theory of gender here; I’m tracking this phantasm’s formation and circulation and how it’s linked to emerging authoritarianism, how it stokes fear to expand state powers. Luckily, I was able to contact a lot of people who translated Gender Trouble in different parts of the world, who were often gender activists and scholars in their own right. They told me about what’s happening in Serbia, what’s happening in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Russia. So I became a student of gender again. I’ve been out of the field for a while. I stay relatively literate, of course, but I’ve written on war, on ethics, on violence, on nonviolence, on the pandemic… I’m not in gender studies all the time. I had to do a lot of reading.  There’s a lot of focus in the book on how the anti-gender movement has moved across the world in the past few decades, and how it’s inextricable from Catholic doctrine. It was clarifying for me; domestic anti-trans movements in the UK mostly self-identify as secular.  Judith Butler: In the UK, and even in the US, people don’t realise that this anti-gender ideology movement has been going on for some time in the Americas, in central Europe, to a certain degree in Africa, and that it’s arrived in the US by different routes, but it’s arrived without announcing its history. It became clear to me that a lot of the trans-exclusionary feminists didn’t realise where their discourse was coming from. Some of them do; some people who call themselves feminists are aligned with right-wing positions, and it’s confusing, but there it is. There’s an uncomfortable history of fascist feminism in movements like British suffragism, for instance. Judith Butler: Yes, and of racism. But when Putin made clear that he agreed with JK Rowling, she was probably surprised, and she rightly said, ‘no, I don’t want your alliance’, but it was an occasion for her to think about who she’s allying herself with, unwittingly or not. The anti-gender movement was first and foremost a defence of Biblical scripture, and of the idea that God created man and woman, and that the human form exists only in this duality and that without it, the human is destroyed – God’s creation is destroyed. So that morphed, as the Vatican’s doctrine moved into Latin America, into the idea that people who advocate ‘gender’ are forces of destruction who seek to destroy man, woman, the human, civilisation and culture. 

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

what’s the story about the generative power model and water consumption? /gen

There's this myth going around about generative AI consuming truly ridiculous amount of power and water. You'll see people say shit like "generating one image is like just pouring a whole cup of water out into the Sahara!" and bullshit like that, and it's just... not true. The actual truth is that supercomputers, which do a lot of stuff, use a lot of power, and at one point someone released an estimate of how much power some supercomputers were using and people went "oh, that supercomputer must only do AI! All generative AI uses this much power!" and then just... made shit up re: how making an image sucks up a huge chunk of the power grid or something. Which makes no sense because I'm given to understand that many of these models can run on your home computer. (I don't use them so I don't know the details, but I'm told by users that you can download them and generate images locally.) Using these models uses far less power than, say, online gaming. Or using Tumblr. But nobody ever talks about how evil those things are because of their power generation. I wonder why.

To be clear, I don't like generative AI. I'm sure it's got uses in research and stuff but on the consumer side, every effect I've seen of it is bad. Its implementation in products that I use has always made those products worse. The books it writes and flood the market with are incoherent nonsense at best and dangerous at worst (let's not forget that mushroom foraging guide). It's turned the usability of search engines from "rapidly declining, but still usable if you can get past the ads" into "almost one hundred per cent useless now, actually not worth the effort to de-bullshittify your search results", especially if you're looking for images. It's a tool for doing bullshit that people were already doing much easier and faster, thus massively increasing the amount of bullshit. The only consumer-useful uses I've seen of it as a consumer are niche art projects, usually projects that explore the limits of the tool itself like that one poetry book or the Infinite Art Machine; overall I'd say its impact at the Casual Random Person (me) level has been overwhelmingly negative. Also, the fact that so much AI turns out to be underpaid people in a warehouse in some country with no minimum wage and terrible labour protections is... not great. And the fact that it's often used as an excuse to try to find ways to underpay professionals ("you don't have to write it, just clean up what the AI came up with!") is also not great.

But there are real labour and product quality concerns with generative AI, and there's hysterical bullshit. And the whole "AI is magically destroying the planet via climate change but my four hour twitch streaming sesh isn't" thing is hysterical bullshit. The instant I see somebody make this stupid claim I put them in the same mental bucket as somebody complaining about AI not being "real art" -- a hatemobber hopping on the hype train of a new thing to hate and feel like an enlightened activist about when they haven't bothered to learn a fucking thing about the issue. And I just count my blessings that they fell in with this group instead of becoming a flat earther or something.

[186-3]

courting antisemitism

so i recently decided to take a look at the latest stonetoss comics (probably because i love suffering). and while i was expecting some content on the israel palestine conflict, what i did not expect was how... standard it seemed. well, most of it at least, but i'll get to that in a second.

for context, if you don't know what stonetoss is, it's a (poorly drawn) webcomic known for having radical alt-right views - meaning it's incredibly racist, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, antisemitic. all that fun stuff.

so while i was expecting to see bad stuff, one of the first things i saw on the topic of israel was this:

terrible art aside, this comic is making a point that i usually see in left wing circles: that israel is pinkwashing genocide.

curious if there was more like this, i kept looking, and the comic right before that one was this:

again, this makes points that i usually see in left wing circles. that american healthcare is crazy expensive, that canada tells poor people to commit suicide, and that israel is bombing hospitals.

why does stonetoss, this well known alt-right nutjob, now seem to be bringing up left-wing talking points?

curious, i kept going deeper:

well this is... odd. clearly, stonetoss is trying to say that israel is on another level of bad, even worse than russia, iran, and north korea. i can possibly see someone on the left making the argument that the russian invasion of ukraine isn't as bad as what israel is doing in gaza, or that at least north korea isn't invading any other countries, but... iran??? the country that has a police force designed to enforce religious law, and gets away with murdering women who do not properly cover their hair? the country that props up paramilitary groups in countries all over the middle east, including lebanon, yemen, and yes, palestine?? that's completely ridiculous

but, given how much more israel is in the news nowadays than any of these other countries, i could see why someone would buy this

and now, we're starting to get to the crux of what stonetoss is trying to do. when someone sees this, they might be inclined to agree with it. they might begin to think that israel is the worst country on the planet

and that might not seem so bad at first. but the more you hate israel, especially irrationally, the more you feel allowed to dehumanize those who support it. the more you might be willing to agree with this comic, which came out two days prior to the one above

this comic says that jews, as a whole have no desire to exist with other people. it is blatantly antisemitic

i'm sure you could imagine some young leftist who sees the comics above this one and thinks, "this guy makes some good points". and then, when they get to this one, they might realize that this is antisemitism

or, they may not.

and that would start them down the road to becoming an antisemite.

this is what stonetoss and other alt-right nutjobs are hoping to achieve. to take left wing fury at israel, and direct it at jews.

we saw it with those neo-nazis at the palestine rally, and we're seeing it again here.

and if you've found yourself agreeing with what stonetoss has said so far, i would like you to see the last comic stonetoss put out before october 7th:

this horrifically racist comic is in reference to an environmental activist who was murdered by a black man in early october. this blatantly racist garbage is the kind of stuff stonetoss usually puts out.

but as soon as october 7th happened? these were his next two comics:

stonetoss completely changed the comic's tone as soon as the current crisis started. why?

to get as many people as possible to get on board with hating jews.

and i know many of you might be thinking that "well, everyone knows that stonetoss is racist garbage. nobody is going to fall for this"

except, as we saw with the neo-nazis at the rally for palestine, it's not always that obvious who the antisemites are and who is just rallying for peace. they are often a lot better at disguising it than stonetoss is.

AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE AWARE OF THAT

EVERYONE, no matter HOW much experience you have, can fall victim to propoganda. EVERYONE needs to be aware of what people around them are saying, and able to pick out hateful rhetoric, because even the stuff that is just kind of toeing the line of what's hateful is still putting your foot in the door

be cautious, everyone. and stomp out hate where you see it.

[prokopetz]

Thinkpieces about why people seem to become more authoritarian as they get older tend to focus on neuroscience and survivorship bias and such, but based on my experience in various activist communities, I think a big piece of the puzzle that these sorts of discussions often overlook is that a large chunk of people just never had any principled objection to authoritarianism in the first place.

It's easy to talk about fighting the power when you're under the boot, but when some folks get hold of any sort of power or authority for themselves and sticking it to the Man is no longer a proposition with no perceived downsides, they start backpedalling in a real hurry. Power didn't corrupt them. Nothing changed about their politics. Their commitment to anti-authoritarianism was only ever as strong as their perception that it personally benefited them.

(You absolutely can't tell who they are just from looking at them, either; a person can use all the right jargon and support all the right causes and show up at all the right protests, yet the moment their private emotional calculus determines, rightly or wrongly, that they have more to gain by putting a boot on your neck than by lifting it off, watch out!)

[oarfishing]

Alright, I'm sick of seeing TERFisms on my dash, so here's a handy list of TERF dogwhistles and talking points to think about before you reblog a post.

I've seen a few of these before, but it doesn't hurt to make more. Especially when we're seeing a lot of radfem rhetoric popping up in LGBT spaces from people who might not know better.

SCREENNAMES: these are terms that commonly appear in radfem usernames across the web

rad or radical

fem or femme

vulva, clit, uterus, womb, ovary, vagina, etc.

febfem

anything along the lines of "angry woman"

xx or chromosomes

wombyn, wimmin, womyn, etc.

LGB

feminist

BIOS: things that show up in radfem bios

♀ or ⚢

febfem

female separatist

female, human female, adult human female

xx

something along the lines of "the scary feminist you were warned about"; being an angry woman, being sick of being silenced, being an evil woman, being an angry lesbian

detrans (NOTE: detrans people are absolutely not always transphobic)

dysphoric female

males/men do not interact

LGB✂️

misandrist

feminist (NOTE: again, very few feminists are actually terfs, but this is commonly in terf bios alongside some of these other terms)

TERMS: terms that radfems use in their circles

TIM - trans-identified male, a way of saying transfems, trans women, and other trans people

TIF - trans-identified female, same as above but the other way around, less commonly seen

DSD - disorder of sexual development, a way to avoid saying intersex and to categorize intersex people as "still male or female" (you might see "males with DSD" or "females with DSD" for example)

females or males instead of women and men

alternatively, women and males to dehumanize men

"peaking" or "peaked" - referring to becoming radicalized as a radfem or TERF

womyn, wombyn, wimmin, wo**n, and any other spelling that takes "man" out of the term woman

mentally ill men/women

sex-based oppression

gender critical

"TIRF" - trans-inclusive radical feminist (don't be fooled by the name, they're very much not)

TRA - trans rights activist, derogatory

sex-based rights

female separatism/"women's land"

WBW - womyn-born womyn

autistic girls/children

troon - (ridiculous) slur for trans people

RHETORIC: general ideological themes in radfem rhetoric

men are inherently more violent than women

women don't or rarely rape men

(woman on woman rape is ignored by almost all radfems)

being nonbinary is a way to "stop being" your assigned sex while still acting as your birth sex

lesbians are not attracted to men/penises and can never have sex with men/penises (otherwise, you're bisexual)

men can and will never be lesbians

there is no such thing as a bi lesbian, only lesbians and bisexuals. labels are rigid and sex-based

all of the world's suffering is driven by men

women would be better off separate

an all-female society is utopia

sex is binary, and intersex people are "glitches" or "still male or female but DisorderedTM"

men should expect to be feared by women

female/female relationships are safer and more pure than straight or gay male relationships

men and women are more different than similar

intersex people should not be allowed in sports

intersex people and trans men are never in men's sports

terrible world events wouldn't have happened if women were in charge

men are stupid and aggressive

being a man is not a positive thing

men's problems are lesser than women's

penises are disgusting and vaginas and vulvas are beautiful

trans women are performing at being girls

trans men see themselves as above lesbians

attraction is sex-based

porn is rape

porn is inherently violent

watching porn makes you predisposed to inflicting abuse

BDSM is inherently violent and misogynistic

transitioning children (whether socially or medically) are being abused

"bitch" and "cunt" are slurs against women

only gay men can say faggot and only lesbian women can say dyke

When you see a few or more of these together, RUN! It's a terf.