He / They

  • 35 Posts
  • 1.77K Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • There are difficult choices that have to be made. Choices about who we are and who we want to be when the world is in crisis and people’s lives and freedoms are at risk.

    It’s easy to laugh at people who “choose the mountain” - deliberately making their lives harder and more complicated to pursue their values. We laugh because we’ve been taught, we’ve been convinced that sincerity and idealism are cringeworthy, embarrassing to the point of pornographic discomfort.

    But that cynicism didn’t help us stave off the last gasps of bigoted, white supremacist power, and it won’t help us fight against it.

    We need the idealism that pushes ordinary people to make better decisions and stick to them.

    Yes, even if that looks like switching email providers.

    No notes!






  • SBP (which is only one relatively small and highly means-tested example) was passed by elected politicians. BPP didn’t put it in place themselves, elected politicians in office who were in favor of it used the opportunity of national attention to push other elected politicians to pass it. And that is just one of many student food assistance programs, most of which were not passed due to attention created by direct action.

    I’m not arguing against direct action, I’m just disputing that it’s been “more effective” than other means. It tends to facilitate the more effective means. The advantages that community action provides are around being highly agile and highly targeted. It can’t provide countrywide, uninterrupted assistance programs, because no community groups have the resources necessary for that. The BPP could never have provided free lunches for students nationwide by themselves, and they didn’t want or attempt to.


  • Where’s this version of Bernie been hiding the last 4 years?

    Sanders has literally had a consistent message of beliefs since the 1960s. I don’t agree with every tactic he chooses, but I understand why he backed Biden over Trump once he was locked out of the general.

    Sanders will talk about addressing those things then tell us we need to support the people enabling those things.

    If you can show me some progress you or anyone else has made on getting those things (e.g. universal healthcare) through alternative means, I’d be very interested to see it. Republicans are at this point straight evil. The Democratic Party at a leadership level is a bunch of entrenched wealthy neolibs who would rather see Republicans win than lose ground to actual progressives like Sanders, AOC, etc.

    People believing that that makes the 2 parties the same thing, are either so bought into their own defeatist nihilism that they can’t recognize anything but instant and total victory as progress, or they’re intentionally trying to torpedo change via democratic means (maybe to validate their beliefs that they know the “proper fix” without actually having to actually have those preferred systems tested).

    Sanders is inside the party, using his platform and the broad dissatisfaction post-election to push the party leadership. He’s literally striking while the iron’s hot. If you see that as a negative thing, or if that makes you doubt him, I don’t know what to tell you.




  • I tend to trust Mozilla (more than other browser-owning companies), but they really should just clarify exactly what they do that would be considered as sale of data in any jurisdictions.

    They seem to be implying that the data is just metadata that has been abstracted for (presumably ad-targeting) commercial purposes, and there are jurisdictions that consider derived metadata as still being “user data”, but in that case just make a blog post laying out what and where you are sharing. If your “partners” are opposed to people knowing about them, or you are scared that people would not like who you’re in bed with, that is a problem.


  • Not sure how anyone sees the highest level ever recorded of homelessness, followed by another record level of homelessness, as good. How 53% of renters can’t afford their housing as good. The widest level of income inequality we’ve ever had as good. Enabling the mass slaughter of Palestinians while ignoring the pleas of its own people as good, then deny there is a genocide occuring. Throwing trans under the bus while embracing war criminals like the Cheneys, blowing Republican dog whistles, and expanding the police state as good. Refusing to listen to voters that the DNC’s hand selected candidate wasnt fit for office until the money people said get him out, as good.

    So in other words, the same criticisms that Sanders makes.

    I don’t see you leading raids on US army bases, so don’t act like you’re out there facilitating the destruction of the US empire on any substantive level if you’re eschewing politics. At least Sanders is actually working day in and day out to better conditions for people that the US oppresses, in and out of the US.

    If you’re actually just trying to coax people into abandoning democracy on a philosophical level by pointing to the US’s captured and neutered democracy, you’re no better than the people in power right now who are doing the same thing to their own ends.