@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

EndemicEarthling

@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu

Recovering coloniser on stolen Gadigal land.
He/any ND DM PhD ΙΧΘΥΣ

Ethics is about asking good questions, not just reaching a good answer. For centuries people have debated: "is it ethical to steal bread if your family is starving?". But there's a more pressing question: "is it ethical to sell bread when people are starving?"

"Let no-one say the past is dead, the past is all about us and within." – Oodgeroo Noonuccal

"There is dignity, grace, and humanity in changing your mind" — Caitlyn Doughty

“People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.” ― Emma Goldman

"You were born at just the right moment to help change everything." — Eric Holthaus

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

EndemicEarthling, to IsraelPalestine
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

An important piece of context for the current escalation of conflict in that I've rarely seen mentioned in mainstream reporting concerns the , a series of large (and largely peaceful) weekly protests in near the border fence that were sustained through most of and , and which were met with enormous amounts of sustained lethal violence by the armed forces. The each Friday were attended by crowds ranging in size from 10,000 to 50,000, many of them children and teens (more than 50% of Gaza's population is under the age of 18). Participants were regularly targeted by Israeli Defence Force (IDF) snipers using a combination of live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas canisters (the latter typically fired directly at protesters), and even some tank rounds. Over time, hundreds of were killed and many thousands seriously wounded.

The original idea for the demonstration was for hundreds of thousands of unarmed Palestinians to peacefully walk up to the fence, take down a section, then cross a few kilometres into the land beyond, where they would set up a temporary tent city.

EndemicEarthling, to Israel
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Have western governments now directly engaged in genocidal actions in ?

To understand why some experts are saying this may be the case, let us sketch some context:

• For the last sixteen weeks or more, has escalated its comprehensive devastation of the entire population of Gaza, causing tens of thousands of violent deaths, many more serious injuries, likely condemning tens or hundreds of thousands more to die in coming weeks and months from dehydration, starvation, exposure, disease, and a collapsed health system, and displacing around two million people.

1/10

EndemicEarthling, to KindActions
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

A of people seeking to put spokes in the wheels of the the putting corporate profits before a .

and to the hundreds of people who used kayaks and their bodies to blockade the world's busiest port for 32 hours this weekend, and to the thousands who supported them, and to the millions who cheered them on, and to the billions for whose sake they were acting. This was a taste of an unstoppable force of collective , and

EndemicEarthling, to Israel
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Every single week for the last 21 weeks upon land, there have been thousands upon thousands (sometimes easily tens of thousands) of people gathering in support of a in and calling upon the Australian government to stop supporting in its .

Every Sunday in Hyde Park at 1.30pm,* we've listened to speakers, speakers, speakers, politicians of various stripes (though neither of the major parties, of course, as they both remain complicit in support of the government responsible for most of the slaughter), elders who lived through the , teenagers organising , community leaders, poets, faith leaders and more, with perhaps 75% of the speakers being women, and almost all being people of colour (most of the exceptions being MPs).

*Except when has dictated otherwise, giving priority to (much smaller and only) occasional pro-Israel rallies and forcing a shift to Saturday a couple of times, under threat of .

Then we've marched (or rolled) with flags, banners, signs, drums and (loud!) voices: Arab, Aboriginal, African, Anglo, Asian and more; from those too old to walk (in wheelchairs) to those too young to walk (in strollers).


1/6

EndemicEarthling, to Israel
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

I'm no kind of expert in , but I've just come across the crime of , which is a , one with a lower legal threshold to prove than .

I wonder, as a matter of communication strategy, why this is hasn't been used more frequently as a widespread description for the criminal acts of the and citizens participating in the blockade of . Is it simply because it is not as well known (and so has less emotional resonance) as genocide?

Under international law, there is also the crime of , which is distinct as well, which has its own standards.

Though it wasn't until the 1970s that starvation was accepted by the US and its western allies as a crime against humanity. Even after the horrors of (including especially the Siege of , the most destructive and fatal siege in human history), the US and its allies still wanted to maintain the right to use starvation as a weapon of war.

So it seems that the same events and actions could potentially be prosecuted under murder, extermination, starvation or genocide, with each crime requiring somewhat different levels and types of evidence to prove.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_(crime)

EndemicEarthling, to random
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Some thoughts to those inclined to take the word of 'respectable' public figures (who are actually authoritarians and even génocidaires), and to those who have grown cynical of all lying politicians:

There used to be a concept called 'leaving hostages to fortune', in which public figures learned to avoid making promises or offering falsehoods that were vulnerable to thwarting/exposure by future contingencies.

Under the assumption that having your lies exposed or rash promise invalidated would be potentially career-ending, it used to sometimes be reasonable to operate on an epistemic criterion of "embarrassment", where we could increase our level of trust in a statement made by a public figure if it (a) wasn't currently able to be confirmed but (b) it seemed obvious that they would get caught out for lying if it were not true. I.e. "They wouldn't lie about that, right?"

However, the information landscape has profoundly shifted in recent years. (Or has seemed to for some people. See below)
1/4

EndemicEarthling, to queensland
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

In May, the #Queensland Liberal-National opposition provided bipartisan support for legislation establishing a 3-4 year #TruthTelling process, as a necessary precursor to the (extremely belated) negotiation of a treaty or #treaties with Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples. And they did so in response to the #UluruStatementFromTheHeart (that had called for #Voice, #Treaty and #Truth).

At the time, opposition leader #DavidCrisafulli had personally encouraged people in his state to "embrace this [truth-telling] wholeheartedly". On the day the legislation passed, he said: "I believe in truth-telling and to me that means telling it like it is. […] We cannot shy away from the real experiences of #Indigenous Australians throughout history. We must tell the truth about the real challenges they are facing today."

But now, five months later yet before any of the formal processes of truth-telling have begun, he's withdrawn #LNP support for the legislation, promising to tear it up should his party be voted into government at the next election.

He claims he is doing so because he is listening—to the voices of the 'No' voters, who outnumbered the 'Yes' voters at last Saturday's #referendum.

1/3

#Auspol #Qldpol #Coalition

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/19/queensland-treaty-qld-premier-annastacia-palaszczuk-lnp-backflip-indigenous-first-nations-truth-telling

EndemicEarthling, (edited ) to auspol
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

has gone dark.
All communications cut off.
Bombing further intensified.
say they are moving in for a ground assault within hours, in a context of myriad being committed with impunity, and genocidal language being frequently used by senior figures in the military and government.

Marches and rallies to in Gaza continue to be held all around these lands now called Australia.

In Gadi/Sydney, next mass protest is tomorrow (Sunday, 29th Oct 2023) at 2pm.
Gathering at Hyde Park (northern end near fountain), marching to Belmore Park.

EndemicEarthling, to random
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

this morning in Gadi/Sydney conflated the numbers at yesterday's pro-Palestinian march (tens of thousands) with the pro-Israel demonstration happening at the same time across town (hundreds, I believe, though I'm not 100% sure), further minimising by only citing a number from (long known by media orgs to lowball), only briefly mentioning the contents of one speech at the anti-genocide/pro-Palestinian march (which was by a Jewish speaker and even that was not reported accurately), not using the word 'genocide' (the focus of the rally), claiming ignorance of the date of next week's rally (Saturday), and not placing yesterday's protest in the context of millions of people protesting for a ceasefire and against the occupation all around the world.

A micro-study in .

EndemicEarthling, to Israel
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Israeli military forces have killed more medics than Hamas commanders, with hundreds of documented attacks on medical facilities, ambulances & personnel.

Combined with deprivations of food, clean water, shelter & energy, the collapse of the health system in #Gaza means devastating epidemics approach.

Senior Israeli government figures have openly been using #eliminationist language.

Giora Eiland, former #IDF operations chief & current defence advisor, wrote this in a major 'centrist' newspaper in Israel: "The international community is warning us against severe humanitarian disaster and severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this. After all, severe epidemics in the south of Gaza will bring victory closer. There's no reason why the Hamas generals in southern Gaza wouldn't surrender when they have no fuel, no water, and when plagues reach them and the danger to the lives of their family members will increase".

To which the current finance minister replied: "I agree with every word".

The goals of #Israeli leadership go well beyond merely targeting #Hamas. That line, endlessly repeated by western governments & media, is PR for a modicum of #PlausibleDeniability. According to many recognised experts in such matters, the goal of this conflict is #EthnicCleansing and #genocide.

EndemicEarthling, to climate
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

On Gadigal land, outside the office of Australia's federal Environment Minister @TanyaPlibersek's office, with a large group of school students and their allies, demanding the Australian government and commit to .

All of us can help away from :

  • Stop repeating their talking points & narratives (not sure which commonly-repeated tropes are part of their decades-long campaign? Never too late to learn)
  • Stop voting for their paid representatives in parliament (typically found within both/most major parties).
  • Support actions happening near you (not sure what's happening or how to help? Search for your location & ).
  • Learn more about why we're collectively still failing to implement (political/economic/societal/cultural) changes at a scale & pace commensurate with the scale & pace of the (hint: too much power in too few hands: ).
  • Consider the stakes: life as we know it is incompatible with the public business plans of the most powerful corporations on the planet. One/both of those realities will definitely change. Will you?
EndemicEarthling, to Canada
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

"Five global north governments stand out as the biggest and most egregious : the , , , , and the . Despite having the greatest economic means to rapidly phase out production, they are responsible for a majority (51%) of planned expansion from new and fields through 2050. New drilling in countries with high incomes, diversified economies and outsized historical responsibility for causing the , while claiming to be , is inexcusable. These countries must not only stop expansion immediately but also move first and fastest to phase out their production and pay their fair share to fund a just global .”

https://web.archive.org/web/20231108115222/https://priceofoil.org/2023/09/12/planet-wreckers-how-20-countries-oil-and-gas-extraction-plans-risk-locking-in-climate-chaos/

EndemicEarthling, to southafrica
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Just a few years ago then Immigration Minister was very keen to welcome white farmers from as potential to Australia, (despite the alleged threat they faced being more or less a complete beat-up).

But when are being slaughtered by the thousands in collective punishment for the of , Dutton instead calls for Foreign Minister to be sacked due to her briefly advocating (in a very minimal manner) for the restraint of violence against non-combatants in adherence with .

I know pointing out blatant hypocrisy and from Dutton is hardly ground-breaking material, but it really does need to be repeated, because too many people still refuse to see it, despite months of his fear-mongering and over an . In the footsteps of , Dutton is continually testing the waters of increasingly hateful rhetoric as a way of ensuring media attention, and has not yet discovered a line that will cause a sufficiently large chunk of voters to desert him.

EndemicEarthling, to abc
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Today, I watched 's (Behind The News), a weekly Australian news program aimed at upper primary school children. The most recent episode had a 4 minute story covering the in and the exchange.
https://www.abc.net.au/btn/classroom/israel-hamas-ceasefire/103147452

Disappointingly, it showed a strong towards in multiple ways:

  1. No mention of being released until the final quarter of the story (and this was covered in seconds, rather than the minutes given to the return of hostages held by ), with no footage (no mention of Israeli government suppression of such footage).

  2. No mention of the fact that the government of has held thousands of Palestinians in detention for years, often with no charge (how is this meaningfully different from holding them as hostages?). By barely mentioning the Palestinians being released, the context of their detention can be passed over without comment.

1/4

EndemicEarthling, to Israel
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

With blocking foreign journalists from having any access to , and murdering more journalists in just 80 days than ever before recorded in a single nation across any 12 month period, and with reports of Israeli bulldozers flattening sites that potentially retain evidence of yet more (bulldozing confirmed by satellite imagery), and with claim after claim from Israel officials concerning specific incidents being revealed by subsequent investigations as being yet more baseless propaganda, the only epistemic assumption that is morally justifiable at this point is to act on the assumption that every testimony of atrocity coming out of Gaza is true.

And to assume that there are more going unreported, whose witnesses are all killed or silenced.

No other position is morally defensible under such conditions.

There is overwhelming evidence that the side with overwhelmingly more power is committing ongoing atrocities against civilians on a massive scale, while attempting to hide the true extent of their crimes.

"We didn't know. We couldn't tell. The fog of war. Both sides tell lies. Wait for independent investigations." These deflections and deferrals can no longer be used with intellectual or moral credibility by citizens in the western nations backing .

EndemicEarthling, to Palestine
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

As a #Christian, this #Christmas + #Easter have been harder for me than any before.

Most years, amidst the horrors & disappointments of life, Christmas and Easter have provided comfort, hope and challenge: seasons to reflect and recommit, chances to once more receive divine gifts freely and dedicate myself to the good of my neighbours (near and far), to solidarity in suffering, struggle and in seeing those sometimes only momentary glimpses of how another world is possible.

But this Christmas, Christian communities across #Palestine cancelled Christmas celebrations. #Bethlehem was raided by the #IDF (while far worse atrocities were being inflicted on #Gaza just miles away). How then could we sing "O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see you lie"?

And this Easter just passed, nearly all the Christian communities in the holy land, descendents of those who have lived & worshipped there for almost 2,000 years, were refused access to #Jerusalem, while the survivors from the tiny Christian communities in Gaza huddled together–hungry, wounded, scared, grieving–amongst the rubble of their lives and society.

The weapons killing them were supplied by wealthy western nations, whose Christian leaders remain largely silent.

Listen to Rev Dr Munther Isaac from Bethlehem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgKytWyc0EI

EndemicEarthling, to auspol
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

After giving a climate talk to a community group the other day, one guy came up to me to "give feedback" (i.e. complain that I didn't focus enough on telling people how to cut their personal - to use the phrase that really wants us to focus on).

This led into a discussion about why individual consumer choices always have the system stacked against them. As part of that point, I mentioned the enormous scale of (>$7t globally each year, though I focused on $11b annually in Australia, which is a widely cited figure based on a narrower definition of subsidy; he seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn't care as much if I wasn't talking about his country.)

Upon hearing of these subsidies (which were apparently news to him), he said "yeah, but how much tax do they contribute?"

1/2

EndemicEarthling, to random
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Why is it that so many people who claim to follow a poor man native to the Holy Land who was slaughtered for the sins of others by a violent and powerful occupying military force are unable to recognise the humanity of poor people native to the Holy Land being slaughtered for the sins of others by an violent and powerful occupying military force?

I don't get how it is possible to justify, minimise or tolerate the crimes of the state of Israel while dehumanising the Palestinians being killed in their thousands, wounded and maimed in their tens of thousands, displaced in their hundreds of thousands and traumatised in their millions, while believing this is compatible with faith in the Crucified God.

EndemicEarthling, to auspol
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Tiny pieces of semi-combusted petrol, microscopic specks of charred timber from a fireplace, minute scraps of coal ash, little flecks of tyre rubber, miniature particles of a gum tree lit now to avoid burning later: all this and more is particulate matter. Stuff small enough to float on the breeze for a while.

And some of it is small enough to flit through your nasal hairs, to sidestep the phlegm lining your trachea, to find a home deep in the alveoli of your lungs, indeed, so titchy it can cross into your bloodstream, travelling along your arterial highways and byways into heart, belly and brain.

Our bodies can handle a bit of this. A bit.

But not much. Not of the really tiny stuff.

Particulate matter is one of the most harmful forms of , contributing to many millions of premature deaths each year, and compromising the health and wellbeing of billions. Particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter are the most dangerous (a human hair is about 75 microns wide). These are called PM2.5.

The World Health Organisation updated its guidelines in 2021.

Chronic exposure to PM2.5 ought to be kept below a concentration of 5 micrograms per cubic metre.

Acute exposure (no more than a handful of times annually) should be kept below 15.

What does this have to do with ? 1/2

EndemicEarthling, to random
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Does anyone else find that Mastodon often takes a considerable amount of time to load new posts?

Not sure if it's a setting I have, a function of something specific to Mastodon, or an aspect of the structure of the fediverse.

Any ideas? Similar experiences?

EndemicEarthling, to FreeSpeech
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

I assume the warriors who have fought against will be up in arms (digitally) about this?

Scores of Palestinian-Israelis have been arrested for social media posts expressing solidarity with the plight of subject to constant bombardment, starvation, displacement and severe dehydration.

In some cases, allegedly the posts were as innocuous as this:
"a young man in the village of Kabul in northern was arrested for five days simply for posting a photo of children in Gaza with the words “my heart is with you”."

Hundreds of people have been fired from their jobs for online comments, posts or even merely clicking 'like' on human rights organisations with a focus on .

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/20/israeli-arabs-reprisals-online-solidarity-gaza

This is just one manifestation of an increasingly global , and not just about . Examples abound.

Something I'm going to try to remember the next time a reactionary complains that a racist/misogynist/abusive white celebrity is getting 'cancelled' by the mere existence of negative press about their actions.

EndemicEarthling, to auspol
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Headline quote says that the Australian government is "missing half the equation" when it comes to taking action to mitigate climate disruption.

While there is federal support for expanding cleaner forms of energy, the Australian government continues to approve new coal and gas projects, and even create new forms of indirect (such as federal funding for the industrial hub in , representing a substantial gift to the industry). Hence, they are "missing half the equation".

But I would argue that they are missing most of the equation, because stopping the increase of climate-disrupting greenhouse gases from being emitted by winding down the industry as rapidly and humanely as possible is the single biggest aspect of . Doing so will require replacement forms of energy (and all kinds of shifts in how energy is used), yes, but this is actually a secondary goal required to achieve the main one: an end to humanity's dependence on dirty energy ASAP.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230921073629/https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/19/missing-half-the-equation-scientists-criticise-australia-over-approach-to-fossil-fuels

EndemicEarthling, to Palestine
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

One hundred and twelve more human beings have been slaughtered in a single incident in , with a further 280 wounded.

In a section of where acute malnourishment is most dire and people are dying of hunger (and treatable infectious disease due to collapse health system, and dehydration/contaminated water due to destroyed water infrastructure, and from exposure, due to the destruction of the majority of all housing - not to mention all the direct deaths from weapons of war), one of the very few aid trucks that made it through the various barriers and delays that continues to implement was delivering food aid when it was surrounded by a crowd of desperate & hungry people.

At this point, accounts diverge. Palestinian witnesses say Israeli military fired into the crowd, killing and wounding hundreds, an account backed up by hospital staff subsequently overwhelmed by the enormous number of dead & wounded. The says they only shot (at) a few people who were threatening a nearby checkpoint, and the majority of the casualties were caused by the food truck driving over people & people trampling each other in the crush.

Who to believe? Those being bombed, shot, starved, dehydrated & told to either leave or die, or the ones doing that to them?
1/2

EndemicEarthling, to auspol
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

There is no way to vote for the status quo in the upcoming in .

"Yes" is a vote for constitutional change, based on a carefully-worded request from the large majority of people.

"No" is a vote for a future in which Australia has to deal with having rejected that request.

The latter will have all kinds of consequences, some predictable, some potential, & undoubtedly some unexpected. It's unlikely to be pleasant.

Among the less-mentioned yet predictable outcomes is a likely freezing of the Australian constitution in its current form, based on a default consensus that referenda are too hard to pull off. If the is defeated, then the only two referenda attempted in the last four decades will both have failed, despite each being launched amidst widespread public support. If even these popular ideas could be brought down by strategic wedging, tactical misdirection & weaponised mischaracterisation, then which government will ever be willing to risk future attempts?

The is primarily about respectful listening to voices too often unjustly silenced, ignored, belittled and besmirched. But in a secondary sense, it may also shape whether future governments will ever listen to any future calls for constitutional change.

EndemicEarthling, to Netherlands
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

The lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has announced that he is seeking arrest warrants for Benjamin and Yahya , along with senior figures of their respective regimes, for the commission of and .

Amidst the predictable performative outrage from the US political elite, one fact is barely reported upon: the US is amongst a handful of nations that does not recognise the , and has on its books a 2002 law (colloquially dubbed 'the Hague Invasion Act') threatening war upon the (!) should any US citizen (or the citizen of any US ally) be brought for trial before the ICC.

Given the fact that the routinely fails to follow its own laws, let alone , when it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the chances of an actual US invasion of the European lowlands is scant. Nonetheless, the rogue nature of is the always the elephant in the room when it comes to all discussions of accountability for the most egregious crimes of .

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • tacticalgear
  • DreamBathrooms
  • InstantRegret
  • magazineikmin
  • Youngstown
  • everett
  • cisconetworking
  • slotface
  • GTA5RPClips
  • rosin
  • thenastyranch
  • kavyap
  • mdbf
  • Leos
  • modclub
  • osvaldo12
  • Durango
  • khanakhh
  • anitta
  • provamag3
  • ngwrru68w68
  • cubers
  • tester
  • ethstaker
  • megavids
  • normalnudes
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •