@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.

tzimmer_history, to random
@tzimmer_history@mastodon.social avatar

ICYMI: What the Right Plans to Do With Power

All three parts of my series about “Project 2025” are out.

Almost 15,000 words on what these radical plans would do to America and how to explain the Right’s open embrace of state authoritarianism:

🧵1/

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/what-makes-project-2025-so-dangerous

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@aho @pinsk @tzimmer_history Overthrowing a federal election through a scheme involving laughable legal fantasies, a media landscape decreasingly willing to arbitrate truth from obvious lies, and outright mass violence at the seat of government, all to secure the grip on power of a corrupt, lying, narcissistic authoritarian clown: these were insufficiently anti-American?

The lesson the rest of the world has learned/confirmed from the last decade of US politics is that the US public is not going to have a 'wake up' moment.

Anyone capable of being spontaneously brought into political action by the outrages of a fascist movement has already been mobilised. From here, mobilisation must be deliberate, organised and effective. Mere symbolism or awareness raising is woefully inadequate to the moment.

holyramenempire, to trans
@holyramenempire@kolektiva.social avatar

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@holyramenempire What about the 4th rule: 'no groping/nonconsensual sexual touch'?

EndemicEarthling, to humanrights
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

The UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, is an expert on and .

She is widely published, holds a number of academic positions, and has ten years experience advising various international bodies on human rights.

She has just delivered her latest report to the UN Human Rights Council, in which she summarises the patterns of violence in and public statements by Israeli officials before reaching this conclusion: "The only reasonable inference to be drawn is a state policy of genocidal violence against Palestinians."

It is worth watching the 12 minute summary of her report.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epKY2ZzjZUc

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

I appreciate the way that when she is discussing the victims of the , doesn't stop with the more than 32,000 Palestinians who have been confirmed killed by direct Israeli violence. She makes sure to include the 12,000+ Palestinians who are missing, presumed dead under the rubble, and the 71,000+ Palestinians who have been wounded, most of them with 'life-altering' injuries.

She also mentions (without putting a figure on it) the many who are dying of , disease and the collapse of the healthcare system due to targeted, systematic attacks by the Israeli military. Most of these deaths are not included in the above figures. There are tens of thousands of cancer patients, pregnant people and all kinds of other life-threatening chronic medical conditions going untreated in right now. The total number of people killed by Israel's genocidal violence already far, far exceeds the widely quoted figure of ~32,000. And thousands more are going to die deaths of deprivation in the weeks ahead, living out their last agonising days as their bodies waste away from lack of food, clean water, adequate shelter and medical care.

Many tens of thousands of lives still hang in the balance, depending how quickly (armed by western governments) is stopped.

EndemicEarthling, to random
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Simon Clarke consistently puts out quality climate videos on a wide variety of topics.

Here is his latest one looking at the impacts of e-bikes, which is sure to hold a few surprises for most people.

And he knows his stuff. With a climate science PhD and many years experience in making videos, they're rarely inaccurate or boring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5b8_KBtT8

Or on Nebula: https://nebula.tv/videos/simonclark-how-bad-are-electric-bikes-for-the-environment

EndemicEarthling, to random
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

Both the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, have now described the extreme hunger crisis in Gaza "man-made", naming that the government of Israel has been deliberately depriving a civilian population of the necessities of life, that is, using as a weapon of war.

This notion was treated by much of the western media as a dubious/extreme/fringe position as recently as a few weeks ago, even though humanitarian organisations, UN rapporteurs, and experts in international law had been saying the same thing for the last few months.

Indeed back in the opening days of the escalation, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant announced, “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20240320001057mp_/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/19/un-israeli-restrictions-gaza-food-aid-war-crime-hunger

https://web.archive.org/web/20240321020406/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/20/man-made-famine-charge-israel-mounting-evidence-un-gaza

jank0, to random
@jank0@sfba.social avatar

If people who break Immigration laws are being called illegal immigrants, then we should call companies that break labor or antitrust laws illegal enterprises.

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@jank0 criminal operations

appassionato, to DadBin
@appassionato@mastodon.social avatar

“Appalling clinical injuries, mostly upon children and women. Terrible burns, traumatic wounds, and no real room to deal with these tragic cases.”

Dr Nick Maynard, a volunteer consultant surgeon in Gaza, recalled a young girl with burns so bad on her face bone could be seen. “She clearly had no chance of survival and was going to die, but we had no pain relief to give her. She died in agony on the floor of the emergency department.”

@palestine



EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@appassionato @palestine Dr Nick Maynard has been a repeated volunteer consultant surgeon in numerous times over the last decade. When he's not volunteering in Palestine, he's a Professor in .

"Professor Maynard has been Consultant Upper GI surgeon at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust since 1997. He has been the Director for Cancer Services for Oxford University Hospitals from 2017 to 2022, and Associate Professor of Surgery at Oxford University."

He's president of a multinational organisation of gastrointestinal surgeons, a lead researcher, and recipient of various honours recognising decades of medical excellence.

Since returning from in January, he has repeatedly spoken publicly of the appalling horrors he witnessed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTLLTQBqm9U

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@appassionato @palestine And now he is going to Washington, along with a bunch of other UK/US doctors who have volunteered in Gaza, to explain directly to members of Congress what he has witnessed and expose the lie that Israel is trying to minimise harm to civilians.

If that were actually true, then (along with a thousand other unanswerable questions) why go out of your way to deliberately and systematically destroy oxygen tanks and CT machines during hospital raids? That's more consistent with an intention to destroy even the possibility of medical care because you want an entire population to leave - or die.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/20/us-uk-doctors-biden-idf-atrocities-gaza-ceasefire

chrisg, to climate

Why Is the Sea So Hot?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-is-the-sea-so-hot

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@chrisg paywall?

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@Miro_Collas Thanks!

jmcleod, to random
@jmcleod@mastodon.au avatar

Actually, this will probably get pushed through. The developers of large apartment buildings hate providing space for resident car parking. They'd make more money using that space for more units. The only people who will oppose it are existing residents in the local areas, who park on the street. Many residents of large apartment buildings are still going to have cars, and they'll be competing for parking spots on the streets. Hilarity ensues. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/14/victoria-car-park-apartment-minimum-requirements-close-to-public-transport-ptal

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@dragonfrog @SeanHawley @winterknell @jmcleod I've lived in cities ranging in size from 500,000 to 5,000,000. Never owned a car. Never regretted it.

Free/cheap is a terrible misallocation of public space, a massive subsidy to a subset of the population that results in making everyone's lives worse, yes, even drivers, who benefit enormously when a city actually has a well designed, safe, funded and functional system. And parking minimums are another way cities are made worse by design.

Look into the history of almost any city over a certain size in a wealthy country without decent public transport and you'll find the destructive fingers of the auto and/or oil industry thwarting attempts at more efficient and just transport systems.

EndemicEarthling, to climate
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

When you look at this chart (see alt-text for explanation), what do you feel?

Where does your mind go?

What does it make you want to do?

Would that actually help to address the issue? (Are you sure?)

If so, why aren't you doing that?

How can you take a step towards it today?

timrichards, to auspol
@timrichards@aus.social avatar

Can't agree with Shaun Carney here. Clearly the voters have been trying to force multi-party governments for some time, given the increasing size of the crossbench. We need a move to proportional representation in the lower house, IMO.

"I suspect most voters would find a minority government difficult to accept. Yes, there’s an irony here, given that the people get the parliament they have elected. But our highly combative political culture is not conducive to governments made up of shifting multi-party alliances in the style of European and Scandinavian democracies."

Election: what would a minority government mean for Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party?

(maybe paywalled) https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/it-s-monday-after-the-next-federal-election-does-albanese-call-bandt-20240313-p5fc4f.html

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@jillL @timrichards When voters are given a choice between the policies of all the parties with representation in federal parliament, with those policies described in neutral language, stripped of buzz words, and without any indication of which party each policy is associated with, on most topics a majority or plurality of voters select the policies of the Greens as their preferred approach.

Which goes to show that the average voter is kept pretty misinformed of the actual policies of the various parties, and/or doesn't actually treat policies as their highest priority when it comes time to vote, preferring instead some combination of political identity, personality and habit.

Miro_Collas, to Palestine
@Miro_Collas@masto.ai avatar

Freed Israeli hostage demands world do more for those still held in Gaza
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68557915

I feel for him, obviously.
I also feel for 10s of thousands of murdered Palestinians.


@palestine

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@Miro_Collas @palestine And for the 4,000+ Palestinian hostages held by the Israeli government, in conditions where they are reported to be subject to torture, sexual assault, degradation and humiliation.

Release all the hostages.

Acknowledge that the escalation since 7th Oct didn't start on 7th Oct. For instance, on 6th Oct there were already more Palestinians held in arbitrary detention without charge or realistic prospect of due process (i.e. hostages) by Israel than Israeli hostages taken on 7th Oct.

And media, allocate proportionate coverage based on the number killed/wounded/displaced/detained by each side, which means if you're going to be writing about , then there ought to be dozens of articles about Palestinians held hostage for every article about Israelis held hostage.

oatmeal, to Israel
@oatmeal@kolektiva.social avatar

/ How the Biden Administration Kneecapped the Most Essential Aid Group in Gaza and how the pause may become permanent

In January 2024, following accusations by Israel that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in a attack, the administration paused contributions to UNRWA despite the agency's head firing the accused employees and initiating an independent investigation. Over a dozen U.S. allies followed suit, putting around $450 million in donations on hold and pushing UNRWA to its "breaking point," according to its leadership. At the same time, the U.S. has continued providing military aid to Israel, despite allegations of war crimes during its assault on Gaza.

With is on the brink of famine, the move has imperiled UNRWA's unique capacity to deliver aid, as it operates schools, clinics, and food distribution networks serving millions of Palestinian refugees. Experts are warning that attempts to redirect funds through other organizations is not a viable solution given UNRWA's unparalleled infrastructure and institutional knowledge in the region.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/03/unrwa-gaza-funding-white-house-biden-administration-hamas/

https://www.firstpost.com/world/us-pause-on-unrwa-funding-for-gaza-may-become-permanent-13748245.html

@israel
@palestine

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@mdylanbell @jonburr @oatmeal @israel @palestine

immediately cut funding to , a crucial humanitarian organisation, during an unfolding attempt at of the population they serve, based purely on the word of the government committing the (and already revealed to have lied about many previous aspects of their crimes).

It is now revealed publicly but was already predictable (and likely already known by the US administration) that the 'evidence' for these lies was likely based on testimony obtained under .

Despite all this becoming clear, and more Palestinians dying of deliberately-imposed every day, Biden has still not reinstated UNRWA funding.

That alone is a very shitty thing to do (and is the context for jonburr's judgement), indeed there are plenty of lawyers who say it constitutes legal complicity in crimes against humanity.

You can say Biden is shitty and deserves to face the while pointing out that his opponent is far worse.

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@jonburr @mdylanbell @oatmeal @israel @palestine Biden has been the most hawkishly pro-Israel voice in the Senate for decades.

He was to the right of and when it came to unquestioning unwavering support for Israel.

He was willing to try to sink 's efforts in the region, even when he was VP.

Why? Because Israel is an extension/proxy of US power in the region, as he explained back in the days when he was a younger senator and more willing to be open about his reasons.

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@jonburr @mdylanbell @oatmeal @israel @palestine If you listen to the critical noises has been making about recently, almost never does he acknowledge and centre the humanity of being starved and slaughtered.

For Biden, the real problem in the of Palestinians in is that it means bad PR for Israel, and thus diminishes their geopolitical status, influence and usefulness.

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@CatHat Why do you think the US doesn't control the relationship? You're assuming that Biden is against the slaughter? He has shown no real (non-rhetorical) indication that that is the case.

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@CatHat @jonburr @mdylanbell @oatmeal @israel @palestine Biden has also demonstrated only piecemeal commitment to the wellbeing of ordinary US citizens. Whenever this has come into conflict with corporate profiteering and imperial realpolitik, the latter has nearly always been prioritised.

In this, he is not particularly remarkable when compared with basically all US administrations for decades, which have consistently been far more responsive to the demands of plutocratic power than popular wellbeing. Only when the latter has aligned with the agenda of a relevant faction from the former has progress been made.

radiophobicsherkpop, to random
@radiophobicsherkpop@ravenation.club avatar

I'm plodding through Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra in one or two page chunks at bedtime and I'm honestly not getting the sense he was a great writer.

The way it reads I can see how people could tie him in with Ayn Rand and Hitler, and I'm wondering if the writers I've read who have good things to say about his work have been filtering it through their own lenses to an extreme degree.

Maybe I should read Twilight of the Idols instead?

Or go back to RAW's Cosmic Trigger which is fun?

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@radiophobicsherkpop It depends what you're looking for in Nietzsche. He's been incredibly influential in the history of 20thC European thought in particular, though I'm not saying that reading his work is likely to be particularly edifying to those who aren't really interested in the history of ideas. Many of his most insightful contributions have been so influential that they are now accepted as conventional wisdom,to the point where reading them can feel like "yeah, obviously, so what?".

And these bits are scattered amidst plenty of petty snark, bitter invective, narcissistic megalomania and self-aggrandising clumsy mythopoeia (such as TSZ).

There's also some bits of genuinely funny satire (sometimes requiring familiarity with contemporary writers, or historical texts) and nuanced psychological insight. It's a real mixed bag.

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,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@bifouba Ah, of course - I hadn't put that together.

BTW, I agree that the extreme violence of the Israeli government/military (esp in conjunction with public statements) is genocidal—with the aid of foreign governments arming & providing political cover, with the backing of a large segment of Israeli voters & with the active participation of those citizens blockading aid).

My original comment wasn't questioning the wisdom or appropriateness of seeking to prosecute that case through the IJC, nor the use of that language in public discourse.

I had just noted that when it comes to public discourse, many pro-Palestinian activists (at least those trying to address western liberal audiences) seemed to be using a strategy of starting with discussion of war crimes (easiest to prove), moving to ethnic cleansing and then on to genocide, hoping to bring as much of their audience as far along as possible (i.e. "you think Israeli violence is justified? They are committing war crimes. You think they are committing a few war crimes? There's a pattern and stated intention of ethnic cleansing. You think they are pursuing ethnic cleansing but are unsure of their willingness to go beyond that? Well what happens to a campaign of ethnic cleansing if the targeted population can't or won't leave?")

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@bifouba And then had wondered whether another step along this path might be to get people to admit that the violence clearly fits the criteria for extermination as a crime against humanity (even if they are not yet ready to admit the further step).

poligraf, to Palestine
@poligraf@mastodon.online avatar

« … we're not waiting on the Israelis anymore… this is a moment for American leadership … »

« … Biden said at the beginning "don't make the mistakes we did in Iraq"… so that was quite a coded message… here they're saying "right, we've had enough, we've waited long enough, we're going to sort out this aid issue" … »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMNbSW9sOqM

@palestine

🕊️ 🇵🇸 🍉 🙏🏻 ✌️ ☮️ 🇺🇸

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@poligraf @Tooden @palestine US is deliberately choosing to focus on steps that don't interfere with Israel's ability to continue their pattern of . Delivery of aid by air or sea are each far less effective/efficient than aid by land, which could commence within hours if Biden made a phonecall to Netanyahu and told him he was ceasing all supplies of US weapons.

The shift here is purely rhetorical. Even as he makes noises about aid, Biden has once again affirmed that when it comes to supplying Israel with the arms and armaments necessary to continue carrying out its slaughter of a civilian population, there are no red lines whatsoever.

EndemicEarthling,
@EndemicEarthling@todon.eu avatar

@poligraf @Tooden @palestine

Eight senators. I bet that will get Biden's full and undivided attention...

Since October, Biden has openly flaunted international and US law by continuing to arm a foreign power blatantly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Why are the senators not warning him that they will be calling for an investigation into his illegal activities? The GOP have been wanting to impeach Biden for years. Here is their chance, since he is (as the article you shared pointed out) obviously in breach of domestic legislation on the matter.

But the eight senators won't do more than write stern letters, and the GOP wouldn't dream of impeaching Biden over this (because they like the idea of a president exercising discretionary control over the flow of arms).

Biden hasn't just continued to arm Israel. He has used a variety of methods to radically increase the amount of deadly assistance the US is delivering a context the ICJ considers plausibly genocidal. He has twice bypassed congressional approval for for surge in supplying weapons of slaughter via 'emergency' provisions, and has also split an enormous volume of additional arms into over 100 smaller deliveries, each individually remaining under the threshold at which they would need to be declared to Congress.

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