Keep encouraging #DollarGeneral and all these other arsehole capitalists to hire more #workers and ditch the self check-out. The more jobs disappear that way wjthout #socialism or #UBI, the more we undermine our own #economy and #livingstandards.
You might be forgiven for missing the significance of the weekend #news that a gunman who fits the profile of domestic #rightwing#terrorist – white, male, 21 years old – allegedly targeted Black people and opened fire in a #Jacksonville#DollarGeneral store, killing three people of color before committing suicide.
It’s easy and not entirely erroneous to drop this incident in the bucket of runaway gun crimes in an America with few gun regulations. But it’s the wrong bucket to put in it. This is the runaway violence of white supremacists against minority groups happening in tandem with the rise of a radical right-wing Republican Party, but with little public acknowledgment or understanding of what’s really happening."
Fact: Democrats enact laws that ban assault rifles.
If you announce that you don't plan to vote, or that you're voting for third party candidates, you're announcing that it's okay with you if an actual Nazi can legally buy an assault rifle and use it to massacre Black people.
It breaks me every time there is a mass shooting in the States. There is so much rot (racism, sexism, nationalism, Christian supremacy) but I have no idea how to start solving it except to take away weapons. I moved to NZ to help learn what needs to change in the US, and my feeling is that fewer guns, reparations (ie Treaty of Waitangi tribunal), and a social safety net are essential. I have no idea how to export these to the US though. 😢#blacklivesmatter#jacksonville#DollarGeneral 🧵
I will very happily talk about what NZ does to anyone in power in the US that can do something about the US's problems. The path is there, but it's a hard path that will take decades. But, god damnit, something needs to happen. #blacklivesmatter#jacksonville#DollarGeneral 🧵
We had a mass shooting in NZ about a month ago, and it's something that only happens every few years. The entire community felt it, we're talking about it, and trying to figure out how to keep it from happening again. It wasn't one out of hundreds per year, so we had mental space to think about it. And we know what it's like to not have to accept it as a possibility. I want to believe that the US has the ability to get there, but honestly I don't. #blacklivesmatter#jacksonville#DollarGeneral 🧵
So many things in NZ are drastically different. The police here don't regularly carry guns, and they need special authorisation to remove them from their vehicle. Many guns are illegal here, and it's much harder to get a licence. The police often don't go in with force, and de-escalate much more often. Officer involved shootings are very very rare. There are not many who are arming against the state here. #blacklivesmatter#jacksonville#DollarGeneral 🧵
So if you go to the New York Times website homepage (at the time of this tweet/post) the news of three Black people killed by a white racist terrorist in Jacksonville doesn’t appear until you scroll roughly a third of the way down.
If you say that you do not plan to vote, or that you're voting for third-party candidates, you are saying "I don't care if there are any changes in gun laws. I don't care if a Nazi can buy an assault rifle and go on a murder spree. That's not important to me."
Last Nov, publishing got excellent news: the planned merger of #PenguinRandomHouse (the largest publisher in the history of human civilization) with its immediate competitor #SimonAndSchuster would not be permitted, thanks to the #FTC's deftly argued case against the deal:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
KKR took over #DollarGeneral in 2007 and embarked on a nationwide expansion campaign, using abusive preferential distributor contracts and targeting community-owned grocers to trap poor people into buying the most heavily processed, least nutritious, most profitable food available: