@Edent wait so you're in favor of this ban on selfies? bc of the risk posed by posting images of yourself online? or you're shocked that people are suggesting such drastic measures?
@neurovagrant i think this over-intellectualizes it and ignores both the fact that stories like this aren't aiming—or crafted, sometimes—for us to "applaud someone saving an 8 year old like that" but to shape a narrative of and reception toward a punitive state apparatus of coercion, as well as the very real harms caused by sharing it and perpetuating false narratives.
the tl;dr is that if it was "man jumps in freezing lake to save little girl" then sure, applaud them, but in this case, the story highlighted that it was a cop and it came from a source known to peddle narratives that reinforce the status quo, it's state propaganda, or more specifically 'copaganda'
“The low expected turnout in the upcoming elections reflects a popular rejection of the…political system, which is suffering from a legitimacy crisis and the absence of real opposition forces to vie with the parties in power…”
We have no problem identifying low voter turnout as a consequence of political illegitimacy. People decline to vote because they recognize that voting will not produce meaningful change, because it’s not worth it and because they don’t want to participate in a corrupt system…
…as long as we’re talking about countries other than the US. When US voters withhold their participation, they’re almost certainly going to hear about how they personally want fascism to win. Haven’t you heard that this is The Most Important Election in Our Lifetime? All systemic analysis goes out the window and all we can talk about is personal failure.
@moondog548@violetmadder@phil_stevens@HeavenlyPossum@Radical_EgoCom for nearly a century at this point, people have been saying ‘we can do both!’ referring to engaging in electoral politics and so-called grassroots efforts, but it’s never amounted to anything substantial because the electoral efforts rob us of all of our energy and spirit. and they know it.
it’s not about extrajudicial assasinations or despair, it’s just plain and simple: we can’t ‘do both’ and electoralism isn’t harm reduction—we’re either perpetuating the status quo, or changing it.
the fact is that grassroots / community-led efforts and political dissidents are the real threat to democrats—not republicans—and when we study the work of Hannah Arendt, Robert Paxton, David Graeber, Angela Davis, Astra Taylor… we find that they’d faster cozy up with their politically and financially-powerful counterparts before they ever fought for us if it comes down to it.
@moondog548@violetmadder@phil_stevens@HeavenlyPossum@Radical_EgoCom sure, if it was only checking a box and then heading home, then maybe you’d be onto something, but there’s pressure to phone bank and text and tweet and register friends and door knock and chip in our hard earned money and rally and ‘keep making noise so ppl don’t forget’ and keep up with the debates and watch the polls and pull your hair out because it’s so close so we should just make sure ppl are registered “one more time” and…
the fact is it’s never just checking a box.
and with what Biden has done that’s worse than Trump in every way, there’s reason enough to opt out entirely.
lowkey obsessed with this alvin and the chipmunks soundcloud project where every track is slowed to 16bpm. it’s dark and drippy and haunting and sorta fkd up—extremely my shit
@ernie idk... this 'rant into the void then retreat to yet-another-corporate-owned-and-operated-platform since the current one is shitty' is getting pretty old, pretty fast. it truly takes up far too much brain bandwidth imo.
@ernie oh right, no. i was referring to the mass move from twitter and medium to substack and how there will inevitably be yet another similar move in the near future.
and yeah, likewise. idk how we get there tho. bizarre to me how you can show someone something that is nearly as frictionless a solution as a substack and they'll opt for the substack solution instead.
I'm "not enthusiastic" about Biden, in the sense that I'm not enthusiastic about genocide or weak-willed liberal politics-as-usual or continuing Trump's immigration policies or refusing to use the power of the presidency to do fucking anything, but please, lecture me about how young people need to realize that it's this or fascism. I'm sure that'll move the needle.
I cannot stress highly enough that it's not that young people (of which I am not one, by the way) aren't "enthusiastic" about Biden. It's that they're fucking tired of being told that it's this or fascism so shut up. What happened to the idea that a politician had to earn their votes?
Rather than lecturing young people about the consequences of their "lack of enthusiasm" or you can join them in being fucking pissed off that Biden is doing sweet fuck all to earn their goddamn enthusiasm. And if you think that's not a problem, how about the fact that he's losing Black people? Or maybe you think it's racist to criticize Black people for their lack of enthusiasm? How about Muslim Americans?
The Democrats seem to think that they've got a lock on the youth vote, the Black and brown vote, and women, and they don't need to do ANYTHING to earn that goddamn vote. That's not lack of enthusiasm. That's lack of representation.
And anyway, "not enthusiastic" is news-media-speak for "pissed off about his policies," not, " ultimately not going to vote as harm reduction." So miss me with your moralizing screeds about how young people need to be enthusiastic about a politician who has shown almost no concern for them. I'm not fucking enthusiastic about voting as harm reduction either, but I'm going to do it because as you so love to point out, it's this or fascism.
@intransitivelie@benfell the thing is that voting isn't harm reduction. not only because biden has caused more harm during his political career than three trump presidencies could ever cause, but because it legitimizes everything you just said about how one side feels uncompelled to do literally anything and only has to appear to be less harmful.
opt out. don’t vote. spend the energy usually spent agonizing over these decisions to prepare your neighbors for natural disasters, organizing a tenant union, sharing the parenting load with other parents, communal-izing your possessions so everyone benefits from them, start a repair cafe, create a microgrid….
“we can do both” except we can’t and the state of things is proof. we either build truly resilient communities (networks of mutual support, trust, and solidarity—not a group on a discord server) and change the world piece by piece having becoming aware to the reality laid out in the earlier post, or we perish—forever deluding ourselves into believing that the next election will be the one that saves us.
I have a friend who just moved to SF from a place that doesn’t have the same degree of visible homelessness. I can’t help him decide how he feels about living here, but I also know he’s never spent any time in any N American city. So the only thing I told him was, ‘there will be homeless people, and tents, close to where you’ll live. That’s different from a person having a violent episode, who may or may not be a homeless person.’
@betsyvr@skinnylatte i think it’s key to keep the “policy failure” part in mind when we talk about substance abuse / dependency issues / addiction tho. i’ve seen ppl talk about it as if it just needs to be treated by medical doctors or psychologists, but how many of us have met or been ppl that ‘beat an addiction’ only to backslide because of economic oppression? like, so many substance use related issues would be resolved if ppl weren’t living in poverty
@gedeonm@OkayKay its replies like these that only drive people away from being diligent about their data & privacy.
what you said is accurate but how is it helpful? most people know this already, but we all make mistakes. just the other day, i reformatted the wrong drive and lost 120GB of data and i’ve been in the tech industry.
let’s find ways to make keeping up with these things smoother instead, ya?