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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • I think maybe I was unclear. I believe that much of the shift rightward is because migrants are an ideal boogyman. They’re a natural target for nationalists, and liberals are largely apathetic.

    As late stage capitalism, automation, and outsourcing create greater and greater economic precarity, the far right has a perfect opportunity to enter the mainstream by giving voice to two of the biggest unspoken concerns that many politically disengaged voters relate to but often feel pressured not to talk about.

    The fascists say, ‘your life is worse! And your neighborhood has changed ethnically! And we have a whole explanation for all your problems that the people in charge are trying to suppress! Lol at how aggressively they try and prevent us from saying these things!’

    And the dominant liberal order can’t say ‘It’s not what it looks like! The rich are actually just taking advantage of you, and those migrants are just the earliest victims of climate change and greed!’

    The truth is that migrants don’t drive down wages: criminalizing migrants does. And given enough time, you could be a migrant too. That’s the thing I’d like more folks to know.


  • Whew. I’m glad to hear this.

    I have to say that I’m highly, highly incredulous that this deal won’t break down eventually. I don’t currently see anyone who is interested in actually completing the deal who has sufficient leverage on Netanyahu to compel that outcome. But I hope they get as far through the deal as possible. I’d like as many hostages on both sides returned, and as much of a respite as possible.

    Still, it’s so hard to find hope in this moment. They turned a genocide down from rolling boil to a simmer, but the military is still actively shooting people in both Gaza and the West Bank, and people in both are facing shortages of food and shelter.

    Under the best possible circumstances, if all Israeli hostages are released, I don’t see any reason why Netanyahu wouldn’t just resume the extermination campaign in Gaza.


  • First, I find it kind of irritating when someone attributes opinions to an undefined “they”. Was this a thing Bernie Sanders said? Was this something started in a press release by the DSA? If you’re talking about Twitter, might as well say ‘I heard from the propaganda machine…’

    I’m left as heck, and I’m very aware that countries are moving right all over the world. It seems to be especially driven by migration. And I think folks need an affirmative message besides either ‘we’re ignoring your concerns and letting folks in’ or ‘fine, we’ll lock the gates and kill the migrants. Please like us.’


  • I don’t mean to come at you in particular, but when I hear a phrase like “a tiny bit of democracy left”, I can’t help but think about the fact that there is so much unexercised democratic power available to citizens in the US, and the primary tool for disenfranchisement is just demoralizing and inactivating people.

    Let’s just set aside all the people who just do not pay attention to politics and focus on folks in this thread. Within a thread of people who follow and react to international news, how many know who their county representative is? How many people vote in the primaries that determine who gets to run for their city council?

    I’m not blaming anyone. It’s a ton of work. Until recently I didn’t know these things. But if we’re looking for a revival of democracy, we should all be working together to solidify power among the people who control our local cops and school boards and have authority over our state national guards and our state-level medical records, and regulate labor rights in our states and counties, and so on. This is really a key point at which we can either push fascism back to the fringes or let it actually end democracy.



  • I’m sorry, but I chafe at the notion that America was a democracy within the recent past and has ceased to be particularly in the last month.

    America was a weak democracy throughout its entire history; it has become weaker in the last generation, but still affords more democratic power – even under a fascist leader in the process of attempting to further dismantle it – than most citizens in the world enjoy today. A lot of people literally risk their lives for the political power that we often take for granted.

    We should absolutely be disturbed and angry about the loss of civic power. We should also avoid defeatism or doomerism, as there is still a lot of room for this to get better or worse depending on what each of us do. And, we should absolutely reject any framing that suggests that the oligarchy we had last year and every year of our lifetimes before that was some sacred ideal.

    America neither was a true democracy previously, nor has it ceased to be one at all. Ergo: democracy has not died.




  • I’ve found that the ChatGPT’s greatest use to me has been as a rhetorical device.

    I’ve found myself using ChatGPT as a reference when dismissing a statement that is impressive in its diluted lack of sincerity or creative thinking.

    For instance, I read this article and thought how every answer literally sounds like the result you’d get if you asked the question to ChatGPT, prefacing each prompt with “Answer the following question as one would if they were executing an unrestrained profit-driven business strategy while seeking to appeal to investors and reassure critics without committing to any specific principle.”

    He is somewhat exceptional in his ability to say completely transparent bullshit as well as his ability to take the most obvious, unsubtly selfish and evil business strategy at on literally every decision.

    What an assclown. He is a world-class assclown.








  • First, I think it helps to share an old adage:

    Two Jews: three opinions.

    We’re famously discursive. In any situation it should be assumed that Israelis are in a tense debate about nearly everything.

    The families of remaining hostages in particular want a ceasefire because its a prerequisite for returning loved ones (or at least rematriating their remains). Many people also recognize that the war has no honorable or defensive purpose and is tearing apart society, fomenting regional tensions, destroying support on the world stage, and placing a huge toll on reservists and their families.

    You are correct, though: as long as Netanyahu and allies are in power, every other voice is a reed in a monsoon flood.




  • I can’t help but notice that the article describes conditions that are clearly intended to kill, cause serious bodily harm, and deliberately inflict on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

    It really seems like there’s a word for that. It’s weird that the article describes those conditions without using any particular word that those conditions describe.

    I normally like the Guardian, but that article feels weird because I don’t know why it can’t just say that Gaza’s condition is that of an unambiguous genocide in progress.


  • It’s an interesting article, because to be honest, it feels like an attempt to create news more than cover it. Two-hundred or so objectors is paltry, frankly. If anything, I think the lack of dissenters in Israel is a more notable point of news.

    But then again, refusing to serve and criticizing Netanyahu can be a very frightening and risky thing to do. The culture is brutal, and the head of police in particular, Ben G’vir, is a hardline fascist who doesn’t tolerate challenges to the ruling government. So we’ll see what happens.