Hatesquash - GenX-Rage

TWO HOURS AGO: an incredible photo taken by a ut austin student capturing something deeply poetic in my opinion, a line of state troopers eagerly waiting to arrest student protesters standing just behind a sign that reads "what starts here changes the world. its starts with you and what you do each day."

“Drug raids conducted by SWAT teams are not polite encounters. In countless situations in which police could easily have arrested someone or conducted a search without a military-style raid, police blast into people’s homes, typically in the middle of the night, throwing grenades, shouting, and pointing guns and rifles at anyone inside, often including young children. In recent years, dozens of people have been killed by police in the course of these raids, including elderly grandparents and those who are completely innocent of any crime. Criminologist Peter Kraska reports that between 1989 and 2001 at least 780 cases of flawed paramilitary raids reached the appellate level, a dramatic increase over the 1980s, when such cases were rare, or earlier, when they were nonexistent. Many of these cases involve people killed in botched raids. Alberta Spruill, a fifty-seven-year-old city worker from Harlem, is among the fallen. On May 16, 2003, a dozen New York City police officers stormed her apartment building on a no-knock warrant, acting on a tip from a confidential informant who told them a convicted felon was selling drugs on the sixth floor. The informant had actually been in jail at the time he said he’d bought drugs in the apartment, and the target of the raid had been arrested four days before, but the officers didn’t check and didn’t even interview the building superintendent. The only resident in the building was Alberta, described by friends as a “devout churchgoer.” Before entering, police deployed a flash-bang grenade, resulting in a blinding, deafening explosion. Alberta went into cardiac arrest and died two hours later. The death was ruled a homicide but no one was indicted. Those who survive SWAT raids are generally traumatized by the event. Not long after Spruill’s death, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields held hearings on SWAT practices in New York City. According to the Village Voice, “Dozens of black and Latino victims—nurses, secretaries, and former officers—packed her chambers airing tales, one more horrifying than the next. Most were unable to hold back tears as they described police ransacking their homes, handcuffing children and grandparents, putting guns to their heads, and being verbally (and often physically) abusive. In many cases, victims had received no follow-up from the NYPD, even to fix busted doors or other physical damage.””

— The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

As the elections approach, it's a good time to emphasize the importance of continuous local organizing and direct action.

Beyond the Rube Goldberg machine of representative democracy, what can we do together?

http://crimethinc.com/votingversusda

Whoever is elected, let's be ungovernable.

Going from reading the Green's manifesto to Reforms is such a punch in the gut, I think my reading order was perhaps a bit flawed

If you want to read something political, my personal suggestion is the Conquest of Bread. I guarantee you'll get more from it than any political party manifesto.

struggle-la-lucha.org

Congratulations to Venezuela and re-elected President Nicolás Maduro Moros!

Congratulations to the people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and their re-elected President Nicolás Maduro Moros! En español ¡Felic

Struggle-La Lucha newspaper and the Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido salute the working people of Venezuela for the successful reelection of President Nicolás Maduro Moros.

For us in the United States, your victory is also a victory for working, poor, and oppressed people in the belly of the beast. For months, Wall Street and its media were confidently predicting the overthrow of the revolutionary process in the Bolivarian Republic.

They're only war crimes if there are repercussions, and the US will burn the world down to defend these atrocities.

Israeli soldiers film themselves burning houses in Rafah as a punitive measure, which is a war crime under international law.

Enemies vs cowards

With few exceptions, it is more accurate to divide most politicians into two broad categories: Enemies, and Cowards. The enemies are those politicians who are legitimately opposed to your policy goals. The cowards are those politicians who may agree with your policy goals, but will sell you out if they must in order to protect their own interests. Embrace the idea that we are simply pushing to elect the cowards, rather than the enemies. Why? Because the true work of political action is not to identify idealized superheroes to run for office. It is, instead, to create the conditions in the world that make it safe for the cowards to vote the right way. Under this framework, you can set aside the tedious feelings of disappointment that come with holding moral views while also supporting any politician. Will your favorite candidate do something bad? Almost certainly. After all, they are cowards. The onus is on us to give the cowards a soft path to the moral choice. The education necessary to equip citizens with the facts; the persuasion necessary to move public opinion to the right place; the organizing necessary to mobilize people to fight for the right thing. These things are the substance of “politics.” Elections can be seen as just another organizing task, one in an endless procession of efforts necessary to arrange the chess pieces of power in a way that will, eventually, produce the righteous outcome.

-Hamilton Nolan

thegauntlet.news

COVID lulls aren't being earned by policy; they're being bought with infections and deaths

Celebrating a COVID lull years into the Biden Administration's utter abandonment is woefully out of touch with the science

Cases are low right now for one simple reason: most people have recently had COVID. If not during the massive winter JN.1 surge, which infected an estimated 100 million people, then in the previous variant-soup wave of late summer 2023. COVID infections confer a temporary immunity, meaning that after a big surge- when tens of millions of people are infected in a matter of months- the public has a transient “wall” of immunity that lowers transmission in the short-term. Celebrating lulls that were “bought” with a surge is celebrating the successful mass infection of the public, thousands of new Long COVID cases, overall worsened health of the public, and tens of thousands of dead people. That’s the cost of every lull that wasn’t earned with policy.

75,603 people died of COVID in 2023 according to death certificates, which is certainly an undercount. (I would note that death certificate flu was 5,999, also a significant undercount and not the number the CDC uses when reporting flu burden). But let’s take the 75k number at face value and provide some perspective about this level of mortality.

75,603 deaths in one year makes COVID the infectious disease killing the most people in the US by far, and likely to remain so.

@startorrent02

I am on my knees begging, begging people to remember disabled people in the LGBTQ+ community this month. Please don't leave us to die.

COVID never ended and it made many people immunocompromised. Wear a mask at Pride events (and other places too). Yes, even if it makes you uncomfy or doesn't match your outfit.

Some anti-trans laws are specifically targeting mentally disabled people, arguing that we're not capable of making decisions about our own bodies and thus should not be allowed to medically transition. Include us in discussions about trans legislation.

Disabled people already face high discrimination in work and housing, and it's worse for those who are LGBTQ+. Stand up for your disabled and LGBTQ+ peers.

Some disabled people with caretakers can't come out because the people they depend on aren't safe. Support closeted LGBTQ+ people.

The insurance companies that always find a reason not to cover gender-affirming surgery are the same ones that always find a reason not to cover medication or therapy or mobility aids. Have some solidarity with disabled people who have to fight against the same greedy pigs you do.

Make sure Pride events are accessable to mobility aid users, people with service animals or caretakers, people with sensory issues, etc. Or at the very least, be honest if they're not, so people don't waste their time going there only to discover they can't participate.

It breaks my heart seeing so-called leftists throwing their disabled siblings to the wolves. You like to say that you'd punch a Nazi, throw bricks at police cars, fight tooth and nail for the rights of LGBTQ+ people... But the moment it concerns disabled LGBTQ+ people, you drop your support like a rock. Your hypocrisy is disgusting, and it's going to kill many people in the LGBTQ+ community this Pride month unless you take a moment to realize that, whether you like it or not, some of us are disabled and we don't deserve to die for that.

EFF: Congress Amended KOSA, But It’s Still A Censorship Bill. Despite small changes, the Kids Online Safety Act “is a censorship bill that will harm the rights of both adult and minor users. We oppose it, and urge you to contact your congressperson about it today.”