Notices by Beardy Star Stuff 🏴🌹🇵🇸 (dennyhenke@social.coop), page 2

According to AP News, Epstein was a luminary. As we all know, he was many things, luminary is not one of those things.

@WarnerCrocker
Great post Warner and relatable. It's weird for me in these or any time to have moments of joy and peace. I've never been able to be a happy person simply because it feels wrong to be happy when so much is broke. Not just our current US situation. As an American, at any point in previous decades, knowing the cost paid by others globally for my American privilege.

We live in a deeply broken, unjust and often cruel world... the source of which is often US foreign policy.

#Aurora seen from #Missouri

The "community" of #Apple enthusiasts that follow podcasts and news sites about Apple, that have Apple as a sort of tech-hobby might want to reconsider their role in holding up a consumer culture that facilitates interest in a company that is increasingly hostile to its users but one that is embracing a #fascist regime because it prioritizes profit and continued growth.

You got the devices, use them till they break. But reconsider your participation in indirect promotion of their products.

This is not a joke, $150 and $230 for a piece of cloth/strap iPhone pouch.

Apple as a company and a brand is not only following fascist dictates but is holding up increasing income disparity as a feature to be celebrated. Can't eat or walk the streets in safety from the secret police? Too bad for you. Check me out with my $230 Apple pocket.

As a brand, #Apple is #toxic, #fascist, #cruel and Apple enthusiasts should really be walking away.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/introducing-iphone-pocket-a-beautiful-way-to-wear-and-carry-iphone/

Heard of Rock Bridge? Founded by JD Vance in 2019, it is a (the?) funding source behind the Heritage Foundation and the connective tissue between Heritage Foundation, the cultural/political #MAGA movement. It's the billionaire funded financial infrastructure that will build and sustain the now dominant and in control #fascist movement in the US into the future.

#oligarchy #Fascism #Democracy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUwa0Dnqukw&ab_channel=LilithGrover

I'm glad I deleted my #Amazon account a couple months ago. I'm so done with all of these #bigtech fuckers.

When AI prophecy fails
"Amazon made $35 billion in profit last year, so they're celebrating by laying off 14,000 workers (a number they say will rise to 30,000). This is the kind of thing that Wall Street loves, and this layoff comes after a string of pronouncements from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy about how AI is going to let them fire tons of workers."

#Capitalism

https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/29/worker-frightening-machines/#robots-stole-your-jerb-kinda

@WarnerCrocker I think a lot of folks are living in a hope-based self delusion. And perhaps a lack of understanding about what, exactly, fascism is.

Even worse, 2025 fascism is powered by well developed, always on surveillance tech combined with a population of people trained to self report. People, even those that should know better, are willingly carrying the location trackers and self reporting apps with them everywhere.

It's time to take more extreme, self-defensive measures.

Back in February in the first weeks of this admin I got the sense that people were panicking as we should have been. I wrote two posts intended for folks who were not activists, who had no experience... folks who were freaking out and had no clue where or how to get started. 9 months later, we're still doing too little. One protest a month will not cut it. But we're a passive non-activist culture. We look for heros to save us. We have to save us.

#Resist #Democracy

https://beardystarstuff.net/posts/2025-02-08.html

By default my cell phone is a surveillance device. I fixed that.

One of my ongoing experiments at increasing privacy has been a shift in my phone use. A bit of context: the phone has always been my least favorite computing device. The screen is too small, I don’t like typing on it and I rarely get real calls but I do get a lot of spam calls. So, for me, it’s always mostly been a camera and portable music player...

#Privacy #iPhone #Surveillance #Fascism #Apple #Google

https://beardystarstuff.net/posts/2025-10-10.html

Apple's recent support of fascism in the US highlights that there's never been a better time to adopt and support #FreeSoftware. I truly believe better, more ethical computing is to be found in the #GNU #Linux operating system that fully respects the #privacy and #freedom of users.

You may not be able to switch your OS but you can begin adopting the software and better privacy practices.

Tomorrow I'll be celebrating (virtually) 40 years of software freedom with @fsf

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf40-twelve-reasons

@WarnerCrocker And I would add, if the majority are not that interested in participating in the work of democracy then they are, by definition, rejecting self-rule and any real sort of democracy.

The question then becomes, if most do not want to be bothered with democracy, what should they have instead? It would seem they have given up the right to determine their destiny and should accept what is doled out to them. If it is autocracy, fascism, dictatorship they should accept it.

@WarnerCrocker That may be but we've held ourselves up as a shining example of "democracy" and "freedom". In practice we have set the opposite example of least participation. It's a cultural trait of the US.

I see the citizens of other many other countries protesting in a far more robust and prolonged manner, providing a much better example of active, engaged citizenship. And as a result the governments of many of those countries seem to be far more responsive to those citizens.

@WarnerCrocker Absolutely. The top priority is convenience and comfort.

We only ever focused on "...the pursuit of Happiness" leaving the rest of it to others to manage. We don't actually want, value or even understand freedom. We want to be left alone to do as we see fit. The vast majority stepped away from the role and responsibility of democracy and others stepped in to fill that space.

Real citizenship in a real democracy is the opposite of easy.

@WarnerCrocker My observation of my fellow Americans, family, friends, etc is that most are not actually interested in the work of democracy. Not even a little. They can barely be bothered to vote. Going beyond that? Never unless they are somehow directly impacted.

We should not have the word activist because in a real democracy everyone would be actively engaged. But for many decades the vast majority are only active in consumption of goods and entertainment.

We seem to want autocracy.

My ongoing effort to de-Apple the iPad

As someone who had come to prefer using an iPad for all of my computing the switch to GNU/Linux was an unexpected turn but one that has been far better than expected. Delightful even. But, seven months in, a laptop is still a laptop with a permanently attached keyboard and no multi-touch screen. There's no denying it, I have missed the experience of using a detachable touch screen computer...
#Apple #FreeSoftware #iPad #GNU #Linux
https://beardystarstuff.net/posts/2025-09-24.html

Jenna with her old laptop, now updated to GNU/Linux! She'd stopped using it some time ago because #Windows had become so slow that it was unusable. A project of our local #Library where I #Volunteer. We spent some time installing then a brief introduction to the basics of using #GNU #Linux and a few of the apps.

She was excited to have a working computer again and, bonus, touch screen worked perfectly which made her extra happy.

#FreeSoftware #MutualAid #FOSS #Microsoft #Endof10 #Missouri

@WarnerCrocker Great post Warner and agreed. Fascism is here. They'll need to stand up but, equally important, the American people need to be ready for extended action in the streets. Once a week, twice a month protests won't cut it. We're not use to extended street protests or the idea of shutting things down with a general strike. Nor are we used to really working together, every day as volunteers in our neighborhoods. We have to remember/learn what cooperative, democratic people power is.

@aral Agreed. Aren't you describing the long history of European>Now U.S. settler colonialism? It continues, now with Israel as the tip of the spear. But it's the same, long thread of genocide.

Globally, it's the European North dominating and extracting from the South. A process of violence, extraction, enslavement and, when necessary, genocide.

Most in the US couldn't be bothered to care because they benefited from that process. Now it's turned in on us so we'll suffer. Chickens roosting.

For anyone interested, I'd mentioned recently in a post that I was doing an Introduction to GNU/Linux and Free Software presentation at the local library. I've put it up on my server for download for anyone that might find such a thing useful.

Thanks to @moshimotsu for the suggestion!

#GNU #Linux #Endof10 #FreeSoftware

http://beardystarstuff.net/Linux%20Presentation.odp