Notices by Unpartitioned Variance 50% off (guyjantic@c.im)

@ekis Thanks. She certainly seems very impressive as a person and candidate. I was just hit hard by two members of The Squad losing their seats due to AIPAC this past summer, and here is Tlaib being outspoken about Gaza and Palestine, then winning her own race by margins far in excess of the margins Harris received.

It gives me hope.

Serious #USPol question: How did Rashida Tlaib survive AIPAC?

#gaza #palestine #aipac #israel #RashidaTlaib

@sbisson @cstross @icastico @pluralistic @GreatDismal Y'all are giving me new stuff to read, so this is a good day.

@icastico @pluralistic @GreatDismal New term! It fits the contrast I was trying to draw much better than the term I used. Thanks.

@icastico @pluralistic I'm thinking of William Gibson's Blue Ant trilogy. I love those books, not least because Gibson (@GreatDismal ) appears to have done a huge amount of research to find real, verifiable things that sound science fictional but actually exist. The books are arguably "trade fiction" or something like that (IDK the right labels) but they 100% feel like sci fi.

Time to read them again.

@corbden @clive @pluralistic There are a number of things about Robbers Cave that are just awesome. One way I've heard this recounted is

1. We made prejudice out of nothing but camp songs, uniforms, and flags

2. Now let's reverse it through the Contact Hypothesis

3. Oh shit. It's not reversing

4. Oh shit oh shit oh shit

5. Whew! Cooperation on critical common tasks! That was close.

This forms part of the long and checkered history of the Contact Hypothesis, which suggests that all you need is meaningful contact between groups to eliminate prejudice (as it turns out, it's complicated, and we still don't know how to do it all the time).

And Muzafer Sherif was just kind of amazing. Not perfect, but a fascinating, field-defining guy whose work was unrecognized in the west for many years before he came to the US and began collaborating.

@bert_hubert This reminds me of a Johnny Bravo moment.

Name?

"Johnny Bravo"

Occupation?

"... ... Johnny Bravo"

I'm so fucking angry about this.

Behind the rest of the bullshit: LIBRARY STAFF became apparently-willing little minions of an anti- #freespeech president.

US #Universities are not laboratories of #democracy; they are authoritarian hierarchies. The president is the monarch and everyone else follows the orders or else.

That's my only explanation for why #LIBRARIANS became meek little fascist approval-seekers.

#protest #gaza #palestine #highered #students #authoritarianism #fascism

Harvard students were punished by the university president for expressing unpopular opinions.

They STUDIED for an hour in a LIBRARY, with political messages taped to their laptops.

What if it had been only one student? What if the pro-Palestine message had been half as big? What if it had been half an hour?

There is no narrative worth the pixels it takes on a screen that makes this anything but direct, pure suppression of dissent. The students followed every rule, didn't do any of the things bullshit campus rules penalize in order to stop protests. They didn't block sidewalks, light candles, chant, march, or even (apparently) make anyone the least bit uncomfortable.

So the Harvard admin just flat-out punished them for expressing a political opinion.

#gaza #palestine #university #highered #uspol #protest #dissent #punishment #authoritarianism

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/10/3/students-suspended-library-palestine-protest/

@ryanc @FritzAdalis @catsalad Well, regardless, I have rack envy, now. I didn't even know I needed a rack until I saw this.

@FritzAdalis @ryanc @catsalad clicking that ad saying "Rack consultants in your area want to meet you! And organize your tech stuff!"

@FritzAdalis @ryanc @catsalad Why does this feel so much dirtier than the "nice rack" comments? haha.

Regardless of Kamala's policies (which are a mixed bag for me but Way Better Than Trump), she is just Really Fucking Good At This.

Trump is on the back foot, defensive. His standard bully strategies don't work. He doesn't know what to do.

#uspol #debate #harris #trump

@jacklaridian @unclesam I think I misunderstood the response. "they're fighting every day to release hostages" (a) sounded like something not specific to Dems--I think I misunderstood that, and (b) isn't support for Palestine, it's support for Israel. Unless you're talking about the thousands of Palestinian hostages and there's a Democrat project I don't know about to get them released.

As for (a) OK, so Dems are doing something for Israel "every day." And then denying Ilhan Omar, Qasim Rashid, Muslims for Kamala, et al. any voice at the convention. This doesn't sound like there is any new information in this conversation suggesting that Democrats have any commitment to stopping Israel's genocide in Palestine. Maybe I misunderstood something else, though; something that the DNC is actually doing to support Palestine.

@unclesam @jacklaridian Oh, OK. So your point was that the Dems are indirectly helping Palestine by working for Israel. I agree, to an extent; the hostages need to be released. However, there's a sort of death-standoff going on: hostages are being held because Israel keeps flattening apartment blocks and elementary schools. Israel says it has to kill tens of thousands of civilians to get the hostages back. Bibi also keeps rejecting ceasefire deals that don't give Israel 100% of their demands.

Perhaps we disagree on what the DNC "supporting Palestine" looks like.

*Edit*: I'm supposed to "trust" that Biden is on the phone every day doing things to stop the genocide while the evidence suggests a much more mixed picture--i.e., he keeps sending weapons (he has literally broken US law this year to send even more weapons) and seems allergic to any public support for a ceasefire. These things do not promote trust, and "just trust the president" is something I haven't done since Bush and the WMDs.

@unclesam @jacklaridian He could maybe... not send illegally more bombs.

But okay, yes, we agree on that.

If Joe is going to say one thing publicly while doing another privately, then he can take his lumps and tell us about his secret heroism later. I don't think he's doing nothing; I think he's doing what he's done his entire career: keep everybody (especially his donors) happy. He's being a radical centrist, as he always has been. To be fair, I think he has done more to advance policies I value than any president in my lifetime (i.e., since Carter), but he has done the good things while doing some other bad things and ignoring some other things. That's a good description of most presidents (one exception I can think of), but it's not a reason to stop pushing for more good/less bad.

I'm not blaming Kamala for anything Joe did. Perhaps I hold her responsible for participating in the silencing of Palestinian or pro-Palestinian voices at the convention, but it's not even about that. I want change. She wants to be the greatest single-person agent of change on the planet, and I want to see more positive change. Overall, she's doing great, and seems likely to be one of the best presidents in a century, but none of that means I'm OK with a pretty clear agenda to silence the voices of a marginalized and relatively powerless minority group being murdered by the tens of thousands (now actually estimated hundreds of thousands) while we fund it. Yes, there are other genocides and horrible things, but I'm not aware of any we are directly funding to this extent. I want that to change.

I'm going to vote Kamala; the alternative is unthinkable. I'm not going to stop pointing out hypocrisy and massive missed opportunities in her actions, if I see them.

@jacklaridian @unclesam Not sure who you mean, but if it's me, I'll say I'm willing to have a discussion if @unclesam is. First, I would need them to address the issues they raised, instead of changing the subject.

I don't know all the details, but it seems to me like this is why anyone supporting #palestine should fight like hell for #rankedchoicevoting

If we had #rcv right now, I don't think the DNC candidate (whoever that was) would be able to ignore Palestine. The #DNC itself would not be able to ignore it.

So that's why I think #Democrats (at least their leadership) will fight to oppose RCV if it ever becomes a real possibility. They absolutely do not want to be forced to weigh the needs of their constituents against the needs of their wealthiest donors.

#uspol #israel #palestine #lobby #money #politics

@unclesam How many Palestinian speakers were at the DNC, again? Do you remember the number?

@unclesam

"there's a time and a place" - 100% used by people who want to choose the time and place.