Notices by Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ (richpuchalsky@mastodon.social)

@inthehands

This doesn't really close the loop. Most of what people call a "nihilist desire for destruction" is caused by neoliberal policies that actually make life horrible for people and naturally lead to disaffection from the entire social order. When people widely feel that the status quo is not worth saving, it's because the status quo is bad, not because nihilism suddenly made a big comeback.

Israel lets in some food aid, immediately shells aid distribution point and aid trucks as soon as it arrives

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-army-torches-school-gazas-north-after-entry-aid-trucks

@hp

The other side is against genocide. The other side comprises all of the people who didn't insist that everyone vote for one of the two large parties.

@hp

They fought for genocide and lost. As for "absolving me of this result": I don't know why you think that this result was up to me rather than a consequence of how the Democratic Party ran its campaign.

Where are all of the people who said that we could vote one day "and do something else the other 364 days of the year"? Seems suspiciously quiet.

Oh, voting puts you into a cycle where you focus energies on a (fooliish) goal, the active people burn out, and then people are either happy and inactive because of that or sad and inactive because of that?

Wow, as an anarchist I never knew this. /s

@davetroy

Anarchists do not consider "anarcho-capitaiists" to be anarchists. All anarchists oppose capitalism, and all anarchism is against all forms of hierarchical control, not just the state's.

You've created a long thread of people telling you the same thing over and over, none of which was necessary to what you wanted to write. This kind of "anarchists want to destroy the state, and so do warlords, therefore warlords are anarchists" just isn't going to fly on Mastodon.

@Moss

#anarchist #mutualaid

I'm going through my mutual aid money for the year: can anyone recommend people/groups to send it to that are:

1) anarchist
2) confirmed to actually exist
3) not secret / no security concerns
4) if not individual, then things like jail support?

Thanks

Periodic self-repetition: the people making fun of "economic anxiety" as a reason for people going right in the US should consider that people really are much more anxious in the US, one of very few developed countries with no state provided medicine and no universal social support of various other kinds.

It's also true that European countries with these programs are also turning to the right, so this can't be the whole story.

@ironchamber

"she was waylaid by consultants" she is an adult, with developed political beliefs and understanding (she's the Vice President) and she made her own decision. That decision was in keeping with everything else that we know about her and her past history.

@mhoye @owillis1977

Stop creating conferences in the high risk states. No one should have to go to these states for professional reasons.

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/final-pre-election-2024-anti-trans

America is, politically, the oldest society on the planet -- every other country has changed political systems more recently. Thus it is like a very old person who still foolishly thinks of themselves as a young rebel.

If I had to characterize America as a single person it would be an 80 year old in a cowboy hat, touchy and armed but not with a gun (he can't see well enough to hit anything), with a grenade launcher. Whenever he gets angry or scared, he fires grenades at groups of people.

On a slightly popular (for Mastodon) #climate post I got two people saying that climate change was caused by ordinary people's bad behavior. That's a level of ignorance that we can't afford: the fossil fuel industry's campaign of public propaganda and political lobbying is well documented, and it is just as much of a factual claim to refer to it as it is to refer to climate science.

https://mastodon.social/@richpuchalsky/112978963373973613

We did a natural experiment in this regard -- Covid. Covid caused a dramatic decline in plane flights and other travel, a dramatic increase in work from home, a decrease in large ship luxury travel, all of it far beyond what the most ambitious volunteer campaign might expect. None of it mattered in the long term at all. We are past time for demonstration campaigns and into the time where we need actual changes in infrastructure.

I'm seeing some "soft" versions of this that say that it is a mixed problem. Just to answer multiple people at once:

1) Ordinary people have no real ability to choose what infrastructure they use. They use whatever is built. Individual exceptions are not large enough to matter.

2) To make social change in this regard, you build or destroy infrastructure. It has nothing to do with individual virtuous or immoral decisions, because see (1) above.

Are the Democrats the defense against fascism? No. This mask ban happened in New York, not a "red state". It's in Long Island. The county executive is GOP, but people in Long Island elected him. Fascism is bipartisan.

Don't believe any of the posts saying "know your rights -- cops can't arrest you if X,Y,Z". Cops can do whatever they want in the US and they routinely murder people or set them up.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nassau-county-new-york-signs-first-face-covering-ban-law-rcna166560

Periodic self-repetition: welfare state services are not "left". The welfare state was invented by Bismarck as a way to counter socialism, and involves the state providing services as the state decides. The right is fine with that.

When conservatives denounce welfare and liberals defend it, they are fighting over different versions of state control. Neither one is socialism, which involves public or worker control.

So, we never stopped the Covid-19 pandemic. We're currently just waiting for either or both of H5N1 flu, or mpox, to become worldwide human pandemics as well.

I am not writing this as #covid denialism: the problem is not a single disease. Until we escape neoliberalism. we can never recover any kind of basic functional public health. People who say that we need to do a better job under neoliberalism are not really helping.

Hackers now have the Social Security number or other identifying numbers of everyone in the US, Canada, or the UK apparently. The source, "National Public Data", is not a governmental agency, it's a business that collected and sold the information piecemeal.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hackers-may-stolen-social-security-100000278.html

The UK is fine with racists setting up barricades to stop cars and see whether people are white, but they are going to find and imprison every environmental protestor they can catch.

Don't do protests where you just let the cops catch you! Make plans to get away.

https://www.europesays.com/1385661/

@julieofthespirits

By Humbert Wolfe:

You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.

But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.