Notices by Michael Halila 🏳️‍⚧️ (mhalila@mastodontti.fi)

An icon for the fediverse? Yes! Grandfather Nurgle will welcome us in his embrace.

A couple of headlines from today. While the ethnic cleansing of Gaza continues:

"West Bank children being killed at unprecedented rate" by Israeli troops and settlers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/19/west-bank-children-killed-unprecedented-rate

Israel is deliberately targeting ambulances, rescue crews and other emergency services in Lebanon https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/18/lebanon-civil-defence-reels-after-deadly-israeli-strike

And the whole "rules-based international order" looks on and keeps arming Israel so they can butcher even more innocents.

Meanwhile, in Germany, according to the Berlin chief of police, antisemitic violence is rising dramatically.

What kind of antisemitic violence?

"Of the 1,300 investigations regarding violent crimes, it is mostly about attacks or resistance against police officers at demonstrations".

So when the Berlin police attack demonstrators, if those demonstrators resist, it's antisemitic violence.

What an absolutely extraordinary time to be alive. https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/article-829696

If a person from Greenland has a child in Denmark, the Danish state will use a totally unsuitable test to see if they're "civilised enough" to take care of their child. If not, the child is taken away from them.

Colonialism is alive and well in the Nordics in 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/25/danish-parenting-tests-baby-removed-from-greenlandic-mother

Israel confirms Palestinians won't be allowed back to northern Gaza, and sources tell Haaretz that Israel will annex the area.

This is what we keep saying this is about: the ethnic cleansing and annexation of Palestinian land.

It's just war crime after war crime, while our leaders cover their eyes and pretend they can't see. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/06/palestinians-will-not-be-allowed-to-return-to-homes-in-northern-gaza-says-idf

I still think it's interesting to ask what form of government the US is exactly. In a sense, a democracy, with a franchise limited by overt racism (voter suppression, gerrymandering and so on) and subject to almost dictatorial oversight by a Supreme Court elected for life and functionally immune to accountability.

Now they've decided that a president can try to overthrow democracy as part of his official duties. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jul/01/supreme-court-decision-trump-immunity-ruling

If you look at Trump's coup attempt, and the way the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court are behaving, I don't know how you see this as anything other than a concerted effort to impose minority rule. Such democracy as the US has is too much for these people, and they're working determinedly to scrap it.

The US Supreme Court isn't really a court of law any more, in the sense that a European would think of one. The closest equivalent that I can think of is Iran's Guardian Council: a theocratic body with veto powers over basically all functions of government, dedicated to maintaining religious supremacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_Council

Your reminder that Israel is deliberately starving over two million people in Gaza. This is a horrifying, inhuman atrocity, a war crime being openly carried out in front of our very eyes. They are ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip.

"Never again" is right now. And all our governments and leaders are standing by, watching two million people starve to death, and inviting the war criminals to the Eurovision Song Contest. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/24/israel-reportedly-blocking-un-food-aid-to-northern-gaza-despite-high-famine-risk

"All billionaires under 30 have inherited their wealth, research finds"

Of course they have. We're creating a new hereditary elite, a group of oligarchs who've done absolutely nothing to earn a single dime of their wealth. Exactly like the nobility used to be.

Why do we let them hoard these fortunes? It's ridiculous. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/03/all-billionaires-under-30-have-inherited-their-wealth-research-finds

Those of you who follow this kind of thing may recall that a few months ago, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested the pro-Palestine protests were being financed and run by Russia, and said the FBI should investigate them.

Neoliberalism and political power are a hell of a drug. Do enough of them, and you can no longer understand that some people might actually care about what happens to other people. No, it has to somehow be a sinister foreign plot. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/29/pelosi-condemned-pro-palestinian-russia-ties

Today in things you literally cannot make up: a senior Democrat congressman calls protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza "leftwing fascists" and demands their arrest.

Is it any wonder Trump is winning, when both parties are using his rhetoric and making his arguments? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/israel-gaza-ceasefire-adam-smith

"Although the UK is in recession, and GDP per head has been steadily falling through last year, this is not a typical recession which involves lack of aggregate demand, but one caused by sharp cuts to real incomes following higher energy and food prices, as well as labour shortages caused in part by an increasingly sick workforce following Conservative mismanagement of the NHS and Covid pandemic."

The UK is in a recession caused by austerity and right-wing incompetence. https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2024/03/detoxifying-government-debt-part-4.html

This is where we're headed as well. Austerity doesn't actually create any real economic growth, but rather depresses the whole economy as the people suffering from it spend less. So the massive cuts our far-right government is planning will probably push us further toward a recession.

Then when the next election comes around, the media will panic about the deficit because we're in a recession, and re-elect the arsonists to put out the fire.

@AnarchoNinaWrites I mean they are definitely telling us, loud and clear, exactly who they are. I could swear I've heard something about what not to do when you're in a hole, but what do I know.

@AnarchoNinaWrites safing my space by listening to minorities, but you know, only real minorities, not the fake ones. I am definitely very progressive.

Look, it's simple. Carbon credits are a scam and have always been a scam.

The atmosphere doesn't care about our accounting tricks. Anyone who says that we can pump more greenhouse gases and pollutants into the air, but it'll be fine because we'll "compensate" for it, is lying.

What we need everyone to understand next is that this is why "net zero" is also a hoax. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/24/carbon-credit-speculators-could-lose-billions-as-offsets-deemed-worthless-aoe

@AnarchoNinaWrites I lost interest in something like 90% of discussions on politics when I realized they're actually people writing fan fiction about politics and enforcing standards of propriety. So many objections, like the ones you quoted, boil down to nothing except "this is not a proper way to speak".

Several people have replied to this post without reading it, and at least two have started mansplaining what I said to me. And you people said this platform couldn't replace Twitter!

"AI is going to take your job!"

Like hell it is. Try:

"A super-rich capitalist has invested billions of dollars into replacing human creative work with a shitty computer program, so he can pocket more of the profits."

When you stop intentionally obscuring who is doing things and who is benefiting from them, the world starts looking very different indeed.