Notices by Vitrine Litanies (intransitivelie@c.im)

I promise, fascists do fascism without any help from Russia. I'm not saying Russia is never involved, but it doesn't have to be most of the time because our fascists are perfectly happy to do fascism all by themselves.

@Adam_Cadmon1
It's almost as if they don't have colonialist superpowers colluding against their legitimately-elected officials for reasons of "freedom and democracy." Odd that. I wonder why brown people can't seem to get socialism right.

/heavy sarcasm if that wasn't clear

@timberwraith
The biggest issue I have with the whole thing is that I don't understand why the Democrats do it. I get that they don't care, but seriously, if you want Republican things to pass, just become Republicans. Why don't they learn that they can't hold power with this weak-willed centrism? It's mind-boggling. They do it again and again as if it works to get them what they want.

And then, in my darker days, I consider that what they want is the illusion of choice, which is really Occam's Razor. I'd like to believe that they do genuinely hold some of the positions they claim to hold, but it's getting harder and harder to believe. I can't think of a better way to enact a wildly-unpopular agenda than to splinter your opposition into feuding clans who can't unite to defeat what they all agree is terrible. And make no mistake, the majority of Americans aren't rabid fascists. There's not broad support for a lot of Republican policies. But if you disaffect enough voters and disenfranchise the rest, you can win every time and claim to be following the will of the people.

I don't know. It's... infuriating. I'm not expecting Joe Biden to be a good person, but why doesn't he seem to want to win the election? Surely he's egotistical enough to want to win, right? Surely he's an amoral politician who desires power? If he's going to pick hills to die on, why the everliving fuck is he picking these ones?

Sorry, rhetorical questions all.

Dear students,

Feel free to cheat as much as possible. I get paid either way, you get charged either way, and if you just want a piece of paper saying you attended a certain number of credit hours, who am I to stop you? Seriously, I don't care, and wasting my time trying to figure out whether you cheated is pointless. This is undergrad.

I would suggest that you get really good at cheating if you're going to do it because you will find that in your future career it's a skill that will serve you, but people get better at detecting it as you go along. I'm not here to teach you how to do it though. They don't pay me to do that.

I would also suggest that, since you're paying for this experience, you might consider actually learning the material I teach, because it's useful to know. You'll find that, in your future career, people who actually matter will care less about the piece of paper and more about the knowledge, though I admit many jobs won't. If you find yourself nice job which doesn't care whether you know anything and will pay you a decent wage, hold on to that job like your life depends on it, because it probably will.

I'm not going to do pointless nonsense like take attendance either. You're officially adults. You can take responsibility for your actions. If you don't show up, you won't learn the material and you will have wasted your money in that regard. I don't need to know why you didn't show up. You've probably got a good reason. It's none of my business.

If you use "artificial intelligence" to write your papers for you, I certainly hope you learn enough to tell whether it's just regurgitating garbage. If I get a paper which is regurgitated garbage, I'll grade it as such, whether it's because you didn't understand the material or you used an AI to write your paper. If I get an amazing paper, I'll secretly hate it if it's an AI, but I'll give it good marks.

You are not here to prove to me that you learned things. You're here to learn things. If you refuse to do that, you don't need to lie about it. All you're doing is wasting your money, and this isn't a course on money management.

Love,
Your professor

Corporate media isn't failing you. It doesn't serve you. You're the intended audience but it serves capital and power. Stop framing it as a failure. Corporate media is performing exactly as designed.

The thing with saying that we've let fascism return is that we never really defeated it. Until we reckon with our own history of fascism, we can't. And so it will continue to "pop up" again and again even though it's been there the whole time.

It's past time America, and indeed the world, recognized the foundation of modernity on slavery, genocide, racism, theft, and bigotry. The world is as it is today because of those things. Fascism is a symptom of a greater societal problem.

They say those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it, but I think it's more accurate to say that those who don't reckon with history are doomed to continue it. That's all this is: a continuation of the historical path which continues to lead to fascism and violence, oppression and bigotry. You can know that and still continue in that path. Learning history isn't enough, because I guarantee you that a lot of fascists know their history and like what they see.

You have to make a decision. Are you going to continue in the arc your ancestors set you on, or are you going to recognize that they were flawed and we can do better. Maybe that recognition is painful. You might recognize things about yourself you don't like.

And maybe the arc is comfortable. Maybe it privileges you now. Without the foundation your ancestors built, maybe you wouldn't be in such a good position. It's natural to see that and turn away, to think that you're losing something.

But if you want to build a better world, you've got to get out of the rut. And this is one of those problems like climate change where individual responsibility is necessary but woefully insufficient. It requires fundamental change to society. In fact, the fight against climate change is part of this broader fight.

So yes, we have to fight fascism now. We have to because if we don't, we won't survive to make that better world. But don't mistake mitigating a symptom for curing the disease. Right now we're trying to keep the patient from dying on our watch, but even if we succeed, the disease will still be there.

So I guess I'm asking you to remember that. Society is sick. It will not survive. We have to decide whether that means we all die, or whether it means we change.

Change is scary. I don't ask you to like it. And this change will be painful. It will require a lot of us to give up things we took for granted. You may not live to see better days. That's hard to take.

But if you can't do it for future generations, if you can't do it for your neighbor, your loved ones, your friends, you fellow humans, then I'm asking you to do it out of spite. Because I'll be damned if I'm going to let those bastards win. I'm not going to let the Trumps and Elon Musks and whiny incels and 4chan dipshits and liberal-tear-drinking proud deplorables have the satisfaction. I'm not going to let them have the last laugh, and last it might certainly be if we let them.

I want to believe that my ancestors' mistakes and yes, evil, don't define me. That they don't get to define the world I'm going to live in. That the foundations of this rotten edifice will be replaced and the building built anew, stronger and more resilient. And that starts with admitting that the foundation is in need of replacement.

I support Black people and I support trans people and I support Black trans people. It's possible, y'all.

Once again, ignorance is not the reason for fascism, and you can't educate your way out of a situation which you didn't get into by ignorance.

Believe me, fascists know exactly what they're doing, and they often know history quite well. You can't inform them. They already know.

Education has its importance, particularly in reaching those who aren't yet convinced, but you can't convince a bigot or a fascist to give up their path through reason. They don't care about hypocrisy either.

And saying, "People wouldn't be bad if they were better educated," is both incorrect and egotistical. There are plenty of well-educated evil people, and by positioning education as the divider, you imply that your side is smarter and therefore better.

Education, specifically public, public-funded, and liberal (from a classic not a political standpoint) education is also valuable because it gives children the opportunity to meet other people. It gets them out of insular family groupings. That's why fascists want to control education. Not because a poorly-educated populace is inherently less moral, but because they want to isolate children and indoctrinate them.

Some of this stuff is arguable. The conclusion isn't. You can't educate your way out of a fascism. It is necessary but insufficient.

@apps
In your last release you fixed Lingva translation but is there a new setting that needs to be used because it's still not working for me. I suspect user error rather than bug, since I don't know how it worked before it broke.

@apps
This is a great feature, but I wish it would only warn me when I try to post without alt text. As it is, the warning pops up every five seconds or so until I add a description to my images. Since it overlaps the description box, it makes it harder to do what it's reminding me to do.

I had a #cat who was deaf who loved being vacuumed. We'd use the small brush attachment and brush him with it and he'd just lie there and purr. He was also the king of the neighborhood cats because they would try to intimidate him by yowling at him and he would just ignore them. He had tough, tough street cats who were terrified of him. He was a good kitty. I miss him sometimes.