If you believe policing "used to be about serving and protecting," please know the institution was specifically created to maintain and control slave populations, and later used to enforce Jim Crow laws. The system is sadly operating exactly as intended.
https://gen.medium.com/slavery-and-the-origins-of-the-american-police-state-ec318f5ff05b
I watched the joyous skateboarding montage of #TyreNichols.
He could be your friend, your brother, your kid. In fact he is. So is:
#TrayvonRice
#GeorgeFloyd
#FreddieGray
#SamDubose
#PhilandoCastile #TerenceCrutcher
#AltonSterling
#JamarClark
#JeremyMcDole
#WilliamChapman II
#WalterScott
#EricHarris
#AkaiGurley
#MichaelBrown
#EricGarner
It will never cease to amaze me that we said, "hey, actually, it *does* matter if Black people live or die," and that made white people lose they muthafuckin mind.
the hard truth is that shifting our taxes away from violence (status quo militarized police forces in all our cities) and toward community care and healing (mobile aid units, housing and warming shelters, crisis care, etc) takes focused, dedicated, relentless, tedious, and endless community organizing.
From all of us.
Impacting city budgets requires citizens self-organizing change at every level: social, political, and economic.
No getting around it, the work is hard and it never ends.
Biden has supportive words and appeals to be peaceful for Black folk brutalized by police, but billions of dollars of extra funding for the cops. I'd prefer it if he had kind and supportive words for the police, and gave us the billions of dollars of funding.
Biden has new laws to further criminalize the behavior of innocent Black people brutalized by cops. I'd prefer it if he made new laws to criminalize the behavior of cops that brutalize innocent Black people.
This asymmetry reveals a lot.
Now now, let's make sure that protests against a privileged caste allowed to beat citizens to death in the street with impunity are _peaceful_.
Yeah, you're finally punishing the cossacks when a few of them happen to be Black. But keep it _peaceful_.
Because _peaceful_, well-behaved, respectful protests always lead to the real change. Which is why American cops stopped murdering people for sport several decades ago. See, it all works out. Peaceful.
Beautiful, moody, mystery/suspense with a bit of supernatural, THE ICE SINGS BACK by M Jackson. Missing child in the Pacific northwest means something different to 4 different women. #ewgc @bookstodon
As an aside because this managed to ruin my day someplace else online recently:
Anarchism is by nature a socialist ideological position. The very first international gather of anarchists started with defining who is an anarchist. The first like of that definition is "first you must be socialist."
Anarchism without socialism is fundamentally reactionary in nature; so if you're an "anarcho something" that isn't a socialist? I'm bucketing you with the nazis and I don't give a fuck if you howl.
Okay, I cannot figure out how #WriteFreely works. :)
I started to draft a post yesterday, and closed the browser assuming that what I'd entered would be saved as a draft. But I don't think it was? It's just gone?
So I started again, and looked for a button to save the draft somehow. But the only thing I see is the "publish" arrow, and that (I think?) actually publishes it. If I want it to be a draft I have to go to the published thing and press "convert to draft".
Is that right?
This is very confusing...
The Jehovah's Witnesses are no longer a "religious community" in Norway https://youtu.be/EKCHu5d2J_A
Woo!
Decades of research prove that the best way to end homelessness is...
Give people a home. Seriously. That's it. No strings, no prerequisites, no faith-based, holistic, means-tested, yoga-cebtric meditation parole. Just a home.
Right, mastodon, need some help here from all of you:
What platform will I be able to find good #fantasy #steampunk #stories by up-and-coming authors?
My eternal gratitude to everyone who can make this do the rounds on the #fediverse
Okay, well here we go. I never quite got the hang of Twitter, but here I am because I like what Mastodon stands for and I want to find a community of #sciencefiction lovers and/or other #author types. Greetings Mastodon and #bookstodon and in particular my #cyberpunk people.
Hey there new #Mastodon friends. I have been considering doing a book giveaway for my novel, Colossus, but a book giveaway doesn't really help anyone. INSTEAD I will be doing what I am calling a Donation Giveaway because I don't know what else to call it?
Essentially, I am price matching any money folks spend on my novel as a donation to the #TrevorProject - details on my site below. Looking to start 2023 off with good vibes!
https://pleasefeedthesquirrels.com/news/2023/1/1/donation-giveaway
Dunking on laid off tech workers is exactly the kind of wage serf on wage serf verbal violence oligarchs love to see.
Some came from underprivileged backgrounds too & won’t as easily get new jobs.
But people shouldn’t need to have that in common to be compassionate to each other.
I never understand people happy to see others fail at something like keeping a job in a wave of layoffs.
We’re numbed as a society to our humanity because there’s a false scarcity mentality created by oligarchs holding all the strings.
I want to see the oligarchs fail to numb us.
If you want to support my writing and independent presses, ordering the MERRY DREDGERS preorder package directly from my publisher would be a colossal help.
Any signal boosts would be lovely!
https://meerkatpress.shop/products/the-merry-dredgers-by-jeremy-c-shipp
NEW: California state bar regulators announced they've filed a disciplinary case against Trump lawyer John Eastman re: 2020, and will seek to disbar him. More to come.
Doc: https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/r7njR7NGuKxw/v0
Catching up on my bread-baking posts: I tried my hand at something new: @sourdough2021 's "Multi-Seeded Sourdough with San Francisco Starter" recipe. Both loaves didn't get a huge amount of oven spring, but came out rather well, i think. I had to make some educated substitutions for a couple flours & things i didn't have (e.g., a certain dried bean, some minor flours), but the process was clear, the dough came together beautifully, and it smells great. #BreadPost #Sourdough
A consciousness somehow associated with matter.
Posting about culture, philosophy, politics, AI Art Tools, NaNoWriMo, Software Development occasionally, the relationship of consciousness to matter.
Degrees in Philosophy and Computer Science, once had a US TS/SCI(redacted) clearance, radical-for-the-US politics, ex-Libertarian, zen-buddhist-pantheist-atheist.
Google employee, but I do not speak for Google in any way.
If your profile tells me nothing about you, it's less likely I'll follow you (back).
Header: abstract smoky patterns
pfp: Adorable weird piglet / delirium cultist... thing. In a hoodie.