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Of course everyone knows that @reallyndacarter @wilwheaton and @neil-gaiman are just the same 15 year old posting with three different accounts.

"4 day ceasefire" "but we're still going to flatten gaza right after so this means nothing to us." hate how they're framing it as a ceasefire this is just another humanitarian pause and this is not what the people are asking for when they demand a ceasefire.

one of my oldest memories is from when i was about five or six years old. my grandma was visiting that evening, so she was tucking me into bed. now, my parents raised us agnostic with a side of unitarian universalism, so i knew next to nothing about christianity, or that god fellow, or whatever. my grandparents never approved of this, convinced they were damning us kids to hell forever.

so when my grandma was tucking me in and she told me to repeat after her and say “i love you jesus,” i did.

but then she said: “there. and now you’ve let jesus into your heart.” and kissed me and left me to dream sweet child dreams probably of jesus saving my immortal soul or whatever.

except, i didn’t know who the fuck jesus was, and i did not understand metaphor. i certainly had not realized that by saying that, i had apparently invited a small man to take up residence in my heart. my child brain raced with panic: was he in there? what would he do? would i be able to feel him moving around? was he stuck forever now? that seemed mean to him, and felt like my grandma had played a trick on me.

so, sensibly, i decided my best bet to expel this tiny man who i had NOT wanted to move into my heart (aside from surgery, which i discounted as an option when i imagined asking my parents about it) was to do the reverse incantation: i fell asleep that night mumbling and mentally shouting I HATE YOU JESUS I HATE YOU JESUS I HATE YOU JESUS, hoping he would get the message and relocate somewhere that wanted him.

Portal 3 shouldn’t be about Chell but should be about another guy going through Aperture be it a combine soldier or human survivor or whatever else and GLaDOS is like Is that you rustling around back there. You know, I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. followed by a long unusually heartfelt and vulnerable one-sided conversation with you. And then you reach her chamber and she’s like Oh. You’re not. And then she opens a trapdoor under you and sends you hurtling into the incinerator.

I'm a little startled that the American mythology--honestly, I don't know another word that captures the depth of the concept--around guns, militias, and the 2nd Amendment is wholly predicated on that idea that if we were treated the way Palestinians are, most of us would (and all of us "should") be a nearly exact copy of Hamas.

This collective value just runs so deep along a significant portion of this country that, if our government were financing and arming a genocide like this against white people--the English? Italians? How about the Vatican in particular?--I feel like we'd see immediate armed insurrection. That's always been the claim.

Like. Intellectually, I know this value is absolutely fake. No one who interprets a gun right in the 2nd amendment actually believes it's about fighting back against an oppressive government. It's empty, selfish, rhetoric.

But seeing it laid bare amidst the return of fascism, and our government's continued participation in and celebration of genocide... I dunno. This is a 2A'ers wet dream. And yet. Their ideology has never been this thoroughly neutered before.

There's another part of militia culture that's worth looking at. Because again, it's startling how their stated values don't get applied to people of color.

While this is a wider conservative "value", it's deeply present in militia culture: their greatest (unfounded) fear is that foreigners will move into their communities and "replace them" by kicking them out.

This belief has led to significant violence against both legal and illegal immigrants. Part of it comes from voting for laws that make crossing the border more difficult and/or dangerous.

But it also includes border vigilantes who murder migrants. And militia members who infiltrate government departments, like border patrol, to enact this kind of violence with authority. It's not an accident that terrorist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are comprised of police officers, FBI agents, and ex-military.

What's interesting, in a hypocritical way, is that their whole *professed* belief system matches what Palestinians are living.

Palestinians were *actually* replaced by foreigners who violently removed them from their own communities. And many, like Hamas, are fighting back against this fascist force that has been suppressing them.

That militia culture "stands with Israel" should make it clear that they don't believe their stated values. It's a mostly-fictitious belief system meant to promote white supremacy, under the guise of independence and defense.

Is that a trebuchet in your pants or are you just happy to siege me

I know it's the Atlantic (12ft.io to bypass paywall), but if SCOTUS upholds this, this is the beginning of the end for democracy in the USA. This is an extremely serious threat and I don't think it's getting as much attention as it deserves

Essentially, right wing states can just violate voting rights without repercussions, and it will have a snowball effect

hi everyone i made a crossword if anyone wants to play it

despite everything, actually it means a lot to see people who don't need to care posting for palestine. i often see zionists aghast that "some too-online white leftist in the united states thinks they understand the middle east" but i think this anger and panic and ensuing discourse has (deliberately) overshadowed how much of this solidarity has been clear, straight-forward and compassionate.

i think about how arab countries stood up for palestine first (not their governments, but their people) and how between 1948 and today the united states and israel have categorically and systematically destroyed our abilities to do so, destroyed our abilities to speak at all, destroyed our attempts at self-determination, destroyed our countries, and now antizionist jews, black people, queer people, indigenous people, immigrants and other minorities have taken up this mantle worldwide. and yeah, the too-online white leftists too.

i actually find it very touching to see how diverse pro-palestine protests are. i find it very touching to see someone articulate clearly that they understand what happened to palestinians despite 75 years of historical revisionism and propaganda. i find it very touching when people aren't intimidated by the middle east like it's some unknowable no-man's land full of terrorists and challenge that narrative.

i saw the video of that man who worked for the white house under obama, you probably know the one i'm talking about, taunting an egyptian man at a halal food cart in new york. he specifically taunts him about the mukhabrat, the egyptian secret service, and he says "i hope they take your father's fingernails out." he's openly gleeful to know the term, the access provided by the violence of the state department. i think about how suspicious i've always been of americans who speak arabic because they're usually here to spy on us, modern-day orientalists and arabists who see us as assets or threats.

i think about how these are the people who parrot "the middle east is so complicated" rhetoric—people who say it's complicated because they hate us, because they see us as savages, because they don't actually know anything about us and don't want anyone else to. this is what they're desperate to hold onto, this monopoly on 'expertise on the middle east' so that nobody can say, hey, they're just people. its not more or less complicated than anything else. it's only complicated because you're racist.

its easy to use platitudes like "i see all people equally" but it's more difficult to demonstrate it when it counts and even moreso when someone claims your bravery and compassion is actually hatred. thanks for doing it.

English translations provided; I am simply transcribing them here.

The final statement Palestinian journalist Ayat Al Khadour made before she was killed by an Israeli bombardment:

"Today the occupation fired white phosphorous bombs on the area of Beit Lahia housing project as well as terrifying thermobaric bombs. They dropped leaflets asking for the evacuation of the area and everyone left and everyone ran in the streets in a manic way not knowing where they are going. We are not together a small number of us and I stayed at home and everyone else evacuated and of course we do not know where they went. The situation is extremely frightening and the whole thing is very terrifying and what is happening is completely difficult. And may our lord have mercy on us."

Calling the Israelis staying in Hotels because they chose to live in stolen homes in stolen lands until their good little fascist government eradicates the threat (an entire population) "internally displaced" while thousands of Palestinians have permanently lost their homes due to Israel bombing entire residential buildings; the same Palestinians who were already kicked out of their home and ARE displaced in Gaza because the settlers stole them years ago is so fucking insidious how the fuck is no one else vomiting reading this shit

Motaz, posting on 11/21/2023, about the immediate, targeted danger he is in

He posted this about an hour ago, followed by this below message indicating he is a target

When all avenues for peace are denied, violence is inevitable.

The death toll in Gaza has reached 13,000, with at least 5,500 being children and 3,500 being women

It is now at over 14,000

So a free tool called GLAZE has been developed that allows artists to cloak their artwork so it can't be mimicked by AI art tools.

AI art bros are big mad about it.

Seeing as Twitter is gonna legally steal your work now, please use glaze to protect what you make.

Guys did you hear about Nightshade?

Using both Glaze and Nightshade would corrupt the generation of pictures mimicking artist AND mess with the AI's recognition of what everything is. Like it would generate a dog when you ask for a cat.

And it would be hell for AI bros to remove the cloaked pictures from their database ʕ 👀人ʔ