Francis 🇾🇪 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ @francis@greenplenty.social

This is brilliant in its own right, and also works as meta-commentary, as no LLM could get the scansion that tight and the rhymes that enjoyable: "well, actually"/polydactyly and plagiarise/Hbomberguys are markers of humanity https://mathstodon.xyz/@andrewt/112380073199982452

@Npars01 @CWilbur @samhenrigold

Thanks to you know who…

Starmer is setting out to be a man who does not rise to the challenges https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/05/05/starmer-is-setting-out-to-be-a-man-who-does-not-rise-to-the-challenges/ Keir Starmer says Labour is for everyone - so long as they’re part of an aspirational family that loves their country and who appears indifferent to the environment, growing international isolation, fascism and inequality. What about the rest? Who is looking after that majority?

The JDL is back. #Toronto

NYPD, finding a bike lock that literally anyone can buy: We have determined that professional agitators have infiltrated the student protests.

NYPD, seeing a discarded pizza box: And we have a strong hunch that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are the culprits.

Every university protest against the genocide in Gaza has specific demands.

Each group wants their university to do something specific.

At UT Austin in Texas, for instance, the protesters have called for the school to divest from Israeli weapons manufacturers. I'll say that again. The school has official working agreements with weapons manufacturers that are currently being used to kill Gazans.

If your argument against students is "they're just using this as an excuse to not to go to class and just want to cause disruption" then you are either being lied to or you are the one lying to others.

If you have not heard of the specific demands and terms of what would stop the protests...

...then you might want to question where you get your news and what other propaganda you have consumed and currently believe.

#stopGenocide #GazaGenocide #protest #universityProtests

Disabled people are not ok. The pandemic has turned society against us (even more than before).

People were quietly ableist before. Now they’re openly hateful.

It was hard to access healthcare before. Now it’s impossible.

It was lonely before. Now it’s a pit of despair

It’s been an incredibly difficult 4 years for disabled and vulnerable individuals. We’ve had to endure terror of knowing we will be triaged out of medical care if system is overwhelmed, have DNRs forced on us & are witnessing aggressive expansion of medically assisted death

We’ve watched as the world clamours to get “back to normal” while completely leaving us behind. We are told to “just stay home” because people don’t want to push for clean air initiatives and can’t be bothered to mask.

Even in hospitals - the one place we have no choice but to go - masking is not required & you run the risk of being labeled difficult or anxious for requesting a HCW mask in your presence. We’re expected to just go along and risk our health & baseline for the comfort of others

When we speak up - we’re shouted down by people who are utterly convinced that the pandemic is over and there’s no risk. We’re told we’re wrong, exaggerating, hypochondriacs or worse. We endure endless trolling & criticism for just wanting to survive.

It didn’t used to be like this. Ableism has always existed - but it was never as aggressively in your face as it is now. People are experiencing trauma from Covid… and rather than cope with it they seem to be lashing out at disabled individuals.

I don’t know if it’s because many mitigations were sold as a means of protecting the vulnerable - or maybe it’s just because we represent a reality people can’t face.

That health is not a permanent state. That Covid is not over and that anyone can become disabled at any time

Whatever the reason - the result is the same. A society that treats disabled people as “less than”. That wants us out of sight & out of mind and that won’t do the bare minimum to protect us. That look the other way when we tell them eugenicist policies are going to end lives

It’s exhausting and terrifying and sad. I’m tired. We are ALL tired. Yet so many of us spend whatever incredibly limited energy we have continuing to advocate for safe public spaces, safe healthcare and an end to eugenics. We fight for equality. And we need allies.

Please remember this the next time you’re entering a public space without a mask. Or tempted to mock a vulnerable person for wearing one. Or accessing healthcare. If it’s easy for you access care - try and imagine how scary it would be if it wasn’t.

Try and have compassion and empathy for people who are different than you. Try and face the difficult truth that one day you too will be disabled - and when that day comes you will want to be treated better than we are currently being treated.

I promise you it’s far easier to advocate from a position of health & strength… so join us. Be our allies. Listen & believe us when we tell stories of unsafe spaces, eugenics and discrimination. Help us change things so that everyone will be better off. /end

#Disability #DisabilityJustice #Eugenics #Ableism #DisabilityRights #WearaMask #ChronicIllness #CovidIsNotOver #CovidIsAirborne #sarscov2

even in the least charitable characterization of Hamas, the situation would be akin to a kidnapper taking a hostage for ransom and the target killing and maiming dozens of people in the kidnapper’s neighborhood in “retaliation” while disregarding attempts to return that same hostage

the charity of evangelical christians is, like everything else, based on their worship of power.

hence, scaled up to nations, also the christian and secular nonprofit industries around the globe. "free clothes"—but not a free clothing industry under the laborers' own control. "free food"—but not to feed one's own community outside of the global marketplace. etc.

it is important that these individually impoverished people and nations continue to worship the twin gods of the white christ and white capital. Because they cannot be trusted to do it of their free will, these people will have to be kept on the edge of utter ruin to be threatened away from ever stopping the worship extracted from them

To quote the excellent Richard Murphy @RichardJMurphy@mas.to...

"Reform has failed. I think it has two seats. It is doing nothing like as well as UKIP did. It is annoying the Tories. It is giving racists and headbangers something to do. But it is not winning support. Its only real achievement seems to be to keep the Greens off the BBC."

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/05/04/labour-is-not-as-out-of-touch-with-reality-as-the-tories-but-it-has-only-a-vague-relationship-with-it/

I was introduced last week to the concept of an “accountability sink”; a structural technique for saying “the rules/tools/processes made me do it” and therefore avoiding accountability. They aren’t universally bad but booooy is AI going to create a lot of them in bad places, like (checks notes) killing civilians.
https://kolektiva.social/@danmcquillan/112377379849654399

#FreePalestine

Woking becomes the first council in Surrey to have no Tories at all. I repeat, IN SURREY. 🤣
#LocalElections #GTTO https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/woking-election-results-chobham-byfleet-29102102