[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited from my diigo]
ちょび丸が、またなにか喋り出した…怖い… pic.twitter.com/HAixAFQNg8
— LLR伊藤 (@llritotomohiro) November 11, 2018
Many journalists still assume that language is neutral, that you can just repeat language and it’s completely neutral. In fact, language is never neutral. Language is always framed in a certain way, and it always has consequences. https://t.co/tCo6qnRThM
— George Lakoff (@GeorgeLakoff) November 16, 2018
And so the bullshit starts from a #Brazil ruled by #JairBolsonaro. Be prepared for much more of this #nonsense. Add violence against internal minorities. https://t.co/Fy1AjAaNNH
— Laurens van Rooijen (@bikejourno) November 16, 2018
— Pn Gp (@gioradnopina35) November 14, 2018
Commander in crap: Donald Trump toilet brush making bathrooms great again, via @nzherald https://t.co/orjltGWAef
— Jon Lee Anderson (@jonleeanderson) November 15, 2018
#brexitingifs pic.twitter.com/U3jUNUUnp8
— coaduno (@conligit) November 15, 2018
Live from Westminster. pic.twitter.com/fr9Vm4BZ1F
— Caroline Goldsmith (@GoldCaro) November 15, 2018
I love that The Correspondent is trying to build credibility in the US by trying to attract PoC but someone should ask them how they treat PoC in The Netherlands: how many they employ & what their writers think of "identity politics" (hint: that they use such naming says enough)
— Flavia Dzodan (@redlightvoices) November 14, 2018
'Virtue Signalling' is the most destructive term because it implies that you do everything you do only because it's 'regarded as virtuous' by others. This implies you yourself don't 'really' believe in it but simply do it for personal gain. https://t.co/xbMlCrojV5
— Robin Schwarz (@anyRobinSchwarz) November 14, 2018
Two Neo-Nazi brothers may have been planning another attack relate to Synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, who they talked with on Gab. Hours after Bowers started shooting, one of the brothers killed himself. The other was arrested on weapons chargeshttps://t.co/P6yjQQFJks
— Micah Lee (@micahflee) November 14, 2018
If. 😂 https://t.co/kU048RywTi
— Esther Brunner #WontBeErased (@esthrbrunnr) November 14, 2018
— Eater of Souls #VetsResistSquadron (@EaterSouls) November 13, 2018
if only there was some kind of sign… https://t.co/2eE85onVHU
— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) November 13, 2018
My kid's birthday cake featuring accurate geological layers and a semi buried t-rex skeleton.
Made by my very talented partner. pic.twitter.com/ANsqEx17Tp
— John Darroch (@theirpeaceiswar) November 11, 2018
Liberté, Egalité, Covfefé pic.twitter.com/qouZZdMYH8
— Trump Baby (@TrumpBabyUK) November 11, 2018
#ifyouonlyreadone
I can‘t believe it’s not samizdat! – Peter Mitchell – “Victim-blaming is an old tactic of people who want to remove certain groups from the public sphere. So is the pattern of a dominant group which feels its power being threatened creating a narrative in which they are themselves being oppressed by an intolerant majority, or undermined by a conspiracy.” It’s a con job, and the media are playing along (or falling for it)
#watch,
Attendre ou provoquer – “Lettre filmée à partir du texte « Chroniques du pied de biche – Quelques éclats de vie par effraction », témoignage subversif, offensif et autocritique sur une expérience de vie de 15 ans (et plus) en squats, écrit anonymement.” Squatter talks about his experience with the I wanna say usual french linguistic precision.
Turning Pay Phones Into Coworking Spaces – Hmm, that Starbucks partnership, I hope it’s ironic.
Every Stan Lee Cameo Ever (1989-2018) – “Today (12.11.2018) Stan “The Man” Lee passed away at age 95.” R.I.P.
A crazy looking cat at his mom’s house!” – The voice over kinda sucks.
listen and
Solecast w/ Sima Lee on Anarchism, Hip-hop & Revolutionary Praxis – “Sima Lee is a truly revolutionary artist who was raised on Black Panther-eque / Black Nationalist communities of self defense and mutual aid. Her entire life has been spent making rap music and doing revolutionary organizing.” Just wow.
#learn
Birdwatching with Jonathan Franzen: ‘Climate change isn’t the only danger to birds’ – “The two things I love most are novels and birds, and they’re both in trouble,’ says The Corrections author, one of the world’s most famous birdwatchers” Cats.
Empire’s Racketeers (boston review) – “Wajahat Ali speaks with Pankaj Mishra on the devastating consequences of Western imperialism, globalization, and capitalism and the fate of liberal democracy.” Liberal democracy favours the concentration oligarchic power on fewer and fewer individuals.
Unfolding Crisis In California Part of Growth of Internal Refugees (it’s going down) – “But while Trump and the rest of the far-Right has spent weeks building up fear around the so-called “migrant caravan,” within the United States, much larger scores of internal refugees are being mass produced through eviction, rising housing prices, and now, massive fires and hurricanes. These new internal refugees are taking on different forms, from park lots filled with the working poor, displaced from their neighborhoods, to climate refugees burned and washed out of their homes now grouping together in the back of Walmarts and on beaches, to say nothing of the growing number of homeless tent cities and encampments popping up across the country, as the population of houseless people grows in the first time since the Great Recession.” Internal migrations might soon turn into a huge topic everywhere.
The Earth is in a death spiral. It will take radical action to save us | George Monbiot (the guardian) – “What is it that you are asking me as a 20-year-old to face and to accept about my future and my life? … This is an emergency. We are facing extinction. When you ask questions like that, what is it you want me to feel?” askes Lizia Woolf at a press conference. And we lame older people have no answers, we failed you, young ones, we failed you, and all I can say for my part, I am so so sorry. Which doesn’t do shit.
This Is All Donald T®ump Has Left – “T®ump won’t stop. He won’t stop because he’s never told the truth in his life and because this is all he has and all he has ever had. He wakes up every day to the mess he’s made and says and does whatever he must, at whatever cost, to get through the day. Like many in his generation, Trump has mistaken the end of his life for the end of the world.” While T®ump swings from lie to lie, and they get more extreme, please let us not forget Lakoffs truth sandwich (see tweet above).
The plastic backlash: what’s behind our sudden rage – and will it make a difference? (the guardian) – “Decades after it became part of the fabric of our lives, a worldwide revolt against plastic is under way.” Plastic is made from crude oil.
The Gospel According to Mark Fisher (jacobin) – “There is a society beyond individuals — and, as a corollary point, the setbacks and catastrophes sustained by individuals usually have collective political and economic causes. They therefore must have collective political and economic solutions. The utility of individualizing problems, as neoliberalism does, is to prevent us from identifying and pursuing those solutions — chiefly because the solutions will inevitably involve undermining the profits and redistributing the wealth of the capitalist elites who run society and want to keep it that way.” Mark Fisher kept believing. Until he didn’t anymore and took his own life.
What would a smog-free city look like? (the guardian) – “Forget ‘solutions’ such as smog towers, air-filtering buses and pollution-eating paints. We need to prevent the air pollution in the first place” Some good thoughts, but it goes hardly far enough.
FBI report shows thousands more hate crimes in Trump’s first year, a record high (boingboing) – “2013 • 5,928 hate crimes 2014 •5,462 hate crimes 2015 •5,818 hate crimes 2016 •6,063 hate crimes 2017 •8,437 hate crimes.” Thanks T®ump.
The Alt-Right’s Favorite Meme Is 100 Years Old (nyt) – “‘Cultural Marxism’ might sound postmodern but it’s got a long, toxic history.” Not even new. But yeah, it’s antisemitic.
Emoji Builder – Build your own emoji here. Yeh. It says so on the tin.
Donna Zuckerberg: ‘Social media has elevated misogyny to new levels of violence’ (the guardian) – “When the academic, sister of Mark Zuckerberg, began exploring online antifeminism, she discovered far-right men’s groups were using classical antiquity to support their views” Donna who just so happens to be the sister of Mark Zuckerberg has written a book about the manosphere.
How Nicaragua’s Anti-Terror Laws Suppress Dissent (the intercept) – “As Maduro has done in Venezuela, Ortega has used classic autocratic tactics to stamp out dissent. The government has denied the state’s role in violence, and Ortega has changed his story multiple times about whether the masked paramilitaries seen in videos working alongside police are his supporters. He has painted protesters as the sole actors causing chaos and portrayed government forces as the country’s peaceful defenders against terrorists destabilizing the nation.” What a tragic situation. Come on, Ortega, you can’t be serious.
New study claims Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are linked to depression – “A new study conducted by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania has shown — for the first time — a causal link between time spent on social media and depression and loneliness, the researchers said.” I concur.
MPAA: Switzerland Remains “Extremely Attractive” For Pirate Sites (torrentfreak) – “In a recent submission to the US Trade Representative, the MPAA again states that Switzerland’s copyright law is wholly inadequate, making it extremely attractive to host illegal sites there. The European country has plans to update its laws, but the proposed changes are no significant improvement, Hollywood’s trade group notes.” And to be honest, we here still wonder, if they just don’t get it, or if this is a conscious choice.
Pro-Copyright Bias is Alive, Well, and Still Hiding the Full Story – “In 2007 and as recently as January 2018, the director of the movie The Man From Earth was championing the promotional effects of piracy. Last week, out of nowhere, he appeared to do a complete turnaround, branding the phenomenon as a threat to all creators. Something didn’t feel right about this apparent change of heart. Diving into the details, a bigger picture begins to emerge.” I get his point, this is valid and nuanced critique.
#oldiebutgoodie
The Coddling of the American Mind review – how elite US liberals have turned rightwards (the guardian) – “As the right liberals insist that students are suffering from pathological “distortions”, a sense of unreality prevails. In their safe space of TED talks and thinktanks and think pieces, the genteel crusaders against “political correctness” create their own speech codes. As their constituency shrinks, their cant of progress starts to sound hysterical. The minds they coddle just may be their own.” That was the article that had Haidt done and dusted. Yet with the translation of the book to german, we’ll have to go through the same circle again. The Ugugus of this world make sure of that.
Since Steven Pinker is all over the news here in Switzerland after the translation of his book to German:
Hype for the Best – “Why does Steven Pinker insist that human life is on the up?” Samuel Moyn.
teven Pinker’s Ideas About Progress Are Fatally Flawed. These Eight Graphs Show Why. – “It’s time to reclaim the mantle of “Progress” for progressives. By falsely tethering the concept of progress to free market economics and centrist values, Steven Pinker has tried to appropriate a great idea for which he has no rightful claim.” Jeremy Lent
You can deny environmental calamity – until you check the facts – “Rosy worldviews that rely on avoiding inconvenient truths should always set alarm bells ringing” George Monbiot
4D propaganda: Dismiss, distort, distract, dismay. pic.twitter.com/3oQ4shog3F
— Ben Nimmo (@benimmo) November 27, 2015
Bini Adamczak: “Rechte imitieren die Revolte” (der spiegel) – “Die Funktion der faschistischen Bewegung ist, das Unbehagen in der Gesellschaft aufzugreifen und ihm die Form einer konformistischen Revolte zu geben. Die Rechte tut so, als wäre sie gegen das Establishment gerichtet und wolle eine Revolution. Aber sie imitiert die Revolte nur” The rightwing is faking their rebellious pose.
Walmarts „Gläserne Bienen“. Über Drohnen-Schwärme und Künstliche Nicht-Intelligenz (geschichte der gegenwart) – “Die Forschung zur Künstlichen Intelligenz (KI) geht neue Wege: Statt grosse, komplexe Roboter zu bauen, entwirft sie jetzt Schwärme von Mini-Drohnen. Diese sollen dereinst die Bienen ersetzen, um Nutzpflanzen zu bestäuben. Oder für militärische Anwendungen bereit stehen.” Black mirror says hi.
Gender ǀ Rudel der Schuhgucker (der freitag) – “Das Patriarchat unterdrückt auch Männer. Aber warum wehren sie sich nicht?” Some men do stand up, but too many end up attacking feminism instead.
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