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#antiwar

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"You are a war profiteer. Stop using AI for genocide. Stop using AI for genocide in our region. You have blood on your hands. All of Microsoft has blood on its hands. How dare you all celebrate when Microsoft is killing children. Shame on you all."

gizmodo.com/microsoft-employee

Solidarity with Ibtihal Aboussad, and everyone brave enough to speak up to those in power. ✊

Gizmodo · Microsoft Employee Disrupts 50th Anniversary Over Israel AI ContractsThe tech giant has faced pushback over its sale of AI products to the Israeli military.

Today in Labor History March 13, 1979: The Marxist New Jewel movement, led by Maurice Bishop, overthrew the prime minister of Grenada. Bishop led the People’s Revolutionary Government of Grenada until 1983, when he was overthrown and executed in a coup supported by the U.S. Bishop supported anti-racist struggles around the world and the fight to end Apartheid. Under his leadership, Granada gave women equal pay to men and provided paid maternity leave. They also banned sexual discrimination and introduced free public health and literacy programs that brought the national illiteracy rate from 35% down to 5%. In 1983, the U.S. invaded Granada. 19 U.S. soldiers and 45 Grenadian soldiers died in the fighting that ensued. The invasion effectively ended the so-called “Vietnam Syndrome,” where U.S. leaders feared that overt regime change, with U.S. boots on the ground, would spark large antiwar protests, like those that rocked the nation in the 1960s and early 70s. The Grenada invasion paved the way for much more aggressive interventions like Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.

Street Art for Ukraine (14 Photos)

Since Russia invaded Ukraine street artists worldwide have wielded their brushes and spray paints, creating a powerful collection of anti-war murals and protest art. These artists visually express their resistance to the war in Ukraine and advocate for fundamental human rights and values. We've curated a collection of street art by artists who dedicate their creative talents to supporting peace in Ukraine. These striking pieces serve as reminders of the human cost of war while displaying […]

streetartutopia.com/2025/02/24

In honor of Black History Month, a short biography of Ben Fletcher (April 13, 1890 – 1949), Wobbly and revolutionary. Fletcher joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1912 and became secretary of the IWW District Council in 1913. He also co-founded the interracial Local 8 in 1913. Also in 1913, he led a successful strike of over 10,000 dockers. At that time, roughly one-third of the dockers on the Philadelphia waterfront were black. Another 33% were Irish. And about 33% were Polish and Lithuanian. Prior to the IWW organizing drive, the employers routinely pitted black workers against white, and Polish against Irish. The IWW was one of the only unions of the era that organized workers into the same locals, regardless of race or ethnicity. And its main leader in Philadelphia was an African American, Ben Fletcher.

By 1916, thanks in large part to Fletcher’s organizing skill, all but two of Philadelphia’s docks were controlled by the IWW. And the IWW maintained control of the Philly waterfront for about a decade. After the 1913 strike, Fletcher travelled up and down the east coast organizing dockers. However, he was nearly lynched in Norfolk, Virginia in 1917. At that time, roughly 10% of the IWW’s 1 million members were African American. Most had been rejected from other unions because of their skin color. In 1918, the state arrested him for treason, sentencing him to ten years, for the crime of organizing workers during wartime. He served three years. Fletcher supposedly said to Big Bill Haywood after the trial that the judge had been using “very ungrammatical language. . . His sentences are much too long.”

How Universities Are Trying to Stop Another Year of #AntiWar #Activism

Big public universities, historically at the forefront of catalyzing activist movements, are now using legal action, disciplinary efforts, and rule changes to chill speech and #dissent.

by Annie Ham, Sydney Sasser
December 2 2024

"'College students often have a really important role in social change in the country,' said Graeme Blair, a political science professor at UCLA, who was among UCLA faculty arrested at a spring protest. 'The implications are pretty serious, not just for speech on #Palestine, but for speech on other unpopular issues, which in many ways is the point of #protests.'"

theintercept.com/2024/12/02/un
#SilencingDissent #FreePalestine #CeasefireNow #WorldWarBibi #IsraeliWarCrimes #NoWar #ProjectEsther

The Intercept · How Universities Are Trying to Stop Another Year of Anti-War ActivismBy Annie Ham
Continued thread

Next up is the University of Missouri Press, where you get 40% through December 15 with code Holiday24.

For this press, it's a look at the history of activism in #StLouis during the turbulent 1960s and 70s. Long before the #Ferguson uprising, #StL city residents were engaged in #BlackPower, #GayRights, #Environmental and #AntiWar activities.

Showing yet again why the #Midwest matters.

upress.missouri.edu/9780826222

University of Missouri PressLeft in the MidwestDespite St. Louis's mid-twentieth-century reputation as a conservative and sleepy midwestern metropolis, the city and its surrounding region have long playe...

RIP Alice Brock, of "Alice's Restaurant" fame.

TIL: Alice helped Arlo Guthrie write the first part of the song. The restaurant of the song, the Back Room, was in Massachusetts, but was closed by the time the song became famous. She was also a librarian and an author.

For the kids who don't want to spend 20 minutes listening to the whole story: in between the catchy chorus about how you can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant, Arlo sing-talks a long story. It starts with a big dinner at Alice's. Then Arlo and his pal take some trash to the dump, but the dump is closed, so they leave the trash in a ravine. Then they get arrested for littering and Alice bails them out. THEN, later on, Arlo gets called for the Vietnam draft, but since he has this criminal conviction for littering he is not, as the song puts it, "moral enough join the Army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug." Hence why it became an anti-war anthem.

#music #FolkMusic #AntiWar #ArloGuthrie #ProtestSongs

archive.is/hjhou

Boris Kagarlitsky and the challenges of the left today: International conference

Ever defiant in the face of repression and a five-year jail term, Boris Kagarlitsky, Russia’s best-known socialist thinker, has just published his latest book, The Long Retreat: Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left.

This special online conference in Kagarlitsky’s honour will address the double aspect of his contribution: his wide-ranging analysis of the left’s dilemmas in the face of multiple global crises and the advance of the far right; and his resistance — together with other persecuted anti-war activists in the Russian Federation — to the authoritarianism of the regime of Vladimir Putin.

After an opening address by Nancy Fraser the four sessions of the conference cover:

  • Discussion of The Long Retreat: Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left
  • The situation of the Left in Russia
  • Imperialism(s) today
  • Political repression and the threat to intellectual freedom in Russia and beyond
  • The final session also launches the Kagarlitsky Network for Academic and Intellectual Freedom

piped.video/watch?v=4a_zSWKkIg

piped.videoPipedAn alternative privacy-friendly YouTube frontend which is efficient by design.
Replied in thread

there is a reason Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy were both assassinated in 1968.

1968 was a pivotal year for the whole world; for how USA's Civil Rights Movement and #antiwar movement against the Vietnam War came to a head in France's country-wide rebellion of Mai 1968.

a rebellion, btw, facilitated by #Labor #Unions strikes & wins.

"May 1968: A Month of Revolution Pushed France Into the Modern World - The New York Times"
nytimes.com/2018/05/05/world/e

The New York Times · May 1968: A Month of Revolution Pushed France Into the Modern WorldBy Alissa J. Rubin

Lately I've seen talk about #Russian people, claiming they support the war.

Remember that #Putin's propaganda efforts go both ways. By lying to his people about the war, he manufactures excess consent. By shutting them out of our feeds, we give them less ways to learn the truth of his #genocide in #Ukraine.

By lying about the nature and scope of #AntiWar sentiments, saying it is small protests of the draft, Putin makes dissent seem fringe to everyone, in #Russia and outside.

(contd.)

#introduction

I fight for the users.

I love programming and thinking and talking about thinking. I have an education (BS, MS, PhD) focused on artificial intelligence and neuroscience.

I'm an advocate of the public academic pursuit of knowledge, the scientific process, peer review, and I see open source software and hardware as an essential part of the scientific process.

I see software user rights, including security and privacy, to be protected mainly by free open source software, specifically software with a copyleft license, i.e. GPL or Mozilla.

I see the democratizing effects of the Internet, including distributed journalism and social networking, to be largely the effect of the collaborative development of free and open source software.

I am interested in free and open source manufacturing, including open source 3D printers and CNC machines. I believe open source manufacturing will be important for distributed manufacturing, allowing local manufacturing and local labor.

I see worker-owned coops as the way to safely transition from a non-democratic authoritarian top-down power structure of a traditional corporation to a democratic work environment, where the workers own the company and elect the board of directors, transitioning to democracy in the workplace.

I believe that socialism is a regulatory response to capitalism.

I believe that laws, money, corporations, and government are social agreements, and I'm in favor of democratic social agreements.

I believe in the organized non-violent boycott as a way to control capitalists and change corrupt systems.

I am a pacifist. I am against violence. I am against citizens keeping guns in cities and towns with children. I am against war.

I try to eat plant-based / vegan foods to boycott the animal industry, to help with the climate crisis, to improve my health, to avoid animal cruelty, and to avoid the extinction of species of plants, animals and ecosystems.

I have been diagnosed with Retinitus Pigmentosa, which is a disease of progressive retinal degeneration. I am legally blind, although I have about 5-degrees of vision remaining in my fovea. I'm interested in researching and developing BCIs (Brain-Computer Interfaces), specifically BCIs that function as vision prostheses that may help with conditions like RP, or the more common degenerative retinal disease AMD (Age-related Macular Degeneration).

I enjoy playing computer games like Age of Empires and Rimworld. I used to program computer games when I was younger and would like to get back to it one day.

I love playing music, especially bass guitar. I've been listening to a lot of Rage Against the Machine and Enya recently.

I enjoy reading books, mostly non-fiction.

I enjoy studying religions. I've found a lot of value in Buddhism, and I meditate often daily.

Nina and I have recently had our first baby, a boy we call Tyoma.

I'm currently working at Apple on the Vision Pro headset team.

I'm sober.

Continued thread

[#Halabja thread 5/16]

In any case, the claim died out—until Saddam Hussein became a US enemy upon invading #Kuwait in 1990. The US, doing a 180, started using his atrocities to justify a military operation.

From that point on, the claim—which, again, had originated with Iran-hating figures in the Pentagon and, outside the US government, had been confined mostly to the far right—started to appear on the #antiwar left.

Let’s get personal, shall we? I’ve been here a while now, and as I’m feeling quite comfortable at Mastodon, I’d like to share a bit more about myself beyond my passion for the climate and the environment.

To begin with, I’m a male, he/him, hetero, strongly supporting LGBTQ rights. I’m a baby boomer, born at 312 PPM 🌏, a United Statesian, although I lived in Europe (mostly Hungary) for several years, and traveled extensively for work before retiring in 2012. I’ve never been good at sustaining long-term romantic relationships, and I’ve finally settled into comfortable singlehood.

I like to say I’m made of contrasts.

For example, I’m rather funny and quite personable, but I don’t enjoy small talk and I hate parties. I currently live in the Bible Belt, but I’m an outspoken atheist. While I can easily fit into most social situations, I don’t feel comfortable around large groups and prefer being alone most of the time. I live near two huge military bases, but I detest the USA’s militaristic, troop-worshiping culture. I’m almost always cheerful, which masks my deeply felt existential nihilism. I’m a neat freak, but also rather lazy, preferring fun over work.

I’ll finish up with some hashtags to add flavor...