RE: https://texasobserver.social/@TexasObserver/117106268063592160

The only thing that will appease extremist Republicans is a poor and ignorant population to act as a slave class.

Meanwhile, I'm really glad I don't hold my doctorate from the University of Houston. Once a university does shit like this, what are its degrees actually worth? How does a degree from that institution attest to a standard of knowledge?

@apenkop hahaha

@apenkop @rozeboosje @Rubelicious THIS is the best eclipse photo on my feed

RE: https://mstdn.social/@Remittancegirl/117083900281350138

Sadly, there was no absence of gravity. In fact, maybe a slight increase after dinner

@Rubelicious I live to disappoint

Fuck that building #Eclipse

@Natasha_Jay @cstross

That is the most apt and all encompassing metaphor for the US I have ever seen

@Elizafox
In many countries, life has become much better for women in some ways.

I'm not saying it's perfect, or problem solved. But I am heartily glad I was born in the 20th C and not in the 15th.

If all we do is say that everything has gotten worse, then there is no response but to shrug our shoulders and suffer.

When we recognize where things have gotten better, we can point to that and say I'll have more of that please.

@Jonricha if only governments and billionaire tech bros were as benevolent

@paulk exactly

Dora, kiln firing supervisor (retired ) #Cats #CatsOfMastodon

Supervisor of lunch preparation #Cats #CatsOfMastodon

@kimlockhartga They don't give a fuck about a massive interruption of OUR access to data. In fact, I'm quite sure they are banking on it. It will hike the price of access.

We are much more manipulatable and gullible without all that 'culture' stuff. Remember how much easier it was to manage illiterate peasants?

What they can't conceive of is a massive erasure of data. Because they cannot conceive it might ever happen to them. Which is emblematic of their psychopathy.

@overholt

Also... please don't come the raw Corbyn with me.

Because while failing singularly as an actual politician, he managed, in his own clever way, to give many Labour voters (although by no means a majority) permission to vote themselves out of the EU.

And that is masochism I will not ever forget.

@http_error_418 I hope you're right. It's why I joined the Greens.

However, the Greens do not have the institutional heft or bureaucratic know-how that Labour has. That takes generations for a party.

I am not operating under the fantasy that the Greens will win or be as effective as Labour can and should be in government.

I am also not interested in punitive punishment. I would rather Labour simply return to being an actual party of workers.

Should it ever manage to find its roots again, as a party of workers (the name is a dead giveaway), I will gladly rejoin it despite all its neurotic faults.

Because historically there has been no other party in the UK that has represented workers as passionately. No other party has lifted so many out of poverty by their policies.

As to them being both anti-semitic and pro-zionist at the same time? There is no other party that doesn't suffer from the same disease - racism is incoherence.

What Labour doesn't understand - because it is quite broadly representative of UK society as a whole - is that outlawing Palestinian Action in response to accusations of anti-semitism is, in itself, anti-semitic. Since it shows an inability to distinguish between legitimate protest against genocidal Israeli policy and anti-semitism. It is still conflating Jews with Israelis. As does most of UK society.

This is not why I left the Labour party. I left it because it stopped being left-wing. 4/

Not surprising. I am constantly coming across people who conflate Jews and Israelis.

The fantasy that Labour could be entirely free of the disease of racism is ridiculous. But the expectation that it should be, when other UK parties are rife with it - is to refuse to understand that racism is a disease that no organisation is immune to.

The monumental stupidity of outlawing Palestine Action is self-harming to Labour. But it's a knee jerk reaction to historic accusations of anti-semitism. 3/

That lead, laughably, to the accusation that the entire Labour Party was anti-semitic. Especially laughable because it was an accusation levelled by the Conservative Party which hosts rampant racism of all kinds and has done forever.
Labour's over-response to this accusation was emblematic of a lot of things, including its puzzling insecurity with its own legitimacy. But it was also revealing that it also couldn't seem to distinguish between opposition to Israeli policy and anti-semitism. 2/

I do not belong to the Labour Party in the UK anymore. I have not for quite a few years.

However, to tar the entirety of the Labour Party as anti-Palestinian or pro-Israel is as absurd as the original and causal tarring of the entire Labor Party as anti-semitic.

However, there is some history here that needs to be addressed.

There was a very tiny contingent within the Labour party who could not differentiate between the Israel and its policies towards Palestinians and Jews in general. 1/