Volunteer slogans
90 feminist groups and 130 women's shelters sign open letter demanding censorship of violence against men awareness campaign (Italy)
2024.05.18 21:37 Castruccio_Castracan 90 feminist groups and 130 women's shelters sign open letter demanding censorship of violence against men awareness campaign (Italy)
Last week in Naples, a few dozen advertising boards went up with an awareness campaign on violence against men:
https://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/italia/39348663/napoli-violenza-uomini-cartelloni-mandano-tilt-sinistra.html
The main slogan was "Are you sure violence is always of the same sex?". They showed a graphic of a man curled up against a wall holding his face in his hands in desperation. They promoted the website 1523.it, which runs an emergency phone number 1523 for men who are victims of violence and stalking.
So far so good right? this is what feminists always said we should do, run our own campaigns with no reference to their own just trying to help men in need, right? yeah, no.
https://www.direcontrolaviolenza.it/la-violenza-maschile-alle-donne-e-un-fenomeno-strutturale-e-pervasivo-d-i-re-chiede-alla-ministra-roccella-di-intervenire-sul-caso-dei-manifesti-che-ne-sminuiscono-la-portata/
After a social media shitstorm that picked up as soon as photos of the boards started showing up on the internet, the country's most prominent and influential feminist orgs, which collectively recived hundreds of millions of euros in public funding for their activites, got together and wrote an open letter to the mayor of Naples and the Ministry for Equal Opportunity, denouncing the campaign and demanding it be censored (in Italy the mayor has leeway over public advertisements).
Their argument is that this campaign draws a "false equivalence", as "violence against men is not systemic, structural and pervasive" like violence against women. They argue the campaign si designed to attack women and feminists, and that it is in fact a hate campaign.
These aren't fringe groups or irrelevant social media users. These are senators, presidents of national associations, people with gigantic budgets, hundreds of employees, thousands of volunteers under them. They have money, connections, academic positions, political power. They are the mainstream of mainstream feminism and this is how they react to a campaign to help men who are victims of violence. Not even violence by women specifically, the number is totally open to men who are victimised by anyone.
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https://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/italia/39348663/napoli-violenza-uomini-cartelloni-mandano-tilt-sinistra.html
The main slogan was "Are you sure violence is always of the same sex?". They showed a graphic of a man curled up against a wall holding his face in his hands in desperation. They promoted the website 1523.it, which runs an emergency phone number 1523 for men who are victims of violence and stalking.
So far so good right? this is what feminists always said we should do, run our own campaigns with no reference to their own just trying to help men in need, right? yeah, no.
https://www.direcontrolaviolenza.it/la-violenza-maschile-alle-donne-e-un-fenomeno-strutturale-e-pervasivo-d-i-re-chiede-alla-ministra-roccella-di-intervenire-sul-caso-dei-manifesti-che-ne-sminuiscono-la-portata/
After a social media shitstorm that picked up as soon as photos of the boards started showing up on the internet, the country's most prominent and influential feminist orgs, which collectively recived hundreds of millions of euros in public funding for their activites, got together and wrote an open letter to the mayor of Naples and the Ministry for Equal Opportunity, denouncing the campaign and demanding it be censored (in Italy the mayor has leeway over public advertisements).
Their argument is that this campaign draws a "false equivalence", as "violence against men is not systemic, structural and pervasive" like violence against women. They argue the campaign si designed to attack women and feminists, and that it is in fact a hate campaign.
These aren't fringe groups or irrelevant social media users. These are senators, presidents of national associations, people with gigantic budgets, hundreds of employees, thousands of volunteers under them. They have money, connections, academic positions, political power. They are the mainstream of mainstream feminism and this is how they react to a campaign to help men who are victims of violence. Not even violence by women specifically, the number is totally open to men who are victimised by anyone.
2024.05.10 08:38 Complex_Mechanic_957 Should i cut off last education or last experience since it is over one page
submitted by Complex_Mechanic_957 to resumes [link] [comments]
2024.05.10 01:48 CoHousingFarmer This is what I will do on the day Democracy dies.
This is what I will do on the day Democracy dies.
This comprehensive strategy is designed with the specific purpose of protecting groups most at risk during such political transitions—political activists, minority communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other groups that frequently find themselves targeted by regimes and movements hostile to democratic norms. (i.e. MAGA)The intent of this strategy is to offer a dual-phased approach that prepares for both pre-election and post-election scenarios. By doing so, we aim to ensure that the rights and safety of at-risk populations are maintained regardless of political developments. The strategy encompasses a series of actions focused on enhancing data privacy, establishing covert safe havens, and creating paper organizations to provide both legal and social cover. Each element has been carefully crafted to blend into the community seamlessly, thereby minimizing the risk of detection and retaliation by potential adversaries, including groups like MAGA, known for their hostility towards certain demographics and ideologies.
The details outlined here are not merely precautionary; they are essential in a time when political unpredictability can lead to sudden and severe consequences for those standing on the front lines of advocacy and social change. This introduction sets the stage for a strategy that is both protective and adaptive, ensuring that all measures are grounded in a deep understanding of the risks involved and the absolute necessity for discretion and thoroughness.
Background Context
Political Climate Overview
The global political landscape is currently characterized by increasing instability and a troubling shift toward authoritarian governance. This trend manifests distinctly in various regions, contributing to a world where democratic principles are routinely challenged and often undermined.- Increasing Volatility: Across the globe, nations are experiencing heightened political instability which, in many cases, precipitates the rise of authoritarian rule. This instability often stems from economic distress, social unrest, or perceived governmental inefficiencies, which authoritarian figures exploit to consolidate power.
- Shifts Toward Authoritarianism: Recent years have seen several governments adopt practices that are starkly authoritarian. Examples abound where states have suppressed free speech through censorship, manipulated electoral processes to maintain power, and systematically weakened the independence of the judiciary. These actions not only compromise the checks and balances essential to democratic governance but also threaten the fundamental rights and freedoms of their citizens.
- Hostility Towards Democratic Norms: A significant rise in movements and ideologies that oppose democratic norms has been noted, often under the banners of nationalism or populism. These movements exploit fears and prejudices, rallying support through divisive and sometimes xenophobic rhetoric, posing a direct threat to the pluralistic fabric of societies.
Vulnerable Groups
In this increasingly authoritarian environment, certain groups find themselves particularly vulnerable to persecution and discrimination. Their exposure to risk is exacerbated by their visibility and their perceived opposition to authoritarian values and practices.- Political Activists: Typically the first in the line of fire, political activists face significant dangers under authoritarian shifts. Their efforts to organize opposition, promote democratic values, and protect human rights often make them targets for harassment, arbitrary detention, and worse, as they are viewed as direct threats to authoritarian interests.
- Minority Communities: Ethnic, racial, and religious minorities frequently endure increased discrimination and violence when authoritarian regimes rise to power. Such regimes often scapegoat these communities, enacting policies that strip them of their rights and freedoms, and in some cases, actively encourage acts of violence and persecution against them.
- LGBTQ+ Individuals: LGBTQ+ communities are exceedingly vulnerable under more conservative or outright authoritarian regimes. They may face draconian legislation, social ostracism, and violence. These measures not only threaten their personal safety but also seek to erase their presence from public life.
- Other At-Risk Populations: Refugees, immigrants, and individuals with dissenting ideological views are also at significant risk. They may confront stricter immigration controls, risk of expulsion, and exclusion from political participation. Under authoritarian regimes, these groups often experience a harsh curtailing of their freedoms and a denial of their right to partake in society.
The Threat of Project_2025
A specific example of these growing threats is the emergence of initiatives like Project_2025, which symbolize the strategic and organized efforts by authoritarian groups to reshape societies according to their ideologies. Project_2025 is often cited as a blueprint for systemic change intended to dismantle current democratic frameworks and replace them with systems that suppress dissent and centralize power. This project is not merely a theoretical risk but a concrete plan that could lead to significant repression of any form of resistance or criticism.This background context sets the stage for understanding the critical need for a robust strategy to protect vulnerable groups and preserve democratic norms. The following sections will delve into the specifics of pre-election and post-election strategies designed to counter these threats and safeguard the fundamental rights and freedoms of those at risk.
Pre-Election Strategy: Part 1 - Data Privacy and Social Media Scrubbing
Objective
The primary objective of this part of the strategy is to safeguard personal data to protect individuals from potential threats in a politically unstable environment. By minimizing the digital footprint, the strategy aims to prevent hostile entities from using online activities and histories against individuals, especially those active in movements or communities that could be targeted in a regime shift.Importance of Data Privacy
In the context of potential authoritarian shifts, personal data on digital platforms can be weaponized against individuals. This includes identifying personal networks, political stances, and other sensitive information that could lead to harassment or worse. Protecting this data is not just about privacy; it's about maintaining personal safety and freedom in the face of growing surveillance and repression.Actions
Timing and Planning
- When to Begin:
- Initiate the data scrubbing process six months prior to critical political events, like elections or significant legislative changes, to ensure that the data is irrecoverable by the time these events occur.
- How to Plan:
- Set up a phased plan that includes initial assessments, periodic reviews, and final checks. This plan should cover all platforms where personal data might be stored, from social media to cloud storage services.
Content Removal
- Types of Content to Remove:
- Political Statements: Remove posts or likes that clearly align with specific political ideologies or opposition movements. For example, deleting tweets supporting political protests or Facebook posts criticizing government policies.
- Group Affiliations: Withdraw from public or semi-public social media groups that are directly associated with activist movements or politically sensitive causes. For instance, leaving a Facebook group dedicated to organizing protest events.
- Personal Beliefs: Scrub any content that expresses strong ideological beliefs that could be targeted under a new regime, such as blog posts advocating for controversial reforms or Instagram posts supporting marginalized communities.
- Reasons for Removal:
- Removing such content significantly reduces the risk of being targeted based on historical data. This proactive step is crucial for individuals who could be directly impacted by policy changes, ensuring that their online presence does not inadvertently expose them to risks.
Privacy Education
- Educational Initiatives:
- Workshops and Seminars: Conduct these sessions focusing on teaching effective methods for securing online profiles and handling personal data. For example, a seminar could demonstrate how to use Facebook’s privacy settings to hide past posts and tighten profile visibility.
- Online Resources: Develop comprehensive guides that detail steps for data auditing on popular platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google. These guides would offer instructions on reviewing and deleting old posts, checking app permissions, and understanding privacy policies.
- Community Outreach: Collaborate with local libraries, schools, and community centers to spread awareness about the importance of data privacy. This might include setting up informational booths, distributing flyers, or hosting Q&A sessions with privacy experts.
Examples
- Example of Effective Content Removal: Jane Doe, an activist, reviewed her Twitter account and removed tweets that could be controversial. She deleted tweets advocating for large-scale protests and any direct criticisms of political figures known for their harsh retaliation against dissenters.
- Community Education Example: A community center hosts a monthly workshop where participants are taught how to scrub their digital footprints effectively. These workshops provide hands-on training on privacy settings for major social networks and strategies for minimizing personal data exposure online.
Pre-Election Strategy: Part 2 - Establishment of Covert Safe Havens in Plain Sight
Objective
The primary purpose of creating covert safe havens is to provide secure and discrete support networks for vulnerable individuals in anticipation of potential political instability. These havens are designed to integrate seamlessly into everyday community settings, offering legitimate public functions while maintaining a dual capability to protect and assist those in need. This approach ensures that these safe havens can operate without attracting undue attention, blending naturally into their environments while fulfilling their protective roles. By carefully selecting and managing these dual-functionality locations, this strategy not only provides vital support and protection for vulnerable individuals but also ensures that these safe havens remain sustainable and integrated within their communities. This seamless integration into everyday life is key to maintaining the operation's discretion and effectiveness, safeguarding those at risk while minimizing the chance of detection.Actions
Selection of Locations
Choosing the right locations is critical to the effectiveness and discretion of these safe havens. The criteria for selecting these locations include:- Community Integration:
- Locations should be well-integrated within the community, serving as familiar and accepted places that naturally attract a diverse range of clientele. This integration helps the safe haven to appear ordinary and unremarkable, reducing the likelihood of scrutiny.
- Visibility and Accessibility:
- While the locations should be visible enough to be considered a normal part of the community, they must also feature private spaces such as basements, cellars, or back rooms. These areas should be easily accessible to those in need without drawing attention from the general public.
- Economic Viability:
- It is essential that these locations can sustain a legitimate business model. This not only supports the community financially but also underpins the covert operations, ensuring they can continue without financial strain or suspicion.
Dual-Functionality
These locations must adeptly balance their public and covert functionalities:- Public Business Functions:
- Types of Businesses: The strategy focuses on establishments like coffee shops, bars, community farms, maker spaces, and recreational venues like RV parks or camping grounds. These businesses are generally well-received and frequented by the public, providing a solid cover for the covert activities.
- Community Services: Each business should offer valuable services such as food production, educational workshops, or leisure activities. These services contribute positively to the community, enhancing the business's credibility and integration.
- Covert Support Functions:
- Plausible Dual Use Areas: Utilize existing structures that naturally offer privacy, like root cellars on farms or basements in urban buildings. These spaces should be typical of the property and require minimal adjustment to serve as safe areas, thus avoiding any construction that might appear suspicious or clandestine.
- Transport Services: Implement transportation services that align with the business model. For example, a delivery service from a farm or a mobile workshop from a construction site can double as a method for safely moving individuals in need. This strategy includes using common roles like Uber drivers for transportation, where the individual being transported is actually posing as the uber driver for a white family, blending into a service role, reducing visibility and suspicion from MAGA.
Implementation Examples
- Farm Example:
- Location: A community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm that is well-known for its fresh produce and community engagement through regular farm festivals and events.
- Dual Functionality: The farm features a large barn or a root cellar typically used for storing seasonal equipment and produce. This can also provide temporary shelter, offering a safe and private space for at-risk individuals. The regular turnover of visitors and workers for legitimate agricultural purposes ensures that any additional traffic blends in without arousing suspicion. Furthermore, depending on the last two minutes of hate, MAGA may overlook minorities or immigrants if they are in a non-lucrative looking service role, such as produce picker.
- Maker Space in Urban Area:
- Location: Situated in a bustling mixed-use neighborhood, this maker space is a hub for creativity and innovation, offering classes in carpentry, electronics, and more.
- Dual Functionality: Besides the public workshop area, there's a secure back area designed for project storage. This space can also function as a discreet meeting point or temporary safe area for individuals who require shelter or a momentary escape from external threats. Furthermore, a maker space is a place full of tools, skilled craftspeople, and materials that can be repurposed for other uses, such as [ REDACTED ].
Pre-Election Strategy: Part 3 - Formation of Paper Organizations
Objective
The primary goal of forming paper organizations is to establish entities that provide legal and social fronts for covert operations, safeguarding vulnerable groups. These organizations serve to legitimize and camouflage the broader protective activities under the guise of engaging in widely accepted or non-controversial community functions. By strategically leveraging these types of organizations, the strategy ensures that protective measures are embedded within non-controversial, community-valued services. This careful planning helps maintain the sustainability of the operations, reduces the risk of exposure, and enhances the long-term viability of protecting vulnerable populations amidst political turbulence.Actions
Types of Organizations
Select organizations that are universally accepted and less likely to attract negative attention from antagonistic groups such as MAGA:- Sports Clubs and Teams:
- Focus on sports that are popular and carry positive, community-building connotations. These organizations can organize local leagues, tournaments, and training sessions, serving as a natural gathering point for the community and a cover for larger mobilization efforts.
- Garden Clubs:
- Establish co-ops or community gardens that involve activities related to food production, which are generally viewed positively and align with subsistence and sustainability goals. These can also serve as educational centers for farming techniques, appealing to a broad segment of the community.
- Kennel Clubs
- Set up organizations centered around animal care, such as dog training clubs or equestrian schools. These activities appeal to animal lovers and are unlikely to draw suspicion from conservative groups. They also provide opportunities for fundraising and community involvement.
Operational Setup
- Compliance with Local Laws:
- All organizations must operate within the legal framework, ensuring they do not attract scrutiny that could lead to uncovering their covert purposes.
- Maintenance and Oversight:
- Regularly review and maintain operational protocols to keep the organizations effective and compliant. This includes keeping financial records clean and transparent to avoid audits that could expose the dual functions.
- Integration with Safe Havens:
- Use these organizations as legal fronts or logistical hubs for the covert safe havens, facilitating communication and resource distribution discreetly. They can serve as rallying points for community support without directly exposing the linked covert operations.
Implementation Examples
- Community Sports Club:
- Setup: A local soccer club that hosts regular matches and youth training camps. It is deeply integrated into the community, providing a robust platform for events that can serve broader agendas.
- Dual Functionality: Leverage the club’s events for discreetly organizing meetings and transporting supplies under the guise of sports activities, utilizing equipment transport as a cover for moving sensitive materials.
- Garden Club:
- Setup: A cooperative that offers memberships for local produce and hosts regular workshops on sustainable farming practices.
- Dual Functionality: Use the co-op’s storage facilities and workshops as discreet points for gathering and distributing resources, you can grow food for poor people under the pretense of agricultural activities.
- Dog Training Club:
- Setup: Organize a club that offers dog obedience classes and therapy animal training, which can attract a wide array of participants.
- Dual Functionality: Utilize the club’s regular gatherings and the innocuous nature of its activities to conduct meetings and organize volunteer networks for covert operations, masked by the club’s community-focused events. This can be a double edged sword, but you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat animals. Furthermore, trained dogs have their uses.
Section 3: Post-Election Strategy - Pivoting Operations
Objective
- Activate and utilize the full scope of prepared safe havens and paper organizations in response to the election outcomes.
- Protect individuals from potential crackdowns or aggressive measures by newly empowered government authorities targeting vulnerable groups.
Overall Strategic Actions
- Activate Covert Safe Havens and Paper Organizations:
- Evaluate the political environment post-election and determine the level of threat to vulnerable communities. - Activate contingency plans in prepared safe havens and paper organizations to provide immediate support and protection.
- Utilize Established Networks and Resources:
- Employ pre-arranged logistics and support systems to distribute resources, provide shelter, and facilitate the safe movement of individuals at risk.
- Community Integration Strategies:
- Deepen involvement in local community activities that are non-political and broadly supported to avoid backlash. - Increase participation in community service projects that enhance local development and provide essential services, reinforcing the organization's value to the community and obscuring its protective roles.
Examples of Pivoting Operations Using Small Businesses
- Carpet Cleaning Services:
- Use service vans for discreet transportation of individuals and supplies, leveraging routine operations as cover. - Legend has it that Cleopatra was smuggled into court rolled up in a carpet.
- Landscaping and Gardening Services:
- Employ landscaping crews to offer jobs and shelter in modified storage units, providing a plausible reason for the movement and congregation of workers. - MAGA has no respect for minorities, but they like mowed lawns. Transporting people of color in the guise of lawn care workers will usually be ignored.
- Mobile Pet Grooming Services:
- Utilize pet grooming vans to distribute resources discreetly and move individuals between safe locations under the guise of service calls. - Pet first aid equipment can also be used on two legged mammals.
- Food Trucks:
- Operate food trucks to serve dual purposes—providing food to vulnerable populations and acting as mobile meeting points for logistics coordination. - Food trucks can have electronic messaging services, connected to GPS, and deliver data just by driving by.
- House Painting Businesses:
- Leverage access to residential areas and use vans for safely relocating individuals under the guise of transporting workers and supplies. - Cans of paint can be used to store all sorts of things.
- Residential Cleaning Services:
- Use cleaning teams for discreet distribution of supplies and temporary housing solutions, under the guise of deep-cleaning or house-sitting services.
- Plumbing and Electrical Services:
- Dispatch tradespeople to carry necessities and check on at-risk individuals without drawing attention, using routine service calls as cover. - Plumbers carrying large pipe shaped constructions are less suspicious.
- Bicycle Repair Shops:
- Implement mobile bicycle repair services for flexible and discreet transport of supplies and aid. - Bicycle frame tubes can have dual uses.
- Fitness and Personal Training Services:
- Use private training sessions to provide physical and mental support discreetly, checking on individuals’ well-being under the guise of health and wellness coaching. - A fitness bootcamp fun run can be an actual bootcamp.
- Local Bakery or Pizzeria Delivery Services: - Use delivery operations to routinely check on community members under the routine delivery of food, covering a broad area without suspicion. - Bakers are up early every day without drawing suspicion.
Monitoring and Adaptation
- Continuously Monitor the Political and Social Environment:
- Regular assessments to adapt operations effectively, ensuring ongoing safety and effectiveness.
- Ready to expand the scope of operations or alter methods based on emerging needs and threats.
Legal Navigation
- Strategically Navigate Laws:
- Ensure all activities remain compliant yet structured to conceal their true purposes, adapting to any new legal challenges post-election. MAGA does not have respect for Rule-Of-Law, but low level MAGAts will usually follow the law if it is the course of lease resistance.
Examples of Pivoting Operations For employees in a large Businesses
1. Data Privacy Enhancements
- Employee Action: IT staff increase encryption and security measures, adding features like data obfuscation and deliberate vulnerabilities that make data tracking and user identification more difficult for unauthorized entities.
- Discretionary Element: These changes are publicly promoted as new advanced security measures to protect customer data from increasing global cyber threats.
2. Supply Chain Redistribution
- Employee Action: Supply chain managers discreetly inform resistance networks about locations and times of important emergency supplies shipments under the guise of optimizing logistics for efficiency.
- Discretionary Element: Publicly, these changes are announced as strategic adjustments to better meet the dynamic needs of markets and reduce operational costs.
3. Corporate Philanthropy Redirection
- Employee Action: Executives redirect corporate philanthropy funds to support 'capitalist' endeavors that indirectly benefit resistance efforts, such as investing in businesses owned by at-risk community members.
- Discretionary Element: These investments are framed as exploring new market opportunities and potential high-growth areas, appealing to shareholder interests.
4. Product Development with Hidden Features
- Employee Action: Product managers design products that incorporate raw materials which can be easily repurposed or integrated with features that allow resistance networks to piggyback communications.
- Discretionary Element: These products are marketed as innovative and versatile, with the added functionalities promoted as providing extra value to consumers.
5. Legal Department Advocacy Against Harmful Laws
- Employee Action: Company lawyers actively challenge laws from Project_2025 that might impose severe surveillance measures detrimental to business operations, like mandatory data sharing with government bodies.
- Hypothetical Law: "All telecommunications companies are required to install government monitoring software." (I mean, they already have it, but bear with me here, this is an example)
- Discretionary Element: Legal challenges are framed as protecting the company's competitive edge and customer trust.
6. Marketing Campaigns with Subtle Messages
- Employee Action: Marketing teams develop campaigns that subtly endorse themes of resilience and unity, using coded language that resonates with resistance supporters.
- Hypothetical Campaign: Launch a national campaign for a telecommunications product under the slogan "Stay Connected, Stay Strong," which subtly encourages unity and resilience. I'm not in marketing, so I really don't know how to not sound like 1984.
- Discretionary Element: Campaigns are officially aimed at boosting brand loyalty and market presence during turbulent times.
7. Community Engagement for Resource Distribution
- Employee Action: Community relations staff organize local events that double as distribution points for essential supplies to at-risk populations, such as geriatric health fairs or local business expos.
- Discretionary Element: These events are positioned as part of corporate efforts to engage with potential customers, masking their dual purpose.
8. Internal Training on Privacy and Security
- Employee Action: Implement training programs that ostensibly enhance employee awareness about privacy and security but also educate them on how to discreetly handle sensitive information about at-risk colleagues.
- Discretionary Element: Training is marketed internally as essential upskilling in response to global increases in data breaches and cyber threats.
9. R&D for Dual-Use Technologies
- Employee Action: R&D staff focus on developing technologies that can be used both commercially and to aid resistance efforts, such as drones designed for commercial delivery that can also be used for discreet surveillance or off the books deliveries. Police radios that can be used to track the police.
- Discretionary Element: The dual-use nature of these technologies is touted as a cost-effective solution to multiple market needs.
10. Strategic Public Relations
- Employee Action: PR teams craft narratives around corporate actions that align with resistance goals, framing them as innovative responses to market demands or regulatory changes. (i.e. We think different! We're the rebels from StarWars. ) (Note: It's a trap!)
- Discretionary Element: These narratives emphasize the corporation's adaptability and forward-thinking, which is attractive to investors and customers alike, while subtly supporting resistance efforts.
For many of us, blending seamlessly into our surroundings comes naturally and doesn’t require drastic changes to our daily lives. For those who cannot hide—the most visible and vulnerable among us—it becomes not only an option but a responsibility for their allies to step up and implement these strategies. This dual approach ensures that while some continue their lives with minimal disruption, others work behind the scenes to maintain safety nets and support systems. This collective effort is what builds a robust resistance movement capable of withstanding pressures and protecting its members from harm. It's not just about individual safety; it's about community resilience.
By taking proactive steps now, we ensure that everyone has the support they need to face whatever may come. This strategy is about being ready, not scared. It’s about building a network of support that can operate effectively under pressure while maintaining a facade of conformity to protect all its members.
Let’s focus on being prepared and connected, on understanding our roles, and on supporting each other. With careful planning and solidarity, we can navigate these challenges without fear, safeguarding our rights and freedoms in the process. Remember, the goal here is to keep the light of democracy burning, no matter how dark the times may seem.
sorry if my formatting is all over the place. This is jumble of my notes. I figure perfect is the enemy of good, and some of you have some anxiety over this. The rest of you...should....But It's going to be OK, because we have feet and hands and arms, and we can MAKE it OK.
2024.05.09 12:55 Without_Ambition Advice on how to improve my charity's outreach to pro-choicers?
So, yeah, I run a charity. Unfortunately, we don’t get a whole lot of volunteers. I’m not sure why. So I’ve been trying to target our outreach to pro-choicers, because as we all know, they really care about saving kids from lives worse than death—and that’s what my charity does, too! So I figured they’d be a perfect fit. But I’m still not getting any applicants. So I’m just going to describe what we do and who we are and maybe you can tell me what might be turning them off.
So we go to foster homes to save kids from the lives worse than death they’ll inevitable have. What we do is to brutally dismember the kids and dump their corpses in the trash. (We usually call the kids and their corpses “large clumps of cells”, though. Some of our volunteers are struggling to emancipate themselves from patriarchal and misogynistic beliefs about when life starts, so that makes things easier for them. Those poor souls! They deserve the world.) Alternatively, we gently remove the kids from the foster home and put them in hostile environments where it’s impossible to get food or water. You see, some people think brutally dismembering kids is immoral. But if it’s starvation, dehydration, or the environment that kills them, it’s A-OK! Now, we kind of think this whole thing about dismembering kids being wrong is religious mumbo-jumbo (and it really is, isn’t it?), but again, we really try to be respectful towards differences of opinion among our volunteers. That’s just being a good person who cares about their fellow human beings, right?
It’s not much of a time commitment to volunteer with us. Occasionally, we travel with volunteers to bring our efforts to poor, remote parts of sub-Saharan Africa. That’s a bit of a commitment, but there, life is really worse than death—even if you have a loving family, shockingly! And our volunteers usually come to understand that the valiant and enormous sacrifices they make to go there are worth it given the huge impact we can have there. But most volunteers just get together on Wednesday evenings (although we try to be flexible so as to make things as convenient as possible for our volunteers, and Sunday mornings, for some reason, always work really well for them). And usually, we're only at it for one or two hours. And get this: in that time, we usually manage to save dozens of kids! What a return on such a small investment of time and energy, huh? You'd be shocked how simple it is to brutally dismember the kids. Sure, we run into a little trouble sometimes—those little scamps can be so vivacious, and they run around a lot, too! But the challenge can also add to the fun—not to mention how soundly you sleep at night knowing you saved those kids! And it’s nothing healthy, responsible adults—like most of our volunteers are—can’t handle. Even if something does go wrong, one of our employees always comes along for these outings to clean up any messes. We’re 100% committed to the ideal that killing foster kids should be completely safe. Again, we try our hardest to take care of our volunteers!
Those of us who are employed at the agency are professionals highly educated in the natural and the social sciences as well as ethically trained. Why, I’d say we’re real pillars of the community! We make an effort to locate our offices in areas where a lot of people suffer from poverty or belong to marginalised communities. After all, that’s where you’ll find foster kids whose lives are a lot worse than death and consequently need our help the most. When you think about it, there are even a lot of adults there who live lives worse than death. Sometime in the future, I'd really like to expand our mission and bring it into their homes, too! Wouldn't that be amazing? Anyway, individually and collectively, we also take our civic duties really seriously. We organise campaigns and protests against politicians who think that what we do is—you won’t believe this—“inhumane” and those who support them. That’s another way to get involved if, for some unfathomable reason, you’d prefer that over hands-on work of helping the kids directly.
I do need to admit, though, that our opponents come to protest outside our locations every now and then, or when we’re at work at the foster homes. It can be really unnerving, actually—they just stand there praying silently like psychos! I worry that this scares away some potential volunteers. What do you all think? It really shouldn’t, though. We spend a lot of time and resources trying to inform and support (aspiring) officials and lawmakers who care about kids in foster care. And I have to say, they’re all so enthusiastic about it! They help us so much. They’ve put in place laws to protect us and they're working to take away spiritual assault weapons so that religious lunatics can’t use them to harm us or the foster kids. It’s so great to live in a country which leaders actually care about doing what's right and about the real issues!
Doesn’t it sound like we’d be a great fit for pro-choicers? Honestly, I just don’t get why they're not signing up, and it makes me frustrated and depressed to see so many foster kids be forced into lives worse than death when pro-choicers are so committed to and so effective at saving unborn children from lives worse than death. In my darkest moments, and I don't know if I should say this, I wonder if maybe they actually don’t care about saving the unborn from lives worse than death at all, and that they’re just saying that because it makes them look good. I wonder if maybe they really only care about...
No! I’m not going to question them, not when what they do saves countless millions of kids from lives worse than death. I know what the problem is: I suck at recruitment campaigns! That has to be it. So please, guys, can you help me? You know pro-choicers so well. Can’t you help me come up with slogans and stuff that would make them see why what they're doing is really what we're doing? I don’t know, maybe something about how we help the poor women who run the foster homes? Pro-choicers really care about women, right? I mean, sure, the women who work at foster homes voluntarily applied and accepted the job offer, unlike women who become pregnant, who, as we all know, have no choice in the matter. But like unborn children, foster kids can be so demanding and so difficult. They really ruin the lives of the women who run the foster homes. And it’s not like the kids have any right to be taken care of by the women who work at the foster homes anyway. That’d be slavery! Maybe that’d be a persuasive angle for the campaign, huh? What do you guys think? Let me know!
submitted by Without_Ambition to prolife [link] [comments]
So we go to foster homes to save kids from the lives worse than death they’ll inevitable have. What we do is to brutally dismember the kids and dump their corpses in the trash. (We usually call the kids and their corpses “large clumps of cells”, though. Some of our volunteers are struggling to emancipate themselves from patriarchal and misogynistic beliefs about when life starts, so that makes things easier for them. Those poor souls! They deserve the world.) Alternatively, we gently remove the kids from the foster home and put them in hostile environments where it’s impossible to get food or water. You see, some people think brutally dismembering kids is immoral. But if it’s starvation, dehydration, or the environment that kills them, it’s A-OK! Now, we kind of think this whole thing about dismembering kids being wrong is religious mumbo-jumbo (and it really is, isn’t it?), but again, we really try to be respectful towards differences of opinion among our volunteers. That’s just being a good person who cares about their fellow human beings, right?
It’s not much of a time commitment to volunteer with us. Occasionally, we travel with volunteers to bring our efforts to poor, remote parts of sub-Saharan Africa. That’s a bit of a commitment, but there, life is really worse than death—even if you have a loving family, shockingly! And our volunteers usually come to understand that the valiant and enormous sacrifices they make to go there are worth it given the huge impact we can have there. But most volunteers just get together on Wednesday evenings (although we try to be flexible so as to make things as convenient as possible for our volunteers, and Sunday mornings, for some reason, always work really well for them). And usually, we're only at it for one or two hours. And get this: in that time, we usually manage to save dozens of kids! What a return on such a small investment of time and energy, huh? You'd be shocked how simple it is to brutally dismember the kids. Sure, we run into a little trouble sometimes—those little scamps can be so vivacious, and they run around a lot, too! But the challenge can also add to the fun—not to mention how soundly you sleep at night knowing you saved those kids! And it’s nothing healthy, responsible adults—like most of our volunteers are—can’t handle. Even if something does go wrong, one of our employees always comes along for these outings to clean up any messes. We’re 100% committed to the ideal that killing foster kids should be completely safe. Again, we try our hardest to take care of our volunteers!
Those of us who are employed at the agency are professionals highly educated in the natural and the social sciences as well as ethically trained. Why, I’d say we’re real pillars of the community! We make an effort to locate our offices in areas where a lot of people suffer from poverty or belong to marginalised communities. After all, that’s where you’ll find foster kids whose lives are a lot worse than death and consequently need our help the most. When you think about it, there are even a lot of adults there who live lives worse than death. Sometime in the future, I'd really like to expand our mission and bring it into their homes, too! Wouldn't that be amazing? Anyway, individually and collectively, we also take our civic duties really seriously. We organise campaigns and protests against politicians who think that what we do is—you won’t believe this—“inhumane” and those who support them. That’s another way to get involved if, for some unfathomable reason, you’d prefer that over hands-on work of helping the kids directly.
I do need to admit, though, that our opponents come to protest outside our locations every now and then, or when we’re at work at the foster homes. It can be really unnerving, actually—they just stand there praying silently like psychos! I worry that this scares away some potential volunteers. What do you all think? It really shouldn’t, though. We spend a lot of time and resources trying to inform and support (aspiring) officials and lawmakers who care about kids in foster care. And I have to say, they’re all so enthusiastic about it! They help us so much. They’ve put in place laws to protect us and they're working to take away spiritual assault weapons so that religious lunatics can’t use them to harm us or the foster kids. It’s so great to live in a country which leaders actually care about doing what's right and about the real issues!
Doesn’t it sound like we’d be a great fit for pro-choicers? Honestly, I just don’t get why they're not signing up, and it makes me frustrated and depressed to see so many foster kids be forced into lives worse than death when pro-choicers are so committed to and so effective at saving unborn children from lives worse than death. In my darkest moments, and I don't know if I should say this, I wonder if maybe they actually don’t care about saving the unborn from lives worse than death at all, and that they’re just saying that because it makes them look good. I wonder if maybe they really only care about...
No! I’m not going to question them, not when what they do saves countless millions of kids from lives worse than death. I know what the problem is: I suck at recruitment campaigns! That has to be it. So please, guys, can you help me? You know pro-choicers so well. Can’t you help me come up with slogans and stuff that would make them see why what they're doing is really what we're doing? I don’t know, maybe something about how we help the poor women who run the foster homes? Pro-choicers really care about women, right? I mean, sure, the women who work at foster homes voluntarily applied and accepted the job offer, unlike women who become pregnant, who, as we all know, have no choice in the matter. But like unborn children, foster kids can be so demanding and so difficult. They really ruin the lives of the women who run the foster homes. And it’s not like the kids have any right to be taken care of by the women who work at the foster homes anyway. That’d be slavery! Maybe that’d be a persuasive angle for the campaign, huh? What do you guys think? Let me know!
2024.05.08 20:55 istarisaints In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University
Aside:
The first post from a different user was removed for being spam. Then my post was removed "pending moderator approval", I messaged the mods and they told me my previous post was removed since "Links to Google docs are often used to unmask and dox users by scraping their Gmail account ids. This is a security issue. Post whatever you want as a link to the open web, or not at all."
Obviously nothing is more doxing than the Gmail account ids (despite the Jewish students literally signing their names below), so I have posted the letter directly here instead. I removed the 322 signatures as well since that is dox-like as well.
I expect nothing but rational and civil discourse in the comments below.
To the Columbia Community:
Over the past six months, many have spoken in our name. Some are well-meaning alumni or non-affiliates who show up to wave the Israeli flag outside Columbia’s gates. Some are politicians looking to use our experiences to foment America’s culture war. Most notably, some are our Jewish peers who tokenize themselves by claiming to represent “real Jewish values,” and attempt to delegitimize our lived experiences of antisemitism. We are here, writing to you as Jewish students at Columbia University, who are connected to our community and deeply engaged with our culture and history. We would like to speak in our name.
Many of us sit next to you in class. We are your lab partners, your study buddies, your peers, and your friends. We partake in the same student government, clubs, Greek life, volunteer organizations, and sports teams as you.
Most of us did not choose to be political activists. We do not bang on drums and chant catchy slogans. We are average students, just trying to make it through finals much like the rest of you. Those who demonize us under the cloak of anti-Zionism forced us into our activism and forced us to publicly defend our Jewish identities.
We proudly believe in the Jewish People’s right to self-determination in our historic homeland as a fundamental tenet of our Jewish identity. Contrary to what many have tried to sell you – no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel. Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief.
Our religious texts are replete with references to Israel, Zion, and Jerusalem. The land of Israel is filled with archaeological remnants of a Jewish presence spanning centuries. Yet, despite generations of living in exile and diaspora across the globe, the Jewish People never ceased dreaming of returning to our homeland — Judea, the very place from which we derive our name, “Jews.” Indeed just a couple of days ago, we all closed our Passover seders with the proclamation, “Next Year in Jerusalem!”
Many of us are not religiously observant, yet Zionism remains a pillar of our Jewish identities. We have been kicked out of Russia, Libya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Poland, Egypt, Algeria, Germany, Iran, and the list goes on. We connect to Israel not only as our ancestral homeland but as the only place in the modern world where Jews can safely take ownership of their own destiny. Our experiences at Columbia in the last six months are a poignant reminder of just that.
We were raised on stories from our grandparents of concentration camps, gas chambers, and ethnic cleansing. The essence of Hitler’s antisemitism was the very fact that we were “not European” enough, that as Jews we were threats to the “superior” Aryan race. This ideology ultimately left six million of our own in ashes.
The evil irony of today’s antisemitism is a twisted reversal of our Holocaust legacy; protestors on campus have dehumanized us, imposing upon us the characterization of the “white colonizer.” We have been told that we are “the oppressors of all brown people” and that “the Holocaust wasn’t special.” Students at Columbia have chanted “we don’t want no Zionists here,” alongside “death to the Zionist State” and to “go back to Poland,” where our relatives lie in mass graves.
This sick distortion illuminates the nature of antisemitism: In every generation, the Jewish People are blamed and scapegoated as responsible for the societal evil of the time. In Iran and in the Arab world, we were ethnically cleansed for our presumed ties to the “Zionist entity.” In Russia, we endured state-sponsored violence and were ultimately massacred for being capitalists. In Europe, we were the victims of genocide because we were communists and not European enough. And today, we face the accusation of being too European, painted as society’s worst evils – colonizers and oppressors. We are targeted for our belief that Israel, our ancestral and religious homeland, has a right to exist. We are targeted by those who misuse the word Zionist as a sanitized slur for Jew, synonymous with racist, oppressive, or genocidal. We know all too well that antisemitism is shapeshifting.
We are proud of Israel. The only democracy in the Middle East, Israel is home to millions of Mizrachi Jews (Jews of Middle Eastern descent), Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Central and Eastern European descent), and Ethiopian Jews, as well as millions of Arab Israelis, over one million Muslims, and hundreds of thousands of Christians and Druze. Israel is nothing short of a miracle for the Jewish People and for the Middle East more broadly.
Our love for Israel does not necessitate blind political conformity. It’s quite the opposite. For many of us, it is our deep love for and commitment to Israel that pushes us to object when its government acts in ways we find problematic. Israeli political disagreement is an inherently Zionist activity; look no further than the protests against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms – from New York to Tel Aviv – to understand what it means to fight for the Israel we imagine. All it takes are a couple of coffee chats with us to realize that our visions for Israel differ dramatically from one another. Yet we all come from a place of love and an aspiration for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
If the last six months on campus have taught us anything, it is that a large and vocal population of the Columbia community does not understand the meaning of Zionism, and subsequently does not understand the essence of the Jewish People. Yet despite the fact that we have been calling out the antisemitism we’ve been experiencing for months, our concerns have been brushed off and invalidated. So here we are to remind you:
We sounded the alarm on October 12 when many protested against Israel while our friends’ and families’ dead bodies were still warm.
We recoiled when people screamed “resist by any means necessary,” telling us we are “all inbred” and that we “have no culture.”
We shuddered when an “activist” held up a sign telling Jewish students they were Hamas’s next targets, and we shook our heads in disbelief when Sidechat users told us we were lying.
We ultimately were not surprised when a leader of the CUAD encampment said publicly and proudly that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and that we’re lucky they are “not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
We felt helpless when we watched students and faculty physically block Jewish students from entering parts of the campus we share, or even when they turned their faces away in silence. This silence is familiar. We will never forget.
One thing is for sure. We will not stop standing up for ourselves. We are proud to be Jews, and we are proud to be Zionists.
We came to Columbia because we wanted to expand our minds and engage in complex conversations. While campus may be riddled with hateful rhetoric and simplistic binaries now, it is never too late to start repairing the fractures and begin developing meaningful relationships across political and religious divides. Our tradition tells us, “Love peace and pursue peace.” We hope you will join us in earnestly pursuing peace, truth, and empathy. Together we can repair our campus.
Signed:
322 Jewish students
submitted by istarisaints to columbia [link] [comments]
The first post from a different user was removed for being spam. Then my post was removed "pending moderator approval", I messaged the mods and they told me my previous post was removed since "Links to Google docs are often used to unmask and dox users by scraping their Gmail account ids. This is a security issue. Post whatever you want as a link to the open web, or not at all."
Obviously nothing is more doxing than the Gmail account ids (despite the Jewish students literally signing their names below), so I have posted the letter directly here instead. I removed the 322 signatures as well since that is dox-like as well.
I expect nothing but rational and civil discourse in the comments below.
To the Columbia Community:
Over the past six months, many have spoken in our name. Some are well-meaning alumni or non-affiliates who show up to wave the Israeli flag outside Columbia’s gates. Some are politicians looking to use our experiences to foment America’s culture war. Most notably, some are our Jewish peers who tokenize themselves by claiming to represent “real Jewish values,” and attempt to delegitimize our lived experiences of antisemitism. We are here, writing to you as Jewish students at Columbia University, who are connected to our community and deeply engaged with our culture and history. We would like to speak in our name.
Many of us sit next to you in class. We are your lab partners, your study buddies, your peers, and your friends. We partake in the same student government, clubs, Greek life, volunteer organizations, and sports teams as you.
Most of us did not choose to be political activists. We do not bang on drums and chant catchy slogans. We are average students, just trying to make it through finals much like the rest of you. Those who demonize us under the cloak of anti-Zionism forced us into our activism and forced us to publicly defend our Jewish identities.
We proudly believe in the Jewish People’s right to self-determination in our historic homeland as a fundamental tenet of our Jewish identity. Contrary to what many have tried to sell you – no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel. Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief.
Our religious texts are replete with references to Israel, Zion, and Jerusalem. The land of Israel is filled with archaeological remnants of a Jewish presence spanning centuries. Yet, despite generations of living in exile and diaspora across the globe, the Jewish People never ceased dreaming of returning to our homeland — Judea, the very place from which we derive our name, “Jews.” Indeed just a couple of days ago, we all closed our Passover seders with the proclamation, “Next Year in Jerusalem!”
Many of us are not religiously observant, yet Zionism remains a pillar of our Jewish identities. We have been kicked out of Russia, Libya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Poland, Egypt, Algeria, Germany, Iran, and the list goes on. We connect to Israel not only as our ancestral homeland but as the only place in the modern world where Jews can safely take ownership of their own destiny. Our experiences at Columbia in the last six months are a poignant reminder of just that.
We were raised on stories from our grandparents of concentration camps, gas chambers, and ethnic cleansing. The essence of Hitler’s antisemitism was the very fact that we were “not European” enough, that as Jews we were threats to the “superior” Aryan race. This ideology ultimately left six million of our own in ashes.
The evil irony of today’s antisemitism is a twisted reversal of our Holocaust legacy; protestors on campus have dehumanized us, imposing upon us the characterization of the “white colonizer.” We have been told that we are “the oppressors of all brown people” and that “the Holocaust wasn’t special.” Students at Columbia have chanted “we don’t want no Zionists here,” alongside “death to the Zionist State” and to “go back to Poland,” where our relatives lie in mass graves.
This sick distortion illuminates the nature of antisemitism: In every generation, the Jewish People are blamed and scapegoated as responsible for the societal evil of the time. In Iran and in the Arab world, we were ethnically cleansed for our presumed ties to the “Zionist entity.” In Russia, we endured state-sponsored violence and were ultimately massacred for being capitalists. In Europe, we were the victims of genocide because we were communists and not European enough. And today, we face the accusation of being too European, painted as society’s worst evils – colonizers and oppressors. We are targeted for our belief that Israel, our ancestral and religious homeland, has a right to exist. We are targeted by those who misuse the word Zionist as a sanitized slur for Jew, synonymous with racist, oppressive, or genocidal. We know all too well that antisemitism is shapeshifting.
We are proud of Israel. The only democracy in the Middle East, Israel is home to millions of Mizrachi Jews (Jews of Middle Eastern descent), Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Central and Eastern European descent), and Ethiopian Jews, as well as millions of Arab Israelis, over one million Muslims, and hundreds of thousands of Christians and Druze. Israel is nothing short of a miracle for the Jewish People and for the Middle East more broadly.
Our love for Israel does not necessitate blind political conformity. It’s quite the opposite. For many of us, it is our deep love for and commitment to Israel that pushes us to object when its government acts in ways we find problematic. Israeli political disagreement is an inherently Zionist activity; look no further than the protests against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms – from New York to Tel Aviv – to understand what it means to fight for the Israel we imagine. All it takes are a couple of coffee chats with us to realize that our visions for Israel differ dramatically from one another. Yet we all come from a place of love and an aspiration for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
If the last six months on campus have taught us anything, it is that a large and vocal population of the Columbia community does not understand the meaning of Zionism, and subsequently does not understand the essence of the Jewish People. Yet despite the fact that we have been calling out the antisemitism we’ve been experiencing for months, our concerns have been brushed off and invalidated. So here we are to remind you:
We sounded the alarm on October 12 when many protested against Israel while our friends’ and families’ dead bodies were still warm.
We recoiled when people screamed “resist by any means necessary,” telling us we are “all inbred” and that we “have no culture.”
We shuddered when an “activist” held up a sign telling Jewish students they were Hamas’s next targets, and we shook our heads in disbelief when Sidechat users told us we were lying.
We ultimately were not surprised when a leader of the CUAD encampment said publicly and proudly that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and that we’re lucky they are “not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
We felt helpless when we watched students and faculty physically block Jewish students from entering parts of the campus we share, or even when they turned their faces away in silence. This silence is familiar. We will never forget.
One thing is for sure. We will not stop standing up for ourselves. We are proud to be Jews, and we are proud to be Zionists.
We came to Columbia because we wanted to expand our minds and engage in complex conversations. While campus may be riddled with hateful rhetoric and simplistic binaries now, it is never too late to start repairing the fractures and begin developing meaningful relationships across political and religious divides. Our tradition tells us, “Love peace and pursue peace.” We hope you will join us in earnestly pursuing peace, truth, and empathy. Together we can repair our campus.
Signed:
322 Jewish students
2024.05.08 18:26 NotSoSaneExile In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University
Link to letter here: https://docs.google.com/document1/d/e/2PACX-1vRQgyDhIjZupO2H-2rIDXLy_zkf76RoM-_ZIYsOfn9FkI7TETgRtOfXK9VobMvGh6iEZfDPgALXJTCpub
Text:
To the Columbia Community:
Over the past six months, many have spoken in our name. Some are well-meaning alumni or non-affiliates who show up to wave the Israeli flag outside Columbia’s gates. Some are politicians looking to use our experiences to foment America’s culture war. Most notably, some are our Jewish peers who tokenize themselves by claiming to represent “real Jewish values,” and attempt to delegitimize our lived experiences of antisemitism. We are here, writing to you as Jewish students at Columbia University, who are connected to our community and deeply engaged with our culture and history. We would like to speak in our name.
Many of us sit next to you in class. We are your lab partners, your study buddies, your peers, and your friends. We partake in the same student government, clubs, Greek life, volunteer organizations, and sports teams as you.
Most of us did not choose to be political activists. We do not bang on drums and chant catchy slogans. We are average students, just trying to make it through finals much like the rest of you. Those who demonize us under the cloak of anti-Zionism forced us into our activism and forced us to publicly defend our Jewish identities.
We proudly believe in the Jewish People’s right to self-determination in our historic homeland as a fundamental tenet of our Jewish identity. Contrary to what many have tried to sell you – no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel. Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief.
Our religious texts are replete with references to Israel, Zion, and Jerusalem. The land of Israel is filled with archaeological remnants of a Jewish presence spanning centuries. Yet, despite generations of living in exile and diaspora across the globe, the Jewish People never ceased dreaming of returning to our homeland — Judea, the very place from which we derive our name, “Jews.” Indeed just a couple of days ago, we all closed our Passover seders with the proclamation, “Next Year in Jerusalem!”
Many of us are not religiously observant, yet Zionism remains a pillar of our Jewish identities. We have been kicked out of Russia, Libya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Poland, Egypt, Algeria, Germany, Iran, and the list goes on. We connect to Israel not only as our ancestral homeland but as the only place in the modern world where Jews can safely take ownership of their own destiny. Our experiences at Columbia in the last six months are a poignant reminder of just that.
We were raised on stories from our grandparents of concentration camps, gas chambers, and ethnic cleansing. The essence of Hitler’s antisemitism was the very fact that we were “not European” enough, that as Jews we were threats to the “superior” Aryan race. This ideology ultimately left six million of our own in ashes.
The evil irony of today’s antisemitism is a twisted reversal of our Holocaust legacy; protestors on campus have dehumanized us, imposing upon us the characterization of the “white colonizer.” We have been told that we are “the oppressors of all brown people” and that “the Holocaust wasn’t special.” Students at Columbia have chanted “we don’t want no Zionists here,” alongside “death to the Zionist State” and to “go back to Poland,” where our relatives lie in mass graves.
This sick distortion illuminates the nature of antisemitism: In every generation, the Jewish People are blamed and scapegoated as responsible for the societal evil of the time. In Iran and in the Arab world, we were ethnically cleansed for our presumed ties to the “Zionist entity.” In Russia, we endured state-sponsored violence and were ultimately massacred for being capitalists. In Europe, we were the victims of genocide because we were communists and not European enough. And today, we face the accusation of being too European, painted as society’s worst evils – colonizers and oppressors. We are targeted for our belief that Israel, our ancestral and religious homeland, has a right to exist. We are targeted by those who misuse the word Zionist as a sanitized slur for Jew, synonymous with racist, oppressive, or genocidal. We know all too well that antisemitism is shapeshifting.
We are proud of Israel. The only democracy in the Middle East, Israel is home to millions of Mizrachi Jews (Jews of Middle Eastern descent), Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Central and Eastern European descent), and Ethiopian Jews, as well as millions of Arab Israelis, over one million Muslims, and hundreds of thousands of Christians and Druze. Israel is nothing short of a miracle for the Jewish People and for the Middle East more broadly.
Our love for Israel does not necessitate blind political conformity. It’s quite the opposite. For many of us, it is our deep love for and commitment to Israel that pushes us to object when its government acts in ways we find problematic. Israeli political disagreement is an inherently Zionist activity; look no further than the protests against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms – from New York to Tel Aviv – to understand what it means to fight for the Israel we imagine. All it takes are a couple of coffee chats with us to realize that our visions for Israel differ dramatically from one another. Yet we all come from a place of love and an aspiration for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
If the last six months on campus have taught us anything, it is that a large and vocal population of the Columbia community does not understand the meaning of Zionism, and subsequently does not understand the essence of the Jewish People. Yet despite the fact that we have been calling out the antisemitism we’ve been experiencing for months, our concerns have been brushed off and invalidated. So here we are to remind you:
We sounded the alarm on October 12 when many protested against Israel while our friends’ and families’ dead bodies were still warm.
We recoiled when people screamed “resist by any means necessary,” telling us we are “all inbred” and that we “have no culture.”
We shuddered when an “activist” held up a sign telling Jewish students they were Hamas’s next targets, and we shook our heads in disbelief when Sidechat users told us we were lying.
We ultimately were not surprised when a leader of the CUAD encampment said publicly and proudly that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and that we’re lucky they are “not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
We felt helpless when we watched students and faculty physically block Jewish students from entering parts of the campus we share, or even when they turned their faces away in silence. This silence is familiar. We will never forget.
One thing is for sure. We will not stop standing up for ourselves. We are proud to be Jews, and we are proud to be Zionists.
We came to Columbia because we wanted to expand our minds and engage in complex conversations. While campus may be riddled with hateful rhetoric and simplistic binaries now, it is never too late to start repairing the fractures and begin developing meaningful relationships across political and religious divides. Our tradition tells us, “Love peace and pursue peace.” We hope you will join us in earnestly pursuing peace, truth, and empathy. Together we can repair our campus.
submitted by NotSoSaneExile to Destiny [link] [comments]
Text:
To the Columbia Community:
Over the past six months, many have spoken in our name. Some are well-meaning alumni or non-affiliates who show up to wave the Israeli flag outside Columbia’s gates. Some are politicians looking to use our experiences to foment America’s culture war. Most notably, some are our Jewish peers who tokenize themselves by claiming to represent “real Jewish values,” and attempt to delegitimize our lived experiences of antisemitism. We are here, writing to you as Jewish students at Columbia University, who are connected to our community and deeply engaged with our culture and history. We would like to speak in our name.
Many of us sit next to you in class. We are your lab partners, your study buddies, your peers, and your friends. We partake in the same student government, clubs, Greek life, volunteer organizations, and sports teams as you.
Most of us did not choose to be political activists. We do not bang on drums and chant catchy slogans. We are average students, just trying to make it through finals much like the rest of you. Those who demonize us under the cloak of anti-Zionism forced us into our activism and forced us to publicly defend our Jewish identities.
We proudly believe in the Jewish People’s right to self-determination in our historic homeland as a fundamental tenet of our Jewish identity. Contrary to what many have tried to sell you – no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel. Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief.
Our religious texts are replete with references to Israel, Zion, and Jerusalem. The land of Israel is filled with archaeological remnants of a Jewish presence spanning centuries. Yet, despite generations of living in exile and diaspora across the globe, the Jewish People never ceased dreaming of returning to our homeland — Judea, the very place from which we derive our name, “Jews.” Indeed just a couple of days ago, we all closed our Passover seders with the proclamation, “Next Year in Jerusalem!”
Many of us are not religiously observant, yet Zionism remains a pillar of our Jewish identities. We have been kicked out of Russia, Libya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Poland, Egypt, Algeria, Germany, Iran, and the list goes on. We connect to Israel not only as our ancestral homeland but as the only place in the modern world where Jews can safely take ownership of their own destiny. Our experiences at Columbia in the last six months are a poignant reminder of just that.
We were raised on stories from our grandparents of concentration camps, gas chambers, and ethnic cleansing. The essence of Hitler’s antisemitism was the very fact that we were “not European” enough, that as Jews we were threats to the “superior” Aryan race. This ideology ultimately left six million of our own in ashes.
The evil irony of today’s antisemitism is a twisted reversal of our Holocaust legacy; protestors on campus have dehumanized us, imposing upon us the characterization of the “white colonizer.” We have been told that we are “the oppressors of all brown people” and that “the Holocaust wasn’t special.” Students at Columbia have chanted “we don’t want no Zionists here,” alongside “death to the Zionist State” and to “go back to Poland,” where our relatives lie in mass graves.
This sick distortion illuminates the nature of antisemitism: In every generation, the Jewish People are blamed and scapegoated as responsible for the societal evil of the time. In Iran and in the Arab world, we were ethnically cleansed for our presumed ties to the “Zionist entity.” In Russia, we endured state-sponsored violence and were ultimately massacred for being capitalists. In Europe, we were the victims of genocide because we were communists and not European enough. And today, we face the accusation of being too European, painted as society’s worst evils – colonizers and oppressors. We are targeted for our belief that Israel, our ancestral and religious homeland, has a right to exist. We are targeted by those who misuse the word Zionist as a sanitized slur for Jew, synonymous with racist, oppressive, or genocidal. We know all too well that antisemitism is shapeshifting.
We are proud of Israel. The only democracy in the Middle East, Israel is home to millions of Mizrachi Jews (Jews of Middle Eastern descent), Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Central and Eastern European descent), and Ethiopian Jews, as well as millions of Arab Israelis, over one million Muslims, and hundreds of thousands of Christians and Druze. Israel is nothing short of a miracle for the Jewish People and for the Middle East more broadly.
Our love for Israel does not necessitate blind political conformity. It’s quite the opposite. For many of us, it is our deep love for and commitment to Israel that pushes us to object when its government acts in ways we find problematic. Israeli political disagreement is an inherently Zionist activity; look no further than the protests against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms – from New York to Tel Aviv – to understand what it means to fight for the Israel we imagine. All it takes are a couple of coffee chats with us to realize that our visions for Israel differ dramatically from one another. Yet we all come from a place of love and an aspiration for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
If the last six months on campus have taught us anything, it is that a large and vocal population of the Columbia community does not understand the meaning of Zionism, and subsequently does not understand the essence of the Jewish People. Yet despite the fact that we have been calling out the antisemitism we’ve been experiencing for months, our concerns have been brushed off and invalidated. So here we are to remind you:
We sounded the alarm on October 12 when many protested against Israel while our friends’ and families’ dead bodies were still warm.
We recoiled when people screamed “resist by any means necessary,” telling us we are “all inbred” and that we “have no culture.”
We shuddered when an “activist” held up a sign telling Jewish students they were Hamas’s next targets, and we shook our heads in disbelief when Sidechat users told us we were lying.
We ultimately were not surprised when a leader of the CUAD encampment said publicly and proudly that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and that we’re lucky they are “not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
We felt helpless when we watched students and faculty physically block Jewish students from entering parts of the campus we share, or even when they turned their faces away in silence. This silence is familiar. We will never forget.
One thing is for sure. We will not stop standing up for ourselves. We are proud to be Jews, and we are proud to be Zionists.
We came to Columbia because we wanted to expand our minds and engage in complex conversations. While campus may be riddled with hateful rhetoric and simplistic binaries now, it is never too late to start repairing the fractures and begin developing meaningful relationships across political and religious divides. Our tradition tells us, “Love peace and pursue peace.” We hope you will join us in earnestly pursuing peace, truth, and empathy. Together we can repair our campus.
2024.05.07 16:54 MarkLeightonForVA10 I'm Mark Leighton, a 1st time candidate for Congress in Virginia's 10th district. Ask me anything!
I've been a volunteer on Democratic campaigns since the 90s. I always wanted a chance to weigh in on policy more, but it never happened as a volunteer knocking on doors, and I never got hired on the Hill or a campaign. So I'd be reading the news and see some issue coming, and wish Democrats would do something about it, and then the Republicans would win elections on that same issue. So I decided to say "what do I have to lose?" and jump into this race because I'm sick of that happening.
I'm a librarian in my day job so it's tough running a startup campaign in my off hours. But I've thought through a lot of the issues over the years and I think I have something of substance to offer, and I firmly believe issues decide elections. Two policies I'm focusing on are breaking the link between your job and your health care so people can shop around for their own health plans, and requiring colleges to keep tuition within inflation or they get cut off from federal student loans.
My slogan is Let's Get Things Done because I want to tackle problems directly, and I think voters respond well when they see you are offering real ideas and not just clever soundbites. This is my website..
Ask me anything!
submitted by MarkLeightonForVA10 to Virginia [link] [comments]
I'm a librarian in my day job so it's tough running a startup campaign in my off hours. But I've thought through a lot of the issues over the years and I think I have something of substance to offer, and I firmly believe issues decide elections. Two policies I'm focusing on are breaking the link between your job and your health care so people can shop around for their own health plans, and requiring colleges to keep tuition within inflation or they get cut off from federal student loans.
My slogan is Let's Get Things Done because I want to tackle problems directly, and I think voters respond well when they see you are offering real ideas and not just clever soundbites. This is my website..
Ask me anything!
Thank you everyone for all your great questions! It was a lot of fun discussing the issues with you. I have to go to work so I need to end it, but you can always see more on my website: https://leightonforcongress.com. Drop me a line there if you want. Thanks to Reddit for the opportunity and have a great day.
2024.05.07 04:44 aslfingerspell [Helldivers 2] Super Earth's method of warfare is deliberately inefficient and meant to kill off the most violent, independent, and ideologically gullible citizens to prevent rebellion.
If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that "broken" systems are often that way because they actually do "work" for somebody. I.e. a corrupt military where leadership positions are sold "works" for the people who get to sell the positions, because in that case the military is just a marketplace for political powemoney and not actually meant to fight peer conflicts.
It's easy to see the Helldivers and Super Earth as some kind of "lol incompetent" faction, what with the muzzle-loading cannons on your FTL warships, and the Schrodinger's paradox of you being elite spearheads and also cannon fodder. However, there's clearly something off going on with just the mere fact that the Helldivers program exists, because let's look at some basic facts first:
Here's the answer: Super Earth, as a militaristic society, doesn't actually value loyalty. It values passivity and docility. The kind of person who becomes a Helldiver is the exact opposite of that: a violent, gullible person who is very independently minded (i.e. volunteers for military service, decides for themselves where and how to fight). Instead, the Helldiver program is essentially a pipeline so that the most violently skilled, independently minded, and ideologically susceptible citizens (i.e. those most willing and able to launch a revolution) are instead A. in state service and B. constantly killed. SE's wars could be fought entirely by orbital bombardment and drones, but using human soldiers allows it to massacre its own citizens under the guise of an "elite" unit.
In short, every Helldiver who yells "For democracy!" while throwing a strategem at an enemy tank 10 feet away and then dies in the ensuing airstrike is one less person who could have been duped into believing a rebellious ideology and fighting against Super Earth instead. By fighting wars in such a horrifically "inefficient" and human-life-wasting fashion, Super Earth is able to funnel dangerous elements of its society (people skilled at violence with strong political beliefs) into fighting and, more importantly, dying for its own causes.
Once you are in the Helldiver program, there is essentially no escape. You will be shot into combat over and over and over again until you either die or your democracy officer finds some excuse to kill you with "your" ship anyway. It's these democracy officers, the calmer, more level-headed supporters of the regime, who are the real backbone of SE. They are the people who are actually in allegiance to Managed Democracy on an intelligent, ideological level, whereas the Helldivers are just useful idiots who, with their independence, might just as easily choose a different ideology to mindlessly believe in just as easily be spouting someone else's political slogan. For this they are too dangerous to be left alive, even in the service of Super Earth. They must be killed.
Note: "independent thinking" and "gullible" can coexist, like someone who "does their own research" and believes in a conspiracy theory, or someone who chooses to "reject the mainstream narrative" and believe nonsense simply because it's "not what they want me to think".
Back home, any potential rebel movement will have just leftovers: citizens who wouldn't be as motivated to resist or fight back, or those who couldn't do as well fighting back if they did.
SE's stated enemies in the Terminids and Automatons are just paper tigers meant to direct hatred towards an outside foe that isn't nearly as dangerous as feared, hence why even "Major Orders" are just glorified suggestions and contests. Given the lie behind the strategem beacons and the clear viability of their combat drones, the Helldivers are not actually needed to fight or win any of SE's conflicts. Should they ever actually be in existential danger, the Democracy Officers could just simply glass every combat zone free of bugs and robots from orbit without sending a single boot on the ground.
All the "Major Orders" SE government says are so important are just ways to concentrate Helldivers into deliberately bloody battlefields so that even more of them can be killed. Heck, evne the "Personal Orders" like using a certain weapon or killing a certain enemy are just ways to disunite the Helldivers and trick them into using weapons or getting into confrontations that may not be optimal for overall mission survival.
submitted by aslfingerspell to FanTheories [link] [comments]
It's easy to see the Helldivers and Super Earth as some kind of "lol incompetent" faction, what with the muzzle-loading cannons on your FTL warships, and the Schrodinger's paradox of you being elite spearheads and also cannon fodder. However, there's clearly something off going on with just the mere fact that the Helldivers program exists, because let's look at some basic facts first:
- While some Helldiver missions are classic special forces/infantry jobs that do require boots on the ground (i.e. hot evacuations of civilians, recovering data), a good portion are also just pure destruction missions. No territory to occupy, no collateral damage to be worried about. Just kill/destroy stuff.
- In these destruction/kill focused missions, the locations of your targets are already known. Indeed, when deciding your initial drop point you can clearly see your objectives and even get "enemy presence" warnings.
- The Helldivers fight/destroy stuff using Strategem beacons, which are basically these Pokeball-type gadgets that you input a code into then throw to call down weapons, air support, and orbital bombardment strikes.
- SE already has the technology for drones that output the firepower of an infantryman (the Rover backpacks) and independently target enemies outside player control.
- Extreme Helldiver casualties are completely expected, to the point where even 100% casualty rates (no backup divers remaining, full party kill, no extraction) still falls under "Mission Accomplished". Surviving a mission is quite literally just bonus points.
- Helldivers are ideological fanatics, and Super Earth values loyalty.
- The Helldivers, despite being treated like cannon fodder, are clearly expert soldiers and athletes. They can handle dozens of different weapons, sprint with full kit, reload confidently under pressure, etc.
- Helldivers, for soldiers of an autocratic regime, are given a shocking amount of independence. Each Helldiver essentially gets to customize their own loadouts for each mission, spend money on upgrades, and even choose to not partake in campaigns that SE government considers to be of existential importance. They're treated almost more like privateer-infantrymen rather than special forces. SE can say they'll get more Warbonds (i.e. money) if they defend X or Y planet, but nothing stops any given Helldiver from fighting their own war on the other side of the galaxy if they choose.
- As independent as the Helldivers are, they are still overseen by Democracy Officers. Helldivers are all given their own spaceship and crew, and given the freedom to contribute to the war however they wish, yet their activities are constantly monitored by a political commissar who can and will kill them with "their" ship's weapons without hesitation should they do something as simple as stray meet feet out of a mission area for 10 seconds. The Democracy Officers, interestingly enough, seem less fanatical than the Helldivers, preferring to engage in more generic and monotoned political rhetoric as opposed to the mouth-frothing freedom-loving of the actual Helldiver units.
- SE has apparently absolute orbital and naval superiority in space. Helldivers lore and gameplay is remarkably absent of mentions of ship-to-ship combat, the organization of SE's military almost entirely ignores any concept of fleets (i.e. the Helldivers, despite being commanders of warships, receive no naval training), and the ubiquitous Super Destroyers seem almost entirely geared towards ground support rather than fighting other starships.
- Beacons are not actually necessary to launch stratagems: The entire "Beacon" thing is a lie made up by Super Earth. If a Helldiver strays from the combat zone, the Super Destroyers in orbit will automatically begin to accurately target them from orbit without a beacon.
- Super Earth does not need human soldiers: SE could literally win every battle with swarms of Rover drones. They could deploy directly from hellpods, and already demonstrate the ability to independently move, identify, and target enemies. Literally just strap a strategem beacon onto them so they can drop them like quadcopter grenades, and you now have a force that can do anything human Helldivers can.
- Ground combat itself is redundant for a lot of SE's operational needs: Not only can pretty much 90% of a Helldiver's job be performed by simple drones, ground combat itself seems an unforced error. Super Earth can already detect enemy structures and troop concentrations from orbit, precisely fire at exact spots on the first try (i.e. the initial Helldiver dive each mission is made without the help of a beacon), and in most battles does not have any collateral damage to worry about, not that it would worry about it anyway.
- Super Earth doesn't really seem all that concerned about its most valuable citizens dying so often. Loyalty is a premium in dictatorial regimes, yet SE seems bizarrely indifferent to so much of its most loyal supporters dying in such huge numbers. Strangely, despite the Helldivers being the most loyal citizens, SE still deems it necessary to assign political commissars to them on a 1:1 basis. IIRC correctly, the Helldivers are even a volunteer unit, so not only are these people fighting for you, they choose to do so, which makes throwing away their lives even more baffling.
- Super Earth's enemies are not nearly as threatening as we are meant to believe. How, exactly, are the Automatons and Terminids even able to invade other planets when SE, upon the latest invasion or outbreak, can instantly swarm the orbits of enemy planets with 100,000+ warships? Something just doesn't add up. There's never any mention of a preliminary naval campaign to secure the planetary orbits first, and the Helldivers never have to contest enemy ships, fleets, or airforces before doing their ground missions.
Here's the answer: Super Earth, as a militaristic society, doesn't actually value loyalty. It values passivity and docility. The kind of person who becomes a Helldiver is the exact opposite of that: a violent, gullible person who is very independently minded (i.e. volunteers for military service, decides for themselves where and how to fight). Instead, the Helldiver program is essentially a pipeline so that the most violently skilled, independently minded, and ideologically susceptible citizens (i.e. those most willing and able to launch a revolution) are instead A. in state service and B. constantly killed. SE's wars could be fought entirely by orbital bombardment and drones, but using human soldiers allows it to massacre its own citizens under the guise of an "elite" unit.
In short, every Helldiver who yells "For democracy!" while throwing a strategem at an enemy tank 10 feet away and then dies in the ensuing airstrike is one less person who could have been duped into believing a rebellious ideology and fighting against Super Earth instead. By fighting wars in such a horrifically "inefficient" and human-life-wasting fashion, Super Earth is able to funnel dangerous elements of its society (people skilled at violence with strong political beliefs) into fighting and, more importantly, dying for its own causes.
Once you are in the Helldiver program, there is essentially no escape. You will be shot into combat over and over and over again until you either die or your democracy officer finds some excuse to kill you with "your" ship anyway. It's these democracy officers, the calmer, more level-headed supporters of the regime, who are the real backbone of SE. They are the people who are actually in allegiance to Managed Democracy on an intelligent, ideological level, whereas the Helldivers are just useful idiots who, with their independence, might just as easily choose a different ideology to mindlessly believe in just as easily be spouting someone else's political slogan. For this they are too dangerous to be left alive, even in the service of Super Earth. They must be killed.
Note: "independent thinking" and "gullible" can coexist, like someone who "does their own research" and believes in a conspiracy theory, or someone who chooses to "reject the mainstream narrative" and believe nonsense simply because it's "not what they want me to think".
Back home, any potential rebel movement will have just leftovers: citizens who wouldn't be as motivated to resist or fight back, or those who couldn't do as well fighting back if they did.
SE's stated enemies in the Terminids and Automatons are just paper tigers meant to direct hatred towards an outside foe that isn't nearly as dangerous as feared, hence why even "Major Orders" are just glorified suggestions and contests. Given the lie behind the strategem beacons and the clear viability of their combat drones, the Helldivers are not actually needed to fight or win any of SE's conflicts. Should they ever actually be in existential danger, the Democracy Officers could just simply glass every combat zone free of bugs and robots from orbit without sending a single boot on the ground.
All the "Major Orders" SE government says are so important are just ways to concentrate Helldivers into deliberately bloody battlefields so that even more of them can be killed. Heck, evne the "Personal Orders" like using a certain weapon or killing a certain enemy are just ways to disunite the Helldivers and trick them into using weapons or getting into confrontations that may not be optimal for overall mission survival.
2024.05.03 23:02 Cosmic_Marmalade A very long meta post (Why I'm leaving)
First off, let's get the formalities out of the way.
Once again, I want to remind you that this won't exactly be a perfectly-summarized bullet list. I'm gonna ramble and there's gonna be a lot of words, so expect exactly that.
I'm gonna be using they/them to refer to myself here just because I want to. I'm letting you know this because I've consistently been "a she", so to speak, before this post. Don't think too much about it.
One thing I never told anybody before is the reason I spent so much time still learning and still helping: I wasn't actually satisfied with my voice just yet. It's quite the systemic problem really; most people who figure out the secret sauce have no reason to remain here, especially when they get nothing (or even less) in return. The thing I like blaming for my lack of vocal prowess is the fact that I live in... imperfect conditions for a transgender person practicing their voice. I can't exactly have a VFE routine since those get quite loud, nor can I start habitualizing my voice effectively (since that would require both never leaving my room and only speaking at a restrictively low volume in there to avoid suspicion). Things like yelling and overfullness have also been quite troublesome for similar reasons. Is this really the only reason I haven't gotten anywhere after flying way past the expected time-for-satisfaction for voice? I don't know. Maybe? I just want you to hold your "Oh I bet they've got some inherent FLAW in their throat that makes it UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE for them to EVER make a pleasant female-coded sound" horses for the time being. One can't draw valid conclusions from an experiment with so many non-standardized variables like this one, okay?
Anyway, yes, that's my deathly secret. Oh yeah, here's one more directed to Sumi the voice teacher: So, remember that time I made you like, completely reinvent a new term for "compression" because you thought the reason I strained during speech was because I was going off my own intuition regarding what the term means? Well, I wasn't actually doing that. I was actually already vocalizing in a horribly strained manner before and just happened to attempt your idea of compression (directly from the wiki) to that faulty template. Whoopsies!
Now that that's done, let's get to the offensive parts of this essay.
I also want to note that this isn't exactly just a problem with trans voice spaces in particular; most mainstream online trans spaces (especially those featuring younger people) also suffer from this severe pressure to act like the ideal cute-girl transfem you see on traa and egg_irl and such. It's to be expected, really, but it still upsets me that it's so hard to find people with a similar personality and/or self-expression to mine. If you feel as lonely in these communities as I do, I sincerely wish you the goddamn best in the world and want to let you know that I get it. I really do. I'm not about to tell you it's society or internalized transphobia or whatever, I'm just here to tell you that I truly understand how you feel.
There's also not enough trans men and generally masculine-presenting individuals 'round these parts, which again makes sense considering how unwelcoming big online spaces are to them and the seemingly lower demand for voice masculinization, but I still wish there was more of them.
So, to conclude my thoughts on this matter: It's alienation. I don't fit in with the "gib pats :3" folks and it just so happens that they are the dominant demographic in both these spaces and online trans spaces as a whole. Kind of unsolvable really but I might as well put it here in this totally-unnecessary farewell note. Try to stop me, I dare you.
Let me be clear here: This is what I (in bold) think. I don't want to see you harassing my fellow unpaid coworkers because I said some things you don't like. They absolutely have different philosophies than mine. I don't like you, but maybe they do, so show them the appreciation they deserve (and yes, they do deserve it cause they actually did something). If you just wanna scratch that harassment itch, I'm right here. Send me alllll the hate you've got.
The other thing this section shall be dedicated to is the pitiful state of information and methodology on here despite all of our best efforts. As an example, scroll through the front page on transvoice real quick and stop when you see a Voice Tools screenshot or video. Chances are that all it took was a few seconds to come across one of those. I tried it and I'm pretty sure it took me under half a minute on the crappy new big-man Reddit UI. Take a shot every time you see some poor soul obsessing over muscles and the larynx and the nebulous "resonance" (which never means the same thing no matter who you ask). It's all just a mess and that is made even worse by the existence of the snake oil proponents who resist the size/weight model on the grounds of "uhhh ummmm everybody learns differently" as they explain how you need to look at your throat in the mirror and trial-and-error your way into contracting the appropriate muscles. Ughhhhh. You know, I was around for that whole thing. I don't know if they still swear by this oropharyngeal-closure stuff in Scinguistics these days, but oh man people loved that gif of the lady terraforming her throat and uvula and would look you in the eyes and say "do something like this for OPC". Long-time residents of this subreddit remember that one user who would show up every once in a while to preach the gospel of Swallow-and-Hold 2 and have multiple heated debates with Cathy. God that lady was exhausting. You still sometimes get people saying Big Dog/Small Dog saved them or whatever, but hey, at least it's not the gosh-darn swallow exercise.
Honestly, I don't really care anymore about this neverending debate of which methods are better. All I'm gonna say is that Z (who explains stuff really vaguely now for some reason?), Selene, and Clover have the tools that are to me, the most sensible out there. I just don't respect those "mimicry doesn't work" randos, man, like how the heck did you learn the English language we're communicating in right now? How did you learn that horrible mock British accent you keep using for laughs? Through mimicry, that's how! You weren't thinking about your aryepiglottic sphincter and your thyroarytenoid muscles when you were screaming and crying as a small child because you had to go to school! Fortunately, I'm not interested in actually debating this with anybody, so feel free to completely ignore the cognitive dissonance bubbling up in your head right now if that's what brings you joy. I don't care (that much).
So, I often see people going like "voice training sucks and is super stressful" and such, and like, I understand what you're talking about, but also please, for the love of all that is golden, consider the fact that you're not just screaming into a vacuum when you say something like that. Maybe someone was already having a bad day with practice, and when they saw that, they got even more pissed off than they already were because what are these posts saying but "I should abandon all hope of ever being happy with myself; success is impossible and to give up is to be honest". It's just a really crappy vibe to spread and just makes everybody sadder. What's also just wonderful is when people expect you to be their unlicensed (and unpaid) therapist and also simultaneously blow up at you whenever you attempt to comfort them. It's a great time! I love it when stuff like that happens! I love it when people make things all about themselves and have no sympathy for their elders! I know I'm younger than every single one of you (except for you, Luna, I see you) but I'm really playing the role of the elder here when I have to help this mentally unstable child not explode. I didn't sign up for any of this shit when I decided I wanted to help people explore size and weight, man.
The fact that there's so many of these please-get-therapy-for-the-love-of-god children (they sometimes are literal minors but that's irrelevant) really ensured that I'll never work as a voice teacher ever. Can you imagine sitting with someone like that except you can't just leave the Discord channel???? AND THEN PEOPLE TREAT TEACHERS LIKE WEALTHY CAPITALIST ELITES! Shit makes no goddamn sense! You wouldn't last a second in the arena with a mentally ill college student!
However, the true horror appears when these people channel their trauma into rhetoric. All of a sudden, you get the only thing worse than comforting a sad stranger who hates you: debating a sad stranger who hates you. I welcome thee to the shittiest pits of trans voice discourse: The "should I just give up and die" war.
On one side, we're gonna gonna have team C (completely arbitrary letter choice by the way), which is the crowd that lives by the slogan "not everybody can succeed at voice training" and really wants to convince everybody of that. Then, we have what I like to call "the other andies", which are the resistive force battling the formidable team C in the marketplace of ideas and cat ear headphones. Team C and the Other Andies are a tale as old as time, one that is as eternal as the breeze of twilight. Let's look a little further into it.
Team C consists of people who are disillusioned with the messages they're given by popular voice teachers, naive students, and kids' shows: that you just gotta work hard enough and all your dreams will come true. They've arrived at a solid brick wall in their harrowing quest for a biologically female (or male) voice and they don't believe they have the zuzz it takes to get past this obstacle. Are they right? Hell if I know! It's really hard to properly get a picture of this demographic because I bet a lot of it is people who are simply in a horrible headspace and just need to try harder when they feel better, but I'm sure there's individuals in there with actual muscle problems and hearing/speech trouble and all sorts of other issues I can't shrug off in good faith. Furthermore, they kind of DO make a good argument when you take this little clip into consideration. Now I'm not one to jump to conclusions necessarily, but I think the contradiction between what Z says here what she tells to the public speaks to a wider problem among many of the Other Andies, which is that they often overpromise just to make you feel a little better about yourself (or to make you buy their stuff, I guess? Sometimes, maybe? I'm not a conspiracist).
Something special about the Other Andies is that they're not as much of a monolith as team C, which tends to say more-or-less the same stuff (you know the drill: some people can't do it, stop lying to us you scumbag pigs, etcetera). Some other andies say delusional shite like "99.99% of people succeed", while others carry the much more honest and respectable "you're probably gonna be okay". I like the latter subsection, the other other andies if you will. They're not riding the toxic positivity train, but they're also not shooting corrosive substances at your face, yknow? I still think this is a stupid fucking debate. You wanna train? Then do it. Can't do it? Then either you try harder or you make peace with what you've got. I'm not saying this from a position of privilege because my ass is MUCH closer to the vocal ability of a team C member.
This goes out to all my team C friends, possibly including the mysterious grand general of the movement if such an entity even exists. I'm... worried about you. It's really not healthy to spend so much of your life on a place you hate, talking about a topic you hate with people you hate, perceiving yourself as the only soldier standing between the small Voice City and the monstrous hurricane of false hope... Please let your trauma heal and move on from this place. I'm trying to do the same too, just work towards it. I understand and respect that you still find some purpose in helping others find their footing in this cold, dark world, but I think it's time you extend that courtesy to yourself. You're so much more than this and you deserve so much more happiness in this weird world. Allow yourself to start a new chapter with all of this headache- and heartache-inducing garbage behind.
You have it in you to make it out of this dumpster fire and finally live a more fulfilling existence. Is it gonna be hard? 100%, but we're gonna do it together, even if I don't even know who you are in the slightest. It's all about that little idea. That flame of ambition, to quote the Fell Omen. Keep the desire for a better life alive within you, and I wish you the motherfucking greatest quantity of luck.
That is all I have to say! May we never meet again. Was lovely, but I'm fucking TIRED, man.
[EDIT 10/05/2024: For the record, I am very very thankful for the nice responses here and a heart emoji goes out to you folks <3. I'm not really too informed about the whole language acquisition counterpoint thing that user brought up, but I respect them and what they're saying.
The Selene Clip Collection has been updated with a new announcement. One the GitHub organization becomes large enough, I'll finally be able to enter the florpus.
submitted by Cosmic_Marmalade to transvoice [link] [comments]
What is this?
This is a note to and about the online trans voice community (mostly restricted to this subreddit and a couple big Discord communities), and in it, I'll be laying out all of my frustrations with this sub and those Discord servers over the like, 1.5 years that I've spent somewhat involved with them. I have a lot to talk about.Why are you making this?
Because I've seriously become tired of how draining these places often are. There's a reason my post history has such an unexpectedly wide gap; it's that I discovered how unhealthy being here actually is. It's so unhealthy that I might delete this account after I figure out a solution for keeping the Selene clip collection alive. This is also a great segue into the next question:Who the hell do you think you are?
I am u/Cosmic_Marmalade, a sort-of known volunteer on here and on Discord. I've made the Selene archive and the L's Guide critique and have just generally dedicated a serious amount of time to helping out folks (and learning myself) since late 2022. It's not much compared to some other recognizable characters on here, but I believe I've been in these spaces for long enough that I can say something of tangible value. Anyway.I'm gonna be using they/them to refer to myself here just because I want to. I'm letting you know this because I've consistently been "a she", so to speak, before this post. Don't think too much about it.
1. Just a little bit of lore about me while we're here
I first got into trans voice when I was 14 (two years ago; I'm 16 at the moment, how shocking) through Lsomethingsomething's infamous guide to voice feminization. I didn't really get anywhere using it so I started looking around for other methods and stuff online, and eventually decided I'll become active in the online communities to hopefully get a little bit of that learning-by-(supervised)-teaching going. From there, I started doing the whole helping-people-and-linking-to-resources thing, talked to and consumed the material of people more educated than I am, and eventually started kind of knowing what I was doing to a certain degree. I wasn't arrogant by any means, but I was a little more confident in myself. I got better at explaining stuff and made that clip post that I'm still quite proud of.One thing I never told anybody before is the reason I spent so much time still learning and still helping: I wasn't actually satisfied with my voice just yet. It's quite the systemic problem really; most people who figure out the secret sauce have no reason to remain here, especially when they get nothing (or even less) in return. The thing I like blaming for my lack of vocal prowess is the fact that I live in... imperfect conditions for a transgender person practicing their voice. I can't exactly have a VFE routine since those get quite loud, nor can I start habitualizing my voice effectively (since that would require both never leaving my room and only speaking at a restrictively low volume in there to avoid suspicion). Things like yelling and overfullness have also been quite troublesome for similar reasons. Is this really the only reason I haven't gotten anywhere after flying way past the expected time-for-satisfaction for voice? I don't know. Maybe? I just want you to hold your "Oh I bet they've got some inherent FLAW in their throat that makes it UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE for them to EVER make a pleasant female-coded sound" horses for the time being. One can't draw valid conclusions from an experiment with so many non-standardized variables like this one, okay?
Anyway, yes, that's my deathly secret. Oh yeah, here's one more directed to Sumi the voice teacher: So, remember that time I made you like, completely reinvent a new term for "compression" because you thought the reason I strained during speech was because I was going off my own intuition regarding what the term means? Well, I wasn't actually doing that. I was actually already vocalizing in a horribly strained manner before and just happened to attempt your idea of compression (directly from the wiki) to that faulty template. Whoopsies!
Now that that's done, let's get to the offensive parts of this essay.
2. The deeply alienating uwu transbian culture
Here's a characteristic of these communities that's probably great if you're one specific flavor of person but utterly dreadful if you're anything else. I really wouldn't mind this as much if the thigh-high-wearing boymoders were just a small portion of the crowd, but it really feels like everybody around me is a gamer catgirl even though that's obviously not true. With all due respect, my dear 4chan-browsing nyaa smol beans, you really... claim the space, let's say. You're just a lot louder than everyone else and I feel like it makes those of us who aren't inclined to skirt-go-spinny-on-the-blahaj feel really isolated.I also want to note that this isn't exactly just a problem with trans voice spaces in particular; most mainstream online trans spaces (especially those featuring younger people) also suffer from this severe pressure to act like the ideal cute-girl transfem you see on traa and egg_irl and such. It's to be expected, really, but it still upsets me that it's so hard to find people with a similar personality and/or self-expression to mine. If you feel as lonely in these communities as I do, I sincerely wish you the goddamn best in the world and want to let you know that I get it. I really do. I'm not about to tell you it's society or internalized transphobia or whatever, I'm just here to tell you that I truly understand how you feel.
There's also not enough trans men and generally masculine-presenting individuals 'round these parts, which again makes sense considering how unwelcoming big online spaces are to them and the seemingly lower demand for voice masculinization, but I still wish there was more of them.
So, to conclude my thoughts on this matter: It's alienation. I don't fit in with the "gib pats :3" folks and it just so happens that they are the dominant demographic in both these spaces and online trans spaces as a whole. Kind of unsolvable really but I might as well put it here in this totally-unnecessary farewell note. Try to stop me, I dare you.
3. Misinformation and the ungrateful bastards (tone shift much?)
Volunteering out of the goodness of your heart to help people unfortunately doesn't result in heartfelt "thank you"s and smiley face emojis. On some occasions, you get annoying entitled brats who think they have any semblance of a right to disrespect the ones providing them with this free-of-charge service. People just blazing with anger and throwing it at you as you try to explain to them that no, this 4chan sissification voice guide they found online IS awful and WILL be less effective at getting you the results you want. Now, obviously these people are severely mentally troubled for all sorts of reasons and the stress of voice training (which is its own topic) doesn't help, but there comes a point where this lack of discipline is just too much. You don't even KNOW how often I've seen people treat Selene (well-known teacher) with zero goddamn respect as if she's doing anything but helping them at the cost of her precious time. Something a lot of you (obviously might not be you specifically but also it MIGHT be you specifically) gotta understand is that you don't actually deserve our help and our time. I think I'll refrain from naming people here, but us volunteers are doing this and getting very little in return. Some people think we're part of a conspiracy to brainwash the masses and that we're all evil dumb idiots lying to get you to buy lessons from the teachers we've been employed by. That's not the case! We're just normal (well...) people wasting our priceless time on people who clearly aren't worthy of it!Let me be clear here: This is what I (in bold) think. I don't want to see you harassing my fellow unpaid coworkers because I said some things you don't like. They absolutely have different philosophies than mine. I don't like you, but maybe they do, so show them the appreciation they deserve (and yes, they do deserve it cause they actually did something). If you just wanna scratch that harassment itch, I'm right here. Send me alllll the hate you've got.
The other thing this section shall be dedicated to is the pitiful state of information and methodology on here despite all of our best efforts. As an example, scroll through the front page on transvoice real quick and stop when you see a Voice Tools screenshot or video. Chances are that all it took was a few seconds to come across one of those. I tried it and I'm pretty sure it took me under half a minute on the crappy new big-man Reddit UI. Take a shot every time you see some poor soul obsessing over muscles and the larynx and the nebulous "resonance" (which never means the same thing no matter who you ask). It's all just a mess and that is made even worse by the existence of the snake oil proponents who resist the size/weight model on the grounds of "uhhh ummmm everybody learns differently" as they explain how you need to look at your throat in the mirror and trial-and-error your way into contracting the appropriate muscles. Ughhhhh. You know, I was around for that whole thing. I don't know if they still swear by this oropharyngeal-closure stuff in Scinguistics these days, but oh man people loved that gif of the lady terraforming her throat and uvula and would look you in the eyes and say "do something like this for OPC". Long-time residents of this subreddit remember that one user who would show up every once in a while to preach the gospel of Swallow-and-Hold 2 and have multiple heated debates with Cathy. God that lady was exhausting. You still sometimes get people saying Big Dog/Small Dog saved them or whatever, but hey, at least it's not the gosh-darn swallow exercise.
Honestly, I don't really care anymore about this neverending debate of which methods are better. All I'm gonna say is that Z (who explains stuff really vaguely now for some reason?), Selene, and Clover have the tools that are to me, the most sensible out there. I just don't respect those "mimicry doesn't work" randos, man, like how the heck did you learn the English language we're communicating in right now? How did you learn that horrible mock British accent you keep using for laughs? Through mimicry, that's how! You weren't thinking about your aryepiglottic sphincter and your thyroarytenoid muscles when you were screaming and crying as a small child because you had to go to school! Fortunately, I'm not interested in actually debating this with anybody, so feel free to completely ignore the cognitive dissonance bubbling up in your head right now if that's what brings you joy. I don't care (that much).
4. IS IT OVER FOR ME???? AM I ETERNALLY DOOMED TO BEING ASS AT VOCALISTICS????
This acts as a sort of follow-up to the previous section because we're still looking at the numerous troubles of volunteering. This time, it's the hopeless, depressed, extremely not-okay voice trainees who are unintentionally making things worse for everybody.So, I often see people going like "voice training sucks and is super stressful" and such, and like, I understand what you're talking about, but also please, for the love of all that is golden, consider the fact that you're not just screaming into a vacuum when you say something like that. Maybe someone was already having a bad day with practice, and when they saw that, they got even more pissed off than they already were because what are these posts saying but "I should abandon all hope of ever being happy with myself; success is impossible and to give up is to be honest". It's just a really crappy vibe to spread and just makes everybody sadder. What's also just wonderful is when people expect you to be their unlicensed (and unpaid) therapist and also simultaneously blow up at you whenever you attempt to comfort them. It's a great time! I love it when stuff like that happens! I love it when people make things all about themselves and have no sympathy for their elders! I know I'm younger than every single one of you (except for you, Luna, I see you) but I'm really playing the role of the elder here when I have to help this mentally unstable child not explode. I didn't sign up for any of this shit when I decided I wanted to help people explore size and weight, man.
The fact that there's so many of these please-get-therapy-for-the-love-of-god children (they sometimes are literal minors but that's irrelevant) really ensured that I'll never work as a voice teacher ever. Can you imagine sitting with someone like that except you can't just leave the Discord channel???? AND THEN PEOPLE TREAT TEACHERS LIKE WEALTHY CAPITALIST ELITES! Shit makes no goddamn sense! You wouldn't last a second in the arena with a mentally ill college student!
However, the true horror appears when these people channel their trauma into rhetoric. All of a sudden, you get the only thing worse than comforting a sad stranger who hates you: debating a sad stranger who hates you. I welcome thee to the shittiest pits of trans voice discourse: The "should I just give up and die" war.
On one side, we're gonna gonna have team C (completely arbitrary letter choice by the way), which is the crowd that lives by the slogan "not everybody can succeed at voice training" and really wants to convince everybody of that. Then, we have what I like to call "the other andies", which are the resistive force battling the formidable team C in the marketplace of ideas and cat ear headphones. Team C and the Other Andies are a tale as old as time, one that is as eternal as the breeze of twilight. Let's look a little further into it.
Team C consists of people who are disillusioned with the messages they're given by popular voice teachers, naive students, and kids' shows: that you just gotta work hard enough and all your dreams will come true. They've arrived at a solid brick wall in their harrowing quest for a biologically female (or male) voice and they don't believe they have the zuzz it takes to get past this obstacle. Are they right? Hell if I know! It's really hard to properly get a picture of this demographic because I bet a lot of it is people who are simply in a horrible headspace and just need to try harder when they feel better, but I'm sure there's individuals in there with actual muscle problems and hearing/speech trouble and all sorts of other issues I can't shrug off in good faith. Furthermore, they kind of DO make a good argument when you take this little clip into consideration. Now I'm not one to jump to conclusions necessarily, but I think the contradiction between what Z says here what she tells to the public speaks to a wider problem among many of the Other Andies, which is that they often overpromise just to make you feel a little better about yourself (or to make you buy their stuff, I guess? Sometimes, maybe? I'm not a conspiracist).
Something special about the Other Andies is that they're not as much of a monolith as team C, which tends to say more-or-less the same stuff (you know the drill: some people can't do it, stop lying to us you scumbag pigs, etcetera). Some other andies say delusional shite like "99.99% of people succeed", while others carry the much more honest and respectable "you're probably gonna be okay". I like the latter subsection, the other other andies if you will. They're not riding the toxic positivity train, but they're also not shooting corrosive substances at your face, yknow? I still think this is a stupid fucking debate. You wanna train? Then do it. Can't do it? Then either you try harder or you make peace with what you've got. I'm not saying this from a position of privilege because my ass is MUCH closer to the vocal ability of a team C member.
This goes out to all my team C friends, possibly including the mysterious grand general of the movement if such an entity even exists. I'm... worried about you. It's really not healthy to spend so much of your life on a place you hate, talking about a topic you hate with people you hate, perceiving yourself as the only soldier standing between the small Voice City and the monstrous hurricane of false hope... Please let your trauma heal and move on from this place. I'm trying to do the same too, just work towards it. I understand and respect that you still find some purpose in helping others find their footing in this cold, dark world, but I think it's time you extend that courtesy to yourself. You're so much more than this and you deserve so much more happiness in this weird world. Allow yourself to start a new chapter with all of this headache- and heartache-inducing garbage behind.
You have it in you to make it out of this dumpster fire and finally live a more fulfilling existence. Is it gonna be hard? 100%, but we're gonna do it together, even if I don't even know who you are in the slightest. It's all about that little idea. That flame of ambition, to quote the Fell Omen. Keep the desire for a better life alive within you, and I wish you the motherfucking greatest quantity of luck.
6. The future of the Selene clip collection
The reason I didn't make this post earlier was because I was worried about what would happen to my dear resource collection if nobody was around to maintain it (since this account is almost certainly hitting the dectus at this point), but I've decided I'll delegate this task to a fellow volunteer. I haven't properly decided on how exactly this shall happen, but rest assured that your Selene clip supply may never run dry, my lovely friends that I absolutely did not insult the fuck out of for the past three thousand words.[EDIT 10/05/2024: For the record, I am very very thankful for the nice responses here and a heart emoji goes out to you folks <3. I'm not really too informed about the whole language acquisition counterpoint thing that user brought up, but I respect them and what they're saying.
The Selene Clip Collection has been updated with a new announcement. One the GitHub organization becomes large enough, I'll finally be able to enter the florpus.
2024.04.29 07:42 okthatsverygood When Kashmiri Pandits walked in solidarity with Kashmiri Muslims in Srinagar
There was a radio announcement saying that the holy relic of Prophet Muhammad had been stolen from the Hazratbal shrine. This was a big shock. There was silence for quite some time in my home.
The radio was switched off and my grandmother, looking at the sky awash with flying burnt black paper, said, ‘What has happened is not good. Something terrible is going to take place.’ The distant noises of the mobs were still audible, and nobody knew what was going to happen.
The next day, all kinds of rumours spread — that the holy relic had already reached Pakistan; that some local politician had managed to steal it in order to overthrow the present Jammu and Kashmir government; and that it was a conspiracy to start a communal riot in the Valley, which would then spread all over India and create a chaotic situation in the subcontinent.
Some said that the relic had been taken by some influential person with the intention of showing it to some very eminent person before he passed away, as a blessing to him. All kinds of rumours circulated, and no one had any clue as to who had planted them all.
The situation deteriorated further, and curfew was imposed in certain parts of Srinagar. The shutdown continued for many days, and daily amenities grew scarce. People started hoarding articles for their day-to-day needs. The civil administration had completely collapsed, and people had taken administration into their own hands. Every morning, young volunteers from the Action Committee rode around on open tongas [horse-drawn vehicle], stopping at various crossings to shout ‘Hoshiyar, khabardar’ and announce the rates of each item, like sugar, salt, rice and oil.
These rates were binding on every citizen and every shopkeeper. Anyone who did not comply with these orders would have to face the punishment of the Action Committee, which had come up suddenly due to public reaction. This body was formed, headed and led by well-known religious personalities. These kinds of announcements would happen many times during the day.
Sometimes they were sprinkled with instructions to the general public to behave like brothers with each other. If anyone needed anything, the people of the area were to rise to the occasion and cooperate and support that individual. There were clear instructions to the people to maintain communal harmony and brotherhood with those of other faiths. Kashmir became a shining example of communal amity during these days of grief.
Within a few days, the peasantry from the countryside descended into the city of Srinagar, coming in thousands from all parts of the Valley, to mourn the theft of the Holy Relic. All roads and lanes were filled with ordinary village folk. The landscape of Srinagar City changed. There were community kitchens organised on all the main roads of the city.
Called susras and supported by different localities, these kitchens were part of an old tradition in Kashmir that brings the Kashmiri brotherhood to the fore. Most of the time, susras provide yellow rice, an auspicious grain for all Kashmiris, and with it, warm water for the people in the winter.
Every day, lakhs of people marched in planned processions from one end of the city to another, simultaneously with other processions in other parts of the Valley. These processions carried black flags and green flags as marks of mourning, sacrilege and fury.
Apart from normal Islamic slogans, there would be slogans about Hindu, Muslim and Sikh unity. All through the night, mosques recited Quranic verses for the thousands of people from the countryside who had come and camped in the city.
The mosques became shelters for these visitors by night, as it was a chilly winter and had snowed a few days back. I used to move freely within the city those days and see those thousands of village folks occupying nearly the whole city. The scenes were like those one sees in Russian documentaries showing the days of the Bolshevik Revolution when the peasantry marched into the city of Moscow to see for themselves the change after the czars’ rule.
Hushed conversations speculated on how events could suddenly take a turn and bring violence against minorities. There were rumours about communal riots and killings in Dhaka, then a part of East Pakistan, as a response to the happenings in Kashmir.
However, even when this news reached Kashmir, there was no adverse response among the public. The Kashmiri Pandit community responded to this loss of the Holy Relic by organising a procession in solidarity with the Muslims.
The march began from my mohalla at the Sheetal Nath grounds, the epicentre of Kashmiri Pandit politics. Some of us young teenagers were tasked with leading the procession and shouting slogans. I loved doing this. A couple of thousand Pandits joined this important procession as a mark of solidarity with our Kashmiri Muslim brothers. This procession moved slowly with a few black flags and a solitary saffron flag in the lead.
When we crossed into the Muslim localities there was a surprise, even disbelief. We were shouting slogans like ‘Marenge ek saath, jiyenge ek saath [We will die together, we will live together]’; ‘Moye-Muqaddas Pak ko wapas karo aye zalimon [Return Moye-Muqaddas to us, O tormentors]’; and ‘Hindu Muslim ittehad, zindabad, zindabad [Long live union of Hindus and Muslims]’. The moment we reached Habba Kadal, we saw that a community kitchen had already sprung up on the roadside. There the Muslim volunteers, moved upon seeing us, came with warm water and yellow rice to feed us.
Some of the elders blessed us. I remember some men with moist eyes hugging us. After a small break, the procession moved on towards the downtown area where we were very encouraged by the response. People came from the mosques to watch our procession and lined up along the road. At one point, as we raised slogans, all the people on the roadside joined in.
On reaching Khanaka-i-Moulla, near the Shah Hamdan Shrine, I saw women watching us from their windows with their hands raised in prayer to the Almighty. One could see that this procession had glued the two communities closer in their mutual sharing of pain. A little further on, an elderly Muslim gentleman got so emotional and excited when he saw our procession that he screamed ‘Naara-e-Takbeer!’
Our whole procession responded, ‘Allah-hu-Akbar!’ The poor man couldn’t believe his ears and did not know how to respond, but he kept walking with us until some point near Navid Kadal, where he left us.
We moved on and entered the area of Mirwaiz. Pandits used to call this area Pakistan, but I don’t know why. For Pandits, entering this area was like walking into enemy territory, probably because of unfounded suspicions formed over the years. This time our procession had no fear. Here again, we were stopped by people and offered warm water as the chill in the air had grown very bitter.
Thousands of Muslims from all walks of life watched us in silence, but in their eyes, one could see the message: ‘We appreciate and respect this gesture of yours.’ In the late evening, when I reached home, I saw my grandmother, who had worried about me all day. All her four sons and their families had reached home, except me. When I entered the home, all were waiting for me. There was a long silence, and I felt the weight of it.
Finally, my grandmother asked me, ‘What did you do all day?’ When I started narrating my story, she cut me short and asked my mother to give me some food as I must be hungry and tired. After finishing my dinner, I bid goodnight to my grandmother, and she blessed me…
She used to wake me up at four in the morning by banging her walking stick against the ceiling of her room on the ground floor. My bedroom was right upstairs. I had to reply with bangs on the floor back, confirming that I had woken up to study. Immediately after waking up, I would make tea for her and myself. I would come down with her cup of tea, and only then would she be satisfied that I was really up.
After that, I had to rush and get pure milk from the traditional milkman. Grandma had an ulcer, which used to give her acute pain, and the doctor had advised her to take a lot of cold milk for it. And I, as a good grandson, took on the responsibility of getting up very early in the morning to fetch the milk for her. It was after all this that I would finally settle in at about five in the darkness of the winter months to study.
That day, when I took leave of her, she said, ‘From tomorrow, you will start your serious studies, and if you follow what I ask you to do, then I will give you five rupees to watch a talkie…’
At about seven [while returning], when it was still very dark because it was winter, I suddenly heard my father scream, ‘Lightning has fallen!’ He screamed again, ‘She’s gone!’ The family members, now alerted, were all at her bedside. Yes, Benjagari, my grandmother, had left us forever.
Excerpted with permission from 'Before I Forget' (published by Penguin Books India)
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/othewhen-kashmiri-pandits-walked-in-solidarity-with-muslims-in-srinagaar-AA1nOUXa
submitted by okthatsverygood to Kashmiri [link] [comments]
The radio was switched off and my grandmother, looking at the sky awash with flying burnt black paper, said, ‘What has happened is not good. Something terrible is going to take place.’ The distant noises of the mobs were still audible, and nobody knew what was going to happen.
The next day, all kinds of rumours spread — that the holy relic had already reached Pakistan; that some local politician had managed to steal it in order to overthrow the present Jammu and Kashmir government; and that it was a conspiracy to start a communal riot in the Valley, which would then spread all over India and create a chaotic situation in the subcontinent.
Some said that the relic had been taken by some influential person with the intention of showing it to some very eminent person before he passed away, as a blessing to him. All kinds of rumours circulated, and no one had any clue as to who had planted them all.
The situation deteriorated further, and curfew was imposed in certain parts of Srinagar. The shutdown continued for many days, and daily amenities grew scarce. People started hoarding articles for their day-to-day needs. The civil administration had completely collapsed, and people had taken administration into their own hands. Every morning, young volunteers from the Action Committee rode around on open tongas [horse-drawn vehicle], stopping at various crossings to shout ‘Hoshiyar, khabardar’ and announce the rates of each item, like sugar, salt, rice and oil.
These rates were binding on every citizen and every shopkeeper. Anyone who did not comply with these orders would have to face the punishment of the Action Committee, which had come up suddenly due to public reaction. This body was formed, headed and led by well-known religious personalities. These kinds of announcements would happen many times during the day.
Sometimes they were sprinkled with instructions to the general public to behave like brothers with each other. If anyone needed anything, the people of the area were to rise to the occasion and cooperate and support that individual. There were clear instructions to the people to maintain communal harmony and brotherhood with those of other faiths. Kashmir became a shining example of communal amity during these days of grief.
Within a few days, the peasantry from the countryside descended into the city of Srinagar, coming in thousands from all parts of the Valley, to mourn the theft of the Holy Relic. All roads and lanes were filled with ordinary village folk. The landscape of Srinagar City changed. There were community kitchens organised on all the main roads of the city.
Called susras and supported by different localities, these kitchens were part of an old tradition in Kashmir that brings the Kashmiri brotherhood to the fore. Most of the time, susras provide yellow rice, an auspicious grain for all Kashmiris, and with it, warm water for the people in the winter.
Every day, lakhs of people marched in planned processions from one end of the city to another, simultaneously with other processions in other parts of the Valley. These processions carried black flags and green flags as marks of mourning, sacrilege and fury.
Apart from normal Islamic slogans, there would be slogans about Hindu, Muslim and Sikh unity. All through the night, mosques recited Quranic verses for the thousands of people from the countryside who had come and camped in the city.
The mosques became shelters for these visitors by night, as it was a chilly winter and had snowed a few days back. I used to move freely within the city those days and see those thousands of village folks occupying nearly the whole city. The scenes were like those one sees in Russian documentaries showing the days of the Bolshevik Revolution when the peasantry marched into the city of Moscow to see for themselves the change after the czars’ rule.
Hushed conversations speculated on how events could suddenly take a turn and bring violence against minorities. There were rumours about communal riots and killings in Dhaka, then a part of East Pakistan, as a response to the happenings in Kashmir.
However, even when this news reached Kashmir, there was no adverse response among the public. The Kashmiri Pandit community responded to this loss of the Holy Relic by organising a procession in solidarity with the Muslims.
The march began from my mohalla at the Sheetal Nath grounds, the epicentre of Kashmiri Pandit politics. Some of us young teenagers were tasked with leading the procession and shouting slogans. I loved doing this. A couple of thousand Pandits joined this important procession as a mark of solidarity with our Kashmiri Muslim brothers. This procession moved slowly with a few black flags and a solitary saffron flag in the lead.
When we crossed into the Muslim localities there was a surprise, even disbelief. We were shouting slogans like ‘Marenge ek saath, jiyenge ek saath [We will die together, we will live together]’; ‘Moye-Muqaddas Pak ko wapas karo aye zalimon [Return Moye-Muqaddas to us, O tormentors]’; and ‘Hindu Muslim ittehad, zindabad, zindabad [Long live union of Hindus and Muslims]’. The moment we reached Habba Kadal, we saw that a community kitchen had already sprung up on the roadside. There the Muslim volunteers, moved upon seeing us, came with warm water and yellow rice to feed us.
Some of the elders blessed us. I remember some men with moist eyes hugging us. After a small break, the procession moved on towards the downtown area where we were very encouraged by the response. People came from the mosques to watch our procession and lined up along the road. At one point, as we raised slogans, all the people on the roadside joined in.
On reaching Khanaka-i-Moulla, near the Shah Hamdan Shrine, I saw women watching us from their windows with their hands raised in prayer to the Almighty. One could see that this procession had glued the two communities closer in their mutual sharing of pain. A little further on, an elderly Muslim gentleman got so emotional and excited when he saw our procession that he screamed ‘Naara-e-Takbeer!’
Our whole procession responded, ‘Allah-hu-Akbar!’ The poor man couldn’t believe his ears and did not know how to respond, but he kept walking with us until some point near Navid Kadal, where he left us.
We moved on and entered the area of Mirwaiz. Pandits used to call this area Pakistan, but I don’t know why. For Pandits, entering this area was like walking into enemy territory, probably because of unfounded suspicions formed over the years. This time our procession had no fear. Here again, we were stopped by people and offered warm water as the chill in the air had grown very bitter.
Thousands of Muslims from all walks of life watched us in silence, but in their eyes, one could see the message: ‘We appreciate and respect this gesture of yours.’ In the late evening, when I reached home, I saw my grandmother, who had worried about me all day. All her four sons and their families had reached home, except me. When I entered the home, all were waiting for me. There was a long silence, and I felt the weight of it.
Finally, my grandmother asked me, ‘What did you do all day?’ When I started narrating my story, she cut me short and asked my mother to give me some food as I must be hungry and tired. After finishing my dinner, I bid goodnight to my grandmother, and she blessed me…
She used to wake me up at four in the morning by banging her walking stick against the ceiling of her room on the ground floor. My bedroom was right upstairs. I had to reply with bangs on the floor back, confirming that I had woken up to study. Immediately after waking up, I would make tea for her and myself. I would come down with her cup of tea, and only then would she be satisfied that I was really up.
After that, I had to rush and get pure milk from the traditional milkman. Grandma had an ulcer, which used to give her acute pain, and the doctor had advised her to take a lot of cold milk for it. And I, as a good grandson, took on the responsibility of getting up very early in the morning to fetch the milk for her. It was after all this that I would finally settle in at about five in the darkness of the winter months to study.
That day, when I took leave of her, she said, ‘From tomorrow, you will start your serious studies, and if you follow what I ask you to do, then I will give you five rupees to watch a talkie…’
At about seven [while returning], when it was still very dark because it was winter, I suddenly heard my father scream, ‘Lightning has fallen!’ He screamed again, ‘She’s gone!’ The family members, now alerted, were all at her bedside. Yes, Benjagari, my grandmother, had left us forever.
Excerpted with permission from 'Before I Forget' (published by Penguin Books India)
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/othewhen-kashmiri-pandits-walked-in-solidarity-with-muslims-in-srinagaar-AA1nOUXa
2024.04.15 23:09 ucscSHOP Hello from SHOP!
Hi Slugs! This account is run by peer educators at UCSC’s SHOP (Student Health Outreach and Promotion). We’re here to share information about what we do on Reddit! We will not be able to reply to most comments—please email [shop@ucsc.edu](mailto:shop@ucsc.edu) with questions.
SHOP Overview
We offer lots of supportive services, and all of them are free, confidential, and non-judgmental! SHOP is an umbrella organization for a few peer-led health education groups (we know the name is a little confusing…)
Here are the SHOP teams:
SHOP's health center hours:
MWThFri: 8:30 AM - noon and 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM (note the lunch break!)
Tues: 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
SatSun: Closed
Follow us on Instagram!
submitted by ucscSHOP to UCSC [link] [comments]
SHOP Overview
We offer lots of supportive services, and all of them are free, confidential, and non-judgmental! SHOP is an umbrella organization for a few peer-led health education groups (we know the name is a little confusing…)
Here are the SHOP teams:
- Party Safe, which talks about drugs and alcohol (you may know their slogan “Party Like A Slug!”)
- Slug Love, which talks about sexual and reproductive health (“Peer Led Sex Ed!”)
- SHOP Talk, which talks about mental health and wellbeing
- The COVE, which is a safe recovery space
- Free Narcan
- Free fentanyl testing strips
- Free condoms, lube, dental dams, and gloves
- Free 1:1 birth control counseling
- Drop-in hours are posted quarterly on our Slug Love Instagram, and you can schedule an appointment here if those times don’t work
- Free 1:1 wellness coaching with a health educator, covering topics such as:
- General wellness (stress management, imposter syndrome, managing loneliness)
- Sexual health (sexual communication, STI prevention, pregnancy options)
- Alcohol & drugs (harm reduction, recovery support)
- A space to ask any questions you have - completely confidential and anonymous
- Workshops and tabling for campus organizations (email us at [shop@ucsc.edu](mailto:shop@ucsc.edu) if you’re interested in scheduling with us!)
- The COVE also offers a LOT of resources:
- Weekly Recovery Meetings (connections to on & off-campus)
- Free food pantry & clothing swap
- 1:1 recovery counseling with a professional
- Private rooms for appointments
- Relaxation Room with a massage chair
- Peer mentoring
- Quarterly sober fun events
- Volunteer Opportunities!
SHOP's health center hours:
MWThFri: 8:30 AM - noon and 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM (note the lunch break!)
Tues: 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
SatSun: Closed
Follow us on Instagram!
- u/partylikeaslug (Party Safe)
- @slugloveucsc (Slug Love - this is a brand new page! Go follow it :> )
- @ucscshoptalk (SHOP Talk)
- @ucscthecove (COVE)
2024.04.15 22:29 meleyys I've compiled a list of cheap, easy, and low-risk forms of activism. Feel free to add your own.
I care a lot about making a difference in the world, but my broke mentally ill ass often doesn't have the money or the energy to do much. So I've come up with a few forms of activism that are at least sometimes viable for me. I hope this list helps others in similar situations. If you have any more ideas, please feel free to add in the comments.
Note: Any action you take outside or around other people should be done with a mask on, not just because covid is an ongoing threat but because anonymity maximizes safety.
Option 1: Donate money
Cost: Low to very high, depending on how much/often you donate.
Effort: Very low. You just have to press a couple buttons.
Risk: Low. Worst-case scenario, your identity gets stolen because you donated to the wrong person, but that seems unlikely.
Let's get the obvious one out of the way first: Donating money to charity or directly to people in need. This is incredibly easy, but it's also not something a lot of people can afford, and its effectiveness varies wildly. Some charities do great work; others not so much. Some people who ask the internet for help really do need it; others are scammers. Carefully vet any charities you donate to and try to avoid obvious scams.
Option 2: Click-to-give and other free charities
Cost: Very low. You just need an internet connection and a device to connect with, which you already have, if you're reading this.
Effort: Very low. Literally just clicks for most of them.
Risk: Very low. You need to turn off your adblockers for most of these to work, but you're only risking getting a virus, and I never have from one of these sites.
These are exactly what they sound like: Websites that let you click (or perform some other action) to donate to charity. I've compiled a list of them here (some links may be broken, sorry), but I especially want to highlight this one because it has a section that benefits Palestine. The problem with these is that it's hard to be sure whether your click counted or the money is going where they say it's going. But you probably aren't going to cause any harm regardless.
Option 3: Graffiti/stickers
Cost: Low to high. On the high end, we have consistently buying stickers. On the low end, we have a one-time purchase of paint pens. Also, if you live in the US, you can get shipping labels from USPS for nothing more than the cost of shipping as often as you want (seriously, it's your God-given right to order as many of these damn things as you like).
Effort: Low. All you need to do is go for a walk and put up some stickers or scribble some slogans on flat surfaces.
Risk: Low to moderate. Unless you're literally doing this in front of a cop (or on private property), you're pretty unlikely to be punished. Maybe check around for cameras before you do it if you're really paranoid. But even if you do get caught, your punishment is likely to be a slap on the wrist.
Want to annoy your local conservatives? Start putting up leftist stickers and graffiti everywhere! Store-bought stickers are often the most visually appealing and able to communicate the longest message, but they are easy to rip off. Paint pens can be a pain in the ass to use, but they're more permanent. Shipping labels with slogans written on them are very cheap to obtain and easy to customize, but they tend to fade in rain.
Option 4: Volunteer
Cost: Very low to low. Usually only involves transportation costs.
Effort: Moderate to very high. Depends on what you do and how often you do it.
Risk: Low. The only risk involved is whatever risks come with the gig--being bitten at an animal rescue or assaulted when working with the public, etc.
There are a million different organizations out there helping people and animals. They all need volunteers. Remember, volunteering once is better than never volunteering at all. Oh, and be sure to vet the organization before you start.
Option 5: Protest
Cost: Very low to moderate. Usually only involves transportation costs, but you may need to buy good shoes if you're going to be marching around, or black clothes if you want to attend a black block protest.
Effort: Moderate to very high. Sometimes you're chilling on a street corner holding a sign. Sometimes you're fighting the police for hours.
Risk: Moderate to very high. See above. Even if you're just holding a sign, you risk being yelled at. If you're engaging with police or counter-protesters, you risk everything from arrest to death.
The classic, and probably the most important, form of activism. Not everyone is up for this, and that's okay, but it needed including. The obvious way to go about this is to look up local protests and attend them, but I want to point out that you are perfectly capable of organizing a one-man protest. Stand outside your local police station or Israeli embassy or ICE facility with a sign. Become that guy. Who knows, maybe people will even start to join you after a while. And like I said earlier: Going once is better than never going at all.
Option 6: Donate crafts
Cost: Moderate to very high. Depends on your craft and how often you buy materials.
Effort: Low to very high. Depends on how often you perform your craft and how difficult it is.
Risk: Very low. Your only involvement with other people will probably be buying materials and dropping off your donations.
Like to knit, sew, or crochet? Make hats, scarves, masks, blankets, etc. and hand them out to people you see on the street or to homeless shelters. You can even make blankets and toys for animal rescues. If you were going to be doing these things for fun anyway and your family is sick of getting scarves for Christmas, this is a great way to get rid of your finished items. If you aren't doing these things, they make great hobbies, especially if you're like me and always want something to do with your hands.
May edit as I think of more. Please share your own ideas in the comments!
submitted by meleyys to leftist [link] [comments]
Note: Any action you take outside or around other people should be done with a mask on, not just because covid is an ongoing threat but because anonymity maximizes safety.
Cost: Low to very high, depending on how much/often you donate.
Effort: Very low. You just have to press a couple buttons.
Risk: Low. Worst-case scenario, your identity gets stolen because you donated to the wrong person, but that seems unlikely.
Let's get the obvious one out of the way first: Donating money to charity or directly to people in need. This is incredibly easy, but it's also not something a lot of people can afford, and its effectiveness varies wildly. Some charities do great work; others not so much. Some people who ask the internet for help really do need it; others are scammers. Carefully vet any charities you donate to and try to avoid obvious scams.
Cost: Very low. You just need an internet connection and a device to connect with, which you already have, if you're reading this.
Effort: Very low. Literally just clicks for most of them.
Risk: Very low. You need to turn off your adblockers for most of these to work, but you're only risking getting a virus, and I never have from one of these sites.
These are exactly what they sound like: Websites that let you click (or perform some other action) to donate to charity. I've compiled a list of them here (some links may be broken, sorry), but I especially want to highlight this one because it has a section that benefits Palestine. The problem with these is that it's hard to be sure whether your click counted or the money is going where they say it's going. But you probably aren't going to cause any harm regardless.
Cost: Low to high. On the high end, we have consistently buying stickers. On the low end, we have a one-time purchase of paint pens. Also, if you live in the US, you can get shipping labels from USPS for nothing more than the cost of shipping as often as you want (seriously, it's your God-given right to order as many of these damn things as you like).
Effort: Low. All you need to do is go for a walk and put up some stickers or scribble some slogans on flat surfaces.
Risk: Low to moderate. Unless you're literally doing this in front of a cop (or on private property), you're pretty unlikely to be punished. Maybe check around for cameras before you do it if you're really paranoid. But even if you do get caught, your punishment is likely to be a slap on the wrist.
Want to annoy your local conservatives? Start putting up leftist stickers and graffiti everywhere! Store-bought stickers are often the most visually appealing and able to communicate the longest message, but they are easy to rip off. Paint pens can be a pain in the ass to use, but they're more permanent. Shipping labels with slogans written on them are very cheap to obtain and easy to customize, but they tend to fade in rain.
Cost: Very low to low. Usually only involves transportation costs.
Effort: Moderate to very high. Depends on what you do and how often you do it.
Risk: Low. The only risk involved is whatever risks come with the gig--being bitten at an animal rescue or assaulted when working with the public, etc.
There are a million different organizations out there helping people and animals. They all need volunteers. Remember, volunteering once is better than never volunteering at all. Oh, and be sure to vet the organization before you start.
Cost: Very low to moderate. Usually only involves transportation costs, but you may need to buy good shoes if you're going to be marching around, or black clothes if you want to attend a black block protest.
Effort: Moderate to very high. Sometimes you're chilling on a street corner holding a sign. Sometimes you're fighting the police for hours.
Risk: Moderate to very high. See above. Even if you're just holding a sign, you risk being yelled at. If you're engaging with police or counter-protesters, you risk everything from arrest to death.
The classic, and probably the most important, form of activism. Not everyone is up for this, and that's okay, but it needed including. The obvious way to go about this is to look up local protests and attend them, but I want to point out that you are perfectly capable of organizing a one-man protest. Stand outside your local police station or Israeli embassy or ICE facility with a sign. Become that guy. Who knows, maybe people will even start to join you after a while. And like I said earlier: Going once is better than never going at all.
Cost: Moderate to very high. Depends on your craft and how often you buy materials.
Effort: Low to very high. Depends on how often you perform your craft and how difficult it is.
Risk: Very low. Your only involvement with other people will probably be buying materials and dropping off your donations.
Like to knit, sew, or crochet? Make hats, scarves, masks, blankets, etc. and hand them out to people you see on the street or to homeless shelters. You can even make blankets and toys for animal rescues. If you were going to be doing these things for fun anyway and your family is sick of getting scarves for Christmas, this is a great way to get rid of your finished items. If you aren't doing these things, they make great hobbies, especially if you're like me and always want something to do with your hands.
2024.04.12 17:31 nomadMikZ re 'experienced festival-goer review'
I wasn't able to comment on a post by an experienced festival-goer, possibly because this amount of text is more suitable for a separate post. But this is intended to be a respectful and curious reply to yesterday's post by 'Tripflex'.
I'm curious about what other festivals they've been to, because while I agree with some of their assessment, I couldn't disagree more strongly with them about the facilities. I've probably only been to half as many festivals as them (unless you count Burning Man events, but there's a reason those aren't called festivals), but all but the most offbeat underground were better organised. Certainly, none that had online ticket sales had gaping safety holes in them like the Texas Eclipse at Burnet, and none were nearly as crassly cash-grabby.
To be fair, I've only been to one other event remotely like it in Texas, or anywhere this far south in the US, at least on this side of the Rockies. But I've been to a dozen other festivals in the US (and if you do count Burning Man, more than 30), and many more in Europe and Australia, and a few in Canada, Africa and Asia, including for two other eclipses. (I had tickets to go to the eclipse in Patagonia too, but, well, 2020.) Some have been bigger, some smaller, and they haven't all been EDM, but still, large outdoor events, with performances and camping accommodation.
The most striking thing over last weekend was the lack of public safety, unless you count the overbearing, power-tripped 'security theatre' at the gate, which I'll get to in a moment. But at every other festival I've been to, at least where there's been more than a few thousand punters, there have been plenty of people in distinctive uniforms that you could go to for help, and anywhere with facilities like showers and ice sales have had kiosks with medical staff, and big charts with drug safety information (actual information, not the inane 'just say no'-like slogans that I've seen at other US events—thankfully those weren't at this one!). Essentials like AEDs are never far away at well-organised festivals; if it's true that an ambulance from Burnet arrived at the scene of that cardiac arrest before an AED, then that's a gross failure of the organisers, and the event frankly should've been shut down.
Personally, I believe this was the real reason the entertainment was stopped. I'm a trained and experienced emergency volunteer, so I'm quite well connected to weather warnings. I didn't see any evidence of a weather emergency; the vaguely close storm front just seemed a convenient excuse for the festival organisers, after they came under scrutiny after that poor man died. (And yes, I've been at other events where people have died, but I've never heard tales about people being left without assistance for so long.)
The other big safety issue was all those stones on the roads and tracks. Yes, I've been at events on brand new sites before, and those can be a problem. But I've never seen them left on pathways where thousands of people are supposed to walk and roll! No wonder the few medical workers that were at the event said they were overwhelmed; I can only imagine how many trip and ankle injuries they would've had to attend to! And I've only been to a couple of festivals where toilets have been that poorly maintained, or where showers overflow, and only at smaller, more underground events, with less experienced crew. For a major event like this? Somebody just messed up the numbers and hired inadequate staff.
I disagree with Tripflex about 'plenty of room' at the stages, unless they meant on the stages themselves. Maybe they only went to some of the big acts, and didn't try to get around them to get to the other, smaller stages. Especially on the last night, it took me some 20 minutes to get around the crowds that were blocking the walkways and spilling into the vending areas, to get to the acts that I wanted to see. I was trying to imagine, how the hell could any grand event for the eclipse itself take place? In Queensland and Oregon, people sat on picnic blankets and listened to music and commentary, and I just couldn't picture that here. Maybe they had ideas for something else cool, but maybe there were just more people than there were supposed to be, or that they'd really made room for.
Speaking about the vendors, the costs for food and facilities were gob-smacking! $36 for an undercooked corn dog and a couple of softdrinks?! $10 for a shower, with tepid water and standing ankle-deep in grey water? (I'm really glad I found out about the $16 place—much better value! Loved those people!) Most of the clothing was crappy, overpriced fast fashion. How much were the vendors charged to set up shop, in order for them to need to charge to much for their goods? And why were people charged extra to arrive a day or two early, if they weren't allowed to camp where they wanted? What was the supposed value of this? There was none; it was just a cash grab for the organisers!
And, of course, there was the Security Theatre. TBH, our experience wasn't so bad, because we arrived a day later than planned. We spent our original arrival date going to pharmacies to buy expensive and wasteful factory-sealed OTC meds, and driving to a nearby friends' place to drop off all the tools I normally travel with, and anything else the goons might decide they'd like to take and call a 'potential weapon'. Far-fetched? Hardly! My ex rang us to warn that they'd taken her toothpaste, and most of her other toiletries, and all of her supplements, largely without her knowledge or consent! We read the reports of people having screwdrivers and tyre irons 'confiscated'. What kind of cheap-arse dunderheads were hired, for the security management not to say, hey, you're telling us to take personal items that people will probably need for almost a week of camping, are you sure that's right??? Sorry, but 'the wrong list' is just a pathetic excuse, and it took much too long to straighten out. Facebook groups were howling with stories about bad treatment and essentials getting taken; somebody just didn't care.
And lest anyone ask, yes, I actually have been involved in putting on festivals and other large events. I've been part of the crew at Burning Man, Burning Seed, Rainbow Serpent and Confest. I've been on organising committees for villages at Burning Man (not camps, villages) and also a few hotel conferences with thousands of attendees—not the same thing, but similar aims and similarly complicated. I've provided first aid and psych care at events with over 100,000 attendees, on three continents, including EDM festivals. So I feel qualified to say that the organisers of this event dropped the ball for too many things, and were careless about public safety and providing value for their customers.
The event wasn't without merit. There was lovely art, like at Modem in Croatia and pretty much every Burn. As Tripflex said, stages were separated fairly well, like at Noisily in England, the Harmony Festival in California, and Woodford in SE Queensland. The drone show was cool, like at various Expos and New Year events I've been to around the world in the last few years, and it's great to see how that tech is developing. And the eclipse itself was as awe-inspiring as any other I've seen—I'm definitely an eclipse chaser.
But I won't be going to an event arranged by this mob again, even if they don't end up getting sued into oblivion for negligence.
submitted by nomadMikZ to TexasEclipseFestival [link] [comments]
I'm curious about what other festivals they've been to, because while I agree with some of their assessment, I couldn't disagree more strongly with them about the facilities. I've probably only been to half as many festivals as them (unless you count Burning Man events, but there's a reason those aren't called festivals), but all but the most offbeat underground were better organised. Certainly, none that had online ticket sales had gaping safety holes in them like the Texas Eclipse at Burnet, and none were nearly as crassly cash-grabby.
To be fair, I've only been to one other event remotely like it in Texas, or anywhere this far south in the US, at least on this side of the Rockies. But I've been to a dozen other festivals in the US (and if you do count Burning Man, more than 30), and many more in Europe and Australia, and a few in Canada, Africa and Asia, including for two other eclipses. (I had tickets to go to the eclipse in Patagonia too, but, well, 2020.) Some have been bigger, some smaller, and they haven't all been EDM, but still, large outdoor events, with performances and camping accommodation.
The most striking thing over last weekend was the lack of public safety, unless you count the overbearing, power-tripped 'security theatre' at the gate, which I'll get to in a moment. But at every other festival I've been to, at least where there's been more than a few thousand punters, there have been plenty of people in distinctive uniforms that you could go to for help, and anywhere with facilities like showers and ice sales have had kiosks with medical staff, and big charts with drug safety information (actual information, not the inane 'just say no'-like slogans that I've seen at other US events—thankfully those weren't at this one!). Essentials like AEDs are never far away at well-organised festivals; if it's true that an ambulance from Burnet arrived at the scene of that cardiac arrest before an AED, then that's a gross failure of the organisers, and the event frankly should've been shut down.
Personally, I believe this was the real reason the entertainment was stopped. I'm a trained and experienced emergency volunteer, so I'm quite well connected to weather warnings. I didn't see any evidence of a weather emergency; the vaguely close storm front just seemed a convenient excuse for the festival organisers, after they came under scrutiny after that poor man died. (And yes, I've been at other events where people have died, but I've never heard tales about people being left without assistance for so long.)
The other big safety issue was all those stones on the roads and tracks. Yes, I've been at events on brand new sites before, and those can be a problem. But I've never seen them left on pathways where thousands of people are supposed to walk and roll! No wonder the few medical workers that were at the event said they were overwhelmed; I can only imagine how many trip and ankle injuries they would've had to attend to! And I've only been to a couple of festivals where toilets have been that poorly maintained, or where showers overflow, and only at smaller, more underground events, with less experienced crew. For a major event like this? Somebody just messed up the numbers and hired inadequate staff.
I disagree with Tripflex about 'plenty of room' at the stages, unless they meant on the stages themselves. Maybe they only went to some of the big acts, and didn't try to get around them to get to the other, smaller stages. Especially on the last night, it took me some 20 minutes to get around the crowds that were blocking the walkways and spilling into the vending areas, to get to the acts that I wanted to see. I was trying to imagine, how the hell could any grand event for the eclipse itself take place? In Queensland and Oregon, people sat on picnic blankets and listened to music and commentary, and I just couldn't picture that here. Maybe they had ideas for something else cool, but maybe there were just more people than there were supposed to be, or that they'd really made room for.
Speaking about the vendors, the costs for food and facilities were gob-smacking! $36 for an undercooked corn dog and a couple of softdrinks?! $10 for a shower, with tepid water and standing ankle-deep in grey water? (I'm really glad I found out about the $16 place—much better value! Loved those people!) Most of the clothing was crappy, overpriced fast fashion. How much were the vendors charged to set up shop, in order for them to need to charge to much for their goods? And why were people charged extra to arrive a day or two early, if they weren't allowed to camp where they wanted? What was the supposed value of this? There was none; it was just a cash grab for the organisers!
And, of course, there was the Security Theatre. TBH, our experience wasn't so bad, because we arrived a day later than planned. We spent our original arrival date going to pharmacies to buy expensive and wasteful factory-sealed OTC meds, and driving to a nearby friends' place to drop off all the tools I normally travel with, and anything else the goons might decide they'd like to take and call a 'potential weapon'. Far-fetched? Hardly! My ex rang us to warn that they'd taken her toothpaste, and most of her other toiletries, and all of her supplements, largely without her knowledge or consent! We read the reports of people having screwdrivers and tyre irons 'confiscated'. What kind of cheap-arse dunderheads were hired, for the security management not to say, hey, you're telling us to take personal items that people will probably need for almost a week of camping, are you sure that's right??? Sorry, but 'the wrong list' is just a pathetic excuse, and it took much too long to straighten out. Facebook groups were howling with stories about bad treatment and essentials getting taken; somebody just didn't care.
And lest anyone ask, yes, I actually have been involved in putting on festivals and other large events. I've been part of the crew at Burning Man, Burning Seed, Rainbow Serpent and Confest. I've been on organising committees for villages at Burning Man (not camps, villages) and also a few hotel conferences with thousands of attendees—not the same thing, but similar aims and similarly complicated. I've provided first aid and psych care at events with over 100,000 attendees, on three continents, including EDM festivals. So I feel qualified to say that the organisers of this event dropped the ball for too many things, and were careless about public safety and providing value for their customers.
The event wasn't without merit. There was lovely art, like at Modem in Croatia and pretty much every Burn. As Tripflex said, stages were separated fairly well, like at Noisily in England, the Harmony Festival in California, and Woodford in SE Queensland. The drone show was cool, like at various Expos and New Year events I've been to around the world in the last few years, and it's great to see how that tech is developing. And the eclipse itself was as awe-inspiring as any other I've seen—I'm definitely an eclipse chaser.
But I won't be going to an event arranged by this mob again, even if they don't end up getting sued into oblivion for negligence.
2024.04.10 16:48 mjforcongress I’m Michael Jonas, congressional candidate for Oregon’s 3rd District. AMA!
Good Morning! I'm Michael Jonas, a community business attorney with an MBA and a nonprofit volunteer. I'm running for Congress in Oregon's 3rd District (to replace retiring Earl Blumenauer) because I’m a creative and collaborative problem solver. I’m also running, because probably similar to you, I’m fed up with the long list of issues America has but doesn’t seem to solve.
I get in and change structures and encourage businesses to profit while considering social enterprise models. In 2023, I was one of Portland Business Journal’s 40 under 40 honorees. I was also chosen by the SBA as Oregon’s “Small Business Champion of the Year.
My campaign slogan is “Love, Science, Plans. And Action.” Thoughts and prayers are meaningful, but they’re not enough. Wishful thinking is great, but it’s not forward moving by itself. Our country needs plans based on research, evidence, and data that lead to intentionally implemented actions.
Let's talk about the issues you care about and why I'm the best candidate for long-lasting, scalable change.
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/3WyZgZt
IG: u/michaeljonasforcongress
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michaeljonascongress/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@michaeljonasforcongress
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelJonasforCongress
Campaign Website: https://www.michaeljonasforcongress.com/
submitted by mjforcongress to Portland [link] [comments]
I get in and change structures and encourage businesses to profit while considering social enterprise models. In 2023, I was one of Portland Business Journal’s 40 under 40 honorees. I was also chosen by the SBA as Oregon’s “Small Business Champion of the Year.
My campaign slogan is “Love, Science, Plans. And Action.” Thoughts and prayers are meaningful, but they’re not enough. Wishful thinking is great, but it’s not forward moving by itself. Our country needs plans based on research, evidence, and data that lead to intentionally implemented actions.
Let's talk about the issues you care about and why I'm the best candidate for long-lasting, scalable change.
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/3WyZgZt
IG: u/michaeljonasforcongress
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michaeljonascongress/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@michaeljonasforcongress
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelJonasforCongress
Campaign Website: https://www.michaeljonasforcongress.com/
2024.04.10 16:13 PitifulCall9574 Second, trust in community governance
Second, trust in community governance
Leave a Comment / By WeishaZhu / November 9, 2023
Enter the white paper series（2）
We start to unveil the mystery of the chainless system and introduce the relevant contents of the white paper. Many programmers have had close encounters with Bitcoin and ended up empty-handed. We are destined to meet each other and believe wealth is proportional to cognition. Our airdrop design does not require you to spend money, but you must spend time reading articles to improve your cognition and contribute to your strength; otherwise, you will miss wealth.”New Standards for Judging the Pros and Cons of Web 3.0 Projects” is divided into three sections: trust in originality, trust in community governance, and trust in influence and white papers.
New standards for judging the quality of Web 3.0 projects
Second, trust in community governance
introduction
Web 3.0 is also called Web3. There is a difference between the two concepts in the eyes of professionals, and this article does not make a distinction. As for the difference between Web3 and web2 projects, simply put, Web3 has more data ownership than Web2. Most Web3 projects are open-source and lack patent protection, making them easy to imitate. It is very common for dozens of imitation projects to appear at once. For example, after the Bitcoin BRC20 protocol came out, thousands of issuance projects suddenly emerged using this open-source protocol. These projects are a dazzling mix of good and evil.
Web3’s coin issuance projects generally issue coins and circulate them in the early stages. The circulation of coins is equivalent to listing. As professional investors, it isn’t easy to judge the value of earlier projects. So, how should ordinary retail investors evaluate this? Is there a relatively simple way?
The competitive environments of Web3 and Web2 are similar but also different. In this competitive environment, new judgment criteria are also needed in addition to the commonly used project judgment criteria of Web2.
Web3 emphasizes trustlessness, which does not mean that trust is not required but that it places higher requirements on trust, such as machine-level trust. In a world where the devil and hope coexist, obtaining trust is obviously a vital issue, leading to a new trust judgment mechanism that web2 does not have. This article describes the unique trust mechanism of Web3 from four perspectives: initiative trust, community trust, influence trust, and white paper trust.
Second, trust in community governance
The evolution of the cryptocurrency community
Community use begins with the Bitcoin system. Satoshi Nakamoto has been in the Cryptopunk mailing list group since he was young, and he has a feel for the community. After Bitcoin was released in November 2009, the Bitcoin Forum was launched. Then, the Bitcoin technical community was established on the open-source project hosting platform GitHub, which has always been a place for Bitcoin technical exchanges. The most valuable progress was the Bitcoin Improvement Protocol (BIP) launch, which standardized technical discussions. After Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared, the Bitcoin forum gradually declined because it had no profit model and relied entirely on the support of volunteers, making it difficult to maintain as an interest community.
The technical community of Bitcoin is the exchange between computing power parties and programmers. In essence, computing power parties are the direct users of the Bitcoin system. Computing power parties as users differ from users who mainly engage in transactions. User’s rights in transactions differ from those in the stock market. But in fact, users who hold Bitcoin have no say in the development of Bitcoin. The power of currency holders is not as great as that of retail investors in the stock market. The Bitcoin forum cannot represent users’ rights, so declining is natural. Ethereum is different. It is a platform with three parties: the program party, the accounting party, and the user. The coin-holding users here are not dispensable because there are many projects on the Ethereum platform, and competition for users has begun. Users have become the most popular, and users participate in governance. It is a vast improvement for the community. This kind of community is more like a reflection of our current social structure.
Does Ethereum have actual controllers, right?
Ethereum retains the idea of Bitcoin’s improvement proposal, called the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP). The processing of proposals is called governance, divided into off-chain and on-chain governance. On-chain governance embeds governance content directly into the blockchain, allowing automated token-based voting. Ethereum is more of an off-chain governance, coordinating issues that cannot be handled on the chain through the Ethereum Foundation. Off-chain governance is an unequal treatment, and the result does not depend on the number of coins held. Although there is a consultation mechanism, it is, to some extent, a “dictatorship” of the Ethereum Foundation. Is this right? For determining technical issues, user voting is not appropriate; anyone can figure it out for matters of interest, so it is feasible to implement on-chain voting. Ethereum is different from Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a mature project, so it does not require much change. If Ethereum 2.0 is launched another year later, the Ethereum platform may be in trouble. There is no Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin community, right? Wrong. Because the Bitcoin user community is wholly wasted. It is part of the work that Bitcoin has not done. It does not have a community of Bitcoin holders, so Bitcoin will not necessarily win over fiat currencies. Bitcoin is an ownerless system. It is challenging for an ownerless system to defeat the US dollar, armed to the teeth. If, under the same evolutionary conditions, Bitcoin still has a chance, but the competition conditions are unequal, the battle between Bitcoin and the US dollar will become an issue of uncertainty. For this, you can refer to the “Bitcoin USD Standard” topic on the chainless website (chainless.hk). Ethereum has an actual controller whose influence is restricted by the technical community, and Ethereum also has a foundation annual report. Their community governance and “dictatorship” are well combined. It’s unclear how it will go, but it can currently gain trust in community governance. There is not only one unified model for community governance. What applies to Bitcoin may not necessarily apply to Ethereum. It is difficult to evaluate who is right and who is wrong. At this stage, the existence of Vitalik in Ethereum has more advantages than disadvantages.
The cryptocurrency community has enormous room for innovation
Since Satoshi Nakamoto did not have a good idea for the community, there is a lot of room for community innovation in cryptocurrency in the future. The current cryptocurrency community Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) is unlearned. I wrote, “What Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t think of, what he didn’t say…” Series Four: The Cryptocurrency Community Has a Long Way to Go” (chainless.hk) explains the reasons in detail. “Dao has no actual controller that can be seen ‘on the surface.’ For this kind of DAO, Ethereum’s Vitalik also joined the chorus. It is unknown for what purpose, but his Ethereum project does not use DAO, which must be a fact. DAO may be used for small and specific things, but some small things sound beautiful, and the possibility of success is not high. In fact, the gap between the level of the cryptocurrency community and the Web2 community is getting wider and wider. cryptocurrency users have gone to Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, and Discord platforms to communicate.” The article explains the community issues in detail for readers’ reference.
The level of community usage is a criterion for measuring Web3 projects
Cryptocurrency not only changes productivity but also improves production relations. This is the slogan that attracted the author to the field of cryptocurrency. How can to improve production relations? Why do traditional companies lose? These are all inseparable from community factors. Regarding how the community promotes the revolution of production relations, we will introduce the business model of the decentralized standard currency DW20 and the chainless system. There is a simple standard to evaluate whether the cryptocurrency community is effective and whether the project is a Web3 project.
The use of communities is the advantage of Web3. It’s easy to distinguish company projects from community projects by the core team size. Among companies with the same market capitalization, Netflix has a core team (company) of 10,000 people, Changpeng Zhao’s Binance has 6,000 people, YouTube has 1,000 people, and Ethereum has less than 50 people. It is said that more than 10,000 technical personnel are developing around the Ethereum platform. They are connected through community governance. A good Web3 project has good community governance. More than 80% of blockchain projects do not have a good community and use blockchain ledger technology. Observing the community’s understanding and application of the project is necessary. If a project does not clearly describe the community where it is easiest to achieve innovation in the white paper, it means that the team is just a technical team. Its probability of failure is very high. Because without a community, there would be no Web3 project.
submitted by PitifulCall9574 to chainlesshk [link] [comments]
Leave a Comment / By WeishaZhu / November 9, 2023
Enter the white paper series（2）
We start to unveil the mystery of the chainless system and introduce the relevant contents of the white paper. Many programmers have had close encounters with Bitcoin and ended up empty-handed. We are destined to meet each other and believe wealth is proportional to cognition. Our airdrop design does not require you to spend money, but you must spend time reading articles to improve your cognition and contribute to your strength; otherwise, you will miss wealth.”New Standards for Judging the Pros and Cons of Web 3.0 Projects” is divided into three sections: trust in originality, trust in community governance, and trust in influence and white papers.
New standards for judging the quality of Web 3.0 projects
Second, trust in community governance
introduction
Web 3.0 is also called Web3. There is a difference between the two concepts in the eyes of professionals, and this article does not make a distinction. As for the difference between Web3 and web2 projects, simply put, Web3 has more data ownership than Web2. Most Web3 projects are open-source and lack patent protection, making them easy to imitate. It is very common for dozens of imitation projects to appear at once. For example, after the Bitcoin BRC20 protocol came out, thousands of issuance projects suddenly emerged using this open-source protocol. These projects are a dazzling mix of good and evil.
Web3’s coin issuance projects generally issue coins and circulate them in the early stages. The circulation of coins is equivalent to listing. As professional investors, it isn’t easy to judge the value of earlier projects. So, how should ordinary retail investors evaluate this? Is there a relatively simple way?
The competitive environments of Web3 and Web2 are similar but also different. In this competitive environment, new judgment criteria are also needed in addition to the commonly used project judgment criteria of Web2.
Web3 emphasizes trustlessness, which does not mean that trust is not required but that it places higher requirements on trust, such as machine-level trust. In a world where the devil and hope coexist, obtaining trust is obviously a vital issue, leading to a new trust judgment mechanism that web2 does not have. This article describes the unique trust mechanism of Web3 from four perspectives: initiative trust, community trust, influence trust, and white paper trust.
Second, trust in community governance
The evolution of the cryptocurrency community
Community use begins with the Bitcoin system. Satoshi Nakamoto has been in the Cryptopunk mailing list group since he was young, and he has a feel for the community. After Bitcoin was released in November 2009, the Bitcoin Forum was launched. Then, the Bitcoin technical community was established on the open-source project hosting platform GitHub, which has always been a place for Bitcoin technical exchanges. The most valuable progress was the Bitcoin Improvement Protocol (BIP) launch, which standardized technical discussions. After Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared, the Bitcoin forum gradually declined because it had no profit model and relied entirely on the support of volunteers, making it difficult to maintain as an interest community.
The technical community of Bitcoin is the exchange between computing power parties and programmers. In essence, computing power parties are the direct users of the Bitcoin system. Computing power parties as users differ from users who mainly engage in transactions. User’s rights in transactions differ from those in the stock market. But in fact, users who hold Bitcoin have no say in the development of Bitcoin. The power of currency holders is not as great as that of retail investors in the stock market. The Bitcoin forum cannot represent users’ rights, so declining is natural. Ethereum is different. It is a platform with three parties: the program party, the accounting party, and the user. The coin-holding users here are not dispensable because there are many projects on the Ethereum platform, and competition for users has begun. Users have become the most popular, and users participate in governance. It is a vast improvement for the community. This kind of community is more like a reflection of our current social structure.
Does Ethereum have actual controllers, right?
Ethereum retains the idea of Bitcoin’s improvement proposal, called the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP). The processing of proposals is called governance, divided into off-chain and on-chain governance. On-chain governance embeds governance content directly into the blockchain, allowing automated token-based voting. Ethereum is more of an off-chain governance, coordinating issues that cannot be handled on the chain through the Ethereum Foundation. Off-chain governance is an unequal treatment, and the result does not depend on the number of coins held. Although there is a consultation mechanism, it is, to some extent, a “dictatorship” of the Ethereum Foundation. Is this right? For determining technical issues, user voting is not appropriate; anyone can figure it out for matters of interest, so it is feasible to implement on-chain voting. Ethereum is different from Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a mature project, so it does not require much change. If Ethereum 2.0 is launched another year later, the Ethereum platform may be in trouble. There is no Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin community, right? Wrong. Because the Bitcoin user community is wholly wasted. It is part of the work that Bitcoin has not done. It does not have a community of Bitcoin holders, so Bitcoin will not necessarily win over fiat currencies. Bitcoin is an ownerless system. It is challenging for an ownerless system to defeat the US dollar, armed to the teeth. If, under the same evolutionary conditions, Bitcoin still has a chance, but the competition conditions are unequal, the battle between Bitcoin and the US dollar will become an issue of uncertainty. For this, you can refer to the “Bitcoin USD Standard” topic on the chainless website (chainless.hk). Ethereum has an actual controller whose influence is restricted by the technical community, and Ethereum also has a foundation annual report. Their community governance and “dictatorship” are well combined. It’s unclear how it will go, but it can currently gain trust in community governance. There is not only one unified model for community governance. What applies to Bitcoin may not necessarily apply to Ethereum. It is difficult to evaluate who is right and who is wrong. At this stage, the existence of Vitalik in Ethereum has more advantages than disadvantages.
The cryptocurrency community has enormous room for innovation
Since Satoshi Nakamoto did not have a good idea for the community, there is a lot of room for community innovation in cryptocurrency in the future. The current cryptocurrency community Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) is unlearned. I wrote, “What Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t think of, what he didn’t say…” Series Four: The Cryptocurrency Community Has a Long Way to Go” (chainless.hk) explains the reasons in detail. “Dao has no actual controller that can be seen ‘on the surface.’ For this kind of DAO, Ethereum’s Vitalik also joined the chorus. It is unknown for what purpose, but his Ethereum project does not use DAO, which must be a fact. DAO may be used for small and specific things, but some small things sound beautiful, and the possibility of success is not high. In fact, the gap between the level of the cryptocurrency community and the Web2 community is getting wider and wider. cryptocurrency users have gone to Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, and Discord platforms to communicate.” The article explains the community issues in detail for readers’ reference.
The level of community usage is a criterion for measuring Web3 projects
Cryptocurrency not only changes productivity but also improves production relations. This is the slogan that attracted the author to the field of cryptocurrency. How can to improve production relations? Why do traditional companies lose? These are all inseparable from community factors. Regarding how the community promotes the revolution of production relations, we will introduce the business model of the decentralized standard currency DW20 and the chainless system. There is a simple standard to evaluate whether the cryptocurrency community is effective and whether the project is a Web3 project.
The use of communities is the advantage of Web3. It’s easy to distinguish company projects from community projects by the core team size. Among companies with the same market capitalization, Netflix has a core team (company) of 10,000 people, Changpeng Zhao’s Binance has 6,000 people, YouTube has 1,000 people, and Ethereum has less than 50 people. It is said that more than 10,000 technical personnel are developing around the Ethereum platform. They are connected through community governance. A good Web3 project has good community governance. More than 80% of blockchain projects do not have a good community and use blockchain ledger technology. Observing the community’s understanding and application of the project is necessary. If a project does not clearly describe the community where it is easiest to achieve innovation in the white paper, it means that the team is just a technical team. Its probability of failure is very high. Because without a community, there would be no Web3 project.
2024.04.09 21:55 Kind_Butterscotch913 Name my Non-profit
Hello everyone,
I'm reaching out because I have a vision for a non-profit organization aimed at providing vital mental health services for the elderly. This includes therapy, social work, group sessions, and more. Additionally, we plan to combat loneliness among seniors by offering volunteer companionship, whether through visits, reading sessions, or other personalized support.
As a social worker in an assisted living facility, I've witnessed firsthand the pressing need for such an organization. I firmly believe that by coming together, we can make a significant difference in the lives of our elderly population.
I'm seeking your creative input to help us find the perfect name, slogan, and tagline for this initiative. Your recommendations and suggestions would be immensely valuable in shaping this endeavor.
Thank you in advance for your contributions and support.
Best regards,
submitted by Kind_Butterscotch913 to nonprofit [link] [comments]
I'm reaching out because I have a vision for a non-profit organization aimed at providing vital mental health services for the elderly. This includes therapy, social work, group sessions, and more. Additionally, we plan to combat loneliness among seniors by offering volunteer companionship, whether through visits, reading sessions, or other personalized support.
As a social worker in an assisted living facility, I've witnessed firsthand the pressing need for such an organization. I firmly believe that by coming together, we can make a significant difference in the lives of our elderly population.
I'm seeking your creative input to help us find the perfect name, slogan, and tagline for this initiative. Your recommendations and suggestions would be immensely valuable in shaping this endeavor.
Thank you in advance for your contributions and support.
Best regards,
2024.04.07 17:01 agreatbecoming A debate - My view is the main climate action we should do is get involved in politics. Thoughts?
I’m going to argue here that the best, most effective and most urgent climate action we can take part in is politics. This is a positive action you can take and it is something you can do daily, weekly. monthly and more. As we all have a set amount of time/money we can put into action, I’m arguing this is the best place for it.
A few caveats before I start on the why and how of my argument here.
First does not need to be the only thing you do, if you’re doing other things and they are working for you, great, I am also going to say it is work putting some time into politics. If you’ve got limited free time because of work/family etc - this is IMHO the best place to put energy.
Second, I’m assuming as the reader you’re in a political system where you can influence the outcome. The main examples I’ll use here are from Uk and the US as that is what I know about. Would always be interested to read other’s points of view.
Third, I’m not saying if you’re not doing what I’m arguing that somehow you’re bad - not at all - if you’re doing something - anything - towards climate solutions that is always better than doing nothing.
OK let’s get into it. It has been apparent that humanity has needed to act for decades on climate. Year after year passes and yet the kind of meaningful global action we need to see does not come to pass. I’m not going to spell out the worrying situation we’re in, as plenty of others do so and very well. Over that time we’ve seen a plethora of different groups, tactics, actions over a range of different countries come to pass and yet nothing meaningful has changed. This is not an implicit criticism of all of those that have gone before, indeed I’ve taken part in plenty of them. It is simply an acknowledgement that the scale of the challenge is huge and getting action done is hard. But at its core, we need governments to act.
This is both a realistic and achievable course of action; as well as the huge rise in renewables, plus the fact that most people favour climate action, there are also solutions that are popular with voters and don’t cost taxpayers money - indeed they save us money - such as removing fossil fuel subsidies.
Our issue is the gap between these solutions and where we are now and what we need in the coming years. That gap is about political will.
How do we close it?
We can help by making our up-coming climate action political. How? The theory here is pretty basic:
So I’m based in the UK - next up for us is the local elections on May 2nd. This is for local councils and some other seats like police commissioner and some mayors. Then later in 2024 (no date as yet) will be the national elections where we vote to a Member of Parliament (MPs) and the party with the most MPs goes on to form a government.
Some notes on it.
This is not some silver bullet for climate action, I know. It is more like the Atomic Habits version where we’re focused on small but meaningful gains that over time, however they do become bigger and more potent the more we win.
It also means compromises. A lot of it. Politics is about compromise and all too often, picking the lesser of two evils. It is sad but real. It means there will be other issues in the campaign that perhaps you don’t agree with, yes not great, but getting climate solutions enacted is about being pragmatic at this stage.
On what candidates/party? Again, its about being pragmatic. For example, what if there are other candidates/parties who are really good on climate but don’t really have a chance of winning? Sadly I don’t think that is the best place for our energy. We need climate policies enacted now and we need governments who will respond to the inevitable climate disasters by going further on climate action. Which means you need to get people elected first.
What if there are no candidates talking about climate issues at all? You can go to political town halls and hustings and ask them. Contact the campaigns to ask? Put our climate on the agenda. Still not happening for you? Possibly even join the better climate policy party in your area which has a chance of victory and stand for election, running on climate as the issue for you.
What about the sense that all politicians are the same and the system seems broken. Totally agree with that sentiment, however there is a huge difference, in climate terms, between a party that will do something and a party that not only denies that the issue exists but will actively aim to make things worse. I’d rather have big ambitious gains on climate policy, but if the alternative is between small gains and denial, I’ll take the small gains.
Ideally if you can find others in the area with the same concerns and act as a group of voters, the better! Plus there are always things you can do in a political campaign from online advocacy to campaign volunteering. One of the best things to offset feeling scared for the future, is to act for a better future - to borrow a slogan; Do More, Worry Less.
(Again, please don’t mean me saying not to worry as much as saying I don’t worry at all - I do - it's just that beyond the point of motivation for action worry can just sap energy and morale.)
Let me know your thoughts? (Note I'm using this to develop a version with links for here)
submitted by agreatbecoming to ClimateOffensive [link] [comments]
A few caveats before I start on the why and how of my argument here.
First does not need to be the only thing you do, if you’re doing other things and they are working for you, great, I am also going to say it is work putting some time into politics. If you’ve got limited free time because of work/family etc - this is IMHO the best place to put energy.
Second, I’m assuming as the reader you’re in a political system where you can influence the outcome. The main examples I’ll use here are from Uk and the US as that is what I know about. Would always be interested to read other’s points of view.
Third, I’m not saying if you’re not doing what I’m arguing that somehow you’re bad - not at all - if you’re doing something - anything - towards climate solutions that is always better than doing nothing.
OK let’s get into it. It has been apparent that humanity has needed to act for decades on climate. Year after year passes and yet the kind of meaningful global action we need to see does not come to pass. I’m not going to spell out the worrying situation we’re in, as plenty of others do so and very well. Over that time we’ve seen a plethora of different groups, tactics, actions over a range of different countries come to pass and yet nothing meaningful has changed. This is not an implicit criticism of all of those that have gone before, indeed I’ve taken part in plenty of them. It is simply an acknowledgement that the scale of the challenge is huge and getting action done is hard. But at its core, we need governments to act.
This is both a realistic and achievable course of action; as well as the huge rise in renewables, plus the fact that most people favour climate action, there are also solutions that are popular with voters and don’t cost taxpayers money - indeed they save us money - such as removing fossil fuel subsidies.
Our issue is the gap between these solutions and where we are now and what we need in the coming years. That gap is about political will.
How do we close it?
We can help by making our up-coming climate action political. How? The theory here is pretty basic:
- Find the next election of note to where you vote - local, national etc.
- Find the politician there who has both a good chance of winning and who is better on climate issues.
- Back the better climate candidate to win. This is where you can take meaningful action - volunteer for the campaign, donate to the campaign, advocate for them online and so on. Make sure that they know that your support comes from them having a better climate position than the other possible victor in the race.
- If they win, keep the pressure up on them to enact promises of climate action by writing to them to remind them of why they had your support. Whenever a big legislative vote on an item of climate legislation is coming up, write to them to ask if they will support it. Write to them to encourage them to go further on climate issues.
- While that is happening. find the next election you can vote in. Repeat.
- When there is no upcoming election - write to your incumbent representative on climate issues, even if they are not great on it, so they know people do care.
So I’m based in the UK - next up for us is the local elections on May 2nd. This is for local councils and some other seats like police commissioner and some mayors. Then later in 2024 (no date as yet) will be the national elections where we vote to a Member of Parliament (MPs) and the party with the most MPs goes on to form a government.
Some notes on it.
This is not some silver bullet for climate action, I know. It is more like the Atomic Habits version where we’re focused on small but meaningful gains that over time, however they do become bigger and more potent the more we win.
It also means compromises. A lot of it. Politics is about compromise and all too often, picking the lesser of two evils. It is sad but real. It means there will be other issues in the campaign that perhaps you don’t agree with, yes not great, but getting climate solutions enacted is about being pragmatic at this stage.
On what candidates/party? Again, its about being pragmatic. For example, what if there are other candidates/parties who are really good on climate but don’t really have a chance of winning? Sadly I don’t think that is the best place for our energy. We need climate policies enacted now and we need governments who will respond to the inevitable climate disasters by going further on climate action. Which means you need to get people elected first.
What if there are no candidates talking about climate issues at all? You can go to political town halls and hustings and ask them. Contact the campaigns to ask? Put our climate on the agenda. Still not happening for you? Possibly even join the better climate policy party in your area which has a chance of victory and stand for election, running on climate as the issue for you.
What about the sense that all politicians are the same and the system seems broken. Totally agree with that sentiment, however there is a huge difference, in climate terms, between a party that will do something and a party that not only denies that the issue exists but will actively aim to make things worse. I’d rather have big ambitious gains on climate policy, but if the alternative is between small gains and denial, I’ll take the small gains.
Ideally if you can find others in the area with the same concerns and act as a group of voters, the better! Plus there are always things you can do in a political campaign from online advocacy to campaign volunteering. One of the best things to offset feeling scared for the future, is to act for a better future - to borrow a slogan; Do More, Worry Less.
(Again, please don’t mean me saying not to worry as much as saying I don’t worry at all - I do - it's just that beyond the point of motivation for action worry can just sap energy and morale.)
Let me know your thoughts? (Note I'm using this to develop a version with links for here)
2024.04.04 16:02 tungstenhughes Sadly, hate does have a home here [column] Local Voices
![Sadly, hate does have a home here [column] Local Voices](https://external-preview.redd.it/O8CSDq7ABY3mRwoJl4oW71LfKsCPEOzCLj6G9Laj0oU.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=807d1bb097e1b6218e2efbc341ad3e544b65ef95 "Sadly, hate does have a home here [column] Local Voices") | I’ve seen a hashtag used all over social media by Lancaster County residents over the past week, and I’ve seen the slogan on signs in front of homes, churches and businesses. The message is simple: “Hate Has No Home Here.” submitted by tungstenhughes to lancaster [link] [comments] As much as I appreciate the ideal, however, hate clearly does have a home here, and it’s lived here longer than any of us. If hate didn’t have a home here, there wouldn’t have been bomb threats over a story time event at a public library. If hate didn’t have a home here, local preachers and their congregants wouldn’t show up to Pride festivals annually to tell attendees that they’re going to burn in hell. If hate didn’t have a home here, our local public officials wouldn’t continuously fan the flames of division with their rhetoric and double down on it when asked for contrition. Hate has lived here for a long time, probably before 1763 when the Paxton Boys, a vigilante group, murdered unarmed Conestoga Indian men, women and children who were being held in protective custody in a jail where the Fulton Theatre now stands. It lived here when local social clubs excluded women, African Americans and Jews. Hate lived here when I moved to Lancaster right out of college. It owned a lot of property while I rented. Hate asked me which church I went to when I interviewed for a rental application. It continued to ask this question as I worked at my job. Hate has a home here. Hate steals the Pride flags in our neighborhood about 12 times a year. Hate sent our local ice cream shop hate mail just last year. Hate has a home here and owns businesses here. Hate hosts meetings with speakers who spout unfounded conspiracy theories and dangerous, divisive rhetoric. When hate is asked to tone down the rhetoric for the safety of our community, hate refuses and just screams “freedom of speech,” without truly understanding what that phrase means. Hate has a home here and votes here. Hate runs for office every election and wins. Hate creates policies to exclude and marginalize. Hate has meetings with outside specialized law firms to try to figure out how to make hate legal. Hate wants to hide sometimes, but hate has a home here. Hate doesn’t want kids to learn about past hate so it demands that teachers not teach about it and that librarians remove evidence of it from the shelves, but it’s still there. Hate is old and hate indoctrinates the young while accusing people who don’t hate of being the “groomers.” Hate tells people that if they don’t hate, they in fact shouldn’t have a home here. Hate insists that 98% of the county agrees with hateful policies and as long as hate is in control it will keep saying that. Because hate does have a home here and has for longer than you may realize. So what are we going to do about it? Slogans are nice but let’s continue to support our libraries and LGBTQ+ organizations by volunteering our time and contributing money. Let’s check in on our friends and family members who are hurting. Let’s get to know our neighbors from different backgrounds and learn their stories. Let’s encourage teachers and school administrators who allow diversity and inclusion to be taught to our children. Let’s challenge hate speech when we encounter it, even if challenging it makes us uncomfortable. Let’s make it clear to local officials — at meetings and at the ballot box — that love is not the minority. In these ways we can ensure that hate, indeed, has no home here. James P. Senft is a husband, stepdad and communications professional who lives in Lititz and has lived in Lancaster County for most of his adult life. He enjoys volunteering, walking his dog, and when school board meetings are boring. |
2024.04.02 16:29 Artistic_Victory Cloak and Dagger A House Divided Alternate Elections
 | Cloak and Dagger submitted by Artistic_Victory to Presidentialpoll [link] [comments] Major General William Joseph Donovan surveys an order of special operations men in Maryland before they left for China in 1945. Although George Washington was a fan of conducting espionage for the purpose of war, no formal body was ever established under the budget of Congress to last for long. Several attempts such as a temporary military espionage programs in the 19th century in the Navy or the famous attempt to establish a "black chamber" (a civilian organization aimed at gathering information) which failed left America far behind in the profession compared to other powers. Only after the invasion of Cape Cod and the success of the enemy in hiding a large-scale invasion right up to the very landing in America itself caused the formation of interest among some people for significant reforms on this subject. However, the creation of the Intelligence Affairs Committee in Congress which was supposed to discuss the issue with a desire to change things profoundly sadly did not achieve anything tangible, and not enough momentum was created to change fundamental things. Beneath the surface the invasion did create a flash of fictional books about espionage adventures that captured the hearts of many, but President Dewey failed to push the issue hard enough. Over time the subject was forgotten by many in the public, but not by people like William Joseph Donovan. Donovan has been intrigued by the subject since World War I when he heard about the successes of the German secret service while serving in the US Army as a high-ranking officer. After 1932 while being retired, he decided that enough was enough and tried lobbying several government officials about the issue but did not receive a listening ear. Regardless, following the French and Italian declaration of war on America, an attempt to create an intelligence network to manage a global war on several fronts of global importance began. This initial trial by fire was clumsy and ineffective because each military arm operated independently its own intelligence gathering and the information was not centralized to one body. Still, this was America's first true foray into the cold waters and should be commended. The situation changed drastically with the rise of Howard Hughes into the reins of state. He consciously worked for significant reforms in the government and the army with several publicized defeats on different fronts. After a conversation with General Donavan who immediately connected with him due to a shared dislike of communism and a desire to win the war, they both worked to create a secret committee in the Senate which voted to establish and grant a wartime budget to a semi military-civilian office with the mandate of obtaining intelligence, counter-espionage, and black work to reach operational goals. The OSS was established, with its main office in Washington and local stations to operate agents in Europe, South America, and Asia. Among the very first people to join the organization were Alan Dulles and Richard Helms Dulles was born into a family of respectable status in New York. After completing his education at Princeton University and entering the American State Department during the Peabody days, he served as a diplomat between 1916-1922. Among other things, he was a member of the American committee for the talks that led to the International Peace Conference of the Hague. In 1926 he received certification as a lawyer, and this while working in the State Department. He then joined a leading law firm in Washington where his brother, John Foster Dulles, also worked. During his time at the law firm that represented international companies, he established good relations with parties in Europe and Germany and joined OSS shortly after its establishment. Following the declaration of war on Japan in 1939, Helms decided to volunteer for the US Navy and was trained to become an officer at Harvard despite his wedding that had taken place a few months before. In his first position, he was stationed in the Far East as a radar tracker of the whereabouts of Japanese submarines. In 1943, he was transferred to a position in the secret intelligence branch of the Office of Strategic Services in Washington. He was chosen for the position thanks to his pre-service command of the German and French languages, his experience as a journalist and his stay in Europe in the period before World War II. He was required to be accepted for a position at a civil defence plant without presenting any identification document. This action gave him a basic idea of the stress and anxiety he might encounter during the espionage duties that would be assigned to him later. After a period in which he wrote "Emergency plans for critical situations" that never came to fruition, Helms got a position in a small group that was responsible for gathering intelligence on Germany despite being a formal ally. At the same time, at the branch of the Office of Strategic Services in Bern, Switzerland, Allen Dulles carried out contact work in an attempt to create a continuous channel of communication with Fritz Kolbe, an ostracized member of the Imperial Foreign Office in Berlin. Kolbe made first contact with the British, but they suspected him and saw his request as a stooge of the Kaiser used for counter-espionage for Germany. Under the American direction of Dulles, Kolbe became a valuable source of quality intelligence. He provided information regarding secret German weapons, coding and war strategy pursued by Germany by handing over approximately 1,600 documents and telegrams during his travels between Berlin and Bern. The information provided by Kolbe is considered to be of the highest quality obtained by an American agent on Germany in World War II and which helped carry out Operation Halfmoon. In January 1945, Helms was sent to the "gathering of intelligence on Germany" branch of the OSS, which was secretly located in London. The conditions in which he lived were deficient due to a lack of an open coordination with the British and he was forced to share an apartment with his superior, William Casey. At the time of Helms' arrival in London, it was said that General La Rocque's attack surprised everyone, including the Office of Strategic Services. Helms himself considered the case "an intelligence failure of the first magnitude of the Grand Alliance". Despite this painful defeat the men of OSS remained true to the cause and the OSS proved its superiority over the DGSS and the Kempeitai in a series of fiery operations across the war. From Operation Fortitude all the way to Operation Paperclip after the war, it was the shining moment of American espionage. These and other programs created the infrastructure upon which a fertile reservoir of secrets were sent back to the New World. As a result of the tremendous success, President Merriam recommended not to abolish the OSS when its initial operating period was to end. In a Senate committee, it was decided to transform it into a permanent civilian espionage organization under the supervision of Congress and nominating Alan Dulles as OSS director following the retirement of General Donovan. This process came exactly when the nation needed it and not a moment too soon. The Office of Strategic Services had many concerns and many responsibilities. Competing nations did similar thinking following the war in the process of investigating mistakes and drawing conclusions. A new era was dawning by all those who could see. The age of espionage. Paris of the North The interior of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Lithuania. The regal appearance inside has been deliberately recreated by renovations in the spirit of the romanticization of the past. The farthest border line of the Grew plan was from St. Petersburg to the old Yekaterinoslav Governorate. Despite its northern portion being a British Empire demarcation region, it was agreed to include it in the plan (albeit with a smaller budget than the larger parts of Europe that the Americans still held). In the portion given to the British, troops from British India all the way to South Africa laboured to rebuild the region's infrastructure and establish an autonomous, independent administration. The formation of autonomous republics based on ethnicity or the creation of new organisations based on newly drawn borders and divisions all the way to the ambitious restoration of a Polish-Lithuanian Union in a new reincarnation were among the many proposals discussed by Imperial diplomats in London. Sir Robert Leslie Craigie ultimately came up with the concept that was approved. The plan called for creating states for the ethnic members who lobbied for national liberation, but to bind together in a regional organization. These new nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were created after a century and a half of non-existence. Inside most of these countries, despite sharp and prolonged attempts at Russification, the peoples held on to their nationality and worked to keep it alive through underground studies of their language, culture, and customs. These new constitutional kingdoms were intended to be built on the same territory as the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (and even small areas from the Governorate of Estonia that were not part of the 18th century union), but without what would become the Polish (where pro-American sentiments were specifically high due to the Grew Plan) and Ukrainian republics in light of the stubborn American refusal to allow them to join the nascent organization. The organization that will unite the three nations in a political, economic, and military alliance will eventually be named the Baltic Union. Another name called the Intermarium (''Between Seas'' in Latin) was rejected after it was decided that it indicated a too open ambition for southern expansion at the expense of Ukraine and Poland, who were stronger military in the continent, and looked skeptically at the new union that had escaped their control. A joint senate will be established which will be able to legislate laws above the national legislative bodies on certain issues. Much of the nations' social and political infrastructure was built from the ruins of the German puppet state "The United Baltic Duchy". However, unlike that period that aspired to German cultural hegemony, the countries that made up the Baltic Alliance worked to implement and liberate their true ethnic culture that had been dormant for more than a century. This was expressed through extensive cultural activity with poets like Jonas Radvanas who were forbidden to be played even in the days of the UBD due to German fear that such national poems would arouse feelings of rebellion and harm the joint duchy being risen from the ashes. Although these new nations were both formally and informally inspired by Westminster democracy (although ironically this system of democracy did not function properly in the United Kingdom itself during most of World War II following the government's decision to silence the opposition) they also consciously worked to "restore the glorious past before Russia'' and tried to present themselves as sympathetic to the needs of the British Empire in the "Great Game" between the world powers. Names of regions were re-named as they were called in the 18th century and local elites were given titles of nobility in ceremonies involving corruption and intrigue. Duchies of provinces were created. They also perceived the British Empire as the opposite of the Russian Empire of the past, and therefore wanted a formal alliance with the British Empire. Just as when once the union with Lithuania paid off for Poland by adding military power that she desperately needed to deal with Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire, so too in the modern reincarnation process in a sort. The Baltic nations, which were once the crown jewel of the Russian Empire due to being a "bridge to Europe" and later a coveted treasure of Germany, suffered after numerous battles of the world wars from being unable to defend themselves against a theoretical invasion from the American-aligned Republic of Poland (something that eventually helped contribute to station permanent British forces in the Baltic States) and believed that only through a combined organized cooperation (and semi-permanent British support) will they be able to rehabilitate militarily and economically. Another difference to the days of German rule was that while the Germans in the Baltics aspired to emphasize the Middle Ages (and especially the Teutonic Order), the Free Kingdoms emphasized the late Renaissance and the days before the Russian takeover. The British even worked to transfer the Klaipėda region from Germany to Lithuania so that the new nation would have an access to sea trade which was received with great joy. Thanks to fertile soil and stable governments (despite small sporadic protests in the beginning), the Baltic people were able to produce surpluses of grain even when other countries were unable to feed their inhabitants and relied on the products of British American fertilizer factories during the "year without summer". Still, despite the optimism, areas such as to where exactly the southern border line between Lithuania and Poland is supposed to reside remained a point of unresolved dispute between the Baltic Union and American Europe. ''A sound mind in a sound body." - Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus The logo of the 1948 Olympics The first Olympic Games took place in 776 BC, and were a purely internal Greek event, as a part of a religious celebration. Starting from the third century BC, athletes from other nations, who were part of the Hellenistic Empire created by Alexander the Great were allowed to participate in the games. The event, which until then was known as an event that gave its winners personal glory transformed into an event of national glory. The games were held in the city of Olympia, in a flat area that was strategically located between three rival cities: Sparta, Pisa and Elis. At that time these games became a unifying factor among the peoples of Greece. The month of August was declared every four years as the "month of peace" during which it was forbidden to fight. A city that did not comply with the directive was punished. Competitors came from all over the Greek Empire. The participants and spectators were considered holy and it was forbidden to harm them. The sports included in the Olympic Games in ancient Greece were: discus throwing, wrestling, boxing, pankration (a combination of wrestling and boxing), running, long jump, javelin throwing and chariot racing. The winners were decorated with wreaths of olive leaves (the medals of those times), monetary grants and mainly for admiration. Only men participated in the games. Not only were married women not allowed to participate, but they were also forbidden to watch the games altogether. Women caught trying to watch were executed. On the other side, special competitions for single women were held shortly after the Olympic Games. The competition was called "The Wife", after Hera, the wife of Zeus, who is also the protector of virgins. They were tested for athletic strength, beauty and health and received many gifts when they won. These Olympic Games in the ancient era did not stop for about 1,168 years from the days of Greece up until the decline of the Roman Empire. It was Theodosius, who in 393 AD ordered the cessation of the games and thus brought to an end the era in which the years were numbered according to the Olympics. Theodosius was the last emperor of the Roman Empire before it was split in two. Theodosius is also the one who made Christianity the official religion in the Roman Empire, and this is the reason that led him to stop the 'pagan games'. The Olympic tradition was renewed in 1894 at an international conference held at the Sorbonne University in Paris, with the participation of representatives from 13 countries. The one who led the idea was Baron Pierre de Coubertin. He is the one who coined the slogan ''It's not the victory that matters, but the participation'', and what became the slogan of the Olympic movement: ''Faster, higher, stronger''. The first renewed Olympic Games, which opened on April 6, 1896, were held in Athens. Greece's request that all the games will always take place on its territory was not accepted, and it was decided to tour the various countries of the world. In accordance with this decision, four years later the Olympic Games were already held in Paris. More than four times as many athletes participated in these games as in Athens, including 11 women, who were allowed to participate for the first time, in golf and tennis. Since then, the games have become a tradition, every four years, except for the period of the world wars, which prevented the holding of three Olympics. Unlike in the days of ancient Greece, the modern sporting spirit did not stand up against the demands of modern warfare. Although many expected the games to return, and from the moment of Japan's official surrender, the central planning of the Olympic Committee was indeed restarted, there was a lot of commotion before the 1948 Olympics as a result of the bombing of Germany, but eventually the Committee decided that it would indeed take place. Without a vote, London was declared as expected. London itself was more than ready for the games: despite the difficult atmosphere following the Halfmoon, London was almost completely unscathed by the French aerial attacks, as these were largely concentrated on Germany during the war, so there was no fear that the economic burden involved in hosting the games would be too heavy. King Edward VIII even believed that the games would help maintain the city as a world-renowned city and for the reputation of the empire after Operation Half Moon and therefore actively pushed for the games to take place. President Merriam also supported the holding of the Games and sent a broad American delegation of 300 competitors to the Games, both out of reputation considerations after Operation Halfmoon similar to the UK and out of a long-standing American tradition of participation and victories in the Olympics. The games in London were also the first to be held after the death of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, restarting the Olympic Games in modern times. At the London Olympics, competitions were held for the last time in the arts after the committee's decision to disqualify the profession from future games. |
2024.04.01 06:11 himtsingh04 Give an example from the last 5 years where a citizen journalist has been able to exert power by covering events that may have been overlooked by mainstream media.
 | A notable example of citizen journalism exerting power and influence is the coverage of the Indian farmers’ protests in 2020. Disappointment with mainstream media’s portrayal of the farmer protests gave rise to a new independent journalism (Deutsche, 2021). submitted by himtsingh04 to u/himtsingh04 [link] [comments] (Raji, 2022) (This image shows Indian farmers chanting their slogans during their protest in 2020 to 2021). One significant initiative was the creation of the “Trolley Times” a volunteer-run online newspaper. This newspaper was founded by a photojournalist, a physiotherapist, and a screenwriter. First, it was just a Facebook page which aimed to bridge the gap between the ground reality at protest sites and the politically motivated narratives peddled by mainstream media outlets in country. People posted about the incidents of ground reports during farmer's protest. (TrolleyTimes, n.d.) (This is a screenshot from the homepage of website Trolley Times, where the families facing struggle from farmers protest are posted). The Trolley Times served as a platform for sharing stories from India’s massive farmers’ protests, which were largely overlooked or misrepresented by mainstream media. This citizen-led initiative played a crucial role in bringing attention to the farmers’ demands and the challenges they faced, thereby exerting power and influence over the narrative of the protests (Deutsche, 2021). ReferencesDeutsche. (2021). India: Farmers' protests give way to new independent journalism DW 16.03.2021. Retrieved from DW.COM: https://www.dw.com/en/india-farmers-protests-give-way-to-new-independent-journalism/a-56890017Raji. (2022). OPINION Farmers' protests in India are not just about land rights. They're about our very identity CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/opinion-indian-farmer-protests-1.5837097 TrolleyTimes. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved from https://trolleytimes.com/ |
2024.03.27 21:12 Prudent_Bug_1350 Boeing is just one of the top 100 companies that we need to seize and make public to service the people, not the billionaires. The Boeing plane flying open is just one of the ways that capitalism endangers our lives.
 | The math adds up - while Boeing execs and shareholders stacked up their profits, they ignored failed plane audits, laid off workers, and created a fake system of oversight. submitted by Prudent_Bug_1350 to TheDeprogram [link] [comments] We take this slogan “end capitalism before it ends us” literally. From plane malfunctions to crumbling infrastructure to failing hospitals to undrinkable waters, it’s clear we need to fight for a new system - socialism - to reorganize society and turn the future around. Video Source: https://www.instagram.com/claudia_karina2024/reel/C5Bzza4uUQi/ Vote Socialist 2024 website: https://votesocialist2024.com Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia are on the ballot in Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, California and, South Carolina. If you want to get involved and help them get on more ballots, go to https://votesocialist2024.com/volunteer Why we are running in the 2024 Presidential race - Liberation School: https://www.liberationschool.org/why-we-are-running-in-the-2024-presidential-race/ But what about Trump? Answering the “lesser of two evils” argument: https://votesocialist2024.com/statements/answeringlesseroftwoevils Liberation News: https://www.liberationnews.org Unlike ruling class politicians, whose allegiances are crafted by their financial backers, presidential candidates Claudia and Karina are connected by their shared commitment to the working class in all its struggles.: https://www.reddit.com/WorkersStrikeBack/s/NDGrGB05xV Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States by the Party for Socialism and Liberation: https://www.liberationstore.org/products/socialist-reconstruction-a-better-future-for-the-united-states Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States by the Party for Socialism and Liberation - Audiobook: https://www.audible.com/pd/Socialist-Reconstruction-Audiobook/B0CFNBBDRQ How Fascism Serves Capitalism FULL DOCUMENTARY: https://youtu.be/Mn_RwIcL7cg?feature=shared Democrats Are Not "The Radical Left" Renegade Cut: https://youtu.be/H99GErf-nBI Why Are Democrats Funding The Far Right?: https://youtu.be/kqgP9Ft_1CY?feature=shared 52 countries voted at the UN AGAINST the resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism: https://www.reddit.com/GreenAndPleasant/s/9IgzSWJnVs West votes against democracy, human rights, cultural equality at UN; promotes mercenaries, sanctions: https://youtu.be/qyl2JsTTOVs?feature=shares USA Corporations Keep Donating to GOP Campaigns Despite Post-Trump Pledge to "Protect Democracy": https://youtu.be/9ToyB7DZLzw?feature=shared Understanding Fascism + Right-Wing Social-Political Movements: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXUFLW8t2snuoK0BxaO1QpiYXHPTVhOIo&feature=shared |
2024.03.27 21:06 Prudent_Bug_1350 Boeing is just one of the top 100 companies that we need to seize and make public to service the people, not the billionaires. The Boeing plane flying open is just one of the ways that capitalism endangers our lives.
 | The math adds up - while Boeing execs and shareholders stacked up their profits, they ignored failed plane audits, laid off workers, and created a fake system of oversight. submitted by Prudent_Bug_1350 to InformedTankie [link] [comments] We take this slogan “end capitalism before it ends us” literally. From plane malfunctions to crumbling infrastructure to failing hospitals to undrinkable waters, it’s clear we need to fight for a new system - socialism - to reorganize society and turn the future around. Video Source: https://www.instagram.com/claudia_karina2024/reel/C5Bzza4uUQi/ Vote Socialist 2024 website: https://votesocialist2024.com Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia are on the ballot in Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, California and, South Carolina. If you want to get involved and help them get on more ballots, go to https://votesocialist2024.com/volunteer Why we are running in the 2024 Presidential race - Liberation School: https://www.liberationschool.org/why-we-are-running-in-the-2024-presidential-race/ But what about Trump? Answering the “lesser of two evils” argument: https://votesocialist2024.com/statements/answeringlesseroftwoevils Liberation News: https://www.liberationnews.org Unlike ruling class politicians, whose allegiances are crafted by their financial backers, presidential candidates Claudia and Karina are connected by their shared commitment to the working class in all its struggles.: https://www.reddit.com/WorkersStrikeBack/s/NDGrGB05xV Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States by the Party for Socialism and Liberation: https://www.liberationstore.org/products/socialist-reconstruction-a-better-future-for-the-united-states Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States by the Party for Socialism and Liberation - Audiobook: https://www.audible.com/pd/Socialist-Reconstruction-Audiobook/B0CFNBBDRQ How Fascism Serves Capitalism FULL DOCUMENTARY: https://youtu.be/Mn_RwIcL7cg?feature=shared Democrats Are Not "The Radical Left" Renegade Cut: https://youtu.be/H99GErf-nBI Why Are Democrats Funding The Far Right?: https://youtu.be/kqgP9Ft_1CY?feature=shared 52 countries voted at the UN AGAINST the resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism: https://www.reddit.com/GreenAndPleasant/s/9IgzSWJnVs West votes against democracy, human rights, cultural equality at UN; promotes mercenaries, sanctions: https://youtu.be/qyl2JsTTOVs?feature=shares USA Corporations Keep Donating to GOP Campaigns Despite Post-Trump Pledge to "Protect Democracy": https://youtu.be/9ToyB7DZLzw?feature=shared Understanding Fascism + Right-Wing Social-Political Movements: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXUFLW8t2snuoK0BxaO1QpiYXHPTVhOIo&feature=shared |