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Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: April 1st, 2022

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  • Obligatory viewing for the people talking about left-center-right.

    But yeah, look, the title uses US mass media terminology, which is thoroughly ridiculous to any political scientist or historian (‘liberal’ instead of progressive, ‘libertarian’ instead of liberal, ‘socialist’ instead of social capitalist, oh my!). And it’s melodramatic. But there’s little point in circlejerking over it and demanding a US general-audience news outlet actually use the language we expect, it’s a written piece with a target audience and it’s not you.

    The Mamdami supporters need to understand what tools their enemies have at their disposal, and learn about what challenges democratic socialists like Salvador Allende and the working people faced from capitalist reactionaries (before Allende was shot). Voting in a candidate is the easy part, the citizens of NY must continue to involve themselves in how their society is run and do their part in defending social and economic reform from its reactionary opposition.






  • Yep. Although…

    Is it safe to use the OK hand signal again?

    Words and symbols cannot be divorced from context. Like @SineSwiper@discuss.tchncs.de hinted at, putting a date of birth in a username is common and there are so many other meanings for these numbers so it would be ridiculous to jump down someone’s throat for simply using them, or using common gestures. Unless that friend in the story was also saying some reactionary things in their comments, I think it’s silly and careless that someone challenged them on their name.

    I been told by some international friends that one of the political flags over in Australia, the Eureka flag, has a similar situation where both trade unions and white nationalists try to claim its legacy, so it’s common to see in both the pro and anti immigration rallies. Context is what makes it either a potential nationalist/racist dogwhistle or a symbol of workers’ rights.




  • To take this a step further, wolf-whistles (neo-Nazi dog-whistles) are often intentionally vague, and spotting them is important in recognizing cryptofascists because they will try and claim plausible deniability, “oh leftists call everyone a nazi” is something open nazis say to downplay themselves to other reactionaries. They know that their beliefs are still unspeakably disgusting to most societies, they tend to disguise it, downplay it and rationalize it.

    [1]

    Sometimes it’s language and phrases itself, you can often see cryptofascists use the same phrases, euphemisms or odd terms as famous fascist speeches or texts, whether as an intentional subtle allusion or just unwittingly echoing what they’ve read. And that’s where they’ll chuck in terms like “Final solution” in memes.

    Other times, it’s more direct coded language and symbols. It’s probably less unknown these days, but some common examples of codes are the sonnenrad ‘Black Sun’ symbol, Nazi-era pseudo-runes (not to be confused with legitimate historical Germanic runes!), the numbers 14 and 88, and more.


  • A few people are saying “streaming services”, I go further and rarely-if-ever buy entertainment media. Music, videos, games, websites.

    Not even pirating most of the time, there’s a whole world of good Creative Commons music, FOSS games and actual creative communities (not just parasocial fan communities) for me to be entertained for lifetimes. It’s just healthier to be outside the world of profit and addiction machines. (It amazes me that people can think ‘influencer’ is not a creepy ominous title)




  • The World Press Freedom Index only uses safety as one part of their score. It’s not a refutation of the statement you’re replying to.

    But since you brought them up, here’s their breakdown of:

    "In 2024, Palestine became the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. Close to 200 reporters were killed by the Israeli army in Gaza in the first 18 months of war, including at least 42 slain while doing their job, and dozens more detained in Israeli prisons. Trapped in the enclave, journalists in Gaza have no shelter and lack everything, including food and water. In the West Bank, journalists are routinely harassed and attacked by both settlers and Israeli forces, but repression reached new heights with a wave of arrests after 7 October, when impunity for crimes committed against journalists became a new rule. "