収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

I’ve got the annotated Oregon Anti-LGBTQ constitutional amendment – Measure 9 – post series entirely up, all 32 posts, ending the day after election day 1992. If you’re into this history, and you want to see how exactly nothing about what they do or say has changed, start with the first post of this entire blog, then read forward.

And once again, I remind you: while we didn’t win every battle, we did win the war. You can tell they know it because after fuming for a while, they’ve launched a new war, this time saying “okay, we can’t win democratically, so fuck the republic, we’re just fascists now.” It’s a massive admission of failure and weakness.

But the joke’s on them: they were always weak failures, because they were always fascists.

And we beat them the last time they tried this, and we can do it again. No matter how bad it looks now, and I assure you, it is bad now… it wasn’t any better back then. Hell, the Seattle Times was still using “Christian” as a synonym for “good,” and that’s a tiny example, but it’s a pretty goddamn relevant one… and we still won.

I think that’s a very important message for a lot of people right now. Learn it, know it, hold on to it.

It’s just like the old song says.

We did it before, and we can do it again. And we will do it again.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Dr. Jessica F. Hebert · twitter.com/Dame_DNA · 5:35 PM · Nov 10, 2022

Patricia Aas 🐢🏳️‍🌈 · pati_gallardo · Nov 9
Ok fine. I have tried to hold my tongue, but there is a line, and when Mastodon folks threaten BIPOC people with getting blocked for not Content Warning when they talk about racism... I need to get real with y’all.

Cool, so Mastodon is also garbage.

First: I am not just not discounting what Patricia has saying - because it's _true_ - but have boosted her and written in support _over there_. I know people _I have met_ who've seen this.

But Mastodon has been very white and very Usenet, and is now having its Eternal September.

Mastodon was substantially built by women and queers who fled Twitter over harassment - but mostly white people. It's been a very... trauma-aware community, but it's _not_ socially aware of _other_ axes of discrimination, even if it most certainly should be.

The social conventions that seem to have built up involve using "CW" not for "this is NSFW," but also for "this is srs bsns content where many users have trauma."

They've been using CW "birdsite" to talk about _twitter_, for example.

This is interfacing _badly_ with new users.

It's _excellent_ at siloing away fascists, terfs, white supremacists. It uses the n*zi bar phenomenon against them _very_ effectively.

There's a big n*zi mastodon. It's siloed away. There's a blocklist people share. It works, and works well. It's _very_ hard - _very, very hard_ - to launch hate raids on Mastodon. It's even harder to do it twice.

But it's socially bad at _this_.

And this is a _cultural_ interface. It's literally white people being white people and uncomfortable about talking about racism, combined with a big chunk of marginalised people traumatised by their own abuse but not yet able to map that to _other_ marginalised people.

Which gets back to this: there's no "mastodon" that's one massive entity. It's not Twitter or Facebook, not a monolith.

What there are are federations of individual sites, collections which have their own cultures within their own federations.

P*rler is a mastodon fork, part of n*zi mastodon. So is K*w*f*rms. I could relay them.

Obviously, I fucking well don't. But!

Any instance administrator can relay _any_ site that's willing to be relayed, and _anyone_ can be an instance administrator, assuming you have a computer.

There is no central administration outside the individual instance. In that way, it is more Usenet than Usenet was.

And the _largest_ defacto federation - or "fedi" - is very anti-nazi and anti-terf and anti-white-supremacist when it's obvious and anti- a lot of bad things, but again... very white.

And it's having one hell of an argument right now. I know. I'm involved.

I call it "Usenet Twitter," but even that's not very accurate because the social expectations are _so_ different, and it's not just "no algorithm."

Eternal September has arrived, and a lot of them were _not_ ready.

It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

I wrote this in notepad, threw it on twitter, tagging Fox News, all in response to Fucker Tarlson going off about white women being necessary to produce the future of a white race before getting more explicitly racist from there.

It's a shot in the dark, sure. But as someone allergic to nostalgia, I've been trying to understand how they're happy to flock to shit this bad, and... maybe it's this.

It's probably not. But for the oldest parts of their audience... maybe.

-----

Hey, @FoxNews viewers.

C'mere, you need to know something.

Bringing back overt 50s/60s/70s racism won't make you young again.

Even if you took the whole world back to '48 or '75 - bobby sox or bell bottoms - it wouldn't reset _you_.

All you're doing is making the world worse.

-----

Even if you did it, you wouldn't feel like you felt at 15, or 18, or 24, with your whole GI-bill-funded future in front of you.

That time will still be spent. All of it.

All you're doing is making the world much, much worse.

-----

God knows, I get the urge. I've lost years of my life having to fight you for my very right to exist. I'm losing more every day as you gear up for another round at exterminating us.

I'd love to get all that time back, to spend on other things, but I can't.

And you can't either.

-----

All you're doing is destroying the lives of others in a vain attempt to steal some of your own lost time back, and in doing so, making the entire world worse for everyone.

Even you.

So STOP.

-----

You don't have to do this. You, yes you, can still do things with your life that _aren't_ wretched, that _aren't_ based on a hopeless chase for a half-mythological past world and _don't_ involve living in terror of others and trying to destroy everyone but yourselves.

Just stop.

-----

Because it won't work, and all you're doing is wasting the rest of your lives, and destroying so much of ours.

Bringing back 1956 or 1976 won't make you young again. It won't, because it can't.

So stop trying. My gods, just... stop.

Alexander Reid Ross 🌻 · 10:48 PM · Oct 13, 2022:

[Ukraine is] sort of a 1956 moment for the left... Either support those defending against belligerent invasion from an imperialist power or gtfo

I am staggered by how completely so much of the left has blown this moment, both in lining up with the overtly imperialist authoritarian whose self-proclaimed fascists architected this war, and in missing the raw political opportunity offered them on a goddamn. silver. platter.

I mean... all they had to do was look at the reactionary authoritarian whose regime extinguished democratic elections, routinely jails or assassinates political opponents, legalised domestic abuse (YES REALLY), REALLY hates the queers, and who launched an explicit war of conquest and genocide against a small neighbour whose territorial integrity they guaranteed in exchange for surrendering their nukes, and NOT go, "oh man, he's definitely our guy!"

IT'S NOT A HARD CALL.

But they blew it!

There are leftists who didn't blow it. I'm QTing one who absolutely didn't! I hope they're the future of the US left, because WE NEED ONE FOR REALS KIDS. But NOT the tankie clowncar making most of the noise.

At least they're cleanly sorting themselves apart.

Seriously this is a great guide for the future. "Were they FOR or AGAINST the extermination of Ukrainians?"

Very simple test! Very straightforward answers! Really, really rare in politics, too. Convenient.

And staggeringly appalling.

Alexander references '56; I can definitely see that. But to me, this is worse. This is '39-40, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the would-be partition of P/o/l/a/n/d/ Ukraine.

Putin has rehabilitated Stalin and wants to restore his empire. You're either for that or you're not.

And before you accuse me of trying to turn this into a low-resolution rerun of World War II, I strongly advise you go look at what Putin has been saying, in his own goddamn words.

Because that's what he wants it to be, domestically, and is not afraid to say so. Only he's the one quoting Hitler without irony, and it's his architect of policy who went around saying the only thing wrong with Nazi Fascism is that it was Germans doing it, and not Russians.

And they picked this guy as their hero.

Christ.

Just imagine if they hadn't been this fucking stupid. This fucking dumb. Oh my god the opportunity here.

Being actually anti-imperialist, loud and in front, actually opposing an actual forthright war of conquest by a country which explicitly wants to restore an empire they lost and exterminate a culture... with EVERYONE EXCEPT OUR HOMEGROWN FASCISTS AGREEING WITH YOU.

For the first time in their political lives, everyone except our own fascists actually might want to hear what else they had to say.

The opportunities lost. My gods. The opportunities lost.

But now, no, they're the tankie magat wanna-bes in bed with Putin and spouting nonsense to support imperial religious wars against queers, women, and self-determination, and for bonus points, you can be damn sure nobody's gonna give up their nukes ever again after this.

I've said more times than I can count that the American left is in love with failure. Not all of it, but a lot of it. Success is anathema to so many of them.

This also shows up in condemning imperfect successes and flat-out blunt refusal to celebrate ANY wins of ANY kind.

This opportunity is SO clear and SO obvious I have a hard time seeing missing it as anything less than a combination of puritanical dogmatism ("the US / west is ALWAYS the worst actor") and out-and-out self-sabotage.

These last couple of years have kinda driven it home to me. "In love with failure" started as a quip, turned into a hypothesis, and as far as I'm concerned, it's now a pretty robust theory.

They're in love with failure, because successes are always imperfect and incomplete and therefore not successes and celebrating them is selling out.

But failure - oh, sweet failure - shows purity was retained.

And so, they cannot let it go.

And that... that is one hell of a political pathology.

Republican Josh Hawley proclaims there's only 'one gender' in fundraising email
Sarah K. Burris
RAWSTORY

Let's talk about the Freudian in this slip, shall we?

Sure, it's some kind of editing mistake. What kind doesn't matter. Maybe they were editing an old "one kind of marriage" fundraising letter - I'm sure they have those on standby, waiting to be brought back out.

But.

What's @GOP core policy?

Changing election rules so they can't be voted out.

Suppression, legislatures overriding results, whatever it takes. The Hungary model, where they held CPAC. Or Wisconsin, where if they lose the popular vote by 20 points they still keep the legislature.

But what're MAGAtry hardliners talking about? Not just ch4n/ Th3 D0nald fringes, but talk radio, for example? How do they want to solve this problem?

By eliminating the right of women to vote.

They just say so. Only men should be voting. Some say only property-owning men. But mostly, though, it's only men should vote.

Only "people with a stake in society," a national talk-radio host said as part of defending his male-property-owners-only stance just a few months ago.

I'm pretty sure you can safely shorten that to "only people," when you get right down to it. Which gets us back to "one gender."

Sure, whoever hacked this letter together didn't mean to type "one gender." But it's kinda what they think.

For them, there's only one gender of actual people. And that's male, and men. Because for them, when push comes to shove... women aren't actually people.

And I think that's how that letter got out.

Because really, as far as they're concerned - the whole world, all of it... it's all and only about men.

Women need not apply.

Much less count.

If you're saying "vanish forever or we'll go full Nazi and genocide you," then you have already gone full Nazi. You're just looking for the right strategy to get what you want.

I mean, if you're actually afraid of this, if you're actually against that happening, and you're in his position, there are things you can do.

Things he's not doing.

He could dismiss some of the lies, dispute them, separate them off from any core complaints they might have.

He's not. He's spreading them further.

He could grant LGBT people status as people, rather than calling us "degeneracy."

He's not. He's heightening the hate rhetoric.

He could do many things that would actually calm the situation, to lower the heat.

But he does not. And he will not, because he does not want to.

And that's why this - all of this - is not a warning, but a threat.

They'll make every one of us illegal again if they can. They'll take every step they can towards that, as they can. And what they want, is us gone.

For a start, anyway.

Let's talk about Kari Lake's statement here, because she's talking about what they want to do: hold the union hostage:

We need some strong governors to get in there and push back against the Federal government, remind them who created the Federal government, it was the States... not the other way around. And we are going to start proving to them that we are sovereign. We are not serfs of the Federal government. Especially not this Federal government with this illegitimate president.

There's a key point in here she's right about: the states, in our constitutional system, are ultimately sovereign.

At least, on paper.

The states can, at their discretion and without support from the Federal government, call a congress of the states at any time.

And they can do whatever the hell they want while they're at it - at least, in terms of what they create. It's not law yet, but it can be. Whatever they come up with goes back to the states as a whole for approval.

And in theory, once enough states adopt it, it becomes the new constitution - the new law of the land.

Nothing about any of that says there has to be a popular vote.

Because yeah, the constitution says sovereignty lies with the people, but in practical terms, it lies with the several states. Which means the state legislatures.

Like Wisconsin's, where Republicans can't be removed from power even if they lose the popular vote by 20 points.

Last time this happened, we got a whole new Constitution. And it was different enough that states just left the old Union (under the Articles) and joined the new Union (under the Constitution).

And some of the states that didn't, at least at first, sent ambassadors to that new Union. You know. To keep in touch and keep their options open as they make the decisions they need to make.

Now, some people might say "this is different, this constitution doesn't allow secession, it's permanent."

So were the Articles. And unlike our current Constitution, they were explicitly so.

As for secession, well, that was decided with guns. Might be again too. Also might not.

But this wouldn't even be secession, necessarily. States refusing to recognize a new, "illegitimate" constitution? That's whole new ball of wax, and I just outlined how that went last time. And that... that's precedent.

You want to engineer a national divorce, this is how to do it.

Or you just threaten it seriously enough and be willing to go hard enough to that line to get your demands met - which is to say, everything you'd get in your Christian ethnostate, applied to the whole country.

Now I'm sure as hell not going to go along with that, because I literally can't. Their Christian ethnostate makes me, as a person, illegal again. They're trying to make us all illegal again in the current framework, there's no question they'd demand it in any new one.

But there are big, serious, enough-money-to-be-immune money players who will not want that kind of separation, and they'll do everything in their extraordinarily extensive power to prevent it.

The authoritarians should know that very well, and consider it a card in their deck.

So that's what we're dealing with here. The threat, the strategy, the goal.

Would they cross that line? Would they call that convention, write up that Christian Nationalist country?

Probably. I think so, anyway. Because my entire life, they have done nothing but double-down, and I don't see them ever stopping on their own.

After all - why would they? God is, they are quite sure, entirely on their side. And everyone else is quite literally either a tool or an out-and-out follower of Satan.

I know that because they say so. They always have. All you have to do is listen to them.

And that's why they must be stopped, because they will never stop on their own. There will be no accord, no compromise, no middle ground, because they will not permit one, because to them, compromise is literally a deal with the devil, and they will. not. have that.

That's what Kari Lake is alluding to here. Her movement hears her. They know what she's saying, because they say it amongst themselves.

That's what's at stake in the state races - and also, that's your language lesson for today.

Rep. Kinzinger's closing statement, going at his own party, telling them straight up: get off of this, get off _all_ of this, or the republic ("this great experiment of ours") will fail.

He's right but I don't think they'll listen. I hope I'm wrong.

Rep. Cheney: It is a series of confessions by Donald Trump's own appointees... and his family. They have come forward and told America the truth.

Also incredibly relevant, but I don't think they'll care. Again, I home I'm wrong.

And the reason I think they won't listen or care is simple:

Facts aren't how they judge truth.

They don't believe all of their bullshit - particularly the conspiracy/stolen election bullshit - because they think it's literally, factually true. They believe all that bullshit because they want to believe it.

And I'm pretty sure neither Rep. Kinzinger nor Rep. Cheney have given them good enough cause to want believe in anything else.

Kate • @erstkate • 4:21 PM · Jul 11, 2022
...there seems to be a concerted effort to create a pseudo-scientific body of writing which can be quoted as evidence in anti-trans propaganda

Zinnia Jones • @ZJemptv • 4:23 PM · Jul 11, 2022
There is such an effort. The Florida Department of Health, for instance, cited a Cochrane review on transfem HRT but misinterpreted it; it didn't support their transphobia at all. But this would give them something that does support them, from an authoritative source.

This is long-time American fundamentalist playbook right here. They did the same thing to attack lesbians and gays in the 80s and 90s, and abortion rights as well. "Publish a lie, then quote the the lie in other publications as a reference" is lie-laundering 101.

They'll go five or six levels deep with this stuff. Sometimes they're citing one of their own so discredited that nobody will take their bullshit seriously; sometimes they're just making shit up; sometimes they're lying about the work of real scientists.

One time I found a stack of references that had clearly been set up well in advance - they had a whole cottage industry of lie-laundering for this work - and they'd accidentally made the reference chain a circle. You'd always end up back to the article where you'd started.

And you have to understand:

THIS IS INTENTIONAL. THEY KNOW THEY ARE LYING.

They don't care, because they judge "truth" differently, and that test is not "is it real" but "does it serve the movement?"

If it does, then facts don't matter, it's "truth."

And here's the other thing you have to understand:

PEOPLE WILL FALL FOR IT. REPEATEDLY.

It'll be stultifying and horrifying how many people will fall for it. The same people, once burned.

This is how it was last time and it'll be the same.

That'll include a LOT of media.

Part of this is because a lot of people kind of want that shit to be true.

But more of it is because when they launder lies, they launder the same lie a lot of different ways, and in particular, they launder it in ways that it looks juuuuuust different enough to be new.

"Look at all these sources!"

...of the same lie.

That's part of the "game." Of the "strategy."

So what do you do?

Get good at digging. Get good at burrowing down their lie stack, and finding how they've done it this time.

And build your book of real studies - of real data - that refute their lies.

They won't care. But the people they've suckered might.

25 years in prison for telling pregnant people abortion services exist. 25 years in prison for referrals. 25 years in prison for not actively censoring abortion information from other states.

This is what the @GOP are doing RIGHT NOW, in South Carolina.

Not what they want. What they ARE DOING.

They will make us ALL illegal if they can.

Here's the fascist bill the fascist @GOP have introduced in South Carolina.

Section 44-41-860.

(A) It is unlawful to knowingly or intentionally aid, abet, or conspire with another person to violate the provisions contained in Section 44-41-830.

A person who violates this section is guilty of a felony and is subject to the same penalties as provided in Section 44-41-830.

(B) The prohibition against aiding and abetting a violation of Section 44-41-830 includes, but is not limited to knowingly and intentionally:

(1) providing information to a pregnant woman, or someone seeking information on behalf of a pregnant woman, by telephone, internet, or any other mode of communication regarding self-administered abortions or the means to obtain an abortion, knowing that the information will be used, or is reasonably likely to be used, for an abortion;

(2) hosting or maintaining an internet website, providing access to an internet website, or providing an internet service purposefully directed to a pregnant woman who is a resident of this State that provides information on how to obtain an abortion, knowing that the information will be used, or is reasonably likely to be used for an abortion;

(3) offering or providing abortion doula services, knowing that the services will be used, or are reasonably likely to be used for an abortion;

(4) providing a referral to an abortion provider, knowing that the referral will result, or is reasonably likely to result, in an abortion; and

(5) providing a referral to an abortion provider and receiving monetary remuneration, or other compensation, from an abortion provider for the referral.

25 years in prison for hosting a website talking about legal abortion in your own state.

That's what the @GOP are doing.

That's what they WILL take national if they get power.

Every word about "free speech" from them is a LIE. A filthy, KNOWING LIE.

Never forget that.

For completeness, the new Section 830:

Section 44-41-830. (A) It is unlawful to knowingly or intentionally perform or induce an abortion. A person who violates this section is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, must be imprisoned for not more than twenty-five years if the unborn child dies as a result of the violation. A person who violates this section is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, must be imprisoned for not more than twenty years if the unborn child is born alive despite the violation.