I don't really know. It shouldn't be, but I have not seen any newspaper report "West Bank pogroms continue to increase post Oct. 7, despite international complaints."

I just want to say that the most disturbing part of this is not that she did this. It's that this is the message and image that she has carefully decided will help her achieve her career and personal goals.

Perhaps what could be worse is if she's right.

I don't think she is. I see a lot of signs of the left failing in ways that make me nervous. but recognition of the senselessness of imperialism is not one of these. I think there is a very strong, clear, growing consensus that our foreign policy is terrible. Many people don't care that it's terrible for people in other countries, only that it's terrible for them, but that's still a win.

I don't love the concept of "isolationism" per se, but between that in empire, I'll choose isolationism every time. I know there is a liberal establishment that finds isolationism more shocking that defunding the police, and I'm glad that they're upset. This whole global domination thing that Haley and Biden and Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi and Hilary Clinton are obsessed with is just fucking terrible.

God, I will freely admit: it can get so much worse than Biden.

I want to add a word that I never see that needs to enter the mainstream lexicon:

"Pogrom".

Apparently, this isn't a commonly known term, although it's less obscure to Jews. A pogrom is a form of terrorism in which a population decides to get rid of or inflict their hatred on a marginalized ethnic group by routinely rolling through their towns or neighborhoods dolling out unrestrained violence. It is often accompanied by warnings and demands that the population relocate or face constantly escalating barbarism. It's a form of persistent mass terrorism, usually sanctioned by the state.

Pogroms as a familiar concept emerged as a practice in Russia in the 19th and 20th century toward Jews, though they're well known to have been used throughout history. Traditionally, Jews have been the historical target of pogroms for centuries, and it's not a coincidence that Israeli Jews are using these tactics. These are familiar to them. They know exactly what they are doing. This is NOT independent acts of violence, this is a reenactment of atrocities faced by the grandparents and great grandparents of many Israelis Jews.

Pogroms are always horrific and depraved on their own. But the added context that these people are appropriating the weapons of extermination that they know well from the receiving end, it's just... I don't quite have the words to capture my horror.

These are pogroms. They are a relic of the medieval era and of the atrocities of the 1800s and early 1900s. They should stay in history, but they are being dusted off with deliberate intent by Itmar Ben-Gvir and the exterminationist wing of mainstream Israeli society.

These are not "Rising tensions" or "Settler violence", they are POGROMS. We all need to say it.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom

I'm shocked more people aren't already better prepared for this, but it's actually the same thing we should be doing now, and continue to do if Biden actually wins:

Organize locally. Get hyperlocal. Organize your city, neighbors, block, building, workplace, and friend group. Establish mutual aid networks, take back city councils, county boards, and school boards from the stewards of landlords and big employers.

Establish protection for those who need it, and plant the crop of future national leaders who will do the long overdue work of putting government to work for the masses. Make it harder for any president or governor to exercise state violence by getting our people in prosecutors offices and judgeships.

The Democrats are not going to save us. Biden is just planning to go down with the ship. Absolutely vote for the lesser of two evils if you live somewhere where your vote matters, but recognize that the Democratic party is not an ally to the antifascist movement, because combating fascism conflicts with the interests of capital.

That can change, but until it does, don't put faith in them. Anything positive they do will be because power-players were replaced. And that starts in your own neighborhood.

Edit: Since this has been well received, I want to say a quick word on third parties: don't be afraid of them.

Without getting into a lot of details, there are a lot of myths about the risks that third parties present, but before we parrot all of that, we should just acknowledge that there is no harm in listening to their platforms. It doesn't make you a kook to hear ideas that often get suppressed by the mainstream, or to use third parties as a way to network and meet people. I think Jill Stein has a lot of useful things to say, and if a pollster asks me, I will gladly try to bump her numbers up so that she is harder to ignore. Don't be afraid to do that.

This is a great article.

It's abandoned!?

I used it circa 2010-14. I believe it was still active then.

That's a shame. It was a great program. Everyone thought I was weird for not paying for endnote, but it was as good and better!

That's interesting.

I can see why you'd think we're the same person, and why any attempt to prove we're not is going to looks wildly suspicious, but if it helps, here is the conversation I was referencing: https://aleph.land/@andrewrgross/112452794853158836

You can check the time, it's all real. I had that conversation on May 16th, and then commented here on the 17th.

My account on Mastodon and my account here are both months and months old, while Harold appears to have made their account around the time that they posted that comment. I'm not sure what their motivation was, but they posted a few things and got banned from their server.

Anyway, that's not me. I don't think it's a coincidence. I think their comment looks like an inarticulate imitation of mine.

It's pretty weird, and I appreciate you sharing the screen shot. Make of it all what you will.

I don't know of one, but I too would be interested to see what this looks like.

How do you currently store and organize PDFs? I used to use Mendeley during grad school, and honestly I really, really liked it. But being able to ask a question and get a natural language response that suggests which papers might contain insights when taken together would be an incredible asset.

Can you explain this reference? Everyone keeps mentioning a Harold, and I see that it's getting upvoted a lot, so I think I'm the only one who doesn't know what this means.

I think it's fucked up when people create ideological conditions for personhood. The whole point of fundamental human rights is that we afford them to everyone. It's not like it's an accident that we give them to the very worst people. That's kind of the core concept.

If you're opposed to the concept of universal human rights, I don't love it, but I can accept that. I think that's probably a majority opinion, honestly. But I just feel like whenever someone says that a group of people "aren't people", I think we should make sure we're not tip-toeing around that. It should be out on the table.

The fact that there aren't patients seems immaterial. The rules against this aren't predicated on how many patients are inside.

By militarizing the hospital, they've made it a target, which you're not supposed to do. That's essential infrastructure. That's jeopardizing that critical infrastructure by using it as a shield.

It's not good.

You know, part of it is that I grew up drinking in the same propaganda. I GET the arguments.

In one sense, a lot has already ended. I think a lot of people in Israel -- I'm thinking primarily of those we used to think of as non-radical -- are in grief. Not just over Oct. 7, but because they know subconsciously that the good times are over. They were living in a fantasy, and now comes a rude awakening.

Either they accept a far right fascist police state or they give up the dream of unchallenged dominion over what they believe is their birthright. Either way, their dream of a progressive, modern, fully-Jewish state over the whole region was never possible because it required ignoring the reality of millions of unwanted people, and now they're crashing into the hard realization that the dream is dead. I think it's possible for that to be replaced with a new dream that includes equal rights for non-Jews, but that's still going to be a painful process that millions of people will have to be dragged into.

And now I have to witness both the pain of people I related to in some way, and also the reminder of what we're all capable of. These people are tying their brains in knots to perpetuate generational horrors against a subjugated group, like a kid who escaped a childhood of abuse only to grow up and perpetuate the same thing on their kids. And not only that, I'm not naive enough to think I wouldn't be capable of it too. I come from a different circumstance, but if I'd been born there? I'd probably be on board. No one wants to believe this, but most likely, so would you. So would most of us.

Add to all this that I'm also clear-eyed that there are plenty of people who do not have the mental complexity to protect one group of people without dehumanizing their oppressors. I don't really blame them, but I can see that in their heart, they don't really mind mass slaughter, they just have different preferences for who should be on the receiving end. Would they care if it was me? Or my kid? I pray I never need to find out. My plan is to just keep trying to make a world where everyone is safe and hope it works out.

It's terrible to watch on so, so, SO many levels.

It's true, but it doesn't mean I can't feel badly for these people too.

My empathy is not a finite resource.

I had a recent conversation on Mastodon with an Israeli American who was complaining about the rampant increase in antisemitism he's experienced, and then the devastation and sense of abandonment he and other Israelis feel... and it was tragic.

It's a country that has been traumatized, but is also now addicted to unhealthy coping strategies. A lot of these people feel constantly victimized, and its a legitimate feeling, but they don't seem aware of the degree to which they've formed a society designed to maintain a permission structure for constant fear and hate.

I feel so badly for these people. But unfortunately, the situation demands that we stop them from continuing this atrocity.

That sounds like a good start.

I don't think Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir will like that, because they really hate it when the UN tries to do UN stuff at them, but that sounds like a very appropriate request.

It's going to be awkward to listen to John Kirby explain into a microphone why having peacekeepers from the unarmed peace force standing in the vicinity of a lot of women and children in the area that Biden has insisted the IDF not kill everyone is helping Hamas.

I definitely hear it from time-to-time. I often probably hear it without knowing it's her. I heard that song "It's me... HI. I'm the problemitsme. It's me: Hi. everybody agrees..."

As you can tell, it kinda got in my head from repetition a few times, and I didn't know it was hers until long after I'd heard it.

But I don't listen to much music overall. I sometimes pick up CDs from the library to burn to my computer, but I don't listen to Spotify or the radio, so I miss a lot of stuff.

Can you think of the coolest thing that you found out about later that you'd dismissed while it was popular?

I can't think of something I actively talked down, but I remember watching Star Trek (TNG) for the first time in my mid thirties (about four years ago) and thinking, "Boy, if I'd known about this while it was on, I'd probably have been obsessed with it."

In what reality is Taylor known for making bad music?

I don't really listen to her stuff, but I've heard it and none of it sounds off-putting. I've also never heard anyone who likes music complain that her music is unpleasant to listen to.

I don't feel like the deepfakes are the fundamental problem. Honestly, I think they're a tiny symptom of a much more significant concern, and if we take care of that, foreign deepfakes will be irrelevant.

See, elections are an exercise in story telling. Multiple actors tell stories to multiple audiences and ask them to vote on which story resonates with them more. The biggest actors are the campaigns themselves, followed by allies like their parties, other politicians, thought leaders, the media, lobby groups, activists groups, and so on. And foreign actors are a part of that.

The problems presented in the article are really three things:

1. Foreigners are participating in presidential campaigns. No shit, of course they are. They have a stake in the outcome. Everyone with a stake participates, and that includes a ton of people we don't like, like fossil fuel companies a billionaires.
2. They're using deepfakes. This isn't clearly a major change from all the bullshit we already deal with. Remember why Bush convinced everyone Al Gore was a pathological liar who claimed that he personally invented the internet? Or that John McCain had a secret illegitimate black child? Utter bullshit. It sucks, but it's not new.
3. Finally, the most important part: campaigns have the ability and responsibility to simply tell a better story. If Biden loses, it's going to be because people thought he was a senile, ineffective, caretaker president with no agenda or vision whatsoever. Is that true? Not really. But if people think that, it's NOT because China is going to share a fake video of Biden acting senile. It's going to be because Biden didn't present himself in such a way to make a random unsourced video believable.

If any single messaging campaign can sway an election, it definitionally means that the campaign was less effective with all its money and staff and allies than a random nobody on twitter spreading nonsense. Which American nobodies already do anyway, regardless of whether the Ayatollah gets involved.

The problem is that our elections are vapid exercises in media manipulation rather than genuine exercises of participatory democracy, and the existing manipulators hate competition. The result isn't to limit competition, it's to focus on creating a free and fair democracy with a healthy media ecosystem.

I said the opposite: I said that I think he's anti-vax, and I'm pro-vax, and so I don't want to be like him... but I bungled it. The message is unclear, and that's on me.