#mass disarmament

[disarmamentawarenessday]

Strengthening partnerships for disarmanent.

Weapons of mass destruction, in particular nuclear weapons, continue to be of primary concern, owing to their destructive power and the threat that they pose to humanity. The excessive accumulation in conventional weapons and the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons jeopardizes international peace and security and sustainable development, while the use of explosive weapons in populated areas is seriously endangering civilians. New and emerging weapon technologies, such as autonomous weapons, pose a challenge to global security and have received increased attention from the international community in recent years

#biological weapons #Arms #arms control #Disarmament #Non Proliferation #Amunition #Chemical weapon #nuclear weapons #cybersecurity services #explosive weapons #small arms #stokpiles #Weapons of mass destruction #peace and security #take action #challenge to global security

[thepourfool]

Killing Bud and Getting the Guns: One at A Time

Killing Bud and Getting the Guns: One at A Time

(This is is a post that originally appeared in The Pour Fool in September of 2014, about four months after that website was launched. It is still relevant; maybe even more than it was then, given the Trump atrocity in the White House and how that’s emboldened all the freaks and twistos and NRA Victims. Here it is again and, I think, the underlying logic is even more sound and disarming even more…

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#Disarmament #Gun Control #Mass Shootings #NRA #Second Amendment

[deadpresidents]

The reasons Mr. Hussein failed to clarify that he had no weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to 2003 are embedded in his tragic, decades-long conflict with Washington: his furtive, mistrustful collaboration with the C.I.A. during the 1980s; the Gulf War of 1990 and 1991; the U.N.-backed struggle over Iraqi disarmament that followed; and the climactic confrontation after Sept. 11. Shortly after the Gulf War, he secretly ordered the destruction of his chemical and biological arms, as Washington and the United Nations had demanded. He hoped this action would allow Iraq to pass disarmament inspections, but he covered up what he had done and lied repeatedly to inspectors. He did not tell the truth to his own generals, fearing that he might invite internal or external attacks. His decision to comply with international demands but to lie about it to U.N. inspectors defied Western logic. But Mr. Hussein would not submit to public humiliation, not least because he thought it wouldn’t work. “One of the mistakes some people make is that when the enemy has decided to hurt you, you believe there is a chance to decrease the harm by acting in a certain way,” he told a colleague. In fact, he said, “The harm won’t be less.” Mr. Hussein believed the C.I.A. was all but omniscient, and so, particularly after Sept. 11, when Mr. Bush accused him of hiding weapons of mass destruction, he assumed that the agency already knew that he had no dangerous weapons and that the accusations were just a pretense to invade. A C.I.A. capable of making an analytical mistake on the scale of its miss about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was not part of his worldview.

--Steve Coll, "Why Authoritarians Like Saddam Hussein Confound U.S. Presidents," New York Times, Feb. 28, 2024.

#Saddam Hussein #Steve Coll #New York Times #Iraq War #U.S. Invasion of Iraq #CIA

[reportwire]

N. Korea criticized as it takes helm of UN disarmament body

N. Korea criticized as it takes helm of UN disarmament body

GENEVA — Dozens of mostly Western countries criticized North Korean “reckless actions” in its weapons programs as its government on Friday took over the rotating presidency of the U.N.-backed Conference on Disarmament. After North Korea’s ambassador opened a new session of the 65-nation body, Australian Ambassador Amanda Gorely read a joint statement by 48 countries plus the European Union that…

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#Diplomacy #Disarmament #General news #Government and politics #Government programs #International relations #Military and defense #North Korea government #Nuclear weapons #United Nati #Weapons administration #Weapons of mass destruction #Weapons programs

[adventures-in-mangaland]

I've been seeing posts about Scooby Doo popping up, so I thought I'd share this:

(Source: The Scots Magazine, Feb 2023) Full text below.

This actually happened. I am obsessed!

The passion! The energy!

Amazing!

Such signage!

(Images: Daily Record)

A brilliant effort all round! The children of Scotland saved a pop culture powerhouse the world would be poorer without. I can't believe this. I love this so much.

Text of the article:

FROM THE VAULT

Strange tales from the archives. This month – How furious fans of cancelled cartoon rose up in protest.

By CHRIS Ferguson, Jan 12, 2023 (The Scots Magazine)

THROUGHOUT the ages, principled protest has been a hallmark of youth – a rite of passage for many. Today it is Greta Thunberg and her army of teen climate activists, or Extinction Rebellion protesters, who make headlines.

In the 1960s it was the Vietnam War objectors and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament believers who set out their political agendas.

In later decades young people swelled the ranks of those demanding an end to apartheid in South Africa.

They were at the barricades as then-pm Margaret Thatcher introduced the poll tax and back out again to try to stop the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Another generation, too, had the courage of its convictions. In 1971, youngsters rose in anger at a threat to remove cowardly canine Scooby-doo from their television screens.

This was in February after the cartoon had been running for two years. Although the decision not to commission another series had been taken in the US, the BBC was the target of fans’ fury because it had to pass on the bad news to young viewers.

Within days of the announcement, an army of parka-wearing children sporting knitted jumpers and questionable hairstyles was formed.

Across Scotland children grouped together with placards, just like so many other worthy protesters before them. In Glasgow, the massed kids marched on the BBC Scotland headquarters and, in Dundee, they gathered in outrage in City Square.

Petitions were raised and demonstrations took place across the country and, by April, the BBC announced a further series had been commissioned in the US.

Legend has it these Scots Scooby fans had persuaded the American television executives to reconsider.

Hanna-barbera, the animation company behind Scooby-doo, never forgot the Scottish reaction.

A spokesman for the company said, “We’d never had a response like that before, it was very exciting.”

[Beneath the main text of the article is an illustration of Scooby Doo and the gang accompanied by the pull quote: “An army of parka-wearing children was formed”

The title and byline of the article are also accompanied by a black and white photo of a boy in school uniform sitting with a little black dog in his lap, grinning and holding a sign reading "We've saved Scooby Doo" with an illustration of Scooby. The caption reads: Jimmy Brown fought to save the cartoon."]

#scooby doo #history stuff #vintage photography #history #scooby doo protests #glasgow #power to the people #I love it #awesome signage #who said fandom can't change the world? #the scooby doo fandom goes hard #fandom #fandom history #velma

[zvaigzdelasas]

[IFPNews is Iranian Private Media]

Mohammad Eslami, the director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), on Thursday wrote a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general, demanding the UN nuclear watchdog to inform the United Nations Security Council about dangers of possible use of nuclear weapons by the Israeli regime against the Palestinian people in Gaza.[...]

Iran’s nuclear chief categorically condemned Israel’s crimes and brutal onslaught against Gazans, demanding a firm reaction to the recent threatening statement by the illegal entity’s minister about nuking the coastal silver and reflection of its consequences to the UN Security Council. Eslami also pointed to other “similar alarming threats” made by Moshe Feiglin, a former Knesset member, and also by Tally Gotliv, a Knesset member, on social media platform X. “Needless to mention, the Israeli regime is not a party to any of the treaties governing nuclear disarmament and prohibition of the Weapons of Mass Destruction particularly NPT. This regime has prevented achieving the goal of a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone,” Eslami wrote.

“Additionally, Israel has not placed its nuclear facilities under the Agency`s safeguards regime and also it has a clandestine program to develop nuclear weapons. Therefore, the Israeli regime by undermining the internationally recognized principles directly weakens the effectiveness and efficiency of the NPT as well as the IAEA safeguards regime,” he added. The threats “revealed that the regime possesses nuclear weapons,” he said, adding that by threatening the oppressed and helpless people of Gaza, the regime has “challenged the fundamental principles of the International Humanitarian Law.”

10 Nov 23

[phoenixyfriend]

Hello! I was stalking your blog and saw your tags re: you cannot see an end to the occupation without causing large scale anti-semetism. So i wanted to send you this link. Additionally, i dont think opposing the israelis are in and of itself an act of anti-semetism as they're not being opposed bc of their religion but the fact that they, almost entirely as a nation save a meager handful, are disconcertingly hateful and murderous towards arabs and Palestinians. It is fact that they've created an ethnostate and use their religion as a shield to justify their wrongs.

I wrote this on the train to work so it's not as clean as it could be. Bear with me.

I think we're talking about two different issues. Your concern is the fault and the philosophy of the existence of Israel. My topic in those tags was the logistical follow-through and possible anticipated consequences.

Whether or not Israel should have tied their state to the Jewish religion is a different question. The fact of the matter is that they HAVE, and that many people see them as equivalent to each other.

For the purposes of this post, I am going to work on the premise that Israel must be dismantled. I have mixed feelings on the topic (see the below considerations), but for the rest of the post, let's assume it IS happening and we're just discussing how.

If the government at fault is violently and militarily opposed to being dismantled, then the dismantling has to come from outside, by foreign powers.

The nearest neighbors are differing levels of friendly, with some being of almost normalized relations, like Egypt or Saudi Arabia, but also include Yemen (admittedly not THAT close) and Lebanon, which have the Houthis and Hezbollah, and the former has "a curse upon the Jews" in their slogan.

"Allah is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam"

So whatever your personal take on the philosophy of Israel's existence, propaganda, and choice to define itself by Judaism is, the fact that there are multiple countries in the region that are run by or at least sympathetic to groups of this opinion cannot be discounted when talking abut things like disarmament.

There is only one Jew in Yemen, a guy imprisoned for trying to smuggle out a Torah.

Syria and Lebanon, which are much closer to Israel physically, have less than 100 between them. It is vanishingly unlikely that the once-thriving communities chose to leave en masse. Many were probably enticed by the supposed safety and freedom of Israel, yes, but a near total exodus? Unlikely without domestic discrimination against Jews.

So that is what I am thinking of when I talk about nearby antisemitism.

Forcibly de-arming Israel leaves them open to the antisemitism of their neighbors UNLESS an outside power is there to manage the transition, and people who dislike Israel are generally vocally opposed to that kind of international interference.

Unfortunately, it currently looks like the only way to dismantle Israel's institution of violence is either an international oversight of the kind enforced on post-war Germany as it transitioned to a more peaceful nation, or to try to do it naturally and slowly like in South Africa.

But South Africa still has extreme economic inequality between the races. Speaking as an American, it's been 160 years since slavery ended and black people are STILL suffering here, so a slow and natural process where the Israeli government is "convinced" to stop being discriminatory seems unlikely. There are anti-apartheid activists in Israel! There are plenty of pro-Palestine Jewish organizations in other countries! But they are not enough to take apart Israel in a peaceful and stable manner with a speed that would help Palestinians recovery in any reasonable timeframe.

Which brings us back to either violent overthrow or foreign interference by UN forces, meaning yet more western military posts in the middle east, because a disarmed Israel is one that is open to the vocally antisemitic and anti-Israel groups just across their North/East borders.

I guess MAYBE Saudi Arabia could be the oversight force, but I don't think an absolute monarchy is the best choice for overseeing the complete restructuring of a democratic state.

As for the link you sent... 75% of Israelis were born in Israel. Half of the population is either Mizrahi Jews escaping persecution from nearby states (again: Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon could not have gotten their Jewish populations that low without systemic discrimination) that were happy to see them go, or their descendants. The rest are mostly jews who escaped antisemitism in Europe or their descendants. (Also, Ethiopian jews, but given that Israel discriminates against THEM, they're a bit too complicated to discuss in this already complicated post.)

And of course there's the Jews who were already living there... and the question of those who were kicked out centuries or even millenia ago by Romans or the Islamic caliphates or the Ottoman empire or what have you.

(I'll note here that I have a large bias against Ottoman Empire things and am trying to be conscious of that.)

None of this JUSTIFIES their actions. But the whole Settlers thing, at least for the main body of Israel, is really complicated by the fact that Israel's history, and the fact that the Jewish people HAVE been there in some capacity for thousands of years, is complicated. He mentions the decolonization of Algeria and French people leaving but... French people had France. They could go back to France.

Israel is the homeland. The whole reason Jewish people wanted it was because their thousands of years of history were there. Their holiest site (temple mount) was there. They'd just been driven from it over and over again.

It does not, by any means, justify their actions against Palestine. It DOES, however, mean that the whole "jews should have stayed where they were instead of coming here" argument is... flawed. They should NOT have taken that land, no, should NOT have kicked out Palestinians, but at that point we also get into whatever the hell Britain was doing.

West Bank settlers are a different issue. That should not be happening. That is in fact colonization. Go back to your own side of the border. Etc.

My thoughts on the situating keep changing as I learn, but I'm really hesitant to get on board with any particularly black-and-white generalizations.

#current events #political philosophy #Israel #Palestine #colonization #Phoenix answers asks #Phoenix Politics

[sixminutestoriesblog]

ides of march

well, its tumblr's favorite holiday and who can blame us? The assassination of Julius Caesar is probably one of the only group projects that ever went down the way it was supposed to with, well, not complete group participation (there were said to be upward of 60 people involved but only 23 stab wounds - obviously someone was not carrying their weight) but at least a good effort was made at it. But lets take a moment, between our jokes about salad and Animal Crossing butterfly nets to look at what else has happened in history on the Ides of March. For instance, did you know, on March 15th:

1493 - Columbus returned to Spain after 'discovering' the new world.

1580 - Phillip II of Spain put a bounty on the head of Prince William I of Orange for 25,000 gold coins for leading the Dutch revolt against the Spanish Hamburgs

1744 - King Louis XV of France declares war on Britain

1767 - Andrew Jackson, who would go on to be the seventh president of the US, was born.

1820 - Maine became the 23rd state in the US

1864 - the Red River Campaign, called 'One damn blunder from beginning to end' started for the Union Forces in the American Civil War

1889 - a typhoon in Apia Harbor, Samoa sinks 6 US and German warships, killing 200

1917 - Czar Nicholas II abdicated the Russian throne, bringing an end to the Romanov dynasty

1955 - the first self-guided missile is introduced by the US Air Force

1965 - TGI Friday's opens its first restaurant in New York City

1991 - in LA, four police officers are brought up on charges for the beating of Rodney King

2018 - Toys R Us announces it will be closing all its stores

2019 - a terrorist attacks two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 51, and wounding 50 others

Oof! Pretty bleak, isn't it? It would almost make you think that the day is just bad luck, start to finish and its probably just as well, we're all focusing on assassination instead of other horrors. But wait - its not all bad news! The Ides of March has some tricks up its sleeve yet (joke intended). I'd be telling you only half the story if I didn't add:

1854 - Emil von Behring is born and will eventually become the first to receive the Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery of a diphtheria antitoxin, being called 'the children's savoir' for the lives it saves

1867 - Michigan is the first state to use property tax to support a university

1868 - the Cincinnati Red Stockings have ten salaried players, making them the first professional baseball team in the US

1887 - Michigan has the first salaried fish and game warden

1892 - the first automatic ballot voting machine is unveiled in New York City

1907 - Finland gives women the right to vote, becoming the first to do so in Europe

1933 - Ruth Bader Ginsberg is born and will go on to become a US Supreme Court justice

1934 - the 5$ a day wage was introduced by Henry Ford, forcing other companies to raise their wages as well or lose their workers

1937 - the first state sponsored contraceptive clinic in the US opens in Raleigh, North Carolina

1946 - the British Prime minister recognizes India's independence

1947 - the US Navy has its first black commissioned officer, John Lee

1949 - clothes rationing ends in Britain, four years after the end of WWII

1960 - ten nations meet in Geneva for disarmament talks

1968 - the Dioceses of Rome says it will not ban 'rock and roll' from being played during mass but that it deplores the practice - also in 1968, LIFE magazine titles Jimi Hendrix 'the most spectacular guitarist in the world'

1971 - ARPANET, the precursor of the modern day internet, sees its first forum

1984 - Tanzanian adopts a constitution

1985 - symbolics.com, the first internet domain name, is registered

The Ides of March turns out to just be a day, like any other day in history.

Unless you're us. In which case -

#ides of march #happy ides of march #julius caesar #today in history #please take some of my 'bad' dates as tongue in cheek #we love you maine #and a few of my dates fit both the good and bad side of the things so I just went with whichever I was on at the time #feel free to wiggle them around to a more appropriate column

[metamatar]

two positions on effective nuclear power advocacy

1. everytime there's an attempt to build a nuclear plant in india there are mass local protests which get locked into cycles of state repression due to fear of meltdowns. that's actually also the case with building dams (narmada bachao), large mining projects (vedanta) and expansion of coal plants (thermal power plants in assam/tamil nadu.) dam opposition is actually the most powerful environmental force in the country.

people are right to believe that they will be uprooted from their lives and that they will not be adequately protected in the case of failures which is borne out by the the bhopal gas tragedy or sterlite gas leaks. nobody wants to live near these plants. so inevitably it is the world's most marginalised people who end up living near them. look at the data on land conflict watch regarding industrial land use and acquisition for power.

outside the comfortably stupid german green party caricature there are actually people with serious concerns about nuclear power. long term investments and public trust can only occur when energy prices decrease and plants operate reasonably safely. prices of nuclear hover around ₹4 per unit while solar is ₹2 per unit in india. and it is a lie to pretend global nuclear retrenchment happened due to a conspiracy by oil/gas instead of the extremely expensive price of failure at fukushima (200 billion usd or so.) westinghouse went broke. pretending nuclear waste is the concern and not meltdowns is missing the forest for the trees.

2. i think we need to recognise the way the Non Proliferation Treaties choke civilian nuclear power while not making any commitment to long term disarmament in nuclear states rather than berating people with misgivings about meltdowns. rn, nuclear security for me and not for thee is its basic principle. the Nuclear Suppliers Group has not approved membership for india because it remains a useful tool of superpower gamesmanship.

lack of nuclear fuel means most existing nuclear power plants in india run at 60% capacity because we don't have that much uranium and have to import it and widely available thorium requires breeding which is technologically and economically infeasible. technology sharing is obviously very difficult when you're not in the NSG.

the US betrayal of iran after their deal was struck is the other obvious roadblock to building nuclear capacity in the third world. restricting nuclear tech is another way that imperial noose seeks to maintain control of states trying to unseat themselves from domination. it is not actually a surprise that north korea continues to pursue a weapons programme because deterrence works. and ukraine, of the three countries that disarmed because of the NPT is currently being invaded. you either subsume to China/Russia/US for defence or you just don't get to have nuclear energy which is not the position of a world that wants nuclear energy.

#imperialism #nuclear power #controversial opinion held weakly but argued strongly for interestingness #left discourse #long post

[disarmamentawarenessday]

Securing our Common Future.

As the Secretary-General stressed in his disarmament agenda “Securing our Common Future” launched on 24 May 2018, disarmament and non-proliferation must be at the centre of the work of the United Nations and an integral part of our common efforts for peace and security. Outlining a set of practical measures across the entire range of disarmament issues, including weapons of mass destruction, conventional arms and future weapon technologies, the agenda focuses on disarmament as a critical tool to maintain international peace and security, uphold the principles of humanity, protect civilians, promote sustainable development, and prevent and end armed conflict.

#disarmament issues #weapons of mass destruction #conventional arms #future weapon technologies #protect civilians #principles of humanity #peace and security #Non proliferation #Disarmament Agenda

[newsfrom-theworld]

The Jammu Genocide

The Jammu Genocide refers to the period in Autumn 1947 where an estimate of over 200-250 thousand Muslims in the Jammu region by paramilitaries such as RSS Hari Singh ( the man in the picture) .

Around April 1947, RSS + other extremist paramilitaries began plans for Muslim genocide.

Following this, the Maharaja visited Jammu province but there would be no Muslim officers in the touring. Days later, he visits Rawalakot, but he would visit Hindus in the area not Muslims.

Upon return, he created new units, made of of Dogra's and Gurkha's and banned meetings of 5+ people.

He would also demand Muslims surrender their weapons...WHILE those weapons were redistributed to non-Muslims. Hari Singh viewed it as necessary for the Dogra's planned genocide.

Worth noting 60,000 from his state fought in WW2 (from the Sudhan tribe, for the British army.) and got kindly 'repaid' by disarmament and rejection from the Maharaja's army.

In August the British Raj would be partitioned on the basis of religious demographic, by this time Dogra's and Mahajan's would be desperate to exterminate Muslims and make the territory Hindu.

Many Hindu and Sikh refugees would temporarily reside in Jammu and would give highly exaggerated accounts of suffering, serving as propaganda to get a good amount of the population on board, including the refugees who had arrived recently at Jammu. These two events together would lead to a plan to exterminate Jammu's Muslim population.

October 1947, the genocide planned out for months would begin in Bhimber tehsil, with attacks beginning with the slogan "Jai Maharaj." A common tactic was the arson of houses, this happened in 4 villages. In Kotli tehsil similar events would unfold in villages. Many would die

1 day later, a massacre would take place at Akhnoor bridge. 15k Muslims from Akhnoor and nearby would be forced to leave for Pakistan through the bridge, but Dogra soldiers opened fire killing masses of them.

Many claiming the killing was so bad blood was flowing on the bridge.

On the same day, a massacre would take place in Kathua district, with a considerable death toll of over 8000. It is claimed that women and children were not spared from these massacres and were killed to.

Only 100 of these 8000 would actually survive the massacre.

Another massacre would take place in Sambha, with Hindu & Sikh soldiers sieging it, containing 14k Muslims. Soldiers would cut rations and water.

The Maharaja would visit & after women were taken by state soldiers & men were slaughtered.

15 would survive, fleeing to Sialkot.

It's not over. Another massacre happened at Miran Sahib, where about 25k Muslims were SUPPOSED to be evacuated to Pakistan. As it was happening Dogra troops took away belongings and the women. Men were made to line up and be shot by machine guns.

100 survived, hiding in fields.

During November, the Maharaja demanded all Muslims leave the state, lying that Pakistan had asked for them.

They assembled at the parade ground thinking they would be sent to Suchetgarh but the convoy went to Kathua road and they were also massacred. 8000 were killed over 4 days.

As mentioned earlier, aside from the massacres, the abduction of women also took place.

These especially happened in Jammu, Kathua, Reasi and Udhampur. The number of abductions is estimated at 25k

This would all lead to mass migration of Jammu Muslims to Sialkot, Pakistan due to its closeness and a pre-established road and railway connection.

Some also went due to previous financial and familial ties to the city.

It is worth noting throughout this that the goal of the genocide was for Dogra's + RSS to take advantage of the partition's religious majority criteria (making it Hindu majority) to get accession to go one way.

This demographic idea is still used now through settler colonialism.

This website covers the genocide in more depth.

A memorial page is also under construction.

#free palestine #history #genocide #RSS #jammu genocide #silent genocide

[acolddarkwalkintherain]

We now know that COVID-19 was made in a lab in China, run by the USA. What are we, as human society, going to do about it? The WHO says the worldwide death toll is 6,953,743. Every country in the world has lost people to COVID-19.

France, for example, is listed on the WHO website with 167,985 deaths. thebulletin.org says that the total death toll of the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is estimated to be 110,000 to 210,000. France's death toll from COVID-19 is approximately equivalent to 1945 Japan's death toll from two nuclear bombs.

If a US nuclear weapon had an accident and caused 167,985 people to die in France, the French government would condemn the US's irresponsibility with nuclear weapons. Any country that suffered like that would push for nuclear disarmament, and the worldwide community would flock to support them.

In reality, an accident with a US-made bioweapon has a worldwide death toll of 6,953,743. A secret bioweapon arms race has led to the death of 6,953,743 people so far. COVID-19 is a bioweapon of mass destruction that was released on your town. Everybody in the world now has felt the pain of the US's weapons of mass destruction.

Are we going to make them stop? Are you comfortable with country governments (mainly the USA) creating weapons of mass destruction? We've been concerned with nuclear disarmament for decades but now viral bioweapons have a much higher actual death toll! Our country's governments are always researching new ways to kill people! Technology has progressed to the point where 6,953,743 people can be killed by the accidental firing of a weapon!

I, a USAmerican, am not safe as long as the US keeps researching new weapons and starting fights with other countries. None of us are safe as long as country governments stand equipped to go to war. We cannot tolerate our country governments to be capable of war.

What are we going to do about it? I urge you to ask your government representatives if the US government is going to be held responsible for the damage done to your community. I hope politicians across the world to start discussing how a US-made bioweapon cost their community countless lives.

#my posts #covid 19 #politics

[that-stone-butch]

How is gun control evil? This country has mass shootings like every other day, what else can we do to stop them which will be practical and won’t take several generations to achieve?

i didn't write that post so quibbling on wording is something you should take up with the person who actually did, but i can see you just want to pick fights about gun control so you're in my inbox. so let's get started.

that post didn't start with gun control is evil, it started with 'showing future employers you failed a background check is evil' because there are a lot of reasons someone could fail a background check and limiting a person's ability to find work in an economy where you need money to live is always a fucking bad thing. it then goes on to say that the disproportionate affects gun control has on minorities is evil.

i personally don't think that gun control is evil in a vacuum, but i think it is super complicated and intermingled with a variety of other socioeconomic and political factors, and pretending that it isn't is fucking stupid. pretending gun control is an unalloyed good is politically shortsighted. there are a lot of moving parts at work here, and they all exist within a system that prioritizes white supremacy and state violence.

the first thing you need to look at is the carceral nature of gun control. in the U.S., felons are prohibited from owning guns, even after they've served their sentences, if their crime is classified as violent. this is another strand in a web of factors that makes jailing political opponents of the system a method of complete disenfranchisement. if you are found guilty of a crime that the state deems violent in our racist pay-to-win busted ass legal system, you have been effectively disarmed (as well as made much less likely to find work, barred from voting, and much more likely to be put back into prison in your lifetime)

i want you to stop for a minute, think about america's legal system, and remember who this facet of gun control really disarms. sure, there are plenty of dangerous jerkbags this law prevents from legally acquiring guns, but if you think this doesn't disenfranchise predominantly people of color and people of significantly reduced means and options, you're a fucking idiot.

on the topic of reduced means, the government tends to favor passing gun 'control' that is just additional fees and tax stamps, because they provide additional income for the government. for example, in my state and most others, you can own a suppressor so long as you register and pay an additional $200. this makes the ownership of guns and additional equipment pay-gated, and this further keeps guns in the hands of the wealthy and privileged over that of poorer individuals.

another thing you need to consider is that bans on the acquisition of firearms only affect legal trades, and only once they're passed. no one's going to stop buying back-door guns just because you said it's illegal. additionally, people tend to rush certain armaments before they are banned. if you go on reddit you can find people buying up crateloads of 10+ round AR mags in anticipation of mag bans. hell, every time a democrat is elected president, people rush to buy certain equipment and ammunition in anticipation of gun control legislation. you want to ask questions, i ask you this: how do you feasibly undo that kind of stockpiling? you can't just 'make it illegal' and expect existing guns and munitions to just vanish into thin air.

i'm not interested in talking all that much about mass shootings, because i think it's super fucking ghoulish of you to come into my inbox with that after i say i believe the disarmament of the proletariat is a mistake; you boil down the many factors of political violence to mere gun access. there are a lot of factors that drive political violence and mass shootings; the FBI is routinely found to use informants to goad terrorists (yes that includes 4chan racists, yes this includes white children like rittenhouse) into acting on their beliefs. additionally, controlling who purchases guns doesn't control who has access to them; rittenhouse for example used a gun that was purchased for him by an additional party. how do you, inbox guy, prevent that from happening? how do you, inbox guy, use mere gun control to change a system that encourages white people to commit violence and routinely shows white people that there are reduced consequences for harming minorities? because i guaran-fucking-tee spoiled little shits will find access to guns no matter how many laws you pass.

gun violence is a fucking tragedy but unfortunately reform always takes decades to achieve. the entire system needs to be reformed, and that's never going to happen with a disarmed proletariat. the current system encourages gun violence against minorities and emboldens the perpetrators of mass shootings, how about we focus on dismantling the power structures at play here.

#ask #anonymous #racism #antiblack racism

[angelkarafilli]

The Day The World Said No To War

Piccadilly Circus,  London

15 February 2003

Protesters march through Piccadilly Circus in London, 15 February 2003. After assembling at different points, the two mass groups of protesters converged at Piccadilly Circus.

On 15 February 2003, mass marches were held to protest against a planned invasion of Iraq led by the United States. The invasion was part of an aggressive American military strategy against extremist Islamic terrorism following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The US Government accused Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, of having links with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that had carried out the 9/11 attacks. It was also claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, strongly supported US President George W Bushand his plans for invasion. However, other countries such as Canada, France, Germany and Russia urged continued diplomacy. There was also no United Nations resolution to support the action. 

Anti-war groups around the world organised a number of protests. The event on the 15 February 2003 was the largest and involved an unprecedented amount of international coordination. 

Some of the largest protests took place in Europe. In Rome in Italy, around three million people were involved in a protest that entered the Guinness Book of Records. Thousands took part in a demonstration in the Turkish capital of Istanbul, despite local authorities having banned the protest. The events of 15 February were recorded as the largest protest of its type in human history.

In the UK, a huge protest was organised by the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) in partnership with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Muslim Association of Britain. It attracted a diverse group of people, many of whom had never taken part in a protest before. London's march involved up to 2,000,000 people – a record for any British protest. 

Despite the international protests and the lack of support from the UN, troops from the US, UK, Australia and Poland launched the invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003. 

Source and more on:https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/5-photographs-from-the-day-the-world-said-no-to-war

#15 February #2003 #London #Piccadilly Circus #protesters #Iraq war #people #anti-war protests #history

[agape-philo-sophia]

➝ The Papal Bloodlines Black Nobility Crime Families 🚨

For thousands of years the ruling elite classes of monarchies, priests, black nobility, pharaonic blood lines, secret societies, money changers, dark occultists and Cabalists have been keeping knowledge from humanity, dividing and ruling us through fear and ignorance while all the while setting up a system of enslavement based on creating ignorance and division amongst us through false paradigms like money, religion, race division, the spreading of multiple conflicting ideologies, confusion through mixing of different languages, holding back occulted esoteric knowledge from our schooling and the general population, chemical dumbing down of populations through food, air and water additives, controlled propaganda, psychological warfare, false flags, psy-ops, hegalian dialectic tactics, sports and entertainment distractions, pharmaceutical, drugs, alcohol and other means. These international criminals and royal and noble crime bloodlines are threatening society with more fake epidemics, weaponized forced vaccinations, wars based on lies, civil war, world war, martial law, and genocides. They are attacking society with secret societies, organized crime, corporate fraud, and electronic weapons. These bloodlines spread plagues and have been doing that for hundreds of years. These families are behind all the major wars including World War I and World War II. When real people stand up to tyrants like them they infiltrate opposition such as the American Revolutionary War which was hijacked by Freemasons. These criminals collectively have trillions of dollars in offshore accounts in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg and they are controlling the Bank for International Settlements. They extort governments and people and make hundreds of billions per year through organized crime. They torment people with electronic weapons. The entire electronic grid has been weaponized with neuro-bio hacking programs. They finance continual lying in society through the media and entertainment. Their primary tactics are lying, making false accusations against people who expose them, and using phony arrogance to appear like they are in control at all times. The royals and nobles run all the religious organizations, secret societies and covert organizations like the Jesuits, Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Scientologists, Skull and Bones, Kabbalists, Wiccans, Five Percenters, Knights of Columbus, Knights of Malta, Shriners etc. They own the organized crime syndicates including all mafias, drug cartels, street gangs, and biker gangs. They oversee the global organizations like the United Nations, NATO, World Bank, IMF, World Economic Forum, World Health Organization, CERN, Maritime Law, INTERPOL, Conference on Disarmament, Red Cross, Geneva Conventions, etc. These criminals have infiltrated every government agency in the world through pedophilia, child sacrifices, criminal financing, bribery, secret organizations, and mafia tactics. They have designed all governments as corporate entities and chartered subsidiaries of their corporate houses and monarchies. They are mass human traffickers, mass murderers, and war criminals who commit crimes against humanity at all times. Continue: https://thegreatwork208716197.wordpress.com/2022/10/23/the-papal-bloodlines-black-nobility-crime-families/

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

My Three-ingredient Feelings Mix, on learning that the Starbucks stuck the Disability Pride Flag on their app:

 As reported to me in this ask.

1) Annoyed, because that’s just window-dressing with the aesthetics of inclusivity, and also corporate propaganda

2) Angry, because they are using a symbol of solidarity and inclusiveness while trying to sow division among their own workers.

But also:

3) Hopeful, because as much as I wish it were otherwise, we live in a society where Capitalism has the greatest weight in our Politics/Policies. And I remember how the overturning of anti-sodomy laws, and the legalization of same-sex marriage came after gay people were represented on TV and in TV commercials.

After all, the final trigger for me to actually try designing this flag was the near total media silence after the mass murder of disabled people in Sagamihara, Japan, in 2016, as if we, as a population, as a people, didn’t matter. I felt utterly invisible that day, and I didn’t want any of us to be invisible ever again.

I had a vision of a pride flag (though I didn’t know exactly what that flag would look like yet) being hand-painted on picket signs, showing up on the evening news when the local reporter goes out to cover the latest protest march, so that fellow citizens and politicians watching from home could see that Disabled people are part of the crowd. And if the reporter on the street knows the flag, then maybe they’ll interview the person carrying it.

And even back with my first attempt, with that old zigzag design, I was always asking myself: “How quickly and inexpensively can someone reproduce this design, if they’re called for an emergency rally?” (look -- I grew up in the nuclear disarmament movement; painting protest signs was a key skill my mother taught me)

The more people who see the flag, and get curious enough to ask about it, the more likely that vision of mine is to coming true.

---

Just don’t look at this as a sign that we’re “winning,” by any means. Don’t think everyone waving the flag is your ally, certainly not your comrade.

But go ahead and take it as a sign that winning is possible.

#rainbow capitalism #Disability pride flag #Disability Pride Month ♿ #Sagamihara attack #murder of the disabled