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#writers for democratic action
jomiddlemarch · 2 years
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“Democracies die by foreign invasion, but they also die by homegrown authoritarian malignancies. That is happening now in the United States, and Writers for Democratic Action calls on YOU to stop it!  Join us in protecting representative government with the most powerful weapon we still have: the Vote. 
WDA is launching BOOK THE VOTE, a drive to bring together readers, writers, booksellers, publishers, and librarians to register voters before the 2022 elections. Books themselves are threatened now, which is no surprise since books have always been essential to democracy. The Bookstore and the Library can be the frontline of the campaign to rescue it.”
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txttletale · 5 months
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Wtf is Lancer and why is it shit (serious question)
lancer is a tabletop roleplaying game made by the guy who drew kill six billion demons and another guy. i wouldn't call it 'shit', necessarily--it's good in a lot of the ways that matter. it's first and foremost a tactical mech combat game and on that level it's incredible. its ruleset is finely tuned, provides great amounts of GM support to make running what might otherwise be overwhelmingly crunchy combat easier, and has a truly stunning and cool level of character customization available. so as a game, i think it's great fun to play and run, genuinely innovative, and a huge step forward for battlemap tactical wargame type TTRPGs in general.
the lore though, kind of sucks. i think it has two clear and overlapping core problems. problem #1 is that it is a utopia as envisioned by a social democrat. it's a world which the text describes as 'post-capitalist' (but there are still evil megacorporations with private armies who own slaves) and 'post-scarcity' (but only in the developed 'core' systems, so. y'know. there's scarcity). at many points in the text they say that Union (the game's main faction) is utopian, throwing around that exact word a bunch of times as well as 'mutual aid' and 'direct action' and the like. but what they describe is just kind of an imperialist Space Sweden with several distinct forms of slavery that constantly expands and uses its Benevolent Imperial Power to intervene on the Backwards Violent Worlds on its outer border but its good because its just trying to bring them UBI.
to show what i mean, here's one of the game's writers¹ talking about how it would be morally wrong for Union to, say, appropriate the property of a private military corporation that also operates as a fascist nation-state:
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it's 'revolution' as imagined by the limpest of social democrats. and of course this would honestly be fine, whatever, most sci-fi settings are fundamentally achingly liberal, but the game goes so out of its way to signpost how Radical it is and how Hopeful and Liberationist you're meant to see the setting as
the other core problem is closely related--it feels like the lancer guys put every cool sci-fi idea they had into lancer even when it completely clashes with the core ideas behind it. like, AIs in this settings are callled 'NHPs' (non-human persons) and they're eldritch god-like beings from another dimension who have be kept 'shackled' (lancer's words, not mine!) to keep them as pliant and obedient AI assistants instead of hostile eldritch abominations. this is obviously horrifying and dystopian but it rules, it would be sick fucking worldbuilding for something with the tone of 40k or a one-off doctor who or star trek episode--but as a fundamental technology foundational to what we are supposed to believe is a post-revolutionary society founded on mutual aid and solidarity and blah blah blah it's glaringly dissonant.
bear in mind this is all just going off the rulebook. lancer fans have told me that the supplements and campaign modules fix some of this or contextualise it. but on the other hand communists have told me that they make it worse and i trust the communists more. i leave you with this incredible passage from the game's foreword:
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xtruss · 7 months
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Native Tribe To Get Back Land 160 Years After Largest Mass Hanging In US History
Upper Sioux Agency state park in Minnesota, where bodies of those killed after US-Dakota war are buried, to be transferred
— Associated Press | Sunday 3 September, 2023
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The Upper Sioux Agency State Park near Granite Falls, Minnesota. Photograph: Trisha Ahmed/AP
Golden prairies and winding rivers of a Minnesota state park also hold the secret burial sites of Dakota people who died as the United States failed to fulfill treaties with Native Americans more than a century ago. Now their descendants are getting the land back.
The state is taking the rare step of transferring the park with a fraught history back to a Dakota tribe, trying to make amends for events that led to a war and the largest mass hanging in US history.
“It’s a place of holocaust. Our people starved to death there,” said Kevin Jensvold, chairman of the Upper Sioux Community, a small tribe with about 550 members just outside the park.
The Upper Sioux Agency state park in south-western Minnesota spans a little more than 2 sq miles (about 5 sq km) and includes the ruins of a federal complex where officers withheld supplies from Dakota people, leading to starvation and deaths.
Decades of tension exploded into the US-Dakota war of 1862 between settler-colonists and a faction of Dakota people, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. After the US won the war, the government hanged more people than in any other execution in the nation. A memorial honors the 38 Dakota men killed in Mankato, 110 miles (177km) from the park.
Jensvold said he has spent 18 years asking the state to return the park to his tribe. He began when a tribal elder told him it was unjust Dakota people at the time needed to pay a state fee for each visit to the graves of their ancestors there.
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Native American tribe in Maine buys back Island taken 160 years ago! The Passamaquoddy’s purchase of Pine Island for $355,000 is the latest in a series of successful ‘land back’ campaigns for indigenous people in the US. Pine Island. Photograph: Courtesy the writer, Alice Hutton. Friday 4 June, 2021
Lawmakers finally authorized the transfer this year when Democrats took control of the house, senate and governor’s office for the first time in nearly a decade, said State Senator Mary Kunesh, a Democrat and descendant of the Standing Rock Nation.
Tribes speaking out about injustices have helped more people understand how lands were taken and treaties were often not upheld, Kunesh said, adding that people seem more interested now in “doing the right thing and getting lands back to tribes”.
But the transfer also would mean fewer tourists and less money for the nearby town of Granite Falls, said Mayor Dave Smiglewski. He and other opponents say recreational land and historic sites should be publicly owned, not given to a few people, though lawmakers set aside funding for the state to buy land to replace losses in the transfer.
The park is dotted with hiking trails, campsites, picnic tables, fishing access, snowmobiling and horseback riding routes and tall grasses with wildflowers that dance in hot summer winds.
“People that want to make things right with history’s injustices are compelled often to support action like this without thinking about other ramifications,” Smiglewski said. “A number, if not a majority, of state parks have similar sacred meaning to Indigenous tribes. So where would it stop?”
In recent years, some tribes in the US, Canada and Australia have gotten their rights to ancestral lands restored with the growth of the Land Back movement, which seeks to return lands to Indigenous people.
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‘It’s a powerful feeling’: the Indigenous American tribe helping to bring back buffalo 🦬! Matt Krupnick in Wolakota Buffalo Range, South Dakota. Sunday 20 February, 2022. The Wolakota Buffalo Range in South Dakota has swelled to 750 bison with a goal of reaching 1,200. Photograph: Matt Krupnick
A National Park has never been transferred from the US government to a tribal nation, but a handful are Co-managed with Tribes, including Grand Portage National Nonument in northern Minnesota, Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona and Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles of the National Park Service said.
This will be the first time Minnesota transfers a state park to a Native American community, said Ann Pierce, director of Minnesota State Parks and trails at the natural resources department.
Minnesota’s transfer, expected to take years to finish, is tucked into several large bills covering several issues. The bills allocate more than $6m to facilitate the transfer by 2033. The money can be used to buy land with recreational opportunities and pay for appraisals, road and bridge demolition and other engineering.
Chris Swedzinski and Gary Dahms, the Republican lawmakers representing the portion of the state encompassing the park, declined through their aides to comment about their stances on the transfer.
— The Guardian USA
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zvaigzdelasas · 21 days
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When Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry filled the void left by the assassination of the country’s president in 2021, he did so over the protest of wide segments of the population but with the full-throated support of the Biden administration.
Now, almost three years later, Henry’s grip on power is hanging by a thread, and Washington is confronted by even worse choices as it scrambles to prevent the country’s descent into anarchy.
“They messed it up deeply,” James Foley, a retired career diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to Haiti, said in an interview about the Biden administration’s support for Henry. “They rode this horse to their doom. It’s the fruit of the choices we made.”[...]
Stubborn U.S. support for Henry is largely to blame for the deteriorating situation, said Monique Clesca, a Haitian writer and member of the Montana Group, a coalition of civil, business and political leaders that came together in the wake of Jovenel Moïse ‘s murder to promote a “Haitian-led solution” to the protracted crisis.
The group’s main objective is to replace Henry with an oversight committee made up of nonpolitical technocrats to restore order and pave the way for elections. But so far, Henry, who has repeatedly promised to hold elections, has shown no willingness to yield power.
While in Guyana last week for a meeting of Caribbean leaders, he delayed what would be Haiti’s first vote in a decade yet again, until mid-2025.
“He’s been a magician in terms of his incompetence and inaction,” said Clesca. “And despite it all, the U.S. has stayed with him. They’ve been his biggest enabler.”
By any measure, Haiti’s perennially tenuous governance has gotten far worse since Henry has been in office.[...]
But even as Haiti has plunged deeper into chaos, the U.S. has stood firmly by Henry.
“He is taking difficult steps,” Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in October 2022, as Haitians poured into the streets to protest the end of fuel subsidies. “Those are actions that we have wanted to see in Haiti for quite some time.”
When demonstrations resumed last month demanding Henry’s resignation, the top U.S. diplomat in Haiti again rushed to his defense.
“Ariel Henry will leave after the elections,” U.S. chargé d’affaires Eric Stromayer told a local radio station.[...]
The Biden administration has defended its approach to Haiti. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, without specifically endorsing Henry, said the U.S. long term goal of stabilizing the country so Haitians can hold elections hasn’t changed.
But in what may be a telling slip that speaks to the neglect Haiti has suffered in Washington of late, Jean-Pierre confused the Haitian president, the country’s top elected official, with the prime minister, who is picked by the president and subject to parliamentary approval.
“It’s the Haitian people — they need to have an opportunity to democratically elect their prime minister,” Jean-Pierre, whose parents fled Haiti, said Wednesday. “That’s what we’re encouraging,” [...] “But we’ve been having these conversations for some time.”
Nichols said he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Henry on Thursday and urged him to broaden his political coalition. He said the U.S. would work to speed up the deployment of a multinational security mission to combat the gangs led by Haiti under the auspices of the United Nations but that other countries needed to step up their support in the way the world is working together to address humanitarian needs in Ukraine and Gaza [sic].[...]
The U.S. bears much of the blame for the country’s ills. After French colonizers were violently banished in 1791, the U.S. worked to isolate the country diplomatically and strangle it economically. American leaders feared a newly independent and free Haiti would inspire slave revolts back home. The U.S. did not even officially recognize Haiti until 1862, during the Civil War that abolished American slavery.
Meanwhile, U.S. troops have been an on-and-off presence on the island, dating from the era of “gunboat diplomacy” in the early 20th century when President Woodrow Wilson sent an expeditionary force that would occupy the country for two decades to collect unpaid debts to foreign powers.
The last intervention took place in 2004, when the administration of George W. Bush diverted resources from the war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq to calm the streets following a coup that removed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.[...]
Foley said the situation is deteriorating so fast that the Biden administration may have no choice [but to send US troops to Haiti]. He’s pushing for a limited troop presence, like the one that in 2004 handed off to U.N. peacekeepers after only six months. Unlike the U.N. peacekeeping mission, which was hastily organized, Kenya has been working for months on a multinational force to combat the gangs.
“I completely understand the deep reluctance in Washington to have U.S. forces on the ground,” Foley said. “But it may prove impossible to prevent a criminal takeover of the state unless a small U.S. security contingent is sent on a temporary basis to create the conditions for international forces to take over.”
But whether yet another U.S. intervention helps stabilize a desperate Haiti, or just adds more fuel to the raging fire, remains an open question. And given the recent American track record, many are doubtful.
“The U.S. for too long has been too present, too meddling,” said Clesca. “It’s time for them to step back.”
7 Mar 24
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dostoyevsky-official · 4 months
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A People’s Obituary of Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger, who was born in Weimar Germany in 1923, is dead. He made it to 100, and in the last years of his life, politicians, writers, and celebrities feted him as if he were the American Century incarnate. In a way, he was.
[...] At every single one of America’s postwar turning points, moments of crisis when men of good will began to express doubts about American power, Kissinger broke in the opposite direction. He made his peace with Nixon, whom he first thought was unhinged; then with Ronald Reagan, whom he initially considered hollow; and then with George W. Bush’s neocons, despite the fact that they all rose to power attacking Kissinger; and finally with Donald Trump, whom Kissinger fancifully imagined as the realization of his belief that the greatness of great statesmen resides in their spontaneity, their agility, their ability to thrive on chaos, on, as Kissinger wrote in the 1950s, “perpetual creation, on a constant redefinition of goals.”
[...] “We’ve got to break the back of this generation of Democratic leaders,” Kissinger told Nixon, as the two men plotted to use foreign policy for domestic advantage. Nixon responded that “we’ve got to destroy the confidence of the people in the American establishment.”
“That’s right,” Kissinger answered.
Yet, even as the breakup of the old national security state was proceeding apace, Kissinger helped with its reconstruction in a new form: a restored imperial presidency based on ever-more-spectacular displays of violence, more intense secrecy, and an increasing use of war and militarism to leverage domestic dissent and polarization for political advantage.
[...] Kissinger served as not just a foil but also an enabler for the New Right. Over the course of his career, he advanced a set of premises that would be taken up and extended by neoconservative intellectuals and policymakers: that hunches, conjecture, will, and intuition are as important as facts and hard intelligence in guiding policy; that too much knowledge can weaken resolve; that foreign policy has to be wrested out of the hands of experts and bureaucrats and given to men of action; and that the principle of self-defense (broadly defined to cover just about anything) overrules the ideal of sovereignty. In so doing, Kissinger played his part in keeping the great wheel of American militarism spinning ever forward.
[...] At the very least, we can learn from Kissinger, who unhesitatingly supported Gulf War One and Gulf War Two, and every war between and since, that the two defining concepts of United States foreign policy—realism and idealism—aren’t necessarily opposing values; rather, they reinforce each other. Idealism gets us into the quagmire of the moment; realism keeps us there while promising to get us out; and then idealism returns anew both to justify the realism and to overcome it in the next round. So it goes.
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phoenixyfriend · 27 days
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I heard a lot of things I wanted to share earlier today, but haven't reached a non-work computer until recently and was distracted by the airdrop news so I had to talk about that first. Most of the things that stood out to me were in the Democracy Now podcast, but I'll be linking the headlines from their website, which has text versions of the articles instead of just audio.
The Intercept: New York Times Exposé Lacks Evidence to Claim Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence Oct. 7: Shortly after the first Hamas attack, the New York Times published an inflammatory article about systematic rape by Hamas soldiers. It initially intended to have an episode of The Daily (its podcast) about the topic, but the podcast's fact-checkers found that the article's writers had bent a lot of truths and their sources were often questionable at best; the needed rewrites for honest reporting were so comprehensive that the episode script was scrapped entirely. Goes over the ways in which the reporters manipulated facts and opinions, the NYT not really acknowledging the conflict, and how heavily it impacted international response to Israeli actions, especially by the US government.
From their Headlines page, the bold is their titles and the reset is my summary or additional references:
Defense Sec. Austin Refuses to Draw Line in Sand for Israel After Food Aid Massacre in Gaza - DS Austin is grilled by a congressmember and still doesn't commit to anything; notable is that he cites a death toll that is probably accurate to the estimates of real death, but not accurate to the confirmed deaths and so the numbers had to be later walked back by the Pentagon.
Washington’s Largest Union Backs Democratic Vote for “Uncommitted” Ahead of Primary - UFCW is joining the movement that Michigan got rolling. I talked about it more in a recent addition to this post, if you want to know more about which states are organizing to do the same.
Lebanese PM Says Gaza Ceasefire Would End Conflict on Its Border with Israel - Lebanon has been bombing northern Israel for a while now; this is just the 'if you leave Palestine alone, we'll stop sending explosives your way' message that's been broadcast for a while.
There are a number of other stories going on that aren't getting a huge amount of coverage on most platforms, like Texas's wildfires, or are just too complex for me to summarize (they have a longer article on the border visit and policy debate), but these three stood out to me, which is probably why they're the first ones mentioned.
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As multiple work stoppages continued across the United States, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania on Thursday introduced legislation that would enable striking workers to qualify for federal food aid.
Called the Food Secure Strikers Act of 2023, Fetterman's bill would amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to ensure that striking workers aren't excluded from receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. In addition, the bill would preserve food stamp eligibility for public sector workers who are fired for striking and clarify that any income-eligible household is entitled to SNAP benefits even if a member of that household is on strike.
"Every union worker who is walking the picket line this summer needs to know that we have their back here in Washington," Fetterman said in a statement. "The union way of life is sacred. It's what built Pennsylvania and this nation. It is critical for us to protect workers' right to organize, and that includes making sure they and their families have the resources to support themselves while on strike."
"As chair of the Nutrition Subcommittee and an advocate for the union way of life, this bill is just plain common sense," he added. "I'm proud to introduce this bill that will eliminate the need for workers to choose between fighting for fair working conditions and putting food on the table for their families."
Workers typically forgo pay when they exercise their right to walk off the job in pursuit of higher wages and better conditions. Although union strike funds sometimes provide workers on the picket line with a stipend, it is less than their regular income.
Under existing law, striking workers and their households are ineligible to receive SNAP benefits unless they already qualified for food stamps prior to withholding their labor. This gives employers significant leverage over employees who can only endure economic hardship for so long. By repealing the current restriction on striking workers securing SNAP benefits, Fetterman's bill would help restore some balance to the struggle between capital and labor.
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"It's good to see lawmakers attempting to correct the wrongs of the past by reinstating a benefit for striking workers that never should have been taken away in the first place," said International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O'Brien. "Congress should never pass laws that punish American workers and hopefully this amendment is a repudiation of that practice."
O'Brien spent the past several weeks preparing 340,000 United Parcel Service (UPS) warehouse workers and delivery drivers for what would have been the second-largest work stoppage at a single employer in U.S. history, trailing only a 1970 strike of 400,000 General Motors workers. Although a UPS strike has likely been averted after the logistics giant and the Teamsters reached a tentative five-year contract agreement on Tuesday, Fetterman's proposal comes amid a nationwide wave of ongoing and potential labor actions.
"The United Auto Workers have mirrored the Teamsters' militant stance, blasting CEOs ahead of their own contract negotiations slated for later this year," The Intercept reported Thursday. "And the truckers union has staged trainings in dozens of cities for a strike that could shut down shipping from coast to coast. In California, meanwhile, thousands of hotel workers organized with Unite Here are already on strike, along with tens of thousands of Hollywood writers and actors belonging to the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA, respectively."
The walkout of 160,000 writers and actors, who are fighting for improved remuneration and attempting to safeguard unionized jobs threatened by artificial intelligence-induced automation, is perhaps the most well-known of the current strikes.
Earlier this month, an anonymous studio executive admitted to Deadline that "the endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses," drawing widespread condemnation, including from star actor Ron Perlman.
The Food Secure Strikers Act is designed to counteract the delay tactics that bosses rely on to crush workers.
"Workers who make the difficult decision to go on strike are coming together to lift the standard of living and gain more respect for all working people," said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA). "They are prepared to make sacrifices—but going hungry should not be one of them. The Food Secure Strikers Act of 2023 will help ensure that when striking workers stand in solidarity for better working conditions and wages they can receive SNAP benefits so they don't put themselves and their families at risk."
The legislation is co-sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and 10 Senate Democrats, including Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.). A companion bill was unveiled in the House by Democratic Reps. Alma Adams (N.C.) and Greg Casar (Texas).
It is also endorsed by numerous unions and anti-hunger organizations, including the Teamsters, NEA, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Communications Workers of America, the Food Research Action Center, and Hunger-Free America.
"We need to get rid of the anti-union provisions in our code that starve striking workers," said Casar. "We're seeing workers exercise their rights across the country by going on strike to demand better wages and working conditions. That's why our bill, the Food Secure Strikers Act, is more important now than ever. We need to stop starving strikers, and ensure all working families are able to make ends meet."
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leonaquitaine · 6 months
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On the subject of generative AI
Let me start with an apology for deviating from the usual content, and for the wall of text ahead of you. Hopefully, it'll be informative, instructive, and thought-provoking. A couple days ago I released a hastily put-together preset collection as an experiment in 3 aspects of ReShade and virtual photography: MultiLUT to provide a fast, consistent tone to the rendered image, StageDepth for layered textures at different distances, and tone-matching (something that I discussed recently).
For the frames themselves, I used generative AI to create mood boards and provide the visual elements that I later post-processed to create the transparent layers, and worked on creating cohesive LUTs to match the overall tone. As a result, some expressed disappointment and disgust. So let's talk about it.
The concerns of anti-AI groups are significant and must not be overlooked. Fear, which is often justified, serves as a palpable common denominator. While technology is involved, my opinion is that our main concern should be on how companies could misuse it and exclude those most directly affected by decision-making processes.
Throughout history, concerns about technological disruption have been recurring themes, as I can attest from personal experience. Every innovation wave, from typewriters to microcomputers to the shift from analog to digital photography, caused worries about job security and creative control. Astonishingly, even the concept of “Control+Z” (undo) in digital art once drew criticism, with some artists lamenting, “Now you can’t own your mistakes.” Yet, despite initial misgivings and hurdles, these technological advancements have ultimately democratized creative tools, facilitating the widespread adoption of digital photography and design, among other fields.
The history of technology’s disruptive impact is paralleled by its evolution into a democratizing force. Take, for instance, the personal computer: a once-tremendous disruptor that now resides in our pockets, bags, and homes. These devices have empowered modern-day professionals to participate in a global economy and transformed the way we conduct business, pursue education, access entertainment, and communicate with one another.
Labor resistance to technological change has often culminated in defeat. An illustrative example brought up in this NYT article unfolded in 1986 when Rupert Murdoch relocated newspaper production from Fleet Street to a modern facility, leading to the abrupt dismissal of 6,000 workers. Instead of negotiating a gradual transition with worker support, the union’s absolute resistance to the technological change resulted in a loss with no compensation, underscoring the importance of strategic adaptation.
Surprisingly, the Writers Guild of America (W.G.A.) took a different approach when confronted with AI tools like ChatGPT. Rather than seeking an outright ban, they aimed to ensure that if AI was used to enhance writers’ productivity or quality, then guild members would receive a fair share of the benefits. Their efforts bore fruit, providing a promising model for other professional associations.
The crucial insight from these historical instances is that a thorough understanding of technology and strategic action can empower professionals to shape their future. In the current context, addressing AI-related concerns necessitates embracing knowledge, dispelling unwarranted fears, and arriving at negotiation tables equipped with informed decisions.
It's essential to develop and use AI in a responsible and ethical manner; developing safeguards against potential harm is necessary. It is important to have open and transparent conversations about the potential benefits and risks of AI.
Involving workers and other stakeholders in the decision-making process around AI development and deployment is a way to do this. The goal is to make sure AI benefits everyone and not just a chosen few.
While advocates for an outright ban on AI may have the best interests of fellow creatives in mind, unity and informed collaboration among those affected hold the key to ensuring a meaningful future where professionals are fairly compensated for their work. By excluding themselves from the discussion and ostracizing others who share most of their values and goals, they end up weakening chances of meaningful change; we need to understand the technology, its possibilities, and how it can be steered toward benefitting those they source from. And that involves practical experimentation, too. Carl Sagan, in his book 'The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark', said:
"I have a foreboding […] when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."
In a more personal tone, I'm proud to be married to a wonderful woman - an artist who has her physical artwork in all 50 US states, and several pieces sold around the world. For the last few years she has been studying and adapting her knowledge from analog to digital art, a fact that deeply inspired me to translate real photography practices to the virtual world of Eorzea. In the last months, she has been digging deep into generative AI in order to understand not only how it'll impact her professional life, but also how it can merge with her knowledge so it can enrich and benefit her art; this effort gives her the necessary clarity to voice her concerns, make her own choices and set her own agenda. I wish more people could see how useful her willingness and courage to dive into new technologies in order to understand their impact could be to help shape their own futures.
By comprehending AI and adopting a collective approach, we can transform the current challenges into opportunities. The democratization and responsible utilization of AI can herald a brighter future, where technology becomes a tool for empowerment and unity prevails over division. And now, let's go back to posting about pretty things.
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eretzyisrael · 3 months
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By 
Michael Kaplan, Sara Nathan, and Joshua Rhett Miller
Mass anti-Israel protests which stopped traffic out of Manhattan Monday were secretly coordinated by radicals — and are a dramatic escalation of their tactics, experts tell The Post.
At least six radical anti-Israel groups were behind the rush-hour protests which stranded commuters on the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges and the Holland Tunnel.
The groups, which include the Democratic Socialists of America whose members include squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, co-ordinated their actions then blasted their social media accounts with glossy films reveling in the misery they brought.
They also deployed the Hollywood star power of Susan Sarandon, the actress who previously had to apologize for antisemitic comments at a rally in Manhattan.
Justin Finkelstein, analyst with Center on Extremism at the Anti Defamation League, said it was evidence of secret backchannels between the groups and told The Post: “I this is the most disruptive that I’ve seen.
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“It’s slowing down daily movement of New Yorkers and making it impossible not to notice them. I think that is their goal. They think these direct actions raise awareness of the Palestinian cause.”
And he warned more attempts to interrupt ordinary people’s lives are on the way and said: “Anything that gets them visibility is something they might consider.”
The six groups know to have taken part in what they called “an autonomous collective” were Palestinian Youth Movement; Democratic Socialists of America, New York branch; Writers Against War On Gaza; Jewish Voice for Peace; Al-Awda; and Critical Resistance.
Between them they boast ties not just to AOC and Sarandon, but to “Angels in America” playwright Tony Kushner, elite colleges including Yale, Brown and UCLA — and have received funding from the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, a Rockefeller family foundation and through Schwab Charitable, a fund set up with the help of the investment company Charles Schwab to allow people to make donations to other non-profits.
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coochiequeens · 1 year
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Martyr’s don’t kill innocents including children. Content warning: it’s about a school shooting and people posting pictures of themselves holding weapons.
Controversial group behind 'Trans Day of Vengeance' raised money for firearms training - as other trans protestors pose with guns ahead of march in DC on Saturday
The protest was rebranded before the Nashville tragedy from 'visibility' to 'vengeance' by the Trans Radical Activist Network
But some social media users appear to have taken the protest to another level and have posed with powerful firearms posted along with the hashtag 
Twitter has since removed more than 5,000 posts that have used the flyer for the event on April 1 
Despite three nine-year-olds being gunned down by a transgender shooter at a private Christian school in Nashville, activists are still rallying the troops to protest for a 'Trans Day of Vengeance' - months after raising money for firearms training. 
Transgender shooter Audrey Hale opened fire on the Covenant School in Nashville at 10.30am on Monday, killing Hallie Scruggs, William Kinney and Evelyn Dieckhaus during her rampage at the school.
But despite rising political tensions across the country, which saw a press secretary for Arizona Democrat Governor post a Tweet about shooting transphobes, the Trans Radical Activist Network (TRAN) is pushing forward with their protest in DC.
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The Virginia chapter of the group held a 'dance party fundraiser' in Richmond 'benefiting firearm/self-defense training for trans-Virginians' on March 7, before the mass shooting had taken place. 
In statements, the group has taken pains to distance themselves from Hale, and her actions, and changed the name of the protest before the brutal slayings.  
The protest on Saturday was initially meant to be called a 'day of visibility' but rebranded before the shooting to vengeance because it means 'fighting back with vehemence' – though the group was quick to say they do not 'encourage or promote violence' when contacted by DailyMail.com. 
But one person posing as an activist appears to have taken the movement to the next level, posting a picture of a heavily armed person with an assault rifle and threatening to 'kill christcucks' - as Twitter removed thousands of posts with flyers for the event. 
Twitter has been removing the posts that could be deemed threatening or involve guns associated with the 'TransDayofVengeance' hashtag - but it is unclear exactly how many were others posing with weapons as they have since been deleted.
Ella Irwin, Twitter's head of trust and safety, wrote that the company removed more than 5,000 tweets that included a poster for the event.
She said: 'We do not support tweets that incite violence irrespective of who posts them. 
'Vengeance' does not imply peaceful protest. Organizing or support for peaceful protests is ok.'
Two other trans activists have since posted footage and photos of themselves with rifles, which appear to be in direct response to the Nashville shooting. 
One says that she will use the weapon for 'protection' against 'transphobes' who  target them. 
Kayla Denker, who describes themselves as a ‘communist, archaeologist and writer, posted the video of herself with her gun after the incident in Nashville – despite saying ‘advocating for trans people to arm ourselves is not any kind of a solution to the genocide we are facing’.
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She is also appealing for help with the medical bills for her transition on her social media, which has now been locked down.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Green also saw her account removed after she launched several anti-trans attacks on Twitter.
Greene claimed that 'Antifa' was organizing the alleged event, and reposted a poster for the protest while complaining Twitter kept removing her posts before she was ultimately suspended.
Activists are being encouraged to 'bring a buddy' and wear a mask at the event outside of the Supreme Court in DC on April 1, and is billed as avenging a 'trans genocide.'
Organizers did not respond when asked questions about the safety of protests amid the increasing pressure between the two sides of the political spectrum.
Websites such as Etsy are still being used to sell pro-gun and trans merchandise, with stickers that say 'defend equality' with assault rifles on as well as t-shirts and other items emblazoned with 'Trans rights… or else' which also have the high-powered guns in pink, white and blue – the Trans colors – on them.
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TRAN is run by three co-founders, one of whom is a former staffer for the Virginia Democrats and stepped down to work with the group.
Bo Belotti, the national recruitment director, is a 'trans masculine non-binary person' and helped the Virginia chapter of the group to raise money to go on guns and self-defence.
On March 7, the Virginia chapter held a 'dance party fundraiser' in Richmond 'benefiting firearm/self-defense training for trans-Virginians. Come boogie with us and defend trans life!'
Belotti worked as a fellow for Del. Elizabeth Guzman, and Del. Joshua Cole as a legislative aide and helped draft HB 145, which required the state to create model transgender policies for public schools.
His bio on the website adds: 'While working in their state's legislators they helped craft trans-affirming statewide policies.' 
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Another co-founder is non-binary Tsukuru, who had been posting updates on the protest before locking down their account following the backlash in the aftermath of the mass shooting.
Their bio states that they were a 'graduate of a high school in Hiroshima where 350 young lives were brutally taken on August 6, 1945, Tsukuru is an anti-nuclear/anti-war/human rights activist.'
It adds: 'After his brief marriage to his best friend and the birth of his child, he first came out as lesbian at age 29 and as a transgender man at age 50.'
The final founder is Noah Buchanan who helped to set up Tran initially, writing on the website: 'Noah Buchanan; I am a transgender male and have been out since 2018. I have 10+ years of working in the mental health field.
'What motivated me to start TRAN was the fact I was bullied to the point where I attempted to end my own life. The person that bullied me was a fellow member of the LGBTIA+.'
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In a statement to DailyMail.com Buchanan said: 'What I will say is that this protest was not about encouraging or promoting violence.
This protest is about uniting and letting people know that we are human beings, we exist, and love conquers hate.'
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alfamangle · 16 days
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I have been wishing to make this post for quite a while, so please, let me babble on about why you all should read this tumblr series I hold quite dear.
Ahem! YASC or @you-are-starclan is a tumblr based arg where you, dear reader, can play a part in the story and try to change the story to your whims! Make them suffer! Imrpove their lives! Do something that entertains you! A story needs an audience and the story calls for audience participation! Follow the pinewood clowder as they live their lives under the watchful eye of you.
But! You aren't alone! It would pull the story too many ways for everyone to get their way, after all, so decisions are made democratically! Rejoice for the voting system! Every update a poll is put out to decide the fates of the cats! Their lives rest in the many, many hands of those who watch them preform on their little stage of an abandoned mall.
"But, dear writer of this post, the polls have already closed! What is the point!" and that my friend is where you are wrong. Yes, the play may have already been written, the actors repeating the same actions over and over, but, dear reader, you can still see the hands of your fellow audience members of the past in the story beats! Instead of waiting, hands clutched in hoping your beloved favorite cats make it through the season, you get to instead see the innevitability of decisions already made, plans made in haste in yelling "This is the only way! This is how it has to be! (it never did! There was always other ways to deal with everything, but these was the decisions we made, and we must lie in the bed we built with our many hands) There is a special sort of joy in that experience, I think.
So, dear reader, why not grab a ticket and take a seat and watch the show? A story cannot live without its audience, and my friend why not keep the story alive. Watch the actors preform for you, and know your fellow audience members tried their best (we really tried!). And remember, dear friends, maybe the luckiest of them all are the ones who managed to slip between the dazzling spotlights and fade into the buzz of the background, as being perceived by hundreds of eyes for your every move may not always be for the best.
Enjoy the show :)
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lowcountry-gothic · 2 months
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A really good article from Andre Henry, a talented and thoughtful writer. Some highlights:
"But at the heart of this way of campaigning is a deeply problematic assumption: The notion that, if the worst-case scenario were to play out and Trump became president-for-life, America’s story ends there. "It displays a poverty of imagination and a sense of denial about America’s history, an ignorance about Americans’ collective power. That fatalism is a much bigger problem than another Trump presidency. Trump is a symptom of a larger problem that precedes him, eclipses him and will outlive him..."
"Put another way, our oppression depends on historical amnesia. The opponents of progress want us to remain ignorant of the depths of our nation’s atrocities and the genius of resistance movements in American history. But if we don’t understand that we’ve already fought some previous iteration of today’s boogeymen — fascism, Christian nationalism or something else — we’ll feel powerless to stop them or else reinvent the wheel trying to do so..."
"...when the world got up in arms about Nazism, Black Americans were able to say it was nothing new to them. 'We Negroes in America do not have to be told what fascism is in action,' Langston Hughes told the Second International Writers Congress in Paris in 1937. 'We know.''"
"The Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, a mentor to the anticolonialist activist and writer Frantz Fanon, argued that fascism was nothing more than Europe applying 'colonialist procedure which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.'"
"...I want to remind us that the terrors that seem to loom ahead have been fought here before. Every Black liberation struggle on American soil has been an antifascist struggle, a struggle against Christian nationalism, a struggle against tyranny."
"Democracy has never been secured as simply as casting a ballot. We have always had to contend for it in the streets, and perhaps now it’s our turn. This is not a case against voting, even for what we keep calling the lesser of two evils. It’s a call to remember our past and our power, so we can break this abusive cycle. We need to dream bigger dreams than simply avoiding dictatorship. We need to fight for the promise of democracy."
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wooodyguthrie · 9 months
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Trial of the Chicago Seven - TESTIMONY OF PHILIP DAVID OCHS
The Chicago Seven were seven defendants—Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Lee Weiner—charged by the United States federal government with conspiracy, crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot, and other charges related to anti-Vietnam War and 1960s counterculture protests in Chicago, Illinois, during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
The trial lasted for months, with over 100 witnesses called by the defense, including singers Phil Ochs, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, and Country Joe McDonald; comedian Dick Gregory; writers Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg; and activists Timothy Leary and Jesse Jackson.
Full testimony under the cut
MR. KUNSTLER: Will you state your full name, please?
THE WITNESS: Philip David Ochs.
MR. KUNSTLER: What is your occupation?
THE WITNESS: I am a singer, a folksinger.
MR. KUNSTLER: Now, Mr. Ochs, can you indicate what kind of songs you sing?
THE WITNESS: I write all my own songs and they are just simple melodies with a lot of lyrics. They usually have to do with current events and what is going on in the news. You can call them topical songs, songs about the news, and then developing into more philosophical songs later.
MR. KUNSTLER: Now, Mr. Ochs, did there ever come a time when you met any of the defendants at this table?
THE WITNESS: Yes. I met Jerry Rubin in 1964 when he was organizing one of the first teach-ins against the war in Vietnam in Berkeley. He called me up. He asked me to come and sing.
MR. KUNSTLER: Now did you have any occasion after that to receive another such call from Mr. Rubin?
THE WITNESS: I met him a few times later in regard to other political actions. I met him in Washington at the march they had at the Pentagon incident, at the big rally before the Pentagon
.
MR. KUNSTLER: Now, Mr. Ochs, have you ever been associated with what is called the Youth International Party, or, as we will say, the Yippies?
THE WITNESS: Yes. I helped design the party, formulate the idea of what Yippie was going to be, in the early part of 1968.
MR. KUNSTLER: Can you indicate to the Court and jury what Yippie was going to be, what its purpose was for its formation?
THE WITNESS: The idea of Yippie was to be a form of theater politics, theatrically dealing with what seemed to be an increasingly absurd world and trying to deal with it in other than just on a straight moral level. They wanted to be able to act out fantasies in the street to communicate their feelings to the public.
MR. KUNSTLER: Now, were any of the defendants at the table involved in the formation of the Yippies?
THE WITNESS: Yes, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.
MR. KUNSTLER: Can you just point to and identify which one is Jerry Rubin and which one is Abbie Hoffman?
THE WITNESS: Yes, Jerry Rubin with the headband and Abbie Hoffman with the smile.
MR. KUNSTLER: Can you indicate in general to the Court and jury what the plans were for the Yippies in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention?
THE WITNESS: The plans were essentially--
MR. FORAN: I object.
THE COURT: I sustain the objection.
MR. KUNSTLER: Your Honor, one of the central roles in this case is the Yippie participation around the Democratic National Convention.
THE COURT: I don't see that allegation in the indictment.
MR. KUNSTLER: Well, the indictment charges these two men with certain acts in connection with the Democratic National Convention.
THE COURT: These two men and others, but not as Yippies, so-called, but-- as individuals.
MR. KUNSTLER: All right, your Honor, I will rephrase the question. Did there come a time when Jerry and Abbie discussed their plans?
THE WITNESS: Yes, they did, around the middle of January at Jerry's. Present there, besides Abbie and Jerry, I believe, was Paul Krassner and Ed Sanders. Tim Leary was there at one point.
MR. KUNSTLER: Can you tell the conversation from Jerry and Abbie, as to their plans in coming to Chicago around the Democratic National Convention?
THE WITNESS: OK. Jerry Rubin planned to have a Festival of Life during the National Convention, basically representing an alternate culture. They would theoretically sort of spoof the Convention and show the public, the media, that the Convention was not to be taken seriously because it wasn't fair, and wasn't going to be honest, and wasn't going to be a democratic convention. They discussed getting permits. They discussed flying to Chicago to talk with Mayor Daley. They several times mentioned they wanted to avoid violence. They went out of their way on many different occasions to talk with the Mayor or anybody who could help them avoid violence--
MR. KUNSTLER: Now, Mr. Ochs, do you know what guerrilla theater is?
THE WITNESS: Guerrilla theater creates theatrical metaphors for what is going on in the world outside.
For example, a guerrilla theater might do, let us say, a skit on the Viet Cong, it might act out a scene on a public street or in a public park where some actually play the Viet Cong, some actually play American soldiers, and they will dramatize an event, basically create a metaphor, an image, usually involving humor, usually involving a dramatic scene, and usually very short. This isn't a play with the theme built up. It's just short skits, essentially.
MR. KUNSTLER: Did Jerry Rubin or Abbie Hoffman ask you to do anything at any time?
MR. FORAN: I object to that.
THE COURT: I sustain the objection.
MR. FORAN: I object to it as leading and suggestive.
MR. KUNSTLER: Did you have any discussion with Abbie and Jerry about your role?
THE WITNESS: Yes. In early February at Abbie's apartment.
MR. KUNSTLER: Can you state what Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin said to you and what you said to them?
THE WITNESS: They discussed my singing at the Festival of Life. They asked me to contact other performers to come and sing at the Festival. I talked to Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel. I believe I talked with Judy Collins.
MR. KUNSTLER: Did there come a time, Mr. Ochs, when you came to Chicago in 1968?
THE WITNESS: I came campaigning for Eugene McCarthy on M-Day, which I believe was August 15, at the Lindy Opera House, I believe.
MR. KUNSTLER: After you arrived in Chicago did you have any discussion with Jerry?
THE WITNESS: Yes, I did. We discussed the nomination of a pig for President.
MR. KUNSTLER: Would you state what you said and what Jerry said.
THE WITNESS: We discussed the details. We discussed going out to the countryside around Chicago and buying a pig from a farmer and bringing him into the city for the purposes of his nominating speech.
MR. KUNSTLER: Did you have any role yourself in that?
THE WITNESS: Yes, I helped select the pig, and I paid for him.
MR. KUNSTLER: Now, did you find a pig at once when you went out?
THE WITNESS: No, it was very difficult. We stopped at several farms and asked where the pigs were.
MR. KUNSTLER: None of the farmers referred you to the police station, did they?
THE WITNESS: No.
MR. FORAN: Objection.
THE COURT: I sustain the objection.
MR. KUNSTLER: Mr. Ochs, can you describe the pig which was finally bought?
MR. FORAN: Objection.
THE COURT., I sustain the objection.
MR. KUNSTLER: Would you state what, if anything, happened to the pig?
THE WITNESS: The pig was arrested with seven people.
MR. KUNSTLER: When did that take place?
THE WITNESS: This took place on the morning of August 23, at the Civic Center underneath the Picasso sculpture.
MR. KUNSTLER: Who were those seven people?
THE WITNESS: Jerry Rubin. Stew Albert, Wolfe Lowenthal, myself is four; I am not sure of the names of the other three.
MR. KUNSTLER: What were you doing when you were arrested?
THE WITNESS: We were arrested announcing the pig's candidacy for President.
MR. KUNSTLER: Did Jerry Rubin speak?
THE WITNESS: Yes, Jerry Rubin was reading a prepared speech for the pig---the opening sentence was something like, "I, Pigasus, hereby announce my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States." He was interrupted in his talk by the police who arrested us.
MR. KUNSTLER: What was the pig doing during this announcement?
MR. FORAN: Objection.
MR. KUNSTLER: Do you remember what you were charged with?
THE WITNESS: I believe the original charge mentioned was something about an old Chicago law about bringing livestock into the city, or disturbing the peace, or disorderly conduct, and when it came time for the trial, I believe the charge was disorderly conduct.
MR. KUNSTLER: Were you informed by an officer that the pig had squealed on you?
MR. FORAN: Objection. I ask it be stricken.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: I sustain the objection. When an objection is made do not answer until the Court has ruled. . .
* * * * * *
MR. KUNSTLER: Now, I call your attention to Sunday, August 25, 1968. Did you have any occasion to see Jerry Rubin?
THE WITNESS: Well, ultimately I saw him at his apartment in Old Town that night.
MR. KUNSTLER: Do you remember approximately what time that was?
THE WITNESS: I guess it was around, maybe, 9:30 approximately 9:30, 10:00. He was laying in bed. He said he was very ill. He was very pale. We had agreed to go to Lincoln Park that night, and so I said, "I hope You are still going to Lincoln Park." He said, "I don't know if I can make it, I seem to he very ill." I cajoled him, and I said, I said, "Come on. you're one of the Yippies. You can't not go to Lincoln Park." He said, "OK," and he got up, and he went to Lincoln Park with me, and I believe Nancy, his girlfriend, and my girlfriend Karen, the four of us walked from his apartment to Lincoln Park.
MR. KUNSTLER: And did you enter the park?
THE WITNESS: Just the outskirts, I mean we basically stood in front of the Lincoln Hotel, and walked across the street from the Lincoln Hotel and stood in the outskirts of the park.
MR. KUNSTLER: Now, did there come a time when people began to leave Lincoln Park?
THE WITNESS: Yes, I guess it was around eleven o'clock at night.
MR. KUNSTLER: What did you do at that time?
THE WITNESS: Continued standing there. We stood there and watched them run right at us, as a matter of fact.
MR. KUNSTLER: Who was with you at this time?
THE WITNESS: The same people I mentioned before.
MR. KUNSTLER: Had you been together continuously since You first left the apartment?
THE WITNESS: Continuously.
MR. KUNSTLER: And from the time you left the apartment to this time, did you see Jerry Rubin wearing a helmet at any time?
THE WITNESS: No.
MR. KUNSTLER: By the way, how long have you known Jerry Rubin?
THE WITNESS: I have known Jerry Rubin approximately four years.
MR. KUNSTLER: Have you ever seen him smoke a cigarette?
THE WITNESS: No.
MR. KUNSTLER: Mr. Ochs, you said there came a time when you left the area. Where did you go?
THE WITNESS: We walked through the streets following the crowd.
MR. KUNSTLER: And can you describe what you saw as you followed the crowd?
THE WITNESS: They were just chaotic and sort of unformed, and people just continued away from the park and just seemed to move, I think toward the commercial area of Old Town where the nightclubs are and then police Clubs were there too, and it was just a flurry of movement of people all kinds of ways.
MR. SCHULTZ: If the Court please, the witness was asked what he observed and that was not responsive to the question. If you would simply tell the witness to listen carefully to the question so he can answer the questions.
THE COURT: I did that this morning. You are a singer but you are a smart fellow, I am sure.
THE WITNESS: Thank you very much. You are a judge and you are a smart fellow.
THE COURT: I must ask you to listen carefully to the questions of the lawyer and answer the question. Answer the questions; do not go beyond them.
MR. KUNSTLER: At any time, did you see Jerry Rubin enter Lincoln Park?
THE WITNESS: No.
MR. KUNSTLER: Now, Mr. Ochs, I call your attention to sometime in the vicinity of 6:00 p.m. Tuesday, August 27. Did you see Jerry Rubin?
THE WITNESS: Yes, in Lincoln Park. He asked me to come and sing at a meeting.
MR. KUNSTLER: Do you know what time approximately you sang after arriving there, how long after arriving there?
THE WITNESS: Approximately a half-hour.
MR. KUNSTLER: Was anything happening in that half-hour while you were there?
THE WITNESS: Bobby Seale was speaking.
MR. KUNSTLER: Did Jerry Rubin speak at all?
THE WITNESS: Yes, after I sang.
MR. KUNSTLER: Did you sing a song that day?
THE WITNESS: Yes, "I Ain't Marching Anymore."
MR. KUNSTLER: Did you sing at anybody's request?
THE WITNESS: At Jerry Rubin's request. .
MR. KUNSTLER: I am showing you what has been marked at D-147 for identification and I ask you if you can identify that exhibit.
THE WITNESS: This is the guitar I played "I Ain't Marching Anymore" on.
THE COURT: How can you tell? You haven't even looked at it.
THE WITNESS: It is my case.
THE COURT: Are you sure the guitar is in there?
THE WITNESS: I am checking.
MR. KUNSTLER: Open it up, Mr. Ochs, and see whether that is your guitar,
THE WITNESS: That is it, that is it.
MR. KUNSTLER: Now, would you stand and sing that song so the jury can hear the song that the audience heard that day?
MR. SCHULTZ: If the Court please, this is a trial in the Federal District Court. It is not a theater. We don't have to sit and listen to the witness sing a song. Let's get on with the trial. I object.
MR. KUNSTLER: Your Honor, this is definitely an issue in the case. Jerry Rubin has asked for a particular song to be sung. What the witness sang to the audience reflects both on Jerry Rubin's intent and on the mood of the crowd.
THE COURT: I sustain the objection.
MR. KUNSTLER: Your Honor, he is prepared to sing it exactly as he sang it on that day,
THE COURT: I am not prepared to listen, Mr. Kunstler.
MR. KUNSTLER: Do you recall how long after you sang in Lincoln Park that you were somewhere else?
THE WITNESS: I arrived at the next place around seven-thirty, quarter to eight at the Coliseum.
MR. KUNSTLER: Were any of the defendants present at that time?
THE WITNESS: Abbie Hoffman was there, and I do not remember if Jerry Rubin was there.
MR. KUNSTLER: Where did you see Abbie Hoffman first that night at the Coliseum?
THE WITNESS: When he raced in front of me on the stage when I was introduced to Ed Sanders. He said, "Here's Phil Ochs," and as I walked forward, Abbie Hoffman raced in front of me and took the microphone and proceeded to give a speech. I was upstaged by Abbie Hoffman.
MR. KUNSTLER: At the time when you first saw Abbie Hoffman there that night, can you approximate as best you can the time it was when you first saw him take the microphone?
THE WITNESS: Approximately 8:30.
MR. KUNSTLER: Your Honor, I have no further questions.
* * * * * *
MR. SCHULTZ: You were at the Bandshell, were you not?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
MR. SCHULTZ: What time did you arrive at the Bandshell?
THE WITNESS: I don't remember. I'd guess it was around three or after in the afternoon.
MR. FORAN: You seem to have a little trouble with time. Do you carry a watch with you?
THE WITNESS: Just lately.
MR. FORAN: As a matter of fact, when it comes to time during that week, it is pretty much of a guess, isn't it?
THE WITNESS: I guess so.
MR. FORAN: And the time you arrived at the Coliseum it was 9:00 or 9:30, isn't that right? Or at 6:00 or 6:30?
THE WITNESS: No, because the normal opening time of the shows was around 8:00 and I think the show was starting when I got there. That is a safer guess than the other time.
MR. FORAN: It is still a guess though, isn't it?
THE WITNESS: Yes, it is a guess.
MR. SCHULTZ: And now you say at the Coliseum, Abbie Hoffman upstaged you, is that right?
THE WITNESS: Yes. I was walking toward the microphone and he raced in front of me.
MR. SCHULTZ: And he led the crowd in a chant of "Fuck LBJ" didn't he?
THE WITNESS: Yes, yes, I think he did.
MR. SCHULTZ: You didn't remember that on direct examination very well, didn't you?
THE WITNESS: I guess not.
MR. SCHULTZ: Abbie Hoffman is a friend of yours, isn't he?
THE WITNESS: Yes and no.
MR. SCHULTZ: Now in your plans for Chicago, did you plan for public fornication in the park?
THE WITNESS: I didn't.
MR. SCHULTZ: In your discussions with either Rubin or Hoffman did you plan for public fornication in the park?
THE WITNESS: No, we did not seriously sit down and plan public fornication in the park.
MR. SCHULTZ: Did Rubin say at any of these meetings that you must cause disruptions during the Convention and on through Election Day, mass disruptions?
THE WITNESS: No.
MR. SCHULTZ: Was there any discussion when you were planning your Yippie programs by either Rubin or Hoffman of going into the downtown area and taking over hotels for sleeping space?
THE WITNESS: No.
MR. SCHULTZ: Did the defendant Rubin during your planning discussion tell you if he ever had the opportunity and at one of his earliest opportunities he would, when he found some policemen who were isolated in the park, draw a crowd around him and bring the crowd to the policemen and attack the policemen with rocks and stones and bottles, and shout profanities at the policemen, tell them to take off their guns and fight? Did he ever say he was going to do that?
THE WITNESS: No, he didn't, Mr. Schultz.
MR. SCHULTZ: Now, Mr. Ochs, you say that on Sunday night you were with Mr. Rubin all night, is that right?
THE WITNESS: From 9:30 maybe, until after 12:00.
MR. SCHULTZ: And of course you have been told by somebody that there is evidence that Mr. Rubin was in Lincoln Park that night, isn't that right? Well, were you told, or not?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
MR. SCHULTZ: Were you told that somebody saw him with a cigarette in his hand?
THE WITNESS: No, I was not told that.
MR. SCHULTZ: Well, what were you told, please?
THE WITNESS: I was told very little. I was told that Jerry was accused of something
MR. SCHULTZ: Who told you all these things?
THE WITNESS: Mr. Kunstler told me the one thing, not all these things, something that Jerry was accused of something in the park on Sunday night, and that's all I was told, nothing else.
MR. SCHULTZ: You don't want to get Mr. Kunstler into trouble, do you?
MR. KUNSTLER: Your Honor, first of all--
MR. SCHULTZ: Suddenly he backs off--suddenly he backs off. It is all too patent, your Honor.
THE COURT: Will the record show that Mr. Kunstler--
MR. KUNSTLER: Yes, I did, your Honor, I think it is a disgraceful statement in front of a jury.
THE COURT: --threw a block of papers noisily to the floor.
MR. KUNSTLER: All right. I dropped papers noisily to the floor.
THE COURT: I shall not hear from you in that tone, sir.
MR. KUNSTLER: I am sorry for putting the paper on the table, and it fell off onto the floor, but to say in front of a jury, "That is too patent" and "What are you backing off for?" I think, your Honor, any Court in the land would hold that is unconscionable conduct, and if I am angry, I think I am righteously so in this instance.
THE COURT: That will be all.
Continue with your cross-examination.
MR. SCHULTZ: In any event, Mr. Ochs, you are absolutely sure you never really went beyond the fringes of the park with Jerry Rubin that night, isn't that right?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
MR. SCHULTZ: You just stood right along the fringes all that night, you never went in to see what was happening at the command post, did you?
THE WITNESS: No.
MR. SCHULTZ: You never walked in to see what was happening at the fieldhouse, did you?
THE WITNESS: No.
MR. SCHULTZ: That is all, your Honor.
THE COURT: You may step down.
(witness excused)
THE COURT: Don't forget your guitar.
THE WITNESS: I won't.
THE COURT: Call your next witness.
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sapphicbookclub · 11 months
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Author Spotlight: Hannah Miyamoto
Hannah Miyamoto is on a mission to stop the spread of fascism in the United States by reminding people of the humanistic values that William Shakespeare spread through his plays. We are thrilled to present this essay about her series of novellas about “The New Countess” (written under the pseudonym “Lady Vanessa S.-G.”), based on the characters in Shakespeare’s gender- crossing romp of Twelfth Night; the first book, Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia is out now, and second book, If I Should Tell My History, will be released in May. Note: article contains a brief, explicit quote from the book
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We do not need to laminate a lesbian presence onto Shakespeare’s texts; once we begin to think historically about desires and practices, we can draw homoerotic meanings out of them… it is less a question of queering the past than of discovering the terms by which the past articulated its own queerness.
Valerie Traub, The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England (2003) [https://a.co/d/f8hDruz]
With its pretensions of erudition, the “Western Civilization Movement” is the most dangerous and least-dismissible part of the extremist MAGA white supremacist movement. The goal of “Western Civilization” radicals is clear: Establish that all important cultural contributions are the work of Christian men from Western Europe. For example, Bill Lee, Governor of Tennessee has called for altering public education to encourage “informed patriotism” and combat “anti-American thought,” as if open-minded inquiry were itself an enemy of American democratic values. Former President Trump, Governor Ron DeSantis, and Tucker Carlson are just some of the other prominent neo-fascists attempting to pervert history education.
Properly written, fiction can achieve what history can never do: Explain the thoughts and describe the actions of people that did not dominate past discourses.
By corollary, critical analysis of so-called “Western Civilization” sources is one of the most effective ways to fight the spread of fascism in America. Right-Wing Extremists can ban every book written by a woman, a racial, ethnic, or religious minority person, an LGBTQ person, a foreigner, a socialist, a liberal, a labor leader, an environmentalist, or any other writer to whom they object, but they cannot attack Shakespeare, because even the least cultured American knows that Shakespeare is the epitome of “Western Culture.”
The great beauty of Shakespeare is the depth of the lessons within them. For example, Merchant of Venice reminds us that “the quality of mercy is not strained” while Othello illustrates the evil of racial prejudice. Henry VI, Part 2 relates the importance of lawyers in preserving human rights. Two Gentlemen of Verona and Othello ridicule male chauvinism, while As You Like It suggests that women know more about love than men. At the end of his career, Shakespeare even left us with the starkly existential The Two Noble Kinsmen, in which a wholly sexless heroine accepts marriage rather than seek it.
Seven Shakespeare plays feature cross-dressing, and some of the sweetest depictions of a woman in love with another woman are by Celia in As You Like It and Olivia in Twelfth Night. One British intellectual has gone so far as to dub The Bard “[t]he biggest Liberal campaigner there ever was!”
Knowing that Shakespeare is inviolable in the United States, I have used his work to advance and defend progressive ideals for nearly 20 years. I began in 2004, by writing a play highlighting the love of a woman for a woman to answer calls for banning same-sex marriage. That play, Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia, merging ideas from minds as diverse as Virginia Woolf and absurdist playwright Luigi Pirandello, became the basis of my Master’s thesis in Women’s Studies.
Two years ago, I created a three-season story arc (24 episodes) for a limited television series based on the characters of Twelfth Night. Starting this year, I started turning what would have been episodes of this television series into a series of novellas.
The first book in this series, adapted from the pilot screenplay, was published last month as Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia. The second book, If I Should Tell My History, is in production. Overall, the series is entitled “The New Countess.” All these books are written under the pseudonymous “Lady Vanessa S.-G.” to emphasize how recently books like these would have been illegal in Great Britain and the United States, while providing a narrator that can subtly describe events that occurred between the 20th and 16th century, including the writing of William Shakespeare.
Properly written, fiction can achieve what history can never do: Explain the thoughts and describe the actions of people that did not dominate past discourses. For example, “The New Countess” series features an intersexed character named Adriano, one of the first-ever accurate portrayals of an intersexed person in literature. Although intersexed people have always been part of humanity, the earliest account written from the perspective of an intersexed person is the extended suicide note of Herculine Barbin, an intersexed French woman who died in 1868 at age 30. Only fiction can fill this gaping hole in history.
Even the voices of European noblewomen, however richly draped and pampered, have been effectively silenced by being denied access to printing presses. The closet drama writing of Lady Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673), is one of the few documents that reveal how many noblewomen may have felt about how men treated them due to their sex.
Olivia reached down with her right hand to stroke the hairs near Maria’s thighs. Maria shivered and closed her eyes, enjoying the sensations that Olivia gave her. Maria pulled away and applied her lips and tongue to Olivia’s pre-maternal breasts as the countess pushed back her head to enjoy the sensations her gentlewoman gave her. Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia
With her parents and only brother dead, Shakespeare’s Olivia enjoys much more freedom than a typical young woman in 16th century Europe. Curiously, the parents of all the other characters in Twelfth Night are also absent. Although Olivia’s uncle “Sir Toby” is a potential parent in Twelfth Night, Shakespeare emphasizes that Toby is drunk too often for Olivia to rely upon him. Indeed, Countess Olivia acts more like Toby’s mother than he her surrogate father.
“The New Countess” series expands on Olivia’s character, focusing on how she negotiates her way around powerful men to achieve her goals, while keeping secret her love for her bed-chambermaid Maria. Later books will show Olivia working with the men around her to improve the military defenses of her region, to guard against invasion from both land and sea. In these ways, Olivia will fulfill her duties as a countess within her obscure little duchy.
As well as Olivia, Maria, and Adriano, the queer characters in “The New Countess” series include two of Olivia’s female servants, Olivia’s husband Sebastiano, and his best friend Antonio. The two male characters are taken from Shakespeare’s play.
By combining fictional narratives with historical research, “The New Countess” helps to literally write queer and disadvantaged people into history. Keeping with Dr. Valerie Traub, “The New Countess” series does not make Shakespeare’s characters gay, but shows how certain aspects of his stories are more logical if we accept that some of his characters have intense desires for others of their sex.
One charming feature of “The New Countess” series is that its characters live in a world where queerness is described in terms that we can still understand, despite their unfamiliarity: “Tribade,” “Fricatrix,” and “Unnatural Girl,” are some of the terms used for 16th century Sapphists. Poor intersexed Adriano, a feminine man, is publicly denounced as a “Catamite!” or a male prostitute. Meanwhile, gays are “men that would fain have the love of others than women.”
More than history ever can, fiction has the potential power to show how “the past articulated its own queerness,” as well as how people in the past confronted issues of race, religion, and politics much like their counterparts today. Through well-crafted historical fiction like Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia, we can refute the “Western Civilization” pseudo- intellectuals that would pervert history and literature to accomplish their goals of social repression and cultural destruction. -----
Hannah Miyamoto is a retired attorney managing Pacifico Press, a nonprofit publisher in San Luis Rey, California that produces LGBTQA-focused books and media. Hannah holds a law degree, master’s degrees in Women’s Studies and Sociology, and has been a leading advocate for intersexed people for 25 years. [email protected]
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davidfarland · 1 year
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Are You Writing a Book, or a Movie?
In his book on screenwriting, George Lucas briefly discusses the difference in approach between writing a movie or a book. Since this question lies at the heart of so many problems that I see with new writers, I want to get into it a bit more deeply. As Lucas points out, with a movie, the writer stands outside of any character and watches the story unfold visually, while with a novel, the writer tells the story from the point of view of a protagonist who is himself a player in the story.
You may not see it at first, but the approaches are vastly different and cannot be easily meshed.
Writing a Movie vs. Writing a Book
As a screenwriter, you are telling the story as seen from a camera. This allows the camera to focus on different characters at a moment’s notice, to view groups of people, and to emphasize the visual aspects of a tale. This approach maximizes the strengths of film as a storytelling medium.
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As a novelist, you’re most likely to tell a story in a way that your audience will experience it. In other words, you will typically stick to one or two viewpoints for major characters. You’ll tell us how the story unfolds making sure to use all of the senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, feeling—and you’ll also touch deeply on the internal thoughts and emotions of your character. By doing this, you can maximize the strengths of the novel as a storytelling medium.
Of course, there are a lot of mistakes that both screenwriters and novelists can make as they get involved in writing.
Mistakes with Movies
Once I read a movie script where a writer told me that a police officer had been working with his partner for five years. But nowhere on screen were we shown that or had that conveyed. It also mentioned the character’s inner thoughts in one place, and inner feelings, but failed to tell how that might be shown visually. The screenplay felt sloppy and underwritten.
The screenwriter should focus on letting the story unfold visually and verbally. Instead of writing a note telling us that “John is a farmer,” you show John working on the farm. Instead of telling us on a character sheet that John is a miser, you show John burying his pennies in the barn.
Emphasizing the visual and auditory aspects of a tale is so vital to film, that there are certain tricks that have fallen out of favor in filmmaking. In most films, we are not privy to what a character thinks. We rarely hear a voiceover where a character is thinking, even though the technique has worked well in many films. Producers and directors feel that the technique became worn out and cliché ages ago. But it does create a lot of other problems in filmmaking.
For example, say you’re creating a big action adventure and you have four main protagonists. An older romantic couple and a pair of kids. By choosing one person to focus on, you may be limiting the appeal of the film to a wider audience. In other words, if you’ve got a middle-aged woman who has voiceovers, then all of the focus goes to that one character. People who might be rooting for a different character will feel a bit left out.
Similarly, novelists often have problems when they try to make their books cinematic. Usually, this is manifested by problems in viewpoint.
Mistakes in Books
You see, in real life, we live from day to day lodged in our own worldview. We see the world through our eyes, smell it, taste it, think about it, and have our own emotional lens that colors our perceptions. Thus, as a person, you may feel that vanilla is the best flavor of milkshake, that only Democratic candidates make any sense, and that Ford makes the best pickups—despite any evidence to the contrary.
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When writing a novel, we can replicate that natural experience more fully than we can with a movie. Thus, we can get deep into the point of view of a single protagonist and let him be the star of the story, having it unfold naturally, as it would in real life. That’s where the novelist gets his or her power as a storyteller.
But sometimes novelists try to be filmmakers. They write their stories outside of any point of view. A novelist might find himself jumping into the head of every character who happens to come into the story, so that the reader is unsure who the protagonist is. Or perhaps the writer will show us bits of scenes that the protagonist could never have seen. Sometimes the point of view violations are fairly minor. I often see writers write, “Darren’s brown eyes filled with glee.” That’s a viewpoint violation, albeit a minor one. Darren can’t see his own eye color. So you’re a bit restricted if you want to focus on a single point of view.
Different writing tools have evolved for different mediums. When you’re writing for any medium—whether it be novels, film, videogames, plays, or whatever—you need to learn what storytelling tools are available for that medium and how to use them.
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PROPAGANDA
Rose Quartz Propaganda
"We saw her character arc in reverse!! We first saw all the good she did and then learned of her terrible actions in the past. If her story was told the other way around, it would have been a great redemption arc. Yes, she did some terrible things, but she had no choice. She did everything she could to stop the colonization of earth peacefully buy nothing worked. Blue and yellow diamond just didn't listen to her and when they did, THEY were the ones who made the zoo and shit. Rose wanted to free them but couldn't get to them after the war! And with the corruption, there's no way she could have known that'd happen. There's so many things she wanted to do but just couldn't. And with spinel, yes it was shitty to leave her alone for so long, but again, between running her court, running the rebellion, dealing with earth, she likely wasn't a very high priority and like with the zoo, there was no way to get to her after the war since the galaxy warp was destroyed. And don't forget, she was practically a child around this time. You're saying you didn't do any stupid, selfish, or harmful things as a kid? She learned from her experiences and grew, we just saw that growth in reverse, leaving us as viewers with a poor perception of her."
"Rose Quartz is Steven Universe’s dead mom. Initially, she’s set up as sort of an ethereal perfect figure who everyone misses and compares him to. Later we get to see more of her backstory and discover that she’s actually like, a person, with flaws, who has done some bad things, but she did those bad things largely in the course of trying to escape an abusive home life and save the people and planet that she fell in love with. It’s very clear that despite her flaws she was trying to do the right thing and that she deeply cared about others. Unfortunately, a woman who was not a Perfect Martyr was way too much for the Steven Universe fandom to handle. She pretty much set off the wave of SU crit blogs because these people were furious either that she had taken violent measures to solve her problems, that she hadn’t taken violent enough measures to solve her problems, or both somehow. Lots of “Why didn’t she just murder her abusive parental figures?” Lots of “She was evil for having a baby even though she knew she’d die in childbirth!” Lots of “She should’ve been able to protect everyone from a magic nuclear weapon with the power of love somehow.” Lots of “She shouldn’t have rebelled (even though not rebelling would’ve meant the destruction of Earth) because her abusers retaliated and that’s her fault.” LOTS of people drawing her as stick thin even though she was fat in the show. People treated her like she was on the same level or even worse than her abusive parental figures who were also the main villains of the show. It was unbearable to witness."
Shiv Propaganda
"Everyone in Succession is a pretty terrible person, and Shiv plays just as dirty as her brothers when it comes to trying to get their dad to name her the next CEO of fictional fox news. HOWEVER, she was trying to distance herself from the family at one point and worked for a democrat (gasp!) so her being adulterous and power hungry too is actually a fall from grace and the ultimate act of misogyny so the writers all must hate women because they created a morally questionable female character with complex motives."
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