Hey y’all 👋🏽
It’s been a moment since I posted to my personal account so here’s an #Introduction post!
I’m a New Texican living in Yelamu on Ramaytush Ohline Land cultivating a heart-first world of liberation.
I am two spirit which is being #trans and #indigenous. I remember the long history of two spirit spiritual and community leaders that colonization took from us.
This is my fun Mastodon! So you’ll find me sharing sustainable #cooking, getting lost in #nature, and crafting #art and #storytelling
Why are we here?! Because the world is changing and so are we!
From the @ archives, 2021:
“We have been talking about the multiracial coalition tipping point in America for decades. I still remember the dire warnings during my youth in Texas that the state would become majority Hispanic before too long.
Well, that moment has finally come much to the fanfare of those that believe in a multiracial democracy and to the chagrin of those that don’t.”
@ LMAO! 🤣
Democrats dropped the ball so hard. We really did not have to have fascism.
But Democrats gate-kept and made sure my diverse & queer generation didn’t get heard. I witnessed it firsthand. My nose is bruised from all the door slamming.
Now’s as good a time as any for us all to uplift the youth & new voices!
Found this nice pdf on Opposing Data Center construction from North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, who can point me to other good educating/organizing resources on the topic?
Participating in an online session next week to discuss strategy and tactics. The model "campaign" we're using is to get folks to use the Fediverse and specifically Mastodon.
This graphic below is used to identify the players... Who are the decision makers? Who are the people involved? What is the competition? Etc.
Question: Who should be the "constituency?" Everyone? People currently on oligarch platforms? Those on the Fediverse?
"Thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt warned us that the point of this deluge is not to persuade, but to overwhelm and paralyze our capacity to act. More recently, researchers have found that the viral outrage disseminated on social media in response to these ridiculous claims actually reduces the effectiveness of collective action.
The result is a media environment that keeps us in a state of debilitating fear and anger, endlessly reacting to our oppressors instead of organizing against them."
A complement to “don’t feed the trolls” is “what we pay attention to grows,” which I first encountered while reading adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy.
In turning attention away from trolls, we can turn it toward the practices of care through which we build resilient communities able to guide change.
Trump 2.0 is going to be different than his first presidency. That means we can’t rely on the same playbook to resist the MAGA agenda. We put together a new guide with advice on how everyday people can organize to stop Trump again: https://indivisible.org/guide
(above an image of Congress) INDIVISIBLE: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DEMOCRACY ON THE BRINK Strategies, Tactics, And Tips For How Everyday Americans Can Fight Back Together Wherever We Live
It is shocking to me how many people think looking at gore and corpses is a necessity for fighting for Palestine. You do not have to do that. You can not watch those videos, but you cannot use that as an excuse to give up and look away. It is your responsibility to raise hell about atrocities you're paying for. You ought to be loudly and actively supporting those fighting genocide if you cannot get involved directly. Be part of a solution instead of being a bystander.
You can and should be feeling rage. You can and should be channeling that rage into your actions. Think beyond just the individual pleasures. We can build a world outside of our suffering, and we owe it to our communities and international comrades to do so. Local elections, blockades, boycotts, disobedience and direct action, labor unions, confederations, clinics, libraries, affinity groups—we have power to build a better world.
"Meta's fediverses", federating with Meta to allow communications, potentially using services from Meta such as automated moderation or ad targeting, and potentially harvesting data on Meta's behalf.
"free fediverses" that reject Meta – and surveillance capitalism more generally
The free fediverses have a lot of advantages over Meta and Meta's fediverses, some of which will be very hard to counter, and clearly have enough critical mass that they'll be just fine.
Here's a set of strategies for the free fediverses to provide a viable alternative to surveillance capitalism. They build on the strengths of today's fediverse at its best – including natural advantages the free fediverses have that Threads and Meta's fediverses will having a very hard time countering – but also are hopefully candid about weaknesses that need to be addressed. It's a long list, so I'll be spreading out over multiple posts; this post currently goes into detail on the first two.
Opposition to Meta and surveillance capitalism is an appealing position. Highlight it!
Focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety
Emphasize "networked communities"
Support concentric federations of instances and communities
Consider "transitively defederating" Meta's fediverses (as well as defederating Threads)
Consider working with people and instances in Meta's fediverses (and Bluesky, Dreamwidth, and other social networks) whose goals and values align with the free fediverses'
Build a sustainable ecosystem
Prepare for Meta's (and their allies') attempts to paint the free fediverses in a bad light
Reduce the dependency on Mastodon
Prioritize accessibility, which is a huge opportunity
Commit to anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and pro-LGBTQIA2S+ principles, policies, practices, and norms for the free fediverses
The free fediverses should work together with people and instances in Meta's fediverses and on Bluesky whose goals and values align with the free fediverse
Many of the Meta advocates I've talked to share the free fediverses' long-term goal of building a sustainable alternative to surveillance capitalism -- and the same is true for people on Bluesky. So there are likely to be situations where some of the people and instances in Meta's fediverses and Bluesky wind up as situational allies to the free fediverses.
A few areas where collaboration could be very useful:
A key principle of organizing is meeting people where they are.
Moderation on decentralized networks is a shared challenge.
Bringing concepts similar to Bluesky's custom feeds to the fediverses, and more generally focusing on human-focused and liberatory (as opposed to oppressive) uses of algorithms in decentralized social networks designed from the margins.
Meta's fediverses, Bluesky, and the free fediverses are all vulnerable to disinformation.
UNFI warehouse workers say ‘No more.’ 300 Join Teamsters Local 745 in midnight victory ( fightbacknews.org )
Texas UNFI workers join Teamsters. ...