ONE HOUR AGO: greg abbott, who i have the great displeasure of calling my governor, is calling for the expulsion and jailing of ut austin students exercising their first amendment right to freedom of speech an assembly. every single motherfucker on the right soooo concerned about the first amendment seems to be creaming their pants over college students being brutalized and arrested for protesting. its fucking reprehensible.

When was it punk to vote Democrat, though? LOL. Nope.

Cherie Currie of The Runaways fame been busy lately spouting her new-found admiration of right wing conspiracy theory. The thread is even loaded with a sprinkle of antisemitic Soros complaint. X users are eating it up, of course. These old rockers all turn right wing as soon as they lose relevance. Old reactionaries.

Cherie Currie of The Runaways fame been busy lately spouting her new-found admiration of right wing conspiracy theory. The thread is even loaded with a sprinkle of antisemitic Soros complaint. X users are eating it up, of course. These old rockers all turn right wing as soon as they lose relevance. Old reactionaries.

Protesters, Smith said, “would say, ‘Children are dying. This is a huge humanitarian crisis.’ And they’re right about that … and by the way, I do have some sympathy with these people. If there are members of Congress who won’t meet with them, I meet with them. All the time. So they have an opportunity to be heard. They’re not trying to be heard. They’re trying to silence people who disagree with them.”

Asked what kind of protest might be appropriate, Smith cited a recent instance in an armed services hearing in which “people came in and they didn’t say anything, they just held up bloody hands. And the chairman noticed that and said, ‘You can’t do that, you’re out, and they got up and left.”

this election year is gonna be sooo good guys. remember, vote blue, no matter who!

Free Speech on the Ropes: Legislation to Revoke Not-for-Profit Status of Organizations that Support Palestine Protests Passes in House

Chuck L alerted me to an important tweetstorm by Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace about legislation that is designed to drop a hammer on not-for-profits that are deemed to be supporting pro-Palestine protests by revoking their not-for-profit status. As Friedman explains, this bill, H.R. 6408, also removes pretty much all due process rights, so its targets have effectively no recourse. The pretext is that pro-Palestine protests are supporting terrorist organizations, as in Hamas.

This measures is so far under the radar that so far, only Friedman and Matthew Petti at Reason seem to have noticed it. And Petti has pointed out that the Secretary of the Treasury can designate any organization to be “terrorist-supporting organization,” so the does not think, as Friedman seems to, that any other measures are needed to allow an Administration to try to financially cripple not-for-profits engaging in wrong speech.

Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (trans. Ibrahim Muhawi) [ID'd]

on context: "[set during] the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the shelling of Beirut [...] Memory for Forgetfulness is an extended reflection on the invasion and its political and historical dimensions. It is also a journey into personal and collective memory. What is the meaning of exile? What is the role of the writer in time of war? What is the relationship of writing (memory) to history (forgetfulness)?" (source)

Imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism have recently been brought to the forefront of popular consciousness through the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Equally, these systems have increasingly featured in the discourse of progressive movements in the Global North. Nevertheless, it can be difficult to understand what these systems actually are and how they relate to each other.  In this brief, we define imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism in relation to the capitalist world system. A strong analysis of these systems is essential for developing revolutionary organising strategies.

@quoms, i wonder if in his nostalgia for the 80s and Stallone movies Blehar remembers Rambo 3...where Stallone fights alongside the Mujahideen. (EDITED>SEE REPLIES) Peak Cold War nonsense.

this is the most fascist thing i've seen today and i've been scrolling twitter this morning. fascinating.

An atavistic confession: As a child of the Eighties, I grew up with the Hollywood action-cinema triumvirate of Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Reagan. I retain those sensibilities; I’m dispositionally inclined to enjoy watching good guys righteously manhandle bad guys in proportion to their just deserts. I understand the place of civil disobedience in our society, sure, but civil disobedience lacks any meaning whatsoever unless there are real consequences for disobeying that one is willing to endure to draw attention to one’s cause. And quite frankly, the vast majority of people who flatter themselves as practicing “civil disobedience” nowadays — by blocking highways or tossing food products at classics of Western art — are in truth practicing mere a**holery. So I’m a big “consequences” sort of guy — you fought the law, son? Well don’t be surprised when the law comes back atcha and wins nine times out of ten. Change it if you can. [...]

I suppose it’s easy to take pleasure in the unhappiness and public humiliation of people whose views you find repulsive. I know it’s a moral trap to be carefully avoided because it shades far too quickly into making excuses for civic abuses. But I don’t care — my spirit soared to see this video of pro-Hamas campers being forcibly ejected from the quad of Emory University’s campus. And it’s not the dumb kids getting wrangled that warms my soul so much, it’s the line of despairing, disgusted faculty looking on. The only thing that would have made the video more delightfully perfect is if the camera panning past all the hissing and jeering pro-Hamas grayhairs had ended on one guy, standing off to the side, rubbing his hands together and cheering, “YES . . . HA HA HA . . . YES!” That guy would have been me in some alternate dimension.

I have never read an article more sublimely evocative of this image. Yes he did type the word "a**holery" like that.

how long before the "outside agitator" tag gets added to the protests ongoing at unis across the US?

how long before the "outside agitator" tag gets added to the protests ongoing at unis across the US?

bail funds for pro-palestine activists

a15 bail and legal defense fund (supporting community members criminalized in the us for solidarity with palestine)

university of texas at austin students bail fund venmo @ psc_atx (livestream)

columbia students bail fund venmo @ bcabolitioncollective

as of april 15 ct dissenters (new york and connecticut) need bail funs for arrested activists: zelle: [email protected] cashapp: $BristolAntiRacism (use "april gift" in your memo so contributions can be tracked)

the palestine legal defense fund supports acitvists across the united states

palestine legal defence also supplies free legal support for activists

the national bail fund network may update with local bail fund efforts as events continue to unfold

this list is updated as of 24 april 10pm EST. i'll try to update as i find further bail funds and legal supports: if you know of other funds or if information shared here is incorrect, please reblog with updated info (+ a timestamp) so people can give and access support.

palestine will be free, solidarity forever 🍉 🇵🇸

Day One: University of Texas Austin Students Take the Lawn

https://crimethinc.com/UTApril24

On April 24, students, faculty, and community members assembled on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin to demonstrate against the complicity of the university administration in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Fearing a repeat of the upheavals that have taken place at Columbia University and elsewhere around the country, campus authorities mobilized a massive number of police in response. Yet despite arrests and violence, the demonstrators ultimately outlasted and outmaneuvered the police. In this report, participants describe what they learned.

I hope all the vote bluers are enjoying the blue fascism that they claimed would be happening under trump.

I mean, we all knew, but thanks for admitting that you wanna surpress freedom of speech and the spread of information?

Update: North Gaza Aid!

As part of his promise, Hussam sent 20% of your HelpGazaChildren donations ($4000) to Mahmoud AbuSalama for the 5th time now, including the earlier North Gaza Campaign (as location on our notion site) to buy food and necessary products for families still surviving the dire situation in North Gaza. The food package contains, as you see in the picture below: flour, lentils, canned food, formula, diapers, and women pads!

Please continue donating and spreading the word — every penny means so much! Feel free to share our campaign link to other platforms as well!

Donate to our GoFundMe which goes directly to Hussam, who manages camps in Rafah, with NO middleman in between!

HelpGazaChildren Notion Site || #helpgazachildren tag

GoFundMe Link

[Quick ID: The video is of Mahmoud speaking in front of bags of flour and a tumblr sign. There are captions to the video in english. The image below is of groups of packages of items in front of a tumblr sign.]