He goes live on TIkTok immediately while people are still running for their lives. He does the whole âItâs ya boiâ thing, plugs his insta multiple times, throws up deuces. While blocking the exits and people are screaming around him. Itâs one of the craziest things Iâve ever seen.
The MAGA split over the Epstein files and Iran is playing out in Kentucky. Pro-Israel Super PACs and three billionaire donors have spent over $12.2 million to unseat incumbent Thomas Massie, a Trump critic. We talked to Trump voters defying the Presidentâs endorsement. Host John Russell Producer Josh Hirschfeld-Kroen Editor Ian McKenna Videographers Isabel Atalaya Ian McKenna Video Production Manager Isabel Atalaya Video Production Coordinator Jodi Clemens Video Production Fellow Astrid Dong Video Editing Fellow Daria Nastasia Supervising Producer Meg Herschlein More Perfect Union is an Emmy-winning, nonprofit newsroom whose mission is to build power for working people. Hereâs what that means: We report on the real struggles and challenges of the working class from a working-class perspective. We attempt to connect those problems to potential solutions. We report on the abuses and wrongdoing of corporate power. And we seek to hold accountable the ultra-rich who have too much power over Americaâs political and economic systems. To support our independent journalism, subscribe, donate, and follow our other pages through the links below: Help fund our reporting: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/mpu-splash Substack: https://substack.perfectunion.us/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@moreperfectunion Twitter: https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/moreperfectunion.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MorePerfectUS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perfectunion/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@perfectunion Website: https://www.perfectunion.us/ From More Perfect Union via This RSS Feed.
been browsing it for an hour or so, front page is full of goofing on Biden and US gov lol, and a lot of Luigi stuff too as others mentioned, someone said that they plan to add a translate feature for comments, Iâll probably stick around for the Chinese language learning stuff at the very least, never used tiktok or ig
Uninstall TikTok. Itâs spyware anyways.
âItâs okay when a major American company does it.â - FBI/DOJ Fixed it for you. Guarantee if they found TikTok doing this that ban would be going through today.
I love how the article is dripping with thinly veiled contempt and scare quotes. I also liked this part: On his TikTok, Van den Berg has also visited tenants in distress who have called him for help, exposing poor landlords who leave their tenants in units that require dire maintenance and do not fulfill work orders. Oh no, not the poor landlords! On their about page it sayâs theyâre not just another left or right-wing publication, but a bunch of unbiased neutral free-thinkers.
Tiktok has some serious problems with censorship. Itâs been absolutely proven that Tiktok censors content that the Chinese government dislikes. Even if Tiktok/Bytedance insists that they arenât owned by the Chinese government, they are owned by Chinese entities, which subjects them to Chinese government censorship, and may require them to deny that censorship. The study: https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf Article about the study: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/business/tiktok-china.html Antipaywall link to that article: https://archive.ph/MLATC I donât disagree that Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter have their own set of things they censor. I donât disagree that Tiktok is being singled out by Congress. I donât disagree that there are big privacy problems with all of the above platforms.
Iâm 30 and majority of my friend group says Sigma, skibidi, rizz on a daily basis. Tiktok memes are getting everyone I canât even laugh at these kids anymore because my friends are just as cringe but without the excuse of being 13.
People work inside the TikTok Inc. building in Culver City, Calif., Monday, March 11, 2024. House Republicans are moving ahead with a bill that would require Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the United States even as President Donald Trump is voicing opposition to the effort. Former President⌠emphasis on former. As a candidate, his opinion shouldnât carry anymore weight than any other citizen.
In April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Norway for the fourth time since the beginning of the Russia-NATO proxy war in his country. The two governments signed a joint declaration on defense and security cooperation, which confirmed that Ukrainian drones will be produced in Norway. This did not raise any eyebrows despite the direct connection to the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran: Ukraine has signed defense agreements with Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar for the provision of drones. Even CNN noted that âZelensky demonstrated how the war in Iran and the war in Ukraine interconnect.â CNN advised Washington to not view âthe two campaigns as separate.â This putsâor should putâRødt, Norwayâs main radical left party, in an awkward position. Although the Red Party is against the war on Iran, it enthusiastically supports Norwegian weapon shipments to the Zelenskyy regime. This self-described anti-Imperialist party raised no objections to the joint declaration. Rødt says that it supports Ukrainiansâ right to self-determination. But has the party considered the Ukraine-U.S. Mineral Resources Agreement? This pact established the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund (URIF), jointly managed by the U.S. and Ukraine on a 50-50 basis. Article 6.5 states that future U.S. military support, âin any form (including the donation of weapons systems, ammunition, technology or training),â will be counted as âcapital contributionâ to the fund based on âassessed value of such military assistanceâ; which means âassessedâ by the U.S. given its leverage. Thus the U.S. share of the fund increases even without money being spent. The joint management ensures tax-free preferential access to American companies, and the Kiev regime has thus potentially set the stage for the largest value transfer to American companies in modern times. The joint management also provides the U.S. with de facto control of investment choices and dividends. In other words, Ukraine is subject to predatory U.S. economic control. Not surprisingly, the URIFâs first investment supported a drone manufacturer, satisfying imperialist needs. The agreement has been compared to the Treaty of Versailles. The difference, of course, is that the Versailles treaty was imposed on Germany by its âenemies,â while the Mineral Resources Agreement was gladly accepted by Kiev. Not that long ago, Ukraine and its Western backers would not tolerate any talk of a peace agreement or negotiations, but today the situation is completely reversed, with Trump dictating a ceasefire. The issues that caused irritation yesterday are accepted now, and the proxy war has thus further strengthened Ukraineâs status as a vassal of imperialism. The decisive military and economic support from imperialism has not made Ukraine more independent, but, on the contrary, it is now more dependent than ever. Self-determination is a mere charade in this scenario. Rødtâs members should be aware that a NATO-led victory in Ukraine will strengthen the very powers which supported Israel during the genocide of Gaza. A pro-imperialist Ukrainian victory, a Russian victory, or a peace deal brokered by the major powers will only perpetuate the division of the Ukrainian working class along pro-Western and pro-Russian lines. Real Ukrainian self-determination, both political and economic, can only be achieved by a unified working class which appeals to the Russian working class while ruthlessly opposing the Russian invasion and Western imperialism, including its Ukrainian agents, with a socialist perspective. But a socialist perspective is exactly what Rødt lacks when it supports a regime which promises to transform Ukraine into a âbig Israel.â As we wrote previously, Rødt has radical rhetoric but pro-NATO policies. The political decomposition of Rødt is a direct result of a lack of political education and discussion within the party. The leadership has shifted the focus away from building a grassroots movement for radical change â instead it aims to win concessions within the framework of the bourgeois state. The party has no socialist perspective or a soviet strategy due the predominance of Maoist and social democratic ideas. The goal of dismantling the bourgeois state and replacing it with a workersâ state based on proletarian institutions and self-organization is completely alien to Rødt. By giving support to the minority government of the Labour Party under Jonas Gahr Støre, Rødt has integrated itself into the bourgeois state. It is natural that this domestic integration also affects Rødtâs international politics as well. The partyâs rightward trajectory has caused tensions with the Red Youth. In an internal note, the latter point out, A challenge as Rødt grows is that the party becomes dependent on paid party officials and full-time politicians. In these groups, distinct class interests emerge inside the party. Those who live off the movement develop an objective self-interest in maintaining party support through high voter numbers, which is naturally most easily secured by keeping the partyâs policies palatable. In other words, Rødt has developed a layer of bureaucrats whose livelihood is dependent on Rødtâs increasingly social democratic orientation. As MatĂas Maiello and Emilio Albamonte remark: âThe labor bureaucracy has been (and is) the vanguard for âorganizingâ bourgeois hegemony within proletarian organizations. This objective is pursued through both ideological and coercive means, in different combinations depending on the situation.â Since Rødtâs leadership is unable to convince anyone, let alone the Red Youth, ideologically, it is increasingly deploying coercive means. Leading members of Rødt have publicly contemplated severing ties with the youth, and in March, the Red Youth published a sarcastic TikTok video, exposing the mediaâs double standards. An improvised device had exploded outside the U.S. embassy, with no one hurt. The Red Youth pointed out that this led to widespread condemnation, while the media response to the U.S.-Israeli bombing of a girlsâ school in Minab in Iran, which killed 120 children, was muted. This video led to outrage across the political spectrum, and Rødt leaders joined with far-right figures to denounce their own youth. Recently, before the Red Youth congress, a proposal to dismantle the Norwegian army and replace it with popular militias organized by the labor movement got major pushback by leading members of Rødt. Red Youth nonetheless adopted a similar resolution â a demand that strikes at the heart of the bourgeois state. For Rødtâs leadership, eager to be seen as a responsible mainstream party that respects bourgeois norms, this is unacceptable. Rødt is following in the footsteps of other supposedly radical left parties in Europe, such as Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain. And this is happening at the time when the whole capitalist and imperialist world system is in a deadly crisis. But there are revolutionary socialist tendencies fighting for an anticapitalist alternative based on the principle of working-class independence. A radical reorientation is needed. The goal is to fight for the self-organization of the working class, and create proletarian institutions totally independent of the state, rather than adapting to the bourgeoisieâs rule. A left-wing party is not an end in itself, and the metric of its usefulness under current circumstances is its ability to organize a pole of revolutionary opposition and to revive the proletariat as a hegemonic subject, both on the national and international level. The post Norwayâs Red Youth in Troubled Waters appeared first on Left Voice. From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.
Opinion piece by Philip Mai, Co-director and Senior Researcher, Social Media Lab, Toronto Metropolitan University; and Anatoliy Gruzd, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Privacy-Preserving Digital Technologies, Toronto Metropolitan University. ⌠The Canadian government has reached an agreement with the social media platform TikTok after years of debate over the appâs data practices, particularly those affecting young users. The deal allows TikTok to continue operating in Canada under tighter oversight rather than facing a shutdown. ⌠While the new agreement does move towards greater oversight of TikTok, major concerns remain. TikTokâs parent company, ByteDance, is based in China and Chinese national security laws can compel companies to co-operate with state authorities. This underlying risk sits beyond the reach of Canadaâs safeguards. The agreement follows a new national security review that reversed an earlier conclusion pointing toward closure of TikTokâs Canadian operations. Instead of a ban, the federal government has chosen a regulatory approach, one that keeps the app available while imposing legally binding conditions. The deal reduces some risks, but it does not resolve deeper questions about ownership, data flows and national security. ⌠Under the new rules, TikTok must strengthen its protection of Canadian user data ⌠TikTok also committed to stronger protections for minors and youth, a key concern driving the governmentâs review. ⌠Compared to what existed before, the agreement does move toward greater oversight ⌠[but] Canadian data can still leave Canada. Enforcement details are still unclear. The government has said it will appoint an independent monitor, but has not named the monitor, explained how audits will work or detailed what penalties TikTok would face for failing to comply. Without clear consequences, oversight could prove weaker in practice than it appears on paper. The agreement also stops short of requiring full data localization. Canadian user data does not have to stay entirely within the country. Although technical controls may limit access, data can still move through systems outside Canada. This leaves some exposure to unauthorized access or foreign influence. ⌠Canada avoided a disruptive ban; TikTok accepted tighter rules to keep operating in a key market. The deal reduces some risks, but it does not resolve deeper questions about ownership, data flows and national security. Those tensions are likely to resurface as Canada continues to grapple with how to regulate global platforms that play an outsized role in everyday life.
After 14 months of fruitless contract negotiations with the Harvard University administration, over 4,000 workers represented by the Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU-UAW Local 5118) walked off the job on an indefinite strike on April 21. According to the union, âGraduate student workers will suspend teaching and research labor until Harvardâs bargaining team takes substantive action in addressing the unionâs key issues: pay that keeps pace with the rising cost of living, recourse for harassment and discrimination, support for non-citizen students, protections for academic freedom, and âfair share feesâ to equitably distribute the expenses of union representation, among others.â In this episode of Working People, we speak with three striking graduate student workers about the issues at the center of this strike, and about what itâs like to live, work, and strike at the countryâs richest university amid political attacks from the federal government, scandals connecting high-ranking Harvard officials to Jeffrey Epstein, and a nationwide cost-of-living crisis. Panelists include: Sara Speller, a fifth-year PhD student in the Music Department at Harvard and president of the Harvard Graduate Students Union; ZoĂŤ Feder, a seventh-year PhD student in the Biological & Biomedical Sciences program at Harvard Medical School and a research assistant in the Microbiology Department; and Jacob Wolf, a third-year PhD student and Teaching Fellow in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Additional links/info: Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU-UAW Local 5118) website, Facebook page, X/Twitter page, TikTok, and Instagram Harvard Graduate Students Union Strike Update/FAQ Zine Lydialyle Gibson, Harvard Magazine, âHarvard graduate student workers strikeâ Noah A. Ferris, The Harvard Crimson, âGrad students rally outside Garberâs home as strike enters third weekâ Hugo C. Chiasson & Elise A. Spenner, The Harvard Crimson, âHarvard promised a âfullâ review of its Epstein ties. Its own files reveal what it left outâ Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song Credits: Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor Transcript The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible. Maximillian Alvarez: Alright. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working people is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership with In These Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is Maximillian Alvarez and weâve got an important episode today about a strike in Cambridge, Massachusetts that is happening right now and involves over 4,000 UAW members at Harvard University. Now, the strike began at the end of April and according to the public announcement which was released by the Harvard Graduate Students Union, âAfter 14 months of contract negotiations and nearly a year without an active contract, over 4,000 workers represented by the Harvard Graduate Students Union, HGSU UAW Local 5118 launched a strike of indefinite length on April 21st. This move follows a strike authorization vote in which 79% of the unionâs voting eligible members participated, with 96% voting in favor. Graduate student workers will suspend teaching and research labor until Harvardâs bargaining team takes substantive action in addressing the unionâs key issues, pay that keeps pace with the rise in cost of living, recourse for harassment and discrimination, support for non-citizen students, protections for academic freedom and fair share fees to equitably distribute the expenses of union representation among others. The union is also bargaining for improved workplace conditions that allow graduate student workers to contribute to the universityâs mission without fear of harassment or retaliation. Under the current system, graduate students filing claims of workplace harassment and discrimination can only seek recourse through internal processes, leaving the university as the sole arbiter of its own conduct. HGSU UAW has proposed optional grievance processes in which claims can be adjudicated by third party arbitrators selected jointly by the university and the union. Such protections are standard among graduate student worker contracts at comparable institutions like NYU, UPenn, MIT, University of California and Stanford. Claire Traweek, a PhD student in material science and mechanical engineering shared why this process of real recourse is so important for student workers. âWhen I told my advisor about the ongoing sexual harassment Iâd been experiencing in lab, he told my accusers I had tried to report them and then effectively fired me by refusing to sign my advising agreement. âNow in an email sent to the Harvard community just days before the strike began, Harvard Provost John F. Manning and Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick defended the universityâs position on wages and union security saying that Harvardâs proposal of a 10% increase for salaried appointments is quote in line with recent agreements while also rejecting the unionâs demands to standardize research assistant base salaries and restructure other pay scales. Manning and Weenic also claimed that the unionâs demand for a third party arbitration process would establish a quote distinct and separate set of non-discrimination, harassment and anti-bullying processes for union members, which they say would âconflict not only with federal regulations for Title IX complaints, but also with the universityâs policy that members of our community should have access to the same procedures.â All right, to break down what is happening with the Harvard grad union strike, what is at stake in this strike and what comes next? As we always do, weâre going to take you straight to the front lines of the struggle so you can hear directly from folks who are at the center of it. And I am really grateful to be joined on the show today by three guests. Sara Speller is a fifth year PhD student in the music department at Harvard and the president of the Harvard Graduate Students Union. Sara works as a teaching fellow for the music department and the department for the studies of women, gender and sexuality. ZoĂŤ Feder is a seventh year PhD student in the program in biological and biomedical sciences at Harvard Medical School and a research assistant in the microbiology department and ZoĂŤ works in a bacterial genetics lab and Jacob Wolf is a third year PhD student in the Harvard Graduate School of Education who works as a teaching fellow in courses about designing learning experiences. Sara, ZoĂŤ, Jacob, thank you all so much for joining us on the show today. I really, really appreciate it. Now, I did my best to give listeners some basic context there in the intro, but I want to start by going around the table and just asking you all to lay this all out in your own words. Why are you as graduate student workers on strike right now and what have the past two weeks on strike look like for you? Sara Speller: Hello, my name is Sara. Thanks for having me. The way that weâve been framing this and I think itâs very, very true is that all weâre asking for are adequate pay and adequate protections for all of our workers. You really hit the nail on the head with that summary, so thank you. Great job. But I think among other things, we want our wins to be the floor at Harvard and not the ceiling. So I take specific umbrage with the claim that we are trying to create a secondary way of making sure that harassment and discrimination is dealt with for only us because what weâve said at the table is we want everyone to have access to an arbitration that is neutral, does not rely on the goodwill of the internal processes at Harvard. But as someone who is a teaching fellow and I only make $26,000 a year at this point in my degree because of funding schemes that are really Harvardâs way of trying to push us through our degrees as fast as possible, I think pay equity is so vital and will make the classroom experience so much better and healthier because what we have right now are people juggling three, four individual classes and dealing with all kinds of different assignments and job work that they have to do within that. Oh, and to be clear, the reason why people are juggling so many classes, I myself juggled three different class workloads, I guess you can say, this semester because I needed to make money to be able to pay rent in Boston. Itâs so expensive to live here. So if the teaching fellows were able to feel comfortable in the fact that we can pay rent, we can take care of ourselves, we can take care of our dependents, we can keep ourselves protected on a legal front for our non-citizens and international workers by being able to afford or receive payment for having immigration lawyers on hand. How much better would the learning environment here be at the richest university in the world? I think they can afford to do that and they should because what we care about is teaching and learning. And then as for the last few weeks on strike, itâs been very difficult. I love my job, but it also has been very rewarding, especially Iâve been president for about two years and itâs so beautiful seeing people come together from all different corners of the university getting to know each other and sharing in the camaraderie and solidarity. ZoĂŤ Feder: I love that. Thatâs so true. Iâve really enjoyed that, especially because I work on the medical school campus and I donât always have the chance to interface with the humanities and a lot of the other sciences who work on the Cambridge campus. So thatâs been really wonderful for me. I think Sarah did a great job as she always does of articulating what weâre fighting for. I think from my perspective, I have been aware of and seen firsthand this ever present issue of harassment, the sort of threat of harassment and discrimination in academic spaces without appropriate tools to protect people. And in my time as a graduate student worker, Iâve been a part of many different discussions and committes at different forms and levels. And I feel really that our union is the first organization that Iâve been a part of where weâve made material progress in protecting people from the day-to-day harassment and discrimination that they experience. And so one of the big motivations for me in joining the strike is to address this issue of harassment and discrimination that everyone around me knows is a problem and wants to change. Ultimately, our union and our contract Iâve found have been the most effective tools. So Iâm putting all of my energy into strengthening those tools because Iâve seen through experience thatâs the fastest and most effective way for me to help protect my coworkers from harassment and discrimination. Jacob Wolf: I agree wholeheartedly with both what Sara and ZoĂŤ have shared already. I think to add one thing that has been on my mind as someone who is relatively newer at Harvard and who is just learning the ropes in some ways of union organizing in an academic space, kind of tapped into this process as our union began bargaining, which has now been like 15 months ago. So itâs unfortunately been a lot of time to learn the ropes. But as Iâve tapped into this union organizing and been working to connect with rank and file members at the School of Education where I primarily do my work and research, Iâve just learned how much misinformation there is about the union across our campus and how hard it is to correct that misinformation when the work structures at Harvard are so intentionally, in my opinion, complicated. Everything across all of these various schools and departments functions differently. People have different kinds of jobs that the university tries to treat differently. People often donât know if theyâre eligible for union membership or if their work is protected by the union. When people experience instances of some kind of contract violation, whether that be harassment or even not receiving the wages that theyâre supposed to be receiving, they often donât know that they have union support because Harvard has intentionally made it so difficult to organize as a union. My understanding is that thatâs kind of the case across higher ed. Many higher ed institutions have engaged in intentional union busting through these kinds of opaque structures that make it hard for people to know what their rights are. And so the strike has really energized me around our proposals for union security. So things like making it such that all graduate students who are eligible for union membership would have to make an intentional decision either to join the union or to pay a reduced fair share fee that would still contribute to the work that the union still performs for all students through bargaining and through contract enforcement. And so that, though maybe not the sexiest issue has become very driving for me as Iâve been out and about striking. And I mean, the wages part is still so important too. Again, everyone across the university has different forms of compensation. Itâs totally unfair that folks who are more advanced in their programs are making so much less than folks who are earlier in their programs. But even me, someone whoâs earlier in my program, Iâm still very concerned about our wages not keeping up with inflation. My rent is going up 3.25% this coming year because thereâs no rent control in the Boston area in Massachusetts and thatâs less than Harvard has proposed in wage increases over the next four years, which means Iâm taking home a pay cut. Right now our contract is a pay cut and that is not only is it unacceptable, itâs unlivable. When we say weâre fighting for a living wage, it is not a euphemism. Maximillian Alvarez: Let me just pick up on that and letâs go just a little bit deeper on these issues that are so central and so important to yâall and your membership that you would go on strike 4,000 strong to get them, right? Because I think thereâs a big perception disconnect here, which Iâve tried to address with this show over the course of many years to get people to understand just because you know that Harvard is, as Sarah said, the richest higher ed institution in the world and itâs got this massive endowment, venerable reputation, yada, yada, yada, that does not mean that the grad student workers who are teaching a lot of the classes are even able to pay their own damn rent. And this is the case in higher ed institutions across the country. I say that as a former grad student who was living below the poverty line. Itâs just par for the course and weâre always told, âWell, itâs not a real job. Youâre getting an education. The pay and the work are disconnected in this weird way.â And thatâs just not the case. No, weâre workers. We need to make a living. We need to keep a roof over our head. And we have an employer-employee relationship with the university telling us what labor to do to get our paycheck. So anyway, I wanted to ask if you guys could just flesh out a little more for folks who are not part of a higher ed community, who are hearing about this story, listening to this interview right now and theyâre wondering what is grad student pay and cost of living for a grad student at Harvard and why is this kind of pay proposal so central to this strike and also the arbitration process because that may seem small to some, but it is so massive when youâre facing harassment from your advisor who holds your future career in their hands. And you would think that an institution like Harvard whose former President Larry Summers was just implicated in the Epstein files would be a little more sensitive to this kind of thing. So can you guys just talk a little more about why these are so central to this struggle to the point that they would even lead your membership to strike over them? Sara Speller: Yeah, great question. Iâll tackle the myth of all of us being like 25-year-old white men in grad school. First, I think this is something I hear all the time and for context, Iâm first gen low income to college. I have been at fancy private schools the whole time, but I have never known wealth and it is through the mercy of fellowships and scholarships that I got where I am today in the addition of luck. But I think one of the things that people often get wrong, to your point, is this idea that all of us are doing this simply because we need something to do and we donât want to work. This is a job. I am exclusively responsible for myself. I do not have anything to fall back on. I happen to be very, very interested in a very niche thing. And so the best job for me right now is teaching and working towards a PhD at this institution. If I donât do a good job teaching my students, what worth is their Harvard degrees? And something that people are often surprised to hear is that students at institutions like this have sections or what we call sections for all of their classes that sort of replace the idea of a study group. So they have their lecture or they have their meeting and then they also have a time where they meet once or twice a week with someone who is a graduate student or some sort of non-tenured teaching labor and they talk through everything. So we have to know what they are learning. We have to be able to guide them through complex terms. We grade their papers. We do all of these things in a way that is akin to being a teacher. We are teachers. Weâre also researchers in laboratories. The laboratories donât function without us. And a lot of us are adults, I think is the other. This sounds crazy to say, but all of the people that I know are not dependent on family or anyone else. This is our nine to five, often our eight to eight and a lot of us have kids. A lot of us have dependents. A lot of us are sending money back home to various places and we live in precarious circumstances. So being an academic worker, being an office worker, being like a sit down job worker is not any different in the reality of precariousness than any other job that we might line up with being in a union. And thatâs how union power in America gets dissolved before it can even grow is that weâre told like, âWell, your job is easy or your job is not a real job.â The number of times Iâve heard that from people who are literally accountants and itâs like, âYour job is a real job and you deserve rights.â And I think that is really what our strike is about in a big way is reminding Harvard, reminding each other, reminding everyone that these are real jobs and we canât subsist on half of the money that it takes to live and work in Boston and also be expected to be doing novel research and also be expected to be doing other things that academic people are expected to do and perform in order to get jobs. We are juggling so much and we are in a place of privilege certainly, but like MIT is paying their researchers and teachers more on a fraction of the budget down the road. And so even within the realm of privilege and like fancy names, Harvard is falling behind and theyâre relying on their name recognition to get them through everything, including what youâre talking about with the fact that weâve had people having to step down due to their associations with Epstein. They are not talking about this with their students. So that also often falls into the role of teaching fellows and mentors like us. Theyâre just choosing to let things go by so they donât have to talk about it and relying on their name and that is not a way to make your dream come true if youâre trying to survive for the next a hundred years like they claim to be, which is why the money and the endowment is untouchable. ZoĂŤ Feder: I love that. So much of that really resonated with me, especially when you said, Sarah, that we are adults and that that feels silly to say once this is a secondhand story, but one of my coworkers told me they were talking to a faculty member and the faculty member said to them something along the lines of like, âWell, when youâre an adult, youâll see.â And what they meant was when you have a professor job, and itâs so frustrating and so ironic because on the one hand as PhD students or other kinds of masterâs students or whatever we are, weâre expected to be experts in our field and weâre expected to move from consuming knowledge to producing knowledge. But at the same time, we are often condescended to and infantilized in a way thatâs just so taken for granted that a professor could accidentally say to a 32 year old when youâre an adult, youâll see. Yeah, Iâm 32 and Iâm lucky. Iâm fortunate that I can rely on my family for help in a lot of ways. Iâm also in one of the highest paid tiers, I guess as a research assistant in the natural sciences on the medical school campus, I make about $49,000 a year or 50 depending on, I guess, who you ask and how you count the benefits. But even with that for really big expenses, like we had to move a couple of years ago and brokers fees were still legal in Massachusetts and we had moving expenses, we had to go to our parents for help and Iâm so grateful and lucky that we were able to do that. But even my generous parents, it wears on a family to be helping to support their adult children this far into adulthood. And so many of my classmates, so many of my brightest, most hardworking classmates donât have those safety networks. And so theyâre in incredibly precarious positions. And the frustrating thing is that itâs not just kind of a cruel and undignified position to put your workers in, but also it takes away from the universityâs larger mission of advancing research and knowledge because now you have students that have to sort of rearrange their lives or take on additional work if their program allows them to, which it often doesnât depending on other things. And that takes away from the actual research and the work that weâre here to do. And yeah, itâs frustrating at the richest university in the country, but itâs also a problem that exists at every university. I would really like to see Harvard use its financial safety net to help its most vulnerable workers. Jacob Wolf: I think to add on and add even more context from another part of the university, I think that the mission or goals of the academic world, there can sometimes be misconceptions about them. I think we do a lot of very niche research that is aimed at producing niche knowledge. And I think that that is an extremely valuable thing that we get to do as a society and extremely important. And also I think the mission of universities is quite practical too. Coming from the Graduate School of Education, I teach people who are graduate students who are training to become teachers or who have left the classroom and are now trying to become administrators, school administrators or things like that. And the work that I see myself doing is taking this extremely valuable knowledge that weâre able to produce as a society and helping to actually make it change the lives of people everywhere through the work of a teacher, for example. I was a high school teacher prior to starting the PhD program and so now I draw substantially on that experience as a worker at this university. And so I think the idea that our jobs are not practical, that theyâre not having a real impact in the world can be a misconception. And I think itâs important to broaden what it means, to broaden the understanding of what the purpose of a university is. The other thing I wanted to say is that I love the work that I do. So many of the people around me love the work that we do and Iâve had many conversations with my colleagues who are sad about striking. We feel energized by it, but I had to miss the last two weeks of the class that I spent the entire semester teaching where my students were doing their final presentations of projects that theyâd been working on that are learning experiences that theyâre designing and hoping to take to students that are in classrooms with them. And that was extremely sad for me. And I think itâs important to just underscore that weâre not doing this simply to cause disruption. There are goals that we have that demonstrate how untenable the teaching and working situation is at this university. We have these goals because we donât feel that we can continue working otherwise. We canât effectively teach or do research if we are afraid of ICE coming onto campus and our colleagues being deported. We canât do research and teaching if weâre worried that a professor is going to retaliate against us if we say something in the classroom that they disagree with and those conditions are detrimental to the mission of the university from both this knowledge production angle as well as this making knowledge applied angle. Maximillian Alvarez: Well, and I think thatâs really powerfully put by all of you and just to throw in the other economic kind of point is like you canât do that work if you donât know if youâre going to have a roof over your head. And that could be said of any job. Who can do their job well when they donât know where their next mealâs going to come from, if they donât know if theyâre going to get evicted? I know what that feels like. People who listen to the show know what that feels like. And so it doesnât matter where youâre working, but if you are not being paid enough to live, itâs insane for bosses to still expect all of us and just to really underscore this for folks listening who donât live in or near Boston, I just did a quick search on apartments.com and a one bedroom apartment average rent in Boston is over $3,500 a month average one bedroom apartment rent in Cambridge is 3,300 a month or more. So that is not cheap by any stretch. And to say nothing of like the gas being like a billion dollars right now because of the stupid war with Iran. Sorry, I cut somebody off. Sara Speller: No, youâre so fine. I jumped in. Itâs the ADHD. But yeah, no, to your point, Iâm moving in July and when I went to go look at my little pistachio shell of an apartment Iâm about to move to, excited about it. But the management of the building was like, âOh, youâre lucky. Youâve got one of the apartments thatâs under $2,000 in Boston.â Itâs 1995 a month not including utilities and itâs like a known thing. It is just very expensive to live here and itâs one of those areas where unless you drive, you kind of have to live in the cities, you have to live in Cambridge, you have to live in Boston. Maximillian Alvarez: Yeah. Iâve been there, man. Iâve spoken on that campus. It ainât easy. And even if you do drive, the streets are so nuts over there that I wouldnât wish that on my worst enemy, but Iâm a Southern Californian whoâs used to a grid, baby. Iâm not used to the Hickelty Picklety streets of Boston, but I digress. I want to take a step back for a second. As a former graduate student worker myself and a former union member at the University of Michigan, shout out GEO, Iâve always had a special place in my heart for the academic labor movement. And we have covered on this show and at the real news, labor struggles in higher ed led by students, grad students, non-tenured faculty, tenured faculty. I mean, weâre talking public schools, private schools, strikes, unionization efforts. I even interviewed Harvard grad union folks during the 2019 strike when I was an editor at the Chronicle of Higher Education. And I say that because of course the demands at the center of this fight that weâve been talking about here, they echo a lot of the demands that Iâve heard from other academic workers in years past. But of course the elephant in the room is that we are living in a very different era in America right now. You guys are living with Working, teaching, preparing for your careers and bargaining all while massed federal agents are swarming our cities and snatching international students and brown people who look like theyâre immigrants like off the street and student protestors from their campuses. The Trump administration has launched an all- out war on institutions of higher education from canceling or holding hostage billions of dollars of federal funds and grants, upending the entire academic research infrastructure to the shaking down of universities including Harvard with these gangsterish lawsuits. There are tenured professors who are getting fired right now for blatantly political reasons. All while university administrations have ramped up their own internal surveillance and repression machines to smash free speech and to smash student protests after all the Gaza encampments. While all of that is happening, like I said, Harvard itself and high profile people like former Harvard President Larry Summers are being implicated in the goddamn Epstein files. The whole point being this is a batshit time to be alive and a batshit time to be a Harvard graduate student worker. I just wanted to ask if you could each kind of give us a workerâs eye view and talk about what itâs been like in your own lives to try to carry on working and getting paid like normal this past year when everything is so grossly not normal. Sara Speller: Yeah, thatâs a great question. I can start us out. My research for my dissertation is about media literacy and analysis and reanalysis and fighting fascism. And so itâs been a very crazy time running a union and working on a dissertation like that. So Iâll leave that at that. Thereâs a wealth of things to write dissertations about inside of that. But as someone who largely teaches undergrads, it has been very hard because there are so many days where I think about the fact that itâs crazy being a grad student now and I was an undergrad during the first Trump term, but I canât even imagine what itâs like to becoming of age in your late teens, early 20s at this point. And I think so much of what I think is important as a teacher is reminding students that this is an insane world and that they have to take care of themselves in order for their brains to function, in order to get the grades that they so desperately want to achieve. And these are also all kids who have been relentless throughout high school, throughout middle school in order to end up ⌠Again, there is a ton of luck involved in getting into an Ivy league, but these are still kids who are not used to failing and then they come here and even thereâs talk. Thereâs talk being made around the university about putting a tap on the percentage of Aâs that can go out to student classes, which as someone in the humanities is absurd because Iâm teaching introductory music theory and analysis classes. How are we supposed to be putting a cap on the number of people who get Aâs if they walk into the classroom not knowing any theory and walk out of the classroom able to read, able to identify chores. But thatâs a little bit inside baseball, but I think it really does illustrate how frustrating it has been to be a teacher and a researcher here and now and here even just being America in general. I think a lot of the things that weâve seen, this gangsterish ability that the Trump administration believes they have to try and shake down institutions is directly related to the fact that we over the course of the last 30, 40 years have 50 even have completely disengaged with social science, with humanities, with the value of critical thinking and literacy. And it makes our jobs hard as well because we also have AI and AI protections are something that weâre not forefronting in this current fight for our contract because no one knows whatâs happening with it. So itâs really rewarding I think to me personally, but thatâs again, because I love teaching, I love the work that I do, but it is difficult already. And then to think about the students that I care about that Iâve had to strike from, to Jacobâs point. There were final projects I was excited to hear about and in the back of my head as president, I knew that there was this looming threat of, oh, Harvardâs not going to cooperate with us to the point that we will need to do a work stoppage. Iâm not going to be able to see how these kids are doing. A lot of them are graduating. And so I hope they reach out to me once theyâre done with their time at this institution so they can say like, âHey, this is what Iâm doing now, because I havenât been able to see their last few weeks in my class.â But yeah, thatâs sort of the feeling that Iâve had for several years at this point is like, holy shit, it sucks to be an adult person under this, but it must really suck to be 19. I donât know if that answers your question, but thatâs kind of where my mind jumps. ZoĂŤ Feder: Yeah, thatâs so true. Itâs terrifying thinking of what it would be like to be a young person going through this. As a researcher, itâs been a really wild ride because our funding kind of gets turned on and off at the whim of the federal government. Itâs particularly been a little crazy to be Iâm Jewish and to be a Jewish grad worker at Harvard when our funding is being cut off over accusations of antisemitism. I maintain that itâs antisemitic to put Jewish workers out of jobs, but also, yeah, it is wild on the medical school, we definitely have people who are in the Epstein files and itâs wild to be walking past those labs. It has been good for my imposter syndrome though, because Iâll think to myself, âI messed up this experiment. Iâm so dumb. Iâm the worst.â And then Iâll think, âWell, at least I never put myself in the Epstein funds.â But more seriously, I feel like in this time in addition to the regular work weâve been doing, weâve also been expected to be ambassadors of Harvard to the larger community trying to show that actually we bring value to this nation and to communities across the country, not just our ivory tower bubbles. And so itâs been frustrating to take on that extra role and then not be recognized for any of our labor contributions in a way. And also seeing how much money faculty members or people at Harvard have taken from independent donors like Jeffrey Epstein and actively pursue those kind of donations, I think has helped me feel more firm in my stance on pushing back on Harvardâs claim that theyâre too poor to give us better benefits and pay equity because theyâre constantly selling off parts of the school, selling off the naming rights like our graduate school, for example, and taking in donations and it just doesnât line up with the picture that theyâre painting of their financial situation. Not that Iâm saying they should continue to take donations from people like Jeffrey Epstein, but that they have so many different ways of increasing their wealth. And so itâs frustrating to constantly be told, âOh, weâre too poor to pay your coworkers and the humanities to teach the next generation of scholars.â Jacob Wolf: Yeah, I want to pick up on the thread too about the image that Harvard is trying to project for itself at this time. Max, as youâve discussed and described already, we are in honestly very depressing times that make me very concerned for marginalized populations like non-citizens in this country and itâs for me easy to despair in these times. What does give me hope is thinking about the kinds of institutions that we can build that can stand up to these forces. And a year ago, a year and a half ago, Harvard tried to paint itself as one of those institutions. Our president wrote this extensive letter initially pushing back against the Trump administration about protecting our university. And there was a moment where I was hopeful. There was a moment where I was like, âMaybe Harvard is actually going to do something to stand up to these fascist forces.â And over the last 12 months, I think despite that public projection, the lived experience has been completely counter to that. We continue to live in conditions of immense opacity about what the administration is doing, the Harvard administration. I am constantly having conversations with people about little whisperings theyâve heard of the negotiations that are happening between the Trump administration and the Harvard administration. And we all kind of know that thereâs a backroom deal brewing and weâre just either waiting for some announcement to drop or perhaps even more scarily waiting for these changes to just start taking place on our campus that demonstrate the acquiescence to the Trump administration without needing to take the heat from that. Yeah, like I said, it leads to despair. Itâs hard to stay hopeful, but I think that HGSU, our Graduate Students Union is a counter to that. It is an example of an institution that is genuinely committed to democratic engagement and that is genuinely committed to caring for the experiences and the lives and the wellbeing of all of its members, regardless of whether they are the president of the union or a rank and file member who is still trying to figure out what the union can do for them. Being in the union, being involved in organizing and seeing the power of collective action that weâre able to pull together through our organizing is the thing thatâs giving me hope right now as a graduate student worker, but also just as a person living through these troubling times. Sara Speller: If I could add just a little bit to Jacobâs point about the fact that we all had a hope when the university initially pushed back against Trump administration, theyâve introduced these campus use rules, especially since the encampments that are a little draconic to the point that early this year there was a big thing that happened where they made a faculty member take down a huge sign that says Black Lives Matter that had been there since I started here five years ago. And we were not initially given any sort of reasoning why. And then it was like, âOh, the campus use rules, you canât put political stuff in Windows.â And they also tried to make a claim that because HTSU went on a small campaign with a lot of other unions across Harvardâs campus of putting them back up and putting up a bunch more little Black Lives Matter signs. And the idea that the HR office offered was like, âOh, well, this doesnât have to do with your working conditions.â Which I can easily make the joke, it does for me. And if Iâm the president of the union, I fear that it is a labor issue, but what ended up happening was they quietly decided to allow signs like that back up, but they didnât really mention it. And so I think thatâs a very small, almost silly story that feels like it belongs in 2016, but it does show that we have the ability and we have been keeping Harvard to account in a way that I hope every workplace is able to do through unionization or just through collective action. I think thatâs kind of the way that Iâve been heartened to Jacobâs point about the kind of times we live in. Itâs like, âOh, the people power is the only power.â And people are starting to realize that and embrace it. Maximillian Alvarez: Oh yeah. Well, and I know I got to let you guys go, but with the kind of final quick turnaround the table, I wanted to focus on that and talk about where things stand now, what happens next and what folks listening can do to stand in solidarity with yâall because again, anyone whoâs ever heard about or been a part of an academic labor struggle knows that the universityâs got one ace in the hole in its back pocket that it uses every single year, whether itâs a strike or a union campaign or a protest, wait for the summer. Wait for the summer and hope that all the students dissipate. Some of the grad union members graduate out some of the faculty donât get reappointed. You have a built-in system in higher ed because of the academic calendar that makes it very difficult to maintain kind of momentum for political and labor struggles like this, but thatâs not always the case. I mean, weâve reported on many strikes that supposedly ended at the end of the school year and then picked right back up in the fall. I guess I just wanted to ask yâall, given where we are right now in early May, where do things stand with the strike? What comes next? And yeah, what can folks listening do to stand in solidarity with yâall? Sara Speller: Yeah. I think one of the things that people can do is continue to share this kind of information with other people. Our website, hgsu.org or Linktree/HGSU has sources where you can donate to our hardship fund, where you can sign on as a community member. So all of these things are definitely things that we love and support, but I think Harvard really cares the most about its image and it doesnât like that we are talking about it. And the only reason why weâre talking about it is because we want to change it. And Iâll just add that despite it all, like our ongoing strike, I think weâre like halfway through week three at this point. The university has not offered us any additional bargaining sessions. So our next one is May 14th and that runs dangerously close to the finals period and the end of the grading period. So this is a really difficult and powerful time to strike and I think weâre holding the line really strongly. To your point, they can always say like, âWeâll wait till the summer and we can just as easily say wait till the fall,â but I think weâre still deciding and planning how we want to keep this leverage up and call Harvard to account. We do have faculty members who are getting rather tired of the strike, so weâre happy to se them join our ranks. But yeah, all kinds of sharing, donating, all of that is immensely helpful. ZoĂŤ Feder: Yeah, definitely knowledge is power. And I think that Harvard, the administration and the representatives at the bargaining table, they rely on the fact that the public and even many members of the Harvard community will believe the stories theyâre puting out that they just canât afford to give us the benefits and the pay equity weâre asking for. And the more everyone pushes back on that, including people that donât live in this area but all across the country, like Iâm from a small town in a red district and I think itâs really powerful to build solidarity with people in my hometown because they have representatives in Congress that hold power and we donât have any other connection to those people or those representatives. So this summer, one thing Iâm going to focus on is connecting back up with some of the working class movements in my hometown and strengthening those partnerships. Jacob Wolf: Yeah. I think at the risk of sounding corny, I do think that just participation in this growing labor movement is what seems most important to me right now because itâs across the country and around the world. I think we are starting to see changes in labor, changes in labor organizing. And I think that those are really powerful. What will happen with us is extremely important and weâre committed to that fight, but itâs just one small fight amongst this many fights that are going on across the country and around the world right now. I think just like doing what we can to support labor organizing is important, whether itâs at Harvard or in a hospital in the cab of a delivery truck. Thereâs many places that we need labor organizing right now and that seems urgent and important. Maximillian Alvarez: All right, gang, thatâs going to wrap things up for us today. I want to thank our guests, Sarah Speller, Zoe Fetter and Jacob Wolf, all graduate student workers at Harvard University and all members or officers of the Harvard Graduate Students Union, which has been on strike since April 21st. You can stay up to date on the strike and follow the grad union using the links that we provided for yâall in the show notes for this episode. And of course, I want to thank you all for listening and I want to thank you for caring. Weâll see yâall back here next time for another episode of Working People. And in the meantime, go explore all the great work that weâre doing at the Real News Network, where we do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Check us out across our YouTube channel, our podcast feeds, our website, and our social media pages and help us do more work like this by going to the realnews.com/donate and becoming a supporter today, I promise you guys it really does make a difference. Iâm Maximillian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Solidarity forever. From The Real News Network via This RSS Feed.
ScheiĂ Titel, aber das Video ist gut. Ab 03:05 gehtâs um ADHS. Neurodivergenz beschreibt Gehirne, die Reize, Aufmerksamkeit und soziale Situationen anders verarbeiten als das, was oft als âneurotypischâ gilt. Jan Philip Zymny spricht in dieser Folge Ăźber Autismus, ADHS und die Frage, warum Neurodiversität gerade so sichtbar geworden ist. Dabei geht es um ADHS bei Erwachsenen, späte Diagnosen und darum, warum Frauen und Mädchen lange Ăźbersehen wurden. Auch TikTok spielt eine Rolle: Zwischen hilfreicher Aufklärung und irrefĂźhrenden Kurzclips entsteht ein Bild von ADHS, das Betroffenen helfen, aber auch schaden kann. Gleichzeitig bleibt die Versorgungslage in Deutschland schwierig, wenn Diagnoseplätze und Therapieangebote fehlen. Die Folge erklärt, warum Neurodivergenz keine Krankheit sein muss, aber im Alltag zur Behinderung werden kann, wenn Schule, Arbeit, Festivals oder Supermärkte nur fĂźr neurotypische Menschen gedacht sind. Im Mittelpunkt steht die Frage, wie Barrierefreiheit, Reizarmut und gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz fĂźr neurodivergente Menschen aussehen mĂźssten.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3353203/southern-california-mayor-will-plead-guilty-acting-agent-chinese-government Yesterday, Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia California was arrested on the suspicion of working as an agent for the PRC. She is expected to plead guilty. Her boyfriend/fiance Yaoning âMikeâ Sun received a similar charge in December 2020, under Bidenâs presidency. Mike Sun was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison in October 2025. US DoJ alleges that Eileen Wang and Mike Sun operated a propaganda news website called âUS News Centerâ, which provided local news for Arcadia but also news related to China. US DoJ alleges that PRC officials sent stories to Eileen and Mike to publish on the website. US DoJ alleges that a PRC official instructed Eileen Wang to publish an article which said âthere is no genocide in Xinjiangâ. I obviously donât believe the US DoJ, Adrien Zenz, etc. Also I read the Eileen Wang arrest story on like a dozen different news websites and none of the websites provided the link to âUS News Centerâ. So I found her website and now Iâm sharing it. I want people to see what US DoJ considers to be be âpro-PRC propagandaâ. doj . gov press statement on Eileen Wang Arrest https://archive.is/UMPah December 2024 court document for Mike Sun case https://web.archive.org/web/20250213044049/https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1381256/dl Eileen Wang wikipedia was created today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_Wang Another NATOpedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_California#Eileen_Wang Eileen Wangâs twitter account - features her political campaign stuff and links to âUS News Centerâ https://xcancel.com/eileen1282 Mike Sunâs twitter account - mostly posts links to âUS News Centerâ, retweeted Eileenâs campaign in 2022 https://xcancel.com/m18625013500 Eileen Wangâs campaign website https://web.archive.org/web/20220325001641/http://eileen4arcadia.com/ Eileen Wangâs youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@CouncilmemberEileenWang Eileen Wangâs tiktok is @eileenli88. It seems deleted. The âUS News Centerâ url was posted on Eileenâs and Mikeâs twitter pages with different variations. Iâm not sure if the websites are different but they appear the same at first glance. https://web.archive.org/web/20210111170922/https://www.usnewscenterla.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210518235824/https://usnewsctr.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220210171033/https://usnewscta.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220506144023/https://usnewsctrla.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240121045654/http://usnewscenterca.com/ https://www.usnewsla.com/ this url was used also but there is not good archive.
Reading by Tim Foley: Subscribe now In a fawning softball 60 Minutes interview released Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the importance of winning âthe propaganda warâ on social media. This comes as Israel moves to quadruple its propaganda budget to $730 million a year. Major Garrett (which apparently is a real name belonging to a real guy who works for 60 Minutes) told the CBS audience that âNetanyahu attributes the reputational harm to Israel almost entirely to social media, which he calls the eighth front of the war.â âThis is yours, right?â asked Netanyahu, picking up Garrettâs phone. âYouâre not immune either. Because you can penetrate this machine, you can penetrate this little instrument, and you can say about Major Garrett anything you want. And I can paint you as a monster. And if I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.â âWe have seen the deterioration of the support for Israel in the United States almost â I would say, it correlates almost 100 percent with the geometric rise of social media,â said Netanyahu, adding, âWe have several countries that basically manipulated social media. And they do it in a clever way. And thatâs something that has hurt us badly.â âIsrael is besieged on the media front, on the propaganda front, and weâve not done well on the propaganda war,â the prime minister lamented. Netanyahu has been repeatedly stressing the need for more aggressive propaganda manipulation as public opinion of Israel plummets worldwide. Earlier this year he told The Economist that âIâd like to do everything I can to fight the propaganda war waged against us,â complaining that âweâve been using cavalry against f-35s, because theyâve flooded the social networks with the fake bots and many other things.â Despite having the entire western political-media class bending over backwards to protect Israelâs image, Netanyahu consistently frames his countryâs struggle for narrative control as a brave little David figure standing up against the colossal Goliath of anti-Zionist social media users. Last year the Israeli leader claimed that Israel is losing the propaganda war because âthere are vast forces arrayed against us,â denouncing âthe algorithms of the social network that are driving a lot of everything else.â In a meeting with American social media influencers last year, the prime minister spoke of how vital the forced sale of TikTok has been for Israeli information interests, and said that Elon Musk could help facilitate Israeli PR on the X platform as well. âWe have to fight back. How do we fight back? Our influencers,â Netanyahu said. âWe have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which weâre engaged, and the most important ones are on social media.â Of course, the possibility of Israel improving its public image by simply murdering fewer people and doing fewer evil things is never even considered. Its is taken as a given that shoving pro-Israel messaging down everyoneâs throat is the only way to sway public opinion in a positive direction. It is under this framing that Israel has again massively increased its propaganda budget for the year, after having massively increased it from what it was the year before. The Jerusalem Post reports the following: âIsrael is betting nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars that it can talk its way out of a reputation crisis. âLawmakers in Jerusalem approved a 2026 national budget last month that includes roughly $730 million for public diplomacy â the broad category known in Hebrew as hasbara â more than four times the $150 million they allocated the year before. That earlier sum was itself about 20 times what Israel had spent on such efforts before the war in Gaza broke out in 2023. âThe unprecedented expenditure comes as survey after survey shows declining support for Israel in the United States, its most important ally. A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month found 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, up seven points in a single year, with only 37% viewing it favorably.â So you know how youâre already seeing an insane amount of pro-Israel propaganda and running into aggressive Zionist trolls online? You can expect that to get a whole lot worse. Narrative manipulation has served Israel well over the years, but thereâs a limit to how much propaganda can accomplish. If I walked up to you and spat in your face, thereâs no amount of verbiage I could throw at you to convince you Iâm actually a nice person. Thereâs only so much carnage people can watch on their phones before you can no longer convince them itâs not what it looks like. The propaganda has already hit a point of diminishing returns, and soon itâs going to start having a reverse effect. People are going to start hating Israel for all the evil things itâs been doing, and then hating it even more for all its in-your-face perception management operations to manipulate their thoughts and feelings. At some point the hasbarists are themselves going to inadvertently become anti-Zionist propaganda agents, just because they make Israel look so creepy with the way theyâre always trying to stick their rapey fingers into everyoneâs mind. The truth can only be concealed and distorted for so long. _________________ Caitlinâs Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley. Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 Feature image is a screen grab from 60 Minutes (fair use). From Caitlinâs Newsletter via This RSS Feed.
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Pangita ang pagiging uhaw-sa-dugo ni Department of National Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro sa mga kontra-kapayapaang pahayag at tahasang paghadlang sa panawagan ng mamamayan na muling ituloy ang peace talks. Ang tahasang pagtanggi sa panawagan para sa peace talks ay malinaw na tindig ng rehimeng US-Marcos. Muling lumalakas ang panawagan para sa peace talks kasabay ng paggigiit ng katarungan at pananagutan sa mga paglabag sa karapatang tao lalo yaong mga sibilyang idinadamay ng reaksyunaryong gubyerno sa malupit na kontra-rebolusyonaryong gera. Ang naturang panawagan ay isinulong ng mga dating negosyador ng Gubyerno ng Republika (GRP) matapos ang malagim na masaker sa Toboso 19. Nagpupugay ang NDFP-ST sa mamamayang Pilipino na walang tigil na nananawagan para sa peace talks. Isinasagawa nila ang ibaât ibang mga aktibidad kagaya ng mga forum at talakayan upang ipaliwanag ang kahalagahan ng pagsusulong ng mga negosasyon. Nakikiisa kami sa malaon nang kahilingan ng malawak na mamamayang Pilipino para sa pagsusulong ng makatarungang kapayapaan. Laging bukas ang NDFP sa peace talks dahil nagbibigay-daan ito sa pagtalakay sa mga ugat ng armadong tunggalian sa layuning magbalangkas ng mga kongkretong hakbang tungo sa paglutas ng pundamental na suliranin ng bayan. Hindi na kataka-taka ang garapalang pagtanggi ni Teodoro sa peace talks. Ang kanyang arogansya ay nagmumula sa artipisyal na dami at lakas ng AFP-PNP at mga modernong sandata nitong iginawad ng imperyalismong US sa mga tuta nito sa Pilipinas. Labis na sumasandig sa lakas-militar ang rehimeng US-Marcos II upang makapanatili sa kapangyarihan. Katunayan, nag-uumapaw ang kanilang kumpyansang malilipol ang rebolusyonaryong kilusan sa bawat binabalangkas na anti-âinsurhensyangâ kampanya, ngunit taun-taon din silang binibigo ng mamamayan at buong rebolusyonaryong kilusan. Sadyang hindi malulutas ang armadong tunggalian sa bansa hanggaât hindi nalulutas ang ugat nitoâang kahirapan na dulot ng pundamental na problema ng lipunang Pilipino na nagreresulta sa malawakang pangangamkam ng lupa at kawalan ng tunay na reporma sa lupa; barat na sahod ng mga manggagawa; kawalan ng seguridad sa trabaho ng mga Pilipino; napakataas na singil sa buwis; palpak na serbisyong panlipunan at marami pang iba. Hibang na pinaniniwalaan lang ni Teodoro at ng mga kasapakat niya sa gubyernong Marcos II na may âkapayapaanâ habang malala ang kahirapan at inhustisya at kabi-kabila ang pagpoprotesta at paglaban ng bayan. Ang kahulugan nila ng âkapayapaanâ ay ang pananatiling kimi ng mga Pilipino sa pagwasiwas ng kamay-na-bakal ng estado at sikilin ang paglaban ng bayan. Naninindigan ang NDFP-ST na ang tunay na kapayapaan ay makakamit lamang kaakibat ng hustisyang panlipunanâang pagwasak sa sistemang nagtataguyod sa kawalang pagkakapantay-pantay at may kiling sa iilang naghaharing uri at imperyalismong US na pahirap sa malawak na mamamayan. Sa Timog Katagalugan, 835 panginoong maylupa at malalaking burgesya komprador ang may kontrol sa 70% ng lupaing agrikultural. Kumikita nang malaki ang mga kapitalista ngunit ang arawang sahod ng manggagawa ay nasa pagitan lamang ng âą455-600. Laganap din ang kawalan at kakapusan ng trabaho kung saan 7.5 milyon ang mga mala-proletaryado. Ilan lang ang mga ito sa mukha ng paghihikahos ng mga Pilipino sa buong bansa sa ilalim ng malakonyal at malapyudal na lipunan. Ang NDFP ay palagiang bukas sa peace talks. Patunay nito ang ilang beses na paglapit at pakikipag-usap sa GRP, pormal man o back-channel upang umabante ang negosasyon. Katunayan, ang Joint Statement sa pagitan ng NDFP at GRP noong Nobyembre 2023 ay isang hakbang tungo sa panunumbalik ng peace talks. Sa kabila nito, isang hamon sa mga negosyador na igiit sa GRP na sundin ang pagkakasunud-sunod ng balangkas ng negosasyon sang-ayon sa binuong mga kasunduan at pagkakaisa sa nakalipas na halos tatlong dekada. Nagkamit na ng mga tagumpay ang mamamayan sa peace talks, sa kabila ng mga urong-sulong ng negosasyon. Tampok dito ang pagkakapatibay ng Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law upang tiyaking iginagalang ang karapatang tao ng mamamayan at ng magkabilang panig habang may nagaganap na digmang sibil. Noong 2016, napagkasunduan naman ang prinsipyo ng libreng pamamahagi ng lupa na salalayan ng Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms sa interes ng mayoryang inaapi at pinagsasamantalahang Pilipino. Ang mga ito ang tinatanggihang kilalanin ng kasalukuyang rehimeng US-Marcos II matapos ibasura ng nagdaang tiranikong rehimeng US-Duterte. Pinakamalaking balakid sa pag-usad ng peace talks at pagtutuloy ng mga naunang tagumpay nito ang mga peace saboteurs. Sa halip na tumuntong sa kumon na pagkakaisa para lutasin ang problema ng sambayanan, higit na isinusulong ng mga peace saboteurs sa peace talks ang pag-disarma at pagsuko ng NPA nang di nalulutas ang dahilan bakit sila nag-armas at lumaban. Ang pag-aalis sa kapasidad ng NPA na lumaban ay lalong mag-aalis ng garantiya sa mamamayang Pilipino para sa kanilang pambansa-demokratikong kahilingan. Kapag naganap ito, tiyak na napakadali na lamang sa reaksyunaryong gubyernong talikdan ang kaisahan laloât sila ang nasa tuktok ng kapangyarihan at matatanggal na ang kanilang balakid sa pandarambong at pambubusabos. Patunay lamang nitong walang kaseryosohan ang estado na igawad sa mamamayan ang kanilang batayang karapatan, at sa halip, ay hinahangad na panatilihin ang bulok na kaayusan ng estadong kinukubabawan ng imperyalismong US. Habang nalalantad ang tunay na mukha ng estado na pagiging hayok nito sa gera, nakahanda ang rebolusyonaryong mamamayan na isulong ang demokratikong rebolusyong bayan upang itaguyod ang mga kagalingan at magdepensa sa mga nakamit na tagumpay. May peace talks man o wala, ang rebolusyonaryong kilusan ay pamalagiang nasa panig ng mamamayan. Hindi kailanman mapipigilan ng rehimeng US-Marcos II ang mamamayang Pilipino sa paghahangad ng tunay na kapayapaan at kamtin ito sa pamamagitan ng paghawak ng sandata, pagsusulong ng matagalang digmang bayan hanggang madala ito sa ganap na tagumpay. The post Rehimeng US-Marcos II, kontra-kapayapaan, bingi sa hinaing ng mamamayan appeared first on PRWC | Philippine Revolution Web Central. 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My guess is this: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/disney-plus-gen-ai-user-generated-content-1236426135/ Seems theyâre adding games and some kind of AI TikTok to the service.
âYeah! The real primary colours are CMY!â Also bullshit. Our RGB primaries are a simplification that comes from availability of pigments. While blue was originally a very rare and valuable pigment made from precious stones, it was still more available than magenta or cyan, which are made synthetically. All of the following is taking paint mixing into mind. When looking at a continuous colour wheel: You can see where each colour sits on the spectrum. When you consider a RBY palette, we are limited to essentially the colours in this triangle: Mixing a vibrant Purple or Green is often difficult with a basic rby colour palette, and a Magenta or Cyan is impossible. We define a primary colour as âfoundational colours that cannot be created by mixing other coloursâ, which means that CMY are real primaries, right? Well, if we look at the CMy palette: We DO get a wider range of colours, but youâll notice that a true purple, green, blue, and red are still outside of our range. You can get a pretty close red with Yellow and Magenta, but it will never be as vibrant as a pure Red pigment. So then Red is a primary? When painting, you should use the colours that you need for the work, and mix from there. The âprimary coloursâ are a tool to teach students the theory of colour mixing. It is not a perfect guide, but teaching complex colour theory to novice painters is just intimidation. Most people get an intro to art, learn RBY, and then leave art, donât think about it again until a TikTok titled âschool LIED to youâ introduced CMY. EDIT: this is from the perspective of an artist. I am not an expert, and certainly got something wrong in here, but the primary argument has always annoyed me
Tatlong Pulang mandirigma ng Bagong Hukbong Bayan (BHB)-Western Samar (Arnulfo Ortiz Command) ang dinakip, tinortyur at sadyang pinatay ng 8th ID sa dalawang magkahiwalay na pagkakataon noong Abril sa Samar. Kinundena ng BHB-Eastern Visayas (Efren Martires Command) sa pagpatay nito sa mga hors de combat na BHB, na ay isang krimen sa digma at paglabag sa internasyunal na makataong batas (IHL). Ang mga patakaran sa paggalang sa karapatan ng mga hors de combat ay nakasaad sa IHL at sa Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). Isa itong kasunduang pinirmahan ng mga panel sa negosasyon ng Gubyerno ng Republika ng Pilipinas at National Democratic Front of the Philippines noong Marso 16, 1998 sa The Hague, The Netherlands na partikular na nakatuon sa mga eryang maryoong armadong sigalot. Alinsunod sa Ika-4 na Bahagi (Paggalang sa Internasyunal na Makataong Batas), Artikulo 4, Numero 1 ng CARHRIHL: âAng mga taong wala sa katayuang lumaban (hors de combat) at yaong hindi tuwirang kalahok sa mga hostilidad ay may karapatan sa paggalang sa kanilang buhay, dignidad, mga karapatang pantao, mga paniniwalang pampulitika, at moral at pisikal na integridad, at pangangalagaan sa lahat ng sirkunstansya at makataong itatrato nang walang pagtatangi batay sa lahi, kulay, paniniwala, kasarian, kapanganakan, katayuang panlipunan o anumang katulad na pamantayan.â Sa bayan ng Jiabong, hindi armado ang 20-taong gulang na si Ka John Paul nang barilin ng 47th IB sa hita ng mga pasistang tropa habang nagluluto sa labas ng isang kubo sa Barangay Salvacion noong Abril 17. Ayon kay Ka Karlos Manuel, tagapagsalita ng BHB-Eastern Visayas, bahagi si Ka John Paul ng yunit ng BHB na tumutulong sa masa na sinasalanta ng militarisasyon. âBuhay pa siya nang dakpin ng kaaway at imposibleng makapanlaban. Imbis na gamutin ang sugat, tinortyur siya upang pigaan ng impormasyon hinggil sa kinaroroonan ng mga kasama,â ayon kay Manuel. Dagdag ng tagapagsalita, nang walang makuhang impormasyon sa Pulang mandirigma ay sadya siyang binaril sa dibdib na kanyang ikinamatay. Itinabi pa sa bangkay ni Ka John Paul ang isang M4 para palabasing armado at nakipagpalitan ng putok. Nauna ring pinalabas ng 46th IB na isang 17 taong gulang na menor-de-edad si Ka John Paul para paratangan ang hukbong bayan na nagrerekrut ng mga bata. Mariing itinanggi ng hukbong bayan ang paratang na ito at idiniin na 20 taong gulang na si Ka John Paul. Ayon pa sa National Democratic Front-Eastern Visayas, si Ka John Paul at kanyang pamilya ay mula sa bayan ng Matuguinao na natulak magbakwit sa San Jose de Buan matapos targetin ng karahasang militar ng 8th ID. Para lumaban at biguin ang atake ng militar, sumapi siya sa BHB noong 2023 nang tumuntong sa wastong edad na 18 taong gulang. Sa bayan naman ng Motiong, hindi rin armado sina Ka Mike at Ka Oking nang dakpin ng mga pasistang tropa noong Abril 23. Ayon sa ulat ng BHB-Eastern Visayas, naglalakad lamang ang dalawa noon sa isang malawak na parang na pakainan ng kalabaw at nagpapatupad ng gawaing masa. Nang madakip, magdamag silang pinahirapan ng mga pasista, at nang walang maibigay na impormasyon ay sadya silang pinatay ng mga sundalo. Ayon pa kay Manuel, mayroong palatandaan ang mga bangkay ng dalawa na nilamog ang mukha sa bugbog at tinadtad ng mga bala ang katawan. Para palabasing napatay sa engkwentro ang dalawa, nagpakana ng gawa-gawang labanan ang mga sundalo noong Abril 24 ng umaga sa Barangay Caulayanan. Itinabi sa kanilang mga bangkay ang mga ripleng M14. Sa matibay nilang paninindigan at paglilingkod sa masang Samarnon at sambayanang Pilipino hanggan sa kanilang huling hininga, pinarangalan ng BHB-Eastern Visayas ang tatlong martir at bayani. âSinasaluduhan namin sila at mataas kaming nagbibigay-pugay,â ayon kay Manuel. Dagdag niya, matapang nilang hinarap ang kamatayan, hindi ipinagkanulo ang masa at mga kasama, at sa halip ay buong-giting na hinarap ang pahirap at kalupitan ng mga pasistang buhong. âMarangal ang kanilang kamatayan na inialay para sa kaligtasan ng mga kasama, alang-alang sa kapakanan ng masa at rebolusyon. Silaâ y mga dakilang bayani ng bayan!â deklarasyon niya. Aniya, magpapatuloy ang mga yunit ng BHB sa Eastern Visayas sa pagsusulong ng demokratikong rebolusyong bayan bilang pagkakamit ng hustisya sa tatlong martir at lahat ng mga biktima ng pasismo ng estado. Dagdag niya, lalo nitong pinatutunayan ang kabulukan ng pasistang militar at ang kawastuhan ng armadong pakikibaka laban sa reaksyunaryong sistema. âLalo lamang nitong pinag-aalab ang kagustuhan ng mamamayana kamtin ang hustisya laban sa mga buhong pasista na nang-aapi at nagsasamantala sa kanila,â dagdag ni Manuel. The post 3 hors de combat sa Samar, dinakip, tinortyur at sadyang pinatay ng 8th ID appeared first on PRWC | Philippine Revolution Web Central. From PRWC | Philippine Revolution Web Central via This RSS Feed.