[rapportdefaceaface]

the culture is fascist the politics are fascist and there is no soviet union to keep the american fourth reich in check

[rapportdefaceaface]

‘Home growns are next’: Trump tells Bukele to build more jails for citizens

Trump says he’s ‘all for’ jailing American citizens in El Salvador’s notorious mega prison

never forgot how hard the democrats worked to facilitate this turn.

[rethrone-deactivated20250221]

the prophet eyup lovely

[ultraviolet-divergence]

Migrant deaths in New Mexico have increased tenfold

Experts say smugglers are treating migrants more harshly and bringing them on paths that could be more dangerous in extreme summer temperatu

The deaths have continued even as migration has fallen along the entire border following Biden's major asylum restrictions.

New Mexico's migrant death numbers now rival those in Arizona's even hotter Sonoran desert, where the remains of 114 presumed border crossers were discovered during the first eight months of 2024, according to a mapping project by the nonprofit Humane Borders and the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office in Tucson.

[determinate-negation]

“The idea that after this war life will continue 'normally' or even that culture might be 'rebuilt - as if the rebuilding of culture were not already its negation - is idiotic. Millions of Jews have been murdered, and this is to be seen as an interlude and not the catastrophe itself. What more is this culture waiting for? And even if countless people still have time to wait, is it conceivable that what happened in Europe will have no consequences, that the quantity of victims will not be transformed into a new quality of society at large, barbarism? As long as blow is followed by counter-blow, catastrophe is perpetuated. One need only think of revenge for the murdered. If as many of the others are killed, horror will be institutionalized and the pre-capitalist pattern of vendettas, confined from time immemorial to remote mountainous regions, will be re-introduced in extended form, with whole nations as the sub-jectless subjects. If, however, the dead are not avenged and mercy is exercised, Fascism will despite everything get away with its victory scot-free, and, having once been shown so easy, will be continued elsewhere. The logic of history is as destructive as the people that it brings to prominence: wherever its momentum carries it, it reproduces equivalents of past calamity. Normality is death.”

Adorno, ‘Out of the firing-line’ (1944) from Minima Moralia

[afloweroutofstone]

Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist for Haaretz, speaking to the National Press Club in Washington DC, 10 April 2015. Transcript available here, with the portion below beginning at 10:51. Lots of noteworthy stuff in this speech, but I've bolded the most stunning passage.

The Israeli society has surrounded itself with shields, with walls, not only physical walls but also mental walls. I don’t want to get into it because it’s another lecture. But I’ll just give the three principles which enable us Israelis to live so easily with this brutal reality. A) Most of the Israelis, if not all of them, deeply believe that we are the chosen people. And if we are the chosen people, we have the right to do whatever we want. B) There were more brutal occupations in history. There were even longer occupations in history, even though the Israeli occupation gets to quite a nice record. But there was never in history an occupation in which the occupier presented himself as the victim—not only the victim, but the only victim around. This also enables any Israeli to live in peace, because we are the victims.

In the other panel, Professor [Richard] Falk spoke about the dual strategy of Israel, of being a victim on one hand and manipulating on the other hand, after what happened in Paris and in Copenhagen with the terror attacks. Binyamin Netanyahu came with the notion, “All the Jews must come to Israel. It’s the safest place for the Jews in the world. It’s a shelter for the Jews in the world.” Which is wrong because Israel today is the most dangerous place on earth for Jews. But let’s put it aside. It was only 24 hours later when he said Israel is in existential threat under the Iranian bomb! And I asked myself, how can you dare call Jews to come and to join this suicidal project, when the Iranians are going to bomb us?

But in Israel everything goes, and both declarations were accepted as the only truth. And here, I get to the third set of values that enable us Israelis to live in peace with the occupation. This is maybe the most crucial one and the worst one. We say victimization, we say chosen people. When I say victimization, it goes without saying, we have to mention the Holocaust and the unforgettable Mrs. Golda Meir that the American Jewry had exported to Israel. She said once—this unforgettable woman—that after the Holocaust the Jews have the right to do whatever they want.

But the third set of values is the most dangerous one. This is the systematic de-humanization of the Palestinians, which enables us Israelis to live in peace with everything because if they are not human beings like us, then there is not really a question of human rights.

And if you scratch under the skin of almost every Israeli, you will find it there. Almost no one will treat the Palestinians as equal human beings like us. I once wrote that we treat the Palestinians like animals. I got so many protest letters from animal rights organizations—rightly so. But by the end of the day, how many Israelis did ever try for a moment to put themselves in the place of the Palestinians for a moment, for one day? And I want to give you two examples, which will demonstrate it.

Many years ago, I interviewed then-candidate for Prime Minister Ehud Barak. I asked him a question which I try to ask on any occasion, “Mr. Barak, what would have happened if you would have been born Palestinian?” And Barak gave me then the only honest answer he could give me. He said, “I would have joined a terror organization.” What else would he have done? Would he become a poet? He doesn’t know how to write poems. Would he become a pianist? He’s quite a bad pianist, and I doubt if he would have become a collaborator, because he is a fighter. And it became a scandal, because how can you dare to put Ehud Barak to think what would have happened if he would have become a Palestinian?

And the second incident briefly, during the second intifada, the city of Jenin, the most closed city in the West Bank, real total siege. I go out from Jenin. I come to the checkpoint. A Palestinian ambulance is parking there with the red lights. I stand after him, no cars can get out of Jenin in those days; no cars can get in. And I wait. The soldiers start playing backgammon in the tent. Usually, I know myself, it’s better that I don’t get into confrontations with the soldiers, because it always ends up very badly. So I stayed in the car. But after 40 minutes, I couldn’t take it.

I went out from the car. I went first to the Palestinian ambulance driver. I asked him, what’s going on? He told me that’s the routine, they let me wait one hour until they come and check the ambulance. And I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to the soldiers. It became a confrontation but the question that I asked them which really brought them to direct their weapons toward me was one: what would happen if your father was lying in this ambulance? This freaked them out. They lost control. How can I dare to compare between their father and the Palestinian in the ambulance? This set of beliefs, that they are not human beings like us, enable us Israelis to live in so much peace with those crimes, ongoing crimes for so many years, without losing any kind of humanity, values I heard today.

[kristina100000]

[youdanceinsidemychest]

[bloglikeanegyptian]

im kind of obsessed with the white house's strategy of straight-up just lying about israel like. i don't know if its even gaslighting at this point it's just like some kind of bizarre strategy of just saying stuff for the obedient press to reprint it. it's so funny coming from the liberals who literally popularized 'disinformation' because they were so dismayed to learn about propaganda during the trump era and now here we are... disinformation central...

the white house since february: this is a ceasefire proposal hamas: this says 'no ceasefire' actually, this is a pause the white house: hamas won't accept our ceasefire proposal egypt & qatar & the CIA: here is a three-step actual ceasefire proposal hamas: we welcome the three-step actual ceasefire proposal the white house: we also welcome this three-step actual ceasefire proposal israel: we will literally never end this war the white house: egypt totally lied to us about this three-step actual ceasefire proposal. we're so sorry israel [two weeks later] okay this is ISRAEL's three-step ceasefire proposal israel: no it isn't the white house: israel has accepted its own ceasefire proposal israel: no we haven't the white house: the ball is in hamas's court hamas: we welcome the ceasefire proposal the white house: can you believe hamas won't accept israel's ceasefire proposal?

the recently anti-disinformation independent press: hamas won't accept israel's ceasefire proposal

[bloglikeanegyptian]

Is Biden’s Israel Policy Cynical or Naïve?

Evaluating eight months of the President’s attempts to moderate Netanyahu’s bombing campaign in Gaza.

[probablyasocialecologist]

What ancient farmers can really teach us about adapting to climate change – and how political power influences success or failure

Agricultural sustainability is as much about power and sovereignty as it is about soil, water and crops.

Zuni farmers in the southwestern United States made it through long stretches of extremely low rainfall between A.D. 1200 and 1400 by embracing small-scale, decentralized irrigation systems. Farmers in Ghana coped with severe droughts from 1450 to 1650 by planting indigenous African grains, like drought-tolerant pearl millet. Ancient practices like these are gaining new interest today. As countries face unprecedented heat waves, storms and melting glaciers, some farmers and international development organizations are reaching deep into the agricultural archives to revive these ancient solutions. Drought-stricken farmers in Spain have reclaimed medieval Moorish irrigation technology. International companies hungry for carbon offsets have paid big money for biochar made using pre-Columbian Amazonian production techniques. Texas ranchers have turned to ancient cover cropping methods to buffer against unpredictable weather patterns. But grasping for ancient technologies and techniques without paying attention to historical context misses one of the most important lessons ancient farmers can reveal: Agricultural sustainability is as much about power and sovereignty as it is about soil, water and crops.

[reasonsforhope]

A green roof or rooftop solar? You can combine them in a biosolar roof — boosting both biodiversity and power output

Growing city populations and limited space are driving the adoption of green roofs and green walls covered with living plants. As well as bo

"As solar panels heat up beyond 25°C, their efficiency decreases markedly. Green roofs moderate rooftop temperatures. So we wanted to find out: could green roofs help with the problem of heat reducing the output of solar panels?

Our research compared a “biosolar” green roof — one that combines a solar system with a green roof — and a comparable conventional roof with an equivalent solar system. We measured the impacts on biodiversity and solar output, as well as how the plants coped with having panels installed above them.

The green roof supported much more biodiversity, as one might expect. By reducing average maximum temperatures by about 8°C, it increased solar generation by as much as 107% during peak periods. And while some plant species outperformed others, the vegetation flourished.

These results show we don’t have to choose between a green roof or a solar roof: we can combine the two and reap double the rewards...

How did the panels affect the plants?

In the open areas, we observed minimal changes in the vegetation cover over the study period compared to the initial planted community.

Plant growth was fastest and healthiest in the areas immediately around the solar panels. Several species doubled in coverage. We selected fast-growing vegetation for this section to achieve full coverage of the green roof beds as soon as possible.

The vegetation changed the most in the areas directly below and surrounding the solar panels. The Baby Sun Rose, Aptenia cordifolia, emerged as the dominant plant. It occupied most of the space beneath and surrounding the solar panels, despite having been planted in relatively low densities.

This was surprising: it was not expected the plants would prefer the shaded areas under the panels to the open areas. This shows that shading by solar panels will not prevent the growth of full and healthy roof gardens.

What were the biodiversity impacts?

We used environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys to compare biodiversity on the green roof and conventional roof. Water run-off samples were collected from both roofs and processed on site using portable citizen scientist eDNA sampling equipment to detect traces of DNA shed by the species on the roof.

The eDNA surveys detected a diverse range of species. These included some species (such as algae and fungi) that are not easily detected using other survey methods. The results confirmed the presence of bird species recorded by the cameras but also showed other visiting bird species went undetected by the cameras.

Overall, the green roof supported four times as many species of birds, over seven times as many arthropods such as insects, spiders and millipedes, and twice as many snail and slug species as the conventional roof. There was many times the diversity of microorganisms such as algae and fungi.

Encouragingly, the green roof attracted species unexpected in the city. They included blue-banded bees (Amegilla cingulata) and metallic shield bugs (Scutiphora pedicellata).

How did the green roof alter temperatures?

The green roof reduced surface temperatures by up to 9.63°C for the solar panels and 6.93°C for the roof surfaces. An 8°C reduction in average peak temperature on the green roof would result in substantial heating and cooling energy savings inside the building.

This lowering of temperatures increased the maximum output of the solar panels by 21-107%, depending on the month. Performance modelling indicates an extensive green roof in central Sydney can, on average, produce 4.5% more electricity at any given light level.

These results show we don’t have to choose between a green roof or a solar roof. We can combine them to take advantage of the many benefits of biosolar green roofs.

Biosolar roofs can help get cities to net zero

The next step is to design green roofs and their plantings specifically to enhance biodiversity. Green roofs and other green infrastructure may alter urban wildlife’s activities and could eventually attract non-urban species.

Our green roof also decreased stormwater runoff, removed a range of run-off pollutants and insulated the building from extremes of temperature. A relatively inexpensive system provides all of these services with moderate maintenance and, best of all, zero energy inputs.

Clearly, biosolar green roofs could make major contributions to net-zero cities. And all that’s needed is space that currently has no other use."

-via GoodGoodGood, May 12, 2024

[heritageposts]

Link to Jonathan Cook's article:

The message of Israel’s torture chambers is directed at all of us, not just Palestinians

‘Black sites’ are about reminding those who have been colonised and enslaved of a simple lesson: resistance is futile

[notallmensheviks]

I understand that Ukraine has been made into some kind of vassal state of the US due to the military aid it has been receiving but why is the position among "leftists" essentially that everyone there is a Nazi and deserves the invasion?

it's partially russian propaganda but mostly crypto-nationalist cope. this might get me a bunch of hate but whatever.

a lot of post-independence ukrainian politics can be understood as a conflict between two groups of oligarchs (defined here as extremely rich capitalists who are also active politicians instead of existing alongside a separate political class) known as the dnipropetrovsk and donetsk "mafias." mafia should not be taken literally (with the exception of rinat akhmetov) although they do all have substantial links to organized crime groups. the modern dnipropetrovsk mafia should also not be confused with breznhev's group of cronies, who shared the same name. i'll call them the dnipropetrovsk and donetsk mafias "dnm" and "dom" to save myself typing. the most famous members of the dnm are probably igor kolomoisky (one of zelensky's major backers until z turned on him a few months ago), yulia timoshenko (who was regularly ranked as one of ukraine's richest women until she entered politics, whereupon she mysteriously vanished from the rankings) and leonid kuchma, former president and head of icbm-builder yuzhmash. the dom includes former president victor yanukovych (overthrown in 2014) and rinat akhmetov, owner of the azovstal steelworks, which was reduced to rubble in the recent war. of course, these are just the heads; innumerable businessmen and criminals are part of their sprawling patronage networks. they're not the only mafias, either - there's the "kyiv seven," the most famous members of which are probably viktor medvedchuk and the surkis brothers, not to mention the infamous odessa mafia. for whatever reason, it's been the dom and dnm who have dominated the political landscape of post-independence ukraine. broadly speaking, the dnm has been pro-eu/nato/us, and has tended to espouse liberal, free market ideology, often presenting eu membership as the key to ukrainian economic prosperity. the dom, on the other hand, has tended towards a more social-democratic/leftist ideology, and advocated for much more significant ties with russia. it needs to be stressed that these ideologies are very much skin-deep; i don't believe dom governments were meaningfully redistributive or that dnm governments actually tried to create free markets and the rule of law or any of that claptrap. instead, they just tried to do whatever make them the most money. the donetsk basin has, since late tsarist times, been one of the heartlands of the russian iron and steel industry thanks to its huge coal and iron deposits. donetsk itself was founded by a welshman (wales was renowned for its coal mines) eager to make money out of the coal, and many others followed. not only the great blast furnaces but the whole industrial ecosystems that grew up around them had always been very tightly integrated with the rest of the russian/soviet economy, leading to a very large population of ethnic russians in the area, and the fall of the ussr did nothing to stop either. in other words, dom oligarchs benefitted immensely from close ties to russia, as a severing of trade relations with russia would mean losing access to their primary markets. simultaneously, they had a great deal to lose from joining the european free trade zone, as ukrainian tariffs protected them from lower-cost german competition. the dnm, on the other hand, had far fewer connections to the russian market. some defense firms in dnipropetrovsk, such as yuzhmash, did a lot of business with the russian market, but the dnm as a whole focused on consumer industry and services, and could benefit immensely from economic integration with the economic juggernaut that is modern europe. it should be emphasized that these "mafias" are quite loose groupings, and it's not unusual for members of this mafia to be in conflict with each other, as you would expect from loose patronage networks, but they do nevertheless share certain fundamental characteristics.

my overall point here is that a large segment of the ukrainian ruling class has been desperate for euro-american satellite state status for a very long time, and this war has simply made irreversible what they have wanted for a long time. they didn't want this for ideological reasons, or even for anti-russian reasons; they just wanted to get richer. what is often left out in narratives of a """nato colour revolution""" in 2014 is that what sparked the whole thing wasn't nato accession (which was dead and buried) but a free trade agreement with the eu. yanukovych vetoed it (mostly) not for ideological reasons, or because putin told him to, but because it hurt the most important thing in the world to him - his wallet. to put it another way, it's about conflict within the ukrainian capitalist class.

the "denazification" line is largely for the benefit of the russian people themselves, not foreigners. yes, there are nazis in ukraine, but the idea that they actually have a substantial mass following is nonsense. but because of the difficulty of parsing who is an actual straight up heil hitler nazi and who is simply a sparkling far-right ultranationalist, i'll lump them all together into the latter category. svoboda, one of the biggest far-right parties, running as part of a conglomeration of several other far-right groups in ukraine, received 5% of the vote in 2014. hardly dominant. In the 2019 elections, this fell to around 2%. Not all the other independent parties have wikipedia articles, but they add up to at most another percentage point. by contrast, in the 2017 and 2021 german elections, the far-right afd won around 12% of the vote. in the uk, ukip also got 12% in 2015, and the tories have gone hard-right ever since. in france, the far-right fn won around 13% of the vote in both 2012 and 2017, increasing to 18% in 2022. in poland, the far-right pis ruled for over a decade until losing last year's election. as far as electoral results go, ukraine is, by a substantial margin, one of the less far-right countries in europe. you might argue that fn and afd aren't actually nazis, but then by that standard neither are svoboda or right sector. you might also argue that one should measure the influence of far-right groups not by electoral outcomes but by their ability to put guns in the field; i don't know enough about far-right organizations in other countries to make a meaningful comparison. it is true that far-right groups played a very substantial role in orchestrating the almost-certainly-false-flag massacre of the snipers in 2014 euromaidan, but that was only one factor. you also had the above-mentioned trade agreement veto, general disgust at the corruption of the ukrainian ruling class, and the general poverty and lack of economic growth in ukraine as a whole. there's no need to suggest magic ned mind control rays (although some will try in the replies) as an explanation for what can easily be accounted for as legitimate popular unrest. it's not like everything was fine and then the massacre turned it into a revolution; the fire was already raging when the massacre poured accelerant onto it.

as for nazis in the ukrainian military itself, when the little war started in 2014 and the ukrainian military found itself unfit for purpose, large numbers of far-right militias stepped into their shoes as they were the only ones with actual weapons, organization, and a will to fight. many of those militias ended up being incorporated into the post-2022 ukrainian army, which explains the frequency with which you see totenkopf patches in ukrainian combat footage. i haven't broken down what percentage of far-right patches are found in ex-far-right militias, but i wouldn't be surprised if it were the majority. it also should not be surprising that ultra-rightists tend to gravitate to armed forces and the military; it's certainly the case in the us and is probably the case in the rest of europe too.

it also needs to be stressed that there are nazis in russia, too. notorious mercenary outfit wagner's actual founder, dmitry utkin, was probably a nazi (wagner was his callsign and he has ss tattoos) and wagner has been associated with acts of fascist vandalism. you can also see a dnr ltcol with nazi patches here. other far-right groups like the russian imperial movement (not nazis, but still) had apparently sent significant numbers of volunteers to fight in donetsk and luhansk before 2022. there are also various accusations of kremlin-sponsored far right groups as controlled opposition, but i haven't read enough about them to make a meaningful judgment on the topic.

so, there are some nazis in ukraine, but at worst about as many as in any other european country. why, then, the obsession with denazification? the key is in what "nazi" symbolizes. in america and europe, a nazi is first and foremost a jew-killer, and many trenchant critiques have been made of how contemporary understandings of the holocaust focus on jewish deaths to the exclusion of slav and rroma deaths, to name only two categories. in russia, a nazi is first and foremost a russian-killer. this isn't unreasonable; about 400k americans died at the hands of the nazis, while over 20 million russians did. to americans and western europeans, nazi violence was directed at a third party; to the russians it was directed at them, with jews being secondary. by labelling the ukrainian state as a whole as nazi, it references not only the ideological cornerstone that is the great patriotic war in russian memory, but also incorporates the (again not unjustified) narrative of national persecution faced by the russian-speaking inhabitants of eastern ukraine, one of the key justifications for the seccession of the donetsk and luhansk people's republics. when you understand nazi as meaning anti-russian, the epithet makes a lot more sense.

why, then, has the idea of ukraine-as-nazi-filled gotten so much traction in the west? well, i'm not sure that it has. maybe i'm just following the right people, but i haven't really seen anyone straight-up spouting the russian nazi propaganda lines. mostly i see the war justified in terms of nato expansion and anti-imperialism. that's still bollocks, but it's slightly more plausible bollocks. i'm open to being proven wrong, however; i don't have my finger on the tumblr left pulse because i put effort into keeping my dashboard idiot-free. certainly people on here are not immune to propaganda from any side, but i don't think the "they're all nazis" line has gotten much traction on here. from what i've seen people usually just post a pic of some dude with a totenkopf and go "NATO BACKS NAZIS" (no shit, sherlock) without actually generalizing the condition to the ukrainian people as a whole. again, though, this is my highly uninformed personal perception. i am trying to separate this particular line of assertion from pro-russian sentiment as a whole, which is a different matter. that, imo, stems from the liberal-hegelian doctrine that states are the fundamental actors of history, and that anything that matters in world history is done by states. marxism, on the other hand, sees classes, not states, as the fundamental actors of world history. the fact that many marxists fail to grasp this is indicative. now i think the classic vulgar marxist viewpoint is a harmful oversimplification, and the more i read about the genesis of the modern state in the 17th century the more convinced i am of this. nevertheless, there's much more truth in the marxist viewpoint than the liberal-hegelian one, although the latter attitude is the most common one these days. the necessary consequence of this attitude, when combined with anti-americanism (even if said anti-americanism is downstream of anti-capitalism) is the idea that whichever country has an inter-imperialist rivalry with the united states must be the avatar of the world-historical process, and therefore is the only force capable of stopping the onslaught of american imperialism. as such, it is the duty of all anti-capitalists to support the russian cause, as they are fighting the great satan.

what reinforces this attitude are the two facts that (a) there is no actual socialist movement with any strength right now and (b) the world desperately needs one. as such, the two choices one faces are to admit there is no actual meaningful anti-imperialist force in the world right now or to cling onto a national bourgeoisie for dear life. many on this site choose the latter. i choose the former. i have sympathy for those who choose the latter; these are dark times and it's natural to crave psychological succour when surrounded by despair. lord knows i have my own emotional support ideologies. nevertheless, i think even implicitly accepting this liberal-hegelian attitude is, at its core, a reactionary move. seeing states as the essence of history is perhaps better than seeing god as the essence of history, but it's still wrong, and we can do better.

[knightofdeer]

As a Ukrainian, the post is mostly accurate (to my knowledge), but I have something to add.

While Ukranian government is not far right, it is very right. We don't have even left liberal party with any impact. "DOM" parties used some socdem rhetoric for clout, but like, their oligarchs were even richer than pro-Western ones, do you really believe it? Plus while in power they didn't do anything leftist, and their stance on most non-purely economic problems is even more conservative than that of mainstream pro-Western parties.

I think I am being kind of messy, but whatever. Pretty right wing government does pretty right wing things, like communist ideology is straight out outlawed, and socialist and anarchists face much more scrutiny from the police than actual boneheads. Same as anywhere, though. Not so long ago our government updated labour law in a way that workers barely can negotiate their conditions and can be fired even more easier with less drawbacks. I think there were also new obstacles for unions lately. And since the start of "big war" (cool term btw, most people here divide it as "before/after the full-scale invasion") strikes are prohibited. For workers, because the very rich employers have successfully pushed their demands by a lock out and faced no consequences.

Organized political action is also very harf. The state pushes the narrative that all of internal unrests are secret plans of putin (they are at it again right now), and while I am not sure how often does police fabricate Russian connection of every opposition, it does investigate it quite often.

Which sounds like merging of capital and state to terrorize the population, which is the definition of fascism (as a system). And yes, Ukraine is very much a capitalist hellscape. But Russia by this definition is even more fascist. Russian bourgeoisie appears to be absolutely unified while Ukranian is very fractured, and in Russia it's even more merged with the state. Communism is technically legal in Russia, but government is very much against it, activists face a lot of violence from the police, and the official Communist Party is barely even left wing anymore. To say nothing about ultraconservative laws, absolutely stupid influence of Orthodox Church, officially outlawing every organisation that is considered to be "connected with the West", and one senator last feek twitting a meme where he compared a black man to monkey (the senator in question is responsible for "denazification" of my oblast specifically so yes it's very funny).

The far-right groups recieve some ammount of patronage from the state, that's the fact. Nationalist propaganda is also pretty much the official ideology, but it's influence on life of Russian speaking population is basically nonexistent. More specifically, I don't know do they face any scrutiny in the West, but in the East and Centre majority of people still use Russian as their main language. Even official institutions while obligated to use only Ukranian use Russian simply because they are stuffed by people who live here (my last interaction with the state was cops stopping me to check documents and the entire process was done in Russian). Like the nationalalist course of government is very much not good, but it's not fair to call it like "oppression" or "genocide", most people don't even notice it.

TL/DR: Ukraine is very much not good and has right wing government that collaborates with straight up nazis, but thinking that Russia is going to fix literally anything is super stupid

[notallmensheviks]

yeah this is a big aspect i didn't talk about - that the servant of the people zelensky is currently serving his people by fucking them over super hard in favour of domestic capital using the war as a cover, while also expanding his own patronage networks and those of his cronies.

i also just want to say that given the russian anon that messaged me a little while ago, i've now had people on both sides of the border say they agree with my post, which makes me feel very smug.

[reasonsforhope]

Indigenous Zenù turn to ancestral seeds, agroecology to climate-proof their farming

MONTERÍA, Colombia — “Look at the rooms in our house,” says Remberto Gil, 45, during a sweltering day last September. “During this time of t

"In response to last year’s record-breaking heat due to El Niño and impacts from climate change, Indigenous Zenù farmers in Colombia are trying to revive the cultivation of traditional climate-resilient seeds and agroecology systems.

One traditional farming system combines farming with fishing: locals fish during the rainy season when water levels are high, and farm during the dry season on the fertile soils left by the receding water.

Locals and ecologists say conflicts over land with surrounding plantation owners, cattle ranchers and mines are also worsening the impacts of the climate crisis.

To protect their land, the Zenù reserve, which is today surrounded by monoculture plantations, was in 2005 declared the first Colombian territory free from GMOs.

...

In the Zenù reserve, issues with the weather, climate or soil are spread by word of mouth between farmers, or on La Positiva 103.0, a community agroecology radio station. And what’s been on every farmer’s mind is last year’s record-breaking heat and droughts. Both of these were charged by the twin impacts of climate change and a newly developing El Niño, a naturally occurring warmer period that last occurred here in 2016, say climate scientists.

Experts from Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies say the impacts of El Niño will be felt in Colombia until April 2024, adding to farmers’ concerns. Other scientists forecast June to August may be even hotter than 2023, and the next five years could be the hottest on record. On Jan. 24, President Gustavo Petro said he will declare wildfires a natural disaster, following an increase in forest fires that scientists attribute to the effects of El Niño.

In the face of these changes, Zenù farmers are trying to revive traditional agricultural practices like ancestral seed conservation and a unique agroecology system.

Pictured: Remberto Gil’s house is surrounded by an agroforestry system where turkeys and other animals graze under fruit trees such as maracuyá (Passiflora edulis), papaya (Carica papaya) and banana (Musa acuminata colla). Medicinal herbs like toronjil (Melissa officinalis) and tres bolas (Leonotis nepetifolia), and bushes like ají (Capsicum baccatum), yam and frijol diablito (beans) are part of the undergrowth. Image by Monica Pelliccia for Mongabay.

“Climate change is scary due to the possibility of food scarcity,” says Rodrigo Hernandez, a local authority with the Santa Isabel community. “Our ancestral seeds offer a solution as more resistant to climate change.”

Based on their experience, farmers say their ancestral seed varieties are more resistant to high temperatures compared to the imported varieties and cultivars they currently use. These ancestral varieties have adapted to the region’s ecosystem and require less water, they tell Mongabay. According to a report by local organization Grupo Semillas and development foundation SWISSAID, indigenous corn varieties like blaquito are more resistant to the heat, cariaco tolerates drought easily, and negrito is very resistant to high temperatures.

The Zenù diet still incorporates the traditional diversity of seeds, plant varieties and animals they consume, though they too are threatened by climate change: from fish recipes made from bocachico (Prochilodus magdalenae), and reptiles like the babilla or spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus), to different corn varieties to prepare arepas (cornmeal cakes), liquor, cheeses and soups.

“The most important challenge we have now is to save ancient species and involve new generations in ancestral practice,” says Sonia Rocha Marquez, a professor of social sciences at Sinù University in the city of Montería.

...[Despite] land scarcity, Negrete says communities are developing important projects to protect their traditional food systems. Farmers and seed custodians, like Gil, are working with the Association of Organic Agriculture and Livestock Producers (ASPROAL) and their Communitarian Seed House (Casa Comunitaria de Semillas Criollas y Nativas)...

Pictured: Remberto Gil is a seed guardian and farmer who works at the Communitarian Seed House, where the ASPROL association stores 32 seeds of rare or almost extinct species. Image by Monica Pelliccia for Mongabay.

Located near Gil’s house, the seed bank hosts a rainbow of 12 corn varieties, from glistening black to blue to light pink to purple and even white. There are also jars of seeds for local varieties of beans, eggplants, pumpkins and aromatic herbs, some stored in refrigerators. All are ancient varieties shared between local families.

Outside the seed bank is a terrace where chickens and turkeys graze under an agroforestry system for farmers to emulate: local varieties of passion fruit, papaya and banana trees grow above bushes of ají peppers and beans. Traditional medicinal herbs like toronjil or lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) form part of the undergrowth.

Today, 25 families are involved in sharing, storing and commercializing the seeds of 32 rare or almost-extinct varieties.

“When I was a kid, my father brought me to the farm to participate in recovering the land,” says Nilvadys Arrieta, 56, a farmer member of ASPROAL. “Now, I still act with the same collective thinking that moves what we are doing.”

“Working together helps us to save, share more seeds, and sell at fair price [while] avoiding intermediaries and increasing families’ incomes,” Gil says. “Last year, we sold 8 million seeds to organic restaurants in Bogotà and Medellín.”

So far, the 80% of the farmers families living in the Zenù reserve participate in both the agroecology and seed revival projects, he adds."

-via Mongabay, February 6, 2024

[fandomsandfeminism]

You know what the most frustrating thing about the vegans throwing a fit over my “Humans aren’t Parasites” post is?  I really wasn’t trying to make a point about animal agriculture. Honestly, the example about subsistence hunting isn’t the main point. That post was actually inspired by thoughts I’ve been having about the National Park system and environmentalist groups.

See, I LOVE the National Parks. I always have a pass. I got to multiple parks a year. I LOVE them, and always viewed them as this unambiguously GOOD thing. Like, the best thing America has done. 

BUT, I just finished reading this book called “I am the Grand Canyon” all about the native Havasupai people and their fight to gain back their rights to the lands above the canyon rim. Historically, they spent the summer months farming in the canyon, and then the winter months hunter-gathering up above the rim. When their reservation was made though, they lost basically all rights to the rim land (They had limited grazing rights to some of it, but it was renewed year to year and always threatened, and it was a whole thing), leading to a century long fight to get it back. 

And in that book there are a couple of really poignant anecdotes- one man talks about how park rangers would come harass them if they tried to collect pinon nuts too close to park land- worried that they would take too many pinon nuts that the squirrels wanted. Despite the fact that the Havasupai had harvested pinon nuts for thousands and thousands of years without ever…like…starving the squirrels. 

There’s another anecdote of them seeing the park rangers hauling away the bodies of dozens of deer- killed in the park because of overpopulation- while the Havasupai had been banned from hunting. (Making them more and more reliant on government aid just to survive the winter months.) 

They talk about how they would traditionally carve out these natural cisterns above the rim to catch rainwater, and how all the animals benefitted from this, but it was difficult to maintain those cisterns when their “ownership” of the land was so disputed. 

So here you have examples of when people are forcibly separated from their ecosystem and how it hurts both those people and the ecosystem. 

And then when the Havasupai finally got legislation before Congress to give them ownership of the rim land back- their biggest opponent was the Parks system and the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club (a big conservation group here in the US) ran a huge smear campaign against these people on the belief that any humans owning this land other than the park system (which aims at conservation, even while developing for recreation) was unacceptable. 

And it all got me thinking about how, as much as I love the National Parks, there are times when its insistence that nature be left “untouched” (except, ya know, for recreation) can actually harm both the native people who have traditionally been part of those ecosystems AND potentially the ecosystems themselves. And I just think there’s a lot of nuance there about recognizing that there are ways for us to be in balance with nature, and that our environmentalism should respect that and push for sustainability over preserving “pristine” human-less landscapes. Removing ourselves from nature isn’t the answer. 

But apparently the idea that subsistence hunting might actually not be a moral catastrophe really set the vegans off.  Woopie. 

[wondermumbles]

#love seeing discussions about this#because everyone wants to see western conservation as infallible#without realizing that it’s still built on white supremacist and colonialist beliefs

- @finding-my-culture

[zvaigzdelasas]

Netanyahu says Hamas’ demands on hostage and ceasefire deal are ‘delusional’ | CNN

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed Hamas’ proposals for a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, calling them “delusional”

Speaking to reporters, Netanyahu insisted that there was no alternative to “complete victory” over Hamas in Gaza.

Netanyahu’s hawkish response came hours after he met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken[...] Blinken said later that there was still a path to a deal.

The Hamas proposal envisaged a three-stage process over four-and-a-half months, during which Israeli troops would gradually withdraw from the enclave, hostages would be released and Palestinian prisoners in Israel would be freed, according to a copy of the group’s counteroffer obtained by CNN.[...]

Israel’s aim was “complete victory” in Gaza, Netanyahu said. “The victory is achievable; it’s not a matter of years or decades, it’s a matter of months.”

In a late-night press conference in Tel Aviv, Blinken suggested negotiations could still move forward, saying he believed Netanyahu’s “delusional” remark referred to specific elements of the Hamas proposals that were unacceptable.[...]

Hamas had proposed a three-phase deal, each lasting 45 days, that would also see the gradual release of hostages held in the enclave in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel – including those serving life sentences – as well as the start of a massive humanitarian and rebuilding effort.

Contrary to earlier demands, Hamas did not call for an immediate end to the war. Negotiations for a permanent ceasefire would take place during the truce and the remaining hostages would only be released once a final deal to end the war was agreed, the document said.[...]

Netanyahu has pledged not to stop the campaign until Israel destroys Hamas once and for all.[...]

The Israeli former hostage Adina Moshe criticized Netanyahu, saying there “won’t be any hostages to release” if his government continued its plan to completely eliminate Hamas.[...]

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters also delivered a message directly to Netanyahu and the Israeli War Cabinet in a press release on Wednesday. “If the hostages are not returned home: the citizens of Israel should know they live in a state that is not committed to their security, that the mutual responsibility in it has died,” the families forum said. “They who do not protect their citizens will find that their citizens lose faith in them and their leadership.”

7 Feb 24

[duodia]

[historyandmemes]

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than half a million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving, according to a report Thursday by the U.N. and other agencies that highlights the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s bombardment and siege on the territory in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The extent of the population’s hunger eclipsed even the near-famines in Afghanistan and Yemen of recent years, according to figures in the report. The report warned that the risk of famine is “increasing each day,” blaming the hunger on insufficient aid entering Gaza. “It doesn’t get any worse,’’ said Arif Husain, chief economist for the U.N.’s World Food Program. “I have never seen something at the scale that is happening in Gaza. And at this speed.” ... At the start of the war, Israel stopped all deliveries of food, water, medicine and fuel into the territory. After U.S. pressure, it allowed a trickle of aid in through Egypt. But U.N. agencies say only 10% of Gaza’s food needs has been entering for weeks. (Dec. 21, 2023 | Source)

DON'T LOOK AWAY.

[sayruq]

[determinate-negation]

reminds me of the nazi plans to built german settlements over warsaw after the war, among other places