ProdigalFrog
A frog who wants the objective truth about anything and everything.
Admin of SLRPNK.net
XMPP: prodigalfrog@slrpnk.net
- 503 Posts
- 1.65K Comments
2·1 day agoI’d highly recommend anyone watch the show Mussolini: Son of The Century, which incredibly skillfully shows how Mussolini and his fascists came to power. The US is following the same playbook.
41·1 day agoOof, set to release 18 days after the UAW’s nationwide general strike. Might wanna reschedule that release, lads.
32·1 day agoWe haven’t even tried our most powerful non-violent tactic yet: a proper, long-term, nation wide General Strike.
The country would be brought to its knees if suddenly deprived of profit and labor, allowing us to simply ignore the democrats and their lack of spine, and instead demand real changes (abolishing ICE should be towards the top of the list).
That tactic was extremely effective in Chile in 2019, and had they not fallen for the trick of liberal reform, they would’ve had a successful revolution on their hands with virtually no bloodshed.
There are some concrete steps all of us can take toward enacting that hard-core general strike to make it more viable and bearable for us all. (the titles below expand if you click them).
Learn First Aid! ⛑️
As we’re seeing, deadly violence is being used against us and it will only continue. It extremely important to have the skills to be able to keep yourself and others alive if they get hurt.
Tacticool Girlfriend provides a great introduction to building a personal first aid kit, called an IFAK, which can deal with things like bullet wounds and other serious bleeding wounds. I also want to emphasize her recommendation of only buying medical gear from reputable sources (not Amazon!), such as North American Rescue to avoid fakes that could cost you your life.
But you’ll need to learn how to use that equipment, too. The best resource for that is to take a local Stop The Bleed class, which are pretty widely available in most places. They may cost a small fee, but can also sometimes be free. Alternatively, if you cannot access a local class, this video by PrepMedic will give you a solid understanding of how to use Tourniquets and Gauze for wound packing.
Injuries are less harmful if they are tended to early. Learning first aid can help conserve resources when healthcare becomes unaffordable. Having several medics in case of harm by police is an extremely powerful morale booster during a protest that may become a police riot. When you become comfortable with the basics of first aid, riot medicine is the next suggested step.
Establish or join local Mutual Aid networks ✊
If you haven’t already, get to know your neighbors. Mutual aid is a willingness to support and grow your community. This can include informal networks through friends, tenant/renter organizations, solidarity groups, and industrial unions.
These are groups using direct action to solve each other’s problems. Building strong communities makes it difficult for fascism to take root. The actions of the government are going to hit every community hard, and the ones who build trust in each other and work together are most likely to survive. We’ve been building a list of resources in !inperson@slrpnk.net to help you on your way. Also check out this handy guide to find existing groups in your area.
This isn’t only for your own community protection. Your ability to organize today will change the political landscape tomorrow. When revolution occurs, the social organizations that show the greatest resilience through the regime are the ones typically calling the shots when the dust settles. When it comes to elections, get out the vote drives are useless if most of the voters are fascists. At some point, you have to do grassroots political education if you don’t want fascist candidates winning elections. Mutual aid networks are excellent forums not only for teaching each other good political ideas, but demonstrating them in practice.
Join a Union and Prepare for an even longer General Strike! 💪
If you aren’t in a union (or even if you are, it’s worth dual-carding), consider joining the IWW to unionize your workplace (bonus: you’ll get higher wages, better benefits, and more time off if you succeed!) to strengthen a general strike if we manage to enact one, as most unions have a strike fund that can supplement your income during a general strike to make it more financially bearable (you should also save as much money as you can reasonably do, so it can also be used to keep yourself afloat during a strike). A General Strike is officially planned by the UAW for May 1st 2028, but it was planned before Trump was elected, and by then may be too late, so prepare now for one that may start sooner.
And for our international friends, you should join one as well, as fascism is gaining momentum globally. If your country isn’t listed below, just contact the IWW directly in the link above, and they’ll help you set up a new local branch.
Adopt Security Culture and Digital Camouflage 🛡️
Sometimes benign seeming efforts can turn into unexpected personal data collecting traps. Like an obscure website for exchanging contact info with other students turning into a global ad-tech surveillance network (Facebook), or innocent seeming online personality tests being use to harvest character profiles. Even Etsy, Reddit, Tinder, and Duolingo are feeding information to US Government Agencies like ICE.
Security culture is commonly used to describe the general awareness of such potential traps and how it can affect groups or entire communities. This goes beyond mere individual privacy efforts, as without joint efforts these often fail to work.
Especially in activist circles, security culture is paramount. For opsec reasons not everyone in the group might be aware of what clandestine efforts others are involved in, but with a general security culture many potential data leaks can be avoided.
Movements are made by the volume of their participants, and the easier and less dangerous it is to participate, the more people will get involved. As more people get involved, individual involvement becomes even less dangerous, creating a virtuous cycle.
We’ll start it off with some General Advice:
- Mentally wall off personal uniquely identifying info from your online presence, actively build a habit of opsec so that withholding information is your default mental state
- Be careful about who you meet online
- Use different, unrelated usernames, passwords & emails for every account. And try not to connect to those accounts with your real IP address (use Tor or a VPN)
- Be mindful that anything done online leaves a trail
- agents provocateurs may seek to find patsies willing to perform an ill-advised illegal activity in order to legitimize police repression. If someone is trying to pressure you, especially if you don’t have a long and proven history with them, be extremely wary.
For a full guide on what encrypted communications platforms to use, and how to stay off the radar, read the Digital Camouflage section within the Monthly Meta post here (you’ll need to scroll down. I’d add it here, but it won’t fit in this comment).
I’d also highly recommend Full Spectrum Resistance to anyone who wants further info on how to resist (audiobook version here).
We have a mealtime videos community right here on Lemmy to make it much easier to find something interesting :)
1·2 days agoOne of the biggest unions, the UAW, was already openly planning and preparing for a general strike on may 1st 2028 (planned before trump won the election), but it’s likely we’ll have to move that up. The point is, the will is there, we just need unions to collaborate, plan, and prepare.
All of the calls for one before were usually never by actual unions, as most mainstream unions are afraid to engage in one due to the taft-heartley act, and there just wasn’t the will to engage in that battle, nor were many of them preparing for it due to most unions losing their radical spirit in favor of small wage gains.
But the quick descent into fascism is seemingly finally waking them up to the need to organize one, which is happening.
I’m not saying it’d be a bad idea to prepare in other ways if the strike fails, but realize that unless there’s a fracturing of the military that joins the resistance, any violent resistance would have to be extremely limited to an Irish Troubles style at best, as anything more direct would be an open slaughter.
A violent turn would also mean losing the participation of non-violent resistance as it becomes too dangerous, leaving only a minority of militants willing to continue. I’d highly recommend reading this article, which explores the downsides of turning away from non-violent resistance.
1·3 days agoIt’s called piefed because it was built with Python (pie) and fed stands for federated. It’s only what the software (which is open source) is named.
Lemmy, piefed, mastodon, etc, are all a part of the Fediverse, which also has fed in the name…
A little under 10% of the US population is unionized, and some of the most essential jobs fall under that: train shipping, trucking, port workers, healthcare, etc.
If we can prepare them to enact a general strike, the entire country would be effectively shut down.
One of the biggest unions, the UAW, was already openly planning and preparing for a general strike on may 1st 2028 (planned before trump won the election), but it’s likely we’ll have to move that up. The point is, the will is there, we just need unions to collaborate, plan, and prepare.
It absolutely is! And we haven’t even tried our most powerful non-violent tactic yet: a proper, long-term, nation wide General Strike.
The country would be brought to its knees if suddenly deprived of profit and labor, allowing us to simply ignore the democrats and their lack of spine, and instead demand real changes (abolishing ICE should be towards the top of the list).
That tactic was extremely effective in Chile in 2019, and had they not fallen for the trick of liberal reform, they would’ve had a successful revolution on their hands with virtually no bloodshed.
There are some concrete steps all of us can take toward enacting that hard-core general strike to make it more viable and bearable for us all. (the titles below expand if you click them).
Learn First Aid! ⛑️
As we’re seeing, deadly violence is being used against us and it will only continue. It extremely important to have the skills to be able to keep yourself and others alive if they get hurt.
Tacticool Girlfriend provides a great introduction to building a personal first aid kit, called an IFAK, which can deal with things like bullet wounds and other serious bleeding wounds. I also want to emphasize her recommendation of only buying medical gear from reputable sources (not Amazon!), such as North American Rescue to avoid fakes that could cost you your life.
But you’ll need to learn how to use that equipment, too. The best resource for that is to take a local Stop The Bleed class, which are pretty widely available in most places. They may cost a small fee, but can also sometimes be free. Alternatively, if you cannot access a local class, this video by PrepMedic will give you a solid understanding of how to use Tourniquets and Gauze for wound packing.
Injuries are less harmful if they are tended to early. Learning first aid can help conserve resources when healthcare becomes unaffordable. Having several medics in case of harm by police is an extremely powerful morale booster during a protest that may become a police riot. When you become comfortable with the basics of first aid, riot medicine is the next suggested step.
Establish or join local Mutual Aid networks ✊
If you haven’t already, get to know your neighbors. Mutual aid is a willingness to support and grow your community. This can include informal networks through friends, tenant/renter organizations, solidarity groups, and industrial unions.
These are groups using direct action to solve each other’s problems. Building strong communities makes it difficult for fascism to take root. The actions of the government are going to hit every community hard, and the ones who build trust in each other and work together are most likely to survive. We’ve been building a list of resources in !inperson@slrpnk.net to help you on your way. Also check out this handy guide to find existing groups in your area.
This isn’t only for your own community protection. Your ability to organize today will change the political landscape tomorrow. When revolution occurs, the social organizations that show the greatest resilience through the regime are the ones typically calling the shots when the dust settles. When it comes to elections, get out the vote drives are useless if most of the voters are fascists. At some point, you have to do grassroots political education if you don’t want fascist candidates winning elections. Mutual aid networks are excellent forums not only for teaching each other good political ideas, but demonstrating them in practice.
Join a Union and Prepare for an even longer General Strike! 💪
If you aren’t in a union (or even if you are, it’s worth dual-carding), consider joining the IWW to unionize your workplace (bonus: you’ll get higher wages, better benefits, and more time off if you succeed!) to strengthen a general strike if we manage to enact one, as most unions have a strike fund that can supplement your income during a general strike to make it more financially bearable (you should also save as much money as you can reasonably do, so it can also be used to keep yourself afloat during a strike). A General Strike is officially planned by the UAW for May 1st 2028, but it was planned before Trump was elected, and by then may be too late, so prepare now for one that may start sooner.
And for our international friends, you should join one as well, as fascism is gaining momentum globally. If your country isn’t listed below, just contact the IWW directly in the link above, and they’ll help you set up a new local branch.
Adopt Security Culture and Digital Camouflage 🛡️
Sometimes benign seeming efforts can turn into unexpected personal data collecting traps. Like an obscure website for exchanging contact info with other students turning into a global ad-tech surveillance network (Facebook), or innocent seeming online personality tests being use to harvest character profiles. Even Etsy, Reddit, Tinder, and Duolingo are feeding information to US Government Agencies like ICE.
Security culture is commonly used to describe the general awareness of such potential traps and how it can affect groups or entire communities. This goes beyond mere individual privacy efforts, as without joint efforts these often fail to work.
Especially in activist circles, security culture is paramount. For opsec reasons not everyone in the group might be aware of what clandestine efforts others are involved in, but with a general security culture many potential data leaks can be avoided.
Movements are made by the volume of their participants, and the easier and less dangerous it is to participate, the more people will get involved. As more people get involved, individual involvement becomes even less dangerous, creating a virtuous cycle.
We’ll start it off with some General Advice:
- Mentally wall off personal uniquely identifying info from your online presence, actively build a habit of opsec so that withholding information is your default mental state
- Be careful about who you meet online
- Use different, unrelated usernames, passwords & emails for every account. And try not to connect to those accounts with your real IP address (use Tor or a VPN)
- Be mindful that anything done online leaves a trail
- agents provocateurs may seek to find patsies willing to perform an ill-advised illegal activity in order to legitimize police repression. If someone is trying to pressure you, especially if you don’t have a long and proven history with them, be extremely wary.
For a full guide on what encrypted communications platforms to use, and how to stay off the radar, read the Digital Camouflage section within the Monthly Meta post here (you’ll need to scroll down. I’d add it here, but it won’t fit in this comment).
I’d also highly recommend Full Spectrum Resistance to anyone who wants further info on how to resist (audiobook version here).
There’s multiple piefed instances, but I don’t see why any of the general instances would oppose you creating a community that has archive.org links, it’s not like its a pirate site or anything.
You could also continue to post to the archive community on .ml from a piefed instance.
6·3 days agoStar Trek is written from the perspective of post-scarcity. There is unlimited free energy, replicators that can create virtually any object from base materials, and an abolishment of money (there is no need for it in post-scarcity, as money is ostensibly just a way to distribute resources).
Rowan J Coleman explores the practical ramifications of that in a 3 part series here, if you’re interested.
I believe that the defederation is only one way (from .cafe’s side), so while your instance will no longer request new content from .cafe, if a user from your instance manually inputs a direct link to a post from .cafe, I think it can still be fetched one at a time (might be somewhat wrong about that, but I’m pretty sure that’s the gist of it).
However, any posts or comments left to that community would only be seen by other users on your own instance, it would not federate out.
For anyone reading who needs help finding a group to help chip in with: check if you have a local Food Not Bombs chapter near you. They’re a grassroots movement that helps feed whoever needs food on a regular schedule.
Alternatively, if you have a local Mutual Aid group (search your town/city name + ‘mutual aid’ to find them, or refer to this more in-depth guide if that fails), I’m sure they’d appreciate some help too! :)
FYI, piefed fully federates with Lemmy instances, so it’s pretty much an alternative Lemmy with some extra features.
You can export all of your subscriptions, saved posts/comments and blocked user/comms by clicking the export button in your profile, which will give you a file you can import to any new account on a different Lemmy or piefed instance.
I know that Lemmy.cafe is defederated from your instance, which hosts an active mealtime videos and documentaries community, if that interests you.
A good neutral instance would be sopuli.xyz if you want to stick with Lemmy, or piefed.ca if you’d like to give the piefed interface a try.
Piefed has some neat features unique to it, such as:
- a very nice gallery view for image heavy communities.
- the ability to combine comments from multiple communities/instances under one post, if the same link was posted to all of them. You can see an example of that here (notice how the comments have dividers for each community).
- the ability to create and subscribe to a pre-made list of communities, sorta like a multi-reddit.
Humans synthesize Vitamin A from Beta Carotene in plants. Only a small minority of people who are genetically predisposed to less efficient conversion of Beta Carotene would need to supplement with the retinyl form (readily available in supplements)
Per the NIH:
The human diet contains two sources for vitamin A: preformed vitamin A (retinol and retinyl esters) and provitamin A carotenoids [1,5]. Preformed vitamin A is found in foods from animal sources, including dairy products, eggs, fish, and organ meats [1,2]. Provitamin A carotenoids are plant pigments that include beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, and beta-cryptoxanthin [1]. The body converts provitamin A carotenoids into vitamin A in the intestine via the beta-carotene monooxygenase type 1 BCMO1 enzyme [1,3,6], although conversion rates may have genetic variability
I’m not sure how you cooked your impossible burger, but personally I can’t tell the difference between those or an animal beef burger. It’s so good (IMO, obviously you feel different) that I’m puzzled why so many people say they’re waiting for lab grown meat, when we already have such an incredible, affordable plant based alternative available in most stores right now.
Movim (an XMPP client) covers most of that. I think it’s currently working on having a collection of rooms be in one channel, but it already has group chats, group video calls, screen sharing, and permissions in groups.
It doesn’t have forums in it, but it does allow users to have blogs.