What the Epstein files show is the *solidarity* of many men-across class, race, religion, profession & party affiliation-in the global political project of keeping the boot on women's necks. People have no problem understanding class solidarity among the rich. Why can't they see gender solidarity?

A reminder that this anti-trans panic is 100% bullshit and exactly none of our country’s problems are related to someone expressing their gender identity and everyone who isn’t a hate-filled weirdo knows it.

(They’re not cowards, they’re wealthy people protecting their own interests, and years ago they made the very smart calculation that it was better to be perceived as cowards who care than as ruthless career politicians who only truly care about cash and power.)

'Human nature' is the capacity to categorize others as part of self. Extending the boundaries of concern, people often help strangers in emergencies. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

am reminded of the old joke: what did James Watson discover? Rosalind Franklin’s notes.

pretty autumn view

can you even ✨imagine✨ the world we would have right now if we had spent the hundreds of BILLIONS that were invested in ai in art, science and social mobility instead?

Reminder that this is a winning position, and people support it

"Here we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many black women Trump has fired, a single mom waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with your back against the wall. Your struggle is ours too."

This is it exactly. Also, I can not stress enough how the real reason for the American War of Independence was a desire to keep slavery following the British court ruling of Somerset v Stewart in 1772 which was very negative towards the institution (and morality) of slavery.

Good morning, friends!

Starving millions as winter sets in is a special kind of cruelty

The City of Boston became the second-largest city in the world to outlaw facial surveillance — banning both the technology itself and any information it produces. 👁️❌

Because President Botstein understands the job of a university president. Protective your students.

sufficient unto the day is the fuckwittery thereof

In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.

In Boston we really, really don’t like kings

good morning

After 2024, pundits brushed off the Resistance as cringe. I submit: Yes, it was. And cringe is good. Cringe, in fact, will save democracy.

experiencing a possibly new dark pattern for being on hold on a customer service line - aside from repetition of the the maddeningly untrue “your call is very important to us” lie; the loudness is periodically raised to almost painful levels. Too bad, pal! I’m that stubborn and now determined

If I had explain American history in one sentence, I could do worse than "John Brown was hung for treason, but Robert E. Lee was not."

“you versus the antifascist she told you not to worry about“

I can’t help but think this is all related. Dems are disastrously failing to meet the crisis of totalitarianism - fighting against young, exciting candidates; still following campaign advisers from the 90s; “bipartisanism”- maybe because because deep down they hate/fear the future/progress?

I will repost every portland frog joke

in case you want some non bullshit about antifa here is something i wrote buttondown.com/theswordandt...

It cannot be made clearer. If you continue to support the Harry Potter franchise in any way, you are directly funding the removal of trans people's human rights in the UK.

The situation in America is not great. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

how about you care about actual fucking people on this planet before you start wondering if your toaster has a soul. Once everyone materially demonstrates they care for all people on this planet and we deal WITH ALL THAT and all the animals too then we can talk about your nonsense.

The truth about conservatives is their fears are based on what they’d do in a similar situation. Every moral panic from conservatives is a roadmap of what they’d do if they had power.

one of the most important, clarifying and centering discussions of our current U situation by Ta-Nehisi Coates “I’m all for unifying, I’m all for bridging gaps, but not at the expense of my neighbor’s humanity. I just can’t” (via @angryblacklady.bsky.social) archive.is/rfoT1

The most accurate recreation of DS9 I've seen.

Someday people will start noticing that the most eminent roboticist in the world has an uninterrupted multi-decade record of deep skepticism about almost all uses of robotics and “AI” that has been proven uniformly correct

What gets me is that the type of advantage that Democrats are enjoying with women, and particularly young women, is the kind of advantage that a political party would normally kill for, especially since women are typically the more frequent voters and volunteers. But it's never framed that way!

Here's what the new co-owner of TikTok US and existing co-owner of the Tony Blair Institute (the 'let's do digital ID' guys) had to say this time last year. This is who's dictating and planning to profit from mandatory government digital ID, starting with immigrants and expanding to everyone else.

BREAKING: The Massachusetts Senate passed the Massachusetts Data Privacy Act S.2608, which would provide strong privacy protections for us all — including a complete ban on sale of sensitive data. ACLU of MA and our fellow advocates applaud this action to protect our democracy and personal safety!

I think this argument (see picture) by Jamelle Bouie, and the points that followed from David French, are exactly right. The right has gotten the idea that politicians and elites control American culture in a very top-down way. This is mostly, as Bouie says, "a bit of projection"...

I would love for a single democrat to reckon with the fact that conservatives are not in fact motivated by reasonable concerns. They are — just as they were with ‘concerns’ over blacks and gays and numerous other minorities over the last five decades — motivated by bigotry.

Either we have autonomy over our own bodies or we are not full citizens. Full stop.

Gotta be honest and say that it once again feels stressful that all the evil people are doing evil things and making life worse for everyone

This is not an abstract belief about lofty ideals. It's simple cause and effect. If the state can summarily decide someone is a criminal without any evidence or a trial, you are a criminal if the states say you are. And if they can do whatever they want to criminals... that includes you.

at scale

History has proven that when you sacrifice someone for everyone, you sacrifice everyone.

Them: “Cities are all rotting hellscapes!” Cities:

lol at Massachusetts State flag contest blog (I have lived here more than half my life but will never be a true Bostonian bc DD coffee is awful)

If I remember right, there’s a bit in Sarah Schulman’s great book The Gentrification of the Mind where she writes beautifully and persuasively about how experiences like riding the subway help New Yorkers all see each other as equals, and sometimes I think that’s what really scares conservatives.

reposted this today because the inverse is also true: if you abandon trans people right now, you are abandoning civil rights period. if you can't stand up for trans people when it matters, no one should, or will, ever trust you when the bullseye moves to the next target.

Bottom line: a Democratic candidate does not, under any circumstance, have to hand it to the fascists. That doesn't make the candidate seem reasonable to people in the middle making up their mind. It makes the fascists seem reasonable... and makes anybody calling them fascists seem unreasonable.

There is not one marginalized, racialized, or oppressed group whose oppression or destruction is an acceptable cost for saving "democracy." Not one. If saving democracy requires leaving marginalized people behind, that's not a democracy worth saving. Either we all get saved or none of us do.