There was a time in my life when 'being myself causes the collapse of the American Empire' would have seemed like a great deal. And, I mean, I'm not going to stop living a life worth living and I'm definitely not sad to see American hegemony fail. But I didn't realize just how much it would suck.

On a real Walter Benjamin kick recently. Which is been great, tbh, but it somehow makes the accumulation of wrongs in the present feel even more crushing.

To be fair, hardly the first time SCOTUS has ruled that torture is a-okay. Like, obviously fuck this rancid, evil country and the rancid, evil people who make it like this. But, yeah... Not surprised to see the court that loves torture still loves torture!

Gee, looking at the ruling on addictivity in socials, the problem of responsibility in AI written code, and the social harm of tech over the last decade, one might almost thing some form of responsibility for the people building the tech was necessary. If only we had a model. A stamp, maybe?

It's like living through a war that is quiet to everyone but your community and the people prosecuting it. Knowing that even if the quiet war hasn't touched you today, it is going to. That you can't escape it. And no one else even sees you.

Like, stripping away the context of Singapore's role in the order that is falling away, this is a really good basic reading of what has now changed.

I keep getting the names Harry Benjamin and Walter Benjamin reversed and it's eventually going to end with me saying something that sounds incredibly stupid.

The latest episode of Philosophy Tube is about conversion therapy, why it’s still legal in the UK, and the ways the British government is implicated in it making it NHS policy. Proud to expose this stuff ✊ youtu.be/_S5w18sjYLk?...

On one hand, American hegemony was weak. It'd been fraying for a while. It's not that, had the fascists played by the old rules, American hegemony would have lasted much longer. It's just that they did what every failing empire does and concluded that masculinity was obviously the missing piece.

I really cannot emphasize to anyone not from the US how much you should not come here right now. Like, if not because we don't deserve your money (and we don't), then because it is not safe to be subject to our immigration or visa systems.

How the goddamned fuck is the World Cup still happening in the US

I really think that the standard demand from trans Americans to would-be elected officials should not be "what will you do to restore our rights", but rather "what will you do to ensure this never happens again and punish those who have engaged in or conspired to engage in crimes against humanity?"

Wow, it's almost like physical, on the ground organizing isn't frictionless and it's been TWELVE DAYS since the war effectively came out of nowhere. You're so fucking cooked from social media you think the whole world is goddamn posts. Why aren't the kids POSTING!!111 Fuck's sake.

i DO appreciate my sex, because i changed it 👌

Great, we're doing the 'brave' discourse again. What's brave about doing the only thing that made me want to live? I'm a coward. I spent years hating life because I was afraid to admit things. First, to myself. Then the world. It took the stark choice about whether to keep living to change that.

This article makes all the important points. Being self-centered and feel the need to add: I wasn't an effeminate boy! We aren't a monolith! The ways we engage with gender vary. You don't have to be particularly "feminine" to be transfem! And even if, like me, you're femme of center post transition

The only thing the US needed to do to see the fall of the Iranian state and its replacement was nothing. If Khamenei died of natural causes, the succession fight would have weakened the regime to the point that popular opposition in Tehran could have toppled it. But the US made him a martyr instead.

The level of civilian death because of Trump's mad crusade is going to be tremendous and it is probably going to last far past the end of the war itself. War is an environmental crisis, and the US seems to be going out of its way to make that environmental crisis worse.

This is just a depraved level of evil. It's sadly not new. The US has done things like this before. But it has been unforgivable every time it has done so and remains unforgivable now.

Unquestionably trading down for DHS. Stupider and arguably meaner.

If you need an example of just how clearly /not/ a democracy the United States is, 27% of Americans support this madness. And six members of the purported opposition party are positioning themselves to vote to fund it (seven actually, since the demented ogre will, too).

American libs, strapped into the Onion hypno machine: I... Understand... I must repeat... The mistakes of Obama...

There is a reflexive tendency in the American center-left to respond to the US going to war by trying to emphasize how bad /this/ war is while simultaneously retreating to a jingoist defense of Americans/American soldiers/America out of the fear that not being for the war will look unpatriotic.

Being trans is great. In order to distract yourself from the people trying to kill you irl, you pick up a random novel and get a full shotgun blast of "hey, remember when we killed those guys and dressed them up as ballerinas? Sure was funny!" Really? What's the joke? Go on, tell me.

Two theocratic, competitive authoritarian states are at war. Both are absolute monstrosities that abuse queer people and seek to impose brutal patriarchy through state violence. This is a case study for revolutionary defeatism.

I mean, sure, this all sucks ass and is pure demon shit. But Season 17 of Blowback is gonna be fire, I guess?

Br*tish liberals advancing a soulless, corporate husk who will throw vulnerable people under the bus, advance the cause of fascism, and do so with the general affect and charisma of a damp paper-towel? Where have I heard this story before?

One of the most demoralizing elements of living through this is observing the sheer number of crimes that deserve Nuremburg level prosecutions being committed and realizing that the list has grown so long that people will inevitably forget about some of them. This is another crime for the list.

This is not something you do if your aim is a stable, democratic Iran. It's something you do if you want either a client-state governed by weak authoritarians or collapse into warlordism or Balkanization. Do not let any of these demons convince you that they care what happens to the people of Iran

Fascists are never competent. But, in this case, the incompetence was serving a purpose. Sure, these people are too stupid for the jobs they have, but not understanding that Iran was negotiating in good faith made it easier to justify the war they wanted.

The past decade should, for any state, lead to the inescapable conclusion that if a nation does not wish to be subject to imperialist abuses, its first priority must be the acquisition of a nuclear arsenal. Sovereignty, it seems, can only be purchased with the coin of mutual annihilation.

May every leader of the United States and every individual complicit in carrying out their violent policies face legal consequences for them. May every world leader who endorses their bloodthirst face legal consequences. This, too, can never be forgiven.

Any American soldier following illegal orders to attack Iran is, of course, a criminal. This will be ignored because the Empire gets what the Empire wants. But make no mistake: members of the American military doing this are no better than members of ICE. They, too, are fascist criminals.

Even knowing this was going to happen, it's still just beyond maddening how truly evil the US is on every level.

Sometimes good things (small) happen.

ICYMI: I introduced my Trans Bill of Rights with @markey.senate.gov — legislation to defend trans people across this country as Republicans continue to push anti-trans rhetoric and bills. To our beloved trans community: We see you, we love you, and we will always stand with you.

1/19 While at Gawker, Hamilton Nolan wrote a disgusting article about Ava Cordero, a teenage trans girl who was an Epstein victim and one of the earliest whistleblowers on his proclivities. www.gawkerarchives.com/5310014/prom...

19/19 And now that it’s irrefutable how their transmisogynist smear campaigns are part and parcel of how the American empire’s most important sex trafficking ring operates, we desperately need the world to look us in the eye, owe us a great, big apology and never forget that WE FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!

They're going to keep grinding you down to nothing and replacing you with a college student in five years if you don't stand up for yourselves. Then they'll do the same thing to that kid. They've been doing it for decades now. Disrupt the game industry. It needs to be disrupted.

Getting gender euphoria out of being absolutely baffled by this weird shit. The... Bird is smoking? Okay? Sure. Have fun, dude.

The biggest risk in this moment is something sociologists call “symbolic compliance.” That’s when an institution that is violating civil rights gives the public just enough symbolic victories that accountability efforts lose steam before there has been any meaningful change.

It shouldn't take an inspiring victim to arouse universal outrage at state violence. It shouldn't take a white victim. It shouldn't take a male victim. It shouldn't take a straight victim.

I would be very surprised if a full accounting in the future didn't reveal more than one mass grave at the detention centers. If they're behaving this way in public, what's happening out of sight must be many times more brutal.

As an amateur historian, nations only act like this when they're very, very sick.

Nonviolent, unobstructive actions are punishable by death. After the state wantonly murders you in the street, the government will lie about it, the opposition will beg for inaction, and the media will distort reality. Are you ready to believe you live in an authoritarian state yet?

are they not monsters?

Spent a lot of time trying to find the language to say exactly this:

Whatever small protections the brief liberalism of post-War America offered are gone. The illusion of any form of American liberty is gone. Even if you thought it an institution worth protecting, the institution has been abolished in all but name. Why cling to patriotism for a fake country?

TBH, I have zero sympathy for Europeans. Fuck America and anyone loyal to this pathetic country, but Europeans don't get to pretend this isn't just the weapon they've gleefully pointed at the rest of the world finally pointing at them. Sucks when that boomerang comes 'round, huh?