![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraThe other interesting thing about rereading Moving On is that I actually go through a brief interval of disorientation when I put the book down like I'm kind of surprised to find myself in my present time/space continuum. I expect to be somewhere else.
I have no idea whether this is due to the immersive quality of the prose or the fact that I have read this book so many times before, & in such a wide variety of settings, that my mind doesn't quite know where to throw down its anchor.
###
Meanwhile...
The political situation in the U.S. continues to grow worse & worse.
Thousands of international students attending U.S. universities apparently woke up this morning to emails urging them to self-deport. This is not being reported upon in the American press, only in the international press. Some of these students engaged in campus protests against American-backed destruction in Gaza—but some of them only denounced American-backed destruction in Gaza on social media sites, and some of them only "liked" postings denouncing American-backed destruction in Gaza on social media sites.
This is a Very Big Thing.
Essentially, it means the Facebook community apparatus that once upon a time was scanning your posts to make sure they were inference-free of racial, national, religious, & gender slurs is now on the hunt for sedition.
I personally do not understand how anyone thinks they can get away with posting naked political dissent on social media sites right now. I shudder every time one of my sweet friends posts, Let's not pay our taxes!
I've been using pseudonyms in place of politicians' names for over five years now, figuring that AI will be struggling a while longer to make the leap from the literal to the figurative.
And I'm quite confident it will be safe to post dissident thoughts via remote cyber-outposts like LiveJournal & Dreamwidth for a while longer because nobody actually reads LJ & DW. If you feel well-intentioned toward the poster, you may leave a heart or remark about their first sentence. But are you actually reading what they wrote? Are you reading this? No.
###
The other Big Thing that's happening now is Trump's attempts to overhaul U.S. elections by executive order. He wants presumptive voters to prove citizenship at the polls.
Of course, there is no legal way Trump can overhaul U.S. elections by executive order since the U.S. Constitution clearly assigns that right to the states. Thus, Red states will go along with Trump's voter suppression attempts, and Blue states will not.
In a way, this executive order pleases me because it gives a very actionable agenda for resistance—namely: We should all be assisting potential Red state voters in tracking down those birth certificates and other documents that prove citizenship so they can continue to exercise their vote.
If I had an extra million dollars or so lying around, I would consider setting up a 501c3 for this purpose.
###
There's a Big Protest scheduled for next Saturday, April 5th.
I'm a bit ambivalent about attending.
On the one hand, one feels one must do something.
On the other hand, I'm not sure the protests will be accurately reported on in the American press—and if they're not reported on, they're essentially a meaningless type of virtue signaling.
If I go, I'm going to protest in Middletown—prime Trumplandia country! And I'm going to research ways of thwarting facial recognition software.
###
Meanwhile, I didn't accomplish nearly enough Remuneration-wise as I wanted to yesterday and must hunker down today.
Sigh...
I have no idea whether this is due to the immersive quality of the prose or the fact that I have read this book so many times before, & in such a wide variety of settings, that my mind doesn't quite know where to throw down its anchor.
###
Meanwhile...
The political situation in the U.S. continues to grow worse & worse.
Thousands of international students attending U.S. universities apparently woke up this morning to emails urging them to self-deport. This is not being reported upon in the American press, only in the international press. Some of these students engaged in campus protests against American-backed destruction in Gaza—but some of them only denounced American-backed destruction in Gaza on social media sites, and some of them only "liked" postings denouncing American-backed destruction in Gaza on social media sites.
This is a Very Big Thing.
Essentially, it means the Facebook community apparatus that once upon a time was scanning your posts to make sure they were inference-free of racial, national, religious, & gender slurs is now on the hunt for sedition.
I personally do not understand how anyone thinks they can get away with posting naked political dissent on social media sites right now. I shudder every time one of my sweet friends posts, Let's not pay our taxes!
I've been using pseudonyms in place of politicians' names for over five years now, figuring that AI will be struggling a while longer to make the leap from the literal to the figurative.
And I'm quite confident it will be safe to post dissident thoughts via remote cyber-outposts like LiveJournal & Dreamwidth for a while longer because nobody actually reads LJ & DW. If you feel well-intentioned toward the poster, you may leave a heart or remark about their first sentence. But are you actually reading what they wrote? Are you reading this? No.
###
The other Big Thing that's happening now is Trump's attempts to overhaul U.S. elections by executive order. He wants presumptive voters to prove citizenship at the polls.
Of course, there is no legal way Trump can overhaul U.S. elections by executive order since the U.S. Constitution clearly assigns that right to the states. Thus, Red states will go along with Trump's voter suppression attempts, and Blue states will not.
In a way, this executive order pleases me because it gives a very actionable agenda for resistance—namely: We should all be assisting potential Red state voters in tracking down those birth certificates and other documents that prove citizenship so they can continue to exercise their vote.
If I had an extra million dollars or so lying around, I would consider setting up a 501c3 for this purpose.
###
There's a Big Protest scheduled for next Saturday, April 5th.
I'm a bit ambivalent about attending.
On the one hand, one feels one must do something.
On the other hand, I'm not sure the protests will be accurately reported on in the American press—and if they're not reported on, they're essentially a meaningless type of virtue signaling.
If I go, I'm going to protest in Middletown—prime Trumplandia country! And I'm going to research ways of thwarting facial recognition software.
###
Meanwhile, I didn't accomplish nearly enough Remuneration-wise as I wanted to yesterday and must hunker down today.
Sigh...
