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Mantra: “We should focus our actions, time, and resources on Direct Action, Mutual Aid, and Community Outreach… No War but Class War!”

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Song: https://youtu.be/fabi8nyjsYc

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 5th, 2023

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  • “I’m Gonna Miss Her” is a single released by Brad Paisley as the second single off of his album Part II. The song reached the top of the Billboard Hot Country songs chart.

    The song describes a man who goes fishing a lot. He is confronted by his wife at home after one of the fishing trips where she tells him that he has to choose between her or the fishing. The song then describes how Brad is “gonna miss her”, the listener can then figure out that Brad choose fishing over his wife.

    According to a 2004 issue of Country Weekly magazine, Brad said he co-wrote the song with Frank Rogers in high school during a talent contest where he decided to write a comedy song instead of the ballads he was writing prior.[1]


    1. [1] https://genius.com/Brad-paisley-im-gonna-miss-her-lyrics ↩︎




  • Generated Summary Below:


    Video Description:

    Former member of the Greek parliament and Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to explain how capitalism is dead and a new form of capital, the title of his new book, “Technofeudalism,” has arisen and holds power akin to the feudal lords of medieval times.


    Generated Summary:

    Introduction to [Technofeudalism]

    • [Yanis] Varoufakis, a former Greek Parliament member and Minister of Finance, presents his argument in his book titled " [Technofeudalism]: What Killed Capitalism." He posits that capitalism is no longer viable and has been replaced by a new system he refers to as [Technofeudalism].
    • Varoufakis claims that the dynamics of capitalism that once governed economic systems have ceased to function effectively, leading to the emergence of this new economic paradigm.
    • He identifies two primary forces that contributed to the rise of [Technofeudalism]: the privatization of the Internet by major tech companies in China and the United States, and the responses of Western governments and central banks to the 2008 financial crisis.
    • The author introduces the concept of “Cloud Capital,” which he argues has dismantled the foundational pillars of capitalism, specifically markets and profits, leading to a new form of economic structure.

    The Shift from Capitalism to Cloud Capital

    • Varoufakis explains that traditional markets, which served as the medium of capitalism, have been replaced by digital trading platforms that superficially resemble markets but fundamentally differ from them.
    • He asserts that profits, once the driving force of capitalism, have been supplanted by a form of rent that must be paid to access digital platforms and the cloud, which he terms “Cloud Rent.”
    • The ownership of wealth and power has shifted from traditional capital owners, such as those owning machinery and infrastructure, to the owners of cloud capital, leading to a return of individuals to a status akin to serfs.
    • Varoufakis warns that this transformation threatens individual autonomy and freedom as people contribute to the wealth of a new ruling class through both unpaid and waged labor.

    Defining Cloud Capital

    • In discussing Cloud Capital, Varoufakis elaborates on its origins and characteristics, noting that capital has existed in various forms long before the advent of capitalism.
    • He describes Cloud Capital as an automated network composed of technology and machinery, which is designed not for production in the traditional sense but for behavioral modification.
    • The interaction with devices like Siri, Google Assistant, or Amazon Alexa exemplifies how individuals unknowingly train these systems while simultaneously being influenced by them.
    • Varoufakis highlights that this automated system can shape desires and preferences, leading to a direct sale of products bypassing traditional market structures.

    The Impact on Labor and Employment

    • The author discusses the implications of [Technofeudalism] on labor, particularly for those in traditional wage labor positions, such as workers in warehouses or factories.
    • He notes that modern workplaces utilize advanced algorithms to monitor and manage workers, significantly altering the nature of work and reducing autonomy.
    • Varoufakis contrasts the revenue allocation of traditional manufacturers, which historically allocated a large percentage of revenue to wages, with modern tech companies that allocate significantly less.
    • This shift in capital distribution contributes to a decrease in job quality and availability, exacerbating economic inequality and diminishing opportunities for wage laborers.

    The Role of Central Banks and Financial Systems

    • Varoufakis emphasizes the role of central banks in the post-2008 financial landscape, arguing that their actions have not saved capitalism but instead facilitated its transformation into [Technofeudalism].
    • He describes how the financial system’s reliance on printed money has encouraged the growth of cloud capital while imposing austerity measures on the general populace.
    • The author points out that the financial benefits of central bank actions have primarily accrued to large tech companies rather than traditional industries, leading to a disconnection between capital investment and real economic growth.
    • Varoufakis concludes that this transformation has resulted in a new class of economic elites, whom he refers to as “Cloudists,” who operate outside the traditional capitalist framework.

    Collective Action and Resistance

    • In the latter part of the discussion, Varoufakis explores potential avenues for resistance against the forces of [Technofeudalism], emphasizing the need for collective action.
    • He suggests that traditional forms of labor organizing must be combined with modern digital tools to effectively challenge the dominance of cloud capital.
    • Varoufakis offers practical examples, such as creating parallel payment systems and organizing consumer boycotts, to empower individuals and communities.
    • He advocates for a rebalancing of power dynamics, where the working class can leverage cloud capital to their advantage, thus transforming the current economic landscape.

    About Channel:

    Covering US foreign policy, economic realities, and civil liberties in American society.

    About: Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, author and commentator provides compelling story telling, archive interviews & show content covering US foreign policy, economic realities and civil liberties in American society.




  • Advocacy group America’s Voice believes that U.S. rural and agricultural regions will likely be the hardest hit by Trump’s immigration policies, which threaten mass detention and deportation of millions.

    Border Patrol agents in unmarked vehicles have allegedly been carrying out racially profiled raids in California’s agricultural center after stalking immigrants outside stores, CalMatters reports.

    Estimates suggest that between 400,000-800,000 people are farmworkers in California, which is responsible for about 13% percent of the country’s agricultural production value that is worth more than $25 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    The USDA estimated that between 2020-2022 about 32% of crop farmworkers were U.S. born, 7% were immigrants who had obtained citizenship, 19% were authorized immigrants, mostly permanent residents or green-card holders and the remaining 42% were unauthorized to work. The majority of these workers have Latino backgrounds.

    The AV report noted how anti-immigrant crackdowns in the past decade have led to devastating impacts for farms, such as crop rot, across several states, including Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

    "The unmarked cars, the racial profiling, abusive harassment, and wide dragnets are likely just the tip of the spear of the incoming administration and the signs are unmistakable: there are ‘enemy invaders’ within threatening everything ‘real Americans’ hold dear, and the federal government will be interested in critical oversight in how local officials deal with the ‘enemy.’

    It warns, "The tone and culture they set will be just as important as the policies they begin to implement. As individual law enforcement and vigilantes feel empowered to take drastic action with little concern for consequences or oversight, our situation could get out of hand quickly and mass family separations will likely begin again. And, as we saw, the impacts will be felt by families, communities, businesses – and, frankly, all of us.



  • For those interested in learning about Operation Paperclip:

    Although he officially sanctioned the operation, President Harry Truman forbade the agency from recruiting any Nazi members or active Nazi supporters. Nevertheless, officials within the JIOA and Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—the forerunner to the CIA—bypassed this directive by eliminating or whitewashing incriminating evidence of possible war crimes from the scientists’ records, believing their intelligence to be crucial to the country’s postwar efforts.

    Although defenders of the clandestine operation argue that the balance of power could have easily shifted to the Soviet Union during the Cold War if these Nazi scientists were not brought to the United States, opponents point to the ethical cost of ignoring their abhorrent war crimes without punishment or accountability.[1]


    I just posted a video of Annie Jacobsen talking about Nuclear War, she also wrote a book about Operation Paperclip.[2]

    In the days and weeks after Germany’s surrender, American troops combed the European countryside in search of hidden caches of weaponry to collect. They came across facets of the Nazi war machine that the top brass were shocked to see, writer Annie Jacobsen told NPR’s All Things Considered in 2014. Jacobson wrote about both the mission and the scientists in her book, Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists To America.

    “One example was they had no idea that Hitler had created this whole arsenal of nerve agents,” Jacobsen says. “They had no idea that Hitler was working on a bubonic plague weapon. That is really where Paperclip began, which was suddenly the Pentagon realizing, ‘Wait a minute, we need these weapons for ourselves.’"[3]


    1. [1] https://www.history.com/news/what-was-operation-paperclip ↩︎

    2. [2] https://lemmy.world/post/24646542 ↩︎

    3. [3] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-us-government-brought-nazi-scientists-america-after-world-war-ii-180961110/ ↩︎




  • Damn, Aurora is linked to google and you need to login to get apks, unlike F-Droid.

    Aurora Store enables you to search and download apps from the official Google Play store. You can check app descriptions, screenshots, updates, reviews, and download the APK directly from Google Play to your device. To use Aurora Store, you need to have a Google Play account, and log in to your Google Play account when you first open and configure Aurora Store.

    (Alternatively Aurora Store also allow you to login anonymously)

    Unlike a traditional app store, Aurora Store does not own, license or distribute any apps. All the apps, app descriptions, screenshots and other content in Aurora Store are directly accessed, downloaded and/or displayed from Google Play.

    Aurora Store works exactly like a door or a browser, allowing you to log in to your Google Play account and find the apps from Google Play.

    Please note that Aurora Store does not have any approval, sponsorship or authorization from Google, Google Play, any apps downloaded through Aurora Store or any app developers; neither does Aurora Store have any affiliation, cooperation or connection with them.


    F-Droid is cool, but limited with apks.

    https://f-droid.org/

    F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.






  • Wow, awesome!

    If interested, you should look into the billionaires that own a good amount of California water, and the politicians that help them.

    Videos:

    More Perfect Union, 08:08: https://lemmy.world/post/24266937

    Sabby Sabs, 33:29: https://lemmy.world/post/24258142

    Briahna Joy Gray, 30:26: https://lemmy.world/post/24260706


    TIL

    YOU CAN’T CUT BACK ON FUNDING! YOU WILL REGRET THIS! is a catchphrase originating from the video game Sim City 2000, where it is shouted towards the player (the mayor) by the transportation advisor if he attempts to cut transit funding.

    While it isn’t the character’s name, he is sometimes referred to as “Norm” due to his similar appearance to Norm Abram of This Old House.[9][1]

    This Old House, The New Yankee Workshop, and Ask This Old House are great shows to learn DIY skills!


    For those interested in Norm:

    On May 19, 2022, it was announced that after 43 years, Abram would retire from the show. A one hour special titled The House that Norm Built aired online and on PBS stations on October 3, 2022, surveying his career with the program.[11][12]

    In 1988, Morash planned to launch a spinoff of This Old House called The New Yankee Workshop, featuring Abram. They needed a convenient place to videotape, and used the shop in the small building that Abram built in 1979 in Morash’s backyard.[10] The shop’s layout and equipment were expanded and adapted to match Abram’s preferences, in a space measuring 36 by 26 feet (11.0 by 7.9 m).[13][14] The New Yankee Workshop was first aired in 1989 with Abram as the host.[4] The program showcased furniture or other projects and emphasized classic, elegant designs, made using a combination of simple handtools and newer power tools and equipment.[4] The show aired for 21 seasons on PBS, then was suspended indefinitely as Abram decided to focus on other projects.[10][15][16]

    He has also contributed to efforts to train younger students in the building trades, such as the Generation NEXT apprenticeship program.[10]

    More recently, he bought a new old house in Rhode Island near the coast, where he plans to build a new woodworking shop, and he is also interested in learning shipbuilding.[16][23][2]

    He is still going strong, yt video 3 days ago:

    Website: https://www.newyankee.com/

    Youtube: https://youtube.com/@newyankeeworkshop


    Edit: fixed last quote, and fixed second citation format


    1. [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-cant-cut-back-on-funding-you-will-regret-this ↩︎

    2. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_Abram ↩︎











  • “I do apologize for any strife or trauma, but it had to be done,” the Ivy League graduate reportedly wrote in a manifesto admitting to killing UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson. “These parasites had it coming.”

    Luigi Mangione—the 26-year-old man arrested in Pennsylvania Monday on gun charges and suspected of last week’s assassination of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson—was carrying a manifesto condemning insurance industry greed, police said after his apprehension.

    New York Police Department (NYPD) Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione was in possession of a 9mm handgun—possibly a ghost gun made with numerous parts or a 3D printer—the type used to kill Thompson, as well as a silencer and what he described as an anti-corporate manifesto.

    Three bullet casings were inscribed with the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose”—a phrase commonly used by critics to describe insurance industry tactics to avoid paying patient claims. UnitedHealth, the nation’s biggest private insurer, is notorious for denying more claims than any other insurance company.

    Mangione’s social media posts run the gamut from praising the opinions of right-wing figures like Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson to leaving positive reviews on Goodreads for books including Dr. Seuss’ cautionary environmental tale The Lorax and the manifesto of Theodore Kaczynski—better known as the Unabomber.

    “He had the balls to recognize that peaceful protest has gotten us absolutely nowhere and at the end of the day, he’s probably right,” Mangione controversially opined of Kaczynski, whom he called “an extreme political revolutionary.”

    “When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive,” he asserted.




  • Alt. Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20241007151423/https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/atandt-verizon-reportedly-hacked-to-target-us-govt-wiretapping-platform/


    Multiple U.S. broadband providers, including Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies, have been breached by a Chinese hacking group tracked as Salt Typhoon, the Wall Street Journal reports.

    It is unclear when the intrusion occurred, but WSJ cites people familiar with the matter, saying that “for months or longer, the hackers might have held access to network infrastructure used to cooperate with lawful U.S. requests for communications data.”

    According to the WSJ, the attack was discovered in recent weeks and is being investigated by the U.S. government and security experts in the private sector.

    Salt Typhoon has been active since at least 2019 and is considered a sophisticated hacking group focusing on government entities and telecommunications companies typically in the Southeast Asia region.

    Security researchers also found that the threat actor attacked hotels, engineering companies, and law firms in Brazil, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Canada, Israel, France, Guatemala, Lithuania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.

    The hackers usually obtain initial access to the target network by exploiting vulnerabilities, such as the ProxyLogon vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server (CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065).

    In previous attacks attributed to Salt Typhoon/Ghost Emperor, the threat actor used a custom backdoor called SparrowDoor, customized versions of the Mimikatz tool for extracting authentication data, and a Windows kernel-mode rootkit Demodex.

    Chinese APT hacking groups have been increasingly targeting U.S. and European networking devices and ISPs in cyberespionage attacks.

    In August, cybersecurity researchers at Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs disclosed that the Chinese threat actors known as “Volt Typhoon” exploited a zero-day flaw in Versa Director to steal credentials and breach corporate networks. During these attacks, the threat actors breached multiple ISPs and MSPs in the U.S. and India, which is not believed to be related to the recent breaches.

    In September, Black Lotus Labs and law enforcement disrupted a massive Chinese botnet named “Raptor Train” that compromised over 260,000 SOHO routers, IP cameras with malware. This botnet was used by the “Flax Typhoon” threat actors for DDoS attacks and as a proxy to launch stealthy attacks on other organizations.

    While these attacks have been attributed to different Chinese hacking groups, they are believed to operate under the same umbrella, commonly sharing infrastructure and tools.