Internal emails show that the Berkeley, California Police Department (BPD) talked of building a “counter-narrative” on social media against anti-fascist protesters as BPD tweeted out their names and mugshots, then boasted of retweets and “engagement” metrics when mugshots went viral. This amounts to cops doxxing protesters and high-fiving each other over it. That's creepy, and seems like an obvious abuse of power, if not also an abuse of the law. Read the rest
Elements of the left say that antifa tactics -- direct, physical confrontations with fascists and racists -- are a "gift to the alt-right," letting them play victim and validating their paranoid fantasies about the persecution of white dudes -- but punched Nazi Richard Spencer says that antifa tactics have worked as intended, making it impossible for him to continue his on-campus recruitment tour for his forthcoming race-war.
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The Indiana Jones Melting Toht Candle
is $33.39 from Firebox, and while the listing doesn't give dimensions, it certainly gets good reviews! (via Bonnie Burton)
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Logan Rimel is parish administrator at University Lutheran Chapel of Berkeley, and identifies as a pacifist; when Rimel traveled to Charlottesville to protest the gathering of white supremacists there, he realized that it was only the willingness of antifa to confront violent Nazis that kept the racists from beating and possibly killing him and his fellow counterprotesters. Read the rest
Before Laurie Penny was a brilliant young feminist
novelist, she was a brilliant young
essayist, blazing through the British (and then the world's) media with column after column that skewered social ills on what Warren Ellis aptly dubbed her "red pen of justice."
Julio writes, "A Spanish woman was sentenced yesterday for tweeting jokes about the 1973 assassination of Carrero Blanco (the appointed successor or General Franco). She was 16 at the time of her tweeting." Read the rest
Hugh sends us this "nice anti-Nazi poster from designer Arin Fishkin building on an illustration by Paul Sizer." Read the rest
If the Democrats continue to front establishment candidates while the establishment's cherished beliefs continue to crumble, they will continue to lose. Read the rest
Anil Dash says that once we finish grieving, we need to organize. Start by figuring out who's already fighting for racial justice, against climate change, and for civil rights (including LBGTQ rights and women's rights) in your community and commit to helping them. Read the rest
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Read the rest
