"The rich and powerful don’t care if you dye your hair or pierce your nose or kiss a member of the same sex or say Hail Satan. They don’t care if you support one mainstream political faction over the other, or if you yell empty words about anarchy and revolution that aren’t pointed toward any real material goals. They care very much, however, if you are undermining public consent for military and geopolitical agendas they’ve worked very hard to propagandize the public into accepting.

The establishment never dropped the hammer on Marilyn Manson. Lady Gaga never ran into trouble with the state for singing that gay people are Born This Way. Ozzy Osbourne is living in the lap of luxury with an estimated net worth of $220 million. But groups like Kneecap and Bob Vylan are being subjected to police investigations and visa revocations for taking a stand on Palestine.

Which, of course, is only going to make their position more popular among young people with a defiant streak in them."

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-empire-has-accidentally-caused

#Israel #Palestine #Gaza #BobVylan #Kneecap #CounterCulture

An epistemological reminder.

Fascists lie, lie, lie, and lie some more.

They plant drugs and other false evidence.

They burn buildings, and worse, and then claim their enemies did it.

By all means, ask people chronicling the regime's crimes for sources. Remember, of course, that they may _be_ the sources: witnesses, friends, victims.

But do not trust anything the fascist shitheads or their defenders and enablers say. If they claim the sky is blue, look outside -- it may be on fire.

Apparently, as @f and @ssg mentioned, Bluesky has started honoring account restriction / takedown requests from Turkish government.

Bluesky has been a haven for Turkish leftist people, because both the government and X has restricted access to the leftist accounts.

After people accepted Bluesky as a safe place, their "limiting access of accounts to specific regions" is frustrating, and exhausting.

I've been promoting ActivityPub / Mastodon for years, and I'll keep on doing so.

#bluesky

#Bluesky remains important and valuable as a tool of political resistance _right now_; nobody should be scolded for using it.

But (there's always a but) the company's willingness to fold quickly to censorship demands from Turkey's government demonstrates that it is not sufficient.

Both the fact that it _can_ appease dictators, and the fact that it _does_ default to this response, show a lack of backbone: both structurally (due to centralization) and ideologically.

https://bsky.app/profile/aliskorkut.com/post/3lmul5pt34c2b