D Accardi

A reminder: demonstrations are great, they’re a fun party, they are a literal demonstration of the collective power of the people.

They’re not the goal. They’re not the end. They’re not even much of a means

They’re the gateway drug that gives a taste of the joy of collective action & leads to more

This is what democracy looks like. #NoKings

Millions across all 50 US states march in No Kings protests against Trump Crowds of Americans, many in costumes, aligned behind message that US is sliding into authoritarianism

Top story when you go to The Guardian this AM. Which it is not when you go to the Washington Post or the NY Times. Apt language here, whereas WaPo describes the day as an airing of grievances as though we are a bunch of whining George Costanzas, not a vast public fearful of losing everything.

Thunberg said, “If Israel, with the whole world watching, can treat a well-known, white person with a Swedish passport this way, just imagine what they do to Palestinians behind closed doors.”

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Oh look the party that screams “family values” every five minutes is silent when one of their megachurch darlings pleads guilty to child sex abuse. But they’ll trip over themselves to ban books and attack drag shows. Tells you everything you need to know.

The Chicago ICE raid has proven once again that US citizenship is irrelevant. It is race or perceived race that matters. Anyone Black or brown is a target. Our Christofascist regime is accelerating ethnic cleansing tenfold.

Elections will not save us from this.

“…and you will be long gone, retrained or retired or ‘discouraged’ and out of the labor market, and no one will do your job. AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations.”
- Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...

“Finally: AI cannot do your job, but an AI salesman can 100%convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job, and when the bubble bursts, the money-hemorrhaging ‘foundation models’ will be shut off and we'll lose the AI that can't do your job…”
- Cory Doctorow

Strike called in Italy, protests flare over interception of Gaza aid ships Italian unions called a general strike for Friday in solidarity with the international aid flotilla for Gaza, while protests sprang up in a number of cities late on Wednesday after reports that the ships had been intercepted by military personnel.

www.reuters.com/world/europe...

This is what we have to do across the United States—or at least it’s major cities: a general strike. It may be one of the last levers we have left to stop our government from supporting genocide

“During my stay at Cornell, one of the people responsible for the university's AI strategy asked me what I thought the university should be doing about AI. I told them that they should be planning to absorb the productive residue that will be left behind after the bubble bursts.”

Excellent article on the AI bubble, how so many are over-invested in it while AI companies engage in shady accounting, and what to expect when it bursts:
pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...

UN Inquiry Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide and Calls for Arms Embargo The findings could be used by the International Court of Justice, which has a pending genocide case against Israel.

truthout.org/articles/un-...

“The UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed four of the five genocidal acts defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention, just one of which would legally constitute a genocide.“

If European politicians were serious, sanctions would be one of the simplest and most direct tools they could use.

If you're a bigot then it's neither here nor there if you use polite language to promote your hatred and prejudice. You're just a bigot.

CARTOON OF THE DAY

(Updated Version)

Zafran To build a homeland in exile, you need art, stories, and the nerve to show it. Saffron Kingdom does it well.

faysal.substack.com/p/zafran

In contrast to the recently released problematic film Songs of Paradise, Arfat Sheikh’s film on Kashmir—Saffron Kingdom—looks to be a tour de force, addressing Kashmiri life & struggles & the experience of the diaspora & those who have remained in the Valley with insight & nuance. A must see!

m.thewire.in/article/film...

It reinforces a kind of elite condescension that neither maps onto the reality (or at least my experience) of Kashmiri society nor actually helps any of us move in a better direction as a society. It only blames and pits us against each other instead of keeping us focused on our shared struggles

In any case, this false image of the wise, liberal educated elite versus uneducated, unthinking, entirely emotionally motivated (and backwards-tradition and social-pressure driven) commoners is profoundly ignorant, classist.

When my students learn about (and read some of the writings of) Kashmiri militants that are highly educated & articulate, having earned degrees from (or at least attended) top universities, their image of militants as unthinkingly violent, brainwashed terrorists are quickly shattered.

This is so integral to the liberal Indian opposition to Kashmiri resistance movements, fueling their support of the oppressive measures the Indian government and military take on everyday Kashmiris.

“Mainstream fiction films on Kashmir have relied on a reductive binary. The binary is always the same – if a character is forward-looking, it is attributed to their education, modernity or liberal values. But if a character is regressive, that burden is placed on their identity as Kashmiri Muslims.”

Excellent review of the new, problematic film on Kashmir — Songs of Paradise. I especially appreciated the section of the article “The persistent binary in Kashmir-centric cinema”:

YouTube video by Sabby Sabs Briahna Joy Gray QUESTIONS White Leftists

This.

youtu.be/qL58Ko889DU?...

@sabbysabs2.bsky.social