Benjamin Stewart

Bern, I love you but the hypocrisy is the point. This kind of post doesn’t help.

Attacks on Iran Draw Fire From Mainline, Catholic, and Middle Eastern Christian Leaders This issue of A Public Witness looks at mainline Protestant and Catholic criticism of the Trump administration’s actions in Iran and the pleas for peace by Middle Eastern Christian leaders.

Trump's illegal war on Iran isn't popular with Americans. And many mainline Protestant & Catholic leaders have quickly condemned it:
publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/attacks-on...

this is such a weirdly breezy and inexact response about a guy with multiple nazi affiliations.

Hoping somehow you’ve missed the background on this guy? Otherwise oof.

Facebook Post: "Have heard from an Iranian friend that her partner in Teheran has sent her a message. He is a leftist and is telling her that the US/Israelis are targeting a number of known leftists homes in Teheran and elsewhere in an attempt to make sure there's no opposition to their favoured candidate once they destroy the regime. What this reveals is the degree of penetration by Mossad in Iran. What it also means is that this is not going to be an easy occupation for the US and its Israeli buddies."

Underrated just how much the US and Israel have been desecrating the very idea of diplomatic engagement by doing these obvious bait and switches.

This is the third time now that negotiations were used as cover to prepare for a war already decided. The lesson is to never speak to the US.

spoiler: there are no good reasons.

If you don't know that already, log off.

As a Black man with Tourette Syndrome, the Public Advocate has some thoughts on BAFTA, Pt. 1:

Hear about his experience with Coprolalia, his thoughts on how BAFTA mishandled the moment, and the need for care for all who are harmed:

Full video: youtu.be/FgaqKIxS4Hs

Minnesota faith groups sue DHS over access to immigrant detainees It's at least the second lawsuit challenging the federal government's policy of barring faith leaders from accessing some DHS facilities.

NEW: Three Minnesota faith groups/leaders — local ELCA and UCC bodies, and a Jesuit priest — are suing DHS over its refusal to grant them access to immigrant detainees at a federal building.

It's one of 2 related suits filed against the government in recent months. religionnews.com/2026/02/23/f...

Kurt Vonnegut stop being so applicable to all time periods of American life, you can’t do that Kurt Vonnegut, your insights are too evergreen Kurt Vonnegut

View looking west of the Split Rock Lighthouse sitting on the rugged shoreline of Lake Superior. // Image captured at: 2026-02-20 23:18:12 UTC (about 1 min. prior to this post) // Image sourced from: youtube.com/@DuluthHarborCam1 // Current Temp in Two Harbors: 22.34 F | -5.37 C // Precip: broken clouds // Wind: NW at 8.970 mph | 14.43 kph // Humidity: 81%

Current* conditions near Two Harbors, MN:

“Mechanizing timekeeping separate from nature changed how we think and behave, spawning new psychology and sparking rebellion”

I have been saying this for almost a year and it is long past due for Dems to adopt this framing for 2 reasons:

1) it is entirely and demonstrably true.

2) the public must be prepared for the enormity of what will be required to dismantle the criminal organization and create a better democracy.

Fake, should delete

Pope Leo: “We perceive in the ashes imposed on us the weight of a world that is ablaze, of entire cities destroyed by war. This is also reflected in the ashes of international law and justice among peoples, the ashes of entire ecosystems and harmony among peoples, the ashes of critical thinking.”

Whew folks need to watch the clip if they don’t know this particular one. There is no missing the point: this is about *black* power and dignity. Powerful and beautiful.

"the camp was raided to confiscate letters from the children"

I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is

Jesse Jackson – a life in pictures The US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, a pioneer of progressive Democratic politics, close ally of Martin Luther King Jr, and two-time candidate for the presidential nomination, has died at 84

“Jackson is arrested in 1993 after blocking 5th Avenue as part of a group protesting against the Clinton administration’s policy of maintaining a detention camp for Haitian political refugees who were HIV positive”

Remember this history as we remember this man.

Keen observation: “Neither Lekach-Rosenberg nor Osorto favors interfaith services that dilute tradition. Both opened the service acknowledging their hesitation but later said they realized the service offered their congregations a way to imagine a future beyond the crisis”

If you want to understand why rich guys are turning back to eugenics and recreating the rhetoric and theology of slavery, it’s because they know on some level this level of wealth inequality is unjustifiable bsky.app/profile/marl...

Race and class/capital are part of the story too. Which seems consistent with gender theory, I think?

They want to scare people out of posting ICE-critical content, because they know these posts are turning even their supporters against them. But the better option is to take a page out of their playbook and flood the zone.

O’Toole notes Good and Pretti were executed for it but as he writes: “The sin of civic ‘interference’ is in fact the saving grace of democracy.”

Bro just log off for a while

ICE has completely broken our social contract.

They manipulate social trust and are creating lasting damage to our most basic social foundations

networked "confidence men"

Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry was oddly prophetic.

Our degrowth and liberation theology book in the spring, Hannah's abolition book on the fall, they're cooking over there at @fortresspress.bsky.social.

We have whistles. They have guns. The asymmetry is real, and the danger is not rhetorical. But the history of state repression does not turn on weapons and violence alone. It turns on whether isolation succeeds and fear fragments those subjected to it, or whether coordination interrupts that process. A whistle cannot revive lives lost, but it can prevent disappearance. It generates witnesses, produces visibility, and transforms individual vulnerability into collective agency. It functions not as a substitute for law, but as a refusal to wait for law to secure what it has already failed to protect. This is not a call for refinement or recalibration of immigration enforcement following months of federal occupation in Minneapolis. It is a call to name failure plainly. When ICE's ordinary operations require protection from law rather than obedience to it, abolition is not a radical slogan but a natural conclusion.

Hey, read this. lpeproject.org/blog/whistli...

Northland faith leaders demand Rep. Stauber vote against DHS funding With the DHS funding deadline just days away, faith leaders are demanding Congress completely defund ICE.

Faith leaders in Duluth: no more 💰4🧊 - pretty good reporting (though i look cold!) @isaiahmn.org #ICEout www.northernnewsnow.com/video/2026/0...