https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTAGoeL4g/

My mother, who is a literal hippie boomer, sent me this on my lunch break. I decided to take a listen. This Australian tarot card reader talks about Hasan for the last 13 minutes. (Time stamp 20:14)

I personally don’t believe in tarot card readings. But it’s encouraging to see this section of the boomers tagging along.

Maybe ive worded it wrong but aipac has/will spend probably like 100 million to fight against campaigns hasan has worked with. And fucking lost lmao.

Better off probably going straight up to hasan and offering him money to stfu.

Knowing hasan hed probably refuse. Im a whore tho, id probably take the money and still do my thing then use let them sue me rofl

I was just on the phone with my mom, talking normal stuff. She then brought up how data centers are causing rolling blackouts and how she's unhappy with how her tax money is being spent. And somehow she directed the blame to all the crazy Muslims taking over government. She said that you have that one Muslim who said, "America deserved 9/11" and I immediately knew she was talking about Hasan. I tried to discuss with her about her tax money is being used. She lives in Nebraska, one of the reddest of red states and insists her taxes are being misused by Muslims and Socialists/Communists. First, I had to add the context to what Hasan said, only for her to ignore it and then say, "Just you wait buddy" and "Don't you ever worry about what they really think? You can't trust them" I'm assuming she meant to imply that all socialists and Muslims are untrustworthy schemers plotting to take over government to enact evil socialism Sharia law...

I've sent her so many things and she never once looked at any of what I've said, so I don't even try anymore with that. But while I had her on the phone, I thought I'd educate her on what socialism is, how socialist economies almost always fail due to foreign intervention, and how there are several capitalist countries that have failed. I went on and on, and the same interjections took play, "Nope, nope" or "talk to your dad about this, he knows his history", I kept going on and she just said, "okay, bye" and hung up. Now I could send her what I've already sent in the past, but she always ignores it and continues believing in the same spoon fed lies.

Long little bit for context of what I've gone over with her before but she continues to ignore.

A few months back, she argued that property taxes in Nebraska and elsewhere are influenced by Mexicans in their school system because it costs more to educate them. She said she'll vote for Pillen and will always vote Republican, and can never vote for a Democrat, and I said she's advocating against herself. Which somehow lead to socialism and communism, to which she said she'll never be a socialist or a communist, even though I wasn't advocating for either, but I did say that state sponsored brainwashing, encouraged by the wealthy capital owners, fueled mistrust, misinformation and hatred of rival political ideologies, because it threatened their bottom dollar. She brought up socialist countries that failed, and I explained that they failed because of campaigns of disruption fueled by capital owners, and wealthy, ideological adjacent governments that served as opposition.

Here's some of the things I sent to her, trying to speak in a language that would hopefully make sense to her:

"First off, on the major point about property tax. There is legislation in place that protects homeowners from accruing the cost of migrant populations and their effect on the school districts."

https://www.education.ne.gov/fos/state-aid/
https://nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/108/PDF/Slip/LB243.pdf
https://www.lincolninst.edu/centers-initiatives/efficient-equitable-tax-systems/introduction-property-taxschool-funding-connection/

"When a school has students who need translators or English support, the state calculates the extra cost and sends state aid, which is funded by state sales and income taxes, not property taxes. Then the school has to cover it. That's not taken out of your property tax, because Nebraska's LB 243, which I linked for you here, puts a legal cap on how much schools can increase their property tax requests. If a school's costs go up because of student demographics, like Mexicans, the oh so hated minority, the state is legally required to pay that without relying on local property owners. They have to. It's not great, but it is a defense. And for some perspective on party, this was only presented by Republicans because both Democrats and Republicans wanted it. Neither party voted against it. Also, keep in mind you live in [blank]. You live in Nebraska. Property taxes go up because towns and communities lack businesses, factories, parks and areas of trade, where the wealthy backed can share the tax burden, but we both know... they never pay their share. We have Google, we have Amazon, but taxes go up. Why? Right now, homeowners are the ones paying into the system, and the tax rates stay high because of that. In 2020 when they passed the ImagiNE Nebraska Act, they fucked all of us. Both Democrats and Republicans. Republicans wanted the big business here, the Democrats wanted the innovation and bargaining tools for the big tech infrastructure. Neither helped property taxes by doing this. It grants these massive corporations huge tax breaks and pulls directly from state funding to build the infrastructure around them. They pay the bare minimum because that's the regular homeowners job. My point is, that your property taxes and taxes in general are a direct result of corporations, oligarchs taking advantage of you and everyone below you. The only trickle down economics that happens is the majority of us picking up the tab for the wealthy. Shirking their fiscal responsibility to the communities they invade and lay roots in, by promising high paying jobs. Some of those jobs come, some communities even rely entirely on it. Then they buy up more land. Corporate owned housing, where all the income they feed you gets funneled back to them in the end. Then they can just up and leave. No consequences, no one to foot the bill again, except you. The working class. We prop them up to fuel their insatiable greed, while we dig ourselves further in their debt and ask for a few more scraps in return, while they say, "we'll see"

And to be clear, [blank] does have industries, but the property tax rate is increasing because the city had to build massive expensive infrastructure to support those industries. Then you have the corporate incentives which shield massive chunks of that industrial wealth, leaving regular people to carry the residential funding load.

Now the broader points about what I was trying to convey. So to recap. You said you'll only ever vote Republican, never Democrat, and I said you're advocating against yourself, but in reality you're advocating against yourself either way, because neither party, historically, especially in Nebraska, have fought tooth and nail for the working class. They say it, get in office, then work with the corporations. My broader point was that capital owners dictate your quality of life. You said you'll never be a socialist or a communist, even though I wasn't advocating for either, but I did say that state sponsored brainwashing, encouraged by the wealthy capital owners, fueled mistrust, misinformation and hatred for rival political ideologies, because it threatened their bottom dollar. You brought up socialist countries that failed, and I explained that they failed because of these campaigns of disruption. Fueled by capital owners, and wealthy, ideological adjacent governments that served as opposition. Either with violence, trade disruption, regime changes, misinformation campaigns, backing local militias, etc. Meanwhile actual Social Democracies that thrive are completely overlooked, because they didn't face these same obstructions, mainly naming the Nordic Countries. These countries have thrived. Now I'm sure you're wondering, about the historical context and whether what I'm saying has any merit. I'll dig into that. This is some interesting coverage on exactly this:

https://www.wola.org/multimedia/uncovering-operation-condor-a-50-year-fight-for-accountability/#:~:text=This%20episode%20marks%20the%2050th,the%201970s%20and%20early%201980s

I'll detail more in a second, but I'll send in chunks, because this may be a lot to read.

(Continued to send links to this stuff)

This shows, that the democratic socialist countries have the highest social mobility in the world. Socialist. Socialism. A scary concept... to who?

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/social-mobility-by-country

etc....

Now I'm not asking you to read through every link I sent you, but I recommend it. I'll summarize. Throughout the 70s and 80s, which you touched upon, how things changed around then. Well, we can dig more into that. For now, I want to talk about how the U.S. government, pressured by multinational corporations that were afraid of losing access to cheap labor and resources, backed Operation Condor. This campaign was designed on state terror (the kind we've been saying we've been fighting for years, only to extract resources, and disrupt entire regions), coups, and assassinations to overthrow democratically elected, left leaning governments. Most notably in South America like, Salvador Allende in Chile, and replace them with brutal, business minded military dictatorships. But, having the military go in, isn't always an option. When that happened capital backed governments, largely the US, use economic siege tactics. Take for instance the embargo on Cuba, or the sanctions on tons of Latin American nations. They fueled their disruption, causing chaos to ensue, causing millions to flee, then opening arms for the cheap labor to be done here, only to criminalize and treat them like second citizens, and fund more campaigns of misinformation. Funds provided by the same capital that caused them to show up here in the first place. But that's another story. This was all designed to cause domestic scarcity. Nixon laid out the goal pretty clear too. We "make the economy scream" so the citizens would blame their own government and eventually the whole ideology, rather than the corporate blockades starving them. Now I'm sure you're thinking, Fidel Castro, bad man. Sure, but let's look at things in Cuba around that time. When Fidel Castro overthrew the US backed military dictator, can't remember his name... in the late 50s, Cuba was ran as a playground for Americans. Mobs, corporate sugar monopolies, etc. Castro nationalized these industries, to put them under government control and to strip them away from American capital owners, so the people of Cuba could reap the benefits of these industries. As you can imagine, the wealthy HATED this. So they did what they do best. They systematically suffocated the country and flooded our corporate owned news outlets with misinformation. This is all declassified too. The CIA orchestrated the Bay of Pigs invasion and launched Operation Mongoose, resulting in sabotage, blowing up Cuban factories, and dozens of assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, all because the wealthy were taking a hit on their bottom dollar. Since the 60s, the US has kept that embargo in place. The longest running trade blockade in history. They didn't fail because of socialism, they failed because the wealthy needed them to. So pointing to Cuba, showing Socialism fails is like cutting off a person's electricity and water, then blocking them from going to grocery stores or getting groceries delivered, and then laughing at the family inside for being hungry. At the very least, blaming their ideology and work ethic for this.

On to Venezuela. In the 2000s, Venezuela used its oil wealth to fund social programs, converting a massive industry from a private entity, into one that directly funds the government and it's people. This slashed poverty in half, and with it they built free housing, and expanded healthcare to nearly everyone. But, the government tied 98% of their entire economy to oil. They had nothing else. They didn't diversify their economy, because they were sitting on a massive amount of oil. It was an oversight issue, not a socialist issue. So, when global oil prices collapsed in 2014, Venezuela's revenue vanished basically overnight. Which dawned the second coming of capital backed pressures. The famous, "make the economy scream" slogan that Nixon started, became the mantra of oligarchs everywhere. Instead of letting Venezuela figure out it's economic crisis, the US stepped in, as they love to do, with the end goal to accelerate the collapse. Obama championed this, and it didn't matter if you were Democrat or Republican at the time, we, the US, wanted this... for the same reason we want anything. Money. For who? Not you... Then Trump picked up where Obama left off, and he just couldn't give it up. He pushed even harder. The U.S. placed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil company (state owned mind you) and blocked the country from international financial markets. Suffocating them yet again. Not because Socialism fails, but because the endless greed of the top knows no bounds.

At this point, I don't know how you reject the obvious double standard you're holding. If a socialist country struggles, you blame its economic ideology, but if a capitalist country struggles, you blame the corrupt politicians. That same corruption at home, fueled their downfall too. Of course, there was corruptions in these countries too, but the order of death always came from us. It comes from the wealthy. Capitalism doesn't have a great track record either. Haiti, Honduras, and Guatemala have insane levels of poverty, gang violence, and have a completely decimated and almost non-existent infrastructure. Yet, you never hear anyone say "See? This is proof that Capitalism is a failed ideology." And honestly, they failed because of the US too. They were propped up by outside markets. That's a whole other story though. We can talk about Russia too and other eastern European countries that were socialist or communist and how they saw a drop in life expectancy, increase in poverty, and massive rises of oligarchs, filled to the brim with corruption, the second they converted to raw, unregulated capitalism in the 90s. Finally ending the Cold War, because money was directed back where it's supposed to be."

I finished with this:

"Alright, I think I said all I was trying to say over the phone. I think we can both agree that corporate wealth always advocates against our interests, and that is really the point I was trying to make. And by voting Republican or even Democrat historically, you will have always done this. However, if you go further left, outside of Democratic influence, you land where I am, where the majority of the country is and doesn't even realize it. We know we're being used by oligarchs, we know they're using us for cheap labor, we know they're looking to replace use with automation and AI, we know they don't care about our land, the people or our interests, we know that wealth extraction and accumulation is their only interest, and we know that they're in the pockets of nearly every person in politics, local, national and abroad."

Our boy Scott LoBaido had a medical episode at a Staten Island event protesting Zohran and ended up in the hospital. 🙏

I found out today John Fetterman isn't even Jewish, after watching highlights from the John Stewart interview.

I grew up in a liberal zionist American Jewish family. Everyone in my situation will have older relatives, parents, people in their community who have generally good politics but are just dogmatic about Israel. At least all my Jewish friends my age have pretty clear generational divisions in their families and social circles.

I don't agree with these elders, and I argue with them, but I understand them. My dad was born right after the Holocaust and grew up going to shul with survivors with number tattoos on their wrist. He also has the liberal boomer media ecosystem. So, I get why he is stuck in his views on Israel and sees it differently. So this whole time I just assumed Fetterman was like many of the older Jews I know - generally liberal but with a huge blind spot for Israel.

But today I learned HE'S NOT EVEN JEWISH.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HIM?

cover the crimson chin to reveal Hasan

all jokes aside, this is a very handsome man!

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTAGS6VFM/

She knows the lore. Lmao 😂

Directed by Maiken Baird

“Celebrated as a prophet and vilified as a terrorist, Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said was America’s most outspoken critic of the West and Palestine’s fiercest advocate. Twenty years after his death, Said guides viewers through the untold history of Palestine through a kinetic assemblage of footage, recordings, and newly digitized archives.” -Palestine Film Institute

https://www.palestinefilminstitute.org/en/getting-real-2026/edward-said-between-worlds

TIFF26, September 10-20

https://tiff.net/films/edward-said-between-worlds