Sociology, CSU Chico, author Black Flags and Social Movements
#Sociology #SocialMovements #Inequality #Trust #AnarchistStudies #Race #fedi22 #CFA union
The fight for a #FreePress isn't just a duel between major #news corporations and the federal government. It also occurs in highly-local contexts, like between student journalists and universities obsessed with their PR-managed images.
#Journalists for the #CSUChico newspaper The Orion were told they were "entitled" and "demanding".
This is a great piece by my #CSUChico colleague Eran Zelnik, writing to #FBI director Kash Patel about being Israeli-born, pro-#Palestinian, and a naturalized American #Jewish historian:
"I’ve called the #Gaza war a genocide and spoken in favor of sanctions on #Israel. I was also in the #IDF. I ask the FBI: should you arrest me?"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/10/jewish-israeli-gaza-trump-protest-fascism
"Fascist education works by strategically erasing accounts of history and current events that include a diversity of perspectives, narrowing the scope of what can be taught until students are presented with a single viewpoint, which is formulated specifically to justify and perpetuate a hierarchy of value between groups. This narrowing is inconsistent with multi-racial democracy, antithetical to egalitarianism, and carries the possibility of conjuring mass violence.
But this is not the only means by which authoritarian movements attempt to manipulate populations into accepting the supremacy of a single dominant group. They also sometimes employ an even more scorched-earth strategy, destroying any common reality that could serve as the basis for a broad alliance between citizens against power. They seek to accomplish this by destroying the institution of public education itself."
- Jason Stanley, "Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future"
Now, this, this is the way to defeat an autocrat: flocking behaviour. Rutgers University Senate has called for the Big 10 academic institutions to create a joint defence fund and make resources available to any member institution under attack.
That link's below. But for a précis of why and how this shit can actually work, here's a piece I wrote during Trump's first term:
https://globalcomment.com/how-to-defeat-an-autocrat-flocking-behaviour/
It can be done. You just have to have a spine. Go read the resolution
Saying the quiet part out loud: billionaires don't want the little people around, they want us to quietly go away and stop existing on their dime (because obviously all the dimes belong to the deserving poor, er, billionaires).
This is eliminationist rhetoric, aimed at you (and me).
The author of "How #Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them", books it north to Canada to escape #fascist takeover of the US
"The United States is in the process of an autocratic takeover and it's directed by a regime that I don't think will want to leave power," said Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy
One of the first things that I tell survivors of domestic abuse who are concerned about the safety of their devices to do is to check the security of their accounts. Techcrunch has a guide on how to do that.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/25/how-to-tell-if-your-online-accounts-have-been-hacked/?guccounter=1
It’s one thing if I—a four-year college grad with a B.A. in sociology—say that the political situation is deteriorating here in the United States. It’s quite another when it’s Yale professor Jason Stanley, who studies fascism specifically. After Columbia University’s cowardly capitulation to the Trump administration, he packed his bags, headed to Canada, and joined the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy—where hopefully, he can continue to study fascism without being the target of it.
Do I have to tell you this is a bad sign? Y’all, THIS IS A BAD SIGN.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/yale-professor-fascism-canada
NEW DATA: The Federal Reserve reports that just 4% of American households own any crypto, and most of it is in the hands of a tiny group of rich investors.
Trump’s new crypto bailout is a big wealth transfer from the working-class to a handful of moguls. https://www.levernews.com/who-actually-owns-crypto/
Just finished #reading Ali Meghji's book "Decolonizing #Sociology"--great analysis of how #colonialism affected the sociology discipline & theoretical #canon. He argues for subverting sociological imperialism, centering the process and effects of coloniality within sociological research, & embracing #autonomous sociologies. It's very readable & approachable, clear in argument but also in its advocacy for walking a new path. Highly recommended, even for students.
If you want to understand the #SpanishCivilWar's complexities, I strongly recommend Revolution and the State, by Danny Evans. He describes the large #anarchist #movement centered in #Catalonia, and how a multitude of organizations & strategic tendencies existed during the #CivilWar. While #anarchism struggled due to a lack of assistance from Western countries, and attacks by both fascists & Stalinists, compromises (e.g., joining the gov't) also forestalled the #SocialRevolution.
@kestral I know! Perhaps the punchline is available if you login. Guess I'll never know...
@kestral I saw this a few days ago and thought it was a joke. If not, it's actually really sad...
The #WashingtonPost’s opinion section will now advance Jeff #Bezos’ “two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” Anyone not on board with this “significant shift” can take a hike, Bezos seemed to tell Post employees in a note he shared on X.
That was Wednesday morning. By evening, Bezos was dining with President #Trump.
https://fair.org/home/to-cozy-up-to-trump-bezos-banishes-dissent-from-wapo/
National Science Foundation Fires 168 Workers as Federal Purge Continues
https://www.wired.com/story/national-science-foundation-february-2025-firings/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Security News @security-news-WIRED
For those of us who are increasingly in positions where we cannot count on the rule of law to protect our digital privacy or security, here are some thoughts on how to threat model for your community: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/building-community-privacy-plan
Stop saying “artificial intelligence”. (And “neural networks” too.)
Be more specific. Say “reinforcement learning”. Say “generative modelling”. Say “Bayesian filtering”. Say “statistical prediction”.
These are incredibly useful tools that have nothing to do with “intelligence”.
And say “model trained on plagiarised data”.
Say “bullshit generator”.
Say “internet regurgitator”.
These are also nothing to do with intelligence, but they have the added bonus of being useless, too.
As Vance 'lectures' Europe on free speech, it is good to be reminded that the United States ranks 55 (!) on the World Press Freedom Index.
The top 10 countries are ALL in Europe.
🧵"So this is how liberty dies..." Trump’s first 3 weeks have been a relentless flood of actions. It's incredibly hard to keep up. I’ve gone through 69 actions & mapped out the pattern - showing how they fall within 5 broad domains consistent with authoritarian states 1/9
A timely reminder of the difference between a house organ and independent journalism.
