Politics

Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.

iPhone security: Hard locking and lockdown mode

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An iPhone showing the Lockdown Mode pre-activation warning screen.

IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE PROTESTING or in any sort of situation where there’s a higher-than-average chance of having potentially adversarial encounters with the police, and if you have an iPhone, please remember these two tips:

  1. Memorize how to quickly “hard lock” your phone. It’s easy to do, even as you’re pulling your phone out of your pocket or bag: hold the power button and either volume button for about two seconds. Your screen will flip to show the “slide to power off” toggle, along with the Medical ID and emergency call toggles. Once you’ve done this, Face ID/Touch ID is disabled, and you must enter your passcode to unlock the phone. (If you keep holding the buttons for five or more seconds, your phone will automatically call emergency services.)

    While there are some legal disputes over this, currently the police cannot force you to surrender your phone passcode, but they might be allowed to force you to use Touch ID/Face ID to unlock it. By hard locking your phone, you’re locking them out until/unless they get a warrant. If the police ever ask you to surrender your phone, hard lock it as you hand it to them.

    I also recommend switching from a standard 4- or 6-digit passcode to a longer, alphanumeric password. To set this up, go to Settings > Touch ID/Face ID & Passcode, tap Turn Passcode On, and tap Passcode Options and set your passcode. This is much more secure than a short numerical passcode, and if your phone ever gets confiscated, will make it much more difficult for authorities to gain access to your phone.

  2. Either before you join the protest, or if you see the police presence start to ramp up, TURN ON LOCKDOWN MODE.

    Settings > Privacy & Security > Lockdown Mode > On

    Note: This is not a setting that most people need to have enabled full-time. It’s designed, in Apple’s words, “for the very few individuals who, because of who they are or what they do, might be personally targeted by some of the most sophisticated digital threats.” Turning it on will severely restrict how your phone works in a number of ways (see Apple’s Lockdown Mode support document for details). However, it also makes it much more difficult for anyone to track you, intercept your communications, or otherwise gain access to your phone.

Make your voices heard! But keep yourself safe as you do.

Android users will have to do their own research for these or similar techniques. Or get better phones. ;) (Yes, I’m kidding. Use what works for you.)

(Image yoinked from AppleInsider’s Lockdown Mode post until I can make my own.)

Don’t want to support Nazis? Don’t support Substack.

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Substack vocally and proudly supports and platforms writers of Nazi viewpoints.

If you don’t want to support writers of Nazi viewpoints, don’t give Substack money through paid subscriptions to anyone who publishes there, and certainly don’t publish through them yourself.

If you use Substack to publish your writing, go somewhere else. There are options.

If you read someone who publishes via Substack, encourage them to publish somewhere else and stop your subscription until they do. If you really want to keep reading what they publish without a subscription (if they offer that option), learn how to subscribe via an RSS reader so that you’re not visiting the website and creating impressions that way.

Here’s what Substack said earlier today about their ongoing commitment to freedom of the press:

Elon Musk has been a vocal supporter of free speech. It’s no secret that we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but he deserves a lot of credit for advancing freedom of speech on X, before it was popular and in the face of fierce criticism and opposition….

We will continue to support editorial freedom and the hands-off approach to content moderation that we have had in place since the company was founded in 2017….

As a platform, we are committed to supporting the speech rights of creators and their audiences, so we avoid political or business commitments that conflict with this mission. We buy into the old idea that we can strongly disagree with what someone has to say and still defend their right to say it.

In other words: Paradox of tolerance? Never heard about it, don’t really care.

Other resources on Substack’s ongoing Nazi platforming (with thanks to Imani Gandy for collecting these):

  • March 17, 2021, Annalee Newitz in The Hypothesis): “Here’s why Substack’s scam worked so well“:

    Substack also seems to have a secret list of writers who are allowed to violate the company’s terms of service. These people dish out hate speech, but remain on the platform with paid subscribers. Among them is Graham Linehan, who was already booted from Twitter for hate speech against trans people, and whose Substack is entirely devoted to the idea that trans women are a danger to cis women and should be stopped.

  • November 28, 2023, Jonathan M. Katz in The Atlantic: “Substack Has a Nazi Problem“:

    Substack’s leaders also proudly disdain the content-moderation methods that other platforms employ, albeit with spotty results, to limit the spread of racist or bigoted speech. An informal search of the Substack website and of extremist Telegram channels that circulate Substack posts turns up scores of white-supremacist, neo-Confederate, and explicitly Nazi newsletters on Substack—many of them apparently started in the past year.

  • November 19, 2024, Anil Dash: “Don’t call it a Substack.“:

    Substack is, just as a reminder, a political project made by extremists with a goal of normalizing a radical, hateful agenda by co-opting well-intentioned creators’ work in service of cross-promoting attacks on the vulnerable. You don’t have to take my word for it; Substack’s CEO explicitly said they won’t ban someone who is explicitly spouting hate, and when confronted with the rampant white supremacist propaganda that they are profiting from on their site, they took down… four of the Nazis. Four. There are countless more now, and they want to use your email newsletter to cross-promote that content and legitimize it. Nobody can ban the hateful content site if your nice little newsletter is on there, too, and your musings for your subscribers are all the cover they need.

  • December 18, 2024, Marisa Kabas in The Handbasket: “Substack is at it again“:

    Nearly 250 Substacks posted an open letter to the founders on their respective sites in mid-December of last year after journalist Jonathan Katz’s piece for The Atlantic revealed an ugly truth: the platform was monetizing Nazis. The open letter campaign resulted in coverage from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, Fast Company, The Verge, Tech Dirt, and others. It was a roar the founders couldn’t ignore, and they responded with a truly baffling post explaining their decision to stay the course.

There are other options than Substack (and more beyond those, I’m sure). Stop supporting businesses that make their money by platforming the worst of humanity.

Gruber: If I never see it, I don’t care.

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I’ve been reading John Gruber’s Daring Fireball for years. His posts generally fall into one of three categories: Apple and tech sphere commentary that I tend to respect and appreciate reading, even when I don’t necessarily agree; baseball blather that I don’t care at all about; and occasional current events and political commentary that sometimes works for me, sometimes doesn’t.

But last week he surprised me with a remarkably blatant and forthright declaration of uncaring privilege. I’ve let it sit for a few days, but kept coming back to it, so here we are.

In responding to a post by Anil Dash about Substack, primarily advocating for writers to stop calling their posts/newsletters “Substacks” and therefore doing Substack’s marketing for them, Gruber notes Dash’s reminder that Substack has no issues with platforming Nazis and others on the far-right.

And his take is, despite many people whose opinions he says he respects refusing to support Substack because of this policy, he hasn’t personally seen stuff like this, so he doesn’t care. Literally, that’s what he said:

I know a bunch of good, smart people who see Substack like Dash does, and refuse to pay for any publication on Substack’s platform because of their “Hey we’re just a neutral publishing platform, not an editor, let alone a censor” stance. What I can say, personally, is that I read and pay for several publications on Substack, and for the last few weeks I’ve tried using their iOS app (more on this in a moment), and I’ve never once seen a whiff of anything even vaguely right-wing, let alone hateful. Not a whiff. If it’s there, I never see it. If I never see it, I don’t care.

Sure, this is a pretty common attitude to have. But it’s surprising to me to see it stated so publicly and blatantly. Instead of listening to and believing Dash and the other people in Gruber’s circles who have called Substack out on this (and it’s not like it’s difficult to find people talking about this: here’s TechCrunch, The Verge, the New York Times, and NBC News, and that’s just the first four links on a Duck Duck Go search for “substack won’t ban nazis“), he just shrugs it all away with “if I never see it, I don’t care”.

Look, lots of people publish on Substack. Not everyone is going to want to cut it out entirely, especially if writers they rely on use that as their primary or sole outlet. I have a few people I read regularly that still publish on Substack (I just read what I can for free via RSS rather than supporting Substack by subscribing to the paid content).

But even in that case, a thoughtful response would be closer to “I understand and support your choice, though for these reasons, I’m not going to walk away entirely”, not, “if I never see it, I don’t care.”

Just…ugh. Do better.

Fuck

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Well, that happened.

This country is well and truly fucked, for at least the next four years, and likely (for reasons ranging from another few far-right SCOTUS judges to the possible complete abrogation of the democratic system) much longer.

And clearly, nobody should listen to my political forecasting at all.

Election Eve 2024

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It’s (the morning of) election eve 2024, and given the stakes here, I figured I’d actually ramble for a little bit.

Anyone reading this around the time of publication knows what the stakes are, and if someone in the indeterminate future is reading this, historians are either looking at 2024 in wonderment at how we got to this point, or aren’t allowed to look at it because history isn’t a thing that exists outside of propaganda. Whatever the case, no need to do a deep dive into the specifics right now.

Still and all, believe it or not, I’m actually feeling hopeful that we’re going to make it through the next day (and the coming weeks) with Harris in the White House and our democracy intact.

My hand placing my ballot envelope in the outgoing mail slot of our neighborhood mailbox.

I hesitate to describe this as optimism. I think there’s a definite difference between optimism, which is often seen as (even if not intended as) ignoring reality and potential downsides in favor of blindly professing that “everything is going to be great, you’ll see”, and hope, which recognizes the downsides but also believes that better outcomes are still possible. And, personally, I strive for a more hopepunk attitude, which starts with “there’s a chance things can be better” and goes on to include “and I’m going to do what I can to make sure that’s what happens, goddammit”.

But the hope is definitely there. And I think there are good reasons for that. Others have written about this far more, in far more depth, and in far more detail than I can (in particular, I recommend Heather Cox Richardson, Jay Kuo, and Solarbird), but here’s a bit of a rundown of the key things that are keeping me from full-on panic, despair, and FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt):

  • We’ve had midterms and local elections, but this is the first post-Dobbs presidential election. Every election since that decision was handed down has been showing that the reality of losing the protections of Roe v. Wade is making a difference, and I don’t think that effect has worn off.
  • Related to the above, early voting numbers (which, yes, only tell a small part of the story, and there’s varying data from various areas, so there’s a certain amount of educated guesswork in any analysis) are showing strong turnouts from women, apparently across party lines. And while it’s not quantifiable yet, there’s a strong feeling that many registered Republican women may be crossing party lines on their ballots.
  • The Harris/Walz campaign has been doing a lot of get-out-the-vote work; the Trump/Vance campaign has all but abandoned this.
  • More older voters have died off (helped by Covid and the right-wing resistance to science and disease prevention efforts); more younger people have aged into voting. And while no constituency is a monolith, younger voters tend to skew more liberal.
  • Every time Trump says something, he alienates more people, and gives those on the fence more reasons not to vote for him. The rest of his campaign seems to be running with this approach.

Pulling this out of bullet points, because it’s likely to take more than one paragraph….

A lot of the very understandable concern over Trump winning again is the very real historical precedent. Speaking broadly, America has made its entrenched, systemic sexism and racism very obvious over the past decade. Trump won against Clinton in 2016; though he lost in 2020, that was against Biden, an older white man; now he’s again running against a woman, and a Black/South Asian woman at that. For many, it seems like a stretch to think that Harris can overcome the sexism and racism that has been all too obvious in the media’s rush to qualify and question her every statement, while constantly allowing Trump to fail upward at every opportunity.

I think there’s one major reason why things could change this time: This is our third time dealing with Trump as a candidate. He’s a known quantity at this point, and for most people, that’s not in his favor.

In 2016, many people (including me) didn’t think he’d actually win. However ridiculous and obviously sexist the attacks against Clinton were, I didn’t think that would sway enough of the electorate to put him into office. He was too out there, too obnoxious, too obviously racist, sexist, xenophobic, and in all other ways horrible. But while he lost the popular election (by 2,868,686 votes), the boost from the electoral college was enough to prove me (and many other people) wrong. We then got four years of things getting worse, capped off by a botched response to a global pandemic, leaving us entering the next major election cycle as bodies stacked up in refrigeration trucks because morgues were overwhelmed.

In 2020, running against another older white man, he once again lost the popular election (by 7,059,526 votes, over four million more than in 2016), by enough to lose the electoral college as well — and we all saw how well he handled that. Complaints, lies, conspiracy theories, and eventually a violent coup attempt as he egged on his followers, and he’s never stopped claiming that he was the victim.

Now it’s 2024. We know how bad he would be — he got started in 2016, spent four years doing as much as he could get away with, up to and including encouraging insurrection, and has spent the following four years spiraling ever downwards, making his dreams of heading a fascist dictatorship painfully clear. More and more high-profile Republicans have stepped forward to actively say that it’s time to put country over party and keep Trump from regaining office. Women have seen what he was able to do in stacking the courts and destroying the right to manage their own reproductive health. Minorities have seen the never-ending stream of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and all the other -isms, -phobias, and hatred. We all know that it’s not an act, that he’s not “just saying things” that he doesn’t intend to follow through on. And I think that this will matter.

I also think that, even with America’s systemic sexism and racism, Harris is the right candidate at the right time to finally be the first woman to hold the office of President. I’ve said before that at the time, I didn’t think Biden needed to step down, and that — due in large part to that sexism and racism — it might have been a mistake. In the weeks following that decision, as I’ve watched Harris campaign, I’ve changed my mind. I think — hope, strongly hope — that people, especially people who aren’t old, cis, white, men, who were disillusioned and unexcited about voting in another contest between two old white men, have been and will be turning out to vote for Harris.

I’m sure there are more reasons that I could bring up. And none of this has been easy. But now that we’re down to the wire?

I have hope.

My 2024 ballot showing my vote for Harris and Walz.

I’ve voted (for Harris/Walz, obviously). If you haven’t yet, I hope you do, and I hope you vote for Harris/Walz.

We can be better. We won’t go back, we can move forward. And when we fight, we win.

(Please…we’ve got to win.)

Harris 2024

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I didn’t think Biden needed to drop out. I still believe that he was fine; he’s been making verbal gaffes his entire career, has been open about dealing with a stutter, and has admitted to having an extremely unfortunate off night in a debate against someone extremely difficult to debate because of the “Gish gallop” technique that Trump habitually uses of overwhelming his opponent with a torrent of bullshit so that it’s incredibly difficult to counter because there’s simply so much that’s false. I’m pretty convinced that Biden is the victim of a coordinated media campaign pushing the “he’s too old” narrative (while notably ignoring all the cognitive red flags that Trump displays in addition to the impending fascist dictatorship he promises), because the major media outlets are owned and controlled by a small group of wealthy white men who saw their positions of power threatened by the policies that Biden has implemented and planned to continue implementing.

That said:

I hope that Biden’s endorsement is heeded, that the initial endorsements from other big party names are also heeded, and that Harris gets the nomination. She hasn’t been quite as visible, and has certainly had her share of detractors, but she’s been the other half of the Biden/Harris administration for the past three and a half years, and it would be foolish to believe her voice hasn’t been part of it all. I’ve seen lots of people floating Buttigieg for VP, and I have no immediate issue with that (and do like the optics of putting up a ticket of a woman of color and a gay man).

I believe that Harris can win. But more importantly, I believe that we need to believe that Harris can win, and we need to do so vocally, because the more people say “she can’t win”, the more less informed people will see that and assume that it’s true because people who they see as more informed (which they must be, because they’re saying something) are saying so, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think she’s a good candidate. I think she’d be good in office. I’d love to see her voted in, rather than (as one theory espoused) gaining the office because Biden can’t fulfill a term. And there’s simply no question that she’d be better than the alternative.
And this doesn’t mean don’t talk about those areas where she could be better. Yes, to many, her policing and prosecutorial background is a strike against her (though it’s worth noting that given that the opponent is a career criminal, maybe her experience, even if you’re not fond of it, might actually come in handy). Part of our job is to make our concerns known in the hopes of influencing those we elect. Many of Biden’s positions have grown and evolved over time, in large part because of the pressure he got from those in the party and those of his constituents who were further to the left than he started.

So I’m not saying don’t voice concerns. I’m saying along with your concerns, recognize that she (or, really, should she not get the nomination, whoever does, as virtually anyone the Dems nominate will be a better choice than Trump) is the best option, and the only option that doesn’t contribute to installing a fascist dictatorship, and give her your support. (Or, if you really can’t stomach that, at least don’t pop off with saying she “can’t” win; she absolutely can. If the left was half as good at supporting their candidates, even with flaws, as the right is, instead of tearing them down for not being paragons of perfection, we’d be in far better shape now than we are.)

Also, keep in mind that many of the people who were against Biden will also be against Harris, some for similar reasons (assuming she’ll continue the direction Biden was going), some for reasons specific to her (chiefly, of course, that she’s a woman of color). So when you start seeing all the anti-Harris links pop up, think long and hard about who is posting them, what the sources are, and why maybe you shouldn’t take them at face value. Because this is still going to be a battle.

But it’s a battle we can win.

Harris can win.

Thoughts on July Fourth

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This is not a day I currently celebrate; my current Facebook cover photo pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject.

White text on a black background quoting the final line of Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in Trump v. United States: ‘With fear for our democracy, I dissent.’ The final two words are in red.

Don’t fall for the propaganda and disinformation campaigns (Biden’s age is just this cycle’s “but her emails”, the headlines about his health are the same as were run about Hilary’s health back then, he has no intention of stepping down, it would just cause chaos and problems if he did, and a vote for Biden is also a vote for Harris if that’s who you’d prefer).

In your local elections, vote third party all you like (and push for ranked choice voting so there’s a better chance of your candidates winning), but on the national stage, please, I’m begging — put pragmatism and the health of our country over pure idealism. While a multiparty system would be better, we only have that in theory, and the reality is that there are only two candidates who can actually win. A third-party vote may arguably be a vote against Trump, but it’s not a vote for Biden and — however little you may think of Biden — getting him into office is the best (and quite likely only) chance there is of you being able to support your third party candidates at any level in the future.

Remember that voting for either candidate isn’t just about the individual person, but also all the people they bring with them as part of their administration. Biden is imperfect, but has done a lot of good under very trying circumstances, and is surrounded by people who support him and help him work towards a better country. Trump and his cronies are focused on nothing less than the dismantling of our democracy and the installation of a fascist dictatorship. (And they’re not even trying to hide it anymore.)

It’s also about correcting the direction of the SCOTUS. Trump was able to grab control of the Supreme Court by appointing three justices during his first term and there’s a reasonable chance that more vacancies will open over the next presidential term. We’re seeing now how much those appointments can affect things long after the president who made the appointment has left office. If Biden (or Harris) is in office when the next openings come up, we have a chance at reclaiming some amount of sanity for that branch of the government.

And when it’s time — vote. Too many people are convinced that voting doesn’t matter, when we’ve seen time and time again how slight swings one way or another can make huge differences. If those of us left of the Republican party (whether just a little left or way the hell out there) were even remotely as good at mobilizing, showing up, and voting as the Republicans are, instead of throwing fits that we don’t have the ideologically perfect candidate and staying home and pouting or giving a “protest vote”, we’d be in far better shape. We might even have an ideological center that’s closer to the center, instead of a left-wing party that’s in line with other nations’ right-wing parties, and a right-wing party that’s determined to out-Hitler Hitler.

Don’t like Biden? That’s fine. You don’t have to like him. But please recognize that with a Biden administration, you’ll have the freedom to make your complaints known, and hopefully affect the system and make change. That won’t be an option if Trump wins again. If nothing else, vote for the party you’ll have a better chance fighting against.

And maybe eventually this will feel like a holiday worth celebrating once more.

These Are Facts

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From Solarbird’s latest Fascism Watch (see the original post for more details and links to sources):

I want to present a list of items which are very well documented facts, but would’ve been absolutely, patently insane 10 years ago. I mean, the kind of rantings that got you thrown out of every conversation and mocked for years afterwards – and which are all now verified as true.

[…]

  • The Republican House is a tool of Russian intelligence, routinely using disinformation from Russian intelligence services, and either not caring whether the disinformation was true or not or knowing it was using disinformation and using it anyway, in conjunction with the Russians.

    […]

    The ‘Russia hoax’ was never, ever a hoax.

  • Trumpist allies within in the FBI and US intelligence services have similarly shown willingness to either take money from Russian agents or suppress information about Russian intelligence disinformation, particularly when doing so benefits the Republican party.

  • CPAC – the Conservative Political Action Conference, where insurrectionist leader and former President Trump spoke on Satuday – is a Nazi forum that welcomes Nazis. This isn’t an allegation anymore, there were literal Nazis openly welcomed on the floor and throughout the event.

    Some of these fascists overtly called for the end of democracy at this event and its replacement by a theocratic government. […]

  • Said former president and insurrectionist is running for president and thus far easily winning the Republican nomination. Amongst other actions, he’s promising to be a dictator on day one, and he and his allies are planning to use Red-state militaries against Blue states and to build a mass system of concentration camps. […]

  • Where Republicans have power now, they are trying to overturn marriage equality as a stepping stone to making LGBT people illegal again, arresting women for miscarriages, banning trans people and health care for trans people, banning books at scale and criminalising librarians who try to run underground book sharing programmes with laws which carry felony sentences, appointing terrorists to library oversight committees, introducing bills to criminalise sexting between adults, pledging ‘holy war’ against women pop stars.

    Oh yes, and doing everything they can to stop people from voting.

    And they will do all of this – every single bit of it – nationally, if they can.

Year 50 Day 158

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Me sitting in a hospital waiting room, masked, and with an IV line on my right forearm. I have bags under my eyes and look exhausted.

Day 158: All is fine now, but the day started with a late-night/early morning trip to the ER due to localized pain on my left side. The doctor thought perhaps kidney stones, but after bloodwork, peeing in a cup, and a CAT scan (my first…now there’s a milestone for you), I came back medically “unremarkable”. Apparently it was just severe gas. The photo was taken about 4:30 am, after four hours there, and an hour before we finally got to leave with a prescription for some medication. Today is completely blown for anything other than lying around in a sleepy, cranky daze.