"Settler colonialism seeks to eliminate Indigenous populations in order to monopolize resources for the sake of capital. It operates through laws and racist ideologies, but also through conceptualizations of the natural world as white men’s for the human taking." —@NatalieMAvalos
"Settler colonialism operates from its own metaphysic, producing what I call a settler ecology, which dispossesses peoples but also lands."
"If settlers want to understand how to effectively address environmental crises, then they have to interrogate the logics of settler colonialism—racialization, white supremacy, and myths of development—as structural dimensions of modern life."
"Our collective quarantine has dovetailed into an all-out revolution; one that is an all-out indictment of colonialism itself.
"Personally, I have grown weary of the liberal left handwringing that expresses horror and concern for dispossessed peoples yet makes little to no effort to challenge or transform these structures of oppression."
"In this essay, I call on all settler allies... to refuse the structures that uphold settler colonialism in solidarity with Indigenous peoples by building on the ideological and ethical connections forged since Standing Rock, such as land-based ethics and ecological wellness."
"My intention is to help connect the dots between settler ideologies/praxis and the material dispossession of peoples/lands for settler allies, so that they may use this period of quarantine and crises to recognize their power and mobilize to these ends."
"If we, collectively, want to fight climate crises, then we need to reclaim land-based ethics—ethical relationships to the land and the other-than-human.
These ethics are earth-centered, meaning they are driven by the immediate needs of the land, not peoples."
"Land-based ethics in an Indigenous context can be understood through the stand-off at Standing Rock itself, particularly through the discourse of 'protector, not protester.'"
"Native peoples are citing a sacred responsibility to care for the land—to act as its stewards, responsible for protecting and nurturing the life force within it. In short, the needs of the people are met through the land, so the needs of the land must be met by the people."
"This is a struggle for power that we are all entrenched in, depending on our positionality and access to power and privilege."
"Indigenous peoples are cueing others to recognize an earth-centered metaphysic, an interconnected and sentient reality that is already recognized by many Buddhists and is emerging among other like-minded allies."
"Settler allies have the power and means to boost Indigenous voices and views.
The forced stillness that Covid-19 has brought to the most privileged among us can and should be used to strategize.
To re-assess how to move forward equitably with more coherent ethics."
"How might we, collectively, use this time of reflection but mass protest against racist extrajudicial killings to better ground into our sense of reciprocity and find ways to support the most vulnerable among us?"
"How might we interrogate and challenge all forms of bias and corrupt power?
How might we deepen our awareness that we are the ecological world?"
"These ideological shifts are our future; may their recognition help us dismantle settler structures of dispossession as if our lives are at stake. Because they are."
Good morning to everyone except all the people who were gaslighting us in 2019 and 2020 by saying Biden's policies weren't substantially different from Bernie's.
Here's a list of policies we would have right now with President Sanders. Which are all still possible, but Biden is choosing not to do these things. 🧵
1. Keep workers on payroll during the pandemic.
Make sure that every worker in America continues to receive their paycheck during this crisis, retroactive to the beginning of the crisis.
NYT today: “No other country has counted so many deaths in the pandemic. More Americans have perished from Covid-19 than on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined.”
“Finally, any discussion about the two countries would not be complete if the Vietnam War did not come up eventually. A peculiar phenomenon has taken place...”
“Western journalists and observers have compared American Covid-19 fatalities with the tens of thousands of Americans killed in that war, as if to shame the US’s catastrophic response to the crisis as opposed to the tremendous success of a developing country it once fought.”
This estimate of October/November is a best-case scenario - hopefully people will pay attention to understand how much we can do to stop infections and suffering over the next year.
"If we end restrictions in April, we could reach the herd immunity threshold by June. But in that time, 170,000 more people could die from the virus.
Precautions remain especially important as new variants of the virus emerge."
As all the experts have been saying, we can not relax now. If anything we need much stronger precautions:
"If social distancing measures aren’t followed, a stronger virus could rapidly infect and kill hundreds of thousands of people before they can be vaccinated."
"More than 65% of the people in county or city jails on any given day in 2016 had not been convicted of a crime, often because they lack the money to pay bail.
One of the biggest strategic mistakes the US left is making right now is not talking about why Biden continues to use the same pandemic strategy that Trump started in 2020.
It's connected to monthly survival checks, medicare for all, and every other issue we talk about.
Right now the US left has an opportunity to point out Biden's own science advisors have been saying for a year that we need to change pandemic strategies. But he's not doing it.
The strategic opportunity the US left is missing is simple, but huge:
Biden said he would listen to science. His science advisors say we should change pandemic strategy. Changing pandemic strategy requires sending everyone monthly checks, expanding healthcare, and more.
"Summoning the public to understand and accept such measures requires a grown-up discussion among our politicians and citizenry.
But the status quo doesn’t want to change or even entertain a national conversation." thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/…
"Even as one variant disrupts a Newfoundland election and other variants silently gather force across the country, most provinces are merrily reopening businesses and schools.
This strategy has been tried twice. And it has failed Canadians twice."
Even McKinsey and Company said:
“Countries on the near-zero-virus path radically reduced viral spread, minimizing the chances of transmission and making it easier to control flare-ups as they occur. Leaders of those countries have built public confidence..."