BC FOR LATER READ
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

this will be a lofty thread that I’ve spent some time researching. Buckle in.
On 12/3/2020 I noticed a self congratulatory tweet from Jeff Merkley about banning riot control munitions in Hong Kong for the last year.

 I found this darkly funny for a few reasons: number one, we had obviously been assaulted with these same munitions for the last several months and two, the current Hong Kong protests had been going since March 15, 2019. We were supplying riot control munitions before that?
Also, this was not Hong Kong’s first rodeo. This implied we were supplying them THEN too. Good god, I thought. Do we do this everywhere? The answer, unfortunately, is a resounding yes.
A bit about munitions. Every Portlander is a goddamn connoisseur at this point...
and can likely identify each one by their flavor notes and tannins. But let’s talk about about their creation and who is responsible for them ending up all over the world. The primary companies exporting to Hong Kong are Safariland and Amtec Less-Lethal...
https://t.co/jtHRm6DKZl
(the poorly abbreviated ALS). Safariland is run out of Jacksonville, and ALS hails from Tallahassee. As I said above, we all know less lethals are just that, LESS lethal, but they absolutely kill. “A meta-analysis of 26 studies published from 1990 to 2017 shows...
the use of such projectiles caused significant morbidity and mortality. Of the close to 2,000 injured people identified in the analysis, more than 50 died as a result of their injuries and 300 suffered permanent disability.”
ALS features tacky YouTube videos of white men shooting off munitions in the desert, completely ignoring the fact that they cause human suffering. We are all intimately familiar with Safariland, who hasn’t been kissed by one of their products?
Until very recently, Safariland was helmed by Warren Kanders. He was very aware that his product went to foreign conflicts, and encouraged police wounded in the line of duty to come speak in his factories to motivate his workers.
According to Business Insider, Kanders took in a $500 million a year profit from tear gas, although I’d imagine that’s from the entire Safariland line. Not just tear gas. But the point stands: that’s quite the paycheck from human suffering.
https://t.co/53Js2fdbV4
What’s more, Warren Kanders has dubious ties to the disgraced Sackler kingpins. In July, Kanders stepped down after direct action at his home pressured him to do so.
Less lethal munitions, especially tear gas, are a booming industry.
In 2016 the tear gas industry was worth a whopping $6.3 billion, and they had no idea what was going to go down in Hong Kong or the United States in 2020 then. The estimates are anticipating the industry will be worth $11.3 billion in 2023.
https://t.co/Z40okzxN3h
Tear gas makes up a quarter of those profits. That’s $3 billion dollars for choking, gasping, and vomiting. You know the feeling. During a respiratory pandemic, no less.
So the timeline is thus:
3/15/19 the current Hong Kong protests begin. Safariland and ALS sell LLM to Chinese police and profit wildly. While it has been illegal to use chemical weapons in war for quite some time (regulations got particularly strict in 1993)...
it remains legal in law enforcement applications. The US profits off selling them to international law enforcement agencies to use on their own citizens.
11/20/19 Merkley announces his bill for banning LLM sales to Hong Kong has been unanimously passed by bipartisan legislation
11/27/19 The bill’s language is clarified. The specified items banned include “tear gas, rubber bullets, and handcuffs.” The president can make exceptions (I could find no evidence he has) and it will expire in a year. Even Marco Rubio agrees.
https://t.co/oQyzKgSZsP
The summary of the unanimously supported bill.

https://t.co/mtmTf4WhBh
5/29/20 “Riot Night” in Portland, Oregon following the death of George Floyd protesters unknowingly experience the deep irony of being hit with every Safariland product that was banned in Hong Kong. Protesters are deemed violent and deserving of these measures.
7/6/20 Portland Police release this hilarious graphic https://t.co/MXKtWigJeQ which depicts Hong Kong tactics Jeff Merkley felt were worthy of banning LLMs in Hong Kong, but not in Portland.
- 12/3/20 Jeff Merkley congratulations himself on the anniversary of banning American made less lethal munitions and tear gas in Hong Kong. Fails to see the irony.
Fin.
@threadreaderapp unroll

More from For later read

Kirsti Miller
Kirsti Miller
@KirstiMiller30
@FionaPearman @ScottMorrisonMP Morrison is our statue of unempathic neoliberalism - erected by evangelical and corporate Australia to celebrate their victory over compassion, equality and secular humanism. 

Hopefully it gets pulled down like the statues of dubious heroes of oppression from an earlier age.


@ScottMorrisonMP The two-party-preferred system in 
Australia politics isn’t working for people, and it sure isn’t working for the planet.

@ScottMorrisonMP My collapse of faith in our democracies isn’t an accident. It’s one of the central victories of the neoliberal project, delivered through two generations of privatisation, outsourcing and deregulation, underfunding of government services (locked in by tax cuts),...

@ScottMorrisonMP restricting freedom of information, targeting whistleblowers and raiding the media who report on them, delegitimising and gagging public interest advocacy, and criminalising protest.

@ScottMorrisonMP Politics in Australia today relies hugely on the fact that most people don’t know most of what’s going on so as to get away with stuff that couldn’t be done under real scrutiny we have seen a clear example of this with the National Coronvirus Cabinet.
FOR LATER READ
\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8I Support Our Military & Law Enforcement\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8
🇺🇸I Support Our Milita...
@TheWiseOwl_AZ
1. On Fri. 8 Jan. Military Intel Contact said to keep phones on, charged and ready for Tier 4B notification as the RV release was being expedited and our start was at any time.
FOR LATER READ
Advertisement
Vigilant AFA
Vigilant AFA
@AfaVigilant
One fascist to watch in 2021 is Joseph Charles "Oakman" Golinske of SE MI. He's been a Proud Boy for a couple years, but took a break recently from the group and promotes himself through the "Oak Nation" channel on Telegram.


Most people may be familiar with him as the tall guy in the Proud Boys bridge shot, from their August 17, 2019 attack on Portland, which featured an American Guard bus trying (and failing) to bludgeon antifascists with hammers.


He was also with his g/f at the time (Dominique Tota, left of Tarrio), and that's definitely a twitter account folks will want to block/report because he posts on it.


He's been plenty active at the pro-Covid/anti-mask/ReOpen protests in Lansing MI, seen here with Jerry Wayne and an effigy of Gretchen Whitmer, who his militia friends tried to kidnap and publicly execute.


Outside of the Proud Boys, his solo "career" with Oak Nation features the same misogyny, classism and gateway to far-right domestic terrorism the Proud Boys themselves feature. Here's him peddling oxychlorinque and bragging about harassing service workers.
FOR LATER READ
Paul Bernal
Paul Bernal
@PaulbernalUK
A short thread on one aspect of trolling on here, from my recent experience. I’ve got a fair number of followers. I tweet about controversial topics - and yet I don’t get trolled that much. A bit, but not thatmuch. There are times, though, that I *do* get trolled a lot. 1/n

The pattern is pretty clear, and has been played out a few times over the last few days. I get into a conversation about a topic that could be considered race-related. Empire. Immigration. Something like that. And that conversation includes a highish profile BAME person. 2/n

More often than not, a BAME woman. In those cases, it takes very little time for the trolls to come steaming in. Most of them seemingly rational, taking issue with some technical point, but quickly descending into something much worse. 3/n

When I look at the profiles of the trolls, they’re often relatively innocuous. Not saying ‘Hey, I’m a racist troll, a white supremacist’ at all. Not likely to be caught by any kind of anti-troll measures. Instead, they look relatively normal. 4/n

But what happens is very much about racism, and often misogyny. Attacks that are - or appear to be - not that dramatic on their own. Not rape threats or death threats, or ‘go home’ or things like that, but designed to undermine, to disturb, to annoy - but with an undercurrent 5/n
FOR LATER READ
Russ Bengtson
Russ Bengtson
@russbengtson
the whole point of Dunks was you could go cop them at VIM whenever you wanted for $65. this shit is like having to enter a raffle to buy milk.


like seriously why not make a ton more of them if they're gonna be so sought-after? they land at outlets? so? nike still makes money off that.

the only reason to keep making them so limited is that they KNOW all that matters is the profit on the flip and if they were readily available FEWER people would want them, not more

the whole system is super broken, but it's just gonna go the way it goes, because at this point it all caters to the secondary market. the only reason Nike can sell Jordan 1s for $200 is because the people buying them can flip them for $500

adjusted for inflation, a $65 AJ1 in 1985 is like $160—and modern-day AJ1s are made from cheaper materials in factories staffed by cheaper workers. they don't HAVE to be $200 retail. but the secondary market nuked the whole concept of what sneakers are "worth"
FOR LATER READ

You May Also Like

Joey Tawadrous \U0001f1ee\U0001f1ea
Joey Tawadrous 🇮🇪...
@joeytawadrous
1) Core attributes of a promising founder worth following:
- Progress/trajectory over time
- How well they lead a team &
- Make the vision happen
- Most impressed when someone is way ahead of where you thought they would be when you check up/see them a few months later.

2) Indie Makers have such a benefit of being small, fast, nimble workers in comparison to big companies.

We can easily pivot and vastly change a project of ours. We can change as we learn more about our users.

Big companies can take months/years for even the smallest of pivots.

3) Before you find a product market you can pivot your project as many times as necessary until you find something that works.

Then you only have one thing to do: scale, scale, scale.

4) Be obsessed with the little details.
- listen to every single person who uses your product
- reply to every single person who emails you about your product
- ask them what they like and do not like
- iterate your product, make changes, pivot if necessary

5) Paul Graham's (@paulg) name came up with a feeling of great admiration! Naturally! It was Paul who said:

In the early stages of a company just;
- write code
- talk/sell to customers to stress test your idea

Nothing else.
STARTUPS
Suhas S. Hardutt
Suhas S. Hardutt
@HarduttSuhas
THE BATTLE OF SARAIGHAT (1671)

Lachit Borphukan's humiliation of Aurangzeb.

The battle of Saraighat was a naval engagement fought on the Brahmaputra river near Saraighat between the M0ghul empire and Ahom kingdom in 1671.

Guts, resolve and glory!

(Elaborate thread)


Koch was a state situated between the dominions of M0ghuls and Ahoms. For Ahoms, it was a buffer state for keeping M0ghul territorial expansions at bay.(1)

Times changed when the ruler of the Koch kingdom, Nara Narayana passed away in 1587 resulting in Koch being divided into 2. Western Koch was ruled by his son Lakshmi Narayan and the eastern Koch by his nephew, Raghudev.(2)

Lakshmi Narayan formed an alliance with M0ghuls after which he attacked Parikshit, son of Raghudev, in 1602. Parikshit Narayan was defeated while his brother Bali Narayan took refuge in the Ahom Kingdom.(3)

The M0ghuls used it as a pretext to invade Ahom kingdom. The first battle between them took place in 1615 leading to a series of engagements in which both sides had their shares of ups and downs resulting in a stalemate.(4)
ALL
Advertisement
Antonio Garc\xeda Mart\xednez
Antonio García Martíne...
@antoniogm
Ok, I'll hop on this Elizabeth Warren/Native American testing bandwagon (gently and non-politically).

I've been a @23andMe customer for a while, and have followed their ancestry updates closely.

All is more or less as expected....except for this bit about Native American.


The family is almost completely composed of Spanish peasants (from various regions) who emigrated, along with a massive wave in the late 19th-cent./early 20th-cent., to Cuba back when it was a booming economy (richer than Spain's) and worth emigrating to (Communism killed that).

Also, the native population of Cuba was annihilated early on---was the first place the Spanish colonized after all. Having a native background in Cuba would be like having the same in, say, Massachusetts, particularly if you're (say) mostly Irish. Just really, really unlikely.

(Note: the North African/Arab background is less mysterious. The Iberian peninsula was part of the Muslim world for centuries. It would be odd *not* to have some Arab/Middle Eastern background coming from Spain. Given the family is mostly from Northern Spain, it's small though.)

I have a Spanish passport, have been back to the ancestral villages in Spain, seen the church where my grandmother was baptized, my grandfather told me stories about growing up as the child of Spanish colonists in rural Cuba. The native bit just clashes with all the family lore.
ALL
Reshu Nath
Reshu Nath
@ReshuNath
'Tera mera rishta kya, hindu, hindu,hindutva' is a clear take on 'tera mera rishta kya,la ilaha illallah'. As much as Hindutva hates the monotheistic religions especially Islam, there's a strange wistfulness and subliminal need at display now, to BE that they hate. 1


Charlie Hebdo doesn’t come up as a cautionary tale now but rather 'why cant we be like that'?
Growing up, Hanuman was an adorable deity for us, who swallowed the sun, or who couldn’t figure out what was Sanjeevani booti so he picked up a whole mountain and came back with it. 2

Or he was loyal, admirable and when he cleaved his chest, you saw both Ram and Sita. Now we have a lot of “Angry Hanuman” stickers. Why is a cute childlike God angry? We don’t know. It's a convenient blank space where to paint all the angst of Hindu Khatre mein hain narrative. 3


The other strange thing that has started happening is pictures of Ram appearing sans Sita. “Jai Siya Ram” has become “Jai Shri Ram”. Some people disingenuously explain it as being the same thing - because Shri is a name of Lakshmi. Not really. Siya is an apbhransh of Sita. 4


Shri is a prefix of respect in this case. Hinduism is being militarised. A woman/Sita has no place in it. Even the militaristic Goddess that is Durga has no place in this conception of neo-Hindu divinity, as evidenced by Dilip Mandal wondering where Durga came from. 5
RELIGION
Pulp Librarian
Pulp Librarian
@PulpLibrarian
Many readers have asked me "why do so many pulp covers feature women in ripped red blouses standing in swamps while a man fights off an unusual animal attack?"

The answer is artist Will Hulsey...


Will Hulsey was the undisputed king of the animal attack pulp cover. You name it, he'd paint it attacking you in a pool of stagnant water.


Very little is known about Will Hulsey, but he worked on a number of men's pulp magazines in the 1950s and early 1960s including Man's Life, True Men, Guilty, Trapped and Peril.


Their audience was ex-GIs: during WWII the US Council of Books in Wartime had given away over 122 million books to American servicemen to read; this led to a post-war surge in paperback and magazine sales amongst these newly enthusiastic readers.


As a result the 1950s saw a raft of men's pulp magazines being published to tap into this market - almost 200 different titles!
CULTURE