virginia is for lovers

it was an F-16A, too. even the most updated F-16A Block 15 aircraft are still just… from another era of aircraft entirely. the f-16 may now be demonstrating itself to be the plateau of combat aircraft as it outcompetes more up to date jets and drone combat changes what aerial combat even is. the F-22 and F-35 are more advanced, to be sure, but i’m more and more questioning if that means anything, or more, if that’s not actually a major design flaw in more modern craft

probably don’t even post or interact with lemmy.ml. strip them of influence by simply disengaging from their squishy power

translation: never coming out

Simone Biles is america. her poverty and experience with race are our original sins. her story of survival in the face of sexual violence is half of our truth, and a truth half of us don’t take the time to hear. her refusal to conform to the narrative assigned to her is our work ethic and our belligerence in the face of the exploitation we all go through. her being visibly supporting the queer people in her community is huge. it gives us a morale boost, and it also is a powerful act of allyship in that she is beloved in places that voted red this past fall. she’s loathed in some of them for really gross reasons, but she has the ears of people who saw this and started the process of reconsidering

the confirmed number can only go up so much each day because israel keeps killing the counters

every redhat is devoid of substantiative thought or personality. they need a powerful individual to tell them what to do and what to think or they feel empty. the reason for this is that they are empty. they hated russia until russia helped their powerful individual win. then suddenly russia was good.

super easy, barely an inconvenience

if the blaster bolt is not observed, the ensign is both alive and dead

i just meant who’s their primary customer, really. advertisers aren’t fully divested of surveillance capitalism, obviously, but the fact remains there’s been a shift

i have some bad news

just your reminder that christofascism has very little to do with christianity

and they’re running out of advertisers to sell that data to so they’re selling it to governments instead

well yeah. that’s the point

making it more obvious it was never about terrorism

is this how contacts get sucked in according to our former national security director?

i’m of two minds. one is “finally, after all these years of allegedly all straight crews”

the other is “the messaging is ‘put all the queers on the queer flight, they don’t belong’” and that thought came first and isn’t a positive thought

more people need to know that feminism is for everyone, and that it’s not necessarily against anyone. if feminism feels against you, the question becomes what is it about you that feminists find harmful. and i want to make it clear, i don’t jive with everyone who calls themselves a feminist. i’m not on board with TERFs and i’m not on board with #GirlBoss feminists who present feminism as some form of neo-patriarchy in a similar vein to neo-colonial approaches to racial justice where we do colonialism from a place of revenge. and before you say this stance is an attack on traditional masculinity, understand that no, it’s just a critique of toxic masculinity. there’s a difference. the difference is Tim Walz and JD Vance. both are really good examples of these two kinds of masculinity. Tim Walz is really and truly into “guy” stuff. he likes hunting, he coaches football, he’s the breadwinner for his family. none of us are bothered that he’s all those things. why? because he doesn’t want to dictate to anyone what it means to be a man. do you know who does? JD Vance. none of us are bothered he wears makeup, looks like he’s never done a day’s work in his life, or that he fucked a couch. we’re bothered that he doesn’t take accountability, promotes a singular version of performing masculinity, and that that version of masculinity includes inflicting harm on others. arguably even, Tim Walz is more traditionally masculine than JD Vance. but still, he’s the one feminists respect and appreciate.

i desperately hope this reaches someone. i hope someone reads this and it starts them on a journey. waking up from false consciousness is the hardest thing to do, and the only real way to do it is to go out and befriend people the system treats worse than you, and to really listen to what they have to say. and i don’t just mean hear. i mean come in with not just an open mind, but an open heart. come with a notebook if you have to. treat them like the subject of an interview, but also treat them like a respected and loved family member. and if they say they aren’t the ones to teach you something say, “i understand. can you direct me to some good resources so i can start shifting my perspective. i obviously haven’t been exposed to this”

because ultimately that’s the thing. we are all products of our lived realities. and all of our lived realities include hegemonic propaganda that tells us patriarchy, racism, capitalism, and nationalism are all inescapable natural realities when they are not. we evolved empathy for a reason. our emotions toward others are our antidotes. think about that the thing that comes up in WWI diaries that haunted surviving soldiers the most was what they found in enemy trenches: not monstrous brutes, but instead young boys, just like themselves, trying to survive. they felt that way, they felt that horror, because the violence of this system benefits a select few, so the system must subvert our own best interests. when they felt that horror they were experiencing the confrontation of the cognitive dissidence the terror of the violence of the system instills in all of us. they were on the edge of realizing that the root cause of WWI, nationalism, is a big dumb stupid tool that keeps any of us from ever breaking free

there were other options that didn’t obviously support a nazi. by the time they started shipping it was clear who this person was. you had other options from ford, rivian, and gm. you chose not to take them for some reason

men’s lib is part of the feminist movement