Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

I’m sick of governments that ban things to “fix” a problem while refusing to address the underlying cause.

Abortion bans don’t fix the birth rate.

Junk food bans don’t fix obesity.

Vaccine bans won’t fix chronic illness.

Mask bans won’t fix crime.

These are just a few examples of things that this administration has banned in the name of making people healthier/happier.

In every case they’ve chosen to ignore the obvious systemic issues that are contributing to the problems their bans are trying to “fix”

Declining birth rates aren’t due to abortion bans.

They’re due to high cost of living, lack of affordable childcare, lack of universal healthcare and climate change.

A lot of people look at the current state of the world and can’t see any reason to subject a child to it.

People have always accessed abortions. They will always access abortions.

The only thing that a ban accomplishes is restricting safe access.

Infant and maternal mortality actually increase whenever abortion is banned.

People die.

Banning folks on SNAP from purchasing junk food won’t do anything for chronic illness or obesity.

Why? Because there’s systemic food insecurity. People are living in such severe poverty that junk food is all they can access or afford.

Food deserts are a very real problem.

People are living in places without access to a kitchen or the means to store bulk food.

People with disabilities may lack the physical ability to cook from scratch.

In many cases the healthier option costs twice as much, takes double the effort to prepare and gives you a fraction of the calories.

Banning an entire category of food without addressing systemic issues is a recipe to force people to starve.

We need to subsidize fresh produce and meats.

We need more money going to community food banks and programs like meals on wheels.

We need to give everyone a liveable wage so they have the time and energy to cook healthy meals.

Vaccine bans and restrictions are a legit threat to public health.

They’re done under the guise of “safety” despite the fact that vaccines have largely eradicated diseases which used to kill and disable in large numbers.

Once again, the answer isn’t to restrict access. It’s to provide free vaccination to everyone while also ramping up other public health efforts.

We should have clean air benchmarks in public spaces, masks in healthcare and paid time off.

We should stop normalizing sickness

Lastly there’s mask bans. Some places in the US are actually banning a medical device designed to protect people.

They say it’s to stop crime, despite the fact that there’s ample evidence showing sunglasses hide your identity better than a mask.

Once again they fail to address the systemic issues with disease spread and with crime.

Want to tackle crime? Start with guns. Then work towards addressing the vast inequity within society

Want to tackle infectious disease spread? Encourage masking. Make respirators free!

Each problem has a slightly different solution, but the overall tone is the same.

Provide for the people. Give them basic human rights like healthcare, affordable housing, food and water, education and childcare.

Those things will accomplish more than any ban

#uspol #fascism #poverty #vaccines #abortion #snap #masks

RFK Jr just cancelled $500 million in mRNA vaccine development.

There were many promising cancer vaccines and treatments under the mRNA programs… including a pancreatic cancer vaccine.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal because it’s almost always found too late.

I lost my Mom to the disease when she was just 47 years old.

This decision will cost lives.

I uploaded a five minute unedited video of me coil building a pot, just as a test since I’m new to PeerTube. The goal is to move toward edited videos that show more of the process and better video angels that help students learn the technique.

https://makertube.net/w/r9mwULB89ETkGefaNM85kV

#PeerTube #MakertTube #pottery #handbuilding #howto #ceramics

“Trump knows he can’t win the upcoming mid-term elections, so he is trying to rig them. And the way he is trying to do it (Trump) is trying to do it is to dismantle the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as we know it. He is trying, for example to try and dismantle Hispanic and African-American opportunity districts."

~ Rep. Greg Casar quoted by John Nicholls

#Texas #Republicans #gerrymandering #racism #SupremeCourt #JohnRoberts
/6

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/texas-gerrymandering-fight-trump/

Portland! Revolutionary films under the stars are coming your way!

Come check out a screening of InterRebellium 01. The Estallido Social Sunday August 17th in Wally Park

Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose - https://www.npr.org/2025/08/04/nx-s1-5453731/nasa-carbon-dioxide-satellite-mission-threatened #trump trying to destroy the clear evidence for #climatecrisis. he is pathetic and evil

“The power company, whose job it is to give us energy, is acting as the deputy police department, treating everyone in the city as a suspect and coming up with leads for the police to do investigations,” EFF’s @Adam_D_Schwartz told The Sacramento Bee.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article311257765.html

#Trump says EU could face 35% tariffs if it fails to meet $600bn investment promises, threatens with pharma #tariffs - https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/aug/05/ukraine-russia-zelenskyy-putin-eu-us-tariffs-europe-latest-news-updates?page=with%3Ablock-6891fca98f08dc7a3db41483#block-6891fca98f08dc7a3db41483 remember, if you give into blackmail, they always want more

Didn’t Take Long To Reveal The UK’s Online Safety Act Is Exactly The Privacy-Crushing Failure Everyone Warned About - https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/04/didnt-take-long-to-reveal-the-uks-online-safety-act-is-exactly-the-privacy-crushing-failure-everyone-warned-about/ "turned out to be exactly the privacy-invading, freedom-crushing, technically unworkable disaster that everyone with half a brain predicted it would be." great takedown by @mmasnick #osa #privacy

Tor is hiring! Open roles:
👥 Director of People and HR
🔧 Senior Director for Internal Structures and Support
📊 Nonprofit Accounting Specialist (Part-time)

Whether you're passionate about culture, strategy, or numbers, there’s a role for you here. https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs/

@kyle @philtel is doing the same!

Hi all,

Iffy Books, the solarpunk, hacker, free-culture bookstore that hosts our flagship phone is coming to a financial crossroads and needs our help if they want to keep hosting as many great (often free!) events and stay open for as many hours as they do.

@iffybooks means a lot of things to a lot of people and it disappearing would leave a huge hole in the community. Not everyone is in a position to donate, but if you are, there is info in Steve’s letter!

https://iffybooks.net/a-letter-from-steve-at-iffy-books-june-13-2025

I love this. Engineer sets up free previously-payphones in his community to cover cellular dead zones:

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/04/nx-s1-5484013/engineer-restores-pay-phones-for-free-public-use

#Substack’s Algorithm Accidentally Reveals What We Already Knew: It’s The Nazi Bar Now - https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/04/substacks-algorithm-accidentally-reveals-what-we-already-knew-its-the-nazi-bar-now/ "when you build your platform’s reputation around welcoming Nazis: your recommendation algorithms start treating Nazi content as more than worth tolerating, to content worth promoting."

The #Forgejo monthly report was published ✨

The Forgejo v12 release was on time. The runner saw significant progress, and the release tooling was improved. Discussions emerged regarding AI contributions, contributor attributions in the documentation, and the future of communication. An #NLnet grant ended, allowing time for a retrospective.

https://forgejo.org/2025-07-monthly-report

Congratulations to @john and the rest of the @index Ghost team for launching their 6.0 version!

"The social web turns your Ghost publication into a networked social profile that people can find, follow, like, reply, repost and interact with from anywhere —bringing network effects directly to decentralized publishing. Popular posts can be shared, re-posted, and discussed by millions of social web users."

https://ghost.org/changelog/6/

#ghost #fediverse #SocialWeb #OpenWeb #blogs #blogging

Rich shitheads should give me a $25 billion capital investment to add chatbots no one wants in my comics. https://www.gocomics.com/brian-mcfadden/2025/08/04

People are talking about leaving Spotify because the CEO is a douchebag, so let me remind you that you can stream radio stations from all over the world for free with Radio-Map. It's been my primary source of music the past few weeks. I'm a little biased because I built it, but I've never invested in a company that's building dystopian killing machines, so you can stream guilt-free.

@dangillmor ”There must be in-groups who the law protects but does not bind, and out-groups who the law binds but does not not protect.”
-Frank Wilhoit

This is the only true rule of conservatism.

And it was made in the context of pointing out that we have no other politics than #conservatism left.

All parties today protect the wealthy at the price of hurting the non-wealthy. Only different flavours of implementing #wilhoitslaw remain in power.

This needs to change.