em

@potatolesbian

25 y/o white transfemme bi lesbian she/her 🦑🐙 18+

130 Folgt1.371 Follower330 Posts

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Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir potatolesbian.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

em@potatolesbian· Apr 16

a horse looking around a corner at the camera

em@potatolesbian· Mar 16

ccccjustice.org/2025/02/13/u...

Since its creation in 1961, USAID has been a highly politicised instrument of U.S. hegemony, advancing capitalist expansion and imperial interests. Its programmes have reinforced debt dependency, integrated postcolonial states into global markets on exploitative terms, and promoted privatisation, structural adjustment, and governance reforms that align with U.S. foreign policy—disciplining states of the Global South while maintaining the illusion of development as a partnership.

More than an aid agency, USAID has helped construct the power structures enabling land commodification, labour precarity, and resource extraction—all at the expense of the communities it claims to help.

Instead of defending USAID, a more critical response would be to interrogate what kinds of alternatives—rooted in self-determination and social movements—can move beyond imperial formations of international aid. To be sure, the Trump-Musk dismantling of USAID does not represent a retreat from U.S. imperialism; rather, it represents a shift toward more overtly transactional state relations and coercive forms of domination. However, as USAID faces dissolution under a right-wing, techno-authoritarian regime, our focus should not be on mourning its demise, but rather on exploring how global solidarities can be reimagined in the wake of these institutional transformations.

em@potatolesbian· Mar 15

I believe Cuba’s strength has been its denouncing that kind of terrorism, torture. It does this politically not only by providing asylum for exiles from terrorist regimes but also fighting in the context of the United Nations Organization, in world organizations, in denouncing all kinds of terrorist torture in governmental policies.

All of the maneuvers by the US government to keep the blockade alive is a manipulation by the US government because “Cuba poses a threat.” The real reason Cuba poses a threat has nothing to do with my being here or anyone else being here. It’s because Cuba is an example of a country that is actively fighting against imperialist domination and insists on its own right to self-determination and sovereignty. The US government’s most acute fear is that other countries are going to follow the Cuban example. They want everybody to know that, if you follow this example, we will attack you in every way that we can. That is the reality as I see it about the blockade and why it is being continued.

The Miami Mafia (as everybody here calls them) has some input into that, but I believe it is not the money the Miami Mafia contributes to both parties that is making US policy what it is. It is the United States’ government’s insistence on being able to control the world, to tell all the people how to live, to export their version of “dollarocracy” to everybody else and to make every country in the world subservient to the interests of big business.

I think that as long as Cuba continues to be strong, I have nothing whatsoever to fear from the Cuban people. In fact I think I have much, much, much to gain in understanding how a people can unite, how people can be strong, and how people can take a little piece of earth and try to mold that piece of art into a work of art and a work of love.

em@potatolesbian· Mar 15

thinking of this interview with Assata Shakur today ;-; redsails.org/assata-and-p...

When I was a child, if someone had talked to me about buying water, I would have thought it was a joke. If we are not committed to saving this earth we will be buying designer air filters and gas masks with little Nike swishes on them. [Laughter, applause.] The people who are running this planet are insane — they are literally destroying it. I don’t know where they think they’re gonna drink water, breathe air… This planet is a wonderful place, but a vulnerable place. And they are making and implementing policies that are destroying the earth in all kinds of ways.

The movement against the kind of global assassination that is going on, in terms of whole countries — because every African country is facing an ecological disaster in terms of becoming deserts, in terms of fuel, Africa is one of the richest continents in the world but its people are the poorest in the world. A lot of that poverty is directly related to the policies of the IMF and the World Bank. Ending those policies is very important not only to Cuba, but to people all over the world who want to see their children grow up and have access to health care, to live somewhere that is not a desert, where they can drink water, where they can breathe air. So I think that movement against the IMF and World Bank policies is one of the most important, most optimistic struggles that is going on at this moment.

And we’ve also consumed the idea of powerlessness, of the idea that “you can’t fight City Hall”; of “you can’t change things, the government is strong, that’s just the way things are.” And as long as we continue to have that vision of the world, the planning of a better world is going to be a hard nut to crack.

So I think that one of the things as a step towards the phase that we plan years and years ahead is to actually believe that this world is redeemable, changeable; that we can eradicate poverty, that we can eradicate alienation, that we can eradicate this tremendous consumerism, this disease that we have to buy everything that exists, everything that the television says we have to have.

We have to have a vision of the world we want to make in 100 years. And maybe when we have that vision, when we convince enough people that that is a realistic vision, and that the opposite vision is basically that if we don’t do something, a hundred years from now this world is gonna be so destroyed, so raped and ravished that we won’t have much of a world to save.

em@potatolesbian· Mar 7

there were like 3 different nurses helping out with this process too and no one said anything even after i tried to correct them lmao

a fluffy cream colored dog with human eyes and a human mouth photoshopped onto them is staring at the viewer looking incredulous. the dog is sitting in the back seat of a car with a snowy background visible out the window

em@potatolesbian· Feb 24

a yellow emoji with a bemused expression that is holding their two gloved hands up next to their head

em@potatolesbian· Feb 22

a wide angle picture of a brown horse's face taken from around their ear. the horse has a perturbed expression and they are in a wooden stable

em@potatolesbian· Feb 10

i did my first shot today and i was brave abt it and i only panicked and almost fainted afterwards

a fluffy kitten is backlit and ringed by light, making it look like they're glowing. they're standing on carpeted stairs

em@potatolesbian· Jan 26

by building back public trust in the state and the military and policing as institutions, the state is able to return to a state of normalcy and quell resistance.

It is possible, therefore, to see COIN as representing a "liberal" or even "radical" politics (Slim 2004, 3, and Sewall 2007, xxi). Yet such apologetics miss the larger point. As a matter of realpolitik the authorities have to respond in some manner to popular demands; however, COIN allows them to do so in a way that at least preserves, and in the best case amplifies, their overall control. The purpose of counterinsurgency is to prevent any real shift in power.

Counterinsurgency is all about preserving (or reclaiming) the state's authority. Violence and territory are inherent to the project, but it is really legitimacy -- "the consent of the governed," "societal support" that separates the winners from the losers (FM 3-24, 2006, 1-113 and 1-115). As Gompert and Gordon put it: "The key in COIN is not to monopolize force but to monopolize legitimate force" (Gompert and Gordon 2008, xxxvii).

The strictly military aspects of the counterinsurgency campaign are, of course, necessary; but so are the softer, subtler efforts to bolster public support for the government. Both types of activities have to be understood as elements of political power.

em@potatolesbian· Jan 26

the state is experiencing a crisis of legitimacy bc the brutality of ICE and widespread resistance so walz is trying to rebuild ppls trust in the state by having the same fuckers that repressed revolt in 2020 give out donuts and coffee

But repression does not always come dressed up in riot gear, or breaking into offices in the middle of the night. It also comes in the form of the friendly "neighborhood liaison" officer, the advisory boards to local police departments, and the social scientist hired on as a consultant. Repression is, first and foremost, a matter of politics: it is the means the state uses to protect itself from political challenges, the methods it employs to preserve its authority and continue its rule. This process does not solely rely on force, but also mobilizes ideology, material incentives, and, in short, all of the tools and techniques of statecraft. We have to understand repression as involving both coercion and concessions, employing violence and building support, weeding opposition and seeding legitimacy. That is the basis of the counterinsurgency approach.

em@potatolesbian· Jan 25

www.interfacejournal.net/wordpress/wp...

From Afghanistan to California

These military lessons, adapted from domestic policing and battle-tested overseas, are now being cycled back into the homeland. Since February 2009, combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have been serving as advisors to police in Salinas, California, with the stated aim of applying counterinsurgency tools to local anti-gang efforts. Along with their expertise, the military advisors also arrive with software, including a computer program that maps the connections between gang activity, individual suspects, and their social circles, family ties, and neighborhood connections (Vick 2009).

em@potatolesbian· Jan 3

how does one find a remote job that isn't AI handler rn

a cream colored short dog is wearing a raincoat and looking at the camera with a distressed expression

a seagull is drinking out of a plastic tub with "dogs only, no seagulls!" written on it

em@potatolesbian· Jan 1

i love you pig

an orange cat is sitting on a cat tower and looking at the camera with a tilted head and their ears facing forward.

em@potatolesbian· Dec 25

i cleaned my bathroom and now i am suffering. idk why cleaning the bathroom so consistently causes dysautonomia flares that last for like the rest of the day

a black colored borzoi is lying on an unmade bed. their eyes are glowing from the flash and the image has motion blur

em@potatolesbian· Dec 15

it snowed here yesterday and i went out and took some pictures for the first time in a while

a pileated woodpecker hangs on a vertical branch. the background is blurry snowy branches and blue sky.
the pileated woodpecker is a large, black bird with a red crest on their head, a white stripe running up their neck, and a long pointy beak

em@potatolesbian· Dec 5

hii

a cream
colored fluffy borzoi with bunny ears looking lovingly at the viewer

em@potatolesbian· Dec 5

can anyone match 20?

a grainy black and white picture of white woman ina crowd holding a sign that says "proud trans-sexual lesbian"

em@potatolesbian· Dec 3

i'm so sad ;-;

a german shepard dog has their ears back and is looking at them camera with mournful eyes. the background is a misty parking lot. the caption is "hm-hm hm 💔"

em@potatolesbian· Oct 24

and cis (white) men are then supposed to paternalistically protect white cis women from the masculinized violent other, which enables the infantilization of MaGes. apologies if i explained this badly, but i think it's an insightful article. theanarchistlibrary.org/library/nsam...

There is a dualist conception of victimhood and violence built into racial-class paternalism. The victim is almost always female, the violator almost always male; and if not, the violator is painted as masculine or unfeminine (as in the case of the Jezebel trope in the US under chattel slavery).

Racial-class paternalism is simultaneously misogynistic-towards both cis and trans women, especially Black women-and deeply oppressive to men who are either non-white or non-cis or both, especially if they are poor. It creates fear mongering about the sanctity of the family or family values, the purity of wives and children, the stability of civilization and human reproduction, while repressing bodily autonomy for those characterized as the threats to these things.

Racial-class paternalism will typically acknowledge the existence of sexual violence, but only as a means of controlling women, of painting racial/ethnic others as rapists, of accusing queer/trans people as a whole of preying on children, and upholding the Nuclear Family and Marriage as institutions.

Racial-class paternalism showed up during the AIDS epidemic as a means of characterizing bisexuals as a disease ridden threat to marriages; it showed up during Jim Crow in the lynching campaigns that were foisted into Black communities by white fascists through false rape accusations. When misogynistic straight men are speculated to be secretly gay: this is a symptom of racial-class paternalism too insofar as the construction of gendered victimhood is framed in contradistinction to forms of embodiment that are stereotypically pushed outside the Patriarchal nexus, the marital-familial configuration, etc. There are biases against polyamory and against sex education which also rely on a paternalistic framing of gendered victimhood juxtaposed against that which is positioned as incongruent with the normative rhythms of the "good ole boy network." Desirability politics, and how it anchors transphobic, colorist, ableist, and fatphobic "preferences" (that shape not just romantic and sexual relations, but how people approach friendships and familial ties): any critiques thereof get framed as on par with violation of consent/boundaries under racial-class paternalism. Even cishet men, if they are not in

em@potatolesbian· Jan 4

a disabled community member needs f|_|nds for their phone bill and meds . 0/125 so far . vm: emma-potato note: "🍕" please c/p and support

an orange cat raises their paw up to the viewer. their paw is covered by a peace finger sign emoji and their tongue is out. in the background, the inside of a house can be seen

em@potatolesbian· Jan 4

a huge group of snow geese can be seen sitting in the blue shallow water of a marsh, with more landing to join them. there are so many that they join together to make a white line across the screen. orangey brown marsh grass can be seen in the foreground and background of the picture, and a line of brown leafless trees can be seen in the distance

em@potatolesbian· Jan 4

there were so many that they blanketed the entire sky and were very loud

a large flock of snow geese are partially silhouetted against a pale yellow sky. they cover the entire screen

em@potatolesbian· Jan 4

many snow geese are currently sick and dying because of the spread of HPAI :( i went to go see them migrating during the winter a few years ago and it was one of the most amazing things i've seen so here are some pictures that i took

a picture of a large group of snow geese sitting in blue water. the geese are white with black tips at the end of their wings

em@potatolesbian· Dec 26

cuddly boy 💜

a picture of an orangey-tan colored dog that has white splotches on their body. they look like a small pitbull. they are lying down with their eyes closed on a patterned carpet wnd a vivid red blanket. two feet in socks are visible next to the dog's head

em@potatolesbian· Dec 14

girl who is very tired

em's face is visible emerging out of the darkness. she is leaning against against her closed fist, and her face and hand are blurred and fuzzy. her eyes are closed and her brown hair fades into the background. eye bags are visible underneath her eyes

em@potatolesbian· Dec 4

i just realized that the only ppl who have seen my boobs in person are doctors

a glitched out pixelated picture with the text ETERNAL TORMENT in large red letters, a green cartoon person with eyes closed screaming, and illegible pixelated grey text in the background

em@potatolesbian· Dec 2

i don't often feel well enough to go out for walks taking pictures of creatures anymore, but i wanna post some of my photography on here :) so here's a sweet bunny that i saw last year