cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/35600642

By MEE staff
Published date: 2 September 2025

A little over a year ago, Drin Shapiro was a student programme assistant at the University of Michigan's (UM) English Language Institute, and a student in his final year of a bachelor's degree in history.

Since then, he has faced criminal charges brought by the state's attorney general, lost his on-campus job, spent time behind bars, and, as of last month, was still being disciplined by the university despite having graduated in May.

All of this was because he took part in a student encampment against the war on Gaza on 21 May 2024. Shapiro was arrested during the police raid of the encampment and was later released on bond.

Well we have our answer: Turns out, ABWD/ BlueMAGA was/ is an astroturfed campaign.

A little over a year ago, Drin Shapiro was a student programme assistant at the University of Michigan's (UM) English Language Institute, and a student in his final year of a bachelor's degree in history. Since then, he has faced criminal charges brought by the state's attorney general, lost his on-campus job, spent time behind bars, and, as of last month, was still being disciplined by the university despite having graduated in May.

All of this was because he took part in a student encampment against the war on Gaza on 21 May 2024. Shapiro was arrested during the police raid of the encampment and was later released on bond. Attorney general Dana Nessel, a vocal supporter of Israel, charged Shapiro in September 2024, but ultimately dropped the criminal charges in May 2025 because she said it was no longer a good use of time and resources.

But while Shapiro was out on bond, the university famously hired - and later fired - private investigators to track his movements, as well as other students rounded up during the anti-war protests.

When the city of Seattle contacted Fusus, one of the nation’s leading police surveillance tech companies, in 2023, a company exec did more than just send over a brochure — he offered to connect Seattle with a “peer” in Atlanta’s police department who was familiar with the company’s products.

Seattle was hoping that Fusus’s Connect system — which ties together license plate readers, public cameras, and privately owned cameras into a single surveillance platform — could help them combat retail theft. The next year, after a Seattle Police Department project manager visited Atlanta to see the system in action, Fusus sealed the deal: Seattle signed a contract for “Connect Seattle” at an estimated price tag of $1.8 million.

But what Gross-Shader and the rest of her colleagues in Seattle didn’t know — until The Intercept called with questions — was that Freeman was wearing two hats the whole time they were talking: The APD official was not only a consultant for Fusus, he was also a board member and owner of a small share of the company that could be worth millions.

An Intercept investigation, based on public documents and a City of Atlanta ethics investigation, has found that Freeman didn’t disclose his role with Fusus in conversations with at least 14 other cities during a period spanning at least two years, and at least nine of those cities went on to make or amend millions of dollars worth of contracts with Axon Fusus — the company’s name since Axon, the company behind the Taser and a major vendor of bodyworn cameras and other police surveillance systems, purchased Fusus last year.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/35280201

The United States hopes to use machine learning to create and distribute propaganda overseas in a bid to “influence foreign target audiences” and “suppress dissenting arguments,” according to a U.S. Special Operations Command document reviewed by The Intercept.

The document, a sort of special operations wishlist of near-future military technology, reveals new details about a broad variety of capabilities that SOCOM hopes to purchase within the next five to seven years, including state-of-the-art cameras, sensors, directed energy weapons, and other gadgets to help operators find and kill their quarry. Among the tech it wants to procure is machine-learning software that can be used for information warfare.

To bolster its “Advanced Technology Augmentations to Military Information Support Operations” — also known as MISO — SOCOM is looking for a contractor that can “Provide a capability leveraging agentic Al or multi‐LLM agent systems with specialized roles to increase the scale of influence operations.”

1. "Leftists are irreligious". People who say this do not live their religion properly as well. Money is a lot stronger than religion so everything under capitalism is done for money and nothing else. This means people will easily go against their religion and its teachings if it means they will earn more. Under communism however where money doesn not matter or at least matters less, religious people will become more genuine about their religion. As Marx and Engels say, everything is reduced to its exchange value. In addition to religion, nothing else such as culture, language, patriotism or anything else do not matter under capitalism since in reality, everything is about money and all of those above can be sacrifised if it will make one earn more money. In other words, capitalism makes money so valuable that everything else loses their meanings and only become meaningful after money.

2. "You are against competition or you are too lazy". Socialism isnt a system in which you do not work or work less. It is a system in which you get the full value in return of your work. So leftists do want to work but not in a system where their labor is exploited by their bosses. For example, lets say you are working in a factory. You are putting your labor in to produce something but you dont get the value generated by that product. You boss sells that product and then gives you a very small portion of his profit while you deserve your part of the full value. In this case, you are the one producing the product but its your boss taking the reward. This is what leftists are against. In conclusion, its not about working less but its about getting the reward that you truly deserve in exchange for your labor.

3. "Leftists will take away everything we have". This statement is actually true for bosses and business owners (at least those who have people working under them). But this is not true for those who are not exploiting other people's labor. Leftists are not against that kind of property ownership. So, if you produce a product only with your own labor and with no one else's, then you can keep the money you made by selling that product since you havent exploited anyone else during the process. What Marxists are against is workers putting all the effort while their bosses get everything in return. Wouldn't you want to take the full return of your labor and give nothing to your boss?

4. "Leftists want to destroy the state and patriotism": In reality, one does not have a state at all if they are living under capitalism. Every working class people around the world is the same since you need "money" in order to be different and have the unique aspects of your country. Your state is only working in favor of the rich. This means it is meaningless to be patriotic about a country in which only the rich gets the benefit of anything good that happens to the country. Lets say a new technology is invented in your country. There is no point at being happy about it since it will only benefit the company which developed it and not you. So, you think you own a country but it only benefits the rich in reality. Ordinary people will die in a war and after that, it will be the rich which is going to invest in those newly occupied lands. So, even if you win the war, it does nothing in your favor as a working class person. As a result, there is nothing good about ebing patriotic under capitalism.

For decades, police, medical examiners, and coroners have used the term used to cover up killings in police custody.

Most striking to me about Martin’s overall message is that Democrats need to stop getting into arguments with each other.

“We have to stop settling on winning arguments with each other; we have to win elections,” Martin said. The way to win, the Party leader says, is to unify behind “one single goal to stop Donald Trump … and put this country back on track.”

And how to put the country back on track? By my count, Martin uttered Trump’s name 19 times in his main address. Obviously, it makes sense that the opposition party would have some things to say about the sitting president. But he hardly mentioned major issues like housing, a word he didn’t mention at all, even though Zohran Mamdani just weeks ago campaigned to victory on it. He didn’t mention inflation either, and only said healthcare twice and inequality once.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made this point even more explicitly in his speech, saying: “We do not have the luxury to fight amongst ourselves while that thing sits in the White House.”

(The irony here is that he leads a state in which the Democratic Party just days ago took the extraordinary step of withdrawing their endorsement of the Minneapolis mayoral candidate, state Senator Omar Fateh. Then there’s Mamdani, who still can’t get the endorsement of his own party’s leaders like Hakeem Jeffries, whose district Mamdani outperformed him in!)

The 2024 presidential ballot was shaped by Biden and the Party apparatus and not by the voters. Throughout the first half of the year, the White House and the Party tolerated no acknowledgment of the president’s frailty. In the name of not having any debate, the Party squashed any primary challenges to Biden and then left no time (or way) for a viable candidate to emerge, anointing Kamala Harris instead. The Democratic Party met this past week and emerged with an exact repeat, a strict adherence to where the puck was in a losing game.

A new survey has revealed a sharp generational split in United States attitudes towards Israel’s war on Gaza, with younger voters showing unprecedented support for Hamas as Israel carries out a genocide.

The poll, conducted by The Harris Poll and HarrisX between 20 and 21 August among 2,025 registered voters, asked respondents: “In the Israel-Hamas conflict, do you support more Israel or more Hamas?”

Sixty percent of voters aged 18–24 expressed greater support for Hamas, in stark contrast to older demographics, where backing for Israel rose steadily: 65 percent among ages 25–34, 70 percent among ages 35–44, 74 percent among ages 45–54, 84 percent among those aged 55–64, and 89 percent of voters over 65.

SponsorBlock, Timestamps, and Generated Summary below:

SponsorBlock Timestamp:

1. 0:00.000 - 2:22.900 Intermission
2. 2:22.900 - 2:32.500 Intermission
3. 2:29:11.500 - 2:29:21.912 Endcards/Credits

Video Description:

#BabyBoomers #Elderly #Homeless #Home #Housing #Retirement #Retire #Pension #401k #Savings #Florida #Disabled #Students #School #Graduation #Jobs #workers #Economy #Money #disability #Poverty

Timestamps:

1. 00:00:00 Start
2. 00:02:23 Intro
3. 00:05:39 Florida HARMS Disabled Students Future!
4. 01:13:34 Addressing 2RawTooReal (Kenneth)
5. 01:29:46 Elderly Homeless SKYROCKETS
6. 02:10:43 Read Chats and Outro

Generated Summary:

Elderly Homelessness and Harm to Disabled Students in Florida

This video addresses two critical issues: the rising rate of homelessness among the elderly and a new Florida law that negatively impacts disabled students. The speaker argues that society often overlooks and undervalues individuals with disabilities, particularly within a capitalist system that prioritizes productivity.

Key Points:

• Florida's New Law: The Florida Board of Education has voted to phase out certificates of completion for students with disabilities, meaning that students who cannot complete the standard coursework for a diploma will leave school without any formal recognition.
• Economic Impact: Amy Vanberen of the Down Syndrome Association of Central Florida, highlights that this change could make it even harder for people with disabilities to secure employment, potentially leading to deeper poverty and unemployment.
• Moral and Class Issue: The speaker emphasizes that this is not just a moral issue but also a class issue, questioning whether society truly supports all members of the working class, including those with disabilities.
• Systemic Problems in Education: The speaker criticizes the current education system for prioritizing obedience and conformity over mindfulness and critical thinking, and for failing to adapt to the diverse learning styles and abilities of students.
• Capitalist Model: The speaker argues that the education system operates under a capitalist model, aiming to produce "good little workers" and discarding those who cannot conform to its standards.
• Alternative Approaches: The speaker suggests that instead of phasing out certificates of completion, the school system should find different ways to help disabled students learn and recondition itself to accommodate their needs.
• Sir Ken Robinson's "Changing Education Paradigms": The speaker references a talk by Sir Ken Robinson, which argues that the current education system is outdated and alienates many students by trying to meet the future with methods from the past.
• Disproportionate Harm: The speaker emphasizes that the dissolution of certificates of completion disproportionately harms students with disabilities, widening the educational disparity gap.
• Early Intervention: The speaker agrees with increasing early detection and intervention for students with autism and creating micro-credentials for teachers who work with students on the spectrum, as long as it aims to help them learn while embracing their unique minds.
• Prison Pipeline: The speaker highlights a disturbing trend where standardized test scores in the third grade are used to predict future prison populations, indicating a systemic issue of marginalizing and incarcerating certain groups of children.

Highlighted Information:

• "People with disabilities already have a higher rate of unemployment and a lower rate of job placement after school. Now without a certificate of completion, securing employment could be even harder." This underscores the practical consequences of the new law.
• "The school system at its present form is more focused on obedience and conformity rather than mindfulness and critical thinking." This highlights a fundamental flaw in the current education model.
• "Public education is capitalist education because they want you to be good little workers." This statement encapsulates the speaker's critique of the education system's role in perpetuating capitalist values.
• "They will actually do tests, school standardized tests for kids in the third grade, and they use those test scores to judge how many beds and how many cells that they will need for prisons." This reveals a shocking and disturbing aspect of the system.

About Channel:

Blacking Out Corporate Propaganda and Educating for a Revolution.

“You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can’t jail the Revolution.” -- Fred Hampton (1948 - 1969)

We should focus our actions, time, and resources on Direct Action, Mutual Aid, and Community Outreach. If you do engage in Electoral Politics do not support the Duopoly (Red or Blue Team). No War but Class War!

Edit:

1. Fixed title, date of video

United States President Donald Trump has revoked Secret Service protection for his political opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, White House officials have told several news agencies.

The change revealed on Friday means that Harris will lose protection from the federal law enforcement agency on September 1, according to the reports.

Former vice presidents are typically afforded six months of Secret Service protection upon leaving office, but former President Joe Biden had quietly signed a directive extending protection for his deputy shortly before his term ended in January.