Assata Shakur, a Black Liberation Army member exiled in Cuba since 1984, is the only person among the top 10 on the FBI's 'Most Wanted Terrorists' list who is not an Islamic militant.

You see, long before the Islamic terrorist 'threat,' the United States had a long history of vilifying African freedom fighters who could care less to sing 'kumbaya' and just 'get along' with everyone (particularly their oppressors) at the expense of their own freedom.

This week's dash of Wednesday Wisdom reminds us that freedom is not something that is handed over to the oppressed by their oppressors simply because the oppressed appeal to the oppressor's 'moral sense.'

In Deutschland werden jüdische Stimmen, die die Politik Israels kritisieren, immer wieder des Antisemitismus bezichtigt und diffamiert. Als antisemitisch gelten diese Ausgrenzungen aber nicht. Diese Verzerrung ist hochgefährlich – und bildet den Bodensatz für einen neuen deutschen Patriotismus.

https://jacobin.de/artikel/antisemitismus-antideutsche-moshe-zuckermann-judith-butler

Individuals with higher verbal IQ were more likely to vote in elections and participate in civic activities while being less inclined to endorse traditionalist and authoritarian values. They also tended to hold more liberal social attitudes and support egalitarian views.

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#VerbalIQ #CivicParticipation #LiberalAttitudes #EgalitarianValues #VotingBehavior

Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (1943)

Song of the Day 🔥👊🏼: https://open.spotify.com/track/5aGTOvvZkojUjAGm3x3N4f

Diese 7 Friedensabkommen haben für Stabilität gesorgt https://www.watson.ch/!962814634

Good Idea: The wellbeing economy

https://weall.org/

A Wellbeing Economy places human and planetary needs at the core, ensuring that economic activity enhances wellbeing for all, rather than prioritizing growth at any cost. This vision moves beyond GDP as the sole measure of success, aiming for a system where everyone has access to basic comforts, and communities thrive in a restored, sustainable environment. By focusing on fairness, participation, nature, dignity, and purpose, the Wellbeing Economy creates solutions that prevent harm and promote inclusivity. Several countries have already embraced the Wellbeing Economy approach by adopting wellbeing metrics beyond GDP to guide their policies. These include Scotland, New Zealand, Iceland, Finland and Wales.
These nations are part of the Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo) initiative, which focuses on creating policies that prioritize human and environmental wellbeing over mere economic growth. They aim to build societies where people can live fulfilling lives, within the ecological limits of the planet.
WEAll is leading this shift through collaborations and practical examples of social enterprises, worker-owned businesses, and community-driven policies. Explore their resources to see how you can be part of the change toward a fairer, more sustainable future.

News from the Front: The Reflections of a Russian Anarchist in Rojava

A Russian anarchist volunteer speaks on the collapse of the Assad regime, the future of Russia, and the looming threat of a Turkish-backed invasion of northeastern Syria.

https://crimethinc.com/Rojava2024

"I watched with special feeling as the Russian columns passed by me at one of the positions. I peered into the faces of the soldiers, trying to understand whether they realized that all these years, they had been terrorizing the population with bombings, they had surrendered Afrin to the Turkish army, they had kept Assad’s regime alive—and now all this is over. Russian military aid to the Syrian dictatorship has ended. I do not think that those soldiers realized that they were looking into the eyes of a man from the same country as themselves, but who chose the other side of the barricades."

FUSE ODG: WHY ‘BAND AID’ SUCKS FOR AFRICA

In 2014, Ghanaian-British artist Fuse ODG declined an invitation to join Band-Aid's 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' 30th-anniversary remake. The charity single was first released in 1984 to fundraise for famine relief in Ethiopia.

This year, on the 40th anniversary, he's released his response track called 'We Know It's Christmas' - and has been vocal, as in this clip from a recent LBC radio interview, in his criticisms of patronising and counterproductive Western aid initiatives for Africa.

He argues that although Band-Aid has raised millions over the years for those affected by various humanitarian catastrophes - from famine in East Africa to ebola in West Africa - its narrow portrayal of the continent as a charity case and a place eclipsed by war, suffering, and disease, has done more harm than good.

Bias in AI amplifies our own biases, finds study | Artificial intelligence systems tend to take on human biases and amplify them, causing people who use that AI to become more biased themselves, finds a new study by UCL researchers.

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#BiasInAI #ArtificialIntelligence #HumanBias #UCLResearch #TechEthics

Women exhibit less manipulative personality traits in more gender-equal countries. In countries with lower levels of gender equality, women scored higher on Machiavellianism, potentially reflecting increased reliance on manipulative strategies to navigate restrictive or resource-scarce environments.

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#womenempowerment#genderequality#personalitytraits#Machiavellianism#socialpsychology

Song of the Day 🧊🥤: https://open.spotify.com/track/2z1yZ6tsne36nPpQWcQmKs