@timhollo@aus.social
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

timhollo

@timhollo@aus.social

Come for the dad jokes. Stay for the radical ecological democracy. Author of “Living Democracy: an ecological manifesto for the end of the world as we know it” Director of The Green Institute. Founder of Green Music Australia. Violist / singer in FourPlay String Quartet. He/they. Father of two on stolen Ngunnawal land.
https://linktr.ee/timhollo

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

timhollo, to Birds
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Oh my! Be still my beating heart!

Our spotted pardalotes are so comfortable in our garden now! This little jewel has spent the last 20 minutes chatting with me through the window and all is good in the world 💚

A perfect, tiny bird, about 2 inches long, with a yellow fluffy belly, black cap with white spots, black cape with white spots and a red splash in the middle and grey and white over the shoulders, perches in a bush right outside my window

timhollo, to australia
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

It is established fact that Australian soldiers in Afghanistan committed war crimes. Today, the man whose courageous act of whistleblowing brought these crimes to light has been sentenced to almost 6 years in gaol.

This is a dark day in Australian history. Democracy needs people to stand up when they see wrongdoing being committed by powerful people. We should be thanking and celebrating David McBride, not imprisoning him.

https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/14/david-mcbride-former-army-lawyer-sentenced-to-five-years-for-stealing-and-leaking-afghanistan-war-documents

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

“The Israel-Hamas war is horrifying. The atrocities committed by both sides illustrate the capacities of human beings for inhumanity and show the vile consequences of hate. For these reasons, it presents an opportunity for students to re-examine their preconceptions and learn from one another.

“If Columbia or any other university now roiled by student protests were doing what it should be doing, it would be a hotbed of debate about the war. Disagreement would be welcome; demonstrations accepted; argument invited; differences examined.”

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/23/israel-gaza-campus-protests

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

“We are proud Jews who denounce the weaponization of Jewish identity and the memory of the Holocaust to justify what many experts in international law, including leading Holocaust scholars, have identified as a “genocide in the making.” We reject the false choice between Jewish safety and Palestinian freedom. We stand with all those calling for a permanent ceasefire, including the safe return of all hostages and the immediate delivery of aid into Gaza, and an end to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of and siege on Gaza.

“We honor the memory of the Holocaust by saying: Never again for anyone.”

Yes

https://www.screendaily.com/news/joaquin-phoenix-joel-coen-debra-winger-sign-letter-in-support-of-jonathan-glazers-oscar-speech/5192192.article

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Oh, this is too perfect. Call an election to get a majority and end up with a parliament where it’s impossible for either old party to secure a stable majority. Magnificent. Well played, Tasmanians, well played.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/06/make-up-of-tasmanian-parliament-finally-settled-as-anti-politician-independent-takes-last-seat?CMP=aus_bsky

timhollo,
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

@trib @timrichards Labor has backed themselves into a corner, refusing to ever share with Greens. But it’s probably also good politics to sit back and watch the Lib/Lambie/Ind nonsense ensue for a while.

timhollo,
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

@timrichards @timhollo @trib yes. For a certain definition of power, of course. The assumption that exec govt is the only way to get shit done is one of the more corrosive aspects of the current political system, imo

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Breathe in. Breathe out. Ahhhh

Yesterday I took the day off and walked on my own up Stockyard Spur in Namadgi National Park. Didn’t see another human for 8 hours. Heaps of birds & bugs & lizards & wallabies.

And snow gums. God I adore snow gums.

Desperately needed that. Me old knees ache now, though, from that descent! The first / last section of the walk is 600m vertical over 2kms. Hard work in both directions, but SO worth it.

Two youngish thinnish snow gums in the wet grass against a background of trees in the mist
Close up of a snow gum sprig showing bright greens and reds, growing from a trunk that is orange and grey. Trees in the mist in the background
Same snow gum sprig showing more of the striated trunk of the tree and more of the background

timhollo,
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

And you absolutely mist turn the SOUND ON for this video!

It was still only about 8am and the birds were singing gorgeously when I noticed something really odd. One bird among them, incredibly loud, singing the songs of lots of different birds, including some that weren’t there, like the yellow tailed black cockatoo screech, and red wattle bird calls.

I saw one lyrebird fly over me, but I think there’s actually two singing here.

video/mp4

timhollo,
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

And I took a few photos along the way

Gums in the mist, with one in the foreground left, with lichen on its trunk

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Went to see Ken Loach’s latest (and he says last) film today and it’s as moving and wonderful and inspiring as expected. Please go and watch it, and take any friends who could do with seeing a nuanced and compassionate view of the complexity of humanity.

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

🎶 Sound ON for I think 5 or 6 kookaburras! I REALLY needed that dose of pure joy 💚

Five or six kookaburras sitting on long eucalyptus branches against a somewhat cloudy sky

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Open letter from members of the Australian Jewish community:

We as Jews in Australia, living on unceded First Nations lands, are still processing the grief, shock and trauma of October 7 and the weeks since. Many of us have lost loved ones, still fear for those held hostage, and all of us are mourning the atrocities committed by Hamas. Yet the violence that has continued to spill forth from that day, and the tragic murder of thousands of Palestinian civilians, is not, and will never be, the answer to our grief.

We as Australian Jews are calling for an immediate ceasefire. We demand that our Jewish communal organisations do the same.

Once violence enters into the world it can not be put back. It seeps into our minds, scars our bodies, and poisons the earth. As many of us know, we carry it for generations. The fundamental goal of this moment should be Pikuach Nefesh – the preservation of human life. We must have compassion and empathy for all victims of violence, not just the ones we know. There is no violent resolution to this conflict. There is no violent pathway to ensuring Jewish or Palestinian security.

1/3

timhollo,
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Our political and communal leadership have failed us. Failed to protect Israelis and Palestinians, failed to realise their fundamental human, political and cultural rights. We are told that there are two options: you are either for Jewish security OR Palestinian freedom. Human rights are not a zero sum game. Our community deserves leadership who are better than this.
Neither Israelis or Palestians are going anywhere. The only peaceful future is a shared future. We must commit to both Jewish and Palestinian liberation together – both peoples’ fundamental rights to life and liberation, in our lifetime, and immediately.

Our organising, outrage and courage is grounded in the Jewish principle:
“Truth springs up from the earth; Justice looks down from the heavens”
אמת מארץ תצמח וצדק משמים נשקף

As we feel the vacuum of moral political leadership we do not sit silent. We organise as people, and stand firmly on the side of people. We listen to the anguish of Israeli and Palestinian victims of violence and their families. We hear their courageous calls for peaceful resolution. No one else should be made to mourn, not another soul should be made a refugee.

2/3

timhollo,
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

We have seen our community’s capacity to be publicly critical of Israel. When we saw the Israeli government actively eroding democratic institutions, we spoke out against it. We are now calling for the same political courage. Support for the Israeli government’s actions is not unconditional. We will not sit silently while our grief is being used to justify the collective punishment of Palestinians, in Gaza and the West Bank. Jewish self-determination that is built on death, destruction and collective punishment cannot, by its nature, be Jewish.

As a Jewish community, we must embrace a new vision. One that speaks to joint liberation, freedom and real justice. All of us must live with the violence that is occurring now. All of us must bear the consequences. There must be a better future.

We will not be free until all of us are free.

Our calls are simple:

  1. Ceasefire Now
  2. Let Gaza Live
  3. Free Hostages
  4. End Occupation
  5. Joint Liberation

Full letter and signatories here:

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1ECIHNzPa5iNHIUZab-zC_zzOEGGbYIBTlMuRt3HVg3s/mobilebasic

timhollo,
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

@OrenLewLev the one thing I know cannot ever work is using violence to overcome a violent group like Hamas. Waging war against them is the best way for them to recruit. The solution has to involve deradicalisation programs, building connections, creating space for people to live better lives. The way to beat Hamas is to remove their capacity to recruit, make sure people don’t have any reason to join them. It’s not easy, it’s scary. But bombing them might make you feel better now, but will just make everything worse

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

I want to say “not in my name”

And I want to say the maths here show the insanity of the idea that violence can bring peace, or that war can defeat Hamas.

One leader killed. 50 innocent refugees killed. Hundreds more recruited to the cause of the dead leader?

And the hatred this is breeding and feeding around the world… It is utterly terrifying and horrific.

End the cycle of violence.

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Somebody’s defamation case just disintegrated, as one of Australia’s worst kept secrets becomes public

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/26/bruce-lehrmann-rape-charge-toowoomba-liberal-2021?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Important timeline cleanse.

Have some ducklings

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

"This time it's all of us or none"

With people all around posting "I stand with", I've been conspicuously absent from social media this week, struggling very deeply with how it's possible to stand with anyone or anything on such shaky ground, how it's possible to respond in any way to such atrocities.

At the risk of making something so huge about me (but isn't that how we humans process things?), as a left-wing Jew, I have never in my life felt so alienated from both my identity communities.

People I love and respect calling for or apologising for genocide and war crimes. It doesn't matter who by or who upon. It is horrifying. How have we come to this? How can we get past it?

And I know this trauma is nothing compared to those under the bombs or in front of the guns. But I cannot stop shaking. There's no steady ground. How can you stand? Let alone stand with?

One thing I want to clearly observe is that it feels like the very idea of nonviolence is taking a horrific battering, as people rush to one side or another, concluding that wiping the other off the face of the Earth is the only solution.

[more to follow]

timhollo,
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

I feel horribly alone, a lot of the time, insisting that violence will only create more violence. But if there is one thing I am certain of, in these shifting sands, it is that neither security nor liberation can be achieved through violence. It is a universal truth, and nowhere more obvious than in Israel / Palestine.

Using violence to achieve ends is wrong morally, and it is wrong strategically and structurally. Violence disconnects us. Violence dehumanises us. Violence drives us apart and makes it harder to find solutions. And violence at any level infects us at every other level. Committing violent acts politically is integrally related to interpersonal violence, to sex and gender-based violence, and to interspecies violence.

Having said this, it is nevertheless obvious that, when oppressed people who have been the subjects and targets of violence lash out with violence themselves, we empathise with their actions. Of course we can understand why they would do such a thing. But that does not mean what they are doing is right - morally or strategically or structurally. We can understand without endorsing. And we can differentiate between limited, responsive and targeted violence, and indiscriminate horrors.

2/?

timhollo,
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

And here's the thing: if we can acknowledge that for one "side", we must also for the other. If we understand why Palestinians have broken under the strain, we must also see that Israel itself is exactly that - a people persecuted and murdered and massacred for countless generations crying out "enough, no more, we must be strong!" And vice versa.

And we see where that has led: to an intractable horror where one people's security is dependent on another's imprisonment and mass murder, and where that people's liberation is dependent on another's annihilation.

Except that it's not. It really isn't, is it?

This is what Netanyahu and Haniyeh and Smotrich and Deif and Ben Gvir (and Biden and Albanese) want us to believe. These are the lies of the maniacs that generations of trauma and populism and assassination have left in charge. These are the fever dreams of men who cannot imagine a response that is not ever more violence.

These are not the dreams of real people. They're not the dreams of the children sharing playgrounds, the peace-seekers breaking bread together, all those working to create dialogue.

3/?

timhollo,
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Nonviolence is the only successful path to justice, security, liberation. Its entire philosophy draws from the recognition that oppressive, coercive power creates obedience through fear, and that it is neither feasible nor desirable to beat such power at its own game. The historical record since time immemorial, and detailed analysis (that I go through in my book, if you're interested) of the modern era, shows that nonviolence is the most successful tool for overthrowing oppressors and building effective new, less oppressive systems.

It is successful because it replaces fear with hope, destruction with creation, division with coexistence.

Violence creates enemies of allies and potential friends, while nonviolence creates allies out of enemies - quite literally, by creating space for defectors from armies and guards.

Points of rupture, like we've seen this week, expose the values each of us truly lives by. If we are willing to discard those values when it gets hard to believe them, we have to challenge ourselves ever harder, ask ourselves why.

I believe, if we can lift ourselves out of the trauma response, we are better than this. We all are. My Jewish friends and family. My leftist friends and family.

We cannot cross until we carry each other.

/end, with love

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Lovely to be back in lutruwita Tassie for the first time in years, speaking to their state Greens conference about transformative politics and running a workshop on Greens and government.

Wonderful to be on Palawa country.

I always forget how different the light is down here!

Looking up the Mersey towards the hills - blue water, blue sky, BIG BOATS including the Spirit of Tasmania
Looking out towards Bass Strait, over scrub. Big sky and crisp light
View over Devonport towards the bluffs, with a massive sky above

timhollo, to random
@timhollo@aus.social avatar

Or, and hear me out here, we could remove all the stupid, demeaning, punitive burning hoops of conditionality we force poor people to jump through in order to get scraps from the table. We could give people what they need in order to survive, with an unconditional, universal basic income. #UBI

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/economy/2023/09/23/exclusive-australias-welfare-agency-risk-collapse

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • megavids
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • GTA5RPClips
  • osvaldo12
  • love
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • everett
  • kavyap
  • mdbf
  • DreamBathrooms
  • ngwrru68w68
  • provamag3
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • normalnudes
  • tacticalgear
  • cubers
  • ethstaker
  • modclub
  • cisconetworking
  • Durango
  • anitta
  • Leos
  • tester
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •