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Kit O'Connell: Approximately 8,000 Words Posts

Elizabeth Holmes & The Meat-Grinder Of CapitalismElizabeth Holmes gestures while speaking at a conference. She's wearing her signature black turtleneck and her blonde hair is artfully dissheveled.
The Elizabeth Holmes verdict is an endorsement of capitalism's ever-growing death toll. (Flickr / Fortune Global Forum 2015, CC NC ND license)
January 16, 2022
Kit
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Elizabeth Holmes & The Meat-Grinder Of Capitalism

Posted in Creative Commons, and Journalism

Elizabeth Holmes’ guilty verdict chilled me in a way I didn’t expect until it happened.

The popular media suggested a guilty verdict might put the brakes on some of the worst behavior of the tech giants. And the jury found Holmes guilty earlier this month … of some of the accusations against her.

Out of the 11 counts against Holmes, the jury could only agree to a guilty verdict on 4 — all of them involving defrauding investors. On the rest, the jury either deadlocked or acquitted. That includes all the charges involving misleading doctors and patients with false testing results.

Read moreElizabeth Holmes & The Meat-Grinder Of Capitalism
Fact-checking Fascism: Axios Platforms Violent Biker Gang Over Veterans DayIn a heated confrontation, Proud Boys in their yellow uniforms confront a group facing away from the camera. One in a yellow Proud Boys mask points angrily at us.
A confrontation with Proud Boys in Wasington, D.C. (Geoff Livingston / Flickr, CC NC ND license)
November 11, 2021
Kit
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Fact-checking Fascism: Axios Platforms Violent Biker Gang Over Veterans Day

Posted in Creative Commons, Journalism, and Occupy Wall Street

Over 5 years since the election of Donald Trump and the rise of the powerful white supremacist movement he empowered, the mainstream media still struggles to fact-check fascists.

It always interests me which organizations get the benefit of the doubt from the mainstream media.

I (and many others) have written about how the mainstream media tends to take the words of police at face value. Reporters often use whatever language makes police seem blameless after violent interactions.

Just like cops, right-wing fascists frequently get platformed by reporters who fail to ask vital questions.

Which brings us to an article by Asher Price, an Austin reporter for Axios.

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We Didn’t Fix Austin (Or America)’s Nazi ProblemA massive supercell storm cloud forms in a funnel shape over the fields of Oklahoma.
Just looking at this photo causes me a twinge of fibromyalgia pain. (Unsplash / Raychel Sanner, public domain)
September 1, 2021
Kit
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We Didn’t Fix Austin (Or America)’s Nazi Problem

Posted in Austin, Creative Commons, and Journalism

A friend that lives in Portland posted on his Facebook about the latest spasm of white supremacist violence that took place there.

Someone that I’ve a bunch of mutuals in common with responded. A sort-of-smug comment to the effect of “thank goodness we ran those people out of Austin, Texas!” And I’ll be honest, that comment shocked me: we did what?

The comment reminded me that this attitude is probably widespread in my city and across the country.

I asked myself, are there people in this country that go days without thinking about the rise of fascism and the collapse of the climate? What must that be like?

Read moreWe Didn’t Fix Austin (Or America)’s Nazi Problem