What fuels the Republican party and Donald Trump? Money from big donors including fossil fuel money. The fossil fuel industry spent $219 million on the 2024 election according to Yale Climate Connections citing data from OpenSecrets.

If you're from another country and you're buying U.S. fossil fuels you are funding your own demise due to Trump's disastrous tariff policy and aiding of the global far-right authoritarian extremists.

Donald Trump and the Republicans are not just hurting Americans, they're hurting nearly everyone in the world due to damage to the global economy and damage to the environment which impacts everyone due to rolling back pollution regulations. It's the right of every person who's been hurt by Trump to fight back!

I have an easy way you can fight back! Reduce your dependence on fossil fuels, switch to electricity powered by renewable energy.

All you need to do is contact your politicians and build up public support for electrification and switch to renewable energy. When you boycott fossil fuels you're taking away funding from the fossil fuel companies who are hurting the planet and hurting everyone by promoting authoritarian, far-right policies.

I'm call on you to take the following action:

1. Contact at least one elected official and tell them you feel electrification and renewable energy is important and we need a faster transition to it.

2. Make at-least one post on social media urging people to move away from fossil fuels.

Then keep scaling this up!

Also another thing if you personally can switch to solar or wind, if it's right for your situation, do it! You'll save money on power bills in the long run.

Over the past few months, I embarked on a rewarding digital journey to move away from US big tech and towards more European [EU], open source [FOSS], privacy-oriented [P], and decentralized [D] alternatives.

I'm sharing my experience here in case it can be useful to others, as well as to gather any additional thoughts or suggestions:

• Desktop OS: Microsoft Windows 11 --> OpenSUSE Tumbleweed + KDE [EU][FOSS]
• Web browser: Google Chrome --> Brave --> Vivaldi --> Mozilla Firefox + Strict privacy settings, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Conset-O-Matic [FOSS][P]
• Email: Gmail --> Infomaniak Mail [EU][FOSS]
• Calendar: Google Calendar --> Infomaniak Calendar [EU][FOSS] + OneCalendar [EU]
• Files: Dropbox --> Infomaniak kDrive [EU][FOSS]
• Photos: Google Photos --> Infomaniak kDrive [EU][FOSS]
• Notes: Google Keep --> Notesnook [FOSS][P]
• Social Media:
  • Facebook --> Nothing
  • Twitter/X --> Mastodon (mas.to) [EU][FOSS][D]
  • Reddit --> Lemmy (lemm.ee) [EU][FOSS][D]
• AI Chatbot: OpenAI ChatGPT --> Mistral AI Le Chat [EU]
• Videos: Youtube --> Unwatched [EU][FOSS][P]
• Podcasts: Apple Podcasts --> Spotify --> Pocket Casts [FOSS]
• Translate: Google Translate --> DeepL [EU]
• Maps: Google Maps --> Organic Maps [EU][FOSS][P]
• Weather: Apple Weather --> YR [EU]
• Online payments: PayPal --> Revolut [EU]
• Password manager: LastPass --> Mozilla Firefox --> Bitwarden [FOSS][P]
• Online shopping: Amazon --> Cdiscount [EU]
• Travel booking: Booking.com --> Direct booking

And here's the list of things I couldn't let go of:

• Mobile OS: iOS | I have a business iPhone which is also my personal phone
• Messaging: WhatsApp | The network effect is too big here: family, friends, local businesses, etc
• Streaming services: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ | These come basically for free with my ISP and are too convenient for the moment (esp. w/ kids)

Protest Trump's Fascist Birthday Display Vancouver Art Gallery When: Saturday, June 14, 2025

Where: 12:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m.

Where: Vancouver Art Gallery

The media won’t say it—but we will. Donald Trump is a fascist. On June 14th, we’re gathering at the Vancouver Art Gallery to send one clear message: it's time to stop soft-selling the threat. It’s time to call fascism what it is.

WHY WE’RE DOING THIS We’re not waiting for history books to catch up. We’re saying it now, because it’s true now.

The lack of widespread adoption of the word “fascist” has real consequences. When the media, journalists, politicians, and institutions downplay Trump’s rhetoric and actions, the public underestimates the threat. And when we don’t call it like we see it, fascism can more easily take root here at home in Canada.

WHY JUNE 14th Because it’s Trump’s birthday and he’s using it as a show of force. A protest on this day shows we won’t stand for silence, soft language, or denial.

The Context We want to call it out and name it. It’s fascism when you… Silence the press Jail and intimidate opponents Persecute freedom of expression Deport citizens without due process Ignore laws and use fear to rule

The word is still treated like an exaggeration or misrepresentation. That ends here. Why? Because this U.S. presidential administration is an authoritarian government, prioritizing power over people.

The truth matters. And the truth is urgent. We stand up now because if it can happen there, it can happen here. It’s not the time to be a passive bystander.

Read more in our recent blog post “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad F-World”

WHAT TO DO Show up with one message: “You’re a fascist if…”

Finish the sentence. Bring your sign. Tell your friends. Sign our petition. Help us hold the line against normalization. Because when we as a society name it, we can fight it.

**Why Vancouver? **Because Trump’s fascist tactics don’t stop at the U.S. border - they impact us too. From economic coercion through tariffs, to anti-immigrant policies that strain our borders, to undermining democratic alliances like NATO, his actions directly affect Canada. These aren’t just aggressive politics, they mirror classic fascist strategies: domination, nationalism, and authoritarian control. And with Trump arriving in Canada for the G7 the very next day, we’re showing up to say: we see it, and we’re naming it.

So I've tried out a few search engines but no matter where I look I can't find a great answer.

• Qwant was decent for a bit but as I eventually found out they don't use their own index.
• SearXNG, same as above.
• Mojeek was one of the first I went with but I often can't find what I'm looking for when using it.
• Wikipedia gives me YaCy, Exalead, Opensearch, Gigablast, and Elasticsearch but either I can't find the URL's for them or they require I install something on my computer.

What did you all end up picking? And does it even matter if the back-end is American owned, do American companies make money from that (or does that give them inordinate control)?

In this Opinion video, Marci Shore, Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, all professors at Yale and experts in authoritarianism, explain why America is especially vulnerable to a democratic backsliding — and why they are leaving the United States to take up positions at the University of Toronto.

In communities like this one there sometimes are comments by Americans who understand and agree with the other people here. In this video, a professor (who has spent two decades writing about the history of authoritarianism in Central and Eastern Europe!) says "the lesson of 1933 is that you want to get out sooner than later".

I am sharing this for the Americans who have the means to go, but are doubting whether they should stay or not. Nobody can make that decision for them, but I think the opinion of the three Yale university professors says a lot.

One reason the the court has been hamstrung is that it relies heavily on contractors and non-governmental organizations. Those businesses and groups have curtailed work on behalf of the court because they were concerned about being targeted by U.S. authorities, according to current and former ICC staffers.

Microsoft, for example, cancelled Khan’s email address, forcing the prosecutor to move to Proton Mail, a Swiss email provider, ICC staffers said. His bank accounts in his home country of the U.K. have been blocked.

Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment.

I just learned that my 2 fav snacks are from america: potato chips (has potato), and popcorn (has maize). What are some non-US snacks I could try instead?

thanks

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/43805278

Tesla Takedown Vancouver

Start: Saturday, May 17, 2025•12:00 PM End: Saturday, May 17, 2025• 2:00 PM

Tesla Showroom• 1636 West 4th Ave Vancouver, BC V6J 1L9, Vancouver, BC V6J 1L9 CA

Tesla sales are down 71%~YAY!

Take a victory lap, then come join us in Kits to finish the job.

Bring your signs, your smiles, and your burning desire to take down a billionaire. Tesla goes down, ELON GOES DOWN!

LFG!

Tesla Takedown is a peaceful protest movement. We oppose violence, vandalism and destruction of property.

Avoid Paywall

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/42786765

Until you get a chance to leave behind Google's Android operating system completely, here's an article I saw with a few fairly simple things you can do that will reduce (although not eliminate) the ability of Google and others to scrape your data and monetize you.

I already do step 1 (Firefox etc). But looking at step 5, for example, my phone had all those ad options set to "on".

"There are three factors," he told The Register. "The first is really the unreliability, because we see what Trump is doing and the danger is that things will be just switched off from one day to another for negotiation purposes. Then we see the whole question around pricing with the tariffs.

"And then the other thing is really the espionage factor. This is relatively new and surprising to me ... but now you see what Musk is doing, that you can access really confidential databases ... I think this is a realistic fear nowadays."