iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Richard Stamper

Anthony Painter @anthonypainter.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The NEET rate basically hasn't changed for the whole of this century (except post-GFC and post Covid). It's been the same with tougher welfare sanctions and weaker. More apprenticeships and fewer. Higher employer national insurance and lower. I draw two conclusions from this....

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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026

I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility

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Richard Stamper @richardstamper.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

The right to tell the truth, and the freedom to protest, are under grave threat in the UK at present. The case linked to below is instructive, and I recommend reading the concluding speech that Tony Greenstein delivered to the jury at his trial - see greghadfield.medium.com/tony-greenst...

greghadfield.medium.com

Tony Greenstein: The most important half-hour of my life

Below is the text of the closing speech Tony Greenstein prepared for the end of his trial at Kingston Crown Court.

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Ron Hogan @ronhogan.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I don’t usually ask y’all to watch the Quaker-themed videos we put out at my day job, but the most recent episode is an interview with three Friends from Minneapolis, discussing their resistance to ICE’s occupation earlier this year, and I just want as many people as possible to hear their story.

youtu.be

ICE Tried to Silence Them — These Quaker Women Fought Back

YouTube video by QuakerSpeak

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Quakers in Britain @quaker.org.uk · 02/07/2026

"Development, diplomacy, peacebuilding, conflict and atrocity prevention are all essential and underfunded tools in building a safer world." An open letter to the PM on the UK's military spending www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/n…

quaker.org.uk

Diverse coalition urges PM to rethink military spending

More than fifty humanitarian, climate and peacebuilding organisations are urging Keir Starmer to rethink Britain's growing military spending, ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara.

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Quakers in Britain @quaker.org.uk · 12/06/2026

As John Healey resigns, Quakers call on the new Defence Secretary to address the root causes of war ☮️

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Ian Middleton @ianmiddleton.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Exactly this.

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Quakers in Britain @quaker.org.uk · 24/04/2026

"We tolerate disruption from all sorts of other causes without worrying about it as much as we do from protest." @rcquaker.bsky.social gave evidence at the Joint Committee on Human Rights' inquiry on the expansion of police powers and the impact on the right to protest.

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AffirmationCoyote.bsky.social @affirmationcoyote.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Homework: "Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world." -- Howard Zinn www.howardzinn.org/collection/t...

I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests.

Wherever I go, I find such people. And beyond the handful of activists there seem to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend not to know of one another’s existence, and so, while they persist, they do so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing that boulder up the mountain.

I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement.

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.

Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope.

From: The Optimism of Uncertainty
By Howard Zinn •
ZCommunications • September 30, 2004; The Nation • September 20, 2004

An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.

If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

From:
The Optimism of Uncertainty
By Howard Zinn •
ZCommunications • September 30, 2004; The Nation • September 20, 2004

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Sometimes it just feels like a poem was written exactly for you. I've read this one a hundred times, have even heard WB read it, but when I began to read it this morning the first line brought tears to my eyes.

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Friends Journal @friendsjournal.org · 15/09/2025

"Shame is common to many soldiers during and after combat and is one of the most troubling reactions to war," the late Edward W. Wood Jr., a WWII veteran, wrote, "and one that they must deal with throughout a lifetime. It is also the one least often admitted and the one almost never talked about."

friendsjournal.org

Recovering from the Shame of Combat

The power of narrative to heal.

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