Ooooh apparently it starts tonight so here's some important advice for people watching Eurovision this week!!
1.) Don't.
Build an affinity group. An affinity group is a small group of 5 to 20 people who work together autonomously on direct actions or other projects. Affinity groups generally consist of like minded people who come together to get something done. If you already have an affinity group, link and cluster those groups!
Skill up. Delinking from capitalism and colonial apparatuses requires us to learn how to do things for ourselves and each other beyond buying, selling, working, or asking the state to help us. From self and collective defense, to gardening, building bikes, unschooling, and caring for each other- we can learn a skill and share a skill. We can change how we value skills and dismantle hierarchies of class and ableism.
Establish and practice good security culture. Security culture is necessary to survive state repression. We can stop a lot of infiltration and disinformation in its tracks by improving our ways of communicating and navigating conflict. We can still be horizontal and transparent without sacrificing security and safety.
Practice transformative and restorative justice. Strong communities make police and prisons obsolete. We can change our culture to prevent violence and abuse. We can build up our capacities to confront and resolve conflicts. We can strengthen our ties and detoxify our relationships so harm has no space to grow in our communities.
Mutual Aid. Start a mutual aid group and provide necessary support to those who are in need. Mutual aid organizing can ensure our communities are not dependent on corporations and the state. Shift your use of resources to things you can grow and make or procure from others in resistance. Build networks of aid and resources beyond capitalism.
Mutual defense. From arms training to street tactics to bystander interventions and safety teams, we need to have the skills and resources to defend our communities from fascist attacks on our people, non-human beings, and lands.
Build and sustain conflict infrastructure. Conflict Infrastructure is any structure we organize helps us be more effective in our fights. This is infrastructure that goes beyond solely providing awareness and services and instead builds our capacity to wage actual resistance. From community gardens and collectively coordinated farms to infoshops and independent media/communications.
Open squats for unsheltered folx. Rent is theft. Private property is colonial violence upon the land. Abolish rent and private property. Rematriate lands to original caretakers. Create spaces to live beyond landlords.
Defend and reclaim ancestral lands. Because #landback means ending colonial occupation and restoring Indigenous stewardship of our ancestral lands. Regenerate our sacred relations, and all that entails spiritually and materially, with our original homelands. Liberate the sacred.
Reparations. Seize what has been stolen from Black and Indigenous Peoples and liberate it back. Radical redistribution is necessary.
Shut shit down. Intervene in critical infrastructure at the points where capitalism and colonialism are at their most vulnerable. Seize the streets, factories, ports, fracking pads, pipelines, power stations, smash the borders, be smart and be creative! It’s also an effective way to target those industries perpetuating climate change.
Be fiercely intersectional. ‘Cause we’re not taking those old shitty behaviors with us. Fuck anti-blackness, fuck orientalism, fuck islamaphobia, fuck anti-semitism, fuck transphobia, fuck heteropatriarchy, fuck white supremacy, fuck imperialism, fuck ableism, fuck hierarchy, fuck racism, fuck citizenship, fuck privilege, fuck everything fucked up!
Practice Radical Self & Collective Care. To remain dangerous to power we must care for ourselves and each other. Learn common triggers and how to communicate without being fucked up. Learn to communicate your needs, boundaries, and wants effectively and nontoxicly – remember that folks in the struggle and resistance have the hardest time accessing resources for mental and spiritual care. Movement work can be unsustainable to those with many experiences of settler policing and violence triggers – find ways to communicate and negotiate group norms and boundaries that accommodate peoples’ needs if reasonable. Identify toxic communication patterns and learn / create ways to dismantle them and communicate in more healthy and less harmful ways.Be honest about your limitations and care for yourself and each other. The christianized, capitalized colonial state has taught us to never rest or heal. Reject any attempts at coercing people to go beyond their limits. Radical self-care keeps us safe and invulnerable when consistently engaging in agitating governability by the state.
Make everything accessible for everyone. Reject ableism and objectification of our bodies and lives, establish community care networks with people equipped to provide first aid and care support to a full spectrum of needs. Challenge ableism in our language, how we organize, and how we value each other. We are all enough.
Abolish Rape Culture. Study rape and rape culture and how it relates to the desecration of sacred lands. Transform our culture and practices around dating, humor, relationships, sexuality, consent, parties, sex labor, and play to abolish rape culture. Hold mactivists, rapists, abusers, opportunists, and creeps accountable. Center consent and healthy relationships in everything we do everywhere.
Spread radical and militant joy. We can fuck shit up while we dance, sing, party, laugh, play, wonder, have deep conversations, tell stories, make art, make love, make magic, make brilliance, make awesomeness, and have fun.
"Pride month is over"
WRONG! Your pride month is over! Me and all the other disabled queers are having pride month two: disability edition
as promised, the transplanting tutorial
most sources make transplanting sound incredibly difficult, but transplanting young seedlings from areas with sparse dirt, like a driveway or roadside, is actually incredibly easy and can get you some great stuff. Once I worked out the method, i've had a very high survival rate
it took me like a month of trial and error to figure this out so you don't have to.
Feel free to repost, no need for credit
Struggle-La Lucha newspaper and the Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido salute the working people of Venezuela for the successful reelection of President Nicolás Maduro Moros.
For us in the United States, your victory is also a victory for working, poor, and oppressed people in the belly of the beast. For months, Wall Street and its media were confidently predicting the overthrow of the revolutionary process in the Bolivarian Republic.
Something that helps
If you blurt out something that you thought would be funny but it comes across as insensitive, just quickly say, “I’m sorry, that was rude, what I meant was…”
If you say something in anger or frustration, take a breath and say, “I’m sorry, that was hurtful, let me rephrase…”
If you say something heartfelt, but it comes across as insincere or ironic, say “That sounds like I’m just saying it, but I’m being truly honest…”
If you accidentally tell the waiter “enjoy your meal” just laugh and say a quick “so sorry, my brain isn’t working today!” and you will most likely get a commiserating chuckle in return.
Most of the time, the other person will accept your apology with no harm done. Sometimes they even insist they understood what you meant the first time and clarification was not needed. At times, maybe they have a right to be upset, but it never hurts to apologize again so they know that you’re taking their feelings into account.
Repeat after me. It’s okay to be bad at conversation. Knowing how to apologize makes it easier.
for juneteenth the innocence project sent out a collection of reading material on their mailing list that i thought i should share with all of you-- a reminder of how the us prison system is a continuation of slavery, and how we all must keep fighting for justice and equality. they also are accepting donations if you have a few bucks to send their way: every dollar counts!
How the 13th Amendment Kept Slavery Alive: Perspectives From the Prison Where Slavery Never Ended
On Juneteenth, Here Are 5 Ways to Be a Better Ally
Race and Wrongful Conviction
How a Wrongly Incarcerated Person Became the ‘Most Brilliant Legal Mind’ in ‘America’s Bloodiest Prison’
A Mistaken Identification Sent Him to Prison for 38 Years, But He Never Gave Up Fighting for Freedom
‘The Dungeon Was the Last Place I Wanted to Go’: An Exoneree’s Story of Survival at Angola Prison
Book an Innocence Project Speaker This Month
On the 4th of July 2018 some anarchists in Sydney painted a memorial piece for Dan Shersty and Spit Newborn.
Dan and Spit were young anti-fascist skinheads, punk musicians, and founding members of the Las Vegas chapter of Anti-Racist Action.
On the 4th of July 1998 they were lured into the desert on the outskirts of Vegas and gunned down by a gang of 6 white supremacists, only three of whom ever served time for the murders.
Twenty years on, their memory is kept alive in the daily struggle against racism and fascist terror.
Never Forgive, Never Forget
Increased accessibility benefits EVERYONE!
Here are some ways YOU can advocate for increased accessibility:
Online:
Use alt-text to describe any images
Record events
Have closed captioning
Share content warnings
Avoid flashing lights or imagery
At Work:
Invest in meaningful Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Initiatives
Provide more PAID time off
Avoid ableist language (like 'lame' or 'crazy')
Provide remote working options
UNIONIZE!
For In-Person Events:
Communicate ANY walking distance (in distance, not minutes!)
Include information about public transit
Provide gender neutral bathrooms
Avoid heavy perfumes or scents
Hire sign language interpreters
Created by Liberal Jane and Sex Ed with DB