#fight back

[defensive-tactics]

Predators will not be reasoned with. If you can't get away, defend yourself. Injure the attacker. Fight for your life.

[weirdlookindog]

Happy International Women's Day 2024

[thelunarsystemwrites]

Serious.

this is a very serious post.

KOSA? It's awful. I wrongfully thought we were out of the woods. Were not.

The things they could censor? It's a violation of US rights, silencing LGBTQ+, and Palestinians, health care about resources to get out of abusive situations.

STOP KOSA. END KOSA. FREE PALESTINE. GIVE US EQUAL RIGHTS.

Even if you DON'T support those things, IT WILL CENSOR YOU.

Don't panic, take action.

END. THE. CENSORSHIP.

[stranded-ziggy]

Tumblr can still be scraped even if you opt out of this particular scraping, your stuff's not safe.

Glaze and nightshade are the best way to go, even for memes.

Don't let these dickwads use our creativity for their benefit.

And yeah, if you support AI you're a dickwad, fuck you, unfollow me.

[0liver-hope]

if you love books, save a library!

I hear people on Tumblr talk a lot about the importance of libraries; now’s your chance to help save one!

At Vermont State University is a newly merging Uni in so-called North America, pushing together three previously separate universities: Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, and Vermont Technical College.

Just last week, the new VTSU administration sent out an email to faculty, staff and students announcing that all the libraries at each of the 5 campuses contained within these universities would be moving to an ‘all-digital’ model. Librarians will lose their jobs if this plan goes ahead; in fact, librarians were only informed of this change 11 minutes before the email was sent out.

We have come to understand that this means that all physical material will be removed from the library. They seem to want to do other things with the space, such as set up ‘a coffee or smoothie bar’ and determine ‘what students want’ to do with the space. This plan would go into effect on July 1st, 2023.

The fact is, students want to keep the library as it is. Quiet, and full of stacks and stacks of physical books. The administration cannot claim they are listening to students when we have demonstrated, via hundreds of emails and impassioned testimonies in front of the administration at a forum last week, that we hate this plan and oppose it vehemently. And the faculty and staff are with us, and they too have been speaking out. Not only that, the communities that surround these colleges greatly value having access to a research library, particularly in rural Vermont, and are opposing the plan as well, because, as far as I know, they will completely lose access to these resources if everything goes digital.

The image of the books above are what I just checked out today. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed browsing the stacks, in one case (not pictured above) finding a tiny book of Milton’s poetry inscribed with a reader’s name and the year 1865. So many important and precious books like that one are to be found in our library. Each book I checked out hasn’t been checked out for at least 10 years, and that’s one of the administration’s excuses for taking all our books away: that circulation is down, and that, somehow, it costs money to let books sit on a shelf. As many people have rebutted, though, just because books aren’t being checked out doesn’t mean they aren’t being read within the library and, most importantly, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have value.

Below I will post some links to various local news article on this subject as well as one radio broadcast that will probably be able to articulate this situation better than I can.

I’m just so angry and upset about this. I’ve seen students and faculty alike crying about this situation, and an old lady braver than me telling the administration that maybe they should consider lowering their own salaries before taking away our books. I think everyone here feels powerless, because the administration isn’t backing down, despite all our protests, because ultimately their goal is profit and to make sure that this new ‘equitable’ University makes as much money as possible.

At the Castleton forum, the president of the University said he was ‘deeply humiliated’, by the outrage, by the heckling, the ‘throwing of verbal tomatoes’ as I have taken to calling it, by having his and his fellow’s bullshit exposed and questioned.

Please, please, if you care about books, about libraries, about the problems with big tech and the way it continues to invade all our lives, replacing physical experiences with their more hollow, less engaging counterparts; if you care about the interests of the people triumphing over the interests of capital, about students, about education, then please -- help save our books by spreading the word however and wherever you can, by flooding the inboxes of the capitalists below; tell them how you feel about this decision and its larger implications for books and libraries in general! Not so much to convince them that they’re wrong (they already know that and don’t care), but to make going forward with this plan more of a nuisance and a PR nightmare than cancelling it would be.

I don’t know if anyone will read or see this post, but please if you do and you care, reblog, educate yourself on what’s going on, and take action if you can.

A few disclaimers:

Any specifics I mention pertain primarily to what I, as a student at Castleton University, have either heard via word of mouth or seen with my own eyes. I am not officially speaking on behalf of anyone but myself.

The only exception to all the physical materials being removed from the libraries seem to be the books deemed ‘most used’ and some valuable historical collections. This was not clear from the beginning and not yet fully clear in any further specificity.

please try not to use violent rhetoric - as much as I’m not into policing people’s speech and anger, I don’t want this to backfire and I don’t want them to crackdown harder on us or make a big stink about it if they receive those kinds of messages

Email addresses of administration officials responsible for this decision:

VTSU President Grewal: parwinder.grewal@vermontstate.edu

VTSU Provost Atkins: nolan.atkins@northernvermont.edu

VSC Chancellor Zdatny sophie.zdatny@vsc.edu

VSC Board of Trustees Chair: Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson eileen.dickinson@vsc.edu

News articles + broadcast:

https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/vermont-edition/2023-02-10/vermont-state-university-president-on-move-to-all-digital-libraries-changes-in-athletic-programs

https://www.rutlandherald.com/news/local/castleton-community-protests-vtsu-library-cuts/article_100d9539-c6ca-569e-a9b9-ecd6b3cef0ad.html

https://vtdigger.org/2023/02/08/vermont-state-university-to-close-libraries-downgrade-sports-programs/

http://www.castletonspartan.com/2023/02/12/vtsu-library-plan-sparks-outrage-and-emotion/

[alwaysbewoke]

being anti-genocide is not allowed on meta

like i said before, i don't mess with shaun king like that, but that being said, many things about one thing can be true at the same time. it is very clear that there is a wave of censorship happening across social media against pro-palestinian content in favor of israeli propaganda. so whether or not you like shaun or not, it is very clear what is happening and why. there is clearly a genocide happening in gaza that is being perpetuated by colonizing power. a genocide against an indigenous population for land, resources, and power. basically the same thing america did to the natives here. had it not been for people like shaun king (flawed as he may be), many people would not be aware of the heinous acts of israel against the palestinian people right now. so even as someone who is not a shaun king fan, i am not so myopic in my view of things to not realize that he served a positive purpose when it comes to the israeli genocide of palestinians.

on a much larger scale, whenever a platform or a power attacks someone popular, one of the goals is to send a message to everyone else that they are not safe and that they should back off. it's like a football coach picking on and cursing out their hall of fame quarterback. when everyone else who isn't as popular or powerful sees that on the team, they immediately realize that they must fall in line or worse can happen to them. that's the goal of banning shaun king from ig. however as a black man who understands how connected all oppressive systems are, we cannot slow down. may i remind all my brothers and sisters that israel is where police forces like the nypd go and train in abusive violent tactics, which they then come back to america and overwhelmingly exercise on black and brown bodies. so if you think this does not affect you, you are sadly and deeply mistaken. additionally, this kind of censorship is going to spread. if we don't fight back, it won't be long before you will be arrested for speaking out against israel. this is what israel wants, and they have the money and political power to make it happen. you can either sit back and let it happen or you can fight back. however, make no mistake, it's coming, and this is the first major blow that the enemy has struck in their offensive against our free speech.

[x-mensirens]

"It's three sugars."

[scopophilic1997]

scopOphilic_micromessaging_881 - scopOphilic1997 presents a new micro-messaging series: small, subtle, and often unintentional messages we send and receive verbally and non-verbally.

Two years ago today, we embarked on a journey to showcase decades worth of MicroMessaging imagery from New York City and beyond. The original inspiration for the series was the wheat-pasting in NYC; whether it was the Guerrilla Girls, ACT UP, Barbara Kruger, concerts, ads, etc. They were wheat-pasted on every blank wall in the city by the "Wheat-paste Mafia."

In 1986, I started drawing a twisted, dog-like character called: CityDog. The first image here was the original sketch. The others became stickers that were put up around Chelsea/West Village between 1987 and 1993-ish. The second set is more of those early sketches from the late 1980s. That gave birth to a decades long curiosity/interest to photographically document the MicroMessaging, as I entitled it back then.

[yeahiwasintheshit]

[defensive-tactics]

Make your attacker worry about HIS life...

[awesomecooperlove]

👁️👿👁️

[weirdlookindog]

Happy International Women's Day 2023

[hole34]

sure, call me pro-hamas

i don’t know about you but i certainly believe in the right to resist oppression

is it really terrorism to even try to take down an apartheid who’s taken your land, killed your family, raped and starved and abducted your people and beaten your friends?

a victim of rape is allowed to hit their rapist, hamas is rightful resistence

[rhp6]

A story of a hard coming out, bipolar disorder ,trust issues, tragical ups-and-downs but then true love and understanding even in hard times...🥰🤧

Skam France

I really recommend this show to everybody who's struggling 'cause it shows that there's never a time for giving up even if it seems like there is🥹🥹

There always will be someone who'll pull you out from the darkness or if there won't then there's you!! YOU ARE STRONG ENOUGH TO PULL YOUR OWN SELF UP!!! Believe me🥺🥺❤️❤️

Please take care!❤️❤️ Love you all so much!!!❤️❤️

[bobwess]

Fighting the RESTRICT Act

You've probably heard by now that there is a "TikTok ban" being floated in the Senate.

You've probably also heard that it isn't that simple. The bill doesn't do much for security but it DOES give the US Government the power to collect as much data as they want while also giving them the power to ban any social media platforms they deem a threat to safety with scarily few guidelines on what constitutes "a threat". It's the patriot act of the modern era. We really REALLY don't want the government having that kind of power.

Imagine whatever party you don't like getting in power in the branches of government. Now imagine what it would look like if they had the power to collect as much data from your social media blogs as possible before banning their least liked ones altogether. Catastrophic. How can you help fight it? Fill out two simple email forms. Use this website to look up your two Senators. Just select your state. There is a "contact" link under their photo. It will bring you to a form to fill out that automatically emails your representative. Ask in the body that they vote against the RESTRICT act. Send it to one and then the other. It's that simple and it really goes a long way to showing that this matters to people.

Stuck on what to write? I'm copying what I wrote below the cut if you just want to copy/paste that and be done with it.

(Title can be: Vote "no" on RESTRICT act)

I urge you to vote “no” on the RESTRICT act!

It's not about TikTok, it's about everything else in the bill! It gives broad (and vague) guidelines to follow while failing to actually address the real concerns about data safety on ALL social media platforms foreign and domestic.

I’m writing today to beg you to vote no on any bill that would give the federal government the power to ban entire social media platforms.

Both the DATA Act in the House and the RESTRICT Act in the Senate are designed to allow the government to ban TikTok in the US and would likely result in bans of many other businesses and platforms as well. A ban like this would violate the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.

If these bills move to a vote, I ask you to vote “no.” In a clumsy attempt to protect the data of US persons from the Chinese government, these bills will instead limit our right to express ourselves — both online and off.

Let's talk to some experts that can help design a bill that actually protects all our data from ALL who would abuse it in this country and out, without giving the government a pass to ban whatever they see fit.  

Thank you.

[rwtale-blog]

༽ Now put him in one of those strength diff videos/j ༼

✦—————-

In all seriousness tho this was SO FUCKING FUN to draw, I love the way it came out after letting it sit an I hope you all genuinely enjoy it too ! thank you all for the engagement

Next drawings are gunna be pretty wholesome ;-]

✦—————-

Dust Sans belong to - @ask-dusttale

Killer Sans belong to - @rahafwabas

ReaperWhere Sans belong to - Me