#in our protests

[pretty-roach]

queer is a beautiful word with a rich history of resistance. queer was taken back specifically to combat violence from homophobes. queer is fuckin punk. it lets me embrace black queerness and reject rigid boxes imposed by patriarchy and white supremacy. queer is intersectional, unspecific, deeply personal. So it's okay to not use label. But don't try and erase it from our history. Don't try to rebuild the societal boxes we broke out of. we're here, we're fuckin queer, get used to it

[haywirecompass]

whoever the fuck i saw saying "i can't stand english bitching because they're so complacent" and whoever else thinks we're not doing enough i'd like to invite you to DO SOME FUCKING RESEARCH.

a law was recently passed that deemed any kind of protesting as disruptive and able to be punished by the police, alongside giving the police more power.

we all watched the police storm the PEACEFUL VIGIL for sarah everard - a woman raped and murdered by a police officer.

PEOPLE ARE CURRENTLY BEING ARRESTED FOR OUTWARDLY EXPRESSING ANY SORT OF DISPLEASURE WITH THE MONARCHY.

A WOMAN WAS ARRESTED FOR HOLDING UP A SIGN. JUST HOLDING IT.

PEOPLE WERE ARRESTED FOR BOOING.

everything in britain has been put to a standstill. hospital appointments have been cancelled. funerals have been cancelled. we can't do anything about it.

many of us will be unable to pay our energy bills this winter. we will freeze. we will starve.

it has been demonstrated to us time and time and time again that protests simply make people talk about how we were protesting and never why. and now the police has increased power to punish us for any public opinion that they don't like.

we have been under tory rule for 12 years. 12 years of the same people - hey americans, can you imagine that?

we are tired, no, we are exhausted. we are struggling. we are scared. and it has been made clear to us that our government does not care.

so fucking forgive us if we're putting our own survival over the opinions of americans (and other non-brits but americans are the worst) online who expect us to learn everything about their politics and their country and don't put in an ounce of effort to learn about ours.

[bixels]

The idea that uni protesters are "elitist ivy-league rich kids larping as revolutionaries" on Twitter and Reddit and even here is so fucking funny to me if you actually know anything about the student bodies at these unis. Take it from someone who's going to one of the biggest private unis in the US, 80% of the peers I know are either from the suburbs or an apartment somewhere in America, children of immigrants, or here on a student visa. I've heard about one-percenter students, but I've never met one in person. Like, don't get me wrong, the institution as a whole is still very privileged and white. I've talked with friends and classmates about feeling weird or dissonant being here and coming from such a different background. But in my art program, I see BIPOC, disabled, queer, lower-income students and faculty trying to deconstruct and tear that down and make space every day. So to take a cursory glance at a crowd of student protesters in coalitions that are led by BIPOC & 1st/2nd-gen immigrant students and HQ'd in ethnic housings and student organizations and say, "ah. children of the elite." Get real.

[hedgehog-moss]

(TW POLICE VIOLENCE)

France has been feeling like a police state this week, there were 5000 cops deployed in Paris yesterday (watch this video and tell me this is a normal amount of cops and they're behaving normally) and they keep acting like they have total immunity*, to beat up protesters, to arrest protesters, or just random people walking in the vicinity of a protest. My 70+-year-old dad tried to go to a peaceful protest and had to abandon the idea because of all the tear gas being used by police.

*Which they do—as Le Monde pointed out, the cops who are violent risk nothing because they can't be identified because almost none of them wear their identification number even though it's supposed to be mandatory. They're not being penalised for not wearing them, so why should they?

If you can stomach it, please have a look at the photos and videos on this Twitter account documenting French police brutality against protesters—as I write this, the most recent tweet is about a journalist who was beaten up by a BRAV-M cop* using his steel baton; he had his head cracked open and his hand broken.

(* BRAV-M is a motorised repression corps—cops on bikes—a unit that was dissolved in 1986 after some of them beat a student to death, who wasn't even attending a protest but walking near one. Macron changed the unit's name, from Voltigeurs to BRAV-M, and reestablished it to suppress the Yellow Vests protests. This week, a BRAV-M cop deliberately drove over a 19-year-old's leg at a protest after chasing him on his bike. The victim said he heard a cop say to others "Smash him." Another BRAV-M punched a protester unconscious on March 20. And today Le Monde published an article about BRAV-M cops being recorded bragging about "breaking elbows and faces.")

In Paris last week the CRS arrested a 14-year-old kid because they took him for a dangerous black bloc protester I guess?? A child spent a night in police custody without knowing why. They've also arrested several 15 / 16 year-olds. Let's teach the youth what happens when you exercise your right to protest!

On March 16th in Paris, within one evening, they arrested 292 people, and 283 were released without charges, which means they're mass-arresting people for peaceful protests as a strategy of intimidation. The student I mentioned in my post the other day, who spent 48 hours in custody and was eventually charged for refusing to have his DNA samples taken and filed, asked the cops why they were arresting him + 4 other people who were walking down the same street and they said "Because you look like fucking leftists."

The government tells us "We fully support our brave police forces" when the cops are arresting people for "looking like leftists." How are we still a democracy? The guy also mentioned that during the time he spent at the police station, the police was mostly arresting Maghrebis, though they made an exception for him, a Black guy. There are videos from the past week of cops beating up women, tear gassing protesters in the face from 20cm away, kicking protesters in the face when they're already on the ground, crushing their heads under their boot, brutalising a homeless man and old ladies, tear gassing crowds with young children in them. I'm having trouble finding links to these specific incidents I remember because there are so many videos circulating.

Look at this video, they're violently striking the back of people's heads with steel batons even when the protesters are already going in the direction they're told to. The little old lady shoved around and trying to protect her head from the strikes is breaking my heart.

Surely at the point when enforcers of state authority are arresting middle schoolers, beating up citizens for exercising their rights and gassing and pepper spraying elderly people, children and babies in strollers, the government might want to make some sort of statement condemning this state of affairs, but instead they have been telling us they're proud of & grateful for their police forces, which of course angers people and makes protests more violent. The Minister of the Interior, who supervises the police, praises them wholeheartedly and excuses all instances of deliberate brutality as 'isolated incidents' due to 'tiredness'.

Here's a thread in English describing a protester's experience—"Yesterday (March 23) the level of arbitrary police violence clearly leveled up. I was tear gassed three times without being able to move in a very dense crowd; policemen took advantage that people were unable to move more than 20cm to pounce on us and bludgeon us in a totally arbitrary manner." (you can see an example of this behaviour in this video from a different protest)

Yesterday, after a day of nationwide protests that brought a fresh new wave of video evidence of cops beating up protesters and making reckless use of tear gas—at the end of a day when a special ed teacher at a protest got her thumb torn off by a tear gas grenade—this is what the French Prime Minister said:

They're not even trying to play it off like "both sides made mistakes" they're telling us they condone everything the police is doing, that this is what they're deploying them for:

(screencap from this video)

(this is from this video, in which you can hear a woman screaming "Stop it! You're strangling him! You have no right! I'm filming you!" The cops don't seem to care about being filmed. They're beating up citizens with the government's full blessing after all.)

Macron's government is trying to intimidate people into giving up their right to protest, by deploying cops in huge numbers and publicly voicing complete support for their behaviour, by allowing them to beat and arrest hundreds of people and to use tear gas indiscriminately. Tear gas has been completely normalised as a means of state violence, it's very practical that it doesn't leave traces of blood or broken bones I guess, but it's still violence, it burns, it's a chemical whose effects on people's health we don't know a lot about.

^ Paris (from this vid; caption: "one tear gas grenade after the other")

Macron condescendingly told us there's no "magic money" which is why the pension reform is needed, but he did find the money to stockpile these apparently unlimited amounts of tear gas grenades to suppress protests against his reform to make poor people work longer.

^ Nantes (screencap from a vid in which the cops throw three or four grenades at once and you can hear people say "oh come on, seriously? this is crazy. Why? go fuck yourselves" in a tired tone)

We've also found out yesterday that three Corsican MPs were pressured not to support the Assembly's no-confidence vote against the government—by being told if they didn't vote it, a teaching hospital would be built in Corsica.

The island of Corsica is the only region of France that doesn't have a teaching hospital; due to lack of medical resources Corsicans often have to travel to mainland France for healthcare. Just last month the Minister of Health said sorry, still no teaching hospital for Corsica, it's just not possible right now. Then last week some "magic money" was apparently found to build it but only if the Corsican MPs didn't support the no-confidence vote. I know this kind of thing isn't exactly unique in politics but Macron has been slashing hospital budgets to the point that 20% of French hospital beds are closed due to lack of staff, and he used the health of 340,000 French citizens as a bribe to save his ass. The three Corsican MPs ended up voting in favour of the no-confidence vote despite of that, as it was what their constituents wanted (honour to them). Macron's government survived the no-confidence vote by only 9 votes.

Whatever legitimacy Macron has as a President right now is being clung to by MP corruption and police repression. How do we move forwards knowing that, I don't know. How does he have legitimacy to govern on any issues after the way he handled this reform and the following protests? His police forces are drowning city centres in tear gas, a chemical whose effect on birds and other fauna is not known, and we're supposed to listen to him talk about the environment? They're wasting thousands of litres of water using water cannons to disperse protesters, and we're supposed to listen to him talk about low groundwater levels and how we need to save water? I was going to say, what about his legitimacy abroad but other Western governments don't seem too bothered so far by his handling of the protests—though I'm grateful that Amnesty International did condemn it, and that a Belgian deputy made a speech in Parliament this week asking his government to condemn Macron's use of violent police repression.

[Wait, I just saw that as I was writing this post, the Council of Europe condemned the "excessive use of force" in France. Saying that 'sporadic acts of violence' of some protesters can't 'justify the excessive use of force by agents of the State' or 'deprive peaceful protesters of their right to freedom of assembly'. This is the opposite framing as the one our government is standing by—sporadic acts of violence by cops that are either justified or excusable—it's refreshing.]

Between that and Charles III cancelling his visit (and lots of tourists cancelling trips to Paris which is bound to piss off the tourism industry) and our own media waking up and starting to talk about the government's brutality, I hope Macron starts being held accountable. He has been fanning the flames of this crisis at every turn, by telling us that the crowds protesting in the street have 'no legitimacy', by sending cops to break strikes even though striking is a Constitutional right (but the only part of the Constitution he cares about is the one that starts with 49.3), by condemning the protesters when asked to condemn police violence—saying "When [protesters] use violence, unregulated, absolute, we're no longer in a Republic." I agree, but he's describing himself.

When you resort to using article 49.3 to bypass the National Assembly for the 11th time this term to impose a reform that 70% of the country is against (and 93% of working people) that will force the poorer classes of the population to work longer, and your only response to people's distress at being told to work until they die is to force them to accept it by allowing your police forces to beat up protesters, to arrest them and to gas them, you have failed as a democratic leader.

The next organised protest and strike is next Tuesday (if you want to give something to the strike solidarity fund, here it is); in the meantime spontaneous protests are still erupting pretty much every day and cops are getting burnt out (good! There are fun videos from yesterday's protests of cops accidentally tear gassing one another, or a police car accidentally running into another as people laugh and clap.) And yes some protesters are getting more extreme and destructive, but Macron is the one choosing to stand by his reform at all costs and let this country burn. And when I look at what we're being expected to tolerate and to normalise, I'm kind of proud that French people's gut reaction was "burn it all."

Some popular Twitter hashtags for the protests:

#ToutCramer - Burn everything #CensurePopulaire - People's no-confidence vote #MacronDémission - Macron resign #OnLâcheRien - We won't cede an inch.

[xoxoemynn]

I know it shouldn't surprise me, but it's frustrating af to step outside the fandom and read about OFMD's cancellation on more general entertainment sites and see the majority of reactions be along the lines of "oh well it was probably Taika being over it, he always gave me the ick anyway so, whatever," and then often devolving into comments about his personal life, or conspiracy theories that can be disproven if you use your brains for 30 seconds or maybe step outside and touch grass idk idk.

And this isn't me saying "omg how could you dislike Taika" bc truly unless you're being racist or antisemitic (which, let's be real, many are), I don't give a fuck what you think about him.

But the point remains that if you have a show that is all about celebrating queer joy and finding yourself later in life, that has a diverse cast of characters in terms of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and body type, that was WRITTEN by a diverse group of writers, that is receiving praise from critics and fans alike, that from all reports was one of Max's most successful shows despite them doing next to no promotion the first season, that had two successful seasons and the creator is on the record saying he had a plan to tell the entire story in three, and it gets CANCELED.

I don't give a fuck how you feel about Taika, or how you feel about OFMD. You SHOULD be concerned about that. Because your show is next.

And before you come at me with "it's just a show, have you seen what's happening in the world?" Yeah. I fucking have. And the arts matter. They have always mattered. It's how we've shared stories and fostered communities and passed down what's important to us as a society. And they've brought us joy. And I don't know about you, but I think we could all do with a fuckton more joy in our lives.

This is absolutely a huge loss, and unfortunately it's not going to be the last as streaming services continue to go deeper in crisis. If that doesn't concern you, idk, go enjoy yourself watching season 47 of The Bachelor.

[cheshire-j]

KOSA UPDATE

It passed the Commerce Committee markup with a unaminous vote. But this shit is far from over.

Keep calling your senators and representatives, email them, and POST about the KOSA bill and its dangers!

KOSA is dangerous as it now threatens end to end encryption, which means EVERYTHING we have internet is in threat of being compromised. We NEED to do something about it and even if you have anxiety, you can do something about. I did, and I felt like I was going to die as I was doing it, but I did it!

If you're not comfortable with calling, email them, sign petitions, post about it on social media. Blow KOSA up, it worked last time and that's why it didn't pass. So let's do it again!

We need action, our privacy and our safety is at stake! This goes beyond violating our 1st and 4th amendments!

STOP KOSA

STOP EARN IT ACT

STOP RESTRICT ACT

These bills are a threat to kids AND adults and they need to be stopped! Keep calling, keep emailing, keep being a pain in their ass!

Edit: No further moves are going to be made on KOSA until after August as Congress is on recess, but it WILL come back in September. So we need to keep pushing, we need to be loud! Keep calling and email your representatives and senators!

[las-lus]

HELP BRAZIL

So this is a serious post! Brazil's south is currently facing one of the worst natural disasters in its history - a flood that has so far affected the lives of almost 1.5 MILLION people [x] and has shown no signs of slowing down.

How can you help?

There are two ways - donate money and share this post! Brazilian currency (the Real) is really cheap compared to euro, dollars and pounds, so 5 dollars is enough for two whole meals. By donating 5 dollars, you can make sure someone will eat lunch and dinner tomorrow.

Where to donate?

A lot of organizations are accepting international currency! I'll drop a link of some! A lot of people are currently out of their homes and living in shelters, while others need to be rescued! Those funds will go directly to people and organizations feeding, housing and rescuing them!

MTST, a left wing organization that has been feeding and housing people for decades, is making free meals for the victims! 5 dollars are enough for 2 whole meals! PayPal Here!

CUFA, another left wing organization that has been helping people in favelas/slums all over the country, who are helping with food, water and clothes! PayPal: doacoespaypal@cufa.org.br

HUMUS, an organization dedicated to help victims of natural disasters! They have a lot of volunteers firefighters helping with rescues! Donations Here (they accept PayPal and credit card).

Animal Disaster Response Group, an organization helping rescue and shelter pets and other animals! Most shelters aren't taking pets, so people were forced to leave theirs behind during the flood, and this org is doing its best to save them all! PayPal here and Credit card here!

Luz Alliance Fund, a charity organization run by brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen, has been alocating the funds to where hey are most needed. Donations here (dollars only)

My own Ko-fi. I'll be personally buying drinkable water, food and other items and dropping at the donation stations at my university. I understand that you might feel safer donating to a known organization, but if you prefer trusting me, I'll update photos on my Ko-fi of the donated items! Link here!

AND AGAIN! Remember that dropping 5 dollars anywhere can really help someone! And even if you cannot donate, PLEASE share, so more people can see this and help! The situation is very dire and has no sign of stopping anytime soon, those people will need all the help they can get!

Thank you!!

[zahrabasiri]

Could I ask you guys to do a favour for me? I don't know if you've heard it or not but there is some news going on that our protests have succeeded and morality police has been shut down. This is a half truth. And half-truths are worse than lies. Let me explain.

While it's true that it has been "shut down" (at least in theory) it's nothing to celebrate about. As it's just a strategy to calm the people (the gullible ones at least) and show themselves as good people to the outside world. As soon as they feel the protests are dying down they will bring it back tenfold.

Hijab is still a law in the constitution. You will still not be serviced anywhere if you're not a hijabi. there are still polices and extremists who will crackdown and arrest women who are not wearing their hijab. So just because the morality police is disbanded doesn't mean that there is a freedom to choose at all.

Furthermore, simply the shutdown of the morality police is NOT the Iranian people's goal In these protests. We don't just want the morality police gone. We want THE ENTIRE REGIME gone.

So I want you guys to once again be our voices and let everyone know that this war is still not done, and ask them to not turn their attention away from us. I will now copy and paste the text you will need to tweet (or you can use your own words) and the organizations you need to tag. Remember the hashtag #mahsa amini as well.

*Some international news sites are talking about the Iranian people winning the revolution because the morality police has stopped working. The work of morality police has not been stopped and only its name has been changed*

*This is a PR move by the regime to quiet the upcoming nationwide protests. After 3 months of violence, rape, imprisonment & murder of protesters, it’s too little too late. This uprising is no longer just about draconian dress codes. The Iranian people want democracy.*

#MahsaAmini

@wolfblitzer @ABaerbock @CNNPolitics @CNN @cnnbrk @CNBC @Europarl_EN

@tedcruz

@SecBlinken

@realDonaldTrump

@POTUS

@FoxNews

@NewYorker

@NewYorkTimesCIS

@washingtonpost

@guardian

@FRANCE24

@euronews

Please do not turn your attention away from us. Do not allow them to slaughter us in silence.

[bee-s-corner]

A 22 year old woman was killed for the sake of wearing "improper hijab". The police brutally killed her and then tried to blame it on the hospital staff and even tried to fake her having an illness just to "justify" their actions. As if there could ever be a justification for such blatant brutality and slaughter.

Let me quote a translated line from the holy Quran for you:

"There is no forcefulness in religion."

There is no such thing as a forced religion. And Islam is not what these fiends make it out to be. It breaks my heart to see people associate Islam with them when they don't even hold to God's most treasured principle: be good to each other. Be good people. Be human.

And yet, here we are in this country. They want to force everything on us. Our beliefs, our religion, our thoughts, and even our feelings. They try to control everything about us. How inhumane of a system do you have to be to do that?

And when we protest, they silence us. They take away our internet, beat the voice out of us, and in some instances, literally kill us for crimes that we have never committed. How wrong is it that we ask to live?

Our hearts go out to Mahsa and her family, and the others who've lost their lives in the protests that have followed her unjust and evil murder at the hands of this regime. This regime, this system, is neither Islam nor is it Iran. And we are no longer staying silent.

What can you do? Be our voice. Spread awareness. This is not us, and this is not our religion. We may lose this battle yet again to bullets and blatant slaughter in the streets, but our war with this regime will never be over. Not until the day Iran is freed.

For the sake of Mahsa and everyone else who's died an unjust death at the hands of these murderers, we ask you humbly: don't let our voice die out. Don't let us be forgotten.

Sincerely, thank you, from a woman in Iran.

#Mahsa_Amini #MahsaAmini #IranProtests

#مهسا_امینی #زن_زندگی_آزادی

[werewolfaday]

day 26: watermelon

striking 23-28th; i won't be mainly focusing on werewolves, and i'll be drawing attention to palestinian symbols and imagery instead.

links to donate

call your reps

[homochadensistm]

Absolutely braindead take

sorry ladies, yall gotta take one for the team and keep being treated like rapeable cattle to stick one to Da Joo-I mean, (((the zionists))) <3

[shiplessoceans]

I fucking love Edward Teach, just scheming his little scheme to get Stede to take him in his arms and embrace him.

Giggling like a schoolgirl as he gets impaled with a sword because 'Omg Steeeede! Your arms are around me how did that happen teehee!'

He was one step away from twirling his hair and asking Stede to prom.

That giddy little bitch how I adore him.

[kai-keda]

Me Finding Out Protestants Outright Believe Praying for the Souls of the Departed is a Sin:

THIS WHY YOU GUYS GOT SO MANY GHOSTS

Y’all never thought that praying for people who have passed could be a good thing???? You think that’s a bad thing??? Bruh Purgatory fucking SUCKS and y’all just leaving people there with no epic anime friendship speech??? You leaving them there on their own????

…

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GUYS DON’T BELIEVE IN PURGATORY?!

You think as you are now you can face God? If a meteor crashed directly into you right this second, you think you, in all your tumblr using sin can face God and not EXPLODE?!

Buddy if you can’t handle looking directly into the sun after getting your eyes dilated by the optometrist then you sure as pickles can’t handle looking directly at God without having a buffer

[hedgehog-moss]

Breaking news: my new hen has started laying!

Guess which one of these is Baby's First Egg...

She's still quite young and has been laying mini-eggs so far, it's really cute to find them in the nesting box every morning next to Dru's grown-up eggs.

As per tradition the new hen has received a name on this solemn occasion. She laid her first egg on the anniversary of an important event of the Paris Commune so I decided to name her Louise Michel. To celebrate this doubly important date, the hens got a croissant for breakfast.

As soon as they identified it as food and not a large yellow caterpillar, the competition became very fierce.

Dru pounced and grabbed it and made a run for it while Louise stood there staring at the empty spot where a croissant used to be. I had to catch her and gently turn her 180°, then she realised her croissant was getting away and gave chase.

To ensure equal croissant opportunity I then caught Drusilla and confiscated her prey to cut it in two, but they ignored my attempt at conciliation and just chose one half to fight over.

Here they are neck and neck, Louise Michel won't give an inch!

It was a cutthroat battle and once they were done they started over with the remaining half. They are not interested in win-win situations. Chickens are proud of their dinosaur heritage and only violence makes their blood sing.

[decolonize-the-left]

Artists creating specifically to sell and trading off (some of) their own style to do it, activists begging for attention and shares and media coverage because they aren't being paid enough attention, UNWRA desperate for donations, the percentage of people who don't mask in 2024 compared to deaths and disabilities, ppl who need to be convinced to vote with principles that save lives and that genocide is unacceptable, how a living wage or UBI is believed to be "unrealistic" despite the trillions in shareholder investment accounts.

....I'm starting to think Mainstream People™ fucking suck, ngl. In fact, dare I say that Mainstream People are the biggest obstacle to progress now.

Malcolm X said it was the white liberal as did a lot of other revolutionaries and thinkers.

I, however, think anyone who can hold their own comfort over someone else's suffering is the problem.

Why are the rest of us constantly begging and shouting and changing ourselves and our bodies in an effort to make them care about us? To make them see us? To give us rights? To bless us with the support needed to make a living?

Same shit, different generations. And idk about y'all, but I would love to be the last generations who ever had to hate themselves to survive.

[solargeist]

Wait students protesting? Context pls?

University students are protesting on campus for Palestine, either in solidarité or to pressure their university to divest in israel's genocide on palestiniens.

the two i see often are Columbia in New York and Sorbonne in France

The students of Columbia University took over Hamilton Hall, which hasn't happened since another student protest in the 60s

The flag says "Hind's Hall" after a six year old Palestinien girl who was killed along with ambulance by israel.