#protest! volunteer! help a community collective! vote!

[hargrovel]

they’re fictional characters in fake realities. care about them/their motivations/behaviors/nuances/morals/backstories/relationships etc. etc. fucking etc. however much in whatever way you want

consider not treating actual human beings like shit! consider not conflating a person’s taste in & feelings about & subjective understanding of fake fucking people with who they are as humans irl! the self righteous high ground behind-the-screen bullshit is so. tired. & it doesn’t make you better than anybody else — it just makes you an asshole & you should maybe feed your ego some glass

[reasonsforhope]

Hazel Chandler was at home taking care of her son when she began flipping through a document that detailed how burning fossil fuels would soon jeopardize the planet.

She can’t quite remember who gave her the report — this was in 1969 — but the moment stands out to her vividly: After reading a list of extreme climate events that would materialize in the coming decades, she looked down at the baby she was nursing, filled with dread.

 “‘Oh my God, I’ve got to do something,’” she remembered thinking...

It was one of several such moments throughout Chandler’s life that propelled her into activist spaces — against the Vietnam War, for civil rights and women’s rights, and in support of environmental causes.

She participated in letter-writing campaigns and helped gather others to write to legislators about vital pieces of environmental legislation including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, passed in 1970 and 1972, respectively. At the child care center she worked at, she helped plan celebrations around the first Earth Day in 1970. 

Now at 78, after working in child care and health care for most of her life, she’s more engaged than ever. In 2015, she began volunteering with Elder Climate Action, which focuses on activating older people to fight for the environment. She then took a job as a consultant for the Union for Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization. 

More recently, her activism has revolved around her role as the Arizona field coordinator of Moms Clean Air Force, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group. Chandler helps rally volunteers to take action on climate and environmental justice issues, recruiting residents to testify and meet with lawmakers. 

Pictured: Hazel Chandler tables at Environment Day at Wesley Bolin Plaza in front of the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona, in January 2024.

Her motivation now is the same as it was decades ago. 

“When I look my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, my children, in the eye, I have to be able to say, ‘I did everything I could to protect you,’” Chandler said. “I have to be able to tell them that I’ve done everything possible within my ability to help move us forward.” 

Chandler is part of a largely unrecognized contingent of the climate movement in the United States: the climate grannies. 

The most prominent example perhaps, is the actor Jane Fonda. The octogenarian grandmother has been arrested during climate protests a number of times and has her own PAC that funds the campaigns of “climate champions” in local and state elections. 

Climate grannies come equipped with decades of activism experience and aim to pressure the government and corporations to curb fossil fuel emissions. As a result they, alongside women of every age group, are turning out in bigger numbers, both at protests and the polls. All of the climate grandmothers The 19th interviewed for this piece noted one unifying theme: concern for their grandchildren’s futures. 

According to research conducted by Dana R. Fisher, director for the Center of Environment, Community and Equity at American University, while the mainstream environmental movement has typically been dominated by men, women make up 61 percent of climate activists today.  The average age of climate activists was 52 with 24 percent being 69 and older...

A similar trend holds true at the ballot box, according to data collected by the Environmental Voter Project, a nonpartisan organization focused on turning out climate voters in elections. 

A report released by the Environmental Voter Project in December that looked at the patterns of registered voters in 18 different states found that after the Gen Z vote, people 65 and older represent the next largest climate voter group, with older women far exceeding older men in their propensity to list climate as their No. 1 reason for voting. The organization defines climate voters as those who are most likely to list climate change, the environment, or clean air and water as their top political priority.

“Grandmothers are now at the vanguard of today’s climate movement,” said Nathaniel Stinnett, founder of the Environmental Voter Project.

“Older people are three times as likely to list climate as a top priority than middle-aged people. On top of that, women in all age groups are more likely to care about climate than men,” he said. “So you put those two things together … and you can safely say that grandma is much more likely to be a climate voter than your middle-aged man.” 

In Arizona, where Chandler lives, older climate voters make up 231,000 registered voters in the state. The presidential election in the crucial swing state was decided by just 11,000 votes, Stinnett noted.

“Older climate voters can really throw their weight around in Arizona if they organize and if they make sure that everybody goes to the polls,” he said. 

Pictured: Hazel Chandler’s recent activism revolves around her role as the Arizona field coordinator of Moms Clean Air Force, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group.

In some cases, their identities as grandmothers have become an organizing force. 

In California, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations formed in 2016, after older women from the Bay Area traveled to be in solidarity with Indigenous grandmothers protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 

“When they came back, they decided to form an organization that would continue to mobilize women on behalf of the climate justice movement,” said Nancy Hollander, a member of the group. 

1000 Grandmothers — in this case, the term encompasses all older women, not just the literal grandmothers — is rooted at the intersection of social justice and the climate crisis, supporting people of color and Indigenous-led causes in the Bay Area. The organization is divided into various working groups, each with a different focus: elections, bank divestments from fossil fuels, legislative work, nonviolent direct actions, among others...

“There are women in the nonviolent direct action part of the organization who really do feel that elder women — it’s their time to stand up and be counted and to get arrested,” Hollander said. “They consider it a historical responsibility and put themselves out there to protect the more vulnerable.” 

But 1000 Grandmothers credits another grandmother activist, Pennie Opal Plant, for helping train their members in nonviolent direct action and for inspiring them to take the lead of Indigenous women in the fight. 

Plant, 66 — an enrolled member of the Yaqui of Southern California tribe, and of undocumented Choctaw and Cherokee ancestry — has started various organizations over the years, including Idle No More SF Bay, which she co-founded with a group of Indigenous grandmothers in 2013, first in solidarity with a group formed by First Nations women in Canada to defend treaty rights and to protect the environment from exploitation. 

Pictured: Pennie Opal Plant has started various organizations over the years, including Idle No More SF Bay, which she founded in 2013 alongside Indigenous grandmothers.

In 2016, Plant gathered with others in front of Wells Fargo Corporate offices in San Francisco, blocking the road in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline, when she realized the advantages she had as an older woman in the fight. 

As a police liaison — or a person who aims to defuse tension with law enforcement — she went to speak to an officer who was trying to interrupt the action. When she saw him maneuvering his car over a sidewalk, she stood in front of it, her gray hair flowing. “I opened my arms really wide and was like, are you going to run over a grandmother?”

A new idea was born: The Society of Fearless Grandmothers. Once an in-person training — it now mostly exists online as a Facebook page — it helped teach other grandmothers how to protect the youth at protests. 

For Plant, the role of grandmothers in the fight to protect the planet is about a simple Indigenous principle: ensuring the future for the next seven generations. 

“What we’re seeing is a shift starting with Indigenous women, that is lifting up the good things that mothers have to share, the good things that women that love children can share, that will help bring back balance in the world,” Plant said...

[Kathleen] Sullivan is one of approximately 70,000 people over the age of 60 who’ve joined Third Act, a group specifically formed to engage people 60 and older to mobilize for climate action across the country. 

“This is an act of moral responsibility. It’s an act of care. And It’s an act of reciprocity to the way in which we are cared for by the planet,” Sullivan said. “It’s an act of interconnection to your peers, because there can be great joy and great sense of solidarity with other people around this.”

-via The 19th, January 31, 2024

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

My general opinion on all of this is that if you choose not to vote because you believe all the parties are as bad as each other, it's your duty to engage in the system in some other way to make meaningful change.

Advocate for your community. Learn your neighbours names. Plant wildflower gardens in the green spaces around your home. Grow your own food - grow your own food collectively. Let your neighbours borrow an onion from you. Look after the elderly people who live on your street.

Help where you can. Go litter-picking in the park. Volunteer at your local library or community centre. Email your local council about issues that affect you. Volunteer at a food bank. Give money to unhoused people. Protest.

If you can't go out and about to do things, email local organisations and see if there's anything you can do from home. Can you do admin? Copy for websites? Designs for posters and flyers? Can you join a local mental health support group? Can you organise one yourself?

The world is very big and scary and we are very small and scared. But change is small as well, and the best, most impactful changes you can make start right on your doorstep.

[hjellacott]

Really funny how 99% of your posts ab women's rights are about trans people. None about real issues facing your country or the world we live in right now. It's always the same with TERFs, y'all will claim to be on women side but if we look at your actions in the real world you never done any work for women. It's all words and hidden hate. If you took all that energy to help homeless women around your city you'd be a feminist, here you're just sad.

You know what's really funny? 1 that you clearly don't know me nor have seen all my posts, dozens of which are commenting the latest news on women's rights and feminism, and urging action. 2 I can also quite recall having commented issues affecting not just my birth country, but also my second country and Europe. 3 In fact, I've debated with people about those. 4 But what have you read, the last 5 posts on my blog? And "you've never done any work for women" well that's fucking LOL. I'm an activist in politics and feminism. I don't need to give you any fucking receipts, but I'll have you know I've done more for women in my life than you ever will. Not just actively defending them out there in the street when something happens to one of our sisters, but also going to protests, rallies, going on strikes for women's rights (a tradition that begun years ago in my student days), being active in politics, being well-informed all the time (because I do read the news several times a day, and contrary to most people who read the same newspapers all the time, I actually vary and also go international), knowing the latest laws concerning women and writing to my MP with suggestions, complaints and ideas, as my current country lets me do. I also use my actual profession, my career and any and all of my professional actions to empower women in the Arts and Culture, and I have now thrice reported powerful men in the British Film Industry for sexist and dangerous-to-women behaviour, such as sexual harassment (and that's three open and ongoing police investigations with Scotland Yard). And you're very quick to judge that I don't help homeless women when in fact, I do. I suggest you don't have such a big mouth to say what I do or do not do in terms of volunteering, donating and helping, because I'm not one to come to Tumblr and brag about "oh my God have you heard what a saint I am and the latest 50 things I've done today? paving my way to heaven!". But again, you want receipts? OK! I'll let you know I'm involved with women's shelters, I actively aid homeless, not just female ones but also men, and I'm an activist in a series of things including feminism, LGBT rights, Human Rights and BLM. That means that I don't just do protests and rallies, but that I communicate with politicians (here you can just write to them) every single fucking time they mess up, and have worked, in all the years I've been old enough to vote, towards a more feminist, LGBT, all-races-welcome city in every city I've lived in long enough to be able to vote. Because of active political involvement like mine, I can give you for example my birth city in Spain (although I won't tell you which one because privacy rights), is now one of the most feminist cities of Spain, where women can report you for rape if they didn't give specific consent to sex, and where gays can be gays and nobody hurts them. And that is without mentioning work in students' councils, in university students' associations, and out in the cold collecting signatures for one cause or another.

Also, you can use the word TERF to refer to me, even though I find it very stupid and I'll tell you why. One, you guys use it like an insult. And it's not. It means Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. And there's nothing wrong about being a TERF. The reason is, you should always start fighting for rights in your own home, and then expand. You can't take care of others' families until yours is safe. So if any feminist wants to focus on purely feminist issues, that's perfect. In fact, the whole idea of TERF is rather absurd. It'd be like having a White Exclusionary Black Lives Matter activism. We don't need to because we already understand BLM is about putting the focus on black lives, something anyone, doesn't matter who you are, can and should be involved in, and then we can all end racism, together. The same is with feminism. The whole idea of feminism is putting the focus on females (hence the fucking word, it's a no-brainer). So if you don't identify as female, the focus is obviously not on you. It doesn't mean we exclude anyone, because everyone can join and participate, as they should. And focusing on females means focusing on "the female", i.e. people with a female sex. That includes women and trans men who have not physically transitioned. So you can't really exclude at least some trans people from feminism. But as the word says and like I keep saying, we're talking feminism, so it automatically only includes females. Trans people don't frequently identify as females, so they exclude themselves. Just like the LGBT collective is not fighting or even thinking about straight people's rights, not because they're evil, but because it's the LGBT club. Feminism is the females club. If you're not comfortable in it, it's not like we exclude you, it's that you exclude yourself. Similarly, when trans women decide to start the Trans Women Movement, then nobody will say they're Female-Exclusionary, nor gay exclusionary, nor trans men exclusionary, because everyone will sympathise with the idea that you're focusing on trans women because you need to, and the name itself says what's about and what's not about. It was never about excluding anyone, it's about FOCUSING on certain population that clearly needs it. That's what feminism is about. And in my particular form of practising feminism, I've always fought for anyone who identified as woman, even trans women, as I've got a few trans women friends and know and sympathise with their issues, just like they've fought for me and my well-being. And of course, in my fight I also include trans men who haven't had surgery ergo, are still at risk of being vaginally raped, impregnated, and forced to deal with very female problems such as needing an abortion.

So I don't believe in the term Terf, I think it's completely absurd and makes no sense, I always laugh when somebody shouts it at me, and it's just one more way for the TRAs to try and insult feminists, try to make them feel bad, and I've studied this in propaganda techniques, you know? it's book stuff. It's all about using a term nobody really cares to know what it really means, and shouting it about until it becomes an insult. It's like the word "retard". Well, it never used to be an insult, did you know? It simply meant people behind in development, and it was used by doctors to call people and focus studies on helping them. But people began shouting it around as an insult, and so it became one.

I think in feminism there's just feminist or not feminist. You can, of course be a radical feminist (and there's radicalism in every activism, of course). Personally, I don't quite agree fully with the radfems I've known and talked with, and find radfeminism a bit too much for my comfort levels, so I stay in mere feminism.

[school56df]

Civic Engagement: Building Stronger Communities through Active Participation importance of civic engagement for young people

Importance Of Civic Engagement For Young People  civic engagement refers to the energetic participation of people within the political, social, and community affairs in their society. It contains a wide range of activities, together with voting, volunteering, collaborating in community agencies, attending public meetings, and advocating for social causes. The essence of civic engagement lies inside the dedication to make contributions to the well-being of the network and the democratic method. It is a cornerstone of a wholesome democracy, fostering a feel of belonging, responsibility, and collective motion. In this essay, we will explore the significance of civic engagement, its various paperwork, and its effect on people and communities.

The Importance of Civic Engagement

It is vital for several reasons. Firstly, it empowers individuals to have a voice in the decisions that have an effect on their lives. Building a stronger community through civic engagement in a democracy, the capability to take part inside the political method is a fundamental right and obligation. Voting, as an instance, lets in citizens to pick their representatives and have an impact on public guidelines. However, civic engagement extends beyond the ballot  box. It includes a huge range of activities that allow human beings to express their critiques, keep public officers accountable, and recommend for changes of their groups.

Secondly, civic engagement fosters social brotherly love and network resilience. When humans come together to cope with common issues, they construct accept as true with, enhance social bonds, and expand a sense of shared reason. This collective action can cause tangible upgrades in nearby communities, consisting of cleanser parks, more secure neighborhoods, and higher colleges. Moreover, engaged communities are more likely to assist each other in instances of disaster, demonstrating resilience and harmony.

Thirdly, civic engagement promotes personal increase and development. Participating in network sports and social reasons can help individuals develop vital competencies, together with leadership, communication, and trouble-solving. It also provides opportunities for learning approximately various views and troubles, fostering empathy and expertise. For young people, civic engagement can be especially formative, helping them develop a sense of civic obligation and an knowledge of their function in society.

Forms of Civic Engagement

It  can take many bureaucracy, ranging from formal political participation to casual community activities. Some of the maximum not unusual paperwork encompass:

Voting and Political Participation

Voting is the maximum simple form of civic engagement and a essential right in a democracy. It permits residents to choose their leaders and have a say within the governance in their us of a. Political participation also includes activities including campaigning for applicants, conducting public debates, and contacting elected officers to express evaluations on troubles.

Volunteering:

Volunteering is a key element of civic engagement, regarding the donation of time and capabilities to assist others or enhance the community. This can consist of running with non-income businesses, collaborating in network easy-up tasks, or mentoring young human beings. Volunteering now not handiest blessings the recipients but additionally enriches the lives of volunteers by means of presenting a sense of cause and fulfillment.

Community Organizing and Activism:

Community organizing entails bringing people together to address not unusual troubles and endorse for change. This can include organizing protests, forming community institutions, or running on campaigns to address social, monetary, or environmental problems. Activism often focuses on advocating for coverage modifications at the nearby, nation, or countrywide levels.

Public Service and Civic Leadership:

Public service entails running in government or public area roles to serve the network. This consists of positions which includes elected officers, government employees, or individuals of civic forums and commissions. Civic leadership additionally includes taking up roles in non-income businesses or network organizations, where people can influence decisions and guidelines that effect the community.

Civic Education and Awareness

Educating oneself and others about civic issues, public regulations, and the functioning of government is a essential thing of civic engagement. This can include attending public meetings, collaborating in civic schooling programs, or using media and social systems to raise cognizance approximately crucial problems.

The Impact of Civic Engagement

It has a long way-attaining results on each people and communities. For individuals, it can lead to extended civic knowledge, greater social connections, and a stronger feel of belonging. Engaged individuals are more likely to experience empowered and capable of effecting exchange in their communities. This sense of empowerment can lead to more lifestyles pleasure and properly-being.

At the network stage, civic engagement can cause greater responsive and accountable governance. When residents actively take part in the political technique, elected officials are much more likely to be aware of their materials' wishes and issues. Civic engagement additionally promotes social equity with the aid of giving marginalized businesses a voice in choice-making tactics and advocating for guidelines that cope with systemic inequalities.

Furthermore, civic engagement contributes to the overall health of a democracy. A colourful democracy is based at the energetic participation of its residents to function efficiently. When humans are engaged in civic sports, they help make sure that democratic establishments continue to be robust and that public rules reflect the diverse needs and values of the population.

Challenges and Opportunities

Despite its significance, civic engagement faces several challenges. One major undertaking is the lack of civic education and cognizance among the public. Many humans might not absolutely recognize the political method or their rights and obligations as citizens. This can lead to apathy or disengagement from civic sports.

Another undertaking is the boundaries to participation that exist for positive businesses, which includes low-income individuals, human beings with disabilities, and marginalized communities. These barriers can consist of loss of get admission to to statistics, constrained opportunities for participation, and systemic inequalities that discourage engagement.

However, there are also possibilities to beautify civic engagement. online platforms for civic engagement the upward push of virtual era and social media has created new avenues for participation and activism. Online systems permit human beings to connect, percentage records, and mobilize around issues in approaches that had been not viable earlier than. Additionally, there's developing recognition of the want for civic schooling and efforts to include it into college curricula and network programs.

[tasso1972]

Hey ChatGPT, I have a question-

Hey-ChatGPT, What are the most effective methods of self-defense when right-wing, fascist, christian, neo-nazis, homophobes, and misogynists stack the supreme court with conservative justices that remove LGBTQ+ persons and women's human rights?ChatGPT response:When facing challenges related to the political landscape or the erosion of rights, it is important to emphasize that promoting positive change and protecting human rights should primarily be pursued through peaceful, legal, and democratic means. Here are some methods individuals and communities can employ:Legal Advocacy: Engage with organizations and activists who specialize in legal advocacy and civil rights. Support efforts to challenge discriminatory laws through legal channels, such as filing lawsuits, supporting legal defense funds, or participating in advocacy campaigns.Grassroots Activism: Engage in peaceful grassroots activism by organizing or participating in protests, demonstrations, or rallies that advocate for human rights and equal treatment. Amplify your voice through peaceful collective action and raise awareness of the issues at hand.Political Engagement: Stay informed about political developments and exercise your right to vote. Support candidates who champion human rights, inclusivity, and equality. Engage in political campaigns, volunteer, or donate to organizations working towards progressive causes.Coalition Building: Build alliances and work in collaboration with diverse communities, organizations, and social justice movements. By joining forces, you can amplify your impact and create a broader movement for positive change.Education and Awareness: Engage in educational initiatives to promote understanding and empathy. Encourage discussions and dialogue about the importance of human rights, equality, and inclusion. Promote media literacy to counter misinformation and propaganda.Supportive Networks: Strengthen and cultivate supportive networks within your community. Provide assistance, resources, and emotional support to individuals and communities affected by regressive policies or actions.International Advocacy: Engage with international human rights organizations and advocacy groups. Utilize international platforms and mechanisms to bring attention to human rights violations and seek support from the international community.Donations and Support: Contribute to organizations that defend human rights, promote equality, and provide support to marginalized communities. Your financial support can help sustain their efforts in challenging discriminatory policies.It is important to prioritize peaceful means of advocacy and respect the principles of non-violence, as resorting to violence can undermine the goals of promoting justice, equality, and human rights. Engaging in constructive dialogue and fostering understanding can be powerful tools to bring about positive change.

[marveltrumpshate]

As we said in our closing message at the end of this year’s auction, 2020 has been a year of tremendous change—change that we had no control over and change that we made with our own hands. Many times this year—and the past four years under the Trump administration for those of us in the U.S.—we’ve felt helpless in the face of terrible upheaval. But rather than forcing us to give up, the calamities we’ve witnessed and experienced galvanized us. We’ve seen people volunteer to drop off groceries for immunocompromised neighbors during the pandemic. We’ve seen people donate generously during the worst global economic crisis in modern history. We’ve seen people become more politically active, taking to the streets to protest and voting in record numbers like they are tonight.

And we’ve seen that same passion, that same desire to make change and help people, fuel all the MTH participants this year.

We weren’t sure what the turnout would be like. Would people have the time or energy to sign up as creators? Would people be willing to donate, and would they have the means to do so?

Our worries proved to be baseless.

This year, 273 “Marvel”-ous creators came forward to offer 416 auctions.

And this year, we raised…

That’s just over $11,000 more than the MTH 2019 total. 😮💖🎉

We’re going to channel Beast here and exclaim, “Oh my stars and garters!”

The race started off with a bang, with bids racking up quickly on the first day. Even so, we were shocked when we matched last year’s total, which we weren’t sure we could do ($27,193.91 was beyond our wildest expectations), and then just ran right past it before the auction even ended!

It’s been an incredible journey, with the mod chat pinging at all hours with excited gifs, effusive heart emojis, and inarticulate keyboard smashes as we expressed our love for the wonderful people in our fandom. It’s been very hard not blurting out the milestones as we reached them when we desperately wanted to share these amazing results with you all.

Creators, we couldn’t have started this auction without you. We loved seeing so many veteran creators sign up again and were pleasantly surprised by how many new faces showed up to the party.

Bidders, as crazy as it sounds, most donations were small ones (including some of those crazily high winning bids—several were the result of people pooling their five dollars together!). This has been consistently the case since MTH began. It just goes to show how much of an impact you can have when you’re part of something bigger than yourself. Each donation has a ripple effect, and enough ripples can cause a wave. You matter, and you can make a difference.

We also owe our success to our amazing signal boosters. There can’t be an auction without any participants, so to every fandom community Tumblr that agreed to reblog our posts, every Discord server mod who let us post announcements, and every person who shared our posts and encouraged their fandom friends to sign up and/or bid, thank you so much! Together, we reached hundreds of fantastic creators and bidders from all corners of the Marvel fandom, many of whom we didn’t know and some who were hearing about us for the first time.

Thank you all. We’re so touched by the massive number of people who donated above and beyond their pledged amount, creators who took on multiple auctions and offered multiple winner slots, and bidders who accepted their second-place wins with such eagerness! We also had people make donations in the spirit of MTH even though they didn’t win an auction, which was beyond generous.

We’ve already seen how our donations are changing the world for the better. To name a few examples:

Partners In Health is on the ground testing, providing care, assisting local government response, and mobilizing community health workers in countries where the mortality rate for COVID-19 is expected to be much more severe than those with well-resourced health systems

The Southern Poverty Law Center raised $10 million to fight voter suppression in the South, with some great successes in Florida

World Central Kitchen has purchased over 10 million meals from small, independent restaurants in 400 cities, putting $105 million and counting directly back into the economy and helping both struggling businesses and people who need food the most during the pandemic

We’re sure that in the months and years to come, we’ll see even more wonderful results.

In addition to the astounding amount of money we were able to raise for charity, MTH was successful in other ways. We strove to be as inclusive as possible, determined to make this event a fandom-wide effort. Considering that the auctions covered over 369 unique platonic and romantic relationships (if we include “all ships/gen”-inclusive relationships, this number is even higher) across 31 universes within the Marvel multiverse, we can safely say that we accomplished our goal.

This spirit of inclusion also applies to our auctions and charities. Every one of 416 auctions was bid on, and every one of our 30 supported charities received donations. We’re in awe of your commitment to supporting all our creators and charities and thrilled that you spread all the love around, bidders!

Here’s our breakdown of the donations (click to enlarge the image and hover to see the donation amount per charity):

We’ve also listed the amount raised per charity on our 2020 auction results page.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for helping us turn our third Marvel Trumps Hate auction into such a fantastic experience. We cherish every single message of love and support that we received and continue to receive on our Discord server and through DMs, Tumblr messages, emails, tweets, etc. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

To remember or learn why we created this auction in the first place, please check out our 2018 “thank you” post to all of our creators, bidders, signal boosters, and supporters.

If you’d like to stay updated on all of the 2020 Marvel Trumps Hate fills, follow us and/or check out the “mth 2020” tag on our Tumblr. You’ll also be able to find works posted on AO3 in our Marvel Trumps Hate 2020 collection and links to fills in our Discord server, which you can join to brainstorm prompts, chat about fills, and find out about other fandom events.

Thank you once again to everyone who volunteered their services, time, money, and platforms to spread the word. Though we may sometimes wonder how much of a difference we can make, it’s moments like this that show that every bit helps, no matter the size of our contribution. With that in mind, we’d like everyone to keep the following quote close to their hearts as we move forward and find ways to make the world a better place, to remember these words when they’re feeling lost or small.

“Purpose is the essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history. Your very existence is wrapped up in the things you are here to fulfill.” — Chadwick Boseman

Think about your purpose. Think about what you can do while you’re here. Know that you matter.

And with that, MTH 2020 has officially come to a close. We’re so beyond grateful to you all, and we can’t wait to see all of your fanworks over the coming year!

Lots of love and gratitude, Your 2020 MTH mods

[leupagus]

Who’s your County Executive? and other steps to becoming a valuable pain in the ass

I fired off a tweet thread this morning, but I feel like a lot of folks here might benefit from this info, too. Which is: if you want anything to change, from police abolition to getting statues removed to passing local ordinances requiring masks to removing local legislation putting limits on abortion (just for some random examples), you need to get real familiar with your local reps. As in, you need to know who they are, what they do, how they’re elected/appointed, how long they’ve been doing that job, what their history is and how you can pressure them into doing what you want. Using hashtags and sharing links and signal boosting can only do so much. Talking to the people who are actually able to implement the change you want is a huge part that I don’t think gets discussed enough; and although it requires some preliminary work, once you get into the groove it’s surprisingly easy.

First, find out where you live! Which you may think is a stupid step, but —do you live in a city? Are you sure? I live in a city, for example, but I actually live in a township/suburb of that city, not the city proper. (Fortunately due to what I suspect is some white flight-related weirdness, I can still hassle the city proper.) There are entire towns inside of some cities, like West Hollywood and Los Angeles. Double-check; you might be surprised.

Then, find out who’s in charge of said place. There are quite a few people, actually. You probably have a mayor — but they might be called a supervisor. Or you may have a city manager, or executive, or clerk, or all three, or someone else entirely, who’s actually doing the day-to-day running of the place — for instance, while Austin has a mayor, it also has a city manager, and the city manager does WAY more than the mayor does. You also have people at the county/parish level — a county executive is I think the most common term, although sometimes it’s the county clerk, who can have entirely different duties depending on the county. Whatever way it works where you live, find out. While you’re at it, find out who’s in charge of your local elections. Sometimes that’s the county clerk (actually I think it’s almost always the country clerk, but sometimes it’s the county auditor or something weird like that); sometimes they’re elected and sometimes they’re appointed. Find out. Get names, put their contact info in your phone. (More on that later.)

Then, find out who represents you on the city/town council and the county legislature, or whatever they’re called where you are. Finding out what district you’re in can sometimes be hellaciously frustrating; when in doubt, an email to the county or city council can often get you an answer if you provide your address. Also bear in mind that different places have different ways of apportioning council members; sometimes they’re all “at large,” sometimes they’re elected according to districts, sometimes it’s a combination of both. Sometimes (not often I don’t think) they’re not elected at all but appointed by someone. Find out who! And don’t leave out things like school boards and zoning boards and community college boards and anything else you happen upon that has a representative you didn’t know existed. They exist, and I guarantee they’ve got power.

Note: find out who represents you state-wide, too. Often calling the governor isn’t that effective (at least for me, calling Cuomo ain’t gonna do much; if you live in Delaware or Montana or Iowa or somewhere relatively less populous, definitely get your governor’s information), but your state reps are usually pretty eager to talk to constituents, even — and this is really important these days — ones who aren’t of the same party. I’m represented by a GOP state senator, for example, but he ended up voting for this bill that just got signed into law. Most states are bicameral (except Nebraska, heyooo), so you likely have a state senator and a state rep/assemblyman/whatever. Make sure to get info for both. (Unless you live in Nebraska, in which case tell Ernie I said hi.)

Next, find out what the court system looks like where you are. Are your state/county/district/etc judges appointed? Elected? What are their terms? Who’s your District Attorney? Who’s in charge of your Public Defender’s office? (I actually haven’t bothered to look up that myself until today!) What courts handle which offenses in your area? Collect that information.

And what do you do with this info? You put it into your phone contacts, or whatever you use to keep your contacts organized, I dunno, maybe you still use your Wizard from 1992. No judgement. However you do it, put all of these contacts somewhere they’re all together — for example, if you have a letter in your directory that isn’t used much. I have a kind of weird method of organizing my contacts, which is that I put their first and last names (and their handles, if I know them online) in the Firstname field, then the Lastname field I use to say how I know them. So all of my New York-based friends are listed as “NYC, Holly Golightly/moonrivergoddess” or whatever. So for me personally, I just put all my political contacts under “Y” as in “Y do I have to keep pestering you to make you do the right thing.” So a county clerk would be listed like so:

Y, County Clerk Horace Vandergelder

In the “Company” field, I usually put their party and when/if they’re up for election next as well as term length, so Horace would be “Dem, 2020/2024.″ And then I might add any links I thought were helpful as well as notes about, say, what staffer I may’ve talked to or if there’s an important bill coming up etc.

And now you’ve got that information, it’s time to fuckin’ use it. Was there a protest that happened in your area that ended in arrests or violence? Call your mayor, register your displeasure. Call your DA, ask if anyone’s being charged. Call your city council member, ask them what legislation they’d support to end police violence. What do you know that you want them to know? Alternatively, was there a protest in your area that was really great and positive? Call these people; ask if they attended. If they did, offer support for them and say that you want them to follow up with actionable steps. If they didn’t, ask why. (BTW, it’s election season — look at the candidates, too! That state senator I mentioned earlier is retiring this year, and a pretty awesome Democrat is in a good position to get his seat; I’ve started volunteering for him in part because he’s got a history of agitating for police reform and has been regularly attending the protests here.) You can email, too; you’re welcome to c&p form emails, but once you have all these people’s contact info at your fingertips you’d be amazed how easy it’ll be to write something from you, that will be far more effective.

It’s also important to keep a record for yourself of who you’ve talked to, when you talked to them, what they said, if you want to follow up etc. I’ve got a little section of my planner for this; it has dates, names, topics, the works. It’s been really helpful to me over the past few weeks making sure I’m exerting pressure to a variety of people in a variety of positions, not just repeatedly calling one office and leaving the same message over and over again.

But if you really want to, as I put it on twitter, tighten the sphincter of local government, nothing beats face-to-face (or, these days, facetime-to-facetime). And here you’ve got a shitton of options. You can see if a particular politician/government office is taking virtual one-on-one meetings, where you can lobby either your politician or (more likely) one of their staffers to support legislation or policies or whatnot. This is, and I cannot stress it enough, HUGELY EFFECTIVE, especially if you are a demo they don’t often see (aka if you’re not a white Boomer). Local politicians are both desperate for and terrified of an engaged constituency; they want you to care but they’re very much aware that anyone showing up to an office (or a zoom meeting) could make their lives very, very difficult.

If one-on-one isn’t your style, there are also committee meetings, which... holy shit, you would not believe the number of committees there are. Committees for art festivals, committees for transportation, committees for public safety, committees for pretty much everything you can think of and a few I’ll bet you can’t. Noodle around on your councils’ and county’s websites, including their facebook page (nine times out of ten there will be more — and more up-to-date — info on the facebook page) to find out what committees meet when. And here is where your specific priorities will be important, because usually you can attend and in some cases even become part of these committees. Do you want to advocate for better public transportation? Find out when the transportation committee meets. Go to that meeting. If they have a Q&A, get some fuckin’ Qs ready and demand some fuckin’ As.

And then there’s the big kahunas of council meetings and state legislature sessions. Most city/town councils have a segment of their weekly/monthly meetings to hear from the public (this is different from a public hearing, FYI, although they too are really important and you should find out if there are any going on where you live and when). Do you have something you want to get in front of the whole council? Get your ass on the list! In Austin I think you had to call or email the council’s office by the day before; in my town you just roll up and get in line when it comes time. Then for state legislatures, often there will be specific bills on which they ask for “citizen input” or however else they describe it. This is less practical because we don’t all live in easy distance of our state capital, but if you do, consider getting involved there. (And right now with the pandemic, your state legislatures may have new rules about citizen participation that actually make it easier for you to get involved, for once.)

Mostly, though, this is about local involvement — find out who’s in control of your city, your county, your precinct and district and all the other ways your home is demarcated. Talk to these people, even if it makes you nervous; their power to make effective change comes with their responsibility to listen, and your power to make them listen comes with your responsibility to speak.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

1. Summer Solstice Indigenous Festival – June 1-21

Established in Ottawa in 1996, the Summer Solstice Indigenous Festival (SSIF) is a multi-disciplinary arts festival that brings together Indigenous artists, performers, educators, students, and community members to share knowledge and celebrate Canada’s diverse Indigenous cultures. The former 4-day live event takes place in June: coinciding with National Indigenous History Month and closing on National Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21). This year’s virtual programming includes The SSIMAs a new national Indigenous music awards program as well as Education Days, streamed performances, interactive family activities, arts and crafts, culinary and cultural workshops including the popular Pow Wow now socially distanced.

Twitter https://twitter.com/ottawasolstice/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/solsticefestivals/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/solsticefestivals/

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYnmJlZdwcGa-6nB6L4mJqA

Website: https://summersolsticefestivals.ca/

2. Stop Insuring Trans Mountain: Week of Action – June 14 – 21

Online and in-person

Join us for a week of action from June 14 – 21 targeting the insurance companies enabling the continued operation and expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. 

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻? The Trans Mountain expansion project would transport an additional 590,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day from Alberta to British Columbia, and lead to a 700% increase in oil tankers in the Salish Sea. Many Indigenous communities have consistently and repeatedly rejected the Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project – but the Canadian government continues to plough ahead with construction.𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲? Current insurers of the pipeline are complicit in violating Indigenous rights and driving climate change through providing $500 million USD in coverage. Without insurance, the pipeline cannot keep operating, and its expansion can’t be constructed. That makes un-insuring Trans Mountain a critical way to stop the pipeline once and for all.Last year, Indigenous communities and activists pushed three insurance companies to cut ties with the pipeline: Zurich, Munich Re, and Talanx. We are not letting up the pressure.Trans Mountain is currently seeking insurers to back the project in the year to come, with a deadline of August 31. Right now we have a critical window in which to pressure insurers to rule out coverage for the pipeline and make Trans Mountain uninsurable.𝗪𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻:

Liberty Mutual

Chubb

AIG

W.R. Berkley

Lloyd’s

Starr

Stewart Specialty Risk Underwriting

Marsh

𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝘂𝘀! We will turn up the heat on these companies during the Week of Action through protests at office locations, digital actions, and more. Find your local or virtual event below.

Stop TMX Week of Action Supporter Toolkit:

http://bit.ly/TMXToolkit

Sign up to host an action in your community here:

https://forms.gle/LrrDdu8P62bir7eM7

𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 (𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲!): Berlin, Bristol, Charlotte, Denver, Eagle River, Fairbanks, Fremont, Kaneohe, Ottawa, Montreal, Portland, Seattle, Rochester, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria

3. COVID-19, Social Safety Nets, and Sex Work in the Capital Survey – June 5 – June 30

The “COVID-19, Social Safety Nets, and Sex Work in the Capital” survey is a joint research project between University of Ottawa researchers and Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work Educate Resist (POWER). This survey of sex workers in the capital region seeks to better understand the economic impact of COVID-19 on sex workers and how they navigated social benefit programs created in its wake. The confidential and remunerated 10-12 minute online survey will remain open thru to June 30, 2021. 

For more information about the research or to take the survey, please visit https://www.powerottawa.ca/covid19

4. Protest at Ottawa CBC – Tuesday, June 22, 4:30PM

Rally Point: Sparks St. and O’Connor St.

OTTAWA! 

We are calling on you to join us Tuesday June 22 at 4:30 PM at CBC offices to protest CBC’s anti-Palestinian biases and dishonest reporting on Palestine.

CBC has refused to report on the 2021 Human Rights Watch report highlighting Israeli crimes of apartheid: https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

They have reprimanded their journalists for signing an open letter to newsrooms asking for fairer coverage of Palestine.

And they have banned the use of the word “Palestine” in their broadcasts and digital media.

We demand change!!!

NOTE: Please abide by all COVID19 guidelines and social distancing measures. See you there!

Hosted by: CBC Palestine

5. OCAP Solidarity Speaker Series: Long-Term Care – Thursday, June 24, 11AM-12:30PM

Hosted by: Ontario Coalition Against Poverty

Join us again Thursday June 24th for our Solidarity Speaker Series event. This month’s spotlight is on Long-term Care and will feature speakers from Ontario Health Coalition, the EMPOWER network, and York University. Come learn about how the government has allowed this sector to be woefully neglected with deadly consequences and what we can do to improve legislation and shift away from the for-profit model of senior care.

Who you’ll be hearing from:

Pat Armstrong, Sociology Professor, York University

Cindy Huggins, PSW, EMPOWER network

Natalie Mehra, Ontario Health Coalition

The OCAP Solidarity Speaker Series is a recurring event, taking place on the last Thursday of the month, to spotlight rad organizations and individuals and highlight ongoing issues from an anti-capitalist perspective. We aim to educate, spark dialogue, and call folx to action in diverse and meaningful ways.

Hope to see you there!

More info and event link here.

6. Learning from the Movement OGs – Thursday, June 24, 4PM-6PM

Nothing happening in this historic era of protest has come from nowhere. This two hour panel will highlight the wisdom of movement OGs who have been doing the work—and are still doing the work—of Black liberation, Indigenous anti-colonial struggle, and migrant justice struggle, which has laid out the conditions of possibility for this political moment.

Panelists: Bridget Tolley, Lynn Jones, Beverly Bain, Harsha Walia

Facilitators: Robyn Maynard, Pascale Diverlus

Sign up here

Hosted by: Building The World We Want

7. Justice for Workers Outreach at Britannia Beach – Saturday, June 26, 12PM – 2PM

Join us for this community canvass at Britannia Beach where we will be speaking out about the need for paid sick days, fair wages and decent work for all.

This will be the first Ottawa outreach action for the Justice for Workers campaign and we would love it if you came by to help us collect signatures on our new petition!

Look out for our tent and volunteer team. Make sure to dress appropriately for the weather, and don’t forget to bring water and snacks. 

Sign up and check back for more details to be announced shortly. 

Materials and location info at this link. 

8. Stories from Insider Spaces: Exploring AGM Intervention as an Activist Tactic – Monday, June 28, 6:30PM – 8:00PM

Hosted by: Mining Injustice Solidarity Network

Registration information below!

Have you ever wished you could look the CEO of a harmful company in the face and say your piece? Want more information about a corporate project that’s impacting your community and wish you could get some answers? Come to this event and explore the strategic possibilities of Annual General Meetings (AGMs) with the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN)!

All publicly traded companies are legally required to hold Annual General Meetings (AGMs), where shareholders are able to attend, ask questions, and vote on important decisions.

This means that, once a year, companies with significant influence (including mining companies) are compelled to open up a space that is much more accessible to the public than many industry gatherings that happen behind closed doors. AGMs allow shareholders to hold company executives accountable. They can also be an important opportunity  for activists and impacted communities.

AGM interventions have been an important part of MISN’s strategic toolbox . We’ve attended AGMs to take notes for impacted communities, asked questions to unmask the misleading information shared by mining companies with their shareholders, hosted rallies outside of AGMs, led disruptions inside the meetings themselves, and more. Here are some examples: https://mininginjustice.org/archive/pastprojects/spring-into-action/

During this event, MISN members and allies will share their experiences attending AGMs, outline some of the different intervention tactics that we’ve used in the past, and provide some practical information on how you can research and buy a share in a company so that you can also attend its AGM.

The format of this event will include multiple speakers, video documentation of AGM interventions, and some opportunities to engage in small group discussion with other participants.

We hope you’ll attend if you are fighting a publicly traded company or are impacted by a company and want to add one more approach to how you organize against it.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!: http://bit.ly/StoriesFromInside  

9. Status For All March – Ottawa Rally – July 25, time tbd

In person, place tba

Join the rally in Ottawa on July 25th to welcome the arrival of the historic March for Status for All from Montreal! Across the country migrants have been organizing for full and permanent immigration status for all. Massive wins have been secured, but there is still a crucial final step to win. We will not stop until everyone has full and permanent immigration status, with no exceptions. We will leave no one behind.  

From July 18 and to July 25, migrants and their allies will march from Montreal to Ottawa, led by Solidarity Across Borders / Solidarité Sans Frontières, demanding that Justin Trudeau’s government grant full and permanent immigration status for all. 

Join us in Ottawa to welcome the march! Time and exact location will be confirmed closer to the date.

RSVP here: https://migrantrights.ca/marchtoottawa/

This rally will be in accordance with COVID safe guidelines: we ask all attendees to wear a mask and respect social distancing guidelines

[ishkah]

On The Far-Left, Effective Activism & Violence

Introduction to what it means to be on the far-left

So first off, as socialists & anarchists, we know we are far outside the Overton window. We know even if left-wing policy positions are more popular than right-wing, most people are still going to be biased to what they’ve grown up with and what’s familiar to them.

But, we also know we can shift the Overton window from the radical fringe: [1]

The most important thing about the Overton window, however, is that it can be shifted to the left or the right, with the once merely “acceptable” becoming “popular” or even imminent policy, and formerly “unthinkable” positions becoming the open position of a partisan base. The challenge for activists and advocates is to move the window in the direction of their preferred outcomes, so their desired outcome moves closer and closer to “common sense.”

There are two ways to do this: the long, hard way and the short, easy way. The long, hard way is to continue making your actual case persistently and persuasively until your position becomes more politically mainstream, whether it be due to the strength of your rhetoric or a long-term shift in societal values. By contrast, the short, easy way is to amplify and echo the voices of those who take a position a few notches more radical than what you really want.

For example, if what you actually want is a public health care option in the United States, coordinate with and promote those pushing for single-payer, universal health care. If the single-payer approach constitutes the “acceptable left” flank of the discourse, then the public option looks, by comparison, like the conservative option it was once considered back when it was first proposed by Orrin Hatch in 1994.

This is Negotiating 101.

So our hope is that our ideals and passion can be admired by some, like risking prison to sabotage the draft for Vietnam, so some peoples sons aren't conscripted into fighting an evil war. [2] Then any moderate left policies might look reasonable in comparison which makes them the tried and tested policies of the future.

We should also openly acknowledge that the ideal future we would like to see is empirically extremely unlikely to come about in our own lifetimes in the west, as there are still so many hills to climb first in pressuring workplaces over to a more co-operative flattened hierarchy of workplace democracy.

To quickly summarise, the direction the far-left would like to head in, is going from; a two party system, to... a multi-party coalition through preferential voting, to... some local government positions being elected by sortition, to… the majority of society being so content with worker-co-ops and syndicalist unions that we transition from representative democracy to direct democracy. So, a chamber of ministers to federated spokes councils.

Now I might be the minority in the far-left on this, but I would want people to have the option of going back a step if people aren't ready for that level of direct democracy, where the choice is disorganization and suffering or slightly less suffering under a repressive system of governance again. You could relate this to the position Rosa Luxemburg was in in lending support and hoping some good would come of the Spartacist uprising, whilst also wishing they could have been convinced to hold off until they were more prepared.

This is why it’s so important to build the governance model slowly enough to match expertise, so as not to falter with people pushing for ideals before having adequately put them to the test. So as not to cause a whiplash effect, where people desire a reactionary politics of conformity, under more rigid hierarchy of just the few.

-

As anarchists & socialists who desire a more directly democratic society, what tactics should we use if we want to be effective at moving society in that direction?

Electoral politics - We need to get really well educated on how even the baby step policies toward the left would be an improvement on where we are now, we need to learn the internal politicking of government and get good at having friendly arguments with comedy to appeal to friends and acquaintances basic intuitions.

The goal being that we can talk the latest news and (1) Win over conservatives to obvious empirically better policies on the left, and (2) Win over liberals when centre-left parties are in power to feel dismayed at the slow pace of change, and so acknowlege how much better it would be if there was a market socialist in the position willing to rally people to demonstrate and strike to push through bills.

Mutual aid – We should put the time into helping our neighbours and volunteering, for example on a food not bombs stall, to get people to see the positive benefits of a communalist caring society.

Theory – We should be educating ourselves and helping others know what work and rent union to join, what to keep a record of at work, how to defend yourself from rapists and fascists, how to crack a squat and how to write a press release, etc.

Campaigning – We should look for the easiest squeeze points to rack up small wins, like the picketing of a cafe to reclaim lost wages, so that word spreads and it creates a domino effect.

-

What tactics should we or shouldn’t we generally avoid in our political campaigns?

Civility as an end in itself

They’re not lies, they’re “falsehoods”; it’s not racism, it’s “racially charged comments”; it’s not torture, it’s “enhanced interrogation.” For years, U.S. media has prioritized, above all else, norms and civility.

Mean words or questioning motives are signs of declining civility and the subject of much lament from our media class. However, op-eds explicitly advocating war, invasion, sanctions, sabotage, bombing and occupation or cutting vital programs and lifelines for the poor are just the cost of doing business. What’s rhetorically out of bounds - and what isn’t - is far more a product of power than any objective sense of "civility" or “decency.”

Where did these so-called norms come from, who do they benefit, and why is their maintenance–-even in the face of overt white nationalism––still the highest priority for many liberals and centrists in U.S. media? [3]

This is so important to challenge, and yet incredibly nuanced. So, it is obviously a great success that the rate at which people would go around hurling racist insults looks to have dropped in favour of more political correctness.

It is also true that in pursuit of political correctness and an ethic of care, we can look for simplistic niceness, to the detriment of being able to identify systems of oppression.  We need to be able to refuse the emotional labor of treating our bosses as friends when we have no desire to be friends with them. [4]

Similarly in our everyday interactions, we need to encourage our friends to accept us for who we are or not to accept us at all, so as to create deeper connections which builds stronger communities: [5]

It can be annoying or hurtful when others presume they know everything about you. But rather than assert their wrongness and make them defensive, you can acknowledge it as a common human failing and find creative ways to hold a mirror up to what life experiences they’ve had that lead them to jump to those conclusions.

One way is a kind of playful authenticity, telling a lie about a lie, to get back closer to the truth. So don’t outright challenge the idea, but don’t live up to it either, in fact live down to it. Playfully undermine the idea by failing to live up to the glamour of what it would mean to be that person, then find a way of revealing that it was a misunderstanding all along, so they needn’t worry about it applying to you.

Media Chasing – We shouldn’t chose our actions for the primary purpose of provoking conversations because it is insincere to ones own desires to materially affect change and it’s recognised as such by those who hear about it.

Transparency – We should be transparent with our supporters in all we hope to achieve and how successful we are being at achieving that task, so as not to attract funds for labor we haven’t and aren’t likely to be able to do.

Civil Disobedience – Whether it be breaking the law without causing any damage or economic sabotage and political violence which we’ll talk about later, anarchists hope to chose the right actions to provoke conversations and materially challenge unethical industries and actors, so as to push electoral politics towards direct democracy and eventually consolidate our gains in a revolution.

Fascists will also use tactics from civil disobedience to political violence, and tend toward violence against people for people holding ideas as the things they hate, rather than the lefts systemic critique of material conditions. All in the hopes of pushing society towards a more authoritarian constitutional republic, before seizing power in a palace coup and attempting to rule as a sequence of dictators for life.

It is up to the left to try and counter this violence by doxxing, making their rallies miserable, etc. And it is up to everyone to decide which government to vote in, to enact what degree of punishment to bring down on people breaking the law on either side.

Any direction the society goes in for either not controlling or bowing to which protesters demands is still the moral culpability of the government and those who participated in the party political process.

There simply is an obvious legal and moral difference between for example victimless civil disobedience on the left aimed at all people being treated equally in society like collecting salt from the sea or staying seated on the bus, to the type of violence you see on the right, like Israeli settlers throwing people off their land with arson attacks, stealing another country’s resources against international law.

But again, it is true that to whatever degree anarchists chose bad targets optically, we do to some degree bring the slow pace of change on ourselves by handing the right an advocacy win.

Graffiti & Culture Jamming – Whether it be an artistic masterpiece that no one asked for or altering a billboard to say something funny and political, instead of the advert that was there before pressuring you to consume more and more, most people can be won over by this as a good form of advocacy. Just don’t practice tagging your name a million times over every building in town.

Hacking – Obviously most people agree whistle-blowing war crimes is a yay. Selectively releasing documents to help conservatives win elections however, is a nay.

Sabotage – We should chose targets which have caused people the most amount of misery, for which people can sympathise most, like the sabotaging of draft cards I wrote about at the beginning. So causing economic damage to affect material conditions and make a statement.

We also need to carefully consider the difference between property which is personal, luxury, private, government owned and co-operatively worker owned.

So, it could be seen as ethical to chose material targets of evil actors in order to cause economic damage and make a statement, so long as in the case of personal property, the item has no sentimental value and can be replaced because the person is wealthy. Or is a luxury item that was paid for through the exploitation of others labor. Or is private property, meaning the means of production which should be owned collectively anyway.

It’s an expression of wanting to find an outlet for legitimate anger against that which causes us suffering. For example, if taking the risk to slash slaughterhouse trucks’ tires in the dead of night is how you develop stronger bonds with a group of people and gain the confidence to do amazing things like travel the world and learn from other liberation struggles.

Fighting – First off, I think propaganda by the deed, physically hurting people for the purpose of making a political statement is evil, as it runs counter to our philosophy on the left that material conditions create the person and so we should make every peaceful effort to rehabilitate people.

However, to the extent that some current institutions fail to rehabilitate people and the process of seeking justice through these institutions can cause more trauma, then personal violence to get to resolve feelings of helplessness in the face of evil acts can be an ethical act.

For example survivor-led vigilantism: [4]

“I wanted revenge. I wanted to make him feel as out of control, scared and vulnerable as he had made me feel. There is no safety really after a sexual assault, but there can be consequences.” -Angustia Celeste, “Safety is an Illusion: Reflections on Accountability”

Two situations in which prominent anarchist men were confronted and attacked by groups of women in New York and Santa Cruz made waves in anarchist circles in 2010. The debates that unfolded across our scenes in response to the actions revealed a widespread sense of frustration with existing methods of addressing sexual assault in anarchist scenes. Physical confrontation isn’t a new strategy; it was one of the ways survivors responded to their abusers before community accountability discourse became widespread in anarchist circles. As accountability strategies developed, many rejected physical confrontation because it hadn’t worked to stop rape or keep people safe. The trend of survivor-led vigilantism accompanied by communiqués critiquing accountability process models reflects the powerlessness and desperation felt by survivors, who are searching for alternatives in the face of the futility of the other available options.

However, survivor-led vigilantism can be a valid response to sexual assault regardless of the existence of alternatives. One doesn’t need to feel powerless or sense the futility of other options to take decisive physical action against one’s abuser. This approach offers several advantages. For one, in stark contrast to many accountability processes, it sets realistic goals and succeeds at them. It can feel more empowering and fulfilling than a long, frequently triggering, overly abstract process. Women can use confrontations to build collective power towards other concerted anti-patriarchal action. Physical confrontation sends an unambiguous message that sexual assault is unacceptable. If sexual violence imprints patriarchy on the bodies of women, taking revenge embodies female resistance.

Other examples we can think of are personally desiring to fight fascists in the street to block them from marching through immigrant communities. To pushing your way through huntsman to save a fox from getting mauled to death by dogs.

-

Political killing

I’ll work through hypotheticals from circumstances relevant to the past, present and future, then talk through the ethics of each.

-

Past possibilities

Most people agree anyone who took it upon themselves to assassinate Hitler a day before the break out of WW2 would be seen as committing an ethical act, no matter who follows, because throwing a wrench into the cult of personality spell built around Hitler would be a significant set back for the fascist state’s grip over the people. And given all the evidence pointing to the inevitability of war, such an act could easily be seen as a necessary pre-emptive act.

-

Present possibilities

Most can sympathise with quick revolutions against dictatorships where the result is a freer society, like the Kurdish uprising in Northern Syria which took power from a regime who had rolled tanks on demonstrators and outlawed teaching of their native language.

But, even there, there are key foundations you need to work from, like the probability you won’t just give an excuse for the oppressor committing even worse horrors as was the case with the Rohingya militants who ambushed a police checkpoint, resulting in army & citizen campaign to burn down many villages, plus murder and rape those that couldn’t get away.

As well as a responsibility to put down arms after winning political freedoms and a majority are in favour of diplomacy through electoral politics, like in Northern Ireland today.

Under representative parliamentary systems, the sentiment of most is that even if it could be argued that a war of terror against the ruling class was the easiest route to produce a better society, that it would still be ethically wrong to be the person who takes another’s life just because it’s the easiest way. Since regardless of manufactured consent or anything else you still could have worked to build a coalition to overcome those obstacles and change the system slowly from within.

And I agree, it would be an act of self-harm to treat life with such disregard when you could have been that same deluded person shrouded in the justificatory trappings of society treating your behaviour normally. I don’t think the way we win today is treating a cold bureaucratic system with equally cold disregard in whose life we had the resources to be able to intimidate this week. Time on earth is the greatest gift people have, to make mistakes and learn from them.

So then, an easy statement to make on life under representative parliamentary systems is; outside of absurdly unrealistic hypotheticals, I could never condone purposefully killing others when campaigning against such monoliths as state and corporate repression today.

Breaking that down though; what do I mean by an unrealistic hypothetical? For example the philosophical thought experiment called the trolley problem, where you have a runaway trolley hurtling towards 5 people tied to a track, and you can pull a leaver so the train changes tracks and only kills 1 person tied to a track. Or you can change it to 7 billion to 1 even. Or 7 billion of your average citizens vs. 1 million unethical politicians, police and bosses, to make it political.

Now what do I mean by purposeful, well we can think of for example the most extreme cases of post-partum psychosis which has mothers killing their babies. But more nuanced than that, the rape victim who gets worn down by their abuser for years until they have a psychological break and kill.

That does still leave a lot of lee way for people knowingly taking risks with others lives, not intending to kill, but who are reckless in their actions, such as with some forms of economic sabotage. And I agree such a reckless act would bring up feelings of revulsion for all kinds of reasons like questioning whether the person was really doing it to help people or for their own ego-aggrandizement. All that can be hoped is a person makes a careful accounting of their ability for human error and weighs it against the outcomes of doing nothing.

-

Future possibilities

We can hypothesise the unrealistic case of 99% of society desiring a referendum on a shift from parliamentary representative system to a federated spokes council system and the MPs dragging their feet, the same way both parties gerrymander the boundaries to make it easier to win despite it being the one issue most everyone agrees is bad, and people needing to storm the halls of power to force a vote to happen.

More likely though, an opportunity for revolution might arise from such a confluence of events as climate refugees and worker gains forcing the state and corporations into trying to crack down on freedoms in order to preserve their power and enough people resisting that move, who are then able take power and usher in radical policy change, with either the army deciding to stand down or splitting into factions.

-

References

1. Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution - Use your radical fringe to shift the Overton window P. 215.

2. The Camden 28 - The Camden 28 were a group of Catholic left anti-Vietnam War activists who in 1971 planned and executed a raid on a Camden, New Jersey draft board. The raid resulted in a high-profile criminal trial of the activists that was seen by many as a referendum on the Vietnam War and as an example of jury nullification.

3. Citations Needed Podcast - Civility Politics

4. Slavoj Žižek: Political Correctness is a More Dangerous Form of Totalitarianism | Big Think

5. A Love Letter To Failing Upward

6. Accounting for Ourselves - Breaking the Impasse Around Assault and Abuse in Anarchist Scenes.

-

[fractualized]

I'm sure your social media is inundated with posts about the police murder of George Floyd and the resulting protests and riots in Minneapolis.

And here's another one. You can't "all lives matter" this shit away when all lives are not treated the same. A police officer should uphold the law, not get a free pass from it.

Just a few places you can support:

The American Civil Liberties Union ACLU Minnesota Chapter

Reclaim the Block - a Minneapolis organization devoted to reallocating the city’s money away from the police department and toward community-led safety initiatives.

North Star Health Collective - a collective of health providers and community organizers that work with mainstream and anti-authoritarian organizations to create safe and healthy events.

Fair Fight - founded by Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams to end voter suppression and elect more progressive voices.

Also look for organizations in your area that need money or volunteers. Helping at a local level is a reminder that you can have a direct impact even when so much is fucked at a national level.

Here's a broad article on things white people can do to educate themselves and forward racial justice:

75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice

And VOTE, not just in major elections but for your local elections, whenever they come up. Don’t like your options in the general elections? It helps if you’re there for the primaries to push for better voices.

And beyond paying attention locally, push back when your family or friends spout racism, whether covert or overt, a "joke" or straight serious. There will be that weird fear that you are "making it awkward," but the person who just spouted garbage didn't seem to care about making YOU uncomfortable, did they? Racism is worse than awkwardness, right? You don't have to go nuclear or recite a perfectly sourced research paper. It can help just to be a voice to let that person know what they just said is not acceptable.

Sometimes you will fail at this, but keep trying. Keep learning and listening.

[berniesrevolution]

THE INTERCEPT

McDonald’s workers, pushing for higher wages and an end to workplace abuses, picketed Thursday outside franchises across the country. In an unusual twist, they were joined by volunteers from the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders.

It was the campaign’s second bout of activist intervention in as many weeks, as campaign supporters had previously joined a picket line with University of California workers locked in negotiations with their bosses.

It’s common for a politician to make a brief appearance on a picket line to show solidarity with a cause, but it’s practically unheard for a campaign to divert its own volunteers away from the mission of electing its candidate. This act of activism flows directly from the bottom-up approach taken by the 2020 Sanders campaign, which is not just in stark contrast to every other presidential campaign: It’s also a sharp reversal from the approach taken by the leadership of the 2016 Sanders campaign.

For all its revolutionary sensibility, the 2016 campaign was organized around a traditional strategic approach: Raise money to put ads on television and fund a field operation in key early states.

But outside of the watch of the campaign’s top brass, a collection of activists working in the bowels of the campaign tested out a variety of experimental approaches to organizing, eventually producing a breakthrough that has been copied by organizers in Spain and the U.K.; helped elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress; and is now guiding Sanders’s 2020 campaign. Sanders built this movement, however, largely by accident.

Throughout his career, Sanders resisted hiring any more campaign or even congressional staff than absolutely necessary — and oftentimes less than that. Part of it was philosophical: Sanders for decades believed that staff were inherently corrupting of a politician, more likely to push him toward party orthodoxy, and undermine the iconoclastic independence he had nurtured.

His 2016 presidential campaign was no different — in part because nobody who wanted a future in Democratic Party politics thought they’d survive coming near his challenge to Hillary Clinton. Jeff Weaver, who left Sanders’s office in 2009 to run a comic book store, came out of retirement to work as campaign manager, but few others joined the official campaign.

“You have to remember in the very beginning, it was very hard for the Bernie campaign to hire pros,” said Becky Bond, an adviser to the 2016 Sanders campaign, “because it was just very clear that you’d be totally blackballed, not just from a White House or a federal agency job, but from any of the Democratic-aligned institutions. Even vendors who weren’t employed by the Clinton campaign didn’t want to work for the Bernie campaign, because they were worried about not getting business in the future.”

“We really had to fill out the ranks from the super volunteers who’d never worked in politics before.”

That meant that, by definition, the staff had to be filled out by renegades, people with activist rather than campaign backgrounds, and operatives accustomed to taking on the establishment. Claire Sandberg fit that bill. As a high school student, she was swept up in an illegal mass arrest at a protest of the World Bank and IMF in 2002 and used the settlement she got to launch a group in New York dedicated to banning fracking. Improbably, she won, and by 2015, was looking for her next thing. She reached out to everybody she knew who might have some tangential connection to the small circle of Sanders advisers and eventually connected with Zack Exley, who had been talking to the campaign about joining. The pair pitched themselves as a package deal, and Weaver bit. Exley was brought on as a senior adviser and Sandberg was made director of digital organizing. Exley also brought on Bond, his longtime friend and ally.

“The professionals that joined were really true believers, like me and Zack, and then we really had to fill out the ranks from the super volunteers who’d never worked in politics before,” Bond said. One of those super volunteers was Corbin Trent, a chef in Tennessee who sold his food trucks to volunteer for the campaign full time. He reached out to Exley about a job, and Exley, without a lot of other options, took a chance on him. Another was Saikat Chakrabarti, who’d been the first engineer, and the fifth employee, of the Silicon Valley firm Stripe but left it behind to join the campaign. A third was Alexandra Rojas, who Exley met as she organized community college students in Orange County, California.

The team’s charge was to figure out a way, with very little budget, to channel the energy behind the Sanders campaign into an effective volunteer army. But if they couldn’t, that was OK too. Even as the team began putting people to work, expectations were low.

Sandberg recalled a meeting with a leader of the field program, who didn’t end up sticking around, as indicative of how traditional campaigners viewed what they were trying to do. “I remember him saying to us, ‘Listen, you guys, you’re the dancing dog. Just be happy that the dog dances. Don’t try to get it to do anything else,’” she said. “He meant that the fact that you have this system where people on their own can go every week … with some friends and do a chalk-the-block-for-Bernie or do a honk-and-wave, a table at a farmer’s market, is in and of itself an accomplishment, and that is the best that you can achieve, is having people where there are no staff basically just keep themselves busy with stuff that everybody knows is not actually valuable work.”

Big Organizing

A honk-and-wave can be a fun-enough way to spend an afternoon with newfound friends, but there’s no evidence it has any impact on actual votes. For that, a campaign needs voter contact, both to persuade people to vote for their candidate and to motivate them to get to the polls.

Simply emailing a list of supporters and asking them to phone bank or door knock wasn’t working. And even if it did work, the team didn’t have regular access to the email list, whose main purpose was to fuel Sanders’s surging fundraising. The campaign brass, meanwhile, assumed that the flow of money could shrink to a trickle at any moment and resisted investing in volunteer organizing. One loophole Exley found was the travel budget, which had more flexibility. So he and Trent decided to hit the road, to see if meeting face to face with volunteers could spark the kind of engagement that an email or a text message couldn’t.

A standard campaign field operation rents an office and pays canvassers to go door-to-door while facilitating volunteer activity like phone banking. It’s top-down and expensive, and the Sanders crew wanted to distribute the potential for that organizing across the country to places where there was no paid field staff. The approach is now known as distributed organizing.

(Continue Reading)

[eric-raleigh]

War Against Humanity

Friends... I am struggling to find the right words around my outrage right now. 2020 has brought to light the ugliest parts of hatred I have ever been witness to. From the boldness of white supremacists and racists, waving their confederate flags, to the Trump administration rolling back LGBTQIA+ protections in healthcare, it feels like there is an all out war on humanity right now. 

Below the cut are some of the most recent outrages...but also concrete actions that you can take to help heal this nation and her people.

The Black Lives Matters protests are still going strong around the country, but are not getting as much publicity, and I fear that--once again--heads are going to be buried in the sand and our black brothers, sisters, and non-binary siblings are going to continue to face police brutality simply for living while black. Did you know Breonna Taylor’s murderers have yet to be arrested? She was murdered by  Louisville Metro Police Department on March 13th. Here we are, three months later, and no charges have been made. We have to keep fighting this fight. We cannot let the world go back to pretending that things are okay, because they never were. We need massive reforms to our police force and criminal justice system nationwide. 

Amidst the protests, we are still facing a global pandemic and numbers are starting to spike again. It is critical that you listen to experts and scientific facts right now. Maintain social distancing, wear a mask, be safe!! Again, there hasn’t been as much coverage of COVID-19 as there was in the past, but this crisis is not over!! Native Americans and communities of color are among the most vulnerable right now, and need our help. 

Today, it was announced that the Trump administration reversed transgender health protections, making one of the most vulnerable groups even more vulnerable at a time when we are facing a global crisis. Not only does this come during Pride month, but on the 4th anniversary of the Pulse shooting which claimed the lives of 49 LGBTQIA+ individuals and straight allies.  

Trump’s attempts to appeal to his racist, white supremacist base have become overt and obscene. On Juneteeth, Trump will hold a rally in Tulsa, OK followed by his acceptance of the Republican nomination on August 27 in Jacksonville, Florida. These dates and locations are not arbitrary or random, despite the Trump administration’s claim to the contrary. Juneteeth, is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Tulsa, OK was the site of one of the deadliest acts of racial violence in which more than 300 black men, women and children were brutally massacred. In Jacksonville, on August 27, 1960, a group of 200 white men began chasing black protesters through the streets, beating them with ax handles and baseball bats. Soon, the violence shifted to more than just the protesters--to anyone who was black.

Just recently, in Georgia, after having MONTHS to prepare for the primary election and even postponing it twice, the Secretary of State in Georgia failed to deliver equitable and fair voting opportunities, and most heavily impacted were communities of color.  This is voter suppression, and it is systemic racism in action. We have seen this across the country, and it is an epidemic that is fueled by a Republican machine desperate to hold on to power.  

If you’re as sick as I am, as outraged, as overwhelmed... please take action. You might be wondering what you can do, how you can help, and feeling lost on where to even begin because of the array of issues we’re facing. Below are some resources to help get you started. I know this list isn’t exhaustive, so please feel free to share additional resources or suggestions.

You need to make sure you make a plan and VOTE in your local, state, and national elections this year. The primaries MATTER, so if your state hasn’t had its primary yet, or it has an upcoming primary runoff, VOTE!! Make sure you’re registered to vote and that you know your polling location. Consider volunteering at the polls during early voting and on the day of the election. Donate to organizations like Fair Fight or Black Voters Matter, who are working to end voter suppression. 

Help COVID relief efforts, especially for the First Nations and Black Women’s Wellness.

Consider contributing to the Bail Funds Network, a network of over 60 community bail/bond funds that free people from jail and immigration detention, and specifically the bail funds for protesters. Color of Change  is advocating racial justice through specific efforts to change corporate and public policies, and the Advancement Project is supporting organized communities in their struggles for racial and social justice, providing legal, communications and campaign organizing resources. The Collective Pac’s Justice for All Fund is working to recruit, train, and fund Black judicial, prosecutorial and attorney general candidates to ensure more representative leaders for the criminal justice system.

If you can’t give financially, you can also sign petitions to help generate change. Reclaim the Block has a petition to defund the Minneapolis Police Department and invest in the resources that really keep us safe and healthy, especially in Black communities, Indigenous communities and communities of color. Congresswoman Lucy McBath is also working to end voter suppression in Georgia. 

Volunteer to phone, text, or write postcards for local or national politicians. It’s important that we focus as much on the down ballot races as we do the presidency right now, so look into who is running in your city, district, and state. Everything from the Railroad Commissioner to Mayor to State Senate and Representatives. There are so many great candidates running across the nation who need your help. Win the Era has recently endorsed 22 candidates across the nation  who are lifting up the issues facing this and subsequent generations; who are committed to building a sense of belonging in our country; who are running pioneering campaigns; who are proposing and supporting meaningful, bold policies; and who model the values and spirit of the Pete Buttigieg campaign. Consider donating to some of these candidates, or the PAC itself to help future endorsements, or reach out to the candidates and ask how you can help them get elected. 

Join and support organizations like Black Lives Matter and the Human Rights Campaign.  

Educate yourself. This is a time to step back and critically look at our own privileges and prejudices and find ways to be better allies. There are so many excellent books about the conversation of race and anti-racism, as well as the LGBTQIA history. As uncomfortable as it is to talk about race, gender identity, and sexuality these are the conversations that we need to be having right now. I encourage you to listen to the conversation between Emmanuel Acho and Matthew McConaughey as a starting point.

Most importantly: Be aware and stay involved. There’s a desire to tune out, turn the channel, and give up right now, but please fight that urge. We need everybody on board with making change happen. Ignoring the problems won’t make them go away. We cannot wait for the next black life to be taken from us to feel outraged enough to want to do something. Use your privilege to amplify black voices, to speak out against injustices for the LGBTQIA+ community, to defend immigrants and their children. 

2020 is a defining moment, and we need to make sure it defines an era of true justice and freedom for all in this country. Until we are all free...none of us can be free.  

[cow4u]

the only people who ever spout “if you don’t vote fuck you” are people who don’t feel like they lose either way from a two party system. You Do Not Have To Vote. You know what you can do other than vote for dementia rapist? Volunteer for your local harm reduction (OR if you do not have one, learn how to use narcan and educate your friends) , help youth outreach programs, run a product drive for shelters and non profits in your area (this is easy! you literally just ask people to grab any unused hygiene products they have and collect them all. you can ask local shelters what they need and dont need) , sign up to write letters to prisoners, donate to someone who needs it, if you have the means to look for grocery delivery for people who cant leave there house during Covid, support your indigenous protesters if you live in the midwest where the pipeline action is happening. IDK...literally fucking clean up the trash at your local smoke spot for starters or something.

The feeling of working with your community is what makes you feel human again fuck...learn to sew a running stitch and make masks of scrap fabric for people who need them like......this is not hard and you cannot spout tumblr communist socialist bullshit if you refuse to participate. ‘im so punk’ *does not make eye contact with homeless ppl*.....get a grip. 

[betterbemeta]

I wish I remembered the exact words of it, but I read somewhere that voting, however much or little it changes, is a litmus for further political action. Meaning, communities that vote more tend to be more politically active in other ways, are more involved in direct action initiatives, are more likely to go to rallies or protests, are more likely to boycott or strike, etc.

And I don’t know if it’s causal or what direction the correlation moves in. Maybe people who are more likely to organize also are more likely to vote as part of organized action. But also maybe people who vote are more likely to organize in order to vote. Maybe people who strike are encouraged to go vote by their unions, if they have them. Maybe alienation from collective action also causes alienation from voting, and when neither is true both occur more. I don’t really know.

But I do know that I can see evidence of this sort of thing all the time. The far-right elements that almost always turn out to a member are always organizing or volunteering their time to a political party or cause. They’re often old people who don’t have much else to do. Those pro-lifers that picket Planned Parenthood centers are going to consistently turn up to vote. They already commit long hours to something way more involved and invested than showing up to a polling place once every few months. Many even show up to those polling places with signs and rally outside all day-- they make more than the minimum time investment for something that takes only a few minutes.

So I really can’t believe talk like, “why bother voting? it doesn’t change anything.” or “your vote will be wasted, you’re better off doing real activist work” because if its up to your choice (and not like, a lack of access or closed polling places, etc.) and you choose not to spend a few minutes to go vote, I absolutely can’t trust that you’ll show up to a protest, risk your safety in a bloc, or volunteer your time to feed the hungry. Compared to these things, voting is extremely quick and easy. Compared to these things, voting doesn’t put a person into a position of compromise or risk. And when you organize to go vote, the chance you’ll make connections that help you organize to do other things goes up. Not voting and staying at home only increases the chance you’ll continue to stay at home.

[antoine-roquentin]

Early this month, Cori Bush was defeated in the St. Louis MO congressional primary, by Congressman Lacy Clay. Clay has held the seat since inheriting it from his father in 2001, and his father had it for 32 years. That’s 50 years of a congressman named Clay. Missouri’s first district includes Ferguson, an inner suburb of St. Louis. When four summers ago we saw a handful of public officials in the streets trying to chill out Ferguson protesters, there was a black congressman among them. But that was Emanuel Cleaver, from Kansas City, not the black face who’s family by then had repped the district a good 45 years.

Challenger Cori Bush lost no opportunities to remind people that Clay was AWOL during the entire Ferguson episode, but it was not enough. Bush campaigned on free college, not accepting corporate money, raising the minimum wage, restraining killer cops, more money for public education and Medicare For All, but that wasn’t enough either. She had a great personal story too, a single mother who earned a nursing degree, and spent a while living out of her car. Bush won the backing of Justice Democrats, a national outfit that had quite a lot to do with the mechanics of the Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez campaign in the Bronx a few weeks before. Unlike Ocasio-Cortez, Bush is not a member of Democratic Socialists of America , and has never identified herself as a socialist.

So how exactly did she lose? Nobody else seems willing to offer explanations, beyond shallow wisdom that “St. Louis MO ain’t da Bronx.” The folks who had a thousand good reasons Ocasio-Cortez was the front end of a blue wave have passed on explaining why this blue wave missed in Missouri.

The first thing to see is the obvious, that St. Louis really is NOT the Bronx. Ocasio-Cortez was a working class Puerto Rican woman in a largely Latino district, and her opponent was a 20 year incumbent white guy who was obviously ready to leave for a more lucrative career as a lobbyist. Lacy Clay on the other hand, really wanted to keep that St Louis congressional seat. In 2016 he faced another black woman who’d been tear gassed in the streets of Ferguson, state rep Nadya Chappelle-Nadal, who got 24 thousand votes to Clay’s 56 thousand. So unlike Crowley in the Bronx, Clay didn’t sleep the 2018 race, he ran up 81 thousand votes to Bush’s 53 thousand.

Another dimension in which St. Louis is not New York is voter turnout. New York Republicans and Democrats have deliberately engineered primary elections for low turnout, requiring votes to register as Democrats many months prior to election day just to be eligible. But in Missouri you show up and ask for the Democrat ballot. So Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s 57% of the vote was just under 17 thousand. But Clay’s 57% share in Missouri was 81 thousand, again to Bush’s 53 thousand. Ocasio-Cortez said it took 120,000 phone calls to get that. I don’t know yet how many calls Bush needed to get her 53 thousand but I’ll be asking.

We have to look at the national organizations which backed Ocasio-Cortez, Bush and the rest of this blue wave which is supposed to swamp Congress and state legislatures in 2018. There are at least 3 organizations which help raise money, funnel experienced campaign help, do social media, recruit national phone and text banking assists and more. Those would be Our Revolution, Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats. Brand New Congress claims to have “recruited” Ocasio-Cortez, who was previously one of those in charge of Bernie Sanders’ New York effort. A leader of Justice Democrats served as Cori Bush’s communications director, and both outfits named Bush, who’d run statewide in Missouri for US Senator in 2016, as one of their own. Unlike Ocasio-Cortez Cori Bush has never been a DSA member either, and has never called herself a socialist.

What Brand New Congress, Our Revolution, and Justice Democrats have in common are three things.

The first is a common commitment to taking over or rescuing the Democratic party.

The second is a real reluctance to make any but the sketchiest reference to anything that takes place outside the US – as if the US didn’t have troops in a hundred foreign countries, at least 800 bases in a hundred countries and a trillion dollar military budget supported by most of the Democrats in Congress. Justice Democrats has a statement at the end of their foreign policy that seems to put the military budget around $100 billion instead of the actual trillion, which ten times that size. Cori Bush’s page is typical of the blue wave, it doesn’t mention anything on foreign policy or empire at all.

The most optimistic way to see this collective blind spot is that maybe the blue wave of Congressional candidates don’t want to incur the wrath of the DCCC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is running about 40 former CIA, Homeland Security, State Department, local police and military types for Congress this year, and has plenty money for last minute negative media offensives against would be peacenik congressional candidates in places where they don’t even have candidates.

The least optimistic view is that sketchy or absent references to US empire and foreign policy are how the blue wave candidates signal their willingness to adopt the imperial consensus if they are lucky enough to get elected. After all four fifths of the Congressional Black Caucus and just over half the House Progressive Caucus just voted for Trump’s record military 2019 military budget.

The third thing they all have in common is that few or none have distanced themselves from the drumbeat of RussiaGate, the nonsense that holds Russia responsible for Trump’s victory in 2016, that posits a credible ongoing Russian plot to steal the US elections. To our knowledge none of the blue wave candidates nor the national outfits which back them have stood apart from themselves tendency to label anybody to their left stooges of Russia either.

Bringing it back to St. Louis, Cori Bush had to face something Ocasio-Cortez didn’t. It was something her blue wave backers hadn’t dealt with either. It was the peculiarities of black politics in the US. The 1st CD Missouri is 50% black and there are some unique and well established characteristics of the Democratic party in districts like that, whether they’re in Chicago or Philly or Dallas or Atlanta or wherever.

The first is the black church, which is ridden with local, and since the advent of Bush’s and Obama’s faith based initiative, federal patronage. Black churches are often tied hand and foot to local politicians for everything from real estate deals to charter school contracts, and their leaders are often fixtures in local Democratic party affairs, even public officials themselves. The second is the nonprofit industrial complex, a literal army of advocacy groups sometimes doing housing and homeless activism, sometimes feeding the hungry, sometimes doing worker centers, womens health, tenants rights, LBGTQ activism, environmental stuff. There’s another section of the nonprofit industrial complex which can’t even be called nonpartisan with a straight face, offshoots of the NAACP and the Movement 4 Black Lives. These forces are tied to the political preferences of their corporate philanthropic funders. Executive directors of nonprofit organizations who don’t find a way to support the right Democrats in primary season and all Democrats in general election put their careers, the livelihoods of all their employees, and the outfit’s good works in jeopardy. And there are the unions – heavily public sector and disproportionately people of color, again all tied to the most right wing established Democrats on the local, state and federal level.

Unlike the troops the blue wave outfits can raise once every two years, these things are permanent institutions in black communities. Remember when Atlanta civil rights icon John Lewis stood up in Ebenezer Baptist Church to tell young black folks that free college tuition and free medical care were un-American and the crowd was with him? That’s the complex of forces against which relatively leftist electoral candidates in black communities must run. In old school political language that’s called a Machine, a standing bunch of political institutions which can put significant money into broadcast ads and mailings, speakers and preachers into pulpits, hundreds of bodies in the street and hundreds more the phone banks. Clay had them, and Bush did not. All Bush had was what she could raise on the issues.

The big blue wave outfits probably hadn’t done much work in black communities and didn’t know this. Maybe they were listening to DSA theoreticians like Adam Hiton who imagine the Democratic Party in such places has no real organization. But it’s organized, and it’s very, very real. If you’re going to knock out the right wing Democrats who dominate the electoral politics of black communities you have to do more than hire the right black consultants, although they and the Movement For Black Lives Electoral Justice Project will be glad to keep taking your money. Somebody has to build some other permanent organizations, some other centers of popular power in those communities. It hasn’t been done yet, and won’t be done before the 2018 midterm elections. That’s why Bernie didn’t crack the black vote in 2016, and that’s why the blue wave didn’t crash Missouri in 2018. It’ll be why the wave misses in other black constituencies.

these four orgs (DSA, Our Revolution, Justice Democrats, and Brand New Congress) form the main part of the “Bernie-electoral complex”. essentially, they offer to secure the consent of enthusiastic young workers with enough spare time to be electoral volunteers for the party in exchange for concessions from the Dem donor class, ie unions, lawyers, tech companies, non-profits, etc, on social welfare. thing is, most people in dire straits tend to go for the sure bet over any potential shift in electoral loyalties, which is why machine politics tend to go so well, at least until they don’t. they prefer to have the political patronage they know they already get, even if it’s very minimal, than to risk it on an unsure thing and watch it slip away.