#praxis

[whereserpentswalk]

Fuck hostile architecture, I want unhostile architecture. I want benches to be designed to be as easy as possible to sleep on. I want little places for pigeons to nest to be purposefully put on buildings. I want people designing public spaces to think about what they'd be like to skateboard on. I want "Please loiter" signs. I want people to be kind. I want...

[anarchywoofwoof]

[typhlonectes]

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

“There are principles and there are human lives that matter more than our careers and our futures. …the commitment to Gaza runs deeper than fears for our safety, fears for our careers, fears for our paychecks. It is a fundamental obligation we have as citizens of a country that is presiding over, arming this genocide, and as students at a university that is invested in those same weapons manufacturers and that has partnered with the same apartheid institutions that train that military and develop its technology. …For me the next step is a simple one… to keep fighting with every breath we have, with everything we have for the people of Gaza, because the blood of those kids is on our hands…”

If we can’t put stopping this brutality before our own fears about career, reputation, fucking profits - we’ve misunderstood the assignment of being a human.

Repost from @mo_hamz

•

‼️EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING NEEDS TO WATCH AND HEAR THIS INTERVIEW‼️

[phoenixyfriend]

Michigan just gave us the rhetorical weapon that could push Biden and the DNC to turn their backs on Israel.

Okay so this is amazing news. Michigan was going to be a key state in the push to get Biden, and the DNC as a whole, to start pressuring Israel, and they have just proven that they have that power.

Background: Michigan is a swing state, and it has 16 votes in the electoral college. Winning Michigan was a major factor in Biden's win back in 2020, and much of that rested on the Arab-American vote. It was also a major factor in Hillary Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in 2016. She lost the state by ten thousand, seven hundred votes.

Praxis: For obvious reasons, Arab-Americans are incredibly upset with Biden's support for Israel, and support in that demographic has gone from 59% in the 2020 election to less than 17% now. As a form of protest, Arab-Americans in Michigan started a campaign to get voters to check "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary. This is an actual box that can be checked, though some less-organized pushes also suggested writing in 'ceasefire' like New Hampshire primary voters did.

The goal was to get at least 10,000 'uncommitted' votes, as that is how many Hillary lost by.

As Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, the first Arab mayor of this majority-Arab city, said:

"We're not sizable enough to make a candidate win, but we're sizable enough to make a candidate lose."

(Source: NPR, 2/25/24)

Result:

As of 10:49 PM EST, 2/27, there are thirty-nine thousand uncommitted votes, according to CNN, which is doing live coverage.

NPR was reporting 30k at 10:14.

As a caveat, New York Times is saying that each of the last three Michigan Dem Primaries had about 20k uncommitted votes, so the 35k isn't all the push for pro-Palestine stances in Congress, but that's still a jump of almost 20k, which is way, way more than the goal.

And they aren't done counting the votes yet. Barely 30% of votes are in. The goal has been blown out of the water.

Other states are reaching out for advice on how to replicate the results.

This is big news.

So can we relax?

Fuck no.

Do what Michigan did. Vote in the Dem primary, and vote uncommitted or write in "ceasefire."

But on a more daily basis, if you have a Democratic candidate, lean on this.

Tell them it will be repeated elsewhere.

This could very well lose the election for Biden and more. The Democrats can't afford another four years of Trump, and they know it. The loss of Michigan can and will tank this election for them, especially since other states that helped Biden win, like Georgia, were also won on demographics that are growing increasingly upset by the situation in Gaza.

Go to the Michigan section of this post and use that in your calls and emails.

But remember. Call your reps. Call your senators. Call your governor, if you'd like. And if they're a Democrat, you bring this up. Be polite, the staffer isn't making these decisions. They might just be an intern. But bring it up and tell them that we are going to lose the presidency if we do not sanction Israel and actually pressure them into not only pulling out of Gaza and the West Bank, but paying reparations.

[praxis-app]

join praxis now - discord - github

[sensemami]

[slithymomerath]

“I am typing these words as June 2003 surges with Pride. What year is it now, as you read them? What has been won; what has been lost? I can’t see from here; I can’t predict. But I know this: You are experiencing the impact of what we in the movement take a stand on and fight for today. The present and past are the trajectory of the future. But the arc of history does not bend towards justice automatically—as the great Abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed, without struggle there is no progress . . .”

- Leslie Feinberg

[anarchistfrogposting]

A common response to “you should and can break laws” is “so we should just rape/kill/steal from people’s homes????”. The answer to that ridiculous false equivalency is that no, we obviously shouldn’t, but I think it’s interesting that that is the first thing to jump into people’s heads when you suggest challenging and circumventing the legal system.

[schrodingers-slut]

I had a big fuckin essay post about in how doing real life mutual aid and community work doesn’t make you immune to the Protestant Work Ethic mindset and how it plays into ableism in leftist spaces in usamerica but I don’t have spoons so I made a meme instead

[solarpunkshoppe]

https://x.com/Esqueer_/status/1785492559252365490

Remember, the machine will never care about hypocrisy. They only care about profit. Keep the pressure on.

[whereserpentswalk]

Activist burnout isn't a moral failing of a community, it's not people being selfish. It's a natural result of how human minds work, and you can't expect communities to out-moral human psychology.

When people are exposed to the same upsetting thing over and over again, either it fucks with their mental health and makes them more depressed and anxious, or alternatively it makes them apathetic and desensitized. Neither of those things are good for a movement, and those are the ways humans are going to react to constant upsetting messages. You cannot avoid this by telling people to just be better people, you cannot use higher reasoning to make an entire community's emotions work in a fundamentally different way to how human emotions normal work.

Every successful movement account for the fact that people can't be at 100% all the time. Movements that ask for a level of extreme and undying anger, burn bright and die fast, it's a useful way of organizing a very immediate response, but cannot be done for something larger scale. If you give people, the ultimatum of either being at 100% or 0% all the time, they will choose 0% because the alternative isn't possible for most people.

If you're constantly showing the same disturbing images over and over again, they will lose their effectiveness quickly. If I see a post detailing the horrors of the current genocide, I'm probably just going to scroll past it, because it's all things I already know, and I've seen it so many times there's no emotional reaction, and this is how a lot of people are with posts like this, because you can't ask people to have the same emotional reaction to the same information hundreds of times over.

You can't stop activist burnout by being a better person because burnout isn't a choice, it's a psychological response. If your activism doesn't account for the material reality of the community (in this case being humans with human minds), then that's on you for organizing badly.

Also, if you need to hear this: you are not a bad person for experiencing compassion fatigue, it's literally part of being a person. Don't hurt yourself.

[dipperdesperado]

Notes Toward Finding Community, Or, How to Find Community When You Feel Isolated

Neoliberalism sucks for a ton of reasons. From the enclosure of every common, to the commodification of every creation, it feels like a muzzle on humanity that gets tighter and tighter. One of the most underexplored aspects of neoliberalism is the way in which it creates and reinforces isolation. People don’t really have communities outside of consumption or compulsion. This is problematic for a ton of reasons, namely that it prevents us from fulfilling our basic needs. Humans are social creatures. People need to have connections with folks. People may not all need the same levels or intensity of connections, but connections are important nonetheless. To lack in the ability to socialize meaningfully is to ensure worse health outcomes, mentally, emotionally, and physically. But, I don’t mean to freak you out. I think that there are steps we can take to star building community, bridging gaps with the people around us.

Think About What You Want

When folks feel very isolated, it can be easy to accept anything. If we’re in a vulnerable state, that could leave us open for ending up in precarious situations. One way to fight against this is to start from the position of imagining what community looks like. Is the type of space we want to occupy based around interests (fandom, hobbies)? Religions, spiritualities, social issues? If we are able to list the things that excite us, we have a good idea of what to look for, and can focus our efforts towards finding those spaces.

Find the Watering Holes

With the spaces we’re interested in on hand, youcan find where folks gather. Every community has virtual and/or in-person spaces. For example, if you’re a film fan, you can look for indie cinemas, folks putting on screenings, or look into film societies where you live. For activism, I’ve written a whole guide on how to get started. Looking for those spaces will allow you to start getting integrated in the space. Really think about how you can occupy the same physical and digital spaces of people who are into what you’re into.

Go Meet Folks

Now, this may be difficult, depending on your disposition. The quickest way to meet folks is to put yourself out there. It’s always vulnerable to put yourself on the line in this way, but it’s super necessary. When you’re in spaces with similar folks, you have talking points built in! You don’t have to worry if the folks around you will like movies at film club. If you are enjoyable to be around, through being nice, interesting, and/or being an active listener, you’ll be making connections in no time. If you’re not willing to talk to folks, it’ll be hard to make connections. Being open is an asset towards the end of getting connected. At the very least, consistently go to events and spaces in your interest area(s). Maybe you’ll bump into an extroverted person that can show you the ropes.

Be the Change You Want to See

As you get out there, think about how you can start catalyzing community. Maybe you host a dinner for neighbors. Maybe you start a book club. Or even a neighborhood garden, or cleanup event. In this way, you’re flipping the issue on its head. You’re creating the space to meet folks yourself. It’s like being a magnet, drawing others to you.

We need community. It’s a necessary thing, you know? So, hopefully, keeping these things in mind helps in that regard.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

The thing about protests is that they need to have a goal. A strike without a goal is just skipping work, a demonstration without a goal is just a festival, a hunger strike without a goal is just an eating disorder.

Before you do a protest ask: what are your demands, how likely are those demands to be met by this particular form of protest, would it be more effective to choose a different form of protest to try to get these particular demands met, and what leverage do I have over the people demanding things from me?

[auroraluciferi]

Our Breakfast for Children program is feeding a lot of children and the people understand our Breakfast for Children program.

We sayin’ something like this—we saying that theory’s cool, but theory with no practice ain’t shit. You got to have both of them—the two go together. We have a theory about feeding kids free. What’d we do? We put it into practice. That’s how people learn.

A lot of people don’t know how serious the thing is. They think the children we feed ain’t really hungry. I don’t know five year old kids that can act well, but I know that if they not hungry we sure got some actors.

We got five year old actors that could take the Academy Award. Last week they had a whole week dedicated to the hungry in Chicago. Talking ’bout the starvation rate here that went up 15%. Over here where everybody should be eating. Why? Because of capitalism.

What are we doing? The Breakfast for Children program.

We are running it in a socialistic manner. People came and took our program, saw it in a socialistic fashion not even knowing it was socialism.

People are gonna take our program and tell us to go on to a higher level. They gonna take that program and work it in a socialistic manner. What’d the pig say? He say, “Nigger—you like communism?” “No sir, I’m scared of it.” “You like socialism?” “No Sir, I’m scared of it.” “You like the breakfast for children program?” “Yes sir, I’d die for it”. Pig said, “Nigger, that program is a socialistic program.”

“I don’t give a fuck if it’s Communism. You put your hands on that program motherfucker and I’ll blow your motherfucking brains out.“

And he knew it. We been educating him, not by reading matter, but through observation and participation. By letting him come and work our program.

Not theory and theory alone, but theory and practice. The two go together. We not only thought about the Marxist-Leninist theory—we put it into practice.

This is what the Black Panther Party is about.

You Can Murder a Liberator, but You Can’t Murder Liberation

- Fred Hampton (1972)

[aberration13]

I don't think enough people are paying attention to project 2025. I know it's a big document and I don't really expect the average person to read it all or anything like that but being aware of it and knowing some of the key plans/goals it describes is probably pretty useful.

Like you know how in movies the evil villain goes on a monologue describing their whole evil plan and you think "they just revealed everything, If that were me I would know exactly how to stop them now"

This is that. Conservatives just outlined their whole evil plan in detail down to the who, what, when, where, how, and why's of the things they intend to do if they take the presidency again, the thing is 900 pages long and basically anything you might want to know or plan countermeasures for is in there.