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Not only is it important for solarpunks to steer local politics toward sustainable solutions, but also US citizens can benefit from electing Harris. Yes, she represents corporate interests and, worse, the military-industrial complex. But mainstream Dems can be pressured into passing some good legislation, such as the IRA. If elected, Trump may well charge solarpunks as “Unamerican” and execute them by firing squad.

The alternative, urging people not to vote, makes solarpunks look at best untrustworthy. That’s what shady operatives are paid to say to suppress the vote. And by not voting, solarpunks are jeopardizing not only their own safety but also that of trans people, women, and people of color. Instead, build solidarity with the mainstream then encourage them to act more radically between elections.

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If you cared about #CeasefireNow you should care that #IlhanOmar’s primary is Tuesday, September 13th. #TheSquad were some of the few members of Congress who stood up against US imperial violence. As a result, the pro-genocide AIPAC has politically assassinated members of The Squad one by one. Both Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush have lost their primaries, setting back the movement by two years. Barbara Lee also lost her bid to be CA Senator. If Ilhan Omar loses too, it may be even longer before Palestinians are granted human rights.

Congress will ignore all calls for humanity, if its members fear to lose re-election for doing the right thing. Activists and citizens of conscience failed to stand up for Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. They should not make the same mistake for #IlhanOmar.

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“Why should I vote for Harris when she’s horrible?”

If you think voting for status-quo Democrats will fail to earn us systemic change, then great; we’re on the same page. That’s why we have to also create green infrastructure, form mutual-aid networks, and unionize. Seven unions signed a letter demanding no more bombs for I$53@1. That’s how the real change will come. Voting for Harris won’t impede that organizing and will even make it easier, as if Trump is elected, he’s likely to kill unions and eviscerate your community on his double-time march to authoritarianism.

A vote for a third-party candidate or not voting at all will amount to the same thing: a Trump victory. And if he wins, I’m more likely to be disappeared, for projecting “fuck Trump”. SCOTUS has placed the President above the law, and he would feel no compunction at wielding that dictatorial power to snuff out activists, deport anyone, and restrict women’s rights, for starters.

Voting has a low opportunity cost. You do it one day every few years, and maybe add a few more days on top of that to register other people to vote. The rest of the time, you can focus on community building.

You could argue it’s better to let Trump win, to bring matters to a head, and force revolution. It’s a risky move, especially for anyone who isn’t a cis white man, and I think it’s more likely to backfire, for two reasons. First, when Trump was elected before, more people took to the streets, but they saw the solution as putting a Democrat back in power (any Democrat, no matter how horrible, and that’s how we got Biden). Second, when Trump did fascist things, like throw kids in cages, again people blamed him personally or his party. When Democrats continue the same fascism, then it’s more effective to protest because reasonable people might see the problem is systemic.

Finally, if you continue to spend time and energy arguing against voting for Harris, I will assume you’re a Republican agent masquerading as a progressive. If you’re in fact not under the employ of the GOP, why do their work for free?

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Now we know #ElonMusk’s supervillain origin story.*

No surprise that a man with twelve children is a horrible father. Vivian Jenna Wilson called him cold, uncaring, cruel, and quick to harass her for her queerness. She changed her name and disowned him. Elon Musk, being a raging narcissist, couldn’t deal with his own kid expunging herself of his foul name. Musk at that point fully pledged himself to evil and bought Twitter to amplify hate.

*He was always a villain. His family has exploited people for generations, getting wealthy from emerald mines in South Africa during the apartheid. Elon continued to treat workers like slaves and spread COVID throughout CA, opening his Fremont plant illegally during a pandemic, killing who knows how many.

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AI art has no place in this society. In a post-scarcity solarpunk world, I could imagine some reasonable uses, but that’s not the world we’re living in yet.

AIart has already poisoned the creative environment. I commissioned an artist for my latest novel, and they used AI without telling me. I had to scrap that illustration. Then the next person I tried to hire claimed they could do the work without AI but in fact they could not.

All that is to say, fuck AI and fuck capitalism! #lsc #chatgpt #latestagecapitalism

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After writing Solarpunk Creatures, I decided to join forces with my co-authors to create a workshop at the #solarpunk Conference: Decentering Humans in Solarpunk. How would you create a society that sees other creatures not as things to be exploited or marginalized into extinction but valuable independent of their use to us? https://www.solarpunkconference.com

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A reminder that a better world is possible. Artist @coyotesnout may not have had #solarpunk in mind when creating this image, but I like to add hashtags to make projections more actionable. Solarpunk imagines radically better futures. It starts with building community.

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We say #FreePalestine because Palestine has already freed us.

Freed us from the deceptions of empire. USA citizens thought our colonial sins were in the past, from the Trail of Tears to slavery. But our surrogate colony, Israel, is committing genocide. That country was built on it, through the forced eviction of Palestinians in the Nakba, and we continue to pay for Israeli bombs with our tax dollars. As for slavery, it has moved indoors, out of sight, into the prison-industrial complex, as permitted by the Thirteenth Amendment. Shackled people of color still toil for the rich to get richer.

We are freed from the lies about our police. Late-stage capitalism’s economics press gang decent people into the force. There they become monstrous. The power of the badge corrupts, and beyond that, good cops quit. Those who remain must fulfill their function as modern slave catchers. They beat our children in colleges, hammering the next generation into submission. Police “serve and protect” the wealthy and their private property.

We are freed from the myths about our military. The US army is not for peace keeping but for peace taking. The youth join up, their eyes bright with ideals. Some learn, as did Aaron Bushnell, that the army is commanded by old men and older money. The military-industrial complex invades for oil and obliterates any nation that dares to oppose our economic interests.

We are freed from state propaganda. The USA does not stand “for liberty and justice for all” but for “wealth and power of the few.”

We are free. Now it’s our duty to free all people.

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Projected last night at the Free Palestine Encampment at Cal, Berkeley. Colonial capitalism drives the war machine that bulldozes people from Gaza, to the Congo, to the Philippines. It’s important for solarpunks to show up in solidarity with native peoples against imperialism. Sustainability depends on the knowledge and stewardship of native populations. And, most importantly, Zionist punks fuck off!

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Israel is threatening to butcher more humans in #Rafah. Biden can and must stop this, before our surrogate colony causes another #Holocaust.

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Is an evil empire in your galaxy sending storm troopers to brutalize kids? Time to stand up against and resist.

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Projected at X-Twitter in San Francisco.

Solarpunks must be skeptical of anyone saying it’s important to buy something, like a Tesla, or buy in, with cryptocurrency. Capitalists want nothing more than to co-opt radical movements, neutralizing them, to sell products.

People shilling crypto will tell you it decentralizes power. So that’s a lie, but solarpunks who believe it may be fooled into investing in this Ponzi scheme that burns more energy than some countries. Crypto will centralize power in billionaires, increasing their wealth and decreasing their accountability. That’s why Space Karen Elon Musk pushes crypto. The freer the market, the faster it devolves to monopoly. Rather than decentralizing anything, crypto would steer us toward a Bladerunner dystopia with its all-powerful Tyrell corporation.

Promoting crypto on a solarpunk podcast would be unforgivable. That’s not quite what happens on S5E1 “Let’s Talk Tech.” The hosts seem to understand crypto has no part in a solarpunk future or its prefigurative present. But they don’t come out and say that, adopting a tone of impartiality. At best, I would call this disingenuous. And it reeks of the both-sides-ism that corporate media used to paralyze climate action discourse for decades.

Crypto is not “appropriate tech,” and discussing it without any clarity is inappropriate.

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The USA has a history of colonial brutality. From the Trail of Tears to slavery, our county had been willing to dehumanize, exploit, and kill people for profit and power. This is our past. Last Friday’s Congressional vote to fund Israel’s military and defund Palestine’s emergency relief proves it is also our present.

Israel is our surrogate colony, a military ally in oil-rich lands. It is a key part of USA’s capitalist empire. Not only have we funded devastation locally, but also the bombing accelerates the world into climate apocalypse.

Rather than despair, consider this a valuable moment of clarity. We now know what our future will be, without systemic change. We know what we need to do: build community power and networks of solidarity to oppose state violence. This includes things like unions, solidarity groups, and mutual aid.

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"Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now." – #AaronBushnell, last post

Art by @krime_1 (Insta).

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“I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people are experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal. Free Palestine!” – #AaronBushnell, last words

#FreePalestine #CeasefireNow

Art by @adhityazul (Insta).

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Land ownership was a mistake. It’s one of those myths of capitalism that justifies horrors, such as colonial violence. In this case, #UCRegents had cops attack long-time residents of #PeoplesPark, forcing them further into housing insecurity, and building an armed border wall.

#LandBack is an easy-to-understand concept that is an entry point to the far more complex and spiritual relationship between native peoples and the land. “Stewardship” is another simplification. “Rematriation” gets closer to the truth. Regardless of what you call it, let’s agree that capitalism sucks and will be the death of us, unless we kill it first.

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To stay balanced amidst so much grief and so little support from the government, I do activism and imagine better futures in the solarpunk genre of sci-fi.

Art by Chris Ng.