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i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

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What we need is a new social movement. Not a political one. An artistic one.

We need people to make rebellion cool again. To idealize free thinking, free loving, free choices about our bodies.

We need influencers on the opposite side from the Andrew Tates and Manosphere.

We need music and fashion and film glorifying freedoms that oppose right wing authoritarian ideals. That embrace feminism and queerness and being a freak.

And we need a unifying identity for all these things. We need an identity like hippies, punk rock. The right is so good at coming together and the left is far too good at fracturing.

Modern media and social media companies have divided us all up into smaller and smaller social circles. Micro-identities. "Youth" used to be a social group. "Voice of a generation" was a thing. Now everyone is expected to be the voice of like...30 people.

What I'm saying here is just what I keep thinking about. What is the alternative to the tradwives and the Alpha Male podcasters? A bunch of intellectual politics nerds? Yeah, I mean thanks and all, but we need excitement. We need art.

Things are going to get worse and worse. The right is going to be selling limitations and restrictions and we need to be selling the alternative.

So if you're an artist, a writer, a musician, a filmmaker, an internet personality...get together with everyone you know who is also creative. Start talking with each other about how you create rebellious art, and how you create community in that art.

There's so much emotion floating around, so much fear and dread and exhaustion and we need to channel all that into art. It's the only way we win. Art is always how we make progress. But if you're making it alone, it doesn't build steam, it doesn't become a movement. You have to gather together. You don't all have to make the same thing. But you do need to have the same spirit. One determined to uplift what is good and fight what is evil.

Make art, people. Create an identity from it. Welcome everyone who is lost and scared. Lonely, sad, scared people get sucked into right wing circles because there's no alternative. Be the alternative.

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Grieve AND organize.

Good article by David Hunter on how to survive the Trump presidency, both on the personal and on the political plane.

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A Pragmatic and surprisingly comforting perspective about the Trump 2nd Presidency from the ACLU

***Apologies if this is how you found out the 2024 election results***

Blacked out part is my name.

I’m not going to let this make me give up. It’s disheartening, and today I will wallow, probably tomorrow too

AND

I will continue to do my part in my community to spread the activism and promote change for the world I want to live in. I want to change the world AND help with the dishes.

And I won’t let an orange pit stain be what stops me from trying to be better.

A link to donate to the ACLU if able and inclined. I know I am

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If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

--

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

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I don't know who needs to hear this, but it has been a central Republican strategy in the final week before an election to claim that the polls are breaking their way, that a red wave is coming, that Republicans are engaging in victory tours at least since the presidential election of 2000. (That's when I stopped watching CNN regularly, as the network promoted this line despite the fact that Gore would go on to win the popular vote.)

Given that Republicans have, in fact, only won the popular vote once in this period (2004), this is a strategy, not a statement of fact.

Don't sweat the narrative. Vote. Turnout wins, not news stories.

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what's with the weird glorification of smoking that's come back lately

like

I've seen so many posts that paint opposing smoking as some impossibly Loser-ish or puritanical stance and I really don't get it

it makes you, your house, and your clothing stink, destroys your teeth, and gives you lung cancer. opposing it is. Correct. obviously addiction is very complicated and quitting can be hard, but just saying "smoking is gross and harmful as a practice (including vaping)" is True and Right actually

some of you have never grown up hearing about how some beloved family member died a slow, agonized, wasting death of smoking-induced cancer, or watching it firsthand for yourself, and it shows

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In many US states, this week is your last chance to register for the upcoming election.

Please don’t let this wait. Please go get registered—or if you’re registered already, check your registration to make sure it is still valid. Numerous states have been purging “ineligible voters”: so please doublecheck that you haven’t been purged by mistake

If you’re all set, then please encourage everyone you know to register, or to check their own registrations.

Here’s where to start: Vote.gov

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VOTE BLUE!

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Nearly half the country allows USA voters to leave work to vote. It varies state by state, Colorado and New York will murder your entire company if you do not allow time off to vote.

Check your local laws, if you can take the time off you have no excuse. Plan ahead, make sure your ballots can be mailed if that's an option. Call out sick if you must your job isn't that important I promise you. They don't give any kind of fucks and it's in their best interest if you don't vote.

You

Yes you

Your vote matters

It always will

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“no one for president” you sound like such a fucking cringe edgelord and unless u plan on staging a massive revolution in a country of 300 million spanning 3.8 million square miles and overthrowing the government before November I would suggest voting for the candidate who DOESNT cater to white supremacy subcultures, getting involved in local community services & initiatives, donating to causes, or campaigning/protesting instead of this performative mock activism

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even if you're resigned that trump is going to win, 1/3 of the country lives in states with competitive senate elections. if democrats win the senate, there is very little that trump can do (can't even appoint supreme court nominees)

the following states all have competitive senate elections:

arizona

florida

maryland

michigan

montana

nevada

ohio

pennsylvania

texas

wisconsin

even if you don't think your state is competitive at all, THESE SENATE RACES STILL ARE, SO IF YOU LIVE IN ONE OF THESE STATES, MAKE SURE TO VOTE

and even if you don't live in one of those states, you could live in a competitive house seat. if democrats win the house, then trump can't pass any bills

and even if you don't live in a competitive state or district, your local elections matter even more than federal ones because they have a much more direct impact on your life

so VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

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I dunno man all I'm saying is that the right wing doesn't need nearly enough convince just to vote as the left does

Republicans just say "Biden is destroying America, we have to stop him" and the right wing says "okie dokie" and shows up to fucking vote for every republican on the ballot

Meanwhile the rest of us are out here giving civics lessons on how congress works and why Biden can't just Do A Thing, separation of powers, write laundry lists of all the good things Biden and Democrats have done, remind people of all the shit trump pulled, actual tables comparing Biden and trump policies, on and on,

and the left is just like "😡 both parties are the same" or "but Biden didn't do enough / did this thing I didn't like!" and stay home

And it's like

This is literally why america has such right wing policies, because you don't fucking show up every election

The center and the left showed up in the UK and France and unified and got out of each other's ways because they knew they had to defeat the right and they voted

Holy fucking shit why do we have to go through this every election to tell you just to show up and fucking vote you shouldn't need this much convincing to just vote

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Saying "voting doesn't matter" might reach your younger peers online but it certainly hasn't reached Clangus Hargbarg who was part of the kkk in 1951 and still sends in his ballot. He hasn't missed a one.

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from one chronically anxious person to another: the world is not going to go up in flames. What happens will be more slow, more bureaucratic, more boring. There is no catastrophe to end all catastrophes, no rapture, no sudden end. You can't give into the call of the void, because there is no void. So you just have to do the work to make tomorrow a better place, anyway. Because that's how it gets better.

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