#“peaceful protest good riot bad”

[diaryofamadsunwukongfan]

Ok but seriously

The writers sound like Kyle Rittenhouse

[harukamitsuki]

man. spinner and shoji were two characters that i really enjoyed and wanted to see more of... until i did get to see more of them and horikoshi stomped on my dreams...

spinner goes from being one of the best characters to being ridiculously one-dimensional. the heroes don't do jack shit, until it's revealed at the last second that they did, meaning that everything the 'bad guys' did was ultimately useless. kurogiri being in a hospital made no sense; the guy is a high-ranking villain who is far too useful to the villains to give up, he should be in a highly secure location like tartarus. shoji goes from being someone who i really enjoyed to being someone with ignorant beliefs, despite him accusing his friends of being such people.

seriously, shoji's rant on how the 'people from the city' wouldn't understand because they 'had it easy'. NEWSFLASH: discrimination happens everywhere. yes, it's a lot more rampant outside of cities, but it still exists within a city. heck, i had someone scream racial slurs at me while i was walking home, and i live in a big city. to say that someone had it easy just because you had it worse is a horrible thing to say, especially when it's coming from someone who is supposed to be empathetic.

this is not shoji's beliefs. this is horikoshi's beliefs. he could have easily had shoji say something like 'you have had it hard. that being said, people are more willing to turn to extremes outside of the city'.

also, shoji's whole 'violence to get what you want never works out!!' is wrong. i'm not saying from a moral standpoint - that's perfectly fine. but it's historically wrong. yes, there are such a thing as peaceful protests, but they have never worked out as well as those that fight violence with violence. blm riots, for example, were the thing to force the government to take a closer look at why people were rioting and do things to prevent more property damage.

another thing i found troubling was how the mutants became enraged at a person of colour, specifically black, for trying to intervene and empathise with them, screaming that he could not understand. it's supposed to imply that racism wasn't a concern after quirks emerged, as people found other things to discriminate.

which is... very idealistic. if that were something people would really do, then racism wouldn't be a thing after sexism came to light. and neither of them would exist after the lgbt or the neurodivergent. but that's not what happened.

if someone else arises that people could discriminate upon, people would just add that to the list of things to discriminate on.

horikoshi could have drawn anyone for the mutants to yell at. he chose to use a person of colour. it comes off as very tone-deaf and it was just another sign that the mini-arc would screw up.

spinner losing his mind was bad. as in bad-bad. as in, there were so many ways to write this fight, and he chose this? instead of being a battle of ideaologies, it's shoji convincing the rest to step down, then trying to beat a mind-less spinner.

it could have been one of the best fights, with shoji's belief that using violence to solve your issues will only make it worse, and spinner arguing that using violence is the only way to do it with the state of their society.

no matter who won, in that case, it would be ultimately up to the readers to decide who truly won. who had the stronger argument, who made the more sense, all that jazz...

instead, shoji yells at a bunch of people about how 'destroying property isn't good' and 'violence is never the answer', all the while using violence to subdue him.

that could have been could, if it was commented on. if there were some sort of self-awareness.

but it's not and there is none. it went from being an arc i was really looking forward to reading, to something i can no longer stand.

shoji. spinner. you were both done so dirty

[forestenjoyer]

tw leftist meme

this is more of a vent post than anything so be nice and bear with me. i was feeling down earlier so i did some writing to try to get my thoughts straight, and i wrote this.

Every time i feel down, i wonder what it that makes me feel this way. And there are many things. Is it species dysphoria? Sometimes. Is it fear of the future? fear of never living my one life the way i want to? Dread of the increasing amount of people who seemingly hate my kind? Fear for me and the people i love? Climate Anxiety? Loneliness? Yeah, sometimes. But sometimes I can't figure it out, and there is a thought in the back of my mind, and it never goes away. I try to tell myself that some days I'm just not feeling it, and thats true. But sometimes i get upset because i cant really disprove the thought. I'm scared of capitalism, and I'm scared of the way it poisons everything that i love.

When I first heard the thought, i was a social democrat, and it was easy for me to just tell myself that i was being ridiculous. but after time, the thought dawned on me, and everywhere i looked, i saw evidence.

Corporations exist to make a profit. They don't care about us being satisfied unless it's profitable to them. When they get influential enough, people begin to become dependent on them. Once this happens, they can gouge prices for more profit, as they are doing now. What will the government do? Nothing, because more often than not, they have an incentive to support the company. Perhaps the company is a donor, perhaps they are bribed, perhaps the obscene wealth makes them look good by some measurements, or perhaps they themselves are a CEO.

So, right. The government, who is allegedly supposed to take care of us, the people, isn't going to help, as it hasn't. So it's up to us, but say this company provides a vital service and is the only one who does so at any reasonable quality (Google), or has people addicted (Meta, McDonald's), or has so much variety and power that avoiding it is incredibly difficult (Disney, Nestle). If this is the case, which is is, it's very hard to boycott them.and those who advocate for change or participate in attempts to force change are mocked and taunted by bad actors and gullible folk. And by bad actors, I mean people who defend the company because they too own businesses. Landlords, local business owners, and so on. They are middle class twats who have never had to suffer the struggle of a normal person. And yet they LARP as us, calling themselves everyday hardworking folk, but actually own a business or an estate and have never had to confront the fears of tenancy, homelessness, poverty, and so on.

And i despise these people. They pretend to be us, and trivialise our struggle, saying lifes not that hard, and even call us elitists and entitled, and complain about us. And they manipulate and lie like this and act like they suffer while they collect rent from tenants after their third overseas holiday of the year.

And maybe you believe in reform. I did too. But do you ever find yourself asking 'How?' Do you ever grow weary of politicians throwing you and your movement under the bus? Or failing to fulfill their promises? Do you ever catch yourself thinking 'this is hopeless'? What do you do when you hear that, or when others tell you that? A reasonable person would take it in good faith, consider it, and try to find its flaws. And if you really knew that reform was possible, or realistic, you could explain why to yourself. I never could. I would joke around and throw insults because I couldn't argue with it, and everyone else did the same. I thought 'those stupid leftists are so foolish' and said it was ridiculous.

And thats why I caved, After all, if you cant see a way for peaceful protests and voting alone to bring change, and have watched it fail to over and over again, is it not reasonable to turn to the ideas that can give you answers, that being anarchism? The government cannot ignore a riot like it can ignore a peaceful protest. And if the government cannot and will not help us, we will have to help ourselves and each other.

And this is only a small part of it. I hate how it has ruined and weaponised science and strangled art. I hate how it destroys the environment. and i cant stand the way it does so with such self righteousness and entitlement

[gamergirlbonestaskforce141riot]

Chapter 12 Nemo dat quot non habet (No one gives what they do not have) - On the Road

Cartagena is going to be a big ass chapter, so I'll break it down as always. It'll go whole, or in two parts in AO3 once I finish

Disclaimer/Warnings: None, mostly banter and feelings. Also, this one is Ghost-centric

Taglist: @glitterypirateduck @jamesrifftapes @letsreadallday @mmyrrhh @sofasoap

Credit to OCs mentioned:

Lt. Olga Zhar Samoilova belongs to @nrdmssgs

Lt. Mylene Petra Scholten de Ridder belongs to @eenochian

Previous / Masterlist / Next

AP-7 Benidorm-Cartagena

Everyone was in a bad mood that morning, and it showed in the almost suffocating silence inside the SUV.

Gabi was looking out of the window, holding Soap’s hand, but a tense three-way phone call early in the morning with Laswell and someone else at the CIA had soured the usual bubbly mood of the redhead. She had also been woken up earlier than intended by Riot jumping out of the bed they had been sharing and rushing to the balcony.

Soap was dozing off, with the occasional snore, holding Gabi’s hand, but trying hard to stay awake. He had been deeply asleep, but the moment the other bedroom’s door had slammed open the Scot jumped out of bed and rushed outside.

Ghost was driving, and this time nobody had protested about it. He hadn’t had a good sleep either, and in fact had stayed awake until late, unable to doze off and listening to Soap’s peaceful breathing. How in the Earth he could sleep in a bed and not snore, and then snore like a goddamn chainsaw in any other place was beyond him.

The road ahead was mostly straight and with heavy traffic that was going at a slower pace than desired. No doubt due to some accident way ahead, judging by the information pannels. He let out a low grunt and looked to his right.

Riot was checking her tablet, carefully browsing using just the pad of one finger. Her nails were painted in a fiery red that caught his eye anytime he moved his head in that direction. And also, her hair.

Given that she had been woken up early by her bed companion’s nightmare, Gabi had insisted on some feminine pampering while they had breakfast. In the end she had managed to get Riot to agree to get her nails painted, and while the men packed their few belongings, Gabi had fixed the still growing nails as best as she could before painting them.

Red. Red like he was sure her lips would be after a night of kissing.

Ghost looked forward again, trying to shake the thought off. Riot didn’t seem to notice, engrossed in whatever she was reading. From the little he could see, it was a guide to the archaeological ruins in Cartagena.

Once Gabi had managed to paint her nails, she had taken the opportunity to brush Riot’s hair, and in spite of her protests, braided a portion of it on the left side of her face, exposing the scar, insisting that it wasn’t worthy of hiding. But the only thing the young Communications Officer managed to achieve was that Riot had put her mask on right before leaving the apartment, and hadn’t taken off yet.

The silence in the car, in spite of Soap’s light snores, was deafening.

Ghost’s world, since very young, had been full of loud anger or cries, a world of whites, blacks and greys, with little colour to make up for the pain and sorrow, for the loss. He never thought he’d miss the noise. He sure missed the colours, but never thought he’d miss the noise.

But in the time since the 141 was formed and since they have started… doing whatever the fuck they were doing, he had grown used to being around it. And even crave it.

The noise from Price grunting and huffing, either with disapproval or the opposite, his low hums of encouragement, his growled nods or puffs of anger. His always present support, the fondness in his cerulean eyes that sometimes was the only thing that kept Ghost from falling apart. His rock, his anchor, the father he never had but needed, even if only a few years separated them.

The noise of Olga doing paperwork or cleaning her weapon, with the ocasional sigh or shake of her head if she disapproved of something. Or if Nikolai was around. That one, he hadn’t seen it coming. But for some reason, it made sense, and he wished her the best because she deserved it.

The noise of Gaz with his Are you kidding me, mate muttered under his breath, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. For real. Or the shattering and clanking of pans and pots in the common room when he decided to cook something for the team. Or his insistence in telling him about anything and everything that crossed his mind. He was a damn fine lad, and he felt grateful to be deemed worthy of his friendship.

The noise of Petra while dutifully writing down her million coloured post-its to add to the personnel folders, her pen dancing over the paper with her soft calligraphy, sometimes even muttering for herself as she wrote. Having her in the 141 had made Price and himself grown complacent, relying on her to deal with the endless paperwork. That was a noise he didn’t like. Her absence.

The noise, ever present, of Soap. Johnny. The one he had come to call brother, even if just in the depths of his own mind, too awkward and feeling too stupid to give voice to that longing. He had never been close to anyone since Tommy had been gone. He was close to Price, but it was in another way entirely. Johnny was fresh air, Johnny was chaos, laughter, annoyance and mischief embodied, and in the darkest of his nights, Simon knew his life was better because Johnny was in it.

And Christine. Ghost kept his gaze fixed at the front, checking the traffic and paying attention, but there was a tiny corner of his mind where he kept pondering how his life had improved since Price had dragged him into the Task Force.

The noise of Christine, her ever constant humming, the tap of her fingers, of the bounce of her knee. The noise in the kitchen of the common room at the unholiest hours in the morning, when she couldn't sleep and decided to make them all fat as fuck by baking or cooking. The nights that he roamed the halls while lost in his own insomnia and she wasn't there were the emptiest.

He rarely called her Riot, because to him, she wasn’t that. No more than he was Ghost to her. Only in front of others or while on a mission did they use their callsigns. She didn’t see a ghost, a shell of a human being. He didn’t see a spitfire, just someone that was trying hard not to break.

Sometimes it felt like looking in a mirror.

The feeling of someone’s fingertips on his bare forearm almost made him jolt, but he managed to keep his cool, and most importantly, the steering wheel. From the corner of his eye he saw Riot looking at him.

‘‘Sorry, doll, didn’t hear you’’

‘‘It’s alright, I didn’t want to startle you’’ She said softly. The snores coming from behind told him that Soap had managed to finally fall asleep, and the steady breathing from Gabi said she had fallen asleep too. ‘‘But I honestly don’t know how can you be this focused with Johnny snoring like that’’

‘‘Practice’’ He chuckled, shrugging, before looking briefly at her. ‘‘What were you trying to tell me?’’

‘‘I need you to take the next exit’’ She showed him her tablet, where she had Google Maps open. ‘‘We’re close to the city already, but before going in, I want to check Mejía’s house from the outside, and it’s in the outskirts, near some place called Mirador de El Portús’’

‘‘Wasn’t the plan going tomorrow?’’ Ghost grunted, his eyes focused on the traffic and signaling the exit.

‘‘And it still is, but I want to change cars too. And I want to see the place, so we can speak about the plan and where everyone will be’’ Riot sighed, looking down at the tablet again. ‘‘Once we’ve done that, we’ll go into the city, leave the bags at the apartment and go have lunch’’

‘‘What about those ruins and museums you were checking earlier?’’

She looked up at him again, but Ghost was focusing on the road. Or at least he pretended to be.

‘‘As much as Gabi wants… we’re not on holiday’’ Christine muttered, a bit hesitant. She hadn’t realized that he had seen her check the info about the archaeological ruins in the city. She was dying to go see them, because she had never been in Cartagena before, but… No. She had to be responsible. Work first.

‘‘We could go after lunch. Or go see something before lunch and then after. Could help take our mind off things, you know’’ Simon shrugged. When she didn’t answer he risked looking down at her.

Christine was looking up at him, with her blue eyes wide and… for fuck’s sake, glossy?

‘‘You wouldn’t mind?’’ She asked, with the tiniest voice he had ever heard coming from her, and for a moment, Ghost was so flustered that he felt his ears burning.

‘‘Of course not, lovie’’ His voice sounded raspier for some reason, maybe because his throat felt dry as a desert, but the way her eyes lit up was everything. It meant everything. Was it because she felt like he, as the superior officer, was giving her permission to indulge?

Or was it because he had said so casually they’d go together?

He was still musing about it, trying to keep his attention on the road, but he had to chuckle when she started to tell him excitedly about all the things she wanted to go see.

Sometimes, she even remembered to speak in English. Something about something called Augusteum, another thing called Roman Forum… neighbourhood? He couldn’t tell, his Spanish was not that good. No less than three museums – he kinda started to regret it, but the joy in her voice and her eyes… No, he’d endure it.

If only to always remember her like this.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Why do you think Vander betrayed Silco? There's no reason given in the show. I feel like it takes a lot for best friends -family, really-to turn on each other like that.

If you don't want to give away shit for FnF, I'd take your general thoughts about the betrayal and what makes sense for the characters in terms of a falling out.

I'm of two minds on why Vander betrayed Silco.

#1 is based on the trajectory in the series, Riot Games' general treatment of its revolutionary characters, and what we know from the early series script notes.

From that angle, Vander killed Silco because Silco was a volatile element. In the production notes, Silco supposedly carried out an act of violence on the bridge, escalating what was a 'peaceful' demonstration of the Fissurefolk demanding better living conditions - and sparking a scene of mass carnage. (Basically, he throws a molotov cocktail at the Enforcer barricade).

Afterwards, as part of a pact with Sheriff Greyson to keep uneasy peace in the Undercity, Vander gets backed into a corner, and agrees to take out his troublemaker comrade, despite his own ambivalent feelings re: the murder.

I dearly hope S2 DOES NOT go this direction, because then the message becomes "Oooh, if only you'd protested about your exploitative and unlivable circumstances like good little citizens. We might actually have taken you seriously tsk tsk..."

This would, however, be on-brand for Riot Games. I've stated multiple times, but this company has some interesting messaging re: oppressed parties using force as a means of self-defense vs. ruling elite using violence as a form of systemic abuse, and tends to equate both as being equally bad.

Which

Um

o k

As for FnF - I won't spoil too much, but I'm trying to take it in a Catch-22 direction, where by the end, Vander and Silco are both equally in the right and absolutely in the wrong re: their ideas on cooperating with vs. opposing Topside.

The message leans more towards both of them being victims of circumstance, and warped by the traumas they've endured. The real culprit here is Piltover, and the systems of social injustice in place, which pit these two beloved friends against each other. Poverty/lack of options turns them both into 'monsters' - but really all they want is to live with dignity and keep their loved-ones safe.

I'm interested as always in other peoples' theories on what went down between Vander and Silco.

Just keep it polite please<3

[celestiall0tus]

Reawakening - Nature

Table of Contents

            Mylene stood in protest of a new shopping center with a large riot. Beside her was Longg, disguised as a tall, muscular woman with olive skin and dark, wavy hair. Police arrived to chase the peaceful protestors when a few from the crowd attacked the police. Screams tore through crowd as everyone ran and the police turned to use force.

            A few cops advanced towards Mylene. They reached out for her when Longg stepped out in front of her. She grabbed the cops arm and threw him into the others that advanced. More cops ran up to detain Longg, but she sent them flying.

            “That all you got? C’mon! I can do this all day!” Longg roared with glee.

            Mylene tugged on Longg’s arm. “Please don’t.”

            Longg gasped and grimaced. She scooped up Mylene and retreated. Mylene hung on as Longg moved at impossible speeds, earning them many bewildered looks. Mylene closed her eyes until Longg slowed and came to a complete stop.

            “Alright, you’re safe,” Longg said.

            Mylene cracked open an eye, then two. They were along the Seine near the city’s edge. She sighed and slid out of Longg’s arms. She took a seat with Longg sitting beside her.

            “That great, kid! Glad to see some of your kind still care for nature.”

            Mylene chuckled. “Some care a little too much though, as you saw.”

            “Nothing wrong with that.”

            “But people get hurt. What’s the point of fighting when people are going to get hurt?”

            Longg laughed. “Oh, dragonling, you accomplish nothing without a few casualties. As Kaalki would say, freedom doesn’t come free.”

            Mylene grimaced. “I… I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a way to accomplish things peacefully.”

            Longg snorted. “Well, enjoy disappointment, dragonling.”

            “I will. After all, change starts somewhere. Even if it’s impossible, I will show the world you can achieve anything through peaceful, morally good methods.”

            Longg rolled her eyes. “We weren’t being heard until a punch was thrown.”

            Mylene sighed. “Let’s… let’s not get into this.”

            Longg shrugged. She slipped into the Seine and swam around while Mylene watched. She twirled and flipped beneath the surface in a mesmerizing dance. Mylene smiled when a light filled the water. Mylene gasped as the water was purified and the purifying light traveled upriver.

            Longg poke her head up. “Oh, that’s much better. The pollution was repulsive.”

            Mylene stared down at the impossibly crystal-clear water. “Beautiful.”

            “Isn’t it. This will be your power too.”

            “It will?”

            “Yup. We are warriors of nature and all it encompasses. The stones, the rivers, and even the breeze. As one, we become the champion. Neat, huh?”

            “It’s amazing,” Mylene breathed.

            “Want to take test run?”

            “Really? Now?”

            “Why not?”

            “Well, there’s no bad guy. There’s no need for heroes.”

            “Wrong. There is need for heroes every day. And who else needs a champion more than nature herself? So, what do you say?”

            Mylene considered and nodded. She stood and struck a pose. “Longg, ascension.”

[thatstormygeek]

Things are looking bad for Biden’s chances in the fall, and his handling of both the Gaza crisis and the related campus protest movement across the United States are both playing a major role. This is not a good thing. If Trump gets back to the White House, and I cannot repeat this enough, there is no reason to be confident that democratic institutions will survive, nor that he will ever willingly leave office again. More narrowly, Trump will further enable Israel’s worst behaviors and deepen Palestinian suffering. Trump, who has repeatedly described himself as the “most pro-Israel president” in American history, broke with decades of U.S. policy by recognizing Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. As president, he announced a “peace proposal” (at a White House ceremony with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and no Palestinian representatives) that would hand Israel even more of the West Bank, and create a rump, subservient Palestinian state whose borders, airspace, security forces, electromagnetic spectrum, and foreign relations would all be controlled by Israel. Since Oct. 7, Trump’s main advisors on the region — his son-in-law Jared Kushner and former ambassador to Israel, David Melech Friedman — have promoted the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, followed by a re-colonization of the land by Israeli settlers and U.S. and Israeli corporations. As Kushner put it: "Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable.” That should make my preferred outcome clear. The problem is — and I will keep banging this drum as long as I have to — Biden’s incoherence on Israel and Palestine is both morally unforgivable and bad political strategy. He is bleeding support not only from young people, Arab-Americans, and others incensed with his continued support for a genocidal war machine, but also from pro-Israel moderates and Never Trump conservatives who are enraged at his furtive and contradictory efforts to ever-so-slightly rein that war machine in. I’ll give more details about that incoherence below. For now, I’ll just say that by trying to make everyone a little happy, he is making no one happy, as the pile of Palestinian corpses grows at his feet.

Biden famously came out of semi-retirement to run for president because of the 2017 Nazi riot in Charlottesville — a riot whose white-nationalist participants Trump very clearly supported at the time. He declared in his 2020 election victory speech that “in this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed.” In other words, he ran what was in large part an antifascist platform, and won. Four years later, his rhetoric and examples are almost exactly the same. At that White House event last month to which I was inexplicably invited, Biden again invoked Charlottesville. And again he warned of Trump’s uniquely authoritarian impulses. The only sign that time had passed were new references to liberal internationalism, mostly about helping Ukraine “fight off Putin.” The juxtaposition was telling. Biden’s vision of antifascism seems to be twofold: 1) Keep electing Democrats, and him in particular. 2) Arm America’s allies to the teeth and use them to defeat anything that smacks of the emerging Russian-Chinese-Iranian “axis.” That seems to be it. There is no step three. That isn’t an antifascist politics in any sense worthy of the term. The fact that Trump is still the undisputed leader of a major political party — not only running in his third straight election but showing good odds of winning his first-ever national popular majority — is proof enough that the approach has failed. You can blame the kids and those “so vehemently opposed to Israel” as much as you want. But by monomaniacally focusing on electoral outcomes and a battle of personalities against Trump, Biden and those who unreflexively support him don’t just ignore the real causes of the rising wave of right-wing authoritarianism. They far too often concede the false premises on which that wave feeds itself. ... The question above was a response to my May 10 newsletter, in which I noted that Israel’s plans to barrel forward with an assault on Rafah — the refuge of half of Gaza’s population — had pushed Biden to take the rare and diplomatically aggressive step of “pausing” a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs and other ammunition to the IDF. To the specific issue of whether that symbolic action was enough to “appease” opponents of the genocide, clearly not: First because the slaughter has continued. And second, Biden almost immediately reversed himself: This week, he authorized the transfer of $1 billion worth of additional tank rounds, mortars, and “tactical vehicles” to the Israeli military, accompanied by advisors’ assurances that, indeed, “arms transfers are proceeding as scheduled.” That incoherence was further underlined by the overdue State Department report on Israeli human-rights violations to Congress last week. The assessment, delivered in a Friday evening news dump, revealed “serious concerns” that Israel had violated international humanitarian law in both the killing of civilians and aid workers, had created obstacles for the delivery of humanitarian aid (up to and including literally bombing aid convoys from the sky), and was providing “limited information” as to “whether U.S. munitions were used in incidents involving civilian harm.”

The campus protests would have been another opportunity for Biden to show his commitment to democratic and pro-social ideals. I’m not saying he had to support the protesters or their aims — they are, after all, in large part protesting him. But no one made Biden take the further step of employing reactionary talking points about the protests being fonts of antisemitism and supposedly genocidal rhetoric, or repeating memeified claims about “Jewish students” being “blocked, harrassed, attacked, while walking to class” — questionable claims that have been weaponized to justify state and vigilante violence against demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights. [2] Biden repeated those claims on May 7, Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yet he said nothing about the weeks of wanton anti-demonstrator violence by both police and unhinged pro-Israel counterprotesters. In fact, instead of condemning the episodic police state, he is pushing a new plan to funnel $37 billion more to police departments and hire 100,000 more cops. The political problem here should be obvious. How do you explain to a student who just watched, say, the NYPD throw their friends down a flight of stairs for participating in a nonviolent protest — acts committed without so a peep of condemnation from the president — that a vote for him is a vote against fascism? Nor is Gaza the only place Biden and the Democrats keep undermining their claim to being the antifascist party. The president has repeatedly pleaded with Trump to work with him in passing a MAGA-like immigration bill: one that prioritized enforcement, detention, and “shutdown” measures over, for instance, pathways to citizenship for undocumented migrants or those who came as children. When Trump didn’t take Biden’s obvious political bait, the president tried running even further to his right. Biden can insist, as he did at the State of the Union, that he “will not demonize immigrants” or endorse Trump’s Hitlerian cant about “poisoning the blood of our country.” But by adopting reactionary fearmongering about the need to “secure the border” above all else, all that remains of a message to voters is that even squishy libs think the fascists have a point about immigration — it’s just that they aren’t willing to do more to stop it. ... Biden had many chances to consolidate his gains over authoritarianism in the last four years. He could have expended his political capital in ending the undemocratic filibuster and pushing through the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. His attorney general, Merrick Garland, could have operated on a timetable that would have ensured that Trump faced justice for his attempts to steal the 2020 election and, having failed those, attempting to violently disrupt Congress to prevent the certification of his defeat. He could have denounced crackdowns against student protesters as a violent abrogation of democratic ideals. Instead, Biden’s signature legislative accomplishment in what could be the last year of his presidency is a $95 billion package to further implicate himself and the country in deadly foreign wars, including Gaza, as well as ban the most popular social media app used by young people to inform themselves about the world, in probable violation of its users’ civil rights. In short, defeating Trump in November may be a necessary step in the effort to stem authoritarianism. But it will not be a sufficient one. And until the sitting president and his liberal base start to understand and act on that realization, the tide will only continue to rise.

[tobiasdrake]

Let's go meet the new besties, who I should not get attached to, but definitely will anyway.

Gotta be honest, I thought we were underground somewhere. But nope. Top floor. Credit to you, Shachi, that's a clever trick.

Shanty town. It's where the ultra-impoverished of a place with horrific wealth inequality end up. What, you didn't think the poor district was as bad as it gets, did you, Yuma?

Nah, man. You got to see the parts of the city where people struggle to survive and the parts where people thrive. Now you get to see how the people who fell through the cracks have to live.

Yeah, it's almost like our Corporate Overlords don't care too much about what happens to people here.

To be fair, we arrived here like three days ago. There's a lot of the city that's still new to Yuma.

I don't disagree. Unfortunately, at a macro-scale like this, liberation is rarely so simple.

Those who hold power have the luxury of violence. A mandate for violence is the first right of any system of governance. Which in practical terms means that they're the ones who get to spin the narrative. The system recognizes that they are always in the right whenever they use their weapons, so a peaceful protest becomes a "violent riot put down by peace officers" as easily as penning a report.

So long as you're asking politely, they have the ability to say no. And if they don't like the tone of your request, their mandate for violence can be employed to try and make you stop asking. They decide who "started the fight". They decide how much force is "reasonable" to end it. They decide whether you're a "terrorist" or an "activist".

If you want to bring down the Peacekeepers, you need to have fangs to bare.

I am, of course, preaching to the choir. My dude Shachi already knows all of this. Every revolutionary does. Paradoxically, non-violence is most effective when violence is in your back pocket, ready to be applied should diplomacy break down.

Non-violence and violence are not diametrically opposed to one another. They're the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine. Nobody ever likes protesters. If they can, they'll silence protests without a second's hesitation. But they sure do like protesters more when reminded that the alternative is having factory managers and business executives dragged into the street and beaten to death.

A system becomes much more eager to listen to unarmed people when it can see armed people lurking in the back.

Please tell me you have more security on the perimeter than one dude in a flak vest and goggles. We're at war with a military dictatorship, man. Come on.

I love the way meeting these guys parallels meeting the Detectives on the sub. Once again we're walking in with the boss-man on four characters having a jovial game of cards. They're going hard on that "The Resistance and WDO are enemies of the same people with the same goal sorta, we're basically the same."

Yuma, do not correct him. Just let it slide, man. Just let it slide.

[mask131]

I hadn’t planned to continue my series of explanation posts about the riots going on in France currently... But I am forced to, mostly because I have conspiration theories thrown at me. 

So if you are not up to date, check my original post here: https://www.tumblr.com/mask131/721725551671443456/mask131-before-i-see-any-more-nonsense-or?source=share

And now let us consider this reply I got in my notes:

@justwandering-neverlost​ you are a fool for believing there is some sort of great conspiracy going on behind this. And you have some chance that I got this note in the morning and am writing this post in the evening, because if I had replied just as I saw it, I would have used less kind words due to how angry I was. We honestly got enough shit going down in France already without people throwing conspiracy theories at us. 

Not only do we have more and more saddening and baffling information coming out to us that further proves it isn’t a conspiracy of any sort, but on top of that I can refutate your idea very easily due to your main argument. “The government stepping in through fake riots”. But before I do that I want to say... I understand why people want to believe these mad riots are part of a conspiracy. It is a comforting belief to try to imagine there is a form of order, no matter how vile or corrupt, behind all this violence. Our reasonable and logical minds wants this chaos to happen for a reason. But the truth, the very sad truth, is that these riots are an unorganized, blind, headless, movement, an Azathoth-like movement - as in “a blind idiot”. And for those who live in France and have been through all these dark years, it is painfully obvious.

Why the whole argument of the government stepping in doesn’t work? Because precisely, despite people pressing the government to act, the government doesn’t - or doesn’t want to. The government has an obvious reluctance to deal strickly, directly, strongly with all that. A lot of people have been asking for an “état d’urgence” to be installed - and by a lot of people, this goes from the far-right journalists and politicians who want a state of emergency to prevent what they are calling a “civil war” to the angry grandmother in Marseille who is exhausted beyond belief of all the destruction and vandalism and shouts at the journalists in the streets that the President should send the army to stop all these vandals. But the government was clear: No state of emergency will be installed. There is no need for this at all. That’s what the government says, “We are not in a civil war, no need for a state of emergency, we won’t do that.” And why does the government does not install such a state despite everybody saying cities are turning into war zones? 

Because France has an image problem. With all the troubles, all the protests, all the violence and unsecurity happening in France for several years now - people distrust France, people flee France, people mock France. Especially countries that are not in good terms with France - no need to tell you Russia is making its news of all the chaos and unrest in France, and then you have other countries such as Poland where (I think it is the prime minister? I am not sure of his exact position) used the current riots to say “Look! In France they chose immigration - they have chaos. We chose no immigration - we have order and peace.”. A lot of people are invoking the fact that France seems so “weak” because it cannot even control its own population, others denounce how bad of a president Macron is to allow so much violence to happen - these series of protests that keep turning into violence, piling up year after year, are not looking good. And things are ESPECIALLY not looking good since France is currently getting ready to welcome the Olympic Games. The eyes of the world are onto France, as everything is getting built and prepared and ready and adapted to welcome people from all around the world and cameras from every continent... And bam! Huge uncontrollable riots destroying everything. This makes France and the French government look very bad, and if they ever put a state of emergency, they are done for, they are toast. It will confirm what everybody is saying “France cannot control its own population, France is in grip of a civil war, nobody should be going to France currently.” The French government is purposefully not putting a state of emergency to prove that they still have the situation under control, that despite the huge violences things will return to normal, that yes of course the Olympic Games should happen in Paris and of course France is still a strong nation, what are you talking about? [Note: Do not take that as me saying “France should put a state of emergency.” No. But the way the French government is going today is “Of course we DO NOT need a state of emergency, stop talking about this, we have the situation FULLY UNDER CONTROL, OF COURSE the Olympic Games must happen, OF COURSE we are still a safe country for tourism, OF COURSE we are doing fine! No need to send the army or anything.”]

So no, the government is not going to step in further into this matter, especially since the riots are slowly dying down (not because the rioters were “satisfied” in any way, but simply because they spent three-four nights running around, destroying everything and burning everything, they are exhausted and out of ammo, so they need some times to rest). Which brings me to the second item on the list of “Why it isn’t some sort of government conspiracy”: France does not benefit at all from these riots, quite the contrary. France is slowly dying, economically speaking. Remember that these riots are the culmination of a series of times of trouble in France. We had the chaos and mass protests of the Yellow Vests, Gilets Jaunes ; and the manifestations tied to other police-caused death before (like the Adama Traore case) ; and then we had the Covid ; and then the “Do not change the age of retirement” protests, and now THIS. Tourism is at an all-time low, and shops on popular and famous areas are closed or destroyed regularly, and there was the huge inflation that augmented the price of everything in France - and now we have an unprecedented wave of shop destructions coupled with massive pillage and theft. France’s economy is dying out, especially when you consider that before all that the country was already heavily in debt and with a record number of unemployment, and lots of “ghost zones” abandoned by all. Now there’s all this - plus the fact that all these destructions and burning and explosions will need lots and lots of rebuilding, which means a ton of money will have to be spent to recreate schools and libraries (because yes, they attacked libraries also!), and clean up the marks of the disaster in the streets... 

So yeah, France is gaining nothing in there. One needs to have a very warped mind to convince themselves that the French government is somehow pulling the strings of these riots. In fact, if you want a conspiracy theory that do work - take the one that another country hostile to France, like Russia for example, or some extremist Islamic state, is organizing all this. Because these riots are destroying France, and it is very easy to imagine some foreign power is sending agents to rile up these riots in hope of making France bleed from the inside. But I can’t even bring up this theory because of two things.

1) This theory could veer very easily into pure racism or xenophobia, and we already have enough to deal with currently. It won’t surprise you to learn that the extreme-right is currently using these riots as a way to say “Look at all those foreigners and immigrants that came to France and are now destroying it! All those rioters are Arabians and Africans, and so they must all be banned away from France.” In fact, it isn’t just the French extreme-right - I said before that some far-right or hostile countries are also invoking racist arguments to try to explain those riots... And the USA too! What a surprise to learn today that the American journals are currently making these riots all about... Racial conflict? If you follow the USA media, apparently it is all about racism. 

As a French guy living those riots let me tell you - IT ISN’T ABOUT RACISM! I do not deny there might be some racism in France and a part of the hatred that is now exploding was fueled by some form of existing or perceived racism towards “non-white”. But the death of Nahel, and those riots now, are not about racism. They are about badly trained and badly prepared policemen, they are about the panic-causing fear prevalent among policemen, and the hasty attempts at covering a massive mistake leading to a teenager’s death - and further than that they are about class-divide and class-conflict, and the hatred of police and of the government, and about the disappearance of authority, and about the “abandonment” of the banlieues and the perceived discrimination against them... But this is all, at its heart, NOT about skin color or ethnic origins. Despite what the extreme-right or the extreme-left tries to make you think (oh yes, because the far-left is also at it in France, they are trying to convince people that these violence are justified because they are anti-racist violence, and that the rioters are so angry because they are filled with the just wrath of the oppressed masses, and that the entirety of police should be destroyed to stop the institutional racism in France), it isn’t about racism. How is throwing a car into the house of a mayor and trying to burn his family alive a way to make him “pay” for racism? How it stealing from the Restos du Coeur tied to racism? How is the rioters burning down elementary schools something tied to “racism”? This is the kind of shit that the Traore family tried to pull when it came to the death of Adama - remember, they did a protest against the French government because of Floyd’s death, as if France had a relationship to this murder in the USA, and I even recall a group that came on TV during these troubled times, in France, a group of activists that had shaped themselves after the Black Panthers, imitating their outfit and copying their goals and speeches down to the very last detail. This is all an attempt at projecting the problems and society of the USA onto France, but FRANCE ISN’T THE USA! We have two different histories, two different societies, two different “race dynamics”. Yes France has problems, BIG problems, but they aren’t the problems of the USA! 

2) My second big argument as to why this is all just a blind idiocy and violent chaos - which also ties back to “Why this isn’t about racism”. The rioters themselves confess that they had no goal behind those riots.

Remember how I said before that a good thirty percent of the rioters were underage, and the other still young adults and teenagers? Well now that we have better estimation, the average age of the rioters was calculated: 17! The average age of the rioters is seventeen years old! And we have seen kids as young as twelve participating in the burning of town halls. These are teenagers, these are kids, this shows a form of immaturity in all of this. Remember the interview with one of the rioters I talked about before? Well, in contrast to this, we now have the explanations and confessions of the other rioters - because there were hundreds of arrests all throughout France. And now that these teenagers and those young adults are confronted by courts, trials, judges, journalists, they are asked to explain their situation... And their answer? “We had no real reason to do what we did.” I am not kidding. Almost none of the rioters asked talked about Nahel in any form or shape - and those that did it, did it indirectly without even saying his name, just evoking “the kid that died”. Why did they do it? Because for them “it was fun”. Because “everybody else was doing it”. Because they just “wanted to”. They didn’t even claim any kind of revenge or punishment the same way the interviewed rioter did. They literaly said “We did what we did, and there’s nothing more behind that. We didn’t had any reason to do that. We just did.”

It isn’t about racism. It isn’t about religion. It isn’t about justice. It isn’t about Nahel. It just because these kids and those idiots wanted to break things and burn things and steal and kill people - and others saw an opportunity to do the same things, and yet others just followed like sheep and imitated the rest. 

And if you are baffled by this, sadly it is actually understable when you see how France has slowly degraded. On one side, as I said, in the poorest and most criminal “banlieues”, the defiance of authority and law, and the hatred of anyone wearing a uniform, became a widespread custom, a local tradition, even a game. It is a game to call policemen only to throw rocks at them. It is a game to burn police cars with a policeman still inside. On social media, they compete to see who can destroy the most car-police wheels. Even firemen, and nurses, and ambulance are getting attacked or harassed in the street just for doing their job - because there is a strange and bizarre hatred in some areas of France for anything that represents a country, a system, a society. On the other side, France - which was THE country of protests and strikes and manifestations - lost its own art and ability to protest as year after year, each protest systematically ended up in violence, more and more violence. The minute there’s a problem, there’s a protest, and these protest end up in violence - because they aren’t even protests anymore, but temper tantrums. The conspiracy theorist above used “populace”, which in French is a pejorative word for the people as a whole - and this is a word I shall use for the behavior of French people nowadays. I still remember when Mélanchon, the far-left (not to say extreme-left) candidate to the presidential election, wasn’t elected - there were riots and protests. Protests BECAUSE A CANDIDATE WASN’T ELECTED IN AN ELECTION? I distinctly remember that because students had entered the Sorbonne university, organized a siege by blocking everybody outside, and had destroyed everything inside - old paintings and university papers and computers. They wanted to destroy a university, because their candidate wasn’t elected as a president? As I said before, one shouldn’t confuse the USA and France, but the Trump riots can be brought to mind. There’s a true “bratty child” behavior in people (and especially younger generations) nowadays “If we don’t have what we want, if you displease us in any way, we will destroy everything in reliation”. 

Anyway, I have exhausted myself just writing about the misery and disaster going on in France... So yes, there is no great governmental conspiracy going on here. There is no greater goal and no great evil plan and no mustache-twirling villains. There’s just a wave of pure and undiluted hatred and violence coming from teenagers and young adults of poor, dangerous and criminal areas, an explosion of a desire to destroy everything and anything, a wish to blindly kill and burn whatever cross their path. Town halls and libraries, schools and supermarkets, prisons and book shops, police stations and clothing shops, bus stations and tramways, even houses and habitation buildings - it is all targetted. If there is the slightest “conspiracy” going on there - it is minor, local conspiracies pulled by the local drug dealers and drug markets, mostly to make sure the violence doesn’t touch their domain and their “lair”. Take Marseille: many people have pointed out that the violences in the town happened everywhere... except for the areas where the drug commerce and drug dealers are notoriously installed and ruling their criminal system. This is the furthest I can accept the idea of a conspiracy behind all that - or if you can bring me solid proof there is a foreign power like Russia organizing all that, I will take it, because Russia has been doing insidious operations before (such as the Döppelganger operation, discovered a month ago or so, which was about duplicated and imitating the French information websites to spread false informations about Ukraine and the Ukrainian war). 

But honestly, so far, it just seems to be the work of a hateful, blind and idiot mass, with no head, no goal, no mind and no purpose. 

[theglitchywriterboi]

I support the rioters & the people destroying shit & I'm tired of y'all pretending like they're the bad guys here & disavowing them !!

Maybe violence isn't YOUR preferred method, but riots & violence have done good change. [& No I'm not saying there isn't any room for peaceful protests & civil disobedience. I'm saying we need ALL forms of protest including the riots & destroying shit]

[maehem-1]

Kill transphobic politicians

Kill transphobic politicians

I'm so tired

For dancing with

Eggshells wrought by

People that want

Me dead and

Gone and forgotten

Tired of being

The run and

Hide guy the

Cower and flee

Guy the please

Don't touch me

Guy I want

To be the

Happy free guy

Kill transphobic politicians

They are hateful

I can be

Hateful too I

Want to fight

Too I know

We need systematic

Changes to make

A true difference

A real difference

You can never

Kill them all

But I have

Always believed in

Leading by example

You can never

Kill them all

But you can

Scare the rest

I'm tired of

Being the I'm

Scared guy I

Want to be

The scary guy

I don't want

To be a

Guy at all

That's the crux

Of the issue

To be honest

But some people

Some very powerful

People think they

Know better than

Me now I

Have to deal

With it myself

Kill transphobic politicians

Martin Luther King

Jr was successful

Because all his

Peaceful protests they

Dispelled the myth

That all black

People were predisposed

To violence Stonewall

Worked the other

Way by proving

That gay people

We're willing to

Fuck shit up

We're willing to

Kill transphobic politicians

We're not pansies

Or fairies or

Scared why should

I have to

Be scared to

Look a mirror

In the eye

Why should Gregg

Tell me what

I can and

Can't do to

Myself I think

If we just

Kill transphobic politicians

We could solve

A lot of

Other problems too

Because shitty people

Are usually shitty

In a lot

Of different ways

Roe V Wade

Would probably still

Be around if

We went back

To the past

In order to

Kill transphobic politicians

Why should I

Dance to eggshells

Shaving my face

Looking in mirror

People want me

Dead I'm tired

Being the bigger

Guy I want

Them dead too

They don't have

Enough eggshells to

Dance to daily

Propaganda says that

I am an

Insidious threat that

Is laughable a

Mere laughing stock

Hahaha I am

Weak insignificant and

Will bring about

the collapse of

Western society but

If some faggot

In a skirt

And bad lipstick

Can collapse the

West I doubt

That the west

Could stay standing

Very much longer

Even if I

Didn't shave today

Maybe our protest

Maybe our riot

Will succeed if

We prove that

We are not

Some quiet threat

Lurk in shadow

Insidious kid harmer

Many of us

We're kids too

Kids not victims

We are loud

We are in

Your face 24

7 we should

Do this by

Kill transphobic politicians

Kill transphobic politicians

That harm kids

Harm trans kids

Cause trans kids

To harm trans

Kids harm themselves

That's what they

Want to happen

I am fueled

By spite so

Maybe transphobic politicians

Should also be

Kill transphobic politicians

One for every

Scar on all

good friends my

Trans friends' legs

And arms and

Heart one for

Every single kid

Dead and gone

And forgotten and

Tired and never

Will never forget

Will never be

forgotten until we

Kill transphobic politicians

And will never

Never be forgotten

Kill transphobic politicians

Burn the bodies

Leave them in

The streets scare

The rest 2024

Ashes ashes and

We all fall

Down and darker

Yet darker we

Like Phoenix we're

From ashes reborn

We have been

Burned too but

Survived all the

Same haven't we

One dead politician

For every run

And hide guy

For every cower

And flee guy

One charge free

Kill transphobic politicians

For every single

Please don't touch

Me guy out

There the only

Sad part is

We would run

Out of politicians

Before we could

Avenge everyone they

Indirectly killed maimed

Everyone they legislated

Over the side

Every chair kicked

Kill transphobic politicians

Kill transphobic politicians

Kill transphobic politicians

I am a

Raging blazing hypocrite

I don't care

Not anymore let's

Kill each other

May the best

Guy woman elsewise

Win or are

You too scared

That we will

Kill transphobic politicians

Kill transphobic politicians

[brainblogshelp]

online activism and its impact

What is activism? According to Mariam Webster, "Activism is a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue." it is understandable that activism is when a community or an individual is not satisfied with a particular incident that happens in the moment hence thereby an action is taken. Action such as protest or voicing out the issue that it may be heard by an audience.

Before going any further, one must also ask what is difference when it comes to online activism and street protest. The difference is quite obvious and can be viewed by the word online. Where as how before there was an existence of the internet, activism was already a thing but instead of posting it on online platform such as social media, it is taken out on a podium by the streets. In the current time we are living in where we are constantly connected to our phone. This begs to differ the question of how we are also so connected globally.

In previous time, when an issue happens in an area it would take weeks or months before reaching to the another side of the world compare to now when something happens, it only take 5 minutes for the whole world to know about the matter. it can be said that Internet has broken the boundaries of distance and leaving us more connected than ever before. this leads to my next question, Does online activism eliminates street protest? Definitely not but on the contrary it enhances each other.

After pondering its definition and a deeper understanding, I asked myself this question. Is online activism really a bad thing after all? I come to conclude it truly depends on how one views it. Afterall, we must take into consideration movements such as the injustice that were cause on the African American, racisms upon the Asians living in America, the Arab Spring incident, Malaysia General election and many other that has not been named that has brought change and help improve the course of nations and society. Acts that has left a history in time to come.

But to what extend that activism and protest can eventually lead to a bloody riot and chaos. That what start out to be a peaceful protest becomes a blood bath. It is believe that peaceful protest can turn out to be a bad thing after all when individuals who are involved in it has a different agenda than what the community or group has intended it's movement to be.

In conclusion, I believe that since activism can be view as something which is good and bad at the same time. So does the law. Where one can view the law as a protection that enhances the safety of a protest. I am grateful that there are such laws in country that allows peaceful protest. Nonetheless, maybe in time when things get a little out of hand on social media, that the nation can come together to work on cyber laws to eliminate threads or riots that might lead to a public violence. That what we do on social media has a significance in the physical public sphere we living in.

[joshrgomez]

I’m going to say this simply and I hope it’s not offense. It’s not. Straight men think about their children. Homosexuals don’t and they also can’t reproduce between themselves so they don’t think about that shit. So nah dude. Pretty fucking stupid to a massive extreme to ask a gay mf on what a straight mf thinks or likes. It’s not the same. It’s good to have outside advice from men who can help you since they can’t. Again I have friends who are affected by certain shit too.

where it gets complicated especially in Atlanta why I’m fucking tired of walking on egg shells because some gay asshole wants to riot or bitch about shit they don’t even give a fuck about just some piece of shit wanting to protest or riot cause they got shit wrong with them inside.

it affects blacks and browns. Now cops are even more on edge. Except it’s the child of some rich shithead in Atlanta who’s gay ass child wants to be a cunt to cops or anyone in authority. I’m sure that’s just shit that’s in-house getting so fucking bad it leaks out. Probably talk shit on their parents and disrespect them why they hate authority.

all because some weak asshole didn’t want to spank their child or even yell at them even less ground them. Like the retarded asshole they are they let their child walk all over them so now that shithead kid thinks they can walk all over cops.

again that shit affects me. Usually not someone with a fucking job or respectable career rioting or protesting. Usually to always some bitch ass kid with too much time and not enough discipline.

I have no idea why the fuck these people in office think these piece of shits will calm down or start respecting authority cause they finally got their riot out the way. When in 100000 percent sure they’re just going to get even more angry and more violent towards cops cause what they’re doing isn’t working. Hasn’t and never has. They’re just being a piece of shit to be a piece of shit.

again you have some pussy in office trying to be peace to someone being violent. That’s a fucking joke. I’m not saying beat the shit out of them. You don’t see any fucking arrests or attempts to punish them just like their piece of shit parents.

SO IF I SEE THE COPS NOT ARRESTING THESE WHITE QUEERS AFTER DESTROYING PROPERTY OR CLOSING STREETS DOWN ON A RANDOM ASS RIOT/PROTEST. THE MAYOR NOT ARRESTING THEM. THEYRE GETTING MORE MAD AND BLACKS AND BROWNS GETTING TREATED WORSE BY COPS BECAUSE SOME WHITE SHITHEAD QUEER GETS A PASS YET WE DONT.

IM NOT STAYING HERE. ITS NOT THAT FUCKING HARD TO UNDERSTAND. WHY THE FUCK WOULD I???? Now black and brown people are getting treated worse!!! In GEORGIA cause of that. Yet these dumbass white people don’t want to be seen as homophobic (no offense not all usually just Atlanta garbage ass)

[alighted-willow]

I will never intentionally consume media featuring content from an ai, it backgrounds, animation, art, voices, etcetera. And I am not saying this because refusing to engage with said content will have any meaningful impact; it won't. Putting aside the fact that I am one person and that you are one person, boycotts are just not the way to go about things.

Boycotts are not productive in doing anything other than making a statement, and the people who use ai aren’t respecting statements from creators and people in general so why should I assume that they'll care about whatever I have to say? The only thing boycotts are really good for is making us feel productive. That's not inherently a bad thing, it's actually good, but it would be egregiously self engrandizing to think it at all helpful.

Folks often talk about things like the Boston Tea Party and how that boycott helped but that wasn’t a boycott, it was far closer to a riot. It was the deliberate and violent destruction of property and that’s what works. That’s what always works. Peaceful protest is flimsy at best and so long as bureaucracy fails to instill and enforce legislation preventing the unauthorized use of people's work, peaceful protest will not a change make.

As much as I hate it, I do think that ai is the future. I do believe that we will eventually, inevitably be seeing the relegation of craft to a few quick keywords and the possible omission of artistic labour in the workforce. I do not think anything I do will change this outcome and I fear for professional artists, writers, and everyone else who will be rendered obsolete.

What I do think can be changed, and what I pray for, are protections for original content. I wasn’t really able to participate in the political sphere outside of voting in the presidential elections for the last few years per being wholly whipped out by familial, occupational, academic, and medical restrictions (long-covid fucked me up) but I am mostly better now and hope to take a more active stance moving forwards. Assuming that the relapse isn’t also inevitable, I want to look into what I can actually do.

But none of that is why I abstain from ai content. It makes me physically uncomfortable and that’s it. That’s everything. There is no deeper reason as to why I don’t comment on cool art that turned out to be generated, no other reason why I give movies a quick once over to see if anything prominently present was made through theft. Just like how a vegan refuses to eat animal products in spite of their stance on the matter not changing how that animal died and lived.

I refuse to engage because I put my heart and soul into my art and to see other people's craft mutilated is deeply upsetting.

[pumpacti0n]

@generallemarc

"Oh, so you won't mind if I crush the phone you used to type this?"

You're still using an unclear definition of what violence even is, and you're still missing our point -- so what would be your reasoning for doing this? What motivates you to want to destroy in the first place? Because you just want to, or because you're left with no other option?

The context is what matters here, and you seem desperate to ignore those more complex questions in order to simplify and flatten the situation into a good/bad binary -- that all property destruction is equally bad, regardless of the conditions that gave rise to it. It must be nice to live in an uncomplicated world with an analysis so shallow.

-

[video]

-

As was already stated, that property can be replaced. The person in the video has a right to be upset, sure. I would agree with you that it's very unfortunate for them, but critically, they are still alive. Again, the business as well as the lost property is likely insured. Is there no difference, to you, between a storefront being destroyed versus that of a human life? Is property worth more than people?

-

"Then have them start at your house so that you're sacrificing something instead of demanding that others do so for you." -

Once more, you're using a flawed argumentation -- this is akin to saying that: "if you really care about homeless people, why don't you personally invite them stay in your home?" this isn't a serious statement and it is unreasonable. We are again moving away from the cause of the riots to focus only on the consequences. But "who cares" right? Maybe riots really do appear out of thin air, having no cause or purpose beyond the simple desire to damage, each of them equally as bad as another by virtue of existing.

-

"And they were all wrong unless they were directly defending themselves from an attack."

-

The forces I've named here -- white supremacy, capitalism, the police state -- are attacks, and they happen fequently. Evictions are violence, poverty is violence, criminalization and policing are violent, capitalism itself is a constant state of violence. What you fail or refuse to accept is that the very nature of the status quo is already violent.

The responses to that violence aren't the genesis of the problem. The riots in question are just the manifestation of that hostility and frustration from having to deal with it all reaching a tipping point and boiling over. We can't possibly expect "peace" while these forces remain intact, and they won't ever be challenged in any meaningful way exclusively through "peaceful" (lawful) tactics.

-

"Cool, now tell it to the woman" -

What I would tell this person is that the majority of people in their neighborhood are likely not business owners. Many of them are unemployed, homeless. They ought to take a moment to reflect on that frustration they feel with having experienced that unfairness and think about all the people that are even worse off, and why that is. No one exists in isolation. What affects one of us invariably affects all of us, to a degree.

The lesson that could be learned here is that things are not okay. They haven't been ok for a long, long time, and something needs to change. There are no easy, quick solutions either. It's not as simple as "just get a job" if you have a felony, or already have a job that doesn't pay well enough. It's not as simple as engaging in "peaceful" protest that can routinely get ignored or suppressed by cops. It's not as simple as saying "black lives matter!" and not grappling with what that really means or the changes that would have to take place for that statement to be true.

- "All violence, and thank you for admitting this is violence, is wrong unless in direct defense of oneself or another. Unlike you, my values are consistent." - There was never an admittance of such a statement, but even so I've already addressed that sentiment and provided resources that go into more detail about why that's inadequate framing. And are they? You seem to be suggesting that "no matter what, destroying stuff is bad!" unless it's in the context of self-defense, which only begs the question of what counts as self-defense? Water and land defenders, for example, are frequently arrested by the state for attempting to protect the ecosystems they depend on to survive from corporate expansion and pollution. Does this count as "self defense"? Why, or why not?

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[Truly out of context MLK Quote]

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MLK was not correct about everything. There are obvious limits to non-violence, evidenced by the fact that the man himself was assassinated without having so much as balling up a fist to attack another person.

Again I say, there never was a time where a social movement succeeded in fundamentally changing oppressive conditions without the use of civil disobedience, direct action and violence -- your attempt to conflate property destruction with violence makes it clear that you don't see any difference between these things, and that is the essence of the conflict we're having.

Anyway, what is your alternative? Do you have any suggestions for how to appropriately deal with the consistent onslaught on civil liberties that doesn't result in conflict with authorities? Are you under the impression that the rich and powerful of society will merely allow their hoarded wealth and institutions to be disseminated without a fight? When has this ever happened in history?

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated a mere year after the speech we both quoted from. You seem to have glossed over the part of the quote where he made explicit that his actions were still militant and direct. He was non-violent in his specific methodology, but had no intention of being a pushover either.

Several years prior, he wrote from jail that white moderates preferred a "negative peace which is the absence of tension" over the "positive peace which is the presence of justice." Now, in 2023, you are siding with them, under the presumption that the absence of tension is preferable since it leaves less of a mess in its wake. He would disagree with you on this issue, especially so if he had survived the assassination attempt and were analyzing this topic from hindsight.

We are not "car burning fanatics". The reason he condemned the riots is because he thought of them as ineffective on their own to convince the masses to take action. There are several ways to take action -- riots are just one of tactic, and they are as old as society is.

The rest of your rambling is a total strawmanning of our position and wild assumptions about the standard of living we have as well as our principles. I have no intention of responding further if you continue to make it clear you're not arguing in good faith and just want to "win" an argument. I have no such desire. I've already attached multiple resources for further education on the topic both from an ethical and historical perspective. I've done my part to offer as much of a considerate, thoughtful, respectful response as I possibly could.

You're obviously free to disagree with what I've said. The least you could do is respond to arguments I've actually made instead of the false ones you've constructed to make us appear like our only political goal is to destroy everything for absolutely no reason at all and pick on vulnerable people. Again, if that's your concern, you should be more upset with the biggest looters and destructive elements of all -- the state and its soldiers.

[creekfiend]

if you don't mind sharing, what sorts of precautions did you take wrt disability/chronic illness for going to the protest? i'd like to go to one but i'm in a city where a) demonstrations are big and b) cops are using tear gas so i'm nervous. i've been thinking about going to one a little ways away with a friend who lives in a smaller area where they haven't had any issues w/ cops but i'm SickTM and want to try to prepare myself for it

I knew ours would be safe bc its a tiny-ass town and we live in an area thats majority white :/ I would not go to one in Atlanta because Shit Happens There because the cops have different priorities in areas like mine and areas like ATL. I donated to the ATL bail fund instead. Do what you can do that will help but don't feel obligated to risk your health by being there physically if your health is precarious, is my advice.