#Critical Resistance

[rainbowpopeworld]

from “Abolition Now!: Ten Years of Strategy and Struggle Against the Prison Industrial Complex” available here for free. Source

[courtana]

Abolition and the Liberation of Palestine

Discussion starts at 16:50 timestamp

Prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionists have always understood the work to dismantle the PIC to be connected to global movements against war, militarism, and colonialism. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen mass mobilization in solidarity with the Palestinian people as they face one of the deadliest assaults by the Israeli military in its history.

On Wednesday, Nov 1, join us for a critical discussion on the ongoing war on Palestine. Dr. Angela Y Davis, Lara Kiswani (Executive Director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center), Stefanie Fox (Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace), and Nadine Naber (INCITE! National) will join us in a discussion moderated by Mohamed Shehk (Campaigns Director of Critical Resistance) to help us understand the situation on the ground in Palestine, how our organizations and people everywhere can mount effective resistance to the genocidal war against Palestinians, and how we can use abolitionist strategies such as Dismantle-Change-Build, Divest/Invest & “Defund,” and “shrink and starve” to do so.

Organized by Critical Resistance. This event is also a fundraiser for Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), who are providing much needed aid to the people of Gaza. All funds will go to MECA after accessibility costs for this event.

[rebeccasthoughts]

Trial by Fire: Fire Country and the Prison Industrial Complex

New Post!! Fire Country is a TV show and it wants to be the most relevant thing on network television. The show is about Bode and his life traversing the criminal justice system in California as an inmate firefighter. What's the deal with this show and what does it have to say?

[abolitiondarling]

"1997:  The Start of Critical Resistance

BEYOND THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Critical Resistance was formed in 1997 when activists challenging the idea that imprisonment and policing are a solution for social, political, and economic problems came together to organize a conference that examined and challenged what we have come to call the prison industrial complex (PIC).

Held in Berkeley, California, in September 1998, the conference brought together over 3,500 activists, academics, former and current prisoners, labor leaders, religious organizations, feminists, gay, lesbian and transgender activists, youth, families, and policy makers from literally every state and other countries. The three-day event featured nearly 200 different panels and workshops. The conference also included a number of cultural events and a film festival.

While the conference was a huge success, CR recognized that its work had only begun. The goal of CR was, and continues to be, building a movement to eliminate the prison industrial complex."

[classic8media]

Angela Davis, Chesa Boudin Defend Pamela Price - Connecting the Recall Network

How Big Tech, Real Estate, and Police Unions Use Public Relations, Agents of Chaos, and Poverty-Porn-Crime Videos to Wage War Against Criminal Justice Reform and Progressive Policies Angela Davis stood with an immersed audience, eyes locked on her during brief moments of silent drawing breath. Anticipation dripped for every word to flow from her lips as the smell of flowers blew in the breeze…

[undead-knick-knack]

Long hair

No bra

That's my type (that's right)

[ducere]

I couldn’t resist the long hair…

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

massages forehead So Ambessa hid Mel away because she was a weapon in the literal sense, a mage. But Ambessa came to Piltover for Hextech? And Ambessa had nothing to say to Mel about her powers having visibly awakened? Even when Mel offered to go with Ambessa, giving her the ultimate opportunity to make Mel a weapon for real? And Ambessa made no attempt to find or retrieve Mel - not just her daughter and the remnants of the family Ambessa professes to love, but also her ultimate weapon - when she disappeared? And Ambessa trusted Singed and Viktor on their home turf - neither of them hiding how insane and self-serving they are with every reason to take over Ambessa's soldiers or just blatantly turn on her as soon as it benefits them - more than she trusted Mel? While Caitlyn (and by extension Piltover) was visibly and clearly falling away from Ambessa's teachings before Ambessa's eyes? (as if getting rid of certain people allows piltover to get rid of fascism but we won't get into All That)

Not only do I struggle to be hyped for Mel's powers beyond how amazing and beautiful she looks, but I can't help but feel like Mel is somehow less powerful in season 2 than she was in season 1, and not in an interesting way. As if Mel's ability to bend all of Piltover politics and economics to her will in season 1 now means nothing in season 2? You can argue that Jinx's attack led directly to Mel losing ground in Piltover - because I expected Mel to have to claw back that power without being able to rely on people who are too easily seduced by Ambessa and authoritarianism, and she would have to get creative to go toe to toe with her mother. I expected pushback to her mage identity that she would have to navigate. But instead this went either unwritten, or was ignored or discarded. Instead Mel is removed from the main plot, cutting her off from what made her the most interesting - only for all of Mel's very real talents, her very real powers and abilities, to be not only translated but REPLACED with magical powers she doesn't know how to control, and by the finale, those magic powers are the only powers that are considered real. Mel takes a backseat to Piltover's governing and decisions, a backseat to Jayce of all people who was not only new to politics mere months ago but made poor governing, strategic, and diplomatic decisions when he had that power. In season 1 Mel stayed off the "throne" but she did pull its strings one way or the other, and she makes no attempt at this in season 2

In my least generous suspicions, Mel was gentled and quieted to capitulate to an agenda for other characters who had to be correct and heroic - or wrong and villainous - no matter what the leadup narrative said, given her powers to help sell the game and set up future shows, and was effectively ejected from the Arcane story with faceless soldiers and a role she doesn't want because she was inconvenient there

[needanaccount2readarcaneposts]

like you guys know warwick is supposed to be a metaphor, right?

and by 'you guys' I am talking to the writers of Arcane S2 (2024), who appear to have forgotten this.

like warwick, in a strictly plot sense, is something that is done to vander. but warwick, in a narrative sense, is supposed to be a metaphor. you understand that, right?

it's a metaphor for the monster within the man?

the hound of the underground?

the way suffering breeds cruelty breeds monsters - the uncaged wrath of zaun?

the sins of his past come back to haunt him?

the violence he tried to leave behind, but never could?

"i knew you still had it in you."?

Sometimes, as he fed in dark alleys on stray gangers, the flash of knives would remind him of an old blade covered in blood. Blood passing from the blade to his hands. From his hands, to everything he touched. Sometimes, he remembered the girl again. And still there was blood. It had always been there, he realized, his entire life, and nothing he did could wash it off. He'd left so many scars that even if he didn't remember his past, the city would. When he peered into the eyes of Zaun's criminals - the gang bosses, murderers, and thieves - he saw himself.

that's the warwick we should have gotten in S2. vander the grey, not vander the unproblematically whitewashed. vander the revolutionary who brought his gauntlets to that bridge to fight for a future; the base violence necessary for change. vander with blood on his hands, just as much as the partner he scapegoated for it; tried to bury in the pilt along with his own guilt; not just vander who felt aw shucks real sorry about the attempted murder that one time. vander the complex. vander who sold out zaun's resistance to ease his own shame. vander the reckoning with his own complicity; his own violence; his own original sin. vander whose murkiness helps vi unpack her black and white worldview, and let go of the rose-tinted past to which she clings; understand jinx, even understand silco; understand that it's not just about Individual Bad People doing Individual Bad Things to Individual Good People, and Individual Good People who have to defeat the Individual Bad People, but that this is something far bigger and far older than any of them, a whole rotten system of misery and oppression that turns people into monsters. that the thing that turned vander into a monster, METAPHORICALLY, happened long before he met singed.

vander the monster, as well as vander the man.

instead, we got whatever this shit is:

[oopsallmabari]

like. if someone is capable of convincing me that having the viper be the black divine is a good idea, by all means. but i struggle to understand it beyond a weird first draft idea that should be treated as just that, a weird first draft idea that isn't canon.

overall i think the game is missing out on really involving the elves in a thoughtful way, and that includes the shadow dragons. so unless your rook is a shadow dragon and an elf, all of the major shadow dragons(i include dorian in this, even though he's technically an ally, i guess) are humans save for lorelei, the merchant? and save for tarquin, they're all mages, folks who have at least some standing in tevinter society. i haven't read the supporting novels/comics so i don't know all of the details surrounding mae and neve's backstories--but even though mae's been stripped of her magisterium seat and presumably faces discrimination in tevinter as a trans woman, she has had some level of privilege as an altus (she was a magister with a magister parent, so i'm assuming that's the accurate social class to put her in). dorian has been harmed by societal homophobia, but he is still an altus with a seat in the magisterium. the viper is, at minimum, an altus. elves are rescued from slavery, aided and supported by the shadow dragons, which is great, but they lack agency. they aren't the leaders of their own movement, they aren't even a strong consideration. a group of people, mostly human mages, can attempt to change tevinter by installing a new archon, theoretically for the benefit of elves (the primary victims of tevinter slavery), without including a single elf in the conversation, or even considering if their opinion should matter.

it is, imo, shortsighted at best to have the group of fantasy freedom fighters/abolitionists to mostly be controlled by the privileged, especially without making any commentary on that and the potential issues with it, especially if the writers' intent (even if not officially confirmed) is to make one of their advisors the leader of the imperial church, which seems to still be relevant and powerful in tevinter society, even with the magisterium. putting aside the logistics of the viper not getting caught, is tevinter just so corrupt that there's no real difference for him to make within his own station? is he unwilling to use whatever political power he has as divine because it'll expose him to personal danger? would it compromise the shadow dragons? why would that not be a problem in itself given the goal is to end slavery in tevinter, if the dragons' ability to take decisive action is stymied by their own leadership? why not keep the viper as an ally, a patron, a sympathizer with means to support with no decisionmaking power (even that has its issues, if you think about corporate capture of regulatory bodies/nonprofits)?

like, to my knowledge this is information people have gotten through datamining, so i don't take it as canon, but like...if we're gonna treat this as canon, i would like to think about the implications of it beyond how surface-level cool it is for fantasy abolitionist batman to secretly be the fantasy imperial pope. consider that yes, these are people with good intentions, but they do not exist absent the power structures they grew up in.

[stormisamoth]

for a while I was kinda annoyed that bh decided to release predathos with minimal questions asked, until someone on here reminded me that they are, in fact, a dnd party. as someone who, when presented with berries as hot as the sun, ate them without hesitation because I wanted to know exactly how much they would fuck me up, I completely understand wanting to hit the big red button, consequences be damned. fuck yeah release that God eater, unleash the apocalypse, go crazy.

[fulcrums501st]

best part of hallucination Silco’s speech was when he was like “I thought getting freedom from my oppressors would free me, but I was wrong”

[luddlestons]

some oryms (and one Ashton) because these outfit designs were living rent-free in my head. Original arts of the fashions below!

Mythology AU by @jadequarze; AU Orym design by @stardustspecter; modern AU by @drawsmaddy; and AU where Bells Hells actually wear sensible clothes to Aeor by @astralleywright

[nattikay]

the constant inner struggle of a Na'vi speaker/teacher browsing Na'vi OCs

[a-room-of-my-own]