#how to protest

[captainpirateface]

[tuttle-did-it]

STOP USING BIOMETRICS TO UNLOCK YOUR TECH BEFORE GOING TO A PROTEST, RALLY, OR ACCESSING BIRTH CONTROL OPTIONS

Encrypt your tech. If you are US based, or in a country that does not protect your rights when it comes to cops, please read these article. There are not currently laws stopping the police from using your thumb or face to unlock your phone without consent or a warrant. Especially if you are taking any part in any protests throughout America, or accessing birth control needs.

Or you're, you know, queer, disabled, a person of colour, a woman, or generally just know how horrible the cops and government can be. They can pull you over for no reason, unlock your phone, and look for something to charge you with later. They can and will and have.

Cops will do ANYTHING they want, and chances are, the courts will let them.

(this might be relevant for other countries, too-- the protest rights are completely fucked here in the UK, so please be careful out there!!)

Helpfully, there is also a cop-proof your phone article as well:

[wewanttolive]

Do you want to get involved in protesting and campaigning for what you believe in but are unsure about getting started? That’s totally okay, it can be a bit intimidating at first so I will be explaining some common roles in protests.

!!Not everyone will be able to play the same parts, that does not make yours or anyone else’s actions any less meaningful!!

Heads up - Most of these roles are from my own personal experience, particularly with peaceful protesting in groups such as Extinction Rebellion.

Casuals - A really big role in protests is just showing up in movement comfortable clothes to show your support. If you are interested in attending a protest like this, you can also help carry banners, flags and sing along to chants.

Bunnies/Arrestables - This is a more intimidating position to be in, bunnies are people whose intent is to get arrested to bring more media attention. Often bunnies will be the ones chaining themselves to things, blocking off oil refinery entrances and main roads to cause disruption and bring attention to the cause. When becoming a bunny, talk to your protest group, there will be police liaisons and organisers knowledgeable in the law to be there with you every step of the way and make sure you have a buddy through your arrest to keep you safe.

Organisers - Organisers have a really important job of keeping track of protests and bringing people together for them. Lots of organisers will also lead and direct protests, especially in marches and ensure people and are safe. Many organisers wear high visibility vests to make them stand out, so if you have any concerns or questions, they are a great place for answers.

Chanters - Chants can be amazing during protests, they might not seem super important but chants draw attention, spread awareness of the cause of the protest to passer-by’s as well as encouraging moral and raising people’s spirits. It’s a way to educate and inspire both protestors and bystanders. Megaphones can be helpful for chanters and creating and singing chants is both a fun and great way to protest!

Publicity/Photographers - Protests are meant to spread information and inspire a change, live-streaming, taking photographs, writing articles and sharing and spreading news of local protests and why they’re occurring is how more people discover the cause and join. Publicity for protests is also amazing as it can put more pressure on governments and companies to abide by putting them in the spotlight.

Media groups - If you enjoy dressing up and leaving an impression, media groups can be a great fit for you. Just inside of XR (Extinction Rebellion), there are groups such as the Red Rebels, Whaley’s, Sybil’s and Oilies, they are very noticeable due to often synchronised movements, matching symbolic attire and how many media groups can be seen leading marches and drawing interest. Media groups are made to be noticeable and this can result in more news coverage and curious bystanders. People are always welcome to join as the more numbers, the better.

For information on the different media groups, I will be making a post describing each groups cause and how to identify them.

Crafters - For anyone looking to put their creative skills to use, there are always a multitude of supplies that can benefit protests such as painting banners, making flags, collaborating on big props, even aiding the media group in creating costumes. Protest groups often do get a lot of donated supplies and materials and it can be so helpful and eye catching to include them in protests, making crafters another important protest group.

Police Liaisons - Police liaisons are there to make sure interactions with law enforcement go smoothly, particularly when going through public areas, causing disruption and when bunnies are involved. They do require a fair amount of legal knowledge but by assisting people in ensuring their rights are met and that police are following guidelines, it allows for safer, smoother protests.

Guest speaker - Protests are a show of support for different causes and there aren’t many things more inspiring than someone having the courage to speak for what they know is right and both educate and share their personal experiences. To become a guest speaker, acquire or borrow a microphone/megaphone whether one personally owned or owned by the protest group and speaking and organising things with organisers to ensure your voice can be heard best. Particularly in marches, guest speakers highlight the different stops we make and draw attention from passer-by’s.

Contacters - Not everyone is able to personally attend protests or do some of these roles and that is perfectly understandable. To protest from your own home can still make just as much of an impact. Many protest groups encourage communication to local government members such as MP’s, mainly through letters and emails and the more that are sent and encouraged, the more our message is spread. Protest groups such as Greenpeace also supply pre written emails to send with all the information you need and there are huge amounts of useful petitions to keep on top of and spread around. Using social media to share information can be useful as well, whether that is by gathering information to share or spreading the word of activities, everything helps.

Hopefully you will have found something that works for you and nothing requires you to stick to one forever either. Just remember that protesting is a right that should be utilised, we all deserve the opportunity to fight for justice, whether social or environmental, and to stay safe!

[miath3great]

yo, everyone read this

As protests start ramping up and violence escalates please remember:

DO NOT PUT MILK IN YOUR EYES FOR PEPPER SPRAY OR TEAR GAS.

It can and will cause infection due to bacteria. Flush with water, distilled if possible, and never EVER wear contact lenses to protests where there may be police retaliation.

Please reblog. It may save someone's sight.

[remindertoclick]

Here's your daily reminder to click for Palestine!!!

U.S. residents, take 5 minutes and use this link to pressure your members of Congress to stop sending weapons to the Israeli military!!

(Letter variants you can copy/paste under the cut!!)

Original letter written by Jewish Voice for Peace:

I am writing as your constituent to ask that you do everything in your power to press the Biden administration to suspend all weapons shipments to the Israeli military, and oppose all future military funding to Israel. The Israeli government has vowed to push forward with a large-scale military operation in Rafah, even though President Biden has repeatedly said such an operation would be a "red line." On May 7, the Israeli military seized the Rafah border crossing, a crucial passage for humanitarian aid, and ordered 100,000 Palestinians in eastern Rafah to evacuate. The 1.3 million displaced Palestinians sheltering in Rafah will have nowhere to flee should a full invasion commence. Millions of Palestinian lives now hang in the balance. I urge you to do everything in your power to stop this unfolding catastrophe before it's too late. Thank you.

Slight variations I created (so that emails don't get marked as spam for being identical to each other)

Variation 1:

I'm writing to you as your constituent to ask you to do everything you can to pressure the Biden administration into suspending all weapons shipments to the Israeli military and opposing any and all future military funding to Israel! The Israeli government is pushing forward with a large-scale military operation in Rafah. President Biden has repeatedly said such an operation would be a "red line," yet his administration is still supporting this operation. On May 7th 2024, the Israeli military seized the Rafah border crossing, a crucial passage for humanitarian aid, and forced 100,000 Palestinians in eastern Rafah to abandon their homes. 1.3 million Palestinians have been displaced. Those sheltering in Rafah have nowhere to flee during a full invasion. Millions of Palestinian lives now hang in the balance. Their fate lies in the hands on Congress, in your hands. I urge you to do everything in your power to stop this unfolding catastrophe before it's too late. Thank you.

Variation 2:

I'm writing you today to ask that you do everything in your power to convince the Biden administration to stop funding Israel. We have to telk them to stop all shipments of weapons to the Israeli military and oppose all future military funding to Israel. The Israeli government has vowed to push forward with a large-scale military operation in Rafah... President Biden made it clear that such an operation would be a "red line," and yet he continues to fund them. On May 7th of this year, the Israeli military seized the Rafah border crossing, a crucial passage for humanitarian aid, and forced 100,000 Palestinians to flee their own home of Eastern Rafah. Should a full invasion commence, 1.3 million displaced Palestinians sheltering in Rafah will have nowhere safe to go. Millions of Palestinian lives now hang in the balance. I am begging you now, as your constituent, to do everything in your power to stop this unfolding catastrophe before it's too late... Thank you

[hussyknee]

Trying to explain what the fuck just happened in Lankan politics today.

The leftist party has won 159 seats out of 218 in the Parliamentary elections. The single biggest landslide win since we broke from the British and achieved universal franchise in 1948.

Any party achieving a super majority in the executive and legislative is, objectively speaking, bad. It disables checks and balances, which is a catastrophic thing for any democracy, and the only two other times it's happened for us has irrevocably eroded the fabric of civic rights and democratic freedom. Also, the reason the NPP won the North and East is that the colonized, genocided and subjugated people there have no faith in electoralism anymore. The way this government has engaged minority issues has been utterly abysmal and now they've been rewarded for it.

On the other hand:

The winners. Are all. Grassroots. Candidates.¹

We have voted out every single career criminal that's been barnacled into the Lankan political arena since before I've been alive. The fascist party has only three seats.² The other fascists didn't win a single seat. The neoliberal legacy party won none. There are only forty people in Parliament that represent any sort of dynastic political legacy. After 76 solid years of nothing but political dynasties.

This is barely five years after the Rajapaksas swept in and absolutely glutted the Parliament with their family members and cronies end to end.

This is the illegitimate interim government we had for most of the last 18 months. We literally, physically, chased the Rajapaksas out of the country and this fucking demon set up a puppet government just so he could finally sit in that goddamn chair and be the despot he'd always dreamed of in exchange for letting them all come back. He's now gone. His entire circle is gone.

THEY ARE ALL FUCKING GONE.

In US terms, just imagine that, five years from now, when Trump's GOP has control of everything, the entire GOP and the worst of the Dems are all purged from Congress and Senate, the Green Party in control of all three branches of government under a pro-union left-wing President and an unmarried female LGBT rights activist Vice President, and the Dems reduced to barely 20% of the House.

This is my anthropology professor. She joined politics from the small nascent leftist coalition to help keep the government accountable. She's now the Prime Minister and the most popular Parliamentary candidate in the nation's history. (Edit: She was knocked off first place by a dude in the final result. Boo.)

(On the other hand— the woman who helped make me a radical anarchist and literally helped write a book on political dissent and resistance...now is the state. Uh.)

But there are so many women in Parliament! We had the lowest female representation in a South Asian Parliament and some of them were from the list of seats reserved for parties rather than elected ones. Most were either anti-feminist conservative embarrassments, widows and daughters of elite politicians and neoliberal shills. It's still only an increase of a few percentage points (Edit: from the previous 5% to 10% in the final result!) but now we have elected academics, feminist advocates, activists! There Is a representative for Malaiyaha Tamils in the Central Province for the first time in history and it's a young woman! (Edit: now it's two female Malaiyaha MPS!!) This is the plantation community that still live in conditions closest to the slavery the British forced upon them two hundred years ago!

I'm like. Completely mindfucked. To be very very clear, the NPP coalition formed around the nucleus of the JVP that used to be communist but haven't been in 30 years, they're now just social democrats who are left of places like the US and UK, whose "left" is now center-right. They're only threatening to the Western mainstream media for some reason who can't stop bleating about how we have a "Marxist" government now. In reality, the actual chances for radical reform are still quite low, and the opportunity for further erosion is quite high with a super majority government regardless of affiliation.

On the other hand:

What the fuck.

Sometimes living through historical events is really damn amazing.

---

¹ Well, nearly. There are a few career politicians and a nepo baby but they aren't so bad either.

² Goddamn it, Baby Rajapaksa and Sri Lanka's answer to JD Vance have wormed their way in using the list of Constitutionally reserved party seats for non-elected members. FUCK the National List.

[flightyquinn]

Stop going to movies. Cancel your streaming services. Literally boycott Hollywood. Even on the small scale for budgets, making movies and TV shows costs millions. We like to think of big businesses as too massive to assail, that they have so much money that simply voting with your wallet can't do anything to them, but that's not really true for the entertainment industry. They have to constantly spend massive amounts of money, because entertainment isn't just expensive to produce, but has a relatively short "shelf life" to make money on.

If box office sales tank, and subscriber numbers plummet, Hollywood has to take notice. They literally can't afford not to. If you organized a protest of not buying movie tickets and cancelling streaming service subscriptions for just a month, maybe two, and it got just a couple thousand people onboard (not hard on the internet), those numbers would be noticeable to The Industry. If they thought it might go longer, or it was a substantially bigger group of people? You might cause people to panic.

Especially investors. Regardless of if The Company knows it can recover, investors are have precious little loyalty to any one company at the best of times, and don't like taking losses. They can and will jump ship for better prospects, and that means that if they're Not Happy, then nobody is.

by the way, it’s real bold of hollywood to be like “the writers and actors have unrealistic expectations, but WE know what we’re doing” when they got tricked into releasing morbius in theaters a second time.

[technically-human]

It's not complicated, it's just weird

[nando161mando]

how weird would it be if no one was protesting this?

[cricketcat9]

This is really impressive. We should learn because I don’t think the future looks particularly tranquil.

In my area protests are low tech, but there was very efficient production of face shields from big 10 litre water bottles.

tactics

[cuterefaction]

Happy Bell Riots day to all who celebrate!

[brainrotcharacters]

Mothers and fuckers of the ketchup and mustard household (I'm going even more insane than usual)

[pidgydraws]

🐕 dog dads 🐕

[ghostbsuter]

There was a teen in the cave.

A teen no one knows and looks like he could be a wayne, stands in the cave.

"Actually, I'm a wayne." He says with a shrug.

Bruce, Batman, carefully thinks of the implication.

"Not yet," The teen, Danny, doesn't say anything. Simple smiles. "You're not a wayne, yet. You will be. But not yet."

Then Bruce sighs, dropping the batman mask in order to take in the teen.

"Does future me know of the time travel?"

Dannys smile grows into a grin, deciding to take pity on the man. "You, grandbat, have..." He makes a vague gesture. "Theories, which none of your children ever confirmed."

The bat's mind short-circuits at the choice of words

Dick is sputtering incomprehensibly, there are Baffled expression all around.

Because.

Because that child isn't Bruce's, but one of theirs.

"Who is it?" Jason demands, hand clenching his gun uselessly.

Danny continues to smile, a hint of mischief now peeking out.

The cave is filled with theories, some yell, some sob, yet all eyes leave danny.

All but one pair.

She had known the moment his body language switched just enough for her to read.

She had known the moment he disappeared before the clan.

Had known when his hand found hers, shoulders bumping.

Her heart clenches, throat dry and memories of her childhood flooding to mind.

So she asks, voice soft and hesitant.

"Am I a good mother?"

And danny looks up at cass, adoration and pride laid out plain for her to see and accept.

"You're the best."

And so they both watch the clan together, silent and comfortable.

(Cass doesn't question when she finds him, how and why. All she knows is that she's more attentive when out on patrol, looking and waiting.)

(This is how Cassandra Cain-Wayne returns one night from patrol, a child, barely out of toddler stage and clinging to her form.)

(This is how the Batclan officially meets one Daniel James Cain-Wayne, freshly washed and clothed, a cookie in hand and hiding shyly behind Cass.)

(When they meet, all they say is "Welcome home, danny," and "Good to see you again.", Danny doesn't necessarily get it, but that's okay. Maybe his new mom will explain it one day when he's bigger.)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy Halloween! 🧼🥩🎃