#political events

[tatersgonnatate]

You tell 'em Danny.

hits blunt

You tell 'em

[tmarshconnors]

Tennis Court Oath

On 20 June 1789, the members of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath in the tennis court which had been built in 1686 for the use of the Versailles palace.

During the Estates-General Assembly in 1789, the French people, represented by three estates (clergy, nobility, and commoners), convened to address the country's financial crisis and political issues. However, tensions arose between the representatives of the Third Estate (commoners) and the other two estates, as the Third Estate sought equal representation and voting power, which the clergy and nobility were reluctant to grant.

Frustrated by the lack of progress and the inequality within the Estates-General, the representatives of the Third Estate decided to break away and form their own assembly. They called themselves the National Assembly, declaring that they represented the will of the French people. Their goal was to create a new constitution for France and initiate reforms.

However, when the National Assembly arrived at their meeting place in Versailles on June 20, 1789, they found that the doors to their usual meeting hall had been locked by orders of King Louis XVI. Fearing that the king was trying to dissolve their assembly and suppress their efforts, they relocated to a nearby indoor tennis court known as the "Jeu de Paume" to continue their proceedings.

Inside the tennis court, the representatives of the Third Estate, led by figures like Maximilien Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, took an oath not to disband until they had successfully created a new constitution for France. This oath is now known as the Tennis Court Oath. The oath solidified the resolve of the National Assembly to stand united against the traditional order and marked a crucial turning point in the French Revolution, inspiring people across the country to support the cause for change.

The Tennis Court Oath was a critical step in the revolutionary process. Eventually, it led to further significant events such as the storming of the Bastille, the abolition of feudal privileges, and the transformation of France into a constitutional monarchy, followed by the eventual abolition altogether.

[squeelokitty]

Imagine being 19 when 9/11 happens and watching politicians think they have a right to inspect people's library history. And realizing that the state you're in college in is home to the only senator who voted against the Patriot Act (Russ Feingold, D-WI) and why that act of courage mattered. And watching all of the false flag and it never happened and whatever theories show up overnight in real time on the Internet. And meanwhile some of your college friends drop out to join the military and some of them don't come back and many more don't come back okay.

We went from being able to go with your family to your airport gate to worrying about nail clippers and bottled water overnight. A few years later it was shoes, and having to take your laptop out of your bag and put it in a separate bin to go through the scanner.

When I was 16, I went on an exchange trip to Germany with about a dozen other students. I remember seeing military armed with very large guns at the security lines in Frankfurt and thinking, wow, this is nuts, we don't have anything like this.

I don’t know how to explain this well…but I’m 30 years old and I feel like I’ve had to ‘sacrifice’ my entire adult life to unprecedented times, the pandemic and daily anxiety over hateful politicians and whatever rights they want to take away on any given day and I’m just so fucking tired

[strawlessandbraless]

What an unsurprising & completely expected turn of events that literally everyone saw coming 😮

Source 🔗

Free 🔗

[johnny-depp-is-loved]

Please, spread this for those who might need it right now

U.S. suicide hotline: call or text 988 (available 24 hours)

U.S. trans lifeline: (877) 565-8860 (when you call, you’ll speak to a trans/nonbinary peer operator. full anonymity and confidentiality)

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357) – provides 24/7 confidential support and referrals for individuals and families facing mental health and substance use disorders, including panic attacks and anxiety.

LGBT National Help Center: (888) 843-4564

Trevor Project: Call (866) 488-7386, text START to 678-678, or chat online.

Take care of yourself and each other. Please stay safe ♡

[politijohn]

Source

[everlastingrandom]

This morning there was a nation-wide text spam campaign targeting Black Americans (largely students) telling them that they’ve been selected to pick cotton and will be picked up to be sent to a plantation after Trump’s inauguration.

People online are making jokes about it, but it’s genuinely a disturbing sign. Someone was emboldened enough to intentionally run a background on thousands of young Black people and send them racist messages the day after a very exhausting and stressful election.

[sturionic]

Activism is not cold-calling.

Activism is not cold-calling, and this is critically important to understand.

I'm seeing a lot of posts on here about 'building bridges' and 'finding community,' and then (extremely valid) response posts saying "BUT HOW??" And I'm going to explain something that can be very counter-intuitive: there is strategy involved in community.

As a longtime volunteer labour organizer, I’ve taken and taught many trainings on the strategy of talking. Something that surprises a lot of people is the very first thing you do in a union campaign. You sit down with your organizing committee, take out pen and paper, and literally map it out. You draw a physical map of the workplace: where are the entrances, exits, break rooms, supervisor offices. Essentially, ‘where is it safe to have a union conversation.’ Then you draw another physical chart of your coworkers. You sort out who is union-friendly, openly hostile to unions, or somewhere in the middle, and then you plan out very deliberately and carefully who talks to whom and in what order.

Consider: If Vocally Leftist Jane walks up to Conservative David and says "hey what do you think about unions," David is going to shut down immediately. He's not inclined to listen to Jane. But if Jane talks to Moderate Jason and brings him into the fold, then Jason is a far more effective strategic choice to talk to David, and David may actually hear him out without an instant reaction.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: If Conservative David turns out to be Alt-Right David, and could be dangerous to follow organizers, we write him off. We are not trying to reach Alt-Right David. We are trying to reach Conservative David, who may actually be persuaded to find solidarity with other employees as fellow workers. Jason is a safe scout to find out which one he is. It does no one any good if Leftist Jane (or even Moderate Jane who is a visible minority) talks to Alt-Right David and puts herself on his radar. Not only has she done nothing to convince Alt-Right David to join a union - she's probably actively turned him against the idea - but now she's also in danger and the entire campaign is at risk. NOBODY WANTS THIS. Jane was NOT a hero for doing this. The organizing committee was foolish and enacted a terrible strategy to everyone's detriment.

Where you can make a difference is with people who will listen to you. You having a conversation with your well-meaning but clueless Centrist Democrat Auntie, and maybe gently helping her understand some things the media has been glossing over, is way more strategically useful than you marching up to MAGA Neighbour You've Met Once and trying to "build community" or "understand" them. They don't care. They're impervious, dangerous, and cruel. But maybe your beloved auntie will think about what you said, and then talk to her friend Anna who IDs as "fiscally conservative" but didn't vote because she can't bring herself to get on board with Trump. Then perhaps Anna talks to her brother Nic who has MAGA leanings but isn't all the way there yet. Proto-MAGA Nic would not have listened to you, nor would he have listened to Centrist Democrat Auntie, but he might absorb some of what his sister is saying.

This is not a cop-out or an echo chamber. This is you spending your time and energy strategically and safely. You are not a useful activist to anyone if you’re dead. Anyone who is telling you to hurl yourself directly at MAGA assholes like cannon fodder has no understanding of the strategy behind community building, and you should feel comfortable writing them off.

Last point: If you are tired, emotionally devastated, and/or in danger: take a break. This post is for people who would feel better jumping into action, not for people who are too overwhelmed to even think about it right now. You are worth so much even if you’re not actively Doing Activism, and your rest is worth more than “a break period so you can recharge and Do More Activism.” We all deserve the individual dignity of being worthy of comfort, rest & safety just on the basis of being human, outside of whatever we're doing for others' benefit. To deny ourselves that dignity is to devalue ourselves, and that’s the absolute last thing any of us should be doing right now.

[moonlayl]

[mutopians]

before we get an official announcement on who is replacing biden as the nominee, im just going to put this out there: do not mess this up. i don't care how little you like politics. i don't care if this new nominee isn't your first choice.

our alternative is trump. third party splits the votes, and abstaining is just going to fuck the entire united states over. your vote (AND support) matters, and i better see anyone who doesn't want trump to be elected and the United States to become a fascist, authoritarian regime throwing their full support behind this new nominee.

we have three months to go. we're in crunch time. if you don't want to lose your rights, support this new nominee with everything you've got.

edit: just in case this somehow wasn't obvious, this is NOT the post to be a pessimist on. don't say we're fucked. say TRUMP is fucked. we can't go back and change the nomination timeline, but we can absolutely support our new nominee and ensure they get elected.

[trendynewsnow]

The Unpredictability of the Future: Insights from History and Psychology

The Uncertainty of the Future Humans may well be the only species capable of envisioning an unknown future, yet this ability does not guarantee that we excel at predicting it. Time and time again, we stumble when attempting to forecast pivotal aspects of our lives—be it the career path we will choose, the places we will eventually call home, or the relationships we will nurture. This tendency to…

[troythecatfish]

This measure, if passed in Senate, would make it illegal for the US State Department to cite genocide statistics.

In other words, illegal to do its job.

[politijohn]

Source

[wordswithkittywitch]

"I don't want to see anyone blaming abstaining voters for this!"

Of course you don't. The entire idea of abstaining was that you could pretend this didn't involve you. Not getting blamed was more important to you than doing any kind of damage control, more important than protecting any of the people you said you wanted to protect. And in this moment, I don't really care what you want. Of course, this isn't entirely your fault. Of course other people made this worse. But if you're going to pretend you had nothing to do with this, forgive me if I ignore you.

[uchidachi]

Trump is found guilty on 34 out of 34 counts!