Collecting resources, references, and current events. | Run by & follows from @godofbooks | Terfs eat shit challenge; if you're a bigot I will block you so fucking fast
My name is Chris and some safety-minded friends and I are planning to put up mobile hydration stations around our city’s pride festival (happening at the end of June) to help festival-goers avoid heat exhaustion. We’ve already started the planning process, we already know what we’re going to try to do, but we’ve quickly realized that this is a pretty Sisyphean endeavor, and we’ve decided that we’ll need some community outreach.
Our linktree to donations and what we’re doing and why is below!
Water is a human right
We’re trying to hit about 1,000 dollars in advance, so that we can purchase a considerable amount of water as supply stock before the festival (about 200 cases, which amounts to a little under 10k water bottles). If you’re willing to help in other ways that aren’t monetary, AND you happen to live in Denver, we’d love help in our water crews—pulling wagons and loading and unloading water cases—and our driving crews that are going to help us move cases of water between supply points (OR bring water and heat-beating supplies of your own to share). If you don't live local and/or just can’t really help in any way right now, just reblog for reach, and that linktree also has resources talking about the signs of heat exhaustion, so you can educate yourself and your friends to help keep people in our collective communities safe.
Thank you so much for your time, and Happy Pride Month!
i dont think whites understand how being white makes literally everything easier.
it effects everything.
being trans is easier when youre white.
being gay is easier when youre white.
being disabled is easier when youre white.
being a woman is easier when youre white.
being autistic is easier when youre white.
oppression is eased when you are white, as you get extra privileges, and your whiteness is seen as a positive characteristic that in some ways counter-balances your other forms of being a minority. whiteness controls everything.
you are automatically way more innocent in your own oppression as a gay, trans, disabled person because of your whiteness.
Hey y'all. It's International Holocaust Awareness day
Both of these books changed me. Consider reading them or please share for someone else who might. It's never a bad thing to learn more.
Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz by Slomo Venezia This is one of the only books I've found that touches on the living conditions and viewpoint of a Jew from Greece. Reading it, the author felt like a friend. It was horrifying.
Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide this book explained people were taught to completely separate Jews from being human in people's minds in the years leading up to the Holocaust- especially in the medical field. It has interviews with some of the doctors who did these things.
The site for the books also has an archive of images, films, objects, publications, recorded sounds and documents. You can find information on many communities.
Thank you
Please remember that almost everyone around you is traumatized. I didn’t understand this when I was younger. I wondered why people acted so strangely and irrationally. Maybe all children wonder this. The author Robert Anton Wilson said (paraphrasing), “We have never seen a completely sane adult human.” No one makes it out of this life alive. It’s not their fault. Mercy, kindness, forgiving — these are what makes one human. They are other names for love. People break in the strangest of ways.
“Under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being." — Robert Anton Wilson
does anyone else feel like they have watched the contemporary neonazi movement in america go from a simmer to a rolling boil over the past 10 years and youve done everything you can to try to make people aware of it but everyone regarded it as insane and dismissed it as not being able to happen here
i was going through my old research papers and found one from the 2016-17 academic year where i and multiple classmates wrote 50+ pages basically laying out how white supremacists were organizing in plain sight and how trump's presidency was going to enable them. we received a good grade but were told the idea was somewhat catastrophizing and that it probably wouldnt materialize into anything huge.
in college i wrote so many papers and gave so many presentations about, like, the EXACT scenario unfolding right now. and every time it was just kind of regarded as well-researched-but-hysterical worst case scenario thinking.
my senior year of college i taught multiple class sessions about the importance of banned books, and we used the Handmaids Tale as our central text. like half of the class was basically like "this makes a lot of sense, but are you sure this book and topic is appropriate for this?". literally a few months later is when Roe V Wade was overturned.
when i left teaching, too... its because i didnt feel safe. parents were complaining and demanding info on all of our materials because our class had Melissa by Alex Gino in it. a teacher in a nearby district resigned from his job because parents excessively demanded he remove a pride flag from his classroom and the school sided with them. local "informed community" facebook groups semi-regularly had (and still have) posts with hundreds of comments accusing local teachers of "indoctrinating" kids with trans ideology. i saw a future in which my job and safety could be in jeopardy if i was outed to the wrong parents. yet, even my progressive "ally" professors were basically like "we need to figure out why queer people are leaving the field :( please help us understand better". as if i hadnt been saying it for years! for motherfucking YEARS!
and now, so many red states have plowed beyond "dont dare mention queer people or racism to kids" straight to "we need to teach the bible and ten commandments in our public schools". there is now a case heading for the supreme court making the argument for tax funded religious schools. idaho has passed a resolution requesting the supreme court overturn gay marriage. the writing is on the fucking wall!
project 2025 feels like the most evident example of this - these assholes can publish all of their plans in plain sight, and yet everyone acts like youre being fucking ridiculous if you mention it. as if the authors of it havent been nominated to cabinet positions. as if the plans detailed in it arent literally what his executive orders have contained so far.
im fucking sick of it. im sick of this. "what would you have done during WW2" as a question is loaded because so many people think the conditions for the holocaust emerged overnight. its the years leading up to it! its the groundwork they laid and the way they laid blame for the economic and social conditions on scapegoated communities! fucks sake! its never too late to help, but jesus christ the time to do something was 10 fucking years ago!
a bunch of minority communities have this attitude that goes, like, "those outsiders don't get you like we do. they hate you. we don't hate you. you're one of us. you're safe here, with us." and every time it triggers a virulent antibody response in me. fuck off!! you don't know me!!! and i sure as shit don't feel safe among you lot!!!! it, like, turns a shared oppression into some cult shit and i hate it for that.
It also moves remarkably quickly from 'yes, all members of ingroup have a natural affinity with one another' to 'that person who disagrees with me isn't *really* a member of the ingroup; don't be like that person'
How fucking annoying is it when you feel so restless with creative energy but you can’t decide what to do with it and when you finally try to create something it comes out shit so you just give up and sit there being all creatively annoyed and jittery.
1 - Decision Making Fatigue is a thing.
--> Make a list of possibilities.
--> Use a random number generator to pick something off the list.
--> If you hate the idea cross it off and generate a new number.
--> Continue until you either find a project or cross off the whole list.
--> If you cross off the whole list pick a random short story prompt, write for five minutes, and call it a good work day.
2. Yeah, of course your rough draft sucks. It’s supposed to.
--> Let it suck.
--> You can fix it in edits.
3. When you’re stressed you aren’t unbiased about your work.
--> Don’t judge your work while your are actively working on it.
--> Remember to drink water, take your meds/vitamins, eat something, and get sleep.
--> Double-check to make sure the restless creative energy is not displaced emotional worries over something else. If it is, displace with intention and let the worries go into your work. You shouldn’t keep stress in your head, put it on a page, or canvas, or in a carving, or a meal, or something. Get it out and let it go.
4. No work is ever wasted.
--> All time spent planning and creating is useful in some way.
--> Failure means you tried, which is good.
--> Try again. Fail harder. Fail better.
--> Keep going until you like what you’re making.
5. Love yourself enough to allow yourself to not be perfect.
--> Seriously.
--> If this is a struggle I highly recommend seeing a doctor or therapist about depression.
--> Because you are dang lovable, my friend. You rock. You do great things. I’m proud of you.
do you have any knowledge of secure online communication that cannot be tracked or is at least difficult to track? my friend and i want to organize but we want to stay safe.
Secure vpn
Variety of different names (do not use ur govt name online at all)
Share an online document such as libreoffice
Move away from Google and chrome (Firefox & duckduckgo)
If anyone has better suggestions, pls drop in. I also think I reblogged a good post abt this, I will go looking
do not use the same email for personal and non personal things
do your best to avoid ANY cross contamination between the online and irl
yes that means no using your twitter login to make an account on another service's website
it also means that when possible do not use your phone number to make an account anywhere
if someone mentions your online name in a public space, act as though you've never heard of that person until you are 3174545174% sure they're cool, and even then be wary that you dont connect your online and irl
just like with tumblr, be judicious with your block button usage, while some sites have real shitty blocking systems, some still will actually prevent a blocked person from seeing your posts or at least prevent contact
get off twitter, meta, facebook, instagram, etc, i know we joke here on tumblr dot com that we're the last free social media but like... this IS one of the only sites that doesn't make it seem like you're REQUIRED to give your govt name when making an account
learn some languages, there's a lot of good people in other countries that are using these and other cybersecurity tips, you can always ask them what they use but there might be a language barrier
the work on how to be secure and safe online was already done, you just need to find the people that know it and are willing to tell you without assuming you're a narc
last one, learn what "the dark web" actually means and do more research
I will be looking at some of these myself, namely the international contacts. Really you've given a lot of great example of my key advice which is just Keep Everything Seperate. I used to play a game as a kid where I'd see how much I could find out about a stranger with as little information as possible. And the answer is basically "if you have a Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram account, way more people can find you than you would like to think".
Also ppl in notes have been telling me about Signal - go check it out!
I'm currently making a survival book, its going to inclue everything you need to run, how to cross borders (only if necessary), the safest states right now, the unsafest states, how to protect yourself in a red area, what places to stay at if your running, nearby jobs and other ways to get money, what foods are best to get, how to make certain foods, electronic related advice, the safest messaging apps, what not to say in messages, guide to doctors if you have a uterus or are a women, what plants are safe to eat, various poisons, how to deal with cops, a map of the local area and where cops hang out, how to survive in the woods, clothes you should bring, what to do about your period if your on the run, methods of birth control and what's the best, how to legally change your name and the amount of money it costs, how to a car if your in a non walkable area, first aid tips, how to get and use a burner phone, what type of weapons you might need and how to use them, a guide on how to use most commonplace guns, chargers to use for any devices you might bring.
All of it, I've got multiple notebooks to I'm spreading it across them.
I'm looking for other things to add too it, or if you see one or more subjects in here that you know a lot about/ can help with, feel free to reply or reblog with it, and if you don't want it attached to your profile, my asks are open and free to use. Anything is helpful, anything at all.
I'll be deleting this by January, you have until then to send.
Please, please please please, reblog this. don't just 'like' it
SMS, RCS, Facebook Messenger, Viber, Snapchat - All of these are not private, and can easily be accessed by authorities.
iMessage and WhatsApp are slightly safer, but will still be accessible by authorities
I would recommend either Element, SimpleX, Briar, Session, or Threema for private and secure communications.
Many VPNs harvest a lot of data, which can be given to authorities. Some VPNs that do not do this are ProtonVPN, Mullvad VPN, IVPN, and Windscribe. Proton has the best free tier, and Mullvad is the best overall.
The most popular email providers are also not private. Gmail, Yahoo!, and Outlook in particular should be avoided. I would recommend either Tutanota, Posteo, Mailbox.org, or Disroot.
Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and other search engines keep logs of your search queries. Good replacements are DuckDuckGo, Startpage, Brave Search, SearXNG, PriEco, and Ecosia.
Edge, Chrome and Chromium also collect a lot of data, including browsing history. Some private alternatives include Firefox, Waterfox, Librewolf, Tor Browser, Mullvad Browser, Brave, and DuckDuckGo Browser.
Tails is a Linux distribution that runs off a USB stick. It routes all networking over Tor, and all data (except for the Persistence folder) is cleared on shutdown.
Switching to Linux may be a good idea, as the NSA is known to put backdoors in Windows
Go through your settings and turn off any tracking or analytics
Be careful sharing photos on social media, as they can sometimes be used to pinpoint your location
Put your phone in a faraday pouch when not in use. This will block out any radio communications, including GPS and mobile service, and thereby obscure your location
Under current US law, authorities cannot force you to enter your password or passcode without a warrant. However, they can force you to use biometrics (e.g. Face ID, fingerprint, etc.)
I also have some further resources which I found incredibly helpful:
Techlore (https://www.techlore.tech)
Techlore: Go Incognito (https://www.techlore.tech/goincognito)
The New Oil (https://thenewoil.org/)
Privacy Guides (https://privacyguides.org/)
The Hated One (https://www.youtube.com/c/TheHatedOne)
And there's also a work of fiction by Cory Doctorow, which is available for free an a number of digital formats, and which I found inspirational:
Download Little Brother For Free | Cory Doctorow's craphound.com
hey I found it for you again!! Tumblr search function working pretty well - search "online safety" on my blog and you'll find everything I've ever put out on it
They say that the way you should view disagreements in relationships is “us vs the problem” and not “me vs them” and I think that to a certain extent that mindset can also be helpful when engaging in political or ideological movements
Taking feminism as an example, it’s a lot easier to see trans people and intersex people and even cis men as your allies within the movement when you view your movement as “us vs inequality and sexism” and not “women vs men”
If you’re some form of a socialist then working with people with different political ideologies than you becomes a lot easier when you view the problem as “us vs the bad system” instead of “socialists vs everyone else”
I personally at least find most problems easier to tackle once I attach this sort of mindset into it. You do not inherently in every situation need to view other human beings as your enemy. And in fact when your goal is to solve the problem and not to Defeat Your Opponent then you can get more creative with your problem solving.
Everyone living in the USA needs to inform themselves about "crisis pregnancy centers." They're not legitimate medical facilities and typically only have a nurse on staff, if even that.
"Crisis pregnancy centers" are UNREGULATED organizations that present themselves like medical facilities and often offer medical advice and information, but they are staffed by volunteers many of whom are not medical professionals, typically funded by churches and pro-life orgs, and exist to convince people not to have abortions. They often give "patients" misinformation and lies about abortion, contraception, and pregnancy.
These organizations often take the place of legitimate medical facilities particularly in impoverished areas despite being essentially fake medical clinics that offer few services and that are not bound to ethical or sanitary guidelines of real clinics.
A "crisis pregnancy center" in Kentucky was recently in the news because a nurse who volunteered there found that trans-vaginal ultrasound probes were being sanitized using disinfectant that was both expired and totally ineffective against HPV, a common sexually transmitted infection, meaning the clinic could have given their clients STIs with their shitty unregulated sanitation practices.
My MOM visited one of these "centers" when she was pregnant with me (a planned and wanted pregnancy) because she didn't know it was fake and unregulated!
People deserve real healthcare, not lies, randos dressed up in white coats, and disease-spreading, unsterilized equipment like it's the 1700s.
it exists to divide the working class. All labour is skilled labour. Yes including that one. Yes, including that one too.
Do you know what's unskilled labour? Owning capital. There's no labour involved, thus requires no skill. And you can tell because people can be born into owning capital.
I’m currently in the US and was wondering if you have any idea about how I might potentially diy hrt
hey great question, this got asked very recently and fortunately i was sent a good youtube video about it! i've linked the original ask, as well as the video & a backup in case it goes down!
this video will be way more informative than i could be as i haven't had to DIY my HRT fortunately. if you need any more info feel free to come back and we'll try to get whatever we can for you!
Hey I remembered that y'all had asked about DIY HRT and Lily Alexandre posted a video just yesterday with a pseudo guide to how to do it saf
hi!! over the past year or so, i’ve been radicalizing leftwards (does that make sense?), and while i do like to say that i have a pretty good understanding of things like socialism and communism and such, one thing i haven’t really been able to figure out is what anarchism is and how it works. like, i get the basic idea, but what with google being google and most people on breadtube not being anarchist, it’s definitely not as easy to research as socialism.
anyways, tl;dr: what defines anarchism and how does it work?
thanks in advance! have a cookie 🍪
"Anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty: a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle for the means of existence,—the savage struggle which undermines the finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. In short, Anarchism strives towards a social organization which will establish well-being for all."
leftward ho! thanks for writing. these questions are always difficult to answer because i don’t know where you’re coming from on your personal journey. but i’ll try to answer some of the basics and recommend some good resources to start with.
first of all, there are many anarchisms and if you ask three anarchists you’ll get five opinions. but probably the most prevalent form of anarchism is anarcho-communism, so while i’ll try to talk broadly from a general anarchist position, much of it be from an anarchocommunist perspective for simplicity’s sake.
at it’s most basic, anarchism is an opposition to hierarchy, to one person having control over another. it is a radical commitment to compassion and absolute freedom. like communists, anarchists want a moneyless, stateless, and classless society. unlike leninists, who falsely claim to be communists, we know that there has never been a good state, and never can be. they are by their very nature oppressive, and cannot be used as a means to an end to achieve communism. no group or individual can wield that much power over others and not become corrupted by it. absolute power corrupts absolutely, etc. so while we are committed to the fight against capitalism, we are also committed to the fight against the state. they are intertwined and must be defeated simultaneously. so we believe in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion, and the abolition of money and private property, as the best way to ensure the basic and higher needs of everyone are met.
if you haven’t read it yet, the wikipedia article for anarchism is actually a pretty good place to start:
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions they claim maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessarily limited to, the state[1] and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies or other forms of free associations. As a historically left-wing movement, usually placed on the farthest left of the political spectrum, it is usually described alongside communalism and libertarian Marxism as the libertarian wing (libertarian socialism) of the socialist movement.
Humans lived in societies without formal hierarchies long before the establishment of formal states, realms, or empires. With the rise of organised hierarchical bodies, scepticism toward authority also rose. Although traces of anarchist thought are found throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Enlightenment. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, whose end marked the end of the classical era of anarchism. In the last decades of the 20th and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent once more.
Anarchism employs a diversity of tactics in order to meet its ideal ends which can be broadly separated into revolutionary and evolutionary tactics; there is significant overlap between the two, which are merely descriptive. Revolutionary tactics aim to bring down authority and state, having taken a violent turn in the past, while evolutionary tactics aim to prefigure what an anarchist society would be like. Anarchist thought, criticism, and praxis have played a part in diverse areas of human society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
Anarchism - Wikipedia
i don’t know how much original theory you’ve read before, but i’ll give some reading recs. personally i’m a big fan of peter kropotkin, and found the conquest of bread to be a breath of fresh air after studying marx for years. others have recommended starting with errico malatesta’s anarchy or peter gelderloos’ anarchy works. and zoe baker (anarchopac) is excellent if videos or tweets are more your speed.
Pëtr Kropotkin The Conquest of Bread 1906
Pëtr Kropotkin Mutual Aid A Factor of Evolution 1902
Errico Malatesta Anarchy 1891 Freedom Press 1974, 1994. ISBN 0 900384 74 3. L’Anarchia was written in 1891, appeared in English translation
Peter Gelderloos Anarchy Works 2010 Anarchy Works was originally published by Little Black Cart and can be found in book form here.
I'm a trans woman (she/her), who talks about the theory and history of anarchism, feminism and marxism. I have a PhD in the history of anarc
getting involved masterpost
hopefully that’s enough to get you started but please feel free to ask questions, and there are many more knowledgable people here who can help as well.
