Dead rp account luntica = main blog (system blog not serious stuff ussually) I do have a 21+ blog but you gotta figure that one out yourself ask-lunticas-characters = system blog (serious stuff)
The Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW, is a labor union. Where some unions focus on specific industries or companies, the IWW is open to all workers.
The IWW aims to unite the working class against the bosses & billionaires who exploit us, pollute the world, & terrorize its people with capitalist violence.
Who can Join?
As long as you are a worker â not an employer â you can join the IWW.
We accept members of other unions (except officers), students, retirees, the unemployed, the self-employed and freelance, and those in informal professions. Those unable to work may also join. To us, you are all working class.
Who can't join?
There is a difference in interests at work between employees and employers. The IWW is closed to bosses, and anyone who has the power to hire or fire employees.
The IWW also does not permit any law enforcement officers, prison guards, or landlords. These positions undermine the power of the working class and are not considered workers by the IWW.
What can the IWW do for me?
Organization: Fight to win better working conditions at your job with the weight of the IWW behind you.
Education: Receive help from our Organizing Department and your other fellow workers in your local branch in building the skills you need to start organizing a union at your job
Agitation: You need a union, and so does every other worker in the world â spread the good word with us!
Solidarity: Be part of something bigger than yourself and your workplace â meet other fellow workers, be supported by them, and support them in turn
Comradery: Find joy with your fellow workers in standing together and fighting for a better world.
Community: Get to know other friendly fellow workers who are invested in building a kinder, a more humane, and a more just future (and who understand the unfair bullshit at your current job).
Join the IWW today!
Print this zine to share with your friends & Fellow Workers! (Not sure how to fold a zine? Check out this tutorial!)
hello fellow artists. google has fallen. pinterest/duckduckgo AI filters don't work. do not despair; here is a list i made of places to find reference images without having to sift through piles of worthless garbage. (for future editing convenience i am just linking my blog post on dreamwidth.)
âš good places to find art reference that are not full of AI trash đ
Sesame Street posting techniques for comforting children during traumatic world events feels so fucking dystopian but here are the slides they posted just in case you or a loved one has any little critters at home right now
No one is doing well right now, but being a little critter right now has got to be terrifying. This is such a crushing series of images, especially considering PBSâs funding got slashed. While Iâm happy Sesame Street continues to keep the wellbeing and education of children as a major priority, thereâs a certain amount of innocence that Sesame Street represents and this is giving me such a visceral feeling rn
A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower has released the identities of about 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol employees Tuesday in what h
A whistleblower at the fascist DHS has released the names of 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol agents, providing an unprecedented means to monitor and counter their local presence
Share this, please. Do not be fooled by ICEâs administrative warrants. They are NOT a legal basis for a search or to enter your home or business. For that, ICE must present a JUDICIAL WARRANT.
The southern states in the US are expecting to get hit with severe winter weather this weekend (temperatures below freezing, ice, and snow). The type that we do not experience on the regular. Speaking as a southerner, many of us are not good at coping with this type of thing. I want to emphasize something: this is not our faults. The infrastructure in southern states were not built to be suitable for this type of weather. The supplies we have available to us to deal with snow and ice aren't nearly as vast as northern states because this type of weather is not normal for us.
That being said, it would be wise to prepare in every way possible while there is still time. Even if it doesn't turn out as bad as predicted, better to be safe than sorry. Here is a checklist of things to consider:
Stock Up On:
âą Multiple Gallons of Water (water lines are very likely to freeze, even with faucets dripping)
âą First Aid Supplies (You never know when it could be needed.)
âą Long-Lasting Candles (in case the power goes out, but flashlights are preferred over candles)
âą Matches (lighter fluid freezes in cold temperatures)
âą Flashlights
âą Batteries
âą Paper Products (Toilet Paper, Paper Towels, Tissues, Paper Bowls + Plates, etc)
âą Hats, Gloves, Socks (Your hands, feet, and ears will thank you later.)
âą Blankets
âą Battery Banks (for your phone, in case electricity goes out)
âą For those who have a vehicle, make sure you fill it up on gas.
âą GET ANY NECESSARY MEDICATIONS REFILLED IF POSSIBLE.
DO:
âą Wear layers. I know this can be a sensory nightmare for some but if your electricity goes out, you will need to stay warm with what you have. If you have wool-based or waterproof fabrics, use it.
âą Take advantage of outdoor fireplaces and grills for heat if needed. Many homes these days do not have wood stoves or fireplaces, so if you absolutely need a heat source take advantage of what is outdoors if necessary.
âą Inform yourself of the symptoms of and basic treatments for hypothermia and frostbite.
âą Pay attention to your health. Do not overexert yourself. Do not waste your energy on tasks that are not immediately important. Conserve your energy.
DO NOT:
âą Do not leave any fires or other sources of heat unattended, and do not allow any flammable objects near sources of heat.
âą Do not use a gas-fueled oven or stove for a source of heat. This can lead to carbon monoxide buildup in your space. That shit will kill you.
âą Do not use your vehicle for heat when it is inside a garage or other closed-off space. Again, carbon monoxide. That shit will kill you. You will also want to save your gas as much as possible.
âą Do not try to travel unless it is absolutely necessary, and if it is necessary to travel in a vehicle be careful. If you are considering staying with a friend or relative, or even seeking shelter at a place like a hotel, get there before the severe weather hits.
What happens when you do minimal screening before hiring agents, arming them, and sending them into the streets? We're all finding out.
(This article is behind a paywall, so hit yon readmore for the full text)
January 13, 2026
The plan was never to become an ICE agent.
The plan, when I went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Career Expo in Texas last August, was to learn what it was like to apply to be an ICE agent. Who wouldnât be curious? The event promised on-the-spot hiring for would-be deportation officers: Walk in unemployed, walk out with a sweet $50k signing bonus, a retirement account, and a license to brutalize the countryâs most vulnerable residents without consequenceâall while wrapped in the warm glow of patriotism.
The catch, however, is that thereâs only one âLaura Jedeedâ with an internet presence, and it takes about five seconds of Googling to figure out how I feel about ICE, the Trump administration, and the countryâs general right-wing project. My social media pops up immediately, usually with a preview of my latest posts condemning Trumpâs unconstitutional, authoritarian power grab. Scroll down and youâll find articles with titles like âWhat I Saw in LA Wasnât an Insurrection; It Was a Police Riotâ and âInside Mike Johnsonâs Ties to a Far-Right Movement to Gut the Constitution.â Keep going for long enough and you might even find my dossier on AntifaWatch, a right-wing website that lists alleged members of the supposed domestic terror organization. I am, to put it mildly, a less-than-ideal recruit.
In short, I figuredâat least back thenâthat my military background would be enough to get me in the door for a good look around ICEâs application process, and then even the most cursory background check would get me shown that same door with great haste.
The ICE expo in the Dallas area, where my application journey began, required attendees to register for a specific time slot, presumably to prevent throngs of eager patriots from flooding the event and overwhelming the recruiters. But when I showed up at 9 a.m., the flood was notably absent: there was no line to check in and no line to go through security. I walked down nearly empty hallways, past a nearly empty drug testing station, and into the event proper, where a man directed me to a line to wait in for an interview. I took my spot at the end; there were only six people ahead of me.
While I waited, I looked around the ESports Stadium Arlingtonâan enormous blacked-out event space optimized for video game tournaments that has a capacity of 2,500. During my visit, there couldnât have been more than 150 people there.
Hopeful hires stood in tiny groups or found seats in the endless rows of cheap folding chairs that faced a stage ripped straight from Tron. Everything was bright-blue and lit-up and sci-fi-future angular. Above the monolithic platform hung three large monitors. The side monitors displayed static propaganda posters that urged the viewer to DEFEND THE HOMELAND and JOIN ICE TODAY, while the large central monitor played two short videos on loop: about 10 minutes of propaganda footage, again and again and again.
The expo event was part of ICEâs massive recruitment campaign for the foot soldiers it needs to execute the administrationâs dream of a deportation campaign large enough to shift Americaâs demographic balance back whiteward. Youâve probably seen evidence of it yourself: ICEâs âDefend the homelandâ propaganda is ubiquitous enough to be the Uncle Sam âI Want Youâ poster of our day, though somewhere in there our nation lost the plot about the correct posture toward Nazis.
When Donald Trump took office, ICE numbered approximately 10,000. Despite this eventâs lackluster attendance, their recruitment push is reportedly going well; the agency reported 12,000 new recruits in 2025, which means the agency has more new recruits than old hands. Thatâs the kind of growth that changes the culture of an agency.
Many of ICEâs critics worry that the agency is hoovering up pro-Trump thugsâJan. 6 insurrectionists, white nationalists, etc.âfor a domestic security force loyal to the president. The truth, my experience suggests, is perhaps even scarier: ICEâs recruitment push is so sloppy that the administration effectively has no idea whoâs joining the agencyâs ranks. Weâre all, collectively, in the dark about whom the state is arming, tasking with the most sensitive of law enforcement work, and then sending into Americaâs streets.
And we are all, collectively, discovering just how deadly of an arrangement that really is.
At the end of my brief interview, the recruiter mentioned I could talk to a current deportation officer about what the job would be like. There was no line to talk to a deportation officer (did I mention how empty the place was?) and so I walked up, introduced myself to one of them, and asked about day-to-day duties.
I shouldnât expect to hit the streets right away, the agent told me. Odds were good Iâd get a support position firstâsomething like the Criminal Alien Program office. âLetâs say a local police officer arrests someone out in the field for a DUI. Extremely common. Or beating their wife or whateverâall the typical crimes they commit,â he said. (The âtheyâ here being âundocumented immigrants,â and while itâs extremely difficult to measure, evidence suggests that âtheyâ actually commit crimes at a lower rate than U.S.-born citizens.)
If the cops suspect theyâre dealing with an immigrant who doesnât have permanent legal status, they alert ICE, whose agents conduct interviews and run record checks.
If this preliminary investigation suggests that status, the person ends up in the Criminal Alien Program office for processingâwhich is where I would come in. âWhat you see on TV, with us arresting people and doing all kinds of crazy things, thatâs maybe 10 percent. The other 90 percent is essentially doing a bunch of paperwork,â the agent said. âIt takes a lot to remove somebody from the United States. Some people are subject to due process.â
The officer ran down other departments I might end up in: Prosecutions, Removal Coordination Unit, or Detention. The point being that I should not expect to be a badass street officer on Day 1. âI have so many guys that come over to me, theyâre like, âIâm gonna put cuffs on somebody. Iâm gonna arrest somebody.â Well, you need to master this first and then weâll see about getting you on the field.â
I told him that I was fine with office workâwith my analyst background, it seemed like a better fit for my skill set anyway. His attitude shift was subtle, but instant and unmistakable; this was the wrong attitude and the wrong answer. âJust to be upfront, the goal is to put as many guns and badges out in the field as possible,â he said.
The agent then told me a bit about his own background. Like me, he enlisted straight out of high school, then got out and vowed to get as far away from the violence of the military as possible. Like a lot of veterans, he had trouble assimilating into the civilian world. âAfter about six months, I was like, âThese people arenât like me. I want to be around like-minded people.â â He found his way into law enforcement. That was well over a decade agoâheâs on his way to a very comfortable retirement, and he enjoys the work. âI like that instant gratification of Hey, that guy committed this crime, these X, Y, and Z, heâs not even supposed to be here,â he said.
I do not agree with his framing, but have no trouble understanding the appeal. Hell, itâs why I enlisted in the first place. Thankfully, Afghanistan beat it out of me. If I believed what he believed, I would surely do the same thing heâs doing.
I thanked him for the information and time, shook his hand, and took a seat on one of those uncomfortable folding chairs. I had a few hours before my flight back to New York City, and it made more sense to hang out than to flee the building and get good and airport drunk, regardless of how desperately I would have preferred the latter. Instead, I settled in to do what everyone does at the DMV: check my phone and people-watch. The aspiring officers fall broadly into three categories: thick-necked law enforcement types who look like they do steroids but donât know how to work out, bearded spec-ops wannabes who look like they take steroids and do know how to work out, and dorks. Pencil-necked misfits. I couldnât tell whether there were more white or Hispanic people waiting for their email, but it was close. A few Black applicants rounded out the overwhelmingly male group.
Iâd been sitting around for about an hour when the video suddenly stopped and a bearded man in a black suit stepped onto the stage. He did not introduce himselfâwe were, I gathered, supposed to already know who he wasâbut it became clear heâs a senior agent of some sort. âI figured it would be best if I break up the same video youâve been watching for the last four hours,â he said, and offered to answer any questions we might have.
One person asked about work/life balance, which the agent said is possible but not the route heâs chosen. Someone else wanted to know about travel opportunities and he talked about the many places heâs gone as part of the job.
Every other question during the 45 minutes the agent stood onstage pertained to the hiring process or what we could expect in training. Law enforcement types seemed especially concerned about the painful parts: Would they have to get pepper sprayed again? Would they have to get shot with a taser if theyâd already qualified? Yes and probably not, respectively. The agent took the opportunity to gush about ICEâs new state-of-the-art semi-automatic tasers and brand-new pepper-ball guns. âItâs mostly very liberal citiesâSan Francisco, Los Angelesâwhere groups will come and try to stop ICE officers from arresting somebody. Theyâre like, âWeâre going to form a human wall against you,â â he said. âWhen they do that, you can just pop âem up. Let them disperse and cry about it.â
When, during a moment of protracted silence, the agent threatened to put the video back on if no one had questions, I asked about harassment and doxing. âWe will prosecute people to the fullest extent of the law,â he assured me, âand then people like myself will go on TV and publicly talk about how that person is now in prison to dissuade other people from doing it.â
As empty as the place had been when Iâd arrived, it was even emptier by the time the senior agent ended the Q&A. Somebody vastly overestimated the number of Americans willing to take a job brutalizing and disappearing hard-working men and womenâeven with a potential $50K bonus, even in this economy.
That may have something to do with what happened to me next.
I completely missed the email when it came. Iâd kept an eye on my inbox for the next few days, but Iâd grown lax when nothing came through. But then, on Sept. 3, it popped up.
âPlease note that this is a TENTATIVE offer only, therefore do not end your current employment,â the email instructed me. It then listed a series of steps Iâd need to quickly take. I had 48 hours to log onto USAJobs and fill out my Declaration for Federal Employment, then five additional days to return the forms attached to the email. Among these forms: driverâs license information, an affidavit that Iâve never received a domestic violence conviction, and consent for a background check. And it said: âIf you are declining the position, it is not necessary to complete the action items listed below.â
As I mentioned, Iâd missed the email, so I did exactly none of these things.
And that might have been where this all endedâan unread message sinking to the bottom of my inboxâif not for an email LabCorp sent three weeks later. âThank you for confirming that you wish to continue with the hiring process,â it read. (To be clear, I had confirmed no such thing.) âPlease complete your required pre-employment drug test.â
The timing was unfortunate. Cannabis is legal in the state of New York, and I had partaken six days before my scheduled test. Then again, I hadnât smoked much; perhaps with hydration I could get to the next stage. Worst-case scenario, Iâd waste a small piece of ICEâs gargantuan budget. I traveled to my local LabCorp, peed in a cup, and waited for a call telling me Iâd failed.
Nine days later, impatience got the best of me. For the first time, I logged into USAJobs and checked my application to see if my drug test had come through. What I actually saw was so implausible, so impossible, that at first I did not understand what I was looking at.
Somehow, despite never submitting any of the paperwork they sent meânot the background check or identification info, not the domestic violence affidavit, none of itâICE had apparently offered me a job.
According to the application portal, my pre-employment activities remained pending. And yet, it also showed that I had accepted a final job offer and that my onboarding status was âEODââEntered On Duty, the start of an enlistment period. I moused over the exclamation mark next to âOnboardingâ and a helpful pop-up appeared. âYour EOD has occurred. Welcome to ICE!â
I clicked through to my application tracking page. Theyâd sent my final offer on Sept. 30, it said, and I had allegedly accepted. âWelcome to Ice. ⊠Your duty location is New York, New York. Your EOD was on Tuesday, September 30th, 2025.â
By all appearances, I was a deportation officer. Without a single signature on agency paperwork, ICE had officially hired me.
Perhaps, if Iâd accepted, they would have demanded my pre-employment paperwork, done a basic screening, realized their mistake, and fired me immediately. And yet, the pending and upcoming tasks list suggested a very different outcome. My physical fitness test had been initiated on Oct. 6, it said: three days in the future. My medical check had apparently been completed on Oct. 6.
The portal also listed my background check as completed on Oct. 6. Had I preemptively passed? Was ICE seriously going to let me start training without finding out the first thing about me? I reached out to ICE for an explanation, but never heard back.
The only thing left for me to do was press the green âAcceptâ button on the home page. And maybe I should have. Maybe no one would have ever checked my name and I could have written the story of a lifetime. Or maybe the agency infamous for brutalizing and disappearing people with no regard for the law or basic human rights would have figured out exactly who I am while I was in one of their facilities with no way to escape. Iâm not actually a domestic terrorist sent straight from Antifa headquarters, but to a paranoid fascist regime increasingly high on their own supply, I sure look like one on paper. Self-preservation won out.
I hit âDecline,â closed my browser, and took a long, deep breath.
What are we to make of all this? To be clear, I barely applied to ICE. I skipped the steps of the application process that would have clued the agency in on my lack of fitness for the position. I made no effort to hide my public loathing of the agency, what it stands for, and the administration that runs it. And they offered me the job anyway.
Itâs possible that Iâm an aberrationâperhaps I experienced some kind of computer glitch that affected my application and no one elseâs. But given all of the above, it seems far more likely that ICE is running an extremely leaky ship when it comes to recruitment.
With no oversight and with ICE concealing its agentsâ identities, itâll be extremely difficult for us to know.
Thereâs a temptation to take some comfort in ICEâs sloppiness. Thereâs a real argument here that an agency so inept in its recruitment will also be inept at training people and carrying out its mission. Weâre seeing some very sloppy police work from ICE, including an inability to do basic things like throw someone down and cuff them. On some level, all of this is a reminder that their takeover is neither total nor inevitable.
But if they missed the fact that I was an anti-ICE journalist who didnât fill out her paperwork, what else might they be missing? How many convicted domestic abusers are being given guns and sent into other peopleâs homes? How many people with ties to white supremacist organizations are indiscriminately targeting minorities on principle, regardless of immigration status? How many rapists and pedophiles are working in ICE detention centers with direct and unsupervised access to a population that will be neither believed nor missed? How are we to trust ICEâs allegedly thorough investigations of the people they detain and deport when they canât even keep their HR paperwork straight?
And if theyâre not going to screen me out, what hope is there of figuring out which recruit might one day turn into a trigger-happy agent who would forget that law enforcement officers are trained not to stand in front of vehicles, get jumpy, and shoot a 37-year-old woman to death on the streets of Minneapolis?
Thatâs exactly what happened last week, and why Renee Good will never have a 38th birthday, and why her children will never again be hugged by their mother.
By all appearances, the only thing ICE is screening for is a desire to work for ICE: a very specific kind of person perfectly suited for the kind of mission creep we are currently seeing. Goodâs murder is not an isolated incident; the American Civil Liberties Union reports a nationwide trend of ICE pointing guns at, brutalizing, and even detaining citizens who stop to film them. A Minneapolis pastor who protested ICE by chanting âWe are not afraidâ was detained at gunpoint by an agent who reportedly asked him: âAre you afraid now?â
Just a reminder from me (a military brat) and my parents (both military from military families): The most definitive way to know a recruiter is lying to you is to listen closely to what they're saying. If you hear sounds, they're lying.
This is Gaza, where not a single house remains standing. We are without shelter, without food, without water. We are dying. We are being bombed every day. We are being shot at in the middle of Gaza City. Where is the ceasefire agreement? Where is the humanity? They are shooting at and targeting people who go to get some firewood for their families to cook. We are truly oppressed.
I mostly like looking at insects but also have to live in the world.
If, like me, you are horrified and looking for ways to help, this recent article may be of interest:
ICE canât function without help from the private sector. So we should force the private sector to stop helping.
If you are in the US and have any Democratic senators or representatives, it is critical to call them and demand that no spending bill be passed without reining in ICE abuses. Here are Robert Reich's key points on that:
Please call your representative and senators today and tell them not to vote for the DHS spending bill unless it (1) disarms ICE agents, (2) prevents them from targeting people based on their race, language, or accent, and (3) stipulates that agents who harm civilians are liable under criminal and civil laws.
To reach your representative or senator, call the U.S. Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Tell them the state and city where you live. They will connect you to any memberâs office.
You can read the full article here:
What you can do to stop ICEâs mayhem
None of this feels like enough, but it is better than doing nothing. Being silent means consenting to what is happening now, and the even worse things that seem to be coming next.
Let this - January 2026 - be a turning point and not just another step down this hateful and immoral path.
An Ainu woman named Chiri Yukie wrote down some of her people's oral traditions into Japanese because, as a child, her people were being displaced by Japanese settlers in Hokkaido. Her language was disappearing, so she (ironically) saw translating the stories into Japanese as a way to preserve them. She died at age 19.
Some of the objects from the Ainu exhibition at Japan House in London this year, showcasing traditional Ainu skills and culture. There is a campaign to get Ainu recognised as an official language, at least in Hokkaido, and small steps are happening, for example, bilingual bus stops. It reminds me of the struggle for Welsh to be revived after suppression for centuries.
caption by @/ashleytheebarroness on tiktok: People reach for the Gestapo comparison because it sounds extreme and foreign. It lets white Americans pretend this kind of policing came from somewhere else. But ICE looks closer to slave patrols because that's our history. Local enforcement. Racialized suspicion. Vague authority. Taking people first, justifying it later. Gestapo is a warning. Slave patrols are a mirror.
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