Passionate Curiosity

24. Bi. she/they. This blog consists of pretty much anything that can hold my attention for more than a few seconds

[incidentalcomics]

[effectiveresistance]

[catcrumb]

[climatecalling]

Atlanta shooting part of alarming US crackdown on environmental defenders

Twenty states have enacted laws restricting rights to peaceful protest, as environmentalists are increasingly criminalized

The shooting of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, believed to be the first environmental defender killed in the US, is the culmination of a dangerous escalation in the criminalization and repression of those who seek to protect natural resources in America, campaigners have warned.  …

Georgia’s response to the protests follows an alarming pattern of environmental and land rights defenders across the US being threatened, arrested and charged with increasingly drastic crimes, including terrorism, for opposing oil and gas pipelines or the destruction of forests or waterways, advocates claim.

“This was meant as a chilling deterrent, to show that the state can kill and jail environmental defenders with impunity. It reflects a trend towards escalation and violence to distract from the real issue of advancing corporate interests over lands,” said Nick Estes, author of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance.

The current crackdown on environmental and land rights defenders can be traced back to the aftermath of 9/11 and the expansion of the definition of terrorism which sparked a wave of arrests known as the “green scare” targeting so-called eco- terrorists.

This then spurred the subsequent proliferation of state legislation criminalizing – or at least attempting to criminalize – all kinds of civil disobedience including Black Lives Matter protests and opposition to fossil fuel projects like gas pipelines, defined as critical infrastructure, essentially to protect business interests over environmental and Indigenous sovereignty concerns.

[queeranarchism]

When a comrade gets arrested

If you’re new to actions with an arrest risk and you don’t have experienced protestors with you, there’s stuff you can find online about having a legal team, writing the name of a lawyer on your body, saying NOTHING to the cops except the name of your lawyer, etc. That’s all good advice.

But let me give you a bit of advice that is just as essential as all that:

If one of your comrades gets arrested, and you know they can be held for 6, 9, 12 hours, depending on where you are, you get a group of people together and you wait outside the police station.

You may be tired, you may be stressed, it may be freezing, you may need to take turns, but you take whoever can still physically and mentally bear it and you go to that police station and you wait for your comrade. You can spend the time taking care of each other, drinking hot drinks, doing whatever gets you through, but you wait.

And when your comrade gets out, you make sure they do not walk home alone in the dark thinking about the fucked up experience they just had, you make sure there’s a big fucking crowd of their comrades there to greet them with hugs and hot drinks and a cigarette if they smoke.

And whether the arrested comrade that just got out is happy or sad or pissed off, you take that for what it is and give that space and you support that. And you get them a hot meal and you hang out with them and you offer to let them stay at your place or you stay with them so they don’t have to spend that night alone with their thoughts.

You do this every damn time, regardless of whether you really like that comrade and regardless of how you feel about the thing your comrade got arrested for, regardless of how often they’ve been arrested. Because you never know how shitty their experience is going to be in there this time. 

Trust me. This is absolutely essential. Once you’ve been arrested and have felt the difference between walking home alone or having your friends waiting for you, you’ll understand.

[property-is-theft-deactivated20]

Be good comrades

[demetriochavez]

I can’t stress how important this is. When my father and I were arrested in Seattle some years back for agitating for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, we were greeted outside the jail by the event’s organisers. They cheered us, had cokes and munchies for us. They drove us to our car and, during the drive, asked if we wanted to stay the night in Seattle with one of the organisers, they filled us in on what had happened after our arrests, they asked about and listened intently to what we experienced from arrest to release. They did so much so well that when another call went out for potential arrestees, we were amongst the first to raise our proverbial hands.  Read the post. Re-read the post. Remember it. And, when the chance comes, do it.

[glompcat]

When I was arrested at a Black Lives Matter protest a few years ago, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice were doing Jail Support when I was finally let out of One Police Plaza at around 6am. 

They had gotten a klezmer band to stand along the hill you have to go up to leave the jail, and as I walked to where the volunteer lawyers were waiting (they were there to make sure all 200+ people who were arrested that night would be represented at their later hearings. They also were surrounded by volunteers who had food, phone chargers, directions to all the nearby subway stops, and one of them let me borrow her phone to call my mom when I got frustrated with how slowly my phone was charging) the band played music, cheered and applauded. 

Honestly? That band playing klezmer for me as I left jail, cheering me on and making me laugh… it’s a memory I really treasure. 

It’s also one of my mother’s favorite stories. Before I told her about that band, she got so upset and agitated whenever anything reminded her of my arrest. She’d freak out, cry, start fussing over me, and so forth. After I told her about the klezmer band though? It became something she’d tell her friends about, over and over again, laughing each time. She stopped calling me to beg me not to go and protest every time she knew a big one was happening, and instead would call to make a joke about how if I want to listen to klezmer she has some CDs I can borrow.

When I think about that night, rather than any of the many many terrible things that happened from the moment the cops grabbed me onward, the first thing I remember is the klezmer, and how it made me laugh, and the popcorn someone gave me as I gave the lawyers my name and info, and the kindness of strangers.

After the dehumanization of even a few hours in police custody, those volunteers made me smile, and gave the night a new fun and funny angle to be remembered from. I actually laugh when I think about that night, thanks to them.

Jail Support is a beyond vital part of protesting. It really really is. 

[kellypope]

the one time i was arrested it was with occupy chicago in 2010, during a mass attempt to set up a camp in grant park. previously, for weeks? months? occupy chicago had been on the sidewalk outside a federal reserve building, no permanent camp to better organize, just constant shuffling as the CPD harassed the protestors. so…we tried to set up a camp.

i was among the first in the van, and we were held at the first precinct from about 1am to 4am. none of us inside the cell had any idea how long we’d be there, but we joked about getting breakfast together if we got out. we were all sitting side by side in a holding cell for hours, hundreds of us, overwhelming the jail. so…they let us out. in the dead of night, pre-dawn. and on the other side of that door? hugs. and cookies. and coffee. and celebration that we were getting out. and the national lawyer’s guild. i will never forget the hug from a stranger that night.

years later in my home town i have attempted jail support two times for political actions. the first time, folks were pretty green to experiencing this, and they listened to an old head who was single-handedly handling the situation. the one guy with a lawyer connection, said they’d go to court at 11am and we should go home. i, on the other hand, knew they’d be let out in the dead of night when no one was around. cell phones dead, no coats, no buses running. but no, this guy was the authority, he said they’d have to go to court at 11am and we should go home. we shouldn’t have listened to him because the police did exactly as i predicted.

people put a lot of emphasis on having a lawyer’s info on your body if you get arrested for political action, but sometimes they don’t even hold you long enough. just let you out at the dead of night to make you feel alone and scared. it’s like they want you to feel traumatized for taking action.

the second time i knew we needed jail support, i had to work the next morning, and i went home after coordinating as much fundraising and legal support as my community could. i regret not being able to stay for my friends. because i knew what it felt like to be greeted with hugs and cookies after staying awake all night in a cold cell not knowing what would happen to me. and i knew what happened to a friend of mine who was let out at 3am with a dead phone, no buses running, just walking home in the dead of night, alone, pissed off. so if you can, i strongly suggest, fucking camp out at the jail your comrades were taken to.

[queeranarchism]

it’s like they want you to feel traumatized for taking action.

Yeah. They do. This shit is strategic. The amount of times I’ve seen people get out just after public transport shut down… it’s intentional. They also let people out with random 15+ minute gaps between each release in the hope that people won’t wait for each other to walk home together.

people put a lot of emphasis on having a lawyer’s info on your body 

To be honest, it is very important to say the name of the activist lawyer in custody because they can try to hook you up with a bogus cop lawyer even if you only spend an hour in custody. But it’s also very important for jail support:

After you report who your lawyer is, that lawyer will - if the cops are doing their job - hear that they have a client at location X waiting for them. (or 2 clients, or 5, etc). They can then pass that information on to jail support, who know where to meet people and how many to expect. If the police spread arrested people out over multiple locations, only a lawyer can find out where they are and only if people have said the name of that lawyer. So without that name, you might still walk home alone.

[iusedtobecharming-deactivated20]

Girlies! Remember on feb 1st a green comet will be passing by earth's orbit!!!!!!! Make sure u take a sneak peek at her bc she only comes around every 50000 yrs!!!!!!!!!!!! ☄️

[marlbororeds100s-deactivated202]

article about the comet

article about how to see the comet

live stream tomorrow (feb 1st) at 11pm EST

[discodeerdiary]

Something that I first applied to working with children, and have applied in a limited form to working with adults: you don't need to tell someone when they read your instructions wrong. Sometimes it's enough to point out what they did right and then whatever they didn't do? You ask them to do it in more precise words, and you make it sound like it's a new request. Remarkable how fast things get done this way.

[discodeerdiary]

This is also a habit I built up from emergency response training. If I say "I need you to bring me a first aid kit and an accident report" and you bring me just a first aid kit, it's so much more efficient to say "thanks now can you bring me an accident report" than "I asked you to bring an accident report why didn't you bring me one".

[discodeerdiary]

Once you've internalized "a person bleeding out is one of the worst times to start an argument" you start to wonder what other tasks could get accomplished without arguing

[titsay]

take a chance

[cptsdwillgraham-deactivated2019]

beep beep sometimes when you have been in survival mode for a long time the parts of you dedicated to Wanting Things atrophy and you forget how to envision a future that feels rewarding because you are busy with the business of staying alive, and it can seem like your life must be pointless because you can’t imagine any long term goals. sometimes even when you leave survival mode you can’t remember how to Want Things. that doesn’t mean you need to give up on having a good and fulfilling life, it just means that Wanting Things is a muscle you need to gradually strengthen. the part of you that has dreams and aspirations is still there, it just fell asleep, but if you wiggle it enough it can and will regain feeling. it’s okay to start small

[spice-ghouls]

a little comic about healing.

[forourtimetoo-deactivated202407]

God aren’t you tired like the cops killed another Black man in Memphis just trying to go home and now there’s troops in the streets because god forbid we say enough is enough. Last week they killed a protestor in Atlanta trying to protect the forest from being turned into another site where they train cops to kill us. There were so many mass shootings this week that I can’t remember them all. More people have died in mass shootings this year than there have been days of the year, and that line doesn’t even hit me anymore. Texas prosecutors are investigating a teenager for a miscarriage, and the Alabama AG is trying to walk back earlier comments saying they’d use the state’s chemical endangerment law to prosecute people for self-managed medical abortions. 30,000 people were hospitalized this week with a virus the country is determined to pretend is over. Aren’t you tired? The Supreme Court is about to overturn affirmative action and make it easier to do racial gerrymandering and get rid of the Indian Child Welfare Act and make it so businesses can discriminate against gay people. Aren’t you tired of being scared of what the conservatives would do if they thought they could get away with it—the fetal personhood bans and the contraception bans and the criminalizations of trans & queer people and the attacks on the unhoused and all the other monsters under the bed that get realer every day? Aren’t you tired of being scared for your life, if you’re Black or Asian or trans or queer or disabled? Aren’t you just so tired some days?

[exigencelost]

really really not enough people in the united states understand that the reason there is a free breakfast and lunch program in US schools is because of the Black Panther Party's Breakfast for Children program. it's so important to know this. you can't be educated about US history or about the relationship between the US government, US poverty, US formal education, and Black resistance movements without knowing this.

[exigencelost]

I don't want to be unclear. When I say "because of the BPP's Breakfast for Children program" I do not mean that the Panthers had some sort of lobbying program that advocated for children to be fed breakfast at schools which was met with some kind of positive recognition by the United States government. I mean that the Panthers had a program that fed Black children breakfast before school, and J Edgar Hoover described the Black Panther Party as "the greatest threat to internal security of the country" and the Breakfast for Children program as "the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for." Media coverage of the Breakfast for Children program exposed U.S. child hunger on an international scale, and the program itself nurtured Black revolutionary community, and in order to ameliorate the former and undermine the latter, the United States federal government was forced to institute a program to feed children breakfast in schools. Almost 80 years later there remains in the United States an assumption that children should and will have access to breakfast and lunch at school and it is because of how much Hoover feared the Panthers. (Quotes are findable various places including this article.)

[herekitty]

[creature-wizard]

Friendly reminder that the goal of good therapy isn't learning to be "normal." It's to learn how to live with whatever form of "abnormal" you've got.

Any form of therapy with the end goal of making you "normal" is just conversion therapy, and that shit's always harmful and destructive.

[headspace-hotel]

Was reading on wikipedia about how lots of ancient cultures had beliefs and traditions where you had to offer prayers and/or sacrifices if you wanted to cut down a tree because you were basically killing the spirit that lived within the tree and if you did that without good reason bad stuff would happen to you

we should bring that back. if you want to clear cut a forest you have to pray and sacrifice on behalf of every single tree

[headspace-hotel]

The more I learn about ecosystems, the more I realize that characterizing "animistic" belief as superstitious and primitive is one of the dumbest lies ever told

[headspace-hotel]

I, as well, am an animist (knows what a soil microbiome is)

[gubgam]

There is air plankton. A question I had on an exam revolved around how if we sterilized the entire atmosphere, we aren’t sure if rain would still happen. So yeah, even weather kind of!

You could also say words also count as communication between different cells/microbes, and those are often biologically produced. Antibiotic compounds can also be signaling molecules. In my opinion, they have ‘spoken’ for at least 3.5 BY, since they have cooperated to make incredibly complex architecture similar to or surpassing the complexity of animal circulatory systems. These fossils are stromatolites and they exist even now.

[headspace-hotel]

IIRC the transpiration of water from the trees in the Amazon Rainforest is needed to create the very rain that sustains it

[bogleech]

Yes, people assume rainforests just grow where the climate is rainy but they just make it rainy, beginning as dry-tolerant forests but gradually terraforming the region in waves of more wet-adapted plants over thousands of years. The near daily rain over rainforest is literally the condensation of the breath of that many organisms in one place.

That means if the rainforest dies you just get desert. The tropics go away because the tropics were the plants. And we won't be able to put it back like it was just by planting seeds.

[flowergrenades]

*through gritted teeth* you are not a child taking a test with the purpose of getting the highest score, you are an adult trying new things and finding ways to enjoy your life, make mistakes, be a beginner, be mediocre, be where you need to be, be unlikeable, just. be.

[decompose1]

in reference to that last post i reblogged, i should also mention:

PLEASE LOOK OUT FOR ANTISEMITIC PROPAGANDA IN ANTI COP ART/POSTS. PLEASE PLEASE LOOK.

right now, being anti-cop is NECESSARY, but some people use “anti cop” art to actually depict EXTREMELY ANTISEMITIC, DANGEROUS propaganda

look for:

references to “lizard people”

references to “zealot” “world controlling organizations” etc etc

SIX-POINTED STARS (MAGEN DAVID) ON POLICE UNIFORMS OR SIMILAR POSITIONS OF POWER

large, hooked/downward-pointed noses

kippot/yarmulkes on police/other authority figures (this one should be more obvious, but.. you’d be surprised)

references to israel

triple parentheses

iron crosses on “punks”

i totally, 100% understand the temptation to rb all the anti cop stuff you see. it’s a good instinct. but goyim NEED to look out for these dogwhistles. IT IS NEVER INNOCENT. IF YOU SEE THESE THINGS, IT IS NOT TRULY ANTI COP, IT IS ANTISEMITIC. IT IS COMPARING JEWISH PEOPLE TO POLICE.

just make sure the message you’re spreading is a good one. be safe, and keep your community safe (including the jewish ones).