#prisonculture

[razielim]

I like following all these very involved activists on BlueSky who constantly emphasize balance, working within your means, announce that they need to unplug or disengage, disappear without explanation, and just otherwise model a sustainable level of involvement.

"Sustainable" and "balanced" aren't really words I have in my toolbox, and not seeing any role models or affirmations to that effect doesn't help. Worse, unhinged approaches to activism that guarantee burnout abound, proliferating every platform.

There's def people on Tumblr who also mention that political engagement is a marathon, not a sprint, but posts like that come around once or twice a year, whenever someone gets annoyed enough by the fever pitch to comment on it. Seeing it regularly is surprising and grounding.

Prisonculture is a bit intense for me sometimes. VERY leftist. Or perhaps very plugged in in a way I'm not and can't imagine, whatever. But even they (or she? idk) are very regularly mentioning these things. Contrary to the online aesthetics of resistance, being a leftist, being liberationist, being a punk, whatever, shouldn't mean putting yourself through the wringer, on top of everything the world already subjects you to. Taking a balanced approach isn't a position on the political spectrum, it's not a privilege only for centrists and the right wing. It's affording yourself basic human dignity by managing self-expectations and regularly resting. Or... at least, doing your best to do so if you're not skilled or experienced at such things 😅

Anyways, this is mostly me@me. Put your phone down more, Gabriel. But I hope y'all smell the proverbial roses today too.

[ptseti]

[catrocketship]

[dashazhigareva]

Обложка CD для рок-группы

Мне очень понравился процесс работы над этим проектом (не смотря на то, что это заняло вечность).  Довольно интересно случайно собирать разные, подходящие по атмосфере изображения (фото на улице, интернет-находки, клип-арт, стыренный у Макса) и потом складывать эти находки в более-менее осмысленную историю. 

Амбиграмму, мне, наоборот, делать было очень сложно, никак не удавалось получить достойную форму пером или любой ручной техникой, поэтому пришлось переделывать раз 300. И перейти на геометрию и вектор. 

[jeeheipark]

"For me that’s looked sitting in a church with community members, hashing out a situation that occurred with a group of young men in the community, who had been responsible for mugging, terrorizing really in some ways, an older white man in the neighborhood—a man who was now incredibly fearful as a result of what had happened to him. Figuring out: why would you do that? What led to this? What might we imagine other than turning to the cops in this instance? How do we resolve both the fear that you’ve now introduced in this person’s life and the pain and dispossession that you’ve been experiencing in your own? I guess that answer won’t satisfy people who want you to provide them with a solution, with the solution. Who immediately want to know: “how are we going to deal with the rapists and the murderers?” This is the question that always gets thrown at anybody who identifies as abolitionist—and my question back is “what are you doing right now about the rapists and the murderers?” That’s the first thing: Is what’s happening right now working for you? Are you feeling safer? Has the current approach ended rape and murder? The vast majority of rapists never see the inside of a courtroom, let alone get convicted and end up in prison. In fact, they end up becoming President. So the system you feel so attached to and that you seem invested in preserving is not delivering what you say you want, which is presumably safety and an end to violence. Worse than that it is causing inordinate additional harm. The logics of policing and prisons are not actually addressing the systemic causes and roots of violence." . . — Mariame Kaba “Towards the horizon of abolition: A conversation with Mariame Kaba” twitter: prisonculture

[razielim]

Mayor Mamdani Breaks His Promise to NYC Public Libraries

The Struggle Against Defunding Libraries Continues...

"As Mayor, I will end the practice of using library funding as a bargaining chip in budget negotiations and commit 0.5% of NYC’s budget to libraries, ensuring we have enough revenue for robust services and well-staffed facilities."

Reasoning and some context for the preliminary budget proposal can be read in the transcript of Mamdani's speech here.

Additional info that I pulled from this reddit comment:

1. NYC is legally obligated to operate a balanced budget, and the city is currently operating at a $12 billion dollar deficit thanks to the inherited mess from Eric Adams' administration

2. Mamdani said that these cuts will only happen if Kathy Hochul refuses to back a wealth tax proposal that would help make up that deficit

3. His proposed backstop budget includes across the board budget cuts. Including significant cuts to the NYPD, whose budget I saw called out in other comments.

My own context, related to #2 from the redditor above, though not really related to my opinion below: This appears to be a big political play to firmly guide Hochul to agree to tax the wealthy/corporations properly or risk generating a lot of bad press for her in an election year if she doesn't back the fair taxation agenda.

Okay, with all that background included, now I can say what I wanted to say —

This is great, actually. I support and am excited about Mayor Mamdani, and I support public libraries, my beloved. I'm glad New Yorkers get to hold a Democratic Socialist to his promises. This is a nice, good public political battle that's healthy to have, it's a conflict of budgetary wrangling and what socialism means in this country (it absolutely should mean stable budgets for libraries, that pinnacle of socialist institutions).

I look forward to the day the NYC Libraries get both their 0.5% and the year-to-year budget stability they were promised, allowing them to better plan services, innovations, and priorities as they seek to better serve their patrons.

I look forward — not to seeing Mamdani defeated — but to seeing how Mamdani delivers a gracious defeat and an apology for not immediately sticking to both the letter and the spirit of his campaign promise. I imagine it will be a huge balm on the heart after so enduring so much of the disheartening DARVO that defines our current political era.

This is healthy. I like this flavor of politics.

May the best man library win.

[darkbluenarc]

Orange Is the New Ego: Male Narcissists Behind Bars

Step inside any high-security facility and it won’t take long to spot the alpha personalities strutting through the rec ya

[blklesstudy]

#AbolitionMeansNoPrisons on Twitter

“I'm seeing that John Conyers died. He was a real fighter for racial justice. He gave Rosa Parks a job when her family fled to Detroit and was broke. She worked for him from 1965-1988. He pushed reparations for DECADES (when it wasn't popular).”