The outcome is only uncertain for those who disbelieve.

the ideal of “farms everywhere in every garden!!1!” is a huge selling point of the solarpunk and self-sustainablity communities, especially with farmcore/cottagecore and nature aesthetics being more popular nowadays.

however these posts often overlook a few things

1) we already overproduce food, we don’t need more farms we need better farm and food management.

2) not everyone can farm or wants too. Space, the local environment, disabilities, and lack of interest needs to be acknowledged more. I’m awful with plants no matter how much i love them, and i am certain there are plenty more people who would agree.

3) the idea of farms for everyone and the aesthetic of “everyone having their little plot of land” is not community driven, and sadly comes from a place of colonialism. YES a cute lil cottage with a chicken pen out the back and a garden out the front is cute, but this is not possible for everyone on the planet.

4) NATURAL DIVERSITY IS VERY IMPORTANT. instead of making everyones garden into a food forest, we should aim to grow more native plants and help cultivate the natural environment.

5) not every country is the same, we have our own biodiveristy, and often these posts are *very* american/american based

#the assumption that all farms = individual house + land #is pretty western-centric too #considering community forms of farming #and not all relationships with land #are limited to the relationships of private property #in fact the imposition of private property systems #has sometimes been far more damaging and led to greater poverty #than community managed farming ft. land allocation + comm. commons (via tobermoriansass)  

People have this weird belief that if you're critical of a system or tradition, then it must be because you failed to live up to that system or tradition. The idea of having a principled stance, regardless of whether or not *you* personally benefit from society accepting that stance, is foreign to so many people. And this belief is really fucking important for and beneficial to the elites of this country. If you can get the masses to equate criticizing you and the institutions you control with abject personal failure, congratulations, you've just made yourself immune to accountability

Also, as a failure of the education system: we need to spend more time listening to the people our systems leave behind. "Well of course you're critical of this; you failed" should not be a conversation-ender even if it is true.

We shouldn’t be dismissive of those “expected to succeed” by society standards but failed because they can’t function in the way society is set up.

When you try to tell most people that, they get really vicious about it. The phrases “smart but lazy” and “just didn’t try hard enough” start getting used to shut down the conversation and demoralize the people seeking help, as society keeps telling them they are smart enough to hack it on their own. This is where the social construct of intelligence starts to really fall apart.

“When I was 26, I went to Indonesia and the Philippines to do research for my first book, No Logo. I had a simple goal: to meet the workers making the clothes and electronics that my friends and I purchased. And I did. I spent evenings on concrete floors in squalid dorm rooms where teenage girls—sweet and giggly—spent their scarce nonworking hours. Eight or even 10 to a room. They told me stories about not being able to leave their machines to pee. About bosses who hit. About not having enough money to buy dried fish to go with their rice.

They knew they were being badly exploited—that the garments they were making were being sold for more than they would make in a month. One 17-year-old said to me: “We make computers, but we don’t know how to use them.”

So one thing I found slightly jarring was that some of these same workers wore clothing festooned with knockoff trademarks of the very multinationals that were responsible for these conditions: Disney characters or Nike check marks. At one point, I asked a local labor organizer about this. Wasn’t it strange—a contradiction?

It took a very long time for him to understand the question. When he finally did, he looked at me like I was nuts. You see, for him and his colleagues, individual consumption wasn’t considered to be in the realm of politics at all. Power rested not in what you did as one person, but what you did as many people, as one part of a large, organized, and focused movement. For him, this meant organizing workers to go on strike for better conditions, and eventually it meant winning the right to unionize. What you ate for lunch or happened to be wearing was of absolutely no concern whatsoever.

This was striking to me, because it was the mirror opposite of my culture back home in Canada. Where I came from, you expressed your political beliefs—firstly and very often lastly—through personal lifestyle choices. By loudly proclaiming your vegetarianism. By shopping fair trade and local and boycotting big, evil brands.

These very different understandings of social change came up again and again a couple of years later, once my book came out. I would give talks about the need for international protections for the right to unionize. About the need to change our global trading system so it didn’t encourage a race to the bottom. And yet at the end of those talks, the first question from the audience was: “What kind of sneakers are OK to buy?” “What brands are ethical?” “Where do you buy your clothes?” “What can I do, as an individual, to change the world?”

Fifteen years after I published No Logo, I still find myself facing very similar questions. These days, I give talks about how the same economic model that superpowered multinationals to seek out cheap labor in Indonesia and China also supercharged global greenhouse-gas emissions. And, invariably, the hand goes up: “Tell me what I can do as an individual.” Or maybe “as a business owner.”

The hard truth is that the answer to the question “What can I, as an individual, do to stop climate change?” is: nothing. You can’t do anything. In fact, the very idea that we—as atomized individuals, even lots of atomized individuals—could play a significant part in stabilizing the planet’s climate system, or changing the global economy, is objectively nuts. We can only meet this tremendous challenge together. As part of a massive and organized global movement.

The irony is that people with relatively little power tend to understand this far better than those with a great deal more power. The workers I met in Indonesia and the Philippines knew all too well that governments and corporations did not value their voice or even their lives as individuals. And because of this, they were driven to act not only together, but to act on a rather large political canvas. To try to change the policies in factories that employ thousands of workers, or in export zones that employ tens of thousands. Or the labor laws in an entire country of millions. Their sense of individual powerlessness pushed them to be politically ambitious, to demand structural changes.

In contrast, here in wealthy countries, we are told how powerful we are as individuals all the time. As consumers. Even individual activists. And the result is that, despite our power and privilege, we often end up acting on canvases that are unnecessarily small—the canvas of our own lifestyle, or maybe our neighborhood or town. Meanwhile, we abandon the structural changes—the policy and legal work— to others.”

- Naomi Klein

This is why the media keeps pumping out articles about plastic straws and avocados that focuses on what we, individually, are doing to destroy the environment, when really the most pollution comes from multinational corporations and the only thing that will save us is global collective action.

Not diagnosing a child doesn’t mean they won’t notice they’re different. It just means that instead of thinking “I’m struggling because I have autism/adhd/anxiety/depression/schizophrenia”, they will just conclude that they are struggling because they are stupid, weak, annoying, unlovable, etc.

Well, hey there.

I'm going to stress this again: It does not make you a bad person for taking breaks from the news cycle.

Other blogs have made posts highlighting the important of taking such breaks, and people in the notes argue that doing so is a privilege and you should feel guilty for it. You should not. Please, please take care of yourselves.

Mental health is a serious issue. Humans are not meant to receive a constant stream of horrific news. Please, if you see someone taking a break, posting about other things like shows that make them happy, please don't try to drag them down. The last thing the world needs right now is more negativity.

Please respect that some people need a break from these things and show kindness to them. Don't contribute to the hate and negativity flooding everything.

This comment by @screaming-wren illustrates the difference between ignorance and breaks very well.

Please, don't get so caught up in everything you trample others walking the same path.

Be kind, be respectful, be understanding. Don't guilt mentally ill people during times like these, because speaking from personal experience, many of us already feel guilty enough for needing to step back.

_Thank you_

I needed that example

[Image description: Screencap of a comment by @screaming-wren saying, “Ignoring: Damn, this is so annoying, people really need to move on. ‘Not all cops!’ ‘All Lives Matter!!’ Mental Health Break: the overwhelming feeling that I can’t do anything combined with the fact that everything is extremely violent means my anxiety (and other mental health issues) is going through the roof and I can’t handle it anymore.” End description.]

There’s a difference between throwing yourself down in front of a parade to stop it, and taking a step out of it to catch your breath on the sidelines.

Look.. this is a Relay Race not a Sprint. You go as hard as you can, then you pass the baton. and rest.

LISTEN.. a well-trained choir can hold an impossibly long, sustained note--- far longer than any single human could. This is because they take turns to stop and breathe, and then pick up the note so someone else can breathe.

tbh it doesn't rly hurt teenagers to incorrectly id as ace like... what's the worst than could happen? they don't have sex till they're older?? lol

"ohh but it'll take them longer to realize they're actually gay" i know my experiences aren't universal but like. if i wasn't ready to face my lesbianism then i was Not Ready, you could've eliminated every other label in existence and i still wouldn't have accepted it. if anything, the ability to try out different labels helped me learn about myself, explore the community, and accept that maybe not being straight wasn't so bad.

also lots of people identify as bi before realizing they are gay, lots of people identify as gay before realizing they're bi, lots of people identify as gay before realizing they're trans, etc etc etc!!! exploring and getting it wrong is a necessary part of the process!!! why is it so different for aroace identities?????

As someone who ID'd incorrectly as ace when I was younger, it was a very important part of my aging process. I was kept safe until my circumstances allowed me to explore. The ace community encouraged me to seek out resources to help myself in many ways, even when I wasn't allowed to get therapy or talk to anyone about my sexuality or gender.

I'm just one person, and others may have different experiences, but so long as you understand that it's okay to be wrong - your mistaken identity will not hurt you. It may be who you are forever, and that's awesome! And it may be that you misunderstood yourself, but that just means you've learned something about yourself.

The concept of “loitering” is violent and evil

The privatization of nature itself, of the outdoors… It’s violent to insist we can only legally be in a place if we (1) bought it, (2) payed our way to be there via goods. It’s violent to remove a human’s place outside and insist they have no community with the spaces that make up our world. Imperialism and capitalism have ruined ruined ruined our harmonies with nature and with our communities

Loitering laws also specifically target homeless people. If I spent all day in Starbucks hogging a table and sipping a free cup of water they wouldn’t bat an eye, but if a homeless person did the same thing - even if they paid for a drink - they’d be kicked out as fast as possible. These laws prevent homeless people from seeking safe shelter, especially in the winter months, and from convening in groups - it’s literally fucking isolating. It’s dehumanizing. And it’s because people treat homeless people like cockroaches - they view them with disgust and don’t want them around.

People who view homeless people like an invasive species are the vilest people and I’ll fight them any day.

They’re also largely one of the easiest ways for racist cops to hassle people. I was once nearly arrested for “loitering” while standing under the bus stop reading a news paper and waiting for my bus. I was dressed semi-professionally and had a backpack like one would expect a college student to have, but the cop insisted I needed to “move along” or he’d take me in. I was lucky enough that the bus pulled up and I got on.

I have a lot of respect for the Punjabi institution of the Sikh Langar. Tens of thousands of people of all backgrounds have been fed good, fresh, complete meals every day for five hundred years, made entirely by volunteers, without a penny changing hands. Imagine that, making a serious, large-scale, sustained effort to feed people simply because people need to be fed.

The “and wants to be here” part is the super important part here. If your medication takes away your sexual attraction or impairs it in someway, but you don’t want to identify as asexual, that’s totally valid and you’re definitely not required to. 

All labels are about what makes you comfortable and happy in your own skin - knowing and acknowledging and using the ace label is what makes me happy, for example, so it’s what I use.

You’re not in any way shape or form required to use the label if it makes you unhappy and uncomfortable. 

so like okay, 

I don’t know why I’ve been obsessively thinking about the concept of “gaydar” 

but I have. 

Actually no it’s because a straight family member used the term like 

“oh I have really great gaydar” 

and it made me feel really gross 

and it took me like a full hour to realize why. 

When heterosexual people say that, 

it feels like they’re bragging about their ability to clock us, you know? 

like a straight person is telling me that they can spot us queers at 50 paces 

and i’m immediately going to be uncomfortable with that, 

whereas when other queer folks talk about being able to spot each other 

it’s a tool for survival. 

Like here’s the thing right? 

being able to tell is important sometimes.  

Here’s an example: 

A couple summers ago I was in a very very small town in Nova Scotia, Canada 

(like 6 buildings small) 

and I met a woman in the library who was probably a little older than my actual mother. 

She was there most days using the wifi 

because she lived across the street in an apartment without internet. 

We sat at the same table a few times and spoke briefly about life in passing 

and after a few of these not-talking-about-gay-stuff convos I was pretty sure she was a part of the lgbtq community 

and I slipped in a casual pronoun re: an ex 

and she just looked at me, 

stopped completely 

and said “oh thank fuck, I thought so.” 

and instantly started talking about her girlfriend, 

it was like this huge wave of relief washed over both of us 

because we were in a small rural town and both hovering in this really queer space and unable to talk about it. 

Anyway she was really rad and took me to the closest big town to buy me a tim hortons coffee 

because she found it reprehensible that I had been in canada for more than 3 weeks already and hadn’t ever had it. 

Almost instantly it was like 

“oh okay we have this thing in common that other people may not be cool with 

but we can actually exist and not hide shit without the fear of violence or anger”

but when it’s a straight person

they’re pretty much just letting you know that they can spot the fact that you seem “abnormal” to them 

like great 

thanks for letting me know. 

[spaces added for accessibility]

We’re identifying brethren while they’re identifying outsiders. It’s that simple.

that last comment

It’s my opinion that like if a white supremacist/Nazi is going to be reformed. They need to do so willingly. The only times I’ve heard of successful rehabilitation of fascists is when they made the conscious decision to no longer be one anymore and seek atonement. People who try to like hug and change fascists that don’t want to change are fucking morons

Correct. I was crypto-facist for a few years, and the people trying to hug me didnt change me because at that point I wouldnt have listened. It was only when I started to see the movement for what it was that I was finally able to listen.

I’m not derailing your addition but I’m horrified you’re only 18. When did you become a fasc?

Yeah trust me it *is* horrifying. I’m ashamed of who I was and I think my only atonement is to talk about how damn easy it is to become one when you’re young.

This is gonna be a long post.

For a little bit of background, I am a mixed race person, half brown and half white. I was raised in a Muslim family and am still closeted around them.

I started to have issues with Islam at around 12 or so, when I first started to get the idea that I might be gay. Now I never would have admitted that was my reason. If you had asked me I probably would have said “logic” or something. Because of that I went hard into atheism and atheist circles.

Now people hate to admit this but ex-Muslim spaces are predominantly right wing. Ex-Muslims often see the left as “too tolerant” towards a religion that hurt them. This was the only community I had though, and I read through everything. I was 13.

The other thing that people hate to admit is that, especially when you’re young, being mixed race is so damn hard. If I acted “too white”, following my mother’s German/Austrian traditions, I was accused of hiding my true nature. But if I acted “too brown” I was just another camel jockey. So I hid my “Indian” customs from others and tried passing as white. Especially online.

So I’m not saying this is all youtube’s fault or anything. I was raised to believe that the brown half of my family was lesser and stupid. And with my hatred of Islam, I believed it doubly.

Then came Anita Sarkeesian. I was watching pewdiepie and from there my recommendations were all set. If I’m remembering the pipeline it was pewdiepie - Philip Defranco - Chris Ray Gun (sp?) - Thunderfoot - Sargon - etc. But I was pretty much acquainted with all of the right wing youtube of the day.

Funnily enough, I found her through Thunderfoot. That got me into antifeminism, and more specifically, GamerGate.

I was primarily on the subreddits KIA (Kotaku In Action) and TIA (Tumblr In Action). Both made fun of the SJWs. I kid you not, I would gleefully wait for “Sanity Sunday”, where the people would talk about how feminism is disgusting, cultural appropriation is fake, the wage gap isnt real, etc. I would scroll through this tag for hours.

I got most of my youtube recommendations from those subreddits. This led me from GamerGate to more fascist lines of thinking, such as watching videos about why BLM is a terrorist organization, why all muslims were evil rapists, and why I was fundamentally right to reject my Indian heritage and follow my “correct” heritage.

From here I delved into “race realism”, and I believed it all. I had to. This was the only community I had felt safe in. One of the fash guys even offered to shack me up at his house if my parents kicked me out for being atheist. I was 15.

To say that again, I was 15 and believed that white was right, blue lives matter, “we wuz kangs”, etc. I never would have called myself a fascist or a Nazi. How could I? I used my brown skin as a token, so that people could point to me and say: “See, we aren’t misogynistic and racist! We have this brown girl right here.” But I believed in all the things the Nazis did. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t. I will never pretend I didn’t.

But then something happened. I admitted to myself, and to a few others, that I was gay. And suddenly, the homophobia that I had molded myself in, it didn’t fit right. I happened to, by accident, click on the reddit thread of GamerGhazi, the opposition to GamerGate. And after a long bout of introspection I found out that they were accepting of gay people, that the things I had been experiencing were common, that maybe, just maybe, we didn’t need a white ethnostate.

I don’t want to be dramatic but that accidental click saved my life.

From there it was a road of recovery. I deleted all my old accounts, made new ones, and started to read leftist theory. I found better friends, cut out old people. So now, just about two years later, I’m healing.

I think that’s everything. I probably got some times and dates wrong because I’ve been trying to move on from it. But if you need more info or anything like that, please let me know.

Reblogging for anyone who’s struggling with being an ex-fascist. Feel free to message me as well, I know how scary it can be.

I think this is the power of movements like these, they target people when they’re young, and people who think they don’t belong, and make them feel like they do belong somewhere. the word heritage gets thrown around a lot because that’s what a lot of them genuinely think that’s about. So I think when people talk about trying to reform nazis, they’re really talking about trying to break through that insular bubble and get them the actual facts.  

Kathy Acker (via kitduckworth)

Book of Jubilation

Watch: Michelle Obama sends Native American students a crucial message in graduation speech.

I hope America realizes how amazing Michelle Obama is.

I really hate when straight people have the audacity to complain about people talking about how gay they are on this website. So many of us don’t have any other outlets for being openly non-straight. Society, right now, is not made for us. When we say “I’m so gay” in real life settings, we are not greeted with open arms. We are given horrified, disgusted looks and comments. So your feelings are irrelevant when it comes to the positivity and self love among the lbgpq+ community. I do not care if you are tired of seeing girls and other woman-aligned people post wlw positivity posts because you feel excluded in this one things because it really is just these few posts on the internet where you are not the center of attention. You can complain to me about not being included and represented properly when you get killed off of every show you are on and you get physically an emotionally hurt because of your sexuality. So fuck off and let us be as positive about our love and as silly about our love as we damn well please. Also, I’m extremely gay.

I never really wanted to be a solo artist. I really loved the idea of building something that had, I suppose a unifying element. And that’s how I see music, I feel like it brings people together.

#oh noooooooooo  #growing up at Citadel it wasn’t just that she couldn’t grieve for her mother  #it was that the life at Citadel made many human reactions impossible  #human habits and rituals and ways of being  #so many things would have been shut off and shut down and put into emotional cold storage  #because it’s not like Citadel was lacking ritual - they were lacking the basic humanity behind the need for ritual  #all Citadel rituals were about control and containment (eg ONLY those based on fear/awe)  #and any other human action with symbolic value that might have to do with community and memory - that’s gone  #stamped out  #there’s no lighting birthday candles in Citadel - only holy dread and worship  #so she’s actually forgotten - you can see it on her face - totally forgotten this gesture  #and she’s remembering another way To Be in mirroring it  #yes - like this - we remember her  #we acknowledge her - like *this*  #with this gesture I thee recall  #with this gesture I thee respect  #7000 days of repressing that communal value and it comes back in 2 seconds  (via harrietvane)