One of the really interesting tonal shifts in children's media lately is a shift away from "let me help you understand this scary and/or thing, but let's put it in a safe context" to "let's occupy you in a safe, non-threatening way"

And that isn't to say there aren't plenty of great kids shows coming out in the former category, but it's important to recognize that it doesn't really seem to be the norm in the same way anymore

What anarchists regularly attempt-and what puppets embody-is a systematic and continual challenge to the right of the police, or any other authority, to define the situation. They do it by proposing endless alternative frameworks. Or they do it by insisting on the power to switch frameworks whenever they like. This is, clearly, the point of the "puppet intervention," just as it was the effect of the sudden appearance of the Clowns and Billionaires in Philadelphia. They aggressively shifted frames. They also did so in a way that was very much to activists' tactical advantage, and threw the police completely off their game.

David Graeber, Direct Action: An Ethnography

comments by @SimoneRobutti :

the problem with this practice, which is also probably the most harmful legacy of Hakim Bey, is that these alternative realities built by activists become cages for the activists themselves. The resources required to sustain the "carnival" against the hegemonic reality either make it subside and lose very quickly or they force the performance to be a closed system of meaning, disconnected from the material world, because it would risk bursting the bubble. The result is often forms of escapism and isolation presented as some form of empowerment of imagination. The activists are caged within, have impact only on their own narrative and no impact on the material world.

Not sure if this is going to be the outcome of this wave of American protestors though, because there's probably not going to be much room for escapism and ornamental politics in a fascist regime.

To me it's a deeper problem: the whole frame is deeply rooted in a dualism that doesn't reflect the material world. There's "the system" and there's an outside. There's culture and counter-culture. There's an impure system of thinking and living, and taking distance from it purifies you. This line of thinking makes you inevitably detached from the phenomenon you want to alter, making you ultimately less powerful and self-isolating. To change something, you have to touch it, be in contact with it, perceive yourself embedded in it, even if just to syphon the resources it provides and reroute them though a different logic into a future you find more appealing.

hello everyone,

i need some urgent attention, around 10 days ago we lost a friend in ICU, partly because of institutional failure, but partly also because we were not able to provide them urgent aid in time... we are still in grieving.

i will not go into the details of what happened but i will say it was a trans woman and a trans rights activist who was killed by abuse and neglect on part of her family and institutions.

in the same network of friends, in the same city we have other queer people, two more trans women and two non-binary people facing violence and other similar threats

one of our friends was kidnapped by police twice, and taken to her guru in her gharana who paid them off (you can look up gharana system among Hijras to learn more). she has for now escaped, for the third time, due to work of one of my close friends but she has no employment or shelter.

there are transwomen and enbies facing violence daily at home by their own families, one of friends had a major spine injury due to domestic violence. they have thankfully escaped their home and are in a different city now, but they are critically short on funds. meanwhile two friends are still stuck at home.

in total we have 4 people in needs. i have set up a joint fundraiser for these queer friends. using the gofundme account of @mentalcamel because it is not operational in India.

https://gofund.me/bf99900d1

i need this fundraiser to be plugged everywhere it can be plugged. i have requested Mariana Colin, the youtuber behind channel "Morbid Zoo" to promote it on her channel, similarly to how she did it for me to help me escape.

we are aiming for 20k euros but we know it will not reach there realistically, whatever amount we can collect would be a major win for us, our main priority rn is to provide housing for Jenny and then help Luna and Tisha escape their homes.

thanks for all ur attention and help...

Fucking Knut Hamsun. I have so many feelings on Knut Hamsun, most of which are HIGHLY disdainful.

For those who aren't aware, Hamsun wrote Hunger, a genuinely very good and highly important 1890 novel that, alongside the writings of Dostoevsky, laid the groundwork for basically all of modern psychological fiction.

...and then you get to the rest of his catalogue.

If you've read anything he wrote after that point, it becomes immediately apparent that he has what seems at times to be an almost pathological hatred for women, Sámi, and urban folks. And then, ofc, he becomes Hitler fan #1, and thinks he can reason with him about the few points of disagreement that they had (it goes about as well as you'd think).

Fuck Knut Hamsun, all my homies HATE Knut Hamsun.

Did they get archive.ph?

Those bastards

I've been having a hard time getting to it lately