We gotta internalize that it's okay to break the law because the US legal system is illegitimate and they can't stop us if we do it en masse. This applies for a lot of shit
correct. I think people should recognize that we've entered a new era, politicians do not respond to pressure because they know the electoral structures are rigged and that the police will crush dissent. Therefore we have to make crisis, not pressure
it's because they're confident the police, prisons, surveillance, etc. will receive endless support and funding no matter who is president, so they will be able to crush any dissident should it occur
After the police left, the students reclaimed their campus and gathered together for the planned peaceful teach-in. The massive police presence and arrest of dozens of students was so unnecessary.
it's clear that neither the big marches nor the small acts of sabotage (burnt cop cars, broken windows) are sufficient. what needs to happen is obvious and yet almost impossible unless we develop organization and commitment to a disruption of our comfortable lives
this is so noble and right and good. this is communal action. this is revolutionary love. this how I hope and wish we could (would?) all act whenever the state gets one of us in its grasp
I remember when George Zimmerman was acquitted, and that was a moment of radicalization for me, it was painful and I felt alone among even my friends who preferred to believe that there's still something worthwhile about the American system
There's no justice in America
everyone at UCLA should feel incredibly proud of themselves. Fighting the cops is where all our movements will have to go, and they're correct to do it and brave to face it
Today a cop tried to make me leave a sidewalk and go into a kettle bc the sidewalk was a "frozen zone". I declined and she called 2 more pigs over. I said show me the law. They said they would call legal but all they did was fume
U don't have to reflexively do what cops say 👁️
Credit card debt is like the most fake debt you can have so why not travel. What is Citibank gonna do, put a lien on the house you don't own? Go to Greece
This the kinda thing that should make someone a communist but instead everyone gaslights you into thinking it's totally cool that most profit is taken in by people higher up the ladder even tho you did all the work
It's easy to say this but it's not easy to make it happen. Lots of people on here are clearly frustrated with their impotence and taking it out on each other. Everyone else is not radical enough, not dedicated enough etc. But we all are failing to do what is moral, really
“I have never been hit so hard in my life. It’s up to the IOC to judge.”
Italy’s Angela Carini after lasting just 46 seconds against Algeria’s intersex athlete Imane Khelif.
Biological firestorm at Paris Olympics.
I'm kicking the tires on my own self conception as a wannabe revolutionary. What am I willing to do, specifically. Gotta stop asking what role I'd play on the commune (the fantasy) and start being real about the role I can play rn in the fall of the US
this is why I'm a communist and not an anarchist. I want state infrastructure for care. you shouldn't have to be liked by a community of friends to get care
We need to offer ways to get support in community that do not require us to first build community. Being a known, loved, present, valued, or respected person in community should not be a prerequisite for receiving care.
everyone is telling me that trump is gonna be so much worse but it is the Democrats who are setting the stage for me and my friends to all to get blacksited
Breaking: John Kirby confirmed that Iran is funding the protests in the US:
“We do know that Iran has been funding and encouraging some of the protest activity here in the United States.”
I think this work is best done with trusted circles off line so if anyone out there is still just posting, the most urgent step is to find some real life people to connect with
I think a lot of black students at universities are heavy heavy on that black excellence bullshit. They're invested in moving into elite spaces and that means they don't have a radical spirit at all. They're all Kamalas
The same thing is happening on my campus and I truly don’t understand it. Black undergrads having cookouts, potlucks, beach days etc while one of the biggest student movements in 40 years is taking place. Nowhere to be found. It’s perplexing and incredibly disappointing.
we no longer have the numbers for street protest that we had in 2020, so a march alone is nowhere near as disruptive as those were. to make impact we must do stuff like shut down the subway tracks. it's good
Housing activists defending a terminally ill Black woman from eviction in Detroit are trying their best to keep aggressive bailiffs from entering the home today.
If the national guard is gonna be called in to Columbia to clear the encampment, that means our enemies are escalating their tactics. The strategic move is to respond in kind by digging heels in, getting more aggressive about taking up space
please have more than just an identity based politics 😭 we have black mayors in NYC, Chicago, Atl, SF etc and they will always call their opponents gentrifiers and hand maidens for white ppl while they enact genocidal anti black policies, stop eating it up u absolute idiots
I don't think the 2020 movement failed, I think we learned a lot that we're using right now. There were lots of setbacks, the propaganda campaign against Defund, the use of liberal identity politics to put black fascists in power, organized burnout, the reveal of abuse in orgs
The goal of the encampments, like everything we do, should be to create crisis, either as leverage to get what we want or to disrupt what we don't want. You want to escalate and keep escalating. You want to break the people who comprise the system
Black revolt is the only way this country is ever going anywhere good. Those who have settler relations to this place ain't never gonna revolt, merely reform. The contortions everyone does to avoid this truth are infuriating
I'm an abolitionist, and I'm committed to that, but i think it's worth noting that through the official "justice system" there will never be real consequences for white supremacists and in fact this system precludes the possibility of justice - which is why I'm an abolitionist
BREAKING: A 14 year old witness to the disappearance of Francisco Nunez, who I interviewed in May, has been shot by
@LASDHQ
deputies.
Nunez was last seen alive in LASD custody. His body was discovered 5 days later, feet from where he was seen last.
Paperboy Prince riding Emily Gallagher's ass for supporting a community effort to make a very dangerous street safer for pedestrians and shifting the conversation to be one of gentrifier vs real new yorker is so sick. Carrying water for Eric Adams
white people wish for violence from the people they oppressed because it would prove to them that we are "all" genocidal maniacs if given a chance. They comfort themselves by saying everyone else would behave just like them, the most destructive ppl to ever roam earth
Juneteenth weekend, a good time to say I'm so proud of being a black american descended from slaves, I'm so proud of my people and how we've survive and thrive even when it feels like everything is against us
I see a lot of this format of tweet. "If only u ppl listened to us" well then what? Where do we locate power? Is being "listened to" power when your listeners are not the ones structuring society (remember, "leftists" don't)
it's our jobs to take power, not find listeners
NYC has been adding money to police budgets for years, long before Defund was a slogan. It's not related to the "failure" of the Defund slogan, it's because a stronger police state is needed to manage the fallout of austerity policies
Around 20 SRG cops here total for 4 tents. They’re threatening arrest if the tents aren’t taken down (with no notice). One of the residents said he would leave if he had somewhere he could stay with his dog.
A few comrades and I are getting together to put on this 🩷✊🏿 feeling a bit raw about the state of the world, maybe you too. our only defense against the miserable state of this world is to join up together and make this world anew
I was an employee at the pre k division and Eric Adams and his deputy Kara Ahmed are doing criminal shit there. They deliberately hollowed out the division and now they're not even paying the providers, disgusting stuff
nyc hasn't been paying the preschool and daycare providers that make up its once-lauded pre-k system. one estimate from january put the amount owed to them at ~ $400 million. i took a look at how they're coping for
@bw
+
@CityLab
the non carceral, long term support system you are looking for does not exist. There is no easy resource to turn to. There is no expert with a step by step plan laid out. We must build the things we need and struggle through the process together
every time there actually is violence on the subway, the cops are never useful. We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars and these mfs DO NOT STOP VIOLENCE
All they do is terrorize teenagers, the homeless and ppl just trying to survive. They don't help anyone
After a man was shot dead onboard a a Manhattan-bound 3 train in Crown Heights at 8:15 p.m., police could not give a description of the perpetrator and are now asking the public for information. 🤔
People can make impact through individual action, but we're not getting systemic responses that actually end the pandemic without collective action. The state doesn't respond when it's just a crisis for us, it responds when it's a crisis for the elite. Strikes, riots, etc
no I wanna actually win. kissing Biden ass will not lead to winning. being soft about colonialism and genocide will not lead to winning. AOC reveals the compromises you make when you attempt to integrate yourself into the power of the ruling class rather than threaten it
It's just so weird that people are on here calling people they deem not COVID conscious enough "murderers" and "serial killers". Like...aren't you smart enough to know that you yourself have no idea how many people you've given COVID to, how many of those led to deaths
I need people to understand that you're probably not gonna get a phone call.
If a cop is coming towards you, move away. Do not let them get their hands on you. You can avoid arrest by avoiding them
Students are being given outdated legal info, directed to write the NLG number on their arm & told to ask “Am I being detained?” if cops grab them.
They’re not going to get a phone call, and as soon as a cop touches them they’re detained - anything said is recorded on bodycam.
Don't let this shit go unnoticed. Eric Adams is actively destroying the youth of this city. He is taking away youth programs that cost the cities pennies in comparison to the BILLIONS he spends on NYPD. Then he sends those pigs to chase kids from any sort of public space
Among the cuts baked into the prelim budget Mayor Adams rolled out today: The Parks Department would have to eliminate a community garden program for “at risk youth” — a move that'll save NYC just $140,000 in the 2025 fiscal year.
w/
@michaelgartland
and yet still the solution remains the same: out organize them. many people arrive onto a movement scene looking for some crew they can roll with, to trust. They look to be part of something. If u and ur autonomous crews are all opaque and unjoinable, ppl will go to PSL
PSL didn't out-organize anyone. They swooped in and co-opted marches and occupations that they had little part in creating. This is what authoritarian leftists ALWAYS do. They don't create movements; they steal them. They steal valor, they steal credit, and they steal control.
nyc is such a fucked up city, and it's the fault if its corrupt ass political leaders. we need socialists in office and we need all the nypd's money and we need politicized and organized community groups to agitate for a liveable city. it's possible
The expansion of the black middle class and wider adoption of its assimilationist values has been absolutely tragic for black resistance. It's pathetic out here
Not a great week to be in DSA. Since there are almost no mass formation alternatives, a q I'm asking myself is whether it's better to spend my energy doing the work I can here or helping lay the groundwork for an alternative. Don't think there's a clear way forward
this is hilarious. why are political staffers acting like they should be allowed to be in the shadows? you're part of the state you dumbasses, the public has a right to know
@young_litigator
I'm 100% sure your firm doesn't spend all it's profits on that. I'm 100% sure the people at the top of your firm make a shit ton more money than others who do equally a ton of work for far less pay.
Also have you heard of a workers coop? :)
BREAKING: Activists in Atlanta say that police are lying about what happened when a protester was shot and killed Wednesday.
The activists say police were hit with friendly fire when raiding their encampment, and that the activist killed, Tort, did not shoot them.
PLEASE: degrowth is not austerity, I beg of you to make a critique that doesn't rely on misstating the degrowth position
This is a nice little meditation on degrowth as a framework:
NYPD is trying to use excessive violence and arrests to kill the tidal wave of anger that Jordan Neely's death provoked. I don't think it's working -- people are pissed
One of the vilest things antis do is pose as fake clinic escorts. Bernadette Patel (in the pink) does this monthly. Luckily
@nycforabortion
has it covered.
More here:
Yes. It's underappreciated that you may (often) do things for community members that you halfway don't like. My mama be complaining but she still gone drive her annoying ass neighbor to the store
A lot of white, middle class leftists have no concept of community as a group of people that takes care of you even if they don't like you. The only concepts they have are the nuclear family, which might do part of that but also might abuse you, or friend groups.
they learned in 2020 that we will only go so far. people were policing each other over graffiti on bridges and blocking street traffic, when really we should have let the bravest and youngest amongst us run further amok. needed far more fires and looting
A core part of the way I thought politics worked is that if you gave people stuff, it’d be hard to turn around and take it from them, and that’s being proven tragically incorrect
whether or not you think DSA is doing anything worthwhile, it's true that there are plenty of black people, Palestinians etc in this org trying to do work
this is a dumb take. cars are killing people, both in "accidents" and environmentally. and the car supremacy of this city and refusal invest in public transit, bike infrastructure and pleasant pedestrian walkways most directly affects the poor
I told y’all - the gentrifiers run Brooklyn - skyrocketing rents, gun violence, mental health crisis, businesses closing at record rates … and bike lane protests are the focus. Cars vs Bikes in nyc is a working class vs hipster fight. Hipsters have more lobbyist $
I’m so deeply confused by people I see masking sometimes and then going to bars unmasked and restaurants and hanging out with all their unmasked friends
What is the thinking?
But I do think people learned. I'm seeing people do different stuff, experiment a little. I'm doing new stuff, experimenting a little. We gotta zip zam, we gotta stick n move, we gotta develop new razzle dazzles all the time. Most importantly we gotta keep going
The people I least respect are the ones who have given up doing anything and want to impart their cynicism on everyone else. Fuck off, I'm working here
It makes me so mad this whole furor about trans women in sports. The whiners are inevitably racist misogynists who never even watch women's sports or absolute losers who never competed in their life
Finally launched my "chopped cheese" being the NYC sandwich of choice is not a real thing, was never a real thing, and was basically a 2010s-era psyop to convince people this was somehow always a thing during a freakout over who is a "real New Yorker" take
This is so stupid 😒 People working on defund do take violence seriously, we say stop spending money on violent policing and spend it on shit that actually reduces violence by improving people's material conditions like housing, healthcare, education etc
The rise in shootings is one of those issues the Left needs to take seriously before the Right does or you'll end up with revanchist figures winning elections in Democratic cities again