Many people in colonial societies believe (or simply accept as a norm, without argument) that any amount of suffering and death is acceptable within out-groups to sustain their in-group's way of life. This is especially true in the imperial core, where I live. The idea of a "whatever it takes" stance being adopted by those out-groups, as they pursue a freer existence, or simply demand to survive, inspires genocidal zeal among many people in colonial societies. Standards of decency are about how their in-groups are treated, not others.

.@BostonReview published an excerpt from Let This Radicalize You. It's from a chapter called Organizing Isn't Matchmaking. "It is no exaggeration to say that the whole world is at stake, and we cannot afford to minimize what that demands of us." bostonreview.net/articles/how-m… "Put simply, we need more people. What do we mean by this? We are not talking about launching search parties to find an undiscovered army of people with already-perfected politics with whom we will easily and naturally align." bostonreview.net/articles/how-m…

Once, on the bus, a white guy got mad that I moved his umbrella off the seat next to him and sat down. He was so furious that he slapped a frappuccino out of my hand. It went flying and splashed some lady’s clothes. That’s more harm than Jordan Neely caused anyone. There were no other seats and I was exhausted, and needed to sit down, but this guy just couldn’t fathom that I had touched his property. He was yelling loudly that I was a bitch, that the woman on other side of him was fat, and he hit my hand and ruined some stranger’s clothing.

In our 100th episode of @MovementMemos, @prisonculture and I discuss our upcoming book Let This Radicalize You, the perils of visibility, and how we cultivate hope in our lives and work. I really love this episode and I hope you will too. truthout.org/audio/let-this… The last four episodes of this season of @MovementMemos will mark the release of Let This Radicalize You by delving into some of the topics we discuss in the book. I wanted to begin with a convo between me & Mariame, and we had such a great time making it. truthout.org/audio/let-this…

The only thing that's unique or shocking about the cops doing nothing while people were being harmed downtown is that it happened downtown. cops intervene and commit violence when they want to. It almost never happens in the name of halting other violence. The story of someone stepping in front of a squad car and pointing to an assault in progress, only to have the cops drive around them and ignore the violence literally only jumps out at me because it happened downtown, in the heart of the city's wealth. Otherwise, it's normal.

At the end of 2022, I sat w a young person in the ER for about 12 hrs. For various reasons, it was important they not be alone. I saw so many patients being treated so horribly from the moment they arrived. The system is fraying apart. A lot of healthcare providers seem broken.

https://twitter.com/DisabledDem/status/1648427870962999302

I understand why. A lot of health care workers in the US have been ground under in ways that are unforgivable. I'm sure I wouldn't be the same either. I probably wouldn't have as much to offer. I might not give as many fucks. I understand, and also, it's truly awful for everyone.

People on here are often determined to interpret your words in the least generous way possible, because they just want to fight. It's recreational anger. It's not always easy to recognize and sometimes we swing back when we shouldn't, but it's worth trying to discern. No one's picking a fight with me today btw. Today, I'm just concerned for others who I see folks picking at. Some people need hobbies. It's not easy being hypervisible and having your every thought picked over for ungenerous interpretation. You don't have to answer to everyone.

The reason he will get away w this obvious lie is that so many people have played into fantasies that spicy autocomplete is nearing the realm of artificial general intelligence, which it most definitely is not. It’s an idea that’s used to keep us mesmerized while we’re oppressed.

https://twitter.com/sawyermerritt/status/1648081976400703488

AI is already used to harm, coerce and destroy people on a daily basis. It does not have to reach some hyper intelligent supervillain status to do so (and is nowhere near that, at all). That specter is misdirection to keep us fearing sci-fi instead of rich people and bureaucracy.

More books? No. These are cookies that @prisonculture had made for me that look like our book! 😂❤️

I have the goofiest and most wonderful friends in the world. To preorder a copy of the actual book: bit.ly/LetThisRadical…

To order cookies that look like the book, you should apparently talk to Brookie’s Cookies in NYC. They do excellent work.

.@TerriFriedline: "Private finance, like settler-colonialism, is not inevitable. The aftermath of SVB’s failure is a time to raise awareness of the contradictions and learn how elite power preserves wealth." truthout.org/articles/silic… "It is a time to question why tech companies and venture capitalists receive bailouts while elders have their Social Security checks garnished to repay loans for educational degrees they might never have received." truthout.org/articles/silic…

More than 300 people per day are still dying of COVID in the US. That’s over 2,000 per week. Over 100,000 people per year — a loss once deemed “incalculable” has now been calculated, and deemed acceptable, because masking in public spaces is not conducive to capitalism. We should be masking on planes, trains, in grocery stores and in medical settings. Bc those 100,000 lives are worth it. But they have been devalued in most people’s minds and deemed expendable for the sake of recreating some sickly version of the social relations we once knew.

This is a TERRIBLE article. Stop trying to rehabilitate Lightfoot. She was always awful and Chicago’s grassroots community, including queer people, tried to warn you. She is a god awful mayor who oversaw the most extreme police violence against protesters here in my lifetime.

https://twitter.com/pinknews/status/1631609109630836736

She raised the bridges downtown to trap and gas people. The Chicago Freedom School had cops trying to force their way in to arrest wounded teenagers and the city threatened to shut them down for offering shelter to battered protesters. Teenagers. Who were gassed and bleeding.

"At other times, he has broached the topic of euthanasia. 'The possibility of making it mandatory in the future,' he said in one interview, will 'come up in discussion.'" Dude also says "'euthanasia (either voluntary or involuntary) is a complex, nuanced issue.'”

HORRIFYING.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1624795488057786373

There is nothing complex or nuanced about "involuntary euthanasia." That's just murder. This kind of talk aims to normalize the murder of disabled and elderly people, and to be real, society is primed to accept this kind of shit as mainstream. It must be fiercely rejected.

This piece uses the “White Noise” connection as a hook but contains some decent info on the crisis in East Palestine, Ohio. Those story is largely being suppressed bc it makes a lot of powerful people look bad and they’re trying to cover up the damage done
cnn.com/2023/02/11/hea… The government is acting like the crisis is over, but animals are still getting sick and dropping dead. wkbn.com/news/local-new…

“I see the life and death of Tortuguita through the lens of nearly four decades spent in the struggle to free veteran Black Panther and MOVE sympathizer Mumia Abu-Jamal.” Alana Yu-lan Price and I interview veteran Black Panther Julia Wright in @truthout. truthout.org/articles/fred-… I was honored to work on this and hope folks will check it out. As I say in the piece, “We must not sever this shooting from the legacies of violence that clarify the character of the system and purpose of law enforcement.” truthout.org/articles/fred-…

I don’t aim for a number of books, personally. I devote time and I focus on books that interest me during those hours. Sometimes, that could mean knocking out a book or even two in a week. But often, things stretch on. That’s okay, as long as I maintain my practice of reading.

https://twitter.com/penguinusa/status/1609615186104651778

There was a year when I tried to read a book per week and after a couple of months, I was losing the habit. A friend said, well, New Year’s resolutions tend to trail off after six weeks or so, but that wasn’t the issue.

Saw someone complaining about end of the year lists writers make. People will complain about anything. Promote your work, friends. No one else is out here doing it for us. If you created worthwhile things, keep sharing them. I love getting a look back at things we've all made. Also, the person claimed no one is going to read your old content and the thing is, twitter has analytics, so you don't have to take some rando's word for whether or not people are clicking those links. You can check, or you can just share intuitively, as I do, and I do it a lot.

Early enough that even some of my best friends thought I had lost my mind for about a month.

https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1609273587931774977

I spent a lot of time thinking about why I realized what was happening as early as I did, and why reasonable people could not be convinced. In part, I obsessed bc I was so wounded by how it all went down. I had personalized it. Moralized it.

Was gonna review some edits, but I have decided that it can wait until tomorrow. Today, I think I am gonna rewatch the movie Willow (haven't seen it since I was a kid) and then binge watch the first six episodes of the series. That feels like a New Year's Day thing to do. In some years past, I would have been binge watching TV today while nursing a hangover. Glad to have skipped that part this time. This binge shall be merry.

My final piece of the year is here! It’s a call to make the basics of self managed abortion common knowledge. I put this together in conversation with @robinmarty, Ash Williams, Farah Diaz-Tello and others. @truthout invites you to make a zine of it.
truthout.org/articles/learn… .@xoDrVenture created the beautiful illustration that accompanies this piece and I just want to say it was an honor to work in concert with them on this. Their work is always amazing. truthout.org/articles/learn…

Someone asked "what's the best book you read in 2022" and it will surprise no one that I can't pick just one fave. I read multiple books this year that changed my perspective and, in some cases, my life. Some were enriching and some were partial guidebooks for the future. 🧵 One of the best books I read this year was The Next Apocalypse: The Art and Science of Survival by Chris Begley. This book had a huge impact on the way I look at collapse and crisis, and I found it surprisingly comforting in some ways. basicbooks.com/titles/chris-b…