host of Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. author of The Sapling Cage. in Feminazgûl. play Penumbra City. She/they.
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Oct 2 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
Disaster compassion is real. Here are some things I've seen today and yesterday in Western North Carolina:
The Asheville Tool Library and a repair clinic teamed up behind firestorm to fix countless broken generators and chainsaws, just folks sitting around on their trucks fixing two-stroke engines, cheering as each one starts running and then goes out to where it can save people
Oct 2 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
i drove into asheville today to deliver supplies for various mutual aid orgs and to, yeah, do some journalism. I took this week off of writing about history, next week's podcast is going to be about the groups doing stuff in western north carolina right now.
what's happening in Asheville right now is absolutely classic "disaster compassion." I lost count of how many grassroots mutual aid organizations are working together to distribute resources. Sure, it's the usual folks, like the progressive churches and the anarchists...
Sep 28 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
western north carolina is an image of the future. disasters will get worse. This is not a reason to despair. It is a reason to get organized. To get prepared.
In the current crisis, we can clearly see the purpose of individual/family preparedness as a way to help larger collective disaster resilience. The largest problem (that we're currently aware of) is that people are stranded without power, communications, food, water, or gas.
Aug 4 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
hitting nazis with heavy objects works. I've talked to antifascists in multiple countries about how the growth of fascism was stopped through militant street resistance.
fascism is a populist movement, and street violence is an important component to its growth. but nazis make poor underdogs... the average fascist wants to be a fascist when he feels like he is winning. He wants to feel strong with his strong buddies.
Jul 22 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
this is one of the worst pieces of political writing I've ever encountered, and I read political history for a living.
Although I have nothing nice to say about the attempt to reform authoritarian leftism for the modern era, I'm speaking only about the actual prose.
The very first sentence reads like a fragment: you generally don't say "not only in..." without following up with a "but..."
The second sentence contains a comma splice ("the united mission" is the subject of both the first and second clause, so the comma should not be present)
Jul 4 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
the founding fathers waged the revolutionary war because they wanted to steal more land from indigenous people than the king would let them.
they sold a myth of freedom to those that they ruled in order to put their bodies into the charnel house of war
happy 4th of july
the hypocrisy baked into the American revolution has poisoned every attempt at democracy that it inspired.
abolish the united states
the decolonial war is not over. it took Ireland 800 years to win its freedom. turtle island still has time.
Jun 21 • 15 tweets • 2 min read
I'm going to define some terms, because most of them have become essentially jargon. Socialism, communism, anarchism, democratic socialism, libertarian socialism, authoritarian socialism.
First of all, the meaning of these terms shifts country to country and year to year, confusing matters greatly. An anarchist in 1880s Chicago would also call themselves a socialist. "Communist" had a much broader meaning before 1917. So I'm going to be a bit broad.
May 3 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
In my 20+ years of activism I've never seen this level of police response to so little provocation. The student protests have hit a nerve, and are honestly more threatening to power than I (or likely most anyone) would have guessed.
Everyone I've talked to about it has a different explanation. Maybe the police in the US are terrified of another 2020 and are committed to crushing all dissent. Maybe the bipartisan support for Israel as a bulwark for US interests must be preserved at all costs.
Apr 12 • 20 tweets • 3 min read
peter kropotkin, in his mid-seventies, moved back to Russia during the early days of the revolution, when there was hope in the air. He watched as the anarchist movement was crushed by the Bolsheviks, leveraging whatever prestige he had to try to preserve free press.
the Bolsheviks, despite pretending to respect him, requisitioned his apartments two different times, and at last he moved to a small town, where he kept counsel for the workers and peasants, offering what advice he could.
Jul 25, 2023 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
hey so like
we should actually be worried
and working together with our friends and communities to figure out what risks we want to take to address these problems, and how we want to work together to face what is absolutely coming (and already here).
if you want to know what I think, I think that we should be building resilient communities that focus on inclusion instead of gatekeeping, that value conflict resolution and disaster preparedness, that support a diversity of tactics against climate change.
Jul 18, 2023 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
"but in anarchism how would people's needs be met?"
you know me, I don't want to add to the discourse I wanna comment on the discourse itself.
The people who think they have a "gotcha" on anarchism are arguing against the "anarchy" they grew up being told about.
so the anarchists respond "well, we have quite a bit of both theory and practice that shows us how we would meet any given need in an anarchist society"
but both sides are arguing across one another. The anarchist understands anarchism. The other person has the wrong basic idea.
Jul 15, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
i’m not a labor historian, but i read history books about social struggle for a living.
my takeaway so far?
unions and strikes are pretty much how we’ve gotten anything nice in this world, for anyone who wasn’t born into fuck-off wealth.
unions one of the most effective strategies for the sorts of reforms that make our lives bearable. they’ve gotten us to the point where fewer people have to work 14 hour days 6-7 days a week.
they’ve done more than that.
Jun 8, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
now more than ever, we need to break the stigma around "prepping" and preparedness. Individual and community preparedness go hand-in-hand. By being prepared as individuals, we are better positioned to help our community. By preparing as a community, we are stronger as individuals
It's the time to talk to your friends and family about what they're doing to get ready for various service interruptions and disasters. It's time to do threat analysis--what crises are likely? How might we be better prepared to face those crises?
Jun 8, 2023 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
this is a thread compiling information about dealing with smoke from someone from a lefty prepper discord I'm on, mostly written by an australian:
Stay inside as much as possible and seal doors and windows. Any animals you care for should also be inside as much as possible.
If you're outside, plan for things to take more time. People may get out of breath way quicker than they're used to and your regular day to day activity levels may become difficult.
May 25, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
a friend asked me how i keep up hope while everything is going so badly. it's something I think about a lot.
first and foremost: you can't win a game unless you're playing to win. no matter how stacked the odds are against you, you play until the end. we're not at the end.
since this struggle is bigger than ourselves, there IS no end. the struggle for a society without oppression (which I call the anarchist struggle, and other people have other names for) is a struggle that cannot be lost.
Mar 6, 2023 • 25 tweets • 4 min read
if they mean what they say, here's a thread of ideas about how to stand up for yourself or your trans loved ones (or just be a decent human) during this time of escalating legislative and extralegal threats and violence against LGBT people
first and foremost: focus on what unites us, not what divides us. focus on deescalating all conflict that isn't with the enemy. This doesn't mean we all have to agree about everything, but it does mean we have bigger problems right now.
Mar 5, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
too many preppers focusing on FAFO not enough focusing on FIFO
(first in, first out, the proper way to store canned goods)
Jan 31, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
West Virginia is proposing a law to ban "adult businesses." Similar laws and anti-porn laws are cropping up around the country after Louisiana's anti-porn law passed. This is vile on its own. It also could easily impact more people than is immediately obvious.
Some of these new laws make it so anywhere anyone is publicly performing in clothes not suited to their sex-assigned-at-birth becomes an "adult business." If I give a talk or play a show in a state that passes that bill, that venue would become classified as an adult business.
Jan 28, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
if someone is beating you with a stick and you say “stop please” and people are like “please articulate the details exactly how you want society to function without that guy beating you with a stick” you are under no obligation to answer.
while the work of envisioning society without police is worthwhile, it is not necessary that each of us have it on the tip of our tongues. it is enough to say “not this.”
Dec 22, 2022 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
having a go bag is cool.
the thing to remember about go bags is that "going to my friend's house in another state" or "sleeping in my car for awhile" or "crashing on the floor of the mutual aid space" is far more likely than "living in the woods for weeks."
clean socks and underwear are more important than hatchets in most scenarios.
hell i bet you're more likely to use a nintendo switch than an entrenchment tool.
think about what you want on a long car trip. and what you'd grab from your house if your house was on fire.
Dec 6, 2022 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
by popular request, a short thread on ideas for how to prepare for / handle power outages, starting with the newest concern:
- organize against the far right so that they are less capable of shooting up power stations
- basic disaster preparedness: several gallons of water per person, some ready to eat food, emergency/windup radio, reasonably expansive first aid kit, extra warm blankets, keep vehicles with at least half a tank of gas
(first in, first out, the proper way to store canned goods)