friendly neighbourhood queer

that one friend that's too library: you could get that for free at the library

so riot baby hits like a ton of bricks

I want to affect people like a clap of thunder. ...to inflame their minds with the breadth of my vision, the strength of my conviction and the power of my expression. Picture of Rosa Luxemburg from the book Red Rosa

Happy 154th birthday to Rosa Luxemburg

meanwhile maternal grandpa was out doing war crimes in the colonial war (he was a mechanic with the navy)

and paternal granpa was a long distance bus driver who worked all over Europe without ever learning a word of any second language

maternal gran worked in the fields picking the harvest. she had her own veg garden, and still keeps animals to this day.

I honestly have no clue if my paternal gran was ever like, employed, but she did have her own farm with animals and everything, where she did most of the labour most of the time.

In case you needed any more proof that corporate media is built on a foundation of white supremacy...

No matter where you are, they’re using the same playbook

I think "killing children is always bad" is maybe the easiest simplest position to hold.

So much of discourse about Iran relies on the false binary of “being victimized by IR vs being victimized by western imperialism”. When the majority of people are fucking both.

(don't get me wrong, I think the idea of a "migrant crisis" is nonsense too, but the cultural outrage that follows migration is something that the far right reliably exploits while simultaneously exacerbating the initial drivers like climate change and war)

The nationalist chauvinist west doesn't actually mind migration, they prefer migration to be crisis driven, for it to create an underclass who can be pointed to as an enemy and/or exploited. The biggest driver of people fleeing here is making their homes elsewhere uninhabitable.

Exactly this. Similarly the refugee crises that massive wars cause help solidify recruitment of anti migrant reactionaries as they end up filtering into Europe fleeing warzones.

Everything awful is just a win condition for them.

It turns out ‘move fast, break things’ does not work for foreign policy. Shocker.

Some conservatives here think that secular young Iranians would be happy if America would come and liberate them. What would you say to them? Democracy, contrary to what they try to tell us, it’s not a paper that you hang on the wall and then you have a democracy. Democracy is a social evolution. It is something cultural. Iranians, they have become much more secular, and they are ready for democracy, but they have to fight themselves for democracy, and the only thing that other countries can do is to understand their fight and help them in their fight. They [America] talk about the human rights in Iran … how is it that the United States makes the biggest deals with China, and China is far from respecting human rights? What about Saudi Arabia? If you want to talk about an inquisition, the Iranian regime is far from being an inquisition. We have almost a free press, people leave, women have the right to study, they drive, they work. Saudi Arabia, they don’t have anything like that! Talk about human rights in Saudi Arabia! Why doesn’t anyone go and put a bomb in Saudi Arabia and kill the king?

Do you think it’s ironic that, in the face of American threats, you almost find yourself defending the Iranian regime? Absolutely, but if we want a democracy, the Iranian people have to do it themselves. The Americans say they want a democracy in Iran, and at the same time, when the Iranians wanted to become democratic in 1953 with [Mohammad] Mosaddeq and to nationalize our oil, the CIA came and made a coup d’état in my country. Why do you want me to believe that they want to come and make a democracy? We have to make our democracy! There are many things that I wish for in my country — I want my country to be free, I want my country to be democratic, I don’t want any journalists to go to jail because of an article they wrote in my country. But if the United States of America attacked my country, no matter what, I would be against the United States.

Do you see similarities between the Christian fundamentalists in our government and the mullahs in Iran? They’re the same! George Bush and the mullahs of Iran, they use the same words! The mullahs of Iran say we have God on our side; he has God on his side, too. Both of them are convinced that they are going to eradicate evil in the world. But when these words come out of the mouth of a mullah, it’s normal. It’s a shame that the president of the biggest secular democracy in the world talks with the same words as the mullahs. It’s extremely scary.

Do you have any advice for secular Americans who are faced with living in a country that’s increasingly governed by religious fundamentalists? If I have any advice, it’s that every day that you wake up, don’t say, “This is normal.” Every day, wake up with this idea that you have to defend your freedom. Nobody has the right to take from women the right to abortion, nobody has the right to take from homosexuals the right to be homosexual, nobody has the right to stop people laughing, to stop people thinking, to stop people talking. If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

The full 2005 interview it's from is well worth a read btw. Sadly just as relevant today as it was 20+ years ago—moreso, in fact. www.salon.com/2005/04/24/s...

"There are many things I wish for my country . . . But if the USA attacked my country, no matter what, I would be against the US."

Picture of Marjane Satrapi alongside a quote from her. The quote reads: The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same... - Marjane Satrapi, Iranian-French graphic novelist

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

This is an illegal war of aggression.

Dozens of Iranian children have been massacred by the US and Israel on its first day.

If the cheerleaders of this crime succeed, our world will descend into bloody chaos.

I really wish we could all collectively learn how necessary it is to feminism to have an anti imperialism framework

I keep thinking about how the propaganda leading to this war was all about how you needed to rescue women and the first thing they did was kill dozens of little girls.

develop an ethic of radical care for others.

part of any successful movement means making sure everyone is fed + housed & that the children aren’t sitting in their own filth.

change the diaper.

buy diapers for someone in need.

set up a community diaper drive for vulnerable families.

8/9

you gotta make sure not to neglect the things that matter.

some are going to do things i can’t legally suggest here, but if that’s not your thing & you feel helpless:

community care is important.

look around you & see what you can do to help others.

make sure care needs aren’t neglected.

7/9

free note to everyone: you can just say we shouldn’t be bombing Iran rather than pretending this would be fine if Trump explained himself better

The only thing it feels worthwhile for me to say right now is pay attention to whether your feelings & the information you’re absorbing are paralyzing you or prompting you to meaningful action, whatever that is. Paralysis helps no one but the enemy.

It’s not lost on me that this is happening during Ramadan and during fasting hrs.

no war no borders no cops no prisons no to all of this shit

at this point I should just tattoo I NEED A FUCKING NAP on my forehead tbh

Of course, it is unlawful.

Even the "pre-emptive" justification is half-hearted guff.

Of course, it is stupid.

Wise US politicians once realised a rules-based international order was in their interests. That is being thrown away.

And most of all, and regardless of the above, it is wrong.

Considering blocking people who keep saying 'this latest shit thing is to distract from the Epstein files' like they wouldn't be doing this if Epstein had never existed.

A heavy metal wheel crank laid against a wrought iron fence among various other free items

*sigh* great. There’s obviously some sort of device nearby I’m gonna need to use this on to compete a puzzle so I gotta lug it to the leftist coffee shop and bookstore with me

The talk to your friends app and the witness the horrors app being the same app is not great for the mental health is it