Fierce Lioness

But instead, I haven't slept normally in weeks, trying to calm down my mother who is now having panic attacks on a regular basis, thinking where we should run in case things do escalate and get close, and how can we run anywhere.

All the while the West keeps sharing increasingly more alarming news WHILE NOT DOING ANYTHING TO STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING. It's easy to sit on your asses when it's not you and your friends and families who are under threat.

I wanted to ask russians how they even live with themselves, but i guess to them it's easy. Must be easy to live with no conscience or human decency. Those 20 people at most who do have human decency in russia are already arrested, with nobody defending them.

I'm Ukrainian born in Donbass and risen there, now living in another Ukrainian city even closer to the R*ssian borders. My family stood still. In the exact same houses they spent their lifes in - in Donetsk where the war is about to continue with new strength.

I'm scared of literally everything, and I can't believe that after EIGHT YEARS of straggling for safe and sound life it gets worse. I hate it here. Not because of my motherland. But because somebody who thinks to be a mother giving birth to my country.

I see all kinds of shit on Tumblr about this exact argument. “If you won’t date a woman with a penis, you’re transphobic.” No. No, you are not. Everyone is going back and forth all the time, trying to argue on behalf of transgender folks; And they don’t even ask us!

As a transgender man, and a gay one at that, I can confidently say that if a cis gay man will not sleep with me because I don’t have a penis, that’s chill. I understand that. It only gets to be transphobic when they start saying that I’m not really gay, or that I’m not actually a man. That’s what transphobic.

here is a gofundme link for elcias hernandez ortiz, who was shot but is currently in intensive care as i write this. he was the only survivor of this attack. his family will need help paying for the medical bills. (cnn includes this link in an article about the attack.)

if i find any more links to the help out the victims friends and family i will add them.

US elections have never been fair and are far from representative, but never in the past few decades has the establishment so strongly currated a movement, legal and illegal, against voting. Every liberal could shout “vote” to people online and that will change literally nothing about the threats to human rights and freedoms occuring before the election and likely after

The governor of Florida introduced a bill that creates a legal loophole allowing citizens to drive into protesters. Republicans are showing up to polls armed to “stop voter fraud” (they’e intending to intimidate POC and Democrat voters, illegally). Trump has already been saying he’ll claim victory despite the results and is relying on the now very conservative court system to support him. This is all on top of threats to the post office service, gerrymandering, and the electoral college, which selected trump when he lost 3 million votes.

Not all is lost!

-this post has links to current Senate races where either an incumbent Republican is being challenged or an incumbent Democrat is at risk of losing their seat

-the graphic below has important voter information

however, voting is contingent on your ability to do so, such as you just saw is under extreme threats and not a secure option to a better world

more importantly:

If you haven’t joined any defunding police protests yet, it’s not too late.

Trump doesn’t shut down protests, police do. Trump doesn’t arrest protesters, police do. Federal agents are too few to cover the US and aren’t responsible for the hundreds of people killed by local police every year. Law without violence backing it is just words on paper. Trump has the support of police forces and unions already. Police are protecting MAGA protesters attacking others and blocking the polls. You should know that they’re helping a dictator.

The police shouldn’t be emboldened to stop protests or dissent, ever. The police shouldn’t take 30-50% of city’s discretionary funds. Police shouldn’t endorse political candidates. They’re public servants with absolute power because current law holds no real constraints on them.

You don’t have to totally agree that police shouldn’t exist, but if you support ideas of democracy you cannot support tax money funding a standing army in every city that’s excited to crush protests against their budgets and filmed executions. There’s more people in the streets this year than ever before demanding their taxes be spent to help them and that murderers be held accountable regardless of occupation. The lack of concessions on politicians’ part is because they benefit from complacency and their constituents only ever waiting for the election, never marching against them or disrupting their lives.

Revolution is not an event. It’s a continuous process where more and more people act on their own agency and recognize the illegitimacy of the state and the violence it uses to keep the status quo made by dead men with concerns only for their own power. Revolution is creating a new, fair world while destroying the old world that eats workers alive to profit a few families. Revolution is reconnecting with the natural world and rejecting false hierarchies and borders.

So, let’s give some context to those who are not aware of what John Boyega has gone through since being cast in Star Wars so many years ago.

And feel free to add anything I miss.

After being cast in The Force Awakens, there had been a large backlash and a call to Boycott Episode VII

Then after The Force Awakens, John had to deal with toxic fans constantly claiming he was not the Male Lead of the Sequel Trilogy over and over again even though that went against what he was told by The Force Awakens director JJ Abrams when he was cast and what TFA clearly setup.

Finn’s character would then be erased and sidelined in the sequel to TFA, The Last Jedi, much to the celebration of certain fans who claimed it was better that Finn not be in the main conflict of the trilogy.

During this time, John would still be routinely harassed by the bigots who were against his casting as well as people going to his social media accounts to verbally attack him.

Then we having the shipping community…which I will not go too deeply into this beyond the fact that one group of shippers have made John Boyega’s life a living hell, even demanding that Disney blacklists him from ever getting work and influencers in that community sending their followers after Boyega. Then we have another group of shippers who legitimately accused John of queerbaiting on multiple occasions through the years.

Then there was the backlash John Boyega received when he had said that his character Finn and Kelly Marie Tran’s character deserved better in The Last Jedi and that the movie was not for him. Citing that as a Black man playing a Black character, being removed from the central conflict of the trilogy was something he creatively disagreed with. This had earned him the hate of fans of The Last Jedi to large degrees that spread from SW influencers to actors and critics that were close with the director of TLJ.

Then John had been falsely accused of bullying Kelly Marie Tran and once again a group in the Star Wars community went again him.

Then, after months of re-shoots. re-writes and multiple story changes on the final film of the Skywalker saga, The Rise of Skywalker, John Boyega gave his honest thoughts on a creative choice in the film he disagreed with. That earned him the most harassment from the same community who went after him with false claims of bullying Kelly Marie Tran and that he wasn’t the male lead of the trilogy.

And finally, after giving his support to the Black Lives Matter cause, John had been attacked once again by toxic Star Wars fans who either claimed HE was being racist against white people or that fighting for BLM didn’t earn him “Redemption” for the false things they accused him of.

John Boyega has endured nothing but constant attacks for years and has gotten almost next to no support from the online community in the way that he should.

The man has fought against racism, fought for his own place in the film industry, and even started his own production company to give people who never had a shot a chance.

If there is one thing John Boyega is, he is a hero. And if he is anything else, then he’s a role model.

REBLOG THIS SO EVERYONE KNOWS:

some info on the lebanese red cross. please only donate to trustworthy organisations

the air is currently filled with toxins (nitric acid to be specific) and its not safe whatsoever so if you're lebanese:

1. please stay inside and close every door/window, the fumes are fatal and inhaling them could kill

2. if you have pets keep them inside at all costs

TL;DR: we’re living under a dictatorship. people are currently protesting the deaths caused by decisions the government made while prioritising the election over human lives. mainstream news are making it seem like the protesters are hooligans who are protesting new safety measures and not the dictatorship they refuse to even acknowledge.

THE LEAD-UP

here’s a brief list of things that caused the people to protest:

the elections have been rigged since the moment aleksandar vučić became president. not even in a relatively subtle way like in the usa (gerrymandering), but by literally replacing sacks of voting papers with ones that are voting for sns (srpska narodna stranka, the president’s party)

we were lied to about when the first covid-19 case appeared in serbia. the government withheld information from us because it benefited them.

also, about a week before the lockdown, the president made fun of the virus, encouraging people to “go shop in milano if they want”. when the situation got serious, he shifted the blame to the people.

hospitals all around the country were and still are severely underfunded. they’re reusing masks, don’t have enough space for all the patients, and the tests we’re still given aren’t accurate.

the lockdown was lifted prematurely because of the parliamentary elections. if you look up “serbia covid19 cases” on google, you’ll see that the second wave started around june 21st, which is when the election was.

right after the election was over, the government set extreme safety measures, including: police enforced lockdown fri-sun, an attempt to force all belgrade students out of their dorms during exam season, etc.

THE PROTESTS

last night (july 7th), there was a huge unorganized protest outside of the belgrade parliament building.

as expected, the police turned it into a violent protest. they used tear gas 26 times, attacked people who weren’t even protesting, and used unnecessary force against those who were. a man was choked the same way george floyd was.

only n1 (cnn’s channel) actually informed people that this was happening, and their website was down all night last night. every other network was airing their usual program, since they’re controlled by the government.

the people got into the parliament building a few times, but were ultimately forced out violently by the police.

there were protests in other cities too, but they weren’t as large.

rts (the most watched channel in the country) is putting all the blame on the protesters and making it seem as if they’re protesting the new safety measures, and not the dictatorship of aleksandar vučić.

every other international news source is pretty much doing the same.

WHAT NOW?

the protests will continue. in case they’re successful, there will be another election, one that won’t put only sns members in the parliament (they make up more than 70% as of right now).

in case they’re not successful, we’ll be expecting a change of the constitution that will state that there’s no limit to how many terms a president can have. we’ll live under complete dictatorship.

the most you, outside of serbia, can do is share correct information and spread awareness about what’s happening.