I named this after my dog but I am not a dog.

I went into it for PTSD treatment and came out of is re-traumatized mainly because it clashed very badly with my autism. Autistic brains are very prone to looping information so when EMDR involved replaying the traumatic scene and then moving on or visualizing it going differently my brain would instead get stuck looping the scene, plus trying to imagine it going differently was entirely unhelpful because it both felt like denying reality and the only alternate version of events that could ever be soothing was if it had never happened at all, which was too big of a leap from reality for me to even be able to imagine it. There were some other issues, but it all boils down to most therapists don't actually know all that much about autism unless they specialize in it, so the therapist I worked with didn't know in the first place that EMDR has a documented history of backfiring with autistic clients. She was actually quite proud of herself when she went to a seminar and learned that autism effects a person on every level becuase she had always seen is as a sigle piece of a person rather than the whole, she viewed everything through parts work so to her this was a startling revelation that she was excited to explain to me, but to me it was the most obvious Baby's First Autism Lesson being shared like it was world shaking, like yes I'm aware of how my autism works and I'm shocked that you as a professional are only now learning this. It didn't change her approach with me at all and she didn't listen when I told her that something didn't make sense to me because of my autism, despite her belief that she understood now.

My sibling on the other hand uses EMDR for OCD and has had great results. I don't know the finer details as we don't talk much about their therapy sessions, but they've told me it works really well to break up OCD rumination patterns for them.

The "not considering factory workers to worthy of consideration of mention" thing is pretty clear in referring to the print designer as the person who "created" the shirt, & also in taking care to specify on the website that no generative AI was used in making the design, while writing 0 words about the production of the clothing items themselves. This would be true even if these clothing items were not made in sweatshops

I actually already had asked directly by the time I made this post. The merch store uses Fourthwall, which in turn uses a "network" of "fulfillment partners," who source from various screenprinters, who in turn source from various factories. There is no clarification anywhere on the website about whether Fourthwall demands transparency about which factories things are made at, whether those factories are audited by independent parties or what certifications they have, whether they pass those reports on to their customers, etc., which means that none of those measures are in place (if they were, it would certainly be mentioned).

it’s the same thing as what’s going on right now with people equating drag to some sort of child exploitation. “but the children!!” they wail, and people listen because oh, if drag is harming children, then drag MUST be BAD, so we HAVE TO BAN DRAG.

Do you they're going to like vote themselves out of jail? Vote to make murder legal? What exactly are you afraid of.

Realistically they'll just... vote just like anyone else. They'll help elect city councilmembers they think will better their hometowns, and presidents they think will best serve the country. They might even vote in their own interests! To reform prisons, fund rehabilitation programs, and outlaw predatory practices by telecoms. Are you saying you don't want any of those things?

And even if there were one of those super-duper-unambiguously-evil totally misanthropic death-row convicts, who's scheduled to be execute the very next day and just wants to sow chaos and watch the outside world burn however they can... what's the worst they could do, vote republican?

And while that is obviously horrifying to me, I think people ho are still in deep denial can sort of pretend to themselves that there must have been a very big battle there, or a massive fire, or one really big bomb. The 'oh we were fighting Hamas/Hezbollah' bullshit can somehow be wielded to stay in that deep denial.

So I think they should be showing more shit like this:

I talked about how conservative authoritarians define "pedophilia" as "youth autonomy," but even among less overtly authoritarian communities, the spectre of The Pedophile is, at best, a distraction from the reality of CSA.

"Pedophiles" are a distinct, discrete type of person. They're Not Like Us, but also, they Could Be Anywhere. They're hiding in plain sight among us, lurking and sabotaging. Anyone could secretly one of them. They're queer, they're Jewish, they're vaguely foreign. They conspire. They're a cabal. They have secret signals. They're rich and powerful and secretly control governments, but they're also poor and dirty and hide in alleyways. They're sexually deviant. They're everywhere and nowhere, and you should constantly be on guard against anyone who might be one.

Child sexual abuse, on the other hand, is abuse. It's an action, not a type of person. Anyone can commit it, because it's an abuse of power, and all adults and many other children have power over all children. Any adult has the ability to sexually abuse a child, because every adult has the ability to wield power over any child. Child sexual abuse is part of the continuum of child abuse, which in turn is part of the continuum of abuse, which can be committed by anyone who has the power to commit it.

The Epstein clients are the most prosaic phenomenon in the world. Rich, powerful people trafficked powerless people to force the powerless people to serve them. Rich, powerful people got away with breaking laws. Rich, powerful people uses people as objects -- in this case, as sex objects, but by the same structural mechanisms by which they use people to clean their houses, pick their crops, and assemble widgets in their factories.

If you go to a club look for exit signs, protect your drink, have a friend look out for you.

If you go to an amusement park or wherever bring some food with you.

Etc

I don't think choosing to not worry is the answer here.

This is also kind of funny to see because the ntsb report came out of tnflygirl who crashed her plane because she was terrible at flying. And you can watch her YouTube videos where she really does have a c'est le vie attitude and just doesn't worry about a goddamn thing. And now she and her dad are dead. So like, I dunno man. Some amount of worry is necessary.

In a sense, though, they're right, just not about the US military. The people who died for my freedom were never a part of the military. They weren't white men in uniform planting a flag on land that isn't theirs. The people who died for my freedoms did it here, and they did it in the streets. In our neighborhoods. In our schools.

The POC who have fought—and still are fighting—to be treated like equals both in the eyes of the government and in the eyes of those around them. The women who have fought—and are still fighting—for freedom from the patriarchy and bodily autonomy. The queer people who have fought—and are still fighting—for the freedom to simply exist and be who they are without scrutiny from the government. The Native Americans who have fought since the beginning for the right to preserve their own culture and land. Our freedom fighters aren't white men in green vests halfway across the world, they're marginalized groups in our own front yard.

"Freedom" doesn't look like this:

"Freedom" looks like this:

And they're dying today. Every day is another news story. Every day another person dissapears into a detention center never to be seen again. Every week another innocent person is shot and killed in the streets. Most of these people didn't even sign up to fight. They are mothers, trying to get home. Innocent Americans trying to get to work. Now, an ICU nurse who tried to help a women who got pepper sprayed was executed in broad daylight. They didn't sign up to have their life on the line, but I will always remember them. I will always remember. We cannot forget their names. THESE are the people who died for our freedoms.

And now, Alex Pretti. Trust me, more have died then are on this list, as well.