*is uncool and deeply affected by everything*

The video you see here is from a demonstration that happened on the 17th of november in Paris to protest against a law that’s been brought to parlement by the majority, that would prevent the recording and diffusion of images of the police.

Originally, the law project was written to “protect police forces from physical and psychological harm”, but it will be used to protect them from the law and from justice in a time of extraordinary increase of police brutality.

Policemen are already preventing journalist to take images of them as it is, even though it’s legal for now: they arrest them and issue bans on demonstration, they target them with rubber bullets and gas grenades (grenades that have been banned this year because they killed and amputated people but they are still used because the stocks have to be finished), they force them to erase their photos. Police forces can already arrest people for “outrage” and “rebellion”, and they use these vague terms to arrest political opponent, protestors and journalists.

For context, police forces began to have more and more impunity since the beginning of the yellow vests movement, but people have also been recording them more often. That led to many scandals for the past few years, like the Benalla case in july 2018, where one of Macron’s bodyguard was recorded dressed up as a policeman (which he wasn’t), beating up some protestors and passerby during a demonstration. The video led to the opening of many different cases about him linked to corruption in the government, but to this day he still hasn’t been judged and still is a free man. The journalist who recorded him is still getting death treats every week and has also been beaten up by police forces in 2019 and his phone, which he used to record his arrest and beating from the police, has been taken from him and he and the justice system couldn’t have acces to it for 8 months. (source here, in french sorry).

There have been many cases like the one of George Floyd, where police killed a man and journalists proved they lied about it in their reports (about the timeline, the victim’s behaviour, the care they gave to the victim etc…) and then the justice system still gave reason to the police: Adama Traoré, Cédric Chouviat, Liu Shaoyao, and actually there are so much it would take me days to tell you about all of them from the past 4 years.

The police is racist as fuck (young men perceived as black or arab are 20 times more likely to be stopped in the street), with more than 80% of them voting for extreme right parties at the 2017 presidential election, and even more worrisome it has extremelly influencial unions, and this law to prevent the diffusion of images from the police is actually made to please them when this whole government is on a thin edge because around 60% of the population disapprouve of their politics (like maybe cutting the founds to the health system and still closing beds in hospitals in the middle of a pandemic is not a good idea). Like right now the so called “centrist” LREM party is playing on the far-right to keep a bit of voters and police to their side, because everyone else could see how fucked up they are.

Oh btw, the body in charge of inspecting and controlling the police (they investigate on the cases of police brutality and give a judgment at the end, if the police was guilty or not), the IGPN, is run by…police officers. You can imagine how little of the inspections turn out to accuse the police.

Recently, Amnesty International issued a report on France (only in french here, sorry again) and expressed concern about the level of police brutalities, and journalists freedom, and so did the high commisionner for human rights at the United Nations and Reporters without borders.

Anyway I’m super worried for my country with the rise of the far-right, racisme, corruption and more and more power given to the police.

instead of “defund the police,” say “invest in community safety” and emphasize things like participatory budgeting giving you power over where YOUR taxes go and reallocating funds to after-school programs, social services, and food pantries

instead of “abolish ice,” say “immigration reform” and “create a new agency for immigration and citizenship services” 

instead of “medicare for all,” say “universal health care” or even just really harp on making healthcare affordable and accessible to everyone

instead of “the green new deal” (which was a great piece of messaging in the first place before it became inextricably tied up with aoc’s theatrics), talk about what an effective piece of climate legislation will create, not what it will destroy. when you say “ban fracking” or “ban fossil fuels” or “reduce methane emissions in agriculture” people go “YOU WON’T TAKE MY JOB OR MY FARTING COWS.” climate is really an area where being able to reframe it through the language of capitalism helps. say “let’s give tax breaks to farmers, especially small family farms who are already being squeezed out by the big guys, so they can invest in the future of their business” and other noise-shaped air stuff like that. instead of “ban fracking” talk about the jobs that renewable energy will create in communities that have been left behind by our reliance on foreign oil. i mean, fuck, the phrase “climate change” can be a real problem when you’re talking to the whole country because of how effective the “climate and weather are the same things” and “climate change is a hoax” disinfo campaigns have been over the past 20 years or so - but when you talk about “conserving our natural resources” and all that teddy roosevelt, ranger rick shit, it just comes across different. 

instead of “abortion rights”…. listen, you know i hate equivocating about abortion but at the end of the day, when you’re talking to people who are probably anti-abortion for religious reasons but will still vote democrat because they’re not a single-issue anti-abortion voter, don’t say “abortion (on demand without apology etc),” say “the constitutional right to privacy” or “the right to make personal medical decisions without the government intervening.” fearmonger about attacks on abortion the way sarah palin fearmongered about how obamacare would lead to “death panels” deciding whether your grandma would live or die! and if you’re talking to someone who just doesn’t feel that strongly about abortion because yada yada roe is settled who cares, talk about how “empowering women to decide when they start a family fuels economic growth and leads to more wanted children growing up in stable, happy two-parent homes” and so on. 

inversely, instead of “abolish the death penalty,” talk about “saving the lives of the innocent” and “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” if you’re talking to a christian and honestly just look at the libertarian arguments against the death penalty and ape some of those - cost to the taxpayer, high wrongful conviction rates as a reflection of government incompetence. honestly, the libertarian right is frequently aligned with the left on criminal justice issues and i know we all love to dunk on libertarians but the language they use is pretty appealing to moderates who might be coming from a more conservative background or region where it’s just normal

instead of “democratic socialism,” just talk about, like, values - ending poverty and hunger, living wages and better educational opportunities, creating jobs and protecting ordinary working people and families and putting money back in their pockets and creating a stable economy. people really do vote based on kitchen table issues and you can really make a moral appeal on the rest.

instead of “tax the rich,” say “cut taxes.” period. never talk about raising taxes. not on the rich, not on the middle class, not for any reason whatsoever, even if you’re saying “if we raise taxes on billionaires we can give everyone a pony.” i don’t care how much you want to tax billionaires, don’t fucking bring it up. i hate bezos as much as everyone but we live in america, where everyone is simply a temporarily embarrassed billionaire and convinced that taxing the ultra-rich will somehow hurt them too. don’t expect middle-of-the-road normies to get on board with the “i’ll pay more taxes if it means other people have health care” thing you see from avowed liberals and lefties, because they will not, i’m sorry. frankly *****i***** have no interest in paying more taxes because nyc already taxes you out the nose regardless of where you are on the socioeconomic scale and if someone suggested i should pay more, even if it meant paying less on private services in the long run, i would simply be like, “nope!” so like, yeah, obviously the goal is to eliminate corporate tax loopholes and tax the ultra-rich at a higher rate while cutting tax burdens on everyone else, but what you want to say is stuff like “small business owners shouldn’t pay more in taxes than the companies like apple and amazon that are already squeezing them out” and “we’ll cut taxes and frivolous government spending,” period, no embellishment. “making american companies pay american taxes” is a succinct catchphrase i like to use. 

instead of “defund/spend less on the military,” say “why is the government spending so much on building outdated outdated tanks and submarines from 50 years ago and so little on services for veterans? we need to revitalize our military spending so that we can spend less on safer, more modern equipment, preserve those manufacturing jobs, and make sure that veterans get the health care and job opportunities they deserve.” get it? like, republicans have been selling the “cut waste, cut taxes, cut spending” line for decades because it sounds good and people really respond to it. unfortunately, one of the many cursed legacies of ronald reagan is that most people still think that balancing a government budget is like balancing a checkbook, and obviously that’s not true but it lends a lot of familiar comparisons and metaphors, so like… use them.

don’t equivocate on “black lives matter” - it’s too important and too urgent - instead, give the non-activist liberals you already know the accessible language they can use to help normalize the phrase “black lives matter” in their own lives and encourage them to do so. they won’t convert the full-on blue lives matter cult members and other assorted balls-to-the-wall racists, but there are people in the middle who just need to hear a targeted explanation of why that isn’t a combative or controversial statement, and that totally depends on the individual… there’s the very basic 101-logicky “if saying ‘save the whales’ doesn’t mean you think dolphins can kick rocks, or if saying ‘spinach is a vegetable’ doesn’t mean that you think lettuce isn’t, why does ‘black lives matter’ imply that other lives don’t?” and i saw someone in the christians against trump group cite a brene brown quote they said (“In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of a culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can’t undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion. Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of demonizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery.”) that made it click for them and they like to use to make it click for others, and there’s also this example that i think is probably pretty resonant for christians:

the point is, as with all the rest of this, that there are a lot of people out there who are alienated by the language (because there has been a billion-dollar media propaganda machine working overtime to make the language as alienating as possible) but not by the content of the argument. the right is SO good at messaging to its base by speaking their language, dog whistles and all. but because the democratic party is a coalition of moderates and liberals and leftists, you really have to be strategic about your messaging in a way that the right doesn’t. frankly, that’s why joe biden won - he made those same broad appeals to morality and civility and unity and prosperity that people want to hear. 

to white folks, this is a time for you to celebrate as well, but things are far from over. reach out to your poc and trans friends, particularly your black and trans friends, and check on them and make sure they feel safe. DO NOT STOP DONATING TO PAYPALS AND GOFUNDMES. CONTINUE SHARING RESOURCES AND INFORMATION. CONTINUE PARTICIPATING IN COMMUNITY AID. electing biden did not simultaneously wipe out the issues many marginalized communities are facing. YOUR PART IN THIS IS NOT OVER BECAUSE THIS FIGHT IS NOT OVER. continue spreading

to succinctly sum up the energy we need to cultivate going forward:

I am demonstrably sad, and lonely, and full of fear. But there are other people who will hold my hand, who will point out the hawk overhead, who will give you That Look in a public place. The other day at a coffee shop a child said "look! It's snowing!" so all of us strangers went to go look out the windows. It wasn't the first snow and it won't be the last but wasn't it lovely, like that?

How wonderful to live in a world where birds and frogs both say beep! How wonderful to have an ocean of beautiful sharks with their dinosaur teeth! How wonderful the moon and her changing face, how wonderful the bees and their dancing to communicate, how wonderful shrimp and their forbidden layers of vision! How wonderful, you, and what you will give the world! The way we love things enough to spend entire blogs devoted to them? How people will let me explain my Pokemon team to them? How we will both jump at the scare in the movie, how we laugh so loudly, how it feels to give someone your baking? How wonderful to be alive. I am sorry for forgetting.

Sunday afternoon, dozens of non-Indigenous commercial fishing boats continue to surround Mi’kmaw fishers in St. Mary’s Bay, hauling up lobster traps set by the Mi’kmaq.

The Sipekne’katik First Nation launched its moderate livelihood fishery on Thursday in Saulnierville, a three-hour drive west of Halifax. In the days since, there have been confrontations with non-Indigenous fish harvesters on the wharf and on the water.

Settlers claim that they are taking action to prevent “illegal and out-of-season” fishing. However, the fisheries being established by Sipekne’katik, and other First Nations across the province, are completely legal. Additionally, Mi’kmaq people have been the custodians of this land for generations before settlers landed- meaning (no shocker here) that they can be trusted to fish in a way that is respectful of the land and the species they’re hunting. 

Lastly, I should mention that the situation is escalating beyond intimidation- indigenous people are being denied service at gas stations and other small businesses. Fishers and their boats are being psychically attacked. Mobs of people have been breaking social distance laws to intimidate the fishers, their families, and most recently, people suspected of buying from them. Some people have even advocated for the re-enstatement of residential schools.