90s Nostalgia Fugue State

Haha. Hahaha.

Welcome to Part 5 of How Courts Actually Work. Part 1 (Why are police so bad at investigation?), Part 2 (How to pay money to leave jail), Part 3 (What is a trial and how), and Part 4 (Why prison?) are all available on my tumblr.

–

In our current criminal punishment bureaucracy, realistically no one gets released without being on some form of "community supervision." This may sound unfamiliar to you, but you've heard of it before, usually in the forms of "parole" or "probation."

It works like this.

Once you are released, you report first to your parole/probation officer. (I'm going to be using "probation" here because my jurisdiction has abolished parole; see last post. This is essentially equally applicable to parole, though.) They have you sign a set of rules. These rules usually have some variation of the following:

1: NO CRIME.

2: Get a job, keep a job. (Exception is if you are disabled and on Social Security disability income.)

3. Always tell the truth to the probation officer and let them visit your house.

4: NO DRUG. NO ALCOHOL (maybe). NO GUN.

5: Call your probation officer if anything happens at all at any time and get their permission to do normal adult things.

There are some more subtle variations like don't live with anyone else convicted of a felony, and there can also be "special" conditions like submit to drug treatment, or register on the sex offender registry, or no contact with your ex.

On the surface, these things seem more or less simple: lots of adults every day in America get by with no alcohol, gun, drug, crime. However. You start running into trouble right there at "job." It's pretty commonly known that having a crime on your record makes finding a job A Lot Worse, so I'm not going to harp on that one; we all know. If you were hiring, you'd probably consider it, especially before you read this and realized how stupid most successfully prosecuted crimes are.

Let's talk about no drug, alcohol. You will probably be required to do random drug and alcohol screens (they can detect the byproducts of alcohol in your urine, so buckle up, you're still on the hook for that one). You will be observed peeing. It will be humiliating. That will be the least of it. You're like: no problem, I don't do drugs. Hold on, my friend.

Pretty much every "scheduled drug" (drugs that are classified according to potential for abuse) has benign/legal compounds that create false positives. Gabapentin can create a false positive for benzodiazepines (like Xanax, Valium, etc). Effexor can create false positives for methamphetamine. So can Prozac or beta blockers. Adderall creates a correct positive for amphetamines, but is, let's be clear, one of the safest and most effective psychiatric medications for any condition on the market. Various cold and flu remedies can give false positives. Depending on how they are washed and processed, poppy seeds can still give false positives for marijuana. Antihistamines, Benadryl, and ibuprofen can show up as PCP. Seroquel shows up like methadone.

In a simple drug screen, none of these are distinguished from each other. All a drug screen does is show yes/no. A more complex drug test (off to the lab!) is required to distinguish. Probation officers may not want to send a test to the lab, may believe you're lying about what you took, and may attempt to intimidate you into signing admissions for drug use. Given that a probation officer can have you arrested without a warrant or any kind of judicial approval, their threats are gonna seem pretty important!

So that's the problem with drug screens and their accuracy. How about timing?

One of the most common ways to do random drug screens is called "color code." People have to call in every (day? week?) by a certain time to hear whether their "color" is up for a random screen. If it is, they have to find a way to get in to the probation office to get tested. With lack of transportation, spotty cell access, and potentially great distances to the probation office, as well as punishing work schedules in places that will fire you if you miss your job without notice, these can be a problem. Moreover, those of you with executive dysfunction should be wincing right now, because you know that correctly calling in every week at the right time is going to be a problem for someone who's drowning.

In addition, probation will almost certainly require you to go and do some kind of treatment for something, these days. It's usually drug treatment, but sometimes psychological treatment. These groups will be whatever is cheap and available, which means it'll likely be during business hours. Pray to your gods that your Early Recovery Skills group is available by phone and you can fit it in your lunch break, or otherwise your constant need to drive to the probation office to go to that appointment is going to lose you your job.

And, oops, you violated probation.

Or you could skip the Early Recovery, keep the job, and –

Sorry, no, you've violated your probation.

You missed Early Recovery because it was a shift you couldn't reschedule, but you can make it in next week! Okay but if you miss one more you're terminated from the class, and, you guessed it –

Violation.

Folks, probation is actually pretty hard and complicated. In addition, it does not help the people who are going through it. Like, in an ideal world, we're talking: people get out of jail, and someone keeps an eye on them to make sure they don't return to a Life of Crime and to help hook them up with the right job programs to give them something to strive for. In reality, they go straight from being institutionalized and subject to a rigid routine to being free and needing to jump through what's actually an incredible number of hoops, very quickly.

It's hard to be an adult and alive. Imagine being an adult and alive who has to stay out of jail by doing a bunch of extra shit!

It's important to note that probation was not always this way. Not everyone used to get probation, and not every violation turned into jail time. There has been a noticeable change.

According to the Office of Justice Programs, about 1 in 6 offenders admitted to prison in 1980 were there for probation or parole violations. In 2021 and 2022, the percentage that were there for violations of probation or parole was 44-45%. From 17% in 1980 to 45% in 2022.

From 17% in 1980 to 45% in 2022.

From 17% to 45%.

Are you starting to understand why the population of our prisons skyrocketed between 1980 and 2010?

The reality of probation and parole now is that you can't get free. There are too many requirements. It's made for failure. And even if you do complete your requirements completely, even if you are picture perfect on probation, you will never stop paying for what you did, because criminal records are forever.

In my jurisdiction, this includes juvenile records. If you have any conviction as a juvenile, it will last past your adulthood. A misdemeanor will stick around until you're 21 or after 5 years has passed, whichever is longer. A felony will stick around forever (but might not prevent you from voting or buying a gun after the age of 29!).

Okay, okay, you say, at least tell me that all this probation, all these violations, have done something. Have they made people safer? Have they reduced crime?

Uh, apparently? No. Extra-intense supervision has been studied with relation to both low-risk and high-risk offenders, and it doesn't help community safety with either one. What it does do is send more of them to prison in the first two years of probation. Same with extra-long terms of probation. Same with kids on probation. There's no point; there's no benefit.

If I bring this up to a prosecutor, you know what they have always said? Literally, without any exception? All of them?

"Okay, we'll just put them in jail instead."

Coool. Cool cool cool. That's the point you should take from this, for sure.

–

Let's talk about the impact of this incredible explosion in extra jail time.

This is felt most keenly in poor communities. (Especially poor communities that are black or Latino.) Remember when I was talking about investigations, and how nearly every case is low-hanging easy fruit? That stuff is all from poor communities. Search a beaten-up car, and the odds are pretty decent that you'll find, somewhere in the trash, a used baggy or bit of pipe that has some drug residue on it. Bam, drug felony, and that person's in the system.

Every time one of these people goes to jail, those closest to them are seriously affected. You're taking away single parents and primary wage-earners, and putting them behind bars long enough for them to lose their jobs, apartments, and cars, and have all of their possessions carted off to the dump, kicked to the curb, or destroyed. Imagine starting from zero. Imagine starting from zero with your credit score shattered because you couldn't make your car payments because you were in prison for not going to your Early Recovery Skills group.

Kids are deprived of their parents not once, not twice, but over and over again over the course of childhood. They're deprived of the food and shelter that adult could maintain for them. They see their parent get sucked back again and again. How is a kid like that supposed to have any hope for the future? How are they supposed to feel about themselves when they constantly see their dad over a tablet at a jail, fifteen minutes at a time?

Figures indicate that as many as a third of black men spend time in jail or prison over the course of their lives. Those black men and their sons are wrenched apart. Their futures are squeezed dry because Joe Senator doesn't want to pay for another program. The kids are deprived at school, stereotyped, and eventually arrested. When they're arrested and sentenced, more money is spent on them to lock them up a single year than has been spent on their education and medical care over the course of a lifetime.

In the meantime, the Atlantic is writing articles about our Generation of Loneliness. They note that in the inner city, facilities that used to be public are only opening behind locked doors. Pools, clubhouses, sports fields? Community gathering centers? They don't exist anymore. These kids have nowhere to go. If they go into foster care, and dare to express any non-positive emotion, especially the older kids, they're likely to be shunted off to restrictive and locked mental health facilities that are rife with abuse and corruption, and that, on the surface, look a hell of a lot like jails.

I'm off-topic.

What leaves me speechless with my clients isn't that so many of them fail. It's that some of them actually succeed. In the midst of the economy and more stacked endlessly against them, they manage to trick Medicaid into funding drug treatment programs long-term, or they find programs that act as job resources too. They build themselves up from the ashes they started with. And they thrive.

–

Let's talk about penalties for probation violations.

My jurisdiction, a couple years ago, switched up the penalties. If you do a "technical violation" – that is, if you don't get a new criminal charge, and instead you just fail a drug test or don't keep employment – your first time carries no jail time. Second time, a few weeks.

Great! That's a step in the right direction.

Again, not so fast. "Technical violations" did not include "special conditions of probation." You know, the ones like sex offender registries and no contact with exes? So, when faced with this limitation on their previously unlimited power to sentence for violations, judges began to list every

single

condition

as a special condition of probation, in their sentencing orders.

When the Court of Appeals shot this down, they started putting in any possible way they could expand those conditions to make it a special condition.

And it's worked.

You have to "follow the probation officer's recommendations for drug treatment." But if the court orders a special condition of drug treatment, and you don't go? That's a special condition violation, not a technical violation, and now you can get jail time for it.

Yes, courts responded to this clear signal of legislative intent by directly attempting to bypass it and give people more jail time. This should not be surprising. Judges sentence people to jail, and they have to believe that it works. Ego protection and confirmation bias entrench them in this position over the course of decades.

For a special condition violation, you could get all of your suspended time back.

–

Let's talk about an example in a previous post, Jane, who gets 3 years with 2 years suspended. Jane is ordered into drug treatment. Jane can't juggle it, mostly because of transportation. She gets 2 full years revoked. She appeals it – this is wrong!

The Court of Appeals will tell her: you can't appeal this jail time. It was previously imposed on you back when you agreed to your deal. It's too late now.

Let's go back in time. Say Jane appeals it at the time, and says that two years of suspended time is too much. You know what the Court of Appeals would say?

You can't appeal that jail time. It's not imposed; you don't have to serve it. You have no grounds for appeal. It's just suspended. It may never happen to you.

–

To my authors reading this: there is almost no possible way that you can make a bureaucracy more nonsensical than our criminal justice system already is. You will, in fact, probably have to tone it down, if you're going to write about it. This is one big reason that nobody knows what a clusterfuck it is.

The police ruled it a suicide. The family and local community demanded an investigation. The police refused to change their ruling.

Juliana Nzita, A 16 year old Black girl, was just found hanging from a tree on church grounds in Charlotte, NC. Police have ruled it a suicide, despite hanging ourselves from trees being like the one communally agreed way Black folks ain’t killing ourselves.

Every time I go on Twitter or Facebook I learn about another recent lynching or missing Black person going mostly unreported. Half the reason I keep an active account on either of those sites is because they’re the only place I can find out about the violence happening to Black and Trans people reasonably quickly.

Non-Black and/or non-US based people often wonder why so many left-leaning Black folks in the US try to operate alternate justice systems within smaller community such as restorative justice, transformative justice, etc. when “all over the world, activists and their ancestors have fought for access to legal systems like this” and this is why.

Our legal system is explicitly designed to kill and enslave Black people. Our legal system from the cops to the lawyers and courts (one of the few times we got justice) to the prisons is legalized slavery where prisons are privatized and corporations are encouraged to maximize their profit by incentivizing every part of this system to hold as many people as possible.

Black folks can be proven innocent after years of time in prison or on death row and still killed by the state or dying in prison because the goal was never justice, it was to keep culling and controlling the Black population.

And outside of the system, we are lynched, raped, abused, trafficked, and robbed by those involved in our legal system, lives often irreparably destroyed, entire lives disappeared with no justice because that is the point, not a flaw. It’s almost always those in the legal system or their families and friends doing this, so that it can be ruled a suicide or a runaway or intracommunity issues and swept away.

A treatise on NVDA tactics from a Marxist perspective.

An introduction to NVDA

Non-Violent Direct Action is the backbone of the peace movement, but only recently (at least in Aotearoa) have socialist organisations participated in NVDA actions in an attempt to shut down key industries. The peace movement has historically been comprised of a mish-mash of anarchist, catholic worker, Tino Rangatiratanga activists, church groups and other miscellaneous community organisations, and as such, NVDA has become associated with non-marxist tendencies, namely adventurism and pacifism. This has prevented the large-scale engagement of the socialist left with the NVDA actions of the peace movement, but lets look at these critiques closely.

NVDA is not Adventurism

The criticism that direct action constitutes an “Adventurism” has its roots in an article by Lenin - Revolutionary Adventurism - that appeared in Iskra in 1902. In it, Lenin denounces the defense of terrorism offered by the Narodnik Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had advocated for a campaign of assassinations against Tsarist ministers earlier that year… Already we can begin to see the false equivalency central to accusations of adventurism, NVDA is obviously totally dissimilar to terrorist assassinations, but lets continue.

The central point of Lenin’s criticism is that he refutes the SR’s claim that terrorist activities are able to transfer power from the state to the revolutionaries. He is correct in that it doesn’t follow that blowing up a minister would result in growth of the revolutionary movement, or that that minister’s power would somehow be gained through a destructive act. In this instance there is no transference of power, and so we can begin to see why a critique of NVDA as adventurism formed on the left - can we be sure that NVDA helps to build the revolutionary movement? This is a valid question that we should be asking, but in practice I think it is obvious. NVDA actions are, at their best, blockades of state apparatuses, or private interests that support the repressive apparatuses of the state. If we’re to make private industry grind to a halt, it’s clear that we will need to eventually block the choke points of capital. But before that, do blockades assist in building the movement? It is clear that we can’t jump ahead to blocking off key industries in our tiny numbers, so is there a form of blockade that is effective, not only at wounding the state, but also building our own power? To this I would offer our own experiences as an organisation engaged in NVDA as an example of blockading as a means of building the movement. NVDA, when done well, is not the actions of a small group of professionalised activists, but rather an expression of worker’s sentiment towards repression, it can also weaken the state (by preventing the army and police from effectively operating), build the experience of the organisation for later decisive blockades and galvanise public sentiment against the state (wherever undue repression is seen). None of these statements are true of the adventurist terrorism that Lenin denounced, and unlike the actions of the SRs, our participation in blockades involved a clear transference of power, and came at little cost to our organisations.

NVDA is not the same as Pacifism

As socialists, we are rarely pacifists. We recognise that the state, at its essence, is simply the police and army, and as such it comprises a tool of class repression. At a certain point, dangers to the capitalist class will be dealt with with violence, and we can’t fail to defend our friends and comrades simply because of vague moralistic sentiments. That being said, we should recognise that, at the current stage, pacifists have a lot to contribute to the struggle, and we are not yet at a stage where the state can operate unfettered by middle class morality. 

The media operates as a means for middle class morality to interfere with struggle - and this can either be to the benefit or the detriment of a worker’s movement depending on whether we are seen as active or passive actors in any struggle. Since middle class morality seeks to preserve the status-quo, it values passivity in the face of violence. For these reasons, if socialists are operating in a media-heavy environment, it sometimes helps to be seen as passive victims of police violence. We usually are anyway.  That being said, since NVDA often seeks to directly interfere with the everyday operations of capitalism, it is almost never seen as pacifistic by the media. The violence and anger of protesters is emphasised even when it is clear that the police are beating them and not vice-versa. Nonetheless, until middle class morality breaks down completely (as it will in a crisis), NVDA is our only means of direct strategic interference in production and exchange without bringing down the full force of the state on our movement. This is different to the popular conception of pacifism as passivity in the face of danger. NVDA In Aotearoa

In Aotearoa the main site of struggle that involves NVDA is the repeated attempt by peace activists to prevent the New Zealand Defense Industry Association from hosting trade conferences with major arms manufacturers, aviation companies, shipbuilders and private security firms. These forums, colloquially known as the “Weapon’s Expo” have happened yearly, usually in October, ever since the purchase of ANZAC navy frigates in the 1980s.  While in 2018, in the face of increasing public scrutiny, the event organisers claimed to not be showcasing any weapons, media access was restricted, and even if weapons were not conspicuously on display, delegates were still free to deal in them, or make profits on innocuous items that could be reinvested into arms manufacturing. 

This year, despite a distant location, bad weather, vastly increased police presence, road checkpoints, extensive defensive barriers, intimidation tactics and fewer activists, we were still able to shut down the conference for many hours each day using creative tactics.

The remainder of this treatise is an exposition and refinement of the tactics used in our blockades of the 2018 Weapons Expo in Palmerston North. I write this both for domestic comrades who weren’t able to attend, and for international comrades who may be able to apply some of our tactics in an increasingly chaotic world. 

Blockade Tactics

In previous years, blockades were conducted in loose affinity groups centred around contingents from various left organisations. These groups were often uncoordinated, but also very fluid, hard to disperse, and generally able to cause chaos. Unfortunately these tactics were not always effective at keeping activists safe, and the arrest and injury rate at previous years was unacceptable. 

During the debrief after the first day of blockades, our group reached a number of conclusions, especially after other groups commented on our cohesiveness and discipline. This was because we recognised the need for set roles within the group - namely, a coordinator, a radio operator, and a scout. The coordinator is able to make tactical decisions, the radio operator is able to devote full attention to staying in touch with other groups, and the scout is able to keep an eye on the overall situation away from the action. These three set roles needed to be known by the whole group, and needed to keep their distance from major actions so that they could continue doing their job. 

The blockade team on the other hand was comprised of activists willing to directly confront police, and entrust any major decision making to the coordinator. This authority was necessary as most NVDA tactics require a lot of discipline so that individuals do not break a defensive line, such as by stepping back from the action without finding a replacement.

In addition to the roles, we realised that some basic commands were necessary: these were:

Spread out: The blockade group disperses

Come Together: The blockade group converges

Lock: The blockade group locks arms and forms a tight line

Starfish: The blockade group lays down on the ground

We found it necessary for all group members to repeat the command as soon as they heard it so that all members could hear the call. We will now go into the tactics associated with the latter two commands.

Locking versus Police Lines

On the first day of action, after pulling down the first defensive barrier, we were confronted with the first police line. This included officers from the so-called “grab squads” who were identifiable by their black gloves, and were tasked with randomised arrests. Luckily, enough of the activists present had been trained in the correct way to lock arms and defend against a police line. Turning away from the police (if you are facing away you’re less likely to be falsely accused of assault), we locked elbows, with our fists facing inwards. Our group split into the blockading team, and the coordinators - the radio op, coordinator and scout - as supporters outside the line were necessary to keep an eye on developments. 

This formation was effective at preventing the easy arrest of random members (although one was pulled out successfully). However, it cannot hold indefinitely - the police are allowed to touch you, but the lightest tap on their shoulder is grounds for an assault charge. This prevents the line from simply pushing back. Ultimately it is an extremely passive formation that is only good for temporary delays. To truly counter the police line, you must make the police fear that their line cannot contain the crowd.  Building up a force of activists on the flanks, while the police are spread out evenly across the road, creates a situation where the police will fear that you are going to be able to push through. In a situation where their duty is to protect something behind them, they will usually retreat to a narrower choke point if they cannot maintain a line.  As with most marxist applications of NVDA, it is no longer about passivity - it is about actively making the police have to reconsider their tactics by adapting to changes. The basic strategy is outlined below.

Starfishing versus convoys. In a situation where the police are trying to move a cargo (in our case, weapons company delegates), it is often necessary to stop vehicles in the road. The most effective method of using bodies to block a vehicle that we have found is the Starfish. Although, like many NVDA tactics, it assumes your opponent has a conscience - in practice, the drivers were sometimes willing to threaten the lives of activists in order to deliver the delegates on time. 

The starfish constitutes four or more activists either sitting or prone on the road, arms interlocked in a circle facing inward or outward. Prone starfish usually result in the police pulling at activist’s legs, while sitting starfish are easier to pull apart at the arms. In order for a starfish to work - there needs to be effective support teams around them. The starfishing action is pretty hard on everyone’s bodies - not only are your elbows, hips or knees on hard bitumen, but police are often pulling at legs, hair or arms. The support team needs to be bringing water, filming police violence, informing drivers of their legal responsibilities (to not put protesters in danger), and keeping an eye on the situation and radios. In addition, support activists must get around the back of the vehicle to prevent reversing. Cars, lock-ons and other actions can all support the starfish.

Mobile Groups Due to the number of activists involved in a blockade group, it can be difficult to load everyone into cars and keep mobile. Drivers get lost or lag behind, members don’t hear the call to pull back, and generally the group will lose cohesion after a few hours of action. Larger blockade groups therefore were more effective on foot, where they could find strength in numbers, and individual car-loads of activists could not become separated. This also created issues on the first day. Police convoys were able to follow unusual routes to get to the venue, and for a while, the police had the initiative and could choose when and where to confront us. All struggle is about regaining the initiative - choosing your battles and turning passive or reactive action into unexpected action.  To keep mobile, and to help us strike in locations the police didn’t expect, we found it necessary to create rolling blockade groups, that were centred not on a large group of activists, but rather an eight-seat van. These vans are relatively common, and many activist groups will have access to at least one or two. And from our experience, just one was a very potent force. On the second day, the police forces were gathered early in the morning around the arena. The previous day had been centred around the eastern entrances to the stadium, so roughly a hundred police were patrolling the eastern street. What they did not expect was for mobile blockade teams to arrive at the starting point for their convoys rather than the destination!

The van’s objective was to be relayed information on convoys by the scouts to the radio operator, the navigator would plot the estimated movements of a bus, and find a location to intercept it. The driver would approach the convoy as it moved towards the Weapons Expo and block its path forward. In the confusion, the two “blockers” exited the van and blocked the forward and back routes, while the van rolled up alongside the bus. The van was equipped with a ladder, firmly attached to a pallet on the roof. The ladder was lowered onto the bus, where a climber, assisted by another activist holding the ladder and any supplies they might need, would board the roof of the bus. The blockers would then inform the driver that they had been boarded, and it would be illegal to move until they come down. This process is displayed below.

The bus, now relatively immobilised, would have to wait for the police to arrive with ladders before proceeding. This gave blockade teams the time to get to the bus on foot and prevent any police counteraction. These tactics were more effective than our wildest expectations - for example, just one of these mobile blockade vans was able to stop three buses of delegates (perhaps 120 people overall) from leaving their hotels! All with only eight activists. 

They tried to kill us, but they did not succeed. And we owe so much thanks to the other oppressed peoples, in particular the Choctaw Nation and the Masai, who sent money and grain to us.

Let me repeat that. The Choctaw Nation who had just gone through the Trail of Tears sent us money to try save Irish lives. It’s led to an understanding between Irish people and Native American tribes, most recently when we donated to the Navajo and Hopi fundraisers for COVID-19 relief, because while it may be a different tribe, Irish people will never forget those who helped us and we’ll help back.

The entire population of the island is less than seven million people. We’re still a million less on this island than pre famine. And it’s not that long ago. My grandmother’s grandparents lived through it. We’ve told the stories, it literally changed the DNA of the country. We have a national fear of renting, because so many people were evicted. People joke about Irish people always offering loads of food, but it’s because there’s that cultural memory of not being able to.

Two Korean activists who were detained by Israeli forces after attempting to break the siege on Gaza and deliver aid recounted abusive treatment by their captors to local press on Thursday.

“After fully armed Israeli soldiers searched my body, I was dragged alone to a dark shipping container. The lights switched on, and whenever I looked at the light, they hit me in the face. Whenever my head was bowed, I was forced to look back up at the light,” said Kim A-hyun, 28, an anti-war activist who also goes by the name Haecho.

“[The Israeli soldiers] had tactical gloves on. After I was dealt a second blow to my cheek, I could hear a shrill sound in my ear. Following the third, I started to bleed from my nose and started to gag,” she said.

Kim Dong-hyeon, another activist who had participated in a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip, testified to similar conditions.

“My hands were tied, my body was searched, and I was continuously pummeled and kicked as I was being taken away. My wrists kept bleeding on account of having been bound so tightly, and I couldn’t feel my hands. My entire body, including my head and my legs, was in excruciating pain,” he said.

“When I started hyperventilating, I began to think that it was very likely that I might die,” he went on.

The two activists claim that they suffered serious health issues, including muscle damage and hearing loss, after being assaulted during their detention.

...

Kim A-hyun was diagnosed with a perforated eardrum as a result of the beatings she took to the face. Jonathan Victor “Seungjoon” Lee, a Korean American who was arrested alongside her, sustained a broken rib and other injuries after being tased.

“We are witnessing symptoms of rhabdomyolysis, which are usually apparent in victims of industrial accident cases involving crushes or those who have been severely injured in traffic accidents. The activists were released on Wednesday, but if that had been delayed by even a day and they had been subjected to more beatings, they would have suffered from severe harm,” said Dr. Lim Sang-hyuk, the director of Green Hospital.

The activists gave detailed testimonies of the abuse and torture they suffered during their arrest and aboard the prison boat.

“As soon as we boarded the boat, they pointed guns at us and subjected us to body searches. They hurled racist insults and curses at us the entire time. Male-passing people were tasered, while women and people perceived as female were subjected to sexual abuse,” said Kim A-hyun.

The Center on Conscience and War is a non-profit run by civilians collects resources for people who might be targets of the US military’s predatory recruitment process, including this list of alternatives to enlistment, organized by state, that offer the same benefits that the branches of the military (claim to) offer, such as experience, travel, money for college, etc - without killing people in the name of western imperialism. If you want to register as an official conscientious objector or otherwise avoid combat in any way, their toll-free number is 1-800-379-2679

Well, let's look at the whole picture together, shall we?

I took this picture earlier this year (2026) in February with the help of my girlfriend. It is me, on my bed, on my knees spread open, leaning back and looking off to the side, with a bunch of different words written on me. Written across my torso is "transmisogyny," "18+," "faggot," and "tranny." "Shemale," "pedophile," and "trap" is written on my right leg and, "rape," "femboy," and "suicidal" is written on my left. These are words and concepts applied to me as well as said to me to my face.

You are doing so now by not-so-subtly implying that I am a pedophile and through cultural word association, a child rapist. This accusation has been levied at me for longer than I can remember, for longer than I've understood sex, and rape, as concepts. You could, instead, ask why "femboy" is written so prominently, but you chose "pedophile" instead. The pedophile "child rapist" accusation is common and frequent and simpler to navigate in interpersonal relationships than it is online. I don't know you, you don't know me, nothing I say can convince you of anything opposite of what your mind has already made up, but I hope you keep reading.

As a whole, the picture and the caption that accompanied it on the original post, "I'm feeling a certain way about some stuff" should paint a fairly clear idea that I'm upset over transmisogyny and how it has affected me and my sisters. I am upset that I have been called a tranny, a faggot, a shemale, a pedophile, a trap, I'm upset that the concept of rape surrounds my life so completely. That I am these things, and that I am these things for the purposes of raping and being raped. I am upset that you have twisted my complaint into ammo for further accusations.

Why is it so prominent and Large? Because I wanted it to be. Because when 2025 ended, I rediscovered how happy people are to accuse a tranny of being a child rapist in any way they can and I went through my life and counted. How often had I been excluded over this perception of transfeminity relating to child rape? I am upset that for my longer childhood and shorter adulthood I have always been accused of child rape for the sole reason of expressing my femininity. It hurt, and I made that obvious in the most literal way I could. I wrote it large in the same euphemism that is loved so much by so many.

So, we now know on a direct statistical level that Dollar General is literally making the Vimes Boots Theory of Economic Unfairness into a part of its core business model.

But to those working class consumers, Dollar General promises to deliver “everyday low prices.” 

In reality, without knowing it, customers are often paying Whole Foods prices for dollar store groceries. 

A More Perfect Union investigation reveals that Dollar General charges premium prices across a range of staple goods—52% more per pound for chicken breasts than its cheapest competitor, for instance—but masks the high cost from consumers by stocking smaller pack sizes.

For more information, please consult her Instagram!

If you also have more to spare, please help Mona support her sister and niece who have been displaced 6 times over the course of the accelerated genocide.