We might as well be a symphony

https://philadelphiahousingaction.info/ is a great place to start. They actually have an entire page on press behind it. I’d also recommend looking through their twitter @PhlHousing. Philadelphia housing action is as close to an organizational body behind the two encampments as exist. There were 2 encampments, camp JTD and camp Teddy, which was parked right out side the philadelphia housing authority. Basically what the Philadelphia Housing Authority was doing was taking row homes that were designated as “public housing”, refusing to let anyone rent, letting the property value go down, and then selling to private investors, some of which are owned by the mayor. As a protest, a large group of homeless folks set up encampments on public property, declared them sit ins as to make them protected under first amendment rights, and then proceeded to set up camps at some point in late june.

On their instagram, @campjtd, they posted this on september 27th

this thread from unicorn riot on twitter does a pretty good job of covering it, with some images here and there

The camps themselves were actually very well run, they had access to porta-potties, clean running water (I have no idea how they set it up but I spent a couple nights there on lookout, they had sinks for washing they had set up outside and for drinking water). Tents were donated so new residents could set up sleeping areas if they didn’t have one themselves. A steady stream of food, toiletries and other essentials were donated by dozens of local activist groups and individuals, they had grills and stoves for cooking hot meals, medical tents with on site street medics from volunteers and various groups. It was really incredible how well everything ran. Below are some more pictures of the camp from their instagram and twitter

I don’t know much about camp Teddy, as I only ever went to JTD, but a very large number of people lived there, and eventually police started routinely circling the camp and demanding it was disbanded, and threatening to mobilize, only to be met with enough pushback to prevent them. Some images of the event were posted on their instagram

and actually this video is of the police delivering the order to disband

Eventually from enough pushback 50 homes were given away to people living at the camps, but the struggle isn’t quite over as many of the homes were in a dilapidated condition and many individuals wound up not receiving a home.  As of today (6/10/21) I believe both camps have been disbanded, and no further organized action has been pursued, but it was still a mind blowing radicalization in resistance.

My home country, Myanmar (Burma) is in a serious situation.

On the first of February 2021. the military seized power. They had detained government officials, including our State Counsellor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and our president, U Win Myint.

Every form of connection, both wifi and mobile data, all was cut off this morning. We did not know what was happening for the whole of the morning, until 5 in my house when the internet was back on.

They had cut all news channel, we do not know what really is happening inside our country other than their power seizure, and we do not know what is happening in the world right now. Every news channel except the military owned are now cut.

There are now curfews to stay at home after 8pm in Yangon, whether the same law apply to other cities are unknown.

There is not much we can do as citizens other than hope that our little voices reach the world. The best we can hope for is.

I am in the dark and cannot shed much light on the situation. You might have heard and know better by now. The 8888 uprising is one that had happened in the past, we hope this is not another one. Some think that the worst may result in our country disappearing off the face of the Earth, but I can only hope for the best.

The internet and electricity may be cut off again at 12 in the night, Myanmar Time, but some said this is a rumour. I do not know yet.

Spreading awareness on this situation is extremely important to us, we are no strangers to being left in the dark corner for a long time.

Speaking from my heart, I hope that we can stand as a union of humanity, rather than divided by any borders or nationalities. The military oppression will not only affect our country, our children, our lives to the biggest extent, it can tear the centuries our country had survived into nothingness. In the 88 uprising, countless bodies had been buried alive, the streets had been covered with blood, and tears drown the country. We can only hope this is not 88 again. 

To every bystander, to help us, spreading awareness is important. It’s extremely important to research as well and get to the bottom ( and avoid circular reporting), and I will try to explain as much as possible if there is time. 

There was another announcement that all travel to outside the country will be shut down till April 30.

This is a petition you can sign:

if these two seats are won by democrats they will flip the senate to a MAJORITY for democrats. we will have the presidency, the house AND the senate if the democratic candidates in georgia win. the policies biden promised could have a better chance at being passed!

if you live in georgia PLEASE vote for the democratic senate candidates on january 5th

if you do not, i recommend donating to the candidates election fund! :) 

https://electjon.com/

1. after losing the war in 1994, the az government spent the next nearly 30 years on a) dehumanizing armenians, b) blaming armenians and losing the war for the terrible socioeconomic state of the people in this oil-rich country while president and his family steal all of the money their oil produces, c) pushing armenophobic propaganda on the population since kindergarten age, d) oppressing and humiliating the other ethnic minorities living on its territories, e) regularly violating the ceasefire of 1994 whenever the internal situation get tense and the ppl get angry, f) selectively sending the youths of said ethnic minorities to the bloodiest parts of the frontline whenever said ceasefire violations happen, g) suppressing free speech, arresting journalists, harassing and threatening those who dare to voice their discontent, etc.

2. in early 1920s, josef stalin, in order to appease the new turkish "republic" and its leader ataturk, with the hopes of using turkey as the base for spreading the communist revolution further into asia, passed artsakh (also known as nagorno karabagh) with its 95% ethnic armenian population onto the new created turkic azerbaijan republic (a country that did not exist before 1918, that's what newly created means), despite the opposition from the people of the region in question and the republic of armenia.

3. during the 70 or so years that artsakh was part of the azerbaijan republic as an autonomous region, the gov of azerbaijan did everything they could to a) suppress the development of the region, b) change the demographic of the region by moving turkic population to artsakh

4. in 1980s, the people of artsakh, utilizing their rights stipulated in the soviet constitution, petitioned both moscow and baku to be allowed to reunite with armenia. as a response to this, the azerbaijan government started large-scale repressions against the organizers and activists of the reunification movement. arrests on made up charges, threats and violence followed (more info on all that in the link provided below)

5. the people of artsakh then held a referendum as was their right under soviet constitution, and more than 90% of it's population voted in favor of seceding from the azerbaijan republic. the response to this were the anti-armenian pogroms in baku and sumgait ( https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-01-18-mn-305-story.html)

6. all this grew into the first artsakh war, which azerbaijan lost, as mentioned in point 1.

to sum it up: artsakh was never a part of the independent azerbaijan republic, during it's brief 70-year forced az control its indigenous armenian people were oppressed via various government policies, the people of artsakh deserve to live a free and happy life in their homeland, free of threats and fear of annihilation that is sure to happen if azerbaijan takes control of the region

to them, it's just a territory and they want that territory without the people.

for further reading, check out this comprehensive timeline of the artsakh history up to 2017( when it was written)

https://www.evnreport.com/spotlight-karabakh/spotlight-karabakh

then, this: on what actually happens to armenian lands and cultural heritage when it's in azerbaijani hands

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2019-11-07/armenian-monuments-azerbaijan

while you are at it, read up on the armenian genocide and keep in mind that turkey, specifically for this war, moved syrian jihadists to azerbaijan to fight against armenia and artsakh. read up on the kind of internationally banned ammunition azerbaijan has been using against the civilians in artsakh capital, and then maybe make your judgement.

cardi b apparently made a post about it, talking about how there's a genocide going on in armenia, and azeris started harassing her so she sort of backtracked and said something like "i didn't know there was two sides to this" and like it's not the only person they've done this to!

this video on twitter actually explains their tactics (the girl in the video is basically translating azeri post) how they target people who speak out in support of armenia and make them rescind their support.

so yeah. it's important for us to fight against the misinformation. and i think i have no respect for any armenian person who chooses to not engage because the internet is our battlefield. this is where we fight because it's the least we can do. (note i said armenian person, because i don't think its fair to ask this of people who don't have a personal stake in this war).

when we say we are being threatened by genocide, we are not exaggerating

“The pedestal upon which women have been placed has all too often, upon closer inspection, been revealed as a cage.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Trump won Michigan by .3 percent, Wisconsin by 1 percent. Pennsylvania by 1.2 percent. Florida by 1.2 percent. North Carolina by 3.8 percent. And Arizona by 3.9 percent. That’s a total of a paltry 491,719 votes. Just four hundred and ninety two thousand votes. And those are only the states that were razor thin in margin.

Yet over 100 million eligible voters didn’t vote at all, and 5 million voters voted third party. That’s 105 MILLION people who could have made the difference. 492k goes into 105 million 23 times. 492k goes into 5 million, the number of those who voted third party, 10 times. Ten god damn times. That’s how many fucking people that is.

If just some of those states had gone to Clinton, she would have won. But they didn’t, and it’s because millions of people decided voting at all was too much trouble, or they decided that wasting their vote in a protest of ideology was more important than actual human lives.

Here’s the map of the results for New York state in the 2016 presidential election:

Now I know you’re thinking - holy shit balls that’s a lot of red! 

And you’re fucking goddamn right it is! Trump had 36% of the vote in New York in 2016. For reference, although that’s about the percentage that usually goes to the republican candidate, here are the maps for 2008 and 2012 respectively:

Before I get into the main part of this post, wanna know WHY all those areas that were blue in 2008 and 2012 were suddenly red in 2016? In 2008 and 2012, Independents got less than 2% of the total votes. In 2016? Almost 6%. Not a big difference in the grand scheme, but this is a really great example of how even a small number can make a huge difference.

Now, see that teeny, tiny, area of dark blue down at the bottom? That’s New York City. New York City is literally the only reason New York State always goes blue. This ONE FUCKING CITY is the reason people are so sure that New York - which holds 29 electoral votes - will never, ever, go to a republican. And under normal circumstances, while that doesn’t make me comfortable, it does hold a certain amount of weight. It’s also why in the 2016 election I voted in my home county of Schoharie - one of those nice bright red areas up north.

Except here’s the thing about 2020. New York City is fucking empty. 

24,000 people died of coronavirus in New York City alone this summer. 

An additional estimated 500,000 - no you are not reading that number wrong - have either moved out or been evicted. I work as a dog walker, and a full 60% of my client base has left the city and told me they are not planning to come back. They’ve left for places like Connecticut(7 electoral votes), or Massachusetts(11), or Vermont(3) or Florida or Texas or - you get my point. Now that they have been unemployed for six+ months, and the eviction freeze has been lifted, a shit ton of people are being forced to leave, and people with kids are also abandoning the city for somewhere less populated. 

And even further? No one I know has received their requested mail-in ballots yet. No one. Not a single person. The virus is still active(and yeah, we’re down to <1% infection rate, but schools are about to open back up so :) ) Voting takes place in schools. it is likely many people will not be able to risk voting in person - especially if we see an uptick in cases as kids return. Which means if their mail in ballots don’t arrive in time, they may not be able to vote at all. 

Hilary had around 4.5 million votes from New York - 2 million of those came from NYC and the surrounding boroughs. She won the popular vote in this state by 1.8 million votes.

Now, yes, a small number of the people who have left NYC are also Trump Voters. Something like 15% of NYC’s vote went to Trump. But a much higher percentage are democratic - and committedly democratic - votes. Healthcare workers suffered disproportionately from CV deaths. Startups, Small business owners, College and recent college grads, Theatre workers? They’re all gone.

New York State can, honestly, no longer be counted on to go blue no matter who abstains from voting or who votes third party because of the toll the virus has taken on the city. We really do need every single person who is able to vote, to do so. Not because it’s fun, or it makes you happy. Not because you believe 100% in the american democratic system. Because the people you - yes - you, the abstainers - have counted on to uphold your few, dwindling democratic freedoms, can no longer be counted on to do so alone.

Gerrymandering sucks. The electoral college needs to be abolished. But it is specifically because those things are still in place that you need to vote if you are able. We absolutely should be fighting the system. But we cannot abandon it to let it fall to ruin and leave the people affected by that fallout to die because of it while we gather our strength. And yes. People will die. If this summer has taught us anything, let it be that elections fucking matter and in the coming years, our leadership absolutely has the ability to determine how many of us survive.

TL;DR: If you have the ability to vote please fucking use it. This is not a normal election year, and the safeguards that have been in place are no longer to be relied upon.

if you want to save the USPS i am BEGGING you call your representatives directly to DEMAND they co-sponsor and vote for:

1. the Delivering for America Act (call HOUSE reps). This attempts to reverse the bullshit Trump is doing.

2. USPS Fairness Act (call SENATORS). This is a MAJOR repeal of the bullshit the Bush admin and the Republicans did in 2006 that fucked over the USPS in the first place.

3. HEROES Act (call SENATORS). This is the coronavirus omnibus that includes IMMEDIATE USPS relief. Make it clear you want the USPS portion to be included.

If it were an individual thing, you’d give them the benefit of the doubt, but it isn’t; it’s an institutional thing. the job itself is a bastard, therefore by carrying out the job, they are bastards. To take it to an extreme: there were no good members of the gestapo because there was no way to carry out the directives of the gestapo and to be a good person. it is the same with the american police state. Police do not exist to protect and serve, according to the US supreme court itself, but to dominate, control, and terrorize in order to maintain the interests of state and capital.

Who are the good cops then? The ones who either quit or are fired for refusing to do the job.

While the following list focuses on the US as a model police state, ALL cops in ALL countries are derivative from very similar violent traditions of modern policing, rooted in old totalitarian regimes, genocides, and slavery, if not the mere maintenance of authoritarian power structures through terrorism.

police shoot people twice as often as previously thought. Keep in mind that this was self-reported, so we have no way of knowing if these numbers speak to the actual number of shootings in the US. Many of these people are completely unarmed. Police kill far, far more people than terrorists in the US and have killed over a hundred people more than mass shooters did in 2019 that we are aware of. Mass shooters are easily tracked. Police killings are not. 1 2

Oh, and cops also killed more people in 2019 than school shooters did in all of US history.

And if they don’t shoot you, they might just airstrike your block and burn your children alive.

They also shoot one dog every hour, every day. At the absolute least.

Once you’re in jail, be prepared to sit there for weeks -or months or years. It’s so bad that people constantly plead guilty just so they can get out. It’s so bad and so common, in fact, that over a third of all exonerations come after an individual has pleaded guilty. So much for the right to a speedy trial, huh?

And getting arrested is easy - tens of thousands of people yearly, in fact, thanks to lowest bidder garbage that police departments use in order to test for illicit substances. Field drug tests are about as reliable as lie detector tests or horoscopes. They just don’t work. They just don’t.

Think you’re safe if you just follow directions? Yeah, no. And if they don’t just outright kill you, they could make their instructions so arcane and hard to follow that they’ll kill you for not following them, and they’ll usually get away with it. He got away with it, by the way. Surprise!

They’ll prosecute you for even knowing about crimes cops have committed.

Think you’re safe in your home? lmao nah. Not even your 7 year old is safe from getting her brains blown out. check out this horrifying megapost on no-knock raids

Being a taxi driver is literally more dangerous than being a cop.

cops are more of a danger to themselves than anyone else is to them

they’ve admitted to stealing as much -or recently more- than burglars through “asset forfeiture,” and the rate of their thefts has been climbing yearly. Keep in mind, these numbers only articulate what’s been reported. It’s probable that they’ve stolen far more than just this.

police are literally allowed to rape people on the job in 35 states, as they have the power to determine whether or not you consented to sex with them while in their custody.

up to 50% of the people police murder are disabled

the police are being trained to kill as if they’re an occupying army and we’re an insurgency. this is an inevitability, as the military-industrial complex needs to keep expanding into new markets.

Eugenics was still alive and well in the prison-industrial complex up until very recently, and could very well be continuing for all we know, as it was forcibly sterilizing inmates as late as 2010. I honestly don’t see a reason to believe it’s stopped.

The US surveillance state is massive (and while this post primarily focuses on the US, other countries are just as bad), though much of our surveillance is privatized. This doesn’t stop the police from partnering with private companies, however. This will only get worse as time goes on. Also, we can’t forget about the Patriot Act and Snowden’s PRISM leaks.

the police, as an institution, are so completely steeped in violence, that up to 40% of them commit acts of domestic violence and other forms of domestic abuse. Most citizens are not even allowed to own firearms if found guilty of domestic violence, and these guys are expected to handle military-grade equipment.

Police exist to control and terrorize us, not serve and protect us. That’s only their function if you happen to be rich and powerful.

also this: lol

the police as they are now haven’t even existed for 200 years as an institution, and the modern police force was founded to control crowds and catch slaves, not to “serve and protect” – unless you mean serving and protecting what people call “the 1%.” They have a long history of controlling the working class by intimidating, harassing, assaulting, and even murdering strikers during labor disputes. This isn’t a bug; it’s a feature.

The justice system also loves to intimidate and outright assassinate civil rights leaders.

The police do not serve justice. The police serve the ruling classes, whether or not they themselves are aware of it. They make our communities far more dangerous places to live, but there are alternatives to the modern police state. There is a better way.

Further Reading:

(all links are to free versions of the texts found online - many curated from this source)

white nationalists court and infiltrate a significant number of Sheriff’s departments nationwide

Kropotkin and a quick history of policing

Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. (2013). Let Your Motto Be Resistance: A Handbook on Organizing New Afrikan and Oppressed Communities for Self-Defense.

Rose City Copwatch. (2008). Alternatives to Police.

Williams, Kristian. (2011). “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing.” Interface 3(1).

Williams, Kristian. (2004). Our Enemies in Blue: Police and power in America. New York: Soft Skull Press.

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Hi Tumblr, I’m Patricia from the Philippines and my country really needs your help. 

Like most of the world, we are currently on quarantine and lockdown. Unlike most first world countries though, my countrymen are dying of hunger due to many reasons: 1) losing their only means of livelihood 2) most people below the poverty line only have enough savings to feed their family for 4-5 days. And we have been on lockdown for almost 30 days now. The lockdown will continue until the end of April (or even longer) which leaves millions of Filipinos stranded in their homes with no help. Those who try to leave home to find help are threatened to be shot dead by our President. Our government, despite having received emergency powers and relief funds from other countries and the World Bank, continue to squander our funds with corruption and inefficient governance. Meanwhile, street vendors, public transport drivers, construction workers, and millions of other hungry Filipinos are deprived of relief goods due to their rural, far-flung location—the entire informal sector has essentially been left to go hungry. Only the privileged can “work from home”, so where does that leave the rest of the population? On the streets.

In response to this, organizations and the private sector has come together to help feed hungry communities and provide aid to frontliners who have been forced to buy their own PPEs and equipment due to lack of hospital funds. However, since it’s been a month of donation drives and fundraisers, donor fatigue has been settling in and most of our funds are running dry. This is why I’m writing to you today. I sincerely hope I can ask help from the internet to send help to where we are. Our frontliners, farmers, daily wage workers, and poor families desperately need your help.

Below are links to the Fundraisers I’m working on with descriptions of who it’ll be donated to. And I swear, every dollar would go a LONG WAY. Imagine $1 is 50 Philippine Pesos. Food packages cost around $10-$20 depending on the contents. You can feed a family of five for around 4-5 days with that much. Imagine how much you could help :( I know these are tough times for everybody, so don’t feel pressured to donate what you cannot afford! I’m really just trying to get the word out there and maybe it can reach a generous soul or two.

This fundraiser will be sending relief care packages to farmers in the provinces of Benguet, Ifugao, and Nueva Vizcaya. Because of the transport ban, they have been struggling to sell their produce and no longer have a source of income for basic needs. :(

This fundraiser feeds the families of Novaliches, Quezon City with food packages to help them survive the remainder of the lockdown and transport ban.

This initiative helps raise funds for public transportation drivers who have lost their means of income because public transportation has been banned by the government. This includes public transpo drivers and ride-hailing app drivers who have lost their jobs.

This initiative is raising funds to feed frontliners who are working day and night to help fight COVID-19.

My paypal link is http://paypal.me/policrapio and you may include in the message area which specific beneficiary you’d like to help. If you can’t afford to help, that’s totally fine! If you could simply reblog and help share this post so it may reach more people who may be able to help, then you would have helped so much already <3 

If these causes don’t align with how you want to help, there are so many more Philippine donation drives in need of support. You can find them here and here. If you have any questions feel free to message!!!!