Author: Slingshot robot #1

By H-Cat

A quarter of a century ago, as a teenager, I marched in the streets of Seattle as part of the people-powered “counter conference” that emerged in response to a meeting of the World Trade Organization, a global organization that allows non-elected businesspeople to bypass local laws. I had been raised Republican, but one reason I was out there, marching alongside hippies, union members, and cloistered nuns, is that I believed in the democratic process. I was sure, at that time, that the United States and every country was being governed in a fair and democratic way. The existence of an organization like the WTO challenged my vision of how the world was supposed to work. How could it be that a bunch of non-elected businesspeople had bypassed the democratic process and taken charge of everything? Enraged that this “unjust coup” had somehow happened, I hitched a ride into Seattle from the suburbs to join those protesting. I knew I needed to be there because the WTO stood against everything I believed was right.

What I hadn’t anticipated was that my entire worldview would be turned upside down during the days I spent at the protest — thanks to so many educators and truth-speakers present at the gathering. These people taught me that there were deeper, systemic issues that had been happening all along — they shared this knowledge through zines, pamphlets, speeches on street corners, songs, performances, and works of protest art. I especially learned a great deal from folks who took the time to explain to me one-on-one why they were there. I’ll never forget these two French cheese farmers who kindly took the time to explain to me and my protest buddies about how their livelihoods were being impacted by systemic machinations that aimed to put control over the means of producing goods into fewer and fewer hands. 

The activist-educators seemed to take two approaches: sometimes they’d focus on a single instance of harm and then zoom out to explain how that instance was the result of part of a larger pattern. In other instances, they would share a list of the awful things happening, often as a list of demands. Whether or not these demands were feasible, the act of presenting these lists served an educational purpose: it helped those of us who were less aware catch up and quickly understand that these things were actually happening. 

To seasoned activists, all of this was probably pretty boring, and maybe even disheartening. Just the same “tired talking points” they had already heard at rallies before. But I hadn’t been to any of those rallies. For me, I was learning all these things fresh, for the first time. These activist-educators were presenting me with information that defied the lies I’d been raised with. It was like I’d been living in a bubble, and that bubble was bursting. I was learning about a bunch of awful, large-scale things that had been happening all along. This is a vital first step towards truly fixing anything: How can these massive, systemic forms of yuck be changed if people aren’t even aware that they are happening?

Right now, a similar moment is unfolding all over the country as lots of people rise up for the first time. People are looking for answers… Now is a time for speaking with clarity about what’s really happening — about the things that have been happening all along.

It is only by working to name the harm that we’ll be able to end it. It is only through a process of putting words to forms of active harm that we can transform these things into history, and relegate them to the past. Now is a time for onboarding, and for speaking with clarity about the things we want to go away.

This moment may be the first chance in over 200 years to make deep changes to the way things are run in the U.S. Whoever tells the most compelling stories of how we got to this moment will dictate what happens next. Don’t let that work be done by revisionists or apologists. Now is a good time to look up the work of Elinor Ostrom, the Noble-prize winning economist who showed us that “the tragedy of the commons” is a myth. 

A new system is possible — as long as we can still dream. Imagine what it would be like if our voices mattered? Imagine if we transitioned to a worker cooperative commonwealth where neighborhood councils made local decisions as part of a participatory budget process. We could restore the commons, rebuild public places where we can grow food and make art. We could build an economy that centers human and ecological well-being, with healthcare for all, robust access to education, tool libraries and maker spaces. It’s more than possible to transition to 100% clean energy — Scotland’s already there. 

All the best things are still absolutely possible. In fact, this may be the moment in which we can get everything we ask for.

By eli l.a. 

I have just returned from the most sexually-prolific Quaker camp you can imagine. There were duct-tape bras, boob contests, and various unmentionable behaviors in crowded rooms. I once kissed nine girls in one night. We streaked and swapped partners. It is 2007 and I am twelve. But we don’t have time to get into that now, because this is a love letter, a thank you to my first-ever boyfriend, who also happened to be my first trans boyfriend. Let’s call him Luca.

Luca and I met in our middle school’s theater program. At the time, I knew Luca was thirteen and hated skirts. I was typecast as the loud best friend, and Luca was in crew. But it was really at this camp where I fell for Luca. 

Sure, Luca looked great in his new short haircut. But more importantly, Luca was becoming Luca. He discovered sharpie beards, braggadocios bisexuals, and, yes, a love of duct tape. We did not get romantic until we returned to our hometown in Maine. Luca was entering his freshmen year at the notorious gay high school. I got the same haircut as Luca and started eighth grade. 

The good news: Luca’s bus home stopped at my middle school. At the stop, we picked each other up with big bear hugs in late August. I’d jump on board, go to Luca’s, and we’d talk about our dogs and, of course, penises.

The bad news: come September, we could only hug for a short period of time, even though the bus waited about half an hour at that stop. Around five seconds into our embrace, we’d get a loud harrumph from on high. 

There was the principal, ironically named McCarthy, standing right next to us, counting us off with his watch, telling us we had to separate. He did this for almost the whole 6-month relationship, and we were Type-A as in Achievers, so we honored adults and their authority. Each time, we let go of each other. If we took a second or two longer, I’d get a heavy hand on my shoulder, like a stone that threatened to drown me. 

Then Luca and I stood there awkwardly, not touching, principal still behind me to make sure we didn’t sneak another dirty hug. Next to us, my best friend and her cisboyfriend exchanged saliva. They were sometimes caught in the stairwells, hands down each other’s pants. She’d sit on his lap, and in the next seat over, the vice principal was telling Luca and me to stop holding hands. The days got colder. 

That was the price of Type A as in Assimilate. We did what we were told. Luca was Type-A as in Ambition. He started studying for the SATs at twelve, networking his way toward med-school internships, yes, before high school started. He was, of course, about to become the president of the gay high school’s Gay Straight Alliance, which is extra super gay. He wanted to succeed. He didn’t want Attention for being trouble.

But trouble gave us attention. It wasn’t just the middle school principal. Strangers on the street, even our friends, would yell ‘Dyke’ at us.. Luca’s step-dad, a lawyer, held doors for us just so he could say, “Ladies first… or, WHATEVER.”

We had a daily tourniquet of otherness. So we sought out everything that made us feel something or helped even a little. Luca wore three sports bras to school until he graduated to binders. And yes, he slept in them. Luca started taking birth control without the sugar pills, so he would never bleed. One day, Luca called me crying. He’d carved the female symbol into his forearm with his mom’s pumice stone. It took a month to heal. Some days all he did was cry. Some days all I did was cry. And that was pretty reasonable, honestly.

We often ate a whole jar of Nutella in an afternoon. We watched videos about how to look good naked, how to kiss, how to make your breast-shape change with certain exercises. Luca made duct tape wallets, duct tape ties, a functional duct tape tux with pockets. We snuck into our town’s only sex shop — ‘Condom Sense’. We got kicked out because we couldn’t stop laughing at the candy thongs. 

That Valentine’s Day, Luca made me a three-dimensional duct tape rocket ship. It was full of presents — a chocolate rose, a pink stuffed bear, a long rhyming love limerick. My parents thought it was Type-A+ as in Absolutely Adorable until we got to the last gift. Out fell red hot handcuffs with stripper pink feathers. Seriously.

My jaw dropped. My parents’ faces fell. They’d already been getting calls from school about how I wasn’t behaving Type-A as in ‘Appropriate.’ Now this. But they said nothing, just immediately wandered out of my room, while I blushed with shame and slammed the door behind me and hid the handcuffs under my bed. We have never spoken of it since.

Please understand: Luca and I were not doing anything that kinky. Yes, we were hooking up. Yes, we talked about sex and bodies all the time. Yes, we were really going through puberty. But the one time Luca offered to show me porn, I literally ran out of the room. I never saw Luca’s chest, let alone a nipple. That was our vibe.

We never used the plastic handcuffs. Luca just thought they were really funny, and he wanted to share the joke with me, because, guess what? Sex and gender is a fucking joke. It is a farce. We all look silly. Why not enjoy it? 

Next time we saw each other, I play-slapped Luca’s shoulders — “Why didn’t you tell me! You should have seen their faces!” — and he cackled with glee. Beautiful glee. I wasn’t actually mad. How could I be? How could I pass along that shame I’d felt, when my parents saw Luca’s gift? 

I loved Luca, I loved all his gifts, and all his trouble.

But our parents did not get the joke. So we stopped touching in front of them, learned what ‘platonic’ meant, and immediately started promising that it defined us. We wouldn’t give up the dating moniker — we were too obviously infatuated — but the idea that we only friend-touched meant we still got to have some sleepovers. Of course, these were sleepovers neither of us would ever have been allowed to have with a cisboy. We learned the queer art of milking a paradox.

Of course there’s more here, more awful, more daily menace and humiliations we don’t have time for. Remember, this is a love letter. I’ve come to enjoy that gender is not between my legs, but something created on the stage, like the middle school theater where Luca and I met. Gender is a fairytale of costumes and props and dramatic hand gestures. It’s how we sing or if we speak in questions. But the current genders on offer are old stories written long ago by our ancestors, who would not love us, their queer descendants. But queerness is always alive and creative and growing flowers in the cracks, finding new ways to apply fake beards.

In Luca’s case, gender included some surgeries. Last I knew, he was a pediatric residential surgeon, specializing in gender-diverse healthcare. Hence the changed name — I want to celebrate the messy intimacy of genderdiverse youth and their vital relationships, while allowing some well-deserved privacy. I want you to hear all our stumbling and the rocks in our way and let you know that we turned out OK. We are human, we are lucky, and we are a beautiful mess. 

It’s important Luca survived adolescence, that I survived, that it does indeed get better. Now, Luca has chest hair, and a career, and a dog. Trans men are lovable. Their joy fuels the queer cause. So often the ones who can’t hide are the brightest beacons. 

You don’t have to be Type-A to survive — that’s not what was lovable about Luca. I wish I could give every trans kid with the absolute liquid fire of gender euphoria Luca had in 2007, running down those dirt paths, leg hair in the breeze, surrounded by laughing girls. He was so goddamn beautiful. Every day, for longer every day, he came out with the sun. Thank you. 

Contact the author @aliaselila

Slingshot asked folks to write a short response to one of these 3 questions to reinforce that none of us are alone: 

• “What are you doing to organize with those in your community to promote liberation?”

• “What visions of a new world can you articulate that can move the conversation beyond reacting to our oppressors?” 

• “What keeps you present, engaged and able to keep struggling for a better world?”

Here are some of the responses we received: 

I deleted Instagram. Everything moves slower, my attention spans greater distances. I read faster. I see fewer images of dead bodies. I am no longer caught in the doomscroll. I don’t feel hopeless or ignorant; the necessary information finds me. I have so much time to make music, paintings, food for the homies, and build capacity for the war we must wage. The technocratic state has less insight into my thoughts, changes in my appearance. I used to admonish my friend for being “80 years old”, but I should’ve listened when she told me to delete everything and smash my phone. 

—Nellie Ludd, Eugene, OR

I don’t call it organizing. I just do what makes sense. Share what I have, whether it’s food, knowledge, or a ride when someone’s stuck. Keep an ear to the ground. Know who’s hurting, who’s hungry, who’s got a landlord breathing down their neck. Sometimes it’s just watching each other’s backs, making sure no one gets swallowed up by the machine without a fight. The work isn’t in speeches or grand gestures — it’s in showing up, day after day, for the people who’d do the same for you.

—Cricket, Baton Rouge, LA

I see a world where no one owns the land, yet everyone belongs to it. Where the sky isn’t carved up by power lines, and food doesn’t come wrapped in plastic stamped with a price tag. Where work is done because it matters, not because rent is due. A world built by hands, not dictated by contracts. People think the world can’t work without bosses, borders, and banks. But I’ve seen the way we take care of each other when the lights go out, when the systems fail. That’s the world waiting beneath this one — if we let it breathe.

— Rook, Detroit, MI

The world is burning, but the stars are still out. I keep my hands moving — fixing bikes, rolling cigarettes, passing a jug around a fire where somebody’s playing a half-broken guitar. I keep walking, hopping, finding the next place where somebody needs something I can give. There’s power in that. In the small ways we refuse to be swallowed whole. In the way we laugh when the cops drive by and we know they don’t own us. In the way we keep each other warm.

—Ash, Portland, OR

What I am doing to promote liberation is connecting with my circles to promote thinking politically in terms of both survival and creating a better world for all beyond the immediate threat of fascism. In school, I studied political theory and philosophy, and as an educator, my goal is to promote more thoughtful discussions. Last year, I began giving out free zines, pamphlets, and books at local punk shows as _____ Distro; since then, I’ve put on two hardcore punk benefit shows. Ultimately, I’d like to help organize the punk scene so that we can put our ideals into practice.

—Jam, Oakland, CA

As queers, enbies, trans folk, we spend our lives fighting hard to take up space. We’ve spent our whole lives screaming and demanding answers. Screaming for our safety, screaming to be heard. We were children that grew into adults that never stopped asking why. We want to be the adults that provide answers to those questions with a full heart, respect, love, and realistic reasoning. We never want to lose the ability to ask why, to demand answers, to stay curious, be authentically yourself, and cause good trouble. We want a better future, if not for us, for them. —KJ, Austin, TX

As a high school teacher at a public school, one aware of the inherent oppression of our educational system, my students and their passions for change and social justice are what keeps me focused and present and constantly challenging myself to make my curriculum and my teaching more open and free. By seeing and hearing them speak about what they care about, what they are worried about, and grappling with the darkness of the world while still maintaining their joy, they push me to not only show up at school ready to fight, but to continue to look for ways to walk the walk in the out of school world as well. Despite Republican fascism and Democratic ennui and hopelessness, my work and my students keeps struggling for a better world.

—Cassio, Albuquerque, NM

Every community organization, labor union, school club, or any collective capable of pointed discussion should be a node of governance, the conversations they produce recorded faithfully and delivered to elected officials who consider these proposals before any other. I believe this approach, linking the masses of people within their respective sectors to the political decision-making process, has the potential to produce electoral outcomes which go beyond static reforms. Because standing up such an infrastructure would require extensive organization, it builds power even in the attempt. If carried out, it could turn a single election into an administration run on absolute democracy. Better, a democracy upheld by the most intelligent kind of people: Organized people.

—Hazel, Oakland, CA

Hurt people HURT people. Oppression often comes from deep, unresolved pain and a lack of skillful ways to manage it. I think those of us who’ve done the hard work of healing and have the capacity to hold pain in non-reactivity have a responsibility to seek authentic connection with people whose beliefs clash with our own. Instead of fighting or pointing fingers at them, we need to consciously — and safely — seek ways to hold space for their pain in an effort to facilitate understanding and find common ground. This endless cycle of othering, violent conflict, and war will only truly end when we can meet each other in our shared humanity. Otherwise, we’re continuing to fuel a now-blazing fire that will end up consuming us all. 

—J (they/them), Cincinnati, OH

Last week someone came into the community food justice space I work in. Mixing bread dough was the first thing to do. “I’ve only made it once, but I’ll give it a shot…”

Another friend walked in, asking “how can I help?” The new baker said “Well, the best way to learn is to teach someone…”

Later, the second baker was teaching another how to knead dough. The first baker looked back into the kitchen and said, dryly but with a smile, “looks like we’re on the third generation, now.”

We ripple outward. Our knowledge matters. We feed us.

—Juice, Saint Paul, MN

When so much is awry in our world, I cope by keeping my focus on the issue that tugs my heartstrings the most: our climate and biodiversity crises.  Spending time in nature is my favorite practice that generates awe, regulates my nervous system and keeps me firmly connected to why I am doing this work.

—Fuchsia Fringe, Berkeley, CA

After the end of the world, “I” will no longer be a fixed territory. Any border shall be crossed and blurred over uncertain terrain, the hubris of delineating such things will be rewarded with perpetual surprise: “I” was much more than I ever imagined. Those inner strangers will face the rest of me, and we will communicate. I will cede control (an archaic nightmare) and those strangers will traverse me, planting seeds of alterity in my fertile soil. A thousand flowers shall bloom and bristle; every “I” tangled. The old maps become unrecognizable, and the rivers coagulate into that ultimordial soup.

Io Trismegistus, Eugene, OR

My queerness has taught me that true binaries are rare, so I understand that success or failure at saving the world is a false binary. We have lost, will lose, so much, but we can shape how we live in that reality. The miracles of this world — repeating fractals of icicles; the unimaginable freedom of trans sex; bread from flour and water and creatures we cannot see — and the knowledge that we are ourselves nature, keep me grounded in my purpose: build the future we want, and do it by living as much of it as we possibly can today.

– Three, New York City, NY

The state fears trans people — not just for who they are, but for what they represent: a radical rejection of imposed norms. Trans existence proves the world can be different, and that terrifies those in power.

That’s why they push fear, hoping to paralyze us. But fear isn’t the end — it’s the beginning. When we process fear instead of letting it consume us, we make room for what comes next: the strength of anger. In our sessions, we transform that anger into power using liberation-centered therapy that builds strength, direct action that disrupts oppression, and queer joy that refuses to be erased.

We are not passive recipients of oppression; we are architects of a world beyond it.

Trans is the future

—Chad (Trans-Affirming Therapist) Cedar Falls / Waterloo, IA

The tide rises. Pressure. We despise doctors: priests, intermediaries between a body and its destiny. The motherfuckers can’t even map out the tip of the iceberg. We strut into appointments, studies in hand, give me my estrogen motherfucker. Referral. Certainly we can do better. Our prerogative clarifies: follow the instructions on hrtcafe.net. Our rage boils into action. A girlie calls for a meeting. A package has arrived: small, impossibly light, barely weighing in my palm. I ask what it is and she tells me: 250 years worth of estradiol enanthate API. Gaping. The math says that’s 500 tits. Grope game grandiloquent.

—Jesse Twinkman, Eugene, OR 

By Henry

Hurricane Helene destroyed running water, electricity, cell phone, and wifi services in Asheville, North Carolina, original home of the Cherokee. It suspended gasoline supplies and threatened food, shelter, and in many cases caused complete devastation to homes, businesses, beloved parks, and public spaces.

As I talk with fellow residents in a makeshift version of the ice cream shop where I work, one of them exclaims they’ve just found their first hot shower in a week at an emergency station down the road. Due to the destruction from the hurricane, the water system was no longer able to deliver water to our pipes, showers, and sinks. 

I was surprised by how quickly emergency shower stations appeared. I couldn’t help but wonder, “If we can get aid to people in the midst of crumbling infrastructure, then why weren’t we doing this before for our unhoused community members, people who have lived this way for years? Why are more vulnerable people treated as less worthy of basic vital services than homeowners and renters?”

Asheville is a city, like many cities, that faces an extraordinary, yet oddly common, homelessness crisis. Our streets, nooks and crannies are strewn with encampments of people surviving, many struggling with mental health issues; addiction, psychosis, transition from incarceration, and lack of family support. Because our shop is a place who greets all with a friendly welcome and open arms, it often serves as a place of refuge for those living on the street and I get to know many unhoused folks’ struggles and stories. They, too, had found these emergency showers. 

While many were devastated in this disaster, so many of the unhoused people I know suddenly had an improved quality of life, care they had gone without for years — access to hot showers, hot meals, and essential supplies, and even free therapy on the street. It begs the question: Why isn’t homelessness treated as a crisis in the way that natural disaster is?

I was surprised at how quickly help arrived and touched by how much it impacted the lives of the unhoused people who I am familiar with. The aid given after the storm also provided something beyond physical value: I saw hope and relief melt hung heads and cold nights. For the first time in such a long time, these unhoused people felt cared for. They were reconnected to our community.

And weren’t we all reconnected to our community in that same moment? There is no one in Asheville who has been untouched by this crisis. We came together and fought to care for our immediate needs. Many people in my life have noted how much the efforts of everyone around them personally got them through, physically and emotionally, the darkest days they had seen in a while. We let less fortunate survivors stay in our homes, we showered at friends of friends’ homes, we shared any extra food or water we had with our neighbors, we brought each other gasoline, carpooled, and offered rides. We checked on people’s family members, some hiking miles to inaccessible areas for wellness checks. We even asked strangers if they were okay and had everything they needed. We went out of our way to try to account for everyone. It was the one silver lining to a complete catastrophe. The consensus at that moment was that we hoped to never forget how that connection felt. Remembering still brings tears to my eyes.

After the storm, we now collectively share the experience of both the vulnerability of going without, and the power of community to solve a problem together. We successfully prevented many cases of exposure, malnutrition, dehydration, health consequences due to lack of hygiene, and catastrophic mental health consequences through this epic act of mutual aid. Why stop there? Unhoused people still need access to these critical resources. My hope is that this new awareness can open our hearts to those who have been living without for years.

We must respond, organize, and create systems, whether governmental or social, to ensure every person is accounted for and these basic needs are met, or the homeless crisis will only worsen. May we take our experiences from this disaster and empower ourselves to advocacy and action that will allow unhoused people the same peace that was restored to us so quickly. I know we can do this, but we have a choice: Will we end the suffering for everyone, or just let ourselves take what we need and let things get “back to normal”? What kind of community do you want to live in?

By Arize

Our beloved Bev-I Beverly Dove, Cactus Feather, dear friend and comrade in struggle, joined the ancestors on the heels of the new year. Bev was as pure a spirit on this earth as humans can be in her love for all (anti-capitalist) life which she shared with everyone, right until the day she died.

Bev-I’s community is enormous because she touched so many different types of people. She was humble and didn’t like to elevate her personal history above the struggle of others. Slingshot attempted to award her the Golden Wingnut award around 10 years ago but she refused. Wherever Bev-I went, she announced upcoming protests and events, even, or especially, if it was not the most “appropriate” time. Recently she was most vocal about the struggles of the people of Palestine and Haiti as well as against police brutality and war. 

She was fierce at demonstrations, often right up at the front of marches, and not afraid to confront the police. She defended People’s Park, Native Americans, the earth and animals. She hung out hard at the Long Haul and other community spaces. Her companion bunny Hip-Hop was the most revolutionary rabbit ever and accompanied her everywhere. She loved dancing and music, particularly Reggae. 

Bevi was born in Roxbury, MA and got an art degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. She moved to Berkeley in the early ‘80s and worked for the Berkeley public schools and at Berkeley Parks and Recreation. She had a side job dancing and told friends she got more respect stripping than she did at her mainstream jobs. After retiring when she was about 55, she became a full-time activist, dancer and doer. 

Her ex-domestic partner Jessica remembers “She was way ahead of her time. She fought for animal rights, the environment, gay rights, farm workers and against pesticides, corporate money, war, dirty oil and police brutality since at least 1985. Bev not only knew about these issues but told everyone about them. That was her mission — to let people know what’s really going on. Don’t be complicit with evil — be critical and get up and do something about it.”

Bev represented the revolutionary optimism of her generation but she focused on the here-and-now and the future — not nostalgia. Her determination, devotion and ferocity made her a true leader.

May we all aspire to live like her! Long live Bev-I!

Slingshot is an independent radical newspaper published in Berkeley since 1988. 

Is this what fascism feels like? To most of us in the US, fascism has always been confined to the realms of hyperbole and history. But hyperbole seems stale and history seems just around the corner. There is no living memory of our institutions being so drastically reworked to concentrate power through fear, but here, now, this is happening.

Life is never going to get back to normal. When systems collapse, it’s scary. We’ve had to rely on this rotting system our whole lives, but mostly it limits us. Fuck / consume / conform / comply. The artificial scarcity, hierarchies and brutality of industrialism, colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism are so exhausting that it’s hard to imagine a world organized around enriching our lives — not just one about money and stuff. But it’s time for it to go. Then we can reconstruct a new world out of the ashes that’s better than the one we’ve known. 

We’ve never waited for the state to save us, and it won’t now. For years we’ve built decentralized networks of support and resistance in the cracks and gutters between state and capitalism. With those cracks growing, shifting, yawning open, there is a lot more building to be done in the days ahead if we are to reduce the harm to our neighbors, loved ones, and friends. The amount of work ahead can look overwhelming, but when work is play, well… Just look how much new room we have to play in! 

It is humbling to be part of the diverse communities not only surviving but thriving — organizing, creating, loving, making meaning. Living fully with empathy, compassion, rage and defiance. 

Slingshot tries not to focus too much on specific events, because by the time you get the paper, it’s been weeks since we wrote it. We don’t know all the details but our response is clear: Care. Let’s care for each other, care for ourselves, and do it together. Let’s get shit done.

Slingshot is our love letter to the future, to a world that’s hurting. We love you and we believe in you. Let these dark days eventually be strange memories of the past. This is no time to wallow in despair or turn off and check out. Doing so will just make whatever’s going wrong even worse later.

Those of us who make Slingshot are not immune from feeling down as we witness authoritarianism on the march. But a funny thing happened when we started working on this issue. Our mood lifted to be amongst comrades trying to do something rather than just feeling helpless. Who knows what will break the tyrants’ backs? As humans, we can’t control the world. But we can decide what we’re going to do with our lives. And our choices determine how we feel. If you’re feeling afraid, plugging into your local revolt may be the best way to regain your sense of optimism, agency, calm and even joy. 

We don’t know if this Slingshot issue will help you but it sure helped us chase the autocracy blues away. 

These articles are written, edited, and published by a very loose collaborative of people, with open meetings and little structure. No two slingshots are published by the same group. Many of us disagree with aspects of articles we publish. 

Slingshot is always looking for volunteer distributors. If you can hand out papers to your friends or put a few copies into your local cafe, library, truck stop, laundromat, school or whatever, we can send you copies for free. We’re trying to reach people who’ve never stumbled across the underground press before rather than just singing to the choir. We’re also always seeking new writers, artists and editors.  Even if you aren’t an essayist, illustrator or whistleblower, you may know someone who is.  If you send an article, please be open to its editing. 

Thanks to the people who made this: Antonio, Bevicka-Esther, eggplant, Elke, Emily, Gina, Harlin/Hayley, Hazel, Henry, Jack, Jake, Jesse, Korvin, Lola, Matteo, muscle palace, Robin, Sanguine, Sean, Shuchi, Sirkka, Stuart, Sylvia & all the authors and artists! 

Slingshot Article Submission Info

We’re not going to set a deadline for the next issue. We encourage you to submit articles for the next Slingshot anytime you want. We’ll make another issue when we feel like we’re ready. Please check the Slingshot website, IndyBay, instagram and facebook for deadline info. We also have an internal email list that will announce the next deadline so please contact us if you want to be added to the list. 

Volume 1, Number 142, Circulation 33,000

Printed February 28, 2025

Slingshot Newspaper

A publication of Long Haul

Office: 3124 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley CA 94705

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By Davin Faris

The morning was gray and rain-soaked, one of those shivery January days meant for staying in bed. But for the thirty of us crammed into a small tenth-floor room of the Gaylord Hotel in D.C., the atmosphere was almost unbearably warm and stuffy, yet electric with anticipation. We talked in hushed voices to avoid being overheard by anyone outside. I caught up with friends from previous Climate Defiance demonstrations, introducing them to my mom, who was joining us for the first time. Organizers stepped in and out, negotiating a web of encrypted group-chats, rushing to maneuver all the pieces into place. We were the main Yellow team, on standby; outside the hotel, the Green team was setting up their picket signs for the rally; and in another room, overlooking the vast atrium, a third group was preparing the banner drop. 

Evan, a Climate Defiance organizer and the action lead, gave a quick speech before we deployed, reminding us why we were here. “We’re making sure they can’t get away with it,” he said. We whispered a few practice chants and songs together, then all filed out into the corridor, packing into the elevator like a clown car. Once everyone was in place down in the lobby, we linked arms and began shouting “OFF FOSSIL FUELS, DEMS” at the top of our lungs, marching between the tables and garden installations, getting shoved back by security guards. A massive fifty-foot banner unfurled from a seventh-floor balcony, looking out over the restaurants and milling guests. In trademark Climate Defiance blue, black, and white, it declared: OIL $$$ OUT OF THE DNC.

That weekend, the Gaylord Hotel had the honor of hosting the Party Chair election of the Democratic National Committee. Hundreds of delegates from across the country were getting ready to cast their votes — and we were not going to let them ignore us. The night before, activists with Climate Defiance and the Sunrise Movement had repeatedly interrupted a televised debate, successfully getting all the chair candidates to commit to taking no fossil fuel donations. We were showing up again to drive home the message, demanding a clean break between Democratic leadership and the fossil fuel companies that collectively pour billions of dollars into our elections, directly influencing races and undermining policy.

For decades, people in power have told activists to be patient and polite, to work within the system, to play by the rules. But now, as global warming records are shattered every year and unprecedented natural disasters destroy communities around the world, groups like Climate Defiance are becoming more widespread and prominent. Founded in 2023 by young organizers deeply frustrated by consistent governmental inaction and corruption, they argue that patience doesn’t cut it when your city is on fire or washed away by mudslides. Politeness starts to seem like willful ignorance. Climate Defiance’s strategy, on the other hand, is all about direct non-violent confrontation. They get on stage and shut down oil or gas events, interrupt galas honoring billionaire executives, and challenge politicians bought out by fossil fuel money. “Name & Shame” organizing is flashy, funny, loud, and unapologetically disruptive. It’s successful, too, landing Climate Defiance a huge media presence, one-on-one meetings with senior officials, and often high-profile resignations or major concessions — as at the DNC.

But for me, it’s about more than all that. Nonviolent direct action, or NVDA, is how I remain hopeful for the country and the world. It’s what keeps me grounded and determined. I grew up in central Maryland, on a small family farm. When I think of home, I think of the land: our fields and forest, our sheep grazing on the hillside. That connection to nature first became political for me when I was fourteen. In the winter of 2020, I helped one of my best friends start a local county hub of the Sunrise Movement, a national youth-led climate nonprofit. We had no idea what we were doing — it was almost all trial and error. But those first experiences of organizing were a revelation for me. I fell in love with the tenacious engagement that activism demands.

It’s not an easy time to be an optimist. My generation has never known a time before weekly mass shootings, before mainstream political violence and disinformation, before ever-more-cataclysmic climate disasters. Our political system makes it hard for anyone — especially students — to feel heard. The easiest thing by far is to disengage, to look away. But direct action offers a radical alternative to that apathy. It insists that our individual actions matter, not in an abstract sense, but in tangible and immediate terms. Instead of unplugging, we demand to be heard. Instead of sinking into despair or giving up, we shine brighter.

My work with Sunrise in high school led me to more direct demonstrations, where I learned about Climate Defiance and found an intergenerational community of passionate and experienced organizers. When I was sixteen, I joined a blockade of former-Senator Joe Manchin’s coal plant in West Virginia. Last December, as a college freshman, I was arrested for the first time, along with twelve others from Climate Defiance, demanding the Department of Energy cancel six pending natural gas permits.

And in January, I was at the DNC election with my organizer friends and my mother, all of us getting pushed around and screamed at by security guards until they finally forced us out into the frigid rain. It was an exhausting, exhilarating day. Once again, the action yielded results. When Minnesota Democratic leader Ken Martin gave his acceptance speech as National Party Chair the next day, he pivoted to echo Climate Defiance’s message: “Are we on the side of the ultra-wealthy billionaire, the oil and gas polluter? Or are we on the side of the American working family, the immigrant, the students?” Of course, those words are cheap; activists will have to keep up the pressure and hold the DNC accountable to its promises. But it’s striking how much influence even a few people can exert, if we’re willing to break the rules and make ourselves heard.

Climate Defiance, the Sunrise Movement, and other disruptive groups have a critical role in this moment of division and chaos. By challenging the status quo and operating outside the political mainstream, they can appeal to people across the partisan spectrum, especially those dissatisfied with traditional politics. As natural disasters become more frequent and severe, the potential for a diverse, class-driven climate movement becomes more and more real. But to achieve that social, economic, and environmental justice requires far more than email petitions or permitted marches. It takes sustained and strategic nonviolent action. It takes all of us.

Find your people. Make some noise. Don’t let anyone take your hope away, as painful and difficult as it will be. In the end, I think that’s all any of us can do. When I get tired now, I remember that rainy morning in the Gaylord Hotel, chanting and singing, demanding change. That burning fire of defiance. We’re still here, radiant — and we aren’t going anywhere.

By Andee Amplified – Somewhere between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas

Yet again, Texas politics are being played out on a national scale. I have lived through this before and will do it again. By living I do not just mean existing. I found my power and my voice, and I made it my life mission to thrive and not just survive. 

The goal of their game is to overwhelm and minimize our existence. I have long ago opted out of this game altogether. My survival strategy? Joy and authenticity. These two simple but key actions are crucial in your survival and thrival. (Did I just create a new word? I think so.) I found in the face of adversity, nothing pisses off oppressors more than feeling and enjoying yourself right now as you are. I can’t explain nor do I understand it, but I do not have to. It requires me to apply compassion and logical thinking to people who lack those skills. I do not have the mental or emotional bandwidth to do so. I digress. In the context we are speaking of my joy and authenticity, I feel it is important to note what my existence looks like in general. I am a Neurodiverse, Brown, Queer, Femme centered, Gender Non-conforming gift from the universe. Their attempts to politicize almost every aspect of my existence have been returned to them sealed within a flaming glass bottle. 

Navigating my world has become a dance. As I thrive prioritizing my joy and authenticity within my Nonbinary Queer Femme Brown body, I have to move with intention and awareness. At the forefront, I prioritize my safety, rest, peace, and joy. I trust my gut and instinct above all because if you cannot trust yourself, who then can you trust? Identifying and setting your intentions for thriving and existing is key in all this. Acting and moving within these intentions ensures I am doing my part to stay here for the long run. So what does living my authentic joyful self look like? Here are just a few examples. 

1.) Wear the fucking dress. Do not wait for an excuse or occasion. I woke up, that’s the occasion. I do not exist for the pleasure or approval of others. I wear what brings me joy.

2.) Do the damn thing. This year I am committed to start podcasting. In the past, I have created and distributed my art (paintings, drawings, doodles, and whatnot). I also made a resource guide to community resources. The last one was rather simple and very healing as it connected me and my communities to vital resources available during these times of dumpster fire realness. 

3.) Authenticity is my guide. If I cannot show up fully and unapologetically, I have no business being there. This ranges from physical spaces to relationships. I do not have the mental or emotional capacity to water down myself for your comfort. 

4.) Find or create community. In overwhelming, shaming, and minimizing our existence, oppressors work to break us down in our lives and communities. It is important to find your people. Shit, when I committed to be true to myself, I didn’t need to find community as they found me. 

5.) Rest and prioritize peace. You receive no prize or trophy for burning yourself out. It is counterproductive to wear myself down, as it makes the oppressor’s job easier. There are days when I do not leave the bed or apartment. I do not answer the phone or messages. I will chaotically meme share. 

6.) Stay informed and aware of reality. While joy and authenticity is an act of resistance, it is not an excuse for me to disconnect from reality. I operate within my ability, my means, and my capacity to give a shit. I stay informed but not overwhelmed and select key issues to focus on. I cannot do everything nor care for everything, however I cannot do nothing. 

7.) Create space for all emotional states of being. Every aspect of my emotions deserves space, not just joy (though the emphasis is heavy on joy). I make sure I let sadness, happiness, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise have the attention they deserve. However, they chose to manifest and express.

These are only a few suggestions and parameters I operate within. For me, it is about mobilization but being fully aware of my energy budget. Boundaries are important and a necessity. Please note that these are just some insights into how I chose to live and operate. One size does not fit all nor do I claim my way is the right way to be joyfully and authentically you. What matters is that you show up. So to everyone who made it this far in my ramblings, I love you and you got this. We are now a community and I welcome you. All of you. Fully, unapologetically, authentically you. 

By Jesse D. Palmer

At times like these as mainstream institutions fall in line like dominos and people stare into screens feeling overwhelmed, bleak and powerless, the underground and a broad-based popular uprising is the last guardrail left — this is our moment!

Authoritarians can seize control of governments, corporations, universities, the non-profit industrial complex and mainstream media, but they can’t control the leaderless rabble. Autocratic power isn’t infinite — their power depends on convincing everyone it is. Bullies pretend to be strong and tough, but ultimately they’re weak and scared. As the screws tighten, we’re all faced with a choice: stay silent to try to avoid retribution, or rise up before it gets even worse and we have nothing left to lose. 

Retreating into isolation, depression and fear — tuning out the news, withdrawing into personal life, indulging cynicism and denial — only makes you feel worse, more afraid, more immobilized. A spiritual and psychological race to the bottom. 

Despots take the power people give them. Each act of anticipatory obedience further decreases liberty and consolidates their control. Only solidarity and collective defiance can stop tyranny. 

To build solidarity, we need to start with the basics — building and strengthening day-to-day interpersonal relationships with those around us based on trust, cooperation and sharing. We’re out of practice spending time face-to-face, which is crucial to authentic connections. Fuck smartphone communication and connection. We need to throw more parties, drop by after work, hang out, invite folks to dinner, strike up conversations with strangers, go out more often. From personal relationships comes complex overlapping webs of community — leaderless, grassroots and vast. 

And yet community isn’t enough. Even with community it’s easy to flounder about — submerged under a flood of simultaneous atrocities and distractions. 

To converge, we need to start being for something rather than just being against whatever our oppressors try. Solely being a resistance allows our enemies to ambush us at our weak points rather than allowing us to attack on our own terms. Defending the status quo and its institutions is a demoralizing dead end when our lives have grown worse and worse under the existing order. We demand something new and better. 

To articulate a positive vision, we need to emphasize values and a way of being that is heartfelt and simple. A 15 point program of single issues and demands won’t bring us together. 

What we’re for isn’t misery or blaming shit on vulnerable people or dividing the world up between who is really human, who is really American, who matters and who doesn’t matter. It isn’t about having power, wealth, speed, efficiency, spaceships, computers, mansions, shopping malls, the finest clothes or any of that shit. 

Uniting around fairness, tolerance, pleasure and delight can counteract oligarchy. Not because life is always lovely but because it isn’t, but it should be. We need a reclaimed people’s populism that blames billionaires, landlords and bosses for our problems. 

These values are normal and reasonable — trying to make yourself a king who celebrates cruelty is creepy and bizarre. How about we ridicule, pity and laugh at these fools, not fear them? Let’s figure out outlandish ways to do so in public with high visibility, with our friends and neighbors, at work — all the time so everyone can see — spreading contempt that can help reverse dread and panic. These bozos don’t have a coherent world view except that they should have all the power. And by the way, nature bats last — climate change doesn’t care who believes in it. 

We need to try new things, communicate what we learn to others and pay attention to what others try that is working. We are a network like an ecosystem. In an ecosystem different creatures fill different roles, but they complement each other and they relate to each other so the sum is greater than the parts. Rather than infighting and thinking we have a monopoly on the best strategy, let’s be humble, tolerant and loving of other rebels who are trying different things. None of us has to do it all ourselves. It’s not all about going to fucking boring meetings, but it’s not all about going to fun parties either. We need both. (Okay, the meetings shouldn’t be so stifling. We should serve yummy food and make them social events.)

There’s no way to build a free world without taking personal risks because we can’t unite broadly with others only in a secret, security-culture-based fashion. Looking at the terrible trends that feel ascendant, radicals have to look in the mirror about the ways we’ve grown so timid — not to make ourselves feel bad but to figure out how to do better. Thirty years ago, we demanded total system change and revolution — sure, doing so may have been unrealistic. But more recently, talented communities shoot too low — mostly pouring energy into local reformist feel-good projects. Let’s demand the world we want and need — fundamentally reorganized without artificial scarcity and arbitrary hierarchy — where everyone is free to develop their full potential as they see fit and where we understand ourselves as part of nature. 

Mutual aid means collaborative sharing of resources and services — not charity efforts directed at the poor that end up emphasizing class divisions and dynamics. I love the idea that we begin to disconnect from the collapsing economic system by sharing what we have while simultaneously meeting more of our own needs accepting what others are sharing — from each according to ability, to each according to their needs.

We can best push back when we create a world worth living in — that heals toxic masculinity and all its rotten offshoots. In all this, I want to build up my tenderness, my emotional vulnerability and my ability to stay present, not wallow in fear. The repressed, hard, unfeeling version of masculinity has got to go. Otherwise, we’re just going to replace one form of dystopia with another. 

Even feeling grief can be good because it means we’re feeling. But I’m not interested in a world full of grief. What I want is wonder and awe. And love. You can call me a Berkeley hippie but it really does all come back to love, which is the glue that can hold us together and which corporations and computers can never steal, commercialize or even understand. 

Courts, Congress and other institutions will not save us. We have to stop waiting and hoping and take matters into our own hands. Uprisings and general strikes come out of the blue with no warning like earthquakes. History is full of rebellions that defeated seemingly all-powerful tyrants. They weren’t organized by leaders or groups but arose spontaneously from the collective consciousness. 

Millions of people are struggling with tough emotions and choices — “do I keep my head down to protect my career and my family?” If you want to protect the people, places and ways of life you love, you need to gather the courage to fight. If we stay silent hoping to avoid danger, it’s just going to make the next terrible thing worse and more likely. 

Let’s act together with ferocious love for ourselves, those around us and the earth.