Author: Slingshot robot #1

By Antonio

There’s no getting around it. It’s a fucking scary time to be alive. 

Fascism is on the rise, in the halls of state power (of course), but also among “the people” (at least, certain portions of them) who are lost in the sauce of misinformation, who are taken over by the thrilling feelings of hatred that make their own miseries a bit more tolerable, and who are actively lending their hearts and minds to fascist strongman leaders. 

Those leaders, emboldened by a state apparatus set up to push elite will on the majority even in more “normal” times, are now leveraging that state to attack its scapegoat enemies (mostly migrants and trans folks at this point), while dismantling whatever parts of the state may have actually served some social good. They’re rewriting history to suit their white supremacism and macho penchant for violence. They’re cracking down on dissent — even from the most tepid liberal opposition, but of course preparing the ground for a full-scale attack on leftists, anarchists, antifascists, and anyone who actually gets what’s going on. 

In this context, the liberal institutions that we anarchists tend to oppose — but which compose some form of bulwark against the worst overt abuses of state power in the USA — aren’t even doing their nominal job. The Democrats form a sad, useless, positively counterinsurgent “opposition party”. Media agencies readily bend over to sate authoritarian concerns. University administrators hand over names of pro-Palestinian members of the university community, helping Stephen Miller and his minions target them in future rounds of legal repression. With the exception of some parts of the judicial system (including individual jurors who refused to indict a hero who threw sandwiches at the ICE gestapo), most institutions are falling in line, accepting the fascist turn, and crossing their fingers they won’t be attacked next. 

Meanwhile, the economy stands on edge, between tariff whiplash, job losses from federal cuts of many sorts and the knock-on effects of that which have yet to be fully felt, wholly bad “fundamentals” (i.e. the global lack of highly profitable expansion opportunities for capital), and the looming bubble pop and crash of the over-capitalized “AI” sector. Great for you if you currently have a job. But that may not last. 

So yeah, there’s plenty of good reasons to be freaked out. The world is always a bit fucked. But this time of ours seems unprecedentedly fucked. I mean, I haven’t even mentioned the climate crises!

For many radicals, this feels like an intolerable weight. We know things are fucked, but the litany of specifics is too much to take on. We start checking out. Personally, I’ve stopped paying as close attention to news. No more daily listens to “Depress-a-me Now!” Occasional dives into the headlines or social media feeds are enough to know: bad things keep happening. 

So, what can we do? How can we think about this moment in a way that is not demobilizing, but also not naive? How do we stay informed, but not overwhelmed? How do we take seriously the fascist threat, while also not losing hope and our own humanity?

Here I want to offer two simple ideas that — I think — can help us feel better (which is actually pretty important!) and act more effectively.

First idea: the world is complex, interconnected, chaotic, and it exists beyond the immediate stuff that we tend to see via media and our daily lives. Many parts of planet earth — beings, mountains, natural processes — couldn’t care less who is “President”: elites’ control is as total as the entirety of the planet is controllable. Upon this enormity and complexity, history advances in non-linear and surprising ways. What seems like “end times” with no way out, is not actually the end. There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the inevitable march of change. When you step outside of our narrow, present-oriented viewpoint, you see a much wider and longer story, where authoritarian power has never held on for long. 

Trump will not last. Capitalism will not exist forever. Fossil fuels will run dry. Nation states we find so horrific are only hundreds of years old! And oh-so-many asshole “leaders” who once seemed impervious to their contemporaries, turned out to not be!

Many times before history has confronted anti-systemic actors like ourselves with seemingly nonstop and unstoppable crises, end times thinking, and the prospect of no hope. Yet, in each case, the world did not in fact end¹. People struggled. People survived. Sometimes, in fact, people improved conditions through their struggles against fascism. Look at Brazil, post-military dictatorship. The Landless Workers Movement (MST) of Brazil have been able to occupy millions of acres of land, growing food and livelihoods for their people and movements, precisely as a result of their wins against a dictatorship that lasted decades. They fought for a constitutional right to land and have (since winning that) used that law to get land and build ecological autonomy. I’m sure if you asked activists under that dictatorship if they were overwhelmed, you’d find reflections of your own current condition. But time did not stop. The military was not invincible. Brazil is no paradise now, but grassroots movements are strong, and at least they are actually punishing their last fascist strongman (Jair Bolsonaro) for his crimes! No one knew, during his reign, that such a turnabout was possible. The future is not foretold.

Surviving is important. Our own happiness is important to our ability and will to survive, and to continuing to take care of each other. It’s important to recognize our self-worth, and the power held in surviving so as to pass on our own ideas and strategies to the next generation. Our literal existence can be resistance. But to survive and to fight back, we need to take care of our own hearts.

In order to do that, I suggest a second idea: this almost unthinkable bigness and unpredictability of the world may make us feel less powerful, but it actually can help us be more effective. How? By reminding us to focus, to see where we fit in specific parts of that larger universe, and to act with concerted and thoughtful effort. 

One person cannot go to all the ICE protests, AND call their “representatives” about Gaza, AND build a mutual aid pod, AND feed the homeless, AND organize for grassroots hormone therapy or birth control provision, AND be a parent, a provider, and a musician, and a reader, and a polycule navigator, and an enjoyer of life. We simply cannot do it all. 

But we can certainly do something. And to the extent we focus, we can do it well. Especially, of course, when we do it with others. Yes, there may be plenty of bootlickers out there. But most people want freedom, and many of us will fight for it. And when we fight, we win.

In the long arc of struggle, it’s critical to remember that we can win. Winning is not certain, sure. It won’t be easy, obviously. But history is often surprising. The forces that we face seem impervious to our power, yet history is full of examples that belie that defeatist position. Leaders are assassinated — or killed by their own hubris and ambitions. Apartheid regimes get called out — and are suddenly determined to be unconscionable after being tolerated for decades. You don’t need to be a Star Wars nerd to know that empires inevitably fall. Just like it’s important to remember that workers outnumber capitalists, let’s remember that (globally) there are more people who hate fascists like Trump than those who support them, by a lot.

Rather than be distracted and overwhelmed by the litany of crimes against humanity and our future, when we find something we care about, and work on it with others, we do three crucial things at once. We refuse to give up or give in, and show others that resistance is possible. We tangibly affect our world. And we embolden ourselves, reminding ourselves that our values matter, our values exist and make sense and cannot be exterminated, and they — we — can change the world. We feel better about ourselves, we maintain a horizon that we are moving toward, and we keep ourselves alive because it feels best to keep on collectively moving toward that horizon, regardless of what the assholes do.

As Assata Shakur famously said (RIP):

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.

It is our duty to win.

We must love each other and support each other.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

¹ I admit that many people died and species were exterminated, but not all.

By Punch Up • Kick Down Distro

The ways we collectively respond to harm in our communities is not only a reflection of our broader values, but a critical part of maintaining cohesive and resilient movements. I know that “Cancel Culture” might feel like an exhausted topic not worth rehashing. However, years after #MeToo, sexual violence is still rampant in DIY/Punk/Activist spaces and society in general. Our personal relationships, subcultural “scenes,” and political projects are regularly fractured and weakened by acts of harm and the resulting personal traumas and social fallouts. An inability to adequately and effectively handle harm continues to be a detriment to our mutual struggle against the oppressive forces of capitalist empire and the logics upon which it is built. Cancel culture has proven ineffectual and damaging because it is an individualized response to a fundamentally social problem which relies on carceral, punitive logic. Destroying an individual does not dismantle the systems which allow harm or abuse to occur, and cancel campaigns rarely encourage going beyond surface level punishments towards root causes and potential solutions.

The police, the carceral state, and the prison industrial complex are all institutions of punishment and violence whose primary function is to uphold structures of capitalist exploitation and imperialism. Not only must we reject these institutions as such but also reject their logics, thinking and acting beyond the social punishments of excommunication and punitive models of dehumanization. We cannot reproduce the dominator model if our aim is a social paradigm free from domination. 

The idea that people who cause harm are exceptionally malicious monsters fails to grapple with how normalized rape culture is, while framing abusive behavior as an exclusively individual moral failing rather than a widespread phenomenon situated among complex social conditions. While neither gender violence nor gender expression exist on a binary, our society is founded on a patriarchal gender hierarchy, and sexual violence has been used as a weapon of domination and subjugation against women throughout history and into the modern day. Popular culture often depicts sexual coercion as normal; teaches young men that they are entitled to women’s bodies as a sexual object. An overwhelming number of young people’s sexual expectations are shaped by an unlimited access to online pornography, a majority of which portray sex as existing solely for male pleasure. Alcohol and drug use are defining aspects of social life, even within our subcultural spaces. Acts of sexual violence so frequently involve substance (ab)use. Combining a culture of excessive drinking, patriarchal indoctrination which sexualizes the female body, and a lack of education about consent are a formula for rampant sexual violence. Of course, none of this absolves anyone for harm they’ve caused, but it’s worth considering all the factors that lead to abuse beyond the fundamental “badness” of the person who perpetrates it. Likewise, while patriarchy benefits men in ways that are often invisible to them, patriarchy and rape culture are structures — a series of social relationships existing within and among other power dynamics — and power is relative. We should not equate the violent and abusive actions of socially, economically, and politically powerful members of the ruling class and the harmful behaviors of the regular people who occupy our lives. 

Public spectacles of punishment, such as social media “call-outs,” or cyber bullying campaigns are inept attempts to root out abuse in the community, one “abuser” at a time. Social media’s profit driven algorithm is fueled by reactive and simplistic moral binaries — these platforms harvest engagement by incentivizing content that instigates moral outrage. Participants in online shaming or harassment campaigns derive a sense of virtuous pleasure for being on the “right side” of a grand moral narrative.

Most punks or leftists have some experience in witnessing an “accountability process” go horribly wrong. Even good faith attempts at responding to harm are too often structured with an orientation of shame and punishment. First of all, if access to support or dignity is conditional on adhering to a “process” imposed by others, it is a form of coercion and ultimately ineffectual. Likewise, the healing of someone who has been harmed is not conditional on the “accountability” or punishment or the person who caused them harm. Support for someone who has been harmed is a markedly different, separate process from one concerning the person who caused harm. Restoration for both parties happens on different timelines and by different means according to the situation, the people involved, and their personal circumstance. 

It is not that community intervention of harm or abuse is impossible or unworthy of our efforts, but the approach, expectation, and understanding of what a “successful” process looks like cannot be an abstraction. It is essential to remain behaviorally specific, focus on realistic and manageable expectations, and practice patience with everyone involved. Mistakes will be made and should be met with reaffirmation of goals and adjustment towards them, rather than a dismissal of those involved in the process or the process itself. There is no “correct” way of confronting harm. These situations are dynamic and contextual. There are no blueprints, no easy answers, no neat categories. What is required is dynamism, critical thinking, and remaining principled in our values against dehumanization. 

While it has become one of those terms frequently misused and co-opted, “accountability,” properly understood, can be a guide for taking responsibility for harm, committing to meaningful change, and repairing damaged relationships. Accountability is not some goal to be achieved, nor is it a constant state that can be objectively defined for all people. It is a fluctuating needle on a spectrum of how much your values and behaviors align in any given moment or decision. 

Accountability must come from a place of authenticity, rather than a performance of shame. Shame only calls attention to flaws rather than building on strengths — it lets people who have caused harm off the hook for being inherently bad, essentializing that behavior and rendering them incapable of ever doing better. 

In contrast to shame, regret is a healthy response to realizing one has acted out of alignment with their values. Regret is a realization that one has taken a regrettable action, while shame internalizes that action as a fundamental part of one’s character. 

Responding to harm productively requires a basic retention of dignity for everyone involved, a willingness to engage in challenging dialogue, and opportunities for people to take responsibility for the harm they’ve caused without threatening their material safety and access to support. For people who have caused harm, the opportunity to be honest and transparent without the threat of public humiliation or the fear of dehumanization is crucial for genuinely reckoning with their harmful behavior in order to change it. If attempting to take responsibility for harm is a guarantee of social exile and public shaming, those who have caused harm will go into hiding, run away, turn to substances, and/or try to justify their behavior.

Embodying our values also means recognizing how truly damaging sexual violence is. When someone in our life causes real harm, we need to take it seriously. As friends and members of shared communities we have a responsibility to provide support, however we are capable, for survivors of abuse. Sexual violence in particular can be profoundly, debilitatingly traumatic. The call for harsh and immediate punishment is justifiable when someone has been abused, violated or traumatized. However, we cannot hope for legitimate forms of restoration or reconciliation to come from a trauma response, and punishment does not incentivize anyone to change their harmful behavior.

Consequences are to be expected when harm is caused, but that does not require punishment. Someone who has caused harm must accept the social ramifications of those actions and diligently respect the needs of the survivor. These are justifiable consequences of harmful behavior, not needlessly cruel punishments or denial of personhood, and it is important not to confuse the two. A consequence of causing harm may be that the trust and respect of members of the community is lost. That consequence becomes dehumanization when someone’s character is set in stone, when the possibility for transformation or reconciliation is denied. Likewise, reminding people that they are expected to make changes to their behavior and encouraging them to do so, does not require punishment and humiliation. It’s important to check people who have caused harm if they are straying from their commitments, or showing signs of slipping back into harmful behavior, as long their autonomy is respected and their humanity maintained.

We must identify and overcome the puritanical ideologies that are adopted from corrupted, outdated, and oppressive judicial and theological systems which rely on fixed, formulaic morality. We have to find ways to confront harm and abuse without getting lost in procedure, seduced by vengeance, burnt out by conflict or demoralized by ineptitude. We need to foster social relationships with trustworthy people where we can be honest in considering the ways we have caused harm without being subjected to cruelty or punitive judgement. Confronting harm, we have to accept the reality of the world we live in and the social context we are all subjected to while challenging the logics of punishment and disposability.

Strong communities of mutual obligation and reciprocal care weaken the potential for harm to take place to begin with. The resilience of these communities is only possible if we keep firmly intact the basic humanity of everyone, even those who cause harm. Our response to abusive behavior must be grounded in the shared fundamental belief that nobody is disposable. It is our shared responsibility to reinforce this belief, to build a collective capacity to handle harm without taking on the logics of our mutual oppressors.

By PhotoNinja Ari

ICE is increasingly hunting for people in and around courthouses after they attend their immigration hearings. They wait outside courtrooms, ready to pounce the moment someone emerges from their hearing.

ICE exploits a vulnerable moment in a person’s life: Just when they think they are safe to walk out of court and go home, the threat of detainment looms. This can drive people to skip court dates, which can impact their immigration status. It’s a cruel catch-22 that tears families apart and causes undocumented folks to live in fear. One way to help out is by organizing court support networks.

What Is Court Support?

Court Support is a type of mutual aid that involves accompanying people to immigration court and assuring they are not alone throughout the process. We keep them company and intervene when ICE lurks nearby. It also involves getting to know people, listening to them, and supporting their need to feel safe as this scary situation unfolds. Sometimes the process can provide comfort, which is actually quite a lot. Just knowing you’re not invisible; that you won’t be kidnapped and disappeared without a crowd protesting, can provide some peace of mind throughout this shitty era of escalating state-sponsored violence against immigrants.

Grounded in Abolitionist Values: Solidarity, not Charity

This isn’t charity — it’s abolitionist mutual aid. Court support uproots the logic of surveillance, detention, and coercion. We’re building a world based on mutual aid, solidarity, and consent.

Imagine a world without immigration detention. Immigration detention is a scam after all, designed to funnel taxpayer money into the hands of private prison corporations like GeoGroup. If we don’t stand up for undocumented people, our own communities will be next. Those who profit from the prison industrial complex will keep finding new groups to target for mass incarceration until we put them out of business. Fighting to abolish ICE detention keeps all of us safer.

Court support is actually working!

Since the court support movement in SF began, the number of people who have been abducted after their court hearings has been drastically reduced here. ICE is far less likely to act if people with cameras and glitter are standing by. We’re the DIY paparazzi, shedding light on ICE atrocities by exposing their kidnapping ring. They may be hiding their faces, but we aren’t letting their crimes stay hidden.

Why It Works—And Actually Saves People from Abduction

• Visibility as protection: ICE is less likely to snatch someone right after court when there’s a crowd. Being watched de-escalates their tactics.
• Emergency intervention: If ICE tries to swoop in, the support team documents, witnesses, raises the alarm, calls legal help, and sometimes blocks them. This creates delays that can derail snap arrests.

Tip: Be sure to get enough volunteers to cover all the court dates and times. You want to avoid leaving a gap in which ICE could slip in and kidnap people. As long as there are always people there ready to document and pay attention to what is happening, ICE is far more likely to get camera-shy and back off.

From the Detention Watch Network’s #CommunitiesNotCages toolkit: “Abolitionist mutual aid is about forming non-hierarchical networks that respond directly to the needs of those under ICE terror, working in solidarity with those inside and impacted communities outside.” 

Learn more and find tips for how to start a Detention Watch Network in your community here: detentionwatchnetwork.org

By Hazel

You are trying to talk to someone, maybe a friend or a family member, about political action. You’re trying to convince them that, rather than the time for despair, now is the time for hope; and not hope in the system, but hope in themself and each other. The uncertainty of the moment has softened them, American preconceptions are crumbling, and the flag of patriotism once tinged is now covered with a decadent rot, but still you are fighting against a lifetime of habit.

There are many traits that mark an effective organizer. One of them is the ability to understand and respond to the context of each person you talk to. I will draw out three limitations in particular to keep in mind when trying to reach someone in a conversation. It is up to you then, as always, to decide who to commit your energies to and how to approach them. These limitations are fear, imagination, and social pressure.

On the subject of fear, I would hazard a guess that it plays a bigger role for those who have a chance at refuge: the affluent, ostensibly white, and cis-het. This is almost paradoxical, until you remember that most people who fall outside those groups live in a perpetual state of anxiety, if not outright fear. The chilling effect of those emotions simply won’t be as effective in halting the activation of people who are already inoculated to them. There is perhaps another conversation to be had about conservatism primarily among gay men and some lesbians as a performative defense mechanism, also due to fear, also out of a misunderstanding of the struggle they participate in, but that conversation is altogether too complicated to do justice to here.

The attitude of the fearful can be summed up by a surprising insight given by my partner’s father: “They’re not arresting white people, unless they protest.” …Lots to unpack there, huh? The only counter to this kind of thinking, the privileged perspective of those who know that quietude can be an escape for them alone, is to remind them of their lonesomeness. It is true, in all likelihood, that wealthy, quiet whites will be able to live through this particular moment in relative peace; and those that chose to do so will probably contemplate suicide thereafter. They will hate themselves for their cowardice, and they will hate themselves for turning their back on all their friends and relatives who did stand up and resist, who would have been that much safer with another person at their side. 

If you wish to talk with people who are afraid, you have to respect their fear, or else they will withdraw from you. At the same time, every single person who stands up makes every other person standing up that much safer, and everyone needs to understand that. Massacres are made of isolated protests, but when a million people march, five million, ten, no guns can stop them — for the authority would do irreparable damage to itself. (That’s not to say a big march will fix the country, but showing up is the least they can do to keep others safe.) 

Imagination is a precious resource, and it is criminally underutilized in the United States. It is this way because our leaders fear the leadership of the masses, so our education, our labor, and even our home lives have been shoved into boxes that hinder the growth of our imaginative faculties. To this point, it requires patience to talk to someone who cannot imagine an alternative to for-profit health insurance, or endless military spending, for example. You have to walk them through it without theoreticals. 

Don’t say socialism, don’t say capitalism. There is no agreement whatsoever on the definition of those terms. In the American conception, capitalism is always viewed in the ideal, with its wants and needs perfectly balanced in a perpetually virtuous market, while socialism and communism (they are always lumped together) is Stalinism. It is not worth the time it will take to dismantle this conception. It will be easier to create a functional, socially responsible system of governance than it will be to convince some these Boomers that they are just as propagandized as the Russians. So don’t lean on jargon; just describe situations and actions that can be taken to make them better.

In this way, Mamdani’s mayoral campaign has given us all a very polished example to follow. Rather than draw the line at theoreticals, draw the line at dignity and have dignity mean affordability. Can a dignified life be synonymous with an affordable existence? No, not at all, but it’s something people understand. And when your someone asks you how all the changes to our current system will be paid for, the answer is cut ICE funding, replace corporate subsidies with public ones, and tax the rich. And if that doesn’t make sense to them, you can give up. 

Your time is precious. The last thing you have to remember when talking to your someone is the type of social pressure you exert on them­. The reality is that if you have a healthy relationship with a person, your dissent about their political opinions is not a threat to them. In most cases, that’s a good thing. It means your love for each other is unconditional, but it also means that you simply might not be the person to reach them. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope for them, and it doesn’t mean that all your efforts in talking to them about the current situation are wasted. 

Probably, you won’t be the one to change their mind, because they’re just too comfortable talking to you. The family space should be one in which people are comfortable, at least up to a point. If your uncle or your homie is sounding like a eugenicist, you need to get some mutuals together and make a plan. But if your someone is trying their best to understand what they’ve been seeing in the world and still can’t seem to accept the fact that they can do something to change it, it is okay to let go of your obligation to be their guide and instead allow yourself to just be a person with them. 

In truth, you’re better off talking to strangers. Because a stranger’s actions cannot be explained away by personality. Without the context of familiarity, they must be taken at face value. A stranger comes from the unknown and returns to the unknown, like a force of nature. So if you want to change some minds, get out there and be a force of nature.

By SF Bay Mutual Aid and PB

Authoritarians want us isolated and afraid. Through raids, bans, and cruel policies, they’re trying to make fascism feel normal. Families are separated, neighbors harassed, and whole communities pushed into silence. But we refuse to face this alone.

Solidarity Circles are small, self-organized groups where people choose each other and stand together.  Small, trust-based groups have unique power. They can move faster than large organizations, go deeper than public campaigns, and act more creatively than top-down efforts. Civil resistance does not only mean confrontation. It also means building the world we want and refusing to comply with systems that cause harm.

Community Building

Community building lays the foundation for action. It is how we build trust, belonging, and political imagination. It creates the conditions for sustained resistance and collective care. You can invite friends, neighbors, coworkers, or others into your circle or help them form their own. Potlucks, movie nights, hikes, art nights, or skill shares build strong relationships and make movement work enjoyable and sustaining. Listening circles, ceremonies, or healing practices help process grief, joy, and transformation together.

Educational and Persuasion 

Circles gather to raise consciousness and shift understanding of power, justice, and collective struggle. Circles can help make political education personal, grounded, and engaging by reading books or articles together and helping each other connect the dots between lived experience and systemic conditions. Circles can host teach-ins to lead public conversations about housing, labor, policing, climate, or racial justice. Some hang posters, create zines, put on performances, alter billboards, paint graffiti or chalk messages that shift public narratives.

Mutual Aid

Circles can responds to immediate needs while building alternatives to systems of neglect and control. This is a form of resistance grounded in care, survival, and solidarity and can include distributing food, transportation, funds, medical supplies, child care, or housing support. Some circles offer emotional support with peer listening partnerships or regular check-ins to reduce burnout and isolation. Circles can provide emergency support for people facing eviction, arrest, natural disasters, or personal emergencies. Circles can create systems like tool libraries, protest safety teams, or solidarity funds that increase community resilience.

Disobey and Refuse 

Civil disobedience involves intentionally refusing to comply with unjust laws or systems. It can take many forms, from quiet acts of defiance to public disruption. Some circles engage in direct action such as sit-ins, blockades, banner drops, or other disruptions targeting harmful institutions. Others support strikes by showing up for workers on strike with material support and physical presence. Circles can provide sanctuary and protection by offering shelter and support to people targeted by law enforcement, including immigrants, trans people, or abortion seekers. We can all withdraw participation from systems of exploitation with boycotts, divestment campaigns or work stoppages. 

There is no single best tactic. Circles are strongest when they act with intention, figure out what to do together, and stay connected to the broader strggle for justice. To join or start a circle in your area, solidaritycircles.org/join.

By Anonymous

Here are practical ways to resist military occupation of our cities and ICE acting as a federal secret police against kids and grandmothers.

Decentralized diversity of tactics

It takes varying and broad-based activity to avoid government domination, ranging from refusing service, polite marches, dressing up in frog costumes, blockades, strikes and directly confronting troops. Tyrants escalate violence to provoke reactions on their terms that can strengthen their hands and discredit us. Their goal is to divide communities so they can isolate, criminalize, and lock up militants. We don’t have to take the bait. Their over-reactions can be turned against them. However, our numbers, mobility, and flexibility can give us an advantage in some contexts. Our focus should be on what works. 

Prepare now & expand networks

Uprisings require support from people and networks who aren’t on the front lines. Now is the time to deepen existing relationships with your family, neighbors, coworkers, and friends. Meet people where they’re at and identify tangible ways they might help. How could existing organizations, social networks, and structures oppose authoritarianism with their resources? Restaurants, warehouses, auto repair shops, stores, construction contractors, etc. can refuse to provide resources to invading troops, or provide necessary goods and services to those resisting occupation. Sports leagues, local media, libraries, museums, schools, bookstores, and hospitals can cancel events, denounce violent repression, distribute calls to action, and provide sanctuary to people fleeing tear gas. Who in your circle may have some of these connections?  With security in mind, we can develop protocols for sharing information, needs, and materials in an efficient manner.

Prepare together 

Map skills for everything from physical and mental health to housing to growing food. Pool resources to help those who need them. Mutual aid is the foundation for collective strength.

Defend One Another: Community self-defense ranges from deescalation to physical intervention. Build resilient neighborhoods where the army and ICE are not welcome. Spread non-compliance, contempt, and revolt as an act of solidarity with those already facing repression.

Distribute: Share skills and supplies in decentralized, coordinated ways. Build logistical strategies to get people and supplies from one place to another. Diversify roles to build a stronger movement where people can take different levels of risk.

Communicate: Practice digital security. Use Signal and burner phones. If digital networks fail or become unsafe, have a plan for alternative communication, like runners.

Be water

Keep Your Toolbox Full: Don’t rule out tactics that might be new or uncomfortable for you. Debate is healthy, but “violence” versus “non-violence” is a mirage.

Be Wise in Application: Work with the terrain. Address actions you think were a mistake in good faith. Adjust tactics and formations to specific goals. Discuss the pros and cons beforehand. Debrief afterwards.

Learn Together: Treat each act as training for the next. Reflect upon what is working and what is not. Share your insights with others.

Be Creative: When one tactic is hitting a limit, try something new. Our greatest strength lies in our ability to rapidly evolve and act with asymmetric impact.

Uprisings succeed when they remain complex, diverse, and contagious. Refuse the impulse to condemn people fighting tyranny — whether through sit-ins, marches, or direct confrontation. By embracing those who fight beside us, we protect everyone from the repression that will eventually come for us all.

Keep each other safe

Bring Buddies: Don’t arrive or leave a street action alone. If you think you’re being followed, don’t lead them to your home or your comrades’ homes.

Support Arrestees: Bail, jail, and court support are crucial. Fundraise for bail and legal defense.

Create Safe Houses and Support Networks: People may need to hide and be supported materially and emotionally. Plan now.

Don’t Talk to the Police: Nothing good ever comes from talking to them. Do tell your comrades if you are visited by the police.

Don’t Brag or Implicate Others: Sensitive info should not be shared publicly.

Beware Accusations of Infiltration:  Don’t speculate on motives. If you don’t trust someone, don’t work with them. Don’t make accusations without definitive proof. 

Stay safe to remain dangerous

We can defend against police riot control munitions with preparation and the right gear.

Clothing: Nondescript, without identifying logos or bright colors. Police will review surveillance footage after the fact to identify suspects. Cover identifying tattoos, piercings, and hair.

Helmets: Wearing an inconspicuous helmet (like a baseball bump cap or bike helmet) can protect against head trauma from rubber bullets, grenades, and batons.

Gloves: Gloves make sure you don’t leave fingerprints. Heat-resistant Nomex or leather gloves protect your hands if you throw away police tear gas canisters.

Umbrella : Deflect police munitions, block pepper spray, and provide cover from police and media cameras.

Masks: Cover your face to prevent identification. Full-face respirators or half-face respirators pared with goggles offer protection against chemical weapons and eye injuries from police munitions. 

Cash: Get home safely without getting tracked through apps or payment processing systems. Buy your protest gear in cash. Bring a set of different clothes to change into directly after the action, but don’t bring your phone!

Stay together: Don’t let the police separate your crew. Stay tight, regroup, and hold space, never turning your back to the adversary. Attempts to split the march into “good” and “bad” protesters are doing the police’s work for them.

Use barricades: Dragging objects into the street behind the march protects everyone from traffic and police charges.

Keep moving: The police might try to surround the march to “kettle” and mass arrest everyone. Keep it moving, especially in vulnerable terrain like intersections. Avoid bridges.

Get in formation: Practice moving together in a “stack” with your crew. Keep your group together, holding onto each others’ shoulders or backpacks.

Extinguishing tear gas 

Wearing heat-proof gloves and a respirator, submerge the tear gas grenade in a wide-mouthed water jug containing 3 tablespoons of baking soda, dish soap, and/or vegetable oil for each liter of water. Cover the top with one hand, just enough to keep the gas from getting out, and shake the jug. Never seal a bottle containing an active tear gas canister — you don’t want it to explode. You can also use heat-proof gloves to throw the gas canisters away from the crowd, or sticks to knock them away. Leaf blowers can disperse the gas quickly, keeping the air fresh and breathable.

By anonymous 

Attacks on trans existence are escalating. Fascists in power are signaling their intent to use already existing systems to deny us healthcare and disappear us. Those systems, for-profit medical care, abusive mental health treatment, and the criminalization of people who aren’t the favored demographic of the state, have been built up over decades and centuries to remove people the dominant culture deems undesirable. People of color, disabled people, and mad people have always felt the violence of these institutions. The problem is not the expansion of these systems to harm more people, it’s the existence of these systems in the first place, and we must work to abolish them as we take action to meet our own particular needs. The good news is that for decades and centuries we’ve been developing ways to counter these systems and care for each other outside them. 

Because it’s already impossible to get HRT (hormone replacement therapy) through doctors and pharmacies for many people, there is a strong tradition of DIY HRT in the trans community. The best way to get started is through trusted friends and local community, but there are online resources as well. One of these is diyhrt.info, which hosts information about dosing, safety, and sourcing for hormones. It includes information on Estrogen, antiandrogens like Spironolactone, and Testosterone. 

The use of the existing healthcare system to restrict access to care means that we won’t all lose access at once. While some already can’t afford to go to a doctor, others will be able to pay out of pocket indefinitely. Those who have the privilege of access to prescribed hormones can stockpile them for community preparedness by saving excess medication (easiest with injected hormones) or getting a prescription for more than the dose they’re actually taking. 

To protect each other from institutionalization we have to be mindful of what resources we call upon when someone in our community is in crisis. Crisis hotlines like 988 will call emergency services without the consent of the caller and cooperate with police, and we need to inform people around us that they should not call 988 or 911. We need to be each other’s emergency services whenever possible, developing skills in providing care in crisis. One approach for this is MAST: Mutual Aid Self/Social Therapy; there are many others. 

There are also anti-carceral crisis chat and phone lines, such as THRIVE Lifeline and Trans Lifeline that will not call emergency services without the caller’s consent. These can be good resources, certainly better than 988, but be aware that these services may still report information shared with them to law enforcement to comply with mandatory reporting laws regarding credible threats of violence or abuse of minors or vulnerable dependent adults. 

Those who are trying to eradicate us are also communicating their intent to label us as terrorists and extremists, and use national security and military infrastructure to target us. Improving our digital and communication security by leaving corporate social media, using encrypted chat and email, and communicating in person whenever possible are all steps worth taking. But while trans citizens of the US can see the threat of contrived national security crackdowns on the horizon, our immigrant neighbors and comrades of all genders are already facing the brunt of this assault. I don’t think I need to tell a trans person reading Slingshot to act in solidarity with immigrants and the Palestinian people, but it seems wrong to write all this without a reminder. 

Ultimately our safety comes from solidarity and community. As we take action for personal and community preparedness like stockpiling hormones and practicing community based responses to mental health crises, we must continue building robust webs of trust, care, and rebellion. Tending to our relationships with each other, attending trans community events, and organizing more, especially small independent ones, is as vital as it’s ever been. 

It’s looking like things are going to get harder, and I’m not going to pretend I think we’re all going to make it. I think many of us will though, and I have enormous faith in us to take care of each other and fight like hell for the joyful, free future we live moments of already as we care and fight. 

Resources referenced: 

DIY HRT Directory: diyhrt.info

THRIVE Lifeline: thrivelifeline.org

Trans Lifeline: translifeline.org

Mutual Aid Self/Social Therapy: theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-jane-addams-collective-mutual-aid-self-social-therapy

By Harlin/Hayley

Breathe in.

The Earth is now 10% hotter than it was 200 years ago. 

Breathe out.

Imagine if your body warmed to be 10% hotter than its average temperature of 98.6°F? What would that feel like? Which part of your body would be damaged first? Do you think you could survive such a thing?

Breathe in.

The average global temperature before the industrial era was 13.7°C. We have now breached a 1.5°C increase in temperature. That is a 10.95% increase. This has really happened. We are there.[1]

Breathe out.

The ocean is now 25% more acidic than it was before industrialization, and that number is rapidly increasing…

Breathe in.

As the ocean grows more acidic, saltwater lifeforms begin to suffer. Those with calcium carbonate shells are especially suffering, including corals, oysters, clams, scallops, mussels, and sea urchins.

Breathe out.

The thing causing the ocean to acidify is that CO2 is falling into it. Around 20%-30% of the carbon from burning fossil fuels is absorbed into the ocean, raising the ocean’s pH levels. 

Breathe in.

Notice your body as you interact with this information. Do you feel tension anywhere? Try noticing the tension. Try staying with it.

Breathe out.

Do you remember how back in the 1990s, if you went for a long car ride, your windshield would get covered in insects? Have you noticed how that doesn’t happen anymore? Have you wondered why?

Breathe in.

Scientists call it ‘The Insect Apocalypse.’ Around 70% of all insects on this planet have died off in the last 50 years. Our planet has lost 70% of its insect biomass.

Breathe in.

The Earth is still losing between 10-20% of its insect biomass each decade. Birds and rodents depend on insects for food. The food chain is already being impacted…

Breathe out.

Resist the urge to assign blame for all this. Let’s see if we can just stay focused on the harm for now.

Breathe in.

When soil is healthy, it is able to absorb CO2 and can also be used to grow food. But when soil is improperly cared for, it begins to degrade and these qualities go away.

Breathe out.

According to the World Atlas of Desertification, 75% of the Earth’s soil is already degraded. And if current trends continue, this will rise to 90% by 2050. This will impact all life on Earth.

Breathe in.

We have to see it to heal it. The greatest danger right now is to look away.

Breathe out.

Should we talk about what is happening to wildlife populations, and how they have changed since the 1970s? 

Breathe in.

The Living Planet Index (LPI) tracks changes in the population of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish that are being monitored by scientists worldwide. The LPI shows an average decline of 73% in population size of all monitored wildlife since the 1970s. 

Breathe out.

Are you still with me?

Breathe in.

You may be trying to blame all humans for this. There’s a reason for that. You have been deceived. 

Breathe out.

Starting in the 1950s, fossil fuel investors learned their product was warming the planet. Rather than warning the public, they began to develop a strategy to protect their profit margins…

Breathe in.

So beginning in the 1950s, polluting industry leaders, led by fossil fuel tycoons, began to fund a massive misinformation campaign that aimed to blame human population numbers on environmental harm.[2] There is no evidence to back up the idea that human population size is the cause of pollution. By tricking people into blaming human population numbers as a scapegoat, industries could avoid regulation and continue their polluting activities unchecked.

Breathe out.

Did you know that emissions continued to accelerate during the pandemic? Most people seem to think that emissions went down, but they didn’t. We can see this if we look at the NOAA atmospheric CO2 data.[3] A whole lot of people died, but emissions only accelerated. Thanks to what Naomi Klein calls “disaster capitalism,” whenever disasters occur, emissions and pollution accelerate because capitalists are able to get away with more when the good people are distracted taking care of each other. Emissions went up during the pandemic, and that is why.

Breathe in.

Just 180 entities account for nearly 70% of all CO2 emissions since 1850.[4]

Breathe out.[5]Are you still with me?Breathe in.What do you feel right now? Stay with it.Breathe out.

[1] I must credit eco-theorist Tobias Menely for sharing the communication technique of using percentages of change rather than raw temperature numbers. Earth’s average global temperature before industrialization was just 13.7°C. A temperature change of 1.5°C is actually quite a lot. Each decimal point that we add is actually quite a big deal. It is absurd we aren’t tracking these things more closely. 

[2] For real time monitoring of atmospheric concentrations of CO2 by NOAA, check out: gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/. It is absurd that newspapers aren’t printing daily CO2 numbers. These numbers are far more important than the stock ticker numbers they so eagerly waste ink on every day. 

[3] To explore how industrial actors worked to spread the myth that human population numbers are the cause of environmental problems from the 1950s-70s, check out the work of historian Emily Klancher Merchant. Here’s her website with a bunch of links to her writings:emilyklancher.com/research

[4] Want to learn exactly which companies are the most responsible for historical CO2 emissions up to this moment? Check out the Carbon Majors Dataset at: CarbonMajors.org.

[5] This text draws creative inspiration from the eco-awareness somatic workshops led by Jote Lamar in the San Francisco East Bay in the early 2010s.

Byline: This article was written by two Bay Area organizers who have been involved in the Palestine Solidarity movement since October 7th.

In the face of the ever-worsening genocide on Palestinians, there is an urgent need for those of us in the solidarity movement to review our conditions and strengthen our tactics. For the past two years, we have mainly targeted the financial and ideological ties of institutions — important, but slow work. With a genocide that shows no end in sight and little give from targeted institutions, it’s time for tactics that are riskier and more disruptive, tactics that can seize power. 

We are now almost two years into Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide on Palestine. As we write this, Israel has begun its ground invasion of Gaza City, that will displace one million Palestinians. In the coming months, more than 2 million Palestinians will face famine due to Israel’s strategic aid and food blockade placed on Gaza. On September  9 the IDF carried out an airstrike in Qatar in an attempt to assassinate senior Hamas negotiators.

Israel has made it clear that it has no plans to stop the genocide. At this juncture, appeals to the morals and ethics of institutions, or demonstrations without a clear goal besides visibility and optics, are not enough. We must expand our tactics and goals to build veritable power against the state, which entails building a mass movement capable of coordinated, targeted action.

Of course, we must acknowledge the enormous risk of repression that disruption invites, especially under the current administration. In the past nine months, key organizers, overwhelmingly Palestinian and Arab, have been targeted and abducted by ICE and threatened with deportation. Many individuals have been driven out of the movement entirely, while others have succumbed to fear and hysteria, opting to “quell” the movement under the guise of safety and security. These include tactics like surveilling members, enforcing hierarchy and deference politics, and closing organizations off to outsiders, which effectively shrinks the movement’s base and reinforces a defensive posture. History, however, shows us that repression can be politically clarifying: each crackdown expands the pool of people ready to resist. Our task as organizers is to channel that energy into collective power.

So far, the movement has been led primarily by extremely insular vanguardist organizations that push limited pressure campaigns or organize marches for visibility. There is a dearth of radically open organizations that welcome and are willing to further politicize anyone willing to act, organizations that do not exclude based on identity, knowledge, or expertise. This demands that we push against the ever‑present fear of infiltration and make accurate assessments of where people are at, while also engaging in real coalitional work.

In the Bay Area various openings exist. Notably, the recent PYM (Palestinian Youth Movement) investigation uncovered arms shipments bound for Israel from the Oakland airport, a revelation that presents a ripe opportunity for disruption. From here we must organize strikes, block weapons shipments, and shut down government offices. We must turn the momentum of repression into a catalyst for an aggressive mass movement. Repression does not have to kill this movement; it can be a catalyst that forces a mass, coordinated movement.

By Lichen 

The United States has always been an atrocity, and we’re now living in the naked fascism that the systems of oppression this state is built on lead to. I know too much about history and the system I’ve lived in my whole life to think the odds are good for trans and disabled people like me. I’m angry and scared and overwhelmed with grief. I take action, it makes me feel safer and gives me a sense of agency that tempers trauma. I show up for my friends; community and mutual aid give me the means and will to live. I know the future I dream of, full of reciprocity and autonomy is still possible whether or not I make it there, and I know I will stay and fight for that. I also recognize I’m hitting limits. I can’t be in action all day every day. I need times of rest and leisure, time to be more than a marginalized body in resistance. Movies and pop culture have never offered me an escape, just more dissonance. I need something more ancient.

I don’t want to judge people for indulging in celebrity culture, mainstream entertainment, meaningless fluff, whatever. We’re all just trying to hold ourselves and each other together in the face of horrors our tender animal bodies didn’t evolve for, and find rest and comfort however we can. But so much more is possible! Our leisure, fluff, relaxation, rest, fun, don’t have to be in the letting go of our ideals, the mind-shutting-down to be numbed by the spectacle, the surrender to consumerism. We have so many more outlets for joy, fun, and pleasure in which we don’t simply ignore our reality, but create moments of the new world we dream of. What follows is just one of infinite visions of this kind of joy, my little offering for you to consider and add as a data point in the beautiful experiment of your own life.

In the evening I spin yarn with a drop spindle (one of the most ancient tools for making yarn and very easy to diy) or a spinning wheel. I cover my lap with a towel I wove and prepare wool to spin. The wool is from a sheep named Holly who lives in Santa Rosa and is tasked with eating invasive grasses, or wool from Black Mesa Solidarity Network, a network of Navajo families holding their ancestral land in Arizona. I spin the wool and dye it with flowers grown by my community. In a few weeks I have enough yarn to weave a blanket. 

The process of taking fiber from its rawest state to an object of use and beauty connects me with other people, other species, the land I’m held by. It’s gratifying, fun, relaxing, and a place I can claim agency. 

Weaving is a rhythmic, satisfying practice that helps me move through overwhelm and distress that can feel unbearable, a medicine of creation and autonomy that has helped me process complex trauma outside the carceral treatment settings where much of that trauma occurred. Of course it also gives me useful fabric that I use to make home goods and clothing for myself and others, demonstrating the possibility of community produced textiles independent of global trade and exploitation. 

Sharing seeds and plant starts connects me with my community in another way. Our decentralized garden is made up of pots on balconies, small patches of backyards, and soil in the margins. And what a pleasure it is to point to the gradient of bright orange to butter yellow and name the corresponding varieties of Coreopsis and Marigold and the beloved friends who care for them, me, each other. 

Spinning connects me to practices of creation that span millennia. I use a lot of wool because of its properties as a fiber and the stories I get to spin. Stories of local sheep living gentle lives, and of people resisting, persisting, and living beautiful, difficult lives in resistance to centuries of genocide. The act of spinning is soothing and intriguing, it feels like magic and looks like it. It’s also true that I simply can’t afford to buy significant amounts of commercial yarn, no matter how much unethical cost cutting the yarn company does. Acting on my ideals is the most effective strategy I’ve found for surviving and finding moments of joy as a disabled, mad, trans person in this world. 

I take pleasure and pride in the process and the sources of the materials, the connections and responsibility I take for living at least a scrap of the life I dream of. Off the loom comes a blanket, and I give it to a friend. 

To keep fighting we need rest, and we need pleasure. We need connection and joy. Sometimes I can turn off my mind and consume something detached from my reality, but often I feel the dissonance too strongly. We need respite from dissonance too, and the dominant culture can’t offer us that. For me, spinning and textiles offer a means of self-soothing and world building where I can shape my process to minimize dissonance and envision how textiles will be made in a more just and gentle society. 

I want to live. I want you to live, and I want us to be free from scarcity and fear. Let’s fight for that, and as part of that let’s rest and make things that make us glad to be alive and feed our imaginations for the worlds we can craft now and as long as we’re here.