Tootfinder

Hey Generous Folks -- I wanted to put a message up for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. #16DaysAgainstGBV #16Days
Rather than an ask for donations, I want to encourage you to find your local spaces in your own community that help women and people of all genders who are fleeing gender based violence or intimate partner violence.
Maybe *you* can raise a few dollars, volunteer at a local space, or help out in other ways. Maybe you've never done that. It might seem scary! I guarantee you, you'll love it. Whether you raise $50 or $500, or nothing at all, by becoming part of it, you'll make a difference
I'm signing up, as I have for a few years now, for another year at Coldest Night of the Year (#IntimatePartnerViolence #Canada #CanPoli #CdnPoli

So the US had a huge case using high-level informants.
Bukele wanted back 9 informants who could expose his govt's deals with that same gang to lower the level of violence,
fueling his image as a crime-fighter.
That Rubio made a deal was known.
That he reneged on informants was not.
https://

Elizabeth N. Saunders (@profsaunders.bsky.social)
So the US had a huge case using high-level informants. Bukele wanted back 9 informants who could expose his govt's deals with that same gang to lower the level of violence, fueling his image as a crime-fighter. That Rubio made a deal was known. That he reneged on informants was not.

Just finished "Beasts Made of Night" by Tochi Onyebuchi...
Indirect CW for fantasy police state violence.
So I very much enjoyed Onyebuchi's "Riot Baby," and when I grabbed this at the library, I was certain it would be excellent. But having finished it, I'm not sure I like it that much overall?
The first maybe third is excellent, including the world-building, which is fascinating. I feel like Onyebuchi must have played "Shadow of the Colossus" at some point. Onyebuchi certainly does know how to make me care for his characters.
Some spoilers from here on out...
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I felt like it stumbles towards the middle, with Bo's reactions neither making sense in the immediate context, nor in retrospect by the end when we've learned more. Things are a bit floaty in the middle with an unclear picture of what exactly is going on politics-wise and what the motivations are. Here I think there were some nuances that didn't make it to the page, or perhaps I'm just a bit thick and not getting stuff I should be? More is of course revealed by the end, but I still wasn't satisfied with the explanations of things. For example, (spoilers) I don't feel I understand clearly what kind of power the army of aki was supposed to represent within the city? Perhaps necessary to wield the threat of offensive inisisia use? In that case, a single scene somewhere of Izu's faction deploying that tactic would have been helpful I think.
Then towards the end, for me things really started to jumble, with unclear motivations, revelations that didn't feel well-paced or -structured, and a finale where both the action & collapsing concerns felt stilted and disjointed. Particularly the mechanics/ethics of the most important death that set the finale in motion bothered me, and the unexplained mechanism by which that led to what came next? I can read a couple of possible interesting morals into the whole denouement, but didn't feel that any of them were sufficiently explored. Especially if we're supposed to see some personal failing in the protagonist's actions, I don't think it's made clear enough what that is, since I feel his reasons to reject each faction are pretty solid, and if we're meant to either pity or abjure his indecision, I don't think the message lands clearly enough.
There *is* a sequel, which honestly I wasn't sure of after the last page, and which I now very interested in. Beasts is Onyebuchi's debut, which maybe makes sense of me feeling that Riot Baby didn't have the same plotting issues. It also maybe means that Onyebuchi couldn't be sure a sequel would make it to publication in terms of setting up the ending.
Overall I really enjoyed at least 80% of this, but was expecting even better (especially politically) given Onyebuchi's other work, and I didn't feel like I found it.
#AmReading

The best NFL games on TV for the rest of 2025: Defending champs vs. defending MVP https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6808271/2025/11/19/philadelphia-eagles-buffalo-bills-josh-allen-nfl-week-17/

Some leftists have criticized #NoKingsDay2 as useless. Though it was the largest protest in US history, it didn't change anything. I would go further to say that protests like these generally won't change anything. Dictators aren't forced to step down by 2% of the population coming out for one day. If they're forced to step down by protests, those protests are sustained. They are every single day. They are accompanied by general strikes.
We've been watching that happen all over the world. Portland in 2020 gave us a taste of that in the US. The George Floyd Rebellion was the type of resistance that actually brings down dictators like Trump. Occasional protests, no matter how large, can simply be ignored. That is precisely the reason the US developed a militarized police force in the first place. You need more, more than the largest protests in US history, more than Occupy, more than the resistance of the 60's and 70's, more than, and different from, anything we've seen in our lives.
And yet... Each protest has grown, and grown bolder. Some have grown more persistent. If you think of protest as the path to achieve change, you will lose. It is not. But it is a path to escalate. Some people, some otherwise comfortable white folks, came out for their first time. Some people got pepper sprayed for the first time. Some people questioned authority, stood up for the first time, and have had an experience that will radicalize them for the rest of their lives.
Protest is not useful in and of itself. It is training. It's making connections. Authoritarian regimes rely on the illusion of compliance, so visual resistance does actually undermine their power.
Liberals like to teach that non-violence is all about staying peaceful no matter what, that there's some way that morality simply overwhelms an enemy. I remember reading Langston Hughes' A Dream Deferred in high school. I said it was a threat. My teacher said, "you're wrong, he was a pacifist." Pacifism is a threat. If you can spit at me, beat me, shoot me, and I will not move, if I have the strength to absorb violence without flinching, without even rising to violence, what will happen when you push me too far?
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
For peaceful resistance to work, there must be ambiguity. It must not be clear if or when the resistance will stop being peaceful. Peaceful resistance with no possibility of escalation is just cowardice.
My critique then is not so harsh as some other anarchists. If you think that protest alone will work, you're probably going to lose. If you are prepared to escalate, if you are prepared to absorb violence without flinching, then it could be possible for protest alone to topple the dictator. The cracks are already beginning to show.
And then what?
The problems that lead to the George Floyd uprising were never resolved. The problems that lead to Occupy where never resolve. The DAPL was built, protesters were maimed, it leaked multiple times (exactly as predicted). Segregation never went away, it only changed forms. The fact that immigrants have different courts and different rights means that anyone can be arbitrarily kidnaped and renditioned to an arbitrary country. We never did anything about the torture black site. FFS, people can still be stripped of their voting rights and slavery is still legal in the US. The people who control both parties in the US are killing our children and grand children with oil wars and climate change.
Toppling the dictator does nothing to resolve all of the problems that existed before him.
No, #NoKingsDay was absolutely not useless. #NoKings and related protests are extremely useful but they aren't sufficient. But, I think we still need to challenge the movement on two points:
How do you escalate after you're ignored or brutalized?
What do you demand after you win?
#USPol

H-Net Job Guide Weekly Report for H-Asia: 28 September - 5 October
https://ift.tt/gTYc8hw
Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, LLM, JSD: "Recognition and Justice for Victims of Sexual Violence in…
via Input 4 RELCFP

Congresswoman Ilhan Omarhas warned that Donald Trump’s repeated personal attacks and dehumanising rhetoric
are fuelling a climate of political violence that could have dangerous consequences.
Speaking days after the president called for her to be thrown out of the country,
Omar said Trump’s incendiary language reaches “the worst humans possible” and encourages them to act.
“We’ve had people incarcerated for threatening to kill me,”
“We have people that are being…

Increasingly combative tactics used by federal immigration agents are sparking violence and fueling neighborhood tensionsin the nation’s third-largest city.
“They are the ones that are making it a war zone,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Sunday on CNN.
“They fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it’s a war zone.”
U.S. citizens, immigrants with legal status and children have been among those detained
in increasingly brazen and aggressive encounter…

Immigration agents use increasingly aggressive tactics in Chicago, alarming activists and residents
Activists, residents and elected leaders say increasingly combative tactics used by federal immigration agents are sparking violence and fueling neighborhood tensions in the nation’s third-largest city. That includes storming an apartment complex by helicopter as families slept and deploying chemical agents near a public school. About 1,000 immigrants have been arrested since an immigration crackdown started last month in the Chicago area. But U.S. citizens, immigrants with legal status and c…

H-Net Job Guide Weekly Report for H-AmIndian: 12 October - 19 October
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Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, LLM, JSD: "Recognition and Justice for Victims of Sexual Violence in…
via Input 4 RELCFP

JOBS> H-Net Job Guide Weekly Report for H-Buddhism: 12 October - 19 October
https://ift.tt/woespW5
Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, LLM, JSD: "Recognition and Justice for Victims of Sexual Violence in…
via Input 4 RELCFP