The movement to stop the construction of a $90 million police training center atop vast acres of Atlanta forest has been extraordinarily successful over the last year. With little national fanfare, Defend the Atlanta Forest/Stop Cop City activists nimbly deployed a range of tactics: encampments, tree-sits, peaceful protest marches, carefully targeted property damage, local community events, investigative research, and, at times, direct confrontation with police forces attempting to evict protesters from the forest. The proposed militarized training compound known as Cop City has thus far been held at bay.
The Atlanta-based movement should be seen as an example of rare staying power, thoughtful strategizing, and the crucial articulation of environmentalist politics situated in anti-racist, Indigenous, and abolitionist struggle. Unsurprisingly, however, significant national attention has only been drawn to the forest defenders in the last week thanks to the extreme law enforcement repression they are now facing.
A forest defender was killed by police last Wednesday, and a total of 19 protesters now face capricious and ungrounded domestic terror charges for their involvement in the movement — a rare deployment of a state domestic terror statute, threatening to exhaust and crush a resilient and developing movement.
On Thursday, Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp announced a “state of emergency” in response to the protests in downtown Atlanta in the week following the killing of the protester. The executive order grants the governor’s office extensive and preemptive repressive powers, including the ability to call on as many as 1,000 National Guard troops to quell protests at any moment.
“This is an unprecedented level of repression,” said Marlon Kautz, 38, an Atlanta-based organizer with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which provides bail funds and legal support to protesters who are targeted for involvement in social movements, including against Cop City.
“At this point the police seem to be charging every protester they arrest with ‘domestic terrorism’ regardless of the circumstances,” he said. “The other pattern we’ve noticed is they are charging everyone arrested on a given day with all crimes which happened that day.”
As Welcome to Night Vale is gaining another burst of popularity, I do wish to send out a warning to people who are very sensitive to psychotic episodes: be careful if you want to listen to it
If you're the type of person who has #unreality blacklisted, don't listen to too many episodes in a row/maybe avoid it all together?
Stay safe <3
i was and still am unable to listen to it but here's what i remember about it that may be helpful to others and i would greatly appreciate input from people who actually listened to more of it
night vale is, in essence, about a really weird town. the unreality is constant.
- there are many things in it that can trigger paranoia and delusions, like the faceless old woman and 4th wall breaks
- cecil will repeatedly say certain things aren't real
- cecil repeats things frequently
- doppelgangers
- angels
- droning music
- cecil will change his tone to say something ominous, then go back to talking normal
and please remember, what doesn't cause psychotic episodes for one person may cause them for another. just because something doesn't bother you doesn't mean it won't bother someone else, so please fucking tag unreality. it's not infantilizing just do it
the unreality tag is helpful even when people don't blacklist it.
additional triggers from someone who keeps up with the podcast:
-frequently, cecil narrates stories in the 2nd person ("you"). this can be upsetting because he's narrating things that aren't actually happening
-there are descriptions of gore and body horror
-cecil also has multiple experiences comparable to dissociation, derealization, or similar episodes.
-verbal repetiton
hi so I'm living with a rare disorder called MALS. my disability app is 78% processed, but in the meantime, I still need money for living expenses (such as the meds that are keeping me off a feeding tube), and I have no income!
the good news about being this broke is that every single dollar helps! even if you can only toss me a few, it means the actual whole entire world to me. <3 like. actually. the autonomy that even a little money gives my disabled ass can't be quantified!
literally thank you for my life!! ✌️🖤✨
vnmo + paypal are idleseas
Haam Juhae
ID. a watercolor painting in shades of gold. it shows a grassy field with power lines and trees in the background at sunset. a person’s hand is in the foreground, held up so it is backlit by the bright sunlight. End ID.
6 new pieces for my collection for the virtual market of the beast, plus some closer looks and my favorite pair of earrings from this collection and the 2 other necklaces i have made for this collection.
You underestimate me.... *unsheaths and re-sheaths my sword in the blink of an eye. you now have top surgery*