I read a book recently (“Pirate Care” on @plutopress, gifted to me by @aundtse) that highlighted a crucial element of solidarity: vulnerability. Without being vulnerable—without facing or opening oneself up to harm or injury (the Latin noun “vulnus” means “wound”) and taking risks—one stays in the realm of charity, aka upholding the brutal status quo.

It doesn’t mean that all who engage in solidarity are equally vulnerable. Rather, we’re side by side in tending to what wounds each other in a world (dis)order that feels one foolhardy fascist move away from destroying us all.

Such solidarity is sometimes large—like the @globalsumudflotilla—and often small—like a solidarity kitchen. Yet all shapes and sizes point to a sea change in what’s possible when we stretch vulnerability beyond and against borders.

It takes a small risk, of course, to publicly paint a lengthy solidarity banner (pictured here at the top, and reading “Against state repression. Freedom for those in prison. Honor to those we have lost in the struggle,” made for Kyriakos, Marianna, Dimitra, the Sudanese boys [@50outofmany], and others who can’t safely be named here in Greece) on a grubby sidewalk in Athens outside a squat that’s home to and self-managed by migrants and refugees, and balance on a ladder to hang it high up; to do so in a language that isn’t anyone’s first tongue; to ask consent beforehand from the squat’s assembly and hope the banner’s message resonates in the wounded hearts of those to whom it’s directed; and put up a second banner (left-hand side of photo), made by others, in solidarity with @saveprosfygika and the two hunger strikers Aristotelis Chantzis and Suzon Doppagne.

But these fascistic days, even words are being deemed illegal. The freedom to move, to house oneself, to forge community, to resist … so much is illegal. We are shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, in breaking laws aimed at breaking us, breaking solidarity, breaking life.

Solidarity is our best—and most tender—weapon.

https://www.france24.com/en/culture/20260604-french-iranian-author-marjane-satrapi-author-of-persepolis-dies-at-56 I'm sad that Marjane Satrapi has died.

I have often come across the quote below. Before reposting it, I wanted to verify it. And I found out it's from a 2005 Salon interview https://www.salon.com/2005/04/24/satrapi_2/ -- during the time I worked at Salon! A neat coincidence for me.

Today in Labor History June 4, 1919: Trotsky banned the 4th Ukrainian Congress of Free Soviets with his Order #1824. He also sent troops to destroy the Rosa Luxemburg Commune near Provkovski, and declared the Ukrainian anarchist insurgent Nestor Makhno an outlaw. The Free Territory within Ukraine, also known as Makhnovia (after Nestor Makhno) lasted from 1918 to 1921. It was a stateless, anarchist society, defended by Makhno’s Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army (AKA the Black Army). Roughly 7 million people lived in the area, refusing to pay rent to the landowners and seizing the estates and livestock of the church, state and private landowners, setting up local committees to manage them and sharing them among the various villages and communes of the Free State.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #ukraine #nestormakhno #Revolution #soviet #communist #trotsky #insurrection #BlackArmy #peasant #commune

Overturning a health insurance denial can feel like a maze — one that can seem designed to confuse you so much, you just quit.

But in this episode of “Paper Trail,” we tell you the story of a woman who did the impossible: She found a way out.

Listen now.
https://www.propublica.org/podcast/health-insurance-industry-secret-external-review?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#podcast #health #healthcare #insurance #mentalhealth #medicine #podcasts

You might think that Marco Rubio's family fled Cuba bc of Fidel Castro given all the propaganda

But his family fled during the rule of US backed dictator Batista

Again, you might think the same thing for the US politician Ted Cruz, he has said it, but in reality, again his family fled US backed dictator Batista

This pattern repeats

Like many US politicians, these people are just con-men who care nothing for the Cuban people or their rights to choose their own political and economic systems