RAINDOWN ALIENATION @eldang@weirder.earth

Social Justice Fund NW has 4 sets of grant applications currently open: $20K over 2 years for Environmental Justice (deadline Aug 23), Gender Justice (deadline Sep 6), and Black-Led Organizing (deadline Sep 13), and a smaller, quicker-turnaround set of "rapid response" grants. https://socialjusticefund.org/grants/

Geographic scope is the US Northwest.

Please spread widely!

If you want to know more about the process I'm happy to answer questions (also: see start of thread).

The most obvious--but not the only--way to help is to donate to our project. The more money we raise by July 11th, the more grants we can award on the 14th. If you'd like to throw in, you can do that at https://socialjusticefund.org/donate/ - just mention "Criminal Justice Giving Project" and my name so they can allocate it appropriately.

Another is to spread the word. Here's a nice overview link: https://socialjusticefund.org/criminal-justice-giving-project-2018/

And then there are multiple ways to volunteer:

The sands of internet time have covered up my earlier posts on this, so I'm going to do a long thread today on the Giving Project I'm doing with Social Justice Fund NW. I'll CW all of it descriptively and keep the majority of posts out of the local timeline, because it's likely to be more than I typically write here in a week. But I think it's a really interesting thing we're doing, so hopefully some of you will too.

Seems like a promising sign about turnout at today's protest

Even fortune cookies are socialist these days

At least some steps are being taken in the right direction, even if it feels like distressingly few these days:

The International Organization for Migration will have its first non-USian head in decades, because they rejected the US nominee's Islamophobia: http://thehill.com/policy/international/394779-us-nominee-loses-race-to-lead-un-migrant-agency

Virgin Airlines will no longer help deport people: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/29/virgin-airlines-no-longer-help-deport-immigrants-lgbt-windrush

I didn't know how much I needed these photos of trees today: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/jun/27/michael-kenna-trees-hokkaido-abruzzo-in-pictures

The Manic Street Preachers first 3 albums are supposed to be things I look back on as teenage follies and roll my eyes at, at least lyrically. I hate that they seem to becoming more relevant over time.

fuck, I'm so demoralised.

Immigrant toddlers ordered to appear in court alone: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/27/immigrant-toddlers-ordered-appear-court-alone/

>> “We were representing a 3-year-old in court recently who had been separated from the parents. And the child — in the middle of the hearing — started climbing up on the table,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles. “It really highlighted the absurdity of what we’re doing with these kids.”

Apparently our galaxy is full of toxic grease: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/27/space-is-full-of-dirty-toxic-grease-scientists-reveal

heavy-handed metaphors will be left as an exercise for the reader.

Today started with a horrible leg cramp. A... startling way to wake up, to say the least. But then on the way to work I saw what I assume to be a grandpa and granddaughter, painting a fence together, the child not so much helping as giggling with glee-maybe at feeling useful, maybe just at having grandpa's attention. I hope this can be what sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Photographing the Yangtze at precise 100km intervals:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/26/yangtze-at-100km-intervals-a-photo-essay

Social Justice Fund NW has 4 sets of grant applications currently open: $20K over 2 years for Environmental Justice (deadline Aug 23), Gender Justice (deadline Sep 6), and Black-Led Organizing (deadline Sep 13), and a smaller, quicker-turnaround set of "rapid response" grants. https://socialjusticefund.org/grants/

Geographic scope is the US Northwest.

Please spread widely!

If you want to know more about the process I'm happy to answer questions (also: see start of thread).

I wish things like this made me feel better. I do take some solace in turnout, at short notice during the working day. And we were LOUD today and that was satisfying. But I'm left with the crushing sense that none of this will change anything, and until I put myself physically in ICE's way nothing I do will be an adequate response to the horrors being perpetrated.

After holding a people's tribunal for ICE, shouting a lot, and then hearing that Maru got some kind of reprieve, we marched the four blocks to join yet another demo against yet another atrocity - the Muslim ban.