Photos from last night’s protest in DTLA
Menominee | Organizer | Co-author of Let This Radicalize You | Hosts Movement Memos podcast | Newsletter: organizingmythoughts.org | More: http://linktr.ee/KellyHayes
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Photos from last night’s protest in DTLA
Seems bad that the gulf between the reality you can go outside and see and experience yourself, and the one the political press describes, is widening very rapidly
Solidarity.
It's so fun.
I think I'm gonna rewatch Killjoys. For the plot. The plot:
It's more than a *messaging* failure that a significant percentage of the country didn't know that tariffs are a tax on the consumer [almost always]. It's a complete lack of political education AND of the public's curiosity.
watching trump’s full press conference drove me to drink, idk how people do that shit all the time
By Inferno's Light
DS9 thoughts: Garak saying, "I'm sorry, but that's absolutely unacceptable. I'm under enough strain as it is, I can't have you quitting on me," to himself, before having a disabling panic attack, has never been so relatable.
In an alternate reality, right?
I will ship Garak and Bashir until the day I die.
Because after all of the lies he's told Bashir, he wants him to see the fundamental truth of his life, and he also doesn't want to experience the most profound loss of his life without someone who cares about him at his side. It's all so perfectly done.
I still have DS9 on. Now, the episode in Purgatory's Shadow. The scene where [spoiler redacted] is dying and cannot see, and asks Garak if they are alone—such a perfect scene on so many levels, but one of my favorite parts is that Garak lies and says they are alone bc he wants Julian there with him.
Those stats are inaccurately represented in popular discourse anyway. MANY of the revolutions that are touted as examples of nonviolent success involved some amount of property destruction, reactive violence (collective acts of self defense), and unarmed violence (physical resistance without guns).
I don't think we should cultivate that in people, if we can avoid it.
I think some people become outwardly cynical because of the social insulation it provides. Shock leaves you vulnerable to criticisms that you're naive and should have seen every bad thing coming (never mind that predictable things can still be startling). But cynicism begets a quiet tolerance.
I've been finding it morbidly funny how little the MSM and pundits are pointing out that racism is rampant across the U.S. Like absolutely virulent in the regime, yes but also at large.
Apparently Guillermo Del Toro has ruined Frankenstein by… being relatively faithful to the source material. Oh my.
I've got the Deep Space Nine episode "Apocalypse Rising" on in the background. I really appreciate the part where Worf yells, "Do not look away from me! I called you a dung beetle!" One day, I am going to say this on Zoom.
SAME
No shame in being stressed. I am too. I applaud you for caring and for getting connected.
That’s what time it is on the clock of the world, and it’s what time it is in Chicago. I’m not made of steel. I can feel the anxiety of this moment. But I can honestly say there’s no place I would rather lock arms and hold the line than here, in the city I love—in this place where I belong.
These are scary times, but sooner or later, everyone, everywhere is gonna have to decide if they’re gonna submit or dig their heels in against fascism.
That’s not one project, or even one movement. It’s a movement of movements acting in concert in defense of our city and in defense of the future.
There is no singular maneuver that will be “enough.” It’s important to remember that right now. We need to build power and pool our capacities to protect and care for our people, exercise our political will, and hold the line against both the idea and the reality of being conquered.
That’s why we created this worksheet, and why I’m organizing workshops this week, including one on facilitating people’s assemblies.
Moving our people from a place of fear, anxiety and panic to organized collective action is another kind of success. That’s why I’m so focused on political ed right now. People need tools. They need strategies for mobilization and help asking the right questions.
The kind of organized resistance that tells a story about Chicago rejecting this authoritarian maneuver (which is not a question about crime rates at all, but a question about whether authoritarian consolidation should be resisted, period) will take organization.
Someone asked me what victory against the forces seeking to occupy Chicago looks like. Obviously, those forces being repelled is the goal, but there are layers to what success looks like in these deteriorating conditions. The first is to successfully resist the normalization of military occupation.
Yeah uh this is fucked
There is no opposing Trump while accepting elements of his political project.
Adding to the chaos will be the legions of out of town press (both corporate and fascist) parachuting here that will push narratives very different from reality
We don't have cash bail in Illinois, thanks to a long and committed campaign to end it. That's something Trump is trying to strong-arm us into changing.
Folks spend way too much time lecturing trans people and Palestinians about what they gotta say and do to be treated like people with human rights
Here's the video Trump just posted to Truth Social, with the claim that 11 people aboard the boat were killed. There is zero evidence of self-defense here. Looks like a massacre of civilians at sea. Even if they had drugs aboard, that's not a capital offense.
If you read For the People’s latest newsletter, what you’ll see is the culmination of over 2.5 years of work led by my comrade and now friend @dylanflesch.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/librarie...
Graham Greene was really special. He will be missed.
Concern over low birth rates was what the theocracy in Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale used to come to power.
I know it’s all bad faith bs BUT I keep thinking about how the whole “reason” we apparently can’t pass any effective gun control legislation to prevent mass shootings is the idea that we need an armed populace in case the federal government decides to invade our cities and towns. Like??????????
This guy gets it. This is the way.
BREAKING: Gov. JB Pritzker says the Trump administration has sent the Texas National Guard to Great Lakes Naval Base outside Chicago, awaiting orders to deploy to Chicago. Trump administration officials will target Mexican Independence Day (Sept. 16) celebrations. @wttw.bsky.social
had to conclude anything other than huge chunks of mainstream media like donald trump and want him to be dictator
“What we need, amid so much tumult and uncertainty, is to turn to each other—something many of us lack the skills or will to do, amid so much alienation and disappointment.” With all their complications, other ppl are still what we need most—not AI chatbots Read @mskellymhayes.bsky.social: always!
That's so kind of you. Thank you. ❤️
I am organizing multiple workshops this week for Chicago activists and organizers as we prepare for a possible military occupation of our city. I am tired but moving fast.
This is so delusional.
Above all else, I want to say that while I've never had a sense of relationship to this country, I know Chicago like I know my own heart. I love and believe in this city. I will limp alongside y'all as we face whatever's ahead.
I'm doing what I can from where I'm at. Please be patient if I am slow in some of my responses. We're all out here doing our best during a real bullshit time. (Well, a lot of us are anyway.)
I see a specialist Thursday and hope I will get more guidance and insight then. The pain is a whole situation. What's most frustrating to me is that it's happening now, when we are weeks or even days away from a potential federal occupation in our city.
Well, the ankle being fucked up has led to all of my shoulder, knee, and spine being aggravated, in part because I can't do the therapeutic exercise I usually rely on to keep this body functional. This is gonna be a rough stretch.
found some of that crime people are talking about
Holy crap, NYT let Charles Munger Jr. write an op-ed opposing the California redistricting without disclosing that he's FUNDING the opposition to the California redistricting. I have 4 mailers he paid for in my house right now and that's just the beginning. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/o...
I suspect that Schrödinger's president's deployment of seven warships to the southern Caribbean to fuck with Venezuela is going to wind up narratively tied to his federal moves against Chicago. I am worried he's going to stir up something there and connect it to attacks on our migrant neighbors.
So glad this is on its way
"Amid so much manufactured uncertainty, our biases, allegiances and preferences can become more impenetrable, because they may feel like the only 'truth' we have." organizingmythoughts.org/m/
Ok, if he is not dead though? I really love the idea of all of us being the grim reaper for halloween.
Rest in peace legend deadline.com/2025/09/grah...
Yeah, I thought it all seemed really promising in the beginning, but I don't feel it's had real dramatic momentum, and with major pauses in momentum, I need to feel curious or intrigued about what's going on with people or within the story, and nothing has stirred that for me.
Yeah, I can see how having some acknowledgement could have made it tighter.
It's like what some people call "the Elon effect"—when you realize Elon Musk isn't smart when he starts talking about something you know something about. For people watching Alien: Earth, there's a decent chance sci-fi would be an area where you would spot someone's ignorance.
I have been critical of the show (how do I get bored watching something with multiple killer alien species and child robots?), but I think the misquote was intentional. The trillionaire character is constantly droning on about how brilliant he is, and I think we're meant to discern that he's not.
ngl my grandpa looked better than this when he was in his casket
This morning (9/1) at 8 AM feds pulled over a couple at 18th & Park NW. They smashed the window, dragged the husband out & arrested him. When a community member stopped to record they were grabbed & threatened w/ pepper spray by this piece of shit. @mayorbowser.bsky.social do you welcome this too?
Miles O'Brien fan club assemble.
It is insane to me that the richest man in the world is using his global megaphone to call for millions of British people to be rounded up and deported (including my family) and somehow this isn’t even news.
Always worth reading
NYT about to call Trump a “democracy skeptic”
the lady checking our bags as we entered the state fair pulled out our water bottles which were full and we said "it's water" and she said "can you have the kids take a sip of it?" like to prove it? ??? i did it but that seems... irresponsible?
I hope people read these stories and are encouraged to take their own action: wagingnonviolence.org/2025/08/la-u...
This is a really insightful comparison: How watching people with big followings on the old Twitter fall prey to sycophantic followers illuminates the same problem what some generative AI users are vulnerable to. I remember watching this in real time on Twitter (RIP) with some accounts. Very sad.
It is just wild to me that the largest facility used during Japanese internment will now be used to intern immigrants from ICE raids, people who are disappeared by masked officers off the streets, and there is still a debate about whether naming and shaming those doing it is fair.
HISTORY IS BEING MADE TODAY Today, the largest civilian flotilla ever assembled has set sail from Spain, carrying hope and humanitarian aid to Gaza. People from 44 nations, united on dozens of boats, are defying the blockade with solidarity and courage. (From #GlobalSumudFlotilla on IG & Twitter)
"Amid so much manufactured uncertainty, our biases, allegiances and preferences can become more impenetrable, because they may feel like the only 'truth' we have." organizingmythoughts.org/m/
I LOVED what you said about AI in that piece. Thanks for writing it. I never see you or MK's posts either unless I go to your pages or to my "essentials" list of posters.
Pain is kicking my ass today.
You can also preorder a copy for yourself. Robin D. G. Kelley said it was, "the only book you’ll hold that will hold you, free you, permit you to fail, rest, retreat, grieve, live, laugh, fight, and heal—to be human. This book must never go out of print." ❤️
Just want to remind folks during these messy times that you can buy a copy of Read This When Things Fall Apart for an activist in need. This book is a care package that my friends and I made for people on the front lines & in the thick of crisis. Let's pass it around: www.akpress.org/read-this-wh...
I would wear tf out of this.
Must be Gruden’s favorite golf outfit since he wore it last week at Trump’s club in Virginia.
“At a time of sprawling catastrophe, when reality is being willfully polluted and confused, and violent systems are being inflated with the utmost depravity, we need people to anchor us. We need to be anchored to each other.”
"Find your people. Turn to people. And please, don’t leave anyone behind."
"At a time of sprawling catastrophe, when reality is being willfully polluted and confused, and violent systems are being inflated with the utmost depravity, we need people to anchor us. We need to be anchored to each other."
My latest must-reads list and my final thoughts for the week. Here, I talk about the first AI-involved murder in the US (that we know of), how the guardrails of reality are being tampered with or removed, and the need to anchor ourselves to each other if we're going to survive these times.
We need to start having these conversations in Austin. You should be having them in your city too.
It's that time of year again! Bell Riots 2025 stickers are 33%off through September 3 at willburrows.art/shop
I see the issue. When we said we would replace human workers with machines you assumed the machines would work. That's on you
Chicago: Buckle up for the invasion. Save this graphic. We’re at your service. 🫡
Apropos of nothing
Agreed. MAGA would rally behind Vance in Trump's memory, but it would be a funerary showing, not a reflection of actual support for Vance. I think support for him would be fickle and easily fractured, and that other Republicans would fear him less, and try to snatch back some of their power.
That may be where we are, and it could go on for a while.
I don't think they will actually hide it for very long if he dies. Vance will be eager to seize the wheel. What would be rougher for them is a messy in-between stage of him decompensating, clearly unable to function, but of course unwilling to yield power.
We don't know that he will actually play. I doubt it.
My guess is that the "golf outing" was a compromise that was reached because he kept insisting on talking to the press or some shit, and the people around him knew he couldn't handle it, so they slapped a baseball cap on him and walked him to a car in front of some cameras.
I didn't really think he was dead, but believed and still believe that he isn't well. He's so reactive to public opinion, he would have trotted out to talk to the press by now to prove he's fine and call bullshit on all of the speculation if he could. I don't think he's well enough to.
I'm thinking about how Trump insisted on going on that bizarre car ride when he was hospitalized with COVID.
"This worksheet is a tool to help you and your people map existing resources and relationships in your area, identify gaps, and determine how we can reinforce the lines of care and defense our communities need."
Remember how if a kid choked on a little plastic toy they used to stop selling the toy
They should do this to Stephen Miller when It Happens
