In addition to participating in the boycott during the winter holiday season, I recommend two small glow-ups:

* We hold the boycott until the company agrees to write a statement in support of democracy and withdrawing support for this administration. People need to know when a boycott is over and that it matters. It also gives the boycott’s targets an off-ramp, which is advantageous because them peeling off from the regime becomes public and cracks their pillars of support.

* We also create winder holiday bazaars where we have free-sales, where people can re-gift items people no longer use. Also creating crafting events, holiday lights pro-democracy displays, and winter caroling that involves pro-democracy songs— including community choirs outside of police precincts, state houses, and detention centers. The idea is we need to demonstrate who we’re fighting for— our neighbors— not just who we’re fighting against.

We don’t get out of this by simply removing Trump from office. Trump is a mobster; his ties to organized crime go back over thirty years. His launch into politics was coordinated. Why? He’s a front-man for a transnational crime syndicate, of trillionaires, billionaires, and millionaires—all venture capitalists and oligarchs— who want to attack democracies around the world and hack up those nations and their resources for parts.

Why am I telling you this? Because it’s important to know the scale of what we’re up against. It’s also important to understand how everyday people can access their agency, get involved in their local communities, where they have the most power, and create the conditions that prevent fascism from taking root. I cannot emphasize this enough: money, weapons, and surveillance are not what win wars. It is, and always has been neighbors who share values, pool resources, and find possibility in the face of improbability. It’s not as hard as you think to get to a place of agency.

A multi-billion dollar cross-media propaganda campaign has been waged (for decades) to make you feel powerless. Why? Because there are more of us than there are of them, and they need us afraid, disconnected, and docile to pull this off.

A special thank you Matuga, Jed, Cary Grace, Lynn Thigpen 🇺🇦, Lizzy B, and many others for tuning into my live video. I appreciate you spending your time with me—as our time, attention, and energy are our most important resources.

If you’re interested in how to alchemize your emotions and your passion for justice into neighborhood-driven systemic change, consider subscribing. My work has no paywalls because, when human rights are on the line, we need to stand together.

When Evan Stern asked me what was on my mind recently, I told him: a people-powered news media that rivals and replaces legacy press.

Our main goal for this conversation, though, was to invite people to join us— to dream with us about what that would look like (costs and can’t-do’s be damned). I wanted to have this conversation, because I want to inspire you to have this conversation in your own neighborhoods.

What does indie people-powered local media look like?

How can we revivify what a newspaper could mean and use that to rewrite the stories of our communities?

I hope you’ll give it a listen instead of doom-scrolling. And if this conversation inspires you, bring the idea to your neighbors, and see what kind of magic you can make on the way to good trouble.

Y’all, someone done went and Groked Substack’s video-editing AI

The first time I noticed it, a listener told me about it. On a video where I’d recommended boycotting Chase bank, the video transcript inserted the word “support” beside Chase bank. Odd, I thought, but a one-off.

The exact same listener reached out again to tell me about another instance transcript sabotage, where Substack’s video-editing AI inserted a word I never said so that the transcript read “I am glad CSA happened”— only I never said the word “happened.” AI inserted it into the transcript, effectively negating my central point. That sneaky AI “edit” took place in a post where I was critiquing what is clearly a billionaire astroturf messaging campaign to claw back the age of consent when it comes to teens, in response to the Epstein files fallout. Disgusting stuff.

Tonight, Substack’s AI video-editing software didn’t insert a word I didn’t say— it straight up airbrushed out of my video two different critiques I made of MAGA politicians: (1) where I critiqued Mike Johnson for saying the Epstein files couldn’t be released unredacted because of “national security” and (2) where I called out the Trump regime’s war of aggression against Venezuela— which, once more, has nothing to do with “national security” and everything to do about mobster imperialism. Both of those points were entirely removed by AI from the original post.

This is some Grok-ass b******t. And it’s a real problem, because the AI features are set to ON by default.

So here are some calls to action:

* If you’re a listener and you notice weird transcript discrepancies, or wholesale deleted portions of someone’s Substack live recording, message them about it.

* If you’re a Substack video creator, consider turning off the AI features, which are set to default. In the top lefthand corner of your video, you’ll see an AI starburst that says “Edit AI Features.” Click on that. You’ll notice two tabs are auto-selected. Unselected both and hit save.

* If you’re someone like me who does Substack lives, don’t immediately publish the video. You’re probably going to want to go back and check to make sure the AI video function doesn’t hijack your message.

* If you begin to notice a pattern, think it might be important to document this stuff, because sneaking in censorship through AI video editing ain’t okay.

What do I think is going on here? Y’all, computers ain’t my ministry, but I do know that if Elon’s racist ass is trying to make his AI more Nazi-like, it’s probably possible there’s some techno-fascist key word key, and they’re using AI like a free-speech roomba and “tidying up” all the speech that hurts billionaire fee-fees.

Either way, it’s b******t. Be on alert.

Fascism is a confidence game, and it relies on emotional manipulation to succeed. Whereas some people are telling y’all to go to the gyms and get strong to fight fascists, I’m gonna suggest you learn about your emotions— and gain a sense of emotional literacy—to help you uproot fascism for good.

In this episode, I talk about forced-teaming as a way narcs fuse with other people, and institutions, to manipulate them. I also critique what the managerial middle-class refers to (in a pearl-clutching way) as “profanity,” and explain how such calls for “civility” are actually related to a centuries-long campaign (of white supremacy) to create a taboo around experiencing & expressing emotion. There’s a good reason for that: when you numb yourselves out, you’re more easy for the ruling classes to control. Emotion is the seat of our discernment.

Weirdo’s References

Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear

Harriet B. Braiker’s Who’s Pulling Your Strings?

Karla McLaren The Language of Emotions

when the #metoo moment happened and rich men were afraid of being held accountable for their crimes, they locked arms with christian nationalists to scapegoat trans people.

almost overnight we went from being neighbors y’all were just getting to know to being the “real danger” to women and children. most people refused to connect the dots about the curious timing of this sudden “trans menace.”

over time, rich-ass white men who treat women like furniture were swapped out for a vulnerable misunderstood group of people: our trans neighbors. i repeat: i’m one of those neighbors.

i watched it all go down, waiting for someone in mainstream media to point out the obvious connection. but no: they were just gonna let rich sex-pests scapegoat trans people. it was damn-near a bipartisan effort.

only now, the epstein files are coming out, and fascist elites who raped kids are getting antsy.

so what do they do now?

these fascist elites are paying adult men to call/write into progressive manosphere shows, put the podcast hosts on the spot, and demand an explanation for WHY it’s not okay to rape children.

the progressive manosphere doesn’t even realize they’re being had

one by one, these podcast hosts are receiving the same kinds of bottom-feeding callers. as of yet, not a single one of these pod-casters has stopped to ask why, all of the sudden, this is happening.

worse still, the progressive manosphere unwittingly plays into the child-raping billionaire’s trap by sharing the offending message. the entire goddamn point was to weaponize people’s outrage and create a narrative surge of shares in order to wallpaper online platforms with questions about why it isn’t okay to rape children. the point is to put people on the defensive, to muddy the waters and make it seem like child rape isn’t a clear and universal offense.

we saw it with megyn kelly, too. i wonder how much of her soul died was she repeated the phrase “barely legal” on loop. i wonder if her own teenage daughters have a safe adult in their life, some safe person they could go to if needed, because it’s not their mom. she made that loud and clear on live television: i simp for the child-raping johns who pay my salary.

y’all need to grasp this: rich men who don’t want to go to jail are shoving at the overton window to suddenly make it seem acceptable to rape kids.

i need you to give a s**t about this enough to do something.

call to action: combat the billionaire’s war on consent!

* when you see content like this online: tell the creator to take it down.

* sound the alarm and call these accountability-dodging child rapists out for using their platforms to wage narrative warfare on the american mind. call out their disgusting astroturf campaign to move the moral goalposts and socially engineer a clawback of consent (and child protection laws), so they can evade consequences for their crimes.

we cannot let them win.

this is not gilead, and it never will be.

this time, we’re going to grind the b******s down.

This is an excerpt from Sarah Kendzior’s book, Hiding in Plain Sight, which demonstrates that Substack’s most personality-laundered sex-pest enabler, one Michael Cohen, absolutely knew Trump was a no-good raping piece of s**t.

And you know what he did? He threatened people to shut them up, so that this beastly orange b*****d could become president.

I encourage you to consider how twitchy Cohen gets whenever Epstein and Trump are brought up. I don’t need to be in this man’s head. I see the disconnect between his body language and his words, and it’s clear as day this man is uncomfortable and crawling out of his skin because he covered for a child-rapist.

It’s also important to point out that, right now, Michael Cohen still could give up this information, but he won’t, because to do so would mean to exercise a kind of integrity he does not posses, which might open him up to threats from Trump world and eventual legal jeopardy.

A man who was truly sorry for having unleashed Trump on the planet would take actual accountability for what he did, and he would absolutely risk his own freedom to divulge the filthy s**t he knows that could take down Donald Trump. But he won’t, because he’s a goddamn grifting weasel and coward.

It’s time to stop platforming this rapist-enabling coward and allowing his airtime to launder his lousy personality. The same with Michael Wolff and Lev Parnas. These men are unrepentant creeps, and the alleged “access journalists” who platform him are doing nothing but seizing upon your anxiety and bread-crumbing you for their profit. It’s f*****g gross, and it needs to stop.

If I’m learning anything about this moment, it’s the lengths mainstream media journalists (whether or not they’ve left the msm circuit) to turn the rape of children into a “titillating story,” instead of using their skills to bring these monsters down.

So absolutely done with this.

Also, read Sarah’s book:

gimme shelter — by flightlessblrbs

If this isn’t the first time you’re tuning in, then you’ve heard me say this: fascism is domestic abuse at scale.

To illustrate what I mean by that, this video explains how the Duluth Model’s Wheel of Power & Control applies to this moment. More importantly, I provide you with an antidote to domestic political abuse: stepping up as an engaged neighbor, instead of aiding and abetting abusers by looking the other way and pretending not to be powerless.

We have an incredible amount of power.

Play with Weirdo!

This episode invites listeners/viewers to take part in some gentle play: creating simple drawings to help you understand abusive power and move toward reclaiming our collective power by rising up as engaged neighbors in our local communities.

Grab paper and markers, and let’s get going.

If you choose to participate in the doodle/art portion, I would genuinely love to see what you created. Please post your doodles/art in the comments, even (and especially) if it’s a simple line drawing.

Art is for everyone.

Thank you Mar, Sandra, flightlessblrbs, mums, Gretta, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.