The people whose goal it is to destroy democracy know absolutely everything I have just said to you. Republican strategists *rely* on voter apathy, suppression, *and burnout*. Their literal goal is to exhaust everyone who could possibly oppose them until we all give up. - ThreadSky

rahaeli.bsky.social • 41 days ago

The people whose goal it is to destroy democracy know absolutely everything I have just said to you. Republican strategists *rely* on voter apathy, suppression, *and burnout*. Their literal goal is to exhaust everyone who could possibly oppose them until we all give up.

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rahaeli.bsky.social•41 days ago

I'm gonna go to the caps lock for this: THE ONLY EFFECTIVE WAY TO PREVENT THE EXHAUSTION AND BURNOUT THE FASCISTS ARE RELYING ON YOU TO FALL INTO IS TO LIMIT YOUR EXPOSURE TO HORRORS, KEEP YOUR ACTIVISM CONCRETE AND EFFECTIVE, AND DO OTHER THINGS WITH AS MUCH FERVOR AS YOU DO ACTIVISM.

rahaeli.bsky.social•41 days ago

"Limit your exposure to horrors": keep a designated time period for "learning about what fresh hell went on today", unfollow people who post nothing but rage politics, make wide-ranging use of Bluesky's keyword mute, list, and labeler functions--

factsmustwin.bsky.social•40 days ago

I remember this part of 2017 intellectually - I remember the facts of what happened - but how it *felt* (brain degradation) I had forgotten until we were doing it again.

I haven't handled it well so far, particularly the "designated time period" you suggest, but I'm going to try it.

factsmustwin.bsky.social•40 days ago

I was feeling crummy and it took a couple of days to even realize that the malaise was probably from the news (nothing else really changed in my life in the past several days). It's weird how stuff that's engaging the conscious mind can simultaneously hammer the subconscious and you don't notice.

factsmustwin.bsky.social•39 days ago

rahaeli.bsky.social•41 days ago

--and block ANYONE who tries to say that their screaming at people constantly about The Most Important Horror is "to wake people up" or "to stop complacency". It is not: it is a symptom they are way down the moral injury hole and are trying to drag you there with them.

rahaeli.bsky.social•41 days ago

"Keep your activism concrete and effective": The single greatest predictor for ongoing moral injury is whether you have any form of agency over the horrors you are experiencing or whether everything you do to try to stop it keeps failing.

gepandz.bsky.social•41 days ago

I was flyering against a local burger chain who was committing ULPs against their organizing workers and had somebody in the drive-thru yell at me about people selling drugs down the street.

Me: "I can't do much about that, but I can tell you about how $shop is treating their workers badly. Flyer?"

gepandz.bsky.social•41 days ago

I can't fix all problems in the world, but I can at least do *something* for *some* of them and have to hope that others with time, energy, and expertise can fix others. We're smart, resourceful, and there are a lot of us; we don't each need to solve everything, but we each need to do *something*.

rahaeli.bsky.social•41 days ago

(This also reinforces the previous point, btw: in T&S, just putting a traumatizing image behind a screen that the agent needs to click to display helps reduce secondary trauma, because that gives them control of how and when they see it.)

rahaeli.bsky.social•41 days ago

This is why online "awareness" activism has a tendency to burn people out faster than effective IRL activism. What's your goal? "Raising awareness"? Okay, how do you measure that? How do you know you were effective? What can you point at and say "I did that and it concretely made things better"?

spees.bsky.social•40 days ago

i've found that disabling video autoplay on here and other sites helps a lot. sounds like it's the same mechanism

theclasscalico.bsky.social•40 days ago

I know that people who do this mean well---they want a better world, but being told something along the lines of 'if you don't talk about this on your social media/all of the time, you are a bad person' is *exhausting*. Yes, discuss it, but please consider your and other's mental health as well.

theclasscalico.bsky.social•40 days ago

I know that this isn't that sole point being made here. I agree with the entirety of this post.

calieber.bsky.social•39 days ago

It may have been from you or a response to you that I heard about it in the first place, but https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/ seems good for being informed but not overwhelmed

whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com•37 days ago

🙏

antelopecat.bsky.social•38 days ago

Just wanted to say thanks for all of the posts like this from you (or maybe I’ve just seen several reposts?). It helps to remember that I don’t have to know ALL the bad things, and doing things I like is good even when life is lousy.

antelopecat.bsky.social•38 days ago

I think of your posts regularly when I do things like put down the phone to stop doomscrolling, or take my action for the day and then go read a book or pet a cat or something.

rahaeli.bsky.social•38 days ago

❤️

doctecazoid.bsky.social•40 days ago

I *knew* there was a reason I've largely backed away from the 24/7 news juggernaut.

mokbrennan.bsky.social•40 days ago

📌

peregrinekate.bsky.social•38 days ago

Idk why I wasn’t already following you. Now I am with enthusiasm and gratitude. 🙌🏼

nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social•40 days ago

"Awareness without action is just anxiety."

taliesin82.bsky.social•40 days ago

Wow. That says it all.

nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social•40 days ago

I saw somebody on here say that line this week, and I want to make sure I remember it.

arestelle.bsky.social•40 days ago

"This is not a condemnation of your lack of action, it is a warning against obsessing over knowing everything about everything you cannot do anything to change."

rahaeli.bsky.social•40 days ago

Okay but it kind of is a condemnation of people's lack of action

arestelle.bsky.social•40 days ago

ok further asterisk "action on things you cannot do anything to change"

nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social•40 days ago

Not necessarily -- it's a reminder that letting yourself get overwhelmed by awareness of everything can keep you from doing the actions you are currently doing. If you're going to burn out, it should at least be from doing constructive things.

nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social•40 days ago

One footnote to this is that there are some people for whom as much awareness as possible is essential to their action -- e.g., journalists, historians, etc.

But even for them awareness by itself isn't what's important - it's documenting the things they're aware of.

rahaeli.bsky.social•40 days ago

I should probably clarify that I think shaming people for doing nothing but reposting shallow posts about horrible things and stopping there and calling it activism is a good thing, actually, heh

robinbobcat.bsky.social•41 days ago

More than a third of registered voters didn't vote in the election. A third. Sigh.

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