Most of us don't have the time, energy, or bandwidth to do anything extra right now, but I hope these guides can be a reminder that there are lots of different ways to engage on a practical level, on any scale. As long as you're alive, you're engaging and that's truly enough. BUT, if you have been feeling the same kind of "listless" that I have, ideally one of these tactics can motivate you (and me) to engage more enthusiastically because there are people are already out there doing the thing, a...
May 27, 2025•10 min
Action Plan for affinity groups: Choose an action Make a plan Support each other Make decision on actions Debrief + evaluate Affinity Group guide: https://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/affinitygroups What can I do? Choose Democracy Resource: https://choosedemocracy.us/what-can-i-do/ Counseling for Social Change: https://www.counsellingforsocialchange.org.uk/activists/ Activist Trauma Resources: https://www.activist-trauma.net/ How to get a quick consensus: https://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/quickcons...
May 26, 2025•10 min
An affinity group is a small group of people who come together to prepare for and take direct action. They make decisions together, and support each other during and after action. Sometimes these groups are formed just for one action, but often they are ongoing groups that organise and take part in actions over a number of years. Affinity groups are often organised along the principles of non-hierarchy and autonomy. This means that decisions are made directly within the group by all its members,...
May 25, 2025•9 min
An affinity group is a small group of people who come together to prepare for and take direct action. They make decisions together, and support each other during and after action. Sometimes these groups are formed just for one action, but often they are ongoing groups that organise and take part in actions over a number of years. Affinity groups are often organised along the principles of non-hierarchy and autonomy. This means that decisions are made directly within the group by all its members,...
May 25, 2025•9 min
The HOPE-PV guide offers us some tactics in safely + effectively pushing back against perpetrators of political violence. Combat the cover-up with the Reveal – Expose the injustice. Combat devaluation + Redeem – Validate the target. Combat reinterpretation + Reframe – Interpret the event as an injustice. Combat official channels + Redirect – Mobilize support and avoid official channels. Combat intimidation or rewards + Resist – Resist intimidation and bribes. RESOURCES: The Free HOPE-PV Guide to...
May 24, 2025•11 min
Today we're talking about how to combat the common tactics that perpetrators of political violence rely on from the HOPE guide (linked below): Combat the cover-up with the Reveal – Expose the injustice. Combat devaluation + Redeem – Validate the target. Combat reinterpretation + Reframe – Interpret the event as an injustice. Combat official channels + Redirect – Mobilize support and avoid official channels. Combat intimidation or rewards + Resist – Resist intimidation and bribes. RESOURCES: The ...
May 23, 2025•10 min
The ideal of democracy is that it can contain ALL of our diversity and differences and channel into safe, institutionally protected representation without the use of threat and violence. Democracy depends on societal trust, free + fair elections, widespread participation, free + fair media, due process, etc. Democracy can be undermined by people using threat/violence so we must make the cost of political violence too high to enact. We must take offensive and defensive strategies when addressing ...
May 22, 2025•10 min
Thinking of power as an upside-down triangle is a great way to remember where power lies. Everyday individuals hold the structures of power up with their daily labor within the system. This is why mass noncooperation movements are so successful in toppling powerful dictatorships. We have to take back our power by demanding the system work for US, rather than us for it. Handling fear isn't about suppression, it's about redirection. Fear can paralyze you into submission, or fuel your demands for j...
May 21, 2025•10 min
Things are chaotic (by design) so after we start to rebuild internal trust + social trust, we can start to address our own needs, and eventually our community's. Develop boundaries, coping skills, resilience strategies. Grieve, learn to accept reality + then address what is within your control. From there, you can pick a lane. When we try to do too much, we get overwhelmed and don't accomplish half the stuff we could accomplish if we had just picked ONE thing to work on at a time. HOW TO RESIST ...
May 20, 2025•10 min
Things are chaotic (by design) so after we start to rebuild internal trust + social trust, we can start to address our own needs, and eventually our community's. Develop boundaries, coping skills, resilience strategies. Grieve, learn to accept reality + then address what is within your control. From there, you can pick a lane. When we try to do too much, we get overwhelmed and don't accomplish half the stuff we could accomplish if we had just picked ONE thing to work on at a time. HOW TO RESIST ...
May 19, 2025•9 min
Over the next few days we're gonna do a deep dive on the various ways, we as individuals, can actually resist this coup. Remember, it's easier to resist tyranny today, than it will be in a month. Today, we're starting with the internal work of learning to trust ourselves (and each other) with intention. Our distrust is manufactured, it's time to push back against that belief. We've got more in common than we're led to believe. "Authoritarian power is derived from fear of repression, isolation fr...
May 18, 2025•11 min
"Those with “ promotion-focused ” mindset (i.e., those who tend to focus on achieving their goals and aspirations) are more resistant to conspiracy theories than those with a “ prevention-focused ” mindset (i.e., those who focus on protecting what they already have)" - Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2020/07/how-to-inoculate-your-team-against-conspiracy-theories OTHER SOURCES: Scientific American article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-can-you-fight-conspiracy-theories/ ...
May 17, 2025•10 min
Resisting subversion means we need to stop playing defense with our consumption habits and start playing offense. Get aggressive with deciding who and what you offer your attention. Identify content as Adversarial or Productive: Adversarial leaves you feeling defeated, or angry, or upset, or hateful, or more disconnected, or trying to sell you something. Attempting to elicit a negative emotional response. Productive has an action item or leaves you with a sense of hope + direction + purpose + su...
May 16, 2025•9 min
Most of {demoralization} is done by Americans to Americans, due to a lack of moral standards. Exposure to true information doesn't matter anymore. One who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, even if I take him by force... and show him a concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it - until the military boot crushes his balls, then he will understand - but not before that. The next stage is de...
May 15, 2025•10 min
"This is the greatest paradox in the history of mankind when the capitalist world supports and actively nourishes its own destructor." - Yuri Bezmenov THE SOURCES: Watch the interview: https://bigthink.com/the-present/yuri-bezmenov/ Read about Bezmenov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Bezmenov Research source: https://www.historians.org/sixteen-months/the-causes-of-our-national-demoralization/ Research source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/russian-misinformation-seeks-to-confound...
May 14, 2025•11 min
This is a re-release of an older episode because I found out my resource for the planned episode was bogus and I have to rewrite around a more reputable idea. I'll be back tomorrow to wrap up the disinformation series! - Julie GET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com TUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM FOR COOL CONTENT: www.instagram.com/mydbpodcast OR BE A REAL GEM + TUNE IN ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/MYDBpodcast OR WATCH ON YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/juliemerica The opinions ex...
May 13, 2025•10 min
Interacting with misinformation only is nearly unavoidable at this point, but spreading it further can be reduced if we're conscious of how it works. THE SOURCE: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/largest-study-ever-fake-news-mit-twitter/555104/ THE COURSE: https://courses.sogicampaigns.org/disinformation/ PAYWALL BYPASS: https://12ft.io/ Donate to Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund:: www.pcrf.net Donate to Mutual Aid Funds: https://www.folxhealth.com/library/mutual-aid-funds...
May 12, 2025•10 min
The difference is in the intention, but the intention may surprise you. SOURCES: https://commonslibrary.org/disinformation-in-the-digital-age/ https://commonslibrary.org/disinformation-and-7-common-forms-of-information-disorder/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw5PK_BhBBEiwAL7GTPWE2DOUrW3xeY1ZONqvuHRGIJKJfrWaQrhZYLgA8cf3uJUxPmxjTyhoCC_8QAvD_BwE Donate to Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund:: www.pcrf.net Donate to Mutual Aid Funds: https://www.folxhealth.com/library/mutual-aid-funds GET AN OCCASIONA...
May 11, 2025•9 min
The goal is to “ consume consciously” more often than you’re letting shit " consume you, unconsciously ”. James Baldwin puts it like this: “The industry is compelled, given the way it is built, to present to the American people a self-perpetuating fantasy of American life. Their concept of entertainment is difficult to distinguish from the use of narcotics. To watch the TV screen for any length of time is to learn some really frightening things about the American sense of reality. We are cruelly...
May 10, 2025•8 min
We all have limited time and if shit doesn’t make us feel empowered or better or less nihilistic, then we have to remember we’ve ultimately got the power to change that. You’re allowed to and supposed to watch entertainment for joy and motivation and pleasure and curiosity and even to be petty as long as you don’t forget that the entertainment is affecting you in more than one way so in my experience being aware of the presence of a pipeline towards alt right extremism is a very crucial step in ...
May 09, 2025•11 min
The title buries the lede, because there is no upside, but there are ways to avoid falling victim to the trap of consuming with no idea of the impact. It's good practice to assume that everything you're consuming online or on TV is marketing, either of a person, an ideology, or a product, which wouldn't be a big deal if it was honest with us. The lie leads to shame and homogeny and an overall feeling of "insufficiency". At the very best, it steals your time. At it's worst - it steals more. Don't...
May 08, 2025•10 min
These influencers make careers out of convincing you to give yours up. It seems pretty obvious that it’s supposed to benefit men but in reality it benefits nobody - people that don’t fall sharply into a gender binary suffer, women suffer, and unfortunately even men suffer under this system. The whole thing contradicts itself. It’s snake oil. Toxic fumes to huff so you’re too high to notice them abusing your free labor and support. Pretends to be empowering, when it's the opposite. Pretends to ma...
May 07, 2025•11 min
I think the skeeziest lie about the trad wife movement is that it’s just a type of stay at home mom. Unlike stay-at-home moms, who may choose to stay home for practical reasons, like saving money on child care or because they genuinely want to, trad wives adhere to incredibly strict traditional gender roles - regardless of what the woman actually wants. A woman's identity becomes "the family" and looking "good" for the family, anything outside of that is to be shamed explicitly. According to wik...
May 06, 2025•9 min
It's not the filters, or the photoshops, or the ads - it's a combination of all of it. It's keeping us so insecure that we don't do anything but focus on how we look. Donate to Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund:: www.pcrf.net Donate to Mutual Aid Funds: https://www.folxhealth.com/library/mutual-aid-funds GET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com TUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM FOR COOL CONTENT: www.instagram.com/mydbpodcast OR BE A REAL GEM + TUNE IN ON PATREON: www.patreon....
May 05, 2025•10 min
Bachelor Contestants have spoken out about how dates, meltdowns, and interactions were directed by producers. Pawn Stars admits to rehearsing and choosing their interactions. House Hunters pretends to have them choose between three houses, but their house was already purchased. The other two were just for the show. Survivor contestants admit to getting help and storylines from off camera. Storage Wars producers place valuable items in the lockers to make it seem more exciting and profitable. Pro...
May 04, 2025•10 min
I think everything these days wants to steal our attention. And if it’s been a while since we checked in with that and how comfortable we are giving up all of life‘s best moments for bullshit that (if we could remember) would not matter at all. So it’s nice to reclaim a bit of it for ourselves. In whatever ways we can manage. If that’s carving out a few minutes a day to dance? I think that’s a beautiful way to start. SOURCES: The Dance vs. Depression Study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/...
May 03, 2025•9 min
Dance has been outperforming SSRI's, anti-depressants, and all other forms of exercise in combatting depression symptoms in multiple studies. It makes sense to me that the combination of mental + physical coordination, the way it grounds you + forces you to be present, and the social aspect would have a profound effect on our health but it makes you wonder what other cultural practices and wisdom we've overlooked. SOURCES: The Dance vs. Depression Study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
May 02, 2025•10 min
Reminder 1. The point of self care is to care for yourself, not add unnecessary shame or heighten the stakes. Reminder 2: You can’t optimize yourself out of experiencing all pain and discomfort. Reminder 3: There is no one size fits all fix to any problem. REMINDER 4: Sometimes, if we’re really lucky - we will find things that can help offer guideposts through a very tricky existence. ACTION ITEM: read, listen, watch, and pay real close attention to the things that make you feel lucky to enough ...
May 01, 2025•10 min
THE PROBLEM WITH SELF CARE + HOW TO DEAL WITH IT PROBLEM 1: NO SIMPLE DEFINITION But because being a human includes incredibly diverse experiences, and inherently dealing with messy and complicated things, we can safely assume that caring for yourself is bound to be a little messy and complicated, too. PROBLEM 2: CAPITALISM : People are constantly trying to bottle and sell you something that isn’t bottlable or sellable, so it will take some discretion and emotional literacy in being able to deci...
Apr 30, 2025•10 min
Hey friend! I had a technical difficulty today + the episode I planned didn't upload properly but I have fixed it (I think) and it will be uploaded tomorrow, as normal. Hope you enjoy this repost of my passion for food in the meantime. I AM SORRY + I LOVE YOU. -- Julie Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Apr 29, 2025•8 min
