Family Abolition

Ozzy: Totally. Well, you're talking a little bit about this, I think, but could you maybe say how you would define family abolition and kind of what this vision of the future is?

M.E.: Sure, so first I'll define family. I provide three definitions of family at the beginning, and they don't cover everything people mean by family at all. The first is a unit of social reproduction. So this comes out of Marxist feminist theory, it's thinking about how are new workers created, how is a worker sort of fed and clothed and cleaned from one day to the next, right? And recognizing the tremendous role that the household plays in raising caring children, taking care of people during periods of unemployment and illness and disability and aging, and preparing a workforce every single day. And I think this is one of my most challenging arguments in the book, that a free society would not be organized around private households. We might choose to form them, but they wouldn't be economic units in the way that they are now.

The second definition of family is a sort of normative ideal that's really deeply tied up with white supremacy, colonialism, and heterosexuality, right? So, some families as being legitimate, being respectable, being approved, and other efforts and people caring for each other not counting as family, right? So, the separation of children in Indian Boarding Schools, what scholars call "natal alienation" during slavery, the long history of Child Protective Services in the family policing system violently intervening, particularly in Black people's lives, separation at the border.... So these are all like an apparatus of determining whose family counts and whose doesn't, and inflicting violence on those that doesn't. And this sort of normative ideal, I also link to the violence within families. The organization of personal domination that really characterizes so many families, and the vulnerability of people within families–– that families are the place we're most likely to be raped, or murdered, or beaten up, or harmed. You know that family is a site of such tremendous violence. And so breaking, overcoming, and destroying this racial normative ideal, and freeing people from the site of violent constraints they might experience in their families.

And then the third definition of family in chapter three, I talk about George Floyd, calling out to his deceased mother, as he's being murdered. And that the way we speak of family as sort of our greatest yearnings––our like love, our care, our desire for refuge, and making the argument that like, in order to fulfill this, we'd have to discover something more, something beyond what the family is now, and that we, you know, we turn to family at our most vulnerable. And when we speak of family, for some people we're speaking of like, our really deep need to feel cared for and loved, even if we didn't ever find that in our families.

And so part of what I argue family abolition is... so I provide a lot, an overview of a lot of different meanings of what family abolition can mean. But I end up focusing in on three, and they correspond to those three definitions. So the overcoming of the private household as the primary unit of social reproduction and survival. So that who you love and who you happen to be related to, and who you happen to live with, should have no material consequences for your well-being, who you have sex with shouldn't determine whether you have housing, or food, or health care, right? [laughs] This is ludicrous as a way of organizing a society. And if you happen to be born to transphobes, or you happen to be born to a violent person, there's actual, respectful, supportive, effective means to address that. And to grapple with that.

Two, that we radically overcome this sort of normative ideal of what counts as family, by radically transforming the regulation of families, by overcoming the sort of systems of racial terror, and they're destroying them, that do so much harm against certain kinds of care relations. And then three, that the love and care that we look for in families be universal and widely accessible throughout society, and built available to everyone. That we all need it, and we shouldn't have to only depend on who we're having sex with in order to find it. We need to build a society built on caring for people and not on the impersonal driving, violence of profit. So generalizing, unleashing and generalizing the care available in the best families as universally available throughout society. So those sort of three definitions are a big part of what I mean by family: the overcoming of the private household, destruction of family policing system, and the unleashing and universalizing of the care that we depend on in the family.

m.e. o’brien on gender reveal podcast episode 151

I understand what people mean by prison abolition, but what does it mean in practice to abolish the family? I've never quite got it - who is raising children? How does it work? I'm asking in good faith, I've just always been a bit embarrassed to ask anyone

Like positions that are “anti-work” or against “gender,” the thing being objected to is more detailed and specific than the range of meanings that can reasonably or semi-reasonably be assigned to the word in question (“work,” “gender,” “family”)—which is why these propositions and programmes can have a bit of a PR problem. And, as with all terms that position themselves against something (e.g. "anti-psychiatry"), the term "family abolition" can be taken up by people with a range of different positions who disagree amongst themselves on some issues. In general, though, no one objects to "people living together or being emotionally close to each other" or "children not being left to roam about at random and get eaten by wolves" or anything.

Rather, anti-capitalist objections to "the family" tend to hinge on objections to:

parental rights, or "the special legal powers of parents to control major aspects of their children’s lives," which function as "quasi-property interests" more than anything that is in the best interest of children (link explicitly relates to U.S. law). Parents legally control where their children live, whether and where they go to school, what information they have access to, what level of freedom of mobility they have, what medical care they receive and don't receive, and what they may do with their own bodies, and are legally allowed to physically assault their children.

relatedly, the lack of legal autonomy that children possess (this is also often discussed under the banner of "children's rights" or objections to "adultism").

the positioning of "the family" as the only economic or social "safety net" in an economy and a society which provide no other one (creating an artificial "structural scarcity" of care). In a society which is otherwise dominated by "economic competition between atomized individuals," the family must be relied on—and yet, for some people (whose families cannot or will not provide living space or financial support in an emergency; whose families are abusive and physically or psychically dangerous to be around or rely on; who will not receive help or emotional support from a spouse or family unit without making serious concessions on the level of their personhood being basically respected; Black working-class people in whose communities the nuclear family unit has been deliberately prevented from forming by government intervention), the family cannot be relied on.

the way that the positioning of "the family" as the only safety net therefore constitutes economic coercion that works to keep people (especially women and LGBT, disabled and/or transracially adopted people) in abusive or exploitative situations, and that works to create incentives for working-class women (whose employment is generally less secure) to make themselves erotically desirable to men & disincentives for doing anything else.

the idea that housework, gestational labour & childbirth, and childcare are tasks "naturally" falling to the "mother" ("mother" as a "natural category"), such that the social, political, and economic nature of these tasks, and the economic and political discourses that mobilise the creation of our concept of "motherhood," are obscured.

Thus the objection is to "the family" as a unit of social reproduction under capitalism—as a legal, political entity that structures inheritance, taxes, health insurance, "race" and ethnicity, &c., and therefore works as a sort of interface between the capitalist state and the individual.

So the programme of "family abolition" involves, firstly, the control of the means of production on the part of the proletariat (this is a communist programme—the point isn't to remove the safety net of the family while keeping capitalism in place, but rather the idea is that without capitalism this ultimately abusive safety net ought not to be needed); and then the abolition of marriage as a legal institution; the abolition of parental rights; the putting in place of measures for the elderly and disabled to be cared for regardless of whether they have family alive who are both able and willing to care for them; the forming of social networks at will; and, depending on who you ask, the communal raising of children (which involves ceasing to privilege "parent" as a legal title automatically conferred upon biologically creating a child).

Obviously, toddlers who do not yet understand things about the world including "causation" and "mortality" will need on occasion to be restrained from running blithely into the jaws of wolves &c. The argument is just that coercion of this sort should be legitimately in the best interests of the child; not performed by two people who need answer for their actions, up to and including battery of their children, in no way other than saying that they "plausibly believe this to be necessary to control, train or educate their child"; and walked back in measure as the child gains the ability to assert their own desires.

Probably no one has a perfect solution 100% worked out—life is messy, and we don't know what the future will look like—but having a perfect solution 100% worked out should not be a prerequisite for noticing that the current situation is abusive and untenable.

"Abolition has been part of the global lexicon of revolutionary thinking for centuries. Its multiple meanings came into play during these insurrections. It most broadly meant an absolute commitment to destroy the horrors of the old world: to empty the prisons, to burn the police stations to the ground, to eliminate money and coerced work, and to wipe borders, nations, and states from the globe. This commitment, tinged with nihilism and absolute revulsion, no doubt was a central animating force for an insurrection of people who lived through the cruelty of racial capitalism.

But abolition also was taken up in a different sense: simultaneously with the prerogative to destroy, emerged the prerogative to preserve, to liberate, and to lift up. To abolish prisons meant also creating new practices for grappling with interpersonal harm and violence. To abolish work meant to unleash the creative capacity for human activity without the coercion of wages. To abolish the family meant to enable people to love, to live, to parent, to care in the rich variety of ways humans are capable of. People form familial relationships of care within the broader structure of the commune — they 'family' in the current lexicon — but these relationships are not the basis for material survival. Abolition preserved and transformed authentically loving features of the old society, but in radical and often unrecognizable new forms."

- M.E. O'Brien and Eman Ahdelhadi, from Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune 2052 - 2072, 2022.

would you perhaps be willing to post a syllabus of sorts for your tag "a long wish to be elsewhere"? i'm curious what sorts of things you consider essential to it!

hi! that one's fairly new as far as tags go so i don't have anything resembling essential readings compiled yet, but i can tell you what's on my list so far!

i guess the first thing to say is that the phrase itself comes from louise glück's poem unpainted door, which includes the line "i remember my childhood as a long wish to be elsewhere." i started thinking about childhood while watching paper girls and - what else? - shameless tv, and thus the tag was born. as i've done more research it has sort of morphed into family abolition research storage, which i'm not mad about tbh!

things i've read/watched/listened to so far that have been helpful:

everything for everyone: an oral history of the new york commune, 2052-2072 by m. e. o'brien and eman abdelhadi

histories of the transgender child by jules gill-peterson

jgp's gender reveal podcast episode

the queer child, or growing sideways in the 20th century by kathryn bond stockton

raised in captivity: why does america fail its children? by lucia hodgson

the idea of children by madeline lane-mckinley

recorded sessions from this psychosocial foundation course on the family, particularly the sessions with m. e. o'brien, sophie lewis, and fred moten

reliving childhood? the temporality of childhood and narratives of reincarnation by akhil gupta

abolish the family: a manifesto for care and liberation by sophie lewis (this was not actually incredibly helpful but the bibliography was so. whatev)

things i haven't gotten to yet but that are on my list to check out:

full surrogacy now: feminism against family by sophie lewis

children's liberation: autonomy and control course taught by sophie lewis

heroes of their own lives: the politics and history of family violence by linda gordon

family abolition: capitalism and the communizing of care (forthcoming june 2023) by m. e. o'brien

the children's rights movement by beatrice and ronald gross

the case for children's liberation by john mcmurtry

kinderkommunismus: a feminist analysis of the 21st century family and a communist proposal for its abolition by k.d. griffiths and j.j. gleeson

alexandra kollontai's writing on communism and the family

the anti-social family by michele barrett and mary mcintosh

unthinking the family by madeline lane-mckinley

the child to come: life after the human catastrophe by rebekah sheldon

family values: between neoliberalism and the new social conservatism by melinda cooper

its all in the family: intersections of gender, race, and nation by patricia hill collins

imperial leather: race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial contest by anne mcclintock

black 'feminisms' and pessimism: abolishing moynihan's negro family by tiffany lethabo king

that's it so far! others are welcome to add topical recommendations if they have any. this was fun to compile, i didn't really realize i'd read so much relevant stuff already : ) hope this answers your question !

reading family abolition: capitalism and the communizing of care and….. i just find it interesting is all………..

Rerum Novarum: Part One

I’ve been studying Catholic social teaching/Christian democracy a bit lately, and decided to do a read-through of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical on capital and labor; the title is Latin for “Of Revolutionary Change.” Some bullet points as a sort of TL;DR, except it also gets fairly long. I’ve decided to split this analysis into multiple parts-- this post goes through Nos. 1-15.

- Rerum Novarum condemns laissez-faire capitalism in no uncertain terms, calling it “the greed of unchecked competition" and “rapacious usury.”

- “A small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.” Pope Leo called out the top 1% all the way back in 1891, which I think is pretty neat.

- The one thing I wish Rerum Novarum addressed was the community of Christians in Acts-- the Bible’s pretty dang clear that the early church “had all things in common,” and “no one said that anything that belonged to him was his own” i.e., they were proto-socialists. (Acts 2:44, 4:32) Pope Leo just kinda launches ahead with his belief that the abolition of private property would “rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.” Which, to be fair, the Bible is also pretty clear that stealing and coveting is wrong, and it’s easy to logically infer an affirmation of private property from that: you can’t steal or covet something that already belongs to everyone, including you. 

EDIT: I should clarify again that I’ve only just started reading Rerum Novarum, and for all I know it does go back later and discuss the socialism in Acts-- however, from a rhetorical standpoint it had a perfect point to do so in Nos. 5-15 when it argues against socialism, as those two Bible verses can essentially unravel any arguments on the topic the Pope might have and I’d like to see his attempts at refuting them.

- Also there’s some gross patriarchal BS about male headship, but it’s 1891 and the Catholic Church, so I wasn’t really expecting anything else. However, I do technically agree with his statement that government shouldn’t intrude in and control the family unit, which is sort of libertarianism, I guess? It’s libertarianism but with the perception as the family as the unit of society rather than the individual. Even then, Pope Leo concedes that a family in dire need that cannot be provided for in any other way may have no other option than relying on public aid, and the government may also have to step in if family members are depriving each other of natural rights.

There’s still some interesting arguments against socialism, though:

- “They [socialists] would deprive him [the wage-earner] of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his resources and bettering his life.” In other words, capitalism allows people to be rewarded for their hard work, while socialism provides no motivation for people to work at all (since they’d all get the same resources/quality of life regardless of their work). Thus, why should people work at all under socialism?

- I don’t really follow his logic on this one as much, but Pope Leo also talks about how humans and animals are fundamentally different (which I agree with), and from there concludes that while all living creatures can possess things temporarily, it is a uniquely human right to possess things permanently. This raises some interesting questions for me: How do animals possess things, if they do so at all? Does my dog (who, interestingly enough, is named Leo) possess his own food and toys, or are they possessed by the humans that care for him and allotted for him to use? Perhaps this is the distinction between wild and domestic animals-- wild animals are able to “own” their things without having humans control them. Surely there must be some example of an animal in the wild that keeps something for years/its entire lifespan-- perhaps a nest or other type of habitat. Does a bear own the cave that it sleeps in? Would the community of animals that live in the Amazon rainforest own the forest, thus making human exploitation of it theft? Why would Pope Leo say that only humans can possess things permanently?

- “Man proceeds the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body.” I like this one-- I personally believe in inherent human rights that are given to us by God, and even many atheists would likely agree with the principle of “certain unalienable rights,” as the American Declaration of Independence phrases it, even if they don’t necessarily believe they come from a Creator. These rights are guaranteed by a well-functioning and ethical state, but they are not PROVIDED by the state. However, one could easily make a counter-argument that a socialist state would be necessary in order to truly guarantee these rights.

- “Is it just that the fruit of a man’s own sweat and labor should be possessed and enjoyed by anyone else?” On the surface level, I’d say no. But the thing about capitalism in our modern society is that, as Pope Leo mentions earlier, these “fruits of labor” ARE being enjoyed by the megarich. You could argue that this is actually another way of saying that the workers should own, maybe not the means of production, but certainly the results of production.

All of this is even more interesting in light of the fact that 1891 and 2022 are very different times, and Pope Francis has been pretty critical of capitalism for several years now as far as I’m aware-- whether or not he’s actually socialist is up for debate. People have a lot of arguments for one or the other, but unless Pope Francis actually comes out and says straight-up that he’s a socialist I would be careful in labeling him as one. You can be highly critical of capitalism and still not necessarily socialist, which is how I would describe my current economic leanings.

I’d actually be super interested in hearing some commentary and POLITE discourse from both capitalists and socialists on this post, so long as it’s kept civil.

Abolition is Cooperative and Focused on Collective Sustainability

This section connecting collectiveness with nature was very impactful for me. I appreciate the tangible examples of decentralized communities of ants and dolphins. Specifically, I appreciated the intentional word choices behind creating a practice of "school," like we take from schools of dolphins.

"She invites us to intentionally organize ourselves cooperatively 'to combat the embedded isolation of late capitalism,' to 'trade the image of family for the practice of a school, a unit of care where we are learning and relearning how to honor each other, how to go deep, how to take turns, and how to find nourishing light again and again" (Ritchie, 180).

https://queertheland.org/

I was really interested in the organization that's highlighted in this section, Queer the Land. The activism surrounding housing feels very revolutionary to me, and I loved reading about their work further on their website. They have a 360° tour of the 12 bedroom home they acquired in Seattle, and I'm inspired by how many members of the QT2BIPOC community will be served through this organization. I'm someone who values my independence a lot, and reading about interdependence makes me question that value system in myself. I have started to wonder if my independence comes from internalized capitalism and my own form of policing myself. I want to embrace the principles that collectives like Queer the Land hold, because I believe interdependence is a powerful abolitionist tool.

Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care, Pluto Press (10 June 2023) DM for Order sarasbooksonline.com Contact : +91-9958491228 Do follow www.sarasbooksonlinecom

Currently Reading: Autobiography of Angela Davis, Crooked Plow, Histories of the Transgender Child, Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care

Playing: Hyper Light Drifter, Baba is You, Stardew Valley, Dandara: Trials of Fear

Manga Ongoing: Witch Hat Atelier, Dungeon Meshi

How do we take care of each other? Who raises us as children, is with us when we are ill, provides a place to sleep when we need one? We often rely on family for the care we all need. Yet even at their best families cannot carry the impossible demands placed on them, and for many the family is a place of private horror, of coercion and personal domination.

M. E. O'Brien uncovers the long history of struggles to go beyond the private family. She traces the changing family politics of racial capitalism in the industrial cities of Europe and the slavery plantations and settler frontier of North America, through the rise and fall of the housewife family. From Marx to Black and queer insurrection to today's mass protest movements, O'Brien finds revolutionary movements seeking better ways of loving, caring, and living. Family Abolition takes us through the past and present of family politics into a speculative future of the commune, imagining how care could be organised in a free society.

Buy Now: https://exi.link/TcdfSv

Anti-psychiatry? I need my meds tho and understanding why I feel/do/think the things I do and how other people deal with it is incredibly useful for me in healing/managing symptoms

when i say "antipsychiatry" i am referring to psych abolition. being anti-psychiatry is an anti-establishment stance. it is about abolishing a system which enables the abuse of people with stigmatized mental conditions, disabled people, people of color, and other marginalized groups at the most structural level. if meds help you, then they help you—and it should be your choice to continue taking them if they do. but you shouldn’t have to go through a psychiatrist to obtain those medications. similarly, people like myself who don’t want to take medications should have the right not to be medicated, a right that is stripped away from us if we are involuntarily committed or institutionalized.

the psychiatric system often forces medication and ‘care’ onto vulnerable populations of people. psychiatry itself has deep roots in eugenics and much of the language involved in psychiatry is based on what is “abnormal” and what is “normal” or “sane” according to (very western and capitalist) societal norms and it does not surprise me in the least to know that so many other psychotic people are also anti-psychiatry, considering the system has spent centuries harming people like us for having psychotic conditions while claiming they’re trying to help us. autistic folks, too. i survived ABA ‘therapy’ as well as years of psychiatric abuse.

anti-psychiatry is about advocating for peoples’ agency, personal choice, things like peer support, letting people be in charge of their own mental healthcare, and being against the system—which does things like involuntarily commit people who will only be harmed by institutionalization. i am anti-psychiatry for many of the same reasons i’m a prison abolitionist. i don’t want you to think that i’m making this as a precise one-to-one comparison but i have incarcerated family members swear up and down that the prison system is good for everyone because it was good for them. and i could believe they thought prison was good for them... because they’re white, abled, cisgender, straight, neurotypical men who come from a lower-middle-class background; the system was designed to do less harm to them than to others. but it is designed (rather explicitly) to do the most harm to people of color, queer people, trans people, poor people, disabled people, neurodivergent people, the homeless, and people with a history of substance abuse. a system like that does not deserve to continue existing.

again, that’s not an exact one-to-one comparison but the police have also historically been involved in the maintenance of the psychiatric system. have you ever had the cops called on you because you were experiencing symptoms of your mental illness in public? had a ‘suicide watch’ cop stationed in your hospital room? have you ever been involuntarily committed because your family members were asserting their abusive control over you? and the justice system enabled that abusive control by letting it happen despite it being a violation of your agency? have you ever had medication administered to you against your will while institutionalized? because all of that shit has happened to me, and it’s not unique or exclusive to my personal disabled and neurodivergent experience in the slightest—and i can guarantee it’s never helped me, only done more harm.

there are alternatives to psychiatry such as peer support or community-driven crisis services, which are less concerned with trying to turn you into a “functional member of society” for the sake of making sure you can contribute profitable labor to the economy and more concerned with helping you do what’s right for you while respecting your boundaries and rights to bodily autonomy. true support for anti-psychiatry does not exist in isolation, it requires a simultaneous belief in anti-capitalism, prison abolition, being anti-racist, anti-colonialist, anti-imperialism, and fully supporting the abolition of the police. we’ve already had reforms of the psychiatric system which failed miserably because, clearly, people are still being harmed by it; the abuse of people in psychiatric care didn’t go away when we stopped calling psychiatric hospitals “insane asylums” and it’s not going to go away unless the medical system and academic institutions educating psychiatrists are uprooted entirely. so much of the stuff being taught to psychiatrists in medical school is informed by centuries of violence and eugenics that can’t be reformed. it’s not just a few “bad apple” doctors and psychiatrists. the system itself was designed to be abusive. it has to be dismantled completely.

and, to be completely transparent, i’m not a theorist. even after years of talking about this stuff, i don’t feel confident enough in my understanding of the medical system to tell you the exact steps that ought to be taken so that we can achieve a future that is purged of the psychiatric system and all its abuses... but i hope this has helped you understand what anti-psychiatry is.

i thought i’d also provide you with this handy chart about the differences between stances on anti-psychiatry (content warning for ableist language, mentions of misinformation, and suicide in the “bad anti-psychiatry” arguments column); transcription below:

[image identification and transcription] a table with two columns and thirteen rows which compare good anti-psychiatry arguments with bad anti-psychiatry arguments. the table reads: good anti-psychiatry: self-diagnosis can be valid and helpful. bad anti-psychiatry: no diagnoses are ever valid or helpful. good anti-psychiatry: diagnostic categories are not rigid laws, they’re human-made and often overlap or change over time. bad anti-psychiatry: diagnostic categories are completely fake because it’s all just normal human emotions. good anti-psychiatry: there isn’t always a clear line between mentally ill and mentally healthy. bad anti-psychiatry: mental illness isn’t real because everyone is depressed/traumatized/anxious/etc. good anti-psychiatry: mentally ill and neurodivergent people are often abused by the system. bad anti-psychiatry: mentally ill and neurodivergent people don't exist because it's all made up. good anti-psychiatry: no one should be forced or coerced into taking psychiatric medication. bad anti-psychiatry: no one should take psychiatric medication. good anti-psychiatry: some peoples' understandable reactions to negative circumstances or events are incorrectly written off as chemical imbalances. bad anti-psychiatry: all mental illness is caused by society/capitalism/whatever and no one has any purely internal mental health issues. good anti-psychiatry: mental illness is sometimes brought on or triggered by external factors and those need to be taken into account. bad anti-psychiatry: internal factors (genetic, neurochemical, etc.) never cause mental illness. good anti-psychiatry: anti-depressants don't help everyone and shouldn't be treated as the only solution in every case. bad anti-psychiatry: antidepressants don't help anyone and are part of some kind of government conspiracy. good anti-psychiatry: mentally ill and neurodivergent people should be listened to about their own conditions and allowed to make informed decisions that will best help them. bad anti-psychiatry: listen to me about all of it (is either neurotypical or has, like, one fairly common mental illness). good anti-psychiatry: not everyone with a particular diagnosis will have the same exact symptoms or need/want the same treatment. bad anti-psychiatry: that's because mental illness is fake and no one should seek psychiatric treatment. good anti-psychiatry: historical and current racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, [and other violently oppressive biases] within the field need to be addressed. bad anti-psychiatry: those things are proof that all mental illnesses are being made up for profit rather than proof of dangerous biases in the system. good anti-psychiatry: the goal should be to make people happier and more comfortable, not just to make them act "normal" or work more efficiently under capitalism. bad anti-psychiatry: happiness is impossible because everyone is mentally ill (therefore no one is). good anti-psychiatry: suicidal people should not be [institutionalized or] held against their will or forced to take medication. bad anti-psychiatry: suicidal people should just kill themselves because the world is evil anyway. [end of transcription]

full disclosure: i didn’t make this table and i personally take some issue with the “listen to me about all of it (is either neurotypical or has, like, one fairly common mental illness)” point (and i could be misunderstanding it as it is written here) but i do feel that this chart outlines what is most important about anti-psychiatry. hope this helps.

A beard through seasons- Chap 2

Second installment of this four chapter series... let's see what moment is Ron's beard bringing to us!

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the characters from HP Books nor do I get a single pound/penny/peso (money) out of this. Rated M because of Hermione's thoughts.

You can also find this work in AO3 and FFN.

Chapter 2: The dad’s beard

Hermione Granger-Weasley hadn't slept one single night alone since five years ago when the news of the conception of her daughter had been delivered to her husband. When Ron found out that he would become a father, he made a resolution to never miss a milestone of his child’s life and spend as much time as he could with his family. And so, he resigned his position with the Aurors and took a full-time job with George in the joke shop. Although, at the insistence of the Minister himself, Ron agreed to keep a connection with his former work as a Consultant for special cases and Professor of Strategy and Planning for the Auror Training Program.

Hermione Granger-Weasley hadn't slept one single night alone in five years until two weeks ago when her new position as Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had required for her to present the British Wizarding Community’s advances in the abolition of blood-related laws and regulations for the International Convention of Magical Law.

Actually, Hermione Granger-Weasley hadn't slept one single night alone in five years. Because whatever she had been doing the past two weeks surely couldn't be counted as sleeping. The king-sized bed of the hotel room seemed extremely big and frighteningly deserted without her husband. Despite applying impeccably performed warming charms one after the other, the bed remained cool. And the silence. Hermione could sleep with cold, she had done it countless times during her younger years in the Horcrux hunt. But, as had been proved during said hunt and reaffirmed in the past two weeks, she couldn’t sleep without the soft soothing sound of Ron’s light snores.

Each night for the past fortnight, Hermione had spent hours in bed recalling the warmth of Ron’s body and the comforting feeling of his arms encasing her in a fortress where only his signature smell and his purring breaths could trespass. She would concentrate on every sensation in an attempt to convince herself that he was there and overcome her insomnia. But he wasn’t there and she would subdue herself to night after night of what little hours she could accomplish of restless sleep.

When time passed and Hermione was finally able to return to her loved ones, she was bouncing on her feet in anticipation. The second she stepped out of the fireplace, she heard the muffled voices of Ron and Rose coming from the second floor. Eager to see her family, she sprinted and took off her cloak halfway up the stairs, discarding the garment on the floor. This level of disorder was anomalous coming from her, but the familiar smell of her home combined with her husband and daughter's voice had made her desire for Ron’s warmth and her children's stickiness almost unbearable.

Hermione followed the sound towards Rose’d bedroom and was frozen on her spot at the sight of her family. She was itchy to go and hug them but the scene on display was so adorable that she had to take a minute to commit it to her memory. Ron and Rose were sitting on the petite chairs of her tea time set and she was decorating his beard with a variety of her hair clips. He was curled on himself in an unnatural position, with his knees almost beside his ears and his hands resting palms down on the carpet, probably for balance. He would've been more comfortable on the floor than scrunching to fit on the chair, but Hermione had the suspicion that he was doing it for their daughter.

Hermione’s heart warmed watching as Rose was adorning his father's facial hair with a grin so wide that her eyes were closing from happiness. He was cottoning to her about how beautiful he felt with his new beard style and Hermione chuckled internally as she focused on said beard. She could clearly remember the last time Ron's beard had stolen her attention for so long. It was the day she’d noticed that he was no longer a boy, but a man. And now she was realising that her man had become a full proud and accomplished father. No, not a father. Her colleague's husbands who they continually complain about for not contributing to their children’s care were fathers. Ron was a dad. A fully committed, capital “D”, Dad.

‘Are you done ogling me, or shall I give you a few more minutes?’ Ron was glancing at her from the corner of his eye twitching his lips with the effort to stop a smile.

Hermione shook her head amused by his boldness. Oh, you are so full of yourself, are you? Well, two can play this game . She thought, and narrowing her eyes at him, she asked, ‘What makes you think that I was looking at you?’

Ron chuckled, triggering a reprimand from Rose at the sudden movement of her model. He apologised to her and promised to remain still before he answered, ‘Because if you would’ve been looking at Rosie with that eyes, love... I’ll be calling child support and the Aurors.’

Hermione gawked but recovered quickly, deciding to ignore her husband's ridiculous comment and walked into the room. ‘‘Where is Hugo?’ She queried, noticing the absence of her youngest son, as she squatted next to Rose and wrapped her in a bear hug. The little one immediately left her task at hand to snuggle into her mother.

‘He’s already asleep. Little Rosie here put her brother to sleep - with my help,’ Ron hastily added, as Hermione’s incipient protest died in her throat. ‘And now is my turn to give her night night.’

They ended up putting Rose to bed together, stealing glances at each other, trying to convey through their eyes all the longing from the last two weeks. Once in their bedroom, Ron and Hermione fell into their well practiced bedtime routine. As usual, she was first in bed. Ron didn’t know it, but she had trained through the years to perform the routine in record time so she could watch him peel off his clothes with no interruptions. Contemplating as Ron undressed was one of those little simple pleasures of life.

Whilst Hermione rejoiced with the view of her naked husband, she remembered the story Ginny had told her about the name she’d heard her coworker’s daughter called Harry. Ginny had been so full of herself recalling how she’d caught the girl saying to her friends that Ginny’s husband was a total DILF. When Hermione asked what that meant, Ginny’s grin could have lightened an entire city. “Dad I’d Like to Fuck”.

Hermione surveyed her husband. He was absolutely a DILF. If she’d been a teenager she was sure she'd have a crush on him. She had had a crush on him when they were teenagers and he was still a work in progress. If she’d have to choose, Hermione was completely sure that Ron had never been more appealing than he was at that moment. He didn’t have the body of his early twenties but he was still stunningly fit compared with her colleagues’ husbands. And maturity had brought an air of wisdom that mixed with his sarcastic humour made him more attractive than ever. In addition, seeing him as committed as he was to Rose today, made his sex appeal rise to the sky.

‘Ready to sleep, love?’ Ron had suddenly stopped mid-movement putting on his pyjama bottoms. One leg in the air, contracting his entire body to remain balanced. Hermione bit her lower lip to contain a moan at the sight of is firmed and perfectly sized for a small hand arse.

‘I think there are some other things I’d like to do with you before we sleep.’

Ron’s eyes went wide with want as he dropped his pyjamas and as he kneaded his hands he huskily said, ‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Then jumped on the bed and crawled between the sheets.

We Interrupt Our Regular Programming 4 A V.I.P Message

By Daudi Adi |  April 26, 2021

What does love look like? What do justice and accountability look like? What does abolition look like? Love looks like pouring resources into community safety, community defense, and community housing. Justice and accountability look like community mutual aid, community farming, and community food security. Abolition looks like community dual power, community susu circles, and community education. 

Abolitionist love and justice look like survivors having access to natural and essential resources. Abolitionist love and justice look like ensuring survivors are housed, fed, clothed, and have access to high-quality healthcare. Abolitionist love and justice look like survivors having access to healers, safe and brave spaces, safe and brave sanctuaries, and other safety structures. 

In celebration of abolitionist love and justice, we are practicing (and urging readers to practice) solidarity with multiple Black survivors of capitalism, cisheteropatriarchy, racism, imperialism, colonialism, the medical industrial complex, and the prison industrial complex.  As Prof. Assata Shakur (PB2D) says, when we love and support each other [by practicing solidarity with one another], we have nothing to lose but our chains. 

Here are some fundraisers, programs, and structures to support. 

Support Jordan Khiry’s move and transition.

Help Myiah’s family pay rent and other bills.

Support the global movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and all political prisoners.

Join the campaign to Bring Tomiekia Home and Free All Survivors. 

Be in solidarity with the Black Trans Lives Matter Youth Fund.

Feed, Clothe and Support QT Naijans.

Give a home to Harriet’s Bookshop.

Support The Mojo Medic.

Join the Barbara Smith Caring Circle.

Fund Joelle’s recovery.

Help Alicia Miller secure housing.

Support the creation of LGBT+ Community Centers in Ghana.

Share nutritious food with The Detroit Community Fridge. 

Although my heart is heavy, I continue to find joy and hope through practicing solidarity with community members and organizing towards a liberated society. I hope these personal and communal practices bring you joy too. 

Sending you love, good juju, mojo, and ase as you continue to make liberational moves in your community.  

I just finished writing up my voter slate for my family and here is the full text of my analysis of California Prop 25. This includes an explanation of some of the history behind Prop 25, which wasn’t included in my previous post. You can click the read-more (and scroll past the numbered list) to get to that part. 

Prop 25 (replace money bail with a racist algorithm from hell): VOTE NO.

Okay. This one is a big deal. Part of the reason my slate is so late this year is because I would not release it until I had finished researching Prop 25. I was also waiting for a couple prison abolition groups whose opinions I value to take a position on this prop. Most of them never did. The Ella Baker Center, who has done extraordinary work this year in the Stop San Quentin Outbreak Coalition and whose opinion I particularly wanted, has just released their slate and they are neutral on 25. 

The sources I ultimately based my decision on were the League’s reasoning and—even more so—Justice LA’s position paper. 

(Also worth checking out: this Op-Ed by Bobby Stein in the SF Chronicle.) 

This is a summary of the points from both sources that I consider the most significant.

Prop 25:

Is likely to drastically increase the number of total people in jail at any time; LA county estimates their pretrial detainee population will double if it is passed.

Puts money into the prison-industrial complex rather than taking money out. 

Offers no way to appeal a judge’s algorithm-based decision on keeping you in jail, no transparency into how the judge comes to that decision, and no way to get out of jail before trial once it’s been made. Like, it replaces bail, which is of course corrupt and awful, with unilateral pretrial detention with no recourse. Which is worse. 

Uses inputs for its flight-risk algorithm that are abjectly racist and which include—this makes me lose my mind—residential stability. 

Co-opts the increasingly powerful movement to end money bail. Basically, if we don’t pass 25 I truly believe we have the momentum to demand something better. If we do pass 25, I worry that repealing it will be much harder. 

Full disclosure: Prop 25 is on the ballot because the bail bond industry put it there. It’s a referendum on legislature that—without that push from bail bond companies—would already be law. Putting Prop 25 on the ballot and getting you to vote no on it is a last-ditch effort by bail bond companies to keep their industry from dying. Believe me—That doesn’t sit any easier with me than it does with you. 

But. SB 10, the law that Prop 25 gives us a referendum on, is a hellish nightmare. It’s masquerading as bail reform, but it’s an expansion of the prison-industrial complex. It capitalizes on the movement to end money bail but it does not serve the interests of that movement (i.e., justice, liberty, basic common sense.) 

According to Justice LA, “In 2018, led by Black and Latinx communities, Californians demanded reform of the bail system that held people in jail pretrial and worked to pass a bill that would advance freedom. Just days before the vote on the law, Senator Hertzberg, with opportunistic “reform” organizations at his side, substituted a completely different bill that he created with judges and law enforcement. That bill was SB10.” 

SB 10 passed. And then the bail bond industry poured millions of dollars into putting a referendum onto the ballot, in the form of Prop 25, giving us a chance to strike it down (by voting NO on 25.) Every part of this story sucks; and neither of our options are good. 

The SF League of Pissed-Off Voters wrote a sentence that sealed the deal for me, which was: “We can't support any bail reform policy that doesn't protect the constitutional guarantees of due process and presumption of innocence for people caught up in the criminal justice system.” 

I agree. A law that writes away the right to due process is unacceptable. I hate money bail with a passion, but please vote NO on Prop 25. 

Sources I care about that said Yes on 25: Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, SEIU Local 1021, The Bay Guardian, SPUR, Cal Nurses union, San Francisco Tenants Union, SF Labor Council, California Federation of Labor, California Federation of Teachers, PICO California.

Sources I care about that said No on 25: The San Francisco League of Pissed-Off Voters, No Justice Under Capitalism, California NAACP, various individual human people whose advice on criminal justice policy I deeply trust, and the Justice LA Coalition, which includes: 

Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network, Bend the Arc, Color of Change, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, Dignity and Power Now, Encode Justice, From Gangs to Glory Opportunities Foundation, Frontline Wellness Network, Human Rights Watch, La Defensa, Local 148 - Los Angeles County Public Defenders Union, Los Angeles Community Action Network, Prevention at the Intersections, Project Rebound, San Bernardino Free Them All, Silicon Valley DeBug, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, The Coalition for Engaged Education, University of California Cops Off Campus Coalition Faculty Committee, Youth Justice Coalition, White People 4 Black Lives, Riverside All Of Us Or None.

Neutral: Chesa Boudin (San Francisco’s super-progressive D.A., who ran primarily on an abolish-money-bail platform but said he cannot endorse Prop 25 or SB 10 in their current form); the Ella Baker Center.

People whose positions I wanted to consult but could not find, probably neutral: CURB Prisons; Legal Services for Prisoners With Children (although the fact that Riverside All Of Us Or None, which I understand to be a local branch of the grassroots arm of LSPC, says No on 25 may speak to their position); Survived and Punished. If I find positions from any of these groups before Nov 3 I will update this post. 

Addition:

Here is a position statement by Silicon Valley DeBug explaining that they helped co-sponsor the original bail reform bill that got mangled into SB 10, and they now refuse to support it. Relevant quote: 

“This letter is to inform you that Silicon Valley De-Bug will no longer be a cosponsor of SB10, and are opposing the bill...the final version of SB10 is a complete departure from the original, and is antithetical to the principles of freedom and equal treatment that originally brought us into the legislative discussion.”

abolition is never “off the table”-- and we shouldn’t let anyone try to convince us otherwise.

allowing goals like abolition to get watered down and constantly misrepresented by the propagandized public, private corporations and career politicians leads to all these problems we keep hearing about on the news getting worse.

for example, we learn about instances of police violence, indigenous women going missing, the horrific prison industry, domestic & reproductive violence against women and non-men, systemic anti-blackness, families separated at hellish border facilities, seemingly endless wars and being on the brink of environmental collapse on a daily basis.

it all seems never-ending and overwhelming that no matter what good we do in our personal lives, it isn’t ever enough, because these problems will continue to manifest. somehow, it is always the same problems coming back to haunt us.

those are the consequences when attention and energy for micro problems are given priority, instead of investigating and healing the relationships people have to power, space and resources on the macro scale at the same time.

micro-scale problems are somewhat easy to package as isolated incidents for people who we believe are responsible for handling them, and they often can handle them well enough that the majority of people affected by the issue may feel placated enough to accept the authority as legitimate

these politicians and other micromanagers “solving” the problem is often used as evidence that the authorities are competent at their jobs and that issues can be solved by the system (when it wants to solve them), thus providing evidence of their legitimacy, even when it’s these same individuals and groups that are the direct causes of the problems to begin with.

beware that not being impressed or made passive by the reform logic of authorities and capitalism can be misrepresented as: “oh, you xyz group are never satisfied, you always want to save the world, but this is the real world, you’re too idealistic and your standards are too high!”

this is not an accurate portrayal, and it often isn’t meant to be. it’s meant to distract us, divide us and obscure what the problem is.

very simply, if the direct cause of a problem is not addressed, the problem is not going to be solved.

everything else is a surface-level approach that will allow the root of the problem to continue to endlessly self-reproduce the same harmful structure and power dynamics, but in different forms.

the best way to illustrate this is to picture the structure we live under (capitalism) as a living structure, like a tree. all living structures move, transform, grow and adapt given any and all external and internal forces that affect it, no matter what scale we observe it at -- either microscopically or as part of a larger surrounding ecosystem.

you’ll hear people say that radicalism is “grasping at the root” of a problem -- which is precisely what we must do if we have any hope at addressing any problem(s) that any structure provides us with.

the goal isn’t to eliminate all possibilities of conflict, or to be so bold as to think we can perfectly meet the needs of every single person affected negatively by something. not even capitalism which boasts as being this hyper-efficient, almighty, all-powerful system can do that, even on its best day.

the people who are intimately aware of the intricacies of this system are always found at the center, at the “grassroots” level of where the structure forms its base. without a base, without grounding, without roots, the rest of the structure cannot form, spread out or replenish itself when damaged or “reformed”. so that is where we must start; with the people, communities and land that is primarily affected.

rather than manage these groups by trying to decide what their needs are for them, or what actions must be done to meet their needs, they should be empowered to decide for themselves how to best maneuver and achieve those needs, while providing necessary aid when we can, and expanding the options for possible solutions when we can.

if something affects us negatively, there is a chance it affects others, too, and it follows that it’s in our mutual interest to work together to achieve a future where both our needs are met and that we can live healthy and fulfilling lives, together.

according to the janky ass reform logic of capitalism, this is an unnecessary and dangerous approach, because it does away the authority of the people who just say that they represent us and say that they’ll take responsibility for a problem -- the same people whose jobs hinge on appearing as if they care, with platforms, talking points, photo-ops and co-signs from other politicians and high ranking members of the public to offer “proof”.

they often use the logic that says that we must preserve this system, because it is sacred and perfect, that it would interrupt business, so we can’t empower people to make these decisions, even if it means that some people have to suffer and die because the system is inefficient and does not represent them, or demands that they experience social death.

we should not be impressed by these people. in fact, if they are standing in the way between these grassroots efforts, either by preventing these programs from assembling or actively attacking them politically, then they are enemies. when you become an enemy of the people you claim to represent, you are a tyrant and an opp.

and we do smoke opps.

at every grassroots level, there are groups of people who are very sensitive to the changes that happen at all the other levels of the living structure that oppresses them. from this perspective, they can experience for themselves the effects of the things that happen above the surface, and they experience the dissonance personally when another politician promises to change something, only to eventually fall short or make the problem even worse.

they get news that claims that a problem is (going to be, maybe, eventually) fixed, are present as media moves on to the next sensational story only to experience the problems same thing again, and again.

just because the cameras are turned away, because the tweets stopped getting traction, doesn’t mean that the people and communities have disappeared. and yet, no matter what, this is a cycle that continues.

the only answer, the only consistent thing that has been proven to make a difference, is there being a complete break with the logic of this system. as long as we follow the capitalist logic, the same structure will replicate. as mentioned, the roots will create new stems, leaves, seeds and thorns if left undisturbed. we’ll continue to see new iterations of the same problems as long as the logic, the roots, are left intact.

there’s no hope of creating new structures in the the place of one that’s taking up room at the same space, so the old system must be uprooted.

its this uprooting that some call a “revolution”.

this word might seem scary to a lot of folks for a lot of different reasons. it has way less to do with the chaos and bloodshed that's associated with it in our imaginations.

it has more to do with deeply investigating the roots of a problem and actually addressing them by changing the conditions -- something that capitalism refuses to do unless there is a profit motive, or only if the problem interferes with the flow of capital to private interests. the only way this chaos and violence would occur is if (and some would insist when,) these forces mobilize to preserve the same harmful system we’re attempting to uproot in the interest of private accumulation of profit.

should we just allow these corporations and wealthy individuals stop us from changing the things that affect the quality of our lives? the wealthy capitalists would say “why yes, of course you should!” but obviously they would say that -- and we have been given no reason to believe them.

we should each of us be prepared to deal with this violence in some way. to insist otherwise is naive and not realistic, and actually harmful to the communities that encounter this violence. this may look like armed patrols and free firearms & training for the most vulnerable communities, or creating an alternative directory that people may access instead of calling the police. these matters are up to the communities themselves to envision and implement.

we aren’t suggesting that we seek out violence where it’s reasonable to avoid it, or escalate problems beyond our management of them. this isn’t meant to encourage people to fulfill revenge fantasies for the hell of it, but to be prepared in case such conflicts occur.

the aforementioned unorganized violent activities are, at best, a strategy to cope with and purge the unending stress of life under capitalism or distract the state and similar private forces in combat while other solutions are being explored. we shouldn’t fall for the strategy of turning rioters, saboteurs, arsonists, vandals and looters into enemies of the people, when they are the people...and we shouldn’t dismiss these strategies as being harmful by definition when it is often only insured property that is the target of their actions, not individuals.

we shouldn’t disparage rioters for causing damage to this system, when capitalism has been damaging the world and our communities for as long as it has existed on this planet. both violent and non-violent methods of “grasping at the root” are legitimate, can coexist and inform each other, and are necessary to combat the terror capitalism’s logic has inflicted on us all.

remember that revolutions are only as peaceful as they are allowed to be.

the process of uprooting, of revolutionizing, may indeed be violent in nature when resistance is offered, but that shouldn’t stop us from continuing the process if it is necessary. just because a dangerous system is difficult to uproot doesn’t mean that it’s more reasonable or desirable to leave it alone to establish its roots and adapt.

we must acknowledge that multiple attempts may be necessary before any transformation takes place, possibly over the course of several years, perhaps lifetimes. it might require lots of planning. however, in the interest of conserving time and energy, the most simple and direct methods of applying pressure and healing should be prioritized. we do not want to resemble, in practice or theory, the politicians we hope to depose -- by making promises we don't intend to keep, making plans that never pan out, putting off immediate solutions until we personally benefit at the expense of others.

for example, this means that rather than coming up with overly-complicated, difficult-to-achieve long-term plans of gradually moving a low-income family out of a house infested with mold, they’d be moved immediately into safe housing if such housing is ample and available. this means that, rather than waiting on the state to decide how much food a hungry person needs or should have access to, we supply them with the food if it is abundant and we have it to spare.

if the needs people and communities have are immediate, the solution should also be immediate, whenever possible. the means are the ends.

this is because people need aid now, not in the future, not when the moment is perfect and some sort of irrelevant criteria is met, not when it’s more profitable to do so, but in the present. representatives and authorities have gotten really proficient at promising to solve issues in some far-off future they’re never be around to guarantee, abstracting issues and people so that they’re seen as insignificant to greater issues. how often have you heard: “we would like to do something about xyz, we just don’t have the time (money)”?

when these so-called “representatives” package all of these lies, and the time comes to prove their worth and legitimacy, there is often no reconciliation process that any of them must go through so that they’re held accountable for straight up lying and abusing the responsibility they had to the people. this is so often why our issues aren’t solved -- we started by trusting those that aren’t even affected by the problems we face to have our best interests in mind.

that is why we say enough electoralism -- enough elections -- enough career politicians -- enough bipartisanship -- enough government -- enough hollow campaign promises -- enough “lesser of two evils” -- enough “vote blue no matter who -- enough pitting poor communities against each other -- enough celebrity & corporate “activism” -- enough self-aggrandizing authorities -- enough micromanagers -- enough permanent elected positions

yes to community control -- yes to autonomous communities -- yes to free associations -- yes to reconciliatory organizations -- yes to federations of workers and professionals -- yes to voluntary work -- yes to open borders and travel -- yes to direct democracy and direct engagement with relevant issues -- yes to immediately recallable, voluntarily chosen delegates -- yes to grassroots organizing -- yes to self-defense and community-informed reactions to crime -- yes to direct action, mutual aid and solidarity for mutual survival -- yes to returning land and resources to indigenous and black communities -- yes to yielding space and resources to historically harmed communities on the margins (LGBT+, disabled, refugees & migrants, prisoners, non-human animals) -- yes to liberation for all!!!

"For Trans Liberation, Capitalism Must Be Abolished"

This week we're sharing a chat that Scott Branson had about Transgender Marxism (2021, Pluto Press) with Jules Gleeson (co-Editor, Contributor) and M.E. O'Brien (contributor). Transgender Marxism brings together Transgender Studies and Marxist theory, exploring Transgender lives and movements and surviving as Trans under Capitalism. In the end, the claim of the book is that for Trans Liberation, Capitalism must be abolished. In this interview we talk about the: collective, material process of transition; trans visibility, assimilation and liberation; the history of Gay Liberation and Trans movements; being Trans in the workplace; care work and family abolition; and Trans solidarities against Capitalism and the State.

Jules Joanne Gleeson is a writer, comedian and historian. She has published essays in outlets including Viewpoint Magazine, Invert Journal and VICE, and performed internationally at a wide range of communist and queer cultural events. She can be found on Twitter at @SocialRepro and Patreon (QueerCom). Check out her awesome interview with Judith Butler that the GuardianUK censored due to critiques of TERFs, found in full at IllWill.Com.

M.E. O'Brien writes at the intersection of communist theory, trans liberation, LGBTQ social movement studies and feminism. Michelle is a co-editor of Pinko, and her writing has appeared in Social Movement Studies, Work, Employment & Society, Commune, Homintern, Endnotes and Invert. Found on Twitter at @GenderHorizon & on Patreon (MEOBrien).

Update on Sean Swain

This week, instead of words from anarchist prisoner, Sean Swain, I’d just like to share the info that Sean has been transferred back to Ohio, his state of capture, from Virginia where he was held at a Medium security facility for the last 2.5 years. It’s assumed that he’s back at the Supermax, OSP Youngstown for 2 weeks of quarantine and determination of status to decide what prison he will go to inside Ohio from there. When he was leaving Ohio for Virginia, he was close to graduating to a lower security, medium level, than where he was held and has not had any serious breeches of conduct since his transfer, so hopefully he’ll be heading to an easier and more comfortable facility.

For the moment you can write him at his old address where I’m sure he’d love some kind words or some books, posted in our shownotes and at SeanSwain.org:

Sean Swain #A243205 OSP Youngstown 878 Coitsville-Hubbard Rd Youngstown, OH 44505

You can donate to his legal case to challenge his denied parole by sending money via cashapp to $Swainiac1969 and you can follow @Swainiac1969 for info on the upcomnig online raffle to help fundraise for Sean’s legal fees. To donate items for raffle, also contact the instagram mentioned above and keep an eye out for more info. As an update to prior mentions of Swainiac-fest, it was a success but is only a step on the way to covering his legal fees to get him the best legal defense possible. And remember, you can fundraise toward the $12,500 needed by the lawyer on your own or in community and if you want to send it to the TFSR venmo or paypal or a money order made out to us via our PO Box, feel free to do so and make sure you note Sean’s defense in the comment.

. ... . ..

Featured Tracks:

Gemini (instrumental) by Princess Nokia from Everything Is Beautiful

Check out this episode!