Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social

Raised on Coast Miwok land, longtime resident on Ramaytush Ohlone land, writer, climate person, feminist, wanderer. Just started a newsletter at MeditationsInAnEmergency.com.

Thank you! At an event last night I said "If the word hope doesn't work for you try, 'Never fucking surrender.'" The word hope seems too sunny to a lot of people, but the heart of it as I'm interested in it is: we make the future in the present, if we show up, and that never surrender part.
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Later today I may go see the exhibition of work by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, who was raped and then bludgeoned to death in 1982.
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It has been, to use that overused word, empowering to participate in changing the world as part of the ongoing feminist insurrection; things have genuinely changed (some). But still: I cannot count the all the stories of rape, stalking, beatings, murder, abuse, degradation, silencing I've taken in.
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From my latest book:
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(Obviously I and feminism are not stopping. But it's been a long haul through the monstrous ugliness of misogynist abuse. And I think there's a real effect on those of us who've been so saturated with these stories, year after year. A war of sorts, with its war correspondents.)
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(Should say 1979; went to Supreme Court in 1981.)
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This is pretty grim too. Last one overturned in 1981.
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Weird to me that this is the thing everyone cites, because there's so much that's so much worse. In 1974 the first laws against marital rape were passed, but all 50 states did not classify it as a crime/remove the exemption until 1993.
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But there is just so much of it, and I'm tired. Because I write about this, I get told a lot of stuff in private, so I carry that too. I'm so tired of rapists. I'm so tired of rape culture. I'm so tired of the dehumanization of girls and women.
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I am so tired of being deluged with the sordid details of sexual crimes. It feels nonstop since 2014. Yes absolutely those stories should be told. I get that this is how justice begins: with victims having voices, stories being heard, and so forth; I've been supporting that forever.
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"In order to render the strange logic of dreams, Freud quoted the old joke about the borrowed kettle: (1) I never borrowed a kettle from you, (2) I returned it to you unbroken, (3) the kettle was already broken when I got it from you."
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Reposted by Rebecca Solnit
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social
22h
Absolutely remarkable statement from Pope Leo today.
One for the history books
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/10/pope-leo-criticism-iran-war
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Mrs. Trump joins her husband in a practice called "how to act guilty."
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Reposted by Rebecca Solnit
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Rima I Anabtawi @rimaanabtawi.bsky.social
1d
Abdelrahman Mohammed, 24, a Syrian living in Beirut, reacts after he lost 5 members of his family after an Israeli strike on Wednesday, at Rafik Hariri University Hospital, in Beirut, Lebanon, April 9, 2026.

📸 Emilie Madi
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There's no clear definition of what "the far left" is, and of course Antifa is an orientation, not a group. But there's clear attempt to persecute dissent at home and abroad. Despite the lack of anything remotely resembling terrorism by said vague categories. Gift link.
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@rbreich.bsky.social: "Bottom line: there’s now a clear blueprint for how to defeat Trump. It’s available to any country, organization or person on which he seeks to impose his will: reject his demands and then use your own asymmetric power – a form of jiujitsu – to turn Trump’s power against him"
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Meanwhile his attempts to meddle in a foreign election are paying off--for the opposition.
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I mean.
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This administration continually acts as though it has unlimited power and learns nothing from the countless times it's crashed up against the limits. Including the full-on backfires.
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Essentially he's saying Iran's not gonna do that because he/the administration doesn't want Iran to do that and that proves he doesn't understand analogies, Iran, or wives. Or course there was an agreement about that enriched uranium, but Trump ditched it.
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More on that bizarrely clumsy analogy here. “The second thing Ghalibaf said, which, again, I found fascinating, is he said, ‘We refuse to give up the right to enrichment.’ And I thought to myself, You know what? My wife has the right...."
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The freaky thing about the world's worst analogy here is: he's comparing Iran to his wife, but Iran has demonstrated it is not defeated and does not obey the Trump Admin.; Vance seems unable to comprehend this. May his wife get some ideas, and may he realize he's skydiving w/out parachute.
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Reposted by Rebecca Solnit
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social
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“False certainty is dangerous; it rules out all possibilities but one and in essence surrenders to that imagined future.”
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“We surrender as if to the inevitable when we turn our backs on the possible.

We make the future in the present, when we show up.

Don't surrender it to those who would destroy it.”

~ Rebecca Solnit
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I kind of assumed the dim bulbs in the White House thought they could order Automatic Patriotic Wartime Effect (APWE) the way you order pizza, then skipped all the steps like warming up the public and having a reason and a plan, and well it's not working and we're not forgetting the Epstein files.
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Reposted by Rebecca Solnit
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Skye @simplyskye.bsky.social
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AOC: “This is a threat of genocide & merits removal from office. The President’s mental faculties are collapsing & cannot be trusted.

To every individual in the President’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat”
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Claims we have no power to impact what happens are nevertheless an intervention in what will happen, by discouraging participation, by encouraging passivity, surrender, acquiescence. If you insist that a given outcome is inevitable, you are lobbying against resistance.
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Reposted by Rebecca Solnit
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Kerry @kjfh.bsky.social
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“We make the future in the present, when we show up. Don't surrender it to those who would destroy it.” @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social

www.meditationsinanemergency.com/between-the-impossible-and-the-inevitable-the-case-for-defiance-aka-never-f-king-surrender/
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@repyassansari.bsky.social is new, part of Arizona's new deep blue wave, and great.
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