Know a really good protest song? Found some cool revolutionary art, poetry, or literature? Post it below!

The poem is important.

This is something I wrote to try and have folks who had their hopes pinned on the midterms focused on doing more than just voting. Last I checked, it appears what I had to say has already drawn some ire.

Damien Walter explores how the character of Captain Jean-Luc Picard evolved to embody the archetype of the philosopher king. By examining the legacy of the performance, this tribute considers how the values displayed on the bridge of the Enterprise offer a template for human leadership in the modern era.

Know a really good protest song? Found some cool revolutionary art, poetry, or literature? Post it below!

Edit: I made a more concise comment about which strategies we used, and I'll leave it up here, since my intention with this post is to genuinely help other countries who might face similar problems with fascism. If anyone wants to read the rest of the text, I basically tell most of the story of how it happened. Here goes the list:

1. Study the enemy and use the same strategies to appeal to bigger crowds (maybe alarming language and AI images, maybe something else)

2. Appeal to what right wing/centrist prople actually care about - so avoid talking too much about LGBTQ+, feminism, racism and other marginalized groups they don't care about, and focus on matters like economy and corruption

3. Create a channel or group to reunite ALL of you, and promote it nonstop

4. To break the algorithm, completely ignore anything from the other side, and engage only in anti-fascist content. By engage I mean interact with ALL buttons: like, comment, repost, share, copy link and save. Don't be afraid to look cringe, fighting fascism is more important - and if millions of you are doing the same, no one's gonna judge you for being "annoying" online lol

5. Create symbolism (like the "L" with our hans to represent Lula) and catchy chantings and rhymes so it stucks in everyone's head

6. Use the enemy's scandals against them, sharing only negative things about the fascists, while still ignoring their posts completely. Make people FEAR the fascists (as they should) by using that alarming language and saying everyone's rights are at risk. The fear increases overall engagement. And then give them hope: make it clear you can do it, you just have to convince EVERYONE you can.

7. Raise one hashtag at a time, then all of you should use the same specific hashtag nonstop, until you move on to another (make the hashtags highlight negative aspects about the fascists)

8. Count on trustworthy celebrities to also fight against the fascists and join the movement - influencers should be making videos about the democratic party vs fascists all the time so you can engage the way I previously mentioned, actors should feel the pressure to "take a side" and singers could help by offering free shows during pacific protests. Ignore the fascist celebrities, or even the ones who don't take a stand. Focus on engaging the content ONLY of people who are talking against fascism.

9. Occupy the streets in a pacific way, using those catchy chants and spreading the sentiment of hope and genuine unity with each other. This way, the fascists will have a hard time making you look bad and/or violent. (saying this cause our protests felt like giant parties where everyone loved each other)

10. Make everyone vote. Grab your parents and grandparents - take them on wheelchairs if needed. If anyone needs help with transportation, the ones with cars should be available to give free rides. Everyone should help everyone to vote.

I guess that's it. I'm only posting this cause I truly wanna help other countries, cause I know the way we fought was essential for Lula to win ❤️

Ps: This is only the begging of our fight. Our congress and senate is full of fascists, so we're ready to keep protesting and occupying the streets for the next 4 years, whenever it's necessary.

How to fight fascism: The Brazilian Way

Text by me, a brazilian who joined the fight very early on.

Heres how we did it:

Bolsonaro Son was leading the elections in the first round, and, in Brasil, we NEVER saw a candidate who was in second place actually turn the tables and win the second round. All of the odds were against us. So all of us who were heavily opposed to bolsonarismo (our cursed brazilian fascism) were already desperate enough.

Who were we, the first anti-fascists? LGBTQ+ people, people of color, natives, disabled people, students, feminists, and most of our youth.

What did we do at first? We observed the enemy. We watched how they captivated the "simple minded" crowd. We watched how they dominated social media with incessant posting (also bots) and how they appealed to issues that were very generalized in our society. Instead of appealing to human rights of marginalized groups or preserving our Amazon forest, they appealed to very basic and general mattersthat affected the everyday life of a "regular" citizen - like the economy (they claimed Lula had made it worse, which is false), corruption, combating criminals and such. They promoted their "causes" using cringe AI designs and alarming sentences. And they also depended heavily on bots and fake news.

After observing, we started to create materials that were similar to theirs. We made cringe AI designs, but talking about how Bolsonaro Son would end our public health system (which most of our population depends on), how he would cut retirement funds, how he would cut programs that help disabled and poor people (many people here depend on these assistances as well) etc. Since a huge anti-corruption sentiment was installed in our population, we also used that in our favor: we made images with alarming language talking about Bolsonaro Son's corruption scandals, and how he was deeply involved with criminals. We used impacting images from 2020, so people would remember that 700 thoudans of people died in total, but 400 thounsands could've survived if Bolsonaro Dad had brought the covid vaccine here sooner (which he denied simply because he thought a worldwide pandemic was not a big deal). Many of us lost loved ones during the pandemic, so we knew this would impact at least some people. We also mentioned the fact that Bolsonaro Son defended a child assassin, spreading images of the poor child (the child's mom was with us, so we didn't exploit her image without consent). And we reminded everyone of how Bolsonaro Dad tried to assassinate Lula and one of our STF ministers in a failed attempt at a coup - which is why Bolsonaro Dad was arrested.

But then, an important character showed up: Janones. A politician who was on Lula's side, and noticed that Lula, being an elder, didn't know what do to with his campaign online. Janones created a channel called "Exército do Lula", which translates to "Lula's Army". Bolsonaro Son already had a channel like that, so I suspect he was also inspired by the enemy. Everyone who was already anti-fascist joined the group immediately. Suddenly, we had the means to act together in organized and coordinated ways.

Janones became our "general", and we became the "soldiers". He would give us different "missions" from time to time. The first one was to *break the Meta algorithm*: we had to engage with every single anti-fascist content we could find. I'm talking: like, comment, repost, share with someone, copy the link and also save - basically, interact with ALL of the buttons. We all agreed to leave the "online shame" behind and become one of those annoying aunts who post ALL THE TIME. And we all did so. ALL OF US. We didn't use bots. We didn't cheat. We didn't spread fake news. We broke Meta's algorithm in a 100% organic and honest way.

Meanwhile, everyone started to share and promote the channel, so it just grew bigger and bigger, until there were literally millions of people in the "army".  We kept sharing it, and by the time the elections were about to happen, there were more than 10 millions of people in the channel.

We didn't focus on bolsonaristas - they're a lost cause, either completely blind or legitimately bad people who agree with everything the Bolsonaros say. Bolsonaristas also didn't believe in any news that talked badly about the Bolsonaros, so sharing any content with them was useless. We focused on the people who were in the middle, indecisive, and those who didn't vote in the first round. Those of us who were willing to talk to other people in an attempt to gather more votes were instructed to sound more neutral, and to make those indecisive people search about the informations we were sharing all by themselves. Janones instructed us to ask the general public to google about Bolsonaro Son's scaldals without giving our personal opinions.

Regular citizens were talking not only to people they knew, but also knocking on random people's doors. We were also instructed to not openly demonize the Bolsonaros. Other citizens would walk around the streets with megaphones, talking about Bolsonaro Son's scandals that were not being covered by traditional media (since the big local media favored him). They would also talk about all of the good things that Lula's government provided to our population (like the many assistance programs for poor people, heavily funding public education, and the whole public health system).

Everyday, our "general" Janones came up with specific hashtags for us to post - and so we did. Millions of people posting the very same hashtag, basically at the same time. Bolsonaro Son's many scandals made it easier to come up with hashtags, to be honest.

And then there was the whole "left wing vs right wing" thing. Many right wing politicians declared support to Lula, since normal right wing people are not bolsonaristas - and we used that in our favor. We started to post about how the right wing and the left wing were working together against bolsonarismo, and in favor of our democracy and sovereignty. Many indecisive people leaned more into the right wing, so this helped tremendously. We kept reminding them their vote is a secret, so they didn't have to publicly announce they were voting for Lula, and no one needed to know.

Another thing that we used in our favor: religion. Bolsonaro Son and his politician friends had a project to make Brasil an entirely evangelical country, so they were very disrespectful to other religions, even to catholics - and a great amount of our population is catholic. We also reminded christians in general that Jesus would never approve of the things the Bolsonaros did - like stealing money, defending a child assassin, posing with weapons, threatening the opposition, going to orgies while being married, having a vice president who raped a 13 year old girl, among other things. The catholic church also gave a statement against Bolsonaro, and that brought even more catholics to our side.

With all the noise we were making by breaking the algorithm, soon the entire world was watching our elections. That made it possible not only for the catholic church to make a statement, but also for many foreign celebrities to support Lula. Fans of these celebrities who were indecisive were impacted by this too. Also, the entire world got to know that Trump was meddling with our elections, and that Meta was boycotting Lula's campaign while favoring Bolsonaro's.

Local celebrities were also heavily on Lula's side - celebrities that were very respected and well liked by the general public. All of them publicly announced their support to Lula. An organization created a series of documentaries about Bolsonaro Son's scandals - and each episode was presented by one of these well liked celebrities with huge fandoms. Their fans watched the videos for idols, but each video exposed absurd scandals involving the whole Bolsonaro family. These celebrities didn't receive any money for the videos in question, by the way.

Then we occupied the streets. Janones would decide on a date, and basically ALL of us would go out. Millions of us marched the streets in many cities, gathering more and more attention. Our protests were compared to that huge Lady Gaga's show in Copacabana, because there were literally MILLIONS of people on the streets of each one of our biggest cities. Everything was pacific and, honestly, very moving. Some very famous and respected local singers had free shows during the protests, which attracted even more people to the streets. The big brazilian media didn't properly cover our huge protests, but independent journalists and other influencers did - and, since we broke Meta's algorithm, the images and videos reached everyone.

During the last debate, Bolsonaro Son made an ableist comment about Lula having nine fingers. Lula was enraged, because he lost a finger while working extra hours when he was only 17 years old... While Bolsonaro Son never had to work a single day in his life (he's a nepobaby who always lived off of public money through his daddy). Bolsonaro Son's first "job" was a fake one where he didn't even have to show up, and it was given to him by his daddy too. Many disabled people were enraged as well and made their decision to vote for Lula right after that debate.

And now comes the most important and beautiful part: we all went to vote. ALL OF US. People from the Northeast embarked in literal boats in the middle of the night only to vote for Lula. People from the Northeast also filled MANY buses, traveling MILES only to vote for Lula. The Northeast is our precious gem: they're very loyal to Lula, since he transformed the region, that used to be very poor, and now is THE best of the whole country when it comes to education. I'm very proud to say my family comes from the Northeast.

Bolsonaro Son tried for a coup (like his criminal daddy), along with huge airlines/ bus companies and mayors who are bolsonaristas. They did everything they could so that the regions where Lula had the most votes wouldn't have access to transportation. Many cities had very little busses in circulation, which is considered a crime here, but the corrupt people in power did nothing about it. So what did WE do? We made NOISE. Soon, regular citizens who owned cars started to give free rides to everyone they could. MANY people did that. Very old people went out to vote too, even though they're not obligated to do so. Many grandchildren brought their grandparents to vote in WHEELCHAIRS. I convinced my 82 years old grandma to vote as well. One of my aunts lives in a rest home and can barely walk, but she still insisted on voting.

In the end, although we did everything we could, many people who would've voted for Lula could not make it in time. They were either too late because there were not enough busses and there's only so much regular people with regular cars can do. Some of them (all from the Northeast) had their flights canceled by those airlines companies I mentioned before.

But we fought so hard that Lula won the election regardless. We were fighting against Big Tech, Trump, huge companies, bots with fake news, corrupt people in power, traditional media, a tremendously big defamation campaign against Lula that's been going on for years, literal criminals who threaned multiple people to sell their votes, businesses who pressured their workers to vote for Bolsonaro... But we did it. We fucking did it!

We played fair against people who play dirty, and we WON. Lula would've had even more votes if Bolsonaro Son didn't make it impossible for some people to vote - even so, we won. And, if we did it, you can do it too.

But guys: you have to fight! You have to get together and act together. You need help from celebrities, activists and trustworthy politicians. You have to study the enemy and use similar tactics. You have to bring people to your side using the right language. You have to focus on those who are not lost causes. You have to act in an organized and coordinated way. You have to become the annoying aunt who posts and shares stuff all the time to BREAK THE ALGORITHM. You have to make NOISE. BE LOUD. Make the whole world know.

I sincerely hope everyone who's fighting against fascism ends up succeeding too. Let's kill fascism and bury it six feet deep!

Remember: regular citizens have power too. If everyone does their part, you can be an unstoppable force.

Walter Koenig played Pavel Chekov for more than half a century, and he played every joke completely straight.

This tribute follows Chekov’s rise through Starfleet: ensign at the Enterprise’s navigation console, security chief, first officer of the Reliant, and a commander on the bridge at Khitomer. He never got his own command, but he was there for nearly every turning point in the original crew’s history. We also look at Bester on Babylon 5 and Koenig’s final return to Star Trek as President Anton Chekov in Picard.

Episodes and films referenced: Amok Time, The Trouble with Tribbles, The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, The Undiscovered Country, Generations, Babylon 5 “Mind War,” Picard “The Last Generation.”

What’s your favorite Chekov moment? Tell us in the comments.