Three Wins Today: Dec 2, 2025

If you don't have mutual aid, you don't have anything

Boycotts are not meant to be a litmus test. The point of a boycott is to actually make an impact, not just stop shopping somewhere to prove how much of an activist you are.

These long lists are not a recipe for a successful boycott. It’s about something sustainable with an end goal in mind. Yes, boycotts are designed to be temporary. They are designed to cause the most pain to a company in the short term so they realize they will lose their customer base if they don’t do better.

But to make them successful, they must be targeted at only a small amount of companies and have a whole slew of mutual aid to back them up.

There have to be lists of specific alternatives, ways to get people there, people who are willing to buy something and send it to those who might not have access to that specific product without the store being boycotted.

It takes work, and I don’t see any of that work happening.

What I do see is a lot of people using these boycotts as a reason to be ageist, ableist and classist.

It’s about doing the best you can without literally harming yourself in the process. If everyone did the best they could, that would still make an impact. But keeping oneself fed, safe and healthy far outweighs the importance of any boycott. And it always will.

A boycott doesn’t mean anything if it comes with treating people like shit. If you use it as an excuse to do that, how, exactly, are you better than the corporations you’re boycotting?

My photo from a coffee shop in 2015

Portland, Oregon

Tues, Nov 18 - We are so lucky that so many restaurants and coffee shops stepped up when SNAP was frozen, but most of them went back to normal once SNAP benefits started being sent out again. Not Heretic Coffee.

Because they went viral on social media sharing exactly how much they raised each day and how many people they fed with those funds, they are now able to do this indefinitely.

Owner Josh White told OregonLive:

Number one, 100% of all the money is going to go to keep Portland fed…If you’re on government assistance or not. Just come in. If you’re hungry, we will feed you

Now Heretic is special anyway. It is a non-profit run by volunteers. But it’s only because of the people who helped out during SNAP that they’re able to do this.

And you can still donate a breakfast to someone who needs it.

This is mutual aid, by the way. This is what that phrase means.

It’s one thing to help people when everyone else is, it’s another to keep doing it after the fact. And to be given the community support to do so.

Online

Fri, Nov 21 - When you think of Fortnight you probably aren’t thinking of a Know Your Rights event, but that’s exactly what the New Save Collective created.

On Nov 18, in the Socialist Gaming Subreddit, this was posted:

We’re hosting a Know Your Rights event in Fortnite this Friday the 21st at 7pm EST, centered around how to safely defend yourself and others if/when interacting with 🧊. All are welcome to participate and/or watch.

404 Media was able to speak with one of the organizers, PitaBreadFace, who chose to remain psydeunonymous for fear of retaliation by ICE:

Our hypothesis since we started this project has been that opposition forces like corporations and the military and the far right have done a really good job at weaponizing the social features of gaming.

I love seeing our side using all avenues possible to make an impact. The online space is so oversaturated with Republican disinformation and it feels overwhelming, at times, to counteract that, but it’s so important that we do. I hope this is an ongoing thing, and helps a lot of people feel safer!

National

Mon, Nov 24 - For the second time this year, all autism organizations, from ASAN to Autism Speaks have written a joint open letter about something RFK Jr did.

The first statement, back in April, was about the “growing rhetoric” connecting vaccines with autism.

This time, their statement is about the latest update from the CDC website, which says that its not evidence-based to say that vaccines don’t cause autism, which is, to put it mildly, bullshit.

In the statement, they say:

The choice to invest further resources in search of a link between autism and vaccines detracts from the current wishes and needs of the autism community. There are dozens of potential research topics that could inspire hundreds of projects focused on community needs, personalized health care, and services that could benefit from funding. 

In addition to the two orgs mentioned above, 30 other autism orgs also signed the statement.

These 32 orgs have very little in common, other than they work with the autistic community, and yet, they are willing to put their differences aside, for a second time, and denounce these lies as a collective.

If only we could do the same as a Democratic party. Realize when something is bigger than our individual issues and vote and speak accordingly.

If 32 of the most disparate organizations can, I have hope we can too.

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So that’s what I have today, I hope it gives you strength to keep fighting today!

Our voices are our superpower, but only when we use them!