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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶

@rachelmonkfish.bsky.social
334 followers 546 following 166 posts

la libertá é terapeutica ✨

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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Laurie! Live! @laurie-merrell.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
continue to appreciate that the Sun Times + WBEZ have consistently reported on the fact that crime is down in Chicago. this article explicitly says mayoral candidates are "sweeping aside the numbers in favor of anecdotes" and "stoking public anxiety" chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2026/0...
chicago.suntimes.com
Mayoral candidates decry Chicago violence ‘crisis,’ even as summer murders hit 61-year low
Chicago had 122 murders in June, July and August, the lowest summer total since 1965, according to city and police data. But in their mayoral quests, candidates keep stoking public anxiety about viole...
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
I had the great honor of editing this story by Emily Markwiese about rank-and-file union members forming connections with grassroots immigrant solidarity networks, and eventually carrying out a plan that stopped someone from getting deported at the last possible moment!
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 28/06/2026
“Well, we’re all workers…These aren’t just things happening on TV. They’re happening at SEA-TAC, at our work. It’s our home, man, and we can do something about it. We have to do something about it.” “If we’re not taking care of our neighbors, then who is going to take care of us?”
progressive.org
How to Halt a Deportation Flight
A network of rank-and-file union members and immigrant solidarity activists in Washington State banded together to stop a deportation in process.
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
*me reading any article about anything* you guys need to listen to more jazz fusion
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
TomTom @tomtomchi.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
How lucky are we Chicagoans to call this magnificent place home?
Looking north from Montrose Beach with dunes in the foreground Pathway in Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary with trees on the left and a meadow on the right, sunset in the background Looking south from Montrose Point, lake and skyline in the distance Montrose Harbor at sunset
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Hi I'm not good at promoting my work on here but I wrote this and I'm proud of it and wanted to share it! It's a profile of Fountain House, a cool and dare I say kind of radical clubhouse for people living with mental health challenges. I hope you'll give it a read! progressive.org/magazine/whe...
progressive.org
Where Everybody Knows Your Name
At Fountain House, an inclusive community for people living with mental illness offers an alternative to hospitals and social isolation.
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Hi I'm not good at promoting my work on here but I wrote this and I'm proud of it and wanted to share it! It's a profile of Fountain House, a cool and dare I say kind of radical clubhouse for people living with mental health challenges. I hope you'll give it a read! progressive.org/magazine/whe...
progressive.org
Where Everybody Knows Your Name
At Fountain House, an inclusive community for people living with mental illness offers an alternative to hospitals and social isolation.
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Ed BooOOooOOmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Again: for any big liberal donor who wants to funnel millions into fixing this country's politics, the ROI on buying any struggling paper and simply tasking it with doing real reporting on local news is vastly higher than the same $$ given to some group that does mass ad buys every election year.
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
dotting my Is, crossing my Ts, circling my Js, contemplating my Qs, tickling my Hs, jousting my Ps, doing unspeakable things to my Ys
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Great news everyone!!!! blockclubchicago.org/2026/03/24/r...
blockclubchicago.org
Rat Birth Control Is Working In Wicker Park, Early Results Show
With early data pointing to a reduction of rat activity in the area, organizers said they will expand the program to other parts of Wicker Park and Bucktown. A similar effort is underway in Lincoln Pa...
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
Crazy how you can orient your entire life around capitalism being the problem and still discover in new ways each day that capitalism is the problem
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
jad, unusually spooky 📸👻 @aerojad.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
📸 Dreary winter skies did not remotely dampen the vibe on Argyle in Uptown today as the smaller of our two Lunar New Year parades returned. Always love to make the walk over here for it #Chicago #photography
Several dragon performers walk their yellow and red costume beneath a red and green light installation beneath the newly reopened Argyle station in Chicago's Uptown neighborhoodA pink and green dragon rest on stilts as performers get ready to put costumes on in the staging area on Sheridan of the Lunar New Year Parade on Argyle.A yellow and red dragon roars in my general direction from a low angle during the Lunar New Year Parade on Argyle in Chicago's Uptown. Behind the dragon to the left, most of the new red Argyle sign for the rebuilt Red Line stop.A long blue dragon is whisked along by a man with a big smile on his face during the Lunar New Year Parade in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. He runs before the new Argyle sign at the rebuilt Red Line stop. It's cloudy out but that's not dampening the mood
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Labor Notes @labornotes.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Sign up here to join May Day Strong's call this Sunday, February 1: www.mobilize.us/mayday/event...
mobilize.us
How We Build a General Strike · May Day Strong
We are inspired by the incredible wins coming out of Minnesota - and we know how they got them. More than 75,000 people took to the streets in Minneapolis January 23rd and hundreds of stores closed in...
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Disgruntled Lesbian @southernish.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Byron is the real deal.
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
🕷️Spectre of Communism🕷️, MSW (NOT A MAN) 🥯🌹 @acabcalloway.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
I'm joining the war on Byron Sigcho Lopez on the side of Byron Sigcho Lopez. You should too: secure.actblue.com/donate/1.28tx
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
taber @kvetch.gay · 27/01/2026
Skilled journalists in Minnesota have made deep contacts, studied what's happening, seen for themselves what we see without raising a single iota of ruckus Content Streamers have been consistently disruptive, aggressive, demanding, deliberately trying to raise the temperature everywhere they go
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
Totally agree, I just wish there were some kind of angle to talk about both at once, you know?? like if they’d taken away people’s health insurance and social services and completely fucked the labor economy in order to fund this
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
This is the most baffling book-to-film adaptation I've ever seen. Credits rolled and my friend and I looked at each other and went "...huh!"
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Can't believe this is from just two months ago. This shit has spread so far so fast
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Leah Greenberg ❌👑 @leahgreenberg.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
y'all Kristi Noem absolutely deserves to be impeached but please, please be wary of Dems who try to use an impeachment vote on Noem (fine, but not gonna end in removal) as a substitute for action on ICE funding (real, hits them where it hurts)
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Star:Line Chicago @starlinechicago.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Okay, you all are overstimulated. Here’s your prescription. youtu.be/oqrtoFWglMY?...
youtu.be
Serengeti "Dennehy"
YouTube video by Audio8Recordings
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
SideStreets @sidestreets.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
According to this poll, we need more people to know about NITA. 2026 is the year of transit in Illinois! drive.google.com/file/d/16AKO...
Do you expect public transportation in Illinois to improve or worsen in 2026?

Improve 25.5%
Worsen 32.1%
Unsure 42.4%
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Marielle Hellraiser 💀 @mags.colvett.online · 08/01/2026
www.unpopularfront.news/p/living-in-...
The hopelessness that breeds conformity or resignation is dangerous. When I looked back at the "Solidarity" blog, I noticed it also cites Václav Havel, the Czech dissident, and his concepts of
"Living in the Lie" and "Living in the Truth" from his samizdat essay "The Power of the Powerless." He points out that for an oppressive system to operate, people don't really need to believe the lies of the regime in their hearts, but just act as if they do, living in the lie:
Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Kathryn @kathrynlaughon.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Folks often ask what they can do, what’s the plan? Friends, we are the plan. Find your organizing home. Indivisible, DSA, tutoring adult literacy, serving on the board of your public library. Do the thing! Think about the ways you’re willing to be courageous, do more than feels comfortable.
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Need the Germans to whip up a long compound word for that feeling you get when everyone in the train car is clearly headed to the same protest
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Party for Socialism and Liberation @pslweb.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
NO WAR ON VENEZUELA! Stop the bombings! Early this morning, Caracas was bombed following weeks of threats from Trump that a land invasion of Venezuela would begin soon. This could be the start of yet another war, based completely on lies. Our public funds should be used for people’s needs!
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 30/12/2025
!!!!!!!!!!!
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Lowkey obsessed with New Orleans, perfect place to spend Christmas
A German jazz club on Bourbon Street in New OrleansThe Bayou SavaugePhoto of a sheet hung from the second story of a house in New Orleans painted with an image of a hand holding out a hairdryer to melt a huge block of iceA light-up sign for AllWays Lounge & Cabaret, a drag bar in New Orleans
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Samwise "we can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old" Gamgee
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Laurie! Live! @laurie-merrell.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
Every frigid day like this, I think about this 2022 piece by @katieprout.bsky.social. No one should have to be outside today in Chicago, much less staying outside unsheltered overnight. That that might be preferable to the available shelter is incredibly damning. chicagoreader.com/news/lukewar...
chicagoreader.com
Lukewarm welcome - Chicago Reader
The warming areas don’t just exist to warm you up—housed within DFSS community service centers, they’re also access points from which Chicagoans can be connected to other services that have the potent...
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Active Transportation Alliance @activetransportation.org · 11/12/2025
​Right now, Chicago City Council is weighing drastic cuts to the very safety programs that have driven this unprecedented drop in severe injuries and fatalities on our streets — cuts that would mean more dangerous speeding, more violent crashes, and more families grieving loved ones taken too soon.
activetrans.org
Tell Chicago lawmakers: Don't cut funding for safe streets | Active Transportation Alliance
According to the Chicago Department of Transportation, fatal crashes have fallen 30 percent since their peak in 2021 — more […]
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
This piece that I wrote about Chicago ICE watch in October, before Greg Bovino and his goons flew south for the winter, is now available to read online!
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
This piece that I wrote about Chicago ICE watch in October, before Greg Bovino and his goons flew south for the winter, is now available to read online!
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
NO SUPPORTIVE HOUSING REFERRALS IN MORE THAN A YEAR
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Spotify Wrapped season never fails to remind me of just how many Mountain Goats fans I've created in the past 15 years, one of my bigger life accomplishments so far tbh
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Lisa Diedrich @lisadiedrich.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
For World AIDS Day, ACT UP New York has created posters as part of their Healthgate campaign, which capture the deadly consequences of creepy RFK Jr as head of HHS. Dismantling Healthcare = Death! You can download the posters here: actupny.com/act-up-ny-an... #WorldAIDSDay #IllnessPolitics
Lime green poster of a creepy-looking medusa-like RFK Jr with pink eyes & snakes coming from his head. HEALTHGATE is written in pink block letters across his chin. Text below reads: 
RFK, Jr: THE PUBLIC MAN-MADE DEATH
As of Nov 5, 2025, it is estimated that USAID's dismantling has already caused the deaths of 630,000 people, 420,000 children.
Defunding health and science--and leaving HIV, TB, and vaccine-preventable illnesses untested, unprevenbted, and untreated--kills. 
ACT UP
LEARN THE FACTS
DISMANTLING HEALTHCARE = DEATH
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
"I had no idea that the harsh winter ahead of us would be even more difficult than the trauma of losing my home in Rafah" A dispatch on brutal winter conditions in Gaza by Hassan Herzallah, whose home and university were both destroyed by Israeli bombings last year. @theprogressivemag.bsky.social
progressive.org
Winter Returns to Gaza
Despite a so-called ceasefire, people in Gaza are about to face harsh winter conditions while living in tents.
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Stephanie 🍉 @ageofoddish.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
Does anyone want a survivorship bias shortbread
My hand holding a shortbread cookie in the shape of an airplane. There are red sprinkles in the pattern of the survivorship bias plane.A plate of the same cookies.
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Jes Battis @jesbattis.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
Universities are assembling larger and larger teams to deal with academic integrity issues--mostly focused on AI--while simultaneously holding AI "writing" contests, AI-themed events, "hey, come play with these fun tools!" The messages are so mixed, it's criminal. Because AI is bloated with money.
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for my unshakeable faith that everyone currently making millions off AI will end up bankrupt or facing criminal charges ❤️
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Reposting this because of an infuriating experience I had today that fell exactly in line with what I wrote about in the article (context is from my insta story)
Text copied over from my insta story:

“Today in failed state crisis response:
I call 911 and immediately ask to be directed to a Crisis Assistance
Response & Engagement (CARE) dispatcher. The regular 911 dispatcher asks me what CARE is!!!
I try to clarify that I'm asking to speak to someone from the city response team that can handle mental health emergencies instead of police. She asks me to describe the situation. I give her a description and clearly state that I do not feel the person's crisis has risen to the level of imminent danger necessitating police presence. She says "thank you, have a good day” and HANGS UP without redirecting me to CARE. No follow up call.
And people wonder why CARE's engagement numbers are bad???
You can't get directed to the team even if you specifically request it because the 911 dispatchers DO NOT KNOW IT EXISTS”
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Also from October to April if you are valiant and pure of heart
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Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶ @rachelmonkfish.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
I can only imagine 🤔 hypothetically speaking 🤨 that this would be a surreal moment to live through if you had lived through psychosis at an earlier point in your life and had the incredible fortune to recover from it, only to then watch a huge psychosis spike unfold worldwide!!
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Dave Byrnes @djbyrnes1.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Moments ago: tenants of the South Shore apartment building that federal immigration agents raided at the end of September held a presser to announce they're forming a tenants union. They're demanding, among other things, sewage removal and heat and electricity restroration. More updates TK.
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Dave Byrnes @djbyrnes1.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
Yesterday my partner and I counted all the ads along Chicago's Brown Line for "Friend," a company selling an AI chatbot pendant, and tallied how many of those ads were defaced. Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.
Sign for a "Friend" ad defaced with graffiti reading "AI doesn't care if you live or die."Sign for a "Friend" ad defaced with graffiti reading "talk to humans"Sign for a "Friend" ad defaced with graffiti reading "Fuck this!"Sign for a "Friend" ad defaced with graffiti reading "you don't have to accept this future."
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
Laurie! Live! @laurie-merrell.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
when you have the conference room booked for a recurring meeting but the previous people just won't leave
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Reposted by Rachel Monk ✶✶✶✶
lucaisharsh @lucaisharsh.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Chicago people sure love when there's an animal that isn't normally around here and we're correct to do so
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