how can people living in the most stunning parts of the US (arizona, utah, south dakota, wyoming, nevada, montana) see the beauty around them and vote conservative so much that theyre all red states with no remorse
like “look at all these amazing natural formations i get to wake up to every single day...mother nature sure is beautiful. i think i will not vote in favor of preserving it because climate change is a lie up by the government”
Idk about the others but keep Arizona's name out of your mouth lmao we deal with massive voter suppression and most of the population, at least in southern az, lives in poverty. the state wouldn't be red if it weren't for the gerrymandering, voter suppression, and awful shit governor.
we're literally trying our best in AZ so go look at the goddamn grand canyon and then maybe get off your high horse jesus christ
South Dakota has some of the largest and poorest Native American reservations in the USA (Pine Ridge especially) - Native Americans are the largest racial demographic in the state after whites, and they are a group that also experiences massive voter suppression.
(Also though, many rural area folks love their guns and will vote to protect them before they vote to protect humans, don’t forget.)
The US South & Appalachia are also gerrymandered to hell and back, it's not necessarily a choice to have some of the worst politicians in the US.
This is honestly one of the most infuriating things, no offense OP I'm sure you meant well, but a lot of people older than you & allegedly well informed like to completely ignore the fact that the US government has never, ever represented its people, ever. The only group that has never had to fight for representation is wealthy white men, & they are also the only group that has never had their existence legislated in such a way that they are disenfranchised indirectly even after direct laws are passed. Even poor whites in Appalachia historically faced a lot of the same suppression & intimidation from politically connected coal barons, for an extremely long time, even while those same politicians were using racism to separate the white working class from everyone else. West Virginia & Kentucky have some of the least representative politics due to the way district lines have been drawn in both states, but honestly a ton of states are massively hosed & have been for decades.
So I reblogged this exactly a week ago because I thought it was funny and uh lo and behold, a family friend wrote me a big ol’ check just to help me out of a tough financial spot AND my bank refunded me $32 for fees they’d originally taken out. SO UH YEAH. Reblogging this again in hopes that it brings equally good fortune to my followers.
You know what? This actually isn’t funny at all because this really does happen. Baby boomers can’t afford to retire; that’s a big part of why millennials can’t find jobs in their fields. And if they lose their jobs (which can mean a variety of things, including their companies finding an excuse to fire them so they don’t have to pay anything for their retirement, which happened to my uncle and 5 people he worked with over one year), they aren’t as desirable because they’re retirement-age. The world has changed a lot since they got jobs they thought were supposed to be secure, and now their old strategies that used to work for finding a job don’t work anymore and they don’t know what does work. So a lot are desperate; I recently talked to a woman who had to be in at least her mid-60s who was begging on a street corner because she was replaced by a younger person and lost her job of 18 years, and it’s not the first time I’ve heard a story like that. A lot of people who were never rich to begin with lost a lot in the 2008 financial crisis and never fully recovered. Baby boomers didn’t all just magically become financially secure as they got older.
This generation war bullshit is 100% manufactured to keep our anger misdirected. It’s not baby boomers screwing over millennials. It’s rich capitalists of every living generation screwing over baby boomers, their parents, gen x-ers, millennials, and gen z-ers all at once and all in different ways. And if we collectively realize that we’re not enemies and that we actually have a common cause with common enemies, it’ll be really bad for the people doing this to us, which is why they’re pushing the generation war thing so hard.
This generation war bullshit is 100% manufactured to keep our anger misdirected. It’s not baby boomers screwing over millennials. It’s rich capitalists of every living generation screwing over baby boomers, their parents, gen x-ers, millennials, and gen z-ers all at once and all in different ways.
Bolding and underlining the really important bits.
You may have heard of what happened in Lebanon today and if not, basically, there was a big explosion in Beirut that affected many cities, destroyed shops, homes, cars, caused many injuries and deaths. The cause is uncertain.
As a fellow lebanese myself (that also lives there), today was absolutely terrifying, probably the scariest moments of my life. We heard a deafening sound as the floors were shaking. Some of us thought it was an attack, others thought it was an earthquake. As soon as it ended many expected a second one, which luckily never happened.
Here's a video of what happened that was sent to me, there are also many others that you can find online.
Windows were broken, doors wrecked, cars flipped over, buildings collapsed, people hit by flying or falling objects, and unfortunately, many didn't make it out alive.
We were one of the lucky ones, our families and friends were all safe and our homes were fine.
Some people couldn't even get out of the crumbling builings, so we saw corpses being pulled out, although some people survived the crash. But wherever we looked, there was blood, poeple were half covered in it, their shirts, pants, hair, everything. And that sight was traumatizing.
We watched the news with elders severely injured, children with blood-spattered shirts and people in pain that couldn't get in the hospitals because they were full.
Some people are missing. Just try to imagine the pain and fear their families and friends are feeling.
Articles about what happened, there are a lot more
Officials expect death toll to rise after huge blast rips through Lebanon's capital.
The explosion took place at the port shortly before 19:00 local time (18:00 CET) with a large cloud of smoke billowing over the city. Eyewit
Not only are we in the middle of a pandemic, but Lebanon is also going through a very serious economical crisis. To give you an example, before, $1 equaled 1 500 lebanese pounds. Nowadays, $1 equals more than 7 000 lebanese pounds. Not to mention that we obviously don't have any dollars at disposition, so yeah we're fucked.
People are hungry, homeless, unemployed. And even if they are getting paid, it'll be useless since the prices of everything went up because they were affected by the economical fiasco.
Important additional information
Today, I heard my 7 year old cousins scream in fear that they were going to die. I saw my aunt shaking, worried that her children won't survive. I saw my dad freak out while trying to reassure us when we both knew that we were uncertain about the next minutes of our lives. I heard the panic in the trembling voices of my family and friends as they couldn't believe what had just happened. I thought my loved ones and I were going to die in the next seconds.
I'm never forgetting those moments and feelings.
I don't think signing petitions will help, i don't even know if the following links will help either, I just know Lebanon and it's people are desperate for anything because the future of this country is extremely uncertain.
https://helplebanonnow.carrd.co/
How can you help?
https://lebanoncrisis.carrd.co/
Lebanon Needs You More Than Ever. Know more about the crisis in Lebanon, sign petitions, donate or explore volunteering opportunities.
Help families, domestic workers, and refugees in Lebanon with food and other basic needs during this economic and public health crisis
I think donating to the red cross would be the most helpful, so if you are considering it, it'd be great.
There are so many great threads on twitter about what you can do to help, just search help lebanon or something to find them. Also if you can, please donate, and as I said, the lebanese pound is pretty much worthless currently so USD is way more useful to us.
This is very important, please do not ignore this.
Watch the video till the very end please (the end is when the explosion goes off.)
I live in Lebanon and the fiercest explosion went off in the midst of Beirut today, killing off an ungodly amount of human beings (more and more people are dying as I write this) and injuring up to 5000 people whose cases are immensely critical. Today,, at approximately 6 pm, hospitals were completely torn to shreds, people have been buried underneath fallen buildings, fires have been ignited almost everywhere, blood staining the streets in an excruciating manner, in addition to people that flew and fell to the sea due to the impact of the explosion. And it is certainly worth mentioning the millions upon millions' worth of damages what with buildings and cars and stores. Plenty of people are missing, it's an overall mess that is quite frankly very traumatizing.
What Lebanese people have been undergoing in recent times:
Lebanon has been going through a major economical decline that grows worse and worse by the day. The prices have heightened and the salaries remain the same, scarcely anyone has the capacity of affording basic needs anymore. There has been an unfolding revolution the past year, and the lebanese society has been protesting against the humiliation thrust upon our lives due to our miserable excuse for a government, and though the streets bled with thrashing, screaming citizens fighting for their utmost basic human rights, that caused mere to no change in the way things go around here, in fact, it only made it worse. We're being provided with, metaphorically, a droplet's worth of water and nearly no electricity, a pregnant woman has even passed away recently due to a heat stroke (as there were no means of cooling off)
What caused the setting off of this explosion?
The ignorance, heartlessness, and overall brutality of the government and the people in control.
A critical amount of chemicals (2700 tons of ammonium and other nitrates) were left inside a ship along the port of Beirut, and though the people in charge of this transaction were warned that heat and perspiration have the capability of destroying the whole of Lebanon in ode to a massive explosion, they refused to do anything about it and left the chemicals in there for years on end.
Up until, surprise surprise, the explosion went off and devestated Lebanon almost entirely.
I don't have much followers, and I know that this post isn't going to magically heal what is unfolding in this, priorly gorgeous, magnificent country, but I truly hope with all my heart that you find it within yours to spread awareness on this topic so that it would be more widespread,, so that Lebanon gets the aiding it deserves and the people from outer places slap the 'big bosses' awake, or at least pressure them into resigning, whatever it takes to make this place sufferable, tolerable, somewhere you can picture yourself residing in.
Lebanon is a place of infinite traditions, diversity, creativity, joy, and love. Most of the people here are open-hearted and wholesome. We all deserve far better.
My heart aches for the people that have passed away today, and I shall pray for the ones stuck in hellish suffering.
How do you go on after your mother has been ripped from your arms, taken in shackles to coasts where they would have the last taste of home stripped from their tongues. To be stacked like so many hides waiting to be worked by the master’s hand. Even cattle roam. But to be stacked like things and treated as things. To be sold as things and when broken, thrown away like things, no more regard for life than for weeds.
How could I sleep as I had before? And knowing in my gut that they would come back for me. I would like to think I’d fight to my death. I’d like to think that I would muster all my pride and all my courage and rip out at least one throat before being shot down. Did they have guns then?
Really, the imperative to live surpasses many things, even at times, fear. I think, if I am to be honest with myself then I have to admit I would go quietly. Even in suffering I must live.
It is my resilience, a resilience built out of necessity of the organism under extraordinary stress to continue, that permeates, on the cellular level, every member of the African Diaspora/Unbinding/Misalignment. It is why even now, some xxhundred years since the beginning of our separation from who we were before, we still fight for the most basic blessings; to live lives as rich, honest and diverse as everyone else.
So I reblogged this exactly a week ago because I thought it was funny and uh lo and behold, a family friend wrote me a big ol’ check just to help me out of a tough financial spot AND my bank refunded me $32 for fees they’d originally taken out. SO UH YEAH. Reblogging this again in hopes that it brings equally good fortune to my followers.
"if you need it to live, it should be free"
"if you need it to live, it should be free"
"if you need it to live, it should be free"
"if you need it to live, it should be free"
"if you need it to live, it should be free"
"if you need it to live, it should be free"
"if you need it to live, it should be free"
"if you need it to live, it should be free"
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