We the People

It's time to wake up. Our planet cannot afford us not to.

[azspot]

Dave Whamond

[destinyrush]

A genuine question - how can you wake up and think to yourself “I’m hella proud to be American”?

[jonghyunkazoo]

Granny: No printer, just fax!

[md-admissions]

I know this is for a kdrama show but like fuck this speaks to the patient population I care for and my frustration with the US right now. 

[bubblegum-pwussay]

This will always ring true

[peniswakt-deactivated20210717]

this may be an Unpopular Opinion (even on tumblr) but like the 8-hour workday is just Too Gotdamn Long

like even sitting in an office for eight hours a day isn’t particularly pleasant (or healthy, as we are beginning to see) but when we’re talking about doing *actual work* for that same amount time it gets pretty fucking brutal

doing literally *anything* (even leisure activities) for eight hours straight tends to be less than enjoyable but when we’re talking about things like construction, landscaping, factory work, and hell, even foodservice and retail, eight hours is a fucking ETERNITY

i might just be a lazy weak-willed bitch but honestly i think i’m not entirely wrong

[tyrannosaurus-rex]

this was being worked towards by leftist labor unions way back in the day after the time of FDRs new deal. people in the 40s and 50s were already starting to realize that we no longer actually needed an 8 hour work day or even a 5 day work week.

even with the comparatively primitive factory tech of the time we were already creating a huge amount of excess production back then and companies were making massive amounts of profit. So it already stood to reason that companies should either let their employees work less and thus each employee could work a shorter shift without lowering the yearly compensation of each employee, or in cases where businesses provide an active service they would shorten the shift but hire more people to cover the necessary operating time. but of course that would mean less money for people at the top so companies fought back hard and we ended up with nixon’s bullshit and so on and now its considered the norm for us to spend the vast majority of our lives doing work that really just amounts to waste. 

[dreamer-of-centipedes]

The IWW realised this and were fighting for it all the way back in the 1930s. This is a take with a lot of historical and theoretical grounding, OP, so you’re standing in good stead.

[aztechnology]

I’d also like to add it’s also been studied and scientifically proven that after 6 hours, we have an extremely noticeable drop in productivity. Sweden saw nothing but benefits from a 6-hour work day, including worker productivity, happiness, and half the amount of sick-leave used when applied to nurses.

https://onlinemasters.ohio.edu/the-six-hour-workday/

[aggrokawaii]

It ceases to be about production and more about subjugation.

[peniswakt-deactivated20210717]

DING DING DING

WE HAVE OURSELVES A WINNER!

[azspot]

“Remind your mad uncles that Vladimir Putin called the fall of the USSR the “greatest tragedy in history.” And we’re supposed to trust Lenin-raised ex-KGB agents turned billionaire mafia oligarchs, because a pussy-grabbing slumlord and his casino-owner pals say so?”

— CONTRARY BRIN

[blackgirloutrage2-blog]

PAY ATTENTION! This is how you weed out the men who deserve your time and the ones that don’t. These dudes are literally telling you who they are, but y'all refuse to listen. Your safety comes first.

[dynastylnoire]

I’m in a FB group where dudes 30 and older were having full tantrums over this post. These are the same guys that admit:

Not deleting nudes post break up

Not believing when women that were sexually assaulted

Not believing sex with a partner that is sleeping is rape

Etc.

Please do not date people that take issue with your protecting yourself.

[adreamdeferred]

i deadass took a picture of my dates license and sent to my homegirls in the gc. and turned on my location. yea you cool but it’s always about me and my safety.

[dandridgegirl]

Men who aren’t trash should already know this is commonplace. One of my last dates even offered to take a picture together for my safety text.

[furbytheminx]

Men who get mad when women try to protect themselves are just telling on themselves, nothing more.

[on-your-knees-darling]

All you people out there talking about “spreading my private information” like you don’t drive around with your liscense plate out there for everyone and their mom to see all day every day. Sit down. Shut up. She didn’t ask for your social security number you absolute acorn. Your plates are public knowledge.

[geekandmisandry]

Anyone who acts like this when you are trying to stay safe at best doesn’t care if you are safe and at worst…doesn’t want you to be.

[berniesrevolution]

[realtalkingpoints]

Senate Democrats look like children right now, shutting the government down to block the President from delivering on a campaign promise.  This is what they are doing. The activist ‘resistance’ movement has taken over the Senate Democrats.  Sad, sad, sad, sad.   Americans can see through this.  Call them out...

[modernslaves]

I forget that there are real people this stupid. You get so used to thinking it's just Russian trolls that when it's your dad or your uncle or even an internet stranger, you have that moment of... Wow.

This is how the orange goblin made it to power.

[lastoneout]

My girl Alex is out here exposing all of the shit that no one says about congress and I am LIVING for it

[gahdamnpunk]

ALL 👏🏾 OF 👏🏾 THEM 👏🏾

[knitmeapony]

This post goes harder than any post has ever gone before.

[thesaltofcarthage]

the sheer amount of Fucks Not Given in these photos is creating a Black Hole Of Ungiven Fucks, sucking in all the bullshit over the Fuck You event horizon and trapping it so the bullshit can’t escape. It’s gorgeous. 

[wilwheaton]

Reminder that the President of the United States is currently an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal lawsuit. It's the sort of thing that should end a presidency, and nobody even talks about it.

[millennial-review-deactivated20]

[dulaut-deactivated20210910]

He needs 2/3 majority vote from the house and senate or through a constitutional convention 2/3 of state legislature he cannot amend it through an executive order alone that’s literally how it’s always worked so…..

[millennial-review-deactivated20]

I’m just going to take this response as an opportunity to riff on the really problematic turn the Trump administration has taken in the last month and why I think this sort of confidence in our institutions is really, really, naive. 

The midterm elections have shown just how far Trump is willing to go to “win”. Specifically, in the last few weeks, the way in which Trump has stoked xenophobia using the caravan, and the way Fox News fell in line, his response to the various assassination threats, and his response to the massacre, have all combined to leave me unsettled in a way that the usual madness of the last few years really hasn’t.  Hopefully I’m wrong, hopefully it’s just a particularly hectic few weeks in an already incredibly hectic political moment, but I’m going to try and spell out why it seems different to me. Different than even Charlottesville, but definitely the same sort of unsettling feeling gripped me in that moment as well. 

First, the caravan, the 3,000 or so immigrants, many women and children, walking thousands of miles in hopes of finding a better life here in the United States. Obviously that’s a rosy and oversimplified picture of the whole thing, but I only offer it as a juxtaposition to the “invading hoard” type language Fox News and Republicans have offered up. This sort of rhetoric is in line with the “rapists and murderers” type stuff the president has offered up his entire campaign. However the way the Republican Party and Republican media has fallen in line with an essentially 100% fabricated narrative, is striking. 

With the exception of Shep Smith, every single Fox Show has discussed the caravan. Consistently they have played Donald Trump’s clip where he insinuates ISIS or the Taliban might be among the migrants. Continually they have had Republican officials opine on “the hoard” (actual words used repeatedly by Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, two of the most watched nightly news figures in the United States). They’ve discussed what diseases these migrants might be harboring (even alluding to leprosy and tuberculosis to really up the foreign spook factor). Combine all of this with the fact the presidential response is to mobilize the military and all the power brokers at the pentagon, including Secretary of Defense James Mattis (generally considered one of the level headed checks on the president) has gone right along with it. 

The rhetoric has always been dehumanizing, but not the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security discussing the potential for shooting migrants at the border dehumanizing. Not the president discussing “massive tent cities” at the border to hold immigrants and their families plus deportees, dehumanizing. Combine that with a direct attachment of this “invading hoard” to Democratic Party officials and figures like George Soros, and we have the next troubling aspect of the whole thing. 

The Squirrel Hill massacre was almost a direct response to antisemitic tropes connecting George Soros to this “invading hoard”. May this guy have snapped at any moment and the timing/target are more coincidental than anything? Sure. Donald Trump wasn’t openly advocating political violence, but opining how “globalists” are paying for “invading hordes” that might harbor “ISIS or the Taliban” to travel to the United States, has consequences. It’s primed people, the president’s supporters, to think this is a literal life and death fight for the country and their families. The fact that it also plays on age old antisemitic tropes adds another troubling parallel to be wary of. It’s not a coincidence or surprising given history that when rhetoric becomes increasingly nationalistic, increasingly “us vs. them” that attacks against Jewish Americans reach a historic peak. 

Any group that can be othered in this environment will be attached to a certain degradation of society Trump supporters feel increasingly inclined to fight against.  And increasingly anyone with left leaning or really just opposite a Trump supporters (the media included) political views of any kind can be othered with ease, which leads to things like the recent spate of assassination attempts.  People feel compelled to mail dozens of pipe bombs to political figures and media outlets which frequently attack the president. This isn’t a coincidence that these sorts of things play out as the national debate has become increasingly apolopytic, that bombs are mailed the same week the president and Fox discuss an “invading horde” and call in the military to “stop it at the border” is not a coincidence.  

The really troubling aspect of all of this is Trump, the Republican Party and media like Fox’s response. They’ve stoked it, they’ve leaned into it, and they exploited it for more power. Trump’s response to the pipe bombs was to not call any of the figures sent bombs, and to lash out at the “Fake News Media” for sowing division in our country. THE VERY SAME WEEK CNN WAS MAILED 3 BOMBS AND CBS ONE. That is not a president sending a message to his supporters that while the political goals they want to achieve are deadly serious, you can’t kill people to get there. That is a president tacitly endorsing the tactic and telling the media, and those opposed to him, they had it coming. Which brings me to my last point, his recent discussion of ending birthright citizenship.  Trump suggested basically unilaterally repealing a constitutional amendment through executive order, is that legal, probably not. But, think about it like the travel ban early in the administration, that wasn’t legal at the end of the day, but a presidents orders are orders and it causes chaos, customs has to stop people until it’s sorted out, and life is incredibly difficult for millions. Trump has the power to repeatedly attempt to justify his actions, to try and push it through, and wreak similar consequences on a much more important issue to his base. It’s going to get messy, people will defend their conception of America, and they’ll do so with the ferocity of a people who genuinely believe their country is being “invaded” by people riddled with leprosy and other exotic diseases. And the birthright citizenship is the perfect issue to serve as a proxy for all that animosity. When people show up to protest birthright citizenship, people who genuinely believe they are defending the country will show up to counter protest. 

Now imagine the rhetorical power of combining the “invading hoard” type language with the citizenship argument. It’s not a coincidence that these two narratives sprung up together. It’s not a coincidence they sprung up before the midterms. And it won’t be a coincidence as they get ratcheted up more and more over the next 2 years heading into 2020. And as the rhetoric heats up, so will his base, and if his reactions are as noncommittal as they have been to recent events. It won’t be surprising when his base starts to see political intimidation as a winning strategy and not a one off consequence of our heated times.  I won’t be that surprised if a few weeks from now we settle back into our new chaotic normal. I also won’t be that surprised if 6 months from now we view the last few weeks as a turning point and heading into 2020 we see increasing bouts of political violence. Trump’s flirting with very dangerous forces and our institutions can’t contain them, they won’t contain them, and if you expect a 2/3rds majority of congress to protect you when millions of Americans feel they are being invaded and fight back, I hope it works out for you. 

[politicalsci]

[wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva]

Listen, in the build-up to the Civil War, one of the most powerful political forces in the United States was a trend toward moderation that advocated for a moderate amount of slavery, and they saw the abolitionists who wanted zero slavery to be “just as bad” as the planters and fire-eaters who wanted slavery everywhere.  This is the “house divided” that Lincoln was talking about; a movement that “rejected extremism on both sides” so that we would have medium slavery.

As it is, so it ever was.

[mnemonicpneumaticknife]

Reading what people wrote about slavery back then had a big impact on me.  It was all too familiar how it was justified. 

[wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva]

And liberals are perpetually trying to justify this stance with, “Oh, that was just the way things were back then, don’tcha know,”

and I’m just staring at them like

[ourspecial]

“John Brown having none of your shit” needs to be used more often as a reaction image on this site. 

[wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva]

Every single depiction of the man looked like a meme template, even

[prettykikimora-deactivated20250]

[wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva]

[elfwreck]

Worth keeping in mind: when John Kelly said the civil war was started over a “lack of compromise,” he’s trying not to admit, “the South refused to compromise on the idea that slavery should be legal everywhere.” 

The abolitionists were not a strong, solid majority. They were the extremists, the people saying “burn it all down” was better than a partial fix. And most white people (y’know, the only people who could vote) were content with “we could have SOME slavery, just… there should be limits.”

The South refused to accept limits. That’s the “lack of compromise” that kicked off the Civil War.

When some asshole Nazi wannabe tells you “look, both sides have some valid opinions; we should have more compromise,” know that what he really means is, “YOU should compromise; I should have the right to be as vicious as I want to anyone I wish.” And the people actually advocating for compromise? Again, they mean, “the bigots have been a big part of our history and we need to keep making them feel welcome. Their targets need to accept the gains they’ve gotten, and shut up about actually getting equality.”

So fuck compromise. Compromise only works when you’re starting from equal positions.

[thecheshirecass-deactivated2018]

I don’t remember EVER learning about this dude, so I went to Wikipedia and this one sentence really resonated:

Historian James Loewen surveyed American History textbooks and noted that historians considered Brown perfectly sane until about 1890, but he was generally portrayed as insane from about 1890 until 1970.

[thecheshirecass-deactivated2018]

Also I want to know if he ever had a grand, flowing beard like that or if the artist was like “No, he absolutely NEED a Moses beard. NEEDS IT.”

[nightshade-victorian]

there is no compromise when it comes to equality and freedom

[evilrashida]

military worship in this country is out of fucking control

[daneedelion]

excuse me?

[evilrashida]

military worship in this country is out of fucking control 

[high-shawty-deactivated20180326]

Yea you’re right, we shouldn’t honor the people willing to risk their life to save ours and defend our country … oh

[evilrashida]

Military worship in this country is out of fucking control

[cadimonsignal]

I’m in the military and yes it’s out of fucking control. Most of the people I know in the military feel the same way. You civilians need to calm the fuck down. Most of us joined in our teens or early twenties. For a lot of us it was because we needed a job, and we didn’t see any other options, and this job has good benefits, especially for an uneducated young person in America. We get healthcare and education!! That’s some tempting fucking fruit. But this is a JOB. Some people in the military become heroes, that’s true. Jumping on grenades, defusing bombs, dragging a wounded person from the middle of a firefight. They usually end up dead in the process. Those people deserve respect, in my opinion. They give their lives for their friends, no matter whether or not you agree with the policies that put them there in the first place. But a lot of people in America reflexively claim that everyone in the military is a hero, full stop. This isn’t true and it lets people look the other way when something is actually wrong in the military, because it’s the military, they’re heroes, they can do no wrong.

We’re doing a job, and a lot of us are never really put in harm’s way. I work in a climate controlled lab for 8 hours a day, for instance. Really grueling. Such a hero. This fawning lip service of an infallible military doesn’t do us any good. I know people who have bought into it, who have heard so many people tell them that they’re heroes that they actually believe it, and they are the stupid and dangerous ones. Joining the military does not make you a hero, and calling us heroes might make you feel all warm and fluffy and red white and blue but it doesn’t do anything for the people that end up on the streets with PTSD or come home with life-changing injuries or in a box. We’re human beings, not some concept that you can just mindlessly adulate and then feel better about yourself.

[im-a-deceptikhan]

☝️🏽☝️🏽☝️🏽☝️🏽

[acquaintedwithrask]

oh boy just in time for the 4th of July

[ladyshinga]

Speaking as a disabled veteran: it’d be one thing if the fucking hero worship MEANT ANYTHING. But it’s a bunch of empty loud words about how Brave and Noble everyone in the military is (nah some of us are assholes) and then when it comes to, oh I don’t know, paying a soldier enough to feed their family without food stamps, or giving disability compensation without a NIGHTMARE fight with the country that claims to “care” so much. Plus the whole “sending us off to kill other people to make rich men richer while innocents die for it” thing. It’s not “defending freedom” to shove our troops into everyone’s business in countries that happen to have oil and such Military worship isn’t only annoying, it’s a hollow lie that’s basically dangerous to everyone

[wilwheaton]

“The Trump administration’s framing of the Central America asylum seeker crisis is that they must engage in the mass detention of children (either separated or with their parents) because that’s the only way to ensure compliance with the law. And it is true that if they subjected asylum seekers to a less intrusive monitoring regime while they await their hearings, probably some people will simply not show up for their day in court. This demand that the system be made foolproof underlies the rhetoric of “zero tolerance” as well as the demands for an impenetrable physical barrier on the border and much of the White House’s other thinking on immigration policy. Perfect enforcement is not, however, a standard that we apply to any other area of the law. Stealing bicycles is, for example, illegal. And the illegality of bicycle theft almost certainly has practical benefits in terms of increasing the security of people’s property. That said, it’s also clear that bikes are getting stolen and people are getting away with it and the government isn’t really doing much about it. The penalties for bicycle theft are not especially severe, and few police resources are dedicated to catching bicycle thieves. That doesn’t mean we have an “open bicycles” regime, that personal property in bicycles is a myth, that roving gangs of bicycle thieves are operating in the open, or that laws against stealing bikes are pointless. It simply means that in the scheme of things, bicycle theft is not that big a deal and pouring more and more resources into addressing the problem isn’t worthwhile. The White House consistently tries to raise the stakes on immigration enforcement by bringing up the fact that some small share of unauthorized immigrants murder people. They harp away at this even though immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than natives, and even though cities with more immigrants have less crime rather than more. And it’s true, obviously, that some people who break immigration laws go on to later break the law against murder. By the same token, some people who steal bicycles later go on to commit murders. But nobody thinks a “zero tolerance” regime for bicycle theft would be a good way to prevent murders.”

—

The pernicious myth of “open borders” | Trump is obsessed with a wild mischaracterization of the status quo that fuels extremism.

A longer read that is worth your time. We are being presented with a false choice on immigration and borders.

[seefin-deactivated20200207]

capitalism has honestly somehow managed to make buying a pencil case that says feminist on it into a political statement?? it’s so evil and insidious and it’s tricking people into thinking that just saying you’re a feminist is in any way equivalent to actually working to dismantle power structures within society that disempower and marginalise women. buying a notebook or a coffee cup doesn’t do shit!! and it fucking kills me that a whole bunch of straight white middle class women think that wearing a girl power t-shirt they bought for $40 from h&m is what female empowerment looks like. They don’t encounter racism or homophobia or classism in a way that has a direct negative affect on their lives, and the way feminism is sold makes it seem as though a feminist t-shirt slogan and being a fucking “girlboss” is an effective way to deal with the institutionalised sexism they do encounter. No deeper thought or exploration is necessary. Individual, personal empowerment and success/wealth within a capitalist society is somehow what feminism means to a lot of people, and what that empowerment often looks like is literally the ability to buy shit plastered with feminist slogans….it’s so fucked up….like women are just skipping the part of feminism that’s about politics and going straight to the part where they say they’re a feminist by way of products that tell people they’re a feminist