Context: This is a grocery store in the town of Black Mountain, NC, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene. The police will not let anyone in to get food or clean water or even baby formula and diapers, not even if they have cash to pay. This is being framed as "stopping looters". This is apparently the best thing the cops have to do with their time, during a widespread emergency.
The store has no power - the food will rot anyway.
Its not just money or campaign donations, it's that Boeing is so deeply integrated into the American state's military industrIal complex that it's basically impossible to seriously penalize them
I have a family friend who worked at our local Salvation Army headquarters as a a secretary. This particular office took all the Christmas donations for children in need, put them in a warehouse, and on a designated day the staff and their friends picked through them all, taking whatever they wanted. She saw people hauling away bikes donated for specific families. Some local children had hundreds of dollars of gifts donated in their name, and on Christmas they received three cheap things, items likely not even from the person who sponsored them.
My friend quit, and I’ve not given them a dime of my money since then.
I deal with a lot of agencies who provide disaster relief.
I used to say the Salvation Army’s disaster services were the one (literally the ONE) good thing they did.
They would come in, set up a canteen trailer, make and pass out hot coffee and donated food in a disaster, usually being one of the first agencies to get there and the last to leave.
Then I found out.
Every time they did this, regardless of if they were actually invited or deployed by the agency in charge (usually FEMA, sometimes others) they would SELF-DEPLOY. Meanjng they would just show up. Ok. That’s not TOO bad, sometimes agencies have to take initiative and get there before the red tape is sorted out. BUT. They, after they left at the end of the incident, they would send FEMA or the host agency a BILL. They used one or two paid employees (usually the driver of the truck and a supervisor); and many VOLUNTEERS, but they would bill for EVERYONE’s Labor at standard federal rates. They would bill for the food they distributed even though it was all donated by another agency or private parties. They would bill for the coffee they made and the supplies. Except they would use electricity from the shelter location, water from donations or from the shelter, and in many cases, they would get the coffee and industrial filters DONATED, but bill for them at retail prices.
The Salvation Army is also ass to the workers. A good number of people join it, naively thinking that it’s doing good, and end up leaving cynical and beaten down. The management is hostile, if not outright abusive, and demand some ridiculous hours of it lower to mid-level staff. Don’t support these people.
Also just for even more horrific context on the original twitter thread?
Salvation Army reached out to Milknmuffins and asked what shelter she’s at with the promise to address the abuse in it. She…ended up saying where she was. She was thrown out onto the street. It’s also all on Twitter.
They invited her to a personal talk so she could explain the situation in person.
And then they threatened her with a screenshot of a rape-threat made supposedly by her:
And then threw her out into the street while claiming she broke house rules that
So yeah, the Salvation Army is a bunch of entitled assholes that will treat the most vulnerable like shit if they dare try to do anything that makes them look bad
The “Fuck Salvation Army” posts are making the rounds again, so conisder this your reminder:
Do. Not. Give. These. Assholes. A. Single. Fucking. Penny.
My wife Farah and I once had a dream home in Gaza, filled with hope. But the war destroyed everything. We lost our jobs, our apartment was bombed, and we were left with only debt.
We married quietly amidst the chaos, and since then, we've been forced to move between shelters and tents, always uncertain and struggling for basic needs. Now, we share a small rented house with other families, still living in fear of what might come next.
This video shows the details of our story; I kindly ask you to watch it and support us
Despite it all, we hold onto hope.
Vetted by @gazavetters, Number (#42) on this list
Vetted by association in this post
To donate 👇🏻👇🏻
Mohanad and Farah: Our Dreams Reduced to Rubble
My name is Moha… Mohanad Abu tahoun needs your support for Rebuilding After loss: Your Supp
I used to be *good* at search. It was a whole thing - I found people's "lost songs" or their unknown-source childhood stuffed toy or whatever from Google.
Now, you can't search for the exact brand/design name of something and get accurate answers. It drives me spare on Amazon - if I search for XYZ and you don't have any, or you only have 2, tell me that.
I wouldn't mind if it said "Here are 2 XYZ. Shoppers also searched for..." Instead it'll just throw a random, barely-linked pile of results and you have to wade through every single one to see if the thing you want exists.
THIS. For ages I used to say that I had "high Google-Fu". I could find *anything* because I knew how to use strings to enhance searches. The string commands haven't even worked for well over a year or more, far before they put in this infernal (and often wrong!) AI BS on top.
I used to be able to search for recipes and easily eliminate unwanted ingredients with a -. For example I'd look for low-carb desserts but without the zillions that use peanut butter simply by searching for something like:
low carb chocolate dessert recipe -peanut
And I'd get a slew of on-point suggestions. For some time now if you do -peanut Google ignores the - and assumes you want recipes stuffed with peanuts.
Where it's even worse now is now you get directed to sites full of bogus AI recipes that don't even make sense. But they have peanuts in them.
I used to be able to use reverse image searches to find out who made that awesome art so I could give credit in my share. They've removed that ability entirely and replaced it with Lens, which is AI BS just showing you more like what you looked for. (Rebecca Watson complained about this in her recent video about JD Vance jizz cup rumours and I apologise for that sentence but...yeah. Watson is great, go find her on Youtube and subscribe because she went into detail about how Google has become less and less useful for debunking.)
This isn't just about Google inserting shopping ads instead of what you wanted to learn about. That's bad. But the results now are just *broken*. The tools we used to have to make searches better have been removed. Google no longer wants us to find the answers we seek, but the answers they want us to have, and that's super creepy and dangerous.
And the alternatives are either using Google in the back end or have other significant barriers to use.
Do them a favor as the first anniversary of their death approaches
On Sunday morning, 10/8/2023, my sister's family apartment was targeted with three Israeli missiles, destroying the house over the heads of its owners without warning. My sister, her husband, and her four children (Omar, Ghada, Batoul Hamoud), who were no older than 12 years old, were martyred...
This family was completely erased from the civil registry. There was no trace of them left. We were deprived of their laughter and their presence among us in our family.
This is a video and photos showing the first moments of their rescue(Click here) or (Click here)
(Nadhir,the father and my sister's husband): A competent and experienced laboratory doctor who always sought to help people.
(Enas, the mother, my sister): A graduate with honors from the Faculty of Education, Department of Arabic Language. She was a teacher and educator for generations. She loved her family and always sought excellence for herself and her children.
Omar: The eldest son is 12 years old. He dreamed of being a soccer player with high skills in swimming and computer games.
Ghada: The first daughter is 10 years old. She dreamed of being a teacher like her mother. Her hobby is handicrafts
Batoul: The second daughter (the princess of the family) is 8 years old. She was She wants to be a fashion designer because of her love for Barbie, drawing and colors
Ahmed: The youngest son is one year old and has just started walking
They were all killed by the Israeli occupation, their dreams and their innocent childhood were killed These may be my last words, the war has not stopped yet and the genocide against us is still happening. I do not know when this usurping entity will stop, maybe when they kill us all.
This link is our last hope. I am just trying to help the rest of my family members.
Every dollar will make a difference in protecting them.
Tamer Shaaban is raising money to help his family get out of Gaza because the … Chris C Magson needs your support for Help Tamer and his fam
Notes:
My campaign is verified by @moayesh
I'm friends @nesmamomenn her campaign verified by (@\sayruq @\nabulsi @\el-shab-hussein @\appsa @\ibtisams)
Today is october 7th officially marking 365 days, 1 year, of the most well recorded genocide in history; of an occupation of a people which has been ongoing for 76 years. An entire year of constant israeli bombardment. Hundreds of thousands killed and missing. All the while, the people with the most power to stop the genocide continue to support and defend the politicians carrying out the slaughter.
Yet, it is also a year since the Palestinian resistance definitively proved to the world that israel is not only not the all-knowing state entity many believed nor that they were invincible or undefeatable. Over the course of the year, the resistance and its allies in Lebanon and Yemen have handed out defeats to not just israel but the west lead by the united states as well proving that those institutions and militaries are not invincible.
In israel itself, tens of thousands of bsuinesses are closing or have closed; its ports are under blockade; the settlers are fighting amongst themselves or leaving; it is a settler colony beginning to buckle under the simultaneousforces of its internal contradictions and of the Palestinian resistance. No doubt the struggle for liberation and against settler colonialism will continue until all the contradictions are resolved just as it were it rhodesia and south africa.