Other Stuff

Politics and Other Stuff that interests and depresses me.

[firstgrave]

[theselittlefeelings]

1. The Republican Party turns out for EVERY vote. Primaries, local elections, midterms, you name it. Most dems show up once every four year and then get defeatist when things don’t immediately change. It took the Republicans YEARS to overturn RvW but it has been a long game goal of theirs. YEARS of voting, and you’re gonna opt out after one vote. Okay.

2. Primaries are when you vote for who you want. Elections are when you vote for who you can. If you’re not voting in the primary, you’re letting the moderate centrist do-nothing candidate win.

3. Local elections affect your daily life. That sherif in Texas who is refusing to enforce the abortion ban? Local election. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, so much of this is trickle up from local politics.

4. Call your damn representatives. Even if it feels hopeless. The gun control reform that just passed (as minimal as it is) was bipartisan because people showed their reps that they wanted change. Get vocal as a voter and prove courting your vote matters.

5. If someone in your area is running for office and needs votes, be a signature for them. Not everyone can afford to pay to run. You want to support better candidates, put your name behind them (only in your district and always read what you’re signing first).

6. The two party system is shit. We know that. But the democrats are a big tent housing a lot of different opinions and trying to cater to them all. Republicans are generally united in one mission of dismantling everything and protecting only their own. This is also why Dems don’t have the same type of “super majority” and can’t easily whip the same voting results. And anyone who thinks Obama had a super majority for enough time to codify roe does not understand politics. He had about 18 days of actual in-session time, split into two different sessions.

7. Purity politics isn’t going to get you anywhere. The candidate is a bus stop getting you closer to where you want to be. They’re not the end goal, and a smart voter knows that.

8. Voter suppression is huge in America. Help other voters register and get to the polls. It’s not always indifference keeping people from voting. Do something to help disenfranchised voters.

Let me repeat: The two party system is shit. We need to get rid of the electoral college. We need ranked choice voting. We need to get rid of Citizens United. Our country is an oligarchy. Always has been. Not denying that. But Living in these ideals of what we should be without creating any change now isn’t going to get you anywhere. Being defeatist and abstaining from the process is cutting off your own nose to spite your face. Its saying “the other team is scoring too many goals, so instead of playing, I’m just gonna sit on the sidelines. That’ll teach everyone.” No, you’re just gonna keep losing. Maybe, instead, vote in the primaries and choose better teammates.

Y’all kill me with these “hot takes.” They ain’t even half baked.

Now, if you want to talk about the other things we should be doing IN ADDITION TO voting, like general strikes, organizing, etc. Then that’s a different conversation we should also be having.

[liberalsarecool]

Abolish for-profit health care insurance.

[corporationsarepeople]

So RFK Jr says he’s planning to run for President as a Democrat, perhaps to emulate his Uncle Ted’s “success” against Carter. Here he is with a few of his supporters.

You probably know treason weasel Michael Flynn & ratfucker Roger Stone, but the woman in the photo is Charlene Bollinger, in case she’s unfamiliar to you. She and her husband Ty are anti-vax profiteers who sell a fake cure for cancer.

Sometimes the apple falls a long way from the tree, rolls down the hill, across the road, and into a leech-infested swamp.

[saywhat-politics]

Florida school bans Ruby Bridges movie after one parent complains

Florida school bans Ruby Bridges movie after one parent complains

A Florida elementary school removed a Disney movie about Ruby Bridges after a parent complained about scenes of white people threatening the Black girl as she entered school.

Emily Conklin, development director for the YMCA of Greater St. Petersburg, filed a formal challenge dated March 6 complaining that the film about a 6-year-old who integrated New Orleans schools in the 1960s was not appropriate for second graders because, she wrote, students might learn that white people hate Black people, and the Pinellas County School Board pulled it from the curriculum, reported the Tampa Bay Times.

“Think about it: A 6-year-old girl (Ruby Bridges) can go to school every day with armed guards, but second graders can’t learn about it?” said Ric Davis, president of Concerned Organization for Quality Education for Black Students. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

The 1998 film had been part of Black History Month lessons for years without controversy, but parents across the state have been challenging materials that depict or explore racism and LGBTQ issues with the encouragement of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican legislators.

[saywhat-politics]

Just let this photo from today sink in. This is America. This is our country. This is what children & young people have to deal with. How is this okay? We deserve so much better.

[vintageanchorbooks]

A History of Banned Books: http://www.shortlist.com/entert…/…/a-history-of-banned-books

[politishaun-deactivated20230409]

Israeli military reservists refuse to train in protest at far-right government

Growing numbers including from elite air force squadron say they are unwilling to serve ‘dictatorial regime’

Growing numbers of Israel’s military reservists, including members of its most important air force squadron, are refusing to attend for service, an unprecedented step that comes as part of the protest movement against the country’s new far-right government.

In an announcement on Sunday, all but three of the 40 reservist pilots in Israel’s elite 69 Squadron said they would not take part in a training exercise later this week, and instead participate in widespread public protests, claiming they were not prepared to serve a “dictatorial regime”.

The F-15I pilots are a strategically crucial squadron capable of flying long-range missions, raising immediate questions about the Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) operational competence. Security officials are reportedly also worried about refusals to obey orders and insubordination within the serving military’s ranks as opposition to plans by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to limit the judiciary’s powers increases across swathes of Israeli society.

Israel’s army and air force chiefs of staff were due to meet reserve pilots – who regularly serve in operational roles – on Tuesday following the threat not to report for training. Meanwhile, El Al, the national airline, was forced to clarify that a flight scheduled to carry Netanyahu to Italy for a state visit later this week would go ahead as planned after reports crew members had refused to staff the flight.

“It is inconceivable for me that I would ever do something like this. I was in the air force for 31 years: 16 of those were under Netanyahu, even though I never voted for him,” said Omer Denk, a 51-year-old F-15 fighter jet navigator who retired from active service in 2022.

“This isn’t about politics or policy. This is about a crisis in trust in a leadership that wants to destroy Israel as a liberal democracy.”

Among the proposals advanced by the most radical members of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition are bills that would allow politicians to appoint all supreme court judges, and an override clause that would mean a simple parliamentary majority could quash the court’s rulings. The changes would probably help the prime minister avoid prosecution in his corruption trial, in which he denies all charges.

Proponents of the changes believe they are needed to counter a perceived leftwing bias in the court’s decisions, while critics say they will lead to democratic backsliding such as that seen in Hungary and Turkey.

The planned overhaul has led to the biggest protest movement in Israel’s history, with hundreds of thousands of people marching in several cities over the last two months. The protests turned violent last week, with police deploying stun grenades and water cannon.

Sectors that would never normally get involved in politics, such as economists, Israel’s booming hi-tech sector, and former high-ranking military and intelligence leaders, have all voiced opposition to the judicial plans.

“When the government calls us anarchists and agitators it doesn’t work … the people out on the street, some of us carry the state on our shoulders. I don’t think the leaders understand how bad the crisis is,” Denk said.

Speaking at a ceremony marking the Jewish holiday of Purim on Monday night, Netanyahu called the reservists’ vow not to report for duty unacceptable and an “existential” threat. Over the weekend, he posted a photograph of his military ID to social media, along with the caption: “When we’re called for reserve duty, we always turn up. We are one nation.”

Reservists are an important part of the Israeli military, often called up for as many as 60 days a year even in peacetime. While groups from critical units such as pilots and intelligence operatives have threatened not to serve in the past over issues such as disengagement from the Gaza Strip and the second Lebanon war, there have never been boycotts on this scale before.

Former military officials have voiced concerns that the proposed judicial changes could expose them to international prosecution. Israel is not a member of the international criminal court, arguing that its own legal system adequately investigates accusations of wrongdoing by the armed forces. Palestinians and rights groups have long said that the very low number of indictments in Israeli investigations amounts to little more than whitewashing of the occupation.

[ms-cellanies]

Three days. 10 mass shootings. More than 50 victims. US sees worst weekend of 2023.

The U.S. witnessed ten mass shootings over the weekend, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. Many of the victims were children and teens.

Screw the 2nd Amendment - a “well regulated” militia?  Absolute bull$hit.

[whenweallvote]

On March 2, 1955, Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

As police officers dragged her from the bus, she shouted again, and again, “It’s my constitutional right.” She was jailed and charged with violating segregation laws, disturbing the peace and assaulting a police officer. She pleaded not guilty, but was convicted.

Colvin’s act of protest happened 9 months before Rosa Parks famously sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, but Colvin’s age and lack of experience in the civil rights movement rendered her act of bravery and defiance all but forgotten in the telling of civil-rights history.

𝗪𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆.

[seymour-butz-stuff]

And under DeSantis’s America, learning about her would be illegal.

[ms-cellanies]

Here’s a link to the NPR story about Claudette Colvin:  https://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/101719889/before-rosa-parks-there-was-claudette-colvin

[azspot]

[saywhat-politics]

Fox chief Rupert Murdoch said network aired 2020 election conspiracies for the money: court documents

Fox chief Rupert Murdoch said network aired 2020 election conspiracies for the money: court documents

New court documents from the lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News were released on Monday, revealing even more details about the head of the network allegedly prioritizing money over truth.

[saywhat-politics]

'You are not a militia': David Hogg’s Second Amendment tweet causes conservative heads to explode

'You are not a militia': David Hogg’s Second Amendment tweet causes conservative heads to explode

Although David Hogg lives in a state that finds itself dominated by Republicans in 2023, the 22-year-old Floridian has become one of the United States' best-known gun control activists. Hogg is a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre that occurred in Parkland, Florida on Valentine's Day 2018, and he has often used social media to speak out about gun control and the mass shootings that are so common in the United States.

Hogg addressed gun control once again in a Twitter thread posted on February 26, noting what the U.S. Constitution has to say about militias. And it didn't take right-wing Republicans long to become enraged by his comments.

Hogg posted, "You have no right to a gun. You are not a militia. When you're talking about your second amendment rights, you're talking about a state’s right to have what is today the National Guard. The modern interpretation of 2A is a ridiculous fraud pushed for decades by the gun lobby."

[bowlby4]

[liberalsarecool]

Republican policies destroy prevention and make every situation worse.

[saywhat-politics]

[liberalsarecool]

Freedom FROM guns.

[saywhat-politics]

[saywhat-politics]