Ask a community organiser: can you organise with Fran Drescher as president of SAG-AFTRA even though she's an antivaxxer? On broad based organising versus issue based organising.
I don't have to agree with everyone I build coalitions with on every issue. The point is that I share space or community with them, and they share with me, and we agree to build solidarity with one another despite our disagreements.
This is why I often argue with people I like and respect--and why I take care to note that I like and respect them as human beings even when we conflict. I have done some of my best organizing with people I disagree with, sometimes vehemently, on a number of political points. The organizing works nevertheless because the bonds of respect, and affirmation of the many points upon which we do agree, keeps our working relationship strong.
(I also often ally or advocate with people I don't necessarily like on a personal level. That's fine. I don't need to like someone personally to do good work with them. I just need them to respect me and for their work to be worthy of respect.)
Maids, cleaners, janitors, and sanitation workers are all the most important people of civilization by far. Even 12 hours without them is VERY noticable and they simply need to be highly compensated for it
Hi, I'm a janitor. The facility I work in had its first floor flooded with sewage and while a restoration company came and sucked up all the water and placed fans everywhere to try the place out, I still cleaned the entire floor and threw away all the contaminated furniture. Same thing happened last year, but only a couple of rooms flooded on that floor and it was only water from a sprinkler system. This year was so much worse and I feel like no one in management gives a shit. The entire upstairs was absolutely going to shit because I was focused on the downstairs. Despite the work I do, I have to beg folks to spread around my little bear commission posts every month because I simply can't afford to live on what I'm paid lol
So, truly thanks to everyone who makes and shares posts like these recognizing sanitation workers. It's really a thankless job.
No kill shelters result in animals dumped on the highway and tossed in the river because the rescues wont take them. That’s the part they never tell you.
Meanwhile the spca will take every animal, and if they have to euthanize them at least it will be done kindly and not via neglect or cruelty.
Because people in the notes are not getting this, let me explain:
No-kill shelters TURN AWAY animals. When they’re full - and they often are because most of these no-kill shelters are small - they stop taking them in. While they are “taking their time to find the right homes for every single animal”, many other animals never get in the door. Somehow they don’t count those animals, or track what happens to them. A success for them doesn’t include the ones they turned away. They’re taking their time because they can.
The No-Kills who brag about 100% adoption rates are the worst, because they tend to reject the most. The animals who will be difficult to adopt out? They just don’t take those. Special needs? Too old? If they’re going to be hard to adopt out, they can claim to be full, even if they’re not.
They are telling owners they absolutely cannot take their fifteen year old cat because they are full of litters of kittens. Adorable kittens that will turn over quickly, and boost their adoption numbers. So what happens to the fifteen year old cat? After days of being rejected at the shelters they get dumped on the side of the road somewhere, or worse.
You cannot imagine the VOLUME of animals that a city shelter deals with. The kill shelters are not allowed to turn anyone away. The difficult cases, the special needs, the elderly, the feral. The dog that bites, the cat that pees everywhere. Every animal is going to be taken in and treated with kindness. They are going to be assessed and treated for their fleas and conditions and behavioral problems. They will get their time on the adoption floor. They will get the best chance possible to find a new home. And if it’s not possible, they will be humanely euthanized, and that cage space will go to the next animal who is already waiting for it. It never stops. While you were working on the paperwork to adopt out 1 cat, three people brought in 4 more. It’s a numbers game that you cannot win if you aren’t turning people away.
A lot of times kill shelters get the animals that the no-kill shelters refused to take. Maybe their owners bring them. Or maybe they got literally thrown in the garbage, abandoned, or put in a bag and tossed in the river, when the no-kill shelter said they were full. The police and rescuers will bring these poor injured animals to the city shelter where they will be cared for. The volunteers will spend days and weeks trying to wash the tar out of their fur, or treat their broken bones, or whatever other horrible thing has happened to them. They will feed and house them. They will put most of them in new homes. They will save many many more animals, by orders of magnitude, than a no-kill shelter ever will. A no-kill shelter will brag about dozens or maybe hundreds of adoptions. Kill shelters are dealing in thousands of successful adoptions, and they still have to euthanize because it just isn’t enough. There are just so many animals to take in.
And then, after all this, the No-Kill Shelters get to claim the moral high ground somehow, and self-righteous types will refuse to adopt from the only shelter that takes absolutely everyone. It’s infuriating.
"Butbutbut both parties are CAPITALIST-!!"
YEAH SO YOU GOTTA BASE YOUR DECISION ON WHO GETS TO RUN THINGS BASED ON LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE EACH PARTY STANDS FOR.
A nuclear power plant that became a thriving habitat for endangered crocs shows how conservation can work even in the most human-altered env
Note: Reasons to Be Cheerful has had weirdly huge formatting issues for the past six or so months, so if that version is a mess, this link should work better.
"Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), the Sunshine State’s largest power utility, employs all the people you might expect: electricians, lineworkers, mechanical engineers — and a few you might not. For over 40 years, the company has kept a team of wildlife biologists on staff. Their task? Monitoring the giant carnivorous reptiles that reside in one of the state’s nuclear power plants.
Saving the American Crocodile
What sounds like a low-budget creature feature is actually a wildly successful conservation story. It goes like this: In 1975, the shy and reclusive American crocodile was facing extinction. Over-hunting and habitat decline caused by encroaching development had pushed its numbers to a record low. By 1975, when it was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, there were only 200 to 300 left.
Three years later, in 1978, workers at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant in Homestead, Florida happened upon something that must have made them gasp: a crocodile nest along one of the plant’s 5,900-acre “cooling canals.” Rather than drive the crocs away — perhaps the easiest solution — FPL hired a team of biologists and implemented a Crocodile Management Plan. Its goal was unconventional: provide a suitable habitat for the crocs within the workings of the nuclear power plant, allowing both to coexist.
Over the course of the next 30 years, FPL’s wildlife biologists monitored nests, tagged hatchlings and generally created a hospitable environment for the reptiles. As it turned out, the plant’s cooling canals provided an ideal habitat: drained earth that never floods on which to lay eggs directly adjacent to water. Over the years, more and more crocs made the cooling canals home. By 1985, the nests at Turkey Point were responsible for 10 percent of American crocodile hatchlings in South Florida. In 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the American crocodile’s status from endangered to threatened, singling out FPL for its efforts.
The program continues to this day. To date, biologists have tagged some 7,000 babies born at the plant. In 2021, there were a record-setting 565 crocodile hatchlings at the Turkey Point facility.
"Reconciliation Ecology"
Turkey Point’s efforts are an example of what is known in the conservation world as “reconciliation ecology.” Rather than create separate areas where nature or animals can thrive in isolation from humans, reconciliation ecology suggests that we can blend the rich natural world with the world of human activity. Michael Rosenzweig, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, was a leading force in establishing this concept. The author of Win-Win Ecology: How the Earth’s Species can Survive in the Midst of Human Enterprise, Rosenzweig has pointed out that although human encroachment has typically been considered a threat to biodiversity, the notion that the world must be either “holy” or “profane,” ecologically speaking, is simply not true.
“In addition to its primary value as a conservation tool, reconciliation ecology offers a valuable social byproduct,” writes Rosenzweig in his first chapter. “It promises to reduce the endless bickering and legal wrangling that characterize environmental issues today.”
-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, May 5, 2022. Article continues below. All headings added by me for added readability.
Dr. Madhusudan Katti, an associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, was inspired by Rosenzweig when he did his postdoc at Arizona State. Katti has now been in the field of reconciliation ecology for two decades and teaches classes on the subject. “To me it’s finding solutions to reconciling human development with biodiversity conservation,” Katti says.
This common ground between development and conservation can be consciously planned, like FPL managing a crocodile habitat at a nuclear power plant or the state-sponsored vertical gardens and commercial farms on high-rise buildings in Singapore. Other examples include the restoration of the coral reef around an undersea restaurant in Eilat, Israel, or recent legislation in New York City requiring patterned glass on high-rise buildings, making windows more visible to migratory birds. Other planned examples of reconciliation ecology can be more individually scaled: a rooftop garden in an urban setting, modifying your garden to earn a “backyard bird habitat” certification from the Audubon Society, or even just mowing your lawn less often...
Reconciliation Ecology: Nature's Already Doing It Without Us
But there are countless examples of “accidental” incidents of reconciliation ecology, as well. One of Katti’s favorites is the kit fox of California’s San Joaquin Valley. “The kit fox was one of the very first species listed on the Endangered Species Act,” Katti says. Its decline was caused by habitat loss through agricultural and industrial development, as well as the extermination of the gray wolf population, which led to an increase in coyotes. So kit foxes adapted and moved to new habitats. One of these was the city of Bakersfield, California.
“Bakersfield, surrounded by oil pumps, would be the last place you’d expect to find an endangered species,” Katti says. But researchers think kit foxes have migrated to Bakersfield because they actually have more protection there from predators like coyotes and bobcats. “The kit foxes have figured out that if they can tolerate the human disturbance and live with people, then they are safer from all these other predators,” he says.
Living in the city has led to some interesting behavioral changes. In the wild, for instance, a female kit fox gives birth to her young and raises them by herself in a den. But in the city, researchers have observed multiple females raising their litters together in the same den. “It’s like a form of cooperative breeding,” Katti says. “That wouldn’t happen in the wild.” ...
The Big Picture: How We Think about Conservation
Reconciliation Ecology isn’t just we humans welcoming animals like crocodiles and foxes into our environments, though. It’s also living with nature in a way that most Western societies haven’t done since the Enlightenment. “In recent years, there’s been a recognition that the ‘fortress conservation’ model — keeping nature separated from humans and not thinking of or valuing human-inhabited landscapes — those ideas are outdated,” says Katti.
In fact, in Katti’s classes on reconciliation ecology, he embraces the notion of reconnecting people with their land if they have been unjustly separated from it. “The term reconciliation also applies to all the colonial legacies where both nature and people have been harmed,” Katti says. “For Indigenous communities, the harm done to ecosystems, it’s happened together. So you can talk about addressing both. That’s where a lot of my thinking is at the moment.”
A hopeful version of this sort of reconciliation is happening in California where colleagues of Katti’s who are tribal members are re-introducing “tribal burns” in some areas. Controlled burns have been a part of many Indigenous cultures for millenia, both as a way to prevent devastating forest fires, but also to encourage the growth of certain plants like hazel that are used for basket-weaving and other crafts.
“The notion that people don’t belong there and ‘let nature take care of itself’ doesn’t really work,” Katti says. “That’s the legacy of Western European Enlightenment thinking — a divide between human and nature. That is a real faulty view of nature. People have been part of the ecosystem forever.”
They didn't want to sit through demeaning and bigoted religious services just for a place to sleep. (Church run food banks do this a lot too btw).
They were late and the shelter wouldn't let them in and voided the rest of their allowed stay bc they didn't call and tell the shelter they couldn't make it in before closing.
One of the other people at the shelter got violent/threatened violence and the shelter refused to do anything about it.
One of the SHELTER EMPLOYEES/VOLUNTEERS got violent/threatened violence and the shelter refused to do anything about it.
The shelter refuses to disclose if allergens are in the food they're providing saying, "This is all you're getting, be glad for this much and thank god!"
Shelter refused to believe person is homeless saying, "You are FAR too clean and nicely dressed!"
Maids, cleaners, janitors, and sanitation workers are all the most important people of civilization by far. Even 12 hours without them is VERY noticable and they simply need to be highly compensated for it
Hi, I'm a janitor. The facility I work in had its first floor flooded with sewage and while a restoration company came and sucked up all the water and placed fans everywhere to try the place out, I still cleaned the entire floor and threw away all the contaminated furniture. Same thing happened last year, but only a couple of rooms flooded on that floor and it was only water from a sprinkler system. This year was so much worse and I feel like no one in management gives a shit. The entire upstairs was absolutely going to shit because I was focused on the downstairs. Despite the work I do, I have to beg folks to spread around my little bear commission posts every month because I simply can't afford to live on what I'm paid lol
So, truly thanks to everyone who makes and shares posts like these recognizing sanitation workers. It's really a thankless job.
"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."
"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."
One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.
I think this is something young people in particular are confused about. My dad has always had a slightly off color sense of humor, he always feels the need to privately ask me “boy turned girl or girl turned boy?” if I mention a friend and stress said friend’s pronouns, and yet when we had repair work done in the house and the worker was listening to a podcast discussing the evils of transgender people and how to cleanse society, he went out of his way to contact the owner of the business to discuss his disappointment with that worker’s conduct and stress the negative effect that could have had if there had been trans kids in our home.
Our allies will never be perfect. They will never use the perfect language or have the perfect politics. But we have to appreciate those allies and meet them where they are, especially if they are willing to learn.
I’ll take some random nascar fan calling me a tranny fag while advocating for my rights over some “progressive” with all the right words trying to take my rights away any day.
This this this! I've had much better experiences with blue collar dudes who don't know what words to use for people like me and are clearly a little uncomfortable, than I have with many folks in queer/trans activist spaces. For real.
Making the world better for vulnerable folks isn't about saying exactly the right words or having the correct identity and participating in the correct space. It's about giving a fuck and making a good-faith effort to understand and to help.
The amount of gatekeeping that happens around allyship makes trans people like me less safe by prioritizing conformity over empathy and growth, and turning "safe" communities into weird anxious panopticons. Knock it off.
Yeah quiet quitting is great and all but have you tried chaotic working?
Like. I remember back in my grocery store cashier days I did so much crazy shit.
When WIC (Women, infants, and children voucher program to help low income mothers/families with children) people were in my line I would pretty much know who they were. Before the cards they had to tell us upfront they were WIC and show us their vouchers for what they were allowed to get (it was awful some times. Like. 2 gallons of milk. $4 worth of vegetables etc etc). They’d always have items hanging back, waiting to see what the total was and if they would have to take it off the belt.
I began to place the fruits/vegetables a certain way on the register scale so that like 1/2lbs of grapes read as like .28lbs or something. Then act shocked when I said that they still had X amount of lbs left. They got all their fruit and vegetables.
I think it started to kinda? Catch on to the women? Because I would have the same moms in my line month after month. And even after they switched to the cards (they worked like food stamp cards?) I’d still do the same thing. They were able to get more produce for whatever shitty max amount Indiana gave them.
Abuse the bosses' dollar as much as you can. Give things away for free. Use your work's "Cop/Military Discount" for regular ass people. Let people steal food.
One of the biggest problems for service industry workers is that many forms of direct action, such as Slowdowns, end up hurting the consumer (most of them are also members for the workering class) more than the boss. One way around this is to provide better or cheaper service -- at the boss' expense, of course.
Workers at Mercy Hospital in France, who were afraid that patients would go untreated if they went on strike, instead refused to file the billing slips for drugs, lab tests, treatments, and therapy. As a result, the patients got better care (since time was being spent caring for them instead of doing paperwork), for free. The hospital's income was cut if half, and panic-stricken administration gave in to all of the workers' demands after three days.
In 1968, Lisbon bus and train workers gave free rides to all passengers to protest a denial of wage increases. Conductors and drivers arrive for work as usual, but the conductors did not pick up their money satchels. Needless to say, public support was solidly behind these take-no-fare strikers.
In New York City, I.W.W. restaurant workers, after losing a strike, won some of their demands by heeding the advice of I.W.W. organizers to "pile up the plates, give 'em double helpings, and figure the checks on the low side." /End ID]
