hello vonnie
we're not kids anymore.
blake kathryn
will byers stan first human second
gracie abrams
trying on a metaphor
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Noah Kahan
★
@theartofmadeline
titsay
KIROKAZE
roma★
cherry valley forever
shark vs the universe
almost home
Today's Document
JVL
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
taylor price
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@theinkstainedlady
DISCLAIMER: DO NOT VOTE IF YOU'RE A FURRY ALREADY, I AM POLLING THE NOT-FURRIES ON THIS WEBSITE
Pick a fursona!
Canine (and Caniforme)
Feline (and Feliforme)
Primate
Ungulate (yes, even a Whale)
Rodent or Lagomorph
Some other Mammal
Lizard or Snake
Bird, Dinosaur, or Crocodilian
Fish or Amphibian
Arthropod
Mythical Creature
Other!
This is for people of Israel/anyone who supports Israel/anyone who wants to stay "neutral" about this genocide, remember that this is how your fav "defenders/heroes/government servants are supposed to be responsible" are talking about innocent Palestinians civilians:
If you choose not to speak on this matter, if you choose to not speak up for Palestinians, then be well assured, 100% guaranteed that what's happening in Palestine can (and will if you let Israel get away with MASS MURDER) also just as easily happen to you, and then there will be other people who would stay "neutral" and silent on this matter.
If you think that the reason you're not taking sides is because you don't really know the situation that well, then EDUCATE yourself. It is your responsibility, as a fucking human, to do your research to stop and prevent such atrocities from being committed.
(I know, I FUCKING KNOW I have at least a few dozen followers from Israel/support Israel/ZIONISTS who are reading this and I know that your eyes may be blind, but your hearts aren't. Don't be a hypocrite, and don't be ignorant)
Israeli official calls for 'doomsday' nuclear strike on Gaza that will 'shake Middle East'
To be clear, we have only been able to get this news because these workers just got deported to Gaza on Nov 3 after weeks of being rounded up, imprisoned, and tortured after Oct 7. They arrived back with severe bruises, injuries, and the numbered tags pictured above. Their personal belongings including money and cellphones were also confiscated and never returned. The injured workers were forced to return to Gaza on foot and at least one returned in a body bag.
Despite there being over 18,000 permits issued to Gazan workers at the time, it is unclear how many were present on the day of the attacks, and only around 10,000 workers have been released. Israeli human rights groups are describing a total blackout surrounding the information on detained Palestinians. Israeli officials revealed, on the condition of anonymity, that there were no indications at this point that the workers had any role assisting Hamas in its onslaught.
AP MEE
"assigned numbers" hey uhhhhh jesus christ
it goes against so much of what i stand for to share "palestinians are humans, they have hobbies, they have pets, they laugh and cry" kind of posts because i've spent so much of my life and career completely rejecting the notion that we should humanize ourselves, that we should ever be defensive, that we should entertain this racism at all
but it breaks my heart when i have to share them from people in gaza, who are using their five minutes of internet connection, their 25% of battery charge collected from a macguyvered car battery, emotionally exhausted, thirsty and hungry, sleeping in schools that have turned into refugee shelters and still making the time to say "please, i am human too, i am still alive, please fight for me" in english to appeal to the only people who have the power to help
i shared a tweet from a jjk artist in gaza i follow about a bts photocard being found in the middle of the rubble. even the love of anime and kpop and sports is no longer just a hobby, but an appeal to humanity. what was once a source of joy is now proof of life.
the worst part is that you won't find this content in arabic. palestinians don't post like this in arabic. but when they translate themselves, they recognize that they must humanize themselves first. it's an unspoken understanding of dehumanization, one that has dictated a whole region's understanding of the value of human life. in arabic they speak with dignity, with anger, with sorrow. in english, they appeal for their existence.
i share these posts not just because we have to reach everyone we can, because im being asked to and i will not refuse. but i also share them because they're evidence of how deep the racism has run. at what dehumanization leads to. of war crime after war crime. this too i will not forget.
Hamas has no reason to attack US citizens as polls show the public is becoming increasingly pro Palestine the longer this conflict goes on. Also Hamas is very busy currently fighting a guerilla war against the IDF inside the Gaza Strip.
Haha come on the US would never stage something like that.
The US government
Would never
Do something
Like orchestrating
an act of terror
On their own soil
The Palestinian Ministry of Health released a full report with names, ages and IDs of those who were killed – maybe at least in part as a fuck you to Western media and the US president who suddenly cast doubt on the number of fatalities. Over 7000 people died. Whole families wiped out forever. It's beyond comprehension. May their memory be eternal.
The decision to release the names was made in explicit response to the skepticism of US admin:
The Ministry of Health announcement is here, and ends with a link to the 212 page pdf [both in Arabic]
Haven't heard from family in days. I feel like it's time to accept they're gone. I know in my heart Palestine will, one day, be free, but it wasn't supposed to be like this.
We feared another Nakba, and it happened. 700,000 pushed out of their homes in 1948 to 1 million being forced to leave their homes in 2023.
We thought it couldn't get worse or more deadly than the Israeli invasion in 2014, and it happened. We lost 2,251 people in 50 days then. Now we're past 2,300 in one week.
What I heard most from my grandmother the first days it's that "this time is different". And I feel like a rock is crushing my heart in pieces because i've been hoping that speaking out, teaching people about the historical oppresion of Palestine would help but it's not helping. Nothing is changing.
I feel like I'm screaming into a void. There's some sympathy from people online, until I see content documenting Palestinian oppresion being flagged as 'hate speech' or check the comments of any updates on Gaza and it's: "blame it on hamas", "tell them to give up hamas", "the hamas asked for it". They're not even among civilians!!!!!
My heart feels full seeing the manifestations in favor of Palestine, then I see police forces breaking protests apart and remember that the people that can actually save Gaza don't care.
If there's nothing left to do but to watch the extermination of my people, then I'm going to beg for anyone reading this to please don't forget. Please.
Israel is hiding behind Judaism to commit genocide against Gaza. Netanyahu supported the Hamas militant group to prevent the establishment of the Palestine State, and now he's using them to justify his agenda of ethnic cleansing. He abandoned Israelis and left them to die because he cares more about seeing Gazans dead!
Every single person and institution supporting and financing Israel is complicit. I hope the deaths of every Palestinian haunts you for the rest of your lives and that you never find an ounce of forgiveness, for you do not deserve it.
Just as in the Iraq War, the US government is financing and cheering for the slaughter of millions of innocent Arab lives. The media is complicit by engaging in biased propaganda and other nuclear powers, such as the UK and Germany, are complicit too. You are fascists and war criminals and every drop of Palestinian blood is in your hands. I hope every single day, for the rest of your lives, you look in the mirror and see nothing but the blood you've helped spill.
This serves as yet another proof that not a single Western in a position of power, be it in the media or in government, sees Arabs as humans beings.
For decades, the US has comitted terrorism and crimes against humanity in the Middle East and has NEVER been held accountable. Over one million in Iraq; over 150,000 in Afghanistan; and now they'll turn Gaza into a graveyard. Punishing selected soldiers over the years does not erase the fact that the American military and its government validates their crimes during execution and are never punished for it.
Please never forget: Joe Biden is a genocidal terrorist, Rishi Sunak is a genocidal terrorist, the American Democrat Party and UK's Labour Party are led by genocidal terrorists, the European Union is led by genocidal terrorists, fuckass Walt Disney Company is led by genocidal terrorists; every celebrity that called for Palestinian death or stood by silently while ignoring our suffering is a genocidal terrorist.
May Allah protect the people in Palestine and grant the martyrs the highest level of Jannah. Wallah what keeps me here is knowing that the Akhirah is theirs. May Almighty Allah grant us imaan and Taqwa as high as the people of Gaza. Ameen.
wheelchairs and canes and glasses and hearing aids and every single other mobility aid should be free btw and if you disagree i hate you
It has been hard for me to talk about how what is going on with Israel and Palestine is affecting me personally, but I grew up in Gaza and most of my family still lives there. My father did not survive the bombings last week and I have not been able to contact my younger sister in days. I am try to being understanding that most people do not have personal connections to what is happening and therefore are justifying their silence, but is heartbreaking to see this misinformation being spread. What’s happening there is a genocide, not a war. It is not antisemitic to support Palestine, it’s not even antiemetic to criticise Israel. There is no grey area or neutrality regarding this, and it is so easy to find resources that will educate you on the subject. It is my people and my home being destroyed so I will never be silent about this, but I please urge everyone to get informed and start speaking up and finding ways they can help.
decolonizepalestine has tons of information on Palestine’s history/propaganda that has been spread throughout the years
UK citizens can email their MP asking for a ceasefire
US citizens can call/email their local government officials asking for a ceasefire
Jewish Voice for Peace also has many resources for ways for US citizens to get involved, including protests
Donate to Palestine Children’s Relief Fund
Donate to Medical Aid for Palestine
Donate to help get food and hygiene kits to Gaza
I'm asking this genuinely, as a 19 yo with no education in economics and a pretty surface level understanding of socialism: can you explain the whole Bananas discourse in a way someone like me might understand? In my understanding it's just "This is just a product we can give up to create better worker conditions and that's fine" but apparently that's not the full picture?
alright so some pretty important background to all this is that we're all talking about the fact that bananas, grown in the global south, are available year-round at extremely low prices all around europe and the USA. it's not really about bananas per so--the banana in this discourse is a synechdoche for all the economic benefits of imperialism.
so how are cheap bananas a result of imperialism? first of all i want to tackle a common and v. silly counterargument: 'oh, these ridiculous communists think it's imperialist for produce to be shipped internationally'. nah. believing that this is the communist objection requires believing in a deeply naive view of international traide. this view goes something like 'well, if honduras has lots of bananas, and people in the usa want bananas and are willing to pay for them, surely everyone wins when the usa buys bananas!'.
there are of course two key errors here and they are both packed into 'honduras has lots of bananas'. for a start, although the bananas are grown in honduras, honduras doesn't really 'have' them, because the plantations are mostly owned by chiquita (formerly known as united fruit) dole, del monte, and other multinationals--when they're not, those multinationals will usually purchase the bananas from honduran growers and conduct the export themselves. and wouldn't you know it, it's those intervening middleman steps--export, import, and retail, where the vast majority of money is made off bananas! so in the process of a banana making its way from honduras to a 7/11, usamerican multinationals make money selling the bananas to usamerican importers who make money selling them to usamerican retailers who make money selling them to usamerican customers.
when chiquita sells a banana to be sold in walmart, a magic trick is being performed: a banana is disappearing from honduras, and yet somehow an american company is paying a second american company for it! this is economic imperialism, the usamerican multinational extracting resources from a nation while simultaneously pocketing the value of those resources.
why does the honduran government allow this? if selling bananas is such a bad deal for the nation, why do they continue to export millions of dollars of banans a year? well, obviously, there's the fact that if they didn't, they would face a coup. the united states is more than willing to intervene and cause mass death and war to protect the profits of its multinationals. but the second, more subtle thing keeping honduras bound to this ridiculously unbalanced relationship is the need for dollars. because the US dollar is the global reserve currency, and the de facto currency of international trade, exporting to the USA is a basic necessity for nations like honduras, guatemala, &c. why is the dollar the global reserve currency? because of usamerican military and economic hegemony, of course. imperialism built upon imperialism!
this is unequal exchange, the neoimperialist terms of international trade that make the 'global economy' a tool of siphoning value and resources from the global south to the imperial core. & this is the second flaw to unravel in 'honduras has a lot of bananas' -- honduras only 'has a lot of bananas' because this global economic hegemony has led to vast unsustainable monoculture banana plantations to dominate the agriculture of honduras. it's long-attested how monoculture growth is unsustainable because it destroys soil and leads to easily-wiped-out-by-infection plants.
so, bananas in the USA are cheap because:
the workers that grow them are barely paid, mistreated, prevented from unionizing, and sometimes murdered
the nations in which the bananas are grown accept brutally unfair trade and tariff terms with the USA because they desperately need a supply of US dollars and so have little position to negotiate
shipping is also much cheaper than it should be because sailors are chronically underpaid and often not paid at all or forced to pay to work (!)
bananas are cheap, in conclusion, because they're produced by underpaid and brutalized workers and then imported on extortionate and unfair terms.
so what, should we all give up bananas? no, and it's a sign of total lack of understanding of socialism as a global movement that all the pearl-clutching usamericans have latched onto the scary communists telling them to stop buying bananas. communism does not care about you as a consumer. individual consumptive choices are not a meaningful arena of political action. the socialist position is not "if there was a socialist reovlution in the usa, we would all stop eating bananas like good little boys", but rather, "if there's a socialist revolution in the countries where bananas are grown, then the availability of bananas in the usa is going to drop, and if you want to be an anti-imperialist in the imperial core you have to accept that".
(this is where the second argument i see about this, 'oh what are you catholic you want me to eat dirt like a monk?' reveals itself as a silly fucking solipsistic misunderstanding)
and again, let's note that the case of the banana can very easily be generalised out to coffee, chocolate, sugar, etc, and that it's not about individual consumptive habits, but about global economic systems. if you are donkey fucking kong and you eat 100 bananas a day i don't care and neither does anyone else. it's about trying to illustrate just one tiny mundane way in which economic imperialism makes the lives of people in the global north more convenient and simpler and so of course there is enormous pushback from people who attach moral value to this and therefore feel like the mean commies are personally calling them evil for eating a nutella or whatever which is frankly pretty tiring. Sad!
The detail which sort of colored this in, for me, is that bananas are not shipped with other cargo. There are specialized compartments or whole boats just for bananas. They cannot be totally insulated, but they must be refrigerated. they cannot be frozen, either. A bananas freighter spends as much as 3 times as much fuel on banana HVAC as it does on actual propulsion, and it can only haul bananas.
Every 7/11 in billings montana can sell a banana for a dollar at the register in january, and the machinery that makes that happen is enormous.
(I'm not saying boycott bananas. that's kind of missing the point and won't help, do you think the people willing to make the montana banana happen at gunpoint care about banana sales figures?)
how old are you right now?
under 13
13 to 15
16 to 18
19 to 21
22 to 24
25 to 27
28 to 30
31 to 33
34 to 36
37 or older
reblogs appreciated for sample size!
too tired with people to say in " nice " way .
R slur is slur . R slur was previously diagnosis , that become slur , because people so violent hate intellectual disability . is insult by compare to intellectual disability , because think intellectual disability worthless .
can not speak for literally all others with intellectual disability , no , but in general from what see and who talk to , very few people with intellectual disability actually want see this word , and often think not even worth take back .
so . be quiet about right to " take back " R slur with autism , with ADHD , with anything other than intellectual disability . many actual people with intellectual disability do not want this word to even exist anymore .
where other groups might have movements to take back words , intellectual disability movement is to remove that word . both movement types can be right - which one work better depend on group - and should respect .
so . honestly , just want people forget word even exist .
Tumblr really has ruined me. I was in a Rite-Aid and "out of touch" came on over the speakers, and I freaked out a bit because I thought I had missed my thursday morning meeting. It took me a minute before I remembered that Out of Touch playing does not always mean its thursday. sometimes people just play the song.
I didn't know it was a real song
Derin please tell me you're joking...
I don't own a radio
It's from 1984.
In my defence I've never heard the song I thought it was some ten second ditty made for a gag in an anime and sung by anime schoolgirls
DERIN PLEASE
It’s an entire four fucking minutes long, it’s by Hall and Oates, and — I cannot emphasize this enough — it was not even in the anime in question. Someone took the opening from Lucky Star and set it to a short clip of “Out of Touch.” There is almost no room for you to be more incorrect. I’m impressed.
We need to do this everywhere. (x)
Ban Private Equity from any financial transactions related to homes and residential real estate. They're ruining the market for home buyers (and sellers) and keeping rents artificially high nationwide in the USA.
Keep Hedge funds and Wall St out of housing. Or tax the fcuk out of them.
a lot of the language used to describe disabled people's legal situation is so misleading... like, ok, "disabled people can't get married without losing our benefits" sounds like a non-issue to most outsiders
but "benefits" would be more accurately called "sole lifelong income"
"disabled people can't get married without losing our sole lifelong income" sounds a lot worse and like we're being intentionally funneled into abusive relationships, eh?
in my least charitable moments, i think a lot of the words chosen by non-disabled outsiders to describe us and our lives and legal situations are intentionally softening the reality of our situation, so it sounds less horrific than it actually is
#don’t understand the abusive relationships part#I guess it’s with parents and caregivers??
if someone loses their sole income + health insurance for the rest of their life in order to marry someone, that means they'll be dependent on that person from there on out for all basic needs, like food, shelter, health care, etc. this is a really vulnerable situation that's extremely prone to abuse, because if the disabled person doesn't like how they're being treated or feels distressed, they can't leave to escape it. they only have money if their partner gives it to them, they can't rent their own apartment or even go stay in a hotel, they can't buy their own food, pay for their own medical devices and appointments, etc.
also, as far as i am aware, it's practically impossible to get back on disability after being kicked off due to marriage, even if you manage to get a divorce.
obviously not every marriage a disabled person enters automatically becomes abusive, but people who like to exercise abusive amounts of power are disproportionately attracted to disabled people under this system, because we're extremely easy to control.
Can confirm as a disabled person, and to add further context for people who still don't see that it would be a prevalent issue...
Not only will people, looking for someone to -consciously- target, zero in on you and put up a really good act until they think you're stuck... But perfectly "normal" and "oh they/he/she would nEvEr do that!!" Kinds of people rationalize their way straight into abusive behaviours, consistently, when they get the hint from everyone around them that they will be supported, you will be seen as the burden, and you don't have enough financial independence to leave.
These people may have ever leaned that way without being put in a relationship with a power dynamic they can take advantage of, without it being handed to them, but once they're there, and can benefit from doing it with no repercussion and with the normal human ability to rationalize away anything for convenience... They sink into it like they're under some kind of spell.
And -to put it frankly- that's most people. In my going on 36 years of experience, that is MOST 'decent' seeming people.
In my personal experience it happens every time. EVERY time. And if you stick with me I can explain how your own "judgement" doesn't matter, and how there isn't any control you can wrestle out of the situation, no matter what you do. The moment you are disabled you are either vanishingly lucky, or fucked.
Because in a normal relationship, when the other person isn't happy or is even just dissatisfied, they can leave, you could leave. But when you can't afford to live on your own, and can't afford to keep moving house, not only are marriage and romantic relationships dangerous, but ANYONE -in your home or close social group- can start being abusive to you and if nobody understands how what they are doing is harming you --because of societal biases, personal biases, or because you are disabled in ways that make 'normal' things have dire fucking consequences to you... If no one wants to advocate for you or "take your side"-- you're just stuck with it [unless you want to start breaking out psychological warfare tactics, or you think the police will actually DO something if you get them involved that won't just come back on you later.]
And it's much WORSE if you actually are considered to be "in a relationship" and fully lose your income. Here in Canada, it doesn't even require marriage, it often only requires living with someone of the opposite sex for long enough, or having previously had a relationship/fucking long enough to have a child. Any grounds the government can use to try to CLAIM you are in a "marriage like situation" they take, and harass you with constantly, putting the burden of proof on YOU.
And in my substantial experience, like with most abusive relationships, no one believes you or takes it seriously. ESPECIALLY if what they are doing is only harmful to you because of your disability, it's too abstract for most people to understand, on top of the usual victim blaming nonsense.
So all your friends take their side, sometimes even your own family, like with most abusive relationships, and the cops won't do anything, as per usual...
but unlike anyone else in an abusive relationship cycle, you don't GET to stop. You don't GET to take time to yourself to stop, to think, to recover, to live as a single adult. You HAVE to have roommates or a partner, or you can't afford a place to live, so you CAN'T take time to pick and chose, or learn to better "identify" "safe" people. You simply rush into whatever next rental situation or partner will take you because otherwise you're disabled and also out on the street or entirely penniless... Which for many of us is a death sentence, especially now.
So the next people you encounter to rebuild your social circle or your housing situation all see walking into it that you are vulnerable and have no recourse. They HAVE to know as a product of you LIVING with them or being dependent on them for rent, etc... There is no making connections to see how they go over time without them immediately knowing you are disabled and financially dependent, and being able to put on whatever act they need to, knowing they only have to maintain it short term to trap you.
To say that attracts potential abusers is a GROSS UNDERSTATEMENT. Because even your average 'actually decent' person isn't actually looking to spread themselves even thinner to have a disabled partner, friend or roommate, when they could just as easily get along with someone who can meet them half way all the time. Your social relationships suffer from the same problem as employment, or any other vulnerability in meeting people. Why hire you out of 30 similar candidates that are a lot like you but less work for more reward? But do you know who's EAGER to make fast friends with you when you are disabled and dependent? People who see that they can get something out of that relationship. People who see you as vulnerable enough to let them in. People who know there's something wrong with their behaviour that has kept them from maintaining other relationships; people who have driven away anyone, who had more of a choice, and seek out relationships with power dynamics out of insecurity; the people who will naturally gravitate to the one person who CAN'T say "no"... Your next abuser.
Every. Fucking. Time.
Because everyone else who isn't abusive isn't rushing headlong into a relationship of some kind with you on the timeline you need to have a place to live lined up! They get to take their time testign the waters of new social connections and deciding who they actually get along with as they get to know people over time... But abusers and people with abusive habits or beliefs ARE rushing to get the next person in their lives hooked right where they need them. THEIR main priority, conscious of it or not, above any other trait you have, is feeling like their power over you is assured [sometimes internally framed as finding someone who won't "make them feel bad about themselves :("]. They aren't picky.
And it's that simple! And the abusive ones come surrounded with a social group that habitually enables them, or they wouldn't be there! And you just lost all your previous connections and relationships and have an open roster for new ones! The next circle of friends who will all turn on you when things go south.
On repeat until you are dead, trapped permanently in an abusive relationship, or by some miracle find a way to afford rent by yourself.
And you up that risk factor to positively life and death the moment you concede, not just to marriage, but to be in any committed relationship with anyone. [The only potential advantage gay or poly people have in society is that often the government won't hound them about being in a relationship under these circumstances because if they start hounding just any roommates about all fucking each other they suddenly back themselves into HAVING to approve universal basic income... be gay, be poly, and commit fraud ;)] That's WHY we need universal basic income. ESPECIALLY for the disabled. A minimum income that will let them rent alone REGARDLESS of relationships status.
Because the system where that isn't the case, is just government sanctioned/forced abuse or even enslavement.
The fact that they’re still tight about this after all these years is so funny to me like they must think about it every single day
Man it wasn't even the copypasta. I saw folks eviscerating the guy for daring to write YA stuff. Teen love for teens. And how that made him a pedophile. Like that's what's being talked about here. Not the cock monologue. It was the endless hate and vitriol like I remember distinctly my dash being flooded with "he's a grown man who writes stuff for kids. That's super sus of him" and him literally being called a pedophile and other such smears. Like the cock nonsense was the absolute least of what happened. Don't be a derisive dick. If you're referencing that then obviously you were around to see all the toxic bullshit too and you should know all of this
But oh noooo! It was obviously the goofy taste of balls post that did it! Because tumblr is good and always correct /s
It is particularly cruel to me that John Green was harassed essentially off of the internet in the way that he was because the poor man has OCD and is very open about it.
The way he was treated is horrible and disgusting for anyone at all, but John Green has for years and years (along with his brother Hank) tried to make the world a measurably better place while living with a horrific mental illness. A mental illness that makes something like being called a pedophile over and over again horrific in ways that unless you have OCD, or are very very close to someone who does, you will never understand because OCD targets whatever you value and makes your world a living hell over it.
And you know what? He still writes his novels, and he is still out here doing absolutely everything he can to make the world a measurably better place. The cock monologue was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
--
Also if anyone did this to my brother I would never ever forgive anyone involved. Never. The fact that they are still engaging with the internet in the way they do, with vulnerability and kindness is remarkable.
The notes on this post are shit so just to be clear: if you’re following me and you think it’s funny to harass someone, or that it doesn’t count if the victim is above a certain age or if the harassment happens online, or that it’s worse to speak out against harassment than to harass someone, unfollow me because I don’t fucking want you to interact with me
On the positive side, here’s two replies that are actually decent:
"Harassing someone non-stop for months, including graphic sexual harassment and disturbing baseless accusations of child abuse, is funny as long as I think the victim is annoying!" -a lot of people, apparently
THIS IS BIG BIG BIG! YES!
NO MORE FED USE OF PRIVATE PRISONS!
President Biden signed the executive order January 27, 2021. This is the first time I’ve even heard of this. Here are a couple of links with more info:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/biden-s-order-terminates-federal-private-prison-contracts-here-s-n1255776
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bop-finalizes-moving-inmates-private-prisons/story?id=94281403
Biden gets a lot of flack for being a generic neo liberal rather than a cool leftist, and trust me I’m 100% on board with criticizing Biden, but it occurred to me that, at least by my standards, he’s the best president I’ve lived under. Clinton was just “What if Reaganomics but with a saxophone”, Obama did pass the ACA, but he also cut it to bits to appease the republicans who didn’t vote for it anyway, and he constantly bombed middle-eastern civilians. I’m not even gonna bother mentioning any of the republicans since I don’t need to convince my intended audience that they’re bad.
Biden, while he’s obviously had some major bad decisions (breaking the rail strike, failing to defend trans rights), has done more actual good than I think anyone else I’ve lived under. He’s nearly completely ended drone strikes, he’s addressing the debt crisis (everyone knows about the $10k, but very few I’ve seen know about the changes he’s made to how federal student loans work that make them far less of a burden/deathtrap), and now there’s the above, which I’m just learning about.
Never let perfect be the enemy of good, and while Biden is very far from being a perfect president, I’m pretty comfortable calling him a good one.
#Biden is not a cool leftist President#but he’s been genuinely more effective at passing progressive policies than literally any democratic president in my lifetime#I think this is partially circumstantial bc we live in an era of truly insane partisanship#very few elected politicians these days genuinely voting or making policy choices according to their strict moral compasses#I don’t give a fuck anymore I don’t want a wildly charismatic dem president who appeases the right in the name of unity#and wastes their chances at creating lasting legislative change during their time in power#I just want dems in power to do useful shit and Biden has done useful shit#that’s why I’m gonna vote for him again!
For all the people who insist they never trust politicians, they are sure adamant about waiting until the stars align and political Jesus comes down from the clouds to save us. If you actually didn’t like or trust politicians you would accept that the great majority of the time we are going to have to work with mediocrity.
Biden is boring and uninspiring for sure, but he is significantly less offensive than the vast majority of other options and he is someone we can influence. We want someone we can influence and push towards our positions. Biden has shown that if he isn’t an ally, he at least can be persuaded or pushed into doing what we, the left, want. There are few candidates we can actually say that about.
The point is not that he’s perfect. The point is that he’s very clearly shown that he cares about using his political mandate to make things better. The point is that he cares about accountability. The point is that he cares about what historians will say about him in the future. The point is, these are good qualities in a leader. The kind of qualities that we can work with.
With regards to the rail strike, he continued working with the railways after the strike and just recently got them to give the workers their sick leave. https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
“We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.”
I assume some kind of deal was cut in which silence on these issues was a condition of the agreement so I just want clarify.
IT IS A BAD THING that democrats are not making a big show of their accomplishments.
It benefits the conservative agenda to keep these things out of the news.
It benefits the conservative agenda for progressives to be kept in the dark when the administration makes real progress.
It benefits the conservative agenda for progressive constituents to believe that our leaders are ineffectual, and that voting for them doesn’t accomplish anything.
If the administration isn’t going to make a big show of it, we need to.
We need to get the word out.
No publicity = BAD publicity.
