Important Stuff - Tumblr Posts
everyone who says “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds” turns out to be an antisemite unaware of their fascist tendencies. many such cases when you want to draw blood above all else
Palestine and the US election
I’m done with Twitter soundbite takes that voting blue = supporting genocide. I see a lot of people making an argument that goes like this: "Biden has sent arms to Israel, helping its government commit genocide against Palestine. Therefore, voting for him in the 2024 US election, if he is the Democratic nominee, is supporting genocide, and NOT voting for him helps Palestine." There's a lot wrong with this view, so let's break it down.
It's true that Biden has sent a lot of arms to Israel and bypassed Congress multiple times to do it, and it's indefensible. I'm ashamed that any US politician would help Israel wage its brutal, genocidal war against the Palestinian people. As one of Israel's closest partners, the US could actually be using its leverage right now to put pressure on Israel’s government—I’m thinking about how apartheid in South Africa fell, in part, because of international pressure. That's what should be happening, but instead the US government is literally just helping Israel kill Palestinians.
I wish there were a strong pro-Palestine candidate in the upcoming election. The best bet in that regard would probably be Bernie Sanders, since he's prominent enough, well-liked enough, and has good ideas, not just on this issue but on many things (and yeah, he's way too old, but so are the current frontrunners). But he's already ruled out another run. Unless an amazing candidate materializes and wins the Democratic nomination (please vote in the primaries where you live), it will probably be Biden running against Trump. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s likely.
Here's what people need to understand: the election will not be "genocide Joe" vs. "pro-Palestine candidate." It will most likely be a choice between these two candidates:
On the one hand, Biden, who has armed Israel, but can be pressured to change his policies because he can be pushed left; who is not a wannabe dictator; who will not destroy what's left of the country's democratic norms; who will not encourage coups, political assassinations, or jail his political opponents; who will not utterly stifle dissent.
Or on the other hand, Trump, who is beholden to a fanatical evangelical base that backs Israel no matter what, that actually wants more conflict because they are part of a death cult. Trump, who is not susceptible in any way to pressure from the left, but is susceptible to pressure from the right and the far right. Trump, who has been clear all along about his desire to be a dictator; who will destroy what's left of democratic norms; who has already encouraged a coup to overthrow a democratic election, encouraged the assassination of his own vice president, and is openly planning to jail his political opponents if he returns to the White House.
(This isn't even touching on Trump's positions on trans rights, gay rights, women's rights, the environment, policing, immigration, or his racism against every group he could be racist against, or his liability for sexual assault, or a whole bunch of other issues).
There's a very convincing argument that Netanyahu actually wants Biden to lose the US election and Trump to win. That's because Netanyahu knows that Biden has in the past responded to pressure from his own party and the public. If there are a lot of people criticizing his policies, it gives him pause. Trump doesn't operate like that. If millions of Americans criticize his policies as inhumane he just lashes out at them. In short, Biden views criticism from the left as a liability that he has to act on. Trump views criticism from the left as an incentive to be even worse.
Biden is not the candidate I want. But you need to understand that if Trump wins the election, he won't just arm Israel like Biden is doing now: he will do that and more. Not only will he help Israel escalate its war, your very freedom of speech to support Palestine will be under attack. Trump might even decide that financial support for Palestinians or charities that help Palestine = financially supporting terrorism, and use that as a pretext to arrest and jail people. You think he and his far right goons wouldn't go that far? If Trump wins this election, you shouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing happens, and much worse.
Do you want the US to accept Palestinian refugees? Because it won't accept them under a Trump presidency. A key Republican talking point in this election is "the US shouldn't take Palestinian refugees because they're probably all terrorists." This isn't just a Trump thing, it's something other Republicans are saying, but obviously you can imagine where Trump would fall on this issue given his infamous Muslim ban and conflating refugees with terrorists. These are just a few examples of how Trump would actually be even worse for Palestine than Biden—which is saying something.
In this upcoming election there is no neutral option. There is no morally pure option. There just isn't, I'm sorry. Refusing to vote will not help Palestine. Refusing to vote will only help Trump win, and will give every single person in the United States who is fighting for a better world a significantly harder battle to fight.
It goes without saying that there are things everyone should do to help Palestine besides voting in an election. But I'm writing this post that is about voting because I'm genuinely worried by how many so-called leftists want to give up their right to vote—a right that older generations had to fight tooth and nail for—because they think it won't achieve anything. If voting didn't achieve anything, Republicans wouldn't be trying so hard to suppress your vote.
I'll conclude by saying that nuance is not this site's specialty, but please try to understand what I'm actually saying here before attacking me in the notes. Finally, people being antisemitic or islamophobic on this post will be blocked. People denying that Israel is committing genocide against Palestine will be blocked. Trump supporters, tankies, and people who say that Biden and Trump are the same will be blocked. So will people who say "voting is pointless" or "but Biden did this bad thing—" Biden fucking sucks, I know that very well, so if you're going to try to make that argument to me then stop right now and read the post again.
today, 27th january, is holocaust memorial day.
on this day, we remember the killing of 6 million jews in the most devastating moment of our history - the people we know by name, and those whose names have been lost.
i'd like to draw attention to some charities; please consider supporting their work.
85% of jews killed in the holocaust were yiddish speakers. YIVO preserve & teach yiddish. additionally, they host 23 million items in their east european jewry archive - the largest repository of its kind (a number of these materials were rescued from nazi book burnings.)
approximately one-third of israeli holocaust survivors live in poverty. the blue card foundation provide support for these survivors, including food, accessibility renovations, medical/dental treatments & more.
studies have shown that education systems fail to adequately teach younger generations about the holocaust, resulting in worrying statistics (source 1, source 2). the holocaust educational trust are working to improve the quality of holocaust education in the united kingdom.
the united states holocaust museum preserve holocaust evidence & provide educational services. with a $50 donation, you can provide classroom resources for 150 students.
(for more information about holocaust education, visit this website. the AHO consists of almost 400 foundations & individuals striving for the international advancement of holocaust teaching, remembrance and research.)
today, we pledge ourselves to remember.
we pledge ourselves not to forget.
& we say: לעולם לא שוב. never again.
From Hollander-Waas Jewish Heritage Services: Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We gather to mourn the 6 million Jews, 500,000 Romani, and countless others who were murdered for who they were, along with victims of all other genocides both past and present. The long term genealogical ramifications of genocide are hard to imagine. In this infographic prepared by co-founder Caitlin Hollander, you can see just how significant the scale of loss truly is for the Jewish community long-term.
If you’d like to donate to Jewish communities in Ukraine
Ukraine has a fairly vibrant Jewish community and WUPJ has set up a fund to be spent on individuals and communities to ensure their safety and well-being.
With war always comes a rise in antisemitism.
There’s been donation posts for neo-nazi groups going around so I figured I would share a link specifically for Jewish support. Stay safe y’all
I think something ppl, especially younger folk, really need to understand is that just because someone exists in a progressive space doesn't necessarily mean that they are actually interested in progress. Many people will use the rhetoric of progressivism for nothing but their own ends. Some people want plausible deniability when they commit terrible acts. Some people want a reason to bully other people without feeling like a bad person. And some people simply aren't interested in practicing what they preach.
I'm not saying this to say never trust anyone. But if you get a bad feeling about someone and all you can think is "they can't be bad! They share the same opinions that I do!" Then maybe don't write off those suspicions right away. Actions speak louder than words, after all, and if their actions contradict their words, then that's a red flag you shouldn't ignore.
Thin privilege is saving money, or even being able to access air travel at all, by being able to relatively comfortably book middle seats and tight-pitch seats on budget airlines.
Thin privilege is that last-minute $100 round trip.
Thin privilege is being able to afford to visit a dying relative, or being able to afford to be there for a milestone family occasion, or being able to interview outside of the local job market.
The teen who stabbed the 50 year old on Saturday evening, so just as Shabbat ended, shouted "death to the Jews" and "death to Israel."
heyyyyy reminder for other cane users.
don't forget that cane tips need to be replaced.
i've been using my cane for almost two years on a near daily basis and i JUST switched out the tip and
[image IDs in alt text]
the new tip versus the old tip. i'm not sure how clear it is but, YEAH, there's like. half a millimeter of tread left on the old tip, if that
the replacement was LITERALLY 2 dollars. i bought two to justify the four dollar shipping but. TWO BUCKS.
i had noticed that i was having slipping issues on linoleum recently, but i did not realize how bad the issue had gotten until the new tips came so. PLEASE check your cane treads and if they're notably worn out PLEASE get yourself a new tip they're SO cheap and the grip i get on the new one is INSANE
please don't forget to replace your cane tips!
Watching all of the queer goyim talk about JKR's Holocaust denial, after months of them engaging in Holocaust inversion and Holocaust denial themselves, as well as buddying up to Nazis and echoing the Nazis' antisemitic rhetoric... it's just exhausting.
"Yes, the Holocaust is finally about you! You can erase the Jewishness of the victims and claim the mantle of Ultimate Victim!... except that the reason the Nazis burned those books, first and foremost, is because of Magnus Hirschfeld's Jewishness. Oh, yes, they would have gotten around to persecuting the Institute if he hadn't been Jewish, but they viewed transgenderism and queer identities as Jewish plots to undermine the German race, and that was why the Nazis made an enormous spectacle of burning his research. But congrats about finding a way to erase the Jews from their own genocide and make it all about you. You win the Oppression Olympics. It's really telling that you only care when you can erase Jews or hate Jews."
Unauthorized water
It’s not clear when General Electric started boobytraping appliances with DRM. I first encountered it in January when Shane Morris tweeted about his fridge refusing to accept the $19 generic filter he replaced the GE $55 filter with.
https://twitter.com/IamShaneMorris/status/1220367934947758080
The fridges use an RFID detector to distinguish original GE filters from generic replacements, and engage in lots of anti-owner trickery, like memorizing the IDs of previously used filters and refusing to accept them.
https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/unauthorized-charcoal-ge-fridges-wont-dispense-ice-or-water-unless-your-filter-authenticates-as-an-official-55-component/159552/41
Morris isn’t the only one ourtaged that his fridge is plotting against him. One (anonymous) owner was so offended that they created a site dedicated to warning off potential buyers and explaining to other suckers how to bypass GE’s lockouts.
https://gefiltergate.com/
There’s a good reason for the anonymity. Under Sec 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, showing how to bypass an “access control” to a copyrighted work (eg RFID-detecting code in the fridge) is a potential felony, carrying a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine.
This is quite the moral hazard. Manufacturers have learned that if they design their products so that any use that hurts their shareholders (like buying third party parts) requires bypassing DRM, it becomes a felony to use your own property to your own advantage.
Which is why we’ve seen DRM creep into all manner of devices, from insulin pumps to tractors to car engines to Iphone screens. “Felony contempt of business model” is the statute that every monopolist has dreamt of, and with DMCA 1201, they have it in their grasp.
Back in 2011, I wrote a short story about this for MIT Tech Review’s first sf anthology, called “The Brave Little Toaster” (in tribute to Tom Disch).
https://craphound.com/news/2011/09/28/the-brave-little-toaster-from-trsf/
The issue only got worse, and so last year I published “Unauthorized Bread” as part of my collection “Radicalized” (it’s being turned into a TV show by Topic):
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/
The metastasis of DRM into every product category shows that when business apologists talk about the sanctity of property, they mean the sanctity of CORPORATE property.
If the manufacturer gets to override your decisions about the things you buy - and felonize any attempt to wrest control back - they property ceases to exist. We become tenants of our devices, not owners.
It’s digital feudalism, in which an elite owns all the property and we get to use it in ways they proscribe. The difference is that today, our aristocracy isn’t even human.
It’s the immortal, remorseless colony organism called the Limited Liability Corporation, to which we are mere inconvenient gut flora.
I’d best be seeing that anti JKR energy for this twilight show too bc Smeyer continuing to profit off the Quileute tribe is not cute
Gender and Sex: The Issues between Sex and Gender Identification in Transgendered Individuals
Written by: Ari Mortensen, a ftm individual
In recent years, gender and sex have developed new definitions to accommodate the growing number of members in the LGBT community. Gender has been redefined as the mental identification of an individual based on their own preference and feelings towards their role in society. Sex is now defined as the biological characteristics of a person’s body that determines them as male, female, or something else along that scope based on what doctors observe upon birth. Now, while gender has come a long way from what it was once considered in recent years, the term sex still has a long way to go as many times, the distinction between female bodied and male bodied individuals acts to invalidate those individuals of the LBGT community that assign themselves as some other gender than their body, at one point, suggested. Society conceptualizes sex on a male to female spectrum, which in my mind is a disgusting and invalidating idea for transgendered people such as myself. As a female-to-male transgendered individual, my gender is male though it was once considered to be female not by myself, but by society and the doctors that aided in bringing me into this world. While my gender is all good and dandy, what with it being increasingly accepted by society as science sees the errors of historical gender roles, my sex is a different matter entirely. As I was born with a “female” body, my sex is still considered to be female while my gender is male. In a biologically scientific standpoint, this should pose no problems, as it makes it easier to give healthcare and aid to those with specific body parts that determine their bodies as male or female. On a psychological standpoint though, the same is not true, as the distinction between the sexes (male and female) invalidates everything that transgendered individuals are trying to work for in their lives. Because of society’s distinction that, despite ftm individual’s gender being male, their sex is female, the work we have put into appearing male is destroyed, reducing us to our uncontrollable biologic traits and presenting us to society as female-bodied-males. This concept and stigma of sexual characteristics needs to be eradicated on a scientific standpoint, again because of how it works to diminish the gender identity of an individual. Society needs to get rid of the concept of defining sex along a spectrum of male or female to describe specific biological traits, and instead transition to defining sex as just labelled biological parts that describe the body part itself and not establish that the body part is inherently male or female. The terms male or female are distinctions that should only be used when speaking about gender identity, as they are merely two of the many genders present in the world. Male and female are terms that should not be used to describe biological body parts as there is nothing inherently feminine or masculine about such body parts, and are merely what society is trying to impose on individuals whose gender identity is something different from male or female. When referring to the body parts for reproduction, nothing should be described as a male body part or a female body part, but should only be described as what the body part really is: penis, vagina, uterus, testes, breasts. These terms have no distinction of what is male or female, and merely describe the role of the body part in the reproductive process. Having a vagina should not make my sex female, nor should having a penis make my sex male. Sex should be described only as a reflection of our internal gender, so that that even if we have vaginas, those parts are considered to be male parts because they are on a male-identifying body. My sex should only be described by the actual body parts that I have and not an incorrect umbrella term, like male or female, to describe what is between my legs that has nothing to do with what I identify as. Those umbrella terms and categorizations essentially destroy the work we transgender individuals have put into making ourselves appear male or female. This is especially true in regards to the healthcare we receive, as a clinic that deals with vaginas or pregnancy should not be considered a women’s clinic, but should just be considered a uterus, breast, or vagina clinic. That way any ftm individuals like myself will not be singled out in such a clinic that defines itself as a Women’s health clinic, thus being able to be more comfortable with receiving healthcare that is aimed not to female health, but to vaginal or uterus health. I for one, would be glad for this to happen because it would allow my dysphoria towards my “female” biological traits to diminish as those body parts of mine would no longer be considered as female parts but merely just considered as a vagina, breasts, or uterus. These body parts are not innately feminine or masculine as they are just body parts that do not denote a more feminine alignment, as that is all a person’s own mental gender preference. It wouldn’t hurt nearly as much going to the Doctor’s office knowing that your body parts that may be having problems are not masculine or feminine and are just genitalia. In a way, for some ftm individuals (not me though), it would make it much easier for them to have biological children. They would know that their body parts that enable them to carry their child are not female body parts but are just the more attuned (not motherly) genitalia to carrying a child than the genitalia of their partner who may have a penis (which is not a male attribute). In this hypothetical situation, being described as motherly or fatherly is not based on whether the individuals in the relationship have specific genitalia that society considers to be male or female, but is instead based entirely on the individual’s gender identity and personal preference to be called motherly, fatherly, or something entirely different.
In addition to the issues mentioned above, it also needs to be accepted that, even with developments of society in these directions, such developments don’t destroy a transgender individual’s desire to have been born with the body parts we want that are described as male or female. As an ftm individual, I wish I had been born with a more “masculine” body despite my belief that a penis or more muscular body does not denote masculinity or a male body. This is just an aspect of those who are gender non-conforming that must be accepted despite how contradictory it may seem. I want a more masculine body (muscles, facial hair, penis) because those traits are generally what are found on male bodies at present day. I feel as though my wish to have a more “masculine” body is simply based off what I see around me. Everyday, I see individuals that describe themselves as men or males with their more muscular bodies and facial hair that I want myself, who has an unfortunately softer body that people describe as female (oftentimes against my will). This is really the only way that I can describe this seemingly contradictory wish of mine and other ftm and mtf individuals. I hope that one day, society reaches a point where a ftm person considers their genitalia to be undoubtedly masculine as a vagina on a man should be. In society right now though, this level of self-confidence is almost unreachable, so much so that even I wish not to have been born with breasts or a vagina.
Say No to the N@zi community, support the Jewish community, and please send all the help you can to Palestine. Plz.
If you can’t reblog this, unfollow me now.
the @ wtfasiff guy needs to learn to stfu
periods are natural and people shouldn’t be scared to talk about them
yes they’re gross but it’s nature so-
ok but legitimately i think the reason why kids aren’t taking internet safety seriously is because the people who are telling us not to put our personal information out seem so out of touch. no one acknowledges the possibility of meeting very real teenaged friends online, they always say that everyone you meet is a 40 year old white man in disguise. because they aren’t acknowledging things we know are true, it becomes a lot easier to dismiss the rest of what they’re saying as well. internet safety lessons absolutely must keep up with the times and acknowledge the internet’s capacity for good if you want kids to take to heart warnings about its capacity for bad.
Howdy Hobbes! I was wondering how much it would be for an icon commission? They’re not listed on your sheet so I was curious! :0
I feel they would be around $10-$15 depending on if you want it to hace flat colors, shading or all the fixin's (aka shading, highlights and other pretty stuff like backgrounds n filters)!
Thank you so much for coming by here and I hope you have a wonderful day!!
-Fozz🌈