The current Biden administration and Merrick Garland-led DOJ are cleaning up the trash, and we need to see more of this!
The United States has spent 225 of its 247 years of existence at war, and has carried out 469 Foreign Military interventions since 1798. Of those Foreign Military interventions, 251 of them have occurred since 1991.
The United States spends more on its military than 144 nations combined.
In 2019, it was estimated that around 10.5% of Americans ages 21-65 have a disability. In 2016, 87.3% of the American state prison population was between 24 and 65. A basic understanding of how subsets work tells us the number between 21 and 65 was almost certainly higher than 87.3%. Would anyone like to guess the rate of disability in the American state prison population in 2016?
That's an incarceration rate over three times higher than is proportional to the general population.
Prison abolition is a disability rights issue.
When the media calls an Ultra Rich person a "philanthropist" it's a pretty loud dog whistle that they've got not just skeletons in their closet, but entire mass graves.
"People criticising my decisions is a disturbing trend", says man in unconditional, lifelong position of power.
Faux news is unhinged.
Makes sense.
He can’t be impeached, removed, disbarred, defrocked, expelled, censured, sanctioned, penalized, fined, protested, inconvenienced or threatened.
All that’s left is for people to criticize.
Of course he wants to make people stop criticizing. It’s all that’s left.
Well, remember when everyone got pissed at Biden for not doing anything about the railroad workers during the holidays, only to find out he'd been working behind the scenes to make a deal long after it stopped trending, and everyone else forgot about it? I'm not saying it's exactly like that, but the parallels are there.
How many people have to suffer, die, or bring children they don’t want into the world in the meantime? How long do we wait assuming this? No offense to student loan holders but the stakes I’m talking is more directly life/death. Sure feels like he said “eh, not much I can do about that one.” And moved on and it’s devastating. I never trusted or actively supported him so it’s not that I’m surprised…….I’m just enraged about it everyday since the SCOTUS shadow docket overturned roe unofficially with allowing the passage of the Texas abortion ban on 9-1-21. It’s like etched into my soul and very hard to look away from. I can’t help but speak to how upsetting it is time to time.
It’s been 668 days since abortion was outlawed here.
If people want someone to be pissed at about the failure to enshrine abortion rights in law, we can point out that Biden has been in office since before the bans went in. That the only reason there was a Republican SCOTUS to overturn RvW was because Biden personally installed Clarence Thomas as a justice. That Biden had every opportunity to pick up this fight during the eight years he was in the White House before Trump ever installed a Coke Button in the Oval Office.
The stripping of abortion rights is from an ongoing, outstanding and extraordinary failure of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr to ever do a goddamned thing about this problem.
In case you were wondering how screwed we all are:
The fossil fuel industry has successfully completed their infiltration and takeover of the COP climate conference. The president of COP 28 is going to be an Oil CEO.
Billions of people are going to die but the rich don’t care so long as they can maintain the status quo and continue lining their pockets.
And I’m supposed to feel bad that a couple of them got themselves squished on a voluntary trip to the bottom of the ocean???
Major conservative influencers on social media platforms such as Twitter and Rumble have coalesced in recent months around talking points that connect birth control with a variety of negative health outcomes, which experts say instill fear in women who could otherwise benefit from using birth control.
But the information the influencers are referring to lacks crucial context, says Dr. Danielle Jones, an OB-GYN, and they fail to include recent scientific developments that challenge their narrative.
me a few years ago: its so weird how right wingers always wanna blame the "elite" given that alot of them are in the global 1% of wealth and therefore almost by definition the same "elite" they claim to hate. weird right? lol right wing logic makes no sense
me now: oh my god they mean Jewish people. its always been Jewish people. and the insistence of online leftists to use words like "elite" and "cabal" (to refer to a handful of ultra rich people who dictate a lot of how our lives are run) kinda makes them sound like antisemites too. maybe this whole idea that the world is run by a select few is a gross oversimplification which only serves to reinforce antisemitic stereotypes... oh no. maybe i have a lot of shit to unlearn. maybe i need to start vocally defending Jewish ppl. also local community building is the only way out of this
This post has been making the rounds on jumblr and I've had a few different reactions so I just wanna weigh into some things here.
First up:
Jews I love you and I'm so glad that this little thoughtramble I wrote a month ago resonated with so many of you. I hope it helps with educating some people on just how widespread and insidious antisemitism is.
Secondly: I'm a gentile so I'm by no means an authority on these things. But a couple fellow gentiles in the notes are saying stuff along the lines of, "but can't we criticise billionnaires?"
To which I say, watch where you step, cus you're on thin ice. I've learned a litte the past few years and here's my conclusions:
- Of course a lot of stuff a lot of billionnaires do is reprehensible. On the left we should absolutely be criticising them! The best way to do this while avoiding antisemitism is to be specific about who you're criticising, and what for.
- E.g. "The people running Exxon, Shell and BP have been sweeping climate change under the rug for decades while actively contributing it, they think their profits are more important than sustaining life on earth and that's abhorrent. We need better laws and processes to stop them from poisoning the planet."
- E.g. "Elon Musk is a ridiculous manchild who's ruining Twitter and endangering people with his self driving cars and stupid ideas. He's an entitled dickhead and his wealth is mostly derived from colonial exploitation that his parents did. He does not pay enough taxes on what he earns. We need better inheritance laws and to close tax loopholes that allow him and people like him to hoard wealth."
- E.g. "Jeff Bezos exploits his workers and has an unfair monopoly over online shopping and other convenience services. He needs to pay his taxes and pay his workers more and we need better monopoly laws to stop businesses from being able to control the market like this."
Also, please consider your motives:
- Are you trying to make a positive difference for, e.g. Amazon workers? Go ahead, raise awareness of their plight and push for unionisation.
- Are you just trying to find a group that is acceptable to hate? Stop right there and reconsider. No matter how privileged or powerful that supposed group, you're wayyyyyy too close to bigoted talking points.
- Are you just making sweeping statements in order to rile up emotions and get people on your side? That's fascist tactics. Please don't.
And especially,
- If you find yourself wanting to say, "I'm not antisemitic, but--" Please just don't say whatever you were going to say. If you have to make that qualification, there is an extremely high probability that what you're about to say is, in fact, very antisemitic. Compare to "I'm not racist but-" or "I'm not transphobic but-" followed by the most vile bigotry you've ever heard. Don't be that person.
Lastly I want to highlight these as well:
Absolutely correct. The amount of times I've come across online bigots who are like "George Soros is funding BLM!" or "LGBTs are elites trying to plunge this country into immorality!" This is all antisemitism. In general just be wary of anyone wanting to blame "elites" or "rich people" (yeah even that one cus historically Jews are stereotyped to have money!!! and also not all rich ppl are inherently evil!!!!) or "shadow government" or "globalists" or "lizard people" or really, literally anything that seems to imply that a small, select group of people is secretly running the world: That's antisemitism baby. It's all antisemitism. It's disgustingly common.
By all means, criticise billionnaires. But be specific. It's one of the best ways to make sure it's not veering into antisemitism. We know who these billionnaires are, for the most part; we know their names and we know their crimes. Talk about them specifically.
It doesn't help if you just swap out "elites" with "billionnaires" or "the 1%" if the rest of your rhetoric remains the same. It sounds exactly the same to antisemites, and they will feel empowered. In truth, it is much more complicated than "billionnaires are running the world and fucking us all over"; some billionnaires are using their fortune for good, and they don't directly cause our problems - they may exploit a system that was set up long before they were born, sure, but your problems are also caused by Sue from accounting and your neighbour ratting you out to the authorities and that kid across the road yelling slurs at you. Your problems exist because society lets them exist, and that includes everyone. The system makes it hard to fight this, and sure, most billionnaires don't help the issue. But again if you're just looking for someone to hate on, it's very likely you're actually reinforcing oppression rather than "punching up".
Sweeping statements are dangerous and a lot of your talking points have been used to justify genocide in the past. Just cus the world's been a lil less overt about its antisemitism post-Holocaust, does not mean antisemitism has disappeared, far from it. And it's being revived at an alarming rate just now so please, Gentiles, pay attention to what the dogwhistles look like and don't reinforce harmful stereotypes.
Thank you.
PS: A few blogs that have helped me unlearn and unpack antisemitism are @spacelazarwolf, @hadeantaiga and @gehe-lihiyot-androgynos-varda with a special shout out to @softness-and-shattering for being very patient with me rambling about jewish/antisemitism related stuff in dms. Youre all soooo great n I appreciate you soooo much <3
There's also lots of Jewish ppl in the notes of this post, I'm sure a lot of them have lovely blogs to follow.
There's some reading recs in the notes as well:
- Jews Don't Count by David Baddiel,
- People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn,
- The Holocaust: A New History by Laurence Rees
I haven't read these books myself, I've read a preview of Jews Don't Count and it's on my list of books to order when I have more money, but basically, go look at what actual Jewish folks have written on the subject, I'm just a random Gentile who doesn't like bigotry so don't take it just from me.
