criticalbread - Tumblr blog

[criticalbread]

I was reading this report earlier this morning, which I referenced in my last post, put together by the Palestinian Farmers Union, and I have to say I wasn't supposed to be shocked yet I was still quite shocked by just the sheer magnitude of attacks and destruction caused by Israeli settlers in the month of August 2024 alone. Let me summarise:

The Israeli army and Israeli settlers had launched over 1,200 attacks on West Bank villages, killing 2 farmers

Israeli settlers had uprooted 477 trees, including 397 olive trees

Israeli forces carried out 68 demolitions, including 36 inhabited homes and 13 agricultural facilities and delivered 74 demolition notices to homes and structures

Israel confiscated 367 dunams of Palestinian land through military orders

Israeli settlers established 8 new settlement outposts

All in just 31 days.

When we say the Nakba didn't start and end in 1948, this is what we mean. Israel's policies of displacement and land theft are very much unchanged to this day.

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❤♥️ Save a Gazan family ♥️❤

@amalashuor, her husband, and their baby girl Maryam are constantly on my mind.

Amal, who was still a student when the attack on Gaza interrupted her pursuit of a Master's degree, has had to evacuate time and time again, seeking shelter for her family.

Every time she asks "why isn't my campaign making progress? Who can I speak to to get help?" I feel like I've failed her. Her campaign, which has a very reachable goal, has been stagnating.

We don't know how many opportunities they will to cross the border. We can't take chances. Time is of the essence. If the time comes and the border opens and they haven't reached their goal yet, I don't know what I'll do. They cannot separate, so they must have enough to evacuate all three of them.

Please, please donate, and if you can't, share as far as you can , as urgently as possible.

Let's get them safe. ❤

#175 on this vetted fundraiser list.

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a new star

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I'm writing again to spotlight the GFM campaign of @nourfamily1989, a mother of five in Gaza.

If you've been following Nour's story, you probably already know that last month was very difficult for her and her family. It began with Nour being injured in a bombing, and ended with the family being displaced yet again, this time to an area even more crowded than the last so-called "safe zone."

Now her oldest son, Muhammad (13), has started bleeding from his ear, and Nour is worried he might lose his hearing if he can't get medical treatment soon.

In her post about Muhammad, she writes:

We faced endless suffering for 11 months. With the continued bombing day and night. We kept wondering when this nightmare will end????? Do you still hear our cries?? To those who have compassion. Don't abandon us.

Let's do whatever we can to make sure that Nour does not feel like she's being abandoned. If you can, please donate; if not, then help by sharing.

Donation link (GFM)

For info about how Nour's fundraiser has been vetted and organized, see this post by @/killy.

The goal for Nour's campaign is now to reach the next milestone of $25,000. For every 5k we raise, we're one step closer to ensuring her entire family will be able to evacuate if the Rafah crossing should reopen in the near future.

Currently: $20,991 / $25,000

Total GFM goal: $90,000

[criticalbread]

so many public resources are going into directly supporting and aiding this genocide. our tax money is going towards this. i aim this mostly at other americans but so many countries are providing aid or support to israel it could easily apply to others

when so many resources are directly going to the destruction of gaza and the extermination of the palestinian people, think about how much you could direct towards helping a family survive this genocide.

mohammed @save-mohamed-family has already lost so much in this war. his entire immediate family–his parents, his four sisters and all their family were killed by israeli bombings. he lost his job, his home, basically everything from his life before the war. he’s displaced many times with his wife and three young children, living in unbearable conditions and suffering from injury and disease that they struggle to treat because the idf has destroyed the heath system. read more in his own words here

our government is actively supporting this and using your and my money to continue this horror. please consider how much you can put back to helping him and his family survive this genocide. every donation makes a difference

this is #192 on the Vetted Gaza Fundraiser List

$1,988 out of $50,000

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Fanfic authors are amazing like they could be literally anyone. That one coffee au you read last night? Could have been written by morgan freeman who knows

[criticalbread]

I know you have all probably seen the esims for gaza posts circulating. Some of you have probably looked at them and thought maybe you should help out, but have weighed up the daunting process of signing up for something you're unfamiliar with vs. the gut-wrenching scale of the things people are going through on the ground right now, and you've put it off or questioned whether it will make enough of a difference vs. some other future kind of activism you could put that $6+ towards. I'm not calling you out or scolding you, it is natural to feel conflicted and ambivalent about the multiple calls for aid that you are seeing on social media.

but consider this: what would you do if you suddenly had to leave your home? how would you cope? how would you begin to plan where to go next, or figure out what to do to take care of yourself? most likely you would reach reflexively for your phone.

telecoms access is not a petty luxury in 2024. a loaded esim means the ability to call family members and find out where they are and whether they're safe, and whether they need anything you can provide for them. it means access to maps and regular updates on the situation unfolding around you. it means you can look up whether it's safe to drink rain water, or how to tie a type of knot you've never had to think about before, or how to treat an injury without medical supplies. it means the ability to tell people outside the situation what you are seeing, what you are feeling, what you are thinking. it is an absolutely crucial resource. and it starts at $6 for 7 days.

many many people have observed that internet access is changing the way the world understands genocide. internet access is life or death, and it is shaping modern history in front of you. and it starts at $6 for 7 days.

please, please visit gazaesims.com and spend 5 minutes and $6 to change the way this plays out for everyone.

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5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

10 years ago, I was watching my Potential and Opportunities dissolve and evaporate in an ocean of cheap gin and expensive whiskey.

But 5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

One of the exercises they had us perform was to imagine ourselves happy, 5 years in the future.

Many of us in that room had forgotten how to imagine nice things happening to them. A few snorted (well, I snorted), finding the notion that we’d even still be around in 5 years grimly humorous.

For about half of us, it was the last stop on the way down.

But I indulged the therapist. I was there, after all, because I did not want to die. So, I imagined myself, 5 years hence.

Happy.

It came to me all at once; an artistic remix on Norman Rockwell’s Freedom From Want, reframed with myself placing food at the table.

Sunday Dinner At My Place, I answered, when it came my turn to share my fantasy. I was asked what food I imagined eating.

It’s not the meal itself, I said, it’s the implications framed around it. Sunday Dinner At My Place means that I have a Place. It means that I have Family that will actually speak to me and friends who actually want to see me. It means money enough not just to feed myself but others too. It means having the time to spare to take the time preparing the meal.

A lot of nodding heads all around me. A struck chord. Many people with no Place, in that place. Nowhere that would lament their leaving.

5 years hence, as I lay down to sleep in my Home, with my Wife and my Son, surrounded by my Art and my Flowers, I reflect.

It was a long road. It was hard. We lost people. So many people. There were long days and long nights and hospital stays. Angry arguments with ghosts. I changed, in ways I never hoped for, or expected. Good ways, finally, for once. Slowly, against the backdrop of a world in chaos, I found my mind.

Sometimes, My Wife wondered aloud, what she did to deserve me. After some stumbling with my feelings, I eventually settled on an answer.

I’m a Rescue.

She gave me a Home.

And, so, I gave her a Family.

It seemed fair

This Sunday, my folks, which whom I have not had a shouting match in years, will come over for dinner. We will cook and eat together. My Friend became My Wife, and she took a piece of me and with it she made Our Son. There will be many hugs, and no violence. Good Things Happened.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t know what the future holds.

don’t give up yet, ok?

It could get good, even.

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WSJ shoots at and misses Tim Walz

The Wall Street Journal wrote this thinking it was a criticism:

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A minute of your time can help my family survive. 🍉🇵🇸

Imagine losing your home and having no shelter. Imagine your father losing his livelihood, the business he built brick by brick since 1994. This business became his second home, maybe even his soul was tied to it just as much as to his children. Suddenly, everything is gone, and you lose everything. This is what we are going through and what my father is suffering from, a deep sadness and heartbreak.

We hope you can help us and give us some of your time to donate or reblog or share our story so that we can stand up again in this harsh life. Your donation and sharing our story are not just simple acts; they are like giving life back to my family and mean the world to us. Thank you in advance for your support. 🙏

"Please reblog or donate as much as you can."

Thank you, Tumblr community, for your support and generosity towards me.

🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🍉🍉🍉🍉

Verified by :

⭐️ operation olive branch, number 26 on their spreadsheet.

⭐️ Project watermelon,line 249 on their spreadsheet.

All of our important links are here :

[criticalbread]

Not that anybody asked, but I think it's important to understand how shame and guilt actually work before you try to use it for good.

It's a necessary emotion. There are reasons we have it. It makes everything so. much. worse. when you use it wrong.

Shame and guilt are DE-motivators. They are meant to stop behavior, not promote it. You cannot, ever, in any meaningful way, guilt someone into doing good. You can only shame them into not doing bad.

Let's say you're a parent and your kid is having issues.

Swearing in class? Shame could work. You want them to stop it. Keep it in proportion*, and it might help. *(KEEP IT IN PROPORTION!!!)

Not doing their homework? NO! STOP! NO NOT DO THAT! EVER! EVER! EVER! You want them to start to do their homework. Shaming them will have to opposite effect! You have demotivated them! They will double down on NOT doing it. Not because they are being oppositional, but because that's what shame does!

You can't guilt people into building better habits, being more successful, or getting more involved. That requires encouragement. You need to motivate for that stuff!

If you want it in a simple phrase:

You can shame someone out of being a bad person, but you can't shame them into being a good person.

[criticalbread]

Pro-Israel advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over sanctions issued against individuals involved in settler violence in the occupied West Bank.  The plaintiffs, who filed the lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas, are composed of two NGOs, Texans for Israel and the Israeli nonprofit, Regavim, as well as two dual US-Israeli citizens who live in the West Bank. The defendants named in the lawsuit include the US Department of Treasury; US Department of State; Department of Homeland Security; Office of Foreign Assets Control; Financial Crimes Enforcement Network; and their department chiefs, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen. In February this year, Biden filed an executive order allowing federal agencies to impose financial sanctions and visa restrictions against individuals who attack or intimidate Palestinians and destroy or dispossess Palestinians of their property.

Continue Reading.

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[criticalbread]

So I see you all are exhausted by streaming services effectively recreating cable. I see you’re all tired of ads. Pirating is a great alternative, but I have another fantastic option for you all!

I live in Seattle. And in Seattle we have America’s largest physical media store, Scarecrow Video. They are a non-profit that has pretty much any film or tv show you can imagine. Like, everything. So much so that one of our local cinemas does a program with them called “Unstreamable” where they show a film from Scarecrow’a archive that you can’t access anywhere online. It’s a bit overwhelming to go to their store, which is two levels of every program under the sun.

ANYWAY, I bring this up because they recently started a Rent-by-Mail program. It’s pretty similar to what Netflix used to do. You can rent up to six titles (barring their super rare stuff and pornos) and they will ship it to you, then you return it in the included pre-paid envelope.

Why does this rock? Sure, you still have to pay money, BUT you are supporting a non-profit that is dedicated to preserving media instead of some corporation looking for endless profit. They can also expand your palette with their vast selection. And if you have a favorite piece of media, you never have to worry about it disappearing! All their stuff is there in perpetuity.

So this is all to say, now that Scarecrow has expanded their reach beyond the Greater Seattle Area, I implore you to check them out. If you don’t want to rent right now, the could always use donations to keep them afloat.

You can check out their catalogue HERE!

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"Gov. Wes Moore signed an executive order…directing state agencies to use 'plain language' that provides clear and brief information on any documents or websites from state government aimed at the average reader in Maryland."

[criticalbread]

read and reblog please

I want to make sure this information gets through to everyone: the racist genocidal German state could deport Bilal @bilal-salah0 within the next week, after he lost his job and home, heaping cruelty after cruelty onto this young man who has been working nonstop to provide for his family facing genocide in Gaza.

he's supporting 18 people there, including 8 kids under age 16. now Bilal needs to finish fundraising for his family before August 15th when he could be deported. that's one week from today.

Bilal needs to raise €25000 in the next 7 days to make sure his family has enough to survive if he can no longer fundraise. Bilal shared this dire news with us on Tuesday, but in spite of thousands of notes on @malcriada, @appsa, and others' posts about the situation, the campaign received only €3650 in the last two days.

it seems like people are somehow not seeing the urgency and severity of the situation. donations also slowed over the past week because Bilal couldn't be online to promote the campaign, and because of the recent racist attacks against fundraising efforts here. there's a lot of ground to make up and very little time, but we can do it. please donate any amount you can, those €5s add up if enough people help. reblog this as well as the posts linked above, and tell your friends and social media outside tumblr. and most importantly, seriously, please donate whatever you can. we need to come through for Bilal's family now, not later. please take this seriously, please help them.

August 8th: €75,467 / €100,000

plain text and tags under the cut

PT: read and reblog please

I want to make sure this information gets through to everyone: the racist genocidal German state could deport Bilal @/bilal-salah0 within the next week, after he lost his job and home, heaping cruelty after cruelty onto this young man who has been working nonstop to provide for his family facing genocide in Gaza. now Bilal needs to finish fundraising for his family before August 15th when he could be deported. that's one week from today.

Bilal needs to raise €25000 in the next 7 days to make sure his family has enough to survive if he can no longer fundraise. Bilal shared this dire news with us on Tuesday, but in spite of thousands of notes on @/malcriada, @/appsa, and others' posts about the situation, the campaign received only €3650 in the last two days.

it seems like people are somehow not seeing the urgency and severity of the situation. donations also slowed over the past week because Bilal couldn't be online to promote the campaign, and because of the recent racist attacks against fundraising efforts here. there's a lot of ground to make up and very little time, but we can do it. please donate any amount you can, those €5s add up if enough people help. reblog this as well as the posts linked above, and tell your friends and social media outside tumblr. and most importantly, seriously, please donate whatever you can. we need to come through for Bilal's family now, not later. please take this seriously, please help them.

August 8th: €75,467 / €100,000

/end PT

lmk if you don't want to be tagged next time. ty!

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