equalidran

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guy who couldn't be bothered to take twenty minutes to vote on november 5th voice: we're going to organize a general strike

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yall remember that one day boycott? it had exactly the effect i expected it to which is absolutely none and the staying power i expected it to which is absolutely none. no one is talking about it any more.

now, the target boycott is what i was talking about when i brought up how a successful boycott works. it's targeted (hah) and it has a clear purpose and win condition. target removed their dei program of their own volition to cave to the president's nonsense, so we boycott them until they change their practices. and it's working! and people are still talking about it.

this is how you boycott, as advertised by people who know how politics work. take example from this.

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much better footage of the haka that shut down parliament today

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Anyone remember that Haka that Te Pati Māori (the Māori party) did in protest of the racist treaty principle bill? The one that went viral?

Well the privileges committee who are tasked with in looking into incidents in parliment and punishing MPs as they see fit gave punishments to 3 te pati Māori MPs, suspending them from parliment without pay. Maipi-Clarke is to be suspended for 1 week, and Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi for 3 weeks.

This is the longest suspension in New Zealand history. It was voted in by a 5 vote majority and 4 vote minority out of the 9 people on the privileges committee.

Judith Collins, a white women famously known for saying she can't be racist because "my husband is Samoan, talofa lava", called the Te Pati Māori MPs actions uncivilized.

Which is racist as fuck as haka is civilized per tikanga (Māori cultural customs and practices) aka she is just calling Māori practices and culture uncivilized

And it gets worse! Judith Collins also said the severity of the punishment is partly because they didn't show up to the privileges committee hearing. Which is fucked as they are NOT required to attend it, so should not have been penalized for not going.

And now the government is debating if the punishment was just. There was a 20m debate today which has been put on hold for 2 weeks as the budget is to be read on Thursday and Chris bishop conceded to letting them attend that but they will still be suspended from voting on the budget.

This government literally fucking sucks.

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The fucking audacity of the judge to say that ruling the definition of woman is based purely on biological sex “is not a triumph of one side over another.”

As if this hasn’t just fucking decimated trans rights in the UK, made transphobia practically law and blatantly supporting the work of groups like the LGB Alliance.

How fucking dare they.

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"uhm actually getting rid of usaid is a good thing because imperialism" <- surface level understanding of international relations

1. nuance exists

2. stop making horseshoe theory real

3. what's your opinion of chinas belt and road initiative. because i can definitely guess.

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The really important part here is that the woman who issued this order, Cathy Harris, was herself the target of an illegal firing by the Trump admin. That firing was ruled illegal, and so now that she's secured in her position (until 2028) she was able to stop these firings, at least for 45 days while the Merit Systems Protection Board goes over them.

The legal resistance IS working in meaningful ways. Each roadblock slows their plans down in real ways.

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gonna expand on this

there are ways to boycott that are simple and easy and actually have an effect, they just require prior planning and working on a smaller scale. sorry you can't solve every issue ever in one day. choose what's most important and allow others to choose other issues. you have to work together and also work in tandem. here is how.

1. choose a target. just one!!! sometimes you're gonna have to let businesses slide on your personal boycott list because you can't boycott everything at once. someone else has to lead a different boycott because it means something to them. just because you prioritize one issue doesn't mean other issues aren't important. internalize this. it just means you understand strategy and not burning yourself out.

2. create a win condition for your boycott. you want a company to divest? firstly make that clear in your advertising for your boycott, and later, should they divest, return to patronizing that business. if the boycott is one day, they will write that day off and move on. if the boycott is indefinite, they will write you off as a customer and ignore your demands. if you don't have a specific win condition and your only goal is ~disrupting the economy~ not only will one day of boycotting not disrupt the economy in any way but there is no win condition. corporations will return to business as usual and so will you. no changes have been made, you just feel better about yourself. simple as

3. create a backup plan for necessary services around the boycott. what if that store is the only one that sells a product in a given area? monopolies are real and concerningly common. create a resource list for those you are encouraging to join your boycott that contains non-boycotted companies (or promote companies with good practices!) that offer alternatives, or work within your community to distribute necessities in cases where those companies are out of peoples' price ranges. this latter point is why nationwide action can so easily break down. if you don't have local community support in each place you are trying to take action, you will be unable to support everyone. the us is a big place. you can start small, it's okay.

4. finally, when you're ready to start, here comes advertising. you need a sizeable portion of consumers to join your boycott in order to make a dent and draw the company's attention. for nationwide boycotts, this grows exponentially. and people get their information through a variety of sources. you have to make sure your advertising is clear, concise, and widespread. people need to know why we're boycotting, when we start, and what we're demanding to change. if you don't have all three things, some people will blindly join in and shame others for not also joining in, which will just make people annoyed, while the majority of people will simply not engage with your boycott at all.

this is why i have a problem with the one day boycott. there is no clarity of purpose. there is no end condition. there is no support system outside of buying your goods the day before or after, which literally just negates the boycott in the first place. so like. please be serious.

a boycott is not the answer to everything guys. guys please be serious

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Tonight House Republicans voted 217 to 215 for a budget that'll take $1 TRILLION dollars from Medicaid, attack food benefits for kids, hurt seniors and vets.

but I don't want to talk about that, I want to talk about these two Democratic members of Congress you've never ever heard of.

Democrats, Congressman Kevin Mullin of California and Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen of Colorado.

Congressman Mullin had knee surgery that didn't go well, two surgeries, a life threatening blood clot and a week long stay in the hospital, and the moment he was discharged from the hospital he got on a five hour flight to DC to vote against the Republicans evil budget, using a walker to get to the floor of the House

Congresswoman Pettersen gave birth to her son Sam, in the picture, exactly one month ago on January 25th. They flew from Colorado to DC after Republicans refused to allow her to vote by proxy after having a baby. Congresswoman Pettersen took Sam onto the floor of the House to vote to protect the Health care of 400,000 Colorado kids.

why talk about this? because so much of the conversion is about telling people there's no one good, no one worthy, no one fighting. I promise you there are people undergoing personal hardship to do the right thing.

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a boycott is not the answer to everything guys. guys please be serious

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it's a little disheartening to see posts begging people to protest from the same blogs that told people not to vote or to vote third party. remember 2020? how well did that work out for us?

the majority of past successful protests are for voting rights, at which point people work within the system they now have a voice in to improve things. protests do not do much or effect lasting change unless they are highly organized with concrete goals in mind and organizers use other tactics in addition to protests to achieve their ends.

if you actually want to make a difference, vote. join community organizations. volunteer. donate. go to city council and school board meetings. try to get on juries instead of out of them. don't just protest. protests are one tool in a toolkit that should be comprehensive. you can't build a house with just a hammer.

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you know how i know jill stein is a grifter who doesn't care about actually winning, only playing spoiler? she wasn't on the ballot in dc

we vote so blue that we've gone democratic every single year since we were allowed the right to vote for president in 1960. the democratic candidate has not won with less than 90% of the vote since 2008. if jill stein wanted to meet that 5% campaign funding threshold that was thrown around as justification for voting for her, she could achieve that easily in dc alone and our electors still would have gone for harris.

but no. on our presidential ballot it was only harris, trump, and rfk. and harris won with 92.5%

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just gonna come out and say this now super super ahead of the curve

if miracle of miracles happens and we still have elections in four years and we get a democratic president. it doesn't matter if it's white guy centrist number 3000 or we actually manage to switch it up again. if we get a democratic president they are going to be promising the moon on the campaign trail. but i NEED you all to understand the consequences of this presidency first.

it doesn't matter what progressive promises they make. i am telling you now that this trump presidency is going to strip everything so far back that we aren't going to have much room for progressive policies. that president is going to fight for their life to return to where we are right now under biden and will be blamed for not doing anything at all. you need to understand this. even if you aren't directly affected in the coming years you need to understand how bad this is.

trump has a trifecta. do you understand this? he has not only a majority in the senate but in the supreme court as well as the presidency. there's a very real possibility he'll win the house too. this means he will have a very, very easy time to pass anything and everything he wants. read the project 2025 outline. that's what he wants.

and im telling you right now. unless there's some magical swing in the electorate, the next democratic president is going to barely scrape into office by the skin of their teeth. i have no hope in getting congress. the supreme court is lost to us. so im TELLING you. the next democratic president is going to fight for their life to achieve anything at all. the president cannot unilaterally decide to do anything. trump probably will, because he's a dictatorial idiot and he has a trifecta and they won't stop him. but the next democrat down the line? they would be lucky to even propose an idea of a bill.

worst case scenario here is it's gridlock entirely. this current congress (not the newly elected one) is known as the least effective in history, and some things are still getting passed. it could be that a hostile congress flat out refuses to do anything the new president says. and that's not good at all and they look like a failure and im telling you now that they are and always will be working within the bounds of our system and are trying their best.

"the system is rotten so just tear it down! then we'll get something done!" forgive me for not putting any faith in your revolution here. that one tweet about not voting in favor of firebombing a walmart and then never firebombing a walmart. anyway back to the way things actually work.

even if they're able to pass things, the democratic president will be starting from so much further back than harris would have if she'd won. do you know how bad things were when trump was president the first time? not only the big, obvious things, but the tiny problems he caused that the layperson would never think about.

did you know he fired nearly the entire appointed staff of the state department (not entirely out of the question for a new administration who wants to put their own people in positions, but it's usually not the ENTIRE staff, only higher level diplomats) and then never refilled so many of those positions? did you know part of project 2025 calls for the dismissal of every unloyal staff member in government and replacing them with loyal members?

these are the kinds of things the new president will be facing. with a hostile congress and a hostile staff, they have to start small by pure necessity. they will fight to bring the us back to where it was in 2024 and it will look like they've done nothing and you will not understand the work it takes to even get that far. so im telling you that now.

if there's somehow a democratic supermajority things would look a lot different. but i don't have any hope for that. best i can reasonably hope for is retaking congress in 2026 so things don't go too bad. worst case scenario there is no 2026.

the solution here, the way to see actual progress, is to vote democrat ALL the way down the ballot in every election forever. independents do not have a chance at the presidency in the two party system, but they do have a chance in congress, provided of course you know they're going to win. and when there's democratic victory after democratic victory, then we can safely move on to progressives. im telling you now that this is a strategy not morality. maga and the tea party and the heritage foundation did this over the course of fifty years; it will take at least that much to do it our way. but we need to work together and we need to be smart about this.

so when the next democrat shows up and doesn't seem to be doing anything at all despite the shiny promises they made on the trail, look closer. see what's holding them back. and get rid of it. and THEN yell at them for not using the unobstructed path.

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If you vote in North Carolina, you're going to see this on your ballot. Looks pretty straightforward, right?

But it's a trap placed by the GOP. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Voting "For" this referendum will remove the phrase "and every person who has been naturalized" from this section on voter eligibility in the NC constitution. This could place the future voting rights of about 400,000 naturalized US citizens in the state in jeopardy.

Just a reminder - it's already illegal for non-citizens to vote! There's no evidence that this happens in significant numbers anywhere in the country, and North Carolina has restrictions in place against it happening at all, like the voter ID law that's now in effect.

(The voter ID law disproportionately affects POC, as well as transgender voters, both of whom are more likely to vote Democratic as well as lack the needed ID, but that's another post.)

Voting "Against" on this measure will leave the state constitution unchanged.

Here's the whole bill (PDF): https://dashboard.ncleg.gov/api/Services/BillSummary/2023/H1074-SMBK-89(sl)-v-2

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Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #37

Oct 4-11 2024

President Biden announced a new EPA rule that will require all lead pipes in America's drinking water systems to be replace with-in 10 years. This builds on the $15 billion the Biden-Harris Administration has already invested in replacing lead pipes nation wide. The administration's focus on this issue has allowed local governments to greatly execrate their lead pipe replacement plans, before Biden took office the city of Milwaukee's timeline for replacing its lead pipes was 60 years, they're now on track to do it in 10. The EPA says there's no safe level of lead in the human body.

Vice President Harris announced she plans to expand Medicare to cover home health care. Currently those who need long term care, are covered by Medicaid, the health program for the poor so have to spend all their savings before they can qualify. This change would allow more seniors to stay in their homes and offer support to caregiving family members. Medicare also covers the disabled thus proving a game changer for the disabled Americans and their families. The Vice President also endorsed expanding Medicare to cover the costs of hearing and vision care.

Medicare released a preliminary list of 101 generic drugs which it would cover that would cost no more than $2 for a month for enrollees. People have long lobbied to allow Medicare to pay for generic drugs which has been resisted by drug companies. Thanks to President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, and in line with a Biden Executive Order Medicare is now working on bring low cost generic drugs to seniors. The list targets some of the most common prescriptions thus will bring savings to the most people.

Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden announced that the Biden-Harris Administration had blown past its goal of hiring 250,000 student support staff for 2024. The joint effort by the Department of Education, AmeriCorps and Everyone Graduates Center managed to hire 320,000 tutors, mentors, student success coaches, postsecondary transition coaches, and student support coordinators nationwide, its goal for the end of 2025.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced $420 million to help get rid of lead paint and other lead hazards from homes. HUD estimates that over 3 million households that have children under the age of 6 live with lead hazards. HUDs grants will go to all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico with particular focus on low income housing.

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Canada and India each expelled six diplomats Monday in tit-for-tat moves as part of an escalating dispute over the June 2023 assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada. Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said that Canada was expelling six Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner, after police uncovered evidence of a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents of the Indian government. Shortly afterward, the Indian foreign ministry said that it was expelling six Canadian diplomats, including the acting high commissioner and the deputy high commissioner. It said in a statement that the diplomats were told to leave India by the end of Saturday. The ministry had said earlier Monday that India was withdrawing its diplomats, after rejecting Canada’s diplomatic communication on Sunday that said the Indian ambassador was a “person of interest” in the assassination. A senior Canadian official said that Canada expelled the Indian diplomats first before they withdrew. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.