hopepunkislearningtohope - Tumblr blog

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

Hey. You. The American teenager inexplicably reading this. Don't join the US military. You're better than that. The military is a bunch of cops. Are they technically diverse and inclusive? On some level, kind of, almost. But their job is to kill people. They kill innocent people every day. They abuse their own members, especially their members who aren't white cis het middle class Christian men. The US exists through perpetual violence against the global working class, including its own working class. The military is how it carries out a large portion of that violence. You deserve better. You're better than that. Don't join.

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

Some people’s political opinions can really just be boiled down to “can anybody tell me who the good guys and the bad guys are”

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

... not part of women's preventative care....

...

I want... to throw stuff.

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

"crochet can't be made by machines" went from being a cool fun fact to being a call to action of "so if you see mass manufactured crochet in Target, that was made by a person and they were underpaid and you should boycott it" which is true, it was made by a person, but EVERY item of clothing you own (that you did not purchase from a company using ethical labor) was made by a person being underpaid (at *best*.)

Sewing machines are operated by *people*. Knitting machines are operated by *people*. Yes lots of the process is automated but you cannot tell a machine "make me a t-shirt" or "make me a knit cardigan".

Higher awareness of fast fashion, and the true human labor and abuse behind it, is GREAT, but let's not pretend that the crochet hat in target is THE problem. Every article of clothing in target is the problem. "All clothes are made by people" is the jumping off point here into understanding this issue it's not just crochet it's the whole thing ahhhhHHHHHHHHHH

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

Georgia banned LGBT rights.

Georgian lawmakers approved the third and final reading of a law on "family values and the protection of minors” and Leaders of the governing Georgian Dream party say it is needed to safeguard “traditional moral standards”

What does the bill do?

The bill that passed bans same-sex marriages, adoptions by same-sex couples, and gender affirming care. It also outlaws pride events, lgbt books, movies, and pride flags.

They took away LGBT rights!

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

2-for-1! lead in your cinnamon! come get some lead in your cinnamon! brand new report! newer than the older lead-in-your-cinnamon reports!

published september 12th 2024.

got to say, I did NOT expect costco's cinnamon to have 40 times more lead than fucking amazon. yikes.

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

I'm up to the "I dunno maybe children working 13 hour shifts is bad, guys" part of Capital and it feels important to inform people that haven't read it yet that capitalists in the 19th century were not by any means wringing their hands and twirling their mustaches about employing children to squeeze out profits, they were hiring "experts" to write newspaper articles for them, explaining how "well, the socialists have these big demands about an 8-hour work day, and taking Saturdays off, but it's actually just so complicated, it's too complicated for most people to understand, we just NEED to hire children for night shifts because the stamina of their strong, youthful bodies is the only way we can survive as a business! It's science, you see. Economics doesn't work like that, just ask our economics professors at Oxford. You CAN'T turn a profit only working people 8 hours! Trust the experts, they know. It's just so complicated..."

That exact infuriating cadence that you read in New York Times articles, in the Atlantic Monthly, in the WaPo and all the other bourgeois rags where "everything is so complicated, and it's actually a lot more complicated than you think.." that has been around since the beginning. It is nothing new. So the next time you see some op-ed from Matt Yglesias or any of those other guys huffing their own farts about how "complicated" everything is, and how "unrealistic" a 30-hour work week is, remember that Marx was dealing with that exact class of "intellectuals" "explaining" how working 13 hours at age 10 was "vital" to the "moral fibre" of those poor kids.

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

Wow. The patience, kindness and calm communication skills. Outstanding.

From raindovemodel

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

In less than two months it will be October 7th again.

In less than two months, it will be a year of genocide. 

In light of this, I just have only one request for you; please do not give into whatever you are describing as “compassion fatigue” right now.

Realize that this is exactly what the colonizers conducting this genocide want you to feel. Realize that apathy during a genocide is what leads to the normalization of atrocities. Realize that this is a tried and tested method found throughout history; that now when the genocide is been widely documented by Gazans themselves- the only way the colonizers can get away with it is by running you down and making you feel hopeless!

They want you to stop caring about their victims and this is why you need to fight harder now more than ever!!

I request you to fight harder for every Gazan! And therefore request you to fight for my friend Siraj Abudayeh too, whose family recently faced another assault. His parents and siblings had to flee to him for protection, because their areas ( Hamad, southern Khan Younis) were marked for assault from occupation forces. With the number of people depending on him increased now, Siraj has a much heavier responsibility on his shoulders to raise enough funds to support all of them and their needs, when prices of food water and other essentials are already skyrocketing.

With the coming of the rainy season, there comes the danger of epidemics spreading from open sewers as well! Siraj’s son Amir has already fallen ill, and his other two sons are showing symptoms too- they are in dire need of medical treatment! I cannot overstate how badly Siraj and his family need these funds!! How badly he needs your continuous support.

There has been a significant drop in engagement with fundraising posts and I very clearly remember, someone tagging one of my posts with compassion fatigue. It shocked me to my core to think that the cries of Free Palestine could fade so suddenly; that after only a year some of you have begun to feel fatigued, from having to care about this.

Do not give in please; do not let the colonizers make you complicit in this horror! They know that if they can overwhelm you enough, then one day the videos and posts would stop hitting as hard and sooner or later everyone will stop talking about Palestine. This cannot happen again! Not when your attention can literally save a life! This is the power you hold- especially if you are living in the Imperial core. The colonizers are afraid of it. You have to know this and believe this!

So please do not turn away and help Siraj get to 50k as soon as possible!

He is currently only at $45,044 / $82,000 CAD

[ GFM LINK ]

[ Vetting at 219 on Hussein's spreadsheet]

And if you are having trouble donating to Siraj's fundraiser through Paypal, please get in touch with @malcriada .

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

i'll keep this brief to spare your dash:

27 person family, trapped in gaza

injured and sick members, young kids, and elderly

displaced 8 times, currently separated & sleeping on the streets

less than $1k USD to reach their goal

verified / donate here

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

So, a comparatively high amount of states are voting on the fate of ranked choice voting this year. Missouri is voting on whether or not to kill it, Alaska is voting on whether or not to keep it, and most importantly, Nevada, Oregon and Idaho are voting on whether or not to adopt ranked choice voting, with maybe Colorado to follow.

And if you live in these states, even if you don't want to vote at the top of the ticket, I urge you to get out there and vote in favor of ranked choice voting on all of them.

Like, the two-party monopoly is a big part of the reason why politics in this country is so shit, and a big part of that is our "first past the post" system making it basically mathematically impossible for candidates outside of them to win anything beyond a local or state level.

So, if you want to try and break the cycle of voting for the lesser evil, of bipartisan cruelty towards the Global South and the country's own citizens alike, we need to change this and we need to vote on it where we can.

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

"Despite the Central Appalachia ecosystem being historically famous as coal country, under this diverse broadleaf canopy lies a rich, biodiverse world of native plants helping to fill North America’s medicinal herb cabinet.

And it turns out that the very communities once reliant on the coalfields are now bringing this botanical diversity to the country.

“Many different Appalachian people, stretching from pre-colonization to today, have tended, harvested, sold, and used a vast number of forest botanicals like American ginseng, ramps, black cohosh, and goldenseal,” said Shannon Bell, Virginia Tech professor in the Dept. of Sociology. “These plants have long been integral to many Appalachians’ livelihoods and traditions.”

50% of the medicinal herbs, roots, and barks in the North American herbal supply chain are native to the Appalachian Mountains, and the bulk of these species are harvested or grown in Central Appalachia, which includes southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, far-southwest Virginia, and east Tennessee.

The United Plant Savers, a nonprofit with a focus on native medicinal plants and their habitats, has identified many of the most popular forest medicinals as species of concern due to their declining populations.

Along with the herbal supply chain being largely native to Appalachia, the herb gatherers themselves are also native [to Appalachia, not Native American specifically], but because processing into medicine and seasonings takes place outside the region, the majority of the profits from the industry do too.

In a press release on Bell’s superb research and advocacy work within Appalachia’s botanical communities, she refers back to the moment that her interest in the industry and the region sprouted; when like many of us, she was out in a nearby woods waiting out the pandemic.

“My family and I spent a lot of time in the woods behind our house during quarantine,” Bell said. “We observed the emergence of all the spring ephemerals in the forest understory – hepatica, spring beauty, bloodroot, trillium, mayapple. I came to appreciate the importance of the region’s botanical biodiversity more than ever, and realized I wanted to incorporate this new part of my life into my research.”

With co-investigator, John Munsell at VA Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment, Bell’s project sought to identify ways that Central Appalachian communities could retain more of the profits from the herbal industry while simultaneously ensuring that populations of at-risk forest botanicals not only survive, but thrive and expand in the region.

Bell conducted participant observation and interviews with wild harvesters and is currently working on a mail survey with local herb buyers. She also piloted a ginseng seed distribution program, and helped a wild harvester write a grant proposal to start a forest farm.

“Economic development in post-coal communities often focuses on other types of energy development, like fracking and natural gas pipelines, or on building prisons and landfills. Central Appalachia is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. I think that placing a greater value on this biodiversity is key to promoting a more sustainable future for the region,” Bell told VA Tech press.

Armed with a planning grant of nearly half a million dollars, Bell and collaborators are specifically targeting forest farming as a way to achieve that sustainable future.

Finally, enlisting support from the nonprofit organization Appalachian Sustainable Development, Virginia Tech, the City of Norton, a sculpture artist team, and various forest botanicals practitioners in her rolodex, Bell organized the creation of a ‘living monument’ along Flag Rock Recreation Area in Norton, Virginia.

An interpretive trail, the monument tells the story of the historic uses that these wild botanicals had for the various societies that have inhabited Appalachia, and the contemporary value they still hold for people today."

-via Good News Network, September 12, 2024

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

[hopepunkislearningtohope]

Donations have started to slow down again for Taim and Tia's family.

The Israeli ground forces have started to encroach upon Deir al-Balah where they are staying, issuing evacuation order after evacuation order and shrinking the so-called "humanitarian zone" that existed there. A couple days ago when I last spoke to their mother, Eman, she said they were not in the evacuation zone but I worry that it is only a matter of time.

Displacement is costly and dangerous. Please share and donate! They are only just over a third of the way to their goal of 90,000 euros. Even a small donation of 5 euros adds up!