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Aminatou, the fateshifter ✨

Commission for a full art commander card for James 

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there's a fine line between being wary of manipulation and becoming completely paranoid because you get very close to the realisation that pretty much all human interaction involves doing things we hope will lead to a result we like

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While these protests succeeded in disrupting normal operations at the targeted arms companies, they were unable to meaningfully halt the manufacture of weapons, in part because the group best poised to shut down production was conspicuously absent from each of the actions: the companies’ workers. More than two million US workers are employed by the weapons industry, which produces over 80% of all of Israel’s arms imports, including “precision guided munitions, small diameter bombs, artillery, ammunition, Iron Dome interceptors and other critical equipment,” according to the Pentagon, as well as F-35 aircraft—the most advanced fighter jets in the world. In the past month and a half, Israel has used these weapons in a genocidal assault that has killed more than 14,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza, at least 5,600 of them children. The violence has prompted direct action against the Israeli war machine’s supply chain, with protesters targeting not only munitions factories but also ships transporting arms to Israel and financial firms with significant investments in the weapons industry. But unlike in many other parts of the world, where weapons workers have led the disruption in response to an urgent call for solidarity from Palestinian trade unions, in the US, unions in the weapons industry have so far remained outside the fray.

This is despite the presence of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of unionized workers in the US weapons industry, some of whom are employed at the very factories that protesters have attempted to shut down this fall. As journalist Taylor Barnes reported earlier this year, each of the five major Pentagon contractors—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics—employs some unionized workers, although union density at the firms ranges from as low as 4% at Northrop Grumman to as high as 32% at Boeing. Many of these unionized workers belong either to the International Association of Machinists (IAM), or to the United Auto Workers (UAW), which is part of a renaissance in the US labor movement. […]

For anti-war labor organizers in the United States, unionized weapons workers present a paradox: Serving such members ostensibly requires making weapons industry jobs stable and remunerative, but the principles of global solidarity call for dismantling the war machine altogether. Traditionally, US unions have only pursued the former mandate. As one anonymous local union president in the industry put it to researcher Karen Bell earlier this year, “my top priority is trying to make sure that we have work in jobs in the United States . . . I don’t make a lot of judgments on anything other than, what can you do to keep the people I represent in work? That’s my job, and to be anything other than that, it would really be a disservice to the people that are paying my salary.” Rather than questioning their role in the industry, unions have reconfirmed their relationships with weapons companies since the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Last month, 1,000 IAM members in Arizona and 1,100 UAW members across the Midwest separately ratified new contracts with Raytheon and General Dynamics respectively, during a period when both companies were actively implicated in the mass killing of Palestinian civilians. When the Raytheon contract deal was announced on October 22nd, one IAM leader said he was “proud to support our Raytheon members and excited for this contract’s positive impact on their lives”—a statement that highlights the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between the economic interests of weapons industry workers and the anti-war, anti-genocide movement.

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The US labor movement has long been implicated in the country’s wars abroad. In a famous December 1940 radio address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked unions and bosses to come together in the fight against global fascism by rapidly converting the US peacetime economy into a wartime one. “I appeal to the owners of plants, to the managers, to the workers, to our own government employees to put every ounce of effort into producing these munitions swiftly and without stint,” he said. “We must be the great arsenal of democracy.”

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[After the Cold War,] a genuine conversion to a peacetime economy never materialized, in large part due to lobbying from the major Pentagon contractors, and to Democrats’ fear of looking “weak” in comparison to war-rabid Republicans. “In the absence of a vision for what would replace the national security state, the arms industry worked on dual-use technology to serve civilian and military purposes, turned to the export market, and consolidated,” writes journalist Indigo Olivier. “Since the 1990s, the number of prime contractors in aerospace and defense working directly with the Pentagon has dwindled from 51 to five due to a dizzying wave of mergers and acquisitions in the industry. With this new monopoly power, arms companies turned more of their attention to elected officials.” Through decades of successful lobbying, the arms companies have continued to secure lucrative Pentagon contracts, further entrenching an economy of permanent war. The gears of this war machine are greased by military aid packages to US allies—the largest of which by far is an annual $3.8 billion for Israel—which are required to be spent in full or in large part on US arms, thereby acting to subsidize the US weapons industry.

Weapons workers keep this war industry up and running, not only by laboring within it, but also by contributing to its popular legitimacy. As tens of thousands of Americans repeatedly take to the streets to call for an immediate ceasefire in Israel/Palestine—a move favored by 68% of the electorate—President Joe Biden has cited weapons industry workers in his bid to sell voters on sending $14.3 billion in supplemental military assistance to Israel. “Patriot missiles for air defense batteries, made in Arizona. Artillery shells manufactured in twelve states across the country—in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas,” Biden said in his October 19th Oval Office address, namechecking battleground states in next year’s presidential election. Explicitly echoing Roosevelt, he continued: “Just as in World War II, today patriotic American workers are building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom.” In the weeks after the address, Biden’s aides reportedly circulated talking points to congressional allies arguing that supplying Israel with weapons would create manufacturing jobs for US workers. But despite Biden’s attempt to harken back to a time when the labor movement was fully invested in the US war machine, some present-day unionists—in the tradition of predecessors like Reuther and Winpisinger—are beginning to challenge the idea that war is essential to workers’ well-being.

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Huda Ammori, "Tactics of Disruption" (18 April 2025)

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Fish Room Bowl (2025)

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Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? (Celeste Davis, Oct 6 2024)

"White flight is a term that describes how white people move out of neighborhoods when more people of color move in.

White flight is especially common when minority populations become the majority. That neighborhood then declines in value.

Male flight describes a similar phenomenon when large numbers of females enter a profession, group, hobby or industry—the men leave. That industry is then devalued.

Take veterinary school for example:

In 1969 almost all veterinary students were male at 89%.

By 1987, male enrollment was equal to female at 50%.

By 2009, male enrollment in veterinary schools had plummeted to 22.4%

A sociologist studying gender in veterinary schools, Dr. Anne Lincoln says that in an attempt to describe this drastic drop in male enrollment, many keep pointing to financial reasons like the debt-to-income ratio or the high cost of schooling.

But Lincoln’s research found that “men and women are equally affected by tuition and salaries.”

Her research shows that the reason fewer men are enrolling in veterinary school boils down to one factor: the number of women in the classroom.

For every 1% increase in the proportion of women in the student body, 1.7 fewer men applied.

One more woman applying was a greater deterrent than $1000 in extra tuition! (…)

Since males had dominated these professions for centuries, you would think they would leave slowly, hesitantly or maybe linger at 40%, 35%, 30%, but that’s not what happens.

Once the tipping point reaches majority female- the men flee. And boy do they flee!

It’s a slippery slope. When the number of women hits 60% the men who are there make a swift exit and other men stop joining.

Morty Schapiro, economist and former president of Northwestern University has noticed this trend when studying college enrollment numbers across universities:

“There’s a cliff you fall off once you become 60/40 female/male. It then becomes exponentially more difficult to recruit men.”

Now we’ve reached that 60% point of no return for colleges.

As we’ve seen with teachers, nurses and interior design, once an institution is majority female, the public perception of its value plummets.

Scanning through Reddit and Quora threads, many men seem to be in agreement - college is stupid and unnecessary.

A waste of time and money. You’re much better off going into the trades, a tech boot camp or becoming an entrepreneur. No need for college. (…)

When mostly men went to college? Prestigious. Aspirational. Important.

Now that mostly women go to college? Unnecessary. De-valued. A bad choice. (…)

School is now feminine. College is feminine. And rule #1 if you want to safely navigate this world as a man? Avoid the feminine.

But we don’t seem to want to talk about that."

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i love when a song is an acquired taste. you can listen to something once and go huh. there's something here even if im not quite ready for it yet. and you listen a couple more times. and then bam a couple weeks or months or years later you listen, youve finally worn the song in and it's the most beautiful thing you've ever heard

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the genocide is now as bad as it has ever been and more undeniable than it has ever been. israel is doubling down on starving every gazan and destroying every remaining piece of infrastructure until they leave. and humanitarian workers who have had access to gaza before - including WFP, WCK, UNICEF are being prevented from gaining access by israel. if you've ever seen images of kids with pots clamoring at kitchens that usually accompany articles on "looming famine in gaza" (as though it is a natural disaster and not an imposed famine by israel in gaza) then you should know that those kids have been showing up and finding nobody there, because the stores have run out and the volunteers are being prevented from access. now is the time to talk about gaza, and more importantly now is the time to point the finger at the state of israel that is committing genocide openly, audaciously, hatefully

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Afternoon on the River - Jessica Vergeer .

Canadian, b, 1987 -

Acrylic on canvas , 40 x 30 in.

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I am That I am (a furry)

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Thank you to @jellyramos for revamping our website and making it look amazing! We'll keep uploading transcripts to catch up to the current season, but transcripts up to S2E7 and the interstitial for Season 2 are now available on the website!

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Procedure

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The Republicans have decided we no longer need bees and are defunding the USGS Bee Lab. Please tell your friends, your representatives, local beekeepers, crafting clubs, your classmates, and everyone who has ever seen a bee that this is happening and that the Republicans are behind it. Scream about this. We in the professional bug world make fun of the bee people for having some of the only consistent funding and support in the whole field, but now even that is going away. Write it on your car. Tell someone at the store. Email your professor. Make a tiktok. Draw it on the sidewalk. Do NOT let them sneak this by.

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Trauma dumping becoming a popularized term is just so fucking sad idk that’s one of the worst ones used casually obv there will always be people who say and ask too much from people who cant and don’t know how to handle it but it becoming some sort of pop psychology criminal offense is insane. like someone constantly oversharing is a huge sign something is very wrong you just need to understand that sometimes you’re not the one to fix it and can walk away if need be. Not talk massive shit and play victim ruining someone’s life because they told you too much about their childhood or something just keep it moving

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have seen a couple tags on that reblog worrying about the viability of getting bottom surgery as a fat person facing medical discrimination & wanted to make sure you've all seen FEDUP's database of usamerican surgeons with higher or no BMI limits on the procedures they perform. the majority perform top surgery but there are also bottom surgeons listed as well as surgeons who perform other gender affirming procedures; if anyone knows of & can add similar resources especially for non-usamerican surgeons please feel free

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i come from the 8tracks generation where you weren't allowed to just dump three and a half twee indie folk/tswift records into a fanmix and call it done. on 8tracks you had 8+ handpicked songs in rigid chronological order and an accompanying mission statement and thesis defence detailing exactly why each one applied to your derek x stiles coffee shop au AND cover/track-list art hodgepodged from stolen pinterest/tumblr aesthetic photography, and all of this was done under constant threat of death because it was the DMCA wild west and the site was in a constant state of gradual collapse.