#political action

[lgbttruther]

Hi, local long-time tumblr resident here. Please take a moment to spread this message if you can.

In South Carolina, my home state, bill H. 4624 is swiftly being approved and passed through legislation with virtually no media coverage or conversation happening around it.

It is a dangerous and aggressively transphobic bill that will outlaw treatment for any trans person under 18, would require school teachers, counselors, and medical practictioners to disclose a student's status as trans to parents (which can lead to abuse or worse) and will also make it illegal to use any public funds to cover transition-related medical services for anyone of ANY age.

For transgender adults on medicaid or the state health plan, this is absolutely terrifying.

For anyone in SC who believes trans people should be allowed to live dignified and peaceful lives, I urge you to read up on the bill and to send emails to the governor and (if they are on the medical affairs committee) your local senator.

Links below.

Bill H. 4624

An explanation of the bill

Find your local senator

Message the Governor

[decolonize-the-left]

"vote with your wallet!" "All they care about is profit." "go after their wallets where it hurts!" "New boycott list dropped!" "we want to make them care" "calling doesn't work so expose them to donors!" "email them to let them know you'll stop buying-" "if they won't listen we won't pay taxes!"

[gillianthecat]

300,000 in DC!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ANSWER Coalition (@answercoalition)

Today, the people made history!

300,000 marched in Washington DC to demand an end to Biden and Israel's genocide against Gaza and demand freedom for Palestine!

[troythecatfish]

[justsomeunsurefancat]

FOR THOSE PLANNING ON PROTESTING FOR PALESTINE

Here's a calendar of protests that will happen around the world

Link to a post on how to march safely

[luulapants]

Where Illinois politicians stand on Palestine

I sent a letter to Senator Tammy Duckworth today. Illinois is a solidly blue state, and I've dutifully voted blue no matter who since I started voting. Droves of people here have been writing to her and our Congressional Representatives, begging them to support a ceasefire, and all we will get back is a canned party-line response about Israel's right to "self defense" and the need to eradicate Hamas.

They are able to do this, to disregard the outrage of their constituency, because they feel certain that no matter how many letters we send, we will show up and vote for them when the time comes. They are certain their actions have no consequences, and even if they did, they would tell us that it's all our fault for failing in our democratic duty to vote.

Senator Dick Durban received about $154.5k from Israeli lobby groups. He has publicly called for ceasefire anyway. Their money was not worth a genocide.

Senator Tammy Duckworth received over $212k from Israeli lobby groups. She refuses to call for ceasefire. This was her going rate to enable genocide.

In my letter, I told her that I could not see pictures of dead Palestinian babies and turn around and vote for someone, like her, who had their blood on her hands. I told her that "vote blue" cannot extend to genocide. My ethics do not stretch this far.

14/17 representatives for the state of Illinois are Democrats. Of these, only 5 have called for ceasefire.

Jonathan Jackson: $3k from Israeli lobby groups. He has publicly called for ceasefire anyway. Their money was not worth a genocide.

Robin Kelly: $21.5k from Israeli lobby groups. She refuses to call for ceasefire. This was her going rate to enable genocide.

Delia Ramirez: $0 from Israeli lobby groups. She has publicly called for ceasefire. They knew she could not be bought.

Jesus "Chuy" Garcia: $0 from Israeli lobby groups. He has publicly called for ceasefire. They knew he could not be bought.

Mike Quigley: $43.5k from Israeli lobby groups. He refuses to call for ceasefire. This was his going rate to enable genocide.

Sean Casten: $61.5k from Israeli lobby groups. He refuses to call for ceasefire. This was his going rate to enable genocide.

Danny Davis: $0 from Israeli lobby groups. Yet he refuses to call for ceasefire. You can have his cowardice for free.

Raja Krishnamoorthi: $61.5k from Israeli lobby groups. He refuses to call for ceasefire. This was his going rate to enable genocide.

Jan Schakowsky: $58.5k from Israeli lobby groups. She has publicly called for ceasefire anyway. Their money was not worth a genocide.

Brad Schneider: $54k from Israeli lobby groups. He refuses to call for ceasefire. This was his going rate to enable genocide.

Bill Foster: $65.5k from Israeli lobby groups. He refuses to call for ceasefire. This was his going rate to enable genocide.

Mike Bost is a Republican. $14.5k and obviously no ceasefire talk. He will not be moved.

Nikki Budzinski: $25.5k from Israeli lobby groups. She refuses to call for ceasefire. This was her going rate to enable genocide.

Lauren Underwood: $0 from Israeli lobby groups. She has publicly called for ceasefire. They knew she could not be bought.

Mary Miller is a Republican. $0 - they don't even have to pay her to toe the party line. She will not be moved.

Darin LaHood is a Republican. $27.5k and obviously no ceasefire talk. He will not be moved.

Eric Sorenson: $0 from Israeli lobby groups. Yet he refuses to call for ceasefire. You can have his cowardice for free.

The Republicans will be trash regardless, but we cannot let our Democrats skate by thinking there are no consequences for supporting a genocide. They are slaughtering people with your tax dollars, Americans. It's time to get serious. It's time to tell these people that they cannot have our votes for free. It's time to start talking about primary opposition and third party voting. It's time to start exercising our power as voting citizens.

[biblicalhorror]

Hey, Colorado folks! Our ballots are due March 5, less than a week from today. Colorado Palestine Coalition is trying to keep up the momentum from the Michigan primary and get as many people to vote "noncommitted" as possible! Please spread the word and sign this pledge if you're in the state of Colorado!

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Another argument in favor of changing things through slow, steady, and determined, political action, starting at the local state and city level:

Because that's exactly how the Evangelical Christian Right came to dominate the United States' national and state policies and laws.

Believe it or not, when I was a preteen, most Evangelical Christians chose to stay out of politics, believing that politics was too much of an Earthly Affair, and focused, instead, on individual salvation, and their personal relationships with God.

And then, in 1979, Jerry Falwelll Sr. founded the Moral Majority (I remember how my friends and I in high school made fun of them at the time). And though that particular organization only lasted ten years, it's political influence has continued to this day.

Here's the Wikipedia article about the movement:

An Excerpt (under the heading "Political involvement"):

Before long, the Moral Majority became heavily invested in presidential elections and national politics; although at the state level branches of the Moral Majority continued to pursue specific issues at lower levels of government. As far as elections, state Moral Majority chapters tended to deliberately focus their efforts towards particular candidates. For example, state chapters participated in campaigns to oust liberal members of Congress during the 1980 election. Also, in 1981, the Moral Majority mobilized delegates to the Virginia Republican state nominating convention in order to support Guy Farley, an evangelical candidate for lieutenant governor.

I advocate for political action and voting at the local levels of government, from the public school boards, to city councils, to the state legislatures, because I've seen that strategy change the very nature of my nation during my lifetime.

[wreckitremy]

The Political Platform of the Democratic Socialists of America:

Abolition of the Carceral State

Abolition of White Supremacy

A Powerful Labor Movement

Economic Justice

Gender and Sexuality Justice

Green New Deal

Health Justice

Housing for All

International Solidarity,

Anti-Imperialism, and Anti-Militarism

DSA' Political Platform on

Gender and Sexuality Justice

DSA is a socialist feminist organization. We organize people of all genders to fight against systems of oppression and exploitation, including patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy.

Liberal representation feminism is content with increasing the number of female faces in oppressive structures. A few women in positions of power, however, is not liberation. Liberation means all genders having freedom and control over their own lives and bodies through ending exploitation.

DSA fights to build a feminism for and by the working class and all oppressed people. Capitalism specifically impacts women workers through devaluing of feminized labor, sexual violence in the workplace, unpaid housework, and the expectation of emotional labor.

DSA fights for the democratization of domestic and care work, political and social liberation for all genders, full bodily autonomy for all, and the end of state recognition of the gender binary.

We stand in solidarity with grassroots feminist movements around the world in their fight against capitalist oppression and exploitation.

We organize for the liberation of queer people, understanding that liberation – having the power to define our life choices, and fulfill our greatest potential — depends on achieving economic justice for the multiracial working class, and all oppressed people.

We fight against violence against black transgender women, federal and state discrimination, and all political and social barriers to full control over ourbodies and sexualities. We seek equity so that queer people, subject to discrimination and violence, have the means to livea liberated, fulfilling life.

We strongly oppose “rainbow capitalism,” in which banks, police, andcorporations wrap themselves in Pride flags during June in order to make profit, all while exploiting queer workers.

We likewise reject “homonationalism,” the process of using superficial support of LGBTQ+ people, such as US military propaganda featuring gay couples, to provide cover for the brutalities of the American empire. Companies in the military-industrial complex may march in corporate Pride parades, but we recognize them for what they are: enemies of the global working class, and of the international queer liberation movement.

We seek nothing less than liberation.

OUR DEMANDS:

Reproductive Justice for All

Free contraception and birth control for all who want it, provided by the state

Free fertility treatment for all

Free abortion on demand

Repeal of the Hyde Amendment and all legal restrictions on abortion access

Reparations for all those impacted by reproductive and sexual violence committed by the state, such as those forced to undergo hysterectomies in ICE detension

An immediate end to forced sterilization of disabled people

Affordable representation of disabled people within family courts

Protection and expansion of the legal rights of disabled parents regarding guardianship

Paid parental leave for all people

Universal child care, elder care, and pre-kindergarten

Quality, age appropriate, and comprehensive sex-ed taught in schools

End Employment and Housing Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression

Enact federal and state anti-discrimination laws, including passage of ENDA and the Equality Act, as well as the addition of “sexual orientation, gender identity and expression” as a protected category in all human rights laws

Require “just cause” for evicting someone from housing or terminating employment

Enhance and strengthen equal pay guarantees, including by requiring the EEOC to resume collecting pay data from large employers, forbidding prior salary from being considered in setting pay rates, and increasing transparency and protections for workers discussing their own pay

Housing for all and a universal ban on housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity

End Anti-Queer Violence

The establishment of community-based response systems to transphobic and homophobic violence, especially violence targeting black trans women, that is entirely separated from the police and criminal law system

Put in place greater protections for survivors of sexual assault and abolition of the requirement that survivors file a police report to access funds

Allow transgender prisoners to be housed in facilities reflecting their gender identities

Guarantee Queer-Friendly and Gender Affirming Healthcare

Enact a single-payer Medicare for All system that provides free queer sexual health and gender affirming healthcare, including HIV care, PrEP, fertilty treatments, birth control, abortion care, mental health care, hormone replacement therapy, and gender-affirming surgeries

Allow trans minors to access gender affirming care without parental consent

Prioritize funding for health centers that provide transgender healthcare, especially in rural and conservative areas, on reservations, and in underserved urban areas

Guarantee that transition-related healthcare, including HRT and surgery, to all incarcerated people who request it

End gender restrictions in insurance coverage, such as the practice of only covering contraceptive costs for women, and demand healthcare tailored to our actual bodies rather than our ID cards

End gendered restrictions on medical care, including but not limited to services available to sexual assault survivors

End the Repression of Sex Workers and Fully Decriminalize Sex Work Nationwide

Repeal FOSTA/SESTA

Increase consideration of the intersection of disability and sex work and provision of specific resources for disabled sex workers

Dignity for domestic and care workers

Increased wages for domestic labor and care work, including through a $15 minimum wage indexed to inflation

Require domestic laborers and home health aides to be paid for all hours worked

The end of mandated 24-hour workdays

End the State Recognition of the Gender Binary and Enforcement of Heteronormativity

Remove all barriers and requirements to changing one’s ID gender marker and legal name

End all laws prohibiting cohabitation of unrelated people, which exist only to privilege the heterosexual nuclear family over nontraditional and chosen family

End conversion therapy and provide stronger supportive care for minors whose families abandon them

Grant all privileges afforded to married couples to all consenting partnerships

Eliminate the financial and healthcare barriers for disabled people to marry freely

This pamphlet contains an excerpt from the Political Platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, ratified at the organization’s 2021 National Convention. The platform is a living document, up for amendment by our highest deliberative body, the national convention, every other year. You can read the current version of the full platform at ntdsa.org/nationaldsaplatform

Read the latest version of DSA’s full platform at

ntdsa.org/nationaldsaplatform

[twocupsuvblood]

Voting doesn't work because there are systems in place that make sure a candidate who would actually do anything helpful or useful doesn't appear on the ballot. "Peaceful" Protesting doesn't work because those in power don't care if you live or die, they don't care about your blood or your sorrow. So what are you supposed to do, are you going to get a dozen or so people together to purchase some farm land, buy some guns, set up a gun range, buy some weight lifting equipment, set up a gym, have one or two of your dozen or so friends take a civilian special forces training course so they can teach the others what they learned. have another couple of your friends take some community college organic chemistry courses, and another couple go to trade school to learn wood working, welding , machining, fabrication, plumbing, electrical work, combustion engine maintenance and repair, train and learn until you've created some sort of well regulated self sustaining millita. YEAH RIGHT! And then what, are you going to carry out coordinated attacks on trade infrastructure?

Are you going to blow up server farms?

Are you going to launch raids on police stations and banks forcefully occupy them work with community activist groups and convert them into useful infrastructures for the community like a garden or a food bank?

Come on dude don't be crazy that's impossible your better off scrolling through social media and watching the horrors of the world unfold through your phone screen, leaving defeatist comments under videos of Palestinian children being murdered and watching ""leftist"" streamers debate Nazis and talk about the lives and deaths of minorities like it's a game of risk. You wouldn't want to be a TERRORIST now would you?

[ivygorgon]

AN OPEN LETTER to THE PRESIDENT & U.S. CONGRESS

Enforce Leahy! No funding to IDF troops who’ve committed human rights abuses!

354 so far! Help us get to 500 signers!

I’ve just learned from Pro Publica that “a special State Department panel recommended months ago that Secretary of State Blinken disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid after reviewing allegations that they committed serious human rights abuses.” But Blinken has failed to act on the proposal. This in the face of growing international criticism of the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza.

I’m livid about this. We cannot keep sending unconditional military aid to anyone, regardless of whom, if they are committing human rights abuses. We have Leahy laws to prevent it, and they are not being enforced here. It’s unacceptable.

The U.S. government needs to stop giving the Israeli government a blank check. Israel has a right to defend itself, of course, but the abuses described in Pro Publica’s report can’t be defined as self defense under anyone’s definition of the term. They’re abhorrent and our tax dollars mustn’t be spent on them. Thanks.

▶ Created on April 17 by Jess Craven

📱 Text SIGN PLLLRS to 50409

🤯 Liked it? Text FOLLOW JESSCRAVEN101 to 50409

[lavender-eyed-lies]

I've not seen nearly enough coverage of this online so please spread it as far as you can.

Americans care, we want this to stop, we poured in from states all over the country working together with each other to go to our governments steps with our ceasefire demands

The American people are with Palestine.

I included the link below to the article.

[gillianthecat]

USA Protests for Palestine This Weekend

List from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

https://uscpr.org/oct-2023-protests/

Thursday, November 2

ST PAUL, MN | Thursday, November 2nd at 12PM at St. Kate’s O’Shaughnessy Auditorium

PORTLAND, OR | Thursday, November 2nd at 3PM at 911 NE 11th Avenue

BOSTON, MA | Thursday, November 2nd at 4PM at Brewer Fountain, Boston Commons

YPSILANTI, MI | Thursday, November 2nd at 4PM at Eastern Michigan University Student Center

CLEVELAND, OH | Thursday, November 2nd at 6:30PM at Beit Hanina Cultural Center

Friday, November 3

ST PAUL, MN | Friday, November 3rd at 4PM at Snelling & Summit Ave

BROOKLYN, NY | Friday, November 3rd at 4:30PM at Brooklyn District 10 Office 340A 9th Street

MENLO PARK, CA | Friday, November 3rd at 5PM at Meta HQ 1 Hacker Way

Saturday, November 4

NATIONAL MARCH ON WASHINGTON | Washington DC, November 4th, 2 PM. Freedom Plaza. Cosponsored by USCPR and other organizations.

OLYMPIA, WA | Saturday, November 4th at 12PM at City Hall

CINCINNATI, OH | Saturday, November 4th at 12PM at Ziegler Park

RICHLAND, WA | Saturday, November 4th at 12PM at John Dam Plaza

ORONO, ME | Saturday, November 4th at 12PM at UMaine Folger Library

NASHVILLE, TN | Saturday, November 4th at 1PM at Centennial Park

SAN FRANCISCO, CA | Saturday, November 4th at 1PM at Civic Center

SACRAMENTO, CA | Saturday, November 4th at 1PM at Arden Fair Mall

BURLINGTON, VT | Saturday, November 4th at 1PM at Battery Park

PROVO, UT | Saturday, November 4th at 1PM at 550 N University Ave

JUNEAU, AK | Saturday, November 4th at 2PM at Marine Park

LAKEWOOD, OH | Saturday, November 4th at 2PM at City Center Park

SEATTLE, WA | Saturday, November 4th at 3PM at 400 Pine St

TUSCON, AZ | Saturday, November 4th at 3PM at Catalina Park

Sunday, November 5

DENVER, CO | Sunday, November 5th at 12PM at 200 E Colfax Ave

DALLAS, TX | Sunday, November 5th at 2PM at 3333 Turtle Creek Blvd

ROCKVILLE, MD | Sunday, November 5th at 2PM at 101 Monroe St

SAN CARLOS, CA | Sunday, November 5th at 6:15PM at Hiller Aviation Museum

poster art by Shreya Shah from a publicly available collection of free art for Palestine

[troythecatfish]

[kp777]

We are watching the brutal reality of what climate scientists told us would happen. How will we respond?

[glitched-eyes]

I'm so fucking angry with the government. Stella Braverman's speech had pissed me off so much. Her comments are so harmful and it was absolutely disgusting to hear.

The tory government are s bunch of cunts and its long overdue thay we kicked them out of power. I don't know how, general strike, marching in the street, pitchforks and torches. But these rich privilege fucks days are numbered.