I don't think gender is something which is joyful, any more than I consider capitalism to be something which is joyful. I think, like with capitalism, there is joy to be found and had within these class systems -- joy in resistance, in autonomy, joy and beauty in the finding of love and community, and joy and pride in courage and conviction. I think these things certainly are true. but at the end of the day, to me, what gender is, at its core, is a class system of violence, an immense structure of centuries of brutal and vicious subjugation and cruelty, a machine which punishes resistance-in-the-form-of-deviance with systematic and merciless force. I am the person I am because I am true to myself and I take joy in that -- this is distinct from my "gender," or rather my "gendering," which is a process of violence, an act which is done to me, without my consent, and against my will. That which renders me woman is nothing intrinsic to myself or about my choices -- it is the violence of society which renders me woman, renders me faggot, constructs my place in gender-class, places me within a system of subjugation. I find joy in being a woman not because of gender, but in spite of gender. my pride as a transgender woman, as a faggot, is in opposition to the forces of gender which seek to brutalize me for the way that I am. gender is not something I would ever, ever seek to preserve, or sustain, something which I consider not to be a sacred institution worthy of respect, any more than capital or empire. I consider gender to be my enemy, my opponent, the iron fist within the velvet glove, the barrel of the gun pressed to the back of my skull. gender and I exist in opposition to each other, with gender hell-bent on forcing me to submit to its will, and myself hell-bent on bringing about its total and absolute obliteration. by my analysis, it is critical that any feminist, any act of resistance against gender, correctly understand who the enemy is. the enemy is gender, and it has always been gender. we as transgender women are in a unique position to understand this, by way of the profound violence we experience under the orders of gender, by the consciousness imparted to us by the unique and peculiar acts of punitive cruelty struck against us under the commands of gender. but, for us to be able to do this, for us to be able to liberate ourselves from the wretched shackles of gender, so must we understand that we cannot trap ourselves in a prison of our own making, that we cannot mistake the prison for a home, that we cannot allow ourselves to be tricked into defending that force which exists only to do us harm.
There's a lot of posts on this site talking about how Sun Tzu was brilliant for his time but a lot of what he says seems blindingly obvious now, basic logic written out by an exasperated general trying teach idiot aristocrats how not to get their people killed, but perhaps he really does hold modern-day relevance considering the US has spent the last 60 years picking battles it can't win and now wants to gut its own logistics
On March 15, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained his 19-year-old son, Merwil Gutiérrez, and another 237 Venezuelans. He had no criminal record, neither in Venezuela nor the U.S., nor did he have any tattoos — one of the features that the U.S. police used to link them to the Tren de Aragua gang. But none of that stopped him from being arrested.
“I feel like my son was kidnapped,” said Gutiérrez in Spanish. “I’ve spent countless hours searching for him, going from one precinct to another, speaking with numerous people who kept referring me elsewhere. Yet, after all this, no one has given me any information or provided a single document about his case.”
…
When his son was on his way back, just steps from his home when ICE agents stopped him. “The officers grabbed him and two other boys right at the entrance to our building. One said, ‘No, he’s not the one,’ like they were looking for someone else. But the other said, ‘Take him anyway.'”
the culture is fascist the politics are fascist and there is no soviet union to keep the american fourth reich in check
never forgot how hard the democrats worked to facilitate this turn.
I came across a xiaohongshu post that showed pictures of an abandoned traditional village in a mountainous region of China with very little surrounding greenery that had the captions: “so sad how traditional villages like these are empty and abandoned”
But the top comment was: “I am so happy for the villagers who finally made it out of the mountains and into new homes in prosperous cities. It often takes multiple generations of hard work to get the entire family out. Every family in this village achieved this. What you are looking at is the evidence of their success!”
And the second highest liked comment was: “You can tell this area has poor agricultural resources. The ancestors of the villagers were likely forced to settle here because more powerful villages have occupied the attractive fertile lands. Who knows how long they had been trapped here? I’m glad they finally made it out!”
Another comment with high likes: “My grandparents’ village was like this. Poor air quality from burning coal in poorly ventilated buildings. Bitterly cold in the winter. Dry and hot in the summer. Short growing seasons. And there was always a shortage of water. My parents got factory jobs in the city and after working and saving for years, they finally got all of us out.”
And it occurred to me how when we romanticize old fashioned villages and mourn the loss of the type of community they provided, we sometimes downplay and overlook the extraordinary liberation and agency that industrialization brought and brings to people who in previous generations had no option but to remain where they were born for most of their lives.
The bakeries have closed their doors…
The markets are empty, and hunger has reached its peak.
The massacre continues and is increasing…
Unfortunately, it has become something ordinary that does not shake the conscience of this world.
Thousands of families are displaced again.
An entire nation is homeless in the streets,
Without shelter, without food, without life, without hope.
We have been left alone facing nothingness…
I hope my family will not have to flee from the north again.💔💔🙏
O Lord of miracles, we have no refuge but You.
Donate to help feed my family, as prices are extremely high
Hi my name is Don Quixote of La Mancha the Knight of the Rueful Figure and I have a rueful figure (that's how I got my name) with purple bruised ribs and tall stature and gaunt features and hair turning gray and a rather hooked aquiline nose and large black drooping mustaches and a lot of people tell me I look like Amadís of Gaul (AN: if u don’t know who he is begone!). I’m not related to Lady Oriana but I wish I was because she’s an incomparable flowering beauty. I’m a knight errant but some of my teeth and grinders are missing. I have long lank limbs. I’m also a defender of damsels, protector of orphans, succourer of the needy, righter of wrongs, undoer of injustice, and I wander a magic countryside called the mountains of Spain where I’m in my first year of knighthood (I’m forty-nine). I’m a gentleman (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly armor. I love my great-grandfather's forgotten corner of the house and I cobble together all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a doublet of fine cloth with matching shoes and velvet breeches and a helmet, morion, visor, breastplate and backpiece. I was riding outside La Mancha. It was early morning so the rays of the sun fell obliquely and the heat did not distress me, which I was very happy about. A lot of giants stared at me. I put up my pasteboard visor at them.
Ola reached out to me again to help her, I want to share some things that she told me & encourage you to share this post/d0nate, every share and every $ counts! 🙏 [LINK TO FUNDRAISER]
You may be thinking, why does she need so much, haven't we helped enough yet? While we complain about, let's say, the ever-rising price of eggs - 2€ here, $10 in the US - how much might these same eggs cost for Ola, in a country where all production is stopped & barely any food can be imported? Well, for Ola and her family, every single food item & necessity has prices comparable to what one would normally only spend on perhaps a trip or even rent - each egg, or fruit, or vegetable, is like a luxury item, and meat is out of the question entirely. On top of that, Ola is unable to work or earn any money, so she & her family are completely dependent on this campaign for basic survival. In this art piece, I wanted to portray Ola's dreams that were crushed by the current situation, where she can barely survive.
The campaign has been vetted by @90-ghost here, @northgazaupdates here, @el-shab-hussein, and @nabulsi 's spreadsheet of vetted campaigns #205.
People straight up do not realize that part of the reason manufacturing is not returning to the United States in massive waves is because we have things like “OSHA” and “environmental laws” and “minimum wages.”
It’s not even just about fair wages. It’s literally about the fact that you can’t dump industrial waste in a river here anymore.
Our cheap goods are so cheap because South American and Asians environments are being destroyed so you can buy a $40 pair of shoes every 3 months.
Cutting granite countertops has lead to a rapid increase in silicosis in the lungs out in California. All the working men and women in my family have died from pulmonary fibrosis. They were carpet layers, Post office workers, floor tilers. Staying safe in manufacturing jobs is annoying but also very, very expensive. Real manufacturing factories belch smoke and dust and grime that causes asthma and birth defects in surrounding communities. Everyone wants their manufacturing jobs back until they realize their kids are living directly under the Asthma Plant.
There will come a time when the workers in these countries rise up and demand better and things will start to even out, but if you want to honestly “do your part,” you gotta stop buying cheap shit for no reason.
Not every event needs to be celebrate with a baseball cap or a coozie or a t shirt or a keychain. Not every wall in the house has to have a picture or a cute phrase on it. The knickknacks are killing people.
Yo let me be very fuckin clear for a sec here. The problem isn't that we global southerners have never risen up and demanded better - we have, we do, we will continue doing so - but that there is a concerted effort in the part of the usa and other so-called "first world" countries to keep us from organizing politically, and to keep our countries economically dependant and underdeveloped.
This is what US Aid is all about, this is the moving force behind NATO, this is why your country is always at war and why you have such a ridiculously militaristic culture, this is what your intelligence agency spends all their time coordinating, this is why Institutions like the IMF work the way they do.
From civilian puppet governments to coordinated military coups, from narc states to banana republics, from death squads to direct miliatry intervention. I cannot even begin to list all the methods the usa has made use of to stop the global south from effectively organizing, nevermind all the countries it has directly intervened on. And that's without getting into the actions of the other imperial powers. Or the less direct actions, like economic blockades, or keeping countries dependant on foreign aid, or role of the dollar.
"lolcow" is ultimately a colloquial term describing a phenomena that actually precedes the internet (and well, most of history too) but I can't think of another shorthand with implications that are tacitly understood the same way when gesturing to the spectacle that the world makes around acceptable targets. you go on reddit and someone has crossposted a Courtroom Freakout video like that's some shit anyone should want to derive entertainment from. your mom's cohort watches Dumb Criminal Fail youtube compilations and nod their heads as the perpetrator of a failed robbery bleeds out on floor of a kfc like that's some shit anyone should want to see. your peers are heavily invested in the Worthless E-Drama Industrial Complex, where thousands of people are made collateral of all kinds of violence in the name of forwarding the narrative of the spectacle. and you can't ask any of these people why any of this behavior is normal to them unless you want to be accused of condoning immoral tendencies, compulsion to punish The Other already metastasized in their minds. it sucks how easy it is to kill your own interest in this shit but not anyone else's.
denial is a harrier
Nader Al-Anqar is 17 year old. He was studying hard and trying to graduate when his school was bombed and destroyed.
His family has been displaced over ten times. During the short ceasefire they were allowed to return home, but when they arrived they found it bombed and ruined beyond livable conditions. They're now homeless and are trying to survive in desperate conditions, fearing bombs day and night.
His family includes his mom, his dad (who has cancer and needs urgent treatment), his little brother Mohammed (14 years old), his older brother Abdul Salam (26 years old), his sister-in-law Aya Al-Batniji, and his niece Iman (who is only 1 year old). He worries for his father who can't receive cancer treatment because Israel destroyed so much of the healthcare system, infrastructure, and resources. He worries for his baby niece who has been born into genocidal conditions and only knows this level of danger.
He is just a kid. We text over Signal and he is shouldering so much responsibility for the survival of his whole family trying to fund-raise on tumblr.
He and his brother survived an explosion of two planes just last night. I'm sure you've seen other posts discussing the recent bombings.
He just sent me this recording. You can hear the sound of helicopters firing nearby.
Things are really scary, and he is desperate for help. He shouldn't have to do this alone.
You can donate to his campaign here:
You can send him a kind message here: @abdalsalam2000
Sara Millerey was a Colombian trans woman that was known for being a kindhearted and hardworking woman, and who was subjected to a horrible hate crime in Bello, Antioquía. She had her arms and legs broken and was thrown into a river, and recorded. Although she was rescued and taken to the hospital, she succumbed to her injuries.
There have been vigils to honor her memory, and to demand justice. Femicide and by extension transfemicide, is sadly a very prevalent crime in Latinoamérica.
you! tumblr user!
can you reblog a two-part post in the correct order?