Alice Hearthrow

August 1, 2026 - Every morning in Gaza, the search for water begins.

Video journalist Bisan Owda follows children carrying heavy water containers, families waiting for water trucks, and the people working to keep one of the few desalination plants still running.

Along the way, Bisan reveals what has been destroyed, why clean water has become so hard to find, and what it now takes to provide water for millions of people in Gaza. [video]

it effects everything.

being trans is easier when youre white.

being gay is easier when youre white.

being disabled is easier when youre white.

being a woman is easier when youre white.

being autistic is easier when youre white.

oppression is eased when you are white, as you get extra privileges, and your whiteness is seen as a positive characteristic that in some ways counter-balances your other forms of being a minority. whiteness controls everything.

you are automatically way more innocent in your own oppression as a gay, trans, disabled person because of your whiteness.

three things:

1. it’s true

2. white people get pissed when i bring this up/wear this shirt

And then there's a bit right at the end of the story as the wife and the husband are walking out of court:

Jill turned abruptly. "What is your name? Your real name."

The man's gray eyes flickered. He smiled a little, kind, gentle smile. "I'm afraid you would not be able to pronounce it. The sounds cannot be formed..."

Jill was silent as they walked along, deep in thought. The city lights were coming on all around them. Bright yellow spots in the gloom. "What are you thinking?" the man asked.

"I was thinking perhaps I will still call you Lester," Jill said. "If you don't mind."

"I don't mind," the man said. He put his arm around her, drawing her close to him. He gazed down tenderly as they walked through the thickening darkness, between the yellow candles of light that marked the way. "Anything you wish. Whatever will make you happy."

And I. God. There's something there. A soupcon of monsterfuckery. To tell your partner in a moment of intimacy that yes, you're something so inhuman that the lips you're stealing can't speak your actual name. You're a parasite that not only had the ability to burrow under this man's skin and take over his life, but you were so desperate to escape a dead, dry, blasted planet that you did.

1. Does OP mention an obligation on victims to forgive abusers who have learned from their past actions?

2. Does OP mention any work on the part of victims to educate their abusers?

like without government intervention, strawberry jam would have wood in it. like it's a thing. food companies realized that they could use less of the expensive strawberries as ingredients and just use wood. there are laws you cannot legally call it strawberry jam if you do this. you have to call it a strawberry product or spread. food companies are always trying to get that shit through. they have lobby groups pushing that all the time

it is more expensive to put metal detectors in a food processing plant. companies want to cut costs. it is a legal requirement in a lot of countries to have them. so it forces companies to install them.

also to do routine inspections. that is a government requirement. so are building codes. a lot of codes are the bare minimum. like some companies will exceed the code and have more protections but a lot don't. like if it is not in the code, they don't do it. so that's why having governing bodies that regulate building safety, worker safety, food safety and product safety are crucial. because without them, your employer will not see the need to have exit doors with quick release handles, or do routine fire sprinkler inspections or have road salt for the sidewalks. some of it is basic fucking stuff.

companies when left alone do not regulate themselves. it's been historically untrue. companies want to give you a product that is cheap for them to make and that they can sell at the highest price so they can get the most profit. for everyone who loves capitalism, that's what it is. the free market will not self-regulate. if you don't have anti-monopoly laws and anti-wage theft laws and workers' protections, the open market will not fix that organically.

it is likely true that some companies will intentionally add internal regulations to their products, and make that a selling point through advertising. just look at how many products today do that through stuff like organically sourced and such.

like without government intervention, strawberry jam would have wood in it. like it's a thing. food companies realized that they could use less of the expensive strawberries as ingredients and just use wood. there are laws you cannot legally call it strawberry jam if you do this. you have to call it a strawberry product or spread. food companies are always trying to get that shit through. they have lobby groups pushing that all the time

it is more expensive to put metal detectors in a food processing plant. companies want to cut costs. it is a legal requirement in a lot of countries to have them. so it forces companies to install them.

also to do routine inspections. that is a government requirement. so are building codes. a lot of codes are the bare minimum. like some companies will exceed the code and have more protections but a lot don't. like if it is not in the code, they don't do it. so that's why having governing bodies that regulate building safety, worker safety, food safety and product safety are crucial. because without them, your employer will not see the need to have exit doors with quick release handles, or do routine fire sprinkler inspections or have road salt for the sidewalks. some of it is basic fucking stuff.

companies when left alone do not regulate themselves. it's been historically untrue. companies want to give you a product that is cheap for them to make and that they can sell at the highest price so they can get the most profit. for everyone who loves capitalism, that's what it is. the free market will not self-regulate. if you don't have anti-monopoly laws and anti-wage theft laws and workers' protections, the open market will not fix that organically.

it is likely true that some companies will intentionally add internal regulations to their products, and make that a selling point through advertising. just look at how many products today do that through stuff like organically sourced and such.

The largest dam removal in U.S. history. So successful that the salmon that haven’t run freely in the river for literally over a century came back the next year. Not steady progress over a decade as expected, the very next salmon run they came home. No one alive saw salmon in that river outside the hatcheries kept by native’s tribes and the Department of Fish And Wildlife scientists desperately trying to save them. One of the activists who helped bring the suit spoke of their dying grandmother making them promise to bring the fish home, and they didn’t know how that was possible, but they spent decades doing it.

The legal basis for successfully suing the power company who owned the dams was Indigenous treaty rights to eat the fish. Eating the fish was the one thing in a century that succeeded in being a clear and legally binding right that superseded the desires of white capital and industry. I have been going to the public interest environmental law conference off and on for 20 years where a lot of organizing for Undam The Klamath happened. I’ve heard updates about every legal tact they tried as they happened, and they tried everything.

There are healthy, thriving salmon, trout, and lamprey in a rewilding and recovering Klamath River right now as a direct result of Indigenous people eating them. Of their legally binding right to eat them. They sure as fuck care more about those fish than any white vegan ever could. They are salmon people that the Creator sent Salmon to feed, while charging the People with protecting and stewarding them. It’s not possible to learn about salmon and trout in the Pacific Northwest without learning this, and it’s unambiguously racist to dismiss this symbiotic relationship.

The white vegans are trying to get all hunting and fishing banned in Oregon, and that’s quite possibly the single most catastrophic thing that could be done to the animals here because we killed off all the major predators of creatures like deer and without anything hunting them their numbers will explode, eat all the vegetation, destroy the ecosystem, and then die along with everything else in that failing ecosystem. Controlled hunting of deer is vitally necessary for the deer to survive. This is something Native people know, but patronizing racist savior-complex white people refuse to listen to.

I have a whole collection of Oregon’s Public Broadcasting’s documentaries about Klamath River or the larger story of fish and people in the region. If you watch nothing else, watch Klamath Dams Are Coming Out, First Salmon Ceremony, After The Dams, and First Decent (Native made). It could not be clearer that the salmon are being protected and nourished by the people who eat them, and that stewardship is a massive part of their creation myths. But it contradicts political vegan dogma so they don’t listen.