Be The Boy

This is Dollar Tree not Dollar General. 

Dollar Tree looks like this: 

Their stuff is off-brand but decent quality.  

Here are some things you can buy at the dollar tree for one dollar: 

- any kind of makeup- foundation, eyeshadow, lipstick, lip gloss, mascara, etc

- socks

- Sports bras (sometimes) 

- combs, brushes, hairclips, scrunchies, hair ties, headbands

- clothes hangers, laundry bags, mothballs

- any kind of office supplies or school supplies. Staplers, pencils, posterboard, pencils, pens, etc. 

- party supplies including paper plates and balloons

- all kinds of toiletries- shampoo, conditioner, toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, washcloths, deodorant, razors, shaving cream, nailclippers, etc. Decent sizes, too. 

- ceramic/glass plates, bowls, cups

- reading glasses, sunglasses

- plastic buckets

- cleaning supplies, detergent, bleach, laundry syrup, fabric softener, dish soap, sponges. brooms 

- electronics, headphones, night lights, phone chargers, batteries, screen cleaners, phone cases

No problem!

You think your company pays you out of the goodness of their hearts? Or even out of “market pressure?” The “job market” is a myth perpetuated by the capitalists. Corporations would pay you nothing if they could get away with it. And you argue “oh, but if they paid me nothing I’d just go to another one.” Wrong. Because to maximize profits, they all want to pay you nothing. Corporations exist to maximize profits while reducing risk for investors. It’s part of their entire function to find ways to cut costs as much as possible, and that includes finding ways to pay you nothing.

Unions are your defense against that. You think all a union does is strike? If you pay union dues, a lot of that is spent on lobbyists in various governments reminding your lawmakers that you have rights as a living human being that a corporation should not be able to stomp all over. Unions hire lawyers so that if you’re fired for bullshit reasons, the union can stand up for you against your boss. They’re called unions because workers are uniting to pool resources so that they can stand up to these corporate overlords with more money than God. Unions exist because you might not have the words, resources, or time to fight workplace injustices all by yourself. That’s the whole fucking point.

Tumblr likes to spin its wheels and spend time yelling at each other, so here’s a nice comprehensive guide. Five Things You Can Do Now That You Know We Were Serious About The Antisemitism:

1) Accept that if you’re in this to be an ally, you’re going to have a tough road ahead of you. We’re traditionally very wary of outsiders in our spaces because when we welcome them, well … this happens. In fact, if you want to convert to Judaism, you traditionally get rejected three times, just to make sure you’re serious and not shitting with us. Expect wariness. Expect to get your feelings hurt, because a lot of us are very raw right now. Stick with us anyway–once we know you’re not just bandwagoning us, you’re going to end up with a lot of friends who are relying on you. Nobody said allyship was easy.

2) Learn about Judaism. Note that I DO NOT MEAN LEARNING WITH INTENTION TO CONVERT. We don’t proselytize and it would be against Torah for me to even suggest it. What I mean here is, you can’t call bullshit if you don’t know what we’re about. Some good basic resources are The Jewish Book of Why by Alfred Kolatch; My Jewish Learning; and for a strict Orthodox standpoint, Chabad. You’ll find that some things in these sources contradict each other. That’s pretty par for the course in Judaism; we don’t have a single dogma or point of view.

3) Consider calling a local synagogue and asking if they have volunteer work for a gentile ally. Introduce yourself, explain (briefly) what got your attention, and offer your services–to stand outside during services, to walk folks to and from shul (this is particularly important in Orthodox communities, where driving on Shabbat is forbidden), hell, to help stuff envelopes for whatever vigil or service they may be holding in memoriam. Anything will help.

4) You may wish to make a donation to a local synagogue or Jewish charity. I strongly recommend the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), which is a Jewish charity focused on combating antisemitism. Jews traditionally give monetary gifts in sums of $18, which corresponds to the numeric value of the word “chai,” or “life.” The last time this happened I made a post about this tradition and got accused of being a Nazi because of the whole 1-8 A-H thing, so let’s just nip that right in the bud: yes, we know. It’s a horrible coincidence. We’re not giving up a few-thousand-year-old tradition because of some dipshit with a bad moustache. If you can’t afford $18, consider moving the decimal over and donating in multiples of 18, like $3.60. Your meaning will still be perfectly clear, and anything helps. If you wish to make a donation in memory/in honor (which many synagogues appreciate), I suggest either choosing the name of one of the shooting victims–giving tzedakah, or charity, in their names is considered a great mitzvah and a blessing to their families–or using the phrase “am Yisrael chai.” It means “Israel lives.” Although the country in the MENA region is called Israel, this is not what the phrase refers to–the traditional patriarch of Judaism was named Jacob, and renamed as Israel following a wrestling match with a messenger of G-d. To say “am Yisrael chai” is to say his people, that is, the Jewish people, live.

And on that note …

5) In the coming days and weeks, you’re going to see a lot of people making this about Israel or Zionism. Please tell them to shut the fuck up. Israel, Zionism, and Jews are three completely different, albeit related, things. To wit: Israel is a geopolitical country situated on the site of our ancestral homeland and currently headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Zionism is the belief that Jews deserve a safe homeland; and Jews are a group of people spread across six continents and most countries who are united by a common group of ancestors from the Levant (the part of the world now occupied by the geopolitical entity known as Israel). Saying the victims of this shooting had anything to do with the political situation in Israel would be like saying I, personally, am responsible for Vladimir Putin because I have a Russian ancestor. I speak exactly two words of Russian, have never been to Russia, have no family left living there (and haven’t for four generations), but I’m totally responsible for Russia. You see how ridiculous that sounds? The same applies to Jews and Israel. Please, please, PLEASE do not conflate this event with Israeli politics. I’m not saying Israeli politics aren’t a topic worth discussing–I’m saying this is not a discussion they belong in. Don’t let the powers that be (or the alt-right sleaze that sucks the dicks of the powers that be) distract from the topic at hand, which is “out of control guns meet out of control xenophobia and antisemitism,” by throwing OMG ISRAEL AND ZIONISM AND GLOBALISM into the mix.

And finally: yes, gentiles, this is okay for you to reblog. In fact I encourage it. And I will answer any questions you have to the best of my ability, if they’re asked in good faith. Please just follow the most basic tenet of Judaism, which is: don’t be a dick.

Anyone still unsure of how (or even whether) they’ll vote in the midterms should consider this: All three branches of government are now under the control of one party, and that party is under the control of Donald J. Trump.  

With the addition of Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court is as firmly Republican as are the House and Senate.

Kavanaugh was revealed as a fierce partisan – not only as a legal advisor who helped Kenneth Starr prosecute Bill Clinton and almost certainly guided George W. Bush’s use of torture, but also a nominee who believed “leftists” and Clinton sympathizers were out to get him.

He joins four other Republican-appointed jurists, equally partisan. Thomas, Alito, and Roberts have never wavered from Republican orthodoxy. Neil Gorsuch, although without much track record on the Supreme Court to date, was a predictable conservative Republican vote on the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit – which is why the Heritage Foundation pushed for him and Trump appointed him.  

Even under normal circumstances, when all three branches are under the control of the same party we get a lopsided government that doesn’t respond to the values of a large portion of the electorate.

But these are not normal circumstances. Donald Trump is President.

Need I remind you? Trump is a demagogue who doesn’t give a fig for democracy – who continuously and viciously attacks the free press, Democrats, immigrants, Muslims, black athletes exercising First Amendment rights, women claiming sexual harassment, anyone who criticizes or counters him; who treats the executive branch, including the Justice Department, like his own fiefdom, and brazenly profits off his office; who tells lies like other people breathe; and who might well have conspired with Vladimir Putin to swing the election his way.

Trump doesn’t even pretend to be the president of all the people. As he repeatedly makes clear in rallies and tweets, he is president of his “base.”

And his demagoguery is by now unconstrained in the White House. Having fired the few “adults” in his Cabinet, Trump is now on the loose (but for a few advisors who reportedly are trying to protect the nation from him).

All this would be bad enough even if the two other branches of government behaved as the framers of the Constitution expected, as checks and balances on a president. But they refuse to play this role when it comes to Trump.

House and Senate Republicans have morphed into Trump acolytes and toadies – intimidated, spineless, opportunistic. The few who have dared call him on his outrages aren’t running for reelection.

Some have distanced themselves from a few of his most incendiary tweets or racist rantings, but most are obedient lapdogs on everything else, including Trump’s reluctance to protect the integrity of our election system, his moves to prevent an investigation into Russian meddling, his trade wars, his attacks on NATO and the leaders of other democracies, his swooning over dictators, his cruelty toward asylum-seekers, and, in the Senate, his Supreme Court nominees.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has emerged as Trump’s most shameless lackey who puts party above nation and Trump above party. The House leadership is no better. House intelligence chair Devin Nunes is Trump’s chief flunky and apologist, but there are many others. 

Now that Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court, you can forget about the Court constraining Trump, either.

Kavanaugh’s views of presidential power and executive privilege are so expansive he’d likely allow Trump to fire Mueller, shield himself from criminal prosecution, and even pardon himself. Kavanaugh’s Republican brethren on the Court would probably go along.  

So how are the constitutional imperative of checks and balances to be salvaged, especially when they’re so urgently needed?  

The only remedy is for voters to flip the House or Senate, or ideally both, on November 6th.

The likelihood of this happening is higher now with Kavanaugh on the Court and Trump so manifestly unchecked. Unless, that is, voters have become so demoralized and disillusioned they just give up.

If cynicism wins the day, Trump and those who would delight in the demise of American democracy (including, not incidentally, Putin) will get everything they want. They will have broken America.

For the sake of the values we hold dear – and of the institutions of our democracy that our forbearers relied on and our descendants will need – this cannot be allowed.

Because let’s be very, very clear about this: if Manchin isn’t re-elected, it’ll be Patrick Morrisey in that seat: a Republican, who will vote the Republican party line on basically every fucking issue (because Republicans tend to have better party discipline than Democrats, at least at the Federal level), and a Republican who helps keep committee control in the hands of the Republicans and procedural control in the hands of the Republicans, instead of a Democrat who helps shift both those things into the hands of a group of people who actually want to block Trump’s agenda. By all means, vote Manchin out—but we cannot afford for you to do it right now. Do it in the primaries in 2024. Right now? You show up to vote, and you vote the goddamned ticket.

Here is a good breakdown on how Democratic voters failing to show up for Democratic candidates in the 2014 midterms is probably directly responsible for what’s happening right now. 2014!! You think 2024 seems like it’s a long time off, and you just can’t possibly wait that long to voice your personal opinion about how insufficiently pure your local Democrat is? Fuck you. We’re going to spend the next 30 years living with a rapist on the Supreme Court because people like you couldn’t suck it up and vote like fucking grown-ups who understand how things like “math” and “their government” work four years ago.

1. There are no good Republicans. It’s easier to elect a moderate Democrat and then – as their constituent – pressure them to move further left than it is to sit an election out, let a “centrist” Republican win and then hope they make a remotely moral decision, which they never will (cough, Susan Collins and Jeff Flake, cough).

2. If you think it’s cute to vote for Green Party or Libertarian or Independent candidates who have no chance to win, consider this: when was the last time you saw people like Jill Stein or Gary Johnson involved in any of the national protests or marches or “get out the vote” campaigns? I’ll answer for you: you can’t remember because you haven’t seen that because it’s never fucking happens. There is no viable third party in this country. Those dildos show up every four years to siphon off a chunk of Democratic voters, get on TV as “Presidential candidates” and then proceed to contribute precisely dick when it comes to changing the country for the better.

3. “I don’t think a Democrat has a chance of winning in my district/state so why vote?” is nonsense. Whether we’re talking about the Senate, the House, state assembly, or any other level, seats do not just flip from strong Republican to Democrat overnight, without explanation. Democrats (the candidates, the state party, and the voting base) need to show up every. single. time. Doesn’t matter if the polls suggest you’ll lose by 20 points. Show up. Make it closer than 20. Make the Republicans sweat every single time, no matter what. No lay-ups. Because if you show up now, then – in the next election – the prospect of a Democrat winning a race is more realistic. Which means better candidates, better campaigning, more money. Which means the chances of winning are better. This happens again and again and again. Someone has to be on the ballot. You may need to lose a few races in order to win one. The party has to believe that there’s hope of winning in order to ultimately shift things. Since Trump took office, over 35 seats across the country at various levels (including a SENATE SEAT IN FUCKING ALABAMA) have flipped Democrat and several more have been very close to flipping. Because people showed up and voted Democrat.

Anybody else get this??

(Template made by @banozac )

Bonus:

I gave a brief outline of what happened in the post. That he’d raped me while I was black-out drunk and unconscious. That I came to, vomiting, and he continued to rape me because I was too incapacitated to say no or try to stop him. 

He was straight edge. Had been my friend. Had asked me out. Had been told no, kindly,  by me many times. He did it anyway.

What I didn’t share in the post was why I was so drunk.

That night I had found out that my recent ex-boyfriend, the one I was with for over three years, had cheated on with nine different women. I’d drank myself into oblivion in a way I never had before.

When my phone rang that night I was in bed, sobbing, and about to be very, very sick. It was 2011 and my phone was a piece of shit. I can’t remember if I didn’t have caller id or if the screen was cracked or what, but I couldn’t see the number, so I answered it thinking it was my ex. That he was calling to apologize.

Instead, it was my rapist. He heard me crying uncontrollably and said he was coming over. I remember telling him no and then I passed out. I came to to the doorbell ringing. He let himself in.

The man who I had broken up with – the one who cheated on me with nine people – was emotionally abusive. Had been for the entirety of our relationship. I tried to tell him what happened the next day. He called me a whore and a slut. Screamed and laughed at me until I apologized for sleeping with the man who raped me.

I sat down to write this, half-frazzled, slightly stoned, because something occurred to me: 

I don’t know a single man in my life who could handle all that and be OK the way I am.

I don’t. I truly do not.

I am more successful, more empathetic, more loving and thoughtful, capable and adventurous, than most of the men I know.

I’ve experienced more pain and violence and abuse than any of the men I know.  I’ve overcome more than any man I personally know.

I’m kinder. More outspoken. More supportive. More loyal. 

Than most of them. 

And here I’ve been for nine years, telling myself I was a useless piece of human for six, and healing for three. 

I survived and overcame and stayed a good person. 

When I look at people like Kavanaugh, when I think about what they got away with, when I watched him cry within a few minutes of speaking I want to scream that survivors can and have handled experiences that a man like him would be destroyed by. That the only real reason I can fathom that they don’t believe us is that they truly, truly can’t comprehend how a human being could experience so much and be OK. Thrive. Become a professor. Succeed. Live. …like survivors so often do.