Now How Did You Get Here?

Food Empowerment Project maintains an updated list of chocolate brands they recommend based on the following standards:

transparency about the country of origin for cocoa

if sourced from Western Africa, the workers must own the companies/be in charge of the profits from their labor (this standard is because child labor and slavery have been widely documented for decades in this area)

if sourced from Brazil, the workers must own the company and/or be in charge of the profits from their labor, or the company must be going above and beyond to support the workers and their families (this standard is because "child labor and slavery only recently have been documented in cocoa in Brazil" and they are "giving Brazilian companies that are trying to address the issue by supporting the workers and their families the benefit of the doubt.")

[Source: "Understanding Our Chocolate List" from their website]

So, Tony’s allied with Barry Callebut to get its cocoa. Barry Callebut is one of the biggest chocolate companies in the world, and it is unethical, obviously. This led to Tony’s revealing in February 2022 that 1701 child laborers were in their supply chain. Barry Callebut had over 21K at the time. Both of those numbers have risen, and Tony’s has outright admitted they don’t give a fuck about child labor laws when asked about it, content to let children to continue farming their cocoa instead of actually doing the activism they claim to do. (business-humanrights.org, feb 6 2022)

About a week ago, Tony’s joined Barry, Nestle and Ferrero in pushing against the reinstatement of important EUDR deforestation legislations. Under that regulation that they pushed against, they would’ve had to be more transparent about their supply chains for their more key ingredients - So Tony’s is lobbying against the exact thing they claim to stand for. (confectioneryproduction.com, mar 18, 2026)

Won’t restate @closet-keys’s addition, of course. That’d just be redundant and maybe annoying since, yknow, it’s already been said.

If you wanna find a better chocolate brand it’s really damn easy. There’s lists on slavefreechocolate.org of both the ethical and unethical companies. Both lists can be found here:

This is the world capitalists want to return to.

Any commentary they make in response to you raising the issue of someone else's diagnoses should be something to the effect of "it's possible that they have x disorder, but it's more important to focus on how their behavior affects you / the relationship."

If your therapist says "you parents are narcissists" or "your ex is a sociopath," that either didn't happen, or they're creating an ethical violation.

They aren't allowed to diagnose someone who isn't their client, i.e. has consented to treatment.

Even if they were allowed to do that, your secondhand account of that person doesn't constitute an assessment.

Even if they were allowed to do that and could use your secondhand account, they wouldn't be able to tell you about someone else's diagnoses because of confidentiality.

Further, your therapist can't diagnose you with "narcissistic abuse syndrome" etc. because it doesn't exist. There are no legitimate diagnoses based on the (speculative!!!) diagnoses of an abuser; you're likely talking about complex PTSD, which commonly results from abuse (including emotional abuse).

I don't trust therapists who slap diagnoses on their clients' abusers. You shouldn't either. You should know the basics of clinical boundaries and the correct terms for things so that you don't feed into stigma or put up with a therapist who's willing to engage in unethical practice.

More than 50% of Indigenous communities in reserve areas in Canada are at high risk of pipeline spills. When there is a spill, reserves are disproportionately impacted.

The National Energy Board and Supreme Court of Canada has a history of declaring the "public interest and economic interests outweigh Indigenous and treaty rights." Basically, Indigenous peoples don't count enough as "public" to matter.

Pipelines are built without proper consent from the Indigenous Nations they choose to occupy. Keep in mind I say choose, because this is the case even when alternative pipeline routes are suggested that could avoid reserve land. This is a direct, constant, and often violent threat to Indigenous sovereignty.

The MMIW crisis is funded by the oil industry through the creation of worker's "man camps" near reserve land. These "man camps" are nothing but pits of sexual violence and human trafficking of Indigenous women and girls. I am not exaggerating; this is well studied and well documented.

Resources & Sources:

To become an ‘energy superpower’, Canada wants to bulldoze Indigenous rights (START HERE!)

Indigenous Resistance to Alberta Oil and Gas Development Report

When the environment is destroyed, you're destroyed: Achieving Indigenous led pipeline justice

First Nations Consent Ignored as Canadians Asked to Subsidize LNG Expansion

Oil pipelines and food sovereignty: threat to health equity for Indigenous communities

Is Violence against Indigenous Women in “Canada’s interest”? Liquified Natural Gas in B.C., Sexual Violence & Narratives of Terra Nullius

The colonial playbook never ended, Canada’s pipeline deal proves it

That’s one question to ask, sure.

But when a little boy is being told by his mother to suck it up or else he’ll never be a real man?

That’s a woman placing that system’s constraints upon her son. She didn’t set it up any more than her son did, or her father did. But she is being the enforcer of the system.

We need to stop talking about patriarchal systems as though the current men who live under it made it, and we also need to stop talking about patriarchal systems as though they are ever only enforced by men.

from The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks

When a man earnestly tries to verbalize the immense pain and suffering he experiences under patriarchy, and your response is a witty quip that shifts the conversation away from vulnerability towards mockery and blames him for the existence of the system both of you were born into without choosing, you are acting as a patriarch would like you to act: man up, shut up.

this is also not true btw. everyone needs to get more kyriarchy in their feminist analysis.

there is no "ongoing collective permission of men," because patriarchy is not a fucking democracy. it is one element of an entire matrix of domination (to use Patricia Collins' term from Black Feminist Thought) and the majority of man are, at best, foot soldiers and cannon fodder for the (white supremacist imperialist eugenicist cisheteroperisex-)patriarchy.

patriarchy, as all systems of oppression do, creates an illusion that the majority of people have some inherent connection with those in power, in order to convince them to support the system and so that they do not recognize how the system truly works. when you say shit like this, you are buying into that patriarchal illusion.

and like, yes, if all men / the majority of men suddenly developed a feminist consciousness and became dedicated to anti-patriarchal action, obviously that would be a massive blow to patriarchy and kyriarchy as a whole. but realistically, that will never happen in a way perfectly removed from everyone else? there is no way the majority of men will become anti-patriarchal without it having anything to do with women. there will never be a world where men simply decide that patriarchy is bad and deconstruct it while all the ladies sit around a pool drinking cocktails.

the system of white supremacy, of imperialism, of ableism, etc. could not exist without the participation of white people, citizens of the imperial core, abled people, etc. which is why these systems do not ask permission from these groups, they construct institutions and social worldviews which manufacture these groups & their participation in the system. these institutions and worldviews are difficult to separate oneself from, hard to even fully understand in the first place. it will NEVER ever ever ever ever be as simple as "everyone who is classed as the dominant group one day simply decides to reject it and then the whole system crumbles and everyone celebrates." liberation will always require solidarity. which itself requires emotional intelligence, conflict resolution skills, and not waiting for the people one suffers alongside to be ideologically perfect/ly aligned with you before they "deserve" your solidarity.

This sketch is incredible. Perfect moment to capture. 10/10 for the artist.

Link to post

I'm saying that it doesn't make sense for the gunman to leave his bag with stuff for the police to find in New York and then be found several days later with stuff he'd want the police to find in it in Pennsylvania.

Even if the dude's not rational, he would've ditched that. He wouldn't be holding onto it. If he wanted to be found with it, then what was the point of running? What would be the point of pleading not guilty? If you're carrying around your manifesto for the police to find when they get you, why would you plead not guilty and insist that it wasn't you?

There was a gap of time where the police took Luigi's bag, and then they brought it back and it magically had evidence in it. He does not look like the guy in the photo beyond the barest of resemblances. They don't really have a case! And they're clearly sloppy! Look at the article!

I know everyone is joking about "oh yeah he's innocent *wink*" but like genuinely. The man who shot the United Healthcare CEO and the guy they forgot to bring into court are not the same person. And joking that "we all know he did it but we're saying he didn't" is still implanting into the public subconscious that he's guilty, which can fuck up a jury ruling. He's not guilty! They have an innocent man!

The sexuality of a police officer is cop.

The gender of a police officer is cop.

When you become the enforcer and protector of capital, you are making the deal to be slightly favored by the system over others like you, in exchange for being its servant. Your solidarity is with the system that you serve, even if it hates you.