If flowers can handle the rain, so can I

this is all in response to a video someone posted online of one of these wandering the streets at night. it’s pretty alarming to see military technology being rolled out during a time of widespread protests that are being met with an increasingly militarized police force.

please don’t argue in my notes about whether or not you think these will eventually be useful for civilians, a lot of military technology gets reused like that, but i promise you it’s more than likely not being developed with that in mind lol.

Because voting third party as it stands right now is NEVER GOING TO WORK. I understand that you want a further left candidate. By GODS I understand. But right now? It's either you vote blue and the fascism boulder stops rolling quite so fast, and maybe we get a chance to stop it and even start trying to push it back up the hill; or you vote third party, support an actually good candidate that doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning, get your warm fuzzies from not voting for the centrist, and THE FASCISM BOULDER GETS BIGGER. And anyone who tries to stop it gets crushed. And anything we were building to slow it down has a worse chance of stopping it.

Nothing is going to fix this country immediately. And your cynicism is fully understandable. But jesus FUCKING christ people, just voting third party is going to do LITERALLY NOTHING to fix it. It's not a "cry to fix the system", or at least it's not gonna be heard as one. And not voting is just as bad.

So tell me. What is your actual plan? What are you going to do to dismantle the two-party system, what are you going to do to stop fascism in its tracks, and what are you going to do to put an actual leftist and not a right-leaning centrist into office?

Because if you can do that, hallelujah! Let's HEAR IT! Let's DO IT! I support you 100%, I'll get the megaphones, the guillotines, I'll help draw the coup plans, whatever we need.

And if you can't? At least don't stop the rest of us doing the best we can. We can at least make an ATTEMPT to push Biden left. We cannot do the same for Trump. They are not the same.

And we are not 'settling' for Biden. We're not going to sit down and stay there and be like "oh no this is fine right where it is." But we have to take the first step to go anywhere and this is the best shot we've got, a hell of a better shot than voting for a candidate that's probably not even on some of the ballots. Because when Trump wins, the right won't settle either. They are going to keep dragging it further and further and we are going to be completely drowned out.

but I am also frustrated by the idea that a god would create such an incomprehensibly intricate world of numinous beauty and dazzling complexity, a tapestry of infinite connections and relationships, and then... approve of humans completely trashing it without regard or appreciation or even a sense of reverence

in case you missed it, as of today, enough republican senators have said they wouldn't block trump's SCOTUS pick so that trump could easily appoint someone before the election, regardless of what the voters actually want, ignoring the fact that they blocked a new SCOTUS pick from obama because the election was nine months away. guys, we're looking at a 6-3 conservative majority for the next 20 to 30 years. we're looking at decades of our rights being stripped away.

donation links

the hands that feed you project

aid for indigenous farmworkers

direct aid for evacuated families

watsonville, ca aid

direct aid for undocumented workers

farmworker relief fund

la via campesina

food chain workers

farmworker justice

migrant justice

feeding the frontline

help feed our farmworkers

agricultural justice

united farm workers

undocufund

Its name reclaims a slur because the point is to say, “I am different, but that’s not a bad thing.” The queer movement is about upholding the right of all people to deviate from an oppressive cisgender, heterosexual, patriarchal norm. Broadening the spectrum of acceptable diversity; questioning and dismantling the social pressures that police and punish deviance. Changing not just our own lives, but how our entire society thinks about sex and gender.

That’s why “queer” embraces so many different groups. It’s not trying to erase their differences, but to try to coherently understand the complex overlapping pressures that affect each of them, and to extend our reach beyond the LGBT+ community. It’s about the right of lesbians to live without men and the right of trans and nonbinary people to be who they are, the right of asexuals to define for themselves what’s significant in their lives, the right of straight men to be vulnerable and emotional and nonviolent. When the great queering project is done, you will see the changes everywhere, not just in small LGBT+ enclaves.

For everyone who’s like “Whoa, I was with you until you threw straight men in there”:

Homophobia is a huge part of how all men are policed. If a man isn’t strong, tough, aggressive, and dominant? He gets called gay. So this isn’t “Soft straight men are totally LGBT+ and belong in your gay support group!” but it is “Part of the work of disassembling homophobia is changing how it affects straight men.”

It’s the same way that men aren’t the primary intended beneficiaries of feminism, but part of the work of feminism is addressing and changing toxic masculinity. If you’re effective enough at changing the system, you change it for everyone.

Queer is a coalition, not a demographic.

The purpose of the queer coalition is to end the practice of, “you must have [X list of traits] to participate in these parts of society.”

Can cishet men be queer?

Why does it matter?

Being queer isn’t about what specific identity or traits you have. It’s about saying, “HEY! Average isn’t the pinnacle of human existence! We didn’t build this world so everyone could strive to be just like their neighbors! People can be different and we can celebrate that difference, not shun it!”

Can a cishet man “be queer?” I dunno. I don’t think that’s important.

Can a cishet man “live a queer life?” Hell yes he can.

Can a cishet woman “be queer?” Wrong question.

Can a cishet woman “live a queer life?” Hell yes.

These aren’t “straight people appropriating queer culture.” They’re not taking it away from us, not picking and choosing bits of it to share with their cis het friends. These are people joining queer culture.

I want to talk about emotional neglect in this letter.

When we hear the word “childhood neglect”, we often think about physical neglect - parents who fail to fulfill the physical needs of their kids, like food, medical care, clothing or a safe place to sleep.

Emotional neglect means parents fail to fulfill the emotional needs of their kids. That’s less “measureable” than physical neglect and often more difficult to imagine for people who never experienced it: After all, everyone knows kids need a certain amount of food to survive - but is there such a thing as emotional starvation?

There is. Emotionally neglected kids do not receive the love, attention, emotional security and warmth a kid needs. The kid, in turn, does not learn to express their emotions in a healthy way.

This can affect them during childhood (emotionally neglected kids might be aggressive, anxious or depressed, may struggle to find friends, have a low self-esteem and may even reach developmental milestones later than other kids) but the effects may also show in adulthood.

Adults who were emotionally neglected as kids have a higher risk for eating disorders and depression, severe neglect can even lead to PTSD. As they didn’t learn to express their emotions as a kid, they may still struggle to do so in adulthood, may find it difficult to trust or connect to others.

Why do parents neglect kids emotionally? It may happen in combination with physical neglect or they may provide food, clothing etc. and only neglect their kids emotionally. Common reasons are: the parents struggle with addiction, depression or other (untreated) mental health issues, they have been neglected as kids as well or they feel resentment towards the kid (in the latter case, the emotional neglect may go hand-in-hand with physical abuse). Sometimes, there’s no clear reason why they’re unable or unwilling to take care of the kid’s emotional needs.

So, if you read all this and think “Yes, that was my childhood”, what does that mean? First and foremost: It was not your fault. You may feel guilt or shame but you’re not to blame.

You are not unlovable or too difficult - neglect is not a failure on the kid’s part, it’s your parents who failed you. It’s not all in your head and you’re not crying over nothing, either. Emotional neglect is a real problem with real consequences. These consequences can be addressed - talking to a therapist can help a lot (you don’t need to show symptoms of PTSD for that. Even if you “just” struggle with finding friends, a therapist can help you!). They’re not personal flaws, they’re consequences from childhood trauma. It’s important to remind yourself of that.

As a lgbt+ person, it’s also important to know that coming-out and opening up about your feelings/your identity may be a challenge for you. That’s okay and understandable. Be patient with yourself. Again, nothing to feel ashamed of and not a personal flaw! 

With all my love,

70 something year old gay person:

It helps an awful lot to know this whole trend is strongly rooted in Calvinist Protestant Christian theology, and largely comes out of the sort of fundamentalist Christianity which disapproves of sex because it might lead to dancing.  Pleasure is a lure of Satan, put on the earth to lead people into Sin and Depravity (and things like actually thinking for themselves, which is the greatest evil of them all).  Only the truly righteous may allow themselves the taste of pleasure (and you can tell the truly righteous because they’re rich), because as part of the unconditional elect, they cannot be tainted by it.  But the rest of us are impure and doomed to hell, and our only salvation is through being good enough that God will, through His Mercy, choose to save us. 

You can also see this same sort of emphasis on Moral Lessons in US television - you watch just about any show from the USA (but it’s particularly obvious in situation comedies[1] and programming for children[2]) and you will realise: each show has a moral lesson, and that moral lesson has to be hammered home (often by orbital anvil drop) in order to “justify” the show.

(It was one of the things I liked about British TV growing up - I wasn’t constantly being bombarded with Moral Lessons.  I could just watch something like Danger Mouse or Banana Man, and enjoy the animation).

[1] Situation comedies are particularly prone to this because laughter is sinful, and therefore if a medium is making people laugh it must redeem itself through the application of Correct Moral Lessons.