I Think I Like It!

turn your yard into a garden and your neighborhood into a community. #foodnotlawns #growfoodnotlawns #grasstogardens

In case you haven’t noticed, they’re rigging this primary even more drastically than in 2016. What they’re trying to tell you is that they will never, ever allow even a run-of-the-mill European-style social democrat like Bernie Sanders to run the country. They’ll do everything possible to sabotage that style of politics from the inside, every step of the way. Even if by some miracle he pushes through and gets elected, do you think they’re above using all the obstructionist techniques they used on Obama, but multiplied tenfold and with the entire Democratic Party joining in too? You think they’d hesitate to enact a coup?

What you should be reading from this is that there is no hope within the current system for you to ever climb out of student loan debt, find a well-paying job, get affordable housing, or be able to pay for basic medical care. The wealthy and powerful will prevent it by any means necessary, no matter how dirty their hands have to get

But don’t let this send you into despair. Yes, the electoral system will never allow our generation to live dignified lives - but we can look outside the electoral system. Yes, we can’t count on the wealthy and powerful to fix this shit - but we can count on each other

The UK went through this exact same process just last year. After pouring all their energy into campaigning for the Labour Party, they lost pitifully when the election actually came around. And they looked around themselves and realized that they couldn’t just sit around and wait until the next election. By then, not only would it be too late to prevent Brexit and the economic ruin that could come with with it, but it may be too late to properly reverse climate change as well

But they didn’t just give up. Instead, they got together and decided to fix things themselves, through mutual aid. Community kitchens, tenants unions, skill-sharing workshops and coworking spaces, among many other creative ideas, have been springing up and joining hands rapidly ever since the election, and they’re doing amazing work to make real people’s lives better in the here and now, without going through any kind of institutional authority

I think it’s time for us in the US to follow their lead, and the sooner the better. The good news is that here, as in the UK, the process already began long ago - we’re ready for a massive influx into these organizations, a mutual aid renaissance

Chances are, your community already has a mutual aid group you can work with such as Food Not Bombs, the Transition Initiative, and/or the Buy Nothing Project - and probably a ton of other stuff too. Even if not, you can join Symbiosis and try to get connected with other interested people in your area, or just get together with some of your neighbors and start something yourself. In fact, I have a whole tag filled with ideas for getting started

Nothing it too small to make a difference. Every little step towards building stronger communities can ripple outwards and snowball, making people just that much more comfortable and prosperous and free, allowing them more time and resources to contribute back into the community - that’s what makes mutual aid mutual. And even tiny displays of kindness can get people to start questioning the world around them and looking for ways to make it better

US: mutual aid / rent strike / dual power

UK: mutual aid / rent strike

Last week India passed a blatantly anti-Muslim law that seeks to naturalise millions of immigrants, except if they are Muslims.

In August of this year, India revoked the autonomous status of the Kashmir region, putting a communication blackout on the state. Kashmir has entered the fifth month of no internet and heaviest militarisation of any region in the world.

India is a secular, socialist republic. This bill is anti-constitutional and against the principles on which the country was founded

Naturally, there have been protests across the country. At the forefront of the protests are students from India's public universities.

Police opened fire on peaceful protestors in Jamia Milia Islamia University in Delhi, and Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh.

Ever since then, the ruling fascist Hindu nationalist political party, the BJP, has been doctoring videos and sending fake news all over the internet, discrediting protestors and labelling them as terrorists

Do Not Pay, the “robot lawyer” that can help you do everything from beat a traffic ticket to getting access to services for poor and homeless people, has rolled out a new service: “Do Not Sign,” a tool to analyze terms of service agreements.

While its true that these services are virtually always terrible, they’re not all the same. Do Not Sign will flag things like obscure clauses that let you opt out of data collection and binding arbitration.

Do Not Sign also flags the everyday terrors of these “agreements,” such as the right to change them later without notice, the right to stop providing a service without notice, and the fact that you assume all risk when using a service.

Do Not Sign uses machine learning to flag “warnings” and “loopholes” in these “agreements.”

Crafts

quilting

embroidery

cross-stitch

knitting

crochet

sewing

Cooking and Baking

homemade bread

homemade butter

homemade extracts

dandelion jelly

Canning

26 canning recipes

canning jars 101

60 canning recipes

Gardening

edible trees to plant

what to plant to save the bees

cure and braid garlic

save seeds for next year

braid onions for long term storage

build a greenhouse

Animals

homemade chicken feed

raising mealworms for chickens

why to raise nigerian dwarf goats

Outdoors

starting a fire with sticks

trail signs

knotting

find true north without a compass

Medicine

homemade neosporin

this is capitalism in it’s final form

First, it’s not that new.

Did you know that there was a time in U.S. history—which is by definition recent history—when a corporation was generally intended to have some sort of public interest that they served? I mean, that’s the whole point of allowing corporations to form. Corporations are recognized by the commonwealth or state, and this recognition is not a right but a privilege, in exchange for which the state (representing the people) is allowed to ask, “So what does this do for everyone else?”

The way the economy is now is a direct result of a shift away from this thinking and to one where a corporation is an entity unto itself whose first, last, and only concern is an ever-increasing stream of profits. What you’re calling “benevolent capitalism” isn’t benevolent at all. It’s a pure profit/loss calculation designed to distract from—not even paper over or stick a band-aid on—the problems capitalism creates. And the fact that you’re here championing it as “benevolent capitalism” is a sign of how ell it’s working.

Let’s take Toms, as one example. The shoe that’s a cause. Buy a pair of trendy shoes, and a pair of trendy shoes will be given away to someone somewhere in the world who can’t afford them.

That’s not genuine benevolence. That’s selling you, the consumer, on the idea that you can be benevolent by buying shoes, that the act of purchasing these shoes is an act of charity. The reality is that their model is an inefficient means of addressing the problems on the ground that shoelessness represents, and severely disrupts the local economies of the locations selected for benevolence.

(Imagine what it does to the local shoemakers, for instance.)

The supposed act of charity is just a value add to convince you to spend your money on these shoes instead of some other shoes. It’s no different than putting a prize in a box of cereal.

Heck, you want to see how malevolent this is?

Go ask a multinational corporation that makes shoes or other garments to double the wages of their workers. They’ll tell you they can’t afford it, that it’s not possible, that consumers won’t stand for it, that you’ll drive them out of business and then no one will have wages.

But the fact that a company can give away one item for every item sold shows you what a lie this is. A one-for-one giving model represents double the cost of labor and materials for each unit that is sold for revenue. Doubling wages would only double the labor.

So why are companies willing to give their products away (and throw them away, destroy unused industry with bleach and razors to render them unsalvageable, et cetera) but they’re not willing to pay their workers more?

Because capitalism is the opposite of benevolence.

“Charity” is by definition exemplary, above and beyond, extraordinary, extra. “Charity” is not something that people are entitled to. You give people a shirt or shoes or some food and call it charity, and you’re setting up an expectation that you can and will control the stream of largesse in the future, and anything and everything you give should be considered a boon from on high.

On the other hand, once you start paying your workers a higher wage, you’re creating an expectation. You’re admitting that their labor is more valuable to you than you were previously willing to admit, and it’s hard to walk that back.

Plus, when people have enough money for their basic needs, they’re smarter and stronger and warier and more comfortable with pushing back instead of being steamrolled over. They have time and money to pursue education. They can save money up and maybe move away. They can escape from the system that depends on a steady flow of forced or near-forced labor.

So companies will do charitable “buy one, give one” and marketing “buy one, get one” even though these things by definition double the overhead per unit, but they won’t do anything that makes a lasting difference in the standard of living for the people.

Capitalism has redefined the world so that the baseline of ethics is “How much money can we make?” and every little good deed over and above that is saintly.

july ‘19 vs september ‘19 

the drawing made in july is lacking on light reflections

the one done in september looks much better since i paid attention to them

1) DON’T use your search bar to find and open the Run app

2) DON’T type in services.msc

3) DON’T find Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Services and right-click to get a dropdown menu, and don’t select ‘properties’

4) if you happen to click properties, DON’T use the startup type dropdown to locate the option to disable the program. be sure you DON’T click apply to finalize that change. 

5) DO NOT do the same thing in order to also disable Adobe Genuine Software Monitor 

if you do all of these things, this WILL disable adobe’s ability to monitor the software, and you will be forced to continue using the same older software that you already paid for instead of having to sign up for a newer, shittier version and pay more for it. so if you have lots of cash to spare and are cool with putting it the pockets of racketeering capitalists, definitely don’t do any of these things. 

PLEASE SHARE THIS!

Five Demands of the Hong Kong people:

Full withdrawal of the Extradition Bill (a.k.a. the Evil Law)

Retraction of the characterisation of the protest as a “riot”

Release of all the arrested protesters (especially the students and the wounded)

Accountability for police brutality

angel - what’s one character trait you like about yourself?

doll - what’s your favourite outfit? 

pumpkin - what’s your favourite weather and why?

baby - what makes you feel better when you’re down?

sugarpie - what’s your favourite sweet treat?

kitten - are you a dog person or a cat person?

princess - if you could live in any other time period, which would it be?

peach - what’s your ideal aesthetic?

darling -  what romantic gesture makes you feel the most loved?

button - do you have a type? what is it like?

sweet pea - what’s your favourite flower?

petal - what’s your favourite smell or perfume?

sunshine - what’s the nicest compliment you’ve ever gotten?

baby girl - how do you like to be held?

lover - how do you show someone you like them?

buttercup - what does/would your online dating bio say?

boo - what’s your dream date?

cupcake - if you’re treating yourself, what do you do?

wild thing - what’s something about you that surprises people?

bubba - tell me a funny story from your childhood. 

honey - what’s your favourite hot drink?

love bug - what song would you love to have sung to you?

cutie - what’s your favourite fairytale?

dumpling - what’s your favourite movie right now?

my love - what would your dream home be like?

These

Tables

Are

So

Freakin

GOOD!

It’s what happened to Jews in Germany in 1938 when their passports were declared invalid. That is what is beginning to happen here, now, to Hispanic citizens along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Oh, is it bad to compare the GOP to Nazis? Well, if members of the GOP do not like being compared to Nazis, they should consider not behaving exactly like Nazis.

Hispanic U.S. citizens, some of whom were in the U.S. military, are not being allowed to renew their passports. This is reportedly happening to “hundreds, even thousands” of Latinos, according to a report in the Washington Post. They’re getting letters from the State Department saying it does not believe they are citizens. The government claims their citizenships are fraudulent. “I’ve had probably 20 people who have been sent to the detention center—U.S. citizens,” Jaime Diez, an attorney in Brownsville, told The Washington Post.

The Washington Post also reports on ICE officials coming to citizens’ homes and taking their passports away. This is an escalation from a few months ago, when Americans were detained by ICE officials just for speaking Spanish to one another.

The administration is currently launching an effort to take citizenship from people who they suspect of fraud in obtaining it. Fraud in these cases is exceedingly rare. The last time the government tried to strip people of their citizenship was, according to Columbia Professor Mae , during The Red Scare of the 1950s. As Ngai remarks, McCarthyism is not typically remembered as a good period in American history.

There is good reason to believe that this could portend still worse things to come for the U.S. Hispanic population, unless people begin to speak out loudly, and fast.

Edited to Add: English/Spanish legal advice for if you are a Latinx American citizen whose citizenship is being challenged.

And FLOOD YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES WITH YOUR FEELINGS ON THIS SHIT!  Here’s how to do it for free by text.

2nd Edit:  Someone asked “What Can Be Done Abroad?”

Thank you for asking!  

1) Get the word out in your home country’s print and broadcast media and internet.  People in the USA really don’t get how suppressed our press has become and it’s only getting worse by the day.  Part of it is getting any one topic to surface long enough above the churn, which is an intentional tactic being successfully used by the political party in power.

2) The one thing that no one is the USA is not seemingly able to do at all is get attention onto the Republican party as a whole for how complicit they are in all the illegal activity.  If anyone can throw some weight in that direction, it’s an elephant in the room that we REALLY need to get lots of attention on.

3) Support sanctions against the US for our human rights violations.

4) Donate to US groups fighting in the trenches 

https://www.aclu.org/

https://www.hrc.org/

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/

http://refusefascism.com/

https://www.splcenter.org/

https://resist.bot/

5) Check how your own country is doing on ethnic minorities and immigration.  Some bad shit is going around.

Edited AGAIN On Sunday November 4, 2018:

1) Black activists are being murdered and no one is reporting it.

http://www.blacklivesmatter.com

2) More tent cities keep going up.  Where do you really think this is going to end?

https://www.afsc.org/action/stop-ice-and-cbp

3) Anti-Semitism in the USA has gone up 60% over the last year.

https://www.adl.org/

4) Native American disenfranchisement ahead of the midterm elections is at an all-time high.  

https://www.narf.org/cases/voting-rights/

NO MATTER WHAT THE RESULTS ARE OF THE 2018 USA MIDTERM ELECTIONS, NONE OF THESE PROBLEMS ARE GOING TO STOP UNLESS WE GET TO WORK STOPPING THEM.

Edited Nov 17, 2018:

More than 14,000 immigrant children are in U.S. custody, an all-time high

from the SF Chronicle 

EDITED ON JULY 30, 2019

It’s now estimated there are upwards of 50,000 humans being held in American concentration camps.  Here’s a map of how many there are now in the US.

https://concentrationcamps.us/

And they are dying.  If history has taught us anything it’s that this is the point of a concentration camp.  It’s very cheap and easy to allow people to die from neglect.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/24-immigrants-have-died-ice-custody-during-trump-administration-n1015291

Legal American citizens,with multiple forms of ID, who ICE spots and decides just don’t look white enough are starting to be arrested and detained with them.  They aren’t allowed to contact anyone once they are picked up.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/25/us/us-citizen-detained-texas/index.html

WHAT TO DO, HOW TO HELP

https://www.neveragainaction.com/

http://www.notonemoredeportation.com/

https://www.raicestexas.org/