did you know that creatures have cultures

Patriarchal Misogyny: Men and Women are fundamentally different for reasons beyond one's control, and given this, each end of this strict binary are and should remain beholden to different and distinct presentations and expectations. The two are and should remain physically and socially distinct and defined despite natural expressions which indicate this is an artificial standard imposed by society. Obviously men are just naturally suited to being good leaders and women are naturally suited to be subservient caregivers. At the end of the day, it is every man's responsibility to be a good and fair caretaker to women. This is a traditional position passed down by my noble ancestors and is as such an honorable and chivalrous stance.

Progressive Feminism: Men and Women are two ends of a human spectrum but are not fundamentally different as people. We share the same potential, the same depth, the same capacity for good and evil and kindness and caring and cruelty, with broad enough overlap in physical structure and ability that dividing the two into a strict and disparate binary in all physical arenas makes very little sense. Obviously men and women are raised with seperate roles in our patriarchal society, and men at large are statistically more likely to be aggressive and women are statistically more likely to be the victim of violent and sexual crimes, but this does not reflect a strict rule that can be applied to each individual one encounters nor an immutable fact of character. At the end of the day, each individual has the capacity and responsibility to be a good and fair person. This is a movement which was developed by an oppressed class to obtain normal and unexceptional human rights already afforded to half of our existing society and is therefore a reasonable stance.

Radical Feminism: Men and Women are fundamentally different for reasons beyond one's control, and given this, each end of this strict binary are programmed to think and perform to different and distinct presentations and expectations. The two are physically and socially distinct and defined despite natural expressions which indicate this is an artificial standard imposed by society. Obviously men are wholesale trained and socialized from birth to oppress and prey on women, so it is safe to assume that and transgression is either malicious or an inescapable truth of man's nature. At the end of the day, men as a whole area statistically more likely than women to be physically or sexually violent, and so each individual man is individually more violent or sexually aggressive than any given woman. The definition for "man" and "woman" in this case includes Trans Men and is therefore a ~progressive~ stance.

Yesterday I saw a mother with a baby carriage, being followed by a girl of about 4-6 years old on a bicycle. The kid started ringing her bike bell like RING RING RING RING RING RING RING, and the mother turned to look behind them to see whether they were being followed by a cyclist who desperately needs to pass them for the sake of everyone's safety.

And the little girl - who just rang the goddamn bell herself 5 seconds ago - also turned to look.

me and my brother later had a small discussion about whether that could happen randomly (conclusion: no, he probably had to file papers or something) and whether daniel should now be referred to as dad’s ex-husband (conclusion: yes but only to see the face he’ll make) but at no point did we find it like... alarming? the world is big and weird. we were used to it.

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.