Milk Tea Magical Girl Extraordinaire

Talk to people when things go to shit.

I don’t just mean get it off your chest, although that’s good. I mean: Something’s wrong with your paycheck/you lost your job/you had unexpected emergency car repairs and now you’re broke so your credit card payment is late. Like, not just 15 days late. We’re talking, shit got crazy and now you’re 90 days late with compounded interest and late fees and the Minimum Payment Due is, like, $390, and you’ve got about $3.90 in your bank account. Call the credit card company. 

I know it’s scary. I know you feel like you’re going to get in trouble, like you’re gong to get yelled at or scolded for not having your life together. But the credit card company isn’t your parents; they’re just interested in getting money from you. And you can’t squeeze blood from a stone or money from someone who doesn’t have any. So what you do is you call them. You explain you’re experiencing temporary financial hardships, and you’re currently unable to bring your account up to date, but you don’t want to just let it get worse. Can you maybe talk to someone about a payment plan so you can work something out? Nine times out of ten you’ll be able to negotiate something so that at least it’s not just taking a constant, giant shit on your credit score.

- Can’t pay your power bill? Call the power company.

- Can’t pay your full rent? Talk to your landlord.

- Had to go to the hospital without insurance and have giant medical bills looming in your place? Call the hospital and ask if they have someone who helps people with financial hardships. Many do.

- Got super sick and missed half a semester of class because flu/pneumonia/auto-immune problems/depressive episode? Talk to your professor. If that doesn’t help, talk to your advisor.

You may not be able to fix everything, but you’ll likely be able to make improvements. At the very least, it’s possible that they have a list of people you can contact to help you with things. (Also, don’t be afraid to google things like, “I can’t pay my power bill [state you live in]” because you’d be surprised at what turns up on Google!) But the thing is, people in these positions gain nothing if you fail. There’s no emotional satisfaction for them if your attempts at having your life together completely bite the dust. In fact, they stand to benefit if things work out for you! And chances are, they’ll be completely happy to take $20 a month from you over getting $0 a month from you, your account will be considered current because you’ve talked to them and made an agreement, you won’t get reported to a collections agency, and your credit score won’t completely tank.

Here’s some helpful tips to keep in mind:

1. Be polite. Don’t demand things; request them. Let me tell you about how customer service people hold your life in their hands and how many extra miles they’ll go for someone who is nice to them.

2. Stick to the facts, and keep them minimal unless asked for them. Chances are they’re not really interested in the details. “We had several family emergencies in a row, and now I’m having trouble making the payments” is better than “Well, two months ago my husband wrecked his bike, and then he had a reaction to the muscle relaxer they gave him, and then our dog swallowed a shoestring and we had to take him to the emergency clinic, and just last week MY car broke down, and now my account’s in the negatives and I don’t know how I’m gonna get it back out.” The person you’re talking to is aware shit happens to everyone; they don’t need the details to prove you’re somehow “worthy” of being helped. They may ask you for details at a certain point if they have to fill out any kind of request form, but let them do that.

3. Ask questions. “Is there anything we can do about X?” “Would it be possible to move my payment date to Y day instead so it’s not coming out of the same paycheck as my rent?” The answer may be “no.” That’s not a failure on your part. But a good customer service person may have an alternate solution. 

me: *thinks about how felons can't vote, thinks about how the working class often have to choose between getting work that day or voting, thinks about how black people and indigenous people couldnt vote until 55 years ago, thinks about how gerrymandering is rendering low income/mostly minority districts virtually silent, thinks about how the electoral college is still in effect and has more power than the actual popular vote, thinks about​ how each state can set up their own arbitrary laws for voting, even at the federal level, thinks-*

Also, yes, states run elections, and that’s both why they can make their own rules, and why it’s important to elect people at the state level who don’t try to make it difficult for low income and minority voters, and again, these tend to be Democrats.

No, they can’t, unless they’re fortunate enough to get their rights restored, and that’s not fair.  Who can change the laws?  Elected officials.

thinks about how the working class often have to choose between getting work that day or voting,

That’s not fair either, and all election days, both state and federal, should be holidays.  Who can make them so?  Elected officials.

thinks about how black people and indigenous people couldnt vote until 55 years ago,

But they can now.  They’re enfranchised today.  Because people lobbied elected officials and won their right to vote.

thinks about how gerrymandering is rendering low income/mostly minority districts virtually silent,

It is and it needs to be fought.  Who draws districts?  Elected officials.  Guess when they draw them -- next year.  This year’s election outcomes will impact the shape of your congressional district for the next ten years.

thinks about how the electoral college is still in effect and has more power than the actual popular vote,

It is in effect but I’m not sure it has more power than the popular vote.  Twice it has happened in my lifetime, and both times the popular vote was a squeaker either nationally (2000) or in a few key states (2016).  Democrats win when voter turnout is high.  And the Interstate Popular Vote Compact is almost a reality.

thinks about​ how each state can set up their own arbitrary laws for voting, even at the federal level, thinks-*

Who sets the voting laws?  Elected officials.

If the prevailing attitude is that “nothing ever changes” or “voting never changes anything” then nothing ever will change.  We’re effectively a right-wing nation because elections over the last few decades have trended to the right because when voter turnout is low, the right wins in this country, and voter turnout is low in presidential midterm years.

The Supreme Court just gutted a huge problem with the Electoral College. Here, I’ll screenshot my email. (My deadname is in the email because it’s my registered-voter name, but that’s the only thing I’ve edited out.)

It was a 9-0 vote. A UNANIMOUS VOTE. Even Gohmert and Kavanaugh—both Trump appointees—said faithless electors are not okay.

WE CANNOT LET THIS BE REVERSED BY A COUP. WE CAN’T.

If you're Canadian, please take a few minutes to write to your MPs and other representatives to support MOTION-46, which proposes a guaranteed basic income to all Canadians over 18. You can read the text of the Motion here, it's pretty fantastic.

The NBA wildcat strike for racial justice pushes all of us to raise our game in campaigns to defund and dismantle the police. Bold moves by high-profile athletes will mean that more people in our workplaces, schools, and communities are open to talking about what we mean when we say that police are armed defenders of colonialism, white supremacy, and class inequality. Well, what do we mean?

It’s easy to call up cartoonish images. Picture a cigar-chomping cat holding bags of money whispering shoot-to-kill orders in a gun-toting pig’s ear. There’s something to this vision. In 1995, as Indigenous protestors defended a sacred site at Ipperwash Provincial Park, Ontario premier Mike Harris told the provincial police to “get those fucking Indians out of the park, and use guns if you have to.” Hours later, the OPP stormed the park, and a police sniper shot and killed Ojibwa land-defender Dudley George.

But while direct orders from the rich and powerful to the police are infuriating, they are not the whole story. Socialists need fuller explanations to help understand the structural problems of policing. We need to be able to explain why even hypothetical “good cops”—well-intentioned officers who respect all laws and regulations—are armed defenders of capitalism, racism, and settler-colonialism.

Mainstream political parties and media push toward the “bad apple” theory of police-inflicted harm. They say cops need better training or body cams or whatever, but when major harm is done by police, it’s individual officers to blame, not the institution. Here are three ways in which the work of every cop—the entire system of policing—is in armed struggle against working-class freedom and democracy.

Continue Reading.

 A Surrey family is horrified their 13-year-old son, who is on the autism spectrum, was punched in the face by a middle-aged man and police are not pursuing the case further.

It happened last Monday morning at the food court at Central City Shopping Centre in Surrey, B.C.

The boy’s mother is outraged.

“A 200-pound adult punched my kid, who is barely 70 pounds,” said Yanyan Yao.

–

[…]What’s his platform?

Running on a leadership slogan he describes as “True Blue Conservative,” O’Toole released a 50-page platform to cater to “middle-class suburban voters, women and new Canadians.”

O’Toole’s promises lean on Conservative values more than his competitors, with a large focus on the Canadian economy and its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

His platform for the economy includes creating a fiscal stability plan to balance the budget and reverse the Liberal government’s small business tax hike. O’Toole also pledges to create a pandemic royal commission to prepare Canada for “future threats” while looking into state of long-term care homes, which were devastated during the crisis, while also creating a back to work agenda to restore income to working Canadians.

Several other areas of his platform include increasing Quebec’s autonomy, creating an action plan for relations with Alberta and the West and taking a hardline approach on foreign relations — especially with the Chinese government.

O’Toole also explicitly pledged to end Bill C-69 — which was an overhaul to how Canada reviewed large infrastructure projects — as well as to criminalize the blockading of railways or ports.

Continue Reading.

https://twitter.com/ShyChemist/status/1297775850985684992

Completely defund and privatize the CBC and specifically mentions that CBC News is the “worst offender” and “threatens the future of local newspapers”. Canadian news media is already an oligarchy where nearly everything but some independent publications are owned by and/or lean Conservative. He wants to privatize it so the centrist CBC will put out Conservative propaganda.

Bring back the Office of Religious Freedom AKA the Government Evangelical Christian Branch, which is to have “essential international work”.

“Protect the religious rights” of Canadian healthcare workers so they can deny providing services if it goes against their beliefs.

Praises Jason Kenney. Multiple times.

Straight up says Alberta is being discriminated against and will no longer have to pay equalization payments.

Says that it will make it so Quebec will always have outsized political influence regardless of its population.

Train RCMP officers to “liaise” with indigenous communities that have “high levels of off-Reserve Aboriginal populations and/or a high number of missing or murdered Indigenous women cold cases.”

Says gun owners are demonized.

Cut regulations in general yearly to make things faster and cheaper. This includes with medical testing.

And more.

On top of criminalizing the main form of protest available in more remote areas often on sovereign land belonging to indigenous communities and calling such people “radicals”. He also calls such blockades as “common law assault” and says they should be treated as such.

This blog is an ace and aro inclusive space. Exclusionists are not welcome here.

That I’m 32 years old and right now I have the most money I’ve ever had in my bank account (due to Pandemic assistance from the government), and yet this pandemic benefit equates to only $12.50/hour of full time work.

People need to realize that for a lot of millennials and Gen Z we’ve never had a stable source of income.

The average length of my jobs over the past decade has been 3 months or less and most have been part time.

I have no idea how I’m ever going to pay off my student debt or buy a home or start a family if this continues. Will I even have money to retire when I’m old?

For the past few years my only stable source of income has been coming from patreon donations for running my Canadian Politics tumblr blog @allthecanadianpolitics (which doesn’t even cover ¼ of the price of typical rent in this country).

If I wasn’t living with my parents, I’d be homeless.

Lust is not wanting to have sex with other people. Lust is using sex to hurt other people or hurting another person in a sexual way.

Gluttony is not eating lots of food (your own stomach will tell you when enough is enough). Gluttony is when you have enough resources to yourself that you could house and feed the rest of the population of your city but you keep it to yourself because you do not want to give up the power associated with it.

Greed is not wanting to improve the state of your material life because it would improve your quality of life. Greed is taking opportunities and resources away from already marginalized people. (And if someone tells you that a service you benefited from and it actively improved your life was not meant for you specifically, then there needs to be more of that resource).

Envy is not looking at someone who has a higher quality of life and wanting to improve it. Envy is when you are looking to take away from someone who is in the same situation as you. The example the Bible (or catholic school) uses is a man looking at another man’s wife when his own wife loves him very much and is equal to the other woman in every way that is important.

Sloth (aka laziness) isn’t when you’re exhausted or hurting and being too tired to do anything else. Sloth is when one contributed nothing to the work and yet reaps the rewards of the work.

Article 1, article 2.

Tweet 1, tweet 2.

Depending on where you live, something you used to pay $3 to get will now cost us, and therefore YOU, $10-$15 to ship.

This isn't just death the small businesses, this is damaging for everyone who currently has to order things by mail.