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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • And where am I ruling that out? I never said that this resistance would always be peaceful. But the sooner you start coordinating with the people around you, the better prepared for that violence we will be, and the better our chances are to prevent a lot of deaths. You can claim otherwise, but sitting alone while my neighbors and friends die is unconscionable to me.

    But what am I deluding myself about? I have literally admitted that what we do may not be able to fix things entirely, but we doom ourselves more if we don’t take action. You obviously know that already, given your statement about your footprint, so why are you arguing against another person calling for direct action?


  • Even if that is true, why take out your frustration like this, by raging against those of us who are willing to do all the good we can?

    I am not promising that we will be able to fix everything. Heck, I don’t even know if we can fully fix anything. But until every last living being is dead, there is something here that deserves every chance we can give or get.

    You don’t have to participate, but to argue against this kind of work is like denying pain medication to someone who is dying and justifying it by saying ‘meds will not save you’. If we can’t save the life, we can at least save them from as much suffering as we can manage.


  • It is going to get worse, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept the full worst-case scenario.

    Right now, a lot of people are hurt and scared, and the fascists know that. That is why they are making big waves right now, to try to capitalize on that feeling of dread and despair.

    But they had to put in a LOT of work to suppress the will of the people. This is not the result of a single election season, this is the result of a coordinated effort spanning decades. The actions they are taking now are designed to make you think that it is hopeless, that nobody cares, and that the battle is lost.

    In reality, the battle is never over. This is the moment that needs to push us to actually working together against them, instead of talking about what the right thing to do is. Talk won’t help, but local action will.

    Join a mutual aid group and help safeguard your friends and neighbors from the economic hardship they are promising. Start talking your friends and family into attending boycotts, marches, and, above all, your local government and board meetings. Connect to the people around you, put up flyers, coordinate phone campaigns, and get people into these meetings to demand protections and change at the local level where it is most important.

    Resistance doesn’t come from nowhere. It has to be grown, it has to be planted as a small seed and then watered and weeded and trellised and brought inside from the cold. You may even have to watch it die and then pick yourself up and start from a seed again.

    But if we each dedicate ourselves, full time, to a single plant, then we will do far more good than running around frantically worrying about the forest dying. Because yes, the forest is dying, and it is up to us to determine what grows in its place.

    We may not be able to save what we have now. But only we can set the stage, as best we can, for those who will come after us. And the more work we do now, the better they will be able to build off of that work, and the better things will be.








  • Full article is as follows:

    Toronto police sergeant gets eight-month demotion for her role in violent ‘mistaken identity’ arrest of U of T student

    Officers were looking for a different Black man — wanted in a domestic incident — when Sgt. Rachel Saliba spotted Hasani O’Gilvie on his way to class. The “mistaken identity” arrest ended with O’Gilvie being Tasered and the subject of a knee-to-neck restraint.

    Sgt. Rachel Saliba, one of two Toronto police officers who pleaded guilty to misconduct charges in the “mistaken identity” arrest and Tasering of Hasani O’Gilvie, a Black university student, was penalized with an eight-month demotion on Monday.

    Saliba pleaded guilty earlier this year to an unlawful exercise of authority in making an unnecessary arrest that she initiated — even though O’Gilvie had identified himself — triggering a violent take down of an innocent man.




  • While you are correct that it will likely be expensive, it is important to note that Descovy is an existing PreP pill that Gilead makes. So the cost of the new shot is yet to be determined, but the company has been criticized for the cost of their current PreP medication option.

    It is also important to note that anyone with insurance in the United States will pay nothing, as the Affordable Care Act requires insurance to cover all PreP medications at no cost to patients. The pricing will only affect those who have no insurance at all, which makes this criticism all the more important to help this new medication reach those who would be the worst affected if they were to contract HIV.




  • I do have the family plan actually, I forgot about that!

    And I do occasionally. Certain live albums and more niche stuff can be hard to find, and one hit wonders can be tricky depending on the genre and time the song is from. The song I’m Blue by Eiffel 65 is only available in a longer club mix and not the radio edit, for example.

    I will say that, in my experience, it has a slightly larger selection than Spotify for classic stuff and different versions of the same song (covers, remakes, remixes, etc). For example, my husband was very excited that they had the whole readout of How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Boris Karloff (in two parts, but still) because they used to play it on certain radio stations every year around Christmas. On Spotify I was only ever able to find the same version of the song from several different albums of Christmas mixes.





  • Dude, vegans can and do eat fruits. For people who can’t afford seasonal fresh fruit, we have fortified foods like bread, pasta, rice, and cereals, most of which are also vegan. I specified rice and beans (and everything else you conveniently ignored, lol) because they make a complete protein, which is usually the only thing you need to monitor closely if you are vegan on a budget. Anything else and you are best off getting a multivitamin for best bang for your buck.

    Also, you saying none of us have been hungry and then lecturing us about not getting both fruits AND vegetables when fresh fruit is one of the most expensive things in a grocery store, outside of meat that is? You clearly have never been poor enough that you have been needing to have your ‘fruit’ be the cheapest jar of grape jelly you can find, or the cans of frozen ‘orange drink concentrate’.