Reblog If You Are A Law-abiding Citizen Who Wishes No Ill Upon Former US Presidents 😇

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Ocala, FL.

Gunshine State is cesspool for white scumbags.

My heart breaks for Ajike Owens and her sweet beautiful children.

My mind sharpens on stopping Florida and shitbag racists like Ron DeSantis from influencing our country.

thegauntlet.news

COVID lulls aren't being earned by policy; they're being bought with infections and deaths

Celebrating a COVID lull years into the Biden Administration's utter abandonment is woefully out of touch with the science

Cases are low right now for one simple reason: most people have recently had COVID. If not during the massive winter JN.1 surge, which infected an estimated 100 million people, then in the previous variant-soup wave of late summer 2023. COVID infections confer a temporary immunity, meaning that after a big surge- when tens of millions of people are infected in a matter of months- the public has a transient “wall” of immunity that lowers transmission in the short-term. Celebrating lulls that were “bought” with a surge is celebrating the successful mass infection of the public, thousands of new Long COVID cases, overall worsened health of the public, and tens of thousands of dead people. That’s the cost of every lull that wasn’t earned with policy.

75,603 people died of COVID in 2023 according to death certificates, which is certainly an undercount. (I would note that death certificate flu was 5,999, also a significant undercount and not the number the CDC uses when reporting flu burden). But let’s take the 75k number at face value and provide some perspective about this level of mortality.

75,603 deaths in one year makes COVID the infectious disease killing the most people in the US by far, and likely to remain so.

@startorrent02

website

Just a reminder for people who may not know, in light of protestors at UCLA being shot in the face with rubber bullets— rubber bullets are not bullets made of rubber. They are metal bullets encased in rubber.

Despite being called “non-lethal” or sometimes “less lethal”, they are well known to cause death and permanent disability.

Here’s a photo showing their size— these are actual rubber bullets used during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

Do not let them downplay the severity of what they are subjecting this students to for standing against genocide. Stay safe and stay educated.

okay, if you have ever made or reblogged a “hold your nose and vote for biden” post, this is for you.

here’s the fucking thing about these kinds of posts. i've been seeing them since i first returned to tumblr in, I think, late 2022? they've certainly increased in frequency since october 7, but they were there before too, ready to counter any kind of opposition to biden that has cropped up. many of them are not just trying to educate people about what positive things biden has done, which, like, at least I can understand the motivation behind those ones? but so many of them are directly in response to people criticizing biden, and their only real point is “sure you’re upset at this thing biden did, but have you considered the election?” starting YEARS before the next presidential election, mind you.

and october 7 only made that clearer. i don’t think it had been a week before i saw these posts cropping up. can you not see how fucking ghoulish that is? to look at the rightful pain and anger of those whose relatives and communities are being slaughtered with active american support, to respond to one of the few pieces of agency most americans have in influencing what their governments do – their vote – by saying “yes but trump would be worse.” as if the primary people you’re lecturing – palestinians, muslims, arabs, black people, indigenous people, disabled people, other marginalized people – don’t remember exactly how bad it was under trump!

and even if you think not voting is an empty gesture – something i, who studied political science at a mainstream american lib college, who has worked as a field organizer on a previous democratic presidential campaign and for several policy campaigns, who currently works in public policy in america, used to believe, but have absolutely changed my mind on – what is in no way an empty gesture is saying publicly that you will not vote for someone. the arguments people usually have about why simply not voting is bad are that you can’t tell why someone is not voting, so it is as likely to be apathy or disenfranchisement as it is a political statement. but saying publicly that you will not vote for someone, and why you will not vote for them, absolutely is a political statement, and potentially a powerful one! but you choose to negate and/or ignore that by trotting out the “lesser of two evils” bullshit.

and then there’s the whole “yes but people will DIE under trump”. PEOPLE ARE DYING NOW. even if you’re fucking racist and have decided that palestinian lives don’t count, have you forgotten biden’s ongoing covid minimalism and dismantling of the CDC’s covid research and prevention infrastructure? have you forgotten his increase in spending for law enforcement scant years after the murder of george floyd? have you forgotten his recent ramp-up in deportations of undocumented immigrants, including the active continuation of many trump-era policies?

maybe you have forgotten all those things and do purport to care about palestinians, but you just think that biden is doing his best to influence netanyahu and is getting nowhere! but then you must have forgotten all of the things that biden and his administration themselves have done to further this fucking genocide, including:

continuing to send arms to israel

putting together a military task force within days of yemen’s red sea blockade and attacking yemeni ships

bombing yemen

bombing syria

bombing iraq

vetoing three ceasefire resolutions at the united nations

testifying to defend israel and its genocide and occupation at the international court of justice

refusing to rescue palestinian-americans stuck in gaza

halting funding to the united nations relief and works agency for palestinian refugees (UNRWA) based on israeli claims that 12 of UNRWA’s over 30,000 staff were hamas agents, even though u.s. intelligence has not been able to independently verify this

lying that he’s personally seen photos of babies beheaded by hamas when he hadn’t because they didn’t exist (and even when his own staff cautioned him that reports of beheaded babies may not be credible)

questioning the number of palestinian deaths reported by the gaza ministry of health (when even israel has not questioned them, since they are in fact proud of those numbers)

perpetuating lies about hamas having committed the attack on al-aqsa hospital

questioning united nations reports of adults and children raped by israeli soldiers while claiming to have proof (that no one else has seen) of hamas doing the same

honestly so many more things that i can’t remember them all but others feel free to add

or maybe you haven’t forgotten any of that, and think that you’re still justified in lecturing people about why they should vote for biden, because you genuinely believe trump would still be worse. if that is the case, you have still failed to see that by saying you will vote for biden no matter what, you are part of the problem of biden continuing to act like this. because biden is counting on fear of trump to win him this next election no matter what else he does. despite his appalling polling numbers, despite the knowledge that he is losing the palestinian-american vote, the arab-american vote, the muslim-american vote, the black american vote, the youth vote – despite all of that, he is secure in the idea that he will still win because he is better than trump. can you not see how that allows him to act without impunity? how it becomes increasingly impossible for his base to influence what he’s doing if he thinks that they will be with him no matter what? this is how you make yourself cabsomplicit to biden’s actions, by not affording anyone even the slightest power to hold him accountable for anything.

and in most cases, the “hold your nose and vote for biden” thing is the response of people who aren’t even being instructed by others not to vote for biden. it is their response to people saying they themselves are choosing not to vote for biden. fucking ghoulish.

The Onion really ain’t fucking around.

sorry but this is important. in a globalized world with more than enough food for all crop failures do not need to lead to starvation.

the world food program estimates it would cost about $40 billion to end global hunger for a year. less than a quarter of elon musk’s current net worth, or less than half of what joe biden has spent funding the genocide of palestinians.

even if there was not enough food to feed everyone, as may happen with climate change and ecological collapse, the choice of who does and does not eat will always be political. the distribution of power is the definition of politics, and that includes the power to eat.

remember that during the irish ‘famine’ ireland was a net exporter of food. it was the bread basket of england. it was only the potatoes that the irish relied on for subsistence that failed. and i’m pretty sure even the blight itself was political, a result of human monocultural farming practices. potatoes aren’t even native to ireland, or europe.

Franz Kafka