acornflour

[acornflour]

[ID: A screenshot from the UFCW Local 7 Union's donation page. The header reads "Hardship Fund for Striking King Soopers Workers" in bold, and the body of the text reads as follows.

The workers at King Soopers are on an Unfair Labor Practices strike. Some of the striking workers will need additional financial assistance to get through this time.

This Hardship Fund assists with essential needs that have occurred since the strike date. Those in need will need to fill out an application, the Hardship Committee will review such application and, upon approval, the check will be sent directly to the creditor.

We appreciate all of the support we are receiving from our community and hope to be back in our stores, serving you soon.

End ID.]

For those looking to support the strike, this is (arguably) the best way. Picketing workers are paid $160 a day, and up to $800 a week, so long as they have the funds to do so. Those who don't cross the picket line but don't picket get paid a $100 weekly honor wage.

This strike cannot live on without funding. If you want to help the strike, this is the best way to do it.

(source below.)

[acornflour]

Garden for CLIMATE RESISTENCE.

[acornflour]

There’s a phenomenon where a lot of feminist and queer spaces will talk a lot about supporting trans women, and view trans women as one of the most oppressed groups there are, while at the same time being pretty inhospitable to actual trans women and more willing to ostracize and punish them for infractions which they’d forgive others for. And downstream of that, they’re rendered a lot more vulnerable to abuse by the precarity of their place in the community.

Some of what’s going on there is just, well, talk is cheap, and it’s easier to get people to say the right slogans than to actually unlearn transphobia. But I think some of it is this:

A common form of transmisogyny is the idea that a trans woman, as a man pretending to be a woman, is something threatening pretending to be nonthreatening. (Julia Serano’s “deceptive transsexual” is basically this.) Now the people in these spaces don’t think trans women are men, oh no. They’ll say “trans women are women” and fully believe it. But it’s one thing to think that trans women are women in the abstract, when the word “women” is right there in the subject of the sentence to guide you. When you’re dealing with an actual trans woman in front of you… maybe she’s got masculine features and you kind of think of her as a man even if you wouldn’t say it. Maybe she’s half a foot taller than her partner and if there’s abuse going on there, there’s no question in your mind who’s abusing whom. Maybe she said something you disagree with and well, would she really have said that if she hadn’t spent most of her life being treated as a man? Maybe she’s taking up more space than you’d like her to and that feels pretty masculine to you. And you’re not saying that she’s faking her identity or anything, but it sure is convenient for her that she can accuse people of transphobia if they point out how she’s exhibiting toxic masculinity.

So sometimes without explicit misgendering (although explicit misgendering definitely also happens), people and groups can pretty easily be convinced that trans women are wolves in sheep’s clothing, dangerous and deceptive and untrustworthy. “Trans women” in a lot of these people’s eyes, are great, but actual specific trans women not so much.

[acornflour]

Yes, it’ll get worse

I’m always a bit annoyed when some ecoactivists are are all “Hope! Degrowth! The planet can heal!” without giving an honest time frame for that.

Like, even if we manage to end capitalism and degrow an all of that, the CO2 that’s already in the air will continue to heat up the planet for decades and the results of that will be with us for this century at the very least.

Yes, ecosystems can heal, yes, that’s worth fighting for. But it’ll get worse before it gets better and most of us won’t be there for the good parts. You can leave that out to spread “Hope”, but all that will do is make people optimistic for a short time only for them to feel hurt and betrayed when they figure out the truth.

An worse then feeling cheated our of a bright future, people acting on this false optimistic worldview won’t build the kind of support networks that we are going to need to survive our real future. Preparing for a more ecologically unstable earth must be part of our work, even as we continue to strive for the end of capitalism an a shift to a far more sustainable way of living.

Basically, if you’re trying to boost your movement this way, your eco-activism strategy is…ehhh.. unsustainable?

[acornflour]

u know i really have to wonder how die hard biden supporters are feeling right now, if they feel at all.

during the presidential election (black) ppl were given so much shit for not being head over heels for biden with one of their biggest reasons being "getting the cheeto out of office!! uwu". yes trump is evil but biden has literally taken the reigns of america and is doing the same dance with them.

i don't think (white) liberals understand what it's like being petrified of having little to no power when it comes to relatives in colonized countries that have been crumbled to ruin and left to slowly die. they don't think beyond the baseless twitter or tumblr post that has so many likes and shares that it has to be true due to its popularity.

while u are sitting in the comfort of ur home screaming at strangers online over issues that only personally affect u and ur fragile image, there are ppl that work to support their families both in the US, Canada, UK, etc and the ones back home. making bi-weekly trips to western union. buying minutes to make sure they're alive and not just okay. deciding whether or not to cut food costs for themselves or folks back home because they can't afford it.

and when absolute hell breaks out to the point where ppl would rather risk their lives swimming with their children on their backs or huddling on crowded dingy make shift boats not haven eaten in days so they can reach sanctuary in a country that has promised asylum, even going as far as making it law, but are instead met with whips similar to the ones black ancestors met their ends to and put on the first flight back into what they were trying to escape.

please read this article and donate to the mentioned organizations if u can. my ppl have suffered enough.

[acornflour]

I really want to unionize my work place, but I'm worried that our store will shut down if we succeed. During our training we were shown anti-union propaganda videos to discourage us and many other people who work for the same company have even been shown videos that mention termination if union activities go on. My store specifically is last in our county, even though my department has been making $20,000+ in profit each month. Are situations like these common? (Sorry if I sound all over the place, ask box limits and all that)

Excellent question. It would take an entire two day session in an OT101 to answer you completely but I’ll do my best to address your concerns in this limited format.

To start with your last question—yes, anti-union propaganda of the sort you and your coworkers were to exposed to is extremely common, especially in the United States, if that is where you are.

It is illegal to terminate an employee for unionising efforts. All workers have the federally protected right to form a union but that does not and will not stop businesses from practicing illegal firings, intimidation and harassment if they so much as suspect organising efforts on the part of their employees.

Organising is dangerous. Getting fired can be catastrophic but it is not even the worst punishment this system will mete out in defense of the employing class. Workers on strike continue to get injured and killed by strike breakers and scabs. Organisers I personally know have been brutally attacked by police while on the picket line and have the permanent scars to show for it. If a strike is found to be “illegal” for any reason, the state will levy gratuitous fines and potential incarceration for workers it finds “guilty”.

And then, to your first point, even if a union campaign is or appears as though it might potentially be successful, the owners can always just cut their losses, pull up stakes, fire the entire staff and start fresh somewhere else.

That all sounds pretty scary, doesn’t it? Organising is a fight, plain and simple. The bosses have a playbook that has worked for them for a long time but what they don’t want you to know is we have a playbook of our own and it works when we follow it carefully and creatively.

You may have heard the phrase “Agitate, Organise, WIN!” Not to be glib but that’s what it can boil down to. When we organise safely, with attention and care, we win. Wins can be small. Wins can be big. When we organise correctly, we win and we win a lot more than you or any worker in this world will ever know.

Wins of the sort I have seen are not publicised. They are considered wounds to the bosses and bosses abhor the appearance of weakness, so most wins are played off as company policy or good management but the organisers know. The workers who won know what went into it behind the scenes.

The potential for loss is no reason not to fight. The stakes we face are all the more reason to organise right and organise right now.

Organising to win is a slow process. There aren’t any short cuts. It takes perception, communication, listening, learning, brainstorming, a lot more listening, getting angry, being frustrated, sharing joy and so much courage in the face of bad odds.

Organising can also be the most rewarding thing you’ll ever do.

Anyone can organise. You can start today if you want to badly enough. I can’t promise you’ll win. I can promise support and solidarity every step of the way.

[acornflour]

https://iww.org/membership/

[acornflour]

Someone made an engagement map for TERF tweets

[acornflour]

If you're disabled in a way that makes protesting virtually impossible--esp mobility fucked people--a great way you can help out is getting in contact with the protest organizers and asking if they need help making signs or packing lunches or divvying up supplies ahead of time! Those are usually stationary tasks, and I promise just because you're not marching doesn't mean you're not part of the fight! A well-supplied protest can last much longer than one without a supply chain. Reach out! Ask how you can help! Listen to the organizers, and do your best!

I feel like this advice is less helpful in the lulls between mass uprisings, like the one we're in now. It's just not as accessible at the moment to get in contact with protest organizers, and if you're waiting for a big protest to help prepare for you'll be doing a lot less than you could

What we need right now is base-building and direct action. I suggest getting in touch with a local mutual aid group. My mutual aid group always needs people to sort food and pack boxes, FNB needs people to cook and serve, the free store I volunteer at needs folks to just basically sit around 90% of the time and answer questions

Basically, the lesson to take away is if you contact a radical group in your area, they'll almost certainly have something that needs doing that you'll be able to do

[acornflour]

[acornflour]

[acornflour]

Carrots are looking good, and just about ready to pull! I'm gonna start harvesting the catnip soon as well, but truth be told, I wanna see the flowers for just a little while longer (´；ω；｀)

[acornflour]

[acornflour]

I just saw “diffabled” being used in place of the word disabled, and I may actually riot.

[acornflour]

There are literally protests in Eswatini that have been happening for several weeks, wherein multiple people have died and no one gives a shit. We're seeing unprecedented levels of civil unrest in the only absolute monarchy in Africa, one which is literally funded, and arguably ran, by coca-cola but I guess since no ones made a cute little insta infographic we're just not gonna talk about one of the most obvious examples of neo-colonialism in action?

There are already a minimum of 2 dozen people killed by the police and its very likely that the military is hiding the actual number.

Like I know it's a meme to say "why aren't people talking about this" and im not actually gonna ask that because I know most of you don't give a shit about Africa, but like if you claim you're anti-imperialist then the least you could do is maybe put a spotlight on the struggle of one of the most imperialized peoples on the planet.

[acornflour]

[acornflour]

i’m crying so hard