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Donate!!!!!! Boost!!!!!

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a lil something sweet for the bingqiu/binggeyuan zine 🔥🥒

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Readers, make sure you have all your favourite Ao3 fics downloaded.

Writers, make sure you have copies of all the fics you have posted on Ao3.

I don’t want to be alarming, but things could get really bad really fast. OTW shared this today on Twitter, and I'm a bit worried about it 😅

Ao3 is a non-profit organisation. If they have to start paying taxes, I have no idea what will happen.

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How do they keep making later and later stages of late-capitalism

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HR 9495 is going back up for voting. All non-profit orgs are in danger.

The Committee on Rules is meeting at 1600 EST on 18 Nov 2024. The agenda includes HR 9495.

If this bill passes, the Secretary of the Treasury would have the power to strip any non-profit group of it's tax-exempt status with no due process.

If you are part of the fandom community and you are in America, please contact your reps and ask them to vote NO on HR 9495.

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Howdy folks, the Senate will be considering the first ever resolution blocking arms to Israel. This is huge and historic; it would block government contracting and about $20 billion in arms and support. This is an uphill battle, PLEASE urge your senators to support S.J.Res114-115. This is maybe the most important piece of legislation relating to Palestine that we have ever gotten and we must seize this opportunity.

This doc has information on the resolutions and their process, as well as sample messages and a phone script you can use. Please, use this moment to hear witness for your neighbors.

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a whole bunch of gazan mutual aid projects and nonprofits. if the decision of which individual fundraiser to give to feels too daunting, or if you just want to help as many people as possible in one go, these are great initiatives to support.

care for gaza - focuses on providing food and essential supplies. donate here or here.

connecting humanity - securing internet access via donations of virtual sim cards (esims). if you can't afford a whole plan yourself, crips for esims is a communal pool that will use your donation to purchase and maintain esims

gaza soup kitchen - provides food, medical care, and classes for children. also has a gofundme

glia gaza medical support initiative - provides medical care through field clinics and tents at hospitals. donations can also be sent through their website.

ele elna elak - provides clean water, food, clothing, and shelter. they also have a gofundme

life for gaza - raising money for the gaza municipality to repair water and waste management infrastructure

taawon - partners with local civil organizations to provide food, water, medical care, shelter, and basic supplies

the sameer project - running various initiatives providing tents, medical care, and necessities. they have their own encampment project focused on sheltering families with children, sick and disabled members, or members in need of perinatal care

islamic relief worldwide's gaza emergency appeal - provides food, water, hygiene kits, medical supplies, and psychological support

baitulmaal - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, shelter, and medical supplies

gaza mutual aid fund - distributes food, hygiene products, water, and other essential supplies, including financial support. run by @/el-shab-hussein's amazing friend Mona. updates can be found on her instagram.

hygiene kits for gaza - provides hygiene supplies including menstrual products, wipes, and toothbrushes/toothpaste

anera - provides a variety of necessities, including food, water, hygiene supplies, medicine, blankets and mattresses, and psychological care

palestine children's relief fund - provides supplies and support with a focus on children. also has an initiative for lebanon

certainly this is not an exhaustive list, so please feel free to add on other projects or organizations that i didn't include. and as always, please take the time to donate if you can and share. it truly makes all the difference.

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answering a couple questions i got on this post since i realized ppl genuinely wanna know:

tl;dr:

israel lets very, very little aid get into gaza. even the UN can't get in as much as they want to. funding individual families, gazan led initiatives, and mutual aid collectives operating out of gaza ensures gazans can provide for themselves and pay for the extremely expensive aid that is available.

with all the civil infrastructure destroyed by israel, the situation on the ground has devolved into unrestricted capitalism, driving up the price of aid (that should be free!). this makes it more urgent for people to have funding for daily survival.

the post linked above has examples of how donating to individual families can help a lot. if you want to help more than one family at a time, there are many gazan-led initiatives focusing on rebuilding their infrastructure and distributing aid fairly that are worth donating to instead of large charities that already get the majority of donations.

as i mentioned in the last post: @/careforgaza on twitter is a nonprofit started by gazans, it's been endorsed by multiple palestinian journalists.

the sameer project is a collective organized by diaspora palestinians offering emergency shelter to gazans.

ele elna elak is a project aiming to bring water, food, shelter, etc. to gazans and has been promoted by bisan owda.

and the municipality of gaza itself is fundraising to rebuild water infrastructure.

all of these organizations are active inside gaza right now and are being run by gazans. if anyone knows of other gazan-led mutual aid projects, nonprofits or charities feel free to link them in the notes! hope this helped!

long answers under the cut!

if you wanna donate to a charity that's absolutely fine, but the thing is most charities (and even the UN!) are unable to make it into gaza in the first place, leaving aid rotting at the egyptian side of the border or subject to israeli settler attacks

not to mention, charities and nonprofits also maintain a paternalistic colonial relationship with the indigenous people they are trying to help, determining what aid they need for them instead of returning power to them and letting them make their own choices

i'm not here to say that one option is better than the other, just that they achieve different things and are equally legitimate. there's an attitude among people who question the legitimacy of these gofundme campaigns that somehow the people promoting them are telling them not to donate to charities. nobody is stopping you from donating to charities. we are just asking that you do not dehumanize the very real gazans in your inbox just because their method of asking for aid is more direct and risky.

unfortunately that's exactly what has happened. because israel destroyed all of gaza's more formalized infrastructure, it seems that organized crime and rampant inflation has taken its place. aid is supposed to be free, but in order to save for evacuation or the cost of living, people have started selling them at an inflated price. and aid that is truly free attracts intense, large crowds that are dangerous to navigate.

this was posted on abc a few days ago

it's pure, unrestrained capitalism. i've had multiple palestinians describe this situation to me confidence. that's why everything's so expensive now. why people have to rent out tiny plots of land for their tents to sit on, why my friend @siraj2024 still has to buy tarps to cover the broken windows of the overpriced bombed out apartment he rented, and why a bag of flour can cost a thousand bucks in the north.

even before israel closed and then bombed the rafah crossing, the egyptian hala travel agency was only allowing people to cross the border if they paid a hefty $5000 USD per adult / $2500 USD per child bribe. it denies doing this, but the hundreds of stories from palestinians say otherwise.

with regard to the economy, here in america we saw something similar happen in the wake of hurricane helene and milton. the podcaster margaret killjoy describes how she saw dual economies rise after asheville was fully cut off from the rest of the country - some people offered each other supplies for free in a sort of mutual aid honor system, and some people required payment when they lent supplies because they themselves needed to buy stuff for their families. these dual economies exist in gaza too. and this means they all still need money to survive.

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Senators are going to vote on whether or not we should continue to send aid to Israel on Wednesday, November 13th. Call them, bombard their phone lines with calls. Every fucking day. We have a chance of doing something about this.

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Not sure about anyone else but I re-read all my favourite AO3 comments when I’ve had a rough day so if you’ve ever taken the time to write a deep, funny, or just kind comment, thank-you.

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Some tweets about Tyre (Sur), Lebanon because you should know this and not because a city needs to be thousands of years old and a UNESCO heritage site to not be targeted by a settler colony of numbered days that's trying to expand

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Hi everyone! Here's your Daily Reminder to Click for Palestine! 💚🩷

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Here's your daily reminder to click for Palestine!!!

U.S. residents, take 5 minutes and use this link to pressure your members of Congress to stop sending weapons to the Israeli military!!

(Letter variants you can copy/paste under the cut!!)

Original letter written by Jewish Voice for Peace:

I am writing as your constituent to ask that you do everything in your power to press the Biden administration to suspend all weapons shipments to the Israeli military, and oppose all future military funding to Israel. The Israeli government has vowed to push forward with a large-scale military operation in Rafah, even though President Biden has repeatedly said such an operation would be a "red line." On May 7, the Israeli military seized the Rafah border crossing, a crucial passage for humanitarian aid, and ordered 100,000 Palestinians in eastern Rafah to evacuate. The 1.3 million displaced Palestinians sheltering in Rafah will have nowhere to flee should a full invasion commence. Millions of Palestinian lives now hang in the balance. I urge you to do everything in your power to stop this unfolding catastrophe before it's too late. Thank you.

Slight variations I created (so that emails don't get marked as spam for being identical to each other)

Variation 1:

I'm writing to you as your constituent to ask you to do everything you can to pressure the Biden administration into suspending all weapons shipments to the Israeli military and opposing any and all future military funding to Israel! The Israeli government is pushing forward with a large-scale military operation in Rafah. President Biden has repeatedly said such an operation would be a "red line," yet his administration is still supporting this operation. On May 7th 2024, the Israeli military seized the Rafah border crossing, a crucial passage for humanitarian aid, and forced 100,000 Palestinians in eastern Rafah to abandon their homes. 1.3 million Palestinians have been displaced. Those sheltering in Rafah have nowhere to flee during a full invasion. Millions of Palestinian lives now hang in the balance. Their fate lies in the hands on Congress, in your hands. I urge you to do everything in your power to stop this unfolding catastrophe before it's too late. Thank you.

Variation 2:

I'm writing you today to ask that you do everything in your power to convince the Biden administration to stop funding Israel. We have to telk them to stop all shipments of weapons to the Israeli military and oppose all future military funding to Israel. The Israeli government has vowed to push forward with a large-scale military operation in Rafah... President Biden made it clear that such an operation would be a "red line," and yet he continues to fund them. On May 7th of this year, the Israeli military seized the Rafah border crossing, a crucial passage for humanitarian aid, and forced 100,000 Palestinians to flee their own home of Eastern Rafah. Should a full invasion commence, 1.3 million displaced Palestinians sheltering in Rafah will have nowhere safe to go. Millions of Palestinian lives now hang in the balance. I am begging you now, as your constituent, to do everything in your power to stop this unfolding catastrophe before it's too late... Thank you

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More profound when you consider that Doctors Without Borders rarely makes political statements.

In #UNSC mtg on Middle East, @MSF SG Christopher Lockyear says: "Israeli forces have attacked our convoys, detained our staff, bulldozed our vehicles, hospitals have been bombed and raided. And now for a second time, one of our staff shelters has been hit. This pattern of attacks is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence. Our colleagues in #Gaza are fearful that as I speak to you today, they will be punished tomorrow."

He adds: "The humanitarian response in Gaza today is an illusion. A convenient illusion that perpetuates a narrative that this war is being waged in line with international laws. Calls for humanitarian assistance have echoed across this chamber. Yet in Gaza we have less and less every day, less space, less medicine, less food, less water, less safety."

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🇨🇩 The donation period is open! 🇨🇩

It is possible to submit SFW and/or NSFW (including dead dove) fanart & fanfic prompts!

This is a fandom-wide event, so all ships, all dynamics and all tropes are welcome!

More than 200 artists and writers have volunteered (including me, hi), so send us those prompts! :D

If you wish to donate but don't have any ideas for what to request, or are not in the fandom, you can always give a freeform prompt.

You can donate directly on the website or use the GoFundMe.

Here is the donation form, with further instructions:

To learn more about this Gotcha and its purpose, check out the carrd:

If you cannot donate, please consider sharing the Gotcha around!

Let's do our best as a fandom for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo!

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