solarpunkwitchcraft

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

Today a livestream is currently airing to raise money for abandoned cats. They gave out the notice two days before they started airing. Within two days, they raised £33,000 before the streamer even started playing.

As someone who loves cats, I don't know why people have more sympathy and willingness to help abandoned cats than a child who is in danger of dying.

Mira Bkheet currently needs to raise $1170 for a gland removal operation within the next four days to prevent rapid growth of the tumor. Her father, Yahya Bkheet, (@yahyabkheet-blog and @yahyabkheeblog) is desperately trying to campaign on behalf of her. In the past three days, they've only raised €30 of the €1170.

Please help save Mira.

I have donated what I can so far to Yahya's fundraiser since he first started campaigning in May. Can any of you do the same to help save Mira?

This fundraiser has been vetted by @/nabulsi and is listed at #110 on the GazaVetters List.

Tagging for further reach (pls message me for removal)

@appsa @turian @timetravellingkitty @sylvianritual @imjustheretotrytohelp

@sunflowersmoths @maaszeltov @dlxxv-vetted-donations @zigcarnivorous  @armysurplus

@commissions4aid-international @paparoach  @celadonwanderer @girlinafairytale @tiredguyswag

@bilal-salah0 @three-croissants  @fly-sky-high-09 @captainsaltymuyfancy @maoistyuri

@heritageposts @paper-mario-wiki @wellwaterhysteria @shesnake @dirhwangdaseul

@kyra45-helping-others @3t22 @amygdalae @stuckinapril @chilewithcarnage

@sawasawako @kibumkim @irhabiya @killy @aristotels 

@watermotif @finalgirlabigailhobbs @mens-rights-activia @devilofthepit @poetrylesbian

@mahoushojoe @deepspaceboytoy @junglejim4322 @halalgirlmeg @jezior0

@esperantokomencanto @monstermashpotato @heydreamchild @shiskabubble @oursapphirestars

@apocalyptic-dancehall @darthteeth @diasdelasombra @xinakwans @2bu

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Original tweet

71% of the goal has been reached as if 11/20/2024! Let’s keep this momentum going! ❤️❤️❤️

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

4 prisoners immolated themselves protesting the conditions in Virginia

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

I'm already seeing advice from people in the US to purchase queer books and other banned or "controversial" books on paper as a way to combat the wave of government censorship that is coming. While this is a good idea (it is! absolutely!), it's not accessible to everyone, and truly, we're not going to be able to consumerism our way out of this one.

If you can buy the books, do. Whether you can buy the books or not, borrow them from your library.

Borrow the paper versions. Borrow the ebook or audiobook versions. Request the titles you want that your library doesn't have. The more a title circulates or is requested, the better librarians are going to be able to defend keeping it if and when it's ever challenged.

Use libraries like @queerliblib too. The more members they have, the better they'll be able to fundraise.

Your community resources depend on you using them. Borrow the books before they go away.

InB4: Piracy is not the solution here. We're trying to keep community resources available, not make sure individual people can read individual books. Different problems.

The books are still available. Borrowing them from your library and returning them on time and in good condition will help keep them that way.

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

Hundreds of people showed up outside Queens Park Saturday afternoon to push back against the Ford government's controversial bike lane bill that would remove certain Toronto bike lanes to help address congestion. 

The Progressive Conservative government has been fast-tracking legislation that would require Ontario municipalities to ask the province for permission to install bike lanes when they would remove a lane of vehicle traffic.

The bill also goes a step further and would remove three major bike lanes in Toronto on Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue. 

Continue reading

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

I am a sick and elderly man and I urgently need your help 💔💔💔 Please help me, my life is in danger💔💔

I am Jawad, 60 years old, and I live in the Gaza Strip with my family of seven members.

We have been living in the midst of war for a long time, and conditions are difficult in every sense of the word. Every day brings new challenges, but we try to persevere and maintain hope despite everything.

I suffer from many heart diseases, diabetes, and high blood pressure, and we live in the worst conditions.

We are now living in famine and we cannot bear it. I have been grinding chickpeas to make falafel and selling them to people so that I can save the price of our food and be able to buy bread because bread has become expensive despite my old age and the diseases I suffer from. I work for my children and I am able to obey them.

I share this with you because I believe that every voice has value, and that communicating our suffering is part of the struggle for a better life.

Thank you for watching, and please keep us in your prayers or support us in any way you can, even by sharing our story.

Thank you to everyone who listens to us and supports us.

@halalchampagnesocialist @spooksier@jonahmagnus @artemis-pendragon @lesbian-hannibal

@turtletoria @bulkhummus @smOkebreaks @doubleca5t @wuntrum

@mysharona1987 @fairycosmos @watermotif @vague-humanoid @mavigator

@legallybrunettedotcom@brucespringsteendotcom

@pjharvey @doublism@cigaretteuncle

@odinsblog@chainmail-butch @bestlesbiancave @t4tails @electricpurrs

@mordhiobhail @bOnkcreat @lemon-wedges @holedyke @jerseyclown

@butchfeygela @danijaci @pinayelf @dogesterone @professorllayton

@bakwaas @eastgaysian @tf2yuri@bongjoonheaux

@romanceyourdemons

@valtsv@cryptotheism @coughloop

@cottoncandylesbo @jame7t

@amygdalae @pointnclick @psygull @wolvierinez

@0047 silver

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

**Today I ate worm-infested and moldy bread.**

Yes, as you read it: worm-infested and moldy.

And I knew it was worm-infested.

And the person who gave it to me knew that I knew it was worm-infested.

Even so, I am one of the lucky ones.

There is no flour in the Gaza Strip.

#TheSouthStarves and #TheNorthIsExterminated

How long, world, there is no sense or conscience about what we are living in now. We have been living for more than a year. We have no food or drink, and we do not know the meaning of sleep. For more than a year, our children have been living the worst childhood. How long, how long, how long?????

@mangocheesecakes @kyra45-helping-others

@7bitter @tortiefrancis

@toiletpotato @fromjannah @vague-humanoid @criptochecca

@aristotels @komsomolka @xinakwans @heritageposts @nibeul

@ot3 @amygdalae @ankle-beez @communistchilchuck @dykesbat

@watermotif@stuckinapril@mavigator @lacecap @yugiohz

@socalgal @chilewithcarnage @ghelgheli @sayruq

@northgazaupdates2

@vakarians-babe @wayneradiotv

@psychotic-gerard @mavigator @communistkenobi @socalgal @chilewithcarnage

@ghelgheli @determinate-negation @papasmoke @omegaversereloaded

@xinakwans @givemearmstopraywith @loombreaking

@killy @deathlonging

@palms-upturned @blackpearlblast @littlegermanboy @loveaankilaq @sar-soor

@fridgebride @27-moons @tamarrud @familyabolisher @fleshdyk3

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

🇵🇸🙏 don't scroll ‼️

Hello dear people

I am Nabila from Gaza,, I am 64 years old ,,

speaking to you with a heavy and painful heart. I am sorry that I had to ask for help from you, but what we are living is what pushed me to do this. I was living a beautiful, quiet life, enjoying the time I spend with my grandchildren and seven daughters.

Imagine waking up to find that your world has changed in a moment, and you have lost your security and peace, and your home has been destroyed, and you have become homeless and living in conditions that no human being can bear. I suffer from chronic diseases, high blood pressure and diabetes. My medication has run out for some time and I am facing difficulty in obtaining it in light of the lack of treatment in hospitals and health centers. Most of the time I cannot feel my limbs, but I am trying to resist. I do not want to die in such circumstances. I still have hope that this war will end and we will rebuild our beautiful and beloved country again and live in safety. I believe in divine power and justice and that all this pain will go away.

I am trying to endure these difficult conditions that I live in inside a small tent and a bathroom a few meters away from my tent and you know the conditions of diabetics in this case but once again there is still hope. I used to live at the expense of my daughters but with all sadness and regret they have all lost their homes and places of work and they have no source of income left and their situation is like that of any Gazan who is still inside Gaza struggling with death, hunger, diseases and extreme heat each one struggling to feed his children I cannot ask them for help so I have resorted to you and I am fully confident in your humanity to help me so that I can provide food and treatment and provide a better tent than the one I live in because it is torn and the place is full of insects. If I can provide treatment, I want to continue my life and see my grandchildren grow up around me. I don’t want to go now. I know that I don’t have as much life left as I have, but I have the right to live and enjoy this. Please don’t hesitate to help your mother who has come to you with a heavy and sad heart. Every dollar will make a difference in my life. Don’t leave me to live this pain. I appreciate what you are doing for every Palestinian inside and outside Gaza. I pray to God that you don’t go through what we are going through, my beloved.

Medical visits and insulin: $5000

Travel and transportation to hospital, coordination with Egypt's border: $5000

My campaing vetted by

@90-ghost

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[solarpunkwitchcraft]

I fear I will be saying this over and over again in the coming weeks but this is the one and only post I will make.

Many people are hurt, angry, and scared right now. These feelings have their place and are understandable but I ask you all to use these feelings as motivation to get involved in your communities.

Theres alot of work to do regardless of who got voted in and I ask you all to find out how to start.

Upset that a felon is going it be president while felons lose their right to vote?

Look into prisoner justice organizations, learn about prison abolition and restorative justice practices.

Scared about the future of queer people in your life?

Support local queer organizers - learn our history and who to learn from (hint: its bipoc, poor, disabled, and multiply marginalized queer people). Make practical change and stop watering down our politics, histories, and needs to appease liberal politics (they will not pick you, and if they do they will do so in the name of oppressing your people).

Considering fleeing the country for your safety?

Now is the time to look into Immigrant justice organizations and the needs they have. You are considering becoming one, so support the ones currently in your community and in the one you end up in, given you leave.

Feeling hopeless?

Get organized, meet people, learn how real change is made and the ways you can participate. Change doesnt come from election day, it comes every day before and after that.

Transferred from kolektiva.social

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

Endangered Species Sightings from This Year

This is thought to be the first time in over 20 years that a blue whale was spotted off the Coast of Massachusetts.

I highly recommend watching the video and listening to the reaction of the people on the whale watching boat--the cheers and emotion in some of their voices, especially the woman saying "I'm trying not to" when someone jokingly tells her not to cry.

This is the first time ever that a mother clouded leopard with two cubs has been spotted on a game cam!

"After being considered regionally extinct for over a century, giant anteaters have been spotted roaming once again in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state. Scientists have concluded these returned natives ventured over from Argentina's Ibera Park, where conservationists have released around 110 rescued and captive-bred anteaters since 2007."

Over 100 years and the anteaters are finally coming home!

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I don't believe anything white tumblr queers say about the virtues of 'building community' when they've made it clear 'community' to them means 'me and my white friends.' what are you building? a polycule on a hobby farm?

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

What's the best way to fight fascism as a disabled person? I can't walk well but I desperately want to protest those bigots. Is there any way I can show support or support the victims in any way?

Good question, there are loads of ways that you can help beyond being on frontline protests against fascism. I won't be able to cover them all here because there's so many but just off the top of my head:

Educate yourself and pass that knowledge to others - This can be as simple as teaching people what to bring to protests (and what not to!) through to teaching people their rights if they interact with the police

Provide digital support - Help coordinate protests and get the messages and alerts out.

Volunteer - Graphic Design is always high in demand, and each local group will probably have some form of work that they need help with

I'm not disabled so I've probably not scratched the surface with all the different ways that you could help. I daresay I have a few followers who'll add to this.

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

keep donating. your money won’t “go to waste”

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From the Xerces Society

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"The most fashionable bathing station in all Europe". British industrialists and American mining investors plotting the colonization of the Congo, while mingling at Ostend's seaside vacation resorts. Extracting African life to build European railways, hotels, palaces, suburbs, and other modern(ist) infrastructure. "Towards infinity!"

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In 1885, King Leopold II achieved an astonishing and improbable goal: he claimed a vast new realm of his own devising, a conjury on a map called [...] the Congo Free State. [...] [A] fictional state owned by the king, ruled by decree, and run from Brussels from 1885 to 1908. [...] This was [...] a private entrepreneurial venture [for the king]. The abundance of ivory, timber, and wild rubber found in this enormous territory brought sudden and spectacular profits to Belgium, the king, and a web of interlocking concession companies. The frenzy to amass these precious resources unleashed a regime of forced labor, violence [millions of deaths], and unchecked atrocities for Congolese people. These same two and a half decades of contact with the Congo Free State remade Belgium [...] into a global powerhouse, vitalized by an economic boom, architectural burst, and imperial surge.

Congo profits supplied King Leopold II with funds for a series of monumental building projects [...]. Indeed, Belgian Art Nouveau exploded after 1895, created from Congolese raw materials and inspired by Congolese motifs. Contemporaries called it “Style Congo,” [...]. The inventory of this royal architecture is astonishing [...]. [H]istorical research [...] recovers Leopold’s formative ideas of architecture as power, his unrelenting efforts to implement them [...]. King Leopold II harbored lifelong ambitions to “embellish” and beautify the nation [...]. [W]ith his personal treasury flush with Congo revenue, [...] Leopold - now the Roi Batisseur ("Builder King") he long aimed to be - planned renovations explicitly designed to outdo Louis XIV's Versailles. Enormous greenhouses contained flora from every corner of the globe, with a dedicated soaring structure completed specifically to house the oversize palms of the Congolese jungles. [...]

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The Tervuren Congo palace [...]. Electric tramways were built and a wide swath of avenue emerged. [...] [In and around Brussels] real estate developers began to break up lots [...] for suburban mansions and gardens. Between 1902 and 1910, new neighborhoods with luxury homes appeared along the Avenue [...]. By 1892, Antwerp was not only the port of call for trade but also the headquarters of the most profitable of an interlinking set of banks and Congo investment companies [...]. As Antwerp in the 1890s became once again the “Queen of the Scheldt,” the city was also the home of what was referred to as the “Queen of Congo companies.” This was the ABIR, or Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company, founded in 1892 with funds from British businessman “Colonel” John Thomas North [...].

Set on the seaside coast, Belgium’s Ostend was the third imperial cityscape to be remade by King Leopold [...] [in a] transformation [that] was concentrated between 1899 and 1905 [...]. Ostend encompassed a boomtown not of harbor and trade, like Antwerp, but of beachfront and leisure [...] [developed] as a "British-style" seaside resort. [...] Leopold [...] [w]as said to spend "as much time in Ostend as he did in Brussels," [...]. Ostend underwent a dramatic population expansion in a short period, tripling its inhabitants from 1870–1900. [...] Networks of steamers, trams, and railway lines coordinated to bring seasonal visitors in, and hotels and paved walkways were completed. [...] [A]nd Leopold’s favorite spot, the 1883 state-of-the-art racetracks, the Wellington Hippodrome. Referred to with an eye-wink as “the king incognito” (generating an entire genre of photography), visitors to the seaside could often see Leopold in his top hat and summer suit [...], riding his customized three-wheeled bicycle [...]. By 1900, Ostend’s expansion and enhancement made it known as “the Queen of the Belgian seaside resorts” and “the most fashionable bathing station in all Europe.” Opulence, convenience, and spectacle brought the Shah of Persia, American tycoons, European aristocrats, and Belgian elites, among others, to Ostend.

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Leopold’s interventions and the Congo Free State personnel and proceeds played three pivotal and understudied roles in this transformation, all of which involved ABIR [British industrialists].

First, it was at Ostend that an early and decisive action was taken to structure the “red rubber” regime and set it in motion. In 1892, jurists such as [E.P.] had ruled, contravening [...] trade laws, that the king was entitled to claim the Congo as his domanial property [...]. Leopold [...] devised one part of that royal domain as a zone for private company concessions [...] to extract and export wild rubber.

Soon after, in 1892, King Leopold happened to meet the British “Colonel” John Thomas North at the Ostend Hippodrome. North, a Leeds-born mechanic [...] had made a fortune speculating on Chilean nitrates in the 1880s. He owned monopoly shares in nitrate mines and quickly expanded to acquire monopolies in Chilean freight railways, water supplies, and iron and coal mines. By 1890 North was a high-society socialite worth millions [...]. Leopold approached North at the Ostend racecourse to provide the initial investments to set up the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (ABIR). [...]

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One visible sign of Ostend’s little-known character as Congo boomtown was the Royal Palace Hotel, a lavish property next to the king’s Royal Domain, which opened in 1899. With hundreds of rooms and a broad sweep of acreage along the beachfront, the palace “occupied the largest space of any hotel in Europe.” [...]

King Leopold met American mining magnate Thomas Walsh there, and as with North, the meeting proved beneficial for his Congo enterprise: Leopold enlisted Walsh to provide assessments of some of his own Congo mining prospects. The hotel was part of [...] [a major European association of leisure profiteers] founded in 1894, that began to bundle luxury tourism and dedicated railway travel, and whose major investors were King Leopold, Colonel North [...].

At the height of Congo expansionism, fin-de-siècle Antwerp embodied an exhilarated launch point [...]. Explorers and expeditioners set sail for Matadi after 1887 with the rallying call “Vers l’infini!” (“towards infinity!”) [...].

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Text above by: Debora Silverman. "Empire as Architecture: Monumental Cities the Congo Built in Belgium". e-flux Architecture (Appropriations series). May 2024. At: e-flux.com/architecture/appropriations/608151/empire-as-architecture-monumental-cities-the-congo-built-in-belgium/ [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post was added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]