#anti poverty

[sataniccapitalist]

The Real Chinese ‘Threat’: Lifting 850 Million Out of Poverty

[random-fandom-place]

Where do I get that courage?

Fun fact: in the 80′s the Dutch Unemployed Union held ‘fridge raids’ to protest against poverty. 

They’d find out when a politician of big boss who upheld poverty and starvation wages was speaking at some public even, then they’d carefully break into his house with a LOT of people and they would eat EVERY piece of food in his house and leave the empty dished behind without taking anything else. 

[sleeppaw]

Women created the Sex industry. Think about the oldest profession, which is sex work. In the past, jobs ran by men were heavily taxed, and as women were barred from having a job, they exploited a loophole that enabled them to have some sort of income and avoid tax at the same time. It was women that recruited other women into sex work. Like sex workers today, the women were often in poverty. That's one common factor that has been prevalent throughout history, that women often turned to sex work as a way to escape poverty as they were barred from jobs. Most modern sex workers are from areas with high unemployment and less employment opportunities; I live in an area with high unemployment, and very few people work. It's a former industrial town, so when the factories closed there was hardly any work for locals. Women who were formerly in the textile industry turned to sex work just to survive. Yet the SWERFs and Radfems want all sex work abolished without getting into the root cause, and that is Capitalism and lack of opportunity.

[nando161mando]

If you want to know why people have lost faith in capitalism, this might help

[hussyknee]

Vajra Chandrasekera is a Locus and Nebula award-winner and has been short-listed for a Hugo Award this year. You can find his Tumblr here: @adamantine and his twitter here: @_vajra

[averyishorny]

you can actually remove a lot of printed text on these kinds of signs with mosquito spray.

🏴✊

Modified sign seen on the Millennium Line SkyTrain in Burnaby, British Columbia

[genderqueerdykes]

being poor is so mind numbingly boring. you can't afford hobbies, leisure activities, games, books, music, transportation for going to places, some people can't afford internet or a phone. entertainment is seen as a complete and total luxury, but what people don't realize is that people need to be entertained.

there is nothing left to do for fun that's completely free. parks are tiny and meant for dogs, mostly, they're unsanitary as hell because there's mostly just dog waste everywhere. getting to the park costs money. kids and adults alike cannot just go "play outside". adults aren't even allowed to "play," we gawk at adults who stop to play with bugs or look at small animals. adults aren't allowed to play pretend it's seen as weird. kids don't have anywhere to go- they're considered "loitering" or an annoyance if they hang around anywhere for too long. not everyone can go to bars.

it is necessary for our mental health to have things to keep ourselves entertained with. people often get caught up on a poor person having one nice thing for themselves, but after a while, that 1 nice thing gets boring, too. people need variety. we need stimulation. we need input. we need to experience the world, too

i was told by my own therapist and case worker that people need entertainment and happiness to survive. humans are not wired to suffer 24/7, no one has to earn entertainment. if you think i'm pulling things out of my ass, i'm not. multiple mental health professionals in my own life have confirmed that people need to have fun or their health will suffer. mental health is connected to physical health. you know nothing if you think this is factually inaccurate.

poor people shouldn't be relegated to boredom and never experiencing life and what the world has to afford. the entirety of entertainment should not be paywalled. people should not have to pay entry for every single event in their area, or try to find free events and struggle to pay for the transportation. it's not good for your mental health.

[sleeppaw]

I agree, and I knew it was rooted in Classism, white supremacy and sexism. They don't care about black and brown women who are being oppressed or killed. They don't care about the factory workers who work in death traps or face the sack. They don't care about the poverty-stricken women who has to work in the sex industry just to feed themselves and their children. They don't care about disabled women that are in poverty. They don't care if a woman doesn't want kids, and people wonder why I don't support the feminist movement despite being a woman? The reasons above are why.

This recent "controversy" at the Olympics has really been a mask off moment for TERFs and radfems, and I hope more people are seeing them for the nasty, bitter people they really are. You don't give a shit about women, and are willing to throw women under the bus to fuel your own hateful agenda.

This only confirms what the rest of us knew all along: their movement is rooted in misogyny. This idea that the sexes are inherently different, the definition of womanhood that is based solely on reproductive organs, and the belief that women are inherently inferior to men are all at the root of the radfem/TERF movement.

Aside from the blatant misogyny, they continue to attack trans people who are just trying to live our fucking lives and have the audacity to blame us for their backwards misogynistic beliefs.

It's time for all of the sane feminists to kick these people out of our movement once and for all.

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - January 1-7

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!

1. Homes built with clay, grass, plastic and glass: How a Caribbean island is shying away from concrete

“[… Clay] traps moisture which then evaporates and pulls heat from the surface as it goes. […] The roof is covered in old recycled advertising banners and piece of a water tank, the other half of which is used to house some of Rahaman-Noronha's fish [… and] multi-coloured glass bottles inset into walls provide an avenue for streams of light and colour.”

2. To Combat Phoenix’s Extreme Heat, a New Program Provides Sustainable Shade

“The neighborhood workshops allow residents to get a shade plan tailored to their community’s needs and identify the locations where officials can plant trees. Meanwhile, the workforce-development side of the program creates the jobs needed to keep the trees alive for generations[….]”

3. Conservation corridors provide hope for Latin America’s felines

“[… S]cience has shown that to maintain healthy populations there needs to be connection between individuals. [… A] protected area that is close to another has more species and more potential for their survival.”

4. Social program cuts tuberculosis cases among Brazil's poorest by more than half

“The decrease [“in TB cases and deaths”] was over 50% in extremely poor people and more than 60% among the Indigenous populations. […] "We know that the program improves access to food [… and healthcare…] and strengthens people's immune defenses as a result.””

5. Geothermal has vast potential to meet the world’s power needs

“New geothermal systems could technically provide as much as 600 terawatts of carbon-free power capacity by 2050[…. C]ountries could cost-effectively deploy over 800 GW of geothermal power capacity using technology that’s in development today[….]”

6. New D.C. Catholic archbishop is pro-LGBTQ+ and anti-Trump

“In 2018, he objected to the blaming of gay priests for the clergy sexual abuse crisis, “saying that such abuse was a matter of power, not sexual orientation[….]” “We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies [… and] seek to rob our medical care, especially from the poor.””

7. Chesapeake Bay Will Gain New Wildlife Refuge

“The Chesapeake Bay area will have a new wildlife refuge for the first time in a quarter century. […] “This new refuge offers an opportunity to halt and even reverse biodiversity loss in this important place, and in a way that fully integrates and respects the leadership and rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.””

8. Inside Svalbard seed vault’s critical mission to stop our favourite fruit and veg from going extinct

“[… T]he world’s largest secure seed storage […] sits proudly in a massive former coal mine[….] Right now, there are over 1,331,458 samples of 6,297 crop species. […] “During 2024, 61 seed genebanks deposited 64,331 seed samples, including 21 from institutes that deposited seeds for the first time this year[….]””

9. Medical debt will be erased from credit reports for all Americans under new federal rule

“The rule will affect more than 15 million Americans, raising their credit scores by an estimated average of 20 points. [… S]tates and localities have already utilized American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to support the elimination of over $1 billion in medical debt for more than 700,000 Americans[….]”

10. 'Forgotten' water harvesting system transforms 'barren wasteland' into thriving farmland

“"The process started with the community-based participatory planning[….]” 10% to 15% of the water will actually soak into the ground to replenish the water table, creating a more sustainable agricultural process.”

December 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[pro-birth]

Forcing the term "sex worker" into the conversation has been the stupidest fucking thing people could have done. I had to watch a charity ad about a """sex worker""" who lives in a fucking train station and is forced to give "paid sex" to men and boys who threaten her or her baby with knives but she's a """"SEX WORKER???""""

BITCH SHE IS A VICTIM OF RAPE! SHUT THE FUCK UP! I DON'T CARE WHAT FUCKING SOB STORY YOU CLAIM TO HAVE ABOUT """WORKERS""" NEEDING DIGNITY, YOU TOOK THAT DIGNITY AWAY THE MOMENT YOU TURNED FINANCIALLY COERCED RAPE INTO A FUCKING JOB! ONLYFANS AND PORN ISN'T EMPOWERING BECAUSE THE ONES DETERMINING YOUR WORTH ARE HOLDING THE PURSE STRINGS!!!!

RAPISTS ARE NOT CUSTOMERS, PIMPS ARE NOT EMPLOYERS, AND "SEX WORKERS" ARE NOT EMPLOYEES. RAPE/FINANCIALLY COERCED SEX IS NOT A SERVICE AND THE BODIES OF VICTIMS ARE NOT PRODUCTS YOU CAN PAY FOR, EVER. SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT """SEX WORK"""!!!!

[severussnapemylove]

Sometimes I wonder if JKR even realises she wrote Snape as a victim of sexual assault. Because he unambiguously is, and she writes him as traumatised by the incident. So it seems mad to suggest that she might not have thought through the implications of her own writing, but if she did get it, I am baffled by how sympathetic she remains to James. Harry is never really made to confront how vile his actions were, because he looks for comfort from Remus and Sirius rather than telling Hermione who would react in horror and disgust, and he gets to skip over it completely in The Prince’s Tale. JKR clearly considers James a hero, and has confirmed that in interviews. She’s even more sympathetic to Lily, who is portrayed as an absolute paragon of goodness, morality and virtue, despite her being attracted enough to James *after* he publicly commits sexual assault on a less privileged kid to marry him! What a malfunctioning moral compass. JKR also has no sympathy at all for Tom Riddle Sr, who is a victim of rape, and his rapist Merope Gaunt, who is herself strongly implied to be a victim of incestual abuse, is condemned by Dumbledore and the narrative not for what she did to Tom but for not being as courageous as nice, pretty, middle class Lily Evans because Merope committed the crime of…dying in childbirth. The only conclusions I can draw from this is that JKR is the sort of ´feminist’ who doesn’t believe men can be the victims of sexual crimes, and that deep down she thinks being a member of the underclass who can’t drag themselves out of it alone is indicative of moral failure.

This! All of this!

I don't think she puts it together at all. She's incredibly tone deaf about a lot of the abuse she puts these characters through. And with the blasé attitude she has about male victims of SA in the books definitely goes along her brand of toxic radical "feminism". It looks like she just doesn't recognise the severity of what happens to these characters. On top of Severus's attack and Tom Riddle Sr, remember that Ron was roofied with love spell that was intended for Harry, and Moaning Myrtle is incredible predatory towards the boys. Sadly, this attitude carries over from the author to a chunk of the fandom too. I've seen so much dismissiveness of the assaults against the male characters, especially Severus. And it's even more disappointing when I see people who have experienced abuse saying that what Severus endured "didn't count" as abuse. Had someone today on another platform having an absolute meltdown at me, saying that what happened in SWM wasn't sa, and that he wasn't traumatised from his abuse and if his anger was caused by trauma then why wasn't Harry the same. Seriously, you can't tell another person that what they experienced wasn't "bad enough to be abuse", that's a very warped mentality. Survivors are supposed to support each other, not belittle each other's trauma. Also, what book did they read that they think Harry doesn't have issues from the life he endured? He has different issues than Severus, yes, because he had different life experiences and everyone's reactions to trauma are different.

"Merope Riddle chose death in spite of a son who needed her, but do not judge her too harshly, Harry. She was greatly weakened by long suffering and she never had your mother's courage."

WTF is this!!!??? This is just plain victim blaming. "Your mothers' courage"? Lily had supportive, loving parents, was loved by her peers, admired by her teachers, had a very comfortable, secure life. Merope was physically and mentally abused for her whole life. They really criticized the poverty stricken, abuse victim for not being as "strong" as the Mary Sue of the Wizarding World??? Toxic as hell. Personally, as someone who has dealt with self-harm, mental illness and generational trauma in my family, this attitude of "they weren't strong enough" is nauseating and infuriating.

There really is a disturbing trend of extreme poverty equalling a dead-end life with no hope. Which is again an extremally toxic and judgmental attitude and a very dangerous message to put in a book aimed to children. The attitude towards abuse, poverty and indecent assault of men is beyond problematic, not only in the books but in far too many members of the fandom.

I could rant more but this will go on for pages.

[hyperlexichypatia]

One of the most common criticisms of "housing first" initiatives (programs to provide housing for unhoused people unconditionally without gatekeeping) is that housing first "does not improve mental health."  Now, let's set aside for the moment that this criticism is irrelevant -- the purpose of housing is to provide shelter, not to "improve mental health" -- what definition of "mental health" could possibly make this true? As much as I try to critique and deconstruct the social construction of "mental health," how could it possibly be true that having a safe, assured place to live would not result in greater happiness, greater inner peace, less depression, less anxiety, less negative emotions, than living on the street?  What possible definition of "mental health" would not be improved by being housed rather than unhoused?

Answering this requires unpacking the wildly different, almost completely unrelated, definitions of "mental health," one applied to relatively privileged people, and one applied to oppressed people.

For relatively privileged people, the concept of "mental health" is centered on emotional well-being, introspection and self-awareness, and the mitigation or management of negative emotions like pain, depression, anxiety, and anger.

For oppressed people, the concept of "mental health" is centered on compliance, obedience, and productivity.

Like most privilege disparities, this isn't binary. For most people who are privileged in some ways and marginalized in other ways, "mental health support" will include some degree of the emotional support given to privileged people, and some degree of the compliance and productivity training given to oppressed people, with the proportions varying on where exactly each person falls on various privilege axes.  All children are oppressed by ageism, so all children's "mental health" has some elements promoting compliance, obedience, and productivity. But relatively privileged children may also receive some emotional support mixed in, while children of color, children in poverty, and children with existing neurodivergence labels will receive a much higher ratio of compliance training to emotional support.

One of the clearest illustrations of this disparity is the contrast between the "self-care" recommended to privileged people, and the "meaningful days" imposed on oppressed people.

Relatively privileged people are often told, by therapists, doctors, mental health culture, and self-help books, that they are working too hard and need to rest more. They're told that for the sake of their mental health, they need work-life balance, self-care, walks in the woods, baths with scented candles. Implicit in these recommendations is that the reason these people are working too hard is because of internal factors, like guilt or emotional drive, rather than external factors, like needing to pay the bills and not being able to afford a day off.

By contrast, unhoused people, institutionalized people, people labeled with "severe" or "serious" or "low-functioning" mental disabilities, are literally prescribed labor. Publicly funded "mental health initiatives" require the most marginalized members of society to work tedious jobs for little or no pay, under the premise that loading boxes at a warehouse will make their days "meaningful" and thus improve their "mental health." And unlike the self-care advice given to relatively privileged people, the forced-labor-for-your-own-good approach is not optional. People are either forced into it directly by guardians or institutions, or coerced into it as a precondition to access material needs like housing and food.

The form of "mental health" applied to relatively privileged people has some genuinely useful and beneficial elements. We could all stand to introspect and examine our own feelings more, manage our negative emotions without being overwhelmed by them, have self-confidence. We all need rest and self-care.

Still, privileged mental health culture, even at its best, is deeply flawed. At best, it tends to encourage a degree of self-centeredness and condescension. It's obsessed with classifying experiences as "trauma" or "toxic." It's one of the worst culprits in feeding the "long adolescence" phenomenon and generally perpetuating the idea that treating people as incompetent is doing them a kindness. Even the best therapists serving the most privileged clients have a strong tendency towards gaslighting and "correcting" people about their own feelings and desires.

But perhaps the worst consequence of privileged mental health culture is that it gives cover to the dehumanizing, abusive, compliance-oriented "mental health care" forced upon the most marginalized people. Privileged people are encouraged to universalize their experiences with sentiments like "We all deal with mental health" or assume that the mild, relatively benign "mental health care" they experienced are the norm, so what are those silly mad liberation people complaining about?

Tonight, I listened to a leader from an agency serving unhoused people talk about how "Everyone struggled with mental health during the pandemic"... and then later mention that their shelter categorically excludes people with paranoid schizophrenia diagnoses. So perhaps "everyone struggles with mental health," but only certain people are categorically excluded from services, from shelter, from autonomy, from basic human rights, because of how their brains happen to work.

As always, it seems like so much effort in the mad liberation/ neurodiversity/ antipsychiatry movement is spent holding the hands of relatively privileged people receiving relatively privileged "mental health care" and reassuring them that we're not trying to take it away from them. Fine, it's great that you like your antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication and your nice therapist who listens to you and your support group. Great. Go live your best life. But that has nothing to do with our fight against forced drugging, forced labor, forced institutionalization, forced poverty. It's not even close to the same "mental health."

[sleeppaw]

A Reminder

My blog is not a TERF, Radfem, Religious Facist, Racist, Sexist, Ableist, Pro-Fast Fashion and Classist safe space. I have had to block a few TERFs from my page recently. Even though I'm a woman, I don't support Radical Feminism as they are exclusionists as a whole (Not just excludes Trans Women, but poor women, disabled women, Black and Indigenous women, traumatised women, women who had their rights to abortion taken from them and sex workers) and are the reason why men and boys are turning to Andrew Tate and Matt Walsh. If Radfems didn't steal "Men's Only Spaces" from them ten years ago we wouldn't have this debate. I knew that as soon as Radfems demanded that women be allowed into Male-Only spaces I predicted that men and boys would end up seeking misogynist men out as they are driven out of their spaces. I'm thankful my brother hasn't seeked out Andrew Tate or Matt Walsh, mind you he has three older sisters.

[nando161mando]

Hmmmm I wonder if there's a connection here.....

[genderqueerdykes]

do people seriously not understand the reason why it's impossible for poor people to save money is because there is no end to our expenses- we don't get breaks, we are just playing hot potato with our bills and needs. we're doing our best to space them out as much as we can but we don't get enough money in the interim to bounce back and have all of our bills paid off. like is that what people fail to realize? we don't have extra resources to dip into. we general don't have family to aid us in these situations.

we don't get a break of having all of our bills paid off or easily being able to have that money set aside. no it's never ending, and they're always more than we can afford. they always pop up at the worst time, usually when you just had another big expense like something for your job, or a family emergency. sometimes people have to cut out things like phone or internet for a while in order to be able to afford their other expenses, which means they lose out on a lot of accessibility. sometimes people have to let their power, water or gas bills lapse as long as the company will let them before shutting them off because they literally cannot afford put any money towards those bills at all. paid the car insurance this month, that means we can't afford the phone bill next month, is a common example of poor folk having to juggle our bills.

overdraft becomes a huge problem because the bills come out whether or not we can afford them. overdraft literally exists to predate on poor people who can't keep themselves above the red, people who live paycheck to paycheck, people who are so poor they have to work under the table, multiple jobs, or beg. things spring up like needing to go to the pharmacy or the grocery store. we have so little money to begin with, that we may as well just throw it into that expense when we get the time because there's no reason in throwing $20 into savings when you've needed to go to the pharmacy for 2 weeks but you've been putting it off because you're trying to get enough money to survive off of to have extra to save...

but that day never comes.

i think that's what a lot of people don't realize. i hope this helps.