#don’t use my taxes to aid a genocide

[breathedreamscream]

[thecanyon]

🍉 baby activism with ben 🍉

How can YOU join direct action against Israel’s genocide? Here are questions to ask yourself if you don’t know how to act directly:

Where do you live? It’s possible to use social media to find activist groups near your area. Google the name of your city or state plus Palestine on Instagram, set the search results to most recent.

How does your community contribute to the genocide? If it’s through tax dollars, your focus would be on the local or state government. If it’s through buying Israeli products, your focus would be joining a boycott. If there is money in your community that could go towards Palestinians, your focus could be aid. If there are military company offices in your area, your focus would be hurting their business and reputation.

What are your skills? Literally anything could be applied to resistance actions. Maybe you work at a restaurant and can take leftovers to feed people. Maybe you know how to use free printers at the library. Maybe you make stickers. Maybe you upcycle. Maybe you can use a spreadsheet or write an email. Maybe you have lots of free time.

Who do you know? What groups are you apart of? Me and two of my friends started a flyering campaign on our pre-existing class routes using free printers. An existing mutual aid group had a thrift pop up for charity that raised $500. A church group had a bake sale and raised $300. People who worked at the local library have started a History of Palestine teach in series.

Lots of information circling online about activism is coming from people who can join pre-existing large movements. This is how you can start or join direct actions without living near a big city.

[homemadehaunting]

From the river to the sea

hey all! firstgrave here

I was somewhat recently banned on tumblr for “targeted harassment”. the post that got me banned? a post in which I said Israeli settlers and former IDF soldiers had actively engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide. 

I attempted to appeal the ban but have gotten nowhere, and I do see this as the final reason in why I should stay away from tumblr as a whole. I am no longer interested in coming back to tumblr, and will be making no future efforts to do so.

however, some important updates I want to give: many people whom I was mutuals with were there for my entire law school journey, the passing of the bar, and my entrance into the career of public defender. this is something I’ve been dreaming of and working towards for years now. 

in october, the union which represents the office of public defenders I work with, and the majority of public defenders in NY entirely, proposed a resolution on the genocide in Palestine, reinforcing the rights of union members to speak out against apartheid and ethnic cleansing and calling for an end to Israeli occupation. in response, four Zionist members of the union have commenced a lawsuit in attempt to get an injunction against the union members voting on the resolution. the union has now filed a motion to move the case to federal court, thus removing it from the jurisdiction of conservative Long Island state court judges, but also to have the action deemed as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech. 

since the lawsuit was filed, a supervisor at my office has cursed out myself and the 8 new attorneys I was hired with, telling us to “get the fuck” out of her office if we don’t support Israel, and we do not deserve to work there if we do not agree with her. so now we are also in the process of filing a union grievance and EOC claim against the supervisor. this has put us at significant odds against management and we may very well lose our jobs over this (we are at-will employees for the first 3 years of our contract, so while discriminatory firings are illegal, it would be near impossible to prove in this instance.) I am likely to lose my dream job that I have worked years to reach over this. 

The attempts to silence any and all people who speak out against the atrocities being committed with our tax funding cannot be ignored. When we look back at the atrocities of history and wonder how they were allowed to occur, it is because many people feel more comfortable turning a blind eye to the suffering of those “other” to them, and those that do care are faced with coordinated censorship campaigns armed with threats of loss of employment, homelessness, incarceration, violence, and even death. 

In the time all of this has occurred, thousands of men, women, and children have been senselessly and brutally massacred by Israeli forces, aided by other world powers. The US is actively and happily funding the genocide of Palestinians, as well as Britain, Canada, and other imperial nations. Babies have been abandoned and denied humanitarian aid, cities have been leveled, and families have been devastated. 

Attached here is the proposed resolution of the legal aid union. I stand by it wholeheartedly, and ask others to share it as well. There is no excuse for silence or complacency in the face of genocide. Those who are not in Palestine, have not witnessed and experienced the horrors in which every Palestinian citizen has been forced to endure, do not get the benefit of turning a blind eye. 

May we see a free Palestine in our lifetimes. 

[perrysoup]

People outside BDS protesting, I need you to understand a thing that I think gets misconstrued:

We all had to give up things we like. We all had to make the choice to stop eating and wearing and buying certain things that made us happy, because the companies could not be trusted with that revenue.

One of the few highlights in my deepest depression was a caramel drink at Starbucks. When I could get one, it was such a relaxing experience for my mental state. And I continued to love it until I had to de use it that drink was worth contributing to a continued genocide.

I WANT that drink back. I WANT that shred of happiness I used to need. I WANT to go there on a trip and know I don’t have to be anxious.

But I can’t. I won’t. Until they stop, I would be aiding in death more than my taxes already do.

This extends to every brand and company BDS. They were someone’s spark of joy. And they gave it up.

We just ask that you do to, and when they change, we want you to go back and enjoy. But it has to hurt them a lot, which means it’s going to hurt us a little.

We can do this

[punksocks]

Ok y’all I’m not sharing this to steal any attention away from the very needed focus on Palestinian voices and advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza. I just thought I should share the work I’m doing on my other platforms for fundraising efforts for Palestinian nonprofits and mutual aid orgs. I guess I don’t want to seem disingenuous when I say as soon as I have the funds I’ll donate to gofundme campaigns (I have donated to several of those and can add those receipts if you’d like)

I want to use all the resources I can to actively work for solidarity for Palestine and all of the global activism going on to actually free Palestine and rebuild Gaza.

I donated $405 to the PRCS in November, and donated $916 to buying eSIMs for Connecting humanity in May, and donated just over $250 so far to Bridge to Baladi and their work to feed families and support mutual aid in Gaza

All this to say I want to be as active as I can be on tumblr as well in my supportive efforts. If you inbox me with a vetted fundraiser I will share it and if you purchase a birth chart reading l’ll donate 50% of that to either Bridge to Baladi or a fundraiser from my inbox or a fundraiser of your choice.

As an American I feel like it’s responsible not to use all of the resources I can to give to Palestinians in need of resources, advocacy, and a ceasefire from weapons and settler violence funded by tax dollars.

As a Black person I know that none of us are free until all of as are and as a member of the diaspora it’s my social responsibility to aid indigenous folks in solidarity of decolonial efforts with any resources I can get my hands on, especially while they’re enduring one of the worst genocides in history and asking for our help

Free Palestine🍉

[the1975attheirverybest]

I’ve been making a deliberate effort not to say much on here because I’ve thought to myself “this is a 1975 page not my personal blog” but fuck it. The 1975 is inherently political and if you’re a fan and this offends you, then find a new fandom.

What’s happening in Palestine right now is ethnic cleansing and genocide. I’m only in the US today because my grandparents had to flee their land in 1948. So this is my home that I can never go back to.

Make no mistake this is not about Judaism vs Islam, some of the most passionate supporters of the Palestinian people have been Jewish communities across the world. This is about a fascist right wing government literally stealing the land of indigenous people and wiping them out before our eyes.

I spent the last two days trying to convince my institution (a so called leftist entity that claimed to care about anti-racism and social Justice) to organize humanitarian aid or spread informational resources, or make some sort of statement. But those cowards only care when the lives of white people are at stake.

I don’t need your thoughts or your prayers. Don’t send me love. CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES AND TELL THEM THAT YOU DISAPPROVE OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS GOING TOWARDS FUNDING ZIONIST WAR CRIMES.

[sayruq]

What do you think will happen if Palestine takes over Israel? Will there be a mass genocide? Another exodus? I was born in Libya but escaped after the war and we used to pay a Palestine tax to give aid to Palestine, and from my upbringing, I know that Libyans for sure will celebrate if the Israeli get massacred. The likelihood of just Hamas and his forces taking over Israel is impossible but a lot of the Arab nations would want to take part. Even Afghanistan has volunteered to send troops there.

So what’s the solution? I don’t want Israel-Palestine to become another Libya. What will happen to the medical and research centers, what will happen to the industries and farms, what will happen to the historical sites? Libya has become a failed state because of infighting after the 2011 war, and with Israel having a population of around 9.7 million, of which 20% are Palestinian citizens of Israel who work and live there, and Palestine having 5.5 million people, the fighting will never stop.

I don’t hate the concept of Jewish people having their own country, because seeing the hatred my classmates had for anyone who could be Jewish, the Hitler idolization and the desire to take part in a war against Judaism (we were in fifth grade, we never even saw a Jewish person before, and these experiences are probably the reason why I’m sympathetic to them), I believe they do need a place they can feel safe in, because if they remain as minorities in other countries, they will never be safe, because during their history they were forced to convert or treated as second class citizens. During the partition, many of the Jewish populations were expelled from their countries and only then did they move to Israel. So if Palestine is not an option, where will they go? As it is now, I don’t think they can coexist, despite the presence of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

I also want Palestinians to be able to govern themselves, trade internationally, and have the same rights as the Israeli but Hamas demands violence and the hatred between the two factions only continues to grow with each increasing conflict.

I know people are worried but I don't think it will come to genocide or mass exodus. Even if Palestinians were baying for blood and revenge, genocide and expulsion takes a lot of time and resources. The occupation has lasted 78 years but you still have Palestinians living in Occupied Palestine. Gaza has been bombed, blockaded, closed off but there are millions still living there. It's unlikely the settler population would get expelled.

The reality is that all of this conflict ends with the one state solution with apartheid laws being dissolved and the halting of the creation of new settlements. A new government would need to be formed that represents Palestinian Arabs and Iaraeli Jews for long term stability.

In fact, I'd argue that this current war just killed the two state solution which was never really viable.

Right now things are escalating fast, we're looking at a ground war in Gaza and the possibility of regional war (Israel vs Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria, etc). How this war ends will determine what the Palestinian cause looks like the rest of the decade.

[philsmeatylegss]

My dad is a staunch conservative and he also has high functioning autism (wonder where my bro got it from) and one way it manifests is his low empathy and struggle to see things from other’s perspective (which is a large part of actual autism but I don’t want to be cancelled for getting into that). So I was kind of shocked when he agreed that the US shouldn’t be aiding Israel. Ofc my reasoning is that thousands of innocent civilians, including children who literally could not have been involved in what the Israeli government is claiming this genocide is about, are being slaughtered and that’s like, you know, not okay. And my dad’s reasoning for being against it is that he doesn’t want his tax dollars going to a cause that doesn’t impact him. He also doesn’t like that the US is aiding Ukraine for the same reason. What happens in Ukraine and Israel doesn’t effect him, so he is annoyed his money is going there.

Please know I’m not exaggerating or changing the wording. Literally flat out word for word. He believes war is a natural part of human existence and since it doesn’t effect him, he doesn’t want any part of it. And he says it with a straight face.

So this is my duel rant of what autism actually looks like and also explaining why I believe most republicans are either traumatized into self preservation (the minority) or have literal deficits or disabilities that incapacitate their ability to fully experience empathy (the majority)

[queen-fuckbxy]

Blue no matter who or abstain from voting?

used to be vote blue no matter who then a genocide happened; the president/admin is doing everything in their disgusting, unregulated power to protect a foreign nation - not excluding selling we the people out; our tax dollars are being used in foreign aid while we alone are struggling.

i weep for the innocent palestenian men, women, & children that have been senselessly murdered that the people are just ignoring. i applaud the students & am so proud of them for standing up for peace & justice. i unfortunately am not able to protest, but i am an amplifier; i fear i haven’t done enough, though.

i don’t know what to do this election, to be entirely honest. i’d vote third party if i knew enough of us were also voting third party to actually give them a chance to win. i’m not voting for trump, that’s for sure. will i have to grit my teeth & bear it & vote for biden if it comes down to it? i don’t know.

all i do know is that no matter who wins, red or blue, it’s not going to end & it can only get worse.

[eponinesflowers]

Why are we even arguing in the first place? Discourse is pointless when both sides don't listen to one another in order to understand. I get that you think im just a pro Israel anti Palestine troll. Despite the fact that i stated in my inicial message that i was against killing from BOTH sides of this conflict, that every human life is precious. My heart breaks over every single injured child in this conflict both physically and mentally, not to mention about those who died. The reason im on anon is not because im a troll but because i don't want to be personally dragged into this. I don't post or reblog anything from either side. Because i would rather not insert myself into places i do not belong to like so many people from the US like to do. I am neither Israeli, nor Palestinian. Nor Jewish nor Arab. We could argue forever about nuances of what one said or the other because we essentially have a very similar stance in this. The reason i wrote to you is to present food for thoughts. Which i probably failed since your answers derailed very quickly from what i was trying to point out and became generic talking points i see from everywhere. Your blog doesn't need to become this. Frankly, i was surprised you answered. Because you could just, you know, not....at any rate, i hope i will see a lot more about genocide in Sudan for example or hundreds of thousands dead in Ukraine. Almost half a million people were killed there and there are no protests, no posts about it. Maybe that's why so many people are concerned about this whole pro Palestine movement all over the world? I don't remember any Harvard students marching when Ukraine was attacked, unprovoked. Unlike in this case which was started with enormous terrorist attack. The USA went to war half a globe away when they were attacked by terrorists. Just a reminder. Again, no need to argue, these are not talking points, just wanted to provoke some critical thinking. But since i only elicited a defence reaction, i guess i failed. I hope you have a good day.

Sorry that my responses were so disappointing and generic ig🙄 Maybe you shouldn’t tell someone that they’re not able to critically think about a topic if you don’t want to argue? And I never said any of those things about you, I just think that there’s a lot that you haven’t considered based on your asks to me.

I have been vocal about ending the oppression of all people and liberation for all, but I tend to reblog posts that come across my feed and I can’t control the content of those. Additionally, my tax dollars aren’t funding the deaths of those groups of people, the U.S. government is providing aid to the victims of mass violence rather than the perpetrators in those countries.

I do understand wanting to be anonymous, but you have access to my blog and information about me while I’m having a conversation with a faceless, nameless person, which isn’t helpful for discourse imo.

[bsotted]

Hey folks. I just wanted to come on here and acknowledge that while I normally go out of my way to tag sensitive content for everyone’s comfort and safety, I have made the explicit decision not to trigger tag Palestinian content in any way. I understand the images are hard to look at. I understand that we are all on this site trying to take refuge from the real world.

The Palestinian activists I’ve been learning from since October have helped me understand that actually, making it easier for people to turn away from this is wrong.

If you are in a boat of needing to do so for the sake of your mental health, I want to ask you kindly, just this one time, to consider that Palestinians don’t have the privilege of choosing when and where to engage with the reality of their own genocide.

The audacity of us at home on our couches and warm beds shopping around online for Christmas gifts and “protecting our peace” while palestinians are begging us just to bear witness to their devastation while aid trucks full of medical supplies food and clean water sit languishing in the desert on the wrong side of the rafah crossing. It’s unthinkable. We’re being asked to pay attention. We’re being asked not to let up the pressure on our representatives. We’re being asked to watch with both eyes open, and that goes EXTRA for those of us not financially stable enough to write off a tax deductible donation and use that as an excuse write the whole thing off as having done as much as we can.

US Americans have been looking away for too long and we have left our activism too little and too late. I am not going to help anyone ignore it, all the other media everywhere else is already doing that. Respectfully, you can turn on CNN if you’re tired of hearing about it from the rest of us.

With all of that said, you can always get the content off your dash by unfollowing me. You always have the right to do that. But I will not help you make it any easier than that to turn your back on Palestine.

[perrysoup]

I can’t fully wrap my mind around the concept of hating a politician but craving their party so much.

The party is made of YOU. YOU can demand action and change in who represents you and people just refuse and accept what is handed to them.

They act as though people hate the idea of doing anything if it doesn’t revolve around the global genocides but they are all connected! Our taxes fund their deaths because that money goes to the military industrial complex that gives out fat stacks of money for the politicians we hate to get elected.

These aren’t separate issues! Stop trying to minimize how our lives, right now, IN AMERICA are guided not by the people and instead by profits. Is it so hard to believe that even the “less of two evils” presented is still a genocide supporting sociopath and you deserve better with everyone else? So you think we don’t believe you deserve better?

You hate us for speaking up, but your silence is why things don’t change.

Blame us all you want, but YOUR the one that is okay with the status quo being people killed with your money RIGHT NOW that could go to hospitals and aid and everything under the sun

WHY DONT YOU DEMAND MORE??? Why are you so satisfied with having a boot on your neck just cause you feel like you’ve got yours on someone else’s?

Some of y’all are to sick to see why Gaza and Sudan and Yemen and everything are a side effect of our current system, not independent of it

[officialtayley]

Ash, you got a long ask earlier that bothered me when I read it. To the anon who wrote that, I am begging you to learn more about this occupation because calling it a “conflict” clearly means you’ve only consumed Western media’s coverage of it. 

Saying “it's sooo fucking easy to keep tagging paramore saying that they totally should speak up while what does it ACTUALLY change?? nothing.” is just wrong cause it won’t be nothing.

paramore speaking up and amplifying Palestinian’s voice would not stop this genocide but it will create a much safer community in this fandom for our fellow muslim and Arab friends. There’s a reason why this fandom got more diverse over the years and that’s cause the band made it clear where they stand when talking about racial justice. You can’t deny that the majority of paramore fans get influenced by a lot of the stuff the band shares. I’ve seen fans attend shows from artists that the band recommends, I know fans who bought the same instruments as Taylor and zac and this is the fandom that tolerated and bought expensive ugly merch for a long time cause it had the paramore brand attached to it. Imagine if they share info on how to call congressmen to demand a ceasefire, you don’t think more fans would be more motivated to do it? Imagine if they share a donation link or team up with an organization like they have done in the past. You don’t think it will have an impact? 

Saying “I’m so sick of this narrative that paramore created expectations of them ALWAYS speaking up in EVERY injustice or tragic, y'all created this expectation. every activism is a selective activism. they never pretended they were gonna to speak up about everything.” Is just tone-deaf anon, I’m sorry to be blunt but the wording on this is insensitive.

This is the biggest thing happening in the world right now and US citizens specifically are all complicit in this cause their tax dollars are funding the IDF that is massacring innocent civilians. No one is asking them to speak about everything but how are they just gonna ignore a genocide? When the Ukraine war started, they didn’t ignore it, they even wrote a song about it because the coverage was everywhere and you couldn’t ignore it and move on with your life. Now it’s happening again but at a larger scale, Israel has now killed more civilians in Gaza in 30 days than Russia has in its entire war in Ukraine, which began over 600 days ago (this is the number from an NPR article published on nov 6 2023). How are you just gonna ignore this, how’s the band gonna make speeches about taking care of each other when they have ignored Palestinians? 

Out of all of the things Palestinians could have asked all of us, they just asked us to spread the word and share the things they posted because they know that the Western media are all on Israel's side. I’m not only mad at paramore, I’m mad at every single artist that was fine with calling out loud loud racist like Trump but now are silent when POTUS is hugging and offering billion of dollars of aid to a dictator and war criminal. Where’s billie eillish and taylor swift too? They were both proud at calling out politicians and now it’s silent too. 

Maybe it’s cause I grew up in a colonized country and I see the effects it has on its people every day here and I’m more sensitive to it but how do you look at those numerous videos of Palestinians crying over dead family members and destroyed homes and lands and not have the urge to speak up about the injustice? How do people look at that and just move on 

👏👏👏 this this this! thank you for picking it apart cause so much of it bothered me but i just didn't have the energy to go through it.

the last paragraph though, i feel like i'm sensitive to death, especially when it involves children and babies due to losing my baby sister in 2007. watching your own parents go through that pain and then also i was going through it myself, when i see those videos it's extremely heartbreaking because it's like no one cares. these families are losing each other, losing entire bloodlines, and people are somehow able to just keep scrolling without a word? it's different obviously if the content is triggering, but many of us are still able to share other things and use our voices, but outside of that, i have no idea how people can just move on with their day.

[iwanttobeheard1]

@mywitchcultblr

1. this is not just about civilians lives, it’s about how they are kidnapped, tortured, graped and hell hostage. A lot of these civilians are families with YOUNG CHILDREN, some are elderly older than 80!!!!

2. Hamas Is a terrorist organization, there are laws to how a war should be conducted, and Hamas has been bypassing these laws- hence why they are terrorist. There is never a justification of harming children, women and the elderly, especially when they are UNARMED in their homes!

3. Hamas didn’t just infiltrate the Peace Party that was ongoing in the 7th, they deliberately blocked roads to cage people in and used an RPG. It’s an organized attack and attempt at genocide, they are NOT innocent,

4. “Israel government keeps doin doing the thing that allows war zones to exist”? Let’s break this up.

• The reason why the ‘war zones’ exist is because Palestinian regime is very dependent on Israel, for water, electricity, medicine, hospitals, weaponry and etc. they receive billions every year from taxes Israeli people pay to the government in order to support their livelihood (Palestinians).

• All of that money is meant to be spent in humanitarian aid, like medicine, schools, hospitals etc, but instead because Hamas is a terrorist organization that prioritizes violence and not saving lives, it all goes towards buying missiles, weaponry, rockets etc. had it been spent to develop the Palestinian Territories I bet you they’d have been a lot less in need to be dependent. Hamas is a danger to Palestinians.

•The Palestinian government has had multiple peace offerings made all with Israel offering a part of its lands in order to have the Palestinians be independent, having their own country. But Palestinians do not seek peace and co-existence and prefer to conquer the land, hence why they are still under Israel. A lot of them believe that a two state solution is not right.

5) “using this one incident”, it’s crazy to me how people lack compassion, feel free to read my posts on my page. I uploaded all the time about this ‘cute little incident’ and how ‘cute little Palestinians’ treat Israeli hostages. God help me and even more so YOU.

6) Also, I don’t know if you know this but under Israeli rule Palestinian population has been tripling itself. The reason why the numbers in your pictures are so high is because Hamas is encouraging recklessness and death, there are countless reports from Palestinians that explain they are taught that dying for their country is a good thing, and they are raised up with way sadly, to not value their lives and prioritize killing. There is a video of a Palestinian teenage explain how the teachers took them out of school to go to the border, instructing them to retaliate against military there and endanger themselves.

7) Before this war almost all Israelis believed that peace is an option, Israelis don’t want to send their kids into the army, they don’t want their lives to be affected by war, despite now cold blooded you may think they are—- they are human too, crazy, right? That a human being would want some peace too.

Now Israelis saw what will happen should a two state solution be enacted while there are major terrorist organizations taking hold over Gaza and the West Bank. Because of Hamas attack a lot of Palestinians will sadly take the blow.

8) Again, I highly encourage you to do your research about what’s going on with the hostages, I have uploaded a lot of explanations of what’s been seen in graphic videos send by Hamas and Palestinians who hold hostages across the border.

It pissed me off to see all of those Tumblr blogs who preach about being oh so progressive and everything yet they immediately changed their tune and condemning Palestinian people and calling them terrorist. Yeah I get it civilians death are bad, but there won't be any civilians death if Israeli government just retreat and stop oppressing Palestinian people. Bad things happen in war zone?

No shit. Because Israel government keep doing the thing that allowed war zones to exist.

Gods another reason to take Tumblr people with a grain of salt since most only typing from the comfort of their home and stuck in the bubble of one website. It's even more annoying when so called progressive blog who is like example passionate about freaking Avatar The last Airbender Water tribe politics against fire nation or some shit but then they immediately condemn Palestine people and using this one incident as a ground for them to say Palestine deserve no freedom at all

If your activism only extend to fandom about your favorite franchise. Your activism is meaningless. Everything you preach are hollow and just ending up as E-Garbage. And I say this as someone who is absolutely obsessing with defending mages from dragon age, good lord...

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Bill Gates will kill us all

2.5b people in Earth's 130 poorest countries have not been vaccinated. The 85 poorest countries won't be vaccinated until 2023. The humanitarian cost is unforgivable - and self-defeating, as each infected person is a potential source of new strains.

https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19-5-february-2021

How the actual fuck did this happen?

What happened to the early pledges by governments, the WHO, public health experts and leading research institutions to create global cooperation in vaccine development, eschewing patents and secrecy so that we could rescue our species?

That dream was smashed.

Many people helped create our vaccine apartheid, the single individual who did the most to get us here is Bill Gates, through his highly ideological "philanthropic" foundation, which exists to push his pitiless doctrine of unfettered monopoly.

It was Gates who sabotaged the WHO Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), replacing it with his failed ACT-Accelerator, a system of patents and secrecy and vast profits for the pharma industry, ornamented with nonbinding, failed promises of access for poor nations.

It was Gates who convinced Oxford to renege on its promise of patent-free access to its publicly funded vaccine research for the global south in favor of exclusive patent access for Astrazeneca.

https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/

When we hear ghoul sellouts like Howard Dean pushing the racist, genocidal lie that "patents don't matter" because brown people in poor countries can't make vaccines, we're hearing Gates's talking points:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/08/howard-dino/#the-scream

Gates's role in vaccine apartheid is laid out in exquisite detail in Alexander Zaitchik's outstanding New Republic feature, which delves into Gates's longstanding project to sideline democratic governments and cooperation in favor of monopoly tyranny.

https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines

This goes way, way back. I mean, *waaaay* back, all the way to 1976, when Gates wrote his infamous "Open Letter to Hobbyists," decrying the dominant, cooperative mode of software development and calling its practitioners thieves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

Gates's fortune depended on creating a software monopoly, and that monopoly required "intellectual property" protection. Gates has always been a monopolist, and so naturally, he loves IP (before "IP" was a common term, copyrights and patents were called "monopolies").

Intellectual property is a very important part of the inequality story, the story of how we got to a world where billions of people are denied vaccines and where all people face new, more virulent strains as a result.

As UNCTAD chief economist Richard Kozul-Wright told Lynn Fries for GPE: "[IP allows companies] to grab a larger share of what has already been produced in the economy."

It's a means of extracting rents, not for doing things, but for OWNING things.

IP is key to tax avoidance: companies like Ikea transfer "IP" (the Ikea trademark) to a numbered company in a tax haven; each national Ikea subsidiary pays "licensing fees" for the trademark equal to 100% of their in-country profits, so they never earn a (taxable) cent.

The transformation of the world into a monopolized system of IP-heavy, rent-extracting, tax-dodging companies really kicked into gear after 1999, with the signing of the WTO agreement and its IP adjunct, the TRIPPS, and as Zaitchik details, Gates was instrumental there.

For this part of the story, Zaitchik talks to Jamie Love, who was at the UN when NGOs like his were pushing to create vaccine and other pharma pools for the global south, while pharma companies handed out pamphlets bearing the Gates Foundation logo, smearing the plan.

Though the US delegation struggled for credibility, the combination of the Gates Foundation, and former US trade officials fronting for  the global pharma industry managed to sideline the project, which was being driven by the demand for equitable access to AIDS drugs.

With Gates's help, the WTO emerged as an IP enforcement powerhouse. Zaitchik cites Dylan Mohan Gray: "it took Washington 40 years to threaten apartheid South Africa with sanctions and less than four to threaten the post-apartheid Mandela government over AIDS drugs."

Incredibly, the Gates Foundation used this to burnish its humanitarian image: they solicited donations from pharma companies and used them to subsidize AIDS drugs in the global south, a maneuver that let them seem like philanthropists.

When in reality, they had overseen a program to systematically deny the world's poorest and most threatened people the right to make their own drugs, making them dependent on the whims of multinational corporate charity instead.

Sound familiar? Today, Gates runs around repeating the lie that poor people can't make their own medicine,  saying that patent exemptions won't make a difference now - to the extent he's right, the world *now* is the crucial one.

Having sabotaged the efforts by poor countries to engage in the kind of production ramp-up the rich world saw as vaccines were being developed, it may *now* be too late. "Because of my bad ideas *then*, it's too late *now*."

The connection between IP and elite philanthropy is deep and important. IP's rent-seeking and tax-dodging has made poor countries beholden to offshore monopolists in health, agriculture and IT, and then starved them of taxes to build up domestic alternatives.

This, in turn, makes them dependent on "gifts" from the billionaires who arm-twisted them into IP treaties, forced them to pay rent on all domestic production, and then profit-shifted the funds out of the reach of their tax-collectors.

As Anand Giridharadas reminded us in his seminal "Winners Take All," the core purpose of elite philanthropy has been the same since the robber-baron era: to burnish the reputations of monsters who take everything and give back crumbs.

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/10/winners-take-all-modern-philanthropy-means-that-giving-some-away-is-more-important-than-how-you-got-it/

Reading Jamie Love's quotes in Zaitchik's article reminded me of my own time working with Jamie and Knowledge Ecology International at WIPO in Geneva, when I was an NGO delegate to a global DRM treaty.

You see, at WIPO, the vast majority of NGOs aren't human rights organizations or other public interest groups - they're industry associations representing tech, entertainment, broadcast and pharma monopolists.

These guys - almost all guys - were just aghast when real NGOs started showing up for these meetings and were absolutely shameless in their sabotage of our efforts to balance their corporate lies (absolutely bald-faced lies were routinely entered into the debates).

How petty? Well, they had been accustomed to writing up "fact-sheets" for the day's debate and handing them off to WIPO staffers working for the secretariat, who would photocopy them and set them out on literature tables for the national delegates.

So we started doing this too: we'd take careful notes on the day's debates, convene with global experts to debunk industry association lies, get our Indymedia friends to translate them into six languages, and hand them off to the secretariat in the morning for copying.

So they got the secretariat - a former US textiles negotiator who made her bones helping create the conditions for slave labor in places like Bangladesh - to end the practice of photocopying papers for all NGOs.

Of course the industry bodies had cushy offices in Geneva, whereas we stayed in flophouses and youth hostels. They could ask their underlings to come in early and do their copying for them, whereas we had to take a bus to the all-night copy-shop to get our handouts copied.

Here's where it gets super-weird: our handouts started to go missing. We'd set out our stacks of paper on the literature tables before the morning session and an hour later, they'd all be gone, but none of the delegates had managed to get a copy.

We found those missing handouts...in the garbage, behind potted plants and in the *toilets*.

No, seriously.

And here's the kicker: during the ensuing furore, the main response from the pharma lobbyists was to object to us calling ourselves "public interest NGOs."

I'll never forget this smarmy sociopath in his expensive suit, with his shit-eating grin, standing there saying, "Phamaceuticals serve the public interest, and our industry association is a nonprofit. We are a non-profit, public-interest NGO."

It was a remarkable sight. 20 years later, their version of the public interest - the doctrine of Gates - has produced a multi-billion-person reservoir of the sick and vulnerable who are doomed to serve as factories for highly virulent variants.

This is a literally genocidal doctrine, and it threatens our very civilization. It's a funny kind of non-profit, public interest move for an industry and its billionaire ideologue funders to have made.

But hey, at least no one's "intellectual property" took a hit.

[no-i-didnt-notice-im-short]

I don’t give a shit if I lose followers for talking about Palestine. And neither should you. These numbers can be gained back but you know what can’t be gained back? PEOPLE’S LIVES!

Families in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood are losing their homes, and their lives if they refuse. They are being removed from their homes and thrown to the streets with their choice being “get out or die.”

Literally zionists walking in and saying “If I don’t steal it, someone else will” video

The fucking audacity.

Sheikh Jarrah is a neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine.

What world do we live in that this ethnic cleansing doesn’t get international media coverage.

Zionists attacking peaceful protestors are backed up by the IDF. The fucking IDF.

It’s currently The Holy Month of Ramadan and Palestinians are getting attacked while PRAYING by bombs.

Instagram has been blocking Palestinians from live streaming what’s happening right now. Posts flagged and accounts deleted.

How can anyone look at what’s happening and justify it? This is a genocide that’s been happening since 1948. My family fled in the 60s when they attacked their home and they haven’t been allowed to go back since.

Please educate yourself on what’s happening. Read about it and share.

I know tumblr is merely a speck on international coverage but if you have twitter, Instagram or Facebook, please use the #saveshiekhjarrah to spread the word.

Important Update: Gaza is currently under attack.

Two million civilians living in a besieged city are under attack. It’s a Prison. All entrances and exits are being blocked.

Hospitals are being targeted.

Civilian Neighbourhoods are being targeted.

The Media is unfairly and ignorantly calling it a “Conflict” and a “Clash”

Israeli-Zionists are celebrating in the streets the genocide currently taking place.

Another Important Update:

Joe biden just approved 735 MILLION DOLLARS in aid to Isre*l. What in the actual FUCK? For YEARS tax money paid by US citizens has been given to support the ILLEGAL OCCUPATION of the Isre*l settlers and the ETHNIC CLEANSING of Palestinians.

AND NOW, they are signing off on another 735 MILLION dollars?

Gaza is still under fire. The death toll is 200 (the confirmed ones that is). The city is being flattened with it's citizens under the rubble.

They are targeting the streets that lead to the destroyed buildings and areas to minimize the help that might reach the victims.

This is how they are warning them about the attack. Roof Knocking video which is a warning hit shot to the street to warn them a REAL ROCKET is heading their way ONE or TWO MINUTES LATER. To give them a time to evacuate their HOME BUILDING. This is a form of psychological torture before they lose everything.