#what is happening in canada right now

[trendamonium]

[sirmanmister]

gamers I love unions and everything but Uh Oh. UH OH. Canada post just voted YES to strike literally 2 weeks before my contract with them is supposed to start. They all may walk out as soon as Nov 3rd and my contract starts on Nov 17th ;-;

Like again I’m definitely ALL for unions but!! Uh oh!! My fucking JOB!!! They may strike for longer than my contract even lasts and since I’m part time and wouldn’t have received a pay check at that point I don’t think I’d receive anything from the union fund (which is okay because I wouldn’t feel right taking from it anyway)

I’m hoping the government is gonna bend quickly because of the holiday season but with how profitable Amazon is over the post office I kindaaa think they’re gonna drag it out and test their luck. Which is :(

Fucking MAN.

[border-collie]

Can't afford to rent because I have two dogs, can't afford to buy because I don't have a 10% down payment. Stuck in living-at-parents purgatory.

[awkward-teabag]

Can't even mention that a store near me is clearly using abusing the TFW program because they refuse to pay little more than minimum wage in a high cost of living area (also you won't get benefits and you'll only be part-time) because the fascists and right-wingers will jump in to say it's about immigration and white replacement.

No, it's because rich white people want to hoard even more money and found an intentional loophole to both make more money (via paying employees less) and also have more power over employees, employees who may or may not know Canadian employment laws (or safety laws) and even if they do, don't have the ability or support to try to hold the company accountable.

You can absolutely criticize the federal government for keeping the loophole open but it predates Trudeau by decades and it was Harper who both expanded the program and added a way for companies to fast-track TFWs. It was also under Harper that companies started firing Canadians (or not hiring them) and then requesting permission to mass-hire TFWs instead.

But the way the right wing talks, you would think Trudeau started this whole thing and the poor multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies are being taken advantage of. Also that housing prices, lack of new developments, and zoning issues started with Trudeau and are the fault of mass-immigration he has a boner for instead of being an issue for decades and experts warning this would happen if governments didn't act ASAP.

Instead the neolibs and cons kept cutting back and kicking that can down the road, a can that started being kicked by Mulroney and the Conservative Party.

[anewp0tat0]

the sky is orange and I have to cancel my outdoor plans tomorrow due to the air quality so sorry if the 200th chapter or any other project comes later, like Saturday or Sunday, cause I don't feel like doing anythiiiiiiinnnnnnggggggg

[ratatatastic]

canada. my households worst enemy.

[leslieseveride]

thinking about the time i got to chat with eric and melissa (and nathan) and melissa recognized my sailor moon tattoo in my zoom pfp and immediately starting singing the theme song. 🥺💗

[medicinemane]

And maybe you'll be like "but if you don't trust businesses, how can you trust welfare?"

I fucking don't. My mom trying to get on food stamps fucked me up because a lady I never met without my permission got my SSN from my mom and started editing my files. My heart still races to this very second whenever I think about it, it kinda messed me up bad and I'll never ever ever see any kind of recourse

And I'm terrified that I'm gonna lose my medicaid just cause I inherited some money from my grandpa

And I've never even applied for disability cause it kinda doesn't matter finding out if I'd qualify or not cause of my depression, when the rules are so restrictive I don't know if I've even be allowed to keep my house

I do not fucking trust these things on a personal level. I feel like out of a lot of people I have the most to fear from them cause I'm on the edge of having things work, and that gets you punished

...but I need medicaid in order to have insurance (and when you strip out the finance side of medicaid, I love medicaid... they're honestly incredible insurance... I just... I just... dental is like 90% of why medicaid is so important to me, ever since I found out this state pays for it I've actually been able to do cleanings which is important to me cause I can't always get myself to brush)

And I think things like disability and food stamps are pretty damn important on a personal level, and honestly are also good for the economy cause they get people spending... it's practically a free cash infusion into the economy, cause these are people who need to buy stuff

There's just so much important stuff welfare does that it's worth dealing with government

No, what I want is more accountability so if someone gets my SSN from a 3rd party like my mom they're held to HIPPA styles standards where that's not ok to access my files without my permission (She changed my fucking address and tried to get medicaid to investigate me for fraud! Never even met me)

Like have some accountability there and in every situation

Secondly I want less punitive focused rules. I'd frankly prefer bezos get on disability than smack down some poor sod cause they got $2000 in the bank or cause their friend lets them live with them for free

If there's gonna be a cut off on these programs, it needs to be a solid step above the poverty line, cause... by definition I assume poverty line denotes kinda the minimum expected income people can reasonably live off of, and if you take away benefits people are gonna lose a chunk of money to covering that stuff themself, so you need a buffer before you kick people off

I don't fucking trust the government for a second, I've actively been fucked by them and on a personal level I avoid everything but medicaid and only that cause everything but the money is pleasant to deal with and I kinda need it (honestly if I was rich I'm not even kidding that I'd rather give medicaid like $400 a month than some insurance company, I sincerely like them as insurance)

But I'd trust them a lot more if they were less punitive, less out to hunt me down and gut me cause someone handed me a fiver or cause I started to get on my feet, and if government employees had concrete rules they had to follow that were actually transparent and enforced

Like 90% of my problems with welfare go away if they're held accountable and there's less "catch the welfare cheats" mentality going around

I don't trust the government in the slightest, but sadly there some jobs it kinda has to do, so I'd just rather force it to be an open book where the public can keep an eye on it and if they step out of line there's consequences (sort of like I don't trust most mega corps but happen to sometimes need stuff from them... did you know literally every cell service provider has been illegally selling shit like your location data to random people like bounty hunters, and the FCC just slapped them with a fine that's 0.02% of their yearly incomes and debated even doing that? I even can offer a source on that)

...I don't trust much of any authority cause they constantly fail me and kinda screw me. Don't trust doctors either, but I still gotta go to them, you know? ...they're just... they're real bad at listening... so many systems need systemic change

(You know who I really don't trust is the cops. I could point to so many examples. My uncle doesn't trust cops either, and he's an ex Fire and SWAT paramedic, he worked with them and we still got into a long conversation where he basically tore into them far better than I can)

(I don't trust authority that's not accountable)

[deanpinterester]

NOO tumblr live has finally caught up to me

[aeolianblues]

Plaid are nationalists but I don't think necessarily in a bad way? What I mean is Plaid are far from the nationalism being seen across Europe right now. Yes they're the party that has historically advocated for Welsh independence from the UK, but in the 7-way National debate, them and the SNP were also the only parties I saw actually criticise Nigel Farage's views on immigration. The only ones pushing back on that national podium against the racism and villainisation of refugees and migrants, saying that the UK needs migrants, has a responsibility to take care of them after playing a direct hand in destabilising their countries and pushed back on the Conservatives' plans to just pull out of the human rights commission because it didn't suit their failed Rwanda deportation scheme. Here's Plaid's official stance on asylum, from their manifesto, nothing about this seemed particularly bad to me.

Also, like SNP, the party focus wasn't on independence this time for Plaid, it was on securing fairer funding for Welsh affairs, and devolution. Rhun ap Iorwerth is hardly a Marie Le Pen, thankfully.

THERE ARE NO TORIES LEFT IN WALES

[autumnoakes]

would REALLY love for people to not start rambling about politics and then get surprised/upset/disappointed when i walk out after a certain point

i'm tired of having to correct people and STILL getting shut down

[yorktaylor]

.

[communistkenobi]

if we want to talk about where trans men tend to be overrepresented in transphobic discourse, it’s in relation to scaremongering media profiles of detransitioners, framing trans men as misunderstood women with internalised misogyny who have mutilated our bodies and are now left ‘ruined’ because of HRT and surgery. This is used to argue for policies that restrict access to trans healthcare, especially for minors (notice how often we are talked about as “young girls”!) putting a ‘sympathetic’ face to transgender hysteria by talking about the “victims” of transgenderism. But this is still an incomplete picture without accounting for transmisogyny, as trans women are the “perpetrators” of this victimisation, convincing “confused young women” to cut off their breasts and take testosterone. It centres around the ‘corruption’ of femininity, as trans men forsake our ‘natural’ femaleness and trans women as ‘appropriating’ it.

This is why Matt Walsh, JKR, and other prominent transphobic figures asks the question “what is a woman?” and not “what is a man?”, it’s why Posie Parker advocates for armed cis men to go into women’s bathrooms to “protect women from men invading women’s spaces,” its why terfs are so fixated on trans women as ur-misogynists, it’s why right wing politicians like Pierre Poilievre & the Conservative Party of Canada focus their ire on blocking trans women from public spaces.

Saying this is not a denial of trans men as victims of transphobia (hello! I am a frequent one!) and its endlessly frustrating that these conversations get derailed into “well what about MY experience where XYZ horrible thing happened to me” as if the conversation about transphobia should only ever remain in the realm of interpersonal violence and victimisation. It’s very handy to stay in that arena because the only rebuttal to that tactic is to deny this random person’s experiences or “ignore their lived reality.” But I’m not talking about experience! Transphobia is a structural force in the world which means we don’t actually need to rely on individual accounts of violence to understand it. taking stock of that structure is only a “threat” to “trans masc voices” if you think structural discussions of oppression are de facto “misandrist”

[186-3]

courting antisemitism

so i recently decided to take a look at the latest stonetoss comics (probably because i love suffering). and while i was expecting some content on the israel palestine conflict, what i did not expect was how... standard it seemed. well, most of it at least, but i'll get to that in a second.

for context, if you don't know what stonetoss is, it's a (poorly drawn) webcomic known for having radical alt-right views - meaning it's incredibly racist, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, antisemitic. all that fun stuff.

so while i was expecting to see bad stuff, one of the first things i saw on the topic of israel was this:

terrible art aside, this comic is making a point that i usually see in left wing circles: that israel is pinkwashing genocide.

curious if there was more like this, i kept looking, and the comic right before that one was this:

again, this makes points that i usually see in left wing circles. that american healthcare is crazy expensive, that canada tells poor people to commit suicide, and that israel is bombing hospitals.

why does stonetoss, this well known alt-right nutjob, now seem to be bringing up left-wing talking points?

curious, i kept going deeper:

well this is... odd. clearly, stonetoss is trying to say that israel is on another level of bad, even worse than russia, iran, and north korea. i can possibly see someone on the left making the argument that the russian invasion of ukraine isn't as bad as what israel is doing in gaza, or that at least north korea isn't invading any other countries, but... iran??? the country that has a police force designed to enforce religious law, and gets away with murdering women who do not properly cover their hair? the country that props up paramilitary groups in countries all over the middle east, including lebanon, yemen, and yes, palestine?? that's completely ridiculous

but, given how much more israel is in the news nowadays than any of these other countries, i could see why someone would buy this

and now, we're starting to get to the crux of what stonetoss is trying to do. when someone sees this, they might be inclined to agree with it. they might begin to think that israel is the worst country on the planet

and that might not seem so bad at first. but the more you hate israel, especially irrationally, the more you feel allowed to dehumanize those who support it. the more you might be willing to agree with this comic, which came out two days prior to the one above

this comic says that jews, as a whole have no desire to exist with other people. it is blatantly antisemitic

i'm sure you could imagine some young leftist who sees the comics above this one and thinks, "this guy makes some good points". and then, when they get to this one, they might realize that this is antisemitism

or, they may not.

and that would start them down the road to becoming an antisemite.

this is what stonetoss and other alt-right nutjobs are hoping to achieve. to take left wing fury at israel, and direct it at jews.

we saw it with those neo-nazis at the palestine rally, and we're seeing it again here.

and if you've found yourself agreeing with what stonetoss has said so far, i would like you to see the last comic stonetoss put out before october 7th:

this horrifically racist comic is in reference to an environmental activist who was murdered by a black man in early october. this blatantly racist garbage is the kind of stuff stonetoss usually puts out.

but as soon as october 7th happened? these were his next two comics:

stonetoss completely changed the comic's tone as soon as the current crisis started. why?

to get as many people as possible to get on board with hating jews.

and i know many of you might be thinking that "well, everyone knows that stonetoss is racist garbage. nobody is going to fall for this"

except, as we saw with the neo-nazis at the rally for palestine, it's not always that obvious who the antisemites are and who is just rallying for peace. they are often a lot better at disguising it than stonetoss is.

AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE AWARE OF THAT

EVERYONE, no matter HOW much experience you have, can fall victim to propoganda. EVERYONE needs to be aware of what people around them are saying, and able to pick out hateful rhetoric, because even the stuff that is just kind of toeing the line of what's hateful is still putting your foot in the door

be cautious, everyone. and stomp out hate where you see it.

[void-botanist]

Global Day of Action for Palestine

Today (March 2) is a global day of action for Palestine. There are a huge number of protests taking place across the world. But even if you can't participate in a protest or walk out (or it's not March 2) there are still plenty of things you can do in support of Palestinians:

Anywhere

Free daily click to generate money for UNRWA aid (you can do this in multiple browsers or on multiple devices for more clicks)

Boycott produce from Israel and companies that profit from Israeli apartheid (BDS)

Donate eSims (informational post by blackpearlblast with links to purchase guides)

Pick a fundraiser from the Operation Olive Branch spreadsheet and donate what you can, even if it's only a dollar

US

✉ Email your reps (US Campaign for Palestinian Rights)

📞 Call your reps (US Campaign for Palestinian Rights)

If your Democratic presidential primary is happening now or in the future, consider voting "uncommitted" like over 100,000 voters in Michigan. This is unlikely to affect Biden being made the Democratic presidential candidate, but it does bolster the message that we want Biden to act against this genocide. Voting "uncommitted" may even be endorsed by a larger organization in your state, like the UFCW 3000 labor union in Washington state.

UK

✉ Email your MPs (Palestine Solidarity Campaign)

Canada

✉ Email your reps (Islamic Relief Canada)

Whatever actions you take, consider adding as many as possible to your daily routine, especially daily clicks.

[thedreadvampy]

of course my heart goes out to all those in fear and pain in the US right now. and we will offer them all the support and care we've also offered to marginalised people dealing with fascism in Italy, Hungary, Poland, Argentina, South Korea, India, Turkey, Russia, Iran, Canada, Saudi Arabia...we care equally about those folks, right?

people keep being like 'omg is everyone ok how's everyone feeling' it's not my fuckin country nor is it a massive surprise. sucks for Americans, of whom I am not one, and I'm sorry for that and sorry for you, this must be very scary, but I cannot IMAGINE why people are worried about OTHER BRITISH PEOPLE'S emotions on the topic.

btw the government of Germany basically fully collapsed today how are we all feeling about that? do we need a self care moment about that? since we're so emotionally invested in genocidal foreign governments?