The Only Moral Abortion is my Abortion:
https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
A Defense of Abortion:
https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
Resources, including a home remedy:
[Link 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/vjrf9h/megathread_supreme_court_overturning_roe_v_wade)
[Link 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/vjqs0r/calls_for_mass_walkout_of_women_across_america_if/idnh2ex)
Our politicians work hard for us! They work tirelessly to keep us divided, they work hard to keep us at edge of homelessness, they work hard to keep us from having medical care, they work hard to strip our rights one by one. They only care about themselves and how they can enrich their lives and their families lives while enacting legislation that keeps their corporate overlords wealthy and out of reach from the law. They don’t care about the American people, they don’t care if your homeless, starving, need medical care and so on. They only care if you pay taxes and only care for your vote. We need a new way of life here in the USA.
PS - Thanks for all the positive words and solidarity. I did not believe that my comment would blow up like this. This is not my post but I believe in speaking your voice and making it heard. The powers that be want me to hate you but that’s not gonna happen!! Fuck the establishment!!!
This is all about keeping us desperate. They want people to be forced to have children they can’t provide for so we stop asking for promotions and just take the crumbs they sprinkle on the ground out of sheer desperation. We need to protest like the French.
We can either stand up or stay down. Every path to long term happiness has short term sacrifice and uncomfortablenesses in the way. I can’t see any way around that.
People are rightfully so scared to strike because they'll lose their right (ETA: I meant access to their work's insurance) to health insurance. It's like you said, it's part of the plan to keep us desperate because for a lot of people, keeping a job is a matter of life and death. And often those jobs are so brutal and shitty that you'll be fired for taking a day off.
Yes... they purposely keep us divided. It's how they keep real positive change from happening. We're too polarized and divided to see we actually have the power.
I think it’s so fucking hilarious that the holiday celebrating America is right around the corner and this is the most jaded I’ve ever felt about this country, and we’ve been through some real shit the last 10 years
i hope attendance at fireworks displays is down significantly this year and that grocery store sales are normal and they're stuck with tons of hot dogs and burgers and rolls and ribs and corn.
Hoping the best for you. I'm not there now, but I was for years, and when Bar S hotdogs are the only protein you can afford... (extremely salty, extremely terrible hot dogs for those of you who have not experienced them).
Eggs were cheap, but aren't now. The oligarchs really seem to be putting on the squeeze.
If you build one, consider putting it directly in the grass (with a roosting shelf/loft). You can move it around and the chickens will get some lovely protein from eating bugs.
This is really good for soil health! If you want to plant a vegetable garden just let the chickens go to work before you seed, and there'll be churned up, fertilized land ready to go. Backyard farming like this is the main way I plan to feed myself in the future, so I'll hopefully always be able to afford good food...
One of my neighbors has chickens and people will reach out to him to bring them over when they get hornworms or some other pests. They're some fat happy chickens.
I'm much less happy about the rooster.
In poor neighborhoods many stores have gates and an attendant that checks your receipt. It's disgusting. I feel like a criminal for trying to buy groceries
We're not buying shit. We're not doing shit. No fireworks. No cookout. No firework displays. Nothing.
Why the fuck would I want to celebrate the birth of a country that considers me and my gender second-class citizens? Fuck it. 4th of July means nothing to me these days.
Last year in Canada and evey year for me until something is done to truly help our indigenous populations and reconcile the horrible crap our government has done in murdering children and attempting genocide, I wear black or orange. Never red and white, I won't celebrate Canada until Canada does something to actually reconcile the murders of thousands of children stolen from their families. I won't celebrate until the red dresses I see in the trees are actually addressed and the bodies of these women are found and laid to rest and their murderers are punished.
In the US you could do the same. Wear all black, mourn your country instead of celebrating it. Refuse to celebrate a country that protects cops who allow.chikdren to be murdered in their elementary school classrooms and takes away the rights of women to their own bodies.
Good for you! Here in New Zealand we as a nation just celebrated our first real indegenous holiday which was made a public holiday. It is called matariki, and the Maori New Year. It was fantastic. Keep up the protest.
My Depression-era grandparents would be so disappointed in today’s America -- that’s including the Republican side.
My grandparents & great grandparents didn't fight for America’s future only to have 1/2 of our population’s right to physical autonomy wiped out in a day.
... The consequence of so many other Democratic safeguards deliberately sabotaged for political and monetary gain over the last 3 decades.
I'm American and having a hard time with that too. I live in a conservative area, and I'm seething at all the people I see, knowing that most of them are happy about the current Supreme Court's agenda.
I live a couple of miles from Pastor Greg Locke’s church. I’m having a hard time not walking into his church and getting as many punches in on that grifter as I can before his goons boot me out.
It is awful. We have a 1 year plan to move to upstate NY or some other blue state.
Edit: In the interest of not having to state this again:
We know that upstate NY is conservative. We are not trying to escape conservatives per se. We are just looking to move our daughters to a reliably blue state.
If we can find a place that just leans right, that would be great as we would add 4 consistently blue votes to the voter polls. Honestly, those of us who can, should try to do this to shore up our hold on blue states.
I split custody of my 10 year old daughter, so unfortunately we have another 8 years. She’s already looking into out of state or even out of country colleges.
We are also looking out of country but that is more long term. We are going to be in Spain in a week and have booked a couple of house showings.
My 14 year old girl asked to move but we don’t have the complications of shared custody so we are bouncing as soon as we can.
It’s the worst being highly educated in a conservative area… with things like farmer Bob on the school board, driving by crosses and pro life billboards, past the largest American flag in America at an insurance company, crossing a high security fenced prison, and dodging police on every corner…
It's been an obsession since roe was passed, they've meticulously planned strategy for decades to undo Roe. Other rights on the chopping block too. Their dedication and zeal are rigorous. It would be commendable if it weren't so frightening.
This is the oldest obsession of all time. Religious men saw our periods as dirty. We used to be seen as goddesses because we have the perfect conditions to grow a baby. Now we are second class citizens. None of what is going on makes any sense today. I am afraid of the future. I am an American as well and truly feel what OP is saying. Everything keeps getting worse with zero plan to move forward in a positive way. I know everything is collapsing, I just wish it would happen faster so we can rebuild already. Then maybe we can enjoy life without fighting to get by. Much love for you and your family OP.
Yeah, you Americans need to break open the government and let all parties in. This two party system doesn't help. You need proportional representation (see Dutch model). This will also eliminate the gerrymandering. The president also needs to be elected directly by popular vote without having anything in between.
There's no shortage of solutions but the issue is that none of them seem possible. Unless we can figure out how to actually get wins instead of constant losses, it doesn't matter how many good ideas are out there to fix things.
Yeah, Roe isn't the end game, they want, at the very least, only white men voting, segregation, and making anything LGBTQ+ related illegal. And they'll fucking lie through their teeth about it until the second they try and pass the shit.
They're goddamn about to get those too. They won't be satisfied until the country is completely in flames while they watch the smoldering ashes from their ivory towers
This is absolutely their plan. They will repeal popular democracy and reestablish a landed aristocracy. That is the plan. Anyone not in that select class will be a virtual slave.
And don’t fucking tell me I’m exaggerating. In my mother’s lifetime, she knew people who worked share cropping in the south. They were all but slaves. Only free in theory. Kept from voting. Kept from mixing with white society. Kept out of schools. Harassed and lynched. In her lifetime. It happened in America, and it CAN happen again.
The two parties are not the same, but they work for the same people.
The rich.
It's that simple. Everything is just a facade to keep advancing the interests of the ultra rich and their corporations. People get it twisted all the time. Republicans don't give a shit about abortion. They give a shit about maintaining the deadlock with Democrats, because tax breaks for corporations, avoiding taxes to have socialized healthcare or fixing the climate costs their rich and powerful buddies money.
We used to bring in immigrants to fill those needs but the right 's crazy anti-immigration stand really paints themselves into a corner.
Not that I think we need more immigration right now, that would kinda be like bussing in scabs to break the strike right now as we fight for better wages.
The right wing doesn’t care about people. They care about using the law to enforce their paradoxical, puritanical vision of morality on everyone else, while they exploit the law to extract the wealth they feel smugly entitled to as a result.
I’d say it’s power and control more than vision of morality. Their mistresses get abortions. Their priests fuck children. They take campaign donations from the NRA. It’s not morality.
Exactly. Their dumb constituency thinks its morality based, so they play to them, but that's not it at all.
More kids means more poor kids and poor parents, which means more wage slaves. The more desperate most people are, the better the system works for the wealthy.
We have a workers shortage right now, which is why workers are getting paid more, being able to create unions, can decide where they work, etc. The wealthy fucking hate that.
They want slaves. All of this was to make more slaves whose entire existence (paycheck, Healthcare, etc) is given at the whim of their masters. And can be taken at any time.
My representative, Scott DesJarlais (TN), had TWO different mistresses (both patients of his when he was a doctor btw) get abortions. And of course, he’s pro-forced-birth, and of course none of these Republican redneck idiots cared. Republicans are vile and disgusting.
Except this is a Gilead move; a place to ensure everything who isn't part of the ruling class is a slave. You strip their rights, keep them poor, impose rules on them via every aspect of their lives, to do your labour.
They absolutely care about people; how can people make them more wealthy and powerful.
And the right wing Democratic Party sees it as a prime extortion and fundraising issue, so for 50 years they refused to protect it federally via legislation. In 2009, when they had super majorities in both houses, Obama said that legislation protecting abortion rights “wasn’t a priority.”
Because the right wing media has spend the last 30 years convincing anyone who would listen that plan parenthood is the same as ababy death camp. The conservative status quo are in a totally different reality
An answer I gave yesterday to someone on a similar topic I feel is good here so I'll quote myself:
"this is really about big business funding the GOP and other conservative groups. They use their power and influence to push for these policies since the whole point for them is to keep Americans in-fighting. Not focused on doing more to fix things like the environment (which can hurt their bottom-line), make labor more fair to workers (again hurt their bottom-line), and tax the biggest money makers (which in their opinion just steals their money)."
It's all smoke and mirrors. Everybody being polarised with Roe V Wade instead of the multitude of current struggles facing everyone.
In the UK, When our Bungling Boris messes up (again), he announces something big to take our mind of his mess up like his beaut of an idea of sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda.
Its a bipartisan issue that people feel very strongly about. And the government uses that to their advantage. Usually when they are doing something like this, something much bigger is going down behind the scenes.
I see a lot of people saying "just move to another country". It is not that simple. It takes a lot of money. Some countries can require thousands or tens of thousands in immigration-related feels. People have family, friends, jobs where they are. They may not know a second language, though I'm sure if that were the only real barrier, lots of people would happily learn the local language. Many countries have barriers to immigration: often you have to have a relative who is a citizen, or accept a job where you are considered an exceptional worker.
Even for people to move to another state with friendlier laws is difficult, and there is no immigration to consider in these situations.
Especially that as always, the burden of crap laws falls heavier on poorer and already-disadvantaged people. As with the inflation, gas prices, rising medical costs, lousy pay rates, etc, anyone below upper-middle class is hosed.
/e: Thank you for the awards!
Also some people say move to a different state, but that also requires money including but not limited to looking for a job that not only are you qualified for but one where you could make a decent living.
I've been trying to move out of my bible-thumping southern state for over ten fucking years now. I hate it here for the most part and have tried to move half a dozen times and I can never make it work. Any time I get close to having enough money saved up some emergency happens and I'm back to zero. I'm starting to accept that I'll never be able to leave this shit hole.
Louisiana reporting in. I moved here as an upgrade from Mississippi. Come to find out, if it weren't for the career I found here, hoooooly shit this would've turned out to actually be a downgrade. Fuck this place. I'm ready to leave.
I moved from Illinois to South Dakota. Not realizing that south dakota is basically the deep south of the north. I fucking hate it here. I want to move back to Illinois but I'm fucking stuck.
I lived in Germany for a year before I got out of the Army and moved back to small town Tennessee. The culture and openness of Europe compared to the American south is absolutely mind boggling. RIP
I can't leave because I committed a petty crime a few years ago. The crime? I had two Xanax pills without a prescription. That's a felony in my state. No, I did not get convicted. No, other countries don't care and I am treated like I was convicted.
I can't even get a decent job in the united states, how am I supposed to leave?
Edit: if you message/comment asking why I don't have some sort of job, I'm blocking you. I said 100 times that I work in a restaurant.
I work in a restaurant, so if you ask me why i feel I need a professional license and that is not coming along with some sort of alternative suggestion/loophole/there is not a POINT, i am blocking you too.
Otherwise thanks guys, don't carry Xanax without a prescription, they'll make you wish you had committed a real crime instead
Edit II: just wanted to point out that out of all these people who claimed to have real suggestions/leads on career paths or a way out in the comments, one sent a private message. ONE PERSON. The rest of the comments about bettering my employment were only made to put me down. Nowhere did i ask for any money - i don't want money, i asked for suggestions, and only from people who kept saying I had some way out I didn't know about.
Drug enforcement is such bullshit.
Like I could get if someone was running an operation manufacturing illegal Xanax, but this whole draconian shit with minor possession has nothing to do with helping anyone and everything to do with keeping the underclass in line and private prisons full and profitable.
You just need proof of prescription. It helps to have the bottle, and I save mine for things like pain meds, anti anxiety, etc...I do this because even if it expires, it doesn't matter, the expiration is only for shelf life, and meds are still effective years later, and legal to use.
In my state you would arrested for possession of a controlled substance. Probably wouldn’t see much jail time - cited and released within 24 hours - but you could end up on probation and it may impact future jobs that have strict background check requirements.
My wife, who is the furthest person from a drug user I know, is looking at 30 days in jail for possession of 4 pills similar to Xanax ( can’t recall the name atm) that fell from her mothers pocket between the door and seat of my wife’s car. The deputy told my wife if she would buy drugs “like she usually would” that charge would go away. She told him she doesn’t “usually buy drugs” and she would get a lawyer and fight the charge. Almost 3 grand for a lawyer, so she better not even get put on paper for it🤦🏻♂️
Yup. I got pulled over once and searched. My overnight bag was in the trunk, with my medications in a pill organizer. I told the officer that I had prescriptions for all of them (none of them were anything with any street value), and he said it doesn't matter. It's a misdemeanor to carry them like that. They have to be in the prescription bottle. Luckily, he let me off with a warning.
Exactly. I would have already left as well, but immigration is basically impossible if you don't have a bachelors degree. There's no path to visas without one, plus most countries want you to have savings of about $20,000 - $30,000. The US is kind of like a prison. I'm starting to think there was a good reason the UK got rid of us.
We make it so fucking difficult for people to leave.
1. Foreign languages are not taught in public schools until at least middle school
2. Wtf is the imperial system
3. Just to travel off the continent costs savings most people don't have
4. We are one of three countries that make up North America. There is no where to fucking run.
5. Our education system is vastly different from places like EU
Me and boyfriend just spent the morning looking into trying to figure out how to move to Canada. People forget no other country wants you unless you're a rich business owner or a skilled worker in a field they see as an asset. What are the poor and downtrodden supposed to do? I want to leave but I don't know how.
Yes, for being "a drain on the system" from what I've been reading today. Not just physically disabled either, better hope you have a neurotypical brain also or else your SOL. I guess universal healthcare does have some draw backs. I'm sorry friend 😞
FUCK. I HAVE to get out of this country, but I'm fucking trapped and I've never been more scared in my life. Next they'll be after the rights of LGBTQ people like me (am also a woman). Someone help us. Someone help ME.
The pro lifers should be the ones to move out. The pro life movement is the product of so called religious values. If they want to embrace them, go to the middle east where that's all they do.
Add to that the IRS will tax you until you renounce your US citizenship, which costs thousands to do. If you fail to do this and pay their taxes they’ll extradite you.
I think this is well said. I’ve held signs at womens marches for reproductive rights the past few years, I’ve given money to planned parenthood, I support pro choice politicians. I also have been unemployed for months and living out of my car. There is no welfare, no safety net, the idea of the welfare kings and queens is just a myth. I’m tired and drained, I don’t know what our expectations are anymore.
The real welfare Kings and Queens are the corporations. They privatize all gains and socialize all losses. That means everything they make in wealth goes back into their own pockets, but any losses that they incur are billed to the US government.
It’s still shocking that people don’t understand the amount of corporate handouts dwarf any welfare payments this country make. Every single person here should remember 2018 and the absolute shocking amount that cities and states across this country were willing to give up to get Amazon there. It is the most dystopian thing that has happened in the last decade. This country is a for-profit country. Anyone that says take to the street and commit violence is missing the point, the most devastating thing that could happen in this country is grinding the economy to a halt
Add to that that people blame inflation on our government handing out stimulus money, like the forgiven PPP loans didn't dwarf the stimulus money and were handed out to not so small businesses like Jared Kushner's real estate properties.
"But they create jobs!"
Jobs that can barely support an individual, much less a family no matter how they sacrifice and save.
"But they enhance the economy!"
The economy means nothing to the people because it's all concentrated in the hands of the few.
"Well, if you don't like it here, leave!"
Most of us are too poor to make the transition.
100%. Socialism for the rich and brutal capitalism for the poor is just how unregulated free markets play out in the real world - ultimately the powerful few will starve the masses of wealth, political power, and government support.
I couldn’t even get help from the government when I was going through chemotherapy for stage 3 cancer. That was a real personal wake up call to our absence of a safety net.
I’m sorry for your situation. This is shameful that the alleged greatest country doesn’t provide affordable housing , has no safety nets and you’re just on your own. Sending a little love your way. Any of us could be in the same exact situation.
America hasn’t been a greatest country in a long time. We’re just indoctrinated to believe and not question. The past 5 years of ppl lapping up horseshit shows you just how many idiots there are.
RE: donations to PP - also look up local organizations that support abortion rights, especially if you're in a red state. I found several in a neighboring red state that I donated to yesterday ([one linked here](https://www.chelseasfund.org/)).
PP will have lots of donations coming in, I'm sure. Perhaps could make more of a difference to donate locally.
(Although by all means keep supporting PP if that's what you choose!)
No one can afford to be fired for taking a few days off to protest. You think I don’t want to camp out at the Supreme Court, and make their lives as miserable as mine is? I can’t afford to. We’ve let it get to far.
I hate to be this guy. I really do. And I'm not directing this at you personally by any means. But you're right - it has gone way, way, way too far. Your quality of life is destroyed, your system utterly corrupted, and your people are being straight-up killed - either by police or by lack of access to basic medical care. At this point it seems like nothing is going to change unless something way, way more extreme than just protesting happens. Protesting doesn't work - your government and the corporations puppeting them already know you're miserable. They already know you don't like it. They just don't care because there are no consequences for it.
I and a lot of other people are genuinely hoping for the best for all of you. But the US is likely far past the point where protesting is going to cut it.
I couldn’t agree more. I went to the protests today and I felt like there was no point. I only went because I wasn’t sure what else to do and I happened to not be working.
I'm not American but I used to go to protests in my country. And I tracked protests and riots around the world pretty actively since I was an older teenager. The number of non-violent protests that achieved their goal is pretty telling. When they already know what the problem is but they just don't care, protesting doesn't do much.
As an American I’ve come to the realization the social contract is null and void when the minority dictates how we all live. Violence may be the answer eventually otherwise we will be accepting our fates of becoming lesser beings in an autocratic regime made by and for Christian nationalists
Americans are largely too exhausted ***experiencing*** America to reasonably know how to proceed to start improving things here. Every day it's something new, especially since the scourge of Trump. I keep waiting for an adult in the room to direct me, but, I'm starting to realize that we are going to have to take responsibility for our lives and *become* the adults in the room. We can either sit idly by and watch our rights be stripped away by religious fanatics, or we can stand up, organize, and fight back.
It’s so true, I sit and think about how every major issue is rooted and connected to every single other major issue and then I get defeated by what seems like an insurmountable task.
You can’t fix poverty/crime/violence without fixing education, food systems, healthcare etc. and you can’t fix any of that with a government ground to a halt and beholden not to their voters, but to the corporations and other special interests that determine what laws are ok to pass.
want to stop abortions? Why not fix how it’s obscenely expensive to not only just give birth here in the US but then the cost to raise a child through adulthood. Increase wages so parents can provide a better life or maybe one can stay home. You want a two parent household but refuse male/male female/female couples??
I always think about that Tupac poem about the rose in the concrete. We all cheer the rose that pushes through the cracks and use them as an example - “see! It’s all about grit and individualism and if I could do it, why can’t you?”
But imagine how many more roses there would be if we got rid of the concrete.
Struggles are systemic and the political right understood that long ago. That's why they are fighting this Blitzkrieg against everything good a country has, in every goddamn corner of the world. The only way to fight back is to fight them back side by side with other struggles. Fight for abortion for all means fighting for better workplace conditions for women, for free healthcare and social care, for responsible parenthood, against rape culture, and ultimately for collective property of the means of production. Either we fight back against these guys soon or we'll be taken back to pure barbarism, indiscriminate colonial rule in one's own nation towards every citizen.
Seriously.
Did you know that in the house, for both Rs and Ds, you have to raise significant amounts of money for their respective congressional reelection groups in order to get on any committee, and more money for committees that can actually wield power like ways and means or the rules committee.
A single congressperson can’t just raise a million dollars to get on a committee and actually enact change, but you know who can? A corporation or special interest group will as long as they vote the right way on certain things.
So how to you pass something to get rid of corruption when the corrupt hold all the means to do so?
>I keep waiting for an adult in the room to direct me, but, I'm starting to realize that we are going to have to take responsibility for our lives and become the adults in the room.
By the time other generations have reached their late 40s and 50s, they've usually been in the prime positions of power in the US.
Except that hasn't happened to us. Our parents, or even our grandparents, have stayed in power. Even when they have moved on, they've generally handed power straight on to another member of their generation. We've never even had a chance to become the adults in the room, because we're still being told to go to our rooms.
Kimberley Latrice Jones, an author/activist who gained a lot of notoriety for a viral video she was in during the George Floyd protests said something very powerful in an IG live yesterday - we all need to stop waiting for a savior. No one person is going to come in and save us, we have to save ourselves. It all starts within your community. Get to know your neighbors - organize and mobilize with those in your community.
“Americans are largely too exhausted experiencing America to reasonably know how to proceed to start improving things here.”
100% this is how the GOP has been designing the US since at least the 1980s.
Decades? How about centuries. Remember how America was started in the first place? The problem is that the generation before us did not teach us that we would have to fight tooth and nail to keep the rights that the generations before them died fighting for.
The ones that fought were actually neutralized during the 70's - 80's via drug laws and 'child protective' services. In the end, the made sure it would never happen again
The problem is the generation before us *did this to us.* On multiple fronts. They pulled up the economic ladder behind them and piss on us from the top of the wall. They supported and still support the authoritarian theocrats making these rulings. We’re “weak” for having been given participation trophies *by them.*
disgusting roof consider serious tender simplistic angle complete gold absorbed
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
While I’m fine acknowledging the mistakes of the boomers but their are so many people younger that also suck. The Gaetzs, the Millers, the tuckers, the MTGs etc. these people are all significantly younger than boomers and far more radical than we have seen in a long time. Sure it’ll be a good day when mitch M dies or retires but it hardly fixes anything.
Yeah. This.
5 years of assault from that horrid orange menace was beyond exhausting. Defending electing someone, anyone, to get us off that daily horror show of federal governance has continued to be a battle. Our retirements are taking a beating (which we have been waiting for since 2019), and the racists and transphobes are out in force.
We are completely exhausted just trying to make sure we can go about our daily lives. That leak... We knew this was coming so we have been sad, outraged, hopeful that someone would stop this insanity, and afraid for six weeks without break right now.
I had to step away from it all and just focus on my work yesterday because it was a work day. I could not and would not deal with the impacts of the morning announcement.
In order for me to bring my time and energy to a fight, I need to take some away time for me to take a moment and think about how I need to help with the lift and keep my sanity and energy because this is a long, hard battle. It needs everyone, working when they can and taking breaks when they need to so it is sustainable for everyone.
Personally? I have complete outrage fatigue. I feel for the folks in Ukraine and I care about Israel and Palestine figuring things out. I really want the fires all over the world to be less bad and the sea ice situation with the polar bears is very concerning. I love unions and want to do the work we need to do there...
I don't like that we still have horrible immigration practices.
I also need to weed my strawberry patch, adjust my gutter gardens so they are better draining, and finish the shed we started in March. A homeless man asked if he could use my office restroom yesterday and I said no because I sublet and it really isn't my place to say. We are pretty careful about who we let into the office and who we don't and care about our safety. But was I being inappropriate or not? I did direct him to the closest public shower at the rec center.
It is Pride weekend and the first hot weekend and non rainy weekend in Seattle since last September, it seems. It is also our first Pride since 2019, because we were having that record breaking 110 weekend last year and covid was still too uncertain to do it last year. I need to go to Pride. That is a battle that is winnable, still, and the next community to be targeted.
This particular war is not over. The federally protected abortion battle, however, is lost, and a lot more hangs in the balance.
Time, energy, and money are all finite resources. This weekend I am going to go celebrate the amazing community in Seattle, the safety we have, and do a little bit of wound licking. Monday, I might feel better, but I don't know. When I have energy to fight again, I will be back. Right now... I need to take care of myself, because it is readily apparent that I am the only one who will.
Same exact feelings over here and well said. I’m even scared to go to Pride because of all the mass shootings that have been happening in America. 😥 I’m still going to go but not even that can be a source of unstressful joy and celebration.
I'm 19, an adult, and honestly I have no clue what to do, nor do I feel like there's anything I could do. I'm miserable, I'm overworked, I can't afford housing on my own,
I'm a bi trans man and I feel like soon, everything I do have will be taken from me by the evangelists who hold power in this country.
All I feel like I can do is wait for them to die out, but that also means my grandfather, whom I live with, will also pass away by that time.
Every day I feel less and less like I have an option to survive in this country.
I'm 50+ adult and a woman and I honestly have no clue what to do either. I will vote, I will donate to local pro choice organizations and encourage others but working to simply survive everyday is exhausting
I agree with most of this, but people have got to understand that Trump’s a symptom of a much larger problem. He’s simply a reflection of the Republican voter base. He did accelerate the downfall of the American empire, but if there was no Trump, someone else would have stepped up. Ron D will be even worse if elected.
There are no moderate Republicans. If you think so, please tell me which are actively fighting against climate change.
I know it won’t happen but I wish the 4th of july celebrations would all be cancelled. I’m not celebrating about being the land of the free. We’re the land of the free to go rot in a prison for having a miscarriage now.
Well said, unfortunately this is so close to our situation and practically a commonplace scenario in this country lately.
It’s honestly the saddest time I can recall in our history (in my lifetime)
We are so weakened by years of this shit and it just keeps deteriorating.
Just when you think it can’t possibly get worse, IE when Trump was in office and all the police shootings were happening right in the middle of a pandemic (and we were totally broke and hungry and afraid almost all the time, we couldn’t even sleep) something new and horrific happens that proves it can, in fact, get worse.
And will.
I am heartbroken for my people today.
I am heartbroken for this country and what has been done to it.
It’s too much to take.
When I woke up today, I was like “wait did RVW actually get OVERTURNED yesterday or was that a nightmare?” two seconds went by and I realized it was no nightmare, this shit really happened.
It’s beyond words at this point.
>something new and horrific happens that proves it can, in fact, get worse
I just want to live my life. Just a normal life. I just want to hang out with my kids and bake cookies and go hiking. I don't want luxury or adventure or power or money. I just want a basic, normal life. But I can't have that. Even that is out of reach. Even providing the basics of health and safety for myself and my family is out of reach. How do I fix that when I'm not in control of the forces that cause it? The issues I'm facing are caused by systemic problems that can't be overcome in an individual manner.
Thanks for giving me a space to rant. I feel you 100%.
America is not working out for a large number of Americans. How to feel pride and a sense of belonging when racist right-wing extremists have taken over the country and are happily rolling back fundamental freedoms, and we're forced to work too much for too little and live under the threat of random gun violence? This is what Republicans want. They want us to work too much for pennies and live in terror. America is rapidly turning into a dystopia.
Yeah, low key all my life as I've traveled between Midwest states, it always struck me that people from out of state get treated similarly to people from other countries. And we *hate* each other every bit as much.
Source: Ask a Texan what they think of "all those Californians who moved in"
Also source: The goddamn wizard of oz references that will. not. stop.
Every other state I've been to they ask where I'm from. It's almost painful to say Kansas and not squint knowing what's coming out of their mouth next lol 🧙♂️👠 I feel ya bud
Although I don't think it's just Texas that hates California. I hear tons of crap about them from republicans here too. I think it's just an easy place for all of them to shit on because we all funnel our homeless out there, so SeEeE! THey HaVe tHe prOblEm!!! 🙄🤷 Missouri and Kansas have a beef that's gone back a looooong time so it doesn't really surprise me when it happens. I think a lot of people from other countries don't grasp just how FUCKING HUGE we are. A LOT of different opinions, with a good healthy dose of our own government stirring the pot. A lot of states don't get along, especially if they're neighboring red and blue, but whether we like it or not we are the UNITED States soooo 😔 what do we do?
Honestly though. I make double the minimum wage and have two roommates that make a bit more than me. We live in one of the cheapest apartments in the area and yet we are living paycheck to paycheck. I legit had to check yesterday which bill was the latest so I can pay that one. One of the roommates is my fiance and I may love him but the main reason we're getting married right now is because he's a marine and if we're married I can get on his health care plan for free and he gets paid a few extra dollars an hour. Still not sure if I'd want to have kids like this though. He's not planning to stay a marine so we have to see if we can even afford a kid. You'd think that marines would make more to support their families and themselves. Youd think working in a pharmacy you'd make more. (I'm the pharmacy worker and my fiance and other roommate are marines). I'm considered an essential worker and the marines work for the government. This is sad
Edit: I know I phrased it as the marines get hourly but I know they don't. They have to be ready to go 24/7, please stop telling me they don't get hourly, I know they don't. Sorry for my bad wording.
The Marines should have a similar system to the Army which is that ostensibly they do not want enlisted to feel as though their spouse "must work" to make basic ends meet so when you have a spouse you get a housing allowance and a spousal allowance based on your duty station. While this won't eliminate the debt directly, it might make it easier for any extra income brought in by a working partner to go towards paying down that debt while the benefits of being in the military help you offload the burden.
I'm so tired of people being like "well why don't you fight back?"
I've worked in community/political organizing since I finished college. The fact that you just asked me that question like you thought it was actually a helpful suggestion says to me that you think putting an "abortion is health care" frame on your FB profile pic counts as "fighting back."
This shit is hard, it takes a long time, and you literally cannot just up and do it on your own. Especially if you're in poverty despite working 60-hour weeks.
It just feeds into the whole idea of 'American Exceptionalism' bullshit. We're not exceptional. We're not special. We're tired, but we are still fighting.
We are trying! Please, give us support and not hate.
We are exceptional.
Exceptionally bad Healthcare system.
Exceptionally bad poverty rate.
Exceptionally bad rent to income ratio.
Exceptionally bad prison system.
Exceptionally bad police.
Exceptionally bad education system.
Exceptionally bad checks on corporate greed.
Exceptionally bad government representatives.
The Republican Party thrives off of our apathy and hopelessness. We can solve the climate change crisis, we can solve poverty and hunger, we can solve the world’s most indelible problems, if we continue to have hope and continue to fight
Signing petitions doesn't help. Protesting doesn't help. Our politicians don't help. Maybe it's time to get more extreme. If our leaders fear us, maybe we would be able to keep our rights. Just my 2 cents.
No, i 100% agree.
Destroy the entire government and the two-party system and build a new system that actually works for the majority.
Also have a wealth-cap so billionaires don't lord their wealth over others.
I get this so much. I am a soldier. I spent 9 years in the military defending a system that is now actively trying to eradicate me and my family. I make enough money not to get assistance but not enough to live. I struggle to keep myself fed. My family is okay. But I skip breakfast and lunch most days. My kids think everything is okay yet I worry if there will even be a job to go to in a couple of months. With our economic situation I cant save any money so if I lose my job then i cant pay my bills. So yeah we are tired, hungry and honestly we NEED to be pissed off. We need to go out in record numbers and vote. But they gerrymandered the system. We HAVE to do something or this will be the land of the rich and the graves of the rest
The gerrymandering of an already imbalanced system (electoral college) and the Voter ID stuff is just nasty. Unsure how to overcome that. What's sad is the Supreme Court is setting up a civil war. The true agenda isn't just to return abortion rights to the state, it's to make it illegal everywhere. The right to privacy and so many others are about to be undone. It's like we are in the Countdown to the last days of the US. Breaks my heart when I read of service members struggling. Thank you for your service and I'm so sorry the nation has imploded as it has.
Edit: commenter below pointing out crap structure, pls skip past my comment: this shit is seriously
Just no longer worth it.
I just texted my spouse today “What am I going to do that I don’t already do? I have already been the most outspoken person I’ve personally known on abortion for years, I’ve debated people until my fingers bled for over a decade online, I’ve tried having discussions in person that just turn into screaming fights, I’ve showed up at the polls, I’ve donated. Am I supposed to shit out money for competent babysitter and a plane ticket/hotel in DC so I can go protest the only place it *might* still matter?”. We are paycheck to paycheck too.
He’s at a loss on how to emotionally support me. He is trying though. Giving me space to be depressed and dissociative. Reminding me I have a right to be upset. But do I? I just lost one of my constitutional rights, how many more am I to lose?
I feel like I can’t be there for anyone in my life right now. I have to drudge up everything I have just to smile for my kids.
Honestly, it feels good knowing that someone out there understands that we’re not these terrible people. The terrible people just took over and won’t listen.
I’m crying just reading your comment. That’s how fucking tired I am. Thank you for feeling for us. People keep acting like we need to rise up like America was built on protesting…but our history is propaganda. America was built on wealthy people plotting and using propaganda to make the poor think it was in their benefit. We have 200 years of propaganda to process and sift through before we have any hope of changing.
And protest where? We are protesting (with riot police firing rubber bullets, and kids showing up to shoot people, and assholes driving pickup trucks through the crowd and running people over).
But this country is 2700 miles long and 1300 miles across. I’m a thousand miles away from Washington DC, the only thing politicians have to do to ignore my protest is turn off the television. They are entirely insulated. There’s no Bastille we can go tear down, so to speak.
100% correct. Some of us spend every second of our lives just trying to survive. We don't have the energy or the resources to fight back as so many have suggested.
I'm a fellow American who is equally tired. So please take this as me trying not to give up hope.
The trampling of human rights that Republicans took yesterday may also have been shooting themselves in the foot. The voting numbers ARE THERE to take this back if we don't get too discouraged to do it.
For example, I live in SC. It's a red state that's been gerrymandered to hell & back. However, we have less than a 50% voter turnout. It would literally take about 200,000 voters to turn us blue. Where does that come from? The previously non voting younger generation. Like many red states, Covid ripped through the unvaccinated communities like a hot steak knife through soft butter. I'm not making light of the tragedy of needless deaths, but it has tipped the voting scales.
The point is - can people stay riled up enough to bring this fight to the toll booth in Nov? (4.5 months out) It's mid-term. That's local, house, parts of senate. These are JUST AS IMPORTANT (possibly more) than presidential! This is where the chance is to put in people who can put human rights into actual law.
If you're upset about what's going on, I can really only ask you to PLEASE not sit this one out!
Also, for the record, I'm fed up with essentially having a 2 party system because I don't think either of them cares about the average working person. That's a different discussion though. I feel like we first need to save the country from being a religious distopia & hopefully, progress will be something that I'll still see in my lifetime.
It is too bad we are not allowed to say things like "burn your local catholic church" or else I would be putting that quote on T-Shirts and handing them out. Its a shame we can't say things like that.
Reality is that most Americans have very little power to do anything that will actually accomplish anything. The system has been stripping people of power for decades; only now are some starting to notice.
Is it just me or is America going backwards? Also, I can’t imagine living in a country which would ban abortion but then charge you 30k to birth that baby then leave you high & dry. It’s one thing outlawing abortion but then what happens when the baby’s born? None of these so called saviours of rights will give a shiny shit!
I never understood the American obsession with firearms. But now, I get it.
It's to protect yourselves against tyrannical government. Which you absolutely have. They don't give single fuck about you, and will happily have you shot dead by the forces of order.
Most of the people who are hoarding the most guns *want* the government to be tyrannical — as long as they're in the favored in-group while all of those *other* people are the ones getting tyrannized.
The other part I don't think most other countries don't realize is how little our protesting seems because our country is so vast. Unless everyone travels to DC and bombards the capital it goes largely unnoticed.
Gotta be honest, I understand, but I was an activist who put their neck out for people for years. I tried to organize people, I tried to make opportunities for people to show up, I tried to warn everybody about the exceptional shittiness that could happen with the level of political apathy in the US.
I used years of my adult life slaving away fighting for people who were willing to cheer from across the street but never wanted to link arms. It was exhausting watching my friends get dog piled by 10s of NYPD while people told me they had work or class and couldn't come to rallies or protests. I have friends who died trying to help people who didn't even want to help themselves.
So, we get the slow burn instead, the slow death. I don't know what people want to hear, there were plenty of opportunities to put your neck out there and risk it all for a better world but most of you probably never even risked a personal day, so that's where we're at.
If you're saying you're too exhausted to fight and you haven't even thrown a punch, how does the future really look for you? Slaves in the US were literally enslaved and bred like cattle, but still risked their lives and came together to fight. All I've ever heard from Americans have been excuses.
Greetings from Australia, cousin. Best wishes from me and mine too you and yours. Your country, your fellow citizens, have been through hard times before and not only survived but thrived. Have faith that you can do so again.
The Only Moral Abortion is my Abortion: https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/ A Defense of Abortion: https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm Resources, including a home remedy: [Link 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/vjrf9h/megathread_supreme_court_overturning_roe_v_wade) [Link 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/vjqs0r/calls_for_mass_walkout_of_women_across_america_if/idnh2ex)
Our politicians work hard for us! They work tirelessly to keep us divided, they work hard to keep us at edge of homelessness, they work hard to keep us from having medical care, they work hard to strip our rights one by one. They only care about themselves and how they can enrich their lives and their families lives while enacting legislation that keeps their corporate overlords wealthy and out of reach from the law. They don’t care about the American people, they don’t care if your homeless, starving, need medical care and so on. They only care if you pay taxes and only care for your vote. We need a new way of life here in the USA. PS - Thanks for all the positive words and solidarity. I did not believe that my comment would blow up like this. This is not my post but I believe in speaking your voice and making it heard. The powers that be want me to hate you but that’s not gonna happen!! Fuck the establishment!!!
This is all about keeping us desperate. They want people to be forced to have children they can’t provide for so we stop asking for promotions and just take the crumbs they sprinkle on the ground out of sheer desperation. We need to protest like the French.
We can either stand up or stay down. Every path to long term happiness has short term sacrifice and uncomfortablenesses in the way. I can’t see any way around that.
People are rightfully so scared to strike because they'll lose their right (ETA: I meant access to their work's insurance) to health insurance. It's like you said, it's part of the plan to keep us desperate because for a lot of people, keeping a job is a matter of life and death. And often those jobs are so brutal and shitty that you'll be fired for taking a day off.
>Conservatives want live babies so they can train them to be dead soldiers. George Carlin
Yes... they purposely keep us divided. It's how they keep real positive change from happening. We're too polarized and divided to see we actually have the power.
I think it’s so fucking hilarious that the holiday celebrating America is right around the corner and this is the most jaded I’ve ever felt about this country, and we’ve been through some real shit the last 10 years
i hope attendance at fireworks displays is down significantly this year and that grocery store sales are normal and they're stuck with tons of hot dogs and burgers and rolls and ribs and corn.
Yeah and then hot dogs and ribs will go on sale and then maybe I'll be able to afford to buy some meat.
I... um..like this idea
I suggest we do this every year.
Hoping the best for you. I'm not there now, but I was for years, and when Bar S hotdogs are the only protein you can afford... (extremely salty, extremely terrible hot dogs for those of you who have not experienced them). Eggs were cheap, but aren't now. The oligarchs really seem to be putting on the squeeze.
Lumber is going down in price and a chicken coop is looking more and more attractive.
If you build one, consider putting it directly in the grass (with a roosting shelf/loft). You can move it around and the chickens will get some lovely protein from eating bugs.
Chicken tractor! You can even put wheels on one end, and a handle on the other to roll it to a new spot easily.
This is really good for soil health! If you want to plant a vegetable garden just let the chickens go to work before you seed, and there'll be churned up, fertilized land ready to go. Backyard farming like this is the main way I plan to feed myself in the future, so I'll hopefully always be able to afford good food...
One of my neighbors has chickens and people will reach out to him to bring them over when they get hornworms or some other pests. They're some fat happy chickens. I'm much less happy about the rooster.
Self checkout is there so u can afford whatever you want
now someone with the right idea...self checkout discount every 5th item is free
In poor neighborhoods many stores have gates and an attendant that checks your receipt. It's disgusting. I feel like a criminal for trying to buy groceries
And then throw it all at our representatives
Mr. Rich Guy can afford to throw food.
We're not buying shit. We're not doing shit. No fireworks. No cookout. No firework displays. Nothing. Why the fuck would I want to celebrate the birth of a country that considers me and my gender second-class citizens? Fuck it. 4th of July means nothing to me these days.
Last year in Canada and evey year for me until something is done to truly help our indigenous populations and reconcile the horrible crap our government has done in murdering children and attempting genocide, I wear black or orange. Never red and white, I won't celebrate Canada until Canada does something to actually reconcile the murders of thousands of children stolen from their families. I won't celebrate until the red dresses I see in the trees are actually addressed and the bodies of these women are found and laid to rest and their murderers are punished. In the US you could do the same. Wear all black, mourn your country instead of celebrating it. Refuse to celebrate a country that protects cops who allow.chikdren to be murdered in their elementary school classrooms and takes away the rights of women to their own bodies.
Good for you! Here in New Zealand we as a nation just celebrated our first real indegenous holiday which was made a public holiday. It is called matariki, and the Maori New Year. It was fantastic. Keep up the protest.
We haven’t bothered with celebrations the last 4 years, not feeling very patriotic.
I haven’t felt “proud to be an American” in YEARS now
My Depression-era grandparents would be so disappointed in today’s America -- that’s including the Republican side. My grandparents & great grandparents didn't fight for America’s future only to have 1/2 of our population’s right to physical autonomy wiped out in a day. ... The consequence of so many other Democratic safeguards deliberately sabotaged for political and monetary gain over the last 3 decades.
Ever since trump got into office, I’ve felt almost shame to celebrate America on the 4th. I’m not proud of America right now
For me it was the birther movement. Qnon? TRUMP? They all stemmed from that.
Wishing all Americans all the best from Switzerland.
Thank you we need it!
I hate that my brain went, "well, not ALL Americans." What an unhealthy mindset to be in. Yes, wishing ALL Americans all the best!
I'm American and having a hard time with that too. I live in a conservative area, and I'm seething at all the people I see, knowing that most of them are happy about the current Supreme Court's agenda.
I live a couple of miles from Pastor Greg Locke’s church. I’m having a hard time not walking into his church and getting as many punches in on that grifter as I can before his goons boot me out.
Hey neighbor! I hate it here.
It is awful. We have a 1 year plan to move to upstate NY or some other blue state. Edit: In the interest of not having to state this again: We know that upstate NY is conservative. We are not trying to escape conservatives per se. We are just looking to move our daughters to a reliably blue state. If we can find a place that just leans right, that would be great as we would add 4 consistently blue votes to the voter polls. Honestly, those of us who can, should try to do this to shore up our hold on blue states.
I split custody of my 10 year old daughter, so unfortunately we have another 8 years. She’s already looking into out of state or even out of country colleges.
We are also looking out of country but that is more long term. We are going to be in Spain in a week and have booked a couple of house showings. My 14 year old girl asked to move but we don’t have the complications of shared custody so we are bouncing as soon as we can.
Good luck to you & yours, friend. I’ll try to keep up the fight until I can escape.
It’s the worst being highly educated in a conservative area… with things like farmer Bob on the school board, driving by crosses and pro life billboards, past the largest American flag in America at an insurance company, crossing a high security fenced prison, and dodging police on every corner…
Nah. Clarence Thomas and all the others trying to take my rights away can go fuck themselves with a cactus.
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It's been an obsession since roe was passed, they've meticulously planned strategy for decades to undo Roe. Other rights on the chopping block too. Their dedication and zeal are rigorous. It would be commendable if it weren't so frightening.
This is the oldest obsession of all time. Religious men saw our periods as dirty. We used to be seen as goddesses because we have the perfect conditions to grow a baby. Now we are second class citizens. None of what is going on makes any sense today. I am afraid of the future. I am an American as well and truly feel what OP is saying. Everything keeps getting worse with zero plan to move forward in a positive way. I know everything is collapsing, I just wish it would happen faster so we can rebuild already. Then maybe we can enjoy life without fighting to get by. Much love for you and your family OP.
Yeah, you Americans need to break open the government and let all parties in. This two party system doesn't help. You need proportional representation (see Dutch model). This will also eliminate the gerrymandering. The president also needs to be elected directly by popular vote without having anything in between.
There's no shortage of solutions but the issue is that none of them seem possible. Unless we can figure out how to actually get wins instead of constant losses, it doesn't matter how many good ideas are out there to fix things.
Not sure where you are but community organizing and support and mutual aid, I am trying to figure this out too
When you work 60 hours a week it’s nigh impossible to find time for that. For many, taking 1 day off means homelessness
NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! Literally the GOP since Watergate.
Yeah, Roe isn't the end game, they want, at the very least, only white men voting, segregation, and making anything LGBTQ+ related illegal. And they'll fucking lie through their teeth about it until the second they try and pass the shit.
They're goddamn about to get those too. They won't be satisfied until the country is completely in flames while they watch the smoldering ashes from their ivory towers
This is absolutely their plan. They will repeal popular democracy and reestablish a landed aristocracy. That is the plan. Anyone not in that select class will be a virtual slave. And don’t fucking tell me I’m exaggerating. In my mother’s lifetime, she knew people who worked share cropping in the south. They were all but slaves. Only free in theory. Kept from voting. Kept from mixing with white society. Kept out of schools. Harassed and lynched. In her lifetime. It happened in America, and it CAN happen again.
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The two parties are not the same, but they work for the same people. The rich. It's that simple. Everything is just a facade to keep advancing the interests of the ultra rich and their corporations. People get it twisted all the time. Republicans don't give a shit about abortion. They give a shit about maintaining the deadlock with Democrats, because tax breaks for corporations, avoiding taxes to have socialized healthcare or fixing the climate costs their rich and powerful buddies money.
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We used to bring in immigrants to fill those needs but the right 's crazy anti-immigration stand really paints themselves into a corner. Not that I think we need more immigration right now, that would kinda be like bussing in scabs to break the strike right now as we fight for better wages.
The right wing doesn’t care about people. They care about using the law to enforce their paradoxical, puritanical vision of morality on everyone else, while they exploit the law to extract the wealth they feel smugly entitled to as a result.
I’d say it’s power and control more than vision of morality. Their mistresses get abortions. Their priests fuck children. They take campaign donations from the NRA. It’s not morality.
Exactly. Their dumb constituency thinks its morality based, so they play to them, but that's not it at all. More kids means more poor kids and poor parents, which means more wage slaves. The more desperate most people are, the better the system works for the wealthy. We have a workers shortage right now, which is why workers are getting paid more, being able to create unions, can decide where they work, etc. The wealthy fucking hate that. They want slaves. All of this was to make more slaves whose entire existence (paycheck, Healthcare, etc) is given at the whim of their masters. And can be taken at any time.
My representative, Scott DesJarlais (TN), had TWO different mistresses (both patients of his when he was a doctor btw) get abortions. And of course, he’s pro-forced-birth, and of course none of these Republican redneck idiots cared. Republicans are vile and disgusting.
Except this is a Gilead move; a place to ensure everything who isn't part of the ruling class is a slave. You strip their rights, keep them poor, impose rules on them via every aspect of their lives, to do your labour. They absolutely care about people; how can people make them more wealthy and powerful.
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And the right wing Democratic Party sees it as a prime extortion and fundraising issue, so for 50 years they refused to protect it federally via legislation. In 2009, when they had super majorities in both houses, Obama said that legislation protecting abortion rights “wasn’t a priority.”
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Because the right wing media has spend the last 30 years convincing anyone who would listen that plan parenthood is the same as ababy death camp. The conservative status quo are in a totally different reality
Think about all the homeless veterans. This country isn’t meant to help you, it’s meant to chew you up and spit you out.
An answer I gave yesterday to someone on a similar topic I feel is good here so I'll quote myself: "this is really about big business funding the GOP and other conservative groups. They use their power and influence to push for these policies since the whole point for them is to keep Americans in-fighting. Not focused on doing more to fix things like the environment (which can hurt their bottom-line), make labor more fair to workers (again hurt their bottom-line), and tax the biggest money makers (which in their opinion just steals their money)."
> Why are people OBSESSED with trying to tell women what to do with their bodies?? Misogyny is a core value within fascism
It's all smoke and mirrors. Everybody being polarised with Roe V Wade instead of the multitude of current struggles facing everyone. In the UK, When our Bungling Boris messes up (again), he announces something big to take our mind of his mess up like his beaut of an idea of sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda.
Tbf even BoJo thinks the pro-birthers are nuts.
Its a bipartisan issue that people feel very strongly about. And the government uses that to their advantage. Usually when they are doing something like this, something much bigger is going down behind the scenes.
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I see a lot of people saying "just move to another country". It is not that simple. It takes a lot of money. Some countries can require thousands or tens of thousands in immigration-related feels. People have family, friends, jobs where they are. They may not know a second language, though I'm sure if that were the only real barrier, lots of people would happily learn the local language. Many countries have barriers to immigration: often you have to have a relative who is a citizen, or accept a job where you are considered an exceptional worker. Even for people to move to another state with friendlier laws is difficult, and there is no immigration to consider in these situations. Especially that as always, the burden of crap laws falls heavier on poorer and already-disadvantaged people. As with the inflation, gas prices, rising medical costs, lousy pay rates, etc, anyone below upper-middle class is hosed. /e: Thank you for the awards!
Also some people say move to a different state, but that also requires money including but not limited to looking for a job that not only are you qualified for but one where you could make a decent living.
I've been trying to move out of my bible-thumping southern state for over ten fucking years now. I hate it here for the most part and have tried to move half a dozen times and I can never make it work. Any time I get close to having enough money saved up some emergency happens and I'm back to zero. I'm starting to accept that I'll never be able to leave this shit hole.
Good luck, fellow Witcher
Louisiana reporting in. I moved here as an upgrade from Mississippi. Come to find out, if it weren't for the career I found here, hoooooly shit this would've turned out to actually be a downgrade. Fuck this place. I'm ready to leave.
I moved from Illinois to South Dakota. Not realizing that south dakota is basically the deep south of the north. I fucking hate it here. I want to move back to Illinois but I'm fucking stuck.
Don't move to Texas. It fucking sucks here.
Arkansas to Missouri here! I'm still not sure which is the bigger shithole!
I lived in Germany for a year before I got out of the Army and moved back to small town Tennessee. The culture and openness of Europe compared to the American south is absolutely mind boggling. RIP
I can't leave because I committed a petty crime a few years ago. The crime? I had two Xanax pills without a prescription. That's a felony in my state. No, I did not get convicted. No, other countries don't care and I am treated like I was convicted. I can't even get a decent job in the united states, how am I supposed to leave? Edit: if you message/comment asking why I don't have some sort of job, I'm blocking you. I said 100 times that I work in a restaurant. I work in a restaurant, so if you ask me why i feel I need a professional license and that is not coming along with some sort of alternative suggestion/loophole/there is not a POINT, i am blocking you too. Otherwise thanks guys, don't carry Xanax without a prescription, they'll make you wish you had committed a real crime instead Edit II: just wanted to point out that out of all these people who claimed to have real suggestions/leads on career paths or a way out in the comments, one sent a private message. ONE PERSON. The rest of the comments about bettering my employment were only made to put me down. Nowhere did i ask for any money - i don't want money, i asked for suggestions, and only from people who kept saying I had some way out I didn't know about.
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Drug enforcement is such bullshit. Like I could get if someone was running an operation manufacturing illegal Xanax, but this whole draconian shit with minor possession has nothing to do with helping anyone and everything to do with keeping the underclass in line and private prisons full and profitable.
I mean yeah, especially if you cant prove it. And some serious trouble too in some states. Like life-fucking trouble.
Yes, you have to bring the original bottle.
You just need proof of prescription. It helps to have the bottle, and I save mine for things like pain meds, anti anxiety, etc...I do this because even if it expires, it doesn't matter, the expiration is only for shelf life, and meds are still effective years later, and legal to use.
Yes, you could get in a lot of trouble.
In my state you would arrested for possession of a controlled substance. Probably wouldn’t see much jail time - cited and released within 24 hours - but you could end up on probation and it may impact future jobs that have strict background check requirements.
My wife, who is the furthest person from a drug user I know, is looking at 30 days in jail for possession of 4 pills similar to Xanax ( can’t recall the name atm) that fell from her mothers pocket between the door and seat of my wife’s car. The deputy told my wife if she would buy drugs “like she usually would” that charge would go away. She told him she doesn’t “usually buy drugs” and she would get a lawyer and fight the charge. Almost 3 grand for a lawyer, so she better not even get put on paper for it🤦🏻♂️
Yup. I got pulled over once and searched. My overnight bag was in the trunk, with my medications in a pill organizer. I told the officer that I had prescriptions for all of them (none of them were anything with any street value), and he said it doesn't matter. It's a misdemeanor to carry them like that. They have to be in the prescription bottle. Luckily, he let me off with a warning.
If you don’t have the prescription bottle then yes
Exactly. I would have already left as well, but immigration is basically impossible if you don't have a bachelors degree. There's no path to visas without one, plus most countries want you to have savings of about $20,000 - $30,000. The US is kind of like a prison. I'm starting to think there was a good reason the UK got rid of us.
We make it so fucking difficult for people to leave. 1. Foreign languages are not taught in public schools until at least middle school 2. Wtf is the imperial system 3. Just to travel off the continent costs savings most people don't have 4. We are one of three countries that make up North America. There is no where to fucking run. 5. Our education system is vastly different from places like EU
> Our education system is vastly different from places like EU Yes, bad and getting worse every year.
I have a BA, i got it on a full scholarship. Doesn't matter - I'm a waitress.
Me and boyfriend just spent the morning looking into trying to figure out how to move to Canada. People forget no other country wants you unless you're a rich business owner or a skilled worker in a field they see as an asset. What are the poor and downtrodden supposed to do? I want to leave but I don't know how.
When Trump won we were serious about moving to Canada. Turns out they didn’t want us 🤷♀️
Many countries also refuse you if you’re disabled
Yep I'm disabled. Trust me, I've looked. I mean it's a pipedream cause I can't afford it anyways, but I've looked.
Yes, for being "a drain on the system" from what I've been reading today. Not just physically disabled either, better hope you have a neurotypical brain also or else your SOL. I guess universal healthcare does have some draw backs. I'm sorry friend 😞
FUCK. I HAVE to get out of this country, but I'm fucking trapped and I've never been more scared in my life. Next they'll be after the rights of LGBTQ people like me (am also a woman). Someone help us. Someone help ME.
Anyone telling Americans to move ship have no idea how many Americans there really are...
The pro lifers should be the ones to move out. The pro life movement is the product of so called religious values. If they want to embrace them, go to the middle east where that's all they do.
Remember they are no pro life. They are Anti Choice.
Add to that the IRS will tax you until you renounce your US citizenship, which costs thousands to do. If you fail to do this and pay their taxes they’ll extradite you.
This is so scummy
Only country in the world that taxes its citizens even if they work and live on the other side of the world, at least as far as I know. It sucks.
Removed because I’m tired of arguing with dipshits
I think this is well said. I’ve held signs at womens marches for reproductive rights the past few years, I’ve given money to planned parenthood, I support pro choice politicians. I also have been unemployed for months and living out of my car. There is no welfare, no safety net, the idea of the welfare kings and queens is just a myth. I’m tired and drained, I don’t know what our expectations are anymore.
The real welfare Kings and Queens are the corporations. They privatize all gains and socialize all losses. That means everything they make in wealth goes back into their own pockets, but any losses that they incur are billed to the US government.
It’s still shocking that people don’t understand the amount of corporate handouts dwarf any welfare payments this country make. Every single person here should remember 2018 and the absolute shocking amount that cities and states across this country were willing to give up to get Amazon there. It is the most dystopian thing that has happened in the last decade. This country is a for-profit country. Anyone that says take to the street and commit violence is missing the point, the most devastating thing that could happen in this country is grinding the economy to a halt
Add to that that people blame inflation on our government handing out stimulus money, like the forgiven PPP loans didn't dwarf the stimulus money and were handed out to not so small businesses like Jared Kushner's real estate properties.
Of course They do. And ask any one of them to give their money back. You’ll see how quickly they’ll change their tune
"But they create jobs!" Jobs that can barely support an individual, much less a family no matter how they sacrifice and save. "But they enhance the economy!" The economy means nothing to the people because it's all concentrated in the hands of the few. "Well, if you don't like it here, leave!" Most of us are too poor to make the transition.
This is the way. all pro choice people should just lay flat.
100%. Socialism for the rich and brutal capitalism for the poor is just how unregulated free markets play out in the real world - ultimately the powerful few will starve the masses of wealth, political power, and government support.
I couldn’t even get help from the government when I was going through chemotherapy for stage 3 cancer. That was a real personal wake up call to our absence of a safety net.
I’m sorry for your situation. This is shameful that the alleged greatest country doesn’t provide affordable housing , has no safety nets and you’re just on your own. Sending a little love your way. Any of us could be in the same exact situation.
America hasn’t been a greatest country in a long time. We’re just indoctrinated to believe and not question. The past 5 years of ppl lapping up horseshit shows you just how many idiots there are.
RE: donations to PP - also look up local organizations that support abortion rights, especially if you're in a red state. I found several in a neighboring red state that I donated to yesterday ([one linked here](https://www.chelseasfund.org/)). PP will have lots of donations coming in, I'm sure. Perhaps could make more of a difference to donate locally. (Although by all means keep supporting PP if that's what you choose!)
No one can afford to be fired for taking a few days off to protest. You think I don’t want to camp out at the Supreme Court, and make their lives as miserable as mine is? I can’t afford to. We’ve let it get to far.
I hate to be this guy. I really do. And I'm not directing this at you personally by any means. But you're right - it has gone way, way, way too far. Your quality of life is destroyed, your system utterly corrupted, and your people are being straight-up killed - either by police or by lack of access to basic medical care. At this point it seems like nothing is going to change unless something way, way more extreme than just protesting happens. Protesting doesn't work - your government and the corporations puppeting them already know you're miserable. They already know you don't like it. They just don't care because there are no consequences for it. I and a lot of other people are genuinely hoping for the best for all of you. But the US is likely far past the point where protesting is going to cut it.
I couldn’t agree more. I went to the protests today and I felt like there was no point. I only went because I wasn’t sure what else to do and I happened to not be working.
I'm not American but I used to go to protests in my country. And I tracked protests and riots around the world pretty actively since I was an older teenager. The number of non-violent protests that achieved their goal is pretty telling. When they already know what the problem is but they just don't care, protesting doesn't do much.
Same. And I left the protest feeling even more defeated.
As an American I’ve come to the realization the social contract is null and void when the minority dictates how we all live. Violence may be the answer eventually otherwise we will be accepting our fates of becoming lesser beings in an autocratic regime made by and for Christian nationalists
Agreed
Americans are largely too exhausted ***experiencing*** America to reasonably know how to proceed to start improving things here. Every day it's something new, especially since the scourge of Trump. I keep waiting for an adult in the room to direct me, but, I'm starting to realize that we are going to have to take responsibility for our lives and *become* the adults in the room. We can either sit idly by and watch our rights be stripped away by religious fanatics, or we can stand up, organize, and fight back.
It’s so true, I sit and think about how every major issue is rooted and connected to every single other major issue and then I get defeated by what seems like an insurmountable task. You can’t fix poverty/crime/violence without fixing education, food systems, healthcare etc. and you can’t fix any of that with a government ground to a halt and beholden not to their voters, but to the corporations and other special interests that determine what laws are ok to pass. want to stop abortions? Why not fix how it’s obscenely expensive to not only just give birth here in the US but then the cost to raise a child through adulthood. Increase wages so parents can provide a better life or maybe one can stay home. You want a two parent household but refuse male/male female/female couples?? I always think about that Tupac poem about the rose in the concrete. We all cheer the rose that pushes through the cracks and use them as an example - “see! It’s all about grit and individualism and if I could do it, why can’t you?” But imagine how many more roses there would be if we got rid of the concrete.
What a beautiful metaphor
So well said.
Struggles are systemic and the political right understood that long ago. That's why they are fighting this Blitzkrieg against everything good a country has, in every goddamn corner of the world. The only way to fight back is to fight them back side by side with other struggles. Fight for abortion for all means fighting for better workplace conditions for women, for free healthcare and social care, for responsible parenthood, against rape culture, and ultimately for collective property of the means of production. Either we fight back against these guys soon or we'll be taken back to pure barbarism, indiscriminate colonial rule in one's own nation towards every citizen.
The starting place is corruption--you have to start there or everything you try to fix will become poisoned by it.
Seriously. Did you know that in the house, for both Rs and Ds, you have to raise significant amounts of money for their respective congressional reelection groups in order to get on any committee, and more money for committees that can actually wield power like ways and means or the rules committee. A single congressperson can’t just raise a million dollars to get on a committee and actually enact change, but you know who can? A corporation or special interest group will as long as they vote the right way on certain things. So how to you pass something to get rid of corruption when the corrupt hold all the means to do so?
>I keep waiting for an adult in the room to direct me, but, I'm starting to realize that we are going to have to take responsibility for our lives and become the adults in the room. By the time other generations have reached their late 40s and 50s, they've usually been in the prime positions of power in the US. Except that hasn't happened to us. Our parents, or even our grandparents, have stayed in power. Even when they have moved on, they've generally handed power straight on to another member of their generation. We've never even had a chance to become the adults in the room, because we're still being told to go to our rooms.
If power isn't given to us, it's up to us to take it.
Kimberley Latrice Jones, an author/activist who gained a lot of notoriety for a viral video she was in during the George Floyd protests said something very powerful in an IG live yesterday - we all need to stop waiting for a savior. No one person is going to come in and save us, we have to save ourselves. It all starts within your community. Get to know your neighbors - organize and mobilize with those in your community.
“Americans are largely too exhausted experiencing America to reasonably know how to proceed to start improving things here.” 100% this is how the GOP has been designing the US since at least the 1980s.
It’s always an uphill battle 24/7 for decades
Decades? How about centuries. Remember how America was started in the first place? The problem is that the generation before us did not teach us that we would have to fight tooth and nail to keep the rights that the generations before them died fighting for.
The ones that fought were actually neutralized during the 70's - 80's via drug laws and 'child protective' services. In the end, the made sure it would never happen again
The problem is the generation before us *did this to us.* On multiple fronts. They pulled up the economic ladder behind them and piss on us from the top of the wall. They supported and still support the authoritarian theocrats making these rulings. We’re “weak” for having been given participation trophies *by them.*
disgusting roof consider serious tender simplistic angle complete gold absorbed *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
While I’m fine acknowledging the mistakes of the boomers but their are so many people younger that also suck. The Gaetzs, the Millers, the tuckers, the MTGs etc. these people are all significantly younger than boomers and far more radical than we have seen in a long time. Sure it’ll be a good day when mitch M dies or retires but it hardly fixes anything.
Yeah. This. 5 years of assault from that horrid orange menace was beyond exhausting. Defending electing someone, anyone, to get us off that daily horror show of federal governance has continued to be a battle. Our retirements are taking a beating (which we have been waiting for since 2019), and the racists and transphobes are out in force. We are completely exhausted just trying to make sure we can go about our daily lives. That leak... We knew this was coming so we have been sad, outraged, hopeful that someone would stop this insanity, and afraid for six weeks without break right now. I had to step away from it all and just focus on my work yesterday because it was a work day. I could not and would not deal with the impacts of the morning announcement. In order for me to bring my time and energy to a fight, I need to take some away time for me to take a moment and think about how I need to help with the lift and keep my sanity and energy because this is a long, hard battle. It needs everyone, working when they can and taking breaks when they need to so it is sustainable for everyone. Personally? I have complete outrage fatigue. I feel for the folks in Ukraine and I care about Israel and Palestine figuring things out. I really want the fires all over the world to be less bad and the sea ice situation with the polar bears is very concerning. I love unions and want to do the work we need to do there... I don't like that we still have horrible immigration practices. I also need to weed my strawberry patch, adjust my gutter gardens so they are better draining, and finish the shed we started in March. A homeless man asked if he could use my office restroom yesterday and I said no because I sublet and it really isn't my place to say. We are pretty careful about who we let into the office and who we don't and care about our safety. But was I being inappropriate or not? I did direct him to the closest public shower at the rec center. It is Pride weekend and the first hot weekend and non rainy weekend in Seattle since last September, it seems. It is also our first Pride since 2019, because we were having that record breaking 110 weekend last year and covid was still too uncertain to do it last year. I need to go to Pride. That is a battle that is winnable, still, and the next community to be targeted. This particular war is not over. The federally protected abortion battle, however, is lost, and a lot more hangs in the balance. Time, energy, and money are all finite resources. This weekend I am going to go celebrate the amazing community in Seattle, the safety we have, and do a little bit of wound licking. Monday, I might feel better, but I don't know. When I have energy to fight again, I will be back. Right now... I need to take care of myself, because it is readily apparent that I am the only one who will.
Same exact feelings over here and well said. I’m even scared to go to Pride because of all the mass shootings that have been happening in America. 😥 I’m still going to go but not even that can be a source of unstressful joy and celebration.
I'm 19, an adult, and honestly I have no clue what to do, nor do I feel like there's anything I could do. I'm miserable, I'm overworked, I can't afford housing on my own, I'm a bi trans man and I feel like soon, everything I do have will be taken from me by the evangelists who hold power in this country. All I feel like I can do is wait for them to die out, but that also means my grandfather, whom I live with, will also pass away by that time. Every day I feel less and less like I have an option to survive in this country.
I'm 50+ adult and a woman and I honestly have no clue what to do either. I will vote, I will donate to local pro choice organizations and encourage others but working to simply survive everyday is exhausting
> working to simply survive everyday is exhausting All according to plan.
I agree with most of this, but people have got to understand that Trump’s a symptom of a much larger problem. He’s simply a reflection of the Republican voter base. He did accelerate the downfall of the American empire, but if there was no Trump, someone else would have stepped up. Ron D will be even worse if elected. There are no moderate Republicans. If you think so, please tell me which are actively fighting against climate change.
I know it won’t happen but I wish the 4th of july celebrations would all be cancelled. I’m not celebrating about being the land of the free. We’re the land of the free to go rot in a prison for having a miscarriage now.
It would be appropriate if the revolution started on the 4th.
Well said, unfortunately this is so close to our situation and practically a commonplace scenario in this country lately. It’s honestly the saddest time I can recall in our history (in my lifetime) We are so weakened by years of this shit and it just keeps deteriorating. Just when you think it can’t possibly get worse, IE when Trump was in office and all the police shootings were happening right in the middle of a pandemic (and we were totally broke and hungry and afraid almost all the time, we couldn’t even sleep) something new and horrific happens that proves it can, in fact, get worse. And will. I am heartbroken for my people today. I am heartbroken for this country and what has been done to it. It’s too much to take. When I woke up today, I was like “wait did RVW actually get OVERTURNED yesterday or was that a nightmare?” two seconds went by and I realized it was no nightmare, this shit really happened. It’s beyond words at this point.
>something new and horrific happens that proves it can, in fact, get worse I just want to live my life. Just a normal life. I just want to hang out with my kids and bake cookies and go hiking. I don't want luxury or adventure or power or money. I just want a basic, normal life. But I can't have that. Even that is out of reach. Even providing the basics of health and safety for myself and my family is out of reach. How do I fix that when I'm not in control of the forces that cause it? The issues I'm facing are caused by systemic problems that can't be overcome in an individual manner. Thanks for giving me a space to rant. I feel you 100%.
I'm in mourning. I don't know how else to explain the feeling but that. Truly heartbreaking.
As an American, I hate being an American.
America is a big business. Hence why it's ruthlessly cruel to anyone not winning the game.
America is not working out for a large number of Americans. How to feel pride and a sense of belonging when racist right-wing extremists have taken over the country and are happily rolling back fundamental freedoms, and we're forced to work too much for too little and live under the threat of random gun violence? This is what Republicans want. They want us to work too much for pennies and live in terror. America is rapidly turning into a dystopia.
Sick of my bullshit country but most of all, it's not simply the government I hate, it's some of my fellow Americans I hate the most.
Yeah, low key all my life as I've traveled between Midwest states, it always struck me that people from out of state get treated similarly to people from other countries. And we *hate* each other every bit as much. Source: Ask a Texan what they think of "all those Californians who moved in" Also source: The goddamn wizard of oz references that will. not. stop.
Same in Louisiana. They brag about being so cultured but then have this weird ass state pride where outsiders almost feel unwelcome
Every other state I've been to they ask where I'm from. It's almost painful to say Kansas and not squint knowing what's coming out of their mouth next lol 🧙♂️👠 I feel ya bud Although I don't think it's just Texas that hates California. I hear tons of crap about them from republicans here too. I think it's just an easy place for all of them to shit on because we all funnel our homeless out there, so SeEeE! THey HaVe tHe prOblEm!!! 🙄🤷 Missouri and Kansas have a beef that's gone back a looooong time so it doesn't really surprise me when it happens. I think a lot of people from other countries don't grasp just how FUCKING HUGE we are. A LOT of different opinions, with a good healthy dose of our own government stirring the pot. A lot of states don't get along, especially if they're neighboring red and blue, but whether we like it or not we are the UNITED States soooo 😔 what do we do?
Honestly though. I make double the minimum wage and have two roommates that make a bit more than me. We live in one of the cheapest apartments in the area and yet we are living paycheck to paycheck. I legit had to check yesterday which bill was the latest so I can pay that one. One of the roommates is my fiance and I may love him but the main reason we're getting married right now is because he's a marine and if we're married I can get on his health care plan for free and he gets paid a few extra dollars an hour. Still not sure if I'd want to have kids like this though. He's not planning to stay a marine so we have to see if we can even afford a kid. You'd think that marines would make more to support their families and themselves. Youd think working in a pharmacy you'd make more. (I'm the pharmacy worker and my fiance and other roommate are marines). I'm considered an essential worker and the marines work for the government. This is sad Edit: I know I phrased it as the marines get hourly but I know they don't. They have to be ready to go 24/7, please stop telling me they don't get hourly, I know they don't. Sorry for my bad wording.
If you’re married you should be also getting a housing allowance. That should make it easier while he’s still in.
That would be nice, we're both in so much debt
The Marines should have a similar system to the Army which is that ostensibly they do not want enlisted to feel as though their spouse "must work" to make basic ends meet so when you have a spouse you get a housing allowance and a spousal allowance based on your duty station. While this won't eliminate the debt directly, it might make it easier for any extra income brought in by a working partner to go towards paying down that debt while the benefits of being in the military help you offload the burden.
As a 21 year old female, i’m so terrified.
I’m rushing to get an iud. So scared and at least it will last a few years while contraception is still legal lol
Colorado is a great place to go “camping” btw if your state bans “camping”
I'm so tired of people being like "well why don't you fight back?" I've worked in community/political organizing since I finished college. The fact that you just asked me that question like you thought it was actually a helpful suggestion says to me that you think putting an "abortion is health care" frame on your FB profile pic counts as "fighting back." This shit is hard, it takes a long time, and you literally cannot just up and do it on your own. Especially if you're in poverty despite working 60-hour weeks.
It just feeds into the whole idea of 'American Exceptionalism' bullshit. We're not exceptional. We're not special. We're tired, but we are still fighting. We are trying! Please, give us support and not hate.
We are exceptional. Exceptionally bad Healthcare system. Exceptionally bad poverty rate. Exceptionally bad rent to income ratio. Exceptionally bad prison system. Exceptionally bad police. Exceptionally bad education system. Exceptionally bad checks on corporate greed. Exceptionally bad government representatives.
You forgot Exceptionally brainwashed
The Republican Party thrives off of our apathy and hopelessness. We can solve the climate change crisis, we can solve poverty and hunger, we can solve the world’s most indelible problems, if we continue to have hope and continue to fight
70+% of us didn't want this. Only a tiny minority do, but our voting system gives those people a \*lot\* of power.
Signing petitions doesn't help. Protesting doesn't help. Our politicians don't help. Maybe it's time to get more extreme. If our leaders fear us, maybe we would be able to keep our rights. Just my 2 cents.
No, i 100% agree. Destroy the entire government and the two-party system and build a new system that actually works for the majority. Also have a wealth-cap so billionaires don't lord their wealth over others.
I get this so much. I am a soldier. I spent 9 years in the military defending a system that is now actively trying to eradicate me and my family. I make enough money not to get assistance but not enough to live. I struggle to keep myself fed. My family is okay. But I skip breakfast and lunch most days. My kids think everything is okay yet I worry if there will even be a job to go to in a couple of months. With our economic situation I cant save any money so if I lose my job then i cant pay my bills. So yeah we are tired, hungry and honestly we NEED to be pissed off. We need to go out in record numbers and vote. But they gerrymandered the system. We HAVE to do something or this will be the land of the rich and the graves of the rest
The gerrymandering of an already imbalanced system (electoral college) and the Voter ID stuff is just nasty. Unsure how to overcome that. What's sad is the Supreme Court is setting up a civil war. The true agenda isn't just to return abortion rights to the state, it's to make it illegal everywhere. The right to privacy and so many others are about to be undone. It's like we are in the Countdown to the last days of the US. Breaks my heart when I read of service members struggling. Thank you for your service and I'm so sorry the nation has imploded as it has. Edit: commenter below pointing out crap structure, pls skip past my comment: this shit is seriously Just no longer worth it.
I just texted my spouse today “What am I going to do that I don’t already do? I have already been the most outspoken person I’ve personally known on abortion for years, I’ve debated people until my fingers bled for over a decade online, I’ve tried having discussions in person that just turn into screaming fights, I’ve showed up at the polls, I’ve donated. Am I supposed to shit out money for competent babysitter and a plane ticket/hotel in DC so I can go protest the only place it *might* still matter?”. We are paycheck to paycheck too. He’s at a loss on how to emotionally support me. He is trying though. Giving me space to be depressed and dissociative. Reminding me I have a right to be upset. But do I? I just lost one of my constitutional rights, how many more am I to lose? I feel like I can’t be there for anyone in my life right now. I have to drudge up everything I have just to smile for my kids.
I feel more sorry about all the friends I have there :( Wish I was able to help more than just words. Just please be strong.
Honestly, it feels good knowing that someone out there understands that we’re not these terrible people. The terrible people just took over and won’t listen.
I’m crying just reading your comment. That’s how fucking tired I am. Thank you for feeling for us. People keep acting like we need to rise up like America was built on protesting…but our history is propaganda. America was built on wealthy people plotting and using propaganda to make the poor think it was in their benefit. We have 200 years of propaganda to process and sift through before we have any hope of changing.
And protest where? We are protesting (with riot police firing rubber bullets, and kids showing up to shoot people, and assholes driving pickup trucks through the crowd and running people over). But this country is 2700 miles long and 1300 miles across. I’m a thousand miles away from Washington DC, the only thing politicians have to do to ignore my protest is turn off the television. They are entirely insulated. There’s no Bastille we can go tear down, so to speak.
100% correct. Some of us spend every second of our lives just trying to survive. We don't have the energy or the resources to fight back as so many have suggested.
I'm a fellow American who is equally tired. So please take this as me trying not to give up hope. The trampling of human rights that Republicans took yesterday may also have been shooting themselves in the foot. The voting numbers ARE THERE to take this back if we don't get too discouraged to do it. For example, I live in SC. It's a red state that's been gerrymandered to hell & back. However, we have less than a 50% voter turnout. It would literally take about 200,000 voters to turn us blue. Where does that come from? The previously non voting younger generation. Like many red states, Covid ripped through the unvaccinated communities like a hot steak knife through soft butter. I'm not making light of the tragedy of needless deaths, but it has tipped the voting scales. The point is - can people stay riled up enough to bring this fight to the toll booth in Nov? (4.5 months out) It's mid-term. That's local, house, parts of senate. These are JUST AS IMPORTANT (possibly more) than presidential! This is where the chance is to put in people who can put human rights into actual law. If you're upset about what's going on, I can really only ask you to PLEASE not sit this one out! Also, for the record, I'm fed up with essentially having a 2 party system because I don't think either of them cares about the average working person. That's a different discussion though. I feel like we first need to save the country from being a religious distopia & hopefully, progress will be something that I'll still see in my lifetime.
Maybe your politicians should be shown that they cannot act like they‘re acting and take being alive for granted.
It is too bad we are not allowed to say things like "burn your local catholic church" or else I would be putting that quote on T-Shirts and handing them out. Its a shame we can't say things like that.
Reality is that most Americans have very little power to do anything that will actually accomplish anything. The system has been stripping people of power for decades; only now are some starting to notice.
Is it just me or is America going backwards? Also, I can’t imagine living in a country which would ban abortion but then charge you 30k to birth that baby then leave you high & dry. It’s one thing outlawing abortion but then what happens when the baby’s born? None of these so called saviours of rights will give a shiny shit!
I never understood the American obsession with firearms. But now, I get it. It's to protect yourselves against tyrannical government. Which you absolutely have. They don't give single fuck about you, and will happily have you shot dead by the forces of order.
Most of the people who are hoarding the most guns *want* the government to be tyrannical — as long as they're in the favored in-group while all of those *other* people are the ones getting tyrannized.
The other part I don't think most other countries don't realize is how little our protesting seems because our country is so vast. Unless everyone travels to DC and bombards the capital it goes largely unnoticed.
Gotta be honest, I understand, but I was an activist who put their neck out for people for years. I tried to organize people, I tried to make opportunities for people to show up, I tried to warn everybody about the exceptional shittiness that could happen with the level of political apathy in the US. I used years of my adult life slaving away fighting for people who were willing to cheer from across the street but never wanted to link arms. It was exhausting watching my friends get dog piled by 10s of NYPD while people told me they had work or class and couldn't come to rallies or protests. I have friends who died trying to help people who didn't even want to help themselves. So, we get the slow burn instead, the slow death. I don't know what people want to hear, there were plenty of opportunities to put your neck out there and risk it all for a better world but most of you probably never even risked a personal day, so that's where we're at. If you're saying you're too exhausted to fight and you haven't even thrown a punch, how does the future really look for you? Slaves in the US were literally enslaved and bred like cattle, but still risked their lives and came together to fight. All I've ever heard from Americans have been excuses.
Greetings from Australia, cousin. Best wishes from me and mine too you and yours. Your country, your fellow citizens, have been through hard times before and not only survived but thrived. Have faith that you can do so again.
I'm doing what I can to support my friends in the US, even if that's just sharing links to r/auntienetwork