"At least 27 children have died because of dehydration and malnutrition in the Northern Gaza Strip. These tragic and horrific deaths are man-made, predictable and entirely preventable." -UNRWA

Important update! Please read!

First, we want to once again deeply thank everyone again for donating to and sharing the campaign to help @moatazart, Mariam, and Maria evacuate Gaza for Egypt! They were able to transfer the money they raised into Egypt and begin the required paperwork!

Unfortunately, complications have arisen

The original sum ($20,000) included the cost of traveling to and entering Egypt for all three of them, as well as basic expenses required for starting a new life in a new country. In numbers, that is ($5,000•3 people)+$5,000=$20,000.

However, the cost of transferring the money was more than 20% of the initial sum, over $4,000. This was so high that nearly all of the money alotted for living expenses is now gone. Their paperwork is started and they are preparing for the dangerous journey south, but as of right now, they have nothing to live off of once they reach Egypt (God willing).

It is frustrating and disappointing that it costs an additional +20% just to begin the process of reaching safety. Now, Moataz, Mariam, and Maria are in need of $4,000 in order to be able to have a place to stay and money for food in Egypt. The goal of this fund is $5,000 because it is now known that 20-25% of funds transferred will be lost to fees. $1,000 will go toward these fees, while $4,000 will cover living expenses.

Please help this family rebuild their lives! If you cannot donate, please reblog Moataz’s post and this post, repost the fundraiser link on your own blogs, and on your other social media accounts.

Thank you all❤️

Just hours before the start of Eid al-Fitr celebrations, while children anxiously awaited the morning festivities, the Israeli army massacred the Abu Yousef family in the Nuseirat central Gaza Strip , resulting in the killing of at least 13 civilians most of them children.

Hey guys, I know there are a lot of really severe tragedies in the world right now and I in no way desire to push those aside, nor do I really want to load another thing onto people's plates, but anyone here in the US needs to be aware that on March 11, 2024, an agricultural company known as NEW Cooperative spilled 265,000 gallons (1500 tons) of liquid nitrogen into the East Nishnabotna River. This is the ecological equivalent of dropping a nuclear weapon into the river. Over a 60 mile stretch downstream of the spill its been a near total ecological wipeout for the river. So far, an estimate of 850,000 fish have been killed from this spill, and that's to say nothing for the insects, amphibians, reptiles and birds that relied on or lived in this river. It is literally filled with animal corpses. This river flows into the Missouri River and the impacts will likely continue to spread far past this 60 mile stretch. And this disaster has barely made local tv in Iowa, let alone national tv, despite the fact that 60 miles of river ecosystem were just wiped out in a way that may be impossible to recover from. And what's the punishment for this heinous act of destruction through negligence, you might ask? As it stands, its looking like a 6k fine from the DNR to the company. Not 600k. Not 60k. 6000 dollars. The maximum fine that the DNR can charge in Iowa is 10k unless they decide to take it further in court. That's why these spills are so frequent in Iowa: it's literally cheaper to eat the fines than it is to bother properly storing fertilizer. I don't know exactly what the proper course of action is here, or who needs to be contacted to enact change--I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable than me will chime in with that information--but at the very least, every one of us should know. Every one of us should make sure we don't forget this. And every one of us should blacklist NEW Cooperative fertilizer unilaterally.

Sources:

okay, if you have ever made or reblogged a “hold your nose and vote for biden” post, this is for you.

here’s the fucking thing about these kinds of posts. i've been seeing them since i first returned to tumblr in, I think, late 2022? they've certainly increased in frequency since october 7, but they were there before too, ready to counter any kind of opposition to biden that has cropped up. many of them are not just trying to educate people about what positive things biden has done, which, like, at least I can understand the motivation behind those ones? but so many of them are directly in response to people criticizing biden, and their only real point is “sure you’re upset at this thing biden did, but have you considered the election?” starting YEARS before the next presidential election, mind you.

and october 7 only made that clearer. i don’t think it had been a week before i saw these posts cropping up. can you not see how fucking ghoulish that is? to look at the rightful pain and anger of those whose relatives and communities are being slaughtered with active american support, to respond to one of the few pieces of agency most americans have in influencing what their governments do – their vote – by saying “yes but trump would be worse.” as if the primary people you’re lecturing – palestinians, muslims, arabs, black people, indigenous people, disabled people, other marginalized people – don’t remember exactly how bad it was under trump!

and even if you think not voting is an empty gesture – something i, who studied political science at a mainstream american lib college, who has worked as a field organizer on a previous democratic presidential campaign and for several policy campaigns, who currently works in public policy in america, used to believe, but have absolutely changed my mind on – what is in no way an empty gesture is saying publicly that you will not vote for someone. the arguments people usually have about why simply not voting is bad are that you can’t tell why someone is not voting, so it is as likely to be apathy or disenfranchisement as it is a political statement. but saying publicly that you will not vote for someone, and why you will not vote for them, absolutely is a political statement, and potentially a powerful one! but you choose to negate and/or ignore that by trotting out the “lesser of two evils” bullshit.

and then there’s the whole “yes but people will DIE under trump”. PEOPLE ARE DYING NOW. even if you’re fucking racist and have decided that palestinian lives don’t count, have you forgotten biden’s ongoing covid minimalism and dismantling of the CDC’s covid research and prevention infrastructure? have you forgotten his increase in spending for law enforcement scant years after the murder of george floyd? have you forgotten his recent ramp-up in deportations of undocumented immigrants, including the active continuation of many trump-era policies?

maybe you have forgotten all those things and do purport to care about palestinians, but you just think that biden is doing his best to influence netanyahu and is getting nowhere! but then you must have forgotten all of the things that biden and his administration themselves have done to further this fucking genocide, including:

or maybe you haven’t forgotten any of that, and think that you’re still justified in lecturing people about why they should vote for biden, because you genuinely believe trump would still be worse. if that is the case, you have still failed to see that by saying you will vote for biden no matter what, you are part of the problem of biden continuing to act like this. because biden is counting on fear of trump to win him this next election no matter what else he does. despite his appalling polling numbers, despite the knowledge that he is losing the palestinian-american vote, the arab-american vote, the muslim-american vote, the black american vote, the youth vote – despite all of that, he is secure in the idea that he will still win because he is better than trump. can you not see how that allows him to act without impunity? how it becomes increasingly impossible for his base to influence what he’s doing if he thinks that they will be with him no matter what? this is how you make yourself cabsomplicit to biden’s actions, by not affording anyone even the slightest power to hold him accountable for anything.

and in most cases, the “hold your nose and vote for biden” thing is the response of people who aren’t even being instructed by others not to vote for biden. it is their response to people saying they themselves are choosing not to vote for biden. fucking ghoulish.

I reblog a lot of vote blue content so I feel like I should put the other side here, but I do think its important to consider that what motivates people to reblog those kinds of posts is terror. The 2016 election of Donald Trump was terrifying. We lost the federal right to protected abortion and we have a very right-leaning Supreme Court. It empowered the right and right wing state governments. Trump tried as hard as possible to overturn the results of a legitimate election, which should terrify anyone, and has promised to undermine democracy as much as possible if elected.

There are no other candidates. The primaries have literally begun. If there was some other candidate who had even a chance, you would know their name. It would be on everyone's lips. There would have to be a vast, unbelievable swell of support. So your choices are Biden or Trump.

I'm not so sure that Biden is certain of his win as OP seems to think, either, just because he's against Trump. There is a tendency on Tumblr to treat the opinions here as the most popular opinions, but unfortunately, there are moderate Democrats who support Israel to greater or lesser extents (https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/20/politics/polling-democrats-divided-israel-palestine/index.html). That is how a coalition works--Tumblr tends to represent the far left, which is not enough to carry an election (even less if they don't actually vote). Biden has to appeal to a much broader group. I want to be clear, that does not make his actions ethical--the situation in Palestine is fucking horrible and Biden is a much more pro-Israel president than I would prefer. But we do have to acknowledge that 'the base' is not comprised of just the opinions we see and agree with and there is a much larger group of people whose votes are needed to elect a president.

That being said, as far as activism goes, it is obviously much more valuable to try to find ways to empower people to vote, like giving rides to polls or staffing a polling station, than reblogging haranguing and lecturing posts on tumblr.com. But I think people are just terrified and often essentially reblogging those posts because they feel desperate or upset and are trying to alleviate that feeling, more than change behavior.

are you kidding? i write a post about how much people are currently suffering under biden and are trying to influence change, and your response is “well people are terrified of trump”? it sure must be nice to be so insulated from the impacts of what biden’s doing that they don’t have to be terrified now! i guess they don’t have to be terrified about their loved ones being killed by israel or u.s. air strikes, or being murdered by police, or being separated from their families and deported, or of being disabled or dying from covid? cool.

when i referred to biden’s base, i wasn’t talking about tumblr. i was talking about democrats. the poll you linked to was from last november, when democratic support for israel was highest in the immediate wake of al-aqsa flood. here’s a more recent poll from february showing that:

want more data?  here’s a poll from january showing that likely voters are substantially more likely to back candidates for congress if those candidates support a ceasefire, including 51% of voters overall, 61% of democrats, and 52% of independents. and a poll of michigan voters (a key swing state that biden won in 2020 after trump had taken it in 2016, where biden is trailing trump in the polls) published just this week which showed that 53% of all michigan voters are supportive of a ceasefire, including 74% of democrats and 64% of independents – and of those supportive of a ceasefire, only 57% supported biden’s reelection, which, though a majority, is not a great number given that this is primarily democrats.

when I talk about biden’s base being upset about his response to the genocide, i mean the arab-american voters he has alienated in these key states like michigan. i mean black voters who disapprove of the genocide and stand in solidarity with palestinians. i mean voters in the 70 cities, primarily in democratic and swing states, that have passed ceasefire resolutions. i mean young voters who supported him in 2020 over climate change, but who both see palestine as a climate justice issue and are angry about his approval of more oil and gas drilling projects than trump. i mean his own campaign staff.

“well it’s an election year and now there’s no other candidates” is a convenient thing to say when democrats never seriously considered any challengers over the last few years and put their full support behind biden, despite knowing that he was failing on so many of his campaign promises and continuing many key trump-era policies. in fact, it’s not just the last few years: I mentioned 2022 because i think that’s when i came back to tumblr (i cannot exactly remember, because I have long covid and it has impacted my memory), so that’s where I’ve seen the “hold your nose and vote” rhetoric being circulated here. but for years, even under the obama administration, the mainstream democratic response to any criticism of democrats has been to blame the republicans and say “just vote blue in the next election”. even in response to actions that democrats themselves have had control over!

you can’t sustain a political party on “you don’t like what we’re doing? just vote for more of us!” that should be obvious, but apparently it’s not to the democratic party.

voters, on the other hand, have been clear for years that they don’t want biden to run for reelection – including democrats. even just a quick google found that in july 2022, 75% of democrats and democratic-leaning voters wanted the party to nominate someone other than biden; in september 2022, 72% of americans did not want him to run again; in february 2023, only 22% of americans and 37% of democrats said biden should run again; and in september 2023, 67% of democrats and likely democrats wanted the party to nominate someone else. in fact, if you had clicked through to the poll cited in the cnn article that you linked, you would see that in november 2023, 58% of democrats still wanted other candidates to enter the race, as well as 72% of independents.

democrats have known that biden is not popular for long enough to do something about it. and biden has known that his actions – including! fueling! a genocide! – are not popular. yet they are still counting on opposition to trump to help them win, and the “hold your note and vote for biden” posts are reinforcing and legitimating that fucked up strategy.

i understand the terror of trump – i feel it too. but if you are lucky enough to not have to feel terror about what biden is doing right now, then it’s your responsibility to feel it privately, rather than using it to respond to any criticism of biden coming from people who are being harmed by an active genocide. for fuck’s sake.

If there's anyone still not convinced that the zionist occupation is committing a genocide, I don't care to convince them, I only care to get rid of them. They're not a potential ally, they're only an obstacle to liberation.

They're a fascist who's already decided the lives of 30,000-200,000 Palestinians - including the lives of 15 of my extended family members and many family members of half my Palestinian friends - are a price worth paying to continue the status quo. I owe these genocidal, bloodthirsty, subhuman parasites nothing. Do not even consider them an individual worth talking to. If there's 1 nazi talking at a table with 10 other people, there's 11 nazis at that table. Remember that.

i wanted to show everyone my favorite tiktok

the creator of this tiktok, zainah.mb, has many family members in palestine who have been martyred. at least 37, in fact. if you would like to help her out financially, she runs a hijab shop called modest behavior, and sells sister minnie merch. here's a link to her paypal as well.

as far as i know, she doesn't live in palestine, but she is palestinian. consider supporting her

You can donate to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund for as little as $1.00.

There is a fee you can choose to apply to cover processing.

Which if you choose to do leaves you with a total of ~$1.35 (USD) depending on the type of card you have.

PCRF has a score of 97% on Charity Navigator.

Adults and children alike are currently dying in Palestine due to starvation. (World Health Organization Link)

The Gaza Strip is one of two places in the entire world that is categorized as Phase 5 (the highest phase) on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification scale.

So even if you think it isn't enough, remember that donating even as little as $1.35 helps! It's $1.35 they wouldn't have had otherwise. So donate if you can. 🇵🇸

Since the minimum is so low, this is a great place to put the last of a prepaid card, don't just give it back to the card company by tossing it with money still on it! Even a dollar can do good!

Raids in the West Bank are a periodic thing, just poorly documented. Yesterday an Israeli sniper killed a Palestinian who was filming an Israeli raid from his rooftop. The West Bank is far from being exempt from Israel’s terror. Countless people are still detained, healthcare workers included.

Also—predictably—nothing of substance came the Central World Kitchen massacre, despite all the headlines and posturing. Israel fired two officers and reprimanded 6 for their “fatal errors,” but no criminal trials were held and no one was jailed. Reasoning for this fatal judgment? They thought the convoy was Hamas.

Yesterday was Palestinian Children’s Day. By that day Israel has killed 14k+ children, 117 of whom were in the West Bank. 30% of children under 2 are acutely malnourished. 200 children held captive by Israel. 17k+ unaccompanied or separated from their families.

I’d just like to top all this off with this quote, taken directly from Israel’s defense minister at the very start of this genocide. We don’t need to read between the lines to determine what their end goal is, if that hasn’t been made clear. They have always told us, and they continue to tell us outright.

Not even periodic. Since 2020 they've been daily, and most days they've been happening in multiple cities or villages at once PER DAY. I spent years documenting this on my blog.

[ID: a tweet from The Cradle @ TheCradleMedia reading:

Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant:

"I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly."

the tweet contains a picture of Yoav Gallant. end ID]

My local queer bookstore is being threatened with eviction over their free narcan and fentanyl test strips, free store for the unhoused, and free narcan trainings.

Bluestockings is an incredible worker-owned community space that has been apart of the Lower East Side for 25 years. But in the last couple years, they've faced increasing harassment from the wealthier neighbors moving in and complaining about the presence of unhoused people around their store front. Despite all their community work being allowed by their lease, the landlord is pushing for an eviction.

Please help support Bluestockings! Visit them (if you're local), order books online, donate! We need more queer and community-oriented spaces, not another overpriced coffee shop or chain franchise.

So remember me? My bank account is going to go into the red tomorrow, and I don’t get paid until Friday. My bank is going to add on $30 every day I don’t square up, so I’m about to throw up from stress 💖 please buy a cup or mug.

A mug is a cup with a handle, a cup is a mug without a handle.

Free shipping within the USA, I’ll go halfsies on folks out of the USA. I’ve shipped to Serbia and the Netherlands before, it’s not too bad.

I’ll give anyone ordering more than one piece a discount.

I also have planters, but they’ll be a little more expensive due to size and weight.

Please dm me for interest!

Update for new mugs! Fresh out of the kiln as of this morning!

i'm not rlly sorry for not posting but i'm sorry if u follow me + wonder when i'll post art again. i'm still drawing but w/ the state of my life + the world i don't feel motivated to post silly pictures + idk when that'll change, this is all to say thanks for sticking around if u still r + hopefully i will feel different later, but im glad for the distance i have w/ online + what i now use this blog for atm

friends/mutuals/familiar faces are free to frq my personal accnts: twt @ blumaroos, sideblog @ mootix, insta @ loved.bug

if you want to keep up outside of that feel free 2 mssg, otherwise stay safe + be kind + hope ur all doing well ect much love as always from me 2 u <:o)

i'm not rlly sorry for not posting but i'm sorry if u follow me + wonder when i'll post art again. i'm still drawing but w/ the state of my life + the world i don't feel motivated to post silly pictures + idk when that'll change, this is all to say thanks for sticking around if u still r + hopefully i will feel different later, but im glad for the distance i have w/ online + what i now use this blog for atm

friends/mutuals/familiar faces are free to frq my personal accnts: twt @ blumaroos, sideblog @ mootix, insta @ loved.bug

if you want to keep up outside of that feel free 2 mssg, otherwise stay safe + be kind + hope ur all doing well ect much love as always from me 2 u <:o)

They always need e-sims!

Good time to remind you that israel is counting on the western world to be distracted by the oscars and will launch violent attacks again just like they did during superbowl. The only reason we know about these atrocities is because of e-sims, so please donate, and DO NOT WATCH OR SUPPORT the oscars and eurovision.