#civic duty

[always-coffee]

WV Libraries Are Under Attack: How to Help

News came out yesterday that West Virginia House passed House Bill 4654. This would remove “bona fide schools, public libraries, and museums from the list of exemptions from criminal liability relating to distribution and display to a minor of obscene matter. …”

Potentially criminalizing librarians is bad, and it’s straight out of the fascist playbook. “Opponents of the bill said that while the bill does not ban books, the bill would have unintended consequences for public and school libraries, resulting in increases in challenges to even classic books and attempts to criminally charge librarians over books not pornographic in nature, but books that include descriptions of sex. They also said it could result in improper criminal charges against library staff,” Steven Allen Adams writes.

So, the question is: now what? What do we do? Where do we go from here?

If you live in West Virginia, call you state senate reps. You can find them listed here.

It’s okay to keep your message short:

“Hi, I’m [full name] calling from [ZIP code], and I’m a constituent of [Senator Name]. I am calling to voice my opposition to Bill 4654, because this is a dangerous step toward book banning. It could potentially harm librarians and libraries, which is incredibly wrong. Do not back this dangerous bill.

You can also ask how many people have called to voice their opposition to this bill. This may annoy the person on the phone, but they technically have to answer you. They may be evasive anyway. But you can either give them your contact information and tell them you’d like a call back or you can call back again later and ask for the tally.

The thing is, people rarely call in. A handful of calls is considered a lot, and the best thing you can do right now is make yourself a nuisance. Good trouble, etc.

Only call if you live in West Virginia, because they do not count calls from those outside their constituency. I am obviously not an expert, but if you have additional questions, ask them and I’ll try to help. I learned way more about how politics work during the last presidency than I thought humanly possible.

Additional resources:

#libraries #librarians #book bans #civic duty #speak up #west virginia

[notyouraveragebozo]

3/7/2024

Joe Biden is SMOKIN'! VOTE BLUE The SOTU Speech was AMAZING in breadth and consideration. Meat was on those bones! Please GOOD People,... VOTE BLUE in 2024! Help boost - us all - into the Future! I am voting for Joe. I am going to fight for Joe, and I ask each of you, to stand with Joe, and his vision of a better world. This life is worth the living. There is beauty, wonder, and hope, wherever you set your eye. Why, in our short spans, must we focus such time and energy - on making bombs, bullets, and tears? We should be focusing on dancing shoes, guitars, and making - meals - to share - with friends and neighbors, knitting closer - more supportive - communities. Only the living - can work to make this world a better place. While We live and breathe,... let's focus on making smiles, gardens, and dreams, blossom and grow. NYAB says,... VOTE for Women's Choice 'to bear and to carry'. VOTE for Voting Rights security! VOTE for Safety in the schools and on the streets. VOTE for Environmental protections! VOTE for those to come after. VOTE for Working to find answers to problems. VOTE for a guy willing to work - more than - to cheat at golf. The answer is simple,... We need Joe - and Joe needs U.S! Semper fi!

#state of the union #bettertogether #the truth is out there #opportunity #paradigmshift #truth is stranger than fiction #hopes and dreams #please vote #vote blue #vote democrat #vote biden #election 2024 #fucking vote #betterworld #dreams can come true #small business #entrepreneur #civic duty #life is worth it #mental heath support

[illegal-prime]

Normalize updating laws and regulations that are no longer fit for purpose.

Normalize working with powerful enemies to find a solution where everybody wins.

Normalize mutual compromise.

Normalize collaboration over opposition.

Normalize civil discourse on divisive issues.

Normalize good faith and the principle of charity.

Normalize discussion of specific social, political, and economic issues.

Normalize advocacy for specific and implementable policy reforms to to tackle said issues.

Normalize imperfect solutions.

Normalize civic engagement.

Normalize public sector action.

Normalize incremental success.

Normalize improving society instead of destroying and rebuilding it from the ground up.

NORMALIZE PROGRESS!!!

#solarpunk #hopepunk #politics #political discourse #public policy #civic engagement #civic duty #georgism #transit #urban planning #accessibility #disability justice #disabled #healthy politics #policymakers #social justice #societal improvement #retain hope #societal progress #climate change #climate action #advocacy #trains #political activist #political action #activism #hanlon's razor #good regulations work #good faith arguments #good faith

[sophiaphile]

Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

#poor things #alasdair gray #dennis lee #civic duty

[petiolata]

Voting accomplished ✌️ I was #36 at my polling location. By contrast, during statewide elections, I'm often in the 200s.

Turn out for your tiny local elections...the smaller the election, the more weight your vote has.

#politics #voting #local elections #municipal politics #civic duty #personal #op #“I dont feel it's right to vote for schoolboard bc I dont have kids!” they are literally trying to bring back corporal punishment in schools #it's ALWAYS right to vote against kids being legally physically abused by authority figures. like yes DO meddle in other ppls parenting if #THAT is how they want to parent their kids #ain't no way my tax dollars should be being used to fund salaries for someone who wants to paddle students #cw child abuse

[christinaroseandrews]

Civic duty spaniel says do your civic duty and vote.

Local elections matter so much. Especially when things like School millage and library funding are on the ballot. This stuff matters.

#voting #vote #civic duty #dogs #my dog #i voted #and so should you #american politics

[kingsonne-zedecks]

Well fuck.

I guess I just learned the tactic that is going to be used to discourage democrat voter participation.

I just saw a couple of posts on other social media sites talking about "respecting people's decision to follow their conscience in not voting for Biden in the 2024 presidential election due to his actions and stance regarding the Israeli-Palestine conflict."

I cannot possibly understate just how bad faith this stance is. The main people pushing this idea don't care about anyone in Israel or Palestine. They care about preventing your vote by playing to your sense of justice. They care about harnessing that sense of justice to get you to convince other people not to vote.

There is no true moral backbone to this stance. It hides beneath the idea that you can serve your conscience by not voting in a time when every vote counts and Facism sits on the doorstep. I must emphasize that things would be horrifically worse if the Facists were in control of the country. By not voting you would be abandoning your easiest and most essential way to speak out against this.

Its okay to hate the democratic party for not doing enough and for doing bad things. Its not okay to abandon your civic duty at the influence of bad actors.

I don't want to vote for Joe Biden. I am mad that its no support from the Democratic Party for a real primary with alternative candidates to Biden. I would much rather have someone better than Biden. But I would also much rather have Biden than someone worse than Biden and I will vote to make sure that this happens.

If this continues to get pushed you're going to see a big resurgence of arguments how a vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil. It will claim that voting for a lesser evil is a concession, a statement that you are okay with any bad things done by Biden (or any other candidate where this tactic is employed.) This simply is not true. A vote never has been and never will be a blank endorsement for all opinions and policies of a politician.

Abstaining from voting is not the moral high ground. Its only half a step away from Both Sides centrism.

As a moral stance it doesn't say "Here I am, I am righteous and will not support the unrighteous"

It says

"Here I sit. I do not care if the Facists win." The moral highground of the stance is an illusion. The stance looks in the face of every individual who will suffer and die under Facism and pats them on the head and says I'm sorry you are going to suffer and die, but it was worth it for me to feel good about myself.

The bad actors don't want you to think about these things. They will keep the attention on ever failure of the Democratic party and ask you if you condone them. They will accuse you of approving of these actions and showing them with your vote.

There might be people you trust who become convinced by this and share these feelings in what they feel is good faith. They might be convinced and upset if you don't agree with them. It won't be pleasant.

Please look into efforts within your state to overturn First Past the Post voting. Oregon has put Ranked Choice Voting on the ballot for 2024 and the people will get to decide against the system that let's this lesser of two evils argument exist. Instant Runoff Voting is not the only valid form of ranked voting or otherwise non FPTP voting. Look at your state and check to see if there is a petition to get a new voting method on the ballot. Oregon's legislature placed Ranked Choice on the ballot, but a petition was already in place to accomplish the same thing if they didn't. The same might be going on in your state.

Politics sucks and I wish we didn't have to deal with things like this. But we do. Doubt anything someone says that discourages you from voting.

#politics #2024 elections #election interference #every vote counts #civic duty #us politics #fight facism #please vote #vote #I feel like we were just talking about how election interference on Tumblr #How its main goal was to convince people not to vote

[pratchettquotes]

"And what you've got there, my friend, is patriotism. My country, right or wrong."

"You should love your country," said Shufti.

"Okay, what part?" the voice of Tonker demanded, from the far corner of the tent. "The morning sunlight on the mountains? The horrible food? The damn mad Abominations? All of my country except whatever bit Strappi is standing on?"

"But we are at war!"

"Yes, that's where they've got you," said Polly.

"Well, I'm not buying into it. It's all trickery. They keep you down and when they piss off some other country, you have to fight for them! It's only your country when they want you to get killed!" said Tonker.

Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

#maladict #shufti #tonker halter #polly perks #monstrous regiment #discworld #terry pratchett #war #soldiers #civic duty #patriotism #nationalism #relativism #propoganda #persuasion #your country #right or wrong #except for whatever bit strappi is standing on

[demonstars]

#CIVIC DUTY #also argument your answer if you want #star rambles

[kaiyves-backup]

#serious #civic duty #EcoLogical

[cowboy-lurking]

Can anyone help me figure out how to register to vote in a different state? I moved, and I'm still registered to vote in state I grew up in, but I want to participate in the next election.

#personal #election #civic duty #vote #help please

[tiggymalvern]

I understand the sentiment, but I just want to let you know that your VOTE hashtag might be undermining your efforts. I think it’s great to demonstrate what the Biden administration HAS accomplished because it’s not being publicized and it’s helpful information to hear, but ending with a blunt VOTE is dismissive of where people’s anxieties and despair are coming from. Instead of leading with the conclusion you’ve drawn, I just ask you to consider changing the way you’re communicating with your audience so that they can get there with you. A lot of people who are saying “VOTE” are using it to ignore genuine critiques and while I think voting for Biden is still the best option, I think there are better ways to help people get to that understanding.

The VOTE hashtag on my posts means exactly that. Everything that I think about who people should vote for and why has been eloquently explained by the OP and in the additions. People are either going to read it and engage with it or they aren't, and one tag that I put on the bottom probably isn't going to change it.

The VOTE hashtag reflects my belief. I literally think everyone who is allowed to vote should turn up and vote. Even if, for whatever reason of your own, you feel you need to vote Republican or Alternative für Deutschland or National Rally, or whoever your local neo-fascists happen to be.

Throughout history, people have had to battle for the right to choose their government. There were monarchies or emperors, and nobody got to choose. Then in many countries only landowners were eligible to vote, and the people who worked the land were excluded. Then in various countries, all white men were allowed to vote, and women and people of colour might have all had to fight in their turn to get their right to vote.

Whatever category of human you are, some people somewhere marched and/or were arrested, jailed or killed so that YOU could have the chance to vote. My grandmother was nearly 30 when women in England were allowed to vote on the same terms as men. This is not ancient history. This is less than a hundred years ago. If you are eligible to vote, DO NOT waste it. Do not blithely toss aside the right that your grandparents risked everything for.

I have voted in every single election that I was eligible to vote in. There was one year when I was around 20 when the candidates for the three main parties in my local elections were all so awful that I couldn't vote for any of them. It was for the regional council, so there were no larger ramifications in the national voting block of the government. So I turned up and voted for the Monster Raving Loony Party as a protest vote. Doing that made it clear that I wasn't staying at home through apathy - not voting for any of the main candidates was an active choice, and it registered my vote as a rejection of all of them.

I have voted for the candidates I truly believe in. I have voted tactically, simply to make sure that the worst candidate didn't get chosen. But I have always, always voted, when I could. And I believe that everybody should, even if I also believe you're a misguided idiot in where you place your X.

I'm not allowed to vote in the US, where I currently live, because I'm not a US citizen. I also live in a blue state where I can guarantee that Dems will get elected without my vote, so I don't fret too much about being excluded. But I am excluded.

I believe that everybody should validate their ancestors' struggles and do their civic duty and show up at the polls if they're allowed. I also believe that you should educate yourself on the issues and the reasons before you do. So I reblog the posts about the issues and the reasons that I believe, in the hope that those candidates will be elected. But my tag VOTE isn't just to try and get Dems to turn out (although everyone knows that Dems win when turnout is high, because low turnout means fewer Dems, not so much fewer Republicans).

VOTE. Seriously. Everyone. Even, especially, if you live in a red state where arseholes in power are deliberately making it hard for you to vote. If Republicans ban you from mailing in your vote and make you stand in line for three hours at a polling station, that's all the more reason to do it - it's the same battle that has been fought before, and you damn well insist on your right to vote. It's inconvenient and miserable, but you're not being arrested or murdered for wanting to vote, the way other people before you have been.

Your rights have been hard won. Understand that, respect it, and vote.

#asks #VOTE #representation #history #human rights #civic duty

[sophiaphile]

"And best of all is finding a place to be in the early years of a better civilization. For we are a conquered nation; sea to sea we bartered everything that counts, till we have nothing to lose but our forebears' will to lose. Beautiful riddance! And many will make their choice and eat imperial meat. But some will come to themselves, for there is no third way at last and these will pitch their lives in the ranks of civil resistance, deploying motherwit and guts—sustained by bloody-minded reverence among the things which are, and the long will to be in Canada."

—Dennis Lee, excerpt from "Civil Elegies"

#dennis lee #civil elegies #personal #alasdair gray #this poem was inspiration for this phrase coined by Gray: #Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation #poetry #civic duty

[anamollyintime]

Voting against anti-LGBTQ candidates always feels great. Fuck you very much, Gabrielle Hanson.

#voting #civic duty #lgbtq

[jasoncanty01]

Last Night was good, but not time to stop and pat on the backs. The youth came out in force in 2012 then too, but it can't be one time, it has to be all the time even between the every 2 yeas. Always stay awake, and always stay aware. The fact that they are saying "Darn those kids" like they always do, means they really don't want the youth to pay attention to what's being taken away from them, and what has been taken away from us already over the past 20 years. As a nation we have lost a lot of freedoms over the past 20 years, and we have so many in comparison to many other nations that we don't fully take notice of it. But thats the thing the slow chip away eventually erodes into no freedom's left over time.

So it has to be a constant effort to always stay aware, stay woke, and piss off old people who want to keep you under their heel.

I mean yeah if you want to take away women's Right to chose (even in a case of medical emergency) and want to screw up Transkids. Yeah 18 - 20 year old first time voters might not like that that kind of future for themselves and their friends.. Or shocker of shock, someone they don't even know but still have empathy for. Speaking of Empathy, because this is why the 26th Amendment happened for the right to vote at 18

This is STILL a relatively free country, keep fighting, and don't get tired and as cap would say

I can do this All day!

#America #26th Amendment #election 2022 #Right to Vote #civic duty #womans rights #trans rights #lgbtq #civil rights

[match-your-steps]

treating blocking bots that interact with my tumblr as a civic duty

#as in: technically I could skip this and nothing would happen to me #but that wouldn't be very swag of me now would it #tumblr bots #spam bots #civic duty