#politics and advocacy

[neuroticboyfriend]

IM GOING TO CRY THEY MIGHT INCREASE THE SSI ASSETS LIMIT TO $10,000.

it's a bipartisan bill too! and for anyone unaware, people on SSI (which is different from SSDI), can only have $2,000 in assets (unless they have an ABLE account, which comes with its own rules). this assets limit has been in place for FORTY YEARS and is a giant part of why being on SSI keeps people incredibly impoverished.

i've also heard they might remove the marriage penalty but i don't have the spoons to read or explain it so someone else please add on!

this is huge! please spread the word and do what you can to help ensure this happens!

#softspoonie #disabled #disability #disability rights #disability advocacy #disability activism #disabled rights #disabled community #marriage equality #equality #usa #us politics #us congress #usa politics

[punkxhazard]

ART IS NOT MINE* The Art Against Apartheid toolkit contains 100 posters made by artists from across the world in solidarity with Palestine.

There are some fantastic pieces in here and above are some of my faves. If you wanna check them out yourself go to againstapartheid.art

Free Palestine, stop the genocide.

#free palestine #palestine #stop the genocide #art #artwork #fine art #art activism #advocacy #activism #politics #israel #ceasefire

[blanket-burrito-protocol]

The 50th anniversary of AIMs (American Indian Movement's) occupation at Wounded Knee is coming up, so the Lakota People's Law Project is leading another push to free an AIM activist who was wrongly convicted of killing two federal agents in 1975- Leonard Peltier. He was convicted on false evidence and false testimony and sentenced to two life sentences. He is now 78.

LPL has a formatted email up on their website now which you can personalize and send to Biden to ask for clemency. (Please personalize emails like this so it doesn't get filtered as spam. Just move some words around, add some, take some, you don't have to write a whole email.) Please pass this around.

#leonard peltier #aim #american indian movement #leonard peltier defense committee #wounded knee #protest #occupation #political prisoners #petition #president biden #clemency #action #lakota #ojibwe #advocacy #native rights #indigenous people #legal action #federal prison #indian boarding schools #boarding school #history #bishop desmond tutu #nelson mandela #dalai lama #chase iron eyes #legal defense #activists

[booksandbrainsandsoftthings]

Officially forming the theory that the reason more service dog handlers don't use protective gear like boots, goggles, and ear protection on their dog is because the public becomes 3000% more unbearable when they try.

We're all used to "aaaaawwww look the the doggo" when we go out with our working animals, but getting

1. Accosted for pictures (whether folks ask or just invade your space and distract your dog)

2. Pointed at like an exhibit

3. Shouted at (OMG DOGGLES, "why is it wearing that" etc)

4. Actively followed around by strangers

Is downright fucking awful.

I know it looks cool. I know some of our gear is specialized. I know pet dogs don't usually wear/tolerate what SDs learn the wear. But for the love of whatever you deem holy, BE KIND ABOUT IT. All of the actions listed above are just fucking rude. Leave people alone. Leave service dogs alone.

Disabled people can exist without being spectacles

#service dog #be respectful #educate #service dog training #working dog #respect the vest #dogs #important #task trained #dont be a dick #dont be nosey #dont be an asshole #mind your business #invisible disability #disability rights #disability advocacy #be polite #common decency

[many-sparrows]

If you want to advocate but can't protest, are under voting age, want to do more, whatever, my roommates and I made a bunch of solidarity stickers. Palestinians are begging us to not look away, to force awareness-- we made these to easily and quickly stick up everywhere that people might see them. I'm talking Starbucks windows, light poles, crosswalks, electrical boxes, street signs, bus stops etc to keep this on people's minds. They also make easy post cards-- stick one on an index card and mail it to congress.

I bought 150 mailing labels from Staples for about $15, but you could also use scrap paper and clear packing tape. I also tried to use some different phrasing-- a lot of people shut down when they read "free Palestine" or "from the river to the sea" so I tried to bypass the "pOLiTiCaL" angle and appeal to the humanitarian one.

Also also, if you want to contribute and have some time, sending physical mail to representatives is a good thing to do. For this issue, it doesn't even have to be long or complicated letters, it can literally just be a note that says "cease fire now xoxox, your constituent, [name]" or whatever. It can be easy to ignore Twitter and brush off voicemails left with their staffers, it's time to get stuff in their desk.

#free Palestine #israel #palestine #activism 101 #disabled activists #advocacy #all eyes on gaza #all eyes on palestine #arizona #arizona politics #ceasefire #ceasefire now

[sillymcrandom]

heyo!! with the presidential election coming up pls go to this website to tell your representatives to pass/support the national popular vote bill so that candidates like claudia de la cruz have a chance and so elections are no longer rigged by the electoral college!!

we need change!!! pls sign this and pls organize and protest and call if you can (because that will pressure them way more than just an email) and just spread the word and do anything you can to help abolish the current system!!

ALSO PLS VOTE IN LOCAL ELECTIONS THEY HELP SO MUCH!!!

#important #election 2024 #claudia de la cruz #activist #leftism #leftist #politics #ig #electoral college #pls rb #advocacy #flowers are blooming in antarctica. #we need change #protest #we need to start organizing #protesting #organizing

[catboybiologist]

btw if you're in California and you haven't voted yet- the only senate candidate that advocates for Palestine is Barbara Lee, and as I'm sure you know, she also has a long history with activism in the East Bay and beyond. As a Californian, most votes don't matter much, but this one does. It's unlikely that she'll get the spot, but its far more likely than the scraps of voter influence that individual Californians get most of the time.

#also goes without saying that political advocacy goes well beyond just voting #free palestine

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Hamilton Centre's independent member of provincial parliament (MPP) Sarah Jama says she will table motions at Queen's Park that would boost Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) rates.  Jama told CBC Hamilton in an email she wants the housing allowance portion of both ODSP and Ontario Works to be calculated by and tied to the annual average market rent price of the city someone lives in. She will also table a motion that would ensure ODSP benefits aren't reduced as a result of another household member's income. If someone gets married, for instance, or has a common-law partner and is on ODSP, they shouldn't see a decrease in benefits.  "I've heard disability benefits are just not enough to meet the soaring costs of rent in this province," Jama, who uses a wheelchair, said in a video posted to X on Tuesday.

Continue Reading

Tagging @politicsofcanada

#cdnpoli #canada #canadian politics #canadian news #ontario #sarah jama #disability #disability rights #disability advocacy #disability benefits

[mephystophyles]

the only time the bible even mentions abortion is when it instructs specifically on how to do it, and also mentions that life begins "at the first breath", so I'm starting to think a lot of christians are doing that tumblr thing where they "know it from the fandom content"

#politics #roe v wade #abortion #discourse #tumblr #political #political activism #activism #civil rights #womens rights #trans rights #social justice #advocacy #discussion #christianity #religion

[hiiragi7]

(Warning for discussion of abuse)

There is a certain ableist and classist feel to the way that a lot of people talk about highschool education and graduation that I've noticed. "I bet they never graduated highschool" is often used as an insult and to imply stupidity, for example. I've noticed this trend for a long time, but struggled to put it into words.

While education is important, I often feel very put down by the amount of emphasis placed on being a highschool graduate (and, on the opposite end, the disdain for non-graduates). I never graduated, due to a variety of factors; I suffered very extreme abuse starting in first grade from the school environment (As a diagnosed autistic kid growing up in SPED in the 2000s, ABA was the standard), I was being abused at home, I moved schools a lot, I struggle with several disabilities which impacted my ability to learn and developmentally I was never really at the same level as my peers besides in English and art, I developed chronic physical issues while I was still in school due to a genetic condition, and finally, I was kicked out of the house when I was 17 by my parents and I just never ended up going back to school (not that I could have graduated anyway due to a variety of issues).

I was never able to learn quite right and that lead to me falling further and further behind. By the time I was in middle school, I was already so far behind my peers that even if my teachers had wanted to help me learn the content, there was so much they would have had to teach me that it would have been impossible for them to fit it into the time I had with them, especially when they had a lot of other students to attend to besides me. On top of that, I had already given up on my own education sometime during elementary school, so any attempts that were made by my teachers were not well-received by me. I had already developed a complex web of trauma responses to anything to do with school by that point.

It seemed that I was caught in an impossible situation where between the trauma I suffered with and my autism, I could not tolerate even being in a classroom setting, much less learn in it, but there were no other options, which lead to chronic activation of trauma responses which overwhelmed both me and my teachers as well as everyone else in my life. There was also no understanding for me in these settings either, and nobody informed enough to realize what was going on with me and why I was constantly either shutting down and unresponsive or having severe panic attacks. Rather, I was called lazy, manipulative, not trying hard enough, making excuses, acting out for attention, and a slew of other insults as well as near-constant punishments which only served to traumatize me further.

To this day, I only have a second grade education in math. I do not know multiplication, division, algebra, physics, chemistry, and a variety of other subjects. Attempting to study school subjects gives me flashbacks no matter which method I use, whether it's online or with another person or on my own. I am gifted in English, but otherwise I do not know many of the things that people are generally taught in school as kids.

When I tell people I never graduated, often the response is "it's okay, you can still get your GED!" as if me not having graduated is a character flaw that I must eventually work to fix. It makes me feel as though my worth and value as a person is tied to whether or not I have at least a highschool education, and that without it I am less worthy of people's time.

Going back to my initial point, if not graduating highschool makes you "stupid", you must also consider who in practice is unable to graduate highschool - I find it is often disabled kids, traumatized kids, and impoverished kids. Not all of them, I'm sure, but definitely a lot of them.

Tying intellect and a person's worth to whether or not they graduated highschool fucks over those who couldn't through no real fault of their own and frames them as lesser for it. How can you say you believe in disability rights when you shit on those who are too disabled to complete school? How can you say you are against classism when you view people who could not graduate due to having to work full-time as lesser than you?

I feel that regardless of how much people insist they are an advocate (or how much they say "No no, when I said people who don't graduate are stupid I didn't mean those people, I only meant what I see as the acceptable group of non-graduates to call stupid"), there are biases at play regarding perceived intellect and formal education. I am viewed as inherently less-than when people learn I did not graduate. My lack of a highschool graduation certificate or "at least" a GED is viewed with pity by just about everyone I talk to.

I don't have a neat way to wrap up this post, but I do think it is important for people to examine their own biases when it comes to discussing formal education, as well as the overlap of non-graduates and marginalized groups, especially as it pertains to disability politics and capitalism.

#disability politics #autism #abuse #tw abuse #disability advocacy #disability awareness #tw aba #aba

[beatrice-otter]

You Don’t Have To Move To Live In A Better Place

This video is by Strong Towns, so it’s aimed at people who want to fix infrastructure issues to make their communities nicer to live in. But even if that’s not your thing, it has some great tips about going from “gee, there’s stuff I wish I could change about my community” to “making a lasting positive difference.”

And the critical thing, the absolute thing that makes a difference, is talking to people in person and building relationships. Getting to know the people in the area who might also have feelings about the issue, and spending time with them, so that even if you don’t agree on a lot of stuff, you can still work together on the issues you do agree on. So that you know what the people in your community actually want and need, not just what you think they want or need, or what you think they should want or need.

This really struck home because I just attended a conference that, among other things, had a session about “one to one activism.” One to one activism is where you identify other people who have a stake in the issue you care about, and you go talk to them one on one. But! Crucially! You do not go to try and convince them of anything. You go to get to know them and build a relationship. You go to find out what they need, what their hopes and fears and dreams are. You go there to learn.

“But how is that activism!” you may ask. Actually, it’s the foundation that makes activism possible. Because once people know you and know you care about them and respect them, they are way more willing to listen when you do come to them with ideas and requests. And also, when you do one-to-ones, you learn things about them and about the community you would never have known otherwise. Spend a while doing one-to-ones and building relationships, and all sortsof things become possible. You can get people who you would have thought would never agree with you to join you for a particular action. You may still have a lot of disagreements and differences, but activism isn’t like marriage. You don’t have to work with someone permanently and forever to work together on the few things you actually have in common.

One of the examples they used was a local group that had recently managed to get a very conservative county to INCREASE taxes for the purposes of building low-income housing. (And anybody familiar with US politics should know how astonishing it is that they got a conservative county with a conservative government to increase taxes for any purpose whatsoever.) For the first few years it didn’t look like they were accomplishing much. They just went around talking to people, and getting to know people, and building relationships, and asking people what their hopes and dreams were, and asking if there was anybody else in the community they should be talking to.

All that meant that when they actually came to the point of asking the county commissioners for the tax increase, everybody knew and trusted them. The plan they had took into account the needs and objections of all the local stakeholders. They had locals testifying, and the most effective ones were people they’d had no idea even existed when they started. And, crucially by sitting down with the county commissioners and getting to know them before they made any asks, they found out when one of the hard-liners would be retiring and therefore no longer needed to worry about re-election. And, it turned out, that once he didn’t have to worry about “will my constituents--who think taxes are inherently evil--fail to re-elect me if I raise taxes” he thought that raising a slight tax and using it to reduce the housing and homelessness problem in the county was a good thing. So bringing the question to a vote when he was in his last term before retiring meant they got his vote--and with the furthest-right person on the commission voting in favor, that cut the “but muh taxes!” people off at the knees, and it passed.

So yeah. If you care about your community--if you want to make changes--the most important thing to do is to get out and talk to people and build relationships. Everything starts there.

#activism #strong towns #advocacy #housing #politics

[dreamlanddoll]

Attention fellow Canadians‼️ Here is a way you can help those in Palestine‼️

It seems that most resources for contacting one’s reps/senators are all based in America, and while yes, American is a very influential country (unfortunately), Canada must also play its part. We are still aiding in the genocide against Palestinian lives. Despite Justin Trudeau calling for a ceasefire, he is STILL allowing our tax dollars to contribute to the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. So, if you’re a Canadian resident and want more resources on how to contact Canadian officials, say no more, I’ve got them right here.

Here’s a short email I have drafted for you to copy and send, it’s not perfect, nor am I a professional political speaker, but I feel I have edited and went over it enough times for it to sound both professional and urgent.

Here is a way to find your local representatives in Canada

And here is an open letter as of February 5th with donations linked on the bottom

#palestine #free palestine #from river to sea palestine will be free #gaza #free gaza #save rafah #all eyes on rafah #canada #canadian #canadian politics #north america #justin trudeau #call your reps #palestine resources #human rights #feminism #advocacy #isreal #iof terrorism #hamas #israel hamas war #hamas ≠ palestine #genocide #palestine genocide #end genocide

[whydoifeelthisquiet]

Disabled women & all Disabled people, these words are for you. I love you. 🫶🏻

#abby doesnt shut up #my writing #writing #words #disability #disability advocacy #ableism #spoonie #chronic pain #disabled #disability rights #essay #writerblr #women #women’s rights #social Justice #politics

[fluffypotatey]

computer, how do i blast a person with lasers from my mind because they said the fact that they haven't seen my character cry makes them too perfect

computer, how do i stop myself from throwing a table because i remembered them telling me that the best abuse example they had was trauma porn that explicitly demonstrated current abuse and not the after effects and i was too mad to respond to them

computer.....'puter do you hear me????

#I AM STILL PISSED #IT HAS BEEN 2 DAYS #they looked me in the eyes and asked 'i wasn't rude was i?' #AND MY POLITE ASS WHO HAS TERRIBLE SELF ADVOCACY AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS SAID: 'no! you're good! it's all good!' while i SEETHED #computer how do i shut off my non-confrontational polite manner mode? #computer is there a way for me to word my frustrations eloquently to irl people without sounding like i want to punch them? #COMPUTER!!! 'PUTER DO YOU HEAR ME????

[katkathleen]

#social justice #activism #protest #us politics #advocacy #tax the rich #tax the church #tax the billionaires #tax the 1% #cat #cats of tumblr #cat art #artwork #artists on tumblr #digital art #my art #illustration #kawaii #manekineko #lucky cat #punk #punk rock

[trans-axolotl]

so fucking frustrated with the US intersex advocacy community right except for like. five people (you know who u r and ily) like. cannot fucking believe some of the shit i'm seeing people say and the absolute like. disregard for what it means to say we are fighting for liberation. im going to lose my fucking mind i don't even want to participate in the intersex awareness day shit i had planned because what the fuck is the point

#personal #vent #actuallyintersex #the 'abolitionist' intersex advocacy group i was in #well. they use this language and then don't bother to consider what it means to have those politics in practice #literally at the point where i think i just want to fuck off from all US intersex advocacy and then just pivot #to what we were talking abotu early this summer. intersex sex work organizing #bc my intersex sex worker friends are ones who i can ACTUALLY trust