#renew america movement

[bluesidedown]

the only time I really experience fomo is when I'm trying to pick a research topic for a paper

#like i could do it on reformation church music #or catholic missions to south america #or renewal movements in russian orthodoxy #or or or #there's just so much to choose from

[lilbitdepressed27]

Jenna Ortega/ Fem!Bodyguard

Summary: you’re her bodyguard also g!preader

Warnings: bad smut prepare your self

WC: 1.7k

Author’s Note: it’s my first time (most likely my last) writing smut. Don’t know where this came from but hope y’all like it. Sorry for any mistakes. Also I have few too many unfinished drafts some of them being AU’s for Tara I’ll try to finish them as soon as possible. Or least finish one.

You stood a few inches away from the actress as she smiled and talked with a few fans. 'Never be too far from her. Keep her in arms length.' That had been a rule you always followed. The short six months that you've worked for her have been, different. You had joined the marines right after high school. Being in the marines for six years. You had been given the choice to renew your contract but you had declined. Figuring that six years was enough.

Now you worked as a bodyguard for a sweet actress. Jenna Ortega. Americas new it girl. So far you loved the job. Jenna was everything and more. Caring, kind and amazing. She was so kind to her fans, which was why you were behind her as she spoke with some. She had been talking with the small group of girls for the past few minutes. You looked down at your watch, the actresses had a tight schedule you had come to learn. Especially Americas it girl.

A small tap on her elbow was the signal. "Sorry guys but I have to go. It was nice meeting you." Jenna smiled and gave the four girls separate hugs. Thanking them and saying goodbye. Allowing you to lead her way.

"Bye Jenna! Bye Y/n!"

Strangers knowing your name had also been something you were now used to. You smiled at the girls and waved back. Leading Jenna away towards the building. It was a good thing it was a mostly empty parking lot. She had an interview but it was a video interview and she had it set back in her hotel room. It was the last thing she had scheduled for the day. You smiled slightly when she looked up at you, while you both waited for the elevator.

It wasn't long till you were in the hotel room. Closing and locking the door before you had your arms full of a short brunette.

"Finally. We're alone. How can I miss you so much when you're with me all day." Jenna complained her face hiding in your neck. She couldn't help but smile when she smelt your cologne. It was a sent she loved. The feeling of your strong arms wrapping around her waist as she wrapped her legs around your waist. The way you effortlessly picked her up. She had never felt so safe with anyone, not in the way she felt around you. From the very first moment she met you, she had known that it'd be easy being friends. She had not prepared herself to fall in love. Loving you was so free, so easy.

"Mmh I missed you to baby." You walked towards the bed and laid on your back. Jenna was quick to get comfortable on top, tuck her face into your neck. Stuffing her hands into your shirt. Smiling when you felt light kisses being placed on your pulse. Never did you think that by getting this job you'd find the love of your life.

"I can feel, how much you missed me."

Your breath hitched when you felt her grinding on your lap. Part of you hardening. Your hands moving to rest on the back of your head as you watched her grind on your lap. Bitting your lip at the sounds of her moans and whimpers. The way her nails dug into your stomach.

"Y-Y/n please." Her hips stuttered before trying to go faster. Her hands shaking a clear desperation of need, as she tried to unbuckle your pants. She looks up at you her eyes filled with lust and desire. "I-I need you."

"Now? baby you have an interview in a few minutes. Don't start something you can't finish." But just as you said that. You thought of something. Something that had you taking a grip of her wrists. Stopping her movement. Your length fell heavy on your stomach after you freed your self from your pants.

"Come on then. You know what to do." You knew exactly what you were doing. Was it risky? Yes. But did you love the thrill. Absolutely. You watched as she quickly pushed her panties to the side. Not bothering to take them off. It was a great thing she was wearing a skirt.

"FFuck." The overwhelming feeling of pure pleasure over took her body as she felt your tip grazing her clit. Then the stretch of your tip entering her. No matter how many times she was intimate with you, she'd never get used to your size. The need and want of always having you inside her was something she always craved. The feeling of your length stretching her out as she continued moving down until she bottom out. The ecstasy of it all.

You jerked your hips up, watching in satisfaction as she threw her head back the way her breathing hitched before the moans escaped her lips. The way her walls tightened around you as she continued to let out her screams of pleasure.

The sound of Jenna's phone ringing was heard throughout the room, "Answer the phone." Seeing the tremble of her body you knew she was close. But she had a job to do. So with that you gripped her hips. Halting her movements. You ignored the whine coming from her lips.

"Answer the phone. I won't ask again."

Knowing she couldn't argue she answered the phone. Her hand shaking, her hips instinctively twitching every few seconds. Like her hips had a mind of their own. "H-Hello?"

"Jenna the interview is in 5 minutes. Get your laptop set up, the link has been sent. I can go to your room to hel-No! I" A small moan escaping her lips, when you jerked your hips up. she was quick to cover it up with a cough. Eyes widening as she looked down at you. A smirk was what she got in return.

"I got it don't don't worry about it. I'll I'll see you soon." She hung up the phone throwing it to side.

"Y-Y/n baby please. Faster."

You knew it was a risk but your horniness was at an all time high. So you got the small foldable bed table. Putting it on your stomach. It already had her laptop.

"Nonono. I can't. I'll I'll just reschedule it."

"No. Do your interview or we will stop right now. Now be my good girl and do your job." Your hands squeezed her rear cheeks. Her soft flesh warm in your hands.

She could see how red she was. The thin layer of sweat was noticeable but not as much as she tried to focus on what the interviewer was saying. You were using her, your length still inside her. you stayed like that for a while, then you started to move. The shock of pleasure shot through her body, biting her lip so hard to keep in the moans that threatened to escape. She felt it again. And again. Every single twitch into her g-spot. It almost had her rolling her eyes in pleasure. But holding in the need to bounce into your length was starting become painful. She needed to come, needed for you to wreak her like you always did. The need for you to leave her satisfied and legs shaking from the strong orgasms. You never left her unsatisfied.

"You alright Jenna?" The interviewer asked when he got no response.

"Uh y-yea. Just think I'm coming down with a cold or s-something."

But then you started to fuck her slowly, her hips being held down by your strong hands. The pace was painfully slow.

"Oh a cold? I'm sorry to hear that. I'll try to wrap this up as quick as possible."

She covered her mouth with palm of her hand. Masking it as a yawn. As you found a steady but still careful pace. The pleasure she was feeling in this very moment was becoming too much. Just the thought of getting caught had her clenching on your length. The filthy thought stayed. What if people knew what was happening? The thought alone had her wanting to chase her orgasm more.

You on the other hand were having so much fun watching the actress struggle. Twitching your cock deep inside her, seeing her fight the pleasure as she tried to keep a straight face and answer the questions being asked. You could feel her wetness sliding down your cock. The way her thighs were trembling. Ah the self control that she was showing, it made you want test it even more.

Reaching your hand in between her legs, finding the swollen bundle of nerve and pinching it. Loving the muffled squeak that escaped her lips. Her underwear was completely soaked, the feeling of her clit in between your fingers, your own heart beat thumbing in your ears as her walls clenched your length the more you played with her clit.

Her knuckles were white from how tight she was holding the handles on the small laptop table.

"Okay Jenna that's it. Thank you for taking time out of your day to do this interview with me. I hope you get better soon."

"Th-Thank you. And thank you for having me." With a wave the interview was finally over. Slamming the laptop shut. She pushed the table off of you. Not caring that laptop was on the table as it fell on the floor. Her nails scratching your toned stomach. She couldn't take it anymore. She needed you, she needed you to move. The two orgasms that she had while she spoke to the interviewer were not enough. Although her thighs would say otherwise with how much they were shaking.

"Baby please, ffuck me."

The night was spent with rough but passionate love making. If someone asked her why she was walking weird the next day, she had ignored your smug look as she explained how she fell the day before. But she couldn’t deny that she was eager to do it again. The soreness be damned.

:)

#jenna ortega x fem!reader #tara carpenter x reader #tara carpenter #scream #fem!reader #x reader

[probablyasocialecologist]

The main effort in a process of planetary degrowth must be made by the countries of the industrialized North (North America, Europe, and Japan) responsible for the historical accumulation of carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution. They are also the areas of the world where the level of consumption, particularly among the privileged classes, is clearly unsustainable and wasteful. The “underdeveloped” countries of the Global South (Asia, Africa, and Latin America) where basic needs are very far from being satisfied will need a process of “development,” including building railroads, water and sewage systems, public transport, and other infrastructures. But there is no reason why this cannot be accomplished through a productive system that is environmentally friendly and based on renewable energies. These countries will need to grow great amounts of food to nourish their hungry populations, but this can be much better achieved—as the peasant movements organized worldwide in the Vía Campesina network have been arguing for years—by a peasant biological agriculture based on family units, cooperatives, or collectivist farms. This would replace the destructive and antisocial methods of industrialized agribusiness, based on the intensive use of pesticides, chemicals, and genetically modified organisms. Presently, the capitalist economy of countries in the Global South is rooted in the production of goods for their privileged classes—cars, airplanes, and luxury goods—and commodities exported to the world market: soya beans, meat, and oil. A process of ecological transition in the South, as argued by ecosocialists, would reduce or suppress this kind of production, and aim instead at food sovereignty and the development of basic services such as health care and education, which need, above all, human labor, rather than more commodities.

Michael Löwy, Nine Theses on Ecosocialist Degrowth

#ecosocialism #degrowth #decolonisation #global south

[sstormyskyess]

Pitch Black - Chapter One

author's note: here's 141!! now that they're in the picture the story can really take off 😁 please enjoy!! also, if you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series, send me a message in my inbox or the replies!

cw: none!

word count: 2800+

You had made yourself quite the problem as your contract ticked down and was renewed multiple times. It was near impossible for anyone in or working with TF-141 to rest at any point; you could be anywhere. You had managed to keep track of the force everywhere, even outside of Urzikstan. America, Britain, anywhere TF-141 might be, you followed.

This new base the task force set up shop in was so far out of the way that no one should’ve been able to find it. An abandoned weapons cache right near the border of Urzikstan was hidden well under the cover of trees and stuck smack dab in the middle of a valley, mountains and hills on all sides. No one should’ve been able to find it, and yet you did.

You had found a crawl space under the floor of the warehouse that you could just barely squeeze into. You reveled in the fact that the warehouse was built on dirt rather than concrete, with only a wooden floor separating it from the earth. It only took a little bit of digging to get yourself tucked right under the floorboards where TF-141 was detailing the various steps of their plans once they crossed the Urzikstan border.

You keep your eyes wide open to track their movements with the shadows cast by the fluorescent lights above head. Your recording device was on and active, taking in every little bit of planning they were doing: the locations, times, and personnel that’d be present. You’ve been down here for a day or two at this point, the same routine for each one. Wake up, eat something from your pack, listen in, copy it down or record it, assess the state of patrols around the building and sleep.

Once you feel satisfied with what you collected and know that you only have a couple days to get back to Al Qatala, you prepare to evacuate the premises as quickly and as quietly as possible. Before you leave, you make sure to leave your cheeky calling card, a page from one of those little post-it note pads shaped like a star. You wait until there are no shadows hiding over the small end table they were using to plan around, slip your note through the floorboards and start to shuffle out of the tunnel.

As you go, you wonder to yourself how the boys in TF-141 feel about you. You wonder how they reacted whenever they found your calling cards. Were they confused? Or angry? Or even simply resigned to it? You can’t decide which would be funniest. Of course, there were four of them so it couldn’t possibly be the same amongst each one of them. They weren’t a hivemind, after all. But, unfortunately, you’d never know.

You look out of the crawl space and into the night, peeking from side to side to ensure the patrol schedules were going as planned. You narrow your eyes when you realize that no one was passing by. Hell, no one was even present on this side of the building. You weren't typically the type to make mistakes about things like this, but you have to consider the possibility. Maybe you’d mistaken what time it was. You might have caught them in the middle of switching shifts, but none of this seemed particularly likely.

You cautiously push yourself further out of the mouth of the tunnel. You were starting to regret choosing a space that was so claustrophobic; this damn tunnel was making it too hard to move quickly in case you needed to. A slight oversight, but you feel it won’t be that much of a hindrance.

Once your head is fully out of the hole, you take a better look around, scanning for movement. The coast was clear, it seems. You crawl further out, and then all the way. You stand up and pull your bag out of the hole with you, slinging it over your shoulder, ready to start your quick escape into the woods.

All of a sudden, you very quickly realized that the coast was not clear. An arm that feels as thick as a log clamps around your neck and shoulders in a chokehold, squeezing as hard as possible, trying to take you down, no doubt. Your mind works quickly; you pull your karambit out and flip it into place. After keeping a close eye on these folk for a while, you know just where to cut to get past the tactical armor. You stab as hard and deep as possible in the position you were in.

And yet, the assaulter held strong. You get worried when you realize they weren’t going to let go, no matter what you did to stave them off. Your vision starts to blur the more you struggle, the karambit dropped into the grass, and your legs start to weaken while you kick at the assaulter. It took ten seconds, tops, for you to pass out and fall limp in their hold.

“Do you think the little bastard will talk?” Gaz looks at Price, who has his arms crossed and his hand playing with the heavy mustache on his upper lip. “Can’t be sure. At least wiping away this stain will be one less thorn in our side.”

Ghost tosses your unconscious body on a rickety old chair, one that was already in the weapons cache when they got there, with no grace or care for your comfort and ties your wrists and ankles to it. He grunted as he moved around, the cut you made in his side stinging and still bleeding. “You all good there L.T.?” Soap asked with a tilt of his head. “‘M fine. Little shit’s good with a blade.” Soap moves closer to take a look at the stab wound in his side, grimacing. “Got ya good, eh? I’ll get you something for that,” He says as he meanders off to get some first aid.

“The little weasel should be up soon. Hopefully we’ll get some answers.” Price muses while he hands off your gear to Gaz for inspection. “Look through all that. Might be something useful.” Gaz nods and crouches to empty it all out. “Right away, cap’.”

Price’s predictions were accurate, as expected; you start to come to consciousness, your eyes twitching and opening up slowly. “What the fuck…” Your words slur together as you roused from sleep. You wince at the bright fluorescent lights that burn into your eyes almost instantly. Seems like being underground for a few days really got you accustomed to the dark. “Where…?” You mumble quietly. Your slow awakening is abruptly cut short when you get jostled and shoved by someone. “What the hell?” You cough out. Your mouth and throat feel ridiculously dry. How long have you been out?

You look up and your heart drops at the sight before you. “Shit.” You grumble and give a brief tug at your restraints. You sigh when they, predictably, don't budge. “Shit’s right, mate,” Soap takes a glance over at you as he approaches again, medkit in hand. Ghost stands to his full height from where he’s been kneeling in front of you. 

“Alright,” You clear your throat a couple times. “I’m not trying to get waterboarded or have my ribs broken, so let’s get this over with, yeah?” You lean back in the chair and roll your shoulder, the chair’s instability making your muscles stiff.

“Pretty confident, eh, y’weasel?” Soap chides, glancing at Ghost disinfecting his wound before fixing his eyes back on you. “Not trying to sound confident. I’d just like to get this over with.” 

You look at the man in the boonie hat, knowing that he was the voice of authority among these guys. “Well, let’s get started then. First, what’s your name?” Price stares right back at you. You roll your eyes. Of course that’d be the first question asked. “You’re not getting my name.” You state plainly, your frown deepening.

“I thought you said you didn’t want your ribs broken.” Ghost glares at you. That stare could make anyone’s blood run cold, and you were no different. Luckily, you’re able to keep a deadpanned look on your face while staring right back. “I never said I’d tell you everything you wanted to know. It’ll depend on what you ask.”

Soap chuckles. “You really are confident, aren’t ya?” He looks over at Ghost, whose eyes have narrowed just a touch. Ghost walks up to where you’re sitting, standing more than a couple feet above you, and wraps his hand around your throat. He puts some pressure on his grasp, feeling you swallow under his fingers. He watches your eyes lose a little bit of the scorn that they held before. It was replaced with a twinge of fear. He smirked at that, the subtle quirk of his lip hidden under his balaclava. “Are you gonna tell us your name, or not?” He punctuates his words with a tight squeeze to your throat, closing off your windpipe.

You wince, gripping the armrest of the chair. You whisper out, as best you could, “Can’t—talk if you’re—” You take in a short labored breath past Ghost’s grip. “Choking the shit—outta me,” You wince when Ghost squeezes harder again, making his face clench up. A few more seconds of pressure and blood was rushing to your face, your vision blurring a bit, and then a little more… And then, Ghost lets up. You cough hard, doubling over and curling in on yourself as far as you’re able to with how restrained you are.

“Brat.” Ghost says under his breath while he steps back. Price pipes up again. “Now, your name?” He tilts his head. After you regain yourself, you look at the floor, boring holes in it with your stare. You think hard, calculating what could be the best way to navigate this scenario that you’d got shoved into. A deep sigh passes by your lips when you look back up and into Price’s eyes. You’re about to speak before Gaz dumps out a plastic bag full of your fake IDs, at least six or seven tumbling out of it. You look over at him and stare for a moment while he rifled through them, examining them thoroughly.

“Give us your real name. We know none of these slips are real.” Price says sternly, almost like a parent scolding a child. You look down again, your head still slightly reeling from the lack of air you’re still trying to catch. You clench your jaw before looking back up again. You state your name plainly, your tone less defiant and more annoyed now.

“That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” Soap smirks at the change in your demeanor. You look at him, narrowing your eyes. “Fuckin’ prick,” You grumble before turning back to the captain. “That good enough for you?”

Price nods. “Sounds good to me.” He gets a nod from Soap and Gaz, but not Ghost. He seems just barely mentally present, staring you down. “Ease up. I’m not going anywhere.” You purse his lips. 

“Ghost?” Price looks at him and tilts his head. It takes Ghost a couple seconds for the words to register in his head and only then he turns away. “Affirmative.” He replies.

“Alright. Let’s move on,” Soap pulls his pistol from its place on his hip and moves to stand behind you. “It’s been almost a year since your first cheeky little note.” He stalks around to your other side, his gaze burning a hole in your head and dragging along the backside of your skull. “Good time tracking skills.” The smugness in your reply was a stark contrast to the shudder that passes down your spine in response to Soap’s slow, calculated movements. Soap scoffs, stepping closer and grabbing your chin to tug your face up and back to meet his eyes. “I suggest you keep your mouthiness to a minimum.”

You wince when your head is roughly tossed back down. You sigh out a shaky breath. “Right. What do you want to know?”

 Price bent down to meet his gaze. “I think you’ve got a pretty good idea of what we’re looking for,” he tilted his head, “Don’t you?” You listen to his words and rest your head on the back of the chair, mostly to avoid eye contact. You had figured this was where all of this was leading to the moment you woke up and saw these four staring you down. Unfortunately, you had no answers to this particular line of questioning.

“If you want to know about Al Qatala, I have no clue. I’m just a freelancer.” You open your eyes back up and are met with Soap’s steely gaze pinning you down. He lingers behind you and crosses his arms, pistol still in hand. You focus back on Price. “I’m not privy to any plans they use your data for.”

Ghost, in the meantime, helped Gaz scan through your belongings. You looked past Price and at the other two, your eyes narrowing. You don’t have much to lose in there; you’ve gotten over having anything personal or sentimental in that pack. As far as the world at large was concerned, you were dead and gone. Only a few people knew you had ever existed, and almost all of them were hostiles. Having anything that could elude your existence was compromising to his operations as a snoop.

Ghost picks his head up for a second and meets your glare, matching and exceeding the irritation in your eyes. Your staring contest lasts a few more seconds before Ghost motions to Price with a jerk of his chin. Roscoe looks back to Price, who snaps his fingers right in your face to get your attention. “Answer the question.” He grumbles.

You completely missed whatever Price had asked, but you figure that saying “I don’t know,” was the best you would’ve been able to come up with anyway. You flinch as the barrel of a pistol tapped the side of your head from behind. You growl softly, turning just a bit to look at Soap. “I don’t. You really think they’d give themselves the chance to compromise themselves by giving me their plans?”

“So you’re telling us you’ve got no idea what any of them are doing right now? You don’t have a clue what they’re up to.” Price stands to his full height again and crosses his arms over his chest. You roll your eyes and turn forward again. “That’s going to be a trend with most of the questions you ask me, I’m guessing.” You sigh.

“I find it hard to believe you know nothing after a year working with them.” Price continues. “Well, I don’t.” Your matter-of-fact tone prompts Ghost, who’s stood up by now, to clear the space between you. He stares. You stare back. Then, a heavy gloved fist clocks you across the jaw, making you bite down on your tongue trying to think through the searing pain. You don’t have long before your head is yanked up again. “Gettin’ tired of your horseshit, rat.” Ghost mutters, his voice low and growly, like a wolf ready to tackle its prey. He grabs your bruising chin with a tight grip. “Get talkin’.”

You swallow down the urge to spit a mouthful of blood onto his scuffed up skull mask. “I’m not in the business of lying. And I’m certainly not the type to make claims without proof.” Your voice is hoarse as you go on, “I don’t have the information you want. I’m not gonna lie to save my own ass.” Your words become garbled near the end of your sentence when blood from your tongue starts to pool in your mouth again.

Price sighs before motioning to Ghost and Soap to let up. They both hesitate, looking at each other for a moment. Ghost drops your chin and Soap’s pistol is taken off the back of his head. “Put the wanker in the bunker. We’ll try again tomorrow night.” Price instructs, helping Gaz pick up the sifted through bag on the floor, replacing all the implements. Ghost blinks slowly and hoists one of the arm rests into the crook of his elbow, following Soap to a set of steps a few meters away from where he was set up.

They drag you down into the dark room below the floor. Ghost tosses the chair down and makes sure it was set upright before turning and walking outside. He looked back at Soap and walked back up the stairs. “You’re taking first watch.” Soap’s eyes widened. “Hey, who said that?” He called back to his superior. “Me.” Ghost calls back before he disappears up the stairway.

“Well,” Soap sighs and gives one last tap to your forehead with his pistol. “Don’t get into any trouble, ye bampot.” He huffs before walking out of the room and slamming the door shut. Even through the door, he could hear your chair scuffing over the floor with loud squeaks and creaks from the chair legs from you struggling against the restraints. Soap shakes his head and leans against the wall next to the door to relax, a small sense of relief flowing through him at the thought that they had finally caught you. Just one more loose end taken care of.

𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @synthe4u, @leiaa34

[if your name is crossed off, tumblr wouldn't let me tag you :( i'm sorry!!]

#simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #john price #simon ghost riley x reader #kyle gaz garrick x reader #john soap mactavish x reader #john price x reader #tf 141 x reader #kyle gaz garrick x gn!reader #john soap mactavish x gn!reader #john price x gn!reader #simon ghost riley x gn!reader #mw2 fanfic #mw3 fanfic #modern warfare 2 #modern warfare 3 #cod mw2 #cod mw3 #mwii #mwiii #price mw2 #ghost mw2 #soap mw2 #gaz mw2 #gaz mw3 #price mw3 #ghost mw3 #soap mw3 #john mactavish x reader

[wearelatinamericanrockers]

Soda Stereo is an Argentine Rock Band formed in 1982 and considered the most important, popular and influential band in Spanish rock and a legend of Latin American music.

They were the first Spanish-speaking group to achieve massive success in Latin America and played a very important role in the development and dissemination of Latin American rock and rock in Spanish during the 1980s and 1990s. During their career, they were avant-garde and marked trend in Latin America, in which they starred in various genres such as the fun music of their beginnings, the new wave, the dark wave, hard rock, alternative rock and the electronic rock of their ends.

Soda Stereo has topped the all-time charts in the world, where several records for record sales and concert attendance were established. Until 2007, the band's sales were estimated at more than seven million copies sold of its albums.

Their most famous songs are "De Música ligera", "Persiana Americana" and "En la Ciudad de la Furia".

Virus is an Argentine pop rock band made in 1980. Virus had a fundamental role in the new wave movement of the '80s in Argentina along with other musical groups such as Los Abuelos de la Nada, Soda Stereo and Sumo.

Since their beginnings as one of the most emblematic numbers of the new wave in Argentina in the early '80s, they starred in the Argentine musical renewal that occurred with the end of the dictatorship and the return to democracy in 1983.

Their most famous songs are "Imágenes Paganas", "Encuentro en el Rio" and "Luna de Miel En la Mano". submitted propaganda below;

"Es Virus" "Escuchá Pronta Entrega, o Luna de Miel en la Mano y decime que no tiene que ganar"

#soda stereo #Latino rock tournament #round 2 #polls #VIRUS band #virus banda #virus

[shamandrummer]

The World is Running Out of Water

The world is "running out of water," Makasa Looking Horse says, and if we don't take action soon, it will be too late. Looking Horse, from Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, Canada, is one of the hosts of the Ohneganos Ohnegahdę:gyo -- Let's Talk about Water podcast, which won a 2021 David Suzuki Foundation Future Ground Prize. The prize recognizes youth-led movements. It's a podcast created, the Suzuki Foundation says, to "engage Indigenous communities and disseminate research findings by facilitating meaningful discussion about water issues and climate change."

Looking Horse points to Aberfoyle, Ontario, where BlueTriton Brands, Inc., an American beverage company based in Connecticut, has permits to take 3.6 million litres of water a day out of an aquifer there. BlueTriton is the new name of the giant corporation better known as Nestlé Waters North America. The name was changed to BlueTriton Brands in 2021.

She says "they're making millions off our water and selling it. And the thing about aquifer waters that it takes 6,000 to 10,000 years for that water to filter through the ground. We'll never see that water within our lifetime again and that's why it's so important that we stop water extraction."

BlueTriton says, in a report from November 2021, that it has conducted "extensive testing and studies over the years to ensure that their operations do not diminish the availability of water for other users or the environment." The company says "permit conditions require BlueTriton to monitor the natural and pumping-related variations in groundwater and surface water levels." The permit was renewed by the Ontario government in 2021 and runs until November 2026.

Looking Horse's commitment to protecting water was passed down from her parents. Her mother is Dawn Martin-Hill, one of the founders of the Indigenous studies program at McMaster University and the winner of the University of Oklahoma's International Water Prize, for her commitment to improving water security for the people of the Six Nations of the Grand River.

Her father is Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe. He was given the responsibility at age 12, the youngest keeper in history. Looking Horse  says her path into activism and water sovereignty didn't happen overnight. It was a long and encompassing journey full of passion for earth, prayer for water and everything on earth.

Similar to Looking Horse, the United Nations (UN) also has concerns about how much water humans can access. According to a UN report, by 2025 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world's population could be living under "water stressed conditions."

In June of 2019, Looking Horse hand delivered a cease and desist letter from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council to Nestlé Waters in Aberfoyle. In 2021, the council sent another letter to BlueTriton, after the company changed its name, saying "the majority of our people at Six Nations do not have access to clean drinking water... we declare your activities to remove [aquifer] waters under our territories unpermitted and demand that you cease your activity immediately."

The fight for water sovereignty and for clean drinking water continues for Looking Horse. "The urgency worldwide is huge because the world is running out of water. This is only one example of exploitative extraction by a big corporation. This doesn't include all of the pollution and micro plastics that are living in waterways and systems across the globe," she said.

"I've been praying for water and working with water for a very long time, and that's where it started," she said. "You start to learn how valuable water is on a spiritual level, but also on a statistic level. The world is really in a water crisis. So, it's in our culture to protect the water and have a responsibility."

#water sovereignty #water is life #clean drinking water #water extraction

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Daily Don

* * * *

President Biden to name national monument for Emmet Till and his mother.

          The brutal torture and murder of Emmett Till followed by his mother’s decision to hold an “open casket” funeral changed America. In 1955, a young Black teenager, Emmett Till, was abducted and killed because a white woman accused Till of “whistling” at her and grabbing her wrist. (The woman later recanted the accusations during an interview for a book.) Till’s nearly unrecognizable body was pulled from a river, where it was weighted with a 75-pound cotton gin fan secured to his neck by barbed wire. Nearly 250,000 people walked past his casket, and hundreds of thousands more saw photos of Till’s mutilated body in his casket.

          Two white men were charged with the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. The defendants confessed to the crime a few months later in an interview given to Look Magazine—for which they were paid $4,000, a hefty sum in 1956. Having been previously acquitted, they could not be tried again for murder because of the Constitution’s double jeopardy prohibition.

          Emmett Till’s murder and his mother’s bravery in holding an open-casket funeral galvanized the nascent civil rights movement and helped to inspire a generation of civil rights leaders, including Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. On Monday, President Biden announced that he is declaring three sites as a national monument to Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. See NYTimes, Biden to Name National Monument for Emmett Till and His Mother. (This article is accessible to all.)

          President Biden’s actions come at a moment of renewed overt racism in America. Florida’s new history curriculum includes prompts asking students to consider ways in which slavery “benefitted” enslaved persons by giving them skills they could use after emancipation. See Florida’s State Academic Standards—Social Studies, 2023. The linked document includes the following “benchmark” standard (on page 6):

Benchmark Clarifications: Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

          The proposed “benchmark clarification” is a stunning revision to an institution where white owners profited from forced labor by enslaved persons. To suggest that any part of that forced labor was “beneficial” is a cruel and dishonest whitewashing of a vile institution. But Ron DeSantis nonetheless defended a “pro-slavery” curriculum that his culture war unleashed in Florida. See The Independent, DeSantis defends Florida curriculum that suggests slaves benefited from forced labor.

          But the Academic Standards linked above are far worse than the media portrays. The issue is not a single snippet—the language quoted above—it is the entire approach to teaching the history of slavery in the United States. I invite you to review pages 5 through 10 of the Academic Standards, and you will discover that much of the curriculum is devoted to describing slavery in Africa, Europe, and Asia—apparently to make the disgusting point that “everyone else was doing it.” For example, the “benchmark clarifications” on page 9 include the following:

Benchmark Clarifications: Clarification 1: Instruction includes how trading in slaves developed in African lands (e.g., Benin, Dahomey). Clarification 2: Instruction includes the practice of the Barbary Pirates in kidnapping Europeans and selling them into slavery in Muslim countries (i.e., Muslim slave markets in North Africa, West Africa, Swahili Coast, Horn of Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Indian Ocean slave trade). Clarification 3: Instruction includes how slavery was utilized in Asian cultures (e.g., Sumerian law code, Indian caste system). Clarification 4: Instruction includes the similarities between serfdom and slavery and emergence of the term “slave” in the experience of Slavs. Clarification 5: Instruction includes how slavery among indigenous peoples of the Americas was utilized prior to and after European colonization.

          All of the above smacks of a white-racist defense of slavery in the US. Thankfully, Joe Biden is resisting the effort by the right to erase America’s shameful history of slavery and Jim Crow laws that enforced a system of apartheid for nearly a century after the Civil War.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Emmett Till #The Daily Don #Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #racism #Benchmark Clarifications #Academic Standards #monuments

[leoascendente]

Pluto through zodiac signs in history ☄️

Hi my loves!💕 Today I bring something a litte bit different than usual, myfrustrated career was historian like my mum but end up being the witch of the family, so let's combine and explore today two of my favorite things: astrology and history. Pluto is now entering the sign of Aquarius after more than 200 years and we can see it's effects starting in society. Pluto takes between 12 to 32 years to transit a sign so it creates a generational and collective energy to deal with.

Pluto is the planet of transformation and renewal, it brings destruction to the old and useless and he does it in an explossive and dramatic way, so if you take a look through history with the "astrologer glasses" you can see how pluto works in every sign and his impact in every generation.

If you want to know more about Pluto archetype I'll leave a link to my post about it here

Pluto in Pisces- From 1798 to 1823

The old empires were falling down opening the road for the Napoleonic empire, a complete opposite form of goverment than what there was before. People were open to accept other people outside of prejudices, well... it was still 19th century, at least they weren't cutting heads anymore so let's give them a chance 🤷‍♀️. Socialism was implanted in Europe through these decades and started the Romantic artistc movement too, there were also huge progress in medicine and the study of nature. Edgar Allan Poe was born with this placement.

Pluto in Aries - From 1821 to 1852

Well... If you know a little about astrology you might expect this. This Pluto transit is the generation of pioneers and revolucionaries, through these years is easy to see a lot of independence movements, mostly in America like the independence of Mexico from Spain the 24th of february of 1824. In this season, regions under the control of unfair leaders started fighting for their rights and their recognition, they were looking for freedom from their opressive politics, on Europe started the spring of nations giving way to a series of riots and revolutions . There was a massive industrial developmentn and as a random fact there were also brutal vocanic explossions.

Pluto in Taurus - From 1853 to 1884

This was a time for a process of unify and stabilize, the people from this transit started to explode the resources that the earth had to provide us, the famous "gold fever" was very strong through these decades. The new politic movements that started with Pluto in Aries begins to solidify and get a more stable structure, there was an amazing economical growth and many agrarial and industrial reforms. There were also a lot of earthquakes that left terrible consequences like the one that happened in Japan on November 11th. These times also promoted materialism and the personal enjoyment, self benefit over the common good.

Pluto in Gemini - From 1882 to 1914

This was a generation for the intellect, new ways of communication and travel began to see the light. In terms of knowledge people wanted to look deeper in the meaning of things, the was a lot of new discoveries and progress about science and psychology. We also had the beginings of the sufragist movement looking for the right of women for education. There was a rise on realism artistic movement over the previous romantisism. In 1888 we had the unfamous Jack the ripper on England and his creepy cards to the police, I see this like the worst face of Pluto in Gemini, that terrible man rejoicing himself in his destructive behaviors (Plutonian) through cards making fun of the police (I always associate writting to Gemini or air signs in general). In general, through this Pluto's transit peopple gave more importance to intellect and rational fact over emotions.

Pluto in Cancer - From 1914 to 1939

The right of women to vote in Luxemburg or the vote for the universal sufragge in Belgium in 1919 are good examples for me of this placement. Cncer is Divine Femenine energy and through these decades the role of women in society is forced to be recognized, not just by the feminist movement but because they are needed for working after the loss of many men that were in World War I. There were also a lot of pacific movements like Ghandi and his hunger strike in India ( I don't like this man but at least he did something important avoiding armed conflicts). This was a time where family roots and homeland had a lot of importance in society and this gives also importance to nationalist political movements. Have in mind that people from this transit had very difficult circumstances, WW1 started on 1914 and WW2 started on 1939, many dictatorships started to form through these years.

Pluto in Leo - From 1937 to 1958

Obviously this Pluto's transit brought up a lot of megalomaniac dictators, charismatic leaders that looked like the answer to the problems of the population and ended up being extremly dangerous, starving for power and dominance over the weak and minorities. I'm not going to talk about the man we all know from WW2, I'm going to talk about the Spanish one that was terrible too. In Spain was imposed franco regime, this man orchestrated a coup d`état (<-sorry that was what google translator told me) that led to a civil war where he told to kill a lot of people that were againts him through that war and when he was ruling the country (search about Federico Garcia Lorca, he was an incredible writer with an awesome future, he was killed by Franco´s order). He was the dictator of Spain for a lot of years, he heelped Mossolini and Hitler on some ocasions, as a random fact, some says that when Hitler met Franco he said he would do anything to never spend again a minute with Franco. To end up this transit right lets say that we also had a lot of iconic stars like Marilyn or Elvis, they are literal icons even today.

Pluto in Virgo - From 1956 to 1972

Like Virgo always does, Pluto in this sign tried to clean out the disasters of it's previous transit and put a little order to the chaos. On this transit appeared a lot of reforms and remodeling to clear up the situation and see what really works for population, after years of fear and chaos people were yearning for some social order and peace. The bad part about this... segregation and the start of cold war. Goverments tried to recollect information to use it againts other goverments, the race for the space and all the mechanichal improvements, but also there was a change in the population`s habits giving more importance to health and diet, recognizing that tools and resources that everybody used had toxic or harmful components, for many people with this placement bad aspected I've seen they have a weird but effective way of taking care of their body. Also there was a rise for careers related to health or mechanics through these years.

Pluto in Libra - From 1971 to 1984

This was a time for recognizing human rights and fight againts unjustice, society was involved in too many conflicts and this generation tried to redirect the focus to peace and diplomacy. New agreements related to marriage and divorce, in some countries divorce was illegal, so this also helped to break some toxic traits related to the expectations about marriage, in general there were new ways to understand realtionships. There was also a revalorization of art and recognition to some artist that were left aside. People started to unify as a collective to fight against the unfair and began to give more importance to equal rights, also to the beauty of nature like in Sempember of 1978, that year Quito, the capital of Ecuador became the first place to be into the World heritage.

Pluto in Scorpio - From 1983 to 1995

Our millennial generation! We have a lot to thank to this generation tbh. This Pluto transit appeared to break with many society taboos, making people emphathize with the ones who didn't had a voice before. In this transit people started to loose fear about death and sex, mostly for women who had been repressed the years before. Of course, there were sexual transmitions diseases but in this time people started to give it the proper importance to these kind of issues. Pluto is related to nuclear energy and in 1986 the world had to see Chernobyl and it's disastrous consequences, but remember too that many countries on those decades were making nuclear tests that also left terrible ressults for humanity. (if you like to there's a documentary on Netflix called 'dark tourist', in one of the episodes they go to a lake made out of an atomic explosion). As a random fact, through this transit appeared a lot of serial killers with sexual overtones.

Pluto in Sagittarius - From 1995 to 2008

How are you my fellows Sag Plutos? This transit came with massive existencial crisis where people stopped believing what others said it was good or bad, even more if that good or bad was written thousands of years ago. This generation learned to live life by their own philosophy instead of following religious beliefs, experience as a way of understanding. People from this generation are more open and prone to look for answers in different places because of the dissapointment with the previous beliefs systems. Through these years we can also see a decline in the main religions, people are not willing anymore to accept other's imposed truths without looking for the logic, but we have to say that it also brought religious radicalism. People from this generation are more open to new ways of experience spirituality and give human existence a meaning, this generation is open to things like meditation, astrology, chakras... The worst aspect of this transit would be that everyone wants to be heard but just a little are willing to listen.

Pluto in Capricorn - From 2008 to 2023

Well, this transit started hard with the global economical crisis of 2008, scandals about corruption in politics and banks, our sight of authority figures is not the same as before because all these scandals and the ones in the past, basicaly we don't fully trust our authority figures. People through this transit got a little obsessed about power, money and their social position but it also brought a lot of new jobs and ways of earning money and fame never seen before. Have you noticed how extremes has politics become lately? Also, public cancellations could have something to do with this transit? Like cancelling, somehow destroying (pluto) someone publicly ( Cap also rules our public image) Idk, let me know what you think about this because Capricorn is complex 🤔. Something curious about this placement is that people are trying to be their own bosses and work for themselves instead of working for others.

Pluto in Aquarius - From 1778 to 1798 (2023 to 2044 aprox)

Pluto is now on Aquarius, the last time it was there we had the French revolution, this year we have riots in France again. French revolution started because of unjustice and inequality, while the royalty were surrounded by luxury normal people were struggling to supply their basic needs, maybe a little like now?. Pluto also entered Aquarius in 2020 and we had a global crisis too. The good thing about this transit was that the century of the lights started with it, Pluto in Aquarius helped to develop critical sense and thinking, the circumstances made them focus on their unfair reality and how they could improve it for the common good. On 1791 Olympe de Gouges published the declaration of the rights of women as a response to the declaration of the right of men on 1789, defying the male supremacy of that time (she was a Taurus sun btw). We know what happened then, we'll see what it has for us now.

Please, feel free to add any other historic event and their pluto's transit, I would love to know what you think.

Let me know if you would like to know more about long transit planets and its impact in society through history.

Thank you

~ Lala 💖

Do not copy or repost

© Leo ascendente

#witchblr #leoascendente #astrology #astroblr #astrology pluto #western astrology #pluto signs #horoscope #zodiac signs #pluto placements #astro notes #astrology notes

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … January 3

1752 – Johannes von Müller, Swiss historian, born (d.1809); Müller's Geschichten der Schweizer (Swiss History), a project that occupied most of his life and took him more than forty years to complete. Müller's tome (18 volumes in the French translation) is now considered hopelessly unreliable, even though in its day it stirred Swiss nationalism and had profound influence.

Müller's place here is due to his favorite extracurricular activity - writing love letters to Charles Victor de Bonstetten, a young, devastatingly handsome Swiss writer.

Charles Victor de Bonstetten

Bonstetten was also the object of desire for Thomas Gray, the English poet. Müller's love letters, among the loveliest ever penned, were published in 1835, twenty-five years after his death. Long before then, however, Goethe had gone on record declaring Müller's sexuality.

1900 – Dorothy Arzner (d.1979), although not the first woman to direct films in Hollywood, was the only woman director to work through the turbulent, richly productive, 1930s and 1940s—the period crucial to the development of Classical Hollywood Cinema.

Born in San Francisco, she grew up around the filmmakers and actors who frequented her father's Hollywood restaurant. After dropping out of university, where she had intended to become a doctor, Arzner interviewed with William DeMille (of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, i.e., Paramount Studios) and accepted her first film job as a script typist. She soon moved on to cutting and editing, eventually editing fifty-two pictures as chief editor for RealArt, a subsidiary of Paramount.

Arzner made her directorial debut at Paramount with Fashions for Women in 1927. Between 1927 and 1933, she directed eleven films for Paramount; in the ten years between 1933 and when she left the Hollywood film industry in 1943, Arzner directed another six films as a freelancer with RKO, United Artists, MGM, and Columbia.

During this time, Arzner received media attention as a "woman director" in the popular press; and as a woman, her work and her career were constantly scrutinized. For all this, however, Arzner remained enigmatic, even provocatively so: observers commented on the juxtaposition of her petite figure and her "mannish" dress; journalists reassured readers that this woman gave her orders on the set with a soft and "feminine" voice; and publicity photos regularly romanced her relationship with her female stars, who included such actresses as Clara Bow, Claudette Colbert, Rosalind Russell, Katherine Hepburn, and Joan Crawford.

Arzner's lesbianism seems to have been well-known within the Hollywood community, though little attention was paid to it publicly. She lived openly with her companion Marion Morgan, a choreographer and dancer, from 1930 until Morgan's death in 1971. The prominence of dance in several of Arzner's films may reflect Morgan's influence.

Arzner left Hollywood in 1943 to recover from an illness, and she never returned. Coincidentally, post-World War II Hollywood experienced a radical movement towards conservative "family values" quite incompatible with Arzner's general themes and interests, and her work seems to have fallen out of favor.

After her Hollywood career, Arzner directed training films for the Women's Army Corps, taught in the film program at UCLA (1959-1963), and was honored by the Director's Guild of America in 1975. She died on October 1, 1979.

As a woman "pioneer" in the film industry, and as a lesbian, Arzner has attracted considerable attention recently. She has been recognized for her innovations in using sound and her films, though many are still hard to find outside of archives, have seen a renewed interest both academically and popularly.

1948 - Sex Researcher Alfred Kinsey revealed a high incidence of same-sex acts among men. Behavior in the Human Male is published, in which the researcher concludes that 37% of American males have had at least one gay sexual experience to the point of orgasm. Five years later Kinsey publishes his report on women, which puts the comparable figure at 13%.

1964 – Bruce LaBruce is a Canadian writer, filmmaker, photographer and underground gay porn director based in Toronto, Ontario.

LaBruce was born Bryan Bruce in Tiverton, Ontario, and wrote for Cineaction magazine, curated by Robin Wood, his teacher. He first gained public attention with the publication of the queer punk zine J.D.s, which he co-edited with G.B. Jones. He currently writes and photographs for a variety of publications including Vice, Nerve.com and BlackBook magazine, and has made a number of films which merged the artistic techniques of independent film with gay pornography.

He has also previously been a columnist for the Canadian music magazine Exclaim! and Toronto's eye weekly, and he was a contributing editor and photographer for many years at New York's index magazine. He has also been published in Toronto Life and the National Post as well as the UK Guardian. His movie, Otto, or, Up With Dead People debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. L.A. Zombie was banned from the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2010 because, in the opinion of Australian censors, it would have been refused classification. However, the film was subsequently able to screen at OutTakes, a New Zealand lesbian and gay international film festival, in May 2011.

In March 2011, LaBruce directed a performance of Arnold Schoenberg's opera Pierrot Lunaire at the Hebbel am Ufer Theatre in Berlin. As one no doubt assumes, this iteration of the opera included gender diversity, castration scenes and dildos, as well as a female to male transgender Pierrot.

[rlyehtaxidermist]

honestly i think people underestimate how easy it would be to flip a significant chunk of millennials/zoomers to the GOP. just

ditch "clean coal" and climate denial for a climate plan that will actually work, because "all renewables! yay" absolutely won't the environmental movement's alliance with the anti-nuclear lobby has to be the greatest self own in modern policy

stop being overtly and actively homophobic. switch to a "we don't care, not the government's problem" on gay marriage and dodge the question on trans people.

revive the post-depression style of sucking big business's dick instead of the reaganomics trickle-down version

reframe "America First" as non-interventionism

it wouldn't get all of us but it would get Enough of us.

#reblogs off because i don't want to hear random people's responses to this take when i get back from work but i trust my mutuals

[tomorrowusa]

Republicans hate Taylor Swift. So I'm glad they have to see her picture on all those magazine covers when they go to the supermarket to buy white bread, Diet Coke®, and ketchup. 🤭

Conservatives have yet again placed Taylor Swift in their conspiratorial crosshairs following her recent unveiling as TIME’s “person of the year.” Swift has been a target for right-wingers since at least 2018, when she broke from her largely apolitical persona and endorsed Phil Bredesen as Tennessee’s Democratic Senate nominee, who was running against then-Rep. Marsha Blackburn. In her endorsement, Swift said that Blackburn’s voting record “appalls and terrifies me,” citing Blackburn’s anti-LGBTQ views and her opposition to renewing the Violence Against Women Act. And footage from Swift’s 2020 Netflix documentary shows her upset over Blackburn’s eventual victory, with the artist saying “[Blackburn] gets to be the first female senator in Tennessee, and she’s Trump in a wig.” That Swift has used her Eras Tour to register voters has drawn conservative ire, too. (More examples of the hate directed at Swift here.) Liberals, for their part, seem to love that conservatives are trying to pick a fight with one of the most popular stars on earth. So that helps to explain the conniption pitched by Republicans on social media this week, which has featured right-wing pundits fueling baseless theories that Swift’s selection as Time’s “person of the year” is some sort of political manipulation campaign.  [ ... ] The right-wing response here underscores a problem conservatives have struggled with for decades now, which is that their widely unpopular politics often place them at odds with pop culture figures. Not all pop culture figures, of course. But certainly the ones who endorse the tenets of a democratic society, like voting rights, bodily autonomy for abortion-seekers and trans people, and freedom from discrimination. In fact, House Speaker Mike Johnson railed against liberal pop culture figures in a recent campaign email describing America's "depraved" culture. "[Y]ou don’t even want to see the filth that passes for popular culture these days," Johnson said. (Fact check: I do.)

The fact is that the MAGA zombies with their pagan worship of "Orange Jesus" are the truly depraved (and deeply hypocritical) ones.

As mentioned in the article, Taylor Swift has been promoting voter registration on her tour. Let's lend a hand...

Be A Voter - Vote Save America

#person of the year #taylor swift #republicans #maga #conspiracy theories #donald trump #mike johnson #phil bredesen #tennessee #ja'han jones #election 2024

[mogai-sunflowers]

MOGAI BHM- Day 10!

happy BHM! today i’m going to be talking about the harlem renaissance and its significance! the harlem renaissance itself is a huge topic to cover, so this post will be more of an overview, with discussions of art and theater during the movement, and in future posts i will go through literature and music during the harlem renaissance!

Background and Context-

[Image ID: A black-and-white photograph of a group of Black people organized into two lines in a field. At the front of the two lines, there is a table and a few white people administering medical tests/attention to the Black people in the lines. End ID.]

Part of what sparked the Harlem Renaissance was a series of factors that compounded each other in the early part of the 1900s in America. Urbanization was one of these factors, and it describes the process of populations shifting from rural to city/urban environments. Early 1900s America saw a huge increase in the production of metal, the drilling for oil, and other industrial factors, which led to a large amount of skyscrapers being built and cities being developed.

Urbanization is not just the building of cities, though. It’s the population, economic, and cultural shifts that come with the building of cities. The environments people live in influence their financial situation, their culture, their education, and their access to certain resources and opportunities.

When mass urbanization happens, it’s usually accompanied by mass migrations, which is exactly what happened with what is now called the Great Migration, which lasted about 6 decades starting in 1910. The earlier part of the Great Migration was characterized by a huge amount of Black southerners migrating to the rapidly urbanizing North.

The Great Migration of Black people out of the South also coincided with a growth of new, revolutionary ideas about race and culture. The horrible legacy of white supremacy in America had completely severed Black Americans from their individual cultures in Africa. It caused, and continues to cause to this day, a difficulty for Black people to connect to cultural and racial pride- but in the early 1900s, that began to change. 

A lot of Black people began striving to create racial pride out of the racial oppression they were experiencing- since many Black people didn’t know which culture they descended from, a movement to create the ‘New Negro’, as it was then called, out of a pan-African identity, began to grow. New, revolutionary ideas of what it meant to be Black in America- ideas rooted in pride and celebration rather than shame, took root as huge populations of Black people moved northward to growing cities.

In 1919, a series of deadly race riots, later known as ‘Red Summer’, combined with the renewed outrage many Black people had towards their inhumane treatment after experiencing much better treatment overseas at war, led to increased awareness of a racial reckoning in America, and the Harlem Renaissance was afoot.

The Harlem Renaissance-

[Image ID: A black-and-white photograph of a large crowd of Black people all standing in front of a theater. The theater has a glitzy, light-up sign that says “LAFAYETTE” and is strewn with a few signs that say “HALLELUJAH!”. End ID.]

Centered in the city of Harlem in New York, the Harlem Renaissance was a Black cultural revolution. It was a national rebirth of Black pride and it involved the birth and growth of Black literature, art, music, culture, and pride. 

Black music thrived through the international boom of jazz music. Black art and literature grew through publications like The Crisis and Opportunity. Black sociology thrived and defined the movement. 

The Harlem Renaissance influenced the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power movement, and all areas of Black culture, and it had and continues to have international influences.

Harlem buzzed with the opening of many new, ritzy clubs where people enjoyed vibrant performances, and Black night life became a staple of the Renaissance.

Visual Art During the Harlem Renaissance-

[Image ID: A colorful painting by Aaron Douglas. The background is vibrant streaks of golden, yellow, and orange, and the subject of the painting is a Black man in a brown suit, wearing a hat. End ID.]

Visual arts flourished during the Harlem Renaissance. Formal art education institutions were very hostile to Black people, so they very rarely could attend them, meaning that mainstream art movements ignored and excluded Black people, Black artists, and Black art. The Harlem Renaissance challenged that.

Often called the “Father of African-American Art”, the most famous visual artist of the Harlem Renaissance is Aaron Douglas. Influenced by movements like Cubism, Douglas had four of his works, a series which he called the “Aspects of N*gro Life”, commissioned. They became very popular for combining modern art styles with indigenous African styles mainly from West African countries, and they depicted Black people in different areas of life, especially music and other movements which flourished during the Harlem Renaissance.

Considered to be the first Pan-African-American artwork, a sculpture called ‘Ethiopia’ was created inspired by Egyptian culture by artist Meta Warrick Fuller, who made the art dedicated to the contributions of Black Americans to the world of art. Printmaking also flourished as an art form during the Harlem Renaissance with artists like James Lesesne Wells, whose style combined both European and African influences.

Photography helped sustain the Harlem Renaissance- historically, documentation of Black experiences had only been about pain and suffering- and while remembering those experiences is important, they are not the whole story. Famous photographer James Van Der Zee captured never-before-seen Black joy, Black pride, in his thousands of beautiful photographs of the Harlem Renaissance.

Theater During the Harlem Renaissance-

[Image ID: A small, blurry, black-and-white photograph of a large crowd of Black people standing and cheering outside of a theater called the Savoy Ballroom, which has a big, lit sign advertising its name and shows names of shows playing there beneath that sign. End ID.]

In media like plays and stage performances, Black identity had always been extremely limited- racist legacies of minstrel shows and racist stereotypes in performances meant that Black people were only ever portrayed in horribly demeaning roles, usually not even by Black actors, and when they WERE portrayed by Black actors, those actors were treated terribly and were forced to demean themselves in their performances.

The Harlem Renaissance began to challenge that by giving Black Americans the opportunity to represent themselves in their own stage performances- instead of the minstrel stereotypes they’d been reduced to for a long time, many began writing their own roles, allowing themselves to give depth and humanity to Black characters, allowing Black characters to be the good guys, allowing them the ability to have complex stories and lives outside of stereotypes.

Black Americans established such famous theaters as the Savoy Ballroom and the Apollo Theater, eventually becoming just south-adjacent of the white-dominated Broadway. Famous writers like Langston Hughes began writing plays like ‘Mulatto’ and ‘The Sun Do Move’, and famous Black actors like Billy King and Theophilus Lewis became stars.

One of the most influential stage works to come out of the Harlem Renaissance was a play called Shuffle Along, and it challenged the racist exclusion that many Black actors faced on Broadway by becoming the first Black play in over a decade to reach Broadway. It portrayed Black people living their lives and gave them the ability to express the humanity that white Americans were trying to ignore.

Sources-

https://magazine.artland.com/art-movement-harlem-renaissance/#:~:text=The%20Visual%20Arts%20of%20the%20Harlem%20Renaissance&text=Douglas%20was%20influenced%20by%20modernist,from%20Benin%2C%20Congo%20and%20Senegal. 

https://www.britannica.com/event/Harlem-Renaissance-American-literature-and-art/Visual-art

https://macaulay.cuny.edu/seminars/henken08/articles/r/e/n/Renaissance_and_Theatre_d0e4.html#:~:text=These%20performances%20were%20often%20shown,and%20The%20Sun%20Do%20Move.

https://historyoftheharlemrenaissance.weebly.com/the-apollo-theatre.html https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/harlem-renaissance

tagging @metalheadsforblacklivesmatter​ @neopronouns​ @genderkoolaid​ 

#mogai bhm #mogai #mogai community #bhm #black history month #blm #black lives matter

[dipperdesperado]

Solarpunk Gives Me Hope

For the past couple of years, I’ve been really interested in the solarpunk genre. Up until now, it’s been a flirtatious relationship, but I’m ready to settle down. Sustainability and Environmentalism have been a big part of my adult life; I always knew that I wanted to have a positive impact on the world at large, and what better way to do that than to put time into preserving that very world? However, as I got deeper into the sustainability space, I saw a lot of reductive, holier-than-thou behavior and apathy toward meaningful action. Like, recycling is great (if it actually gets recycled, thanks America), but is that it? Is that all we can do? Environmentalism as a movement also has a history steeped in white supremacy, a trend that is bubbling up again.

As you can tell, I got really frustrated with the landscape of the environmental movement. I never heard anyone acknowledge the issues that exist on both sides of the aisle; there didn’t seem to be a lot of care for the people that are most vulnerable to climate change in those conversations. It led me to move away from the sustainability space, wholesale. I didn’t really understand why until I discovered solarpunk. Hearing about this subgenre-meets-movement lit the fire in my heart. Solarpunk represents what I think is the most exciting way to think about not only saving our planet but saving ourselves.

What is Solarpunk?

People have their own definitions for solarpunk, which is as liberating as it is frustrating. One of the best ones that I found came from Solarpunk Rising. Their definition is for solarpunk is “a creative movement that encourages optimistic visions of the future while responding to the climate crisis as well as social inequality”. I’d like to crib off of that one to explain how I think of solarpunk: “a creative movement that combines Art, Sustainability, and Social Liberation with an optimistic lens. It helps us imagine the world we want to see so we can create it.”

I don’t think it’s super useful to gatekeep what is and isn’t solarpunk beyond this definition. It is important, however, to highlight the liberatory, social aspects of solarpunk. While it’s fine and dandy to see solarpunk as a cool aesthetic, the real power comes from the real-life, tangible impacts that the movement can have.

Some things that I’d consider to be solarpunk actions in real life:

Proposing legislation to your local government to prioritize walkability in new developments

Writing articles about DIY ways to lessen your reliance on big corporations

Seed bombing an empty plot of land with native species

Airdropping anti-fascist memes to people in public

Solarpunk to me is any activity that centers a genuine excitement for how the world can be with an action-oriented approach.

Connected ideologies

Solarpunk has a lot of compatible ideologies, some of which you may have picked up on already. Just to list some important ones:

DIY: Being able to lessen your own consumption by fixing and repairing/repurposing what you have is super solarpunk

Optimism: It’s hard to imagine a better world if you don’t believe the world can get better. Solarpunk positions being an optimist as the most punk thing you can do in a world that feels made to keep you down.

Renewables (a la Solar): Surprise suprise, solarpunks tend to be into solar! One of the biggest harms to our planet is our relationship with energy. While trying to lessen the total amount of energy we use, we must also replace nonrenewable energy forms with those that are replenishable. Our amount of appropriation of resources can’t continue to exceed nature’s ability to replenish those resources.

Sustainability: Tying into the above ideal, across all facets of society, sustainability should be the goal. We should be able to find a sustainable level of interaction with the environment, with our consumption and lifestyles, and our systems of governance.

Liberation: None of this work would be worth it if our sparkly new world was built on oppressive practices. Centering equity as the lens though which we do all of the above work will give us much more in return.

Conclusion

Before I go, I want to mention lunarpunk. Where solarpunk is yin, lunarpunk is yang. They can be seen as two differing halves of a greater whole, focused on different aspects of their utopic goals. Solarpunk stuff will mostly be focused on tech, while lunarpunk is much more likely to include fantastical, occult, or spiritual ideals. I’m not as well versed on that, so I’m not going to go too deep, but I think it’s worth mentioning, as it’ll probably come up in your research.

I hope this was somewhat interesting to you! I really am jazzed about this world of solarpunk and find the ability of fiction to be a tool for creating the future. It can be in negative, dystopic ways, sure, but I feel like the positive outcomes are also ripe for the taking! I hope that you’re interested in exploring more, as I’ll have some links listed below: my inspirations for this post, along with my list of cool solarpunk stuff that I am constantly updating. Hopefully, we can dream of better futures together!

Sources

A Solarpunk Manifesto (English) – ReDes – Regenerative Design. https://www.re-des.org/a-solarpunk-manifesto/. Accessed 23 Nov. 2022.

Andrewism. How Degrowth Can Save The World. 2022. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQrI2GBvn5Q.

How We Can Build A Solarpunk Future (Ft. @Our Changing Climate). 2022. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz51PkJy2c0.

How We Can Make Solarpunk A Reality (Ft. @Our Changing Climate). 2021. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-JvyfZVkIM.

Humanity Is Not A Parasite. 2022. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j42RbUjofm0.

Solarpunk Is Not Enough. 2021. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaSb2gi1Ew.

We Need A Library Economy. 2022. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOYa3YzVtyk.

What Is Solarpunk? 2020. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHI61GHNGJM.

meningeal. “New to Solarpunk? Start Here!” R/Solarpunk, 13 June 2022, www.reddit.com/r/solarpunk/comments/vb1ky1/new_to_solarpunk_start_here/.

Our Changing Climate. How We Can Build A Solarpunk Future Right Now (Ft. @Andrewism). 2022. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twGcjDnOb_U.

Why This Gives Me Hope for the Future (Ft. @Saint Andrewism). 2021. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3aauiR9M88.

Reina-Rozo, Juan David. “Art, Energy and Technology: The Solarpunk Movement.” International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace, vol. 8, no. 1, 1, Mar. 2021, pp. 47–60. ojs.library.queensu.ca, https://doi.org/10.24908/ijesjp.v8i1.14292.

“Solarpunk.” Wikipedia, 29 Nov. 2022. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Solarpunk&oldid=1124508051.

“Solarpunk: A Genre of Activism.” Solarpunk Magazine, 13 Oct. 2021, https://solarpunkmagazine.com/solarpunk-a-genre-of-activism/.

Solarpunk.fun, Team. “Evergreen: Basically, Solarpunk.” SolarPunk, 25 Mar. 2021, https://www.solarpunk.fun/2021/03/25/basically-solarpunk/.

Solarpunk Reading List

#solarpunk #ecology #sustainable #ecofriendly #writers of tumblr #creative #politics

[mariacallous]

U.S. President Joe Biden talked about democracy vs. autocracy a lot in his early days in office. This was an attempt to reinvigorate democracy as a source of American soft power. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was an opportunity to drive home the message of this new geopolitical challenge to surmount. The democracy summits were an attempt to build on Biden’s vision, even though they were flawed in their criteria of which countries to include. Nevertheless, the third democracy summit in Seoul has drowned in the fog of the Israel-Hamas war. The administration’s management of the crisis has acted as a wrecking ball on the framework it was trying to build. While the United States has repeatedly blocked attempts at a permanent cease-fire, China is appealing to the global south by acknowledging the Palestinian right to armed resistance at the International Court of Justice. Allowing the conflict to drag on will keep discrediting the United States, elevate the standing of China and Russia, and undermine the prospects of democracy globally. And current events in Egypt, a historic strategic partner to the United States, showcase the consequences of this inertia.

An initial commitment to democracy in the Middle East came from then-President George W. Bush. In 2005, pressure from Bush’s administration resulted in Egypt’s first competitive presidential election, marking a significant shift in its political landscape. (Before that date, presidents renewed their mandate through referenda.) This first election gave a new life to the first movement that defied then-President Hosni Mubarak’s grip over power, Kifaya (Arabic for “enough”). A new generation became politically engaged, and, according to V-Dem datasets, there was a rise in participation in independent political associations. This new generation led Egypt’s revolution in 2011.

Barack Obama’s speech at Cairo University in 2009 was a rare moment when an American president visiting an Arab country was warmly welcomed. He promised a “new beginning” with the Muslim world after the shocking invasion of Iraq by Bush’s administration. The peak alignment with America’s calls for democracy happened during the Arab Spring of 2011, when the youth in Tahrir Square agitated to overthrow Mubarak with Obama’s support.

When Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took power in 2014, he identified Egypt’s evolving civil society, along with the Muslim Brotherhood, as threats he needed to take down in order to avoid a fate like Mubarak’s. Sisi’s regime has been characterized by a crackdown on dissent, with civil society actors who align with Western values of human rights and democracy labeled as traitors. The United States has come under continuous attack by state-sponsored media as a sponsor of chaos in the region; this propaganda in turn has worked to discredit the Western model of democracy. Meanwhile, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s favorite dictator received little pushback from an administration that did not have democracy on its agenda.

Over the same period, relations with Russia and China have grown stronger. While Mubarak maintained a good relationship with Moscow, Russia’s presence in Egypt mainly came through grain exports and tourism. Since Sisi took power in 2014, Cairo’s pivot toward Moscow was highlighted by the agreement in 2015 for Rosatom to build the first nuclear power plant on Egyptian soil—one of Russia’s most critical strategic wins in the region. Egypt’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine involved a provisional agreement to supply rockets to Russia and refusing to block its airspace to Russian fighter jets. Sisi justified this stance when he met American House Intelligence Committee leaders in Cairo: “When the U.S. conditions some of its arms sales and shipments to Egypt, what do you really want me to do?”  (Jim Himes, the committee’s ranking member, recounted this interaction with Sisi in an interview with CNN.) The U.S. has, since Obama, been putting conditions to uphold human rights on its aid to Egypt, which is the second-largest recipient of U.S. military assistance after Israel. Although blocks on aid usually involve a small proportion of the $1.3 billion sent annually, China and Russia offer arms deals with no such strings attached.

Cairo, too, has been moving closer to Beijing over the past decade, with Chinese investments increasing by more than 317 percent from 2017 to 2022. Because of the growing Chinese maritime presence in Egyptian ports, Egypt anticipates substantial Chinese investments in the Suez Canal region. Besides rapidly growing trade with China, Egypt’s government has had its state media adopt a Chinese propaganda narrative, organized bilateral leadership programs with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and allowed for Chinese expansion in the telecommunications sector and cyberspace. Only faint liberal voices within the minimal independent media space challenged the Egyptian official narrative that has championed China as a model of autocratic economic development.

Enclaves of activists and civil society leaders in Egypt and abroad have continued to challenge the Sisi regime, primarily through social media, and to support all those oppressed and imprisoned by him. Their pressures began to yield some results after Biden took office. His administration extended a show of support by highlighting human rights abuses in Department of State reports and withholding a small portion of military aid. Although the United States refused to increase the amount of withheld aid as called for by international human rights organizations, this helped ease some pressure on Egyptian activists. In 2022, and ahead of COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, and in an attempt to improve its image in response to the mounting U.S. pressure, Egypt  released a considerable number of political prisoners, the issued a national human rights strategy, and  establishmed a national dialogue between the regime and the opposition figures who remained inside Egypt. The results of these concessions were minimal, and some, like the human rights strategy and the dialogue, were merely cosmetic maneuvers. Nevertheless, they all happened after incoming U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken openly criticized the arrest of staffers from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) and Biden excluded Egypt from the democracy summits. Egyptian activists understood that any wins, however limited, could be achieved through U.S. support. This was particularly evident in campaigns to release high-profile prisoners like Alaa Abdel Fattah. The war in Gaza has severely compromised this premise.

The Biden administration’s backing of Israel and the repeated American vetoes used in the U.N. Security Council to prevent a permanent cease-fire have slashed the United States’ popularity in Egypt to 9 percent, compared with 46 percent for China, as shown in a survey by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The acute rise in anti-American sentiment is not the only result of what the public perceives as hypocrisy and double standards in America’s approach to the conflict. As shown by the survey, a more alarming consequence is the prevalence of distrust in the Western model of democracy and human rights, increasingly perceived as mere rhetorical tools deployed by the United States when human rights align with U.S. interest. Revealing the extent to which this view has been adopted by the public, in its latest release the most famous Egyptian rock band, Cairokee, sang about a double-faced America that doesn’t value Palestinian lives as opposed to those of “white angels.”

What about Europe? Can it pick up America’s slack? Europe once supported democracy and human rights in Egypt, as evidenced by the resolution issued by the European Parliament in 2022 urging EU member states to support a monitoring and reporting mechanism on grave human rights violations in Egypt. But once the war in Gaza began, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged to support Sisi through financial aid packages to mitigate the refugee influx expected from Gaza—and to prevent new waves of migration to Europe.

Arab democracy and human rights advocates made it clear that they parted ways with the Western stance of support for Israel and stood firmly in solidarity with the Palestinians. As a result, human rights organizations have risked support from their partners in the West, and many have become even more isolated in their struggle under repressive regimes. For instance, Germany recently withheld funding for the anti-trafficking program of the Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA) as a punishment to its head of the board of trustees, the award-winning human rights defender Azza Soliman, for signing a statement calling for the end of the war in Gaza and supporting the boycotting of the occupation. In solidarity, EIPR stopped all cooperation with the German government. The only winners from the weakening of civil rights organizations in Egypt are the authoritarians.

China and Russia have positioned themselves very well to capitalize on these developments. They did not rely solely on their official statements and positions in support of the ceasefire  in the U.N. Security Council, which has already enhanced their image considerably with the Arab public, as detected by the Washington Institute survey. The China in Arabic account on the X platform exemplifies how China is seizing the opportunity to spread anti-American rhetoric. The account spreads pro-Chinese and anti-Western propaganda in Arabic to more than 580,000 followers.

Moscow is already cashing in on these gains by hosting Palestinian factions, including Hamas, for reconciliation talks. China sees in the conflict an opportunity to expand its geopolitical role in the region while the United States is bogged down with Iranian proxies in Syria, Iraq, and the Red Sea, and it reaps political wins from the Houthi Red Sea attacks, which spare Chinese vessels and crew members. But those who have gained the most from the anti-American sentiment are the autocratic regimes of the region.

Sisi is relieved to have secured his third presidential term through a sham election. He blocked his main rival, Ahmed Tantawi, from running, and sentenced him after the election to a one-year suspended prison sentence and a ban from running in parliamentary elections for five years. Instead of calling out such violations, Western pressures were focused on mitigating the effects of the war and having an active Egyptian role in the day-after scenario despite its internal vulnerabilities. Nationalist and religious rhetoric has prevailed, even among activists on social media.

The United States needs to move fast to restore its image globally. This requires promptly ending the devastating war in Gaza and adopting a fair and balanced approach to the Middle East conflict. Promoting democracy should be repositioned at the center of American foreign policy to counter the global rise in authoritarianism championed by China and Russia. In parallel, measures should be taken to nudge autocratic allies in the region toward political reform. Economic and trade incentives should be linked to structural economic and political reforms. Judicial reform and unequivocal implementation of the rule of law should be mandated to guarantee the long-term efficacy of economic aid packages, as well as to extend solid support to freedom fighters unwilling to relinquish their struggles for democracy.

Pundits have criticized the Biden administration’s autocracy-vs.-democracy framework as an impractical approach to the geopolitical contest with China. Yet democratization and upholding human rights remain essential soft powers. Autocrats like Sisi already prefer aligning with China, who absolve them from any commitment to human rights. With support for China growing, displays of hard power such as military showdowns and trade wars will become the main arenas for competition.

[illm4nn3rd]

Proposal for a Renewed Constitutional Convention: Celebrating Tradition, Embracing Tomorrow

Invoking Article V for a Future-Ready America

To: Whom it may concern

Introduction:

As we stand on the cusp of a new era, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that our cherished Constitution, crafted by our Founding Fathers, remains vibrant and responsive to the challenges of our time.

Purpose:

Utilizing the provision of Article V, we endeavor to create an inclusive platform that harmonizes our time-honored principles with the pressing demands of the modern age. We seek to breathe fresh life into our Constitution, ensuring its enduring relevance.

Core Topics for Discussion:

Digital Rights & Privacy: Navigating the balance between modern technology and our cherished personal freedoms, and the responsibilities large corporations hold to the customers they serve. Right to repair being of great importance.

Stewardship of the Land: Upholding our duty to the land that may yet nurture us for future generations.

Universal Rights: A renewed commitment to justice and equality for all.

Election Integrity: Refining our systems to better echo the people's voice.

Addressing Grievances: Evolving our mechanisms for a neutral mediation in dispute resolution.

Science, Ethics, and Human Dignity: Charting the interplay between innovation and moral values.

America on the Global Stage: Revaluating our shared space on the global stage while upholding our core principles.

State-Specific Issues: Highlighting the unique challenges and strengths of each state.

Costs of Responsibility: Debating and reconciling the responsibilities of individual citizens, state governments, and the Federal government amongst one other, and the costs required for upholding said responsibility. Balancing the cost of living for working class citizens while keeping the burden with in reason for all Americans.

Convention Dynamics:

Commencement: A momentous kick-off on July 4th, paying tribute to our democratic roots.

Duration: A two-year journey, dedicating two weeks to each state based on their Union accession, to allow deep dives into regional concerns.

State Representation: Five delegates from each state: two from state legislatures, two chosen by popular vote, and one appointed by the governor.

Oversight:

An Oversight Committee comprising nine distinguished individuals will guide the proceedings:

Three nominated by the federal government to represent national interests.

Three chosen by collective state governors to voice state-centric concerns.

Three elected by the popular vote, ensuring the citizenry's voice remains at the forefront.

Public Involvement:

Transparency: A steadfast commitment to open discourse, with deliberations documented for public perusal.

Engagement Platforms: Town halls and digital forums to capture a myriad of views.

Educational Endeavors: Initiatives to deepen public understanding of pivotal topics.

Post-Convention Action Plan:

Documentation: Archiving outcomes for public review and historical records.

State-Level Engagements: Encouraging states to participate in cooperation and bridge building, regardless of ratification.

Community Mobilization: Aiding local movements to use authentic language while promoting civil debate.

Review Mechanism:

8 years post-convention, the Oversight Committee will reconvene as a Review Council and will:

Assess: Examine the real-world impact of the convention's resolutions.

Recommend: Make recommendations to Federal legislatures on any further corrections or changes that may yet assist in creating a more perfect Union.

Provide Guidance: Offer insights for future conventions, drawing from encountered challenges and gained experiences.

Financing:

Funding will be sourced judiciously from federal and state treasuries, accompanied by rigorous oversight mechanisms to ensure transparent and neutral allocation.

Conclusion:

In reimagining our Constitution, we embark on a journey that honors our past while crafting a beacon for our future. We invite you to join hands in this noble pursuit, shaping a legacy for generations to come.

With profound respect and hope for our shared future, A Patriot in Service to the Republic.

#court #democracy #democrats #president #republicans #us constitution #us politics #founding fathers #Constitutional Convention #History #culture #world history #Philosophy

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Despite the lack of sufficient support in Congress to pass a new assault weapons ban, President Joe Biden on Friday said the US has “reached a tipping point” in the fight to strengthen America’s gun laws, due to the activism of the gun violence prevention movement that has gathered increasing strength in recent years.

Mr. Biden, who was delivering remarks at the National Safer Communities Summit in Hartford, Connecticut, at the invitation of Senator Chris Murphy and a coalition of gun safety groups including Everytown, Moms Demand Action and Giffords, recounted some of the more than 20 executive actions his administration has taken to stem the tide of mass shootings since he took office. He said those politicians who claim to be concerned about crime should realise that crime can’t be tackled without dealing with gun violence.

“It’s a simple proposition,” he said.

The President also lamented how since 2020, firearms have been the leading cause of death for children in the United States — more than automobile accidents or cancer.

He recalled how the assault weapons ban he wrote into the 1994 crime bill enacted under then-President Bill Clinton cut mass shootings “significantly” only to see their number triple when Mr. Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, allowed the ban to expire with the aid of a Republican Congress, allowing military-style rifles and high-capacity magazines to “come back into vogue.”

Mr. Biden also called for a repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which immunises gun manufacturers from lawsuits filed by gun violence victims, and for the enactment of universal background checks before anyone can purchase high-powered rifles, many of which are modelled off of those issued to American soldiers, as well as safe storage requirements for such weapons.

“The United States of America has the finest fighting force in the history of the world [and] provides … service members with the most lethal weapons on Earth. We also require them to receive significant training before they’re allowed to use them. We require extensive background checks and mental health assessment that before they can … use them [and] require them to lock them up or store the weapon responsibly,” he said.

“Every gun owner should be required to have the same requirements held to him or her,” he added.

The President also hailed Governors who have taken action to strengthen state gun laws, including Connecticut’s Ned Lamont, who recently signed more than 12 separate bills to strengthen his state’s firearm regulations, and praised state governments in Illinois and Washington for passing assault weapon and ghost gun bans, as well as the 21 states that have enacted so-called “red flag” laws to allow courts to temporarily disarm people who are determined to pose a risk to the community by a judge.

Though chances of a federal assault weapons ban making it to his desk are slim to none given the composition of Congress, Mr. Biden promised the gun safety advocates that he will “never stop fighting.”

“We will ban assault weapons in this country … we will hold gun makers liable, we will beat the gun industry,” he said.

#us politics #news #the independent #biden administration #president joe biden #gun violence #gun rights #gun control #assault weapon ban #national assault weapons ban #National Safer Communities Summit #sen. chris murphy #Connecticut #Everytown #Moms Demand Action #Giffords #Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act #universal background checks #safe storage requirements #red flag laws #ghost gun bans #2023