Photo reblogged from Fuck yeah, feminists! with 5,735 notes
How The Zero Weeks Of Paid Maternity Leave In The U.S. Compares Globally
Fuck you America. Ugh. DX
Link reblogged from with 613 notes
UK aid helps to fund forced sterilisation of India's poor →
The UK agreed to give India £166m to fund the programme, despite allegations that the money would be used to sterilise the poor in an attempt to curb the country’s burgeoning population of 1.2 billion people.
Sterilisation has been mired in controversy for years. With officials and doctors paid a bonus for every operation, poor and little-educated men and women in rural areas are routinely rounded up and sterilised without having a chance to object. Activists say some are told they are going to health camps for operations that will improve their general wellbeing and only discover the truth after going under the knife.
This is stuff that’s happening within your lifetime. This is not something from the past, something that happened a while ago. Population control is something that still exists.
And if you ever try saying that we need to save women in foreign countries, well maybe you should step back and consider how Western countries are aiding in (and have encouraged) creating these issues.
Source: indigocrayon
Photo reblogged from with 22,311 notes
Mary Jamis, a lesbian woman, was ARRESTED yesterday after she and her partner sought a marriage license in North Carolina.
Share this if you think it’s outrageous.
Source: thinkprogress.org
Quote reblogged from Venus as a Boy with 1,856 notes
Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me, but they all seem to. It doesn’t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim, they all want to control women. They want to control how we dress, they want to control how we act, they even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and our own bodies. Yes, it is hard to believe. But even here at home, we have to stand up for women’s rights and reject efforts to marginalize any one of us because America needs to set an example for the entire world.
Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton
Great speech by Hilary Clinton. We also need to keep in mind that while we are calling for America to “set an example” this must not, and can not translate into “Americans telling women in other countries how to fight for their own rights” and keep this as a focus on analyzing what is going on in America, and even how America exports damaging and exotifying images & beliefs about other women all over the world. We can set an example by handling our business in house while still aknowledging our complicity in the subjagation of the “exotic other” overseas that we do on a daily basis.
(via newwavefeminism)
Source: newwavefeminism
Photo reblogged from The Geek Hideout with 23 notes
For me this would say: Labour, Liberal, Pissed off !!
AHAHAHAH. ACCURATE. I ascribe to the “Lesser of Two Evils” category when I vote in America. So usually it’s Democrat. DX
Photo reblogged from Sugar, Sex, and Very Little Sleep with 10,396 notes
This is Rachid Nekkaz, the French businessman who announced he will pay all fines for women who are charged with wearing the niqab — not just in France but “in whatever country in the world that bans women from doing so”.
The niqab is a filmy cloth attached to the headscarf that covers all but the eyes. Any woman found to be wearing the niqab in France in public can be fined upto €150 ($200) and ordered to attend ‘re-education classes’. Belgium, Italy, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland all have — or are planning — similar legislation.
The businessman has already paid fines for women in both France and Belgium where wearing the piece of cloth is outlawed. He said:
I’m in favour of a law to convict a husband who forces a women to wear the niqab and who forces her to stay at home. But I’m also for a law that lets these women move freely in the streets, because freedom of movement, just like any freedom, is the most fundamental thing in a democracy.
He is pictured above with Kenza Drider, the longshot “freedom candidate” for French presidency, after accompanying her to a police tribunal in Paris where she appeared for violating France’s niqab ban. Drider told The Associated Press in an interview:
When a woman wants to maintain her freedom, she must be bold. I have the ambition today to serve all women who are the object of stigmatization or social, economic or political discrimination. It is important that we show that we are here, we are French citizens and that we, as well, can bring solutions to French citizens.
Nekkaz put up a €2m ($2.5m) property to fund his campaign.
Photo credit: Getty
Good man, good man. Good logic.
Heroes.
Source: meenerhabi
Photoset reblogged from The BROthority of the net with 9 notes
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, brainwashing its viewers with racist and elitist propaganda since 2010.
THESE ARE BRILLIANT! I love this forever and ever!!! Why is this not in every Newspaper ever?
Photo reblogged from Sugar, Sex, and Very Little Sleep with 795 notes
who is this guy? this guy is Tim Sommers and he is America’s first political prisoner from the occupy movement.. today, after showing up to his court date, he will be held until MARCH 13TH for his next court date.. we don’t have the NLG here in tampa and are suffering for it… the pic will take you to an article.. and after you learn more, feel free to contact the following people to let them know this is WRONG!
What? How in the name of Hell is this possible?
Right to a speedy trial?
Anyone? Anyone?
This is disgusting. Maybe if enough of us shine a light on this blatantly unconstitutional behavior by the State, they’ll be forced to, you know, respect the laws they’re supposedly sworn to uphold.
Source: mindtwinkies
Quote reblogged from Over-sharing with 185 notes
Republicans have tried to turn liberal into a bad word. Well, liberals ended slavery in this country, a liberal Republican; what happened to them? They got run out of their party! What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican Party? I’ll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things, every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.
The West Wing (via kelachrome)
THIS. ^
Source: ricebowls
Post reblogged from Venus as a Boy with 816 notes
The First Amendment Upside Down. Why We Must Occupy Democracy
You’ve been seeing this across the country … Americans assaulted, clubbed, dragged, pepper-sprayed … Why? For exercising their right to free speech and assembly — protesting the increasing concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top.
And what’s Washington’s response? Nothing. In fact, Congress’s so-called “supercommittee” just disbanded because Republicans refuse to raise a penny of taxes on the rich.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court says money is speech and corporations are people. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year ended all limits on political spending. Millions of dollars are being funneled to politicians without a trace.
And a revolving door has developed between official Washington and Wall Street – with bank executives becoming public officials who make rules that benefit the banks before heading back to the Street to make money off the rules they created.
Other top officials, including an increasing proportion of former members of congress, are cashing in by joining lobbying power houses and pressuring their former colleagues to do whatever their clients want.
Millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street and in executive suites aren’t contributing all this money out of sheer love of country. Their political spending is analogous to their other investments. Mostly they want low tax rates and friendly regulations.
Why else do you suppose tax rates on the super rich are now lower than they’ve been in three decades, and why – even though the long-term budget deficit is horrendous – those rates aren’t rising? Why else do the 400 richest Americans (whose wealth is larger than the combined wealth of the bottom 150 million Americans) now pay an average tax rate of only 17 percent?
Why do you think Wall Street got bailed without a single string attached – not even being required to help homeowners to whom they sold mortgages, who are now so far under water they’re drowning? And why does the financial reform legislation have loopholes big enough for bankers to drive their Ferrari’s through?
And why else are oil companies, big agribusinesses, military contractors, and the pharmaceutical industry reaping billions of dollars of government subsidies and special tax breaks?
Experts say the 2012 presidential race is likely to be the priciest ever, costing an estimated $6 billion. “It is far worse than it has ever been,” says Republican Senator John McCain.
If there’s a single core message to the Occupier movement it’s that the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top endangers our democracy. With money comes political power.
Yet when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with all this, they’re told the First Amendment doesn’t apply. Instead, they’re treated as public nuisances – clubbed, pepper-sprayed, thrown out of public parks and evicted from public spaces.
Across America, public officials are saying Occupiers have to go. Even in universities – where free speech is supposed to be sacrosanct – peaceful assembly is being met with clubs and pepper spray.
The First Amendment is being stood on its head. Money speaks, and an unlimited amount of it can now be spent bribing and cajoling politicians. Yet peaceful assembly is viewed as a public nuisance and removed by force.
This is especially worrisome now that so many Americans are in economic trouble. The jobs recession grinds on, seemingly without end. Homes are being foreclosed upon. Qualified students cannot afford college. Or they’re forced to take on huge debt loads they can’t repay in a jobless economy. Schools are firing teachers. Vital social services are being axed.
How are Americans to be heard about what should be done about any of this if they are not allowed to mobilize and organize? When the freedom of speech goes to the highest bidder, moneyed interests have a disproportionate say.
Now more than ever, the First Amendment needs to be put right side up. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake.
Source: robertreich
Photo reblogged from Silent movie of impatient people with 1,086 notes
This is why there’s an #occupywallstreet
Not because the poor are lazy.
Not because people try positive visualization.
Not because they’re picking on the defenseless rich people.
Because the American Dream, supposedly promised to all of us, is a lie in the pockets of a scant few.
Sorry about the repeated political posts and posts regarding the Occupy movement. I just believe it is quite a strong topic and we need to be aware of what’s happening and why it’s happening. I’m hearing too many people complain that the protesters are just being whiny.
this sucks.
(not so much for me, but for Americans. I’m just compassionate like that. *good-person*)
What the actual fuck.
Source: web.archive.org
Photoset reblogged from My bleak (but well decorated) hole in the ground with 1,723 notes
These are the 99 percent, or at least they used to be, via Reddit.
- Boy’s death highlights US health debate
- Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance
- Deaths at West Virginia Mine Raise Issues About Safety
- Investigators: Massey Energy Falsified Safety Record at Upper Big Branch Mine
- Massey Energy CEO to retire amid mine probes
- Suicides in the downturn raise worries about recession’s real cost
- Record 2.9 Million U.S. Properties Receive Foreclosure Filings in 2010 Despite 30-Month Low in December
- U.S. Suicide on Rise: Middle-Aged at Risk
- New Estimate Puts Gulf Oil Leak at 205 Million Gallons
- Presidential Panel Blames Companies for ‘Avoidable’ Gulf Oil Spill
- BP CEO Tony Hayward to Resign, Get $17 Million in Severance
- At Many Homes, More Profit and Less Nursing
You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Occupation movement. When you work in retail behind a cash register like I do, one tends to do a lot of thinking. One thing that I’ve been thinking about is the ideas that some people have had about the movement, and in particular, its participants. There is a marked feeling of disdain and condescension towards it, that its participants are entitled, self-aggrandizing 20-somethings looking for something to twitter onto their blags with their iPhoons to feel superior about themselves, or clueless, lazy holdover hippies who are too stupid to realize that it’s 2011, and not 1963.
This above article does a better job of clarifying what kind of people are involved in the movement than I ever could, but I’d also like to add my additional feelings to the post. Mainly my point is about the delegitimization of social movements and how it increases apathy. While it’s true that it is no longer 1963 and times have changed, when faced with statistics like the above, disparities of 475 to 1 ratios of pay between company CEOs and their rank and file employees, an abysmal rate of employment on a national level, and the simple fact that I’ve known at least 3 people that have had to make the choice between rent and food, it would honestly take someone very naive or sheltered to deny that something is very wrong with the way our country is going. It’s easy to demonize the people who deny those facts or are well-off enough to ignore the issue as a whole, but one thing that the Occupation movement has to its virtue (but ironically to its greatest PR fault), is that it is aware of how nebulous its frustration is. There’s no one demon to fix the crosshairs on, because the problem is really an aggregate of many different issues in the way the United States runs and how the majority of companies nationwide do business. Because the Occupation Movement has not caved in to simple slogans, it looks foolish and disorganized and easy to mock. However, one must take a long hard look at what that mockery does.
We know that things are bad and that things have to change, but up to now, all our previous outlets have seemed to have failed us. Representational elections tend to produce the same kind of candidates every time that don’t really satisfy us. Large corporations have the monetary support and access to resources that overpower the interests of the rest of the population and further their own bottom lines. Our educational system is being cut apart piece by piece, running the risk of plunging the next generation into ignorance and obliviousness. It seems that all of the regular modes of action have failed us. When all else fails, in our frustration, fear and anger, we turn to the last option we have, open protest and physical movements. But when the cynical and the comfortable say that these movements are nothing but foolish throwbacks to a bygone era, populated by the idle, the entitled, and the painfully disconnected, I say to them: What else are we supposed to do? What other methods are we supposed to implement? Where are the jobs that you say we’re too lazy to find? Where is the living wage that we need when we’re lucky enough to even have them? Where are the strong-minded noble representative officials who will stand up for our rights that we’re supposed to vote for? What other choice do we have?
They give us simple answers, glib sound bytes and tough love aphorisms that are supposed to make everything better once we all just “grow up” and think like they do. The Occupation knows via many many examples, like the unfortunate cases above, that it just isn’t WORKING. That’s why I support them. If you think I’m some sort of idiotic, lazy idealistic commiehippiepinko because of that, well, all I can say is that I’m sorry. After the legitimacy of protests and physical movements is ended, that’s really all I’m going to have left: apologies.
Source: reddit.com
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