Many well-meaning groups run websites to support people working for social change. Often change that would threaten the selfish, short-term interests of the wealthy and powerful.
Far too many of those websites serve spyware like GoogleTagManager to their visitors, which collect their personal data. This personal data is then fully available to any governments that participates in the "5 Eyes" spy alliance, using tools like #XKeyScore:
On the #UTAustin campus, activists hold up names of students and educators killed in Gaza, along with facts about the damage war has done to education.
When I was in Wellington, New Zealand, I was entranced by their unusual crosswalk icons. I asked my new friends there about them. I was told a story about a drag performer and activist by the name of Carmen Rupe. She was a trans woman who was also Māori (native people of NZ).
This is pretty big news for me & my friends. These are all still demos, but I have all 11 tracks for This Cassette Kills Fascists laid out!
:parrot_beer:
Listen to This Cassette Kills Fascists, an album by #ArtFed
I have a whole to-do list after listening to it on repeat. 😅
This will fit on one side of the cassette, which leaves Side B free for all of the original tracks without the dialogue and my screwing them up, lol. The intention is for people to make mixtapes and remixes of any and everything on the album.
The whole album will be releaded under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 creative commons license to enable this.
I wanted to share some photos from the #Rebel4Life actions, hoping you can see what I see, and meet these strong, committed people.
I'm not in them, for two reasons. 1. I do police liaison so I'm always either right at the back or right at the front, and my high-vis vest ruins the aesthetics. 2. In the few photos I am in, I'm making super weird faces for some reason, lol.
Public meeting spaces at libraries in almost every major city in #Texas, and many smaller ones, saw 'Brave Books' events this weekend, which promoted this extremist publisher's storybooks under the guise of freedom of speech. The events were supported by Citizens Defending Freedom, aka 'Moms for Liberty in Suits' which is simultaneously seeking to ban 100s of books in #FortWorth.
It's not that I'm only interested in interviewing #kinkEducator s, #sexWorker s, nude #photographer s, nudist/naturists, etc, it's that "mainstream" creators don't seem to be keen on being associated with "adult-only" content that focuses on #activism for the crazy radical notion that #gender based #censorship is BS and either ALL nipples should be banned from mainstream social media and public, or NO nipples 😑
Federally Sanctioned Exploitation Of Workers with Disabilities – Happy Labor Day:
On this Labor Day, Out Of Exile – Invisible Disability Rights gives thanks and honor to workers and the unions that protect them. Without unions, the experience of many workers may be similar to that of the disabled. This piece will focus on the exploitation and abuse of disabled workers by employers , and how it's perfectly legal under federal and state laws in the US. Section 14(c) of the US Department of Labor's "Fair Standards And Labor Act" (FSLA), has been virtually unchanged since it was enacted in 1938. Under the almost century old regulation, employers can apply for a certificate which allows them to pay workers with disabilities, an unspecified subminimum wage.
The average sub wage and the number of disabled people seemingly exploited by this legislation, seems to vary among the sources linked below. By any account, even one person with disabilities being preyed upon in this way, is far too many. The wages are inhumane. A 2021 Forbes article claims over 320,000 people with disabilities, the majority with invisible disabilities, earn an average of $3.34 an hour. A previous Forbes article put the figures in excess of 420,000 people being paid as little as $2.15, while others cite drastically lower wages. Some organizations like Goodwill, form their own "sheltered workshops", determining their own limits on sub wages for their disabled workers. There seems to be no bottom limit on how little individuals with invisible disabilities can be paid.
"The non-profits use “time studies” to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers. With a stopwatch, staff members time how long it takes a disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task. The non-profit then applies a formula to calculate a rate of pay, which may be equal to or less than minimum wage".
A decade ago, NBC reported that Goodwill industries, presumably by authority of their DOL "Section 14(c) certificate", paid disabled workers twenty-two cents an hour. The report claims that some were paid as little as three or four cents an hour. Think about paying your bills 10 years ago on a wage like this. Some nonprofits, even place Section 14(c) workers in outside, for-profit endeavors in restaurants, stores and even, "IRS centers". That sounds more like calculated exploitation, rather than accommodation and equality. Though the "NBC-Goodwill" article and figures are old, the problem is older and still continues today.
The theory of sheltered workshops is to prepare individuals with disabilities to transition to outside employment. In Missouri, disabled workers packaging T-shirts or sorting and counting dog treats to be sold for profit on Amazon, rarely "graduate" these workshops into regular paying jobs. Pay for sorting the $15 Amazon dog treats? $1.50 an hour while Jeff Bezos builds rocket ships. The title of the recent ProPublica article linked below, says it all. "Missouri Allows Some Disabled Workers to Earn Less Than a Dollar an Hour. The State Says It's Fine If That Never Changes". I say, show me change in the Show-Me state and across the country.
In a follow-up to that story by ProPublica, some participants of sheltered workshops said they approved, saying the alternative is to sit at home and do nothing. Are these opinion formed as a result of gas lighting or years of oppression accepted as "just the way it is"? It's time for new attitudes and alternatives for the disabled community when it comes to wages and employment. In some states, now there are.
About 16 states have changed or passed laws regarding disability subminimum wage exploitation but, nothing to speak of federally. A three year old press release from the National Council on Disability that "Applauded the US commission on civil rights call to repeal section 14(c)", seems to be the sum of that effort. Other states have actions in progress including: Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York. If you live in any of these states, now's the time for activism and to let your representatives know how you feel. Follow the ""legislation watch" APSE link to track progress. The Alternative? Similar actions introduced in Kentucky and West Virginia died in committee allowing this despicable injustice against disabled people in those states to continue. Change is up to everyone. What will you do to help stop the exploitation and abuse?
Millions of Texans are suffering from long #COVID and you might be surprised to learn that many of them are young and formerly healthy. Studies show that the more often you get infected, the more likely you are to have lingering, potentially life-changing #health effects.
Look for it in print in @TexasObserver magazine now, and online later this month.
Also be aware of the pitfalls of #activism so it doesn't backfire or be largely ineffective. For instance don't put yourself on a pedestal as a bringer of #SocialChange, privileged and overly judgmental of "those not activist enough" in your eyes.
Make your activism be strategic to have most impact.
Just Stop Oil at Wimbledon.
If you barked because they took up traffic space and suggest there's a less inoffensive way to get a global audience and why can't they think of one, then you'd better not be critiquing this.
My friend is joining mastodon and needs some accounts to follow. Need some suggestions for accounts that focus on #activism#lgbtq#books#education and just accounts y'all really like!
So I've been using 5Calls.org to make it easy to call my federal representatives (although now I just saved all the numbers as contacts in my phone so I don't use the app much anymore).
But since @resistbot is on Mastodon (and 5Calls is not) I was thinking maybe I should start encouraging people to use that instead?
Does anyone have a preference between 5Calls and Resistbot, in terms of which one I should be nagging my friends and family to use?
Would be great if I could use #AI to make "#patriarchy safe" versions of my #toplessEquality#activism videos where I replace my heinous female nipples with giant eyeballs and put nipples over my eyes instead. I think the weirdness and nightmare fuel would be a great way at pointing out just how absurd gender-based #censorship really is. (I know I could manually edit this, but holy f I do not have that many hours to put into videos that already take hours to make)
(she's at the little park in front on La Catedral de San Juan Bautista that's on la Calle del Cristo in El Viejo San Juan. i cannot tell you the many times i walked up and down that street. grew up in #PuertoRico and know many parts of La Isla like the palm of my hand.)
source: Bryan Llenas of FoxNews
(most of their international reporting is, shockingly, quite good)
I just published a video on #PeerTube for the first time! 🥳
"A video made in 2003 for the Dead Vicious song Smash the State (also known as Guerilla Love) based on footage shot during the MayDay Carnival near The Freedom Shop in Upper Cuba St, Wellington NZ, 1 May 2003."