Provaxx

fify

Can I watch a great film knowing the actresses in it were terrorized and mistreated the entire time? Can I watch a football game knowing that the players are getting brain injuries right before my eyes? Can I listen to my favorite albums anymore knowing that the singers were all beating their wives in between studio sessions? Can I eat at the new fancy taco place knowing when the building that used to be there got bulldozed eight families got kicked out of their homes so they could be replaced with condos and a chain restaurant? Can I wear the affordable clothes I bought downtown that were probably assembled in a sweatshop with child labor? Can I eat quinoa? Can I eat this burger? Can I drink this bottled water? Can I buy a car and drive to work because I’m sick of taking an hour each way on the subway? Whose bones do I stand on? Whose bones am I standing on right now? 

On one hand, it’s a privilege to be able to choose to acknowledge these horrors or not–we’re going to acknowledge that privilege. On the other hand, I once attended a lecture by the explorerer-conservationist Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s daughter and son and they had a lot of opinions about what we could do to help the environment and the ocean and I talked about how in my country, we have to drink bottled water, because it’s a desert and there’s only salt water all around, but we’re contributing to pollution and all of these things…

And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of “activist guilt.” I couldn’t remember the exact words, but, it was the first time I’d heard the term and it took a weight off my shoulders.

We do what we can. It’s so much better than giving up entirely or not doing anything at all because we can’t do it perfectly. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the end if we just sit around feeling guilty about every little thing in life. I’d just joined tumblr back then (haha, so like, eight or nine years ago at this point?), I was being exposed to way more than I’d ever been before (I was previously just into feminism and animal rights/wildlife conservation/environmentalism since I was a kid), and it was weighing on me.

As long as humans are humans and living flawed lives, many consumed by greed, there will not be anything in this world untouched by evil.

I usually avoid stuff that says it was made in China or other cheap looking knockoffs, out of fear of them being made in sweatshops (now, I know even a lot of big brands use those…), it’s exhausting. Then, I read something about how people who actually lived and worked in those would still buy this cheap stuff and how this shocked the foreigner reporting on it, but they just looked confused like, it’s what they can afford and them avoiding consuming it isn’t going to change the whole system from the ground-up.

… it went on about how “money talks” and choosing where to put your money still feeds the whole capitalist system and is nearly a way of comforting yourself, but you not buying doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t. What needs to be tackled is at a much higher level than any of us can reach.

Of course, I’d still, given the choice, give my money to companies I agree with and I’ll boycott what I know to support awful stuff, but I also feel no superiority over this and know now it’s not as black and white or easy as I thought it was.

This is the same reason that moral purity “you can’t enjoy [x] because it’s Problematic ™” is such nonsense, because nothing is pure. There’s something bad about everything if you dig deep enough. As long as we lived in flawed human societies we’ve got to make the best of what they offer us. If you have the choice and means, please, do support those who do good, but also, don’t beat yourself up over not living up to an unattainable ideal.

No one can. You’ll just make yourself so miserable, you either burn up and stop fighting entirely or you’ll make yourself a non-productive, depressed heap just out of a bleeding heart left unchecked. You can’t make a change to this world if you refuse to engage in it.

Have a related article with self-care tips for activists.

Purity is one of the worst, most harmful myths humans ever invented.

Rebloging for this amazing reply telling us how to actually handle this, because yeah, sometimes I’ll simply shut down trying to find something that doesn’t cause harm to anyone

Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.

We hurt people. None of us are pure and the puritans and purity culture obsessed are making it ten times worse by punishing everyone instead of doing something about it.

I’M STILL STARING AT THIS FUCKIN WEBSITE AND FOLKS

FOLKS

IT’S AN MLM

IT’S AN MLM THAT WANTS YOU TO SELL DIRT TO PEOPLE TO EAT

There’s claims that it ‘oxygenates your cells’ and FOLKS YOU DO THAT BY BREATHING

Look, if I want the taste of peat, I’ll go out and drink some Scotch. It’ll probably be better for me in the long run. And less expensive.

If I wanna get some Dirt Minerals in my diet, I can just. Go outside and eat it right outta the garden while weeding the beets. I’m not paying some asshole actual money for it.

Hey! This is actual nonsense! This doesn’t mean anything!!!! What the fuck!!!

SHOW ME YOUR PEER REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC PAPERS THAT PROVE THIS OR STFU WITH THIS NONSENSE

Ah okay some studi….

….THOSE. AREN’T. THINGS.

They’re not even uncommon. In this case a dude claims that all disease comes from imbalances in our mitochondria.

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-pseudoscience/droning-preacher-mitochondrial-ecstasy

A lot of alternative modern medicine traces back to Antoine Béchamp, who was a dude best known for thinking that Louis Pasteur was totally wrong about the whole ‘germ theory’ thing and that the reason we see germs in sick people was because when a part of a body was sick it attracted the germs.

I wish I was making that up.

boosting this

Sometimes when I’m sad, I feel like a whole different self, so I made happy frog and sad frog to represent those states of mind. When I’m sad frog, I not only feel sad about the original problem, but I also feel sad about being sad frog (something I didn’t even realize was happening until I went to therapy!). This comic is a reminder that it really is okay to be sad frog. Sometimes happy frog is on a break, so be kind to your sad frog, okay? ♡

Chibird store | Positive pin club | Webtoon

YES this is LITERALLY why it's okay to "romanticize" feelings that people find "icky" and are too cowardly to cope with. You need a break from each emotion, even too much happiness will burn you out. Sadness is a good thing when balanced with other emotions and it's GOOD to find away to appreciate and "romanticize" these darker feelings. You take away your fear and coping becomes easier, feelings become more balanced and less extreme and crippling. You get to experience the most joy out of life when your ups and downs are small and pleasant and more easy to sit with and analyze and dissect so you can appreciate every facet of them. People these days are so lazy and reactionary and fearful that most of them completely lose their shit over not being on cloud 9 24/7. Capitalism breeds this to make more desperate consumers but that's no excuse to refuse to learn and self soothe and practice introspection.

Brew a pot of coffee, pour it into the blender, add honey, cinnamon and nutmeg (and a little bit of clove if you have it), your favorite non-dairy milk, and a couple of tablespoons of canned pumpkin. (US grocery stores have it year-round. It's in with the canned vegetables.) Blend till foam forms on top. Pour into a mug and sip.

500 times better than Starbucks pumpkin spice, plus it has nutrients, plus you don't have to wait for Starbucks to release anything, plus it's vegan,* plus you don't have to go to a coffee shop in a pandemic

*don't @ me about whether honey is vegan. Honeybees are better compensated for their labor than baristas

Honeybees are better compensated for their labor than baristas

gdskfhdjksalfhkjladshfkjdsahfkjlads

vegans learn a single actual fact about beekeeping practices challenge

Beekeeper: here is a box with plenty of room and access to tasty flowers. there are no predators around, and I will occasionally remove the shitton of excess honey you make and then don’t need because there is lots of food and no predators Bees: rad Beekeeper: also if you want to swarm and leave and go live back in nature there’s nothing stopping you Bees: why the everloving FUCK would we want to do that Vegan: this is literally rape and abuse

can't believe you cut off the part about bees apparently needing money.

Had to dig around in the notes to find the full comment in all it's inane glory, but it was worth it.

Thank you, worksongnatural

I'd argue that they do have holidays and sick leave: it's available whenever bees feel like it instead of waiting for the beekeeper's say so. I mean, what exactly is a beekeeper gonna do if bees take a holiday? How exactly would a beekeeper enforce mandatory holidays?

They're compensated with protection and care, and they accept those terms every day by not leaving.

Bees can fly and should they decide the terms are not fair anymore they can and will leave and there's nothing you can do about it.

Also what rape are you even talking about

i made like a whole bunch of posts ***AND I ADDED CUTE PIcTURES about this but bee farming is absolutely terrible for the environment, destroys rare native plants and pollinators, including endangered native bees and the plants that only they can pollinate without destroying and vice versa. I uploaded pics to another bee post.

Bees are not a vegan issue for some people but they're an environmental issue.

I hate seeing bad faith anti vegan satire posts just because someone is feeling defensive about eating honey though. I dont see anything wrong with people who choose not to touch anything that involved harvesting living creatures, whether it's because they're Buddhists or environmentalists who want to make a difference with their lifestyle, no matter how small it seems to some people. I think it's a respectable way to live.

As always all profit companies are bad, and honey companies are monstrous, whether you eat honey or not spread the word about what they do to native flora and fauna. Like I said I detailed this in my other posts or you can do your own research (from a book or peer reviewed studies... not altright we love capitalism dot com run by your anti mask uncle) and if you personally want alternatives to honey they exist and there are lots. The healing properties dont come from the bees they come from fruits flowers herbs and nectar and you can get that anywhere. Minus the botulism

Again, AND I ADDED CUTE PICTURES In my other posts, look at them if you please they're easy to find

I just tagged them as honey on my blog so they're easy to find

Bees choose to live in the box where they know damn well that a large fraction of the honey will periodically be removed, instead of simply leaving that place like they are perfectly able to do, because the human box comes with an invulnerable titan to guard them against all threats. The bees consider the payment offered to this colossal mercenary to be a pretty good deal.

Bees know about supply and demand

Protection money

Protection honey

If you think this is a vegan issue: People go out and kidnap queens and scrape the bees into a box with her while stepping on/crushing the ones that fall down. When they want "royal jelly" they use bee pheromones and a baby girl bee to get the workers to produce it. Then they crush the baby girl to death and take the royal honey. The honey they replace with sugar water has healing properties. Because they take the honey and make the bees sick by overcrowding them (the bees only know to stay with their queen, they literally can't leave. The queen literally cant leave either, she thinks she's in her home), they have to give the bees very strong antibiotics instead. This makes for some very sick bees who then spread disease to rare and endangered species of bee and make them go extinct.

Here's why this isn't a vegan issue, it's an environmental issue: honey bees are rented out as pollinators for big agriculture, you know, the guys who love their pesticides and destroy the environment and local pollinators and plants for money, just like the animal industry does. These travelling, sick, rented bees are NOT specialized for the many rare, endangered, important local flowers and plants that they try to pollinate as they pass through, damaging and even killing the plant, and taking from rare local pollinators and endangered bees. And leaving catchy disease for them as well, super-disease created by insane levels of antibiotics and environmental destruction (covid, anyone?), again, killing rare bees (who are ADORABLE by the way).

And when these specialized pollinators die, their rare plants die too, and vice versa. It sets off a change of destruction and extinction that could very well be irreversible. What about the little endangered shrew who needs the endangered plant? What about the little fox who eats the shrew when times get hard, to survive? When there's nothing else to eat? Every little life is important to each ecosystem, and they're all intricate and different and magnificent in their own way.

But don't take it from me. Please, god, don't just blindly believe randos on twitter and tumblr who say nice things that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside about your cottagecore severe honey addiction that piglet keeps feeding. Do your own research. There are some really cute freaking bees that are endangered and you can help them by planting local plants, pulling up invasive ones, and providing them natural places for hives. And by telling people how terrible huge for-profit companies are and how much they destroy the environment. Tbh all food should be free and none of it environmentally destructive, and it is more than possible for is to make that happen. Overpopulation is a myth, the truth is there's too much pollution and money/power obsession and environmental destruction and crowded people in crowded cities that make no room for nature and wildlife, when they're very capable of tearing a few ugly buildings and ugly highways down and providing better and more dispersed (and free!) transportation and buildings that exist in harmony with nature.

So, yeah, don't just stop eating honey, tell people how terrible corporations and rich people are and crush them until there are none left. And feed the people. Everyone deserves a belly full of nutritious food when they're hungry, no one deserves to starve to death or suffer or be malnourished, full stop. And most importantly, do your own research. We have to start thinking for ourselves and questioning the status quo or it's all over.

Cute bee pics:

(Yes these are the adorable, rare, native, endangered, and extinct bees)

More adorable bee pics:

(Yes these are the adorable, rare, native, endangered, and extinct bees) (do not be a backyard beekeeper. Bees have to be in a natural healthy habitat to prevent mites and disease)

Even more adorable and beautiful bees:

(Spread the word to help protect rare native bee species and bee diversity)

Brew a pot of coffee, pour it into the blender, add honey, cinnamon and nutmeg (and a little bit of clove if you have it), your favorite non-dairy milk, and a couple of tablespoons of canned pumpkin. (US grocery stores have it year-round. It's in with the canned vegetables.) Blend till foam forms on top. Pour into a mug and sip.

500 times better than Starbucks pumpkin spice, plus it has nutrients, plus you don't have to wait for Starbucks to release anything, plus it's vegan,* plus you don't have to go to a coffee shop in a pandemic

*don't @ me about whether honey is vegan. Honeybees are better compensated for their labor than baristas

Honeybees are better compensated for their labor than baristas

gdskfhdjksalfhkjladshfkjdsahfkjlads

vegans learn a single actual fact about beekeeping practices challenge

Beekeeper: here is a box with plenty of room and access to tasty flowers. there are no predators around, and I will occasionally remove the shitton of excess honey you make and then don’t need because there is lots of food and no predators Bees: rad Beekeeper: also if you want to swarm and leave and go live back in nature there’s nothing stopping you Bees: why the everloving FUCK would we want to do that Vegan: this is literally rape and abuse

can't believe you cut off the part about bees apparently needing money.

Had to dig around in the notes to find the full comment in all it's inane glory, but it was worth it.

Thank you, worksongnatural

I'd argue that they do have holidays and sick leave: it's available whenever bees feel like it instead of waiting for the beekeeper's say so. I mean, what exactly is a beekeeper gonna do if bees take a holiday? How exactly would a beekeeper enforce mandatory holidays?

They're compensated with protection and care, and they accept those terms every day by not leaving.

Bees can fly and should they decide the terms are not fair anymore they can and will leave and there's nothing you can do about it.

Also what rape are you even talking about

i made like a whole bunch of posts ***AND I ADDED CUTE PIcTURES about this but bee farming is absolutely terrible for the environment, destroys rare native plants and pollinators, including endangered native bees and the plants that only they can pollinate without destroying and vice versa. I uploaded pics to another bee post.

Bees are not a vegan issue for some people but they're an environmental issue.

I hate seeing bad faith anti vegan satire posts just because someone is feeling defensive about eating honey though. I dont see anything wrong with people who choose not to touch anything that involved harvesting living creatures, whether it's because they're Buddhists or environmentalists who want to make a difference with their lifestyle, no matter how small it seems to some people. I think it's a respectable way to live.

As always all profit companies are bad, and honey companies are monstrous, whether you eat honey or not spread the word about what they do to native flora and fauna. Like I said I detailed this in my other posts or you can do your own research (from a book or peer reviewed studies... not altright we love capitalism dot com run by your anti mask uncle) and if you personally want alternatives to honey they exist and there are lots. The healing properties dont come from the bees they come from fruits flowers herbs and nectar and you can get that anywhere. Minus the botulism

Again, AND I ADDED CUTE PICTURES In my other posts, look at them if you please they're easy to find

Brew a pot of coffee, pour it into the blender, add honey, cinnamon and nutmeg (and a little bit of clove if you have it), your favorite non-dairy milk, and a couple of tablespoons of canned pumpkin. (US grocery stores have it year-round. It's in with the canned vegetables.) Blend till foam forms on top. Pour into a mug and sip.

500 times better than Starbucks pumpkin spice, plus it has nutrients, plus you don't have to wait for Starbucks to release anything, plus it's vegan,* plus you don't have to go to a coffee shop in a pandemic

*don't @ me about whether honey is vegan. Honeybees are better compensated for their labor than baristas

Honeybees are better compensated for their labor than baristas

gdskfhdjksalfhkjladshfkjdsahfkjlads

vegans learn a single actual fact about beekeeping practices challenge

Beekeeper: here is a box with plenty of room and access to tasty flowers. there are no predators around, and I will occasionally remove the shitton of excess honey you make and then don’t need because there is lots of food and no predators Bees: rad Beekeeper: also if you want to swarm and leave and go live back in nature there’s nothing stopping you Bees: why the everloving FUCK would we want to do that Vegan: this is literally rape and abuse

can't believe you cut off the part about bees apparently needing money.

Had to dig around in the notes to find the full comment in all it's inane glory, but it was worth it.

Thank you, worksongnatural

I'd argue that they do have holidays and sick leave: it's available whenever bees feel like it instead of waiting for the beekeeper's say so. I mean, what exactly is a beekeeper gonna do if bees take a holiday? How exactly would a beekeeper enforce mandatory holidays?

They're compensated with protection and care, and they accept those terms every day by not leaving.

Bees can fly and should they decide the terms are not fair anymore they can and will leave and there's nothing you can do about it.

Also what rape are you even talking about

i made like a whole bunch of posts ***AND I ADDED CUTE PIcTURES about this but bee farming is absolutely terrible for the environment, destroys rare native plants and pollinators, including endangered native bees and the plants that only they can pollinate without destroying and vice versa. I uploaded pics to another bee post.

Bees are not a vegan issue for some people but they're an environmental issue.

I hate seeing bad faith anti vegan satire posts just because someone is feeling defensive about eating honey though. I dont see anything wrong with people who choose not to touch anything that involved harvesting living creatures, whether it's because they're Buddhists or environmentalists who want to make a difference with their lifestyle, no matter how small it seems to some people. I think it's a respectable way to live.

As always all profit companies are bad, and honey companies are monstrous, whether you eat honey or not spread the word about what they do to native flora and fauna. Like I said I detailed this in my other posts or you can do your own research (from a book or peer reviewed studies... not altright we love capitalism dot com run by your anti mask uncle) and if you personally want alternatives to honey they exist and there are lots. The healing properties dont come from the bees they come from fruits flowers herbs and nectar and you can get that anywhere. Minus the botulism

you know why

Now now, let's be fair, the doors weren't just locked to keep union organizers out. They were also locked to prevent the laborers - mostly immigrant women and girls as young as 14 - from taking any breaks from their dangerous factory jobs.

it remained the deadliest single industrial disaster in america untill 9/11 over 400 people had to choose between dying from the fire or jumping to the pavement, asking themselves which is the least worst death yet every one of the upper management was able to escape safely without a problem

how long do i have to romanticise my life for before it actually gets romantic? just curious.

If it doesn't feel romantic then you're not romanticizing it, you're failing.

Bees choose to live in the box where they know damn well that a large fraction of the honey will periodically be removed, instead of simply leaving that place like they are perfectly able to do, because the human box comes with an invulnerable titan to guard them against all threats. The bees consider the payment offered to this colossal mercenary to be a pretty good deal.

Bees know about supply and demand

Protection money

Protection honey

If you think this is a vegan issue: People go out and kidnap queens and scrape the bees into a box with her while stepping on/crushing the ones that fall down. When they want "royal jelly" they use bee pheromones and a baby girl bee to get the workers to produce it. Then they crush the baby girl to death and take the royal honey. The honey they replace with sugar water has healing properties. Because they take the honey and make the bees sick by overcrowding them (the bees only know to stay with their queen, they literally can't leave. The queen literally cant leave either, she thinks she's in her home), they have to give the bees very strong antibiotics instead. This makes for some very sick bees who then spread disease to rare and endangered species of bee and make them go extinct.

Here's why this isn't a vegan issue, it's an environmental issue: honey bees are rented out as pollinators for big agriculture, you know, the guys who love their pesticides and destroy the environment and local pollinators and plants for money, just like the animal industry does. These travelling, sick, rented bees are NOT specialized for the many rare, endangered, important local flowers and plants that they try to pollinate as they pass through, damaging and even killing the plant, and taking from rare local pollinators and endangered bees. And leaving catchy disease for them as well, super-disease created by insane levels of antibiotics and environmental destruction (covid, anyone?), again, killing rare bees (who are ADORABLE by the way).

And when these specialized pollinators die, their rare plants die too, and vice versa. It sets off a change of destruction and extinction that could very well be irreversible. What about the little endangered shrew who needs the endangered plant? What about the little fox who eats the shrew when times get hard, to survive? When there's nothing else to eat? Every little life is important to each ecosystem, and they're all intricate and different and magnificent in their own way.

But don't take it from me. Please, god, don't just blindly believe randos on twitter and tumblr who say nice things that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside about your cottagecore severe honey addiction that piglet keeps feeding. Do your own research. There are some really cute freaking bees that are endangered and you can help them by planting local plants, pulling up invasive ones, and providing them natural places for hives. And by telling people how terrible huge for-profit companies are and how much they destroy the environment. Tbh all food should be free and none of it environmentally destructive, and it is more than possible for is to make that happen. Overpopulation is a myth, the truth is there's too much pollution and money/power obsession and environmental destruction and crowded people in crowded cities that make no room for nature and wildlife, when they're very capable of tearing a few ugly buildings and ugly highways down and providing better and more dispersed (and free!) transportation and buildings that exist in harmony with nature.

So, yeah, don't just stop eating honey, tell people how terrible corporations and rich people are and crush them until there are none left. And feed the people. Everyone deserves a belly full of nutritious food when they're hungry, no one deserves to starve to death or suffer or be malnourished, full stop. And most importantly, do your own research. We have to start thinking for ourselves and questioning the status quo or it's all over.

Cute bee pics:

(Yes these are the adorable, rare, native, endangered, and extinct bees)

More adorable bee pics:

(Yes these are the adorable, rare, native, endangered, and extinct bees) (do not be a backyard beekeeper. Bees have to be in a natural healthy habitat to prevent mites and disease)

Even more adorable and beautiful bees:

(Spread the word to help protect rare native bee species and bee diversity)

Bees choose to live in the box where they know damn well that a large fraction of the honey will periodically be removed, instead of simply leaving that place like they are perfectly able to do, because the human box comes with an invulnerable titan to guard them against all threats. The bees consider the payment offered to this colossal mercenary to be a pretty good deal.

Bees know about supply and demand

Protection money

Protection honey

If you think this is a vegan issue: People go out and kidnap queens and scrape the bees into a box with her while stepping on/crushing the ones that fall down. When they want "royal jelly" they use bee pheromones and a baby girl bee to get the workers to produce it. Then they crush the baby girl to death and take the royal honey. The honey they replace with sugar water has healing properties. Because they take the honey and make the bees sick by overcrowding them (the bees only know to stay with their queen, they literally can't leave. The queen literally cant leave either, she thinks she's in her home), they have to give the bees very strong antibiotics instead. This makes for some very sick bees who then spread disease to rare and endangered species of bee and make them go extinct.

Here's why this isn't a vegan issue, it's an environmental issue: honey bees are rented out as pollinators for big agriculture, you know, the guys who love their pesticides and destroy the environment and local pollinators and plants for money, just like the animal industry does. These travelling, sick, rented bees are NOT specialized for the many rare, endangered, important local flowers and plants that they try to pollinate as they pass through, damaging and even killing the plant, and taking from rare local pollinators and endangered bees. And leaving catchy disease for them as well, super-disease created by insane levels of antibiotics and environmental destruction (covid, anyone?), again, killing rare bees (who are ADORABLE by the way).

And when these specialized pollinators die, their rare plants die too, and vice versa. It sets off a change of destruction and extinction that could very well be irreversible. What about the little endangered shrew who needs the endangered plant? What about the little fox who eats the shrew when times get hard, to survive? When there's nothing else to eat? Every little life is important to each ecosystem, and they're all intricate and different and magnificent in their own way.

But don't take it from me. Please, god, don't just blindly believe randos on twitter and tumblr who say nice things that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside about your cottagecore severe honey addiction that piglet keeps feeding. Do your own research. There are some really cute freaking bees that are endangered and you can help them by planting local plants, pulling up invasive ones, and providing them natural places for hives. And by telling people how terrible huge for-profit companies are and how much they destroy the environment. Tbh all food should be free and none of it environmentally destructive, and it is more than possible for is to make that happen. Overpopulation is a myth, the truth is there's too much pollution and money/power obsession and environmental destruction and crowded people in crowded cities that make no room for nature and wildlife, when they're very capable of tearing a few ugly buildings and ugly highways down and providing better and more dispersed (and free!) transportation and buildings that exist in harmony with nature.

So, yeah, don't just stop eating honey, tell people how terrible corporations and rich people are and crush them until there are none left. And feed the people. Everyone deserves a belly full of nutritious food when they're hungry, no one deserves to starve to death or suffer or be malnourished, full stop. And most importantly, do your own research. We have to start thinking for ourselves and questioning the status quo or it's all over.

Cute bee pics:

(Yes these are the adorable, rare, native, endangered, and extinct bees)

More adorable bee pics:

(Yes these are the adorable, rare, native, endangered, and extinct bees) (do not be a backyard beekeeper. Bees have to be in a natural healthy habitat to prevent mites and disease)

very cool how the gender binary in the emerging trad terf synthesis is like, there are two genders, the one that does bad things and the one that bad things are done to. the only thing in the world is immorality and it flows from unexperiencing agents to unacting experiencers.

which naturally appeals to people who would like to be perceived as inherently lacking the capacity for immorality. for whatever reason

anyway remember bell hooks’s very cogent critique of second-wave feminist organizing in ‘sisterhood: solidarity between women’ where she argues that by “bonding as ‘victims’, white women’s liberationists were not required to assume responsibility for confronting the complexity of their own experience … Identifying as ‘victims’, they could abdicate responsibility for their role in the maintenance and perpetuation of sexism, racism, and classism.” it’s not by accident that terf gender essentialism dovetails so much with other biological-determinist & essentialist assumptions including Extremely Racist Ones   

Ohhhh, man, that’s why cisgender terfs hate transgender women so much! Because the very existence of a class of women who are more oppressed than them challenges their ability to remain immaculate, blameless, and oppressed. And that’s why terfdom have gotten such a foothold in the UK as opposed to the US, because in America white feminists have been confronted repeatedly with the ways in which yes, motherfucker, there are multiple classes of women more oppressed than them. The UK is still 87% white or white British. The US is 60% non-Hispanic white. The work of non-white feminists in America has curbed the ability of terfs to gain inroads here, because in the US we–and I say “we” as a [white] nonbinary person who caucuses with the women–have already had the subject of intersectionality raised repeatedly within our communities. But they haven’t in the UK as much, so boom. Terfs everywhere.

The entirety of terf philosophy is reliant on the idea that women are oppressed victims who need to be protected, and that can only exist in a system that denies not only the existence of transgender women, but racism as well.

(Also, as a white nonbinary person…just, fucking, thank you, non-white feminists. Thank you so much.)

It's the same way with white western lgbtq+ especially the ones who parrot/are radfems. They hate other cultures, bipoc, queer men, and sexual assault victims of every form because that means they have to acknowledge that they too can be an abuser and aren't the only victim or that they aren't 10x more important than every other victim in the room, that they should listen to other people's voices and experiences instead of force their own on others. They attack queer people who are different from their the-protestant-church-accepts-me version of queer. White westernism at its finest. Fascist self obsessed egomaniacs.

Bees choose to live in the box where they know damn well that a large fraction of the honey will periodically be removed, instead of simply leaving that place like they are perfectly able to do, because the human box comes with an invulnerable titan to guard them against all threats. The bees consider the payment offered to this colossal mercenary to be a pretty good deal.

Bees know about supply and demand

Protection money

Protection honey

If you think this is a vegan issue: People go out and kidnap queens and scrape the bees into a box with her while stepping on/crushing the ones that fall down. When they want "royal jelly" they use bee pheromones and a baby girl bee to get the workers to produce it. Then they crush the baby girl to death and take the royal honey. The honey they replace with sugar water has healing properties. Because they take the honey and make the bees sick by overcrowding them (the bees only know to stay with their queen, they literally can't leave. The queen literally cant leave either, she thinks she's in her home), they have to give the bees very strong antibiotics instead. This makes for some very sick bees who then spread disease to rare and endangered species of bee and make them go extinct.

Here's why this isn't a vegan issue, it's an environmental issue: honey bees are rented out as pollinators for big agriculture, you know, the guys who love their pesticides and destroy the environment and local pollinators and plants for money, just like the animal industry does. These travelling, sick, rented bees are NOT specialized for the many rare, endangered, important local flowers and plants that they try to pollinate as they pass through, damaging and even killing the plant, and taking from rare local pollinators and endangered bees. And leaving catchy disease for them as well, super-disease created by insane levels of antibiotics and environmental destruction (covid, anyone?), again, killing rare bees (who are ADORABLE by the way).

And when these specialized pollinators die, their rare plants die too, and vice versa. It sets off a change of destruction and extinction that could very well be irreversible. What about the little endangered shrew who needs the endangered plant? What about the little fox who eats the shrew when times get hard, to survive? When there's nothing else to eat? Every little life is important to each ecosystem, and they're all intricate and different and magnificent in their own way.

But don't take it from me. Please, god, don't just blindly believe randos on twitter and tumblr who say nice things that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside about your cottagecore severe honey addiction that piglet keeps feeding. Do your own research. There are some really cute freaking bees that are endangered and you can help them by planting local plants, pulling up invasive ones, and providing them natural places for hives. And by telling people how terrible huge for-profit companies are and how much they destroy the environment. Tbh all food should be free and none of it environmentally destructive, and it is more than possible for is to make that happen. Overpopulation is a myth, the truth is there's too much pollution and money/power obsession and environmental destruction and crowded people in crowded cities that make no room for nature and wildlife, when they're very capable of tearing a few ugly buildings and ugly highways down and providing better and more dispersed (and free!) transportation and buildings that exist in harmony with nature.

So, yeah, don't just stop eating honey, tell people how terrible corporations and rich people are and crush them until there are none left. And feed the people. Everyone deserves a belly full of nutritious food when they're hungry, no one deserves to starve to death or suffer or be malnourished, full stop. And most importantly, do your own research. We have to start thinking for ourselves and questioning the status quo or it's all over.

Cute bee pics:

(Yes these are the adorable, rare, native, endangered, and extinct bees)

This exact thing happened in the 70's/80's in this country when seatbelts were first being pushed for. Reagan literally tried to get rid of them.

There were also examples of anti-seatbelt activists dying in car crashes where they weren’t wearing seat belts like that guy that wrote an anti-seatbelt article and four months later died in a car crash where he didn’t have a seat belt on and was thrown out of the vehicle

Anyone: change.

Scared weenies: I would rather die

very cool how the gender binary in the emerging trad terf synthesis is like, there are two genders, the one that does bad things and the one that bad things are done to. the only thing in the world is immorality and it flows from unexperiencing agents to unacting experiencers.

which naturally appeals to people who would like to be perceived as inherently lacking the capacity for immorality. for whatever reason

anyway remember bell hooks’s very cogent critique of second-wave feminist organizing in ‘sisterhood: solidarity between women’ where she argues that by “bonding as ‘victims’, white women’s liberationists were not required to assume responsibility for confronting the complexity of their own experience … Identifying as ‘victims’, they could abdicate responsibility for their role in the maintenance and perpetuation of sexism, racism, and classism.” it’s not by accident that terf gender essentialism dovetails so much with other biological-determinist & essentialist assumptions including Extremely Racist Ones   

You already know this but look at the neoradfems the pick me radfem queer people who are so desperate to paint all lgbtq+ people as innocent victims incapable of harm especially in fandom and on social media and the whole time they are finding new people to abuse and blame, especially marginalized queer people and with any stupid excuse they can think of. They're the white terf feminists of the queer community and the creative community and the fandom community. They play holier than thou so they can use and abuse the people in their own communities who are hurting the most and gain money notoriety and power in their spaces. They repeat terf and other conservative talking points like crazy. They're not here to change things they're here to play One Of The Good Ones and throw all other queer folk under the bus for their own gain and pride

fictional character discourse would be more fun if we all internalized the fact that characters are narrative tools, not people. once we have that basic fact down, we can start talking about what story the author is trying to tell using these characters, whether they’re successful, whether the story itself is successful and by what means we are measuring success—which are all really fun and interesting things to discuss! but we simply cannot get to that point unless we first accept that fictional characters simply do not have thoughts, feelings, opinions, or any agency on their own. a fictional character has more in common with the fictional chair theyre sitting on than with a real person

Regardless of what indoctrination into western society taught you, art and literature are not, and has never been about criticizing, analyzing, or judging. That's the will of the bourgeois, sure, because literature and culture in all forms makes them uncomfortable when it isn't tailored to bring them comfort, and most of all when it inspires the masses to learn to use their own imaginations, to learn to think for themselves be it when creating fiction or pushing back against the status quo. Treating fictional characters as real ones and fiction as a moralizing tool is an extension of this destructive mindset, an excuse to be even more critical and judgemental of self expression. An evolution. It's the cousin of literary analysis as a destructive tool. The only reason you're ever supposed to critique or analyze or judge a piece of human culture and expression is when you're school aged and trying to find out what you like, what you identify with, and how you identify with it, to make sure you're not absorbed into the opinion of the artist rather than forming your own. That's why being negative toward art earns high marks in school. Not because it's correct or a sign of intelligence, but because youre still learning to think for yourself. That's the point. Not to leave some opinion on the work or artist, but an expression and insight into yourself and what it means to you personally, or what you would personally do if you created such a work. It's supposed to prime you to create your own works and find works you like, not judge whether or not someone else did a good job expressing themselves. This isn't math or science, where there's a right answer. The only right answer in the arts is to express your feelings and respect others. The only good that comes out of analysis is to try to understand the artist's voice better through their personal experience, which is an iffy choice, considering many never intend to be considered or consumed alongside their art and often urban legends about artists become more important than their work unfortunately, AND when analysis is done with a loving spirit and an open heart, not to dissect, but to understand and bask in, to explore and find joy in the work over and over again. And that's frankly not what most people are doing these days, especially on tumblr. They want to be angry and miserable and outraged and reactionary like any art critical art blaming conservative, rather than enjoy themselves or use it as a meditative experience, much less do the work to find or create and support things they like instead of demand everything be tailored to them personally for free and to the detriment of creators.