much better footage of the haka that shut down parliament today

@endless-demon thank you so much for asking! it's a little complicated but I think simplification does a disservice to the issue and is exactly what people like David Seymour rely on to spread lies about historical context and current consequences. I'm putting this in a reblog because it's long, and I'm putting it on this post because I'd rather this video be the one to get seen. as always I'm pakeha and also not an expert, so I'm very open to corrections on details but im confident of the broad strokes.

so when the English first arrived to build settlements in aotearoa, they formed a treaty with Māori (te Tiriti o Waitangi), the people already living there, that the English can govern their own settlements, as long as they allowed for continued māori sovereignty (tino rangatiratanga). there exist two versions of the text, English and te reo Māori, which do not perfectly match. after this, the English settlers began acquiring massive swathes of land by legally questionable means, and asserting absolute sovereignty over these areas. these culminated in the land wars, which then lead to massive land confiscation as a form of both political punishment and colonization. the end result is that now the crown own nearly all land in aotearoa and claim absolute sovereignty over it.

now, the Māori text does not claim sovereignty over the property that the crown recognizes Māori own. the text promises, among other things, self determination for Māori, which is essentially impossible under a westminster system of government because they are currently a demographic minority. it's only very recent in our history that the crown has acknowledged the legitimacy of the te reo Māori text, and even more recently that we began to actually implement any of its principles. one of the biggest ways the treaty is used in modern day is to guarantee Māori have an opportunity at the table for major national decisions (particular those of environmental significance), and to defer organizational power for Māori issues to Māori communities.

the treaty principles bill seeks to water down these promises by allowing these rights to all new zealanders, "democratising" the treaty and removing those guarantees that have been so hard fought for by Māori. but, more importantly, it seeks to seed division and racism within this country to gather more support for the ACT party who are sponsoring this bill.

this bill was part of the coalition agreement by our current 3 party right wing government. the national party agreed to sponsor this bill to first reading (allowing public submission on the bill) but no further. I personally believe, along with many others, that when the time comes to vote for the second reading the act party will threaten to pull out of the coalition if the bill is not passed again, and our prime minister will not have the strength of character to stand up to his deputy. regardless, the relationship between the crown and Māori has already been damaged, both by the simple introduction of the bill as well as all the changes our current government has implemented.

as Paul Goldsmith, Minister for Treaty Negotiations outlined in his speech during the bill, the National party believe that te Tiriti must be killed, not in a single action, but by a thousand cuts, like the removal of references to the treaty from our legislation and curriculums, and the disestablishment of agencies like the Māori Health Authority, cuts to Māori advisors to govt departments, removing māori seats from local government, etc.

there's so much more to this issue, like the centuries of abuse and mistreatment of Māori by the crown authorities, how this abuse is ongoing to Māori children and adults today in state care, how iwi voices are our last line of defence against environmental and ecological damage by industry, the unilateral natural of the treaty reparation settlement process... but this is why this protest was staged in parliament today.

(in fact, there is a much larger protest taking place nationwide, scheduled to arrive the day the bill was supposed to be introduced. the bill was in fact introduced a week earlier, in a move many suspect was done to prevent exactly this kind of protest.)

as far as I'm concerned though? I think te pāti Māori achieved exactly what they wanted by this protest. they forced the government to drop the mask of civility, and force the protestors out of the building. and they showed their supporters that their protests are working - they felt threatened enough by this that they lashed out, felt a need to retaliate by suspending hana-rawhiti maipi-clarke from the house for 24 hours. the coalition are getting nervous

@capriceandwhimsy this seems up your alley

tumblr please stop telling me to wd40 a mouse

the thing about the mummy movies is that you really spend most of the time thinking "wow brendan fraser's character is so cool" or "man oded fehr is so mysterious and heroic" when the fact of the matter is that these two

are the absolute most batshit insane heroes in the entire franchise

these two are intellectual loner siblings with archeology backgrounds who read and speak ancient egyptian, hire a dude directly out of prison to take them to a lost city of gold, and fight mummies literally with their bare hands. twice.

no one in these movies stands a chance against the carnahans. frankly they're lethal in how willing they are to make the absolute and most undeniably deranged decisions. jonathan pickpockets a dude on fire. evy's resurrected from the dead and immediately remembers how to use sai. they're racking shotguns from a cliff in this scene and then proceed to blow away half the antagonists.

rick and ardeth should be so lucky

While the Onion buying InfoWars is indeed extremely funny, very few of the posts I've seen commenting on the sale have mentioned that the families of the Sandy Hook victims apparently agreed to voluntarily reduce their lawsuit payout as part of a deal to ensure that the Onion would acquire InfoWars wholesale, rather than having the company broken up and auctioned off piecemeal, as the latter course could potentially have allowed some of those pieces to end up back in the hands of Alex Jones' cronies.

Like, yes, it is in fact very funny that InfoWars is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Clickhole, but the real props go out to the Sandy Hook families who saw the opportunity and willingly gave up the additional millions of dollars that could have been realised by stripping InfoWars for parts in order to make that happen.

If your democrat friends start muttering about stolen election conspiracy theories, the time to have a sit down with them and express your concerns is NOW, while you still have a chance to reach them, not 6 months from now when they're fully conspiracy-pilled.

Here's some of the talking points and why they're bullshit:

But just as importantly as the facts: sit down with your friend and talk about the anxiety that's behind their conspiracy leanings. Acknowledge their pain and fear. Help them find ways to feel less powerless and regain their sense of agency. Take them to a mutual aid event, involve them in a fundraising event for a marginalized group, invite them to a local community effort. If they spend more time feeling connection and empowerment and less time doom scrolling online, they're far more likely to stay in reality.

This this this

I worked as an election judge across multiple polling locations and election types in my state from 2018-2023 (presidential primary and general elections, midterms, and special elections like for the school board etc.)

US elections are extremely secure. There are so many safeguards in place. Everything is double and triple counted.

The number of ballots electronically counted by the box are checked against the number of physical ballots at the end of the night, and also the receipt papers that individuals exchange for their ballot. All three of these counts MUST MATCH. Sometimes you're off by 1 number and it means everyone stops and triple counts these papers until you find the error (human error, it's been 16 hours and two pieces of thin receipt paper were stuck together and the second person to recount finds it and everyone cheers because thank fuck, it means no one dropped anything on the floor anywhere.)

There are eyes everywhere and there's a deliberate mix of poll workers across political parties/affiliations. It's simply not possible to alter even 1 ballot at 1 polling place, much less thousands.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump won this election. If there was interference, it was NOT at the voting booth. That's simply not possible. The "interference" (if you can even call it that) comes from right wing propaganda convincing stupid and/or hateful and/or selfish people to vote for him.

I was telling people before the election that they were gonna take it all. The polls very clearly showed the outcome. If they’d been completely different from the result, then I might be crying foul.

this can’t be real

He put them together at the kids table that doesn’t exist I’m fucking crying

its easy to make fun of this (and i think we should) but its also important to note the description of this new department that trump has given

[transcript: "together, these two wonderful americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies - essential to the 'save america' movement," trump wrote. "i look forward to elon and vivek making changes to the federal bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all americans."]

to be clear: trump is planning to create a new department whose purpose is literally to deregulate and defund government oversight. this will lead to corporations having greater freedom to fuck over consumers while making more money, and he is putting two billionaires in charge of it.

sure, maybe this is just a ploy to keep them quiet. giving them the illusion of power in exchange for backing him. but lets not forget all the regulations trump cut during his last term

which has directly led to the constant recalls of consumer goods and foodstuffs over the past several years. the recent e coli outbreak at mcdonalds? the boars head listeria recall? these are the products of deregulation. getting rid of laws and standards that protect consumers by making sure money hungry corporations dont cut corners.

the funny name is a smokescreen. keep your eye on these fuckers.

I… dont want to do that? I know what happened what good does it do

Very often lately i’ve been thinking of the james baldwin(?) quote (i can’t find it at the moment so i will summarize it) where he basically says that in order for white people to ally with black people that we need to think of black children as our children and iirc he didn’t think that could ever happen. When i see posts like this i think, do you not see your neighbor? Do you not see your aunt? Do you not see your teacher, your bus driver, your dentist, your friend, your peer, your equal? Why are you pushing their death tape onto others when the accounts of their murders are written out so people can know without seeing?

It’s odd to me that 1) this is the post that gets notes when I’ve seen multiple of my black mutuals express their complete disgust with the original posts and the sentiments shared within, as well as op’s extremely condescending response (maybe because I am not black and it’s easier for yall to stomach or something?) and 2) those same black mutuals and other black users are ON THIS POST agreeing with it, and there’s STILL white people arguing with me, saying I took the post out of context. What more do black people need to fucking do to get you to listen to them???? People in the notes have rightly brought up the way that people on the internet encourage others to watch videos and look at photos of palestinian people getting murdered—what good does this do? I don’t need to see the wound get made to know blood has been spilled! I LISTEN TO THEM!!!

The op of the post I screenshotted is saying that unless people watch this, they’re not going to even come close to understanding the depths of the depravity of police brutality. Uhhh, personally, when I hear that the police shot and killed someone PERIOD, let alone a schizophrenic black woman that wanted help, i’m perfectly aware that that was wrong. I don’t need to see this white cop murder a black woman. I don’t care how merciless he was how cold he was how inhuman he was—he killed her. I KNOW. What more could be gained from this? And you think WE, the people seeing your white weeb ass try to grandstand to grieving black people online, are the arbiters of truth?? You think we’re going to control the narrative?? You only know what happened BECAUSE THE NEWS ALREADY REPORTED IT.

Other people have also mentioned in the notes that white people’s activism is mostly self flagellation, then showing nonwhite people their bloody wounds, saying see? Aren’t i sorry? Have i made up for it? I watched a woman get murdered because i care so much, despite the fact black people have told me to stop sharing it, because i care, and they’re too stupi—i mean, emotionally involved to realize watching sonya massey die on video is A GOOD THING!

Fuck off!

Is the quote

?

I vaguely remember when, although I don't remember whose death it was, but the first or the second police murder was broadcast on the news with video and audio evidence, and I remember thinking "they're playing actual footage of a real live person being murdered, not by surprise, not that they were filming near an open conflict and it came in front of the camera, they're doing this on purpose, why are they doing it on purpose."

I remember being so shocked by this. I wish it was still shocking. Or surprising. Maybe I mean surprising.

A performance by 蔡宏毅 (Cai Hongyi), whose specialty is sword dance.

via Guidance Pet Training

we DO grow old and happy. btw.

And you find love and it stays with you.

Older women are so, so beautiful, and older trans women are no exception. Celebrate the beauty of our elders! Celebrate trans beauty!

^^^

I wanted to share some more of these, specifically trans women of color. The images I'm posting are from a project called To Survive On This Shore and it's an interview project. I am only posting a handful so it's so worth checking out!

This is Linda, 60

Alexis, 64

Helena, 63

Kendrah, 72 (!!)

Tasha, 65

It was deeply healing to me to discover this project. The site has selected photos and attached interviews and it's definitely worth your time. I didn't include any because the focus of this post imo is transfems but there are a lot of beautiful interviews with transmasc people too if you're interested! But that'll have to be another post 💖

for those interested, the photographer is Jess T. Dugan. The link to this particular project is as follows:

A very useful thread on Bluesky:

(There is a lot more. Rather than give you all the images, I've copied the full text below.)