footprints on the moon

It’s not a waste of time to cure your ballot. Even if the presidential election has already been determined, cured ballots can still make a significant impact in local government. This includes city council members, local propositions, senate/house memebers etc.

Even though the presidential election is important it was not the only thing on our ballots. It’s still important to have your vote count. Cure your ballot and don’t be left wondering what would’ve happened locally if you didn’t.

if you're feeling powerless right now—and god knows I am—here's a reminder you can donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds, the Trans Law Center, Gaza Soup Kitchen, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and hundreds of other charities that will work to mitigate the damage that has been and will continue to be inflicted

life continues. we still have the capacity to do good, important work. that matters

Hello. I mean this really imploringly, and really genuinely. If you're a U.S. citizen still on the fence about what to do for the election, please vote Harris. There's this idea circulating that the person you vote for should be someone you like, love, idolize and that is so very not true. You're voting for the opponent you'll face for the next four years when you have issues to protest and matters to vocalize. You're voting for the person most likely to give an inch when you protest the things that matter. You're voting for the person most likely to not strip away your existing rights and scatter your focus across the things we already won, and which can be taken away. We lost Roe v Wade under the Trump-appointed judges. The current trans-panic is so disgustingly on fire, and it's absolutely the Republicans eager to rip away what little protection there is. Both candidates are also, disgustingly, pro-Israel. But Trump will never ever give a fuck to any protest on that matter.

You don't want to be complicit in genocide. I get it. But if you're a U.S. citizen, you're already benefiting from the U.S.'s foreign policy, and that's already complacency. Refusing to vote or voting third party isn't absolving you of that. It's just letting Trump walk in the door. And letting Trump in is complacency. And your ability to organize, and to make change, will go so less far against a Trump cabinet than a Harris one. The material harm under Trump is real.

Does voting for Harris make you feel guilty? I'm sorry, but you have to bear it. Your guilt isn't what's important. A white person's guilt isn't important. A citizen of a global terror's guilt isn't important. Actions that pacify your guilt aren't important. Focusing on absolving your guilt is in fact harmful, as opposed to actions that can actually materially reduce harm.

Please protest. Please donate to good causes. Please support Palestine. Please be vocal. Please fight for BIPOC and LGBTQA+ rights. Please view Harris as the opponent whose ears these things fall on. Your ability to organize safely, largely, loudly, and effectively will go so much further under a Harris presidency. Please.

A friendly reminder to USians: if you are planning to vote on Election Day, your mantra is "Nothing I see today convinces me not to go vote."

Exit polls suggest DT cannot be caught? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Exit polls suggest KH has it in the bag? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Pundits are saying the country is swinging overwhelmingly red? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Pundits are saying the country is swinging overwhelmingly blue? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Polls can be misleading (intentionally or not). The methodology can be biased (or simply poor). Early results may not reflect what the full count will show. There may be a red mirage. NOTHING YOU SEE CONVINCES YOU NOT TO VOTE.

The biggest Democratic win in swing states means nothing if democrats don't turn out everywhere to keep the reliably blue states blue.

VOTE. Wear appropriate weather gear if you think you may have to stand in a line outside (coat, hat, gloves, umbrella, sunhat, whatever, you know where you live). Bring water and a snack and something to do (book, game on your phone, podcast and headphones, whatever, you know what you like). GO VOTE.

NOTHING YOU SEE ON ELECTION DAY CONVINCES YOU NOT TO VOTE.

Friendly reminder that almost half of the states in the U.S. have same day registration! This means you can go to the polling center for your location, register there, and cast your vote same day. So if you are over 18, are a U.S. citizen, and live in one of the states listed below, it is not too late to register and vote! I’m going to put notes for some of the states where voting is extra important due to the political climate of the state.

You can go here for more info on voter registration

I also have a huge list of voting resources here

Please don't tune out when you get to the non-partisan section of your ballot this November. First off, where state Supreme Court justices are elected, Republicans are trying their darndest to elect candidates who will destroy reproductive freedom, gut voting rights, and do everything in their power to give "contested" elections to Republicans. Contrast Wisconsin electing a justice in 2023 who helped rule two partisan gerrymanders unconstitutional, versus North Carolina electing a conservative majority in 2022, who upheld a racist voter ID law and a partisan gerrymander that liberal justices had previously struck down both of.

Second, local judicial offices will make infinitely more of an impact on your community than a divided state or federal legislature will. District and circuit courts, especially, are where criminalization of homelessness and poverty play out, and where electing a progressive judge with a commitment to criminal justice reform can make an immediate difference in people's lives.

It's a premier example of buying people time, and doing profound-short-term good, while we work to eventually change the system. You might not think there will be any such progressive justices running in your district, but you won't know unless you do your research. (More on "research" in a moment.)

The candidates you elect to your non-partisan city council will determine whether those laws criminalizing homelessness get passed, how many blank checks the police get to surveil and oppress, and whether lifesaving harm reduction programs, like needle exchanges and even fentanyl test strips, are legal in your municipality. Your non-partisan school board might need your vote to fend off Moms for Liberty candidates and their ilk, who want to ban every book with a queer person or acknowledgement of racism in it.

Of course, this begs the question — if these candidates are non-partisan, and often hyper-local, then how do I research them? There's so much less information and press about them, so how do I make an informed decision?

I'm not an expert, myself. But I do think/hope I have enough tips to consist of a useful conclusion to this post:

Also check in with the League of Women Voters, who send all the candidates questions that are theoretically non partisan (but which tend to reveal partisan affiliations in the response). They run Vote411, where they aggregate all the information they get into a nice little voting guide with all the candidates' answers arranged neatly there for you so you can peruse and make up your mind.

Seriously, if you aren't using Vote411 as part of your decision-making process for local elections, you should start! The candidates do sometimes also ignore them, but they're really good at bothering everyone for information and getting results. And the LWV are very, very thorough.

I'm sure many people have already shared this here, but I think it's important that people here on Tumblr need to see this.

"I disagree with Kamala's position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?" by US Senator Bernie Sanders

His question is NOT RHETORICAL by the way! Transcript for anyone who struggles with video:

“I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza.

I am one of them.

While Israel had a right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages, it did not have a right to wage an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people.

It did not have the right to kill 42,000 Palestinians, two thirds of whom were children, women and the elderly, or injure over 100,000 people in Gaza.

It did not have the right to destroy Gaza's infrastructure, housing, and healthcare system. It did not have the right to bomb every one of Gaza's 12 universities.

It did not have the right to block humanitarian aid, causing massive malnutrition in children and, in fact, starvation.

And that is why I am doing everything I can to block U.S. military aid and offensive weapon sales to the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government in Israel. And I know that many of you share those feelings, and some of you are saying,

"How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war?"

And that is a very fair question. And let me give you my best answer. And that is that even on this issue, Donald Trump and his right-wing friends are worse. In the Senate, in Congress, the Republicans have worked overtime to block humanitarian aid to the starving children in Gaza. The President and Vice President both support getting as much humanitarian aid into Gaza as soon as possible.

Trump has said Netanyahu is "doing a good job", and has said Biden is "holding him back". He has suggested the Gaza strip would make excellent beachfront property for development. And it is no wonder Netanyahu prefers to have Donald Trump in office.

But even more importantly - and this I promise you - after Kamala wins, we will together do everything that we can to change U.S. policy toward Netanyahu. An immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages, a surge of massive humanitarian aid, the stopping of settler attacks on the West Bank, and the rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinian people.

And let me be clear. We will have, in my view, a much better chance of changing U.S. policy with Kamala than with Trump, who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, right-wing extremist ally.

But let me also say this - and I deal with this every single day as a U.S. Senator - as important as Gaza is, and as strongly as many of us feel about this issue, it is not the only issue at stake in this election.

If Trump wins, women in this country will suffer an enormous setback and lose the ability to control their own bodies. That is not acceptable.

If Trump wins, to be honest with you, the struggle against climate change is over. While virtually every scientist who has studied the issue understands that climate change is real, and an existential threat to our country and the world, Trump believes it is a "hoax". And if the United States, the largest economy in the world, stops transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel, every other country - China, Europe, all over the world - they will do exactly the same thing. And God only knows the kind of planet we will leave to our kids and future generations.

If Trump wins, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, he will demand even more tax breaks for the very richest people in our country while cutting back on programs that working families desperately need. The rich will only get richer while the minimum wage will remain at $7.25 an hour and millions of our fellow workers will continue to earn starvation wages.

Did you all see the recent Trump rally at Madison Square Gardens? Well, I did. And what I can tell you is that, as a nation, as all of you know, we have struggled for years, against impossible odds, to overcome all forms of bigotry - whether it's racism, whether it's sexism, whether it's homophobia, whether it's xenophobia, you name it. We have tried to fight against bigotry. But that is exactly what we saw on display at that unbelievable Trump rally. It was not a question of speakers getting up there, disagreeing with Kamala Harris on the issue. That wasn't the issue at all. They were attacking her simply because she was a woman, and a woman of colour. Extreme, vulgar sexism and racism.

Is that really the kind of America that we can allow?

So let me conclude by saying this: this is the most consequential election in our lifetimes. Many of you have differences of opinion with Kamala Harris on Gaza. So do I.

But we cannot sit this election out. Trump has got to be defeated. Let's do everything we can in the next week to make sure that Kamala Harris is our next president.

Thank you very much.”

If every single person who says "my vote wouldn't matter anyway" voted, then every single one of those votes would matter. Gerrymandering is not insurmountable, it's based on "likely voters". The opposing party just keeps stoking the "it's pointless" line alive because it keeps it true.

Actually, gerrymandering is especially vulnerable to sudden bursts of "unlikely" voters showing up to the polls. The whole point of gerrymandering is to spread your conservative voters thinly across the districts you let them exist in such that they juuuuuuuuuuust barely outcompete the liberal ones while packing all the other liberals into one or a couple of "dump" safe-Democrat districts.

So if you suddenly add more blue voters to the equation in a gerrymandered district, the odds become higher that the overall surge in voting swamps the amount of conservative votes "accounted" to win the district and it flips instead. The more voters you get overall, the more likely this is to happen.

Remember, gerrymandering is about distributing votes carefully to jigger the predicted distribution of votes such that the gerrymandering party (nearly always Republicans) wins a proportionately higher number of seats than would be expected if seats were apportioned based on overall voting choices within a larger geographic area.

By gerrymandering the districts, you inherently opt to trade many reasonably narrow wins for fewer practical, safer wins. Narrow wins are vulnerable to sudden unexpected surges of Democratic voters, but the GOP has historically been able to expect much more predictable turnout levels from their constituents of the vindictive and elderly, so their gamble has tended to pay off in gerrymandered regions.

For now.

Thing to keep in mind:

1) someone is gonna be in the White House next year, and it is going to be someone who supports us imperial interests abroad

2) both the main party candidates suck in their own ways

3) for everything you (reasonably) criticize Harris for, trump is demonstrably worse (very much including Palestine)

4) we are still feeling the continued impacts of trump’s presidency, in terms of everything from the makeup of the Supreme Court ending safe abortion access and the lessening of safety regulations causing mass food outbreaks

5) a second trump presidency would be worse, for literally every possible issue you could think of

6) there is no scenario in which we could exchange our domestic issues for an end to genocide. We can’t trade reproductive justice for Palestinian statehood

7) the Biden-Harris admin had accomplished a lot of good things

8) good things the Biden administration has done do not excuse his continued funding of Israel committing genocide

9) Choosing not to vote or voting third party will not change any of the above facts. There is nothing to be gained by abstaining from voting, or by voting for a third party that has no chance of winning.

10) yes, this is supremely unfair. But there is no option b right now. This is the choice we have, and if the choice isn’t obvious to you I’m not sure what to say

11) voting doesn’t mean you’re supporting this person, you like them, agree with them, or that you cannot protest against them, criticize them, or try to hold their feet to the fire

12) voting will not fix everything. but not voting will not fix anything. Voting is a tool, it’s not the only tool, but it’s foolish to refuse to use it on principle

13) if voting makes you complicit, so does paying taxes or using public services like roads or schools. I am complicit by virtue of living in this country and being a citizen. Refusing to vote will not demonstrate my disagreement with this country, only my complacency in how it is run

So there's something I want to say re: intentionally withholding your vote, and I want to do it without coming across as condescending or dismissive.

I've worked as a field organizer in two campaigns, 2010 and 2012, and my job was to help turnout the vote for Democratic candidates up and down the ticket. Technology may have changed, but people are still knocking on doors for specific voters the way they were 12 years ago.

If you say you're not voting/voting 3rd party, the campaign volunteer is supposed to mark that and move on. Their job, in the final month of the election, is to make sure the campaign's supporters have all the information and resources they need to cast a vote.

They aren't collecting data on why you're withholding your vote. They aren't submitting opinion polling results to the campaign. Something like 155 million people voted in the 2020 election, and if you say you're not voting, the campaign is not going to waste a volunteer's time and morale begging you to vote when there are literally millions of other voters to turn out.

Let me repeat that: The campaign does not track why you're not voting. They simply note your vote is not a priority for turnout and move on.

I say this because I see a lot of promotion of non-voting like that's a boycott, when the function is not the same. A boycott is a coordinated mass refusal to engage with an institution—which sounds similar if you see a vote as a good or service to withhold. Unfortunately, it's not.

A vote is a choice you're making as part of a community hiring committee. Your abstention doesn't prevent someone from being hired. It just lowers the threshold for the worst candidate to succeed.

All this to say: In my direct experience as an organizer, abstaining from the vote sends a message. That message is not "You need to try harder to win my vote." It's "Don't waste time on me."

feeling very frustrated about the ways people are talking about hurricane Milton. lots of needless, borderline fear mongering language with very little actual helpful information.

information about Milton that might ACTUALLY be helpful:

Hurricane Milton is shaping up to be the third strongest hurricane ever recorded.

Make sure you have an evacuation plan if the order is given or if you've already been told to leave.

there is also a code for free Ubers to evacuate effected counties, as well as shuttles from evacuating counties to nearby storm shelters

Prepare/secure your home

Find your nearest shelter and be prepared to leave

If you want to stay in the loop about the hurricane, WESH 2 News has ongoing coverage ad-free on YouTube.

General resources/information:

Please for the love of God stop preying on people's fears and causing panic. Know what resources are available to you and how to access them. If you approach this hurricane carefully YOU WILL BE OKAY!!!!! YOUR LIFE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE RUINED!!!

Please link other resources you find or think other people might find useful!

definitely not an encouraging sign when a meteorologist local to Florida who has been doing this for a long time is crying on air about the strength and intensity of a storm that is 2 days away. if you're on the west coast of Florida and you still haven't gotten to message.. you need to listen.

It‘s scary to see how very important european petitions get no visibility whatsoever. We had a basic income petition last year which failed because not enough people knew about it. Now we have a „tax the rich“ one that only lasts until october this year and only has around 250k out of 1 mio. signings.

Most EU people go through their every day life w/o knowing about them. There are no ads, no marketing…nothing. I know that costs money though one might think important petitions that lead to a better and progressive life would be supported by the government or ministries in some way, but nooooo

And why should they? It’s petitions that would help out the poor and middle class, but endanger capitalism and their exploitation, sooo: government and business leads for example.

So here the link for those who are interested:

In many US states, this week is your last chance to register for the upcoming election.

Please don’t let this wait. Please go get registered—or if you’re registered already, check your registration to make sure it is still valid. Numerous states have been purging “ineligible voters”: so please doublecheck that you haven’t been purged by mistake

If you’re all set, then please encourage everyone you know to register, or to check their own registrations.

Here’s where to start: Vote.gov

Yall i just got an email from tumblr saying I interacted with accounts made by the IRA …… is this even real????

The internet is wild

Im literally imagining some government worker in russia logging onto tumblr.edu and thinking to themselves “better change my url to ‘black-galaxy-magic’ to stay young n hip and relevant with the youth of america”

sooooo let’s break it down then because the fact that tumblr sent this email is mega important

if yall haven’t been living under a rock for the last year and a half, you may have heard that trump won the election. and you may have also heard that trump was helped out by russia in a ton of ways. one of those ways was by the russian troll farm, the internet research agency (IRA). there were 84 accounts on tumblr spreading anti-hillary propaganda and general discontent, mainly targeting POC and “socially aware” youth. some of those accounts were HUGELY influential, “4mysquad” being one of the top ones with tons of followers and popular posts.

a lot of them started with relatively innocent, pro-POC posts to gain a following, before moving on to anti-police, anti-hillary, and general anti-establishment to create distrust in the only major-party candidate against trump. like I said, many of the accounts were hugely influential so their posts spread FAR. all that visibility led to increased voter apathy, meaning less voter turnout and fewer people voting against trump. and tumblr was silent on this after the official indictment of the IRA, until literally just yesterday. 

so to sum up, the email you and a ton of other people got is saying that you were following and sharing posts from russian pro-trump propaganda blogs. i’d ask that you PLEASE reblog this, because it’s super important that everyone who got this email knows why they got it, knows what it means, and hopefully knows what they might be able to do better in the future

Yes, this is four years old, but as someone who’s been on Tumblr way too long I dug this up as a reminder that no, even this hellsite isn’t beneath this kind of active sabotage.

Even with everything we’ve put up with for the past four years, it looks like the same tricks are still working. Please vote blue, US followers. The only reason not to is to keep Trump in power, and there are people out there actively trying to enforce that.

Reblogging this again Dec 2021 as a reminder, because ive seen a LOT of posts recently about how tumblr is safe, tumblr is inhospitable to unwanted groups, tumblr is better than the rest. Which, yeah, tumblr is great and all, but please, PLEASE remember the disinformation that happened here. It happened before, it can happen again. Don’t trust posts or blogs blindly.

Thanks for bringing this back because I keep coming across posts and blogs that look super suspicious to me in how they spam you with horror news and then make a point about how ALL politicians are bad, and how democratic governments are just as bad as autocratic, totalitarian and terrorist regimes. Not to mention blogs that glorify terrorist leaders and autocratic states….

Also, I remember that I made a “please vote blue” post before the election in 2020 that got a few thousand reblogs, and suddenly I got tons of anonymous asks. Turned out my post had been linked in a Russian troll forum whose members were sending me hate mail.

Be careful out there. There are many many people (and countries/organizations) who know that the leftist, hyper-empathic audience of Tumblr is an easy target for misinformation.

Its been too long since I've properly campaigned for Mona's initiatives on my main blog! Since the last update we have a wide array of projects your donations have contributed to!

She has distributed essential hygiene kits including pads for women!

And a lot lot lot of food package distributions as you can see below!

Please do not hesitate to donate! Every single dollar helps!! P*ypal.

G*f*ndme for distribution of necessities.

G*f*ndme to help Mona and her family.

Instagram to track progress + above links.

(If you live in India or Pakistan and want to donate, contact her through the means listed on her account).