https://www.socialismconference.org/ heads up folks.
Also: Women’s March organizers planning a general strike, a day w/o women. Looks like it’ll be on March 8th.
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Hi guys, sorry I was so quiet for so long.
White people elected Trump.
I wanted to talk a bit about the upcoming Day Without a Woman being scheduled by the Women’s March on March 8th, which is International Women’s Day. It’s also being called the Women’s Strike and, while it’s not the case for me because my spouse is awesome and does more than his share of housework, this is not the case for most women. In general, the bulk of household chores are performed by women. If you are interested here is a link of the groundbreaking article by Pat Mainardi about this, entitled The Politics of Housework. And here is a blog post by a man who realized a little too late what his laziness was really saying entitled, She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink. Additionally, the woman is often doing the the majority of the emotional investment in keeping the relationship running and maintaining connections. This is called emotional labor and it is also work. Here’s a link to a metafilter thread about unpaid and obligatory emotional labor if you’re interested. And Here’s a link to a pdf version of that whole thread condensed for easier perusal. If you are a woman and you are going to strike on March 8th I strongly recommend a total strike from all the labor you perform and that is often taken for granted. Don’t just strike from your paid job, but strike from housework and emotional labor as well. Bonus points if you’re a mom and can also shrug all child care off onto your childrens’ father that day because child care is another job that is performed predominantly by women.
Next I wanna talk about the Science March scheduled for Earth Day (April 22nd.) I have been hearing some troubling things from minority academics that the Science March is shutting out minority voices and representation, people imperative to the field, and focusing only on the much regaled STEM fields while doing the whole condemnation of the humanities thing. They claim the whole march is being dominated but white people who are mostly men and that the movement has made no outreach towards minority academics. When called out, the movement has only gone on the defensive and told these individuals to come to them. These minority people say they did approach organizers and were blocked and dismissed. This is looking very bad and if the Science March doesn’t pull its head out of its ass soon it’s not going to bode well for the message they wanna send. Science isn’t just for white people and it definitely isn’t just for white men. As it stands, unless I hear something good out of the minority academics as the movement nears its due date it’s highly likely that I’ll not be marching in this protest. If anyone has some things to contribute about this please post. I’ll be posting some tweets soon to better show what I’m talking about.
We also had several protests since the Women’s March that I haven’t spoken about in this thread, like the Muslim Ban protests at airports and at the White House that was organized in less that 48 hours. And the Day Without Immigrants protest. Does anyone have any news or pictures about either? I also promised to post my Women’s March pics and then NEVER DID. I’ll do that and post my Muslim Ban protest pics too.
I did hear about the racist fucking teachers at that school being complete pieces of shit all, “Aaah my classes are so peaceful now” during the Day Without Immigrants protest. FUCK YOU. I hear those kids are protesting like their lives depend on it (it’s not funny because they do.) Gimme the good stuff thread.
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THE GROSSNESS OF THE SCIENCE MARCH
The good white science people would very much like to keep politics out of science because science is apolitical and AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh my God yikes. I love how the moment we start talking about inclusion of diversity and systemic problems within science and academia that have to do with race or minority issues it’s suddenly “political.” FUCK YOU.
https://twitter.com/KiranOpal/status/838084788716257280
In the wake of this cringeworthy idiocy a new hashtag sprung up in my Twitter feed, #marginsci. It was apparently started by @ThePurplePage. I decided to take a look at it.
This thread from a brilliant WoC in STEM is one of the most recent.
Wow she rules.
https://twitter.com/IBJIYONGI/status/838109329685364737
This is Dr. Prescod-Weinstein, I followed her on Twitter after she tore me apart about white women and the Women’s March. She was the person who pointed out this shit was going on at the Science March, she also tweeted extensively about the man who was shot at UW during Milo’s talk. I have deep respect and affection for this amazing woman.
The Science March has been actively excluding the disabled and not doing anything about accessibility. A Twitter user going by @OtherSociology has been really vocal about this and white folks (seems all men) in science are just being complete shitheads. Here’s a thread where a user calls out the Science March, names some cool people, and talks about the fight for diversity in the movement when another user comes in and informs her of the rampant shittiness!
Here’s the user @OtherSociology pointing out some racism and saying, gosh you guys are racist.
This thread is also where I got the protest is political tweet. She’s really awesome.
Here’s the DC Science March trying to pull its head out of its ass.
Meanwhile,
Shit looks really bad.
Check out @AltMarchForSci on Twitter because they’re tweeting LOADS of stuff.
I’ll edit this with more soon but YIKES YIKES YIKES.
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For a science march, they seem to be really bad at problem solving. But listening is too political for some people now so ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
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Science March Update!
A storify of just a taste of ALL THE SHIT going down:
Then,
THREAD:
Please note, while this is a good start they still shoveled all this consideration of non-white men stuff off onto women. This lone lady seems to be fighting a solo war and smashing her head against a brick wall of privilege and this might be too little too late.
I’m still working on those other things I promised you all!
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Sudden protest for Native American rights at the White House!!
I’m heading down, I hope it’s not over before I get there.
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Pic from the DC NoDAPL protest.
My favorite sign from the Women’s March. There, I kept my promise and posted a pic from the Woman’s March.
This lovely lady told me she’d been protesting for 37 years and wasn’t about to stop. This was taken at the MuslimBan protest.
Linda Sarsour giving a talk at Busboys and Poets in DC.
Protest of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, #StolenSeat
The Disability Day of Mourning vigil in DC.
I’M SORRY I HAVEN’T BEEN UPDATING MY TO THE MOON LP AND FAILING SO HARD AT MANAGING MY FORUMS GAME AND NOT FINISHING MY STORY FOR THE SHORT STORY THREAD I’VE BEEN VERY BUSY!
BREAKING: Science March Update.
: Chet Smith filling in again for Fox News coming to you live with some breaking news. With me, as always, my co-host Amanda Gutierrez
: Hello.
: The Science March has been receiving a great deal of criticism from minorities in the sciences, especially women, how have they responded to this Amanda?
: Well Chet, if you guessed by making a few token gestures of inclusion, vague Tweeting, and doubling down hard on the ignorantly clueless misogyny you guessed right.
: I had my money on them inviting the warmest cat to speak on behalf of global warming with her warmth expertise.
: Haha, Chet don’t be silly. Prel is a female cat and women aren’t welcome at the Science March.
: I can’t believe Jenner is using this gimmick again.
: I am a creator of quality content on these forums.
: Quite. Let’s see what the latest development is.
This whole thread.
: Wow, they are really fucking this up. Are we sure they’re educated?
: Seriously, is this some kind of white nationalist false protest to troll us?
: I’m afraid not, this is the real deal. Academia, and thus the sciences, are largely dominated by middle class, white, cis men who have never really had to organize and protest for their rights. They are utterly clueless, blinded by privilege, and have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.
: This is gonna be a hot mess.
: Indeed. I would strongly recommend boycotting this protest and, perhaps, starting a counter protest if you’re able.
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The AHCA bill is dead, the GOP withdrew it about an hour ago.
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Everyone is congratulating themselves and thanking this and that and they should be applauding. This saved 24 million people’s lives.
People in red states blew up their Reps phones, they’re running scared. It’s working.
But I’ve noticed a profound lack of acknowledgement for the disabled community and people have been fighting this fight since at least 2016.
On Wednesday:
I was there with them, before we entered the Capitol we were asked if we were willing to be arrested. Over 50 people, most of them in power chairs or mobility scooters, said yes.
This matters. Resisting matters. It’s been an honor fighting with you all.
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Hey, everyone. Not an event but a call to action.
So The House is supposed to vote TODAY on removing FCC broadband privacy rules, thereby allowing ISPs to monitor and sell your info without permission. Senate already passed, so this is the last stand. Bill is S.J.Res. 34.
Bills up for vote in the House tomorrow are HR 1430 and 1431, the HONEST act and the Science Advisory Board Reform Act, by Lamar Smith and allies. Both very very anti-science in policy making. They aim to limit the influence of scientific experts influencing policy while growing the influence of industry insiders. Smith is attacking science he doesn’t like.
Please, everyone, call your Reps.
Find the number here: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ if you don’t know it.
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I got sick of making excuses for not calling my reps so I printed out a little card to put in my wallet, since the only time I ever have to make calls during the day is while I’m going on a walk during lunch.
I am super steamed about the finalized census draft that removed the gender identity and sexual orientation questions from yesterday.
I’m steamed about a lot of things lately… 
Fun fact too, you can draw a line down the center of a 4x6 index card and mail it as a postcard, I’m gonna get a stack and a book of postcard stamps and start banging out quick postcards to my representatives whenever I’m particularly outraged (which is always)
Or you can buy a stack of these:
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Hey all, Republican ghouls in the Senate are planning on voting/passing ACHA this week, and so we need to flip at least three Senators.
There’s a Twitter thread by @benwikler covering most of the news and what’s needed from people (phone calls, showing up in person, emails)
Of note, here’s a list of direct lines and email addresses to Senator’s health care assistants
And, if you’re like me and get nervous on the phone, there’s also a good script to read off of or use to make your own
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Thank you, @zumphry. I was just thinking of rattling this thread again.
Yes please do this if you’re able. Senators prefer to be called by their constituents, not strangers from elsewhere, so please if you live in a flippable state, do what you can.
It’s also Pride Month and so post your Pride Pics or other protest/march/activism stuff here. The ACHA is big though.
Today is also the 50th annivarary of Loving v. Virginia, the supreme court decision that struck down anti-miscegenation laws and legalized interracial marriage.
There’s still a long way to go, even 50 years later.
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Oh, also, Fun Fact: So, apparently Dems in the Senate aren’t pursuing going nuclear on ACHA because of possibly making A Deal Across The Isle about Russia bullshit, so be sure to call them too.
Thread with more details:
who gives a shit about Russian sanctions. Russian sanctions do not affect my life. Healthcare affects my life.
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A 17 year old girl was murdered here in northern Virginia and I decided to attend her vigil. I’ve got other plans tonight that I’ll try not to be late to.
It’s really tragic and I’m actually quite furious.
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Hey please call your senators because they’re trying to kill us again.
I saw a tweet yesterday that said Cassidy’s office is happy to accept calls from other states, if you’ve already done your other calls for the day.