Also Like War Happens For Reasons. When The Americans Massacred And Raped Civilians In Vietnam They Did

also like war happens for reasons. when the Americans massacred and raped civilians in Vietnam they did this because every villager was a potential communist or a sympathizer and if you threatened them with death and sexual violence they would be too afraid to help the communists because the costs were potentially too high. they did not do this for no reason, or because they were "evil" , they did it because it was intended to have implications and effects on the conflict. It obviously did not have the intended effects entirely, and Vietnam was liberated despite the Americans best efforts at terrorizing and subjugating its people. but the Americans were not committing war crimes against Vietnamese people for ethereal reasons stemming from the inate nature of good and evil but rather because they thought it would be an effective strategy to win a guerilla war and because they didn't see Vietnamese people as people

"The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of male prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power."

—Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

i went to a leftist festival last month and there was a panel dedicated to prostitution, why abolition is the only road to go for leftists and how to help and support prostituted women exiting the trade, and i keep thinking about that union organizer who said, "we hear more and more that 'sex work is work', but if that were true, then there'd be professional trainings leading to a qualification for prostitution, then there'd be prostitution diplomas, then high schoolers could send applications to follow those trainings and become prostitutes. but we all know that all these things don't exist, and if they did exist we would all recognize them for what they are: a grooming business encouraging pedophilia and violence against women and girls." and what she said later; "trade unions that argue that 'sex work is work' never engage in legal battles against pimps or brothel owners. they don't even recognize that pimps are the bosses of the prostitution market. "sex workers' trade unions" don't fight pimps because sex workers' unions don't represent the alleged "workers" (prostituted women), they represent the bosses: pimps."

and that made me think of what Kajsa Ekis Ekman said about the trade unions that consider prostitution to be work and prostituted women to be workers: they offer trainings about condom use and spend millions of dollars funding "worker peer education" about "safe sex".

So one again, it's prostituted women who are held responsible for the spreading and the prevention of STDs - not the johns, not the pimps. the prostituted women, many of them victims of sex trafficking. "As human trafficking expert Malka Marcovich has pointed out, this means a return to nineteenth-century ideals of hygiene, where the onus was “primarily on the women to take responsibility for the health of ‘the customer’, so diseases would not be spread to their families” (2007, p. 347)."

It's quite obvious to any trade union organizer that prostitution is not work and the sex trade can't be organized as a trade union. a few months ago, the biggest unions in my country (which included the traditional left-wing trade unions as well as students' unions) issued a paper condemning the 'sex work is work' narrative and the pimp lobbies got so mad about that because they know their strategy isn't working because leftists know what left-wing politics look like and they know women's liberation doesn't come from prostitution. Now it's interesting that the biggest voices of the "sex work is work" movement come from the USA, where the anticapitalist left doesn't exist. American liberals love to pass reactionary politics as revolutionary but not because they are stupid in their own country does it mean they should influence the actually left-wing labour movement in other countries, right?

"why should I care about Africa"---> lives in a country that's upheld by the current and past exploitation and destabilization of Africa

The Daily Beast

How Trapped Palestinians Fell in Love With Bird-Watching

Draconian Israeli regulations make it difficult to access the binoculars and long camera lenses they need, but bird-watchers are flourishing

The skies of Gaza fill with shifting shapes on an early spring morning. At first they are barely visible, only specks soaring above central Gaza’s wetlands. Mandy Sirdah quickly raises her binoculars. “Storks!” she shouts excitedly. Close by, Lara Sirdah, her identical twin sister wearing matching clothes, grabs her long-focus camera and points it to the sky. “So many! So beautiful!” she cries out with joy as she snaps photos of hundreds of white storks flying in circles above her. Every spring, millions of birds set out from their wintering grounds in Africa and make their way north to Europe and Asia. At the intersection of three continents, the Middle East is an important stopover and one of the world’s busiest corridors for bird migration. Many of these birds fly over Gaza, an overcrowded coastal enclave often described as an “open-air prison.” The birds soar above more than two million people, most of them refugees whose families were forced to leave their villages in 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel and have been unable to return. Concentrated in refugee camps, Palestinians in Gazahave also been confined by Israeli policies of military closure over many decades and a brutal air, sea and land blockade imposed since 2007. “Our movement is very restricted,” says Lara, who feels cut off from the rest of the world. “We wish we were birds so we could move freely.” Over the past years, birdwatching trips to the Strip’s wetlands, groves and fields have offered the twins a rare opportunity to escape the feeling of confinement. With their heads raised to the sky, they search for birds and dream of flight

Ok so my kid had an ear infection, right? As kids often do.

The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.

I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.

That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."

And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."

And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."

And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.

And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.

Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.

"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.

Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.

May this knowledge find its way to someone else who can use it.