So I got tired of not seeing any news on HRC’s actual positions because every single media outlet is busy fact-checking Trump’s latest Twitter tantrum, and decided to look some up.
Also, tired of stories about 26-year-olds complaining that they can’t get behind Clinton because they don’t know what she stands for, and also have no idea who Ralph Nader is, even though these frickin’ kids are only two years younger than me and also Wikipedia exists
omg you guys, her plans for addressing autism. Note the total absence of the word “curing.” It’s all about “providing support” and “early diagnosis” and “improving access” and “increasing opportunities.”
You know how otherwise work-ready people sometimes get stuck as unpaid caregivers when a family member becomes sick or disabled? Well, Hillary wants to give those people credit where credit is due.
She’s planning to upgrade our 25 most costly freight bottlenecks
Did you know our country had a cost issue with freight bottlenecks?
Because I had no idea
and this happens over and over with her policies
things you didn’t even know were things
but Hermione Rodham Clinton has already looked up the statistics, talked to the experts, and written the ten-page memo
and listen, voting for HRC for no other reason than to keep Trump and his tax-evading business-bankrupting employee-stiffing racist sexist across-the-board-hateful loose-cannon general inanity out of office is completely legitimate –
but if I never see another “why don’t we know more about her plans?? it is a hopeless unsolvable mystery for the ages!” post again it will be too soon.
So … I think I’ll blur the details here.
There was this person who was expounding on the upcoming election and why he wasn’t going to vote for Hillary Clinton. It was his first time voting, you see, and he wanted someone who understood and represented his generation.
He said to me, “You don’t understand – ”
And that’s where I had to stop him. “Look, I do understand. Really.”
“How can you understand? You’re too old.”
“Do you think I was born old? Y’know, I have pictures. Here’s me at thirteen – ”
“But times were different then – ”
“Yes, they were. You could get polio and measles and smallpox. An appendectomy was a serious operation. People smoked everywhere, there was no getting away from the smoke. In school, they taught us to duck and cover in case of a nuclear attack. Whites and blacks still had separate restrooms and drinking fountains. Women couldn’t get a legal abortion. Gas had lead in it. Vegetables were sprayed with DDT. You could be arrested for being gay. Yes, times were different.”
“No, I meant that protesting was a fad, not serious like – ”
“Excuse me? Do you want to see the scar on my scalp where I was hit by a thrown bottle at the first gay rights march? We also had civil rights demonstrations, anti-war marches, and rallies for women’s rights as well. That was no fad. People were dying – ”
“No, look, man – it’s the establishment. That’s what’s wrong – ”
“And you want to replace the establishment with what? A different establishment? Listen – when I was your age, when my generation was your age, we were just as frustrated and just as impatient as you are now. Honest. Am I saying we were wrong? Hell, no. We were right. Better than that, we were so right, we were self-righteous. We went around saying, ‘Don’t trust anyone over 30,’ as if somehow when you turned 30, you became one of them. Y’know?
“You know what we missed? We missed the obvious – that there were a lot of good men and women over 30 who understood the issues, and the complexities of the situation better than we did – because they’d been fighting that fight for a lot longer. We had emotion, we had energy, we had spirit – but we didn’t have enough experience, enough history, enough of everything we needed to effect real change.
“So we didn’t turn out for Hubert Humphrey and we handed the country to Richard Nixon. And a generation later, other people didn’t turn out for Al Gore and handed the country to George W. Bush. And what was missed – both times – was the fact our impatience was the single biggest mistake we could make.
“Hubert Humphrey had experience, he had wisdom, and he shared our goals. Al Gore had experience, he had wisdom, and he shared our goals. But somewhere, enough of us decided that he was too old or too much of the establishment or didn’t really represent us enough, or would just give us more of the same when what we really wanted was more, better, and different, even if we couldn’t define it – enough of us felt that way to hand the presidency to a much worse administration.
“So, no – it isn’t that you’re wrong. It’s that there are people who’ve been down this path before. We know where it leads. And it’s not a good place. We know what this mistake looks like. Because we’ve made it ourselves – and we’re asking you not to make the same mistakes we did, because each time we make this mistake, everyone gets hurt.”
And he said, “So that’s a fancy way of saying ‘suck it up, buttercup, you can’t have what you want.”
And I said, “No, but if that’s the way you want to hear it, then that’s the way you’re going to hear it. The way government works, nobody gets everything they want. The way government is supposed to work, everybody negotiates – and eventually everybody gets a piece of what they need to keep going. Nobody likes that, but consider what the alternative is – if some people get everything they want, that means a lot of people are going to get nothing at all. We keep trying that, it doesn’t work. Let’s go back to the stuff that does work.”
“But I don’t like her – ”
“I’m not asking you to like her. I’m asking you to respect that she knows how to do the job. He doesn’t. You can have your protest vote, that’s your right, but that’s letting everybody else decide who gets the oval office. And you might want to think long and hard about which of the two will build on what President Obama has accomplished and which of the two will tear it all down with no idea of why it worked in the first place. Your choice.”
And he said, “That’s not much of a choice.”
And I said, “The hell it isn’t. It’s a choice between experience and ignorance. That’s the clearest choice I’ve ever seen in an election.”
He didn’t have an answer for that.
And that’s the point –
‘I might be old, but I’m not stupid. And I suspect that a lot of other members of my generation feel the same way. We remember when we were impatient. And we remember the mistakes that our impatience created.
“Old people don’t tell young people what to do and what not to do because we want to control your lives – we just want to warn you not to make the same mistakes we did.
“But you will. Or you won’t. Because it’s your choice. Always.”
Yeah, you, the one with the full-time job and the spouse and kids and hectic schedule and too-full days and no time alone, with the fic updates that take weeks or sometimes months because it’s hard to fit writing into the whirlwind that is your life
Yeah, you, with the full school workload and the billion and one pressures and the fears about what the hell are you going to do with the rest of your life and what the hell kind of world am I inheriting, who writes in crazy, rushed chunks as a way to blow off steam from all of that pressure and all of that weight
Yeah, you, struggling with just making it from day to day, paycheck to paycheck, who’s constantly stressed and frazzled and just trying to stay above water, who writes epic and fantastical stories because, fuck, the world’s depressing and shitty enough already
Yeah, you, who are all of these people or none of them – who write for fun or for escape or to hone your craft or to be part of a community or because you love the meta aspects – I love all of you guys. In every fandom, writing every pairing. You’re all rockstars. The stories you give us, the joy and care and emotion and catharsis you bring with every word and every story, are a blessing and a gift, and I thank every single one of you for all the time and effort and love that goes into your work.
“why aren’t u talking abt this one Problematic thing involving that actor/show u like??”
listen. i am tired. im putting down my pitchfork. i’ll acknowledge that thing was bad if it was but im tired of vilifying ppl for their mistakes just bc they’re famous. i want to enjoy things. i want Peace
For a long time I was second guessing everything I liked because they did this or that wrong, the actors did this, the writers did that, they left out this or ignored that… It’s just too much.
It’s just so tiring. Acknowledge where they can do better, but give yourself a break for the things you like. No one is perfect and you can like things that aren’t perfect.
Boom, there it is.
All-or-nothing thinking is so draining and toxic. It’s okay to say “I’m aware of x, y, and z, but I really like a, b, and c.”
It’s okay to have a multi-faceted, nuanced understanding of the people and things around you.
I just can’t get behind the whole “this person said/did this one bad thing this one time, therefore they are literal human trash #deleted forever bye!” all-or-nothing culture
it’s toxic and it’s draining, and it puts people in the awful position of being a hair’s breadth from “unproblematic fave” to “garbage person” with zero possibility of being allowed to grow or change
this kind of all-or-nothing thinking is *exhausting*. people fuck up. people grow. people make mistakes and sometimes say imperfect things and sometimes act shitty. people can also learn and change and move on
The problem comes from people whose opinions are actually misconceptions. If you think vaccines cause autism you are expressing something factually wrong, not an opinion. The fact that you may still believe that vaccines cause autism does not move your misconception into the realm of valid opinion. Nor does the fact that many other share this opinion give it any more validity…
You can be wrong or ignorant. It will happen. Reality does not care about your feelings. Education does not exist to persecute you. The misinformed are not an ethnic minority being oppressed. What’s that? Planned Parenthood is chopping up dead babies and selling them for phat cash? No, that’s not what actually happened. No, it’s not your opinion. You’re just wrong.
Women should NOT be forced to feed their babies in a bathroom, all because we live in a misogynistic, porn-warped society that’s been brainwashed to believe that female breasts used for anything other than male pleasure is “indecent”. Support public breast feeding and end the porn culture.
Forever reblog
No. I’m eating. I don’t wanna see you hang out your goddamn tits while I have food. My kids don’t wanna see it. It’s not some misogynistic ideal, it’s fucking public indecency. Can I take my cock out under the table and feed my wife/girlfriend? No? Fuck you
i genuinely cannot believe that you just compared a blowjob to breastfeeding oh my fucking god
getting a blowjob is a sexual thing and it also does not ‘feed’ anyone whereas breastfeeding is literally not even a sexual thing a baby is having food that they need to live like it’s nowhere near on the same level as getting a blowjob omg
if you are uncomfortable seeing a woman breastfeeding then that is your problem because you have oversexualised breasts so much that you can’t even stand seeing them being used for their actual purpose and also you’re an idiot
go eat your dinner in a public bathroom, you trash bag
End skeevy dudes who compare whipping out their dick in public to breast feeding 2k15
DO YOU FEED YOUR CHILDREN SEMEN? SHOVE A TRASH CAN UP YOUR ASS
Pediatric anthropology student, here.
1.) Breasts as sexual fetishes is a (largely Western) cultural construction. Yes, it’s a fetish – anything you are sexually attracted to that is not the genitals of an adult is a fetish, or paraphilia. My professors have met non-Westerners who think our men are “like babies” because they are attracted to breasts.
Breasts ≠ genitals. Scientifically, they are considered secondary sexual characteristics – same category as facial hair. They can be sexual in a sexual context, just as necks and feet can be. But their primary purpose is reproductive.
2.) Breastmilk is not a “bodily fluid.” It is FOOD.
It is not categorized by the CDC as a biohazard, and so no you don’t need to freak out if your coworker wants to store her milk right next to your Lunchables.
MOREOVER,
Breastmilk is not just protein and vitamins. It is a living, dynamic substance that BUILDS HUMANS.
There is a lab at the University of Washington St. Louis, where they have written all of the ingredients of human milk on the wall – They have run out of room on that wall. Among those ingredients:
The exact ratio of protein-sugars-fats that human infants need (cow’s milk doesn’t even come close)
Antibodies to pathogens in the baby’s environment (synthesized by the mother within hours of coming into contact with a given pathogen) and other immune factors
prolly other awesome shit we don’t even know about yet because we’ve barely scratched the surface of this research!
These ingredients change hour-to-hour according to the baby’s needs. It will even add more water on hot/dry days. Fuck, breastmilk kills cancer in a petri dish.
Breastmilk. is. not. a. bodily. fluid. It. is. liquid. gold.
3.) When you tell a woman to go to the bathroom to breastfeed, you are perpetuating the notion that it is dirty and shameful and needs to be hidden away. This idea is the biggest barrier to achieving breastfeeding goals in the United States. Because women feel ashamed, they often stay isolated at home when they should be spending time out and about with friends and family and having, like, a life. This isolation can contribute to postpartum depression.
Women may find themselves excluded from social interactions when they are breastfeeding because others are reluctant to be in the same room while they breastfeed. For many women, the feeling of embarrassment restricts their activities and is cited as a reason for choosing to feed supplementary formula or to give up breastfeeding altogether.
And since we have this culture of shame and privacy surrounding breastfeeding, young girls and women don’t see it enough to learn what is normal/not and how to do it, so they often give up when they run into problems because they don’t realize there’s an easy fix.
Moreover, an infant needs to be integrated into society in order to develop properly. He/she needs to see faces and hear voices. Isolating them – or throwing a blanket over their head – takes this important component of their development away. It also often annoys them because they are understimulated.
4.) YOU NEED TO SEE IT. That’s right, YOU. Even if you are a dude. Maybe you aren’t a parent, but you probably have loved ones who are. Or you might become one yourself someday. And if you are American chances are you have no idea how breastfeeding actually works, because you never fucking see it. It’s messy and complicated, and hard. It used to be a part of everyday life, because there weren’t any alternatives – So we learned how to do it by being around it all the time, NBD. The whole sexualization/modesty thing surrounding breasts wasn’t a thing until like the mid-20th century. Check out this 1871 drawing of a woman breastfeeding IN FUCKING CHURCH:
She’s covered head to toe, in accordance with modesty standards of the time – except for her breast, about which the people around her give zero fucks.
More from the Surgeon General:
In American culture, breasts have often been regarded primarily as sexual objects, while their nurturing function has been downplayed. Although focusing on the sexuality of female breasts is common in the mass media, visual images of breastfeeding are rare, and a mother may never have seen a woman breastfeeding.
Mothers need to see it. Future mothers need to see it. Future fathers need to see it. Family members need to see it. Everybody needs to see it. SO THEY FUCKING GET USED TO IT.
So, no, I’m not gonna go to the bathroom to feed my kid. If you don’t want to see it, then DON’T. FUCKING. LOOK.
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