#birth of the welfare state

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"ANTI-UNIONISM PENALTY SET," Windsor Star. June 4, 1943. Page 11. --- Fine Up To $500 Daily Established ---- Mitchell Given Power to Punish Discrimination Against Dismissed Workers ---- OTTAWA, June 4 - A penalty of a fine not exceeding $500 a day has been added to the order-in-council designed to prevent discrimination against workers discharged for union activity, it was disclosed today in an order-in-council appearing in Canadian war orders and regulations.

ORIGINAL ORDER The original order provides for examination on direction of the labor minister by an Industrial Disputes Inquiry commissioner into allegations of discrimination.

"The minister shall issue whatever order he deems necessary to effect such recommendations of the commissioner and such order shall be final and binding upon the employer and employes and any other person concerned, the order states.

AMENDMENT SPECIFIC The amendment now enforced specified. "Any person refusing or falling to comply with an order of the minister made under this section shall be guilty of an offence and liable under summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $500 for every day that such refusal or failure to comply continues."

#order in council #dominion of canada #labour minister #anti-union #union organizing #unlawful dismissal #industrial relations #industrial disputes inquiry act #canada during world war 2 #birth of the welfare state #regulating capitalism #working class politics #working class struggle

[the-cimmerians]

Today, ProPublica reports on yet another big change that stands to solve a decades-long problem we first learned about back in 2016, closing a huge loophole that allowed states to divert federal antipoverty funds to governors’ pet projects, like promoting abstinence, holding “heathy marriage” classes that did nothing to prevent out-of-wedlock births, funding anti-abortion “clinics” to lie about abortion “risks,” sending middle-class kids to private colleges, and other schemes only tangentially related to helping poor kids. It’s the same loophole that Mississippi officials tried to drive a truck through to divert welfare funds to former sportsball man Brett Favre’s alma mater, for a volleyball palace. [ ]

The agency has proposed new rules — open for public comment until December 1 — aimed at nudging states to actually use TANF funds to give cash to needy parents, not fill budget holes or punish poor people.

One change will put an end to the scheme Utah used to substitute LDS church funds for welfare, by prohibiting states

from counting charitable giving by private organizations, such as churches and food banks, as “state” spending on welfare, a practice that has allowed legislatures to budget less for programs for low-income families while still claiming to meet federal minimums.

Another new rule will put the kibosh on using TANF to fund child protective services or foster care programs, which are not what TANF is supposed to be for, damn it.

And then there’s the simple matter of making sure that funds for needy families go to needy families, not to pet projects that have little to do with poverty:

The reforms would also redefine the term “needy” to refer only to families with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty line. Currently, some states spend TANF money on programs like college scholarships — or volleyball stadiums — that benefit more affluent people.

#us politics #in support of an informed and engaged electorate #TANF #cash assistance

[reasonsforhope]

Flint, Michigan, has one of the [United States]'s highest rates of child poverty — something that got a lot of attention during the city's lead water crisis a decade ago. And a pediatrician who helped expose that lead problem has now launched a first-of-its-kind move to tackle poverty: giving every new mother $7,500 in cash aid over a year.

A baby's first year is crucial for development. It's also a time of peak poverty.

Flint's new cash transfer program, Rx Kids, starts during pregnancy. The first payment is $1,500 to encourage prenatal care. After delivery, mothers will get $500 a month over the baby's first year.

"What happens in that first year of life can really portend your entire life course trajectory. Your brain literally doubles in size in the first 12 months," says Hanna-Attisha, who's also a public health professor at Michigan State University.

A baby's birth is also a peak time for poverty. Being pregnant can force women to cut back hours or even lose a job. Then comes the double whammy cost of child care.

Research has found that stress from childhood poverty can harm a person's physical and mental health, brain development and performance in school. Infants and toddlers are more likely than older children to be put into foster care, for reasons that advocates say conflate neglect with poverty.

In Flint, where the child poverty rate is more than 50%, Hanna-Attisha says new moms are in a bind. "We just had a baby miss their 4-day-old appointment because mom had to go back to work at four days," she says...

Benefits of Cash Aid

Studies have found such payments reduce financial hardship and food insecurity and improve mental and physical health for both mothers and children.

The U.S. got a short-lived taste of that in 2021. Congress temporarily expanded the child tax credit, boosting payments and also sending them to the poorest families who had been excluded because they didn't make enough to qualify for the credit. Research found that families mostly spent the money on basic needs. The bigger tax credit improved families' finances and briefly cut the country's child poverty rate nearly in half.

"We saw food hardship dropped to the lowest level ever," Shaefer says. "And we saw credit scores actually go to the highest that they'd ever been in at the end of 2021."

Critics worried that the expanded credit would lead people to work less, but there was little evidence of that. Some said they used the extra money for child care so they could go to work.

As cash assistance in Flint ramps up, Shaefer will be tracking not just its impact on financial well-being, but how it affects the roughly 1,200 babies born in the city each year.

"We're going to see if expectant moms route into prenatal care earlier," he says. "Are they able to go more? And then we'll be able to look at birth outcomes," including birth weight and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions.

Since the pandemic, dozens of cash aid pilots have popped up across the nation. But unlike them, Rx Kids is not limited to lower-income households. It's universal, which means every new mom will get the same amount of money. "You pit people against each other when you draw that line in the sand and say, 'You don't need this, and you do,' " Shaefer says. It can also stigmatize families who get the aid, he says, as happened with traditional welfare...

So far, there's more than $43 million to keep the program going for three years. Funders include foundations, health insurance companies and the state of Michigan, which allocated a small part of its federal cash aid, known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Money can buy more time for bonding with a baby

Alana Turner can't believe her luck with Flint's new cash benefits. "I was just shocked because of the timing of it all," she says.

Turner is due soon with her second child, a girl. She lives with her aunt and her 4-year-old son, Ace. After he was born, her car broke down and she was seriously cash-strapped, negotiating over bill payments. This time, she hopes she won't have to choose between basic needs.

"Like, I shouldn't have to think about choosing between are the lights going to be on or am I going to make sure the car brakes are good," she says...

But since she'll be getting an unexpected $7,500 over the next year, Turner has a new goal. With her first child, she was back on the job in less than six weeks. Now, she hopes she'll be able to slow down and spend more time with her daughter.

"I don't want to sacrifice the time with my newborn like I had to for my son, if I don't have to," she says."

-via NPR, March 12, 2024

#united states #flint michigan #michigan #cash aid #basic income #poverty #poverty relief #child poverty #mothers #pregnancy #prenatalcare #healthcare #healthcare access #public health #child development #good news #hope

[truth-has-a-liberal-bias]

But once the babies are here, the state provides little help.

When she got pregnant, Mayron Michelle Hollis was clinging to stability.

At 31, she was three years sober, after first getting introduced to drugs at 12. She had just had a baby three months earlier and was working to repair the damage that her addiction had caused her family.

The state of Tennessee had taken away three of her children, and she was fighting to keep her infant daughter, Zooey. Department of Children’s Services investigators had accused Mayron of endangering Zooey when she visited a vape store and left the baby in a car.

Her husband, Chris Hollis, was also in recovery.

The two worked in physically demanding jobs that paid just enough to cover rent, food and lawyers’ fees to fight the state for custody of Mayron’s children.

In the midst of the turmoil in July 2022, they learned Mayron was pregnant again. But this time, doctors warned she and her fetus might not survive.

The embryo had been implanted in scar tissue from her recent cesarean section. There was a high chance that the embryo could rupture, blowing open her uterus and killing her, or that she could bleed to death during delivery. The baby could come months early and face serious medical risks, or even die.

But the Supreme Court had just overturned Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion across the United States. By the time Mayron decided to end her pregnancy, Tennessee’s abortion ban — one of the nation’s strictest — had gone into effect.

The total ban made no explicit exceptions — not even to save the life of a pregnant patient. Any doctor who violated the ban could be charged with a felony.

Women with means could leave the state. But those like Mayron, with limited resources or lives entangled with the child welfare and criminal justice systems, would be the most likely to face caring for a child they weren’t prepared for.

And so, the same state that questioned Mayron’s fitness to care for her four children forced her to continue a pregnancy that risked her life to have a fifth, one that would require more intensive care than any of the others.

Tennessee already had some of the worst outcomes in the nation when measuring maternal health, infant mortality and child poverty. Lawmakers who paved the way for a new generation of post-Roe births did little to bolster the state’s meager safety net to support these babies and their families.

In December 2022, when Mayron was 26 weeks and two days pregnant, she was rushed to the hospital after she began bleeding so heavily that her husband slipped in her blood. An emergency surgery saved her life. Her daughter, Elayna, was born three months early.

Afterward, photographer Stacy Kranitz and reporter Kavitha Surana followed Mayron and her family for a year to chronicle what life truly looked like in a state whose political leaders say they are pro-life. [...]

#abortion #Tennessee #pregnancy #forced-birth #Roe v Wade

[coochiequeens]

This should not have taken so long

Trans women who have hurt or threatened women or girls will not be held in female prisons unless there are "exceptional" circumstances, new guidance states.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) policy follows a public outcry after a rapist was sent to a women's prison.

Isla Bryson raped two women while known as Adam Graham.

The Scottish Conservatives said the new policy was "subjective" and "unacceptable".

The latest figures show there were 23 trans prisoners in Scotland from January to March this year.

They included 19 trans women, seven of whom were in a women's prison, and four trans men - one of whom was in a male prison.

Under previous guidance drawn up in 2014, the prison service allowed prisoners to be placed in facilities matching their gender identity, rather than their sex at birth, providing accommodation that "best suits the person in custody's needs".

This was reviewed and in February, following the Bryson case, it was updated to say no newly convicted or remanded transgender prisoner with a history of violence against women would be housed in female prison facilities.

Under the new policy - which will come into force in February 2024 - a trans woman would not be allowed to move into the female estate if they had been convicted of, or were on remand awaiting trial for, a crime that harmed a female - unless there was "compelling evidence that they did not present an unacceptable risk of harm to those in the women's prison".

These offences include any that result in suffering to a female, such as sexual offences, murder, assault, abduction and intimidation.

Those who have changed their legal gender can also be housed in accordance with their sex at birth, "if it is considered necessary to support people's safety and wellbeing".

The policy states: "Only when staff have enough information to reach a decision that a trans individual can be safely accommodated will they be placed in an establishment which matches their affirmed gender."

Trans men will be admitted to the female estate, but those who have committed crimes against women may be kept separate from other prisoners if it is "deemed necessary" to "keep women in custody safe".

The new guidelines also allow officers to search inmates regardless of the inmate's "affirmed gender" or sex assigned at birth, "if it is necessary to keep the individual or staff safe".

Risks carefully managed'

Teresa Medhurst, chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service, said if a trans woman's offences were historic and low level, they could be moved to the female estate, but she stressed that would be exceptional.

She said all prisoners were "treated with dignity and respect, with their rights upheld, and any risks carefully managed".

"The position, whilst it is still individualised, will ensure that those that have a history of violence against women and girls and present a risk to women will no longer be placed on admission in the women's estate.

"I am content that everyone who is a transgender individual is located in the prison which best suits their risk and needs profile."

She added that she was confident the new policy would address public concerns surrounding trans prisoners.

The Scottish government's Justice Secretary Angela Constance said the new policy protected the "safety and welfare" of staff and prisoners, and the "rights of transgender people".

She said: "SPS has considerable expertise, as well as a duty of care for the management of people in their custody, and this policy upholds its responsibilities to deliver safe, secure and suitable services for all."

Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Russell Findlay MSP said the new prison policy was "unacceptable" and put women at "even greater risk by further eroding their fundamental right to single-sex space".

"They say that male prisoners with a history of violence against women or girls should be allowed in the female estate and will only be blocked if they present a risk, which is completely subjective."

Lucy Hunter Blackman, from policy analysts Murray Blackburn Mackenzie, said any new policy in Scotland should not "talk narrowly about the potential risk of a physical or sexual assault".

She added: "It needs to recognise how the presence of someone male might impact upon group of vulnerable traumatised women, held in spaces from which they cannot escape."

#UK #KeepPrisonsSingleSex #Scottish Prison Service (SPS)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

MLK at 95.

January 15, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born 95 years ago on January 15, 1929. As a Baptist minister, he advocated non-violence while promoting civil rights. He spoke for the poor, the oppressed, and the disenfranchised. While he was imprisoned in a Birmingham jail for protesting segregation, he responded to eight white ministers who had criticized him for participating in protests that they described as “unwise and untimely.”

Dr. King’s famous reply to the white ministers explained why he traveled to Birmingham from Atlanta to protest:

I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.

While Dr. King was keenly aware of the racism that served as the understructure of the Christian church in the old South, he would be shocked by the virulent, mean-spirited, anti-Christian message that animates many (not all) evangelical congregations in America today. They form the backbone of Donald Trump's support in Iowa and beyond. They have adopted Trump's message that treats the poor, oppressed, and disenfranchised as “outsiders” and “others” who do not belong in America.

Over the last several days, we have learned that members of the Texas National Guard physically blocked federal Border Patrol agents from responding to reports of immigrants in distress in the Rio Grande. The bodies of a mother and two children were later recovered from the river in the area where immigrants were reported to be in distress.

Texas, of course, denies that its cruel actions caused the drownings—a denial that should be viewed skeptically from a state whose governor—Greg Abbott—recently commented Texas troopers could not shoot immigrants crossing the border because the troopers would be charged with murder by the Biden administration. Texas governor criticized after comment about shooting migrants | The Texas Tribune.

Similar animus underlies the recent comments of Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, who withdrew Mississippi from a federal program to provide food to school children during summer breaks. Governor Reeves said Mississippi withdrew from the program to fight “attempts to expand the welfare state.”

Blocking efforts to rescue a drowning mother and her children? Regretting the inability to shoot immigrants because it would be murder? Denying food to poor children out of spite? Who are these people? How do they look at themselves in the mirror?

Ninety-five years after Dr. King’s birth and fifty-five years after his death, it is difficult to believe that people who identify as upstanding members of the Christian church can support such actions.

Another section from Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail is relevant to this moment in our nation’s history:

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. I meet young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust.

Dr. King’s words were prophetic. See Pew Research (10/17/19) In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace.

And, of course, as Dr. King recognized, “there are some notable exceptions” among church leaders who supported his work—just as there are exceptions today. Several readers have recommended Faithful America as an antidote to Christian nationalism. The organization’s helpful FAQ page explains why “Christian nationalism” is not Christian. See Resisting Christian Nationalism: FAQ + Resources | Faithful America.

On this day commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth, we can see how far we have come—and how much further we must go. He didn’t despair. Neither should we.

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

#MLK #David Horsey #political cartoons #Martin Luther King Jr #justice #equality #economic equality #Robert B. Hubbell #Robert b. Hubbell newsletter

[carriesthewind]

"Although hired as a consultant by Washington County in this case, Baird had a long-standing independent agenda: helping foster parents across Colorado succeed in intervening and permanently claiming the children they care for. Often working hand in hand with Tim Eirich, she has been called as an expert in, by her count, hundreds of child-welfare cases, and she sometimes evaluates visits between birth families and children without having met them. Baird would not say how many foster-parent intervenor cases she has participated in, but she can recall only a single instance in which she concluded that the intervenors should not keep the child. Thinking that particular couple would be weak adoptive parents, she told me, she simply filed no report."

"With the supply of adoptable babies dropping, foster children were becoming a “hot commodity,” he said, and he and his colleagues (among them Tim Eirich’s law partner Seth Grob) realized that attachment experts could be called into court to argue that foster children needed to remain with their foster parents in order to avoid a severed bond."

"The judge ruled in favor of Eirich’s clients, a social worker and a real-estate agent. “Court found [Baird’s] testimony credible. She has significant experience,” the judge said, adding approvingly that Baird’s analysis had “focused on primacy of attachment over cultural considerations.”"

"Was Baird’s method for evaluating these foster and birth families empirically tested? No, Baird answered: Her method is unpublished and unstandardized, and has remained “pretty much unchanged” since the 1980s. It doesn’t have those “standard validity and reliability things,” she admitted. “It’s not a scientific instrument.”

...

Had she considered or was she even aware of the cultural background of the birth family and child whom she was recommending permanently separating? (The case involved a baby girl of multiracial heritage.) Baird answered that babies have “never possessed” a cultural identity, and therefore are “not losing anything,” at their age, by being adopted. Although when such children grow up, she acknowledged, they might say to their now-adoptive parents, “Oh, I didn’t know we were related to the, you know, Pima tribe in northern California, or whatever the circumstances are.”

The Pima tribe is located in the Phoenix metropolitan area."

"We found that — leaving aside the question of whether attachment theory should even be used as an argument in these cases — Baird’s assessments of foster children’s relationships aren’t just unscientific. They barely touch the surface of a child’s life.

“I don’t know these children,” she testified in one 2017 case, adding, “I have not met anybody.” Still, she said, she “strongly” recommended that those children’s birth parents’ rights be permanently terminated and that the kids be adopted."

"She also regularly uses terms like “mirror neurons,” “neurotoxins,” “synapses,” “hormones,” and “encoded trauma in the central nervous system” to justify her conclusions about children’s family relationships. (Baird is not a neuroscientist.)"

______________________

The New Yorker article focuses on possible legislative solutions, but I think these articles point to something more pernicious and more difficult to address. Judges - in all kinds of cases - routinely give credence to professionals and "experts" who are biased, bigoted, and testify far outside their expertise (if they have any expertise at all). These professionals have credentials (like being a police officer or social worker) that are validated by institutional hierarchies. Their frequent systematized interaction with the legal system is mistaken as experience that makes their subjective beliefs more credible, when in truth they lack any objective expertise. They are considered credible and unbiased because they conform to, and validate, systems of hierarchical oppression, while the people they hurt - often poor, marginalized, and most frequently, not white - are viewed with inherent distrust.

The ProPublica article focuses primarily on Baird. I'm more concerned with the judges who believed her, who used her to justify funneling children away from their (safe and loving, but poorer and frequently browner) birth families. She was only able to do so much harm because of the the power given to her by courts, and the judges inside them.

The ProPublic article ends with the line, "This past fall, with Baird’s help, the foster parents were granted full custody of the baby girl through her 18th birthday." It names Baird as a force that led to the theft of this child. The passive voice hides the judge who made the ultimate decision.

[iberiancadre]

Life expectancy at birth for males in the EU, 2022 Eurostat (OC)

The EU not only extracts billions of Euro worth of value from the global south, but it also does the same with the ex-socialist east, keeping it, relatively, impoverished as part of the broader shock therapy tactic employed by capitalists to funnel wealth from ex-socialist states to the imperial core, after the forced change back to capitalism. A good part, if not all, of the welfare system is dismantled and sold to foreign investors, massively affecting life expectancy, birth rates, nourishment, and general quality of life.

Taking the annexation of the GDR as an example, unemployment in the east rose from close to 0% to 40%. A forced conversion rate of 1:1 between the two currencies effectively made the east german population deal with a sudden drop in purchasing power while allowing any west german to buy more for a lower price. In more concrete figures, the annexation caused a 40% drop in income in the east and output figures in the east compared to those of 1989 took more than a decade to recover[1]. We could go on

A more recent and particularly insidious example on the abuse that eastern Europe experiences comes from 2021, in which the EU tried to force Lithuania to raise their retirement age to 72 from 64 (at which it thankfully remains). At the same time, Lithuania's life expectancy for males was 6 months lower at 72.5.

1: The Triumph of Evil, A. Murphy, 2002 (It's a very well researched book with a lot of empirical data, but the author falls into evil vs good moralisms which distract from the arguments being made and is generally unable to correctly express more theoretical political ideas, so keep this in mind. I have a lot of thoughts on this book)

[odinsblog]

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion smugly declared that “nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” Alito mocked the dissent’s concern that getting rid of abortion would ultimately imperil things like access to contraception, saying the dissent was “designed to stoke unfounded fear that our decision will imperil those other rights.”

But as anti-choice politicians and activists are now deploying Dobbs to try to roll back decades of law about bodily autonomy, it’s clear the dissent’s fears were quite well-founded.

Conservatives are not going to stop at unwinding the constitutional right to privacy, which underpins things like the right to obtain birth control and the right of same-sex couples to marry. After they destroy the agency of half the population by imposing so-called “fetal personhood” laws, they’re coming for the modern welfare state.

The blueprint

Over at the hard-right Washington Examiner, Conn Carroll, a former comms person for both the Heritage Foundation and Utah Sen. Mike Lee, has a lengthy list of laws he’d like to get rid of — everything from Medicaid, to Head Start, to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Those laws, he argues, “penalize marriage and encourage alternative family formation.” Carroll’s goals therefore dovetail not only with forced-birth conservatives but also with forced-marriage conservatives.

(continue reading)

#politics #scotus #republicans #project 2025 #abortion #privacy rights #contraception #fetal personhood #bodily autonomy #reproductive rights #reproductive justice #roe v wade #republicans are evil #healthcare #forced birthers #john roberts court #john roberts #heritage foundation #mike lee #conn carroll

[serpentandthreads]

Just a reminder that while you're protesting for abortion rights, the government is now going after the Indian Child Welfare Act and is attacking Indigenous sovereignty.

Not only is the United States government trying to take away tribal sovereignty, but they are also trying to force pregnant Indigenous women and two-spirited individuals to give birth and risk having their children stolen from them. This is an act of genocide. This is an act of forced assimilation. This is an act of cultural erasure.

So while you protest for your rights to choose to have an abortion, protest in favor of Indigenous people's sovereignty. Contact your state representatives. Pay attention to your state elections.

#roe v wade #indian child welfare act #indigenous #indigenous sovereignty #native american #native rights #abortion rights #abortion #witchblr #witchcraft #witch community

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

Today is the first day of Native American Heritage month. And in a little over a week, the SCOTUS is going to hear argument for and against the Indian Child Welfare act. ICWA was passed to stop the cultural genocide of Native American and Alaska Natives.

For hundreds of years, white people tried to destroy Native American and Alaska Native culture. What led to ICWA was a period of time from the 1800s until 1978. Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native children were taken from their families and forced into residential skills. Parents who refused could face imprisonment or lose their other kids. There are accounts of tribes hiding their children on days they knew government representatives were coming...so when the govenment caught on, they started unannounced visits. In addition, children would be taken from their families and adopted out to white families.

In schools, children were punished for speaking their own languages. They were forced to dress in anglicized clothes and have anglicized hair cuts. They were physically, emotionally, and sometimes sexually abused. Some died of malnutrition. Some were murdered. And others survived but were traumatized.

For those adopted, experiences differed based on the family, but they were still forcibly assimilated into white culture and still experienced that trauma. Some never saw their birth families again.

ICWA was created to stop this. It allows Native Americans and Alaska Natives to control the foster care and adoption placement of tribal children. Now, it's being challenged.

There are a few white families who say it's racist to not let them adopt Native American and Alaska Native children, and they have taken the case to the same SCOTUS that defied the Constitution and years of precedent by saying tribal land was a territory of the state and that states could charge some cases for crimes committed on tribal land.

So a few things:

This cultural genocide did not happen a long time ago. ICWA was passed less than 50 years ago. There are boarding school survivors and adoption survivors today who are watching this and speaking out against this. Earlier this year, the Department of the Interior found 50 unmarked grave sites at former residential schools. Grave sites, not graves themselves. Each individual site would contain multiple graves. Unmarked. Children who were kidnapped, died, and were buried without a name. And some people think that white people are entitled to adopt Native American and Alaska Native children and that tribes should just move on and trust the government.

The trauma children who were forcibly assimilated faced is well-documented. They grew up not knowing their family or their culture. They are desperate to stop other children from going through that.

Native Americans and Alaska Natives have sovereignty. This is recognized in the Constitution, through the fact treaties were signed with tribes, and through years of judicial precedent. The idea that the SCOTUS decided to hear this case instead of letting the decisions of lower courts stand is alarming. Sovereignty means that Native Americans and Alaska Natives have the right to self-governance and self-determination. They are regarded similarly to a separate country. If the U.S. decided to tell England to hand over its children to be placed with American families, it would be seen as a joke at best and a declaration of war at worst. Because one country cannot just barge in and control another country's government on peaceful terms. But if ICWA is overturned, the SCOTUS will be saying that sovereign nations have no right to control the foster care and adoption placement of their citizens.

So what can you do? Spread awareness of this. Post about it on social media. Write to your representatives. Don't let this case slip from your mind. And if there are protests in your area, join them.

You can ask your state's Native American and Alaska Native tribes what you can do to help. If, like me, you live in a state with no recognized tribe, look into cultural centers run by unrecognized tribes. Or donate to organizations like the Native American Rights Fund.

#ICWA #Indigenous people #indian child welfare act #Native Americans #Alaska Natives

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"New Code May Discard Living Bonus," Winnipeg Tribune. October 27, 1943. Page 4. ---- OTTAWA, Oct. 27. - The cost-of-living bonus, a child of the government's wartime inflation worries, may disappear - as a bonus - if plans now understood to be receiving government consideration are made effective.

The fate of the bonus has held an important place in the drafting of a new wage and labor program stemming from the general inquiry of the National War Labor Board earlier this year and, while no definite decision has been reached, it is considered possible that money which workers now are receiving as a cost-of-living bonus will become part of their basic wage rate instead.

This theory was strengthened Tuesday night by announcement of Labor Minister Mitchell that the provincial premiers have been invited to send representatives to a Dominion-provincial conference in Ottawa Nov. 8.

New wage legislation has reached a more advanced point than any other phase of the government's new labor program but it is regarded doubtful whether it will be announced until the program as a whole is made public.

Meantime, there are indications that the cost-of-living bonus will move upward at the next adjustment, scheduled for Nov. 15 on the basis of the index figure for Oct. 2. The bonus is subject to revision every three months and the maximum bonus now payable - $4.25 a week or 17 percent of wage, depending on the wage category of the worker - is based on a wartime increase of 17 percent in the official cost-of-living index.

Early this month the index at Sept. 1 showed a wartime increase of 18.5 percent. Bonus payments are subject to change when there has been a movement of at least one full percentage point since the last adjustment. Thus, unless there is a drop of more than 0.5 percent between the Sept. 1 and Oct. 1 figures. the bonus will rise.

#dominion of canada #mackenzie king government #wage scales #cost of living #cost of living index #wage increase #war workers #national war labor board #industrial relations #birth of the technocratic state #birth of the welfare state #canada during world war 2

[socialjusticeinamerica]

They don’t even know of a time when life was better in America. Actually Gen X was the first generation in America not to do better than their parents. The same being true for the last few years of the Boomer generation. Y also is struggling.

The lady Boomers and X’ers remember what it was like before Reagan took over and busted unions in 1980. Wages dropped, factory owners took their shops to the Deep South where unions had long since been busted or never allowed to set up in the first place. Then the oligarchs outsourced their work and shuttered factories nationwide.

Before Reagan one parent working 40 hrs a week at a union job could afford a mortgage, a new car, medical insurance, and college for their 2.5 kids. That also applied to “minorities” or marginalized people who benefitted from union protections and negotiated standard pay scales.

With Reagan a home went from two years salary to 10+ years salary. Tuition did the same. Cars that cost a month’s salary soared to a year’s salary. Wages have remained stagnant for about 40 years. The wealthy paid high taxes and we had everything. Now the remnants of the middle class pay the bulk of taxes while multimillionaires and billionaires pay little or even nothing. Credit card interest soared to over 20% in some cases while Republikkkans passed laws making it easier for those card companies to sue you whilst making it nearly impossible for you to sue them. Mentally disabled people were literally dumped into the streets causing widespread homeless which is criminalized in affluent areas and red states. Guns and drugs flooded the streets. Bigoted white nationalists became radicalized when Reagan granted Australian Rupert Murdoch citizenship so he could open Fox News and then shut down the Fairness Doctrine so propaganda could be spread under the guise of news.

All the societal problems we suffer today began with the birth of the modern RepubliKKKan party led by their racist Dotard Ronald Reagan in 1980. The GOP became an organized crime syndicate and the government became a tool for the rich. The middle class shrunk from a sizeable percentage of the population to a handful of areas in the north and along the west coast. Many foolish people believe themselves to be in the middle class but in fact they are just perpetual debtors.

If you’re young your first reaction might be to blame the Boomers because that’s incorrectly become a marketed belief. The Boomer generation fought against the GOP and its wars, racism, pollution, big oil, corporate welfare, and black hole military industrial complex. They were the hippies and political activists that marched on Washington and other places. They booted the racist Dixiecrats (southern conservative racist Dems) from the Democratic Party while shifting educated liberals left. Sadly the GOP under Nixon and his colleagues welcomed the racists and conservative nut jobs. Don’t fight a generational war when you should be fighting a class/culture/political war.

The younger generation needs to educate itself about the political parties and how life was better just a few decades back and begin to vote. Vote, then organize in the workplace through unions and in the streets to attract more young voters and to counter protest the Republikkkan right-wing oligarch take-over of America. Complaining and taking refuge in the internet won’t turn things around. Become politically active, become stoke, bring back lower tuition, affordable health care, labor unions, workers rights, voters rights, etc.

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - March 27, 2023

🐢 - Why did the 90-year-old tortoise become a father? Because he finally came out of his shell!

1. New Mexico governor signs bill ending juvenile life sentences without parole

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has signed a bill into law that prevents juvenile offenders from receiving life sentences without eligibility for parole. The bill, known as the No Life Sentences for Juveniles Act, allows offenders who committed crimes under the age of 18 and received life sentences to be eligible for parole hearings 15 to 25 years into their sentences.

This legislation also applies to juveniles found guilty of first-degree murder, even if they were tried as adults. The move puts New Mexico in a group of at least 24 other states and Washington, DC, that have enacted similar measures following a 2021 Supreme Court ruling.

2. Promising pill completely eliminates cancer in 18 leukaemia patients

An experimental pill called revumenib has shown promise in curing terminal leukemia patients who were not responding to treatment in a long-awaited clinical trial in the United States. The drug works by inhibiting a specific protein called menin, which is involved in the machinery that gets hijacked by leukemia cells and causes normal blood cells to turn into cancerous ones.

The pill targets the most common mutation in acute myeloid leukemia, a gene called NPM1, and a less common fusion called KMT2A. The US Food and Drug Administration granted revumenib "breakthrough therapy designation" to fast-track its development and regulatory review based on the promising results of the trial.

3. Spain passes law against domestic animal abuse

Spain has passed a new law on animal welfare, accompanied by a reform of the penal code that increases prison sentences for those mistreating animals. The law will make compulsory training for dog owners, and will prohibit them from leaving their dogs alone for more than 24 hours.

It also mandates the sterilisation of cats, with exceptions for farms, and increases the penalties for mistreatment of animals to up to two years in prison, or three years in the event of aggravating circumstances.

4. Bravery medals for women who raced into 'rough, crazy' surf to save drowning girls

Elyse Partridge (far left) and Bella Broadley (far right) raced into dangerous surf to save Chloe and Violet from drowning.(ABC North Coast: Hannah Ross)

Bella Broadley and Elyse Partridge saved two 11-year-old girls from drowning at Angels Beach near Ballina, an unpatrolled beach in Australia. The younger girls, Chloe and Violet, became trapped in a rip and overwhelmed by waves and the current. Bella and Elyse jumped into action, using an esky lid as a flotation device to help them swim to the girls. Elyse helped Chloe back to shore while Bella swam further out to help Violet.

Elyse and Bella were on Wednesday named on the Governor General's Australian Bravery Decorations Honours List, which recognised 66 Australians for acts of bravery.

5. Almost every cat featured in viral Tik Tok posted by Kansas City animal shelter adopted

Let's find homes for the rest

6. A 90-year-old tortoise named Mr. Pickles just became a father of 3. It's a big 'dill'

These critically endangered tortoises are native to Madagascar and have seen their numbers decline due to over-collection for illegal sales on the black market. Captive breeding programs have helped produce new radiated tortoises, but the species still faces extinction in the wild.

That's why the arrival of these hatchlings, born to 90-year-old Mr. Pickles and his 53-year-old partner Mrs. Pickles, is such great news. Mr. Pickles is considered the most genetically valuable radiated tortoise in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Species Survival Plan, and the births represent a significant contribution to the survival of the species.

7. EU strikes ‘ground-breaking’ deal to cut maritime emissions

The European Parliament and EU ministers have agreed on a new law to cut emissions in the maritime sector. The law aims to reduce ship emissions by 2% as of 2025 and 80% as of 2050, covering greenhouse gas, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions.

The European Commission will review the law in 2028 and will decide whether to place carbon-cutting requirements on smaller ships. The agreement will also require containerships and passenger ships docking at major EU ports to plug into the on-shore power supply as of 2030. Penalties collected from those that fail to meet the targets will be allocated to projects focused on decarbonising the maritime sector.

- - - -

That's it for this week :)

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#best news of last week #Youtube

[crisiscutie]

Dissidia Safer Sephiroth Musings

Once he ascended to godhood, Sephiroth became dedicated to spreading despair and ensuring his own paradise alongside his darling.

Content Warning: Mommy Kink, Slight NSFW.

༻❁༺ After becoming one with his darling, he knew all of her feelings and thoughts, as she did his. Yet, for a peculiar reason, there was still some individuality left over.

༻❁༺ This Sephiroth is undoubtedly the most relaxed compared to his counterparts. He accomplished his goals and enjoyed a state of complete harmony with his mother-darling. Considering everything they had endured to get to that point, their paradise was a well-deserved reward.

༻❁༺  Taking after his darling in her past life, he developed a penchant for humming. He'd hum his favorite melody for the darling as they snuggled in their paradise world.

༻❁༺ His darling was a sleepyhead, as her body needed constant nourishment. This was just one of the few consequences from the merging of her and JENOVA, and then her merge with Sephiroth himself. The burden of physical ailments fell on her, so he made it his mission and purpose to ensure her welfare.

༻❁༺  His calming humming became a powerful tool for inducing her sleepiness, especially when she was resistant to rest.

༻❁༺ He would drain the life force of the worlds they conquered and convert it into crystals for her consumption.

༻❁༺ His fury has no limits when anything even slightly inconveniences her or interrupts her naps. But the most unforgivable act is to separate them. They will claw through ANYTHING to reunite and be in each other's embrace again.

༻❁༺ They are each other's strength, but also each other's greatest vulnerability.

༻❁༺ They had a habit of finishing each other's sentences, which always unsettled their enemies.

༻❁༺ Sometimes, they would engage in trivial yet playful debates in their mind just to tease each other. Like when she pouted because she didn't want to let go of his arm when they had to fight their enemies. His solution? Tell her she's more than welcome to cling to his arm while they fought. How would it work? ....He'd make do with it.

༻❁༺ Whenever birthing their monstrous spawn became difficult for her, he embraced her and his wings enveloped her. Then he would softly whisper words of love to soothe her pain.

༻❁༺ When he gained the ability to traverse between different universes, the first thing he did was to adopt the younger version of his darling, giving the lonely girl the parental love she always craved.

༻❁༺ The young girl's fearful response to the despair he inflicted upon her tormentors and the world that had brought her so much pain perplexed him, though.

༻❁༺ He was patient and calculating, slowly coaxing the girl out of her scared shell by giving her everything else she wanted. She wants friends? He uses the spawn born from his darling to play the role of her friends by utilizing their mimicry ability. Whatever she wanted, he will get it for her. He'd burn worlds just to keep her warm.

༻❁༺ Before long, she assimilated into their way of life, accepting Sephiroth and his darling as her parents.

༻❁༺ Sephiroth's unstoppable dynasty left a legacy of destruction and despair across countless worlds. And only more will fall.

These two are definitely the most lovey-dovey out of the Sephy/Darling pairings I've done so far. Sheesh, you'd be tempted to tell them to get a room, xD

Dark Horse for how Sephy feels about Darling and E.T for how Darling feels about Sephy.

#sephiroth #ff7 sephiroth #final fantasy 7 #ff7 #sephiroth x reader #final fantasy x reader #yandere sephiroth #crisis cutie #one winged masquerade AU #tw: birth #tw: mommy kink #tw: yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere x darling #final fantasy dissidia #final fantasy vii

[ladyzirkonia]

Mandalorian tenets or the six actions.

Early Mandalorian culture, originating with the ancient Taung species, was believed to have begun as a religious warrior society, War was practiced as a form of ritual worship to their multiple gods and because of this, many of the Mandalorians' earliest conflicts were seen as holy wars and their warriors known as the Mandalorian Crusaders.

After the Great Sith war where most of the Taung had perished , the Mandalorians began accepting beings of other races and species into their culture and transforming what it meant to be a Mandalorian. Those who considered themselves Mandalorian were bound by a single, unifying culture rather than any one race, and they believed that an individual was defined by their actions rather than the circumstances of birth.

Resol'nare

Young Mandalorian children were taught a rhyme to help them learn the tenets of the Resol'nare (basic: six actions) These six tenets defined what it meant to be a Mandalorian, and any who wished to be considered as such was expected to follow them.

Ba'jur, beskar'gam, (Education and armor)

Ara'nov, aliit, (Self-defense, our tribe)

Mando'a bal Mand'alor — (Our language, our leader)

An vencuyan mhi. (All help us survive.)

This code is self-perpetuating and was directly responsible for ensuring the survival of the Mandalorian culture and society.

Wearing the armor (beskar'gam or ''iron skin'')

Once Mandalorians reach adulthood, they assemble a suit of armor that suits their needs and skills. It is both a tool and a symbol of their cultural identity. Aside from its defensive capabilities, armor served another function: in a group formed from so many different species, often times it was only the armor that displayed an outward sign of the culture that bound these individuals together. The paint scheme of a Mandalorian's armor occasionally represented a soldier's state of mind, or their personal mission.

As many soldiers preferred the inconspicuousness afforded by camouflage, Mandalorians believed in the saying:

"It's one thing to see us coming, it's another to do something about it."

Speaking the language (Mando'a)

While most Mandalorians know and speak Basic and other languages, all are raised speaking Mando'a, the language of the Taungs. When among themselves, they speak Mando'a almost exclusively. The language itself is very fluid and simple, reflecting the culture of which it is a part, and like the culture, it has changed very little over the centuries.

Mando'a was often thought of as easy to learn, a trait highly desirable in a culture that regularly adopted adults from numerous races and species. But there were difference speaker of Basic had to adjust, including Mando'a's expression of tense, and its gender-neutrality.

It was not unheard for Mandalorians to speak other languages such as Huttese and Basic alongside Mandalorian as it was necessary to communicate with others when working as a mercenary or bounty hunter.

Defending oneself and the family

While the Mandalorians are best known as a warrior culture, they are also strongly family oriented. Each member of a family is expected to protect the others, garaunteeing their survival and through this, ensuring the survival of the clan and culture.

Adoption was extremely common in Mandalorian culture, to the point where even adults could be adopted. Because of the Mandalorians' constant connection to war, widows and orphans became an inescapable fact of life.

Contribute to clans welfare

Each individual and family is expected to contribute to the welfare and prosperity of their clan, which in turn helps provide for the family and individual as needed. This act is far from the socialist prop it first seems, as it is a neccessity for a society that spends a great deal of its time at war to provide for such neccessities as food, shelter and manufactured goods when a large number of a clan's adults are on other worlds fighting.

Raise children as Mandalorians

It is a Mandalorian's responsibility to raise children in the traditions of their culture. However this is not simply an imperative to breed, as it might seem on the surface. Mandalorians often adopt their children, caring very little for blood lineage and bowing to the neccessities created by their lifestyles as nomadic warriors. This act is a mandate to perpetuate the culture, as are the majority of the Six Acts, by passing it down to both offspring and adopted war orphans.

Rally to the cause of the Mand’alor

While the social structure of the Mandalorians is very simple, revolving around family and clan, each clan and family answering to itself, in times of war all families and clans are expected to answer a call to war by the Mand'alor, the leader of the Mandalorian people.

The old and the new way.

In order to retain their heritage in the face of outside influence, Mandalorians placed a high value on rigorously carrying out the Resol'nare's tenets in a daily manner. However, interpretation of the Resol'nare differed, and at least one group of Mandalorians, the New Mandalorians, potentially followed an alternate interpretation of the Resol'nare by doing away with personally-owned sets of armor and refusing to aid the Mand'alor.

The New Mandalorians was the pacifist movement who placed great importance on the virtues of pacifism, neutrality, and nonviolence rather than martial prowess and military strength as the Old Mandalorians did. They were led by a Duchess of Mandalore up until its dissolution following the coup in 19 BBY.

Similar to Death Watch, the Old Mandalorians were exiled from Mandalore, but unlike their Death Watch counterparts, did not seek vengeance on the New Mandalorians. Instead, the Old Mandalorians resettled in other parts of the galaxy and worked for the highest bidder, maintaining their Mandalorian warrior heritage as bounty hunters, mercenaries and other professions.

"Here's why you can't exterminate us, aruetii. We're not huddled in one place—we span the galaxy. We need no lords or leaders—so you can't destroy our command. We can live without technology—so we can fight with our bare hands. We have no species or bloodline—so we can rebuild our ranks with others who want to join us. We're more than just a people or an army, aruetii. We're a culture. We're an idea. And you can't kill ideas—but we can certainly kill you."

― Mandalore the Destroyer

#the mandalorian #mandalorians #mandalorian culture #mandalorian armor #foundlings #the old way #new mandalorians #satine kryze #mando'a #star wars #legends #mandalorian tenets #six actions #clans