“KOSA wont pass, it got rejected the last two times!”
It wasn’t passed because people spoke out against it. People called and emailed their senators. So, CALL / EMAIL YOUR SENATORS. MAKE IT KNOWN THAT WE DO NOT WANT THIS BILL TO PASS!
“But its unconstitutional-“ There’ve been multiple bills passed before that are unconstitutional. This will not be any different to them, they do not care.
Oh hey, this one actually has a link that lets you send pre-written emails and, if the thought of calling isn’t immediately crippling to you, offers you the option to call Right Now using a script.
There’s some company, blackstone, blackwater, something like that, buying up houses that go on sale for 30k above asking price. Immediately outbidding anyone who tries to buy. Corporations are also buying property all across america.
Fuck…
Nobody comes to my tumblr for this, but Americans need to understand that THIS is why my generation can’t afford to own a house outside of Smallest-Town USA. THIS is also why people my age in bigger cities struggle to find decent apartments that don’t consume half of our monthly income.
Housing Speculation is when rich folk, corporations, and wannabe landlords buy up property and sit on it like dragons hoarding gold. The Dutch have a dragon-adjacent term for this because speculation devastated their housing market in the 70s-80s leading to some gnarly Dutch squatting culture. They let homes sit empty, good as money in the bank and watch the value increase as everyone else competes for the remaining houses. That’s value they can borrow against, that’s a few hundred-thousand dollars if you need some quick cash, that’s a property you can rent out for regular income while charging tenants for repairs or maintenance and fining them for wear and tear. If property values go up and laws prohibit raising the rent by a certain degree, in many places they can find shady ways to evict that tenant, make no changes and charge the next renter more. It’s probably illegal but if you rent to people below a certain income, you can be assured most can’t afford to take you to court.
I live in Chicago. Many of the properties that used to house students, small families, single parents, older people, low-income folks have been gobbled up by little airbnb barons who colonize previously well-established neighborhoods and price out families who’ve lived there for generations because they can’t keep up with the artificially inflated property values. The airbnbs spread like cancer until a handful of people can dominate the “affordable” housing for an entire neighborhood. It’s gentrification on meth, but without the kind of localized money circulation or community improvements you get when people live and work and spend within their neighborhoods. It pushes residents further and further from services and resources until all that’s left is the locked-in commodififation of an exploitable renting class.
If that wasn’t bad enough, it also means that when large areas of habitable property are being hoarded by investors with portfolios of empty houses and airbnbs, that reduces the number of actual residents, which can spoil legislation on a community level. When all the storefront space in a neighborhood like mine is controlled by 4 people, you find the number of businesses and services that catered to lower income families start to become whiskey bars, boutiques, vintage shops, and upscale chain retail, businesses that bring money into the property owners at the expense of community accessibility, turning a once largely Hispanic neighborhood community into a posh little destination for travelers, tourists, and other aspiring business speculators who see every empty building as their next revinue stream. Gut a block of apartments with attached commercial space and build half as many luxury condos above a combination tapas bar and day spa and you’ve instantly got half as many tenants on that block to vote against your expansion schemes. Replacing low-income residents with higher-rent folks also bakes in support for future “improvements” that further contribute to the commodification of communities.
Property ownership has always been a tool of the most privileged class to extract value from the working class because the only options become rent, move, or live on the street for all they care. At which point, the police will sweep you further and further into the gutter until they have an excuse to send you to prison. This kind of speculation and consolidation allows people with excess resources to buy up the things the rest of us require to function and sell it back to us forever.
These are the same people that invented the fairy tale about how if we work hard enough and save and spend like smart people, then we can be landlords too! We can own businesses, raise families, chase dreams and be happy if we are smart like they are. But if we can’t it’s because we’re lazy little parasites who need to have our lives portioned out to us lest we waste time that could be earning money for the landlord.
I hate these fuckers so fucking much.
It got so bad in Atlanta that in 2022 they passed a law limiting Airbnb-type operators to two physical addresses, and the owner is required to live in one of them. In addition to that, they are charged an annual permit fee + additional taxes.
It’s an excellent start, but only applies to the city of Atlanta – not any of the kazillions of Airbnbs in the surrounding greater metro area.
“This kind of speculation and consolidation allows people with excess resources to buy up the things the rest of us require to function and sell it back to us forever.”
Maybe, maybe, how quick they have taken it down has to do with them realizing that the office of the fucking legal team of the city of San Francisco is ACROSS THE STREET from Twitter HQ
Seriously.
How.
Every.
Fucking.
Thing.
About.
Musk.
Can.
Be.
So.
Dumb.
Holy shit.
I would like to point out, someone had a serious seizure set off by that thing and was sent to hospital because of it. It wasn’t just “obnoxious” it was downright deadly.
[Tweet from Ellie @ TheElfmyster dated 01 Aug 23:
Hello, this is Ellie’s girlfriend. To be even be typing this upsets me. In the early hours this morning, Ellie’s epilepsy was triggered by the new X advertising, which has left her fighting for her life. A brand isn’t worth someone fighting for there life for. #DodgeTheEx ]
Confirmed: the stunt with the dangerously-bright X logo and its strobe effect predictably caused physical harm. This is exactly why strobe lights need to be removed completely from the public sphere, and why 100% informed consent should be the bare minimum requirement for the use of strobe lights.
Strobe lights have their time and place, and a public street is NEVER that time nor place.
Yes we need more chaste twee baby gay romances like heartstopper and yes we also need more shows where men fuck raw to express their love for one another like Élite and yes we need more toxic gays having hate sex like Interview with the Vampire and yes we need more incidental gay characters like the dads in cartoons like Owl House.
It’s not a competition! It’s a hoard and I’m like a gay little Smaug.
the normalization of porn in mainstream media is a weird take to have
Normalization of gay desire and yes, even gay sex, is paramount to gay liberation actually.
we human beings have sex that includes gay human beings hate to break it to your fragile little puritan baby brains but its true so you might wanna start getting used to that mk
“Well are you a [controversial identity] supporter???”
My friend I do not know what to tell you here. My rule is and remains “I don’t care what you call yourself because your actions and who you are as a person is more valuable to me” and “as long as everyone in the situation is an adult and is giving enthusiastic consent I genuinely do not give a fuck what you do” and “words are stupid and people are complicated so it doesn’t matter if The Words Are Wrong as long as it makes you happy”
I’m a longer tables not higher walls kind of guy. Have a seat. Break bread with me. Tell me a story over dinner. I think that’ll be better for the both of us.
This post has gained about 2.5k notes in 24 hours for some reason and is doing numbers in the Identities Fandom but I feel like I need to be clear about something:
I wrote this before I’d ever even heard of crimew but also like.
Also yes I mean even that identity. That one too. Especially that one. And we can’t forget that one either.
Come and sit at my table. Try my soup, it’s an old recipe. Tell me how your day went. I think that’s a better course of action.
Back on my bullshit to say if you want me to actively think sush-and-such identity is bad you will still need to play by my rules. If you cannot articulate why whatever identity you feel is harmful is actually harmful, and by that I mean “its existence is inherently harmful” doesn’t count, then sorry but I simply don’t believe you and I am not willing to play ball. Existing in a space might make you uncomfortable, but discomfort isn’t harm, so you’re going to need to get over it.
Come here. I’m pulling meat and vegetables off the grill. There’s a plate made up just for you. Times are rough but we’ll get through it somehow. Together.
Girl help there are people arguing about bi lesbians in my replies when I originally made this post about pansexual and asexual people and neopronouns and xenogenders and therians and he/him lesbians and she/her gays and people reclaiming slurs and puppies and kittens. But also yes bi lesbians are included in this I just wasn’t talking about or thinking about them because literally all of my irl lesbian friends do not give two shits about bi lesbian discourse (and many of them are married to bisexual women who choose to call themselves lesbians and they have lovely lesbian marriages and lesbian families and sometimes even lesbian sex with each other wow)
But also like. It’s not that hard. They’re bi but they dramatically prefer women. Or they’re bi but they’ve never actually pursued relationships with men. Or they’re bi but they make the choice to only be with women. Or they’re bi but they’re currently with the woman of their dreams who they never want to be seperated from and thus now consider themselves lesbians. Or they’re bi but they thought they were a lesbian for a long time and are just now coming to terms with maybe being attracted to guys in theory. Or they’re bi but they’re happy calling themselves a lesbian in the context of their current relationship.
Or they’re calling themselves bi because “technically that one time” but in actuality it was mostly comphet. Or they’re calling themselves bi because so many people told them they can’t be a lesbian if they’re not gold star. Or they’re calling themselves bi because so many people told them they can’t be a lesbian if they’re also attracted to fem nonbinary folks instead of exclusively binary women.
Or they’re calling themselves bi lesbians because that used to be common before waves of biphobia eradicated the usage of similar terms and they’re old enough to remember that.
Or they’re calling themselves lesbians while being bisexual because they’re currently with a woman and it’s easier than getting into a whole attraction explination with a stranger.
Anyway these are all reasons my lesbian friends’ bisexual wives have told me for why they use both bisexual and lesbian and funny enough their lesbian wives still love them so I’m gunna follow their lead on this one and continue not giving a shit and welcoming them all to the table.
