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   🌈 vanta rainbow black 🌈 (vantablack@cyberpunk.lol)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 03:23:33 JST 🌈 vanta rainbow black 🌈

   thinking about the "mastodon for harris" bullshit makes me fucking angry

   but at least we managed to capture their hashtags lmao. if you look in either of them now you'll mostly see mutual aid requests

   #MastodonForHarris #Mastodon4Harris

   • Embed this notice
     Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig (alexandria@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 03:23:30 JST Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig

     in reply to

     • Raccoon🏳️‍🌈

     @Raccoon @vantablack

     So first let's establish ball parks for campaign funding. A typical, offhand campaign donation is in the range of millions of dollars. The smallest you will typically see in american politics is a couple of million dollars from an org or a society to a political campaign.

     I think, we can both agree that it is extremely unlikely, if not impossible, for mastodon for harris to raise that amount of funding.

     (cont)

     carl marks repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig (alexandria@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 03:23:31 JST Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig

     in reply to

     • Raccoon🏳️‍🌈

     @Raccoon @vantablack

     > It's not like many of us were saying to donate to Harris and ignore all Mutual Aid from now on, and it's definitely not like support for Kamala Harris itself was going to harm the people who are on the hashtag

     im going to answer this a bit too but i only have small character length so

     carl marks repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Raccoon🏳️‍🌈 (raccoon@techhub.social)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 03:23:32 JST Raccoon🏳️‍🌈

     in reply to

     @vantablack
     To be clear, glancing over the hashtag just now, I'm not sure you've actually "captured" it: what seems more likely is you've managed to get blocked by a bunch of instances for purposefully attempting to disrupt part of the network.

     What I still don't understand though is why you're so angry about this in the first place. I'm sure there were a few people who were rude, that's totally going to happen, but I personally never saw any incidents getting reported: if they had been, I would have gone after them, so clearly it's not a majority. It's not like many of us were saying to donate to Harris and ignore all Mutual Aid from now on, and it's definitely not like support for Kamala Harris itself was going to harm the people who are on the hashtag, unless it's popular with Republican party leaders and I don't realize it.

     So what's this about? What about us wanting to support a presidential candidate makes you angry enough to spend this much energy disrupting the network?

   • Embed this notice
     Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig (alexandria@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 03:23:39 JST Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig

     in reply to

     • Raccoon🏳️‍🌈

     @Raccoon @vantablack

     So, now that's been established, a direct response -

     Ok, you are right you never said to ignore mutual aid. But what we (queer/poor people) are seeing is hundreds of thousands of dollars being given to an effort that is ultimately, a drop in the pond in terms of campaign funding, to a donor that is swimming in funds. And this is the case while many, many people who are on fedi, right now, are struggling to feed and house themselves.

     carl marks repeated this.
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     Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig (alexandria@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 03:26:16 JST Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig

     in reply to

     • Raccoon🏳️‍🌈

     @Raccoon @vantablack And on top of that, those funds are raised by predominantly white, predominantly cishet people on the fediverse. People, and people from fedi nodes who, for the most part never boost or otherwise interact with mutual aid posts. Some people on instances that restrict or otherwise ban posts for aid.

     carl marks repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig (alexandria@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 03:26:22 JST Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig

     in reply to

     • Raccoon🏳️‍🌈

     @Raccoon @vantablack What this makes clear, when you are looking at this as someone who personally sees about two dozen mutual aid posts a day, in regards to health, in regards to housing, etc. is that mastodon has a very clear class stratification.

     There are apparently people who can afford to throw away hundreds, thousands of dollars towards what is essentially the most insufficient, meaningless gesture in the entire world of campaign politics, rather than *actually help & save other people*.

     carl marks repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig (alexandria@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 03:26:24 JST Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig

     in reply to

     • Raccoon🏳️‍🌈

     @Raccoon @vantablack
     If everyone who donated the money to mastodon for harris, instead donated that money to people on the fediverse, it would mean a tangible, *measurable* reduction of predominantly queer people, predominantly bipoc people, suffering on the fediverse.

     That is why there is anger involved. That is why activism takes the form of "showing those people the mutual aid posts they are neglecting and ignoring, that each represent real personal suffering endured by minorities"

     carl marks repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig (alexandria@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 03:26:29 JST Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig

     in reply to

     • Raccoon🏳️‍🌈

     @Raccoon @vantablack

     You're looking at this from an abstract perspective of "there are people shitting up the tag!"

     We're looking at this from a personal perspective of — most of the aid posts I've seen went untended, and as a result some of those fediverse posters were placed in emotional, physical, tangible harm, some of them possibly died or were killed.

     That is why there is anger and frustration here. You can all afford to spend a LOT of money on a gesture while people suffer and die.

     carl marks repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig (alexandria@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 03:26:34 JST Astryr the Seiber-Swynwraig

     in reply to

     • Raccoon🏳️‍🌈

     @Raccoon @vantablack

     Because that's the result here.

     Maybe a third of the mutual aid posts I've seen were, often bipoc, queer people trying to escape their abusive home environment.

     Almost all of the mutual aid posts I've seen are people struggling to feed and house themselves, and the ones that aren't are asking for necessary funds towards their mental health, towards resources to help them actually fucking survive in the world.