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I saw the mention of it protecting abortion rights, but I was confused about that because as far as I know, nowhere requires someone to be married for abortions or any type of healthcare.

The quotes and comments I saw made it sound like the stance was this doesnt happen enough we should risk losing any rights unnecessarily, but I feel there should have been some specifics mentions what those rights they’re protecting actually were. The stats seem all over the place too, from as low as IIRC around 50 child marriages since 2019 to an estimated 1600.

This all seems like something people should have some real facts and figures on, but that I cant find them is really raising my eyebrows for a number of reasons.

My first thought was what’s up with California?

I could find a bunch of articles talking about the usual stuff like conservatives and evangelicals arguing in favor of avoiding a ban, but Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are also frequent supporters of avoiding a ban on child marriage. The only reasoning I could find was “we don’t have enough data,” but I’m struggling to think of any positive things about allowing it. From the articles, it sounded like fringe religious beliefs and questionable things regarding immigration laws, but I am skeptical the pros of allowing child marriage for those outweigh a number of cons I could name.

I wasn’t able to find any actual articles from PP or ACLU themselves about it, so does anyone have any insight? This seems a bit out of character for both orgs.

It is unfortunate. I try and be mindful around new people to look visibly happy, or at least not in a bad mood. But I can’t fault anyone for playing it safe. Especially since being harassed isn’t something you can undo or something anyone should have to build a tolerance for. They may have also been in a previous incident that we don’t know about.

If they’re overreacting or not isn’t really a strangers’ business. We start to venture into egocentrism to think their behaviors have anything to do with us. It’s just a live and let live thing. There’s plenty of people over been nice to, and they still never liked me for one reason or another, but it’s no biggie.

If it was a repeated thing, like they saw you every day and actively avoided you, that’s a somewhat different story, but some person we only see once, it’s not worth the mental energy to worry about it to me.

I never understand why someone would feel offended by something like this. I doubt many people are riding public transit to make new friends. Most seem to want to be ignored there.

I’m of bear-like physique and I assume to a lone woman on a train car that has no clue who I am, potentially intimidating. Likely, I’d expect neither of us would pay each other much mind. If she decided to get up and move to an empty car, it probably still wouldn’t dawn on me right away why she moved, as I’m minding my own business. If I did realize, why should I be offended though? If anything, it’s a good strategic move on her part. She’s not there to get to know me, and she’s darned well not there to potentially get to know me in a negative way, no matter how slim the chance of that could be.

Should they require separate cars? Of course not. But I don’t see how it could be seen as ant-man. If your first thought is to be seriously angry at someone for not trusting a stranger, to me, that pretty much proves them right.

With as much Russian Kool-aid America has drank at this point, I feel the country as a whole is still doing a lot to help Ukraine. I can get behind a plan for The West to take a more active role, but I would rather see that be lead by NATO or a European coalition that having the US go in with guns blazing. I don’t feel any county, including Russia, as far as the actual citizens at least, will benefit from a Russian success. With so many parties that should be concerned with the outcome, I’d rather see the US remain in a supporting role to put to bed any accusations of this being some kind of colonialism.

While this is somewhat of a bad take IMO, I looked up this guy and while he is a Republican, he has been steadfast in his support for Ukraine, and even has a very based official website discussing what aid is going to Ukraine, and as part of his committee duties has worked to come up with planning to ensure Ukraine does not give in to Russia and insists the US should increase aid to Ukraine.

From the Proposed Plan for Victory in Ukraine:

Ukraine needs the longest-range variant of ATACMS, F-16s, and sufficient quantities of cluster munitions, artillery, air defenses, and armor to make a difference on the battlefield. … A path to victory for Ukraine will require (1) providing critical weapons to Ukraine at the speed of relevance, (2) tightening sanctions on the Putin regime, and (3) transferring [$300 billion of] frozen Russian sovereign assets to Ukraine.

This strategy will ensure Ukraine is able to make the needed advances on the battlefield to force Putin to the negotiating table. If Ukraine doesn’t negotiate from a position of strength, there can be no lasting peace.

Russian forces have committed countless war crimes in Ukraine, including executions, torture, and rape. Russia has also kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and sent them to so-called re-education camps in Russia and occupied Ukraine. Those responsible for these crimes must face justice. If Russia is able to conquer more of Ukraine, millions more innocent civilians will be subject to a similarly horrific fate.

The rest of the document is biased Republican garbage, bashing Biden and other rhetoric, but it is a plus to see there are at least some Republicans (2 others worked with Turner on the Plan for Victory) supporting Ukraine, despite some questionable motivation. This gives me a little bit of hopefulness that if Congress doesn’t remain under Democratic leadership that Ukraine may still manage to keep getting support.

Again, I’m not going to cheer for this guy, but I will give some credit where it’s due that he isn’t following the MAGA crowd in trying to drop support to Ukraine and allow Russia to get away with things. I don’t think the US actively escalating things is going to benefit anyone, but continued supply and support efforts still seem very crucial.

That would be amazing! No need for 2% to be the end goal instead of just a good start. A good government serves all its citizens, not just the ones with big bank accounts.

I know 2% is fairly laughable when we’re talking normal people money, but this is 20 million per 1 billion.

when simply considering the 10 biggest fortunes in France, the tax would bring in no less than €13bn for the state.

A country can do a decent bit of good for people with 13 billion.

The full report lists suggested practices to mitigate the damage we do, from more ecologically minded agricultural practices and shifts in our diet to accelerating development and funding of renewable energy and delivering it to the third world, as they are many times left with only the worst fuels to use for everything.

It’s all things that require large amounts of money with great long term but no short term benefits for those with money, a slight bit of personal inconvenience as we as societies learn more planet healthy habits, and a small amount of compassion for those less well off than us, most likely due to a lack of compassion in the past.

I will not be holding my breath…

The full report is worth a glance, as it’s divided into sections where it looks at individual continents and discusses some of their unique problems. I mainly stuck to reading the proposed solutions sections, as I have reached my limit on dealing with all the different impending dooms going on recently. Even the countries that are doing some good changes are still not fully committing to it, even as they see positive results. We’re past the point of being able to wade into this stuff. But with worldwide societies trending towards more selfish and nationalist tendencies, I feel things will continue to worsen for the remaining half of my life.

I try not to be a downer about it, but it’s hard when I see and read about it every day.

Gang members “came in shooting and breaking into the houses to steal and burn. I just had time to grab my children and run in the dark,” said 60-year-old Sonise Mirano on Sunday, who was camping with hundreds of people in a park in the nearby coastal city of Saint-Marc.

Similar ones [gang attacks] have taken place in the capital of Port-au-Prince, 80% of which is controlled by gangs, and they typically are linked to turf wars, with gang members targeting civilians in areas controlled by rivals. Many neighborhoods are not safe, and people affected by the violence have not been able to return home, even if their houses have not been destroyed.

More than 700,000 people — more than half of whom are children — are now internally displaced across Haiti, according to the International Organization for Migration in an Oct. 2 statement. That was an increase of 22% since June.

Port-au-Prince hosts a quarter of the country’s displaced, often residing in overcrowded sites, with little to no access to basic services, the agency said.

This is a key difference that certain parties leave out when discussing “illegal immigration.” These people aren’t coming here to take your country or your job or whatever you imagine the case to be. They are asylum seekers, not just from Haiti, but anywhere that this type of situation is daily life. They don’t want to come to America, they want their own homes to be safe, but they are not, nor will they be in the foreseeable future.

If anyone in America, England, Germany, Greece, etc was in the same situation, they would be doing the same, because no one would want to live in that or to put their families through this. But all those that want to close off the borders to these people are swatting away those hands reaching out for help. All these major countries did things to help create the situations these people are trying to escape from, but they refuse to own up to it. We did these people dirty and then we ignore them as they die for it.

It’s just so frustrating to see, and to not see any country showing us a good example of humanity or compassion.

While I also hope the wildlife is cared for, the protected zone was not established for altruistic reasons, but rather UK asserting control of natural resources of Mauritius and/or the inhabitants of Chagos to remove them from their homes.

A US diplomatic cable dated May 2009, disclosed by WikiLeaks, revealed that a Foreign Office official had told the Americans that a decision to set up a “marine protected area” would “effectively end the islanders’ resettlement claims”. The official, identified as Colin Roberts, is quoted as saying that “according to the HMG’s [Her Majesty’s government’s] current thinking on the reserve, there would be ‘no human footprints’ or ‘Man Fridays’” on the British Indian Ocean Territory uninhabited islands."

A US state department official commented: “Establishing a marine reserve might, indeed, as the FCO’s Roberts stated, be the most effective long-term way to prevent any of the Chagos Islands’ former inhabitants or their descendants from resettling in the BIOT.”

Source

I am not well informed about Mauritius’s record on the environment, but I’m not a fan of what the UK and US militaries did to establish this zone.

Perhaps if the island was already abandoned and they were clearing solely feral dogs by humane means, that would be one thing.

The dogs were the most egregious killings as they were killed to terrorize the local population to leave “voluntarily.” They were not the only animals killed, as the island was self sufficient before the militaries came. The livestock was also killed, as part of the process of getting people to leave was to starve them and letting them die of disease. The actual “marine protected area” was protected not to save animals, but to ban the locals from fishing. The islanders also had some of the dogs trained to help them catch fish.

First, they tried to shoot the dogs. Next, they tried to poison them with strychnine. When both failed as efficient killing methods, British government agents and U.S. Navy personnel used raw meat to lure the pets into a sealed shed. Locking them inside, they gassed the howling animals with exhaust piped in from U.S. military vehicles. Then, setting coconut husks ablaze, they burned the dogs’ carcasses as their owners were left to watch and ponder their own fate.

By starving them and denying medical care, they would eventually ask to be taken to the mainland, where no one was allowed to return. They weren’t able to take anything with them, and as the island had no outside communication, no one could send word back they were barred from returning home. Relatives had no clue what happened to anyone that left. The abandoned people were left in a country they had no familiarity, and left with only the clothes on their backs and no means to return home or even tell anyone they were alive or where to find them. They were former enslaved Africans and Indians who had won freedom and had a free society in a tropical paradise where they relied on no one but themselves, and they were kicked out of their second homeland to basically just have an old IOU cancelled.

In confidential minutes, the United States agreed to secretly wipe out a $14 million British military debt, circumventing the need to ask Congress for funding. In exchange, the British agreed to take the “administrative measures” necessary for “resettling the inhabitants.”

Those measures meant that, after 1967, any Chagossians who left home for medical treatment or a routine vacation in Mauritius were barred from returning. Soon, British officials began restricting the flow of food and medical supplies to Chagos. As conditions deteriorated, more islanders began leaving.

The authorities soon ordered the remaining Chagossians — generally allowed no more than a single box of belongings and a sleeping mat — onto overcrowded cargo ships destined for Mauritius and the Seychelles. By 1973, the last Chagossians were gone.

The rounding up and killing of the animals in front of the residents could definitely be taken as implying “you’re next” to former enslaved people.

Source 1

Source 2

The same where they tortured all the animals to death?

From That’s When the Nightmare Started…

The next stage in the expulsion, once the US decided to proceed with the construction of the military base, involved the BIOT administrators telling the remaining population of Diego Garcia, in January 1971, that they had to leave. British officials emphasized the point by ordering the killing of the Chagossians’ dogs.

The same year, Greatbatch ordered all the dogs on Diego Garcia to be killed, an order that was carried out by company manager Marcel Moulinie. Moulinie described later how he first tried shooting the dogs, then poisoning them. Eventually more than 1,000 dogs, including pets, were gassed with exhaust fumes, from pipes attached to the exhaust pipes of US military vehicles. Talate Louis said her family’s dog was killed; they felt it was done to make them leave.

Great Behind the Bastards podcast on this whole story if you prefer audio.

Very inspiring article, thank you for sharing!

Llusco and her fellow Aymara guides are changing the face of tourism, traditionally a male-dominated industry. She has done two entry-level mountaineering courses and wants to travel abroad to do more advanced studies.

“At first it was hard, the men looked at me strangely, like I didn’t belong,” she says. “Still now, there are often times when I’m the only woman, or one of very few, working on the mountain.”

Bolivia’s Indigenous population has seen greater recognition since Evo Morales served as the country’s first Indigenous president between 2006 and 2019, but it is not an easy place to be a woman; in 2021, the country had one of the highest rates of femicide in South America. “It has been very difficult for me, and the whole group, to face the sexism and discrimination we’ve had to go through,” says Llusco. “We have stumbled because we are women who wear polleras.

“But we also have support that encourages us to keep going. Together, we are stronger. We support each other and teach our children to follow in our footsteps.”

The cholitas escaladoras are part of a wider movement, which has been fighting for their rights since at least the 1960s, that also includes the cholitas luchadoras (the wrestling cholitas) and the cholitas skaters.

The cholitas escaladoras, which have now splintered into three groups, have received worldwide attention for their achievements.

This is why you can’t go by a headline or the article summary…sometimes you actually need to read the article. It isn’t about the clothes whatsoever.

She’s discriminated against for being a woman, a native person, someone who speaks the “wrong” language, wears the “wrong” clothes, and gets hated on just for being herself or for enjoying the things she does, in the way she wants to do them.

She’s concerned for the great environmental collapse of her homeland. She wants her peoples’ traditions to carry on to the future. She wants people like her to be proud and enjoy life in their way.

Her and her friends are doing things most people can’t do with all their fancy high tech gear, and they’re doing it in their daily wear, but they still get hated on for it.

That’s why they have articles and movies about them and the rest of us don’t. If you can’t find something inspiring that you’d be proud of a person for in this article, I don’t think the issue is the author or the subject matter. It’s a really good article in my opinion.

Totally agree with you. I feel bad for the young people that didn’t get to experience the Internet before business started to take it seriously. The Fediverse is a nice taste of those days though!

I’m not sure what to make of your “helped me get through feeling much like OP”.

I’ve talked extensively with Blaze and others on the Fedigrow community about pretty much your exact set of bullet points over the past few months and the shine started to wear off Lemmy for a bit. You’re far from alone in feeling how you described in your post, as can be seen in most of the replies here.

I think it’s just taking a step back and being able to appreciate what we do have. We haven’t turned into some complete right/left hellhole, the top posts everyday add up to thousands of comments, we have some quality content providers, and some really fun commenters. I certainly wouldn’t be ashamed to show someone my Lemmy feed.

It’s good that you still have the drive to want to keep improving things around here in the ways you feel comfortable contributing to. Many initial hurdles to getting on Lemmy feel resolved, and so many in apps are equal to the Reddit apps for most use cases. Many initial accounts were probably from people trying to figure things out. I know I had like 5 accounts and only really use 1 now.

I think we’ve just hit a plateau for now. My personal feeling is working on the culture is our best way forward to be different than Reddit and to pick up more people looking to escape the toxicity. The time to set our tolerance levels for certain behaviors is now before we get too big to reign it in. We’re a pretty good group now, and I hope it stays this way or gets a little better like last summer.

I’m glad when I see people speak up like this though. It makes us all reflect on the guys and bad we see here and to think about where we stand ourselves in all of it.

You and the Fedigrow crew helped me get through feeling much like OP a while back. I think that was a really good idea, because it is tough and emotional at times doing what we do. It can be easy to feel alone when you put yourself out there every day and feel like nobody is around or like you’re doing something wrong and people are falling off.

I never set out to be anybody here, but I was done with Reddit, and wanted to keep something that made me smile continue on, so I just sucked it up and did what needed to be done. You guys make it worth it, and as long as the people that do show up are having a good time, I’ll do my part to keep the party going. I get old, pre commercialized web vibes from Lemmy, so I’m gonna stick it out here as long as I can, because this is the kind of thing you don’t just get anywhere anymore.

Appreciate the shout out as always! We have a great set of people here, and we should all be happy with this place we’ve built together, even if it’s still a humble, cozy place. I feel we have organic growth, and it will come in waves as Lemmy builds and improves. Just keep doing what we’re doing and we’ll be good!

I feel it is pretty stable here. I post every day, and it’s been a tad slower lately, much like I believe Blaze said, feels due to people going away for trips. Weekends are a decent bit slower, where usually they have been busy. That’s where I notice it the most. My subs are lower than at the start of the year, but they’re still going up slow but steady. Interactions are still steady, which is my main concern. As you’ve mentioned, people want to see that interaction. I don’t want to say my content is useless, because people don’t need owl pics and animal rescue facts every day, but I typically get 100+ likes per post, and a handful of comments.

The key I feel though, is I have the same people coming in regularly every day, or every other day, and they are also participating. They make the place look alive more than me just throwing things out there. But that is a specific thing I work on, as much as the post content itself. When people come and make comments, I give them my full attention. I talk back to them, I laugh at their jokes and puns, I take time to answer their questions, I pay attention to what content they like or don’t like, how I post links. I treat them like they were clients. And now in return, they see that the community is a fun place to hang, and they come back regularly, even though I’m not giving them anything they couldn’t find, but I am adding value to their days. I make them smile, I make them feel like their effort commenting matters, I make them feel like they motivate me to keep posting (because they do!), and I teach them about things they never expected to care about.

But it’s a lot of hard work! I try not to think about the time I put into this just for fun. Many of us have been here before the API exodus or before and have put in hours posting to nobody or a dozen people until we’ve built up momentum. Most people won’t even upvote, let alone comment or post, so it’s going to come in waves building up this place. You’re still in the wilderness here. We’re still pretty much the first wave of Fediverse settlers. We’re here while it is rough, setting the foundations of what will hopefully come, keeping us from fading to nothing. I don’t think new people appreciate that point. It’s not like 25% of Reddit broke off and came here with all the posters and the audience, we’re starting from scratch. I think what we have is amazing for a bunch of nobodies with no corporate cash. We’re all volunteers, building the social media we want to have. We should be proud of it, no matter what stage it’s at.

Moderation is an area I feel could be stronger. Most threads are pretty good, but some could use a bit more reigning in. Part of the problem I see with that though, is the vocal part of the community is already hating on “heavy handed mods”, and you missed all the trashing of Beehaw for doing what I considered to be appropriate moderation. The Fed is full of a pretty diverse group of people. I talk to people from multiple countries, and the amount of LGBT I’ve gotten to get insight from has been amazing. It’s really helped me grow in my understanding of some things just being around all these people. But we need to ensure everyone is treated equally and respectfully, and there are many that want to bring Reddit behavior over here, and it’s up to the mods and commenters to decide if that’s what we want or not. I don’t want it, but many see no issue. I’m glad when people comment on it, because if people just accept it without speaking up, no one will know.

There is a lot of good here, and even with 50k users, there’s going to be much more mid and crap than gold, but it’s here. Your comments look good, and you seem to stick to things you enjoy and avoid some that drag you down, and it’s important to notice your own behavior if you click stuff that is going to annoy you. I hit delete on a lot of comments when I wade into some of these topics. Some stuff I just don’t want to get involved in, especially as someone that is at least somewhat “known” around here now and is too lazy to make an alt. But I remind myself I’m here to have fun, and if I want news without the potential drama, I’ll leave here and go to AP or whatever. I’d hope posters would make stuff to help you have a good time, but it’s our job to cultivate our own experience ultimately.

I could go on forever talking about this stuff, but I’ll stop for now. Just give it time and explore more, and since you seem to comment, keep doing that. It’s the best thing for this place. Post, comment, give feedback, repeat.