Worthy Causes

[Mongrel]

:thad:

[Blossom]

To be fair, I wasn't looking at that post at all seeing as how it was nearly a year ago.

Which perhaps means this thread could use more posts ("Not by you, Mongrel!" *laughtrack*).

You ... you quoted it, though.

You didn't look at the post you quote-replied to?

[Mongrel]

To be fair, I wasn't looking at that post at all seeing as how it was nearly a year ago.

Which perhaps means this thread could use more posts ("Not by you, Mongrel!" *laughtrack*).

You ... you quoted it, though.

You didn't look at the post you quote-replied to?

No?

Look again. I only quoted Thad's post from 2 days ago.

[Thad]

So, remember Florida's Amendment 4? It restored voting rights to felons who completed their sentences and probation (excluding convicted murderers and felony sex offenders).

Or it was supposed to. Unsurprisingly, the Florida GOP has done what it can to sabotage the amendment; they've passed a law saying felons must pay fines and court fees before they're eligible to vote. The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the requirement.

The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, the organization which sponsored Amendment 4, has a fund to help pay fines and fees for people who can't afford to pay their own.

Aside from this being a good cause simply on its own ethical merits, it's also worth keeping in mind that Trump won Florida by 113,000 votes, and Amendment 4 restored voting rights to 1.4 million people.

[Friday]

Yeah, Amendment 4 is a brobdingnagian fucking deal. Like, a "this could easily be the difference between another 4 years of Trump or not" kind of deal.

[François]

It's a sign of the times that I'm a chronically ill Canadian on welfare and I regularly ask myself if maybe an American needs some of my money more than I do.

Today I'm looking closer to home, though. Any fellow northfolk wanting to support the Wet'suwet'en people could do worse than sending cash this way: Unist'ot'en legal fund

[Mongrel]

Good call. Done.

[Yoji]

I got mail from UNICEF, the ADL, the Sierra Club, and the ACLU asking me to renew memberships I'd forgotten about. I wonder if I should.

-I forget what made me donate to UNICEF in the first place. Some vague feeling that they were a brobdingnagian enough name to support?
-Gave to ADL because they work against antisemitism, which seems to be in vogue these days.
-Sierra Club because someone has to speak for the trees and my wife gives to them too. That and they... offer neat swag. I could use a new backpack and wow hey look at that
-The ACLU of all things has me thinking twice. I guess I'm still mad about Charlottesville.

[Brandleby]

If you donated anything to Puerto Rican hurricane relief it probably went through UNICEF.

[Blossom]

I'd drop the ADL. They spend an awful lot of their time crusading against anti-zionism and calling BDS antisemitic.

[Thad]

Yeah, that's about how I feel about it.

I thought of kicking some money toward the ADL, on the premise that you know, they've got their issues, but right now we're all on the same side -- but ultimately I decided there are better places to put my money. The ADL does some good work, but I find their "criticizing Israel is antisemitic" stance to be pretty overpowering.

I think there are other organizations that fight antisemitism that are easier to get behind. The SPLC isn't perfect -- I'm pretty unhappy about their decision to settle with Maajid Nawaz -- but I'm much more comfortable supporting them than the ADL.

[Yoji]

I need to find a good organization for trans rights in Thailand. I forget what the context was, but someone on Twitter brought up kathoey/"ladyboys" and how the situation for them is pretty shitty, and I guess that reminded me that human rights in that whole neighborhood in the world is shitty in general.

[Thad]

I don't know if other states have similar programs, but here in Arizona there are certain organizations you can donate to and get a dollar-for-dollar tax credit (not just a writeoff; if I donate $400 to a qualifying organization, then that's $400 less I have to pay in taxes).

And while tax day has been pushed back to July, the deadline to donate for the tax credit is still April 15. So now would be a good time for everybody to check and see if their state has similar incentives and, if so, if the deadline is still next week.

(FWIW I'm planning on donating to UMOM, a charity for women's shelters, and Hope & A Future, a foster care organization.)

[Thad]

Abortion donation links. Thread/Nitter mirror

[Thad]

More abortion donation links

[Thad]

Mekka Okereke discusses groups fighting for voting rights and voting access:

Debra Cleaver. She's registered more people to vote, from all parties and all races, than pretty much anyone else.

https://www.voteamerica.com

She founded Vote America, Vote dot org, and Long Distance Voter.

She's a terrifyingly brilliant woman who could have used her fancy Pomona education to work in Law, Private Equity, Tech, or Medicine. But she could not care less about any of that stuff. She cares about voting access, for everyone. She's the prototype voting access nerd.

--

Stacey Abrams.

https://www.fairfight.com

Stacey Abrams isn't "a brilliant civil rights leader." She's a brilliant governor, who was denied being a governor due to systemic racism, and so has been forced to spend her time addressing that racism before she can be a governor. So yeah, she's a little overqualified to drive this non-profit.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Civil rights leader is the fallback job title for Black people that should have been governors or presidents.

--

Maria Teresa Kumar

https://votolatino.org

When we have privilege, we have an obligation to use it to help others. Latiné people are not a monolith. More than half of the Hispanic people in the USA are white. If you believe in democracy (and you should!) then you believe that all Latiné people in the US should have easy access to vote, not just the super rich ones that live in Downey California.

Maria believes in true democracy. She's registered millions of people to vote.