confederates never learn a goddamn thing
Oct. 1st, 2025 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdIf anyone’s wondering whether US farmers exporting to China just need a little “temporary help” to get over Trump’s trade war, read this thread from farmer Sarah Taber on Mastodon. She’s a farmer from North Carolina and deeply involved in farming issues. Read all of the thread.
If you won’t, though – if know your US Civil War history, you might know about how the Confederacy self-embargoed cotton exports, withholding “King Cotton” from the market.
They thought it would grind textiles production in the UK to a halt and force the UK to come in on their side of the war.
What happened instead was Egyptian cotton.
Trump pulled his bullshit thinking China would bow to him over soybeans; what happened instead was Brazil and Argentina. They haven’t bought a single goddamn US soybean since last spring, as South America ramped production right the fuck up.
Soybeans were the US’s largest agricultural export.
Emphasis on were.
And arguably, it gets worse from there.
So seriously, go read the thread. It’s good, knowledgable shit.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
Chicagoans, post pics and video!
Sep. 28th, 2025 03:03 pmsolarbirdFascist Trump’s allies are out today repeating the “cities are war zones” lie, so anybody in Chicago needs to get out there and starting posting pictures of their “war zone” just like Portland.
“Chicago’s a nightmare, it is literally a war zone” — Rand Paul
People you expect to know better will not, in fact know better. I’ve run into this too damn many times. People who you’d think wouldn’t bite on this bullshit absolutely will bite on this bullshit. So you need to reveal the lie through a massive flood of photographic evidence you vouch for personally, yourself.
Post your reality, Chicago. Everywhere. Starting right now.
(video with relevant quote via Aaron Rupar)
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
I wrote another letter today, this one to Sinclair Broadcasting. You should too.
Sep. 24th, 2025 08:41 amsolarbirdA couple of days ago, I wrote about writing Disney a letter – a physical, paper letter, with an ENVELOPE and a STAMP – and went into why those are so. damned. scary. to companies, particularly these days.
Tonight, I’m writing a letter – a physical, paper letter, with an envelope and a stamp – to the local Sinclair propaganda outlet, KOMO-4, over their continued blockade against Kimmel.
I’m not telling them I’m going to boycott them, no. They’re a free/over-the-air station. I don’t pay them. I don’t pay them a dime, why would they care if I boycott them?
Obviously, they wouldn’t.
So instead, I’m telling them I’m going to boycott their local sponsors, and I’m going to write those local sponsors a physical, paper letter, one with an ENVELOPE and a STAMP, and make sure those local sponsors know why.
For every obvious reason, I (and 50501 Seattle) encourage you to do the same. If you’re not in KOMO’s range, that’s fine, find your local Sinclair station and write them, instead.
(But write your own letter, don’t copy mine. They check for that.)
KOMO received enough protest calls today – Tuesday, September 23rd, as I write this – that they shut down their phone system. They went dark.
They can turn off their phones. They can delete their voicemail. And they have, and they did.
So write ’em a gods. damned. letter.
Let’s see ’em shut off USPS delivery.
(Spoiler: they can’t. 😀 )
(eta: Here’s a very good resource thread on Reddit – advertisers, responses, more)
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.