Dark Doom Jazz
Sleep isn't coming tonight, so here is an inexhaustive list of things occupying my head bacon:
1. If the goal of American progressives was to get Bernie Sanders elected and then have the system change from the top down, I think we were sorely confused about the situation (me included). The moment the DNC made it clear they would resist a Sanders nomination, his only chance to win was to get a majority of pledged delegates before the convention.
That's not going to happen.
I think it should be clear to us now that there isn't presently a progressive party in American politics, and that means we're going to have to build one. We can't do that by electing a President. We do that by electing city councilors and mayors and state legislators, and then national-level senators and representatives. That's going to take a lot of work and fair bit of time, and it's something we're already making progress on.
Whatever happens in November, we need to spend the next 4 years trying to at least start building this base. Get interested in your local politics. Volunteer what time you can to help local progressives get elected. We'll see far more return on our emotional investment than we will by bashing our heads against a wall every few years.
2. I recently listened to an episode of The Dollop, a comedic history podcast with a political edge (listen; I know). It was about the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings, featuring Joe Biden. You should go listen to it.
The gist: fuck Joe Biden.
Joe Biden has been trash for a very long time, and I'm not gonna waste any digital space trying to defend him. I'm not gonna be mad at anyone for not voting for Joe Biden; I certainly don't wanna do it. It's true what all the progressive memes are saying: he's not gonna get us medicare for all, he's not gonna fix our exploitative economic system, and he's probably not gonna do anything overly positive about racial justice or immigration.
The thing that I can't shake about these arguments about not voting for him is that Trump isn't going to get us any of those things either. It's almost certain that Bernie wasn't going to be able to get those things done; I will never not believe that Congressional Democrats would've stonewalled him for all the important things.
The other thing that'll probably drive me to vote for Joe Biden is the knowledge that, if Trump is re-elected, his second term will be exponentially worse than the first has been. It was true for Bush. If he's re-elected, he'll truly believe he can do anything he wants, and things will go from bumbling Orwellian dystopia to full-on Nazi cosplay (they've already got the concentration camps up and everything).
I understand that we're mad. Again, I'm not gonna blame anyone for not voting for Joe Biden, I just... I can't bear Trump getting re-elected. I understand the feeling that we shouldn't have to settle, that there'll just be another thing that pops up next time that people will say we have to worry about in order to make us vote against our interests, but Trump is not just another shitty president. I know we're frustrated by Biden beating us over the head with fear of Trump instead of giving credence to any of our needs, but the reason it's working for Biden in the primary is that it's true.
Trump cannot win.
We're all about to get a very painful lesson regarding why. There's no shortage of things we can say about Joe Biden that are shitty, but I would challenge anyone to tell me, earnestly and honestly, that they believe Biden would've disbanded the NSC's pandemic unit, or that, even as this pandemic begins to ravage us, he'd continue to push a budget that slashes funding for the CDC.
I understand that this is a granular difference between the two of them, and that it's an unacceptably low bar for our expectations, but this small difference fuckin' matters. If you don't believe that now, you will soon.
3. Self-care remains a bitch. The other night I came to the realization that the reason my hopes and dreams aren't motivating me is that they're just manifestations of my damage. I want to be this successful artist not for the sake of art, but to feed my compulsion to try and fix everyone else's problem. I want to write my stories so people can find something in them to help heal their own damage. I want to have that relationship with an audience to I can shower them with validation and acceptance.
None of my dreams are about me because I don't value my happiness. I don't rate my own emotional needs. I don't give a fuck about loving myself. These dreams are just another way for me to not focus on myself, another way to hyper-fixate on making sure everyone around me is placated enough to not hit me or scream at me.
I lack the motivation to write because I avoid the personal enrichment it gives me. I don't express myself because it's the one thing that ever truly makes me feel better, and I'm terrified of feeling better. I'm deathly afraid of not being afraid all the time, because that's when I would let my guard down. That's when I'd get got, and that's how I learned that feeling any lightness of being was a bad thing.
4. Conditioning is a difficult thing to overcome. If I've learned anything, it's that. Back during the first couple weeks of the primaries, I'd flit around the interwebs and I'd see all these headlines. Everyone was so optimistic about Bernie, and I don't blame them; optimism is good.
Then 'Super Tuesday' happened, and the headlines became about how young people didn't turn out like Sanders supporters had hoped. There was an understandable shit-ton of frustration with that, and I'd see people talking about being disappointed in the people who didn't show up. There were studies publicized about how Millennials and Gen Z kids were more likely to give up on things.
This is the one thing that scares me about the younger generations. It would be so easy to be frustrated and disappointed to the point of becoming cynical, of giving up. I think there's an uncomfortable amount of quickness to turn on each other, blame each other.
We are the way we were conditioned to be. This is something that I think we'll need to understand as we progress. The reason younger people are so easily daunted is because we were trained to be daunted. We were taught to value superficial things, to place more emphasis on symbolic gestures that methodical rigor. We were taught, intentionally or otherwise, to skim headlines without reading the article. We were taught, intentionally or otherwise, to care about how many likes we get.
If you managed to develop otherwise, odds are shit went wrong for you, as they often do. You are, in some ways, lucky. You've been forced to think for yourself, to be more aware of the shit you do. Not everyone is made to do that.
We should keep it in mind that it helps nothing to get mad at people for being conditioned. That goes for people of any age group; Boomers are they way they are because that's how they were conditioned. They were taught that material success was the only thing that really matters, and now their offspring are the ones who have to suffer for it.
The conditioning is the problem. The conditioning is the enemy, this mindset that we're only worth what we produce. That's the thing that makes people feel like we don't deserve healthcare, that we don't deserve safety nets. It's the thing that says that everything worthwhile has to be earned, and that if you don't get lucky enough to earn enough money to buy those things, well, that's on you.
The conditioned are victims of that system. Those kids who didn't bother to vote because they were either too busy with school, too busy with work, or got put out by shitty last-minute polling station closures are exactly the people we're fighting for, and while it's understandable and reasonable to be frustrated, if we decide that those kids don't deserve our efforts if they're not gonna defy all this conditioning on their own, then we've become agents of that conditioning. Enforcers of it.
That's why those granular differences between Biden and Trump matter. This struggle we're in isn't going to be won by any sweeping gestures or instantaneous revolutions. It's going to be won a granular step at a time, by mitigating damage while making small improvements here and there; not by accepting the status quo, but by being realistic about what it'll take to fix our shit.
1. If the goal of American progressives was to get Bernie Sanders elected and then have the system change from the top down, I think we were sorely confused about the situation (me included). The moment the DNC made it clear they would resist a Sanders nomination, his only chance to win was to get a majority of pledged delegates before the convention.
That's not going to happen.
I think it should be clear to us now that there isn't presently a progressive party in American politics, and that means we're going to have to build one. We can't do that by electing a President. We do that by electing city councilors and mayors and state legislators, and then national-level senators and representatives. That's going to take a lot of work and fair bit of time, and it's something we're already making progress on.
Whatever happens in November, we need to spend the next 4 years trying to at least start building this base. Get interested in your local politics. Volunteer what time you can to help local progressives get elected. We'll see far more return on our emotional investment than we will by bashing our heads against a wall every few years.
2. I recently listened to an episode of The Dollop, a comedic history podcast with a political edge (listen; I know). It was about the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings, featuring Joe Biden. You should go listen to it.
The gist: fuck Joe Biden.
Joe Biden has been trash for a very long time, and I'm not gonna waste any digital space trying to defend him. I'm not gonna be mad at anyone for not voting for Joe Biden; I certainly don't wanna do it. It's true what all the progressive memes are saying: he's not gonna get us medicare for all, he's not gonna fix our exploitative economic system, and he's probably not gonna do anything overly positive about racial justice or immigration.
The thing that I can't shake about these arguments about not voting for him is that Trump isn't going to get us any of those things either. It's almost certain that Bernie wasn't going to be able to get those things done; I will never not believe that Congressional Democrats would've stonewalled him for all the important things.
The other thing that'll probably drive me to vote for Joe Biden is the knowledge that, if Trump is re-elected, his second term will be exponentially worse than the first has been. It was true for Bush. If he's re-elected, he'll truly believe he can do anything he wants, and things will go from bumbling Orwellian dystopia to full-on Nazi cosplay (they've already got the concentration camps up and everything).
I understand that we're mad. Again, I'm not gonna blame anyone for not voting for Joe Biden, I just... I can't bear Trump getting re-elected. I understand the feeling that we shouldn't have to settle, that there'll just be another thing that pops up next time that people will say we have to worry about in order to make us vote against our interests, but Trump is not just another shitty president. I know we're frustrated by Biden beating us over the head with fear of Trump instead of giving credence to any of our needs, but the reason it's working for Biden in the primary is that it's true.
Trump cannot win.
We're all about to get a very painful lesson regarding why. There's no shortage of things we can say about Joe Biden that are shitty, but I would challenge anyone to tell me, earnestly and honestly, that they believe Biden would've disbanded the NSC's pandemic unit, or that, even as this pandemic begins to ravage us, he'd continue to push a budget that slashes funding for the CDC.
I understand that this is a granular difference between the two of them, and that it's an unacceptably low bar for our expectations, but this small difference fuckin' matters. If you don't believe that now, you will soon.
3. Self-care remains a bitch. The other night I came to the realization that the reason my hopes and dreams aren't motivating me is that they're just manifestations of my damage. I want to be this successful artist not for the sake of art, but to feed my compulsion to try and fix everyone else's problem. I want to write my stories so people can find something in them to help heal their own damage. I want to have that relationship with an audience to I can shower them with validation and acceptance.
None of my dreams are about me because I don't value my happiness. I don't rate my own emotional needs. I don't give a fuck about loving myself. These dreams are just another way for me to not focus on myself, another way to hyper-fixate on making sure everyone around me is placated enough to not hit me or scream at me.
I lack the motivation to write because I avoid the personal enrichment it gives me. I don't express myself because it's the one thing that ever truly makes me feel better, and I'm terrified of feeling better. I'm deathly afraid of not being afraid all the time, because that's when I would let my guard down. That's when I'd get got, and that's how I learned that feeling any lightness of being was a bad thing.
4. Conditioning is a difficult thing to overcome. If I've learned anything, it's that. Back during the first couple weeks of the primaries, I'd flit around the interwebs and I'd see all these headlines. Everyone was so optimistic about Bernie, and I don't blame them; optimism is good.
Then 'Super Tuesday' happened, and the headlines became about how young people didn't turn out like Sanders supporters had hoped. There was an understandable shit-ton of frustration with that, and I'd see people talking about being disappointed in the people who didn't show up. There were studies publicized about how Millennials and Gen Z kids were more likely to give up on things.
This is the one thing that scares me about the younger generations. It would be so easy to be frustrated and disappointed to the point of becoming cynical, of giving up. I think there's an uncomfortable amount of quickness to turn on each other, blame each other.
We are the way we were conditioned to be. This is something that I think we'll need to understand as we progress. The reason younger people are so easily daunted is because we were trained to be daunted. We were taught to value superficial things, to place more emphasis on symbolic gestures that methodical rigor. We were taught, intentionally or otherwise, to skim headlines without reading the article. We were taught, intentionally or otherwise, to care about how many likes we get.
If you managed to develop otherwise, odds are shit went wrong for you, as they often do. You are, in some ways, lucky. You've been forced to think for yourself, to be more aware of the shit you do. Not everyone is made to do that.
We should keep it in mind that it helps nothing to get mad at people for being conditioned. That goes for people of any age group; Boomers are they way they are because that's how they were conditioned. They were taught that material success was the only thing that really matters, and now their offspring are the ones who have to suffer for it.
The conditioning is the problem. The conditioning is the enemy, this mindset that we're only worth what we produce. That's the thing that makes people feel like we don't deserve healthcare, that we don't deserve safety nets. It's the thing that says that everything worthwhile has to be earned, and that if you don't get lucky enough to earn enough money to buy those things, well, that's on you.
The conditioned are victims of that system. Those kids who didn't bother to vote because they were either too busy with school, too busy with work, or got put out by shitty last-minute polling station closures are exactly the people we're fighting for, and while it's understandable and reasonable to be frustrated, if we decide that those kids don't deserve our efforts if they're not gonna defy all this conditioning on their own, then we've become agents of that conditioning. Enforcers of it.
That's why those granular differences between Biden and Trump matter. This struggle we're in isn't going to be won by any sweeping gestures or instantaneous revolutions. It's going to be won a granular step at a time, by mitigating damage while making small improvements here and there; not by accepting the status quo, but by being realistic about what it'll take to fix our shit.
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