System Change
I’m ‘involved’ in (in the sense that I’m a member of) a Blue Dot group on Facebook (yeah, yeah, I know, quit FB already — I can’t help it, sometimes it’s fun to pointlessly fight), and the group is regularly inundated with people trying their minimalistic best to be better by looking to direct their spending in more liberal ways.
But continuing to engage in the system in the same way, using equally extractive companies that are better only in that they parrot more friendly talking points, just maintains the system as it is. We need more than that…
I think we’re facing the current system’s most effective self-defense mechanisms: limiting our options so even any resistance to it causes collateral damage to people we care about. When workers depend on these systems for survival, they’re essentially taken hostage against any meaningful change. Change is messy, and systems won’t change without disruption. We absolutely do need to acknowledge this reality, but you also can’t use it as a reason for inaction. The question isn’t whether we can change anything without negative consequences - we probably can’t. But doing nothing just locks in the negative consequences of the system we have now.
We should be building support networks to ensure that working people won’t bear the entire burden of change. How? I wish I knew. But THAT’S the conversation we should be having rather than trying to figure out which store is the best store to shop at…
From the always thoughtful Merlin Mann:
“Sometimes life’s official sidewalks are just really fucking stupid.”
Facts Do Have a Left-Wing Bias
Dunno why I pay attention to any Iowa politics, as I don’t live in Iowa (though I border them), but I do, and so I get to see how the state government of my midwest neighbor is also performatively destroying their civil institutions for culture war idiocy. But I love this quote from one of said idiots, Rep. Steve Holt [R-PearlClutcher, of course], about the drive to force conservative propaganda classes in Iowa state colleges via a new ‘School of Intellectual Freedom’ 🙄:
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist. Clearly today the vast majority of young people coming out of our institutions of higher learning view capitalism in a more negative light than they ever have before, and they view socialism in a more positive light. So to suggest that this isn’t happening, in my opinion, is absurd.”
Or, hear me out, the kids are probably on to something. I don’t think taking a class on socialism is necessary for them to realize that the whole capitalist system has been fucking them for some time. They just have to look around.
Fatalism
Sitting here at work, staring at my to-do list, and pondering how much longer I will be able to maintain any facade of normality while also fully believing that this country is coming to a rapid end. All while those in charge are seemingly incapable of understanding how this is all going to end badly for everyone. Themselves included.
It’s just so astoundingly stupid.
And I know so many who voted for this, without realizing what this was going to truly entail.
My 80+yo in-laws, for example, who, at this point, I can extend nothing but my most heartfelt hatred. They’ve fucked their grandkids’, my son’s, future for ignorant bigoted bullshit. And I want nothing more than for them to be harmed by all of this: Their SS benefits mangled. Their Medicare cut back. The farm program that has subsidized their entire ignorant existence slashed. Leave them homeless, pennyless, and dead in the streets for all the sympathy they will get from me.
And yes, I know, not a healthy mindset. But fuck ’em.
Make His Mark?
I have a 20yo son who, like his father was at his age (and still is, at my ever-advancing age), is not terribly motivated to work/study/etc beyond what is absolutely necessary. And, being that father, have found it hard to convince him to really focus on his studies, to put in those best efforts, in order to make it more possible for him make his mark in this world.
These last few years have done little to convince me that this world deserves his mark. And I thought I was being wildly pessimistic.
But these last weeks have done little to convince me that there will be a world left for him to make his mark in. And for that, I am furious…
So Tired…
There are days, and the last few have been among them, when I feel like I’m just barely keeping shit together. It’s not even that there is some big overhanging thing that needs taking care of. Still, all the little insignifia that is life feels barely contained. Things like paying bills. Being even marginally productive at work. Maintaining the minimum in those very few relationships that I have in my life. Even keeping up on those things I claim to truly enjoy. All is a struggle.
I believe I’m likely suffering with undiagnosed ADHD, but I can’t even fucking gather myself enough to even look how to get started addressing that.
Just so tired…
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