Today I woke up and felt that pang of anxiety again that I hadn’t felt since October/November. I’ve learned my anxiety lives in my gut, so it’s this awful sick to my stomach feeling. I have complete empathy for anyone feeling mental health problems right now. The world is so goddamn terrible, and anyone we’ve chosen to lead us just seems unwilling to do anything about it. I don’t know what the immediate solution will be. I know long term we have to tear down the current structures. In the same way, we moved past feudalism, we must do the same with capitalism until there is real economic democracy in the world through socialism or some similar philosophy. But do we even have the time?
Here’s my Spotify playlist for the week.
A new full episode of the podcast came out this week. Ariana & I share our Top 5 Most Anticipated Movies of the rest of 2021. We also review The Suicide Squad.
On social media, I see endless feeds of people here in the Southeast living as if COVID-19 doesn’t exist. They are eating out without a mask in sight, going to water parks, etc. Schools are just starting to open up, and I know it’s going to be bad. It appears that many of these states, including Tennessee, are pushing bills for school vouchers to offer those up to parents upset about a lack of mask mandates. It’s just as people like Naomi Klein outlined in her book The Shock Doctrine, these vultures sit waiting for human misery to strike so they can make money off of it. Fucking money. As the planet burns to a crisp, people are still clamoring for worthless fucking money.
I know for the immediate time we need money as it’s the only way to get the goods & services needed to survive. But honestly, we should just be giving people what they need. No one asks to be born into this world. Therefore they should be provided with a good home, nutritious & delicious food, clothes, education, health care, the list goes on. We can afford it; by god, we have a military budget that could easily be cut and fund these things. I think there are many paths forward, and few offer the solutions we need.
The first thing we must divorce ourselves is that disconnected electoralism will solve anything. People shouting “Just vote” do so much harm. You cannot simply vote; you must be engaged in the issues and what happens in your community. Mutual aid programs do much more good than voting once a year. You have read some type of text about ideas different from those fed to you by the systems in place: both mainstream sources & the nightmarish fringe right-wing cryptofascist sources. People in this world have found good ways to live, better ways to live than we do here in the United States. We should listen to them.
But this is all made very hard by the demand to work, so you have just enough to survive and not die. We’re all running on that wheel in fear that if we fall off, we lose everything. All it takes is one cancer diagnosis, one thing to do wrong, and everything comes crashing down. This is not a sustainable or healthy way of living. This is a never-ending nightmare, and we must collectively refuse it. I want everyone to go to a doctor and not worry about losing all they have because of bills. I wish that even for the people I despise with my whole heart because everyone should have that. Nothing will ever improve in a system where people fight for crumbs.
But I honestly don’t believe it will happen in this country any time soon. I think we are so far gone, so mentally unwell. 9/11 sent the Boomers into a complete psychological tailspin, and COVID appears to be doing the same for Gen Xers & Millennials. The system we’re in feeds on the disorientation of crisis; it needs us always unsure so that it can just keep us giving up labor so they can have more. Last year you were asked to sacrifice your grandparents to COVID for the sake of the economy; this year, they are asking for your children. I cannot stomach this; I cannot abide by this. But I am one person in a place where people are happy to be oblivious, too exhausted from labor to want to think. So, I must depart this place and go to one where things are a little better.
PopCult Reviews 