trying to get on a hope spiral
What I’m about to say is going to sound insufferable. I think I’ve hacked my screen time to a non-addictive level. I regulate my time on the lie-box through a combination of quarantining the app on my ipad and setting up Brick settings on said ipad before I realized how hard it was to turn them off. So I scroll sometimes but never before noon. Every 15 minutes I have to choose to stay on the app. It’s been working.
The reason I’m indulging in the smug, i’ve-figured-out-this-thing-forever intro is because it’s interesting what still breaks through. Over the last few years, I’ve relied on strangers in short form videos to tell me what’s going on in the world. Removing the constant drip means a bit of quiet but also a bit of disorientation. My husband told me the details of the Cornell Seven before dropping me off at the dentist. The threat of public execution almost missed me entirely. One thing that has come screaming through the gap—MIDTERMS
As an ex-Texan I get the calls and texts for Telefreako (respectfully) et al. As a card-carrying member of NY’s Working Families Party, I get calls and texts to vote AOC of the WFP line etc. And I do think we all need to go vote every time we can, if not to just feel the satisfaction of sending a ballot to be counted among millions. But the limited scroll and the fundraising has shivered me timbers a bit.
You can feel the evil, right? It is looming. It is here. It is not the way things have to be. There’s talk of them trying to steal the election or accusing us of doing the stealing. There’s apocryphal talk of the last vote. As you can tell from my general vibe, none of this sits softly in my nervous system. I want to act. I want to organize (have been organizing). But I also want to know what the fuck is going on so I can keep acting and organizing. This means managing the fear that drags me under and clinging to any handle I can grab on hope. If you’re feeling the same way, here’s what’s been sending me on an upward spiral about it all.
(can you imagine if the first link is to an instagram profile? lol)
Abbie Richard’s clear eyed view of the stop-the-steal situation
Abbie built credibility with me when she started making simple explainers (and charts!) about the convoluted conspiracies of the Right. She goes deep but is real about the feelings connected with the disgusting stuff down there.
What has stuck with me about her recent content is her point about the security of our current elections. When she pointed out that it benefits the bad guys for us to feel like our vote doesn’t really count, something shifted. Our election system needs lots of improvements, imo, but it does have structure to resist interference. The structure (really might) hold if we act like it does.
Laura Jedeed’s dark but cathartic character work
Though in the mind of Steven Miller is the last place I want to be, I do fear we are barreling toward his vision of the future. And fuck that! Part of the work of flipping the bird to that future is looking right at it. Jedeed’s return to Substack is a nightmare POV but like a good slasher film, I can see the scary clearer and know to not let Chuckie in my mind.
Jedeed got buzzy a while back for getting hired by ICE in a bit of classic gonzo-for-a-good-cause. I’m a big fan of how right now every Jedeed piece feels.
Robin D. G. Kelley’s Freedom Dreams
“There are very few contemporary political spaces where the energies of love and imagination are understood and respected as powerful social forces.”
Black Radicals have faced these evils before. Kelley’s book catalogues and celebrates their visions. In my favorite moment from the introduction, Kelley answers a pivotal question about the good fight: “After the revolution, we STILL want Bootsy! That’s right, we want Bootsy! We need the funk!” What do we want on the other side of this fight? Kelley argues the answers and that vision will sustain us.
In the spirit of Kelley, here’s what I want on the other side:
— Astoria-level of languages everywhere! English is more fun with accents and spice.
—clean water for everyone!!!!! wtf!!!!!!!!!!!!
—community member social safety net, no cops of any kind
—a writing revival, people journaling and sharing poems and using words to heal the gashes all over
—a government ready to give the PEOPLE money. cash straight into the hands of those who need it. not to pay off the jabronis. not to fund Israel’s genocide. people are hungry and unhoused and have no water. what the fuck is a government for otherwise??
Ok I’m feeling the spiral turning down. That means it’s time to log off. love u
