ramblingsandwhateverelse

[ramblingsandwhateverelse]

I've always known, tangentially, that my body is not my own. But I have never felt more viscerally and constantly like a slab of meat meant for only for outside consumption than this past week.

[ramblingsandwhateverelse]

Now that this election is over, the fight is not. Call your representatives and local officials. YES, this matters!! You need to help represent yourself and the issues you care about by calling. Go to town halls and school board meetings. Show up and get your voice heard, even if you're already in a blue state or county.

I've seen a lot of posts criticizing terminally-online leftists for thinking that not voting will somehow send the Deomcratic party to the left instead of to the center, and while that is true

I haven't seen many pointing out that voting actually works for progressive causes.

Joe Biden moved to the left significantly on climate because the left wing of the party wanted to work with him. The centrists in the party, like Joe Manchin, frustratingly dragged their heels on everything because they weren't that interested in getting things done. But the leftists in the party, like Bernie and AOC, actually engaged in talks and compromises and pulled Biden much, much farther left on climate than where he started. A lot of great green policy came out of the last four years!

There was even a Pod Save America interview a few months ago where one of Biden's cabinet members (very diplomatically) confirmed that the leftwing of the party was so much better to work with than centrists like Joe Manchin. (Probably because leftists actually care about the things they talk about and want to do things besides go to fancy Washington parties and stay in congress for a million years.)

So, I really cannot stress enough that actually showing up and working with people actually does pay off for your cause. You can do more for the things you care about when you are at the table. Your vote actually does create the change you are seeking, even when you are voting for someone who is not 100% aligned with you.

[ramblingsandwhateverelse]

your job now is to survive. your successes, no matter how small, are political and revolutionary acts of defiance. your joy and your love are political victories. you stand now on the side of hope and love, and you are not alone.

hope is the voice in our dreams, the fire that keeps our hearts beating. as long as you are alive, hope lives through you. your continued existence is proof that they have not yet won.

so be sad. mourn the future that could have been, and then ready yourself for the continued fight.

weeping is for today, but in the morning, we shall rejoice.

[ramblingsandwhateverelse]

the apocalypse came slowly

I sat in my bed on a Wednesday night and I cleaned my kitchen

I changed the cat's litter, I put away the clean dishes. I lit a candle

I woke up for work and curled my hair with a foggy bathroom mirror

The water in my shower wasn't as warm as it used to be

The apocalypse comes slowly

I feel the decay in my bones, the tired beating of my heart

I walk to the grocery store and listen to music through my airpods

I buy bananas and milk and eggs and bread and yogurt and cereal. I hope this lasts me the week

I sit on the couch and pet my cat. The dander and dust make me sneeze

The sunset through the window is hazier than it used to be. It gets dark at 5pm, but it is too warm for a jacket.

I go on a walk and watch the dogs in the park. The greenery matches nicely with the holiday decorations. Why haven't the leaves changed color?

I take in a deep breath. I savor the taste of soot and warmth and birria in the air.

The world dies all around me. My knees bend, and I stand from my bench. I walk home

[ramblingsandwhateverelse]

I have spent the past 24 hours ping ponging between varying extremes of emotion. I sat at my desk at work, and sometimes would spend 2 minutes holding back a blood-curling scream and crushing my water bottle in my fist. Sometimes my eyes would instantly water up and I would spend several minutes with my head tilted up, holding back tears and trying not to dry sob. I had to take frequent bathroom breaks as frequent waves of nasauea crept up on me without warning.

If you voted Democrat and are not just as scared or angry or miserable right now, it is for one of two reasons: you either do not fully understand the consequences of this election, or you do not truly care.

If you are in the second camp, there is no helping you. I hope you learn human empathy soon, but it won't be from me.

But to the first, this is not entirely an indictment of your character. American governance and politics are horribly messy, and our education system and media do a sub-par job at educating most Americans on either. What you need to immediately learn and understand is this: a presidential election is never solely about the singular president. If you do not believe that Donald Trump is truly evil or competent enough to cause the deterioration of human rights and living standards that others on the left expect, then that is fine. Honestly, you're probably right.

However, a president is never just one man- he is an entire Cabinet, hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats, multiple media machines, millions of active combatants and agents, thousands of judges. During his previous presidency, Donald Trump did not ban transgender people from the military; those he appointed to the Department of Defense did. Donald Trump did not remove healthcare protections for LGBT people; those he appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services did. Donald Trump did not overturn Roe v Wade; those he appointed to the Supreme Court did. Donald Trump did not personally deny thousands of visas and asylum applications to migrants; those he appointed to the Department of State did. When a US president is elected, it is not the simple, singular election of one man to the office of the president; it is the welcoming of an entire political party and administration into a million-person machine that wields immense federal, state, and local power.

Furthermore, do not be fooled by the supposition that Trump's administration could not possibly enact all of the campaign promises they made. It is true that, between 2016-2020, his administration was never able to erect a wall along the US-MX border. However, his administration did deport record numbers of undocumented migrants, essentially freeze legal entry of asylum seekers and refugees, separate families of undocumented migrants, and hire tens of thousands of undertrained ICE and border patrol agents. Campaign promises are never truly important because of the actual content of the promise; they are important because of the ideals they uphold and strive to implement legislation in favor of.

Project 2025 is rife with campaign promises moderates have deemed too impossible to achieve, but Project 2025 should not be treated as an instruction manual the Trump administration will stick to word for word; rather, it is more of a Bible, a religious text that will oftentimes not be interpreted literally, but whose core beliefs will be espoused and followed faithfully. The underlying ideals of gender essentialism, heteronormativity, Jingoism and American supremacy, authoritarianism, social conservatism, and fiscal conservatism are what the Trump administration will prioritize and focus on. These will be the foundations of their legislation and political efforts.

You cannot pretend that everything will be fine simply because you can or did not perceive the differences and shifts that occurred between 2016 and 2020. You cannot look at the buffoon who will soon be Commander in Chief and honestly or intelligently believe that he is the sole person everyone is worried about. The time for coddled ignorance, willful or unwillful, is over. If you are reading this post, you have the phone battery and internet bandwidth to go educate yourself, so you have no excuse whatsoever anymore.

[ramblingsandwhateverelse]

Some of the most intriguing characters in television history to me are some of the women in the Game of Thrones universe. And no, I don't mean Danaerys Targaryen or Arya Stark or Rhaenyra, though they are exceptional and complex, beloved for very good reason. I mean the women who inflict harm upon other women or vulnerable people, who find some measure of satisfaction or relief from watching the few people beneath them suffer at their hands- Catelyn Stark, Cersei Lannister, Alicent Hightower. To the untrained eye, they may seem hypocritical or self-serving at the cost of their own freedom. To a feminist, it might not readily make sense why they wouldn't direct their anger or hatred towards the men who shackle them, but rather, at those who are oppressed alongside them by the same system that causes their own misery.

Why does Catelyn direct her anger at the bastard child in her home, rather than at her husband, who committed the sin that hurt her reputation and soul by having a bastard child in the first place? Why does Cersei use what limited power she has to subjugate and hurt the young girls around her, rather than to exact revenge or justice upon the husband who cheats on and ignores her, or the father who used her as an obedient broodmare/slave? Why does Alicent help the men in her family usurp her childhood best friend's throne, rather than direct her efforts against the men who used her for their own means, without regard for her wellbeing or autonomy- the king who used her as a sex object and a childbearer, the father who used her for political gain, the sons who used her when convenient or necessary but readily disposed of her when she no longer was?

These kinds of individuals are often labeled "traitors" to the oppressive class they are a part of; they are gender traitor, race traitors, those who work with the oppressor rather than side with their fellow oppressed. But I, personally, shy away from labeling them as such because, to villanize the "traitors" of your class is to fail to see the "traitor" within. For, is it not a near-universal experience by oppressed peoples to feel, at at least one point in their lives, the desire to grasp what little power one can by siding with those who hold it in abundance?

What these women are doing is in their own self-interest, yes, but to label their actions selfish would be equally as simplistic and incorrect. Traitor women, by subjugating or inflicting suffering onto more vulnerable and less powerful people around them, are engaging in a desperate scramble up a vertical cliff face, trying desperately to reach for the hands of the men at the top by kicking at the grasping fingers of the women below them. It is a gamble that many oppressed people have to take, at some point in their life- do you side with your fellow oppressed and fight to destroy the system that keeps you all chained, or do you side with the oppressor class who can grant you some fraction of power or freedom at the cost of maintaining the system that currently subjugates you? For many, the latter is the safer option, more likely to result in at least some measure of self-empowerement and at least a slight lessening in one's own suffering. They believe it safer to "desire not to be free, but to make a window in the wall of your prison."