It's such a bizarre time in American politics, with two competing lines radiating out from this moment.
The first I'll artfully call the "we're all fucked" line. Because let's face it, we kind of are. This is the first summer I can remember when the climate crisis was so brutally obvious. It's not coming; we're flat-out in it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell something. We've got fascists running wild in the streets, Republicans are actively rigging all future elections, and because of how bad the Democrats are, elections really don't much matter anyway. Biden is the mOsT pRoGrEsSiVe PrEsIdEnT of my lifetime, and means less than shit.
But the COVID crisis has exposed another radiation. Let's call this the "we may not actually be fucked" line. Workers are realizing how badly they've been screwed, and they're fighting back the only way capital will understand, by refusing to give away their labor anymore. That is super promising! We've seen beautiful acts of mutual aid in the darkest days of the pandemic and as we emerge from it in a world that has changed but not enough.
I've been vacillating between these two poles, though to be fair I've hewed much more closely to the former, especially of late, as we careen to yet more unimaginable and self-inflicted catastrophes. That kind of thinking has spurred an increase in writing, both this kind of free-form brain dumping as well as more expansive fiction. My last project, a screenplay, was a little too on the nose and a little too optimistic for my current outlook. I got close to the end of the first act, which involves a moment of workplace violence that I needed to be particularly careful in writing, as the idea was not necessarily to condemn it (it's not a comedy lol). Perhaps I'll pick it up again, but I think the steam I've lost may not be recoverable. I've also become too immersed in media consumption, in constantly refreshing my feeds, and I can't count the number of times I've closed Twitter and immediately re-opened it forgetting I'd just closed it. That shit's not healthy.
OK, just tweeted a few times. Now where was I?
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