Something I can't help but notice is that the media tends to talk about protests with the same energy they talk about disasters. Earthquakes happen because a fault shifts, tornados happen when pressure differentials get too high, protests happen when people are angry at the government and want to vent their frustration. It's not treated like a power grab, not talked about as though it were a potential shift in the political landscape. It's just, "People are angry, therefore they must punch up."

     Let's not pretend the media believes in non-violent protest. If it did, every picture of a protest we saw would be one of people calmly talking to the media, not of random assholes punching police officers. If the media believed that non-violent protest was possible, they wouldn't just warn you about protest with all the energy of a news anchor reporting on the morning commute, they'd tell you where the nearest protest was happening, how you could join, and what you should do to be on your best behavior. They do none of that. All protests are violent and all violence is inexcusable. 

    When put like that, is it any wonder opposition movements resort to violence so often? They want (or often times need) things to change, the leaders aren't listening (since nine times out of ten injustice doesn't affect them personally) and every time they do anything to try and get people to listen to them, they're branded as scofflaws and disreputable ingrates. They're fighting a battle that they can't win and they're often trapped in a system very explicitly designed to kill them. Why should we expect anything other than violence? 

     This is the part where I'm supposed to say "I don't condone violence in the name of pursuing justice." Except that isn't true. At all. I think any action in the pursuit of justice is valid, especially when you're living under fascism. But right now I'm willing to listen to the center if they're willing to consider that maybe the descent into violent conflict is entirely their fault. Maybe the best way to stop violent protest is to encourage the explicitly non-violent kind and publicize it loudly when it happens. Or maybe, just maybe, you don't want that to happen because secretly you want a world where the national guard can kill innocent people in your cities without question just because the president decided that he didn't like you that day. 

Back From Vacation

     I’m back from my break, though I don’t know how much of a break you could call it since I spent most of it moving. Right now, my room is still full of boxes I’ve yet to unpack or boxes full of things that I need to put somewhere. For now, I’m catching up. 

     Since we’re trapped in a fascist hellhole, I have a lot of things that I could write about here, but I’ll focus on the thing I really want to talk about; RFK Jr.’s terrible views on Autistic people. Let me state that I think everything that needs to be said has been said by this point; Autistic people can and have done all the things he said they can’t and even if they couldn’t that doesn’t mean they aren’t humans who don’t live deep internal lives. That’s all that needed to be said about those statements. But it’s not the thing that bothers me the most about them. The thing that bothered me the most about them is that when I first heard them, I didn’t even register just how awful they were because I’ve heard rhetoric like that constantly for my entire life. Everyone has. It’s only noteworthy because the “President” is so awful that everyone is in hyperawareness about all of the things that him and his cabinet are doing, like deporting kids with cancer to die in the gulag. I think, though, that we’re so focused on how horrible these people are that we’re ignoring the fact that their rhetoric proceeded them by decades, sometimes even centuries. If we don’t recognize that, the next Trump will only ever be an election cycle away. 

Reset

 Now is the time
For the world to remember
What it has longed 
To forget.

Now is the moment
When we must accept
That we are ephemeral.

Now is the moment
When we must let go
Of the past,
And embrace the world to come.

I want to believe
That there's a new world
Beyond the light
Engulfing my soul.

I want to believe
That the future is as bright
As the visions I see in my mind.

I want to believe 
That when I'm finally ready,
I can shape the future 
Into something worthy
Of existing.

For now,
Though,
However much it hurts.
I must say goodbye. 

Because now is the moment
My heart must accept
That tomorrow will not arrive. 

     I'm taking the month of April off. I need some time to think about what, exactly, I want to do with the blog going forward. Not making any big promises, just hoping I'll feel better about the world once May roles around. 

   I know I'm not the first to say this, but the current administration would be much more tolerable if they weren't so stupid. At least I would know what their evil actions were in service of, rather than having to guess. I don't think even they know why they do what they do half the time. 

    I wonder how much money will be spent by people simply trying to avoid going mad from living in a post-2024 world. I know that I'm running out of money, and I'm not anywhere near as desperate as most people are. Someone needs to tell Trump that if he doesn't stop signing every executive order that comes across his desk, he'll wreck the precious economy that he wants so badly. 

     I'm taking a break from the blog soon. Starting the beginning of April, in fact. I'm running out of steam, and I'm hoping that a break will leave me refreshed and invigorated. 

    It's amazing how much better you feel after a long walk in the sun. I woke up feeling terrible, a really bad headache and all tired. But now I feel energized and, for lack of a better term, alive. Pretty sure it won't work for cancer, but it works wonders for one's mental health. 

     It sucks knowing the world as you know it is coming to an end and knowing you can do absolutely nothing to stop it. Even if I knew it was for the best, I'd be pushing the brakes as hard as I could, and yet some people seem to think that we'd be better off going full speed into a brick wall. 

The End of My World

 It's been months since the moment
That I left home for good,
Since I was taken by people
Who ignored what I said.
I told them when asked,
"One day you'll regret this."
But they acted as though I was out of line.

It's been months since my brain
Knew the world as I knew it
Would end without fanfare or joy.
I'd hoped we could stay
For time and all eternity,
But plainly I knew nothing at all. 

It's been better and worse
Since I expected it to be,
Things have happened to shape me
In ways I couldn't predict. 
I still long for all
That I had to leave behind,
But there's no going back now.

Does the world regret sending me here?
I don't know, and at this point I don't care. 
I'm happy here now,
Or happy enough, at least.
I will make this place
Into a world I can live in.
If there's no way to move on
But to let go of all I loved,
I guess I can learn
To accept this as my home.