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As soon as you turn out the light, a thief takes your day and your night
Just because one of the speakers at last night's protest thought we were well past any use in calling on elected officials does not mean that I did not just leave messages with mine in the matter of Rumeysa Ozturk, my senators to encourage them to speak out further and my representative to thank her for doing so. I do not feel that I have so many levers available to me that I can afford not to pull all of them just in case.
In all of the articles I am reading about deported, disappeared, or threatened students, I understand the tactical importance of their good characters and I don't care and I wish it were not necessary to make anyone care. I don't want their civil liberties to depend on a referendum of their pro-Palestinian activism and the degree to which it may or may not have been antisemitic as defined by a government which platforms Jew-haters like there's any kind of shortage. I was in Boston for the Marathon bombing. I was so afraid that the Crusader roleplay of the war on terror which even then had been part of the American doomscape for more than a decade had shot due process out of a cannon in the case of a bona fide domestic terrorist. Nothing about this steamrolling of constitutional rights makes me feel safer and it is not meant to, but it does make me want to scream that the fundamental rights and privileges of the law are apparently no longer even a nominal cornerstone of the American mainstream. It should not get tangled with whether their free speech is your free speech. It should not matter even if they are a nice person. I have gathered to my perplexity that the fear of the Devil turning round on them motivates far fewer people than I had once imagined, but come the everlasting exceptionalism on. Disappearing people off their doorsteps, dumping them in black sites for profit should be a no-brainer no-no.
I am obviously having a bit of a fritz-out over whether any of the actions I am taking even rise to the level of grit in the gears or whether they are merely a garnish of historical interest on an unstoppable slide and I am well aware that on some level it doesn't matter, because there is never any excuse for standing there looking on with folded hands and in any case it doesn't feel to me like the better course, but I would feel a whole lot better if I could see even a little bit of resistance in the mechanical sense in action.
In all of the articles I am reading about deported, disappeared, or threatened students, I understand the tactical importance of their good characters and I don't care and I wish it were not necessary to make anyone care. I don't want their civil liberties to depend on a referendum of their pro-Palestinian activism and the degree to which it may or may not have been antisemitic as defined by a government which platforms Jew-haters like there's any kind of shortage. I was in Boston for the Marathon bombing. I was so afraid that the Crusader roleplay of the war on terror which even then had been part of the American doomscape for more than a decade had shot due process out of a cannon in the case of a bona fide domestic terrorist. Nothing about this steamrolling of constitutional rights makes me feel safer and it is not meant to, but it does make me want to scream that the fundamental rights and privileges of the law are apparently no longer even a nominal cornerstone of the American mainstream. It should not get tangled with whether their free speech is your free speech. It should not matter even if they are a nice person. I have gathered to my perplexity that the fear of the Devil turning round on them motivates far fewer people than I had once imagined, but come the everlasting exceptionalism on. Disappearing people off their doorsteps, dumping them in black sites for profit should be a no-brainer no-no.
I am obviously having a bit of a fritz-out over whether any of the actions I am taking even rise to the level of grit in the gears or whether they are merely a garnish of historical interest on an unstoppable slide and I am well aware that on some level it doesn't matter, because there is never any excuse for standing there looking on with folded hands and in any case it doesn't feel to me like the better course, but I would feel a whole lot better if I could see even a little bit of resistance in the mechanical sense in action.
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I mean, attending a protest physically took me out for the rest of the night and most of the following day. But I would still much rather have done it than not.
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Solidarity and painkillers.
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It should be a song.
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It scans if you just say "and Advil," but I can't take Advil.
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So it does!
When the pain of fallen arches / in the marcher's shoes shall burn...
Or maybe something could be done with "Bread and Roses."
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Co-signed! <3 (By the way, your protest made the news here, so that's one example of its impact being real! *more hugs and support*)
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Also solidarity and painkillers!
(By the way, your protest made the news here, so that's one example of its impact being real! *more hugs and support*)
Thank you so much for telling me! I wouldn't have known otherwise. I had seen before bed that it was national news: I am glad it's rippling further out. People should know.
*hugs*
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Absolutely! *hugs*
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It matters. And even if this one didn't immediately do the thing we desperately want it to do, wouldn't the moral injury be worse if no one acted to try to stop it, then try to mitigate it, reverse it, right it as soon as possible?
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Of course. Just what you needed. Many sympathies.
doing a thing that is a doing of something to help, that's the ward against swallowing the myth of helplessness the current republican administration is trying to shove down my throat right now.
I am glad it is holding for you. It seems particularly difficult to get any kind of reality check on the world right now.
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This is also news I am glad to hear. Thank you for sharing it. This administration seems to like the boast that it can get away with its atrocities with everyone watching, but if so, I want to make sure everyone really is watching and will remember.
It matters. And even if this one didn't immediately do the thing we desperately want it to do, wouldn't the moral injury be worse if no one acted to try to stop it, then try to mitigate it, reverse it, right it as soon as possible?
I'm not worried about not doing the thing! I'm not even worried about not doing the thing because it isn't a magic bullet! I'm just feeling exhausted and ineffectual, although somewhat better after conversation in these comments.
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Check! Understood. It does in fact cost me little to leave a succession of similar messages by phone or even compose their equivalents of short letters.