The Horrors Persist, But So Do [We]
"We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand."
Hey everyone,
How are y’all doing? I hope you’re hanging in there. It may be from last December, but I think this headline from The Hard Times really captures the zeitgeist: “American Psychological Association Announces ‘Feeling Like Dying But Not Really Suicidal’ New Baseline For Normal Mental Health.”
To quote an old proverb, “The horrors persist, but so do [we].”
I don’t have a specific idea I want to talk about today (though I do have one percolating for an essay to be published elsewhere). Rather, I want to signal boost some, in my opinion, excellent writing that has kept me going the past couple weeks. Without further ado…
How did Harris lose, and what do we do now?
- Read “Beyond the Blame: Fighting for Each Other in the Face of Fascism” by Kelly Hayes
It’s important to remember that our political aspirations have not been vanquished. We are not on the cusp of positive transformation, but that does not mean that all hope is lost or that we cannot breathe new worlds into being. During my four decades on this earth, I have repeatedly witnessed victories and political transitions that I did not believe were possible. I have also experienced losses that reshaped the political terrain, paving the way for future victories. We should never give up on transformation and material change. We are all worth fighting for, no matter how bleak the situation may be and no matter the odds. Determined, organized people have toppled dictators, ended oppressive institutions, including chattel slavery, and freed each other from the clutches of carceral systems. In dark times, people have always found ways to make their own light. That work is now upon us.
Alright, first things first because this is top of mind for everyone right now: how the fuck did Trump get re-elected? I have my own thoughts on this that I will perhaps expound upon later if it seems prudent, but for now I will only say that I was disappointed but sadly not surprised.
That aside, my biggest takeaways from the election are:
- The Democratic Party is irredeemable and should be abandoned
- A Bernie-style candidate would have won
- We are the only ones coming to save us
This article deals more with the latter point, and I think it’s wonderful. In the wave of infighting and finger-pointing that predictably followed Trump’s victory (“This happened because…idealist leftists voted for Jill Stein / Black men flipped to Trump / Latinos flipped to Trump / young people didn’t vote” etc.), this article read like a breath of fresh air. Highly recommend.
There is power in mutual aid
- Read “What We Need After Hurricane Helene Are Chainsaws” by Nikki Marín Baena
One house we visited had a Confederate flag outside. But as long as we had permission to work, we worked, chainsawing trees, clearing branches, making neat piles. For Celes and his crew, the question of whether to drive three hours with someone they barely knew to clear trees didn’t seem like a complicated one. People needed help — let’s go help them. One guy said, “I’ve never helped people in this way before. This feels good. How can I do more of it?” This is one of the very best moments a community organizer can have: watching someone have the realization that doing something for someone else in a time of need can also be in their own interest. Even in a political moment that would have us believe that we should hide, that we are powerless and have so little to contribute, we are capable of so much.
God, I haven’t even gotten to Hurricanes Helene or Milton on this blog yet. What is there to say? So many people and animals died, and so many places — many of them special to me personally — were destroyed.
My wife and I were shellshocked for the week or so after seeing the havoc Helene wrought on Western North Carolina. She currently works for a company based in Asheville, so she was constantly getting Slack messages from colleagues in Asheville checking in on each other, seeing if anyone had electricity or running water, seeing if, after everything that happened, they could still expect a paycheck. It was devastating.
Of course, Asheville wasn’t the only town that suffered the brunt of Helene, and it will take a long time before any of the affected communities return to some semblance of normal. I am currently working on getting a disaster response certification through FEMA so I will hopefully be a bit more prepared when something like this inevitably happens again.
But one thing that lifted my spirits after Helene was seeing how quickly and instinctually people rallied to each other’s sides. Sure, there was rampant misinformation about FEMA online, but when shit hit the fan, normal people rose to the occasion and got to work helping each other.
To quote St. Ursula K. Le Guin from her masterpiece, The Dispossessed:
It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.
(Emphasis mine.)
Community in wildness
- Read “When wolves howl us home” by wet forest moon folklorist
With the howls of wolves, at first you think the thrill you feel is a rare contact with “the wild.” But what if what you hear with your heart is the affirmation that in wildness lies connection and community. What if what you hear is aunties and babies and mama affirming the same social bonds you also yearn for.
Thank goodness for Mastodon. Don’t worry, I’m not about to mansplain the Fediverse to you — I’ve just met some really cool people there, and I’m glad a platform like it exists amid the dumpster fire of corporate- and VC-owned social media. One of these cool people goes by the username wet forest moon folklorist (@seachanger@alaskan.social).
This person has a lovely little write.as blog called malena’s notes and hosts a radio show on KFSK, a community radio station in Alaska. They’re a talented writer, plus they have some really insightful things to say in addition to posting some gorgeous pictures of Alaska. I’ve been saying this for a while, but I feel like it’s only a matter of time before I pull a Chris McCandless and hitchhike to Alaska (okay, maybe I’ll just find a cheap flight on Alaska Airlines).
This is a short, refreshing post that reads like a journal entry and somehow evokes a certain sense of both comfort and longing. Maybe I’m just overly sentimental about indie web stuff, but I really enjoyed it.
A word from KV, peace be upon him
- Read Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
So this book is a sidewalk strewn with junk, trash which I throw over my shoulders as I travel in time back to November eleventh, nineteen hundred and twenty-two.
I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Nothing much else to say about this other than thank goodness for Kurt Vonnegut. To take some poetic license with one of his remarks on the Sermon on the Mount[1]:
If Kurt Vonnegut hadn’t been born, with his message of love and joy in the face of banality, I wouldn’t want to be a human being.
I’d just as soon be a rattlesnake.
…
Have a good weekend and, for those of you in the US, a happy Thanksgiving.