Content Warning: Despairing Rhetoric re: Politics, COVID, Environmentalism.
Fighting antivax beliefs, and indeed reactionary thought as a whole, feels like dealing with an insurgency. There is just no good solution at this point. (Government crackdown on facebook’s fascist bullshit algorithms in 2015 might have helped, but there’s no political will to make that happen even now.) You’ll never win the hearts and minds of people deluded into feeling like brave defenders of an invaded homeland, any effort to force compliance will just lead to more terrorist reprisal. We’ve already had a taste of that, in destruction of medicine, in obstruction of vax sites, and in many cases of physical assault all across the country.
Given all that, how does one adjust to this new world of biological gods and ideological monsters? Knowing what endemic COVID looks like will be a good start for that discussion. Funny to think if I live to my seventies or nineties I could be killed slowly and painfully, asphyxiated and brain damaged by a disease that could have been strangled in its infancy two years ago. By funny, I mean all rethuglican fucks please eat shit and die ASAP, it’s the least you can do for us.
No, no, Satan. Calm down. These are human beings, this is humanity. The same humanity that supports Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin and Jair Bolsonaro, that has LGBT Jamaicans assaulted every day, living in vacant lots and scrounging garbage to eat, that packs megachurch pews to fund murderous hate around the globe, that scapegoats anybody and everybody to pursue short-term political and financial gain while ensuring the extinction of your species. You have no choice but to live with these people, or to die. They are here to stay, for as long as humanity continues to exist.
I don’t know. We can just keep having these conversations, every day until we die. Very tiring.
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I feel this so much. I wanted to make a career in making the world a better place, but when the whole world, and especially my country, seems to be slipping inevitably backward, and every day feels like a new defeat, it’s so hard to keep going. I don’t know how to be mentally healthy in this world.
I understand the exhaustion. I feel it too. I hope you find the strength to keep going. The last thing the world needs right now is fewer people like you.
I think I’m too able to paint a dark picture, makes me sound more depressed than I am. I will definitely get by, don’t worry about me. In a more considerate state of mind, I try to not to lay things out like this too often, because some readers are more susceptible than others at being upset by it. Worth considering again… Maybe I’ll content warning it.
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On an unrelated note, don’t know why that Shaquille O’Neal meme isn’t more popular.
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As the philosopher says, “live, and let die.”
paul mccartney in the forum, hem of his toga in hand
Dunno… I think things look a lot worse depending on what your goal is.
If the goal is a nice world with more equality, you’re going to be depressed. We don’t seem likely to make a lot of progress on that in the next decade or so.
If the goal is to spook the fascists into crawling back under a rock, you’ve got a target rich environment.
@ ^ lanir : This.
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As best one can.
There’s only oe person you can control – if that. Yourself. Do the best yo ucan. Can’t more than that. Can’t control others.
Truth.
Maybe. Not yet certain. Things do change. Minds and people do change. Times do change. For better as well as worse.
They are scared, troubled, as well as hateful.
Not giving up. Not giving in to despair or hate. Whilst there’s life there’s ..cliches.. but also life and possibilities. Hope.
Good people are working on it. Your one of them,.
Ain’t over yet.
Nor ever will be.
Thx for encouragements and comments, ye all.
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