How bad do we let things get? Should we wait until the planet can’t sustain life anymore? Should we wait until it’s 100 degrees F in the Artic? Until wildfires blanket entire continents or the last glacier is gone? Should we wait until fascist billionaires take even more from us? Until there are Flock cameras at every mail box? Maybe we should wait until the wells run dry or the tornadoes never stop. When is it going to be enough? I’m so tired of seeing things getting worse. Every. Single. Day. I’m ready. I’ve been ready. How about you?
How do we coordinate? How do we look after each other? What is the signal? If we don’t work together then we are just continuing our slow march to destruction to the drum of the parasitic billionaires. Please, for us, for the cats, the dogs, the birds and trees. The fish and the whales, the beatles and the centipedes. Please tell me it’s worth it to you, that you’re willing to get uncomfortable, that you’re willing to fight. There are more of us than them, and we are rapidly running out of time to make that mean something.
The problem is that we still want to live through it.
In our imaginations it’s everyone rising up against tyranny and oligarchy and demanding a better world. It’s us seeing the change happen and getting to that better world. We want the world to be better because we want better. We want a fair chance to own a nice home and live a decent life without constant worry. We want to be able to afford basic health care. To not be forced to pay thousands of dollars for ‘health insurance’ and then still be hit with hundreds of thousands in bills if we actually have a serious medical issue. To be able to go to a hospital for one night to give birth to a child without ending up $10k in debt for doing it. We want to know that justice exists and the people in power aren’t raping and murdering kids and then laughing when we demand justice. That they aren’t throwing poor people who can’t afford to defend themselves in for-profit prisons for crimes they didn’t commit so they can be used for slave labor.
We want to live, and to have life be something we enjoy and love instead of endless struggle and stress. We want to see the change happen, to experience how amazing and different things can be.
We want to live through it.
Most of us aren’t willing to die for it. To walk away from every thing you have, right now. Every belonging, every relationship. To stand up and walk away from all of it expecting to never see any of it again. Expecting to die. But willing to do that to make the world a better place for other people. For your children, or their children.
It’s common to hear people saying they don’t have or want kids because of the state of things we all hate so much. Making the world a better place for your children is one of the biggest reasons people are motivated to give up their own lives to force a rotten system to change.
We want deaths like Alex Pretti and Renee Good suffered to stop. We don’t want to be the next people at the wrong end of the gun.
Revolutions aren’t without cost. Usually very high cost. It takes a lot of people being willing to die, expecting to die, planning to die, and deciding that it’s worth it just for the chance to make things better for the future.
No revolution ever fixes everything. There are still problems and injustices and wrongs after every one of them. There is no guarantee that you standing up and walking out of your entire life, to go fight the system and die, will change anything at all. It might not work. Enough other people might not stand up for it to make even a tiny difference. Even if enough people do, it might not end up in a very big difference in the end. There’s a chance that it could cause big changes. That a lot of the worst parts of today would actually improve. But that’s only a chance, while there’s a complete guarantee that it would never lead to some idyllic utopia where everything is all batter.
You will almost definitely die. You won’t even know if it makes any difference in the end. All you’ll have is that hope that maybe it will, and maybe things will really be better for future generations.
Are you actually ready? Are you standing up, moncharleskey? It’s easy to type. It’s not easy to do. The answer to what you’re waiting for it simple. You’re waiting for you to decide that the mere chance, the hope, that in rising up and almost certainly dying for it you will manage to make a difference and make the world a better place is worth walking away from your entire life and expecting to die.
Until you hit that point inside, until you’re willing to stand up on the spot and give away your own life, you will keep sitting.
I am ready, I’ve been ready, but I’m not going to pull some lone wolf bullshit that gets me killed and leave my wife and kids to deal with the fallout. The bigger question here is are you ready? I need allies. Are you one, or are you another complacent?
No, not at any initial stage. Primarily because I have two dogs who need me to take care of them and make sure they have the best life possible. While that remains the case I’d definitely be willing to join up with a large movement that was happening and assist in ways that seemed unlikely to end in my death.
Holding on to my life for the moment in order to give my girls the best life I can is more important to me than exchanging it for the chance to help other humans. I like them more than I like most people. They are furry balls of pure love, and deserve to have a life where that’s returned to them. Humans are more hit or miss. We’re harder to deal with and it’s never as free from drama and baggage.
Before they were abandoned with me it would have been a different situation, with a different answer. I’ve certainly considered things that would end in me dead or in prison for life and had them be the main reason I knew I couldn’t do those things.
In a lot of ways being in prison isn’t nearly as bad as people imagine. If you’re not a total sack of shit and you’re willing to stand up for yourself and show that if necessary then that test only comes once for most people. After that it’s mainly boredom and lack of possessions and good food.
If you go to prison a hero, one most people inside would see that way too, it’s a much different situation. People on the outside can send in care packages of food and clothing and a TV, tablet, etc. If you have money you can rent movies on the tablet, or subscribe to a lower end monthly streaming service (think paying $20/mo to access Pluto.tv), have nice head phones and streaming music, sometimes even have access to video game systems and games.
You can only get so many packages sent in under your name per year… but if tons of people on the outside want to send you things it’s simple to have them send them in the names of other inmates who don’t have anyone sending them packages. You hook them up with some stuff and the bulk of it is yours. If you go down for the sort of thing Luigi is down for where everyone inside respects the fuck out of it and plenty of people on the outside support you and you’re never going to be hurting for good food and entertainment and any books you’d like to read, and any drugs you’d like to take.
For instance if someone took out a fat old racist child rapist and managed to survive their capture and make it to prison? Absolute celebrity. You’d probably never even get tested to defend yourself, because plenty of people on the inside watch the news. Nothing much to do. You’d be known as soon as you walked in, and there’d already be a lot of people who would beat the ass of anyone who tried to touch you or take from you.
But… puppies are love, and they deserve that back. Plus puppy kisses, long walks to sniff things, tug-of-war, and treats, and wrastlin’, and cuddles. My family can’t feed itself without me, and sending them to a shelter near here would likely be a death sentence. I’m fine with sacrificing me, but not them.