We’re not interested in publishing a calendar for the apocalypse. Rather, what you hold in your hands is for those determined to survive and thrive as the system collapses around us. Those in power maintain their control only when the vast majority of people are confused, distracted, and divided against each other. More than ever, we’re at risk of being constantly spun by the latest outrage, which prevents us from seeing the big picture and formulating our own agenda and plans. The system wants to trap us in it’s internal logic — focusing on our fear, our sadness and our alienation. These feelings reflect the system’s simplistic structures: hierarchy, consumerism, individual economic survival.
But the world is infinitely complex. Nature and human beings depend on vast symbiotic webs of connection and cooperation. Our best defense against the system is to hold the complexity of our feelings and thoughts simultaneously and resist the impulse to dive down a particular rabbit hole or simply look away. We need to struggle to avoid dehumanizing other people either as heroes or villains.
No matter what, we’re still living it — gardening, squatting, raising kids and doing shit with our friends. Our response to the system’s cubicles and strip mines is likewise complex. It’s not just a riot or a strike, but also absurdity, playfulness, sexiness and laughing in its grim smug face. We embrace tenderness and intimacy to displace superficiality. Making wild, communal art and music recharges our joy so we can contribute back to the struggle, so we don’t get burned out or completely buried in sadness.
There is still abundant beauty and joy in the world. Let’s enjoy it as best we can, even while we acknowledge and experience the suffering, injustice and ecological collapse that is also around us. Holding both of these in our hearts deepens us and humbles us.
Our predicament is not new. The historical events in the organizer are useful for perspective, because people before us have faced long odds too, yet they fought and even won sometimes! Let’s take care of each other, feel our rage, and build community together. Community, friendship and family, mutual aid, solidarity….these are the antidote and only we can create them.
This is the 24th time we’ve amused ourselves by publishing the Slingshot organizer. Its sale raises funds to publish the quarterly, radical, independent Slingshot Newspaper. We distribute the newspaper for free everywhere in the US, often at the places listed in the Radical Contact List. Let us know if you can be a local newspaper distributor in your area. Consider sending us content for the paper. Thanks to the volunteers who created this year’s organizer: Amy, Bernard, Carah, Carmen, Christy, Cleo, Dov, Dyno, Eggplant, Elke, Fern, Fil, Francesca, Gabi, GoGo, Isabel, Jenna, Jesse, Joey, Jonathon, Julia, Karen, Katie, Kermit, Korvin, Laura, Lew, Lindsey, Michi, Nadja, Patrick, Rachel, Rip, Rooney, Sabine, Sara, Shahani, Talia, Taylor, Terilyn & those we forgot.
Slingshot Collective
A Project of Long Haul
Physical office: 3124 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, CA 94705
Mail: PO box 3051, Berkeley, CA 94703
510-540-0751 • http://slingshot.tao.ca or slingshotcollective.org
slingshot@tao.ca or slingshotcollective@protonmail.com • @slingshotnews
Printed in Berkeley, CA on recycled paper
Anti-copyright.