Category: Articles

“The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power; cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. Any attempt to “soften” the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity […] In order to have the continued opportunity to express their “generosity,” the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this “generosity” which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. That is why the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source”
-Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed  
Talking Feminism- some new ideas
by Dorian Commode  
This article is an exploration of the way those of us already invested in the destruction of patriarchy and gender create space to talk with and educate each other. It is not patriarchy 101, nor a proposal of specific solutions. In the tradition of popular education, I believe that the oppressed already contain enough information to assess and destroy our oppression, but that we must structure spaces in a way that such information is brought out in an actionable way.  
Patriarchy remains a structural element of global society. It is neither about to be destroyed by the class climbing of a few highly privileged women, nor the injustice system “locking up rapists,” nor by genderfucking. Every transperson and woman I know (and a significant amount of men) has experienced some combination of sexual assault or domestic violence, almost entirely at the hands of men. Following the logic of The Shock Doctrine, this near universal, continuous experience and helpless witnessing of torture primes us to think of ourselves as individuals in permanent conflict with “The World”, incapable of solidarity and unable to resist the ongoing waves of violence we experience on larger economic scales as well as the regular abuses and entitlements of men*. As I wrote this article, I was “mildly” sexually assaulted by someone in my community. Of course, he honestly wants to do what he can to be a good feminist, and I honestly believe him. The condition of privilege is that of ignorance — the easiest thing is to participate in oppression. It is not an outlier.
Of course this is urgent. It’s been urgent for 5000 years. Of course men* of conscience want to defect. Of course they don’t know how. “What should I read?” I don’t know. “Educate me.” Are you ready? Am I? Are we? To be educated as an oppressor is to be reduced from a position of power as the oppressed free themselves. Since when should the oppressed not have to educate the oppressor”? Who else will?  
While the quote above should be considered by all “allies,” the “oppressor” Freire referred to was not the privileged individual (man, white person, straight person, etc), but the economic ruling class. His “oppressed” are the economic/racial underclass. Men compose the majority of this ruling class, and are fused in a cross-class alliance with other men, most clearly within the Men’s Rights Movement which blames women, transpeople and queers for their (for poor/working class men, very real) disempowerment. If the privileged man* is not an oppressor, per se, what is strategy is left for common struggle? How will the privileged defect from their alliance with the oppressors? When must we struggle against them, and when can we struggle with them?  
Articles like this one tend to provoke resentment, defensiveness, or unthinking submission from privileged people. Are these responses the failing of the writer? Or the fault of the “fucked up” reader? This lack of connection between voice of oppressed and ear of privileged is simply that — one that hasn’t been made yet. To focus on the “fucked-upness” of individuals is to silently acknowledge that the best we can do is get a few people to act slightly better. We need them to, yes, and a lot more.  
The notions of declaring oneself a “male feminist ally” and forming a “feminist men’s group” (much like the whites-only anti-racist group) persist as “the” way to organize as aspiring feminist men. This is rather bizarre, considering that some prominent male feminists of the 70s ended up founding the Men’s Rights movement.** A group of privileged people, especially a group such as men, who are generally socialized to be competitive and uncommunicative, getting together in a “safe space” to talk about their privilege seems to me like an incubator for anti-feminist activity. Let me explain:  
What I’ve seen of organized feminist men’s groups, and in subculture that considers itself feminist is this: those men who are best at talking the feminist talk are elevated as “good men” who can be trusted, regardless of their actions. I’ve known male women’s and gender studies majors who refuse to wash their dishes, feminist queer men who mansplain abortion rights, macho bros who feel really righteous when they “kick rapists’ asses,” men who are so excited to use “bitch” again now that it’s ok if you attach “basic” or “white,” and on and on. At worst, I was around a men’s group organized by two (unacknowledged) male rapists. These guys were, of course, “good dudes.”  
This is what happens when talk is more important than walk, when someone can be considered an “Ally” as their static identity. Ally is a verb, something which must be done, not something to be. As long as we allow ourselves to fall into thinking that there are Good People and Bad People, rather than reacting to what people Actually Do, we will continue to be fooled by those who say all the right things and do all the wrong ones.  
The evolution of a caucus of privileged people into a reactionary group is predictable because it imitates the structure of mainstream society — a space in which privileged people are listened to, but worse because the rest of us aren’t even there to observe or react. If men* need a space to process the (very real) hurt they carry from patriarchy, it’s probably best that they do that within organically developed, trusting friendships with people of many genders. Within a group of men* discussing feminism, it’s unlikely that members have a high enough degree of vulnerability and trust with each other to avoid a competition to be “most feminist.” It seems like a set-up for men to feel good about themselves either by ascending to the top of the hierarchy of “good dudes” or to engage in indulgent self-punishment for being “bad” (hire a dominatrix, it’s simpler). to make
Women and transpeople make groups for ourselves because we don’t have spaces in mainstream society where we hear each other and see each other as valuable. These spaces have far more potential to transgress normal social relations. I say “potential” because women-only spaces are an essential part of maintaining patriarchy. The kitchen, the laundry, the servant’s quarters, the boarding school, the brothel,*** the finishing school, the female-dominated care industries, and the private discussions in which we discuss those most unpleasant things: abortions, yeast infections, rape, who to watch out for. Those things that men just shouldn’t have to think about. Women also enforce gender norms on each other in these spaces: discussing men, instructing each other how to act and look in order to please them, putting each other down for our gender transgressions.  
We need to change the way we relate within groups of oppressed people, too, and not assume that we are radical or feminist simply by getting together. Someone who experiences a certain type of oppression knows better than someone who doesn’t what that experience is like. What one does with that information varies.  
I think it would be more useful, as far as discussions go, to have mixed gender groups in which men* are actively obliged to both speak honestly and respect other’s ideas. Women and trans people in such groups must also transgress expectations to not upset or offend men, to actively name when men are being overbearing or disrespectful, and to name and discuss openly aired patriarchal ideas. We’d have to challenge ourselves to be radically unsafe in a group of people with whom we could feel (but never actually be) safe around. Conflict in such a space could easily be dismissed as “too hard to deal with” (for men who have the option of avoiding discussions of patriarchy), or as a product of the irreparable ignorance of the privileged. Or it could be avoided. Or it could be productive. 
We are not yet equipped for insurrection against patriarchy. Discussion groups, caucuses, and collective action make possible this insurrection by fusing the information we already have into something actionable, which then can be reanalyzed and turn into something even more effective. The discussion group is not an endpoint. What I’m proposing is the most challenging of actions- telling the truth to each other and ourselves, so that we might do something useful together. Maybe we will decide to try doing clinic defense again, become union organizers, get guns, learn to do abortions, infiltrate legal advocacy, opt for political homo- or asexuality. Who knows? We need to talk about it first.

*for brevity’s sake, I will use “men*” to refer to people who experience male privilege. AFAB (assigned female at birth) and AMAB are more descriptive terms than “men” and “women,” but I’m making the always debatable choice to use less accurate, more accessible language.

**There is some documentation of this available, some evidence is anecdotal. I have also witnessed the effects of an echo chamber of men talking about their experiences of oppression within patriarchy lead towards regressive, sexist conclusions.  
www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/warren-farrell-mens-rights-movement-feminism-misogyny-trolls/

***Let’s not kid ourselves- patriarchy fully necessitates sex work/ers, it simply terrorizes them to keep them in line and to keep other women in their place- that is, performing obligatory sexual labor for free. The terror wrought upon transfeminine sex workers is an overlapping and equally charged topic worthy of its own article.

Note: This part doesn’t seem to fit into the rest of the article, could be a sidebar? possible titles: ally as a verb, feminism in action, how to “do” feminism

Feminism has given us the adage “the personal is political.” Meaning, in part, what you actually do is the truest indicator of what one will continue to do. Your actions are your politics. You can aspire to something different, sure, but what you do is what you believe is ok or necessary to do right now.  
— Listen to people, especially those who don’t get listened to as much as you do. When you think their experiences or complaints sound too bad to be true, ask yourself where that denial comes from. Get in their shoes. Part of female socialization is constantly putting oneself in other’s shoes, try doing the same so we can try staying in ours. When someone has a patriarchy-related problem ask if there’s something you can do, don’t be disappointed if there isn’t, do not try to be a primary actor in the “resolution” nor reneg on responsibility to act.
— Be nice to people. Assume that most people, especially those that experience oppression(s), have gone through some fucked up shit.  
— Seek validation outside of activism, that’s what good friends are for. Successes are few, and trying to “look busy” or be seen as a “good ally” rarely assists in strategic collective action.  
— Clean up after yourself. Seriously. It is a continual problem that men don’t clean up their shit, I assume this comes from a confidence that “someone” will come deal with the mess, or that the mess is “not a big deal.” The sense that someone will take care of you or that getting other people sick won’t impact you is an entitlement that most people don’t have. Oppression is always economic. One’s health and stuff is precious and costs money that is often hard earned. Yes, there are messy femmes, I live with them. It’s annoying but the political and social weight is just not the same.  
— Don’t participate in trends like calling women “basic bitches” or whatever. It’s still sexist. 
— Sexual tension is often used as a form of social control. Men have the option of using flirtation to insure themselves against being challenged, whether or not they are actually sexually interested in their subject, as femmes and women are less likely to compromise getting laid by being argumentative. It’s unacceptable to rely on being charming, sweet, or flirtatious as a way to avoid responsibility for ones actions.  
— Learn and practice feminist theory: Reading ideas and stories of women and transpeople is a great way for men to educate themselves without overburdening those people. Remember that this is not “self-education,” the writer did the work and is educating you, and someone had to make the reading list. That said, I’ve known plenty of men who’ve read all the right stuff and still act like sexist assholes. Why? Because they equate thinking with doing something. To be a true ally you cannot just do the homework — you must take what you’ve learned and actively apply it to your life, your behavior, your sex life. The future is unwritten, comrades.

By Sam

The University of California Berkeley is very concerned about the housing problem the city faces, but not the one that immediately comes to mind. Apparently the school is about six thousand beds short and student homelessness has been on the rise (though so are student fees and chancellor saleries, but apparently that’s neither here nor there to them). The school has nine sites in mind as future student housing centers. Perhaps inspired by how many folks it currently houses, one of those sites is People’s Park, an area that the school technically owns, but has no control over. Originally a proposed spot for student housing in the fifties, the university lost funding and intrest and ceased construction. In 1969 there was a community effort to turn the area into a park, but the university abruptly demanded the space back. Clashes between people and police lead to rioting, police shootings that left one man dead, and a National Guard occupation of Berkeley, but in the end the people kept their park.

So my original idea for this article was to simply report on the university’s plan, but a thought occurred one day while lazing around on Telegraph, watching the students roll by: do any of these people care? I mean, it’s for them — people that will only be in Berkeley at most four years — that Cal is attempting to get rid of a spot loved by so many. How do they feel about that? As far as I can remember, I don’t ever recall seeing a student pass through the park. Why did they avoid it so much? With all of that in mind, I got a tape recorder decided to hit the streets for answers.

My initial approach — chasing kids down Telegraph with a microphone — yielded no results. It was pretty depressing how those kids eyed, or refused to eye, me. They seemed disturbed by the fact that someone they’d never met was smiling and saying “Hi” to them. I wondered if they assumed I was a panhandler, and then wondered if that, coupled with their reaction, had answered my question better than any interview could.

Finally a freshman agreed to talk to me. His thoughts on the park? “Not so great.” In regards to it’s possible destruction, he said that he’d indeed heard about it but had yet to form an opinion. “It would be nice for the students to have more housing options,” he added. Next was another freshman who actually lives right next to the park! He described it as a home for the homeless and “a place where a culture of hippiness is fostered.” Fair. Unfortunately, he was actually in favor of the proposed project, adding “it’s not like they won’t rehabilitate the people that have been displaced”. Quite baffled, I asked him if he really thought that the university was going to help out the homeless if they got rid of the park. “Uh, I’m not so familiar with the system yet; it’s only been one month here.” One month where, on this planet?!? Sheesh.

Next up was a Cal graduate named Edward, who said that he’d heard that “sometimes girls are afraid to go past it alone at night, but it hasn’t caused me problems so I’m cool with it.” He thinks that, while some renovations wouldn’t be too bad, overall he “[doesn’t] think they should build a complete housing unit [there]”, though he cynically added that “the guys with suits do whatever they want.” Good lord, conceding to authority? What are they teaching those kids there?!? Fortunately his friend Ivan, also a former Cal student, was a little more optimistic. “[The park] has a special vibe that you can’t find in other places,” says Ivan. “When my friends come over to Berkeley that go ‘Oh! That’s People’s Park!’ I think if there were just ordinary buildings there it would take out the uniqueness of the place. Even though it’s kind of sketchy and dangerous, I still find the allure of the place pretty meaningful.”

Dominique, a junior at UC Berkeley, said that “a lot of people say it’s a hole in the wall and they don’t wanna go there,” though personally he finds the patrons of the park “harmless for the most part”. When I asked him about the proposed project, he said “I know there’s a shortage of housing, and I know that the park isn’t liked very much, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.” As for it’s historical significance, Dominique gave me one of the best understatements I’ve heard in a long while with “I know some people say it has some significance along with the Free Speech Movement and things like that.” These fucking kids, man. “I feel like eventually it’ll be taken down because of the need for housing.” Housing for the students or the homeless? After all, both are in need. Dominique shrugged and said “In this particular area [they] would prioritize students.” 

At this point, the sun started to go down and I knew I’d have to wrap up soon. I was still a bit dismayed. I’d succeeded in getting people to talk to me, but their answers gave me little to no hope. The fact was almost none of them cared about the park’s past, present or future. 

The last person I talked to was actually someone who turned me down before doubling back and saying “No wait that sounds cool.” Was he familiar with Slingshot? No. Did he attend UC? No, but he had grown up in Berkeley. Was he familiar with People’s Park? At this his eyes lit up, and I started to come out of my depressed haze. “[The park’s] history is so rich and just so fucking cool,” he excitedly exclaimed. Without my even bringing it up he added “It breaks my heart that they might turn it into student housing. That mural tells the whole story.” Awesome! So, maybe the students don’t care too much (or at all), but I think it’s safe to say that the defenders of the park have strength in numbers. Right? Right.

BEING the change:

Live well and Spark a Climate Revolution by Peter Kalmus

Reviewed by elke

New Society Publishers $21.99 or read at the Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley for free

This book is inspiring as it holds the mirror just in front of my face: We are the (climate) change! It talks about our common predicament and our millions of little ways of denial and escaping. It’s written by a fellow traveler in the middle of this industrial society, though he has to deal with the undeniable data and facts every day as a climate scientist.

Using very understandable language, he shares with us a critical view of how this data is processed in the culture/society.

The second part is the story of his gradual opting out to where he is now living using 1/10th of the fossil fuel of an average (ever rich) American (1/5th of the average German). Following his adventures on this path, the book explores and challenges his/our general mindset, his/our underlying beliefs and ideals, looking at it all that with one scientist’s eye and human eye. He attempts to find sense in the craziness, calling out the brokenness in the system and in us. It’s also a hands on instruction manual for living in a post-fossil fuel society, without ignoring the frequent and sometimes overwhelming questions and contradictions. I appreciate the 60 pages of source material for my own further research!

Why are we not fucking doing it? It’s right there! Peter Kalmus is not leaving us out of it, so Let’s fucking do it!! Let’s opt out of fossil fuels and everything connected: militarism, industrial society, separatism, and our death inducing imperial behavior towards the Earth.

Look forward to an interview with the author in our next issue.

by Tom Doherty Associates

www.tor.com

Review by Steve Brady

In The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, Danielle hitchhikes to Freedom, Iowa, a ghost town settled by anarchy-punks. She’s searching for clues about her best friend’s mysterious suicide, and what Freedom might have to do with it. This community has all the pieces of a good idea but something is wrong—in the air, in the animals. Turns out their murderous demon has gone off-leash and rogue. And there’s a bigger and more dangerous problem: the usual squatter dysfunction and folly.

While Margaret Killjoy’s first novel, A Country of Ghosts, came out on her own label, this one is published by Tor, a leading sci-fi and fantasy publisher. Through speculative fiction, Margaret has found a way to bring her anarchist culture and ideas to a broad audience. Fortunately, she has a real talent for telling the punk-traveler experience.

Well, because so much written about the life is terrible. There’s so many bad zines, Kerouac-ism, and Evasion. All of this horror pales before what outsiders and poseurs write about us. Instead, Margaret Killjoy gets it right. She shows us as flawed and unpredictable, but beautiful and resourceful. This story is neither Lord of the Flies nor News From Nowhere. It’s about people who aren’t cut out for normal life living the only way they can. How amidst the ugliness and danger, that way of life is still worthwhile. 

All the details are authentic; even when I disagree with her traveling and self-defense advice, it’s still real and doesn’t make me gag. One thing I find tiresome about urban fantasy is the moment the normal characters find out magic, vampires, ghosts, etc. are real—it’s never convincing. But in this skilled portrayal of a culture where anything can happen, Danielle’s acceptance of the demon’s existence goes down flawlessly.

And Uleksi is an outstanding demon. He’s mysterious like Moby Dick, an archetypical symbol of something or other, but he’s also more than that. Killjoy gets what it means to be intelligent without being human. Uleksi’s actions make consistent sense, but his idea of what to do is alien to us. Uleksi seeks out those who have violated others, but that’s because it’s his nature, not morals.

Uleksi fits in well with the theme of justice in anarchist communities and societies, which was also a major theme of A Country of Ghosts. Outside the system just like within, no one quite knows the answers. Killjoy’s anarchist characters know they’re merely doing the best they can. They’re not amoral or dogmatic; they’re sincere, but just because justice is anarchist doesn’t make it pretty. 

To be vulnerable, Danielle’s lover reveals her weakness: “I fucking love trashy romance. The straighter the better. The worse the politics the better. I’ll just eat that shit up.” If this isn’t you, if you want a starkly unpredictable novel, that ignores gender conventions, with solid ambivalent politics, read The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.

By Shane Redd and Gerald Smith

For movie fans hoping for some semblance of a political perspective to offset what has become a repetitive and mostly stale Hollywood, the summer 2017 movie season remained mostly apolitical. Yet one summer film represents that bright shining star in a Hollywood sky filled with dull mindless remakes. 

War for the Planet of the Apes is part three of what has become one of the more inspiring movie trilogies of the decade; it’s also a major studio production (20th Century Fox) that has consistently highlighted the danger of the capitalist system and its potential to lay waste to the large majority of humanity, while offering a glimpse of the potential barbarism in store for the unfortunate souls who survive. War for the Planet of the Apes is the third film of 20th Century Fox’s reboot of the critically acclaimed 1968 original film — Planet of the Apes, based on French author Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel – La Planete des Singes. With War, fans of the trilogy can appreciate the highly relevant themes they’ve come to expect from watching Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes , including: Mans ceaseless attempts to manipulate and conquer nature, the dangers of shadowy capitalist industry (biotech, robotics, etc.), animal liberation, the importance of leadership, and socialism vs. barbarism. Each of these themes will inform the analysis of the film and help draw parallels with present-day capitalist realities.

At the opening of the third film, a mere fifteen years has passed since Caesar and his fellow apes uprising from captivity and escape into the redwood forests of Northern CA. In those fifteen years, planet earth has seen over 90% of humans killed off by a simian flu virus created in a Biotech research corporation (Gen-sys laboratories) experimenting on apes in the hopes of curing Alzheimer’s. 

Gen-sys is the biotech corporation where Caesar, a chimpanzee, and his mother before him were given samples of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug that allowed for their intelligence evolution. With the first film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, audiences are given a crystal clear glimpse of the dangers inherent with shadowy profit-driven capitalist industry. This danger becomes more significant and relevant to the present-day when considering the neoliberal deregulation that has become a staple of late capitalism. Humanity could any day come face to face with a contagion that wipes out the vast majority of people, with the survivors similarly blaming the victims, in the film the victims are the apes and the masses– all guinea pigs of profit driven biotechnology and big Pharma fantasies.

In the second film, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, we see the contrast between two communities of survivors. The apes, led by Caesar, have set up a communal society and are thriving in the Redwood forests to the north of the Bay Area. They live by one simple rule, “Apes don’t kill other Apes”. In contrast to their communal society, the surviving humans in San Francisco are struggling to come to terms with the reality they face. Rather than adapting and evolving to the new dawn, they are stockpiling weapons and are hell-bent on fixing a power source that lies in the heart of the Apes forest enclave. In other words, they cling to the hope that the capitalist society they knew, a society responsible for humanity’s demise, can be rebuilt.

War for the Planet of the Apes starts with the barbarism of the humans on full display. An elite soldier unit (Alpha Omega) has found the Apes hideout and is hoping to eliminate Caesar and his fellow apes once and for all. The elite soldiers are led by a demagogic colonel who is obsessed with exacting vengeance on the apes, despite their having nothing to do with the simian flu or the current war. The Alpha Omega soldiers are resisted by the Apes army, while four human soldiers are captured and ultimately let go by Caesar with a message for their rogue Colonel McCullough (played by Woody Harrelson). The message was clear and simple, “the apes did not start the war and they want peace between apes and humans”. Here again we see the “humanity” of intelligent apes compared with the vengeful barbarism of humans whom, despite their dwindling worldwide numbers, must conquer the apes and reclaim their “dominant” status on the planet.

Men and their ceaseless desire to manipulate and conquer all forms of nature is a consistent theme throughout the Planet of the Apes trilogy. The importance of leadership is also quite prominent, none more so than in the third film. At a certain point Caesar’s band is captured by the Alpha Omega soldiers and forced to work without food or water. Caesar steps up and tells the rogue colonel in no uncertain terms that if he wants the apes to work for him then he needs to feed them and quench their thirst. A request the desperate colonel grants as he needs the apes to build a wall to fend off an attack by U.S. Government forces, as it’s revealed (spoiler alert) the colonel and his Alpha Omega soldiers have gone rogue and are operating at the whims of the colonel who enjoys a cult status amongst his troops. 

At issue is the colonel’s callous disregard for chain of command and his troops all in the pursuit of the alleged enemy of humanity. Here parallels can be drawn with the Bush Administration’s hawkish disregard for international law in going after those responsible for 9/11, and more recently the Trump Administration’s failure to even bother investigating whether or not Assad Sarin gassed his own people before launching missiles at a Syrian Air Force Base. Like Assad

and Hussein before him, the apes are similarly blamed to suit hawkish military purposes. Throughout the film we see the courageous leadership of Caesar set against the fascist-like demagoguery of the rogue McCullough. With these contrasting leadership styles its not hard to surmise which side wins out.

“Winning”, unfortunately, isn’t a very accurate description at the conclusion of the “war”. The apes suffer heavy casualties throughout the fighting but ultimately they persist. The humans, never able to come to grips with the new reality on the planet, still hold out the belief that there is something to be won despite the 90% loss of their species, and the remaining pockets pretending nature can still be conquered. This is the real tragedy portrayed throughout the trilogy.

The Planet of the Apes series is a work of science fiction, yet many of the themes resonate with the present reality of 2017. We still see a relatively small group of humans mistakenly believing in their race supremacy, we still face shadowy capitalist industries with the potential to destroy humanity, we still confront world leaders who believe that nature can and must be conquered, and we still have yet to accept our only chance for survival is through collective and peaceful coexistence.

Maybe, before its too late, some intelligent apes will come along and save humanity from

ourselves, until then the War for the Planet of the Apes much like the entire trilogy is worth a

look.

To me the eternal Anarchist is ever replacing pavement with lush gardens. 

~Lew

I have found the enemy, and [she] is us. ~Pogo

By Teresa Smith

It is early autumn and helicopters are circling the UC Berkeley campus as I write this. I can see them from my window. The tut-tut-tut of their propellers punctuate my thoughts.

A few days ago, I rode my bike up to the university to use the library, and had to navigate through a swarm of media and security workers. An Alt Right speech was scheduled on campus that evening, but it was still several hours away. There were no protestors yet, but cable news teams were already milling all over the place, setting up their equipment, preparing their spins. I passed a vlogger talking into a cellphone, addressing his viewers: “Okay guys, we are here, just hours before these horrible, horrible people show up…” Meanwhile, near Sproul Plaza, the epicenter of the historic Free Speech Movement, police officers and rent-a-cops were blocking off intersections and erecting metal barricades, carefully constructing a designated space for the upcoming spectacle.

Not during Occupy, nor during Black Lives Matter, did I see this level of event staging occur for protests. The conflict between the Alt Right and the Antifa, it seems, is a very special type of media/security commodity. For the first time in recent memory, American protestors aren’t expressing dissent towards the corporate oligarchy or the state, but rather are pitted squarely against each other. Since January, citizens from “both sides” of the political spectrum have come together in Berkeley to punch, pepper spray, and kick the shit out of one another. Ribs, fingers, and noses have been broken, and people on both sides have wound up in the hospital and in jail. Security for these events has cost UC Berkeley $2.5 million this year — a stark overshot of the $100,000 yearly budget that the university usually allocates for security at protests. 

These street brawls, or whatever you want to call them, are a brilliant media commodity. There’s something for every demographic: there’s action, there’s politics, there are costumes and snarky commentators. A major news event rolled into a game show rolled into the rhetoric of the end of civilization. Could this be the rise of the modern gladiator? 

Every viewer, no matter where they fall on the political spectrum, is supposed to have a stake in this conflict, and thanks to social media and livestreaming technologies, you can follow your team’s champions as they navigate these hyper-historicized events in real time.  Is this the initiation of the mobile coliseum? 

It’s the Free Speech Nazis verses the Antifa Brawlers, and front row seats are just a click away…

*

As I struggle to scratch these observations down on paper, I find myself looking over my shoulder, feeling nervous. From within me, a critical voice arises, shouting, “You must take a stance — a strong stance — against the Alt Right!” 

So many people in my life have been saying that lately, saying things like, “Anything short of beating up a Nazi is racism!” 

In my mind now, these people are chasing me, throwing bricks and bagels, angry at me for discussing present events without firmly taking sides.

“Erase everything you have written!” these internalized voices say. “Erase all this and replace it with an impassioned treatise in defense of punching Nazis!”

*

I realize I cannot go any further until I unpack my Privilege Knapsack. Until I lay my Oppression Credentials on the table. So here goes:

I’m a mixed-race gender-queer cis-lady who spent her childhood in low-income housing and foster care but who has attended college and gained a master’s degree. 

As a mixed-race person, I acknowledge that I sometimes have the privilege of passing as white, but because I don’t always pass, I’ve experienced racist bullshit throughout my life, like having my bag searched in the grocery store as a teen, or being asked by teachers to speak to the class on behalf of my “race,” or…a million other things. As a cis-lady, I have the privilege of having been assigned the gender I supposedly identify with at birth, but I have to deal with the financial, sexual, and emotional oppression experienced by women, cis- and trans- alike. As a gender-queer person, I don’t always quite identify as female, and at times I sorely want to express myself in traditionally masculine ways, but because I live in a binary-enforcing culture I am pressured to pick one gender and stick to the script. As someone who grew up in low-income housing, I have some serious PTSD triggers from having experienced the violence of poverty as a child, but having an advanced degree has granted me access to types of spaces, communities, and conversations that many of the people I grew up with will never be able to enter. Additionally, myself and my entire extended family was born on the “correct” side of certain borders, so I have never had to deal with the fear of myself or my loved ones being kidnapped and deported by ICE. Also, I was raised Catholic so I have never had to deal with Islamophobia or anti-Semitism and the horrible hate crimes to which they give rise. Also, I have had the privilege of having been exposed to certain ideas and communities that have allowed to me properly frame this statement of my identity, privileges, and oppressions in such a way that people on the left are likely to accept me — and even tokenize me as someone who is supposed to be visible and speak — so long as I follow the script.

So there we have it.

Have I passed the checkpoint?

Am I allowed to continue to speak? 

Or perhaps I don’t have quite the right identity markers, and for me to open my mouth at this time will be dismissed by people on the left as pointless noise.

*

How you ever been accused of being white as a way to silence you? I have.

It happened to me three years ago in a radical newspaper meeting in which a collective member shot down an article I’d written about my fear of the police because “no one wants to hear that kind of thing from a white person.” 

I’d written the article under a pseudonym, and hadn’t mentioned my race because I wanted to focus on class. I wanted to focus on the way people are policed in low income housing, about how as a little kid I watched my fourteen-year-old babysitter, who happened to be white, get chased by cops with their guns drawn through my apartments. Even once I’d left the projects and was safely in grad school, all the fear came rushing back every time I passed campus police officers patrolling the halls with guns and batons strapped to their bodies.

“No one wants to hear that from a white person,” is what someone in my collective said. This person, by the way, was white. 

I was wildly triggered at the time — to be told you can’t speak because of whiteness you don’t possess is crazy-making. But later, I started to wonder if this is how white people must sometimes feel in leftist spaces. To be told your pain is invalid, just because you’re white? That’s not right. Pain is pain. 

Sure, there are moments when someone else is in a lot more pain and they need attention first, but that doesn’t mean your pain doesn’t matter at all.

*

Recently, I was drinking beers with a friend who is queer and brown who told me, “Yeah, I got called ‘white and straight’ by a roommate a few weeks ago…” 

He explained that the housemate was trying to make a case against him to the other housemates, and in the process said something along the lines of “he’s just a freaking white straight male” — even though he very clearly is not. Weirdly, the person who accused him of being white was, you guessed it, himself white. Hmm…self-hatred much?

This reminded me of another friend who is a rad mixed-race Asian lady, who last year told me she was accused of being white by someone in her zinemaking collective, and after that, just dropped out, because, yeah, the accusation of whiteness being used to silence you, especially if you aren’t even white is really, wow. Just wow.

I can think of several other examples of moments when, in leftist community discourse, folks of color who were specifically accused of being white as a way to undermine and silence them.

It seems like there is an undercurrent in leftist circles of accusing someone of having a type of privilege — especially white-maleness — as a way of saying their opinions don’t matter, that they should stop taking up space.

*

Another, more common way that leftists shut down underprivileged people whose opinions they don’t like is to accuse them of harboring an “inner oppressor” — of being “white/able-bodied/etc/male on the inside.”

If a brown or black person takes part in a “too militant” anti-capitalist action, other leftists of color may accuse you of being a “Coconut” or “Oreo” — this literally happened during the 2012 occupation of the UC Davis Cross-Cultural Center. People of color, it seems, are encouraged to speak and hold space by mainstream leftists — until it is realized that we have a class analysis, and then the mic is quickly taken away. “Ignore that brown person,” the liberal¹ p.o.c.s say, “She is really white on the inside!” 

Likewise, women who voted for Bernie Sanders during the primary election were accused by liberal “feminists” like Gloria Steinem of “letting their boyfriends vote through them.” It didn’t matter that Clinton was the big-bank candidate — women are apparently supposed to only ever vote for another woman, regardless of whether or not we agree with her politics, otherwise we are denounced as being mindless pawns of men.

On the mainstream left, women, people of color and other oppressed groups are embraced as tokens, but only if we promote the big-bank-friendly neoliberal version of diversity. If we happen to have a post-colonial class-based analysis (which is to say: if we’re friggin Marxists who read Fanon, baby), we are robbed of our p.o.c. and lady points. The mic is taken away. We are accused of being “white on the inside,” of being the “empty vessel for the will of our boyfriends.” 

*

When, on the left, did we let “white” become such a dirty word that we’re using it on people of color to silence them? 

Since when did we start accusing women of being “pawns of males” as a way to indicate their opinions don’t matter? 

I’m tired of feeling like I have to police my privilege and slap my oppression credentials on the table every time I want to speak. 

I’m tired of seeing words like “male” “white” “straight” and “cis” thrown around like they are insults. 

I’m tired of watching people play the Gotcha Game: calling out microaggressions so fiercely in our spaces that bystanders get scared and never want to come back.

I’m tired of the weird witch-hunts that go down in squats, radical spaces, and housing projects in which a small group gets accused of “having inner oppressors.”

What I’ve started to see is a type of leftist fundamentalism emerging. Rather than attempting to repair our communities when microaggressions occur, we’ve fallen into a pattern of vilifying and taking down the _______-ist. Like, rather than identifying hurtful/oppressive behaviors, we’ve started putting labels on individuals in such a way that those individuals are not able to redeem themselves. Or we simply label oppressor groups as being inherently _____-ist, whether or not individual members have done things to change. 

I think the fact that the term “whiteness” gets thrown around on the left as a way of saying “shut up” has everything to do with the reality of those helicopters outside my window: we now have a fascist movement that has descended upon the leftist epicenter of the Free Speech Movement, eager to provoke us into beating them up because they know they can come here to get media images that prove their point to rural Americans that urban leftists are unreasonable.

At this time — a time when all Americans are suffering in the wake of a recession that decimated the middle class — white Americans are being offered two very different versions of reality. According to the left, white people’s pain isn’t valid and they need to shut up. According to these Alt Right assholes, white people are some kind of magical unicorn “superior race” being held back by an “evil left wing conspiracy” of “enforcing diversity.” 

We all know how ludicrous the words of these Alt Right speakers are, and yet, there are millions of white people in America who are buying into this fantasy version of themselves being offered by the right. And at moments, when I see the way “white” gets thrown around as a slur in leftist circles, I can almost understand why. 

These Alt Right fascists are idiots. We can outsmart them. But we have to put effort into building up our own spaces, and we have to start working towards smarter discussions in which everyone’s suffering is given space. We need to stop telling people they aren’t allowed to have any pain simply because they are part of an oppressor demographic. I believe we can do this, while continuing the vital work of undermining the oppressions created by race, class, gender, sexual bio-essentialism, and capitalist colonialism. We can do our amazing work of building intersectional community on the left without othering people. 

Several friends in the Bay Area leftist scene are ready to engage in compassionate criticism that moves us beyond Leftist Fundamentalism. We are starting a new publication called Subversas.com. We are interested in articles that discuss leftist taboos, and that hold space for the types of discussions that normally get shut down on the left. The fundamentalism that has emerged on the left is like concrete being poured over a lush garden — it is time for the flowers to break through the cement!

The American populace has never been so close to uniting against the big banks and stripping the 1% of their power. The corporations are dumping money into fanning the flames of conflict because they know how close we are to going for their throats. 

1 Liberals are leftists who think the system is working, and thus are afraid of revolutionary politics & anti-capitalism. 

By P Wingnut and Teresa

Moral debates between violence/non-violence and trying to appeal to the media regarding antifa amidst a rising tide of alt right publicity stunts misses the point. The alt right are setting up situations in which they define the agenda, they pick the time and place, and no matter how anyone reacts they will declare victory. 

A lot of people are condemning some antifa (anti-fascist) actions, particularly those in Berkeley in which large black-clad groups have militantly shut down alt-right gatherings. Just as it is wrong to condemn all militant antifa tactics, it’s simplistic to automatically support everything and anything antifa—or any particular member of antifa—might decide to do. There are members of antifa who do the right thing, others who make mistakes, and there are probably police agents posing as antifa to harm us.

What’s important is effectiveness and acting thoughtfully and strategically — which isn’t always measured by the toughest or most militant action. Strategy involves questioning our own tactics when necessary. The alt right is trying to provoke violence because they think it will work to their advantage and help expand their numbers, so we need to be careful not to play by their rules, while still acting in self-defense when people are attacked.

It’s a mistake to think that by jumping a particular racist extremist, we’re having a meaningful effect on the system of white supremacy. If we managed to get rid of all the alt right morons who met in Charlottesville and have been descending on Berkeley, the system of racism would remain. 

Antifa members with the courage to act in self-defense are heroes. Antifa also engages in other tactics like blowing bubbles, peaceful chanting, dressing in costumes, participating in comments threads on the internet, etc. In August, Antifa in Boston surrounded an alt-right rally chatting “we can’t hear you,” shutting it down seemingly without having to throw a punch. 

It’s important to interrogate the concept of “nonviolence.” By holding nonviolence as a fetish, we limit our ability to affect change and allow our movements to be co-opted by business-as-usual liberalism. We have to start looking at these things as tactics rather than ideologies. We still live in a world in which women are making 77 cents to the man’s dollar, in which black people disproportionately fill our prisons and are disproportionally murdered by police. If we are to dismantle the systems of social injustice that surround us, we are going to need to work together on a grand scale. The current efforts of the media and alt-right to divide us undermines our organizing power. We can’t let go of our greater visions of a better world as we work to strategically address the rise of fascism in this country. 

Flag-waving thugs have a dubious connection with the power structures that are destroying the world and enslaving her people. These people and their hateful ideas are symptoms of deeper problems. The most dangerous people don’t wander the streets — they rule from fancy offices. 

Exclusively militant rhetoric and images obscure the complex, nuanced and beautiful simplicity that we’re trying to create — a world without rulers based on mutual aid and voluntary cooperation. Escalating violence plays right into the hands of people who thrive to the extent violence—and the hate and fear violence breeds—escalates. We need to stop playing into this game. If solidarity has any meaning, it doesn’t just mean solidarity within a tiny politically air-tight clique eager to give the middle finger to every working slob who isn’t woke. 

Solidarity is big, broad, messy and hard because it means working out differences that threaten to divide us so we can focus on the system. This struggle is about stories, conversations, connections, ideas, and building community — and at times militant self-defense against racists. 

By Arlie Russell Hochschild

We are in the midst of a crisis: signs are appearing of a rise in the US of white supremacy and fascism. I’m old enough to have seen white supremacist violence before. I was a civil rights worker in Mississippi during Freedom Summer in 1964. In June of that summer, three of my fellow workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner were murdered by Klansmen and, over the course of the summer, dozens more were badly beaten. Since the lives of those three, and, over the years, many others, ended through right wing violence, some called for left wing violence in response. But leaders with greater foresight prevailed and a powerful civil rights movement changed the nation, rewrote its laws, and enfranchised millions of African Americans who previously had never been able to vote. While much remains to be done, the movement itself was extraordinary, and while various strategies were pursued, under the leadership of Martin Luther King, it was predominantly non-violent.

I recently spent five years getting to know, and write a book about, Tea Party enthusiasts in the heartland of the petrochemical industry in the deep South, people who came to believe in Donald Trump. I discovered that they felt themselves to be — and in many ways were — victims. Their wages are often stagnating or declining, many of their jobs have been automated or offshored, and the air they breathe and the water they drink are grossly polluted. The president cleverly offered them scapegoats for their sense of victimhood: Mexicans, Muslims, black Americans, the mainstream press, and the left. Like Hitler and plenty of other demagogues, Trump understood that appealing to that sense of victimhood was his path to power. And at every step of the way, Fox News, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Rush Limbaugh and others supplied the sound bites and images to reinforce this dark worldview.

When, in a series of skirmishes which broke out earlier this year on and around the U.C. Berkeley campus, an Antifa activist beat an older man wearing in a Trump T-shirt, leaving blood streaming down his face, it was the greatest possible gift to Fox News, and to the Trump/Fox narrative of a victimized right. Who might this anonymous man in the Trump T- shirt be? Who knows, maybe he was one of the estimated six to eight million who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 but voted for Trump in 2016. Or maybe he was one the one out of four — other studies say one out of three — white high school-educated voters who say they would have voted for Bernie Sanders had he won the Democratic Party nomination, but when Sanders lost, voted for Donald Trump instead. 46 percent of American voters voted for Trump and they’re not all “deplorable.” If we treat them as people to be attacked and beaten, we’re treating them as contemptuously as did Hillary Clinton when she used that word. But what they are is caught up in a narrative of victimhood and the search for people and causes to blame.

To bash, punch, or kick a man, to smash a window or light a fire is to make the greatest possible gift to Fox News and to Donald Trump and his unsavory brew of KKK members, neo-Nazis and others whose appeal is based on the narrative of victimhood. When we make such people victims of violence, we reinforce that narrative. We rob the movement against racism and fascism of the high ground through which the civil rights movement transformed America. Since we are indeed facing forces that include outright fascists, it’s worth looking closely at how the greatest fascist of them all, Adolf Hitler, came to power. How did he end up as chancellor of Germany in 1933, when, five years earlier, the Nazi Party won less than 3% of the vote? There were many factors, but an absolutely crucial one was that the Nazis were brilliantly successful in provoking the German left into violent street-fighting. Dozens of people were killed on both sides. Hitler was able to appeal to his followers that they were victims of the left, and to the public at large that he would restore order. 

At Charlottesville, of course, the most deadly violence came from the right. Nonetheless, because Fox News and other outlets were able to show some pushing and shoving from anti-racist protesters, surveys show that more Americans thought the fault lay mainly with the “left” or with “both sides” than thought the fault lay with the alt-right. This was a gift to the alt-right. Let that not happen again. Should we show opposition to the forces of racism and white supremacy that we see around us? Of course! There is much to do. Let’s all get busy. Be relentless — but not through violence.

Arlie Hochschild is the author of Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. 

By Gerald Smith

We’ve got a problem.

In spite of the fact that the American workers have trounced the fragments of fascism all over this land from Boston to Charlottesville to the San Francisco Bay Area, too many Anti-Fascist fighters are under indictment. There is a crying need for a public organization to support these Anti-Fascists.

In Central California, three Anti-Fascists have been indicted in Sacramento in relation to the smashing and scattering of the attempted “Unite the Right” Rally on June 26th: Yvette Felarca of By Any Means Necessary ($20,000 bail), Mike Williams of the Brown Berets ($250,000 bail), and Porfirio Paz. Mention of bail amounts is not done to melt the gentle snowflake but to harden the resolve of the conscious Anti-Fascist.

In Berkeley the number of arrestees has ballooned since the “Anti-Hate” rallies in August and September of this year. In one of the more serious cases Eric Clanton was arrested ($200,000 bail). The “Berkeley 5” Dustin Sawtelle, Jeffrey Armstrong, Scott Hendrick, Taylor Fuller, Nathan Perry have also been arrested. There are more.

These outrageous bails beg the question as to the actual role the state is playing. Are the police protecting citizens or is this a form of political repression? To look at the facts and ask the question is to answer it. Here are a few examples:

* Department of Homeland Security agents allowed an Oath Keeper (right–winger) to assist in the arrest of an anti-fascist protester providing handcuffs in the arrest.

* “Liberty Revival Alliance” Rich Black’s right-wing coalition was meeting with Berkeley police ahead of March 4 and April 15 actions (both of which were unpermitted, but police facilitated them anyway).

* Numerous instances of the police collaborating with alt-right trolls in a doxing, internet harassment campaign.

The events in Charlotesville greatly increased the chances of getting all the charges dropped both in the Berkeley and Sacramento cases and simultaneously going on the offensive against the fascists about what they truly are, what they truly stand for and that they do indeed stand for, advocate and practice mass mayhem and murder.

With the Democrats having piled on to condemn Trump’s deliberately equivocal casting of blame — and some prominent Republicans condemning Trump as well (and reportedly the Navy chief also taking a nominally decent stand) — a skillfully run defense movement and political education campaign in California will make it very hard for the Democratic establishment to press forward with court charges.

The fascists’ attempts to paint themselves as defenders of free speech can now be politically shredded (despite the past mistakes of some antifa including the Black Block in over-emphasizing physical confrontation at the expense of mass political education).

In spite of Trump’s self-exposure on this matter, Antifa has continued to be condemned and denounced by the corporate media.

Loss of life is a reasonable measure as to whom is actually causing harm to our society. Consider the following:

Richard Collins, a black man, was killed at the University of Maryland by Sean Ubanski (Ubanski is affiliated with the Facebook page Alt-Reich Nation).

On May 26, 2017, Jeremy Joseph Christian fatally stabbed two people and injured a third on a train in Portland, Ore., after he was confronted for yelling a gamut of anti-Muslim slurs at two young women.

Heather Heyer was killed and 19 others injured by James Alex Feilds who drove his car into a crowd of Anti-Fascist protestors on August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville. 

And there are more, many more. According to Political Research Associates: “The U.S. Far Right has killed nearly 450 people since 1990. Heather Heyer of Charlottesville, Virginia is the latest casualty of White nationalism. We can honor the sacrifice of the dead and wounded by matching their courage in standing down similar rallies planned for the weeks ahead. Equally important, we can defend members of our communities who are under attack. People of good conscience, regardless of party affiliation, faith tradition, or identity should look upon Charlottesville as a call to moral action in defense of humanity and rejection of White supremacy.”

The fascists have murdered scores of Americans. How many Americans have been killed by Antifa?

Zero.

Cornel West, among others, has publicly stated that when the fascists surrounded a black church in Charlottesville, the Antifa saved his life. If there is any doubt of the racist danger we’re facing, consider the beating of a young black man, Deandre Harris. 

Since 40,000 people showed up in Boston to meet 50 fascists, the Hitler-lovers have canceled every rally they have called. But they have not disappeared. The fascists have joined the Republican Party on the campus of UC Berkeley which gives them access to money, lots of money. The fascists have also created numerous fronts and allied with various right-wing organizations (Red Elephant, Proud Boys, Patriotic Prayer, Identity Evropa, etc.). While not every member of these allied organization is a fascist, they are clearly fascist collaborators. Our strategy and tactics should be adjusted to allow our activities to become more effective.
Here is something we can do to aid the growing list of Anti-Fascists presently under indictment: Let’s create an online petition campaign aimed at the cities of Berkeley, San Francisco, and Sacramento that demands that the charges against all Anti-Fascists be dropped.
Our lever is the fact that after the events in Charlottesville, Trump was denounced by the Democrats for equating the Alt right/fascists with Anti-Fascist protesters. OK. These cities are run by the Democrats. Did they really mean what they said? Let’s put them to the test.
WORKERS OF THE WORLD WILL RISE AGAIN!  FASCISM NEVER!

By Jesse D. Palmer

The world feels like it’s crumbling around us, and not just because climate change and the sixth extinction are becoming personal and undeniable. What’s particularly disturbing is that the cultural and social glue that humans need to live together is fraying. We’re losing the ability to tolerate other people who are different from us. We’re losing the ability to talk. This sadly is not just a comment about right wing racists. My friends and community are radicals and anarchists — I’m talking about us as well as the racists as well as plenty of other people we all bump into everyday. 

Our response to these extreme times has to be extreme, but not in the way a lot of people are thinking. It’s time to focus on why we’re against racism, why we’re against oppression — which is fundamentally because of love, not because of what and who we’re against.

Starting with love means remembering that we love everyone and everything as well as ourselves. Being in such a state of universal love can be hard, but it is achievable. In my heart, when I take time to feel deeply, I have too much love to bear. Most of the time while we’re going about our daily lives we have to suppress the love so we can get stuff done. But it is there and it is the central powerful life force that enables everything. I’m talking about awe seeing the morning light, contemplating a tree, thinking about how much we love our housemates, our children, the members of our collective, riding a bike on a warm day, eating a delicious lunch, making love, building a treehouse, looking at pictures of old friends, staring at the Milky Way, watching people at the next table at the restaurant laughing together even though we’ve never met them and our backgrounds are totally different. The feeling of universal love goes back to nature. We are all astronauts on the earth — people, plants, animals, bugs. It’s not a cliché — we really are all one.

We need to start our activism and our revolution with love and let it infect and inform everything we’re doing. A lot of activist burnout and a lot of the failures of our movements are because activism gets stuck in the mud and thinks too small. Our actions feel harsh, based on guilt, based on anger, based on division, sometimes edging towards violence. In the activist scene, I sometimes feel scared to say or write what I really think. This is not a way we can win. These dynamics keep us distracted from understanding the big picture and tackling the big issues that underlie and structure the wars, the oppression, the economic inequality, and the ecological disasters. 

People are struggling with change that’s too fast, with a lack of meaning, with isolation, and with too much technology, which is leading to psychological disorder as we struggle for some sort of refuge or bandaid. This stress feeds the rise of tribalism, alt right nationalism and fundamentalist religious movements, as well as radical scenes that are not tender, that are not welcoming or generous or safe.

Right now we need to fight oppression and struggle against ecological collapse while being particularly careful to avoid making intolerance and social division worse. We must resist racists and fight their ideas, yet avoid dehumanizing anyone no matter how wrong their actions may be. 

There is a big picture we’re missing. The tiny elite who are profiting from killing the planet want to keep us divided and fighting amongst ourselves because it distracts us from building an alternative to a system which requires inequality, which requires destroying the earth, and which is organized by competition and violence, not cooperation and humanity. We need to stay focused on fighting those systems. 

Self-hatred is an emotion behind a lot of destructive human behavior because — unable to love oneself — one is unable to love the world, the trees and the oceans, and anyone perceived as different. Self-hatred and emotional shut-down that interferes with all of our ability to tap into the love that is within us is something everyone has to work on all the time. 

Let’s train ourselves to spread and grow love. It can help to start with feelings of love that are outside you – your feelings of love for places or things or people — and let that grow until it becomes a habit and can feed upon itself. Eventually once love is strong enough in your heart and free enough that it floats near the surface, it shines back upon you. 

The earth is hurting because of people and our machines and capitalism — but really the earth will be okay. People might not be okay — maybe probably won’t be okay. That is scary to me. Let it sink in but don’t let it paralyze you or cause you to turn away from life and love. At my best moments, I love myself which means I love human beings and the good things we’ve created enough to fight to keep human society going against the odds. People are complex and sure we’re responsible for a lot of terrible stuff — oppression, genocide, ecological domination. 

But there is plenty to love about humans and our social formations — parts of our rich diverse beautiful cultures, our music, our learning, our art. And just our simple day-to-day lives with all the small pleasures and moments we experience. 

Now is the time to keep our eyes on why we want to save the world. That tenderness can give us the courage and eloquence we need to communicate and resonate with others. Most people love being alive — it is an intense rush. We don’t need a lot of fancy jargon, gymnastic mental justifications or economic theories to figure out why living is fun and worthwhile and why human communities are worth trying to preserve and improve. From the big picture we can move to particular movements against police killings, against pipelines, for people getting the food and housing and healthcare they need, for freedom and justice and for ecological sustainability. 

The earth is what unites us all. Avoiding damage to the environment may be our biggest challenge, but it could also be the wake up call that forces us to grow up as a species and cast off sloppy earth-killing structures built only on greed. 

If we start with love, we can try to make stuff better even though we recognize that we make mistakes — that we aren’t always good or loving ourselves. No one is perfect. We need to approach that reality with self-love, not shame but rather compassion and acceptance. Then we need to try to do better.