Jo > Recent Status Updates

"When our actions begin to integrate with our beliefs, when we are doing some of the work that we know needs to be done, we have less need for the various doubles our culture offers up disguised as a good life."

"This is th pwer of collective organizng: it expands th sense of th possible by expandng th possible 'we'. It persuades participants tht, contrary2what they hav been told, their pain is not th result of a failure of character or insufficient hard wrk. Rather, it is th consequence of economic&social systems precisely designed2produce cruel outcomes, systems tht can b changed only if ppl drop th shame&unite2 shard goal

Citing Keeanga-Yamahtta: "Struggle helps us see each other. It helps us break from our individualism & th particularities of our identities." When individuals organize toward a goal, they discover not only tht they share interests with ppl who might look (& vote) very differently from them but also tht a new sense of power flows from this alliance."

"...time2loosen th grip on various forms of proprietary pain & selfhood & reach toward many different forms of possible connection & kin, toward anyone who shares a desire to confront th forces of annihilation & extermination & their mindsets of purity & perfection... It will not be enough to protect 'our' ppl; we will need2 have th stamina of true solidarity, which defines 'our ppl' as 'all ppl'."

Citing Arielle Angel, EiC of Jewish Currents: "But what is clear is this: We are going to need each other. This means staying attuned to the possibility of a collective power, instead of attached to a proprietary pain."

"...as individuals & groups: we want separation & distinctness, & we want unity & community. Th tension is fruitful & does not need to be resolved. Th problem lies in the fact tht our culture is so biased toward one tendency over th other. It's th scramble4separateness tht is richly rewarded & encouraged in our zero-sum economy, while th urge to act in solidarity & mutual aid with others is discounted & disappeared"

"But th truth is tht nothing of much consequence in th face of rigged systems can b accomplished on our own. Change requires collaboration & coalition, even (especially) uncomfortable coalition. Mariame Kaba, a longtime prison abolitionist [says]...'Everything worthwhile is done with other people'."

"Th shift2confronting& reimagining structures requires something else: a recognition tht this work is not something we can do on our own, as individuals, with a charity donation or an equity & diversity training, or a performance of virtue on soc media...we live in a culture tht tells us to fix massive crises on our own, through self-improvement."

"We can be hard and critical on structures, but soft on people," says the civil rights scholarship john a. powell. That is the opposite of the discourse that dominates today, the one that is so very hard on people and far too soft on structures."

"We must attempt, with great urgency, to imagine a world...that is not predicated on sacrificial people and sacrificial ecologies and sacrificial continents. More than imagine it, we must begin, at once, to build it."

"...'the ppl who are th exploiters of this planet are ppl who put themselves first'...th climate crisis can be understood as a surplus of heat-trapping gases in th atmosphere; it can also be understood as a surplus of self."

"...there is an intimate relationship between our overinflated selves & our under-cared for planet...humans most urgently need to learn a simple lesson: 'We're not just the center of the universe. This world wasn't made just for us'... Iris Murdoch's description of observing something beautiful-whether a bird or a painting-as 'an occasion for 'unselfing'."

"...we are all trapped inside economic & social structures that encourage us to obsessively perfect our miniscule selves even as we know, if only on a subconscious level, that we are in the very last years when it might still be possible to avert an existential planetary crisis. The canvas of change shrinks ever smaller just as our problems grow ever larger."

"...it would help if more conversations could hold greater complexity - the ability2acknowledge tht th Israelis who came2Palestine in th 1940s were survivors of genocide, desperate refugees, many of whom had no other options *and* tht they were settler colonists who participated in th ethnic cleansing of another ppl. Tht they were victims of white supremacy in Europe being passed th mantle of whiteness in Palestine."

"In Discourse on Colonialism, the Martinician author & politician Aimé Claire charged tht Europeans tolerated 'Nazism before it was inflicted on them.' Until these methods came home2 to European soil, 'they absolved it...shut their eyes to it, legitimised it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples."

On conspiracies: "Th point, consciously or not, is2 foster denial & avoidance. Th point is not2have2do hard & uncomfortable things in th face of hard & uncomfortable realities, whether Covid or climate change, or th fact tht our nations were forged in genocide & have never engaged in a remotely serious process of makig repair. Denial is so much easier than looking inward or backwrd or4wrd; so much easier than change.

"As Gilroy-Ware puts it, 'Conspiracy theories are a misfiring of a healthy & justifiable political instinct: suspicion."

"...conspiracy theorists get the facts wrong but often get th feelings right - th feeling of living in a world with Shadow Lands, th feeling that every human misery is someone else's profit; th feeling of being exhausted by predation & extraction, th feeling that important truths are being hidden. The word for th system driving those feelings starts with c..."

"Bc an economic order tht contains inequalities as extreme as ours is its own kind of depravity, and that level of injustice reproduces more depravity as a matter of course."

"Power & wealth conspire to2protect themselves. It happens in public, & it happens in private. It happens under th spotlight & it happens in the shadows...we should be v careful not2b so reactive that we end up saying tht sadism & depravity do not happen, tht only a loony conspiracy theorist would believe something like so out-there. CTD

"We r now reaping th rotted harvest of decades of deliberately sown mistrust-mistrust of th very idea that we r members of communities & societies, mistrust of any expectation that governments can & should do anything positive for us. This impoverished way of seeing th world & one another has gone on for so long, expressed itself in so many dialects tht th very concept of a public good has now become foreign."

"In th neoliberal era that began in the 1970s & has not yet ended, every hardship & every difficulty - from poverty to student debt to home eviction to drug addiction - has been pathologised as a personal failing. Every success, meanwhile, is lauded as proof of the relative superiority of the supposedly self-made."

Jack Bratich: "Liberal investments in individualism result in thinking of power as residing in individuals & groups rather than structures. Without an analysis if capital or class they end up defaulting to th stories th West tells itself about th power of the individual to change th world. But hero narratives easily flip into villain narratives."

"Th persistent appeal of th vaccine-autism myth, no matter how many times & in how many ways it has been debunked, is tht it gives parents who see difference as tragedy something external to blame."

"...if your kid is your brand extension, then having a child who challenges social standards of normalcy might mean that your whole personal brand is in crisis."

"What are children for? Are they their own ppl, and our job, as parents, is to support and protect them as they find their paths? Or are they our appendages, our extensions, our spin-offs, our doubles, to shape and mold and ultimately benefit from?"

"This, I think, is a corollary of all th shame & pathologizing of kids who are different in our culture - an outside pride taken in kids who seem2check all th boxes, meet th social standards, are perfect little children."

"...and wht Britain's GMC described as his 'callous disregard' for th children in his study. Yet almost a quarter century after Wakefield's paper first appeared, and with no further evidence supporting the claim, th myth is more prevalent than ever. In 2019, the WHO reported a global measles surge, 'reaching [th] highest number of reported cases in 23 years" and taking 207,500 lives - a 50% increase in deaths in3yrs.

"Th earlier claims rely on an entirely discredited paper suggesting that the MMR vaccine may b associated with autism (& bowel disease), published in The Lancet in 1998. 12 years later, it was retracted by its publisher, who described th claims as 'proven2b false'. Th main author, th gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield, was banned from practicing medicine in Britain in light of undisclosed conflicts of interest..."

"What unites th far-right & the far-out is th hustle on th one hand & a faith in hyper-individualism on th other. In the alternative health world, everyone is selling something: classes, retreats, sound baths, essential oils, anti-metal timing sprays, Himalayas rock salt lamps, coffee enemas. Supplements alone were worth an estimated $155 billion worldwide in 2022."