Pel ✊ Profile picture
Apr 12, 2020 24 tweets 5 min read Read on X
I've finally reached media saturation. The shocking revelations are predictable, they will keep coming, our current systems are insufficient to deal with this, the solutions are obvious but will continue to be rejected, true justice & the common good are lost in the struggle.
Many sources observe the same things but they are best received in digested form from a clear-eyed Cassandra like @sarahkendzior
I have been a baby bird, stretching out my neck for news for quite some time. My belly is distended, my gut is full of the most perplexing dystopic worms. This puts a different spin to "twitter" since we all imagine ourselves the 🐦 birds, "chirping"
#Twitter is really all about regurgitation, then re-regurgitation, then re-re-regurgitation and so forth. Our tweets are the writhing worms of opinion, marked with our spit and digestive juices to show our tribe and POV
The interconnectedness and intersectionaliity of our modern predicament overwhelms me. Capitalism has reached its fiber optic roots out in every direction, in a mockery of Nature, in such a way that one failure becomes a failure for us all
One atrocity against our fellow creatures (take your pick-- hunting, poaching, caging, drugging, farming, slaughtering) in one place (never just one but many) sets a microbiological wheel into motion that curses all of humanity. It happens again and again. Predictable.
Even if we survive this wave the underlying web of exploitative, capitalistic practices remains-- the Rube Goldberg machine of the next contagion, the next collapse, the next genocide, the next invasion, the next pollution disaster, the next war has begun.
It has already started. The capitalist overlords have already moved on to their next conquest, before this one has ended. The Saudi/ Russian/ U.S. oil dispute plants its boots all over the globe with Yemeni, Crimean and indigenous bodies stuck in their treads.
The trans-national crime syndicate of authoritarians and oligarchs moves on unimpeded by every well-meaning poltician, activist group, humanitarian, or even entire political parties, nation states, international unions. It feeds itself from our struggle.
It reminds me of the plantation system-- an exploitative terror operation that was not an anomaly in our nation's history, but its very foundation-- in that the end goal is to protect the weak and rich through lies, atrocities & misdirection that set the poor against each other
You establish that system through boogeyman level terror, displacement, genocide, disease, misinformation, suppression of independent thought, and constant chaotic confusion. Sound familiar? Slap a badge on some bigot's chest and give another a whip to keep order.
We are not only being sickened by a disease contracted from animals brought to market, we ARE animals brought to market.
We are being subjected to the next "clever" form of slavery. "Nicer" b/c it's almost invisible (at least to the privileged)... but it doesn't seem so nice when the Master diverts crucial aid supplies, insults health care workets, cares more about the economy, shows no empathy
We are his cows, his livestock. He just wants us to get back to work, make him money. The economic thing is worrying, yes, but the dying people? No. We are slaves, bought and sold. We are also commodities. Next thing Master will limit travel both in & out to keep us working.
He just wants us humbled and broken, desperate, ready to do his bidding. So our next steps? Local independence, focus on community, greater interconnectedness at a smaller scale to survive these upsets. Greater respect for Nature. Focus on food, health, education. Cut the strings
Understanding how things work is not enough b/c there is a problem with how things work-- has been for a long time.
The question is-- how do we finally change how things work, in a revolutionary and truly lasting way?
I think it comes down to a local and sustainable, mobile and responsive, communitarian and adaptable approach to self-government. #parableofthesower by Octavia Butler has an example, #cuba another. Any such community will be attacked.
Trump honestly can't understand why we shouldn't just be sacrificed-- sold and replaced
"There is no Western concern for issues of aggression, atrocities, human rights abuses and so on if there is a profit to be made from them." --Noam Chomsky
We are seeing this applied to us (not some distant battlefield or village) right before our eyes and all Trump cares about is the potential of profit.

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More from @runaheadofme

Sep 22, 2020
On @LegionFX S02E03 they start out with the nocebo effect and the question, "What else in our society is a disorder?" The montage has stock markets, wildfires, protests, hashtags-- anything involving groupthink with a predetermined negative outcome. Our marionette strings...
The question becomes more dire when we add in politicians jumping in bed with corporations, the judiciary shifting to become protector of the elite, the show democracy we live in, the jackboots in our cities & concentration camps on our borders. We respond to trauma w/ a disorder
The disorder is a way we "fight" but implicit in it is our failure, and it is contagious. We all jump on board the sinking ship. Meanwhile, other ships are available. Conveniently, we crowd on the one that ensures our doom.
Read 8 tweets
Sep 20, 2020
At a certain point in the apocalypse the earth began to vibrate beneath us. Graveyards sunk & buildings subsided at an odd angle. A low thrum filled the air. We all showered after each trip outside b/c a fine dust crept through our cities & hung about us for many windless days.
It caked our masks and clothing with a strange film, both dull and shiny at the same time. The weather report held no answers. The sun assumed a dull bronze sheen. Then the people began to appear.
They quietly dissassembled the tilted towns, listing like a ship at anchor as the tide returns to sea. They stacked the materials neatly. They turned off the machines. Spooled the electrical lines and sealed the gas tanks. They began to garden.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 1, 2020
“I thought the world was one way, and I found out it isn’t. And it terrifies me. But I can’t live in fear. I won’t. I gotta face this new world head on, and stake my claim in it.” - Leti @jurneesmollett (seems relevant to more than #LovecraftCountry)
@MishaGreen is the writer behind these words so head over there and follow her!
Read 4 tweets
May 23, 2020
I was teaching my students about the Silk Road and what jumped out at me was there were two eras, punctuated by a 300 year period of disastrous diseases. This was brought on by globalization in early CE and seems pretty predictable from our POV, but this was early days, 250 CE
Afro-Europe lost about 20 million people on that time, China about 15 million. Just before that, early 200s CE, was the first recorded bubonic plague in China. There's no vaccines. In any case, the Silk Road started back up after a massive disruption to society. Globalism is back
Later, in the mid-1300s, the bubonic plague strikes Europe and Asia, killing about 25 million in Europe. Again, no vaccines. This is another blow to globalization, but pop. decr. + same food prod. capacity sparks Renaissance for Europe's survivors. Education and innovation incr.
Read 14 tweets
Apr 17, 2020
I'm going 2 tell you stories-- stories from the future. I feel you're ready 4 them now. Even the telling may change the events I describe, but that's fine. Our present always exists in the tenuous line btw thought & action, focus & distraction, what shd be & what's allowed to be.
This story starts in "Stone City." You can see it scratched in the cement by the corner store near where I grew up. 105th & Apricot. "Hunerts." Place they used to call the "Kill Zone."
But Stone City was never real 'till I made it. I carved it out of the borderlands btw Oakland & San Leandro, fortified it from Knowland Park down to the BART tracks and then back up again from Tassafaronga up to Keller, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Read 10 tweets
Apr 7, 2020
Food Truck thoughts: Street food is already much loved in the Bay Area. We have everything from fusion Korean-Mexican tapas to your street corner hot dog stand. With this pandemic it seems like the rent cost of Bay Area real estate will be deadly for many restaurants. THREAD 1/
Many restaurants are sitting vacant. Some are boarded up. Even if they offer take-out the cost of renting the property is entirely wasted-- you are only utilizing your kitchen, your staff (cut back) and your food budgets. Food trucks are much better suited to our times 2/
Pretty much any kind of food can be prepared in a properly outfitted food truck. They efficiently combine kitchen, staff and food stores into one compact space. They are well suited to protecting their workers behind screens and windows. They are visible as they prep your food 3/
Read 14 tweets

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