See Part 1 for context.

Speech Part 2: doomier and less coherent

The most immediate effect of this sudden imposed silence, which I hope will reverse itself by the time I publish this, is the general feeling that whatever happens here is not my business; this is not my country; I am not particularly wanted here. I am just passing through briefly, like a layover at a run down airport. I feel myself feeling more and more distant from my friends and the community I live in, and uninvested in my community’s future. If my input is not wanted, so be it; let them run this place into the ground, it’s not my problem. I stop going to big social gatherings, I stop trying particularly hard to spend time with other people.

I am angry at everyone, even when it’s unfair, even knowing it’s unfair. I don’t believe in anything any more and I’m angry at those who do. I’m angry that people try and use what’s happening to reinforce some abstract ideological framework, just using the same stock phrases over and over again until they have no more meaning, even if I pretty much agree. To believe in anything is to lie to yourself and I’m too tired to do that any more. I used to believe in things so hard that I felt that if I worked with other people we could through the sheer force of our belief make the world better.

It seems everyone wants this to be a game to play where you can pick the good options and avoid the bad options and get the good ending. You want it to be a fair game. There are no good options and you have to make those choices anyway. You never could have fixed things and you never can escape responsibility for not fixing things. I have no answer for what you should have been doing instead. You want to do the thing that will give you absolution and there is no such thing.

On the safety of green cards#

The one thing we could all agree on is that you should never publicly express a political opinion until you at least have a green card. That’s what used to be true, at least, before they tried to deport some permanent residents.

In 2020 I talked to a therapist. I talked about being worried about losing my work authorization, and she said this can’t be a thing that happens, this can’t be how immigration law works, I must be “catastrophizing”. That was I think when I first realized it is impossible for anyone to understand what is outside of their own experiences.

The zoo#

Like some sort of animal in a zoo, one day you walk into a cage so broad that you could walk a whole day and never see its bars. You knew the bars were there but what different did it make? They were so far away. But then they grew tighter and tighter around you. And the door is open, but you live here now, you don’t even remember what lies outside. You don’t know if you remember how to live anywhere else.

The haircut#

A haircut is a fundamental act of trust in society. You let a stranger touch your head, your neck with sharp objects, and shape a key part of your identity. A haircut is a world free from arbitrary and inexplicable violence. You think about a hairdresser getting his head forcibly shaved and that you said nothing and that your words would have done nothing.

On being underrepresented#

Do you know what blackout poetry is? You can take a piece of text and make it say all sorts of things by selectively erasing certain words. People want to hear from women or queer people or POC or whatever, so they can put those labels on their words. But they don’t want to hear from them directly, no, they want to hide and reveal words selectively. By choosing what words to show and what to omit you can say anything you want in someone else’s voice.

Immigration is a great cause to support because most of the people you support are silent. People are complicated and messy but when silent, become simple. That’s the role for you to play, politically. People could not handle an undocumented immigrant being slightly annoying about clothes.

Are you surprised?#

“This has all happened before, didn’t you know?” they smugly said. “you are just learning about this today?” *you fool, you absolute idiot, we have stood by a million times and watched this happen and maybe tut-tutted a bit but we have never stopped it and never will. We will not, or cannot save you. You actually thought all our talk of justice and equality was anything but empty air?"

Many people seem to think that speech on its own does something but the world we live in proves that false, not a single post has mattered, none of your social media has mattered, none of your activism and organizing has mattered and you can only pretend otherwise because it doesn’t actually matter to you if you succeed or fail. If you can post freely then this is true, it means you are exempt from the world we live in. Posting has a built in filter where the very fact you can do it means you can’t understand what the problems are. If you can go around saying things like “don’t obey in advance” then there was never anything for you to obey. You call this fascism not because you understand its seriousness but because you have convinced yourself fascism is survivable.

Demonstrating to strangers that you have the correct beliefs is an extravagant luxury.

People on bluesky will spend hours relitigating 2020 or 2016 and accusing each other of being useless and having done nothing and you know what. You are all right. Nothing any of you did matters. We know that because we are here. You are trying to spin some alternate world where you are the protagonist and you were correct and just thwarted by the other side but the very fact we are here is proof that you were not good enough, your ideas were not good enough, the politicians you supported were not good enough. I am not talking to a specific person on bluesky. All people on bluesky are basically the same person, doing the same thing,s going through the same motions, and every day I go and look in a vain hope that something has changed. Nothing but empty phrases and slogans over and over again.

The future#

When the world ends you think you will be one of the ones left standing. You aren’t the main character. You have to be happy today because that’s all you have. What an insult to the future to live today and to not have enjoyed it, like having a feast laid out before you and throwing it in the garbage.