Good News Only
And maybe a little bit of discourse...as a treat...
General News
You know what? We’re doing Good News this week. Fuck it. First thing on the docket: today, the 14th of July, is International Non-Binary Peoples’ Day. For those of you who are not aware, this day is recognized globally to spread awareness about gender diversity, the struggles that non-binary people have faced, and the historical contexts which surrounds the non-binary identity. The non-binary identity is not new, it is not a fad nor an emerging trend as of late. Many cultures across the world have acknowledged a Secret Third Gender for centuries. People who cannot articulate their identities through traditional binary gender language (like using the he/him pronoun series or she/her) often turn towards Neo-pronouns, which are fucking cool and should be respected. Also–idk who needs to hear this–the they/them pronoun series has been used as a singular pronoun for literally hundreds of years, it’s not “incorrect” to use them that way. As a non-binary, gender queer person myself, I think it’s important to remember the intersectional struggle for bodily autonomy across race, class, and gender. We all benefit from a wiser, freer, and more compassionate world.
This was one of those moments when I found myself immediately thinking, “Good for her him.” Wishing all ICE and Trump Administration a very happy GET FUCKED. I hope that these lawsuits amount to something. And do you know what? Good for her! Man, I’m really scraping around for some good news. Is that it? Anybody got anything?
Personal News
I want to remind y’all to send money to my fundraiser! Keep Me Running! I’ve been listening to this podcast quite a bit lately and this recent episode was genuinely fascinating. Math isn’t my strong suit, but I like it when other people are good at it. I really like it (intellectual stimulation is basically a kink, I’m starting to speculate). The only math I really think of is the Pythagorean Theorem. There's this L shaped sidewalk that I encounter in my neighborhood. Every time I approach it (especially when I'm walking behind some slow ass people), I ask myself if I should stay on the sidewalk OR if I should take "the hypotenuse less traveled." And, every time, I shave off 5 seconds of my walk.
On the final day of the Socialism Conference, there was a large closing discussion on the “future of the left.” I was in a group chat with some folks in DSA who were at the conference and we started to discuss some of what the other panelists were saying. The discussion veered into the criticisms of DSA’s electoral work and some folks in the group chat were rattled by the criticism. There’s a lot to unpack here and I want to start with what DSA even is. The Democratic Socialists of America is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization that has been trying to “push Democrats” to the left for several decades. They support candidates who say that they’re Socialists, run for office in the Democratic Party, then get pushed more than they do the pushing. Two big examples of this are Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) and Representative Jamaal Bowman (NY-16). Both of these representatives were endorsed by DSA and were even members of the organization (unsure if they still are). Both of them have lost endorsements from DSA because of their congressional voting records.
A few years ago, DSA exploded with arguments around expelling Bowman for voting in favor of the continued military funding in Isreal. Some wanted real accountability and party discipline, some thought that wouldn’t look very good for DSA. The real problem is that there isn’t such thing as party discipline in America. This has spurred other discussions on “how to break from the Democrats.” Some argue that the Democratic Party is a hollowed out shell of a party which DSA can commandeer, some argue that we need to build an entirely separate party for the Working Class. Something has entered the discourse. Feel free to read at your leisure. Based on what that logic presents, it seems to me as if the strategy to commandeer the Democratic Party would make sense, given that there really are no party lines within the party itself. We could, theoretically, just elect a ton of Socialists into the party and enact our agenda from there. Cool! Fine by me, let’s use all the tools we’ve got!
One person in the group chat I was in got annoyed about how people don’t perceive DSA as “revolutionary.” I always think that this kind of complaint is pretty silly. Is a 501c3 non-profit inherently revolutionary? I don’t think so! Can the work that people do within a 501c3 non-profit be revolutionary? I suppose, but it also depends on what you mean by “revolutionary.” What does that even mean? I think the concern about “who is the most revolutionary” is a pretty pre-mature concern when the masses aren’t even organized. The average voter still thinks Socialism is bad. Perhaps not bad, rather “Big Government” gives them more reason to distrust the Socialist project on its face. My point is that the American left is not a popular place to be, which is why political education is really important. Is political eduction inherently revolutionary? Depends on what you’re teaching, even how you’re teaching. Anybody out there read Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed?
I don’t think that DSA is a revolutionary organization and I don’t think “revolution” is the work of DSA either. It’s okay if our work is just electing Trojan Horse Slates into the Democratic Party. Whatever! What do we have to lose by trying? All tools are going to be necessary to change anything. The goal would thus be to create a culture and society which would move towards revolution, right? So just get them in public office and move some shit around, create the circumstances under which the revolution of the working class can manifest. The trick is to make Socialism popular among the working class, which means organizing your workplaces, your communities, your buildings, etc. It means talking to people and not scaring them away with your weird jargon or shitty attitude to be the most “correct” person.
In a nutshell, what I’m getting at here is that we shouldn’t bog ourselves down with being the most “revolutionary” group or doing the most “revolutionary” work. Rather we should be focused on being surrounded by people we’re proud to be organizing with and doing work that we’re proud to be doing. If we’re not doing work that moves us, then we need to ask ourselves if we’re doing it for the right reasons. Nowhere else in history has the center of Imperial Capitalism seen a revolution of the working class. We can look to history for insight, but there is no blueprint for this. We can read all the theory that we want, but none of it will matter if we can’t work together. The real problem at the heart of all this political discourse is that the United States of America is a capitalist nation. I cooked in this letter from the editor: “Capitalism isn’t a consequence of this nation, this nation is a consequence of capitalism.” I think that what matters most is building class consciousness through being nice, normal, and chill. We’ve got a world to win.
Poetry
This week’s poem comes from Solmaz Sharif, an Iranian-American poet teaching at UC Berkeley. Sharif was born in Instanbul and came to America at a young age. Since then, she has earned various accolades and awards over her career, publishing poems across anthologies, literary journals, and magazines, as well as two collections of poetry. She is the author of Look (Graywolf Press, 2016) as well as Customs (Graywolf Press, 2022). You can read this great feature on her in Lux magazine (subscribe, please support this magazine, I’m a huge fan). From the feature: “Unlike some successful contemporary poets, her poems cannot be easily captured on tote bags or in Instagram posts — a relief to her. But those who come across her work are startled, if not captivated, by her exacting language. After one reading at a university, an older man who had only recently come across her work remarked that it seemed she was ‘bearing witness’ to something. Her precision is difficult to ignore, especially when it is damning.” While I do find her work quite significant, I do disagree with her choices against metaphor. This poem, in my opinion, held the closest thing to one. I can really feel it.
