Dangerous Conversations

new & exciting 'zine project - 'Dangerous Conversations'
email: dangerousconversations(at)riseup(dot)net
deadline for contributions to issue one: March 2011

Dangerous Conversations is a project born out of the struggle to end systems of domination. Our involvement in movements described as anarchist, activist, horizontalist, and so on has been at times inspiring and at other times disillusioning and frustrating. This zine is not aimed at Anarchists
or Activists but at anyone who struggles against the many forms of domination that blight our lives: ableism, ageism, authority, capitalism, civilisation, caste and class systems, heteronormativity, islamaphobia, male privilege, speciesism, transphobia, white supremacy (and others that are
still unrecognised).

Dangerous Conversations is intended as an intervention in business as usual. We hope to collect texts and viewpoints that challenge the status quo in a way that, rather than (or perhaps as well as) provoking hostility, provoke constructive responses and discussion. We hope that, as much as possible,
the zine becomes a place to converse and to deepen affinity. By showing solidarity with others who also see the struggle as their own struggle, evenwhen we differ on the details, we can become stronger as a movement. Ours is a strength that comes through diversity and empathy for different viewpoints
rather than the imposition of dogma and distrust.

These conversations are dangerous to oppressors because they threaten their privilege. They sometimes seem dangerous to us too because they threaten our own privilege. Because of this, they are important conversations to have.

This first issue (‘What next?’) is to be a collection of different viewpoints on where this struggle should go next. We are inviting a range of contributors who we think have interesting and sometimes conflicting ideas on how we should proceed.

We hope that readers will want to respond to and involve themselves in the project by contributing to this conversation in whatever way seems appropriate. There are no guidelines for what is and isn’t appropriate way to express yourself here. Submissions for future publication, participation
in the editorial collective, criticism and ideas are all very welcome.

- via Race Revolt

...

"most of us get it wrong.  we think first you get security and then you can work for freedom.  but no, that never really works out.  first you get free.  second, you get free.  third, you get free.


security is an illusion."

- Mai'a, on the Egyptian revolution (read the whole thing!)

killjoys

My friend sent me this amazing article:

"Does the feminist kill other people's joy by pointing out moments of sexism? Or does she expose the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced or negated under public signs of joy? [...]

"The angry black woman can be described as a killjoy; she may even kill feminist joy, for example, by pointing out forms of racism within feminist politics. [...]

"To speak out as a woman of color is then to confirm your position as the cause of tension; your anger is what threatens the social bond. [...]

The exposure of violence becomes the origin of violence."

Sara Ahmed, Creating Disturbance: Feminism, Happiness and Affective Differences

and there's that rare feeling again - sheer relief when somone pins down a truth that is so obscured by our culture. those who identify violence disrupt the comfort and happiness of those who are profiting from that violence. and they will consider that disruption to be violence against them, so entitled do they feel to that comfort and happiness.

kristin says

we have to do what we came here to do, no excuses.

"Honestly, I'm so shy that I find most contact with people deeply unsettling, but songs [...] mean that I'm burning with sound, not frozen with fear. 'Cause they're my way down to where we all are.

I didn't ask to go down to where we all are, but as it turns out, I'm a member of a deeply social species in which the only truths worth speaking are the most naked."

kristin hersh, Paradoxical Undressing

being accountable to complicated histories

i was so excited to read this:

"Rape has a history.  Histories, actually.  One of the patterns of a more local history can be seen and felt in the ways some instances of rape have the effect of mobilizing, even galvanizing people in ways that other acts of violence do not.  I am not just speaking of feminists.  If my dashboard is any indication, folks in my orbit have expended exponentially more outrage on the recent Julian Assange rape case, and the left’s response to it, than, for example, the human rights abuses that have spurred the prisoner-organized and coordinated strike that’s been going on in Georgia.

[...] 

“If we get rid of prisons,” they’ll say, “what are we going to do with all the rapists and murderers?”  When I hear this, I think that feminist descriptions of rape culture have actually not accounted for the ways in which the idea of rape—is tied up not only with a culture that punishes women for attempting to tell the truth, but with a culture that punishes, full stop.  That punishes populations that include women, but also include people who are gendered differently.  I think about how much we rely on the law, and ultimately, on the penal system, to define what it means to be safe.  To the extent that we experience the incapacitation of the rapist—the locking of those convicted of rape—as if it were justice, overlooking conveniently the persistent evidence that more prisoners do not mean fewer instances of sexual violence.

I think about the idea of prison rape, and how rarely I see this invoked in descriptions of rape culture. I recall the “dropping the soap” joke made by a women’s studies professor in a classroom, and the uncomfortable receding of laughter once it was recognized that I  wasn’t participating in it.  I think about the degree to which indifference to prison rape is also an essential part of popular culture, and how rarely I hear this in feminist outrage toward rape culture.  About how the condition of “prisoner” has an underrecognized resonance with the condition of “woman” to the extent to which becoming a prisoner is, to some extent, not only to become rapeable but to be seen by many as deserving of it.  Rape culture tells you that you shoulda thought about that before you committed the crime.  Crime as submission, before the fact, to rape culture.

I think about how rarely I see the myth of the black male rapist referenced in discussions of rape culture, and I think, at the same time, about witch hunts.  I think about the systematic rape of black women categorized as the master’s use of his property.  Rape culture as the protection and promotion of the sancticity of white womanhood—all of which, I suspect, did nothing to decrease the instances of rape against even those women whom it enshrined as ideal.

I wonder if the victims of prison rape are not victim enough for the feminism I see on my dashboard.  I wonder if a black body swinging from a tree will be seen as the victim, or victim enough of rape culture for that kind of feminism.  I wonder these things because I want to see a movement that doesn’t isolate rape from other kinds of violence, or as a violence experienced by an amorphous and undifferentiated category of “women.”  Because, I suppose, I want to be part of a feminism that understands that certain uses of the idea of rape culture can actually strengthen patriarchy, and that being accountable to complicated histories is not to participate in apologism.  So I have to wonder if it isn’t more than a coincidence that the feminists I am reading are not organizing in support of the strikers.  I have to wonder at the sense of risk I feel in writing that I don’t think that extending the reach of an already problematic criminal justice system is a solution.  I question the flinch I feel in saying that I think it lets this  state, one so deeply and fundamentally complicit with rape culture, off the hook.  I question my reservation in saying that I want to recognize our reliance on this very state to protect some of us from violence and to enact justice as a tragedy.  In saying that I think that rape culture is actually part of a culture that relies on incarceration to solve problems.  This really has so little to do with Julian Assange."

written by low end theory. (via mai'a) there is more amazingess at the start and end so again - please read the whole thing.

We're Telling

and in more good news there's a new tumblr project, We're Telling: (via Flip Flopping Joy)

"Sharing anonymous accounts of rape and sexual assault; demonstrating that rape happens, everywhere, often.

WE'RE TELLING is a new blog whereby anyone can anonymously share their own accounts of attempted or completed sexual assault or rape."

demonstrating that rape happens, everywhere, often. it's been up for a day and there's already loads of posts. it's overwhelming. so important. i love the internet sometimes. i hope it's helping. i'm sure it's helping. is it just me or is there a real feeling in the air - in all sorts of cultural - political - personal ways - of the truth coming out, of belated acknowledgement of what really is...?

writing on Safety

aaaanyway... onwards with the celebration of radical voices that make the world make sense. this is wondrous and amazing - black queer voices on safety, security and travelling:

"Security, to us, means having the upper hand in an unsafe situation.  Security, to many, means having access to the violent means that the state uses to defend itself, the police, the national guard, the private security forces that companies use to protect their wealth.  For those of us, black, queer, young, radical, and grassroots, who are not often seen as part of the state’s project to reproduce itself (except when we are targeted as consumers) those sources of security are not dependable. As far as we can tell security comes from weapons.  And only works if you got more, faster, bigger weapons than whoever makes you insecure.   Maybe we could achieve security if our mobile home was a fortress, if we attached an alarm system with missiles, or a system that sent an electroshock through anyone who touched it.   None of these things, however would make us safe.  And methods like that would surely make the more low-tech partner on the trip, likely to be the first to trip the booby trap, and our comrades less safe.

We acknowledge that in a world where violence against queer and gender queer young people of color is common, security is not a light matter.  We have also decided, however, that security is not enough.  Our intention is for our journey to be SAFE.

Safety, to us, means being able to be comfortable in our skin, having the freedom to move, being able to sleep restfully and wake renewed and excited about the journey.  Safety comes from knowing that we are held by a community that has our backs.  Safety comes from knowing that all along the road there are home-spaces with comrades who will welcome us and who will answer if we call on them.  Safety comes from relationships and people."

Safety: An Abolitionist Vision, at Mobile Homecoming. read read read the whole thing.

guilt-free

i've been meaning to write about supermarkets, and why i've tried to stop shopping in them. i want to write more about how people - we - try to eradicate violence from different areas of our lives, and how we often look in the wrong places. well, i haven't got that post together yet, but here is a quote from a beautiful short article by someone, about shooting a deer for food. it is very well worth a read. 

"It’s clear to see that a human killing a beautiful wild animal is kind of sad [...] What is unclear is how sad consuming any plant or animal as food is. 

Food from the store, as a rule, kills even more beauty, destroys unimaginably more life, than a hunt like the one I described above. Its invisible killing, to the consumer at least, because its culturally accepted. [...] To actually wrap one’s head around how much suffering and loss went into their ‘guilt free’ bowl of organic whole grains with tamari and olive oil is probably not possible..."

BFP on Wikileaks

BFP is on fire at the moment. i feel privileged to share a planet with her.

here:

"What’s important is what actions are being taken–not even so much against Assange–but against wikileaks. Against supporters of wikileaks. Even against those who have no idea who the fuck wikileaks is or what it’s done. 

Because indeed–those of us who care about gender liberation must, absolutely MUST, be aware of and understand that the nation/state that *F*eminists have entrusted to mete out “justice” for violated women–is using “justice” to criminalize all of us. It is up to us to understand that this isn’t a simple case of did he do it or didn’t he or “stand in solidarity with rape victims.” This is a case of our own tools being used against us. Not against Julian Assange. Against us. Because all of us who have been there understand on some gut level–how likely is it that these women will actually receive justice? What horrific price will they have to pay (in testifying, getting their names dragged through the mud, etc) to “get justice”? At the same time, how many of our lives will be dramatically affected by the “threat” we all now present to the nation/state?"

and here:

"it is the US government that seems to have perfected the role of patriarchal duality that we have all assigned to Assange. The advocate for the dispossessed rolled into a messy soup with dirty slimy scum bag that beats his girlfriend on the side.

It is the US government that is both rapist and activist. It is the US government that we all pretend not see hear the beating on the other side of the wall–because it’s doing such good for the community!

Just as we have to wonder why it makes sense to tell soldiers or policemen that it’s ok to kill when they have a certain uniform on, but not when they’re wearing clothes bought at Target–we have to wonder why it makes sense to condemn men who rape and abuse in private, while willfully and continuously ignoring the private rape and assaults of our government in the name of the “good” it does in public.

And that’s not to say that we let the man off scott free–but rather instead to question: if our goal is to stop rapes before they happen–how do we negotiate the dissonance of the “model” of public advocate/private rapist the US reinforces continuously with the idea of “anti-gender violence citizen”?

Specifically: how will gendered violence ever end when gendered violence remains, at the core, a esteemed value of the US government that we all live under?"

...and so much more in those posts. read them! 

WHAT NOW?

the institutions are being demolished. education, health, support for migrants, children's centres, women's aid, 'sexual assault referral centres', you name it. our world is being refreshingly blatantly rearranged in order to ensure the rich continue to get richer, faster. what do we do now? do we fight to defend these structures? in all their iniquitous, exclusionary, policing/policed and violent glory? is that really what we want?

or is it time to reimagine what education, health, support for migrants, places for children, support for survivors... could be. what could these parts of our lives look like, in our wildest dreams? in our dreams where money doesn't matter, because we aren't allowed any. (or because there isn't any anymore.)

are we going to support one another? are we? are we going to start figuring out how?

"If your experience is that your food comes from the grocery store and your water comes from the tap, you’ll defend to the death the system that brings those to you because your life depends on it. If, on the other hand, your food comes from a landbase and your water comes from a river, then you’ll defend to the death that landbase and that river, because your life depends on them."

Jensen.

all we are is a good set of hands

ohhh. mai'a. writes with such beauty and relevance.

"this division that we make in our discourse and activism between nonviolence and violence is false.  in reality our definition of violence is ‘stuff that the powers that be dont like’.  and that is not a helpful paradigm for determining what tactics we should use for our survival.  not only is it not helpful, it is contributing to our own demise.  taking nonviolence as a fundamental dogma is an act of suicide and a support of the genocide of others.

we cannot run away from trauma, because this culture in and of itself is traumatic.  our brokeness, traumatized selves, can be used by us to further destroy ourselves, or can be used as a way to let the love in and out.

[...]

something i learned from my teacher.  dont call yourself a ‘healer’.  no one can heal anyone else.  everyone must heal themselves.  all we are a ‘good set of hands’."

the abuser is popular

"in order for you to support communities and individuals, you have to work to stop the abuse that is holding them under water.  and stopping the abuse means stopping the abuser.  and the abuser is popular.  so you wont be."

mai'a, at Outlaw Midwives, in a post called "you have to choose a side. its a war. either you are with life, or you are with the forces of genocide". please read the whole thing!

honouring this

"i can't getcha outta jail, but i can getcha outta hell..."

oh, kate bornstein. queen advocate of coping strategies. someone should put her in charge. i hope by the time i get to my sixties i have as much compassion and wisdom to give, and keep on giving. do you know about her anti-suicide book? do you know about the blog where she keeps on posting and responding to comments from suicidal young people? oh i wish i'd had those sorts of messages when i was a teenager. i wish i'd had them when i was 25.

honestly, i see her work as so important and counter-cultural. keeping the people alive who can't bear to live here. not by making them stay, but by offering them a message they have almost certainly never heard: "You can do whatever it takes to make your life more worth living. Anything. Anything at all. It can be immoral, unethical, or illegal [...] It can even be self-destructive." so that there keep on being more of us, so there are more of us to work against the culture, even if that's only by staying alive. "There's only one rule [...]: Don't be mean. That's the only rule you ever need to follow to make sure that your life is gonna get better. If you're not mean, you can do anything it takes to make your life more worth living. [...] It takes true courage to follow your outlaw identities and desires in the world. Doing that nearly always ends you up with less worldly power. But I promise: you can always do something to make your life better every single day of your freaky geeky life."

and i'd like to do another project like this but aimed at adults, people who don't consider themselves 'teens, freaks and other outlaws'. or at least come up with a good, simple way of expressing this stuff, to use in my work. does stabbing your partner when it seems like he's going to kill you count as being mean? i have a lot of these kinds of conversations with women who can never forgive themselves for fighting back, and who have been (or are in the process of being) gravely punished for keeping themselves alive. 

and about how women cope with it. all the crazy stuff that people do in crazy situations - it needs to be honoured. the incredible Young Women's Empowerment Project (in Chicago) has the tagline "girls do what they have to do to survive".

how do you bring that kind of message to adult women who are already trapped, or even already criminalised for doing whatever it took to make their life more worth living?

mai'a on safer spaces

many things that mai'a writes float around my head and become such important reference points for me, and i want to find ways to share my thoughts about them, link to them here and talk with my friends about them, but mostly their significance and relevance is still filtering slowly through my brain.

i love nothing better than a systematic analysis of what needs to happen for abuse not to happen, and i'll be coming back to this one. here are some snippets:

"life is not safe.  people hurt each other.  we have a choice. to either support our own and others’ abusive behaviour or words, or to nurture respectful relations.

safety is an illusion.  what is real is what we do.  do we act out fear?  or do we act out respect?

[...] 

4. intentions. your intentions matter. yes. to you.  and they should. to you. the rest of us. dont give a fuck.

[...]

if you are fucking up a lot, like over and over again, and hurting people, then i got to wonder:

a. either you really do intend to hurt people or,

b. dont care if you hurt people or,

c. are not able to see that your intentions and your effects are not lining up very well..."

read the whole thing, really, you should

love, again

i finished reading the first half of Endgame. i was folding down the page-corners each time he wrote something relevant to this blog, and now the whole damn thing is folded. my 'jensen' tag stands to get embarassingly large, but what can you do? this guy is doing all my work for me - so much of the stuff i wanted to do with this blog about linking up abuses and oppressions and looking for the universal truths and functions of it, reading this book has saved me years. *and* in volume two, my friend who is half a book ahead of me tells me, he talks to lundy bancroft!! like, i was getting all ready to tie jensen in with bancroft on this blog and then dreaming of emailing jensen to tell him how he's so nearly there but just needs to talk to this perpetrators-expert dude bancroft, but they're way ahead of me. oh to be a geeking-out fly on the wall. sigh.

anyhow, what was playing on my mind, as i read the last few pages, was to do with love. i've written before a bit about how love and passion are policed, pathologised, occasionally criminalised, including by 'well meaning' social workers and the like (do i need to keep on with the well-meaning disclaimer? can i start saying something less polite soon?). the weight of this was brought back to me as i was finishing up volume one and came across paragraphs like this:

"...Everything the culture taught me: how to submit, how not to make waves, how to fear authority, how to fear perceiving my submission as submission, how to fear my feelings, how to fear perceiving the killing of those I love [he's not just talking about people] as the killing of those I love (or perhaps I should say the killing of those I would love had I not been taught to fear love too), how to fear stopping by any means necessary those who are killing those I love..."

this all struck home with me, hard, how much i fear taking action against abuse, oppression, destruction, how the state of fear is infinitely more comfortable, and how i deal with that by loving less. numbing, depression, caring less, shutting down my love to only those closest to me, or only those things and people i can immediately see. and then - what does it mean? how can i love those closest to me without loving the other people, the other things?

"we are only free, when we are supporting the freedom of others"

(my biggest internet crush of the moment is all for Mai'a)

which is one side of things. but also, how hard is it to love in the face of that policing and pathologising? i was thinking - the women i work with often love with their all (others are numb and shut-down, but that's a different story, and a reason why there can't be a one-size fits all approach to DV work right). but the social workers - they can't afford to love, and empathise. they can't really know what it is, or how could they do that work? i wonder what their definition of love must be, and what it's got to do with (their own) 'good' families and ownership and 'security' and hoarding. they are probably really having no fun. i mean, i don't have a lot of time for the oppressors-as-wounded worldview but then sometimes -. what can you say?

i was also thinking about how i have to hide from my colleagues and people 'in the sector' (!) just how much i love my job, or rather, my work. it's not ok to be passionate about it. the management could pathologise me as 'driven' and starting looking for 'boundary issues' i might have. i was too driven when i was twenty, but i work damn hard on my boundaries and have figured them out over the years, at least within the framework of the voluntary sector (if i ever start doing the grassroots work i dream of, i think those must be somehow different boundaries to figure out).

i made some personal mistakes along the way, though i'm pretty sure my 'clients' were not impacted. like for example she didn't know it, but i did fall in love with one woman, not in that way, but in the example she showed me of mothering and of courage and awesomeness. when things went wrong for her i cried and cried - but of course she doesn't know this. then she made things right for herself. i 'should' have had stronger boundaries and not empathised so much. i got in a mess for a weekend. my managers never found out either, thank god. and.. well, what's wrong with caring that much, once in a while?

well, it was agonising... when you (allow yourself to) love something, pain is going to be part of it. so - i allow myself to love some things - a certain amount, and then draw lines, and exclude some things, and love some things abstractly. like the gulf of mexico. women i work who are eligible for benefits in the uk or who have enough income have more choices and options open to them if they are being abused. it's safe enough to empathise with their troubles, to try and figure it out with them. the gulf of mexico, on the other hand... and women with no recourse to public funds. many agencies switch off on hearing those words. it's too much, a stretch of empathy too far. i won't switch off. but i know there is something happening to my heart as the situation becomes bleaker for my longest-term 'client' with no recourse. i can feel myself starting to shut down as i can't bear to think of all the implications of her lack of options. it's safer not to love or care 'too much', to be A Professional. which, of course, entails not fighting as hard for what she needs. which is why we have all been professionalised - offered privileges in return for leaving behind the people we were trying to work with. at risk of losing these privileges, we then fear caring, loving and fighting.

No. it's becoming so clear how much it being not-ok-to-love is so much a part of how oppression functions. this kind of work has to be driven by love, and feeling and acknowledging pain has to be part of it. as supporters, we have to find ways of supporting each other in this. 

i love the groups, the women's support groups, i love the many moments every week where i can see amazing change happening, i love the women i work with. i want the crushing structures that make people feel mental for feeling highs and lows, or who lock people away and/or take away their children for loving, to end. and even more, i want the systems to end that make it impossible, too frightening, to love people (and places, and seabirds). and, jensen would say, what am i going to do about it?

knowledge is power, etc

i'm completely in love with the lilith plan and Mai'a's amazing fact-finding missions. i am speechless with impressedness.

and also i had a good root around in Scarleteen recently, so good! it's aimed at teenagers but is full of sound info for anyone of any age, and i got a (turns out) well-needed update of the extremely patchy info i got from Just Seventeen magazine back in the day. they sure hadn't told me what i need to know now. it still almost makes me cry to see accessible sex ed for young people where queer is normal.

speaking the overwhelm

Joan Kelly on serial rapist-murderers, hatred and 'protecting' girls. not a cheery read but i get so much from the way joan writes from the gut, linking it all together. she writes the kinds of thoughts and feelings that i can't articulate because i can't bear to dwell on them, and i'm grateful to her for that.

jensen quote of the day

"This culture / civilisation... is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted, yet often unarticulated, hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always transparent, invisible, it's unnoticed. When it is noticed, it's fully rationalised. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher... is unthinkable, and when it does happen it's met with shock, horror and the fetishisation of the victims. And there are so many examples of this. One example is within my own family, when I was a kid, my father was extremely violent... so the violence flowed constantly downhill, and the one time that my brother ever fought back he got beaten far worse than any other time, because of course he had committed blasphemy by sending violence up the hierarchy."

From a talk Jensen did about his book Endgame, which i guess i'd better read. You can watch the talk here.

christian holiday

mmph. i don't like this time of year. i do like the midwinter enforced holiday - making us pause and hibernate for a couple of days. making us think of treats to give anyone we love. and i like pretty lights.

but i can't stand the terrible focus on family-as-a-measure-of-success that marks anyone who's not joyous round a table crowded with family and food, as a failure, a sad case, pitiable. it's so much added bullshit pressure for just-another-day. and so many people have to go back to families where whatever kinds of abuse took place and play happy and good, all the silencing and denial comes back out, abusers get to sit at the head of the table and be passed more potatoes.

to cheer myself up faced with such compulsory depressing nonsense, to remind myself that "things don't have to be [and already aren't always] the way they are" (as the Jensen book i'm reading keeps saying) i like to go seek out the shitstirring queers. ah, here they are:

Mattilda Berstein Sycamore: Many of us grew up experiencing the lovely embrace of marriage or its aftermath, so we, and most queers, certainly know a lot about how marriage is, and has always been a central place for beating up, raping and abusing women, children, queers, and transpeople. And, even better--getting away with it! What are the other problems with marriage, and the gay marriage agenda in particular?

Yasmin Nair: I don't get why a community of people who have historically been fucked over by their families and the state now consists of people who want those exact same institutions to validate their existence. I think marriage is the gay Prozac, the drug of choice for gaysbians today: It makes them forget that marriage isn't going to give everyone health care, it won't give us a subsistence wage, it won't end all these fucked up wars that are killing people everywhere else.

[...]

Gina Carducci: we need to be able to choose our own families and who visits us in the hospital and who shares our assets and who makes decisions for us, whether we are officially single or partnered. And gender is defined by us too, not by presentation but how we define our own identities. Sexual liberation and freedom and places to fuck without being policed. Housing. Healthcare. Social services. Protection for the environment.

Hilary Goldberg: The last time I checked -- the nuclear family model -- was a disaster! Enough already. The gay rights movement needs to divorce marriage and pull it together. The system is broken, these institutions are failing, why are people so set on shoring them up? Let's focus on ending capitalism, abolishing prison, ending militarism, ensuring immigrant rights, clean air, great food, love, equality, interdependence, independence, autonomy, non-hierarchical structures, and most importantly the universal reclamation of all land and water as public property.

Yasmin Nair: And, of course, the abolition of the prison industrial complex, the end of the illusion that more punishment and enhanced penalties in the form of hate crimes legislation will benefit anyone, safety for young queers who are beaten and/or raped by families and have nowhere to go, intergenerational sex that's not immediately stigmatized as pedophilia, an end to sex offender laws that do nothing to end the abuse of children but only add to the coffers of the prison industrial complex, an end to the death penalty, an end to the idea that life without parole is an acceptable alternative, queer sex in public without paying a fee in a bathhouse and without being harassed, jailed, or beaten for it, an immigration rights movement that acknowledges that it's a crisis of labor, not about "families" or spousal partners, an end to the disappearance and/or deportation of undocumented people, and oh, I could go on.

whelm

been kinda overwhelmed (again) for a week or so, wanting to write stuff but not doing a very good job of finishing anything. part of this is due to a book arriving in my life: A Language Older Than Words, by Derrick Jensen. i'll be writing a lot more about it, as i slowly read it - it will have to be slowly, so it doesn't break my mind. from reading three chapters it seems it's so much of what-i've-been-searching-to-say, but taken a lot further past just (just!) oppression on a family/political scale into environmental/everything/the whole world... yes, really. plus there's a chapter where this dude Jensen chats with Judith Herman, who i'm always going on about, amazingness. here's just one thing she has to say to him:

"If you're part of a predatory and militaristic culture, then to behave in a predatory and militaristic way is not deviant, per se."

ahh, she rules. but anyway i was just kicked out of my work-tired blank overwhelm by receiving my first email newsletter from GenerationFIVE, having signed up the other week. they're so great. so i just wanted to post some enthusiasm about that book, and about inspiration. and you can read something by Mr Jensen here, an article which makes me think that the title of my last post should have been 'action & realism' :)