I can't stop thinking about Naomi Klein
Archived from Nov 05, 2024:
I do not know what is going to happen in the coming hours and I promise you none of it is good but there hope regardless.
Trump is clearly a bumbling fascist who hardly knows what the word means, propped up by little other than his inconceivably huge ego and a campaign full of white supremacists who abide and celebrate his abuses. Harris is a former prosecutor who sided with cops that wants the American military to be the most deadly it’s ever been, a loose paraphrase. It’s OK to think they’re both bad - hell, I’d argue it’s morally correct to recognise that you and your loved ones, community, strangers, deserve better than hyperviolent, greedy representation. Stein is a non-starter and even if she were, she shows up every 4 years with a decent platform and Republican money. There’s little to no evidence of grassroots fundraising or on the ground work in the 4 years between elections.
Amid the noise my thoughts keep drifting to Naomi Klein, a Canadian with Jewish heritage. While her work has always been excellent, I have shameful memories of discounting her work that I had barely engaged with in my early 20s because I had heard it described by academics as “divisive” and “emotional”. I am grateful my older self knew better than to take these opinions at face value and she became a voice of clarity, of rigor, of compassion in what increasingly feels like an impossible world to be part of. While all her work is important, what I cannot stop thinking about is that Shadow World she speaks of in Doppelganger - the subjugation that is required to maintain global Western comfort. The coups in Latin America, the slavery in South East Asia, the massive, violent wealth extraction from Africa, hell she even talks about antisemitism as I’ve cited previously:
Though there were certainly exceptions, for the most part, the goal of this teaching was not to turn us into people who would fight the next genocide wherever it occurred. The goal was to turn us into Zionists[…]
And at that school, ‘Never again’ did not mean ‘Never again to anyone,’ as it did in our home - it meant ‘Never again to the Jews.’ It meant ‘Never again because of Israel.’
Doppelganger, p.298, 2023
I know a lot of people, activists are hoping for a Harris win and I understand. She is less of an immediate, existential threat to minorities in the US but will continue to fund an ongoing genocide, forgive me for not believing her hollow calls for a ceasefire only after her popularity was threatened. When it comes to Harris, I cannot stop thinking of Naomi Klein - I cannot stop thinking about the “normalcy” she offers centrists and liberals. I cannot stop thinking about people who are fine with human rights violations as long as they don’t occur within the United State’s borders. Trump would be a nightmare, surely, but there are so many people who are only afraid of Trump because he'll treat some Americans the way the entire US government already treats the entire global south. They do not want to be othered, and it is hard to do the self examination to find out that you are guilty of othering and they’d prefer a reality where they do not need to confront that. They want normal, they want violence elsewhere, marching into our planetary death so they can over consume dumb shit rather than be uncomfortable for one fucking moment.
And please know the fury this was written with as someone who isn’t an American. We want to talk about democracy while entire countries hold their breath over an election they have no control over lest the world economy be thrown into chaos or worse? Pathetic. This isn’t democracy. You’ve been lied to and you ought to be furious. Why make a conspiracy theory when you can just hate the real government?
It does not matter who wins because it cannot be defended or described as a democracy when so many people see it as the lesser evil, as the one option of two that will ruin their life either slowly or expediently depending on their skin colour and who they love.
We, you, all of us, deserve better.
I don’t care what happens. We have work to do and people to care about, actively. We are morally called upon to love and hope.
Anyway, here’s some art that made me/makes me the way I am:
Turn Soonest to the Sea - Protest the Hero (also almost anything PtH)
So when you bled
On the bed
As you fed
Those expectations
As a whore and not a human
You embraced with hesitation
The very parameters of all you can be
Not a mother, not an aunt
Not a sister that's not subdued
Because dignity is not physical
And your flesh means more than you
Oryx and Crake - Margarette Atwood
After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? Because it is.
Princess Mononoke - Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki Hayao
You cannot change fate. However, you can rise to meet it, if you so choose
I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman
I felt a surge of grief, I, who had never known men, as I stood in front of this man who had wanted to overcome fear and despair to enter eternity upright and furious.
Human Acts - Han Kang
Soundlessly, and without fuss, some tender thing deep inside me broke. Something that, until then, I hadn't even realized was there.
They Thought They Were Free - Milton Mayer
On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.
