I Have Friends Everywhere

A basic concept: the importance of community. Also, a codeword and a powerful tenet of the rebellion.

“I have friends everywhere’ is the phrase I’ve plucked from the show, and it’s how I’m choosing to open this newsletter. Because I know there are more of us than there are of them. We may be in different phases of our radicalization journey, but we have the numbers. This newsletter is my way of finding community in these godforsaken, unprecedented times. I’m so fucking tired of living through unprecedented times!

I’m no expert trying to talk down to you, but a peer extending their hand across this virtual space so we both feel less isolated. Passing on what I have learnt, hoping you will do the same. Maybe what radicalized me can also be a catalyst for you. If you’re already there, and I’m preaching to the choir, join the fray. Share your thoughts, comments, and critiques. I hope we can share solidarity, information, courage, a kind word, resources, whatever we can spare.

As we launch headfirst into yet another war, lyrics from Dylan’s “With God on Our Side” have never rung truer. Especially as Kegsbreath, our ‘Secretary of War’ (SMDH) has all but declared this a holy war, starting the clock on doomsday and ushering in Armageddon. What’s that they say about believing in something hard enough so that the universe aligns to make it come true? “Manifest Destiny’? Surely that can’t be what I’m thinking of….

So now as I’m leavin’

I’m weary as hell

This confusion I’m feelin’

Ain’t no tongue can tell

The words fill my head

and fall to the floor

If God’s on our side

He’ll stop the next war

It’s a little un-mooring when the crazy conspiracy theorists turn out to be right, even though they came at it in the most unhinged way possible. What do you mean the cabal of cannibalistic, pedophilic elite exists, and they’re bipartisan?? What do you mean Epstein was somehow behind 4Chan, QAnon, and Bitcoin?? What the fuck do you mean?? Could it be that all our problems are related? Maybe capitalism and imperialism are two sides of the same coin, terrible for the planet and everyone on it, except a handful of monsters.

Unless you are a billionaire, this system wasn’t built for you. There are no ethical billionaires; their fortunes were built on the backs of the proletariat, and we continue to uphold their extravagant lifestyles. Being a second-rate citizen in a first-world country is still being second-class. We have more in common with the working class and poor people in other countries than with the billionaires in our own. Class war is the only war worth fighting.

In the US, you have it a lot worse than any other ‘developed’ country in the world. You don’t own anything. You pay rent on your home and your car. You pay exorbitant amounts on health insurance and student debt, and then also have to pay taxes on every dollar you earn. Why are billionaires paying less in taxes than you?? Where are all your taxes going?? Certainly not to fund education, healthcare, or subsidize housing. All your taxes go to the military industrial complex, fighting forever wars; to detention centers, which you know are concentration camps for dissenters; to the for-profit prison system; and to tax breaks for the rich. Meanwhile, food and gas prices rise, and homelessness is criminalized. Medicare and Medicaid have been cut, food stamps CAN’T BE USED ON HOT FOOD, and anti-homeless infrastructure exists.

If you try to protest, they sic their dogs on you. Cops and ICE get more funding each year, which they spend on riot gear, cosplaying Call of Duty, where you are the enemy. Tear gas, shields, batons, sirens that cause permanent hearing loss, and guns of all types, which they deploy at the mere sign of protest.

You know why we say ACAB or Abolish ICE? Apart from the fact that these jobs attract the worst kind of power-hungry, racist, misogynistic, queerphobic, scum of the Earth? It’s because they never were on your side. They’re competent at what they do, which is to protect the property, interests, and lives of the powerful against the masses. They are their security team. If you are a POC, queer, femme-presenting, poor, or any flavor of leftist, the cops are the enemy. It’s the state coming down on you like the hammer of god.

Very Animal Farm - except dictatorship, white supremacy, Nazi-bullshit, whatever you want to call it. Absolute power becomes consolidated in the hands of a few bastards; fascism by any other name would smell just as vile.

For a more thorough breakdown of the origin of cops, I recommend the 2020 podcast spinoff series of BTB - Behind The Police. I also recommend Maggie Mae Fish’s YouTube deep dive on “True Crime to ACAB pipeline.”

Let’s accept that America was never great. Trump is not only making those cracks apparent, he’s also ripping the whole fabric apart. The good news is that this is unsustainable.

Viva la revolución, Comrade!

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