live from the Four Seasons (Total Landscaping)
Well, they finally called it. It was obvious for a while now, but I guess the media were waiting on ... something. There have been a lot of guesses as to why they took so long--my favorite being that they wanted to wait and make Fox News be the ones to call it first--but I think in reality it's just the news cycle. It's capitalism. The longer they wait to call it, the more clicks and endless refreshing. The longer they draw out the ambiguity, the longer the ambiguity itself is the "news." But hey, here we are. And ... it feels good?
Don't get me wrong. Biden and Harris are about the worst the Democratic Party has to offer. They represent everything I detest about electoral politics, the Democratic establishment, neoliberalism. A Biden/Harris win is not a meaningful attack on hegemony--in fact, they are the hegemony. They will enforce and reinforce, not challenge, systems of white supremacy, capitalism, heteropatriarchy. They represent how hard the DNC has worked to suppress progressive and leftist voices and winning policies in favor of corporate interests. Ultimately, for the left, this is a pyrrhic victory.
But still ... whether we're celebrating their victory or Trump's defeat, it's okay to savor it a bit. But let this energize us, rather than pacify. Let our rest be short because the fight ahead of us is still long and difficult. We cannot stop pushing for a politics of the people, of love, of abolition, of radical change. And we do that from the bottom-up, not through elections and politicians but in the streets and in our homes, our neighborhoods, our communities. Through mutual aid and direct action and social pressure. That's what gets the goods.
And while I have no love for electoral politics, I do see the usefulness. If you're interested in helping defang the Republicans in the Senate, consider supporting Fair Fight to help Warnock and Ossoff win in their runoff elections against incumbent Republicans in Georgia.
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In other news ... things are pretty normal here. Long weeks leave me exhausted but I look forward to time with my family. V is so smart, and her vocabulary is exploding. Now if only she would get back on her sleep schedule. Between my long weeks and V refusing to go to sleep and then waking us up again every night I feel pretty beat.
As of this past Thursday, I'm playing in a short series of the game Apocalypse Keys, a tabletop roleplaying game about a team of monsters investigating eldritch mysteries and doing what they can to hold back the apocalypse. It is very much inspired by Hellboy and the BPRD comics, but with an interesting focus on relationships between the characters and horror (without being grimdark nonsense). We're playing through The Gauntlet and the sessions are being recorded, so when the first one goes up I'll probably share it here if watching me play a Victorian ghost named Novella Teague sounds up your alley.
Our Scum & Villainy crew meets again tomorrow. Last time, the crew of the Manheister made a delivery that could change the course of the sector, or maybe even the galaxy, forever ... and then stopped it from falling into the hands of the Hegemony. Now we're in a downtime phase, so we'll see where things go next. I imagine the two dangerous Precursor artifacts, as well as the genetically manipulated being they have aboard the ship, are going to come into play ...
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I've thought about maybe sharing some links that I've found interesting or useful over the past week or so when I do these? And maybe add a little commentary sometimes? How would folks feel about that? Nothing in particular I want to share today, but if that's something people would be into, I can start making sure to save things I would want to share and talk about.
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I'm kind of excited that System of a Down released new music for the first time in 15 years. You can check out the single, Protect The Land & Genocidal Humanoidz, here. I also want to give a shoutout to local boys and best buds Soup Moat, whose new record Be Brave, Run Away is really fucking good. I'm proud of them for realizing their dream of putting out an LP, and I guess they only have a few left, so get on that shit if it seems like it's up your alley.
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Okay. This has been a lot.
Remember, like Woody Gutherie said: take it easy, but take it.
j.