Joan Baez presenting boygenius with the Variety 'Group of the Year' Award:
“I’m here to offer the award for Group of the Year to three women who have personally and musically stolen my heart. [...] I believe that the songs of these three women speak to the delicacy of the human condition. And they are in a sense trailblazers, not just with their music and its uniqueness, but in their willingness to speak out for people who are marginalized, and in fact ostracized and persecuted in this society. To bring about any society of decency and caring is going to take a lot of work, and you women have been a part of that work. A word about the music: I was brought up listening to and singing harmonies, and I’ve heard a lot of them in my day. I have seldom heard harmonies as true and as fucking angelic as yours. It’s just a glory to listen to. [...] Actually, they, I believe, will teach us something about the kind of friendship in musicians that I didn't really know back then. I was trying to imagine Crosby, Stills and Nash romping through an outdoor amusement park [...]. Friendship and pleasure and joy and trust, all of these come through clearly to me, and I think we can all learn from that as well."
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[ cw: violence mention / death mention / ]
Will never stop thinking about how Leo, all alone in an endless void and being beaten again and again and again by the only other living thing around, still finds comfort in that space. The situation he was in was completely hopeless, and in any other circumstances he would not have escaped, at least not fast enough to save him from permanent (or even fatal) damage, be it physical or mental.
And yet, despite the bleakness of his situation, despite the agony and helplessness, all he needs is one glance at a crumbled photograph, one glance to remember his family, and that’s enough of a reason for him to smile.
Maybe that’s why his powers center around manipulating space - because no matter how much space is between them, no matter how dire his own situation may be, just the thought of his family, alive and okay, is enough to give Leo hope.
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i hope we continue to see more protests within the US military. i see a lot of leftists and folks who are anti-military who have such an open disdain for the people who are in the military, yet neglect to considering the conditions this country makes to produce ideology, poverty, and the illusion of choice to make all kinds of people choose to enlist in the military. You ever see those videos of ROTC kids recording each other asking why they joined the military and everyone's like, "healthcare", "it helped me go to college", "I was bored" or "free ptsd lol". I hate to remind everyone but folks who are in the military are people, too, and they are the same victims and perpetrators of violence as the rest of you, we have all been shallowly conditioned to view each other as enemies just because one person is wearing army greens and the other is not.
some of the biggest anti-war advocates are those who engaged in war. Veterans who genuinely believed they were protecting the US against "terrorism" come back with blood on their hands, and they choose to realize that it was US imperialism that forced them to carry out violence, instead of doubling down and shielding themselves from the fact that they too are capable of atrocities... This is a class of people who are intentionally conditioned to be as poor and as ideologically aligned to US imperialism so that the military has a never-ending pool to send their youth to destroy other country's youth. The only people I have ever heard say "do not join the military" are those who ARE military.
This is in no way to ever excuse or explain away any of the atrocious war crimes and violence this industry and its people have committed against others. What I am saying is that we absolutely cannot cast aside the individuals who have been victimized within US imperialism, even if they are wearing army greens. I was speaking with my Palestinian classmate last week and another classmate--a member of the US air force-- walked up to me and struck up a conversation. My military classmate showed me her new bird, bid both of us goodbye, and left. My Palestinian classmate asked me if I was close with her, and I said we talked quite often, and she said, "I never met a person who's in the military. I still hate the military, but I never knew that they did, too. I didn't realize that they were also victims."
If my Palestinian classmate--one who is actively watching her own community die--can understand that it is not individuals who are the problem but it is in fact systems, US imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism...why can't we all? And she has EVERY reason to hate any individual military member. A lot of online activism just creates more barriers. if your optics look bad, complicated, or contradictory, you are cast aside. Everyone has got the be the perfect activist, you can never make a mistake or share a half-baked thought, you should always believe every word from a marginalized persons mouth (because being marginalized doesn't mean you're not entrenched in white supremacy too!) and you should never question what you see...Do you know what you sound like? The very imperialists who are convincing poor whites to vote against themselves. Perfectionism is white supremacy. Black & white thinking is white supremacy.
I'd rather have a military member who genuinely believed in the US imperialism machine but was disillusioned after being deployed as my comrade than some leftist who cherishes the performance of "being a good person". I don't want "good people" in our movements. I want humans who care. I want humans who make mistakes and who learn from them. I want humans who accept the messiness of a person. I want humans who hold others accountable and allow themselves to take responsibility for their actions. I want people who change for themselves and others.
fight systems, not individual people. we can change each other, but if we're too preoccupied looking like the World's Perfect Activists, we will only consume each other alive. Connect to your fellow humans, forever and always.
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Being in pain and anguish can make you a deeply unpleasant person when it starts to grate on you to the core of your soul how unwell you are, and it really can make interacting with others so much harder.
It is hard to be around other people when you're in pain, and the sounds around you quite literally hurt, and you feel the crushing weight of reality settling deep on your chest and throat, and it feels like the world is against you. It's hard to be "pleasant" when everything feels stacked against you.
I hope to be with all of you in a metaphorical way. It's hard to be disabled and to act "normal." It's important to recognize that we can become so entrenched in the horrors of disability and pain that we lash out because when we recognize the cause, we can start finding ways to notice what might help.
Disability can feel like you're turned into a shell of who you thought you "should" be. Give yourself the space to grieve if you need to. I know it's hard. Take it a day at a time.
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There are genuinely people online that instead of actually bringing people to the left, at this point, would prefer that anyone who was previously not on the left but who tries to be *stays* outside of the left, because i guess its just easier to comprehend when the world is put into little shitty boxes you labeled for them instead of actually thinking for once and having the nuance to understand them. Like thats wild to me that theres people who would prefer you not be on the left or not try to be. Yall GENUINELY do not care about advocating for your side politically in any capacity. Its LITERALLY just a clique you've found yourself in. And theres nothing progressive about that or being exclusive, wtf do you think this shit is, a night club? Grow the fuck up, honestly.
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