Thoughts

On violence and change

The violence won’t change a damn thing, you stupid, evil little cunt. Grow up already.

Your fear of change is palpable. It is your single greatest weakness, and you are blind to it. That’s why you’re so easy to manipulate. It’s why you’re so easy to control. 

Let’s talk about violence for a moment. I’m against it. You seem to be against it, so why do you keep coming back here to fight me on this topic over and over again? Why do you get so riled up when I call you a fascist? Why do you ignore the very real, perpetual, and systemic violence being done to Americans by our militarized police state, our prison-industrial complex, our failed war on drugs, and our grotesque war on poverty that has always been a thinly veiled war on the poor. Violence has been built into our system by design since its inception, and yet you come at me with this weak tea bullshit mythology about the plight of “small family-run businesses” during this brief spasm of civil unrest. 

You’ve picked the wrong fucking battle, my friend. You cry out about “livelihoods” but not about actual lives. Every time you come at me with an argument, you find a fresh way to put property over people. You try and humanize it with stories of “an old man being KO’d or an old lady crying,” but it’s painfully clear that all you care about is order. It’s why you get so outraged when I call you a fascist, which is naturally why I keep calling you one.

You get furious with me because I am indifferent to your point of view. You keep filling my comment section and my inbox with the same small-minded take, each time a bit angrier, and you expect me to what? Change my mind? No. You just need an outlet. You want someone to fight, because you are so filled with impotent rage and that paralyzing fear of change. 

Of course, I know better than to take any of this personally. I rather enjoy being called a stupid, evil little cunt. It’s fun for me, and though I’ll proudly agree that I’m a stupid, evil little cunt, I am also deeply committed to the part where I try and help you. I can see how much pain you’re holding in your chest and in your shoulders right this very second. I can feel you taking that breath and trying to keep it all balanced, trying desperately not to let any of it tip over and leak out. I’m happy to be your digital punching bag. Better me than someone else in your life, but what I’d really rather be is the reason you let some of that poison out of your soul by changing your point of view. What I’d really rather do here is help you recognize how even you aren’t safe from violence — and when I say violence, I mean the real kind, the perpetual kind, the systemic kind. Even you are a victim of it. We all are. 

As much as you are desperately hoping I will see you in your stories of small business owners in fear of their livelihoods, what I really see is how you are relentlessly playing your sad little part to prop up a violent, broken, and unjust system, even as the system itself slowly kills you. That rush you just felt to defend capitalism? That’s how predictable you are, and it breaks my fucking heart. I want better for you. I want more from you. 

I can hear you uttering the words “cringe,” and still, I recognize it as a defense mechanism. It’s not your fault. Your coping skills are what they are, but it’s never too late to reject your programming. It’s never too late to grow as a person. I promise, it really is better over here on the right side of history. I get to “work hard,” just like you. I get to “create value,” just like you. The difference is I’m not filled with fear. 

My anger is born of hope. Yours is born of fear. That’s the real reason you hate people like me.

Still, you’re welcome to join us any time.  

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25 thoughts on “On violence and change

    • CQ says:

      You can switch up your name and leave multiple comments, but I know it’s you. Also, ISIS? Really? Now you’re just being silly.

      • Steve says:

        You’re blind to your blatantly religious extremism. You need to do some serious soul searching.

        The fact that you need to believe there is only one of me spamming you relentlessly reveals that you’ve lost touch with reality to a dangerous degree.

        • J says:

          You have probably heard this before, and it might incense you, but I implore you – please get the support you need. The societal climate out there is fucking awful right now, I know – all the more reason to get that help.

          (P.S., CQ – this post was a masterpiece. A straight-up tonic. Thank you.)

        • Veryon says:

          The idea that this is “religious extremism” is just the scab where your own privileged peers injected the poison and it healed over with misinformation under a bandaid of “you don’t have to do anything to deserve everything.”

          There is nothing in that post related to religion.

  1. hopefully furious says:

    Chris/Steve/whatever alias you’ve espoused in your attempt to appear as a multitude rather than a lone voice here, you truly are drowning in your desperation.

    • Chris says:

      Looking back I didn’t see him use “Chris,” and can say it’s not me, which perhaps you could confirm with about 4 years of comments.

    • Momo says:

      “ My anger is born of hope. Yours is born of fear. That’s the real reason you hate people like me.”

      Exactly. There are so many like you Steve/Chris. But there are more like us.

  2. strike says:

    Y’all – the rich will always be calling the shots unless we take to the streets and show them that we have power (WHICH WE DO). The reason the country is opening up too early is because the rich people want the economy to keep going and they don’t care if the workers get sick with Covid and die, because poor people are expendable to them. That is evil. This country is ALL about rich people staying rich and hurting working class people in order to do so. And it works because everyone assumes that they too will be rich one day, so you unconsciously align with the rich people’s ways of thinking, e.g. cringing at change. THE WAY THINGS ARE is the BAD way, okay? The GOOD way will come from people striking IN THE STREETS because it gets actual attention. If Old Man Shamus’s shop gets hurt in the process, he can sit in his recliner at home and cry about it to his repressed wife who wasted her life serving him and his stupid dream born of this patriarchal capitalist white supremacist magic trick we’re all Oohing and Aahing over like 6-year-olds at a birthday party where the clown is a pedophile and is literally going to kill us later.

  3. Jesus says:

    “And here’s my thing, when you look at the young people being labeled as “thugs” for looting/destroying property, ask yourselves : What has been stolen from them? What has been BURNED and DESTROYED in them? What CAN NOT BE REPLACED in them? Their minds? Their spirits? Their psyches?
    I feel bad people are being stolen from, last night I saw much of it, it’s corny, it’s not fair. But someone’s store being the wrong place at the wrong time, THAT is the fucking issue. WHAT CANNOT BE REPLACED IN COMMUNITIES CANNOT BE REPLACED IN THE HEARTS AND MINDS AND GENERATIONS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.
    You ask why resort to violence? Why not love. Why not logic? I ask: when were these kids to learn those ideas? When being followed in stores? When being chased in their neighborhoods? When growing up in broken homes due to systematic racism? When watching family members be harassed, arrested and killed before they could read and write?

    If those who participated in this weekend/s actions had the same opportunities to grow up in safe neighborhoods, receive good educations, not be exposed to levels of drugs and violence at an early age, not be given looks or LOOKED DOWN upon for the COLOR of their skin and the CONTENT of their character, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.
    Shit that is now normalized in communities of color is a DIRECT result of a lack of reparations and resources that should have been America’s FIRST priority years ago. I’m not mad at these young men, it’s dumb to steal but
    if you don’t at least understand where it comes from, you still
    don’t get it. This conversation is not about
    physical belongings, when we die ain’t shit coming to the grave with us anyway. But why should they hit that grave first while you get to leave your legacy, own your business, buy your home, start your family?

    Y’all got me fucked up.”

    Not my words, but someone else’s.

  4. otp says:

    That’s the thing, it’s never too late. Anyone (cops included) can put down their weapons, leave their hateful ideologies and get on the right side of history at any time and be welcomed (although cops have to let us throw eggs at them for 20 mins in order to join.)

    • Chris says:

      Smedley Butler concluded what was the most decorated career in the history of the US Marine Corps by saying that he was nothing more than an agent of big business.

      He went on to write a book called “War Is a Racket,” outlining the profits made by huge companies during WWI and how they couldn’t wait to do it again.

      And he was right.

  5. Melissa Enders says:

    I’ve got goosebumps.

    Fear is contagious, as is hope.

    I learnt the hard way January 19th 2021 – a day I tried to kill myself in a complete breakdown – being fearless leads you back to hope.

    Every single time.

    (I also go by the name Jessica Sen – though I’m transitioning to my “real name” because I’m no longer purely a troll. I’ve grown up. We all have.)

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