Why America Is So Screwed Up

Anyone who has been watching the news knows that America is in a pretty bad state. But this isn’t just because of a bad leader, rather the inevitable end result of a screwed-up system. So let’s take a closer look at America’s built-in defects. And yes, I’m looking at it all from the outside, but sometimes an outsider can see things clearer than those caught up inside it. (And trust me, the rest of the world knows a lot more about America than America knows about the rest of the world.)

First, your political system. I did a university paper on American politics, so I do know how your system works. Or doesn’t, to be more precise. There are lots of things wrong with it, but I’ll just focus on what I see as the worst failures.

1) The Separation of the President from Congress. I know you’re taught that it’s a good thing, but what ‘separation of powers’ really means is that POTUS has too much power. This can and has led to a ton of abuses, and it is almost impossible to remove them before their term is up. In parliamentary systems, an unpopular Prime Minister can be voted out by their party and quickly replaced by someone else, so no leader dares get too big-headed. Does this mean a bit of instability sometimes? Sure, but it’s still way quicker and easier than impeachment. You need to fix this.

2) The Senate. Giving equal power to each state means that states with lower populations, who tend to be more conservative, can block progressive measures. This is a big part of why American politics skews so far to the right. Seriously, what Americans think of as ‘far left’ would be barely centre-right in most other countries. If you want real change, start by eliminating the Senate.

3) The Electoral College. Another system weighted in favour of the more conservative states. How many times has a would-be president won the ‘popular’ (ie direct) vote, but lost because they didn’t get the numbers in the electoral college? Delete, delete, delete.

4) Lobbying. I suppose this happens to some extent in many countries, but America has turned it into a huge industry of, to put it bluntly, outright bribery or at least ‘persuasion’. Paid shills for groups as diverse as the gun lobby, Zionists and churches control so much of American politics as a result that it’s not even remotely funny, or just, or anything good. Kick them out. No lobbying allowed.

5) Voting Itself. And then there’s all the corruption around the actual voting process, from gerrymandering to polling stations in poor/non-white areas being shut down, from right-wingers infiltrating the voting agencies to the disenfranchisement of various groups especially women, trans people and Native Americans… I’m sure you know this all too well. Another area overdue for change.

 Second, your economic system. America didn’t invent capitalism, but it’s sure taken it to extremes. Neo-liberalism is just the horrific icing on what was always a very nasty cake. So now you have excesses/obscenities such as the ‘military-industrial complex’, crass commercialism, rampant consumerism, a work-till-you-drop ethic, a drastically poor and powerless working class and a horrific welfare system, while the ‘One Percent’ bloodsuckers hoard more and more money. There’s this meme I’ve seen on Facebook from several people, so I don’t know the origin of it, but it’s basically saying the super-wealthy aren’t an elite, they’re parasites. ‘That’ List is only the tip of the iceberg of ghastliness. This needs to change. All of it.

Third, your education system. In my country, schools in poorer areas get more funding whereas in America, the reverse is true. This means that poorer states have poorer, failing schools. The result is a massively under-educated sector of the population. It was these people who voted in this monster, and who continue to support his worst actions. Even when he’s gone, they’ll still be a problem. You won’t get a better country till you get better education. (And I’m not even going to start on how religion has way too much sway in your country and education system. But it’s all connected.)

Fourth, your medical system. How did America fail to establish a proper universal health care system when the rest of the developed world did? Now Americans are doomed to either crippling medical debt or being ripped off by health insurance companies that often don’t deliver anyway, and I’m surprised you’re not angrier. Your politicians seem reluctant to touch it, even Obama only fiddled with the edges of it. Create a proper, tax-funded universal health care system, for your own sake, and that of your children.

Fifth, your policing system. I mean seriously, you have nearly 18,000 law enforcement agencies, even if you discount the federal ones it’s still absurdly fragmented. Other countries, even quite large ones, manage without anything near that number. Your officers are often poorly trained, with too much emphasis on guns, and too ready a propensity to racism, sexism, etc. There seems to be so much variation from one agency to the next, and even police ‘gangs’ operating in some places. And then there’s a Certain Frozen Agency, which has lower standards for entry, shorter training, more suspect members, and seemingly more license for violence. Though let’s be clear, cops have been shooting and killing (especially black) people long before even George Floyd. It’s just that many didn’t care until it was white folks being killed. Frankly, it’s a mess. Sweeping change needs to happen.

Which leads me of course to your ‘racial problems’. African-Americans were denied basic rights until well into the twentieth century, and there are still entire segments of the population who don’t think any non-white is truly human. The Nazis drew on American eugenics ideas for their system. Entire communities were imprisoned during World War Two for the ‘crime’ of being Japanese. Native Americans have been robbed of so much. And on and on it goes. Yes, other countries (including mine) have their own shameful racial history, but somehow America has a talent for doing it worse – I suspect that it’s because the shadow of slavery is still a heavy trauma imprinted deep into the psyche of your entire nation. It's time for that collective trauma to be faced.

And last but certainly not least, those guns, guns, guns. How on earth did this get so out of hand? How is it that so many keep dying, especially children in school who *should* be safe… and yet no-one is willing to stop the mayhem? I very much doubt the Founding Fathers meant for every Joe and Josephine Bloggs to have firepower equal to a small nation, with daily slaughter counts in the dozens or even hundreds, and no-one seemingly able to put any restraints in place. Australia and New Zealand managed it, why can’t you? NZ Police don’t even carry guns on their persons, and I assure you our crime rate is nothing like America’s. The same can be said for many other countries.

So let’s face it… America, your soul is sick. Your country is sick. It‘s tottering and failing. America is like that guy who was a muscle-bound swaggering bully in youth, and who in old age is still trying to throw his weight around, not realising his years of excesses mean his body is now shot to pieces. You literally have a leader who embodies that.

So once this current mess is all over, I don’t think you can or should go back to ‘business as usual’, because that stuff is how you got here in the first place. Even when you get rid of the Orange Menace, the systems that created him will still be there. You are going to have to make some Big, Big Changes, or risk it happening all over again, or worse.

It’s over to you.

The Things I Do And Don't Care About

I’ve been thinking lately about the things I do, and do not, care about. I’ll start with the latter first, because they have especially been on my mind. 

I don’t care what others think of me. For much of my life, I was a classic people-pleaser, riddled with anxiety about what others thought of me, trying to live up to social expectations and ‘earn’ approval. Eventually I realised this was a battle I was doomed to lose. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t mask well enough, pretend well enough, be good enough to be truly acceptable. So I gave up. Not all at once, but gradually and definitely, and the older I get the more I simply don’t give a rodent’s posterior what people think of me. It’s very liberating.

I don’t care what people want if they don’t say it. I used to fret obsessively over this too, trying to figure out what people wanted. Now, if people don’t say what they’re thinking, I can’t be bothered trying to read their minds. Why should I? If they can’t be bothered being upfront and honest, I can’t be bothered engaging. Say it or stay silent, I don’t care.

I don’t care what people think about my appearance. This is another thing I spent a good deal of my earlier years fretting over, trying to ‘fit in’, whether it was with ‘normal femininity’ or ‘right-on lesbian feminist’ rules or ‘hippy left’ style or whatever. Nowadays? I’m a t-shirt and jeans person, rarely wear makeup, have short hair, and sometimes get mistaken for a man, at least until I turn around or speak. But I do love bright colours and jewellery (though I don’t wear it much for sensory reasons), have even worn a skirt on occasion (okay, for funerals, but still). If anyone doesn’t like the ‘look’ of me, however, my answer is simple – don’t look! I don’t care what others wear either. There are far more important things.

I don’t care what people think about how I live my life. People have long been trying to tell me how I should live my life, from my parenting (often from those with no kids or experience with them), to how, when and how much I should ‘socialise’ (regardless of me trying to tell them I can’t do it like that). But possibly the biggest criticism has been around how I manage my disabilities, especially my CFS. I’ve been criticised for taking vitamins - ‘they’re just expensive pee!’ - even though they have literally saved my life, told I should ‘just go for a run round the block!’ at a time when I couldn’t have crawled around it on my hands and knees, and had an actual naturopath I’d formerly visited tell someone else that it was ‘a pity’ I’d gotten a diagnosis of CFS, as I would ‘just use it as an excuse’ to not try to get better. I kid you not.

So what DO I really care about?

 I care about one Big Thing…

The state of the world.

Last month, our former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, told the 2025 Yale graduating class that the world has turned into “an all-out dumpster fire”. She is so right. Now, the world never has been a wonderful place (newsflash : there never really were any ‘good old days’). That’s why my generation fought so hard to change things (yes, those boomers people love to criticise, even as they enjoy the benefits we gained them). But more recently, it’s become just… awful.

There is no other way to describe it. Fascism on the rise, so many of the advances we fought for now being either eroded or outright destroyed, and not just in America either, though that is definitely the worst conflagration (and it is literally turning into an actual conflagration in parts, eg ICE agents tear-gassing protesters, Marines brought in, actual goddam MARINES), entire groups living literally in fear of their lives, the rich hoarding more and more wealth while the rest of the world struggles ever harder, too many fools trusting other fools rather than proven and verifiable science, disbelief of the media even when they’re reporting live on actual horrific events (I don’t have any special love for the media, but come ON folks, use your brains), Certain Nations sitting back smirking behind their hands at the havoc they had a hand in creating, genocidal wars where children and other vulnerable are dying by the dozen every day for the benefit of the greedy and the power-hungry, incipient environmental collapse while our politicians quibble about who has to give up the least, yet other nations attempting to position themselves to be Dominant Powers when the dust settles… on and on it goes, and there doesn’t seem to be any end to the horribleness of it all.

Or my sense of helplessness and horror in the face of it all.

And people think I should worry about what I or others wear, or what others think of me, or what some dipstick who doesn’t even know anything about CFS - or any other condition I have – thinks about how I should be handling my health or my life? When there’s so much awful crap going down? Are you kidding me?

Get outa here.

Who I Stand With and Why

We’ve all been watching the news from the USA, many of us with mounting horror and dread. It’s just one horrible thing after another. The worst kind of people gaining power and control. The wholesale wrecking of government departments and sacking of even essential staff. The demolishing of legal rights and protections for and attacks on the most vulnerable, the erosion of human rights, the muzzling of the press… And on and on it goes. It’s scary stuff, especially for those into history. There’s an onslaught of enmity directed at anyone who doesn’t fit into the cis, straight, white, male, middle- or upper-class, born-in-the-USA conservative Christian mould - even conservative Christian women now, which is surprising no-one but those women themselves.

The most important question is not ‘what will THEY do next’, because we can all guess, even if only by looking at history. (Concentration camps, anyone?) The Big Question is, how much and for long will the American people put up with it, before they rise up in rebellion? When (not if, but when) that will happen, what form it will take, how successful it will be, what the end result will be, is anyone’s guess. The only sure thing is that it can’t go on like this.

The new ‘rulers’ are of course presuming on shock and awe to keep everyone under their thumb. But I think they underestimate people. Even Americans, who, let’s face it, have had their education system run down, their rights steadily eroded, their economy tanked - FOR DECADES - and who have been indoctrinated into believing that ‘Murrka is the Greatest Country on Earth’, are not going to take it forever. Or even for that much longer. And of course the targeted groups are probably going to play a pivotal role in leading the resistance, because they have to. Because it’s THEIR lives at stake.

To be sure, many of those in the most vulnerable categories are feeling terrified and helpless. Some are leaving or planning to leave the worst states or even the country. (And let’s be clear, you’re not a coward if you can and do flee. Some are more vulnerable than others, or lack the capacity to fight.) Others are trying to help them get to ‘sanctuary’ states, though how long they will be able to keep gays, trans people, immigrants, women who want abortions etc, safe, is yet another good question. People are right to be scared. But sooner or later, if you’re pushed to the wall, you have to push back, if only because you’re not able to either flee or hide. I think it’s already begun to happen. And let me note here that street demonstrations and court decisions are only the beginning, not the end, of the resistance. I mean, I’d be relieved if they were effective, but I’m not holding my breath. Because Trumpet and his cronies have nothing but contempt for courts, laws, government departments and even their own voters.

I want to make it plain that at least part of my support for these groups is because I identify with those in danger. I’m acutely aware that if I was a US citizen or resident right now, I’d be in danger too. I’m gay, non-binary, autistic and almost certainly ADHD as well, I have multiple physical disabilities and health conditions, including CFS, arthritis, thyroid issues, high cholesterol and diabetes. I am on (government paid-for) medication for the last three of those. I’ve also been poor all my adult life, am dependent on NZ superannuation (i.e. the old age pension), and live in social housing. I’d be a target, for sure, so I really, REALLY feel for all my counterparts in the States.

But it’s more than that. It’s a matter of simple human decency. How anyone thinks it’s okay to attack people who love their own gender, identify as a gender that doesn’t match the body they were born with, are of a different race or religion (or none), fled persecution or poverty in another country to find a better life for themselves and their family, etc, etc, is beyond me. I simply don’t understand this level of cruelty. If I had been alive in 1930s Germany, you can bet I would have been opposing the Nazis, and I’m opposing them now. You’re either on the side of human decency, compassion and justice, or you’re not. End of.

Because of this, I’m not going to waste time pleading for Those In Power to spare my American counterparts. Things have gone way beyond that. I’m not able to do a lot from this distance, but I will certainly do what I can, most especially not allowing myself to be silenced. I don’t know if Big Brother is reading this. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, Big Brother? Go fornicate with Yourself.

Some would say, ‘oh, it’s easy for you to say all this, you don’t live in the States, you’re safe’. But we’re all fooling ourselves if we think the Orange One’s influence stops at the shores of the US. He has already made territorial threats against Canada, Greenland and Panama. He’s blatantly sided with Russia, and publicly attacked Ukraine’s courageous leader to his face. He’s demanded insane things of other countries, or sent his VP to verbally attack them. And that’s all just in less than two months. Not to mention that NONE OF US ARE TOTALLY SAFE if he triggers World War Three. A second American Civil War would affect people way beyond America’s shores. Tariffs or the collapse of American share markets, businesses or banks can also affect the whole world. So no, I don’t think we are going to be totally safe wherever we are.

Not that I’m deluding myself that they’ll come after me personally, I’m not important enough. Nor am I planning (or able, or even wanting) to visit the US any time soon, and New Zealand is not considered an ‘enemy’ of the US, right? ...Right? And Trumpet has really respected America’s traditional allies …right? But he wouldn’t interfere with another country’s citizens… right? Right?

 Truthfully though, I’m more concerned right now about the encouragement he gives to the worst kinds of people everywhere. A member of the coalition government here has proposed a bill to get rid of all DEI laws and regulations. It has little chance of success… so far. Who can say what the future holds.

 But ultimately it doesn’t matter. On the deepest level, I simply do not care. So Big Brother, if you do wanna come after me, all I can say is - bring it. I know who my people are, and who I stand with. And it’s not those currently calling the shots across the other side of the Pacific.

Why Is The World Going Backwards?

 Why does the world seem to be going backwards?

Let me expand on this idea. I am a member of the post-war generation. In our childhood, Nazis were recent, and evil, history. Despite how some see ‘boomers’ now, as we grew up we saw ourselves as progressive, throwing off the ‘fuddy-duddy’ ideas of the ‘old days’. There was also an implicit belief in science, and we assumed that the world would continue to improve as a result of it. Many of us, as we got older, joined movements like feminism, civil rights, gay rights, anti-nuclear and so on. Conservative, reactionary forces were pushed back. Onward and upward from here on, we all assumed.

Over time, however, something happened. Maybe we got tired, or burnt-out, or moved on to new things. Or we just got old. And these movements ...changed. Their focus changed. A lot of the younger generation seemed to think that all the battles had been won anyway, or perhaps they were too busy just struggling to survive in the new neo-liberal economy (which, contrary to popular opinion, boomers neither invented nor put into place). We entered a new century. Society changed. The world changed.

Somehow, from somewhere, the reactionary forces have risen again. Religion, which once seemed a spent force, has surged back, gaining a new viciousness. The prejudiced, who’d seemed few and quiet for decades, have also surged back. In the US, right-wing Christians have taken control of the Republican Party, and are now trying to control the voting process and deny voting rights to minorities. Also in America, white supremacists have surged in numbers and power, infiltrating police forces. Even the Nazis have come back.

Around the world, there’s been a surge of new, egomaniacal leaders, from Trump to Putin to Bolsanaro, as well as of those willing to follow their lead or their example, who are openly and actively oppressing minorities (eg Russian gays, China’s Uighur people), or suppressing all opposition. Yes, there have been dictators in the past (think Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pinochet) but I guess we assumed that this kind of leader was a thing of the past, that the world was becoming more democratic.

As well as all this, there’s emerged, in a portion of the populace that even if small is still way, way too many, a level of mistrust of/hatred for government, media, scientists and doctors that is beyond reason, and a phenomenal growth in anti-vax sentiments, something that would have shocked and baffled previous generations, who eagerly embraced new vaccines as a public good.

So what happened?

Why does the world seem to be reverting to the philosophies of a former era, only with some deadly and vicious new twists?

When and how did it become okay to be a Nazi, to say ‘six million wasn’t enough’, and to have *actual* torchlit processions in the streets? When did it become okay again to be openly racist? And when and how did hippies, New Agers and other ‘leftie-ish’ types become allied with *actual* Nazis and white supremacists?

When did a subset of feminists turn into transphobic TERFS? How did they hijack feminism to mean actively working to suppress trans rights and freedoms? (Yes, back in the day these opinions were around, but rarely and only casually expressed, there wasn’t this vehemence, and they certainly weren’t organised.)

When did science and medicine lose their rep so badly that many not only don’t understand them, but consider them corrupt? When did it become okay to be an anti-vaxxer, and not get laughed out of the neighbourhood as dangerous or deluded? When did the tide of misinformation start? Is Wakefield totally to blame, or is there more to it?

When did expertise - in any field – become a thing to be derided and ignored in favour of ‘feels’ and ‘instincts’, or some crappy website/guru/New Age ‘therapy’? When did movie stars come to be seen as more ‘knowledgeable’ about science than actual scientists? When did the ludicrous idea that nature is always beneficial and ‘nice’ gain traction?

And when did simply using your common sense and objecting to any of this come to mean that you’re ‘sheeple’, or ‘shills’ for Big Pharma, and you get told to ‘wake up’ by those who obviously slept through science class?

When did ‘I want a haircut’ become of more importance to some than public safety? How  did individual ‘rights’ come to always outweigh collective good? When did it become okay to storm or besiege your centres of government, just because you don’t like their decisions, or the result of a democratic vote?

When did it become okay to blame anything on a generation (usually boomers or millennials), rather than the real culprits, that obscenely wealthy one percent who are steadily draining the rest of us and screwing up the environment?

When did it become necessary, in the eyes of the media, to present the arguments of anti-vaxxers and other science-illiterates as a ‘legitimate viewpoint’, and interviewing them as presenting journalistic ‘balance’?

When did we go from an understanding that some politicians are corrupt, sometimes, to the belief among some that all politicians are corrupt all of the time, everywhere, and that the media are nothing more than their lackeys? When did these people start to close their ears?

When did the world, or at least a substantial part of it, lose its common sense? When did so much of what my generation fought for start falling apart? What happened to moderation? When did the (supposedly ‘civilised’) world become so damn uncivil? When did the world start going backwards?

What the heck happened? How have so many people lost the plot, so badly?

And what’s worse, is that it’s so blatantly obvious that a lot of these people just don’t care what harm they do. Dictators are becoming increasingly blatant. Putin smirks at the rest of the world’s objection to his egomaniacal invasion of the Ukraine. China threatens Taiwan. Trump openly lied, bragged and sneered. Anti-vaxxers baldly state that they don’t care about the illness and deaths they are responsible for. TERFs will post screenshots of trans people’s pain and outrage as ‘evidence’ of their ‘attacking’ ‘real’ women. Right-wingers blatantly work to undermine the ‘democracy’ they claim to prize. Reactionary forces, in general, do not care about the pain and misery they inflict. They would pull apart all we’ve gained, if they could, and replace it with far worse than anything we had before. And not blink at who gets hurt.

They. Just. Don’t. Care.

And yes, I realise that many of these attitudes had to have been only deeply buried, not totally eradicated. That we were probably kidding ourselves that humanity had turned a corner. And yes, I am deeply distressed and enraged by recent events, especially Ukraine. And YES, I know that my feelings and observations are very subjective. And I know also that there are still sensible voices and rational people in abundance, and that there has been, and continues to be, genuine progress in many areas.

And yet there are some undeniable trends.

Trends indicative of a deep distortion and malaise in our collective psyche. Something, somewhere, has become unhinged. The world all too often feels like one gigantic scream. And I don’t think this is ‘just a phase’ either, and that we will swing back again any time soon. Something has come apart, and I don’t think it’s going to come back together. We won’t come back together. Deep rifts have formed in society, over which there seems to be no crossing.

And as someone whose sexuality, gender identity, neurology, political views, degree of outspokenness and level of physical disability fall outside what’s considered acceptable by these reactionary forces, my personal safety feels under threat. This is not rhetorical or theoretical. Even in my comparatively ‘safe’ country, there have been anti-vax and anti-mandate protests, with violence and mayhem, and public figures coming out in support of them. I have heard people, in my own town, loudly claiming that vaccines contain microchips. The local paper frequently publishes letters from anti-vaxxers (and their opponents, to be fair, but once upon a time editors would have just tossed AV letters in the bin). There are anti-vaxxers even in my own street. And while New Zealand is not as religion-minded as some countries, nonetheless there’s a right-wing religious element which I keep a wary eye on.

I no longer feel safe where I am, and want to move, but I’m wondering if anywhere is truly safe anymore. I fear for the future, and part of me is glad I’m old, that I won’t live to see the outcome of all this. I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know where there is to go from here, what we can hope for, what we can do, on an individual or collective level. It all too often seems like the progressive forces are on the back foot. Please tell me I’m wrong. Give me hope, because right now I don’t have any.

THEY DO IT BECAUSE THEY CAN

Like a lot of people, I’ve been watching the Black Lives Matter protests. What strikes me every time I see the clip of that cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, is how little he’s worried about being on camera. He’s watching the bystanders, sure, but only, it seems to me, to judge whether they’re a further threat. Being videoed kneeling on someone’s neck till he dies? Nope, not a worry.

Why? Because cops like him have done this, and worse, to many black or brown people in the past, and gotten away with it. And I bet that he’s not even that worried now, because even in the rare cases where charges are laid, cops usually get acquitted, or a minor punishment. He’ll be expecting the same. It’s not over yet, not by a long shot.

Because pretty much everything done ‘in the line of duty’ has been excused or overlooked by complicit police administrations, passive civil authorities, and a judicial system reluctant to believe any wrongdoing on the part of police, even when confronted with glaring evidence of it. And so they  assume they can get away with practically anything.

The signs are there, for anyone to read. There’s some kind of corruption of spirit – there’s no other way to describe it –  at the very heart of policing. They see themselves as ‘heroes’ fighting against ‘wrongdoers’, who can be pretty much anyone else. (But especially black and brown people, I believe.) The result, of course, is that police themselves have now become an enemy to many.

This ethos is so pervasive, it’s even in fiction. Watch any cop TV show or movie, read any detective novel, a cop will lie or beat up someone at some point. Or the heroes-against-the-world thing will pop up. ‘It’s hard being a cop, no-one else understands’. Etc, etc, etc. And bear in mind that these shows are usually sympathetic to the police. Yet even there, the corruption has become the almost-unremarked-upon norm. (And before anyone says it, yes, I can tell fiction from fact. My point is that it’s so widespread in fact, it’s permeated into fiction.)

A note here – I went on my fair share of protests and demonstrations, back in the day. I’ve seen cops insult or verbally abuse people, threaten violence, commit it, do various dirty tricks, and even lie in court. There was a time in my life when if I saw a cop in the street I’d want to vomit and run away. So even though I’m whiter-than-white, I’m not surprised at all the videos that have emerged in recent years, though I am angry. I back BLM two hundred percent.

However – though I’m not wanting to divert the spotlight away from the Black Lives Matter movement at all – that is NOT my intention here – it’s worth noting that there is a deeper problem, an underlying pattern, which is not limited to the interaction of cops with black and brown people.

I was reminded of this recently when watching a documentary on Harvey Weinstein, and how he preyed on women for years. And he’s only one of the many, many authority figures – religious leaders, politicians, sports coaches, psychotherapists, entertainment top-dogs, etc, etc, who have long targeted the young and vulnerable of both sexes. And then there’s the abuse or even murder of autistics and disabled, by those who are supposed to be caring for them. Or the (mis)treatment of psychiatric patients, or the homeless… the list goes on. Practically anyone ‘different’ or ‘powerless’ can be, and frequently has been, a target.

In all these cases, those doing this harm do it because they can.

Because they’ve gotten away with it over and over again, for years, decades, even centuries.

Because they were in a position of unquestioned, unassailable, and unchallenged authority.

Because their victims were perceived as ‘lesser than’, ‘defective’, and/or just plain unimportant, not even worthy of life in some cases.

Because those who could have stopped them did nothing, in fact chances were they’d done it themselves, and thus it was ‘business as usual’.

Because even if their transgressions came to light, and complaints were made, the word of the powerful was always taken over the complainants.

Because even if a complaint was upheld, the transgressions were seen as minor/unimportant, or their actions were ‘justifiable use of power’.  

Because their victims were silenced in various ways – through threats, coercion, money, or just being ignored or ridiculed.

So it was okay for cops to beat up or kill black people, or for them to harass or beat up homeless people and destroy or take their belongings (and heaven help those who are black and homeless), for entertainment moguls to put aspiring actresses through the ‘casting couch’ ordeal, for priests to molest children and then simply be moved on to another parish, for professionals to put autistics through various torturous processes to make them ‘normal’. And so on, and so on.

Because the victims weren’t, and often still aren’t, considered important. They’re ‘the other’, the ‘different’, the ‘lesser than’, not worthy of the same rights as ‘normal people’, and thus it doesn’t matter what happens to them. And in the case of some groups, such as black people and autistics (once again, heaven help those who are both these things), even a ‘threat’ of some kind which has to be obliterated. So that others of their ilk can be kept in line. Subservient. Uncomplaining. Knuckling under to the Powers That Be.

THEY DO IT BECAUSE THEY CAN.

This is an important point to remember. Because they can, and have, gotten away with it for a long, long, long time. This corruption isn’t only in the police, but at the core of every imbalance of power. It’s a sickness at the heart of a world where those with power simply assume they have the right to not only define ‘the other’, but to shape and control their very lives. Up to and including whether they even get to live or not.

But at a certain point, the oppressed have had enough. They see that nothing but their rebellion will stop it. And so they say ‘no more!’ Black Lives Matter says no more. The ‘Me Too’ movement says no more. Autistic Rights says no more. Social movements since the 50s and 60s – civil rights, feminism, gay liberation – say no more.

And that’s the whole point of these protests – that black people, along with their allies, have had more than enough. They’re saying that it’s way beyond time to make the oppressors get their foot, or their knee, off black necks. Literally and metaphorically. To end this sickness, and root out this corruption.

If you still don’t understand this, if you’re still into ‘all lives matter’, or going ‘well they shouldn’t riot’, then you have missed the point entirely, and you’re going to end up on the wrong side of history.