Look man, I ain’t gonna lie. I’m sitting here in my bed, and I’m finna to start a new job, right? I’m finna to start a new job, that’s gonna pay me a lot of money. And this is, in any other scenario, a year, two years ago, I would be all about it. But man, all I can think about, you know, I get older, I have a kid, that kid gets a little bit older, he gonna ask me, he gonna go, “Pop, where were you when they was killing all them kids in Gaza? When they was dropping all them bombs. What were you doing?” And you know what I’m gonna have to say to my son? I’m gonna say, “I was stacking paper, son. I was getting some bread.”
Could you imagine, it’s Nazi Germany, and somebody said, well, they sending them to the gas chambers, train by train by train, day after day. I keep seeing them get loaded up on the news, but shit, I gotta stack my paper, I gotta get my bread. Sounds a little bit ridiculous, don’t it? It sounds a little bit ridiculous. And it’s got me thinking about a whole lot of things. And part of me almost feels like this job, the money that this job gonna pay me, okay, this money is a bribe. It’s the system saying, hey, look, we know you don’t like it, but here’s some good money, man. You wanna get that paper, don’t you?
Brother, I wanna get that paper more than anything I want to break the cycle. My kids ain’t growing up ina dusty ass FEMA trailer park. That’s all my life has been about. I remember selling snack cakes in middle school. I was selling test results in high school. I was selling whatever I needed to sell, okay? Doing whatever I needed to do. Things I can’t tell you. I was working two full-time jobs before covid, 80+ hours a week sleeping in my car some nights.
But I’ve seen things in the last six months that would make a grown man weep. And that just is something I cannot stop thinking about. Like, what am I doing? What are we all doing? I saw a toddler melted, no skin, just sinew and burns. White phosphorous is only made in America, only in Arkansas. We did that.
We did that man.
You know, I run a website. I got a platform. I get like 5,000, 6,000 views, sometimes even 7,000 views a week. I’ve written article after article and I don’t feel any less hollow than I did when it first started, when I first started seeing them videos. I’ve spread the word, I’ve gotten my social medias have been banned for spreading the word, but it’s not enough. It’s not shit. It’s internet shit. That’s not real shit. That kid, if I told him, well, you know, I look, I wrote an article about what they did to you. You think you feel better about what they did? It’s many a nights I lost sleep thinking about the things I done seen. And I know the people who are doing these things, they sleep in the sound as a motherfucking bear in the wintertime.
As @LarkinDePark said you are not a super hero, you don’t have to carry that burden on your back, the fact that you’re here on grad looking to inform yourself, is already a very big step, you are concerned and revolted by the situation of the world, good, actually very good. Keep finding means to provide for you and your family, and if and when you have more available time or money, try to figure out good ways of organizing, see if there are any collectives around you or something like it. Because in my eyes the best thing comrades everywhere can do is to work on the revolution on their own land, however far it is. The deaths in Gaza and Congo, the deaths by hunger and disease are not gonna stop no matter how many individual conflicts we solve, capitalism will keep killing more and more in the most varied ways. And that is sickening, you have that right, but our job is to group up with people round us, and help people around us, and share our knowledge with people most hurt by this system, to offer them an alternative. So in the future, even if we don’t know how far in said future, we along with the masses revolt and take down our opression. And then the world will have another force that will stand against future Gaza and Congos and whatever new horrors capitalism comes up with.
Just know comrade you’re doing your best, I’m proud of you, I applaud your indignation with the situation, but first you need to take care of you and yours, and your mental health. Once you can take a breather you think about heeding the bulk of my advice, cause we don’t want you to break under overwhelming pressure, we want you as happy and motivated as you can be, then you’ll be much more productive to the revolution, just know that you and your family matters, even if horrible things are happening elsewhere you folk still matter. Do what you can comrade, just not at your own expense.
Thanks for this comrade. Things have hard lately, these words mean a lot to me.
I’m glad I could be of some comfort I always like to keep in mind and remember others as much as I can, the most important idea of communism is togetherness, we’re in this together, far or near we work for the victory of the collective, you are a comrade and we’re here for you just as much as you’re there for the Palestinians, same fight on many different forms