Quote Of The Day #wearesurfs
Aug. 1st, 2015 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nebris“I’ve been thinking a lot about why there has been more internet outrage over Cecil than over Sandra Bland and all the other situations like hers. It seems like almost everyone posted something about Cecil, myself included, but I didn’t see nearly as many posts about Sandra.
I think it has something to do with our essential powerlessness. We witness these tragedies happening daily, weekly, constantly; we see our society imploding around us; we know that there are monsters a-bornin’ all across the country, born from violence and drug addiction, born from the fact that they are far more valuable as fodder for a for-profit prison system than they are as modest taxpayers, so why invest in them having any future; the wealth of our nation is channeled upward, away from us, instead of outward, to serve us - and yet we’re easily played by politicians who cut more and more of our commonwealth and tell us it’s to save us taxes; we try to conduct our lives decently, but we have no power. Even if we have some protection from accidents of birth and privilege. Even if we’re hanging on to modest middle-class status by our fingernails. We have NO power. If we allowed ourselves to feel the outrage that is really there, we would die of rage and grief.
But then here comes this guy. This oily, smirking, wealthy white guy. If he’s not quite a 1%er, he seems damn close to it, as far as we can see. And this asshole tosses 50k, which is more than most of us make in a year, and half of what a reasonably comfortable home might run on, he blithely tosses fifty thousand dollars for the chance to destroy something beautiful. Because he can. Because fuck you, peasant. Because when I pump my crossbow bolt into something rare and special, it gives me that jolt I need to keep my jaded appetite alive. Because I can buy anything I damn well please. Because it’s super fun to kill big things. Because I need something new for my trophy room.
But then we see - he is, in fact, just one guy. And we’re all after him. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe we can catch him, and make him pay. And deep down, maybe that will help us feel like we were actually able to strike a blow about this deep sense of unraveling that is seeping into our consciousness, for anyone that is even the least bit awake.
Of course, this will do nothing to the people who actually own us - the ones whose level of power and wealth is, quite literally, unimaginable to us, the ones who hunt with such subtlety that we don’t even see it happening, the ones to whom this Minnesota dentist is nothing but a scurrying little toady. They take whole nations for their trophy room. And there is nothing that you or I can do about it.” ~Liz Anderson
I think it has something to do with our essential powerlessness. We witness these tragedies happening daily, weekly, constantly; we see our society imploding around us; we know that there are monsters a-bornin’ all across the country, born from violence and drug addiction, born from the fact that they are far more valuable as fodder for a for-profit prison system than they are as modest taxpayers, so why invest in them having any future; the wealth of our nation is channeled upward, away from us, instead of outward, to serve us - and yet we’re easily played by politicians who cut more and more of our commonwealth and tell us it’s to save us taxes; we try to conduct our lives decently, but we have no power. Even if we have some protection from accidents of birth and privilege. Even if we’re hanging on to modest middle-class status by our fingernails. We have NO power. If we allowed ourselves to feel the outrage that is really there, we would die of rage and grief.
But then here comes this guy. This oily, smirking, wealthy white guy. If he’s not quite a 1%er, he seems damn close to it, as far as we can see. And this asshole tosses 50k, which is more than most of us make in a year, and half of what a reasonably comfortable home might run on, he blithely tosses fifty thousand dollars for the chance to destroy something beautiful. Because he can. Because fuck you, peasant. Because when I pump my crossbow bolt into something rare and special, it gives me that jolt I need to keep my jaded appetite alive. Because I can buy anything I damn well please. Because it’s super fun to kill big things. Because I need something new for my trophy room.
But then we see - he is, in fact, just one guy. And we’re all after him. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe we can catch him, and make him pay. And deep down, maybe that will help us feel like we were actually able to strike a blow about this deep sense of unraveling that is seeping into our consciousness, for anyone that is even the least bit awake.
Of course, this will do nothing to the people who actually own us - the ones whose level of power and wealth is, quite literally, unimaginable to us, the ones who hunt with such subtlety that we don’t even see it happening, the ones to whom this Minnesota dentist is nothing but a scurrying little toady. They take whole nations for their trophy room. And there is nothing that you or I can do about it.” ~Liz Anderson
