Something to remember, as the election approaches:
The work is never wasted.
Even if the Republicans keep control of Congress–yes, that would be terrible, yes, I would be furious and frustrated and sad and it would hurt like hell–EVEN SO: the work we have done to get here was not wasted.
I was part of the previous “biggest worldwide protest ever,” the global protests against the Iraq War in February 2003.
We lost. The war happened. Is still happening.
But some of the people who got involved then worked for Obama’s campaigns, a lot of them are part of the resistance now, and all of us learned something. The work was not wasted.
Even if we lose. There were Democratic primary debates in my hometown for the first time I can remember. Even if our terrible Republican Congresswoman gets re-elected, there’s still a broader and stronger Democratic Party organization in Mike Fucking Pence’s home state.
The election can’t be an end. It will only be an end if we win and get complacent, or if we lose and give in to hopelessness. We cannot afford either. We do the job that is in front of us. No matter what.
The work is never wasted.
The stories our world tells us are about Great Heroic Struggles With Triumphant Climaxes In Which Good Vanquishes Evil And They All Live Happily Ever After. It’s all about the one extreme emergency during which people rise to the occasion.
Problem is, that’s not how the world actually … works. That’s not how change happens. That’s not how societies are reshaped. We hear about MLK and the bus boycott and the protests, but not the DECADES OF WORK that came before, the organizing and the education and the legal challenges and the hundreds of thousands of people, from great heroes to ordinary people, who put in the grinding every-day work to make the world a better place, step by step, bit by bit. The big things–the speeches, the marches–were the tip of the iceberg. Nothing would have happened without the rest of the iceberg.
The 2018 midterms are the tip of the iceberg. They are incredibly important, yes. But without the rest of the iceberg, they mean nothing. Without ordinary people across America organizing and talking to their friends and coworkers and paying attention to politics and getting involved and volunteering (not just politically, but for all the nonprofits out there working to make the world a better, fairer, more just, more merciful place) the election is useless.
This is not a sprint. It is a relay marathon. If you can run a major leg, awesome. If you can help organize the marathon, awesome. If you can coordinate the people running, awesome. If you can hand out bottled water along the route, awesome. If you can cheer along the way, awesome. If you can remind people that the marathon is happening, awesome. It’s not about great heroes or one person doing it all or one climactic battle in which everything magically gets fixed.
It’s about ordinary people doing what they can. What you can do right now is vote. What you do on November 7 and the months and years following (no matter who wins the election) is stay involved and stay working.
Take care of yourself. Take care of others. Don’t hyperfixate and burn out. Be the tortoise, not the hare. Vote. And then keep moving on.
@ppl who liked The Hunger Games when they were younger and want to read another book about young people overthrowing the government
READ THE CHAOS WALKING TRILOGY BY PATRICK NESS
it’s just as good as literally so much better than The Hunger Games and hits on similar social topics! the corruption of the government, patriarchy fucking up society, radical revolutionaries, the horrors and thrills of war, etc
but! these books are not just about those sad things.
they are about growing up, about making mistakes, about using love as strength instead of weakness, about HOPE, and tbh i think that a lot of people could benefit from reading them especially with how things are in our current society. plus there’s talking animals, and who doesn’t love that?
i know i sound like a broken record about these books all the time, but honestly they are masterpieces that deserve to be talked about more often than they are. they’re being adapted into movies in 2019 and it would be lovely for people to read the books and love them for what they actually are before Hollywood destroys the fantastic messages Patrick Ness has carefully crafted
not to be all “tw*light did nothing wrong” but misogyny honest to god killed the hunger games
it was no masterpiece sure but it also sure as hell wasnt the love triangle bullshit everyone made it out to be. seriously everyone blames this whole “YA fiction with the special One and teens overthrowing the oppressive government tropes” trend on the hunger games but the truth is that none of those books are anything like thg
god!!! im mad!! name one cliche YA novel where the government actually is BAD like not just “oh love is illegal” or “they barcode you!!uwu” instead of like. actual slavery and rampant poverty while the rich waste their money on dumb bullshit!! and name one main character who ACTUALLY suffers under the government’s regime!! who actually starves and works and suffers and has genuine REASON to rebel!! thg is the only YA book that had anything to say about wealth disparity and the dehumanization of the poor,, every other YA book uses it as a plot device to put some dumbass romance together or show how “badass” the MC is!! thg is genuinely emotional and the focus of the book isnt katniss’s archery and how cool she is and its NOT gale or fucking peeta bread. and then the marketing for the stupid fucking movies took the WHOLE POINT OF THE BOOK (which is to satirize and critique how women in entertainment have any serious things about them ignored in favor of whatever dress theyre wearing or who they’re dating) and turns that into……….. a fucking love triangle. and then the world forgets it because its just another dumb teen girl series. okay.
Me @ myself rn
oh also last thing. the fact that at the end katniss chose to kill Coin (the rebel leader/soon to be newest dictator) instead of just having a plain and simple boring happy ending shows just how different thg is from the YA fiction its compared to. no other book in this genre would have the guts (or even the idea) to put out such a blatant, obvious “the fight against oppression never ends, stay diligent” message and thg is iconic for it and it shows how much thought was actually put into its message. im sorry to susan collins for my 12 yo self for not understanding at the time and thinking it was just bad writing
thanks to everyone adding on about the representation! about finnick’s story and being trafficked! and about peeta and his disability!! and katniss and her indigenous coding and PTSD!! And about how it shows how war n dictatorships always prey on marginalized groups!! and a billion other things!!! that the movies just fucked off n forgot about!!!
All humans are weak because we will all fall for The Classical Fan Art Pose. I like to call it the “Character nonchalantly wiping blood away from their mouth/nose with the back of their hand, murderous intent in their eyes”. I would go as far as to say it is indisputably the hottest pose you could draw someone in. In this essay I will-
bullshit central 