It is a reddit link and there are some pretty bad comments so beware, but I came upon this and appreciated the eloquence.
I've been seeing some discussion about being peer pressured into not taking precautions and throwing in the towel and I think it's really, REALLY important for folks to understand that it is actually a privilege to find yourself genuinely weighing the option to quit.
Many of our ranks do not have this choice because they are disabled and/or immunocompromised, and I think that gets ignored too often in this sub. Many have Long Covid and have had their lives completely destroyed. They've lost far more than just social interaction, restaurants, etc., (and that's not to diminish those losses, but to illustrate how much worse it can be.)
Now we are ALL facing immense societal pressure to conform (that's just the base state of existence for a covid informed individual) but the stakes for the disabled members of our community are so high that they don't even get to consider the option of buckling to peer pressure. Sadly that position has been made 100x worse by people who had more of a choice and chose the easy way out. It's incredibly difficult to do the right thing in these times just as it's always hard to stand against historical atrocities that have been adopted by the masses. When having these discussions it's crucial to remember that if you find yourself with the luxury to just abandon precautions to fit in with the crowd, that is not the choice of society but a choice of your own.
EDIT: I want to make it clear I'm not referring to people who physically cannot mask, cannot access masks, or find themselves in some kind of genuine peril for masking. I'm talking about people caving to peer pressure. And yes, I'm aware there are some disabled/immunocompromised folks who also minimize covid and don't take precautions. I'm aware in that sense that it's technically still a choice for them to do that, but it is not a practical choice for a great many vulnerable people who value their lives.
This is not a game. This is not virtue signalling - a real-ass comment about wearing a mask I saw on another comm here! It is life or death and should be treated as such.
enter at ye own peril
Unchecked ableism is a huge blind spot everywhere I look, even here. There are rules for negligence about neurodivergence, physical disability et al, but a collective dismissal when it comes to Covid is a-ok pretty much site-wide as long as you don't explicitly talk about it like a conspiracy rag. The trans mega talks about pride marches and conventions. The general mega talks about bars, movies. The news mega talks about direct action and protests. There ain't no fucking precautions happening here, babes. I know there aren't, I see the fuckin photos. I go outside. I'll go back to my silo and talk about the elephant in the room slowly and not-so-slowly killing us where no one has to see it if they don't want to - another choice I do not get to make. It is all so un-serious. I am so tired.
I’m sorry for coming so hard at you specifically, I like you a lot friend owl. You are funny and cheerful and I appreciate that, but I radicalized a lot younger than most people I know of and this is just the reality I have been experiencing for my whole life.
I am always looking for some light at the end of this tunnel, a hopeful answer to give, but I think what’s most likely to happen to empire now would be like what happened to Rome: the population dwindles — due to endless war & mass death, fleeing — until there is nothing left to churn through and things cease to function. Even that is optimistic. I do not put it above this country to blow the world up before that can happen, and regardless of anything else further pandemics are guaranteed as the global population’s immune systems get cumulatively destroyed by endless COVID and other unknown pathogens emerging due to increasing climate disasters altering the environment. Tuberculosis was thought to be, essentially, gone; it is now surging around the country in numbers not seen for something close to the last century. In all cases, the prognosis is still extremely dire to me. I don’t know how one can see what’s happening around them and deny it. We can and should build ad-hoc collectives and communities and extend that influence where we can, but I do not think that power extends beyond this small footprint until the complete and total collapse of empire, and I know that’s not a good answer, but until I find a better one (and I haven’t yet; I really, really am trying) then that is how I predict things playing out. This is the most optimistic thing I can say.
That doesn’t mean do nothing. Like I said, I still fight because I do not know how else to live. But god damn it am I sick of hearing this sentiment from “leftists” whose first taste of anything was Bernard fucking Sanders eight years ago. “Just organize”, “touch grass doomer”, “get involved with your community, lib” ad nauseum.