Moving from “Who is Going to Save Me?” to “What Can I Do?”
Finding empowerment during the empire’s downfall.
For people living in the imperial core (the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Western Europe,) life has become increasingly frightening.
The temperatures have risen along with the water table; uninsurable homes collapse into the seas while the forest fires billow a widening radius of lung-irritating smoke. A meal for one person costs at least $15, jobs are scant in the finding, and access to medical care is threatened by reactionary legislation and provider shortages. Property development and the police state have eroded our public spaces, social media is a graveyard of bots and advertisements, and nearly a half decade of COVID has made many of us feel incapable of relating to others at all.
On our TVs and in our phones, two Presidential candidates square off unseriously: one is unable to counter a single strike among the barrage of mistruths and vitriol lobbed at him; the other uses his attempted assassination to mobilize a base of seasoned white supremacists, and both remain ardent supporters of mass deportation, transgender rights restrictions, and ongoing genocide.
There is nowhere to turn to, if you’re looking for an authority you can trust. Every public institution…
