Why White Servitude Is Not The Answer To Extinction Revolution's Inability To Act As One

yes, white middle-class people *should* be subservient in any movement towards social justice, just like cis men should be subservient in any movement about gender and white people should be subservient in any movement about race (and climate justice is of course about both of those things, as well as disability, class, land rights, colonialism and everything else.) We don’t have the knowledge of what it is like to like at the sharp end of that oppression, and if we don’t deliberately adopt an attitude of service we will replicate the patterns of leadership and privilege which exist everywhere else in society and which exclude and alienate people.

have the time and the money: we do not have the knowledge What you're asserting is very problematic if taken at face value and needs further clarification I feel in order to enhance its ability to not be taken out of context easily.

I agree. The power the privileged possess ought to be fueling the change that has to happen. But employing that power under a banner of subservience is not the right forward in my mind. It feels totally misguided.

Expecting the consistently oppressed to know of the pathway that leads to their ultimate redemption is wishful thinking. To me, taking that path leads to only more impasses, frustrations and then stagnation. A point where the privileged have ticked off all the boxes of the things they need to do to be absolved of all blame, should things end up at this point again. But it's no way to go forward.

"Tell me, poor person, how exactly may I help you?"

"Just talk to me like a human being instead of a subject"

"Well, I have this purse of monies, which I am quite willing to give to you in order to affirm how much I value your existence. Will this in any way help?"

"Yeah, ok. I'll have some free money, yeah. Cheers."

I'm telling you, adopting an attitude of servitude will never work. Not only is it still terribly patronising, but your solution leads to the propagation of what it is itself. You need to do something much more fundamental than that to build the bridge that connects and fully assembles us. Go much much further. Something you're not willing you do yet, or even consider doing (I love the way things will stay at this point until you do do it! Like its some sort of puzzle with only one solution).

It's something white middle-class people are now desperately trying to find ways not to have to do. Offering their service and resources, even relinquishing all authority of the steering wheel of the narrative in order to not have to endure the internal conflicts and difficulties in accepting the working class as having equal worth. Your words on paper say that you accept us, but your demeanour speaks more convincingly.

Whites needing to be subservient as a solution becomes the thing which is then echoed into the future, leading to its own eventual crises. Turning yourself into a servant, is the best way to hold your hands up in order to avoid having to looking within yourself to find the problem and write the solution.

The solution is always for your actions to contain the essence of the vision of the happy ending. The end itself, and never the means to get there. It's the only way one can overwrite the present with the thing one wishes to see continue into the future.

Trump thinks he is The One

Trump I feel has forgotten, or rather, mistaken himself for being the man who rebuilds The Matrix as he sees fit - the system controller, whose utterances and impulses reshape the world immediately in the direction of the vision he has in mind.

The One, with the privilege to write and rewrite humanity's source code at will from a place of absolute safety and protection, an act of daring / narcissism / megalomania many people are simply in awe of because of its sheer audacity, while others whose interests his actions benefit hope to continue.

At the same time such recklessness steadily awakens those previously silent and apathetic. Trump is compelling them into action. Unlike any other politician I've seen at least, Trump obliges us to make a critical decision. We either choose to walk with him or will have to fight against him.

In the process of dividing us into antagonising camps who, at present, wouldn't dream of attempting to build bridges to in order to reach each other, and right now cannot even conceive of a way to achieve this that would be genuine and unforced - the fact that this process is occurring is precisely why huge blankets of apathy are being lifted and swept away, as the stark reality about what Trump reaching his promised land before he dies will mean for the rest of us finally sinks in, switching on those with a conscience into taking on an additional purpose in their lives they've perhaps been reluctant to accept, but know is worth fighting for - because inaction, paralysis, procrastination and self-denial at a certain stage of a threat's advancement all become acts tantamount to suicide.

But he is, like we all are, just a temporary cog in the great mechanism of evolution taking place on a tiny speck of matter against the backdrop of the cosmos. There is always a system outside of the one in which we are in governing us, responsible for maintaining the favourable conditions that allow us to be the way we are. Trump at this point I feel has forgotten about this fact, and is entrenched in a deep deep denial or perhaps simply couldn't give less of a fuck; happy to enjoy his twilight years like a teenage rebel intent on seeing just how crazy a ride he can make his legacy read after he's expired.

At the back of his mind he must know that no matter how many people bow down to him, willing to carry out every wish and abide by every command that he gives, showering him with the unconditional validation he needs in order to breath, and informing him with sincerity the fact that he is more popular and has higher ratings than God ever had - behind this functioning facade will be the knowledge that the universe could at any moment crush him in an instant, and no amount of executive orders signed off can change that fact. A response is on its way, and he is catalysing his way towards it.

Trump has become Jaws

Trump seems to have found himself in the position of Jaws, the shark. A common enemy that ends up inadvertently uniting the people he threatens. His actions may even build bridges between groups that hate each other and are ideologically opposed, because they hate him 1000% more. In one sense I'm glad he made it to the top, and not Hillary, as he seems to be bringing people together, women especially, and caused them to want to walk the walk and put into action what they believe. But that wasn't his intention, so he deserves zero credit for it.

Unlike other big demonstrations, where the enemy was either too abstract, just out of reach or not there at all, Trump helps us focus our energies by needing to be right there, in the spotlight, soaking up all the adulation a president deserves, even if he has to pay for it. He doesn't mind if everything is fake because it's the spectacle that's important for the history books.

But with billions of people already enraged and still enraged the morning after, Trump has opened himself up to a whole new level of scrutiny. The poor quality stitching of his administration is already starting to fray and there is a sense that all the bad things about the world have been put on trial and entered the witness box to defend itself. I can't see the jury being very lenient.

My cats showed me how we are better off together than apart

You can learn loads from cats. Humility, patience, handling disappointment with grace, being the bigger cat, compassion, love, curiosity as well as sloth, greed, selfishness and just being a bit of a knobhead.

After getting two of my cats that were resting in separate spaces, into the same box, it was a nice surprise waking up to find they had been sharing the knowledge of this new co-existence with the third cat, who wisely had signed himself up. There was about 2 inches of space left, but that made the box even more cosy and each cat could be the next cat's pillow.

When they were sleeping in different rooms, two of them became shabbier because they find cleaning themselves a bit boring. The other one loves to clean things in general and so now that they've been spending more time together their coats have started to shine.