like a pair of bottle rockets

Here's the deal: people are flawed. Every country (that currently exists) is a a collection of many millions of people with only a few people in charge, either through democratic processes, monarchy or another non-democratic form of governance (or, like us, a combination of the above). Those people will inevitably abuse their power. The flaws of any given person will be magnified in this role. Corruption will exist. None of this is to excuse the many awful things our country has done and continues to do. I'm interested in alternative forms of governance in the future, socialism, rule by consensus, anarcho-communism etc. etc. But right now, that stuff is far off.

I understand why many people feel that decisions we make in such a deeply flawed political system don't matter. There are some pretty good arguments for that. I understand not wanting to vote for the lesser of two evils. HOWEVER: If you supported Bernie Sanders (or especially Obama), you are already making these compromises. Believe it or not, Bernie is pretty mainstream. He supports capitalism as our basic economic system. He supports Israel. He supports the continued existence of the US military. He believes in reform of the justice system, but he certainly doesn't believe in prison abolition or police disarmament. His campaign often disregarded the needs of black people in America (if you think that's fine, then you aren't as progressive as you believe you are). So if you supported Bernie (again, not to mention Obama), vehemently decrying Hillary is a hypocritical. Yes, Bernie is less compromised than her, but he **like all of us** is still compromised. He **like all of us** is still human. He **like all of us** is part of the problem.

If you want to vote Green or not vote because of how messed up our system is, I get that. I don't agree with you necessarily, but I can appreciate where you're coming from. But if you want to vote Green or not vote or vote for Trump because of your support for Bernie, I honestly think you need to reexamine your values.

I have many reservations about Hillary (although again, I voted for Obama, who has VERY similar policies, twice). However, as a white, privileged, educated secular American Jewish cis woman, I can not stand by and let Donald Trump take control of this country. I can not call myself an ally to the causes of oppressed people and allow Donald Trump to take power in this country. I can not answer to the women who may have even less access to abortion and birth control, to the families who may be torn apart and deported, to the countries we may bomb and the millions who will be affected by his foreign policies, to the Muslims living in the States who will experience suspicion and terror, to those trying to escape their own terrible regimes who will not be able to find a home here. Yes, some of these things will happen under Hillary as well, as they have under Obama and every other person who has ever ruled this country. But we have very good reason to believe that MANY MORE of these things will happen under Trump.

If you are a Muslim, a poor non-male person in danger of living without access to abortion or birth control or a person living in a country that may be pushed into chaos by Donald Trump's presidency, and you still believe that it is better to abstain from the process or to fight against a Hillary presidency than to vote for her, I'M ALL EARS. Otherwise, I think it i wrong to put our ideological purity above lives that would be ruined or extinguished by his presidency. Yes, Hillary will ruin and extinguish lives as well (as Obama has). Voting for her may be a deep and painful moral compromise to make. But those compromises** are a necessity of being alive in this world today. This is one I am willing to make.

A few weeks ago I thought I might be writing a piece about my 10 favorite Mountain Goats songs and I got really excited. Didn't end up doing the piece, but I still have the list. Here it is. And here’s a Spotify playlist. 

10. Source Decay, All Hail West Texas

9. The Sign, Songs for Peter Hughes

8. Twin Human Highway Flares, Full Force Galesburg

7. Palcorder Yajna, We Shall All Be Healed

6. Minnesota, Full Force Galesburg

5. No Children, Tallahassee

4. Pale Green Things, The Sunset Tree

3. The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton, All Hail West Texas

2. Going to Georgia, Zopilote Machine

1. This Year, The Sunset Tree

Lindsay Zoladz wrote this in 2012, upon the occasion of her turning 26. The post has stuck with me. Today, it’s my turn--I’ll be 26 tomorrow, February 16th. 

What sticks out to me in this thoughtful and well-written post is Lindsay’s acknowledgement of the pressure we feel to memorialize our lives as we’re living them. As Jeremy mentions here, the atemporality of the internet means that the concept of “old” and “new” have become meaningless. Similarly, as we have gotten used to documenting every moment of our lives, we frame our experiences as future memories. I know I do, though I try to fight it. But whether I resist the urge to Instagram the concert I’m attending or not, I can’t escape that this is our reality. Time, at least in our imagination, no longer insistently moves forward, as anyone who encounters Facebook memories on a daily basis can attest. 

As I cross the invisible threshold into my no-longer-early-20′s, I think about the paradoxes of my personal story, and of our 21st-century existence. I was raised in the woods but live in the city, and I can’t decide which I love more. Human connection, what Julie Delpy’s character in Before Sunrise calls the “little space in between” people, seems to me to be where the important experiences of our lives occur. Yet I spend most of my time alone on my computer. I’ve twice gone on five-day silent meditation retreats and have a longer one planned for this year. Those experiences have proven to me humans’ ability to physically alter our own minds. I know that with hard work, I can make myself a better person, and make the experience of living more rewarding. But I’m unsure if I have the motivation to get there.