the bastards' last stand

I don't talk much about the fact that I used to live in Barcelona. It's not often relevant unless I'm playing Two Truths and a Lie. Full disclosure: I kinda forget about it. It feels like a lifetime ago. It is in the sense that I've been back in the US for almost as long as I lived there and my life here is less part of that continuum than a completely different story featuring the same central character. Still, random memories of events will spring into my head, and I think, "oh shit, that happened to me." This week I found myself thinking about my emergency room visit while there. I cut a deep gash in my hand and started applying pressure and thinking about my self-treatment plan. My partner insisted that we go to the emergency room. I'm only just now recognizing how irrational my resistance to seeking professional treatment must have seemed to her. Our healthcare system is monstrously unique in its level of apathy, the concept of not seeking basic tre...

In November I began writing what I considered at the time the argument for white leftists to support Bernie's universalist  plans that represent a continuation of MLK's mission while easily deflecting accusations of being racist for not buying into the idiotic culture war framing that's useless and usually ascendant. I started by attempting to clearly describe the difference between systemic racism and personal bias based on the history of the creation of race. I followed that by explaining my own journey to a framework for racism that made it a problem for poor people regardless of race that might be fought through coalition. From those two pieces it was easy to explain that Bernie represented t he only actual anti-racist platform , since any actual anti-racism would center a massive downward re-distribution of wealth . The effort initially seemed in vain, since many of my white mutual followers 'cancelled' me. By that I mean that a number of them after arguing t...