In Harlem, New York, on January 2nd, 2025, a man attacked a woman, with words and fists, and paid the price. 

Jaia Cruz, a 24 yr old woman, who is transgender and Latina, was standing in line at a deli. An argument started with Ray Hodges, a 36 yr old Black cis man, over who was next in line. This escalated rapidly. Hodges called Cruz slurs, and attacked  her. She told him to stop, and he continued to attack. She said she would kill him if he continued, and he pushed her against a refrigerator. She drew her knife, and he died en route to the hospital. 

The outrage machine has spun up shockingly fast, even for this time of escalating terror against trans women. She was described as “towering” and “giant” by Yahoo! in a classic monsterization of trans women (her height is the fourth search result on google). The New York Post published an article whose title called her “Pure evil” and “A disgusting excuse for a human being.” While he attacked her, Hodges called her a “faggot” and a “tranny”.  During her sentencing, Hodges’ family chanted and jeered “It’s a boy!” and “Fucking boy!” at her. She has been deadnamed, misgendered, verbally and socially abused in the reaction-economy, accused of being on drugs, a slut, aggressive; and people gleefully fantasize over what hideous violences await her in, as anonymous people are giddy to point out, “men’s prison.” Ms. Cruz is sadly no stranger to either violence nor public spectacle. Her image and dignity having been thrown to the rabid dogs of social media earlier last summer when videos circulated of her being viciously beaten in public by two men. 

Make no mistake, people know what they are calling for when celebrating her incarceration, when lying about her gender, and gleefully hoping she is sent to men’s prison. Trans women are subjected to a regime of sexual violence and torture in men’s prison. We are placed into disgusting circumstances by people who fucking hate us, who desire nothing more than our violent debasement. One aspect of this debasement is known as “V-Coding”, a system in which we are “given” to inmates to be violated, raped, and abused. 

Would this have gone differently if Jaia did back down? Certainly! Another woman’s life may well have been extinguished, gone unremarked upon, another abject, another victim, and Hodges may well have gone free in the city whose police brutally murdered Marsha P. Johnson and threw her body in the Hudson River. Trans women are a precious resource in patriarchy and racism and our lives are extinguished frequently in the pursuit of its violent maintenance. Cruz did only what was necessary, backed up against a literal wall, unable to trust anyone except herself. She does not deserve to be the new face of this hyperviolence, nor the recipient of targeting by the unleashed dogs of a reactionary, blood-thirsted public. She deserves a long life, surrounded by loved ones, outside of public mockery, out of prison, and free from the clutches of the fascist rape-reich. 

Transmisogynoir, the hyperviolent intersection of anti-Blackness, misogyny, transphobia, misogynoir, and transmisogyny, sits as a fulcrum, a break-glass-in-emergencies tactic, to be wielded even by other oppressed groups. It allows the violence being suffered at the hands of the state to be redirected against abjected minorities. Trans women’s lives are fertile soil for the flowering of love, care, community, beauty and liberation, yet we are made dirt to the vast majority of the wider populace, ground for growing and training violence, prejudice, and resentment. 

The resistance against this tightening is already sprouting as well! Rodney Hinton Jr.’s heroic retaliation against police that brutally murdered his son was treated with the same spectacle and the same theater.

“Your favorite song… Nicola, Bart – immigrants, wrongly executed… But their deaths served as a message to others: that ours is a society that murders the innocent. Do you, too, believe that your sacrifice will change the world?”

Skull Face

Make no mistake. This occurred during the allegedly “most pro-worker”, “pro-trans” Biden Regime. The Democrats have been no friends to trans people. When prompted, Kamala Harris refused to even say that trans women deserved rights and healthcare. Gavin Newsom has pushed transphobic rhetoric, actively exhorting the fascist ranks of their evil party to abandon trans people altogether.  There has been nothing but escalating violence, genocidal rhetoric, and an unceasing hitlerian regime of legislation being introduced, un-fucking-challenged in both red and blue states, designed to cut trans people out of all walks of life, especially trans women.

Two trans women were attacked in broad daylight in a train station in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a self-declared trans sanctuary state! Sam Nordquist, a Black trans man, was tortured to death over the course of a whole month earlier this year in New York! In May of 2025, the suicide of a trans girl was turned into a spectacle to jeering hordes on twitter who mocked her relentlessly and turned her despair into celebration. 

The amount of violence has hardly escalated. We have always been hideously subjected to violence, including rape, murder, beatings, homelessness, and exploitation. What has changed has been the rhetoric and spectacle surrounding our deaths. From Norm Macdonald on Saturday Night Live saying of Brandon Teena’s rape and murder, “Now, this might strike some viewers as harsh, but I believe everyone involved in this story should die,” in 1993, to now where we can look forward to outright celebration, heroizing of our killers, beaters, rapists and attackers.

Transmisogyny flourishes in the client states of the U.S. Empire as well. On April 4th, 2025, Sara Millerey González, a trans woman from Colombia, was raped, beaten, and mutilated by having all her limbs broken, before being thrown into a stream in a ravine to drown to death. She later died in the hospital. Again, people prioritized filming the spectacle instead of stepping in to stop it. 

What will we do then? So much structured, dedicated, motivated violence is arrayed at the innocents, who the Empire has decided to grind into a pulp as it thrashes.This will not resolve with simple reforms. Just like Pavlov and his dogs, the reactionary elements have been primed, conditioned, and rewarded for their worst impulses, encouraged and trained to salivate when they smell fresh meat. 

Jaia Cruz’s actions in her own defense will serve as a warning to those who would terrorize us. We will not be passive or pacific. We will no longer ask timidly for respect of our pronouns. We will instead demand our safety, knowing that it will only blossom from the barrel of a gun. Let her serve as a rallying call to all transfeminine people to organize for our self defense. Let us be unafraid, disciplined, and swift. 

We cannot trust so-called “allies” any longer. You are with us, or you are against us. You will fight and bleed and die alongside us, or you sentence us to abject horror in prisons, allowing and committing our murders alongside the cops and fascists and bigots. It has been too long that queerness and transness have primarily been a vehicle for otherwise neutral parties to feel good about their own pathetic, capitulationist lives. That ends now. End your own complicity. Buy us weapons, food, housing, hormones, and stay the fuck out of our way.

Some queer people may react to this essay with timidity, and to that I say, I am not sorry. We are not at a point where you can opt out of the violence because it will find you. There is not an off ramp, there is not a reformist track anymore. Brianna Wu and Buck Angel are not going to fucking save you, and begging the Democrats will give you nothing. Get with the program.

Unrelenting, unmitigated, unapologetic terror against the enemies of trans women’s dignity and safety is the only answer. Trans women will never be respected until every aspiring woman-beater, self-indulgent rapist, and whinging, sniveling, coward who hides behind a screen to mock our deaths, is afraid for their miserable, worthless lives, afraid to look us in the eye for fear of being the last thing they ever see, afraid to be cut down in righteous self- and community- defense. 

“We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”

Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

Cruz said to investigators:

“I told him, ‘You come to me and I’ll kill you.’”

“No motherfuckers are going to put their hands on me no more.”

“He tried to mess with me because I’m trans, and I poked him up.”

“I hope he’s maggot food.”

Good for her! Well that she is still here. This is only what is deserved by people who would hurt vulnerable women. 

“I killed him laughing. Oh, well. I’ll piss on his grave.”

There are several diseases currently spreading unregulated throughout the world, many of which are centralized in the so-called United States. The U.S. government, corporations, and much of the population has decided that unmitigated and uncontrolled transmission of deadly disease is now the norm. 

These diseases include SARS-CoV-2, Influenza A, H5N1 Bird flu, Measles, Tuberculosis and Norovirus. This article will mostly focus on the mitigation of the spread of these five diseases and to combat specific misinformation that is clouding current understanding of the risks of these diseases on the individual and the community. 

These five diseases are exceptional in their current level of spread, lethality or resurgence. We will go through several sections discussing vocabulary, the diseases themselves, best practices of prevention, control of symptoms, and post-illness care.

Vocabulary and Concepts

• Epidemic: uncontrolled spread of a disease in a given area that causes exceptional threat to human life and society
• Pandemic: epidemics of worldwide reach
• Multidemic: colloquial slang for multiple pandemics occurring at the same time.  
• Pathogen: any organism or agent that can infect a living being and cause disease
• Virus: a kind of pathogen that hijacks the DNA of the cells of hosts and uses them to reproduce copies of itself, which then go on to infect other cells. Viruses are not technically living. Some viruses can be treated by antiviral medications, although not all. 
• Bacteria: single-cellular life forms, some of which are infectious and cause bacterial infections. These infections are treatable with antibiotics that target different kinds of bacteria and kill them outright. 

Spread

Airborne 

• COVID, Flu A, H5N1, and Measles are airborne viruses that are aerosolized through breathing. This means that they are made into microscopic particles that remain in still air. In indoor rooms without ventilation, they can stay in the air from 2-8 hours. Imagine someone smoking and the odor remaining in the air, and lasts for some time after smoking. Infectious particles can stay in the air for hours after being breathed out. 

Bodily fluids 

• Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection of the lungs that spreads through coughing up mucus, blood or saliva. It is not able to hang in the air like the above viruses, but does remain on surfaces, and anything that your bodily fluids get onto after coughing.  
• Norovirus is transmitted through stool, after bowel movements. It can transfer onto hands, which can then spread by touching surfaces, items or people. Touching a contaminated surface with your hands, and then touching your mouth transmits the disease to you. 

Surfaces

• Flu A, H5N1, Measles, norovirus and Tuberculosis are spread through surfaces, touch, skin, and eating after others. 

Contagiousness

• Flu A, H5N1, COVID, and measles are contagious several days before symptoms show up. 
• COVID is asymptomatic (does not show any symptoms) in up to 40% of all cases, and it is spread during this time. 
• Measles is spread through air and is extremely contagious for unvaccinated or immunocompromised individuals, which may be more people than currently known due to the continuing COVID Pandemic. 

Diagnosis and Seeking Treatment

If you believe you are sick with any of these conditions, seek medical attention at a clinic. COVID, Flu and Norovirus can be diagnosed with a lab test. 

Prevention

Spread of all of the above pathogens can be reduced through one of several means. 

Masking

• Effective against all airborne pathogens. 
• Wearing masks can reduce the amount of pathogens that are breathed out if one is sick, and breathed in if you are in contact with contaminated air. 
• Masks should fit tightly, around the nose and cheekbones, under the chin, and not have any gaps on the side. 
• Once in place, masks should not be removed because this will expose you to contaminated air. Avoid touching your mask (and face in general) to prevent infection through the eyes or mouth. 
•  The most easily accessible are surgical masks but these are by far not the most effective. 
• Properly fitted respirators are far and away the most effective masks. Respirators are ionically charged, meaning they have an effect similar to static, that traps and removes particulates from the air before you breathe it in.
• Properly fitted respirators should have two straps that go around the back of the head, fitting above and below the ears. They should have a good seal around the edges of the mask and your skin that air does not pass through. Depending on the size of your face you may need smaller or larger masks. 
• The most effective masks are N100 or P100 respirators, which block about 99.97% of all microscopic particulates. These can be purchased at hardware stores such as Home Depot or Lowe’s, online at distributors sites, such as 3M or other industrial supply companies. 
• Many people are likely familiar with N95, KN95 or equivalent respirators. Of these, the statistically best respirators are the “duck-bill” respirators. They work best for folks with rounder faces, flatter nose bridges. Other popular choices include 3M Aura respirators or the rounder 3M respirators, and others. Respirator masks with ear loops, such as KN95 masks and KF94 masks, are not as effective because the ear loops do not provide an adequate seal around the mask, and air leaks through. 
• Do not remove masks in bathrooms, when eating, or when in rooms with closed doors, as this will expose you to infection. 

Hand-washing

• Hand washing should be done frequently, before and after eating, after peeing or pooping. 
• Wash your hands in the following manner:
  • Rinse them with hot water for 20 seconds, and spread to your whole hand and wrist. 
  • Use soap and thoroughly scrub your whole hand, palm and back, between all fingers, and under fingernails, for 20 seconds. 
  • Rinse them with hot water for 20 seconds, being sure to wash all the soap off. 
  • Dry with a disposable towel thoroughly until dry. Dispose of the towel.
• Norovirus is not killed or removed from the hands by alcohol hand sanitizer, only soap and water. 

Air Filters

•  Homemade air filters can be constructed from a box fan, duct tape, and four air filters. These can filter out pathogens (and allergens like dust, pollen and pet hair/dander) from the air. 
• You can also purchase HEPA-rated air filters from hardware stores or distributors online. 

Vaccination

• Vaccines are available for Influenza A, Measles, Tuberculosis (unless in the US) and COVID-19. 
• The flu vaccine is generally not taken enough to give herd immunity (needing around 95% vaccination rate), but is effective in significantly reducing infection rate. 
• The COVID 19 vaccine is an MRNA vaccine that is generally safe. It reduces (but does not stop!) risk of spread, and severity of the acute phase of illness. 

Nasal Sprays 

• Airborne viruses are able to be reduced in risk of infection with daily use of  several nasal sprays, including diluted Povidone Iodine (can be diluted from iodine solution), Iota-Carrageenan spray (Betadine Cold defense or other generic sprays), or HOCl (short shelf life of 2 weeks, can be made at home). 

Food Prep

• H5N1 can pass to mammals (humans included) through undercooked poultry and mammal meat, and through unpasteurized milk. Do not drink unpasteurized milk or meat that is not cooked to at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit or 74 degrees Celsius. 

Treatment 

Antiviral therapies 

• COVID patients can be treated with Paxlovid, which is a course of 3 pills twice a day for five days. 
• Paxlovid is a very safe medication. It must be started within 5 days of onset of symptoms, and is indicated for mild to moderate symptoms to prevent worsening disease. 
• There is no reason to not start it for most patients, unless you have kidney or liver damage. 
• It is currently being price gouged, and price can be up to $1700, but insurance covers it for around $25, and there are federal programs in place to apply for reduced cost. 
• Influenza can be treated with Tamiflu, a five day antiviral, or Xofluza, a single dose anti-viral. 
• There are no antivirals for H5N1, Measles, or Norovirus. 

Antibacterial therapies

• Tuberculosis is treated with either an injection or oral form of Penicillin antibiotics. Contact medical providers for instructions on seeking treatment. 

Measles

• Measles causes a fine rash and is contagious for about 4 days before the rash appears. The rash is red, splotchy, and appears across the face, body and limbs. 
• Contact a physician immediately if you are concerned that you have measles or if you were exposed, and follow instructions. 

General Treatment for Viral Illness

• Rest, rest, rest. 
• Fever is often treated with Tylenol/Acetaminophen, or Advil/Motrin/Ibuprofen. Follow instructions on packaging and advice of medical providers. 
• Drink lots of fluids (especially if you have diarrhea), especially broths, or electrolyte drinks (Pedialyte or store brand. Avoid gatorade/powerade, as these are mostly sugar). 
• Cough medicine, either started by doctors or over-the-counter medications as instructed. 

The Diseases

SARS-CoV-2  / COVID-19 / COVID

This virus was discovered in late 2019, sourced to a meat market in Wuhan, China, where it spread rapidly across the world. It is a disease that affects and can damage every system in the body, including the neurological system (brain, spine and nerves), the cardiovascular system (the heart and blood vessels), pulmonary system (lungs), gastrointestinal and digestive system, skin and hair, and every organ. 

Risks of COVID are as follows:

Especially concerning, COVID damages the immune system in the same manner that HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) does. It may cause anyone infected to lose their body’s natural ability to fight off all other diseases. 

COVID damages the brain, causing brain fog, memory issues, can cause neuron cells in the brain to fuse into clumps, can damage other sensory nerves throughout the body causing neuralgia (a burning-type nerve pain), loss of smell and taste. Since the start of the continuing COVID pandemic, dementia rates have drastically increased, and are occurring in younger and younger populations, including young adults. 

COVID damages the heart and blood vessels, and causes blood to clot much more often. Strokes, heart attacks, high blood pressure, have all increased in all age groups and significantly younger since the start of the COVID pandemic. It can also damage the kidneys due to the blood vessel damage it does. 

COVID makes developing cancers significantly more likely,  with all age populations experiencing increased risk of developing cancers such as colon cancer. 

Mortality from all causes has increased in all age groups and populations since the onset of the COVID pandemic, with the number of car accidents increasing, heart attacks and strokes becoming much more frequent. 18-34 year olds are dying twice as much as compared to before the COVID pandemic. 

COVID is deadly, resulting in deaths in 1-2% of all cases. Only about a third of the hospitals reporting deaths from COVID, averaging 1000 deaths a week, but multiplied out to all the hospitals not reporting, it may be killing several thousand people. 

Despite rumors to the contrary, there is no evidence that the source of COVID-19 was from labs of various world governments, nor is this functionally possible with the current level of genome editing technology. 

Influenza

Influenza is a collective name for many related viruses. Influenza A and B are labels given to the most likely strains of influenza to become extremely contagious, and spread during the year. These likely candidates are then taken, and vaccines are made to prevent them by triggering the body’s immune response. 

Flu kills tens of thousands of people each year, and since the start of the COVID pandemic, has killed more and more people every year. 

H5N1 and other avian flus are related to most other common flu strains, but tend to be much more severe, and dangerous to the human body, with much higher likelihood of death (up to 50% of all humans infected with H5N1 die without treatment, and 20% of people die even when aggressively treated). H5N1 is spreading entirely unchecked and uncontrolled in wild, domestic, and agricultural birds, among agricultural mammals like cows and pigs, with many and growing instances of human infection.

All flus damage the lungs and can cause pneumonia (fluid filling the lungs, also risking a secondary bacterial infection). 

Measles

Measles is an extremely infectious, dangerous virus. This is normally vaccinated against in infancy, but efforts by anti-vaccination interests have significantly reduced vaccination rates, either delaying vaccination or not vaccinating outright. Some places in the US are below vaccination required for herd immunity, meaning there are enough unvaccinated people to allow spread. 

Measles can damage the body’s immune system, and wipe out your immunity to diseases you have been vaccinated for previously. 

Measles can permanently damage the brain from inflammation, and the lungs through inflammation and pneumonia. 

Tuberculosis / TB

Tuberculosis was eradicated in the US until very recently. There are vaccines available for this bacteria outside of the US, but it has not occurred enough to warrant vaccine use in the US. It is treatable with Penicillin antibiotic, but until it is treated and resolved is highly infectious and contagious, spreading through droplets of mucus, blood or saliva. 

Norovirus

Norovirus is a virus that causes diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration in individuals. It is highly contagious and particles can remain suspended in bathrooms for several hours. Ventilation is key, and washing hands and wearing high quality respirators is imperative. Dehydration is a major threat of the illness and is the primary danger especially to the elderly, infants, and children. Norovirus sticks to surfaces extremely well, and cannot be neutralized with hand sanitizer alone. Avoid going to eat at restaurants. 

An Injury To One

“What I wanted most to know – and this precisely was not debated in the meetings – was: which International sides with the peoples of colonial countries?”

Ho Chi Minh, “The Path Which Led Me To Leninism”

Chappell Roan wants to have it both ways. God bless her heart; don’t we all. She wants to defend against a supposed existential threat. She wants to maintain a principled stance. She wants to maintain a vocal position of antagonism to the genocide in Palestine. She wants to defend trans rights and Black Liberation as best she knows how. She wants to criticize the American Ruling Class. She wants to vote for Kamala Harris. 

Megan Thee Stallion wants to have it both ways; sometimes, you can. Oftentimes, that is the correct stance; for example, in medicine, where good patient advocacy, making the patient comfortable, establishing trust, and doing what’s right for their condition or illness are achievable goals, and necessarily must coexist. Other times it’s a principled political stance, where you correctly identify the ongoing violence against queer people with the unrelenting destruction abroad, where you draw connections between finance and law, and which lobbies are writing which policies, and against whom. 

Angela Davis and Joe Simms want to have it both ways. They are right to criticize the tepid, meager defense of worker’s rights from the Democrats. They are right to fear for Black people, women, under a(nother) Trump presidency.  They are certainly right to call out the republicans for their support of violence and destruction abroad. But they will still endorse Harris. 

Chappell Roan wants to have it both ways, but she cannot. She is right to worry about trans people in the U.S., but it has been under the Biden administration where we have seen the most significant rise in anti-Trans legislation. This year there were 658 anti-Trans bills introduced across the U.S., according to the Trans Legislation Tracker. In 2023, there were 615, in 2022, there were 174, and in 2021, when Biden took office there were 155. Where have the Democrats been? Where has the Biden admin been? Where has Harris been? 

Voting for Harris will give us what? Maybe we’ll break the record at 700 anti-Trans bills next year. Maybe Texas will start putting trans people in camps instead of just putting them on lists. Will she lift a finger? Will she even veto a bill if it comes across her desk? Or will she fight tooth and nail to prevent effective transition care, like she did against Michelle-Lael Norsworthy? Or will she continue to preside over the absolute hell that are U.S. prison camps? Will she keep trans women imprisoned with men who rape and assault and murder them, as she did with Carmen Guerrero? Will she torture and neglect trans women in solitary confinement after they were raped, like she did with Candace Crowder?  

Harris’ record on Black rights and liberation is even more dismal. She continued to imprison Black men for non-criminal behavior. California continues to have severe structural violence against Black and brown people that she did little, if anything to meaningfully fight against. Under her new guidance, the Democrat party struck their opposition to the death penalty from their party platform, and in the past weeks, several men, notably Imam Khalifah Williams, and Emmanuel Littlejohn, were lynched by the State. They could have been saved, had Harris or Biden lifted a finger, pardoned them, but that, evidently, was simply too much. 

Is there more? Of course there is. California’s self-identified “Top Cop” has led the escalation of police brutality and violence since the end of the George Floyd Uprising in 2020. She has seen to it that more money, more weapons, more vehicles, more violence are employed by the hands of the State’s enforcers, a modern day Sturmabteilung against Black and brown people, against queer people, against women, and she shows no signs of stopping. She wants to increase border spending and numbers of fascistic uniformed Gestapo. She wants to increase the lethality, capability and reach of the U.S. military in their imperialist and colonial holdings. She wants to increase the expansion of fossil fuels even at the cost of climate and the inevitable genocide of the global south, and people in the country she helps govern. She wants to increase the spread of deadly, dangerous diseases like SARS-CoV-2, like H5N1 Avian flu, and destroy the health care system as it is. 

Harris has already committed so much violence, so much death, just in the borders of the so-called U.S. Worse, she is promising, guaranteeing to commit more! And yet, erstwhile, well-meaning allies like Chappell Roan are trying to cajole us into supporting. How can we do so in good conscience? 

An Injury To All

“Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot.”

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “The Rights of Nations to Self Determination”

Solidarity and Internationalism, as principles, demand care and attention. More importantly, they demand sacrifice and discipline. What discipline, what sacrifice, is being taken, by people who vote for the president? 

What is sacrifice even? Standing in line to cast a fucking ballot? Wake up and smell the ashes. We see the heroic example of Yahya Sinwar, a man who’s been hunted, violated, dispossessed since birth, imprisoned for decades, who dedicated everything to the liberation of his people. He died a brutal death, fighting literally to the end, after he lost an arm, lost his comrades, expended every last ounce of energy, and still mustered up enough defiance to toss a piece of debris at the camera! I look around and all I can ask is: Where are our martyrs?! Where are those who can fill the shoes of George Jackson, Fred Hampton, and take up the tasks of resistance? 

Where has international solidarity gone since October 7, 2023? Weapons shipments to the zionist entity are still moving, thanks to the brave, patriotic work of the Longshoremen union. The Party for Socialism and Liberation have taken the lead at so-called protests, only to ask nicely to the guard dogs of capitalism to escort them on orderly strolls, and sell out actual radicals to those same cops (and don’t forget to vote de La Cruz for Red Collaboration!). 

If I say I oppose the genocide of the Palestinian people, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, what good does it do to advocate on behalf of the people perpetrating it? Does it help anyone to take the bold stance of “I disagree with all bad things… except when I don’t”? Does it do any good to participate in the media spectacle of the election?

Under the Democrats, we have seen an unspeakable expansion of hideous violence committed in the name of Nothing Fundamentally Changing. Can I look at pictures of Palestinian martyrs, see their lifeless and broken bodies, and check Harris/Walz on the ballot? If I do then I’ve lost every human emotion I’ve ever had. 

Can I decry the ongoing genocide and starvation in Sudan, supported by the U.S. and her client states, see images of the starving people there, and Vote Blue No Matter Who? My mind and self would have turned as cruel as the people committing those atrocities directly, and inhumane as the people paying for it. 

Can I then vote for the sole sake of Trans people, of which I am one, just to kick the can down the road a bit, for myself? I’d be selling the lives and souls of people suffering just to avoid it myself! I couldn’t live with myself if I did. The colonial boomerang’s trajectory may be long, but the blowback is inevitable. We do not get to pretend that we are better voting for, or better off under, Harris, except to alleviate our own sense of guilt. 

So go ahead and vote if you must! Vote for your minimum wage that will never increase. Vote for trans people to lose more autonomy. Vote for immigrants who will be policed with ever-increasing force. Vote for Black people to keep dying by pigs who went through an inclusivity class. Vote for more murders of Indigenous women and marginalized gendered people. Vote for only one more genocide, one more death, one more atrocity, and think that that will save you. 

On the Podcaster Question

“How can we overcome book worship? The only way is to investigate the actual situation.”

Mao Zedong, “Oppose Book Worship”

Chapo Trap House will not save you. There is no media that you can listen to, nor patreon that you can subscribe to, or anything to watch or read that will bring the revolution. No memes to share, no hot takes to retweet and no posting-as-praxis. Will their next book solve our collective malaise? Will the next episode (premium or not!) give you clarity of mind to start your work?

Rev Left Radio will not liberate your mind. Explorations of Buddhist philosophy as a personal interest will not wake the working class alone. Making podcasts with maga “communist” TERFs will not elevate the worker’s consciousness. The media class is already incestuous and cannibalistic, and just like Harris, they speak out of both sides of their mouths. 

True Anon is not your comrade. Irony-poisoned takes from sour and sarcastic people who shoot targets dressed in keffiyeh are not principled resistance. The information shared can draw connections, maybe, but it has not led to a mass movement. There is little, if anything more that can be said that hasn’t been by these entertainers. Every four years it’s the same nonsense. Election reporting! Takes on the conventions and debates! Are they any different than the democrat stans? Are you?

Hasan Piker is not a modern Marx. He exists in an entire ecosystem of rabid dogs eager to tear apart the worst-off for the sake of live content and reaction. All of it lives in the legacy of the killstream. Open bloodsport spectacle born of the gamergate milieu. Every time someone tells me about the latest Hasan or Vaush or Destiny drama I think of  Amos Yee arguing on stream for child porn to be legal before years later being arrested for possession thereof.

The media environment does not incentivize a real movement of the working and oppressed people. The media figures need to maintain their high profile, they need to maintain the money coming in, they need to continue having things to speak on, to make media on. The media will always be reactive, always dangerous, always self-masturbatory, and always looking for the money to roll in. They will not be, they cannot be the vanguard. 

Against the “Left” Media Class

“Social-chauvinism and opportunism are the same in their political essence; class collaboration, repudiation of the proletarian dictatorship, rejection of revolutionary action, obeisance to bourgeois legality, non-confidence in the proletariat, and confidence in the bourgeoisie.”

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “Opportunism, and the Collapse of the Second International”

People expect media makers to use their platform for social advocacy, and well they should! The readership of this journal may react to my article as an affront, or with annoyance, and think I’m solely castigating people who don’t meet my purity test, which can’t be further from the truth. These are material questions. These issues have a socially defined, material basis. Material questions have material consequences. 

Chappell Roan’s support for Kamala Harris will inspire others to vote for her. Chapo and TrueAnon’s persistent going-over of the election will encourage participation in the U.S. electoral trap. The editorializing on twitter and hosting sites will only present more and more analysis, over and over and over. There is nothing else in the media class to do. They will advocate for their material interests, and as long as the money is good enough, as long as there’s some comfort to be drawn, the media class will avoid material risk, danger. 

So many in the Imperial Core show their willingness to leave the actual work of liberation to the masses of the Global South, or the internal colonies here, while profiting from the labor and exploitation of those same masses. The media makers sit here online, wistfully wondering why Black and Indigenous orgs and individuals avoid them, why women and queer people burn out and leave, why disabled people only seem to appear online. All without a thought towards themselves, without humility or self-awareness!

Lenin said “Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.” Well, where the fuck is the movement? The revolution does not manifest from microblogs, or spring fully formed from the head of labor aristocrat thinkers! Decolonization does not arise from literary devices, does not develop from words printed on the screen. This is a violent struggle, fought with guns, clubs, starvation, terror, artillery, planes, bombs, assassinations, sacrifice! We need to grasp the other end of the truth: Without a revolutionary movement, there is no revolutionary theory. 

We’ve talked. And talked, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked. Now what’s left is to engage in action, to refine our theory, and to go out again, over and over until we win. The escalation will not come from the media class, but the people who are broken and hurt, the wretched of the earth, and the masses, willing to fight and die for actual freedom! 

The revolution comes from the workers and oppressed people of the world. The revolution is done by hands and labor, minds and care, rest and sleep, then wakefulness and hard work. Your faves will not save you. The working and oppressed classes will save us. 

Kill Your Pop Stars

“My only argument was: ‘If you do not condemn colonialism, if you do not side with the colonial people, what kind of revolution are you waging?'”

Ho Chi Minh, “The Path Which Led Me To Leninism”

The truth is, I’m angry and tired. I’ve spent the entire past year seeing dead children on instagram, destroyed homes on twitter, sorrow from my friends for their martyred families. And nothing has changed. I’ve lost trans sibling after trans sibling, comrade after comrade, to suicide and violence. I go to sleep every night thinking of Muhammed al-Na’Im being crushed under a bulldozer, like a strawberry under a fork. I wake from nightmares thinking of Sidra Hassouna, who was blown apart by an iof bomb, and who’s body hung off a wall like a doll on a store shelf. I get a message on discord and telegram, and flash back to the final messages of beloved friends who later took their own lives.

Revolution is not a dinner party, as Mao said, but a dinner party is happening every single day all the same. It’s a dinner party of violence, of cannibalism, of exploitation and terror. We in the Imperial Core show up with our signs, yet are shocked when we find that the dinner being served is the broken, burnt, trampled flesh of people we happily ignored until now. We deign not to eat, but we will happily sit there at our places, in evening gowns, or tuxedos and cumberbunds (according to our preference!), drinking enough wine, squeezed from the blood of children, to numb the horror of what we’re seeing, nevermind where the wine is grown, or who is killed to make it. We get sick watching the feast of men, women, children, people who start bearing a strange resemblance to ourselves, our friends, family and loved ones. We cry out in horror and protest! …And then we quiet down when no one even shows that they hear us. And we sit back down, smaller than before, and drink the blood-red wine. 

We here in the heart of empire, the belly of the beast, we are all now subjects of, part and party to, the violence carried out in our name. 

George Jackson said “We must prove our predictions about the future with action.” All that is left now is to fight.