Growth in the Shadows

A tree

Cannot grow

In its parents' shadows.

—Earthseed: the Books of the Living 

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

Namik's Manifesto

There will be times when the struggle seems impossible.I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy.

Remember this: Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause.

Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. 

And remember this: the Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.

Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empires’s authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege.

Remember this:Try.

Sovereignty

How is setting up “national defense areas” in border states not a violation of the sovereignty of New Mexico, or whatever border state they are in? These was unthinkable last year, and every year before it since the Treaty of Guadalupe.

Truly, this boggles my mind, and has me thinking of what Jefferson Davis or John C. Calhoun would say, or even George Wallace. The states' rights folks whould be raging in the streets. It's also getting periolously close to treading all over the The Posse Comitatus Act. 

The national defense areas in New Mexico and Texas bring up some interesting questions, including how the population in those zones are counted (as residents of New Mexico and Texas, still, or as residents of the militarized zone), and how that will affect a lot of other residency-based things, not the least of which is how it affects the numbers for representation in the House. Who is responsible for paying for the infrastructure in these zones? Who is responsible for the downstream (literal and figurative) messes that are created by this initiative? Are the states owed reasonable market compensation for what is essentially a militirized application of eminent domain? What happens when a legal resident enters the area?

I left myself behind

I left but did not know I left myself behind.

Like a lizard after its shedding,

I don't know how to live in new skin.

I press my soft belly to once-familiar stones, asking,

"Why do these not fit me?

How far must I run

To find myself again?"

~Sleyca

The Promise of Protests

 

for protests to succeed, they must be backed by movements with the ability to promise to withhold—labor, debt payments, rent payments, or consumer support—and to follow through if demands aren’t met. --Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Time, "Why Protests Should Be Promises," 5.1.2025

This May Day, let us all remember what demands power is making along with concessions. Let us all remember what promises we are expecting, and how we are interacting with the levers of social (in)justice.

 

Our tiny slice of heaven

Was talking with a friend recently and he said:

"I think that's our idea of heaven, a 24-hour safe and affordable bus system, local produce feeding a city-run no-questions warming/sleeping shelter, kinda a combo soup kitchen / youth hostel. Also, well funded libraries with late-night adult enrichment programming, possibly produced in conjunction with the local tech schools and high school granting credits for running programming. Oh, and grants for accessory dwelling units and urban ag so folks are incentivized to build/buy a tinyhome/above garage apartment and to keep a garden plot and maybe chickens, as long as the tinyhome houses LMI applicants and a healthy percentage of the produce goes to the soup kitchen."

He is so, so right.

Godseed

We are all Godseed, but no more or less so than any other aspect of the universe, Godseed is all there is—all that Changes. Earthseed is all that spreads Earthlife to new earths. The universe is Godseed. Only we are Earthseed. And the Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.

Earthseed: The Book of the Living 

Why is the universe?
To shape God.

Why is God?

To shape the universe.

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler