Every day I’m discovering more things I can’t personally change – though discovery is a lie, it’s every day acknowledging things I’ve always known but didn’t want to acknowledge. For instance, I’ve always known I’m not going to give up my job, my house, my car, my laptop, my season tickets in protest of jackshit. I’ll yodel, sign facebook petitions, buy local and organic, donate to local foodbanks and cat rescues, and I will never give time or dimes or votes to another motherfucking Democrat ever fucking again, but give up my pension, the escrow in my house, my petroleum-fueled Toyota, my sweet new Dell laptop, my ticket to Section 232 Row X Seat X and devote all said monies and energy into efforts that won’t fix a world my generation has made shittier? Sheeyit.
If we’re honest this goes for a lot of us. It’s the ugly truth at the heart of capitalism that we ourselves profit as much from an unfair, unjust, dangerous system as we are victim of it. Those of us who see the system for what it is and who as socialist or anarchist or whatever want to change it for the better know best how much the reality of everyday life forces us to make our compromises with the system. You can take a stance here and there or attempt to withdraw from the world, but as long as the system is there it forces you to acknowledge it and interact with it.