a huge hurdle for anybody trying to do radical work the United States is overcoming the deep-seated belief Americans have that bad things only happen to people who did something to deserve it
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it shows up in small ways, too, and all over the political spectrum
if someone is talking about their disability, and your first reaction is, "well have you tried [x]?" — what you're really saying is you assume they deserve to be suffering b/c they must not have tried everything yet
however, more of bad stuff happens to you when you're poor and marginalized, sometimes you get targeted by people specifically who have much more power than you, and regardless you have fewer resources to protect yourself from full impact
this is all a lot scarier and less satisfying than, "bad stuff happens to bad or lazy people who did bad or careless things" because it means there's nothing you can ever do to make yourself safe
and yet, that is the most important lesson to learn and try to plan for
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christofascism
"rugged individualism"
and the decontextualization of information.
if you're suffering, you must have done something wrong you could/should have avoided
*and* people doing bad stuff can't actually be bad if they're not "getting what they deserve"
if someone is talking about their disability, and your first reaction is, "well have you tried [x]?" — what you're really saying is you assume they deserve to be suffering b/c they must not have tried everything yet
not because someone voted the wrong way or was uneducated or they were rude in the past but because bad stuff happens to everybody
there is no grand moral lesson to learn; it's just tower of siloam shit
and no one else is looking out for you but you
and yet, that is the most important lesson to learn and try to plan for