Thrift stores — and nights in my Corolla — led me to the power of books
When I was 19, I threw a mug of hot coffee at a framed wall tapestry my dad purchased when he was in Italy. The cost in damages was a few thousand for the tapestry, a couple of bucks for the mug and brew, and my ability to continue living there.
The mug exploded, the glass of the frame shattered, and the near-boiling roast spewed out over the elegant threads depicting some fanciful 18th-century scene no one in the heavy air of that living room would ever care about. My dad, ever theatrical, called the cops. They came and cuffed…
The liberal instinct to be civil toward horrible people is misguided and dangerous
If you haven’t heard the news, AM radio pioneer, conservative media icon, and spectacularly destructive racist and bigot Rush Limbaugh has died at the age of 70. He spent his career aggressively promoting cultural division on social issues, at times suggesting that marriage equality would lead to bestiality and once running a segment that mocked gay people dying of the AIDS virus.
A world without such a presence is better off. There are people who spend their lives profiting from efforts to undermine society’s ability to grow into a rational space where human well-being can flourish. The spread of the…
Hey, fellas. It’s me, one of you.
A lot of great writers spend their energy challenging oppressive power structures. My favorites take aim at capitalism, imperialism, systemic injustice wherever it happens. Maybe they’ll explore cultural complexities and obsolete beliefs worth hashing out. Often I strive toward a similar purpose, to take complicated ideas and make a case to my readership, to shed light on something unclear. Some concepts take weeks — if not months — of research and call for many nights spent scribbling notes and steel-manning counterarguments. …
I Used to Say I’d Never Go to Therapy. Now I Can’t Imagine Life Without It.
Three things, right off the bat:
- I’m a guy.
- I go to therapy.
- This is good.
Whew. There, I said it. It gets easier each time. Like a lot of millennial dudes, I grew up in a pervasive culture of toxic masculinity. Modeled by the behavior of my abusive father, I equated strength with a stoic demeanor. I thought “being a man” involved an unwillingness to reflect upon or talk about my emotions (or to have any, really), never asking for help, and always appearing calm and in control. To never be vulnerable was the pinnacle of manhood.
When life…
Poetry
I am a communist and I don’t give a fuck if that terminology makes you uncomfortable, or if it makes you believe I’m some sort of societal black sheep or otherwise inappropriate, inconvenient, or untoward in any context. I am not “left” of anything. I am the center of a politics based on human flourishing, equity, and the end of exploitation. The end of racism and ableism and misogyny. The end of greed, of bigotry, of needless suffering. I am not radical any more than self-love on the scale of our entire species is radical. I am not unusual any…
I was an eighteen-year-old vandal without purpose — until I heard Barack Obama speak
In 2004, I was a freshman in high school. This was the year a little-known Illinois state senator named Barack Obama gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. For many Americans, it was the first glimpse of the man who would eventually become the “leader of the free world.” I wouldn’t learn of him for several years — I didn’t watch the speech and didn’t care about politics.
I spent high school living like most other angsty and self-absorbed teenage guys I knew: sleeping through class, trying to impress girls, experimenting with drugs, falling in love (just like…
When Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won their respective Senate runoff elections in Georgia, the stage was set. The Democratic Party now holds control over Congress and the presidency, while Republicans gear up for an intra-party war between establishment types and remnant Trump loyalists. …
…and everything to do with humanity.
I’ve got friends that sing their lungs out in the shower, vibing with the cleansing energy of the water, their voices free, unshackled, soaring, and yeah — maybe a bit off-key. In my case, maybe way off-key. Some of us belt out in our cars to disrupt the monotony of commutes to jobs we don’t like, volume at max, creating secret, spectacular little duets with our favorite artists.
My friends and I used to quickly turn the volume down low on each other and surprise ourselves, laughing and cringing at our “bad” singing. Now when I look back on the…
At this point for the United States, it’s transformation or bust
Beware, with utmost vigilance, rhetoric around the idea of the nation “healing.” Democrats would have you believe their elevation into power is akin to Wolverine’s wounds sewing themselves up like magic. In the unstable atmosphere of the Trump era, the Dem establishment campaign is essentially this: Vote for us and everything will be back to normal.
You can see how this might appeal to materially comfortable upper middle-class liberals whose main criticisms of Donald Trump were that he was crass and racist in an obvious, clumsy way. The type of people who have elevated Barack Obama to a position of…
The best way to ‘honor’ veterans is to critique U.S. imperialism
On this Veterans Day, you’ll see a lot of people posting pictures of themselves or their family members in uniform. You’ll see American flags and shows of patriotism, festive shopping deals and today-only discounts at a bunch of restaurant chains. You won’t see a lot of nuanced conversations about veterans themselves, a group of more than 17 million human beings. No deep dives into the complexity and moral failings obscured from mainstream conversation by vague cultural directives like, “Support the Troops!”
Examine that phrase. How might one do that? Who exactly are these people — what do they want, what…
Michael Guevarra
semi-autonomous word machine and editor of The Anticapital. Bylines @ LEVEL | P.S. I Love You | The Writing Cooperative
