The Long 2019 is finally over. A Longer 2020 is on offer. I’ll have forgotten all of these a year from now, probably.
We’ve finally escaped the icy grasp of the year that was, and reflecting back on it, I can’t say I’ll miss it. By all accounts 2020 won’t be much better, but looking at my 45 posts last year I can see a future starting to take shape. Let’s try to make it a good one.
I know, that’s asking a lot.
In the mean time let’s take a stroll through the posts that were in the year that was. I’d like to think they might help, in some small way, finding our way forward.
Right out of the gate in 2019 I pleaded with all of you to log the hell off, and get out into your community. Unfortunately, it seems the siren call of election shitposting was more than you (or me for that matter) could resist.
While I haven’t logged off, I have continued to work closely with people in my community to build solidarity, and make my exceptionally cruel city just a little kinder. I believe that in my own small way, adding my effort to our collective struggles has lessened some of the burden of those who bear the brunt.
In spite of the fact it looks like posting actually has affected some of the candidates running for the Presidency, I want to reinforce that it’s no substitute for real world organizing. So, whether you’re a maoist teen or PMC socdem, please get out in the world and take on your share of the work.
The idea of local organizing isn’t revelatory, but it’s one of a couple ideas that defined my internal narrative for 2019. After writing Log Off 2020, I started to think about the community foundations successful movements have been built on.
Researching the social elements that go hand in hand with movement organizing, as in the culture outside explicitly political work, I had another banal but important realization. Leisure and recreation has always been an important part of building strong bonds and deepening solidarity.
Alienation and atomization are solvents. The social foundation that enabled or strengthened movements of that past have been so thoroughly eroded that rebuilding them will require organizing everything everywhere. I think about this one almost every day.
Just like Benghazi, Epstein isn’t going away. We live in a new age of paranoia, and as our world continues to deteriorate so will all of our brains. It’s not enough that we’re lied to and we know it, and the liars know that we know it. No, now we all try to process unfathomable amounts of contradictory information desperately trying to separate the signal from the noise.
The last time the fear crept in, and paranoid conspiracies weren’t just a joke, we were done a great disservice. A higher authority swept in and “saved the day”. The good guys triumphed over Nixon, and we were all assured that shadowy cabals were relegated to the past.
Being denied the struggle and catharsis that would accompany saving ourselves ensured future shadowy cabals could operate with even greater impunity, and they have.
Here I get to something that’s practically a catchphrase at this point, but I suppose I’ll have to remind people till the day I die. Laws Aren’t Real.
In a way this piece was an extension of It’s All True. In the face of powerful conspiracies and lawless actors, a lot of people still believe that a higher power will save us. That the politicians will finally point to the right clause in the right law, and Donald Trump will throw up his hands as the police try to slap on the cuffs.
The Watergate era led people to believe that a conspiracy’s power lay in secrecy. That simply bringing them to light was sufficient to deprive them of power, but they’re now being forcefully disabused of that notion.
Perhaps the most important feature of the Donald Trump era has been people’s slow education in how power actually works. Increasingly they’re offered two choices. Retreat into the nihilistic despair that accompanies believing in all-powerful conspiracies, or realizing that nobody can save us but us.
The contradiction that is rule of law will be resolved sooner or later.
This was an especially personal piece for me, however weird that might sound. I’ve always had a love for the folklore around Bigfoot, and at this moment in time it’s unsurprising to see my own longing for a simpler and kinder existence mirrored in the Bigfoot community.
We live in a cruel world. The vagaries of capitalism and the crushing weight of all the crises it’s manufactured. That one of those crises is eroding the mythology so many turn to for comfort is a bitter irony.
Capitalism, a force so destructive it can drive even our symbols to extinction.
As a radical who’s less than a fan of electoral politics, it only made sense to punish myself by writing upwards of 12,000 words on the Democratic Presidential Primary candidates in the Grotesqueries series.
Like it or not, one of these 28 buffoons is going to directly impact the course of history, and it would be a mistake to ignore them completely.
My process primarily consisted of making myself hopping mad about how awful the vast majority of the 28 are, both as candidates and people. I started out knowing full well the majority of them were cynical scumbags at very least, but learning the sordid details taught me that low bar was still far too high.
Luckily, the seething anger I felt led to a series of portraits I’m quite proud of, and what I hope is a decent primer heading into 2020.
That about does it. These were the best posts on Zero Balance this year. Please do not reference the other, bootleg, best-of post from my co-editor. He is biased and not to be trusted.
I’ve no doubt in 2020 everything will continue to get stupider and more broken. With the U.S. election looming, and world leaders doubling down on going absolutely bananas, we’ll be on the beat to serve up the takes other outlets are too cowardly to publish.
Happy New Years! (I know it’s the 10th, fuck off)
Jean Krill is is the co-editor and co-founder of Zero Balance. His writing navigates the many disparate visions of a radically better future.