Back to Normal
Back to Normal by SL Benz.
“Here in the states, many people have resisted wearing masks during the pandemic. Some have worn them under pressure. Some have gladly donned them and continue to do so for various reasons. In California, a state of early adoption of mask-wearing and business shut down, we have begun dropping the mask in businesses with the trust that those unvaccinated will read and obey signage requesting mask-wearing. After a few weeks, it still feels wrong and strange. For many, “back to normal” is a farce meant to spur economic recovery. We are watching and waiting for case numbers to rise in our county, keeping our masks close at hand, feeling uncomfortable that strangers are suddenly in our “bubble” that we have kept so close and safe and with constant consent around boundaries.
“This changing mask of colors, political messages, genders, and patterns will become the new normal. We see people alone in their vehicles wearing masks. We can avoid facial recognition software. We believe in safety over germs. And why do you anti-maskers care so fucking much? We wear them to say fuck you, fuck you trump, fuck you Marjorie T Green, fuck you fox news, fuck you conspiracy nut sack, fuck you Tucker Carlson. Especially you, Tucker. You can suck my fat choking cock.”
Here’s a link to Benzy’s art .
Are you an illustrator? Want to submit the next cover? Here’s the deets .
One comment on “Back to Normal”
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Back to Normal?
What the fuck do we mean by “back to normal?” There’s a lot to unpack there. But let me just say straight up, that if you want to go “back to normal,” fuck you, because you’re part of the problem, one of the privileged people for whom the status quo is on your side.
“Back to Normal” is the new Make America Great Again, a MAGA embraced by liberals and conservatives alike.
For a lot of people — if you are Black or Brown, disproportionately gunned down by police, imprisoned, railroaded by the court system, subject to poverty and housing and job discrimination, or one of the people experiencing houselessness, lacking healthcare or experiencing chronic illness, living in fear of violence as a women (straight or particularly trans), being exploited by the relentless squeeze of capitalism or born into places where the only viable work is sex work, dangerous extraction of resources, or grueling factories churning out technology for the first world, people struggling with mental illness or addiction, working poor people grinding at two, three, or four jobs in the churning gig economy, young and looking at a bleak future devoid of opportunities and drowning in debt, Jewish or Arab living in this anti-Semitic, anti-Arab, xenophobic Christian ethnostate, near the bottom of the social-economic ladder in a region discarded by capitalism and abandoned to meth- and opioid-addiction, or one of the tens or millions of people to lose someone in a global pandemic made worse by rightwing denial — what you call “normal” was indeed normalized, but no one’s idea of fun. That’s the normal that some folks are excited to go back to.
In the meantime, a lot has changed. We’re seeing a growing awareness of income inequality, the institutional racism of police, courts, prisons, and banks, and the world burning up from the effects of man-made climate change. Meanwhile, we see an opposite and equal reactionary rise of neo-fascism, “lost cause” confederacy bullshit, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-vaxx, and climate change denial.
Normal meant we sat silently when our crazy Uncle Ed talked about “inner-city thuggery” at Thanksgiving dinner. Now, we’re willing to tell Uncle Ed that he’s a raging racist. We’ve stopped talking to our crazy relative who went to Washington on January 6th to take back the Capital. We’ve blocked half of our extended family. We’re not putting up with sexual harassment at work. We become active in our union if we are lucky enough to belong to one. We’ve narrowed our friendship circles to those people we actually trust and love.
I don’t want to go back to “normal.” I want to live in a world free of white supremacy and casual misogyny and the “free market” that deals out subsidies to billionaires.
So here’s one more Unavoidable Disaster working to make space for another world that’s possible.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Free Skool Santa Cruz Summer 2021
As pandemic safety measures are shifting we are excited to relaunch a not entirely new, not all too different version of Free Skool Santa Cruz – a project in mutual aid learning and sharing.
What skills do you have to share? What types of classes would help grow more vibrant and self-reliant communities?
A radically different approach to living and learning, Free Skool Santa Cruz is a grassroots educational project beyond institutional control. It is an opportunity to learn from each other and share what we know, to foster communities of mutual support and autonomy.
Part of creating a new world is resistance to the old one. Through this project, we want to change the way we learn and the way we relate to each other.
Our summer calendar goes from the summer solstice (June 20th) to the autumnal equinox (Sept 22). We will have two rounds of submission deadlines to add your class to our calendar. The first submission deadline was June 7th and the second will be mid-July. All classes will follow the recommended covid precautions. Please email questions to: freeskoolsantacruz@gmail.com
More info at https://freeskoolsantacruz.wordpress.com AND on social media! https://instagram.com/freeskoolsantacruz AND https://m.facebook.com/freeskoolsantacruz/ AND go to our link tree for a collection of useful links https://linktr.ee/Freeskoolsantacruz
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Angry editorial
rant. Read at
own risk.
Subscribe to This Thing
Let’s be real, you’ll never remember to come back here unless we remind you. So we can let you know when a new issues is available.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Western US Drought
…Unfortunately, most of the rest of the West received little to no precipitation, and warmer than normal temperatures plagued much of the region. Degradations to conditions occurred in northeast California and south-central Oregon, southern Montana, central and western Wyoming, far east-central Wyoming, and the high country of west-central Colorado. All of these locations saw short- and long-term precipitation deficits continue to mount. Most of the West region remained in moderate, severe, extreme, or exceptional drought. In central California, farmers have been warned about potential water cutoffs, while wildfire concerns and firework restrictions are prevalent in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico…
One comment on “Western US Drought”
-
As Climate Change continues to force us ants to different locations on the thin, brown crust of this planet, we may see progressives leave drier blue states for wetter red states. Make sure to take jobs in the police departments and civil service. It’s science fiction. It’s work.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
One comment on “The Dark Knight”
-
A bunch of old bats…
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
One comment on “A short history of america”
-
Crumb is so good. It’s not fair.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Page 4
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Let’s Learn Critical Race Theory!
Critical race theory (CRT) is a body of legal scholarship and an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists in the United States that seeks to critically examine U.S. law as it intersects with issues of race in the U.S. and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice. CRT examines social, cultural and legal issues primarily as they relate to race and racism in the United States.
CRT originated in the mid 1970s in the writings of several American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris, Charles R. Lawrence III, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia J. Williams. It emerged as a movement by the 1980s, reworking theories of critical legal studies (CLS) with more focus on race. CRT is grounded in critical theory and draws from thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and W. E. B. DuBois, as well as the Black Power, Chicano, and radical feminist movements from the 1960s and 1970s.
While critical race theorists do not all share the same beliefs, the basic tenets of CRT include that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing and often subtle social and institutional dynamics rather than explicit and intentional prejudices on the part of individuals. CRT scholars also view race and white supremacy as an intersectional social construction which serves to uphold the interests of white people against those of marginalized communities at large. In the field of legal studies, CRT emphasizes that merely making laws colorblind on paper may not be enough to make the application of the laws colorblind; ostensibly colorblind laws can be applied in racially discriminatory ways. A key CRT concept is intersectionality, which emphasizes that race can intersect with other identities (such as gender and class) to produce complex combinations of power and disadvantage.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
One comment on “The Octopus”
-
dope
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Page 5
Jo Does Not Consent
It has been distressing for those of us who loved the Harry Potter series to discover that J.K.Rowling is a vitriolic anti-trans activist. So-called Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist or TERFS (who are neither radical nor feminist) are super common in the UK.
It begs the question of how we can still enjoy this imaginative series which for many served as a liberating metaphor as they were going through the long process of coming out and transitioning. Many of us have settled on the position that we can still enjoy the literature while preferring not to give more money to this person who wishes our family and friends not to exist.
So up with Harry Potter. Down with J.K.Rowling.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Hopscotch Poems
In the Word Garden at Highlights Foundation I created this nonlinear poem that could be read by hopscotching around the words like a Ouija planchette. The words in the poem were redistributed throughout the Word Garden next day. I’ve been digging ephemeral art lately–very freeing! Check out my Instagram @clevelandwall for ephermeral tableaux and erasures.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
One comment on “The Forty Elephants”
-
I think the Elephants are operating out of the Safeway in Tillamook, Oregon.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Page 6
One comment on “And you can’t stop us…”
-
Don’t come on so strong. Bigfeet find objectification stifling to a relationship.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
P a g e 7
Happy Birthday Emma!
Emma Goldman (1869–1940), a Russian-born anarchist, socialist, and feminist, was a thorn in the side of mainstream American society in the early part of the 20th century. She traveled constantly, delivering vitriolic speeches, lecturing, picketing, marching, and demonstrating for First Amendment rights. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the 20th century.
There is literally no way to come close to an accurate summary of Emma Goldman’s eventful life in a brief biography. For instance, she served time after being accused of responsibility for the assassination of a U.S. President. She and her lover attempted to assassinate a leading strike-breaker industrialist in the name of the workers. She was ofter arrested for lecturing on birth control and a woman’s right to control her own body.
The editors recommend you immediately go out and read Emma Goldman’s amazing biography Living My Life.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
@!@!@!
There are many kinds of anarchists… and over the past year anarchists have shown up a variety of ways… in the streets during uprisings against racism and white supremacy and in support of black lives. And anarchists have engaged in so many kinds of mutual aid… for instance, in support of houseless folk, during this ongoing COVID pandemic and during fires on west coast. And recently the Biden administration has made it a point to target “extremest groups” and lumped anarchists and antifa in with white supremacists (which was predictable and wrong). This isn’t over yet.
Learn more about anarchists and anarchists principles. Here’s some starting points…
-https://crimethinc.com/2017/11/28/fighting-for-our-lives-an-anarchist-primer
-https://crimethinc.com/categories/days-of-war-nights-of-love
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Page 8
One comment on “Wholesome Shit”
-
I wish.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
My Body Parts Examined #11 Butt Cheek
This will be the last of My Body Parts Examined. Next month I will be starting a new series. I wanted to end with a prime number. You’ll just have to show up and read the Zine if you want to know what the new series is. Ha.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Page 9
Non Sequitur Animal Comics
Instructions to create your own set of these.
1. 5 minutes of writing. Double space. Capitals.
2. 15 minutes drawing a picture of a real animal. Don’t look it up. Pick something you don’t know how to draw.
3. Repeat x 7, once a day for a week.
4. Create a page with 6 panels.
5. Pair first line from journal in speech bubble with copy of that day’s animal.
6. Repeat 6 times.
7. Buy a copy of Making Comics to find other exercises like this one.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Luddite For Hire
Have you ever driven or rode trains … listen to this … this is a CD project all about railroading. After you listen to it, you will be qualified to run trains.
fall into this ...
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Diversity of Tactics!
I forget where this originates… anyways, it’s in part a wry commentary poking at the Resource Center for Nonviolence here in Santa Cruz.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
One comment on “Eat the rich!”
-
The French had a messy, yet straightforward way to deal with the ultra-rich. They killed them then threw all their money and stuff out into the street. I’m not condoning violence or theft…that’s just what happens when you lie to people, never deliver on promises (or cake), and drive them to desperation. That’s just what happens.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Uncle Franz
Great-Uncle Franz, a spy for the US during WWII, in his undercover Polka Band accordion player disguise. He was shot–not for being a spy, but for playing the accordion badly.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Page 10
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Feat. Jeff Goldblum
May not include Jeff Goldblum in any or all recorded episodes. Content is for mature audiences only. Please do not feed after 10 PM.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Page
11
Are the eyes and hair a self portrait? Looks like Benzy to me!