a global pandemic is not pearl harbor, is not 9/11. War metaphors continue breathing life into the American arrogance that helped lead to the very large number of people currently infected in the US. They retroactively exceptionalize and de-historicize those events. 1/7

They prospectively sustain ongoing US empire & militarism post-Covid. War metaphors rationalize an incredibly outsized military budget that should be going to support universal paid sick leave & health care. And they are another version of the deeply racist "chinese virus." 2/7

I understand that the brave people leading the struggle against this virus, and those caring for the sick at risk to themselves and their families, may feel themselves to be at war, to be on the front lines. 3/7

But we need alternate ways of understanding & imagining what it means for people to come together in struggle. 4/7

And right now the struggle is manifold: against the virus,
and against the political, economic and racial systems that make unequal death, extraction and ecological violence normal. nationalism masks this. 5/7

what if one among the emancipatory outcomes of this crisis/portal (roy) was an end to militarism? amidst a mass public health crisis, folks in power are busy scheming up new evil—taking more native land, passing more repressive laws & enacting more brutal sanctions on Iran. 6/7

Our dreams have to be stronger. 7/7