imagine thinking any president is going to prison for anything

the big secret of society is that once you get past a certain number of gatekeepers, you basically cannot be dethroned.

i know this because, as someone involved in academia, it is *virtually impossible* for me to be fired, and i am a straight up *nobody*

the system is continuous class war and the only escape within said system is to do *whatever it takes* to climb the ladder

this is why people go $200k into debt for a degree -- because it's a *good investment* once you reach the point you never have to care about debt again

all of this, it should go without saying, is an absolute scam

but once *you* become one of the scammers, who's going to stop you? the cops? government? votes?

i do what i can to work within the system but even now, at my relatively low level of power and engagement, i still have to grapple with moral quandries

for example do i give a student a rec letter for a transfer knowing they missed half my classes due to mental health problems?

i know what the *right* answer is -- absolutely, because fuck that, don't punish a person for things out of their control, open the gate for as many people as i can, etc.

OTOH i also have to consider if i dilute my academic "brand" too much those letters become useless

i fucking hate that i have to consider that -- but there it is regardless. it's like that scene at the end of schindler's list where he's doing the math and trying to figure out if he could have helped more people. that's what being on the inside of the classist system is like

anyway the point is the seduction of not just power, but not having to take responsibility for your actions is the reason there is so much corruption in the world

which is of course the entire point of power in the first place

how many died of COVID due to the DNC telling them it was safe to vote in the primaries -- an outright lie which they knew at the time?

do you think they'll ever have to answer for those deaths?

and if they don't, why the fuck would trump ever have to answer for his taxes?

now maybe i'm a sellout because i've bought into this system -- you can make that judgment if you like, but the material consequence for my decision is now i work from home for better pay than i had doing contract work or washing dishes, and my partner and i are more secure

i also get to influence the minds of young people, and by doing so teach them about these oppressive structures and how to questions them and what they can do to oppose them. i'm that instructor the alt-right warns you about, training a new generation of antifa supersoldiers lol

but i also know that i'm very lucky to be here, and i have to make ethical decisions every day that make me complicit in a system i loathe and wish to dismantle

i don't have a clear answer or excuse. but i'm certainly doing more good than i was doing in the back of a restaurant

i think i kind of trailed into a tangent there but my original point was: none of this is fixable *within* the system. it's explicitly designed not to be; it absorbs revolutionaries and either denatures them or outright kills them.

this is why we need a solution from outside.