THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 82

I watched a documentary about Oakland’s current state of self-destructive decline. THis situation seems very similar to Portland, just more concentrated in pockets, but with more crime. A toxic socialist lady was interviewed & she had a list of historical grievances for everything. She decided that Target was based off of slavery & that they deserved to be stolen from. That none of the crime was unjust & it was all based off this desire for revenge. I had a hard time watching. Her relatively common way of thinking is so egotistical & so insane, it is too obvious. I’m sure if I was raised in right dominated cities or states I would have seen an obvious correlation, but that’s not the case. I’m just talking about what I’ve experienced. We can see the obvious mental health issues dramatized by rightwing Americans every day. This toxic socialist mentality riddled everyone growing up & I subscribed to it briefly as well. It’s like it was encouraged. It’s an excuse with Native American Genocide & African Slavery serving as original sin. Letting go of grievances is really important, they don’t serve you or anybody. History is full of injustices, you can fill up libraries with just numbers of unresolved violations. But what you can’t do is solve the injustices of the past by bringing them into this moment today. You might experience some brief catharsis over the demons in your head, but they are not released, only you have the power to release those demons. The conjuring of these grievances has been near constant in the history classes of many of the most progressive schools because they have gone from the Mickey Mouse Club version of nice American mythology to boring, just the facts history to grievances history. True understanding can only come from letting go of the screaming ego version of history where you & your grievances are the center of the story to a version where you are just a viewer of these incredibly complex networks of interactions that you ultimately have nothing to do with.