Look man, I ain't gonna lie. I'm sitting here in my bed, and I'm finna to start a new job, right? I'm finna to start a new job, that's gonna pay me a lot of money. And this is, in any other scenario, a year, two years ago, I would be all about it. But man, all I can think about, you know, I get older, I have a kid, that kid gets a little bit older, he gonna ask me, he gonna go, "Pop, where were you when they was killing all them kids in Gaza? When they was dropping all them bombs. What were you doing?" And you know what I'm gonna have to say to my son? I'm gonna say, "I was stacking paper, son. I was getting some bread."
Could you imagine, it's Nazi Germany, and somebody said, well, they sending them to the gas chambers, train by train by train, day after day. I keep seeing them get loaded up on the news, but shit, I gotta stack my paper, I gotta get my bread. Sounds a little bit ridiculous, don't it? It sounds a little bit ridiculous. And it's got me thinking about a whole lot of things. And part of me almost feels like this job, the money that this job gonna pay me, okay, this money is a bribe. It's the system saying, hey, look, we know you don't like it, but here's some good money, man. You wanna get that paper, don't you?
Brother, I wanna get that paper more than anything I want to break the cycle. My kids ain't growing up ina dusty ass FEMA trailer park. That's all my life has been about. I remember selling snack cakes in middle school. I was selling test results in high school. I was selling whatever I needed to sell, okay? Doing whatever I needed to do. Things I can't tell you. I was working two full-time jobs before covid, 80+ hours a week sleeping in my car some nights.
But I've seen things in the last six months that would make a grown man weep. And that just is something I cannot stop thinking about. Like, what am I doing? What are we all doing? I saw a toddler melted, no skin, just sinew and burns. White phosphorous is only made in America, only in Arkansas. We did that.
We did that man.
You know, I run a website. I got a platform. I get like 5,000, 6,000 views, sometimes even 7,000 views a week. I've written article after article and I don't feel any less hollow than I did when it first started, when I first started seeing them videos. I've spread the word, I've gotten my social medias have been banned for spreading the word, but it's not enough. It's not shit. It's internet shit. That's not real shit. That kid, if I told him, well, you know, I look, I wrote an article about what they did to you. You think you feel better about what they did? It's many a nights I lost sleep thinking about the things I done seen. And I know the people who are doing these things, they sleep in the sound as a motherfucking bear in the wintertime.
Just wanna say I feel ya. I also got a new job and for the first time in my adult life I will be outside of the "official" poverty line. But with that I have had to let my organizing take a backseat as I acclimate and attend to a bunch of other personal transitions. I simply just don't have as much time and energy to do both. I have moments where it's not easy to reconcile.
Congrats on the new opportunity comrade.
It's kind of ironic, I haven't started the job yet, and I don't even know if I'll be able to take this opportunity because I'm too damn broke to get everything I need to fucking... get licensed and... such. My driver's license was expired, I gotta handle that, my... I need to buy a suit and... all these other little things, I'm short on my rent. Shit, it's not looking good. But... we'll see. Because this is a sales job, so... You don't have a motherfucker who... advocates for Medicare for All, selling Medicare plans. Ain't that a motherfucker, huh? That's something I had to reconcile. But see... I was working in tech, man. And I don't give a fuck what... position you in. If you working in tech... Yo shit... You, you got blood on your hands, like... When you work for Microsoft, who built the AI that's killing the Palestinians? Microsoft. You work for a contracting company, who you really working for? You work for the government. There's no escaping that if you work in tech. So, I mean, at the end of the day... I can't put too much... weight into my own ethical choices when I'm only... The reason I'm taking this job is because I don't want to get called back at the end of the day. And yeah, man, I know what it is to have to try to reconcile that shit. I got friends who are doing... mandatory minimums... for the same shit I was doing. I got friends... You know, my grandfather did 25 years in prison... for selling crack. Like... He's a motherfucker. He's... Growing up with no... power sometimes, having a... leaky roof. And now you're looking at... making enough money to possibly be able to pay for my friend's healthcare and shit. Who's to tell me I can't go get that money? At the end of the day... That money, in my head, is going to pay for a lot... better shit. And do a lot more work. And do a lot more work. And do a lot more work. And do a lot more work.