We lost Larry Kramer too soon. in Those Public Entries

(Apologies for the video censoring the fuck bombs; it was the only one I could find with the full speech.)

In this speech, Larry Kramer was talking about AIDS. It wouldn’t take much to alter this for the American left (and bear in mind, I’m a leftist).

People: If you’re not aware of Project 2025, get aware of it. Go to the website. Read their game plan. Listen to what they’re saying. Listen to what they’re not saying. Pay attention to SCOTUS’s latest ruling. These people are killing our country for their own, personal gain. They have already forced 12-year-old children to give birth to their rapists’ babies. They have praised the murders of trans people, and promised to kill them off, on the basis of them being “groomers” (funny thing, though: All the actual child predators who’ve been screaming about trans people and drag queens have been cis men. “When you point the finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing back to you.”)

And here you are, leftists. You’re sitting there, acting like Biden orchestrated the Palestinian genocide, as if you didn’t hear Trump saying he’d help Israel “finish the job” by any means necessary. You’re sitting there, acting like Trump isn’t a real threat, not just to Americans, but the entire world. You’re sitting there, reciting your anti-Biden litany like a fucking novena, acting like Trump isn’t far and away the most evil and corrupt person who’s ever held the presidency. You’re sitting there, baying for SCOTUS’s blood, acting like Trump didn’t install three of the most corrupt, unqualified people to ever sit on it. You’re sitting there, having just done your Pride Month dog-and-pony show of “support”, acting like Trump and his enablers don’t want to kill every last LGBTQIA+ person in the world. You’re sitting there saying “Never Biden”, because you don’t want to actually do anything, you want to complain.

We are on the cusp of living in an honest to fuck dictatorship. “And you behave like this!”

Tell me. Show me. Give me good, solid proof. What has your Terminally Online bitching and moaning actually done in the world? What has your sharing pictures of dead, mutilated Palestinian children actually done to help Palestine? What has your obsessive retweeting of Marx and Gramsci done to push economic reforms? What has your ranting and railing against “The System” done to curb or stop the housing crisis? What has your hashtagging done to get unfairly imprisoned BIPOC out of jail? What has any of this online beating of your breast actually done to measurably, provably, affect policy?

Nothing. Big fucking goose egg. And it’s time you accepted that fact.

The system is broken. I’m not arguing that. Capitalism is in its death throes. But jaw-jacking and tweeting and writing essays isn’t what broke these things, and it’s not going to fix them, either. Taking action will fix them. And it will be a slow, arduous process. Because that’s what progress is: The continual march toward a better world and future. We will probably not see these improvements in our lifetime, but that’s not the point. The point is that we leave the world in a better place for the people of the future. So they can have clean water and a stable weather system. So they can have ample food. So they can have strong social support networks.

There’s a lot of talk within the student loan sphere, about how those who are against canceling student loan debt basically are saying, “Well, I suffered, and because I suffered, everyone else should, too!” And they’re correct. But if you’re refusing to do whatever it is you can to make the world a better place, aren’t you essentially making the same argument? “I didn’t get to live in a world without global warming! I lived in a world where the wet bulb temperature got higher and higher every year! I lived in a world where Palestine and Israel were in a forever war! And it’s probably too late to do anything about any of this, so why should I? I survived, so will you!” You’re making the same “I suffered, so everyone else should suffer, too!” argument, just with more words and about bigger, more important and consequential issues.

“All we do is pick at each other, and yell at each other. And I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know what kind of organization to start. I don’t know how to give advice. I don’t know how to lead anyone, should they want to follow. I don’t know what to write anymore, I don’t know how to write anymore articles, ‘cause I have said what I have said to you tonight, in some form or another, for ten fucking years.” I’m in the same position with leftists in 2024, that Larry Kramer was in with AIDS activists in 1991. Leftists are too fractured, too wounded, too insular, too unwilling to work with anyone whose ideals don’t perfectly align with their own, to effect any real change. We’re too busy fighting amongst and with ourselves to remember who and what the real enemy is. We’re not a majority, but we act like we are. We act like we have the power to change the world without doing anything.

It’s really fuckin’ depressing, you know? I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t want much, in the grand scheme of things. I want to live on a planet where people aren’t being bombed to shit over religion and Manifest Destiny and colonialism. I want to live on a planet that has thriving coral reefs. I want to live on a planet where industry is held responsible for industrial pollution. I want to live on a planet where everyone has access to housing, food, clean water, and health care. I want to live on a planet where people get paid enough to actually live, instead of enough to just barely scrape by and be in constant credit card debt. I want to live on a planet where no one has to stay in the closet, where trans people aren’t treated as predators just for existing. Why are any of these things such big asks, never mind all of them?

And more importantly, leftists: how is constantly sniping at each other, canceling each other, stabbing each other in the back, and fighting among ourselves going to get us anywhere near these goals? What is our plan? Do we even have a plan?

…Yeah. That’s what I thought.

To paraphrase the late, great Mr. Kramer: “And I say to you, in 2024, the same thing I said to you in 2016, when Trump was elected: Until we get our acts together, all of us, we are as good as dead.”

Last updated July 04, 2024