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jasonderoga86I just got a reply from a friend of mine on Facebook, Jonathan, thanking me for my comment on his post about powerful women in today's world. Two of the people highlighted were Amanda Gorman, Black poet and civil rights activist (delivered the powerful poem "The Hills We Climb" at Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration) and Greta Thunberg, the fiery young Swedish woman who rose to prominence as a little girl condemning world leaders for their complicity in accelerating climate change at the risk of every vulnerable community in an insane bid to outlast them in a coming global warming calamity (She literally charged the leaders at the UN via video screen in 2019 of selling out the future of generations of children worldwide in exchange for wealth and lavish lifestyles from the corrupt oil, gas, and fossil fuel industries; she furiously ripped into them, saying "How dare you! How DARE you?!") Bigwigs with their wealth and political power are always unnerved when young people put them on the spot for their deadly ignorance of public health issues in favor of amassing wealth and power because deep down, they know the Kids Are All Right. That's why they respond with condescending lectures or ways to punish or silence them to look like the "grownups" in the room. In fact, in some countries, people burned effigies of Greta in response to her saying the quiet part out loud about the fossil fuel industry's profiting from death due to pollution and natural disasters -- they thought Greta, who never took a life, was eviller than the corporations dealing out death profiting from pollution-related disasters and always avoiding accountability. But then again, such is the ideology behind American capitalism -- a perverted view of Darwinism, where the wealthy "superior" few have the right to use the "inferior" masses as expendable to line their pockets, and lobby that money to compromise political alliances and block any meaningful change from dismantling the foul communion. As if they'll be taking all that wealth and power with them to their coffin and into the next life. Stupid? Yes. But that's their M.O.
Touched by Jonathan's response, I replied to him by telling him I have my Texan friend Erin Weinstock to thank for my insight; she's encouraging me to use my voice in written form and in spoken form through a podcast. She even helped me install software to make it possible. At the same time, some friends of mine are requesting me to attend a special "teach-in" community event on the privileged ultra-wealthy's assault on the working-class people of this country in a couple weeks. The event is going to be held at Laney College on Tuesday, April 29th (after work) in my hometown of Oakland, California -- the same college where I launched the first issue of my most popular comic series "Sneakers' U-Force" at a 2010 art gallery focused on environmental justice and activism. As you all know, I was interviewed and photographed for the Laney Tower, the campus newspaper.
And right now, I can see how the current state of things is wearing on Erin; she is at her wit's end, and her Facebook posts have become more and more desperate and dire, with one particularly shocking post implying that if she's not able to leave her current neighborhood by mid-July, she "wants someone to kill [her]." Whether she's just figuratively speaking or not, I'm concerned -- she lives in a mobile home neighborhood full of MAGA jerks who have made her life hell for longer than I can imagine. I spoke with her about a month ago, where she told me she was doing fine but was also in a state of desperation due to how unsafe her neighborhood is becoming. She told me that she needs to devote more time to getting the assistance she needs to leave Texas somehow, and thus she wouldn't be as available for a while. While these current posts are very terrifying, not only do I feel I must respect her time as she figures things out, but I also have my life to focus on as well; my new position at my job demands a lot of my time, and this coming weekend will be the birthday celebration of one of my closest friends. And then the following Tuesday afterwards, I plan to go to this political community event at Laney College. Also, Jonathan is also a very close friend of Erin's -- she does paid art commissions for his video business -- so I feel confident he can be there for her when I can't.
Regardless, I am more compelled than ever to make a difference -- not just with our disabled community, but now with the entire community of Oakland. This is a big part of what I believe I was called to do, part of my life mission.✊🏾
Peace and love to you all,
Nana
--"Jason Deroga"
Touched by Jonathan's response, I replied to him by telling him I have my Texan friend Erin Weinstock to thank for my insight; she's encouraging me to use my voice in written form and in spoken form through a podcast. She even helped me install software to make it possible. At the same time, some friends of mine are requesting me to attend a special "teach-in" community event on the privileged ultra-wealthy's assault on the working-class people of this country in a couple weeks. The event is going to be held at Laney College on Tuesday, April 29th (after work) in my hometown of Oakland, California -- the same college where I launched the first issue of my most popular comic series "Sneakers' U-Force" at a 2010 art gallery focused on environmental justice and activism. As you all know, I was interviewed and photographed for the Laney Tower, the campus newspaper.
As such, because my experience at Laney -- and especially the eco-art class that the gallery was based on, which I took for multiple semesters out of pure curiosity (it was the first time I borrowed and watched "An Inconvenient Truth" at home, which inspired the creation of "Sneakers' U-Force") -- and my deep friendship with my eco-art instructor, who helped me out of a very dark period in my personal life, I feel compelled to go to this event. One of the speakers is a family member of a client I assist at my job helping developmentally disabled people in my community, so there's also that aspect.
I think this is the opportunity I've been searching for, to speak on behalf of the people in my city who are no doubt done with the idea of rich people literally buying political elections and manipulating our institutions to abandon the very people they are supposed to protect and serve. Our entire political system has been weaponized against the people to suit the greed of amoral and heartless opportunists who see the general public as political tools. It's insidious and needs to be called out. Like the rapper Tupac Shakur once said, we call ourselves the Greatest Nation on Earth, yet the hard truth is "We have money for war, but we can't feed the poor". It's the basest hypocrisy.
And right now, I can see how the current state of things is wearing on Erin; she is at her wit's end, and her Facebook posts have become more and more desperate and dire, with one particularly shocking post implying that if she's not able to leave her current neighborhood by mid-July, she "wants someone to kill [her]." Whether she's just figuratively speaking or not, I'm concerned -- she lives in a mobile home neighborhood full of MAGA jerks who have made her life hell for longer than I can imagine. I spoke with her about a month ago, where she told me she was doing fine but was also in a state of desperation due to how unsafe her neighborhood is becoming. She told me that she needs to devote more time to getting the assistance she needs to leave Texas somehow, and thus she wouldn't be as available for a while. While these current posts are very terrifying, not only do I feel I must respect her time as she figures things out, but I also have my life to focus on as well; my new position at my job demands a lot of my time, and this coming weekend will be the birthday celebration of one of my closest friends. And then the following Tuesday afterwards, I plan to go to this political community event at Laney College. Also, Jonathan is also a very close friend of Erin's -- she does paid art commissions for his video business -- so I feel confident he can be there for her when I can't.
Regardless, I am more compelled than ever to make a difference -- not just with our disabled community, but now with the entire community of Oakland. This is a big part of what I believe I was called to do, part of my life mission.✊🏾
Peace and love to you all,
Nana
--"Jason Deroga"
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Date: 2025-04-20 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 01:10 am (UTC)Exactly. And some "mighty grown-up" world leaders demonized and vilified her -- as a kid -- with some of their citizens burning effigies of her. OF A LITTLE GIRL. For simply telling the truth that these leaders wanted to keep hidden from their unenlightened and uneducated masses. In a world where infantile cowards are doing nothing but picking fights, waging geopolitical turf wars and blowing shit up (and also millions of innocents) like schoolyard ruffians and calling it "leadership", is it any wonder why young people worldwide are rising up to be the actual adults in the room?
And the thing is, and I fully believe this -- these "leaders" are well aware of their moral bankruptcy, both by their avaricious ambitions and the knowledge of the hellscape they're leaving behind for future generations. They know they're condemning future generations to an uninhabitable wasteland... but they also don't give a damn. Selling out those generations for selfish earthly pleasures and privilege is worth the price; this is their perverted Darwinist mentality. "Let the future generations deal with burning to cinders. WE are going to live the most privileged life we can, because we're superior and we're entitled to."
And deep down, they also must know that they aren't taking a dime of that wealth or any accolades for their "exceptional leadership" to the grave, or to whatever "afterlife" they profess to believe in with their religious masquerades; hell, nobody can honestly believe they're destined for any "heaven" after having sewn so much death and suffering across the world for personal gain. But again, they don't care... and that is the most damning part of their collective nihilist agenda. They are following a dogma that preaches that the needs and greed of the amoral few outweigh the worth and needs of the moral majority. Whoever wrote that "the love of money is the root of all evil" was right on the money (no pun intended), and it fittingly spells out the cancer that is this emergence of American capitalist imperialism.