Apocalypse now
Seeking and finding new, better narratives about how we survive collapse.
🎉 Vol. 50! 🎉
In This Issue: ESSAY | Be A Helper | Now Read This | Now Watch This | Some Personal News | Final Frame
I was practically raised on apocalypse and disaster porn. The Terminator movies, Mad Max, Waterworld, Red Dawn, Escape From New York…the list goes on. I ate that shit up. Fun (if often silly) movies that offered up a vision of a possible future wherein some thing or another has gone terribly wrong and humanity is left to duke it out for what little is left.
There’s often a hard strain of rugged individualism in these stories, one deeply rooted in the American psyche. We love a lone wolf, a hero/anti-hero, usually a strong-if-gruff white man to save the day or at least slap some sense into us. Our country’s mythology has long emphasized self-sufficiency over all else, too. Do it yourself. No need to rely on anyone. Keep the government out of my business, what are you, a commie? And so on.
So I’ve been just as guilty as anyone of romanticizing, in a deeply fucked up way, what an apocalypse might be like for myself. “If I just store enough emergency supplies, have a plan, keep my head down, fight like hell, me and mine will be alright.” And I’d get to wear a cool outfit.
It all felt inevitable.
The longer I’ve been living, the more people I’ve learned from, the more examples of real disaster I’ve witnessed, the less and less I want or believe in that vision.
I’m no more likely to survive a natural or man-made disaster than anyone else. I am not the main character of this story. Yes, I can and will store emergency supplies just in case, because that’s always a good idea no matter what. But if the flood’s gonna come, it’s gonna come. The more important thing, I’ve decided, is to be determined to pitch in and help those around you as much as you can, should you be lucky enough to survive the initial event. Check in on neighbors. Share news. Transport people and/or goods to and from where they’re needed. Let someone come inside to use your electricity/running water/air conditioning who doesn’t have it. Share knowledge and skills. Share stories and compassion. Share a cold beverage. Share.
The worst possible thing to do is to isolate and tell yourself that only you can save yourself, and that everyone else is a threat. Human beings very clearly evolved to be communal, collaborative animals. We’ve only survived as long as we have because of our ability to collaborate. Times of crisis seem to be the only time we still get that message loud and clear, though, at least for those of us privileged enough to be insulated from really seeing the vast web of people power that keeps our day-to-day lives running.
We’re seeing it now in places like Gaza and southern Lebanon, where people who have had almost everything taken from there are still finding ways to help each other. We’re also seeing it in western North Carolina and the other states so terribly impacted by Hurricane Helene. The feds are doing what they can to help, yes (despite what you might hear from folks with an agenda to undercut any/all trust in or need for a functioning government), but they’ve been chronically underfunded by those on the right who are determined to hobble any and all forms of functional governance, and even those who simply prioritize sending money to support dropping bombs on civilians instead of taking care of their own people’s needs.
Regardless, community-based aid and support is always necessary and always the most well-equipped to jump into action, no red tape needed. Everyone from anarchists to churchgoers to restaurant workers to local emergency services personnel have jumped in to do what they can to help their neighbors. Local grocery cooperatives are hosting in-person community meetings so folks can get updated news and supplies, as cell networks and electricity remain down. Everyday folks are just picking up shovels and helping dig out.
These are the “helpers” that Mr. Rogers talked about looking to when the news got scary. They’re you and me. They’re regular people who understand what it means to live in community with one another.
It does give me hope, but it’s an ethic and a lesson that I deeply wish more people took to heart on a day-to-day basis, even when there hasn’t been a massive natural disaster to knock everyone down onto the same level. Mutual aid groups, community aid organizations, and many non-profits understand this well and are engaged in doing this vital work 24/7/365. But it’s not enough. We need to build a society–entire systems–that have this knowledge and this ethic baked in.
It’s going to take time and it’s going to require a lot of hard, uncomfortable work. But we can take heart and an example from what’s happening right now from Gaza to Appalachia, and what’s happened throughout time–especially in marginalized communities who realized long ago that “we really do keep us safe.”
Be A Helper.
After Hurricane Helene devastated huge swaths of the southeast last weekend, mutual aid groups have sprung into action to provide life-saving supplies and support to the many people impacted. These community-based, often informal organizations are often vital resources, able to respond far more quickly and effectively than FEMA or other major relief organizations. If you’re looking for a meaningful way to help folks dealing with the absolute worst situation right now, I highly recommend throwing whatever spare dollars you can toward one or more of these orgs. Check out this open Google Doc for a list of good, vetted mutual aid groups to donate to - the doc also includes vital information and resources for people impacted, so feel free to share this around with those who might benefit. The direct/short link to share is bit.ly/ReliefDoc.
Also check out Mutual Aid Disaster Relief for a great toolkit and other ways to donate to support their work to provide aid via solidarity, mutual support, and autonomous direct action.
Then read this excellent initial piece of reporting by the always insightful Margaret Killjoy, who is in North Carolina assisting with mutual aid efforts. Stories like this are what give me hope, even in the face of what otherwise feels very much like collapse:
There is no overarching coordination. There is, instead, decentralized coordination. It’s working. Most people I’ve talked to have been doing specialized work for days, but they don’t know everything that is going on. No one does. People are just… talking. And coordinating. Constantly. Organically. It’s spontaneous, coordinating decentralized efforts is also a learned and practiced skill. Another friend, used to doing physical labor, is instead spending their days just biking around and introducing people to each other, figuring out who needs what.
It’s working. Disaster compassion is real: we come together in crisis.
Sending all my best to everyone impacted and to those on the ground offering whatever help they can.
Now Read This.
“The Indiana Fever vs. Connecticut Sun WNBA game made me feel unsafe” [Frankie de la Cretaz for Andscape]
I have never felt anything but safe, welcomed, and celebrated at a WNBA game — until Wednesday night. The crowd attending Game 2 of the first-round matchup between the Connecticut Sun and the Indiana Fever felt different, and not in a good way.
“On Climate Week and toxic positivity” [Drilled]
This insistence that everything is normal and fine when it is so clearly not is something of a hallmark of the climate movement in my experience, particularly amongst those with power and money. People need good news and hope, I know, and amidst cascading crises people are absolutely desperate to feel like things are "normal," but does toxic positivity and censorship of criticism accomplish that? Does this black-or-white insistence on how people must feel and talk about climate really move the needle? Does tone-deafness and a complete unwillingness to see the pain of everyone around you make you positive or...kind of a self-absorbed asshole?
“The modern electoral history of transphobia” [Ettingermentum]
What I am attempting to provide is something of a working electoral history of transphobia: the story of its ascension to the core of Republican campaigning and governance over the past decade and how it has performed in elections. My ultimate hope is to prove a simple fact beyond any reasonable doubt: that trans people and trans rights are not liabilities to any left-wing movement in any sense of the term, and that anybody who has ever spoken of them as such is either a disingenuous transphobe or too stupid and lazy to ever be taken seriously.
“Lawsuits allege deadly 2021 Texas blackouts were an inside job” [The Hill]
Over the past three years, a wave of new data — and lawsuits — have made the case that the outages were, in fact, a result of market manipulation by some of Texas’s biggest fossil fuel companies.
“U.S. Jewish Institutions Are Purging Their Staffs of Anti-Zionists”
In These Times interviewed 18 Jewish professionals with 16 different Jewish organizations across the country, all of whom describe being fired, quitting under pressure, or seeing their roles disappear since October 7 for issues surrounding criticism of Israel or support for a permanent cease-fire.
Now Watch This.
PBS Wisconsin’s “Wisconsin Life” series recently ran a beautiful short feature on Madison’s Femme & Queer Skate Night, an informal organization of LGBTQ+ and women/femme folks creating a safer and supportive space for learning and shredding on skateboards, rollerblades, and rollerskates. You might even catch a glimpse of me in there!
Some personal news
If you find yourself in the vicinity of New York City on Sunday, October 20, come on by the Mercury Lounge (East Village/Lower East Side) for Homecoming ‘94, featuring yours truly and my musical life partner, Meghan Rose, as we revive our tribute to Hole on this, the 30th anniversary of their seminal album, “Live Through This.”
We’re being joined by tributes to Nirvana, Soungarden, and Siouxie and the Banshees (which I am especially stoked for), so it’s gonna be a rad time. Come through!
Final Frame.
The best work days are the days I get to be in the field. This week, I had the chance to accompany a team of researchers who are doing some incredibly cool work in the Baraboo Hills (more on this later, stay tuned) and tromp around through some of my favorite landscapes on Earth. If you’ve never spent time in the Baraboo Hills, I can’t recommend it enough. Check out Baxter’s Hollow, Hemlock Draw, Pewit’s Nest, and/or Parfrey’s Glen (and of course Spirit Lake State Park).
‘Til Next Time.
Solidarity forever. Don’t forget to register to vote. Free Palestine.
Hey Mills,
This is a great message that I think many people need to hear more of. We are all in this together, after all.
Saw you lacing up your skates in the video. Nice!