I got arrested for possessing a dust-amount of cannabis when I was 13

then I had to work through the pandemic as a cannabis dispensary manager because we were “essential medical personnel”

with no medical benefits. Earning less money than I would’ve if I had been able to go on unemployment.

It’s a shit country. The social contract does not exist anymore. Thinly-veiled threats of violence are the only thing still keeping the population in line, including the threat of homelessness which is also a form of violence.

Once, when I was on acid, I asked myself - how would I define America? The answer I settled on is, “America is everyone who is stuck here” (or forced by economic or otherwise imperially-orchestrated hardship to come here, even if they would prefer to remain in their home country otherwise). Everyone who lives in America and cannot comfortably escape lives in a prison. You may get the equivalent of a Nordic prison if you’re privileged, but look how many wealthy celebrities live miserable lives - it’s still a prison.

And so I live by advice I heard from a prisoner. I wish I could remember the source, but I can’t. The advice, as to how to survive in prison, was: “Take everything they give you. Give nothing in return.” It’s important to note that this applies to the government, to corporations, to capitalism, NOT to your fellow prisoners (Americans). The only way we get through this is each other.

And (in the experience of hypothetical pirate goblins I’ve hypothetically spoken to) won’t result in your ISP shutting your internet off until you agree to be nice and never do that again.