Rebellions are built on hope.”
Jyn Erso (played by Felicity Huffman from the movie ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’)
(screenplay by Chris Waltz and Tony Gilroy, Story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta, based on characters created by George Lucas)
In 2016 when I came up for the idea of this book, I didn’t know how things were going to turn out in the years since. I feel like we’ve had a lot of worst-case scenarios come to life, most recently with the overturn of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, but I’ve also seen hope for a better future, most notably the Presidential Election of 2020. Now we’ve got the mid-term election coming up and it’s all coming down to the wire yet again. And my thinking has changed now from seeing this as a battle against fascist White Nationalism-Neo Nazism to rebellion not just against that shit, but also against hopelessness, fear, doubt, and people being a bunch of dumb-asses like they always are.
As I thought about the term ‘rebellion’ the line from the movie ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ came to my mind. It’s one of my all-time favorite lines ever because to me it says so much. Because the question isn’t what are you rebelling against, but what are you rebelling for? What do you hope to accomplish with your rebellion?
Deep down inside of myself I’ve always felt like I’ve been rebellion against so many things. I feel like I’ve been rebelling against bullying, for being alienated and ostracized not just for being different, but for doing the right thing and making people project their shame and guilt onto me (which they can take and shove up their asses where it belongs). I feel I’ve been in rebellion against narrow-minded and insensitive hypocrisy with people shooting their mouths off about one thing but doing another, like right-wing pro-life assholes who get abortions for themselves or their daughters, or their mistresses.
I think it’s an act of rebellion to think at times, and to feel emotions, too. I think the appeal of right-wing fascism is that it doesn’t require a person to be original, or to be unique, and it gives them an ability to avoid having to do the difficult things of feeling like shit or feeling pain for those in need. I think it’s also because this right-wing bullshit means that as long as you toe the party line they won’t turn on you. But as someone who has taken shit all my life for things I didn’t do wrong, I saw through this at a very early age. The worst part of this is making things like compassion, empathy, and genuine kindness seem weak and worthless, and try to make people feel like shit for having those feelings and trying to live by them.
That scorn against compassion, empathy, and kindness to those in need is really turned me against right-wing conservatives in this country. The ‘fuck your feelings’ shit I heard in 2016 really exposed the cruelty behind fascism and how easy it was for people to embrace that. And the answer to why that is isn’t one I need an answer to because it’s not my fucking problem.
Instead, what my purpose is to not only live the life I want to in the way I want to, but to fight the rights of others to live freely, openly, and to make their own decisions without anyone else’s interference. At times, I think it’s a lot easier to get someone pissed off and outraged over something than to have them actually leave someone alone to live their own life. I think if right-wing conservatives quit worrying about other people’s lives that have nothing to do with theirs and aren’t hurting anyone else they’d be a lot happier. But it’s not happiness they’re after at all because deep-down the root of conservative ideology is that happiness is wrong unless it’s expressed or lived within very strict confines.
I want people to be happy and healthy. I want to live on a planet that’s healthy and life-sustaining. And I don’t believe suffering is noble but something to be alleviated as much as humanly possible.
My book ‘Stand or Fall’ has been in a constant state of evolution since I started the project six years ago. It’s a hybrid of memoire and history but also commentary on the past and present, too. It’s not just me asking the questions of why things happened, but how we can learn from the past. Because I will tell anyone I can, you don’t have to do the same shit you did before simply because you did it before. You can change the future by making different decisions in the present. And if someone doesn’t like that they can that opinion and shove it up their ass where it belongs.
Michelesayre.com 