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when i first started this blog it was because i needed to be writing about what had happened to the radical left and, also, attempt a push at rebuilding it. maybe one of the reasons it’s been so hard to keep up with is that over the years since that time, the left continues to seem to mean less and less. who is the left? who are we? is there a we? is there a left (in the united states)? i mean, no, there isn’t. there are bits and pieces of things. the movement for black lives is real. labor has been doin some stuff. land defenders and water protectors have been hard at work. seems to be some response to the Roe stuff. rad as some of it is, none of it feels close to cohesive movement let alone something that could build real power (i barely see new, solid, autonomous institutions nor impactful shifts in the existing ones). it seems most clear when folks outside of the united states point to the american left. they talk about it and i’m like: what are you talking about? what they talk about feels so different from my life. which is not to say that what they’re talking about isn’t real. but is that the left? and then i’m not the left? am i the left? is what they’re talking about not the left? if that word doesn’t mean anything… if there is no left, if there’s no we, the question is: does that matter? because we don’t believe in anything that we can agree on; not enough to really build anything. the climate crisis/ecological destruction, police state murder/control/occupation, our bodies/health/food, our communities. i’m in conversation all the time with people on the so-called left who hold really different values than i do. i guess i just think there isn’t one anymore. so then what?