I listened to this lecture yesterday instead of focusing on the US elections. It’s a lecture by Anne McClintock, the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton. Her presentation is called ‘Monster. A Fugue in Fire and Ice.’ “McClintock engaged three of the great crises of our time — climate catastrophe (especially melting ice and rising oceans), global militarization, and mass displacement. Through creative nonfiction and her own photographs, McClintock explored the question of how we can make scientific data and the planetary upheavals of the Anthropocene more publicly visible and tangible to facilitate more creative strategies for change.”
Although I voted and would prefer some disruption to the Trump regime, a return to neoliberal ‘normalcy’ and bipartisan support for militarism and empire do not reassure me. I feel nauseous when I think about 4 years under Biden-Harris and what that will mean for healthcare, housing and food security in the middle of a pandemic – 40% of low-income Americans have lost their jobs and 8 million additional people have slipped into poverty. What will a Biden presidency mean for Palestine, for Kashmir, for the Dalits and Muslims of India, for the people of the Middle East and Central and South America? And what will it mean for our planet? I am much more invested in these larger concerns than in the results of sham presidential elections. This is not a democracy. [not interested in apologias for Biden, Harris or American democracy]