Hi, this is Against Everyone with Connor Habib, a weekly podcast featuring my conversations with

countercultural figures and presenting complex as philosophical, spiritual, and political ideas

in an engaging and accessible way. Well, friends, since my last episode with Dean Spade about

mutual aid, I've been thinking about our relationship with the state

and with each other. I see so many of my friends still, still, waiting with bated breath to

find out the results of a so-called election in the U.S., even though it's clearly over. I see many

avenues of corporate media that are deeply invested in the open-endedness of that

election.

And in the meantime, stories of the pandemic, which were conveniently put on hold for a week or so,

remember that, they seem to have resurfaced.

And the story is always the numbers rising

and the claustrophobic pairing of case numbers

with deaths in the same breath,

which really prompt one kind of emotional response

when we see that.

Every once in a while,

why not throw in a climate change narrative or

story that'll find its way in, and then stories about people fighting for pandemic payments or

universal basic income for health care. So our needs right now are aimed at states that seem to have no desire to care for us

and are perpetuating certain kinds of narratives about themselves to keep us glued to their every move.

And, you know, I've been thinking about also this kind of new commingling between state and

citizenry that's happening.

...