Message From the Future III

The year 2020, as it's always taught in schools, was a year of disaster. It was the start of more than half a million deaths in the United States alone. The months following the outbreak of Covid were signified by uncountable failures of the government in serving its people. No federal mask mandate was ever implemented, leaving states to allow their people to knowingly risk more lives daily. One single stimulus check was sent in the beginning, while millions of people experienced food insecurity for the first time. Rent strikes increasingly appeared, with the lower class unable to pay their pig landlords due to mass unemployment, which reached levels well above the Great Depression the following years after the pandemic. Riots swept the country, starting due to George Floyd's murder and continuing for years. 

Protests and riots began growing across the world, with India seeing over 250 million workers take the streets speaking against their government in late 2020 alone. 2021 saw a surge of more riots in the States, as the Biden presidency inevitably let down every community it promised to serve. The lower class saw their peers dying all around them, thanks to a lack of medical care, a lack of housing, police violence, and any and every other form of state sanctioned violence one could imagine. These struggles were not new to these marginalized groups, but the combination of the health crisis and the environmental crisis aggravated every aspect of oppression they experienced in their daily lives. Mass evictions wrecked lower class communities, leaving a homelessness epidemic to top off the horror. 

A Covid vaccine was developed and released to the "public" in mid-2021, but to the surprise of those who voted for Biden, he was not able to provide the vaccine to those who could not cough up 75$ for it. Thus, the vaccine was not useful in eradicating the virus, but Covid merely evolved to resist the vaccine. The world was shocked and exhausted.

 The years directly following the 2020 election were defined by a surge of mutual aid efforts. Communist groups popped up all over the country, provided aid within their own communities. Community fridges, free stores, education programs, clothing drives, and direct action were what seemed to turn the tide. "Radical Empathy" was the slogan of the growing left, calling for the disestablishment of the failed state entirely, instead of hoping to vote in liberation. By 2030, 25% of the population was being supported by each other, opposing the capitalist structure entirely. By 2035, insurrection movements began picking up speed. The state, terrified of losing the power it built up over the past century, cracked down on these leftist groups, executing some leaders the same way they did Fred Hampton in the 1960s. And yet, the people continued to rise up. 

The following decades experienced drastic systemic change. Labor was no longer viewed in the same lens as before, with it functioning under the slogan: "Through the ability of the person for the need of the person". The disabled were finally freed of the chains of debilitating labor. Art flourished. People ate and fed each other. And suddenly, the environment thanked us too. After the fighting for big oil was eliminated, sustainable energy was utilized by the masses. And though the fight is nowhere near being over, the world is not recovered, though there is still suffering, there is finally hope. Tangible hope, seeing others thrive within their community. Not the hope that the elite call down to us to placate our efforts for actual progress. Actual hope. What we learned is to never stop fighting. Never become complacent with how the government functions. They function for us. We will win.