I’ve got the social justice autism… and the wall of text autism.

When I started college I was probably a left-leaning Democrat but halfway through, because of my econ, marketing, polysci, etc classes, I basically left a full blown socialist. I’m the boomer chud meme.

Over time I started to understand what my worldview was. As it came more into focus, the pandemic hit, and the BLM protests happened and I got active. Not like super active praxis 24/7 but I was at marches and and demonstrations when I could be. I even did a sit-in during college for a protest for a law that was passed that let cops take homeless people’s belonging if they were charged with “camping” in parks and other public places.

During the pandemic, I was a paying “at large” member of the DSA and a local chapter was started, I was contacted to join, and did. We did some activism for woman’s rights, handing out literature, etc. but we weren’t super active and lacked dircection. Towards the end, a newer person joined and took over after a president moved away. They tried to rekindle it but it was basically dead. Another activist did use us as a vessel to bring more awareness to the issues the homeless in our area faced but they left because we live in a hyper conservative area and they wanted to live somewhere that was more friendly to trans and queer people.

So the DSA fizzled out but during all of that I sort of started reading a bunch of theory. I knew I was a lefty but felt I needed to get more educated. I read Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and some Anarchy theory(Maletesta, Gelderloos, etc). So I guess that sets the foundation I’m floating somewhere between ML and anarchism right now. Among other things, veganism, vegetarianism, plant-based diets, and other diets that are better for the environment came on my radar. (I know vegetarianism isn’t environmental harm reduction but I’m getting there. At the time I was naive.)

I was gifted with the gout in my early 30s because I spend my 20s eating a bunch of red meat and drinking. Fall of 2022 I had the worst flair up of my life. I was practically unable to walk for 3 weeks. I finally decided I was gonna try vegetarianism. By spring of next year, I gave up eggs and dairy and went full vegan. Here’s why:

I’m allegedly a software developer, although my work history suggests I"m actually a bum. But back in 2022 I finally got a programming job after trying for 6 years. The job was writing feed automation software for feedyards and dairies. I got a crash course on just how fucking awful the industry is. Like not front row seat, but a few rows back. I learned that vegetarianism is not any less horrible. I learned that a dairy cow’s life is about 4 years, and they are forced pregnant every year. After they dry up, they are turned into food. The dairy industry is just as bad, if not worse, than the beef industry. I’ve seen parlors get washed out in the Texas panhandle where we are facing an eminent drinking water crisis. How much water is wasted is one thing I don’t see get brought up enough, the PTSD of workers in the industry is another. Bonus points for the vitamin D myth when people tell you supplementing is not the way to go because, well whole milk with vitamin D is supplemented with vitamin D. It comes in big plastic jugs like fryer grease and it’s dumped onto their feed.

I went full vegan in the spring of 2023.

It was weird still working in the industry while becoming a vegan and I was definitely aware of the hypocrisy but I was getting paid well for the first time in my life and I sort of would just disassociate while I was at work to get by. I was fired summer of last year and have been trying to find something that is a bit more friendly to animals since, but I’d actually like my freelance web dev thing to get off the ground. Shameless plug but I am trying to carve a niche for lefty and alt spaces because I really don’t wanna make websites for chuds lol.

I’ve sort of been figuring it out since but have been surviving on a lot of vegan junk food and accidental vegan stuff but I am looking into going towards whole food/back to Mediterranean.