Dear Clementine: Issue #3
Figuring out the kinks
📝 Before We Begin
Hello lovers!
I’m writing this on Tuesday, hoping that this will be the week I figure out the perfect timing to get this newsletter out on a Thursday. Fingers crossed.
(NB: It is now Monday the following week, and I’m still writing this newsletter. So I clearly failed in my task! But I’ll figure the timing out. Maybe you could help me by answering this poll?)
While we’re here, I’ve put together a short survey to help gather reader feedback and direction on what YOU want from Dear Clementine. This survey is open to all subscribers, both paid and unpaid! I’d love it if you could take a few moments to fill it out.
In line with the above poll and survey, I’m going to try something slightly different this week and attempt to separate those newsletter segments into daily posts instead. I just want to see if this is better for readers, and easier for me to keep on top of in between the school runs and the existential dread of life. Let me know in the comments if this works for you!
Onwards then, with a general catch up to open the week.
If you felt yourself fairly emotional last week, it might be because we were blanketed by the deep, dark energy of the Scorpio full moon. For those who observe astrology closely, you’ll know this lunation forced us to stare deep into the abyss that we all carry around inside us. The place where we send all of our fears, shadows, sharp edges and bile. The dark centre of our despair, where we pour all the things we hope to forget about.
The oubliette.
Let me tell you, I was feeling that shit hard. I travelled into the heart of that oubliette and found the culmination of two years worth of painful transformation and surrendering of ideals. I suspect this is the case for lots of you too, especially in terms of confronting mass global hypocrisy and the indifference of friends, family and loved ones to the machinations of Zionism. More on that in this week’s Tarot Club, where we’ll be contemplating the invitation offered by the Tower card to help us relinquish harmful illusions and materialism.
In (now late) political news, Susan Ley has been announced as the leader of the Liberal party. There are some who’d say this deserves celebration, solely on the basis that she’s a woman. Get fucked to that, I say. The Liberal party is regressive at its core, and no amount of women in its ranks can save it from this fact. This is what I was talking about in DC#2 when I argued against the selfishness of liberal (hah!) feminism - that success for me at the expense of thee is not liberation. It’s capitalism. And while the Liberal Party might be attempting to rehabilitate their deeply anti-woman reputation after being annihilated in the federal election, we all know that what Ley’s really accepting here is the offer of the poisoned chalice. Realistically speaking, the ALP’s landslide win has secured them not just the next three years of government but probably the next six. Whoever accepts the leadership of the (decimated) Coalition now is really just a placeholder - and what better way to address their deep problems with women (while ensuring they never risk having to refer to one as “Prime Minister”) than giving the first female leader of the party the Herculean task of course correcting their most catastrophic defeat yet?
Not that I feel sorry for her. Women in the Liberal party know exactly who they’re working with, yet they always seem to think they’ll be the exception to patriarchal exclusion. As Francesca Leigh would sing, they never think the face eating leopards will eat THEIR face.
In more (current) political news, Joe Biden’s team has announced he has been diagnosed with “aggressive” prostate cancer. Honestly, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person - and I say that as someone with personal experience of losing a loved one to cancer. As the US president, Biden was responsible for funding twelve months of bombs, weaponry and allyship to Israel. His administration lied about their efforts to “secure a ceasefire”, and instead continued to facilitate Israel’s decades long operation to annihilate the Palestinian people and steal their land. The blood of tens of thousands of children alone is on his hands - and to see people now expressing sympathy and goodwill towards him is disgraceful.
Fuck you too, Obama.
I wish Biden a very painful demise and I hope he’s haunted in his final days by the gravity of his crimes.
I’m off now to listen to Jan Fran, Antoinette Lattouf and Nour Haydar speak at Freedom Of The Press: The Right To Report. I’ll give a little summary of that tomorrow, ahead of this week’s #deepdive into disingenuous tactics used by the right wing to undermine discussion.
Until then, I would love to hear from you via the poll and survey please!
You can check out the forecast below to see what’s coming up each day this week:
🧠 The Deep Dive: “DEBATE ME!” and other disingenuous tactics wielded by the right wing to send discourse hurtling to the bottom of the ocean.
A deep dive into online punditry, tabloid media, Piers Morgan and the rejection of anything remotely connected to intellectualism.
For paid subscribers only.
⚡ Bite Me: Why Kris Jenner’s facelift is a further harbinger of fascism
A snapshot of an issue
🚀 Run, Don’t Walk
This week’s pop culture recommendations!
🔮 Tarot Club: The Tower
A weekly tarot pull with a little insight and magic. This week, a look at the deck’s most feared card - and why it should become one of your favourites.
For paid subscribers only.
Speak soon,
Love Clementine xx
Thank you. I didn’t respond to the survey not because I didn’t care. I don’t have a preface. However it flows best for you is my parameter 🙏🏾😊