I'm sitting in public spaces in NYC, embroidering the phrase "This System Has Failed" onto 1-inch tall by 6-inch long pieces of white canvas for ... as long as it takes. Anyone and everyone is invited to join me in embroidering the patches, and I'll teach you how to embroider if you don't know how. I'm giving them away, to the people who make them with me and to anyone who wants one. Pin them to your shirt, jacket, backpack, or anything publicly facing. If you want to know where to show up and embroider a patch or just pick one up - follow me on Instagram or Threads, I'm posting it all there. 

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The idea behind "This System Has Failed" is based on Alexei Yurchak's concept of "hypernormalization," in which a society collapses when people at every level know full well that the system has failed. It is a condition in which everyone at every level of society understands that the system has failed. It is a lie.  What tips society toward real transformation is when people simply acknowledge this truth. That is, we must say out loud "This System Has Failed."

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​I believe that the American system of neo-liberalism has failed. Americans are not being represented by their elected officials specifically in Washington D.C. Our Congress is comprised of a donor class that systematically passes laws against the will of the people and fails to pass the laws we want. Americans want free universal health care. Americans want gun control laws. Americans want freedom from college debt. Americans want to address climate change. Americans want a better infrastructure and public transportation options. Americans want corporations and the super rich to pay their fair and equal share of taxes. Americans want great public schools. Americans want jobs that pay fair wages with health benefits. Americans want the most obvious and basic things and our elected officials are not working for us. They are taking us into war after war after war, giving breaks to their donor class and have created a system that does not in any way serve the people. The system is now completely rigged and designed to prey upon us for the benefit of a few who are completely sheltered from the laws we live by. Everyone at every level of society no matter their political affiliation openly knows and sees this. THIS SYSTEM HAS FAILED.

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​That's why I'm scraping every dollar I can get together to make these patches, sit in public spaces, talk about it, ask people to help me embroider them and wear them.