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Pieceocast 113 - Let Them Go

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Listen:

Download: pieceocast113.mp3 [23:00 | 43.8 MB | 220 kbps]

Title: Let Them Go

A demo banner saying Free Nekane and all prisoners
The film Bi Arnas has all the information on Nakane’s case and process

One of the most atrocious crimes during the pandemic response happened in prisons, ironically in a sense since prisons are where the state puts criminals to then perform crimes on them. This happened pretty much worldwide. The viral underclass (Stephen Thrasher) in it’s manifestation as the prison population was pretty much unprotected against the virus, maybe even at times got intentionally infected with COVID-19? In some cases prisoners were used to make masks or disinfectants, put were not given any of these protective tools. Protests did pick up outside and inside of prisons early on in the pandemic, but were quickly squashed among other things with enforced stay at home rules. Prisons and jails were and still are hot spots of infections and COVID deaths.

The excellent documentary Sickness in The System (link bellow) and the Death Panel episode The Pandemic Prison with Dan Berger (same), that i can both really recommend, will explain it much better than i can. We need to abolish prisons, this fundamental building block of the carceral state and racial capitalism. Neoliberal capitalism has not only destroyed social services, education, but at the same time increased spending on repression, on cops and on prisons. The pandemic showed the fundamentally eugenic nature of these systems.

We need to fight to abolish cops, prison, nations, war and the state. Yes, no question mark needed, dear graphic bellow me.

an infographic on abolition
No Borders! No Prisons! No Cops! No War! No State?

So there it is, another pieceocast. I hope you enjoy it. Please tell a friend 😉

Pieceocast . A podcast of sorts

This weeks playlist: (music borrowed with all due respect to the artists):

1. Intro: Madvillain – Meat Grinder. Samples from various songs and movies
2. Little Simz – 101 FM (Toddla T Remix)
3. Jamie xx – Gosh
3.1 Cristobal Tapia De Veer – Mr. Rabbit
3.2 Talib Kweli & Z-Trip – Letter From The Government
4. Stray Soundtrack – Invader
5. Public Enemy – Hazy Shade Of Criminal
6. Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues
7. Public Enemy/Asian Dub Foundation/Tricky/Sepultura/Rage Against The Machine – Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos
8. The Jolly Boys – I Fought The Law
9. Outro: Burial – Strange Neighborhood. Samples from movies

Samples: Death Panel – The Pandemic Prison w. Dan Berger; Sickness In The System

Subscribe:
pieceocast cover
This link will pick up all my mixes and the occasional mp3’s that I link to from my blog.

Earlier (most date back to 2008 ;)):
To find an earlier pieceocast please check this list for links and information. (Ask me for the password)

Download the folder icons:
mac [.zip] and windows [.zip]

Copyleft:
All music and audio is borrowed with the utmost respect for its creators. I consider this to be fair use. The material is created purely for fun, to share with my online friends. There is no commercial transaction involved.

I release all my work, the DJ work as well as all my other coding and creating, under a creative commons license, hence i treat this material as if it was under CC license. I attribute it and i do not use it for commercial gain. Don’t try to sue me, i am broke anyway.

all rights remain with original right holders. this mix makes fair use of copyrighted material. this mix is distributed non-commercially only.

Pieceocast 115 - OK Doomer

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Listen:

Download: pieceocast114.mp3 [18:28 | 29.0 MB | 220 kbps]

Title: OK Doomer

AI generated image of the pope as a DJ, dressed all in white
Old man i am i am i am

Here’s a sexy Doomsday Mix for all you beautiful anarchist preppers out there.

The name for this mix was obviously borrowed from the fantastic OK Doomer substack written by Jessica Wildfire, that you absolutely should read. Imho.

Here’s what she recently wrote:

Right now, billionaires and politicians are running our society. They champion the most toxic ideologies, including this brand of positivity. It worked well for them in terms of extracting wealth and building vast financial empires, but look at their personal lives. They’re divorced. They’re estranged from their children. Some of them even talk about how lonely they are.

They’re not happy.

That’s not really comforting to hear, either. They’re confessing to us. They spent their lives torturing their employees and destroying everything around them. In the end, they’re just as miserable as everyone else.

They just hide behind fancier smiles. They console themselves the same way their customer base does, buying things. They just do it on an epic scale. They build super yachts and rocket ships to amuse themselves.

They hire girlfriends.

It’s all they know.

This toxic positivity isn’t just irritating. It doesn’t just make us miserable as individuals. It has hampered us on every level. It blocks political progress. It sabotages public health. It nurtures wealth gaps and inequality. It has done nothing for us but create a class system full of sick, angry, broke and broken trolls who go around talking about what good listeners they are, while abusing their own families and scapegoating the homeless.

It’s a horrible way to live.

It’s a horrible way to run a society, and it’s all starting to fall apart. We can do better. With whatever time the human race has left, we can at least get better at dealing with dark emotions instead of running away from them.

We have to.

There’s not much else to say.

Natalie Wynn with a hand fan that reads you're cancelled
Someone please cancel me

So there it is, another pieceocast.
I hope you enjoy it.
Please tell a friend 😉

Pieceocast . A podcast of sorts

This weeks playlist: (music borrowed with all due respect to the artists):

01. Intro: Madvillain – Meat Grinder. Samples from various songs and movies
02. Hudson Mohawk – Ingle Nook Slumber
03. Portishead – The Rip
04. Boards Of Canada – Buckie High
05. Princess Nokia – Lo Siento
06. DJ Shadow – We Are Always Alone
07. Kae Tempest – These Are The Days
08. Danger Mouse & Black Thought – The Darkest Part
09. Boards Of Canada – A09
10. MF Doom – Doomsday
11. DJ Food – Sexy Bits (Autechre Ae9v Mix)
12. Little Simz – Who Even Cares
13. Hudson Mohawk – Lonely Days
14. Outro: Burial – Strange Neighborhood. Samples from movies

Samples: Westworld, True Detective, The Banshees of Inisherin, De La Soul – Millie Pulled a Pistol

Subscribe:
pieceocast cover
This link will pick up all my mixes and the occasional mp3’s that I link to from my blog.

Earlier (most date back to 2008 ;)):
To find an earlier pieceocast please check this list for links and information. (Ask me for the password)

Download the folder icons:
mac [.zip] and windows [.zip]

Copyleft:
All music and audio is borrowed with the utmost respect for its creators. I consider this to be fair use. The material is created purely for fun, to share with my online friends. There is no commercial transaction involved.

I release all my work, the DJ work as well as all my other coding and creating, under a creative commons license, hence i treat this material as if it was under CC license. I attribute it and i do not use it for commercial gain. Don’t try to sue me, i am broke anyway.

all rights remain with original right holders. this mix makes fair use of copyrighted material. this mix is distributed non-commercially only.

This! May 2023

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[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]

an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows a tree getting felled by a beaver
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows misty morning with the sun pushing through
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows sheep grazing near a green river with golden trees in the background


[Videos]

Insta360 Go2 Cat Sample vid

Every Conservative Conference speech!

Bees whoop when they bump into each other

Honey bees perfect their waggle dances by learning from elders


[Music]

The Clash London Calling (Full Album) Isolated Lead Vocals Track

The Funky Eno Pt.s 2 & 3 [dj food] – “Brian Eno is 75 today! In celebration I’ve made two new Funky Eno mixes for the occasion after being contacted by Josh at the nowbodhi’s blissness website earlier this year. He’d loved my first mix, ‘More Volts’, made back in 2010 and dug out a load more funk from the deepest depths of the Eno back catalogue, asking if I would be up for mixing them.”

Two Hearts – Eurovusion (Open Up)

15 Levels of Turntable Scratching: Easy to Complex


[Podcasts]

We Want Them Infected (w/Jonathan Howard, M.D.) [conspirituality] – “Trump-appointed science-advisor to the HHS, Paul Alexander, urged officials there and at the FDA, and the CDC, to pursue a herd immunity strategy for COVID-19. “There is no other way,” he wrote. “We need to establish herd, and it only comes about when we allow non-high-risk groups to expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD. Infants, kids, teens, young people, middle-aged with no conditions have zero to little risk. So we use them to develop herd. We want them infected.” A look at the COVID-normaliser-doctors in the US.

Broken Sociality: Isolation, Social Murder, & The Process Of Depoliticization w/ Nate Holdren [.soundcloud.] – “Legal historian and author Nate Holdren joins me to discuss broken sociality, political and social loneliness, and social murder and its depoliticization during the pandemic, as elucidated in his Peste Magazine essay ‘Broken Sociality: Isolation in the Pseudo-Return to “Pre-Pandemic Normal”’.”

Abolition Geography | Ruth Wilson Gilmore & Dalia Gebrial [.soundcloud.] – “In this third episode of the newly relaunched Verso Podcast, Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Dalia Gebrial join Eleanor Penny to discuss prison abolitionism, racial capitalism, and critical geography.” Ruthie is just so so awesome.


[Toot Threads]


The entire text translated here: The mourning of the crippled body, a body in ruins


[Pandemic Roundup]

Pandemic Roundup: May 25, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: May 18, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: May 11, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: May 4, 2023


[The Must Read[s] This Month]

Under the waves | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “Also, jeepers, I’m starting to understand more of what our chronically disabled comrades have been shouting from the rooftops for a long time, that it’s not just the State that requires us to be poor to receive assistance. I’m already dialoguing with an expectation that I should be experiencing this thing from a place of scarcity. This expectation is not coming directly from any of my own friends or comrades fortunately, but still a voice of society creeps through every day and insinuates that just because I’m on the dying/surviving continuum in a new way—a way that is legitimized with attention, unlike the mental health difficulties that almost proved fatal to me several times but is a part of the survival continuum aggressively ignored by our society—I should be preparing for a life of less, I should be tightening my belt, I should not be thinking about abundance and joy. Fuck. That. Noise.” Yes. Truly. Fuck. That. Noise.

Yes, They’ve Left You to Die. | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “The super rich have abandoned us. That doesn’t mean we have to abandon each other. We can look out for each other. We can clean the air. We can wear N95 masks. We can make schools safe. We can adapt to climate change. We can stop letting billionaires divide us. We can take care of each other.
Yes, they’ve left you to die.
We haven’t.” Thanks for the hopeful vision here. Sadly i don’t see the big push for mutual aid and communal care that should currently kick in. My former friends have abandoned me, my family as well. Our circle of mutual care-taking consists of two people. 2!?

How to Talk to Your Loved Ones About Covid [google docs] – “We believe in humanity. It is not true that most people are selfish, bad, stupid, ignorant, or unwilling to learn. Most people do not know what is going on, or feel powerless to stop it, or both. A great majority of people who have stopped taking Covid precautions have done so because they have been misled, because they are exhausted, and because we are in an information vacuum.” What a great resource.

Communizing Care | ME O’Brien [pinko] – “When evoking the abolition of the family, Marx and Engels use the word Aufhebung for abolish. A Hegelian concept sometimes translated as “a positive supersession,” Aufhebung is to preserve, uplift and radically transform. This meaning is largely unlike the American legacy of anti-slavery abolitionists. Demands to abolish the family are not efforts to destroy people’s ability to form caring, romantic, or parental ties, nor to celebrate the pressures market economies put on domestic life.” This is not new but such a great article. Abolish The Family.

The Child [parapraxis] – “I needed what we all need: the abolition of the family form and its economy that infantilizes us all, not only by introducing property into our first relationships but also by forming our psyches for the task before we can say no. That need did not end because I am no longer a child.” By Jules from the Death Panel podcast.

Now the emergency is over… [indoxicate] – “Those objecting to health supremacy and eugenicist ‘herd immunity’ policies have spent much of the first years of the pandemic trying to convince authorities that, regardless of what their experts said, eradication was in fact the best strategy for them to take. This may well have been true. But this ‘debate’ was already rigged from the start. It was always about a strategy to get out of the crisis and go back to normal. But under neo-liberal capitalism, eugenics and health supremacy are normal.” Neoliberal capitalism is not normal.


[Articles English]

Will Drag Performances Get Banned in Your State? [hyperallergic] – “Here’s a list of states considering legislation that would criminalize or limit the work of drag artists.” It’s so fucking scary what is happening in the so-called USA.

We Can’t Make Healthcare Fair Until We Reject the Logic of Scarcity [current affairs] – “In his new book, physician writer Ricardo Nuila uses the safety-net hospital where he works as a model for healthcare reform. It’s true that healthcare ought to be public, universal, and government funded, but to build a truly just healthcare system and a healthy society, we must reject the underlying logic of scarcity built into the healthcare system and the idea that healthcare is simply a transaction or a fair deal.” Edgelord doctors feeding the powerful elites what they want to hear.

The Brain and Long Covid | Eric Topol [substack] – “2 new studies shed light on persistent neuro-inflammation from even mild infections” We knew that, but hey, now there are studies.

We’re Still Here. We Can Count Our Losses and Reflect. | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “We’ve fully processed the fact that our government committed social murder. They sacrificed millions of lives for the sake of billionaires and corporations. They pressured the mass media to lie and spread misinformation, just like anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists had been doing.” I love her writing so much.

The Real Enemy is Normal | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “Normal is the enemy. Normal is what keeps us from talking about our problems. Normal is what persuades everyone to put their own self-interest ahead of everyone else. Normal is what makes us work 70 hours a week for starvation wages. Normal is what tells us to spend money we don’t have chasing curated happiness all over Instagram. Normal is why you feel like you can’t have children. Normal is why you can’t afford a house. Normal is why politicians keep approving massive drilling projects. Normal is why the police bulldoze homeless camps. Normal is why police officers won’t even confront a school shooter. Normal is Winnie the Pooh teaching kids how to sacrifice themselves during a gun massacre.” Normalcy will kill us.

It’s Okay if You Can Only Take Care of Yourself Right Now | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “Taking a nap is a form of activism. Getting a good night’s sleep is a form of activism. Sitting down and relaxing is a form of activism. We desperately need more people who can just think straight. We desperately need more people who aren’t rushing around with their raw emotions spilling out everywhere. And yet, we also desperately need more people to express their emotions, instead of just suppressing them until they explode outward in fireballs of rage and hate.” Naps are revolutionary.

Comrades, stop playing ‘normal’ | Maarten Steenhagen – “During a pandemic with a virus that causes substantial damage to many people, continuing to do what you’ve always done may seem ‘normal’, but it is mainly proof of the supremacist thinking many people grew up with. Too many currently continue to stick out an ableist middle finger to thousands of comrades who have been declared dead by a capitalist system, and for whom systemic change cannot come soon enough. That needs to stop.” This looks at socialists, the same could be said about anarchists.

Cat’s Cafe – Types of Overstimulation – I practice all of these forms of overstimulation. But since leaving Twitter the fomo has gotten better.

The Fight Against Ableism [the anarchist library] – “The revolution will be accessible and anti-ableist or it will not be one.” I translated this text from Spanish to English.

Why birds and their songs are good for our mental health [wapo] – “Birds are a way to connect with nature, which is associated with better body and brain health, research shows” Birds <3

NYC Subway Guerrilla Art Demands Justice for Jordan Neely [hyperallergic] – “Speaking anonymously, activists told Hell Gate reporters that the entire intervention took “less than five minutes to execute,” and that the paint was meant to continue to criticize Adams’s treatment of unhoused communities in the city and broader social stigmas regarding race and mental illness. “It’s not just about one incident of racism, and it’s definitely not just about Jordan Neely ‘having a mental episode.’ This is about organized abandonment, systemic neglect.”

Sick Humor: What It Was, Where It Went | Michael Gerber [substack] – “Sick humor came of age in the Fifties, the era of the Organization Man and Freudian analysis, Valium and the Pill; its enemy is repression. It seeks “truth” via “honesty,” claiming to show “things as they really are.” All these words are in quotes because they are assertions, articles of faith. Lenny Bruce’s religious belief that everyone is corrupt was, to him, an example of a truth liberated by honesty. And this honesty will, in the eyes of the Sick humorist, lead us to “health.” For this we should thank them, and pay them exorbitantly.” Maybe sick humor can make a revival, plz?

Surviving Leviathan | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “Sadistic banshees, civil war, transformative justice” We have work to do, it’s never done.

The Relentless Assault of Positivity | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “And some people wonder why we get angry. It’s this. We get angry because the people who need to change are the ones passing laws saying they don’t even have to listen to climate scientists or activists. And yet they also want to take credit for being positive, warm, caring people who understand the issues.” This is what [this bogus form of] democracy looks like.

I Will Defend Free Speech to the Death. Or Until an Autocrat Asks Me to Stop [mcSsweeney’s internet] Tendency – “They say that if you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything. So today, I’m drawing a line in the sand and standing up for free speech. Let every enemy of freedom know, let every would-be tyrant be warned, and let every petty dictator take notice: If you want Twitter to censor its users, just send me an email.” Satire to the rescue.

Anna’s Archive – “Search engine of shadow libraries: books, papers, comics, magazines. ⭐ Z-Library, Library Genesis, Sci-Hub.” Bookmarked!

As Platforms Decay, Let’s Put Users First [eff] – “We want a web where users are in control. That means a web where we freely choose our online services from a wide menu and stay with them because we like them, not because we can’t afford to leave. We want a web where you get the things you ask for, not the things that corporate shareholders would prefer that you’d asked for. We want a web where willing listeners and willing speakers, willing sellers and willing buyers, willing makers, and willing audiences are all able to transact and communicate without worrying about their relationships being held hostage or disrupted to cram “sponsored posts” into their eyeballs.” We do want that, Cory.

Moderator Mayhem: A Content Moderation Game – I quit after one round. Moderation is so fucking difficult.

What should the action be? Anarchism’s Failure [lrb] – “‘Is it absolutely essential to enter into the service? Is it really a good thing to be a landowner?’ For those who could not confidently answer yes, the way out was to sink into dissipation – or to turn against the system that created them. A revolutionary movement defined by such people is, of course, inherently limited because of its inability to mobilise the masses whose discontent it claims to represent. The wave of students, petty bureaucrats and other socially diverse young people who took up the banner in the 1850s and 1860s were not especially grateful for this inheritance.” A bit of background on the discursive origins of Kropotkin, but on the whole a very disingenuous take on the role of anarchism, rubber stamping it as a failure.

April 2023 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “April 2023 was the fourth-warmest April for the globe in NOAA’s 174-year record. The April global surface temperature was 1.00°C (1.80°F) above the 20th-century average of 13.7°C (56.7°F). The 10 warmest April months have occurred since 2010. April 2023 marked the 49th consecutive April and the 530th consecutive month with global temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average.” FFS ffs FFS.

Monocytes and the neurological health of Long-Covid Patients [boing boing] – “Similar to how the consequences of Covid-19 continue circulating in the body after infection, misinformation continues to spread through the body politic. The medical knowledge possible about the impact of Long-Covid on people, their families, and public health is also predicated on resources for research and the political will to factor in long-term health-related issues for the ongoing pandemic. Yes, the World Health Organization declared an “end to the Covid-19 emergency,” but that does not mean the pandemic is over.” What is over is goverments taking care of their people.

the holding both place. | Raechel Anne Jolie [substack] – “Everyone should have access to spaces of rest and healing, and so many don’t. How can we hold both? When we are awed by birdsong, we might also grieve the animal life for whom this planet is no longer livable. How can we hold both? When we have to shift relationships with people we love, or when people we love get sick, or when people we love are no longer alive, and we feel the tremendous weight of love with the equally heavy weight of pain….How can we hold both?” In the in-between.

We Need Empathy, Not Just Etiquette, On The Subway [current affairs] – “What if, instead, we were a society that went to every effort to ensure the well-being and safety of every member of society? What if we made every effort to uplift each life instead of cherishing the right to be left alone and to leave others alone? In such a society, how might we have reacted differently to our fellow subway rider in his moment of greatest need?” Cruel world.

Why Effective Altruism and “Longtermism” Are Toxic Ideologies [current affairs] – “Intellectual historian Émile P. Torres explains how Silicon Valley’s favorite ideas for changing the world for the better actually threaten to make it much, much worse.” A rather lenghty interview with Torres, a shorter one bellow.

Testosterone Access Could Be Limited as COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Ends [truthout] – “When we get into marginalized communities, who face significant limitations and access to basic civil rights and health care, we often talk about a risk-reduction model,” Kirkley said. “And so there I would say that maximizing the opportunities that we have to provide life-saving care is critical, and we’ve got to take every opportunity we can. At the same time . . . be responsible in that sense of contingency planning.” Shock doctrine.

The coronation pulled a screen across a desperate, polarised nation – just as intended | Nesrine Malik [the guardian] – “in a period of change, conflict or crisis”, unchanging ritual “might be deliberately unaltered so as to give an impression of continuity, community and comfort, despite overwhelming contextual evidence to the contrary.” That evidence to the contrary cannot be more overwhelming than reports that money for food banks has been diverted to pay for coronation events. What those funds bought was a coronation, much like the screens assembled to hide King Charles as he derobed, that for a moment erected an ornate cover that hid the nation’s hunger.” Shock doctrine.

Confusion, Shock, and the Bystander Effect on the Train Where Jordan Neely Was Killed [hell gate] – “They were desensitized to reality,” he said. “You get on the train, you don’t say nothing to nobody, you look at your phone. I don’t think the people were happy that the guy died, but they were definitely not on the homeless man’s side. They were still sitting in their seats. They just witnessed someone getting choked to death and they’re not getting off the train. Everybody was contemplating, ‘How are we getting to work?'” Capitalism wants this.

On Being Nice | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “It’s the people who have treated me like a person who might want to live in a world together with other people who I have learned the most from. And it’s thanks to those brave enough to have shown me love when I’ve messed up that I’ve survived. And they’ve helped me realize that there are many different versions of ourselves. That we live in some hellish architecture that keeps encouraging the worst versions of ourselves to rise to the top, and they will unless we specifically choose otherwise. And that fact alone warrants some kindness.” I love to read the more personal takes by Peter.

People with long COVID continue to experience medical gaslighting more than 3 years into the pandemic [theconversation] – “Medical gaslighting occurs when health-care practitioners dismiss or falsely blame patients for their symptoms. While new information about long COVID has become more readily available, some patients continue to face gaslighting and feel that their symptoms are treated less seriously by some health-care professionals.” I do face gaslighting.

The Long Covid Mystery Has a New Suspect [wired] – ““I think that it’s very clear from this study and others that you need to be targeting the right therapy to the right patient,” he says. “That’s where I think the future of long Covid treatments will be.” Could make sense. One to watch.

Burnt by Charity Models, Club Q Shooting Victims Support Survivor-Led Mutual Aid [truthout] – “Survivors of the Club Q shooting allege that they have not received all the charity funds raised on their behalf.” Best possible outcome to a horrible act.

A Climate of Grief | Cindy Milstein [outside the circle] – “Grief is stirred up continually by the whole climate—social, cultural, political—that surrounds people 24/7 these fascist days and nights, but it’s introduced in such bits and pieces that people become numb to it, as if “frogs in boiling water,” as the saying goes.” Let’s not be frogs.

Why Is the Met Gala Honoring an Islamophobe With Nazi Roots? [hyperallergic] – “The Costume Institute is willfully ignoring Karl Lagerfeld’s bigoted views and his family’s concealed Nazi past.” How!?

Blue skies over Mastodon – “If we want more people to enjoy what we believe are the benefits of something like Mastodon, it’s on us to make it delicious and convenient and multi-textured and fun instead of trying to shame people into eating their soysage and unsalted soup. I hope all of that is actually possible for Mastodon, because a lot of great people very much want it to become a more welcoming place. But the longer Mastodon stays in Linux-on-the-desktop mode, the more likely those people are to take their energy somewhere where it’s valued.” Still don’t have an invite so who cares i guess. But could i trust Jack? Hmm.

Longtermism: „An odd and peculiar ideology“ [netzpolitik] – “Émile P. Torres calls one of the most influential philosophies of our time an ideology: Longtermism is the central school of thought of tech giants like Elon Musk and Skype founder Jaan Tallinn. In an interview, Torres explains why it is so dangerous.” Here’s that shorter interview with Torres mentiones above.


[Articles German/French]

Fleischproduktion in Spanien: Der Schweinestall Europas [taz] – “Spanien steht weltweit auf Platz vier der größten Schweinefleischproduzenten. Die Folgen für die Umwelt sind gravierend. Jetzt schreitet die EU ein.” Oink oink.

Michela Murgia: «Ho un tumore al quarto stadio, spero di morire quando Meloni non sarà più premier» [corriere.it] – “Il cancro è un complice della mia complessità, non un nemico da distruggere. Non posso e non voglio fare guerra al mio corpo, a me stessa. Il tumore è uno dei prezzi che puoi pagare per essere speciale. Non lo chiamerei mai il maledetto, o l’alieno” If Italian is a challenge, worth to stick this into a translator.

Fomo & révolution – “Contre le fomo. Pour la révolution.” Fomo fuck us, enjoy quiet, re-learn boredom.

Wer hat Angst vor multikulturellen Kinderbüchern? [gdg] – “Ein Blick in die USA zeigt, dass die Warnung vor linker Cancel Culture und Wokeism in Wirklichkeit eine massive Verbotswelle von Kinder- und Jugendbüchern vorbereitet hat, die über Rassismus und Sexismus aufklären. Philip Nel über Geschichte und Aktualität des konservativen Zensureifers.” The real cancel culture.

Rechte Hetze: Kulturkampf für die bestehende Ordnung [woz] – “Die Geschlechterforscherin Franziska Schutzbach sagt: «Geschlecht und Sexualität sind in dieser kapitalistischen Gesellschaft ein ordnungsgebendes Prinzip.» Wer hingegen Geschlechterstereotype infrage stelle, hinterfrage damit automatisch auch die herrschende Ordnung. Rechte Männer fühlten sich deshalb von der Genderforschung bedroht, «sie fürchten sowohl auf der diskursiven Ebene einen Machtverlust als auch ganz real».” The backlash already kills us, and we didn’t even have to get good things.

Von der Klimajugend zu den Rechtsextremen [antifa.ch] – “«Ich würde meine bisherigen politischen Aktivitäten nicht als Wandel, sondern vielmehr als stetige politische Weiterentwicklung bezeichnen», sagt Sina. Den Ausschlag, den Klimastreik zu verlassen, hätte die «Genderthematik» gegeben und die diesbezügliche «diskussionsverweigernde Haltung» ihrer ehemaligen Mitstreiter. Heute ziehe sie es vor, sich «im Bereich der Familienpolitik und bei Lösungsansätzen der momentanen Migrationskrise» zu engagieren.” Scary, how well the smoothe re-design of neo nazis works.

Éloge de l’émeute – Entretien avec le philosophe Jacques Deschamps – “Ce lundisoir, nous accueillons le philosophe Jacques Deschamps qui vient nous parler de sa revigorante “Éloge de l’émeute” tout juste publiée aux éditions Les liens qui libèrent. Il y sera donc question de cette pratique ancestrale et chère à tout bouleversement historique : sortir dans la rue pour s’en prendre aux symboles du pouvoir ; et dans les meilleurs jours parvenir à l’abattre. À mille lieues des arguties de plateaux télé et de leur sociologie de comptoir, Jacques Deschamps voit dans les pratiques émeutières des gestes éminemment politiques depuis lesquels s’entre-ouvre le présent.” Love this did. Pour l’ennui!

Qu’est ce que l’éco-fascisme ? [lundi.am] – “une idéologie considérant que la défense de l’identité d’une communauté politique passe par la préservation de son territoire dans le cadre d’une politique autoritaire, ainsi que par l’allocation préférentielle des ressources qui en sont issues à sa population autochtone et par la stigmatisation des groupes « allochtones », voire même leur sacrifice, au nom de motifs écologiques.” Eco-fascism is insideous.

Künstliche Intelligenz: «Diese Ideologie grenzt an Sektenwahn» [woz] – “Kreativität als Begriff ist nicht nur deshalb problematisch. Sie hat auch eine unglaublich komplexe Geschichte und ist im Grunde entweder ein religiöser Begriff oder ein romantischer, der das kreative Genie feiert. Die romantische Forderung ist, dem Genie alles unterzuordnen. Es gibt kein demokratisches Genie – Genie ist ein autoritärer Begriff und gerade daher im Silicon Valley weit verbreitet: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Sam Altman gelten als Genies. Das Genie ist nun Unternehmer, der keine Rücksicht nehmen muss.” The cult of the genius is a core issue, we have to address.

US-Geschichte: Eine Ikone des Anarchismus [woz] – “Zu Unrecht vergessen: Lucy Parsons prägte die Arbeiter:innenbewegung in den USA. Eine detailreiche Biografie erinnert an die linke Revolutionärin.” To my shame i didn’t know much about her.


[Older articles, still great]

Let Them Eat Plague! – The Red Clarion – “The cold truth of the matter is that the motive behind COVID minimization is greed and social control. The capitalist system depends on constant growth: constant production, constant consumption, constant expansion of profits. Even brief pauses — such as a month-long stay-at-home order — have disastrous effects on capital.” This has got the be one of the best articles offering a meta view on the pandemic.

Six Steps to Abolish the Family [commune] – “The family is a lifeboat for those abandoned by capital, but fails and thwarts far too many. We need other ways to organize care and organize ourselves.” More ME O’Brien.

What to Do When You Have Been Abusive [truthout] – “We can go from simply reacting to abuse and punishing “abusers” to preventing abuse and healing our communities. Because the revolution starts at home, as they say. The revolution starts in your house, in your own relationships, in your bedroom. The revolution starts in your heart.” Via the Peter Gelderloos newsletter, good resource.


R.I.P.

Too many from COVID and no one cares


[If you care to receive more regular updates, please follow my diigo (feed: rss) for all of my saved links or twitter for an edited choice of them]


Header Photo: Fox on the hunt

This! July 2023

0
0

[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]

an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows ...
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows ...
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows ...


[Videos]

how to find a street in 2 minutes

Tunnel Vision: An Unauthorized BART Ride

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution – A Radical Audiobook

Col de la Loze (Méribel) – Final climb of Stage 17 of the 2023 Tour de France.


[Music]

Cypress Hill: Tiny Desk Concert


[Podcasts]

#19 Mehr als Fußball [becker & pfeiffer] – “Große Ereignisse werfen ihre Schatten voraus und das gilt in dieser Woche gleich mehrfach: Die WM in Australien und Neuseeland rückt näher – selbiges gilt für Annikas große Reise. Wir reden darüber, mit welchen Themen vor allem Spielerinnen in verschiedenen Verbänden im Vorfeld des Turniers umgehen müssen und träumen von einer Welt, in der Frauen ihrem Sport nachgehen können, ohne so viele Kämpfe rundherum auszufechten.” In German. Talks about the problems with sexual abuse, power and money issues in the teams playing the women world cup.

Why AI is a Threat to Artists w/ Molly Crabapple [tech won’t save us] – “Paris Marx is joined by Molly Crabapple to discuss why AI image generation tools are a threat to illustrators and why we need to refuse the idea that Silicon Valley’s visions of technology are inevitable.” Molly may herself be in a privileged situation receiving royalties and such. But she sees the problem.

RFK Jr. and The Rise of the Anti-Vaxx Movement [maintenance phase] – “A political candidate has some questions and we have some extremely obvious answers.” Michael Hobbes making mincemeat of RFK Jr.

Health Communism with Beatrice Adler-Bolton [upstream] – “When we think of health under capitalism, it’s easy to go straight to the fight for universal healthcare, and understandably — that battle is one of the most contentious and important in the ongoing class war between the mass of people and those who rule us, the capitalist class.” Beatrice with a more meta view on disability justice and health communism. As usual in the upstream pod the questions often are an embarrassment.

Stream 169, Cindy Milstein, Try Anarchism [.soundcloud.] – “Try Anarchism for Life revolves around a thought experiment: What are some of the many beautiful dimensions of anarchism? In reply, it blends gorgeous circle A drawings by twenty-six artists with Milstein’s words, forming picture-prose that are at once inviting and playful, poignant and dreamy. The pieces encourage us to notice and expand on liberatory practices, especially in a time when so much feels impossible. In depicting how anarchism gifts us lives worth living, this book warms ailing hearts and offers tender succor.” I just love how Cindy thinks and sees connections.


[Toot Threads]


[Pandemic Roundup]

Pandemic Roundup: July 27, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: July 20, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: July 13, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: July 06, 2023

Another huge thank you for keep doing these roundups, Violet!!!!!1!!


[The Must Read[s] This Month]

What are disability doulas? People provide support through isolating life transitions [19news] – “The community care practice, pioneered by queer women of color, reorients newly disabled people to a different life – a necessity that has grown during the pandemic era.” Doula as a word has a horrible origin, but this is a beautiful re-framing.

‘No one is talking about it’: the cruelty of long Covid in the global south [the guardian] – “As research focuses on richer parts of world, people in less developed countries suffer from lack of awareness and support” Some of us who suffer from LC understood right away that its biggest impact will be in the global south.

“Don’t Be a Buzzkill”: There’s Nothing Normal About What’s Going On | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “I know it sounds weird to say don’t take it personally, but it’s kind of true. The anger directed at the Covid and climate cautious belies a deep sense of anguish and a larger refusal to acknowledge reality. You don’t have to accept it or even approve of it, but it helps to understand the psychology behind it. You’re not crazy. These days, everyone leverages their own version of normal to push their own agenda. The right has made gaslighting a common strategy against their opponents. Sadly, the left has adopted it.” How the left could have adopted this gaslighting, i will never ever understand. This is wrong on every possible level. From the right-wingers, the centrists, even the moderate left, i expect nothing else. But the radical left uses terms like “mutual aid” and “communal care”, they claim to be inclusive, profess to want to fight ableism. Yet they settled for convenience. When it most counted they went for you-do-you, and as such aping the states propaganda.

COVID Hasn’t Disappeared — But Empathy, Care and Solidarity Have [truthout] – “When one asks for the minimum protections, even the most sensible individuals shrug and say, “but for how long?” Those who ask, those who mask, are made to feel that we are demanding impossible things. COVID has yielded the most stunningly pervasive gaslighting phenomenon in recent history. Willing and eager governments worldwide are abandoning citizens to a debilitating disease by one simple trick: saying it no longer exists.” This article made me cry so much.


[Articles English]

Mastodon is easy and fun except when it isn’t – “I posted a question on Bluesky (link requires a login until the site comes out of closed beta) for people who had tried/used Mastodon and bounced off, asking what had led them to slow down or leave.” Mastodon can be very frustrating, but it still is the best option out there.

Fatigue Can Shatter a Person [atlantic] – “our concept of [fatigue] has been impoverished by centuries of reductionism. As the study of medicine slowly fractured into anatomical specialties, it lost an overarching sense of the systems that contribute to human energy, or its absence. The concept of energy was (and still is) central to animistic philosophies, and though once core to the Western world, too, it is now culturally associated with quackery and pseudoscience.” At least Ed Yong is not forgetting us.

Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the Music Industry Waged War on the Cassette Tape During the 1980s, and Punk Bands Fought Back [open culture] – “Ten years and racks and racks of homemade cassette dubs on my shelves later, music seemed to be doing very well. (Later, by going digital, the music industry killed itself, and I had absolutely nothing to do with it.)” How well i remember this. And how often history is repeating.

I’m a Luddite (and So Can You!) [the nib] – “What the Luddites can teach us about resisting an automated future.” Luddite. But not used as a slur.

The diversity of intimacy – in pictures [the guardian] – “The theme of intimacy produced finalists with a fresh approach to a much-photographed portrait genre, with evident trust between photographers and subjects” Just a lovely, inclusive gallery.

‘We are damned fools’: scientist who sounded climate alarm in 80s warns of worse to come [the guardian] – “[Hansen] said the record heatwaves that have roiled the US, Europe, China and elsewhere in recent weeks have heightened “a sense of disappointment that we scientists did not communicate more clearly and that we did not elect leaders capable of a more intelligent response”. “It means we are damned fools,” Hansen said of humanity’s ponderous response to the climate crisis. “We have to taste it to believe it.”” Tell us Hansen. Again. Still. Tsk.

[Let Them Eat Plague] – “The myth that the immune system is like a muscle that needs to be used to stay in shape is as popular as ever, while the complete opposite is true: there is no material benefit to any amount of viral infections, and the immune system stays healthier for longer the less it is engaged. Playing in the dirt as kids was for exposure to probiotics, not viruses. SARS-CoV-2 in particular has been confirmed to cause lasting immune dysfunction in 10-30% of people who become infected — odds that do not improve with reinfection. According to Japanese data, the rate of reinfection since Omicron has become about 3 times a year.” Avoid getting infected. Please.

Let the Platforms Burn. | Cory Doctorow [.medium.] – “The problem with, say, Meta, is only partially that Mark Zuckerberg is personally monumentally unsuited to serving as the unelected, unaccountable permanent social media czar for three billion people. The real problem is that no one should have that job. That job shouldn’t exist. We don’t need to find a better Mark Zuckerberg. We need to abolish Mark Zuckerberg.” Oh we do need to abolish these assholes. Fast.

Scientists Are Decoding Long Covid Immunology [substack] – “One in ten people, according to this review, who get Covid-19 go on to develop Long Covid, a chronic illness. (Other studies put the number at anywhere from 2 in 10 to 7 in 10.) As with Covid-19, Long Covid can be mild or severe and everything in between. Symptoms can be numerous and changing, and might occur anywhere in the body.” A good summary of the paper mentioned bellow.

What is Anaculture? [nonlogs] – “The politicians will not listen to out demands, and this is what permaculture needs to learn from anarchism. That demands don’t work, and this is not a dialogue. This is a war, and there is no neutral position on this battlefield. Being non-capitalist is not enough, we need to become anti-capitalists. Seizing state authority is not enough, we need to become anti-authoritarians. If permaculture is to survive it must be willing to critique and change itself.” I am all for a permaculture with radical politics. But maybe the scene is too fraught with esoteric bs by now.

They’re Cooking The Covid Books | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “The pandemic isn’t really over, so we shouldn’t be using data from the last two years as a new normal. It’s inaccurate. It’s misleading. It’s immoral. It’s dangerous. This deception matters especially now, given suppressed reports of a possible new variant in Japan and rising cases in the U.S. As Even Blake at WSWS warns, the world is basically flying blind into a new Covid surge. Our decider class has dismantled every tool we had to track and contain the virus.” Thanks for checking their math. Seems like the NYT has committed math murder.

“Climate Optimism” Is Dangerous and Irrational [current affairs] – “Overly-confident math models based on unrealistic assumptions are used to avoid crisis-consistent climate policies and to protect global elite privilege, while abandoning our duties to the planet’s most vulnerable.” More acrobatics with math and its implications.

The Overlooked Student Protest That Changed College Admissions [hyperallergic] – “The Five Demands, now playing in New York, feels more pressing than ever in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action.” A much too often ignored part of history.

We Cannot Trust Their Hands Upon the World | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “Maybe someday soon old accounts will get settled, and owning will no longer be an accepted mode of existence, and people like that won’t be around anymore. Maybe we’ll have to keep working and paying until the end of our days, just like all the generations before us going back to the edge of memory. Either way, we can choose to remember. We know who we are.” If it’s up to me, old accounts will get settled.

Not all therapy is a force for good. I give you exhibit A: the actor Jonah Hill [the guardian] – “We are happy to accept that this interaction – a conversation between therapist and client – is capable of changing our psychology in positive ways, even “transforming lives”. But we don’t extend the logic. If therapy is so powerful, isn’t there a risk it can harm us too?” The therapy shuffle.

What Would a Truly Critical Picasso Exhibition Look Like? [hyperallergic] – “A 21st-century institution cannot center Picasso’s legacy without also foregrounding the global forms, artists, and practices that remain omitted from the Euro-American canon of Cubist and Abstract art. To do so is simply irresponsible.” Critical looks at artists are fine, but actually try to look critically.

June 2023 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “June 2023 set a record as the warmest June for the globe in NOAA’s 174-year record. The June global surface temperature was 1.05°C (1.89°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.5°C (59.9°F). This marked the first time a June temperature exceeded 1°C above the long-term average. The Junes of 2015–2023 rank among the ten warmest Junes on record. June 2023 marked the 47th consecutive June and the 532nd consecutive month with global temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average.” Bamm. And El Nino is only just starting.

The immunology of long COVID [nature] – “Meanwhile, people with long COVID feel neglected and are impatient to see these medical research findings translated into therapeutic trials. In a period where all but the most severe acute infections go largely unreported, the potential for trials into the mitigating effects of antiviral or other treatments in long COVID in this phase appears limited, such that most attention is focused on treatment of the persistent phase.” Lots of progress in research. The main problem: It is not reaching the GP’s.

Why are so many Californians homeless? [pluralistic] – “So how did they end up homeless? It’s depressingly easy. It starts with getting evicted. For leaseholders in the survey, the median amount of notice they had that they would lose their homes is ten days. For non-leaseholders, the median amount of notice was less than one day.” House them. WTF. Housing is a human right.

These 4 Books Inspired Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ [nofilmschool] – “The director took to Instagram to share the four books “that strongly have influenced [Megalopolis]” and his view of the “society we live in.” Let’s take a look at them below.” Curious to watch this movie. At least the sources that inspired it are pretty great.

‘Double agents’: fossil-fuel lobbyists work for US groups trying to fight climate crisis [the guardian] – “Lobbyists for oil, gas and coal interests are also employed by a vast sweep of institutions, ranging from the city governments of Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia; tech giants such as Apple and Google; more than 150 universities; some of the country’s leading environmental groups – and even ski resorts seeing their snow melted by global heating.” Raise your hand if you are surprised.

Capitalism is the Tumor, Solidarity Is Our Medicine [igd] – “At the end of April I had a seizure and after some scans they found a brain tumor. At the end of June I had an operation in which they took out half the tumor and confirmed the diagnosis, glioma, which is technically fatal and generally incurable, but it is treatable. And as far as glioma goes, it doesn’t seem to be growing very fast and has a relatively contained structure, which will make treatment easier.” Fucking hell. Support Peter please, he needs our financial support.

Does the microbiome hold the key to chronic fatigue syndrome? [the guardian] – “Often dismissed by the medical establishment, people with complex illnesses such as ME and long Covid are taking the hunt for treatments into their own hands” I think it does hold the key. Get Kefir grains, make your own. Very helpful here.

Don’t Believe the Hype About Decolonizing Dutch Museums [hyperallergic] – “Leading art institutions claim to champion decolonization, but that’s a red herring. They display a glaring absence of curatorial work that aims to lift the veil of hypocrisy, instead continuing to conceal the colonial violence committed by the Dutch state and private sector.” Don’t believe the hype it’s a sequel.

Donna Summer zoetrope [dj food] – “It’s not every day that you get a text message saying that ‘Donna Summer‘s estate has approved your design’ but that’s what happened a few months back after I designed a zoetrope for the reissue of her ‘Another Place And Time’ album.” Was tempted to order this.

Everest Pipkin on the Utopian Potential of Gardens [hyperallergic] – “Much of my current work has to do with the garden as a site of utopian thinking (as well as dystopian process). I’m interested in gardens as a place of pleasure, even hedonistic pleasure, of consumption that is not inherently extractive, of a give and take of labor and fruiting; in gardens as a site for humans to plant and other non-human interactions; in the construction of community that is trans-human. A site that at its core demands work and gives in return.” Gardens as temples of ecstatic pleasure.

Critics question the backstory of one of Germany’s leading counter-extremists [hyphen] – “Known for his strident positions against political Islam, Ahmad Mansour is a prominent voice in a national movement against antisemitism — but what is his real story?” Context for english-speakers on a highly controversial German public figure.

Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You! [substack] – “A ‘reprint’ of David Graeber’s famous essay on anarchism.” Graebers great essay in a beautiful layout.

“Crisis of their Own Legitimacy”: Peter Gelderloos and Tom Nomad on the Recent Trump Indictment [igd] – “This reactionary version of whiteness has always existed alongside a progressive version of whiteness, and both have been strategically necessary for the global implantation of capitalism. But the reactionary, paranoid whiteness has been most effective at motivating settlers to brutalize and conquer new territory, motivating elements of the lower and middle classes to purge society of revolutionary threats, and motivating the proles to go to war against some external enemy. In the current context, however, it only destabilizes the institutions of government while creating an echo chamber that makes it exceedingly difficult for Republicans to change strategy, because currently, the whole map has been conquered, and revolutionary threats are so incipient and lacking in consciousness or historical memory that the Democratic strategy of co-opting them is far more effective.” Peter wrote this shortly before he went into surgery.


[Articles German/French]

Die gewaltvollen Facetten rechten Frauenhasses [antifa infoblatt] – “Rechte Ideologie legitimiert Gewalt und Frauenhass. Trotzdem werden beide Phänomene nicht so konsequent zusammengedacht, wie es angebracht wäre. Misogyne Gewalt von Tätern aus der Neonazi-Szene unterscheiden sich zudem in Bezug auf die Motivlage. Vermeintliche Dominanz- und Besitzansprüche führen indessen zu Gewaltexzessen und Femiziden.” The image they used is from a paste in Bern.

“Sink the rich”: Orcas gegen Yachten [das lamm] – “Vor der Küste Spaniens stoppen und beschä­digen Orcas Luxus­yachten. Das ist für sie wohl nur ein Spiel, kein Protest. Trotzdem sollte uns der vermeint­liche Wider­stand der Tiere zu denken geben” Team Orca. Sink the rich is a great slogan.

Pandemie: Umgang mit Covid: »Ich bin krass enttäuscht« [nd-aktuell.de]– “Zu Beginn der Pandemie war gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt spürbar, es entstanden auch Hoffnungen auf ein Umdenken im Hinblick auf andere Krisen. Wo stehen wir heute? Man muss klar sagen, dass sich diese Hoffnungen in keinster Weise bewahrheitet haben. Heute werde ich angefeindet und ausgelacht, belächelt oder beschimpft, wenn ich eine Maske trage. Auf sozialer Ebene ist die Gesellschaft richtig krass kaputt.” I think my trust in doctors, medicine and politics is irreparably broken.

Manifest: Mit Hegel gegen die Familie [woz] – “Die Familie ist nicht einfach ein sozialer Ort, sondern eine Maschine zur Reproduktion des Vermögens. Hier werden Gene, Bildungskompetenzen und ökonomischer Reichtum weitergegeben und Kinder als der formbare Besitz ihrer Erzeuger:innen behandelt. Diese Schranken gilt es einzureissen. Fürsorge ohne Verwandtschaft, Versorgung ohne Privateigentum – das sind die Forderungen von Lewis, die sich auch im Untertitel des Buchs niederschlagen: «Wie wir Care-Arbeit und Verwandtschaft neu erfinden».” Reading her book next. My partner loved it.

«Wer dem KI-Hype verfällt, stärkt die Macht der Big-Tech-Chefs» [republik] – “Künstliche Intelligenz werde massiv überhöht, sagt Signal-Präsidentin Meredith Whittaker. Ein Gespräch über die Agenda der Silicon-Valley-Konzerne und die gefährlichen Pläne der EU.” AI bubble hype bullshit eww fuck off.

Entre la vie et la mort : bilan d’étape [lundi.am] – “La Macronie et les partis qui aspirent à la remplacer sont au service d’un ordre social qui ne cesse de déplacer le curseur vers la mort des libertés et de l’intelligence, la mort des jeunes dans les rues des quartiers pauvres, et des vieux dans les Ehpad paupérisés, la mort de l’eau, de l’air, des insectes et des oiseaux. Entre la vie et la mort : cette expression n’a jamais été aussi juste pour décrire le choix politique auquel l’humanité va être toujours plus confrontée.” The french riots in context.


[Older articles, still great]

Beware: we ignore Robert F Kennedy Jr’s candidacy at our peril | Naomi Klein [the guardian] – “Given the strengths that Kennedy possesses as a candidate, we should expect him to continue to build momentum. Ignoring him is not an option.” RFK jr. needs to be cancelled for real.

‘The poisons are already in here with us:’ framing for ecological revolutions from below | Peter Gelderloos [tandfonline] – “Personally, I think we need to do a lot better with mental health stuff. It’s been hard these last years. You know, so much of the time just wanting to commit suicide and not really being able to talk about that and knowing that a lot of other people have that [feeling] too. And it is actually a pretty healthy, normal response. But we live in a society in which it’s very rewarded to be able to have no emotional complexity and just adapt to monstrosity. And I don’t think that that’s a value that we should really celebrate” A transcript from a talk by Peter Gelderloos in Helsinki before his brain tumor was discovered. Book tour for The Solutions are already here.

What Is It Like to Be a Man? [the hedgehog review] – “As real as I know male privilege to be—and if I forget it for a moment, I have the newspapers to remind me—it is surreal to find maleness, an aspect of my life that I associate mainly with chosen discomfort, equated now, by so many people, with bovine self-complacency.” This is quite a decent article on being a man in a fucked up, patriarchal world.

The Case Against Coddling Anti-Maskers [eugenics ender squad] – “The SARS-COVID genocide is an expansion of eugenics as a social war against disabled people. This period of massacre have its roots in racialized ableist violence, in particular against disabled Black people and disabled Indigenous people, and the brutality has (asymmetrically) expanded to all types of disabled people in the recent years.” And there are other great zines looking at the role of racialized capitalism in the pandemic


R.I.P.

Sinéad O’Connor


[If you care to receive more regular updates, please follow my diigo (feed: rss) for all of my saved links or twitter for an edited choice of them]


Header Photo: An image of herbs on a table, basil, oregano, marjoram and verveine

This! August 2023

0
0

[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]

an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows ...
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows ...
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows ...


[Videos]

Reichsbürger – Innenansichten einer extremistischen Bewegung [arte] – “Sie bekämpfen den Staat, möchten alte Reiche neu entstehen lassen oder fordern Autonomie. Reichsbürger sind eine stark wachsende, verfassungsfeindliche Bewegung mit Schwerpunkt in Deutschland. ARTE dokumentiert ihre Organisationsform und Aktivitäten. Sie gründen eigene Betriebe und machen sich auf, Gegengesellschaften zu etablieren, in denen eigene Gesetze gelten.”

Black Anarchist Futures – 2023 Summer Intensive Course

Hacks and leaks, then and now [media.ccc.de] – “A discussion with Jeremy Hammond and Gabriella Coleman on the evolution of digital resistance, from direct action hacking to whistleblowing. How can hacktivists synergize with street activism to enact revolution? Can the lulz beat back the techno-fascist dystopia and their infosec enablers? We’ll present strategies to strengthen decentralized networks, challenge government repression, and practice international solidarity.”

Gentrification in Athens


[Music]

Mégadef – Anarcho Balade (Ft. Plume De Mouton)

“Eeeeeh les riches
arretez d’vouloir etre riche
y’a pleins d’trucs dans la vie
à faire quand on est pas riche
comme écrire des rimes riches
qui ri i iment en riche
entre gens pas riches
qui veulent pas d’venir riches” Album bellow 👇

Eartheater – Pure Smile Snake Venom (Official Video)

The Most Iconic Hip-Hop Sample of Every Year (1973-2023)

Aphex Twin – Blackbox Life Recorder 21f (Official Video)


[Podcasts]

Becker & Pfeiffer. #021: Keine Zustimmung – “Alles andere als erfreulich sind die Nachwehen der WM in Australien und Neuseeland. Wie wenig der sportliche Erfolg der spanischen Spielerinnen im Fokus steht, ist ein Lehrstück darüber, wie patriarchale Machtstrukturen in den Fußball der Frauen hineinwirken. Wir arbeiten für euch die Affären im spanischen Verband rund um Luis Rubiales auf, vergessen aber auch nicht, die Frauen für ihre Erfolge zu feiern.”

Episode 5: Crisis of Masculinity – “Moira leads Adrian through the endless discourse about the “crisis of masculinity” — where it comes from, what has motivated it in the past, and why we’re having it again. Together, the two of them take a long tour de dudes: from Silicon Valley to Mike Pence’s bedroom, from the Old West to Jordan Peterson’s couch. What is the unique state of emergency that men find themselves in? Is it real? And why is it — once again — supposed to be feminism’s fault?”

Rocket-Launching Billionaires Promise a New Pie in the Sky [truthout] – “it’s not enough to dismiss the ideas of people like Musk as being outlandish or absurd. Of course they’re absurd. Musk’s claim that he is going to create a self-sustaining colony on Mars is utter nonsense, but it is not enough to simply know or assert that. The world we inhabit has been carved up and ravaged by people who leveraged ideas that were, in my opinion, no less absurd. Stories have power. The hopes that we offer people, in bleak times, have power. We have to understand the appeal of space as humanity’s last recourse, in these times of catastrophe and crisis, and we have to build movement narratives in opposition to that storytelling”

AI Won’t Overthrow Us, But It Will Optimize the Capitalist Death Machine [truthout] – “Rather than being an apocalyptic technology, AI is more aptly characterized as a form of supercharged bureaucracy that ramps up everyday cruelties, such as those in our systems of welfare. In general … AI doesn’t lead to a new dystopia ruled over by machines but an intensification of existing misery through speculative tendencies that echo those of finance capital. These tendencies are given a particular cutting edge by the way AI operates with and through race. AI is a form of computation that inherits concepts developed under colonialism and reproduces them as a form of race science. This is the payload of real AI under the status quo.”

Refusing Ableism In The End Times | Estelle Ellison – “Our liberatory efforts mean nothing so long as we are willing to compromise our values on critical issues fascism makes no secret of weaponizing against us. Ableism can’t end a legacy of eugenics any more than transphobia can secure trans people a life worth living. Our aspirations towards abolition and the liberation of Black people mean nothing so long as we tolerate reactionary, inaccessible, and apologist methods of increasing our numbers in supposed opposition to anti-Blackness. During this fascist period, every compromise we make with oppressive dynamics and systems will be swiftly leveraged against us.”


[Toot Threads]


[Pandemic Roundup]

Since the governments have abandoned us, it is up to us to keep reading about this insidious disease. Best source:

Pandemic Roundup: August 31, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: August 24, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: August 17, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: August 10, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: August 3, 2023


[The Must Read[s] This Month]

Naomi Klein on following her ‘doppelganger’ down the conspiracy rabbit hole – and why millions of people have entered an alternative political reality | Naomi Klein [the guardian] – “The reshaping of politics that is one of Covid’s primary legacies is far bigger than Wolf and Bannon, of course. The hallucinatory period when the pandemic melded with economic upheavals and climate disasters accelerated all manner of strange-bedfellow coalitions, manifesting in large protests first against lockdowns and then against any sensible health measure that would have helped make the lockdowns unnecessary.” Of course i hesitate to rave about a Naomi Klein book or article, since she has gone liberal, but this is an awesome and very timely research.

The Beautiful Idea [archive] – “my first comic, The Beautiful Idea, is done and printed <3
I honestly couldn’t be happier with how it came out. This was a deeply emotional piece to make and I hope others find something of value and connection in it.” This is so beautiful. Thanks Bonzo.

Hospitals are killing patients because they don’t feel like doing infection control [substack] – “We don’t stop hand washing because norovirus cases are down. We don’t stop wearing gloves because HIV cases are down. As a doctor, if you’re arguing that you should be able to expose patients to COVID because infection control annoys you, you should not be a doctor. Find a new career. I bet you’d love denying insurance claims. I bet you’d be a natural.” People get thrown under the bus because the economy. Fuck capitalism.

For millions like me with long covid, the pandemic isn’t over [wapo] – “Despite the crystal-clear science on the damage covid-19 does to our bodies, medical settings have dropped mask requirements, so patients now gamble their health to receive care. Those of us who are high-risk or immunocompromised, or who just don’t want to roll the dice on death and misery, have not only been left behind — we’re being actively mocked and pathologized. I’ve personally been ridiculed, heckled and coughed on for wearing my N95. Acquaintances who were understanding in the beginning are now irritated, even offended. One demanded: How long are you going to do this? As if trying to avoid covid was an attack on her, rather than an attempt to keep myself from sliding further into an abyss that threatens to swallow my family.” Fuck everyone who spreads this disease.

Cindy Milstein [full stop] – “As an older anarchist, as every year goes by, I am struck by how hard it is to stay an anarchist for the long haul, allowing us to stay engaged and in relationship to anarchism for the whole of our lives. There are many reasons for this, but especially in times like the present ones, when it is difficult to see any sort of promise or potentiality, I wanted us to remember—myself and readers of Try Anarchism for Life—that we are the carriers of life-giving ways of being in this world. And that anarchism is really about living, in the here and now, lives worth living. Not just for ourselves, but for all of those around us, whether we love them, are friends with them, or don’t know them at all.” I will never be done with anarchism. But the people who tend to call themselves anarchists these days can fuck right off. That movement has turned into a fucking joke.


[Articles English]

When Maura died, a Smithsonian curator likely took part of her brain [wapo] – “Maura came to St. Louis from the Philippines to be put on display at the 1904 World’s Fair. Records suggest that, after her death, a Smithsonian anthropologist took part of her brain.” Beautiful comic rendition of our racist past.

Spain’s Footballers’ Strike Is a Show of Solidarity Against a Creepy Boss [jacobin] – “Spain’s footballers are on strike after soccer chief Luis Rubiales kissed player Jenni Hermoso without her consent. Rubiales claims he’s the victim of “fake” feminist outrage — but the players’ action is a show of unity against a boss abusing his power.” Anti-macho all the way. Men’s football is toxic, but women’s football is still beautiful.

How I Learned to Love the Bomb | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “The point is, these tools of mass murder are the tools of the state. We should never justify them, contemplate using them, nor trust those who defend their institutional existence by falling back on them. Nor should we put ourselves in the strategic shoes of those institutions that always demand we side with them.” How that fucking movie, that i still didn’t see because they only show it in fucking movie theatres, massages the narrative on the atomic bomb.

Lessons from Gramsci [dissent] – “Too often, mainstream political analysts see all power as residing in the government, especially at the federal level, and see electing winnable centrists to office as the key to promoting progress. Gramsci tells us that power is everywhere, and that holding office is only valuable as part of a larger movement strategy to rally hearts and minds around a genuinely progressive vision. At the other end of the spectrum, many people working outside of government pursue change in only one area—at the level of a single workplace, school, church, food cooperative, or neighborhood initiative—without connecting their efforts to a more comprehensive project of change. Gramsci encourages movements to pursue wide-ranging interventions, but always to unite them as part of a common program to transform society.” Note to self: Read more Gramsci.

How Google made the world go viral [the verge] – “For two decades, Google Search was the invisible force that determined the ebb and flow of online content. Now, for the first time, its cultural relevance is in question.” Fuck Google.

Portrait of a Frightened Boy-Man [hyperallergic] – “If you look very closely at this mug shot, you can see that fear in Trump’s bloodshot eyes. These are the eyes of a little boy caught in the act, facing punishment. This boy-man is still putting on the act of aggrieved victimhood, but it’s wearing thin, and even he is beginning to doubt its efficacy as a deflection.” Yes, i never ever wanted to see this guys face again. But this analysis of his mugshot makes some good points.

Carbon Offsets to Reduce Deforestation Are Significantly Overestimating Their Impact, a New Study Finds [inside climate news] – “A study in six countries across three continents finds that most carbon offsets aimed at avoiding deforestation are failing to keep forests standing or cut atmospheric greenhouse gases.” Right, and who is surprised?

when queer punks gather | Raechel Anne Jolie [substack] – “We gather, we laugh, we flirt, we dance, we sing, and through that we conjure—the spirits of our gay liberation ancestors who threw bricks, the spirits of past elders who knew it was the state (and not their desire) that caused the AIDS crisis, and, devastatingly, the spirits of our contemporaries who we lose to depression, to queer- and transphobia, to prison, to our necro-capitalist medical system.” Another very upsetting shooting.

Got Germs? Coming to a Hospital Near You. [okdoomer.io] – “There are exactly zero circumstances where it’s okay to force someone to put themselves at additional risk just so they can access healthcare. If the CDC goes through with their plans to weaken infection control, more people are going to get sick and die in hospitals. More people are going to avoid hospitals out of justifiable fears.” I am at the point where i try to avoid going to doctors.

Why was there no water to fight the fire in Maui? | Naomi Klein and Kapuaʻala Sproat [the guardian] – “Big corporations, golf courses and hotels have been taking water from locals for years. Now the fire may result in even more devastating water theft” A shocking example of disaster capitalism…as cause and outcome.

Megan Rapinoe Answers the Critics [atlantic] – “Think how much that Spanish team had to shoulder: Some of the players who stood up way back last year [to protest poor treatment by their coach and federation] still aren’t on the team. Maybe that was something that galvanized them, but you shouldn’t have to have that. There was another picture that signals such a deep level of misogyny and sexism in that federation and in that man [Luis Rubiales, the president of the Spanish soccer federation] at the final whistle, just grabbing his crotch. What kind of upside-down world are we in? On the biggest stage, where you should be celebrating, Jenni [Hermoso, the Spanish midfielder who was kissed by Rubiales] has to be physically assaulted by this guy.” I stand with Jenni.

“You Do You,” The War on Compassion [okdoomer.io] – “The painfully obtuse slogan “you do you” has become ubiquitous. It’s everywhere now. It perfectly sums up the ideology of toxic individualism: You don’t owe anyone anything. You don’t have to help anyone. It makes you entitled, even rude if you expect anyone to care about you or anyone else. It’s inappropriate to ask anyone to take on the slightest inconvenience for the greater good.” You do who. I am nobody.

The Dark History ‘Oppenheimer’ Didn’t Show [wired] – “In 1939, just before the start of World War II, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt with a muted warning: “The element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future … It is conceivable … that extremely powerful bombs of this type may thus be constructed.” There’s more this movie didn’t show.

AI Isn’t Banning Books in Iowa Schools. Republicans Are. [intercept] – “Overstating the power of algorithmic systems only serves to benefit the tech companies behind them.” Technology does what the people in power want it to do.

Helicopter Footage From Mass Arrest Reveals State Trooper Surveillance Capabilities, Tactics, and Communications [unicorn riot] – “In an exclusive release, viewers are taken inside Minnesota State Patrol’s Bell 407 helicopter, N119SP, to see and hear the operations of authorities as around 700 peaceful protesters marched onto Interstate 94 in Minneapolis. Watch a condensed video highlighting the chopper’s camera capabilities alongside the audio communications below, and the full hour-long video further down in the article.” Scary shit.

Jordan Peterson: Critics complain over ‘misleading’ book cover quotes [bbc news] – “Two critics who reviewed a book by Jordan Peterson have said their articles were quoted on its cover in a misleading way.” This is hilarious and sad. How could this guy ever rise to prominence. Oh.

Elon Musk has killed Twitter. I’m going to miss it [smh] – “Twitter has been an important alternative path, and it has helped level the playing field. Marginalised people have had more of a chance to make their voices heard, unencumbered by gatekeeping, the tired traditions, the limitations put on their success. For people whose work and ideas might never have been seen otherwise, Twitter has provided an opportunity to make a mark.” Time to grieve. But so many still use that awful platform.

Why Media Conglomerates are Spoon-Feeding Us Anti-Capitalism [current affairs] – “As it turns out, there’s as much profit (if not more, currently) in anti-capitalism as there is in pro-capitalism (or simply not addressing its existence at all). Ironically, anti-capitalism, in fact, is its own market! Why would a capitalist actively contribute to the popularization of anti-capitalist sentiment? As has been written in this magazine before, this is because “the only actual capitalist value is generating and accumulating profit.”” Commodification.

July 2023 Global Climate Repor [ncei] – “The July global surface temperature was 1.12°C (2.02°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.8°C (60.4°F), making it the warmest July on record. This marked the first time a July temperature exceeded 1.0°C (1.8°F) above the long-term average. July 2023 was 0.20°C (0.36°F) warmer than the previous July record from 2021, but the anomaly was 0.23°C (0.41°F) lower than the all-time highest monthly temperature anomaly on record (March 2016). July 2023 marked the 47th-consecutive July and the 533rd-consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average.” This is fine.

Long COVID is devastating and far from rare. As infections rise again, why are we still ignoring it? [salon] – “The mistakes of the past are currently being remade with long COVID. The combination of institutional ineptitude and bureaucracy, the politicization and polarization of the COVID debate and pandemic fatigue has prevented very serious and legitimate science about the potential long-term dangers on COVID infection leading to neurodegenerative issues from entering the mainstream discussion.” Fuck everyone who participates to spread this disease.

Don’t waste food [reuters] – “How every one of us can reduce greenhouse gases by keeping food out of landfills” Just don’t.

Conspiracy theories: how social media can help them spread and even spark violence [theconversation] – “Our study identifies four key stages in the escalation of such conspiracy beliefs.

Identity confirmation: Users consult and view different types of content (via fora, mainstream media and social media) to actively verify and confirm their own views.

Identity affirmation: Individuals disassociate or pick selectively information from their original sources of information (mentioned above). In the case of “Pizzagate”, conspiracy-minded users took pictures from the Clinton Foundation’s support work in Haiti, created visual materials supporting supposed connections to a sex-trafficking ring, and then posted them on Reddit and 4chan. While obviously altered and taken out of context, the images were widely shared to promote the conspiracy theory.

Identity protection: Individuals safeguard their “informational environment” by actively seeking to discredit individuals or organisations that present contradictory evidence, for example with antagonistic or negative posts or comments.

Identity enactment: Individuals seek broader social approval from a more mainstream audience. This can also lead to efforts to recruit more people and call for violent actions, leveraging the community userbase.” Sounds helpful.

What is Anaculture? [sabot media] – “If permaculture is to survive it must be willing to critique and change itself. If not it will become another institution and cease to be a movement at all. It will calcify and rot from neglect and disinterest. The next generation is getting bored of the current politics of feigned neutrality and ethics that don’t line up with the actions of the movements participants. So let this article stand as one critique. I love the concepts of this design system, I hope that we can develop a better system that takes the good from what was there and learns from the bad.” I get the point the author makes, but there are and always have been strains of permaculture that are very political.

Let Them Eat Plague [open-source Eechaton] – “The myth that the immune system is like a muscle that needs to be used to stay in shape is as popular as ever, while the complete opposite is true: there is no material benefit to any amount of viral infections, and the immune system stays healthier for longer the less it is engaged. Playing in the dirt as kids was for exposure to probiotics, not viruses. SARS-CoV-2 in particular has been confirmed to cause lasting immune dysfunction in 10-30% of people who become infected — odds that do not improve with reinfection. According to Japanese data, the rate of reinfection since Omicron has become about 3 times a year.” Fuck everyone who spreads this disease.

‘Everything you’ve been told is a lie!’ Inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline [the guardian] – “But the blame does not lie with the women – it lies with the gender data gap. Thanks to hundreds of years of treating the male body as the default in medicine, we simply do not know enough about how disease manifests in the female body. Women are overwhelmingly likely to suffer from auto-immune disorders, chronic pain and chronic fatigue – and such patients often hit a point at which their doctors tell them there is nothing they can do. The conditions are under-researched and the treatments are often brutal. Is it any surprise that trust in conventional medicine and big pharma is shaken? And is it any surprise that people look for something to fill that void?” The wellness to fascism pipeline.


[Articles German/French]

«Inklusive Sprache kenne ich nicht gut – aber ich kann sie nicht ausstehen!» [unifr] – “Die ermutigenden Ergebnisse dieser Studie zeigen, wie wichtig es ist, Menschen für die Grundlagen und Ziele der inklusiven Sprache zu sensibilisieren und sie darüber aufzuklären. Durch die Förderung eines vertieften Verständnisses dieser Sprachpraxis und die Sensibilisierung für die ihr zugrunde liegenden Motivationen können Vorbehalte abgeschwächt und positivere Einstellungen begünstigt werden”

Wer in der Schweiz das Klima aufheizt [daslamm] – “Berechnungen zeigen, dass die Superreichen mit ihrem Lebensstil und ihren Investitionen für besonders viele Emissionen verantwortlich sind. Trotzdem macht es sich die Linke zu einfach, wenn sie mit dem Finger nur auf den Luxuskonsum zeigt.” Milo Probst again. Always a good read.

„Es ist alles andere als ‚normal‘, eine solche Sammlung zu betreten“ [daslamm] – “Schutzanzüge und Brillen: „Wir begehen jetzt ein kontaminiertes Gebiet“. So beginnt eine kritische Führung des Komitees Kapital Kollaboration Kriegsgewinn durch die Sammlung Bührle im Zürcher Kunsthaus. Im Interview mit das Lamm gibt Mediensprecher*in Kim Kunz Auskunft.” Much respect for this performance activism.

Vorwürfe sexueller Belästigung – «Republik» stellt Journalisten frei – WOZ leitet Untersuchung ein [srf] – “Sechs Frauen werfen einem bekannten Journalisten sexuelle Belästigung vor. Die aktuelle und eine ehemalige Redaktion reagieren.” The shocking part is how long it took, everybody knew about this guy and his predatory behavior.

Trans-Panik: Wer macht hier Terror? [woz] – “Wahlkampf gegen Regenbogenflaggen und Hetze gegen Aufklärungsunterricht. Die von rechts geschürte Panik kann nur mit nüchterner Wissenschaft bekämpft werden.” Okay. But how well has scientific argumentation worked in the culture war.

Essay: Wer darf sich abkühlen? | Adrian Daub [woz] – “Inwiefern ist die Gesellschaft, die der Neoliberalismus den Amerikaner:innen hinterliess, überhaupt noch bereit, das Leiden, das die Klimakatastrophe mit sich bringen wird, kollektiv zu mildern? Wer heute in der prallen Sonne arbeiten muss, wer ein Recht auf eine Hitzepause hat, wer sich eine Klimaanlage leisten kann und, ja, auch wer die Möglichkeit hat, in ein kühles Nass zu springen: All das wird immer öfter über Leben und Tod entscheiden. Die öffentlichen Schwimmbäder der Progressive Era waren ein Stück Kachel und Beton gewordene Biopolitik. Ihr Fehlen ist das Gegenteil: Nekropolitik, ein achselzuckendes Leben mit dem Hitzetod des anderen.” Pools in San Francisco have a racist history.


[Older articles, still great]

COVID, Vulnerability, and the Death of Solidarity: “Who Do We Not Save?” [journal of bioethical inquiry] – “Solidarity between more and less vulnerable groups is fundamental to an effective public health response to a global pandemic. Yet in the case of COVID-19, a focus on deciding who can and who cannot be protected from harm has shaped the pandemic experience and continues to determine the post-pandemic trajectory of life with SARS-CoV-2.” I loved reading this and almost added it to the Must-Reads.

An Interview with Peter Gelderloos, Part I: Anarchism and Environmental Struggle [sum.uio.no] – “this refusal to engage with struggles that are already there, it smacks of arrogance and of racism, and if you look historically at the movements that followed that exact model, they are all movements with a certain amount of authoritarianism at their center, which are basically trying to take over and monopolize issues. And they almost never accomplish anything except sometimes the formation of a new political party or getting some of their leaders elevated to positions of power.” An interview with Gelderloss before the release of his book The solutions are already here.

An Interview with Peter Gelderloos, Part II: From Colonial Trauma to Ecological Resurgence [sum.uio.no] – “More hierarchical societies and movements are generally easier for the State to repress because those societies or movement are already repressing their base, they already have the mechanisms needed to impose a sort of unity, in which unity is a code word for some central groups to be able to make decisions that everybody has to obey. So those mechanisms already exist, the base is already being ruled in some way, the only thing that the state—or a more powerful state—that comes along has to do, is to take over these mechanisms.” Cont’d.

How to Hide a Plague: How Elite Capture and Individualism Made Covid Normal – “The US has experienced among the highest cumulative mortality rates from Covid-19 in the Global North. This lecture will argue that the failures of the US pandemic response were mainly driven by economic elites who used their influence to undermine public health protections.”

You Are Not Entitled To Our Deaths: COVID, Abled Supremacy & Interdependence  [leavingevidence] – “Disabled people are not disposable. We are your feared present and your inevitable future. We are what age and time promise more than anything else, and this is one reason you fear us and why you have continually pushed us away and hidden us. You don’t want us too close, don’t want a daily reminder of difference and privilege; you don’t want to have to change your life for us.” Powerful.

Practicing a Love Ethic in the Ongoing Pandemic Part 1 [ji-youn kim] – “Given that abled supremacy is normalizing disabled death, what is needed to resist the disposability of the most marginalized, such as poor and working class, disabled, queer and trans, Black, Indigenous, people of colour, in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic? Those of us in the so-called left who care about social justice are invited to embody and commit to a love and care ethic that is rooted in Disability Justice, interconnectedness, and collective responsibility, rather than solely relying on public policy to determine our practices.” Highly recommended.

Practicing a Love Ethic in the Ongoing Pandemic Part 2 [ji-youn kim] – “Multiply marginalized peoples who have been either repeatedly abandoned by the state or have been or continue to be explicitly harmed by the state know that the state and institutions can not be relied upon for justice. A crucial part of liberatory work is to embody the world that we want to co-create in our own communities before that world is tangible in its fullness on larger, more systemic levels.”

Pride and Rage by Sour Queer Press [antidote zine] – “COVID denial—which is a form of genocide denial, if you think about it—continues to proliferate and spread well beyond its previous niche among dyed-in-the-wool fascists, and is now becoming entrenched as part of neoliberal common sense, achieving cultural hegemony even in “progressive” and “radical” circles while COVID continues, undeniably, to spread, disable, and kill. It’s terrifying; it feels like no one is talking about it; and it feels like no one is talking about how no one is talking about it.” This also contains a recording of the entire zine.


R.I.P.

Jamie Reid


[If you care to receive more regular updates, please follow my diigo (feed: rss) for all of my saved links or twitter for an edited choice of them]


Header Photo: Fox at night near a corn field

This! September 2023

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[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]

an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows a sculpture of a laundry line with two women and a dog near a mountain lake
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows a serval enjoying some sun in a sad cage
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows hazelnuts arranged in a square shape


[Videos]

Capitol of Conformity | Dystopian Short Film

The Scariest Sound In The World Dude 3D printed an aztec whistle. Also please be aware that at some point the video turns into an advert. This is why i do not embed it here.

Chunk the groundhog is a notorious vegetable thief [tiktok – “Chunk the groundhog is a notorious vegetable thief” I think this must be the first tiktok i link to.


[Music]

DJ Shadow – You Played Me (Official Video) Album soon.


[Podcasts]

To Fight Big Tech, We Must Seize the Means of Computation [truthout] – “a phrase I stole from the wonderful comics artist Dana Claire, who writes this great series of comic books about a little girl and her unicorn. And the unicorn can be seen by grownups, but grownups don’t notice the unicorn because the unicorn exudes a thing that she calls the shield of boringness. And the shield of boringness is just this thing that makes your eyes glaze over when you contemplate it. And as a result, nobody finds it remarkable that the unicorn is there.” Cory seems to make an effort to talk less fast and still says so much.

We Can Survive Together by Becoming Kin [truthout] – “I developed an exit strategy to get out. And then I actually developed PTSD, because you can’t fight a system while you’re inside the system and not have some emotional trauma as a result. So yes, so working in child welfare made me an abolitionist in the broadest possible sense. And I have taken that training and then used it to analyze the stories and histories of the world around me, but I am still bothered by the harm that I did. And so knowing and understanding the harm that I did, even while I thought I was helping, that also shapes my activism.” It had moments that made me cringe, but beautiful.

Stream Reflections w/ Naomi Klein (09/14/23) | Death Panel [.soundcloud.] – “Bea and Jules speak with Naomi Klein about left melancholy, coping with and working against years of disastrous pandemic response, and her new book Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World.” Since then i have read the book. It is exiting but in equal parts frustrating. Klein’s statements against identity politics are embarrassing. She is a reformist, posing as a revolutionary.

The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (audiobook outtake) | Cory Doctorow [craphound.com] – “the introduction and chapter one of the audio edition of The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation, which Verso will publish on September 5, 2023. I made my own DRM-free audiobook for this, reading it under the direction of the incredible Gabrielle de Cuir” Cory reading an excerpt of his new book.

Our Movements Need Infrastructure for Care, Recovery and Belonging [truthout] – “When the George Floyd uprisings happened and the Breonna Taylor uprisings happened, there was this overwhelming sense for me and I think for a lot of people of a sense of desperation, but also of purpose and groundedness that things were bad and this was an important moment, and that if we didn’t kind of draw the line here, we might not all survive what came next, that it was this moment of a police riot connected with a rise of a fascist movement in the White House and a developing grassroots fascist movement and also a mass disabling event through COVID, and that there was kind of this dramatic moment in which we were going to sacrifice whatever we could to give ourselves a better future.”


[Toot Threads] [i am now on bluesky as well, but i don’t trust it]


I also wrote a longer thing about the book. But feeling insecure about it. Yeah, i have a fucking substack lol.


What she says.


COVID now for free in any supermarket near you.


Free the animals.


Gotta love math.


As they say, hope dies last. My hope may well survive me.


A fantastic book!


[Pandemic Roundup]

Pandemic Roundup: September 28, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: September 21, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: September 14, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: September 7, 2023


[The Must Read[s] This Month]

Heating Up: An Interview with Peter Gelderloos on Climate Change and the Fight to Change Everything [igd] – “The truth is that for decades already, entire ecosystems and many of the species that make them up have been completely destroyed, for decades already tens of million of humans are dying every year as a result of this broad ecological crisis, and for centuries the extractivist societal forms responsible for the ecological crisis have been colonizing and eradicating the societal forms that take care of their ecosystems and that also tend to resist human-to-human oppressions.” Peter veers into some strange territory in the middle somewhere, but it is still a great read.

Nationalfeiertag: Achtung: die Schweiz [taz] – “Aber seltsam: Ein Großteil der Bevölkerung glaubt an Wunder und Mythen. Denn nicht heute ist der Nationalfeiertag, nein, das ist der 1. August. Der ist ein Märchentag: 1291 war angeblich was mit einer Wiese und einem Schwur und drei mutigen Kantonen (bis heute die konservativsten des Landes), die sich zusammenschlossen gegen die Habsburger. Schiller hat mal was darüber geschrieben.” I loved reading this so much. I hate this country.

Back To School Panic | Lachrista Greco [substack] – “May we all reimagine accommodations as loving/healing/safe access points. May we all practice community care. May we all get what we need—at the very least.” I fucking hated every fucking second in fucking school.


[Articles English]

Native Artist Shot in New Mexico at Rally Over Colonizer Statue [hyperallergic] – “Activists in Española had peacefully gathered to protest a monument of Juan de Oñate when Jacob Johns was allegedly shot by a man wearing a Trump hat.” Thankfully he seems to be recovering.

Covid Causes Much More than Brain Fog | Jessica Wildfire [okdoomer.io] – “If left unchecked, the mass disabling event of Covid will become the biggest public health crisis in hundreds of years. And we haven’t even talked about Covid’s toll on your immune system. We can’t let students spend another year getting infected with Covid. They’re already looking at a future darkened by war, climate disaster, and pending social collapse. Are we going to kill their brains, too, leaving them utterly unable to function in this chaotic world?” I simply can’t understand how COVID could be allowed to run rampant. Still.

24 hours in an invisible epidemic – Nice visualisation, but it made me feel lonely.

In depression treatment trials, placebo effect is growing stronger [ars technica] – “And these are some of the things that can potentially influence how people perceive the sham treatment. After all, the placebo effect is largely mediated by the belief that some form of treatment is happening. Transcranial magnetic stimulation, which involves medical staff and some serious-looking equipment placed next to someone’s head, lends itself very readily to that belief. If more effort has been put into making the placebo convincing in recent years, it could easily explain the change we’re seeing.” Do not diss placebo, just the people making a business model based on it.

Mutual Aid and the Criminalization of Compassion: Humanitarian Aid Must Never Be A Crime [igd] – “Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr have irresponsibly and dangerously put out the astonishingly false narrative that mutual aid and solidarity are criminal and nefarious into the public discourse. This seriously endangers billions of people around the world who engage in, benefit from, and survive by simple acts of mutual aid on a daily basis.” This is so fucking maddening.

RICO and Stop Cop City: The Long War Against the Left  [the abusable past] – “When it comes to the left, the state uses RICO to criminalize radicals as thieves and separate them from a broader base of support. Whatever the outcome, the use of RICO is damaging. Already, 42 of the 61 Stop Cop City activists facing RICO charges have had their lives upended by “domestic terrorism” charges. Ranging in age from 19 to 49, the accused have lost jobs, faced housing insecurity, been prevented from attending school, and experienced mental distress.” Dan was also on death panel podcast with this article, sadly it’s patreon only.

The big idea: could we use music like medicine? | Science and nature books [the guardian] – “We know that music influences our emotions, but could it improve physical health too?” Tune!

Generative AI closes off a better future | Paris Marx – “Ursula Le Guin said we must be able to imagine freedom. AI traps us in the past.” Concise.

How to Start a Mask Bloc Soft Launch Version [google docs] – “Mask blocs provide high-quality, high-filtration (Hi-Fi) masks to their communities for free. They can also be sources of other tools and information about COVID-19, clean air, and accessibility. For many marginalized communities— including disabled folks, queer folks, Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC)—mask blocs have become essential to surviving the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. There are systemic barriers in front of multiply-marginalized folks that affect their access to COVID-19-prevention measures, as well as to organizing networks, experience, and credentials.” Cool, but why the fuck use Google doc?

care is where the body lives. | Raechel Anne Jolie [substack] – “Where is the body? It is wherever the chaos is. And the treatment of disease is no place for a body. Even for the dying ones (we’re all the dying ones), care is where the body lives.” We are all dying.

The grifterverse and Russell Brand [freedom news] – “None of Brand’s output over the last couple of years is particularly new or of much concern to actual billionaires, who’ll take a loudmouth wannabe guru rattling on about conspiracies any day over genuine investigation and challenge. Spectacle acting as flak to misdirect the public is their bread and butter.” This guy. I always wondered, how could he ever be popular?

‘Home Confined’ Z-Library Defendants Deny They Are Fugitives [torrentfreak] – “Last year, the U.S. indicted two Russians who stand accused of operating the book piracy site Z-Library. Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova were arrested in Argentina, where they are currently ‘home confined’ pending their extradition battle. Meanwhile, their lawyers are trying to convince a New York federal court to dismiss the case for a myriad of reasons.” Brave people.

Former Actor Attacked for Wearing COVID Mask Left Permanently Blind [newsweek] – “While inside the townhouse, Keenan was seated at a dining room table when suddenly he noticed something around his neck. “At first I thought it was a joke but it kept getting tighter and yanked me off the chair,” he said, who added that he eventually was able to fight back and remove a rope from his neck. Keenan said he later realized it was a “nylon rope” when he jumped up and asked the perpetrator what was going on. “He screamed at me and said, ‘I told you never to wear a mask in this house,’ and I replied immediately back, even louder, ‘What the f*** are you talking about? I’ve been here five or six times with a mask every time, you’ve never even seen my face,'” Keenan told Newsweek.” This scares the shit out of me. I fear we will see more such anti-mask behavior.

Diplo has successfully escaped the arena | Ryan Broderrick [substack] – ““Say what you will about the 70,000 people stuck at Burning Man but they’re in the arena and you’re on the sidelines,” Twitter user tolstoybb wrote. It’s a funny bit, but it’s also the perfect physical representation of the “arena” that Silicon Valley is so obsessed with. Esther Crawford, the former Twitter executive who slept under her desk after Musk took over and still ended up getting fired, is in the arena. Oliver Anthony probably wasn’t even though a bunch of places said he was… including me in a previous version of this post. As is with Neal Katyal, the self-described “extremist centrist” lawyer who has defended companies that use child slaves. And all of them are sitting in a flooded playa full of human waste waiting out the undeniable effects of climate change. Diplo was also there, but he escaped with Chris Rock. If you want to see what the next 25 years are going to be like, Burning Man is it. Millionaires and managers ignoring huge structural problems until it starts to impact their libertarian freak fests and then escaping to somewhere safe when they get the chance. Well, until there aren’t any safe places to escape to, I guess…” I do not like Ryan, not one bit, but here he nails it.

August 2023 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “The August global surface temperature was 1.25°C (2.25°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F), making it the warmest August on record. This marked the first time an August temperature exceeded 1.0°C (1.8°F) above the long-term average. August 2023 was 0.29°C (0.52°F) warmer than the previous August record from 2016, but the anomaly was 0.10°C (0.18°F) lower than the all-time highest monthly temperature anomaly on record (March 2016). However, the August 2023 temperature anomaly was the third-highest anomaly of any month on record. August 2023 marked the 45th-consecutive August and the 534th-consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average.” You think?

You Could Use a Mourning Routine [okdoomer.io] – “Now almost everyone we know tries to quarantine sadness. They push negative emotions out of their minds and out of their culture. They go around telling each other to smile. They make up words to pathologize and shame sad people. They prescribe them pills and aphorisms.” Grieving as a revolutionary praxis.

Libyan Youth Climate Activist Says Flooding Disaster Was Not a Surprise [truthout] – “And just two years ago, Mr. Abd al-Aziz Ashour, who is a civil engineer, published a paper with the University of Sebha where he warned that both of the dams are very fragile, and he expected that they will be falling apart very soon. He also mentioned that we need to have a lot of tree planting in the area in order to combat the desertification, because all of the sand in the area or, like, the dry area will only make the flooding much worse. So it’s something that we have expected.” Sadly this kind of stuff is bound to happen more and more, and mostly in the countries of the global south.

50 Years After “the Other 9/11”: Remembering the Chilean Coup [the nation] – “Pinochet’s reign of terror, destined to quash the slightest hint of opposition or criticism, allowed the military—and the right-wing civilians who had instigated the coup and then benefited from the ensuing policies—to turn Chile into a laboratory for neoliberalism: a series of measures that privatized the economy, imposed austerity on an unwilling populace, and trusted an unbridled free market to magically solve all the ills of society.” This arcticles fully buys into the hyperbole surrounding Allende’s Chile. But the coup was horrendous.

How a Queens teenager helped pave a path for women in graffiti culture: Catching up with Maria ‘Toofly’ Castillo [gothamist] – “Maria Castillo, known as Toofly, is among the early female pioneers of graffiti culture. Coming up in the 1990s, Toofly carved a name for herself in New York City’s male-dominated graffiti scene, setting the stage for other women to express themselves with an aerosol can. She said her cousin coined the nickname Toofly for her, believing it represented her artistry and style – both fast and fly.” Love her work.

Temperature Check [the nib] – This cartoon sums up the state of the pandemic.

What long COVID taught me: How to help a friend with chronic illness [timesofisrael] – “Instead of ‘Are you feeling better?’ and ‘What do you need?’ here are some truly helpful questions you can ask” It is a bit middle of the road, but some people might learn what to ask and what not to.

Over 60 People Indicted on RICO Charges in Atlanta, Allegedly Promoting ‘Anarchist Ideas’ [unicorn riot] – “Georgia prosecutors have indicted 61 individuals under the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, for their alleged participation in the movement and for, as they put it, promoting “virulent anarchist ideas.”” And with that the road to fascism is wide open. Or even more wide open i should say.

Welcome to the “You Do You” Pandemic [the nation] – “People like them—the ones with money and access—can afford the expensive Covid tests. They can ensure that Paxlovid reaches their door quickly. They’ll be first in line for the new boosters. Some of them even have a concierge physician on speed dial for when things get hairy. Meanwhile, they offer the rest of the country the policy equivalent of “You do you” and “Let them eat cake.”” Yeah well, you contributed.

Autoenshittificatio [pluralistic] – “Don’t drive a cab, create Uber and extract value from every driver and rider. Better still: don’t found Uber, invest in Uber options and extract value from the people who invest in Uber. Even better, invest in derivatives of Uber options and extract value from people extracting value from people investing in Uber, who extract value from drivers and riders. Go meta.” Enshittification is catching on.

What Happened to Us? [okdoomer.io] – “Anthony Fauci recently went on the BBC to talk about the new surge of Covid cases. He said something remarkable: “The vulnerable will fall by the wayside. They’ll get infected. They’ll get hospitalized, and some will die.” He said it in a casual tone. He was almost smiling.” Cynical.


[Articles German/French]

Paris: Die Steinwüste lebt [woz] – “Die Hauptstadt Frankreichs ist eine der am dichtesten bevölkerten und bebauten Grossstädte der Welt. Doch da sind auch die stolzen historischen Pärke und Squares – und nun erprobt die aktuelle Stadtverwaltung von Paris die visionäre Begrünung der Stadt.” The beautiful city getting ever more beautiful.

Von Zürich bis Guatemala: Eine Schweizer Kolonialgeschichte [daslamm] – “Das Beispiel Guate­mala zeigt: Bei der (neo-)kolonialen Expan­sion im 19. Jahr­hun­dert waren auch Schweizer aktiv betei­ligt. Doch daran erin­nert man sich hier­zu­lande noch immer ungern.” Fuck this opportunistic country and its racist, colonialist history, even if at times by proxy.

Wenn “kritische Männlichkeit” antifeministisch wird [daslamm] – “Denn dass einzelne Menschen, vor allem (cis) Männer, sich und ihr Verhalten verän­dern müssen, ist eine schlichte Notwen­dig­keit im Ange­sicht der patri­ar­chalen Zustände. Die Frage, ob das, was daraus entsteht, noch Männ­lich­keit genannt werden kann, ist nicht von Inter­esse. Man(n) sollte sie zurück­weisen, statt ständig zu versu­chen, neue, posi­tive Antworten auf sie zu finden.” Shows just how fast critical masculinity can turn into masculinism.

Missbrauch in der Kirche: Mit nikotingelben Fingern [woz] – “Erstmals zeigt eine Studie das Ausmass sexuellen Missbrauchs in der katholischen Kirche der Schweiz. Tausend Fälle sind dokumentiert – darunter jener von Vreni Peterer.” Seriously fuck the church. 2023 and we still have religion based on fairy tales?

Tödliche Intelligenz – Science Fiction und K.I. [54books] – “Aber diese Art von Science Fiction, die jahrzehntelang das entsprechende Milieu der amerikanischen Popkultur prägte, ist heute ein völliges Randphänomen geworden, und das wird sich vermutlich auch nicht mehr ändern. Der Blick zurück kann sich jedoch zumindest punktuell durchaus lohnen. Speziell in diesem Fall könnte er zudem dabei helfen, unsere Wahrnehmung dafür zu schärfen, wie sehr die aktuell auf künstliche Intelligenz projizierten Befürchtungen durch popkulturelle Konventionen konditioniert sind, die bei Saberhagen als demjenigen, der den Topos populär machte, noch gar nicht etabliert sein konnten.” SciFi shows what AI could have been.


[Older articles, still great]

Climate Protesters Shut Down BURNING MAN, Rangers Ram Through Blockade – This video says everything you need to know about burners.

The Aging Anarchist’s Cookbook [thenewyorker] – “How to broadcast your fragile punk-rock identity by making your toddler wear a Black Flag T-shirt. How to prominently display your old skateboard deck without ever, ever trying to skate again. How to become one of those vegan punks who channel all of their aggressive energy into self-improvement and get really into hot yoga.” Busted.


R.I.P.

Too many in Libya, Ukraine and in other wars, plus too many still from COVID.


[If you care to receive more regular updates, please follow my diigo (feed: rss) for all of my saved links or mastodon for an edited choice of them]


Header Photo: Laptop almost closed

This! October 2023

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[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]

[Disclaimer/Content Warning: The Gaza-Israel war has been my main preoccupation this month, and it still is, as i am sure for many of you as well. And as such it will be strongly featured in this link list. I will link to material, that some might deem controversial, as long as it (in my humble opinion) contains nuance and/or a perspective that helps us think through this scary clusterfuck of a situation. We need to keep an open mind, we need context, we need patience, we need to read diverse viewpoints and not jump to conclusions.

Of course the terrorist attacks by Hamas, their killing of way too many innocent civilians, needs to be condemned in the strongest of terms. But this did not “come out of nothing” as too many now claim, it does need to be looked at in its historical context. The reaction by the Israeli government and military after the Hamas attacks has started to look like an ethnic cleansing, or even a genocide. Some scholars already call it a textbook case of genocide, but it might be early to say so with conclusive certainty. Nevertheless it is important to take a clear stance against any form of ethnic cleansing or genocide, to condemn all war crimes, all forms of collective punishments.

We also need to remember that we find ourselves in a heavily propagandist environment (see: manufacturing consent video bellow or these guidelines on what “facts” to spread). All of the major players in this conflict can’t be trusted to be 100% reliable sources, Hamas (right wing, reactionary, terrorist), the current Israeli government (right wing, supremacist, settler-colonialist), the so-called US (are you kidding me?).

Early on in the conflict i wrote on Mastodon:

With these terrorist attacks, it sure sounds like Hamas is aiming for “The Extinction of the Grayzone”, a strategy we know from Daesh. Its goal is to push moderate people to pick a side. The Israeli government plays right into their hands with the siege, cutting of the water, electricity etc. for 2 Mio people, bombing mosques and calling the Palestinians savages*.

This article describes the strategy as used by Daesh/”ISIS”.

In Defense of the Grayzone

*small correction: “Savages” is how the Swiss news station RTS at first translated the statement by Gallant, since then translated as “we are fighting human animals”. Other than that, yes, i still think it is important, to stand “In defense of the Grayzone” as that article in roarmag (while talking about Daesh) explains. To stand in full solidarity with the civilian victims, there are way way way way way too many of them. To grieve for every single one of them. To condemn all war crimes. To take a stance against nationalism, state power, the international war machine. Now more than ever. To fight against all forms of antisemitism as well as all forms of hatred against Muslims (what is a better word for islamophobia, without the ableist phobia?).

This war must stop now. (Also the one in Ukraine and all the other wars as well!) Ceasefire now!

Just imagine, if we really are witnessing a genocide, and it sure looks like we do, but you supported the side that committed it.
Just imagine, this leads to a surge in antisemitic or anti-muslim hatred, and it sure looks like it does, but you participated in fueling the flames.]

an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows a scary looking farm machine in a forest
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows a balcony with tomato and other plants with crayon on the floor
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows a gas station with a very colorful morning sky


[Videos]

What You Are Missing in Life

The wolf pups of the Bug Creek Pack


[Music]

help fight fish farming in iceland

HONK | cyriak


[Podcasts]

Elon Musk Unmasked: Origins of an Oligarch (Part 1) [tech won’t save us] – “Elon Musk wasn’t always the influential billionaire he is today. To begin our dive into the myth of Musk, we need to go back to his origins — to find out where he came from, what inspired him, and how he became the man he is today. Those details set the foundation for the three episodes to come.” Four part series on Musk by Paris Marx, “the left’s best Muskologist”, much better than that PBS documentary.

175: Diagonalism (w/William Callison and Quinn Slobodian) [conspirituality] – “Quinn Slobodian teaches Modern German History at Wellesley and William Callison teaches Political Theory and Human Geography at Uppsala. We first came across their work via Naomi Klein’s examination of the clusterf&cked politics that dominate the movements we cover. We dug out their paper, and they had us at this: “At the extreme end, diagonal movements share a conviction that all power is conspiracy.”” In reference to this paper:

Coronapolitics from the Reichstag to the Capitol [boston review] – “Defying conventional political labels and capitalizing on widespread distrust, a range of new movements share the conviction that all power is conspiracy.” The paper from January 2021 was mentioned in Doppelgänger, the new book by Naomi Klein.

Decolonial Disability Politics and the Left [death panel podcast] – “In this session, “Decolonial Disability Politics and the Left” Death Panel podcast co-hosts, Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Jules Gill-Peterson, are joined by theorist, Jasbir Puar, and Shira Hassan, who has spent decades building, documenting and participating in systems of change and support outside of the societal frameworks of oppression and exploitation. This session explores the links between disability, debility, and empire: how neoliberal framings of disability structurally exclude people disabled by ongoing colonialism and global/national/local schemes of extraction, and how to expand our conceptions of debility, disability, and capacity to include populations that don’t fit within tidy frameworks of pride and respectability.” The recording apparently had sound issues, so this actually is a transcript of the podcast.


[Toot Threads]

Eldan Goldenberg: “Israel & Palestine (long)” [mastodon] – “But not only am I a Jew, I am very publicly one. So I keep being invoked to defend and to attack. Israel claims to act in my name, under a flag that should be the symbol of my people, not one state. Zionist groups in the US & Canada claim to speak for all Jews, and smear dissenters like me as self-haters. Goyische allies shut down criticism of Zionism intending to keep me safe. And at the same time, actual antisemites frequently hijack pro-Palestinian activism.” Somehow i can’t embed this one.


[Pandemic Roundup]

Pandemic Roundup: October 26, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: October 19, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: October 12, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: October 5, 2023

Thanks Violet Blue for the continued top quality roundups. If you can, please consider supporting them.


[The Must Read[s] This Month]

An Open Letter to our Anarchist, Socialist and Radical Leftist Comrades [rant.li] – “Together, we can create a world that includes everyone. If you still want to, that is. And you should want to, because being abled-bodied and healthy is a temporary state – it might quite possibly not last forever. Most people experience disability or illness at some point in their lives. Or at the very least, they will have loved ones with this experience.” COVID is not over, the radical left should lead the charge of still hosting inclusive events with protective measures. This open letter tells you why and how.

How junk science set a country’s health and welfare policy | Nate Bear [substack] – “As the nature of long covid continues to be contested, and as its burden grows, stories like this are crucial to remind us that health is never apolitical. Medical professionals are not always, perhaps not even mostly, neutral arbiters of the scientific truth. They have deep and often unwavering social and political ideologies that help determine how they treat (or don’t treat) people. And these ideologies can harm huge numbers of people. The large-scale, coordinated minimisation of covid should remind us of this.” For a much deeper analysis on this issue, i can’t recommend it highly enough to please read the book Inflamed by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel.

I Have Discovered That Giving Up on the World Can Set You Free [substack] – “I felt like a prison guard forcing children to sit still and learn shit they’ll never need just so their parents can both work full-time. They never see their child anyway; what is the fucking sense of having one? Please don’t tell me about the purpose of schools and all your noble bullshit. I have spent years in the system, I have seen the purpose they serve. Conditioning. Servitude. Obey, obey, obey, or else.” The entire rant is great, this part specifically resonated with me. I suffered so much in school as a pupil, and here, finally, a teacher admits what it means.

The year poverty began to end | Nate Bear [substack] – “Only when we realise what could have been can we see that a return to normal was contingent on erasing covid from the collective consciousness. Normal being poverty, hunger, homelessness. The necessity for a permanent and visible underclass to keep the working and middle classes on their toes. For the machine to keep running, we had to forget that poverty is a policy choice. We needed those visible examples of who we could be should bad luck strike, or if we stop grifting for the man. Homelessness and poverty is capitalism’s live stream, broadcast everywhere to ensure you can never fully escape the sense of precarity about what might be.” That is why i simply can’t reconcile with the fact that even the fucking radical left participated in the normalization process, even lead the way in some cases.

Covid deaths are on the rise again, so what happens? Mask-wearing in hospitals is scrapped | George Monbiot [the guardian] – “For some people, going to hospital may now be more dangerous than staying at home untreated. Many clinically vulnerable people fear, sometimes with good reason, that a visit to hospital or the doctors’ surgery could be the end of them. Of course, there have always been dangers where sick people gather. But, until now, health services have sought to minimise them. Astonishingly, this is often no longer the case.” Pretty good article, but why did Monbiot not include this (he knew about it):

Let Them Eat Old Vaccines [okdoomer.io] – “The UK government gave more than 2.3 million vulnerable and older people a Covid vaccine that isn’t matched to the currently dominant Covid strains. It wasn’t a mistake. They did it to save money.” What a scandal. And no one gives a shit. Not even Monbiot.


CW: [Gaza/Israel]

Why I’m Finally Leaving X and Probably All Social Media | Rushkoff [substack] – “Where’s the real information? The question of Egypt not being willing to open the gate for Palestinians at the southern border because they’re fighting their own insurgency, the fact that a majority of Israeli Jews are people of color, the pogroms committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, the cynical reasons why Netanyahu helped Hamas rise to power? There’s no room for these “three body problems” on a platform like X, which is handicapping real discussion in favor of terror and bullying. Musk models the behavior he’s encouraging: be the troll.” Douglas Rushkoff on why social media is not a good idea to get your information from in times like these. Well actually, and increasingly so, always. Thanks to Melon Husk et al. Here’s the podcast version of the monologue.

Interview with an Israeli anarchist [161 crew] – “Situation in Gaza Strip is getting more catastrophic every day. In our attempt to better understand the situation in the region , we made an interview with an Israeli anarchist. We talk about the modern anarchist movement, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, resistance against it and prospects for the future.” An opportunity to read the view of an Israeli anarchist on the entire situation.

How To Talk About Gaza (w/ Naomi Klein & Omar Baddar) [levernews] – “I heard from multiple congresspeople today that “ceasefire” is now seen as toxic. It’s seen as not “standing with Israel.” And I saw a lot of signs in the hallways, “Stand with Israel,” which is code for blank check. It’s the same thing that the U.S. did after 9/11. Are you with us or with the terrorists? It’s a straight-up loyalty test. It’s outrageous, because these U.S. congresspeople should not be standing with Israel, if that means that there are no strings attached to any of the weapons, any of the aid. They should be standing with international law.”

Have We Learned Nothing? | David Klion [n+1] – “There’s a pervasive censoriousness right now—conservatives denouncing liberals, liberals denouncing leftists, leftists denouncing other leftists—that’s immediately familiar from the days and weeks after 9/11. Somehow, the upshot of all the denunciations and condemnations is the right’s unchallenged hold over the discourse, and, more importantly, the ultimate facts on the ground.” Not fully convinced that the comparison with 9/11 is apt, but when looking at its outcome, it sure looks familiar.

Even Before the Israel-Hamas War, Being Palestinian Was Controversial [nyt] – “I don’t hesitate for a second to condemn the killing of any child, any massacre of civilians — this of course includes Jewish life. It is the easiest ask in the world. And it is not in spite of that but because of that I say: Condemn the brutalization of bodies. By all means, do. Condemn murder. Condemn violence, imprisonment, all forms of oppression. But if your shock and distress comes only at the sight of certain brutalized bodies? If you speak out but not when Palestinian bodies are besieged and murdered, abducted and imprisoned? Then it is worth asking yourself which brutalization is acceptable to you, even quietly, even subconsciously, and which is not.” Key point. All deaths of civilians are unacceptable.

Tectonic Shifts [thebaffler] – “Generally, most people on the left in the United States will treat the law with scrutiny: it’s the product of politics and of the powerful, and not an ethical framework. That’s all still true when it comes to the laws of nations and the laws of war, but we don’t have another mode of discourse. For the oppressed people of the world, those condemned by history, this is a real challenge. On October 9, I asked on X, “What is the ethical way to climb out of hell?” This wasn’t a rhetorical question. I really don’t know.” This is the article i hesitated longest to include here, some of points do seem controversial. But, big picture, they argue in a congruent way, i think.

Judith Butler · The Compass of Mourning [lbr] – “It should not be the case that ‘contextualisation’ is considered a morally problematic activity, even though there are forms of contextualisation that can be used to shift the blame or to exonerate. Can we distinguish between those two forms of contextualisation? Just because some think that contextualising hideous violence deflects from or, worse, rationalises the violence, that doesn’t mean we should capitulate to the claim that all forms of contextualisation are morally relativising in that way.” This article got criticized heavily. And i think unfairly. Because when decided to read it, i was surprised, in a positive way, on how careful and precise Butler argued. They are handling their reach and influence responsibly.

Practicing New Worlds in a Time of Collapse [truthout] – “The idea that, in the face of extreme grief and loss, or in moments when we feel horribly wronged, we should be spared any interrogation of the violence being done in our names, or with our tax dollars, is extraordinarily dangerous. We are living through an era of climate chaos. As the suffering the U.S. imposes militarily, and through the violence of capitalism continues to compound, crisis is outpacing our collective empathy. With regard to COVID, many people seem to feel they’ve been through enough, and should not have to worry about precautions to protect themselves, their communities, or the most vulnerable among us. We have also seen the steady normalization of the mass deaths of migrants who are often being left to die, whether in the Mediterranean or Sonoran Desert — and how the technology and ideology that supports such actions is exported by right-wing authoritarian countries like Israel. With regard to Gaza, many people have taken the stance that because Hamas committed extreme acts of violence, no one else can be blamed for any atrocities that are committed in response — as though one tragedy lets us all off the hook, and genocide is no longer unthinkable, but instead, a political inevitability that cannot be helped.” In the podcast they speak about many other topics, this excerpt to me offers the big picture view.

Doomsday Diaries | Sarah Aziza [baffler] – ““But what about Hamas?” I grew up with this question whipped at my face every time I declared my people’s right to survive. “What about Hamas?” It didn’t matter if I’d just asked for clean water or the right to return to our stolen land. “What about Hamas?” they’d ask, holding my humanity hostage. Their smug smiles at this question, which they saw as a rhetorical coup. I gave them hours, pages of my words. I filled rooms with my hot breath, panting, “We are not terrorists—Hamas is a symptom of oppression—yes of course I condemn extremism—this is a struggle for human rights—Israel propped up Hamas for years—please look at our children—please, don’t you see our helpless elders?—please, if you don’t respect us as humans, could you spare some pity?”” To read these diaries affected made me cry.

When Jewish Anti-Zionists Are Compared to White Supremacists | Kelly Hayes [substack] – “We should stand united in the fight against antisemitism and Islamophobia going forward, both hold us back from liberation and this is exactly the kind of division the Israeli state uses to drive their war machine. It’s important to remain clear that Israel’s actions are not in the name of, or in collaboration with, all diaspora Jews and to place the struggle for liberation in Palestine within the global justice movement that likewise sees liberation for all people, including Jews.” The interview with Shane Burley offers precise distinctions.

Israel und Palästina: Erkennen, was uns alle verbindet [woz] – “Für eine Linke mit menschlichem Gesicht sollte die Forderung klar sein: eine deutliche Positionierung gegen Antisemitismus genauso wie gegen Islamfeindlichkeit.* Solidarität mit den Opfern beider Seiten. Doch was ist eine solche Forderung wert, wenn sie in der Umsetzung unmöglich zu sein scheint?” That is the question. In this world, in this situation, bullying us pick a side, nuance is what is needed, not optional.

Israel is Committing Genocide – “arguments to go around” Peter Gelderloos made his mind up early on the genocide question. It’s still an interesting read, that offers a lot of historical context and an anti-statist view on the conflict.

“This is not simply between Israel and Hamas. It’s much bigger than that.” | Paris Marx [substack] – “An interview with Antony Loewenstein on the Hamas attack, the brutal Israeli response, and the wider context of the conflict.” Loewenstein being the author of the highly recommended book The Palestine Laboratory.

Israel, Palestine and the Contradictions of Nationalism [igd] – “One can, and I think must, be able to support a struggle against colonization while being critical of (or just outright against) specific forces and actors within that struggle whose aims or methods are reactionary. Hamas are a reactionary force, even when they are fighting for a cause that is very worthy of support. Their own violence towards their fellow Palestinians, their aims as fundamentalists, and their tactics including the targeting of civilians are all enough to put them outside of the circle of forces worth supporting. None of which is to excuse at ALL the Israeli state, which in this war is going to wreak horrific suffering and death on the people of Gaza far above and beyond the gut-wrenching suffering inflicted on Israeli civilians in the last several days.” Keep casting a critical look at all the actors.

How Does This End? [current affairs] – “The responsibility of the international community is clear: we have to push for a final negotiated end to the conflict, through the end of Israel’s apartheid and the granting of full rights of self-determination to Palestine. Ultimately, as Chomsky and Cassif point out, the subjugation of Palestine is not in the interests of ordinary Israelis, who themselves deserve to live in peace. It guarantees Israel’s perpetual insecurity. So long as there are Palestinians, there will be resistance, some of which will be violent, and it will become more violent when other avenues for expressing dissent are closed off. To predict what will happen is in no way to justify it, and while we can and should condemn Hamas’ counterproductive and hideous atrocities, we need to understand why they occurred and how to prevent more from happening in the future.” Exactly that.

An Anarchist from Jaffa on the Violence in Palestine and Israeli Repression [crimethinc] – “The context of struggle here is between a nuclear military superpower and a dispossessed people. Colonialism does not relent. Colonialism will not step back of its own accord, not even if you ask nicely. Decolonialism is a noble cause, but the path to achieve it is often ugly and tainted by violence. In the absence of any realistic alternative to achieve liberation, people are forced into carrying out unjustifiable acts. It’s a fundamental reality of the disparity of power. To demand that the oppressed always act in the purest of ways is to demand they remain forever in servitude.” The interview was recorded before or even during the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7. It shows the perspective from a longer timeframe on how Israeli anarchists might view the situation.


[Articles English]

New Interview about Abolition and Infrastructure in Radical History Review [deanspade.net] – “Freshly published: Rachel Herzing, Bench Ansfield and I had a conversation about abolitionist questions of infrastructure, focusing on what transformative justice means, how abolitionists debate questions of state formation, and much more.”

The Best We Can Do? The Rise of Bullshit Research [okdoomer.io] – “They cite “studies” that suggest people with depression and chronic illness are just lazy. They make declarations about public health and call up one hack doctor willing to lie for 15 minutes of fame. Let’s call this bullshit research, the sibling of those bullshit jobs made famous by David Graeber. We are being fed trivia and bullshit about delighting listeners and smiling while the ecological foundations of our world are being destroyed. What happened to the great sense of inquiry that I’ve read used to exist in the world?” Nate Bear now crossposts his stuff to okdoomer.io. Saves you a visit to that horrible site called substack.

Brian Eno: why I sculpt sound [ft] – “The painter Philip Guston once said: “I paint what I want to see”. In my case, I compose the music I want to hear. I find myself discovering certain new feelings and trying to find out how I got to them, what in the music made them happen. I sometimes hear someone else’s music and imagine how I would improve it, or what I would leave out to make it better. Sometimes I hear something I dislike so much that I start imagining its exact opposite.” Eno seems to do the check-your-privilege-thing.

New research offers clues to what causes long COVID — fuelling hope for eventual treatments [cbc] News – “It’s still “early days” when it comes to answering that question, Schaffner added, because the latest published studies are fairly small and narrow in scope, based on researchers’ areas of expertise. “These various studies seem to complement each other,” he added, “even though they’re not exactly duplicative.” Schaffner and others are hopeful, however, that these kinds of emerging findings could eventually lead to a diagnostic test for long COVID, or to potential treatments.” Early days. And my fear as always, will this confirm all forms of LongCOVID or will it serve to triage the “real” cases from the “fake” ones, in order to save the state more money.

Toxic workplaces are the main reason women leave academic jobs [nature] – “Women feel driven out by problems with workplace culture more often than by lack of work–life balance.” This is confirmation what most women already knew.

Indigenous Groups Rally Against Lithium Extraction in Argentina [hyperallergic] – “Murals, flags, performance, and other artistic expressions define the ongoing struggle to protect lands threatened by rampant extraction of the so-called “white gold.”” Full solidarity.

Australians Vote Down Referendum to Recognize Indigenous Groups in Constitution [truthout] – “Aboriginal groups mourned the proposal, which would have created an advisory body to advocate for them in government.” So fucking awful to not even agree on such a minimal thing.

“That’s Never Going to Work.” How Futility Bias Keeps Us from Even Trying. [okdoomer.io] – “Futility bias tends to serve the status quo. It serves the affluent and the elite. It comes from a position of power and privilege. When someone leans on futility bias as a reason, they’re saying they’re too lazy or immature to do the right thing. They want everything to stay the same, no matter who’s getting hurt. It suits them. They’re saying they don’t care, and they’re counting on the idea that nobody else does.” For the next time someone tells you “it’s never gonna work”.

Fruit, wildflowers, insects: the people transforming disused land in England [the guardian] – “From community allotments to wildlife havens, guerilla gardeners are taking it upon themselves to create meaningful spaces” Guerilla gardening.

September 2023 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “The September global surface temperature was 1.44°C (2.59°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.0°C (59.0°F), making it the warmest September on record. September 2023 marked the 49th-consecutive September and the 535th-consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average. September 2023 was 0.46°C (0.83°F) above the previous record from September 2020, and marks the largest positive monthly global temperature anomaly of any month on record. The September 2023 global temperature anomaly surpassed the previous record-high monthly anomaly from March 2016 by 0.09°C (0.16°F). The past ten Septembers (2014–2023) have been the warmest Septembers on record.” This is normal.

The Coronavirus Still Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings [the nation] – “The Covid-19 pandemic is not a state of mind—and telling us not to panic isn’t healthcare.” Yet, the Coronavirus can affect your feelings, Long COVID often leads to depression and other mental health outcomes.

The Long Covid Reader: The Book About Covid Long Haulers by Mary Ladd – “An anthology amplifying the voices of 45 Long Haulers, sharing raw, powerful stories that shed light on the impact of Long Covid” A crowdfunded book written by people affected with Long COVID.

Covid Silence and How The Media Works [okdoomer.io] – “Covid doesn’t have a PR agency, and most studies are coming out of niche research labs or universities that have very limited or non-existent PR teams/agency support. And even when it’s coming out of a big university, the media teams at these unis are spread thin and often don’t see the humdrum science research as something to prioritise when it comes to media. It doesn’t raise money, it’s not that sexy etc.” Interesting thought, what of COVID had a lobby instead of the fucking pharma industry?

Plutocrats Forever | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “Empathy alone was never enough to get me through. Rage followed closely on its heels, because of how clearly it felt like we should be fighting back against those things, that maybe we don’t truly understand them, as empathy demands, if we can accept them with equanimity. Honestly, we should feel rage that we live in a world where those things are allowed to occur, again and again and again. And that the people most responsible for them get rewarded, and the people who look away, who pretend to be asleep, usually have the easiest time getting by in the aftermath.” Didn’t know there were two plutos in Rome.

Someone Infected Neil Gaiman with COVID-19, After Venues Refused to Enforce Audience Masking [okdoomer.io] – “The passive voice has served a macabre purpose in this pandemic. The passive voice, by erasing the subject of the sentence, neatly obscures accountability, and with it our own role in unmitigated infections. Moreover, it has prevented us from identifying the layers of responsibility in enabling infections on a mass scale. This mental block is the first obstacle to advocating for effective mitigations and constructive solutions. It stops us from preventing infections. But that is changing now. It is time to own the damage that we are causing by infecting others with COVID-19. I believe that we all know, deep inside, that we are causing harm. And many of us are suffering from the cognitive dissonance of pretending that we aren’t. Because, in a pandemic, this is serious and large-scale harm.” Helpful distinction. People spreading COVID have gotten easy so far.

Linton Kwesi Johnson Is a Revolutionary Poet for Our Times [jacobin] – “In our contemporary political landscape, increasingly characterized by reactionary onslaught and progressive retreat, Johnson stands out as that rarest of figures: a people’s poet and radical of radicals. In his work and in his person he keeps alive the many currents of struggle and resistance, suffering and solidarity, history and music, that made the emancipation movements of the global black proletariat as transformative as they have been in the decades since the mid-century wave of decolonial and anti-segregationist campaigns.” <3

Elon Musk is a racist | Paris Marx [disconnect] – “From demonizing migrants to pushing “white genocide,” he’s saying the silent part out loud” Also check out the podcast by Marx linked above.

Artist Shellyne Rodriguez Agrees to Plea Deal [hyperallergic] – “Her misdemeanor charge will be withdrawn upon completion of a minimum of six months of behavioral therapy and compliance with good behavior.” I so feel with this artist.

The 15-Minute City Conspiracy Theory Goes Mainstream [wired] – “The conspiracy has taken hold among right-wing audiences in the United States on social media, with psychologist turned right-wing conspiracy theorist Jordan Peterson boosting it in a tweet late last year that has been viewed almost 8 million times.” Oh fuck you, JP.

The Collapse Will Not Be Televised | Jessica Wildfire [okdoomer.io] – “The spectacles will be the last thing to go. As society collapses, the rich will work overtime to supply everyone with a constant stream of distraction and entertainment. They’ll encourage everyone to keep eating out, shopping, and watching movies no matter what virus is spreading. A growing number of people will be too braindead and emotionally numb to resist. The concerts aren’t going to stop. The football games aren’t going to stop. The movies aren’t going to stop. The elite will keep all of that going as long as possible, no matter the cost. That’s what convinces everyone that everything’s okay. If that ended, people would have to stop and pay attention to what’s happening. They would actually feel how hot it is. They would feel the despair. They might do something.” Football, festivals, clubbing are what keeps us docile.

Fascism in America: a long history that predates Trump [the guardian] – “We don’t sufficiently teach civics or democratic awareness [in high schools], how fascism and far-right extremist movements have a long history in the US,” Rosenfeld said. “We think we’re an exception, that America fought ‘the good war’ to defeat fascism and Nazism. We patted ourselves on the back for many decades as ‘the greatest generation’ – a useful myth for American public life that blinded us to darker undercurrents in our society.” Might be a book to read.


[Articles German/French]

Lasst Twitter brennen

Abschreckungspolitik in der Postkartenidylle [daslamm] – “Nachdem Bayram Hasgül im Gurn­igelbad an einem Herz­in­farkt starb, steht die Asyl­un­ter­kunft im ehema­ligen Berner Kurhotel in der Kritik. Der Todes­fall sei nur die Spitze des Eisbergs, sind sich Bewoh­nende und Aktivist*innen einig.” It is so goddamn awful how we treat refugees in this country.

Silvia Federici: «Die Nacht zu einem gefährlichen Ort zu machen, war im Interesse der Mächtigen» [woz] – “Sie zeigt, dass Hexenverfolgung und Entstehung des Kapitalismus eng zusammenhingen – und propagiert Gemeingüter als feministische Verteidigungsstrategie: Eine Begegnung mit Silvia Federici in Glarus, wo 1782 Europas letzte «Hexe» hingerichtet wurde.” This sadly is a remarkably uncritical interview, please also read the two older critiques of her work:

Caliban and the Witch: A critical analysis [1919]
“Critical analysis of Sylvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch demonstrates her lack of seriousness in dealing with an important issue: why was the last phase (from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century) of the multi-secular transition from feudalism to capitalism accompanied in Western Europe by a deterioration of the situation of women, from the top to the bottom of the social ladder?”

Beyond the Periphery of the Skin – Silvia Federici [full stop]
“Silvia Federici’s Beyond the Periphery of the Skin: Rethinking, Remaking, and Reclaiming the Body in Contemporary Capitalism is a baffling work that slides from the academically indefensible to the ethically dubious with remarkable facility.”

Überwachung: Die Predator Files [woz] – “Eine Welt ohne Skrupel: Wie die Intellexa-Allianz um den israelischen Exgeheimdienstler Tal Dilian Überwachungstrojaner an Despoten verkauft – und die Schweiz als sicheren Hafen zur Verschleierung ihrer Geschäfte nutzt. Die grosse internationale Recherche.” A research into not much new stuff.


[Older articles, still great]

The Weaponisation of Labour Antisemitism | David Graeber – Graeber of course says nothing about the current war in Israel, but his reflections still can be quite helpful now.

Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky and the Media (Documentary)

Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill, and How This Helps America’s Illegitimate Authorities Stay in Charge [brucelevine.net] – “Many people with severe anxiety and/or depression are also anti-authoritarians. Often a major pain of their lives that fuels their anxiety and/or depression is fear that their contempt for illegitimate authorities will cause them to be financially and socially marginalized; but they fear that compliance with such illegitimate authorities will cause them existential death.” Context!

Letter to a Young Doctor | Johanna Hedva [triple canopy] – “I want it to be that trust is the most important thing a doctor and her patient can share, because trust is what keeps people from falling apart, and it’s what puts broken ones back together, and in the cases where the brokenness is all there is, trust can offer a small encouragement that the brokenness is bearable—that it can eventually, hopefully, ideally be reframed not as “brokenness” at all, but as the different parts that are there to work with.” The letter to a young poet of disability justice.


R.I.P.

Much much much much much too many civilians in Israel and Gaza.


[If you care to receive more regular updates, please follow my diigo (feed: rss) for all of my saved links or mastodon for an edited choice of them]


Header Photo: A flock of Alpacas


Pieceocast 118 – Noise!

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Listen:

Download: pieceocast118.mp3 [0:31:28 | 59.6 MB | 220 kbps]

Title: Noise!

A postcard from our new zine, Testimonials of the Collectively Abandoned. It shows a broken vinyl record and the text reads: I believe i sound like a broken record. Listen to those who already have Long Covid
I broke a record for this?

“To me the pandemic isn’t over until our medicine people say it’s over. [Until] the immuno-compromised, the most vulnerable [say it is].”
~ Klee Benally – Indigenous Action Podcast Ep. 18

Lost my words.
Lost my trust.
Yet again.
Losing my health.
Still and in acceleration.

“It is a social death by a million cuts.”
~ Alice Wong @ Death Panel Podcast

Bitter.
Disappointed.
Lonely.

“They say
don’t take it personal
But it is fucking personal.

We have so many bullets coming at us
all we can do is keep our heads down
and pray
for a little more time
we never know
which is the bullet that finds its mark”
~ Peter Gelderloos – Twenty years ago somebody pulled the trigger

(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)

But oh.
We made that new zine.
So it’s all good, LOL.

(A)(A)(A)(A)(A)

The crochet figure of Anarchik was made by the amazing fr3nzin3, inspired by this fun book, I Will Do My Worst, The Anarchik.

Image from our new zine Testimonials of the Collectively Abandoned. It shows a table with all the medication, supplements and tools i need to try and manage my Long COVID
What does not heal me makes me poorer

So there it is, another pieceocast.
I hope you enjoy it.
If you do, please tell a friend 😉

Pieceocast . A podcast of sorts

The tracklist: (music borrowed with all due respect to the artists):

1. Intro: Madvillain – Meat Grinder. Samples from various songs and movies
2. Matmos – Music or Noise?
3. Little Roy – Lithium
4. Lovers – Boxer
5. Earth – Angels (The Bug Remix feat. Flowdan)
6. Marteria & Siriusmo – Marylin
7. Lunch Money Life – Mother (feat. Lady Lykez & Suku Ward)
8. G.G. Quartet – Go Where i send thee (DF Tram’s heavenly shuffle)
9. QOQEQA & Vitu – Aceitunas
10. Chet Faker – No Diggity
11. Four Tet – Loved
12. Siriusmo – Wow (Modeselektor Edit)
13. M-1 – Love You Can’t Borrow
14. Yaeji – For Granted
15. Patrick Carpenter – 27 Degrees of Saggitarius
16. Outro: Burial – Strange Neighborhood. Samples from movies

Samples: From the movies and series Sound of Metal, French Exit, Beatriz at Dinner, X, Davos 2017, 2012 plus Peter Gelderloos, Klee Benally. Plus an older sample on noise i had, but i forgot where it’s from.

All graphics: By the wonderful fr3nzin3.

Subscribe:
pieceocast cover
This link will pick up all my mixes and the occasional mp3’s that I link to from my blog.

Earlier (most date back to 2008 ;)):
To find an earlier pieceocast please check this list for links and information. (Ask me for the password)

Download the folder icons:
mac [.zip] and windows [.zip]

Copyleft:
All music and audio is borrowed with the utmost respect for its creators. I consider this to be fair use. The material is created purely for fun, to share with my online friends. There is no commercial transaction involved.

I release all my work, the DJ work as well as all my other coding and creating, under a creative commons license, hence i treat this material as if it was under CC license. I attribute it and i do not use it for commercial gain. Don’t try to sue me, i am broke anyway.

all rights remain with original right holders. this mix makes fair use of copyrighted material. this mix is distributed non-commercially only.

This! February 2024

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[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]

an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows a winter tree, in the background there is a mountain range in the sun
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows a gas station in a violet cloudy morning
an image or two from my Pixelfed, shows a crocheted character looking like Anarchik, the Italian anarchist cartoon


[Videos]

David Cross | Worst Daddy in the World (Full Comedy Special)

Why We Can’t Build Better Cities (ft.Not Just Bikes)

EVOLUTION of New York City 1524 – 2023 | 3D Animation

Waymo driverless car vandalized, set on fire in San Francisco’s Chinatown

Never mind the #Berner #Fasnacht. Here's the #Schnitzupönks 2024

Ticktective: Long Covid: What We Have Learned About Chronic Illness from the Front Lines


[Music]

ALICIE – Piles

Little Simz – Mood Swings (Official Audio)

Burial – Dreamfear/Boy Sent From Above


[Podcasts]

Stream Collapse w/ Dean Spade (02/22/24) Death Panel [.soundcloud.] – “Beatrice speaks with Dean Spade about how we respond to crises, from climate collapse to covid, and how the state’s primary response to these crises is to try to narrow the possibilities for political action around them.” Very interesting to observe how they try to square the circle between Spade’s anti-statist views and Adler-Bolton’s much more reformist views.

#N95s4UCSF w/ Alice Wong (02/01/24) [death panel podcast]
“Death Panel podcast host Beatrice Adler-Bolton speaks with Alice Wong about Alice’s campaign to reinstate a mask mandate at UCSF, a hospital system home to a number of physicians who have played an outsized, deleterious, role in advocating for a premature end to covid protections.” This is the transcript, since this episode was for patreon subscribers only.

Declare Long Covid A National Emergency w/ Long Covid Action Project [.soundcloud.] – “There is not a single face of Long Covid. Long Covid can be people in their prime, of working age. It can be people a little bit older. It could be people without any preexisting health conditions. It doesn’t discriminate in terms of who it strikes, and I think Congress needs to know that. It’s not the sick and the weak. It’s not middle-aged women only. It’s everybody. Until they pay attention to that, they will not be able to get a handle on the problem.” It sounded like it was to be the start of a series. But since then there were no episodes on LongCOVID.

191: Extremely Online (w/Taylor Lorenz) [conspirituality] – “Taylor has been covering internet culture since starting in social media for the Daily Mail in 2011, which led to positions as a technology reporter for Business Insider, the Daily Beast, and the NY Times. In her insightful book, she details the history of internet culture, and she joins us today to discuss reporting in an age of conspiracy theories and online trolling, the challenges of covering long Covid in an age of overwhelming health misinformation, and what it’s like to be extremely online.” I do have a lot of questions about the recent interview Lorzen did of LibsofTikTok, but this is an interesting conversation.

Masturbation abstinence is popular, and doctors are worried [npr] – “Spokespeople of online forums like NoFap, for example, have been very concerned with distancing themselves from anything having to do with extremism,” says Burke. “Alt-right, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, antisemitic — they are very clear to say we are not that. But they’re not willing to recognize what I think is just an empirical reality, which is that some people who buy into porn addiction rhetoric also buy into these more extremist beliefs.” Anti-masturbation as a recruitment tool for the far right, who would have thunk.

The German Question w/ Emily Dische-Becker [the dig] – “Featuring Emily Dische-Becker on how Germany became attached to a wildly narcissistic anti-antisemitism and Israeli proxy nationalism that have made it one of the most anti-Palestinian governments on earth.” This is a nice summary of the rampant anti-anti-semitism in Germany. I can’t believe what is happening in Germany. And it scares the shit out of me.


[Toot Threads]


[Pandemic Roundup]

Pandemic Roundup: February 29, 2024
Pandemic Roundup: February 22, 2024
Pandemic Roundup: February 15, 2024
Pandemic Roundup: February 8, 2024
Pandemic Roundup: February 1, 2024


[The Must Read[s] This Month]

In the Shadow of Silicon Valley: Losing San Francisco | Rebecca Solnit [lrb] – “‘the great withdrawal’. People on the street often seem to have their eyes elsewhere, usually on their phones: they might video a crime, but they might also not notice it’s happening. Many seem to flinch at direct contact with strangers or pretend the apparent intrusion didn’t happen, so I’ve come to avoid the tiny interactions that seem much more welcome in New Orleans, even in New York City.” When i lived there i loved the city so very much. Since then tech assholes seem to have broken it for good.

A Killer Disease Is Rampant In Hospitals Around The World | Nate Bear [substack] – “Hospitals should be places of treatment, safety and comfort, especially for the most vulnerable in society. They should not be places of danger.
When the places in society that should be most safe from infectious disease become the least safe, this is a sign that something is going badly wrong. Yet where are the headlines? Where is the outrage? Where is the professional reaction? Where is the political reaction? It’s a huge scandal. Off-the-scale medical malpractice and negligence. With masks and air filtration these are entirely preventable deaths.” For months already i don’t dare to go to my medical doctor despite having several medical problems i would need to show.

Notes on Love [crimethInc]
“We live on a paradise of a planet that we have wrecked beyond all reason because we saw ourselves as somehow separate from the rest of the natural world. I want to escape the shackles of civilization and accept my place as part of nature. To love is to be human. Our longing for it is primal. Human beings are animals, and we are social animals. We are evolved to need each other, live communally, and care for each other. The desire to love and be loved is in our bones.” I loved this. No really. Despite the fact that it was released on Valentine’s Day. Love as revolutionary practice. It’s what we do, since 31 years, i love you, my love, and it’s because “my” is wrong in that sentence.

Illusions of Safety | Mariame Kaba [thebaffler]
“Safety is a rhetorical weapon wielded to make people feel less safe. We are in an endless cycle of fear, which generates an authoritarian reaction, generating more fear and more authoritarian reaction. How do we break free?” Yes, how do we break free?


[Articles English]

CW: Aaron Bushnell self-immolation

“This Is What Our Ruling Class Has Decided Will Be Normal” [crimethinc] – “On Aaron Bushnell’s Action in Solidarity with Gaza” Crimethinc almost playing it down too much.

In His Right Mind [current affairs] – “Letting the world move you is dangerous when your world is built like Omelas, perched on top of intentional suffering. Compassion for the world, for nature, for others, and for yourself means that you disturb the balance. Your weighty self shifts things as you step in to help others, making it easier for people to see behind the curtain. Once you learn about the suffering at the core of the world—and I mean really learn, have it lodged in your soul so deeply that every time your heart beats it hurts—you have only one choice to make: abandon the system and the cruelty that makes your world run, or choose it.” This piece moved me the most.

In the Land of Burning Children | Margaret Killjoy [substack] – “I can’t say I think others should follow Aaron’s example. I doubt he wanted anyone to. An act like this needs attention, not imitation. What we can follow is the moral courage. What we need to decide for ourselves is how to act, not whether or not to act. I don’t have any answers for me, and I don’t have any answers for you.” Historical context.

//end CW

Artists Mourn Death of Flaco, the Owl Who Inspired Millions – “A large oak in Central Park bears drawings, photographs, letters, and other odes to the beloved bird.” I <3 Flaco!

The German State Claps Only for Israelis – “Berlin’s film festival ended with an award for a movie on the West Bank and an Instagram hack damning Israel’s war. German cultural figures rushed to distance themselves from pro-Palestinian statements, in a craven display of conformism to state power.” I can’t believe what is happening in Germany. And it scares the shit out of me. Because this begets that:

Israeli director receives death threats after officials call Berlin film festival ‘antisemitic’ – “To stand on German soil as the son of Holocaust survivors and call for a ceasefire – and to then be labelled as antisemitic is not only outrageous, it is also literally putting Jewish lives in danger,” Abraham told the Guardian. “I don’t know what Germany is trying to do with us,” he added. “If this is Germany’s way of dealing with its guilt over the Holocaust, they are emptying it of all meaning.”

“style as a form of refusal.” | Raechel Anne Jolie [substack] – “But how we dress is just one tool we have to subvert. And this is always the bottom line for me: even in the realm of culture, I want to know where the teeth are, what are the stakes? I want to believe that our personal taste is deeper than algorithmic pressure because I know the algorithm will never pressure us towards real liberation.” Do it. But see right through it.

Santa Monica Film Festival full of red-pilled conspiracy theories [boingboing] – “The 18th annual Santa Monica Film Festival, which held in-person screenings on Saturday, February 3 and which is running online screenings through February 28, chose to feature and then give awards to some dangerous right-wing conspiracy theories masquerading as “documentary” films.” You can also simply listen to the conspirituality podcast linked to at the bottom.

It All Ends in a Boring Dystopia | Antonio Melonio [substack] – “The idea of ‘boring dystopia’ gained recognition through the brilliant work of the late Mark Fisher, a cultural theorist and philosopher with a keen eye for the ways our capitalist structures breed disillusionment, alienation, and apathy. Boring dystopia is a departure from the flashy, explosive end-of-the-world scenarios we were fed by Big Hollywood. No, ours is an apocalypse of slow, creeping malaise — bureaucratic, stagnant, grey, and deeply unsatisfying. (There’s not even a Goddamn climax.) It’s a deep, comprehensive intuition of how the world is broken beyond repair, but that nothing will ever truly change; a perpetual limbo where grand visions of both anarcho-communist utopia and fiery apocalypse have faded, leaving a vast, empty middle ground.” When i was a young punk rocker i had a big tag on my leather jacket that read “BORING”.

When is journalism hacking? [verge] – “Journalist Tim Burke is facing charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. After all this time, is the federal anti-hacking statute still broken?” Sure, but stop with the SEO headlines, please.

Our Mourning for Nex Benedict Calls Us to Action Against Transphobia and Fascism [truthout] – “Nex was a gender-expansive 16-year-old whose mother was a member of the Choctaw Nation. Nex died on February 8, after enduring a beating in their high school bathroom on February 7. Nex’s grandmother and adoptive parent Sue Benedict said of their identity, “Nex did not see themselves as male or female. Nex saw themselves right down the middle. I was still learning about it, Nex was teaching me that.”” This is the result of the anti-trans discourse. Or see the next article:

Libs of TikTok targeted a district, then a non-binary student was killed on campus [daily kos] – “Violent attacks on transgender and non-binary youth have been increasing across the nation as a legislative blitzkrieg from Republican lawmakers targets their collective rights to exist. According to a report from UCLA’s William Institute School of Law: 33% of transgender and non-binary youth in the United States have had gender-affirming healthcare key to their existence banned by their local governments.”

Solving the puzzle of Long Covid [science] – “Tied with the antiscience, antivaccine movement, a tide of Long Covid denialism is rising. This movement sows doubt about the scale and urgency of Long Covid, conflates Long Covid with vaccine adverse events, and seeks to hamper progress on addressing the care needs of people suffering from this condition. COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, but like any pharmaceutical agent, they are not free of adverse events.” Topol always manages to slide some weird half-truths in, but hey.

Punk Custodians [thebaffler] – “This is a time when there were a lot of expectations in a country like Switzerland about how you are supposed to move through the world. In this Switzerland scene specifically, most punk shows happened in the basement of a gay bar. So there’s this intersection of queer culture, punk culture, these things that were definitely existing on the fringes in a way that we don’t necessarily understand as people who grew up in a world where these things have been way, way normalized for us by earlier generations.” Back in the day i thought Kleenex were fashion punks, but now i need to admit, that they did made great music.

Long COVID patients need scientific ambition, not defeatism [gavi] – “The emergence of Long COVID is an opportunity to right the wrongs of this history, to properly fund biomedical research into infection-associated chronic illnesses for the very first time. This research has significance well beyond Long COVID. Viruses are implicated in the development of some of humanity’s most feared neurodegenerative diseases.” And fucking now!

Dear white people. Candice Breitz – “When I draw on Hannah Arendt7 and Audre Lorde to suggest that our silence will not protect us in the current geopolitical climate, I do so not because I wish to make a literal call to everybody who is gathered here today8—or to everybody within cultural community—to raise their voices. Nor do I do so in judgement of those who feel they cannot raise their voices. For there are many among us—people who are not protected by whiteness and a number of other social and political privileges and advantages; people who are economically, politically or emotionally precarious; people who do not carry the advantages and protections of citizenship—for whom the price of speaking up would simply be too high. My call goes out, instead, to those among us in the cultural community who are at the least risk; those among us who are best equipped to survive the stigmatisation and other repercussions that may well follow when we speak out, the increasingly inevitable consequences of choosing to break the weight of the silence that is choking us collectively.” This was the speech by Candice Breitz for Tania Bruguera’s performance, ‘Where Your Ideas Become
Civic Actions (100 Hours Reading The Origins of Totalitarianism),’ at the Hamburger Bahnhof. For this speech Breitz was then demonized in the media, among other places in the formerly leftist newspaper taz. I can’t believe what is happening in Germany. And it scares the living shit out of me.

Bad Religion [the baffler] – “The number of Americans who identify as pagans rises fairly reliably each year, up from less than ten thousand in 1990, to more than three hundred thousand in 2008, to as many as 1.5 million in 2014. These days, American pagans vastly outnumber the cumulative ranks of the quintessentially American peace churches (which includes the Amish and the Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren, and the Quakers) and rival in numbers the Greek and Russian Orthodox, Anglican, and Congregationalist churches. And young people, it seems, are paganism’s fastest-growing demographic: at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, one particularly vibrant niche of social media was the self-proclaimed , where young influencers educated their followers in everything from spells to the intricacies of appealing to patron gods and goddesses.” Baffled how the author could get through this entire article without mentioning the influence of feminism in neo-pagan and wiccan movements. Think Starhawk, Adler and many other authors.

How do we handle the #NewlyDisabled Surge? [everywhereaccessible] – “Since they do not see themselves as disabled. though by definition they absolutely are, their thought process defaults to the standard opinion of popular culture, which is the hatred of disabled people, whether directly and with intent or indirectly and perhaps, subconsciously. This of course perpetuates internalized ableism, and ironically, interferes in the ability to achieve justice for themselves. It also splits them from the guidance of the disability community, many of whom are going through the same struggles, and have addressed many of the problems they will face.” Yes, we the newly disabled can and need to learn from those who have been struggling with ableism for a long time. But it can go both ways, newly disabled folks can also bring experience and knowledge to the movement.

January 2024 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “The January global surface temperature was 1.27°C (2.29°F) above the 20th-century average of 12.2°C (54.0°F), making it the warmest January on record. This was 0.04°C (0.07°F) above the previous record from January 2016. January 2024 marked the 48th-consecutive January and since March 1979 with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average.” So, i was kidding, this is NOT fine.

Life Is All About Work, Didn’t You Know? | Antonio Melonio [substack] – “Indentured servitude dressed up as freedom and prosperity. That is what it is and nothing else. And not even that in most parts of the world. Leaving society is illegal, living off the land is illegal, traveling is illegal — obtain permits and visas, be questioned and probed to cross imaginary lines. Can’t even fucking kill yourself. Your life isn’t yours to take. It belongs to someone else. It belongs to society. And society needs workers so other imaginary lines go up, up, up.” I think Melonio helps me in my drift towards nihilism.

YouTube Livestreamers Made Money ‘Hunting’ for Migrants Along the US Border [wired] – “Even while in the middle of harassing the migrants, the livestreamers could still be heard thanking those who were sending them money via YouTube’s Super Chat function or through other platforms like Venmo and the Christian-aligned crowdfunding site GiveSendGo. In one situation, while Fulfer was shouting at migrants in Arizona telling them to go home, he stopped briefly to call out a supporter who had sent him $50 on Venmo.” WTF How?

Do not reply to deny my lived experience – “Stickers to Manage Replies By” Some of these are so on point. Stop .

Human Rights Discourse Has Failed to Stop the Genocide in Gaza : An Anarchist from Jaffa on the Necessity of Anti-Colonial Strategies for Liberation [crimethinc] – “The human rights discourse that has hijacked the political left in recent decades has drawn us away from a framework of liberation and effective action. It is now clear that we must track back from liberal thinking in order to reestablish strategies that disarm and deconstruct power. The moral complicity with Israel’s crimes that is represented by the ICJ’s refusal to order an immediate cease fire forces us to do this. It offers a convincing argument that we all need to break with the current failed system.” Fuck the liberals and their glib bothsidesism. Fuck Jon Stewart.

Mass Disabling Event Denial | Nate Bear [substack] – “it’s also no surprise that societies built on supremacist foundations and eugenicist tales of the strong conquering the weak are unable to look honestly at physical, bodily deterioration. It’s no surprise that ableist societies are disabling themselves. A genocidal mindset is coming home to roost. The truth is our relative privilege as citizens of the imperial core could only ever last so long. Our comfort and safety has always been traded off against out-groups and the exploited, both historically and in the present.” So grateful for Nate Bear.

Known-Unknowns or: How to Spit the Taste of Your Own Death Back at That Which Seeks to Sustain Itself Through Your Annihilation [substack] – “There are two things to be done: firstly, the final extinguishing of capitalism and the entire mystifying ethos of private property; secondly, the social revolution against every form of repression, every violation of autonomy, every form of surveillance and every technique of mind-manipulation—the social revolution that must happen before, during and forever after the political revolution that will produce a classless society. If these things do not happen well within the limits of this century, within the life-span of most of us now living, our species will be doomed to rapid extinction.” Beatrice Adler-Bolton at their best.

There’s No Such Thing as a Free Helicopter Ride : On the Death of Sebastián Piñera [crimethinc] – “On February 6, 2024, the ex-president of Chile, Sebastián Echenique Piñera, died in a helicopter accident. Beyond being a ruler of the territory dominated by the Chilean state, Piñera was also an economist and businessman. He was the owner of LAN airlines and a number of media channels and outlets.” This, of course, is not without irony, given how the Pinochet regime used to drop people from helicopters, among other methods, to weaken the opposition.

Geopolitics for 2024 | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “We rarely know how to achieve any continuity from one generation to the next within the alienation and scarcity of capitalism, so we commit the same mistakes again and again. And under the colonial spirituality of rationalism we have forgotten that the real world cannot exist without imaginary worlds. We let capitalism do all our imagining for us until our imaginations become atrophied, so we can no longer turn to revolution as a meaningful concept because barely anyone knows how to imagine a revolution anymore.” Ageism will end up weakening us so much on the radical left.

Astra Taylor on What “Security” Really Means [current affairs] – “When you go back to the Latin root of the word security, the word “care” is in there—care is at the heart—and that’s the key. The security we need is the security of caring for each other and building bonds of solidarity, of recognizing our shared vulnerability and insecurities, in finding a kind of collaborative, cooperative, and sustainable form of security that is in direct opposition to this defensive, individualistic, and toxic form of security.” And interview following up on her recent Massey lectures on the same topic of insecurity.

“To Repulse the State from Our Uteri” [duke university press] – “They maintained that abortion restrictions were a form of state violence, especially as they corresponded with the structural violence of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. Anarchists argued that feminists must oppose the state itself as the ultimate patriarchal institution and the source of much of the violence they faced. Thus, rather than the slogan “We’re prochoice and we vote,” anarchists often marched behind a banner reading “We’re prochoice and we riot!”” Team anarchists.

Read novelist Lana Bastašić’s blazing response to yet another act of literary censorship. [literary hub] – “Let it also be clear that this is a cancellation of a residency and an event we previously agreed on, based solely on my decision to leave a publisher. It is my political and human opinion that children should not be slaughtered and that German cultural institutions should know better when it comes to genocide. You should also know that you have now added yourselves to the long and infamous list of cultural institutions which cancel artists who refuse to stay silent when the world is screaming.” I can’t believe what is happening in Germany. And it scares the splattering shit out of me.

Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT [nyt] – “The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question. On the contrary, the human mind is a surprisingly efficient and even elegant system that operates with small amounts of information; it seeks not to infer brute correlations among data points but to create explanations.” Tell us, Noam.

The Twitter Files: Some Observations [znetwork] – “In a functioning democratic society, engaged citizens would be able to sift out the sensible from the nonsense in the Twitter Files and use it as part of a push for greater democratic control of society. Of course, as Z readers are aware, the United States is a long way off from being a functioning democratic society.” Yeah, let us do take some things serious that were revealed by the so-called twitter files. But Taibi is a goner.

Making a PDF that’s larger than Germany [alexwlchan] – “I could keep going. And I did. Eventually I ended up with a PDF that Preview claimed is larger than the entire universe – approximately 37 trillion light years square. Admittedly it’s mostly empty space, but so is the universe. If you’d like to play with that PDF, you can get it here.” Why Germany? But okay, fine.

Germany entered a recession last year because the average worker needed 20 sick days | The Gauntlet [substack] – “The “kill the vulnerable to save the economy” approach was first favored by the Koch network of shadowy libertarian thinktanks and neatly summarized in the famous Great Barington Declaration. The open letter, roundly repudiated by public health bodies at the time, put forth the argument that abandoning mitigations and fully reopening would exterminate the weak in the short-term, but lead to herd immunity in the long term.” A bit of historical context.


[Articles German/French]

Polizeigewalt und Rassismus: Wann erfolgt die erste Verurteilung? [woz] – “Vergangene Woche hat das Berufungsgericht den angeklagten Polizisten im Fall Wilson A. freigesprochen. Die Geschichte veranschaulicht, welche strukturellen Probleme auch bei ähnlichen Fällen bestehen.” There have been a number of cases of racial profiling by the police in Switzerland in front of the courts, but still no convictions.

Das gefährliche Netz der Abtreibungsgegner [zdf] – “Rechte und rechtsextreme Gruppierungen schließen sich verstärkt der Anti-Abtreibungsbewegung an. Die Recherche von „Die Spur“ zeigt, wie weit ihr Einfluss reicht und wie gefährlich das sein kann.” Documentary about the pro-life network in Germany is one to hate-watch.

Threads, Bluesky und Mastodon: Die Chance ist jetzt [netzpolitik] – “Mastodon steht mit seinem dezentralen, offenen und nicht-kommerziellen Ansatz tatsächlich auf der richtigen Seite, und ist zurecht Vorbild. Aber genau daraus sollten wir auf Mastodon die Aufgabe ableiten, uns aktiv an der Entwicklung großer, dezentraler, sozialer Netzwerke zu beteiligen, moralischer Kompass zu sein – und uns eben nicht abzuschotten. Es braucht endlich Mut statt Mauern!” Stop building walls in Mastodon, it is silly.

Das Jammern der Täter [das lamm] – “Es ist schlimm genug, wenn jemand die Grenzen einer Person über­schreitet und ihre (körper­liche) Auto­nomie verletzt. Wenn andere der betrof­fenen Person aber auch die Schutz­wür­dig­keit oder die eigene Wahr­neh­mung der Verlet­zung abspre­chen, kann das mensch­liche Grund­ver­trauen in die Brüche gehen.” The victim-perpetrator reversal needs to stop.

Wer den Populismus von heute verstehen will, muss seinen Unterhaltungs­wert erkennen [woz] – “Wut, der Affekt, der Langeweile durch die Mobilisierung von Ressentiments lindert, macht Plattformen rentabel. Facebook hatte früher seine Algorithmen bekanntlich so optimiert, dass die Nutzer:innen aller erdenklichen politischen Präferenzen, aber in genauer Abstimmung auf diese, mit möglichst viel Wut erzeugendem Material konfrontiert wurden; verbunden mit dem Angebot, ihrer Wut sofort Luft zu verschaffen. Jeder Post ein verbales Selfie mit hochrotem Kopf.” Social media is too often rage-driven, but it still could and in some cases can be network-driven.

Misogynie ist doch lustig [daslamm] – “Es ist unend­lich viel kraft­voller und lustiger, wenn die Pointe eines Witzes jemanden in einer Macht­po­si­tion bloss­stellt, statt die Person, die sowieso schon mit Diskri­mi­nie­rungen zu kämpfen hat. Letz­teres ist, als würde man jemandem, der schon im Regen steht, einen Kübel Wasser über den Kopf leeren – unnötig, lang­weilig und schlimm­sten­falls schädigend.” The sad story of how politically incorrect humor has arrived in Switzerland as well. *yawn*


[Older articles, still great]

The Long Shadow of Racial Fascism [boston review] – “Long before Nazi violence came to be conceived of as beyond analogy, Black radical thinkers sought to expand the historical and political imagination of an anti-fascist left. They detailed how what could seem, from a European or white vantage point, to be a radically new form of ideology and violence was, in fact, continuous with the history of colonial dispossession and racial slavery.”

Debatte: Extremismustheorie [bpb.de] – “Für die Sicherheitsbehörden spielt die Extremismustheorie eine wichtige Rolle. In der Wissenschaft ist sie umstritten. Worum geht es der Theorie? Und was wird kritisiert?” A video to drop, when people use the extremism theory (it’s mostly propagandist bunk).


R.I.P.

Too many in the wars and by COVID-19.
Aaron Bushnell (see above)
Alexei Navalny he is contriversial, but multi-faceted
Nex Benedict (see above)


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