[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, tweets … you name it]
[Videos]
Greta Thunberg signs Death Metal
FLAMMES
[Music]
BOC – XYZ
Pussy Riot -1937
Flaming Lips – Giant Baby
[Podcasts]
Alexandra Minna Stern, “White Ethnostate: How The Alt-Right Is Warping The American Imagination” [player.fm] – “In this episode, Dr. Alexandra Minna Stern and I discuss her latest book, Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right Is Warping the American Imagination (Beacon Press, 2019). Our conversation examines the intersections of gender and sexuality, and is they relate to her her research on eugenics, white nationalists, the alt-right, and the alt-lite.” Not much new information, but a nice summary.
[Articles English]
Bitumen or Bust [hyperallergic] – “Joe Sacco’s reportage in comic form, offers a stark look at our bond to Big Oil and the consternation it creates, digging deep into the industry that extracts and refines bitumen, extremely heavy crude oil, from the earth.” Another great Sacco comic.
The 100th House Had No Walls [tor.com] – “A new story by Laurie Penny.” This queen rules.
Hope in Common [infoshop] – “Hopelessness isn’t natural. It needs to be produced. If we really want to understand this situation, we have to begin by understanding that the last thirty years have seen the construction of a vast bureaucratic apparatus for the creation and maintenance of hopelessness, a kind of giant machine that is designed, first and foremost, to destroy any sense of possible alternative futures.” By David Graeber
Naomi Klein Is Not Here to Make You Feel Better [vice] – “Young people should not be having to spend their time doing what politicians should be doing. They should be allowed to be kids. When I met these young people who are suing the U.S. government, the 21 defendants, these kids are amazing kids, but they shouldn’t have to be doing this. This is not how they should be spending their teen years.” I struggle with the way she keeps proclaiming that the individual can’t do anything, I get her point, but change has to come on all levels, even the individual.
Fragrance sensitivity: why perfumed products can cause profound health problems [the guardian] – “Research published this year found that one in three adults claim to have experienced health problems caused by fragranced products, whether perfumes, cosmetics, laundry detergents or soap. The study found that fragrance sensitivity caused migraines, watery eyes and respiratory issues.” I need this.
A Living Forest Planted in a Soccer Stadium Incites Rightwing Backlash [hyperallergic] – “Curator Klaus Littmann’s grove of trees planted in the middle of an Austrian soccer stadium has become an unlikely flashpoint.” So typical.
Franzen’s Privileged Climate Resignation Is Deadly And Useless [current affairs] – ““We’e doomed so just garden and be nice” is neither scientifically valid nor morally acceptable… ” For the record: Franzen is a prick.
Media bias is OK – if it’s honest | Nathan Robinson [the guardian] – “It should be obvious that there can’t be such a thing as a neutral journalist. We all have moral instincts and points of view. Those points of view will color our interpretations of the facts. The best course of action is to acknowledge where we’re coming from. If we show an awareness of our own political leanings, it actually makes us more trustworthy than if we’re in denial about them.”Obviously declare your bias, and then help to fight for change.
Millennial Parents Are Failing Their Children [the new republic] – “Our kids will suffer. It will be our fault. And we will be around to watch it happen. Our children’s hardship will be our fault not because we used plastic straws or slacked on recycling, but because we stood by as profit-driven corporations continued pell-mell down the path of destruction, and as our political leaders failed to act.” To have kids must be dreadful at the moment.
Drowning in plastic [reuters] – “Visualising the world’s addiction to plastic bottles” Data visualization at it’s best.
Jeffrey Epstein’s influence in the science world is a symptom of larger problems | Kate Darling [the guardian] – “In a system stacked against women, we must direct our harshest judgment at people and institutions who remain silent” I do wonder how Kate thinks about this after the latest developments.
Gaming’s #MeToo Moment and the Tyranny of Male Fragility [wired] – “After the death of Zoë Quinn’s alleged abuser, the trolls have escalated their racket, raising the question of whose mental health society tries to protect.” By Laurie Penny
Anti-feminism is making right-wing stances socially acceptable [gwi-boell.de] – “Anti-feminism as well as anti-gender rhetoric are playing a central role in the “centering” of right-wing ideologies. They are making right-wing mindsets acceptable in mainstream society and enabling parts of society to shift to the right without appearing right-wing.” Normalization effect.
[Articles German/French]
Franziska Schutzbach über Björn Höcke, das ZDF-Interview und die AfD [spiegel] – “Wir sollten ihnen keine Bühne mehr bieten, aber über sie reden – also etwa Höckes Sprache, sein Denken, sein Buch analysieren. Wir dürfen die Neuen Rechten nicht unterschätzen oder als unwichtig abtun. Es besteht kein Zweifel daran, dass es rechte Kräfte gibt, die Macht übernehmen wollen. Aber: Wir sollten ihre Umsturz-Phantasmen auch nicht überhöhen und damit dazu beitragen, dass sie noch bedeutsamer werden.” What giving right wing populists platforms does.
Gesellschaft ohne Wachstum [woz] – “Eine ökologische Wende wird erst möglich, wenn wir andere Vorstellungen von einem guten Leben entwickeln. Durchsetzen lässt es sich nur dann, wenn man gleichzeitig die Machtverhältnisse in den kapitalistischen Gesellschaften angreift.” By Raul Zelik
La terre brûlée | Alèssi Dell’Umbria [lundi.am] – “Ici l’ethnocide coïncide parfaitement avec l’écocide”
Was Deutschland schaffen muss [republik] – “Es wäre wichtig zu sehen, wie die Verwerfungen zustande kamen, nachdem doch der Westen, die Guten, also wir 1989 gewonnen hatten – aber vielleicht waren der ungeregelte Markt, der The-winner-takes-it-all-Kapitalismus und der Rückzug des Staates aus wesentlichen Teilen des zivilgesellschaftlichen Alltags doch nicht die beste Idee für die Stabilität der Demokratie. Vor allem in weiten Teilen Ostdeutschlands, wo nun Rassisten gewählt werden.” By Georg Diez
Verschwörungstheorien besonders in rechter Szene verbreitet [netzpolitik] – “das Internet konserviert ja bekanntlich jede noch so abstruse Information. Die Gläubigen in den Hardliner-Gruppen glauben meist den Großteil der im Netz verbreiteten Verschwörungstheorien, ja, vereinen sie sogar in einem großen “Multischwurbel”.” Conspiracy nuts going nuts.
[Older articles, still great]
The west’s self-proclaimed custodians of democracy failed to notice it rotting away [the guardian] – “[M]odern democracies have for decades been lurching towards moral and ideological bankruptcy – unprepared by their own publicists to cope with the political and environmental disasters that unregulated capitalism ceaselessly inflicts, even on such winners of history as Britain and the US.” By Pankaj Mishra
Paul Destieu – Fade Out 2011
Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley), 2005
R.I.P.
Robert Frank
Ric Ocasek
Francisco Toledo
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Header Photo: Mine, Square du Temple, Paris 2019