[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]
[Videos]
What is ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)
“A brief overview of symptoms, diagnosis and treatment based on the 2021 NICE guideline. Its not being tired all the time, patients have an energy impairment that dramatically limits their activity.”
Sickness In The System [field of vision] – “Sickness in the System exposes the prison system’s failure to protect its population. Through intimate stories from those inside San Quentin prison, Bryan Gibel’s film takes us into their experience. At the beginning of the pandemic, none of the 3500 people incarcerated at the prison tested positive for COVID-19, 6 weeks later almost 50% of the population was infected from a botched prisoner transfer, making it the worst hotspot in the country.” Didn’t find an embed, the documentary is very powerful, if heartwrenching.
Banksy – A behind the scenes video of his graffiti series in Ukraine.
Will Random People Kick the Game Winning Goal? – “We surprised random people with the chance to kick the game winning goal.” Football how it should be. Fuck FIFA. Sorry.
Facing the Limits of Law Reform in these Times of Crisis – “Presented by Dean Spade, Associate Professor at the Seattle University School of Law on April 26, 2021 via Zoom. Part of the 2021 Ariel Sallows Lecture Series at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law.” I am in love with Dean.
[Music]
Deichkind – Ich Hab Eine Fahne (2014, 2022) Wow, the great animated version of this video has been removed “This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s policy on violent or graphic content”. Scandal.
[Podcasts]
The Whiteness of Mastodon [techpolicy.press] – “By all accounts, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is not going well. And yet many have the real sense that something important may be lost if the platform collapses; or if there is a substantial migration away from it to alternatives like Mastodon, the open source, decentralized platform that has grown from three hundred thousand monthly active users to nearly two million since Musk bought Twitter.”
Long Covid Media Narratives (11/17/22) – “Beatrice, Artie, and Abby discuss the way long covid is portrayed in the media and the mainstream press, and the frequently used tropes that focus on long covid as a question of economic productivity and “spoiled identity.” Debunking of three insideous media narratives when it comes to LongCOVID.
Identity Politics Hijacked [novara media] – “What is identity politics? Recent definitions have strayed some distance from the ideas laid out by the Black radical feminists of the Combahee River Collective. In their original 1977 statement, the Boston collective established a simple but undeniable truth: what you know depends on who you are. The problem, as American philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò points out, is that the most privileged members of marginalised groups can end up speaking for the group as a whole. Identity politics has been captured by elites, says Táíwò, and the effect can either be brazenly cynical – like the CIA implementing a diversity policy – or vastly more subtle.” Eleanor Penny asking the questions is just as great. But Táíwòs book Elite Capture is an excellent read.
[Pandemic Updates]
Pandemic Roundup: November 24, 2022
Pandemic Roundup: November 17, 2022
Pandemic Roundup: November 10, 2022
Pandemic Roundup: November 3, 2022
[Toot threads]
[The Must Read[s] This Month]
There Is No “Migrant Crisis” [boston review] – “Borders are simultaneously monetized and militarized. Racial capitalism and racial citizenship rely on the dispossession and immobility of migrants to maintain state power and capitalist extractions. Like the carceral construct of criminality, illegality is invented and policed as a race-making and property-protecting regime. And—like policing, prisons, and private property—borders destroy communal social organization by operating through the logic of dispossession, capture, containment, and immobility. As Angela Davis and Gina Dent write, “We continue to find that the prison is itself a border.”” Loved every paragraph of this abolitionist article.
[Articles English]
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TWITTER WARNING
I have left Twitter and you should do the same, if. Yes, i think there are conditionals. If you use the platform mostly to chat, shitpost and hang out with your “friends” (are they though?) and if you are a leftist, you should leave asap/ There are many other platforms suitable for this. Everything else is just lying to yourself, embarassing really, you can’t build resistance on a right wing platform run by an oligarch. To promote your content and share actual newsworthy stuff, it is still a viable platform, as long as you were not blocked already, while we wait for the next thing suitable for this purpose. But, you must keep engagement low. Twitter has to fail. In short, don’t gift this protofascist asshole, who now owns and runs the platform, too much engagement, but some content is fine, for now.
Twitter Thrills Far-Right Trolls by Silencing Left-Wing Voices [the intercept] – “Elon Musk appears to have out-sourced decisions about who to ban from Twitter to the platform’s right-wing extremists.” Andy Ngo, of all the people on this planet… Doomed.
Why I Quit Elon Musk’s Twitter [the new yorker] – “To the extent that people remain active on Twitter, they preserve the fragile viability of Musk’s gambit. The illusory sense of community that still lingers on the platform is one of Musk’s most significant assets. No matter which side prevails, the true victor in any war is the person selling weapons to both sides.” If this guy sees it, why are you still on the hellsite? Shame on you.
Twitter is Going Great! – “… and is definitely not making decisions just to stroke Elon Musk’s delicate ego” If you are looking for a site to follow all the news on twatters downfall without actually gifting the hellsite any engagement, any clicks, here u go.
Last week’s Twitwreck was more than it seemed [theyesmen] – “Thousands of sleeper Yes Men took advantage of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Blue” fuck-up last week to highlight pharmaceutical price-gouging, corporate and political warmongering, and all sorts of pious hypocrisy.” I suspected as much.
Elon Musk Bans CrimethInc. from Twitter at the Urging of Far-Right Troll [crimethinc] – “On November 25, at the urging of a far-right troll, Elon Musk banned the @crimethinc Twitter account. Musk’s goal in acquiring Twitter had nothing to do with “free speech”—it was a partisan move intended to silence opposition while opening up space for the far right. This underscores the hazards of depending on corporate social media platforms.” And so it begins.
Anti-Anti-Antifa [outside the circle] – “When it becomes “controversial” or scary or dangerous in a society to say one is against fascism; when it becomes “common sense” to see and treat antifascists as scary or dangerous, or more plainly, the enemy to be eradicated—we are already in fascism. It is the sea in which we must swim, or sink, as antifascists, not some surface or even subterranean phenomenon now.” Context on the lists of antifa-accounts circulating among right-wing twitter.
Twitter May Be Dying. It’s Time to Build Our Own Social Network. [jacobin] – “For all its problems, Twitter served as a public town square — and now, Elon Musk seems determined to drive it into the ground. It’s past time to build a democratic, noncommodified alternative.” Uhm, why build?
Will Corporate Social Media Collapse and Leave Room for Alternatives? [igd news] – “A look at the recent takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk and the continuing collapse of Facebook in the wake of the ‘Metaverse.’ If these trends continue, will this lead to the growth of non-corporate alternatives?” Again, we can start this now.
“Mischief and delay”: How Musk and Twitter finally sealed the deal [ars technica] – “Takeover drama drew in a cast of Wall Street powerhouses—and a few “meme-splainers.”” I have to admit this is hilarious.
FUCK TWITTER. It was great for some time (and it actually wasn’t). But now it’s gone. Next.
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You Don’t Have Immunity Debt | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “Last year, millions of us believed a lie that Covid was “mild.” This year, we’re being sold a new lie to cover up the old one.
That lie is “immunity debt.”
Fool me once…” Nicely debunked, check.
Lee Reed: Anarchist Rapper Speaks Music & Activism [diyconspiracy] – “For almost three decades, Lee Reed has been stomping stages and studios, spewing his unique brand of anarchist rant-hop. From his time as a member of the legendary Warsawpack to his solo work, Reed has been committed to revolutionary struggle, environmental justice and the fight for a better world, voicing antiauthoritarian and anticapitalist politics through hip-hop. In this lengthy interview, we spoke with Lee Reed about his music, political organizing and the state of revolutionary rap at the present moment.” Love this guy, the interview also recommends tons of great political music.
Climate crisis paintings by famous artists using AI [artsupplies] – “With this in mind, we decided to use the medium of art to raise awareness of the climate emergency. We used AI to show how iconic artists from history might depict the climate crisis if they were living today.” I was especially fond of the Greta Thunberg painting in Warhols style.
China Mieville on Why Capitalism Deserves Our Burning Hatred [jacobin] – “We should hate this world, with and through and beyond and even more than does the Manifesto. We should hate this hateful and hating and hatemongering system of cruelty, that exhausts and withers and kills us, that stunts our care, makes it so embattled and constrained and local in its scale and effects, where we have the capacity to be greater.” I find it staggering, how this marxist struggles to defend hatred against an imaginary Marx and his manifesto. David Graeber hat a much clearer defense of the role of hatred in political struggle.
Attack on Adidas Headquarters in Portland, Oregon in Retaliation for 2022 Qatar World Cup [abolitionmedia] – “The history of the World Cup is one of death and displacement. Every stadium stands upon the dead bodies of workers who built it. In Qatar, over 6,500 migrant workers from South Asia died during the decade of preparations for the 2022 World Cup, forced to work in slave conditions. The World Cup was made possible by hundreds of thousands of migrant workers forced into labor through a combination of physical violence, threats of imprisonment, passport confiscation, debt bondage, and more. Every World Cup involves the violent evictions and displacement of thousands, replacing whole neighborhoods with stadiums and other infrastructure. The entire operation is protected by huge increases of militarized policing and surveillance, with 3,000 riot cops sent from Turkey, 4,500 soldiers from the Pakistan army and forces from the British Royal Navy and Air Force coming to Qatar to enforce control during the World Cup.” I had no idea how many cops and military were in Katar, this is a shocking number.
Talking Sex Work With Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova [hyperallergic] – “Hyperallergic sat down with the Russian feminist icon for a conversation about art, activism, and how they converge in her OnlyFans sex work.” Such a powerful interview.
Police Are Increasingly Monitoring Social Media to Identify and Harass Activists [truthout] – “federal and local authorities are increasingly using social media to identify individuals who may be a threat. There is little evidence that this practice effectively identifies and mitigates risks to public safety. Compelling research and anecdotal accounts do, however, indicate that online surveillance limits free speech, invades privacy, and enables discriminatory practices. Social media has power for organizers, but it also offers law enforcement the power to intimidate.” Take care of what you share.
It’s not just Qatar hoping we now ‘put politics aside’. It’s the hypocritical west, too | Nesrine Malik [the guardian] – “By all means boycott the football, but we could also follow the trail of gifts, property and arms deals closer to home.” Nesrine with some perspective on our hypocritical protest.
[PDF] Annotated: The pandemic might not have spawned a new chronic illness but rebranded an old one – Reading this article in New York Magazine gave me severe depression. The death panel crew went through the article and annotated all the evil frames and presumptions. Much appreciated!
The Fediverse Could Be Awesome (if we don’t screw it up) [eff] – “The fediverse isn’t a single, gigantic social media platform like Facebook or Twitter. It’s an expanding ecosystem of interconnected social media sites and services that let people interact with each other no matter which one of these sites and services they have an account with.” Let’s not screw it up.
Health Supremacy Kills [peste] – “We must face up to the fact that many capitalist societies are health supremacies: socio-political systems structured around the fantasy that people who are inherently healthy are better people. To those who have been fighting ableism – a widespread form of discrimination that favors able-bodied people – this diagnosis will not be surprising.” I read the critique of this by Beatrice Adler-Bolton, but i still see validity in the argument.
October 2022 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “October 2022 was the fourth-warmest October in NOAA’s 143-year record. The October global surface temperature was 1.60°F (0.89°C) above the 20th-century average of 57.1°F (14.0°C). The past seven Octobers were among the ten warmest Octobers on record. October 2022 marked the 46th consecutive October and the 454th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average.” 4th. What can i say.
A Warning to Journalists About Elite Academia [substack] – “Two Harvard professors propose the greatest expansion of the police bureaucracy in Western history.” Professors can be dumb fucks. And i just now heard these guys are socialists?! WAT!
What’s a Little Mass Death Between Friends? [discourseblog] – “Emily Oster wants to let COVID bygones be bygones. No thanks” Ugh.
Cory Doctorow Wants You to Fight Big Tech [jacobin] – “We talked to author and activist Cory Doctorow about his new book, Chokepoint Capitalism, copyright scams, surveillance capitalism, the lies of Big Tech, and the fight for the freedom to create.” Like the approach. The expression chokepoint capitalism somehow does not seem intuitive.
Medicare for All Is Not Enough [the new republic] – “There’s a fundamental economic valuation of life where we take someone and we say, “OK, you as a human being, you’re not intrinsically valuable; you’re valuable based on what your tax bracket is, how many dependents you support, you know; how big your assets are, what your output is, as a worker, what kind of surplus profit you make for whoever you work for.” That’s sort of how we think of valuing people. And for people like me, who are sick, who can’t work, we’re sort of seen as having negative assets, on the other side of that.” I’ll say it again. The book Health Communism is a must read.
Try Anarchism for Life: Preview [strangers in a tangled wilderness] – “there truly is no future for our species, we anarchists are, after all, busy making whatever time we have left as good as possible, and for as many as possible, so why do we find it so difficult to portray this to others? Do we not have enough faith or trust in our own visions, or what we put into motion? Are we too weary and dispirited? Too cool or too scared? Do we take security culture too far, masking all the good we do? Is it a lack of ingenuity, or because we’re also so broken by the social order that we can’t think outside its box? ” And another great book.
Italy’s right-wing government to criminalise raves [bbc] – “The new government of far-right PM Giorgia Meloni has said it will make staging unlicensed raves a crime, hours after stopping one in northern Italy. The new crime of “invasion for dangerous gatherings” of more than 50 people would attract up to six years in jail and opens up the possibility of wiretapping rave organisers.” Priorities, so important. At first they came for the ravers…
A Joyous Carnival to Celebrate David Graeber’s Lasting Legacy [hyperallergic] – “Artists gathered for the launch of the new David Graeber Institute, which will oversee the scholar’s archive of unpublished texts and pursue projects around climate change, debt, labor, and war. ” I absolutely hate that this performance group from XR hijacked the celebration.
[Articles German/French]
Colorado Springs: Fünf Tote nach queerfeindlichem Anschlag [belltower.news] – “In der Nacht zum 20. November 2022 drang ein bewaffneter junger Mann in den queeren „Club Q“ in Colorado Springs ein. Dort ermordete er fünf Menschen und verletzte 25 weitere, bevor der Täter durch Besucher*innen des Clubs überwältigt werden konnte. Dem Angriff geht eine jahrelange LGBTQ-feindliche Kampagne seitens der republikanischen Partei und der evangelikalen Kirche voraus.” This is horrible. When will this stop?
Der Blickwinkel von Menschen mit geistiger Behinderung – ein Problem der Gerechtigkeit [gdg] – “Menschen mit geistigen Behinderungen werden nicht nur materiell und sozial diskriminiert, sondern auch, indem sie gesellschaftlich nicht als vollwertige Personen gelten. Ihre Inklusion erfordert zusätzlich zum Aufbrechen von physischen und strukturellen Barrieren die Gleichheit als Wissenssubjekte.” It was noted that this article about discrimination of the mentally disadvanteged is written in a very complicated language and therefore not very accessible.
Fall Brian: “Der Begriff der Menschenwürde reicht nicht aus” [daslamm] – “Mich hat die Kumulation der menschenrechtswidrigen Entscheide der Behörden gegenüber Brian überrascht. Dies wirft die Frage auf, ob staatliche Verwaltungsinstanzen und die Gerichte ein genügend vertieftes Bewusstsein der menschenrechtlichen Verpflichtungen haben beziehungsweise ob sie die Menschenrechte tatsächlich ins Zentrum ihrer Überlegungen und Strategien stellen.” We urgently need a prison abolition debate in Switzerland.
Cyril Schäublin: «Ordnung ist eine reine Behauptung» [woz] – “Das vielleicht Fragwürdigste des Nationalstaats ist, dass da eine Ordnung behauptet wird, die es gar nicht geben kann. Ordnung ist eine reine, völlig unzulängliche Behauptung. Es wird sich nie vollständig kontrollieren lassen, wie sich Menschen organisieren oder wie und mit wem sie ihre Zeit verbringen, wie sie ihre Wirklichkeiten beleben.” Order is fiction.
Von Twitter zu Mastodon – Gedanken über Medienaneignungen [54books] – “Es ist außerdem fraglich, ob ein so arbeitsaufwendiges, von freiwilliger Arbeit und lokaler Infrastruktur abhängiges Medium global skalierbar ist. Bisher gibt es außerhalb der USA, Europa und Japan nur wenige Instanzen. Auch hier kann man auf Geschichten von Techies zurückgreifen, die z.B. in den 1980er Jahren in der Anti-Apartheid-Bewegung Masten und Sendegerät nach Südafrika brachten und dort halfen, diese aufzusetzen und zu betreiben; oder die GSM-Freaks, die heute noch helfen, im Ostkongo sichere Handynetzwerke aufzubauen. Zumindest befindet sich Mastodon in einer guten Tradition.” Is is scalable? Or let’s scale this?
Erschöpfte Überforderung als Zeitgeist – und wie es danach weitergeht. [realitätsabzweig] – “Die Seuche ist noch nicht vorbei. Immer neue Varianten, immer klarer sichtbare Langzeitfolgen einer Ansteckung und die Fragezeichen um die Schutzwirkung der Impfstoffe und Medikamente dagegen vermischen sich mit der tiefen, tiefen Sehnsucht danach, dass der Maskenball endlich vorbei ist, zu einem fast trotzig zur Schau getragenen Fatalismus. Niemand hat schließlich Lust sich noch über Maskentragen zu streiten (obwohl eine gut sitzende FFP3-Maske das einzige ist, was wirklich schützt). Die Seuche ist individualisiert worden, ein “allgemeines Lebensrisiko”, dessen Last wie immer bei denen besonders schwer wiegt, die es ohnehin schon nicht leicht haben.” What Frank says.
Jürg Halter cancelt sich selbst [republik] – “Der Schriftsteller behauptet, er habe wegen einer «konkreten Drohung» Personenschutz gebraucht. Medien übernehmen die Geschichte einer Cancel-Kampagne von «anonymen Linksextremen». Nur, die «konkrete Drohung» gab es nie.” Great debunking.
Ein amerikanischer Cäsar – Die Rechte in den USA flirtet mit einer gefährlichen historischen Idee [54books] – “Die Erzählung ist so einfach wie autoritär: Die amerikanische Republik (keine Demokratie, das wird gern und oft betont) sei wie einst die römische gelähmt, zerfressen von Korruption und handlungsunfähig. Unterstützt wird diese These durch die Blockade der eigenen Leute – vornehmlich der Republikaner im Senat – wo auch immer es möglich ist. So soll Frustration geschürt werden – während die Rufe nach einem “starken Mann”, der die Macht übernimmt und “aufräumt” lauter werden. So führt die Behauptung, die Republik sei in Gefahr, zur un-republikanischen Forderung eines Cäsars.” So scary, please, i used to love the so-called USA.
Zu den Guten gehören wollen [daslamm] – “Als Teil der gewaltausübenden Gruppe – Männer – habt ihr die Verantwortung, das Problem anzugehen. Und wo fängt ihr an? Bei euch selbst. Ihr müsst euer eigenes Verhalten reflektieren, besonders wenn ihr eine innere Blockade feststellt. Lasst mal die gesellschaftlichen Bilder los und fragt euch ehrlich: Habe ich schonmal ein „Nein“ mit einem „Komm schon“ beantwortet? Habe ich schon mal jemanden angefasst oder geküsst, ohne vorher zu fragen? Habe ich beim Sex immer aktiv Konsens eingeholt?” We men have work to do.
Bomben auf Brüssel [woz] – “Das Problem der Übertragung bleibt relevant, auch wenn mittlerweile praktisch alle Menschen Antikörper gegen Corona besitzen: Long Covid droht allen, die sich erneut infizieren, selbst wenn sie nur leicht erkranken. Statt über vermeintliche «Impf-Lügen» zu debattieren, sollten wir uns besser überlegen, wie wir uns selbst und andere in den kommenden Monaten vor einer Ansteckung schützen können.” Fewer and fewer people see it.
Was tun in Situationen mit Menschen in psychischen Krisen? [birgit rydlewski] – “Polizist*innen sind kaum ausgebildet für den Umgang mit Menschen in psychischen Krisen. In viel zu vielen Fällen hat das System Polizei gezeigt, dass es nicht angemessen deeskalierend umgehen kann mit Menschen in psychischen/psychiatrischen Krisen. Pfefferspray-, Taser- und Schusswaffeneinsatz zeigen dies in sehr trauriger Regelmäßigkeit. Oft führt dies sogar zum Tod der Person, die die Polizei eigentlich vor sich selbst schützen sollte. Polizei will überwältigen, Situationen in kurzer Zeit mit Macht- und Gewaltausübung beenden. Sich bei Überforderung zurückzuziehen, ist in dem Mindset gar nicht vorgesehen.” Why you should hesitate and often avoid calling the cops on people in a mental crisis.
[Older articles, still great]
Do No Harm [logicmag] – “The future we should be working toward is one in which every single person has the skills to identify harm, hold themselves and others accountable, and work towards justice. At the same time, we must transform the social conditions, including patriarchy and racism, in which harm thrives. This kind of work leads us to fundamentally transform our relationships with one another, and it cannot be scaled or outsourced. When building a future that addresses online harm we should not seek mere alternatives to content moderation; we should work towards a world where no content moderation is needed.” How restaurative and transformative justice could function on social media. No, actually how they should.
Is the QAnon Conspiracy Actually an Artist-Designed Hoax? Here’s the Evidence [artnet] – “The history of “Luther Blissett,” the Italian media jamming movement, is suddenly relevant to the US political discussion.” Was Q a hoax is a much less important question than is it still a hoax.
R.I.P.
I forgot.
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Header Photo: Gloomy fall here