[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]
[Videos]
A wild elephant went on the rampage – charging at a shop full of customers
»Völkische Siedler« in der norddeutschen Heide: Invasion der Ewiggestrigen
[Music]
[Podcasts]
Disability Justice Organizers Dream Big and Resist a Culture of Disposability [truthout] – “While many people are living as though the pandemic is over, COVID-19 continues to kill hundreds of people per day in the U.S., with the immunocompromised facing heightened risks. We are experiencing a global, mass disabling event, as well as a heightened disregard for disabled lives. This is a time when we should be taking action to protect one another, by masking in public spaces, demanding higher ventilation standards, and ensuring universal access to health care. Instead, many people have been herded toward “normalcy,” at any cost, even though the world has fundamentally changed.” An interview with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.
Organizing and Covid-19 (Part 1) | Death Panel – “In this two-part series, we speak to a few people engaged in organizing and political education projects about their experiences trying to incorporate covid protections into their existing organizing work, wins and losses they’ve encountered, and why it’s so important for the left to take covid seriously, even as the public health emergency comes to a close.” Helps to find the motivation to keep fighting.
Organizing and Covid-19 (Part 2) | Death Panel – “In Part 2, we speak with Becca (beginning at 02:30), Raia Small (beginning at 32:00), and Kelly Hayes (1:01:20).” Dito.
Anti-Fascists Are Adapting to a Strange New World [truthout] – “In this episode of “Movement Memos,” host Kelly Hayes and Shane Burley, editor of No Pasarán! Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis, discuss the state of the far right, anti-fascism and how we can build power and sustain empathy in these times.” Kelly Hayes has got to be my favorite podcast host.
[Toot Threads]
[Pandemic Roundup]
Pandemic Roundup: February 23, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: February 16, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: February 9, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: February 2, 2023
Thank you Violet for this amazing work.
[The Must Read[s] This Month]
Practicing Inclusion in the Time of COVID [strategies for high impact] – “Practicing inclusion during COVID-19 means acknowledging the health and safety needs of all people, then taking steps to communicate and provide safe(r) and more accessible options for gathering. This includes not only working to understand the reasons spaces may be inaccessible to individuals with varying needs, but also committing to following community-centered practices to improve safety for all. Creating inclusive gatherings rooted in disability solidarity makes our movements and communities more powerful.” Easy to share, so please do share this around.
On a Comet’s Tail | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “More often than not I identify with my anarchist ancestors, those people who rose up against the authoritarian and exploitive structures of their time and place. They are the ones I have learned the most from, the ghosts in whose company I feel the most comfortable. But I can’t find those ancestors when I look back fifty thousand years. The meaning of rebellion and freedom has changed so much over the ages. I feel confident that Olga Taratuta, Ōsugi Sakae, and Alexander Berkman would recognize me as kin, would feel that the torch I carry together with my comrades today is one they passed onto us.” Reading biographies by anarchists helps a lot.
Essay: A stupid rock adrift in torrents of its own shit [woz] – “What isn’t failing, has failed. Powerful eugenicists enable repeated C-19 infections, because eventually those not dead will be somehow Fit. Excess deaths surround us with the heartbroken, while Long Covid blights millions. We are a vast memento mori.” Brexit shit drift.
[Articles English]
Roald Dahl and the True Politics of Inoffensiveness | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “Actual radicals do not care about being offensive, or at least, we shouldn’t. To do what we need to do, we have to offend a great many people, and rock all the boats. We do care about power, and harm, and healing, though. It makes sense for radicals who are parenting to wait a while to introduce their kids to certain books if language in those books might teach their kids to be insulting and harmful to their peers or to hate themselves.” Context.
long winter crip survival guide for pandemic year 4/ forever [google docs] – “so many of us are immunocompromised/ “medically complex”/ high risk/ disabled/ sick folks who can’t get COVID or we will die or face severe consequences. so many of us already had COVID or are living with long COVID and do not want to risk a second, third, fourth infection. so many of us are not wanting to go to the ER for even minor shit when people are waiting 12-18 hours in waiting room chairs to be seen. many of us are Black, brown, poor, trans, fat, undocumented, rural etc with different layers of oppression and access, where we cannot always assume we will be able to easily access Paxlovid, time off or health care. Finally, Evushield and monoclonal antibodies, remedies relied on by immunosuppressed people for whom vaccines do not work effectively, stopped working against Omicron in late 2022, making some high risk/ immune comp folks really hit the shit of despair and “we really can’t go anywhere safely… for the rest of our lives?” Angry, witty, diy punky, practical.
Italy to open first museum of fascism [art newspaper] – “Curators of the controversial Salò institution say museum will “neither demonise nor defend” fascist leader Benito Mussolini” Nope, we do not need that, Italy.
Incels at The End of The World | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “You know what the problem is? It’s capitalism. Specifically, it’s the end stages of capitalism. This is what happens when the most powerful country on earth spends five decades promoting consumerism and teaching their citizens that everything and everyone is replaceable and disposable—and that meanwhile everyone can have everything they want if they just “work hard enough.” A lot of people are coming apart now because they’re trying to reconcile that fiction with a reality that’s increasingly telling them it was all a big scheme. They’re disassociating.” Incels are a systemic issue.
the other side of acceptability. | Raechel Anne Jolie [substack] – “To me this is where anarchism becomes helpful; in the same way that we distinguish mutual aid from charity (even when it sometimes looks similar), we can distinguish unique relationship configurations from hegemonic and/or harmful relationships (even when they sometimes look similar) because we are simultaneously working to dismantle the very power structures that create imbalance in the first place.” I very much agree, relationships is where open communication and liberation need to start.
Why do we still define female artists as wives, friends and muses? [the guardian] – “Even in shows devoted to female artists, they are often associated with the men they knew – but as a look in any gallery will reveal, it never happens the other way round” Why? Uhm. Why the fuck?!
The Revolution Will Not Be Ableist [thegauntlet.substack] – “There’s been a lot of anger online, but I want to invite anyone who didn’t know any of the above to join the movement to save lives, stop the spread, clean the air, and treat Long COVID. I want to invite all of you to mask up, punch back, and join with us to imagine all the beautiful, unrealistic futures we might have if we only fight for them.” The article is a bit all over the place, but the title is awesome and the overall message of course on point.
“The New York Times” Is Repeating One of Its Most Notorious Mistakes [the nation] – “The paper’s anti-trans coverage parallels its failings over gay rights and AIDS. But the Times appears determined not to learn from its own history.” It’s as if there was a pattern.
Anarchism isn’t a fantasy and it’s not a political theory — it’s a collective name for whatever forms of society can exist without murder as a political tool [chez-risk] – “Anarchism begins when people stop being coerced whereas political systems rely on coercion both at their beginnings and for their maintenance. Forcing people to stop being coerced is a contradiction in terms. Anarchism can’t be instituted or put in place, it can only coalesce. Anarchism starts when people stop obeying authority. So how do we get to a society without coercion? What’s the path to the anarchist utopia?” I do have some remarks, but i am too lazy, as usual. Just one: Anarchy is not an ism.
‘The attempted coups in the United States and Brazil are the early stage of an international neo-fascism’ [verso] – “Liberal democracies are increasingly perceived as illegitimate, and for good reason: the living conditions of the majority of the population are deteriorating; state repression, both police and judicial, is becoming more ferocious everywhere in the face of social mobilisation; past conquests – public services, social protection, labour law – continue to be dismantled via marketisation policies. Fuelled by these neoliberal policies, we are witnessing a rise in competition, precariousness and fears of social decline, which is one of the most powerful engines of racism and neo-fascism. Without a political alternative to neoliberalism, it is therefore highly unlikely that the fascist International will retreat.” These are factors that CAN give rise to racism and neo-fascism, but they don’t HAVE TO. It’s our job to stop this.
Indigenous People Demonstrate at Super Bowl Demanding Kansas City Drop its Team Name ‘Chiefs’ [unicorn riot] – “The American Psychological Association passed a resolution in 2005 asking for the immediate retirement of all American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams and organizations. The organization has officially said, the use of American Indian race based mascots “shows the harmful effects of racial stereotyping and inaccurate racial portrayals, including the particularly harmful effects of American Indian sports mascots on the social identity development and self-esteem of American Indian young people.” 2023 and still this is happening.
FBI Paid a Violent Felon to Infiltrate Racial Justice Movement [intercept] – “Windecker gathered his allies, including Hall, at the apartment in Denver where activists had seen the table covered with guns. Windecker wanted to record a video and post it to YouTube in response to the allegations. He created a stage for the video: a flag for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and an AR-15-style assault rifle propped against the wall behind him, and, on the table before him, a ball-peen hammer and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.” Cliched lefty should ring the bells.
Capitalism and the Camera. Essays on Photography and Extraction [wmmna] – “Capitalism and the Camera. Essays on Photography and Extraction, edited by Kevin Coleman and Daniel James. Published by VERSO.” This is one of the books i am tempted to buy, but just know they might end up just collecting dust. Sadly.
The Artist Painting Icons of Earth’s Endangered Species [hyperallergic] – “Angela Manno applies her knowledge of Byzantine iconography to memorialize the fauna and flora whose days are threatened or already past.” Beautiful paintings.
Closer to Johannes Vermeer [rijksmuseum] – Immersive art exploration that i probably spent much to much time with.
Nathan J. Robinson’s “Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments” [pluralistic] – “Robinson is a keen student of right-wing media. He reads the books, watches the talk shows, listens to the podcasts. This is a lot of work, because the right wing media machine is extremely repetitive, often unhinged, and frequently grossly offensive. But, Robinson argues, a close study of right-wing media is worth it for what it reveals: the currents and fracture lines, and the underlying beliefs that the whole edifice is built upon.” Thanks to Doctorow for summing up the book so we don’t have to read it.
January 2023 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “January 2023 was the seventh-warmest January for the globe in NOAA’s 174-year record. The January global surface temperature was 1.57°F (0.87°C) above the 20th-century average of 53.6°F (12.0°C). January 2023 marked the 47th consecutive January and the 527th consecutive month with global temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average.” You know what to do.
Z-Library Returns on the Clearnet in Full Hydra-Mode [torrentfreak] – “The U.S. Government’s crackdown against Z-Library late last year aimed to wipe out the pirate library for good. The criminal prosecution caused disruption but didn’t bring the site completely to its knees. Z-Library continued to operate on the dark web and this weekend, reappeared on the clearnet, offering a ‘unique’ domain name to all users.” Yay, hydra-mode.
A Message for Men [anarchist federation] – “You do not need masculinity to make your existence significant because you already are significant. Capitalists and the social media platforms they control will never affirm your uniqueness because complex, genuine individuality doesn’t sell; if you realize you’re valuable as you are, you won’t consume as much, watch as many hours of content, or get as angry at manufactured enemies – all of which means less money for the people at the top of the pyramid.” I often wish i was not a man. Not even human.
The idea of ‘precolonial Africa’ is vacuous and wrong | Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò – “The deployment of ‘precolonial Africa’ is undergirded by a few implausible assumptions. We assume either that there were no previous forms of colonialism in the continent, or that they do not matter. We talk as if colonialism was brought to Africa by Europe, after the 1884-85 Berlin West Africa Conference. But it takes only a pause to discover that this is false.” Very important objection.
Be warned: the next deadly pandemic is not inevitable, but all the elements are in place | George Monbiot [the guardian] “It’s a scarcely examined abstraction we call “the economy”, a monster to whom anything and everything must be sacrificed without question or resistance: farmed animals, wild ones, even, unless we are fortunate, human beings in their millions. We will prevent the pandemics of the future only when we value life ahead of money.” Humans being humans, we will mess this one up. Just watch.
Gandhi’s Assassin Helped Build the Forces Ruling India Today [jacobin] – “Godse seems to be having the last laugh. But this is not the end of history. We don’t know how the future will unfold. Gandhi’s vision is the soul of this country, and it will bounce back. Today it might seem that this vision has lost. But I am convinced that if people had to choose between Godse and Gandhi, a majority in this country would still side with Gandhi.” This interview deepens the recent BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question” and explores the ties of the Hindu nationalists (RSS/BJP) to German and Italian fascism.
Yes, Republicans are discussing genocide against LGBTQ+ people [daily kos] – “At what point does this constant assault on LGBTQ+ rights become equatable to a preparation for a new Holocaust? How genocidal is the current right-wing rhetoric about transgender and non-binary people?” …
The Agoraphobic Fantasy of Tradlife [dissent magazine] – “Perhaps all contemporary relationships are attended by hierarchy, and tradlife is just more honest about the power differentials of intimacy. But feminism, at its best, has always pointed to the possibility that love could one day be different. It has maintained that we do not currently know the full range of its possibilities, because love between men and women has so far only happened within a narrow patch of unjust conditions. Tradlife seeks the certainty of formulaic relationships, but it hides from its purveyors the prospect that a different kind of society may have better, different formulas, or no formulas at all. What might marriage look like without the imperative of property? How might love be lived without the dramas of jealousy, pain, and insecurity that crowd a world in which public space and dignity are never fully shared?”
COVID can damage your heart. Not talking about it is supercharging anti-vax conspiracies | Julia Doubleday [substack] – “Looking beyond the acute phase, we have even more reason to stop downplaying the severity of this disease; I’m talking about long-term and cumulative effects that we are still learning about, and can lead to severe health outcomes that many are not even connecting to their past COVID infections. COVID-19 infections- even mild ones- can lead to serious cardiac damage and complications- but you’re probably unaware of that if you’re getting your pandemic updates from the “pro-science” Biden Administration. As people begin to remark on the statistically significant rise in cardiac events, antivaxxers are happily filling the information void, claiming the excess deaths as evidence of the vaccine’s harm.”
We Now Face an Army of COVID Viruses [the tyee] – “As leaders have shifted to the position that masks and tests are matter of personal choice rather than collective self-preservation, they have implicitly silenced a vital message to the citizenry about how pandemics actually come to an end. It is this: less transmission means fewer mutations; fewer mutations means less variation, the fuel of evolution. Reducing infections, then, puts the brakes on viral evolution.” Never forget.
The Billionaires Just Can’t Wait | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “I’m ambivalent about the future. On the one hand, I try to maintain hope that some of us can find a way forward through the fire and ashes. On the other hand, we know that the billionaires love managing disasters and building bunkers. They’ve got their doomsday fantasies all worked out. Many of them will continue doing everything they can to profit off the incoming doom, all while sipping champagne on their superyachts and making love to their day-use girlfriends.”
Shielding under endemic SARS-CoV-2 conditions is easier said than done: a model-based analysis [medrxiv] – “In the absence of concerted public health actions to provide options for individuals looking to reduce their risk of infection, shielding as a personal responsibility is challenging to achieve. Public health organizations have advocated for oxymoronic “individual public health measures”, but these represent an inadequate solution to the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis. Permitting the unrestrained spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the population will inflict a heavy burden of infection and long COVID on society as a whole, which will be challenging if not impossible for individuals to opt out of in the long run.”
Jewish Artist Targeted in Germany Over Pro-Palestine Stance [hyperallergic] – ““I just buried my mother who knew the Holocaust and I come back and I’m accused of being a hateful Antisemite advocating for terrorism against Jews,” Broomberg continued. “I couldn’t be more Jewish; it’s affected me profoundly.” The artist added that he’s received “nonstop” negative social media messages and that he feels unsafe due to the attacks that followed the Documenta scandal.”
[Articles German/French]
Emissionshandelssystem: Eine Flatrate auf Monsteremissionen [daslamm] – “Der Bund erliess den grössten Umweltverschmutzern von 2013 bis 2020 drei Milliarden Franken an CO2-Abgaben und schenkte ihnen gleichzeitig Emissionsrechte im Wert von schätzungsweise 361 Millionen Franken. Das zeigen bislang unveröffentlichte Berechnungen vom Onlinemagazin das Lamm.” Looking forward to the series.
Ja, Zukunftslust, verdammt! [republik] – “Man kann es auch ganz nüchtern mathematisch betrachten. Jeder Schritt zu einem ökologischeren Konsum, jede Handlung, die auch einen anderen zum Umdenken animiert, jedes wirklich eingesparte Gramm CO2 macht einen winzigen Unterschied. Es ist aufs Ganze besehen ein lächerlich geringer Beitrag – aber er ist grösser als null. Jeder einzelne dieser Schritte ist zudem ein Statement gegen den Zynismus, die Lähmung, das Einverständnis mit der eigenen Tatenlosigkeit. Und nichts, nichts von all dem war umsonst.” Pragmatic take on the these days often dismissed small steps.
Stadtentwicklung: Quartiere fast wie in Barcelona [woz] – “Die katalanische Metropole erprobt mit autoarmen und begrünten Quartierzonen, sogenannten Superblocks, die Stadt der Zukunft. Die Idee ist nun auch in Schweizer Städten angekommen.” Organize the cities in blocks and a lot will get better.
Klimaproteste: Mönch von Lützerath: Sympathieträger der Klimabewegung [nd-aktuell] – “Es war toll zu sehen, wie Tausende von Menschen Polizeiketten durchbrachen. Das ist zweimal passiert. Die Polizisten knüppelten die ersten Leute nieder, wurden aber schnell überrannt. Mit etwas Mut kann man die Mächtigen zu Fall bringen. Wenn sich alle koordiniert hätten und gleichzeitig gerannt wären, hätten wir die letzten Polizeiketten ein drittes Mal passieren und das Dorf erreichen können.” Still can’t believe that posting about this guy on Mastodon earned me a caution for spreading “violence”.
Häuserkampf : Das Experiment [woz] – “Für Geflüchtete sei das Leben dort sicher anders gewesen als für die anderen, sagt Zyia. «Wir haben vielleicht ein anderes Bedürfnis danach, allein zu sein.» Das Koch biete ihm «Freiheit ausserhalb des Integrationssystems»: «Ich brauche keine Sozialarbeiter, keine Gemeinde, die mir sagt, was ich darf», sagt der Besetzer. «Freiheit macht die Leute schön – und sonst nichts.»” Great article and photos on a squat in Zurich that was recently evicted.
#MeToo bei Tamedia: Elefanten im Glashaus [woz] – “Ein «Regime des Mobbings», sexistische Bemerkungen, Machtmissbrauch: Roshanis Vorwürfe zielen zuallererst auf ihren von Supino installierten Vorgesetzten Finn Canonica, von 2007 bis 2022 Chefredaktor beim «Magazin». Aber sie weisen über das Fehlverhalten im konkreten Fall hinaus, denn Roshani problematisiert auch die fehlende Bereitschaft auf den höheren Chefetagen, auf die Vorwürfe zu reagieren. Déjà-vu bei Tamedia: männlich dominierte Führungskultur. Da hat sich seit März 2021 offenbar nicht wirklich etwas getan.” Tamedia is the worst.
Isolationshaft in Italien: Wie ein Anarchist Meloni unter Druck setzt [tagesschau.de] – “Die italienische Regierung hat ein Problem: Alfredo Cospito. Die strenge Isolationshaft des Anarchisten ist zum Politikum geworden, nachdem ein Parteifreund von Ministerpräsidentin Meloni aus vertraulichen Dokumenten zitierte.” Free Alfredo.
Lützerath hat gezeigt: Der Kampf für Klimagerechtigkeit muss militanter werden [daslamm] – “Es ist für die Militanzdebatte aber auch nicht zwangsläufig entscheidend, ob man militante Aktionsformen im eigenen moralischen Kompass vertreten kann. Wichtig ist viel mehr, sich zu fragen, wie man sie organisiert und vor allem, in welchen Kontext sie gesetzt werden.”
Wokeness-Wahn: Im Land der Nebelkerzen [woz] – “Überhaupt haben wir es hier mit einer ersatzpolitischen Hors-sol-Produktion zu tun. Erst importieren die Schweizer Medien den Begriff «woke» arg verkürzt aus dem US-Diskurs, weil sich damit klickträchtig künstliche Debatten bewirtschaften lassen. Und wenn rechte Politiker:innen das Reizwort dann in ihr Grundrepertoire aufgenommen haben, bereiten ihnen dieselben Medien die grosse Bühne, auf der sie nun ihrerseits damit hausieren können. Der Kern ihrer reaktionären Politik tritt dann in den Hintergrund, stattdessen gibts – kritische! – Fragen zu ihrer Sorge vor dem Phantom einer Sprachdiktatur unter dem Genderstern.”
[Older articles opr videos, still great]
Rupa Marya – Farming is Medicine.
Such a fan of Rupa, currently reading her book Inflamed.
Transgender Experiences in Weimar and Nazi Germany
Robotic Spy Beaver Makes Friends With Beaver Family & Little Muskrat too! I love the bit with the muskrat mini me.
A history of true civilisation is not one of monuments [aeon] – “Mutual aid, social cooperation, civic activism, hospitality or simply caring for others: these are the kind of things that actually go to make civilisations. In which case, the true history of civilisation is only just starting to be written. […] From such a starting point, we can see the true history of living civilisation. It reaches back far beyond the earliest monarchies or empires, resisting even the most brutal incursions of the modern state. It’s a civilisation we really can recognise when we see it, taste it, touch it, even in these darkest hours. There can be no justification for the wanton destruction of ancient monuments. But let’s not confuse that with the living pulse of civilisation, which often resides in what at first glance seems small, domestic or mundane. There we will find it, beating patiently, waiting for the light.” David Wengrow a few years before The Dawn Of Everything.
Between the Politicization of Art and the Aesthetics of Politics [independent curators international] – “We have seen in recent months in the United States how the spontaneous actions of citizens have been accompanied by artists who have themselves produced new movements in the world of art: occupy wall street has given rise to occupy museums, denouncing the hold on art by neo-conservative models and the market, as well as the role played by large, so-called legitimating institutions as the situationists had done before them.” No need to call art political, it just is.
Zwischen Heteronormativität und Gruppensex mit Aliens [vigia] – “Kann es authentischen Sex in der Virtualität geben? Immer mehr Angebote stehen dazu bereit. Manches davon reproduziert etablierte Porno-Konventionen und wirft Fragen bezüglich sexualisierter Gewalt auf. Und auch das Zielpublikum ist meist männlich und heterosexuell. Doch queeres Modding verspricht Abhilfe hiervon.” Hmm, gotta try.
David Graeber vs Yuval Harari: Exploding the myth of how civilisation began [middle east eye] – “The Dawn of Everything challenges a mainstream telling of prehistory that ignores the complex societies created by nomadic people”
Another Art World, Part 3: Policing and Symbolic Order [e-flux] – “What we have come to know as the welfare state, in contrast, is quite different in its origins. It is not derived from the apparatus of state at all: from Sweden to Brazil, everything from social insurance to kindergartens to public libraries were originally the product of social movements: labor unions, neighborhood groups, bunds, political parties, and so forth. The state merely coopted them, and insisted they be run by top-down bureaucracies. For a while—mainly when capitalist states were still faced with the threat of the socialist bloc—this compromise did produce widespread prosperity. But what the state seizes the state can also lock away. As a result, since the 1970s and ’80s, as revolutionary threats faded, the power of unions was broken, community groups began to be broken up, and the welfare state began to be dismantled, the police began increasingly to take over the provision of social services once again.”
Another Art World, Part 2: Utopia of Freedom as a Market Value [e-flux] – “This is why we believe the image of the individual creative genius is so important. Deny it though we might, it continues to play a role in regulating the rules of the game. To put it another way: the continued embrace of one half of the Romantic ideal is premised on the absolute exclusion of the other one. If there’s one absolute rule, one red line that cannot be crossed, it is that everyone cannot be an artist. The kind of value art creates must, necessarily, be based on exclusion. To actually realize the vision of Novalis (or for that matter Osip Brik, or even Joseph Beuys) would mean to dissolve away the entire structure which makes “the art world” what it is, because it would destroy the entire mechanism through which it creates value.”
Another Art World, Part 1: Art Communism and Artificial Scarcity [e-flux] – “It might even be said that the revolutionary potential of art is a large part of what makes it so effective as a principle of control. Even children of ragpickers, sweatshop labourers, and refugees, after all, are mostly sent to school, where they are exposed to the works of Da Vinci and Picasso, play with paints, learn that art and culture are the highest achievements of humanity and perhaps the most obvious justification for humanity’s continued existence on the planet (despite all the damage we inflict); they are taught to aspire to lead lives where their children can live in comfort so that their children’s children can pursue forms of creative expression.” I had somehow missed this series of articles. It is awesome. David Graeber (here together with Nika) at his best.
Galerie der Oligarchen in der Schweiz – “Public Eye hat die Beziehungen unter die Lupe genommen, die rund 30 extrem vermögende Geschäftsleute, welche das Regime von Wladimir Putin unterstützen, zur Schweiz unterhalten. Ob nun Oligarchen aus der Zeit von Boris Jelzin oder ehemalige Kameraden und enge Vertraute Putins, die zu Milliardären geworden sind: Sie alle verfügen zwischen Genf und Zug über Firmen, Bankkonten oder Immobilien. Ein weiterer Beweis für die zentrale Rolle, die der «Schweizer Rückzugsposten» seit drei Jahrzehnten spielt.” Eat the rich.
R.I.P.
David Jolicoeur aka Trugoy the Dove from De La Soul
Jen Angel
[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: Even fugly houses deserve some beautiful sun