[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]
[Videos]
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
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Header Photo: Fox on the hunt