[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]
[A short note on these links: i decided to no longer collect the links in regards to Israel/Gaza under a separate category, nevertheless just like last month, i think it is crucial to read a wide range of reporting, for a continued “defense of the grayzone” we need nuance and an open mind.]
[Videos]
Stolen Forklift Pursuit 11/25/23 – Become ungovernable! 12 year old kid joy riding a monster of a forklift.
Full event as compiled by WebSummit video team [the yes men] – It is almost unbelievable how the yes men were able to pull this media prank off. But they did.
The Family Statement [fieldofvision] – “The Family Statement constructs a conversation between the Sackler family in their private WhatsApp chat and those afflicted by the opioid crisis. Well-known for their philanthropic efforts, the Sackler family have been less forthright about the ways they’ve benefited from selling the opioid painkiller Oxycontin. The Family Statement brings the notoriously private family into dialogue with those living the consequences of the opioid epidemic, offering a poignant commentary on capitalism, corporate accountability, denial and pain.” They knew.
[Music]
Laetitia Sadier – Une Autre Attente – Her new album will be released early in 2024.
Züri West – Loch dür Zyt – Sounds like this will be their last album.
“Marshmello” (the yes men) – All Day I Dream (About Back Pay) – I can’t stop laughing about this video. Well, and the fact that the yes men were able to prank the web submit with this atrociousness. It even says “it’s unreal” at the end.
PUSSY RIOT STORMS INDIANA SUPREME COURT – GOD SAVE ABORTION (by Nadya Riot)
[Podcasts]
Stories by Ella Weber [scientific american] – “A member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation digs into a decades-long mystery: how 15 intercontinental ballistic missiles came to be siloed on her ancestral lands.” Five part podcast on the nuclear silos on, or close to, tribal land in North Dakota.
Vigil for Palestine: We Mourn and Consider What Solidarity Demands of Us [truthout] – “From my vantage point as a Jewish American, I can attest that our community has now been deeply, profoundly broken, perhaps irrevocably. I am so heartened and proud by the growing movement of Jews who are standing up in unprecedented ways to protest Israel’s genocidal onslaught, through massive protests and acts of civil disobedience, as Jews, together with our Palestinian comrades. At the same time, I am staggered by the voices in the Jewish community that support Israel’s atrocities without reservation. Otherwise so-called progressive leaders who cannot get themselves to endorse a simple ceasefire. When the dust settles — and please may it settle soon — I don’t know if the brokenness of my community will ever, ever truly heal from this. Then there is the brokenness that pervades the Palestine solidarity movement itself, fissuring between those who regard Hamas’s violent attack on Israelis as legitimate armed resistance and those who are condemning that brutal violence against civilians on moral and strategic grounds. Our inability to find common ground on this question is widening internal divisions that have long been simmering. At the current moment, so many of us are doing our best to maneuver through these divides. We are marching in the streets, occupying the offices of our political representatives, and together we are voicing a remarkable collective voice of conscience and rage. And well we should. But I would be dishonest if I didn’t say that we in this movement have a great deal of reckoning to do with one another as we go forward.” A wide range of voices.
[Toot Threads]
[Pandemic Roundup]
November 30, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: November 23, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: November 16, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: November 9, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: November 2, 2023
[The Must Read[s] This Month]
Toward a Sober Assessment of Campus Antisemitism [jewishcurrents] – “In a moment when many American Jews are afraid—and their fear is being used to erode civil liberties—we must examine the incidents coming across our screens with calm.” Both antisemitism and islamophobia are absolutely wrong, yet, in the current climate, all reports need to be assessed in a sober and nuanced way. By Ben Lorber.
Kelly’s Story: Long Covid And Assisted Suicide | Nate Bear [substack] – “Encountering unhelpful and disbelieving medical professionals is also a very common experience for long covid sufferers. It seems to reflect the arrogance of a medical profession that assumes there is nothing left to know about diseases, especially not chronic diseases. Or at least nothing left that they want to know.” A very upsetting read, but it must be shared wildly. The medical establishment as well as most politicians, would rather see that we choose assisted suicide than actually helping us with our LongCOVID. That’s what eugenics look like.
Germany is a good place to be Jewish. Unless, like me, you’re a Jew who criticises Israel [the guardian] – “But he tried his best, responding that while he understood that my perspective was one of admirable moral clarity, he felt that it was not his place as a politician in Germany, in the country that committed the Holocaust, to adopt that position. And so, at that moment, we arrived at a point in German discourse where we now openly acknowledge that the Holocaust is being used as justification for the abandonment of moral clarity.” Feldman, the author of Unorthodox, lives in Berlin, if you can also watch the talk show she describes (linked in the text).
Silicon Valley’s worldview is not just an ideology; it’s a personality disorder. [crooked timber] – “Silicon Valley ideology says safeguarding intelligence in the future is more important than its systems systematically crushing and killing black and brown people right now. Long-termism grabs attention back from people being harmed, who were beginning to make too much nose.” I totally enjoyed to read this. Hope you do as well.
Vierzehnter Teil und Zweite Warnung, sich zu nähern: Der (andere) Satz vom Ausgeschlossenen Dritten [enlace zapatista] – “Balanced coexistence between humans and nature is now impossible. In the confrontation, the one who has the most time will win: nature. Capital has turned the relationship with nature into a confrontation, a war of plunder and destruction. The objective of this war is the annihilation of the opponent, nature in this case (humanity included). With the criterion of “planned obsolescence” (or “expected expiration”), the commodity “human beings” expires in each war. The logic of capital is that of greater profit at maximum speed. This causes the system to become a gigantic waste machine, including human beings. In the storm, social relations are disrupted and unproductive capital throws millions into unemployment and, from there, into “alternative employment” in crime, and into migration. The destruction of territories includes depopulation. The “phenomenon” of migration is not the prelude to the catastrophe, it is its confirmation. Migration produces the effect of “nations within nations”, large migratory caravans colliding with walls made of concrete, of police, military walls; criminal walls, bureaucratic walls, racial and economic walls.” This gem is from part 14 of the Zapatista campaign explaining why they will re-structure.
Climate Disaster Is Here—and the State Will Never Save Us [inthesetimes] – “We must expand our analysis beyond the limits of state solutions, as states demonstrate, again and again, that not only do they not protect the Earth, they facilitate its destruction, and criminalize people who try to stop it. For those of us who are urgent for transformation, it is essential that we take up tactics that might actually stop some of the destruction and create whatever conditions for survival are possible.” Dean Spade starts form two fiction books to arrive at the big picture. Also check out the interview by Kelly Hayes:
[Articles English]
Can We Imagine Ourselves Surviving Together? | Kelly Hayes [substack] – “Where are we going to put our energy right now? I think it needs to be towards mutual aid and sabotage of our opponents’ technologies of extraction rather than trying to fix the state or get them to make morally right decisions. And I think we really have given that our best efforts, and I think even in my own life I’ve given that more effort than I now realize was maybe wise, and it’s okay to reassess our tactics. But to me the urgency of the collapse timeline makes clear that it’s time to save as much life and wellbeing and reduce as much suffering as possible given the conditions that are definitely unfolding.” Basically an interview with Dean Spade about the article just above.
German Museum Cancels Candice Breitz Exhibition After ‘Controversial Statements’ on Gaza [artnews] – “In most democratic cultures,” Breitz wrote, “those who are deemed guilty are given the chance to speak and defend themselves before they are condemned and de-platformed. But the climate in Germany at present is such, that many Germans feel absolutely justified in violently condemning Jewish positions that are not consistent with their own, in their zeal to confirm their own dedication to antisemitic principles.”
Officer acquitted in Elijah McClain death gets job back and $200,000 in back pay [the guardian] – “The Colorado officer who stopped Elijah McClain in 2019 and placed him in a neck hold was reinstated to the Aurora police department and will receive $200,000 in back pay, city officials said on Monday.” How?! Oh, i know.
The use and misuse of evolutionary psychology in online manosphere communities: The case of female mating strategies [cambridge core] – “Decades later, there exist many competing and overlapping hypotheses stressing the potential fitness benefits of female short-term and extra-pair mating. Female mammals are now seen as enacting varied and flexible reproductive strategies. This is both a victory for science, with a better fit between theory and reality, and for feminism, with the downfall of narrow stereotypes about female sexuality. However, evolutionary hypotheses on female mating strategies are routinely invoked among the antifeminist online communities collectively known as ‘the manosphere’.” There was a good if somewhat lengthy srsly wrong episode about evolutionary psychology a while back.
The Return of the Ultraliberal Right in Argentina [crimethinc] – “Javier Milei, the newly elected President of Argentina, ran a presidential campaign in which he proposed abolishing the Argentine peso and adopting the US dollar as national currency, eliminating the central bank, privatizing healthcare and education, privatizing or shutting down all public media outlets, and privatizing most aspects of the country’s economic and strategic infrastructure.” And how long Argentina is going to have a bad hair day.
Can You Catch Covid Outside? Yes, You Can. | Jessica Wildfire [okdoomer.io] – “Some people have taken our bad news as an opportunity to explain, in the most condescending way, that you can’t catch Covid outdoors, or that it’s “extremely unlikely.” That’s not true. In fact, it’s just another piece of Covid lore that’s putting people at risk of infection. We need to dispel this myth that being outside automatically protects you from contagious diseases. It doesn’t.” Indeed. This is another one of the great COVID-lies like “masks don’t work” and “children don’t get COVID”. The answer here, it very much depends on many factors, some of them yet unknown.
The Media Aim, the Cops Shoot | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “In a run-of-the-mill article about the hostage swap, in just a few paragraphs the Times establish an indisputable double standard that makes it clear the paper’s editors consider the Palestinians less than human. They do this by consistently using humanizing language for the Israeli military and Israeli settlers, eliciting empathy and putting us in their shoes, and by consistently using dehumanizing language for the Palestinians, eliciting fear, never presenting a coherent picture of their situation and making them alien and unknowable, all using standard techniques that every professional journalist has studied.” It’s so important to have a close look at how the media frames controversial issues.
Combatants for Peace | Sulaiman Khatib [the new york review] – “Overwhelmed by grief and anger, both Israelis and Palestinians fail—and often refuse—to recognize the pain and humanity of those on the other side. If the enemy is less than human, no political solution is possible. But it is precisely the collapse of the belief in a solution, and the dehumanization that accompanied it, that got us here to begin with. We need not only a real peace process but a project of rehumanization to support it. What could that project entail?” What a powerful initiative.
Indigenous Activists Detained in Oaxaca Following Gathering on Political Prisoners [igd] – “On Tuesday, November 21st 2023 three Indigenous land defenders were kidnapped by the State in their hometown of Eloxochitlán (Nguixo), a Mazatec community in Northern Oaxaca. For nine years, Jaime Vidauria Romero, Artemio Vidauria Romero and Ranulfo Vidauria Estrada have been persecuted and hunted by the Mexican State and their henchmen on trumped-up charges because of their efforts to defend their communal territory against the capitalist extraction of their natural resources.” Free Jaime, Artemio and Ranulfo!
This Is How Your Immune System Works | Nate Bear [substack]– “We’re catching up on those bugs we missed out on, the myth goes. Our immune system is in debt. Getting sick is the path back into the black. That hacking cough is simply your route back to baseline health. It also neatly supports a business-as-usual agenda. Don’t worry, keep spending. It’s the perfect explanation to keep the capitalist train on the tracks. It doesn’t stand up to any logical reasoning. But people are buying it.” Immunity debt => debunked!
Stop Calling Jews Who Support Palestinians Anti-Semitic. It Only Strengthens the Far-Right. [daddy magazine] – “All of this is built on conflating criticism with Israeli policy with criticism or hatred of Jews, which is made possible by Germany’s totalizing, tokenizing view of Jews. Not everyone who lives in Israel is Jewish, not all Jews support the occupation of Palestine, and to assume either is, again, actually anti-Semitic itself. And though the confrontative approach to anything that can be construed as criticism of Israel is ostensibly done to protect Jews, the resolution and public outrage are frequently levelled at Jews themselves.” Such an important point, stop homogenizing.
Greta vs the German Verdrängungsgesellschaft: who’s being antisemitic? [friedliche sabotage] – “It seems a bit as if Germany’s Verdrängungsgesellschaft is using the fact that Greta Thunberg takes positions that, whille far from the mainstream of progressive debates in this country, are exactly smack in the mainstream of progressive international debates, as a vehicle to dissolve the emotional attachment to Fridays for Future built up between 2019-2021, when FFF were cast as “the good guys who should be listened to”, in order to then be allowed to ignore not only the “climate radicals”, but the entire climate movement.” Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater
Experience: I play piano for rescued elephants [the guardian] – “For my 50th birthday, my wife persuaded the manager of Elephants World to allow us to bring a piano into the sanctuary. These elephants have worked for humans all their life and many are blind or disabled from being treated badly, so I wanted to make the effort to carry something heavy myself.” Gotta love this dude.
In Abidjan, Ivorians want to ‘decolonize’ chocolate [lemonde] – “Chocolate is not a consumer product,” thundered Gauz on the low sofa reserved for the invited speakers at the Bushman Café. “It’s pure thought, pure intellect! It’s culture!” In front of a small audience of journalists, industrialists and researchers, the Ivorian writer, author of the book Cocoaïans (2022), said angrily: “Cocoa is not a native plant. It was imposed on us by a European bourgeois whim. Cocoa is an issue of civilizational thought, the site of a confrontation between African peasants, who produce this cocoa while destroying their ecosystem, and the hyper-bourgeoisie, who invented the taste of chocolate and imposed it through violence.” Cocoa is violence.
Why Food Sharing Is at the Heart of the Disability Justice Movement [eater] – “Crip love, mutual aid, and pots of immune-boosting soup on the stoop” Food for the heart.
The Black Flag Anarcho-Quiz Book [internet archive] – “The Black Flag Anarcho-Quiz Book. 207 questions and their answers pulled from the pages of the Black Flag the organ of the UK Anarchist Black Cross.” This is a great find, but wow, do i suck at anarchist trivia.
The ADL Smears Anti-Zionist Jews Like Me While Overlooking True Antisemitism [truthout] – “This doesn’t keep Jews safe. Mischaracterizing a broad range of Palestine solidarity organizing as antisemitic muddles our attempt to make sense of the threats we face in this moment, and strains our relationship with other marginalized communities at a time when those relationships are needed more than ever. But many of the actors at the helm of this McCarthyist crusade don’t care about keeping Jews safe — they’re using this moment to advance their longstanding goal of silencing critics of U.S. foreign policy and Israel’s unjust oppression of Palestinians.” Ben Lorber again, offering perspective.
Just like Pussy Riot, Sasha Skochilenko has incurred Putin’s wrath. But we won’t let him win | Nadya Tolokonnikova [the guardian] – “Sasha’s health is quickly deteriorating in prison: she has chronic conditions, including a congenital heart defect, bipolar disorder and coeliac disease. We all remember the Sergei Magnitsky case. He was a tax lawyer turned anti-corruption campaigner who died in a Russian prison because he was denied proper medical treatment. I’m not ready for Sasha to become the next Magnitsky. Enough martyrs.” Free Sasha Skochilenko!
What OpenAI shares with Scientology [crooked timber] – “It would perhaps be too cynical to say that AGI existential risk rhetoric has become a cynical hustle, intended to redirect the attentions of regulators toward possibly imaginary future risks in the future, and away from problematic but profitable activities that are happening right now. Human beings have an enormous capacity to fervently believe in things that it is in their self-interest to believe, and to update those beliefs as the interests change or become clearer. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Altman sincerely thinks that he is still acting for the good of humankind (there are certainly enough people assuring him that he is). But it isn’t surprising either that the true believers are revolting, as Altman stretches their ideology ever further and thinner to facilitate raking in the benjamins.” What AI? These are just LLMs.
Documenta Resignation Letter [e-flux] – “In the current circumstances we do not believe that there is a space in Germany for an open exchange of ideas and the development of complex and nuanced artistic approaches that documenta artists and curators deserve. We do not believe that any acceptable conditions can be created in short term and consider it to be disrespectful of documenta’s legacy to simply remain content with the current situation.” This, sadly, is a spot on assessment of the current climate in Germany.
Twelve billionaires’ climate emissions outpollute 2.1m homes, analysis finds [the guardian] – “Twelve of the world’s wealthiest billionaires produce more greenhouse gas emissions from their yachts, private jets, mansions and financial investments than the annual energy emissions of 2m homes, research shared exclusively with the Guardian reveals.” Eat the rich.
‘From the river to the sea’ – a Palestinian historian explores the meaning and intent of scrutinized slogan [theconversation] – “Simply put, the majority of Palestinians who use this phrase do so because they believe that, in 10 short words, it sums up their personal ties, their national rights and their vision for the land they call Palestine. And while attempts to police the slogan’s use may come from a place of genuine concern, there is a risk that tarring the slogan as antisemitic – and therefore beyond the pale – taps into a longer history of attempts to silence Palestinian voices.” The history of the controversial slogan.
More than Genocide [boston review] – “acts of collective punishment, deportation, and even destruction of peoples lie at the foundation of modern states. Some of the many cases that abound through history meet today’s definition of genocide, but most do not. In this respect, the genocide frame on the violence that has erupted both on and since October 7 is fundamentally limited by the concept’s legal parameters. Anyone concerned with civilian protection must consider the broader history of state violence and violent resistance, and their connections to Israel and Gaza today.” A larger view on the genocide question.
From the Strip to the Border [baffler] – “Much like providing unconditional military aid to Israel, support for a virtual wall of drones, sensors, and towers is bipartisan. Crucially, the relationship between Israel and the U.S.-Mexico border goes beyond the provision of technology. Working in concert with the United States, both the Israeli government and Israel-based defense contractors have also been involved in arming and funding the regimes whose repressive policies have led to mass migration from Latin America and beyond.” On how the tech relates.
Osama bin Laden ‘Letter to America’ Goes Viral, Is Deleted by Guardian [rollingstone] – “The incendiary text was removed from the website of The Guardian after becoming a top-trending link” Oh come on.
Removed: document [the guardian] – “This page previously displayed a document containing, in translation, the full text of Osama bin Laden’s “letter to the American people”, which was reported on in the Observer on Sunday 24 November 2002. The document, which was published here on the same day, was removed on 15 November 2023.” See above.
Plastic Waste in the Fuel Tank? [low←tech magazine] – “On the one hand, the embodied carbon emissions of the Volvo 240 are almost zero: Gijs found most components – including the car itself – in the dump, others on the second-hand market. 8 In contrast, manufacturing new vehicles – especially electric ones – adds a significant carbon footprint before they drive their first kilometer. They also need an extensive infrastructure to produce and distribute fuel and electricity, adding more carbon emissions. In contrast, the Volvo has its fuel infrastructure on the roof, built from scrap.” Free car running on free plastic waste. What’s there to hate?
Tenth Part: Regarding pyramids and their uses and customary regimes. [enlace zapatista] – “[I]t was seen that the structure of how we were governed, as a pyramid, was not the way. It’s not from below, it’s from above. If Zapatismo were only the EZLN, it is easy to give orders. But the government must be civil, not military. Then the people have to find their way, their way and their time. Where and when to do what. The military should be only for defense. Pyramid may be useful for military purposes, but not for civilian purposes. That’s what we see.” The Zapatistas scared us for a minute, but as it turns out it’s a much needed re-structuring.
October 2023 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “The October global surface temperature was 1.34°C (2.41°F) above the 20th-century average of 14.0°C (57.1°F), making it the warmest October on record. This was 0.24°C (0.43°F) above the previous record from October 2015. October 2023 marked the 47th-consecutive October and the 536th-consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average. The past 10 Octobers (2014–2023) have been the warmest Octobers on record.” This is fine. (You think?)
In the West Bank, Israeli Settlers Are Burning Palestinians’ Olive Trees [jacobin] – “In the West Bank, the Israeli army has banned Palestinian farmers from reaching their land and groups of settlers are burning farmers’ crops. Jacobin spoke to olive growers about Israel’s draconian moves to destroy their livelihoods.” This breaks my heart.
‘Endemic’ SARS-CoV-2 and the death of public health [john snow project]
“Today, we are told that it is impossible to contain SARS-CoV-2 and we have to “just live with it,” as if germ theory no longer holds. The argument that the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to wildlife102 means that containment is impossible illustrates these contradictions further – SARS-CoV-2 came from wildlife, as did all other zoonotic infections, so how does the virus spilling back to wildlife change anything in terms of public health protocol? But if one has decided that from here on there will be no effort to break transmission chains because it is too costly for the privileged few in society, then excuses for that laissez-faire attitude will always be found. And that does not bode well for the near- and medium-term future of the human species on planet Earth.” Newsflash: We might well be doomed, John Snow.
There are new scientific insights into long Covid – but political will is waning | Danny Altmann [the guardian] – “For many people, Covid is not a thing of the past. A renewed effort is needed to find out exactly what it is, and how to treat it.” Altman is of the few medical doctors, who keep looking at LongCOVID. Incidentally the book by him and Gez Medinger remains the best one out there.
Do Not Stand Idly By [hyperallergic] – “I am devastated by the murderous Hamas attack in Israel on October 7 and heartbroken for the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas. Likewise, I am alarmed by the rise of anti-Jewish hate globally. My grief expands exponentially day by day and my Jewish spiritual practice grounds me. Over and over again, I hear the Torah passage: “Do not stand idly by at your neighbor’s blood.” The Israeli government’s collective punishment of the people of Gaza is a disproportionate response to the Hamas attack and according to some analysts, it amounts to genocide.” Jewish artist Julie Weitz explains her brave stance.
How the far right is trying to manipulate the crisis in Gaza [waging nonviolence] – “The reality is that despite attempts to co-opt the Palestinian solidarity movement for their own goals, white nationalists have been largely unsuccessful. They will continue to fail as long as Palestinian solidarity activists are aware of how the far right tries to hijack important issues and reframe them through a racialist lens.” Shane Burley on how the far right plays both sides.
Mexico’s Zapatista indigenous rebel movement says it is dissolving its ‘autonomous municipalities’ [pbs] – “The Zapatista indigenous rebel movement in southern Mexico said in a statement posted Monday it is dissolving the “autonomous municipalities” it declared in the years following the group’s 1994 armed uprising.” At this point we were all worried.
At the Threshold of Humanity | Karim Kattan [thebaffler] – “In the media, Gaza is an abstraction, a space designed for the violent death of an abstract people inhabiting it. This death comes at the hands of a natural, impersonal force—not one of the most powerful armies in the world propped up by the most powerful state in the world, with a government, and a people electing this government. It is a convenient framing, one that shifts guilt away from Israel. The destruction comes from above, and those who die are meant to die. All is as it should be. To that, we offer a correction: Gaza is not an abstraction. It is a shore and beaches and streets and markets and cities with names of flowers and fruits, not an abstraction but places and lives and people that are being bombed into oblivion.” Gaza beyond the abstraction.
A Dangerous Conflation [n+1] – “We condemn the recent attacks on Israeli and Palestinian civilians and mourn such harrowing loss of life. In our grief, we are horrified to see the fight against antisemitism weaponized as a pretext for war crimes with stated genocidal intent.” An open letter from Jewish writers.
France’s Trial of “Left-Wing Terrorists” Is a Farce [jacobin] – “France is holding its first full trial of “left-wing terrorists” in decades. Prosecutors say it’d be unfair if leftists didn’t face the same charges as far-right or Islamist militants — but the terrorist conspiracy they allege is mere fantasy.” I fear we will see many more processes like these.
The impoverished imagination of neoliberal climate “solutions” – [pluralistic] – “The point of “all of the above” isn’t muscular, immediate action – rather, it’s a delaying tactic that creates space for “solutions” that won’t work, but will generate profits. Think of how the tobacco industry used “all of the above” to sell “light” cigarettes, snuff, snus, and vaping – and delay tobacco bans, sin taxes, and business-euthanizing litigation. Today, the same playbook is used to sell EVs as an answer to the destructive legacy of the personal automobile – to the exclusion of mass transit, bikes, and 15-minute cities” And their fucked up strategy works…
One Hundred Years Of Covid | Nate Bear [substack] – “As if catching this virus five times in four years is something to celebrate. A virus, it bears repeating, on which we have no long-term data. Zilch. Nada. Five times in four years plus contending with truly seasonal viruses like flu and other coronaviruses. All of which can also trigger post viral illnesses including ME/chronic fatigue and other cellular-level diseases. Despite the intense and successful efforts to brand all of this as normal, this is completely abnormal in the modern human experience. And there can be no return to normal.” Normal is gone.
[Articles German/French]
Philosophin Susan Neiman: “Das Kulturleben nimmt Schaden” [monopol] – “Für differenzierte Meinungen gibt es derzeit wenig Raum in Deutschland. Israel selbst und die USA sind da anders; die Medien äußern sich sehr differenziert. […] Ich frage mich aber, warum wir immer noch so viel über dieses Plakat eines indonesischen Kollektivs sprechen, während der von Reichsbürgern versuchte Staatstreich, der vor einem Jahr durch den Einsatz von 3000 Polizisten verhindert wurde, praktisch aus den Medien verschwunden ist. Wir reden immer über Antisemitismus vom sogenannten “globalen Süden”, von Muslimen – den es zweifellos gibt. Aber nach Angaben der Bundesinnenministeriums werden 84 Prozent der antisemitischen Straftaten von weißen Deutschen begangen. Wie kommt es, dass wir nicht über die Reichsbürger sprechen?” It is scary what is happeing in Germany, and as someone who lives in a german-speaking neighboring country i experience this in my day to day life. This is a brave interview with a jewish-american philosopher living and working in Germany.
L’ouragan Milei [lundi.am] – “Le libertarien Javier Milei a remporté les élections présidentielles argentines avec 55,7 % des voix contre 44,3 % pour le péroniste Sergio Massa, soit une marge beaucoup plus importante que ce que prévoyaient les sondages. En l’espace de deux ans, cet outsider aligné sur l’extrême droite mondiale est passé des studios de télévision, où il était connu pour son style excentrique et ses cheveux indisciplinés, à la Casa Rosada.” An article co-written by Stefanoni, who wrote the book “La rébellion est-elle passée à droite ?”
Genug geböllert [daslamm] – “Hunde und Katzen gehören dabei noch zu den stärker behüteten Tieren. In Schweizer Produktionsanlagen gibt es zehn Millionen Hühner – für sie gibt es keine Eins-zu-eins-Betreuung. Auch nicht für Schweine und Rinder, die ebenfalls in Panik geraten können. Ein Kalb im Solothurnischen Lohn-Ammansegg wurde an Silvester 2022 bei Feuerwerk totgetrampelt. Bei Wildtieren kommt es laut einem Bericht des Bundes zu „Ausweichbewegungen bis zu Aborten, panische Flucht mit gelegentlichen Todesfolgen und die Vertreibung ganzer Populationen“.” Stop fireworks. That’s what drones are for.
[http only] [http only] Longue absence, COVID & COVID long [mysterty.com] – “Ma situation aujourd’hui n’est pas glorieuse. Toutes les mesures sanitaires ayant été abandonnées, y compris dans les lieux de santé, moi et de nombreux⋅ses autres victimes du covid et du covid long (nous serions déjà plus de 2 millions en France) ou leurs proches se retrouvent assigné⋅es à résidence. J’ai perdu la quasi totalité de mon cercle social. J’ai même eu la chance d’entendre une « amie » me dire qu’elle « n’avait pas à faire passer son confort avant ma santé« . Je n’ai également plus aucun contact avec ma famille. Ça avait déjà commencé avant le covid, mais ça n’a rien arrangé.” I feel you so much. Plus, great illustrations. But switch your site to https, please.
Projektionen im Krieg: «Ich will meine Linke wieder zurück» [woz] – “Worüber reden wir, wenn wir über Israel und Palästina reden? Ein Gespräch mit Meron Mendel, Leiter der Bildungsstätte Anne Frank, über mangelndes Mitgefühl und universelle Positionen, Antisemitismus und allzu schnelle Urteile in den sozialen Medien.” A bit lop-sided, but comes with enough nuance.
Über anarchistische Bezugnahmen zum Begriff „Sozialismus“ [paradox-a] – “Obwohl es zurecht grundlegende Kritik an der Verstaatlichung sozialistischer Bewegungen, dem realen Staatssozialismus und seiner Verknüpfung mit der europäischen Moderne gibt, bin ich der Ansicht, dass es weiterhin Sinn ergibt, den Anarchismus als Hauptströmung des Sozialismus anzusehen und zu definieren, wie es auch der überwiegende Teil der historischen Anarchist*innen getan hat. Den Begriff komplett fallen zu lassen, heißt meines Erachtens nach der antikommunistischen Propaganda auf den Leim zu gehen, die eigenen Geschichten zu vergessen, sich in einer selbstbezüglichem Sonderrolle einzurichten statt mit vielen Interessierten zu kooperieren.” A bit heady, but raises an important point.
Réponse à la CICAD [renversé] – “Dimanche 5 novembre le 20 minutes publiait une courte interview de monsieur Johanne Gurfinkiel, secrétaire général de la Coordination intercommunautaire contre l’antisémitisme et la diffamation (CICAD), qui relevait l’augmentation d’actes antisémites depuis le 7 octobre dernier en Suisse romande. L’article décrit des commentaires et prises de position discriminantes voire menacantes envers les personnes juives sur les réseaux sociaux et plus généralement en ligne et des graffitis du même ton. Notre surprise a été totale en découvrant que Renversé était cité parmi ces exemples.” Another case where solidarity with Palestine was framed as antisemitic, this one in the French part of Switzerland.
Repression in Israel: Angst und Misstrauen [woz] – “Der Krieg hat das Leben in Israels Städten verändert. Arabische Israelis verlieren ihre Jobs oder werden von der Polizei festgenommen – oft wegen Posts auf Social Media.” The repression of Israeli citizens who speak out against the war often gets under-reported.
[Older articles, still great]
(M) ein Wort zu Long Covid
“Anlässlich steigender Fallzahlen, neuer Varianten und dem nahenden Herbst möchte ich einen Einblick geben in mein Leben mit LongCovid seit meiner ersten und einzigen Infektion mit Sars-Cov-2 Ende März 2022. Ich hoffe, das Video ist informativ und hilf Betroffenen, deren Angehörigend und Freunden dabei, mit der Situation umzugehen.” A bit tedious, but very well done.
Settling in for the long haul [crooked timber] – “Covid is coming for all of us and each time it’s a roll of the dice. I’ve had it twice now. The first time knocked me out for about six months, and the second time did sharply alien and unpleasant things to my brain. I’m so scared that collectively all our brains are getting fucked, and we won’t be able to sustain concentration in the immersive and demanding story-webs I believe are necessary to keep imagining our large and interlinked society into existence. I worry people like me will succumb to premature dementias as a result of the brain damage we’ve incurred, and there’s nothing we can do about it. And there are so many of us. And all of it just as our institutions are self-destructing and we need amplified and deep-form subjectivity to solve planetary-level hard problems.” Long COVID kills.
Bad Memory [jewish currents] – “In short, the current state of German memory culture appears to us as a double-sided coin of farce and tragedy. […] German philosemitism is thus revealed as another vehicle for supremacy, preferable precisely because of its anti-racist veneer. Germany’s crushing embrace of the Jewish community within its borders, with or without the participation of Jews, secures the German self-image as a moral arbiter while casting the country’s guilt onto Arabs and Muslims.” This is an older article putting into context how many Germans conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
MURDERD BY MARXISTS: Plakatreihe zu vom Marxismus ermordeten Anarchist*innen [breaking the spell] – “Marxist*innen haben zehntausende Anarchist*innen ermordet, inhaftiert, gefoltert und vergewaltigt. Breaking the Spell hat 20 kurze Lebensgeschichten von durch den Marxismus ermordeten Anarchist*innen zusammengestellt.” The anarchists killes by tankies.
R.I.P.
Way too many in Israel, Gaza, Ukraine and all the other wars.
[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: Descriptive