[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]
[Videos]
This Day in Anarchist History: The Exucution of Sacco & Vanzetti [kolektiva.media] – “On this day in Anarchist History, August 23rd 1927, Italian-American Immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed by electric chair near Boston, Massachusetts for allegedly robbing a factory and murdering a security guard and the paymaster 7 years earlier.” They were framed.
The Generation Games – Fuck boomers.
AMSTERDAM IS DEAD – Fuck parkour. (kidding)
Transvestigating (with Contrapoints) – Fuck TERFs.
[Music]
Jimi Slayer – “Fire in the Abyss” – Remember mashups?
Philippe Katerine – Nu (clip officiel) – The naked blue man from the “best tableau” of the Paris 2024 opening ceremony.
[Podcasts]
Mask Bans Are Everyone’s Fight | Death Panel [.soundcloud.] – “Beatrice, Artie and Jules discuss the mask ban passed in Nassau County last week, the latest in a dramatic rise in legislation criminalizing face masks and targeting the Palestine solidarity movement. We look at what happened in the overtly hostile public hearing over the ban, the history of the New York statute that ban proponents want back, and how the threat of mask bans goes far beyond public health: mask bans embolden racist policing; they’re anti-trans; and they target the whole of the left.” Mask bans could, should be the rallying cry for the fucking radical left, that has (also) abandoned us (the chronically ill, disabled etc.).
(1) Rave New World Radio Ep 2: Soul Skate (That’s Waddap Doe) [substack] – “If you ever find yourself in Detroit during the five-day techno marathon known as Movement, I have some advice: drag yourself away from the roaring speakers and orgiastic tumble of bodies, and take that 30-minute (or longer) Uber ride to Soul Skate—a roller disco spectacle that cannot be found anywhere else. Trust me, it’s an initiation into a scene so sweet and so pure that you won’t regret missing whatever transcendent DJ set your friends are raving about. There will always be another party, but there is only one Soul Skate.” I fell in love with DJ Big Bob.
If Books Could Kill: The Anxious Generation [apple podcasts] – “Is social media to blame for the teen mental health crisis? It’s complicated!Thanks to Emily Weinstein, Amy Orben, Andrew Przybylski, Dean Burnett, Michael Mullarkey and Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz for help researching and fact-checking this episode!” Thanks so much Michael for the most excellent debunking of Haidt, the patron saint of all the radicalized centrists around the world.
[Toot Threads]
[Pandemic Roundup]
Pandemic Roundup: August 29, 2024
Pandemic Roundup: August 22, 2024
Pandemic Roundup: August 15, 2024
Pandemic Roundup: August 8, 2024
Pandemic Roundup: August 1, 2024
Please support Violet, for her continued effort to keep us informed.
[The Must Read[s] This Month]
Two Years and $300 Billion into Biden’s Climate Plan, Emissions Are Higher than Ever | Peter Gelderloos [in these times] – “when we look at the countries that are held up as success stories, we find that the green energy transition is being paid for by fossil fuel production. It’s being paid for by the logging and mining industries that deplete and poison our clean water. It’s based on land stolen from Indigenous peoples and policed by human-rights violators. It’s being paid for by military production, the automobile industry and the aviation industry. It’s being paid for by banks and other companies that have their hands deep in the pockets of many of the worst polluters. “Green growth” is a marketing strategy. Nothing more. Advocates of green growth claim many countries have already “decoupled economic growth from CO2 emissions” but when we look past their colorful graphs, we see they are burying the truth under statistics. They pretend that emissions can be counted country-by-country and ignore the carbon emissions caused by exported fossil fuels, even when those exports are crucial to a country’s economic growth. And they hide rising emissions by counting a country’s emissions per capita rather than counting total emissions. In other words, per person, energy use is becoming more efficient in wealthier countries but those same countries still rely on a growing population — and hence greater total emissions — for their economic growth. These are all ways of ignoring the truth that, globally, carbon emissions and renewable energy generation are rising hand-in-hand.” Politicians are states are playing make-believe with their green growth lies and deflections.
Out of control COVID means permanent segregation for many disabled people | Julia Doubleday [substack] – “For many disabled and immunocompromised people, segregation is as complete as their need to avoid COVID. Indoor dining, of course, is out. Going to bars, happy hours, work events, weddings, conferences, parties, anything where large groups of people gather is a risk, even in a high-quality mask which will leave you unable to eat, drink, and a likely target for snide remarks and mocking jokes. Because again, the political messaging coming from the top encourages healthy people not only not to protect vulnerable people, but to mock and deride them.” So so true, says one such segregated person, actively planning his exit by now.
Covid and the 2024 Olympic Games – Denial on the World Stage [disabledginger] – “My fear is that we are so desperate to believe that Covid is mild – so utterly convinced that repeated infections aren’t causing long term harm – that no one will listen unless it’s someone incredibly high profile who ends up disabled. Who ends up dedicating their life to advocacy. That’s what we need. Athletes who quietly step aside due to Long Covid will instantly be forgotten – and change won’t happen.” Imagine that we now have to almost wish for a high profile Long COVID case, what a complete headfuck.
The Olympic Games (of Gender Conservatism) | Adrian Daub [substack] – “It’s pretty clear how an event like the Olympics is basically a gender pedagogy in two steps: first it distinguishes between supposedly salient and non-salient biological factors (not to blame everyone’s success on hormonal imbalances, but surely that’s gotta be some of it?); and in a second step it moralizes specific features. Not only is it not supposed to be salient that Michael Phelps had double jointed elbows and knees and a hyperextended thorax; it’s not unfair that he did.” Unfair advantages are what elite sports are all about. How very telling, that it is in gender that it gets sanctioned and that it’s a English person (Coe) who is in charge (England is TERF central).
Anti-Mask Harassment at Nassau County’s Mask Ban Hearing [jews for mask rights] – “Throughout the nearly seven-hour hearing, masked attendees were subjected to ongoing harassment. Some immunocompromised individuals were intentionally coughed on. Ban supporters told mask-wearers they couldn’t wait for their masks to be removed. Ban supporters pointed at, laughed at, and filmed disabled attendees. They made discriminatory remarks, even yelling out to arrest those in masks. Law enforcement and government officials made minimal attempts to curb the vitriol, which only emboldened those perpetuating it.” This is what’s coming. Read this and try not to cry. And if you don’t cry, you are part of the problem.
[Articles English]
Socialism 2024 – Virtual Program – The conference is happening this weekend 30.8 – 1.9.2024, these are the streamed events.
Israel: Palestinian Healthcare Workers Tortured [human rights watch] – “Released doctors, nurses and paramedics described to Human Rights Watch their mistreatment in Israeli custody, including humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing and blindfolding, and denial of medical care. They also reported torture, including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces, denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions for the general detainee population.” They torture health care workers?! I mean!?
The trial of Björn Höcke, the ‘real boss’ of Germany’s far right [the guardian] – “As leader of the AfD’s most radical faction, he is infamous in Germany and his critics have long accused him of using language that echoes the Nazis. This year, a court put that question to the test” Fuck Bernd Höcke.
Queer Wanderings through the Other Germany and the Anti-Nazi Underworld : An Invocation [crimethinc] – “A thriving homosexual underground existed before the rise of the Third Reich and survived during it—just as complex and fecund as the underground that blossomed before AIDS and was all but exterminated by the crisis around the virus. In both cases, most of the traces that are available to us were lovingly preserved by insurgent faggot scholars and mystics.” Important and almost lost queer history. Why? Because not only did nazis kill many LQBTQIA persons, but also destroyed the archives.
S. Korea administrative robot defunct after apparent suicide [france24] – ‘Headlines in local media questioned the apparent robot suicide, saying: “Why did the diligent civil officer do it?” or asking “was work too hard” for the robot?” Even robots now commit suicide.
Foule’s Gold [n+1] – “These surges of participation and international goodwill, then as now, are presumably why we carry on with the Olympic boondoggle to begin with. At the same time, the sheer size of the crowd points to the ways that Olympic hosts continue to fall short of this idealism. The most common problem plaguing Olympic cities in recent years is how to welcome the world for a two-week stay without sweeping everyday asylum seekers out of sight. Paris did better in this regard than Beijing or Rio, but its numbers still don’t add up: the city built new apartments to house 6,000 people, but forcibly relocated double that population in the process. In the run-up to the games, television reporters told us stories of houseboat residents on the Seine who were asked to sail downstream to make way for the ceremonies (with tickets as compensation), but not the stories of the mass evacuations happening around the less scenic turns of the river.” Huge sports events are habitually used for shock doctrine measures.
The Right’s Push to Whitewash History Is a Precursor to Fascism [truthout] – “Spaces where students once not only learned from history but also challenged the resurgence of totalitarianism — particularly on college campuses — have been transformed into sites of militarized repression. Learning critically from history has now become a cautionary tale, one that invites state terrorism. What is lost here is Primo Levi’s crucial insight that, “Every age has its own fascism, and we see the warning signs wherever the concentration of power denies citizens the possibility and the means of expressing and acting on their own free will.” When they start to whitewash history, the aim is to justify fascism.
Fruit and alcohol? Chocolate and cheese? The surprising science of food pairing [the guardian] – “There were some commonalities among the regions. The average number of ingredients in a recipe is eight – and there were very few instances in which recipes had a tiny or huge number of ingredients. Not all ingredients are created equally. Egg appeared in 20,951 recipes, a third of those studied. Meanwhile, jasmine tea, Jamaican rum and 14 other ingredients each appeared just once in the dataset. Within each region, there was a lot of repetition: the 13 key ingredients in North American cuisine showed up in three-quarters of all recipes from the region.” Cute illustration.
The US Government Has Abandoned Us to Endless COVID. We Can Do Better. [truthout] – “Undoing the damage of bad information is difficult, because “breaking the mystification of disinformation” can’t be done by simply changing the information that goes through those same media channels, said Adler-Bolton. Instead, people must work with each other through personal connection. “There is a kind of trust that we can build between each other that goes further than the trust any one person can have with any media project, no matter how good the project is.” We could do better, but obviously we don’t. And almost no one seems to notice.
We Don’t Talk Like Nazis [organizingmythoughts] – “I recently did a project re-analyzing the entire ADL antisemitism data for 2023. As you would expect, there were a ton of incidents they count that, when you look at them, are either overblown or simply not antisemitic, and they don’t include a lot of types of antisemitism that they probably should if you want a clear picture. But what you also find is that there have been more antisemitic white nationalist incidents that year than nearly every year since Trump took office. There were 1,000 bomb threats at synagogues and Jewish institutions and an unprecedented number of reports of street attacks and harassment, many of which have perpetrators literally yelling about ZOG. This is explainable both by the recent returning rise of the far-right, particularly open neo-Nazis, and also just Israel’s violence, which always leads to peaking moments of antisemitism because it often inflames existing antisemitic attitudes.” Please read Shane Burley’s (and Ben Lorber’s) book Safety through Solidarity. It is the must read of the moment. We have to fight antisemitism AND also strongly condemn what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians. It is yes/and, not either/or.
The Warped World of the U.K. Rioters [the new yorker] – “The United Kingdom has become more multicultural, but a wave of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant violence raises the possibility that it is also becoming more racist.” Ugh, Fuck Nigel and all his ilk.
How Elon Musk Stoked the Fire of the UK’s Far Right Anti-Immigrant Riots [truthout] – “Doesn’t the world’s richest man have anything better to do before his first cup of coffee in the morning than author inane, false and inflammatory posts aimed at stirring up fear and hatred in a country that has just experienced a traumatic week of far right violence? If Musk had even a modicum of decency, he would explore the role that his own platform might have played in fomenting the hate spree by boosting the reach of figures such as Tommy Robinson, founder of the fascist English Defense League, whom Musk re-platformed after buying Twitter in 2022. Once something of an iconoclast, Musk has, over the past few years, become an unapologetic advocate of the far right worldview.” Fuck Elon.
The Deep Medicine of Solidarity | Rupa Marya–Deep Medicine [substack] – “But as they seek to make an example of me, I need you to remember that everything I’m experiencing is nothing compared to the 885+ healthcare workers who Israel killed in Gaza. And I speak up for them and for the children and the people in Palestine whose voices are being permanently silenced. Medicine requires diagnostic clarity. And the diagnosis is clear: UCSF is engaged in deeply racist repression of faculty, students and staff for decrying genocide.” How a doctor who expressed solidarity with the Palestinians gets mobbed.
“You Have to Live Your Life:” Responses to Common COVID Minimizing Phrases – “If you’re still COVIDing, you’ve likely heard phrases, like “it’s mild now,” or “you have to live your life,” repeated over and over. You might be wondering, “what do I even say here? How do I respond to this?” I’ve listed some of the most common minimizing phrases and some potential responses to them. Feel free to adapt these and make them your own. I’ve included a variety of responses with different tones, depending on how much you want to be # saltingthevibes.” Practical advice.
The mainstream climate framework is only making things worse | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “[This model of creative carbon accounting] explains why global emissions (the only important measure, for people who live on a planet) are rising as investment in green energy also rises globally. A country’s economic strategy can be largely based on oil and gas production, but it dodges accountability for those emissions by selling the product to countries that cannot currently afford renewable options.” The compagnion article to the article featured above.
As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel [the guardian] – “since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions. It was not just that this attack against the last concentration of Gazans – most of them displaced already several times by the IDF, which now once again pushed them to a so-called safe zone – demonstrated a total disregard of any humanitarian standards. It also clearly indicated that the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and to debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out or seek all possible options to flee the territory. In other words, the rhetoric spouted by Israeli leaders since 7 October was now being translated into reality” I especially admire how Bartov is able to correct his earlier assessment on the question of genocide.
Matchstick Man in a World on Fire [ninaillingworth] – “if your plan is to literally kill off billions of people to maintain capitalism and capitalist structures, even as climate catastrophe destroys the world, you’re going to need an ideology and political structures even more coercive and inhumane than the faux democracies the Pig Empire operates through now. The obvious solution to that problem is to install fascist ideas and political structures across the so-called “western world.” Elon and his fellow tech authoritarian shitlords aren’t just battling government regulations against their social media companies, they’re waging a war against the concept of democratic (such as it is) government entirely. That’s why Musk and guys just like him are working to popularize fascist ideology and create permission structures for a wholly fascist society. The wealthiest beneficiaries of capitalism need fascism to maintain their way of life on a boiling planet as billions are sacrificed to the money god.” The problem is, that rich assholes have been given too much power. This is capitalism working as intended.
Why we quit: how ‘toxic management’ and pandemic pressures fuelled disillusionment in higher education [nature] – “The pandemic was a particular peak point. It provided that wake-up bomb, an awakening to say there are aspects of our professional practice and our professional lives and the conditions in which we work that we are no longer willing to tolerate.” I wish it had been a wake-up “bomb” for more people tbh.
July 2024 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “July 2024 was the warmest July on record for the globe in NOAA’s 175-year record. The July global surface temperature was 1.21°C (2.18°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.8°C (60.4°F). This is 0.03°C (0.05°F) warmer than the previous July record set last year, and the 14th consecutive month of record-high global temperatures. This breaks the longest record warm global temperature streak in the modern record (since 1980) previously set from May 2015—May 2016. July 2024 marked the 48th consecutive July with global temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average.” Is this still fine?
Sport-washing, Militarization and Financial Scandals: A Brief Analysis of the Past Five Summer Olympics [unicorn riot] – “The Olympic Games are mega sporting events that demand extensive security planning and financial management. Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, global security protocols were significantly overhauled, with anti-terrorism and counterinsurgency measures rigorously applied to the Olympics. A review of past Olympic Games reveals recurring patterns, including gentrification and the displacement of residents, the introduction of new surveillance technologies, over-policing, repression of dissent, authoritarian legislation, and financial scandals. These issues have fueled growing opposition among residents in various candidate cities against hosting the Olympics. Simultaneously, the role of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as a supranational body with independent economic interests has become increasingly apparent.” The olympics are sucky sucky and have been for some time.
The Covid Summer Games | Nate Bear [substack] – “One of the stars of the Olympics collapsing with covid on live TV in front of a global audience and being forced to withdraw from the games after we’ve been repeatedly told covid is over (and if it isn’t over it is definitely now mild) really does put a ribbon on the last few years. The event is another chapter in this sad covid summer, a summer which began with Taylor Swift superspreading her way across three continents, leaving a trail of covid in her wake. This was followed by cyclist after cyclist dropping out of the Tour de France, or struggling on, with covid. After this the US President withdrew from the presidential race while sick with covid. Then the Olympics started. With zero precautions being taken by organizers and with a new variant hungry for willing hosts, the Olympics have been riddled with covid from day one.” Baffling, just baffling, how even Lyles collapse on life television was normalized.
The Frightening Intersection of Christian Nationalism and Techno-Fascism [organizingmythoughts] – “Many people are aware that Trump’s political brand is a vehicle for Christian nationalism and that Christian supremacist politics threaten the freedoms and futures of millions of people. Far fewer people, however, are aware of the political intersection between Christian nationalism and the tech cults of Silicon Valley, which have incubated their own fascist politics. Now, following aggressive lobbying from Elon Musk and tech investors like David Sacks, JD Vance is Trump’s running mate. Vance is a protege of right-wing, post-democracy-minded tech mogul Peter Thiel, who has played a major role in funding and orchestrating Vance’s career. Vance is a product of Silicon Valley, and he is a vehicle for the hopes and dreams of tech founders and investors who hope to rule the world.” Ugh, this particular election should never even have been possible. Why does that orange man have impunity?
UK Riots Have Their Roots in a History of Hate [in these times] – “To reduce the cause of these events to disinformation and hooliganism is an exercise in historical amnesia and whitewashing. In Great Britain, as elsewhere, the racism in the streets was seeded by the racism promoted by the state, as well as the media (especially tabloids like The Daily Mail and The Daily Express), think tanks and academics — all of which have been happy to promote the claim that racist abuse and physical assaults are grounded in “legitimate concerns.” The riots were the symptom, not the cause.
These riots are more than thuggery: they’re the outcome of 14 years of Tory race-baiting [the guardian] – “Now Elon Musk has not only allowed his platform X to be used by the far right to escalate conflict, but he participates himself, amplifying posts by some of the most malign sources of disinformation. He seems to revel in the prospect of civil war in the UK and Europe, repeatedly predicting it. Paul Marshall, the rightwing millionaire who owns the website UnHerd and part-owns GB News, appeared to share this enthusiasm.” I not only lost all respect of all people still participating on this toxic website, but i now also think that they have switched sides.
Peter Thiel’s influence over a network of Lord of the Rings-inspired companies [disconnect] – “After J.D. Vance’s selection as Republican vice-presidential candidate briefly put the spotlight on his relationship with Peter Thiel and the Valley’s obsession with Middle-earth, I decided to see how widespread these companies named after aspects of Middle-earth actually are. Unsurprisingly, the dark lord Peter Thiel holds the One Ring to rule them all — or close enough.” Would Tolkien approve?
He Was an FBI Informant—and Inspired a Generation of Violent Extremists [wired] – “Joshua Caleb Sutter infiltrated far-right extremist organizations as a confidential FBI informant, all while promoting hateful ideologies that influenced some of the internet’s most violent groups.” And this keeps happening.
[Articles German/French]
Schalteggers Ideologiemaschine [woz] – “Demnächst präsentiert der Bundesrat seine Sparvorschläge. Mitgeprägt hat sie Wirtschaftsprofessor Christoph Schaltegger. Wie ihm Milliardäre helfen, seine neoliberale Agenda in Medien und Politik zu verbreiten.” Background information on how neoliberal economics spread in Switzerland.
Disput auf der Alp: Wars der Geier? [woz] – “Neue Sommergäste, tote Schafe und aufgewühlte Älpler:innen: Die Gänsegeier sind zurück und sorgen für Wirbel – wie ein Besuch vor Ort zeigt.” Team Gänsegeier.
Sucht ist ein Produkt der herrschenden Ordnung [lamm] – “Staaten schaffen mit ihrer Wirtschaftsordnung auf der einen Seite die Lebensumstände, die Menschen anfällig für Sinnangebote und “unmittelbares Glück” machen: Leben in Armut und Unsicherheit, andauernde Existenzängste, Leistungsdruck, Stress und Einsamkeit. Auch Traumata aus Kindheit und Jugend, verursacht durch Eltern, die selbst von Enttäuschungen, Druck und Elend in dieser Gesellschaft gezeichnet sind und ihren Frust an ihren Nächsten auslassen, ebnen den Weg zu Suchterkrankungen. Auf der anderen Seite wird ein Bewusstsein vermittelt, dass Menschen trotz aller Schwierigkeiten und entgegen allen gegensätzlichen Erfahrungen daran festhalten lässt, ihr Schicksal und ihr Glück würden allein von ihnen selbst abhängen.” Addictions are people trying to self-medicate. Addicts deserve our fullest solidarity.
Keine Shows für Täter LOL – “Genauso war es vor einem Jahr, als ich mein eigenes kleines metoo-Moment hatte. Ich dachte, jetzt wo ich den Müll rausgebracht hätte, das Geheimnis gelüftet sei, würde alles anders. Aber nichts ist anders geworden. Alles ist gleich und auch ich bin the same und ich wiederhole mich wieder und wieder und wieder. Bis die Trigger alle sind. Aber die Trigger gehen nicht aus, solange ihr Tätern weiterhin eine Bühne gebt, weiterhin mit ihnen zusammenarbeitet, solange eure silly little Instagram-Statements performativ bleiben.” Jessica Jurassica continues to be one of the only voices to point out the ongoing scandal of sexual assault in the Swiss media- and culture-scape.
[Older articles, still great]
1969: What Is ELECTRONIC MUSIC?
Philippe Katerine – Raphaël 1965-1989 – I am a bit obsessed with the naked blue guy from the Paris 2024 opening ceremony.
R.I.P.
Too many in Gaza and all the other wars.
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Header Photo: A skyline at dusk with dramatic clouds and some sticks in the foreground