[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]
[Videos]
2025 Ursula Franklin Lecture: Cory Doctorow
Molly Crabapple & Keith LaMar: The Injustice of Justice, A Short Film Animation
The Far Right Is Rising in the Land of ‘Never Again [nyt] – German comedian Böhmi (and wannabe John Oliver) on the stakes of the recent election in Germany.
Trump’s Plan to Distract and Overwhelm w. Naomi Klein – “This is what neoliberal centrism has delivered. A counterrevolution that is very serious without the revolution that would have united us.” Exactly true, they push us back into the past, but we did not even go far into a better world.
It’s Revolution or Death Part 2: Heads Up, the Revolution is Already Here – SUB.MEDIA – Part 2 of 3. This one features interviews with activists from around the world.
[Music]
Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke – Back in the Game
[Podcasts]
The Long Emergency: A Discussion With Adam Greenfield [igd] – “In this episode we sit down with Adam Greenfield, author of the book Lifehouse, out on Verso. In this discussion we talk about technology and the internet, the occurrence of disaster, the long emergency, the concept of lifehouses, prepperism, and the complexities of organizing in communities.” There that prepper thing again, and I disagree with that, as i have written about before. But the movement history aspects of this conversation are interesting.
Enemy Feminisms w/ Sophie Lewis | Death Panel [.soundcloud.] – “Beatrice speaks with Sophie Lewis about the history of “fascist feminisms,” what this history can tell us about the current state of US politics, and the need to embrace more radical and liberatory forms of feminism.Sophie’s new book, Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation is out this week from Haymarket.” I am currently reading Sophie’s latest book and it is fantastic.
Emotional Labor with Rachel Monroe and Ash Compton of Bad Therapist | You’re Wrong About – “What is “emotional labor,” and why is it probably not what your boyfriend accuses you of making him do when you want him to go to Ikea with you? Psychotherapist Ash Compton and journalist Rachel Monroe are here to tell the tale of how the term sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild coined—in her 1983 book The Managed Heart—has come to mean, well, almost everything. How is the term still useful?” Their conversation made me discover a new favorite podcast: Bad Therapist.
“From Hash Rebels to Urban Guerrillas” with Gabriel Kuhn [the final straw] – “Interview Gabriel Kuhn speaking about the West German urban guerrilla group the 2nd of June Movement, the book he co-edited on this subject entitled From Hash Rebels to Urban Guerrillas: A Documentary History of the 2nd of June Movement (from PM Press and Kersplebedb), the milieu from which it arose, how it compared to other groups at the time like the Red Army Faction, and some of the legacy of their critiques and interventions on radical politics in the autonomen movement and beyond.” Might want to read this book at some point, because this period in radical leftwing politics is near and dear to me. I wonder if the Spontis are mentioned, they were sympathizers who often hid the people who went underground.
Navigating leftist cancel culture in the west | Rupa Marya [substack] – “A recording from Rupa Marya and Ayesha Khan, Ph.D.’s live video” What continues to happen to Rupa should alarm so many people.
[Toot Threads]
Feminist Collages Bern – Jeder 3. Mord in der Schweiz ein Femizid
Feminist Collages Bern – La révolution féministe est antifascist
[Pandemic Roundup]
Covid: February 28, 2025
Covid: February 20, 2025
Covid: February 13, 2025
Covid: February 6, 2025
[The Must Read[s] This Month]
Budapest: Prozesserklärung von Maja [de.indymedia.org] – “Deutsche Behörden haben mich Ausgeliefert und ihr höchstes Gericht missachtet, Ungarn bricht Zusicherungen und europäisches Recht, einmal mehr zeigend wie es sich entfernt von vermeintlich demokratischen Werten. Mir bleibt nur davon zu berichten, zu widersprechen und an alle zu Appellieren es ebenfalls zu tun. Ich weiß all dies zu erfahren ist nicht allein mein und so hoffe ich, meine Worte erreichen auch all jene, die dafür das sie gegen Rechtsextremismus, Faschismus, Patriarchat, Ausbeutung von Natur und Mensch, gegen strukturelle und rassistische Gewalt und Repression aufbegehren, Alternativen erschaffen und dabei Emanzipation, queeres Sein und ein würdevolles Leben aller einstehen, verfolgt und eingesperrt werden. Sie alle sollen wissen in Gedanken und Worten bin ich bei ihnen, mögen sie bald frei sein.” It is a huge scandal how the German justice system delivered Maja into the hands of the Hungarian fascist regime. Great statement by Maja.
Israel and the delusions of Germany’s ‘memory culture’ | Pankaj Mishra [the guardian] – “As Israel began to bomb homes, refugee camps, schools, hospitals, mosques and churches in Gaza, and Israeli cabinet ministers promoted their schemes for ethnic cleansing, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, reiterated the national orthodoxy: “Israel is a country that is committed to human rights and international law and acts accordingly.” As Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign of indiscriminate murder and destruction intensified, Ingo Gerhartz, the head of the German air force, or Luftwaffe, arrived in Tel Aviv hailing the “accuracy” of Israeli pilots; he also had himself photographed, in uniform, donating blood for Israeli soldiers.” Technically this is from January, but it’s a must read. You can also watch the interview with Mishra on democracy now.
Betrayed by Green Capitalism, Here’s How We Can Build a Livable Future | Peter Gelderloos [in these times] – “An important strategy of colonialism has been to erase these histories and destroy or marginalize these cultures so we have to depend on those in power, believing hierarchies to be natural, believing states to be inevitable. But the truth of the matter is that decentralized networks are practical, they’re intelligent, and they work.” Do they work, though? Not in these parts at the moment, where anarchists are ableist and ageist assholes. But in theory i agree with Peter. And there are examples of working networks around the world.
[The Must Read Books This Month]
But: Life Isn’t Like That, Is It? by Boff Whalley
Enemy Feminisms by Sophie Lewis
[Articles English]
What NOT to Say to Your Grown-Ass Friends Who are Housing Insecure [caw magazine] – “The US Empire is collapsing in real time and it’s happening at warp speed, and it’s violent and bloody overwhelming. There are specific individuals who have their fascist hands on the levers of this multileveled destruction, so y’know, at the very least there’s concrete targets. While this nightmare continues to unfold before our hearts and eyes here, the rest of the world is also in chaos, dealing with their own fascist leaders, ongoing wars, and the destruction is everywhere you look.” I am glad that housing is talked about more again.
Here’s what’s coming after capitalism. | Emilis Roig [substack] – “We must remember that we created capitalism; it did not create us. The ingenuity, creativity, and resilience of humanity are far more powerful than any economic system we’ve built. If we can trust in these qualities, we can trust in our capacity to craft a new paradigm—one that prioritizes well-being, equity, and sustainability over relentless growth and profit. The path forward is not about controlling the future but about regaining faith in ourselves. We have the collective wisdom and resources to create something better. But first, we need to give ourselves permission to grieve.” I have been grieving for years, ready for the next step.
The Age of Christiane F. | Adrian Daub [substack] – “it turns out the real gateway drug, at least in the 60s, wasn’t weed, which was still very much a drug of existentialists hanging out in jazz clubs. It was Fenethyline, which was invented in Germany in the early 60s, and which is basically an amphetamine – it was available freely under the brand name Captagon. Captagon was prescribed above all to children with what we would today call ADHD, and became a global German export – it was outlawed by the FDA in 1981 and put on an index by the WHO in 1986. It very quickly became an endemic abuse drug in the Middle East. So Der Spiegel seems invested in selling its readers on a tale of “oriental” invasion, when in fact it was Germany that was flooding large parts of the globe with immensely addictive substances that would present problems to the present day.” As someone who was a teenager in the 70s, who read this book and later briefly was a junkie, for only two years, i love reading this article and can’t wait for the next two parts of the series.
Become an Anarchist or Forever Hold Your Peace [crimethinc] – “Anarchists propose to build our collective capacity to act on a horizontal and decentralized basis, rather than entrusting our agency to leaders. We seek to create a lattice of overlapping participatory and voluntary associations that can meet people’s material and spiritual needs. Rather than hoarding resources for ourselves the way the billionaires do, we seek to abolish all of the mechanisms that impose artificial scarcity, to create commons that benefit everyone. We seek to generate abundance, not profit.” Loved reading the article. Get the point. What Musk, Trump etc. are doing is not anarchistic. Quite the opposite. Anarchy or anarchistic is often misunderstood to mean chaotic, irresponsable, rule breaking for the sake of breaking them. But this has nothing to do with anarchy. The question we anarchists raise is what rules are needed, who decides them, how they get implemented. But i object to the headline. We do not need more threats. What will happen to those who don’t become anarchists, yet do not hold their peace?
The Revolution Will Not Be Optimized | Beatrice Adler-Bolton [substack] – “When we expose the idea of “normalcy” as a capitalist invention, we open up new possibilities for social reorganization. “Normalcy” is not a universal truth, but a social construction rooted in the demands of capitalist production. The idea that certain bodies are more valuable, more productive, or more capable than others is a narrative created to uphold the capitalist order. Normalcy is rooted in the logic of efficiency, which always boils down to extracting more value with less effort. The problem with this logic is that it doesn’t account for human diversity—it doesn’t recognize that limitations, bio-variability, and interdependency are an essential part of what makes us human. When we begin to see “normalcy” as a capitalist construct, we are forced to rethink the very foundations of capitalism itself.” I hope Quetelet suffers in hell.
Filmography: David Lynch : Free Download [internet archive] – “Posted in respects of the late David Lynch (1946–2025). All of Lynch’s feature-length content.” Hmm, is this legal? Never mind, loved re-watching some of these films.
Richard Foster on the Art of Punk Rock Birdwatching [the quietus] – “Too much seriousness can mean you look and act like a right menace. There you are, watching birds (yeah, right) hugging the sides of pathways or in odd stretches of litter-strewn wasteland, dressed in drab utility clothing and clasping high resolution field glasses and a notebook. Often giving off an odour of sweat and muck due to constant battles with the undergrowth, you resemble someone on day release, or working for a tabloid. No wonder parents hurry their children on as they pass you.” What’s next? Punk macrame?
Kings of Capital [in these times] – “These Big Tech masters of the universe aren’t just shapers of global opinion and governance; they are also global government contractors who hold unprecedented power over public communication and digital infrastructure vital for trade, security and war. Their actions are dictated by the recognition that, especially in a fracturing multipolar world wracked by trade wars and instability, their monopoly power depends on the state as deregulator and contractor, while their profit-driven anti-worker animus — fighting unionization and treating “low-performing” employees as disposable — is best served by a political agenda that mobilizes widespread economic discontent all the better to entrench inequality.” Make tech geeks embarrassing again?! No not really, that would be cruel. But fuck em.
Gulf of Whatever That Thing On Trump’s Neck Is Called – Or generate your own.
Take One Step, Every Day | Vicky Osterweil [caw] – “But how do you get started doing mutual aid? The first thing to know is, it’s easy. You can fit it into an already busy everyday life, and doing so will bring you community, pleasure, and confidence in your capacity to fight back. The best thing we can do to feel less alone and less helpless is to help one another, and by building networks of resilience and mutual capacity we don’t just feel more powerful, we become more powerful.” Vicky always sounds sooooo optimistic. Love it.
This Valentine’s Day, Let’s Ditch Romance Myths and Seek Collective Liberation [truthout] – “Valentine’s Day is a mainstay of the romance myth, insisting we celebrate romance or feel left out. It asserts that romantic relationships are the most important, that our lives are empty without them, and that we should sacrifice all to get and keep them. This myth is an important part of the social control that keeps patriarchy and racial capitalism going.” There are two paragraphs in the middle of this article, where Dean writes about “one strongly emotionally activated person”, that made me scream, because they are the opposite of inclusive and sound ableist to me (that one “emotionally activated person” might be autistic or in mental distress). I feel increasingly ambivalent about his writing, because I think Dean’s approach is very conflict-adverse and therefore sounds almost neoliberal. But he does make some great points as well.
Science Will Not Save Us | Nima Bassiri [baffler] – “The stupefying fear that anti-science provokes has lately been all the more inflamed by the confirmation this week of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The panic is understandable. Covid-19 rates have not abated, a bird flu outbreak looms, and Trump kicked off his second term by withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization and ordering all federal health agencies to temporarily halt public communications. The HHS is now run by a fervent and vocal vaccine skeptic, whose many public proclamations have veered into an inconspicuously conspiratorial style of thinking.” Thank you Nina!
As the World Burns | Rupa Marya [substack] – “Instead of funding ecocide and genocide, our land, our water, our labor and our tax dollars could instead be used to secure food, water, shelter, education and healthcare for all. These are things that are critical for human health and used to belong in the commons before the dawn of capitalism–they belong to no one and they belong to all. Capitalism as a system works because it manufactures their scarcity to coerce the labor of the working class into jobs we hate, jobs that continue to concentrate wealth into the hands of those who abuse us. In a system built through settler colonial logic, we must recognize that we are all just one wildfire away from becoming homeless ourselves.” What’s not to like? Please support Rupa.
Global Climate Report: January 2025 [ncei] – “The January global surface temperature was 1.33°C (2.39°F) above the 20th-century average of 12.0°C (53.6°F), making it the warmest January on record. This is 0.03°C (0.05°F) above the previous record set just last year (2024). January marked the 49th-consecutive January (since 1977) with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th-century average.” So far these reports still get published.
“That is not it at all.” – On Reactionary Centrism as Gesture | Adrian Daub [substack] – “the consistent ideology of seeing yourself as “holding a neutral position”, and the action of “punching left”. Others have ably critiqued the status “neutrality” and “centrism” hold in this discourse and what they enable. I’m more interested in the “punching”-part, or rather the juncture between the punching and the neutrality. “Reactionary centrism” — and that’s no accident — is an ideology for/of a moment in which our intellectuals almost obsessively create content. Repetition, quick reaction, the clapback are the name of the game.” I sometimes talk about radicalized centrism, but reactionary is even better.
You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism [404media] – “Many of my journalist colleagues have attempted to beat back the tide under banners like “fighting disinformation” and “accountability.” While these efforts are admirable, the past few years have changed my own internal calculus. Thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt warned us that the point of this deluge is not to persuade, but to overwhelm and paralyze our capacity to act. More recently, researchers have found that the viral outrage disseminated on social media in response to these ridiculous claims actually reduces the effectiveness of collective action. The result is a media environment that keeps us in a state of debilitating fear and anger, endlessly reacting to our oppressors instead of organizing against them.” The cruelty is the point, the deluge is the method, our paralysis the goal.
Organized Abandonment | Sarah Jaffe [baffler] – ““Resilience is a management strategy and apology for the status quo, for global capitalism with all its constitutive social and socioecological relations.” We may have to live and organize in conditions not of our own choosing, but this does not mean we have to embrace a philosophy that counsels adaptation rather than that other over-used R-word: resistance. The demand for resilience is keeping us exhausted, isolated, scared: a recipe for miserable compliance.” I agree with many things Jaffe writes, especially with the points they make on resilience and how it gets weaponized. But at the end of the article Jaffe reminds us that they are a statist, through and through. Which is the wrong conclusion. An approach based on mutual aid, communal care and horizontal networks can scale, as history has shown again and again. But those who wish to be in the “vanguard” will always deny this.
We Will Outlive Them | Vicky Osterweil [substack] – “I have been having that electric subcutaneous feeling again, that tingling in my muscles that says everything is ready to explode, everyone is just on the edge of taking the streets. That feeling, which I can’t always explain but which I trust deeply, is based on some subconscious arithmetic of observations, combining increasing moments of protest, increasing expressions of frustration, anger and political attention everywhere I spend time– from social media to group chats to work place water coolers– an increasing tension in the shoulders of the people you see on the street and an intensity of purpose when friends tell you how they’re feeling. An increase in the generalized sensation of rage. ” Let’s hope Vicky gets it right – this time *hint hint*
Beyond infighting: Cultivating movements driven by love for people rather than hatred for capitalism | Cosmic Anarchy [substack] – “Bottom line- egos kill movements. The state loves it when we act out of hatred rather than love for the people. The state wins when we fabricate lies about others simply because we dislike them. A big reason carceral cancel culture is so pervasive in western leftist spaces might be because people are motivated by mutual hatred of capitalism rather than by love for people & the land. People are more focused on the systems they’re against rather than on the things they’re fighting for.” Again, a bit too much blaming the individual for my taste. Which is why i love this quote:
“The community is not a magic utopia, just like our families weren’t, & we don’t all just magically love each other, or even like each other, let alone agree on every political issue. I think about people I know who are mean or angry or bitter or “hard to like”—& disabled—and how that confluence is not a surprise or an accident, because many of us are indeed in a shitty mood, mean, or bitter from withstanding decades of ableism & the isolation that it brings.”
~ Piepzna-Samarasinha – Care Work
[Articles German/French]
Paris Hiltons Superpower | Jessica Jurrassica [substack] – “Viele Takes in dem Artikel sind so unfassbar inkohärent – oft sogar faktisch falsch –, dass der Verdacht aufkommt, dass hier mal wieder eine Kontroverse simuliert wird, wo es keine gibt, so wie es viele Medien in den vergangenen Jahren zunehmend praktiziert haben, um faschistischen Ideen eine Plattform zu geben. Diese Vermutung verstärkt sich, wenn man den auf die Reportage folgenden Artikel liest, in dem zwei Fachärzte befragt werden und einige Punkte aus dem Leitartikel direkt widerlegen. Es geht also nicht mehr um Fakten, es geht um Kontroversen, geile Diskurse, catchy Titel – Hauptsache die Faschos fühlen sich auch abgeholt. Und das alles passiert immer auf dem Rücken von Gruppen, die um einen Platz in der Gesellschaft kämpfen, für ihre Gesundheit, ihre Rechte, ein Leben in Würde.” Jessica is a fantastic writer and i keep behaving like a silly fanboy towards her, which she hates and has every right to do so.
Berner Reitschule: «Kommt zu uns, wir brauchen euch!» [woz] – “Nach mehreren Gewaltvorfällen schloss der Berner Kulturort zuletzt für zwei Wochen seine Tore. Dreissig Jahre nach der Auflösung der offenen Drogenszenen ringt wieder ein autonomes Zentrum mit seiner Verantwortung für die, die sonst nirgends Platz finden.” At first they forgot to mention that there had been a previous occupation in 1981, but they corrected this after my intervention.
Die Fratzen des Faschismus in den USA [daslamm] – “Die entscheidende Frage ist somit nicht, ob Trump ein neuer Hitler oder Mussolini ist. Das hat Sylvie Laurent – Expertin für amerikanische Geschichte – jüngst in einem Artikel für die französische Tageszeitung Libération festgehalten. Unbestreitbar sei jedoch, dass Trumps Politiken und Reden „Elemente der Faschisierung“ enthalten, die tief in der amerikanischen Geschichte verwoben sind. Dazu zählt sie unter anderem eine eugenisch geprägte Angst vor moralischem und ethischem Verfall, die Anwendung politischer Gewalt, strukturellen Rassismus sowie Hass gegenüber den sozialen Bewegungen und der kulturellen Linken. Auch der wachsende Groll gegenüber dem Staat und den als schwach oder korrupt wahrgenommenen öffentlichen Institutionen ist laut Laurent tief in der US-amerikanischen Geschichte verwurzelt.” Faschisierung. Faschismus. Potato potato. But sure, man.
[Older articles, still great]
Belonging Part Two | Starhawk [substack] – “One of our dysfunctional norms is to frame disagreements as harm. Lively debate and political arguments used to be at the heart of social change movements. Now, our tendency is too often to call spirited disagreement ‘unsafe’. Social media has spawned the habit of unfriending those who disagree, deplatforming, banning and shunning rather than arguing.” The entire series is great, a book in the making. Another example:
Clear Communication Creates Safety: Post Number Four of The Movement We Need | Starhawk [substack] – “Conflict can feel uncomfortable, and it’s something many of us try to avoid. Yet in any group where there are people involved, inevitably there will be conflict, because conflict arises when people have different goals, priorities, values, needs and ideas. Dealing well with conflict is one way groups establish a deeper level of trust, and for that we need effective communication tools.”
R.I.P.
Tom Robbins (i used to love reading his books, but that’s a while back)
Too many in Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine and all the other wars
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Header Photo: Tasty Bites of the Sky