Today I’ve written up a brief peek at world events. I’m writing for those who don’t want to drown in the horror of it all and also don’t want to fall into the depression of isolation. So I’m starting with brief mentions of some of the more heartbreaking situations in the world right now that we should all be aware of, then I’m diving into good news and thoughts about how we can all do things that make it better.
If you don’t have it in you to read a few pages today, here’s a mix that has to do with getting through really hard times. (Track list at the very bottom if you don’t have Tidal, along with some notes about this mix and a few other playlists you might prefer, depending on your mood and how you deal with hard times.)
For those looking for more information on the ongoing catastrophes, I add more detail at the end of this newsletter (just above the track list and other playlist suggestions). Read it if you’re up for it, because it’s important to be aware of the power structures causing so much harm in our world. And if you’re not up for it, don’t. It’s okay. Take care of yourself, read some of the good news, help out a friend or a neighbor, send some cash to folks who need it more, listen to music. We’re a team. Not everyone can do everything every day.
.
Summary
The US/Israeli war against Iran continues, as does Russia’s war against Ukraine, and the civil wars in Mali, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Yemen.
Israel continues to carry out genocide, ethnic cleansing, and land grabs in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria.
China has been occupying more disputed territory along borders with India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Vietnam.
Deadly earthquakes have rocked Venezuela, Colombia, and México.
The Democratic Party continues to fumble over basic questions like “who should we throw under the bus for the next election” or “can we win over all the white men in Trump’s base with better marketing?”
ICE continues to deliberately terrorize and attack latina, Haitian, and Somali communities and anyone in solidarity with them, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status.
Trans people are still being dehumanized and scapegoated by the Right, and even a lot of progressive white feminists are joining it (especially in the UK).
All these things are going on. And I’m here in the middle of it, like we all are, and like many of you out reading this, there’s no major uprising or insurrection going on in the territory we inhabit. Just tiny acts of resistance we may or may not be aware of. In my case, I’m struggling to write a newsletter that probably won’t have much impact, on an old laptop with an increasingly dysfunctional keyboard, hoping it won’t break down or become unusable any time soon because I can’t currently afford a new one. And that might just break me, because I need writing as an outlet, and currently it’s the primary way I contribute to the struggle. Which in itself is depressing. Every week used to come with a dozen meetings and assemblies – on a neighborhood level, at the social center, on an initiative with a local or global scale, with a small group of trusted friends. Every week there would be collective meals to cook, posters to put up, walls to tag, gardens to tend to, anarchist magazines and books to distribute, and other things no one will be able to write about until more decades have passed.
Now I don’t have much of that. I’m in a new town. Americans are weird. Trust takes time and intensity to build in the absence of roots (see: America). And I’m at least as broken as my computer.
Going through piles of old To-Do lists today to make sure there’s not anything I’m missing, I found a note to myself: “write xxxx.” That friend died of cancer last year. Another one, to send a book to another friend… she’s on the frontlines of one of the wars I mentioned above, and I haven’t heard from her in months. Other friends have been directly impacted by the recent earthquakes or the criminalization of trans people.
So just to get by, I have to remind myself that there’s good news too, and things I can do that make a little difference. I know a bunch of other people are in the same place.
Good Things!
So here we go: due to their own arrogance, stupidity, and cruelty, the US, Israel, and Russia are all losing power. They are each trying to amass more power through war, repression, and genocide, but they are so convinced by their own superiority they have all overreached and are undermining the foundation of their own power. That doesn’t mean they’ll just eventually collapse and we’ll all be free: there can be no true freedom without revolution, and no revolution without us taking an active part in making it happen. Without that, other rising powers will just step up to fill the power vacuum. But, one of the few things certain about the future is change. The fate of polar bears and humankind is completely up in the air, but the status quo is doomed for sure. And whether the US completely reforms its understanding of domination in order to remain global superpower or some other Evil Supervillain steps forward to lead civilization, they don’t have their resources and allies and strategies lined up, they don’t have a plan, they don’t even understand what they’re currently doing wrong and what they need to change.
That means we have the best chance for revolution that we’ve had in a couple generations, and possibly since the early 20th century. We just need to make sure we don’t make the same mistake that turned last century’s revolutions into counterrevolutions: we cannot trust the State as a neutral instrument that can liberate us or solve the many problems of colonialism, warfare, poverty, and ecocide. All those problems are direct products of the State’s need to amass and centralize power.
Resistance is happening everywhere! Here are just a few examples. See a link? Most of the links below go to more detailed stories or resource guides that might give you some useful ideas and inspiration! (Many are from CrimethInc, which has been a great, action-focused resource for anarchists for around 30 years! Thanks CrimethInc!)
There are more and more campaigns against Flock cameras and other surveillance companies that could easily replace Flock. In many regions, relatively light forms of public pressure has slowed down the wave of new data centers being constructed, stealing our water, destroying neighborhoods, and poisoning the planet in order to power the stupefying technologies of AI.
We can help this resistance by joining the protests, helping convince everyone we know that AI is bad for humans and bad for the planet, putting up posters and stickers, and becoming less reliant on smartphones, apps, and related technologies.
It’s illegal to advocate crime and no one out there should do anything illegal. It is, however, just a simple fact to state that many people have made a practice of disabling surveillance cameras in their neighborhoods, and that the infrastructure of AI and Big Tech has plenty of weak points that are vulnerable to costly sabotage, and that over the past several decades tens of thousands of anonymous, regular people following up-to-date security practices have been able to carry out acts of sabotage and get away with it, without going on the run or committing to a life of clandestinity. People with families, with jobs, with hobbies, and—thanks to their actions—better chances of a healthy future.
All over the US, ICE raids are being thwarted. Just the other day here in Ohio, as ICE stormtroopers were amassing outside a Haitian church, neighbors gathered, got in the way, and opened escape routes. Everyone was able to leave safely. We can help this by participating in small ways or big ways, by convincing neighbors, coworkers, or family members how sadistic and cruel ICE is, and borders in general. (For European readers, the borders of Fortress Europe are even deadlier than the US-México border.)
In fact, there’s something you can do that will simultaneously help some of the people in the US impacted by this racist, xenophobic terror campaign, and some of the people traumatized and left homeless after the massive earthquake in Colombia. Some trusted friends know the people who started this fundraiser, so they can vouch that all the money sent here goes straight to Colombian families in need.
“My dear friends have family in Buenaventura, Colombia. The home they grew up in, currently a home for 10 people, was destroyed in the earthquake last week. Their grandparents home was partially destroyed. We are raising money to help them rebuild and get the care they need.
My friends are navigating the immigration system here in the US, and amidst the stress and fear that the system has caused and instilled, they are now solely focused on getting their family what they need to rebuild after the immense destruction.”
It’s depressing that capitalism-induced climate change has just produced a hurricane in the Pacific that devastated the island of Hawai’i, but once again mutual aid efforts are arising all over to help people distribute food and other necessary supplies, to share information, and to get help to those most in need. Mutual aid isn’t charity, it’s not one way, it’s not dependent on professionals, governments, or privileged volunteers, it’s anarchy in practice! And some form of mutual aid is also a part of many different Indigenous cultures, such as the concept and practice of ohana in Hawai’i.
Mutual aid relies on direct action, not mediated action or action mandated by the State. Direct action is also a more effective way than petitioning the government to stop ongoing harm. Right now, direct action on both sides of the US-México border is halting construction of the border wall, saving a forest, and holding open a vital path of transit that can improve the lives of humans and the many other creatures who have always relied on migration and movement for their survival. The tree-sit in a small, ancient grove of cottonwood trees in the path of the border wall started in Lochiel, Arizona, and has been picked up on the southern side, Santa Cruz, in the Sonoran state of México. The cottonwood grove is in the traditional territory of the O’odham people, whose lands are split by the border and occupied by the US and México, both products of European colonialism.
Another friend sent a little bit of news from Formentera, one of the Balearic Islands, which are largely occupied and destroyed by a killer combination of mass tourism and elite tourism. The Balears form a part of the Catalan countries, which are mostly ruled by Spain. Thanks to popular struggle, it’s still generally illegal in Spain to privatize the shoreline, meaning everyone should be able to have access to the beach, the shore, the sea. Early in August, a small group of people carried out an action against a luxury hotel that was trying to privatize a beautiful cove on the sea shore. Here’s an article with a video at the bottom. (Non-catalan speakers can auto-translate the article; the video speaks for itself.)
Here’s a call for action from a friend in Belo Horizonte, Brasil. Support and defend Kasa Invisível, an abandoned building that was squatted several years ago to provide housing to the precariat, to allow for free community events, and to bring life back to the neighborhood. Around 100,000 people in Belo Horizonte house themselves through some form of squatting and direct action. Kasa Invisível hosted me when I was in Brasil last year, making connections, presenting some books, and learning and writing about inspiring Indigenous and anti-state movements there. More info here. #KasaInvisivelStays
(That first link there is a podcast, for anyone who doesn’t have time for more reading. Also, check out Antimidia, any day now they’ll have a good video about Indigenous resistance in the Atlantic Forest, with English and Spanish subtitles.)
What else? It’s a long, slow process, but I’ve been learning how to be better friend, partner, and comrade, and to be a happier person myself, as I deal with some pretty vile shit that happened when I was a little kid and the counterproductive survival methods and coping strategies I adopted over the years that followed. It’s pretty scary, but I’m writing some articles about trauma, therapy, revenge, and collective healing.
You can always support efforts towards transformative justice in your own area: learn about it, get more recognition and resources to the people in your community who are the best at helping everyone move away from complicit inaction or punitive responses and towards transformative healing, and in your own life practice radical empathy, understand the complexities of real life conflict and the harmfulness of black-and-white thinking, and decide for yourself who you think deserves a chance at healing and who should just be treated as a threat and a source of harm.
Details on catastrophe
If you notice a phrase in bold below, that means I’m working on a longer essay about that topic for a future newsletter.
The US/Israeli war against Iran continues, as does Russia’s war against Ukraine, and the civil wars in Mali, Sudan, the DRC, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Yemen. In all these wars, the vast majority of victims are innocent people, from those whose homes are being invaded and bombed to many low-level soldiers forced into the military in some of these conflicts, from Russia to Sudan.
The war against Iran has killed over 10,000 people, including hundreds of children, and the war has seriously injured 50,000 people or more. In many cases those are life-altering injuries or injuries that will lead to fatalities that won’t be added to death count tallies circulated by the media. Really, I should say “the US and Israel have killed over 10,000 people and seriously injured 50,000” because those two countries started it without any direct provocation, in the case of the US it isn’t even favorable for US geopolitical interests, and well over 90% of the casualties are in Iran and Lebanon. Fewer than 100 of the dead are Israelis or Americans. In other words, the aggressors, those entirely responsible for starting the war, are suffering less than 1% of the casualties. The purpose of the war, which even centrist media will admit, is for Israel to get the US to try to destroy its main regional enemy while it carries out ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon, southern Syria, and the West Bank, trying to steal more land.
And yet, this past week, as the US and Israel break one ceasefire after another, most media attention in the US is being directed at the difficult conditions not faced by Iranians, Palestinians, or Lebanese, but by the military sailors on board the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which has spent months launching attacks to murder people and destroy vital infrastructure across Iran. (Over 10,000 flight sorties raining down 1.5 million pounds of explosives.) What are those conditions? They don’t have much room to move around, they don’t have many entertainment options, the showers are moldy, and the food they have to eat is pretty shitty.
In other words, they face shorter sentences and better conditions than most of the 2 million+ prisoners in the US, a group of people responsible for far fewer murders and sexual assaults than the US military, and already these brave soldiers are reporting an increase in suicide rates.
I believe in supporting all soldiers who mutiny, kill their officers, or refuse deployment, but for the rest I think we need to ask a critical question. Can any members of the US military claim they didn’t know what they were getting into, since the bloody and completely unjustified US invasion of Iraq (or since the war against Vietnam, the war against Korea, the war against the Philippines…)
It’s a highly popular war with the Israeli public, and a highly unpopular one in the US, though surveys have shown that most of the reasons have to do with a concern for US troops or the country’s international standing, and not a concern for people in Iran and Lebanon.
Of all these wars, the least attention is being dedicated to the bloodshed in sub-Saharan Africa. Decolonization in Africa was designed to leave the most exploited continent in a situation of instability that made it easy for European powers to continue colonial exploitation in a more direct manner. Rather than allowing African societies to reorganize themselves, whether by restoring as much as possible indigenous forms of social organization that preceded the devastation of the Transatlantic slave trade or by developing new forms that best suited them, European powers required the new “independent” Africa to be organized into modern states. (Throughout the liberal era that arose from the Enlightenment in Europe, the most oppressed peoples have been stateless peoples, who have never been granted any real right to sovereignty, autonomy, or even survival.) Where they could, departing Europeans drew the borders of the new states to divide up peoples and left power in the hands of a minority which would be dependent on continued military and economic “aid” to stay in control. But even where independence was gained through socialist-oriented revolutions, the outcomes have been remarkably similar.
Local rulers try to prop up their states through some combination of nationalism, corruption, and religious fundamentalism. Nationalism always obliterates cultural and collective existence whether by creating a new nationality united under modernist (capitalist) values or by placing one preexisting ethnicity over the others; it also increases the likelihood of war between neighboring states. Religious fundamentalism is another way of uniting an ethnically diverse state beneath a single ruling class, and in the case of the Sahel it’s offshoots of the Islamic State that are leading this drive. No matter what the ruling class strategy is, rulers need to make money to stay in power, and the place assigned to sub-Saharan Africa by the global economy, created by European states and primarily maintained today by the US and China (and to a lesser extent countries like the UK and Germany), is to be a mine and a plantation: an impoverished, abused continent that transnational companies can use for the poisonous extraction of minerals and cash crops. These primarily include gold, platinum, diamonds, cobalt, copper, tin, cut flowers, citrus, corn, nuts, coffee, tea, and petroleum.
This is important to note, because contrary to a superficial anti-imperialist framework or the binary, good/evil approach to geopolitics that most Marxist-Leninist or Maoist cults use today, these local ruling classes are not passive subjects of Empire, they have agency in shaping strategies of exploitation and oppression in the territories they dominate and that won’t change until local revolutions overthrow them. If the twenty largest economies or twenty most powerful militaries of the world just disappeared, the entire global system of colonial capitalism and the State could be revived by the ruling classes of some of the poorest countries on Earth, unless their own subjects and neighbors overthrow them.
It is important to hold onto this understanding together with the awareness that foreign states and companies currently play a key role in immiserating, exploiting, and militarily brutalizing Africa as a continuation of the Transatlantic slave trade of the 16th - 19th centuries and the direct European colonization of Africa of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Currently, the states most involved in the wars and extractive industries of sub-Saharan Africa are the US, UK, France, China, Russia, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye. (That’s a rough attempt to name the top 12 in descending order, balancing economic extraction and military involvement.)
What is going on in Israel isn’t a war, it’s just genocide, with Israeli citizens and soldiers deliberately targeting children, the elderly, medical workers, schools, religious sites, housing, and agricultural lands, using systematic torture and sexual assault against detainees, intentionally causing famine and disease by preventing the distribution of food and medicine, claiming to be victims while openly celebrating genocide and spreading slogans like “gas the Arabs” or “towards a zero-Arab state” on television and in graffiti directly on Palestinian homes, mosques, and churches. Israeli settler paramilitaries and the military are working hand-in-hand, firing thousands of bullets and missiles for every bullet or homemade rocket fired by Palestinian resistance groups. There is no excuse for Israel, and anyone who tries to make one is supporting genocide. I’m working on forthcoming newsletters about how to respond to genocide, how the world lost all the lessons we should have learned from the Holocaust, and the centrality of Islamophobia in European civilization.
China continues to push forward, occupying more disputed territory along borders with India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Vietnam. Because of simplistic anti-imperialism and Maoism (see the note above), there are a bunch of internet trolls and Beijing stans ready to claim there have been no acts of genocide in Xinjiang, all the territory of southern, western, and northern China were just empty when the Han Chinese got there, and Chinese prisons are made of rose petals. I’m slowly preparing a well researched essay to help people see that, yes, the PRC (China under the Communist Party) has inherited and continues to fight for many of the ethno-supremacist and imperial practices of earlier iterations of the Chinese state.
Deadly earthquakes have rocked Venezuela, Colombia, and México, killing over 5000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless. Chocó, the epicenter of the quake in Colombia, is also the department with the highest Afro-Colombian population and a large Indigenous population, and the 4th poorest of Colombia’s 33 departments. Under racial capitalism, the combination of poverty and racism deprive a population of resources like safe housing, meaning those same earthquakes in wealthy areas would have had much smaller death tolls.
Don’t forget to support our friends who are struggling after losing their homes! https://gofund.me/40c8d8f5c
The Democratic Party continues to fumble over basic questions like “who should we throw under the bus for the next election” or “can we win over all the white men in Trump’s base with better marketing?” I’ll be looking at the ways the Democrats have been able to hold back the Left in the US, and the ways the radical Left holds itself back, in a future essay, The Left That’s Left.
ICE continues to deliberately terrorize and attack latina, Haitian, and Somali communities and anyone in solidarity with them, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status.
Trans people are still being dehumanized and scapegoated by the Right, and even a lot of progressive white feminists are joining it, especially in the UK. Here’s something good from Unicorn Riot in Minneapolis on confronting ICE. Here’s one about the far-Right gaining power and mainstream appeal by targeting the most marginalized. And here’s an essay about the history of DIY practices in trans medicine.
Resistance is risky. But it is so much less risky if we are aware of how the government carries out repression, and if we never break solidarity, testify to the courts and the cops, and betray other people in the movement, whether we know them or not.
Here’s a good analysis on the Prairieland case against people fighting against the border regime in Texas. The spirit of the article is clear: “We can win this fight.”
The Mix!
So here’s the mix! I’m on Tidal because it gives more to artists and its politics aren’t as bad as Spotify. Also, I don’t support purity politics or consumer politics. Passive boycotts never work and active boycotts only work if they target specific companies (rather than entire industries) and are supported by an exhausting amount of campaigning and, usually, sabotage. I’ll probably have a newsletter before too long about consumer politics.
Nivana “You Know You’re Right” / Weezer “Say It Ain’t So” / Radiohead “Paranoid Android” / Nirvana “Downer” / Keny Arkana “La rage” / Smashing Pumpkins “To Forgive” / Modest Mouse “Bankrupt on Sellling” / Rilo Kiley “The Good That Won’t Come Out” / U2 “With Or Without You” / Smashing Pumpkins “Thirty-Three” / Elliot Smith “Everything Means Nothing To Me” / Dido “White Flag” / Bright Eyes “Land Locked Blues” / Smashing Pumpkins “Soma” / Radiohead “Let Down” / Nick Drake “‘ Cello Song” / Jeff Buckley “Hallelujah” / Gillian Welch “Hard Times
I want to be really clear: I go to musicians for music. Few famous musicians have admirable or well thought out politics. They’re not necessarily good at anything besides, well, music. If you think some of the people I listen to deserve to be punched or expropriated, please go ahead and do so. Telling me not to listen to or share their music, well, if you really want you can see how that goes.
And, hopefully more pertinently to most of you, everyone needs a different sort of mix or playlist (not the same thing) for the hard times. On the other chance you might like some of my other tunes, like “Joy,” “Deep Cut,” or “Dance,” (a lot of the other playlists are very underdeveloped works in progress) find me as Storms and Subversions, @arrojalabomba
Brilliant blog as always, P!
Speaking of Mutual Aid. I found this series to be brilliant and it features some heavy hitters of the movement with great things to say. Consider sharing it with your friends: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLniU5PtIeiwIBZTR8x83sOBGSPdXBHnSC