Cultural Detritus, Reviews, and Commentary
Link to an article by Jim Kavanagh:
“Danger to Society: Against Vaccine Passports”
Bonus links: “COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters for Young Adults: A Risk-Benefit Assessment and Five Ethical Arguments Against Mandates at Universities” and “Suppressing Scientific Discourse on Vaccines? Self-Perceptions of Researchers and Practitioners” and “Twitter Files #19” and “Study Reaffirms That Masks Prevent COVID-19 Transmission”
Link to a translation of an interview with Thomas Sankara – “We Didn’t Import Our Revolution”
“If our revolution worries some, it’s primarily because of the example it can set . . . .”
Link to a video of a speech by Jodi Dean:
Link to an article by Julian Vigo:
“How Privilege and Woke Politics are Destroying the Left”
Bonus links: Review of Kill All Normies and “Too Much of Not Enough: An Interview with Alenka Zupančič” (“(Moral) outrage is a particularly unproductive affect, yet it is one that offers considerable libidinal satisfaction. By ‘unproductive’ I mean this: it gives us the satisfaction of feeling morally superior, the feeling that we are in the right and others are in the wrong. Now for this to work, things must not really change. We are much less interested in changing things than in proving, again and again, that we are in the right, or on the right side, the side of the good.”) and Beautiful Soul Quote and Review of Domenico Losurdo’s Liberalism: A Counter-History and “The Politics of Online Friendship” and “Against the Neoliberal Blackmail: Identity Fetishism and the Privatization of Affect” and “What’s Wrong With Identity Politics (and Intersectionality Theory)? A Response to Mark Fisher’s “Exiting the Vampire Castle” (And Its Critics)” (“The upshot in political practice is a static pluralism of reified social categories, each vying for more-subaltern-than-thou status on a field of one-downsmanship.”) and “The Politics of Identity” and “Multiculturalism, or, the Cultural Logic of Multinational Capitalism” and “Amuse-Bouches II – Testimony and the Pass” and Review of The Trouble With Diversity and “The Political Economy of Effective Altruism”
Link to an interview with James Carden conducted by Natylie Baldwin:
Quote by Rob Urie:
“Differences on ‘the left’ have been between the chide that we need better management of empire versus the counter-argument that capitalist imperialism is the problem that needs to be solved. The charge, addressed below, that Donald Trump represents a ‘unique threat’ falls out on the ‘better management of empire’ side of this divide. The subtext is a contested analogy regarding the genesis of European fascism in the twentieth century. To state: the base difference between left and right political analysis has historically been a focus on society and institutions (left) versus individuals and ‘character’ (right).
“As a child (and opponent) of the Vietnam war, I’ve argued for most of my now substantial years that assessments of the uniqueness of the Nazi threat depends on which side of American power you exist on. The horror of Nazi atrocities can’t be understated. But neither can the basic outline of American history, from slavery and genocide against the indigenous peoples to the people, friends, families, communities and nations destroyed. From Vietnam to Central America to Iraq to the present, I’ve met more than a few American ‘heroes’ who would be understood to be the moral equivalents of Nazi concentration camp commanders but for which side of power they reside on.
“Following WWII, an argument was developed in support of the ‘uniquely evil’ nature of Nazism whose very purpose was to get past American history up to that point. And it depended on ideological explanations of history, purposely leaving aside the economic circumstances behind the rise of Nazism so as to avoid capitalist culpability for the Great Depression. This theory, tied to right-wing economics, is today known as ‘neoliberalism.’”
Bonus link: “The Two Totalitarianisms”
Link to an article by Robert Parry:
“An Apology & Explanation, Two Years On”
Bonus links: “America’s Reporter: The Hersh Method” and “Making Rebellion Attractive: Why the Establishment Still Hates John Reed” and “Why ‘Russian Meddling’ is a Trojan Horse” and “The Limits of the Web in an Age of Communicative Capitalism” and “Three Variations on Trump: Chaos, Europe, and Fake News”
Bonus quote from Rex Butler:
“in the analysis of ideology, it is not simply a matter of seeing which account of reality best matches the ‘facts’, with the one that is closest being the least biased and therefore the best. As soon as the facts are determined, we have already — whether we know it or not — made our choice; we are already within one ideological system or another. The real dispute has already taken place over what is to count as the facts, which facts are relevant, and so on.”
Link to an article by Jim Kavanagh:
“Impeachment: What Lies Beneath?”
Bonus links: “Impeachment Hearing Highlights Conflict Over US Policy in Ukraine” and “A Warning: A Manifesto of the Pro-war ‘Resistance’ in the American State” and “America Escalates Its ‘Democratic’ Oil War in the Near East” (and “The Saker Interviews Michael Hudson”) and “Impeachment Without Class Politics: An Autopsy”
Link to an article by Vijay Prashad:
“After Morales Ousted in Coup, the Lithium Question Looms Large in Bolivia”
Bonus links: “The Coup in Bolivia Has Everything to Do With the Screen You’re Using to Read This” and “In Moments of Crisis, Behind Every Moderate Liberal, There’s a Fascist” and “The Bolivian Coup Is Not a Coup—Because US Wanted It to Happen” and “A Week After the Coup in Bolivia, There’s Still No Proof of Electoral Fraud” and “Western Media Whitewash Bolivia’s Far-Right Coup” and “A Letter to Intellectuals Who Deride Revolutions in the Name of Purity”
Link to an article by Jodi Dean:
Bonus link: “Four Theses on the Comrade” and “The Comradely Professor”