Tag: historical memory
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The Least Incompetent Empire
What does Vladimir Putin want? The question is the obsession of just about every reporter, pundit and politician in the west right now. Virtually none of their answers should be considered reliable. They are spun from the same stuff as the worst Cold War paranoia. And make no mistake, the invasion of Ukraine is the definitive shot across the bow, notifying the world that we have entered the New Cold War.
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The Alchemy of Militant Memory
Seventy-eight thousand. That’s roughly the number of names that cover the inside walls of the Pinkas Synagogue in the Josefov section of Prague. Each name is perhaps an inch tall, its calligraphy unadorned and neat, grouped first by town or region, then alphabetically. These are, it is stated upon entering, the names of all Bohemian and Moravian Jews killed during the Shoah.
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Nothing Sane
Ill-fated power plant workers confirm that the reactor has indeed exploded by staring down into a deep, burning pit. Flames rise up with an unnatural ferocity. It looks less like an industrial accident. More like an Old God awaking from under the Earth’s crust.
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Twenty-Five Things You Can Call a Concentration Camp Other Than “Concentration Camp”
Pity the middling white ego. Noticing nothing but oppression as far as the eye can see. Having its drive back from the Hamptons interrupted by marching Black people, hearing people speak Spanish at the grocery store, encountering homeless people in broad daylight who refuse to decrease the surplus population. Oppression is positively everywhere for this poor, disgruntled […]
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Of Unfinished Revolutions
Here’s a series of questions for my “fellow” Americans. Answer honestly. Do you really need to know what Prince Harry and Meghan Markle named their son? Should you even give a blue shit? Is the fact that you have twelve years to stop your city from sinking underwater in any way impacted by the naming […]
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Here In the Empire
Poway, California. The final day of Passover. According to one eight-year-old child in attendance, the shooter aimed for the kids first. The rabbi was shot through the hand, losing his index finger, and reports say that at first he attempted to continue speaking from the front. A member of the congregation, sixty-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye, […]
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Lewisham. Charlottesville.
Today is the 40th anniversary of what is remembered in Britain as the Battle of Lewisham. On August 13th, 1977, anti-racist demonstrators, organized primarily by the Socialist Workers Party, faced down with the fascist National Front organization. The NF had been growing in influence and gaining votes by doing exactly what fascists do: exploit acute economic anxieties by pointing the finger at immigrants and people of color.
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Detroit’s Exterminating Angel
Before RoboCop was released in theaters thirty years ago this month, it was given an X rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. Director Paul Verhoeven, knowing that this was guaranteed box office death, went back and scrubbed his film no fewer than eleven times trying to achieve its eventual R rating. He toned down at least three execution scenes and cut out countless blood spatter shots.
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Synthpop, the Left, and the Future That Refuses to Come
Depeche Mode have long suffered in the synthpop scene from what I call “godfather syndrome.” They aren’t the only act of massive influence who find themselves in such a position. Nor is it entirely, or even mostly, their fault. The irony of popular culture’s nostalgic time-loop is that it never really lets you see even the most influential acts through anything but layer upon layer of distorting filters.
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The End Has to Begin Somewhere
During the 2016 American presidential election, a poll was conducted that jokingly included an option for a giant meteor. In other words, it was asked whether potential voters would rather a massive asteroid collide with the Earth than any available candidate become president of the United States.
To Whom It May Concern... 