Showing posts with label neoliberalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neoliberalism. Show all posts

Monday, October 10, 2022

Nina Bytes: Any Fool Will Do

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.


Understanding "longtermism": Why this suddenly influential philosophy is so toxic


In a number of recent posts, I've found myself talking about billionaires, ideology, and the mainstream rise of overt fascism in the Pig Empire. Today in Nina-Bytes then, I'd like to take a moment to look at this critically important August 2022 essay on Salon about the latest nightmare ideological fad for billionaire fascists and disillusioned neoliberals; longtermism. Just what is longtermism? Let's ask philosopher and historian Émile P. Torres, the author of this article:


"Longtermism is a quasi-religious worldview, influenced by transhumanism and utilitarian ethics, which asserts that there could be so many digital people living in vast computer simulations millions or billions of years in the future that one of our most important moral obligations today is to take actions that ensure as many of these digital people come into existence as possible. In practical terms, that means we must do whatever it takes to survive long enough to colonize space, convert planets into giant computer simulations and create unfathomable numbers of simulated beings."

 

At first glance, it may not be entirely clear to the casual observer why longtermism is in fact such a dangerous, and reactionary ideology. That is of course until you start asking who exactly these folks mean by "we" and what they're implying when they say "whatever it takes." Hint: we is more or less rich and powerful people, while whatever it takes pretty much consists of sacrificing the poor, and quite possibly the planet. After all, even billions of poor people probably aren't going to build super intelligent artificial minds that will "evolve" the human species and take "us" to Mars, or something.

In case my sarcasm doesn't make it clear, the plain truth is that I don't believe what so-called longtermists claim to believe matters at all. Rather, I think what matters is that longtermism is another ruling class word salad ideology designed to justify mass murder in order to maintain capitalism in the face of a dying planet; like neoliberalism before it, or eco-fascism today. Marketing murder for profit as an ideology takes all kinds of sales pitches, for all sorts of people, and ruling class billionaire freaks are no different.

At its root this longtermism is merely a mash up of fascism, futurism, and a little bit of neoliberalism for flavoring; and all three of those reactionary headcages have at least one key commonality - the idea that some deserve to live and rule, while some deserve to serve and die. Of course, adherents and acolytes will howl that the difference lies in how those decisions are made  and who ends up in what bucket, but I think you'll find that whether the culling is based on racial animus, economic class, or a fake meritocracy, the end result of who lives in luxury, and who dies in bondage, doesn't really change much.

In other words the rise of ruling-class interest in both longtermism, and fascism in the Pig Empire, are intertwined phenomenon. They represent some, but not all, of the capitalist class's response to the objective reality that climate catastrophe cannot be stopped without ending capitalism. The capitalists, who possess outsized power in our society, have made their choice already, and now they're casting about for justifications and mechanisms to ensure billionaire reactionaries, not liberal democracies full of people, survive the coming apocalypse.

So what is longtermism? Another excuse to genocide poor people for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what greedbag monsters and fascist killers tell themselves to fall asleep at night. What matters is that we stop them before they kill billions.


 nina illingworth


Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Podcast at “Kropotkin’s Barbershop” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

 

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Nina-Bytes: In Between Days

 


Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Days After Climate Summit, Biden To Hold ‘Carbon Bomb’ Gulf Oil Sale

It is not lost on me that I've spent a lot of time recently here on Nina-Bytes essentially wasting my breath, by pointing out the hypocrisy of neoliberal leaders when it comes to the subject of climate crisis. The problem with this approach of course is that we live in a time of unprecedented ruling class power; our society is post-accountability, and post-shame, so the capitalists merely shrug and go right on killing us for dollars. Still, there are times when the stench of corruption and rot become overwhelming; moments when the "my bum is on your lips" nature of the news is too infuriating to ignore. So, despite the fact that I wanted to talk about something else, virtually anything else today, let's talk about how Joe Biden is literally killing the planet while pretending he gives one solitary rat's anus about the climate apocalypse.

In this November 13th, 2021 piece by Chris D'Angelo over on Huffington Post, we discover that on November 17th, mere days after the end of the COP26 climate conference, the Biden administration intends to conduct the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history. Yes, that would be the administration working for Joe Biden, the same guy who promised just last week that America would lead "by the power of our example" in the fight against climate catastrophe. Inexplicably, spokespeople for the U.S. government, and the President himself, have insisted that this all ties into a short term strategy to increase fossil fuel production, while still meeting long term goals. There's just one problem with that excuse - the fields being sold today won't be operational for five to ten years; long after our time runs out to cut emissions in half by 2030.

To be clear, there are mitigating circumstances involved in this story. Specifically, the Biden Administration argues that it actually cannot stop the oil lease sale "following the June decision by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Louisiana to strike down Biden’s executive order temporarily pausing new oil and gas leases across federal lands and waters." The government has appealed this highly-spurious ruling, but as our author's study indicates, this isn't even close to the full means Biden had at his disposal to stop this. Furthermore without an injunction, the leases will be sold in the meantime, long before the appeal plays out. This in turn makes it very unlikely the projects on those oil patches will ever be stopped by the government.

The fact is, Joe Biden is almost eighty years old and neither he, nor his political party, have ever given one flying f*ck about climate crisis. Biden's rhetoric is simply that, rhetoric, and if he has to doom every future generation on Earth to geohell to please his corporate donors, that's what he's going to do. You don't have to take my word for it, just watch his actions and the actions of his government for all the proof you'll ever need.


nina illingworth


Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”


 

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Nina-Bytes: They Are Who We Thought They Were

 


Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Corporations Donated $164,000 to Anti-Voting Rights Senators Despite Pledges

Earlier today I published a couple of micro-blog posts that touched on why the capitalist liberal establishment simply cannot be our allies in the fight against fascism. Unfortunately, because ruling class propaganda in America has a stunning power to transform the very meaning of words in our society, I'm concerned that folks may not even understand what I mean when I say "the liberal establishment." Sure, I'm talking about the Democratic Party, but only because they are the most visible (and feckless) face of that establishment in America. The Pig Empire liberal establishment however, comprises virtually the entire capitalist class, and many of their overseers in the petite bourgeoisie.

Today then, I'd like to use this November 8th, 2021 post by Sharon Zhang on Truthout, to both expose that larger liberal establishment and demonstrate how they instinctively support fascism, regardless of the presumed lean of their social politics. With a big assist from a report produced by watchdog group Accountable.US, Zhang reveals that at least eight major U.S. corporations that signed a pledge to support the John Lewis voting rights act, have given thousands of dollars this year to GOP Senators actively blocking it. And we're not talking about the My Pillow guy here either. These are major players in corporate America, all of whom at least front a socially progressive position to consumers; companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft.

Obviously, the focus here for liberals is going to be on the hypocrisy involved; after all, this story pretty much comes down to a bunch of billion dollar corporations trying to craft a socially progressive image that will entice customers, while openly supporting politicians who threaten the franchise. This matters, but it's also important not to miss the forest for the trees in this story. The message corporate America is delivering here could not be more obvious; they're completely fine with fascism because it doesn't interfere with the capitalist order and their bottom lines. Hell, electing Trump actually got them the mother of all tax cuts last time!

I hate to say it kids, but when I tell you fascism is an inherently capitalist reaction, I'm not speaking in metaphors here. The private sector isn't going to help us fight fascism, and neither are their in-pocket politicians or muppet stenographers in the media. If this is going to end in anything other than mass graves, it's going to be on the people to stop reactionary ruling class elites from driving the car off the cliff. Clearly, if it's a choice between working with nazis, or paying his taxes, you can pretty much bet guys like Jeff Bezos are going to find a way to get comfortable with fascism.

That's what I really mean when I say the liberal establishment would prefer fascism, to sharing.


nina illingworth


Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”



 

Monday, November 8, 2021

Nina-Bytes: Keep It in the Ground

 


Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground. Everything Else Is Just Talk.

Over the past few weeks on Nina-Bytes, we've spent some time examining the staggering contradictions between climate promises by Pig Empire leadership, and the actions they're taking (or not taking) in government. In particular, I've focused on examining what I call the levels and flavors of self-deception in the fight to prevent climate catastrophe. The plain truth is that we know how to save the world from climate apocalypse, and capitalists are actively preventing us from collectively taking the steps necessary to do so. 

This in turn has lead to the ghastly spectacle of Pig Empire politicians, and neoliberal "thought leaders" trying to square that circle by making climate crisis mitigation promises that we already know won't save us from the climate apocalypse. Do you want to know what grim looks like? It looks like Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of the island nation of Barbados, explaining that even if Western leaders actually keep their current promises (fat chance,) it will still mean the death of millions on a boiling earth. Let me repeat that; our leaders are currently promising climate change policies they know will kill millions of poor people, particularly in the global South. 

Ultimately then, we're talking about a mass murder plot, barely hidden behind bloodless technocratic jargon and empty platitudes about how we're all in this together. Furthermore, you'd have to be an idiot at this point to believe these muppets aren't just as happy to sacrifice Pig Empire paupers on the altar of capital; just look at how the coronavirus pandemic shook out. It is not enough to merely say "net zero carbon is not enough," these folks are choosing to openly sacrifice millions of poor people on behalf of capital; and that's if their harebrained schemes work! This is what systemic genocide looks like in practice; this is fascism, imperialism, and the death cult of capitalism at its darkest.

So what does the opposite of that actually look like? How can you cut through the neoliberal platitudes and focus on a concise, easy to explain solution to climate catastrophe we can all get behind demanding from our leaders? I'm glad you asked, because as this November 7th, 2021 article by George Monbiot on Common Dreams makes clear, the answer is alarmingly simple. We need to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Period. Full-stop. Everything else is just empty talk from folks who mean to kill you for profit. From the article:

 

"And yes, it really is this simple. We have the technology required to replace fossil fuels. There's plenty of money, which is currently being squandered on the destruction of life on Earth. The transition could take place in months, if governments willed it. The only thing that stands in the way is the power of legacy industries and the people who profit from them. This is what needs to be overthrown. The handwaving, the complexity, the grandiloquent distraction in Glasgow are designed above all for one purpose: not to accelerate this transition, but to thwart it."

 

Look, I don't know how to put this any more bluntly. There is simply no such thing as a technocratic plan to stop climate catastrophe. Do you want a future? Would you like to survive to see it? Do you want to save life on Earth? Then stop tolerating politicians who're enslaved to a capitalist death cult that clearly means to kill us all if that's what it takes to make a quick buck. We must stop burning and extracting fossil fuels; to quote piss queen Maggy Thatcher, there literally "is no alternative."


nina illingworth


Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”


Saturday, November 6, 2021

In the Aggregate: Critical Overload on NIDC

 


Editor’s Note: In the Aggregate is a regular round-up feature over on NIDC, that showcases and expands on my social media analysis from around the web.

 

It's All in the Wrists

Well my friends; the world doesn't stop just because you've had a difficult week and you'd rather play with kittens. This weekend I'm back with a new edition of In the Aggregate; collecting the very best of my social media analysis from all across the internet. I hope you've got a comfy chair because this is a long one. Touching on topics like climate crisis, supervillain billionaires, and the growing menace of American fascism, this edition of our bi-weekly roundup is a swirling vortex of bullsh*t repellent. Join me this week on NIDC for "In the Aggregate: Critical Overload."

 

"At this point, whether it’s a question of complicity, fecklessness, or cowardice is largely irrelevant; the center-right Democratic Party establishment and those who insist we place our faith in them are leading us all on a death march towards fascist totalitarianism on a boiling planet. You can kindly shove Godwin’s Law up your backside; the parallels between the elite “centrist” response to Americanized fascism and what went down in Weimar Germany are now becoming far too alarming to ignore. We are literally already in the fascist moment; and liberals are still waiting around for the magical politics referee to punish the right."

 

To read more over on ninaillingworth.com, click on the quotation block above or the header below:

 

In the Aggregate: Critical Overload



nina illingworth


Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”


Friday, November 5, 2021

Nina-Bytes: Shell Game

 


Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

The Only Winning Climate Policy Is a Pro-Worker Climate Policy

Well my friends, it certainly looks like its all over but the crying for Biden's milquetoast climate agenda; and perhaps the human species at large. As I, and many others predicted, the fossil fuel industry, anarcho-capitalist billionaires, and their in-pocket Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema appear to have torpedoed the Clean Electricity Performance Program, or CEPP, that is the centerpiece of Joe Biden's still-woefully inadequate climate action policies. Baring some kind of last minute miracle, liberal incrementalism (if you can even really call Biden a liberal) has once again screwed the pooch on behalf of their wealthy donors. 

Predictably, most of the public ire has fallen on Senators Manchin and Sinema; and why not? They are after all the most visible face of the plot to kill the world for capitalists at this point; although I'd wager such an analysis is letting billionaire supervillains, corporate America, and the mainstream media off lightly. Unfortunately however, as this November 4th, 2021 article by Matt Huber in Jacobin points out, even this analysis allows important culprits to ultimately escape responsibility; specifically President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party he presides over.

As our author details, both the CEPP and Biden's environmental agenda were always technocratic solutions dependent on enticing the free market to "go green" on its own. Biden explicitly rejected the Green New Deal, failed to tie his environmental policies to material improvements for the labor class, and surrendered control of the process to insiders, wonks and corporate stooges. Furthermore, despite rhetoric indicating that Palooka Joe regards climate crisis as the most important issue of our time, the President has failed to use the executive powers granted by his office to do more to mitigate climate catastrophe. All of which reflects poorly on Biden's visit to COP26, as the article notes:


"Which brings us to this week’s underwhelming round of COP negotiations. Joe Biden’s speech featured lofty rhetoric asserting that this is the “decisive decade” for climate action. Yet he’s also come to the meetings without any credible plan to rapidly decarbonize the world’s leading historic emitter.

It’s very easy to blame the downfall of Biden’s climate agenda on Joe Manchin. But while GND advocates spent much of 2018–20 demanding a transformative approach to climate policy, 2021 has been more of the same. When it comes to climate politics, Biden and elite Democrats seem to be saying, “We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas.”


Frankly, you don't need me to tell you the Democratic Party is broken; the fact that they're getting rolled by fascists and can't even pass a budget despite controlling the House and Senate kind of makes that clear already. We have however been here before, and when dark history repeats itself despite the names and faces changing, that's a clear indication the problem is systemic. This in no way absolves Manchin and Sinema, who deserve every bit of animosity they receive, but there is a larger lesson here. Capitalist neoliberal technocrats are not going to save us from climate catastrophe, no matter what lofty rhetoric to the contrary they deploy at fancy international conferences.

Look, this isn't doomerism. We are still capable of preventing a climate apocalypse, if we just surrender capitalism. The time for dithering away at climate summits however, is growing short. Our choices at this point are pretty simple; we get left, or we get boiled. And as long as those decisions remain in the hands of men like Joe Biden, you can bet it's not going to be the former.


nina illingworth


Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”


Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Nina-Bytes: Globalization, Neoliberalism, and COP26 Promises

 


Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Corporations Have the Power to Sue Governments Over Resource Extraction Policies

As a woman whose herky-jerky journey towards becoming a socialist began in the anti-globalization movement of the late 1990s, it's been pretty surreal watching the dystopian future I was fighting against back then, become today's everyday reality. In those days, plenty of analysts on the left warned that more than a fight about jobs and wages, the battle over free trade policies was a contest about surrendering state power to corporate control. With each new trade agreement, came new international rules and bodies to enforce a capitalist framework on the participating countries; essentially forever, and certainly regardless of who they elected. 

Although I didn't know anything about it at the time, this line of reasoning tracks closely with theories about neoliberalism published by David Harvey and Karl Polanyi. Harvey in particular argues that the foundational goal of neoliberalism is to restore and increase ruling class power, specifically at the expense of democracy and people power. As Yanis Varoufakis and the citizens of Greece discovered, even if you elect a nominally socialist government, these agreements can prevent you from enacting socialist reforms. Which begs the question, what happens when socialist reforms become literally the only way to save life on Earth?

Well, as it turns out the answer is nothing good. In this November 2nd, 2021 article by Manuel Pérez-Rocha at Truthout, we come face to face with the results when globalization's free trade regime comes into conflict with preventing climate crisis. The answer is, rich guys and corporations can sue your government in a corporate kangaroo court, to block action and/or collect millions, if not billions of dollars in damages. To the surprise of precisely no one, this system has primarily been used by resource extraction companies in the global north, against developing nations in the global south; because capitalism is nothing if not consistently racist.

All of which brings us to the same problem with the COP26 climate summit that we discussed yesterday; none of the promises world leaders make in Glasgow mean anything at all, as long as the policies and agreements they pursue at home continue to lock us into a dystopian climate apocalypse. Telling me you're serious about fighting climate crisis while simultaneously signing and enforcing trade agreements that allow corporations to sue for their right to destroy the world, is a little bit beyond just insulting my intelligence. Literally nobody at COP26 is going to talk about dismantling the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system, which means most of their bold pledges are demonstrably nothing more than hot air.

Which sadly, is par for the course I'm afraid.


- nina illingworth

 

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook.

Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

 

Thursday, October 28, 2021

Nina-Bytes: Capitalism, Carbon, and Neoliberal Climate Denial

 


Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

The ‘Sensible’ Climate Compromise Is Not Sensible

Look, I'm not trying to be a killjoy here, but sooner or later as a society we're going to have to talk about flavors and levels of self-deception in the fight to prevent climate catastrophe. Take for example this well-argued October 27th article by Alexander Sammon over on The American Prospect. As you may have heard, Joe Manchin and Big Oil are current eviscerating Biden's environmental agenda in real time; an agenda that was already a milquetoast liberal compromise fantasy, quite frankly. Discussing the now-gutted climate crisis mitigation measures in the Build Back Better Act, Sammon notes that the Biden climate strategy currently centers around tax credits to two technologies; nuclear energy and carbon capture, utilization, and storage or CCUS.

As the author points out however, there's a pretty big reason why that's a terrible idea:


"So alongside the remaining clean-energy and electric-vehicle tax credits, beefed-up support for nuclear and carbon capture is what Joe Biden is going to take to Glasgow’s COP26 climate talks as proof of the United States’ willingness to tackle climate change head on.

The inconvenient problem is that those technologies don’t exist, at least not in any meaningful way. In the name of compromise, Build Back Better is now forgoing proven, cost-effective technologies for unproven ones, because that, evidently, is less ideological."


Sammon then goes on to demonstrate that we're lightyears away from producing enough nuclear power to meet our energy needs despite plenty of pre-existing subsidies, and that CCUS technology is basically a pipe dream that rewards the worst carbon-spewing supervillains to boot. Finally, Alex really brings home the bacon by pointing out that betting all your chips on fantasy ideas instead of investing in clean-energy solutions we've had for decades, is itself a form of climate science or climate change denial. 

That last point is key. and what I've taken to calling the "neoliberal flavor of climate science denial" is an issue that deserves more regular discussion in our society. When we talk about climate science or climate crisis denial, most people think of astroturf campaigns by fossil fuel companies, or the unhinged ravings of reactionary right wing politicians. It rarely ever occurs to people to consider whether acknowledging climate catastrophe, and yet refusing to take meaningful action to prevent it because your donors profit from the situation, isn't also clearly a form of denial?

And therein lies the problem I have with this piece. I'm not trying to pick on Alex; he's absolutely correct that doing only a fraction of what is required to stop climate catastrophe is its own form of denial. Which unfortunately means writing an article that doesn't acknowledge there's no way to stop climate catastrophe without getting rid of capitalism, is also its own form of denial. Sammon is certainly not alone in this; just this morning I read a piece by a left leaning academic who admitted we're all barbeque unless we get rid of capitalism, but proposed we forget about trying for now because it's impossible. Clearly, the denial runs deep.

Can you hear me in the back? If you're for preventing climate catastrophe and averting a mass extinction event, you're against capitalism. You can't scream "I refuse to acknowledge this" at a boiling planet and pretend you're on the right side of this issue. There is no halfway position here; there's no acceptable compromise between killing the planet for profit and saving the people, no matter what "reasonable center" you start working from. It's capitalism, or the planet, and the rich guys have clearly made their choice already.

So the question I pose to the left-leaning media, who I agree with on so many other issues is simple: which side are you on? I'd choose quickly my friends; before capitalism gets around to deciding you're an acceptable sacrifice too.


nina illingworth


Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”


Wednesday, October 13, 2021

In the Aggregate: A Neofeudalist Dystopia on NIDC

 


Editor’s Note: as of now, In the Aggregate is a regular round-up feature on NIDC, that showcases and expands on my social media analysis from around the web.



Gimme One With Everything

Whelp; in terms of my private war against arbitrary publishing deadlines, it's been a week of ups and downs so far.

Unfortunately, a frustrating tech fail yesterday morning left me without a mid-week essay to publish. Fortunately, I'm so extremely online I was able to make lemonade out of analysis I haven't shared on ninaillingworth.com yet. Combining original material, with most of my recent blogging, and polished highlights from all of my various social media feeds, this epic edition of In the Aggregate should feel like we're hanging out and watching the news together. Whether that cool, or a horrifying nightmare, is a question I'll leave to the historians. Check it out today on NIDC.


"What the liberal establishment refuses to accept is that America has always embraced the same foundational principles this fascist movement is built on. Slavery, genocide, extraction, exploitation, rigid social hierarchies, virulent anti-communism, the national security state; these too are the legacies of American democracy and values. Just because the punditry refuses to acknowledge these truths, doesn’t mean they aren’t real."


To read more over on ninaillingworth.com, click on the quotation block above, or the header below:



In the Aggregate: A Neofeudalist Dystopia 


nina illingworth


Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”