Nina-Bytes: At Your Service

 

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

The Jan. 6 Committee Gave Us Some Bad News About the Secret Service

I really don't think it's a secret at this point that I don't have a lot of faith in liberal antifascism, or a January 6th Committee that promised in advance they weren't going to recommend charging any powerful fascists for conducting a failed autogolpe. Long before President Biden went on stage to call the MAGA movement "semi-fascist," the largely useless ruling liberal establishment was signaling that their plan was to use the commission to lay out the coup plotter's crimes, and then pass the ball back to voters without taking significant action to stop a still ongoing fascist insurrection at all. Needless to say, I think this is a pretty terrible plan. 

As such I haven't spent a whole lot of time writing about the findings of the January 6th Committee, under the mistaken belief the mainstream liberal media would handle that for me. When I see dozens of mainstream corporate media outlets respond to clear evidence that the Secret Service was involved in the failed coup plot like it was a threat estimation error however, I feel obligated to push back on that idea. Please keep in mind, all this is despite the fact that we already know the Service hid evidence of a plot to murder Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, deleted text messages from that day, and openly speculated on the lifespan of then-Vice President Mike Pence while the riots raged outside. 

To correct this absurd state of affairs, let's turn to this October 14th, 2022 article by David Rothkopf in The Daily Beast of all places; starting with a quote that sums up what you should have heard on the evening news:

"The contents of some of those documents were revealed on Thursday. They made it clear that reports of an “intelligence failure” related to Jan. 6 were nonsense. The agency had clear and specific warnings describing an armed attack on the Capitol and threats against members of Congress as part of plan to block the certification of votes. And nonetheless, they let the president’s speech go on. And they did not do much to prevent the attacks from happening. While some in the agency reported on the escalating dangers during the day of Jan. 6, others clearly chose to let events transpire. They were even planning to bring Trump to the Hill until shortly after the Capitol barricades were breached. Rather than presiding over an intelligence failure, they had actually actively enabled the insurrection to take place, with some among their ranks content to look the other way and ignore established protocols."

 

Wow; I'd pay real cash money to hear even one single politician on my TV talking like David does here, instead of milquetoast admonishments about the dangers of "semi-fascism" - and I'm not alone on that one, I assure you. Thankfully for those of us who're tired of feeling like we're taking crazy pills while Weimar America implodes around us however, Rothkopf doesn't stop there. He also clearly articulates the mainstream, legalist nature of the fascist threat, and the growing sense of doubt that Merrick Garland's Department of Justice is up to the challenge of taking it on:

"The real culmination of the inquiry must be left to the Sphinx-like Department of Justice, whose silence might reveal its commitment to the secrecy that should surround an historically significant investigation. Or that silence might be followed by inaction. We just cannot know at this point, even though the Jan. 6 committee’s revelations made it clear that inaction in the face of the evidence that exists would be one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in U.S. history and would set a dangerous precedent, leaving our entire system at risk.

But there were other disturbing threads that emerged from the congressional inquiry that themselves appeared to require their own independent inquiry. Several of these concern the seeming existence of what might be called the “dark state.” This is not the conspiracy theory fantasy spun by the far right about a “deep state” permanent government that was foiling the will of the people: That was always such a stalking horse, a concept that would enable MAGA officials to root out public servants who placed fealty to the Constitution ahead of loyalty to a political party. Rather it was a real loose alliance among Trump allies in the government who were willing to set aside the rule of law in the service of Trump himself.

At the core of this movement were officials within key government agencies—including the Department of Homeland Security and within it the Secret Service, the FBI, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and the intelligence community—who had been placed in positions of responsibility because they could be counted upon to bend the rules for Trump."

Quite frankly folks, I don't really have a whole lot else to add here. This isn't an "I told you so" moment, although quite frankly I did. The fact of the matter is the Capital Hill riot was a coup attempt, conducted and then justified by then-President Trump as well numerous mainstream figures in American "semi-fascist" politics with very real positions of power. If after months of the January 6th Committee "making the argument" literally nobody in the voting public seems to really give a damn anymore, maybe it's time to ask whether or not the our wise liberal leaders and the corporate muppets that pass for our media might bear some responsibility for that reality. 

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…”

 

Nina-Bytes: Crash Courses in Modern Fascism

 

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

Fascists Are Benefiting From World Crisis

Recently on Instagram, I mentioned my belief that a review of basic concepts and ideas presented in my anti-fascist writing might be in order. I've been away for a while, and it's easy to lose track of the bigger picture when an entire political and media class has got you chasing sensationalism while the fascist creep accelerates forward at an alarming pace. In that vein, I'd like to highlight this October 9th, 2022 interview University of Michigan professor Geoff Eley, conducted by Arjun Chaturvedi over at Jacobin.

Unsurprisingly given the title of this article, Eley's field of expertise in history includes fascist movements. Although our interviewer does manage to rope him into one question about the historical study of fascism, Eley's answers in this piece are otherwise hyper focused on providing a practical understanding of modern fascism. For example, when discussion portability of fascist politics, the professor offers up this explanation of the conditions required to enable this kind of political movement to thrive:

"[F]ascism can flourish under the impress of an especially extreme dual crisis. First, the established political arrangements no longer enable the achievement of stable and effective governance; second, those governing arrangements malfunction so badly that they forfeit the consent of the people. When these twin crises happen together — crisis of representation, crisis of consent; government paralysis, democratic impasse — states of exception are created where a specifically fascist politics can start to gain traction."

Along the way, Eley also talks about the three things all fascist movements have in common (rejection of liberal democracy, preference for authoritarianism, desire to violently disenfranchise an other they define,) and how society can fight fascism; with broad coalition building and a popular front approach. If you don't have time to read dozens of, or even just one whole book about fascism, this is more or less an excellent little primer; with one big caveat.

That caveat is that by way of injecting the talking point into a question about Narendra Modi, our interviewer pushes the idea that Donald Trump isn't a fascist, because he "lacks a coherent ideology that is a crucial aspect of fascism." This weaksauce argument has been an asinine hobby horse for Jacobin magazine ever since noted reactionary trashfire and friend to fascists Ben Burgis published an article telling folks to "relax, it's not fascism" days after the January 6th MAGA coup attempt; they were wrong then, and they are wrong now. For starters, Trump is definitely a fascist; secondly, if being a fascist requires understanding ideology, then illiterate Nazi murderers who did pogroms in World War II weren't fascists either - absurd.

Furthermore, you can tell Eley doesn't like this nonsense either, because he spends a paragraph trying to form a convoluted definition of ideology that allows both him and the host to be correct; before specifically referencing the rise of Trump in his conclusions about what type of political environment allows fascist movements to succeed. Despite this bad noise, the interview is a worthwhile read; even if I'm giving Jacobin and its interviewer zero stars and a failing grade on anti-fascism as a whole.

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…”

 

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…”

 

Nina Bytes: Fascism is on the Docket

 

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

Hello friends; long time no see. My life has been pretty terrible for the past several months, but it's better now, and I'd rather not waste a lot of time going over the gory details. Please bear with me while I work myself back into shape; writing is way harder than emo trash-posting on Twitter.

In today's post I'd like to provide some evidentiary examples for a thesis I published over on Instagram called "Fascism is a Legalist Doctrine." As I mentioned, two major reactionary arguments designed to dismantle what passes for American democracy are making their way before a pro-fascist Supreme Court in America. Let's take a closer look at both of those cases:

 

The Supreme Court Is On The Verge Of Killing The Voting Rights Act

First of all I'd like to note that I chose this rather bloodless October 3rd, 2022 article by Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux over at Five-Thirty-Eight on purpose because I need the "very serious" liberals in my life to understand that the fascist judicial assault on American democracy is very real, not even remotely abstract, and definitely not some far left political theory. The article revolves around the pivotal Alabama map-rigging case currently before a 6-3 fascist high SCOTUS in America; Merrill v. Milligan.

Now on the surface, this might look like just another crooked gerrymandering case in a very long line of crooked gerrymandering cases in the United States. Once one delves a little deeper into the fascist argument being presented, and likely to be accepted by the court however, the horrifying implications become more clear:

 

"Up until now, the court has taken the perspective that, in order to comply with the act, states are in some situations required to take race into consideration as the primary factor in the redistricting process. Alabama Republicans are now arguing that it’s discriminatory to prioritize race over other traditional redistricting techniques, such as having compact districts, contiguous boundaries or avoiding crossing county or town boundaries. Several experts, including Pildes, told FiveThirtyEight that a ruling that sides with Alabama would be a radical departure from previous interpretations of the law and would likely free states to draw congressional or state legislative maps where minority voters have less political power relative to their numbers.

In that sense, the outcome of this case could be very similar to a 2013 ruling in which the Roberts court gutted another section of the Voting Rights Act, freeing a group of states with histories of discrimination against minority voters to change their election laws without federal approval. In the years afterward, those states shuttered thousands of polling places, intensified their voter purges and changed voting laws in other ways that disproportionately affect minority voters."

 

Yes folks, you read that correctly; fascist lawyers and the Alabama GOP are arguing (more or less) that being forced to draw voting districts in such a way as to accurately reflect minority voting populations and protect their constitutional rights, are actually discriminatory against white Republicans. In short, Tucker Carlson's reverse racism propaganda from Fox News is about to become a fundamental plank of election law; to the advantage of fascists and the disadvantage of anyone who doesn't like being ruled by fascists. 

Astoundingly enough however, Merrill v. Milligan isn't even the most serious threat to American democracy about to appear before an objectively far right and reactionary Supreme Court:

 

How the Supreme Court could make it legal to steal the next presidential election

Whelp, that's pretty bleak my friends. In this July 11th opinion piece over on MSNBC, law professor Jessica Levinson lays out the terrifying implications in another upcoming case, Moore v. Harper.

Although understanding this case does involved wading into the weeds a bit, the fascist argument here broadly stipulates that state lawmakers more or less have the right to conduct elections any way they want (including rigging them,) without oversight from anyone except federal courts, and even then only narrowly. This is literally a green light for Republican controlled states to not only rig their own elections, but award their state delegates to whichever presidential candidate they want; and if that sounds familiar to you, it probably should:

 

"Even more significantly, this doctrine, taken to its catastrophic and logical conclusion, could allow state lawmakers to legally steal presidential elections. Let’s imagine that in 2024, Florida residents vote to re-elect President Joe Biden. This has always meant Florida’s 30 Electoral College votes would go to Biden. But maybe the lawmakers there would want the Republican challenger to win. The lawmakers could decide not to certify the election results and instead submit their own slate of electors to the Electoral College who would vote for that Republican. By pure luck and coincidence, this is pretty damn close to the plan espoused by former President Donald Trump and his supporters in their attempt pilfer the 2020 election."

 

Naturally of course, we can't know how the Supreme Court will ultimately rule in Moore v. Harper. but given the court's current composition, and the fact that four reactionary judges on the court have already indicated they support the “independent state legislature doctrine,” it's probably not that hard to guess.

All of which of course leads me back to the point I was trying to make on Instagram; it does no good for liberals to rail away against fascist street gangs and open neo-nazis, while patently refusing to resist the judicial branch of fascism that is actively working to end what passes for American democracy, once and for all. Biden can walk out on stage and warn us all about the "semi-fascists" until he's blue in the face, but until Democrat lawmakers are prepared to abolish the filibuster and secure voting rights for all, the fascists are going to keep winning these fights in the halls of power, and telling folks to "vote harder" is a sick joke.

That doesn't mean society has to accept fascist rule, but if the Democratic Party isn't even prepared to fight fascism to preserve its own existence at the ballot box, what good are they to anyone who isn't a fascist, at all?

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…”

Nina-Bytes: No Fools on this Drive

 

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

Win for Workers Across America: Amazon Union Victory Inspires Progressives

Hey folks, apparently everything is coming up Milhouse; at least for American workers trying to organize against the corporate giants, that is. 

It turns out that the Starbucks Workers United organizational effort isn’t the only good news on the docket last week. As I mentioned in a late update to yesterday's post, roughly eight thousand workers at a Staten Island Amazon Warehouse have united behind organizer Chris Smalls to form the Amazon Labor Union; becoming the first group of workers to defeat Amazon’s infamous union busting tactics. Although the ALU’s model of organizing differs from the Starbucks Workers United model, the principles behind the campaigns, and the people-power they’re conducted with reveal these movements to be brothers from another mother.

To call this a mere upset, doesn't do what Smalls and his compatriots have accomplished here proper justice. These folks just chin checked Jeff Bezos and celebrated by clowning him on the news afterwards. To get a better idea of what this means for labor and some portions of the left, let's look at this April 1st, 2022 summary by Brett Wilkins on Common Dreams. Inside we find a round-up of left-leaning voices and organizations praising the workers, and noting that Amazon's brutal corporate exploitation has rendered the organizing iron hot as hell. Here's an example: 

"Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led climate group Sunrise Movement, cheered Friday's "win for workers across America," while hailing "worker victories at giant corporations like Amazon and Starbucks" as "part of a growing wave of activism that is paving the way for a more just economy."

While this certainly is a "watershed moment" for modern American labor, and that is something to celebrate, I personally couldn't help but notice one of the comments Smalls himself made about the union's victory. Namely, "this is the catalyst for the revolution." Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying eight thousand Amazon warehouse workers organizing into a union, means the revolution is on its way automatically; and I doubt that's what Smalls meant either. What I am saying however, is that learning how to organize a union against corporate power, makes it easier to organize against capitalist power.

Furthermore, when you get right down to it, the solution to virtually every pressing problem in the Pig Empire, from imperialism, to the rise of fascism, and especially including climate crisis, is to organize the larger labor class towards the ultimate destruction of capitalism. How are you going to overthrow the ruling class, if you can't even organize a union to check the tyranny of your employer? No, a union isn't a revolution, and neither really, is democratic socialism; but you don't get there, without organized and empowered workers acting as one to protect their class interests against capitalist predation.  

Six years ago, I saw the doomed campaign of an independent democratic socialist Senator from Vermont, birth a whole new generation of young people further left than he was, and proud to call themselves socialists. Two summers ago, I saw outrage at murderpig violence against (primarily) Black men, transform into an American uprising that lasted a whole season. At the end of last week, I saw a man that Amazon fired and underestimated, turn the tables on arguably the most powerful corporation on earth. You know, the funny thing about an avalanche is that it always starts as a snowball or two, rolling down a hill.

My advice to the ruling classes in the Pig Empire is to sleep well; while you can.

 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…”

Nina-Bytes: It Can't Rain All the Time Eric

 

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

How the Starbucks Worker Organizing Model Can Accelerate Unionization Across the Country

I must confess that, out of necessity it seems, most of the articles I share and analyze here in Nina-Bytes are overwhelmingly infuriating, heartbreaking, or negative in some very obvious and often overwhelming way. Such is the price of trying to decode messages from the propaganda model in a neofeudalist society, on a boiling planet. Given that capitalist life in the Pig Empire is essentially a never ending class war rigged in favor of the owner and investor classes, I'm not really sure what good it would do to try and put a positive spin on the situation anyway.

Today however I'd like to work against type for a moment, and look at this exciting March 28th, 2022 article from labor organizer Shuvu Bhattarai over at Jacobin; because for once, I think the good news here is more useful for the ongoing conduct of labor class liberation. Inside, Bhattarai catalogues the surprising (but welcome) successes of the Starbucks Workers United campaign in the United States; described here as "one of the most invigorating labor campaigns in recent U.S. history." More importantly however, our author breaks down the SB Workers United method of unionization in great detail, while demonstrating why this thus far overwhelmingly successful model can easily be extrapolated to organizing in any other corporate chain environment.

All of this is, quite frankly, exciting news for the labor class here in the Pig Empire. For far too long, the public image of organized labor has existed as an overwhelmingly white, producerist caricature of what the actual labor class in America looks like. If the labor class in America is going to organize in the workplace, that workplace is going to be defined by the jobs we actually have; and that means we're talking about organizing against corporations like McDonald's, Amazon, and yes, Starbucks. These newly unionized Starbucks workers are the very face of what an American labor movement that actually wants to change anything is going to be, by necessity as Bhattarai notes:

"There are practical reasons why workers must be the ones driving and leading the unionization drive. For one, they are the ones who best understand and feel the numerous ways they are exploited by their management and thus are best able to develop tactics to use their shared conditions as a point of unity. Second, the common driving factor for workers seeking unionization is a lack of agency, which manifests itself in numerous forms: management abuse, poor pay, and unstable schedules. By creating a space where the workers are able to exert control over their workplace, through leadership of their unionization campaign, a space of empowerment is created that can bring forward the best from every worker. To create a force of highly motivated worker-organizers, worker control over strategy is an absolute precondition."

 

Of course, the old Wobbly in me questions whether union organizing under the auspices of capitalist predation, also know as "the workplace," can ever be an effective way to liberate workers and destroy capitalism itself. Given however the simultaneous need to both organize the labor class, and protect labor from the tender mercies of extractivist capital and the supervillains who make it go; this sure does look like a great starting point to me. In that light, I'm happy to offer up three cheers for the Barista revolution and all their successes. In a class war that never ends, the only hope for the exploited remains refusing to allow our exploiters to define what labor is, and who has a right to a union. The Starbucks Workers United campaign drive, and the instructions provided in this article, can be a light in a purposely-darkened path forward; if we remember that all workers are labor, not just the guys in hardhats. 

Update: literally a couple hours after I published this, Amazon workers in Staten Island formed their own, completely new union; becoming the first group in America to do so successfully. Today has indeed, been a good day.

 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…”

Nina-Bytes: Merchants of Destruction

 

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

US Oil Companies Set to Reap Up to $126B in Extra Profits Amid War on Ukraine

Alright folks, let's start with a little Pop Quiz here. What's worse for a planetary ecosystem on the brink of collapse, than a huge war? The answer of course is a huge fossil fuel war that leads to massively increased production, and widespread profiteering by an oil and gas sector that should by all rights be charged with crimes against humanity already. 

Let's drill down into just one small example of that profiteering today by looking at this March 29th, 2022 summary by Jake Johnson, over at Common Dreams. Inside we find that according to a meticulous analysis conducted by a coalition of watchdog groups, Big Oil in America stands to make a killing on the fallout from the invasion of Ukraine. From the article in question:

 

"Under conservative estimates, we find the U.S. upstream oil and gas industry will collect a windfall of $37 to $126 billion in 2022 alone," the groups' report states."

There will of course be those who want to quibble about the significant difference between thirty-seven billion dollars, and a hundred and twenty billion dollars, but from my distinctly labor class perspective, this is pretty obviously war profiteering by another name. Please keep in mind that this is an industry that's already raking profits in hand over fist, while openly threatening the existence of most life on earth, every single day. Whether it's a question of cause, or effect, why should humanity continue to tolerate a business that rings up big money every time (primarily poor) people die?

As long time readers of Nina-Bytes will no doubt be aware, I'm firmly in favor of not only disbanding the entire fossil fuel industry, but also seizing their ill-gotten profits, and the profits of their investors, to fight climate change. If war profiteering on the brink of a climate apocalypse isn't enough for you, will spending billions of dollars to hide the truth about fossil fuels from the public do? How many wars over a gas field that should be kept in the ground does it take, before the price is too high? How many dead bodies does it require for "respectable" CEOs to become mass murderers?

Yet collectively in the Pig Empire, we live in a society where this industry's army of lobbyists write the laws designed to fight climate catastrophe. Indeed, these same corporations, headed by mass murderers, easily buy and sell our politicians like so many sow bellies. Do you really believe the guys raking in billions from this war, are encouraging their in-pocket representatives to sue for peace? I sure don't. Once you're prepared to put billions of lives at risk to snag a quarterly bonus, what's one more natural gas war on the edge of Europe?

Like most observers, I hope (for the sake of labor class folks everywhere) that Vladimir Putin will call off his invasion; the price of peace, even for him, is at an all-time low right now. Regardless of how this sad story ends however, the simple truth is that the fossil fuel industry represents an existential threat to all life on earth, and a primary generator of imperialist wars. It does no good to pray for peace, while bathing yourself in profits from the black blood of war. Big Oil must die; or it will ensure that the rest of us do instead - and those are just the facts, Jack.

 

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…”

  

Back to Work Update: March 29th, 2022

 

Well folks, I'm not gonna lie; I'm getting a little tired of writing the same post across like seven websites so we're going to go with the "short-short" version here. Two weeks before Christmas I took a five and a half foot slip off the top of my back deck, landing across some wooden stairs, directly on my spine. Luckily, this only resulted in a fractured 8th vertebra, which is a description that does little to explain how painful and debilitating the whole ordeal was. You can read more about it here if you like.

It took me six weeks to be allowed to get out of bet, rehab is ongoing, and I've done a pretty terrible job of managing the fallout from this incident in my life. As I mentioned on Instagram however, it is my intention to get back to some semblance of work; albeit on a very gradual timeline. To that end, I'm going to re-fire up this blog; starting tomorrow, because today is my 45th birthday and I'm wasting it making posts like this.

Unfortunately because my body is still a wreck, and my energy levels are nowhere near where they were last fall, I'm going to scale back from 4 or 5 posts a week, to 2 or 3 posts a week; always on weekdays like before. The idea is to conserve a little energy for essay writing, which at the moment is a bridge too far for me by a good long stretch. Hopefully over time I will get better at managing the load and eventually we can work our way back up to more posts; here and on NIDC as well.

Alright, that's about all I have to say here; thanks for your patience, thanks to Canada for healing up my Yankee butt without bankrupting me, and here's to looking forward to a new uninterrupted period of successful blogging about current affairs in Hellworld, from a left wing perspective.

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…”