“capitalism inexorably kills and injures working class people, and it adds to those injuries the insults of rationalizing, victim blaming, and forgetting“ @nhold.bsky.social toward moral clarity

My article on state violence and social form, appearing in the forthcoming special issue of Capital & Class on Political Marxism and Open Marxism, is now online: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

PSA: Every time you read something in the Atlantic, and there are no exceptions to this rule, a parasitic insect lays one (1) egg inside your brain, so you're really rolling the dice there, friends. It's your life so do as you think you must, I just want to make sure you do so in an informed way.

I am not scared of the people on the other side of the border, I am scared of the people who are demonizing them.

profound darkness

I managed to reach Mitch McConnell but unfortunately did not have time to ask him any questions because right after we connected my cat leapt on the table knocking the ouija board to the floor

not a surprise but still shocking that violence against women is used instrumentally to score political points about things other than that violence. sick shit.

So… Cheyenne, WY won't take data center wastewater anymore after Meta/FB's "Fill and Flush" process (how they test data center cooling systems) was responsible for polluting their whole community's wastewater reclamation system with Cupriavidus gilardii bacteria: cowboystatedaily.com/2026/07/02/c...

Rest in peace, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican resident murdered by ICE in Houston, Texas this morning. Unfortunately, the federal government is using the same talking points they used against Renee Good in this case. It’s disgusting. 1/ www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

there are fully grown adults out here all like 'oh I bet Mitch McConnell died and they hushed it up' as if we didn't already know that that is not dead which can eternal lie or that with strange eons even death may die. very silly.

After 20 minutes the simulation gets…unstable. It says things in a language that our team thinks might be a proto-Elamite, talking about a “void” or maybe a “hunger.” Hard to translate. And there’s some screaming.

Me after death, realizing I no longer have deadlines, surfing my body into the void. (Dancing Skeleton, by Miles Cleveland Goodwin)

This beautifully articulates why public libraries are a public good, and has some ideas about how municipalities might creatively resist conservative state legislatures.

me explaining why I want to read Moby Dick all like

Teaching a 4-4, with four preps, inflicts a kind of moral injury. I do an adequate job. But I know I could do a much better one with a reasonable teaching load. I'm stuck in a system in which I cannot do my job the way I think it should be done.

If you haven't taught a 5-5 base load at a CC or a 4-4 base plus overloads at a non-elite private or regional public your takes on workload and teaching are... well. Bless your heart in the most Southern way. That includes all of these conservative legislators and commentators.

Also a valuable skill for nonprofit and university employees (speaking as someone very late to realize this)

Art (unintentional)

There's a part in the book "Careless People" where the author beats Zuck at Settlers of Catan, and he is absolutely wrecked by it. Someone pulls her aside to explain everyone else has been letting him win for years. I think about this a lot re: why tech bros think everyone will love AI chatbots.

This is an actual screenshot from the syllabus for this class. Beyond parody

TY PC Gamer for covering my analysis of Google's latest report :) You can read the whole thing here ketanjoshi.co/2026/07/01/g...

How could we not also include banning Tik Tok and teenager's social media access? This will absolutely get us the youth vote.

thread!

This entire thread is amazing. 10/10

This is literally the premise of Snowpiercer

so far my main accomplishment this summer is further enweirdening, specifically via woodwork. I'm not entirely at peace with that but I'm not not at peace with it either.

good friend of mine has multiple pride things out in front of her house (in a neighborhood plastered with reelect mike johnson signs) and has gotten multiple notes in the mailbox thanking her, including one from a closeted teenager signaling virtuous beliefs is good, actually

In addition, it would be cool to hear less about Yale and for that matter Oberlin and more about the University of Iowa: an institution that once provided an amazing education/opened minds across a truly wide range of people, something that benefits society but is extremely threatening to the right

Multiple administrators are responsible for this and they should all be fired. This is malpractice, and of a kind that obviously had very serious consequences.

Grid operators warn the US heatwave could send electricity demand near record levels before Fourth of July weekend.

This sucks but at least we can take comfort in knowing nothing of the sort is happening related to how prestigious actors talks about data centers

I couldn't get anywhere to take this as op/d so I put it at my stupid lil blog with my usual handwaving, bad jokes, and poor judgment. I'm fucking furious about the proposed cuts and the situation so read it if you live in Iowa and/or wanna commiserate buttondown.com/nateholdren/...

ICE's Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota earlier this year left in its wake human rights violations, widespread terror and laid bare the United States immigration enforcement’s volatile and abusive behavior, according to a Human Rights Watch / @hrw.org report published on June 18.

My friends and I have been saying for years that it's felt like there's a missing encounter between Open Marxism and Political Marxism, it's great to see at this is finally getting some serious attention!

I'm pleased the articles from our Special Issue on Political Marxism & Open Marxism are published! This piece - written with @alexismoraitis.bsky.social, @harveymurenow.bsky.social, Teddy Paikin & Sam Salour - traces the historical emergence of PM/OM and maps their intersections. shorturl.at/WJWnx

LaborOnline kindly ran a short essay of mine where I talk a bit about the personal backstory of my recent journal article in Labor and explore some of the larger themes. I'd appreciate if you'd check it out! lawcha.org/2026/06/13/t...

back on my bullshit (blahgging some more) buttondown.com/nateholdren/...

back on this. the classics never go out of style. jawbox.bandcamp.com/album/for-yo...

You already see it in how people have clocked out. Universities used to be run on an inordinate amount of goodwill. Yes, the unhealthy kind that meant people bent over backwards in things they should be properly remunerated for, but also more broadly in collegiality and turning up. Eroded now.

This is terrible and enraging. I have heard nothing in London about welfare checks and efforts to get the elderly and vulnerable into cooling centers. We need to do better. Googling to figure out how I can volunteer....

"Debate me" culture makes a lot more sense when you stop viewing public debate as timeless, but instead a particular historical practice with specific, stringent rules developed by 19th century Oxbridge chaps trying to perform masculinity, which social media bastardized into a caricature of itself

only baltimore's largest employer higher ed is the largest employer in 10 states, 60 cities, dozens and dozens of counties; destroying universities is economic sabotage

Everybody needs to go hear Naomi Oreskes explain how Monsanto manipulated the science to obscure health concerns about Roundup — including ghost-writing papers that became touchstones in their denialism.

Dems have to run on this hard. Do not let the RFK types try to spin what his own party just signed off on here. Actual Monsanto, the comic book villain of Adbusters days, was shielded from liability over poisoning Americans. I don't care if it's slopulism: this Supreme Court wants you dead.

thread

genuinely crazy to watch these people freak out over what is essentially 21st century new dealism

Just a minor quibble on exasperated word choice Centrists, moderates and corporate Dems aren't *useless*, they're *dangerous* It's not harm reduction, lesser of two evils, if their most primary and predictable activity over several decades is actively assisting or opening doors for the bigger evil

Now available for preorder, arriving in warehouse 10/02/2026: dukeupress.edu/content-mach... Duke UP gave me a discount code for 30% off paperback preorders: it's E26CNTNT ♥️👍

Wth Fisk?!?

Britain about to get its seventh Prime Minister in ten years. I can’t say I’m surprised. As a people they’re often wonderful of course—very musical, for example, many charming customs, and always joking around in their quirky way—but they just don’t have the temperament for stable self-government.