“The destructive tendencies of the masses that explode in varieties of totalitarian states are not so much death-wishes as manifestations of what they have already become. They murder so that whatever to them seems living, shall resemble themselves.” - Adorno

“He who sets about cleaning up the house he lives in energetically enough, forgets the foundation it is built on.” - Adorno

Woah. Just found out this is in a new affordable-ish edition! www.versobooks.com/en-ca/produc...

Mark Carney regularly says he ‘knows how the world works.’ While true this never sat right with me. Adorno put it into words, “Anyone who knows the business too well forgets to know it for what it is, his capacity for differentiation deserts him, leaving the threat of a lapse into barbarism.”

I have a new piece up at Political Theology Network. In which I attempt to find an adequate source of authority for the Christian left/liberalism. politicaltheology.com/the-power-of...

One could do worse than commit themselves to a lifetime of studying Gillian and Jacqueline Rose.

I suppose when the private wealth and property is sacred then the public and common is profane, disgusting and feared.

We do not have enough to continue making everything an investment demanding maximized returns. Though it should be added, we do have enough for a good life.

Can’t help we are now in full bloom of Zizek’s ‘If there is no God nothing is permissible.’ Including its counter point in Trump.

Read Policing the Crisis in a small group a while back. Thinking of a reboot, 2 much policing for 2 many crises

Haven’t read it but couldn’t help. <Adorno intensifies>

Was thinking of changing who I cheer for in the NFL based entirely on logo and nothing seemed self-evident. Chicago?

“There are worse ways to spend a night than putting your shoulder to an idea.” - Al Swearengen

“Thought waits to be woken one day by the memory of what has been missed, and to be transformed into teaching.” - Adorno

I am increasingly amazed at what the last 10 or so minutes of a movie can do for the movie as a whole.

Out for a walk and had the good fortune to run into a good friend walking to his transit route. We talked about increased enforcement denying transit to anyone without fare (apparently tasers are on the table for these officers).

Canada responding to US tariffs: Remember how free trade gutted small towns and the middle class? Let’s double down on it!

I don’t read much in science but enjoy the occasional account of ‘method’ related to science. I read Kuhn and am reading Feyerabend. Is there anything in the last 10 or so years of similar consequence?

Coming up just over a week, I'd love to see you if you're able!

I suspect loneliness is mostly *easier* than being in a durable inter-personal community. Intimate long-term relationships require frustratingly hard work. Which is why ‘easy’ community, whether IRL spaces of cult-like clarity or online echo chambers find success offering a ‘fix’ of communal need.

“Political economy came into being as a natural result of the expansion of trade, and with its appearance elementary, unscientific swindling was replaced by a developed system of licensed fraud - a complete get-rich economy.” - Engels

Free speech, of all things, should be built from the ground up. Figuring out local platforms, limits, and accountability. Families and religious orgs still do some of this. But buying, bullying and manipulating the platform ain’t it.

The Talmud has the original "yo mama" joke. (Megillah 25b:9)

Can’t even laugh at this. The idea of these meatheads skulking around my beautiful, glittering jewel box of a city, looking to tackle every non-white person they see, makes me sick to my stomach. This is the real domestic terrorism.

“Nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them." Assata Shakur

Don’t forget, last stop for Nuit Blanche is 10am at First Mennonite Church!

Every Monday morning I participate in a clergy-led prayer vigil outside of the Dallas ICE Administrative Office. This morning, a sniper stood at the top of an adjacent building and took aim. Press is reporting the victims are detainees being loaded onto a bus for transport to a large facility. 🧵

Finally watched Eddington, really enjoyed it. Thought it did a good job not collapsing the ideological binary into a moral one while acknowledging the larger structure that would recuperate both. Really liked how Brian’s arc was handled.

I get that writing should be valued but are many of you paying for several substacks?

A democracy, I suppose, must always be in process and must begin with a preferential option for the poor and oppressed as a material and political base for meaningful participation must be secured for all. Liberalism in its current form disavows this position.

May holy fools increase!

I shouldn't be shocked, but I'm still always brought up short to realize how many people think "civility" means "white people speaking in relatively calm voices" no matter what vile shit they say.

Anyone written anything interesting on the poltics of debate culture?

if you’re an isolated, angsty, strange young man, please know that you can become a Kierkegaard scholar instead of joining fringe online communities

But the greatest of these is peanut butter and ice cream.

Today will be the second weirdest 9/11 of our lifetime for sure.

If I have any credibility with you from 20 years of reporting on rightwing & fascist movements, please listen when I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Leave aside morality: this isn’t a match in dry grass, it’s a torch. We do not want what this could ignite & we would not win.

Solnit concludes *Paradise Built in Hell* with Hurricane Katrina. I remember watching the coverage. But I do NOT remember anything about the (well documented) white vigilante violence and murder. Disaster remains revelatory, the compassionate spirit of most but also the demonic nature of power.

This all sounded so familiar until they made the connection of evangelical strategies of ‘belonging before belief’. Meet everyone where they are at, welcome them in, listen to their story, knowing the power structure will remain unphased. Seeker sensitive fascism! podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/k...

I CANNOT stand Winnipeg's trajectory right now. Hmm, people are acting out of more desperation? Let's increase security! Huh, people are taking even GREATER risks? More force! More security!

Ugh, let's keep raising the ante on conflict. Support fare free transit!!

Time, place and conversation partners now set!!

An 'armed robbery' (airgun) was in the news today. An inspector asks, “How did we get to this place? Retail crime used to be about shoplifting, meaning hiding something in your jacket, in your bag… the goal was not to get caught. People didn’t get hurt. Kids didn’t come to the store with firearms."

Continuing my re-read/skim of Nail's *Figure of the Migrant*, "Prior to the Immigration Reform and Control Act passed in 1986, workers could be detained for being in the US without a visa, but hiring undocumented workers was not a crime, nor was working itself."

Any good articles detailing the damage to local economies (particularly in Mexico) due to NAFTA in relation to Trump's 'return' to tariffs which pre-NAFTA seemed to hold some leverage for governments to restrain the growing consolidation of privatization?

I suspect it’s true to say there is no ‘good government’ in the same way there is no ‘true church’. And accepting that may be a necessary step in navigating the absolutely critical variations on that reality.

Every time I return to Audre Lorde I'm like, oh right, she's the best.

Theology nerds - Can you recommend some interesting and accessible resources that explore the proliferation of Christologies in the early church? Something that can critically assess them without collapsing into easy categories of orthodoxy/heresy?

The Florida Project > Anora