A thoughtful review by ‪Daniel Trilling @trillingual.bsky.social‬ of Richard Seymour's new book 'Disaster Nationalism'. Trilling invites us to think harder about what this conjuncture really means: Birth of Fascism 2.0 or a New Popular Conservatism? www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

When the Clock Broke by @lioneltrolling.bsky.social looks like the book we all need to be reading to understand the political and cultural forces that brought us to this historical moment. Excellent summary by @thomaszimmer.bsky.social thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-origin...

“One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over,” as we “simply remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring.” W.E.B. DuBois, “The Propaganda of History”

'With magic Jesus you don't need labour unions or health care' Chris Hedges has been warning the world about the rise of Christian American fascism since the early Obama era. substack.com/@smfleck/not...

Fight for America! is a live tabletop wargame based on the January 6 insurrection. It has it's London premier June 8- July 6 www.fightforamerica.games

the church pete hegseth is a part of, the CREC, is led by a lunatic who gives talks about "the lost value of sexism" and wants to drive women out of public life. this fully accords with hegseth's public comments. and he's been selected to run the largest corporation on earth

Yes it was a Nazi salute

We need to start thinking of Facebook and Xwitter as weapons of information warfare @carolecadwalla.bsky.social substack.com/home/post/p-...

@carolecadwalla.bsky.social will be one of the most essential voices to listen to this year. Her investigations into Russian interference in Brexit and '16 US election were ignored, dismissed, mocked, and derided by the BBC and the press. And here we are. open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

It begins

Peak liberal bias is believing with virtually no evidence that publics in authoritarian states only venerate their leaders out of fear. Hatred of LGBTQ+ ppl (for example) is deeply embedded in many cultures. It isn't just for show.

The alleviation of women's abuse "is made less likely by the mandated subservience of women by Christian fundamentalists. What is especially disappointing...is the docile acceptance by so many strong Christian women of their subjugation & restricted role." - Jimmy Carter (RIP)

'The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true'

factions of the far right may be eating each other alive, but they always do this, and would be just as glad to turn and sink their teeth into your neck. the sniping can be entertaining and useful, but don't mistake it for meaningful fractures in the project of ressentiment.

Instinctively I agree with Chris Hedge's assessment on the superficiality of modern democracies. But the implication that theatricality is inherently deceitful and shallow ignores how ideologies must be staged in order to produce systems of political identification.

WE ARE STILL IN THIS. Wipe your tears. This is the difficult business of hope and defying expectation. We do not give up. We run through the tape. Y’all aren’t allowed to throw in the towel until I do. 😉 Big breath. Locked in. Let’s do this.

In 2011, David Cameron declared that state multiculturalism had failed. His (neo)liberal model of inclusion helped to lay the ideological groundwork for the ethno-nationalist discourse of cultural decay. josephdunnehowrie.substack.com/p/inclusion-...

*Correction - Theo Aiolfi @theoaiolfi.bsky.social

These upcoming books by Victoria Scrimer and Theo Alfi will be important landmarks in the growing interdisciplinary research into political extremism and activism. Performance studies and political science have much to learn from each other in this darkening world #Theatre #Politics #Academia 1/3

A statement from The Onion about InfoWars.

Just had an idea

How many of the people who denounced the Hunter Biden pardon will condemn Trump for saying he’s going to pardon Jan 6th convicts who assaulted police officers and ransacked the capitol?

As the #Assad dictatorship falls, memories of The Arab Spring are stirring. Khalid Abdalla's solo play 'No-Where' creates a space to revisit the new horizons this forgotten revolution erupted into our political consciousness #TheatreSky #Syria youtu.be/k20g4XlRbDQ?...

Sarah Gancher's digital performance 'Russian Troll Farm' about Kremlin disinformation campaign in 2016 election should be required viewing in schools. The play is infinitely more informative about the ideological drivers of Russian propaganda than almost all mainstream coverage #TheatreSky

If you as a parent do not want your child to read about something, that is your job as a parent to oversee their reading. It should absolutely not affect what children who are not yours are reading.

The Metamodern Theatre Symposium was held at The University of East London and online on 19.11.24 to launch @miserchristmas.bsky.social's book Metamodernism in Contemporary British Theatre. Every talk now available on YouTube. #TheatreSky #MetaSymp www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Seen in the "Great Acceleration" exhibit at Berlin's Futurium. This was a hundred years ago. How rapidly what we take for granted can be snatched away.

'Mass market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight.' James Ellroy

Idlib, Aleppo, Hama…nothing short of a complete regime collapse. Events moving so quickly it’s impossible to grasp what’s going on, let alone pontificate about what’s next. But unrest in Daraa and *something* going on Damascus suggest this isn’t stopping any time soon.

Follow @nafeez.bsky.social

Alt Reich sounds like a useful critical framework to analyse the intersections of fascism, techno-capital and millennarian utopianism. open.substack.com/pub/bylinesu...

Wrote a thing about static cultures being dead cultures in response to a typically horrible essay by Matt Goodwin. substack.com/profile/1895...

I see Graham Linehan is supporting Aontú in the Irish election today. For context, Aontú were formed on an anti-choice, Religious Right platform. Graham continually says that his "campaign" is for his wife & daughter's rights, but he's supporting a party that wants their bodily autonomy removed. 1/

iMelania is an online performance by @paulavarjack.bsky.social and Chuck Blue Lowry exploring what Melania - a supermodel former immigrant - represents in the Trump story. vimeo.com/user1459255

Enjoyed watching the online performance I, Melania by @paulavarjack.bsky.social and Chuck Blue Lowry this morning. Oscillating gaze between phone and desktop gives the the First Lady a glitchy presence. 1/

EVERY. WORD. OF. THIS.

This is a chilling read. It's a live page of all the redundancies, restructures, reorganisations, and closures taking place across the university sector at the moment. The sector is on its knees and desperately needs government intervention/changes in policies. qmucu.org/qmul-transfo...

This is the latest acquisition to the @hopenothate.org.uk archive. It's a British Union of Fascists marching banner from the 1930s. If any historians or anti-fascists have any more details on the item do let us know!

Far-right propagandist and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was a counter-cultural person of ridicule in the 2000s. He appeared as himself in Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006) 1/3

People are often surprised when I tell them this: both Twitter and Facebook/insta/threads are now specifically engineered to downgrade, hide, suppress real journalism. If this platform is different, that's a huge change

NYPost continues conflating academic research on disinformation with “government censorship.” (It also bears repeating that government activity on disinformation =/= censorship) That this continues to be a drumbeat for conservative media and the Trump transition is extremely concerning.

Deshalb ist die Politik "blocken ohne kommentar" die beste. Ich wollte das auch lange nicht wahrhaben und es ist natürlich viel langweiliger, aber deplatforming ist das einzige, was funktioniert. www.garbageday.email/p/right-wing...

Note the silence from the free speech absolutist gang

In which I talk to Ezra Klein about guardrails

Hard not to escape the conclusion that the Brazilian judicial system works better than its American equivalent

That Is Not Who I Am/Rapture by Lucy Kirkwood is a Chinese puzzle box of a play about a couple's descent into online conspiracies that may or may not be true, and the play telling their story, which we may or may not be watching #TheatreSky search.app?link=https%3...

Belarus Free Theatre is the only European company banned by it's home country for opposing authoritarianism and promoting artistic freedom. It's members have been imprisoned and tortured by the Belarusian goverment. It is a model for cultural anti-fascism #TheatreSky belarusfreetheatre.com