Five @ Five @beehaw.org

[Five@slrpnk.net](https://slrpnk.net/u/Five)

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2 yr. ago

Most people experienced the song through CD or radio play of the Unplugged in New York album version, which cut right to the start of the song.

But in a topical twist, Kurt Cobain didn't realize Leadbelly was doing a cover as well, LOL.

If you can’t convince people to vote in mass, how are you going to convince them to protest or strike?

I agree. If you convince people that voting is the path to political change, you play into the elite's hands; but if people are politically engaged enough to protest and strike, voting is an afterthought.

I'm not advocating some violent minority storm congress. I'm saying if enough people agree on change and organize, they can make the edicts of politicians irrelevant. I wasn't referring to the Jan 6 coup attempt; I was talking about the historical revolutions against autocrats that replaced them with republican systems. The more democratic a system, the less violence it needs to use to rule; and less violence is likely to come back on it during a revolution towards a more progressive system.

I'm not saying marches alone, obviously; I mean mass mobilization, and all the tactics that makes possible. It's always nice to have politicians that concede earlier; but it's not a "need" type of thing. In the past, when people couldn't move politicians, they raised guillotines. The people always come first, and the minute the leaders of a movement sell out the rank and file for access and clout, they're playing the wrong game. If you think your political responsibility ends at the ballot box, you're part of the problem.

Nirvana's Where Did You Sleep Last Night is the cover of a Leadbelly song

Tennessee Ernie Ford - 16 Tons - a cover of a Merle Travis song

Down On My Knees - Ayo

I love that you link through Invidious.

I was reading about Kurdish refugees, and couldn't help notice how similar their "third way" was to the Firelights in arcane in the fight between ISIL and the Syrian government. It's not unreasonable to conclude there's been an exchange of ideas between European animators (some of whom made arcane) and Kurdish artists. Zerocalcare, Italy's most famous cartoonist visited Kobanî and made a popular comic book about the experience. Check out this mural for martyrs drawn by Kurdish refugees in a ligne claire style popularized by European cartoonists, and tell me you don't see inspiration for the mural in the Fightlight's refuge.

As an anarchist, I'd like to repurpose a comment I made a while back to connect with people who are genuinely surprised and disappointed by this development.

Martin Luther King Jr., a very successful reformer who said "freedom is never given voluntarily by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed," did not seek government position, and gave nothing to politicians who did not concede his movement's demands. It wasn't sympathetic civil rights politicians that wrote the legislation that King is famous for inspiring, but the ambivalent and enemies who were forced to concede due to the civil rights movements' economic and social power. It's a common trope that revolutionary groups' sacrifice and achievements are re-appropriated by opportunist politicians whose role should be described as 'more pliable obstacles.' For example, Lyndon Johnson in America is celebrated as the civil rights president, when it was King that pulled him kicking and screaming out of the American apartheid. This re-writing of history creates the false narrative that what we need most is more progressive politicians, and that all this rioting and chaos is just the result of fools who don't know how to work the system.

Politicians like Peter Hain, Bernie Sanders, and AOC should be viewed as window dressing advertising the power of the political movements that put them in place. Because the structure of the capitalist political system, placing and keeping politicians requires much greater sacrifice on the part of the left than it does on the right. Their existence within the political system helps to falsely legitimize it as a diverse forum, while blunting the progressive politicians' potential as social leaders and draining progressive movements of resources that they could be using on tactics better suited to their natural methods of power.

The most effective method of creating change will always be in the street.

What a garbage person.

Mirror

Wow, it's been almost a decade since their last album.

Firefund is legit too.

This isn't some random twitter user; it was posted by the National Guard of Ukraine, and officially identified as an Azov soldier. It's a pretty fucking fascist thing to do, but if you think this is the first and only indication that Azov is fascist, you haven't been paying attention. I bring it up because it's one of the many ways Azov is undermining resistance against Putin's fascists: creating propaganda that alienates Ukraine's Muslim allies.

Thanks for replying; I'm still developing my understanding of how to navigate this area of ideas with care.

How do you feel about drug addiction being classified as a mental illness? Do you feel that pharmacological alterations to the brain belong in the same category as depression and suicidal ideation? Would things be easier for people struggling with depression if there was a different category for addiction-based dysfunction that separated the two more distinctly in the public consciousness?

The fascists are literally dipping bullets in pig's blood. Why isn't Ukraine concerned about losing Turkey as a strategic ally by making heroes out of crusaders, but a situation where there would be less soldiers to check Erdogan's southern ambitions is going to make him throw away all that Bayraktar money.

If they're such a minor element of Ukrainian society, why can't they disband the battalions? You can't have it both ways. You're right, it's not Afghanistan; Ukraine aspiring to EU status makes the threat worse.

Also worth reading to expand the limited perspective of the film: The Hispano men all died of berylliosis. These were US citizens, folks. Their land taken, animals killed, farms bulldozed, forced to work for the people who took everything from them, and killed by those people.

Imagine this was the invasion of Afghanistan by Russia in the 1980s - knowing what you know now about 9-11 would you be just as cavalier about accountability with who the United States were training and supplying?

Putin is an autocrat and Wagner are fascists, but the journalists featured here don't have any influence in the east. They are doing the right thing by demanding Ukraine be held accountable. Both the journalists have clearly stated whose 'side' they're on, and repudiated Putin's claims. This is no place for Soviet whataboutism.

Mark my words: The next wave of mass shooters and white supremacist terrorists are being trained with American taxpayer money. If they're so hard up for support, why don't they permit anarchist battalions? There are veterans with years of military experience in Kobanî who were eager to fight the invasion, and the Ukrainian MOD delayed and stymied their participation. Yet they're bending over backwards for people who want to cleanse their society of gay people and minority ethnic groups. Anarchists and communists have already given their lives in the defense of Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not a fascist, but wouldn't it be a great propaganda coup against Putin's narrative for Ukraine to fight alongside a modern Abraham Lincoln brigade?

Italian Mao trying to graffiti his way to tanks. Pretty bad taste using an Australian girl as a reference because the the Ukrainian one wasn't pretty enough -- Yes, he really said that:

Si Nastya purtroppo non è molto fotogenica e ha la fronte alta, questo per il chiaroscuro e la profondità non aiuta (non ci credo che davvero sono dovuto arrivare a scriverlo) comunque si @fanpage.it e @enricomentana ho ridisegnato Nastya con la composizione ed elementi di questa bambina austaliana. (Treccine e maglia)

Using the double banners to sign the work is also a deep betrayal. Comrades like Yuriy Samoilenko, Serhiy Ilchenko, and Dmitry Petrov gave their lives fighting against the Russian aggression. There are anarchists who condemn the entire thing, Ukrainian, Belrusian, Russian, and other international anarchists working with the Ukrainian side doing triage, logistical work, and shooting Putin's fascists in PMC Wagner, but no anarchists are fighting for Putin. Leave the black flag out of it, anarchists don't co-sign propaganda for the territorial wars of autocrats.

It's clear from his Italian supporters slogans and signs, this is a tankie thing. Noam Chomsky said it about communism, and now it's true about antifascism. It's in the interest of the capitalist to claim Russia is 'antifa' to smear the term, and it's in the interest of Russia to claim to be antifascist to make themselves look better, but at the end of the day, it's politicians telling lies on both sides.

Per arrivare alla pace bisogna innanzitutto lottare contro chi fa propaganda di guerra mentendo spudoratamente. Per la verità per la pace!

I'm incredibly sympathetic to your point. I agree that fascism is a social illness, in the sense that it's a mental dysfunction with a high potential of social contagion.

But I believe fascism should be classified as a mental disorder. It is much more illuminating when trying to understand fascist behavior, and is much more effective when engaging with fascists. This is especially true in comparison to the status quo, which is to treat it merely as an ideology, similar to capitalism or communism. When you see a fascist as someone with an addiction-based behavioral disorder where the focus of their addiction is power, their individual behavior and group history make much more sense.

I believe fascists should be opposed with violence, but the most humane and effective solution in the long term to exterminating fascism is to eliminate food insecurity, provide housing for all, and free medical support for both physical and mental ailments. The opposites of these things are sources of fear that plague all people, and in addition to this fear metastasizing into fascist movements, it is also an influencing factor in a number of other anti-social behaviors and mental afflictions. I believe if we can survive this era of fascist contagion and build an egalitarian society, we can solve the problem of fascism completely. I think there's a precedent for this in the role that scientific public education has in curtailing disappearing penis delusional disorder, for example. Many mental disorders have strong social and environmental components, and can be mitigated with social and environmental solutions.

My classification is not a rhetorical flourish, meant to attach the stigma of mental illness on to a group I personally abhor. It's the observation cribbed from Umberto Eco that ideologies of a type have tenets of their platform in common, but fascist movements don't have any broad principled agreements -- not between each other, and even fundamentally change their own stated tenets given time and motivation. Instead they're easier to identify using symptomatic features. The implication is that fascism is a disorder masquerading as a philosophy.

My opinion is also bolstered by Bob Altemeyer who studied authoritarian personalities in a clinical setting. His research makes a very good case that people with particular temperaments are predisposed to be more susceptible than others to fascist leaders and ideas, and that fear is a trigger. His freely available book The Authoritarians is a very illuminating read.

I don't blame you for assuming from context that my statement was an insensitive slur. I hope this essay somewhat convinces you that it comes from a place of empathy, even for our enemies. I do want to clarify that empathy for the victims of fascism takes priority over empathy for fascists, and energy should not be spent recuperating fascists when it could be more effectively used to defeat them and protect their victims. But ultimate victory over fascism means understanding its causes and sources, and that requires viewing fascists as people also.

Psychiatry has a blind spot in its focus on making people 'better-adjusted' to living in a crapsack world. Mental healthcare is provided usually when a disorder causes productivity problems at work. I think our classification of fascism is hampered because the delusions of individual fascists usually don't reduce their traditionally-measured productivity in a workplace environment.

Thank you for standing up and speaking out for people with mental illness. Social stigmatization of mental illness is a subject I have a little knowledge about, but I don't have a personal connection to it, and am interested in your feedback on my admittedly unconventional position. I hope clarification in my defense doesn't discourage you from speaking up again in a similar context. Empathy and this type of solidarity definitely need to be the core of anti-fascism.

Thanks for the feedback and link. I'm still trying to figure out how to handle articles I encounter through pocket. I've found and posted the original article in the past, only for paywalls limiting the bees that can read it. It seems like posting the direct archive link as the main link is detrimental to the current economic model of most journalism.

The best solution is probably technical -- to allow posts to include alternative links for the same content. In the meantime, we'll have to rely on helpful people like you.