nice! where shall we begin?

Tried to copy and play w/ syntax via EA Poe and submit as a comment. I thought it came out well but the system (CSRF) wouldn't allow. If you wish I can send it to you in a doc.

outstanding work.

fj

Agree, but its been this way quite a while...

I'm convinced our society is completely pathological, so:

Up your game as a "clandestine" radical; up your "spy" quotient: the learning - and pay-machines tend to ignore and even abuse radicals like you. You have to up your 007 game while still feeding your radical self. Don't let anyone but trusted friends know u r radical. Watch Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville for an image of an intellectual spy in a control society.

Use TOR and try to access daily radical news blogs and podcasts that you like & trust - this again is feeding the clandestine radical. Try to give ride-shares or, if you feel safe, pick up hitch-hikers when you drive. You have to drive for now and the alternative is like shooting yourself in the foot. Conscious driving (trying not to waste trips or combine trips) reduces car use. Drive as slowly as possible to reduce fuel consumption. Try to live within bike-distance... or even get a bike rack and drive less-bike more...(I know people that do this to avoid parking fees, even in winter)...

I would get some boundaries up between yourself and any proto-nazi's - they're not happy until they've made you unhappy and they've spread their sadness... I know this from family experience, get some distance... fascism is made of exploitative predators, liars (or people who won't see the truth) and fearful cowards. (Reich)

As a human being, you need: affection, like all warm-blooded mammals; to be productive (to create) , to be cooperative and to speak of things as you see them (honesty)... (also Reich) People in the service industries (restaurants, cafes and bars) are often much more intelligent and sensitive than you'd expect and are frequently students working for living costs and/or artists. Strike up a conversation at the restaurant or cafe, give contact info if u r comfortable with that.

Get thee to the nearest radical bookstore! or contact them online for suggestions: Red Emma's (Baltimore), Wooden Shoe (Philly), etc. there are often events which are good for meeting people (this might have to wait til after finals or on breaks)... a great author can often be a great friend...

These are things I did, plus speaking to the best in other people - people are largely unaware of their damage and neglect. However, far-right people can't be changed - they'll have to want to change themselves, for them to change - I wouldn't waste a lot of time and effort trying to convince far-right people of anything...

all the best...

Youtube sleep hypnosis videos & deep-relaxation guided meditations on youtube. I've used videos by: Jason Stephenson; New Horizons (a UK healing centre, which even has sleep and relaxation videos for kids); Laura Ostrowski Fenton; Michael Sealey and Lillian Eden - all certified hypnotherapists. I've had very good luck and so always remember even 15 minutes or an hour of sleep can be good sleep if you are deeply relaxed. Deep relaxation shuts off the stress hormones and adrenalin. Hypnosis is super-effective at generating deep relaxation. The therapist recordings always says, "Do not listen to this while driving..."

Massage therapy puts me right to sleep - I'd offer free massage but I'm in MI.

When I had a stressful job, I'd deep-meditate every night before bed and drop right off. Don't worry if you don't sleep 8 hours, some very productive people get far less... main thing is to get to deep relaxation to shut off the stress hormones. If you wake up, just read or draw or journal, anything productive that won't bother the neighbors.

Showering before bed removes allergens and air pollutants (if u live in big city). Hot water relaxes the muscles and opens blood vessels, lowering blood pressure. Best shower also is with filter-shower-head, but any will do for a start.

I also like herbs and melatonin as they are way non-toxic. Best of luck. Youtube also has ocean and rainforest sounds which I find very soothing. Always make sure to be in the dark or use eyecovers as your body will produce melatonin only in darkness (or with eyes covered). Best wishes, fj

Logic of Capitalist Medicine: Presently, around 123,000 children die per day from completely treatable illnesses (mostly cough). The governments and pharmaceutical companies simply won't share the technology to save them. This adds up to about 68.3 total Reigns of Terror per Day. Who are the real slaughterers? Ordinary businessmen, politicians and scientists. With no love for death or bloodthirst, the beheaded king remains as a powerful image.

This crimethinc article seems pretty heavy on moralism while ignoring the brutality of Louis, who ordered his troops to fire on unarmed civilians. Thus, was Lafayette guillotined. Louis had enriched himself and his family while the rest of France starved. This was the source for the IRA in Ireland as well, which began at the time of the Great Famine in 1856. The Republican Army was formed because the king of England was having farmers brutally removed from formerly common lands, now the king's. Ironically, they got arms from France.

Let's put it this way, when you are a soldier for the powers that be, you take the risk of death at every turn. If you are killed, that's part of your job as a soldier. Have a flag and flowers, but u won't get much pity from me. Same for pharma. The Jacobins won that public battle, against the king and his collaborators, that's all. Of course they made mistakes.

You've forgotten our contemporary context of slaughter-become-commonplace. Your anti-guillotine rhetoric comes at the time of Saudis bombing schoolbuses. There can be no prison sentence for that. The guillotine was actually an improvement over hanging which could take 13-15mins. for the hanged to die. The guillotine was instantaneous.

The objection of the Commune was the refusal of anything from the state. They killed the mostly working class and peasant gendarmes with their rifles. But the gendarmes were soldiers for the Thiers govt. I would have been with the Commune. Once you become a soldier, you give up your life. This was Nietzsche's objection to revenge: it eats you. But if you're already half-eaten... the French (and Irish) peasants had little to lose...

A second perspective from Gelderloos might be: the reign of terror was a purely middle class revolt, first against the king and then against each other. Pure middle-class hysteria, which is why we should be wary of middle-class guys. Perhaps the real lesson is we're all soldiers, either for the poor, in which the powers will try to kick our asses, imprison and even kill us, or for the rich. In that case, as Gelderloos might say, this writer is a soldier for the rich. (Pacifism serves the state).

I wish you'd have included our present context instead of writing this from a secuded room. The moralism seems over-stated.

just thoughts...

http://ubuweb.com/

Its what happens when you trade your life for a salary: giving up your ability to decide and act on your own wishes and desires; life time spent working for someone else's profit; then fatigue and the artificial sociality - the Age of Impotence - Franco Berardi's latest book; all this adds up to a huge unhappiness... imho

I like accuradio.com as there are no commercials, unlimited skips and every song you rate w/4 or 5 stars goes into your own file for playback if u choose.

Thank you for posting this. I sent some small notes to A-news last week called Post-Collapse Anarchism, which they didn't touch and of course they don't respond: I didn't know Desert existed and I'm on it. Thank you again.

Notes on Post-Collapse Anarchism

• Rather than speculate on the future, its worth a look at our recent history to see how anarchists might respond to climate disaster.

• Two Cambridge University analysts (among many others) are convinced that society will not be able to change quickly enough to avoid collapse due to climate change. Thus, both of them are saying we should prepare for a Post-Collapse humanity, opening the door for Post-Collapse Anarchism.

• Most of the scenarios should be familiar to anarchists who've attended EF roundups and say, Rhizome Collective lectures & the RUST book, etc. In many ways, anarchists are more prepared than most people for life without infrastructure, finance, consumerism, etc. So it would seem there are possibilities for liberation to be explored.

• But one would expect the most suffering to be distributed downward, to the already struggling, already without infrastructure, medicine, food, clean water, etc. How many Puerto Rico's and Haiti's, favelas and barrios? The affinity group returns as an essential practice. It would be no surprise to see the rad-right fascists become more violent and predatory. But there will be more of us now.

• The self-exiled anarchists who went to the PNW to crop farm can become relevant again in their willingness to teach food production when there's a lot of human labor power and no gasoline. Climate change there however has been an increase in heat and a drop in rainfall, also sea-level rise. Still liveable? Prolly. More permaculture?

• One thing seems pretty obvious, the police and first responders will be weakened and so blockades and squats may last longer and become viable alternatives again.
  The street medic trainings given occasionally usually have workshops on plant medicine, first aid and mental health care. It seems we'll need all our knowledge of how to take care of ourselves and each other. (self-defense?)

• The little rays of joy provided by art and music seem especially important then. An unplugged crust punk? I can't wait. Flute and drum making? Bring it! Plant- based pigment and seed-oil paint? I'm breathless. Living Theatre written large. Art without the commodity-world seems life-giving again!!!

• We may get another chance to ruin the state, or at least to diffuse it in its infancy. In this we seem allied with the earth, water and animals versus the psychopathic state of Dick Cheney, Halliburton and Hillary Clinton. How to guarantee we've removed them from our own heads?

• Another likelihood is the refusal of a servant class (caste), and so it seems some more liberation is possible. Will the wealthy have their paid lackeys? Yes and their professors, only without tenure! But its impossible to see how they'll last.

• What will happen to indigenous authority when the borders can no longer be policed? Another Iroquois Confederacy? Can there not be an Anarchist Confederacy? Positive human relationships become revolutionary then!

• The virility of life and death issues appear minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. What is called the Extinction Rebellion, whose 2nd letter was signed by Noam Chomsky seems like a non-violent response to collapse. Ward Churchill wasn't asked to sign.

• Where will you be, comrade? Will i recognize you in your wild smile? Firebearer!

Links to the Cambridge academics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzCxFPzdO0Y&t=2434s

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daRrbSl1yvY

Extinction Rebellion:

https://rebellion.earth/

Radical Urban Sustainability Training (RUST):

https://radixcenter.org/get-involved/workshops/rust/

Agree, funny thing: St. Benedict was visited by a raven, and now the Benedictine College is called the Ravens!

I have a lot of respect for the discipline and simplicity of monastic life. Mine would have to be coupled with class consciousness, my experience of the temple is its where the middle/upper classes go to meditate and have community. Then they get up and go to work the next morning... ah well...

Not taking a fee is a big defense in court because no one can say you're a fraud if you didn't steal anything... licensure cases seem to be pursued by people who have money for lawyers, which is really not any US state at this time, so its the ambulance chasers (victims of malpractice) who might come after you (Jeffrey Feiger) if they can prove damages... worst part about the helping professions= malpractice insurance... I think this is why people don't practice traditional and indigenous medicine - someone can try to prove you damaged them - however, one can't get blood from a turnip... I would get a lawyer's opinion on specifics...

word of danger in "helping work" in general, up to and even including food not bombs = burn out. Make sure you can swim each day before helping the life guards: I'd look for support comrades and make sure you get days off, make sure you're not martyring yourself which ends up helping no one... i'd make sure i had a pretty strong system of stress management as I know two burned-out social workers who'd just seen too much bad shi*...

I'd say keep your practice small to trusted friends and their references... at least at first, like house painters... there is a need for people with skills, license or no (Street medics at protests), just don't go it alone and burn out...

just thoughts...

Liberation Theology was an interesting movement in the late 60's, into the 80's. 'Course a buncha people got killed for preachin' it. Chomsky knew somma those people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology

Same as when Hillary said fracking protesters "Need to get a life". Ugh.

"Just Kids", (Illustrated version) Patti Smith's relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. With drawings and photos.

Marguerite Duras, The Sea Wall. Rebellious teenager.

This is a strange article, because Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State was CEO of Exxon Mobil. According to this article, Exxon Mobil, BP and many other companies are pumping Iraqi oil under agreement with the country. Trump can't really be that dumb, can he? But the writers seem to be going along with it instead of reporting that Iraq's oil is no longer nationalized (socialized) & is for private profit now. Whew. Its hard to keep up with all the double-speak.

http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/list-of-international-oil-companies-in-iraq/

Recently someone posted on A-news about how the NSA already has yr e-habits in a template and can tell when you weren't doing your "normal" e-stuff. So its important a) to begin to randomize your e-behavior and b) take increasingly lengthy breaks from your e-stuff, to add space to your e-template. I would let close contacts know in-person. Will buy u some time anyway. death to the system.

Yes, n Bruce Levine has shown the connection between political consciousness and mental health. Does the study anywhere mention that connection? Its whole notion that vegetarianism or veganism "causes" poorer health is completely false. What about glyphosate? Not mentioned. What about "roundup ready gmo's? nothing. Pile of garbage.

Following Wilhelm Reich here:

There is a basic polarity in biological life: production and anti-production

Production (activity, art, revolt, foreplay) vs Anti-production (rest, sleep, inactivity, orgasm).

According to Reich, if the biome doesn't have the anti-production it will die. FAP is simply moving the biome to anti-production, upon which the productions of revolt, art, love etc are dependent.

What I am hearing the above author say, and which Reich himself said, "Its by controlling our anti-production as well as our production that fascism takes hold in a mass psychology" (paraphrased).

In this way, it can be said that mutual consent sex with another is more radical than fapping because of the gift, affinity and trust involved, required for revolt. Fapping is easier but equally anti-productive, which is the absolutely necessary source of sociality, social movement and revolt. How "rest"is distributed in the economy is very telling.

The technology of erotism has its own issues.

Agree, and since this was written by Derrick Jensen we have to ask him (and Lierre Keith) about transgender becomings as political acts and guess what? We find out they are. So nothing's as simple as simple-minded Derrick likes to portray it : not only the inability of DGR to stage effective protest against the corporate-military state but to even begin to sketch an outline of what revolution might look like. In this way, the insurgent anarchists have gone much further, though they need numbers, and that is another point completely sidestepped by Derrick. So in a way, Derrick's work is like pouring water in front of a thirsty person, he adds to the obvious catastrophe. Derrick's books, like much of left-alternative media are vulture-like, showing us the obvious carrion without a discussion of previous attempts at revolt and what lessons might be learned from them. Pretty harmless stuff but I'm not forgiving him and Lierre for printing writers who have said there needs to be a (human) "die-off". That always means the poor countries.

OK Thanks! I'll use Tor!!!

Hey, the onion links aren't working, Homage to Catalonia etc.

"Port of Saints", W.S. Burroughs' most tender teen gay love memoir.

"Howl" Allen Ginsberg

"Paterson", W.C. Williams

"Leaves of Grass", Whitman's incredible walk through s. jersey.