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blumtn.bsky.social
@blumtn.bsky.social
11 followers 44 following 10 posts
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davidgraeberinst.bsky.social
This is a long quote, but with the Democrats and Liberal-Centrists totally failing to understand right-wing populism and mottos like 'support our troops,' the quote is worth reading through.
Some years ago I wrote a piece called “Army of Altruists” where I tried to grapple with the power of right-wing populism, especially with the way that “we hate the liberal elite” and “support the troops” seemed to have a very similar, deep resonance, even to be a way of saying the same thing. What I ended up concluding is that working class people hate the cultural elite more than they do the economic elite—and mind you, they don’t like the economic elite very much. . But they hate the cultural elite because they see them as a group of people who have grabbed all the jobs where one gets paid to do good in the world. If you want a career pursuing any form of value other than monetary value, if you want to work in journalism, and pursue truth, or in the arts, and pursue beauty, or in some charity or international NGO or the UN, and pursue social justice—well, even assuming you can acquire the requisite degrees, for the first few years they won’t even pay you. So you’re supposed to live in New York or some other expensive city on no money for a few years after graduation. . Who else can do that except children of the elite? So if you’re a fork-lift operator or even a florist, you know your kid is unlikely to ever become a CEO, but you also know there’s no way in a million years they’ll ever become drama critic for the New Yorker or an international human rights lawyer. The only way they could get paid a decent salary to do something noble, something that’s not just for the money, is to join the army. So saying “support the troops” is a way of saying “fuck you” to the cultural elite who think you’re a bunch of knuckle-dragging cavemen, but who also make sure your kid would never be able to join their club of rich do-gooders even if he or she was twice as smart as any of them. . - David Graeber
June 20, 2025 at 9:42 PM
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spencerbeswick.bsky.social
Rebecca Solnit: “Hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky… Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.”
March 21, 2025 at 4:19 PM
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davidgraeberinst.bsky.social
"Just as a Sufi might say that Sufism is the core of truth behind all religions, an anarchist might argue that anarchism is the urge for freedom behind all political ideologies."

David Graeber (2004).
March 17, 2025 at 11:16 PM
blumtn.bsky.social
Wonderful showing last night for our Burrito Brigade fundraiser. Mi vida made some anarchy cupcakes as part of the fundraiser.
March 16, 2025 at 11:58 PM
blumtn.bsky.social
Come support our local community and help Burrito Brigade get a fridge and freezer. #mutualaid #santafe @burritobrigade.bsky.social
March 2, 2025 at 11:42 PM
blumtn.bsky.social
Few chapters in and find it rather relevant. #booksky #haymarket #parsons #robertaitken
March 2, 2025 at 2:39 AM
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puckarks.bsky.social
The Brooklyn Public Library has announced that any teenager in America is now eligible for a Brooklyn Public Library card.
Teens can sign out ebooks + audiobooks 
The move is designed to combat censorship, with some titles listed as "always available."

www.bklynlibrary.org/media/press/...
Brooklyn Public Library Offers Free eCards to Teens Nationwide Facing Book Bans in Local Communities | Brooklyn Public Library
Librarians and Teen Volunteers Spearhead Books Unbanned Initiative to Combat Censorship
www.bklynlibrary.org
February 25, 2025 at 6:19 AM
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spencerbeswick.bsky.social
Murray Bookchin: "There can be no separation of the revolutionary process from the revolutionary goal. A society whose fundamental aim is self-administration in all facets of life can be achieved only by self-activity."
February 11, 2025 at 2:59 PM
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davidgraeberinst.bsky.social
In 2011, David Graeber wrote: Revolutions in Reverse

This is an extract!
Neoliberal capitalism is that form that is utterly obsessed with ensuring that it seems that, as Margaret Thatcher so famously declared in the 1980s,“there is no alternative.” . In other words, it (neo-liberalism) has largely given up on any serious effort to argue that the current economic order is actually a good order and given up trying to prove it can create a world in which most human beings feel prosperous, safe, and free to spend any significant portion of their life pursuing those things they consider genuinely important. . Rather, it is a terrible system, in which even the very richest countries cannot guarantee access to such basic needs as health and education to the majority of their citizens. Yes they say it works badly - but they want you to believe no other system could possibly work at all! . - David Graeber
February 10, 2025 at 8:03 PM
blumtn.bsky.social
Current read… #booksky #davidgraeber #revolutionbythebook
February 10, 2025 at 4:32 AM
blumtn.bsky.social
Just finished this set of classic essays. Now to find a revolution I can dance to… #booksky #akpress #revolutionbythebook
February 8, 2025 at 12:30 AM
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davidgraeberinst.bsky.social
"The war against the imagination is the only one the capitalists have actually managed to win."

From; Revolutions In Reverse by David Graeber
"There is no better way to ensure people are not politically active or aware than to have them working, commuting to work, or preparing for work every moment of the day. Sacrificing so many of one’s waking hours to the gods of productivity ensures no-one has access to outside perspectives that would enable them to notice that organizing life this way ultimately decreases productivity. . As a result of this neoliberal obsession with stamping out alternative perspectives, we have been left in the bizarre situation where its plain to everyone that capitalism doesn’t work, but it’s almost impossible for anyone to imagine anything else." . - David Graeber
February 6, 2025 at 4:48 PM
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sourcenm.com
NEW: As New Mexico lawmakers mull big criminal justice and behavioral health reforms, the Cicero Institute, a billionaire-backed think tank, has jumped into the fray.

But we don't know what bills its lobbyists are trying to influence, thanks to a legal blind spot.
Billionaire-backed think tank that pushed homeless crackdowns elsewhere hires veteran NM lobbyists  • Source New Mexico
The public doesn’t know what bills the Cicero Institute is seeking to influence, thanks to legal blind spot lawmakers hope to fix
buff.ly
February 4, 2025 at 10:12 PM
blumtn.bsky.social
Finally getting around to reading Parable of the Sower… #booksky
February 4, 2025 at 4:24 AM
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davidgraeberinst.bsky.social
Neo-liberalism, Trickle-down economics, Privatization, Deregulation and Tax cuts for the rich were always about solidifying class power.
"Neo-liberalism, however ineffective as a strategy for global prosperity, has proved remarkably effective in solidifying class power—a power that had been widely threatened by revolutionary and democratic movements in the 1970s." . - David Graeber
February 3, 2025 at 7:29 AM
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davidgraeberinst.bsky.social
In 2015, Utopia Of Rules was published and written by David Graeber.

This is an extract from that book!
"For anyone who has ever been a refugee, or for that matter had to fill out the forty-page application required to get one’s daughter considered for admission by a London music school, the idea that bureaucracy has anything to do with rationality, let alone efficiency, might seem odd. Market reforms only reinforce this tendency. This happens on every level and it is felt most cruelly by the poor, who are constantly monitored by an intrusive army of moralistic box-tickers assessing their child-rearing skills, inspecting their food cabinets to see if they are really cohabiting with their partners, determining whether they have been trying hard enough to find a job, or whether their medical conditions are really sufficiently severe to disqualify them from physical labor." . All rich countries now employ legions of functionaries whose primary function is to make poor people feel bad about themselves. . - David Graeber
February 3, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Reposted
haymarketbooks.org
Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, MO.
February 1, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Reposted
haymarketbooks.org
“Kids Who Die”
Langston Hughes, 1938
Kids Who Die This is for the kids who die, Black and white, For kids will die certainly. The old and rich will live on awhile, As always, Eating blood and gold, Letting kids die. Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi Organizing sharecroppers. Kids will die in the streets of Chicago Organizing workers. Kids will die in the orange groves of California Telling others to get together. Whites and Filipinos, Negroes and Mexicans, All kinds of kids will die Who don't believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment And a lousy peace. Of course, the wise and the learned Who pen editorials in the papers, And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names. White and black, Who make surveys and write books. Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die, And the sleazy courts, And the bribe-reaching police, And the blood-loving generals, And the money-loving preachers Will all raise their hands against the kids who die, Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets To frighten the people— For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people— And the old and rich don't want the people To taste the iron of the kids who die, Don't want the people to get wise to their own power, To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together. Listen, kids who die— Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you Except in our hearts Maybe your bodies'll be lost in a swamp. Or a prison grave, or the potter's field, Or the rivers where you're drowned like Leibknecht. But the day will come— You are sure yourselves that it is coming— When the marching feet of the masses Will raise for you a living monument of love, And joy, and laughter, And black hands and white hands clasped as one, And a song that reaches the sky— The song of the life triumphant Through the kids who die.
February 1, 2025 at 2:47 PM
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davidgraeberinst.bsky.social
"It is no coincidence that the new phase of American debt imperialism has also been accompanied by the rise of the evangelical right, who-in defiance of almost all previously existing Christian theology-have enthusiastically embraced the doctrine of "supply-side economics," that creating money and effectively giving it to the rich is the most Biblically appropriate way to bring about national prosperity." . - David Graeber
January 30, 2025 at 8:09 PM
blumtn.bsky.social
As we walked these grounds tears fell and hearts felt the weight of millions gone because of hate, fear, ignorance… As profoundly depressing each step was there was something full of life that grew within each breath.
January 28, 2025 at 6:06 AM
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ursulakleguin.com
At Literary Hub, @julie-phillips.com writes about Ursula's activism, and her essay "The Election, Lao Tzu, a Cup of Water."
The Way of Water: On the Quiet Power of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Activism
In the past two months, I’ve found myself thinking back to an essay Ursula K. Le Guin posted on her blog in November 2016. It was one of her last long essays, and she wrote it at a time when she—li…
lithub.com
January 3, 2025 at 8:49 PM
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ursulakleguin.com
“After all, dictators are always afraid of poets.”

*

Conversations on Writing, which collects three conversations Ursula had with David Naimon, is published by Tin House.

tinhouse.com/book/ursula-...
A copy of Conversations on Writing is photographed against a dark green velvet background
November 14, 2024 at 9:45 PM