I’m tired of reading about democrat politicians arguing for ICE reform through regulation. It’s insane. Eliminating ICE should be the decisive issue of the mid-term elections. Every democrat who isn’t willing to work to eliminate the agency should be replaced, full stop.

Over the years, when discussing a range of political, economic, and environmental issues, I’ve taken to saying that I’m optimistic about possibilities but pessimistic about probabilities. I’ve decided to call this perspective—mirroring Berlant’s notion of cruel optimism—“joyful pessimism.”

The slight unease on seeing starvation from the apologists this week is proof that the “knave or fool?” answer was always knave for those who say criticism of Israel is antisemitism. The apologists are fools too, but first they are lying liars who knew they were lying so a race could be killed off

An administered mass starvation is so incomprehensibly evil, something for which we have barely any analogies in the history of cruelty, a murderous drive beyond the capture of words, that nobody knows what to say. We just watch, and while everyone who could stop it wants it

While I generally find Neighbors 2 to be that rare phenomenon of a superior sequel, I cannot help but be disquieted by its denouement, which transforms the film’s core antagonism into a landlord-tenant relation that enables one party to fulfill their destiny of suburban transcendence.

Trump's EPA now says greenhouse gases don't endanger people The Trump administration wants to reverse a 2009 EPA finding that greenhouse gases endanger people. The finding is the basis for much of the United States' climate change regulations.

The transformation of the EPA into an organon of fossil capital is an excellent example of the dialectical phenomenon of something turning into its opposite.

In this week’s edition of me reviewing movies I’m ashamed I didn’t watch sooner, Jaws is clearly the return of the repressed of Hiroshima, and Blanche is the sanest character in A Streetcar Named Desire.

For capitalism, the real crisis would be if everyone had a home, nobody went hungry, and the climate wasn’t being wrecked.

In Delta’s Detroit terminal, screens that once showed CNN now display endlessly looping advertisements: Apple Pay, Delta Amex, Palantir, University of Michigan Health, Apple Pay, DTW Rewards, Apple Pay, Acumatica, Apple Pay, Palantir, and so on.

This reminds me of Beverley Best’s argument in _The Automatic Fetish_. If you haven’t checked it out, highly recommend

During the Arab revolutions of the 20th century, especially the latter half, governments had to choose between compliance or resistance to the West. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other gulf monarchies chose compliance, receiving aid and arms. Iran has had different postures, and the west doesn’t forgive

Western fossil colonialism in Iran stretches more than a century to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (BP) in 1901. When Mossaddegh wanted to cancel a 1933 sixty-year lease, he was ousted in a 1953 CIA-backed coup. By 1957 the “Eisenhower doctrine” treated anti-communism and oil access as one agenda

The fact they think it takes 2 hours to read 1 book tells me they’ve never read a book.

Now that the PhD is done, maybe I can finally finish revisions…

As I’ve been telling friends for years, the best retirement planning is planning to end capitalism. Everything else is just hoping you’re the fastest in the group running from the bear. Follow me for more financial tips.

The article concludes by suggesting “boost your income” but then doesn’t mention the best ways to do this like joining a union or revolution.

Trump deploys 2,000 National Guard members after Los Angeles immigration protests The Trump administration is calling in the California National Guard in response to protests in Los Angeles over immigration operations that have resulted in some clashes between demonstrators and aut...

I served ten years in the Cal Army National Guard as an infantry officer (to avoid student loans, and because, when I joined, I was young and naive). About to find out in real time which of my former colleagues have the spine to refuse illegal and immoral orders.

The government would have found itself in a weak position, forced to beg. The loss could have become a win for labor and public safety. There’s a lesson here.

When I read about the 1981 Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization strike, how Reagan crushed them, and how that defeat created problems that haunt us still, I can’t help but think that defeat could have become a kind of victory if no workers had been willing to fill the empty positions.

Does every dissertation defense committee include at least one man who asks rapid, aggressive, bad-faith questions and then interrupts every attempted answer with another question, making it impossible for the candidate to actually respond?

There Is No Such Thing as Green Capitalism | Los Angeles Review of Books David Shipko explores climate denialism in speculative literature and culture.

"We must begin by confronting one of the most dangerous stories ever told: that capitalism can become ecologically sustainable. This is a delusional fantasy."

@dshipko.bsky.social explores climate denialism in speculative literature and culture. lareviewofbooks.org/article/ther...

But seriously, I’m proud of my university for boldly tackling problems that don’t exist while exacerbating those that do

The Era of DEI for Conservatives Has Begun In an effort to attract more right-leaning faculty, some elite universities are borrowing tactics long used to promote racial diversity.

As someone raised conservative, I feel qualified to say that “conservative intellectual” is a contradiction in terms

There Is No Such Thing as Green Capitalism | Los Angeles Review of Books David Shipko explores climate denialism in speculative literature and culture.

In which I attempt to compress and simplify large chunks of my dissertation

Rewatching The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) for the first time in years, I am convinced that it is actually, despite its seemingly joyous ending, a tragedy about capitalism’s final total enclosure of non-human nature.

Kind of excited to see what happens when the mad emperor takes away the bread *and* circuses

Him saying colonizing Mars is “manifest destiny” made it into one of my chapter intros

I’ve spent my entire life traveling internationally. I had never seen an ICE agent, wearing black fatigues and a ballistic vest, standing in a jetway checking passports of passengers boarding a departing international flight. Now I have.

The ultimate wish-fulfillment of every digital game is in fact just the lowly checkpoint, the ability to reload and try again.

IU hosts state's first student Geoengineering Summit More than a hundred students presented poster projects with ideas such as genetically modified seagrass and reflective drones.

Climate denial masquerading as “solutions,” brought to K-12 students by the Disney-owned National Geographic. We need emissions reductions not climate imagineering.