Vanessa Wills
@vcwills
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Assoc. Prof. of Philosophy at George Washington U. Co-editor of @JournalSpectre Author, "Marx's Ethical Vision"; 2024 from @OxUniPress (she/her)
Washington, DC
Joined March 2009
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Sarah Tyson, Assoc. Prof. of Philosophy at U. of Colorado - Denver, interviewed me for the podcast, "New Books in Critical Theory." Among other topics, we discuss why I think it's no accident I became a communist in Pittsburgh, PA. 🖤💛 Episode's up now!
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Thinking abt this viral biphobic thread. Two things stand out about it. 1) it aggressively gaslights bi women, telling them biphobia in queer spaces is a figment of their imaginations & bi women only face reasonable scorn they bring upon themselves. That's bad enough. But also 🧵
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Bi erasure means bisexuals get gaslit about our own identities & about the existence of others like ourselves.
We're offered "½ straight, ½ gay" as a conceptual frame; so, we turn to straight & gay communities for validation of each "part."
We find it in neither place.🧵
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We need to stop imagining the Jan 6 fascists are purely "brainwashed," misguided, etc. Neither are they guided by white supremacy *only*.
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One thing producing that risk is lack of community. We are hated in monosexual straight *and* gay spaces. In queer spaces, we are often treated like intruders, straight interlopers who must jump through hoops to "earn" our queer identities (3/8)
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2) takes an issue impacting bi women's health & exploits it for cheap laughs at our expense. Bi women experience higher rates of IPV than do straights or lesbians. We are more at risk in our relationships, including w/ men, specifically because we are bi.
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To any bisexuals reading this, my best advice is please find other bi people to hang out with. Probably saved my life.
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I'm not saying queer spaces should transform to accommodate the comfort of problematic straights. But telling *bisexuals* that their experiences of biphobia in the queer community are not real & would go away if they only jumped through one more hoop is, frankly, bullshit. (7/8)
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When bi women date men, we are being bi. This is, for many bi women, part of what bisexuality entails: that we will sometimes date men. Sometimes, those men won't be so great. (Because some subset of the human population in general, across genders, is just... not so great.) (4/8)
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Gaslighting bi women about their identities, shaming them, treating them as second-class citizens, telling them the exclusion they face is all part of their imagination—is that likely to empower bi women to develop a strong sense of self & step away from abusive situations? (5/8)
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There's no reason you actually have to sit there and let people talk to you out the side of their neck like this
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Or is it just one more loud & perhaps trusted voice telling bi women that they're crazy & it's all in their heads? Only here that voice poses as the voice of an entire community, representing what might seem like the only place for queers to find acceptance & affirmation? (6/8)
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That's why it's invalidating to call bi women "straight" when we date men. We love men in a distinctly bisexual way. Asking bisexuals to artificially restrict their love of people of many/all genders, in order to meet some arbitrary standard of correct queerness, is queerphobic.
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Bisexuals' blatant disregard for gender "rules" governing the proper bounds of love, btw, is a big piece of why people who post biphobic things find themselves wondering how come they're suddenly so popular among TERFS. Don't be surprised; those are your ideological bedfellows!
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That's partly because of blatant biphobia & partly because we *aren't* ½ straight & ½ gay, so we don't find our full reflection there. Our love of any particular person of any particular gender is inseparable from our capacity to love people of several, many, or all genders.
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Bisexual people are queer, belong in queer spaces, and always have *been* in queer spaces, often as architects of those spaces.
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In r'ships w/ straight cis men, our bisexual love of men can make us targets for rage & disdain when we love them as human beings but don't validate their specific manhood in the way they expect & demand. We need community, not dunks & hot takes, to help us understand & get out.
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"Marx's Ethical Vision" comes out in hardcover from
@OxUniPress
on August 9, one month from today. I am still pinching myself that this work will soon be out in the world. I'm deeply proud of it and hope it will be of great value to those who read it. 💖
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We tend to think of the wacky nonsense in fascists' heads as a cause for their behavior but it's frequently a consequence of their aims. To value living human beings so cheaply requires a flight from reason. A whole ecosystem of conspiracy and superstition swells up to enable it.
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At the same time, embracing unique bi community & bi pride among ourselves is essential. We need to forge our own identities separate from demands of performing straightness or queerness for people who regard bisexuality as a deficiency or delusion. We deserve to see ourselves.
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Moreover....
Bi erasure means bisexuals get gaslit about our own identities & about the existence of others like ourselves.
We're offered "½ straight, ½ gay" as a conceptual frame; so, we turn to straight & gay communities for validation of each "part."
We find it in neither place.🧵
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One un-fun fact: when the Allies found LGBTQI+ people in Nazi concentration camps, they *upheld the convictions*. They re-jailed queers to serve out the sentences handed down by Nazi Germany.
Not only were queers some of the first targeted under fascism, but much of 🧵
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Psst, bi women aren't the only members of the queer community who sometimes date straight cis men, & if you only think about us when you're denigrating us as some kind of Trojan Horse, you're literally doing TERF talking points. Stop that. Happy Pride. 🌈
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They are largely a vanguard of principled petty bourgeois reactionaries who oppose democracy whether in its mass/working-class or liberal bourgeois form. They have allies in the most conservative and reactionary corners of the "big" bourgeoisie.
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Or else we're stuck in the trap of failing at roles prescribed for us & not knowing why, while both straight & gay communities treat us as something strange, to be held at a distance
Result: more depression, more anxiety, more s**cide, more risk of IPV
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It's August 9, the U.S. release date for my book, "Marx's Ethical Vision"!
I truly think this book has something valuable to offer everyone.
It's available worldwide in November so I'll be excitedly freaking out again then, too! 😅
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These people made calculated, self-serving, and terrifyingly clear-eyed decisions to destroy liberal bourgeois democracy on the basis that they deem it incapable of reliably serving *its* function of subduing the masses and putting capital before human life.
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They see through a funhouse mirror the hypocrisy of liberal bourgeois democracy (no, the electoral college is not "sacred" 🙄). They also vehemently abhor the capacity of true democracy—socialism—to liberate oppressed, exploited workers upon whom their precarious fortunes depend.
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The danger is that as the situation is pushed further and further to a point of crisis, the choice becomes one between fascism and profits, or socialism and human freedom. And from the point of view of capitalism, fascism will always emerge as the lesser evil of those two.
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For them, the lockdowns, the rise of BLM protest, and the electoral repudiation of Trump which occured in large part due to Black voters all demonstrate clearly that America isn't working like it's "supposed" to.
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Thank you to folks like
@robynochs
for championing bi identity. Not sure where I would have been as a young queer w/o this work.
@verilybitchie
's work on YouTube is great, this one in particular is a banger
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Few people are cold enough to admit openly to others or themselves that they'll happily sacrifice humanity to Mammon. Dress it up in antivaxx mythology, QAnon conspiracy, or even true-believer white supremacy, and that's a whole other ballgame.
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The woman who died attacking the Capitol Building was a small business owner from San Diego. Yes, her head was full of conspiracist nonsense but she didn't just invent that lockdowns and worker protections might save lives but hurt her bottom line.
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Also: the Democratic Party's insistence that no counterprotests be organized against the fascists even though it is only masses of working people—not highly compromised police forces—that can reliably outnumber them and stop them in their tracks.
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@Superninfreak
@LouisatheLast
Honestly, the conservatives understood that queer rights stand or fall together. Meanwhile, this is a lesson lots of cis queers still find hard to grasp.
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To the extent liberal bourgeois democracy engages mass politics and gives even a highly attenuated and mostly suppressed voice to the working masses, that section of the petty bourgeoisie which turns to fascism regards liberal democracy as a betrayal. Only capital should speak.
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Hence: police forces riddled with fascist and white supremacist sympathies. Great for attacking Black Lives Matter protests, an incredible liability in terms of protecting Congress from fascist, white supremacist marauders.
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@lastpositivist
What does this even mean: "In our commitment to abolition, we can never believe police over Smollett"? I don't know anyone who "believes police over Smollett." But I also don't just... believe literally *whatever* empirical claims are the opposite of what my enemies believe???
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They've calculated that they stand to gain from shutting down whatever tiny influence that working people—especially working POC—have in liberal democracy and are desperate to prevent that voice from getting any bigger.
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Working people can't expect the "big" bourgeoisie to defend us. They are also fearful of us and loathe to see us empowered. Yet, they cannot protect their own institutions from fascists without enlisting the masses in ways that would undermine bourgeois leadership over society.
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Such a point of crisis is increasingly unavoidable in the United States.
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The deadly Jan 6 fiasco at the Capitol reveals the U.S. state's self-inflicted wounds when it comes to defending liberal democracy against the fascist threat. Although elected officials draw their legitimacy from the masses, they mostly fear us as much as the ragtag fascists do.
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Cult conspiracy theory & white supremacy are rightly a *huge* part of the explanatory story but these fascists aren't *just* confused, brainwashed, racist, and in Trump's thrall. (Although they are all of those things.)
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@4JRutherford
@ReaganGomez
@dyllyp
I do not believe any of those cowards who did this are the least bit capable of shame or guilt.
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For decades now, "Reform the police" hasn't done shit, really; but folks in power don't think that's a reason to throw it out. Funny how that works 🙃
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Memphis's SCORPION unit was founded in 2021. That's not an accident.
We are experiencing reactionary terror as capitalist state vengeance against the explosion of freedom struggle in spring 2020. More money for cops and war.
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In that moment of clarity, disgusted by what he'd made of himself, knowing the effect he was having on society, knowing whose side his rhetoric put him on; knowing where these ideas led... he kept going and Fox kept selling ads.
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By "cancel culture," I mean the *literal cancellation* of international students' visas, which is a grave, present, concrete, and real material threat to academic and intellectual culture in the U.S.
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Seems to me like the Biden plan to defeat "extremism" is to spend four years building up the police state and disorganizing leftists, then lose to Tom Cotton.
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This book has been a labor of love. It's not just for philosophers, it's not just for Marx scholars, and it's not just for academics. I did my best to write it in a way that is widely accessible and hits on issues and questions that affect everyone.
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This whole thread is an excellent object lesson in what happens to your brain when you conflate the cultivation of an "adult" perspective with the adoption of a ruling-class point of view.
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Coming soon!!! 😍
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the fascists' treatment of queers survived the ostensible end of fascism as a system, persisting under liberal democracy.
My point being that fascism can, for all intents & purposes, exist for queers even w/ the trappings of liberal democracy otherwise seemingly intact. (2/5)
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.
@DanielFalcone7
posed deeply thoughtful & incisive questions to me in this interview, appearing in
@jacobin
today, about my book, "Marx's Ethical Vision."
I greatly enjoyed this conversation & it makes for a great read, too! I hope you'll check it out.
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@ShrewSeething
@roselyddon
Same. "Dump them" can be the right conclusion w/o "they're one-dimensional overwhelming evil" figuring as a premise. It's the right answer in many more situations than we generally acknowledge.
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@thesarahyork
"I despise bisexuals just as much as any decent human being does. That's why this Pride month, I'm partnering with queerphobes..."
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Those who make their lives a monument to ghoulish disrespect for the suffering have no claim on respect for the dead.
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@limesmoothied
@Bianca598284400
This was such a gracious reply to a breathtakingly mean-spirited comment.
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The task of the left is to be in solidarity with all working people who want peace—not to support any imperialist power at "home" or abroad. Neither the ruling classes of Russia, nor of the U.S. & other NATO countries have anything to offer the world but bloodshed.
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Deeply saddened by the passing of Charles Mills. I can hardly imagine Anglophone academic philosophy in the U.S. today had it not been shaped by his influence. I am fairly sure I would not have wanted to be in it.
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@OlufemiOTaiwo
@lastpositivist
Depends on what's meant by "solidarity" here. Poor & working-class women aren't the only ones affected but they're the only women w/ no material stake in systems producing this threat to all women. Solidarity w/ rich women = inviting them to follow poor & working-class women.
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Today I scrapped the lesson plan for my Social & Political Philosophy course; instead, chatted with my students about Charles Mills, his journey in philosophy, and his influence on the field.
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Republicans are rather cannily using the hearing to cast themselves as martyrs/victims, rally the most extreme elements of their base, lay out a case for the reasonability of the Jan 6 coup attempt, and just generally: lie. They're using this event as an organizing tool.
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@epbofx
@ggreenwald
@xychelsea
It's incredible. A friend putting themselves out there to call him in on aiding and abetting fascism is apparently some petty grievance that he doesn't even dignify with a reply. I can't think of a better reason a friendship might end. And he posts this in his *defense*!!
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One wild thing about this text is that after years of monetizing white supremacy from the cable news pulpit, what finally disturbed Tucker was that he'd begun to smoke his own supply.
"This isn't good for me."
A text message sent by Tucker Carlson that set off a panic at the highest levels of Fox on the eve of its billion-dollar defamation trial showed its most popular host sharing his private, inflammatory views about violence and race.
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"Is it racism? OR is it economic anxiety?"
Debates about "economic anxiety" and far right radicalism largely circle around the point. (1/7)
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I say this because I think lots of us are thinking something like, "A qualitative break w/ liberal democracy seems nigh, which would spell disaster for queers," but fascistic eliminationism wrt queerness could happen much sooner. Yet, (3/5)
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Lebanon's had major growth in solar energy output, from 0 MW in 2010 to 500 MW in 2022, powering communities & reducing oil dependence.
Just now, home solar energy systems across Lebanon have exploded, becoming bombs.
Racism & imperialism are antithetical to human survival.
BREAKING: Lebanon has been rocked by a second wave of "communication device" blasts as reports have emerged that solar energy systems have exploded in several areas as well
🔗 Read more
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@KittyKatArquis
@afivegantenna
@ElleMcIvor
And if pressed on it, they just double down on the most retrograde, ableist, misogynist shit imaginable. It's incredible.
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Why slander Black radical perspectives on fascism, now?
- brands Black radicals as "authoritarian," impugning their interest in socialism
- punishes them for critiquing U.S. racism & denying American exceptionalism
The playbook as America continues its own slide into fascism
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@SeasonalSpells
@bimbomarxistt
The problem is, you're redefining bisexuality for bisexuals when you aren't one, & there are many bisexuals telling you that the definition you're giving of bisexuality is problematic & ahistorical. Better to define your own sexuality w/o claiming the authority to define others'.
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@transtieflingUK
@AnaMardoll
I am so sorry you are being so callously treated in this. What really gets me is that the biphobes don't even stop to ask themselves why TERFs are so happy to buy what they're selling. Like... think, people! Bi-erasure & trans-erasure go hand-in-hand.
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Whenever class & economics are admitted as factors driving bad behavior, there are always a few who object it's "letting bad actors off the hook" to suggest individual material gain is a big part of the reason some are happy to oppress & violate others. Never understood this.
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Peter Adamson and I had this fun, wide-ranging conversation in person, in Germany, back when that was a thing one could do. I'm so glad we seized that opportunity & happy to share the result!
Honored to be a part of his &
@ChikeJeffers
' wonderful series on Africana philosophy.
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I've learned much from Du Bois. Today, on this app, I've learned that if you're a Black scholar who criticizes the U.S. & values scientific analysis over useless, kneejerk liberal moralism, some folks will dig you up just to try and bury you again sixty years after you're gone 🥴
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I had a fabulous time speaking w/ Charles & Devin of the Moral Minority podcast, about "Marx's Ethical Vision," my life, & how I got interested in this work.
We had a blast! I think it makes for both a fun listen & a deep dive into Marxist theory today.
Moral Minority is excited to release our interview with Vanessa Wills on her essential new book, Marx’s Moral Vision. We discuss the normative role of labor, ideological critique, and the abolition of morality claim. It was an impassioned discussion, hence the gesticulating.
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@loggins__
As far as I can tell, the main "evidence" for this slander is that he didn't go around preaching American exceptionalism like some ridiculous child
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it flourishes best when democracy's discarded. So you see TERFs/GCs saying democracy thwarts their aims & they need to focus on "decision makers." Their goal of total trans elimination requires & legitimizes a repressive, antidemocratic state. (4/5)
Subtitled version and a bit longer...
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@jasonintrator
Someone literally spouted a gender panic version of "great replacement theory" at me in the comments on your other thread... these people are just full mask-off, now
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"Straight-passing privilege" is a b.s. concept, btw. You're literally describing the closet. (1/2)
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Background on Allies' treatment of Nazism's queer victims, available from
@HolocaustMuseum
(5/5)
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@MyHandsRatedE
This is exactly what I find myself thinking. If he'd NOT complied, he might be alive today. This system is so sick.
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Some consider Salazar not "technically" a fascist. But he was an authoritarian anti-communist dictator, violently asserting the class interests of Portugal's bosses against its workers. That's what matters to The American Conservative & what matters for antifascists, too.
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@Abzz_1812
Yup. An application for a position as a philosophy professor; they wanted my credit report. Child, what? Maybe the results of my last PAP smear, too?
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Comments on Glenn Greenwald's tweets are full of appalled people urging him to reconsider whom he's cozying up to & whom he's hurting, & GG insisting over & over again he doesn't need this explained & knows exactly what he's doing. It's well past time to believe him about this.
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Hot Marx Autumn continues apace!
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The lessons of the Black Lives Matter protests seem to be fading from popular memory just when they are most necessary. We cannot police our way out of authoritarianism.
My latest, in
@nplusonemag
. Please read and share widely!
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Charles Mills, in _The Racial Contract_: "The ‘consent’ expected of the white citizens is in part conceptualized as a consent, whether explicit or tacit, to the racial order, to white supremacy, what could be called Whiteness."
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@emily_rj
Their argument is literally that we don't deserve the queer community we need in order to understand ourselves & protect ourselves from abusive situations. Even though we experience higher rates of IPV than either straight or gay people do precisely because of that exclusion.
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We are experiencing reactionary terror as capitalist state vengeance against the explosion of freedom struggle in spring 2020. More money for cops and war.
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It was a great pleasure to join the
@leftofphil
folks for this conversation!
New episode out with
@vcwills
on the questions of “what could it mean to say ‘capitalism causes sexism and racism?’”!
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