Author Archives: Julius Gavroche

Bertolt Brecht: On the Theatricality of Fascism (1939)

Therefore learn how to see and not to gape.To act instead of talking all day long.The world was almost won by such an ape!The nations put him here his kind belong.But don’t rejoice too soon at your escape –The womb … Continue reading

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James Baldwin: Sonny’s Blues

For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in … Continue reading

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James Baldwin: The Uses of the Blues

The title “The Uses of the Blues” does not refer to music; I don’t know anything about music. It does refer to the experience of life, or the state of being, out of which the blues come. Now, I am … Continue reading

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For James Baldwin: “Telling it like it is”

If the hope of givingis to love the living,the giver risks madnessin the act of giving. Some such lesson I seemed to seein the faces that surrounded me. Needy and blind, unhopeful, unlifted,what gift would give them the gift to … Continue reading

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Spain: Supreme Court confirms CNT unionists’ prison sentences

From Freedom News (18/07/2024). The Suiza 6 face three and a half years each for protesting outside their workplace Union branches across Spain have denounced the Supreme Court’s confirmation of prison sentences against six bakery workers for picketing. The workers … Continue reading

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France: Thousands protest ‘mega-basin’ reservoir expansion

The soulevements de la terre continue … From Freedom News (23/07/2024). Struggle against hoarding of water by agro-industry sees five days of action, culminating in a 10,000-strong march on the commercial port of La Rochelle The French environmentalist movement Soulevements … Continue reading

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The Rat: A Russian anarchist’s story of torture, imprisonment, and compassion

From Freedom News (24/07/2024). Ilya Shakursky was condemned to 16 years on trumped-up terrorism charges Franz Kafka’s The Trial opens with the line, “Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, … Continue reading

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For James C. Scott (1936-2024)

… state-ness is not a binary, where something is a state or not a state, but it’s a continuum. So, things that are more a state or less a state. […] My argument would be that when the state has … Continue reading

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Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism

… the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change. Umberto Eco Umberto Eco’s essay, “Ur-Fascism” (The New York Review of Books, 22/06/1995) remains a significant text in the cartography of … Continue reading

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Gastón Gordillo: The Fascist Disposition

From the Verso Books Blog, 18/07/2024. This essay is the third in a roundtable discussion of Alberto Toscano’s Late Fascism. The others, from Jordy Rosenberg and Lisa Lowe, can be found here and here.  What does the word “fascism” mean today, when fossil capitalism continues its accelerated … Continue reading

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