Little Monsters
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, my disappointment with the Marxist left has grown. I have had sense for a while of the willingness to give unwarranted grace to people like Russia and China simply because their monstrosity is limited when compared to that of colonial Europe or the United States.
I agree with the differentiation, but am flummoxed how it could be seriously used to overlook the ‘lessor’ terrors of those smaller monsters.
Make clear the role of the festering kaiju as it stomps every corner of planet, by all means, but don’t give cover to petty tyrants because they only kill thousands rather than millions.
They won’t lead us to a better world, just one where the horrors play out with a different style.
Thin Skin
“The thing about wonder and awe, he had found, was that sometimes it sat just a thin skin away from terror.”
“It doesn’t look like much,” I said, and reached out to rest my fingers on the surface of the spine. “But it contains all one needs to know of hell.”
Leaning Marxist
The podcasts put out by The Red Nation have provided a deep, wonderful education over the past couple years, replacing the indigenous erasure of my schooling and cultural upbringing with a vibrant sense of here, now, and always.
I particularly enjoyed the episode Honky Logic and Afghanistan for its incisive perspective on the continuity of US imperialism and how it's perceived by the victims.
It's a pretty informal episode and there's a bit of goofing off at the start, but give it five minutes and they settle in to the topic.
"Don't tell me to make nice"
I can only imagine the coversations leading to this song and how much fun Julia Michaels and JP Saxe had working on it.
"This life is beautifully ugly at times."
I've been happily familiar with maybe a quarter of these songs from their release as singles, but with the new additions Smith & Thell have created a beautiful album, even with some of the "ugly", darker themes.