I agree, with you and your sister writers recognising that the election of a rapist to the White House is emblematic of the problem in human consciousness that sees land grabs, money and the control of life-giving territory, including women's bodies, as a way to keep "business as usual" in the face of collapse of planetary living systems. It is also evidence that white bodied supremacy needs palliative care, not shooting in the already deaf ear!!!!
I'm on a set pension. I've become a Founding Subscriber of Planet Critical because, as an Irish indigenous elder, I recognise that individualism is one collective traumatic wound of colonisation... and America is a colonial empire ignoring the human blood and loss if habit at its roots. Restoring our awareness that we are participant co-creators in one Earth community, is critical. Reading the comments below that are willy-waggling 'battles' for the right way to go forward, is feeding the wrong wolf. Collectively we can hear each other into being creative participants in that community.
Hiya Eimear, you're describing the western patriarchy, which we're all brought up under. The whole system of conditioning rewards dominance (or submission) over the environment, non-whites, other animals and women. It of necessity separates a person from their body where the emotions from this violence are felt. It's no wonder that we're also deluded we're separate from the Earth too.
Yes, more self awareness and love, less willy-wagging.
It is so easy to be mesmerised by the prospect of this pretender being in power for another 4 years and to hold our collective breath while listening to the running commentary on whether Project 25 will be implemented and the state institutions captured by an authoritarian cabal or the US economy collapses from the attempt to implement election promises.
The Mid terms may provide a brake if there are early failures but in truth there will be no resolution to this nightmare even if the Democrats take control of the House and the Senate and not even if there are elections in 4 years time and the Democrats win. Business as usual is not an option.
A viable 3rd party, truly democratic and progressive, is needed and the drive to create it needs to begin now. Whenever the next chance to vote arises - and that could be in just 2 years time - there needs to be an alternative that people feel able to vote for. The other alternative is unthinkable.
A great essay Rachel. It strangely affirms a journey of my own, which began with radical feminism many years ago, progressed through systems theory, ecology and philosophy, and has come back to some of the insights of radical feminism more recently. As I said in a comment response to your WTF* podcast with Emily Atkin, there is nothing surprising about a Trump presidency because he is a product, an exemplification or perhaps simply an epiphenomena of the multiple destructive and monstrous systems that are shaping the world today: the capitalist-economic, social media-entertainment, masculinist-partriarchal, conspiracist-post-truth and, as you suggest here, the extractive-rapine. When you note that ‘the top offices in the world are fundamentally built on the rape of the land’, it becomes almost normative or obligate that the ideal leader should embody those systems. We sometimes forget how those systems operate a downwardly causal and perverse selection process that rewards and shapes certain characters, traits and behaviours. The example of the disproportionate representation of sociopaths within the corporate world is perhaps more well-known, but at the highest level we can see some really intersectional figures (such as Trump) who channel several of those systems and flourish. It's no surprise that, in a world of monstrous systems, the figures who best support and represent those systems will percolate to the top.
I feel I could say more. You might like Jane Caputi’s recent Call Your “Mutha” a deliberately dirty-minded manifesto for the Earth Mother in the anthropocene, as I think your writing on Petrorape might dovetail with this quite well. As she notes in a chapter titled ‘The anthropocene is a motherfucker’ “if you consider that the Anthropocene really is the Age of Man, then the era began with advent of heteropatriarchal systems and the institutionalization of motherfucking [sexual violence, violence against the Earth, extracive industries].” I’m not quite so reductive in these ecofeminist terms as I once was, but they are powerful reminders of the entanglement of the personal with the political/systemic. I have written more recently about how multiple monstrous systems are chewing up the world in a rather more animist than explicitly patriarchal fashion. I'm happy to forward you something if and when there is a gap in your own writing project(s). Keep up the good work.
With all the chaos that will emanate from the Trump administration, and with the growing power of the BRICS alliance, how long will the American dollar remain the world’s reserve currency? As an American, and recognizing that we manufacture very little any more, this bodes poorly for our future standard of living.
I become concerned when I read words,without seeing an asterisk/footnote, like "writing about why clean tech billionaire Elon Musk". Years ago, when Tesla first became a household name, I had at least sipped the Koolaid, including to some degree Musk's claimed environmental commitments, about the alleged virtues of this technology. In more recent times, as I have written earlier, calling Tesla (and the like) a "clean" technology is simply wrong. We now well know how damaging to the environment and to human beings the extraction of the materials used in these products is. And the human costs are heartbreaking. I know that in part because I follow your writings. Further, paying the high price of a Tesla means resources diverted from other potential uses of those monies that would provide greater return for individuals or the common good. That lament aside, another brilliant, powerful essay from Rachel Donald!
I’ve leaned from your writing many things and today it is that: In the absence of others to exploit empires must find others sources inside it self. This canabalization of its own resources, human included, is the next logical step.
I don’t know the solution to consumption on a finite resourced planet with the cancer of humanity exploding across it’s surface?
I ask what we could do, and what is done. I’m finding like minded people discussing the topic here, I learn so much about efforts in science and political realm, focused on the problem here, through Rachel’s work. Her tenacity to clarify complex issues during interviews are so very helpful. Often times I read a thing or hear it said, and miss the point. Rachel hears this and leaps to clarify the idea discussed right as I pause the video, or look up a word. Thank you Rachel- yes- stay on topic. Please continue.
Hiya Dan, I don't think that there is a solution. It would be like inhaling, drinking, eating and injecting toxins for decades and then wanting to do something about the liver, lung and brain damage.
As the Buddha says - we're liking children playing in a burning building- though I don't think that he was referring to humanity being the ones who knowingly set light to it, still thinking we could avoid getting burnt.
The ego tells us we must do something when there's nothing to be done.
I'm going with stillness, gratitude, acceptance, love and courage.
Well said. I am an artivist at the edge of our economy while living in the USA. Many ago as I was walking and meditating, this came to me as a simple summary-revelation of what I was bearing witness to: “rape is the core cultural paradigm. Denial is the critical enabling lie.” Ecocide is a largely a crime of indifference, and then must evolve into a crime of intentional taking and killing. Ecocide - and genocide and rape and murder of humans within exocode - become the ultimate addiction.
Mbembe’s “Necropolitics” and “Brutalism” get at this. Akomolafe alludes to it as he describes the predicament now. Once there were slave ships off the shores of Africa waiting to spirit people away to an unknown world where they would be slaves. Now we have co-created ships that have taken us to another world where we are enslaved. These ships are made of technology combined with rape culture.
I resisted this analysis not because it did not seem true, but because it was too painful and I saw no way out.
The next thing that came to me was “sustain absolute vulnerability”. That is how I have tried to live my life.
Now I am old and poor and I don’t see myself able to live much longer. I have tried to keep love as my primary heart-space and motivation. Fear and anger are essential warnings in my heart - always present and needing attention. We live within a terrible wounded beast that is destroying itself. We do not control ultimate outcomes.
The worse the crisis becomes the more I trust earth and the universe as the very body of God. We come from this universe which is a womb always making a way for life. We live within this universe - we get a very short time to love and to be loved in this life. We return to the universe which is also an eternal tomb. We are folded into the ongoing story.
The story is not about me. I am about the story.
Only love remains, eternal and bearing new life always and everywhere. We see almost none of it, unless we slow down to notice.
I am old now and don’t see how I will be able to love much longer. I have been like a ghost most of my life. People look at me and see a poor person who has not achieved conventional success. It is as though people do not see or hear me at all, but look through me and also cannot quite make out what I say.
Rape is not a bug in the system. Rape is the defining feature.
Denial is not a bug in the system. Denial is the second defining feature.
E. O. Wilson noted decades ago that we thrash about the planet with our god-like technology, bewildered by our own existence, and that we are a danger to ourselves and other life.
I suggest that we make sanctuaries of loving kindness as best as we can do. Our civilization is impervious to reform or transformation. The transformation will happen in spite of the collective “we” of Modernity.
This is not to say that we have no joy or purpose - quite the opposite. We are here to love: nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else. This includes speaking truth to power with fierce love. This includes opening and expanding our circles of beloved community even as we learn how to love.
This is a stumbling, awkward process. As Bayo Akomolafe has recently said: “ the way is awkward, not forward.”
We dance our prayers upon an Earth that we have wounded mortally. This earth is passing way, and without leaving it we are being spirited away to a new earth which will be even more alien to those who live to see it. The new earth will barely support life as we understand life.
We have already created and entered into the belly of the slave ship of Modernity that carries us into that world. Even so, I trust the Universe to make a way for life through the absolute vulnerability of beloved community.
Sustain absolute vulnerability. It’s kind of the opposite of the messages I hear all around me. No wonder no one can see or hear me. And yet me trust deepens as the anthropogenic extinction crisis deepens. Even this season of death - short as it is in terms of Deep Time - is a birth pang. The Universe is in labor, and love makes a way for life.
Death and extinction are both as certain as life itself. How we live into them is the choice we get to make.
Sadly, legal semantics, which do matter, but as a federal judge clarified, "a jury clearly found that Trump had “ ‘raped’ her [E.J. Carroll] in the sense of that term broader than the New York Penal Law definition.” And rather scarily, we may be in a position where a standing president cannot be tried or convicted [and may be able to dismiss, evade and quash such accusations in the future]. Will this mean that things such as these did not happen?
But, yes, I understand the warning ("rape"). The powerful are quick to use the law and litigation to silence those who lack power.
Wow.. It used to be all about “old angry white guys” that drove political dialogue….. But now it’s the turn of the “angry liberated white woman”… Nothing wrong with that, as long as it comes with a bit of perspective.
Yes.. there must be changes in the western world, and about time, and its not just about Trump as he is more an outcome rather than the root cause.
The truth is the west has lost the plot and gone soft and needs to grow its pair back!
We have let globalization and woke thinking destroy our spirt of nationalism. And we have allowed too much concern about the impossible question of “who we are” get in the way of the very tangible and ever-present demand to keep asking “how we are doing”.
Some of this is going to get fixed by Trump and will be supported by a large part of the population to get it done. This will mean de-globalization, strong borders, no nonsense adjustments to civil mandates, and a focus on growing back a highly prosperous low-cost energy-based economy.
Due to its urgency the changes will probably be characterized by many as an un-democratic process as it will be a Trump style lead and follow or get the hell out of the way.
Its also going to be “the revenge of the climate realists” who are going to decare that NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.
OMG. Wow indeed Nigel. You have figuratively come in here and had a massive dump in the corner. This is a pretty outrageous opinion piece you’ve felt motivated to drop. Some comments below, I’ll quote you directly as NS (Substack seems rubbish for editing).
NS: “Wow.. It used to be all about “old angry white guys” that drove political dialogue….. But now it’s the turn of the “angry liberated white woman”… Nothing wrong with that, as long as it comes with a bit of perspective.”
PRB: Would that be a perspective defined by “old angry white guys” by any chance?
NS: “Yes.. there must be changes in the western world, and about time, and its not just about Trump as he is more an outcome rather than the root cause.”
PRB: I think Trump as outcome rather the root cause is the one thing that I agree with here.
NS: “The truth is the west has lost the plot and gone soft and needs to grow its pair back!”
PRB: Wow. Talk about a performative confirmation of a) Rachel’s whole argument but also b) the convergence between the systemic/political and the personal.
NS: “We have let globalization and woke thinking destroy our spirt of nationalism. And we have allowed too much concern about the impossible question of “who we are” get in the way of the very tangible and ever-present demand to keep asking “how we are doing”. Some of this is going to get fixed by Trump and will be supported by a large part of the population to get it done. This will mean de-globalization, strong borders, no nonsense adjustments to civil mandates, and a focus on growing back a highly prosperous low-cost energy-based economy. Due to its urgency the changes will probably be characterized by many as an un-democratic process as it will be a Trump style lead and follow or get the hell out of the way.”
PRB: I think all of this is revealing in so far as it is not simply what you think “is” going to happen (and heck, I think you could probably be right), but also that you agree that it “ought” or needs to happen. Back to the glorious golden days, then, when men were men, everything was firm (borders, men), there was no room for ambiguity, everything knew its place (women and the rest of the world) and everything would be strong, hard, growing and … (this reads like cheap erotica, but you seem to be literally channeling your Id here).
NS: “Its also going to be “the revenge of the climate realists” who are going to decare that NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.”
PRB: Yes, this sounds rather like a movie franchise, “The Revenge of the Sith” with Palpatine (actually Darth Sidious) being elected as the Emperor, to be followed with the murder of the “woke” Jedi no doubt (perhaps with Vance taking on the Darth Vader role), then a clone army being rolled out (lets get all the weaponized acolytes in place) and with Project 2025 as the Death Star waiting in the wings to destroy all opposition (fueled no doubt by the new “climate anti-realism”).
NS: “Get used to it.”
PRB: I rather feel that “Bitches” might have followed from this, given the overall tone; it seems almost implied. We parted on nice terms on the last thread, but I was as offended by your reply here as you seem to have been irritated by Rachel’s essay. I would simply conclude that there is no reason that anyone should “get used to it.” I’m not a US citizen but I understand enough of many Republican frustrations to appreciate that they shouldn’t have gotten used to it (and I have no strong preference for the Democrat direction of travel either). But don’t expect compliance or acceptance from those with radically different values to your own.
Hi Paul, yes NS's rant perfectly encapsulates the agenda of the angry white men who've fallen for (or themselves created) a threat from 'globalisation' and 'wokeness' as though they were a scary and unified force coming out of Davos.
If only it was as simple as goodies and baddies. The Empire against the Rebellion.
The age of sophisticated social media targeting means it is not so.
The Empire, in this case is US Imperialism and unregulated free markets for fossil fuel and animal ag (pharma's biggest client) who saw how the (Extinction) Rebellion, veganism and acceptance of the climate crisis was gaining traction were in a bit of a bind. So they funded the Heartland Institute to deliberately use the deliberately created fake 'pandemic' and 'transactivism' to link lockdowns with a supposed plot by the WEF to overrun nations with immigrants, to regulate industry to destruction and to lock us in dairy free, 15 minute cities.
It has worked an absolute treat with the election of supposed anti-establishment rebel but really billionaire epitomy of the patriarchy: Trump.
The patriarchy and the industries it rewards have not gone soft. They feel threatened by men and women who aren't killing part of their souls in order to get into power, by those who are freeing themselves from animal ag and pharma and from acceptance of the climate crisis. They created a threat from 'wokeness', by which they mean 'weakness', by which they mean consciousness, compassion and global equality to cause this very patriarchal backlash that we are now experiencing.
Ok Ok its Ok…. I understand ……you want to change the whole journey mankind is on for your own selfish virtuous signaling woke reasons and you want to save the planet …. But I am not sure which planet you are on?
O matey … I do love our little chats…I am not at all upset with your clever comments … It just gives me an opportunity to set you straight!
You could probably work for the western media in how you can take a simple direction and turn it into so many shards of woke position….. shame …but no surprise.
I did enjoy the star wars bit.. what a vivid imagination you have?... shame it gets in the way of reality.
Look…I don’t care a flying F*** who takes the lead to fix something…. I don’t care if he is a reprobate or a saint….. I just want him or her or “it” for that matter, to cut through the BS and get it done…. Many great leaders were real plonkers …. but they are in history for that reason.
Listen sunshine you guys can go play with your “word salad” …. while we get on with making change happen.
Its all about not wasting time on “who we are” its all about getting on with “how we are doing” and that’s why the Dems lost the vote.
Of course… it does not matter what you think as its going to happen anyway…. so I will forgive you as you are probably off your medication or on your period.
Nigel, if you continue to insult other members of this community I will remove you. This is a forum for discussion, not bludgeoning others with your opinion. Despite our evident political differences, you are welcome here as long as you commit to engaging in good faith.
I reacted to a prior chat... it was justified.. but I will always try harder to be tolerant….
But you need to also get your facts and language straight, and show a better example by having more respect for a democratically voted president.
Of course, this will probably cause you to block me which will clearly demonstrate to all the polarization and protection of views and the limits of ability to entertain free speech.. lets see..
O matey … I do love our little chats…I am not at all upset with your clever comments … It just gives me an opportunity to set you straight!
You could probably work for the western media in how you can take a simple direction and turn it into so many shards of woke position….. shame …but no surprise.
I did enjoy the star wars bit.. what a vivid imagination you have?... shame it gets in the way of reality.
Look…I don’t care a flying F*** who takes the lead to fix something…. I don’t care if he is a reprobate or a saint….. I just want him or her or “it” for that matter, to cut through the BS and get it done…. Many great leaders were real plonkers …. but they are in history for that reason.
Listen sunshine you guys can go play with your “word salad” …. while we get on with making change happen.
Its all about not wasting time on “who we are” its all about getting on with “how we are doing” and that’s why the Dems lost the vote.
Of course… it does not matter what you think as its going to happen anyway…. so I will forgive you as you are probably off your medication or on your period.
Yeah Rachel: Michael Wolff confirmed that not only was Epstein's Drumpf's best buddy but Drumpf was a child rapist, just as Sarah Ransome had described her Epstein friend victim routinely being abused by Drumpf in Epstein's Manhattan mansion. Business Insider had a Columbia Journalism School graduate report Drumpf's 14 phone contacts in Epstein's Blackbook with corroboration of a 2nd Epstein Blackbook including Melania's BFF as another Epstein contact. Epstein bragged of hooking up Melania with Drumpf. The fact that the corporate-state media could not focus on the basic "lowest scum evil in prison" identity of Drumpf is a true testimony to the power of the mass mind control indoctrination in the Empire undergoing "imperial implosion." Whenever someone quotes Drumpf I just say, "Never believe a child rapist" - I mean when can basic human rights have a ground level standard of decency? Whenever Drumpf is on t.v. (which is all the time and of course will be more now) I just say, "Mute the Child R@pist" - I've said that phrase probably a few hundred times now.
I agree, with you and your sister writers recognising that the election of a rapist to the White House is emblematic of the problem in human consciousness that sees land grabs, money and the control of life-giving territory, including women's bodies, as a way to keep "business as usual" in the face of collapse of planetary living systems. It is also evidence that white bodied supremacy needs palliative care, not shooting in the already deaf ear!!!!
I'm on a set pension. I've become a Founding Subscriber of Planet Critical because, as an Irish indigenous elder, I recognise that individualism is one collective traumatic wound of colonisation... and America is a colonial empire ignoring the human blood and loss if habit at its roots. Restoring our awareness that we are participant co-creators in one Earth community, is critical. Reading the comments below that are willy-waggling 'battles' for the right way to go forward, is feeding the wrong wolf. Collectively we can hear each other into being creative participants in that community.
Thank you, Eimar. But please don't put yourself at any financial risk—you being here is support enough.
Trust me to care for my own wellbeing and we do need to support each other generously
Hiya Eimear, you're describing the western patriarchy, which we're all brought up under. The whole system of conditioning rewards dominance (or submission) over the environment, non-whites, other animals and women. It of necessity separates a person from their body where the emotions from this violence are felt. It's no wonder that we're also deluded we're separate from the Earth too.
Yes, more self awareness and love, less willy-wagging.
It is so easy to be mesmerised by the prospect of this pretender being in power for another 4 years and to hold our collective breath while listening to the running commentary on whether Project 25 will be implemented and the state institutions captured by an authoritarian cabal or the US economy collapses from the attempt to implement election promises.
The Mid terms may provide a brake if there are early failures but in truth there will be no resolution to this nightmare even if the Democrats take control of the House and the Senate and not even if there are elections in 4 years time and the Democrats win. Business as usual is not an option.
A viable 3rd party, truly democratic and progressive, is needed and the drive to create it needs to begin now. Whenever the next chance to vote arises - and that could be in just 2 years time - there needs to be an alternative that people feel able to vote for. The other alternative is unthinkable.
A great essay Rachel. It strangely affirms a journey of my own, which began with radical feminism many years ago, progressed through systems theory, ecology and philosophy, and has come back to some of the insights of radical feminism more recently. As I said in a comment response to your WTF* podcast with Emily Atkin, there is nothing surprising about a Trump presidency because he is a product, an exemplification or perhaps simply an epiphenomena of the multiple destructive and monstrous systems that are shaping the world today: the capitalist-economic, social media-entertainment, masculinist-partriarchal, conspiracist-post-truth and, as you suggest here, the extractive-rapine. When you note that ‘the top offices in the world are fundamentally built on the rape of the land’, it becomes almost normative or obligate that the ideal leader should embody those systems. We sometimes forget how those systems operate a downwardly causal and perverse selection process that rewards and shapes certain characters, traits and behaviours. The example of the disproportionate representation of sociopaths within the corporate world is perhaps more well-known, but at the highest level we can see some really intersectional figures (such as Trump) who channel several of those systems and flourish. It's no surprise that, in a world of monstrous systems, the figures who best support and represent those systems will percolate to the top.
I feel I could say more. You might like Jane Caputi’s recent Call Your “Mutha” a deliberately dirty-minded manifesto for the Earth Mother in the anthropocene, as I think your writing on Petrorape might dovetail with this quite well. As she notes in a chapter titled ‘The anthropocene is a motherfucker’ “if you consider that the Anthropocene really is the Age of Man, then the era began with advent of heteropatriarchal systems and the institutionalization of motherfucking [sexual violence, violence against the Earth, extracive industries].” I’m not quite so reductive in these ecofeminist terms as I once was, but they are powerful reminders of the entanglement of the personal with the political/systemic. I have written more recently about how multiple monstrous systems are chewing up the world in a rather more animist than explicitly patriarchal fashion. I'm happy to forward you something if and when there is a gap in your own writing project(s). Keep up the good work.
With all the chaos that will emanate from the Trump administration, and with the growing power of the BRICS alliance, how long will the American dollar remain the world’s reserve currency? As an American, and recognizing that we manufacture very little any more, this bodes poorly for our future standard of living.
Billions starving and migrating due to rising temperatures isn't going to be great for our future standard of living either.
I become concerned when I read words,without seeing an asterisk/footnote, like "writing about why clean tech billionaire Elon Musk". Years ago, when Tesla first became a household name, I had at least sipped the Koolaid, including to some degree Musk's claimed environmental commitments, about the alleged virtues of this technology. In more recent times, as I have written earlier, calling Tesla (and the like) a "clean" technology is simply wrong. We now well know how damaging to the environment and to human beings the extraction of the materials used in these products is. And the human costs are heartbreaking. I know that in part because I follow your writings. Further, paying the high price of a Tesla means resources diverted from other potential uses of those monies that would provide greater return for individuals or the common good. That lament aside, another brilliant, powerful essay from Rachel Donald!
Some tech may indeed by cleaner than others, it's economic growth based on increasing production of any product that's the problem.
Or less dirty, as another way of putting it! The old "glass half full" vs "glass half empty" argument. <s>
Yes. Though more clean or less dirty- growth is still the issue.
I’ve leaned from your writing many things and today it is that: In the absence of others to exploit empires must find others sources inside it self. This canabalization of its own resources, human included, is the next logical step.
Why I read Rachel’s work here
I don’t know the solution to consumption on a finite resourced planet with the cancer of humanity exploding across it’s surface?
I ask what we could do, and what is done. I’m finding like minded people discussing the topic here, I learn so much about efforts in science and political realm, focused on the problem here, through Rachel’s work. Her tenacity to clarify complex issues during interviews are so very helpful. Often times I read a thing or hear it said, and miss the point. Rachel hears this and leaps to clarify the idea discussed right as I pause the video, or look up a word. Thank you Rachel- yes- stay on topic. Please continue.
I need this.
Hiya Dan, I don't think that there is a solution. It would be like inhaling, drinking, eating and injecting toxins for decades and then wanting to do something about the liver, lung and brain damage.
As the Buddha says - we're liking children playing in a burning building- though I don't think that he was referring to humanity being the ones who knowingly set light to it, still thinking we could avoid getting burnt.
The ego tells us we must do something when there's nothing to be done.
I'm going with stillness, gratitude, acceptance, love and courage.
• Trump’s Second Act: The Circus Doubles Down on Clowns •
Grievance, Incompetence, and the Inevitable Collapse of a One-Man Movement
https://open.substack.com/pub/patricemersault/p/trumps-second-act-the-circus-doubles?r=4d7sow&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
•• An Open Letter to Trump Voters ••
The True Cost of Your Ignorance and Idolatry
https://open.substack.com/pub/patricemersault/p/an-open-letter-to-trump-voters?r=4d7sow&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Well said. I am an artivist at the edge of our economy while living in the USA. Many ago as I was walking and meditating, this came to me as a simple summary-revelation of what I was bearing witness to: “rape is the core cultural paradigm. Denial is the critical enabling lie.” Ecocide is a largely a crime of indifference, and then must evolve into a crime of intentional taking and killing. Ecocide - and genocide and rape and murder of humans within exocode - become the ultimate addiction.
Mbembe’s “Necropolitics” and “Brutalism” get at this. Akomolafe alludes to it as he describes the predicament now. Once there were slave ships off the shores of Africa waiting to spirit people away to an unknown world where they would be slaves. Now we have co-created ships that have taken us to another world where we are enslaved. These ships are made of technology combined with rape culture.
I resisted this analysis not because it did not seem true, but because it was too painful and I saw no way out.
The next thing that came to me was “sustain absolute vulnerability”. That is how I have tried to live my life.
Now I am old and poor and I don’t see myself able to live much longer. I have tried to keep love as my primary heart-space and motivation. Fear and anger are essential warnings in my heart - always present and needing attention. We live within a terrible wounded beast that is destroying itself. We do not control ultimate outcomes.
The worse the crisis becomes the more I trust earth and the universe as the very body of God. We come from this universe which is a womb always making a way for life. We live within this universe - we get a very short time to love and to be loved in this life. We return to the universe which is also an eternal tomb. We are folded into the ongoing story.
The story is not about me. I am about the story.
Only love remains, eternal and bearing new life always and everywhere. We see almost none of it, unless we slow down to notice.
I am old now and don’t see how I will be able to love much longer. I have been like a ghost most of my life. People look at me and see a poor person who has not achieved conventional success. It is as though people do not see or hear me at all, but look through me and also cannot quite make out what I say.
Rape is not a bug in the system. Rape is the defining feature.
Denial is not a bug in the system. Denial is the second defining feature.
E. O. Wilson noted decades ago that we thrash about the planet with our god-like technology, bewildered by our own existence, and that we are a danger to ourselves and other life.
I suggest that we make sanctuaries of loving kindness as best as we can do. Our civilization is impervious to reform or transformation. The transformation will happen in spite of the collective “we” of Modernity.
This is not to say that we have no joy or purpose - quite the opposite. We are here to love: nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else. This includes speaking truth to power with fierce love. This includes opening and expanding our circles of beloved community even as we learn how to love.
This is a stumbling, awkward process. As Bayo Akomolafe has recently said: “ the way is awkward, not forward.”
We dance our prayers upon an Earth that we have wounded mortally. This earth is passing way, and without leaving it we are being spirited away to a new earth which will be even more alien to those who live to see it. The new earth will barely support life as we understand life.
We have already created and entered into the belly of the slave ship of Modernity that carries us into that world. Even so, I trust the Universe to make a way for life through the absolute vulnerability of beloved community.
Sustain absolute vulnerability. It’s kind of the opposite of the messages I hear all around me. No wonder no one can see or hear me. And yet me trust deepens as the anthropogenic extinction crisis deepens. Even this season of death - short as it is in terms of Deep Time - is a birth pang. The Universe is in labor, and love makes a way for life.
Death and extinction are both as certain as life itself. How we live into them is the choice we get to make.
He was not charged as Rape..... And it does not matter as now we can get things done.
Rachel, I think Kelpie has an interesting take on the current situation. Maybe an interview on biochar? https://biocharprepper.substack.com/p/lets-trump-climate-change-with-soils
Be careful, Trump wasn't actually convicted of "rape."
Sadly, legal semantics, which do matter, but as a federal judge clarified, "a jury clearly found that Trump had “ ‘raped’ her [E.J. Carroll] in the sense of that term broader than the New York Penal Law definition.” And rather scarily, we may be in a position where a standing president cannot be tried or convicted [and may be able to dismiss, evade and quash such accusations in the future]. Will this mean that things such as these did not happen?
But, yes, I understand the warning ("rape"). The powerful are quick to use the law and litigation to silence those who lack power.
💯 Rachel. Excellent seeing you reference Grace — discovered her work several months ago and you a few months later, Carole and Emily.
Wow.. It used to be all about “old angry white guys” that drove political dialogue….. But now it’s the turn of the “angry liberated white woman”… Nothing wrong with that, as long as it comes with a bit of perspective.
Yes.. there must be changes in the western world, and about time, and its not just about Trump as he is more an outcome rather than the root cause.
The truth is the west has lost the plot and gone soft and needs to grow its pair back!
We have let globalization and woke thinking destroy our spirt of nationalism. And we have allowed too much concern about the impossible question of “who we are” get in the way of the very tangible and ever-present demand to keep asking “how we are doing”.
Some of this is going to get fixed by Trump and will be supported by a large part of the population to get it done. This will mean de-globalization, strong borders, no nonsense adjustments to civil mandates, and a focus on growing back a highly prosperous low-cost energy-based economy.
Due to its urgency the changes will probably be characterized by many as an un-democratic process as it will be a Trump style lead and follow or get the hell out of the way.
Its also going to be “the revenge of the climate realists” who are going to decare that NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.
Get used to it.
OMG. Wow indeed Nigel. You have figuratively come in here and had a massive dump in the corner. This is a pretty outrageous opinion piece you’ve felt motivated to drop. Some comments below, I’ll quote you directly as NS (Substack seems rubbish for editing).
NS: “Wow.. It used to be all about “old angry white guys” that drove political dialogue….. But now it’s the turn of the “angry liberated white woman”… Nothing wrong with that, as long as it comes with a bit of perspective.”
PRB: Would that be a perspective defined by “old angry white guys” by any chance?
NS: “Yes.. there must be changes in the western world, and about time, and its not just about Trump as he is more an outcome rather than the root cause.”
PRB: I think Trump as outcome rather the root cause is the one thing that I agree with here.
NS: “The truth is the west has lost the plot and gone soft and needs to grow its pair back!”
PRB: Wow. Talk about a performative confirmation of a) Rachel’s whole argument but also b) the convergence between the systemic/political and the personal.
NS: “We have let globalization and woke thinking destroy our spirt of nationalism. And we have allowed too much concern about the impossible question of “who we are” get in the way of the very tangible and ever-present demand to keep asking “how we are doing”. Some of this is going to get fixed by Trump and will be supported by a large part of the population to get it done. This will mean de-globalization, strong borders, no nonsense adjustments to civil mandates, and a focus on growing back a highly prosperous low-cost energy-based economy. Due to its urgency the changes will probably be characterized by many as an un-democratic process as it will be a Trump style lead and follow or get the hell out of the way.”
PRB: I think all of this is revealing in so far as it is not simply what you think “is” going to happen (and heck, I think you could probably be right), but also that you agree that it “ought” or needs to happen. Back to the glorious golden days, then, when men were men, everything was firm (borders, men), there was no room for ambiguity, everything knew its place (women and the rest of the world) and everything would be strong, hard, growing and … (this reads like cheap erotica, but you seem to be literally channeling your Id here).
NS: “Its also going to be “the revenge of the climate realists” who are going to decare that NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.”
PRB: Yes, this sounds rather like a movie franchise, “The Revenge of the Sith” with Palpatine (actually Darth Sidious) being elected as the Emperor, to be followed with the murder of the “woke” Jedi no doubt (perhaps with Vance taking on the Darth Vader role), then a clone army being rolled out (lets get all the weaponized acolytes in place) and with Project 2025 as the Death Star waiting in the wings to destroy all opposition (fueled no doubt by the new “climate anti-realism”).
NS: “Get used to it.”
PRB: I rather feel that “Bitches” might have followed from this, given the overall tone; it seems almost implied. We parted on nice terms on the last thread, but I was as offended by your reply here as you seem to have been irritated by Rachel’s essay. I would simply conclude that there is no reason that anyone should “get used to it.” I’m not a US citizen but I understand enough of many Republican frustrations to appreciate that they shouldn’t have gotten used to it (and I have no strong preference for the Democrat direction of travel either). But don’t expect compliance or acceptance from those with radically different values to your own.
Paul, I want to read your own substack!
Hi Paul, yes NS's rant perfectly encapsulates the agenda of the angry white men who've fallen for (or themselves created) a threat from 'globalisation' and 'wokeness' as though they were a scary and unified force coming out of Davos.
If only it was as simple as goodies and baddies. The Empire against the Rebellion.
The age of sophisticated social media targeting means it is not so.
The Empire, in this case is US Imperialism and unregulated free markets for fossil fuel and animal ag (pharma's biggest client) who saw how the (Extinction) Rebellion, veganism and acceptance of the climate crisis was gaining traction were in a bit of a bind. So they funded the Heartland Institute to deliberately use the deliberately created fake 'pandemic' and 'transactivism' to link lockdowns with a supposed plot by the WEF to overrun nations with immigrants, to regulate industry to destruction and to lock us in dairy free, 15 minute cities.
It has worked an absolute treat with the election of supposed anti-establishment rebel but really billionaire epitomy of the patriarchy: Trump.
The patriarchy and the industries it rewards have not gone soft. They feel threatened by men and women who aren't killing part of their souls in order to get into power, by those who are freeing themselves from animal ag and pharma and from acceptance of the climate crisis. They created a threat from 'wokeness', by which they mean 'weakness', by which they mean consciousness, compassion and global equality to cause this very patriarchal backlash that we are now experiencing.
Ok Ok its Ok…. I understand ……you want to change the whole journey mankind is on for your own selfish virtuous signaling woke reasons and you want to save the planet …. But I am not sure which planet you are on?
O matey … I do love our little chats…I am not at all upset with your clever comments … It just gives me an opportunity to set you straight!
You could probably work for the western media in how you can take a simple direction and turn it into so many shards of woke position….. shame …but no surprise.
I did enjoy the star wars bit.. what a vivid imagination you have?... shame it gets in the way of reality.
Look…I don’t care a flying F*** who takes the lead to fix something…. I don’t care if he is a reprobate or a saint….. I just want him or her or “it” for that matter, to cut through the BS and get it done…. Many great leaders were real plonkers …. but they are in history for that reason.
Listen sunshine you guys can go play with your “word salad” …. while we get on with making change happen.
Its all about not wasting time on “who we are” its all about getting on with “how we are doing” and that’s why the Dems lost the vote.
Of course… it does not matter what you think as its going to happen anyway…. so I will forgive you as you are probably off your medication or on your period.
Nigel, if you continue to insult other members of this community I will remove you. This is a forum for discussion, not bludgeoning others with your opinion. Despite our evident political differences, you are welcome here as long as you commit to engaging in good faith.
I reacted to a prior chat... it was justified.. but I will always try harder to be tolerant….
But you need to also get your facts and language straight, and show a better example by having more respect for a democratically voted president.
Of course, this will probably cause you to block me which will clearly demonstrate to all the polarization and protection of views and the limits of ability to entertain free speech.. lets see..
O matey … I do love our little chats…I am not at all upset with your clever comments … It just gives me an opportunity to set you straight!
You could probably work for the western media in how you can take a simple direction and turn it into so many shards of woke position….. shame …but no surprise.
I did enjoy the star wars bit.. what a vivid imagination you have?... shame it gets in the way of reality.
Look…I don’t care a flying F*** who takes the lead to fix something…. I don’t care if he is a reprobate or a saint….. I just want him or her or “it” for that matter, to cut through the BS and get it done…. Many great leaders were real plonkers …. but they are in history for that reason.
Listen sunshine you guys can go play with your “word salad” …. while we get on with making change happen.
Its all about not wasting time on “who we are” its all about getting on with “how we are doing” and that’s why the Dems lost the vote.
Of course… it does not matter what you think as its going to happen anyway…. so I will forgive you as you are probably off your medication or on your period.
Yeah Rachel: Michael Wolff confirmed that not only was Epstein's Drumpf's best buddy but Drumpf was a child rapist, just as Sarah Ransome had described her Epstein friend victim routinely being abused by Drumpf in Epstein's Manhattan mansion. Business Insider had a Columbia Journalism School graduate report Drumpf's 14 phone contacts in Epstein's Blackbook with corroboration of a 2nd Epstein Blackbook including Melania's BFF as another Epstein contact. Epstein bragged of hooking up Melania with Drumpf. The fact that the corporate-state media could not focus on the basic "lowest scum evil in prison" identity of Drumpf is a true testimony to the power of the mass mind control indoctrination in the Empire undergoing "imperial implosion." Whenever someone quotes Drumpf I just say, "Never believe a child rapist" - I mean when can basic human rights have a ground level standard of decency? Whenever Drumpf is on t.v. (which is all the time and of course will be more now) I just say, "Mute the Child R@pist" - I've said that phrase probably a few hundred times now.