One of the nice things about webmentions is that I can like or reply to your post from my own site, too. No Twitter required, and no character limit 🙂
Author: Neil Mather
If you’re after some good reads, Verso currently has 40% off its decolonization and anti-racism reading list: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4384-decolonization-and-anti-racism-a-reading-list
And Pluto Press has 90% off all its ebooks: https://www.plutobooks.com/books/
Let’s get seditious… seditious
Listening to SF 10-33 station on Soma FM. “Ambient music mixed with the sounds of San Francisco public safety radio traffic.”
Very enjoyable. They play a lot of Loscil so I’m down with that.
There seemed to be a protest or march taking place earlier in San Francisco.
Welsh Harp Open Space
#London #CapitalRing
The pond at Barn Hill in Fryent Country Park.
#London #CapitalRing
Listened to a summary of The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. It’s from 1951, but relevant today. (“how quickly a democratic society can turn against its people”.)
What I took from this digest is how atomisation, isolation and disenfranchisement are fertile grounds for totalitarianism. Without community and society you lose your sense of self and become easy prey for messages of totalitarianism. Someone will come along and claim to represent you, and give an outlet for diesenfranchisement.
Once in a totalitarian society, people disengage from analytical and political thought. The only thing that matters is the leader’s vision for the future. Challenges to that vision are twisted to be from an enemy trying to mislead the public.
I forgot to post about it but I really enjoyed the Restarters Tooting event from a couple of weeks back. I helped Ernestine with various problems she was having on both her laptop and her tablet. If you like helping people and fixing things, I definitely recommend finding or starting a repair group near you, it’s a lot of fun!
Some more photos here: https://twitter.com/tttooting/status/1147549448807047170
Listening to a thing about populism. Interesting to delve into it.
In a nutshell: it’s a political strategy rather than an ideology, where the people’s interests are juxtaposed against a supposed elite. It can have various host ideologies. Personalist leaders claim to represent the people. It’s hard to roll back populist attitudes once activated.