Based Safety vs. Cringe Propaganda #4
BASED SAFETY
Niccolo Soldo asks Glenn Greenwald why Glenn is gay, why he’s fascist, and why he’s a TERF. DC Miller theorizes what Hannah Arendt would have made of Donald Trump, and her views on Trump would be far more nuanced than what you’d expect. Steven Manuel reviews a new book by the brilliant poet Whit Griffin, for Caesura. Musique Machine interviews Mark Polonia who, along with his twin brother John, created some of the best low budget splatter films of the 1980s. Conrad Cartell tries to explain why the George Floyd protests led nowhere. Greil Marcus discusses the cinematic impact of Bill Pullman’s face. Freddie deBoer reflects on a life under psychopharmacology. And, while I apologize for the vanity positing, I have been spread around the Internet this week. I was (I think) the only marxist on a panel of cool cats to discuss the philosophy and aesthetics of the cyberpunk genre on the Break the Rules cast. My friend Geoff Shullenberger had me on his Outsider Theory podcast. Finally, I wrote about “the blackpill” for the Covidian Aesthetics website.
CRINGE PROPAGANDA
Over in Jacobin land, Branko tells the story about how Bernie became mayor, as if that’s at all helpful right now. Current Affairs advocates for NGO employees to larp as labor, wonder if they have any vested interest in this scam? Ezra Klein really spelling out the party line: Biden is not Trump, and therefore…. it’s working? Fauci, taking a break from his daily flip-flopping, donates his 3D model of Covid-19 to the Smithsonian. Artnet celebrates Biden’s rolling back of Trump’s immigration policies, even though he really hasn’t (typical). Another Hyperallergic writer has a dazzling art historical insight: Man Ray was kinda sorta misogynist. Adolph Reed, Jr. goes on Virgil and Brie’s podcast to explain the ills of identity politics, most likely fully aware that they will then dilute his ideas to legitimize the reactionary nature of their political commitments (SAD!). In the worst Twitter news of the week, my account was one of the many thousands of accounts to get unjustly suspended. I have always tried to be nice and cordial to my haters. No more!
(collage by Adam Lehrer)
Illustration by Adam Lehrer