“Spring is an Insurrection”

I am an animist, and trees most definitely have spirits. If you spend time outside, you’d do well to spend at least some of it beneath a tree.

A new book release from Gods&Radicals Press

We swallow antibiotics as indiscriminate as our pesticides

And vote which color to paint our bombs.

We went through this phase where we thought social media could be the cradle of a revolution, but now that this idea had time to mature we can see it for the passing phase it is, can’t we?

Norman Borlaug and William Vogt are, respectively, the Wizard and the Prophet in the title of Charles Mann’s 2018 book, The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World. Mann presents Borlaug and Vogt as archetypes, representatives of two different visions of humankind’s relationship with the natural world: the one viewing nature as a something to be bent to the will of humankind, the other viewing nature as something to which humankind must bend.

The Yazidi are an ancient indigenous community, whose ties to the lands in Northern Iraq stretch back to Mesopotamia.

Week #4: The Moon & The Nightspirit, Hedningarna, Seiðlæti, Luc Arbogast

The Anansi stories hold a special place in my heart, what with my family, or at least the paternal side, hailing from the Caribbean. But there’s another important aspect to not only the Anansi stories, but most folk stories, generally speaking of course. Many of them come from the common people. These stories are born from the shared struggle against the harshness of life.

As global warming produces conditions favourable for the breeding of mosquitoes and the spread of malaria (or ague as it was once known), this essay looks at the lore associating it with hags and witches, who paradoxically were believed to cause and cure it.

Hannah Arendt, bell hooks, Slavoj Zizek...just a few names on an ever-growing list of philosophers that good leftists aren't “allowed" to read anymore because of something “problematic" they said.

In this episode, Alley and Rhyd discuss the “canceling" of artists, philosophers, and other creators and trace the roots of our obsession with right belief to the Christian wars against heresy and the Calvinist obsession with faith over works.

Gods & Radicals is an easy target for a left that lacks a critical space. It talks about paganism, civilization, romanticism, all things running counter to the narrow space that even the radical left exists in Europe and the U.S., and that is where it is at its best.

“We must survive the night - and all the other nights. We must survive the flood. We must not just survive but thrive in mud.”

No understanding of borders here.

Week #3: Kate Rusby, Fejd, Gyvata, Dunkelschöne

Part 2: Response

Part 3: COUNTER-ATTACK

I adore folk lore, superstitions and old wives tales, from all over the world. There are stories and sayings about almost everything you can think of from trees, to birds to the weird and wonderful. I believe such stories give a great deal of insight into humanity’s relationship with the natural world, and highlight the common thread that runs through whilst at the same time celebrating our differences. These stories can help to deepen our understanding of and thus our connection to the land. Here I’ll share with you some of my favourite tree lore.

We will build our knowledge as revolutionaries, insurrectionaries, anti-fascists in the world, learning and growing in capability as defenders of what we value – we will defeat the fascists and frustrate their plans every time their tumour of an ideology makes itself known.

We’ve impeached a President, replaced her with a criminal, and now we are run by militia. A severely flawed Democracy has been replaced by a Military Dictatorship that barely bothers to disguise. Where but in a dystopian world is this framed as “Freedom”?

Week 2: Laboratorium Piesni, Volkstrott, La Corte di Lunas, Wolves in the Throne Room, Valravn