Researcher & Activist

11/10/2024 update:

It's been a while since I posted anything here. I am currently doing lots of background research for the development of new texts. The focus will shift and radicalize a bit because the last year, and particularly Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and the complicity of most Western governments, has made me even more aware of how truly deeply fucked we are. Why are we unable to put a stop of this horrific slaughter of a people, the endless murder, traumatization, and starvation of children, the deliberate torture of civilians, and the complicity of our own governments using our tax money to support Israel instead of instating a total boycott on this genocidal state? We are being held hostage by the relentlessly destructive and violent greed of the world’s elites, who stop at nothing to control the narrative, to silence dissent, and to block uprisings. All over the world, they are beating up and locking up protesters, they are strengthening laws to imprison activists for years, they are giving cops Israeli military training, and they are boosting the military industrial complex to new heights. In the meantime, the escalation of climate crises is bound to lead to complete chaos, complete breakdown of the world’s systems. While it is all horrifcally disastrous - many people and animals are already suffering in unimagineable ways and it will get much worse - we are at a crossroads for humanity. Will we allow ourselves to be herded-in under totalitarian fascist control, or will we seize any opportunity to challenge status quo and choose another path, to live in true solidarity with each other and with the planet? I think we all need to radicalize very fast now and decisively commit to nothing less than the dismantling of capitalism and the associated colonial theft of land and resources, exploitation of people for labor and consumption, and oppression or extermination of anyone getting in the way. We need to stop treading cautiously and think that we can reason with the aggressors or that we can save the world with better policies for human rights and the environment. None of that is working. October 7th has caused the masks to fall off and it has become extremely clear just how much violence can be unleashed onto civilian populations, onto children, with no one either willing or able to stop it.

So what are we going to do about it? First and foremost, many, many more people need to become aware and enraged. Secondly, we need to be critical of our strategies and be imaginative and creative to find new ways to do activism that is surprising, destabilizing, and wonderful all at once. Thirdly, we need the same imagination and creativity, as well as persistance against cooptation, to form and embrace new (or perhaps old) ways of human organization and to break with the state structures that have historically been deeply intertwined with capitalist & colonial agenda’s. And fourthly, we need to establish structures of deep solidarity between liberation movements to exchange information and skills, as well as financial and moral support. This includes taking the responsibility to educate ourselves and each other about the various ways colonized, enslaved, and oppressed people have resisted and organized, most of all by reading the work of BIPOC activists and scholars.

It is my revised mission to contribute to these four aims.

Anyways, that was a little snapshot of where my head is at right now… I can’t really predict when I am ready to share fresh work yet, but what I can share in the meantime are some of the awesome books I have read in the past months that have greatly influenced my thinking and even some life decisions and that I would highly recommend, particularly Klee’s book:

• No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchism in Defense of the Sacred, by Klee Benally (2024)

• The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (2007)

• Direct Action: An Ethnography, by David Graeber (2008)

• Defiance: Anarchist Statements before Judge and Jury, by Detritus Books (ed.) (2017)

*** Stay tuned! ***

*** AND FREE PALESTINE! ***

Below is my previous introduction, which I am leaving up here as a benchmark of where I was last year (August 2023), when I launched this website, still relatively optimistic.

Welcome! I created this blog to research and discuss issues that obstruct or improve humanity’s chances for creating a sustainable & just post-capitalist world, something we could and should have seriously committed to 50 years ago. While there is still no sign that governments will start to take the decisive action required to end the use of fossil fuels and limit the global temperature rise, climate breakdown is beginning to accelerate and we are facing an escalation of natural disasters and resulting suffering and death of humans, domestic animals, and wildlife. Entire ecosystems are on the brink of collapse and large areas will become uninhabitable because of floodings and desertification. There is an increasing urgency to hit the brakes, not just on our use of fossil fuels, but on our exploitative and destructive obsession with economic growth more generally. It is crucial that we keep envisioning pathways towards a better future, where humans can live in balance with nature and with each other, so that we can choose the best courses of action to get there.

I will use this blog to examine the various problems we are facing and to critically evaluate potential solutions and strategies for system change. Sadly, many people are still blissfully unaware of the immense devastation humans are causing to this planet, partly because ignorance is easy and partly because those responsible for this devastation keep it skillfully out of sight of the general public wherever possible. At the same time, people who are committed to change are often misguided by fake solutions that fail to address the roots of the problems. In a time that our attention spans are under attack by social media and our ability to judge legitimacy of information is becoming clouded by pervasive misinformation campaigns, I hope to bring in a little bit of balance and a bridge between science, news, and activism.

Topics that I want to cover include: the damage done by resource extraction, intensive agriculture, and polluting industries, the ongoing colonial exploitation of the Global South, escalating economic inequality and power of the wealthy, attacks on democracy and human rights, the externalization of social and environmental costs, the potentials and limitations of the green & circular economy, degrowth’s utopian promises, ways to pursue environmental & climate justice, opportunities for activism and building social movements, redistribution through caps and taxes, strategies for policy changes, approaches to job guarantee and universal basic income, the role of small entrepreneurship, the value of communal eco-living as models for the future, the design of financial systems and possibilites to pay for the transition, and even more! Plenty of interests and ideas, so little time…

My aim is to inform and mobilize, both myself and my readers. As I have become disillusioned with my own professional trajectory and efforts to make a difference, I have decided to recommit myself to research and writing to whatever extent I can afford to. The blog is an excuse to properly dive into these topics, to investigate thoroughly, so that I can make informed decisions on where I can realistically and effectively make a contribution to the eradication of capitalism. I hope readers will also feel inspired to try to engage in their own way. While change can be scary, many people don’t quite realize how terrifying not changing will be. We have a fast closing window where we can still have some influence towards positive change before we become overwhelmed by disasters and can only still reactively deal with the symptoms. Let’s make sure we keep our eyes on the ball!