Behind the Bastards

Some comrades of mine like from a group called the angry workers and also revolution. I always forget the other group they did it with his name. This is embarrassing. Yeah, anarchist communist group and healthcare workers united, which is like a network I'm involved in. I put together a book called Sick of It, which is like a collection of workers inquiries and reflections on the NHS, its history, its potentials and what and stuff.

He presented this idea of the Garden City concept in 1898 in a book called Tomorrow, A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. Later, he republished in 1902 under the name Garden Cities of Tomorrow.

And take note in the title of the book of the use of reform and peaceful path because it does highlight a noticeable lack within Howard's vision that we'll discuss later.

In Ebenezer Howard's context, again, no offense to the Ebenezers of the world, but geez, I can't let go of those implications.

And much of his book is dedicated to the idea that cities, as they existed in his time, were not sustainable in the long run.

You mean the rank and file?

I am on chapter three, has been on. It's been interesting.

I picked up a copy of Stott and Lin's Labor Law for the Rank and Filer.

We've been passing around a copy of Stott and Lin's Solidary Unionism.

And I think the last book I read by him was Wobblies and Zapatistas.

It's a great book.

I picked up a copy of Stott and Lin's Labor Law for the Rank and Filer.

the Guardian office saved the worst for author Paulette Cooper of New York City whose scathing 1972 book, The Scandal of Scientology pushed her to the top of the church's roster of enemies.

I soon got used to telephone death threats, harassing calls and lawsuits. I was occasionally followed, often conspicuously, as if to upset me, and people seemed to be trying to gain access to my apartment.

In 1975, Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, his fellow editor at Playboy, start to publish a series of three novels eventually known as the Illuminatus Trilogy.

The book is a very weird piece of fiction. One of the things they're doing during this is like every chapter, basically, they switch off. And so they were kind of trying to write each other every chapter into a corner that the other couldn't get out of.

The foundational premise is that all conspiracy theories, even the conflicting ones, are true. And the history of the world is largely determined by a secret war being waged between the all controlling Illuminati and the Discordians, who are like the insurgents fighting against the Illuminati and also are part of the Illuminati.

It's a very... It's that kind of book. And again, one of the things actually, because like everyone is a double agent, right? And like the the Discordians are actually deeply enmeshed in the Illuminati.

So for just like working for like mainstream publications, you're critiquing capitalism or participating in capitalism. And I don't actually think that's like bad, obviously. But it's messy. And I could leave you with that sort of sense of... Yeah. And it's a very messy book.

But as Guffey notes over the ensuing decades, it was the progressive left whose ideas wound up being mainstreamed, really from all in the family onward, it was progressive values and fictional TV mod to mash Murphy Brown to the West Wing.

And as that became the dominant cultural narrative, Operation Mindfuck became a tool of the old right.

And that yeah, that is over time kind of what you see is as a lot of the stuff, not all of it, obviously, these guys are much more radical than the fucking West Wing, but as some of this like these attitudes towards militarism and shit and attitudes towards like, you know, sexual liberation and like that kind of stuff, like radical political equality and whatnot, as those become more mainstreamed, the the it's like the the toolbox loses its power for that side.

Right. But becomes a more powerful tool of the people who are now kind of the insurgents.

I would say, I have a two-book novella series that came out a little while ago called the Danielle Cain series. The first one is The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion. The second one is The Barrel Will Send What It May.

I would say, I have a two-book novella series that came out a little while ago called the Danielle Cain series. The first one is The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion. The second one is The Barrel Will Send What It May.

It is almost certain that Bashar al-Assad was absolutely shocked when the uprisings in the Arab world started to seep into his country in March 2011.

I believe he truly thought he was safe and secure and popular in the country and was beyond condemnation.

In the May and June 2011 the regime continued to engage in a schizophrenic response to the protests while continuing to make some concessions and announce reform measures the military and security forces intensified their crackdown on cities across Syria that were hit by demonstrations.

So they need to use the asymmetric methods like chemical weapons to brutalize them.

This is a claim made by Margot Adler, who is a Wiccan priestess and an NPR correspondent in her book, Drawing Down the Moon.

I have a book called Escape from Insel Island. I have a bunch of books, but the most recent one is called Escape from Insel Island, and you can read it. It came out. You can get it wherever you steal, wherever you books. Buy it, steal it, steal, you know, just go steal something, everybody.

In the book, Effective Cycling, where it was the idea was that cyclists should be riding like cars, right? Which means riding fast, center of the lane, behaving exactly like a car.

I mean, basically if we're talking about the standard rundown of infrastructure, the, I would say, the most common thing that people think about and probably the most common thing that's built in part because it's quite cheap, especially over the, say, the last 20 years is the bike lane.

Yeah, I mean, that's a big question. Something that I tackled in my book, which came out in 2019, but then I haven't kept up with it quite as much. I've been trying to start working on other projects, but I keep tabs on things a little bit.