Notes South from Nowhere

Not even a genre, it's just the album Skeptics Apocalypse by Agent Steel because it makes aliens sound cool as fuck

The Marxism of Mike Davis Historian Nelson Lichtenstein on the life, influences, and “sophisticated yet lucid brand of Marxism” of the late, great writer Mike Davis.

The Marxist writer and activist Mike Davis died three years ago today.

His left us an example of how to live and fight as an “old-school socialist.”

IT'S MIKE DAVIS HOUR, BABY

From a Stuff article on tomorrow's strikes in the public sector. The mood of those against industrial action seems to be annoyance more than anything, but the mood for it seems to be orders of magnitude more resolute. #nzpol

radical online collections and archives I am very interested in the growing amount of radical literature from around the world that is being scanned and digitised. As there are so many and from many different places, I thought it would b…

Hello BlueSky! Starting this account to showcase the ever growing list of radical online archives and collections. Nearly 1000 collections from the around the world are listed at the link below.

Please follow for updates and collection highlights!

hatfulofhistory.com/radical-onli...

I don't think so after it's posted? You're welcome to copy/paste and post it with your own though! Thank you!

We are a #Ōtepoti | #Dunedin based collective, and as such all our reading/discussion sessions will be here for the foreseeable future. However we are interested in potential readers based elsewhere who may be interested in reading along or forming their own circles, so please do get in touch!

So, that new project I've been teasing? I'm pleased to present the Spectre of History Collective! We will be onboarding a few new readers before launching reading sessions in January 2026. Anyone interested in joining or learning more is encouraged to reach out through the email below.

Announcements & Updates (October 2025) Now that the blog has fully been transitioned to the more ‘central hub’ role I outlined in an article earlier this year, I will be making some more of the update/announcement posts I us…

Pretty much what it says on the tin. Details on some upcoming events, a new project, and various bric-à-brac.

I will also be hosting this in conversation with the rad @rosieoverell.bsky.social at the end of the month! We'll be discussing a wide range of topics orbiting around the core theme of social and political issues raised by/present in the heavy metal subculture.

I will be involved with this & DJing alongside some great local talent. Do come along, as this sale represents one of the last words of the Black Star Books collective which was foundational for me and many others in discovering radically left-wing politics in #Ōtepoti. #dunedin #nzpol

In all seriousness, this is a very valuable project that absolutely should get the support of Oceanic socialists. Subscribe, read, contribute, disseminate!

It would probably be a hassle if billions offered to help this, but nevertheless

Billions must subscribe

I say that even as someone who believes a more social internet is, or at least was, possible. I still have a fondness of the Indymedia era!

The Internet (TM) has largely been a negative factor in the unrest which has broken out, though. I think most people who saw the revolutionary potential of 'information war' during the 2000s and capped off by Arab Spring with some embarrassment now.

That's true of the uprisings of the 2010s and 2020s, but with a few exceptions the uprisings of the 2000s also seemed to largely fail to even attempt a full political or social revolution. There's a declining ratio post-Cold War afaict of uprisings turning into some kind of revolutionary upheaval.

A first look at tomorrow's front page of The National 📰

How genocide happened

One of the keys to the early 21st century which we can now analyse with a bit of hindsight is the proliferation of successful political revolutions and coups which promised at least a nominally progressive overhaul but failed to really carry out social or political revolution in a meaningful sense.

Consider my reposting an endorsement of this fundraiser, Byron is great quality as a person and as a researcher of what I used to call the "lunar right" in Aotearoa (a now useless term given how close the glassy eyed moonbats are to people with actual levers of power available)

What's a website like this without shameless self-promo, eh?

Gonna tag @daphnelawless.com, @evansmithhist.bsky.social, @byroncclark.bsky.social, @slackbastard.bsky.social (who inspired me to survey the socialist movement in NZ a few years back, needs an update!), @qerqay.bsky.social, @ojutel.bsky.social, @kylermatthews.bsky.social who may all be interested.

A few people on here may be interested in this one. I namecheck @anrchivist.bsky.social as well as Kerry Taylor, Cybèle Locke, Toby Boraman, and a couple others not on here in it. Bert Roth gets a word, as does the excellent 2002 book "On the Left: Essays on Socialism in New Zealand".

I think that's all for now. More details on all of the above to come, but hopefully at least some of that is of interest to some people! (11/ends)

Oh, last up for real this time, I will be presenting a paper with the provisional title "Small-Town Socialism: On Researching the Politics of Socialism and Radical Left-Wing Politics in Aotearoa" at the annual NZ Political Studies Association conference in November. Keep an eye on that! (10)

With all three, I recognise the limitations, and consider them "best of the bad options" amidst the deterioration of the social internet and its consolidation by a small coterie of extremely stupid and venal tech vampires. Mercifully, more of my work is published physically these days anyway. (9)

On top of these, I'm mulling over making it possible to make donations for my work. This would at least for now be strictly a voluntary process (think ko-fi), with no obligations and nothing paywalled. Just a way to easily process a few donation offers I've had & declined over the years. (8)

Last up, I will be setting about getting my currently dormant substack account into fit shape to cross-post the remaining writing I do for my blog. Alongside that, I'm looking into setting up a kiwi socialist discord (similar to #aussoc) that'll be loosely associated with the blog. (7)

I'll post the posters for both here very soon! (6)

Also, on Wednesday the 29th October, the Otago Socialist Society will be hosting our monthly educational. I will be in conversation with Dr Rosie Overell of MFCO at University of Otago, with the topic of class & alienation in heavy metal/extreme music, our Halloween event this year. (5)