David Pritchett

i find this image so fascinating. it is both a literal example of authoritarianism but also a second-hand reproduction of the aesthetics of other authoritarian states. it's like a simulacra of authoritarianism whose purpose is to attempt to make the simulacra real.

Trump ambushes South African president in Oval Office with video | CNN South African President Cyril Ramaphosa sat in awkward silence as he listened to a video US President Donald Trump played in the Oval Office. CNN’s Larry Madowo reports that Trump was pushing debunked...

staging a show-and-tell about a fake genocide during a real genocide to the government that has done the most to seek justice for that real genocide is designed to break our brains. They know what they are doing. www.cnn.com/2025/05/21/w...

Things only happen cos leftists make them happen (sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-...). Even to the point that far rightists wouldn't have been racist unless, alas, the left exercised their monopoly on agency to make them so. One of the genuinely puzzling features of our ideological landscape!

The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them

The response to this piece on end times fascism co-authored with @naomiaklein.bsky.social has been pretty astounding. I'm reposting in case you missed it.

The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. We must build a movement strong enough to stop them.

‘If I die, I want a loud death’: Gaza photojournalist killed by Israeli airstrike Fatima Hassouna, who had been documenting war in Gaza for 18 months and was subject of new documentary, killed along with 10 members of her family

“If I die, I want a loud death. I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear.”
She was about to get married; a film about her life in Gaza had just been finished.
10 of her family were killed with her.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

I am reminded of a thing I like to say about lying and it being bad for the health of society

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed for child labor rollbacks behind the scenes, records show Email communications first obtained by Orlando Weekly through a public records request show that staffers from DeSantis's office emailed draft legislation for Republican lawmakers to file.

Ron DeSantis is pushing to let employers schedule children as young as 14 for an unlimited number of hours, including overnight shifts.

At the same time, Florida lawmakers are considering a bill that would let employers pay kids below minimum wage.

www.orlandoweekly.com/news/florida...

In place of that knowledge is a vastly complex distribution of knowledge labor that demands mutual respect across domains. I express the trust in the roads, mechanics, and manufacturers every time I get behind the wheel of my car.

A lot of things are breaking right now, but possibly most alarming is the straining to breaking of this otherwise invisible net of social trust that is as necessary as the road, power lines, and water pipes. Indeed, it is the implied social contract infrastructure of all of those tools.

That's Bait Kristi Noem and fascism's sadistic eroticization of power

I expanded my thread on the Kristi Noem video into an essay here. slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/thats-bait (And yes, I know substack is a problem. Migrating soon.)

The coalition emerges out of your recognition that it’s fucked up for you, in the same way that we’ve already recognized that it’s fucked up for us. I don’t need your help. I just need you to recognize that this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly, you stupid motherfucker, you know?

Also think so much of this Fred Moten quote. But also think of how totally culturally and spiritually bankrupt authoritarian and fascist cultures are. It damages and dehumanizes you to be like that

I wish people who want to be defeatists would start by defeating their own urge to spread their spirit of surrender. It's not helpful and it's not an accurate assessment of the present or the possibilities. Yes, we're in a hideous crisis. Yes, there's lots to do and lots of people trying to do it.

Trump’s initial orders reverse Biden on health care costs, protections from discrimination Trump's executive orders took aim at Biden's priorities, from drug pricing to gender discrimination.

Trump has rescinded Biden’s Executive Order 14087, “Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans,” which included things like lowering state Medicaid costs for the most expensive therapeutics, reducing Medicare payments for proven drugs, and creating a flat, $2 Medicare copay for generic drugs

Mountain lion, meadow vole skull in a great horned owl pellet, old black bear print, and kangaroo rat among other tracks found this morning.

We All Live in the Tracks of Others Like the hawk moth, be transformed

So pick a trail to follow, and be a bit more tied to the creatures with whom you share the landscape. Stalk the lion and feels your claws grow, your hunger roil. Pursue a deer and feel the antler nubs sprout from your scalp.

open.substack.com/pub/davidpri...

The Militia and the Mole Outraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends. The one person he told was a ProPublica reporter.

Outraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias.

He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends. The one person he told was ProPublica reporter @josh-kaplan.bsky.social.

propub.li/3DGXECO

Wading Into 2025: How to Begin “We live in chaotic, disastrous times, but amid that madness, we can still find each other and fight for each other.”

I talked with my friends @prisonculture.bsky.social, @deanspade.bsky.social, @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social, and @shaneburley.bsky.social about activism and organizing in 2025 and how we should move into the next phase of struggle.

Google says its new quantum chip may prove parallel universes exist Google's Willow chip is reigniting discussions about the possibility of parallel universes.

The bigger question in my mind is which universe does not have is careening toward many crises steered by a plutocracy? Hope is a thing with multiple quantum states…

www.newsweek.com/google-quant...

I don’t have a million dollars to donate like Zuckerberg or Bezos, but as an act of good faith toward our new president’s inauguration, I’ve decided to donate this intricately bespoke suit for him to wear.

We need elders. All of us…

Shelter and the Warmth of Other Bodies Paying Attention to Woodrat

Thinking with woodrats about how to make this place more beautiful.

open.substack.com/pub/davidpri...

A Glass of Water, a Burning Boy: Fady Joudah on Images From Gaza A young man burning alive in his makeshift hospital bed singed the unspeakable into world memory—a short memory, a hyperactive memory with attention-deficit, a deliberately porous memory without in…

Gutted.
lithub.com/a-glass-of-w...

War on Writers: A look at writers killed in Gaza — PEN International

PEN International has launched an archive to commemorate the lives & work of the many writers so far killed in Gaza.
It is a detailed honouring of each person.
“I am Nour El Din Adnan Hajjaj, a Palestinian writer, I am 27 years old & I have many dreams...”
www.pen-international.org/war-on-write...

This is not wishful or optimistic thinking on my part because I think a U.S. with a lot more violent insurgency is going to be a bloody nightmare that will harm a lot of people who aren’t rich or powerful.

What's a life worth? On the murder of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson

"What we’re called to ask is why the murder of one man must be described as unspeakable violence, but the systemic denial of life to 100,000 people is an acceptable business practice."

Dom Helder Camera called institutional violence "the mother of all violence".

www.jphilll.com/p/whats-a-li...

Are you a CrossFit guy? I enjoy the workouts, but yeah, every place I’ve been drips with blue lives matter culture.

I went to the preserve by my house with my little one, Tegan, and we took a moment to marvel at this woodrat den. What a magnificent creature to build a structure a thousand fold its own size, which will last decades longer than its own life. Makes me reflect on what structures he’ll inherit.

Dendrochronology – Robert Moor Walking amid a tangle of ancient Sitka spruces and cedars on Gwaii Haanas, Robert Moor wonders how old-growth trees can help us feel, rather than intellectualize, not only the deep past, but also our ...

For @emergencemagazine.bsky.social , I wrote an essay about how trees help us think about time—what we should preserve from the past, what we owe to the future, and how the two bleed over in the bodies of trees.

emergencemagazine.org/essay/dendro...

I’d love to be added as well, if you don’t mind. Thanks for creating this!

Merry Christmas. My ass is staying right here until you give me figgy pudding.