In Otero

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Emilien Bernard and Pauline Laplace are two alternative free-lance journalists working for the Marseille critical monthly CQFD, which has a substantial French global distribution (about 10, 000 copies) and argues for an anarchist perspective. CQFD means Ce Quโ€™il Faut Dรฉmontrer. The two journalists travelled to the USA to report about the southern wall.  A special dossier โ€œUSA: droit dans le murโ€ …

A History of Pan African Revolt cover.

Reading Pan-African Revolt

โ€œI mean, weโ€™re talking about the last twenty years. Thatโ€™s most of our lives. Maybe even all of yours!โ€ Tentative silence. Itโ€™s always hard to gauge how this kind of direct appeal will go over. Then again, itโ€™s hard to know what works on a Monday morning in a classroom of college students. In November. …

First as Tragedy, Then as Slop

…I think itโ€™s safe to identify MrBeastโ€™s primary schtick as the fusion of two favorite ultra-rich past times, philanthropy and decadence. MrBeast is far from the first tycoon to master these crafts. However, his Frankenstein brand of philanthropic decadence is the novelty that has propelled him to the top of YouTube, becoming the first โ€œbillionaire YouTuber.โ€
Since When Has Working Been a Crime

Since When Has Working Been a Crime?

The Hard Crackers STORE has a new item for saleโ€”โ€œSince when has working been a crimeโ€–a new version of a pamphlet produced and distributed by the Sojourner Truth Organization in 1977 during an earlier wave of the persecution of โ€œworkers without papers.โ€ The pamphlet is available for free downloading as a PDF document and for …

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Rise of the Right in the U.S. Heartland: a Bibliographic Essay

Since Iโ€™ve only made brief visits to other parts of theย country, this is my quest to understand the rise of right-wing reactionaries in the hinterlands, andย why they are sympathetic to white nationalism and have electorally supported Donald Trump.

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Triumph of the Swill

Fridayโ€™s event was my first Trump rally in a sporting arena, which, I soon learned, is where he makes the most sense. The scene outside Milwaukeeโ€™s Fiserv Forum set the tone for the eveningโ€™s entertainment; while Democrats may dispute Trumpโ€™s claims to have created some 7 million jobs as president, nobody can deny that heโ€™s now providing employment for the dozen or so merchants who trail his events selling bootleg merchandise, including some of the only Black men to be found outside the average Trump rally. The latest designs include: โ€œSupport Diversityโ€ alongside a row of different sized bullets; a heavily-armed Smoky Bear saying โ€œOnly You Can Prevent Socialismโ€; Trump clutching cats alongside the message โ€œMake Pets Safe Againโ€ in reference to the campaignโ€™s anti-Haitian blood libel; an austere looking Trump standing with open arms outside the White House beneath the bolded pink announcement โ€œDaddyโ€™s Homeโ€; a heavily stylized Western illustration of Trump and Vance in cowboy hats labeled โ€œThe Outlaw and the Hillbillyโ€; and a rendition of Kamala Harrisโ€™s face with a line through it, as part of the message โ€œSay No to the Hoe.โ€ There are also the ubiquitous Trump hats, which more attendees than not showed up already wearing, creating a striking visual effect thatโ€™s also a bit disconcerting, especially when viewed from the center of it.

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From the Archives


Stick-up on Rikers Island

It started with the phones. A few minutes before 9:30 on Saturday morning, mid-conversation with wives, children, friends, and lawyers, the lines all went dead. This was March 22nd. Visits had been suspended a week prior, so the phones had become our only real link to the outside world. Of course, the underlying frustration had …

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More from the Vault: Where Dreams Go To Die

The following piece appeared in issue #8 of Hard Crackers, which can be purchased here.ย  I get to work late and hung over. I rush past the reference desk, past the remaining display of Black History Month books that Eleanor is replacing with a โ€œqueer movements in the 80sโ€ theme. Clocking in, I say hi …

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