As the living systems of the planet buckle under the demands of industrial capitalism’s final phase, a full-throated fascism coheres around culture war anxieties and proposes genocidal exterminationist solutions. Anti-trans rhetoric and legislation is part of this trajectory.
Author Archives: John Halstead
Who Are the Watchers?: Sightseers, Snails, and Spirits of Guam
My mind keeps going back to the sight of that sign on the cave floor, warning that someone was watching, the feeling of sacredness I had in the cave, and the sound of chainsaws outside.
No, America is not “the best country in the world”.
Videos like this are the feel-good side of an authoritarian movement which is literally trying to take over our government. Samuel Johnson said in 1774, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” It’s also the first refuge of the fascist.
A note on nationalism
“Conflating culture with national identity is not only lazy but also dangerous. It creates a romanticism, a longing for something that never was and distracts us from creating something now, something real. England is just a flag, a national anthem, a geographical reference point, a trope, an arbitrary boundary drawn, as every other nation state is, in blood.”
Jumping the Gap: Green Transphobia & Proto-Fascism
This is how a Green anarchist becomes a transphobic proto-fascist.
The scientific reason why there is no Planet B
We don’t just need a planet roughly the same size and temperature as Earth; we need a planet that spent billions of years evolving with us.
The Original Heresy: Homesickness, Civilization, and Transcendental Religion (part 2)
To be pagan is nothing more and nothing less than to be fully human, fully human in a more-than-human world. The alienating forces of civilization—including Christianity, yes, but also capitalism, industrialism, the Enlightenment, and patriarchy—have divided us from ourselves, from each other, and from the more-than-human world. The work of being pagan today, then, is to reclaim our humanity.
The Original Heresy: Homesickness, Civilization, and Transcendental Religion (part 1)
The original heresy is the belief that the earth is not our home, that our real life is somewhere else—whether in heaven or a future technotopia. We embrace this heresy to make sense of that nagging feeling that something is wrong with the world itself. But the real reason we feel this way is because civilization alienates us from everything that makes us human.
Thoughts on Homophobia and Toxic Masculinity from a Straight Father of Bisexual Children
And was there a reason my daughter could come out to us earlier than my son? Something to do with a specifically masculine form or homophobia. Something to do with how homophobia and toxic masculinity are wound up together. Was this maybe something I communicated inadvertently to my son?
Questions for the End of the World
I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
Another End of the World is Possible 