geoffcordner

Agitated Outsider

[susan abulhawa | سوزان ابو الهوى @susanabulhawa]

I'm struggling with this open letter, signed by people I admire deeply—individuals who've dedicated their lives to Black liberation and anti-colonial struggles.

But I just can't reconcile my instinctive reaction to the letter with the respect I hold for the signatories. Prominent intellectuals in the imperial core are using their voice at this hour primarily to criticize a government under active bombardment. While I believe that no government is beyond reproach or criticism, I have a lot of questions and cautions about this open letter.

The overall framing of is of two equally opposing sides—two blades of the same scissors. This is a wholly unfair representation of what is in reality a profound asymmetry of power. On one hand, a country that has been subjected to crippling, decades-long economic sanctions, now fighting kinetically an existential anti-imperial struggle; on the other hand is nuclear, AI-powered empire, with its inexhaustible money, munitions, supply lines, coalitions, surveillance, and near total grip on international political, legal, information, and economic infrastructure.

The severity of the imperial onslaught seems to be minimized in the letter. This is perhaps for the sake of brevity, but it should not stand without critique. What the letter describes as "current, indiscriminate waves of US-Israeli military assaults" undersells what's actually happening in the "six months into a war". Unprovoked Tomahawk missiles and B-2 bombers that targeting a an elementary school that killed 180 children and teachers, the country's spiritual leader and his family, more than a third of the country's political, military, and scientific leadership, civilian infrastructure, including water, farmlands, electric grids and power plants, an unarmed navy ship at sea full of young cadets returning from a peacetime maritime exercise in international waters. This after decades of attacks that went unanswered by Iran, including Israel's repeated assassinations of Iranian scientists, assassination of Qasem Soleimani, strikes on Iranians generals in Syria, strike on Iranian consulate in Damascus, assassination of Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil; the US shot down civilian aircraft of Iran Air flight 655, killing 290 passengers and crew, including 66 children. There were endless cyber attacks, covert and overt naval sabotage and so much more—all of it without response from Tehran.

The letter does not identify who the prisoners are or why they were arrested. In neglecting to do so, there is no engagement with the very real security threats, proven foreign interference, terrorism, and espionage, which Iranian authorities cite as reasons for some arrests and prosecutions. I have no doubt there are some who've been wrongly imprisoned, but we also know that many of those who were rounded up confessed to working with the Mossad, and recently a group who gruesomely disembowled a young reciter of the Quran are among those who are imprisoned.

There are currently 2 million incarcerated people in the United States, the largest prison population anywhere on earth. It is estimated that 4-6% of them are innocent—that's 80,000-120,000, about two NFL stadiums full of innocent lives behind bars. Setting that percentage against Iran's estimated 15,000 political prisoners, that's roughly 600-900 individuals. They deserve fairness, but to center them in what is perhaps the most existential anti-colonial struggle of our lives feels misguided.

I would also argue that comparing Iran's prisons with Israel's decades-long, systematic, colonial detention of indigenous Palestinians is another form of false equivalence. So is the comparison with America's ICE detentions, separation of families and loss of children in the process (who are most likely trafficked). It is not remotely fair to put a revolutionary government, barely a few decades out from under colonial boots and still under sanctions, in the same "carceral" category as two settler colonial states. One cannot ignore the enormous disparity of political, military, and historical circumstances.

The people held in Iranian jails are overwhelmingly Iranian citizens, prosecuted under the state's own criminal and national security laws, regardless of whether one thinks the laws are unfair. Palestinians held in Israeli administrative detention are non-citizen subjects of a military occupation, detained and re-detained indefinitely under military decrees without charge or trial. People in US detentions are another category—non citizens held under civil immigration laws pending removal proceedings with access to immigration courts, however corrupt they may be. These are three distinct legal relationships—1) a state and it's own citizens; 2) a state and migrants crossing its borders, and; 3) an occupying power and a stateless occupied indigenous population. The letter collapses them all into a single architecture of "carceral states everywhere," creating an analysis that is not supported by the underlying facts. It creates rhetorical equivalence that treats "administrative detention," "political imprisonment," and "immigration detention" as though the political stakes of each were the same, when the questions of sovereignty, citizenship, and self-determination underneath them are not.

The phrase that knocked me off balance was this: "...we reject the false binary of imperialism and hollow anti-imperialism." I note that @agent_of_change addressed this in a recent post, which he identified as the "load-bearing phrase" of the letter. Indeed, it does so much heavy lifting and I'm at a loss why the word "hollow" would have been inserted. It's so clearly deliberate, but why? How can Iran's insistence on sovereignty and dignity be called "hollow," despite the grave and terrible cost to themselves? They could have taken the easy path a long time ago and bowed to empire, like some of their Arab neighbors have done. They've chosen self-possession and loyalty to their ancestors and children instead. That can be called many things, but hollow is not it.

https://t.co/6w2XgYeV4i

[geoffcordner @geoffcordner]

Retweeting this just to save it. This is some terrifying shit. AI as the new nuclear weapon? Shudder.

Einsstein: ""I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

That is actually good news.

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

Because we get asked a lot.

The Technological Republic, in brief.

1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.

2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.

3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.

7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.

8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.

10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.

11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.

12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.

13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.

14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.

15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.

16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.

17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.

18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.

19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.

21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.

22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska

https://t.co/8igjazz1On

[Dr.Sam Youssef Ph.D.,Ph.D.,DPT. @drhossamsamy65]

- Italy's prominent weekly magazine, L'Espresso, has released a provocative cover titled **"L'ABUSO"** ("The Abuse").

- The cover features an Israeli soldier filming a frightened Palestinian woman, portraying a predatory demeanor.

- The headline accuses the Zionist right of pursuing "Greater Israel" through methods such as annexation, ethnic cleansing, and massacres across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and beyond.

- This publication is significant as it represents mainstream European media taking a strong stance on the issue.

- The situation indicates a growing awareness and response to the conflict, with even European voices beginning to speak out.

[Dr. Butch Ware @ButchWare]

Eric Swalwell has been credibly accused of multiple inappropriate relationships with young staffers. Katie Porter verbally abuses hers. Both have accepted mounds of cash from the Israel lobby.

Tom Steyer has spent $100M of the money he made on the prison industrial complex buying ads to convince you that an anti BDS billionaire is a ‘progressive.’

Gavin Newsom and Shirley Weber are working overtime to try to knock me off the ballot because I’m only 5 points behind the three corporate frauds named above. The moral bankruptcy of the California Democrat Party is total.

And the Repubs, like the Dems are all Israel-firsters.

CA, I’ll keep this simple. You can either vote for AIPAC, or Butch Ware.

[sarah @sahouraxo]

BREAKING

Spain’s MEP Irene Montero:

“No woman has ever been freed by American bombs or illegal aggression.

Not in Syria. Not in Iraq. Not in Lebanon. Not in Afghanistan.

And it will not happen in Iran either.

They hide behind women’s rights to justify their colonial wars.”

[Rashida Tlaib @RashidaTlaib]

Shame on every single House member (including the 7 dems) who voted to fund this killing mob. Cold blood killing in our streets. Some even clapping +cheering.

I am so sick of fake ass people who say they uphold our Constitution. No you don't if you fund this madness.

[Sana Saeed @SanaSaeed]

We are at the point in this country where police openly grab people off the streets - while they are speaking to the press or protesting - and it’s not registering as even a blip of the growing crisis of speech repression in this country. No national resistance, just permission.

[geoffcordner @geoffcordner]

Tomorrow Saturday Nov 8 at Altadena Public Library Myriam Gurba, award winning author of Poppy State, Creep, & Mean -

Queer Poets Resist

#MyriamGurba #Altadena

[chillsatwillpodcast @chillsatwillpo1]

In this Ep305 clip, ⁦@lesbrains⁩ talks about the power of renaming, as her book so brilliantly interrogates colonial land grabs, revisionist histories and erased histories.

Buy Poppy State from ⁦@timberpress⁩: https://t.co/vWQbXU6VdG

Listen: https://t.co/4FXBa8pcnh

[Rashida Tlaib @RashidaTlaib]

There is no ceasefire. It's a lie.

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli government since Trump claimed a ceasefire was achieved. The Israeli government never even stopped bombing Lebanon. They are still committing war crimes.

https://t.co/3YfICafKv7

[Prof Zenkus @anthonyzenkus]

Gov. Kathy Hochul takes the stage to chants of “tax the rich”, to which she replies "I'm the type of person, the more you push me, the less I’m going to do what you want.”

The utter contempt that establishment Democrats have for democracy is mind-boggling. She needs to go.

[Kamau Franklin @kamaufranklin]

Poverty exists not because we can't feed the poor but because we can't satisfy the rich

[Mason J. | Ya’ir @crashtwitty]

🌺 Book Alert 🚨 Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings by @lesbrains .
Haven’t finished it yet but so far this genre-twisted work of narrative nonfic is harvesting autobiography, nature writing, social commentary using California’s inimitable flora as a map of memory, myth, and mastery of self.

Weaving confusion and connection, tracing the soul’s dialogue with soil, sovereignty, survival.🌿 resilience, reclamation, Indigenous wisdom, ecology, identity
#PoppyState #MyriamGurba #NatureWriting #California #NewBook

[Feral Heather, PhD @FeralHeather]

Speaking of fearless survivor-heroes, so excited that Myriam Gurba’s newest book Poppy State finally arrived! Should be working on my dissertation but can’t help reading the prologue. Brilliant.

[Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry @confluencenter]

Join us to welcome Myriam Gurba on our campus to discuss her latest book Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings.📕 💌 🌿 📝

Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2025 (Election Day)
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Gender Women Studies 100

[geoffcordner @geoffcordner]

3 days away! Out Oct 21st.

[Myriam Gurba Serrano @lesbrains]

Hi! I have exciting news! @timberpress and I have been at work on another book project that we’re eager to share: POPPY STATE: A LABYRINTH OF PLANTS AND A STORY OF BEGINNINGS. It will be released on 10/21 and I’d be grateful if you would pre-order it thru your fave indie shop.

[chillsatwillpodcast @chillsatwillpo1]

Preorder Myriam's Poppy State from @timberpress: https://t.co/IwFDiVtpT0

[Jacob Kimbarow @JacobMKimbarow]

That’s crazy….anyways here’s a picture of me and Zohran at B’nai Jeshurun during a forum organized by the major democratic clubs of the Upper West Side.

[geoffcordner @geoffcordner]

@whale_collector @jake I believe Jake Paul is Savannah Marshall's promoter. That was not the result he wanted. You could see it on his face.

[Tiffany Cabán @tiffany_caban]

My statement with @alexaforcouncil about Senator Gillibrand’s racist, Islamophobic remarks about @ZohranKMamdani.