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David Graeber

@davidgraeber

Jul 7, 2020

@jasonhickel

this is very important. For 10 years now we've been fed a lie that "capitalism" is causing massive reductions in global poverty. In fact global poverty has been getting worse. Now COVID is making the debacle precipitous .@jasonhickel

https://twitter.com/PhilipGAlston/status/1280008856014336000

on a personal note, I might add I've got incessant attacks, personal targeting, & abuse when I once asked who was out there countering the triumphalist narrative - by people who said I had fallaciously presumed my conclusions 2/

I'd never seen anything like it since I once signed a petition against some guy who was trying to bring back "race science" - or once when I annoyed Jacobin, who use similar wolf-pack tactics borrowed from the right - it was continual & virulent 3/

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David Graeber

@davidgraeber

Jun 28, 2020

The first major activist movement in the US after independence were the Abolitionists & I wonder sometimes if they set the tone for US activism - it's peculiar characteristic puritanism - in ways we rarely acknowledge 1/

Most Abolitionists were puritans of some sort; I still remember a quote from a newly enslaved African when he first met a bunch of them - "they were all singing, which suggested a festivity, but none of them seemed to be having any fun. Actually they seemed rather depressed." 2/

puritanism is all about one's internal moral state, the inevitability of sinfulness, & competitiveness, where - to put it cynically - heroic white males compete over who's best because they are most aware of their fallen nature, their inevitable internal corruption 3/

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David Graeber

@davidgraeber

Jun 21, 2020

trying to figure out if I'm just old or there's a real cultural transformation. The '60s on seem to have produced an endless stream of tunes: movies, TV shows, pop music of endless varieties, that people still remember & hum to themselves. Do we now? 1/.

even advertising jingles, which were evil & designed to get caught in your head, seem to have been abandoned: I think in the '90s they started just recycling Classic Rock tunes that were already caught in your head & tried to piggyback 2/

one could argue the key move came in the '80s w the invention of "Classic Rock", i.e., recycling '60s & '70s stuff for a new generation, then of course Hip Hop w sampling was the first "postmodern pastiche" but there was still lots of new tunes for those who sought it out 3/

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David Graeber

@davidgraeber

Jun 1, 2020

for purposes of clarification, I didn't say the cop solidarity gestures were sincere (certainly all of them weren't), I just think it doesn't matter much since either way, this kind of thing is so unusual it's a sign of a system starting to break down. 1/

I've been facing off vs cops for more than 20 years now, & know 1. cops personally HATE anti-cop protests, 2. cops are almost never ordered to express solidarity with protests they despise, if that's what's happening, someone must be worried about total loss of control 2/

as individuals, the vast majority of cops are assholes, & typically, chosen & trained to be capable of killing & maiming their fellow citizens or at least supporting colleagues who do. That's why most regimes hesitate to call in the army: the army is more likely to defect 3/

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David Graeber

@davidgraeber

May 16, 2020

what precisely do people mean by "getting the economy up again"? If the economy is how you keep people alive, fed, clothed, housed, etc, the economy was still running during lockdown. So in what sense is "the economy" coming back when lockdown is lifted? 1/

it can only conclude this is the voice of those people whose work has been revealed to be largely or completely useless who have become impatient that the veil is lifted, or worried if it is too long, they won't be able to put it back 2/

what's being restored is not "the economy" it's precisely the bullshit economy, all those managers who supervise other managers, all those people whose job is ultimately to convince you the existence of their jobs is not insane 3/

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David Graeber

@davidgraeber

May 4, 2020

I think if I start writing something it will focus on what was shaping up before the pandemic, & how it might influence what will happen after. I mean, aside from obvious stuff like the breakneck destruction of the planet 1/

first of all, all economists agreed that some sort of economic blow-out was coming, based on unsupportable levels of personal debt & the normal workings of the business cycle. A crash was due & Central Banks were pumping money furiously to slow or soften it 2/

2nd of all, there was an unprecedented wave of popular unrest over late 2019-e2020, much unreported, everywhere from Haiti to Hong Kong to the Gilets Jaunes to Sudan to... someone listed like 40 uprisings, non-violent or otherwise. This was extraordinary 3/

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