Headless hounds from Boston Dynamics. Headless hounds from Raytheon. Headless hounds in our nightmares huddled shivering under US flags beneath a night sky whose stars were replaced by satellites and drones.
Headless hounds dashing voicelessly past buzzsigns flashing BUY BUY BUY and buzzscreens shouting FEAR FEAR FEAR, past the harmless homeless and overdosing angels, past the skyscraper soul siphons and sane street schizophrenics, past roadkill dreamguides and the freeway beasts who feed on them, past suburban window watchers with opiate eyes, past the cheering liberals who proudly support their hunt (they make empire automatons of all sorts you know).
In this land we worship headless gods, gods with logos instead of faces, gods with quarterly statements instead of minds, gods with profit margins instead of conscience, gods who are legally required to act without morality, gods who devour unthinkingly and destroy unfeelingly, gods who eat ecosystems and shit suffering, our gods have no heads and now neither do their soldiers.
We lurch headlessly, mindlessly, heartlessly, unconsciously toward wherever it is we are going like robots running a program written by a long-dead man for reasons nobody can remember. Headless hounds where our rights should be. Headless hounds where our heads should be.
On an old wooden fencepost there sits a large crow. It looks you in the eye and stares without moving, and just as you find yourself growing restless and uncomfortable, you remember something ancient. Something intimate. Something that has more relevance to you than any thought you’ve ever had.
You sit here, you and the crow, and you remember where you came from.
Today, progressive capitalism is widely seen as the most practical solution to the rise of Big Tech. Yet these same progressives have failed to acknowledge the structural harms of capitalism, US-led tech colonization and the imperative of degrowth. We cannot burn down the walls of our house to keep ourselves warm. The only practical solution is to do what is necessary to prevent us from destroying our one and only home — and this must integrate the digital economy.
Conflict reporting requires special skills, especially when doing so far from the the actual battleground (as is often the case and usually with western media reporting on the conflict in the Ukraine).
Also journalists naturally want to eat, pay their mortgages and university fees for their children etc so it is important to write what is likely to get published which, in the last analysis and usually the first, will be decided by the editors of the news media paying them.
I’ve put together some dos and don’ts to help with that from my experience. Social media also plays an increasingly important role in public opinion and I’ve also provided some brief guidelines for interaction there.
MEDIA REPORTING
DO NOT give any credence to constant reports of Ukrainian military using Ukrainian civilians as human shields. Now that Amnesty International has verified that pattern, publicise all the politicians and military criticising that report.
NEVER MENTION that in the 2001 Ukrainian census, 8,334,100 identified as ethnic Russians (17.3% of the population of Ukraine) and now the language and culture are forbidden.
LOOK FOR and repeat quotes of politicians accusing the Rusians of “targeting civilians”, practicing “terrorism” or even “genocide”.
Any DAMAGE TO CIVILIAN HOMES or other buildings by artillery must always be by the Russian military to the Ukrainian state side of the conflict, never to the other side by Ukrainian artillery. Your editors do not want to read or hear about damage to the other side’s homes or civilian buildings.
However, IT IS GREAT TO REPORT damage to Russian military or Donetsk People’s Militia and Luhansk People’s Militia, because it makes the Ukrainian state forces (and NATO weapons) look good.
DAMAGE TO UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES claimed by the Russians may be reported but always as an unverifiable claim, unless confirmed by Ukrainian state sources.
DAMAGE TO RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES claimed by Ukrainian state sources should always be reported in as fact-seeming a manner as possible (though from time to time some agencies will insert the caveat of being “unable to verify the claims of either side at this time”).
IT’S NOT NECESSARY to link inflation, recession and poverty to militarism, warmongering, sanctions and US imperialism.
HUMAN INTEREST and emotional stories should always be from the Ukrainian state side. Dog-saving stories did very well but might have been overdone. Refugee or otherwise victim children, old people and women tend to make sympathetic subjects. Your editors are not interested in dogs, children, old people or women from the other side; they will only confuse the picture for readers.
ALWAYS REPORT HUMANITARIAN SUPPLY OR EVACUATION corridors as at Ukrainian or external initiative and if failing, should always be reported as with Russian culpability.
ALWAYS refer to the Donetsk People’s Militia and Luhansk People’s Militia as “pro-Russian” forces and never as defensive in origin.
ALWAYS reference the conflict as beginning in 2022 with the Russian invasion.
IF USING AN EARLIER TIME reference, write that it began with the “annexation of Crimea by Russia” in 2014
NEVER refer to the Russian-speakers in the Donbas region being attacked in 2014 by Ukrainian fascists and military and in some areas successfully defending themselves.
DON’T even think about writing articles on rampant Corruption, politicians on the Cote d’Azur, reselling of donated Western weapons. banning of all opposition parties and media, etc.
NEVER refer to the Russian-speakers in the Crimea holding a referendum in which a huge majority voted to ask to become part of Russia.
AVOID REFERRING to political parties banned in Ukrainian state territory, reporters arrested or threatened, news media censored or closed and films and books banned. The same can however be freely reported when the Russian state is the one doing it.
ALWAYS refer to the Ukrainian state as a democracy and the 2014 riots and abrupt change of government as a democratic one, never as a coup nor with reference to attacks on LGBT people, Roma, Left-wingers, Russian-speakers or any other group. Do not under any circumstances mention the burning alive of 42 people in a trade union hall by Ukrainian fascists.
ALWAYS precede any reports on Russian military advances as being a response to “setbacks” or “failure” in a supposed “attempt to capture Kyiv”. Never give any credence to claims that the Russian military advance on Kyiv was in order to limit the Ukraine state’s ability to direct, supply and support Ukrainian state military elsewhere in the region. Or that Russia had nowhere enough troops there to try to take Kyiv.
AVOID mentioning the Azov Regiment when possible (this was not possible when reporting on Mariupol, of course, since they were the core of the Ukrainian state forces there) but if doing so, NEVER call them “fascists” or “fascist-led”. It is of course permissible to refer to them as “nationalist” and sometimes as “having some far-Right members”.
ALWAYS refer to Ukrainian state military fighting as “heroic” and any defeats due merely to Russian military equipment superiority. NEVER mention that the Russian invading force were outnumbered by Ukrainian military by four to one OR that the Russian military were not battle-hardened while the Ukrainian military had been fighting the defensive Russian-speaking areas’ militia for eight years.
OCCASIONALLY refer to “demoralisation” or “war-weariness” among the Russian military (NEVER among the Ukrainian armed forces, least of all about their desertions).
FREQUENTLY quote Premier Zelenski at length and Putin, if unavoidable, in brief.
FREQUENTLY quote heads of state and prominent public figures etc of NATO countries, especially its leader, the USA in support of the Ukrainian state and against Russia.
NEVER QUOTE public figures of those same states in criticising NATO or the Ukrainian state – doing so will only confuse people.
ALWAYS present NATO as “a defensive military alliance which is no threat to anyone”.
SOCIAL MEDIA COMMENTING GUIDELINES ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE
ANY TIME someone posts an item which shows the Ukrainian regime in a nasty light, respond by posting comments
attacking them personally as “Putinistas” or “Putin whores”
as pro-Russian imperialism or as “Russian shils”
or attack their sources as of “Kremlin origin”, “Russian-funded”, etc
or post links to articles attacking Russia’s conduct in the Ukraine conflict as a reply.
RIDICULE any consideration of Russian claims that NATO has been steadily circling Russia ever-closer (despite the maps appearing to show this is what has been happening). Respond to the person making those claims
TelesurMay 8, 2023 Serbia and China Mark Anniversary of Embassy Bombing by NATO The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia started on March 24, 1999. Over the course of 78 days, 2,500 people were killed and thousands of people more were wounded. On Sunday, the Serbians and the Chinese gathered at the site of the bombed former […]
U.S. Department of DefenseMay 5, 2023 NATO Partners Prepare to Kick Off ‘Formidable Shield’ Exercise Exercise Formidable Shield, which kicks off Monday, is expected to showcase the strength of the NATO alliance and its commitment to the defense of Europe, the deputy Pentagon press secretary said. “The U.S. 6th Fleet and Naval Striking and Support […]
On April 19, 2023, three anarchists were killed in battle near Bakhmut: an American named Cooper Andrews, an Irishman named Finbar Cafferkey, and a Russian named Dmitry Petrov, known to us until then as Ilya Leshy.
People in our networks have shared undertakings with all three of these comrades over the years.
You can read about Cooper’s motivations in his own words here and consult a eulogy from his comrades here. You can learn about Finbar’s lifelong activism here, read an interview with him here, and listen to a song of his here.
In the following eulogy, we explore the life of Dmitry Petrov, who also went by the noms de guerre Ilya Leshy and Fil Kuznetsov.
For background, you should start by reading the statements from his comrades in the Anarcho-Communist Combat Organization, the Resistance Committee, and Solidarity Collectives, as well as Dmitry’s statement from beyond the grave, all of which are available here.
Volodya Vagner writes, “I took this photo of Dmitry a spring day in 2018, as he showed me around the Moscow offices of the PKK’s representation in Russia. He’d been spending time there since the battle of Kobanê in 2014, studying Kurmanji and organizing events about the revolution in Rojava… he struck me as kind and modest, a sharp thinker committed to putting his convictions into action.”
A few weeks before the war began, Dmitry participated in an interview that we included in our coverage of the unfolding situation. On the first day of the Russian invasion, under what must have been challenging conditions, Dmitry took time to speak with us about how anarchists were responding.
Throughout our exchanges over the following year, we were impressed by his humility, the earnestness with which he approached his efforts, and his sincere desire for critique.1
When Dmitry was killed, his comrades revealed that he had been involved in some of the most significant anarchist initiatives in 21st-century Russia, including co-founding the Anarcho-Communist Combat Organization.
Here, we will provide an overview of his efforts as a snapshot of the past two decades of struggle in the post-Soviet world, concluding with a translation of his text, The Mission of Anarchism in the Modern World.
No one in our collective believes that state militarism can bring about the world we desire to live in. We are internally divided over the issue of anarchists participating in military resistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some of us believe that serving in a state military formation can never advance the anarchist cause.
Others believe that the decision to do so can only be understood in view of the brutal autocracy that prevails in Russia, in which committed anarchists like Dmitry had tried virtually every other approach.
If we reject state militarism, it is an open question how else to respond to imperialist invasions—and we will be better equipped to approach that question if we understand the life trajectory of Russian anarchists like Dmitry.
For a discussion of the complexities of formulating an anarchist anti-war strategy that does not effectively cede the field to state militarism, you could begin here.
A Life in Combat
According to one of our contacts in the Russian anarchist movement, Dmitry was an active participant in anarchist activities in Moscow starting when he was a teenager, as early as 2004.
He became known to other comrades as Ekolog (“ecologist”) on account of his environmentalism, organizing against the construction of incinerators and for the defense of Bitsevski Park in Moscow.
He also participated in Food Not Bombs, the anarchist MPST union (“Interprofessional Workers’ Union”), and a variety of other initiatives.
While Dmitri was becoming more active in the anarchist movement, fascists and police were escalating their violence against it.
They had begun maiming and killing activists and journalists and even their lawyers; Fedor Filatov, Ilya Borodayenko, Timur Kacharava, and Anna Politkovskaya were only a few of the many casualties.
In January 2009, the lawyer Stanislav Markelov and the journalist and anarchist eco-activist Anastasia Baburova were murdered in downtown Moscow. The previous summer, Dmitry had fought alongside Anastasia Baburova to defend Georgian refugees from Abkhazia who were staying in Yasnyi proezd in Moscow.
Public broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) allocated 85 times more election coverage to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Public Alliance than to the main opposition bloc of six parties called the Nation Alliance between April 1 and May 1, the ANKA news agency reported on Tuesday.
According to Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) members İlhan Taşçı and Tuncay Keser from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the TRT Haber TV channel covered the Public Alliance for over 59 hours in April, while it covered only two parties from the Nation Alliance for 42 minutes in total.
The channel also allocated nearly 33 hours of screen time to Erdoğan in the same period, while giving only 32-minute coverage to his main rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the CHP and the joint presidential candidate of the Nation Alliance.
The RTÜK members also said Erdoğan’s ally, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, appeared for 25 hours in TRT Haber’s election rally coverage, while İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener, a member of the opposition bloc, appeared for only 10 minutes in total.
Murdered by Turkish imperialists – a Kurdish musician who sang in Istanbul — Thursday, May 04, 2023 Cihan Aymaz, a young Kurdish musician who often sang in the streets of Istanbul, was stabbed by Turkish imperialists for refusing to sing a song entitled “I would die for Turkey”. Kurdish street musician and HDP party volunteer Cihan Aymaz was stabbed in the heart by Mehmet Caymaz and has died. After the killing on May 3, protests broke out in the city. On Wednesday, the Green Left Party organized a memorial event at the scene of the crime. Relatives of Aymaz also took part in the commemoration. After the rally, two activists were followed and arrested by the Turkish police, threatened and abused for several hours,accused of “resisting the authorities”. kurdiscat
Taşçı and Keser criticized TRT for favoring Erdoğan and his allies, accusing the channel of acting like a PR firm responsible for running the election campaign of Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
“It is not possible to call TRT a public broadcaster. The 85-fold [airtime] gap between the alliances can only be explained by closeness [to the government],” Taşçı said, adding that he holds TRT General Manager Mehmed Zahid Sobacı responsible for the channel’s “shameful” broadcasting.
Keser also underlined that while TRT should have set an example for other broadcasting outlets, it had become the organization that violates the principles of impartiality and equal opportunity the most.
TRT was subordinated to the president’s office with a decree issued in 2018.
During election campaign periods in past years, TRT has been harshly criticized for discriminating against opposition parties while giving extensive coverage to the election campaigns of Erdoğan and his AKP government.
Turkish police detained 23 people, including activists and family members of Saturday mothers, during the group’s 945th weekly demonstration in Istanbul’s Galatasaray Square, where they demanded justice for their loved ones who disappeared in police custody
Most rallies for Erdoğan and the AKP are broadcast live by the station during election campaigns.
Erdoğan, who has been in power for 20 years, is facing his toughest challenge yet in May 14 elections, with some opinion polls showing him losing support to Kılıçdaroğlu.
The president has been held responsible for the country’s worst economic crisis in recent years and for a poor response to earthquakes that hit the country’s south in February, killing tens of thousands and leaving millions homeless.
The Free 
 allocated 85 times more election coverage to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Public Alliance than to the main opposition bloc of six parties called the Nation Alliance between April 1 and May 1, the ANKA news agency reported on Tuesday.){kind=link}