The design could someday enable a fully decarbonized power grid, researchers say
“The problem is, you don’t get [renewable] energy when you want it,” Asegun Henry, mechanical engineer at MIT and author of the new Nature study, explained in a video call. “You only get it when the weather is favorable: when the Sun is out or the wind is blowing.”
One answer to this dilemma lies in what Henry calls “thermal batteries,” where power from renewable sources of energy, such as solar, is stored as heat.
Image: Felice Frankel.. A thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell (size 1 cm x 1 cm) mounted on a heat sink designed to measure the TPV cell efficiency. To measure the efficiency, the cell is exposed to an emitter and simultaneous measurements of electric power and heat flow through the device are taken.
Advantages:
The system would be modular so it can make electricity locally for a village or scaled up for a big city.
Although the TPV cell costs more than photovoltaic ones, the graphite storage is cheap and non polluting. They calculate the process to be 10 times cheaper than lithium batteries.
Engineers at MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have designed a heat engine with no moving parts. Their new demonstrations show that it converts heat to electricity with over 40 percent efficiency — a performance better than that of traditional steam turbines.
The heat engine is a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell, similar to a solar panel’s photovoltaic cells, that passively captures high-energy photons from a white-hot heat source and converts them into electricity. The team’s design can generate electricity from a heat source of between 1,900 to 2,400 degrees Celsius, or up to about 4,300 degrees Fahrenheit.
The researchers plan to incorporate the TPV cell into a grid-scale thermal battery. The system would absorb excess energy from renewable sources such as the sun and store that energy in heavily insulated banks of hot graphite. When the energy is needed, such as on overcast days, TPV cells would convert the heat into electricity, and dispatch the energy to a power grid.
With the new TPV cell, the team has now successfully demonstrated the main parts of the system in separate, small-scale experiments. They are working to integrate the parts to demonstrate a fully operational system. From there, they hope to scale up the system to replace fossil-fuel-driven power plants and enable a fully decarbonized power grid, supplied entirely by renewable energy.
“It’s a naturalized, state-sanctioned, normalized and deepening fascism, whose waves of violence seem to measure the strides of a giant… So here this question is key: What do we mean when we speak of feminism? Feminism cannot be defined at the surface level…It’s a struggle that is only renewed by restoring the historical memory of our women fighters, those who have been forgotten in the dustbins of revolutions… We cannot think of a feminism, an anti-patriarchy, without anti-capitalism, without anti-fascism, without anti-racism and without class struggle….”[1]
In the spring of 2017, a video of an anti-fascist being beaten at a counter demonstration in Berkley went viral.
The video depicted counter protestor Louise Rosealma being punched in the face and knocked to the ground by white supremacist and founder of Identity Evropa, Nathan Damigo.
On social media, in major news articles, and within movement circles, the video was the subject of extensive commentary. This incident and the various reactions to it tell us much about our current moment. It reveals that we are living through a time where alt-right, white nationalist, and neo-nazi forces are gaining momentum and becoming emboldened.
As the video circulated, the response of the far-right laid bare the depth of their misogyny and vividly illustrated the extent to which patriarchal ideology is a key component of their politics. Louise was doxed and viciously denigrated online – her personal information including home address and phone number was widely distributed and her career as a sex worker was publicised. She was called disgusting and a whore, and was inundated with both rape and death threats.
Photos of her being punched, as well as photos taken from her work in porn became the backdrop for a plethora of memes appearing on both the internet and the streets. For example on the streets of Berkley, oversized posters appeared showing Louise’s naked body beside Damigo’s smiling face with the text “I’d hit that” written across.[2]
Her attack and violence against women in general, was promoted and celebrated. Others chimed in on the video and their responses were equally revealing.
The reaction of liberal feminists was predictably disappointing and highlighted the many shortcomings of their political project.
Some speculated about whether or not the attack would have happened under Hilary. Others, framed Louise as a victim and in many cases as non-violent. Narratives circulated claiming she was attacked while attempting to deescalate and prevent the violence of others, or was attacked unprovoked while peacefully protesting.
A gendered pacifism was implied, and violence was presented as something done to Louise (as a woman), but not something that Louise (as a woman) could or would do. Hand-in-hand with these claims, were calls for police involvement and the arrest of Damigo.
In the typical style of carceral feminism, increased policing, criminalization, and incarceration were proposed as the appropriate response to the incident. Reactions coming from the left weren’t much better, and exposed the sexism ingrained in anti-fascist politics.
Posts, photos, and memes covering the incident were highly patronizing and critiqued Damigo on the basis that he was a coward for hitting a woman (assumed to weaker and less of a threat). Despite a long history of women putting their bodies on the line to fight fascism, physical confrontation was implicitly presented as the realm of men.
Even in supposedly progressive circles, the popular image of the anti-fascist is a male body; often a white male body that borrows heavily from the aesthetics of antifa movements in Europe. Based in a tacit denial of women’s agency, conversations about Louise became a matter of identity (of her being a woman), rather than a matter of politics or activity.
Last and certainly not least, this incident and the fact that it got so much attention speaks to the deep-seated racism that underlines both the left and the right.
Women get attacked all the time, white supremacists beat women all of the time, and women of colour disproportionately face the brunt of it.
Louise’s experience went viral and garnered such broad interest undoubtedly because she is a white, conventionally attractive cis-woman.
The far-right has been on the rise and over the course of the last several years their ideas have been gaining traction. First at the level of grassroots politics, and now more and more at the level of institutional politics, far-right ideology has a notable foothold. It isn’t only that far- right movements have grown, but further, that far-right ideas from the margins have seeped into the mainstream. The situation is bleak, but not hopeless.
We have to know our enemy and we have a lot of work to do; however, many of the options presented to us can be found lacking. We’re given the choice between a pacifying liberal feminism of “pussy hats” and “protective policing,” or a reductive anti-fascism defined by machismo and sexism.
Against such a backdrop, this article seeks to examine the gendered dimensions of fascist movements and anti-fascist struggle, as well as to consider the possibilities for an anti-fascism rooted in revolutionary feminism. For the purpose of this article, I use the term fascism/fascist broadly to refer to a complicated and diverse phenomenon that includes a plethora of far-right groups, ideologies, and movements, including white nationalists, neo-Nazis, ultra-patriots, the alternative right, identitarians, and traditionalists, amongst others.[3]
The article is divided into three distinct, yet interrelated parts, intended to cover the politics, practices, and histories of fascism, gender, and militant resistance. Part 1 explores the gender politics of fascism today, Part 2 examines the history of women’s participation in anti-fascist resistance, and Part 3 concludes with a consideration of the challenges and prospects for developing an explicitly feminist anti-fascism.
Part 1 – The Gender Politics of Fascism: Across the Spectrum of Fascist Sexisms
“Fascism, then, is an exacerbation, a more militant extension, of the patriarchal relationships between men and women that have persisted for centuries. It is a worsening of the fantasies, the violence, the misshapen desires that the whole system of gender relationships that have long pertained in European societies and those in the new world that are descended from them. Rather than a thing, which is categorically distinct from other social and political systems, fascism is a process, which can easily recur, and wherein we can see men, and groups of men, who have commenced the journey.”[4]
Following the death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, an organizer of the Unite the Right event commented that Heather was a “fat, disgusting, communist” and her death was “payback.”
32-year-old paralegal was killed when a car ploughed into protesters (Go Fund Me / Heather Heyer)Mr Kessler, who blamed “anti-white hate” for violent clashes between protesters, tweeted: “Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist. Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time.”
[5] In a similar vein, comments were posted online celebrating her murder and calling her a “useless slut” on the grounds that “a 32-year old woman without children is a burden on society and has no value.”[6]
Beyond being attacked for her anti-fascist politics, Heather was attacked for being a woman. At the 2018 Women’s March in Seattle, posters exclaiming “Make women property again” made an appearance.[7]
During this same time at a similar march in Providence, members of the white nationalist group Vanguard America showed up with a banner reading “Feminists Deserve The Rope.”[8]
On International Women’s Day, an article on a popular neo-nazi website proposed that an “International Burn a Witch Day” and an “International Shame a THOT Day” be celebrated as “it’s only fair that we reward AND punish.”[9] Only a few years earlier at an International Women’s Day celebration in Sweden, neo-Nazis attacked the crowd and seriously injured five women.[10]
More recently, in Santiago this past July a feminist march in support of free and legal abortion in Chile was attacked by the fascist group the Social Patriotic Movement. Several hundred members of the group – infamous for describing feminists as animals and arguing for their sterilization – attempted to block the march and in the process covered the streets in animal blood, physically attacked the demonstrators, and stabbed three women.[11]
Such examples are seemingly endless.
Incidents such as these are taking place with growing frequency, as those on the far- right increasingly decry the role of feminism in propagating “Cultural Marxism” and destroying “Western Civilization.”[12]
Echoing the idea promoted in Nazi Germany that women’s emancipation “would destroy the German race and lead to the introduction of Bolshevism,” feminism (and women) are still the enemy.[13]
Then, as in now, patriarchy is fundamental to fascism. Taking this assertion as a starting point, this section focuses on where and how the question of gender fits into fascism. To do so, I explore the rise of the Alt-Right, examine the differing perspectives on gender and sexuality found on the contemporary far-right and finally, consider the role of the “white women victim” trope in propping up white supremacy.
MRA’s, “the Manosphere,” and the Rise of the Alt-Right
The current resurgence and proliferation of far-right movements in North America has frequently been linked to the rise of the Alt-Right. Short for the alternative right, the Alt-Right can be understood as a loosely organized collection of ideological tendencies, groups, podcasts, websites, think-tanks, and figureheads that have created a new breed of white supremacy. It takes inspiration from the identarian ideas of the European New Right and is tied together by “a contempt for both liberal multiculturalism and mainstream conservatism”[14] and a “trenchant opposition to all socio-economic, cultural, and political propositions based on egalitarianism and collectivity.”[15]
While it is best known for its politics of white nationalism and antisemitism, politics of misogyny are also formative. Patriarchal ideology fundamentally shapes the Alt-Right and misogyny is undoubtedly one of its central pillars.[16] The Alt-Right advocates not only for white supremacy, but more specifically for white male supremacy.[17]
Sexism rather racism, is the gateway drug that has led many to join the Alt-Right.[18]
Romano explains: “The basic idea that ‘women are getting too out of hand’ is the patriarchal common denominator. And it aligns perfectly with male rage against ‘social justice’ activism, which in turn paves the way for white nationalism and white supremacy to gain a foothold.”[19]
To understand this dynamic, it is useful to look at some of the precursors to the Alt-Right movement.
Countless observers have linked the Alt-Right to the so-called “the Manosphere,” arguing that the Alt-Right arose in part from and continues to be closely intertwined.[20]
Emerging in and around the 2010s, the manosphere is most simply defined as “an online antifeminist male subculture that has grown rapidly in recent years, largely outside of traditional right-wing” circles.[21]
It entails a disparate network of websites, internet forums, blogs, and videos that focus on men’s issues, share a chauvinistic orientation, and are united by an emphasis on male victimhood. Those involved speak out against the tyranny of SJWs (social justice warriors) and PC (politically correct) culture, and condemn feminism, along with other equity seeking movements as instigators of societal decline.
The manosphere first entered the public limelight in 2014 with the “Gamergate” controversy, in which a large online campaign was undertaken against a number of women who worked in the video game industry and had spoken out against sexism. Supporters of Gamergate claimed that the campaign was about defending free speech and fighting for journalistic ethics, however, in practice the campaign marked a blatant attack against women in the industry. In the words of one researcher: “This campaign took the diffuse online harassment of women and sharpened it into coordinated attacks against specific women, who faced stream of misogynistic invective, rape, and death threats, and doxing.”[22]
This event was a harbinger of things to come, foreshadowing the rise of the Alt-Right and offering a glimpse into the future.[23] Indeed, the tactics forged by Gamergaters such as online harassment, targeted abuse, and doxing, were picked up by the Alt-Right and have become a common tool of the far- right.[24]
The manosphere universe is comprised of a variety of different and overlapping circles, including MRAs, PUAs, MGTOWs, and INCELs.
The first of which, Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) assert that the legal system, media, and society at large unfairly discriminate against men. They talk of misandry, argue that men (and not women) are oppressed and otherwise disadvantaged, and advocate on a number of different issues such as suicide, domestic abuse, and child custody. The metaphor of “the red pill” is central; evoked to describe one’s awakening to the dark truths of our world such as “feminism is toxic, sexism is fake, men have it harder than women, and everything the media teaches about relationships is a lie.”[25]
Paul Elam, founder of the influential MRA website A Voice for Men has promoted beating women[26] and infamously commented “there are a lot of women who get pummeled and pumped because they are stupid (and often arrogant) enough to walk through life with the equivalent of a I’M A STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH – PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads.”[27] Their vitriolic hatred of women is undeniable.
You may remember at the start of the Pandemic reading how the wonderful vaccines replace your Innate Immune Response. Vaccines do this to avoid a confused outcome. But that was before they finally had to admit the vaccines DON’T give immunity, DON’T actually prevent Covid infection or propagation, just (maybe) make it milder. That leaves us eventually with NO IMMUNE SYSTEM. At that point the billionaire criminals had to legally and ethically WITHDRAW the vaccines! So it’s no surprise to us, despite the Billions of Covid Lies, that many of us are ending up tragically with AIDS, that is, a destroyed Innate Immune System, with every booster making it worse.
Something is very wrong, and it is because of the Covid-19 injections.
All around the world, Governments are publishing official data that all show the same thing. Those same Governments however are not willing to explain why.
Instead, they are quietly publishing data in the hope that it will get swept under the carpet whilst they have you distracted by war in Ukraine and worrying about the cost of living; a crisis created by Government policy.
But with the publication of confidential Pfizer documents, Governments around the world are running out of places to hide, and if these worrying trends continue, they will be forced to admit the Covid-19 injections are either causing Antibody-Dependent Enhancement or something much worse.
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. AIDS
Whilst rare, it is perfectly possible for a medication or drug to cause Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, and data published by Public Health Scotland, the New Zealand Ministry of Health, the Government of Canada, the UK Health Security Agency, the Office for National Statistics, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control strongly suggests the Covid-19 injections should be added to the list.
How else can Governments around the world explain the fact the fully vaccinated are more likely to be infected with Covid-19, more likely to be hospitalised with Covid-19, and more likely to die of Covid-19 than the unvaccinated?
How else can Governments around the world explain the huge rise in all-cause mortality rates among the fully vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated?
How else can Governments around the world explain the 1,145% to 33,715% increase in AIDS-related diseases, cancers and infections reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in 2021?
Yanomami observing gold mining site in their territory – photo of Yanomami, Alto Orinoco, Amazonas, Venezuela and photo montage – Barbara Crane Navarro
PLEASE LISTEN TO THE YANOMAMI SHAMAN’S MESSAGE – THE PLEA OF THE RAINFOREST! –
« Hey – Look at me
We see you
We tried to show you
You never bothered to learn our language
You were always looking down
We’ve been warning you since the beginning
The land is alive
This land can’t be owned
This land is us
All of us
You wanted the stones
The Gold
Your shiny things
Titles – Flags – Profits
You called that progress
We tried to teach you
But you’ve always been so greedy
Too primitive – Too savage
To understand
Now you still bring curses over the Yanomami
Illnesses
And once again we are dying because of it
And all indigenous land is being turned into
ashes and mud
Five centuries
You never looked up to discover
what we were holding in place
The sky itself
Your cities can see it
Your crops can see it
Your kids can see it
We can see it in your lungs
Take a deep breath
Open your eyes and look up
Can you finally see it ?
Help the Yanomami hold up the sky »
PLEASE SAY NO to GOLD !
And please buy products that don’t destroy Nature and indigenous lives !
(This video contains flashing images – viewer discretion is advised):
Cases of human rights violations in Turkey in April included 169 deaths and 339 incidents of torture or maltreatment, with 78 of them taking place in prisons, where five inmates also died, local media reported on Saturday, citing a report by a main opposition party lawmaker.
Meanwhile Turkey is excused and given bribes and honours to support Western Nato expansion on Russian Borders.
Erdogan, the ‘elected dictator’ is demanding extradition of Kurds exiled to Scandinavian countries on blatantly false terrorism charges, as well as a litany of other military and political concessions, in exchange for voting yes to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.
The NATO expansion is a ‘Russian Red Line’ as it will eventually put US nuclear missiles on Russia’s border just 7 minutes flying time from Moscow
The April report on human rights violations in Turkey was drafted by Sezgin Tanrıkulu, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), a prominent human rights activist and deputy chair of a parliamentary committee on human rights.
According to the report, 129 workers, 29 women, five inmates and five refugees were among those whose right to life was violated last month.
April also saw 339 incidents of torture or maltreatment, with 78 of them taking place in prisons, the report said.
“Considering those who were beaten, rear-handcuffed … during detention at meetings and demonstrations and those who didn’t disclose or file a criminal complaint about it despite being mistreated, it becomes clear that the actual number is much higher than this,” Tanrıkulu said in the report.
In the meetings and demonstrations held in April, at least 136 people were subjected to physical violence by the police, the report further showed.
The US Department of State released its annual human rights report on Turkey in April in which it listed widespread rights violations in 2021.
The US report included credible reports of arbitrary killings, suspicious deaths of persons in custody, forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrest and the continued detention of tens of thousands of persons for purported ties to “terrorist” groups or peaceful legitimate speech as being among the significant human rights issues in the country.
Ill-treatment and torture have become widespread and systematic in Turkish detention centers and prisons.
Lack of condemnation from higher officials and a readiness to cover up allegations rather than investigate them have resulted in widespread impunity for the security forces.
Regarding violations of the right to freedom of speech the MP’s report showed that one journalist was detained and one arrested; four members of the press, an author and a publisher were convicted; and four journalists were attacked in April.
According to the report, Turkish police intervened in at least 45 demonstrations, public press statements and gatherings last month, detaining at least 288 and arresting four among those who attended the events.
Also, either an investigation or a legal case was launched against 33 people for attending the events. At least nine similar events were banned by provincial and district governors’ offices.
As part of violations of freedom of association, 26 mayors, lawmakers and party officials were arrested, the report also said.
It also showed that Turkey’s broadcasting watchdog, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), in April blocked access to some content of nine publications, including the Sözcü daily and news websites such as T24 and BBC Turkish, in addition to imposing fines on news channels KRT TV, HALK TV and TELE1.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry has rejected the US report, but knows there will be no consequences, saying the “unfounded allegations” about Turkey in the report “are unfortunate and we reject them totally.’
The demo will begin at 6:00 p.m. at Plaza Universidad and is promoted by more than 50 social entities and labor unions
May 20, 2022 / By Sindicat de Logateres de Catalunya/ translation thefreeonline shared with thanks
“After almost 2 million evictions in the last 10 years, we cannot allow one more. We must recover the social function of housing, today hijacked by banks, vulture funds and large owners" said Lucía Delgado, spokesperson for the Catalan PAHs, during today's press conference held at the headquarters of the Government Delegation in Catalonia .
The cost of living is becoming unsustainable for many families: the price of food and supplies is rising, precariousness dominates the labor market and access to housing is impossible for the majority of the population.
That is why the social movements have today made an appeal to the Government Delegation in Catalonia to take to the streets of Barcelona next Saturday, May 21 at 6:00 p.m. at the Pl.Universitat de Barcelona under the slogan #AixíNoPodemViure.
In the press conference, Lucia Delgado, from the PAH; Guillem Aragonés, from the Tenants Union; Max Carbonell of the Legal Commission of the I Housing Congress of Catalonia; María Campuzano from the Alliance Against Energy Poverty and Iru Moner from the CGT and Iolanda Segura from the IAC, as representatives of the Trade Union Table of Catalonia.
"Fem una crida a l'inici d'un nou cicle de lluita per recuperar drets que ens pertoquen a la clase treballadora Colze a colze, unitat i acció" 🔥🔥#AixiNoPodemViurepic.twitter.com/BrvUtvOTlm
The choice of place is not accidental: the entities have chosen the seat of the Spanish government at a time when it is dealing with the approval of the Housing Bill, in which the application of mechanisms to stop evictions is at stake, such as the obligation to offer social rent and the extension of guarantees for tenants, such as rent regulation (which was rendered ineffective in Catalonia by a Constitutional Court ruling), the limitation of interannual increases linked to the CPI to 2% or the obligation that the landlords bear the cost of the fees.
“The housing law can be an opportunity to recover price regulation, to puncture the rental bubble and solve the two great precariousness that tenants experience: price increases and non-renewal of contracts” -he points out Guillem Aragonés from the Union of Llogateres of Catalonia.
Max Carbonell, from the Legal Commission of the 1st Housing Congress, has reproached the governments for the increasing repression that social movements have been suffering in Catalonia since 2020: “The housing movement alone has accumulated more than €400,000 in fines over the last few years. three years to defend the homes of the people and the right to a dignified life”.
María Campuzano, from the Alliance Against Energy Poverty, blames the energy lobbies for the wild increase in prices in recent years: “Democratizing energy is essential to lower the prices of basic goods and face the climate crisis ”.
For his part, Iru Moner, of the CGT Catalonia, has emphasized the effects of inflation, which since the end of last year has been achieving records that had not been seen in 30 years: “Wages have stagnated.
Inflation has repercussions on the working class, because it is an issue that makes it difficult to access basic goods”. Iolanda Segura, from the IAC, has also participated, denouncing that housing does not have to be a necessity, but rather a right.
RODA DE PREMSA
El cost de la vida és insostenible per a moltes llars. Avui ens plantem davant la Delegació de Govern per convocar la manifestació d'aquest dissabte. #AixíNoPodemViure
— Sindicat de Llogateres i Llogaters (@SindicatLloguer) May 19, 2022
For all these reasons, the entities call for the general mobilization of the entire population. For most of the recent crises we have not come out any better, rather the opposite: each new economic and social shock has served to transfer wealth into the hands of a few.
The Spanish state is the European Union country with the most inequality, according to the European Commission. On the other hand, published studies show that income differences grow more during economic recessions like the current one.
Back in 1995, Christian Moullec embarked on his first migration alongside a flock of lesser white-fronted geese that he intended to introduce to Sweden.
He flew an adapted delta plane alongside the birds, which were threatened after being overhunted, and protect them on their journey.
This initial mission quickly morphed into a now decades-long project of training avian populations to utilize more secure paths as they travel across Europe, ensuring that the already dwindled species would survive the trek and be able to reproduce.
English YouTuber and educator Tom Scott (previously) joins Moullec on one of the flights above Southern France as they fly in a microlight aircraft just inches from the animals—Scott is so close that he’s able to touch a goose’s tail feathers.
Reaching this level of intimacy takes dedication and immersion in the flock, Moullec shares, saying that he raises the birds, sleeps with them, and even bathes in the pond on his property.[
This establishes trust and is essential as they define their routes, which sometimes traverse thousands of kilometers each day. “I’m not the one who teaches the birds to fly with me,” Moullec shares. “I’ve been flying with birds for 27 years, and they taught me how to fly with them.”
In addition to his conservation-oriented flights, Moullec offers passenger trips for those interested in joining the flock, and you can find more about his work on his site
