What You Should Know
06/15/22
I think I’m gonna start sending out a weekly “what you should know” note — articles I’ve read, things I’ve watched, stuff that I found interesting enough to remember. Doing this partially for myself but also as a service to you, dear reader. Curation is king.
Lots of emigre and fascism-adjacent reading this week. Enjoy.
—Yasha
Why Ron DeSantis is Evil — A hip young trad look at Republican politics. More insightful than most: “there are virtues that come along with having a performance artist like Trump in office. His decadence is both a product of and the rock that shattered the already crumbling remains of the liberal democratic establishment. But most importantly, he injects humor into a direly bourgeois, self-serious culture. … The difference with DeSantis is that for him, this is not a joke–he’s totally serious. There’s no room for play, for tension between God and the devil–it’s straight up demonic.”
Low-tech Magazine: The Comic — I nice intro to the guy behind this really unique mag, which I’ve been reading for probably a decade.
Azov loved Dugin? — I’m not sure about all this talk about Dugin’s influence on Putin, who has got other more old school thinkers he’s into (Evgenia and I talked about it before). But it is funny that given the supposed cultural incompatibility of Ukraine and Russia, the “spiritual” thinkers on both sides of this supposed civilizational conflict have worked with each other, are basically inspired by the same set of philosophical and political influences, and are claiming to fight the same thing: liberalism, globalization, modernity.
…pairs well with Lev Golinkin’s look at how America choses to whitewash and lionize Ukraine’s premier fascist paramilitary group, Azov.
…and Moss Robeson’s look at a hip young Azov delegation doing the rounds in America. Everything is fine.
Putting this on my reading list. A book investigating the bullshit antisemitism accusation campaign designed to knee-cap Jeremy Corbyn.
The rest is for subscribers only…