AllCatsAreBae

Shrill anarchist exhortations, provider of just enough rope

Writer and editor at CAW, an anarchist journal of arts, culture and analysis: https://cawshinythings.com

Author In Defense of Looting, The Extended Universe (forthcoming from Haymarket)

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VickyACAB@kolektiva-social.mostr.pub

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Last Notes

2025-04-03 03:53:05

If you're wondering what the chain of events the tariffs and trade war might set off, and how it might lead to war, revolutions, and maybe the global collapse of capitalism, I wrote a piece yesterday trying to think it all through
https://www.cawshinythings.com/liberation-day-is-here-2/

2025-02-17 20:04:26

One of the incredible things about 2020 was that activists, long-standing organizers and other "leaders", were, as is always the case in real revolutionary upheaval, trailing behind the uprising.
But there was also a distinct lack of imagination or capacity from those folks to pivot or make use of the rupture as it opened. I firmly believe we are headed toward another massive street level rupture, only because if we aren't we're in really deep fucking trouble so, while Im building mutual aid and planning as though we're not gonna hit the streets, I'm also trying to orient myself and my people strategically around taking advantage of another uprising, should it occur.
All of which is to say, I think that folks who have been in the struggle for a while need to get talking about how to move within the coming storms, because as we know these windows of possibility don't stay open very long.
It seems there are two major categories of activity we can imagine and plan for: one is things we can only do if there is a large crowd, the second are big things we can use the disruption of everyday repression to accomplish
For the former, we would try to imagine what could be done outside DC that could do real damage to the regime. I think targeting Teslas is a good example of this kind of thinking. If we had big crowds though, could we empty a jail? Shut down an immigration detention center? Historically taking out a jail, prison or dungeon has been one way to fundamentally destabilize a regime. To do so we'd have to have people beyond just organizers thinking about those places and their presence in our cities: I think one thing organizers could be doing therefore is drawing attention to them: it might be a good time for regular noise demos, for example.
Another thing big crowds could do would be take over and occupy abandoned commercial space, squatting spaces to make DIY hospitals, or housing for migrants and the unhoused. Here in Philly in 2020, a direct action and totally subrosa squatting movement that had already begun when the uprisings started was able to leverage them, via big public encampments, to take over a few dozen houses in Philly and put them into a land trust for formerly unhoused folks.
As for smaller crews, what are things that would build power? How about the locations of compounding pharmacies? Pharmacies were among the first places hit during the riots, but the focus was on sellable, illegal or expensive drugs. But if they were able to compound, they could have taken huge amounts of esters, chemical components that make up medicines, and create the basis for free pharmacies. How about solar panels, water filtration systems, other goods that increase autonomy and sustainability and survival? Or maybe there are particular enemies, fascists or bosses, who would be vulnerable in a moment like that?
Don't answer any of these questions online, lol, but I think they are questions we should be asking in our collectivss

2025-02-17 20:04:26

2025-02-17 06:12:31

Now would be a really important time for people in USPTO, NIH or NSF to compile and leak RX recipes, pharmaceutical manufacture methods and chemical compositions before that knowledge is literally destroyed

2025-02-12 12:26:37

I wrote a massive round up of all the stories and analyses I could easily recall from the last decade to demonstrate that, rather than "bending to Trump's will", Big Tech built the fascist social world. After reading this you'll never fall for the ole "these guys would do diversity and justice if it weren't for Donald Trump, and that's why they have a display case full of skull-measuring calipers in their office" again
https://www.cawshinythings.com/the-silicon-reich-part-one-2/

2025-01-06 19:28:59

Were incredibly grateful and overawed by the support we've received to launch our worker-owned anarchist journal of art and culture--CAW--and we're also only at 15% of our goal. Any amount you can contribute or share the fundraiser would be a huge help. Thanks so much! ✊️
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-launch-caw#/

2025-01-05 16:48:57

From CAW, our worker-owned anarchist journal, which we are currently fundraising for!!
Q: "Why are culture and art important while the world is burning?"
A: "The world has been burning since 1492. Art and culture have been crucial for creating a sense of belonging, spreading radical ideas, resisting empire, imagining new worlds, building community, and helping you find your murder."
Support us here:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-launch-caw#/
https://kolektiva.social/system/media_attachments/files/113/776/764/040/858/807/original/e014b18d7f18877c.jpg

2024-12-02 03:11:23

Very very excited for our new worker-owned anarchist writing collective CAW! We are currently fundraising to launch a full time anarchist project that will start with the work of me, Shuli Branson, Dani Burlison and carla joy bergman but will hopefully expand to support anarchist and autonomous writers and creative projects far beyond! But we will be bringing you podcasts, a zine and sticker distro, an anarchist advice column, film and music reviews, fiction, essays and interviews about struggle and mutual aid, and whatever other shiny things we can find to share! Please support our crowd funding campaign if you can, and join the murder!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-launch-caw#/

2024-09-28 17:57:28

"It's not just that people need us, although they do. If we only move to address a need we'll never get beyond charity and non-profit support. We need to move and build in a way that reflects the world we want to see. In this era of unmitigating horror it can feel so odd to speak of desire or pleasure. But watching children in Gaza create beautiful gardens in their tent shelters, or turning the ruins into playgrounds leads the way in my thinking on survival.
In the face of the unbearable, the best route out is wanting something better for ourselves and the rest of the world. We are overwhelmed, we are overburdened, there is too much, too much. But there is always something we can do for one another, for ourselves and our loved ones. It may not feel like enough, but sometimes, it is everything"
Support and turn out for folks in the South surviving the destruction of hurricane Helene!
https://all-cats-are-beautiful.ghost.io/all-out-for-the-south/

2024-08-19 18:36:28

Spurred by the 10 year anniversary of the Ferguson uprising, I wrote some reflections on revolution, where we are in this historical moment, and how we might think about and interpret the last fifteen years of struggle https://all-cats-are-beautiful.ghost.io/the-beginning-of-the-middle/

2024-08-05 16:40:29

Did you all know an epochal stock collapse seems to be in process today? Did you know the tech bubble is bursting, that Japan had the worst Monday since the start of the lost decade and the US markets had the worst open since Coronavirus shutdowns? I wrote about the joys of watching the financial class eat shit and why we should treat "economists" like Court Magicians or Haruspex
https://all-cats-are-beautiful.ghost.io/lets-all-watch-the-tech-economy-die/

2024-07-31 13:41:54

Like many other anarchists, one of my favorite phrases is "the thing to do is to start" but I don't often suggest a specific thing to begin doing. Of course, you know best what your life and your community needs, what you want to do. But sometimes our imaginations and desires need a little kickstart.
So here are some projects that, if I had infinite time and energy, I would begin and try to build and sustain. Maybe they will inspire you to do something similar!
https://all-cats-are-beautiful.ghost.io/how-to-get-started/

2024-06-06 00:04:47

Super excited and honored to have been on The Child and its Enemies Podcast! We had an amazing convo and the podcast is super exciting, yall can listen and subscribe here!!! https://shows.acast.com/the-child-and-its-enemies/episodes/vicky-osterweil-author-of-the-extended-universe

2024-04-17 16:18:52

Alex Garland's Civil War tells liberals they can look at civil strife in America the same way they look at it abroad: with the colonial gaze and its studied ignorance and tragic sigh about the ineffable cycle of violence. But despite the films reactionary intentions, it can't help but connect to more insurrectionary desires https://all-cats-are-beautiful.ghost.io/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-civil-war/

2024-03-21 11:47:26

I went on Death Panel to talk about the Biden Administration's strategy of denial and forced forgetting and how we can use remembering to resist, refuse, and organize against the fascist march. https://pca.st/episode/4292bde5-cd4e-4731-bcc1-1a6251e1c082

2024-03-14 18:53:56

I wrote a piece about Biden Administration's strategy of forced forgetting as state repression
"In an age of mass gaslighting and mass misinformation in the name of mass disablement and death, where the state offers us nothing except the comforting lie that this is normal, the simple stating of the facts, standing up for our own memories, becomes an act of resistance."
https://all-cats-are-beautiful.ghost.io/a-list-of-things-we-have-been-told-to-forget/

2024-03-08 17:24:41

For International Women's Day, please enjoy Sophie Lewis' searing account of the long colonialist history of Zionist-feminism. "Some of my best enemies are feminists"
https://salvage.zone/some-of-my-best-enemies-are-feminists-on-zionist-feminism/

2024-03-08 12:49:56

It was women textile workers and domestics leading bread riots that started the Russian revolution on this day in 1917! This movement overthrew the tsar and it would be 8 months before the Bolsheviks counter revolution. Happy International Women's Day!

2024-03-08 01:26:45

Biden's admin is a result of Trumpism, and as much as anyone else Trump granted Biden permission for his most cruel desires. The last four years have been a counterrevolutionary collapse into fascism via pandemic-denialism and out and out genocide at home and abroad https://all-cats-are-beautiful.ghost.io/joe-biden-is-the-franco-to-trumps-mussolini/