Amid the corpses produced by neoliberal capitalism and COVID-19, there are also flashes of hope, a chance to move beyond a contemporary resurgence of authoritarianism

Bill Barr and the Ghost of Fascism

George Floyd’s murder has to be understood as part of wider systemic politics indebted to the long legacy of a culture of racist terror that extends from slavery and Jim Crow to the scourge of racial mass incarceration and a politics of disposability

In a time of crisis, the relationship between language and politics becomes more vivid, if not urgent

The language of war is used by the mandarins of power to both address the indiscriminate viral pandemic that has brought capitalism to its knees and to reinforce and expand the political formations and global financial system that are incapable of dealing with the pandemic

Trump has played down the urgency of the pandemic, blamed the media for distorting its seriousness, and believes that brown people are more of a threat to national security than real threats such as a pandemic and climate change

In the face of the emerging tyranny and fascist politics that are spreading across the globe, it is time to merge a sense of moral outrage with a sense of civic courage and collective action

Democratic institutions such as the independent media, schools, the legal system, certain financial institutions, and higher education are under siege worldwide

The ghosts of fascism should terrify us, but most importantly, they should educate us and imbue us with a spirit of civic justice and collective action in the fight for a substantive and inclusive democracy

Language is emptied of substantive meaning, actions are removed from any notion of social responsibility, and truth is detached from the search for justice