Update: Crackback Edition

NinaIllingworth March 9, 2022November 5, 2022 anti war, anti-imperialism, antifascism, ASNinaWrites on Twitter, AstroTurf, Azov Battalion, back injury, Canadian QAnon, Discord, Duginism, FA1, Facebook, fake trucker protest, fascism, fascist occupation, invasions are not anti-war, KBS, KBS Pod, Kropotkin's Barbershop, Mastodon, militias, NATO, neonazi, NIDC, Nina Bloc, Nina Illingworth, Ottawa occupation, personal, Podcast, producerism, QAnon, Russia, Russian invasion of Ukraine, sick of tankie bullshit, Site Updates, social media, The Library, Trucker protest, Twitter, Ukraine, Upcoming, update, Vladdy Putin, Wagner Group, WD7

Author’s note: I’ve been away a while; this post discusses why and what my upcoming work schedule looks like.

How Not to Fall

At this point, I’ve wasted about nine days trying to figure out how to write this post; so I’m just going to cut right to the chase. I haven’t been writing much over the past ten weeks, because I had a slip and fall accident halfway through December. I stepped on a patch of melted ice at the top of my back deck staircase, and went full head over heels before I hit the stairs flat on my back. As a friend from my Discord described it, I did the full Shawn Michaels; except from a height of about five and a half feet in the air.

The end result of all this turned out to be a fractured eighth vertebrae; which did little to effectively describe the pulverized mess where part of my spine was supposed to be, when I saw it on x-rays. The injury itself took six weeks to heal up just enough for physiotherapy. I simultaneously spent roughly nine weeks on a powerful opioid painkiller that basically zombified me. In other words, I was in no condition to write.

At this point, I’m neither completely fine, nor totally incapable of working. The good news is that I’m back on Twitter, posting analysis that makes precisely nobody happy. I’ve also been working on a left wing, current affairs podcast called Kropotkin’s Barbershop with three of my friends. The bad news is that still can’t sit in an office chair long enough to tap out a multi-thousand word essay. I suspect the day I can is coming, but it’s not here yet.

While I Was Away

Of course, just because I was recovering from an injury, doesn’t mean the world stopped spinning. Like many of you reading this, I have spent almost the entirety of 2022 watching the news in abject horror. From the seemingly unstoppable march of American fascism, to the Orwellian triumph of capitalism over public safety during the coronavirus pandemic, it’s been a pretty shitty time to be a marginalized prole recently; to say nothing of war refugees and climate crisis victims in the so-called developing world.

Unfortunately, given my reduced capabilities and the increasing speed of the news cycle, I have neither the time nor energy to go back and share my thoughts on the vast majority of these stories. There are however, two stories that have roiled the sick joke of a community that passes for the Pig Empire “online left,” about which I feel the need to briefly comment before we go any further.

First; there is nothing revolutionary about supporting fascists, racists, and anti-vax conspiracy morons calling themselves “truckers.” An Astroturf occupation by petite bourgeoisie owner operators to remove regulations protecting vulnerable service industry workers is not class war on behalf of labor. Cracker Q-Anon freaks and militiamen are not allies for the left.

Second; while the Pig Empire, Ukrainian neo-nazis, and NATO can sincerely tongue my hoop, there is nothing anti-imperialist about supporting a billionaire fascist’s imperial invasion. Vladimir Putin is not an anti-fascist, or a communist; he’s a reactionary oil thug happily engaging in war crimes. If the plausibly Duginist President of Russia wants to de-nazify a country, he could start at home.

These are not only my studied opinions, but the official editorial line on these subjects going forward here on NIDC. If that’s a problem for anyone reading this, please know you will be missed.

What Happens Next

In light of my physical limitations, and the fact that I’m already behind, I’ve decided to ease back into a regular work schedule. Right now, I’ve got recording sessions for a new episode of Nina Bloc, and the KBS podcast lined up over the next few days. In the meantime, I’m going to publish splash pages for a couple of new(ish) episodes of Kropotkin’s Barbershop. After that, I’d like add roughly twenty new book listings to the NIDC Library collection.

Overall, I’d expect all of that to take me two or three days. Once I’m a little more caught up, I’ll start firing up my social media pages and blogs one by one. I’ll begin with short burst analysis, and hopefully work my way up to essays before too long. For now, you should be able to find me on Twitter, Mastodon, and Discord almost every day; check the independently-operated @ASNinaWrites publicity account for more updates.

I’d like to conclude by thanking you for your patience during my ongoing recovery process. If I knew fracturing a vertebrae over Christmas was going to be this much of a drag, I would simply have not hurled myself off the top of the back deck. Until next time, give the machine the hell it so richly deserves, and goodnight.