Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 16m

“Although the movement’s actions are based on local struggles, it is part of a broader post-capitalist & post-development struggle. The movement aims to abolish the patriarchal, colonial, racist & extractivist growth regime…” #degrowth

- @degrowthinfo.bsky.social
degrowth.info/en/blog/we-i...

"We invent nothing, or only very little." A portrait of Les Soulèvements de la Terre and some reflections

In this article Myriam Best analyses the ongoing french movement Earth Uprisings which struggles for land and water commons and the dismantlement of the techno-industrial capitalist complex.

degrowth.info

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Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 41m

“Wisdom is the ability to look forward & backward, to see both sides of life with no illusions.” - Dr. Alexander Lowen
open.substack.com/pub/poeticou...

Wisdom Is...

By: Dr. Alexander Lowen

open.substack.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 55m

Thousands of Palestinians Return to #GazaCity to Find a Wasteland of Rubble
open.substack.com/pub/dropsite...

Thousands of Palestinians Return to Gaza City to Find a Wasteland of Rubble

“There’s nothing left for them to destroy.”

open.substack.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 1h

“William Ophuls argues, industrial civilisation is inherently expansionary. It cannot simply ‘stabilise’ at a sustainable level. In thermodynamic terms, it has no steady state setting. Collapse is the inevitable outcome of a system whose survival depends on growth…” #PostCapitalism #Degrowth

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 1h

“William Catton called this temporary expansion ‘phantom carrying capacity’: the illusion the Earth can support more people than it actually can because we are drawing down stocks of oil, gas, coal, topsoil, forests & freshwater faster than they can regenerate.”
open.substack.com/pub/adrianla...

Collapse: A Framework for Understanding and Navigating the Decline of Industrial Civilisation

Global industrial civilisation is collapsing and there is nothing we can do to prevent it.

open.substack.com

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Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 1h

Against the Burden of Knowledge
open.substack.com/pub/theseeds...

Against the Burden of Knowledge

Why the most intuitive explanation for ideas getting harder to find is wrong

open.substack.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 2h

Starvation is a war crime. So why is it so rarely prosecuted?
www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

Starvation is a war crime. So why is it so rarely prosecuted?

From Bengal to Gaza, hunger is often used as a weapon of war but almost never punished.

www.aljazeera.com

Reposted by Phil Free

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 1d

V good @matsmarquardt.bsky.social @newclimate.bsky.social piece here - detailing exactly how American fossil fuel suppliers are fighting like mad demons to fabricate demand for their deadly products

newclimate.org/news/the-gas...

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Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 3h

Africa’s future runs on water. So treat it as essential infrastructure
www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

Africa’s future runs on water. So treat it as essential infrastructure

Shift from headline projects to reliable services, with communities shaping decisions and finance tied to real results.

www.aljazeera.com

Reposted by Phil Free

Phil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 3h

"For the first time the right are open and honest about what they're about, and it's best for us to face them as they are ... There are no good Tories. Only class conscious defenders of a decaying system."

What Happened to One Nation Conservatism?

The jamboree of delusion and extremism that was Conservative Party conference birthed a small, fleeting genre of political centrist-to-soft...

averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com

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Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 3h

“By ending rational debate, pure bullshit is often more effective than standard propaganda… since it does not simply invert the truth, but openly exhibits contempt for truth of any kind, advertising its muscular, scornful & evasive perspective.”
monthlyreview.org/articles/the...

The Trump Doctrine and the New MAGA Imperialism - Monthly Review

monthlyreview.org

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 4h

Africa’s Energy Future: Can China’s Investments Deliver a Just Transition?
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Africa’s Energy Future: Can China’s Investments Deliver a Just Transition?

China maintained a very close relationship with African countries prior to the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement. Even the influence of Russia and China during the Cold War helped countries achi...

www.tandfonline.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 17h

Lessons from La Guardia
jewishcurrents.org/lessons-from...

Lessons from La Guardia

Can Zohran Mamdani reshape New York—and national—politics like Mayor Fiorello La Guardia once did?

jewishcurrents.org

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 18h

Climate Disasters Are Catnip for Cynical Republicans
newrepublic.com/article/1977...

Climate Disasters Are Catnip for Cynical Republicans

While Democrats are ignoring the climate crisis, the right is using it as a handy source of chaos they can exploit to advance their own aims.

newrepublic.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 18h

The Latest Casualty of Trump’s War on Data Is a Critical Hunger Report
newrepublic.com/article/2007...

The Latest Casualty of Trump’s War on Data Is a Critical Hunger Report

The USDA abruptly decided to terminate an annual survey that policymakers and organizations use to help Americans struggling with food insecurity.

newrepublic.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 19h

“This isn’t family policy—it’s Christian nationalism in think tank gloss.”

The Right’s Insidious New “Manhattan Project for Babies”
newrepublic.com/article/2004...

The Right’s Insidious New “Manhattan Project for Babies”

The Heritage Foundation’s new “Manhattan Project for Babies” wraps Christian nationalism in the guise of a plan to raise birth rates.

newrepublic.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 19h

Democrats Look for a New Villain: The Groups or the Billionaires
newrepublic.com/article/2006...

Democrats Look for a New Villain: The Groups or the Billionaires

The latest divide among the liberals bucking to define the party’s next big campaign: Should they take on the oligarchs, or take their money?

newrepublic.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 20h

The Union Organizer Held in a Secret Detention Center He Helped Expose
newrepublic.com/article/1997...

The Union Organizer Held in a Secret Detention Center He Helped Expose

The government claims that Alfredo Juarez Zeferino’s work organizing farmworkers had nothing to do with why ICE targeted him.

newrepublic.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 21h

The West Has Helped Paul Kagame to Pillage the Congo
jacobin.com/2025/10/kaga...

The West Has Helped Paul Kagame to Pillage the Congo

For the last three decades, Rwanda’s leader Paul Kagame has fueled conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and ransacked its natural resources. The US and the EU have been Kagame’s partners in cr...

jacobin.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 22h

“The perversity at the centre of American liberalism is the fact that American liberalism’s towering achievement, the end of Jim Crow, is precisely what Israel violates.”

The Outcasts of Zion
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

The Outcasts of Zion - Boston Review

The manufacturing of Jewish Zionist consensus lies at the heart of American liberalism’s identity crisis.

www.bostonreview.net

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Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 22h

Greens show contrast with other major parties on disability cuts & refusal to stir up hostility to claimants - @johnpring.bsky.social
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/greens-show-...

Greens show contrast with other major parties on disability cuts and refusal to stir up hostility to claimants

The Green Party is set to continue to contrast its policy approach on disability with other political parties by supporting disabled people who rely on benefits and have already experienced years o…

www.disabilitynewsservice.com

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Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 23h

“I have very little confidence that DHSC’s review will put the wellbeing & safety of people with mental health needs ahead of the Labour governments agenda—to cut welfare spending & continue underfunding mental health services.”

- @johnpring.bsky.social
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/alarm-over-g...

Alarm over government’s choices to lead ‘over-diagnosis’ review that could help ministers cut benefits

The government’s decision to commission a review of alleged “over-diagnosis” of mental health conditions and neurodivergence has caused alarm among many disabled people, with fears that it will all…

www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 23h

Tory trio mislead party conference on disability benefits as they stir up hostility towards disabled claimants - @johnpring.bsky.social
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/tory-trio-mi...

Tory trio mislead party conference on disability benefits as they stir up hostility towards disabled claimants

A trio of leading Tories have used misleading and offensive statements at their annual conference in Manchester to scapegoat disabled people who rely on support from the benefits system and whip up…

www.disabilitynewsservice.com

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Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 23h

“A machine is not in charge of the world; it’s a small group of humans destroying the rest of us.”

Naming the Perp: Very Few People Cause All of the World's Worst Problems - @thomasneuburger.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/neuburge...

Naming the Perp: Very Few People Cause All of the World's Worst Problems

Less than 800 Americans have wealth that counts. 100 others control where wealth is invested. That's a very small list.

open.substack.com

Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 1d

“After all, crises have two possible endings. In one, the patient recovers. In the other, the patient is dead.”

Polycrisis revisited: Are we beyond Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome? - @adamtooze.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/adamtooz...

Chartbook 407: Polycrisis revisited: Are we beyond Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome?

Back in 2022 I coined the phrase polycrisis as one with which to describe the conjuncture.

open.substack.com