#capitalist modernity

[standwithdaanes]

A homeless man was charged with a felony for camping. He's one of the first

When Joseph Lamont Williams refused to leave the public park where he has lived for years, he was charged with a felony. Camping bans are on

When he refused to leave the Nashville public park where he has lived for the past several years, Williams became one of a handful of homeless people in the country to be arrested and charged with a felony for camping on public property. Eleven states have passed homeless camping bans over the last four years, according to the National Homelessness Law Center. In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities can ban people from sleeping and camping in public, more than 300 municipalities have joined them. Supporters of these laws say they enable public officials to enforce rules that already exist and provide incentive for unhoused people to seek shelter. But opponents call the laws cruel and say that an arrest record only makes it harder for those experiencing homelessness to secure a job or a home. The maximum penalty for felony camping in Tennessee is six years in prison. Williams pled to a lesser charge and was released from jail after nine days. "The slickest thing was asking me if I knew what I was pleading to," Williams said. "I'm just trying to plead to get out of here." [...] Williams was one of two people arrested in the park on June 28 and charged under Tennessee's no-camping law — the only one in the country to make sleeping on public property a felony. Though the law was passed in 2022, advocates for the unhoused say they have never before seen it used like this. [...]

Homelessness in Nashville has been on the rise, according to the city's Homelessness Planning Council, which in December 2025 estimated that roughly 4,300 people experience homelessness in the city, an uptick of more than 30% in less than a year. Nationally, homelessness has dipped slightly after reaching record levels in 2024. But chronic homelessness has grown, according to 2025 data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD's most recent tally of chronically homeless people in the U.S. found more than 155,000. Camping bans differ from state to state — some enable the state to level penalties against cities that refuse to enforce the ban; others make it easier for law enforcement to involuntarily commit people experiencing homelessness — but the broad strokes are the same. No camping, or sleeping, on public property. Many state legislatorshave taken inspiration, or even borrowed legislative language, from the Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank founded by tech billionaire Joe Lonsdale. Lonsdale is a co-founder of Palantir, whose data mining software has been used by local and federal law enforcement, including the CIA and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). [...] Devon Kurtz, who oversees Cicero's homelessness and public safety policy efforts, has been a vocal critic of the longstanding program model known as Housing First, saying it is ineffective. Housing First, which has long been promoted by experts and homeless outreach workers, aims to get unhoused people into stable housing before attempting to address any other needs, such as mental illness and drug or alcohol addiction. [...]

"My hope is that no one is ever convicted under any of these camping bans," Kurtz said. "The intention is not to jail people. I've also said, however, that sometimes, at the margins, it is essential that law enforcement has the ability to jail them because it can save lives." Nashville's oldest homeless enclave, Old Tent City, was disbanded last year. The area along the Cumberland River where more than 100 people once lived is now encircled by fences and no-trespassing signs. Krinks said the encampment had been there since the 1980s. Krinks has seen more security cameras installed around public parks and benches ripped out of the ground in downtown Nashville. The no-camping felony, she said, only makes things more dire for the city's homeless community. "Punishing people and using police to address homelessness only makes the crisis worse, and it prolongs people's experience of homelessness," said Krinks, who also helped start the statewide coalition Housing for All Tennessee. "Most people I know experiencing homelessness are so hungry for freedom, for agency, for their dignity to be seen and recognized and understood. Jail erodes every aspect of a person's agency." If you ask Williams how long he's been living in the park, he'll say he doesn't think of it that way. It's not living, he says. It's a place he goes to stay because he doesn't feel like he has anywhere else. Williams has been offered a bed at a Nashville shelter. He's been approached by service providers over the years. But he doesn't trust those organizations, and doesn't want to leave the neighborhood he considers his own. Instead, he sleeps sprawled across the wooden picnic tables, heats his food up in the sun and does pullups on the monkey bars at the playground. But the park is not home. Home is the aging public housing complex just up the hill; that's where he grew up. Williams can see it from the picnic benches. No one lives there now. [...]

Last month, prosecutors charged Williams with two felony counts of camping and one misdemeanor charge of evading arrest. According to charging documents, Williams attempted to flee after police officers told him they had a warrant for his arrest. That's when he was tased. Alissa Heydari, a court-appointed attorney who represented Williams in the camping case, said the arrest "makes what is already a very difficult life situation for Mr. Williams harder and worse." Williams pled guilty to the misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to time served. Prosecutors dropped the two felony counts on the condition of his plea, Heydari said. He was released from custody on July 6, nine days after his arrest. As far as Cicero is concerned, this is the law working as it should.

Joseph Williams, 49, a chronically homeless man, was arrested on June 28 and charged with two felony counts of camping on state property after police found him living in a public park in East Nashville. He spent nine days in jail before the felony charges were dismissed by a judge. After his release, he returned to the park.

[standwithdaanes]

It's the 250th Fourth of July or something. Let's talk about democracy.

The United States cannot be saved by returning to the Revolutionary War or the Founding Fathers or the Enlightenment. We cannot find the solution to Western imperialism from the core of Western imperialism; we cannot find the escape from capitalist modernity from within capitalist modernity.

Every terrible thing that is happening in the United States - and all that which seeps out from it to the rest of the Americas and the rest of the world - can be traced back to authoritarianism, hierarchy, and the commodification of people and the natural world. The U.S has always been, at its best, "state-plus-democracy," having been forced to compromise and share power with the people, and the state is always seeking for ways to maintain its hegemonic power. Your voice doesn't matter because it was never supposed to matter, not as much as the businessmen. You feel this disempowered because you were always supposed to be powerless, your vote just part of an elaborate system meant to keep the peace between the wealthy and keep the poor productive. This country was never for you; it's all been one long con, and even the con-artists had themselves convinced it was "for the People."

In order to truly love democracy, and all the people of the Americas, you must hate the United States, which has only ever captured the will of the people to lend legitimacy to the rule of the wealthy. True (direct) democracy is possible, and it will be achieved through landback, Black liberation, gender liberation, solidarity with the Global South, and socialism.

Read more here.

[standwithdaanes]

Stolen Afrin olive oil sold worldwide under “Made in Turkey”

Farmers from Afrin (Efrîn) say their olive groves have been plundered by armed groups backed by the Turkish state. Berav resident Îbrahîm Me

Afrin’s olive oil, known worldwide as “liquid gold”, is now sold across Europe, the United States and the Middle East under the label “Made in Türkiye.” Yet the people of Afrin, the true owners of these groves, have been unable to access their land or benefit from even a drop of its produce since 2018. The orchards, systematically confiscated by the Turkish state and the armed mercenary groups operating under it, have been turned into one of Turkey’s major olive oil export sources.

Afrin is one of the best-known olive-producing regions in Northern and Eastern Syria, as well as across the rest of the country. The region is home to at least 18 million olive trees, some more than a century old, of which around 14 million are highly productive. Afrin olives are also the raw material for the world-renowned “Aleppo Soap,” a 2,000-year-old tradition. For generations, olive oil has been regarded by the people of the region as their own form of “liquid gold.” [...]

Everything changed after the Turkish state launched its occupation on 20 January 2018. More than 300,000 civilians were displaced, and their homes were handed over to families of armed groups brought from different parts of Syria and even from third countries. Of Afrin’s 300 olive-pressing facilities, 140 were looted and the rest fell under the control of these groups. As farmers lost any possibility of working safely, killings, kidnappings, ransom demands and systematic theft became widespread. Large numbers of olive trees were cut down, burned or seized by force.

Local sources and human rights organisations have documented the destruction of over 2.1 million olive trees since the occupation began, with much of the wood sold to Turkey.

Farmers can no longer enter their own land. Those who manage to reach their orchards are forced to pay fees ranging from 4 to 15 dollars per tree. Many villagers are compelled to harvest their own olives for armed groups who declare, “These trees belong to us now.” [...]

Farmers are forced into a struggle for survival between harvest seasons. Like every year, the arrival of the harvest period has triggered another round of organised looting. Many farmers face harassment aimed at forcing them to pay extortion fees. Those who resist are frequently threatened with violence, abduction, murder, confiscation of property or the destruction of their olive trees. [...]

Îbrahîm Menan from the village of Berav still recounts the forced displacement he experienced in March 2018 with the same pain: “That year the weather was bitterly cold and rainy. Half of the population walked for three days. The planes were bombing; they wouldn’t let us pass. Elderly people and children died from hunger and cold; we couldn’t even dig graves. We walked for three days without food or water. We escaped with only the clothes on our backs, we brought nothing else. [...] We have been displaced for seven or eight years now. They are plundering our property and taking everything to Turkey. Since the day I left my home, I have not received a single drop of olive oil. I don’t even know if my trees are still standing.”

[standwithdaanes]

Prisoners in Iran facing a serious risk of a humanitarian catastrophe

Reports by the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners in Iran indicate that Evin Prison is in a critical condition and faces a ser

Reports by the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners in Iran indicate that Evin Prison is in a critical condition and faces a serious risk of a humanitarian catastrophe. According to the information provided by the Committee, the administrative order in the prison has collapsed, staff have abandoned their posts, and the gates have been closed to prisoners. The Committee emphasized that the suspension of food distribution, the closure of prison canteens, and the severing of prisoners’ communication with the outside world have placed the lives of thousands of detainees in grave danger. In a warning to international human rights organizations and the public, the Committee called for the immediate and continuous provision of food, water, and medical services for all prisoners; the prompt restoration of communication and information-sharing with families; and an independent inspection of prison conditions by monitoring bodies.

[standwithdaanes]

The leader of Syria’s Alawites called for a “unified demonstration” across Alawite-populated regions on Tuesday, demanding federalism, political decentralization, and an end to what he described as the “ethnic cleansing” of Alawites. The appeal follows reports from the community’s top religious leadership of attacks on Alawites in central Homs province the previous day.

The Supreme Islamic Alawite Council in Syria and Abroad released a video showing the community’s top leader, Ghazal Ghazal, calling for a “unified sit-in” on Tuesday in all regions where Alawites are present - namely the coastal Latakia and Tartus provinces, central Homs and Hama provinces, and the capital Damascus.

Alawites were urged to “hold a sit-in in their areas” and “convey their message to the international community,” demanding “federalism and political decentralization, an end to ethnic cleansing, killing, kidnapping, and captivity, and the release of [the community members] detained in prisons.”

The Council emphasized “documenting the sit-ins and recording all activities” further urging for support from Kurdish-majority northeast Syria (Rojava) and Druze-majority Suwayda province, in southern Syria.

— Top Alawite leader in Syria urges ‘unified’ protest after reported attacks, reported by Rûdaw

[standwithdaanes]

Sudan’s RSF committing war crimes in Darfur, says Amnesty

The latest report came hours after the RSF agreed to a three-month humanitarian truce.

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters are committing war crimes in the Darfur town of el-Fasher, the rights group Amnesty International has alleged in a new report.

The report was published on Tuesday, just hours after the RSF declared that it would immediately enter into a three-month humanitarian truce “in response to international efforts” led by United States President Donald Trump.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

In its latest report, Amnesty said it had collected testimonies from 28 survivors describing atrocities in el-Fasher ranging from the summary execution of unarmed men to the rape of girls and women.

“This persistent, widespread violence against civilians constitutes war crimes and may also constitute other crimes under international law,” Amnesty chief Agnes Callamard said. [...]

Mediation has so far failed to end the fighting as both sides try to secure military gains before talks are held.

On Sunday, Burhan [de facto leader of Sudan] rejected a US truce proposal from the Quad group of mediators as the “worst yet” and unacceptable. The Quad group comprises the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Burhan claimed that the presence of the UAE – which he accused of supporting the RSF – in the Quad meant that the proposals could not be seen as unbiased.

The UAE has consistently denied any role in the war in Sudan, and on Monday, it accused Burhan of “consistently obstructive behaviour”.

[standwithdaanes]

There can be no doubt that Karl Marx, a thinker who took a highly scientific approach, best determined the true colors of capital. However, this important contribution was not enough to ensure his break with capitalist modernity*. The knowledge structures Marx relied on and his very life itself were tied to this modernity in thousands of ways. I am not accusing him of anything. I am just attempting to make sense of his reality. Similar things could be said about Lenin and Mao. The system they envisaged, along with its many premises (including the knowledge structures and perspectives on modern life), was dependent on capitalist modernity. For example, they thought they could conquer major phenomena, such as, industrialism and the nation-state, by introducing socialist content. However, these fundamental forms of modernity—both in form and content—are oriented toward capital accumulation. Those who choose to make them their basis will inevitably produce capitalism, even if they are opposed to it. In all of these respects, I have made my criticism of real socialism perfectly clear. However, criticism is not enough. What option do I have to offer? That was the important question. It is also the question that I have constantly focused on.

— The Sociology of Freedom: Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization Volume III by Abdullah Öcalan

*"Capitalist modernity" is a term used by Öcalan to refer to the current global civilization system: it is comprised of capitalism (system of monopolies which manipulate goods for profit), the ideology of industrialism (maximization of profit through exploitation of nature), and the nation-state (political monopoly which creates the means for exploitation).

[standwithdaanes]

you've heard of "men will do everything to solve their problems but go to therapy," but now get ready for "businesses will do everything to solve their problems everything but pay their workers fairly"