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William Gillis 🏴

@rechelon.bsky.social

5K followers 600 following 4.2K posts

go to mastodon Anarchist "exuberant." Really into exploring the roots of things and expanding degrees of freedom. Incurable woke moralist. Floating metal sphere. “Radically uncool.” https://humaniterations.net/

humaniterations.net

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William Gillis 🏴 @rechelon.bsky.social · Aug 6

Hey, I wrote a book.

Did The Science Wars Take Place?

Covers the history and philosophy of a fight in the 80s & 90s between some postmodernists and scientists, with an eye to anarchist interests and lasting political influences among the far-right.

Pre-order here: store.c4ss.org/index.php/pr...

Today, one faction of reactionaries denounce leftists as enemies of science, while another faction of reactionaries happily embrace that same role, attacking science as totalitarian. Words like “postmodernism” and “relativism” get thrown about with fervor but little clarity, echoes of a conflict from decades ago.

Is there actually a physical world and can we know anything about it?

Did academics on the left influence “post-truth” politics on the right?

How could supposed defenders of “science” get lost in a mire of transphobia?

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Uzza @uzzamodea.bsky.social · 3h

So that makes at least 4 J6ers creeping on PDX ICE protests.

Fulfer, David Medina, Katie Daviscourt & Quincey Franklin.

It's been surreal watching them all code switch to calling anti-ICE protestors "insurrectionists" as soon as they realized it was the magic police state button.

Uzza @uzzamodea.bsky.social · 17h

Far-right asshole Josh Fulfer, who called for vehicular assaults on Portland protestors, has come up from California & is filming on the ground tonight.

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Remain In Hell Without Despair @daphnelawless.com · 3h

There's an angle on this I haven't seen elsewhere - sorry, it's from a sectarian Trot group, but according to them the Engler campaign is spearheaded by Socialist Action, whose US sister group was kicked out of the Fourth International for absolutely gross campism bolshevik.org/statements/i...

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Nick Turse @nickturse.bsky.social · 4h

License to Kill: Trump’s Extrajudicial Executions

@akelalacy.bsky.social, @radleybalko.bsky.social and yours truly discuss the Trump administration’s rhetoric and rationale to justify extrajudicial killings abroad — and possibly at home.

theintercept.com/2025/10/10/b...

License to Kill: Trump’s Extrajudicial Executions

Akela Lacy, Radley Balko, and Nick Turse on the administration’s rhetoric and rationale to justify extrajudicial killings abroad — and possibly at home.

theintercept.com

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 3h

Look, maybe not *all* ICE and CBP agents are bloodthirsty psychopaths, but there are plenty of stories like this one and the rest of them sure as shit don't seem to mind, so ...

Leia🇨🇴🇺🇸 @theswprincess.bsky.social · 3h

CBP agents knocked on an El Paso home at 7:15 a.m.

The owner asked to secure his Rottweiler, Chop, in the bathroom.

While he got his ID, agents opened the door and shot Chop.

The family tried to save him as he bled out on the kitchen floor.

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Grace @gracekind.net · 1d

⚠️ You have marked yourself as an untrusted node in the epistemic network

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BronSays @bronsays.bsky.social · 5h

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"A prominent anti-DEI campaigner appointed by Meta in August as an adviser on AI bias has spent the weeks since his appointment spreading disinformation about shootings, transgender people, vaccines, crime, and protests."

Meta AI adviser spreads disinformation about shootings, vaccines and trans people

Critics condemn Robby Starbuck, appointed in lawsuit settlement, for ‘peddling lies and pushing extremism’

www.theguardian.com

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Voltairine 🥞🚩🖥️⚛️🚀🏳️‍⚧️ @sorceressofmath.bsky.social · 6d

Like I feel this on an almost primal level.

Over the past two months, HRT has improved me in ways that I didn’t even know needed improvement. My skin isn’t rough anymore, and it’s better than it’s been in years. My libido is under my control now, instead of controlling me and intruding into my awareness when it’s not needed. My chest is visibly growing more and more every day – they actually stick out, where there used to be nothing but flat skin. And instead of either feeling totally numb or abruptly bursting into tears, I have a whole repertoire of emotions available to me now. I can be calm and content, I can cry without it overwhelming me, I can be happy and sad at once without any contradiction, and I never run out of emotions to the point of numbness anymore. These aren’t mood swings – they’re mood symphonies. This is all unbelievably cool, and I wouldn’t have known what I was missing without experiencing it firsthand. Some people might look at my patchwork self of hormone pills and mix-and-match anatomy, and call it monstrous, freakish, an abomination. You know what I call this?

Upgrades.

Since the dawn of humanity, there have been certain features of our existence that were considered fundamental, unchangeable, and definitive of what it means to be human. For almost all of history, it was an unavoidable fact that those who were born a certain sex would remain that sex. Sure, living as another gender had sometimes been feasible in a social sense. But bodily? That was simply impossible – until it wasn’t. Now, that assumption has been pulled out from under us, and some people aren’t happy about that. They want us to go away. They want to be able to go on assuming that every woman they see is a cis woman, regardless of what the reality may be. They want us to deny ourselves this life-affirming treatment for the sake of some empty platitudes about “nature”.

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Ілля @illya.bsky.social · 5h

Why am I not suprised the Rwanda genocide denial guy is also a grifter www.thestar.com/politics/fed...

Aspiring NDP leader who has raised thousands may be breaking party rules, official says

Yves Engler, an author who has written several books criticizing Canadian and Western foreign policy, said he has already raised the money for his leadership bid.

www.thestar.com

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William Gillis 🏴 @rechelon.bsky.social · 6h

In my book I couldn't help by offhandedly start to list the commonalities Jordan Peterson has with the worst of the 80s postmodernists, and I had to cut it short, but my fucking god the fucking spiritual woo the man constantly engages in.

Second to none in terms of said grifters is Jordan Peterson, a practitioner
of the dying pseudoscience known as “psychoanalysis.” Peterson is prone to
rambling conceptual free association, slapdash genealogy, motte-and-bailey
fallacies, Nietzsche fandom, explicit proclamations of epistemic relativism,
fawnishly citing Thomas Kuhn, and even apologia for the nazi philosopher
Martin Heidegger. And yet, he has—despite these postmodernist bonafides—
somehow branded himself as a fervent critic of it. Peterson is infamously
unconcerned with actually reading anything, but his main criticisms are obviously copied from Ayn Rand scholar Stephen Hicks’ 2004 book Explaining

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 9h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 9h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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Lynn Becker @cmgiulini.bsky.social · 21h

After spending 43 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, evidence hidden by the prosecution reversed his conviction. Rather than finally enjoying freedom, ICE abducted him for deportation

Depraved.

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

He was wrongfully imprisoned for 43 years. Moments after being released, ICE took him

Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam now faces deportation.

www.miamiherald.com

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David Neiwert @davidneiwert.bsky.social · 1d

This has always been part of the GOP playbook: Downplay incidents of right-wing violence, and then repurpose them as supposed acts of leftist terrorism for public consumption. They first did this in 2020.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Bondi: "We've been living through a horrific cycle of political violence in this country ... night after night antifa wrecks havoc on the streets of our cities. In Minnesota, a gunman murdered a state lawmaker and her husband."

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Vicky ACAB @vickyacab.bsky.social · 1d

The most famous piece of Soviet cinema, Battleship Potemkin, depicts the the major instigating flash point of the 1905 Revolution when navy sailors on the eponymous battleship mutinied over maggots in their rotten food. This fact is disconnected from the RT below bsky.app/profile/aphc...

Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 1d

If this was happening in any other country you'd have journalists and analysts discussing risks of state failure

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Firestorm Books @firestorm.coop · 1d

On Wednesday we're hosting anarchist writer @rechelon.bsky.social in conversation with mathematical physicist Matilde Marcolli to discuss William's new book on the late 20th century conflict between postmodernists and scientists, and its lasting influence! Register at firestorm.coop/events/3479-....

A promotional graphic for a book launch with author William Gillis and interlocutor Matilde Marcolli. The image features the cover of the book alongside headshots for the speakers over a night sky full of stars. Text reads: "Virtual Event, October 15th, 8:00pm ET."

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Christopher Mathias @letsgomathias.bsky.social · 2d

“The truth is that antifa groups have been responsible for some of the most prescient & impactful organizing countering the far-right during the last decade”

Amazing corrective to liberal punditry abt antifa from Matthew Whitley (& basically the thesis of my book) theintercept.com/2025/09/27/t...

What Liberals Get Wrong About Trump’s Executive Order on Antifa

Liberals dismiss antifa as just an idea. That opens up the activists, researchers, and organizers to a real risk of persecution.

theintercept.com

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William Gillis 🏴 @rechelon.bsky.social · 2d

For over a century, Libertarians and anarchists have been endlessly bringing up how this was a titanic threat to liberty and relying upon "norms" to not use it was insane.

The time to get rid of this shit was the Whisky Rebellion, and then immediately afterward, and then immediately after that...

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 4d

as Goldsmith points out, it's kind of insane no one thought that reigning this in during the Biden years was a good idea:

Now consider the much more robust Insurrection Act. That “Act” (it is really the product of several statutes enacted mainly over the course of the nineteenth century) provides, in relevant part and with emphasis added, the following:

10 U.S.C. §252. Use of militia and armed forces to enforce Federal authority

Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, . . . make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.

10 U.S.C. §253. Interference with State and Federal law

The President, by using the militia or the armed forces, or both, or by any other means, shall take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy, if it—

(1) so hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or

(2) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.

The italicized portions here make plain why Bob and I once concluded that the Insurrection Act is “a dangerous, centuries-old federal statute that authorizes the president, with few restraints, to deploy the U.S. military inside the United States to suppress threats the president perceives to the constitutional order.” The power authorized here is astounding.

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Toby Buckle @polphilpod.bsky.social · 3d

reactionary centrists insist trans acceptance went too far & generated a backlash

but the UK legal transition for 20 years, it wasn't an issue until the press made it one

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Joshua Clark Davis @joshuaclarkdavis.bsky.social · 3d

Have a piece today in TEEN VOGUE from my new book POLICE AGAINST THE MOVEMENT detailing how the NYPD, LAPD, cops in Chicago and Memphis surveilled the civil rights movement—and then destroyed millions of surveillance files in the ‘70s, including ones that may have shed like on MLK’s assassination.

Police Departments Tracked Activists in the 1960s and 70s — Then Erased Records by Joshua Clark Davis

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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 5d

According the victim's attorney, body camera footage captured the officer saying, “Do something, bitch,” before leaping out of the car and shooting her multiple times. Another officer asked, “Hey, what happened?” The first pointed to his camera, “Hey, don’t speak. You’re good.”
trib.al/2RfPYXK

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The Dax Symbiont 🏴🏳️‍🌈🌲🇸🇩 @thedaxsymbiont.bsky.social · 3d

Truly the most online government in world history. They’re tagging in the anti-circumcision guys who despite maybe having some sort of valid point choose to instead act completely insane and make everyone think their cause is toxic

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 3d

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

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Squirrel 🏴 @therabbitwood.bsky.social · 3d

See what they don't realize is we're not all doom and gloom we're just all neuro-divergent and an all black wardrobe makes it easier to get dressed without shutting down with decision paralysis.

Leah Sottile @leahsottile.bsky.social · 3d

Sitting in a coffee shop in my former home of Missoula, Montana, wearing all black, enjoying listening to the young women next to me talk about why Oregon sucks. "People have a doom and gloom attitude and wear all black."

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Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 3d

Brett Kavanaugh: “The Govt sometimes makes brief investigative stops …”

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SometimesPDX @sometimespdx.bsky.social · 3d

ICE in Portland are the baddies.

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Stanislav Vysotsky @professorstas.bsky.social · 3d

Excellent statement in support of Mark Bray, academic freedom, and implicitly antifascism.

RutgersAAUP-AFT @ruaaup-aft.bsky.social · 4d

This week, our colleague Dr. Mark Bray came under attack by Turning Point USA’s Rutgers chapter for his public scholarship. Rutgers AAUP-AFT and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union condemn this campaign and stand in solidarity with our colleagues. Read our full statement here: https://loom.ly/BDXasRY

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Dutch Pendergrass @dutchpendergrass.bsky.social · 3d

Luis Enrique Marquez speaks for no one but himself. He has no respect in any PDX community for many reasons including his romantic relationship with a well known fascist while presenting as a face of a movement. He is a clogged toilet of a human being. *Spits on ground* Fuck that dude.

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