#inert

After spending too much time watching its critic and audience scores sink like stones on Rotten Tomatoes, I took the time to check out “Joker: Folie a Deux” at my local movie theater. Regardless of its horrific reception and the fact it is now one of the biggest box office bombs of 2024, I had to see it for myself as, and I am in agreement with Tony Farinella, the original was one of the very…

aeon ginsberg

I’m not funding a war  if I pretend the money  in my taxes are only going  toward the roads that  are actively collapsing. 

            Did you hear about the soldiers              who stole all of those tractors?              Did you hear the company              that makes those tractors,  founded in a country not “fighting” in the war,              was able to brick the tractors              before they were at all functional? 

There are in-built kill switches in our devices. 

Think about your debts and              how much they weigh. 

            US company sends a shipment of bricks              equal to the weight of the hard drives they develop              to Singapore because  they can get away with it. 

            Do you think if the bulldozer used              to build the Killdozer was an American make              it would have been stopped before              it was rendered inert too?  Maybe the make made the autonomy possible. 

I’m not funding a war,              I’m in one. 

There’s no recourse to repair  what we own within legality.              Amazon acquires OneMedical healthcare,              Amazon sells medical information to the police.  It hasn’t happened yet but              the Ring Doorbells send footage              to the police without the consent              and the knowledge of the “owners,”  and who makes the doorbells? 

User on twitter finds out the company              that they got their printer from              can disable its functionality from afar              because their debit card had expired.  A friend can have their CPAP machine             forcibly taken away from them              if they aren’t using it “enough.”  John Deere pioneered the addition of remote              kill switches being installed in technology              and now the idea of one being installed              into a pacemaker is not 

            so far off. 

Rendering a piece of technology inert              is called “bricking” it.              Are you excited to talk to a friend and              because of the status of their debts  a brick is weighed into their body? 

Think about what you owe  and how much it weighs,  think about what you give away              and where it goes, think about              how much choice you really have, 

if you have choice at all.              Marvin Heemeyer’s choices were diminished              until there was nothing left but to build Killdozer              but even so he was allowed to build it              without the only options he had left becoming bricks. 

It’s called a siege when you decide  to wait for your enemy to run out of resources.              It’s called “scorched earth” to destroy anything              that might be useful to whomever you’re fighting against.              Who was the first brick at Stonewall?  We got past Act Up and now you can’t get  a monkeypox vaccine unless you can prove  you’re a gay man who has sex with other men. 

            Did you know you can be arrested for sodomy still?              Did you know some John Deere tractors only work              if the same farmer is buying Monsanto approved seed? 

Marvin Heemeyer said “It is interesting to observe              that I was never caught.”             Maybe we will get a justified right to repair,              maybe the earth will die before then.              Scorched Earth. 

We’re in an overwhelming heat wave,  we’re in the coldest summer of the rest of our lives.  They don’t make the tools we need              to become autonomous anymore              because they can ship us              our weight in debts instead. 

            What happens when we learn              that we can’t use our refrigerators  because we’re late on rent?              What are you going to do              if you’re trying to shoot yourself              in the head and the gun won’t go off because your sold healthcare data  informed the manufacturer  that because of severe depression 

the guns you own will become bricked? 

What are you going to do  when you can’t do anything else  but lower the DIY armour              over the caddy of your killdozer,              only to find that it’s been rendered              a series of bricks?