Carwil Bjork-James
@CarwilBJ
Followers
4,449
Following
4,352
Media
2,373
Statuses
37,105
political anthropologist, revolutionary, prof, translator — Bolivia, indigenous ppls, movements, tactics @Carwil @mastodon .online Book:
Joined October 2008
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Merchan
• 334492 Tweets
Zócalo
• 117857 Tweets
超・獣神祭
• 70155 Tweets
Conference League
• 56311 Tweets
Bernabéu
• 53643 Tweets
PITANDA NO PODDELAS
• 37764 Tweets
Ley Bases
• 33127 Tweets
gremio
• 32533 Tweets
#OlympiacosFC
• 31992 Tweets
Mother Teresa
• 28972 Tweets
ナイトウェア
• 26668 Tweets
Eruviel
• 26382 Tweets
$DAVIDO
• 25697 Tweets
あなたの悪夢
• 25412 Tweets
#ナイトメアの悪夢で遊ばナイト
• 22550 Tweets
Italiano
• 18431 Tweets
Mendilibar
• 17861 Tweets
El Kaabi
• 15891 Tweets
Jerry Seinfeld
• 13213 Tweets
Shannon Bream
• 10812 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
This is the relationship between Muslims and Jews in Vanderbilt's Palestinian solidarity movement: standing side-by-side, arm-in-arm engaging in joint organizing against occupation apartheid, and genocide.
3
156
604
One more grain of sand against participation in genocide.
I voted UNCOMMITTED in Tennessee.
68
171
3K
Everyone should at least consider the idea that the law is constantly remade to prevent social change.
That many effective strategies will be criminalized precisely because they are effective.
That, therefore, one should never confuse legality with morality.
Georgia is considering legislation that would disallow groups (like bail funds and other nonprofits) from bailing out more than three people PER YEAR from jail. this follows the wrongful arrest of three bail fund organizers in Atlanta last year.
22
2K
4K
8
616
1K
Here are three things you shouldn't do when campaigning to stop fascism:
1. Kiss a foreign fascist leader on the head.
2. Deputize the national guard to fight crime in cities.
3. Dare the fascist leader to "join me" in new legislation against an oppressed minority.
2
321
1K
So, let me get this straight. A multistate armed rebellion is your heritage, but toppling a government statue is morally wrong.
5
339
880
The key lesson of Bolivia's last year?
The state isn't stronger than the people.
Not even when it's willing to shoot protesters in the streets.
Or militarize the streets before an election.
4
225
775
Look…
[academic researcher of social movements hat on here]
1. Suicide protest is uncommon, but well articulated. It has happened hundreds of time.
Enough for us to draw some patterns.
/ cite coming at end of thread
2
102
331
Leftists' rightful rejection US imperial power should not cloud our moral rejection of Russia's current imperial invasion.
9
51
304
Those of us trying to understand capitalism in the age of billionaires need to pay attention to what besides profit itself is inspiring accumulation and shaping investments.
Fantasies and imagined futures are shaping billion-dollar flows of money.
7
84
297
The New York Times editors imagine a certain type of reader: wealthy, socially advantaged, invested in the current social order.
Can you find a clearer example than this headline?
(Replies with examples welcome.)
#nytimes
#Media
#privilege
9
55
283
Turn out for the
#BoliviaElections
was 87%, a new record that surpasses the 84% that first elected Evo Morales.
#ÚLTIMO Romero afirma que la participación en elecciones fue del 87%. Es la más alta, incluso superior a la de 2005 que fue de 84%.
#EleccionesBolivia2020
3
21
76
4
53
250
Orlando Gutiérrez, mining union leader and MAS-IPSP rising star, dies after fatal post-election assault
4
79
240
Freedom for one people does not imply or require expulsion of others.
The supposition that it does is an important mirror of how we settler state residents view the world, though.
1
37
254
One thing Aaron Bushnell's self immolation reveals, and forces us to confront, is the mind of someone who has chosen to place his life alongside those being killed daily with our country's weapons.
And to declare that his life isn't worth more.
This alone disrupts normality.
5
40
241
Coming soon: an Annual Review article with
@MarcEdelmanNYC
and Melissa Checker on how social movements offer solutions to our global ecological and social crisis.
3
35
202
As a descendant of Jews and the African diaspora, I realize that historic trauma casts a real shadow.
But fearing expulsion from A SLOGAN that ends "Palestine will be free," while Gazans are under orders to evacuate 1/2 of the 1.3% of Israel/Palestine they are crowded within??
1
26
195
New Harriet Tubman bill: $20.
Her replacing racist, genocidal slaveholder Andrew Jackson: Priceless.
4
111
157
La Paz, Bolivia has near universal mask compliance and precautionary measures everywhere.
Yesterday I arrived in Seoul-Incheon and showed my QR code confirming my negative COVID test from 24h before. I walked across the street to get a RT-PCR test-took about 10mins. Took subway into the city where everyone was masked. received my results via email a few hours later.
158
2K
28K
7
19
154
Good morning, world.
This chronicler of revolution,
practitioner of collective action,
admirer of indigenous and urban autonomy,
archivist of suffering and sacrifice in pursuit of a better world,
teacher of structures of power,
of their dangers and vulnerabilities,
is tenured.
26
4
151
Student-built Apartheid Wall holding strong on its third day at the Vanderbilt campus.
Palestine solidarity protesters reserved a five-day slot months ago, but we're told last week the space was needed for construction, or perhaps "grounds work."
5
43
147
4. (and this may surprise a different set of people) The target audience of protest suicides is often not those in power, but allies insufficiently engaged in collective action. It serves as a message about urgency and commitment.
2
37
140
Thirty-four Vanderbilt faculty are calling on the Vanderbilt administration to permit the BDS referendum initiated by the Vanderbilt Divest Coalition to go forward.
7
46
136
In this announcement, Jewish protest group If Not Now does something subtle but revolutionary: it treats the 150 Palestinians prisoners, largely arbitrarily detained children, as the equals of Israeli hostages.
Because both deserve freedom, both have families waiting for them.
Over the next 4 days, 200 people will return home to their loved ones and the bombs will stop.
That is amazing. And it is not enough. This cannot be just a temporary pause.
We must keep building pressure for permanent ceasefire as the first step towards a just & lasting peace.
209
947
3K
3
44
132
The idea that Israelis have the right to self-defense against terrorism, but Palestinians do not enjoy the same right to self-defense against overwhelming devastation is either blind to human suffering or catastrophically racist or both.
3
38
129
@gregggonsalves
The fact that kids who have organic food in their lunch boxes don't all have masks on their faces indicates a huge misjudement of risk by upper-middle class Americans.
6
27
123
Student–Faculty Solidarity, 1968 edition:
SDS member Tom Hayden assisting Frances Fox–Piven into the math building during the
#ColumbiaUniversity
student occupation. Professor Piven, then teaching in the School of Social Work was awarded tenure during this semester.
2
41
128
2. Protest suicides are generally unconnected to mental illness, generalized depression, or a desire for notoriety.
4
26
124
"From the River to the Sea" begins with an acknowledgement that there are Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel/"1948 territories." People who share a common national struggle.
People who must neither live as permanent 2nd-class citizens, nor as stateless subjects.
1
12
120
Manne's chapter is what I thought of when trying to figure out what rule, exactly, did Amber Heard break by writing that op-ed.
Effectively she broke Depp's entitlement to be in control of the public narrative.
8
38
114
3. People who commit protest suicide generally have strong moral beliefs and see their acts as part of a political strategy.
2
22
112
Human rights are all well and good, but.…
Do the students really know these humans well enough to say they have rights?
12
14
111
Edward Said in 1999:
"I see no other way than to begin now to speak about sharing the land that has thrust us together, sharing it in a truly democratic way, with equal rights for each citizen.…
1
9
109
Awkward family dinner conversation in Bolivia: Hearing a relative say "Our mistake was to not have killed all the Indians. We need a Pinochet-style shock."
Like Trump, Áñez has emboldened racists to dream out loud.
Acabo de salir de una reunión familiar en el que alguien tiró "nuestro error fue no haber matado a todos los indios, nos faltó un pinochetazo"
Ansiedad nivel dios. No encajo en esta familia para nada.
7
9
39
20
28
89
A quick rundown of the mostly aligned, but sometimes conflicting factors for a coherent left take on the Ukraine crisis…
3
30
95
"… There can be no reconciliation unless both peoples, two communities of suffering, resolve that their existence is a secular fact, and that it has to be dealt with as such."
1
8
97
Eight scholars of the Irish Famine issue St Patrick's Day call to Irish Americans to avert deliberate starvation in Gaza, carefully narrating how deprivation turns first to subsisting on animal fodder, then waves of death.
2
59
95
#BoliviaEnCrisis
Bolivian military and police killed more protesters and protest bystanders in November 2019 than in the previous ten years of MAS-IPSP rule.
6
63
86
@neeratanden
Every successful slave revolt in the Western Hemisphere. Stonewall. The Flint strike that gave birth to the UAW.
0
4
78
I'm very proud that my article on the TIPNIS highway project is part of this impressive new book on environmental justice in the Andes and the western Amazon, Landscapes of Inequity.
4
11
88
By arresting people for inconvenient journalism and anti-government social media activity, the Jeanine Áñez government has signaled an open assault on freedom of expression.
Yesterday, Bolivian authorities arrested three govt employees for running two Facebook pages organizing protests against interim president Áñez, charging them with "sedition."
2
22
34
3
32
82
Unelected presidents don't get to charge elected presidents with "sedition."
#BoliviaEnCrisis
Bolivia's interim leader says arrest warrant to be issued against Morales
102
59
106
7
30
83
@thrasherxy
I love this phrase, love Black people, and am so done with this call to put up boundaries around "Rest In Power" that will never hold anyway.
A word about "Rest in Power" and the periodic flare ups over who gets to use it.
This phrase is brilliant and irresistible as a way to celebrate the life and death of a loved one.
It tweaks the standard RIP formula in just the needed way...
1
3
34
1
7
84
@gregggonsalves
We may be entering a stranger moment where many privileged people no longer treat prevention as necessary/desirable.
Where the ability to not think about COVID is treated as the luxury good, instead of the ability to not get it.
4
17
81
#BoliviaEnCrisis
Emerging evidence indicates greater planning and coordination among the right-wing civic movement, senior military officials, and the opposition political leadership during Morales' overthrow than previously known. (thread)
2
58
76
@pashulman
I tend to think of this as a graphic design and ordering problem, rather than a standards problem.
I want my support & accessibility policies to be more supportive than required and my plagiarism policies to be less vague than required. But I section them off at the back.
6
0
81
For my father, the move from Jim Crow to imperfect multiracial democracy meant everything.
To be honest, it wounds me that people I love can and do accept segregation and subordination for Palestinians in the West Bank.
I don't understand how they can look me in the eye.
6
14
79
Prominent Palestinian voices speaking to the entire land "from the river to the sea" have presented a clear vision.
1
3
78
There are numerous reports of political arsons and vandalism in Bolivia tonight, following the resignation of Evo Morales.
Both sides have perpetrated these acts, though many voices are only describing such acts by those they oppose.
(What follows is not a complete list)
5
41
71
There are at least four serious political forces in Bolivia tonight: a catastrophically weakened MAS-IPSP which still won millions of votes, Carlos Mesa/CC that overcame electoral fraud, a rising but regional civic movement, and the shards of the independent left grassroots.
5
38
72
Whatever the relative merits and potential for one-state vs two-state visions for Israel/Palestine, the North Star of one-state solutions for Palestinians, since the early days of the PLO, has been a "secular democratic state" of Jews and Arabs, not expulsion.
1
8
75
(all quotes from Hyojoung Kim, "Micromobilization and Suicide Protest in South Korea," Social Research, 2008)
1
5
72
Dear leftists, a two-side Manichaean worldview will not help you understand Bolivia right now. Instead it will lead to useless and/or false statements like this.
(Don't get yourself added to this thread.)
Trade union confederation is also American-sponsored!
1
4
13
9
35
67
Where do anthropologists find themselves reflected in fiction?
Here is a reading list for solitary summers or an escapist counterpoint to a required readings during the academic year.
#Anthropology
#AnthroTwitter
#SummerReading
#Fiction
0
23
73
Saree Makdisi:"There remains but 1 possibility for peace with justice: truth, reconciliation–and a single democratic and secular state, a state in which there will be no “natives” and “settlers” and all will be equal; a state for all its citizens irrespective of their religio[n]"
1
4
72
I'm here for
–leftists who support worker's struggles in every country, even so-called "communist" ones
–Indigenous activists who support land defense and autonomy, whether the ruling party is "Indigenous" or not
–peace activists who refuse empire and occupation under every flag
0
8
69
Lovett Fort-Whiteman was a Black Communist organizer who experienced the Soviet Union first as a respite from and counter to American racism, and ultimately as a prisoner worked to death in its Gulag.
2
27
67
I wish everyone attempting to transform our world could carry this insight with them.
“Given the present state of our social development, in which power is often centered on small groups, we must be extremely vigilant.
Progressive organizations that presume to move in the interest of the masses must constantly confront the psychology of power.“
2
262
1K
0
11
67
Sotomayor: I see your anti-Puerto Rico slippery slope and raise you an anti-white rural counterexample.
3
25
65
#BoliviaEnCrisis
Solidarity statement with
#Bolivia
signed by over 850 people: "We denounce the repressive state violence unfolding in Bolivia."
2
31
62
By excluding Adriana Salvatierra from the Plaza Murillo, the police reaffirmed the impression that the MAS-IPSP will be excluded from the political arena.
This is the exact opposite of what is needed now.
#BoliviaEnCrisis
6
33
63
It would be perfectly possible for the NYTimes to take the opposite perspective it its words…
"Starving in rural Brazil? The government won't enforce the constitutional redistribution of land for you."
Expropriation is authorized by Title VII, Chapter III of the Constitution
1
10
65
The Biden White House decision to end the COVID Public Health Emergency represents a choice to normalize a permanent decline in length and quality of life without any compensating rearrangement in care and rights of ordinary people.
#CovidIsNotOver
#PandemicPolicy
#PublicHealth
2
17
61
Also
@MarkWeisbrot
, you need to absolutely stop saying "they never presented any evidence at all." You evidently haven't followed the Bolivian press.
@democracynow
6
4
59
The privately run Trousdale Turner Correction Center, an hour east of Nashville, has overnight become the epicenter of the state's COVID epidemic, with over a 1200 people testing positive.
5
37
56
1 true
2 true theoretically, false in practice
3 false
4 indirectly true
5 unproven, and we should have some proof by now
6 split decision
7 true, and they won more because Evo was gone
8 true!
6
16
55
If the plurality-Black District of Columbia isn't a state when this is all over, Democrats will have failed the country and themselves.
City employees just confirmed to me that this is with the blessing of the DC government.
10
103
677
0
15
54
Argentina has one of the world's most incredible cultures of mass co-presence in protest.
2
11
57
Why Senate President Eva Copa is the unsung badass heroine of the MAS-IPSP resistance to Jeanine Áñez.
(a quick thread)
2
18
58
Heads up, Englishl left Twitter, academics like me who speak critically of Evo at times are 10-25%as critical as the Bolivian activists and academics whose carried out the revolution that brought him to power.
5
12
57
#BoliviaEnCrisis
So the WashPost published a statistical analysis of alleged
#FraudeElectoral
in Bolivia's 2019 elections by
@JohnCuriel14
&
@Master0fNull
at
@MITelectionlab
.
It (1) sidesteps most critiques of the election; (2) doesn't evaluate forms of "fraud" ID'd by OAS & EU.
7
21
50
A really important walk-through of possible alternative responses that could have fundamentally changed the course of the COVID pandemic, saving millions of lives.
@zeynep
suggests following the path of the most farsighted countries.
Let me add one document to that mix…
For the second pandemic anniversary, I wrote a plausible what-if.
What if the world reacted quickly to the available information, like Taiwan or South Korea did?
Lancet calculates ~18 million lives lost to Covid. Many, maybe all, could have been spared.
42
338
832
1
21
55
Admittedly a low bar, but one basic standard for COVID protections: Mask wherever a cancer patient can't avoid going: the pharmacy, grocery store, public transit, long-distance transit.
1
9
56
The Bolivian government is preparing a joint police-military force to enter the Chapare, the home base of Evo Morales and the scene of a devastating drug war from 1986 to 2005.
8
36
50
// awaiting Twitter critics to accuse me of prejudging an issue that I covered for (checks calendar) 23 days before stating my opinion.
5
1
53
Bolivia enters nightmare scenario with Sacaba massacre, impunity decree, threatened detentions of MAS-IPSP leadership
5
50
50
Ecuador is about to experience what happens when the Right controls the presidency, a fractured Left has a majority in the legislature, and the public has decades of experience turning back neoliberal policies in the streets.
1
7
50
A recurring problem in Bolivia is one-eye-shut perspectives where (many external or pro-MAS) left observers only mention abuses by the right, and (many external or anti-MAS) right observers only mention abuses by the MAS.
The solution is a more complete accounting. (thread)
#Bolivia
It seems fair to call out foreign powers and those who stayed silent to Añez's
#humanrights
abuses. But, what about concealing that people opposed to Morales were also shot, lynched, and killed before 11/12/19 and even before the crisis? Why 'save' some and not others?
3
15
52
1
10
53
Months ago, the
@DeathPanel_
named the "sociological construction of the end of the [still raging] pandemic."
They've consistently been ahead of the story of the public health policy collapse, and ardent advocates for disabled people in the ongoing clusterfuck.
Listen.
In our latest, Biden’s 24 hours dithering over whether to fight to reinstate the travel mask mandate, the holes in the “we have the tools” argument, and we dissect a truly bad piece on immunocompromised people by Benjamin Mazer in the Atlantic
6
52
153
1
23
51
ICYMI, a thread on the strategic and moral questions for the left on Ukraine.
TL;DR, a capitalist imperial power just launched an invasion of a country its empire has long dominated.
A quick rundown of the mostly aligned, but sometimes conflicting factors for a coherent left take on the Ukraine crisis…
3
30
95
2
14
53
The message from Vanderbilt student activists:
Focus on the Palestinian students being denied the right to an education.
0
23
52
The present moment could still become a coup if power is kept in the hands of the military, or transferred to Camacho, or the military suppresses the MAS-IPSP. Stay vigilant for these things, and demand they do otherwise.
4
13
49
There has been a lot of Twitter debate about the nature of the coup/uprising/resignation, but very little about
#Fraud
/
#FraudeElectoral
, and this is a vital issue for many Bolivians.
1
10
49
The Democratic Party literally owes everything to social movements.
Something tells me we will have to remind them of this often.
6
12
50
It's difficult to explain how fully absurd it is to define road blockades in Bolivia as terrorism.
In a captured recording,
@evoespueblo
is allegedly heard instructing a peasant leader on how to blockade cities in
#Bolivia
.
Government Minister
@ArturoMurilloS
calls it "terrorism."
Murillo wants to criminalize the road blockade, the most vital of Bolivian protest tactics.
3
0
3
10
10
46
#BoliviaElections
#EleccionesBolivia2020
One last thing tonight.
Take seriously (if critically and skeptically), the difference between Evo Morales and Arce/Choquehuanca.
1
6
45
#BoliviaEnCrisis
#impunity
This decree authorizes murder.
Passing it the day after the Sacaba
#massacre
only underscores how shameless and violent the Añez government is.
Con un Decreto Supremo, el gobierno de la senadora Añez legaliza la cacería. Los militares no tendrán responsabilidad penal en la represión.
176
2K
2K
6
49
48
@CDCDirector
A national indoor mask mandate would be a good start. So would ensuring that sick coworkers have sick leave and a requirement to stay home while infectious.
3
3
48
#BoliviaEnCrisis
Analyses by
@JohnCuriel14
&
@Master0fNull
at
@MITelectionlab
and
@ceprdc
all presume that any
#FraudeElectoral
in the 2019 Bolivian election only took the form of manipulated vote totals between one count and another…
Not what the OAS & EU alleged.
4
22
45
A peaceful campesino present in defense of the wiphala was greeted with care by urban Potosí last night.
Potosí is a stronghold of both the indigenous Altiplano and the anti-electoral fraud movement.
#ANF
Una marcha de campesinos potosinos llegó la noche de esta jornada a la Villa Imperial para reivindicar la wiphala. La movilización fue pacífica e incluso recibió el cariño de la población. Tras realizar su acto se marcharon del lugar. (Video: Juan Orellana/Fides Potosí)
89
471
1K
0
20
48
Disabled rights activists talk about "eugenics" in the present tense for the same reasons that antiracists talk about "white supremacy" in the present tense.
Whether that feels confusing, alienating or insightful in an unsettling way depends on the larger conversation you're in.
1
12
48