Porcupine Angel

In an interview with China Mieville, the subject of Klee's "Angelus" comes up again, with an interesting twist. He envisions:

the “porcupine angel,” a creature who takes shelter from the winds of history within the wreck of civilization itself.

CM: I mooted the “porcupine angel,” Angelus erethizon, as an exemplary figure chimera-ed from two travelers in the storm of history: Walter Benjamin’s back-blown angel, and Ursula K. Le Guin’s articulation of a Swampy Cree notion of the porcupine bracing itself in a crevice in the face of danger, “to speculate safely on an inhabitable future.” We are buffeted, but still we might brace, and bristle."

Mieville helps publish the magazine Salvage, along with Richard Seymour. He says the dystopia is already here. Because it matters which baseline you use- the Dark Ages? Mad Max? The 1950's America.


As for strategy moving forward, Michael Lowy ( who collaborated with Joel Kovel) tries to articulate "non-reformist reforms" but I remain skeptical. He writes:

"Without illusions about the prospects for a “clean capitalism,” the movement for deep change must try to reduce the risks to people and planet, while buying time to build support for a more fundamental shift."
Michael Lowy

Buying time? Interesting analogy,that. If we had 30 years I would buy in ( pun intended). I still contend the work is to create not a crack but a major faultline, a 10.0 quake that makes today's rubble look smooth. Everyone was getting ecstatic over Alexandria Cortez and her Green New Deal. Here is some of the language that is,how should we say, problematic?

"A Green New Deal creates signals that encourages private capital to move into these new and expanding markets, and new businesses will generate demand for more workers."

From the Data for Progress report lead author Greg Carlock. Of course Nancy Pelosi and the other Democrats are putting the young upstarts in their place ( Shocker!) and the "select committee" is not to be. Even this corporate ejaculation is too radical for these guardians of the status quo.


This we can call Annihilation by Attrition. To stall is to kill. Each day the sun comes up and the coal is mined and the oil pumped. Each evening the sun goes down and the Guardians have done their job and can rest easy.