In Episode 64 [16] of the CounterVortex podcast [17], Bill Weinberg notes the maddening and telling irony that while we're all supposed to be ga-ga with triumphalism over NASA's latest Mars probe [18], it has received practicailly no attention that Afro-Brazilian peasant communities [19] are being forcibly removed [20] from their traditional lands to make way for a US-backed expansion of the Alcântara Satellite Launch Center [21] in impoverished Maranhão state. This juxtaposition of news stories is paradigmatic of the whole global struggle—sustainable, Earth-rooted cultures against a hypertrophing technosphere [22] that is now colonizing the very heavens. Meanwhile, there are already so many satellites [23] in orbit that near-Earth space is experiencing a fast-growing "space junk [24]" problem. And economic austerity [25] down here on terra firma is compounding the agonizing impacts of the pandemic. Whatever useful knowledge [26] may be gleaned from the Mars probe, accounts don't note that Halliburton [27] is drawing up plans for mining operations on Mars [28]. We recall Gil Scott Heron's wry reaction to the 1969 Moon landing ("Whitey on the Moon [29]"), and say with Marvin Gaye: "Spend it on the have-nots! [30]"
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Production by Chris Rywalt [34]
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