In the first CounterVortex meta-podcast [21] of February 2018, we noted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [22]' decision to advance the minute hand of its Doomsday Clock to two minutes of midnight [23], citing the threats of nuclear weapons, climate change and "cyber-based disinformation [40]." The clock was most recently moved to 90 seconds to midnight [24] in January 2023, in light of the Ukraine war—the closest it has ever been [25]. The clock did not move forward in 2024, despite Israel crossing the genocidal threshold [26] in Gaza—a conflict now spreading to Lebanon [27], with potential to ignite the entire Middle East [28] and even the world [29]. The threat of Iran being drawn into the conflict [30] could bring its patron Russia nose-to-nose with Israel's patron, the United States. This comes just as Vladimir Putin has announced a revision to Russia's nuclear weapons doctrine [31], allowing a first strike if its territory is attacked even by a non-nuclear state that is backed by a state with nuclear weapons. This appears to add frightening credibility to the mounting nuclear threats [32] from Moscow. All this as the "normal" functioning of the capitalist system continues to compel the apocalypse. The some 50 left dead by Hurricane Helene [41] in the US South are among hundreds killed in extreme weather events [42] around the world in recent days—obvious signals of global climate destabilization [43]. The multi-faceted systemic crisis portends imminent human extinction [42].
Amid all this, small efforts at Jewish-Arab co-existence [33] by the besieged peace camp [34] within Israel point to the potential for the ongoing protests against Netanyahu [35] to take on an explicit anti-war character. Similarly, small steps by cities around the world [44] to expand space for the human organism [45] and human-powered transport [46] begin to challenge the hegemony of the fossil-fuel economy. In Episode 245 [36] of the CounterVortex podcast [37], Bill Weinberg makes the case that such measures, however seemingly modest, constitute a countervortex [38] to humanity's general downward spiral toward devastating war, ecological collapse and fascism [39].
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