CounterVortex editor and ranter Bill Weinberg faces imminent cancelation of his landline and DSL service by corporate oppressor Verizon. As fiber-optic is not available in his building, this makes cable the only alternative—which means drilling through exterior walls, threatening the structural integrity of the 19th century tenement. This as the CounterVortex website remains debilitated following an attack by Chinese state-sponsored hackers. With this admittedly marginal dissident voice now in danger of being silenced, the system of corporate rule is increasingly replaced by worse-still actual robot rule. Trump and the fascist tech bros are putting in place the architecture for direct robot control over the military-security apparatus, and even of imperial decision-making. Robo-propaganda has already thoroughly colonized the political process, both in the US and elsewhere. All this as the ecological impacts of the technology continue to propel the apocalypse. In Episode 348 of the CounterVortex podcast, Weinberg looks for glimmers of hope in municipal pushback, and popular refusal of aritifical intelligence and the entire digital leviathan.

Protests happily continue to mount against the rapid encroachment of Artificial Intelligence over all spheres of society—and have met with some victories. Other responses, however, appear to have succumbed to desperation and counter-productive adventurism. But even the United Nations human rights commissioner has taken note amid repeated incidents of AI programs "going rogue," and more industry insiders coming forward to warn of catastrophic risks to humanity. Bernie Sanders has called for legislating a pause on "superintelligent" AI. Meanwhile, in a virtually regulation-free environment, so-called "biological data centers" are pioneering the neural-digital interface—portending the actual abolition of humanity. In Episode 347 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes how the predicament now facing humanity was predicted by dystopian prophets—from Samuel Butler in the 1860s, to Frank Herbert a century later. 

As Trump prepares to meet with Xi Jinping at the White House, a small group of exiled Tibetans has departed from New York City for a cross-country march on Washington, to join a demonstration planned there against the Chinese dictator. The group departed Sept. 17 from the gates of the United Nations, where Lobga Rangzen, a longtime New York Tibetan activist, self-immolated on July 2. After a stop at Philadelphia's Independence Hall—clearly chosen for its symbolic value—the "Independence Walk" will arrive in DC Sept. 24, the date of both the rally against Xi and the dinner honoring him at the White House (also to be attended by giants of the tech industry).

The global food supply is under threat from laws that criminalize the sale and exchange of traditional peasant seed varieties, a group of UN experts said Sept. 16. In their latest report to the Human Rights Council, the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas indicated that almost all of the world's food comes from seeds and that traditional systems supply 70 to 90 percent of the seeds sown in many countries.

Human Rights Watch urged Philippine authorities on Sept. 3 to drop charges against 11 indigenous rights protesters arrested during a police operation to clear an anti-mining blockade in Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya province.

Amnesty International on Aug. 19 accused Argentina of putting in place a "techno-authoritarian" surveillance infrastructure without adequate legal safeguards, as the government's newly created AI security unit expands state monitoring powers over citizens' online communications and physical movements.

Eighty-one years after Nagasaki, there is growing awareness of the heightening threat of nuclear war. There must be similar awareness of the existential threat to humanity posed by AI, and the hegemony of digital technology generally. The past week has seen cyber-attacks on critical water infrastructure in the US. The Flock AI-boosted surveillance system is being used for doxxing and stalking. Police use of "brain decoders" portends the very eradication of any notion of privacy whatsoever. And there have been still more instances of AI going rogue. The growing use of AI by cyber-criminals and jihadis is hardly more terrifying than its "legitimate" (sic) use by the techno-fascist establishment. Recent protests against the tech giants (such as that by Rise & Resist outside the Google headquarters in New York) are a good start. But in Episode 340 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to make the case for an abolitionist position on Artificial Intelligence—and practical resistance to digital hegemony in everyday life.

Amnesty International on July 29 called on Shell PLC to answer for decades of pollution in the Niger Delta following release of a report detailing how oil pollution has damaged water, farmland, fisheries, health and livelihoods, while the company continued to profit and deny responsibility.

The report, titled "Lifting the Lid: Internal documents expose Shell’s negligent oil operations," examines company records that appear to confirm the long-standing complaints of residents of the Niger Delta. Amnesty reports that the documents also loan weight to concerns raised by the Nigerian army over neglectful conduct and "complicity" in oil theft that has led to spills. Amnesty is the first group to report on these disclosed documents following legal proceedings in the UK last summer.