Sign in

julian francis park

@malcontent.bsky.social
332 followers 306 following 135 posts

Ⓐ☭ • rent abolition w/ baytanc.com & atun-rsia.org • movements + poetry + critique • use my name not pronouns • "there is no situation from which there is no way out" • jfprk.wordpress.com

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by julian francis park
Sam Menefee-Libey @sml47.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
This framing makes me uneasy in our moment of renewed and escalating state violence, but this piece is rigorously researched and argued and should be read by anyone and everyone interested in defeating the current fascist regime.
011
Reposted by julian francis park
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
For Field Notes, I wrote a history of the anti-deportation movement that, for now, culminated in defeating the White House's "surge" deportation operations in the Twin Cities earlier this year. This defeat halted the domestic momentum of the Trump administration. brooklynrail.org/2026/07/fiel...
brooklynrail.org
On DHS, or Defeating Homeland Security: The Movement Against Deportations in the US, 2025–26 | The Brooklyn Rail
Over the past several years many had forgotten, or were in denial, that not only is the US a nation of immigrants but that everyone in the US relies on immigrants, directly or indirectly, every single...
197
Reposted by julian francis park
Cominsitu @cominsitu.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Mattick in China brooklynrail.org/2026/07/fiel...
brooklynrail.org
Editor’s Note | The Brooklyn Rail
Like everyone else who has just returned from ten days in China, I feel compelled, if not authorized, to hold forth on the place. Unlike New York Times opinionizers and world-class pundits, I was not ...
0105
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
I hope comrades find "On DHS" useful as we reflect and continue to organize, preparing for the next movement upsurge, on whatever front it may come. Chinga la migra! La migra, la policía, la misma porquería! Abolish DHS! Abolish Police! Abolish Borders! Free them all!
010
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
One shortcoming is that I ultimately wasn't able to cover the trajectory of rising repression of the movement and "antifa," which was still developing as I wrote, and still is. I'm planning a post or something on that currently and to re-share legal defense resources.
100
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
I hope people follow the citations, because I drew on a lot of other great work, I may do a thread of essential links. Check out the photo credits, some solid photographers let me use their work.
100
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Finally, I give a gloss on the aftermath and where things could go from here, with a look to the hunger and labor strikes of immigrants in detention centers like Delaney Hall, which might indicate where the center of gravity of the movement has shifted with the end of the surges.
100
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
I respond to progressive/socialist and anarchist analyses of what went down in the Twin Cities, in particular on the question of violence—arguing that unprecedented, both dispersed and coalesced, escalating mass disruption, including physical confrontation, was fundamental.
kinds. The Trump administration was disappointed with the results of previous operations and by being blocked by the courts from federalizing the National Guard, and, driven by/with the alibi of a racist xenophobic fraud panic, launched an unprecedentedly large and forceful Operation Metro Surge, which in turn provoked an unprecedentedly large and tactically varied anti-deportation movement, resulting in a dialectic of mutual provocation and escalation. The Twin Cities brought to a pinnacle the movement catalyzed in Los Angeles, where a tactical repertoire had coalesced, and then refined in Chicago. This includes most notably autonomous rapid response networks, neighborhood patrols, whistle swarming, de-arrests, mutual aid, and noise demonstrations.

This pinnacle drew also on preexisting progressive and working-class organizations as well as the cultural memory of the 2020 rebellion. Withmemory of the 2020 rebellion. With

DHS roaming everywhere and with

immigrants a proportionately smaller

population, living and working in a

comparatively less segregated

environment, more working-class

citizens, credentialed and not, and

particularly white people (given the

demographics), observed, organized,

and intervened against DHS arrests and

violence. The series of three tragic

shootings in almost two weeks,

resulting from and further escalating

the preceding context, provoked

indignation, not only on behalf of

immigrant neighbors but in response to

a threat now felt directly by about four

percent of the local population, those

involved in networks, and felt

peripherally by all. From this came the

mass strike, followed by the Chamber of

Commerce letter, and the beginning of

the end, and then the end of Operation

Metro Surge.
100
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
I sketch the character of immigration and deportations, as well as the political and economic motivations, and prior history of immigration enforcement and resistance, that led us here. Then, I study the course of the struggles in Los Angeles, Chicago, and the Twin Cities.
The movement that unfurled nationwide following DHS's paramilitary operations around Los Angeles, Chicago, the Twin Cities, and elsewhere, has for now halted the domestic political momentum of the Trump administration after culminating in DHS's defeat in Minnesota, illuminating impasses of both the Democratic party and extraparliamentary communists, to the advantage of social democrats (who will find impasses further down the road, too). The anti-deportation movement's watchwords and strategy have codified —ICE Out, community defense, and so on-as have the limits of the federal strategy with heritage in El Paso, as they both now wane with little else settled, inaugurating an interregnum within the greater interregnum.
Two people, one in a high-visibility vest, stand underneath an ez-up tent, with a sign hanging that says Chinga la Migra.A person in a black jacket with a patch that says "stand with us" records armed DHS agents with their phone.A crowd of tens of thousands in Minneapolis is shown from above.
100
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
For Field Notes, I wrote a history of the anti-deportation movement that, for now, culminated in defeating the White House's "surge" deportation operations in the Twin Cities earlier this year. This defeat halted the domestic momentum of the Trump administration. brooklynrail.org/2026/07/fiel...
brooklynrail.org
On DHS, or Defeating Homeland Security: The Movement Against Deportations in the US, 2025–26 | The Brooklyn Rail
Over the past several years many had forgotten, or were in denial, that not only is the US a nation of immigrants but that everyone in the US relies on immigrants, directly or indirectly, every single...
197
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
In a couple of days, a history of the recent anti-deportations movement I wrote for Field Notes at the Brooklyn Rail will drop. I was working on this in one form or another for quite a while, so I'm pretty excited. I hope that comrades out there find it useful. Stay on the lookout.
030
Reposted by julian francis park
The Oaklandside @oaklandside.org · 23/02/2026
If teachers walk out, it would be the third open-ended strike since 2019. The decision to go out would require 48 hours notice.
oaklandside.org
Oakland teachers union votes to authorize strike
If teachers walk out, it would be the third open-ended strike since 2019. The decision to go out would require 48 hours notice.
052
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
Man, what's gonna happen with the world?
010
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Homan also says that bloodshed will continue until cities like Minneapolis end their sanctuary policies. The terror campaigns and political police murders of ICE/CBP are intended to overcome and break the policies won in previous struggles that have imperfectly protected immigrants.
010
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
This post brought to you in part by today's Businessweek ep, where they were almost about to talk about what the employment numbers indicate about recession prospects, before, instead, turning back to financial markets.
010
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
A stupid Marxish joke I chuckle to myself about whenever I think about that show Industry is that it is quite precisely not about industry at all, but, obviously, finance.
120
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
Call me sentimental but I do find myself moved by the tragedy of the gesture—the desire to act in solidarity, the lack of knowledge of how to do so. Its completely of a part with the failed Democrat gerontocracy but unlike those figures still bears a hint of nobility if absurdly.
010
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
There are many great images of boomer political ineffectuality. One of my favorites is of someone standing solo at an arbitrary roadside location holding a cardboard political sign. Seen just now: an elder resting on their seated walker holding one reading DEI NOW.
120
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
Ashbery by the ambient light of the airplane. "It seems we were going home."
PURISTS WILL OBJECT

We have the looks you want:

The gonzo (musculature seemingly wired to the stars), Colors like lead, khaki and pomegranate; things you Put in your hair, with the whole panoply of the past: Landscape embroidery, complete sets of this and that.

It's bankruptcy, the human haul,

The shining, bulging nets lifted out of the sea, and always a few refugees Dropping back into the no-longer-mirthful kingdom

On the day someone sells an old house

And someone else begins to add on to his: all

In the interests of this pornographic masterpiece,

Variegated, polluted skyscraper to which all gazes are drawn,

Pleasure we cannot and will not escape.

It seems we were going home.

The smell of blossoming privet blanketed the narrow avenue.

The traffic lights were green and aqueous.

So this is the subterranean life.

If it can't be conjugated onto us, what good is it?

What need for purists when the demotic is built to last, To outlast us, and no dialect hears us?
000
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Often in life it is necessary to read or listen to the sentences that follow before deciding that you disagree with the present sentence you are encountering. I have lost much time over the years in disagreements that I imagined because I didn't finish the paragraph.
000
Reposted by julian francis park
Heatwave Magazine @htwvmag.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Here's a sneak peek at the Table of Contents for Heatwave Issue 2. We're excited for this issue and can't wait for you to read it. Subscribe before tomorrow (12/12) to get your copy!
1126
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Recently the focal point of my mother's free floating anxietyhas pivoted from concern about being scammed to volcano eruptions and earthquakes. I wonder if this is more or less agitating for her. At least she has gained some resilience against scammers?
010
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
I have this creeping sense that I'm forgetting to record essentials on my task list, which I have fallen way behind on maintaining, and it's got me vibrating
010
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
I just learned wikipedia has its own wrapped now, and while I love this I am even more deeply embarrassed to see the results of what I read there than I am to see reflected to me statistically what I listened to this year.
000
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Yeah this was a weird thing, but in hindsight, it wasn't totally wrong. The thing that was wrong was to assume it would be this one product, rather than a full range of them, from hoverboards to scooters and ebikes.
020
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
This article is a wild ride. Very thorough coverage of this vigilante squatter evicter by @natalieorenstein.bsky.social, down to sketching the range of landlords that hire Jacobs. Toward the end we get an encounter with comrade Christine Hernandez, as an examplar of squatting as reclamation.
oaklandside.org
Meet the sword-wielding man hired to kick squatters out of empty Oakland homes
A squatter removal cottage industry has grown out of California’s housing crisis, catering to property owners who don’t want to go to court.
120
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
I did not think about the possible reprecussions of this for myself, until I recovered my jacket from the closet the following day, noticing the entire closet stank of the "freshener." Hours of scent removal tips later, I am still dealing with my hubris. What a terrible object.
000
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Last Friday I attended a gathering at the apt of a friend with a passion for petty theft. When leaving the apartment later w others, we noticed near the elevators the offensive scent of a plugin air "freshener." I did my part & pocketed the plugin, tossing it a few blocks away.
110
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
I always think about this kind of project when I see public and private fruit trees unharvested, but I had no idea this was going on at this scale, pretty cool...
010
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
That this immigrant is an alleged murderer of servicepeople makes him a perfect alibi for the admin to block third world immigration (just the kind of escalation guard deployments aimed at). That this is all blowback shows the violent futility of imperial immigration policy.
000
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
The tragedy of Rahmanullah Lakanwal strings together blowback after blowback. Trained in CIA deathsquads in the aftermath of chickens coming home in 9/11, his family is granted asylum in the wind down, then his demons drive him to attack representatives of the war machine.
100
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
You had to have guessed that though it went unreported at first, Trump's comments about his & Mamdani's alignment on public safety/crime indicated they had come to an agreement on ICE. It sounded just like the story about SF Mayor Lurie's call with Trump. (The post cut off below so here's the tweet)
Elle Bisgaard-Church, Mamdani’s chief of staff, attended the meeting with Trump, and said they discussed crime and safety in NYC, the appointment of NYPD Chief Tisch, the threat of ICE, and reaching an understanding on cooperation with ICE on “extreme violent felony cases.”
020
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
May have mentioned a while back. but I've been intermittently working through the Bible for my first time. So much wild stuff in there lol. Like today, I read about how soon-to-be-king David was running a protection racket in the wake of Samuel's death.
000
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Hearing Zohran and Trump express their intent to collaborate on affordability, and Trump affirm his sense that Zohran would take on public safety and crime, brought to mind the old Comintern phrase for social democrats, "social fascism." Not defending the concept, per se, but...
screencap of a tweet from Dylan Saba with a photo of zohran mamdani shaking Trump's hand at the oval Office with the caption "synthesis: yes they are fascist and yes they are in the coalition"
010
Reposted by julian francis park
Keri Blakinger @keribla.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
NEW: Federal prison workers are jumping ship & heading to ICE for better pay + bonuses. Already BOP lost >1400 people this year, reversing all of 2024’s staffing gains. It’s an unintended consequence of Trump’s push for mass deportations My 1st for @propublica.org www.propublica.org/article/ice-...
propublica.org
As Federal Prisons Run Low on Food and Toilet Paper, Corrections Officers Leave in Droves for ICE
Many of the problems the agency is facing now are not new, but staff and prisoners fear an exodus of officers could make life behind bars even worse.
30441227
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
This story from yesterday's attempted ICE kidnapping in West Oakland somewhat implies but doesn't claim that the ability of the parent to escape had to do with the anti-ICE patrol identify the feds earlier that morning. Would be curious to hear someone's on the ground assessment.
010
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
A conspiracy theory I believe in is that two factor ID code numbers sent to text display potentially meaningful patterns. They give me the pleasant feeling of the flarf poetics of old school, pre-"AI" but obviously compute generated spam emails.
000
Reposted by julian francis park
Ghostly Bree @mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 08/10/2025
The fact that they can't get a random sampling of citizens from any city to indict people for interfering with ICE seems more informative than any political poll, tbh
101092306
Reposted by julian francis park
Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
As ICE storms Chicagoland, Chicago’s organizers speak. Stacy Davis Gates, Benji Hart, Arti Walker-Peddakotla, Ric Wilson, and others discuss ongoing ICE raids, Trump’s threats to send in the National Guard, and the solidarity we need to survive these times. Audio + transcript:
truthout.org
Raids, Retaliation, and Radical Solidarity in Chicago
“History shows us that repression always breeds resistance,” says Chicago organizer Miguel Alvelo Rivera.
1297158
Reposted by julian francis park
It's Going Down @igd.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
Far-right and neo-Nazis school shooters have carried out numerous deadly attacks this year - many influenced by and posting on, the same websites - yet the mass media and politicians focus on manufactured fantasies of left-wing violence. www.kunc.org/news/2025-09...
kunc.org
Evergreen school shooting suspect posted online about mass shootings and neo-Nazi views, report says
Experts say a teenager suspected in a shooting attack at a suburban Denver high school that left two students in critical condition appeared fascinated with previous mass shootings including Columbine...
220780
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
Things are getting even worse on just about every front. People are afraid but we are also getting angrier and angrier. The collapse of the center/left raises the stakes. It was inevitable. Who knows what will provoke the next upsurge? I can promise you it won't be Jimmy Kimmel.
010
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
Leadership, in the sense of setting a militant example, will have to come from mass struggle, & it cannot be conjured out of nowhere. We are still following the path set by LA in June. Let a thousand community defense centers & neighborhood assemblies bloom.
120
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
This leaves their constituencies, middle class, white collar, civil workers, in a panic. For better or worse this progression is ripe for Zohran & DSA electoralism more broadly. Meanwhile, the grassroots left has been in many places building anti-ICE defense in the shadows.
110
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
The center/left cannot & will not now substantially organize as left movements do because they blame the left for what's happening to them, while having severed solidarity between themselves & the people by attacking those movements and failing to have anything credible to offer.
110
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
To defend the center/left from political & institutional collapse they would need to borrow tactics from left movements or to rally masses of people to themselves, both of which would require some degree of center/left hegemony. That's gone, largely by their own hand.
110
Reposted by julian francis park
Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Antifa is not an organization, it's an orientation. Anyone can be antifascist. Everyone should be.
1450198
Reposted by julian francis park
journalspectre.bsky.social @journalspectre.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Online SRT lab is in an hour! QR code in the original poster was broken. ZOOM LINK HERE 👇🏽 purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/9206239251...
023
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
I first thought about this in these terms reading Delany's Dhalgren a decade or so ago. Then reading New Narrative works. I've been having the same thought again reading Dostyevsky's Demons aloud gradually with my partner, and now listening to Kushner's The Mars Room.
000
julian francis park @malcontent.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
I'm not much of a novel reader anymore but an incredible thing about them can be the demonstration that everyday people's conversations are beautiful. Perhaps listening to novels, as I mostly do now, even emphasizes this. The task is to carry this recognition into daily life.
100
Reposted by julian francis park
It's Going Down @igd.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Labor unions and other organizations organized a march to demand the end to the military occupation of DC today.
116254