Backgroound Image

New in January

Posted on by Lee Cicuta

I’ll be posting an update like this at the end of every month that will tell you what’s new to the site, what I’ve been working on, what’s going on in my life, and ways to support my work!

New in Social Media Threads

Bluesky Thread (January 2026)

Every violent act of ICE/CBP agents has precedent in police violence. What we’re witnessing IS an extreme escalation but it is NOT an aberration. It is in historical continuity with settler colonialism, slave patrols, eugenics, police brutality. Cops kill over 1,000 people in the U.S. every year. [ ]

The rapidity of institutions to lie and victim-blame when state enforcers murder someone is something Black and brown people on the margins have had to contend with for the entirety of US history. Cops have always been an occupying military force kidnapping and murdering BIPOC with impunity. [ ]

Let’s meet and seek to undermine the escalations as they do change conditions. It’s vital that we do. But not without recognition of the victims who fought and called for solidarity before this point. Not without connecting the dots between ICE abolition and the abolition of police, borders, states. [ ]

Bluesky Thread (January 2026)

By depriving liberals of their traditional non-confrontational means of protesting as well as the public spaces they expect a sense of stability and “normality” in, the fascist regime forces more and more of them into postures of direct action (ICE watches instead of scheduled marches). [ ]

I’m sure plenty will if actually given the opportunity, but a lot of these people are simply never going to go back to carrying grammable signs peacefully on a parade route after getting a taste of their own power and audacity in challenging an invading military force on their streets. [ ]

This fascist regime has declared that counterinsurgency to be boring and effeminate and fired everyone who might tell them otherwise. Predictably, more and more people are finding affinity between themselves and insurrectionists. The thing counterinsurgency works to avoid at all costs. [ ]

Counterinsurgency is all about alienating insurrectionaries from the general public. Public support, legitimacy, is the *most* vital resource to insurgents and counterinsurgents alike.

And this regime is just like “the public? fuck ’em. you can have them. all we need is force of arms.” [ ]

They’re acting and enforcing as if there is little to no substantive difference between the public, insurrectionaries, and the people they’re targeting for cleansing. Because of this, the costs (economic, logistical, and to agent moral) of their operations will only increase. [ ]

They’re telling liberals that unless they’re gleeful fascists they’re insurrectionaries and will be treated as such. A lot of those liberals are believing them in a way that’s putting them in close proximity and solidarity to radicals and radical movements.

This does not make for regime stability! [ ]

New in Art

Pencil sketch of a lanky and shirtless figure hanging down from one leg and laying awkwardly on their head and shoulders, one hand dangles down, the other arm is tucked under the body, mostly obscured.
girl stumbling
January 2025

When I shared this drawing on Instagram I paired it with Irène Schweizer’s Fox-Trottel and the two remain connected in my mind! Give it a listen here 🙂

New in Infographics

Comrades don't livestream comrades. Don't Do Cops' jobs for them

This is an old one I made sometime in April of 2021, but I missed in developing my archive! I was reminded of its existence when someone else posted it online last week. Not my favorite graphic of all time but it’s still got utility for folks after all this time I’ll make it accessible in my archive!

New to the Library

Books

Ervin, Lorenzo Kom’boa- Anarchism and the Black Revolution

Articles

Connell, R.W and James W. Messerschmidt- Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept

Kafer, Alison- Desire and Disgust: My Ambivalent Adventures in Devoteeism

Personal Update

In the early weeks of the month I wrote 1,500+ words on an essay on disability and the extractive violence of the medical industrial complex. It’s a solid beginning to a piece I intend to return to and hopefully finish, however, as I watched the regime’s ethnic cleansing campaign escalate in multiple cities and especially Minneapolis I found myself uninterested and unable to write about my earlier subject when the call to agitate against border enforcement specifically and loudly is so strong and coming from so many comrades in the struggle. In the last couple of weeks I have pivoted to a new essay on ICE, CBP, and police, which I’ve put about 4,000+ words into and a good deal more to go until it is finished. It’s still in its infancy as far as my essays go, but so far in it my focus is on contextualizing regime escalations as existing in historic continuity with police violence as well as resistance to it, rather than shocking aberrations from an otherwise progressive order. I am also embarking on this piece in the hopes to specially highlight and celebrate the resistance of women and youth, especially that of racially marginalized women and youth, while also exploring left discourses that have undervalued that resistance or reduce the participants to a gendered role in order to celebrate them (specifically, how all women on the front are referred to as “moms” even in cases there is no reason to assume this.) It’s also shaping out to be something of a love letter to audacious women. Hopefully by the next monthly update I will have this piece ready and published!

In my personal life I am struggling quite a bit and preoccupied with many intense logistics and physical labor demands. My partner and I switched to month-to-month rent this year in preparation for an eventual move back to Portland, and within the first couple of weeks our landlord put the house we’ve been living in for four years up for sale, sent multiple people to look at it, and it went under contract within a week. We are very very fortunate to have an option for another place to live in the time before we move to Portland via my partner’s family’s resources, but this means we are going to be moving twice this year, and the first time will be within the next few weeks. Once and with more time for planning was already going to be exceptionally stressful and difficult for me, especially with my injured hip, and I am feeling quite overwhelmed! I’ve managed to stubbornly keep my momentum on my essay, but at the cost of doing pretty much anything else with my life besides writing and packing.

I don’t keep any of my work behind a paywall, but as an ailing transgender dyke who wants to continue to create and share this work as long as I am able, I am also in serious need of financial support. If you appreciate what I share and have the means, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter of my Patreon, donating to my Ko-fi shop, or sending a little love to one of my tip jars on Venmo or Cashapp: