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 now voice 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 artificial intelligence and the entire digital leviathan.
Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.
Books discussed:
The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy by Gil Durán, Simon & Schuster, 2026
On the Eve of the Cybercultural Revolution: Black Power and Capitalism in the 1960s by Brian Bartell, University of Minnesota Press, 2025
Production by Chris Rywalt
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Image: Darrin Grimwood via Goodreads
