One thing we should "never forget" is how fear of terrorism can be leveraged into repression at home and endless wars abroad.

Apparently EVERYBODY who owns the Chicago Bears is an asshole

Brendel@brendelbored.bsky.social · 3h ago

Yikes! Yikes!!

Wrenching as it was, Vietnam not transform American society like 9/11. 9/11 was when the GOP's Clinton insanity, Reaganite exceptionalism/patriotrism and digital tech hardened into a whole new type of national security state. ICE? Trump hugging flags? Flock cameras? Unthinkable before 9/11.

Calliope@calliope5431.bsky.social · 4h ago

It would never be acceptable to say this sort of thing about Vietnam (which is the closest US comparison as far as "society-reshaping conflicts that ended without resolution"), and I suspect part of that is how personally invested a lot of academics were and are in the student movement there.

9/11 was the most important turning point in American society and culture since 1917. Part of what has gotten us here--ie, at Fascism--is treating History as a consumer good.

Joe Stieb@joestieb.bsky.social · 4h ago

This is very dumb commentary from a source that will remain nameless.

Every podcast I don’t listen to is called “Achieving the Limit with Duff and Ween” and gets sold for 300 million dollars while every podcast I do listen to is called “The Movie Toilet” and begs me to buy a t shirt so they can eat food

History's best-known welsher on debts says "I will give you $5,000 if you vote Republican, promise"

Of course no one will do anything about this, because he's just so EXCEPTIONAL

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 22h ago

Trump: "We're making a fortune. So if the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump Dividend. Congratulations."

I bet RFK Jr never gives Trump shit about his diet. I bet he never even says a word. "Wellness" is a weapon used to judge your "lessers."

ok but "the future" they are promising is "we destroy your jobs and maybe build a dark god of genocide" so perhaps winning these people back is not the wisest electoral move

CalMatters@calmatters.org · yesterday

Opinion | Democrats have lost Silicon Valley. Here's what it will take to win it back If Democrats want to become the party of the future again, they need to stop treating the people building the future like political enemies.

This is the general attitude of people in the US military right now.

Let us remember the old world, where Trump’s absurd 9/11 story would have been immediately debunked, and resulted in his impeachment & removal. It’s as if JFK had suddenly declared that he personally killed Hitler.

PSA: Election officials in California, Oregon, Washington and elsewhere are telling voters if you can, return your ballot through an official ballot drop box rather than trusting it to the mail.

Yeah unreliable isn't the same thing. There's something about the poor structure and repetitive nature to a lot of AI output, too. A looseness and slurring that makes you feel like you're in an amorphous blob of content.

Daily Reminder:

btw it is really a trip to see how intellectuals lost their minds after the invention of nuclear weapons and how much they sound like AI people nowadays.

The upshot of nativist Fascism will not be racially homogenous countries fitting neatly into "spheres of influence." Fascism is inherently expansionist. Conflict with small powers inevitably leads to conflict with big powers...which leads to massive war. Not great in a world of nukes.

Essential thread.

Robert Saunders@robertsaunders.bsky.social · 3d ago

90 years ago, Parliament responded to the rise of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts by passing the Public Order Act, which banned political uniforms, private militias and the threat of force for political objects. The debates make very resonant reading today. Here's the Liberal Robert Bernays. (Short 🧵)

"In 1957, [President] Dwight Eisenhower [a Republican] became the first American president to visit a mosque when he spoke at the opening of the Islamic Center of Washington." Worth reading what he had to say. It's very good. And very, very far from where we are now. 👇🏽

Erin L. Thompson@artcrimeprof.bsky.social · 2d ago

Among the many incredible things this book does is lay out how the US went from here to the maddening tomfoolery of today…

BEACH BOYS: Wish they all could be California girls ME: If all girls were California girls, "California" would be a meaningless distinction

Usually Fascists come into power as the result of some destabilizing calamity. The US version is trying to CREATE that calamity, so they can assert total power. This is the principle that makes all their behavior make sense. They are trying to break things.

Kelly@broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 2d ago

The fascists are destroying the environment, the food & medical supply. They’re gutting healthcare and food assistance Every one of these choices makes survival harder, and it impacts the disabled, elderly, marginalized and poor first They’re eliminating the “others” & not even trying to hide it

I felt a lot more "with it" when I lived under a Constitutional Democracy.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d ago

Dr Oz: "If we can get the average American to feel so healthy, so vital, so with it, that they want to work one extra year, just one extra year -- instead of retiring at 62, they want to go to 63 -- that's worth $1 trillion to our GDP every year"

For a certain kind of white man, there is no fear more primal than the fear that the people they have abused will gain power and treat them the same way.

I have a deadly autoimmune condition which is best controlled by acupuncture, so I know from alternative medicine but… When did everybody lose their fucking minds over vaccines and supplements? CHRIST

MAHA has been in power for two years. They have decimated basic science, gutted food safety surveillance and kicked millions of people off food stamps. *That* is their ideology, not their polite platitudes about corporate control of the food supply.

There's no evidence that we can neutralize MAHA with a better health care system. Western Europe has universal access and lower costs — and still has huge anti-vaxx and “medical freedom” movements. MAHA is driven by right-wing misinformation, not legitimate grievances with US healthcare.

Extremely important story. Predictive policing is a euphemistic way of saying DHS is doing pre-crime, because of its improper access to your data. As @jakelaperruque.bsky.social says here, this takes a sledgehammer to the concept of probable cause of the commission of a crime. It can’t be reformed.

404 Media@404media.co · 2d ago

404 Media is revealing the name of Border Patrol's predictive policing units, which analyze financial data and have local cops pull people over. The people are not suspected of any particular crime.

New: a secretive DHS predictive policing unit is analyzing Americans' financial activity, feeding those names to police, then having cops pull them over. Not suspected of any particular crime We're revealing the unit name too: Predictive Intelligence Targeting Team www.404media.co/a-secretive-...

A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans' Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over

404 Media is revealing the name of Border Patrol's predictive policing units, which analyze financial data and have local cops pull people over. The people are not suspected of any particular crime.

404media.co