#i thought republicans were about less government

[icarusbetide]

the time my friend argued that jefferson would be a raging capitalist today

questions along the vein of "would this founding father be a democrat or a republican", etc. etc. are impossible to answer for a lot of reasons - 18th century politics don't match up nicely with our idea of left or right. even if we really really dumb it down to big gov, small gov; manufacturing vs. farming; it gets complicated. throw in modern issues and it's a whole other deal entirely. and obviously if they were resurrected and dropped into this world today they would be so overwhelmed and irrelevant it doesn't even matter.

but as someone who believes environment has a huge impact on people, i do wonder what they would be like if they were born and raised in today's world. how many political convictions or personality traits are going to translate directly?

my fellow history geek who studies economics had a really interesting argument about hamilton and jefferson. (all of this is based off of the assumption that they were born and raised in the modern era. this was a stupid conversation we had while procrastinating, don't take it too seriously!)

Hamilton:

obviously based on history, the first thing i said is that hamilton would be a wall street capitalist dude. but my friend said that you could make a (simple, rough) argument that his economic policies were radical for the time, moving away from the existing more mercantile structure. if we're going by solely what's considered radical today, it's a different picture. and he made the point that hamilton had a focus on energetic, involved government - very clearly clashing with fiscal conversative values of free markets and reduced debt, etc. so even if we translated him as a capitalist, it wouldn't be purely fiscal libertarian/conservative.

he wasn't by any means a destitute rags to riches story, but he did face quite a lot of early trauma and prejudice. illegitimacy and being west indian aren't as stigmatized in today's world - but if he still goes through similar experiences in a modern context, in a world less bound to enlightenment ideals? my friend (again over simplistically, he wants me to emphasize that) said "okay. let's say we translate that struggle to him being raised by a single mom and a deadbeat dad, with an immigrant status? he faces the problems in the existing structures, maybe the foster system? and if we accept that he might have had feelings for john laurens, that's probably going to affect him heavily; in today's world i can see him being more of a left-leaning person politically."

we both hesitantly agreed that given some of his qualities, childhood experience, etc. the fanfics that depict a modern hamilton to be at least liberal might not be too off? he'd still be a realist, wary of perceived demagogues, etc. and always fighting on twitter. my friend very strongly made the case that "just because he created and backed a capitalist financial system in the 1700s doesn't mean he would be right-wing now. simplifying but if he genuinely believed that his plans back then would improve the lives of americans, then he might see the system we have today and hate it. because it's not working: we're falling behind in a lot of important statistics; hamilton had negative qualities for sure but i do think he was genuine in trying to find what he thought would actually improve people's lives. he wasn't entirely motivated by money, right? he cut off his other incomes as treasury secretary? yes he was ambitious but he wanted to get things done. if anything, he'd see the ineffectiveness of a whole bunch of crap happening today and hate that."

he also thinks that because hamilton dedicated a lot to working on systems (both federal governmental and economic, perhaps the two most controversial and important ones at that time) it's valid (given that earlier childhood translation as well) that he'd be very interested in social programs and economic programs today. less of the federal government thing since that's more set in stone.

so his tldr: "i know it seems like presentism and wishful thinking for me to say that modern hamilton might've been left-leaning, but i really do think it's a possibility, if we translate some of his experiences to our world. there are other founders i'd argue that would be much more conservative and or capitalist. please don't attack me."

me: "wait who do you think would be the raging capitalist?"

him: "Jefferson. if we assume he's born into a rich, rich, prestigious family today - chances are he's the son of a ceo or some corporation. and that isn't exactly old money but you can argue that any colonist family is less old money compared to the actual british nobility. and how far back is old money? if it was his grandfather who struck it big then he's still got that trust fund kid energy. so in a way, we could argue that he'd actually be the raging capitalist, probably still wanting a smaller government but for the free market and tax cuts."

this was hilarious because i focused in on his ability to hone into what the public wants to hear, and thought he'd be one of those hipster, seemingly social justice warrior people who still harbor a great amount of elitism and hypocrisy.

my friend pointed out that both can be true. he can be like kendall roy and tweet "we must overthrow the culture of corruption that silences women" while being a piece of shit with a crazy family.

you'll probably notice that this is entirely speculatory, and a lot of it is based on vibes. and we made a lot of logical jumps in terms of translating influential experiences at that time to something equivalent in the modern day. this isn't scholarly or well justified in any way - we aren't trying to prove anything but it's fun to see what aspects of their personalities we pull out. how hilarious is it to consider a hamilton raging against the financial systems and structures of america while jefferson supports big corporations or whatnot?

#one thing we agreed on would be that if betsey and alexander still had kids she'd probably be a pinterest mom #historical hamilton #well actually not historical. that's the point. #alexander hamilton #thomas jefferson #stuff i do in my spare time #don't attack us pls this is just for fun

[qqueenofhades]

Am I crazy for thinking DeSantis is overextending on the cartoonish conservative evil in preparation for his presidential run? I feel like he might have drunk his own kool-aid as far as thinking “things that make you popular on Fox News also make you electable across the US”.

Book bans are not popular. They’re being shot down all over the US even in deep red areas. Taking away the liquor licenses of national chain hotels because they hosted a drag show seems like a good way to make big businesses wary of you, thus putting rifts in the evangelical/big business base of the GOP. People keep forgetting that Trump was a cipher when he ran. He had no record politically so both sides could think he’ll be the worst or the best, but there was no pinning him down. A lot of liberals entertained the possibility that Trump as a former democrat might not be so bad and he definitely caught the wave of people who wanted to try ANYTHING new rather than another Clinton.

Point is, even if DeSantis plays the Trump playbook but in a way more palatable to establishment GOP, that to me seems like a losing strategy rather than a winning one. Trump does not suffer competition and won’t endorse him. DeSantis lacks the decades of buildup of celebrity image and cult of personality. He’s got a an extremist GOP political record with lots of bold moves in a culture war that has NOT been fully litigated yet at the polls and might be less popular than the GOP realizes. I think the GOP is desperate to make him their guy since he’s a governor of a valuable state and he’s “reasonable” unlike Trump but at this point, is it possible they’re overestimating his appeal entirely and he’ll completely crash and burn when actually tested? Here’s hoping, but I’d love your thoughts.

Welp. Honestly, the media's relentless push to crown DeSantis "a more moderate version of Trump" is completely and demonstrably bullshit, since he is already a full-blown fascist and the only reason they think he's moderate is because he went to Harvard and can sometimes speak in complete sentences. Except every other one of those words is "woke," which the GOP can't define as literally anything apart from "something I don't like," and yeah.

The thing about DeSantis is that he's managed to curate an extremely hermetic personal bubble in Florida. He's staffed the state government with toadies and only gives interviews to hand-picked fawning conservative outlets. We're already seeing stories come out (and it's been noted before) that when you take him out of his personal comfort zone and make him answer actual questions from non-Fox reporters, he really struggles. He isn't smart or clever or original. He's just a dyed-in-the-wool white supremacist Christofascist who is willing to be "bold" (read: wildly extreme) and that makes him popular with the establishment GOP, who loved all of Trump's cruel policies but didn't like his personal demeanor. They think they can sell DeSantis to the suburban Republicans who really don't want to vote for Democrats (too liberal! Too brown! Too woke!) but were turned off by Trump's vulgar and criminal antics, and unfortunately, because white Republicans are the worst people in the world, they're probably right.

The problem for the GOP (hahahahhahahahahahaha thoughts and prayers motherfuckers!!!!!) is that Trump's base is still fanatically attached to his nasty orange backside and won't vote for DeSantis under any circumstances, as long as Trump is a factor in the race, because they think "respectability" is a dirty word and Trump's total derangement is what they like about him. He is their personal power fantasy and the living embodiment of their worst and most racist/sexist/xenophobic fantasies, and any hint of becoming acceptable to The Establishment would make them mad. So you've got the establishment GOP who wants to get back into power and thinks DeSantis is more likely to get them there, vs. the TrumpCult who will only ever vote for Trump, even as the establishment GOP is increasingly turning on him and treating him as the electoral liability that he is. (Don't forget the big Dominion lawsuit going on at Fox, which brutally exposed their hypocrisy for EVERYONE, even their own viewers, to see. Welp.)

And yes: America as a whole is not a nakedly fascist, deranged, extreme-right-wing white-supremacist Handmaid's Tale theocracy, despite the best efforts of a despicable minority. The GOP has not won one single meaningful election or federal office since Trump himself sneaked into the presidency thanks to the Electoral College in 2016 (barely squeaking out the House in 2022 and then watching Kevin McCarthy lose fifteen speakership elections in a row doesn't count). A recent poll showed that almost 60% of Americans thought "woke" was a good thing, meaning awareness of social and historical injustices rather than political correctness gone mad. The Democrats have continued to vastly overperform in special and state-level elections alike, including the much-hyped "Red Wave" in the 2022 midterms that turned out to be a Big Lol. Even this year, local Democrats are winning by bigger margins than Biden carried their districts. As I say, the reason Republicans try so hard to suppress, outlaw, and discredit the vote is because their policies/candidates will never win in any fair and legitimate election. They just won't. The only way they can bully their way into power is through fraud, fear, and lies. Of course, they're helped at every stage by the American media and its addiction to the "Both Sides Bad/Horse Race!!!" narrative, but even in this climate, Democrats are still winning.

Anyway: DeSantis is an empty suit who can reliably parrot fascist talking points and use his personal fiefdom of Florida to put them into action, but that doesn't translate to any kind of viable national candidate, especially since he implodes the instant you take him out of that bubble. I don't want to make anyone too overconfident or insist that it will clearly be fine, because the 2024 presidential election will be just as consequential as 2020 and there are way too many people in this country willing to vote for white supremacist fascism Because Gas Prices, but the overall sociocultural and political trends are not moving in DeSantis' direction and we need to work our asses off to make sure it stays that way.

#avelera #ask #politics for ts

[dolphin1812]

“As soon as a revolution has made the coast, the skilful make haste to prepare the shipwreck.”

It’s interesting that, in a novel full of drowning imagery, Hugo chooses to reference a shipwreck here (remember Jean Valjean drowning in societal neglect at the beginning of the novel!). It’s not just the intentionality in this shipwreck, or the general tragedy of one; it’s that we very specifically know what the worst part of a shipwreck – victims drowning – looks like. Just as intentional ship-wreckers leave countless to die horrifically by drowning, so do the “skillful” cause others to suffer (and also die) by choosing to prevent the further progression of the revolution. The intentionality is actually a bit shocking to read after the last chapter (which wasn’t that harsh on the Bourbons) with the knowledge that Hugo is generally far more critical of the Bourbons than Louis Philippe (remember how good-humored he was about the gamin’s pear portrait?), and it also contrasts with the unintentional drowning seen with Jean Valjean (where he isn’t seen or heard, just as the social order makes him and his suffering invisible). Then again, Hugo also says the “skillful” are just as aptly called the “mediocre,” so their destruction could be a mix of malice and incompetence (he adds “traitors,” so the malice is still there, at least for some).

I find the dynasty paragraph hilarious because of how he says “procure a dynasty.” I don’t know why, but I find the phrasing very funny. More seriously, I love how he points out the “mask of necessity.” As he said in the last chapter, part of the issue facing the Bourbons (and then Louis Philippe) was that the French no longer saw kings as being so necessary because they had lived without them. Of course, peace and stability were appealing after the tumultuous years of the French Revolution and Napoleon. But monarchy wasn’t the only option anymore, and justifying a dynasty as “necessary” because France was part of a “monarchical continent” seemed bizarre when France had gone so long without a king. It could still seem convincing in the moment, but it’s also easy to see how upsetting hearing that would have been when it’s clearly wrong. The image of swaddling the people is similarly funny, but I like the addition that it’s done to increase fear and suspicion, making someone out to be ill when they’re healthy to discourage action.

And then there’s this:

“Now, logic knows not the “almost,” absolutely as the sun knows not the candle.”

Going back to Les Amis de l’ABC: the “logic of the revolution” is Enjolras. He, unlike Marius, would certainly have been upset by 1830 (especially given the thoughts of Combeferre and, more dramatically, Courfeyrac, who are both presented as more “moderate” than he is). This sentence tells us why he’s so active. He can’t tolerate the “almost” of the July Revolution because small forms of progress can’t satisfy him. Only an actual republic – the sun in this case – can, and that “light” was greatly diminished by the July Revolution’s aftermath. He, along with “absolute right,” has “retired into the darkness” because it is only with concealment that he (and members of other republican organizations) can plan to continue “progressing” when the government is hostile to them.

Hugo’s insistence that the bourgeoisie isn’t real is a bit strange, but the idea of “halting” rather than “stalling” is interesting. As we saw with Les Amis, people are still organizing in hiding. It’s a “halt” to plan in that interest in progress never actually disappears or decreases; it simply becomes less visible, constrained to the realm of plans and theories until the opportunity to act appears.

#Les mis letters #lm 4.1.2 #Enjolras #les amis de l’abc #Louis philippe

[ednav]

I don’t like to talk about politics here. But I see so many posts about the war in Israel/Palestine right now, and I cannot help saying my bit. It’s going to be long (read up until the end, or just skip) and messy and very personal. It’s not meant to be an essay that analyses all aspects of the situation. It comes after one of the worst months of my life—please, be kind. I’ve been on this earth for almost half a century, and it’s been one of the worst months of my life.

[If you prefer not to read at all, just skip. No harm done.]

I have both Muslim and Jewish friends in the Europe and in the US. Some of them wear a hijab, some of them wear a kippah. Every morning I check that they didn’t get beaten up because dividing the world into “good guys” / “bad guys” and releasing your frustration on someone who looks like “the bad guys” is an easy way to feel in control when you’re scared.

And now, the unpopular bit: I have Jewish Israeli friends. Every morning I check they came out alive from the bomb shelter. Hamas is still firing rockets—a lot of rockets—on both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I wait for them tell me if another disfigured body has been identified as a friend whom they thought that had “just” been kidnapped.

One of these friends goes to the peace protests in Tel Aviv, so I have to check that he didn’t get beaten up by the police either.

(Dear US people: identifying Israel with Netanyahu is like assuming all of you are MAGA Republicans. Worse, actually, because Israel is not a two-party system—more like a twenty-party system—and it’s a mess. Decolonise your mind from assuming that every country works like the US.)

Some of my friends are Mizrahi. Their great-grandparents had to find refuge in the relative safety of Israel after being expelled by another country in that region—a place where they cannot go back to. Not-very-fun fact: they’re also dark-skinned enough to get “randomly checked” every time they get on a plane, unless there’s a woman wearing a hijab or a chador on the same flight. It’s not as simple as European or US colonialism.

(Once again: stop making it all about you. The world is more complex than your country. Especially if your country is less than 250 years old and hasn’t had a battle on its soil in more than 130 years.)

I don’t know anyone in Palestine, so I can’t say what it’s like to have friends on that side of the border. I imagine it’s even worse, given that most people there don’t have shelters, nor actual freedom to protest against their government, at least in the Gaza strip.

Anyway: I don’t wish what I’ve been through in the last month on my worse enemy. And I’m just a friend of some people who are not in the worst possible situation. I know that I cannot even begin to know what it must be like for Jewish, Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian people.

And now, let me tell you about a history book that might have saved the world. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

It’s a bit outdated, but it’s still quite good, and the writing is simply brilliant. It’s called The Guns of August, and it’s about the first month of WWI. Just the first month, and how we got there. How stubbornness, pride, rhetoric, and even “rationality”, led to a massacre that did nothing but cause another massacre less than a generation later. It was written by a woman, Barbara Tuchman, in 1962. Later that year, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F Kennedy gave it to read to all the generals in the US Army. The message was simple: escalation leads to disaster. Sometimes you have to compromise, accept losses and even a certain degree of “unfair”, rather than getting into a full-blown war.

Now, I’m not a pacifist. I know that some wars are the lesser evil. I have relatives who fought in the Resistance. They were proud of having risked their lives. They were proud of living in a country with free elections—even if fascists-in-all-but-name could get elected—and at peace. But they were not proud of having killed people whose children grew up as orphans.

I see a lot of people, especially younger people, who want Pure Justice. Bad people must be eliminated, good people must triumph, no excuses.

The thing is—there are no completely good people, nor completely bad people. There are people. Often scared and more traumatised than you can possibly imagine.

There are people who must pay for their crimes. There are people who will, and some who won’t. Just ask anyone who survived a war, or a time of almost-civil-war like the Troubles in the UK/Ireland or the terrorism of the 1970s In Europe—that’s something we’ve all seen. (I say “we” because I’m old enough to remember the 1980s. They sucked, trust me.)

The problem is: the more you lose sight of the common humanity of everyone involved, the more you escalate the tension, the more there will be people who are going to pay for crimes they haven’t committed. And the more I see of this world, the more I believe that if there’s one side it’s just fighting for, it’s theirs.

As I said—it’s messy. And human beings are precious, but fragile. Please, be kind.

#personal #politics #human beings #peace #war #justice #be kind

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Musings of recovering Republican Tom Nichols:

I have no patience with people who casually refer to anyone with whom they disagree as “fascists,” but such people are a small and annoying minority. The reality is that the Americans who have taught us all to hate one another instantly at the sight of a license plate or at the first intonation of a regional accent are the vanguard of the new American right, and they have found fame and money in promoting division and even sedition.

These are the people, on our radios and televisions and even in the halls of Congress, who encourage us to fly Gadsden and Confederate flags and to deface our cars with obscene and stupid bumper stickers; they subject us to inane prattle about national divorce as they watch the purchases and ratings and donations roll in. Such people have made it hard for any of us to be patriotic; they pollute the incense of patriotism with the stink of nationalism so that they can issue their shrill call to arms for Americans to oppose Americans.

Their appeals demean every voter, even those of us who resist their propaganda, because all of us who hear them find ourselves drawing lines and taking sides. When I think of Ohio, for example, I no longer think (as I did for most of my life) of a heartland state and the birthplace of presidents. Instead, I wonder how my fellow American citizens there could have sent to Congress such disgraceful poltroons as Jim Jordan and J. D. Vance—men, in my view, whose fidelity to the Constitution takes a back seat to personal ambition, and whose love of country I will, without reservation, call into question. Likewise, when I think of Florida, I envision a natural wonderland turned into a political wasteland by some of the most ridiculous and reprehensible characters in American politics.

I struggle, especially, with the shocking fact that many of my fellow Americans, led by cynical right-wing-media charlatans, are now supporting Russia while Moscow conducts a criminal war. These voters have been taught to fear their own government—and other Americans who disagree with them—more than a foreign regime that seeks the destruction of their nation. I remember the old leftists of the Cold War era: Some of them were very bad indeed, but few of them were this bad, and their half-baked anti-Americanism found little support among the broad mass of the American public. Now, thanks to the new rightists, an even worse and more enduring anti-Americanism has become the foundational belief of millions of American citizens.

I know that such thoughts make me part of the problem. And yes, I will always believe that voting for someone such as Jordan (or, for that matter, Donald Trump) is, on some level, a moral failing. But that has nothing to do with whether Ohio and Florida are part of the America I love, a nation full of good people whose politics are less important than their shared citizenship with me in this republic. I might hate the way most Floridians vote, but I would defend every square inch of the state from anyone who would want to take it from us and subjugate any of its people.

#The Atlantic #Tom Nichols #patriotism #articles

[mariacallous]

In the summer of 2022, as it became clear that Vladimir Putin had made a vast strategic error,  a cry went up from concerned and caring Western statesmen that on no account must the dictator be “humiliated”.

Emmanual Macron was adamant that, despite the Kremlin launching an unprovoked war of imperial expansion and committing countless crimes against humanity, the West must offer it an “exit ramp.” Meanwhile, the Biden administration treated Ukraine like a prisoner under torture: it provided enough weapons to keep the country alive but not the modern aircraft, tanks and long-range missiles it needed to escape the pain Russia inflicted.

Western governments feared crossing a “red line” and provoking Putin into nuclear war. Or they worried that a decisive Russian defeat would lead to Putin’s overthrow and chaos descending on the Russian Federation.

Chaos in Russia? My God, that would be intolerable, even though the West seems more than willing to tolerate chaos in Europe.

For in this dark winter the question is now what happens if the West is humiliated?  Where are our red lines?  And what is our exit ramp?  

Western success or failure remains in our own hands. The Institute for the Study of War is stating no more than the obvious when it says that, if the US and Europe stop their aid, Ukraine will fall. And that, if the West maintains and increases support, Russian cannot win.

I said these statements were obvious, and so they should be. Yet both the US and the EU are denying their force.  The European Union allowed Putin’s client Viktor Orban to veto a €50 billion aid package. Meanwhile in the US, pro-Trump Republicans are blocking  support to Ukraine (and to Israel and Taiwan) for the time being, and there is the prospect that Donald Trump will win the presidency in November 2024, and block it forever.

We know what a Russian victory will mean for Ukraine. In the areas of the country Russian troops have conquered, they hunted down local leaders who might inspire resistance, tortured, raped and murdered

What would happen to the West is a question that deserves more attention than it receives, however. The West isn’t a fixed place. If the term means anything it is a description of common beliefs and alliances shared across democratic nations. If the defeat of Ukraine shows that those beliefs are fatuous, Putinist politics will receive an enormous boost; not just in Russia, where the imperial and dictatorship would see its legitimacy enhanced, but also in Europe and North America.

Russian success would mean that, contrary to everything we were taught since 1945, dictators can reorder Europe’s borders by force, and occupy and terrorise an independent country. As that knowledge sinks in, the atmosphere in the West will turn foul and foul Western movements will thrive.

Talking about changes in the atmosphere or zeitgeist feels airy and imprecise; an improper subject for serious journalism. But the argument of this piece is that all societies manage with norms they take to be inviolable. When those norms fail everything changes.

If Russia can engage in unprovoked aggression and colonial land seizures, and get away with it, Donald Trump can deny the results of a legitimate election and incite insurrection, and still get to be US president again.

Trump, indeed, has already shown that he understands the dark currents of our time better than his critics. 

In June 2016, the then candidate Trump welcomed the “leave” victory in the UK’s Brexit referendum, seeing it as a sign that he would win the US presidential election in November of that year. Many journalists, myself included, thought he was an idiot. Potential Republican voters knew little and cared less about debates about British sovereignty and the Common Agricultural Policy, we reasoned. But Trump knew better. He understood that because the UK “scored a great victory” over the “global elite,”  and had torn up the old rules, enough American voters might be prepared to do the same.

 If US weapons delays continue into 2024 and Ukraine staggers or falls, it will help Trump’s prospects and the prospects of Europe’s far right parties. Every Russian success is a jeering attack on human rights and the liberal order. All enemies of liberalism benefit from Putin’s victories.

Imagining a Ukrainian defeat is not to play some kind of grim parlour game. The weapons embargoes hurt. They make planning for the future of the war impossible. Phillips O’Brien, a leading military historian,  says that “Ukraine has no idea what it will have in terms of… the equipment it will need to fight the war because it has no idea what the US will do in terms of aid. I’m struggling to think of a more difficult strategic planning situation.”

Like most historians and military strategists, he is astonished that we can even be talking about a Ukrainian defeat. The balance of forces is such that we should not need to contemplate it. First, credit must go to the courage of the Ukrainian armed forces.   Contrary to all the expectations of the supposedly competent Western intelligence services, they did not fold in February 2022, but inflicted vast losses on the Russian army and defeated the Russian navy in the Black Sea.

And then there is the brute audit of power.

Russia is a vicious state with a relatively small economy and delusions of imperial grandeur. As of 2023, NATO had approximately 3.36 million active military personnel compared with 1.33 million active military personnel in the Russian military. NATO had 20,633 aircraft to Russia’s 4,182, and 2,151 military ships, to Russia’s 598.   From any normal military perspective, an outgunned mafia state, should not be able to win a proxy war against the west.

If it does, three conclusions will follow, none of them comforting.

The power of malign minorities to dictate to the rest of us will be on full display. Most Americans and a majority of politicians in the US Congress want to help Ukraine. But a minority on the Republican right is blocking them, and the Biden administration is so lacking in political skill it cannot mobilise the majority to break the deadlock. Hungary, meanwhile, is a tiny quasi-dictatorship, and Viktor Orban is a Putin ally. If the European Union were a self-confident alliance of democracies, it would expel it. As things stand, it prefers to let Orban dictate European priorities instead.

I mention useless liberal leadership because so much of liberal commentary focuses on the far right. Journalist should be honest and report that the war is revealing a failure of nerve in the liberal mainstream. Everyone quotes from The Second Coming in moments like these, but Yeats’s lines are unavoidable: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

If Ukraine loses, the liberal centre will not hold. The decision of the Biden administration to keep Ukraine as a tortured prisoner, without the weapons systems it needs to break free, will not just seem a cruel policy but a colossal strategic mistake, which threw away the chance to weaken the West’s enemies.

The mistake so many of us living comfortable and secure lives make is to believe that we can escape the consequences; that what happens in Ukraine will stay in Ukraine.

In fact, refugees will flood westwards, destabilising Europe and encouraging the far right. War won’t stop. Ukrainians will take to the forests and mountains and fight guerilla campaigns.  Emboldened by victory and confident that the West lacks the will to resist, Russia will push again into Moldova and the Baltic States.

Every cliché dictators utter about the flabbiness of selfish democracies will be proved true. Russia and indeed China will be able to tell the world that the United States and NATO were unreliable allies, who lacked the endurance for the long haul. Tyrants from Xi to Maduro will be licking their lips. Every illiberal movement on the planet will see Putin’s victory as their victory 

It does not have to be this way. But unless in 2024 Western governments stand up for what they say they believe in, it will be.

[antiphotogenicfilmographer]

“f the mormons” but like why?

haha, randomly posting my thoughts bc i’m pissed but don’t have a platform. why is prejudice against every religion except mine something that is completely unacceptable? but then when it comes to mormon’s, suddenly it’s “well all their members are racist” or “their church has history of racism and discrimination” or “byu has does this or that,” like why do y’all have to explain yourself? the minute you have to explain yourself, you lose. you could explain away discriminating against anyone or any protected group for however long you want, it is still discrimination and is still wrong. and i HATE how the right wing members are the absolute loudest when it comes to responding to hate and they always respond in the worst way possible. bc as someone who is left leaning (and by leaning, i mean swerving) we don’t speak up, we see the explanations people make and we can’t explain them away, and won’t. there is history of racism, and there are still big problems with acceptance within the church currently, i will never try to justify that or downplay it, but assuming that everyone agrees with these problems is just plain wrong. 

mormonism is a religion of personal revelation, that is developing your relationship with God yourself, rather than just believing everything a pastor tells you. and it maddens me to know a good amount of history about the church and how it was too feminist and socialist for america, so the governments decided to rage war against us? bc polygamy and communitarianism were, and apparently presently are far too controversial. so you know, to not get killed, the leaders of the church basically put on some camo gear and tried to fit in as much as possible with the very christians who had massacred their friends, families, and hopes, and have stayed that way up until the present, leading to lots of members being disillusioned that the teachings of the church are just the ideals of the republican party, which (believe me, i lived in germany for a year on my mission, and witnessed a bishop laugh at the police and at byu for the whole “light the y” color the campus situation) is completely wrong. and probably the reason why we lost the third hour of church, we need less time facilitating with one another what we reason to be doc of the church, and more time asking God themself what we should believe and do. 

either way, no one sees the actual tree of the religion and only look at the rotten branches that slowly choke out the good ones. yes, the tree needs to be pruned but i have no clue how that would be possible. and so the public eye only sees the rotten fruits located at the very end of the long long branches and ignore the good fruits growing closer to the tree and no one ever thinks to look at the roots. so they point and scrutinize the overgrown branches and bitter fruit, not understanding there is more underneath that they are also criticizing. i am honestly always nervous to tell people about my religion bc i know with what groups they will group me into, all groups i don’t belong to (republicans or trumpians, basic utahns, loud and proud americans, etc. etc.) bc as prez nelson taught us, i put my title of disciple of christ, child of god, and child of the covenant before anything else. why is it that i myself feel ashamed to talk about my religion? bc it always comes with some sort of shift in attitude from the person learning this info. it’s always.. “oh, you’re a mormon..?” followed by jokes about polygamy and magic underwear. it’s always bad to joke about religion when it comes to every religion besides mormonism and even when you point out the hypocrisy, so called leftists still laugh in your face and continue making fun of a protected group. 

and so i am left to ask myself every day, why? why can’t i tell them that polygamy, though sometimes disgusting and icky at the time it was in practice in the actual church and since then exploited by excommunicated perverts (i’m not referring to that practicing of polygamy bc like yikes), was a system in which women could easily form romantic friendships with one another and you know kiss and stuff, that sealings between men were allowed until the late 1800s in order to connect them and their families forever in eternity, that women could heal the sick for a time, that the church has so much money because of our communal money system, and the history of racism coincided directly with average christian beliefs about race at the time (remember how we just really really wanted to fit in?)  and how one of our prophets legit told a gay couple that he didn’t know enough about it to make a judgement and encouraged them to live a happy life together (plus it was the prophet easily regarded as one of the kindest and most christlike modern prophets by most other modern prophets) and that one of our core beliefs is that men and women are inherently equal and another being the existence of feminine deity and her possible co-authoring of everything we consider God the father to have authored, and like so much more, but i’m getting tired and can’t think anymore. but yeah, most people still consider those things like God the mother and polyamory and spiritual communism are still unfortunately pretty radical concepts.

so yeah, “f the mormons,” but just remember that it’s not just blind sheep you’re hating on, but your colleagues and friends you never knew were mormon simply bc they were afraid to tell you. 

and you’re evidence as to why... and that’s called oppression

#queerstake #tumblrstake

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A bill that would let people carry concealed firearms without a permit and without training passed out of the House on Friday, putting the bill just a step away from the Governor’s desk. The legislation lets people who are otherwise qualified to purchase and carry a firearm avoid the permitting process to conceal carry their weapon.

Rep. Chuck Brannan, R-Macclenny, said the bill was about removing red tape, and that “Florida will not come between you and your freedom to protect yourself anymore.” The legislation passed 76-32.

Despite intense lobbying, the legislation does not open the door to allow people to openly carry their guns in public — a point of anger among pro-gun advocates who say the bill does not go far enough in protecting Second Amendment rights.

Rep. Mike Beltran, R-Riverview, briefly filed an amendment earlier this week that would have allowed for open carrying in certain kinds of holsters. But he withdrew it the next day. On the House floor, he spoke at length about why he believes open carry would be a good move.

Beltran said in a text that the amendment “was and is good policy but unfortunately this is not the right time or the right vehicle.”

“I’d prefer to pass this legislation and lock in what we can, and then see what we can accomplish later,” Beltran wrote.

House Speaker Paul Renner said he supports open carry, but said there’s concern among his caucus and in the Senate about the issue. He said he and Beltran discussed the amendment and identified some problems that would have made things “worse, not better,” which were flagged by the National Rifle Association.

“There are a lot of things I don’t get as Speaker that I want, and I’m very very happy that this bill moves us forward, expands rights in a way that are material and important,” Renner said.

Luis Valdes, Florida director of Gun Owners of America, said in a statement that the permitless carry bill is a step in the right direction, but said it isn’t “constitutional carry” like Gov. Ron DeSantis promised last year.

“Governor DeSantis promised Floridians that we’d get constitutional carry and the Republican supermajority is failing to bring that,” Valdes said.

Members of pro-gun groups speaking out against the bill found themselves strange bedfellows with gun safety advocates, who argued the removal of an additional background check and the training requirement made the public less safe.

An amendment to require training was one of more than a dozen amendments put forward on the permitless carry bill, nearly all of which were sponsored by Democrats, and nearly all of which failed.

Brannan, the sponsor of the bill, said he thought training was important, and pointed to $1.5 million in the bill allotted for it, but said he did not think it was “the nanny government’s job” to mandate it.

Democrats also argued the bill would increase the risk of profiling, and would acutely impact Black communities.

One of the amendments, from Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, would allow people to carry firearms into meetings in the Legislature. Legislative meetings are one place, along with courthouses, polling places, and a handful of other designated areas, where Florida law prohibits people from carrying firearms, concealed or otherwise.

Eskamani said “if the majority party thinks guns make us more safe, we should strike this.” Republicans voted the amendment down.

Another amendment by Eskamani would have created an avenue for people to put themselves on a voluntary do not sell list, which they could remove themselves from later. Eskamani said it was designed to help protect people contemplating suicide.

During the debate, Rep. Michele Rayner-Goolsby, D-St. Petersburg, told legislators that in 2021, she attempted suicide with a gun and later checked herself into a mental health facility.

“At the end of the day I don’t see the harm in this type of amendment if it can save someone’s life like mine,” Rayner-Goolsby said.

The amendment failed.

Alexis Dorman, a 19-year-old volunteer with Students Demand Action, said she expected that the bill would pass because of the Republican supermajority, but said she was surprised by the speed at which it moved. By the first week of Florida’s legislative session, the bill was through all of its committees in the House and Senate.

“The youth in our state today are going to grow up around people who can legally carry a firearm without any proper training, and that’s really scary to think about,” Dorman said.

The permitless carry legislation is also available for a vote on the Senate floor, but hasn’t yet been scheduled.

HOW TO GET HELP

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat with someone online at 988lifeline.org.

#us politics #news #tampa bay times #2023 #permitless carry #open carry #firearms training #gun rights #gun control #gun violence #Florida #Chuck Brannan #republicans #conservatives #gop #Mike Beltran #Paul Renner #Luis Valdes #Gun Owners of America #constitutional carry #Gov. Ron DeSantis #Anna Eskamani #Michele Rayner-Goolsby #Alexis Dorman #Students Demand Action #florida legislature

[nesiacha]

The Ideal Republic:

I don't know about you, but in France, there's increasingly justified complaints that the representative system is completely out of touch with its people. We need more democracy, better representation. A profound system change to address our problems. I would like a Republic with a president refusing to live in the Presidential Palace but rather in his apartment like the majority of French people, as President Mujica did. He would be less disconnected from the reality of the people because he would live among the majority of them (similarly to how French revolutionaries worked at the Tuileries but didn't live there). The case of President Mujica should no longer be an exception but the rule. The presidential palace should serve only as a workplace and to receive foreign dignitaries. All government members, including deputies, should now live with a salary decrease similar to that of the majority of French people. We can't ask the people to make efforts if we don't practice them ourselves. I would like a model based on the First Republic with a much more controlled executive, divided in the General Assembly as the Republicans proclaimed. I would like a new constitution as close as possible to that of 1793. Like the First Republic, I would like citizens who are not part of the government or the General Assembly to take the stand to voice their demands, difficulties, criticisms, absolutely everything. Government members who are under investigation by justice should no longer receive any special treatment. We citizens don't benefit from it, so why should they? After all, it is the government that should serve the people, not the other way around. Referendums should be well conducted, well respected, ensuring that the fundamental rights acquired after many struggles remain respected as inviolable rights (abolition of the death penalty, right to abortion, marriage for all, etc.). Social progress should continue even if it might displease some… Only this Republic could be the one that meets our needs… But I don't think I'll see it one day… Anyway, I've always thought that the rights we've acquired have only come after years of struggle, that revolutions happen in different periods. The most recent example that comes to mind is the one where we almost had a revolution in May 1968. There will surely be another day, we will have a real program for the people again, then it will be fought and it will be a cycle… But every concession we wrestle is a victory, and that's not a reason to give up (for example: there were real social revolutions in 1792, in 1830, in 1848, and in 1870, for example, even if in the end there were always regressions or the fact that these revolutions were buried or failed, they managed to secure very significant concessions and always to rise again, without all these revolutionaries we might even have been at risk of losing all our rights, we wouldn't have had them at all).

#France #revolution #french revolution #the communards #1848 #1830 #Republic #Third Republic #Fifth Republic

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 8/11/2023

Fifth Place: Charlie Kirk

It's always refreshing to see Republicans go back to their old talking points, like Charlie Kirk saying on his show today that Democrats--gasp--want the government to improve the lives of the people:

The Democrats, they are a temporary coalition between permanent, resentful, government addicted minorities and people that want government benefits, Xanax and chardonnay wine moms, and resentful college educated white, liberal women who complain about everything with single women, and oligarchs. That's the Democrat Party. 

I know, how dare people want a government which gives them benefits. I always love how the Republican attacks on Democrats so often come down to "They believe this institution that we pay taxes too should represent us in some way." Yeah, that seems like the entire point of having a government in the first place, honestly.

Fourth Place: Jesse Watters

Vivek Ramaswamy is currently proposing a Constitutional Amendment which would require those between the age of eighteen and twenty four to pass a civics test before voting (one wonders why it should be those ages specifically, but that's another topic). Jesse Watters of Fox News has endorsed this idea, and I remind everybody one of my favorite facts of all time: Those who get their information from Fox News have been found to be less informed than those who watch no news at all.

Third Place: Anthony Sabatini

Yes, Sabatini is running for Congress again, and The Daily Beast has a rather interesting report about his college thesis: It turns out large chunks of it were plagiarized from Wikipedia. The main reason it wasn't caught is because the thesis is so filled with typos that checking if Sabatini actually wrote the lines himself became much harder.

I should also note that his thesis is just--really bad. It's a grand total of forty typo filled pages, and is about as good as a piece of scholarship as the doctoral thesis of Kent Hovind. Although, given Neil Gorsuch plagiarized large chunks of his doctoral dissertation--you don't think--nah.

Second Place: Michael Knowles

A new diet pill was recently announced, and this angered Michael Knowles because of Aristotle or something:

Quacks have sought quick fixes to the ills wrought by concupiscence since time immemorial. Wise men since at least the days of Aristotle have understood that a quick fix will never work because the natural remedy to vice is virtue. Natural happiness, then, comes by way of excellent rational activity in accordance with virtue. 

People in his time also believed there were only five elements, things fell at a speed determined by how much they weigh, and that the sun orbited the Earth as opposed to the other way around. Nothing against Aristotle, the dude was pretty smart and certainly said a large amount of intelligent things--but he was flawed, like all men of throughout all of history, and I highly doubt he would have taken issue with diet pills of all things.

Winner: Merrick Garland

The fact Joe Biden allows a man who just announced a special counsel investigation into Hunter Biden because of a nonsensical scandal thought up by Republicans to remain his Attorney General is evidence of either his generosity or stupidity. The Hunter Biden "crime" claim is utterly nonsensical and if the Department of Justice wants to turn a blind eye to the much bigger crimes of Donald Trump while doing this--well, one has to wonder if Garland isn't just working for Trump's re-election campaign.

Merrick Garland, you've done the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

#charlie kirk #jesse watters #anthony sabatini #michael knowles #merrick garland

[newstfionline]

Thursday, March 14, 2024

The US has its first presidential rematch since 1956 (AP) Just when Americans thought they were out, Joe Biden and Donald Trump pulled them back in. The sequel to the 2020 election is officially set as the president and his immediate predecessor secured their parties’ nominations. Biden and Trump have set up a political movie the country has seen before—even if the last version was in black and white. The last presidential rematch came in 1956, when Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower again defeated Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic opponent he had four years prior. Grover Cleveland, meanwhile, was the nation’s 22nd and 24th president, winning elections in 1884 and 1892.

Congress is becoming less productive (Reuters) The U.S. Congress is navigating yet another government funding deadline—the eighth in less than six months—and are at an impasse over sending aid to key allies in Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel. Divisions among Republicans in the House and Senate killed a major bipartisan border policy bill. Reforms to bedrock programs like Medicare and Social Security are desperately needed but no closer to getting passed. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives spent close to a month without a speaker last year due to infighting between moderate and hard right factions of the Republican party. When U.S. Representative Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, begged his colleagues in November to “give me one thing I can campaign on and say we did,” he was articulating what many lawmakers and observers were feeling: Congress isn’t working. The simplest expression of this is the number of bills passed by Congress. Just twenty-seven bills were passed last year—a record low.

In yearly Pennsylvania tradition, Amish communities hold spring auctions to support fire departments (AP) A couple hundred used buggies—horses not included—were lined up and ready for the auctioneer’s gavel last weekend when day began at the Gordonville mud sale, a local Amish tradition dating to the 1960s. Mud sales are country auctions that benefit volunteer fire departments across what the Amish community refers to as the Lancaster settlement, located some 70 miles (113 kilometers) west of Philadelphia where the devout Christian group began to settle about 300 years ago. They don’t sell mud, although a cold rain brought plenty of it. The name refers to early spring, when wet fields have begun to thaw but may not be ready for the plow. Gordonville’s mud sale, one of at least a dozen being held this spring in the region, drew thousands of bidders and was expected to net the fire department about $100,000, about 10% of the total proceeds. Amish people make and donate much of the food and sale items and are the buyers of most of the buggies and the array of horse-drawn farm equipment.

As leader resigns, Haitian politicians rush to form new government (Washington Post) Haitian leaders scrambled Tuesday to meet a 24-hour deadline to set up a panel that will lead the deteriorating country to new elections following the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Kenyan officials, meanwhile, said they were putting the deployment of a U.N.-approved multinational security force to the beleaguered Caribbean nation on pause until a new government is in place, according to media reports. A senior U.S. State Department official said the transitional presidential council would select an interim prime minister and government in “the very near future” and the mission should “go forward without delay.” Perhaps the greatest question: Would the gangs that helped push Henry allow the transition to a new authority?

Germany hit by new wave of airport, train strikes (DPA) Germany has again been hit by a double wave of strikes in the transport sector, as train drivers and aeroplane cabin crews stopped work on Tuesday in ongoing wage disputes. Around 80% of long-distance trains were cancelled on Tuesday as train drivers from the state-owned rail company Deutsche Bahn went on strike. At major air hubs Frankfurt and Munich, tens of thousands passengers were having to reschedule their flights due to a two-day strike by the cabin crew union Ufo at Lufthansa. Individual flights were also cancelled at other locations such as Berlin's international airport.

‘Jamming’: How Electronic Warfare Is Reshaping Ukraine’s Battlefields (NYT) The Ukrainian soldier swore and tore off his headset. His video monitor had gone blurry at first, the landscape of shattered trees and shell craters barely visible, before blacking out completely. The Russians had jammed the signal of his drone as it was flying outside the town of Kreminna in eastern Ukraine. For a while, the Ukrainians enjoyed a honeymoon period with their self-detonating drones that were used like homemade missiles. The weapons seemed like an effective alternative to artillery shells for striking Russian forces. Now, the bad days are starting to outweigh the good ones: electronic countermeasures have become one of the Russian military’s most formidable weapons after years of honing their capabilities. Electronic warfare remains a hidden hand in much of the war, and like Ukraine’s disadvantage in troop numbers and ammunition supplies, Ukraine suffers in this area as well in comparison to Russia. Russia has more jamming equipment capable of overpowering Ukrainian signals by broadcasting on the same frequencies at higher power. It also exhibits better coordination among their units.

Naval drones versus Russian warships (BBC) The secretive G-13 unit of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency was behind the sinking of the Sergey Kotov warship last week, its fifth downing in the year since it’s been in operation. The group’s not-so-secret weapons are naval drones—cheap, unmanned and lethal. The Magura V5, named after a Slavic goddess of war, looks like a small motorboat with a flat surface instead of passenger seats. “It doesn’t emit a lot of heat, so it’s almost invisible for thermal cameras. It’s made from plastic, therefore even radars struggle to see it,” says the unit’s commander. Produced by the Ukrainian armed forces, the drone’s claimed range is 800km (500 miles), so it can easily reach the Crimean peninsula and even the Russian coastline. It can allegedly carry 250kg of payload, enough to sink a warship.

Putin warns the West: Russia is ready for nuclear war (Reuters) President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday Russia was technically ready for nuclear war and that if the U.S. sent troops to Ukraine, it would be considered a significant escalation of the conflict. Putin, speaking just days before a March 15-17 election which is certain to give him another six years in power, said the nuclear war scenario was not “rushing” up and he saw no need for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. “From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,” Putin, 71, told Rossiya-1 television and news agency RIA in response to a question whether the country was really ready for a nuclear war. Putin said the U.S. understood that if it deployed American troops on Russian territory—or to Ukraine—Russia would treat the move as an intervention.

Chinese trust goes bust, reflecting turbulent economy (AP) Some investors in a troubled trust fund in China are facing financial ruin under a government plan to return a fraction of their money, casualties of a slump in the property industry and a broader economic slowdown. Sichuan Trust, headquartered in the southwest city of Chengdu, announced it was insolvent in 2020, stricken by sketchy accounting and failed investments in shopping malls and other projects. A deadline earlier this month to accept a 20%-60% “haircut” or loss on their investments has left some investors in deep financial trouble. China’s economy, the world’s second largest, depends heavily on real estate development to drive growth and create jobs. Property prices and sales have languished after a crackdown on what leaders viewed as dangerous levels of borrowing, causing dozens of developers to default on their debts. The ruling Communist Party faces a dilemma: Debt is a problem, but falling home prices lead people to scrimp on spending. That squeezes companies’ sales, so they lay off workers and cut back on investment. The result: slowing growth and less wealth to go around.

Medics say they were ‘humiliated’ in raid (BBC) For several weeks, Alice Cuddy and several of our colleagues have been investigating what went on when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raided Gaza’s Nasser hospital last month. It was at the time one of the few medical facilities still functioning in the Strip. Intelligence, the IDF said, indicated the presence of Hamas operatives—a claim denied by Hamas. Some hostages who got out of Gaza said they had been held at Nasser. Since the raid, Palestinian medical staff in Gaza have told the BBC they were blindfolded, detained, forced to strip and repeatedly beaten by Israeli soldiers. Doctor Ahmed Abu Sabha, whose account closely matches those of two medics who wished to remain anonymous, described being detained for a week. Muzzled dogs were set upon him and his hand was broken by an Israeli soldier, he said. The three men told the BBC they were beaten, doused with cold water, and forced to kneel in uncomfortable positions for hours. The IDF did not comment on the specific allegations, but said “any abuse of detainees is contrary to IDF orders”.

A Ramadan of ‘sadness’ as war-weary Gazans go hungry (Washington Post) For Mahasen Khateeb, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan used to be a time of lavish dinners, family gatherings, communal prayers and gift giving. “All of that is gone,” the 31-year-old graphic designer said by phone from Jabalya, in northern Gaza, which humanitarian groups warn is on the brink of famine after months of Israeli siege and bombardment. Khateeb doesn’t have enough food for suhoor, the traditional meal eaten before dawn, when the day-long Ramadan fast begins. On Tuesday for iftar, the post-sunset meal when people break their fast, she planned to make rounds of bread topped with canned tomato sauce. Her brother risked his life, she said, to get a bag of flour during a rare and chaotic aid delivery last week. “This situation isn’t new with Ramadan,” she said. “We’ve already been fasting for more than a month. … There are no food products to buy and eat.” Khateeb said she has mainly been subsisting on green leafy plants that grow with the winter rains and die out as spring approaches. 16 children have died of malnutrition in aid-starved Gaza, health officials say

A ship carrying 200 tons of food is heading to Gaza (Washington Post) A ship carrying nearly 200 tons of food left Cyprus on Tuesday to deliver desperately needed aid to the Gaza Strip, where concerns are mounting over the worsening humanitarian situation. The journey, if successful, would mark the first shipment of aid into Gaza via a new maritime route—but the supplies the ship is carrying represent only a fraction of the amount of aid needed after five months of a devastating war that has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The mission is being undertaken by World Central Kitchen, the aid organization founded by celebrity chef Andrés, who is based in Washington. “We have served more than 35 million meals in Gaza & the maritime corridor will allow us to provide millions more,” the group said.

Zimbabwe, After Expelling U.S. Officials, Accuses Them of Promoting ‘Regime Change’ (NYT) The government of the southern African nation of Zimbabwe detained, interrogated and deported officials and contractors working for the United States government last month, and this week accused them publicly of promoting “regime change” in their country. The incident is the latest in the Zimbabwean government’s aggressive efforts to thwart both domestic and international challenges to its authority. The incumbent government claimed victory in a chaotic election last year that several independent observer missions said lacked fairness and credibility. But it also points to a deeper tension over the United States’ proclaimed efforts to promote democracy around the globe. Some nations, including Zimbabwe, have accused America of meddling in their affairs and attempting to impose its values—as well as of hypocrisy, given the threats at home to its own democracy.

#headlines #news

[gusty-wind]

Michael Lewis: Sam Bankman-Fried Donated Multi-Millions To McConnell's List Of Anti-Trump Republicans

Michael Lewis, author of the new book "Going Infinite" about disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, told "60 Minutes" that the former finance CEO met with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell ahead of the 2022 election to help pick "Republican candidates at odds with Donald Trump" to fund.

Watch the full interview here via "60 Minutes."

"The subtext of this dinner is Sam is gonna write tens of millions of dollars of checks to a super PAC that Mitch McConnell is then gonna use to get elected people who are not hostile to democracy," Lewis said.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Sam Bankman-Fried ends up with a portfolio heavily concentrated in two things. Pandemic prevention, because there really are things the government should be doing. And the other thing that made his list that was so interesting was Donald Trump. He took the view that all the big existential problems are gonna require the United States government to be involved to solve them.

And if the democracy is undermined, it like, we don't have our democracy anymore, all these problems are less likely to be solved. And he saw Trump trying to undermine the democracy, and he thought, "Trump is belongs on the list of existential risks."

60 MINUTES: To that end, Lewis writes that in 2022, Bankman-Fried met with the most unlikely of allies, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. According to Lewis, Bankman-Fried wanted to help McConnell fund Republican candidates at odds with Donald Trump.

JON WERTHEIM, 60 MINUTES: You're flying with Sam and he tells you about a meeting he's gonna have with Mitch McConnell.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Well, the interesting thing starts before we even get on the plane. I meet him at the airport, and he comes tumbling out of a car. And he's in his cargo shorts and his T-shirt. And he's got, balled up in his hand it takes me a while to see what it is, but it's a blue suit. It's got more wrinkles than any blue suit ever had. It's been just jammed into this little ball. (laughs) And a shoe, like, falls out of the pile that he's got in his arms. And I said, like, "What why you have the suit?" And he says (laughs) he says, "Mi Mitch McConnell really cares what you wear when you (laughs) when you meet with him." And he's having dinner in six hours with Mitch McConnell. And I I said, "Well, you got the suit. Is there you got a belt?" He goes, "No. I don't have a belt." I said, "You got you have a shirt?" He goes, "No. No shirt," "and the suit, you really can't really wear that suit." And he goes, "Yeah. But they told me to bring a suit."

60 MINUTES: According to Lewis, Bankman-Fried wanted to help McConnell fund Republican candidates at odds with Donald Trump…

MICHAEL LEWIS: What is the subtext of this dinner, is Sam is gonna write tens of millions of dollars of checks to a super PAC that Mitch McConnell is then gonna use to get elected people who are not "hostile to democracy."

JON WERTHEIM, 60 MINUTES: Wait. So, Mitch McConnell has a list of Republican candidates who are, sort of, on the playing field for democracy versus what he deemed outside?

MICHAEL LEWIS: He and his team had done the work to distinguish between actual deep Trumpers and people who were just seeming to approve of Donald Trump but we actually willing to govern.

60 MINUTES: Bankman-Fried ended up giving multi-millions in support of the Republican candidates. Back in 2020, Bankman-Fried had ranked among Joe Biden's biggest donors. As 2024 approached, he planned on spending more, albeit in the most unconventional way.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/10/01/michael_lewis_sam_bankman-fried_donated_multi-millions_to_mcconnells_list_of_anti-trump_republicans.html

[dykekakashi]

(ask inspired by that post about no one sending asks nowadays) what are some of your favorite nonfiction books? also pls tell your puppy he is adorable for me

thank u for this, west!!! 🥺 i have so many but here's a few:

speak, memory by vladimir nabokov — does this even count as nonfiction? it is autobiography but sometimes it feels so much like fiction. anyway, absolutely one of my favourite books, beautiful prose, made seeing the butterfly collection at the nabokov museum much more meaningful!!

the house of government by yuri slezkine — a history book but like if it was a tolstoy novel. what could possibly go wrong (many things) but it's just an excellent read. the crux of the argument, that the bolsheviks were a millenarian sect, is so compelling and i think about it all the time even after graduating lol. definitely changed a lot re: how i think of religion and secularism

the furies: violence and terror in the french and russian revolution by arno j. mayer — another one of those books that makes u question how analytically sound it is, but provides a thought-provoking framework for thinking about revolution (and the less often addressed force of "counter-revolution") & political violence

ghosts of my life by mark fisher — i don't know what there is to say about this lol. i read it during spring 2021, when the pandemic wasn't quite over and i still wasn't sure what i was going to do w my life after graduation. it put a lot of things that i had been feeling re: art, media, just my general sense of the (im)possible future into words

the last utopia by samuel moyn — similar to the above actually but within the realm of political frameworks/ideologies. i don't think i've used any work more than this one in my own (academic) writing). the general gist of it is re: the way that the desire for political utopias (e.g. communism) turned into a desire for moral utopias (namely, human rights in the western/US-centric sense of them)

the elusive republic: political economy in jeffersonian america by drew mccoy — i have a strange fondness for this one because tbh it was the first book that made me interested in a) US history b) political economy overall. before this i didn't understand what republicanism was at all, tbh

ludwig wittgenstein: the duty of genius by ray monk — intensely well researched biography of an interesting man and the only way i will ever understand anything wittgenstein ever wrote. so. thank u mr monk

financial missionaries to the world: the politics and culture of dollar diplomacy by emily rosenberg — similar to the mccoy book, one of the first books that made me interested in political economy and US history. also actually addresses gender & media, which makes it doubly interesting because hmm. gender has historically not been addressed very often in studies of economic history or political economy lol. not a lot of women writing in this field to begin with unfortunately. anyway, it's about international lending as a form of imperialism, to be very very general

designing dead souls: an anatomy of disorder in gogol by susanne fusso — just such a cool book tbh. i don't know of any other authors writing about 19th c russian literature from this lens (then again i don't read a lot of complit monographs), v much focused on themes of sexuality, death, gender, aesthetics, etc. not just in this book but in her other ones, too

& pls ..... i gave him a tiny little forehead kiss on ur behalf<33

[lilliankillthisman]

Finished The Machinery of Freedom. It's written engagingly, describes interesting ideas, and is more convincing than I'd expected. No regrets at all about reading it.

The good parts - the first three Parts of the book, original from 1974 with a few added notes, all work well. Part I, "In Defence of Property", is a broad manifesto setting out the case for a radically capitalist society based on private ownership without government interference. It's interesting to look at as, you, know, this is loosely the movement where many US Republican policies have come from; unfortunately, that knowledge makes Friedman's otherwise compelling arguments look a lot worse. You also have to look out for things that were true or likely in 1974 but not today, like Social Security redistributing income away from the poor.

Part II, "Libertarian Grab-bag", is a combination of policy proposals to bring us closer to this society, in both concrete ("state governments should sell the roads to private companies") and more abstract ("this is how pollution might be constrained in a decentralised, market-driven way in a libertarian society") ways. Plus, of course, why the existing systems run by the government are dreadful. These are sometimes genuinely convincing ideas, and at worst they're thought-provoking. I wrote here about how his answer to that second problem was dumb, but even then there were still neat and convincing bits in the chapter. I'm going to make a couple of posts tomorrow on why specific chapters here don't work, but the reasons are always complex enough that I can't put them in a quick and witty way.

Part III, "Anarchy is not Chaos", focuses on how what we consider the essential functions of the state (law and order, courts, national defence) could be handled in his anarcho-capitalist vision. It's very much the most radical part of the book, and Friedman's ideas for the decentralised, market-based generation and enforcement of laws - is genuinely much more convincing than any other anarchist work when it comes to these topics; you really do come away thinking this would function and wouldn't become a tyrranical protection racket or a new government, even if it wouldn't be great. The national defence part, too, has actually got more convincing since 1974, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union as a credible military aggressor.

Less good parts - he talks way too much about moral philosophy in the later sections for my taste; he doesn't have convincing answers (well. famously no one does) and he obviously knows that but he keeps talking about it. he talks about intellectual property for ages without proposing any solutions at all, and he lapses into unsourced pat anecdotes instead of data when he's not talking about economics. There's also a constant throughline in the 1974 and 1989 sections where he spends ages focusing on why capitalism works better than socialism, in a way that feels insecure and snarky now but was obviously more relevant when the Soviet Union was around as a rival system.

Neutral parts - he throws in chapters where he focuses on an author and talks about the ways in which he agrees with and differs from their philosophies; I haven't read any GK Chesterton or any Kipling, and his chapter insulting ayn rand is not going to captivate people who dislike ayn rand more than he does. Parts IV (added in the 2nd edition, 1989) V and VI (added in 3rd edition, 2014) feel kind of haphazard; they are more collections of articles than anything else, and I came here for a coherent vision of anarcho-capitalist society and ideals. There's plenty of good stuff in there, but not that.

#the machinery of freedom #that's a link to the whole book at the top there #do check it out if you have nothing better on #i didn't regret it at all

[madi2112]

Pride at the Capital 2024

Two awesome days with Team Cher

Day Two:

Up bright and early today to partake in an 8am committee meeting about yet another silly pointless bill the hate mongering Majority Party is trying to get passed.

This one banning anything they define as a "political" flag or even picture or reproduction of a flag anywhere in a government area. This includes schools, airports. Etc.

They have labeled the rainbow 🌈 flag "political" and want to ban it. The real goal of the bill.

The meeting was filled with right wing rhetoric and lies (as usual) and when it was finally time for public comments the vastly overwhelming majority were against the bill.

So many people spoke out against the bill that the time per speaker kept getting reduced. From 3 minutes to 1 minute then 30 seconds to none at all. Dozens of people (including me, but luckily 2 of my team members did get to speak) never got to add thier thoughts to those already opposing the bill.

Didn't matter.

The bill passed the committee along party lines. No surprise there.

<Team Cher member speaking to deaf ears>

More delivered more bill information sheets and attempts at walk up appointments until our next meeting. Which was an interesting one.

A very interesting one.

We were meeting with a film crew who would be our companions for the rest of the day.

Yep, I (and Team Cher) are part of a documentary to air later this year (on Prime and Hulu) about those of us combating the horrible things happening in Florida. We are just a segment in the program along with a look at an Openly LGBT Senator candidate and Equality Florida in general.

They filmed our pre-meeting game plan session, one meeting with a wonderfully supportive Senator, our post meeting thoughts with both Senators, including the meeting with a someone from the opposition party.

Then lastly they filmed our overall thoughts and reflections on the two days of work we put in.

Can't wait to see how it's all put together!

Lunch was provided by the Florida Democratic Party in there conference room and media center.

We left just enough time to run down to the rotunda again (the stairs were faster then the wait for an elevator) to support another Equality Florida press conference.

<I'm just over the speakers left shoulder >

Our afternoon meeting was with Senator Torres from Orlando.

He's a terrific ally and has a grand daughter who is a transwoman.

Needless to say the 22 bills introduced already this session by the Majority Party is something he loudly opposes.

He did welcome the film crew so you will be able to see and hear his words of profound wisdom. Truly inspiring.

<Senator Torres, in the tie, being an inspiration >

The last meeting of the day was with a Senator from the oppressors (sorry. I mean opposition) party.

He was less the enthusiastic about our meeting.

Still we agreed in our strategy meeting (being filmed) we would be friendly, respectful and professional.

We were the only ones.

The senator first limited our group to only two of us, claiming his office was too small.

To bad there were couches and chairs for at least 6 in the office and an empty meeting room next door.

Then took a phone call during the alloted 15 minutes. Which didn't go even a second longer despite the call mid meeting.

He was also dismissive, confrontational and rude.

All of which we let the film crew and Democratic House leaders know about.

They weren't surprised.

The whole encounter brought on the feelings that we are fighting the evil Galactic Empire.

Enhanced by the string of 9 straight middle age (and older) white men in nearly matching suits, white shirts and ties marching into the Republican office as we arrived.

The next coming of stormtroopers.

Then I looked at the 8 of us. Diverse, colorful, full of conviction and belief in what's right.

Like a band of rebel fighters.

Hopefully we can fight them off before they takeover completely.

I felt like I was part of the solution. Part of fighting the good fight against those wanting a facist theocracy run by heartless, evil wanna be dictators.

The last bit of business was the wrap up interviews for the film crew. We all chipped in with our feelings about the event, the real struggles we faced and how we bonded as a group. This was filmed outdoors in front of the capital where just hours ago we took the group photo.

Saying goodbye was all that was left and more then a few tears were shed.

Along with a group hug.

Even our captain, who has done these teams many times before, said this group was special and one of a kind in how we bonded.

We agreed to try to reunite next year and I hope it happens.

If not, it was a life changing, inspiring and emotional 2 days.

So to Devon, Charles, Stephanie, Marissa Katie, Corey and Tanya, I'll never forget this and will always be part of #TeamCher4life.

~Madison

[beardedmrbean]

Hmmm about HawaiiDelilah Twitter person…don’t native Hawaiians have a passive aggressive (or heavy disdain) towards the us government? Since you know….the government overthrown their monarchy and they can’t find their first king due to fear of the us government stealing it at the time.

Also aren’t Hawaiian frustrated with the ship jones act, ugh the law that particularly fucked over Hawaiian trade systems hence why shit is so expensive there.

I know their blue as a Smurf, but I don’t really see them bootlicking Biden when he done shit for several days prior. And that 700 dollars per person after giving Ukraine billion of dollars.

I would say so many curse words and slurs towards Biden that would make a sailor blush.

Gonna start near the end and then possibly bounce around, the $700 sounds a lot less insulting when you realize those went to everyone in the burn zone and were meant to be a 'we know you've lost everything, which includes your clean pants, food, medications, personal hygiene products, ect. so here's this money go get what you need to keep you going for a bit till we can start assessing the damage and figuring out how best to distribute aid.

My house burned down when I was in kindergarten, nobody but the pets were home, dogs were in the back yard, cats weren't so lucky, everything was gone.

Crashed at the house of family from our church, that also happened to be the family doctor (weird) with the clothes on our backs.

So the next day the 4 humans and 2 dogs had to get some clean clothes, thankfully my dad made enough money so that part wasn't a issue but if it had been then someone handing my folks $300 each would have been the world and while not enough to hold until insurance started paying out, it would be a start.

I was kinda livid about the $700 thing till I looked into it, but like I said it went to everyone so the guy with 12 million in the bank got it and the guy with 12 bucks in his pocket got it, it's rapid relief and buys time to assess the needs. I think it's one of the lessons learned from the Katrina response, not enough money to blow on frivolous things but still enough to keep you going.

All that said given the date on that tweet, the person making it wouldn't know all of that yet I don't think.

______________

As for the rest, ya afaik you're pretty spot on about the native attitude to the federal government, I don't know anything about the ship jones act so I can't comment there.

I did look up their history of voting and who wins and pretty much the only time a republican pops up it's because they're the president.

I think BrooklynDad gets like $20,000 or $50,000 to make his tweets, some of what he posts is likely his actual thoughts but he's also a paid shill same with LakotaMan and several others, high odds HawaiiDelilah is one of those too. ______________

This probably wasn't the response you were looking for, but I think it's good to have some context so we aren't wasting our breath yelling about nothingburgers so hopefully it still works for you.

#anonymous