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tomorrowusa · 5 months

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« Americans increasingly use polls to vent, not to vote. During the 20th century, when Americans were in a better mood about the state of the country, presidents generally had high approval ratings and broad support during their time in office. Since 2003, the national mood has grown unbelievably sour, and since 2005, sitting presidents have had underwater approval ratings during about 77 percent of their terms.

[ … ]

The median voter rule still applies. The median voter rule says parties win when they stay close to the center of the electorate. It’s one of the most boring rules in all of politics, and sometimes people on the left and the right pretend they can ignore it, but they usually end up paying a price.

The Democrats’ strong showing in elections across the country this week proves how powerful the median voter rule is, especially when it comes to the abortion issue.

[ … ]

Dull but effective government can win, and circus politics is failing. The Trumpian G.O.P. has built its political strategy around culture war theatrics — be they anti-trans or anti-woke. That culture war strategy may get you hits on right-wing media, but it has flopped for Ron DeSantis, flopped for Vivek Ramaswamy, and it flopped Tuesday night on the ballot. Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, did so well in Kentucky in part because he stayed close to the practicalities, focusing on boring old governance issues like jobs, health care costs and investment in infrastructure. He also demonstrated a Christian faith that was the opposite of Christian nationalism.

[ … ]

Remember that none of us know what the political climate will be like a year from now. Neither you nor I have any clue how some set of swing voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are going to see things in 12 months, or what events will intervene in the meantime. Nobody does. »

— New York Times columnist and PBS political commentator David Brooks explaining in his NYT column last week why Democrats need to "chill" about recent polls.

Democrats are sometimes too overreactive for their own good. People who are excessively nervous tend to make more mistakes.

If you have a healthy concern about next year (as opposed to paranoid worry), there are several things you can do.

First and foremost: Volunteer to register voters. Start by asking like-minded people you know if they are registered. Help them with the process. And always remind friends that they need to register whenever they change their address. ALWAYS. Do things like having voter registration tables set up outside high school graduation ceremonies. Go to where the people are.

Shoot down any talk you hear of third party or independent saviors. Not counting faithless electors, the last third party presidential candidate to score any electoral votes was segregationist George Wallace in 1968. H. Ross Perot got almost 19% of the popular vote in 1992 but got zero electoral votes. If just 539 people in Florida who voted for spoiler Ralph Nader had instead voted for Democrat Al Gore, Gore would have been president a lot of horrible things that happened under George W. Bush (like bad SCOTUS appointments) would not have happened. And if the votes cast in 2016 for bad folk singer Jill Stein in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan had gone for Hillary Clinton instead, Trump never would have been president and Roe v. Wade would still be in effect. Electoral votes are all that matter in presidential elections.

Quit fussing over Biden's age. You rarely hear Republicans doing the same about Trump who was born in 1946. Biden can sign his name on bills or veto them – there's nothing wrong with his arm and he doesn't need to use a Sharpie. He has made excellent appointments to the federal judiciary. And some of the most far ranging progressive legislation enacted since the mid 1960s happened on Biden's watch. Being younger doesn't necessarily make somebody a good president; 38-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy would be atrocious. If you really want somebody young, remember that in 2028 people born in 1993 will be eligible to be president. It will be worth the wait if Trump is in the Big House instead of the White House by then.

#democrats #overreaction by dems #democrats should chill #polling #polls don't vote – people vote #election 2023 victories #donald trump #unhinged republicans #election 2024 #david brooks

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ausetkmt · 8 months

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Suspect killed in Utah raid allegedly called himself a "Democrat-eradicator

FBI agents shot and killed a man in Utah Wednesday while attempting to serve an arrest warrant against him for allegedly threatening to kill U.S. government officials, including President Biden.

#utah #maga #Suspect killed in Utah raid allegedly called himself a "Democrat-eradicator #trumpets #unhinged trumpers #trump #political violence #white supremacy

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cleoselene · 2 months

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asserting that both Republicans and Democrats are "the same" sure does give a hell of a pass to how extreme and radical Republicans have gotten in the last 20 years

like if you have actually been paying attention, Democrats have been shifting leftward in a more steady pace, Republicans took a SHARP turn right and didn't look back a couple decades ago and have gotten more and more unhinged to the point where even uber-conservatives like LIZ CHENEY get called RINOs. Like, Liz is as intensely conservative as you can fucking get and yet, still not conservative enough for modern Republicans because they have shifted into actual authoritarianism

when one party is openly advocating authoritarianism and the other party has spent the last decade trying to get people more health care.... THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. Or even close to each other. And you are letting violent radicals off the hook every time you assert this.

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hotvintagepoll · 18 days

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Propaganda

Machiko Kyō (Rashomon, Floating Weeds, Older Brother Younger Sister)— Considered an early sex symbol in Japanese cinema. Also just an ethereal beauty who can also go feral/unhinged in a glorious way.

Judy Garland (Meet Me In St. Louis, A Star is Born, Summer Stock)— Judy is the GOAT when it comes to classic movie musicals. The voice of an angel who deserved so much better than she got. She can sing she can dance she can act she's a triple threat. Though she had a turbulent personal life (her treatment as a child star by the studio system makes me mad as hell like Louis b Mayer fight me ((she was made to believe that she was physically unattractive by the constant criticism of film executives who made her feel ugly and who manipulated her onscreen appearance by capping her teeth and using discs in her nose to change its shape and Mayer called her "my little hunchback" like imagine hearing that as a child and not having damage)) she always goddamn delivered on screen and in any performance she gave. She began in vaudeville performing with her sisters and was signed to MGM at 13. Starting out in supporting parts especially paired with mickey Rooney in a bunch of films (she's the best part tbh) she eventually transferred to the lead role. She is best known for her starring role in movie musicals like the iconic Wizard of Oz (somewhere over the rainbow still hits hard and is ranked the top film song of all time), meet me in St. Louis (Judy singing have your self a merry little Christmas brings tears to the eyes she is that powerful), the Harvey girls (she looks like a technicolor dream and sings a catchy af song about trains), Easter parade ( dancing and singing with Fred Astaire), for me and my gal, the pirate, and summer stock ( with pal Gene Kelly who she helped when he was starting out and he helped her when she was struggling). But she also does non- singing just as well like the clock ( her first movie where she sings no songs and is an underrated ww2 era romance), her Oscar nominated a star is born ( like the man that got away she put her whole soul in that and I have beef with the fact she lost to grace kelly ((whom I love but like still not even her best work)), and judgement at Nuremberg (a courtroom drama about the nazi war criminal trials). Outside of film she made concert appearances to record-breaking audiences, released 8 studio albums, and had her own Emmy-nominated tv series. She was the youngest (39) and first female recipient of the Cecil B DeMille award for lifetime achievement in the film industry. Girl was a lifelong democrat and was a financial and moral supporter of many causes including the civil rights movement (she was at the March on Washington and held a press conference to protest the 16th street Baptist church bombings). She was a friend of the Kennedy family and would call jfk weekly often ending the calls by singing the first few lines of somewhere over the rainbow (she thought of them as Gemini twins).She was a member of the committee for the first amendment which was formed in response to the HUAC investigations. Though she died far too young and tragically she remains an icon for her work and her life. As a girl who didn't feel like i was as pretty as everyone else I have always felt a connection to Judy and I just really love her.

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Machiko Kyō:

Judy:

Judy's voice alone qualifies her for at least top ten hottest HOT VINTAGE MOVIE WOMEN. She was a truly incredible swing singer, with a stunning voice on top of her technique. Her short dark hair looked incredible in just about any style. Have I mentioned her swagger? I can’t do it justice with words. She had swagger. She was funny as hell, and clever too. Incredibly charming and cool. I adore her.

Her eyes, her voice have bewitched me

I mean how can you beat the one and only Judy? She's beautiful, her smile is contagious, the way she sings with her whole body. You can't help but love her.

youtube

Beautiful woman, love her singing voice. And she can do everything between happy or silly and angry or heartbroken

#judy garland #machiko kyō #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies 3

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ceruleangold · 2 years

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“I will do everything I can to close the business of the US Senate until the border is secured.”

Republicans continue to be deranged clowns.

#it’s primary season bitches #lmaoooo I was trying to find the ad on YouTube and found another one where he literally just says ‘let’s go Brandon’#when will democrats be this petty and delusional #I need more embarrassing liberal ads #democrats refuse to have fun #apparently there’s also an old west ad where he shoots Biden Pelosi and Mark Kelly #and like????#as much as I want a juicy political season like an unhinged episode of South Park I also know that’s how we got Trump #ugh #a post about nothing

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starks-hero · 2 years

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brother dearest

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes x Reader

Summary: Mycroft had never considered himself to be overprotective. However, he isn't overly pleased with how smitten his little brother is with you...

Word Count: 1.8k

Warnings: John is the only one with any emotional intelligence and Mycroft is faced with the horrifying ordeal of realising his younger sibling is dating, so they're all idiots really

Mycroft Holmes could practically feel his blood pressure rising. Confidential documents had been stolen from the very hands of the British government, putting the democratic well-being of an entire nation in jeopardy. And his little brother wouldn't answer the phone.

The moment word of the breach had gotten to Mycroft his first plan of action was to call Sherlock. Of course, he could have hypothetically dealt with the issue himself had it not required leg work. But to his dismay, contacting the youngest Holmes seemed to be as unlikely as winning the lottery.

Tossing dignity to the wind in the name of restoring balance to the western world, Mycroft stooped to the, in his opinion, ever embarrassing low of visiting Baker Street himself. He ascended the stairs, his displeasure evident in the weight of his steps, and refused to practice the common courtesy of knocking before entering the flat. Sherlock had lost that privilege when he refused to pick up the bloody phone.

Mycroft tutted with annoyance when he found both the living room and kitchen empty. Sherlock's coat, with whom he refused to go anywhere without, still hung idle on the clothes rack. He was in the flat and Mycroft was going to find him if he had to tear away every brick.

With all the begrudgement of a man who'd had his morning routine seriously uprooted, Mycroft marched towards Sherlock's bedroom and swung open the door.

He almost immediately wished he hadn't.

Sherlock lay sprawled out on the bed, white sheets twisting over alabaster skin. His eyes were shut, his hair a tangled mess of curls and you lay by his side.

Mycroft's jaw fell so quickly he expected it to unhinge and clatter against the floor with all the comedic effect of a nineties cartoon.

Sherlock's head rested against your shoulder whilst the lower half of your face was largely hidden by his curls. Your lips brushed his forehead in a prolonged kiss and Sherlock's arm was thrown over you almost possessively. Your own hand curled softly around the nape of his neck.

Disbelief, embarrassment and anger chased each other across Mycroft's expression before he settled with complete mortification. He couldn't explain it, not really, but seeing his little brother in bed with someone made him feel ridiculously nauseous.

Sherlock shifted, stretching out his limbs like a content cat before nuzzling closer to you.

Having no idea what else to do, the eldest Holmes shut the door. After a quick and failed attempt to purge the last few moments from his memory, he made his way back towards the living room.

He was met by John.

The doctor quickly did away with his fresh bag of groceries in order to make small talk, much to Mycroft's disdain. When John got around to the reason for his visit, and therefore Sherlock's current whereabouts, Mycroft shifted awkwardly.

“He seems to be occupied.”

A look of confusion clouded John's expression. He glanced down the hallway, jutting his thumb in the direction of Sherlock's room.

“I'm fairly certain he's just–” John's words were dissolved by the bitter look that was thrown his way by the eldest Holmes. “–oh, he didn't tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Mycroft asked with a painfully fake smile.

John swallowed thickly, suddenly very unhappy with the fact that he was the one that had to break the news to possibly the most powerful man in Britain that his little brother was seeing someone.

“He uh– he didn't tell you about himself and Y/N?”

Mycroft blinked. “It would appear he left out that minor detail.”

The silence that followed was awkward at best and utterly painful at worst. John, who wanted nothing more for the interaction to end but had no idea how to make that happen, nodded. Mycroft cleared his throat and readjusted his hold on his umbrella.

He glanced back towards his brother's room and John didn't miss the subtle glare he was trying to hide. Ah, so that's what this was about. John may not have shared Sherlock's observational skills but he did have a sister. He knew what overprotectiveness looked like.

“Mycroft, you do realise that Sherlock is an adult.”

“If that's what you would like to call him.”

“Right,” John dismissed quickly. “But he and Y/N are together. They have feelings–”

What was very much beginning to sound like a new rendition of ‘the birds and the bees’ was shortened by a scoff on Mycroft's behalf.

"My brother is barely capable of understanding his own feelings, you think he can handle someone else's?"

“You'd be surprised.”

Surprised was certainly one word for it. Mycroft simply couldn't imagine his brother being emotionally involved with anyone, regardless of how much imagination he tried to employ. He failed to imagine Sherlock in any situation that involved intimacy or vulnerability, let alone with you.

As if the very thought of you had doubled as a summoning spell, you entered the kitchen, steps lazy and eyes tired. If you were surprised to see the eldest Holmes you hid it well.

“Mycroft,” you greeted with a tight-lipped smile.

“Y/N.”

Your eyes moved between him and John, trying to piece together what exactly you'd walked into. John cleared his throat. You fought the urge to just go back to bed.

“Can I get you anything?” You motioned to the kitchen.

“My brother, if it's no trouble.”

“Showering,” you yawned. You decided not to add the bit where Sherlock had mentioned needing to ‘cool off before facing the devil so early in the morning’ upon realising his brother was in the living room. “He won't be long.”

“I see. I hate to show up unannounced. But I tried to call this morning and it seemed he was unavailable.”

You smirked despite yourself. Mycroft's grasp on his umbrella tightened.

After a few agonising moments that consisted of you cluelessly making yourself a morning cup of tea, Mycroft glaring holes into your back and John all but hiding behind his newspaper, Sherlock joined you.

His hair was damp, curls frizzed up due to the warm water. Mycroft hadn't seen it in such a state since Sherlock was a child. The unruly nature of his hair, as well as its tendency to make him look far less intimidating and far more endearing, often led to embarrassment. Which is why Mycroft was so surprised to see him so at ease.

Sherlock didn't so much as acknowledge his brother's existence as he made a beeline towards you, accepting the tea you offered and leaving a lazy kiss against the side of your head. He was smiling fondly all the while.

Said smile immediately fell when he spotted Mycroft. Sherlock muttered something about god under his breath and took a long, almost purposefully so, sip from his mug before speaking.

“Terrorist attack or security breach?”

Mycroft raised an unamused brow.

“It's ten o'clock on a Sunday morning, from my understanding you should be having tea with the prime minister or something–” Sherlock waved his free hand around dismissively. “You wouldn't be here if it wasn't of national importance. So which is it? Suspected terrorist attack or a security breach?”

“That, brother mine, is something you would have already been clued in on if you'd learned how to answer my calls.” Mycroft intended for his words to be somewhat scolding but judging by how Sherlock reclined in his chair and crossed his legs he figured his attempt at exerting some sort of authority over his younger brother had failed. “Now, it's not as threatening as initially believed but still relevant enough to warrant some sort of investigation. Which is why I need you to–”

His words fizzled out at the sight of you moving to stand behind Sherlock's chair. Your stance was relaxed, comfortable, as if you felt you belonged where you stood, as some sort of watchful protector. Mycroft glowered.

You seemed unfazed and Mycroft couldn't tell which he hated more, your hand now on Sherlock's shoulder or the fact that his brother was smirking because of it.

By some miracle, he managed to make it through the rest of the briefing without giving away just how much he wanted the floorboards to open up and swallow him.

He didn't know why the sight of you both together irritated him so much but by god was it getting under his skin. The glances you shared that Mycroft knew had hidden meanings behind them. How his brother, who needed a week's recovery in his room after any social interaction, preened under your touch. The youthful look in his eyes, the boyish smile. It was somehow painful to look at.

Mycroft could still recall when he was the only one that could placate his brother. When they were children, spending hours in their garden estate, finding insects and frogs and recalling their Latin names. Anything to keep their brilliant young minds entertained. He remembered how Sherlock would light up with each new nugget of information Mycroft gave him. Even into their teenage years, he was the one Sherlock trusted, the one he looked to for help and guidance. It had always been him.

But now, now there was you.

He had you to confide in. To talk to. To irritate with a tirade of useless facts that anyone else would think irrelevant. He had you to look out for him and comfort him and Mycroft couldn't understand why this was angering him so–

Oh.

The notion that his little brother had, in fact, grown up and didn't need him anymore came as a very unwelcome realisation. Mycroft had the sudden desire to leave the flat as promptly as he could.

“Well,” he cleared his throat. “I should be getting on. I trust you'll fill me in on your findings?”

Sherlock groaned, in agreement or dismissal it was hard to tell.

Mycroft, who now wanted nothing more than to leave, turned to make his way to the door. “Good day, doctor Watson.”

John nodded, not failing to notice the change in Mycroft's stance.

‘He's copped on then.’

Partially because of your closeness to the door and partially in an attempt to rectify whatever you'd done to wrong Mycroft, you moved to show him out.

He passed you silently but as you stepped back to close the door, he stopped you.

He seemed uneasy, an emotion that looked unnatural and foreign on him. His nerves were infectious and you quickly found yourself growing anxious, expecting him to gift you with some horrific piece of information to pass on to Sherlock to save him from dealing with the mess of telling his brother himself.

His actual request was something much softer.

“Take care of him, will you?”

It took a few moments for you to blink away your surprise. As confused as you were, you nodded all the same.

“Of course.”

Mycroft responded with a nod of his own, offered a surprisingly genuine smile and then turned to leave. He'd descended the stairs entirely by the time you finally closed the flat door.

“What was that about?” Sherlock asked nonchalantly.

You shook your head. “Absolutely no idea.”

John took a sudden interest in his newspaper in an attempt to ignore just how hard he was biting his tongue.

thank you for reading!

Sherlock tag list: @miraclesoflove @ilovefanfictions @mylovelysnowflake @quentawewe @bakerstreethound @andreasworlsboring101 @doozywoozy @xxinvisiblexx @the-worst-critic @the-queer-dungeoneer @jellyfishbeansontoast @starrykitn @starryeddie @ladymercury8 @themorningsunshine @evelynrosestuff @mywellspringoflife @simp-for-scammanders @Xhz17x @allieberries @kealohilani-tepise

#finally starting to clear out my drafts to help me get back in the writing groove #sherlock x reader #sherlock holmes x reader #bbc sherlock x reader #sherlock imagine #sherlock x you #sherlock holmes x you #bbc sherlock x you #bbc sherlock imagine #bbc sherlock #1k

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months

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Naomi Klein's "Doppelganger"

Tomorrow (September 6) at 7pm, I'll be hosting Naomi Klein at the LA Public Library for the launch of Doppelganger.

On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

If the Naomi be Klein you’re doing just fine If the Naomi be Wolf Oh, buddy. Ooooof.

I learned this rhyme in Doppelganger, Naomi Klein's indescribable semi-memoir that is (more or less) about the way that people confuse her with Naomi Wolf, and how that fact has taken on a new urgency as Wolf descended into conspiratorial politics, becoming a far-right darling and frequent Steve Bannon guest:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374610326/doppelganger

This is a very odd book. It is also a very, very good book. The premise – exploring the two Naomis' divergence – is a surprisingly sturdy scaffold for an ambitious, wide-ranging exploration of this very frightening moment of polycrisis and systemic failure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCjcwVhFhTA

Wolf once had a cluster of superficial political and personal similarities to Klein: a feminist author of real literary ability, a Jewish woman, and, of course, a Naomi. Klein grew accustomed to being mistaken for Wolf, but never fully comfortable. Wolf's politics were always more Sheryl Sandberg than bell hooks (or Emma Goldman). While Klein talked about capitalism and class and solidarity, Wolf wanted to "empower" individual women to thrive in a market system that would always produce millions of losers for every winner.

Fundamentally: Klein is a leftist, Wolf was a liberal. The classic leftist distinction goes: leftists want to abolish a system where 150 white men run the world; liberals want to replace half of those 150 with women, queers and people of color.

The past forty years have seen the rise and rise of a right wing politics that started out extreme (think of Reagan and Thatcher's support for Pinochet's death-squads) and only got worse. Liberals and leftists forged an uneasy alliance, with liberals in the lead (literally, in Canada, where today, Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party governs in partnership with the nominally left NDP).

But whenever real leftist transformation was possible, liberals threw in with conservatives: think of the smearing and defenestration of Corbyn by Labour's right, or of the LibDems coalition with David Cameron's Tories, or of the Democrats' dirty tricks to keep Bernie from appearing on the national ballot.

Lacking any kind of transformational agenda, the liberal answer to capitalism's problems always comes down to minor tweaks ("making sure half of our rulers are women, queers and people of color") rather than meaningful, structural shifts. This leaves liberals in the increasingly absurd position of defending the indefensible: insisting that the FDA shouldn't be questioned despite its ghastly failures during the opioid epidemic; claiming that the voting machine companies whose defective products have been the source of increasingly urgent technical criticism are without flaw; embracing the "intelligence community" as the guardians of the best version of America; cheerleading for deindustrialization while telling the workers it harmed with "learn to code"; demanding more intervention in speech by our monopolistic tech companies; and so on.

It's not like leftists ever stopped talking about the importance of transformation and not just reform. But as the junior partners in the progressive coalition, leftists have been drowned out by liberal reformers. In most of the world, if you are worried about falling wages, corporate capture of government, and scientific failures due to weak regulators, the "progressive" answer was to tell you it was all in your head, that you were an unhinged conspiratorialist:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point-3434d7cbfae2

For Klein, it's this failure that the faux-populist right has exploited, redirecting legitimate anger and fear into racist, xenophobic, homophobic, sexist and transphobic rage. The deep-pocketed backers of the conservative movement didn't just find a method to get turkeys to vote for Christmas – progressives created the conditions that made that method possible.

If progressives answer pregnant peoples' concerns about vaccine risks – concerns rooted in the absolute failure of prenatal care – with dismissals, while conservatives accept those concerns and funnel them into conspiratorialism, then progressives' message becomes, "We are the movement of keeping things as they are," while conservatives become the movement of "things have to change." Think here of the 2016 liberal slogan, "America was already great," as an answer to the faux-populist rallying cry, "Make America great again."

When liberals get to define what it means to be "progressive," the fundamental, systemic critique is swept away. Conservatives – conservatives! – get to claim the revolutionary mantle, to insist that they alone are interested in root-and-branch transformation of society.

Like the two Naomis, conservatives and progressives become warped mirrors of one another. The progressive campaign for bodily autonomy is co-opted to be the foundation of the anti-vax movement. This is the mirror world, where concerns about real children – in border detention, or living in poverty in America – are reflected back as warped fever-swamp hallucinations about kids in imaginary pizza restaurant basements and Hollywood blood sacrifice rituals. The mirror world replaces RBG with Amy Coney-Barrett and calls it a victory for women. The mirror world defends workers by stoking xenophobic fears about immigrants.

But progressives let it happen. Progressives cede anti-surveillance to conservatives, defending reverse warrants when they're used to enumerate Jan 6 insurrectionists (nevermind that these warrants are mostly used to round up BLM demonstrators). Progressives cede suspicion of large corporations to conservatives, defending giant, exploitative, monopolistic corporations so long as they arouse conservative ire with some performative DEI key-jingling. Progressives defend the CIA and FBI when they're wrongfooting Trump, and voting machine vendors when they're turned into props for the Big Lie.

These issues are transformed in the mirror world: from grave concerns about real things, into unhinged conspiracies about imaginary things. Urgent environmental concerns are turned into a pretense to ban offshore wind turbines ("to protect the birds"). Worry about gender equality is transformed into seminars about women's representation in US drone-killing squads.

For Klein, the transformation of Wolf from liberal icon – Democratic Party consultant and Lean-In-type feminist icon – to rifle-toting Trumpling with a regular spot on the Steve Bannon Power Hour is an entrypoint to understanding the mirror world. How did so many hippie-granola yoga types turn into vicious eugenicists whose answer to "wear a mask to protect the immunocompromised" is "they should die"?

The PastelQ phenomenon – the holistic medicine and "clean eating" to QAnon pipeline – recalls the Nazi obsession with physical fitness, outdoor activities and "natural" living. The neoliberal transformation of health from a collective endeavor – dependent on environmental regulation, sanitation, and public medicine – into a private one, built entirely on "personal choices," leads inexorably to eugenics.

Once you start looking for the mirror world, you see it everywhere. AI chatbots are mirrors of experts, only instead of giving you informed opinions, they plagiarize sentence-fragments into statistically plausible paragraphs. Brands are the mirror-world version of quality, a symbol that isn't a mark of reliability, but a mark of a mark, a sign pointing at nothing. Your own brand – something we're increasingly expected to have – is the mirror world image of you.

The mirror world's overwhelming motif is "I know you are, but what am I?" As in, "Oh, you're a socialist? Well, you know that 'Nazi' stands for 'National Socialist, right?" (and inevitably, this comes from someone who obsesses over the 'Great Replacement' and considers themself a 'race realist').

This isn't serious politics, but it is seriously important. "Antisemitism is the socialism of fools," its obsession with "international bankers" the mirror-world version of the real and present danger from big finance and private equity wreckers. And, as Klein discusses with great nuance and power, the antisemitism discussion is eroded from both sides: both by antisemites, and by doctrinaire Zionists who insist that any criticism of Israel is always and ever antisemetic.

As a Jew in solidarity with Palestinians, I found this section of the book especially good – thoughtful and vigorous, pulling no punches and still capturing the discomfort aroused by this deliberately poisoned debate.

This thoughtful, vigorous prose and argumentation deserves its own special callout here: Klein has produced a first-rate literary work just as much as this is a superb philosophical and political tome. In this moment where the mirror world is exploding and the real world is contracting, this is an essential read.

I'll be Klein's interlocutor tomorrow night (Sept 6) at the LA launch for Doppelganger. We'll be appearing at 7PM at the @LAPublicLibrary:

https://lafl.org/ALOUD

Livestreaming at:

https://youtube.com/live/jIoAh-jxb2k

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

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isawken · 1 year

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disco elysium and transmasculinity:

i don't want to be this kind of animal anymore

there is no such thing as an inherently masculine trait, only those which we have culturally prescribed to be masculine. muscular, tall, strong, stoic. self-destructive. repressive. angry. unhinged. violent. addictive.

Disco Elysium markets itself with the tagline “what kind of cop are you?”. to put it bluntly: you get to choose what man you want to be. the actual gameplay mechanic is the game keeps track of your dialogue choices and, among other RPG things, neatly divvies them up into 4 main Cop Categories: Sorry Cop, Apocalypse Cop, Superstar Cop, Boring Cop. after some time establishing your identity you can branch off into 3 other copotypes: honor cop, art cop, and hobocop. These are all exactly what you think they would be.

a supremacist stands tall, immovable, shirtless, tattooed, in the way of one of your objectives, and if you let him he will tell you all the ways your body betrays your degeneracy. all the indulgences you make, with drugs and alcohol and sex, are allegedly clear as day written across your reddened swollen face. you are not a man. you are pathetic. a pair of women reassure his divine masculinity even when he admits his impotence. there’s no denying it: that’s one man of a man right there.

your former detective partner is an eternally scowling pockmark faced asshole. he approaches every interaction with you with a nice solid baseline of aggression. if you choose to put your points into something called “espirit de corps”, you get small vignettes of his previous actions. in one of them, it’s joked that you two are near-marital in your relationship. in some of them, he worries about you. muttering under his breath, mostly to himself, not unkindly. but he certainly never shows that to you face to face.

two old men play pétanque outside every day by the sea. they have done this for years. they have known each other since they were kids. one is a fascist, the other a democratic socialst. if you’re nosy, you can go to the watchman’s post and find a picture of him, his socialist buddy, and a young woman whose attentions they supposedly both vied for. if you decide to become a fascist, the game gives you something more. your abilities Pain Threshold, Composure, Endurance, Volition, Conceptualization, and Inland Empire take turns showing you tiny slices of a truth viciously stamped beneath the heel of his brilliant boot. a love for his dear hated socialist. and when he dies, that socialist tells you the same. but they never told each other. never even came close. because how could you?

harry dubois wakes up face down ass up covered in piss and vomit and full of foggy confusion after drinking himself into amnesia. he's tall, he's got giant arms, a proud beer gut, and he's self-destructed himself into literal oblivion. this pitiful bastard doesn't even remember his own name. the first person he encounters outside of the hotel room in which he fucked himself up beyond his limbic system’s reach tells him at some point during his bingeful weekend she heard him scream, "i dont want to be this kind of animal anymore". you don’t know why you said this. but after a while you have some pretty good guesses.

i could talk forever about the unique circumstances of growing up as a girl in modern western society. but i have nothing interesting to say that hasn't already been said much more eloquently. learning to hate my body, learning to be afraid, learning that you need to want to be consumed. the eternal unpacking of all the issues a patriarchal society burdens you with. it never ends. but i've at least reached a point where i've done my base legwork. i know the oppression i've fought. it is nameable. i have labeled each and every patriarchal burden like a so many papers in a filing cabinet. few are going in the shredder, but at least they're known. next to that filing cabinet, i have a big pile of loose papers slowly sliding off a desk with the word "masculinity" in neon lights flickering above them. i want to dive into those papers. but the thought of it fills me with such apprehension. i've always wanted masculinity. i've purposefully adopted affectations to make myself more stereotypically masculine. most are hilariously shallow, and not exactly innovative. i smoked camels for 8 years. i drink my coffee black. i picked up a nice little alcohol habit. i've shoved down more feelings than i would ever willingly admit in the hopes to appear unbothered. I’ve told myself to “man the fuck up” my fair share of times. none of it got rid of my hips or my tits or my anxiety or my painfully high pitched voice. i’ve quit smoking. i sometimes think i should start again for many reasons, but one is in the hope that my voice will drop. just one octave. at least. it’s silly, i know. believe me. i know.

when harry drags his sorry ass out of that hotel room, he isn't free of his past. he has shadows in his mind reminding him of the things he's forgotten. shadows that still influence his views of masculinity. there is no way to truly escape the bitter leaden paint stuck to the inside of your mind so violently applied by our beloved patriarchal society. there is a hilarious dialogue option where, if you so choose, you can proclaim that you would never let anyone androgynous touch your hair. because the “others” (unnamed) would laugh at you. here we have a man who cant remember his own name, but he is certain that he absolutely cannot under any circumstances have a non-manly haircut for fear of mockery and rejection by his peers. how many coats of that leadened paint must have adhered to his poor, poor limbic system that even when he’s forgotten the concept of money, he still knows about the boundaries of masculinity.

as harry tries to be a good person (or a fascist or a doom prophet or a disco superstar) he cannot really shake the pieces of himself that make him him. and he meets another bastion of masculinity, kim kitsuragi immeasurably measured, willful, and kind (for a cop), he helps you rediscover the world around you as you try to rewrite your tabula rasa'd self. he is firm, but nice. he lets you make your choices and mistakes. and he only stops supporting you when you start fucking up like, literally everything, and indulging in racism. naturally, there is a lot of fanart of them kissing, and yearning. both are beacons of masculinity, different sides of the same coin. where harry is physically imposing, kim is slight. where kim is calm cool and collected, harry will break down crying after a brief conversation with his necktie. but both are undeniably masculine. i mean, they’re cops after all. what more masculine profession is there?

as kind as kim is to you in your lowest possible state, it can be easy to overlook the ways in which he is not kind. when you tell him you think you really, seriously, need to go to the hospital, seriously kim i can't even remember my name i think i could have brain damage, kim responds with the equivalent of "walk it off" by encouraging you to start working on the case and see if that makes you feel better instead. it is in this light that you recognize which affectations of his are conscious posturing. his fitted jacket and trousers, matching the uniforms worn by air brigades in a past war. his careful collection of tools he keeps in his beloved kineema. his vast knowledge and care for the car itself. looked at in a certain different light- you know the one- you could see these traits being the result of a very careful construction. he found pieces of overt masculinity and decided to subsume them as a defense. a bolstering, a reinforcement of chosen masculinity.

there are so many different flavors of masculinity that the game offers you to experience and explore yourself. you decide whether to value them. you can follow in mister phenology’s footsteps and try to build yourself into a supremacist ideal. maybe that will make you happy. you can also chase after a barely-coded homosexual man, who makes you stutter in most available dialogue options. even if that may make you happy, you don’t get to pursue it. you can think for 20 hours about the "homosexual underground", but you can't join it yourself. you can however join fascism. interesting how harry is more susceptible to fascism than homosexuality. interesting to prod and poke at his masculine limits.

“what kind of cop are you” is a loaded question. harry is rebuilding himself from the ground up as a man. and how funny is it to learn that is inextricable from his profession.

what do you find inextricable from your gender? what of those traits make you happy? what of those traits make you want to throw your fucking shoe through a god damn window and punch the bathroom mirror and scream and scream and scream and scream?

i want to emerge from a hotel room, at my lowest point, and have the power to rebuild myself from scratch. i want a cool man who i maybe want to kiss guide me with a gentle yet firm hand. i want to have large arms, and a proud beer gut, and a stupid beard, and i want to destroy a hotel room and drink myself into a beautifully tragic state. i want to have non-political body hair. i want to get stared at for my gaudy tie and green snakeskin shoes instead of my tits. i want become a different kind of animal.

#this is very long and rambly and filled with half-finished thoughts #i will maybe one day come back to it and finish those thoughts #but i just wanted to put this out there. slide into my inbox if you also have transmasc feelings about disco elysium. i want to hear you #disco elysium #transmasc #transmasculinity #transgender

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grits-galraisedinthesouth · 1 month

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Kategate is nuts. It has a whiff of decadence, too. I can’t be the only person wondering what it says about our country that so many people have oodles of time to scrutinise a pic like jumped-up Columbos. Do people work? ‘This photo raises even more questions about Kate’s health and whereabouts!’, The kate truthers cry. No it doesn’t. Your obsession with it raises questions about your sanity, though..

Leave Kate Middleton alone

12 March 2024, 12:25p Brendan O’Neill

Well done everyone for ruining Mother’s Day for the Princess of Wales. I hope you’re proud of yourselves. A young-ish mum posts a lovely photo of herself surrounded by her beaming kids and instead of saying ‘Ahh’ you pore over it like lunatic sleuths for signs of villainous photoshopping. End result: mum issues an apology. For doing something sweet. On Mother’s Day. You all need to get off the internet.

The obsession with that pic of Catherine and her three children has become unhinged. It’s still on the front pages of the papers. ‘PICTURE OF CHAOS’, screams the Mirror. Oh behave. There’s war in Europe and the Middle East, an energy crisis, a lame-duck government waddling to defeat and people waiting five days in A&E to see a nurse, and you’re still yapping about a princess slightly misaligning her daughter’s sleeve while editing a family photo?

Kategate is nuts. It has a whiff of decadence, too. I can’t be the only person wondering what it says about our country that so many people have oodles of time to scrutinise a pic like jumped-up Columbos. Do people work? ‘This photo raises even more questions about Kate’s health and whereabouts!’, the Kate truthers cry. No it doesn’t. Your obsession with it raises questions about your sanity, though.

Hypocrisy is at play. I bet you every one of the hacks writing breathless reports about Kate’s scandalous doctoring of a photo have on occasion filtered themselves into oblivion for profile pics on social media. Everyone does. Colour added to pallid faces, crow’s feet trimmed, blemishes erased. I thought we all knew that pretty much every photo we see online – whether of celebrity or civilian – has been touched up in some way?

The way people are banging on about the princess’s photoshopping – which caused tiny...

Joe Biden is the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party after his victory overnight in the Georgia primary pushed him passed the threshold of 1,968 delegates.

Donald Trump also passed the threshold of 1,215 delegates.

#brendan o'neill #kategate #catherine princess of wales #prince and princess of wales #princess of wales #the spectator

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dostoyevsky-official · 5 months

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A People’s Obituary of Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger, who was born in Weimar Germany in 1923, is dead. He made it to 100, and in the last years of his life, politicians, writers, and celebrities feted him as if he were the American Century incarnate. In a way, he was.

[...] At every single one of America’s postwar turning points, moments of crisis when men of good will began to express doubts about American power, Kissinger broke in the opposite direction. He made his peace with Nixon, whom he first thought was unhinged; then with Ronald Reagan, whom he initially considered hollow; and then with George W. Bush’s neocons, despite the fact that they all rose to power attacking Kissinger; and finally with Donald Trump, whom Kissinger fancifully imagined as the realization of his belief that the greatness of great statesmen resides in their spontaneity, their agility, their ability to thrive on chaos, on, as Kissinger wrote in the 1950s, “perpetual creation, on a constant redefinition of goals.”

[...] “We’ve got to break the back of this generation of Democratic leaders,” Kissinger told Nixon, as the two men plotted to use foreign policy for domestic advantage. Nixon responded that “we’ve got to destroy the confidence of the people in the American establishment.”

“That’s right,” Kissinger answered.

Yet, even as the breakup of the old national security state was proceeding apace, Kissinger helped with its reconstruction in a new form: a restored imperial presidency based on ever-more-spectacular displays of violence, more intense secrecy, and an increasing use of war and militarism to leverage domestic dissent and polarization for political advantage.

[...] Kissinger served as not just a foil but also an enabler for the New Right. Over the course of his career, he advanced a set of premises that would be taken up and extended by neoconservative intellectuals and policymakers: that hunches, conjecture, will, and intuition are as important as facts and hard intelligence in guiding policy; that too much knowledge can weaken resolve; that foreign policy has to be wrested out of the hands of experts and bureaucrats and given to men of action; and that the principle of self-defense (broadly defined to cover just about anything) overrules the ideal of sovereignty. In so doing, Kissinger played his part in keeping the great wheel of American militarism spinning ever forward.

[...] At the very least, we can learn from Kissinger, who unhesitatingly supported Gulf War One and Gulf War Two, and every war between and since, that the two defining concepts of United States foreign policy—realism and idealism—aren’t necessarily opposing values; rather, they reinforce each other. Idealism gets us into the quagmire of the moment; realism keeps us there while promising to get us out; and then idealism returns anew both to justify the realism and to overcome it in the next round. So it goes.

#grandin #kissinger

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hikkikoaubrey · 29 days

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Please read, don't scroll pass this. (II)

One the previous post I talked about the KOSA Bill and the TikTok Ban Bill as you can see above, but now for this post I'm going to talk about something of even greater importance. Project 2025.

Project 2025 is a plan from Republicans / Conservatives to seize total control of America from the inside out while destroying democracy in the process, ultimately turning America into a Christian nationalist militarized state. One of the main ways they plan on making this a reality is through Trump getting a second term as president.

If this comes to pass, this will ruin and even end the lives of many, and to make it worse, the changes caused by Project 2025 will still be in effect even long after Trump's second term ends.

We cannot let Trump when this election, and as much as I hate this, Biden is really our only choice since voting on a 3rd party will most likely won't work. I know Biden has a lot of problems, but we don't have a choice.

Here is some more links with some additional info (including the actual Project 2025 website), please look more into this and spread this around (even if you're not in America)

Website

Project 2025 | Presidential Transition Project

Videos

youtube

The Conservative Plan to Take Over the Country (you need to know about this) (youtube.com)

Project 2025: The Fascist Plan For America (youtube.com)

Tweets

Project 2025 (@Prjct2025) / X (twitter.com)

STOP THE COUP 2025 #StopProject2025 (@stopthecoup2025) / X (twitter.com)

https://x.com/oogamretsim/status/1769776085221220774?s=20

BMB Empower Network on X: "A guide to #Project2025, the extreme #rightwing agenda for the next #Republican administration, aims to roll back #civilrights and destroy the #federalgovernment. https://t.co/TVhHMRjjTD" / X (twitter.com)

NowThis Impact on X: "When conservatives tell you what their plan is, believe them. Here’s how Project 2025 aims to break down the U.S. government, dismantle the education system, institute a national abortion ban... and that’s just the beginning. https://t.co/htZORS5whU" / X (twitter.com)

https://x.com/cardon_brian/status/1772756740016099494?s=20

David Pepper on X: "🚨 🚨 NEW WHITEBOARD 2024 is being framed as Trump vs. Biden. But Trump’s unhinged Ohio speech the other day, his past actions, the ominous Project 2025, and more, make clear that the election really is about: Trump vs YOU… and your FREEDOM. WATCH, RT and then… https://t.co/qG0Nr5SYOj" / X (twitter.com)

https://x.com/ruthbenghiat/status/1770499903640264865?s=20

Kanis The Arctic Wolf 🔜 Florida on X: "WE CANNOT STAY SILENT ABOUT THIS! Project 2025 and KOSA are DANGEROUS, it’s a threat to all of our rights and democracy as a whole. If we don’t stand up for our rights now, we won’t have them to fight for later on. SPREAD THE WORD, DEFEND OUR RIGHTS, IT TAKES ALL OF US!" / X (twitter.com)

https://x.com/batzless/status/1770583846540509549?s=20

Tumblr Posts

#project 2025 #vote blue no matter who #election 2024 #2024 election #christofascists #us elections #kosa #donald trump #trump #trump 2024 #trump indictment #fuck trump #omori #student loans #abortion rights #lgbt rights #conservatives #facism #Youtube

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fangirltothefullest · 1 year

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Little reminder for anyone thats of voting age in the USA- election propaganda is already starting and the fear tactics will start flying.

So let's remind everyone what's been happening from Republicans recently because they try to insist they are saints and victims every election.

Republicans took away abortion laws and the human bodily right to choose whether or not you keep your baby. Whatever you believe for yourself, whether you, yourself, thinks its wrong, taking that right away from other people is cruel because it forces rape victims to have their babies, forces children to suffer, forces women to have no choice in the say of their own bodies and that just isn't right.

Republicans insisted that student debt could not be forgiven at 50k or 20k so Biden caved and settled on 10k which Republicans said would be acceptable. Republicans then decided everywhere to challenge the ruling and people are still struggling in various places to get their promised forgiveness in a lot of places.

Republicans are pushing to get rid of, and have gotten rid of, many child labour laws because instead of making businesses pay decent wages which would bring more workers they decided to bring in children which is cruel and they can easily exploit. Note! These laws were put in place to stop the exploitation of children! If a child cannot sign a legally binding contract without their parent as a witness, why the hell should they work a job like an adult?!

Republicans are choosing to ignore school shootings over and over and over again CONSISTANTLY in favour of allowing MORE guns and trying to force teachers to be armed as if that insane concept is normal. Democrats are pushing for gun reform, and Washington state has passed a ton of laws recently to regulate guns. Republicans refuse to do that and would rather our children die over and over and over again and send "thoughts and prayers" instead of doing anything about it. This has been a consistent thing since Columbine.

Republicans say Democrats are doing bad things and want to take away your rights but consistently the Republicans have been hindering progress at every turn, fighting against progressive legislation and blocking it whenever Biden and the other democrats suggest anything. This also happened during Obama's time in office.

This is not a recent thing- deregulation happened because Republicans wanted businesses to be able to do whatever they wanted. Tricklw down evonomy is fucking bullahit ans hasnt trickled down to anyone.

That republican-backed deregulation is why employers don't have to pay you right and why they treat you like a replaceable cog in the machine and why they hate unions so much.

Democratic states do have a record of preserving your rights and fighting to grow them. Take a look around right now and tell meqhich states are safer for lgbtqia+, which states are safer for people who aren't white rich white men. Take a look at which news programs are consistently using fear-filled language and fearmongering tactics and promoting fear of the other and tell mwwhich companies, which people, which white wealthy men are in control of them.

Do not let yourself be fooled. Yes democrats are also not saints. They do a lot of bullshit too. They promise to do a lot and then sort of piddle and poke and half assembly do things. But a little half-assed progress is better than regression. Small progress ia better than no progress is better than reversing progress.

They've already tested the waters and we saw how much terrible bullshit they could do, how much progress they could reverse, under Trump. You do NOT want that again. You do NOT want someone just as unhinged but only able to disguise it better.

Please stay informed, do your research and do not vote for the party that has time and time again consistently shown they want everyone to suffer but themselves.

And remember- If they were not afraid of your vote, they would not be working SO hard to suppress it.

#i dont usually post political posts this early #but my gods people #you cant deny any more that republicans are constantly trying to take our rights away #and actively doing it #and actively trying to pass legislation that hurts millions of US citizens #and they HAVE passed legislation that is currently hurting millions of US citizens #we HAVE to change #we HAVE to stop voting for them #also these are only SOME of the things theyve been doing #theres ao many more things that are so bad that making a fucking list would take me goddamnned days

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