Did some math on the Social Security Admin actuarial tables a bit ago. For a 79 year old man, he has a 30% chance of just keeling off on his own in the next 4 years. Probably higher than that, because he’s not in good health and eats a lot of McDonalds.
That’s the beauty of MkUltra. You don’t get to volunteer. You’ll find out decades later why you had an incredibly weird day of freaking out.
I think people might overstate how much the Overview Effect would help.
John Glenn’s time in congress had him oppose nuclear proliferation, fix safety and environmental problems at nuclear weapon storage facilities, and to clean up nuclear waste. He also supported the B-1 bomber program, was wrapped up in the Keating Five corruption scandal, voted against gun locks for transferring pistols, and voted against a underage tobacco usage amendment. He generally supported every defense department budget bill.
Bill Nelson voted for the Patriot Act–just like everyone else in the Senate except Feingold–and also voted against a mandate for a 2007 complete withdrawal from Iraq.
It’s all a mixed bag, at best. It’s not going to magically transform our political system.
Not everyone comes out of that shifting to a less authoritarian position. For most people, it does seem to do that, but not all. Psychedelics are common among white supremacists, and it tends to make them even more authoritarian.
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/psychedelics-and-the-far-right-the-psychnautzi-effect/
Switch up “unscathed” for “have some kind of functional country with a democracy not particularly worse than what we’ve had”.
Start building unions, mutual aid, and other grassroots political support. It’s time to start getting out of our post-election shock and turn frustration into action.
The part that saves it is that Vance can’t generate the kind of support that Trump does. He’d definitely fuck stuff up, but fascism is so much about The Guy that anybody but Trump would not be able to build militant support. That is, the kind that makes reporters afraid to say anything bad about the Administration.
It consolidates it, but that means the in-group is smaller. Fascisim is a death cult in the long run as it has to keep everyone focused on an enemy, but they have to invent a new enemy if they defeat that one.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism
For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such a “final solution” implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.
Same management energy that succeeds in going bankrupt running a casino.
It’s an overlooked way to combat fascism. Get them to eat each other in a corner rather than taking out their rampant sexual frustrations on the rest of us.
They should just sign them. It’s not like they’ll experience consequences for violating them.
Do they still think they can find a white guy in Trump’s orbit who hasn’t sexually assaulted someone?
“I’m not a snowflake, you’re the snowflake”
Dr. Oz might be the most competent pick by the new Administration yet. This tells you a lot about the competence of all the other picks.
There’s some context here. She’s blackmailing GOP members if they don’t fall in line behind Trump. That threat would be meaningless if it were untrue.
It makes a big difference to him, personally. He’s a walking ego, and the fact that the American people aren’t in a majority behind him will gnaw at him.
It means fuck all in any practical way. At best, the country isn’t quite as giving into fascism as we thought. That’s the best I got, and it ain’t much.
FDR was the 10th wealthiest President in history, and T. Roosevelt was 4th. They were the neo-liberals of their time, even if they did some things to improve the working class.
Not if they call a voice vote. However, standard Roberts Rules says that anybody can object to the results of the voice vote and then it goes to actually recording things. Voice votes are meant to move things along when it’s obvious a vast majority are in favor, not hide who is trying to pull something.
It’s convenient now. The news media isn’t so much biased in terms of left vs right, but rather they’re biased in favor of an explosive narrative. Trump provides so many explosive narratives just by his mere existence.
So no, they’re not suddenly finding honesty. They’re starting to feast on the buffet they cooked for themselves.
Yes, that’s true. But their system is not our system. We have opportunities to exploit. History does not have to repeat itself.
I’ll bet the Jan 6 pardons are quietly forgotten. They were a bunch of useful idiots who have already played their role and can be safely disposed of.
Only exception might be anyone who could be potentially squeezed for more information that might lead to more evidence against Trump, but even that’s probably a non-issue for him.