So worthless in opposition that you start to assume he prefers to lose.
Author: Confidence (Release May 21, 2024), The Road Home, The Dharma of the Princess Bride, Host of The Road Home podcast, Buddhist Student & Teacher
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So worthless in opposition that you start to assume he prefers to lose.
Strange take given how awful he looks.
Duh. But good (at least good for the enlisted to hear this so they know they have a clear choice to make).
And honestly you should follow @workingfamilies.org everywhere. People I met through WFP in Southern California helped me fight back on behalf of trans and NB kids being bullied at my kids’ school. WFP pulls in the best of us. Get involved.
I still prefer human art.
The one thing I can say with confidence, from a Tantric Buddhist perspective, is that his bardo experience will not be fun. #iykyk
But if his passing does give people the renewed optimism to work for a better world, sure, that’s definitely worthy of celebration.
I’ll be happier to celebrate the death of the corporate infotainment media complex that forced him upon us. THAT will truly be a day for me. May I live to see it.
Nobody wants to hear this. When he dies, we will all want to celebrate as if we won something. But we don’t win until we win back our attention and build the world WE want to build.
When his death does come, it will probably be treated with the exact same problem that gave this narcissist power in the first place - way too much of our attention. When he is gone, may we resume the hard work of community and democracy, and may his name disappear, along with his body.
I didn’t realize Lego was woke. www.404media.co/lego-stops-s...
Meditate today and this weekend, even if only for five minutes. The reason I always say to start with five minutes is that might be all you have. But more importantly, if you can actually get to your seat for five minutes, it becomes exponentially easier to stay for five more.
"There are doomsayers on social media telling us all hope is lost, that there will never again be free and fair elections in America, that we all might as well curl up in a ball and hide until the end of our days. But all hope is not lost. Anything can happen." open.substack.com/pub/newslett...
Multiple CDC leaders have resigned in the wake of layoffs and a shooting at the agency’s headquarters this month.
Imagine if the entire US media had done this in 2015. They could have. Good for these journalists.
Including the ones who work at CNN.
Just no words. No more guns. Period. May we learn…someday.
The DNC represents the views of a tiny minority of their base. Case study of a dying institution.
He’s weak in so many ways.
Did AI write this? There’s no such thing as a “labor juggernaut,” but there is such a thing as billionaire-owned political media (you).
Way too many people are still subscribing and feeding this.
I’ll take “light money on fire that could help people” for $200, Alex.
New episode of The Road Home podcast with my friend, teacher/healer/activist Reggie Hubbard about his recovery from a major stroke. Give a listen! (available on Substack now or this evening wherever you download your pods). ethannichtern.substack.com/p/ep-153-you...
36% *should* be the highest they’ve ever been, but thanks to those networks, they used to be artificially higher.
Deporting someone to a country they’ve never been to has got to be considered a crime against humanity. When this is all over, whether in one year or 30, may there be trials.
KILMAR IN BALTIMORE: “Never lose hope. Promise me you’ll continue fight for freedom — not just for me, for everybody.” He was just taken into ICE custody.
“I knew I was dealing with someone that is sick in the head, and this was the person who made the decision to incarcerate her.”
It is OK to want things when the world is on fire. It is OK to have hopes and dreams when everything is a mess. It is OK to say yes to the goddamn universe when the ground feels unsteady. You don’t become less of a person, less of who you are, when things are hard. You deserve good things.
Agree that that’s a likelier outcome than JD Vance presiding over a coherent 50 state dictatorship.
It’s going to be a mess for a good while, no matter what. Take care of each other.
I really don’t want to know what happens next. I just think coherent dictatorship is well beyond their capabilities, and the 50 states of the US was probably already a hard country to run a coherent dictatorship in, even if they were evil geniuses (they ain’t). May suffering be minimal.
I want to see the Venn diagram of people who swear by ChatGPT and people who think the bartender is in love with them.
You figured it out 10 years too late. Any other realization in any other field a decade late would not earn you points (professionally). So…good luck with the passive aggressive admission.
*america
That being said, we don’t have a coherent opposition party right now, and I think the odds of us returning to anything resembling pre-2016 American are literally zero. Uncharted waters all the way. Take care of each other. Community is everything.
There are many reasons I think dictatorship will fail here. One big one is that this is a huge country with so many cities. How many big cities can the National Guard occupy before they start to stretch apart and defect? My guess is 5, max. We shall see, but I bet they’re already in too deep.
Donald Trump says he is going to deploy the National Guard to Chicago. This is what weak men do to pretend they’re strong. Stay safe, stand with your community, and most importantly, know your rights:
These people extremely suck and that’s the kindest thing I can say.
It me.
Replace “some days” with “every day of the last several decades” and you got me.
It’s almost like a guy who failed at casinos (the most profitable business of all time) also kind of sucks at economics.
I don’t read that paper. :)
Excellent article.
Meditate today, even for just five minutes. See if you can touch at least one moment—just one—where you catch a glimpse of the classic expression: The mind is like the ocean. Thoughts and perceptions are like waves.
He’s clearly scared the protests will get too big to control.
Every AI company reminds me of Friendster.
Mindful spending as activism *works.* 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
Eventually people are just gonna have to meditate or something.
Very welcome news. www.democracynow.org/2025/8/18/is...
Can’t wait for NYC to have a mayor like this.
It would be an excellent time to have a clear sense of how many of these National Guard troops aren’t into these unlawful orders, and are looking for a good moment to refuse to comply.
I have no idea. I think things are going to look very very different in 2027 and 2028 and our job in 2025 is to advocate collectively for a completely different form of American democracy. Newsom seems like a candidate for normal times and that era ended in 2016 imho. Best to you.
My answer is it’s not one person, and it’s probably gonig to be many people advocating for a complete re-envisioning of the country and the legislative/media models we live under. I don’t think there will be any more lone knights in shining armor.
It’s not going to be one person, is what I think. Best to you.
Every AI summary of text and email messages which Apple has forced upon me has been off. Every time I play with letting the AI rewrite a sentence for me, it gets worse. Maybe it’ll get better like advocates say, but the public facing AI tech they’ve forced on us so far is…just not good.
See article later in thread.
And the experts in fascism are scholars not consultants. slate.com/news-and-pol...
Lordie. The weird angle gave them a significant boost in polls and visibly rattled the republicans. Then their bad consultants told them to knock it off . I’ve not ever donated to the DNC. Take your aggression off my thread.
As a former Texas State Rep, let me be clear: LOCKING Rep. Nicole Collier inside the chamber is beyond outrageous. Forcing elected officials to sign “permission slips” & take police escorts to leave? That’s not procedure. That’s some old Jim Crow playbook.
I’m concerned that people won’t appreciate how big a line is being crossed here. Texas is suspending basic Constitutional freedoms for opposition lawmakers. This isn’t dipping your toe in the authoritarian waters, it’s diving head first into the deep end. This is big league authoritarianism.
Texas in 2025.
They didn’t really do it in 2024. They started calling them weird (which was working), then stopped. But experts in fascism do say that mocking the fascists is important. And no, I don’t think Newsom will be president.
I agree with this. Please throw in a meditation practice while you’re at it.
Might be because people are giving to individual candidates, and no one trusts an institution built to lose anymore.
I don’t think Gavin Newsom is the answer, but I do think we need to mock and ridicule narcissism and fascism. He’s doing that part right, at least. But so is South Park.
Meditate today, even for just five minutes. And if you haven’t practiced in a while, the only way to start again is to start today. Number one rule of mindfulness: it’s always NOW.
“I believe that this is an age of patriarchy & hate, and it is an age that is dying. This interregnum between one age and the next is an age of monsters. So LOVE, and know that your love is tethering you and your community to this earth. And know that love is winning. It is winning. It is winning.”
Buddhism was what helped me slowly get more willing to do this.
Same and it’s really good (also just don’t like stories of my hometown told through the eyes of billionaires, avoided Succession for same reason). And when I figured out Carrie Coon was the same actor from White Lotus…wow she’s good.
Crowd at Audi Field chanting “Free D.C.” at the Spirit match. #freedc
The bully is a weakling because they’re two sides of the same coin.
Would love an economist to measure the point at which you’d be richer if you lived in a social democracy like Finland or Denmark. My guess is the number is ~ $50 milllion net worth. In other words if you have less than that and are still supporting capitalism, you’re on the wrong team.
This is a hilarious thread. But also, astute and philosophical. Just don’t say the name of the park. I don’t want it to get too popular. :)
I expect Cuomo and Adams to both join the Republican Party in mid November.
Wait until they find out what AI does.
"At a moment when the language of politics is so dour and so dark, it’s important to understand that the tonic to the darkness is not imitating it, but rather to marshal the same lightness and joy that also characterizes our lives." --Mamdani, in this interview:
Maybe, um, unsubscribe? It solves all the problems with this oligarchic outlet if everyone stops complaining and just does that.
'Unprecedented': Explaining federal takeover of DC police
She definitely speaks for me.
Meditate today, even just for five minutes. And please, for the love of whatever, find a moment or two to enjoy your own mind. It’s actually a beautiful place.
No words.
No. More. Billionaires.
Two faves on the good side of whatever the Dem party might evolve into.
It’s not the paper of record.
A nice reminder that the universe remains much larger than the temporary dumpster fire happening on our little blue marble. www.bbc.com/news/article...
“Reality exists independently of you, and that reality is exactly what I want it to be” is—whether she sees it or not—a great argument for the subjectivity of our perception of both sky and gender.
Watching Andrew Cuomo absolutely crash out into oblivion in real time, a mere five years after he was “That COVID Governor who gave us those really comforting press conferences,” is a stark lesson in the perception vs. reality aspect of the Democratic Party. Just, wow wow wow.
Here’s my question: Let’s say AIPAC was from a peaceful country. Say, Denmark or Finland. How, in the ever-loving f-ck, would it STILL not be considered foreign election interference? Our politics have been rotten for a very long time. Trump is the result of that rot, not an anomaly.
This story—which is so on brand it's unreal—confirms my suspicion that cryptocurrency is a technology for little boys, by little boys, and about little boys.
Fascism is way too expensive (just like war, prisons, and other immoral things).
Hmm, what do ‘central camps’ and ‘final plan’ remind you of? 🤷🏽♂️👇🏽
Meditate today, even for just five minutes. The bigger a deal you make of the times you don't practice, the harder it will be to begin again. No big deal. Just do it.
Even if this regime has completely blown its first six months in power (which it has), how statistically likely is it to see a...checks notes...56 point swing in one district in those six months? Something remains fishy af about the 2024 elections.
Still surprised that the term “pedofelon” hasn’t caught on.
Today we learned Andrew Cuomo is directly coordinating with Donald Trump, even as this President sends masked agents to rip our neighbors off the streets and guts the social services so many New Yorkers rely on. It’s disqualifying and a betrayal of our city.
It should be a clear indicator that she would’ve been an amazing president.
Just in case you’re wondering why so many young people want nothing to do with the Democratic Party unless people like Mamdani are leading it.