Following me is a crime against yourself and god. Another mediocre cis-dude, he/him. 41 years old.
196 followers 125 following 1,026 posts
view profile on Bluesky
You know, the Hutts are right there, with multiple billions of slaves and endless avarice. I feel like you could do something with that, maybe provide some comic commentary about how profit-seeking undermines the military-industrial complex--and now we've written Darksaber.
If the outside agitators threatening paradise are libertarians questing for yet more power, how did they achieve any wealth in the first place? Where did they come from, and why do they want to corrupt democracy? This all works if paradise is small and the greater scope of capital is colonizing.
Yeah, for sure. Your suggestion has merit and I'm curious as to how that could possible structu--oh, the world bank. Like, this is the problem, right? The reason plucky rebel outsiders have appeal is that we want to root for David over Goliath.
I mean, that's kinda just Star Wars. "Libertarians attack democracy," is the prequels, except we got a shitty republic in decline instead of the Federation or the Culture.
YouTuber David Pakman (@davidpakman.bsky.social) is secretly getting paid to shill for the Democratic Party
It really is a perfect poison for capitalism. Nobody accrues vast wealth except through a gambling addiction, and everyone who does develops an unslakable thirst for flattery. We invented a digital slot machine that's also a soulless yes-man.
Apologies for leaving you hanging, you're buried under a Rude label and I missed your reply. If you believe the government of the United States is a fascist regime which will not peacefully surrender power, yes, by all means, organize a militia. Personally, I don't believe we're there yet.
Yeah, that's roughly what I expected you'd say, but sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised. Locally, I support the food banks and a women's shelter, but I've yet to find any socialist groups other than the DSA.
Perhaps it's simply personal failing, then. I struggle to imagine any armed conquest--or resistance, or whatever--which does not centralize power under an authority. Thank you for your perspective.
I'm happy to disagree with you on this point, and focus on your suggestions for more immediate measures. Do you have specific recommendations of productive networks of mutual support?
I'm not slamming anyone. If your good faith assessment is that civil war is inevitable, and that you should prepare accordingly, I earnestly wish you luck. I hope to prove you wrong, but that doesn't mean I disapprove.
I don't mean to be judgmental here. There is no origin for perpetual egalitarianism aside from inciting violence which establishes a peaceful, lawful transfer of power going forward. The question is whether that origin is in the past or in the future.
Egalitarian means "by process of law which is applied equally to all persons," and authoritarian means, "fuck you, because I say so." Seizing power through violence is--absent some hypothetical ritual combat regime?--authoritarian on its face, not egalitarian.
Thank you for your detailed reply. To clarify further, I'm curious as to what material steps you propose people take here and now, in anticipation of this or other likely futures.
Eisenhower's passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1957 was at least partially informed by Truman's desegregation of the civil service, which took place in 1948. My story takes place during LBJ's great society endeavors, sometime in the late sixties.
Okay, can you give me the names of these campaigns, or the years in which they were active? I'm not being flippant, I'm earnestly attempting to learn more about the evidence that you're citing.
No. Please tell me more about the specific incidents.
So, I attempt to ask in the nerdjpg replies for what we can do, and receive an overwhelming chorus of, "civil war is inevitable." I find this unhelpful at best, and counter-revolutionary doomsaying at worst, an attempt to find solidarity in cynicism rather than constructive change.
My sincere hope is that we can rob them of their power through egalitarian means rather than authoritarian ones. Seizing all personal property in excess of a hundred million dollars would do wonders, for example. But there's no reason for my hands to be idle, while hoping.
An example of what I mean by, effective, non-violent means of desegregation can be found earlier in this reply chain.
Paint a picture for me, then. Perhaps I'm misled by the context of the conversation, and misapprehending your desired means and ends.
Other countries have, in fact, voted their way into a new economic system. We sent people to kill them and installed dictators. I'm going to continue looking for ways to bring about a similar socialist awakening in the United States. If you believe violent revolution is inevitable, I won't argue.
That's one reason I'm bringing it up, yes. It never had to get any further than a threat. This conversation started with, "I don't want to abandon my neighbors to white nationalist rule, what can we do to help, short of civil war?"
That's all true. What are your plans to stop this? Mine do not involve joining a militia and preparing for a civil war. If that's your approach, I wish you luck, and I will not inquire on a public platform where you organize.
My best strategy so far is to campaign on behalf of leftist candidates within the Democratic party, in the hopes of achieving punitive wealth taxation in my lifetime. You can see why I'm open to alternatives.
OK, if that's your position, thank you for your input. I hope you have fun organizing your militia, and I hope it never proves necessary.
Quite a lot of it was! Yes, there was violent resistance, and shows of force. The Black Panthers inspired Ronald fucking Reagan to pass gun control, for goodness sake. But the answer is, get this, non-binary. What was violent didn't always work, and what worked wasn't always violent.
It's real fucking bad! I helped one friend move, and watched two foreign national coworkers relocate overseas. As far as so-called immigration enforcement goes, it is not unprecedented in the history of the United States, and we have swung back from times like these before, without bloodshed.
Appeal to the authority of the majority doesn't really mean much here in the bluesky replies of nerdjpg. You know that this community is in the extreme minority, itself, yes? I replied to her, specifically, because I think she often has insightful things to say.
You're doing a bang-up job.
Cool, thanks. You're super helpful.
Because I'm not a sovereign, and because I don't know what all of them might be. That's why I'm asking for ideas.
You wanna expand on that any, bud?
Segregation isn't something that ends, concretely, simply, and universally. The fight against segregation is still ongoing. Most of the methods by which we pursue this are peaceful, and I don't believe that they are all contingent on violent resistance.
Sure, that's a different position, and one I'd be happy to negotiate. I still think that violence is fundamentally avoidable, but the extent to which it is depends on the ability of both sides to converse in other languages.
Why do you imagine this is a relevant question? Do you view the government of the United States as a fascist regime which will not respect a peaceful transfer of power if one is demanded by the constituency?
The lesson I take from the Battle of Blair Mountain is that we ought to do everything in our power to avoid a second one. If it proves necessary, fine, but it should not be for lack of trying peaceful alternatives.
For the record, I'm a socialist, and my position here is "change is possible without civil war." I'm the one trying to defend an ideal which stretches further than might-is-right survival-of-the-fittest.
To the extent that you caught some of my irritation with her, you have my apologies.
I was talking to someone else, whose asserted position is that war is the only agent of meaningful change. That is absurd.
That's the truth! There's no New Deal without a bunch of busted windows, Hoovervilles, and angry marches. I'm not against any of that.
Fair! My apologies. I don't want to presume anything about you specifically, or any other one person in this reply chain.
No, I haven't read your specific, favorite, history book. I've read dozens of others, but not that one. Right now, I'm reading Worst Hard Time, which is about the dust bowl. Are perspectives informed by your favorite book the only ones valid to you?
I suppose I should not blame young people for an instinctive incredulity against democracy's capacity for peaceful change. Since Hastert, obstructionism has crippled congress's ability to deliver anything at all. 25 years doesn't seem like much, but it's an entire adult lifetime.
Start here: bsky.app/profile/kyle... Then go read a history book.
I'm forever haunted by the time a fellow high school student told me, "You play like you practice." God, I wish it weren't true.
No one declared war to put PBS on the air. Fred Rogers shared his thoughts and feelings on the matter, and that was enough. It might not be as easy to reverse voter suppression in Austin, Texas, but we should start there and work our way up to spilling the blood of our neighbors.
You are a slavish votary to a horseman of the fucking apocalypse, an American obsessed with the thrill of war as an agent of change, a victim of propaganda which valorizes American military adventure, and instead of rejecting this programming, you have merely turned it against its source.
No one declared war to give women the right to vote. War wasn't necessary to establish departments of education, food safety, health and human services, welfare, all of which reduced those statistics you claim to hate so much.
Huge swaths of American society was agricultural and underwent dramatic changes that improved quality of life for farmers and everyone else, without violence. We often talk about the Green Revolution, but no more important was the change to methods in the Great Plains that avoid another Dust Bowl.
You didn't do well in school, did you?
Anti-Trust legislation resulted from Teddy Roosevelt's personal crusade. The New Deal was the result of a popular electoral uprising, and radically transformed American society. Great Society is why we have these rural whites to worry about, and descends from JFK's visit to rural Mississippi.
Oh, I get it. You've never read a history book, and you're an authoritarian thinker who asserts what would have to be true for your claims to be valid. And you accuse me of ignorance! Ha!
We do what we can, and this entire conversation started as an attempt to learn how to do more. I haven't declared defeat yet. You are the one who tallies every sin as evidence that virtue is impossible. What are you, a fucking Calvinist?
It is not naive to imagine reconciliation and bloodless improvement to society. You are simply violent, angry, and useless. You cannot imagine a better world and resent those who do. We have improved the US without bloodshed before and will do it again. Easier, I think, without you here.
If it is bad when people die, stop salivating over the prospect of improving things by means of conquest! War almost never helps anyone at all, and it always comes at a staggering cost of human life! Naive to think that war is avoidable? You're from Canada, for God's sake.
That is the remark and the context immediately preceding your bitter, sarcastic reflex of a contribution! You claim that it is bad when people die, then zoom into my replies when I ask other people for constructive ideas for how to reverse persecution peacefully!
That is the entire topic of the conversation, yes, how to best handle the excesses of white nationalist state governments. Your contribution, "Why don't you all have a civil war about it," is as useful as a mass shooter's angry screed. You imagine yourself LESS violent?
You're perfectly within your rights to remain as offensive as you like. I find your flippant, bloodthirsty disregard for my friends and neighbors quite offensive, so congratulations on your success.
Does performative cynicism and despair make you feel better about your own inability to effect change? Or are you merely channeling resentment and insecurity as a resident of Canada? Either way, I will thank you not to treat the horrors of war as a foregone conclusion.
My understanding is that Lincoln sent troops south only after the Confederacy started a war by attacking Fort Sumter. And I'm not being disingenuous, I'm responding directly to your suggestion that the federal government send soldiers to occupy the state of Texas, and reacting in good faith.
Okay, cool. How do you propose we accomplish that?
I'll certainly agree with that, if very little else.
That's what worries me, yes, the ball is currently in their side of the court. The Commander in Chief is more likely to send marines to Chicago than Dallas, right now, so I don't know that this is the moment to propose federal tyranny over state sovereignty.
I would not call the Civil Rights era a war, but if you are inclined to do so, feel free.
Well, I won't stand in your way if you want to train a militia to firebomb that particular Walmart, but I'm going to hope we can find more peaceful alternatives while you rally the troops.
And that's how this one little town was desegregated, or, at least, took the first step towards desegregation. It was a matter of foreign fucking policy! I expect that any attempt to leverage central federal power over rural areas in 2028 or beyond will have to be at least half as clever.
(These visitors did not need to come to Oklahoma to learn how to drive a tractor or use new fertilizers, naturally, and what truly complicated science there was to learn in the Green Revolution could be learned from a textbook. They came to learn as a favor to the feds, in exchange for equipment.)
Then, a lucrative government contract was offered to Northwestern Oklahoma State University, to train foreigners in the use of modern agricultural equipment and techniques. If they'd play host to actual Africans, they'd make a ton of money. That's when the sign came down.
From what I remember of the story--and this may be inaccurate!--two things happened in succession. The United States ceased exporting flour to developing nations. Instead, we restricted exports of grain, for foreign processing. That shot half the town's economy straight to Hell.
My father grew up in a town named Alva, which was a sundown town. A sign at the outskirts read, "Don't let the sun set on your black ass in Alva," and the federal government did not use troops or the threat of violence to take it down.
My point is I don't expect you will violently overthrow a local democratic majority without a war. You could no more occupy Texas than we occupied Afghanistan.
Yeah, that's about where I land. Inevitably, the last resort is the violence of one subculture suppressing another through military means. I expect there's a LOT of room for more creative solutions before we reach that point, but it requires both will and investment from leadership.
Correct, but there are limits to the breadth and depth of federal power. Escorting Ruby Bridges to school was the correct move, but the reason they took so many pictures was to make a point and establish a narrative. In truth, we can't afford to send a regiment, every time.
4.4 million people voted for Greg Abbott. I don't know that violently deposing him is going to end in a single night of violence, no matter how clever your methods of treason against the current government of Texas and its place within the constitutional order. They will probably take issue.
Do you earnestly expect that a second American Civil War, within a nuclear power, is the best solution? If so, I'm curious as to your reasoning as to how this is the most humane and effective path forward.
Sure, 160 years ago. And if your answer is another Civil War, okay, thank you. I'm hoping to learn about some clever ideas less violent than that one.
I hardly disagree that it's terrible what, eg, Texas does to its citizens. By what mandate do people outside Texas exercise authority over that duly elected government, and how would you propose preventing Texas from likewise imposing outside rule on states like Illinois?
Why don’t you send everyone proof of life first? (Either way, Chicago doesn’t want you here)
This came to me in a vision
Almost everyone who earnestly pursues a skill ends up either disappointed or pissed off with AI, and it isn't a coincidence.
The power Trump is seizing for himself and what the dissenting judges accepted is far more than the British monarch had in at least 100 years preceding American Independence
I really have to give it to Brennan and the gang, they managed to put together what has to be the most expensive flashback episode in television history.
🧐
Still, there's something inherently violent even about dice rolls. It's like every time you cast a die, something disappears. Some alternative ending, or an entirely different world...
Then you arrange a transporter accident between him and a Tuvok fan, resulting in a second Eliezer Yudkowski. It'll be a second roll of the dice on this whole internet cult thing, who knows, maybe it'll go better this time!
Reformation and revolution only ever belong to the intolerant. Sober, responsible stewards do not stoke fury in the outraged.
What if we guided all of society's enterprises with the confidence of a 17th-century tulip bulb salesman?
But, like, yeah, it's probably bad that the better you know your audience and cater to them, the more desperately you need a larger relative percentage of their wealth.
Somewhere in here is an incredibly niche comic about audience sentiment analysis and how repeated efforts in hyper-specializing for a small set of the most devoted possible fans has resulted in convergent evolution exhibited by Mormonism, Scientology, and Rationalism.
Honest to god, this could turn out to be the best thing this idiot has ever done if we use the precedent as a mechanism for confiscatory wealth taxes.
In the bookshop this morning: PARENTS: “Okay, we’re leaving now.” CHILD: *pulls another book from the shelf and sits down * CHILD: “Then I guess this is goodbye.”
Ea-Nasir would be insulted at the comparison. He kept a room in his house dedicated to his hatemail, that's like the opposite of these fragile little men who can't take any criticism.
We'll find out if it yielded anything at all after the Nov 4 special election in California, and, I guess, after mid-terms next year. If CA Dems can't get the redistricting passed, it was all an expensive waste of time and energy.
Someone's just thrown a bottle of Omega 3 tablets at me. I only received super fish oil injuries, but still.
It's dorky to admit, but my favorite part of LA is the museums. Yeah, the beach is fucking spectacular, but you can hit the Natural History museum, LAC museum of art, the Getty, and Griffith Observatory in one day.
Muir Woods, early in the morning, the fog slowly lifting as you walk among the redwoods, is a great way to start a day. See what you want in SF, MoMA was a popular date spot. Day two in Monterey chilling out, visiting the aquarium, doing whatever.
So, like, the party has a choice to make. Do they spend 3.2 million dollars and bring down criminal charges on their state reps, who can't go home or visit any state that extradites to Texas, or do they cut it short? If the reciprocal gerrymandering comes through, I'll only be mildly disappointed.
I am not quite that cynical, yet. There's a real cost in the theater. Texas imposes fines upon them for missing sessions, and Abbott will call those every day. It's about $400k/person to stick it out all the way to the end. Their audience was the blue states, not Texas.
Yes. They should. That is what a principled exercise of power might look like.