This is a major hit piece on Hegseth, too good not to share. Every word rings true.
We didn't all have to agree on everything. We only had to come together, just for one day.
And here we are again. Everyone has a reason. All we need to do is show up.
No Kings. March 28.
15/end
And in the end, that's what matters in our public lives: courage and solidarity. Courage to shape the kind of transformative solidarity that bridges ideas and reasons and justifications and interests and crosses all kinds of lines. 14/
I don't know how many people were influenced by this to take stands against authority or injustice later in their lives, but I'd like to believe that the collective courage became individual courage in things that had nothing to do with why we walked out that day. 13/
...they could make a statement that everyone in town would have to pay attention to: parents, school and town officials, police, businesses. It wasn't much power, and it may have been fleeting power, and it was completely localized, but it was power nonetheless. 12/
None of the reasons or the resulting actions mattered. Only thing that mattered in that moment is that a thousand high school students realized, all at the same time, that they had had enough of this shit, that they didn't have to take it any more, and that if they stood together in solidarity 11/
Some marched to the school district offices. Some milled around outside on the football field before just going home. Some headed to the pizza place or the sandwich shop. Some went early to their jobs. Some headed to the park to get stoned. 10/
Some people were fighting for that extra day back, some wore black armbands for Kent State, some had no idea why they were doing what they were doing but they had a general sense it was important and that were supporting their friends. Some of the underclasspeople just followed the seniors. 9/
In the end who cares why everyone came together, whether it was injustice, injury, self-interest, or just what everyone else was doing at the moment. When the day came everyone stood up from their desks and walked out of the school, probably 95%. We emptied that fucking place in 5 minutes. 8/
Simple populism won out, and no one who had different reasons or more serious causes sat out because of it. 7/
Then one of the guys, who is no longer with us, hit on the fact that the superintendent was forcing us to have a make up day in June because we had used too many snow days that winter, and that became the lead issue. 6/
...around the anniversary, and although my ride-or-dies were good with that, we all kind of knew it wouldn't be enough of a reason for people to sign on. We discussed some of the issues above, same thing, no one single thing big enough to hold on to. 5/
I don't remember what the final trigger was, but a small group of seniors in my high school class decided we were going to make a statement on the way out the door: we called for a general strike. I wanted to have everyone wear black armbands in memory of the Kent State murders 4/
...given the history of that war. Plus we were sitting in a small mostly blue-collar town in Springsteen's New Jersey. Looked like if we had a future at all, it wasn't good. 3/
...a Mideast war and including crippling stagflation driven by the president's corrupt economic policies; and while the Vietnam War had wound down for most US involvement, all the older guys in town still had draft numbers and we didn't trust the president or anyone else not to backtrack, 2/
May 1974, the country was in pretty bad shape: a corrupt president we couldn't get rid of while half of his administration was being sent to prison; the worst recession since the Great Depression, resulting from an oil crisis caused by a Mideast war and including crippling stagflation driven by 1/
Because DEI initiatives in the corporate world didn’t exist until a handful of companies like Target quietly introduced them decades ago. And because you still don’t know what you’re taking about now. You got played, and they’re still playing you as you double down as badly as any MAGA.
These stupid fucks have no idea what they’re doing with this war. Complete incompetence. And they’re going to get rich from it while the world collapses.
Yeah it was a great fucking idea to elect a convicted felon failed businessman lifelong mobster child rapist as president, and fill the cabinet with second-string talk show hosts and podcasters
You stood by silently when MAGA went after the things you say you care about that Target was doing, and your first response to federal legal action against the was to kick them while they were down. Truth is you never really cared at all, and refuse to act in solidarity when it’s hard.
You wouldn’t even be talking about DEI in corporate America if it wasn’t for companies like Target. You had no idea it even was a thing. YOU caved against MAGA, and now you’re carrying their water. Absolutely pathetic and shameful. You’re doing their work so they can move on to their next target.
But, ballparking, the aggregated fear and greed spending lands at about $68.3 trillion.
4/end
Collective spending on public safety—law enforcement and prisons; local, state and federal—currently and historically runs about half of defense (fear walks in lockstep). Will total that up too if I can find a source with adjusted dollars.
3/
Can you image what our country would be like if we had invested even a third of that in education, healthcare, clean energy, and economic equality.
Can you also imagine where so much of that money ended up, in whose hands at what profit.
2/
In my lifetime, the United States has spent $45.5 trillion on defense without fighting a single war that was necessary.
Yes I did the math: $45.5 trillion in 2024 dollars.
1/
You don’t owe your money to anyone, but yeah, Target was, for a corporation, a friend, until you abandoned them. Now they’re just another company that doesn’t care about anyone or anything but profit, and who could blame them. Go shop at Walmart or Amazon.
Probably never, now. Where were you when MAGA was savagely promoting boycotts of Target in June of 2024? Did you help Target stand up against them? Did you use your voice then?
Now, keep this up, they'll never even consider going anywhere near the right thing again. Congratulations.
Target WAS an ally, and a leader, both one of the few in the corporate world, until y'all cowards rejected solidarity and abandoned it at the first sign of trouble and turned yourself into blue MAGA stooges doing the same work as red MAGA stooges in the service of the regime.
Target *created* DEI in the corporate world years ago. All the customers who loved them for that ran at the first sign of trouble after Target was a) being boycotted by MAGA, and b) was being threatened by shareholder lawsuits backed by DoJ action. Try solidarity instead of abandonment.
