Zero Utopia

A quick C. Viper

#StreetFighter6

One thing I’d be nice if Schatz and others acknowledged is that even judging their hard right turn on immigration in Spring 2024 on its own terms it failed miserably. In July when Harris took over Trump led on “immigration” by 9pts, by election day he led 13pts. At best it, electorally, did nothing

Federal tactics on Portland protesters escalate, hours after judge rules against Trump Hours after a federal judge paused the Trump administration’s plans to deploy 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to Portland, federal law enforcement officers escalated the tactics used on prote...

Hours after a federal judge paused the Trump administration’s plans to deploy 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to Portland, federal law enforcement officers escalated the tactics used on protesters in the city. via @opb.org

#HADES
#HADES2

It is a scary time, but if I've learned one thing over the past few weeks it is this: stand firm, and the people will have your back.

this is an outstanding thread.

What I know from being Black my whole life, and poor for the majority of it, is that politely ignoring a root issue to attend to one closer to the surface is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s a band-aid on a gaping wound, and it will not hold your flesh together for long. The US needs stitches.

This is why their analysis frustrates them AND us. We feel like they know they’re not being emotionally honest. I’m not sure they always do. More importantly, even if they do, they expect the rest of us not to notice. And when we do notice, to politely ignore it in service of “larger issues.”

I say it all the time, but imma say it again: a lot of very book smart people lack the emotional education and communication skills that would allow them to generate the courage they want to embody in their work. They are incurious about their own emotional lives, and consequently, those of others.

As long as the loudest folks on the left insist tone-policing, compromise on human rights, and acquiescence are our only options for a unified country, they will continue to lose the faith of the marginalized. And even when they win, they’ll just be waiting to lose the same way again.

It’s obvious to me that he resents the places his theories cannot reach. And this resentment invokes a profound lack of curiosity, an intellectual eye-roll, for the stories of those who have always had to know what he can’t fathom. That’s why his analysis is flawed. And why he won’t see that.

What Klein couldn’t seem to admit was that his core political analysis is born of his personal experience, and nothing about his personal experience prepared him to face the complexity of the current moment. What he could not cope with acknowledging, is that he never thought that would matter.

If all the left needed was policy that improves people lives, they’d win every time. What keeps them from that isn’t a lack of good ideas or evidence of good outcomes from those ideas. The biggest obstacle is the societal push to ignore what the lack of soft skills in everyday people leads to.

This is the kind of issue people will claim we can do nothing about. That’s untrue, of course, but it’s more complex than most people want to deal with. They believe winning elections and changing policies is the only good thing we can do, and want to ignore what keeps us trapped in this cycle.

Marginalized folks know TONE and LANGUAGE CHOICE are only part of what’s being communicated. But those in the power majority are accustomed to spaces that value and demand the faux nicety of polite tones no matter the core message being shared. To them, sounding angry makes you wrong in any event.

The conversation between Klein and Coates showed me that a lot of people who screech about “infighting” on the left aren’t aware of the fact that marginalized people have been forced to learn how to regulate their emotions during conflict, and so, are better able to hear what’s actually being said.

This is also what's responsible for men overlooking all the shit the State has and continues to do to WOMEN and acting like they're the ones being persecuted when someone from outside of their group demands a change in behavior. 💀💀

This is also what the whole A.I. push is about. Fury at WOMEN, especially BLACK WOMEN leapfrogging over their asses in earnings and education, publishing books and shit. Getting ahead. So NOW, being intelligent is frowned upon, it's useless, just let the A.I. write your papers, it's fine!

This is what all the nastiness from them people is about. Being confronted with the fact that some things can't be learned via elite, exclusive institutions. They can only be learned via lived experience.

Graphical abstract showing the various resistances which may be added to plants

Just like tomatoes, seedless watermelons, or orange carrots would have been alien to the Minoans or Nabateans, it's hard for us to imagine future food crops. With gene editing now available, diversification of new breeds/hybrids may be around the corner. 🧪

Link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

He requires a pretty in-depth understanding of a lot of of the historical. In his writing it is easy to see patterns where there aren’t not and see patterns where there are

I’m concidering a resource support team for anyone wanting to read Pynchon in right now.

Magical realism is needed now.

White Gen X has been so pro-Trump.

But then once you get old enough to "get yours" libertarianism tends to collapse back into standard conservatism with a bonus side of arguing about age of consent laws.

I remember a lot of political disaffectation manifesting as libertarianism. After all if we're lost and forgotten and don't care about your bullshit, man, whatever, then why should we be conforming to your stodgy-ass political structure?

US culture doesn't reward people for 'having been right' about anything. In fact, this rarely matters. If you are powerful, it hardly matters whether you are wrong. Power rules everything around us.

Reality Bites but Gen X Can Still Fight Back We are lost as a generation. By supporting the struggles of our youth, perhaps we can be found again.

I wrote this. I didn't choose the headline, which with all respect to my awesome editors I do not like. I also missed the PIC part of this. which I greatly regret. Otherwise I stand by it. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

The thing is, this isn't even the first time US ag has wrecked itself with foolish trade wars.

In the runup to the Civil War, US cotton plantations decided to stop exporting cotton. Why?

Because the British Empire's textile mills ran on cotton from US plantations.

State of play: King (Maine), Cortez-Masto (Nevada), and Fetterman (Asshole) caved. GOP will look for more on the next vote. Top targets are the others who caved in March:
Schatz (HI)
Durbin (IL)
Gillibrand & Schumer (NY)
Hassan & Shaheen (NH)
Peters (MI)

Keep an eye on Warner/Kaine in Virginia too.

Bill Maher launched his show Politically Correct in 1993. A reactionary white man pissed off ALREADY, lol... Again, I'm waiting for an excellent history of this period because it explains so much about how we are here now.