Rebecca Herman

The Authoritarian Stack How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America — And Why Europe Is Next

If you do one thing today, read and share this link. It is the tech oligarchs’ plan to take over the government and build a post-democratic America, proven to be well underway.

To understand the tech bros, we must think like them—they view our democracy as an outdated system that must be replaced:

When books were being pulled from Iowa classrooms, these teens started an after-school club to read them Three Iowa City West high schoolers founded a book club that reads some of the country's most frequently banned books after a state law removing books with sexual content was signed in 2023. Two years later, many of the books have been reshelved and parts of the law can't be enforced.

Three high schoolers founded a book club that reads some of the country's most frequently banned books after a state law removing books with sexual content was signed in 2023. Two years later, many of the books have been reshelved and parts of the law can't be enforced.

What the World Needs Now Is Love — and Suzanne Jackson at SFMOMA The artist’s six decades of prolific, exploratory work shine in her first major museum retrospective.

Suzanne Jackson leads with love and invites you to do the same. With her first major museum retrospective at SFMOMA, spanning six decades of her work, the 81-year-old artist demonstrates how freeing an expansive approach to life and art can be.

Who Goes Nazi?, by Dorothy Thompson

Every few months now I re-read this "Who Goes Nazi?" piece from 1941 and am blown away by how it captures the people we are dealing with 80 years later.

harpers.org/archive/1941...

Badly Stenciled sign saying “PARDON OUR APPEARANCE”

Choose your caption:
A) Entrance to National Archives’ Constitution Exhibit
B) Mock-up for my tombstone design
C) Mel Bochner fan art (I totally want to do this!)

“Julie Christie, the rumors are true!”

I love this album so much—I may have listened to it more than any other album I owned!

10 Art Shows to See in the Bay Area Fall 2025 Artists on Black Oakland history, Suzanne Jackson’s diaphanous suspended paintings, Julio César Morales’s poignant watercolors, and much more.

After a long, rainy summer, the Bay Area art scene is beginning to thaw out with a celebration of local Filipino artists, the newly renovated Museum of the African Diaspora, and Suzanne Jackson’s diaphanous hanging paintings.

9 state attorneys general pledge to support transgender youth: 'We have your back' "You belong here. You inspire us. And we do love you," nine state AGs tell trans youth in a new video.

Rob Bonta (California), Anthony Brown (Maryland), Andrea Campbell (Massachusetts), Charity Clark (Vermont), Keith Ellison (Minnesota), Letitia James (New York), Kathy Jennings (Delaware), Dana Nessel (Michigan), and Dan Rayfield (Oregon) each stating "I promise to fight for trans students."

Our Lips are Literally Sealed! (I don’t know how you’re singing, then…)

‘Literally’ literally ruins everything!

If you read EO 14344 you may find some retrograde modern art criticism, leading to today’s Redacted Haiku:

The Founders impress / consciously perpetuating / brutal elite

#badpoetry
#haiku
#EO
#artcriticism

UC Berkeley turns over personal information of more than 150 students and staff to federal government UC Berkeley has provided the personal information of roughly 160 students, staff and faculty to the federal government in a directive from the UC Office of the President.

UC Berkeley turns over personal information of more than 150 students and staff to federal government: www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...

Government has lagged /
in usability lost /
high cost by design

#badpoetry
#EO 14338
#haiku redacted

sprawling aesthetics /
say nothing of time lost by /
American Potholes

#haiku
#EO 14338
#badpoetry

And you probably gave me the VHS tape!!!

Aww he looks so young—just 21?!

Well, I have seen Tapeheads but it was back in the VHS era!

“After all, we’re all on our own cosmic journeys. Mine’s just way more impressive than yours.”

a man wearing a hat and glasses is looking at something ALT: a man wearing a hat and glasses is looking at something

He also was good as a villain and an intentionally bad actor in Paddington!

Hope Is the Thing with Funding—and We’re Yanking Yours “A federal agency has cancelled a $117,000 grant that was set to go to the Emily Dickinson Museum.” — MassLive - - -Dear Miss Dickinson, Following ...

"Your poem reads as a thinly veiled defense of undocumented immigrants. Recall that these people sneak across borders and take pork plant jobs from veterans, threatening access to quality American food products."

Both are equally perfect!

Imp. query as to which is worse: “The Grapes of Butthole”or “The Buttholes of Wrath”?

a collection of illustrated stamps of a postwoman's day

From dropping letters in a mailbox to waving to neighbors and colleagues, the postwoman in Chris Ware’s new set of U.S. postage stamps does it all.

www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/06/chri...

Fun fact: I learned SF public library has a punk rock archive when I saw their new zine exhibition

So many terrible poems to be found in one Executive order!
Alt:

Purpose.
Speech pressure
Suppress the guise of combat “disinformation”

Today’s Redacted EO Haiku:
📑🙊
speak speech by pressure

under the guise of combat

“misinformation”

#EO 14149 #badpoetry #haiku #freespeech

Repo Man soundtrack fave!

Holy MOCA! “Tolokonnikova, who spent two years in a Russian prison…spent those hours Sunday broadcasting live audio of the protests outside mixed with her own heartbeat to the empty museum.

“Police State Exhibit Is Closed Due To The Police State,” she wrote in a post on X.’”

Barbara Kruger once again speaks our fears out loud, before we even found the words