David Mallery

Why Clarity Feels Dangerous (Especially If You’re an Academic) The Hardest Work in Writing Is Saying What You Really Mean

George Orwell warned: bad writing leads to bad thinking.

Academia trains us to write for journals, not the public.
Clarity feels risky, because it exposes us.

But clear communication is essential for democracy.
So how do we do it?

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New post 👉 catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/why-clarit...

Why? Because neoliberalism replaced empowered freedom with economic freedom, it hollowed out the democratic functions of public life, while at the same time failing to deliver, and even betraying, those functions at the institutional level.

"If you know that things are bound to happen whatever you do, then you may feel free to give up the fight against them.“

Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies.

Can't help but think of a paraphrase of William Gibson's old chestnut: The war is already here, it's just not evenly distributed.

Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive.

No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.

1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.

Average person will be 40% poorer if world warms by 4C, new research shows Experts say previous economic models underestimated impact of global heating – as well as likely ‘cascading supply chain disruptions’

This recalls Nordhaus insisting climate impacts on agriculture would not produce "a very large effect," since ag is only 3% of GDP. 40% poorer is the least of our worries at 4C hotter. The issue isn't economic models underestimating CC; it's that monetary valuation cannot encompass the true cost.

Smart, sober response from Canada’s Prime Minister to the destruction my government is wreaking. The US won the geo-political lottery having Canada and Mexico as neighbors, and the Trump Administration is destroying our advantages.

I spent my Tuesday at an event in Warsaw listening to representatives from Polish civil society discussing their experience in fighting back against authoritarianism. Maybe it's time for pro-democracy groups in the US to start engaging with them because that's clearly not happening at the moment.

Fighting the Neoliberal-Fascist Coup by Trump and Musk | Common Dreams Time is short during a fascist takeover attempt. And Trump and Musk are moving at breakneck speed. The stakes could not be higher.

'The Trump/Musk team hopes to complete dismantling and then reordering the Deep State before the base catches on. Then, once the media, universities and liberal donors have been intimidated sufficiently, it will be too late to protest effectively. That is the plan.'

If you want peace, prepare for war—an ancient lesson Canada must remember - Cascade Institute % Cascade Institute Executive Director Thomas Homer-Dixon urges Canada to bolster its defenses against a the growing threat of an authoritarian and imperialist U.S. regime.

Thomas Homer-Dixon: "The rules-based international order on which the principle of territorial sovereignty is based – is unravelling towards something akin to Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature – a world governed by brute force and the will of the strongest." #Canada cascadeinstitute.org/prepare-for-...

The Key to Understanding Trump’s Chaotic Foreign Policy Around the world, the White House seems to be aiding autocracies at the expense of democracy.

The US is not doing a "reverse Kissinger" (splitting Russia from China). It is destroying the Western Alliance from within, thereby helping Russia and China. Hard to get your head around. Best attempt is this here: foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/18/u...

Together, these two faiths crave the end of American liberal democracy and government. You can smell it at GSA.

They won't replace us with AI because 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒖𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍. They want our work to end. DOGE is firing us as fast as possible, and that is the whole plan.

Always remember--this is not a case of Trump appeasing Putin--its actually him joining Putin. Its not Munich 1938, its the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939.

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Evidence mounting of a secret Putin-Trump agreement to subjugate Europe.

Telegraph reports:

" “Trump is angry that they [Europe] appear to be pushing for war,” a source close to the White House said. "

(...)

"the president is considering redeploying troops from Germany to Hungary"

1/ Donald Trump may be aiming to annex the Great Lakes – and possibly south-eastern Ontario in a maximalist scenario – and kick Canada out of NORAD, judging by first-hand accounts of talks between Canada and the Trump Administration. ⬇️

Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars | Defector Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic ac...

This guy, @albertburneko.bsky.social, is a genius. Please read his brilliant article on Elon Musk's deranged and morally repugnant Mars colonisation schtick. defector.com/neither-elon...

Canada goose fights off bald eagle in rare, symbolism-laden battle on ice Photographer captures 20-minute clash between birds emblematic of Canada and US amid high trade tensions

saw this headline and spontaneously started singing Oh Canada

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

French economy minister floats taxing the rich to fund military buildup To raise money for an increase in defense spending, Paris is looking at tapping into “those with substantial savings.”

This is not how or why I wanted liberal democracies to come around to the idea of taxing the wealthy, but, at this point, I'll take what I can get. Why is it there's never a "magic money tree" until we suddenly need to bail out the banks, or build tanks and drones?

the vice president of the united states is a groyper who spends his online time following nazis and esoteric reactionary influencers is true and yet the press seems completely disinterested in it

Tyranny has come to America and our political class is so convinced of the fact that political ideas must be disguised in the language of grocery prices that it is unwilling and unable to even say what’s happening

Millennials are a goldilocks generation raised in the narrow window between leaded gasoline and social media and hooooo boy is that showing these days

Some of the most prominent realists keep giving realism a bad name by being unrealistic—stubbornly clinging to an abstract theory rather than facing reality—and making predictions that are quickly disproven by real world events.

Despite the repeated egg on their face, they have learned nothing.

Every Dem should be doing this right now. What we’re experiencing now is that political capital is for. If you can’t burn your political capital when the opposition is trying to destroy everything that upholds a liberal democracy, what are you waiting for?

‘Trump is abandoning Ukraine and wants a weaker EU’: Dominique de Villepin on Europe’s moment of truth The former French PM says the US is no longer an ally of Europe – but has joined Russia and China as an ‘illiberal superpower’

“We now have three illiberal superpowers: Russia, China and the US... America can no longer be considered an ally of Europe." ...The US will not prosper in this disordered, survival-of-the-fittest world it is creating, “because they will be completely isolated”.

"You can never win with fire alone."

Opinion | A Day of American Infamy (Gift Article) A dreadful moment for Ukraine, for the free world, for the legacy of an America that once stood for the principles of the Atlantic Charter.

“If Roosevelt had told Churchill to sue for peace on any terms with Adolf Hitler and to fork over Britain’s coal reserves to the United States in exchange for no American security guarantees, it might have approximated what Trump did to Zelensky.” www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/o...

Snow days call for playing! ❄️

When seeking to play, wolves will dance and bow playfully. Playtime can also include a game of chase, jaw sparring, and varied vocalizations.

For wolves, playtime isn’t only fun, it strengthens family bonds and reaffirms social status within the pack.

Excerpt of free article linked in post

From "The Confluence": substack.com/home/post/p-...