@scottmaceachern.bsky.social
Vice-Chancellor, archaeologist, Maritimer
25 years ago, the fissure on the American right: “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad, real men want to go to Tehran.”
Today’s fissure: “Everyone gets to be a racist, groypers get to be Nazis as well.”
Exactly this, from lioneltrolling.bsky.social:
“In the way Buchanan used it… it’s what Western civilization means: It means white people…a certain racial stock that makes up Western people.
And the division on the right, right now, is: Are Jews part of that Western white people?”
As PM, has Keir Starmer actually let with anything except that enormous chin?
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
I bought Count Zero by accident, in transit through O’Hare just after it came out in 1986 or 1987.
It encapsulated a very particular concept of cool that has stuck with me ever since. Funny the things that work to define your life.
‘Finally, I can use the r-word again!’
“…I see a lot of people walking around right now thinking that wokeness is over. They say: The vibe shift is here. We don’t need to worry about it anymore….”
And Douthat’s entry in the crazy sweepstakes…
“when I confronted …the incredibly generous paternity leave package, I was like: Well, if I take all of this, I’m going to fail as an employee…. I’m going to become less competitive as a newspaper columnist..”
Wonder what his wife thought…
As an archaeologist, I want to emphasize what bullshit this is.
“…this originated in the mists of prehistory, that men were organized to have warrior bands, which meant they needed to have hierarchical structures.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/o...
Have to say: I’ve been telling people this is a fantastic series for years. Great books.
06.11.2025 10:42 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0I’m an archaeologist: I like old maps and old territories.
06.11.2025 10:32 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Just finished Cold Water. Very much enjoyed it, and glad to see those Europes reappearing.
06.11.2025 04:48 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0As I said elsewhere on Bluesky… if Dave Hutchinson had started writing his Fractured Europe sequence five years later, it would’ve been accused of being a documentary. Rather too on the nose.
Except for the alternate universe and the Flu starting in Wuhan, of course.
And which ‘type of person’ was that, exactly?
03.11.2025 00:49 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
“It’s not a war if the other side can’t shoot back.”
“Whatever happens, we have got/the Maxim gun, and they have not.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/u...
Fantastic how the Overton window has shifted so that Beauchamp can earnestly interview ‘reasonable’ right-wingers who are racists and Muslim-haters - as they are- but who condemn antisemitism.
In today’s right-wing ecosystem, only being a Nazi puts you (barely) beyond the pale.
It must be difficult for Trump to deal with grown-ups.
27.10.2025 09:42 — 👍 8 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
“The collision between Albanese and the Trump White House … It’s a conflict between someone who deeply understands the workings of a Mafia state and a U.S. administration that is building a Mafia state.”
16.10.2025 10:23 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Personally, I’d like to have him bring Residente as well. Bajo los Escombros would be a great Super Bowl song.
10.10.2025 12:53 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Now I understand why I keep reading all of these smarmy, squishy conversations between columnists and extreme-right commentators in the New York Times.
The Times columnists are doing job interviews: after all, they might be working for Bari Weiss someday.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/o...
If Dave Hutchinson had started writing his Fractured Europe sequence five years later, it would’ve been accused of being a documentary.
Except for the alternate universe and the Flu starting in Wuhan, of course.
“..mainstream right-wing commentators are claiming that black people cannot be English ..This is absolute poison, obviously, but it is also contrary to public opinion.. I would like to see a Labour communication strategy which punches that bruise. Make it the chief issue, focus remorselessly on it.”
04.10.2025 05:17 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Leaving all the rest of it largely aside, there are about 3 1/2 million American citizens who are permanently deprived of a vote in national elections because of their territorial status.
More generally perhaps, -were- the good guys.
“Gazans are being slaughtered, but they’ve been slaughtered for a while now and that’s going to continue. So just give it a rest for a day or two, OK?
“The issues that are driving those protests have been going on for some time. They don’t look like they are going to come to an end any time soon.”
Goes well along with this series from today’s NYT.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/m...
Not a coincidence that you get reports like this one at the same time as articles on the lawlessness of American Special Forces in places like Afghanistan. The objective is to have American families terrorized the way that Afghan families were.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/m...
Starmerism in a nutshell.
youtu.be/KgUemV4brDU
As a partial antidote to this nonsense, I’d recommend Nadia Abu El-Haj’s excellent book ‘Facts on the Ground’.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
In an conversation that spends most of its time talking about how the first two Red Scares were the left’s fault…
“And I want to be clear that I am not absolving them of their responsibility for this or saying this is the left’s fault. But…”
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/o...
‘…Vice President JD Vance said last week: “We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility….’
‘….when one social media user told him that killing foreign civilians without due process was a war crime, Mr. Vance responded, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.”’
Erik Prince at work… using drones to kill children at a birthday party.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/u...
