Echoes

"But this time its different!" Its really not. The Cuban missile crisis almost had the world blow up, and it didn't. The cold war that set the stage for it existed in a constant state of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

My mother is going to be 63 years old this year. She was born in 1963. She lived most of her life under the threat of the world ending.

I hate all of the glazing Mamdani gets. It’s weird how he’s treated by the left like MAGA treats Trump

He gets active praise for things that Biden literally did before to no fanfare whatsoever. It scares me.

And don't forget a lot of the glazing has literally been paid for (with taxpayer money no less)

it's genuinely frightening how many "leftist activists" seem to be, above all else, downright chomping at the bit to find groups of people they think they're allowed to hurt. some of you are downright enthusiastic about finding targets, more than you are about doing anything to lift up marginalized communities, and then some of the targets you find are marginalized communities. like wow asshole good job shitting on "weird queers" that's awesome you're really helping everyone out here that's great. great job talking about all the horrible things you hope happen to the powerless citizens of a country that's doing terrible things, you're really showing a lot of compassion, talking about how you hope they all die. You understand that they are also human beings.

A theme C. S. Lewis came back to in several of his essays (such as "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" and "A Reply to Professor Haldane") is that a theocracy is worse than a consciously self-serving tyranny, because whereas the mundane dictator experiences flashes of satisfaction and mercy and may even repent, the theocrat's conviction that they're doing the work of God means their cruelty and power-hunger sound like their conscience and their actual conscience sounds like temptation.

Thinking about this one day when I was in Chicago and it was so foggy that the buildings turned 2D

A lot of people are ragging on the 'cable diverted to avoid Dobby's grave after Harry Potter fans raise a stink' thing and while I also love ragging on Harry Potter fans being weird, in this case it looks like the story was completely made up.

People in huge campus rallies: Israel silences protesters

I'm starting to seriously think for a lot of them, it's not about thinking it's actually true, it's about saying it often enough that it becomes "true" in people's heads.

I love it when video essayists want to make a video about a conspiracy or something, and obviously the most engaging title is to ask the central question of the conspiracy, but they're clearly worried that people glancing at titles and not watching the videos will take the question title as support for the conspiracy and possibly introduce new people to it who will take it as fact (since a video essayist they trust told them), so they put the answer right there on the thumbnail like

if you are a regular degular person—while i expect you to generally know what you're talking about if you're gonna be involved in the conversation, i don't need you to be able to outline all the particulars of what was discussed at the 2000 camp david summit.

We need more progressives like Lauren Underwood, she knows to give Democrats praise for their under appreciated accomplishments and blame Republicans harmful actions on (gasp) Republicans!

All the dsa idiots in Wisconsin, Michigan, etc has me actually appreciating that Ohio is a pink state

Whoooooooooooooooooooole lot of Californians don't know or want to admit how recently our state was red, and that it could become so again with sufficient mismanagement. We had the governator in living memory for fuckssake. We gave the nation Nixon and Reagan!

the thing about misogyny is that femininity is both devalued AND forced on women (and those misgendered as women). if you fail to meet the arbitrary standard of Womanly Charm you're ugly and unwanted and hate yourself and if you succeed you're shallow and brainless and weak. if you don't try to conform you're lazy and if you do you're vain. it is not possible to beat this system. feminism needs both "feminine doesn't mean weak or less-than" AND "women don't have to be feminine to have value", and if you are fighting for one of these the people fighting for the other are not your enemies, nor are they privileged over you.