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Reposted by Calliope

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 13h

This seems true, but it has pretty dark implications, because the consistent historical trend is for radicals of this sort, when stymied, to ramp up the violence in an effort to break through.

I think some folks are expecting a 'soft' Hungary-style tyranny and I don't think that's in the cards.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 14h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 15h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · 3h

Honestly wonder at this point how many media/political figures would endorse an Imperial Japan-style arrangement where the police in major cities have an explicit veto over governmental policy.

Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 3h

the actual story here, which the media never talks about, is that police in this country have become a discrete right-wing political operation. the story isn't about cops leaving (they're lying about that), it's about the police trying to exert influence over elections.

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 1d

Lmao is this supposed to be a bad thing?

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 47m

Yeah this was basically the entire modus operandi of Aum Shinrikyo.

Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 50m

Yeah New Right Christianity is the religion of empire but viewed through the funhouse mirror of "what if we got all the rewards of rule without actually doing any of the work to maintain it? Wouldn't that be swell?"

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 1h

there's genuinely quite a lot of 'christianity is a religion for losers' stuff on the new right and well yes! that is the point! it was a faith of slaves and women, as the romans sneered.

Neon Chinchilla @neonchinchilla.bsky.social · 1h

Donald- So I just admit that I was wrong and I get to go into heaven?

Jesus- Yes my child. I paid the price for your sins when I died on the cross

Donald- But I have to admit I was wrong?

Jesus- Yes my child.

Donald- I like messiahs who weren't crucified.

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 9h

And meanwhile the PRC is building out ~100 gigawatts of solar a month.

Esmeralda 7 Solar Project Has Been Canceled, BLM Says

It would have delivered a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power.

heatmap.news

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CAHSR's Strongest Soldier @emoscientist.bsky.social · 9h

Despite their crowing about innovation Silicon Valley might be one of the greatest enemies of progress. Trump & DOGE, aided by tech money and social media, is destroying innovation in medicine, climate, and consumer tech, while AI threatens to stall progress on decarbonization.

Matt @tiredgenerally.bsky.social · 10h

the biomedical advances of the past twenty years have also been incredible. in a way, it really feels like we’ve been slouching towards utopia, so to speak, while society collapsed out from under us bc of changes in information technology/media diets

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 10h

This is quite common - especially in the study of, for instance, Meiji and interwar Japan, it's far *more* revealing to look at bureaucrats than politicians.

Joe Stieb @joestieb.bsky.social · 11h

I'm thinking about this because we have too many biographies of presidents and not enough of intellectuals, judges, legislators, etc, who often have longer career arcs than many presidents.

Joe Stieb @joestieb.bsky.social · 11h

Drop 5 historical figures you'd like to write a biography of (not necessarily bc you like them, but because it would be illuminating)

1. Fouad Ajami
2. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
3. L. Paul Bremer III
4. Jesse Helms
5. The Kristols/Kagans (group/family biography).

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Mike Black @mikeblack114.bsky.social · 1d

Negative

For starters as a logical matter there is no universe in which this meets the intended purpose of reprogramming language

But as a legal matter you've got to have a valid appropriation to transfer the monies into

Congress appropriates some things on a multi-year basis and others annual

eric gonzalez juenke @egojunk.bsky.social · 1d

The DoD is allowed to transfer this money per statute apparently (though this is outside of my area). The CR in March upped it to 8 billion.

Of course it has. It always does. Sec 8005 of DOD Appropriations, for starters…

That one provision now allows for $8b in transfers, per March’s full year CR:

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

This is an astoundingly ignorant thing to say. Did the American eradication of smallpox make the world worse? What about its campaigns against malaria, or HIV, and Ebola? To say nothing of its support for labor movements behind the Iron Curtain like Solidarity or its support for Brazilian democracy.

Seymour Smoke @bone2meetu.bsky.social · 1d

The collapse of U.S hegemony is a good thing, we shouldn’t dictate the entire world, we shouldn’t have an overriding veto at the UN and everything the US has done internationally since the 50s has made the world objectively worse

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

The US had quite a lot to do with the end of great power colonialism. It crushed Imperial Japan, threatened to crash the Dutch economy if it did not grant Indonesia independence, and forced the British and French to back down during the Suez Crisis, ending Britain and France's tenure as great powers

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, that's my point. The Nuremberg Laws were not written in imitation of Jim Crow, despite what many people like to think. The Nazis *did* look at American segregationist policy when they were drafting their legislation, but it was *not* the reason they drafted it, nor did it have much influence.

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

Your obligatory "*Hitler's American Model* doesn't say what you think it says" post here.

Nazi Germany's jurists examined Jim Crow, of course. But their ultimate judgment on the system was that segregation was insufficiently racist and would be ill-suited for use by the Third Reich.

READ THEORY:

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

The US is not responsible for every evil in the world, any more than the USSR or the British Empire were. The tree of evil has many, many, many roots, and while the US government has done several reprehensible things over its quarter-millennium tenure it is hardly a unique Great Satan.

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

To re-up a frequent recommendation of mine, the best treatment of this is Whitman's *Hitler's American Model*, which (contrary to the provocative title!) argues comprehensively that Nazi jurists looked at Jim Crow, decided it wasn't extreme enough, and rejected it.

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Mike Black @mikeblack114.bsky.social · 1d

So the Dems need to be clear again that any FMer carrying out direction to implement mil paychecks in the absence of appropriations will be subject to anti-deficiency act criminal penalties, because to be clear even with the reconciliation slush fund BS there is no way to legally so this, period

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John @johnlk.bsky.social · 1d

This is the fucking Prussian constitutional crisis. If you let them fund the military without Congressional authorization you've just given up on constitutional government. Congress is a dead letter.

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 1d

I love guys who are just blithely confident in their ignorance, they read like one statement on a tankie forum four years ago and now they think they know everything about one of the most involved conflicts in human history.

Teles Santos @telesjr.bsky.social · 1d

The US never fought to end fascism anywhere. They joined the war because Japan forced their hand, and they saw a great way to make money. After the USSR pretty much had pushed Germany out of eastern Europe and they knew the nazis were going to lose, they jumped in.

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 1d

even if you take the most wildly generous interpretation of 'jumped in' as meaning June 1944, and not say, September 1943 (invasion of Italy), or November 1942 (North African landings), let alone December 1941 (entrance into the war), the Soviets were still fighting hard battles in Eastern Europe.

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“Hey man did you get QA to sign off?” Gigan @gigansprogress.bsky.social · 1d

DFAS does not work this way and they'd have to do some Real Adult Crimes to move this money around that is specifically earmarked for MILPERS, and not in the cute way they've raided MILCON or nuclear modernization programs in the past

“Hey man did you get QA to sign off?” Gigan @gigansprogress.bsky.social · 1d

"Money Colors Are A Thing" I shriek, as I am walled up like Fortunato

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

This is not to downplay the Soviet (or Chinese) contributions! The Allies worked as a highly effective team, coordinating offensives (Operation Torch began during Stalingrad, D-Day was followed by the invasion of Belarus and Eastern Poland by the Red Army, etc) to an extent the Axis never could.

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

The USAAF and RAF were responsible for obliterating the Luftwaffe over Germany, Italy, and France in 1943 and 1944, giving the Red Air Force total air superiority in Eastern Europe. The US single-handedly obliterated the IJN and gutted the IJA - what was left in Manchuria by 1945 was a husk.

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

As for the American contribution to the Allied cause - around a third of Soviet explosive material came from Lend-Lease aid. The Soviet home-front was fed on American food supplies, without which there would have been even bigger famines than occurred (as it was, around 3 million people died).

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

Moreover, this was hardly the Americans' first encounter with the fascist powers. By 1941 the US had embargoed Japan, had a shoot-on-sight policy for German ships in the Atlantic, and were sending billions of dollars in war supplies to the British, Soviets, and Chinese to resist Axis aggression.

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

To outside observers (including Germany and Japan) it appeared like the USSR was about to collapse. That is *why* they declared war on the US. The Soviets were *not* on the verge of collapse, but that was not obvious until mid-to-late December, when reports of Red Army counterattacks arrived.

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Calliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 1d

I see people are once again doing the "WWII was fought solely by the Red Army, the opportunistic Americans jumped in at the last minutes" routine.

To begin with, the US "jumped in" at the absolute nadir of Soviet power, in December 1941.

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