Raven Onthill
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ravenonthill.bsky.social
Raven Onthill
@ravenonthill.bsky.social
1.2K followers 600 following 24K posts
Just a dilettante amateur political science bird who lives in the US Pacific Northwest. If you want to know what I think, try my blogs at adviceunasked.blogspot.com and shinycroak.blogspot.com.
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ravenonthill.bsky.social
Engagement software has made bad people much more visible.

Jaron Lanier:
…behind the scenes there are these manipulation, behavior modification, and addiction algorithms that are running. And these addiction algorithms are blind. They’re just dumb algorithms. What they want to do is take whatever input people put into the system and find a way to turn it into the most engagement possible. And the most engagement comes from the startle emotions, like fear and anger and jealousy, because they tend to rise the fastest and then subside the slowest in people, and the algorithms are measuring people very rapidly, so they tend to pick up and amplify startle emotions over slower emotions like the building of trust or affection.
November 18, 2025 at 9:40 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
I don't think his political allies him trust him; they just figure it's a good deal riding the crazy train and, often enough they are right. He rewards supporters for a while, until he betrays them.

The wider public is a different story. "They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history."
"And, he thought, I know why. They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. It is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate—confusion between him who worships and that which is worshiped. Man has not eaten God; God has eaten man."—Philip K Dick, *The Man in the High Castle*
November 15, 2025 at 9:49 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
That's cut off before the paragraph. Here it is. It's so wrong.

www.marxists.org/archive/debs...
Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their lives.
November 15, 2025 at 6:01 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening: nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.”—Alan Moore
November 14, 2025 at 6:30 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
Lebensraum! Or maybe protect our precious bodily fluids. Really f*** these Nazis.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth @SecWar X.com President Trump ordered action - and the Department of War is delivering. Today, I'm announcing Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR. Led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and @SOUTHCOM, this mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people. The Western Hemisphere is America's neighborhood - and we will protect it. 2:16 PM 11/13/25 79K Views
November 14, 2025 at 1:40 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
Myself, writing in September 2010.
Obama is better at picking people than he is at understanding policy. At some level it is as if he thinks that the jaw-jaw of politics is more real than the tangible results in the lives of the public. Second, It seems that he cares more about the Supreme Court and the Department of Energy than he does about the economy, the military, and whether or not people who want jobs can get them, and what those jobs consist of. I have rather the impression that Obama is paying his best attention to things he cares the most about, and letting the Democratic Party's conservative leadership make the rest of the decisions. I don't think this is a effective way to be President.
November 13, 2025 at 2:57 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
Ahem. This isn't a minor figure, either; you can look up his bio.
‪Michael Ettllnger‬, ‪@mettlinger.bsky.social‬ There were 3 possibilities if Ds didn’t cave: (1) Rs cave, (2) end of filibuster, (3) shutdown lasts until an election. All better than Ds caving imo. Maybe we’ll get there in February
November 10, 2025 at 4:15 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
As Erin Kissane observed in another context (erinkissane.com/untangling-t...) Meta is Evil.
Less emotionally, I think it’s unwise to assume that an organization that has… demonstrably and continuously made antisocial and sometimes deadly choices on behalf of billions of human beings and allowed its products to be weaponized by covert state-level operations behind multiple genocides and hundreds (thousands? tens of thousands?) of smaller persecutions, all while ducking meaningful oversight, lying about what they do and know, and treating their core extraction machines as fait-accompli inevitabilities that mustn’t be governed except in patently ineffective ways… …will be a good citizen after adopting a new, interoperable technical structure.
November 5, 2025 at 10:47 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
Turns out, the reasons were fairly normal, if rich-guy normal.
As it turned out, there were rather simple answers to most of those questions. Kavanaugh explained to the Senate Judiciary Committee that much of his credit card debt stemmed from either work on his fixer-upper mansion or buying Nats season and playoff tickets for himself and a handful of dudes who'd been going to the games together for years. They had paid him back in full, the White House said at the time. As for the rest, while he was maddeningly obtuse in admitting it, Kavanaugh seems to have gotten lots of money from his parents.
November 3, 2025 at 11:18 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
You are not allowed to respond jaywalking with vehicular homicide fergawsakes.
so if i'm walking in the crosswalk when i'm not supposed to and a car is coming i can just throw my hands up and the car will stop? those are the rules of society? we should all just follow the dead ball rule with every aspect of life then!
November 1, 2025 at 6:21 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
In exasperation: blackletter law does not mean written law (I looked it up.) if you misuse the term when writing about legal matters, I think less of your argument.
blackletter law In common law legal structures, blackletter laws are the well-established legal rules that are certain and no longer disputable. Blackletter law is free from doubt and generally well-known. It also means well-established case law and refers to the basic key components of a subject in the law. Essentially, it refers to legal concepts that are ancient, important, and indisputable. The term “blackletter” originally refers to the text printed in old law books set in a Gothic type font, which are bold and black. This was due to the practice of medieval scribes and early modern publishers of printing the text of a law book in bold glossy print. Blackletter law is also known as hornbook law, the principles and concepts that are usually listed in a student textbook summary of a field, though blackletter law is characteristically more well-regarded and arcane. In English common law specifically, blackletter law refers to areas of the law that consist of mainly technical rules as opposed to areas of the law that are defined by a more conceptual basis. Examples of blackletter law would be contracts, torts, and land law. [Last reviewed in May of 2020 by the Wex Definitions Team] —https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/blackletter_law
October 30, 2025 at 12:47 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
The administration seems to believe it's mostly poor people in major cities who get SNAP, but that's not at all true. There are more rural poor people on SNAP than people who live in major cities, or at least in the period 2008-12. (Link in alt text, and apologies for the repost.)
• From 2008 to 2012, rural and micropolitan areas combined – small cities, small towns and rural areas – had about one in seven households (14.1 percent of all households) receiving SNAP benefits, over 3 percentage points greater than metropolitan areas. https://www.ruralhealth.us/getmedia/0bc3ff8e-1d3f-410c-8bd4-5233d84735fd/snap-and-rural-households.pdf
October 27, 2025 at 12:16 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
No. I don't. It's going to start fires and electrocute people. It saves money in Germany because Germany has sky high electricity prices.
Crossed out because it's marketing for a fairly dangerous technology. "Sun Day @sundayofaction.bsky.social 4m Do you wish your state was making plug-in solar possible? It could come sooner than you think! With the HUGE success of cheap, affordable and accessible solar across Europe, the plug-in solar revolution is starting to spread across the U.S"
October 23, 2025 at 4:08 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
He mostly worked through amendments, as an independent has to; they used to call him the amendment king. As such, he was very effective, though his name doesn't appear on much legislation. Rob Reich, quoted in 2016 at
adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2016/04/rob-...
Rebecca Lynn: "What do you say in response to Barney Frank saying that Bernie Sanders was ineffective in congress?" Robert Reich: "Well, actually, I was there! I mean, I was Secretary of Labor through some of those years. I saw how effective Bernie actually was. He was tenacious. He kept getting changes, amendments, and very large pieces of legislation … his name was often not on those pieces of legislation. He did not have a, and does not have, a huge ego, so he didn't hold out for his name to be highly placed on pieces of legislation, but he did hold out for amendments and for changes that almost, in every case - virtually in every case - helped working people, and helped the poor, and I saw it again and again and again. He was an effective legislator - in fact, one of the most effective legislators, because the more you work behind the scenes and don't try to push yourself out there and don't try to get the limelight, the more effective you can be, which, ironically, invites the complaint from some people that he was ineffective because he was not in the limelight. He was behind the scenes, enormously effective." —[original link gone stale]
October 22, 2025 at 6:43 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
Please do not cite the Washington Times. It is not a reliable or trustworthy source.
October 21, 2025 at 8:01 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
Since the author of that remark decided he couldn't tolerate the dunk; here's a screenshot.
Nico @nico-encounter.bsky.social: Personally I believe journalists shouldn't be allowed to have opinions, but regardless, no, we shouldn't be bowing down with gratefulness to obamacare, which has allowed our broken healthcare system to keep on limping on in perpetuity.
October 21, 2025 at 8:39 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
Murc's law—"only Democrats have agency"—rules.

If Democrats try to compromise, they're weak; if Democrats fight, they're not bipartisan enough.

This is false-to-fact. Learn your job, @talsmith.bsky.social.
The ACA was gutted by Democrats. you can argue those key democrats could've been siding with what many see as the more liberal/patient centered options. or you could say it was unfortunate that Dems didnt have 60+ more liberal senators.
October 20, 2025 at 5:00 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
@violetblue.bsky.social Seen today.
Due to an overwhelming increase in demand, we are out of Metrix® COVID-19 Test at this time. We expect to restock in late October.
October 18, 2025 at 3:21 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
James Blish with a Spenglerian take. I'm not sure he believed it himself, and Toynbee would have had a different take, but…
Given all this, it is easy to deduce the state of the arts: a period of confused individual experimentation, in which traditions and even schools have ceased to exist, having been replaced by ephemeral fads. Hence the sole aim of all this experimentation is originality-a complete chimera, since the climate for the Great Idea is (in the West) fifty years dead; nor will nostalgia, simply an accompanying symptom, bring it back. This is not just winter now; it is the Fimbulwinter, the deep freeze which is the death of a culture.
October 17, 2025 at 10:13 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
This is an arsonist fighting a fire he set.
The title and cover image of David fkng Brooks article, "American Needs a Mass Movement—Now" crossed out with a big red "X."
October 16, 2025 at 1:39 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
Reform the Supreme Court. The Court as it stands has been a roadblock for two centuries; the Warren Court was a happy exception.
It was, usually, a reactionary, racist, anti-labor, pro-business institution. The Roberts Court is much more typical of the Supreme Court in history than the Warren Court. Writing before the Warren Court, in 1942 liberal historian Henry Steele Commager gave a series of lectures at the University of Virginia, later published as a short book under the title Majority Rule and Minority Rights. It must have taken some courage to give those lectures at the school which Thomas Jefferson founded, a center then of racist thought. The second section of the book, “Democracy and Judicial Review,” is a nearly 30 page review of reactionary decisions by the Court. Towards the end of the section he summarizes: This is the record. It is familiar enough to students of our constitutional law; less familiar, perhaps, to the layman who, not unnaturally, supposes the court continuously intervening to protect fundamental rights of life, liberty, and property from congressional assault. It discloses not a single case, in a century and a half, where the Supreme Court has protected freedom of speech, press, assembly, or petition against congressional attack. It reveals no instance (with the possible exception of the dubious Wong Wing case) where the court has intervened on behalf of the underprivileged—the Negro, the alien, women, children, workers, tenant- farmers. It reveals, on the contrary, that the court has effectively intervened again and again to defeat congressional efforts to free slaves, guarantee civil rights to Negroes, to protect workingmen, outlaw child labor, assist hard-pressed farmers, and to democratize the tax system. From this analysis the Congress, and not the courts, emerges as the instrument for the realization of the guarantees of the bill of rights.
October 11, 2025 at 7:44 PM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
Reading Fulbright's 1961 memo, It seems, indeed, that there are precedents for Hegesth's views. I hadn't realized such views had survived as anything but those of a crank minority.
The editors of "American Strategy" seem to see no alternative to confronting the Soviets with strong opposition at every turn. Indeed, they appear more concerned with virility than freedom, as if strength and courage were goals in themselves.
October 11, 2025 at 5:58 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
This is very bad.

Qualification: no confirmation yet. But it's been two hours, and there's no followup.
Mark Bray, @mark-bray.bsky.social‬: “Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second. We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’ — October 8, 2025 at 4:57 PM
October 9, 2025 at 2:01 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
This is very bad.
October 9, 2025 at 1:56 AM
ravenonthill.bsky.social
Graphic, a bit squashed.
"What Part of Legal Immigration Don't You Understand?" Reason Magazine October 2008, p. 33. An illustrated essay showing the difficulty of becoming a US citizen, a minimum of six years, usually more, and many ways to fail.
October 2, 2025 at 11:39 PM