The past hangs over the present, and today's dictator coz-plays dictators of yesterday, selectively remembering, forgetting, & twisting facts to justify his imperialism & authoritarianism as a greater good rather than disaster that it is.
In Feb 2022, those who took Western intelligence reports seriously wondered who the Ru-installed puppet would be. @oxanashevel.bsky.social and I predicted Ukrainians would fight hard and a puppet couldn't rule, Ru would have to try to achieve full occupation: www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukr...
If you kick over a hornet’s nest, it the hornets who get to decide when the conflict is over.
Really delighted today to have the second meeting of a new AI-resisters faculty group at my institution. Grateful for the English prof who’s organizing it. A good number of us humanities folks were present, but it was es cool to have an Economist, and Biology and Math prof present…
The is the federal government telling news stations to provide favorable coverage of the war or their licenses will be pulled.
A truly extraordinary moment.
We aren't on the verge of a totalitarian takeover. WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT.
Act like it.
But it wouldn't distract from those things, it would add one more thing to the growing list of Trump’s actions that are peeling away his supporters.
Trying to divide and distract his opposition is uniting and growing his opposition.
"Where corruption and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception..." Classic propaganda "accusation in a mirror..."
"Holy shit, did WE ever make the right decision" - The US Women's Hockey Team
Walked out of the State of the Union because I couldn’t sit through hours of Trump’s lies.
Americans know the truth: he’s spiking prices and wrecking our economy.
We’re a better country than this.
Damn this seems exactly correct.
TO be quite blunt, I think we'd even be better off with "the purpose of a university education is to acquire upper-middle-class signifiers" rather than the current "it is entirely about a premium in expected lifetime earnings" even though both are inferior to, y'know, learning as a telos.
It seems to me that the foundational 'wrong turn' in education was the increasing rhetoric from universities themselves and their supporters that the primary value of a university education was increased earning power.
That leads pretty directly to this place we're in now.
The Palazzo’s façade covered with a giant banner reading SI (yes) over and over again with a giant glowering face of Mussolini in the center
Rome’s Palazzo Braschi, 1934.
"It's not artificial intelligence. It's African intelligence."
Michael Geoffrey Asia, the secretary general of the Data Labelers Association in Kenya tells @jasonkoebler.bsky.social about the notoriously brutal and underpaid work of training AI.
Watch now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH65...
I can’t stop thinking ab how few ppl want confront how sick & overworked we all truly are. Esp how our institutional overlords under academic capitalism, incl the push to individualize classes for students, are sucking everything out of us.
We must slow down producing, I stg
There is an American tradition of egalitarian pluralism that puts the Right’s vicious, exclusionary domination fantasies to shame. We should invoke it as a reminder to the Trumpists that their claim to be the sole representatives of “authentic” Americanism has no historical basis.
What is “Un-American”?
We must acknowledge America’s history of state authoritarianism and racial violence – but also dare to claim its aspirational tradition of egalitarian democracy.
Let’s Make MAGA un-American, finally.
My new piece (free to read):
MSP airport. Clergy risking risking arrest and a huge gathering of protesters. The song is, “Down to the River to Pray.”
Fascists only need to win one election to destroy democracy, whereas democrats have to win every election to preserve it. That’s why fascists cannot be allowed into politics, why a tolerant society must never tolerate fascism or it will lose its tolerance. It’s the Popper Paradox and we’re living it
The events of the last 24 hours show why it's important to build functional verification structures in public and counterpublic spaces to resist the authoritarian erosion of our democratic systems, as described in this thread.
⚡️Russia will take over Greenland if US doesn't get there first, Trump claims.
"We are going to do something with Greenland, whether they like it or not. Because if we don't do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor."
www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
GLASHEEN: Antifa is our primary concern right now. That's the most immediate violent threat we're facing
BENNIE THOMPSON: Where is antifa headquartered?
GLASHEEN: ... ... ... we are building out the infrastructure right now
THOMPSON: What does that mean?
A few thoughts on the new US national security strategy that was released today.
🧵
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
European reaction to the new American national strategy document
