Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

6 hours ago

The White House as Soap Opera… April 12 — When impeachment became a format, and scandal learned how to survive between seasons

America does not merely survive scandal. It formats it.
From Clinton to the age of endless files, impeachment became cliffhanger, shame became content, and the republic learned to keep smiling into the camera.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 day ago

Idi Amin and the Art of the Soft Landing… April 11 — Kampala falls, and a dictatorship suddenly discovers that “forever” is just a word on a poster.

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions
Kampala fell. “Forever” became logistics.
A short note on dictatorship, fatigue, and the suspicious comfort of soft landings.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 day ago

Where casting matters more than competence… “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed.”

Quote Without Illusions
In public life, incompetence rarely arrives quietly. It points, accuses, performs — and calls the performance leadership.
illusionsnotincluded.substack.com/p/where-cast...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

2 days ago

Illusions Not Included | Substack Independent essays and satire — reflections and sharp opinions on politics, society, culture, and illusion, without slogans, noise, or comforting lies. Click to read Illusions Not Included, a Substack publication. Launched 9 months ago.

Take a look at Illusions Not Included — essays and satire with a reflective, ironic voice. illusionsnotincluded.substack.com #IllusionsNotIncluded #AlexBuday #INI #substack

Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

2 days ago

When happiness begins to resemble an internal audit… “The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.”

When happiness begins to resemble an internal audit…
Modern life gives us leisure — then teaches us to use it for monitoring our own happiness. A fine way to ruin an evening…
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
#IllusionsNotIncluded #QuoteWithoutIllusions #AlexBuday #INI #patreon #substack

Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

3 days ago

The Argument Between Speed and Capacity… — April 9: the 737 and the Concorde, two takeoffs, two worldviews

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions
The Argument Between Speed and Capacity…
737 or Concorde? Scale or splendour? April 9 gave us both. The modern world chose one — and we have been boarding that decision ever since.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
#IllusionsNotIncluded #AlexBuday #INI

Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

3 days ago

When culture becomes expensive lighting… “Truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is.”

When culture becomes expensive lighting…
When culture stops revealing and starts decorating, truth becomes an awkward guest. This piece is about that discomfort — and the hunger that survives it.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

4 days ago

Before Mystery Came with an Explainer Video… April 8, 1990 — Twin Peaks premieres on ABC.

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions
Mystery once had the decency to remain unresolved. Twin Peaks came from that older world — before every silence required a tutorial and every ending a refund request.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

4 days ago

The Memory We Always Sell Off Too Early… “As protection against financial illusion or insanity, memory is far better than laws.”

Quote Without Illusions
The Memory We Always Sell Off Too Early…
Finance can survive regulation. What it fears is memory. By the next frenzy, yesterday’s ruin is already back as innovation.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

5 days ago

One of the Revolution’s most durable inventions was not political at all… April 7, 1795 — France officially introduces the metric system: one of the Revolution’s most enduring exports

One of the Revolution’s most durable inventions was not political at all…
France gave the world the metric system — and with it the modern fantasy that everything measurable can also be governed.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

5 days ago

Illusions Not Included (@illusionsnotincluded) I understand this piece completely. For those who do not experience war directly, destruction often appears in the form of a computer game: maps, icons, moving units, expert commentary, as if some st...

From a safe distance, war looks like strategy. Up close, it is rubble, panic, and people turned into statistics.
substack.com/@illusionsno...
#IllusionsNotIncluded #AlexBuday #INI #substack #patreon

Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

5 days ago

When the Fairy Tale Arrives as the Official Version… “What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”

Quote Without Illusions
When the Fairy Tale Arrives as the Official Version…
Some men don’t want to make history. They want to edit it first.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

6 days ago

Before and After Waterloo… April 6, 1974 — ABBA, “Waterloo,” and the slow transformation of a cultural event into a mass-produced spectacle

ABBA’s Waterloo did not just win Eurovision. It survived it. Much of what came after was louder, brighter, and far easier to forget. A song contest slowly became a spectacle factory. #
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

6 days ago

When the rabbit sells better with a ribbon round its neck… “Easter is a time for dressing up, looking your best, and hunting for candy.

Quote Without Illusions
When the rabbit sells better with a ribbon round its neck…
Easter: tradition, ribbon, chocolate, and consumption dressed as innocence.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

Illusions Not Included (@illusionsnotincluded) When the empire no longer even bothers to pretend it is civilised… This is how the president of the country that still likes to imagine itself as the world’s number one power speaks. Not some barroo...

The obscenity is not the shock anymore. The applause is.
substack.com/@illusionsno...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

🎩 Münchhausen 2.0 | Alex Buday Get more from Alex Buday on Patreon

Münchhausen 2.0 is a literary satire about the modern art of making reality sound easier than it is.
www.patreon.com/posts/munchh...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

Illusions Not Included (@illusionsnotincluded) In this, I find myself in agreement with the argument. It is hard not to agree. I am a liberal too — not out of fashion, not out of club loyalty, and certainly not because the word carries any special...

Liberalism is often not defeated — only exploited, then denounced by those who climbed in through its open door. That may be the darkest joke of the age.
substack.com/@illusionsno...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

When Legend Freezes Over History… April 5, 1242 — The Battle on the Ice at Lake Peipus: Alexander Nevsky and the clash with the Livonian Order

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions
When Legend Freezes Over History…
Lake Peipus was a battle. Memory turned it into theatre. And once legend takes the stage, even the ice knows when to break.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

Now and then, one clings to the loveliest absurdities… “I still believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and true love.

Quote Without Illusions
Adulthood mocks the Easter Bunny, then spends years believing in costlier illusions. A small Easter reflection on innocence, irony, and the elegant lies we learn to call maturity.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

When Robbery Took on Courtly Form… Francis Drake, treasure shared with the Crown, and the well-dressed pirates of the modern world

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions
When Robbery Took on Courtly Form…
Drake was knighted. The loot stayed respectable. History, as ever, dressed robbery well.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

Even rest now arrives with a planner attached… “A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play…”

Quote Without Illusions
Somewhere along the way, even joy became scheduled. Work borrows the language of play, play imitates work, and exhaustion gets rebranded as balance…
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

It Began in Our Living Rooms: The Worship of Billionaires… The Soap Opera That Taught Greed Better Manners

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions

It Began in Our Living Rooms: The Worship of Billionaires…

Dallas did not just entertain us — it trained us. To admire the rich, excuse the damage, and confuse spectacle with legitimacy.

open.substack.com/pub/illusion...

#IllusionsNotIncluded #AlexBuday

Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

Satire remains delightful right up to the moment it reaches our address… “I think the people who say “we need satire often mean, We need satire of them, not of us.’”

Quote Without Illusions
Satire remains delightful right up to the moment it reaches our address…
People love satire — until it recognises them.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

The Illusion of Choice | Alex Buday Get more from Alex Buday on Patreon

The Illusion of Choice
Freedom did not disappear. It just learned better manners. We still choose — only the corridor has already been arranged.
www.patreon.com/posts/illusi...
#IllusionsNotIncluded #AlexBuday #INI #patreon #substack #TheIllusionOfChoice

Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

The Intelligence That Often Smells Faintly of a Bank Account… “Nothing so gives the illusion of intelligence as personal association with large sums of money.”

Quote Without Illusions
Money does not only buy comfort. It often rents the appearance of intelligence.
A short reflection on wealth, polish, and the expensive costume of credibility.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

While We Leave the Verdict to Posterity… “Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility.”

Quote Without Illusions
While We Leave the Verdict to Posterity…
Historical responsibility sounds noble. Those living with the consequences usually prefer legal responsibility.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
#IllusionsNotIncluded #QuoteWithoutIllusions #AlexBuday #INI #patreon #substack

Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

Clean Deals, Then Service Fees… The price of Alaska, the age of service-fee empires, and Greenland’s polite refusal

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions
Clean Deals, Then Service Fees…
Alaska had a price. Modern empire prefers service fees. Greenland, inconveniently, is not ordering the package.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

1 week ago

When silence begins to sound like agreement… “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.”

Quote Without Illusions

Silence rarely stays neutral for long. Public decay often begins not with noise, but with elegant hesitation and the habit of looking away.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

2 weeks ago

When an unproductive afternoon begins to look like wisdom… “If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.”

Quote Without Illusions
When an unproductive afternoon begins to look like wisdom…
A useless afternoon may be the last respectable form of rebellion. Not every unproductive hour is a failure…
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
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Alex Buday

@alexbuday.bsky.social

2 weeks ago

The bidding goes on quietly… March 28, AD 193 — when power was not yet called a “campaign,” only an invoice

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions

Rome sold the throne openly. We just upgraded the auction into a campaign. March 28, AD 193 was vulgar enough to be honest — which is more than can be said for modern politics.
open.substack.com/pub/illusion...
#IllusionsNotIncluded #AlexBuday #INI #substack