Tag: politics
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When do you know if it’s over?
Trump threatens withholding federal funding if Zohran Mamdani wins the NYC mayoral election. Truly insane, though very normal, behavior at this point. I just don’t see how this sort of Central Planning and authoritarianism doesn’t stop now that it’s started. When I say over, I do think that this experiment, or this chapter of the…
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After Political Assassination
I still feel quite sad and down today. I have seen many thoughts on where we are as a country and how the assassination of Charlie Kirk yesterday makes our state of things even more precarious. I do not wish to participate in a doomsday sort of reflection, but I can’t help but think that…
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Today is another step change
Today, there was an assassination attempt on Charlie Kirk. This is horrific. It’s devastating. And, unbelievably, there will be mixed emotions on the internet about it. This kind of political violence has the signatures of “last days of the empire” type events. Political actors who think there’s nothing left to do than burn it all…
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This is the Great Ravine
You are forced to respond in kind if the other side escalates the narrative attacks, like using mustard gas in World War I, until eventually the entire game breaks because the anger you’ve created can’t be contained by the rules of the game. And that’s when you are well and truly in the Great Ravine.…
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Feeling cautiously optimistic about American democracy
A clear eyed commentary on the question of this authoritarian moment and the movement between Collapse and Resistance. Maybe we’re always in between those two, but this indicates the pendulum is swinging back to the middle. A few excerpts: Essentially, Trump seems to be governing like…a President in his second term. Typically, two-term Presidents try…
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Music and Protest
The 1960s obviously produced some of the best music during very turbulent times. You have Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Joan Baez (Oh, Freedom!), Simon and Garfunkel, and Peter, Paul and Mary just to name a few. They were very political, but in retrospect we enjoy their harmonies and nascent methods (Jimi Hendrix!). We…
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Real and Symbolic Power
In a recent group discussion at church, Pope Francis’s death came up. We seemed to agree, spoken and unspoken, that he was a good man. A different kind of pope. His papacy was one that restored and reordered the Catholic church. Perhaps the church catholic too. He emphasized those things which are commanded unto us…
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This is sin
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MAGA Maoism
An interesting and new framework for me on the “left-is-right and right-is-left” phenomenon that’s being revealed.