jerby

Checked out Twitter and Will Stancil seems to have picked a fight with some of the most simultaneously pathetic and menacing people on the entire internet

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jerby

One of my big regrets is starting to do a mental checklist by saying "hey hey wallet phone keys" to the tune of "hey hey we're the Monkees" everytime I leave the house

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jerby

trump, public speech: day one i will sign an executive order authorizing the military to drink from the skulls of my enemies [nate silver]: … [biden, to aides] i want my itineraries to read “1 pm meeting with about xyz” [nate silver]: holy fuck this is some gd nazi shit

It is extremely normal for upper management to receive briefings well in advance to review them and pre-submit questions to the briefers to be ready to address. This sounds like Nate confessing that he’s the shittiest boss in the world.

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jerby

Hell yeah put this on a shirt

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jerby

the editor of the New York Times reacting to a potential Trump second term with “fasten your seatbelts” is so deeply vile i can’t wrap my mind around it. these people have detached themselves so completely from the things they cover that the rise of fascism becomes just something exciting to watch

I'm no ivy league fail upward brunchlord news professional, but I feel it's generous to call conspiratorial fascism (managed by a sociopathic manbaby with a fourth grade reading level) "disruptive" that's kind of like saying nuclear annihilation is "modifying"

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jerby

Reply to

Doug Gordon

One good option: www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/

Postcards to Swing States - Progressive Turnout Projectwww.turnoutpac.org Voters who receive handwritten postcards are significantly more likely to vote. We proved it in 2020.

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jerby

the lord of the rings is about a bunch of chaste gays who never have sex and boromir a straight guy that has gay sex every night of his life

As these things go, this is less homoromantic than later because Frodo was in a coma, but its still very intimate

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jerby

So the more I see of this, the more I respect it. The Cybertruck is so unrelentingly and singularly absurd that the only sane aesthetic response is to heap yet more absurdity on top. This exudes a level of "you're locked in here with me" energy that you don't often get the opportunity to witness.

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jerby

Was thinking the other day about the looming prospect of dark days ahead, and it occurred to me that during the hardest times of my life, I have memories of laughing or having a great meal or feeling surrounded by love, and maybe survival is just linking enough of those moments to make a bridge.

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jerby

Oberlin kids, we need you out there, for the good of the country. Declare that flamingoes are racist, and that hot dogs are a culinary weapon of the crypto-phallic kyriarchy. Demand that banh mi be given full voting rights. Get freaky with it

The only power great enough to knock this story down below the fold/scroll is the Oberlin student council. A hurricane, UK/France elections, multiple wars? No. Only a sophomore calling Israel “Greater Palestine” can draw their attention away from a debate that happened last month.

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jerby

Yet another essay from Edsall framing main political problem as “polarization”. I will boldly state we should not want to meet in the middle on the questions like whether black peoples votes should count. Its in fact bad to not feel “polarized” toward the party that answers “no” to that question

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jerby

This learned helplessness around “no one is going to care about these things (that a lot of normal people do demonstrably care about)” I’m seeing some people display is just so counterproductive.

The number of people who have replied to either argue or bemoan that “MAGA doesn’t care” like that’s the voting bloc we have to mobilize is going to make my brain melt out my ears like taffy on a warm summer’s day

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jerby

It’s fascinating how re: depredation (a fishermen catches a fish, and a shark eats it as they reel it in) fishermen keep saying “the shark ate *my* fish,” not “I am competing for fish with a shark and I am losing”

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jerby

The ever-astute Rebecca Solnit on how the pundit class has turned into a mob stampeding America toward a catastrophe. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Why is the pundit class so desparate to push Biden out of the race? | Rebecca Solnitwww.theguardian.com Yes, Biden had a bad debate – but so did Trump. The media is once again repeating the mistakes of 2016

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jerby

Doomerism is chickenshit. an embarrassment to every ape that threw a rock at a bear to protect the tribe. if you actually believe this doomer shit what are you posting for? it's chickenshit and i will have no truck with it. you had something better to do with your life than make the world better?

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jerby

"Independence from Britain" is the world's most celebrated holiday.

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jerby

Reply to

David M. Perry

Functional political systems are *supposed to be* boring! It should be sewage specialists arguing over what size pipe is most efficient for the city layout! It should be debates over whether to put a mural or a frieze in the new park! “Interesting politics” are when people start dying!

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jerby

Reply to

Popehat

/5 So, in terrible circumstances, think what people before you have endured. Think about how you can support and defend folks less able than you to endure. And fight the bastards.

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jerby

[type of guy who can’t manage a 20 person discord without it imploding into petty feuds voice]: i am going to lead a revolution of the workers

the worst dudes online are the guys who are like “the time for electoral politics is over, it’s time for guillotines.” yeah bud i’m sure you’ll stop posting and get the ball rolling on the guillotines any minute now.

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jerby

just to clarify: I am not saying you should be serene as our institutions make life hostile. anger, grief, exhaustion--these are natural, even necessary, responses. the point is that these things cannot drive us toward stasis.

let me put this another way: despair, or its new name, doomerism, asserts omniscience--that things cannot be better, that all possibilities of good are already foreclosed, that you can know this as fact. it looks like humility, but it's all ego. it is, in fact, the assumption of godhood.

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jerby

Reply to

sri in wolverhampton

despair keeps you in bed. spite gets you out of it

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jerby

Reply to

drow zelensky

Keep talking about it even if it polls badly. Defy the polls. Earn a reputation as a truthteller and an honest person. That speaks even to idiots. And work to create an atmosphere in which an open society is seen as a positive ideal. Move hearts. Fill stomachs too, but hearts are what matters.

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jerby

Periodically, I like to reread my favorite Scottish poem: Batman's Aff His Nut by Robert Florence.

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jerby

I strongly believe that the Trump era ushered in a truly horrific era of general ethical backsliding and nihilism in the US across all fronts, one that we still can’t even entirely wrap our brains around. (And Trump’s grotesquely evil approach to Covid made it even worse).

one more thing I’ll say is this also feels tied to the loss of consequences & loss of the importance of ‘reputation’. Politics have devolved so much, & this is now impacting the corporate world. Anyone that faked caring about ethics for their reputation feels like that shit doesn’t matter anymore

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jerby

Reply to

cait

Reminds me of this

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jerby

no I’m serious - sometimes I get stuck on a plot point like “how can these characters ever escape this too-clever trap” and I just have to take a step back, put my hands on my hips, and say, “well, I guess I could make some shit up”

you can just make shit up if you want to