Materialist Gnostic

@walmsley.bsky.social

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Programmer. Trying to enjoy arguing on the Internet less. He/Him.

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I know we're all supposed to pretend the legal case is not a political matter, but it would've been a huge W to force Trump to be appealing a prison sentence during the GOP convention.

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Materialist Gnostic

Ppl are retweeting this and I just want to add that faxing is THE most annoying thing to do to your representatives. There are websites where you can fax for a small fee and those machines are LOUD and then at the very least they have to deal with all the print outs.

Being really annoying is praxis. Phone, email, fax, show up in person if that’s an option. Just don’t let up until you’re too irritating to ignore.

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Some people hate trans people because they think they're doing activism specifically to annoy JKR. I, a Scottish nationalist, love trans people because I think annoying JKR is good,

Fundamentally, none of the stuff trans people ask *me* to do costs me anything. They could be doing it specifically to make JKR mad and it'd be nothing to me.

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Materialist Gnostic

[The Help]: Hey Joanne hope you had a nice weekend [JKR]: how do you feel about trans women invading womens spaces? [TH]: can we keep it profes [JKR]: how do your friends like to fuck? [TH]: *sobbing* pls i have a auditory condition [JKR]: *opens briefcase filled with research on crossdressing*

Sorry wouldn’t normally put her on the timeline but this might be the most insane thing j k rowlings ever written

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Materialist Gnostic

Gutting the VRA, granting Trump immunity, unlimited campaign spending, legalizing bribery, extinguishing the Constitutional prohibition against insurrection for candidates, co-signing racist gerrymandering, are all of one project to enshrine permanent Republican rule against the wishes of voters.

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Materialist Gnostic

I dont get why yall check blocks and mutelists. Theres enough psychic damage on the timeline i dont need to seek it out, who blocked me is between them and god

In the interest of posting some non-political stuff today, a couple weeks back I finally got down the process of making Eggs Benedict for myself. They're very good, but a fair bit of work.

Eggs Benedict is one of the better things we've invented as a species. Crepes are pretty good too. I don't entirely understand why they aren't breakfast, but they're very good.

Gavin Newsom is probably not electable. But I would like to see more Dem politicians who share his clear loathing of conservatives.

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Materialist Gnostic

people get mad when i say this, but i do in fact place significant blame on rbg for not fucking resigning when she could and should have.

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Materialist Gnostic

oh, I also really hated the brunch metaphor, which was used a lot to shut down women and queer people who correctly pointed out that a Trump SCOTUS would absolutely strike down Roe v Wade

“You just wanna go back to brunch” *beat* “Why do you say we have to keep voting as if our lives depend on it?”

If you acted this way in 2016, you should think about the people you dismissed then and what they're saying now. It's probably right too!

oh god, that was the term - emotional blackmail yeah, it sure was emotional blackmail to warn people about how if Trump won, he’d get to dominate the Supreme Court with deranged right-wingers, huh

I remember there was a guy on a web forum I read a while back who hated JMS. I forget what it was about at the time, but it's nice to see him vindicated.

J. Michael Straczynski naming names in the afterword of The Last Dangerous Visions for…reasons? This seems wildly irresponsible and self-serving at the very least. Redacted are the name of eleven “diverse” writers.

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Materialist Gnostic

gee, that “don’t hysterically fear-monger at me about the Supreme Court” world-view from 2016 sure aged well, didn’t it

Also, and this is just personal, I’m never forgiving anyone who equivocated about our choices in 2016. Not a single one. I will hate you in life and haunt you in death.

Third. We should think of Reconstruction as the second founding of this country, when we decided that "all men" really meant it.

It's time for a second founding

I bang this drum a lot but Trump supporters are just bad people. They don't have some legitimate economic grievance (which coincidentally lines up with the policy you want Dems to do). They're just racists, sexists, and fascists. "Basket of Deplorables" was right.

This is sort of the incredible thing: white Americans really think America sucks right now, but financial data shows us white Americans have never had it better! The resentment is social! Lots of us don't want nonwhite Americans to have it better!

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Materialist Gnostic

Historians of this era will spend a lot of time studying social resentment, especially in older folks, and how it's played such a central role in politics.

"People are saying that Biden risks throwing the election to Republicans this fall. Well, let me say as someone with experience..."

holy fuck i can’t think of anyone i want to hear less from than ralph nader

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Materialist Gnostic

You do not have to be a lawyer, a historian, or a political scientist or even like the U.S. very much to understand the very basic fact that the U.S. was made to be king-less & this court-who swore an oath to uphold the constitution-just gave us kings. They should be sacked. Full stop. No nuance.

America can accept this Supreme Court as legitimate and its rulings as the final word - or it can have true democracy and a functioning state. But not both. Wrote this a year ago - and things have only gotten worse: The Rogue Court vs Modern Democracy 1/ thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-rogue-...

The Rogue Court vs Modern Democracythomaszimmer.substack.com America can accept this Supreme Court as legitimate and its rulings as the final word - or it can have true democracy and a functioning state. But not both.

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Materialist Gnostic

roberts’ reasoning is fundamentally (lower-case “r”) anti-republican. i know we dunk on the framers here but roberts has issued a rebuke of the revolutionary assumption that concentrated, unaccountable power is a fundamental threat to liberty.

It's just hilariously disingenuous. Imagine looking at, say, ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY and concluding that the biggest threat to liberty isn't abuse of power, but powerful people refraining from sufficiently wielding their authority out of fear that they might one day be held accountable.

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Materialist Gnostic

Seriously. The party is institutionally giddy to burn the Constitution to ash all to protect this rapey, soulless game show host.

all of this for donald fucking trump of all people

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Materialist Gnostic

frankly, the first defeat that we can hand them, in November, is the easiest possible one we are going to be offered, and we'd be fools not to make it happen.

a thing to remember, in all of this horror, is that these are not the actions of a political party that is confident it represents the will of the people, and who is currently out of power and enslaved to a deeply flawed avatar. the struggle is not over and they have not won

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Materialist Gnostic

Can we start treating this "You have less than six months" refrain from neo-Nazis and far-right extremists as anything other than open death threats? It's out of control

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Materialist Gnostic

None of this would be happening if there hadn't been real progress over the last few years and a sense that this is their last chance. They are a minority and they can't win by democratic means. The antidemocratic structures of our system gave them padding for a while..now even that is not enough.

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Materialist Gnostic

Not that anyone particularly cares about original meaning, but think folks should still say it out loud: For all of the things that are unclear in the founding documents and unknowabilities of what the Founders intended, "the President can kill anyone or commit a coup" was *never* legally arguable

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Materialist Gnostic

I don't know how the hell they managed it, but they actually wrote an opinion worse than Dred Scott. This is literally undoing 1776. (and besides, we know what happens to minorities if we get a reactionary caudillo in power)

The DC indictment is structured in such a way as to demonstrate that Trump was way outside his duties in committing election fraud, so I think the majority of the case is safe in-theory. But we are continuing to backslide and this is up there for worst SCOTUS decisions in our lifetimes.

>hear about a new cryptid >ask if it's an owl or a bear with mange >they don't understand >pull out illustrated chart explaining what's owls and what's bears with mange >"it's a very real cryptid, sir" >investigate it >it's an owl

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Materialist Gnostic

So tiring that people think that performing low-info cynicism is being "radical." You can be a good little leftist and still blame Republicans for things the Republican Party has done.

Because folks DIDN'T vote for the lesser of two evils, mate. Shockingly, elections have consequences for many years after they happen. 2020 didn't mean that the 3 SC seats Trump got to fill because of 2016 magically evaporated.

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There is plenty to criticize "the libs" about, including on the Supreme Court. But this specific problem *absolutely would have been avoided* if a handful more people had voted for the lesser evil in 2016, and it is flat out silly to claim otherwise.

I get that "liberals" has become the strawman argument over the last 8 years and it's not always wrong but this is a direct result of Trump putting on three Supreme Court justices

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Materialist Gnostic

The US in July 1776: Fuck Kings, Fuck Emperors. The US in July 2024: What if every official act of a president was presumptively legal.

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Also just tossing it out there, but SCOTUS saying "we need to do this to protect executive authority" when it's literally the executive branch arguing they shouldn't, sort of gives the lie to the idea this was about protecting constitutional departmental interests as opposed to protecting Mr Trump