I hope all military leaders believe this, enforce this. Those in the lower ranks NEED people at the top with courage, and the permission to do what's right.

I was just watching one of those "list" videos that could sometimes be eye-opening. It was about some of the terrible experiments on humans through history. Pretty terrible, with no regard for human suffering. It happens all the time, usually to vulnerable people (people of color, women, the poor..)

How did so many not see this coming? THIS is why we study history, not so much for specific names and dates, but to see how events unfold, cause & effect, human & social behavior, economic conditions, power structures, prelude to autocratic takeover of a govmt. Some of us saw it, but not enough.

I guess it's not "the quiet part" anymore. Plenary Authority. (Sorry to post his ugly @$$ face in your feed . . .) Hmm . . . maybe he meant to say it, to let people know that it's real. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EBm...

Many of us saw totalitarianism looming, should Trump get re-elected in 2024, the murmurs & rumblings of Proj. 2025. Was clear to us. Did the others truly not hear about it? Not believe it? Not care? Thought price of eggs were worth giving up democracy? Those who voted for Trump, didn't vote al all?

Hoping one day, we will have a better country & everyone responsible for this, from the Oval office to each perpetrator (American gestapo) be tried & convicted. Every victim should be compensated. (TAX THE UBER-RICH to pay for that & so much more).

@alixinchains.bsky.social Wanted to show you the Tsardust Memories sample that I got with my herb order from Penseys. 😄 Here's their site if you are interested in spices. www.penzeys.com

Not liking people for their behavior - the way they treat others, the way they dehumanize people unlike them, the way they admire hateful and exploitive people BECAUSE of those attributes, is not the same as not liking people for the color of their skin, where they were born, how they were born.

Those who are fortunate, either mistakenly or as a lie, portray themselves as virtuous, and say that THAT is how they came to their fortune. They will often not acknowledge the part of privilege (money, connections), luck, circumstances or the kindness of others in the beginnings of their fortune.

Murders are tragedies. However, if the victim was a terrible human being, then their death doesn't make them a better person. If someone truly awful gets terminal illness, horrible injury, or suffers other personal set-backs, unless it changes them for the better, it DOESN'T make them better people

Reposting as a reminder . . . they are dangerous people. And all the right can do is be disappointed that Charlie Kirk's killer was NOT an immigrant, trans, gay, black, Muslim or any other group that they hate and would have gleefully punished and whose identity they would have used as a scapegoat.

Reposting so more people can see & maybe contribute screenshots. It won't make the country better because those people won't acknowledge it, but the hypocracy is real. (Lots of examples under linked post).

Sorry if the Left seems unsympathetic. We've seen our country turn into a Fascist state. We've seen the corporations & billionaires take bigger & bigger share of the money in the country, gaining obscene amount of power, seen those corporations screw over workers & consumers. . .

So...Charlie Kirk is shot dead. And Trump sends out a message that FLAGS BE FLOWN AT HALF-STAFF. Kirk was not a former president, a Senator, SCOTUS Justice, or a world leader. This is nuts.

Healthcare should never have been privatized. Now, Medicare. 🤬 We need to go back to when health insurance was made to HELP AMERICANS, not profit off of them.

People keep blaming COVID lockdowns for everything. While it did cause disruptions (particularly for students) it probably saved many lives & prevented what may have been a worse health (Long-COVID) crises. What COULD have been done is earlier & greater financial help for people & small-businesses.

Who or what do they want to destroy or weaken? Corporations keep fighting to weaken UNIONS. Because they actually MATTER. Dictators often go after their enemies/opposition first, but then ATTACK or try to CONTROL EDUCATION/Educators, the ARTS (and artists), Media/Press. Because they matter.

The U.S. should be a cautionary tale, of imbalance in economic power higely in favor of corporations, with fear & hatred spread by corporate media (esp. a particular one that infiltrated many households becoming THEIR main source of "news" but marred with omissions, exaggerations & outright lies).

We are not the same. THEM: Support billionaires, anti-immigrant, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, anti-labor (even if they are laborers, supports autocracy, cult-like. US: Inclusivity, pro-labor, pro-affordable-heathcare, pro-democracy, pro-voter-rights, supports facts.

We needed this since a few years ago. It could have improved our health over the years. (How many LESS Long-COVID cases there might be). Also, just better air in general is good.

My fellow Californians. You may find gerrymandering distasteful. I know I do. BUT...I believe what Newsom is doing is necessary. PLEASE VOTE TO PASS IT. We can (and should) let them know down the line that we don't approve of the practice in general, but voted for it to FIGHT gerrymandering.

For some reason, NBC News put a post about the hurricane in the Atlantic on my FB feed, which cited Climate Change as a major cause of stronger hurricanes. One of the really sad things I saw was that there were over 11,000 😄 reactions. First few comments I read, making fun of Climate change. 😡🤬

STOP. DEFENDING EXPLOITIVE BILLIONAIRES (which are MOST of them!) However hard they may have worked, or risks they took, they are NOT WORTH that much, over regular workers, small business owners, consultants/freelancers. MOST started out w/ large capital, got a leg up from someone or got lucky break

Love of money put into action is the root of most EVIL. Citizens United. Welchism (shareholder primacy, short-term corporate gain often at the expense of overall company health, the workers, consumers & environment). Wage stagnation & wage theft. Corporate welfare & tax cuts for the rich.

Hmm...maybe they're not showing up on my feed since I don't follow them, but what happened to all the pro-Trump people who used to post photos of their RECEIPTS showing HOW MUCH THEY SPENT on their shopping trips, like they did during the Biden administration? Those HUGE Costco receipts &c.? 🤔

Too many people are gullible and willing to give up other people's rights, safety and lives to allow authoritarian rule. It wasn't long ago that many truly thought that "It couldn't happen here." It IS happening here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7Y-...

Some people view education simply as a means to obtain a good job and make money. That is ONE goal of education. But we need a well-informed population, who understands and learns from history, the empirical studies of the sciences, who have critical thinking skills & ability to keep learning. 🧵

As I've discovered the convenience of Audiobooks (I used to SWEAR I couldn't retain the information like I would with a paper book), being a slow reader, I've been able to "READ" various books in a reasonable amount of time. Now, trying out some books by Robert Reich.

We need to take back the word and idea of FREEDOM. We've allowed the RIGHT to define it for too long. We need to understand the importance and meaning of it as well, and to help define it. Freedom comes more easily with ensured healthcare, with financial security, freedom of our own bodies and mind.

This popped up on my YouTube feed. 😁 www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8AG...

So, Timothy Snyder in his book "On Freedom" discussed a word that I believe is very apt for our times, especially with the MAGA /Trump voters and that is SADOPOPULISM. Already, you can see, with the "sado-" that some kind of cruelty or pleasure at other's pain, is involved. ⬇️

But "BUT THE CHILDREN!" I NEVER want them to EVER use "protecting" children from anything as an excuse to oppress people. They're doing a piss-poor job of protecting kids from abuse, exploitation, illnesses & disease, starvation, gun violence, natural disasters, child labor, etc. They need to STFU.

This is the kind of horrible people that AI is enabling. I can only hope that he will die alone, surrounded by robots ready to take his body apart for some kind of experiment so they can "learn" from him.

Do people ACTUALLY believe any of this? Or is each Trump follower pretending for other followers?

🚨 🚨 NEW Whiteboard on Winning Democracy in the Long Term Who would ever use big money to prioritize statehouses? Um…the Koch Brothers, that’s who. It’s called ALEC and it’s why they’ve been winning. We must do the same. WATCH and RT 1/

I've mentioned that I sometimes seek words of comfort and wisdom from people wiser than me. I remember watching "Cosmos" - the original one, in the early 1980s, and Dr Sagan's sage words, and I sometimes find his videos for that dose again. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nhr...

SADOPOPULISM is a very accurate term for today's United States and in particular the Conservatives (MAGA being pretty much the perfect model of it). junot.substack.com/p/sadopopuli...

People who get kidnapped by ICE aren't just a skin color, an ethnicity, a statistic. They are people with a full life, family, friends, most of them have jobs, and a lifetime of stories. They have people in their lives who love them, maybe depend on them. NEVER forget their humanity.

Something I JUST learned today: Prison Gerrymandering. Prisoners are COUNTED as voters (even though they don't vote) often in rural areas where prisons are. Many are often taken FROM urban areas. This reduces the population of where they CAME FROM and gives to a rural area, where they DO NOT vote.

I'm almost halfway through Timothy Snyder's "On Freedom" on audiobook (I listen while doing other stuff and so have to rewind...or whatever you call it with, to make sure I get some of the points). There is a very good & timely quote within: “In dehumanizing others, we make ourselves unfree.”

I know it's about hate & oppression, but I still have a hard time getting around my brain, that people would be UP IN ARMS about trans women in ladies rooms or Drag Queen Storytime because they MIGHT be dangerous to kids and women? BUT a man very probably involved in coerced sex with minors is OK.

It's been only half a year or so since the inauguration. And their "progress" (or more accurately, regression) is coming along frighteningly fast. Also, if you have people in your life who said "Trump said he didn't know anything about Project 2025" show them this, not that it'll help.

This right here. You know who bugs me? The WORKERS who side with CORPORATIONS and BILLIONAIRES. "Well, THEY risked EVERYTHING! If you don't like it, START A BUSINESS," etc. That's not the point. The point is, people who work should be paid decent wages. www.youtube.com/shorts/mscaD...

Noticed recently a lot more pro-47 comments over on Instagram. Not sure if there's some troll-brigades or roll-out of a bunch of Russian (or whatever) bots over there. Used to not be this bad even a short time ago

You know the various people in your life...one that offers the word of wisdom, the one that can make you laugh no matter how you feel, the artistic one, the one that breaks into song at any moment, the one that helps you when you need, be it moving or fixing your car, 🧵

I looked on CloudLibrary and Prof. Timothy Snyder's "On Freedom" just became available. I will be listening to that for the next few days (usually as I do mundane things and need to occupy my mind). I have been listening to his lectures and interviews regarding this book, so looking forward to it.

Before, I was hesitant to use audiobooks as one of my main forms of reading. But since I've been listening to more frivolous stuff ("true" scary stories, reddit stories) on YouTube, as well as more serious topics, on YouTube, I thought, why not? It's not a bad option for someone who reads slowly.

Promotion of generative-AI makes sense in this regime. It benefits corporations. That's on the surface. But it also erodes truth - evidence in videos, photos (which has already been manipulable for some time) and voice can now easily come under question. That's the slightly under the surface part. 🧵

Author David Baldacchi testifying against companies using AI to steal creators' works. Generative-AI is NOT a friend of writers, visual artists, musicians, actors. Even if it SEEMS helpful, you are still stealing from many artists who put in the work to hone their skills. youtu.be/0fPUWSv2JCI?...

During Trump's first admin., when I began to feel despondent, I'd search for various speeches by Pres. Obama for his compassion, intelligence & eloquence. I also sought out videos of Dr. Carl Sagan talking. I now also seek out speeches of Prof. Timothy Snyder. Who do you seek out to give you hope?