Greatestgargadon - Hello.

For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, then, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that middle-class home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies”’ dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.

The Way We Never Were, Stephanie Coontz. 2016 edition.

the ship of theseus wikipedia article in 2003. 20 years later, after 1792 total edits, 0% of its original phrasing remains. (x)

"How much do you earn?" "How much do you make?"

No. How much have you wrested from the grubbing hands of the capitalists? Or, flip side, how much have you stolen from the workers? You don't make money unless you work at a bank. Otherwise you're just dropping your line in the flow of capital and snagging whatever you can. But of course, it's catch & release only without a bank-issued permit.

the fact that pro-monarchy arguments have degenerated, over the past few centuries, from “the king rules by divine right and is accountable to nobody but god”, to “uhm the royals generate a lot of income from tourism” will never stop being extremely funny to me

Rome in its Republican period was undoubtedly the predominant military force of its time. Something about its religious and military practices, combined with its republican form of government, made the Romans do war unlike anyone else. For this post, the most important point I want to make is that Rome conquered most of its territory as a republic. In its imperial period, Roman territory did grow some, but ultimately the Empire was unstable and fractured into multiple autocratic states.

In 1789 the Estates General met in France. Called by the king and then elected by the people of France, this body rejected their monarchical mandate to address the state deficit and instead wrote a new constitution for France, establishing a democratic order on the European continent. The kingdoms around France reacted to this affront to monarchical power by bringing troops to French borders. Fired by nationalism and democratic enfranchisement, the new French state mustered an army exponentially larger than any of its neighbors. The wars that dominated the next twenty(ish) years of European history would see the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and a large expansion of French territory.

During World War II the United States mobilized to an enormous degree to fight European fascist states and the empire of Japan. Huge numbers of young men were conscripted to fight, entire industries were devoted to military production, and all over the nation families rationed food in order to support the war effort. This just twenty years after women were granted the right to vote. At this point the United States was the oldest democratically elected national government in the world, invoking its national fervor for the cause of mass violence. In the half century after and then some, the United States dominated the world economically and militarily.

All this to say that for a very long time democracy and military power have been bound together. The most democratic nations have been the ones able to muster the largest armies, engage the most industrial production, demand the most sacrifice from their populations. On a geopolitical scale, democracy has meant power.

But here's the twist, and what terrifies me about the current moment: with the rise of machines and machine learning, and the consolidation of server ownership into the hands of just a few oligarchs, it's unclear whether that power dynamic still holds. Drones and other remote, even autonomous, technology have made both factories and battlefields less human. The human crowds that filled Roman or Parisian plazas can be atomized and identified by automated surveillance networks. Mao says that political power flows from the barrel of a gun. What happens when the guns aren't in human hands?

Leaving MAGA -

They Left MAGA - Leaving MAGA

They Left MAGA Steve Vilchez Chicago Read His Story Erica Roach New York Read Her Story Justin Yu California Read His Story Deanna Raper Nor

This is an interesting thing. Looks like testimonies of people who left the MAGA movement- how they got into it and why.

Leaving a cult is really hard, so I really respect the people who are speaking from this place.

Honestly the only slur I ever get called is 'gay' or 'homo', people here just aren't very creative with their slurs anymore

The perfect drink to wash down my ape biscuits

Eyes on the future, the past is fuel

Dig deeper, burn hotter, run faster

Don't think about what was here yesterday

Don't think about what won't be here tomorrow

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

What does does it mean to be a citizen of a nation built on genocide? America is made of conquerors and refugees, killers and survivors. Can the US absolve itself? I can't say we were ever great, don't know if I can say we were ever good. But I think the best we've ever been is when we've held a welcoming hand to the world's refugees. At this point it feels like the least we can do.