Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

DJ Mac

DJ Mac

@djmax.bsky.social

470 followers 320 following 1.3K posts

ATX. Recovering nihilist. Dada not Data. Groucho not Karl. Libertines not Libertarians. Conscience not Con Art.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 28m

“Emergency Skin” is so appropriate for our current “I read an Ayn Rand fable and now I should run society” oligarch moment.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 43m

Yeah, there’s enough criminality afoot in the Trump administration without the need for us to make shit up and justify “witch hunt” claims.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 8h

Literally. I think it was the Good Liars or similar outfit who interviewed a MAGA cultist who said, “well if he shot someone they did something to deserve it.”

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 9h

Agreed. Both repping and perpetrating a genocide are disqualifying. I’m glad we’re all anti-genocide in the Democratic Party now. It took long enough.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 9h

Agreed. Which is why it was going to be so hard for so many of us to vote for Joe Biden, who was an actual participant in genocide. Sometimes you do have to choose the lesser of two evils. Thankfully, this is not one of those times. There’s still plenty of time to find another candidate.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 9h

Agreed

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 9h

Yes, anyone brandishing a tattoo promoting a genocidal regime is immediately disqualified as a candidate for high office.

As is any Democratic candidate who supports, materially or morally, the current Palestinian genocide or the regime prosecuting it.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 10h

I knew about “Katie Johnson.” What’s the source for the other names and payouts on this list?

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 1d

youtu.be/c7Shv0d0j4g?...

YouTube video by DEVO - Topic

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 1d

I see that number and think “that’s the age that the woman the DSCC just backed for a Senate run in 2026 will be if she ever takes office.” We’re definitely bipartisan on the gerontocracy.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 2d

We didn’t call him “Hitler.” His current Vice President did.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 2d

To be fair, he also just makes numbers up all the time. Hence, 107% of all new jobs being “taken” by immigrants, his claim he’s going to lower some drug prices by 1500%, egg prices dropping 33% in a week, etc.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 2d

McDonald’s-eating surrender monkey

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 2d

Texas Monthly just ran a story asking, seriously, “Are We Living Through the End of Texas Farming?”

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 2d

Texas farmers, small business owners, families that appreciated the SALT deductions that lowered Texas’s outrageous property taxes, teachers, parents of public schoolchildren, and women of childbearing age, among others, would tell you that’s bullshit. The brain drain here is real.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 2d

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Israel has violated ceasefire 47 times and killed 38 Palestinians, says Gaza media office

Authorities urge UN to intervene ‘to protect unarmed civilian populations’ after attack on bus that killed 11

www.theguardian.com

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 3d

And… there were Confederate flags at the violent January 6 terrorist attack on the Capitol, and they took down an American flag and tried to replace it with a Trump flag. But that’s okay somehow.

people.com/politics/pro...

Pro-Trump Rioters Tear Down American Flag, Replace it With Trump Flag at U.S. Capitol Building

Thousands of pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to protest the president's loss in the 2020 election

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 4d

It’s so complicated that every other nation with a functioning economy solved it and pays a fraction of what we pay. The “complicated” part is somehow patching together a system where the middleman that everyone else eliminates remains the money-funnel core. In this sense, Obamacare was genius.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 5d

Yeah, naming your spyware company “Palantir” is such a loser move on so many levels.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 5d

In any case, the important part is that the current crop of fascists, deliberately or unconsciously, seem to regard Sauron as the hero.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 5d

I’d be more inclined to take him at his word if his denial wasn’t so obviously untrue and dismissive regarding the Ring. But assuming that he and Wagner were independently influenced by The Nibelungenlied and other sources, the similarities are apparent and help explain the appeal to Neo-Nazis.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 5d

I’m familiar with Tolkien’s denial but I’ve never bought it. At the very least they derived from the same source material, the Eddas and Sagas. The Ring in both stories grants the power to rule the world, a more pointed similarity than their both being circular.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 5d

It also seems to me that Saruman is modeled on Stalin.

OTOH, it was first popularized by hippies, and the heroes are lower class nobodies who accomplished what all the high-falutin elves could not.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 5d

Tolkien has long appealed to fascists. Despite its working class/farmer hobbit heroes, the Elven aristocracy are clearly the true master race, Strider was a secret royal physically and morally superior to mere men, swarthy Southern folk are degenerates. Wagner’s Ring Cycle was a major influence.

DJ Mac @djmax.bsky.social · 6d

So release it already. It’s not like there’s any filters anywhere else in our society, except for bullying from the executive branch.