MaggieKat
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maggiekat.bsky.social
MaggieKat
@maggiekat.bsky.social
2.4K followers 560 following 15K posts
I read obsessively. I read everything. Not in the hope of becoming an expert on anything, just hoping I come away understanding a little more than what I entered with

header from The Vine-first internet platform I joined way back when
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maggiekat.bsky.social
A gentleman (Ofer Zalzberg) I use to follow on twitter ages ago spoke along the same lines in regard to religiously conservative circles in Israel in bringing them about to ideas of reconciliation and that you had to meet them where they were. His papers in English were fascinating. Of course I realize conservative in religion and conservative in political thought are not necessarily the same thing, but the dynamic I think is similar.
September 28, 2025 at 5:10 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
imagine a scenario where Hegseth gives a speech abt how everyone must be loyal to Trump and slips in the statement that troops have a duty to ensure their commanders are loyal. It would put every one of these officers on notice that their troops might turn on them if they are not seen as sufficiently loyal to Trump. Friendly fire, mutiny from the ranks?
September 27, 2025 at 12:02 AM
maggiekat.bsky.social
1/ 2
Love pours in for a dying octopus as she tends to eggs that will never hatch
The last act these octopuses do before dying is care for a batch of eggs till they hatch - but her's are not fertilized and so they will never hatch even while she neglects eating in order to care for her unborn babies. I wish we could substitute some fertilized eggs so she could die at peace that she did the best she could for her children.
September 26, 2025 at 2:35 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
thank you for posting this. In trying to gain background on England in the 16th century (in order to understand about Jamestown), I came across Edmund S. Morgan's writings, which in essence said the lower classes of England at that time were so lazy they would not even do the work to save themselves, neither in England nor in America. Which struck me as untrue. But I have no knowledge base to refute that assumption. I am hoping by reading this series, it answers that question for me.
September 24, 2025 at 4:56 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
3/4
While his first book largely treated each person in a complementary manner, I found it encapsulated Musk's personality and how he has been treated as some kind of genius prophet by his associates who are paid to create whatever reality bubble Musk wants. You can clearly see the foundation of what we have witnessed since.
September 17, 2025 at 6:21 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
2/4
I had read his previous book on the space industry "The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos" when it came out in 2018. That one looked at not only Bezos and Musk's activities in the space industry, but also Richard Branson, and Paul Allen. The title has proven to have been an accurate description of how reality has played out in this new Gilded Age.
September 17, 2025 at 6:21 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
a side note - example - to justify a war, which raised taxes on the common people, a narrative was created to shape the attitude of the general public - about how evil "those" people were, how evil their faith was, how evil their ethnicity was and that is how the public came to view anyone of that State, faith, ethnicity And *then* when they needed an alliance in marriage with *that* state, with a prince of *that* faith - they were stuck with a common people who now hated "those" people to the point that they would have rebelled if such an alliance was put forth. And it takes time to change the narrative & reshape public mindset, which blocked State choices
September 16, 2025 at 1:47 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
10/10
Too many people fighting to obtain the few spots available. Too many people at the top spending money they did not have to maintain a status that depended upon their living high - including, especially, James I. It all creating a very desperate environment. After reading the book, I can understand how the mindset of Jamestown happened.
September 16, 2025 at 1:36 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
9/10
But it also showed just how deeply insular and arrogant their mindset was. And I want to use a word, like "racist" to give an idea at how much they felt the lower classes were a species apart from them - an entirely different race - who did not think like them, the nobility, thought, who were bred inferior, were incapable of higher thought and abilities.
September 16, 2025 at 1:36 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
8/ 10
It made Elizabeth (and the rest of the players) human. The fear of giving up power to a male if she married. The fear of death in childbirth. The constant plots against her, the currying of favour but few she could trust who cared about her and her Empire and not just themselves and their own advancement. And the rampant disease! My God, even in the nobility, even in the royal house - few children made it to adulthood.
September 16, 2025 at 1:36 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
7/ 10
And none of this had anything to do with the peasant class. They were a tiny side note - how to present an issue to the public in shaping a desired narrative, how to prevent a mob uprising in response to actions - but never a note of consideration on how to improve the life of the majority of people - just the State, royal house and nobility matters.
September 16, 2025 at 1:36 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
6/10
Which brings me to today. I just finished "The Cecils: The Dynasty & Legacy of Lord Burghley" by David Lee. Highly recommend. It really lets you see from the perspective of the royal house of England and how many threats it faced from every side. And you put yourself in the position of asking, "so what would I have done faced with the same situation?" Often even when the principals involved wanted to take the best road, other actors who wanted to achieve their own personal goals of advancement, would box them into pursuing a destructive path, they knew was destructive.
September 16, 2025 at 1:36 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
every chance he gets to try and point out he's not part of *those* low life peons - "no,no - I belong with you all, the elite, not that crass liberal mob on Bluesky" There's a million people out there like him, wanting the liberal label while campaigning for conservative causes But he uses the fact he is Black *and* enthusiastically denounces the Black community as his niche hook to make himself relevant just as he has expanded into the narrative of being liberal while denouncing liberals
September 10, 2025 at 10:55 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
"Covering Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez for two stops in Arizona, I had been struck by just how un-Bernie-like the crowds were; the normie Democrats were showing support for the Democratic Socialists, because the Democratic Socialists were showing up for them when so many powerful people and institutions were not."
September 10, 2025 at 6:23 AM
maggiekat.bsky.social
The Alawite Association of the United States lobbies the US government along with Druze, Christian, Sunni, and Kurdish organizations to denounce the non-democratic "elections" to be carried out in #Syria They ask for real democracy and the implementation of UN Resolution 2254 to assure all parts of Syria can live in safety and with dignity
September 10, 2025 at 12:19 AM
maggiekat.bsky.social
the ironic thing is, Israel still requires a powerful state at its back at some point, I could almost bet you, they are going to try to move out of the exclusive orbit of the US as it loses power - so for all the moral integrity the US has conceded in this episode, they very well could end up with an empty basket
September 9, 2025 at 7:27 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
My to do list for a union
first - make sure availability of food sources within the union or trade, so that can not be used as leverage second - make sure availability of vital medicine sources - same third - start instituting a renewable grid system that is connected between states in the union Fourth - start connecting mass transportation system within the union
September 9, 2025 at 7:00 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
3/3
There is no Palestinian leader on the cover, just as there is no Palestinian voice in the book itself. Palestinians exist only to be killed—facelessly, anonymously, and in large numbers. They exist entirely to be acted on, given agency only when it’s time to blame them for their own deaths. Which is to say that the book’s view is perfectly emblematic of the DC foreign policy discussion.
September 9, 2025 at 6:32 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
1/3
States always lean toward other states (even our rivals) over non-state players - unless those non-state players can be used for pr "here is who we are fighting for" purposes

and the reason why is because non-state players do not have anything to bring to the table but their humanity
As Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, related in a memoir, Biden had a saying about the Palestinians: “Never crucify yourself on a small cross”—meaning that the Palestinians weren’t worth the trouble.
September 9, 2025 at 6:32 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
3/3
"There is also a smaller but growing faction that offers a less militaristic vision of foreign policy through a coalition of NGOs working alongside pro-­diplomacy champions in Congress. The 2028 presidential primaries will tell us whether these ideas can break through, or whether the party will continue to seek safety with a foreign policy vision based on Cold War nostalgia."
September 9, 2025 at 6:24 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
1/3

I think this is a good prediction of which way the Democratic Party is trying to move - Ronald Reagan redux but with a liberal veneer
"So what lessons will the Democrats learn from this? Some see an opportunity to move to Trump’s right on foreign policy, as exhibited by the selection of Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, a party establishment favorite, to give the official response to Trump’s March address to Congress. For this faction, the best way to revive the party’s electoral majority is by claiming the Cold War mantle of Ronald Reagan, apparently in the hopes that the curdled militarism that has consistently lost elections in the post–Cold War era will somehow magically start winning them again."
September 9, 2025 at 6:24 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
no country has ever maintained its position as First Chair on the world stage forever and neither will the U.S. which will have both good and bad consequences and the irony is that small countries, like Israel, may someday wish there was a large liberal democratic country that could stand up for a small country with a minority population
September 9, 2025 at 5:14 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
1/2
no one believes in international law anymore - the US declares war on a boat in Venezuela for PR purposes, Saudi Arabia goes beyond its borders to kill challengers to MbS rule, China does the same with Uyghurs, RU knows no boundaries to silence possible dissenters, India sends its agents into western countries and Israel acts with impunity attacking anywhere they please
September 9, 2025 at 3:11 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
3/4
but its not Black people or Latinos or Muslims or Jews or the poor or women or any other non-dominant group that ever overthrows power - its always the second in command within their own power circle or the group that thinks they've been promised some privilege (some militia or a protected group who have been working for the regime - like ICE employees) in exchange and feels betrayed that are the ones who overthrow regimes.
September 9, 2025 at 2:45 PM
maggiekat.bsky.social
2/2
Israelis are now so deep within the grip of an elimination and conquering ethos that I am not sure anything will save them from themselves at this point - except a realization that in trying to grasp this one objective they are creating a real existential threat to the very existence of the state of Israel in its current form. Myopic in the extreme
September 9, 2025 at 2:23 PM