Miller wants to normalize tyranny & a whole lot of Americans are already primed...

(ignoring covid, climate change, J6, treating politics like entertainment, cheering on oppression then being shocked when taco truck guy disappears)

...to accept tyranny is just what we have in America now.
4/n

Normalcy bias has people just sitting next to a wildfire thinking "I'll be fine" right until the burning pine tree falls on them.

And then it's kind of too late.
3/n
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalc...

And the fact that people are like *eh, nothing's happened to me personally* because the "median experience of tyranny" is your life continuing on the same as before (until it doesn't) isn't exactly reassuring.
2/n
www.offmessage.net/p/the-median...

This is a very good article about Miller attempting to get low-info America to co-sign his authoritarian power grabs (via doddering Trump before he expires).

I wish I could say Americans wouldn't co-sign tyranny but we're already well down that path.
1/n
newrepublic.com/article/2014...

"enjoy having your health care subsidy debate in the gulags these people would happily send us all to. I hear that poll-tests great."

This is some rabble-rousing shit, but I am rabble and I am roused.

newrepublic.com/article/2014...

very good thread

I will not back down.

Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power.

What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?

Relatedly, this @brianbeutler.bsky.social idea of the "median experience of tyranny" is a good way to say that while majorities oppose the lawbreaking/abuses of power, Miller is banking on the middle lacking deep conviction about all of it (as I suggest)

www.offmessage.net/p/the-median...

The psychic damage and moral harms *abound* these days, but I can especially understand the AI anger — it came out when I was talking to an audiobook production sales guy... I was VERY angry about the mere suggestion (Me: absolutely fucking not!) and I wasn't even being forced into anything...sorry😓

FYI for those who are super hesitant to try something until they've got some kind of guarantee that "it will work"...

the success rate has been *quite high* in clawing back (rights, money, etc) and stopping the fash **when we fight them**

FIGHT THEM

Yeah, I've never understood the idea that "appointments" was somehow "removing politics."

First of all: politics is how we decide things in a democracy.

The alternative is "no politics" which means "no democracy".

Not the alternative I want but somehow this idea eludes some folks.

Whatever you're waiting for, when it's "serious enough" to do something to stop the fascists... just go ahead and do that now.

All this speculation if we've "crossed the line" into the technical defn of fascism or authoritarianism or if it's "civil war" or whatever the latest debate is...

what matters: rule of law for everyone, holding people in power to account, defend human rights

You only keep the rights you fight for.

The answer is (always has been): rule of law for everyone, holding people in power to account.

None of that can happen without an engaged electorate.

You know: democracy as participation sport.

The corruption of the populace is in thinking you can offload that duty to protestors & politicians.

In this battle of ideas & bodies, it's not just culture war, not just fascism rolling power back to landed white gentry...

it's CORRUPTION

So much of what's wrong in the world is simple corruption at every level: from Trump to the local county health board allowing polluters to dump in the water.

And the problem is? Any industry that cannot survive without theft doesn't deserve to exist. #fuckAI

so much

Free shipping today at Bookshop for anti-Prime day!

Did You Know You Can Make LISTS on Bookshop?

I've made several Bookshop lists, partly to make it easy to recommend books, partly to just keep track of the books I want to read.

Solarpunk Starter Pack List: bookshop.org/lists/solarp...
#solarpunk #books #booksky

The @bookshop.org version for audiobooks is @libro.fm — they support indie bookstores

libro.fm

I need to get out to PA’s dark skies!

Such as gorgeous experience!

What we’re seeing now is not people “[beginning] to view their own government’s security forces as an occupying army”—the federal agents are becoming an occupying army, and the violence is theirs. The violence is already here.

Is this going to be like that thing where you see real-time images of climate disasters online until finally you’re the one taking the photo?