But we looked cool as hell while having those migraines.

“Move beyond the sins of your parents… Get out there and do some sin of your own, yeah-yuh!”

Yeah this has been online a while now and I’ve seen no attempts at providing evidence from theconcernedbird other than linking to the github that shows examples of how it can be used.

Persona Management software has been around for a long time, so it’s not even like the idea is even new, it’s just a new way of doing the old thing that’s been going down on the US internet since about 2010-2012ish.

We need actually evidence it’s being used for specifically this, not just an example of how it could be detailed in the github. The entire Republican establishment and corporate establishment function almost exclusively on the idea of “plausible deniability” it’s all about what can be proven in court, and now these groups have such massive coffers or money that almost nothing can be definitively proved in court. It’s why Musk wears his cheating and his alts and his nazi salute like medals of honor because “nyeah nyeah you can’t prove it.”

And part of the reason they act that way is because US courts have fecklessly surrendered “the justice system” to the corporate class for fifty fucking years or more, if they ever weren’t being bought by corporations. They’re legally shielded by our idiot ass broken fucking system and now they’re literally rubbing our faces in it.

Honestly, having said we need hard evidence, I’m not even 100% sure that hard evidence of this even matters anymore. It feels like the Iraq War torture leaks, and the Snowden disclosure… What changes? Nothing changes. The government was always just gonna keep doing what it did, and now Trump has taken steps to take quick control of all of that and twist it into his own dark ends.

I don’t know, China is kind of closed off. On the other hand, there are Indians all over the planet, they go and become successful in every country on earth. They could easily achieve a Cultural Dominance Victory a la Civilization simply due to the breadth of how far their culture could expand at this point. Bollywood is way bigger across the world than Chinese cinema. I can see it happening for India, even if the country itself doesn’t develop like you think it will (which it sounds like you’re much more familiar with than I, of course, being from there it sounds like). Cultural dominance is part of what allowed Britain to dominate half the planet for a good long time, I can see Indian culture achieving a similar cultural dominance.

You’re welcome. There’s lots of other real efforts, too. There’s been various successes at people preventing ICE from getting at people. I know a lot of people in /r/Seattle were doing the legwork of communications to help people avoid getting snared by ICE. The West coast will be a hold out. A school in Chicago also successfully repelled ICE agents from entering the school. Look for the helpers, they won’t be from the government anymore, they will be people like you and me.

I wrote the first sentence, then remembered the poems Tolkein wrote about Tom Bombadil.

Tom Bombadil was a merry old fellow

his jacket was blue and hit boots were yellow

(not verbatim, from memory)

Well, I’m talking about Sam and he’s a hobbit, he doesn’t even wear boots. It was mostly just weird silly connections in my head after writing down the first sentence fairly seriously. I had just happened to end the sentence with “fellow” and then couldn’t help myself.

You are experiencing what they want you to experience in this situation: A state of shock.

This is “Shock and Awe.” It’s a blitz to make the enemy feel like the task to fight back is insurmountable and to give up before trying.

Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight

This is not a military battle, but it is clear that Trump is practicing rapid dominance. He is using the Project 2025 pre-written Executive Orders to execute rapid dominance over the US government and make us feel shocked, confused, and desperate.

Naomi Klein wrote The Shock Doctrine in response to the Iraq War, and this is the Shock Doctrine being used on the US citizenry to whip them into submission.

We must resist this shock. The feeling you have, that it is hopeless, that no one is pushing back, is exactly how they want you to feel.

Get involved in Mutual Aid. Give back to your local community. Check out of national politics, we can’t affect it anymore. Focus on building parallel systems (food banks, community gardens, community mesh-networks, community first aid) for people to rely on since we can no longer rely on the systems that Trump is actively trying to dismantle or twist to harm the American populace.

Losing hope right now means losing the long-term battle against this. Losing hope is what they intend to force you into, broken, submissive, no hope. Do not go silent into that good night.

If you’re asking for someone to push back with effectiveness, you can be one of the first by giving your skills to your community.

In Klein’s own words:

Trump is a rolling shock machine, which a recipe for keeping us scattered and reactive to the latest shocking news. There will be moments when we need to react forcefully and meaningfully to protect one another.

EDIT: This also seems relevant right now:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

-Fred “Mister” Rogers

Based.

Du.

Du hasst.

Du hasst meine Theorien.

They are covering a short bit of the unrelated “Belgian techno anthem Pump Up the Jam”

I knew the answer before I even watched the clip.

I’m not OP, but maybe this one?

https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

I said try, Angle!

Good old Samwise, a real salt of the earth fellow.

(Something something something his boots weren’t fucking yellow)

Oops! All hangnails!

It’s becoming increasingly clear that they know exactly how much what they’re doing is going to hurt and terrorize people, and that they’re “flooding the zone with shit” to keep people off balance and terrified.

I said it the other day and I am going to say it again. Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine matters here. This is the last of the tools of the Iraq War come home to the US. This is Trump’s “Shock and Awe” campaign directed at American citizens. He is trying to shock us into confusion and submission, and when I say “he” I rather mean the architects of Project 2025.

A short film about the book featuring author Naomi Klein.

Shock wears off, and if you know what’s happening, you can help prevent shock.

An apple on the daily, keeps your body from going frailly.

mort de rire

Salty, spicy, sweet.

Step it up one more time with some red onions, red bell pepper, and pepperoncinis. Sometimes I also like hot Italian sausage in that mix, too.

(It is to be noted I make pizza at home, so I go all out and don’t stop at two toppings. I’m bad at baking so I use this super simple dough recipe.)