収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

Not later; not tonight; RIGHT NOW. Pick up the phone and dial the switchboard if you don’t know their office’s direct number:

(202) 224-3121

Tell your Republican Senator or Senators that you demand they vote AGAINST the Big Ugly Bill that transfers wealth to the billionaire class at a scale not seen in decades if ever, and balloons the national debt to levels never imagined.

They’re still going through amendments. There is still time, if you call RIGHT. NOW.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

A couple of lefty people I know are pre-emptively being bitter and anticipating defeat in the New York City Mayoral election, expecting “vote blue no matter who” suddenly not to apply.

I’ll be fair and admit they have reason, but pre-surrendering is not how to win fucking anything ever.

Now, some may note – fairly enough – that “vote blue no matter who” is fundamentally about how legislative bodies are organised and deciding who has the power to set the agenda for bills and legislative voting. They’ll note that it’s not actually about every individual race, but instead is about deciding what gets moved forward in a legislature.

But while true, “vote blue no matter who” still matters this time, even though it’s a mayoral race, and even though this time it’s someone to the left of people who usually say that, rather than about someone to the right of people who usually hear it. And that is because it’s about the Overton window.

Here’s one way you might pitch it to your “centrist,” or “establishment,” or “conservative-leaning” Democratic friends who might otherwise vote Cuomo as an independent, or just sit this this one out:

“Okay, yeah, I know, you don’t like the word ‘socialist,’ and so you’ve already decided you don’t like Mamdani. You’re afraid of him winning, you’re afraid of how the mythical “centrist Republican” won’t come over if Democrats somewhere back a leftist.

“Thing is, that’s bullshit. I’m sorry, but it’s a lie. It just is. They do not care. We had a literal fascist insurrectionist running last election, and a Democratic campaign that spent half its time with dissident Republicans trying to get those so-called centrist Republicans to acknowledge reality and switch over. Did it work? Not one whit. These voters don’t exist, so stop trying.

“But even that’s not the real point.

“This isn’t about Mamdani. Not him in particular. I mean, even as mayor of NYC, he can’t do that much by himself. I think he’ll do some real good. It won’t be enough for me, but it’s a start. But for you, now… for you…

“For you, this election is about moving the Overton window back towards yourself.

“You may not have noticed, but right now, the Overton window is so far to the right that Elon Musk could do and did throw a literal Hitler-identical Nazi salute during the Presidential inauguration and still be welcomed into government. That’s insane. And fatal for a representative democracy.

“But we can push that window back to where you want it to be, and we do that by pushing to the left as hard as we can. Even if you don’t want to go there, even if you don’t want to go where I do, even if you’re ‘not comfortable’ with someone who calls himself a ‘socialist.’

“By electing him, we can make that position viable. Not dominant, not in charge, but viable. And doing _that_ pushes the middle of the window back to where you actually are. It makes you the middle position again.

“Right now, everyone not a fascist – which includes you – is ‘radical left.’ Rule of law? Radical left. Science? Radical left. Due process? Radical left. Social security and medicare? Radical left. Woman not the property of a man? Queer? Radical left. Which is, again, insane, but that is where we are right now.

“But if we start electing some real leftists, then suddenly, that window swings away from the right. You’ll be part of the Sane and Normal Centre again.

“In short: like always, this is strategy. Vote for him as ‘vote blue no matter who’ so that you won’t be the ‘radical left’ anymore, and so you can have an actual choice who you vote for again in the future.

“And that’s why, this time, it’s you who need to ‘vote blue, no matter who.'”

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

December 7th, 1941: the Empire of Japan bombed Pearl Harbour. American President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “a day that will live in infamy” in his famous speech to Congress asking for a declaration of war against Japan.

That particular epithet – that’s a strong one. And unlike most such epithets, it’s held up. People know it, still.

I mean, sure, slogans like “Remember the Maine!” rallied people at the time, but it’s an historical footnote; “Remember the Alamo!” has more weight, but not because of the attack – it’s because of the hopeless and romanticised defence.

(That it was, push comes to shove, in defence of slavery is important but not relevant to my line of thought here.)

Why was the Pearl Harbour attack somehow that much worse?

It wasn’t that Japan attacked a purely military target in a United States territory. Nothing wrong with that by the rules of war. Certainly nothing infamous about it, either. Within the rules of war, it’s fair play.

It’s not that it was a surprise, even – though it was, and that tends to be what people think of when they hear the phrase. Most people at the time assumed a Japanese Imperial attack would come in the Philippines, not in Hawai’i. But surprise attacks are the meat and gravy of war, and simply good strategy – again, not a source of infamy.

It wasn’t even, really, that they started the war with the attack. That’s kind of how wars tend to go. As a rule, one doesn’t go declare war and then stand around a while giving your enemy a week or two to get their defences in place.

So why were people who were absolutely expecting war – absolutely getting ready for a war – with Japan still so very angry about the way it started? What made a crowd certain that war was inevitable – a crowd that was getting ready for it, whether they liked it or not – go, “oh, that is too goddamn far”?

It was that Japan was literally still negotiating as the bombs fell.

Roosevelt mentions this in his speech to Congress asking for a declaration of war. It’s shallow in the specifics, but it’s explicitly there, in the first minute. He didn’t have to get into the weeds of details; everybody in Congress knew.

The Japanese attack started at 12:48pm Eastern time. The military finally got word sometime after 1:30pm Eastern time. The Japanese ambassador had scheduled a meeting with Secretary of State Hull for 1:45pm, and didn’t show up until 2:05pm, by which time the bombs had been falling for over an hour – and even then, they delivered a statement responding to a previous US position paper delivered on November 26th.

It was harsh, but it was no declaration of war.

The Japanese delegation were literally negotiating as their air force’s bombs fell.

That betrayal – that subterfuge, that backstab – coloured the entire rest of the war in the Pacific, up to and including the decision to use those atomic bombs.

Does that still-negotiating-as-the-bombers-let-fly trick sound like something that just happened this afternoon?

Maybe it should.

Japan’s plan was a quick but heavy knockout blow on a military target, to weaken American forces in the Pacific and force the Americans to accede to their demands in China.

Trump’s plan was apparently also a quick but heavy knockout blow on military targets, to force the Iranians to accede to Trump’s – and Netanyahu’s – demands in the Middle East.

Iran is in no way the 1940s US; Trump’s clown car criminal crowd is in no way the leadership of Imperial Japan. This is not World War II, and since Trump didn’t go nuclear, I don’t think it’s World War III; this is not that kind of projection, so don’t make it into one.

I’m just talking infamy. As far as infamy goes?

Yeah.

I could really see saying this is an act of infamy.

Obviously, that’s the kind of thing Iran would say, no matter what. Aside from that, times have changed. Asymmetrical war, disinformation, irregular warfare as a primary strategy – all those old ideas about war have rather gone by the way side. It’s hard to talk about something as infamous in war these days.

But still. I could see it.

And more importantly… I could see people believing it.

Couldn’t you?

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Today’s Tuesday. There’s a Tuesday #TeslaTakedown protest, Lynnwood, Tesla dealership on 99. 4:15pm TODAY, like usual. As I’m writing, that’s literally an hour and like 20 minutes away.

Yeah I kinda forgot too lol, but no reprieves for the fascist.

Let’s get out there~~~

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

I’ve got a post going up tomorrow (Monday) morning, but the word you need to understand right now is:

Remigration

If you don’t already know this word – or if you’re in certain areas of academia and think you do, but do not in any context outside academia – you need to know what this word means right now. And you need to make sure your friends know what it means.

Wikipedia will explain it to you.

More tomorrow.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Today’s the day. It’s not too late to get out there. In Cascadia, most protests haven’t even started yet. If you can’t do the mornings, some protests start late – Lake Forest Park’s protest starts at 4:30 in the afternoon.

So find your local No Kings protest and show up. More different protests are better, not worse; one huge protest is easy to crack down upon; a dozen across the same area is impossible.

All protests right now are important, but today’s is particularly important.

Get out there. Go.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Here’s a good short piece on Elon Musk’s propaganda campaign to recover/rebuild his image.

Morons, fools, and co-conspirators – by which I mean the bulk of the so-called political press in the United States – will almost uniformly fall for it. They’ll in fact do their very best to fall for it, because it’s a nice story and because it means they can take what they’re being spoon-fed and not have to think about it too hard as they type – much less think about their enabling role in this whole nightmare.

Musk got most of what he wanted. Not all of it, but a lot – particularly in fucking up the government in general, ending all those pesky investigations into all his illegal activities, and in loading himself up with nice fat corrupt government contracts. Cutting medicaid and medicare and throwing women and non-whites out of government were bonus points.

Now he’s partially – I stress partially – stepping away, to a degree because he’s sick of all those people who are equally sick of him, but more I think to try to staunch the bleeding damage he’s caused to his own businesses. Particularly Tesla, where $TSLA share price is so key to all his other leveraged wealth.

(Oh, Elon, so you know, I’ll be at the Tesla Takedown on Tuesday. But if you lock yourself into one of your own burning “cybertrucks” before then, then I’ll be glad to stay home.)

Regardless – the press will absolutely let him off the hook. So will all the people who don’t want to think about anything, and the people who want to assuage their feelings of guilt about being on X or buying one of his shitmobiles.

So I’m asking – can we not all fall for the same stupid fake reputational redemption arc for once? Please? The press will, but… please don’t join them this time, okay?

And don’t let others join them either. That’ll be the harder part.

Most of you reading me, you’re probably less likely to fall in.

But ask yourself: will your friends fall for it? Particularly the techier ones, easily distracted by shiny rockets and who still pretend that wasn’t a Hitler salute at the inauguration, the one that matches frame-for-frame to actual Hitler throwing the actual salute?

I think we all know that answer. Try to keep them from buying in.

And if you can’t… don’t go along.

Do that much, if nothing else.

Don’t. Go. Along.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Holy fucking hell, people are reviving the “the Trump shooting was staged” crap again, fuelled this time by ChatGPT slop.

I refer you to this writeup I posted the last time this was going around. We have a picture of the bullet as it’s going by his head. It wasn’t fucking staged.

jesus fucking christ

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Miller’s out there again threatening the courts with a suspension of habeas corpus if they don’t rule the way the fascists want. Explicitly. In words.

They’re threatening to start arresting anyone and everyone they want, at will, with absolutely no legal recourse for anyone. That’s what “suspending habeas corpus” means. Habeas corpus is the right to challenge an imprisonment through law, through the courts – it means you have to have a reason to arrest someone and it has to be valid, and people can demand you demonstrate that it’s valid or otherwise release that person.

Most people are quoting the “looking at” part, but I want to highlight two other phrases. First, I want to point at the monstrous cur calling this fundamental right of the Constitution a “privilege”:

“…the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended…”

Habeas corpus is a fundamental right, not a goddamn privilege, you solipsistic ghoul, and you know it but you don’t care. It predates the Constitution; hell, it predates the Magna Carta. What he’s doing here is telling the MAGAt base what to say and how to react, saying that it’s not a right, it’s some kind of bonus which can be taken away.

And that’s horseshit. If you don’t have the right to contest your own imprisonment, if you can be imprisoned by them at will, thrown overseas or into some dark hole to die with absolutely no recourse, then you have no rights at all, and that’s what they’re going for. You: no rights. Them: absolute power. That’s the intent.

Now, to the threat:

“[suspending habeas corpus] depends upon whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

If the courts don’t let them do whatever they want, they’ll throw out the most fundamental right that can exist – the right not to be arbitrarily imprisoned without recourse.

The right not to be disappeared.

The right to exist at all.

For anyone.

That’s what he wants to take away. That’s what they want to take away.

This alone should be cause for impeachment, conviction, and removal.

That it’s not is a complete condemnation, by their own hands, of the Republican Party.

If you’re not getting out there on the streets, why the hell not? Here are some places to look for protests near you:

• Tesla Takedown – this is a big weekend for anti-Musk protests at Tesla dealerships. Find yours. Get out there.
• Indivisible – this is a bigger list with a more general focus. Find something near you. Get out there.
• No Kings – June 14th. Put it on your calendar now. Be there.

The more effective we are, the more of us there are, the more radical and scary they’ll get up to the point where they piss off enough people that they get taken down. But we have to keep building, and we have to keep getting out there, and dragging as many people out there with us as we can if we ever want to reach that point.

It’s been said a bunch, but the rubber has hit the road, and if you’ve ever wondered what you would do in the 1930s, you’re finding out now, because it’s what you’re doing right now.

Make it the right thing.

Get out there, team. And stay out there. If we want to keep a republic, we have to get this done.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Pretty good turnout in Bothell, counter had over 600 which is a good number given the rain in the morning and the unavoidable timing against Easter. It’s not what we had two weeks ago, but again, conflicts and worse conditions. Still a bit larger than the 2018-era protests, so I’d call that another win.

There were still people on the far downtown bridge, too. There were just gaps in the crowd between us and them.

I’d post pics but I totally forgot my phone, oops. And I actually did, not “lol no phone oops” did.

There was one (1) counter-protestor/heckler on the ground; he didn’t like my “NO KINGS” signs at all and started ranting about how Biden was the real “king” they got rid of. He didn’t have a sign himself and stayed pretty far back; I came across him accidentally while walking around testing our FRS radio range.

(As an aside: FRS handheld radios are f’real, team. Consider getting some and getting practice with them. No license needed, they’re channelised so can’t be used against you as “police scanners,” the range is shockingly good, and even with prices going up they’re super affordable. Ignore the only review on that Best Buy link; those are the exact model we bought. If you want to spend a little more you can get the T30 version, which has a headset and I think is rechargeable, but is otherwise pretty much the same radio and only comes in black. We specifically wanted replaceable batteries for extended-blackout reasons. Just remember: they are NOT private. Just relatively obscure.)

As with every other protest here, we had overwhelming support from the vehicle crowd. Hundreds to one in favour, easily, just like in person. I even got support from a presumably embarrassed Tesla driver.

I don’t know if there were more Bothell PD out this time, or if it just felt like there were. Might’ve been a difference in crowd to cop ratio, might’ve just been the escalating situation, might’ve just been where they were standing. But I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Keep on your toes. Even here, the cops are Trump’s friends.

Anyway, that’s it for this week’s report, I hope your protests went well. Remember to save the date for May 1st, and to turn out at your local Tesla Takedown or similar before then, too. Momentum is everything, and we need to keep it.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.