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Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton 1 year, 11 months ago 164 views

Polices that could make us safer, that could prevent massacres of children and people in public places are incredibly popular.

The problem isn't a lack of support.

The problem is that our leaders have failed us by lacking courage and

I wish I could say what happened in Uvalde is an unfathomable tragedy.

But it's not. It's completely predictable.

This disgusting state of affairs and these senseless tragedies could be prevented if our leaders had courage and were concerned about more than the economy.

2/

We absolutely have to address gun culture in the United States.

We need to admit our white supremacist foundations have led to a state of paranoia, of firearm fetishism.

That is a massive part of the problem and requires a sea change of cultural proportions.

3/

We must recognize that the GOP, with its radicalization, its dependency on fear, paranoia, and conspiracy theories has created an environment where guns and violence are a main part of their appeal.

This state we're living in isn't independent of that. At all.

4/

And any conversation about gun violence or mass shootings has to involve the NRA, an institution that has done more harm to Americans and created more tragedy than nearly anyone else.

It is an absolute blight on the American body and its influence cannot be downplayed.

5/

And we also need to disabuse ourselves of some notions.

The idea that any policy which might address the gun of scourge violence will "inspire conspiracy theorists" is absurd.

Listen to them. Even without any push for reform they're still claiming there's a conspiracy.

6/

Regardless of any push for gun control or policies which might protect us, the Far Right is going to claim there's a conspiracy to take guns or put people in camps.

Fear of stoking that is wasted time. And in a country with mass shootings like ours, we only have so much time

7/

We need something more than these displays of outrage and mourning.

They get us nothing besides a moment of respite. The public performance of The American Mass Shooting has become spectacle.

We need action. We need courage. We need leadership.

8/

Our government has been corrupted by the wealthy and, through hypercapitalism and neoliberalism, more or less rendered into performance and spectacles.

These are largely hollow. We don't need performance. We need action. We need reform.

9/

The problem is cowardice and the problem is that our representatives are largely wealthy individuals bankrolled by wealthy interests and institutions.

They're there to help the wealthy get wealthier, to cut regulation, to continue corporate welfare.

That's it.

10/

Since the rise of neoliberalism, government has been all but completely coopted and turned into a machine that only helps the market and its beneficiaries.

The actual ideology refuses to help citizens. We've been failed by these people who don't care if we live or die.

11/

We have to stop expecting figures like Joe Manchin to do "the right thing."

That's not why he's in Washington. He's there to get wealthier and to serve as a representative of the wealth class.

Our struggles, our tragedies, they mean nothing to him.

12/

People like Manchin and Sinema, and the others they hide, represent a veto by corporate and wealth interests.

They're figureheads obscuring a larger truth: our government does not operate in our favor.

And we can't get anything done until we realize that.

13/

We cannot have an actual representative government as long as this system only allows members of the wealth class to run for office.

Because when they get there, it's to serve the interests of their peers and their class. Something has to give.

14/

And the history with the Democratic Party is damning.

Consultants and strategists continually tell members not to "politicize" these shootings and to simply offer "thoughts and prayers."

Politics as usual isn't going to cut it. There's too much blood. Too much loss.

15/

And the market isn't going to save us.

What neoliberalism does with this epidemic of shootings is profit from it.

Industries of "security experts." Plagues of school shooting drills. Defense companies profiting off systems and plans.

16/

And while corporations and the wealthy profit off school shootings and an environment of fear, our children are being traumatized daily.

The public sphere turned into a free-fire zone.

This problem cannot be solved with the leaders we have, with the system we suffer.

17/

If we are going to actually address the scourge of gun violence and save the very prospect of an open society, it's going to take a sea change.

Courage, sure, but a complete overhaul of who serves us and how.

We cannot expect these agents of wealth to do it.

18/

These tragedies are mounting. Each profoundly disturbing and unsettling.

This problem should have been solved. Many, many times over.

Our leaders have failed us. The extent of that failure is so immense that the mind reels in horror when actually confronting it.

19/

Gestures, spectacles, performances of shock and grief aren't going to cut it anymore.

Not if we want a better, safer life. Not if we want to actually address this American sickness.

This repulsive rot.

We need courage. We need leaders who care if we live or if we die.

20/20

More from Jared Yates Sexton

Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton

So. Let's talk about Rick Perry calling Donald Trump "the chosen one" and discuss how American evangelicals became a white identity doomsday cult that threatens our safety and the very nature of reality. 1/

To begin, I have to give a bit of context. I grew up in the evangelical church. That means I was steeped in this stuff from my youngest years, even as I didn't understand it and was unable to imagine a reality outside of it. 2/

I had no idea that white evangelicals, in the 1960's, reacted to Civil Rights leaders like MLK using scripture to base their movement on Christianity by splitting the church and dismissing the ideas of Christianity in favor of a white identity gospel based on power and wealth 3/

People like Jerry Falwell, mostly southern televangelists, transformed Christianity from a religion of service and charity and inclusion to one of wealth and power, where God's will was shown via wealth and control over the world. 4/

We now know this as the Gospel of Wealth, but it started with the 1960's and that redirection from Civil Rights. Basically it was a doctrine that sought to base white power and domination under the dominion of an all-powerful God, thus making it right and defendable. 5/

Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton

All right.

We need to talk about how Trump and the GOP are marketing themselves as the Southern Fire-Eaters who spurred secession and the Civil War and how that time bizarrely mirrors our own.

Here's a taste of what I write about in AMERICAN

This ad that's making the rounds by Lauren Boebert, in which she brags about taking her gun to Congress, is not just empty posturing. It reflects a growing tension in our government that seems to be trending toward the societal discord and violence of the Civil War.

2/

The way our history is taught, the Civil War just...kind of happened. Out of nowhere. But there were many forces involved and they reflect what we're going through now.

To understand, we need to look at those forces and the people who benefited and cultivated them.

3/

Prior to the Civil War, Congress erupted into violent chaos. There were massive brawls, duels, assaults, all of it arising from the South's refusal to accept any legislation or development that didn't reflect their desires or empowerment.

4/

Members of the southern Democrats would come armed to sessions to intimidate their rivals, flashed knives and clubs and, if the process got out of control, would use them.

These threats we're seeing now have a very, very similar flavor and should concern people.

5/

Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton

Joe Biden is winning the election and Donald Trump is trying to pull a literal coup.

Let's talk about where we are, what we know, and separate the things we shouldn't be worried about from the things we absolutely should be worried about.

1/

First and foremost, this election has largely played out as some of us expected it to. There hasn't been some cataclysmic loss. Biden made in-roads, including in Arizona. We're still looking at a possible 300+ electoral college victory if votes are counted.

2/

Last night felt AWFUL for a variety of reasons. Lingering trauma from 2016. A desire to watch the country reject Trump in a major way. The bizarre feeling of watching the race not get called on Election Night as the networks have trained us to expect.

But that was a feeling.

3/

Trump's attempt to steal this election is predicated on that feeling last night and the feeling that somehow this thing is lost even while Biden is winning in a big way.

Trump is determined to use that anxiety and uncertainty and spin it into his own chosen reality.

4/

For months Trump and his goons have told us what they planned to do. Counting would not be finished on Election Night and Trump would use the appearance of momentum to undermine confidence and hopefully stop the counting before momentum swung.

That's what he's doing.

5/

Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton

We're facing a fascistic movement that's backed by the wealthy and powerful who want to dismantle government, an administration and party desperate to cling to power, a racist evangelical base, and a mob lost in weaponized conspiracy

This video is a primer and explainer of the complicated and frightening moment we find ourselves in, a crisis that is a long, long time coming and that won't simply stop unless we address it and the underlying factors.

Have the hard conversations about this. Reject this.

Talk to the people around you about what this coup attempt was, the fascist movement growing in this country, and the very real history the wealthy and powerful don't want you to know.

The only we way we're going to escape this is to expose what it is and fight against it.

The truth is that a large part of the country has been intentionally ensnared in fascistic conspiracy theories for profit and power and the other part is still trying to disentangle itself from mythologies of American exceptionalism.

It can happen here. It IS happening here.

Misplaced trust and faith in our history, our exceptionalism, and our institutions has gotten us here and allowed this fascistic threat to grow.

We're not immune to fascism. In fact, we're especially vulnerable to it. And it is growing in strength and size and ambition.

Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton

People are going to try their damnedest to tell a story that Trump was the cause of this crisis and a total aberration.

The truth is that America’s history is lousy with fascism, that the Right and the wealthy created an environment of fascistic lies to expedite profit and power

This symbolic outrage from a party who has gleefully used Trump to dismantle government, fundraise, and stock the courts right up until the last week of his term will help build that narrative.

This lie will only grow the very real danger we’re in.

We’re facing fascism because of our weaponized mythologies of American exceptionalism that spurred on oppressive empire and hid white supremacy, we’re here because of planned economic inequality and because fascism is a means of suppression of reform.

Trump has to be punished. We have to reject and rebuke him. But any honest conversation about this crisis has to go deeper and explain how we arrived at Trump and how the Right fomented this moment intentionally and with no regard to human life, decency, or democracy.

We can have better lives, a better country, a real and just and human society, but we have to move past easy explanations and scapegoats and the spectacle and these mythologies of exceptionalism.

We have everything to gain and everything to lose.

Joanna Cherry:"Alex Salmond secured a concession that nothing in Scotland Act would preclude the people of Scotland from subsequently choosing an independent future. This is recorded in Hansard during second reading of Referendums (Scotland & Wales) Bill, May 21, 1997."

Donald Dewar said: “I should be the last to challenge the sovereignty of the people, or deny them the right to opt for any solution to the constitutional question they wished. For example, if they want to go for independence, I see no reason why they should not do so." JC

"In same debate Alex Salmond went on to emphasise that “… the Claim of Right referred to sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine a form of Govt best suited to their needs. It did not suggest sovereignty resides with English Members of Parliament." Joanna Cherry

Joanna Cherry: "Donald Dewar articulated the democratic norm later enshrined in the Edinburgh Agreement. His concession laid the foundation for the 2014 referendum in recognising the rights of Scots to choose whether to remain part of our voluntary union with England."

"I am wholly in agreement with view that we must find a legal & constitutional way to demonstrate that public opinion in Scotland has changed since 2014 referendum, in order for our independence to be internationally recognised & therefore meaningful." Joanna Cherry

Steve Stewart-Williams
@SteveStuWill

THREAD: 12 Things Everyone Should Know About IQ

1. IQ is one of the most heritable psychological traits – that is, individual differences in IQ are strongly associated with individual differences in genes (at least in fairly typical modern environments). https://t.co/3XxzW9bxLE

2. The heritability of IQ *increases* from childhood to adulthood. Meanwhile, the effect of the shared environment largely fades away. In other words, when it comes to IQ, nature becomes more important as we get older, nurture less. https://t.co/UqtS1lpw3n

3. IQ scores have been increasing for the last century or so, a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect. https://t.co/sCZvCst3hw (N ≈ 4 million)

(Note that the Flynn effect shows that IQ isn't 100% genetic; it doesn't show that it's 100% environmental.)

4. IQ predicts many important real world outcomes.

For example, though far from perfect, IQ is the single-best predictor of job performance we have – much better than Emotional Intelligence, the Big Five, Grit, etc. https://t.co/rKUgKDAAVx https://t.co/DWbVI8QSU3

5. Higher IQ is associated with a lower risk of death from most causes, including cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, most forms of cancer, homicide, suicide, and accident. https://t.co/PJjGNyeQRA (N = 728,160)

Andrew Chen
@andrewchen

1/ new essay: What's next for marketplace startups? Reinventing the $10 trillion service economy, that's what. Co-authored with @ljin18 https://t.co/fgKbrHTnH5. A short thread 👇

2/ Marketplace startups have done incredibly well over the first few decades of the internet, reinventing the way we shop for goods, but have been less successful services. It's bc services are complex, subjective, fragmented, and often in real life. Makes it hard

3/ There's been 4 major eras at making the service economy work online. The Listings Era, the unbundled Craiglist era, the Uber for X era, and the Managed Marketplace era

4/ Each era has added more value than the last, and utilized technology innovations, from internet to social / "read/write web" to mobile. The "Unbundling Craigslist" era was particularly epic at generating startup ideas

5/ The problem is, all the low-hanging fruit has been picked off. The techniques that got us to here won't get us to the next phase. So we have to do some pretty different things. That's why "Managed Marketplaces" have been a big deal - hire folks as W-2s, certify quality, etc.

Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet

🌺श्री गरुड़ पुराण - संक्षिप्त वर्णन🌺

हिन्दु धर्म के 18 पुराणों में से एक गरुड़ पुराण का हिन्दु धर्म में बड़ा महत्व है। गरुड़ पुराण में मृत्यु के बाद सद्गती की व्याख्या मिलती है। इस पुराण के अधिष्ठातृ देव भगवान विष्णु हैं, इसलिए ये वैष्णव पुराण है।

गरुड़ पुराण के अनुसार हमारे कर्मों का फल हमें हमारे जीवन-काल में तो मिलता ही है परंतु मृत्यु के बाद भी अच्छे बुरे कार्यों का उनके अनुसार फल मिलता है। इस कारण इस पुराण में निहित ज्ञान को प्राप्त करने के लिए घर के किसी सदस्य की मृत्यु के बाद का समय निर्धारित किया गया है...

..ताकि उस समय हम जीवन-मरण से जुड़े सभी सत्य जान सकें और मृत्यु के कारण बिछडने वाले सदस्य का दुख कम हो सके।
गरुड़ पुराण में विष्णु की भक्ति व अवतारों का विस्तार से उसी प्रकार वर्णन मिलता है जिस प्रकार भगवत पुराण में।आरम्भ में मनु से सृष्टि की उत्पत्ति,ध्रुव चरित्र की कथा मिलती है।

तदुपरांत सुर्य व चंद्र ग्रहों के मंत्र, शिव-पार्वती मंत्र,इन्द्र सम्बंधित मंत्र,सरस्वती मंत्र और नौ शक्तियों के बारे में विस्तार से बताया गया है।
इस पुराण में उन्नीस हज़ार श्लोक बताए जाते हैं और इसे दो भागों में कहा जाता है।
प्रथम भाग में विष्णुभक्ति और पूजा विधियों का उल्लेख है।

मृत्यु के उपरांत गरुड़ पुराण के श्रवण का प्रावधान है ।
पुराण के द्वितीय भाग में 'प्रेतकल्प' का विस्तार से वर्णन और नरकों में जीव के पड़ने का वृत्तांत मिलता है। मरने के बाद मनुष्य की क्या गति होती है, उसका किस प्रकार की योनियों में जन्म होता है, प्रेत योनि से मुक्ति के उपाय...

Polices that could make us safer, that could prevent massacres of children and people in public places are incredibly popular.

The problem isn't a lack of support.

The problem is that our leaders have failed us by lacking courage and

More from Jared Yates Sexton

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Polices that could make us safer, that could prevent massacres of children and people in public places are incredibly popular.The problem isn't a lack of support. The problem is that our leaders have failed us by lacking courage and

More from Jared Yates Sexton

More from Category pdfmakerapp grab this readwiseio save thread threader compile summarize

You May Also Like

Polices that could make us safer, that could prevent massacres of children and people in public places are incredibly popular.

The problem isn't a lack of support.

The problem is that our leaders have failed us by lacking courage and