BC HISTORY
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

The 90's called and it would like it's sneering depictions of "pathetic right wing rubes" back. I know it makes a certain segment of the educated classes (of which I'm a member) feel good about themselves to read paragraphs like this, but it's lazy political analysis.

 That crowd was comprised of scores (if not hundreds) of well off business owners as well as highly skilled paramilitary warriors (many of whom were trained by our own government) who came very close to achieving their goal. Their gauche affection for Olive Garden is irrelevant.
This is the article. I share the author's revulsion at what this mob did. But this is not a time for ribald humor at the expense of people who erected a gallows upon which it appears they intended to hang the Vice President and probably others.
https://t.co/qGIuAUBgUi
Every violent political upheaval is messy and chaotic and disorganized and comprised of people who are far from paragons of wisdom and rational thought. Wednesday's uprising was not uniquely pathetic...to think it was is just to invert a celebratory American exceptionalism.
I can guarantee you, none of the people of color in the Capitol building, especially the officers who bravely fended off this mob, mistook them for a second as bumbling rubes.
There's a long history of white liberals and centrists taking joy in laughing at depictions of bumbling "racist hicks," like this depiction from Tarantino's Django Unchained. The KKK in the 19th century, I assure you, was not something to laugh at.
https://t.co/IsbV8NPf4I
The KKK is certainly something to revile...but the impulse to make fun of them for being dumb or incompetent erases the real terror they wrought in the South for decades. It's a way certain white people convince themselves that *those other people* were the REAL racists.
The article reminded me of this description of a 1770 mob: "A motley rabble of saucy boys, Negroes, & mulattos, Irish teagues & outlandish jack tars...shouting & hazing & threatening life...whistling, screaming, & rending an Indian yell... throwing every species of rubbish."
That was how John Adams sneeringly described the "rabble" who got into the conflict with soldiers on the streets of Boston that became the event we came to call "The Boston Massacre."
That "rabble" was the collection of people who successfully carried out the event we now call "The American Revolution." They were just as prone to conspiracy theories and outlandish beliefs and practices as Wednesday's crowd. Just the 18th century version of those.
I'm not trying to cancel satire or anything. I'm just trying to warn against a predictable script that people in my demographic (including myself) can easily fall into, which feels like insight, but often overlooks far more than it exposes.
Adam Serwer just said this far better than I did. “The belief that only impoverished people engage in political violence—particularly right-wing political violence—is a misconception often cultivated by the very elites who benefit from that violence.” https://t.co/1mfuj8PQ51

More from Seth Cotlar

Seth Cotlar
Seth Cotlar
@SethCotlar
Wish folks cared as much about countering the political culture of far right hyper-nationalistic populism that traffics in anti-Semitic tropes and naturalized conceptions of racial and gender hierarchies, as they care about dissing those who use the word “fascism” to describe it.

Ultimately, I think that’s what lay behind this terminological dispute. Is democracy more threatened by “center-left/center-right neoliberalism” or by the far right? People who resist the f-word say the former is the *real* threat. People who use the f-word focus on the latter.

My sense is that the people who use the "f-word" are not the neoliberal simpletons their critics tend to think they are. And likewise, the f-word refuseniks are no fans of the far right, they just don't see it as being as powerful and threatening as others do.

This might be overly reductive, but I think at least some of this has to do with where one lives. If one lives in a very blue part of the country, I can see how the threat of far right paramilitaries would seem hyperbolic and exaggerated.

I happen to live in a state capitol were heavily armed, far right paramilitaries have spent the past year assaulting people on a regular basis and working in cahoots with GOP legislators to invade and shut down the state legislature. Things feel quite edgy here.
POLITICS
Seth Cotlar
Seth Cotlar
@SethCotlar
I can’t bring myself to watch Republican Senators like Cruz, Lee, and Sasse wax rhapsodic about the Constitution while the President they support is spreading disinformation about the election and accusing Biden, Obama, and Clinton of treason. Sorry, just can’t do it.

Anyone who’s read the writings of the founders knows full well they their beloved Trump is the Platonic form of the type of President the founders most feared, and that they epitomize the sort of short sighted and craven public officials they also desperately feared.

These GOP Senators are smart and well-read enough to understand how outlandish their President is, and how embarrassingly cowardly their behavior has been these past four years.

The chutzpah of these people to pass themselves off as great patriotic lovers of the founders’ Constitution. Feh.

If they loved the Constitution, they would be telling people not to vote for Trump until he agrees to accept the results of the election. Otherwise they are aiding and abetting an attempt to shred the Constitution. Shame on them,
POLITICS
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Seth Cotlar
Seth Cotlar
@SethCotlar
This reminds me of a 2010 poll of Tea Party supporters in which 84% said that "the views of the people involved in the Tea Party movement generally reflect the views of most Americans." Only 20% thought Obama shared the values of most Americans.


Full polling data here. I was asked to give a talk on campus about the Tea Party in 2010, and one of my main points was that it was a weakness of the movement that it had such a delusional perception of the American people. Oops.

Anyway...the dynamic described here has been a long time coming.


That's the weird, seemingly illogical, thing about the right's culture war. They simultaneously think of themselves as speaking for the majority of Americans, AND they think that they are the saving remnant protecting a decadent society from ruin.

What squares this circle is the assumption that "the real American people" consist of straight white, rural or suburban people, & anyone not in that category doesn't really count as an American. That's how right wing culture warriors can both be the "majority," and a minority.
POLITICS
Seth Cotlar
Seth Cotlar
@SethCotlar
It's important to note how deeply rooted & completely canonical these kooky ideas are in the US far right, & how dangerous it is that a sitting president is giving legitimacy to them. It's like Father Coughlin, the John Birch Society, and Geo Lincoln Rockwell had an orange baby.


Thanks (I think) to @z3dster for bringing this batshit tweet to my attention.

There's a long history of the American center-right and center-left laughing at this kind of stuff. It is indeed laughably ludicrous. But it's important to know that to millions of people, this is their truth. This is how they see the world. And now the President is condoning it.

One hallmark of fascism is that it defines "communism" as its enemy. One can be opposed to communism without being a fascist. But it's impossible to be fascist without being obsessed with the existential (and often hysterically overblown) threat of communism.

Every significant, US variant of fascism has depicted itself as a movement of Christian patriots defending the US from anti-American enemies of Christ. One can be a Christian and/or a patriot without being a fascist, but fascists almost always call themselves Christian patriots.
POLITICS
Seth Cotlar
Seth Cotlar
@SethCotlar
I seem to recall a story from a while back that revealed that Ginni Thomas met weekly with a group of right wing operatives that included the Project Veritas hoax artist.


Oh hey.

Gosh, look at that.

It’s all just so absurd, and yet so potent.


Here’s Anna Khait speaking at a pro-Trump, pro-steal the election rally last December.
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More from History

Pulp Librarian
Pulp Librarian
@PulpLibrarian
On 23 September 1984 the BBC broadcast the apocalypse: the story of nuclear war and its effects on the people of Sheffield. Filmed on a shoestring budget it still causes nightmares to this day.

This thread is not for the squeamish.

This the story of Threads...


In 1965 the BBC had filmed The War Game, a fictional docu-drama about a nuclear attack on Britain. However under pressure from the government the BBC withdrew it from screening. It was finally released in 1966 as a film in selected theatres.


For many years the withdrawal of The War Game had rankled many at the BBC. Surely it was a public broadcaster's duty to show the public what the reality of nuclear war would mean. Finally in 1982 they did so.


A Guide To Armageddon was a documentary for the BBC's peak-time science series Q.E.D. Produced by Mick Jackson it graphically depicted the effect of a one megaton explosion on London. It also explored how well people could survive such a blast if they were in a fallout shelter.


Jackson had carefully researched his subject and knew how under-prepared the UK was for nuclear war. The physical and psychological effects of atomic attack would catapult what was left of Britain back to a 14th century mode of living, a time when bubonic plague killed millions.
HISTORY
Sarah May
Sarah May
@Sarah_May1
So. I loved #TheDig. Despite being set in the 30's it evoked a lot of my early fieldwork experience in the 80's and some of the things archaeologists were gushing about are still pay of the experience today. And it also evoked the fantasy that I became an archaeologist to chase>

If you just want to enjoy it, and bask in the glow of archaeologists being happy for once, stop reading here >

Because, being aware of that fantasy, I'm also aware of corrosive elements, things that structure how archaeology works, both practically & in the collective imagination which work against that other fantasy, that my work can 'make a difference' contribute to progressive change>

The primary driver of the story is class & it's connection to skill & to land. EP has the right to the land, the choice to dig, the ownership of the artefacts because she is the landowner. We are meant to cheer along when the coroner decides in her favour>

BB is a man of the land, he literally knows the soil of Suffolk by feel. His skill & sense are central to the story. And they are credited with the discovery, which is the most important part of the process, not the analysis, care or interpretation>
HISTORY
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Robbie Andrew
Robbie Andrew
@robbie_andrew
I doubt there are many outside of Norway that know that the Norwegian pop group A-ha was critical in the introduction of electric car incentives in Norway. I certainly didn't. Read on...


In 1989, two members of the group, Morten Harket and Magne Furuholmen were in Switzerland with environmentalist Frederic Hauge, when they came across a hobby-converted Fiat Panda. Stated range: 45 km. They snapped it up and imported it to Norway.

Photo: In Switzerland (Bellona)


On arrival in Norway, the regs didn't accommodate the registration of electric cars so it couldn't legally be driven on the road. Since it had a propane-fuelled heater, just like a motorhome, they registered it as a motorhome.

Moreover, in contrast to petrol cars, diesel cars paid registration fees based on how far they were driven, and our heroes thought this should also apply to electric cars. So the two-seater Swiss-converted Fiat Panda was registered as a diesel motorhome in Norway.

They managed (somehow) to avoid paying the one-off registration fee in 1990, and ever since then electric cars have been exempted this now-substantial fee.
Source:
HISTORY
Egypedia
Egypedia
@Egypediax
Why and how did the ancient Egyptians build pyramids?

Pyramids were built for religious purposes. The Egyptians were one of the first civilizations to believe in an afterlife. Most were built as tombs for the pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods.


Most accepted construction hypotheses are based on the idea that it was built by moving huge stones from a quarry and dragging and lifting them into place. There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid.


All the pyramids were built by Egyptian workers and Imhotep was the architect of the first pyramid and the Saqqara step pyramid. He also built the pyramid of Djoser’s successor, Sekhemkhet. He was later deified as the god of medicine throughout Egypt in the Late Period.


It is not known who designed the Great Pyramid, but the man responsible for supervising its complex construction was Hemiunu, Khufu’s nephew, a senior civil servant who acted as the pharaoh’s vizier.


Despite the mystery surrounding Giza, Hemiunu himself was a flesh-and-blood man, as shown by his decidedly lifelike—and fleshy—statue, found in his tomb in Giza’s west cemetery.
HISTORY
Goldstein
Goldstein
@MrGoldstein7
Paul Warburg attended as the American representative, at the Treaty of Versailles conference, where his brother Max was on the German side of the bargaining table…. Before World War II, Max Warburg served on the board of directors of I.G. Farben, the giant German chemical firm.
HISTORY

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Maurice Casey
Maurice Casey
@MauriceJCasey
I am reading through reams of late-1920s communist poetry and easily my favourite title so far is: "To a Lady who Rejected a Poem about Spring as a Petit-Bourgeois Deviation"

The last lines:
"So here's my hat into the air,
Three cheers for your amazing hair,
For coal mines, and for turbines, too,
For steel, the Comintern and you!"

A not exactly graceful (though possibly satirical) title: "Lines Disassociating Myself from Yessenin and Supporting the Otherwise Unfounded Legend that I am a Foremost Proletarian Writer"

An excerpt:
"Goodbye verses of Yessenin
Goodbye literary slop-
You are not the line of Lenin
You are not the line of WAPP

Never shall I moan a
simple lyric from the heart
I'll devote my new corona
to the proletarian art"

The poet was Joseph Freeman, who published much of his revolutionary verse in the New Masses, a stylish journal of the interwar American literary Left.
CULTURE
EverythingOppresses
EverythingOppresses
@SoOppressed
The first area to focus on is diversity. This has become a dogma in the tech world, and despite the fact that tech is one of the most meritocratic industries in the world, there are constant efforts to promote diversity at the expense of fairness, merit and competency. Examples:

USC's Interactive Media & Games Division cancels all-star panel that included top-tier game developers who were invited to share their experiences with students. Why? Because there were no women on the

ElectronConf is a conf which chooses presenters based on blind auditions; the identity, gender, and race of the speaker is not known to the selection team. The results of that merit-based approach was an all-male panel. So they cancelled the conference.

Apple's head of diversity (a black woman) got in trouble for promoting a vision of diversity that is at odds with contemporary progressive dogma. (She left the company shortly after this

Also in the name of diversity, there is unabashed discrimination against men (especially white men) in tech, in both hiring policies and in other arenas. One such example is this, a developer workshop that specifically excluded men: https://t.co/N0SkH4hR35
TECH
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Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
SIRSI MARIKAMBA DEVI, UTTAR KANNADA DIST. (KAR)
#bharatmandir

Also known as Doddamma (elder sister of all Mariammas). Marikamba of Sirsi is both Mari (terror) as well as Maremma (savior). She is terror in anger & Mother in love. That is why she is called Marikamba.


There was a man by the name of Asadi/ Basava. He used to attend a fair at the neighboring village. Once, he was harassed by some men due to his poor status. So he did not go to the fair. Instead, he stayed in his village Sirsi and prayed to Devi.


One night, he had a dream where Devi Kali informed him about her presence in a tank at his village. When the tank was searched, people found a box with parts of murti. The different parts were assembled together and since then Sirsi Devi became popular in the region.


The kshetram has extremely striking murals in ‘Kaavi’ art. It is an art form of the Konkan region of coastal Karnataka. This stunning art involves creation of patterns in red colour against a white background.
Marikamba rathyatra is one of the biggest Car festivals in Karnataka.
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Zen Black
Zen Black
@z3nblack
1/ Thread: "A Silicon Valley Ponzi Scheme"

Thanks to @chamath for laying this out in Social Capital's 2018 annual letter.

I've always appreciated his outspokenness.

2/ The hardest thing for most startups today is the path to market: first finding product-market fit & a way to reach customers, then building a ruthless machine to acquire, monetize & retain them.

3/ Because of this, when the VC industry invests capital into fast growing startups today, the plurality (if not majority) of invested capital will go into user acquisition and ad spending, for better or worse— usually worse.

4/ Todays massive venture-backed advertising, sales, and user acquisition playbook has morphed into one that champions growth at any cost.

This is creating a big bill that will soon come due...

5/ Ad impressions and click-throughs are bid up to outrageous prices by startups flush with venture money, and prospective users demand more and more subsidized products to gain their initial attention.
TECH , STARTUPS , {TEST FOLDER}
Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
LACHIT BORPHUKAN : AN UNSUNG WARRIOR OF THE AHOM KINGDOM & THE GREAT BATTLE OF SARAIGHAT

Originally named as Lachit Deca, Lachit Borphukan, the fierce and invincible Ahom Commander, was born during the early 17th century at Betioni in the Golaghat district of modern Assam.


His father, Momai Tamuli Borbarua was the ‘Governor’ of the kingdom and also ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of Ahom army under King Pratap Singha during his reign starting from 1603 to 1639. Lachit received military training from an early age and joined the Ahom King Jayadhvaj Singha...


...(1648-1663) as a scarf-bearer.  The post ‘scarf-bearer’ or ‘Soladhara Barua’ is considered as a part of the incumbent king’s personal staff. Owing to his military training Lechit was appointed "Ghora Barua", Supdt. of the Royal horses. When Chakradhwaj Singha became king..


..of Ahom dynasty in 1663,he appointed him Suptd. of The Royal Guards &finally he was appointed as Borphukan by the king.Then onwards,he was known as Lachit Borphukan.Borphukan used to be top councillor in Ahom Kingdom. This position was embedded with executive & judicial powers.


Assam was facing incessant Islamic invasion since Jan1662, when Mughal General Mir Jumla II attacked Ahom capital Gargaon. He never defeated Ahom king Jayadhwaja Singha as king retreated to hill &continued Guerrilla warfare.Prolonged fight &prospect of stalemate disturbed Jumla.
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