Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

I have a comic in EC's Cruel Universe #4 about an election that gives rise to authoritarianism and tears the country apart. It's, uh, out now.

More here:
https://mattbors.substack.com/p/this-next-president-isnt-great

"Such logic renders the billions of people around the world whom the US dominates and oppresses, directly or indirectly, as insignificant or at least utterly irrelevant to these American intellectuals' political calculus. The fate of these billions is effectively exchanged for a few possible reforms in domestic policies that would affect parts of middle-class and wealthy America..."

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-liberal-leftist-us-voters-america-firsters

Crisis is opportunity. I absolutely do not want to celebrate the fact that we are in crisis. It is not good. But it affords certain opportunities, ones that we need to engage with. What we do in the coming three months, what we do in the coming year, will have enormous impact on, well, the fate of the entire world, the people who live on that world, and the ecosystems that are woven across its surface. I know this sounds hyperbolic, but we live in hyperbolic times.

https://margaretkilljoy.substack.com/p/the-sky-is-falling-weve-got-this

History Repeats Itself: First as Farce, Then as Tragedy

https://crimethinc.com/FightTrump2024

Donald Trump has won the 2024 election. That means that we will have to fight many of the battles of 2017-2020 all over again.

But first, in order to understand the scale of what we’re up against, let’s look at how we got here. In many ways, the Democrats are responsible for Donald Trump’s return to power.

New 2022 body cam footage shows Atlanta PD cops manufacturing felonies to arrest Cop City protesters. When local officers say there were no felonies, APD Major says, "help us out…I know it's a reach." Those charges were then used for RICO charges against bail fund leaders.

Atlanta Police Major caught on...

I'll add that prob the single most politically impactful event of my life was the 2016 Alaska democratic caucus in my rural town of 3K people (which now votes trump 2-1). The line to caucus for bernie was out the door and down the stairs. it was a collection of rural people who will never again caucus in the same room, given covid and trump etc. But at that time we were so happy to be together, speaking up and out against corruption. We were something like 100+ for Sanders and 12 for Clinton

Could this election be a blessing in disguise? Perhaps a Harris victory would've removed the urgency for the dramatic fundamental reset the broken US system desperately needs. Maybe the extreme cognitive dissonance of the situation in which we find ourselves will provide the necessary provocation for the small number of dedicated, motivated, wise (and, I hope, lucky) individuals (who're always the agents of real changes in the world) to step up where they might otherwise not have. Here's hoping.

Any recommended pixelfed instances out there? Cooperatively run, if possible.

This 👇
"When you create a political culture that is incapable of hearing criticisms, that is going to make you really, really bad at going after the voters that you need." ~Ash Sarkar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tKa9Y-6KWE

Donald Trump, an anti-press extremist obsessed with punishing journalists and news outlets who criticize him, has won the presidency of the United States.

Lawmakers and President Biden must act before it’s too late.

Read our full statement: https://freedom.press/issues/limit-trumps-power-to-destroy-the-press-before-its-too-late/

@lwriemen I'm sorry, but if you willingly or coercively voted for Trump and you're not already rich, you will have to watch out.

Shomari Figures was elected in Alabama's second congressional district. Because this district is new there was some worry that turnout would be low and there was a massive campaign to let people know that their ballot might be different than expected and that their representatives weren't the same familiar faces. That campaign seems to have worked! Figures will be the first Black person to hold the position since 1832!

North Carolina isn't all bad news! Josh Stein, a Democrat, became their first Jewish governor after defeating lieutenant governor Mark Robinson, a literal Nazi. Not much is disqualifying these days, but we can feel good knowing that Robinson won't see the inside of the governors mansion!

It's important to note that California voters said no to a ballot measure banning slavery.

Seriously.

Any other countries want a cartoonist?

The lesson here is that the Democrats need to stop being Republican-lite if they actually want to win a national election. They won't, of course, because the reality is that the party leadership is more than content to pass the office back and forth between them and the Republicans. US political parties compete not for voters, but for donors, and losing an election can bring in the donations just as well as winning an election (often better).