Now that people are laying out the game plan, it will be up to every freedom-loving American to fight it on-line, in your home, with friends, and on the streets. Perhaps all four places in any one given day!
As they try their experiment on the federal level, the states will continue to use democracy as their engine to run things. "Business" and "tech" have crept into that process as well. Too many tax breaks and enterprise zones.
Musk is headed over to the Pentagon for a briefing on our plans in case of a war with China. Wonder how much money he, Trump, and Hegseth could make if they sell those.
Thank you Professor Hartmann---you earn that title every day by enlightening the world.
The problem with out on the streets is DT is waiting to enforce the "insurrection act," and arrest people.
Not sure if everyone has been returned from El Salvador hell hole.
Congress needs to reconvene and bring Agency heads in and "unconfirm" them.
They all LIED during their confirmation.
Wish EVERYONE in Congress would see the danger, but they are stuck in some LaLaLand fantasy bubble of "the way things were." They are going to be surprised when they find themselves "under the bus," where the rest of DTs cast-offs are.
They don't see the need to expedite reversing DTs latest EOs.
There goes SOCIAL SECURITY/DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. TOTALLY ILLEGAL, but they are doing it anyway. What ARE people going to live on WITHOUT SS CHECKS??
If only we could get our congressmen on board, or enough of them anyway, but too many are cowards, but you have to try,if at first....
I know what Musk is all about. Trump is a tool and a fool, his interest is fame and power, he wants recognition by the world, craves the Nobel Peace Price, and vengence on all who slighted him.
He is easily bought and manipulated with pats on the head, good doggie, and he wags his tail and licks your hand.
Musk is altogether a different animal. He is serious about his Occupy Mars,raised on the Wehrner von Braun of the leader of Mars, and named for him, the Elon. His one goal is to be the Elon of Mars, and to achieve that goal he requires all of the financial, material, human resources of America and China.
America is an economic powershouse, hot because it is a producer nation, but because it is a consumer nation, and debt, national, corporate, private has enabled that consumption. We consume what the world produces, and the world's salesmen, (presidents PM.s) come knocking at our door, supplicating and prostrating themselves to sell us their nations wares.
On the other side of the large moat called the Pacific lies Asia, and paramount in Asia is China. China produces most of what we consume, China and it's quasi satrapy's.
Musk produces much of what he sells in China and benefits from both ends of of the spectrum,, production and consumption, and all with one goal in mind, to go to Mars and be the Elon, the fuhrer of Mars.
Yes the fear rising in our society is an adverse reaction to the cruelty and abuse by this administration. It’s been apparent that they’ve made it their mission to destroy our Democracy . But the total how and why is here in this article. The sinister attitude of these people believing that only their decisions count is something to resist like crazy .
This whole thing smells like Putin , Musk and Trump, but is in fact initiated by the Heritage Foundation , certain sects of Catholicism making up Project 2025.
Oh and the most obvious components, grandiose greed and their belief that they are superior because they are white and wealthy.
It’s an extreme version of White Supremacy.
This is why they’ve removed all the people of color and women from history accounts because mind control of others is another mantra of these twisted individuals .
Anyone who has bought in to this platform is a sick , twisted individual. So apparent now how the Republican Congress has completely folded.
Taking to the streets is an instinctive reaction . In fact our fear will hold us back but we d better break through our fear . Or this life we’ve known will cease to exist.
The groups trying to destroy American are not homogeneous in their goals. We have techbros, oligarchs, xtian nationalists, cowardly & greedy congressmen, true believers/followers, incels, etc. My point is they are all motivated by various things. Pure lust for power, greed, racism, misogyny, etc. My question is how do we turn them on each other and then watch them destroy each other? Bannon vs. Musk is a good example; now if we could only create and cause similar exponential infighting we could resist and regain ground. Thoughts?
" My question is how do we turn them on each other and then watch them destroy each other?"
This morning Heather Cox Richardson documents how Mike Rogers and Roger Wicker, many other Congressional Replublicans have called out Trump on national security. Mike Turner R Ohio and many others in essence call Trump a liar re Putin and Ukraine.
We only need a few to have shared government -- without Trump/Vance. Besides national security, consituents and donors have to be pissed about Musk/DOGE. The entire cattle industry is in panic and so should about 20 Republican senators and dozens of House members in cow country. Every car dealer and the big three should be pissed about Trump's Tesla infrormercial.
Given enough rope….but the clock is ticking and we can’t keep throwing shit on the wall to see what sticks. Hopefully the Social Security and Medicare threat will be the turning point. Congress has to be made to really, deeply fear We The People more than the oligarchs
You are correct, Still Resisting, about the heterogenity of MAGAts, but they are united in their one goal, to own the libs (and that stands for many things), there is nothing like that unites the left. the left is fragmented, each coalition demands prominence and attention, like it is the only thing in society that matters.
Stop the genocide in Israel, feed Ukraine to the Russian bear.
Gay rights and marriage for homosexuals and lesbians, but fuck off transsexual.
Green energy, stop the pollution, don't drive your car and don't worry about earning a living, we have to save the planet and the whales.
One groups paramount interest works against another factions paramount interest.
Whereas on the right, no factions paramount interest works against other groups paramount interest, and to the extent that they do, such billionaires exploiting the working class, there attention is diverted to the "greater threat" like trans and immigrants.
Knock on any right wing forum, be it twitter, face book, reddit, telegram, 4chan and the primary topic is trans and immigrants, then Jews, as threats to manliness.
The gorilla in the zoo is flinging feces, and until that feces plops them in the face, they won't have a clue that the gorilla might be able to climb over the fence and get them.
Point taken so maybe there are two questions: how do we pit them against each other and how do we coalesce around a few common goals/causes? The Social Security threat may be one of the best opportunities to kick start a real cohesive resistance into a common goal. A true leader who can identify, prioritize and communicate is desperately needed and I still do not see one. Time is not on our side, either.
What Thomm has just described is the same old feudal junkyard dog - the nihilistic, parasitic megalomaniac uberman whose narcissism is so toxic it putrefies all in its path. You can put all the lipstick in the world on this anal retentive pig and you still get ugly little men with one overarching trait - violent, hedonistic hegemony.
This has to be genetic, a throwback to a time long ago when human DNA formation was contaminated by velociraptor genes in some quirky mish mash of magma and dinosaur flesh on the side of some ancient volcano.
This perverse energy is written all over the countenance of Muck, er Musk. We see it less often in the mannerisms of most CEO/politico types, cage fighters, violent misogynists, uber criminal types and any of us who were brought up around savage, bitterly angry adults/parents. Hubris is the Greek word for it, because this deviant arrogance is almost always laced with serious violence and cruelty.
Due to the 4-5k year behavior of certain humans who were not eliminated by some intelligent, predatory Judge Dredd, we continuously keep flushing these rotten genes back into the population. I grew up around several adults and two kids my age who could fit this to a tee. Scary stuff then, still scary. But not impossible to deal with.
But first, all of us who value beauty have to get our shit together and remove our heads from the sand. You cannot pet this dog, it will tear you to pieces. Face facts folks. You want to live out your life in some kind of real peace, you will have to unite and take down this rabid canine with brute collective force. You do not have to be clairvoyant to understand this - we all have experienced it in our lifetimes, and learned of it via history.
Well stated Mick. We serfs must learn from the tyranny of King Charles I in 1625. He came to unchecked power 400 years ago next month. 11 years of brutal treatment of his subjects/citizens. Then the will of the people finally fought back and Charles paid for his crimes.
There is only one problem for now, the cult that worships him as their lord and savior have to be disabused of the image, for now he is still their avatar. I've been reading comments from people on other substacks, it seems that though farmers who voted for Trump because of DEI,haven't quite got over their infatuation, same with government workers who voted for him, because they thought that draining the swamp meant getting rid of the loafing Sally Mudsill in the next cubicle, or the Hispanic that vote for Trump because they thought that he would only evict the drug mules,the rapists, the criminals because they of course were law abiding citizens, and the Muslims who voted for Trump to flip the finger to Biden are now in a quandry as he is declaring war on them, and they have told the Democrats to fuck off.
I have no idea of what it will take for the MAGAts to see the light, and have a come to Jesus moment, but until they do, we are doing liittle more than commiserating and barking t the moon., the only way to right this ship, to dislodge the tyrant is with all of the nation leaning into the job, so long as we are splintered,the ship will lay on its starboard side.
How to get to the right, when the right is having an ongoing orgasm for owning the libs and putting those people in their place.?
As you are reading these other substacks do you perceive that the loyalty is to Trump himself or to Elon, Marco Rubio etc. ?
President Reagan was having memory issues his second term, and members of Cabinet got the country into situations that he didn’t seem to be entirely aware of, or agreed to beforehand.
Trump people are loyal to him not to us. And the media is more restricted.
I saw a recent CNN clip in which Trump was asked by a reporter about the order he signed allowing those people to be deported to the prison in El Salvador.
Trump said TWICE that he didn’t sign the order.
He said “others” sign the orders. This is allowed per Project 2025 (auto signature). It might be why there is the sudden attack against Biden’s pardons. (Every accusation is a confession - per Mary Trump)
The CNN report pointed out that the order definitely had Trump’s “signature” on it per the archives. Later, the Administration produced an Executive Order which had been signed previously allowing for everything to happen.
Remember everything that happened in Reagan’s 2nd term. How many people like JD Vance, Elon Musk, Marco Rubio?
They voted for Trump. People voted for Reagan. When Republicans learned that Reagan’s people were kinda running around without his full knowledge and approval - the American people got mad - at the underlings pulling the bullshit.
Reagan, the scum, poor man had Alzheimers even while Governor of California, is worshiped as Saint by the right, when in fact MAGAts are his legitimate offspring, they sprang from his DNA.
The Dark Enlightenment [DE] is Silicon Valley b*llsh*t: Pure-dee, toxic misogynism, and racism.
Here's an Amy Kaufman quote from a 2017 piece. The link is provided beneath.
"Likewise, white supremacist groups often reject DE leaders even as they embrace their theories. Aglin, for instance, rejects DE as a movement because he claims white supremacists invented those ideas first—and, not incidentally, because one of DE’s founders is half-Jewish. (Side note: one of the really amusing things about all this infighting is the way that alt-righters and old school neo-Nazis accuse each other of being a Jewish conspiracy to make white supremacy look bad.) But none of these relatively minor disagreements change the fact that the “Dark Enlightenment” ideology is really just white supremacy dressed up in trendy glasses and a hoodie."
Singapore sounds like a little piece of 1984 smothered in Ayn Rand sauce. No thanks; I'll have the exuberance of democracy instead. Those who like this idea of a dark enlightenment, or corporate autocracy, believe that heaven is a place in which they are never disagreed with.
By looking at the crowds gathering steam, things will not end well for them. They may NEED those yachts and body guards, but even so it only takes one person to ruin their day. There is no rest for the wicked.
We play by the rules. They stack the deck. It’s past time for a strategy adjustment. When they go low, we must bury them. Neoliberal Democratic “leaders” clearly refuse to embrace that fact, which explains their silence and reluctance to engage in the all-out battle this moment demands. Our three living past presidents sit passively on the sidelines, our serving old guard - most especially Chuck Schumer - claim the Constitutional crisis isn’t here yet. Whatever their delusions or motivations, we must ignore them in favor of those in and out of government who are prepared to fight.
Tom, do you recall the picture of Obama and Trump smiling and sharing a joke at Jimmy Carters funeral.
Kind of makes one think that things are not as they appear to be. Was gibt, Are they really aliens or lizard people in disguise. Obama and Trump sharing a joke and laughing at Jimmy Carters funeral.
Chuck Schumer gives in like one of those whores on 7th Avenue that Simon and Garfinkel sang of i the Boxer.
Thom, thank you for this article. It’s the clearest explanation of what we are living through. This is why I subscribed to your Substack. I hope more people read it. I just sent it out to family members. I don’t know if they’ll be able to open it or not. But I sent it anyway.
Thank you Thom for writing this!! This is extremely frightening. I’m so glad you are bringing more awareness to this. This combined with the “trans humanist singularity” idea for technology where humans combine with AI, could lead to a dystopian future. I believe that’s what Curtis Yarvin wants and in fact, they don’t see a need for the rest of us since they will have robots and AI. Maybe the rest of us will be like the Star Trek Borg drones. To me this could be they are working so hard to take away all the things that save and promote life such as: education, research, aid, and a strong EPA, FDA etc. If you ever watch the interview between Joe Rogan and Elon Musk about his Neuralink company Elon Musk fantasizes that humans won’t even have to talk to each other. They could communicate telepathically through the cloud and that you will have to pay for a storage space to put your memories into and of course, if you wanna access your memories from your brain that you will have to pay for that! Disgusting and sad.
We are playing catch-up, and we have a massive amount of catching up to do. The actions yesterday to dismantle the Department of Education may be the best thing that they could have done to undermine their insane plan. They will now have hundreds of thousands of teachers and parents up "in arms" (some literally) and in the streets. The school cult is an incredibly powerful force as I have learned the hard way i trying to get the authoritarianism out of schools. Unfortunately, that same authoritarianism is part of the reason these crackpots believe it can be a force for good. We can only hope that the values of justice, equality, and real autonomy for individuals in a true democratic system are deeply ingrained in the American spirit to defeat them. Delusional superiority is destructive and obnoxious, and I have some hope that they will self-destruct before they take over entirely. The kook in Singapore is out of power and I believe he has fallen out of favor for the most part from what I remember after meeting someone from there two years ago.
Alzheimer's is very awful. You have my sympathy. I just read that inhaling the scent from fresh rosemary helps immensely. You should spend as much time as possible breathing it in and it's also great as a flavoring. Dismantling the Dept. of Education is idiotic and will only make what was a terrible situation that much worse. Musk should be put on one of those flights to El Salvadore, as should his retarded and corrupt boss. But don't you worry about such things in the brief moments of lucidity that you have. Get lots of sleep and take frequent naps.
Rolls on floor laughing. You can't answer the question, you avoid the issue and deflect by trying to make the issue me. Good try, I see that you have been studying the Karl Rove rule book.
Repeatedly, over and over again I have stated explicitly that I have never once said or thought that eliminating the Department of Education (more accurately the Department of Schooling) should be eliminated, reduced in size, or touched in any way by politics or outsiders. I know that when I make myself clear and spell out my thoughts and beliefs on a topic and someone keeps coming back with some inane foolishness which proves that they failed to read or failed to understand, the real issue is that they are so biased, delusional, or in denial that they have been unable to process or even recall what I carefully put in writing for their edification. You give yourself away and embarrass yourself by carping on the same claims and false premises. This is not third grade, and I am not your teacher. I do not have time to indulge your ego or your serious handicaps. School is not education. But school has important and valid functions and those should not be interfered with by amateurs, egomaniacs, or authoritarians. Try to sear that into your brain and start on sniffing rosemary ASAP.
What I understand Robert that you have a perpetual obsession with education, constantly critiquing it but have no solution,not even when choices are offered. And I have offered you choices and asked for your solution more times than I can remember (must be that Alzheimers you say that I suffer from)
Here is a clue Robert, you can accuse me of anything, and I don't care, you aren't going to be put me on the back foot,because again I don't care.
For, me to care about someone's opinion, requires me to respect that person, and frankly Robert, you I do not respect.
That has been obvious for many months. Once again, despite the fact that I have stated dozens of times that formulae and specific reforms are for others to experiment with and implement, and despite the fact that they are a dime-a-dozen and recycled regularly, reforms are a mirage in top-down mandatory systems and cannot survive, and the SOLE opening to meaningful change requires elimination of the legal requirement to attend, your mind has not been capable of grasping that concept. It is not for lack of intelligence. Many others, including Thom have failed to connect the dots. The problem is a mental block caused by brainwashing, starting in early childhood or even infancy conflating school with education. If you truly cared about education and children, you would figure it out. It is clear that the millions of uneducated children in this country do not faze you in the least. You are well aware of the ignorance and ineptitude and the psychological harm done (you have your own sordid story of failure in school) and you just do not give a damn about those other victims. So be it.
Wow do I sense megalamania, Robert even Thom has failed to connect your dots.
And yet with your rant against the system, you still do not come up with an alternative. You want to do away with the legal requirement to attend school.
That is not a solution, that is the road to illiteracy, and whomp we are back to the 18th Century when illiteracy reigned and the Census had a column where the enumerator check Yes or No for Read and write.
Amazing! We are finally making some progress. You have finally figured out that I am proposing that compulsory attendance laws were a profound mistake. You think that correcting that huge mistake is not a solution. I have explained many times why it was a tremendous error and how eliminating the laws would eradicate the hold that incompetent politicians have over the people involved at all levels and alter the relationships between teachers and students and that we have high rates of illiteracy now. But you really aren't interested in learning anything, and I will not waste any more of my time repeating what I have already argued dozens of times only to be ignored. End of conversation.
The alternative to compulsory education is illiteracy and ignorance. But you are so eat up with your ideology that you can't see it. It is like trying to tell a Jesus believer that Jesus nunca se existe.
You never answer the question, what will you replace it with.
Your answer has to be illiteracy and ignorance.
The problem with compulsory education is not that it is compulsory it is the curriculum and the people that command it , who write and approve the text books.
The problem in America has been that text book publishers have catered to the largest market, to save money in printing, and that market has been the Texas School board.
#1. There is overwhelming evidence that children are harmed in myriad ways by our dysfunctional schools. They do function as they exist as hierarchical and authoritarian institutions in turning out automatons. However, in terms of education or adequately serving their own stated purposes with respect to socialization, enculturation, growth and development, etc., they fail miserably as evidenced by tons of empirical studies and research. If you were serious and actually cared, you would have had something to say about all that or you would have delved into the literature which I have recommended numerous times. You have not followed up on a single reference or shown any awareness relative to what is actually happening in those prison-factory-schools. You are more interested in playing some ego game and proving something.
#2. As I have explained many times, the term “compulsory education” is an oxymoron and is highly obnoxious and offensive. Education cannot be forced. If something is learned under duress, that is indoctrination or information which is compromised and not integrated knowledge, since integration requires willful attention, intrinsic reward, personal initiative, interest, and a meaningful context.
#3. Students who attend “free schools” are not illiterate and are certainly not ignorant, while a large proportion of students under compulsion are illiterate, semi-literate, and disengaged. You assume incorrectly that students would not attend schools if there were no laws forcing attendance. THAT is ignorance. If students found schools hospitable and if schools were providing real services and were able to focus on what students need and want to learn about, without arbitrary authority, bureaucracy, and interference from outsiders pushing a conservative agenda, parents would stop hating schools and you wouldn’t be able to keep kids away. You simply do not have a clue.
#4. There is an entire universe of “alternative schools” and “alternative education”. The primary difference is that the student is self-directed and autonomous, the teachers are autonomous, and the parents are not treated as a nuisance and as incompetent to have a voice in their child’s school experience. The reason alternatives are sought is because the laws create conditions which are counterproductive and injurious to the spirit, the soul, and the intellect.
#5. As I repeat over and over: School is NOT education. Education happens in schools under certain conditions when the rules are suspended, or when teachers circumvent rules and students are exceptionally active because of their own initiatives and influences. Otherwise, schools often inhibit intellectual endeavors and discussion, and the environment/climate is repressive or oppressive, stifling, boring, and repetitive.
I waste my time with the vague hope that someone else will be watching. You obviously will still be demanding that I give you my magic formula and denying that coercion is inimical to education. You may be educated. But you know precious little about education. And, as you have stated, you do not care. BTW, textbooks are an abomination, regardless of who writes or publishes them. Students should have original materials and should be interacting with each other in studies of real-world questions, answers, and solutions to problems. Go fly a kite or find some other way to entertain yourself.
You have written before about the plan to weaken the middle class, beginning some 50+ years ago. So has Robert Reich, and so has Sheldon Whitehouse. My job is to try to assemble it all, along with the dystopian insights offered by The Panama Papers. The depressing truth is that The Matrix has it most accurately pegged, with the proletariat being the batteries that fuels whatever the elite want (I loved the original for the entertainment, but that scene in which Morpheus realizes the horrifying truth of the machine's truth behind the construct has never left me. Of course it's fiction, yes yes yes, but a pretty darned good metaphor.
What is being described is absolutely NOT imaginary, it is NOT extremist. But surely we must all recognize that a worldview that results from believing in the verity of these observations is NOT mainstream. Creating anything that approaches a majority will take a LOT.
It starts with calling out truths that damn the Democratic Party along with the Republicans for active complicity with the brilliantly conceived gameplan that allowed capitalism to mutate into what is has. The Dems never DID reverse the Reagan tax cuts. Nor is ever a word spoken among the neo-liberals to reverse Citizens United.
Much more than this must be hammered into a plan of action that succeeds in getting everyone to actually LOOK UP. Sanders has the stones to do this, but he will need the voice and energy of younger combatants that accept the truths that are being laid bare. So far, Sanders has been trying to "steer" or "Move" the Democratic Party leftward. What far too few have recognized is that what we see is what we're going to get from the center Dems.
THOM: I can't express enough the resonance you created here. You ARE naming it, although I don't see the finger being pointed at the collusion of ALL of GOVERNMENT yet, creating a counterforce strong enough to outweigh the force you describe. We need a strong majority created by majorities across current party lines. The party that calls out UP vs DOWN, and demonstrates the power that comes from such a collaboration. We are all right now the victims of massive overreach of the very few with a ton of money. Getting people to SEE this victimization is the challenge. But that has to be cohesive itself. If's not enough to have smart men reaching relatively small audiences.
On January 11-12, this year, the Weekend Financial Times ran an op-ed piece by Peter Thiel -- founder of PAY PAL and one of the anointed Thom speaks of -- entitled A TIME FOR TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION. He essentially proposed that all details of recent American history be made public and then reviewed, via internet/social media, to come to an understanding of what happened.
As I wrote to FT in response:
"I sense a first trial balloon toward the creation of a MAGA Committee of Public Safety. Mr. Thiel tells us that the old world is dead, and it is long past time to uncover the truth about various and sundry secrets of the recent past: Epstein’s suicide; Kennedy’s assassination; and, oh yeah… COVID-19....
But what really frightened me is that this guy is suggesting the idea of reviewing the evidence via the internet, inviting mob participation in determining truth.
And who is going to moderate these show trials? Who is the new Robespierre? It will be his IT billionaire compadres who push the buttons and spin the logarithms."
We are now entering what we might call a Brave New World. The writer’s obvious disdain for traditional scholarship and journalism is very troubling. These exist for the world we have lived in for centuries: The world of the press, universities, the written word, and debate via evidence..."
(end of letter abstract)
As Thom suggests, it is a Dark... Very Dark... future where everyone whose name pops up as a potential trouble maker is subject to mob review via a social media platform moderated by the Select.
And Donald there is a Brave New Europehttps://braveneweurope.com/geoffrey-roberts-towards-a-new-grand-alliance-trump-putin-and-the-path-to-peace-in-ukraine spear headed by nostalgic Marxists, who have switched alliances from Red Moscow to Putin Moscow
I guess there is a point in this comment, somewhere. My guess is that the guys we are talking about screwing around with America will easily get along with the big money running Russia, and the party aristocracy running China.
So, if you are predicting the world is about to be carved up: Yeah, sure. But how does that help us?
Being forewarned is being fore armed. Nations and corporations devote a lot of effort in having knowledge of a battlefield or situation before they step into it.
Black humor. Andre Breton. Beckett (btw Godot never comes), many American authors....
I'm sorry to report that he lives here in Baghdad By the Sea. If the white supremacists that are part of MAGA have their way, he'll be exterminated due to his sexual proclivities. Catch 22.
May we "live in interesting times" indeed (not a good thing)... There are many forms that Fascism could take. It looks like Techno Fascism is taking the lead now. Christian Nationalism might also get folded into the Techno Fascist movement somehow. It seems they both like the part about women being subservient to men. Based on what Trump and Musk are doing - it ultimately seems like a recipe for failure with greater poverty and fewer opportunities - no investments into people, research, or safety nets. There would probably be an uprising. Reminds me of movie called Elysium. Although Trump's approval has come down - I can't believe he still has 47%!# This does not make me optimistic. Our country is being sabotaged by our so-called LEADERS, and most Republicans are like zombies. It is mandatory that we get money out of politics. Reverse Citizens United. Thanks for article Thom.
Holly I got into the weeds before, and won't do it this time, but you laid your finger on something with the synchronicity of Techno facism, with Christians Nationalism and misogyny.
Consider the rise of the Trump Voting InCel, the Trump voting Viagra addict.
You can pound rocks into sand, sand into dust and reduce it all to the sex drive and masculine dominance.
And frankly I don't know what to do about that. It is not a problem because problems have solutions and there is no solution, ergo no problem.
But it doth cause the worlds ills, and also its achievements.
Maybe 1,000 years more of evolution, but our species won't last that long, given the rate at which we are shitting in our own mess kit.
Men and women know if it comes down to a physical fight, the males would usually win - and somehow, for many, that gets processed as males inheriting the right to dominate. But, not all males are mentally alpha and not all females are mentally beta (usually a combination of both). It gets complicated. I think solution is to give opportunities to both and let cards fall where they may. In modern society, most of life's tasks do not require physical strength. Overall, I think that the combination of testosterone and estrogen often comes up with a better solution.
I agree with you Holly. And add. I am a retired officer, a mustang, spent my career in special ops. I know for a fact that you don't have to be a gorilla or brute to do the job. I wasn't. I never weighed over 135 lbs in my 26 year career. I stood in the door of aircraft with 45 lbs of parachute, 80 to 100 lb of equipement either handing from a ruck sack or packed in a parachute adjustable equipment bag, 20 lbs of web gear, weapon and ammo, Leaped into the air, and when landed on the ground all that I shed was the 45 lbs of main and reserve parachute, then I would hump gear, over hill and dale, through snow or jungle, across rivers, till I reached my objective (me and my team)and performed my job.
The only time I needed gorilla strength was during accession training, the preparatory and training courses are designed to reinforce the macho mystique, I mean they are brutal, Think of a 10 mile run in uniform and combat boots, or 2 hours of PT, with butterfly kicks and endless squat thrusts, sit ups, push ups.
Sure candidates wash out at an astonishing rate, but once you graduate you never again have to utilize all of the muscle tissue you have built up.
What I am saying is that if they just stopped the macho physical training bullshit, they would have a lot more women in special ops,all branches, but you don't have to be a gorilla to make it through prep and training, because it is all between the ears. Fight through the pain, never give up, never quit, most losses are from quitters,people ringing the bell. Once you endure the selection process it is gravy from there on out.
Fun fact, women make better fighter pilots than men, because of lower center of gravity and they can handle G forces better than men. With SEALS, women are more buoyant than men, tolerate cold better than men, and in all cases women handle pain ,much better than men. no man could survive the pain of childbirth.
Biological advantages women have over men, but men like Hegseth want to exclude them because it is harmful to their self image and fragile egos.
It's like that with a lot of jobs. The initial training or education is a lot harder than the day-to-day job. Except, apparently, for President of USA and his cabinet. I don't think many/any of them even went through security clearances.
True Holly, in most cases training is more extensive and demanding than the job requires, but is there that they can meet the challenge as it arises.
However the physical training in special ops and ranger training is over and above board, and serves no purpose other than to boost the ego of those that survive, and as I said to weed out women,and lesser developed men.
Bless you, for ripping the silk curtain off the gilded gaslight—because this isn't just about greedy men grifting on autopilot. It's worse. It's weirder. It's intentional. These tech-obsessed libertarian nihilists aren’t just storming the gates of democracy; they’re replacing it with a startup dictatorship coded by fascist fanboys hopped up on Nietzsche, Ayn Rand, and Red Bull.
Let’s clarify: The “Dark Enlightenment” isn’t an edgy little internet theory. It’s the manifesto of your future prison warden. And it's wearing a Patagonia vest, tweeting memes from a Gulfstream, and calling it "disruption."
Trump, bless his bloated ego, doesn’t understand any of this. He’s just the useful meat puppet grinning while the real players, Musk, Thiel, Vance, and their VC vampire cult, lay down fiber optic feudalism and call it “governance.” They’ve decided that democracy is “inefficient” (read: it slows their conquest) and that you, peasant, are too stupid to be trusted with power unless your net worth has a trailing string of zeros.
Their model? Singapore. Or rather, their techno-erotic fantasy of Singapore: a sterilized Disneyland of order, profit, and surveillance. Freedom with a footnote. Prosperity without protest. Oh, and don’t say the word “politics” unless you want your hotel room tossed like a cartel sting.
This is not just a budget-cutting spree or some twisted nostalgia for the Reagan years. It's the codebase of a new regime where AI replaces the IRS, Homeland Security runs on predictive analytics, and “citizen engagement” means getting auto-banned for dissent on the government-issued app.
They’re not hiding it. Project 2025 is their GitHub repo for authoritarianism, and they’re already 40% deployed. The billionaires funding this aren’t content with lobbying; they want to own the operating system of democracy, root access and all.
And while progressives debate “civility,” these assholes are uploading the Constitution into a shredder and replacing it with a terms-of-service agreement you’ll need retinal ID to decline.
Understand this:
They’re not failing at democracy. They’re ending it.
On purpose.
And if you're still waiting for CNN to say it out loud, you’re already behind. Wake up. Get loud. Break their toys. Because these men believe your rights are optional, your voice is noise, and your future is theirs to monetize.
Mic-Drop Conclusion:
The Dark Enlightenment is the billionaire blueprint to delete democracy, jack your agency, and sell your freedom back to you—subscription only. Opt out while you still can.
Isn't The Dark Enlightenment an oxymoron?
Now that people are laying out the game plan, it will be up to every freedom-loving American to fight it on-line, in your home, with friends, and on the streets. Perhaps all four places in any one given day!
As they try their experiment on the federal level, the states will continue to use democracy as their engine to run things. "Business" and "tech" have crept into that process as well. Too many tax breaks and enterprise zones.
Musk is headed over to the Pentagon for a briefing on our plans in case of a war with China. Wonder how much money he, Trump, and Hegseth could make if they sell those.
Thank you Professor Hartmann---you earn that title every day by enlightening the world.
This kind of psuedo science that the Nazis used to ratoionalize stuff like totalitarianism and eugenics.
Yes, they thought they were brilliant too!
“Dark” in this case means invisible, like dark matter.
Sure it does, Tom, because that makes it sound so much more intelligent.
But, I feel you.
The problem with out on the streets is DT is waiting to enforce the "insurrection act," and arrest people.
Not sure if everyone has been returned from El Salvador hell hole.
Congress needs to reconvene and bring Agency heads in and "unconfirm" them.
They all LIED during their confirmation.
Wish EVERYONE in Congress would see the danger, but they are stuck in some LaLaLand fantasy bubble of "the way things were." They are going to be surprised when they find themselves "under the bus," where the rest of DTs cast-offs are.
They don't see the need to expedite reversing DTs latest EOs.
There goes SOCIAL SECURITY/DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. TOTALLY ILLEGAL, but they are doing it anyway. What ARE people going to live on WITHOUT SS CHECKS??
They don't care, do they.😡😠😡
I think you're right.
Shared government, Feathers of Hope, without Trump/Vance/Musk is the simplest resolution.
If only we could get our congressmen on board, or enough of them anyway, but too many are cowards, but you have to try,if at first....
I know what Musk is all about. Trump is a tool and a fool, his interest is fame and power, he wants recognition by the world, craves the Nobel Peace Price, and vengence on all who slighted him.
He is easily bought and manipulated with pats on the head, good doggie, and he wags his tail and licks your hand.
Musk is altogether a different animal. He is serious about his Occupy Mars,raised on the Wehrner von Braun of the leader of Mars, and named for him, the Elon. His one goal is to be the Elon of Mars, and to achieve that goal he requires all of the financial, material, human resources of America and China.
America is an economic powershouse, hot because it is a producer nation, but because it is a consumer nation, and debt, national, corporate, private has enabled that consumption. We consume what the world produces, and the world's salesmen, (presidents PM.s) come knocking at our door, supplicating and prostrating themselves to sell us their nations wares.
On the other side of the large moat called the Pacific lies Asia, and paramount in Asia is China. China produces most of what we consume, China and it's quasi satrapy's.
Musk produces much of what he sells in China and benefits from both ends of of the spectrum,, production and consumption, and all with one goal in mind, to go to Mars and be the Elon, the fuhrer of Mars.
We need to confront them. A few hours ago they threatened to shut down Social Security. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-admin-threatens-to-shut-down-social-security-over-doge-ruling/
We only need a few......We need to pressure them.
Yes the fear rising in our society is an adverse reaction to the cruelty and abuse by this administration. It’s been apparent that they’ve made it their mission to destroy our Democracy . But the total how and why is here in this article. The sinister attitude of these people believing that only their decisions count is something to resist like crazy .
This whole thing smells like Putin , Musk and Trump, but is in fact initiated by the Heritage Foundation , certain sects of Catholicism making up Project 2025.
Oh and the most obvious components, grandiose greed and their belief that they are superior because they are white and wealthy.
It’s an extreme version of White Supremacy.
This is why they’ve removed all the people of color and women from history accounts because mind control of others is another mantra of these twisted individuals .
Anyone who has bought in to this platform is a sick , twisted individual. So apparent now how the Republican Congress has completely folded.
Taking to the streets is an instinctive reaction . In fact our fear will hold us back but we d better break through our fear . Or this life we’ve known will cease to exist.
The groups trying to destroy American are not homogeneous in their goals. We have techbros, oligarchs, xtian nationalists, cowardly & greedy congressmen, true believers/followers, incels, etc. My point is they are all motivated by various things. Pure lust for power, greed, racism, misogyny, etc. My question is how do we turn them on each other and then watch them destroy each other? Bannon vs. Musk is a good example; now if we could only create and cause similar exponential infighting we could resist and regain ground. Thoughts?
" My question is how do we turn them on each other and then watch them destroy each other?"
This morning Heather Cox Richardson documents how Mike Rogers and Roger Wicker, many other Congressional Replublicans have called out Trump on national security. Mike Turner R Ohio and many others in essence call Trump a liar re Putin and Ukraine.
We only need a few to have shared government -- without Trump/Vance. Besides national security, consituents and donors have to be pissed about Musk/DOGE. The entire cattle industry is in panic and so should about 20 Republican senators and dozens of House members in cow country. Every car dealer and the big three should be pissed about Trump's Tesla infrormercial.
Read Feathers of Hope.
Given enough rope….but the clock is ticking and we can’t keep throwing shit on the wall to see what sticks. Hopefully the Social Security and Medicare threat will be the turning point. Congress has to be made to really, deeply fear We The People more than the oligarchs
You are correct, Still Resisting, about the heterogenity of MAGAts, but they are united in their one goal, to own the libs (and that stands for many things), there is nothing like that unites the left. the left is fragmented, each coalition demands prominence and attention, like it is the only thing in society that matters.
Stop the genocide in Israel, feed Ukraine to the Russian bear.
Gay rights and marriage for homosexuals and lesbians, but fuck off transsexual.
Green energy, stop the pollution, don't drive your car and don't worry about earning a living, we have to save the planet and the whales.
One groups paramount interest works against another factions paramount interest.
Whereas on the right, no factions paramount interest works against other groups paramount interest, and to the extent that they do, such billionaires exploiting the working class, there attention is diverted to the "greater threat" like trans and immigrants.
Knock on any right wing forum, be it twitter, face book, reddit, telegram, 4chan and the primary topic is trans and immigrants, then Jews, as threats to manliness.
The gorilla in the zoo is flinging feces, and until that feces plops them in the face, they won't have a clue that the gorilla might be able to climb over the fence and get them.
Point taken so maybe there are two questions: how do we pit them against each other and how do we coalesce around a few common goals/causes? The Social Security threat may be one of the best opportunities to kick start a real cohesive resistance into a common goal. A true leader who can identify, prioritize and communicate is desperately needed and I still do not see one. Time is not on our side, either.
What Thomm has just described is the same old feudal junkyard dog - the nihilistic, parasitic megalomaniac uberman whose narcissism is so toxic it putrefies all in its path. You can put all the lipstick in the world on this anal retentive pig and you still get ugly little men with one overarching trait - violent, hedonistic hegemony.
This has to be genetic, a throwback to a time long ago when human DNA formation was contaminated by velociraptor genes in some quirky mish mash of magma and dinosaur flesh on the side of some ancient volcano.
This perverse energy is written all over the countenance of Muck, er Musk. We see it less often in the mannerisms of most CEO/politico types, cage fighters, violent misogynists, uber criminal types and any of us who were brought up around savage, bitterly angry adults/parents. Hubris is the Greek word for it, because this deviant arrogance is almost always laced with serious violence and cruelty.
Due to the 4-5k year behavior of certain humans who were not eliminated by some intelligent, predatory Judge Dredd, we continuously keep flushing these rotten genes back into the population. I grew up around several adults and two kids my age who could fit this to a tee. Scary stuff then, still scary. But not impossible to deal with.
But first, all of us who value beauty have to get our shit together and remove our heads from the sand. You cannot pet this dog, it will tear you to pieces. Face facts folks. You want to live out your life in some kind of real peace, you will have to unite and take down this rabid canine with brute collective force. You do not have to be clairvoyant to understand this - we all have experienced it in our lifetimes, and learned of it via history.
This is the real Terminator in our midst.
Well stated Mick. We serfs must learn from the tyranny of King Charles I in 1625. He came to unchecked power 400 years ago next month. 11 years of brutal treatment of his subjects/citizens. Then the will of the people finally fought back and Charles paid for his crimes.
There is only one problem for now, the cult that worships him as their lord and savior have to be disabused of the image, for now he is still their avatar. I've been reading comments from people on other substacks, it seems that though farmers who voted for Trump because of DEI,haven't quite got over their infatuation, same with government workers who voted for him, because they thought that draining the swamp meant getting rid of the loafing Sally Mudsill in the next cubicle, or the Hispanic that vote for Trump because they thought that he would only evict the drug mules,the rapists, the criminals because they of course were law abiding citizens, and the Muslims who voted for Trump to flip the finger to Biden are now in a quandry as he is declaring war on them, and they have told the Democrats to fuck off.
I have no idea of what it will take for the MAGAts to see the light, and have a come to Jesus moment, but until they do, we are doing liittle more than commiserating and barking t the moon., the only way to right this ship, to dislodge the tyrant is with all of the nation leaning into the job, so long as we are splintered,the ship will lay on its starboard side.
How to get to the right, when the right is having an ongoing orgasm for owning the libs and putting those people in their place.?
As you are reading these other substacks do you perceive that the loyalty is to Trump himself or to Elon, Marco Rubio etc. ?
President Reagan was having memory issues his second term, and members of Cabinet got the country into situations that he didn’t seem to be entirely aware of, or agreed to beforehand.
Trump people are loyal to him not to us. And the media is more restricted.
Kay in your first sentence you asked me a question
In your third and last sentence you answered your own question.
FYI, it is not the person of Trump to which they are loyal, it is the avatar that he represents. He is they writ large, their alter ego.
Thank you - that was the answer I was hoping for.
I saw a recent CNN clip in which Trump was asked by a reporter about the order he signed allowing those people to be deported to the prison in El Salvador.
Trump said TWICE that he didn’t sign the order.
He said “others” sign the orders. This is allowed per Project 2025 (auto signature). It might be why there is the sudden attack against Biden’s pardons. (Every accusation is a confession - per Mary Trump)
The CNN report pointed out that the order definitely had Trump’s “signature” on it per the archives. Later, the Administration produced an Executive Order which had been signed previously allowing for everything to happen.
Remember everything that happened in Reagan’s 2nd term. How many people like JD Vance, Elon Musk, Marco Rubio?
They voted for Trump. People voted for Reagan. When Republicans learned that Reagan’s people were kinda running around without his full knowledge and approval - the American people got mad - at the underlings pulling the bullshit.
Reagan was still left damaged but allowed ....
Reagan, the scum, poor man had Alzheimers even while Governor of California, is worshiped as Saint by the right, when in fact MAGAts are his legitimate offspring, they sprang from his DNA.
Oh I get Mary L Trump's newsletter, daily, It is on substack for those interested. https://substack.com/@marytrump
The Dark Enlightenment [DE] is Silicon Valley b*llsh*t: Pure-dee, toxic misogynism, and racism.
Here's an Amy Kaufman quote from a 2017 piece. The link is provided beneath.
"Likewise, white supremacist groups often reject DE leaders even as they embrace their theories. Aglin, for instance, rejects DE as a movement because he claims white supremacists invented those ideas first—and, not incidentally, because one of DE’s founders is half-Jewish. (Side note: one of the really amusing things about all this infighting is the way that alt-righters and old school neo-Nazis accuse each other of being a Jewish conspiracy to make white supremacy look bad.) But none of these relatively minor disagreements change the fact that the “Dark Enlightenment” ideology is really just white supremacy dressed up in trendy glasses and a hoodie."
https://publicmedievalist.com/dark-enlightenment/
Singapore sounds like a little piece of 1984 smothered in Ayn Rand sauce. No thanks; I'll have the exuberance of democracy instead. Those who like this idea of a dark enlightenment, or corporate autocracy, believe that heaven is a place in which they are never disagreed with.
In Italy, the Furutists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism
Mussolini made the trains run on time. In th end, he was humiliated, his body held topsy turvy in a public square.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Benito_Mussolini#:~:text=The%20generally%20accepted%20version%20of,Walter%20Audisio%2C%20a%20communist%20partisan.
I'm optimistic too, Daniel.
By looking at the crowds gathering steam, things will not end well for them. They may NEED those yachts and body guards, but even so it only takes one person to ruin their day. There is no rest for the wicked.
We play by the rules. They stack the deck. It’s past time for a strategy adjustment. When they go low, we must bury them. Neoliberal Democratic “leaders” clearly refuse to embrace that fact, which explains their silence and reluctance to engage in the all-out battle this moment demands. Our three living past presidents sit passively on the sidelines, our serving old guard - most especially Chuck Schumer - claim the Constitutional crisis isn’t here yet. Whatever their delusions or motivations, we must ignore them in favor of those in and out of government who are prepared to fight.
Tom, do you recall the picture of Obama and Trump smiling and sharing a joke at Jimmy Carters funeral.
Kind of makes one think that things are not as they appear to be. Was gibt, Are they really aliens or lizard people in disguise. Obama and Trump sharing a joke and laughing at Jimmy Carters funeral.
Chuck Schumer gives in like one of those whores on 7th Avenue that Simon and Garfinkel sang of i the Boxer.
Thom, thank you for this article. It’s the clearest explanation of what we are living through. This is why I subscribed to your Substack. I hope more people read it. I just sent it out to family members. I don’t know if they’ll be able to open it or not. But I sent it anyway.
Thank you Thom for writing this!! This is extremely frightening. I’m so glad you are bringing more awareness to this. This combined with the “trans humanist singularity” idea for technology where humans combine with AI, could lead to a dystopian future. I believe that’s what Curtis Yarvin wants and in fact, they don’t see a need for the rest of us since they will have robots and AI. Maybe the rest of us will be like the Star Trek Borg drones. To me this could be they are working so hard to take away all the things that save and promote life such as: education, research, aid, and a strong EPA, FDA etc. If you ever watch the interview between Joe Rogan and Elon Musk about his Neuralink company Elon Musk fantasizes that humans won’t even have to talk to each other. They could communicate telepathically through the cloud and that you will have to pay for a storage space to put your memories into and of course, if you wanna access your memories from your brain that you will have to pay for that! Disgusting and sad.
We are playing catch-up, and we have a massive amount of catching up to do. The actions yesterday to dismantle the Department of Education may be the best thing that they could have done to undermine their insane plan. They will now have hundreds of thousands of teachers and parents up "in arms" (some literally) and in the streets. The school cult is an incredibly powerful force as I have learned the hard way i trying to get the authoritarianism out of schools. Unfortunately, that same authoritarianism is part of the reason these crackpots believe it can be a force for good. We can only hope that the values of justice, equality, and real autonomy for individuals in a true democratic system are deeply ingrained in the American spirit to defeat them. Delusional superiority is destructive and obnoxious, and I have some hope that they will self-destruct before they take over entirely. The kook in Singapore is out of power and I believe he has fallen out of favor for the most part from what I remember after meeting someone from there two years ago.
Dismantling the Dept of Education must be an orgasm for you. You really do hate the school cult Robert, don't you.
Alzheimer's is very awful. You have my sympathy. I just read that inhaling the scent from fresh rosemary helps immensely. You should spend as much time as possible breathing it in and it's also great as a flavoring. Dismantling the Dept. of Education is idiotic and will only make what was a terrible situation that much worse. Musk should be put on one of those flights to El Salvadore, as should his retarded and corrupt boss. But don't you worry about such things in the brief moments of lucidity that you have. Get lots of sleep and take frequent naps.
Rolls on floor laughing. You can't answer the question, you avoid the issue and deflect by trying to make the issue me. Good try, I see that you have been studying the Karl Rove rule book.
Repeatedly, over and over again I have stated explicitly that I have never once said or thought that eliminating the Department of Education (more accurately the Department of Schooling) should be eliminated, reduced in size, or touched in any way by politics or outsiders. I know that when I make myself clear and spell out my thoughts and beliefs on a topic and someone keeps coming back with some inane foolishness which proves that they failed to read or failed to understand, the real issue is that they are so biased, delusional, or in denial that they have been unable to process or even recall what I carefully put in writing for their edification. You give yourself away and embarrass yourself by carping on the same claims and false premises. This is not third grade, and I am not your teacher. I do not have time to indulge your ego or your serious handicaps. School is not education. But school has important and valid functions and those should not be interfered with by amateurs, egomaniacs, or authoritarians. Try to sear that into your brain and start on sniffing rosemary ASAP.
What I understand Robert that you have a perpetual obsession with education, constantly critiquing it but have no solution,not even when choices are offered. And I have offered you choices and asked for your solution more times than I can remember (must be that Alzheimers you say that I suffer from)
Here is a clue Robert, you can accuse me of anything, and I don't care, you aren't going to be put me on the back foot,because again I don't care.
For, me to care about someone's opinion, requires me to respect that person, and frankly Robert, you I do not respect.
That has been obvious for many months. Once again, despite the fact that I have stated dozens of times that formulae and specific reforms are for others to experiment with and implement, and despite the fact that they are a dime-a-dozen and recycled regularly, reforms are a mirage in top-down mandatory systems and cannot survive, and the SOLE opening to meaningful change requires elimination of the legal requirement to attend, your mind has not been capable of grasping that concept. It is not for lack of intelligence. Many others, including Thom have failed to connect the dots. The problem is a mental block caused by brainwashing, starting in early childhood or even infancy conflating school with education. If you truly cared about education and children, you would figure it out. It is clear that the millions of uneducated children in this country do not faze you in the least. You are well aware of the ignorance and ineptitude and the psychological harm done (you have your own sordid story of failure in school) and you just do not give a damn about those other victims. So be it.
Wow do I sense megalamania, Robert even Thom has failed to connect your dots.
And yet with your rant against the system, you still do not come up with an alternative. You want to do away with the legal requirement to attend school.
That is not a solution, that is the road to illiteracy, and whomp we are back to the 18th Century when illiteracy reigned and the Census had a column where the enumerator check Yes or No for Read and write.
Again what is your solution. Mass illiteracy?
Amazing! We are finally making some progress. You have finally figured out that I am proposing that compulsory attendance laws were a profound mistake. You think that correcting that huge mistake is not a solution. I have explained many times why it was a tremendous error and how eliminating the laws would eradicate the hold that incompetent politicians have over the people involved at all levels and alter the relationships between teachers and students and that we have high rates of illiteracy now. But you really aren't interested in learning anything, and I will not waste any more of my time repeating what I have already argued dozens of times only to be ignored. End of conversation.
The alternative to compulsory education is illiteracy and ignorance. But you are so eat up with your ideology that you can't see it. It is like trying to tell a Jesus believer that Jesus nunca se existe.
You never answer the question, what will you replace it with.
Your answer has to be illiteracy and ignorance.
The problem with compulsory education is not that it is compulsory it is the curriculum and the people that command it , who write and approve the text books.
The problem in America has been that text book publishers have catered to the largest market, to save money in printing, and that market has been the Texas School board.
#1. There is overwhelming evidence that children are harmed in myriad ways by our dysfunctional schools. They do function as they exist as hierarchical and authoritarian institutions in turning out automatons. However, in terms of education or adequately serving their own stated purposes with respect to socialization, enculturation, growth and development, etc., they fail miserably as evidenced by tons of empirical studies and research. If you were serious and actually cared, you would have had something to say about all that or you would have delved into the literature which I have recommended numerous times. You have not followed up on a single reference or shown any awareness relative to what is actually happening in those prison-factory-schools. You are more interested in playing some ego game and proving something.
#2. As I have explained many times, the term “compulsory education” is an oxymoron and is highly obnoxious and offensive. Education cannot be forced. If something is learned under duress, that is indoctrination or information which is compromised and not integrated knowledge, since integration requires willful attention, intrinsic reward, personal initiative, interest, and a meaningful context.
#3. Students who attend “free schools” are not illiterate and are certainly not ignorant, while a large proportion of students under compulsion are illiterate, semi-literate, and disengaged. You assume incorrectly that students would not attend schools if there were no laws forcing attendance. THAT is ignorance. If students found schools hospitable and if schools were providing real services and were able to focus on what students need and want to learn about, without arbitrary authority, bureaucracy, and interference from outsiders pushing a conservative agenda, parents would stop hating schools and you wouldn’t be able to keep kids away. You simply do not have a clue.
#4. There is an entire universe of “alternative schools” and “alternative education”. The primary difference is that the student is self-directed and autonomous, the teachers are autonomous, and the parents are not treated as a nuisance and as incompetent to have a voice in their child’s school experience. The reason alternatives are sought is because the laws create conditions which are counterproductive and injurious to the spirit, the soul, and the intellect.
#5. As I repeat over and over: School is NOT education. Education happens in schools under certain conditions when the rules are suspended, or when teachers circumvent rules and students are exceptionally active because of their own initiatives and influences. Otherwise, schools often inhibit intellectual endeavors and discussion, and the environment/climate is repressive or oppressive, stifling, boring, and repetitive.
I waste my time with the vague hope that someone else will be watching. You obviously will still be demanding that I give you my magic formula and denying that coercion is inimical to education. You may be educated. But you know precious little about education. And, as you have stated, you do not care. BTW, textbooks are an abomination, regardless of who writes or publishes them. Students should have original materials and should be interacting with each other in studies of real-world questions, answers, and solutions to problems. Go fly a kite or find some other way to entertain yourself.
Well said Thom!
Crashing the US Dollar fits right in to their takeover plan. Crypto is a giant scam.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-establishes-the-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-and-u-s-digital-asset-stockpile/
Note the Dem Senators were not bribed with crypto. They were bribed with Dollars.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/26/crypto-democrats-gop-legislation-elizabeth-warren-00206018?link_id=1&can_id=61c02972b79cbe2d8539227966115e3a&source=email-tell-dems-to-filibuster-musks-crypto-bill-9&email_referrer=email_2665291&email_subject=tell-dems-to-filibuster-musks-crypto-bill&&
You have written before about the plan to weaken the middle class, beginning some 50+ years ago. So has Robert Reich, and so has Sheldon Whitehouse. My job is to try to assemble it all, along with the dystopian insights offered by The Panama Papers. The depressing truth is that The Matrix has it most accurately pegged, with the proletariat being the batteries that fuels whatever the elite want (I loved the original for the entertainment, but that scene in which Morpheus realizes the horrifying truth of the machine's truth behind the construct has never left me. Of course it's fiction, yes yes yes, but a pretty darned good metaphor.
What is being described is absolutely NOT imaginary, it is NOT extremist. But surely we must all recognize that a worldview that results from believing in the verity of these observations is NOT mainstream. Creating anything that approaches a majority will take a LOT.
It starts with calling out truths that damn the Democratic Party along with the Republicans for active complicity with the brilliantly conceived gameplan that allowed capitalism to mutate into what is has. The Dems never DID reverse the Reagan tax cuts. Nor is ever a word spoken among the neo-liberals to reverse Citizens United.
Much more than this must be hammered into a plan of action that succeeds in getting everyone to actually LOOK UP. Sanders has the stones to do this, but he will need the voice and energy of younger combatants that accept the truths that are being laid bare. So far, Sanders has been trying to "steer" or "Move" the Democratic Party leftward. What far too few have recognized is that what we see is what we're going to get from the center Dems.
THOM: I can't express enough the resonance you created here. You ARE naming it, although I don't see the finger being pointed at the collusion of ALL of GOVERNMENT yet, creating a counterforce strong enough to outweigh the force you describe. We need a strong majority created by majorities across current party lines. The party that calls out UP vs DOWN, and demonstrates the power that comes from such a collaboration. We are all right now the victims of massive overreach of the very few with a ton of money. Getting people to SEE this victimization is the challenge. But that has to be cohesive itself. If's not enough to have smart men reaching relatively small audiences.
Thom is spot on.
On January 11-12, this year, the Weekend Financial Times ran an op-ed piece by Peter Thiel -- founder of PAY PAL and one of the anointed Thom speaks of -- entitled A TIME FOR TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION. He essentially proposed that all details of recent American history be made public and then reviewed, via internet/social media, to come to an understanding of what happened.
As I wrote to FT in response:
"I sense a first trial balloon toward the creation of a MAGA Committee of Public Safety. Mr. Thiel tells us that the old world is dead, and it is long past time to uncover the truth about various and sundry secrets of the recent past: Epstein’s suicide; Kennedy’s assassination; and, oh yeah… COVID-19....
But what really frightened me is that this guy is suggesting the idea of reviewing the evidence via the internet, inviting mob participation in determining truth.
And who is going to moderate these show trials? Who is the new Robespierre? It will be his IT billionaire compadres who push the buttons and spin the logarithms."
We are now entering what we might call a Brave New World. The writer’s obvious disdain for traditional scholarship and journalism is very troubling. These exist for the world we have lived in for centuries: The world of the press, universities, the written word, and debate via evidence..."
(end of letter abstract)
As Thom suggests, it is a Dark... Very Dark... future where everyone whose name pops up as a potential trouble maker is subject to mob review via a social media platform moderated by the Select.
D.
Yeah dissidents subject to mob review by Musk's kids with call-signs as Big Balls, Trojan, and so on.
And Donald there is a Brave New Europehttps://braveneweurope.com/geoffrey-roberts-towards-a-new-grand-alliance-trump-putin-and-the-path-to-peace-in-ukraine spear headed by nostalgic Marxists, who have switched alliances from Red Moscow to Putin Moscow
These are the children of the intellectual/emotional heirs of Tankies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
Be it the Technate of America https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:34227574, take a look at the map, it predates Trump by decades but includes Greenland, Canada, Mexico and Panama,
George Orwells EurAsia under the thumb of Putin, . East Asia under the suzerainty of China
leaving the Mideast north and central Africa under a Caliphate or Sultinate
Oooh Kayyy.......
I guess there is a point in this comment, somewhere. My guess is that the guys we are talking about screwing around with America will easily get along with the big money running Russia, and the party aristocracy running China.
So, if you are predicting the world is about to be carved up: Yeah, sure. But how does that help us?
Being forewarned is being fore armed. Nations and corporations devote a lot of effort in having knowledge of a battlefield or situation before they step into it.
I propose learning Mandarin and/or Russian.
Black humor. Andre Breton. Beckett (btw Godot never comes), many American authors....
I'm sorry to report that he lives here in Baghdad By the Sea. If the white supremacists that are part of MAGA have their way, he'll be exterminated due to his sexual proclivities. Catch 22.
May we "live in interesting times" indeed (not a good thing)... There are many forms that Fascism could take. It looks like Techno Fascism is taking the lead now. Christian Nationalism might also get folded into the Techno Fascist movement somehow. It seems they both like the part about women being subservient to men. Based on what Trump and Musk are doing - it ultimately seems like a recipe for failure with greater poverty and fewer opportunities - no investments into people, research, or safety nets. There would probably be an uprising. Reminds me of movie called Elysium. Although Trump's approval has come down - I can't believe he still has 47%!# This does not make me optimistic. Our country is being sabotaged by our so-called LEADERS, and most Republicans are like zombies. It is mandatory that we get money out of politics. Reverse Citizens United. Thanks for article Thom.
Holly I got into the weeds before, and won't do it this time, but you laid your finger on something with the synchronicity of Techno facism, with Christians Nationalism and misogyny.
Consider the rise of the Trump Voting InCel, the Trump voting Viagra addict.
You can pound rocks into sand, sand into dust and reduce it all to the sex drive and masculine dominance.
And frankly I don't know what to do about that. It is not a problem because problems have solutions and there is no solution, ergo no problem.
But it doth cause the worlds ills, and also its achievements.
Maybe 1,000 years more of evolution, but our species won't last that long, given the rate at which we are shitting in our own mess kit.
Men and women know if it comes down to a physical fight, the males would usually win - and somehow, for many, that gets processed as males inheriting the right to dominate. But, not all males are mentally alpha and not all females are mentally beta (usually a combination of both). It gets complicated. I think solution is to give opportunities to both and let cards fall where they may. In modern society, most of life's tasks do not require physical strength. Overall, I think that the combination of testosterone and estrogen often comes up with a better solution.
I agree with you Holly. And add. I am a retired officer, a mustang, spent my career in special ops. I know for a fact that you don't have to be a gorilla or brute to do the job. I wasn't. I never weighed over 135 lbs in my 26 year career. I stood in the door of aircraft with 45 lbs of parachute, 80 to 100 lb of equipement either handing from a ruck sack or packed in a parachute adjustable equipment bag, 20 lbs of web gear, weapon and ammo, Leaped into the air, and when landed on the ground all that I shed was the 45 lbs of main and reserve parachute, then I would hump gear, over hill and dale, through snow or jungle, across rivers, till I reached my objective (me and my team)and performed my job.
The only time I needed gorilla strength was during accession training, the preparatory and training courses are designed to reinforce the macho mystique, I mean they are brutal, Think of a 10 mile run in uniform and combat boots, or 2 hours of PT, with butterfly kicks and endless squat thrusts, sit ups, push ups.
Sure candidates wash out at an astonishing rate, but once you graduate you never again have to utilize all of the muscle tissue you have built up.
What I am saying is that if they just stopped the macho physical training bullshit, they would have a lot more women in special ops,all branches, but you don't have to be a gorilla to make it through prep and training, because it is all between the ears. Fight through the pain, never give up, never quit, most losses are from quitters,people ringing the bell. Once you endure the selection process it is gravy from there on out.
Fun fact, women make better fighter pilots than men, because of lower center of gravity and they can handle G forces better than men. With SEALS, women are more buoyant than men, tolerate cold better than men, and in all cases women handle pain ,much better than men. no man could survive the pain of childbirth.
Biological advantages women have over men, but men like Hegseth want to exclude them because it is harmful to their self image and fragile egos.
It's like that with a lot of jobs. The initial training or education is a lot harder than the day-to-day job. Except, apparently, for President of USA and his cabinet. I don't think many/any of them even went through security clearances.
True Holly, in most cases training is more extensive and demanding than the job requires, but is there that they can meet the challenge as it arises.
However the physical training in special ops and ranger training is over and above board, and serves no purpose other than to boost the ego of those that survive, and as I said to weed out women,and lesser developed men.
Bless you, for ripping the silk curtain off the gilded gaslight—because this isn't just about greedy men grifting on autopilot. It's worse. It's weirder. It's intentional. These tech-obsessed libertarian nihilists aren’t just storming the gates of democracy; they’re replacing it with a startup dictatorship coded by fascist fanboys hopped up on Nietzsche, Ayn Rand, and Red Bull.
Let’s clarify: The “Dark Enlightenment” isn’t an edgy little internet theory. It’s the manifesto of your future prison warden. And it's wearing a Patagonia vest, tweeting memes from a Gulfstream, and calling it "disruption."
Trump, bless his bloated ego, doesn’t understand any of this. He’s just the useful meat puppet grinning while the real players, Musk, Thiel, Vance, and their VC vampire cult, lay down fiber optic feudalism and call it “governance.” They’ve decided that democracy is “inefficient” (read: it slows their conquest) and that you, peasant, are too stupid to be trusted with power unless your net worth has a trailing string of zeros.
Their model? Singapore. Or rather, their techno-erotic fantasy of Singapore: a sterilized Disneyland of order, profit, and surveillance. Freedom with a footnote. Prosperity without protest. Oh, and don’t say the word “politics” unless you want your hotel room tossed like a cartel sting.
This is not just a budget-cutting spree or some twisted nostalgia for the Reagan years. It's the codebase of a new regime where AI replaces the IRS, Homeland Security runs on predictive analytics, and “citizen engagement” means getting auto-banned for dissent on the government-issued app.
They’re not hiding it. Project 2025 is their GitHub repo for authoritarianism, and they’re already 40% deployed. The billionaires funding this aren’t content with lobbying; they want to own the operating system of democracy, root access and all.
And while progressives debate “civility,” these assholes are uploading the Constitution into a shredder and replacing it with a terms-of-service agreement you’ll need retinal ID to decline.
Understand this:
They’re not failing at democracy. They’re ending it.
On purpose.
And if you're still waiting for CNN to say it out loud, you’re already behind. Wake up. Get loud. Break their toys. Because these men believe your rights are optional, your voice is noise, and your future is theirs to monetize.
Mic-Drop Conclusion:
The Dark Enlightenment is the billionaire blueprint to delete democracy, jack your agency, and sell your freedom back to you—subscription only. Opt out while you still can.