Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

@Balina

Ahem. Looks like this dimension might be about to hit the Balina Threshold. Prepare accordingly.

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/04/wearable-robotic-third-arm.html

@arilin That's EERIE, I was just thinking the exact same thing.

After some rocky relationship territory... and months in separate packing boxes... reunited at last.

#LoveConquersAll
#LadyMythtiqueMarmalade (he/him)
#BEAR! (he/him)

@Leucrotta Also I would point out to your debate partner that PLENTY of *nations* don't do any of them. You don't hear about this stuff happening in, say, modern Denmark, Canada, or Costa Rica. But they usually don't apply the epithet "regime" to those places. -___-

@Leucrotta Oh, that I agree with you completely. If the subtext is "nah, you're totally off the wall to imply there's ANY reason to fear fascistic tendencies from this administration," I not only think the obvious "well, fuck 'em," I think they have a pretty weak historical argument. Like I said, Eco's 14 Points is my gold standard for authoritarian movements, and Trump does NOT have a good score on that scale.

I personally prefer to avoid comparing the GOP at large to Nazis, but only because I think it's walking into a rhetorical trap, and gives our political opponents the opportunity to point to horrible things they *don't* do and accuse us of hyperbole -- even though the comparisons are still IMHO totally valid.

I think there are definitely fascist tendencies in the modern alt-right, Trump has been perfectly happen to encourage them, and I personally think one must have their head pretty far up their ass -- and be unconcerned with how many "nice, normal" Germans just put Nazi atrocities out of their minds -- in order to not see Trump as at least proto-fascist. I prefer to compare him to Mussolini or Franco, simply because Hitler is pretty much our culture's 10/10 for violently oppressive right-wing statism. It's hyperbole... but *only* because they don't have the power or cultural will for mass lethal violence that they can't at least couch as Fake News (e.g. dismissing the treatment of detained migrants as leftist hype). "They don't generally machine gun civilians for dissent" isn't a very strong endorsement.

@Leucrotta Oh, I accidentally skipped a step in my argument. n.n; I was going to point out that in the 1940s, direct force was much more effective and people were both much more inured to privation and much more insulated from events outside their immediate lives. That was a rich breeding ground for fascism, which is a very *directly* forceful sort of ideology that was totally unashamed about committing its brutality right out in the open.

In the information age, right-wing populism has had to a much less *directly* violent form. The will for massive state force is still there... as we're seeing with Trump and Sen. Tom Cotton this week... but you can also see the massive backlash which would never have been possible under Fascism.

Instead, Trump has a regime where that kind of backlash isn't devoured... it's DILUTED until it's lost harmlessly in the media backwash and spun out of existence. Trump's brand of plutocratic oligarchy is, again, much more reminiscent of the KGB playbook. Why shoot someone when you can just peacefully neutralize their reputation and poison the public debate? It sure saves money on bullets...

And if anything, I'd argue it might be MORE dangerous in the grand scheme... for the same reason COVID-19 is more dangerous than Ebola. Fascism burns itself out, trying to annex neighbors and set the world on fire. Whatever Trump and Putin have inflicted on the world can just sit there in its tower like Sauron and quietly poison the countryside for years.

@Leucrotta I don't have the time to have it out in great detail, but... I did do some reading about the rise of Hitler, and right now my position is it's *not* quite accurate to call the modern GOP Nazi, but it is accurate to call it proto-fascist.

For instance, I'd argue we really *don't* have the level of utter totalitarianism, with an effective death penalty for criticism. Also, the right is currently forced to at least play lip service to not being openly, virulently racist -- which doesn't make them any better or less covertly racist, but it *does* make it a different species with different tactics.

Trump doesn't have the same absurd level of popular suppor that Hitler did. Also, fascism was really more of a late industrial-era ideology. I don't see the Republicans being nearly so focused on direct militarist conquest as the Nazis. Never mind a martial tradition that demands valor and sacrifice -- we can't even get most Republicans to endure two months of stay-at-home.

Ultimately, I feel like what we've got now is more taxonomically like Russian under Putin: it's a criminal oligarchy that excels in propaganda, subversion, and reality-manipulation but is pretty inept at domestic policy. It's definitely got fascist elements and I think at last count I gave it something like a 10/14 on Umberto Eco's famous Fourteen Points, so you're not wrong; it's a matter of precision, not accuracy.

And I would definitely agree there are fascist *elements* in the modern alt-right. But Trump honestly reminds me of nobody so much as the string of inept reality-averse old men who rules Russia between Brezhnev and Gorbachev...

On the other hand, I will always love Blondie's "Rapture" for not only being the only pop song whose lyrics include the word "sacroiliac" but ALSO being about Martians running around eating things that rhyme with "Mars." 🐯​

#EatinCars
#EatinBars
#EatinGuitars
#EatinJars
#EatinStars
#EatinCzars
#EatinMagyars
#EatinSitars
#EatinAvatars
#EatinMemoirs

Huh.

Billy Ocean wasn't very good, was he? I mean, he wasn't very bad, either, FWIW.

I mean, apologies if I'm stepping on anybody''s favorite artist here. But to be fair, I've never encountered anyone in my entire life you was, you know, *excited* to hear Billy Ocean.

@Phorm @anthracite I'll bet in some alternate universe (or the Library of Babel), there's a Philip K Dickian conspiracy novel based on the premise that Obama himself is phishing people in their dreams, for Reasons Of Great Mystickqxal And Secret Import, and it is a *corker*.

I... I may be a bit cranky today. ​

@Phorm @anthracite Also a lot of "Uh... what the hell am I doing in high school? I graduated. I can just... leave whenever the fuck I want. I wonder if my car is still in the parking lot where I left it." (It never is.)

Though I did have one the other night where we were in a shopping mall/high school on lockdown because one of the English teachers had a gun... and Peg kept drawing attention to us by trying on BIZARRE SEXY SHINY costumes from the mall & walking around in them...

@Phorm @anthracite Honestly, mine have been pretty boring lately too. Fun boring by my standards, like "Oh, look, there's a Boston subway station I've never been to before because it doesn't exist" or "Huh, I missed my plane and have a 22 hour layover in Londontokyo, guess I'm looking for a place to eat" or "why are there twelve bongs in my closet in my parents' home, I can't even get away with using them here."

@anthracite @Phorm Er, be warned that you might end up dreaming of the following:

* chasing zero-g antelopes
* napping (memetic hazard warning: recursion)
* chasing some stupid monk off a cliff and having to watch him eat a strawberry
* sitting =behind a door waiting for some dipshit to solve a logic puzzle
* shovels, so many shovels [ask any tiger, we love those things]
* 8' tall stripey fuzzy warrior women in cyberrave gear
* geniefoxes with empty spherical plastic heads
* legal weed (sigh)

@Austin_Dern Phase One complete. ​

@anthracite @Phorm Haha, hand those over to ME. My dreams have been too quiet lately and I think my Inner Tigress is about ready to visc some spectral motherfucker...

@Phorm @anthracite Oh, darling. *hugs tight* The cosmos owes you a lot more of those, but I'm so happy you got one.

@anthracite @Phorm I've mostly just been wishing I were on fire, and able to easily set other people on fire without harm to myself. Preferably, at a range of up to 1,086 miles.

Why 1,086 in particular? Oh... no reason!

https://goo.gl/maps/naX1cvaDqXqcujVk9