ObliqueMedia
Stay curious and courageous. Change often arrives sideways.
Joined Apr 2022
@danialexis This has certainly been clarifying.
What's truly disturbing is just how much of it is being exposed as a hollow, overt money-and-power-grab, built on the backs and the reputations of sincere believers.
I can no longer see the lines clearly...if I ever could.
@AndersonArtwork This new mutation is particularly hideous -- the label is now almost entirely used as a way to manufacture solidarity by antagonising out-groups.
Also, it's important to realise how entrenched people are in the system(s) of church when seeing statistics about people fleeing it at the rate of 100,000s per year in the US.
It sometimes feels like this is an unchangeable monolith, but statistics are painting a different picture.
@StevenSavage I don't have the stats at my fingertips for this, but a primary way that the US' struggling post-secondary education sector is being supported is through foreign students.
This is especially true in evangelicalism. The scandals and immorality of the evangelical church in recent years, including its allegiance to Trump, has had a massive deleterious effect (of course underplayed in conservative media).
A colossal machine to run, it is now being kept afloat by foreign students.
(I'm taking a cue from A. R. Moxon in uncapitalising "christian" in cases where I feel the descriptor bears no meaningful resemblance to the Christ consciousness, yet remains an important way to idenify a socio-religious phenomenon.)
I've probably said this here before, but it's more true than ever:
The US is in a race between christian extremism and secularism.
The numbers show that churches are increasingly desperate because they are shrinking, in every way. People started empying the pews in earnest during Trump's first run. It's accelerating again.
The US evangelical complex is currently upside-down -- it cannot cover its assets internally. It is now being propped up by international sources.
@EileenKCarpenter @nl37tgt @Museek These are called "stand your ground" laws.
This disgusting phrase that is parading across the internet right now is a rape threat (at the very least), and could constitute enough of a threat to justify self-defense, which is not limited by location.
I fully expect that there will be sharp rise in these cases across the coutry, because the emboldened republicans don't fully realise what "we're not going back" means.
Yet.
@thewebrecluse Multiple centres is imperative to whatever happens next.
The conservatives are desperately trying to centralise, and they're going all in on the least trustworthy centre imaginable.
Again.
The way forward is not one monolithic table with a new, better name (while furiously trying to erase the old ones).
It's to build new tables.
@AskTheDevil @TrueBloodNet There is a profound level of cultural detective work going on in the world of Batman, and lots more available.
I'm looking up the Killing Joke -- I haven't heard of it before now.
@SaltyVeruca I don't disagree, there is a pull. A lot of this boils down to perspective, of course.
From the perspective of a poor, exploited person living in Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood is a good guy. From the perspective of the establishment, Robin Hood is a menace.
Perhaps a key is maturing our collective recognition to what evil means, and what its limits are. Namely, are there attitudes and actions which are objectively evil? Or do we only have our subjectivity to guide us?
@TrueBloodNet Marvel has addressed this in a more direct and nuanced way -- for example: "with great power comes great responsibility."
But Batman is a weird character -- a billionaire vigilante. To me, there is an inherent problem in ignoring the darkness in that story.
Back when Twitter was fun, I joined a conversation about the alarming popularity of villains in US pop culture.
I pointed out that people get tattoos of villains, like the Joker (esp Heath Ledger's version), Walter White and Darth Vader.
I was questioned for suggesting that the power of story can convince people to align with villains because they're relatable. People were shocked by how "gullible" I am.
For my part, I think I underestimated the problem.
@feloneouscat I want this conversation to continue -- it's probably going to need to go around in circles a few more times:
"Yes, I hear you saying you're wearing it ironically. But unironically, you still put yourselves inside of garbage bags.
Like, the outfit you chose to demonstrate that you are definitely not garbage is the very thing we put garbage in.
Do you see how the irony doesn't work in your favour?"
@Satchelpooch In my view, given his own history and the support he's been given by the partisan SCOTUS, his glaring lack of responsibility makes him supremely dangerous.
The first time around, we discovered that there's nothing to hold someone back if they're determined enough. The checks and balances are frighteningly arbitrary and even illusory.
@Satchelpooch So...I still don't think TFG's personal approach is sufficiently integrated to comply with the definition of fascism.
But what has emerged around him definitely does. White supremacism, christian nationalism, jingoism, etc. -- all the toxic threads are being pulled together with him at the centre.
I think his own schtick is simply to feel important, and he's following the path of least resistance to that goal. I don't think he cares enough to feel the danger he's escalating.
@NorthernInvader 200mm is just under 8in. It's a lot, but not more than 2ft.
TFG is now the moral centre of the republican party. They're jockeying to make him the moral centre of the USA, and by extension, the entire world.
Indeed, the whole republican propaganda machine seems to be treating this whole thing like it's just another kind of reality TV debacle, not a real-life decision with dire, lasting consequences.
When you are a billionaire they let you do it Show more
@FrankCannon @ZonaPellucida Sadly, this is what I'm perceiving as well. This is where all the far-right messaging dovetails together.
The NRA's capitalist, populist take on keeping the nation armed. The populist take on 2nd Amendment. The prejudice. The conspiracy theories. The paranoia. All of it.
The way right-wing keyboard warriors talk though, they are going to be profoundly shocked when they discover that violence is a two-way street.
@FrankCannon @ZonaPellucida The US has been bristling for civil war for a long while now.
I don't think the foreign interference around TFG was to put one chosen leader in. I believe it was to destabilise the system.
From that perepctive, it worked.
The system is destabilised. People are perceiving their neighbours as dangerous.
The next step is violence. Unless republicans and (to a lesser extent) democrats can see that they've been played, violence is inevitable.
@TheAbbotTrithemius I hope everyone in the US who hears his words, his attitude, his hatred is motivated to rise up against him.
ObliqueMedia
Stay curious and courageous. Change often arrives sideways.
Joined Apr 2022