my hot take about working in the defense industry — having worked in the defense industry 😬 — is that you're better off trying to understand it as "this is a mistake i made on the basis of my liberal/conservative/whatever upbringing/ideology" than "this was a necessary decision" quite likely the hardest question is going to be "why did you stay," not "why did you start." there are absolutely no answers that will make you feel *clean* because, at best, it was something like depressive inertia — and because it inherently does tarnish you. accept that!

people can write 1000 diatribes like this and they'll all gonna fall apart for the same reason:

the democratic party doesn't *govern* like your life, your loved ones' lives, and the nation's life depend on it

no discipline, no urgency, no plan; just handwringing & cringe

https://twitter.com/ShannonFreshour/status/1544826549861552129

oh. hmm.

https://twitter.com/borubyarlo/status/1545060103652446209

• the pandemic relentlessly illustrated that you can't trust the government not to lie about public health, much less take correct action materially

• calls to "stay home" came with a lot of exhortations about how the government should pay for that

hope this help

https://twitter.com/_pem_pem/status/1545067574848888832

just completely ignoring the class politics of who's making the "stay inside"/"have fun" decisions vs. who's an "essential worker" going out to enable their fun, i see

https://twitter.com/_pem_pem/status/1545071346232823811

absolutely wild how effortlessly reactionary politics combines the all-consuming fear that someone will treat you like you've treated them, and the firm knowledge that literally nothing bad is ever gonna happen to you when you destroy thousands or millions for your own pleasure millions of people *know* they'll never face an ounce of revenge for "let's kill anyone who has a complicated pregnancy" or "let's force all queer kids to flee the state" but go "HELP HELP EXTREMISTS ARE FORCING ME TO WEAR THE HAIR SHIRT NOW!!" when a teacher says slavery was bad

hmm, no, sorry,

"scromiting" is too funny of a word for that, we are reserving that word for some kind of sex act involving the scrote

https://twitter.com/EveSimmns/status/1543263481679360000

i feel like i, in particular, should be a huge asshole about this because my wife spend a DECADE with a cyclic vomiting disorder and the best doctors could offer us was "hey are you sure you're not secretly doing a lot of weed" because of a story they'd heard one time or whatever

so much of the republican power play tactics is just shitting all over some "institution" and then democrats are like "but we need institutions!" so they dutifully don't do anything to manage its decline

https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/1543587138129780736

…

the thing is, there's a good argument to be made that you *do* need these various institutions, that they can be a firewall against extremism, corruption, authoritarianism.

but democrats are acting symbolically, not strategically, to "preserve" them.

https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/1543587138129780736

my theory is that one reason reactionaries love to do these "oh i would love to be a child banging the 40-year-old pedo woman" tweets is that they can't imagine a situation in which fucking a woman isn't exploiting her —

https://twitter.com/RayyvanaTTV/status/1542689709469667329

like, when i try to put myself in that teen's shoes, i imagine all the bullshit that i might carry around even if i *did* desire the sexual contact (which i can't legally consent to) in some way — being manipulated, gasligthing or trauma dumping behavior, being someone's trophy…

it's 2022 so of course my wife and i are discussing Sons of Anarchy and its disappointing ending there's something especially goofy about wrapping a bunch of Jesus imagery around a guy who walks off from his execution to go die in a cool way instead

like if Jesus popped off the cross, yelled "SEE YOU SUCKERS!!" and then crashed dramatically into the sun