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Dave Madden Profile picture
Dave Madden
@aspiringpeasant
soft men just made hard times for everyone else time to get to work doing things i wish were entirely unnecessary
Nov 11 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I saw something last might about this. How MAGAs are no longer gloating about "liberal tears" because liberals aren't crying.

The first time was a shock.

The second time everyone knew exactly what they were doing.

So liberals see this, rightly, as an assault on American values and the futures of their children and grandchildren.

They're not crying, they're cutting fascists out of their lives because now they've got to deal with the world the trolls made.

And so the trolls are all stuck with one another now, but the problem is their primary motivation was gloating over the Liberal Tears. So they're out of steam. And the MAGAs actually fucking hate *each other* too, so I'm the absence of snowflake tears they're quickly going to turn on one another.

When you elect fascism in my country you have told me who you are. You are full of hatred for the most vulnerable people in our society. You don't care about the environment or public health or education or human rights or the rule of law.

Fine, but we don't owe you a second more of our lives so you can feel better reveling in our sadness. We've gotta deal with the shitshow you've brought to our shores, so suck it up, buttercups. They're making up reasons to enjoy the few tears that have been shed because it's the only way they feel anything.

They are a broken and hollow people and we should never forget that. Never give them power by fearing then even as they do hateful things.

Remember who they are.
Sep 20 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is who Tim is.

Tim was a better SEAL than I was, but that doesn't mean he's *moral*.

I've rarely met someone with a more intense will-to-power. He hasthe kind of self-confidence that can only come from being raised with extreme wealth (PE family money), and he will tell Montana voters WHATEVER THEY WANT TO HEAR in order to arrive at his "rightful" position of power.

huffpost.com/entry/tim-shee… There is a deep disrespect for Montanans buried here.

And once he is in office he'll continue to represent moneyed interests at the expense of everyone else.

You can take it to the BANK he'll sell Montana's public lands to the highest bidder and get rich(er) in the process.
Mar 3 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Here's the thing:

I live among these people and this does basically describe their worldview.

And yes, they *are* becoming increasingly undemocratic and not in some mischaracterized way - they *literally* want to remove other people's right to vote. I don't like these people, but i don't want to remove their right to vote.

I dislike them because they want to remove the rights of *others* - which i find morally reprehensible.

It's not some clickbait definition of "antidemocratic" - it's the *literal* definition.
Aug 30, 2023 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
As a new officer at my first SEAL Team, I told the Master Chief that it made me uncomfortable when he called me "sir".

He literally had more years in combat than I had months as a SEAL.

He chuckled and smiled, understanding, and stopped me in my fucking tracks: (btw if you'd rather read this as a single page here's a link!
otherwise, keep scrolling)

aspiringpeasant.com/basically-magi…
Jul 6, 2022 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
On any measure of achievement, people would say my parents succeeded with me.

Track champion, perfect SATs, full-ride to college, SEAL Officer, loving wife, beautiful kids, good job, etc.

But none of those things capture how deeply sad I was for the first 25+ years of my life. I was never hungry or in danger.
I always had clean clothes and our house was always spotless.

But the fact that my parents didn't like me and tried every control lever to make me heel (and I was a good fucking boy, I'll tell you what) means that I didn't live until I left.
Apr 20, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
There's a standing thing at my work where you give a talk about something important to you.

I've had a handful of people express interest in me talking about my experience in the SEAL Teams.

What should I be sure to talk about?
What should I avoid? What level of detail and grit is right?

Do i talk about how i got so sick in Hell Week i shat out my intestine and had to jam it back in and didnt tell anyone until after it was over because i didn't want to get med-rolled?

i think probably not.
Apr 19, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Your weekly reminder that these things don't work (when you consider EROI) and that we cannot consume our way out of our predicament.

You know who wants you to think these things work and are real? The people making money off them. they don't even have to WORK. they just have to SOUND like they do:

Apr 19, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
He’s being modest here.

They waded through blackberry thickets to get the apples, they made the cider, and shared it with this neighbor.

The neighbor's response was to start reclaiming the trees from the blackberries because they hadn't realized what they had was so valuable. This cider inspired the reclamation of a long-neglected inheritance.

That is incredible.
Apr 17, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
previous owners couldn't be bothered to find a stud Image just counting my blessings that it wasn't done with spray foam like everything else
Apr 12, 2022 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
My wife and I talk about this all the time.

If you want to model the change you want to see in the world, then you need to make it pretty. Something to aspire to. Something the hits them (and you) RIGHT in the feels.

@cognazor's "cottagecore" tweet is dead earnest Cottagecore as a mechanism for social change:
Mar 8, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I can’t wait for my default transportation method to become this: You got a dream car?

Cool bro. I’ve got a dream team.
Jan 19, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I've stopped trying to draw hard boundaries around things and find being free of that compulsion keeps me open to much more of life. When you stop trying to classify and judge everything and draw sharp lines in the sand your mind is free to see just how much of life is a spectrum and not a contrast of pitch black and stark white.
Nov 18, 2021 • 29 tweets • 5 min read
Some guy asked me what the people I worked in the SEAL Teams with would say about me.

I blocked him (sorry bro, but life's too short to let uncharitable belligerence in), but I do think that might be worth an answer.

The answer is: that really depends.

1/29 For one thing, human memory is far more flawed than it feels.

When we relive a memory, we're both reading and writing it.
And we tend to rewrite the past in a way that is flattering to us and unflattering to people we've put ourselves in opposition to.

2/29
Nov 16, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
One guy I worked around in Afghanistan got off the ch47 on his first op, saw some farmers clearing their irrigation ditches, and unloaded half-a-dozen CS gas grenades at them. Later he fragged himself with 40mm into a tree.

Result: Bronze Star, #1 rank at command, now a CIA para Another guy I worked with ran away from every firefight, got addicted to opiates from the local bazaar, shot at me multiple times on different ops, and just disappeared on a helo one day never to return to our fob.

Result: Bronze Star, made Master Chief early
Nov 14, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Basement got a few new additions tonight. We are reportedly "the best". Image All three going now.
Baby girl hanging from the squat rack because I ran out of hardware. Will take care of it tomorrow but for now it's good! Image
Jun 24, 2021 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
Thinking about the idea that when the environment is easy, algae and fungus go it alone.

But when times get tough, they form interspecies alliances (and become lichen).

Times have been easy, so we've forgotten, but we CAN team up with other organisms and become stronger.

1/n That's the idea behind locally-centered small-scale regenerative farming.

Reduce our energy requirements and begin to find new old ways of living within the ecosystem instead of sand-blasting it into straight rows of inedible corn.

2/n
Apr 24, 2021 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
If you're thinking about getting a few chickens, you probably should just do it.

Not only are they entertaining, but they eat your garbage (food waste, weeds from the garden, etc) and turn it into eggs and compost. They're also super easy to care for.

They need food, water, and shelter.

For shelter, give them a coop that (1) keeps predators out, and (2) keeps them dry. Everything else is a detail.

Can be a shed or an old packing crate or even a recycled playhouse like these ones.
Apr 23, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Best way I know to get people in the right mindset:

- backyard chickens
- start a garden

Makes you start to see the world as more integrated. This was my path.

Got chickens and a small garden on an aesthetic lark. Mostly an homage to Eleanor Roosevelt's wartime cause. But that larp quickly turned earnest when I found that my post-war mind was ACTUALLY PEACEFUL when I was checking on the ladies and inspecting tomatoes for horn worms.

I wanted to feel that way always, so I asked myself what that would take.