Chance favors the prepared mind.
~ Louis Pasteur
but please not that… and oh god, and definitely not that:
Dream a little dream with me…
Don’t let me disturb you, I’m just gonna park these here:
Yosemite
Grand Canyon
Yellowstone
Avenue of the Giants
Add to this list any national parks you were thinking about visiting. After this administration, they may not be around anymore.
Find yourself a credit union. It will save you hundreds of dollars in fees, and they won’'t have bullshit rules like this.
And at least 3 out of 5 of those people live in California.
Challenge accepted:
As I suspected, language has evolved to the point where Ohio is considered a synonym for toilet.
Some political context from The Dictator’s Toolkit:
Independent judges are a nightmare for would-be dictators. They have the immense power to overturn the abusive actions of creeping authoritarian regimes by acquitting dissidents of bogus charges, holding regime officials accountable, or upholding free and fair elections.
Because of judges’ essential checking power, authoritarian regimes across the globe regularly attack them. At times, they do this very overtly, like, for instance, arbitrarily sacking thousands and arresting hundreds of judges, as in the case of Turkey after the failed 2016 coup attempt. Yet, more often than not, creeping authoritarian regimes use measures disguised as legitimate or reasonable that intimidate and harass judges or otherwise obstruct their work.
These disguised judicial attacks are particularly popular among “hybrid authoritarian” regimes. These are regimes that democracy and freedom indexes like V-Dem, the Economist, and Freedom House recognize have some elements of authoritarianism but are not fully authoritarian yet — largely because the elections that got them into or maintained in office were “competitive” enough that classifying them as authoritarian was inadequate. Thus, these hybrid authoritarian regimes, such as Hungary, Bolivia, Kenya, or India, benefit from the disguise of this “democratic” legitimacy.
It directly led to the creation of the Conservation Corps which Roosevelt used to offer jobs to all of the affected veterans, and pulled the country out of the Depression. It was also a big reason Hoover’s presidency was defeated.
In essence, it made America strong enough to weather WWII and decisively end it when the other Allies were tapped out. That’s a change worth fighting for.
It’s a fucking travesty what this country, and particularly this administration, has done to veterans.
But it’s damn good to see them waking up out of the Fox News bubble and starting to fight back.
Why? Because it was when the veterans began to fight back against Hoover, that the real impetus behind the Conservation Corps and the subsequent New Deal started, and real progressive change began in America.
Here’s your daily dose of Historical Context, the Bonus Army of 1932:
The Bonus Army was a group of 43,000 demonstrators – 17,000 veterans of U.S. involvement in World War I, their families, and affiliated groups – who gathered in Washington, D.C., in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates. Organizers called the demonstrators the Bonus Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.), to echo the name of World War I’s American Expeditionary Forces, while the media referred to them as the “Bonus Army” or “Bonus Marchers”. The demonstrators were led by Walter W. Waters, a former sergeant.
Many of the war veterans had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded them bonuses in the form of certificates they could not redeem until 1945. Each certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier’s promised payment with compound interest. The principal demand of the Bonus Army was the immediate cash payment of their certificates.
On July 28, 1932, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police met with resistance, shot at the protestors, and two veterans were wounded and later died. President Herbert Hoover then ordered the U.S. Army to clear the marchers’ campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded a contingent of infantry and cavalry, supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned.
A second, smaller Bonus March in 1933 at the start of the Roosevelt administration was defused in May with an offer of jobs with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) at Fort Hunt, Virginia, which most of the group accepted. Those who chose not to work for the CCC by the May 22 deadline were given transportation home. In 1936, Congress overrode President Roosevelt’s veto and paid the veterans their bonus nine years early.
When veterans get mad and organize, real change can happen. They’re the political group that has the most potential to affect real revolutionary change - they’ve received the military training, they know how to organize, and if need be, they know how to defend themselves.
Get mad. Get angry. Get on the streets and join us to take this country back. Stop letting the GOP fuck you.
Minor note: this is repost of my previous comment on another thread just because I think it’s appropriate here, and I believe that the best way to beat the Nazi / oligarch / GOP playbook is to understand what beat it before. Plus it’s a pain to type it all out again.
Go baby go!
It’s working kids - despite the blackout from the mass media, people are taking to the streets:
Fear not the mass of noodles, nor thine anxiety over the mountains of starch thy must consume, my son.
Tomorrow it will all be pasta tense.
So, who’s gonna tell Lutnick that voter turnout for those age 65 and above is 75%+?
And it’s not like old folks like to complain about things just for the fuck of it, right?
Lutnick and Trump are going to discover why they call Social Security the third rail of American politics.
I’m so old I remember when disks were floppy, came in the 7" size, and were an awesome replacement for punch cards.
Still haven’t beat Zork tho…