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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • Love you @[email protected], but I spazzed out recently after a full year of pressing too hard for a ‘post per day,’ and I feel like I dishonored everyone here when I melted down recently. (I’m super-embarrassed)

    So I appreciate the mention, but regardless of how I embarrassed the community, I can’t aim for one scholarly post per day, anymore. I just can’t. Sorry about that, matey.

    Now I do plan to keep on posting as the mood seeks me, but I just CAN’T keep the community popular like this, all on my own. Even just a little bit of help would go far.

    Ugh, sorry for all the bitching and moaning. :S










  • No no…we had it fixed for centuries

    I really don’t understand you there.

    No, in fact the very founding of the USA was arguably done primarily so that the ruling class could disregard the respectful boundaries that the English imposed to avoid strife with Native Americans and other colonial powers, which incidentally tended to curb our exploiting the land willy-nilly as we’ve shamelessly done since. It also locked out women and slave voters, preserving a classist system.

    Since then there’s been various periods of little / negligible useful social policies, as well as periods in which the ultra-wealthy and common capitalists were UNCHECKED in their ability to thoroughly exploit people and form monopolies, etc etc. Seriously, if the Roosevelts hadn’t come along, those things might have progressed scarily unchecked.

    So, no-- I certainly don’t see evidence that our form of democracy was ‘fixed for centuries.’ No, the fact is it’s been a shaky, wild, perilous ride from the day one.

    …the 1964 presidential campaign, as that’s the markings of the first ever attack ad.

    Maybe in terms of TV, but TV is just a natural extension of media, and media in the States has been used since… at least the early 1800’s? to completely slag-off or outright attack enemy candidates. Indeed, it’s been a perfect blood-bath of disinformation at times, which doesn’t even address all the nasty, vile tricks used to disenfranchise, or outright turn away undesirable voters at the polls. Which yes-- includes outright violence against undesirable voters across centuries in the States.

    So, yeah… that all happened.

    Altho I DO agree with you that somewhere between 50-70yrs back, the USA has been outright under attack by right-wingers, paving the way for fascism. Basically attacking most of the progress made under FDR and even Republican presidents like Ike.



  • I think I’ll refrain from posting a pic here, but mom had a ‘plant-bent’ that she followed up on by eventually becoming a certified ‘master gardener’ via series of courses.

    In parallel with that, over the course of many years, mom took the little suburban backyard we had and transformed it in to… holy Willy Wonkas… a sort of ‘lush paradise,’ and with each square foot or so, it consisted of generally non-native, fascinating species. I.e., plants with interesting herbal qualities, incredible flowers, or whatnot.

    Earlier, we’d rescued two stray cats, and it was really fun seeing them go back outside and frolic in mom’s garden. Hahaha, it was like an amusement park to them, one in which they became undeniably blissful and non-argumentative. (see, they didn’t like each too much, despite being sister littermates)