Alkahest

by liberal japonicus

Here

Otherwise, an open thread.

Comments

[Snarki, child of Loki]

The "universal solvent"?
Water.
Just ask any homeowner.

[nous]

Meanwhile, a list of possible replacements for Breyer:

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/jan/26/supreme-court-stephen-breyer-retiring-leading-female-contenders

I also wonder if Harris is looking at that opening and imagining what she could do from the bench in an alternate timeline. I’m not in any way expecting that to be a possibility, but it’s a compelling option given how unworkable legislative approaches are becoming.

[wj]

The "universal solvent"?
Water.
Just ask any homeowner.

Or any chemist.

[Hartmut]

It may just take a while. Even many chemists often forget about kinetics (or to the contrary use them as a cop-out).
In that sense air should be considered a candidate too. All condensed states have a vapour pressure, be they solid or liquid. So, wait just long enough and any object should dissolve in air (if enough of it is around).
[Caveat: very heavy objects can counteract that by their own gravity, a factor chemists prefer to ignore]

[liberal japonicus]

I should point out that alkahest is _not_ simply a universal solvent, it is something that reduces other things to their elemental state.

A potential problem involving alkahest is that, if it dissolves everything, then it cannot be placed into a container because it would dissolve the container. This problem was first posed by German alchemist Johann Kunckel.[4] However, the alchemist Philalethes specified that alkahest dissolved only composed materials into their constituent, elemental parts;[10] hence, a hypothetical container made of a pure element (say, lead) would not be dissolved by alkahest. The old remark "spit is the universal solvent" satirizes the idea, suggesting that instead of a solvent that would easily dissolve anything, the only "real" solvent to anything is a great deal of hard work.

[GftNC]

nous, I thought you (and anybody else) might possibly be interested in this, further to the Kate Clanchy controversy, and by her:

https://unherd.com/2022/01/you-cant-cancel-poetry/

When I began teaching in the Eighties, I argued with a French friend about how it was we allowed hijabs, turbans and crucifixes in my North London comprehensive when her Parisian lycée would have banned the lot. Why were we so muddled, so unenlightened, she asked? What was this with the Hanukkah candles and Christmas trees, the Diwali party for Nelson Mandela?

My answers were always hesitant, because multiculturalism has always been a practice rather than a theory. Multiculturalism is the thing that happens in schools when young people from all over the world — overwhelmingly, in England in the past 20 years, recent migrants — turn up in your classroom. Multiculturalism is a messy, quotidian, humanist, creed. It was better if a child brought their whole self to school, I used to tell my French friend. You can’t make a division between faith and culture, not really; everyone can learn from each other, stumblingly. Solecisms and Easter eggs all round — what’s not to like?

A lot, it seems.

[Girl from the North Country]

Sorry, ended that quote a few sentences too early:

A lot, it seems today. The new criticism has made the underlying dominance of white colonial Christianity in the lycée much easier to name — but that same light shines cruelly on the soggy body of English multiculturalism. Solecisms now seem dangerous; trust, presumptuous; Easter eggs a deadly gift.

[Girl from the North Country]

I am so very sorry, but as I keep reading, I keep thinking I have to quote the next bit (although really, I think the whole thing worth reading):

As Parmar sternly asserts, isn’t it true that this country “is not (nor has ever been) tolerant or kind towards non-white people”? Multiculturalism’s answers can never match such absolutist rhetoric. Multiculturalism can only say: we try to be kind; individuals are kind; there are kind schools. It can ask: what, please, is the alternative? It can say: look, this is a beautiful poem.

Professor Parmar is American by upbringing, privately educated in California. She does not have the experience of sitting in a classroom where most students were not born in the UK, but in every continent of the globe, a classroom where there is no majority group — that’s a uniquely 21st-century, English thing. But I have. I experience these classrooms as exceptionally kind and creative places where young people hear and listen to each other openly and deeply; make cross-racial and cross-cultural friendships that endure, and, far from being “dominated” by English, remake the language daily in thrilling ways. Poems grow there readily, and poems, also in my experience, do not grow from cruelty, but from confidence and affirmation.

[Hartmut]

I should point out that alkahest is _not_ simply a universal solvent, it is something that reduces other things to their elemental state.

The very concept of 'solvent' is quite a tricky one still even without going into microheterogeneous bicontinuous thermodynamically stable liquid/liquid systems.

Is wine a solution of alcohol in water but strong booze one of water in alcohol? What about sulphuric acid with a concentration >100%? Water of crystallisation?

'Knurd' could as well be a chemical term in this field.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Well, if the criterion is "reduce to elemental form", then clearly the universal solvent is "massive amounts of energy".

Also useful (with even more energy) for transmuting elements.

[liberal japonicus]

An interesting piece. I'd really like to know exactly how all this came about and whether it was Parmar's piece that was the cause of the backlash against Clanchy. Looking at this open letter
https://www.badformreview.com/read/yo21

It seems that the three mentioned in the open letter (Monisha Rajesh, Professor Sunny Singh and Chimene Suleyman) are more involved, though again, with facebook and twitter, it is probably impossible to disentangle all the threads

Here is something from Rajesh
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/13/pointing-out-racism-in-books-is-not-an-attack-kate-clanchy

Cancel culture is a term bounced around by people afraid of accountability. But freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. We had every right to critique a publicly available book on a public forum, not least because the author had drawn attention to the racist language in it herself. [this looks like there was a claim that there was racist language in the book, and Clanchy said that it was made up and it was found that it wasn't] Singh, Suleyman and I did not want to “cancel” Clanchy or her book, as evidenced by the educational links continuously shared by Singh that pointed towards writing about other cultures, and my own pleas to our detractors to understand why the language was so distressing. None of us disputed the fine work Clanchy has done with her pupils’ poetry. None of us had any hand in Picador’s decision to rewrite the book, nor do we feel that the book should be rewritten. No one is policing imaginations or telling authors what they should or shouldn’t write about. But we owe each other due diligence before we set out to write.

That's often how these things work, Clanchy seemed to have started off rather defensive, people pounced and pushed back, the temp increased, things fell apart, Picador dumped Clanchy. So I'd be hesitant to attribute this to cancelling, I'd suggest that as people who have traditionally not had power (like the three women of color who are the center of the open letter) start to wield it, you are going to get all kinds of pushback. Hurt people hurt people.

However, the Clanchy article concentrates on Parmar and this is the introduction
https://poetry.openlibhums.org/article/id/3384/
and I'd be as hesitant of asserting that Parmar does not
have the experience of sitting in a classroom where most students were not born in the UK, but in every continent of the globe, a classroom where there is no majority group — that’s a uniquely 21st-century, English thing.

First of all, I'm not sure that English classrooms are 'uniquely 21st century' and from seeing many of the things that seem to go down in English education, while the classroom may not have a majority group, the hand that guides it is most definitely that.

And this is from Parmar's introduction
Questions that arise from Nagra’s poem and, importantly its lyric voice, cannot help but be rooted in my own personal experience as the grandchild of Punjabi immigrants who, like Nagra’s family, arrived in England in the mid-twentieth century. My grandfather, like many other Asian immigrants, worked in a series of factories and foundries in the Midlands before owning his own small grocery store, which my 11-year old mother (precociously and ambiguously) named ‘Oriental and Continental’. As a factory worker in 1960s England, my grandfather was obliged to cut his hair, an act prohibited by his Sikh faith. It was only when he bought his shop he was finally able to put his turban back on. And as Nagra explains in introducing the poem, small businesses gave immigrants a kind of autonomy and a way to surround themselves with the familiar objects and faces of their lost culture.

Maybe Parmar playing up her background, but I'm not sure if I'd want to deal with someone who insists that my identity isn't really my identity.

Parmar's introduction also points out something interesting, though because the Clanchy book is being pulped, I don't know how to ascertain if it is true or not. It is that all of the poems discuss "express a uniformity of suffering, formally, vocally, and in relation to the expressive expectations of English language lyric, even as they are fetishized by those very linguistic differences"

Chanchy quotes this point as well in order to refute it.

As for the poems, she declines to quote from them at all, because to do so will be to join in the “exoticising” “servitude” the works have been “pressed” into; but she assures us they are in any case without originality, merely expressing “a uniformity of suffering”, and with only “loss, belonging, otherness, migration, war and family” as subjects.

I would say Parmar gets a bit pissy with her line of
I refuse to quote from these young poets’ works; their writing, one hopes, will one day depose their teachers’ English canons and workshop exercises.

but I think Clanchy is pushing it when she says
she assures us they are in any case without originality

I'd argue that Parmar doesn't say they are unoriginal, just that she doesn't want to quote them because they were created with an idea of being decorative to English rather than something on their own terms. But I'd hope that Parmar would understand that the process of teaching requires those set pieces. They both seem to get in their licks.

Clanchy suggests that 'loss, belonging and otherness' was 'good enough for The Odyssey', which kind of has me think she still doesn't get it. The Odyssey is great literature, but when you think how it fundamentally reveals a world where women are property
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/writersandcompany/pat-barker-on-giving-voice-to-the-enslaved-women-of-homer-s-iliad-1.4936874

and portrays a warrior suffering from PTSD
https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2003/2003.07.39/

points out that literature choices we make may reveal quite a bit about the world around us.

Anyway, the comment box is too small to contain all this. I don't think that either side is wrong (except for the publisher who threw Clanchy under the bus), but they both have points to consider.

[Michael Cain]

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency have signed an agreement to participate in the fast-neutron sodium-cooled nuclear power plant Bill Gates and Warren Buffett say they will build in southwestern Wyoming.

[Girl from the North Country]

I haven't followed the Clanchy controversy at all closely, but I was alerted to it by various people posting links, and when followed they did seem to support the view that cancelling, or dropping, people like Clancy might be counter-productive if what one was after was a world where poets from other cultures, in an English-speaking country and hopefully others, were encouraged to write and shine.

As for characterising the Odyssey as great literature but revealing of a world where women were property and warriors suffer from PTSD, I would have thought that this alone (along with many other qualities of course) made it relevant to the world around us! But lj, I'm guessing this may have been part of your point.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Conservative Republican vermin wearing pants in Tennessee ban 8th graders from reading a classic, graphic novel because it depicts naked mice:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/01/campus-pc-is-as-out-of-control-as-its-ever-been

I can't remember if Old Major in Orwell's Animal Farm is depicted with his britches down around his trotters (I'll re-read), but something tells me the conservative vermin in Tennessee have an inkling the crusty old pig is a stand-in for Marx/Lenin, so they can't wait to get the bacon from the frying pan and into the fire.

After banning the book, and after checking the price of their Charles River Labs stock holdings, the conservative vermin returned home to reset the Maus traps in their garages and then lectured the mice that if they plan on taking the bait, could they please at least have the decency to wear some trousers while in the act.

These are the same same who when watching a school shooting news report with children's bullet-riddled bodies all over the bloody place, skip over the bullet-riddled part and wonder aloud, but not too loud, how the kids can possibly get an education with all that deafening ear-splitting noise from the gunfire going on.

Then, they make a new conservative vermin law that all school-shooters must use silencers.

And pants.

They, the vermin ratfuckers (I know this is getting confusing) routinely call the mice (not vermin, but like chickens, just decent people) by their family name, Soros, in their cracker accents and cackle every time one of the pantsless cuties gets chopped in two.

Robert F. Kennedy Junior (so it's come to this now, I have to hate on a Kennedy after everything else the family has been through, though I guess it will be good practice for when John John is resurrected as Trump's Vice President) compared those who are forced, I say forced, to get vaccinated to Anne Frank in her attic, but never mentions that his fellow Nazis made her get naked, which according to vermin republicans, is the worst thing that happened to her.

One of the conservative vermin said Art Spiegelman's "Maus", a deeply humane piece of literature, PROMOTES the murder of mice, though I sense he has just an inkling of literature as metaphor.

Where's my silencer?

Ya know why you never see a naked Nazi or Republican?

Because the jackboots make it impossible for them to get their pants off.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

The American economy grew by a robust 5.7% last quarter ................

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/27/economy/us-fourth-quarter-2021-gdp/index.html

... and this has got to be stopped. We just can't have this, can we?

Here's how it works.

There's an old question among stock market investors regarding their meager returns, compared to what their Wall Street brokers are raking in.

"Where are the customer's yachts?"

So one broker drops the news in their weekly sales rah-rah session that one of his customers purchased a yacht.

After a group gasp and then silence from the nest of reptilian slithering suits, the sales manager hisses: "That's gotta be stopped. Now! The entire point of this enterprise is to move all of our "customer's" money into our bank accounts because it is rightfully, all of it, ours. That they think they can buy even a dinghy in good times is some kind of commie unAmerican plot against our rightful spoils."

"You get on the blower immediately and tell that ungrateful, trickle-down expectant customer to mortgage his house, cash in his kid's college accounts, and load up on Gamestop common and warrants and don't stop until we forget to tell them to stop."

Rising interest rates are the tribute money pays to a robust, rising, all boats lifted economy.

But not for stinking anti-American Republicans and their conservative movement who created the transitory, inflationary supply chain bottlenecks thru their fucked up trade and pandemic policies, all designed to fuck someone or other, but not them.

They love rising interest rates because it will torpedo wage growth and the economy and most of all, the stupid, clever sons of bitches, crater the Democratic Party's chances, even when employment is near all-time highs, in the already stolen fucking elections coming up.

I also see Milton Friedman's death was mere rumor.

There wasn't too much money floating around when Jeff Bezos was financing his yacht that is the size of the US Enterprise, but now some nobody is upgrading to a 15-foot fishing boat, and WE WILL NOT HAVE THAT, by God!

We always neglect filling villains' mouths with salt before sending them on their way.

[wj]

multiculturalism has always been a practice rather than a theory. Multiculturalism is the thing that happens in schools when young people from all over the world — overwhelmingly, in England in the past 20 years, recent migrants — turn up in your classroom. Multiculturalism is a messy, quotidian, humanist, creed.

Actually, I think there is a theory behind multiculturalism.
"In general, we will not force others to conform to our cultural practices. Certainly not when their own do no particular harm."
Also
"Ignorance is not bliss. You will need to deal with people of different cultures. It helps to know something about them."

The French approach, like the one advocated by the xenophobes here, assumes that their own culture is, in every detail, the One True Way. And therefore everybody should be required to conform to it. Not because any particular bit has an identifiable merit, but just because it is part of the Way.

It is possible to get into arguments about whether particular features of particular cultures do do harm, and so should be excluded. (For example, child marriage.) But that isn't generally where the discussion goes.

[wj]

They love rising interest rates because it will torpedo wage growth and the economy

Except that rising interest rates tend to drop the rates of return on stocks, and even stock prices. Which hurts their wealth. Quite a conundrum.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"She does not have the experience of sitting in a classroom where most students were not born in the UK, but in every continent of the globe"

Okay, I want to meet those kids that were born in Antarctica. I'm sure they have some interesting stories.

[Nigel]

An argument for SC term limits.
Unlikely to happen, but it's still probably the single easiest reform that might improve the court.
https://fallows.substack.com/p/on-life-tenure-and-its-drawbacks

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Which is why now after this recent "dip" .... slaughter ... in the tech stocks, Wall Street is rushing in to support their stocks, and now, after months of begging for rising interest rates, which by the way has not really happened yet, the know-it-alls (not me, I know nuttin) are now making the case that the stock market can rise even with interest rates headed higher.

In other words, the stock market never falls (it experiences "volatility") regardless of the price of money, despite ya know, history right in front of our noses, but all of this is just Wall Street's way of having it both ways and the speed of the decline caught them flatfooted too, so they need to juke things a bit here to get their own money out on the dead cat bounce, before we give up and sell.

A very smart professional financial planner once told me, during a time-out in the outfield where he played ball next to me, that the market is designed to go up no matter what, and it's too large and amorphous of a subject to get into, but he was saying the stock market is fixed, kinda like the Mafia's "legitimate" garbage collection businesses are fixed.

You don't want to look too closely at the refuse as you dump it in the landfill, because you might catch sight of the remains of Jimmy Two Times among the banana peels, who went missing last week.

That all said, I make some of my living investing my own money in the stock market, because I, the commie collectivist liberal, like it.

And I do hope it goes up. But I have some idea the table I'm dealing with.

The Wall Street underwriters have inventory they don't like holding for to long and we are the marks, especially now that the ridiculously inflated prices their paper is selling for is taking in the shorts as inflation now moves to real goods, like it always does.

If we aren't convinced to buy a suit full price at Nordstrom's, we sure better be buying it as a "bargain" at the local discount window, whether we want to or not.

It's our duty.

For the record, I started raising cash in November and now hold approximately 60% of my "portfolio" in cash.

THAT is NOT a recommendation, because then I would have to tell you when I change my mind, if I'm smart enough to catch a bottom, short or long term, which I'm not, and I might forget to do that and might be away from my desk (but not on a yacht) when you call to ask: "Well, what now?"

[nous]

wj - My sense of it is that the "multiculturalism has always been a practice rather than a theory" line raises that opposition (theory/practice) in order to tie the discussion to the backlash against Critical Race Theory, and the idea that this is an academic crusade being forced upon impressionable students.

It's not. It is, at least in my case, an attempt to make the classroom a space for every student's voice and trying to find subjects for discussion that open up to a multitude of backgrounds and experiences. That's what it seems (to me) education is supposed to be/do.

Turning towards GftNC's quote a bit more for the sake of this...

The hardest part of this always is how to deal with the voices in the classroom whose backgrounds and experiences are built on a habit of closing down those same conversations. If the classroom is a fuzzy, wide, borderland of free communication, then the people erecting walls and policing those borders are working against the building of community.

Some people are not yet ready to face difference without those walls. The fear is too much with them. And some have reason for those fears. Practicing hospitality in the classroom requires treating the enemies of that hospitality with compassion, but also demands that openness be reaffirmed and actively (and publicly) defended.

Not theory, practice. You model the world you want to live in.

As for the publisher decision, this sort of thing is really tricky. The literary agency that represents my wife faced a similar situation a while back when it came out that one of the authors being represented had a history of inappropriate touching and behavior at conventions. They had already been through one round with this author where he had apologized and committed to seeking treatment for alcoholism, so when the second round came out and the problem had not been resolved, the author found himself without a publisher and without representation in the space of 24 hours.

Yes, the publisher was trying to protect itself from a boycott. There is very little altruism left in publishing. It's profit driven and cutthroat. But I know that the agency decision was one of principle, not of profit. His agent was doing in the situation what I have had to do in the classroom - insisting that the space of openness remain a safe space.

The other authors understand the vulnerability of the writer who tries to take on big societal issues. They talk about it all the time in their meet-ups. But they all supported the decision in this case because the offending author's behavior was corrosive to the community that they were attempting to create and support with their own work. And the author in question had publicly professed to live by those same ideals, only to show through continued behavior that he was not practicing what he preached.

But it's not about doctrine, it's about having to decide what to do with someone who injures and ostracizes other vulnerable community members. It's restorative justice, not punitive justice.

Safe, not comforting or comfortable. It takes bravery to live in an open borderland.

[nooneithinkisinmytrere]

"Over 6m jobs created, three times as many as were created by last 3 GOP Presidents COMBINED."

Time to close down more polling places and stop all mail-in voting.

America is great again over the conservative movement's dead bodies.

[nous]

When I was going through my undergrad education and my grad school teacher training we read a lot of classroom theory, a lot of which was unavailable to us in the classes we were allowed to teach, and some of which was nigh impracticable in a real world classroom.

I read a lot of feminism, postcolonialism, queer theory, etc. during that time.

But what I wrote above doesn't grow directly from any of that. All of the above is a product of being a part of diverse communities that are committed to giving space in the conversation for all voices, and for trying to share that space more equitably. It grew out of watching people be silenced and knowing that it was my responsibility to that community to not allow that result to stand - to have to draw attention to that moment and make the community consciously work through it.

That's about as real world as it gets.

[wj]

wj - My sense of it is that the "multiculturalism has always been a practice rather than a theory" line raises that opposition (theory/practice) in order to tie the discussion to the backlash against Critical Race Theory, and the idea that this is an academic crusade being forced upon impressionable students.

Ah, that detail had gone right by me. But perhaps I suffer from knowing too much about Critical Race Theory . . . even though my knowledge on the topic may amount to less than 2 paragraphs. It is enough to see bullsh*t on the topic when it is spewed.

[CharlesWT]

The literary agency that represents my wife faced a similar situation a while back when it came out that one of the authors being represented had a history of inappropriate touching and behavior at conventions.

These days Isaac Asimov might be in a bit of trouble...

[nous]

These days Asimov would already have a lifetime ban. SF completely earned the current reckoning by enabling toxicity.

Delany has many choice things to say about Asimov. It's good that Delany is getting the chance to say these things now, and that the people in charge of events are listening.

And Asimov isn't the worst offender to have been shielded. Not with Walter Breen and his open secret walking around.

[wj]

Then again, Asimov was a man of his time. Are you sure his behavior wouldn't have been different if he was living in the current culture?

[CharlesWT]

Asimov might be characterized as a bit extreme even for the times.

What to Make of Isaac Asimov, Sci-Fi Giant and Dirty Old Man?: Despite Calling Himself a Feminist the Author of the Foundation Stories Was a Serial Harasser

[hairshirthedonist]

Are you sure his behavior wouldn't have been different if he was living in the current culture?

Perhaps that would be the point of the current culture?

[nous]

Asimov was enough of a problem to distinguish himself in an era that was more tolerant of that sort of thing. That marks him as a sexual harasser in the same way that Lovecraft was marked as a racist in a racist time.

[wj]

Asimov was enough of a problem to distinguish himself in an era that was more tolerant of that sort of thing.

Perhaps those distinguishing him hadn't encountered Randall Garrett.

[Girl from the North Country]

Open thread, so RIP Barry Cryer.

A comedy gold, and all-round lovely guy.

[CharlesWT]

Perhaps those distinguishing him hadn't encountered Randall Garrett.

According to Jerry Pournelle, Garrett had a "hands-off" approach to being inappropriate.

"Randall had another very well-known practice. After a few drinks, he would roam the convention parties looking for women he did not know, making certain that this was someone of age ( most often late twenties or older ). He would then approach, stand well out of reach without any physical contact, bow, and say “HI. I’m Randall Garrett. Let’s F—.” This happened many times at many conventions between 1970 and about 1980, after which he was disabled until his death in 1987. His habit was known to nearly everyone of importance in the science fiction community. I know of no one who encouraged him, and many told him to stop it, but he persisted, giving the argument that he never made physical contact, he never pursued or persisted unless he was actively encouraged to continue, and he was doing no more than offering casual recreational sex. He would also cite the argument that women had as much right to desire non-relationship recreational sex as men – he could cite articles from women’s magazines stating that idea."
Randall Garrett and the Arthur Clarke Prediction about love and marriage

[wj]

Don't get me started on Jerry Pournelle. Who can perhaps be described as a Garrett wannabe. With neither the talent nor the charm (not that I found Garrett all that charming either).

[nous]

Cons are better and more interesting now, and SF is living up to its calling better now.

The predators and edgelords can sit at home and grump about their heyday. No one at the con is listening to that nonsense.

[liberal japonicus]

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/samuel-delany-and-the-past-and-future-of-science-fiction

Delany and Asimov anecdote at the top of this

[liberal japonicus]

More detail on the above anecdote

https://www.nyrsf.com/racism-and-science-fiction-.html

[nous]

Yep. I taught that NYRSF essay in my SF class a few times. Those were the first of his choice words that popped into my head.

Delany is a complex dude. I don't always agree with him, but I respect where he's coming from and his commitment to the conversation. He's also trying to hold the conversation open for other voices, even when those voices aren't easy or comfortable.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Hours later we find the mice ARE wearing pants ....

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/move-over-mickey-minnie-mouse-is-wearing-the-pants-now-and-some-fans-are-furious-11643305004?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

.... and conservative movement vermin hate that too.

The mice are fine, but the vermin are fucking insane.

[wj]

Well, I suppose it could have been worse. He could have used an actual document shredder to break the law.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/31/trump-ripped-up-documents/

[liberal japonicus]

That ripping up thing was reported pretty early

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/10/trump-papers-filing-system-635164

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/17/historians-having-to-tape-together-records-that-trump-tore-up

I guess it is all fun and games until someone decides to stage a coup...

[nous]

The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed- William Gibson

The civil war we have been discussing:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/03/california-county-controlled-by-militia-group

Similar stuff happening in other pockets of the West.

[wj]

It will be interesting to see what these far right nut cases do when they are actually responsible for governing. Given that they are constrained by state and Federal law from just implementing an autocracy.

I'm guessing that they will wear out their welcome rather quickly -- not with everybody, but with enough that they will have trouble winning future elections. (But then, as we all know, I'm a compulsive optimist.)

[nous]

I worry, wj, because that region already has a history of voter suppression. For years the sheriff of Humboldt was intimidating the Hmong community to keep them from voting. I see no reason why this will be any different in practice.

It's the KKK playbook all over again. The far right should just change their motto from MAGA to Rebirth of a Nation.

[wj]

nous, I hear you. But I'm thinking that these folks being SO extreme might lead to greater attention getting paid to their efforts at voter suppression, etc. Paid by those, like DoJ, with the ability to actually do something about it.

[nous]

If this were the mid-90s again I'd be right there with the optimism and determination. OKC was a warning shot that got rolled up quick in a bipartisan effort. I have no faith in either the US Congress or the USSC to let the feds handle this. I have little faith that Sacramento has the resources or the teeth to handle this without federal help. And I don't see the locals having the wherewithall to do anything in the meantime while the state and feds try to sort their way through the legal obstructions that will gum up the works.

We are being drowned in a bathtub.

[wj]

I have no faith in either the US Congress or the USSC to let the feds handle this. I have little faith that Sacramento has the resources or the teeth to handle this without federal help.

I'm guessing that the RWNJs hold a similar view of the improbability of outside intervention. Given how, for example, the Bundys got handled with kid gloves, they may have reason.

But think how shocked they will be if they are wrong. Not just outraged, to have their fantasy challenged, but shocked and amazed that such a thing could happen to them. (Not unlike the amazement of some of the idiots who are getting sentenced over Jan 6.)

[nous]

Shasta really is, though, just attempting on a local level what DeSantis is attempting at the state level in Florida.

This is the plan, to be reproduced holographically at each level of government at which they can find any purchase. I see signs of this sort of organization within my siblings and their families, too. It's what Hans Magnus Enzensberger called "molecular civil war" in his book on the topic (Civil Wars). It's hard to assert control when the opposition is set up like a p2p network.

[GftNC]

This made me laugh, about Joe Rogan:

https://twitter.com/j_amesmarriott/status/1489277414022782985/photo/1

It sounds sort of right to me (I have to admit I haven't listened, just read about him). Or perhaps the ObWi commentariat think this too benign an explanation?