Something significant happened on Saturday. After an all-out propaganda campaign to declare all dissent illegitimate and demonize the No Kings protests as a gathering of dangerous extremists, millions came out anyway – and the regime did… nothing.
Let’s assume the Trumpists really mean it when they declare large swaths of the population the “enemy within.” Their claim to power is built on the idea that Trump embodies the nation. Because he channels the will of “the people,” dissent is disloyal, protest is tantamount to treason.
Has the regime proven too weak to consolidate authoritarian rule? Is Trump definitively losing? Let’s be cautious with grand proclamations. Since “No Kings” I in June, the regime has escalated the militarization of the conflict and laid the pseudo-legal groundwork for a crackdown on “the left.”
Will they actually follow through on any of this? We don’t know. But let’s assume they will try. Any form of dissent is now Antifa, and Antifa is like a foreign terrorist organization… It is not hard to see where this *could* be going, where the Trumpists want this to go.
At the same time, the gulf between these authoritarian aspirations and violent desires on the one hand and the realities of a complex political system coupled with a population that predominantly rejects Trumpist dictatorship remains vast.
Binary categories of Trump “winning vs losing” – or the regime being “weak vs strong” – are not particularly helpful. Better to grapple with the murkiness of this moment: A staunchly authoritarian movement is in power, but they haven’t been able to install a consolidated autocracy yet.
The No Kings protests did not change anything in any immediate, tangible way. It was a highly symbolic affair. But that doesn’t relegate the protests to the status of an ephemeral blip. I believe they mattered for three main reasons:
First of all, the Trumpists’ key assertion is that they represent “real America,” that the November election was a referendum that installed Trump as the tribune of “the people.” Anything that helps to dispel such notions – especially in the minds of mainstream elites – matters.
Secondly, a broad coalition is needed to defeat Trumpist authoritarianism. In thousands of places, Americans came together with their neighbors in a communal effort that created a shared experience beyond strategic or ideological disagreement. That matters.
Finally, the No Kings protests can be part of an effort to, as cringe as that may sound, reclaim patriotism from the Right. Too long have rightwingers been allowed to drape their grievances in the nation’s collective symbols and present themselves as the guardians of the national mythos.
This is where the slogan “No Kings,” in all its simplicity, is effective. It is a reference to a founding myth – but mobilized in defense of democratic self-government, as an affirmation of democratic aspirations, even if America has certainly never fully lived up to them yet.
This is also where the (perceived) “normie” character of the No Kings protests becomes an asset. Too long have rightwingers been allowed to present themselves as “real Americans” and deride everyone who dares to dissent as “abnormal.”
But all (small-d) democrats in America must dispute this claim of “real American” normalcy and replace the repressive norm of white Christian patriarchal dominance with a promise that the expected norm is an acceptance of pluralism and diversity in all spheres of life.
The chasm between the traditional Republican assertion of representing “normal” America and the assortment of extremists, fraudsters, and weirdos in positions of influence and power has become brutally stark. It is time to pounce.
Fellow Brits: this is the way it goes 👇. Don't get suckered-in. Don't believe Farage. Demand adequate funding for our NHS and that Fat Donald & his big-pharma big-data oligarch bros are kept OUT.
@khleedril as the famous saying goes: the best fridge-looker is not the man who looked at at 10,000 fridges, but the man who looked at his own fridge 10,000 times
To enrich their culture, every country should develop a tradition of intriguing, elaborate, strictly non-violent art thefts that are resolved ten years later with the safe return of the stolen artwork, with books, movies and other spinoffs starting five years after that.
The cover art for The Land, the Sea, the Air How many band leaders are also professional circus performers? Not many, I imagine. I only know of one: Katrina “Tree” Stewart is both a tra…
#guix is this normal behavor? shepherd is taking up 10% of my entire cpu when im doing nothing, causing lots of fan spinning & battery usage. when i strace, it is just polling for 0 timeout:
The Phoronix forums are such an awful place. Each time there is a post like this, I'm forcing myself to look at the comments just to remind myself these people exist in our communities. I've yet to see any form of moderation on this site or comments against these people. Maybe those comments are being moderated?
is there a nice way in #guix to create a shepherd service where the service runs in some profile with a bunch of packages?
with all the bells and whistles youd get if you were to guix shell or something.
my original goal is: i want a home shepherd service that runs emacs --fg-daemon, but also with all the search paths setup for various extra packages (both emacs packages e.g. emacs-paredit, but also things that are helpful in the environment e.g. aspell), without actually polluting the shell environment itself that i might log into.
is there an easy way to wrap a program into activating a profile before being launched?
Emacs is something of a case in point. I don't think I know of anybody who has managed to get it working with all desired bells and whistles without just installing everything in the home profile.
“Sweet romance with the kind of people you wished you knew.” Take a heartwarming break from stress with this sweet #romance series filled with cats, kittens, and the people who love them. Start the series FREE - Available everywhere! storyoriginapp.com/collections… #books #cats #caturday #romance
“Small town romance with cats ... what more could you want?”
The Furrever Friends Sweet Romance series features the workers and customers at a small-town cat café, and the adorable cats and kittens looking for their forever homes.
Finished a complete #startrek #discovery watch-through. Fabulous wild #scifi which I loved. Not really ST, but great that the creators had the courage to do something so bold. Burnham is my least favourite ST captain ever, and probably the weakest character (why does she keep whispering?) But everybody else is wonderful, and I especially like how they bring in (when they can) specialists to solve problems.
But above all else it is the far-out sci-fi which makes this the best ST in my opinion.
I don't think most people understand that the conservative attack on trans people is a bid to control everyone.
What they are asking for is: - government access to your private personal medical records in perpetuity - to give up your right to bodily autonomy, to no longer be allowed to do what you want with your own body - allowing the government to define whether you have rights based solely on religious doctrine
That should scare the piss out of literally every single person. What they do to us, they will do to you.
I hadn't seen anyone post this yet so here is a late cursed #mechanicon find. this was my favorite design, referencing the most ~~cursed~~ efficient way to pack 17 squares.
Yet another mind-blowing and highly educational video by AlphaPhoenix, in which he builds a 2,000,000,000 FPS camera and uses it to watch light move. In his garage. 🤯 Seriously, just go watch all of his videos. youtube.com/watch?v=o4TdHrMi6d…
I've upgraded! It took almost a year, but today I finally get to show off a TWO billion frame per second camera! I really want to record refraction, interfer...
@ferrix Not really. The trick is to use laser pulses that are slightly de-synchronized from the camera FPS rate. You know those helicopter videos where the rotors suddenly turn really slow or even stop? It's the same trick.
Means here we don't see one laser impulse moving through space but each frame is an individual laser impulse. But nonetheless impressive, because it proves that light exists and moves even after the light sorce is switched off. @jasoncoon
@khleedril Can you please explain that? I ask because right at the end you see the beam pulse moving to the left and the tail is seen moving as well, which would imply that that is what is happening.
@nikatjef @momo @ferrix There is a lot going on here: in 500 chars: you cannot see travelling photons (unless they actually fly into your eye); what you see is scattering off airborne contaminants and absorption and re-emission from nitrogen and oxygen molecules and some of these processes introduce extra delays; in the first place you are not looking at a single photon but a packet (actually an awful lot of them); why wouldn't the tail end of the packet move just like the front edge?
@khleedril Also: The tail and the front edge are dimmer than the rest of the impulse. My theory for that is that the laser pulse had been controlled electronically with a transistor. Transistors switch with a tiny delay and when they switch their states, there is a short time where its base isn't fully saturated, is neither on nor off but has a rising or dropping resistance. And this causes the laser source running with lower power which results in a less dimmer tail or front.
Because reasons (#posse and total Guixification if that means anything to you) I'm rifling through all my old projects to make sure everything is factually correct and working still.
Latest one to get the invigoration treatment (but there is way to go before it is actually Guixified) is i-bash: khleedril.org/dmbcs/i-bash.
Even ex GOP Congress people think trump is a puppet. Miller is in charge of ICE fascism, Vought is gutting Federal workers and RFK is fucking up the medical system. Trump doesn't know shit about what's up, hes just marking time until he dies of a stroke thereby staying out of jail.
When I was younger I did the journalism thing and anxiety over perfection killed my interest in it because perfectionism is masochistic.
However...
The older I get the more I see the flaws in the work of my favorite writers and realize that I don't care. I don't want to read perfection. I love their flaws because that vulnerability is everything. Its seeing someone covered in cuts and brusises holding their heart out to you.
🗓️ Start: Tue 27 Jan 2026 12:00 pm
⏳ End: Tue 27 Jan 2026 1:00 pm
Tuesday 27th January 2026: Another exciting presentation from one of our members. The title to this meeting will be ‘Timekeeping’. Come along and join in, I am sure you’ll have the time!!
Jan27
History Group Month January 27th Title ‘Timekeeping’
Tuesday 27th January 2026: Another exciting presentation from one of our members. The title to this meeting will be ‘Timekeeping’. Come along and join in, I am sure you’ll have the time!!
🗓️ Start: Wed 22 Oct 2025 10:00 am
⏳ End: Wed 22 Oct 2025 11:30 am
Biodiversity is a measure all living things on Earth & their interconnection (animals, plants…). Population of living things has declined by 69% globally since 1970 due to climate change,
Biodiversity is a measure all living things on Earth & their interconnection (animals, plants…). Population of living things has declined by 69% globally since 1970 due to climate change, pollution and loss of habitat. But we rely upon biodiversity for food, clean air and water. We describe the UK and global response to this crisis.
🗓️ Start: Wed 24 Dec 2025 12:00 pm
⏳ End: Wed 24 Dec 2025 1:00 pm
The History group meeting date would be December 24th so look out for information as too whether or not the group will be meeting
🗓️ Start: Tue 25 Nov 2025 12:00 pm
⏳ End: Tue 25 Nov 2025 1:00 pm
[quote]Tuesday 25th November 2025 Art History meeting at noon: There will be an intriguing presentation by one of our members who will be talking about ‘Frith’s Royal Academy Viewing’. This
Tuesday 25th November 2025 Art History meeting at noon: There will be an intriguing presentation by one of our members who will be talking about ‘Frith’s Royal Academy Viewing’. This is a glimpse into Victorian society and its art world. We look forward to seeing you there!
To join a "public restricted" group the process is :
* you follow the group ( eg @ testgroup @ friendica.u3a.social ) * I, owner of the group, gets an notification ... if I'm happy I'll approve the follow (to you join the group) * You'll then see other posts to the group and can post to it
Friendia supports different account types :
* Personal - one of standard, soapbox or love-all * Organisation * News * Community group - one of public, public restricted and private
So a group is just a special type of account.
You should be able to go to settings -> manage accounts and click on "Register an additional account". The new account can be changed from personal to community group via settings -> Account -> Advanced account types.
You can also click on the "+" icon in the groups which creates the account in a different way,
I'm witnessing more and more people around me starting to publish their thoughts on the web, which is a great start. But, sadly, they tend to go for the low-hanging fruit of social media silos. IG, LinkedIn, Bluesky.
Please consider Publishing (on your) Own Site, Syndicating Elsewhere:
POSSE is an abbreviation for Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere, the practice of posting content on your own site first, then publishing copies or sharing links to third parties (like social media silos) with original post links to provi…
Are you a #guix shell user - how do you use it? What's the most common thing you do? Or your favourite trick?
I use it as a #container or light-weight #linux chroot a lot. Particularly, for testing new #perl or #python packages. Using it for #dev to create a dev environment is also really useful.
1. To try out software, without worrying about cleaning up afterwards. Yesterday I was looking for a Makefile linter, #guix shell enabled me to quickly try out both checkmake and mbake.
2. To automatically setup an environment with direnv and a manifest.scm file. For my plain text accounting I need bc, gnumeric, hledger, miller and xlsx2csv. I do not need these packages anywhere else, but when I step into my accounting directory, guix shell makes them available.
Have to admit I mostly avoid shells. I work on a laptop with about 15GiB spare storage, and have to manage the store quite aggressively. But shells leave anonymous GC roots behind making it really difficult to manage them.
Instead I have profiles in my working directories, and use direnv to energise the profile when I go into (or through) the directory. That also allows me to rollback and generally manage the age of GC roots.
I've setup a test instance, friendica.u3a.social, so I can explore adminstration (and generally break things before the final install!). Itsa currently running rc.
I've created a "testgroup" of type "Public Group - Restricted" with a parent of the admin account ... when someone tries following the group, I get a notification on the webpage "bell" (which I can click-through to allow that person to follow), but no email notification.
As far as I can see I've enabled email notifications in the account settings and other emails are arriving okay from the server.
I guess the first question is, are email notifications expected to work in this case ?
Steve Marston's conviction for stealing from his Post Office branch has been hanging over him since 1998. The case - based on faulty computer software - has still not been referred to the Court of Appeal after almost a year under review.
Steve Marston's conviction for stealing from his Post Office branch has been hanging over him since 1998. The case - based on faulty computer software - has still not been referred to the Court of Appeal after almost a year under review.
Thomas Zimmer
in reply to Thomas Zimmer • • •Something significant happened on Saturday. After an all-out propaganda campaign to declare all dissent illegitimate and demonize the No Kings protests as a gathering of dangerous extremists, millions came out anyway – and the regime did… nothing.
I reflect in what we should make of that.
Thomas Zimmer
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