#newrepublic

birne@diaspora.psyco.fr

There Are Four Postelection Scenarios, and Not One Is Good

No matter how I map it out, the election cycle either ends in chaos and violence, balkanization, or a descent into a modern theocratic fascist dystopia. There is no scenario in which everything turns out “just fine.” Even in my first scenario, the best case for Democrats (and democrats), nullification of Biden policies by red states is rampant, and the union slowly dissolves. The only scenario that results in a peaceful transfer of power is the one that leads almost inevitably toward the worst possible long-term outcome: a fascist nation, allied with the globe’s worst dictators, governed by religious fundamentalists yearning for Armageddon, while armed with enough strategic nuclear weapons to give God a run for his money.

#TNR #NewRepublic #USA #Trump #MAGA #GOP

birne@diaspora.psyco.fr

“I could have banned TikTok. I had it banned just about, I could have got that done. But I said, ‘You know what? But I’ll leave it up to you.’ I didn’t push them too hard because, you know, let them do their own research and development, and they decided not to do it. But as you know, I was at the point where I could have gotten it done if I wanted to. I sort of said, ‘You guys decide, you make that decision.’ Because it’s a tough decision to make.”

“I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media. What Facebah-book did with lock boxes, with a $500 million, Zuckerberg’s, lock boxes that he put in. I mean, I considered illegal.”

“I mean, they get the information, they get plenty of information, and they deal with China and they’ll do whatever China wants. You know, if you look at, some of our American companies, when you talk about, highly sophisticated companies that you think are American, they’re not so American. They deal in China, and China, if China wants anything from them, they will give it. So that’s a national security risk also.”

-- The Rt Hon. James George Hacker, Baron Hacker of Islington, KG, PC, BSc, Hon. D. Phil

https://newrepublic.com/post/179733/trump-tiktok-ban-rant

#TNR #NewRepublic #TikTok #TikTik #TikkiTikki #Tok #TikittiTok #Trump

ramil_rodaje@diasp.org

How Trees Made Us Human

https://newrepublic.com/article/160298/age-wood-roland-ennos-book-review-trees-human

It is strange, when you think about it, that the leading metropolises in one of the world’s most technologically advanced countries should have been fashioned out of humanity’s oldest building material. But we rarely think about it. Wood has a way of slipping from view. We characterize historical epochs by their most advanced materials and energy sources: the Stone, Copper, Bronze, and Iron Ages of prehistory and the recent fossil-fuel–powered Anthropocene. Yet, as the biologist Roland Ennos argues, if you looked at people’s actual lives, you’d conclude that nearly the whole of human history deserves a different title: the Age of Wood.

#nature #environment #fire #wood #trees #RolandEnnos #newrepublic