Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
Excellent thread. Thanks.
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@inthehands “There is no Justice, There is just us.”
It was a dark, dark day when US cops repurposed this wise adage by inverting its meaning. Or maybe it's just the LAPD, but they use it a lot and I hate it.
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@inthehands “There is no Justice, There is just us.”
“In the halls of justice the only justice is in the halls” — Lenny Bruce
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[The quote is from the book _The Country Between Us_ by Carolyn Forché. It is some of the most powerful and gut-wrenching poetry I’ve ever read, and the book still burns like a hot coal in my hands when I hold it. The book is among other things the origin of my handle, “in the hands.” Don’t look up that quote; look up the book. Read it slowly. You’ll know the quotes when you find them.]
@inthehands I bought the book when it first came out. I think I still have it but I haven't read it years. I remember the poem with the colonel with the bag of ears.
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It was clarifying. We knew, with complete certainty, that nobody was coming to save us.
If we don’t stand in their way when they come to kidnap our neighbors, nobody will stand in their way.
If we don’t try to help people who need to hide, nobody will help them hide.
If we don’t try to feed people who can’t work, can’t even go outside to get food, nobody will feed them.
It put things into focus really fast.
3/
Reminds me very much of New Orleans in the months after the Hurricane Katrina Federal Flood and continuing disaster.
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Reminds me very much of New Orleans in the months after the Hurricane Katrina Federal Flood and continuing disaster.
"Sinn Fein, which means ourselves alone. That's probably how we're gonna get outta this mess, by ourselves. I'm not banking on anyone to do anything, because that's part of the White House stragetizeing: wait us out until we're bankrupt from mortgages and rent and no jobs, and then buy us out and create vinyl-sided McMansions. I think that they're forgetting how hard-headed we are, and how we won't bow down. They ain't gettin' nuttin' from us." - Ashley Morris, 2006
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And of course there are a thousand practical lessons in fighting authoritarians, and we are passing them on as best we can as so many thousands of thousands have before us — but for now, for today, this is the one thing I can tell you: stop waiting for someone else to save you. This is it. We’re all we’ve got. Either we do this or no one does.
❝
It is either the beginning or the end
of the world, and the choice is ourselves
or nothing.
❞/end
@inthehands Thank you for this thread, Paul. Your words give me courage here in Oklahoma City.
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It was a dark, dark day when US cops repurposed this wise adage by inverting its meaning. Or maybe it's just the LAPD, but they use it a lot and I hate it.
@AdrianRiskin @inthehands huh. I’d never seen it used by police: I could be oblivious or it’s specific to LAPD. Or both.
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I cannot tell you what to do, watching the US president and his horrific regime trying to plunge the world into flame and darkness. I can’t tell you because I have no idea either.
All I can tell you is this:
You have to know, with total and completely clarity, that nobody is coming to save us.
And knowing that, you will feel lost — but strangely clear.
And suddenly the work will be on you.
And you will do it, because that is •just what you do•, because you •know• that nobody else is coming.
And you will still have no idea what to do, even as you are already doing it.
11/
if enough of us wrote/emailed/phoned/screamed outside their office to our congressional reps to IMPEACH or face voter outrage leading to being voted out, and kept it up, we could regain our democracy
citizensimpeachment.com/
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
@inthehands I am not sure his cognitive abilities are degrading. AS a mafioso, his definition of "art of the deal" has always been to threaten people and impose his deal with a "take it or leave it" attitude , and he continues to apply this to Iran the same way he applied it to a concrete supplier since back then, this worked because if one supplier stoof up, Trump would turn to another concrete supplier and woiudl eventually find one. He was elected to implement "art of the deal" and doing so.
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It was clarifying. We knew, with complete certainty, that nobody was coming to save us.
If we don’t stand in their way when they come to kidnap our neighbors, nobody will stand in their way.
If we don’t try to help people who need to hide, nobody will help them hide.
If we don’t try to feed people who can’t work, can’t even go outside to get food, nobody will feed them.
It put things into focus really fast.
3/
The fetishization of "heroes" in American culture has always been cognitively dissonant.
https://professionalsoutherner.com/2025/03/04/the-problem-of-the-hero/
People waiting around being miserable, suffering, and dying, waiting for the cavalry to arrive, or a small group of superheroes, or a lone man coming to the rescue.
It portrays Americans as a passive people letting others step forward & do the hard stuff.
Perlmutter, a major GOP donor, is the former owner of several movie franchises like the Marvel Universe.
1/
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
@inthehands Paul, this extraordinary lesson for these times can't be allowed to disappear into the depths of old Mastodon posts. Please pull it together into a pdf. I promise to help disseminate it, and hard copies. Thanks for giving me another grain of hope.
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You don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know what to do. You feel powerless. Nothing you can do seems like it could possibly be enough.
And then the work is there, on your doorstep, in your hands, and you •just do it• because that is what you do.
Nobody is coming to save you. The choice is ourselves or nothing. The moment you believe that, that you •know• it in your bones, is the moment the work truly begins.
6/
@inthehands First things first: THANK YOU for your service!
What you describe is how it always is in war. We are at war against a fascist, racist theocracy. Either we win this war or much of the world descends into a slave pit of misery.
And we are winning it! Crimethinc's analysis shows deportation flights from Minneapolis plunged after that Jan 14 neighborhood uprising.
Now Trump is in a war with Iran that he sought just after it became clear he had no path to victory in Minneapolis. He's losing there too.
Notice there have been no futher large scale, widely reported urban invasions intended to sow fear.
The deportation machine grinds on, one of the main threats now seems to be 287 (g) in shithole states like Florida which are much harder to fight. This however isn't flashy stuff that energizes the GOP base.
As I said elsewhere, a defeat for Trump in Minneapolis followed by a defeat for him in Iran could trigger a blowout defeat for the GOP in November even over ICE agents at polls etc. If THAT happens, Trump loses much of his influence, cannot rule by decree, cannot push bills through an opposing Congress-and loses his path to an illegal 3ed term or otherwise staying in office past Jan 20 2029. Sweeping him out will leave the Dems owing huge debts to our street fighters and a torrent of public rage will be unleashed against the GOP. Hopefully we can then throw down everything Trump stands for and smash it to bits, burn it to ashes.
If Trump goes for an auto-coup after defeats in Minneapolis and Iran, expect it to blow up in his face. In that scenario, we may be able to get him out immediately. Every Federal official will have to choose between obeying Trump and obeying the courts, and they will mostly be trying to cover their own asses.
Worst comes to worst we fight an open-ended guerilla war, and Trump's successors are never able to pacify the continent. Eventually their regime burns out, exhausted from the war.
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The fetishization of "heroes" in American culture has always been cognitively dissonant.
https://professionalsoutherner.com/2025/03/04/the-problem-of-the-hero/
People waiting around being miserable, suffering, and dying, waiting for the cavalry to arrive, or a small group of superheroes, or a lone man coming to the rescue.
It portrays Americans as a passive people letting others step forward & do the hard stuff.
Perlmutter, a major GOP donor, is the former owner of several movie franchises like the Marvel Universe.
1/
2/
I sometimes wonder if such movies, with their strong theme that citizens are powerless collateral damage as the powerful battle each other, that they train voters to think they can sit on the sidelines & be Monday Morning Quarterbacks, second guessing but not participating.
16. Isaac & Laura Perlmutter $25,344,890
The Epstein Class wants us to believe someone else has the job of fighting fascism and the electorate just has to sit on their asses & ...
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"Sinn Fein, which means ourselves alone. That's probably how we're gonna get outta this mess, by ourselves. I'm not banking on anyone to do anything, because that's part of the White House stragetizeing: wait us out until we're bankrupt from mortgages and rent and no jobs, and then buy us out and create vinyl-sided McMansions. I think that they're forgetting how hard-headed we are, and how we won't bow down. They ain't gettin' nuttin' from us." - Ashley Morris, 2006
@Infrogmation @inthehands In Kurdistan they say they have "no friends but the mountains" meaning much the same situation
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2/
I sometimes wonder if such movies, with their strong theme that citizens are powerless collateral damage as the powerful battle each other, that they train voters to think they can sit on the sidelines & be Monday Morning Quarterbacks, second guessing but not participating.
16. Isaac & Laura Perlmutter $25,344,890
The Epstein Class wants us to believe someone else has the job of fighting fascism and the electorate just has to sit on their asses & ...
3/
... wait for the courageous of Minnesota to rescue democracy.
Fascism & oligarchy is a group problem that demands group solutions, not indolence.
An over-reliance on heroes to step in to fix the problems caused by the disengaged is a sign of significant systemic issues. Fix the system instead.
The people of Minnesota set an example, now it's time to amplify their lessons in leadership
https://acrossthemargin.com/the-hero-is-the-problem/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41172531
https://blog.richmond.edu/heroes/2022/05/26/the-problem-of-heroism/
https://medium.com/@JeffRoush/the-problem-with-heroes-9d0f00e8638e
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@inthehands 90% of winning a fight is ... showing up.
@faraiwe @inthehands Oh yeah-asses in the grass are where it's at
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My fellow people of the United States, if I have anything to teach from what Minneapolis just lived through, it is this:
Nobody is coming to save us.
Not Congress. Not the courts. Not the ICC or the EU or NATO. Not the generals or the rank and file. Not the press. Not the markets. Not the elections. Not some mythical version of “The People” that materializes out of nowhere as some messianic external force.
We’re it. We’re all we’ve got. If we don’t stop fascism from completely engulfing the US, then nobody stops it.
7/
@inthehands general strike now!
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I cannot tell you what to do, watching the US president and his horrific regime trying to plunge the world into flame and darkness. I can’t tell you because I have no idea either.
All I can tell you is this:
You have to know, with total and completely clarity, that nobody is coming to save us.
And knowing that, you will feel lost — but strangely clear.
And suddenly the work will be on you.
And you will do it, because that is •just what you do•, because you •know• that nobody else is coming.
And you will still have no idea what to do, even as you are already doing it.
11/
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
Thank you for this, Paul!
