https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1299003194509590528.html

History type guy:

Thread by @stcolumbia:

«So many people seem deeply invested in the idea that any form of street fighting or “paramilitarism” puts the US on the “path to Weimar,” which is neither an accurate description of how these things have operated in the US or in Weimar Germany.»

https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1298535632306929664?s=20

Actually, probably yet another argument for “defund the police” apart from:

• They employ too many lunatics (or scared white people) who view a badge as clearance to just blaze away
• They don’t need to be doing social work
• They don’t show up in time for violet crimes, anyway (“when seconds count, the police are minutes away”)
• They’re not actually stopping violence during protests, since they just sort of stand aside when the gun-waving fascists show up
• You probably don’t need to be armed to do detective work or insurance claims adjustment

So now we have:

• When a violent perpetrator is right in front of them, they don’t actually do their jobs

«an unhinged cop shot jacob blake in the back several times for no reason with no recourse now tonight a psychotic militia cosplayer murdered someone in cold blood and the police just drove by. absolutely useless. they serve nobody but the elite & protect nothing but capital.»

https://twitter.com/umairh/status/1298445561193025538?s=20

Given what’s happened in Britain, if Trump wins again, a TON of Political Science books will get completely rewritten, I think. In other countries.

❤️ (@umairh) Tweeted: guys as a survivor of authoritarianism I think you are in way deeper shit than you know, this bizarre RNC family business cult of hate is exactly how it happens. I mean *exactly*

https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1298381487620780033?s=20

Random tweet from an interesting conversation.

Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) Tweeted: «@lawnerdbarak West Virginia, the poorest U.S. state, has a higher median household income than Denmark.»

Also: holy moly, everybody picked Japan. Something’s wrong there (and by “there”, I don’t mean Japan.)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/08/25/trump-has-now-moved-23-million-of-campaign-donor-money-into-his-private-business/

«The president’s total haul—from his campaign, party and joint fundraising committees—now stands at more than $6.9 million.

Not a meaningless sum, even for a billionaire.»

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/08/25/natalie-harp-bone-cancer-trump/

«“The problem is it’s a classic case of Trump demagoguery. It sounds good — cutting red tape and saving lives — but at the root of it there’s nothing there,” said Peter Lurie, former top official of the Food and Drug Administration, now president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “The FDA already had a process that approved more than 90 percent of people who wanted access to these drugs and treatments.”

The measure was originally pitched by a Phoenix-based libertarian think tank called the Goldwater Institute as a way to give terminally ill patients access to unapproved medications from pharmaceutical companies without being bogged down by FDA regulations. But since at least the 1970s, there had already been a way for patients to get access to such drugs. That pathway — called expanded use or compassionate use — is used by hundreds of people a year, and more than 90 percent of such requests are granted by the FDA, experts say.

When seriously ill patients struggle to access unapproved drugs outside clinical trials, drug companies, not the FDA, are most often the main obstacle. But the law did not address that.»

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/24/republicanmeltdown-trump-convention-400039

Interesting article (but not a particularly essential read, tbh).

«Overlooked is the real possibility that Trump could win. That Biden has not built a runaway lead despite enormous advantages—chief among them, the president’s poor playing of a terrible election-year hand—speaks to the effectiveness of Trump’s slash-and-burn mentality.»

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1297405642848837633.html

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1297414939695603712.html

Wooowww….

http://www.fathommag.com/stories/finally-healing-the-wounds-of-jim-crow

I kind of skimmed this, but I like these bits:

«When we follow up a story with statements like “I wasn’t there so what do I have to apologize for?” we are forgetting the precedent of repentance in the history of God’s people. In the Bible, God reminds his people of their collective past failures and provides opportunities to repent for the sins of previous generations (Nehemiah 9). In the Christian tradition, it’s always been understood that God uses past corporate failures to reveal his sovereignty and grace despite human imperfection. Why wouldn’t we want to remind people of this? 

….

This is an invitation for America to start over. We need to formally, on record, state by state, address Jim Crow like Germany faced the Holocaust, Northern Ireland faced The Troubles, and South Africa faced Apartheid. We need courageous leaders who are willing to go back and open the Jim Crow vault so that as a society America can actually begin the long journey toward telling the truth, enlisting our society in peace and reconciliation, and healing as our nation becomes more diverse over time. We need leaders who are willing to challenge their own constituencies to find the truth and forgive.»

Also, we need reparations.