Patrick Gillam

“A general strike is when working people refuse their labor until demands are met. Research shows we need 3.5% of the population, or 11 million Americans, to be successful. The strike card below tracks our progress so we all know when it’s time to strike.”

https://generalstrikeus.com

Republicans would have us believe their billionaires are paragons of rugged individualism. But those billionaires’ monopolies, monopsonies, communication platforms and politicians force the rest of us—we who would be individuals—to walk in service to the billionaires’ wills.

I had been thinking Schumer and my Senators’ vote to fund the government enables us to use the courts against DOGE. But the New York Times’ Adam Liptak explains why the courts may ultimately fail us, too. Hint: The Supreme Court already has failed us.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000010063017/are-we-in-a-constitutional-crisis.html?smid=url-share

“I was sure that I should never stand alone in this desert world, but that manna would drop from heaven, if I would but rise with every rising sun to gather it.”

—Margaret Fuller, friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, on her transcendent experience of “no self.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson explains the motive force behind social media. This is from Robert D. Richardson’s “Emerson: The Mind on Fire”:

[Emerson held that] “expression is as basic a human drive as sex: ‘It is a necessity of the human nature that it should express itself outwardly and embody its thought.’ ‘As all creatures are allured to reproduce themselves, so must the thought be imparted in speech.’”

#ralphwaldoemerson #socialmedia

“The perception behind ‘Days,’ the nagging regretful sense that the days are gods, each one laden with gifts we are never quite able to take, was expressed scores of times in Emerson’s notes, letters, and journals. In New Bedford in February 1834 he wrote: ‘The days and months and years flit by, each with his own black ribband, his own sad reminiscence. Yet I look at the almanack affectionately as a book of promise.’”

—Robert D. Richardson, in “Emerson: The Mind On Fire”

#poetry

Forty-five years of Republicans saying government is the enemy and only now I’m beginning to believe them.

@fixatedpersonsunit A few toots up I read Greta Thunberg say "We can't save the world by following the rules." And here I read Bansky say something similar. Now to find a third stick-it-to-The-Man item to complete my need for things to come in threes. Thanks.

@zenlan @dymaxion I love the idea of dunking on the CEO as the most tech-incapable person in the organization. It’s punching up, and in my limited experience, it’s true. I believe the CEO is the most tech-incapable person because they are too busy to learn stuff. Conversely, the reason young people tend to be better with tech is that they have the time to noodle with it.

@rbreich@masto.ai Let’s include an affordable housing shortage, too. Where I live, people cannot house themselves on the wages being paid.