News & Opinions

@VeroniqueB99@mastodon.social We were warned in the 1960s. The term "imperial presidency" describes the danger inherent in the American constitutional system's letting a president create and abuse presidential prerogatives during national emergencies, based on presidential war powers that are vaguely defined in the Constitution, and on secrecy which shields a president from checks and balances by the government's legislative and judicial branches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_presidency

National Survey Finds Just 1 in 3 Americans Would Pass Citizenship Test

Our 2018 survey shows only one in three Americans (36 percent) can actually pass a multiple-choice test consisting of items taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test, which has a passing score of 60.
Among all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Vermonters were the sole group able to pass the multiple-choice test.

https://cands.org/research-national-survey-finds-just-1-in-3-americans-would-pass-citizenship-test/

The best way to increase your tolerance for uncertainty is through exposure, and resisting easy answers, but the internet makes it much easier to avoid that discomfort.

Because the future is unknowable, the real question is how we can learn to cope better with not knowing.

Our brains tend to think about the worst-case scenario, and catastrophise. A lot of our anxiety is driven by worrying about things that haven’t happened yet.

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/may/17/author-simone-stolzoff

“We want capitalism to support democracy. Capitalism has to become more humane. It has to be more regulated. And in democracy, we don’t leave anybody behind”

“When you use strategies designed to manipulate knowledge to create market power, you go way beyond what we should be willing to accept”

“Trumpism will not go in a whimper,” Kurz says. “There may be a big recession or a big depression or some other crisis before we can complete a new reform cycle.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/18/big-tech-monopolies-democracy-mordecai-kurz

In politics the dominant time frame is a term of office, in fashion and culture it’s a season, for corporations it's a quarter, on the internet it's minutes, and on the financial markets mere milliseconds.
“If one is mentally out of breath all the time from dealing with the present, there is no energy left for imagining the future”
That's why researchers, artists, technologists and philosophers think that short-termism is the greatest threat we are facing this century.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190109-the-perils-of-short-termism-civilisations-greatest-threat

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate
the growth of private power to a point where it comes
stronger than their democratic state itself... We know
now that government by organized money is just as
dangerous as government by organized mob. Never before
in all our history have these forces been so united against
one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in
their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred.”
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

@gleick@mas.to "Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement...Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.", "1984", George Orwell

@mattsheffield Sorry but I must use the f-word here! "Fascist politicians justify their ideas by breaking down a common sense of history in creating a mythic past to support their vision for the present. They rewrite the population’s shared understanding of reality by twisting the language of ideals through propaganda and promoting anti-intellectualism, attacking universities and educational systems that might challenge their ideas." pg. 10, How Fascism Works https://blackbooksdotpub.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/jason-stanley-how-fascism-works_-the-politics-of-us-and-them-random-house-2018.pdf