I was listening to NPR this week when I heard J.D. Vance say that precise quote about how "importing millions of foreigners into the country" degrades social cohesion. And my first thought was, this coming from the guy whose wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants.

It takes some world-class chutzpah to claim something that is so antithetical to your own life story. But of course, if there is anything J.D. Vance is world-class at, it's saying whatever you need to say to advance your career. And of course, the more brazen the lie or the more head-spinning the hypocrisy, the more it is celebrated within our nation's budding authoritarian movement.

P.S. In Vance's defense, his wife is not actually an immigrant herself. The same cannot be said for Vance's boss.

Rephrasing my P.S. In Vance's defense, his wife is not actually an immigrant herself. The same cannot be said for Vance's boss and HIS wife.

Excellent Essay, Charles

a few notes:

"The paradox of thrift:

The system’s performance is improved by circulating
money, and hampered when large amounts of it
are parked in bank accounts. And yet,
capitalist ideology praises misers
and even frugality to the
high heavens."

"Tax the Rich!" we shout.

"but you'll soon 
Run Outta Other
People's Money!"

they scream.

that's the 
bloody
point.

"A second
MAGA assumption
is that the left is insincere
in its values, and that principles of in-
clusion and unity are superficial forms of virtue signaling.”

which's why when wormmy's
always whining about
"Performative!" he's
merely Projecting
his MAGAtty
(wormmy!)

Persona onto The Left ~ 
which now 'makes sense.'

"What ICE has done is act-
ually strengthen, rather weaken,
the bonds between urban dwellers."

like when the Wormtongue
frantically screeches for
the Stranger to "Just
STOP TALKING
ABOUT GEN-
ERAL STRIKES
AND PROTESTING!

WHICH'LL ONLY MAKE
THEM MAD! JUST S T O P!"

and here is The Stranger, the
Left-leaning rag the Wormtongue
rises at 4am to Lecture it and its readers

from the East Coast of the US of A
imagine if he had to telecommute
by Pony Express! why, it'd take
Weeks for wormmy's bilious
missives to even Arrive!

imagining it right now!

where was I ...
oh, right -- wormmy's
Incessant Screeches for tS
to S T F U A! is Backfiring. Excellento!

"The Dems, in a word, are failing our cities.
Now is the time to change that."

the Dems in another word
are Failing Democracy

but
at Least
they've the
Brave People
of Minnesota, showing
the Feckless How It's Done.

a Few're even, seem-
ingly Growing a Pair ~ Emulating
Progressives, as it were. so there Is HOPE!

Bravo, Charles!

and THANK YOU!

"We have a heap of racial, housing, and gender issues to work through."

Housing yes. The other two are non-issues cultivated only by the people who celebrate their victimhood.

Good to read that Charles can still meet (the bare minimum of) his employment obligations, whilst continuing to enjoy the chronic heavy-drinking dilettante lifestyle of the trueborn trustifarian.

If he'd done any useful research at all into the recent history of what he here calls the "Care Activism" movement, he'd know it began with the 'care for immigrants' part, then moved on to the 'virtue-signaling, look-at-me' part. (And by "research," I mean, "reading a link which thekossack kindly provided," https://www.compactmag.com/article/how-pro-immigrant-activism-turned-dangerous/)

"True, the market found a home in premodern cities, but rarely was it central to the life of the polis."

Good to know Charles still hasn't heard of the agora in ancient Athens. This really preps us well for his actual levels of historical and economic knowledge on display here:

"And yet, capitalist ideology praises misers and even frugality to the high heavens."

Written -- somehow, without irony! -- in the United States, during our country's second consecutive century of consumerism.

"A second MAGA assumption is that the left is insincere in its values, and that principles of inclusion and unity are superficial forms of virtue signaling.”

MAGAs spend a lot of time attending the public comment sessions of Seattle City Council meetings, do they? (Or just reading the Stranger's fawning coverage of same?)

Hold it right there, buddy. You can't Clock Out just yet: gotta pay the bills, by servicing the party line of your employer.

"The Dems, in a word, are failing our cities. Now is the time to change that."

Bingo! Well done, sir. Cha-ching!

(Written right after Senate Democrats, including both from Washington state, forced a Congressional vote to deprive ICE of funding. Priceless!)

@2: Donald isn't an immigrant.

@3 one of these days you’ll learn the difference between wealth and income. One is real and can be taxed (in moderation) the other is not and trying is both futile and couterproductive.

This recent idea that those of us who visit Slog have no access to other forms of media, whereby we might learn about other thing that have gone on in the city, is at best naive.

I wish that our Slog overlords would put a character limit on posts.

ii!ii

@Barfly is obviously not from here. I live in Seattle and keep abreast of the news, but I go about my day anyway. You cannot let fear lock you up in your boring suburban home, alone in your car.

well,
Totoman,
you Can~but
you'd hafta be
MAGAt-infested
for it to take Aholt:

the
FOX
is Strong
in this one.

Charles says the Dems are failing our cities. Which is interesting, because he also previously wrote that Kashama Sawant “totally represented the interests of the destitute and the working poor.” This is the same Sawant who campaigned against Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris and actively worked to get Donald Trump elected, which has caused massive damage to the destitute and the working poor.

Charles is either stupid, lying, or both, and you should treat his articles accordingly.

@33

speaking
of the Worm-
tongue, turning
and twisting his evil
ways, distorting dystopia
into Utopia, & tilting at windmills

maybe try don
quixote for a
little of the
ol' Irony,
nextu-
ally.

oh
and
Speaking
of 'Censorious'
& KKKOMO teevee

if you want
'fair and balanced'
KKKOMO (& FOX) just

fawkin' Ain't. welcome
to Propaganda, USA
Brought to US by
the psychopathic
and iron-fisted
owners of

"The News."

and whilst you're on
Their Side, Quixote,
you are Also on
the Wrong side
of History. see:

Germany, circa
1933 - 1945.

@Barf-ly, Yes, there’s room for improvement in Seattle, but people still choose to live here and it’s a wonderful place. Neighborhoods are vibrant with restaurants, classes, people going about their day with their dogs and children. I welcome any new people who move here, but the cranks spewing voluminous comments in the forums are not contributing to civil life in Seattle and 9/10 times live outside the city anyways. Why they so obsessed with what’s not even happening in their own communities is beyond me. It’s becoming a national pastime to crow about all the awful things happening in cities and get a rise out of federal occupation events. Find a way to make yourself more useful than spamming forums from your basement.

@37 Yes, the U.S.A., which Seattle is ineluctably (and perhaps unfortunately) part of, is a notoriously violent place compared to other first-world nations, mainly because of our steadfast, centuries-long refusal to seriously address poverty, racism or guns. If that's your point, consider it taken. But Seattle is actually one of the safer U.S. cities -- and big cities are, in terms of violent crimes per capita, safer on the whole than suburban cities and rural areas. If you feel so chronically endangered here that every horrible crime reported on TV gives you a fresh anxiety attack, your own well-being would probably be best served by moving to another country. While I'm not a psychiatrist, I think it's unlikely, judging by how long you've been obsessively reposting these stories (copyrights be damned), that you'll escape that doom loop any other way.

@44, I meant where are you writing from (ie where do you live now). I live in Seattle. And yeah it matters when WE HERE are paying the taxes, using the services, and voting for leaders. I don’t think any “progressives” are in favor of abdicating our control to people who don’t actually live here. If you want to politicize this by calling it a “border,” like, whatever. Seattle pays far more state and federal taxes than it uses and serves populations that would otherwise seek services elsewhere. Y’all should really be rooting for us to succeed.

City subreddits (on reddit) are chock full of posts from lonely people who can't make friends no matter what they do and how many hobbies they take up. Single men no longer approach women they are interested in for fear of appearing like a creep and let's not forget the numerous people claiming social anxiety. Lets see - there are the folks that can't even make a phone call. Urban spaces are FULL of fearful people.

barfing barfly barflingly
littering these pages
with outrageous
traces of his
loneliness
cum in-
celity?

jesus
Jeebus
I do Believe
you've Nailed it.

Excellent work Barfly! I love the archive hack! TS is the ultimate snowflake, arbitrary at that. You have been nuked countless times for perceived impropities while other commentators explicitly advocate for political street violence. It reminds me of that scene in Apocalypse Now where Kurtz recalls airmen being disciplined for painting F*** on their airplanes, planes dropping napalm on villages.

Kristo, in Barfly you have met your black mirror. Do enjoy!

no worries, petersen!

with him under my wing
and perhaps my tutelage he
shall come to Realize the Error
of his wanton ways and renounce
Regressivism cum fealty to the Corporate

and see we're All
on this ship together

already he's considering
taking up Writing, full time,
from some distant locus, where all
things electrical're longer such a Distraction

and'll be burning the candle at both ends.
but he's promised to compose a
Scholarly treatise on the
Events at CHOP

and how the
Po-po's abandoning
of their post whilst under
some slight duress was . . . well,

we don't want it spoilt for him, do we?

of course, we'll all be pulling
for ol shivvy, no matter
Where he turns up

you will Pray
for him,
won't
you?

oh
and
BTW;

those 'commentators
explicitly advocating
for political street
violence' - mind
pointing them
out for me?

I cannot seem
to Locate them.

silly me!

Thanks!

omg
who on
Earth 'edits'
this tripe!? alas:

already he's considering
taking up Writing, full time,
from some distant locus, where all
things electrical're NO longer such a Distraction

and'll be burning the candle at both ends.

we
wish
him Well!

from fucking afar
away as pos-
sible.

"This never-ending avalanche
of bad news is a demoralizing military tactic
used to take down societies, and it is being fully deployed here.

President Obama's Warning:

'You just have to flood a country's public square with enough raw sewage,
you just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt,
plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens
no longer know what to believe.

Once they lose trust in their leaders, in main-
stream media, in political institutions,
in each other, in the possibility
of 'truth,' the game's won."'

Who is behind this? The 1%:

Here is well over a dozen Fox, CBS, ABC, & NBC local news stations all reading an identical script sent down from their singular overlord to crash & burn alternative media in order to de-fang the Oligarchy’s Overwhelming threat to our democracy:

https://substack.com/@tritorch/note/c-208406729

Ultimately we are not consuming news.

We are consuming a product manufactured by
the richest men in human history, and that
product is designed to do one thing:
keep us so busy fighting our
neighbors that you never
notice the chains being
fastened around
our wrists."

--by TriTorch; Out Here On the Perimeter

[very Lightly edited, by me.]

Oodles:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/

@37

"Are you seriously attempting
to claim that because those news stories
were reported by KOMO (among other news agencies),

that those news stories aren't real? That
none of those crimes happened? That
KOMO just made them up?"

you Miss my point (intentionally?):

if you want
'fair and balanced'
KKKOMO (& FOX) just

fawkin' Ain't. welcome
to Propaganda, USA
Brought to US by
the psychopathic
and iron-fisted
owners of

"The News."

propaganda doesn't
Hafta be false: the Owners
of 'The News' can pick and choose
what their viewers 'may choose to watch.'

ever notice how the same stories,
with slightly differing commentary,
Dominates what 'our' MSM shows us?

"This never-ending avalanche
of bad news is a demoralizing military tactic
used to take down societies, and it is being fully deployed here.

President Obama's Warning:

'You just have to flood a country's public square with enough raw sewage,
you just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt,
plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens
no longer know what to believe.

Once they lose trust in their leaders, in main-
stream media, in political institutions,
in each other, in the possibility
of 'truth,' the game's won."'

Who is behind this? The 1%:

Here is well over a dozen Fox, CBS, ABC, & NBC local news stations all reading an identical script sent down from their singular overlord to crash & burn alternative media in order to de-fang the Oligarchy’s Overwhelming threat to our democracy:

https://substack.com/@tritorch/note/c-208406729

Ultimately we are not consuming news.

We are consuming a product manufactured by
the richest men in human history, and that
product is designed to do one thing:
keep us so busy fighting our
neighbors that you never
notice the chains being
fastened around
our wrists."

--by TriTorch; Out Here On the Perimeter

[very Lightly edited, by me.]

Oodles:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/