DeClarke

Well it’s been a long, longtime since I’ve checked in. I lost my partner (sudden and unexpected natural-causes death) and have been in semi-seclusion for a year of grieving and getting back on my feet again. I have no idea if anyone is still following me since I’ve been dormant for so long.

1. European and UK ministers are still talking as if their biggest potential security problem is a withdrawal of US support. But that is not their biggest potential security problem. It’s that, under Trump, the US will back Putin not just diplomatically but also militarily. 🧵

They are deliberately crossing the red lines, in order to make the unacceptable commonplace and, eventually, acceptable again.

“After we’ve discriminated against, deported, or disparaged all the immigrants, the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women, and minorities. Once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends… what comes next?” - Gov. JB Pritzker

1. A few years ago, people like me were widely attacked in the media for “declinism”. How could we fail to see that we were heading into a capitalist utopia, in which everything would keep getting better? This is a thread about what we could see that our critics could not. 🧵

Some light reading :-) for y'all. Five books for this annus horribilis. If you like book reviews, maybe more to come.

One of the most important websites in America right now.

This project tracks government attempts to restrict or prohibit scientific research, education, or discussion, or the publication or use of scientific information. Read more about the tracker and related... Or contribute to the database. #science climate.law.columbia.edu/Silencing-Sc...

WHO DID THIS!

Revelations about the role Robert F. Kennedy Jr. played in a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa keep getting worse.

As expected, the Trump team is already deleting climate info from government websites. In anticipation, our team at Urban Ocean Lab created a permanent archive of 100+ key resources and published a permanent archive: www.urbanoceanlab.org/resource-hub 👩🏽‍💻

tout se tait, l'ennemi dans l'ombre se repose on nous a dit ce soir que Paris s'est rendu je n'oublierai jamais les lilas ni les roses ni les deux amours que nous avons perdu

Does anyone have a contact for Ann ? Would love to discuss with her the possibility of partnering with her to publish her cartoons exclusively on @bluesky

And who has the final word on how the Constitution is interpreted? SCOTUS. Now completely compromised by oligarch money and extremist religious cults.

More baldly: Do you want to be the somewhat democratic United States of America, or the oligarchic Failed State of Muskistan? because those are the menu options, folks. White Americans are being asked which is more important to them, white supremacy or their country. I fear the poll result.

I understand what people mean when they say "It's not left/right, it's up/down." But seriously, it's the LEFT that traditionally understands that it's up/down. That's called class consciousness, class struggle, class war. Lefty stuff.

"We sincerely apologise for telling the truth."

As I note in this piece, we've actually seen this weird mishmash of ridiculously wealthy businessmen and dipshits whose main qualification is loyalty to the president about a hundred years ago. It was the Cabinet of Warren G. Harding and, hoo boy, did that not turn out well.

40% of the mass of everything transported by a ship in 2023 was a fossil fuel. That stat paired with this new study shines a pretty harsh spotlight on how obscenely bad-faith the right-wing concern trolling around offshore wind + whales is www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

I went to a pop-up holiday market and this white lady selling hand made ceramic earrings was proudly displaying the political message left by an assassin on bullet casings after a successful murder so that’s a bit of a data point for Where Things Are

Can we just start calling these guys "Momma's Wittle Boys" at this point? There isn't a grownup in the lot.

Elon always reminds me of that old truism that gets more true the older you get and the more you've witnessed: "Privilege is infantilising."

New Here. Among other things, I write. It doesn't feel very powerful in times as troubled and troubling as these, but it's "the only thing I was ever good at." So I'll just offer this: my feeble little "ironic point of light." declarke.substack.com