An excellent essay on the dangers -- to society, and to soldiers themselves, and the military -- of the right-wing obsession with creating a "warrior culture" Tons of great points here, but one I particularly enjoyed: The essayist describes how the Spartans created a huge mythos for themselves ... ... which was a terrible idea, because after they suffered defeats that mythos came *crumbling* down

Stop Calling Us Warriors – The Angry Staff Officer

As ever, Timothy Snyder -- the historian of tyranny -- distills the moment perfectly The key line: "In general outline, the idea is to make the government as a whole dysfunctional, while preserving the parts of it than can intimidate and oppress citizens."

Kash Patel's Plots

Fiction and Persecution in the FBI and America

How the behavior of DOGE -- and Trump's lackeys who are running riot through the federal government -- is exactly that of ... ... a protection racket An excellent way of understanding it, via @npub168td...50jm at Slate unpaywalled: https://archive.is/tNrHM

An excellent interview with Elizabeth Warren ... ... about the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ... ... how much banks loathed it ... ... how much money it has put back in the pockets of Americans, by cracking down on deceptive and usurious bank charges ... ... and why Musk in particular would hate the CFPB: He wants X to be a financial app, and doesn't want to treat his customer's privacy and rights seriously

Sen. Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan to Save the CFPB From Elon Musk – Mother Jones

"I wrote in my notebook, from the front seat of a silent Tesla carrying me, its driver, and one other person through a pastel-toned tunnel, that 'nothing can prepare you for how fucking stupid this shit is.'" David Roth on this year's CES https://archive.is/mo4AS

I'm working at a cafe today and "Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House comes on during the chorus I look to my left far across the cafe where two young women, maybe 20 years old, are sitting together they both have their heads tilted back and eyes closed, mouthing DON'T DREAAAAAAAMMM it's OHHHHHHH-VER like they're onstage in American Idol man, I had no idea Gen Z kids even *knew* that song

Well what do you know Marko Elez, one of the young software guys Musk has illegally turned loose to alter critical government high-tech services ... ... was, just back in December, posting on X about how he wanted there to be a "eugenic immigration policy" ... ... how "you could not pay me to marry outside my race" ... ... and "Normalize Indian hate", referring in this case to folks from India the Wall Street Journal just broke the story (gift link): https://www.wsj.com/tech/doge-staffer-resigns-over-racist-posts-d9f11a93?st=8613EM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

In addition to formal government institutions, Musk is also trying to tear apart Wikipedia That is almost certainly, as this analysis notes, because Wikipedia is "a last bastion of shared reality" ... ... and Musk, in contrast, only wants online sources that repeat his sort of conspiratorial blather The piece:

The Atlantic

Elon Musk Wants What He Can’t Have: Wikipedia

Musk and other right-wing tech figures have been on a campaign to delegitimize the digital encyclopedia. What happens if they succeed?

Unpaywalled: https://archive.is/1mjMq

"Of course it's a coup" as ever, Timothy Snyder cuts to the chase

Of course it’s a coup

Miss the obvious, lose your republic

Big crowds outside the Treasury department, protesting the government-systems takeover by Musk and his twentysomething software lackeys

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