Notices by Jon Udell (judell@social.coop)

It is tragic that https://disappeared.us/ must exist. Thank, you, codeberg.org/reed/, for creating it.

#AmericanGulag

The Handmaids won the Santa Rosa #HandsOff.

@evan This was Robert Putnam's prescription 30 years ago, it hasn't gotten old.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone

/Paul Weiss “is merely rearranging the proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic,” Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, wrote on X. “With this administration, there will be no legitimate legal system and no need for actual lawyers.”/

The "wrote on X" part of these kinds of stories really twists the knife.

Oh well. Looking forward to another #TeslaTakedown tomorrow.

#

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/business/paul-weiss-trump-reaction.html

"Presidents Day Sale: Buy two Nazis, get one free."

I've updated the DEI tracker. Not many new sources, media's attention span is short. But I did validate a Reddit list of companies holding the line.

We see the effect the #Tesla boycott is having. Let's not only punish companies backing away from diversity but also reward those courageously upholding it.

From what I found there are more #heroes than #cowards. If true, that's an unreported story!

Some, of course, like Walgreens, are bending but not breaking.

#DEI

https://judell.github.io/dei-tracker/

200 people showed up at the Santa Rosa Tesla dealership today, peacefully.

One drive-by Tesla honked in solidarity. It's not their fault the car they bought years ago now feels shameful.

I felt bad for the lonely sales people cowering inside, also not their fault.

This will have an effect.

#NoKings #NoNazis

These stories amount to "the left was so annoying about pronouns or liberals made people feel so guilty about plastic straws they had no choice but to get on board with the second coming of the Third Reich and the destruction of the planet." https://mastodon.social/@heidilifeldman/114074531734885121

It's hitting me really hard that the US could be another Hungary, if not Russia, for the rest of my life.

Being "late-career" I've got less to lose than many, when it comes to facing the consequences of nonviolent resistance, and that is the way.

But I reckon Vietnam-era protest, that I was just barely old enough to join, will pale compared to what's coming.

The American revolutionaries, Gandhi, MLK, Walesa, Mandela, Havel, Sakharov, Yousafzai, Navalny: all in my thoughts tonight.

“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”

#GeorgeOrwell #1984

A useful roundup of gathering resistance from @froomkin. Thanks Dan!

https://www.headsupnews.org/p/civil-society-is-coming-to-the-rescue

"Agency grants to promote democracy, human rights and good governance have gone to support election monitoring groups, anti-corruption watchdogs, independent media outlets and human rights organizations — exactly the kind of oversight that leaders like Mr. Putin detest."

Nice to see you finding your voice again. Would be nicer if you found it a few years ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/world/europe/usaid-russia-putin.html

Twitter is doing a pretty good job of hiding posts to the #coup hashtag. A few are getting through the censors, but not many.

Thank you, @Gargron, for enabling spaces where actual free speech can flourish.

I've been looking for the soundbite that could break through to all Americans and I just heard it from Lindsay Owens:

"Elon Musk wants to pay for his tax cut with your social security."

Don't talk about democracy, or justice, or the rule of law, or values, or humanitarian aid.

Appeal to the self-interest of every American across the ideological spectrum.

Land on the right bumper-sticker message and pound it out everywhere, repeatedly and relentlessly.

First glimmer of a response, from Ron Wyden in a letter to Scott Bessent, via finance.senate.gov which remains accessible as of today.

https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_from_senator_wyden_to_secretary_bessent_on_payment_systemspdf.pdf

@timbray The results of that litmus test have been sad but predictable.

I try to keep an open mind and not judge, but people I have respected who remain on Twitter after today will lose that respect.

"But that's where all the cool kids talk about AI."

That's yet another PR headache for AI, which already has plenty of those.

"As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the *Post*."

https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post

Not everyone can afford to do that. I hope those who can will band together to bring that accountability. Like *I. F. Stone's Weekly *did back in the day. The MSM are more vulnerable to disruption than they were in his era.

"I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy."

- Bezos editorial

"We"? You can't deflect this, Jeff, it was you.

I would love to see Taylor Swift show up at the rally today as a profile in courage standing in contrast to Bezos' profile in cowardice.

#wapo #courage #cowardice

"No major news organization has yet run even one serious story about the state of Trump’s cognition and thus of his fitness for office. We saw dozens of these about Biden; so far, none about Trump."

I hugely respect Fallows and would love to know his take on why media give Drumpf a pass, and what exactly is the turning point he discerns.

But it's a paywalled article. Can anyone who has read it summarize the arguments?