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Whoa.
This feels like a harbinger of things to come. I can’t cheer it, but also can’t say it comes out of the blue.
Can't cheer it because the guy’s a human being, and whatever he did, I do not support the death penalty (much less summary execution).
Can’t say it comes out of the blue because he was a figurehead of a cruel system that does •incredible• harm to many, many other human beings, as part of a runaway feedback loop of self-concentrating wealth and power.
https://infosec.exchange/@tinker/113595179834467503
Democracy and elections, the rule of law, the social safety net, the free press and free speech, the US mythology of Individual Opportunity, the aspiration of mutual aid…
…say what you will about all those things, good and bad, but they all have one thing in common: they all help form alternatives to “might makes right,” to negotiating societal relationships via violence.
When they are in decay and decline, what do we expect to happen?
2/
My Dear Oligarchs, when you suck the life out of democracy, manipulate elections via disinformation and voter suppression, destroy the rule of law, gut the safety net, buy up the press, and strip the economy for parts, what do you expect to happen??
These things you're destroying are part of an ecosystem. And one thing that ecosystem does is protect •you•. All of us, including you.
3/
The natural response of people in power, of course, will not be to realize all the above, but to do ever-increasing damage in a vain attempt at self-protection.
I do not relish what’s coming. I have no fantasy notions about glorious revolution and this being a magical path to utopia. This is social ecosystem collapse, and a lot more people are going to get hurt along the way. Yes, more than are already being harmed by our half-broken social systems. Worse is worse. My heart is heavy.
/end
Just a little addendum to the thread:
I said up top that I don't support the death penalty. “Don’t support the death penalty,” however, is not the same as “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”
Please, by all means, go ahead and speak ill of the dead if that's the truth that needs to be spoken.
Thank you for saying the balanced thing that I just don’t have in me today.
@inthehands On the upside, if the oligarchs decide they might be in danger maybe we can finally get some decent gun control measures passed.
@donw @inthehands or go down in repression.
@inthehands I rather suspect this will be a run-of-the-mill murder, rather than a political statement, but I was struck by today's immersion in Britain's women's suffrage movement. The podcast hosts note this fit a tired old pattern: when peaceful demonstrations have no effect, activists stop being peaceful.
@marick @inthehands I was hoping for general strikes before this, but the US seems a little out of practice.
@jmeowmeow @inthehands Did we ever have that habit? I skimmed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strikes#Chronological_list_of_general_strikes, and the US general strikes tend to be labeled with locations like "Minneapolis", whereas other countries are labeled "Nationwide".
The list shows three nationwide general strikes in the US: 2020 (essential workers), 2020 (Black Lives Matter), and 2021 ("Striketober"). Did you notice any of those *as strikes*? I didn't. I'm not sure they really count.
@marick I didn't notice the recent ones at all.
Edit: Not as strikes; Black Lives Matter was absolutely visible as a movement.
n 
@inthehands at some point I decided that what “don’t speak ill of the dead” is good for is letting mourners have space to mourn. Like don’t speak ill of him to his kids right now, they should be able to morn without that, and some public figures like news hosts ought to keep that in mind with their public statements. But most of us will never be heard by his mourners anyway, so it’s ok for us to speak the truth plainly