Knowcebo

Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.

[Knowcebo @bramble]

I have a new story out.

https://t.co/CaguYNwHWS

[Knowcebo @bramble]

@RickCopeland @BiddleeeW Beyond the surface compaisons, what ppl are missing is Waits does what Dylan does--tell a story or evoke an emotion by unconventional means. Beefheart, like Scott Walker, is sacrificing story and emotion to push his aesthetic ideas to their extremes. Totally different goals.

[Knowcebo @bramble]

@snnbyrmoglu @baharkarakrt Order of operations. You divide first. Then you got K + 1= 4. Subtract one from four=3. Plug it back in. 3/3 equals 1. 3+1=4.

[Knowcebo @bramble]

At the Democratic strategy meeting:
Okay, all we need to do to win is replace Platner with someone who will decry genocide and is not 4,000 years old.
Anyone?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Anyone?
C'mon, give me a name.
Anyone?

[Political Polls @PpollingNumbers]

New - Senate poll - Maine

🔴 Collins 47%
🔵 Platner 42%

🔴 Collins 48%
🔵 Mills 37%

PPP #B - LV - 7/7

[Knowcebo @bramble]

@Perez_Writes But where will I publish my prose poetry?

[Knowcebo @bramble]

The song sm writes about once being gay:

Yr architecture was brutal
We sidestepped a poodle
Avoid high heat & bleach
On your Soviet Union sheets
I did!
Maybe Mark E. Smith & Jed
Never went to bed.
But I did. I did.
I like chicks
Now I'm w/ the Jicks.
But I did, honey. I did.

[Punished Mount Qu℮℮rie @RhysGBiv]

mark kozelek was a rapist
david berman loved israel
stephen malkmus was gay

accept it, at the end of the day I only
care about the music

[Knowcebo @bramble]

I talked about indie rock on here, so I'm seeing a lot of discourse about it from ppl who are obviously too young to have been there at its origin. Yes, I'm pulling that card. My short response: No, that's all wrong.

[Knowcebo @bramble]

@CHRISF0GLE Nobody suggested the OG rant book, Notes From Underground? Guess it's too short to be like the Tunnel, tho.

[Knowcebo @bramble]

@ZaidJilani Too democratic, Zaid. People might vote for someone just like Platner but without the baggage. Too horrible to contemplate.

[Knowcebo @bramble]

Ten hours ago, ppl were like Platner is done. V for victory. He's on his knees.

Now, they are like it's shameful, but I guess he can do what he wants.

Oh I see the fun now: just go willy nilly with the tide of opinion. Never look back.

WHEEEEE!

[Matt Stoller @matthewstoller]

Since lots of gossips are now gunning for me, I'm redoing this thread. It's clear something messed up happened in Platner's relationships, and he hasn't hidden that. But there's a big difference between 'normal people in bad relationships who hate each other' and 'crime.'

So let's be adults. This is a political attack.

Top Maine Democratic Party donors in recent years are Reid Hoffman, Haim Saban, and David Ellison. David Ellison! As in the Trump ally who fired Stephen Colbert and is taking over TikTok, CBS News, and CNN. These names should mean something. Saban may be the single most important AIPAC donor in the Democratic Party.

Another big donor to the Maine Democratic Party is the founder of Zynga, Marc Pincus, who said in 2024 that "an attack on Amazon is an attack on America." It goes beyond big tech and Wall Street. Crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried’s partner Nishad Singh at FTX gave $100k to the Maine Democratic Party in 2022.

The insiders running the party are the people funded through these streams of revenue, they are the ones dealing with the donors and currying favor with them. And while I will not speak out of school, the Maine Democratic establishment simply cannot be trusted and that is well-known.

Platner may be a fatally weakened candidate, that is for others to decide. It's a wave year in a blue state, but I get that Susan Collins is a strong incumbent. Winning this Senate seat matters, so I get why people might see value in ditching him. I generally think that polls and electoral guesses are mechanisms to get ordinary voters to focus on anything but policy. It's a disciplining mechanism, since no one can tell the future. But it's not crazy to see Platner as a poor candidate.

Let's be clear, the goal of pushing Platner aside is to destroy the agenda on which he was elected, which is about taming oligarchy and reorienting us from endless war. That is why the Maine Democrats aren't saying 'let's respect Platner voters and transition to someone else,' they are taking a sanctimonious 'he gets NO say in ANYTHING.' Those are not the actions of people who want to win a Senate seat, those are the actions of nasty insiders claiming factional power for themselves.

If Platner steps down, he will be characterized as a deviant, and that's just how it'll be forever. True or not. And everyone will be tarred as supportive of immoral behavior. It doesn't matter if you are a liberal, centrist, young, old, whatever. People are saying the Bulwark, a centrist outlet started by ex-Republicans who were skeptical of Platner, are tarred by this. Punchbowl is reporting that Senate progressives will never have credibility going forward. The ploy here is obvious.

That is, even though the actual immoral behavior at issue here is the genocide in Gaza, the corruption of DOGE and Musk, and the neoliberal turn in American politics for 40 years that has destroyed our faith in society and each other.

Platner has been consistent about his platform, and there's no reason to assume that will change. 70% of Maine Democrats picked him as their candidate, and he has the right to represent their views. So he should stay in the race or, if he feels he cannot win, leave on terms that will ensure his platform, and not that of Maine Dem Party oligarch donors, is the one on the ballot in November. The Maine Dem establishment cannot be trusted.

And frankly, this kind of ugly scenario is how power works. They make ordinary people pick among ugly scenarios, and then they make it seem like the obvious path is the one that accords more power and wealth to oligarchs. And if you don't choose that one, you're a bad person who deserves approbation and scorn. That's why I had to delete the original thread and rewrite it, because endless numbers of reporter gossips - who don't report on government policy - are using this extremely obvious ratfucking to try and destroy people like me telling you the truth.

[Knowcebo @bramble]

I agree with this monkish moralizing. I made a different but related argument ten minutes ago.

At the same time, what we say on twitter doesn't fucking matter. If we said, "Caca pee pee," it would have precisely the same effect on events. God, we're all such wankers.

[Matt Darling 🌐🏗️ @besttrousers]

"Virtue is not a decorative, prissy quality that hinders you from being savvy. No, virtue is what comes from reasoning well and having the will to follow through on that reasoning."

[Knowcebo @bramble]

Yes, this type of moralism can be manipulated for nefarious ends, but that's the burden we carry if we want a good society. End of rant.

[Knowcebo @bramble]

I think you can stand on principal about Planer not submitting to the centrist without attacking his accusers. Women put up with a lot of shit from macho men. Machos are sexy, but they are often violent skunks. We should feel empathy for the conundrum women often face. +

[Knowcebo @bramble]

We have to shame people who violate rules around consent and, more importantly, common decency. Getting shitface drunk and fucking your girlfriend when she's not into it is bad behavior. It needs to be condemned. +

[Knowcebo @bramble]

Neither the chattering-class ghouls like Neera Tanden and Matt Yglesias nor the Zionist handmaidens in the Democratic party should control the Platner succession. That has to be a bottom line.

[Chris Wright @ChrisCWright1]

Sorry to go against the groupthink, but if Platner isn’t allowed to choose a populist replacement according to the wishes of the voters, he should stay in the race till the end and go scorched-earth against the establishment. He’s no worse a person than countless other politicians, and his ideology is considerably better than that of almost every other figure in Congress.

[moe tkacik @moetkacik]

Fucking ghouls looked the other way at 3 years of genocide. We will never, ever escape this Hell of our own making.

[Knowcebo @bramble]

@Marc_Fagel I think maybe I've listened to Doolittle too many times. I bought the cassette tape when the album came out. My brain leaves the music when I hear that bass intro.

[Knowcebo @bramble]

Are these the best indie rock songs?

R.E.M. Err...yes, I guess. An embarrassment of riches.
The Replacements: Yes.
Pixies: No. "Where Is My Mind?"
NMH: No. "Oh Comely"
Feelies: Sure.
Pavement: Yes, obviously.
YLT: "Center of Gravity"
LP: Sure.
GBV: Yes.
Superchunk: Yes.

[Marc Fagel @Marc_Fagel]

Seems silly to pick a Top 10 US Indie Songs list because I assume we can all just check out each other's 2000 Favorite Songs database (https://t.co/0k4oCQc9Cz), and what does indie even mean? But, anyway, ok: