I want to be able to stay up late tonight and lazily sleep in late tomorrow, so there won’t be a show this week. This is a selfish decision arrived at because I know that I have a show coming up with Renee Johnston again on Sunday 10/22 at 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern! For the foreseeable future, it looks like we’re going to be trying to do a show together every other Sunday and I am hoping this will help me acquire discipline in booking guests despite using it justify personal laziness this weekend.
I was writing a state of the community report for my patrons earlier today and this made me think a lot about how the majority of engagement with my content has always been through Twitter but the new Twitter management has effectively shadowbanned every account that isn’t paying them for increased engagement. Now the majority of views on anything posted here to Substack comes from the Substack mailing list, but there is no engagement coming from the mailing list the way there was coming from Twitter before the management change. So I am really struggling with the right decision to make in this situation.
I would like to ultimately deprive Elon Musk of the ability to profit in any way from my content. That means being more active on Substack and Patreon, for the people who want to follow my work and the people who want to pay to support it. I would love to replace my Twitter activity entirely with Substack Notes activity at some point in the future. I would love for my YouTube to drive people to my Substack and vice vera, and for Substack to drive people to my Patreon. With this business model there is no need to try to rely on Twitter, which is no longer diving traffic here or to YouTube or to Patreon in the numbers it used to drive.
I really want to survive as an independent content creator. I don’t want to charge for my content. I want it to be supported by people who believe in the work. I want to find those people, engage those people, build a community of those people to support and participate. I had that on Twitter, but I don’t anymore. I feel like effort put in on Twitter is largely wasted now, but I don’t have a comparable following anywhere else. This is the challenge I am currently struggling to overcome.
Fortunately, everyone on the mailing list has the power to help! If you want to support this community, just mash like and restack after you read this newsletter!
The Twitter Wars are still an excellent source of content, of course. The ability to deliver a sustained burst of short form written content has been really good for my efficiency and self-editing. Today that led to some inspiration.
It started when a source from West Virginia brought my attention to a tweet by WV House Minority Whip Shawn Fluharty, who claims to be a “Lefty.” Fluharty is the minority whip, a leadership position in a tiny legislative caucus whose state party is controlled by Joe Manchin. The tiny Democratic Party minority in West Virginia has no power to actually pass legislation and no desire to organize West Virginia voters in favor of progressive policies. Apparently they see anything that might grow their tiny caucus as a threat to their power.
Fluharty was trying to take credit for the alleged economic growth in West Virginia as a result of what he called “Bidenomics.” His benchmarks were job creation in the steel and energy industries. Fluharty was cheerleading for the administration, trying to sell trickle down economics to the people being hurt by it in Appalachia so he could take some credit in Biden’s shadow. A Twitter user had the perfect response.
The Twitter user in question is in West Virginia, which makes the simple response of “That’s cool and all but what about a living wage?” truly priceless. Fluharty did not respond to the original remark, but when I put a screenshot and a tag for the author in his replies, he was quick to aggressively defend the Biden administration and minimize the criticisms and concerns of a constituent. He did, at least, engage directly with his constituent briefly after that. It would have been nice if he had listened instead of trying to tell her how she should feel.
The IDF is still committing a genocide in Palestine. I am really torn with empathy for the Palestinians right now and my fear and concern for them is combined with my anger at the fascist state of Israel. That’s honestly one of the reasons I am taking a week off.
Manhattan Institute fellow and mouthpiece for religious bigots, Christopher Rufo, has released a new slur. (Y’all should follow and support @ uppittynegress on Twitter.) Considering the success of Rufo’s attacks on public school related to “CRT” and “grooming” it should be taken seriously. He wants to link academic decolonization directly with support for Hamas and brand peace activists and communists as supporters of Hamas. The worst part is that “Hamas” is being used as a dog whistle for the entire concept of Palestinian liberation. The liberals have been playing into this bullshit with their use of the word “unprovoked” to describe the Palestinian offensive and to accuse “Hamas” of atrocities and giving them the sole credit for the operation. So expect to see “Hamas” used as a racist anti-Palestinian dog whistle online for the foreseeable future.
If you support my media project or feel that you are benefiting from the educational aspect of my work and wish to support my content, please think about how you can do it best. If you want to focus on helping to grow my reach, then please like, restack, and engage with my content here. Share it on other social media. Engage with my chat threads or my Notes. If you would like to do more, or feel that your circumstances and time make monetary support the easiest way to support me, please consider becoming a patron.