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Reposted by Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought

Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

A friend found this clipping in some old files. Haven't seen this before. Mind blown.

Color political cartoon by Danny Hellman from the New York Press dated October 6-12, 1999. In it, Donald Trump and his then wife Marla Maples being shown a model of the White House with many added stories and a shiny gold T on the top, with Taj Mahal towers on the side and flags flying with a T. It is labeled "Proposed White House Renovation." A ghoulish Philip Johnson says, "Granted, It's in violation of several of Washington D.C.'s landmark and zoning codes. But of course as president of the United States..." Trump, licking his lips, says, "It's tremendous, Philip, when do I move in?" The caption beneath is Spectacularly unqualified egomaniac Donald Trump contemplates a White House run"

Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

New evidence suggests “Bimboification” is an older phenomenon than previously suspected, perhaps rooted in postwar malaise

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Reposted by Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought

Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Omelas already exists: no need to build it or choose it. We already live here –in the narrow, foul, dark prison we let our ignorance, fear, and hatred build for us and keep us in, here in the splendid, beautiful city of life...

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Benjamin is very hermetic, sometimes too hermetic for his own good. I was very lucky to take grad seminars with a Benjamin expert and it completely changed how I read him.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

And by extension, as every historical instant is the product of the past that made it possible, each moment is a moment of judgment day. Each day is a judgment on the past that makes the day possible.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Yes I think that gets at his intention. We can’t know the future we are aiming toward, but we must have some conception of it to give meaning to what is otherwise a mere accumulation of events

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

And to the extent that center-left readers of the Atlantic care, I suspect they care in an abstract way that tends to reinforce right-wing rhetoric on the subject.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I think that question haunts the right more than the center-left, even though for the right these books are totems in the culture war, not works of art to be encountered.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I agree that the premise is roughly correct, but it gets assimilated into the culture wars and the broader question of who “owns” the culture.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

A very small audience of very influential people, unfortunately

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I was assigned that book my freshman year in college by a professor who just wanted to dismantle it page by page, and this was the fall of 2002. Dreadful to think it’s still being taken seriously.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I don’t think the cross-pollination of Bible and literature did much for deepening our understanding of either but it was a very useful basis for exploring these connections in college

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Same; my religion teachers made no effort at all to link the bible to literature but my English teachers were very adroit.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Couldn’t agree more. Too bad they didn’t let me name the discipline.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Imposing a grid on nature, then calling the grid nature

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

My goodness, for an obnoxious stranger you really know a lot about my inner life

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Many many presidents were worse people than Fidel Castro. Some were better. Ok? So what? Tells us nothing about anything.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I simply could not have done all those things in a shitpost, get a grip

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

There’s an book called A New View of Society by Owen that La worth reading where he lays out his plan for a utopian community

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I’ll try again: “Fidel Castro was a better human being than any American president” is a signal to demonstrate a person’s political stance. It’s not a useful means to analyzing the careers of the people in question.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

What exactly are you reading? Are you really not able to parse what I said?

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I don’t know what you’re getting at. Lots of political science studies rhetoric.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

No. That formulation is just rhetoric because it’s not comparing anything but vibes. You need an analysis to actually compare things and that takes work.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Because it’s rhetoric, it’s a polemical statement for affirming your own position. Which, fine I guess. But it’s not a useful or even workable means for assessing how political power has worked in radically different times and contexts.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I was making fun of someone else who invoked their authority as a history teacher but yeah, lesson learned, this is a joke free zone

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I think Polanyi is a much more accessible socialist, especially for Americans. He’s not a Hegelian, for one thing. But he was a deep reader of Marx.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Marx is still one of most preeminent philosophers of modernity and his work is endlessly fascinating. The trick is to avoid treating Marx dogmatically and narrowly — which many people find impossible to do, especially On Here

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Most students encounter socialism through classical Marxists (not always ideal imo) so they tend to foreground Marxism as the whole of socialism.

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Reposted by Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought

Aidan Comerford @aidancomerford.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

JK Rowling calls Nathan Cofnas a racist, and Cofnas responds by saying that he is just applying the same logic to race as she does to trans people. Quite.

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@jk_rowling
, who is smeared for sex realism, calls me a bad word for applying the same logic to race

quote tweet by Nathan Cofnas replying to JK Rowling who said:

More than one thing can be true. Nathan Cofnas is a racist. No argument there.

Also true: Arday claimed to have been non-verbal until the age of eleven. He span a false narrative about being autistic and mute, then learning to speak and write so well he gained a PhD. What harm did he do to parents with children who're genuinely non-verbal, by selling them false hope?

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

They’re preparing for their chrysalis stage

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

You don’t know me. You don’t know how I’ve struggled with the mighty machine, how I’ve wept and prayed, how I’ve plumbed the fathomless depths of wisdom to find the key that will turn the switch from BAD to GOOD.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Yes, which was absolutely a mistake on my part. Live and learn.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I agree, it’s a silly polemic masquerading as a metric. But I’ve been told by many people that this makes me a Nazi.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I disagreed with the claim that Fidel Castro was a better human being than every American president and have been hearing about it since last night. Don’t care for it.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

No I don’t care for economics as a discipline

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Read the replies for some mean/funny attacks on political science that pale in comparison to what actual political scientists have to say about the field.

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Uphold Karl Polanyi Thought @highestmarx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I don’t think people missed that part, it’s been a central part of his appeal since 2015

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