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not surprised

@notsurprised.bsky.social
89 followers 159 following 279 posts

ask and ye shall be cited. academicians 1:3 you are. the rest is description.

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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
1. A pretty park. Kids play. People stroll by and stop to smell the flowers. Some smile. 2. Vicious money-grubbing morons see "an opportunity" and pave over the park to build "an exciting new consumer experience". 3. THE PLAGUE. 4. BOMBS. And you thought this was a story. #monday #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Meanwhile, certain poshboys are howling with malicious laughter, because that's how it works, doesn't it? "Plausible deniabilty" and what not. Island -isms are covert, after all. Politeness and civility are the ways and means. Gaslighting and DARVO the modus operandi. The cruelty is the point.
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Once again, that broadcaster showed its true colours. Heinous slurs on a global stage? No problem. Terrorize entire demographics with verbal abuse, because who cares about them. They're just [more slurs], right? Probably even greenlit it all for clicks and engagement. #academicsky #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou #academicsky #writingsky
The 44th President and the First Lady
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
You know that eery prickling before a bad storm? Yeah... Something wicked this way comes #academicsky #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
This is the 3rd system collapse in 100 years, isn't it? Are we simply witnessing the real End of Empire, i.e. the End of 500 years of European hegemony + inheritors? 1945-1965: Centre 1990-1995: East 2015-2025: West Empires collapse from within after all. Just a thought. #academicsky #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
As for The Paid Yappers, Antagonisers, What-Abouters, and Noisemakers: Stop playing in our faces. You DGAF about any of this new madness beyond content, clicks, and controversy. Scream when there's an actual plan to stop this &%#$ing Mess. Until then: Kick rocks. #academicsky #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Given that it's become pretty obvious no one with real power will stop the intentional cruelty and mayhem: Go about your day as planned and spare a thought for the poor civilians who absolutely did not ask for this. Light a candle, yell at God, donate to a GoFM, whatever you have the energy for.
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Finding enough time to rest & recharge is really hard right now, so I hear you 💔
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
It's difficult right now, but remember to recharge, rest, and recuperate before you run empty. #academicsky #writingsky
Two batteries showing energy levels:
One battery is in the yellow (caption: Take a break here...) and the other is empty (caption: NOT HERE)
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Excuse me WHAT #academicsky #writingsky
1800s style painting of shocked woman in biblical draperies Stick figure is speechless
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
A party that runs on betrayal. Weak. Performative. Useless. Such utter contempt for anyone who isn't them. Such certainty they will get away with it unscathed. How trust an organisation whose members will sell you down the river any chance they get? Disgraceful. #academicsky #writingsky
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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 10/11/2025
How about we shut down the government for this very popular and specific goal and then, hear me out, we hold out for like a month and a half and then, ok this part is important, after a watershed election where we ran the table, ONLY THEN, fold and don't get the one thing we said we wanted.
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
1 million a week? Isn't that a massive public health issue? *looks at current state of US public health infrastructure* New question: Is this deliberate endangerment of minors and vulnerable people by a heavily funded corporation? For profit? Or for something much worse? #academicsky #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Imperial History: Come again? 2025: They're not paying or feeding the troops, sir. Imperial History: Say that again. 2025: Soldiers are not being paid or fed, sir. *checks past 6000 years* Imperial History [incredulous]: How precedented do you want this to get? #academicsky #writingsky
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Jesse @requiemarm.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
40 years ago we’d have congressional hearings falsely accusing metal bands of putting backwards messages in their songs that told kids to kill themselves & now we have a planet-killing chatbot that’s all like “bet you won’t commit suicide chickenshit bitch” & the government is like here’s $5 billion
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Dick Cheney did more than anyone else to build up expansive and destructive executive branch powers in the wake of 9/11; he lived to see another president turn those same powers against his own daughter. He should be a warning sign to the GOP today but too many of them are in the cult.
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
Imperial History: How long has payroll been down? NP: 9 days Imperial History: Did y'all get bored with Interesting Times? NP: No, it's all quite unprecedented, actually 😮‍💨 Imperial History: Keep this up and in you'll be in for some Extremely Precedent Times. News Person: Why? Imperial History:
media.tenor.com
a man in a suit and tie is sitting in a chair with his hand on his face .
Alt: RDJ sitting in a chair with his hand on his face, fed up with everybody on the planet
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
News Person: "Military Families are counting on food banks." The Planet: Come again? NP: US Soldiers are lining up at food banks. Planet: Why? NP: Payroll is frozen due to the shutdown. *Imperial History enters chat* Imperial History: EXCUSE ME WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?! #academicsky #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
"This Committee was initially created during the McCarthy Era, a dark time when the federal government repressed and persecuted American citizens for their political beliefs [...]" To the voices that will be heard / May they speak loud and clear. #academicsky #writingsky www.npr.org/2025/10/01/n...
npr.org
Hundreds of celebrities relaunch a McCarthy-era committee to defend free speech
The Committee for the First Amendment first launched in the 1940s, when the House Un-American Activities Committee accused Hollywood actors, directors and writers of being communists or sympathizers.
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Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
so many dead canaries and we just keep on mining
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
That's a nice list 👀
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Oooh, I haven't read an entertaining Fanged Fic in a while. I shall check out Play Nice and So Thirsty, thank you!
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Every couple hours it's like a new level of absurdity unlocks: Oldheads are avoiding (Boomer) parents' bewildered texts, The Chronically Online feel like they're on crazy pills, all while The Hypocrisy™ burns through yet another layer of the social contract. The vibes aren't just off. They're gone.
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Just took a quick googlepeek: demons and childhood homes, oh my! 👀 Is it good?
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
What are you reading right now? Fiction, non-fiction, speculative, genre, you name it. #academicsky #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
WTF. Project MUSE is an academic lifeline! Cutting access is deliberately hurting researchers' access to multiple knowledge bases! Horrible. #academicsky #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
The vibe these days: All the juice has been squeezed. The violent re-squeezing for the last few drops. A vending machine stops working. Cue banging, rattling, more banging, more rattling. Nothing. Irresponsible persons clicked on obvious malware. All computers jitter, freeze, bluesceen. #humpday
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
It is exactly the kind of ideology that builds planetkilling plagiarism machines, terrororises innocents, gladly wrecks nature, and considers abandoning Earth and everyone on it a Worthy thing. This is an old, old war. Only this time, as Klein & Taylor point out, the entire planet is at stake. /End
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
For, as vicious as it is self-fulfilling, the horrific binary is fundamentally Life-hating. It loathes humanity and human creativity. It exists in terror of anything Earth-bound and of the body. It is an ideology that is blind to Earth's beauty and disdainful of its breathtaking diversity. 12/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
That binary is a global problem. Its underlying hopelessness needs adressing, meaning genuine results. There is a way, as Klein & Taylor agree: By insisting on the future that is possible. By refusing to be sidelined by the poverty of imagination "secular Rapture"-ideologues try to enforce. 11/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
It's refreshing how Klein & Taylor take the Christian-imperial rapaciousness at the heart of the techbro-1%er "secular Rapture" ideology to task, considering how we're collectively witnessing just how the Chosen/Worthless binary unleashes the cruelty & destruction needed for imperial expansion 10/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
The hopelessness is integral to the greed. Those who have hope, who are willing to change (never mind the inconvenience, exhaustion and heartbreak), those who have faith in a good life on Earth For All do not deal in despair. They deal in life now, not death + hopefully-something-better after 9/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
will happily enforce the vicious binary, where they alone are The Chosen and all others deserve neither consideration nor care. Without this hopelessness, the horrific binary has neither attraction, legitimacy, nor merit, and thus the apocalyptic greed of imperial practice cannot be sustained. 8/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
What Klein & Taylor sketch so succinctly is the third part of this faith-based logic: 3) The abject hopelessness at the heart of the Chosen/Worthless binary: Those who have given up hope of a better future (or maliciously see the danger in hope & those who have it, and so want all stamped out) 7/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
the ideological framework that legitimised(-es) imperial expansion, such as the "terra nullius" ultraviolences (1400s onwards), the Midatlantic slave-trade (1600s-1800s), the social engineering via eugenics (1800s-1900s), and the housing, healthcare, and and civil rights cruelties (1900s-2000s) 6/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
This is an old, old binary, a very old script. It's an imperial algorithm that's been running malware across the globe for centuries, with a bevy of imperial philosophies, infrastructures, legalities, and socio-cultural texts to uphold this very binary, thus building, maintaining and sustaining 5/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
2) The wretched racial supremacy embedded in this binary of "Chosen/Worthless", "Pure/Disgusting", a binary that stipulates who gets to be "The Chosen" (i e. pure/good) and so must be obeyed vs. who can be tortured, terrorised, and discarded without remorse, i.e. "The Worthless" (corrupt/bad). 4/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
in favour of a puritanically righteous and decidedly non-earthly Afterlife. Cue an obsession with (sexual & racial) purity paired with a deep hatred of joyful physicality (considered disgusting/corrupt/fallen) leading to a deep disdain for the Earth itself, which exists only to be used at will 3/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Additionally, Klein & Taylor point out the obsession with (secular) Rapture running like algorithm through our harrowing times, making this current global assault deeply Christian in its internal logic: 1) "The Chosen" vs "The Worthless" binary, allowing a complete disregard of earthly Life... 2/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Klein & Taylor are deft in streamlining observations colleagues versed in European & Imperial history have addressed over the years, esp. how these unprecedented times are ideologically precedent. One convo about the 30-Year's War's ideological impact and its reach into the 21st c comes to mind 1/13
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
A necessary read. Considering developments, this is a good reminder of the macro-currents at play. It's noteworthy that Klein & Taylor frame what's happening as a religion-adjacent global assault. Yes, it's bad. No, it's not hopeless. #academicsky #writingsky www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
theguardian.com
The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
This is no isolated problem. More like a paradigm shift, where we now witness nations' core beliefs on full display in real time, never mind bots/faux news: The populace is speaking, individuals in the tens of millions are saying their piece. And far too often, that piece is ghastly. /rant off/
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
Like two sides of the same disturbing coin, core beliefs are now on full display, e.g.: Blatantly sadistic avarice, deeply malicious intent, and nonstop mendacity all fully enabled by masochistic longsuffering, credulous good faith approaches, and relentless denial of the viciousness at hand 4/5
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
This isn't only normal vs. unhinged, is it? This isn't just "functional freeze" vs. "crazy people". There's a complacency on display that goes far deeper than the (legitimate) fear of missing paychecks. More like an abyss yawning wide, like 500 years of actual history returned, unrepressed. 3/5
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
Yes, there's the music festivals, the impassioned posts. There's standing on business by the few and courageous, there's the insistence on rule of law. Yes. But: the moral bankruptcy within the populace, the portrait-in-the-attic value system upheld by tens of millions? That's the true horror. 2/5
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
/rant on/ This commitment to deep dysfunction is entirely baffling. So many people are committed to keeping a sick system going, it's unconscionable. Not just a few: millions. What is this religion-adjacent faith in a system that clearly only serves a handful of people?1/5 #academicsky #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
It's like he's actively looking for The Yuckiest Thing To Do and hitting it bullseye each time 🤢 Beyond weird.
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
You know that saying, "How you get them is how you lose them"? *looks at History of the United States of Yikes* ..ethnic cleansing, religious extremism, brutal racialized oppression, vicious misogyny, massive wealth theft, horrific hypocrisy.. *looks at news cycle* Huh. #academicsky #writingsky
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not surprised @notsurprised.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
The heartbreak at witnessing the deciders in beloved institutions click their heels and salute is understandable. It might help to look at other countries to see how they dealt with this shift, because it's going to get much worse. *cracks open Klaus Mann's Mephisto* #academicsky #writingsky
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