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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This Kamala Harris, K-hive thing, presents as a repetition compulsion.

Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

This seems a little misty-eyed. The “subject” in Enlightenment reason is an ideological, and frankly ghoulish, fantasy of separate selves. It’s capital dreaming of its mastery. It might be better to think about what could come next.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"Trying to convince people that fascism is not in their interest is not a compelling response. The destruction of self-interest inherent in the fascist project is why people sign up for it..." Todd McGowan, Self-Sabotage (2026)

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I thought this review was unfair. Mitchell never implies that the destructive tendencies of capital are a mere derivative of capitalization. He’s very clear that the temporal projections of capitalization are a part of the modern corporate legal structure, not an indelible feature of capitalism.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Anti-monopoly is very popular, just not with the corporate donors who run the Democratic Party. Kamala Harris wouldn’t even commit to retaining Lina Khan, easily the most popular figure in the Biden administration.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Man who invented bomb complains about loud noises. Only here at -- The Atlantic.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

It's almost like the Democratic Party is just a coalition of corporate money and client groups.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

We were swept upon the global tides. There is nothing to learn. For the kids at home: that’s what’s called “macro” thinking. You too can be a Democratic strategist.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Jil Stein got like a dozen votes. She’s some sort of psychological holding place for folks who can’t, or won’t, face that they have losing politics.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Because politics is about winning. Scolding fools for not voting for your way — is a consolation prize for losers.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Put it any way you like, losing politics is losing politics. Get a politics that can beat the dead, or keep losing. Those are the options.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Harris lost to a rotting corpse, which is to say that she could never have won.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

She lost to a rotting corpse last time. Which means that she could never have won. Time for a new politics. This one can’t even beat the dead.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It’s open knowledge in the federal criminal bar that pardons are for sale. Rule of law is long gone.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Next stop: Bailouts! Gotta “save the system.”

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The 9-11 attackers were mostly Saudis —and America has never blamed them for anything. Some folks are just lucky. 🍀

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

$1 per pill in Indio, $10 in Mexico. USA, as always, under the corporate boot.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Now that human life is mostly organized around capitalist money, it's kinda hard to imagine humans popping through the value illusion: "If we don't destroy the earth, we'll run out of money!" If the USA gets hyperinflation, there may be a chance to rethink money, but probably not.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I was at a David Byrne concert in Mexico City last night and locals were smiling at me after the show. The better idea of America still travels well.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Trump came about as a result of the economic decisions made by these allegedly “sane” people.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

She lost to a rotting corpse — which is to say that she could never have won. Time to find a new politics. This one can’t even beat the dead.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Step 1: Make a fortune shilling for murderers. Step 2: Get a title at Harvard. Step 3: Only read articles in the Atlantic.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Capital just isn’t afraid of labor. End of story.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I met an algo guy there who described social media: “It’s just a matter of getting the blinders on the horse. After that, you can ride him where you please.” He had, maybe, the darkest view of anyone I have encountered.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

And today, America’s military support for Israel is joined with rapture theology. The US Ambassador (and Sec of War) prophesy the coming End Times. I have no idea how one untangles that Sky Daddy insanity from the material reality of colonial empire.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

You might be right but, in practice, that can’t be done. I get the appeal of a materialist explanation, but we’re symbolizing animals. And, I am pretty sure these folks don’t think of themselves simply as colonial exploiters.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

The colonists don’t think Sky Daddy has chosen them for this? Symbolic systems and material systems interpenetrate.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Sky Daddy is a dumb idea. The thought itself results from the tendency of human symbolic modeling to project itself into the things it models. That’s why my border collie has no Sky Dog above him — Tucker (the dog) isn’t modeling his world in language. Woof!

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

That’s kinda circular: if the old politics could win, it probably would have won. But the old politics lost to an actual rotting corpse — so it could never have won. Time to find a new politics.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

The bigger picture is that the 401k system caused a big chunk of professional labor to become identified with the capital in their "portfolios." These Schumer suburban voters will fight a Second New Deal to the death.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Monotheism has got to be the laziest thought humans have ever had.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

“Life Without Principle” is an absolute banger.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

This is good news for asset holders.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Educated professionals were with labor on the original New Deal. Since the advent of the 401k system, many of those folks have become portfolio capitalists. Schumer's suburban Democrats aren't interest in a New Deal -- this system works just fine for them.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Wow, this is the old “Lauderdale Paradox,” named for the Earl of Lauderdale’s — An Inquiry Into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth (1804) — which is specifically about why it’s a bad idea to privatize public water. Just because it makes money, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea….

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Friends will agree to just call it inflation.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I took ChatGPT for a spin on subsumption: "The ultimate object of subsumption is subjectivity. It's not that machines become human, but that human productive capacities become increasingly indistinguishable from properties of capital."

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Did you find anything good? ChatGPT's take: "The ultimate object of subsumption is subjectivity. It's not that machines become human, but that human productive capacities become increasingly indistinguishable from properties of capital."

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

In real subsumption capital transforms work and worker consciousness. EX: Capital buys craft shoe makers (formal sub: they become wage laborers), then divides the craftwork into factory tasks (real sub: they become unskilled wage laborers), then sets up a 401k plan (they become financial subjects).

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Arday was certainly not to blame. But there is a real problem that’s obvious to people off campus: sociology itself is a hopeless assemblage of reified concepts. Qualified gibberish is still gibberish.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

The Atlantic is the voice of the military industrial complex, with a little diversity-HR talk thrown in. Put a rainbow flag on every B-52 bomber -- and call it a democracy. This rag is the rotten, hollow, elite part of the Democratic Party.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

That bullying has also obscured the real intellectual problems of sociology. Sociology, like economics, has been a hot mess of neo-Kantian concept reifications since its founding in the 1890s. It's not that the standards are low -- it's that the core concepts (marginal utility, etc) are confused.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

A big segment of the party doesn't identify with labor: the professional elite, the Schumer suburban voters. They are pro-choice but they don't want to pay taxes --which is why Dems never raised the Social Security cap. Worse still, every dollar that goes to labor comes out of their 401k winnings.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

You can do both. Many of my professional colleagues mock gas guzzling SUVs — but then fly around the world like lunatic arsonists. Say the word “conference” and they will light a blowtorch to a forrest.

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Reposted by Robert Owen

Gabriel Flynn @gabrielflynn.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I went to a Zumba class, and danced my anxieties away

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

It just means more bailouts. Americans are completely conditioned to “save the system.” I wish I had $20 for every educated yo-yo who’s told me that it was “necessary” to save the banks in 2009. It’s stupid, it’s wrong — and more bailouts are coming — gotta save that system.

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

If the Deep State existed, and had its own magazine…

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Robert Owen @petit-a.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I keep thinking Texas will hit a kind of alcoholic rock bottom, and I keep being wrong. Big Bend? Wow.

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