James Wagner's avatar

James Wagner

@jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social

162 followers 295 following 2932 posts

cranky radical, fussy aesthete, generalist, partner of @bhoggard

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Pookleblinky's avatar Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social
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When the american liberals use France's election as an illustration of the need to VOTE, they ignore that people were not only voting against the far right but *for* something. They voted for a campaign which promises to: increase minimum wage, lower retirement age, pay for all childcare, etc

39 replies 387 reposts 1271 likes

James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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the demos has the first and last word in democracy; everything inbetween is just administration when it’s otherwise, it’s only power politics

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James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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so good “The short ramp to Election Day would be a benefit for us, not a danger. ..the chance to showcase the future without so much opposition research and negative campaigning [of] ridiculously long and expensive election seasons. ..an exciting time for democracy, as we’ve just seen [in France]”

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James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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“But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw. We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign.”

www.nytimes.com/2024/07/10/o...

1 replies 0 reposts 0 likes

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Marisa Kabas's avatar Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social
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i made this shareable version of my one sentence project 2025 summary so it can be easily shared across platforms. feel free to repost.

22 replies 469 reposts 878 likes

Reposted by James Wagner

Reposted by James Wagner

Rachel Shelden's avatar Rachel Shelden @rachelshelden.bsky.social
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It cannot be stressed enough that adjusting the size of the Supreme Court in the 19th c. was a serious solution to serious concerns about how the Court functioned. As @earlymodjustice.bsky.social points out, reform often addressed imbalances. And these imbalances were often about REPRESENTATION. 1/

9 replies 231 reposts 574 likes

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Anna Meier's avatar Anna Meier @annameier.bsky.social
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My favorite tried-and-true resistance tactic: Being Extremely Fucking Annoying.

75 replies 1203 reposts 3514 likes

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Shannon Mattern's avatar Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social
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Nooooo! Crest Hardware is closing! 😢

A few years ago I wrote about the Franquinhas’ Williamsburg store, my own family’s hardware store, and the whole history of the hardware + general store as a social infrastructure: placesjournal.org/article/comm...

5 replies 4 reposts 20 likes

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Jason Briggeman's avatar Jason Briggeman @jbriggeman.liberalcurrents.com
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Casting a single vote for the better major candidate has a large positive net expected value for society, and you can very often tell who's a better candidate (especially this year!). Voting is humble, unselfish, and rational—a little chore that you should do. www.liberalcurrents.com/elections-ar...

6 replies 65 reposts 195 likes

James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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klinging to power is not the same thing as using power for good

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James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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call me crazy, but at the moment we don’t have a candidate who can convince media-zombied voters that the Trump they art looking at is a chimera, and almost any reasonable Democratic alternative could do so with a hand wave

1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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which still doesn’t encourage me one wit at best, an incompetent centrist genocide would still (sorta) be providing over the government of the US in the middle of its struggle for survival

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Steve Silberman's avatar Steve Silberman @stevesilberman.bsky.social
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Peter Orlovsky, Allen Ginsberg's life partner was born on July 8, 1933. He was very sweet when I met him at Naropa in 1977 and, I suspect, #neurodivergent. Peter's gravestone in Colorado reads, "Train will tug my grave, my breathe hueing gentil vapor between weel & track." [photo by Cliff Fyman]

1 replies 6 reposts 44 likes

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Reposted by James Wagner

Ian Boudreau's avatar Ian Boudreau @iboudreau.bsky.social
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Very funny that the Times was so certain about the panic they were causing that they set up a little live update election-season scoreboard for it

108 replies 386 reposts 1702 likes

James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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“it”? maybe you mean the poll, or Clinton as a candidate?

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James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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so, Biden goes down in history (if historians survive anywhere after January 20) as destroyer of the 249-year-old republic

3 replies 0 reposts 2 likes

James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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Chelsea Gardens, a very warm afternoon you might quibble all day about color harmony, but if your garden is large enough there’s room for everyone clearly the honey bees wouldn’t know what you’re talking about anyway

1 replies 1 reposts 1 likes

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joshua caleb weibley's avatar joshua caleb weibley @livingfake.bsky.social
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When I was growing up they had a really cool miniseries about the Arthurian legends called “Merlin” starring Sam fucking Neill and the conclusion was that you can stop a lot of evil by just not giving it the oxygen of our attention and I think about that almost daily

1 replies 1 reposts 8 likes

James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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a good hot dog, in fact any well-made sausage or other charcuterieare, is a delicacy before we do anything to it and what a kitchen savior in addition

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James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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pan-grilled spicy NJ-raised Italian water buffalo hot dogs on rich Irish butter-spread griddled open Chelsea WF French baguette halves, w/traditional American yellow mustard/NY chopped red onion/Connecticut fennel fronds; NY 365 dill pickle; Sundstrom Cider/Cider Davis; Weber: Der Freischütz, Jacobs

1 replies 0 reposts 5 likes

James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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people lined up today for super-sweet cookies, on the sidewalk outside a shop on our block, local representative of the latest inexplicable US food craze, in weather described, “90°, feels like 99°”, HVAC plant pushing hot air down from grills one floor above maybe they’d already drunk the Kool-Aid

1 replies 0 reposts 0 likes

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Molly Shah's avatar Molly Shah @mommunism.bsky.social
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One thing I’ve thought of so much was when my kid was about 6 months old a motorcycle backfired on our street and it was the first time I remember seeing her look scared and I remember it activated every part of my mom brain to protect her- I cannot imagine being a mom in Gaza.

1 replies 8 reposts 57 likes

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Ian Boudreau's avatar Ian Boudreau @iboudreau.bsky.social
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I tried to post the clip from Casablanca where they sing La Marseillaise on Facebook and this happened

35 replies 151 reposts 692 likes

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Phil's avatar Phil @anandamide.bsky.social
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Actually no, let's do this; it would be Good, Actually

51 replies 334 reposts 1234 likes

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Dean Frey's avatar Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social
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A self-portrait of Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1933 "I don’t like to work with assistants. I’m already one too many; the camera alone would be enough."

0 replies 1 reposts 6 likes

James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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Manhattan community garden, including tomatoes just north of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel

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James Wagner's avatar James Wagner @jamesarthurwagner.bsky.social
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afternoon today sorta by the sea the lower Hudson upscale landfill promenade

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Reposted by James Wagner

Michael Tae Sweeney's avatar Michael Tae Sweeney @mtsw.bsky.social
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So for all the narrative about the inevitable slide into anti-immigrant populism, four of Western Europe's five largest countries now have left or center left governments?

29 replies 236 reposts 1295 likes