A touchstone with reality as the 'American carnage' begins again...
By Brad Friedman on 1/20/2025, 10:26am PT  

On today's BradCast, a dark echo of eight years ago. Unfortunately, the update for 2025 was easier than one might have hoped. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it --- that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" --- Mario Savio, 1964.

"Lesson 1: Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do." --- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, 2017.

"No. No one tells the guy who cleans the bathroom, 'Wow, you must love it when someone has explosive diarrhea, there's so much material for you to work with!'" --- Stephen Colbert, 2024

Please "enjoy" our 2025 Inauguration Counter-Programming Special...

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