We need to stop imagining the Jan 6 fascists are purely "brainwashed," misguided, etc. Neither are they guided by white supremacy *only*.

There's a particular kind of romantic partnership, with a certain sort of person, that I've wanted since I became a self-aware, directed agent at around age 15.

Empirically, this kind of relationship has been hard to achieve. It hasn't worked out yet, at least.

And this sometimes leaves me wondering if my standards are unreasonable.

In years past that desire was often very alive.

These days, I'm rarely directly or viscerally in contact with it.

I sometimes contemplate aiming for some other kind of romantic and/or sexual relationship instead. In part because I might be more effective if I...I don't know, got laid more? But that's not really the thing. More like, if I had someone around whom I could regularly relax.

But mostly, I don't pursue those alternative relationship-setups out of a sense of something like loyalty to myself + a vague sense of wrongness and/or sadness about it. It often feels like giving up or giving in.

[I might elaborate on the wrongness sometime.]

The evils committed by Ravi Zacharias were enabled by a toxic organizational leadership that is evidenced by how these same leaders responded when confronted about the widespread and ongoing abuses being perpetrated by the namesake of the institution. 1/29

Please take time to read this piece by @DavideAFrench and the 26-page letter written by a first-hand witness. Here are just some of the excerpts: 2/29

"At one point, Ravi suggested to me that the Task Force “issue a statement that they [the Thompsons] are hooligans, they are scoundrels, they are thugs, they are serial extortioners.” If we didn’t do that, he told me, he would ask his attorney to do so on his behalf." 3/29

"...I distinctly recall Ravi & Sanj mocking the Thompsons’ marriage & scornfully predicting how soon Brad & Lori Anne would get divorced. “I predict their marriage won’t survive the year,” Ravi asserted with laughter. “A year?” replied Sanj. “I wouldn’t give it six months!” 4/29

"In 2017, in the early stages of his RICO against the Thompsons, Ravi would often invoke Kelly [his attorney], making statements such as “my attorney said we are going to crush them.”" 5/29

A short thread on one aspect of trolling on here, from my recent experience. I’ve got a fair number of followers. I tweet about controversial topics - and yet I don’t get trolled that much. A bit, but not thatmuch. There are times, though, that I *do* get trolled a lot. 1/n

The pattern is pretty clear, and has been played out a few times over the last few days. I get into a conversation about a topic that could be considered race-related. Empire. Immigration. Something like that. And that conversation includes a highish profile BAME person. 2/n

More often than not, a BAME woman. In those cases, it takes very little time for the trolls to come steaming in. Most of them seemingly rational, taking issue with some technical point, but quickly descending into something much worse. 3/n

When I look at the profiles of the trolls, they’re often relatively innocuous. Not saying ‘Hey, I’m a racist troll, a white supremacist’ at all. Not likely to be caught by any kind of anti-troll measures. Instead, they look relatively normal. 4/n

But what happens is very much about racism, and often misogyny. Attacks that are - or appear to be - not that dramatic on their own. Not rape threats or death threats, or ‘go home’ or things like that, but designed to undermine, to disturb, to annoy - but with an undercurrent 5/n