• 18 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • We started shopping for an EV about a month before the rebate expired and ended up getting a used one that wouldn’t have qualified for the rebate a couple weeks after the deadline. It was pretty clear to us that most used EVs that qualified were snapped up in the preceding weeks. As far as new EVs, we saw a moderate price drop after the rebates. Not quite enough to cover the lost rebates but it was clear manufacturers were trying to compensate.

    All this to say I suspect the rebate expiration led to a bunch of used EV sales eating into new EV sales and I don’t see a huge price difference on new EVs post-rebate. EVs are a little pricier than their ICE counterparts but I don’t think the rebate expiration made much of a difference to consumers. Pretty clear manufacturers were the real beneficiaries.











  • I think the term “protest” is what throws people off. Protest can encompass a lot of different actions, including showing up to a park on the weekend. But when a lot of people hear “protest”, they imagine more direct action. They imagine people directly interfering with the fascist’s agenda.

    These seem more like rallies to me. The point seems to be less about interfering with the fascist administration and more about stretching organizing muscles, building networks and strengthening the resolve of millions of people around the country. Reminding them that so many of their friends and neighbors care enough to show up too. These aren’t direct action in the same way but I think they still serve an important purpose.

    We are building a web of trust and solidarity for the days ahead. Things will get worse, we are not even a year into this administration and I don’t think the gloves have really come off yet. These protest or rallies or whatever you want to call them will help us be ready. When the time comes there will be organizers and volunteers and millions of people ready to step together and fight for what we believe in. But first, this.




  • It’s important to note a distinction here, maybe not a difference in kind but certainly a difference in degree, in attitude, in perspective.

    You could argue all writing is propaganda. We take a slice of the world and distill it into words but we will always write from our own perspective. It is impossible to write from someone else’s point view. All writing is a slice of the world, mangled and tainted with ourselves. Good writing cannot escape this, maybe it hews closer to the world, maybe it injects less of our opinions but it is always biased. The best writing often shows us the world from a viewpoint that enriches our own understanding.

    There has never been writing on that website that strays so far from reality, that is so heavily injected with a very specific viewpoint. And it is a viewpoint that benefits very few of us. It does not enrich our understanding of the world, it frays and decays it. This is an important moment because we have never seen writing like this on these websites. There are laws written to prevent moments like this, but they have failed. It is a clear, obvious and direct signal that our institutions have given up on meaning, on the rule of law, and on the american dream. Sure, maybe we’ve always been a fascist country, but we have never, ever, been this fascist before. This is new territory for us and it is worth consideration.