Austin Wu
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austwu.bsky.social
Austin Wu
@austwu.bsky.social
440 followers 580 following 1.2K posts
(vague lyrics about history or economics) 🚰
https://linktr.ee/austwu
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austwu.bsky.social
bears resemblence to a pepperball gun of some sort (fires irritants like pepper spray) -- note AR-15-style stock, reflex sight, top-mounted magazine/hopper

comparison doesn't seem to be a 100% match; just for reference: pepperball.com/launchers/ta...
zoomed-in screencap sales ad for a pepperball gun that looks similar
November 18, 2025 at 5:10 PM
austwu.bsky.social
Magician's Alliance from "Arrested Development", holding sign saying "We Demand To Be Taken Seriously"
November 18, 2025 at 4:10 AM
austwu.bsky.social
growing up in iowa, learning about valley forge in school almost felt like an ancient fable. but for the civil war - IA was on the underground railroad, contributed troops to the front, and in turn the capitol is adorned with the Gettysburg Address and the emblem of the Grand Army of the Republic
GAR emblem at the Iowa state capitol. Photo from ~2019. "This nation under God shall have a ... people shall not perish from the earth."
November 18, 2025 at 3:31 AM
austwu.bsky.social
re: --
"Marge everything is corrupted by capital. Have you ever sat down and read this thing? Technically the way we close a car door is fascist."
November 17, 2025 at 8:19 PM
austwu.bsky.social
retro-futurism (what if the mid-century centennial hopium never died out)
St. Lawrence in Toronto CN passenger rail ads UN peacekeeper Federal Identity Program
November 17, 2025 at 7:42 PM
austwu.bsky.social
man.jpg
www.nber.org/system/files...
The Other Great Migration: Southern Whites and the New Right Samuel Bazzi, Andreas Ferrara, Martin Fiszbein, Thomas P. Pearson, and Patrick A. Testa NBER Working Paper No. 29506 November 2021, Revised June 2022 JEL No. D72,J15,J18,N32,P16 ABSTRACT This paper shows how the migration of millions of Southern whites in the 20th century transformed the cultural and political landscape across America. Racially and religiously conservative, Southern white migrants created new electoral possibilities for a broad-based coalition with economic conservatives. With considerable geographic scope, these migrants hastened partisan realignment through the 1960s, helping to catalyze and sustain a New Right movement with national influence. More than just a novel voting bloc outside the South, they shaped institutions that reinforced racial sorting across space, shared ideology through religious organizations and popular media, and transmitted cultural norms to non-Southern populations. Together, our findings suggest that this other Great Migration may have forever changed the trajectory of American politics.
November 17, 2025 at 7:04 PM
austwu.bsky.social
it's the Southernization of the US, many are saying (at least in the midwest, I think this is at least correlated with the decline of comparatively institutionalized, urban mainline churches and their displacement by southern baptist-inflected suburban evangelical megachurches)
a smattering of mainline protestant and catholic churches in iowa city, iowa. "urban" by iowa standards, but in a compact, walkable setup nevertheless. evangelical megachurch just off the highway in tiffin iowa
November 17, 2025 at 7:02 PM
austwu.bsky.social
tbh I kinda get some of the trad sympathies (who wouldn't want respite from the contemporary world of AI slop and microplastics), but ig my version of 'trad' is like ... the utility furniture catalogue from the attlee-era UK (and associated labour values)? not mythical notions pre-pasteurisation --
https://harrislebus.com/utility-furniture-catalogue/
November 17, 2025 at 6:39 PM
austwu.bsky.social
intriguing article in @thebaffler.com about this household -- including, incredibly enough, another set-piece video of her making bread in denim and an unstained white t-shirt (sans apron) -- thebaffler.com/salvos/land-...
A woman prepares a snack for her family while her youngest child, an eight-month-old named Mabel Mae, looks on from her high chair. She pours milk into a Dutch oven from a glass jar almost as big as the baby girl beside her, heats it to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and mixes in citric acid. Off to the side, a blonde girl in a pink dress—Frances, age six, the woman’s fourth child and eldest daughter—tends to her baby sister. The woman checks the milk’s temperature, lets it sit until it congeals. She slices the curd into half-inch cubes, stirs it into a runny mixture, adds salt. Black rubber gloves materialize on her hands, and she plunges them into the pot, picking up the cheese she’s made out of almost nothing, forming it into a ball, stretching it as if it were saltwater taffy. Then she moves on to the meatballs. The woman dices onions, garlic. She pours breadcrumbs into another jar, stirs in fresh cream. She sautés the onions in butter, puts a mound of ground beef in a bowl, pours the soggy breadcrumbs over it, and cracks in two eggs with yolks so golden they’re almost orange. She chops fresh basil, then grinds in some pepper and mixes it all together with a wooden whisk. She opens another glass jar—this one full of tomato sauce, almost certainly homemade—and empties its contents into a cast-iron pan. The woman shapes the beef into seventeen fist-sized balls and plops them into the sauce one by one, sprinkling Parmesan on top. She puts the pan into a rustic green oven that stays on day and night, constantly radiating heat. Then she dusts the wooden countertop before her with flour, and a bowl of risen dough appears miraculously. She forms it into two baguettes and puts those in the oven too. All the while, her children cycle in and out of frame. The girls help roll the dough, play with the whisk, and nibble at the cheese once it’s ready. But mostly they watch, thumbs in mouths, as their mother works. The boys do nothing. The woman never looks up from her task, never stains her white T-shirt, and never appears flustered, not even when the kids shriek in the background or when her long braid unravels down her back. In the end, her labor yields one single large sandwich. She takes the first bite. The second is for her husband, absent until this moment; the third is for one of their sons. Just like its preparation, the consumption of the meatball sub was a family effort. The couple in this video, Hannah and Daniel Neeleman, live on a 328-acre ranch in Kamas, Utah, with their seven children. The milk used to make the mozzarella came from one of their dairy cows, the ground beef from their herd of Angus cattle, the eggs from their chicken coop, and the basil from their garden. Hannah milks the cows, and Daniel raises the animals, while their sons and daughters help out with farm chores and collect the eggs every morning. Daniel butchers the meat, and Hannah cooks it. The family always eats together.
November 17, 2025 at 6:30 PM
austwu.bsky.social
Not about to hand it to railroad tycoon James J. Hill, but at least he had his tastefully-designed residence built in a walkable neighbourhood, had a tangible business (trains), and appeared to fear for his immortal soul enough to apply his name towards a variety of educational and civic matters
Aerial view of the James J. Hill House in Saint Paul, overlooking downtown and next door to the Cathedral of Saint Paul
November 17, 2025 at 6:22 PM
austwu.bsky.social
In a similar vein, I've always appreciated Sufjan Stevens' recording of "The Friendly Beasts" for its instruction of aid to all, regardless of (appeared) station in life sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/track/the-fr...
Ding! Dong! Sufjan Stevens presents Songs for Christmas, 2003 Volume III. A red cardinal is perched on a coniferous tree branch. Jesus our brother, strong and good Was humbly born in a stable [room] And the friendly beasts around Him stood Jesus our brother, strong and good "I," said the donkey, shaggy and brown "I carried His mother up hill and down I carried His mother to Bethlehem town" "I," said the donkey, shaggy and brown "I," said the cow, all white and red "I gave Him my manger for His bed I gave Him my hay to pillow His head" "I," said the cow, all white and red "I," said the sheep with curly horn "I gave Him my wool for His blanket warm He wore my coat on Christmas morn" "I," said the sheep with curly horn "I," said the dove from the rafters high "I cooed Him to sleep so that He would not cry We cooed Him to sleep, my mate and I" "I," said the dove from the rafters high Thus every beast by some good spell In the stable dark was glad to tell Of the gift he gave Emmanuel The gift he gave Emmanuel
November 17, 2025 at 6:14 PM
austwu.bsky.social
(about a year off, but ehh, close enough --)
Carrie & Lowell, Sufjan Stevens
November 17, 2025 at 5:35 AM
austwu.bsky.social
miss you much

you would've hated generative AI
November 14, 2025 at 5:53 AM
austwu.bsky.social
not-dissimilar themes in @iwriteok.bsky.social's "after the revolution" -- (cw: language)
Alexander’s guards led Manny away and Alexander took his place at the table. He took a long sip from Emmanuel’s cooling coffee and smiled his snake smile again. “I must say, Sasha, I thought you had better taste than that.” For the first time in her life, Sasha found herself trying to stare daggers at someone. Oh, if only I could shoot knives out of my eyes, she thought as she imagined one striking Alexander in the forehead with enough force to burst out the back of his skull. Is that something ‘chromed’ people can do? She wondered, and decided she’d ask Marigold if she ever got another chance to talk to the woman. “Hey!” He snapped his fingers in front of her eyes and she hated him a little more. She was sorta surprised to learn that was possible. “Look, I know coming here can be disorienting. I know this is a lot to get used to. But him? A fucking spic? It’s people like him who filled this continent with their mongrel spawn and tore American civilization to splinters.” “We are all brothers and sisters in Christ,” she said, “we are all the frui-” “...-t of the same tree. Yeah, I know. I’ve met Pastor Mike. I know God made us all. And I also know he made some of us better than others. There’s a reason civilization reached its peak under white men. And there’s a reason it crumbled once we let them take the reins for a while.”
November 14, 2025 at 1:21 AM
austwu.bsky.social
stg woke 2 is also going to have to involve turning back the clock on all of this tacticool nonsense and retvrning to cartridge belts and suspenders (here cribbed from a canadian army manual from 1982)
"Battle Order was significantly different and probably most commonly encountered in the field. At least one reserve infantry unit issued out one basic pouch from the 1951 Pattern webbing as an additional method of load carrying, additional to both the small field pack and the utility pouch of the 1982 Pattern Webbing." https://www.canadiansoldiers.com/equipment/loadbearing/1982pattern.htm
November 14, 2025 at 12:35 AM
austwu.bsky.social
I've long enjoyed this comment on @askhistorians.bsky.social, on the revolutionary aspects of fascism as a right-wing reaction to alienation under industrial capitalism (presuming this to be society's contemporary status quo), contrasting with the left-response to capitalism (socialism)
The major difference between fascism and socialism is that the former was all about preserving hierarchy and bourgeois society, while getting rid of industrial alienation through the creation of a totalitarian society. Mussolini thought that by giving up your individuality to the totalitarian state, you could have your energies and efforts multiplied by its services. Paradoxically, by surrendering individuality, alienation would somehow disappear. In industrial societies, fascism was popular with the middle class because it offered a cultural and social revolution which would keep hierarchies and fortify them through corporatism. Unlike conservatism, fascism wanted a cultural revolution that would create a “New Fascist Man” who had no individuality separate from the state. This is why it was appealing to the middle class; it let them vent their frustrations about modern society and be little revolutionaries while simultaneously protecting their property and position in the social hierarchy. The emphasis on maintaining private property and hierarchy was what made fascists hate socialists and communists. Fascism marketed itself as the “Third Way” between Liberalism, which was responsible for alienation and the post-war Wilsonian order, and Socialism, which threatened to take bourgeois property in an economic revolution. Conservatives and fascists usually got along because they both hated the same things, but most conservatives failed to understand the revolutionary aspect of fascism and believed they could be controlled to curtail workers’ rights and revise the Paris Treaties, which didn't really work out.
November 12, 2025 at 9:17 PM
austwu.bsky.social
James C. Scott's "Seeing Like a State" --
"An exemplary cautionary tale on the limits of grand master plans and what can happen when authorities over-rationalise the infinite variation of environments and societies, no matter how well-intentioned. Comparing the Jane Jacobs/Le Corbusier dynamic in urban planning to the Rosa Luxemburg/Lenin dynamic in socialist revolutions via the throughline of 'high modernism' is a profound insight that I will continue to think about for some time. For those who spend too much of their free time browsing hypothetical public transit master plans and grand designs for reforming neighbourhoods and governments, I think this book even provides some insight into how much faith one should put into personal plans which heavily rely upon rationalisations of one's personal life in order to be legible. tl; dr -- centralised planning can be good, essential even -- so long as it does not come at the expense of one's humanity."
November 12, 2025 at 8:51 PM
austwu.bsky.social
cf. the chinese train station to 'nowhere' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caojiaw...
November 12, 2025 at 8:48 PM
austwu.bsky.social
the song in question, "We Have Nothing to Envy in This World", is the basis for the (ironic) title of a book, depicting how much indeed people in North Korea have to envy about their stations in life and the world
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick
November 11, 2025 at 4:47 AM
austwu.bsky.social
I don't really know enough North Korean inside baseball to make any real assessments as to any significance to this, but perhaps this (and the pins) are suggestive of the larger Kim, simply trying to eat the smaller Kims www.nknews.org/2024/07/nort...
WPK pin with Kim Jong-un's face against a red flag Various pins with the portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il
November 11, 2025 at 4:42 AM
austwu.bsky.social
Probably not the most pressing news, but seeing just now that at a performance celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Worker's Party of Korea, that the lyrics of a song were slightly changed -- "Our father, Marshal Kim Jong-un ..." (the song previously referenced his grandfather, Kim Il-sung)
Lyrics in Korean read "Our father, Kim Jong-un (bolded in red) the Marshal ..."
November 11, 2025 at 4:39 AM
austwu.bsky.social
it's american maoism, folks (workers and farmers united as one/base areas established in the countryside)
工友农友团结一条心 (workers and farmers, united as one) 根据地建立在农村 (with the base areas established in the countryside)
November 11, 2025 at 1:29 AM
austwu.bsky.social
interestingly, the same act is played during a PLA musical commemorating its 90th anniversary in 2017 (presumably for the rule of cool as well, which *does* work for the most part ...)
Yan Weiwen "fires" a prop rifle in a musical celebrating the 90th anniversary of the founding of the PLA (2017). It's a transitory act in between the singing of "The Internationale" and the foundation of the PLA in 1927. https://www.youtube.com/live/0APRjsyrzjY?si=DLvPIdt3iYxe2kNU&t=379
November 11, 2025 at 12:28 AM
austwu.bsky.social
I think there's something to be said about the potential for 'urbanism' in small towns, which even with just a few thousand people, are still more than capable enough of letting their walkable main streets decay in favour of tract home sprawl and big box stores along the highway
aerial of center point, iowa (pop. ~2500). walkable traditional grid, but nearly displaced by suburban-esque sprawl towards an interstate highway to its south.
November 11, 2025 at 12:04 AM
austwu.bsky.social
if anything, what's tantalizing about notions of masculinity in ww2 is that heroism through soldiery could be achieved by anyone in mass society - randos pulled into service, in part through relaxed physical standards for conscription - as opposed to the more indimidating 'operator' aesthetic today
pullout from article on glasses usage in the US army during the war. http://www.big-red-one.org/90thIDPG-FourEyes-23Mar.pdf guy with night vision, tattoos, body armor, radio, gussied up rifle -- all the works
November 10, 2025 at 11:55 PM