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hampton.bsky.social
hampton.
@hampton.bsky.social
3.8K followers 830 following 210 posts
rhetoric PhD student @ UGA | senior researcher @ Princeton | founder @MilitiaWatch.bsky.social | staring into the abyss at: state violence & paramilitarism + radical memes & graphic media + paranormal realities & haunted presents
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hampton.bsky.social
this week, I wrote an essay for class about two movies (killer of sheep + still life) where 'living amidst the ruins' is an important theme of many scenes, and I'm very interested in carrying this concept a bit further.

pls share if you have any favorite movies that take place amidst ruin!
still from charles burnett's killer of sheep, showing a child in a striped shirt tying his shoes in a ruined train yard. behind him, several other children await his help to push a massive train car further along the tracks still from Jia Zhangke's film Still life, showing two characters squatting in a ruined building sharing toffee as they chat. the ruins frame a city in active destruction behind them
November 6, 2025 at 11:37 PM
hampton.bsky.social
Rand has brought up Harper Lee's novel in a few settings, but most often he seems to do so when talking about extrajudicial killings similar to his Vance reply (a now deleted 2014 post contains a speech where he compares drone strike expansion to Mockingbird)

web.archive.org/web/20250210...
Screenshot reading: Rand Paul calls for release of drone memos, removal of Obama judge “It’s easy to object to vigilante justice when you know the accused is innocent. When the mob attempts an extrajudicial execution, we stand with Atticus Finch, we stand for the rule of law,” Paul said. He continued, “Do we have the courage to denounce drone executions as nothing more than sophisticated vigilantism?” “These traitors [were] betraying a country that holds dear the precept that we are innocent until proven guilty. Aren’t we in a way betraying our principles when we relinquish this right to a trial by jury?” Paul added. The senator is arguing that, in a sense, to throw out due process is to stoop to the level of the accused terrorist or traitor. The rules of vigilante law are essentially the same as the rules of the traitor. Similar to the terrorist or traitor, a nation without due process is also without the rule of law.
September 7, 2025 at 3:10 AM
hampton.bsky.social
extremely not the point but I'm fascinated by Paul bringing up To Kill a Mockingbird. turns out he's been doing this a lot since 2016, mostly about Trump (who he at one point compared to Gollum in 2016 lol)

www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...

+

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016...
Screenshot reading: Rand Paul is speaking at a rally at Drake University in Des Moines. He invokes To Kill a Mockingbird and tells students that he’s the candidate for Americans who want to be left alone. He says that this election reminds him of the character Scout, who “found the inner humanity that exists even in a mob bent on violence”. He says he’ll end the “mob intent on detention without trial”. Paul goes on to say that he’s reminded of the book’s other hero, Atticus Finch, when he thinks about how the majority can be wrong; he leaves it unsaid that they can be wrong even in a democracy. “I thought of what Atticus said: before I can live with other folks, I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide majority rule is conscience.” Then he paraphrases Victor Hugo, maybe just for fun: “an idea whose time as come is stronger than all armies”. He finishes off by calling for a bigger, more diverse Republican party: one that treats addiction “as a health problem, not an incarceration problem”; that reforms the criminal justice system and ends the war on drugs; that fights off big government and IRS Swat teams at every turn. “Forty-eight federal agencies, from the IRS to the Department of Education, that all have their own Swat teams. Is that freedom?” Screenshot reading: The Kentucky senator’s goal is to get 10,000 college students across Iowa to support him on caucus night, roughly the same number of students who turned out for Barack Obama in the Democratic caucuses in 2009. In a rally with several hundred attendees at Drake University in Des Moines this week, Paul gave a rambling speech in which he compared Donald Trump to Gollum, a deranged antagonist from The Lord of the Rings, and compared himself to the heroes of the civil rights-era novel To Kill A Mockingbird – all part of his attempt to win young people.
September 7, 2025 at 3:03 AM
hampton.bsky.social
That Bannon is the primary source on these claims across all of these outlets (left image) is related to the notion of reticulation @daveforan.bsky.social + @hariprasad.bsky.social + I wrote about in our TPV article on Rittenhouse memes (right image).

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Screenshot reading: The Times cited "Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House adviser to Mr. Trump and influential leader of the MAGA base," who told the paper that "the Murdochs' bizarre assault on the president galvanized his base" and that "we are united as Trump goes on offense-against the Murdochs, the courts and the deep state." (The Murdoch family owns the Wall Street Journal.) The Washington Post cited "Stephen K. Bannon, Trump's former adviser who hosts a daily talk show popular with Trump's MAGA supporters," who told the paper that "MAGA is now united, because they can see there's a common enemy," which he described as "the Deep State, with their media partners, led by Murdoch." CNN cited a certain Steve Bannon, identifying him as a leader of the MAGA movement. "We are finally on offense,' Bannon, Trump's former aide and a leader of the MAGA movement, said via text message to CNN. 'President Trump has had enough and is fighting back-against his real enemies.'" Politico cited and reprinted the quote that Bannon gave to the Post. Screenshot of journal article with highlights: Much of the purpose of a given subculture's process of meme formation and dissemination is to create a representation of an event within the context of the values and worldview of the niche subculture, while linking it into a larger knowledge base. These simulacra, "re-presentations" of a non-existent alternate reality, then link into mainstream discourse by targeting platforms' indexing mechanisms. The system (or ensemble) of recontextualized events gains its own agency, becom-ing a standalone entity that reproduces itself and its narrative(s). The permanent nature of the content (posted content is not removed) and the lack of algorithms that reduce or result in a process of natural selection based on the veracity of content, results in the accumulation of content that becomes tied and enmeshed further into the mainstream regardless of its quality. these narratives play into the purported goals of "alt-right" political activists, the movement of the "Overton window" as a result of the reticulating effect of engagement, resulting in the convergence of the various bodies of knowledge both fringe/extreme and mainstream
July 24, 2025 at 3:45 AM
hampton.bsky.social
excuse my orwellposting,* but...

the (too blunt) irony of the agency that's perhaps best known for kidnapping students posting about their intent to enforce thoughtcrime

from pg 10: files.libcom.org/files/1984.pdf

*(i ever cringe at the insincere shouting 'this is 1984!' by rightists re: COVID)
screenshot of an excerpt of 1984 by George Orwell: He could not help feeling a twinge of panic. It was absurd, since the writing of those particular words was not more dangerous than the initial act of opening the diary, but for a moment he was tempted to tear out the spoiled pages and abandon the enterprise altogether. He did not do so, however, because he knew that it was useless. Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference. Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed — would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper — the essential crime that contained all others in itself. [HIGHLIGHT:] Thoughtcrime, they called it. [:END HIGHLIGHT] Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for ever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you. It was always at night — [HIGHLIGHT:] the arrests invariably happened at night. [:END HIGHLIGHT] The sudden jerk out of sleep, the rough hand shaking your shoulder, the lights glaring in your eyes, the ring of hard faces round the bed. In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word. For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria. He began writing in a hurried untidy scrawl: theyll shoot me i don’t care theyll shoot me in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother
April 10, 2025 at 6:08 PM
hampton.bsky.social
Chuck Schumer, in grayscale, removes his glasses in the title header for The New York Times's story entitled "The Interview: Chuck Schumer on Democrats, Antisemitism and His Shutdown Retreat" screenshot of Disco Elysium replacing the Joyce Messier quote and portrait with Chuck Schumer's name and a stylized portrait from the scene. the dialogue reads, "I can't. That's how simple it is. One may dye their hair green and wear their grandma's coat all they want. Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would *critique* capital end up *reinforcing it instead..."
March 17, 2025 at 4:10 AM
hampton.bsky.social
who else spent yet another year dwarfin around
steam year in review spider graph showing heavy weight towards "Dwarf", "MOBA", and "Battle Royale"
December 19, 2024 at 3:58 AM
hampton.bsky.social
I distinctly remember how little I slept in 2015 when Russia started bombing, claiming they were targeting ISIS & AQ. Using hrs of footage from the ground, we dispelled this, showing that primarily these strikes targeted US-backed groups, often far from ISIS front lines. NYT piece still on my desk:
Except of a newspaper clipping from a 2015 New York Times article about Russia's campaign in Syria, showing zones of control and locations of major airstrikes
December 6, 2024 at 3:16 PM
hampton.bsky.social
Every offensive meant long hours updating the literal 100s of locations of control on frontlines (we were tracking ~5800 locs across Syria).

TCC is such a significant core of data on this conflict since the beginning, and major, major props to @hariprasad.bsky.social for keeping it up especially.
screenshot of page 3 of a carter center report showing some visualizations of changes in control of territory in Syria. The first visualization on the page shows location control by the Syrian Government, ISIS, Syrian Democratic Forces, and opposition groups. The second visualization shows the trend towards Syrian government control between early 2015 and mid 2018.
December 6, 2024 at 3:05 PM
hampton.bsky.social
Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, or Alice in Chains.
Album art for Green Day's dookie, which is mostly Grey's, yellows, and reds depicting a plant dropping bombs behind illustrated people
November 19, 2024 at 1:45 PM
hampton.bsky.social
would deeply depend on what they're into, but if it's a friend of mine they'd probably like Night in the Woods as a starter game
Screenshot of two characters from Night in the Woods, wearing goggles on a bike ride with the sunset behind them. Mae, a black cat with an orange shirt, rides on the back of a bike powered by Gregg, a fox wearing a leather jacket
November 18, 2024 at 12:50 PM
hampton.bsky.social
I refuse to join Bluesky - I don't want to become part of an 'il becco (giallo)' chamber
Scan of front page of 1920s Italian antifascist paper "il becco giallo" (Italian for "the yellow beak")
November 17, 2024 at 5:09 AM
hampton.bsky.social
Kind of wild just how much the founder of the Washington III% beat another Republican candidate in the race for the WA House last week:
Screenshot showing matt marshall taking 55.51% of the vote against John Snaza in the state representative race for WA legislative district 2
November 13, 2024 at 11:18 PM
hampton.bsky.social
Happy new @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social day to those who observe
The cover of absolution by Jeff vandermeer, featuring a freaky alligator slash flower creature on a black background. There are several foiled components for the cover that reflect light in rainbows
October 22, 2024 at 10:36 PM
hampton.bsky.social
In the last 72 hours, I absolutely devoured these two Junji Ito short story collections from the library. Shiver (the later one) is definitely a good deal better IMO (panels from the holes story and grease story will stick with me).

Any horror manga/comic/graphic novel fans have any recs?
Covers of junji ito's "smashed" and "shiver" collections next to each other. Both have disturbing illustrations. Smashed is mostly red and greens and shiver is mostly light blues and tans
October 22, 2024 at 10:04 PM
hampton.bsky.social
(this is from this 2002 book with a giant battle flag on the cover written by a guy with the last name "Davis", too, btw)
Cover image of 2002 book called "look away! a history of the Confederate states of America" by William C. Davis
September 29, 2024 at 2:37 PM
hampton.bsky.social
🫢
Picture from a book featuring Edmund Ruffin (a grumpy looking white man with long white hair) and the caption "Some simply could not accept the end. Ardent old fire-eating secessionist Edmund Ruffin of Virginia blew out his brains.wirh a shotgun rather than face reconstruction."
September 29, 2024 at 2:34 PM
hampton.bsky.social
>Certified Bluesky Elite
Generated graphic from Bluesky noting that I'm user number 72,728 and joined on may 12, 2023
September 19, 2024 at 4:58 AM
hampton.bsky.social
I really want to ask Colston how much Yellowstone he's watched in recent years because he surely got caught with a very particular dream of the rugged Americana insurgent ideal on his mind
from DOJ sentencing press release of Joshua Colston highlighting that he was purchasing horses in preparation to travel horseback across the country for several years and he was preparing to go "off the grid". he also had a .44 lever-action rifle, which he stole.
August 19, 2024 at 9:56 PM
hampton.bsky.social
There are a handful of things that often hinder militias' plans:
1. infiltration and exposure (usually by antifascists)
2. feds getting someone on unrelated gun charges
3. ppl wanting to do 'patriot shit' until it's time to do 'patriot shit' (often meta-explanation for no resources and poor health)
DOJ press release about the sentencing of Joshua Colston, with a highlight over "the Thanksgiving Day plan was never developed due to the group’s lack of resources and the poor health of the members"
August 19, 2024 at 9:53 PM
hampton.bsky.social
always fascinating to see what the 'preeminent scholars' advocating for fascism in the US argue in terms of anth/symbology. This dude shot off two dozen tweets to argue this point. just supremely unserious stuff
screenshot of a tweet reading: "Let's talk about Kamala Harris saying "to see what can be, unburdened by what has been." This phrase, which she repeats all the time, is not mysterious. It's esoteric. That is, it's occult. It's a Marxist and Luciferian incantation, and that's easily seen." Below the tweet is a freeze frame from an autoplay video showing Harris in front of a massive US flag.
July 22, 2024 at 4:34 PM
hampton.bsky.social
Also I have to give props to Paige Williams for reporting these wild findings about Banyai's $$$ supporters lmfao
www.newyorker.com/news/us-jour...
In an e-mail on file with the court, Banyai mentioned his “benefactors.” In Slate Ridge’s online fund-raisers, donors tended to give small amounts, but one roster listed a pledge of a thousand dollars, from a David Brodsky. A man by that name owns a farm near Slate Ridge. That David Brodsky belongs to a family that has a long-standing real-estate development firm, BEB Capital, on Long Island. David’s father, Bert, founded a health-care data company. In 2005, Long Island Business News reported that Bert and his children “made about $50 million from the sale of 5.5 million shares” of a business. Around that time, Bert and David bought the estate that was rumored to have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s setting for “The Great Gatsby.” David described the property as a “white whale.” The mansion was eventually razed, making way for five multimillion-dollar homes.
December 30, 2023 at 4:21 AM
hampton.bsky.social
(also, this:)
We are often, those of us who engage with the climate crisis in fiction, assailed by a whirlwind of generalities in response to what may hopefully be subtle and contradictory on the page. We are asked: Are you hopeful about the future? Are you pessimistic? Why dystopias? Why not utopias? If I sidestep the question when asked, or turn it into another question, or even take the question and fashion it into some strange blossom and hand it back to the questioner… it is because I believe continuing to write at all about these subjects is inherently a form of hope. I am not frozen. I am engaging. I am still moving forward along the ice field. And if too often we must grapple with the world as it is rather than the hopeful world that could be…this is because we still have not broken free from or untangled and cut through the flawed foundational assumptions that have locked us into this terrible outcome. If Le Guin fortifies me in her fiction, it is because I see this pragmatism in her wor
December 5, 2023 at 9:34 PM
hampton.bsky.social
If you're interested in reading an article on 2020 pro-Rittenhouse memes that Dave Foran, @hariprasad.bsky.social, and I wrote almost 2 years ago, it's available on TPV (link below is specifically accessible for the first 50ish downloads without paywall/login):
www.tandfonline.com/eprint/IRRB8...
screenshot of webpage for article titled "Kyle Rittenhouse and the Shared Meme Networks of the Armed American Far-Right: An Analysis of the Content Creation Formula, right-wing Injection of Politics, and Normalization of Violence" by Hampton Stall, David Foran, & Hari Prasad
November 8, 2023 at 10:19 PM
hampton.bsky.social
For another point of evidence in the "militias using FEMA certifications as credentials for disaster response work" file, here's a still from a fairly recent militia video of their flood response, citing that individual members are FEMA-certified.
image posted by militia showing flooded area with text "Members of the [REDACTED] Militia are certified by FEMA for disaster response operations
November 7, 2023 at 3:50 PM