Toni Bradfield
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tonibradfield.bsky.social
Toni Bradfield
@tonibradfield.bsky.social
640 followers 1.9K following 1.6K posts
Just a simple woman making my way through the galaxy in a state of ordinary misery and rage.
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tonibradfield.bsky.social
It’s been awhile since I read it, but your thread reminded me of his dislike (to put it mildly!) of pathologizing opposition:
Before young people become anti-authoritarians, they are often oppositional; as before they pride themselves on distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate authority, they can pride themselves on their noncompliance. Thus, it is troubling that being oppositional and defiant has been pathologized by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder called "oppositional defiant disorder." This psychopathologizing and resulting "treatment" make it more difficult for young people's prideful noncompliance to mature into this vital societal contribution: discerning an authority's legitimacy, and resisting illegitimate authority.
November 12, 2025 at 12:05 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
He did write:
To help the individual to fit into a society which is ever at war with itself – is this what psychologists and analysts are supposed to do? Is the individual to be healed only in order to kill or be killed? If one is not killed, or driven insane, then must one only fit into the structure of hate, envy, ambition and superstition which can be very scientific?
November 11, 2025 at 2:18 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
Picture of newspaper cartoon. Shows Palestinian mother crying and cradling a bloodied child. Major news orgs are thrusting microphones in her face. The caption reads: “But do you condemn Hamas?”
November 10, 2025 at 3:15 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
From 2019
2019 Tweet: Adam Kotsko @adamkotsko • 33m People claiming that the general population has to constantly keep tabs on politicians and pressure them relentlessly if we want any results at all are effectively arguing for a revolution that overthrows the entire elite class. Adam Kotsko @adamkotsko • 32m Why have representative democracy if our representatives are going to betray our interests constantly? All we're doing is providing a figleaf of democratic legitimacy for them to do what they were going to do anyway.
November 10, 2025 at 3:31 AM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
Can’t help thinking about these two banger Kotsko tweets from back in the day
I don't say this enough, but a modern nation should not be forced to live in an unalterable death trap of a Constitution, which was devised to keep the slaveholders on board and DIDN'T EVEN ACHIEVE THAT when push came to shove. 8:46 AM • 4/13/20 • Twitter Web App If we just keep at it, the Constitution written by a committee of slaveowners and their allies will eventually deliver social justice.
October 25, 2025 at 1:26 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
This paper may be dated, but I’ve seen nothing in recent years to rebut its findings

digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/fac_pubs/1515/
Moreover, the history of police brutality directed towards women is well documented. Most of that literature, however, captures the violence that police do in their public capacity, as officers of the state. This article examines the violence and abuse perpetrated by police in their private lives, against their intimate partners, although the public and private overlap significantly to the extent that the power and training provided to police officers by the state makes them significantly more dangerous as abusers. Intimate partner abuse by police officers is a systemic, structural issue created and fueled by the ways in which police officers are socialized and trained. Police officers are more likely than others to abuse their partners, and as a result of their training and their state imprimatur, police abuse of partners is more problematic and more potentially dangerous than abuse by civilians.
October 22, 2025 at 8:19 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
In America, we pave over our true history and conjure up a more flattering alternative. The truth is ugly and difficult to face; but not even pavement can cover bones forever or obscure the fact that American "greatness" has been achieved through the subjugation and enslavement of the racialized other. What we choose to remember - who we choose to remember - depends on whose lives we deem to be valuable in the first place. The Chinese did not end up underneath the asphalt of my neighborhood by accident. They were not forgotten as a product of clerical error or historical oversight. Their place in the dirt is a direct consequence of our American way of life. Our politics then resemble our politics now: paranoid, racist, genocidal.
October 21, 2025 at 5:15 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
Yes, they are

I invite you to read Douglass on this

frederickdouglasshonorsociety.com/writings-the...
But all this prejudice sinks into insignificance in my mind, when compared with the enormous iniquity of the system which is its cause-the system that sold my four sisters and my brothers into bondage-and which calls in its priests to defend it even from the Bible! The slaveholding ministers preach up the divine right of the slaveholders to property in their fellow- men. The southern preachers say to the poor slave, "Oh! if you wish to be happy in time, happy in eternity, you must be obedient to your masters; their interest is yours. God made one portion of men to do the working, and another to do the thinking; how good God is! Now, you have no trouble or anxiety; but ah! you can't imagine how perplexing it is to your masters and mistresses to have so much thinking to do in your behalf! You cannot appreciate your blessings; you know not how happy a thing it is for you, that you were born of that portion of the human family which has the working, instead of the thinking to do! Oh! how grateful and obedient you ought to be to your masters! How beautiful are the arrangements of Providence! Look at your hard, horny hands-see how nicely they are adapted to the labor you have to perform! Look at our delicate fingers, so exactly fitted for our station, and see how manifest it is that God designed us to be His thinkers, and you the workers-Oh! the wisdom of God!"
October 15, 2025 at 10:37 AM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
I know it’s ridiculous to still be surprised at what Rs are willing to rubber stamp, but this…

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...
On Friday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon had signed off on a deal to open a facility in Idaho that will host a squad of Qatari Air Force jets and pilots. Though the deal drew backlash from some conservatives, it was a major win for Qatar. Hours earlier, Republicans in the Senate sank a Democratic push to block funding for the Trump administration to convert a luxury jetliner gifted by Qatar to be used as Air Force One.
October 11, 2025 at 12:48 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
Worth the read

www.asahi.com/ajw/articles...
Ishiba first pointed out a structural flaw in the prewar Imperial Constitution, which lacked the principle of "civilian control" —the idea that politics must be superior to the military. He then analyzed three key areas: "politics," "parliament" and "media," citing specific historical examples. Regarding politics, he referred to the 1935 controversy over the "Emperor organ theory" proposed by constitutional scholar and House of Peers member Tatsukichi Minobe. This theory, under the Imperial Constitution, held that sovereignty resided in the state as a legal entity, and the emperor governed as "the highest organ of the state" in accordance with the Constitution. Ishiba noted that the Keisuke Okada Cabinet at the time "yielded to military demands and rejected the previously mainstream Emperor organ theory," stating that "the government lost control over the military." Regarding parliament, Ishiba cited the 1940 expulsion of Lower House member Takao Saito after he delivered an "anti-military speech" criticizing the war. Ishiba emphasized that "parliament also lost its function to control the military." Regarding the media, Ishiba stated that from around the time of the Manchurian Incident in 1931, the press "shifted to actively supporting the war." He pointed out that "newspapers widely reported" the Kwantung Army's occupation of Chinese territory, "which mesmerized many citizens and further fueled nationalism." Based on this analysis, the prime minister summarized the "lessons for today." He acknowledged that postwar Japan had established civilian control, but warned that "it is merely a system, and without proper implementation, it is meaningless." He wrote, "We must not repeat a history where emotional and spiritual judgments are prioritized over calm and rational decisions, causing the nation to err in its course."
October 10, 2025 at 4:59 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
See this excellent 2021 Ben Ehrenreich piece:

newrepublic.com/article/1615...
Screen shot: As innocuous as it may sound, "growth" should be understood to describe the frenzied ruination of nearly every ecosystem on the planet so that its richest human inhabitants can hold on to their privileges for another generation or two. Rejecting the idolatry of growth means tilting the organization of our societies toward other social goods-health, for instance, and the freedom to exist on a planet that is not on fire. This should not be unimaginable. There are infinite other ways to organize a society, and the fact that we are not widely and urgently discussing them is at this point nothing short of criminal. There are voluminous literatures on degrowth, on circular economies, on mutual aid, and, yes, on socialism, too. There is the 99.999 percent of human history during which we managed to not significantly alter the atmosphere or wipe out such an enormous portion of the species with whom we share the planet. There is the living experience of every indigenous community in the United States
October 9, 2025 at 5:00 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
From the article:
Yet what is striking about the 1920s is that, unlike the German interwar crisis, America's dangerous decade led not to fascism and the end of democracy but to the New Deal and the civil rights era. Across the sequence of emergencies that followed — the Great Depression and eventually World War II — the United States ushered in an era of working-class political empowerment and prosperity. The nation ended Jim Crow in the South and established free speech with court-backed protections for the first time in its history.
October 8, 2025 at 10:33 AM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
I think this theory from Prof. Christina Beltran is correct
(2021 interview)
And I think it's important to realize just how long in this country legal discrimination was not simply culturally acceptab'e but legally authorized. And so we've only been practicing a more consistent form of legal equality for a relatively short time since the 1960s. So Americans have often learned how to create their own sense of belonging through violence and through the exclusion of certain groups and populations. GARCIA-NAVARRO: So what you're saying, essentially, is that people of other races and ethnicities want to benefit from white privilege by supporting it. BELTRAN: Right. https://www.npr.org/2021/01/24/960060957/understanding-multiracial-whiteness-and-trump-supporters
September 22, 2025 at 7:09 AM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
Seeing a lot today about the need (or requirement, depending) to love your enemies. I think it’s helpful to define what that sort of “love” looks like in practice and how it’s defined.

This essay on MLK’s 1958 “An Experiment in Love” is interesting

www.themarginalian.org/2015/07/01/m...
Here, Dr. King turns to Ancient Greek philosophy, pointing out that the love he speaks of is not the sentimental or affectionate kind — "it would be nonsense to urge men to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense," he readily acknowledges — but love in the sense of understanding and redemptive goodwill. The Greeks called this agape — a love distinctly different from the eros, reserved for our lovers, or philia, with which we love our friends and family. Dr. King explains: Agape means understanding, redeeming good will for all men. It is an overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless, and creative. It is not set in motion by any quality or function of its object... Agape is disinterested love. It is a love in which the individual seeks not his own good,but the good of his neighbor. Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. It is an entirely "neighbor-regarding concern for others," which discovers the neighbor in every man it meets.
September 21, 2025 at 10:25 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
Mood
Exhausted looking man with eyes closed, glasses in hand, and a cigarette
September 20, 2025 at 1:25 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
Anytime I come across the sentiment that even death cannot save one from exploitation, I think of this wonderful essay from Adam Kotsko

itself.blog/2022/04/17/e...
Screen shot from essay: What does it mean that even the dead will not be safe? On the one hand, there’s the possibility that the dead will simply be forgotten and lost. Yet it seems more likely to me that he has in mind the ways that the dead are often demonized and their struggle and resistence is retroactively cast as a justification for the persecution they were responding to. Most profoundly, the victims of power and domination can be recruited as “saints” who can then be weaponized to shore up the forces of reaction — the fate of a figure like Martin Luther King, Jr., or indeed Jesus of Nazareth himself. In Benjamin’s political vision of resurrection, even the dead can be pressed into the service of the greater glory of the empire, just as all the dead will be forced to eternally perform God’s righteous judgment in the traditional doctrine of the resurrection.
September 20, 2025 at 2:15 AM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
Hold on. There are *how many* comets in the solar system right now?
Screen shot from earthly.org article: Time to dust off your binoculars or telescope and seek out that dark-sky site, because five bright comets are on their way. Bright is a relative term when we talk about comets. But these comets should be visible through small amateur telescopes. And one comet might be visible with the unaided eye! The approaching comets include: C/2025 A6 (Lemmon), closest to Earth on October 21, 2025 C/2025 K1 (Atlas), closest to Earth on November 24-25, 2025 3I/Atlas, the 3rd interstellar object discovered, closest to Earth on December 18-19, 2025 24P/Schanmasse, closest to Earth on January 4, 2026 C/2024 E1 (Wierzchos), closest to Earth on February 17, 2026
September 19, 2025 at 11:43 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
Right
Screen shot of AP story from 2019: Activists unnerved by deaths of men tied to Ferguson protests FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Two young men were found dead inside torched cars. Three others died of apparent suicides. Another collapsed on a bus, his death ruled an overdose. Six deaths, all involving men with connections to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, drew attention on social media and speculation in the activist community that something sinister was at play. Police say there is no evidence the deaths have anything to do with the protests stemming from a white police officer’s fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, and that only two were homicides with no known link to the protests.
September 19, 2025 at 6:21 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
www.sciencealert.com/openai-has-a...
Uncertainty-aware language models require significantly more computation than today's approach, as they must evaluate multiple possible responses and estimate confidence levels. For a system processing millions of queries daily, this translates to dramatically higher operational costs. More sophisticated approaches like active learning, where Al systems ask clarifying questions to reduce uncertainty, can improve accuracy but further multiply computational requirements. Such methods work well in specialized domains like chip design, where wrong answers cost millions of dollars and justify extensive computation. For consumer applications where users expect instant responses, the economics become prohibitive.
September 17, 2025 at 10:37 AM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
I signed up for a yearly membership! Thank you for your fearlessness!
Confirmation email Hey there! Thank you for subscribing to Life is a Sacred Text. Tap the link below to be automatically signed in:
September 15, 2025 at 10:09 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
John Brown on his way to be executed
Image shows John Brown walking down steps out of a courthouse with many officers present. A Black women lifts her child up to John Brown to kiss his head 😭
September 15, 2025 at 9:54 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
This 2020 tweet continues to be relevant
Mat Johnson @mat_johnson The liberal impulse to maintain the manners of civility regardless of the bad faith of its opposition is part of how we got into this mess. 12:35 AM • 10/3/20 • Twitter Web App 11.1K Retweets 789 Quote Tweets 53.8K Likes
September 13, 2025 at 3:04 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
This 2018 tweet continues to be relevant
Nikhil Pal Singh @nikhil_palsingh Try this: the blanket defense of civility extends and provides cover for (often violent), state sanctioned exclusion from political membership/ status that incites and indeed necessitates disruptions of "civility" in protest. 6/25/18, 7:08 AM
September 13, 2025 at 3:01 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
This 2018 tweet continues to be relevant
Simran Jeet Singh @SikhProf Fortunately, though, we have all sorts of post-colonial scholarship, history, and theory that help us understand how calls for civility are just a power play by those who feel that white supremacy is under threat. 6/25/18, 10:40 PM from Manhattan, NY
September 13, 2025 at 2:46 PM
tonibradfield.bsky.social
Wow
Screen shot: “Indeed, the cement came to life, with the bacteria establishing a “network of charge carriers capable of both storing and releasing electrical energy,” the researchers explained in a statement. In other words, the cement could store and release electricity, a finding that could one day enable more sustainable buildings. Even better, the researchers found that even after the microbes died, the material could be reinvigorated by being fed nutrients.”
September 11, 2025 at 6:39 PM