Oddbean

A couple of years ago, someone showed me an extremely detailed rant on Twitter about “the package” that somehow gets magically offered to activists who show up and get noticed. It vanished, and I’ve never found any reference to it again. Consider many of the BlackLivesMatter “founders.” Many of them made serious money, got lots of TV appearances, book deals, and other lucre for a couple of years, and promptly vanished from view (or relevance). It happens over and over and over again.

And this kind of thing may sound conspiratorial, because it probably is. It was Angelo Carusone who opened my eyes (14 years ago) to just how legally corrupt America has become when he explained how conservative law firms aligned with the federalist society show up on law school campuses every year to “buy up” all the young legal talent and ensure they will never make it into progressive government. Want to keep a kid from becoming socially important? Pay him $180k—to start.

@8b01df53 I just don’t understand why more aren’t seeing the pattern. Every couple of years, some new author will show up and write about these kinds of systemic problems, and they too quickly get rich and promptly vanish. If not from view, than from relevance. Almost all of them effectively retire by 35.

@40cd5708 “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair Not only are we doomed to repeat history, I think we get some sort of masochistic kink out of repeating it on purpose. Sometimes I think we're all just bugs in a cosmic jar who take turns being a different person or manifestation of carbon for eternity. It's probably the closest I'll come to sharing an opinion with Elon Musk. It's like we're a Sims game.

@40cd5708 Weren't BLM activists found murdered? 😶 Mysterious Deaths Leave Ferguson Activists 'On Pins and Needles' https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/ferguson-death-mystery-black-lives-matter-michael-brown-809407/amp/

@21be5ca6 That never impressed me for this reason: Masri was never very important, and in fact, his “pigs in a blanket” mistake was a massive publicity fail for the movement and a huge help to the white supremacist counter-movement. The others were local activists with no national presence. All the “branded” activists, especially the BLM founders who weren’t even there, did pretty well for themselves. And still do.

It’s not that no one ever notices. It’s that no one else ever seems to care. Consider BLM co-founder Patrice Cullors. Not to single her out; her former partners also all went on to fame, fortune, speaking tours, honorary degrees and positions, and political irrelevance except on limousine liberal cocktail party circuits. White America showers them with accolades and awards. Meanwhile, #BLM has been nearly inert since the Floyd protests, which were totally squandered. https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/182/731/340/239/492/original/39c20319b4c26c13.png

@40cd5708 Then there is John Roberts wife who places them all in high paying Federalist Society approved law firms and makes millions of dollars doing it. It is amazing what Senator Whiteouse and ProPublica have uncovered. Thank god for them. 🙏 https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2023/04/28/chief-justice-john-roberts-wife-made-over-10-million-as-legal-consultant-report-says/?sh=3621297b1e9a