Connections

     Most people are familiar with organization charts, graphics showing lines of control and responsibility; most people have seen the overthought/paranoid version stereotypes in films and on TV, too, tangled spiderwebs of colorful string connecting photos and newspaper clippings, sometimes three-dimensional.

     There's an outfit that's been tracking the connections between modern conservative authoritarian organizations, finding unlikely linkages between strict Islamic regimes and the Christian Nationalist far Right, obvious ones between authoritarian-inclined European governments with anti-LGBTQ laws and organizations that seek to roll back the rights of women in the Third World, between the current incarnation of the Republican Party and their counterparts in Europe, South America and Africa -- and it's much more of an organization chart than a parody maze of neon-hued yarn.  And one of the most connected nodes has a familiar name: Project 2025.

     Read it or don't.  Believe it or deny it.  But over here on the distaff side, I'm not seeing a dime's worth of difference between a bunch of bearded religious authorities who want me to shut up and focus on making the menfolk happy in Texas and in Tehran or Kabul, except one group has a very firm grasp on power and the other is still groping for it.  (Oh, and different hats.  How very nice.)

     Things are bad and there are a whole lot of folk out there, foreign and domestic, doing their level best to make them even worse.  And they're sharing notes, in some cases while fighting each other.