The problem isn’t Trump or fascism, it’s democracy itself

This guest column, written by PG on Crimethinc eight years ago, just after Trump was elected, pound out that “Fascism is Obsolete, Whiteness is Here to Stay”: https://crimethinc.com/2016/12/13/feature-does-trump-represent-fascism-or-white-supremacy

While that is a good point, I do believe it’s correct to call Trump a fascist: https://crimethinc.com/2016/12/16/counterpoint-yes-trump-represents-fascism even though that label might not be very useful as pointed out by PG and Robert Paxton: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/magazine/robert-paxton-facism.html

We are fucked no matter who wins

The idea that Trump could return to the White House is terrifying. Even if he doesn’t win the election, the fact that it was so close says everything, not just about the US but about the world we live in. Fascism is on the rise everywhere and I don’t even know what to say. Really depressing world we live in. And Gaza and Climate Change and the general state of affairs.

DJ St Dic still deeply mised

In the late nineties I went to study at the VUB in Brussels, it was also the time I got into partying to house music and into DJ’ing. At that time Pascal Saint Dic aka DJ St Dic was resident DJ at Fuse club in Brussels at the first floor playing house music. Scalle as he was know to his friends was an inspired me to dance my ass of and to play amazing music, no matter what genre. He sadly took his own life in 2006 and is still dearly missed by all those who knew him. I can’t say I knew him well, I only spoke to him a few times, he studied at VUB and worked as a barman at Kultuur Kaffee, the on campus bar and my favorite hangout. But I can say I still miss you, great DJ, great human.

Website traffic spikes : spam or ?

In the Jetpack app on my phone, which keeps track of my WordPress sites, I keep getting these messages about this blog (zonk.be) getting lots of traffic: about 50 hourly views (which is a lot since I might get one visitor a day):

If you’ve ever managed a WordPress blog you’ll know spam is a huge issue. Even if you hardly get regular visitors those spambots will find your site and if you have comments enabled will pummel you.

It just seems weird that spambots would generate so many hits on the same page or all visit at the same time. So I’m unsure what the unusual traffic is about. It all seems to f be going to the archives page.

Anyone else experiencing this and figured out what it could be?

Losing 2FA access

Two factor authentication is great and very necessary, I enable it in most places where it is available.
The one downside is that when you lose access to your phone you need to reset 2FA in a lot of places. And obviously the backup codes also always seem to get lost.
BTW: This is a message to Matthew who I hope can help met get access again to my Matrix Mastodon account that I have access to this domain and the e-mail I sent him wasn’t spoofed! 😉