- Timothy Snyder. The first and perhaps most important lesson from On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons for the Twentieth Century (2017)

Snyder's new book, On Freedom, was published in 2024.

When we are young, people in Germany are told about what happened in WW II. It’s such a central point in our education that it recurrs in multiple school subjects over years. We know what happened and how it could happen. Why people voted for Hitler, how people stood by in pretended ignorance and used Jews, POC, disabled people and LGTB as scapegoats for everything that went wrong and ignored what happened to them because it wasn’t their problem.

Now, we see something similar in America. We see a man use such violent racism and hatred rise and become the most powerful man in the world. The parallels are there no matter how hard some people try to deny it. If you ask yourself: How could Hitler rise? You have your answer now.

It’s a true reminder that people do not learn from history, but the thing is history will not forget. 

Whatever will come out of this? We don’t know.  

People in germany have watched the election unfold with so much worry because we know what could happen, but we felt secure because ‘there is no way he would win. It’s so obvious people can’t be that stupid.’ but well…

Take this advice from a german history student: Stay together and support your minorities. If you are white and cishet then it’s not the time to ignore what might happen only because you are going to be unaffected by it. Be a decent human being, if you see discrimination fight against it for the good of the people, speak out against it, make them feel secure because this is their country as well. If more people had felt that way 70 years ago, maybe it might’ve changed something. Do not make the same mistake my grandparents generation did and be a passive supporter of a regime based on discrimination and hatred.

The first sentence of our constitution is ‘Human dignity shall be inviolable’, and it’s not a sentence that should only apply to Germany, but a sentence that should apply to all people.

Discord is officially blocked in Russia

anti-DPI programs can handle Discord here's Goodbye DPI w/ GUI here's ByeDPI, possibly nicest solution for Android other variants can be found here

regarding VPNs - Windscribe is still the real one, w/ non-standard protocols and special "hostile network" switch, one problem though - limited traffic, so you most likely have to juggle it w/ some noname VPN apps or proxy add-ons

note that it's illegal in Russia to talk about blocks circumvention, so if you don't live in Russia, please share this post, so your followers, who live there could see it and use it

A little advice from someone studying extremist groups: if you’re in a social media environment where the daily ubiquitous message is that you have no hope of any kind of future and you can’t possibly achieve anything without a violent overthrow of society, you’re being radicalized, and not in the good way.

If the solution to your problems sounds like “we need a blank slate” it’s a lie. There are no blank slates, and the closest approximation people can generally imagine is “burn it all down and let God/fate/history sort it out”.

That’s not problem solving. It’s barely catharsis, in practice. It doesn’t just create more problems than it solves, it destroys more solutions than it creates.

Put the apocalypse down, and back away slowly.

Real solutions to complex, systemic problems are not so easily reduced to “us good, them evil; kill them.”

Tapping the "your support and solidarity and care for Jews and Romani people and BIPOC should be more powerful than your hatred of nazis" sign so fucking hard rn.

Bcs u should support Jews and Romani people and BIPOC more than u hate nazis and some of u it is very clear that u couldn't give a shite about Jews and romani or BIPOC. You hate nazis but you've forgotten nazis aren't just generalised bigots or bad people and they have an ideology which targets "undesirables" and people who ate racially seen as inferior or less than. Only part of combating white supremacy and fascism is hating nazis and a lot of it is helping communities effected by white supremacy and fascism and listening to and understanding us.

“Florida banning all 14 year olds from social media rare Florida W???” I think it should be obvious this is an effort to control young people’s access to information that runs contrary to a conservative agenda, as well as online resources and networks that could be vital to abused children.

Yeah that 14 year old has a bad take but kids are allowed to be stupid. I think it’s more important in an era of rapidly authoritarian control by fascist state governments over the lives of children, they have an alternate avenue of information and support.

What she says: I’m fine

What she means: Why isn’t it taught that abortion was perfectly legal in the US in early 1870s and it wasn’t until a Jewish doctor, who was being framed, was put on trial for manslaughter (a trial, as well as the press covering it, which was greatly tinged with antisemitism) that opened the floodgates for antiabortion crusaders which eventually led to its criminalization?

I did not know this!

Me neither, until I read this book.

Look at the notes for the name of the book if anyone else is interested.

The book is called Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press. By Eddy Portnoy

Other recommended books in the notes that talk about this are:

The Moral Property of Sex by Linda Gordon

Rereading Sex by Helen Horowitz

Killing For Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics by Carol Mason goes into some detail on this.

The more militant elements of the anti-choice movement have their roots in white nationalism. It’s white babies they wanted to save. It was Jewish doctors they blamed. The Holocaust baiting was basically a dogwhistle for white genocide.

It’s literally blood libel.

Congregation Emunath Israel on West Twenty-third Street in New York, New York; 1944. x

On April 30th, 1944 the Synagogue Council of America called on all Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox synagogues in the United States to hold services when the invasion of Europe by the United States and the United Kingdom began.  On June 4th, 1944, when D-Day began, Jewish synagogues around the United States were open for 24 hours to allow people to pray for the success of the invasion and liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany.

I finally made the meme I've had in my head for over a year

It is actually mindblowing how all these Western “leftists” support the regimes of Russia, Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan, etc., to the point of telling the very people suffering from those regimes that it is very progressive actually for them to keep suffering.

You have your human rights and freedoms, but have the nerve to tell, say, women in Iran that they should not have the same freedoms that you enjoy.

You claim to support queer rights and then go and say how other countries must accept russian occupation/influence, knowing full well that the queer people there will be prosecuted.

Human beings deserve to have human rights, you know. And there is nothing progressive about denying those rights to other people just for the sake of the edgelord fiction that works as your worldview.

Either you support people fighting for their rights, or you are on the side of fascism.

Jojo Rabbit (2019) dir. Taika Waititi

People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn