Stronger Than You

There is no shared white history. Europeans all hated each other from the first settlers up until the 1500s. No Italian has even fucking heard the word “Odin” until long after (”white”) christian missionaries nearly eradicated that religion. If  you and I are both white than our ancestors probably fucking hated each other. Hell, if you’re a white mutt like me, various roots of your own family tree fucking hated each other and considered each other foreign savage barbarians. The only thing that unifies the white race is skin color and privilege, and neither of those things fill me with any kind of pride.

I’m going to refute this later, but I’m in the middle of changing a flat tire.

lol no you’re not

ever heard of, you know, cristianism? the main religion for centuries of almost all europe?

i would very much like to know if you genuinely believe that all of europe agrees on christianity or if you just didn’t really think this one through before posting

Good morning everyone! Friends in *takes a deep breath* Austria 🇦🇹, Belgium 🇧🇪, Bulgaria 🇧🇬, Croatia 🇭🇷, Cyprus 🇨🇾, Denmark 🇩🇰, Estonia 🇪🇪, Finland 🇫🇮, France 🇫🇷 , Germany 🇩🇪, Greece 🇬🇷, Hungary 🇭🇺, Lithuania 🇱🇹, Luxembourg 🇱🇺, Portugal 🇵🇹, Poland 🇵🇱, Romania 🇷🇴, Slovenia 🇸🇮, Spain 🇪🇸 and Sweden 🇸🇪: kind reminder that today is your day to go out and vote! 🇪🇺

People in Italy 🇮🇹, if you did not go out and vote yesterday you can also do it today.

Just did my part!

Fuck, this may very well be the end of Eurovision as a cultural force in Europe.

What’s going on:

So yeah, there is a chance this may be it for the festival. Good job, Eurovision. Great fucking job.

Shit is going down HARD in Eurovision right now.We are hours from the beginning of the fest and in the last couple of hours:

To that last point, several other spokespeople also stood down with hours to go. Including Käärijä for Finland

. . . continues on MEE (18 Jan, 2024)

from Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism, first published 1950:

being a jew studying preholocaust european jewish history is just *mourns over what could have been, mourns over what could have been, mourns over what could have been, mourns over what could have been, mourns-*

WWII alternate history stories always go “What if the Nazis won.” WHAT IF THE JEWS LIVED?

That’s actually such a good point about alternative history. So many ask “what if we got the bad ending?”, ignorant of the fact we did, that’s just a worse ending.

Asking “what if the Nazis won” allows one to live in the safe world where the Nazis were the root source of evil in WWII. Asking “what if the Jews lived” forces you to confront the fact that almost all of Europe was complicit in their eradication. Every European power, the United states, everyone involved hated the Jewish people. Everyone was complicit in antisemitism, everyone just sat back and let it happen.

It took an invasion of Poland for the UK and France to act, and it took a direct attack on the US for the US to officially get involved. All of the torture, enslavement, and murder of Jews before this were overlooked because not even below the surface, the German antisemitism wasn’t unique. And basically nobody has the guts to address that.

every country on the planet, except haiti, set limits on the number of jewish refugees allowed in. every country, except haiti, participated in the holocaust.

A map of about every primary passenger railway in the USA for 2016, commuter rail included.

Surely there are more trains lines about than this ?!

Nope. We’re animals. I’ve only trailed by train twice in the U.S., and it was the same line, once DC to Philadelphia, and once DC to NYC for work once I discovered the train was two hours faster than flying and cabbing back into NYC.

I do forget though that you guys fly everywhere and trains might not be practical. I live on an island the size of one of your states !

Fun fact: the busiest railway station in America (Penn Station in New York City) gets fewer passengers than Liverpool Central.

I knew the US had a much less extensive rail infrastructure than us, but bloody hell, the fact that there are ENTIRE STATES that literally don’t have passenger rail is madness.

I’d still love to travel on it some time, mind.

Just imagine the jobs you could create by building a decent railway system!

Behold, the end result of graft and political corruption.

I had no idea most of the US had no regional lines? Like, I live in tiny little MA with one of those clusters of red. Does everybody else have to DRIVE???

yes. we drive. and it’s terrible.

D: This is actually distressing.

to be fair some cities do have good bus systems

but….yeah.

what the shuddering fuck?  That’s IT?!  

actually we used to have a lot more, but as far as i’m aware i’m pretty sure the car companies bought a lot of railways and then destroyed them to force people to buy cars

Also some of those states that don’t have rails also have more cows than people.

Also our trains are slow and it’s usually much faster to drive than to take a train. We don’t have those speed rail things.

WAIT WHAT? THAT IS ALL?

There used to be more (map of train tracks 1870 & 1890), but, as @kaza999 pointed out, alot of it was destroyed on purpose by General Motors in the firsty half of the 1900s to, ahem, pave the way for the primacy of the car.  And, since then, any investment in rail infrastructure (or any infrastructure at all, for that matter) has been opposed on ideological grounds by the conservative wing.

When you suddenly understand Sheldon’s train enthusiasm

And then there’s Europe:

And because that looks a tiny bit cluttered (and because we’re a German blog), here’s a railway map of Germany:

In red are the high speed InterCityExpress lines, blue are the InterCity lines and the grey ones are smaller regional lines.

And for Americans who don’t know how large Germany is: It is half the size of Texas.

Consider that this map does not show local lines, for example: This is Hamburg

This is Berlin

This is Cologne

And this is Munich

(Aesthetic.)

Munich’s network deadass has more lines than the entire state of MA

this is what it used to look like folks. we could have had it all

the 'will people feed you' discourse rn is very funny and hopefully a wake up call to some of the rude freaks scattered out there across europe, but I do want to note that the cultures we're talking about are cultures of the affluent. literally everywhere I have visited, working class people share food as a matter of course. everywhere I have visited, working class people push drinks and snacks on you the moment you walk in the door. there's a layer to this conversation that only exists among people who have the choice to be miserly and unaffected by their neighbours behaving the same way.

the first time I experienced being completely shut out of another family's mealtime, it was when I was a teenager on an exchange trip to the netherlands. I was staying with this family, and literally reliant on them for food and housing. The day I arrived they explained to me what time mealtimes were, and that I would not be fed unless I arrived at the table on time. One morning I was running a little behind because I had trouble figuring out how the shower worked, and when I came downstairs my hosts were already eating. They hadn't set a place for me, and they all ignored me and continued conversing in dutch. When I timidly tried to serve myself, they gave me look as if I had just walked in off the street and started raiding the refrigerator. They were an intimidatingly affluent family.

one morning the mother had to drop me off early at my work placement, before the building opened. I was sitting outside on a wall for like 50 minutes by myself with nothing to do, and an older lady running a food cart nearby started chatting to me (she wanted to know I was okay, because I was like 15 and not in school, and was very interested to hear that I was on exchange from scotland). she offered me a free breakfast, and when I said I'd already eaten she gave me a drink and a packet of crisps to keep for lunch, and kept trying to make me try fried things that were apparently dutch specialities but were way too much for me at 8am. she was very sweet and funny, and had infinitely more in common with the poorer dutch students who I would meet at a separate pan-european thing later than with any of the kids or parents around the upper middle class academy we were paired with that year. people are people everywhere, some are just more inclined to worry about appearances than others.

There’s a sort of, “do for yourself and I’ll do for myself” that unnerved me about learning to navigate upper-class friendships and homes. After thinking about it for years, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s ultimately about maintaining independence and avoiding the class shame of appearing to need others — but the effects manifest as a bizarre standoffishness, an artificial separation of “yours” and “mine”. The class standards they impose on themselves, are imposed on guests.

I was initially baffled that, for instance, family members or friends who come to visit you are often expected to stay in a hotel or at an AirBNB, not at your house. “But you have a whole-ass house”, I would think. “Or floors. And blankets. Lots of things. You can put them in your beds and sleep on the floor, if they don’t want the couch.” Often, they would have guest bedrooms, but these bedrooms were not offered to most visitors. So, you’ve literally got an EMPTY BEDROOM FOR GUESTS, but no?? You expect them to house themSELVES? Elsewhere?? On THEIR dollar? That’s so expensive! Also, to my mind, frankly rude!

I also noticed that my wealthier friends never pick up groceries for each other. They never call or text each other like, “yo, I’m at X, do you need anything”. I think they would risk confusion at best and deep offense at worst, if one of them got a wild hair up their ass and tried it. It’s too personal, implies some degree of inter-reliance.

It makes relationships look and feel artificially constrained.

This is all completely accurate to my experience too. I think a major cultural absence in wealthier social circles is the concept of ongoing reciprocity / gifting relationships. For me, and for more or less everyone I've ever met who grew up poor, it is a normal and natural gesture of closeness to offer resources when you have them and to accept resources when you need them. It's a way of saying that you trust somebody - either you trust them to have your back when you need it, or you trust them to care for you without ulterior motives. I'm talking about small costs, grocery money, meals here and there, maybe a movie ticket if everyone is going and one person can't stretch to afford it this month. Nobody keeps track of the expenses, you just remember who you have built those relationships with, and you share in return when you get the opportunity.

Larger costs tend to be more difficult, and that's because often it's impossible to be sure that you will ever be able to adequately reciprocate. As a teenager I had one friend in particular who was much more wealthy than the rest of us, and he was a wonderfully kind, warm hearted, generous person who would often offer to pay for entire outings or trips on his own so that the rest of us could participate. And it was really, really awkward, because what was a small gesture in his eyes was something that the poorest of us knew we could never pay back. He might not have cared about keeping track of the cost, but we would never be able to forget it, and that would upset the balance of the reciprocal relationship. I don't think he ever really understood why we would turn him down, it's nearly impossible to explain what a strong instinct it is when you have grown up with that dance culturally ingrained in you.

All of that is to say that I think my friend's behaviour ultimately comes from the same background as the people who go through the world hoarding their resources. When you have never been in a position to need a strong relationship that afforded you emergency childcare or a meal of pizza and beans once in a while over, idk, a ski trip once a year, you can't understand why big sporadic gifts are turned down. You can't understand why your poor friends keep insisting on paying for their own gas or trying to do you favours you can easily afford yourself. You can't understand why kids expect to eat dinner with you (because their families would feed your kids, if they ever needed it, and your kids will never need it).

Greek folk costumes from the Culture and Folklore Association of Pyrgos of Elis. The costumes were photographed by ©Spyros Staveris and most of the photoshoot took place at the grounds of the Folk Museum of Andritsena.

the level of caucasian stupidity on this site is fucking ridiculous. do ya’ll ever considering shutting the fuck up? poc will never want or need you inputting your “opinion” on our race issues you cannot and will not ever understand. seriously. shut the fuck up.

and specifically white colonizer europeans trying to tell black americans that racism isn’t real in their “much superior country that’s mainly white.”

and here’s some articles on the issue for those who genuinely want to know more (note: these are specifically regarding Black people):

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/11/what-black-america-means-to-europe-protests-racism-george-floyd

https://www.enar-eu.org/Introduction

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46369046.amp

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.euronews.com/amp/2020/06/04/analysis-is-europe-any-better-than-the-us-when-it-comes-to-racism

everyone can and should reblog this. if you see it, reblog it. especially if you’re european. if you are white do not add your own thoughts or opinions. on race issues like these you should be spreading awareness, not sharing your opinions.

It’s always fun to be reminded how recent European national identities are. Peasants in 1860’s Sicily had never heard the term “Italy” before, the majority of people in France didn’t speak French at the time of the French Revolution, etc.

from the observations of a british diplomat in the ukraine in 1912, quoted in Bini Adamczacks Beziehungsweise Revolution

[when one asks the avarage peasant farmer in the ukraine about his nationality, he will answer, he is "greek-orthodox"; when one pushes him to say whether he is a russian, a pole, or a ukranian, he will answer, he is a farmer; and when one demands demands to find out which language he speeks, he will say that he speaks "the language from around here". ... i.e. when one wants to find out which state he would like to belong to – whether he would rather be governed by an pan-russian or a specifically ukranian government – one will find out, that in his opinion, all governments are a plague on the land, and it would be best, if the "christian peasantfolk" were left to themselves.]

To give my two cents on U.S.American eurovision (statesvision?) or to live on in blissful silence and harmony with the tumblr discourse blogs....

This is my first time hearing of this and I’m going to pretend I didn’t

Good luck!!

Better yet, consume content about it exclusively through Eurovusion blogs!!

“Americans will never understand pitting neighboring countries of different cultures against each other on stage” have you ever had the pleasure of putting a new yorker and new jerseyan in the same room

Ok I just want to preface that most my sadness at the hot takes on this event are when arguments against it are based in the belief that all of the regions of the US are too similar to have “representative” or fun performances. Please leave your favorite american cultural phenomena or state rivalry below

Results are still pouring in but here’s what I’ve gathered from the tags:

In addition:

I'm from Illinois and Indiana is a stubborn piece of dirty chewing gum stuck to our collective boot.

as guy in indiana i gotta say, those are some bold goddamn words from a guy who doesn’t know which hole the corn goes in

Someone from the Colorado team is getting injured in this competition, I'm calling it now. It will be skiing related.

just buting in to say that if new york beats new jersey im gonna lose it but also if new jersey beats anyone BUT new york i will ALSO lose it

Is a language dead if it has more than *squints* half a million daily speakers despite centuries of imperialism?

Fucknuggets.

Sometimes you wonder if they can function outside their imaginary world

the english want the welsh language to die so people dont notice that 80% of ‘english mythology’ has been lifted wholecloth from wales, had the serial number filed off and covered with a union jack

My favourite.

Cymru am byth 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 ❤️

It’s a beautiful language, like Gaelic, Scottish and Irish. All languages are important for our history, it teaches us who we are, and who we were, it’s our true indigenous tongue.

Welsh was never a "dead language" because it was too strong for it's enemies to kill.

the welsh government wants to force everyone to learn welsh? man that sure sounds totalitarian, imagine if the english government forced everyone to learn english smh smh

A form of genocide by trying to kill a language the English and American powers that be have been attempting on indigenous cultures for centuries. Protect, Welsh, Irish, Native American languages, Austrailian Aborigine, and all the many others not coming immediately to mind.

This is happening in France as well. French is the only official language in France and for many years, children weren’t allowed to speak other languages in school. This is why many of the French regional languages, such as Breton and Franco-Provençal, are endangered.

Most endangered languages aren't endangered because their speakers stopped caring, they're endangered because they were forcibly repressed

Gmunden - Austria (by Simon Matzinger) 

eastern wales

One of the few times it's 100% perfect to have an older white dude with a beard mansplain to a young girl.

Except that is not mansplaining -- mansplaining is a man, assuming he knows everything better than women simply by virtue of being a man, trying to explain something he doesn’t know that much about to a woman who is expert in that area.  This is a man sharing his knowledge with a woman who has clearly demonstrated she has no idea what she is talking about.  That’s just called explaining.