#Association for liberation of Ukraine

[vintage-ukraine]

Postcard printed by the Association for Liberation of Ukraine, Toronto, 1962

[maknaasfalti]

What if we called out leftist antisemitism in the pro-palestinian movement in a post directly under a reblog signal boosting a person with the Ukrainian insurgent army flag in their blog description and we were both Polish and Jewish at the same time. 😳👉👈

[ankle-beez]

To Our Guild Leadership and Staff: We are proud rank-and-file union and trade association members from every corner of our industry — working on screen, stage, set, and in the field — united in solidarity with the global call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a just, lasting peace. As artists and storytellers, we cannot stand idly by as our industry refuses to tell the story of Palestinian humanity. Following SAG-AFTRA’s statement in sympathy with Israel regarding October 7, many SAG-AFTRA and sister guild members have watched in horror as the Israeli government wages a war of collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza — killing over 40,000 Palestinians, injuring over 90,000 more, forcibly displacing 2 million people, and openly targeting members of the press and their families. As the IDF continues its assault on “safe zones,” schools, and hospitals, and as civilians in Gaza die from starvation, dehydration, and lack of medical supplies and fuel, major human rights groups have labeled these acts as war crimes, human rights atrocities, and even genocide. The UN has described Gaza as a “graveyard for children” — and estimate that by mid-July “half of the population — more than a million people — could face death and starvation.” As of now, there is no end in sight — only escalation, death, and destruction.

Despite these clear violations of human rights and Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land and lives, our union leadership has remained silent. Thus, they have made conditional which atrocities we choose to condemn and which innocent lives we choose to acknowledge and mourn. Moreover, SAG-AFTRA and nearly all our sister guilds have remained silent in the face of flagrant and unprecedented attacks on freedom of the press, including the deliberate targeting and murder of Palestinian journalists and their families by the IDF. The Committee to Protect Journalists has declared the war on Gaza “the deadliest period for journalists covering conflict since CPJ began tracking in 1992.” Some of those journalists were members of news organizations whose domestic affiliates are represented under SAG-AFTRA contracts. While SAG-AFTRA issued a public statement at the outset of the Ukraine war demanding that “journalists of all nations working in the war zone are kept safe,” its words now ring hollow if they only apply to some journalists of certain identities.

On December 13, 2023, Israeli forces attacked The Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp and kidnapped several of its members — fellow actors and directors, who have called for solidarity from theatre workers worldwide. Palestinian trade unions have called for international labor solidarity, reminding us that “the struggle for Palestinian justice and liberation is a lever for the liberation of all dispossessed and exploited people of the world.” Worldwide labor has heeded that call, including major Australian, British, Belgian, Indian, and American unions. On Nov 15, our British peer union, Equity UK, called for an immediate and lasting ceasefire, stating: “We send our solidarity to Palestinian artists suffering in the horrendous conditions created by Israeli bombing, occupation, and apartheid.” Since then, UAW International has called for a ceasefire and announced the formation of a Divestment and Just Transition working group; The Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839) became the first Hollywood union to call for a ceasefire in Gaza; five of the 10 largest American labor unions and federations have officially called for a ceasefire including the NEA (National Education Association), SEIU (Service Employees International Union), and the AFL-CIO; and unions collectively representing a majority of organized workers in the US formed The National Labor Network for Ceasefire. In July, 7 major unions representing over 6 million workers published a letter to President Biden demanding an arms embargo on Israel.

The global call for a ceasefire — from organized labor, artists and fellow SAG-AFTRA members, human rights groups, world leaders, and the majority of the American public — grows louder every day. And yet, our government continues to sponsor the Israeli forces’ assault on Palestinian civilians, and our industry union leadership still refuses to speak out. We reject this silence. Our calling as artists, news reporters, and storytellers is to bring truth to the world. To fight the erasure of life and culture. To unite for justice in the name of the most vulnerable among us. It’s exactly what we did during our historic strike in 2023.

We are the labor that built and sustains this business. When our leaders can’t stand up publicly for peace and justice, then we must do what we always do: organize, fight for change, and win. Our guild leadership must join the largest and most diverse peace movement in a generation — the integrity of our legacy demands nothing less. When confronted with genocide, oppression, and injustice, let us ring the bell for humanity and liberation. An injury to one is an injury to all. We, the undersigned members of SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, WGA, Teamsters, DGA, AEA, AFM, Hollywood Basic Crafts, CSA, PGA, and more, demand our leadership issue a public statement calling for a permanent ceasefire, release of all hostages — both Palestinian and Israeli, and immediate funding and delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid; to speak out against the targeting and killing of innocent Palestinian civilians, health workers, and our journalist colleagues; to condemn our industry’s McCarthyist repression of members who acknowledge Palestinian suffering; and to eliminate any doubt of our solidarity with workers, artists, and oppressed people worldwide.

[boymanmaletheshequel]

A bit about me!

🍄🏛️🌲🏛️��️🏛️🌲🔮🌲🏛️🏔️🏛️🌲🏛️🍄

I’m Isaac, I’m a baby polytheist born and raised Christian in the PNW! I’m pretty scarred from Christianity and the ablism I suffered in my upbringing as a result of autism and ADD, and the “special” schooling I received as a “treatment” for it. I am cautiously re-exploring spirituality, inspired by my 75 year old neighbor who is a witch! I’m starting my journey with Hellenism, Celtic Paganism, and Norse paganism and they have always been a fascination to me. I’m deeply connected to the earth and nature and always have been, and would love to become more spiritually in twinned with it.

🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲

A GUIDE TO MY POST COLLECTIONS: (find tag in bottom of such posts to find collection)

#agodtoconsider = secondary deities and a basic breakdown of their known lore, and family trees, as well as relevant stories to them and their role in the epics, and other general information to familiarize yourself with them, and maybe even consider worshiping them!

#Isee = 5 ways I may interact with or notice the presence and influence of a specific deity in my day to day life as a hellenist.

#Symbolismof = a comprehensive guide of the mythological and historical symbology associated with a specific god. This includes things such as sacred animals and food, commonly associated herbs, crystals, and flowers, as well as the explanations for why they fit this gods symbology.

#subtlewaystohonor = a collective list or guide on various ways in which you can worship or honor a given deity in subtle or non complicated ways on a day to day basis, without necessarily having to devote too much to it, whilst also effectively honoring them.

#Analtarto = a comprehensive guide on how to set up and decorate an altar or shrine space dedicated to a given deity. This includes going into the symbolism and attributes associated with that god and how it can manifest in an altar, as well on tips for how to use said altar when you have completed it!

#Aprayerto = an idea for a prayer or hymn to any given god.

#Eoffering = an aesthetic board E-offering collage I made that I’ve dedicated to a specific god.

#Shitpostofthesus = a shitpost or shower thought style text post poking fun at certain aspects of Hellenism or Greek mythology.

Non-spiritual posts:

#antiqueoftheday = a piece of antique jewelry, an antique item, or any other of the many antiques from my personal collection displayed once a day for my Victorian and old soul witches 💙

#Marine biology = informative posts from my encounters with sea life as a marine biologist!

#Serioustalk = serious posts about world events, politics, or humanitarian activism I sometimes involve myself in.

#Other = posts about my other interests and hobbies

🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲

I am white, and part ethnic Jew, with most of my ancestry based in Norway, Germany, England, Ireland, and Some in Semitic basis. I am strictly anti fascist and anarcho leftist. Nazis, terfs, transphobes, Homophobes, racists, antisemites, Zionists, islamaphobes, ect. fuck off 3>

🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲

The gods I worship right now are:

Artemis 🏹

Antheia 🌸

Demeter 🌾

Pan 🏔️

Poseidon 🔱

Freya ❤️

The gods i wish to learn more about rn are:

Apollo, Brighid, Cernunnos, Freyr, Ares, and Hephaestus.

🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲

I am very much still a baby witch and currently still getting a hang of things, so be nice, and know I’m always open to tips or corrections in how I practice or can practice my spiritually! Thank you for checking out my blog and gods bless 💚🌲🧙‍♀️

🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲🏛️🌲

Oh yeah, and FREE PALESTINE, DEFEND UKRAINE, AND LIBERATE THE CONGO MOTHERFUCKERS 🇵🇸🇺🇦🇨🇬

[mariacallous]

After sidestepping questions about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for much of the 2024 US presidential campaign, former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance have breathed new life into talk of negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow to settle the war — with many of these discussions involving Ukraine surrendering territory to Russia.

One crucial element is left out — the fate of the millions of Ukrainians who would be surrendered with that land. Given the rampant human rights abuses already documented in Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia, their fate must be remembered in any plan to end the war.

While millions of Ukrainians fled west when Russia launched its 2022 invasion, some 3.5 million remain in the occupied territories. For over two-and-a-half years, they have experienced forced Russification, seizure of their homes and property, persecution at the hands of secret police, and forced deportation — including tens of thousands of children forcibly raised as Russians.

After leveling cities like Mariupol to force them into the Russian Federation, occupation authorities set about replacing local road signs bearing the Ukrainian language with replacements solely in Russian. For the millions of Ukrainians in their charge, Russian authorities have also pushed a longstanding policy of passportization — forcing locals to accept Russian citizenship by making its passports and documents mandatory for basic functions such as medical care, getting or keeping jobs, and accessing transportation.

Men who accept Russian passports also risk forcible conscription to fight against their own people, and Ukrainians are reportedly encouraged to change their names to sound more Russian when accepting the new documents.

Beyond being forced into surrendering their citizenship, Ukrainians under occupation are also suffering persecution at the hands of occupation authorities and the FSB, including torture, surveillance, abduction, and murder.

Investigations into conditions in the occupied territories have revealed rampant persecution and torture at the hands of Russian authorities. A recent September UN investigation found that “the wide geographic spread of locations where torture was committed and the prevalence of shared patterns demonstrate that torture has been used as a common and acceptable practice by Russian authorities, with a sense of impunity.”

Upon liberating territories from Russian occupation, the Ukrainian military discovered numerous torture chambers. In Kherson, 10 such sites were discovered, including one designed specifically for children who were deprived of food and water, told their parents had been killed, and forced to clean the blood from adjacent chambers where adults were abused.

In July last year, the Associated Press found that thousands of Ukrainian civilians captured by Russia in the occupied territories had been tortured and coerced into brutal forced labor for their captors. They were made to dig trenches for Russian soldiers on the frontline as they prepared for the coming summer Ukrainian counteroffensive, all while having to wear Russian army uniforms — turning themselves into false targets for the Ukrainian military.

Others in occupied Zaporizhzhia were made to dig mass graves for fellow prisoners who had died in captivity. Those who refused or demurred were shot on the spot and thrown in with the other dead. Again, torture was routine for these captives, with many reporting repeated electrical shocks, beatings that crack skulls and fractured ribs, and simulated suffocation. These abuses — reminiscent of the treatment meted out to slave laborers by Germany during World War II —were only reported because some survivors escaped.

Sexual violence has been another core component of Russia’s invasion and occupation. According to one 2023 report, conflict-related sexual violence has “been used consistently by Russian forces as part of a systematic campaign of atrocities.” While Ukrainian prosecutors have registered 310 cases since the start of the full-scale invasion, they believe many more cases have gone unreported either due to trauma or an inability of survivors to report due to their remaining under occupation.

Perhaps the most insidious element of Russia’s occupation of Ukraine is the mass deportation of people — including about 20,000 children, with the intent of re-educating and raising them as Russians. The Russian government reportedly planned its deportation program in advance of the full-scale invasion, devising financial incentives for different Russian regions to take in more people as they constructed a network of dozens of camps.

Children are particularly vulnerable. A few months into the full-scale invasion, the Russian government loosened adoption laws and encouraged couples to “save” Ukrainian kids brought into Russia, with many told their real parents were either dead or had abandoned them and that Ukraine had ceased to exist. While the Ukrainian government has identified by name some 19,500 children abducted by Russia, Putin’s own “children’s rights” ombudsman—herself the new adoptive mother of a Ukrainian boy — brags that Moscow has “accepted” over 700,000 young people.

Those who assert Russia could be sated with Ukrainian territory and neutrality always ignore the reality of what Russia does to those it occupies. Its invasion of Ukraine isn’t simply about a “buffer zone” with NATO. A state doesn’t need to erase the language and abduct the children of a people to guarantee its own security. But Russian officials are plain-spoken about the imperial ideology underpinning their war.

“I hate [Ukrainians],” wrote former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. “They are scum and degenerates. They want death for us, for Russia.” Putin himself declared there is “no historical basis” for the “idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians.” Neither this [Ukrainian] nation nor this language should exist!” said one leading member of the Russian Duma. “Cleanse it all out, cleanse out all of its sources.”

Ukraine is at a precarious moment. When the Republican party selected Trump as its presidential nominee during its convention this summer, organizers passed out signs to attendees that read “Trump will end the Ukraine war,” an encapsulation of his vague promise of peace, without regard for the cost. But far more difficult is to grapple with the hard reality that any surrendering of land means sacrificing millions of Ukrainians to the genocidal aims of the Russian state.

[robin-hood-for-freedom]

"How can conservatives like this anti-war media?'

'Why are people surprised this anti-war story was written by a leftist?'

Because being anti-war is not a strictly left wing thing. And it never has been.

Entry to WW1 was opposed by both the 'old right'(william taft and the like) and the socialists. It was mostly pushed by the early progressives such as Woodrow Wilson

Entry to WW2 was pretty much exclusively opposed by the right wing.

It wasnt really until Vietnam that being anti-war became a 'left wing' thing as opposition to that war was heavily associated with hippies, civil rights activists and actual no-shit communists(who wernt really anti-war so much as they were pro-communism). Although Murry Rothbard was around at that time and quite vocal in his opposition to the war, so its still not as simple as 'the left is anti-war, the right is pro-war.'

After the fall of the soviet Union, there was a movement sometimes called 'paleo conservatives'(Pat Buchanan and such) who tried to bring some of the old right ideals to the Republicans and conservatives more broadly. Republicans in the 90s were quite critical of his bombing campaigns in Iraq, and especially his 'nation building' in Kosovo. Even George W Bush made this criticisms during his first presidential run. Yea he was full of shit, but the fact that he, as a republican, felt there was a constituency that would respond positively to that message really says something.

Of course 9/11 changed all of that. And being a war monger became associated with George Bush and Republicans more generally.

But then along comes Trump. Who straight up says Bush lied us into war, and promised to end all of these 'stupid'(his word) conflicts. And of course lets not forget that Trump supporters frequently cite 'no new wars' as an endorsement of Trump.

And now today, left-wing opposition to American involvement in Ukraine is basically unheard of. Liberals like Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. are endorsing Trump for pretty much that exact reason.

So yea, being anti-war doesnt automatically make someone a lefty. Nor does being right wing mean that someone is a hawkish war monger. Politics is more complicated than that.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Brian Melley and Jill Lawless at Associated Press, via ABC News:

LONDON -- Britain’s Labour Party swept to power Friday after more than a decade in opposition, as a jaded electorate handed the party a landslide victory — but also a mammoth task of reinvigorating a stagnant economy and dispirited nation.

Labour leader Keir Starmer will officially become prime minister later in the day, leading his party back to government less than five years after it suffered its worst defeat in almost a century. In the merciless choreography of British politics, he will take charge in 10 Downing St. hours after Thursday's votes are counted — as Conservative leader Rishi Sunak is hustled out. “A mandate like this comes with a great responsibility,” Starmer acknowledged in a speech to supporters, saying that the fight to regain people’s trust after years of disillusionment “is the battle that defines our age." Speaking as drawn broke in London, he said Labour would offer “the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day.” Sunak conceded defeat, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.” For Starmer, it's a massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a weary electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric. [...]

Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years — some of it of the Conservatives’ own making and some of it not — that has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. The U.K.’s exit from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger. Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Rising poverty, crumbling infrastructure and overstretched National Health Service have led to gripes about “Broken Britain.” While the result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has roiled the race with his party’s anti-immigrant “take our country back” sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives and even grabbed some voters from Labour. The exit poll suggested Labour was on course to win about 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 131. With a majority of results in, the broad picture of a Labour landslide was borne out, though estimates of the final tally varied.

[...] The Liberal Democrats won more than 60 seats, on a slightly lower share of the vote than Reform because its votes were more efficiently distributed. In Britain's first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins. The Green Party have won four seats, up from just one before the election. One of the biggest losers was the Scottish National Party, which held most of Scotland's 57 seats before the election but looked set to lose all but handful, mostly to Labour.

In the United Kingdom, the Rishi Sunak-led disaster class Tories have been sent packing at the ballot box and fall down to Official Opposition Status at around 120 seats, as Keir Starmer’s Labour is set to make mammoth gains. The Lib Dems have recovered to become the 3rd largest party in Westminster.

[usafphantom2]

Ukraine Just Captured One Of Russia’s Most Capable Aerial Electronic Warfare Pods

Russia’s lost Khibiny-U electronic warfare pod that flies on its advanced Flanker fighters will be a prize for foreign intelligence agencies.

Joseph Trevithick Posted on Sep 12, 2022 7:27 PM EDT

A Russian Su-30SM fighter jet with at least one wingtip pod associated with the Khibiny-U electronic warfare suite, as well as a centerline electronic warfare pod. KNIRTI / via Twitter

Ukrainian forces have been capturing significant amounts of Russian materiel of various kinds as they keep pushing eastward and southward as part of their ongoing counteroffensives. These spoils of war now reportedly include a relatively intact example of an RTU 518-PSM self-protection jamming pod. This pod is associated with the latest version of the larger Khibiny-U electronic warfare suite used on the Su-30SM Flanker-H, and its capture holds potentially great intelligence value.

Pictures of the front end of the pod in question began circulating on social media earlier today. It was reportedly discovered among the wreckage of a Russian Su-30SM, with the serial number RF-81773 and bort number Red 62, that was shot down earlier in the conflict near the city of Izium (Izyum) in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. It would appear that Russian forces had made no serious attempt to locate what was left of the aircraft, and remove or destroy it to prevent their capture before the area was recently liberated.

As the Russian Army couldn't be bothered to remove the wreckage of Su-30SM 'RF-81773' that came down in a formerly Russian-controlled part of Kharkiv Oblast, Western intelligence agencies are now the proud owner of a slightly dented SAP-518SM 'Regata' jamming pod. pic.twitter.com/9BN5dPNQvi

— Oryx (@oryxspioenkop) September 12, 2022

As installed on Russia’s Su-30SMs, the RTU 518-PSM is part of a larger suite referred to as Khibiny-U. The entire “complex,” as it is referred to in Russian, consists of the SAP 518-SM, made of up one RTU 518-PSM pod on the right wingtip and an RTU 518-LSM1 on the left wingtip, as well as the internal KS REP system, according to a 2021 paper from the Kaluga Scientific-Research Institute for Radio Engineering. Better known by the Russian acronym KNIRTI, this is the manufacturer of all of the versions of the Khibiny family of electronic warfare complexes.

As already noted, the RTU 518-PSM is understood to contain an active jamming system, while the companion RTU 518-LSM1 is believed to be a passive receiver that detects threatening electromagnetic spectrum emissions, such as those from hostile radars. In its primary role as a self-protection system against enemy air defenses, the complete SAP 518-SM subsystem, also referred to as Regata, reportedly has the ability to spot and then jam and otherwise confuse an opponent’s radars – including seekers on incoming radar-guided missiles – in various ways. This may include the ability to generate false emissions to try to help mask the actual aircraft using Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) technology, which you can read more about here.

There are also indications that the SAP 518-SM subsystem is focused on protecting against mid-band threats, while the internal KS REP subsystem is optimized against high-band ones, giving the overall complex a broader range of capabilities. This is based on what is known about the function of slightly different pods as part of the older Khibiny-10M system for the Su-35S. Another earlier version of Khibiny, the Khibiny-10V, also includes distinct pods and is used on the Su-34.

The Su-30SM can carry an additional pod, known as the SAP-14, that can reportedly provide escort jamming capabilities for larger groups of aircraft, on the centerline. It’s not immediately clear if SAP-14 is a component of Khibiny-U or not, though it clearly can be used together with other elements of that system.

A Russian Su-30SM with at least one of the SAP 518-SM wingtip pods and what appears to be the SAP-134 centerline pod. KNIRTI

In addition, the U in Khibiny-U is believed to stand for unifitsirovannyi, or unified in Russian, suggesting it may reflect an effort to create a standardized version of the system that will work with multiple types of aircraft as an offshoot of developing an electronic warfare suite for the Su-30SM. The Russian Ministry of Defense first hired KNIRTI to develop the Su-30SM’s new electronic warfare complex in 2013, a year before the Khibiny-10V became the first version of that system to enter operational service on any platform.

Russian SU-30SMs were first seen with Khibiny-U in 2018. However, there is evidence that Russian Su-30SMs in Syria flew on at least some occasions as early as 2015 with the wingtip pods from the Su-34’s Khibiny-10V system.

The possibility of gleaning new details about what the jammer inside the RTU 518-PSM pod, as well as the rest of the Khibiny-U system, can and cannot do is exactly why its capture is significant. Elements of all three known versions of Khibiny have almost certainly been recovered in the country of the fighting already, including from the remains of an Su-35S that came down in the vicinity of Izium back in April before Russian forces initially captured the area. However, this newly captured example of the RTU 518-PSM pod appears to be in especially good condition.

The potential intelligence haul could be even greater depending on the condition of other components of the electronic warfare suite on the crashed jet, as well. If it is indeed from the wreckage of Su-30SM Red 62, that aircraft could also have been fitted with the L150 Pastel radar homing and warning system (RHAWS), which is used for self-defense and for helping with the targeting of Kh-31P anti-radiation missiles, as well as UV-30MKR chaff/flare dispensers.

There’s potentially more for Ukrainian intelligence personnel, and almost certainly their foreign partners, such as those in the United States, to pick over here than just the hardware, too. Any surviving data storage systems with any software used to run portions of the Khibiny-U could actually be more valuable, especially given the reported DRFM signal mimicking functionality.

The actual subcomponents, including computer chips and other electronics, used in the RTU 518-PSM and any other elements of the associated electronic warfare complex could provide valuable industrial intelligence, too. As The War Zone, among others, has reported in the past, the conflict in Ukraine has exposed just how reliant Russia’s defense industry is on foreign-sourced parts.

The apparent decision on the part of the Russian military to make no efforts to do anything about the remains of this aircraft, possibly due to the belief that their positions in this part of Ukraine were relatively secure, can only add insult to injury.

The war in Ukraine has already been a massive boon for foreign intelligence services, especially when it comes to Russia’s most advanced electronic warfare and air defense capabilities. Many captured systems may well have already been sent outside the country for further analysis and evalution. Even before the current conflict, Ukraine had been an important source of Soviet-designed hardware, including fighter jets and large radars, for the U.S. military’s so-called foreign materiel exploitation (FME) enterprise.

Whatever the case, an important component of an entire family of Russian aircraft electronic warfare suites, one of the most modern such systems that the country has and it uses on a number of its front-line combat jets, now looks to be firmly in the hands of its opponents.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

[veliseraptor]

July/August/September Reading Recap

look, it's been a wild time. that's all I'm going to say about it. but now back on the reading recap train and I'm just going to do all of these three months in one go because otherwise I really never will catch up (also read not very much for me in all of these months, individually)

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Worker's Rights by Molly Smith & Juno Mac. I read a lot of books over the last few months that I was kind of "meh" about, but this wasn't one of them. An incredibly nuanced, in-depth and very persuasive analysis of the history and present of sex worker labor rights - neither skewing too far into "sex work is liberatory" nor (obviously) the opposite. The authors consistently approached the subject positing (accurately) that sex work is first and foremost work, and should be approached as such in terms of the goals and needs of rights for sex workers. I already bought into the overall premise of this book, but it still remained compelling and educational for me to read, and I'm going to be recommending it to a lot of people who may be generally liberally-minded but have doubts or hesitations about decriminalization as a strategy that ultimately serves the best interests not just of sex workers but of society at large.

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder. This was a brutal book to read and I'm glad I read it. I like Timothy Snyder as a historian generally (I've read two of his other books before this one), and I learned a great deal here in particular about Stalin's policies, both in Ukraine and during the war. Some of the ground treaded in this book was familiar to a certain extent from Black Earth, but dug into more and in more depth, particularly prior to World War II itself (i.e. the Holodomor and other associated policies in the Soviet Union). I found the closing parts of the book about the politics of forgetting particularly compelling. Not a casual recommendation but a recommendation nonetheless if you're interested in history and up for the rough ride.

Witch King by Martha Wells. I was...not disappointed by this book, exactly, but a little underwhelmed. I wanted to like it much more than I did. Oddly, while I'm completely in favor of self-contained stories that close in one book, and I definitely liked Kai as a character quite a bit, the whole thing felt sort of rushed, particularly at the end. Everything was tied up a little too neatly, too quickly, for my taste, and in general some of the worldbuilding felt underdeveloped rather than (as I think was probably the intent) intentionally left underexplored in text. All in all, I had high hopes for this one that weren't quite met.

Where the Jews Aren't: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region by Masha Gessen. I love Masha Gessen as a historian and writer and this was a short but intriguing book about an episode of history I knew next to nothing about - namely exactly what the title says on the tin. I'd recommend to anyone who has even a little interest in Jewish history in the Soviet Union in particular, though this one didn't blow me away quite as much as The Future Is History did (but that's a high bar).

From Below by Darcy Coates. Darcy Coates is rapidly becoming a favorite horror writer despite the fact that this is only the second book of hers that I've read. She does scary really, really well and this is some top notch ocean horror. Definitely a book that propelled me through all the way to the end and left me with some truly appalling (affectionate) mental images. Good shit, thanks for the rec @bereft-of-frogs (I believe).

Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener. The conceit of not naming, just describing the tech companies under consideration in this memoir got a little tired after a while; this was an interesting book but probably would've been more compelling when it came out, before most of what it's exploring was common knowledge. But maybe that's partly because I'm just not really a memoir gal.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling. Another good horror novel, though I found the ending personally a little bit meh. But I'm really picky about my horror endings, so don't hold that against it. Caving horror is up there with ocean horror as far as subgenres I'm into, and this one did a great job with it. A good blend of visceral horror and psychological horror, though the descriptions of the caving suit were honestly possibly the worst part of it for me.

The Queen's Price by Anne Bishop. As usual the pleasure of reading Anne Bishop is about revisiting my old faves - it's like re-encountering old friends, which was what led me back to rereading the original series. I also did appreciate the rehabilitation of Saetien in this book, who took a beating in the last one that didn't feel altogether fair. I do not, however, know that I can forgive what it did to Wilhelmina Benedict my beloved, whose relationship to Jaenelle was and is very important to me. I don't accept this slander and am choosing to ignore it.

Imagined Life: A Speculative Scientific Journey Among the Exoplanets in Search of Intellgient Aliens, Ice Creatures, and Supergravity Animals by James Trefil & Michael Summers. It was fine and that's honestly about all I have to say about it. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

Hex Wives by Ben Blacker. A fun little detour into a graphic novel about witches-brainwashed-into-suburban-wives that wasn't, ultimately, very good, though I did enjoy the lesbian immortal witches and the revenge fantasy of it all.

Monstress: vols. 1-4 by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda. I forgot how fucking good this series is. Reading it all together in trade form, rather than separated out month by month and issue by issue, only makes that even clearer. The way that Marjorie Liu explores monstrosity and outsiderness, the mingled brutality and tenderness of it all...Marjorie Liu is one of my favorite comics writers for a reason and you can feel her passion for this story.

The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop. I regret to inform everyone that I still love this series and I probably will not be over it any time soon. I don't know. Sometimes a series that may objectively be not very good just digs into you as an impressionable teenager and then lives inside you in a very particular way forever, and I guess that's what happened here. The second book remains my favorite for the way it's focused on the coven and Lucivar (and their relationships with Jaenelle), which remains my favorite part of this series. I can't in good conscience necessarily recommend it. But I do love the damn thing.

Heaven Official's Blessing: vol. 7 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. Book 5 isn't my favorite section of TGCF, and this part of Book 5 is probably one of the sections I'm least interested in, with the exception of "deal with it yourself" which never fails to knock me out of the fucking park. It is just very important to me. But still, this book remains beloved of me and it's a treat to read regardless (for the fourth time, or whatever it is).

Qiang Jin Jiu by Tang Jiuqing. I keep describing this one as a classical military/political epic with a sprinkling of danmei and I think that's accurate. And that's what I love about it. Dizzyingly complex sometimes, with a large cast of characters and more conspiracies among them than you can shake a stick at, this is a delightful work of historical fiction with bonus gay protagonists, and I actually kind of love that the romance spends a lot of time taking back seat to the political drama. Also side f/f ship and Qi Zhuyin is amazing. Shen Zechuan is so unhinged but in a way it takes you a minute to notice and I love it.

The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler by David Kertzer. This book was deeply infuriating, but in the way it was meant to be, in that it's all about the painful inaction of Pope Pius XII during World War II, and not just that but actively collaborating with both fascist governments in an effort to protect the church. I didn't find it very compellingly written - kind of a drag, if I'm honest - but boy did it make me very mad. The dedication to saving Christian/converted Jews while completely ignoring and doing nothing about the wider persecution was particularly choice.

Tangled Webs by Anne Bishop. Reread; not as good as the main trilogy, in my opinion, though has some fun stuff with Lucivar in particular. Probably suffers for me in that Surreal has never been my favorite, though she doesn't annoy me as much as she used to.

Thousand Autumns: vol. 2 by Meng Xi Shi. My main concern when it comes to this book so far is that it keeps promising me bad-wrong sex and I don't think it's going to give me bad-wrong sex. Or at least bad-wrong kissing, or something. The relationship between Shen Qiao and Yan Wushi is, at this point, a delightful trainwreck, though the larger plot of this book as a whole hasn't really grabbed me. I'm enjoying the read but it's not thus far a book I'd come back and reread later.

Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane. More personal story than the science that I was hoping for; it was still interesting, but in my opinion felt a little overwritten in places and definitely suffered in my estimation just for being not quite the right genre for what I was looking for. It was interesting, though, and still delved into some neat stuff along the way; I just didn't need it filtered so much through "one-guy's-journey" as it felt like it was. In general it's a delicate balance for me with books like this (about a writer digging into a subject); if the writer is too present then I start to get impatient, which is probably missing the point.

I'm trying to make October a month of spooky ready (or at least related-to-spooky reading) though we'll see if that continues or if I get distracted.

Reading The Earth Is Weeping might count as horror, anyway, in that it is almost certain to be very upsetting. Also on my shelf from the library are The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin and Ariadne by Jennifer Saint (whose Electra I read and didn't hate, even liked a little bit). I'm sitting on The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson and The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling as two horror novels that have been on my shelves for a bit. We'll see what happens.

[therealbeingpeople]

… that is what you believed I am afraid of?

I am a richiesta asilio that was once Navy Intelligence who is also associated with political scientists and also was a graduate of university in the Liberal studies of many horrible governmental practices worldwide.

You believed I would be afraid of the mean girls who are easily manipulated by those they believe are beautiful men who will send children into warzone conflicts, like in Lord of War?

Also, the correct terminology would be “Terror”, Sir. I thought you were still discussing the use of Total Terror©️ as a form of socio-behavioral modification of the neoliberal subject. It is not my copyright. It is Hannah Arendt’s copyright.

I thought you were still discussing the interstices of my undergraduate work

[post-leffert]

Anarchist Zines and Pamphlets Published in July 2023

Welcome to our mostly monthly round-up of new zines published in the anarchist space. We aim to highlight a broad range of anarchist thought. Inclusion here doesn't imply endorsement.

You can view past round-ups if you want more reading material. If you have something you want us to include next month, contact us. For a curated collection of zines, view our catalog.

Beyond what you can find here, we also recommend you support anarchist print media. Two recently released print projects include Plastic in Utero: a journal of anti-civ anarchy reborn from the compost of wasteland modernity #1 and Rupture Mag #1

The image accompanying this post is memorial mural in Lyon, France for Carlo Giuliani, a 23 year-old anarchist who was shot dead by police on July 20, 2001 during the anti-G8 protests in Genoa, Italy (source)

Against Capitalist Wars, Against Capitalist Peace

"In Ukraine, the Czech Republic, the UK, Italy, Syria, France etc… All over the world there is a voice against capitalist wars and also against capitalist peace. Only class war can end this terror and that is what we mean when we say No War but the Class War!

The new pamphlet contains 14 texts by various groups and individuals. The aim is to explain and affirm the meaning of antimilitarism, internationalism and revolutionary defeatism."

Download PDF: [ Imposed | Screen ]

Animal Bodies, Colonial Subjects: (Re)Locating Animality in Decolonial Thought

"Similar to the ways in which Indigenous peoples can undergo a violent process through which we rid our colonial mentalities, I argue that animals can be liberated from their colonized subjecthood through an aided 'process of desubjectification'. That is, thinking through animality as an infrastructure of decolonization re-positions animal bodies as agents of anti-colonial resurgence.They can consequently engender 'forms of energy that are capable of engaging the forces that keep [Indigenous people and animals] tied to [a] colonial mentality and reality'. Settler colonialism has therefore required the normalization of speciesism within Indigenous communities to obfuscate the radicality of Indigenous-animal relations. In that sense, recalling the representation of animals in Indigenous cosmologies/oral traditions and unsettling speciesism as a 'colonial mentality' must be prioritized in decolonial thought..."

Download PDF: [ Imposed ]

Black Flag Vol. 3, No. 2

This issue features a lenghty essay titled "Anarchy in the USA: The International Working People's Association (IWPA)". The IWPA is famous for its association with the Haymarket anarchists. Alongside this, there are several writings published by members including Albert Parsons and Lizzie Swank. It also includes a selection of writings by Marie Goldsmith, Rudolf Rocker, and Max Baginski. Most of the material here covers the historical anarchist space, with the exception of a review of a more recent book.

Download PDF: [ Imposed | Screen ]

Breaking Ranks: Subverting the Hierarchy and Manipulation Behind Earth Uprisings

This zine contains three critiques from anti-authoritarians in France critical of the Tiqqunists and their actions in post-ZAD struggles. These texts focus on manipulative and vanguardist practices, the spectacularization of the struggle, and the use of radicals as shock-troops. The goal of these texts, and our translation effort, is to increase familiarity with these deceptive practices and strategies, an essential first step towards sabotaging the influence and control of any similar attempts in our own neck of the woods.

Download PDF: [ Imposed | Screen ]

Dissent From Within: The Hidden Story of the Anti-Whaling Members of the Makah Tribe

This zine was put together not only to honor the memory of Mahak whale protector Alberta Nora Thomspson, but also to commemorate the story of resistance surrounding the Makah anti-whaling warriors whose very existence has been (intentionally) hidden from the world. Their dissenting voices silenced by the powers of intimidation, patriarchy, and a capitalist pursuit disguised as "traditional hunting". For many outside of the situation, the narrative most widely accepted is one that reduces the situation to mere identity politics; White animal rights activists vs Indigenous people. Indigenous writer Linda Hogan and Seattle writer Brenda Peterson journeyed to Neah Bay to interview Makah elders who were breaking the silence about this narrative and speaking out against their tribe’s return to whaling.

Download PDF: [ Imposed ]

How to Set Up a Burner Phone

This zine is a step-by-step guide to setting up a burner phone, from purchasing the phone to installing recommended apps -- all without a Google account! If you are interested in using a temporary phone to avoid surveillance or hinder a police investigation, this zine will give you some best practices to consider.

Download PDF: [ Imposed | Screen ]

Kaimangatanga: Māori Perspectives on Veganism and Plant-based Kai

"To adopt a form of veganism -- a plant-based lifestyle and ethics -- that acknowledges, is based upon, and celebrates Te Ao Maori, is a break from the dominant and from the status quo and but also an act of decolonialism. It is a way to reclaim sovereignty and exercise individual choice.

And finally, it is a means by which collective power and community may be built; this is evident in the existence of online forums and comment threads on Maori-based vegan and plant- based social media accounts."

Download PDF: [ Imposed ]

Living in an Earthquake: The Fight Against Cop City Confronts Unprecedented Repression

"In the following account and analysis, participants in the movement in Atlanta trace its trajectory from the fifth Week of Action that began on March 4, 2023 through the City Council vote of June 5.

At first, it appeared to be an ordinary forest defense campaign aimed at discouraging Atlanta city government from pouring money into an unpopular police training facility. But over the past two years, the fight against Cop City has escalated into one of the fiercest struggles of the Biden era, pitting a wide range of courageous people against a united front of politicians, prosecutors, and police.

In setting out to stop the militarization of police, activists have discovered that they are challenging the state on a point that all of its representatives consider non-negotiable. Police and prosecutors have pressed trumped-up domestic terrorism charges against almost every defendant arrested since last December; they have killed one forest defender; they have charged those engaged in legal support for the arrestees."

Download PDF: [ Imposed ]

Of Diets and Morality: A Vegan Egoist Perspective

The title summarizes this well. It's a vegan egoist text that argues for seeing animals as having inherent value. A quote:

"Animals can offer me many things that other "humans" can not; new ways of communicating, of perceiving the world around me; the unique, aesthetic pleasure of their appearance, especially the details that one only notices with familiarity, and the mystery, intrigue and exciting unexpectedness of beings so morphologically and genetically different from myself! Just as a plate with greater variety is far more delicious, relationships with a greater diversity of beings is far more delectable for me and I will not limit myself to consuming only relations with Man!"

Download PDF: [ Imposed ]

Security Culture: Building Relationships of Trust and Care

These zine provides an accessible introduction to security culture and its place in social movements. Beyond the basics, it explores how security culture can be informed by kinship, an Indigenous value system based on responsibility, vulnerability, trust, and reciprocity. The zine also offers tips and examples on how to apply critical thinking, relationship building, communication, and feedback to security culture. It uses elephants as a motif (complete with illustrations) to reinforce the concepts presented.

Download PDF: [ Imposed | Screen ]

The People and the Library

"An oral history of the coalition that united Philadelphia to challenge the logic of austerity, protect public goods and save eleven branch libraries, as well as a series of reflections on the importance of the commons, the enduring legacy of movement victories and the ongoing struggles to protect and expand access to non-commercialized public space, accompanied by a series of freely reproducible cut paper graphics by Erik Ruin.

Download PDF: [ Imposed | Screen ]

The War in Front of Us: An anonymous, afro-pessimist militant’s challenge to the Stop Cop City movement

"There is a tension stewing right now, not simply between differing tactics but with the outright acceptance of the position we are currently in, that of a social war. The third day-long descent on the Atlanta City Council has again hammered home that legalistic attacks and appeals to the political machine are going to keep failing. Despite that being so overwhelmingly evident, the more progressive-inclined elements of the struggle continue to insist upon a peaceful endurance, one that refuses escalation and actual conflict for their safe, faux-rad- ical abolitionism. We have been locked in this social war since the rebellion and the terrain needs to be read as such."

Download PDF: [ Imposed ]

Veganism and Mi'kmaw Legends

"This text proposes a postcolonial ecofeminist reading of Mi'kmaw legends as the basis for a vegan diet rooted in Indigenous culture. I refer primarily to veganism throughout this work because unlike vegetarianism, it is not only a diet but a lifestyle that, for ethical reasons, eschews the use of animal products. Constructing an Indigenous veganism faces two significant barriers--the first being the association of veganism with whiteness... ...A second barrier to Indigenous veganism is the portrayal of veganism as a product of class privilege."

Download PDF: [ Imposed ]

Veganism as Anti-Colonial-Praxis: A Collection of Indigenous Vegan Perspectives

"Despite the absorption of veganism by the capitalist market – a process that admittingly reinforces pre-existing divisions across class and racial lines -- a vegan lifestyle taken to its logical conclusion is fundamentally anti-capitalist and anti-colonial. By (re)acknowledging sentience and personalities within the bodies of colonized (animal) subjects, a vegan lifestyle rejects authoritarian relationships based on disrespect for the bodily autonomy of those whose lives have been re-purposed for human supremacist consumption."

Download PDF: [ Imposed ]

[leeenuu]

A Ukrainian serviceman of 12 aviation brigade sits inside an Mi-8 combat helicopter before flight during a combat mission in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Sunday, April 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

Men lowered the coffin of a Ukrainian soldier, Andrii Neskhodovskyi, 24, into a grave in Kyiv on Saturday, March 25, 2023. His father, Oleh, 59, looked on from the front center of the group. (Mauricio Lima/The New York Times)

An aerial view of Bakhmut, the site of heavy battles with Russian troops in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sunday, March 26, 2023. Europe’s biggest armed conflict since World War II is poised to enter a key new phase in the coming weeks. With no suggestion of a negotiated end to the 13 months of fighting between Russia and Ukraine, a counteroffensive by Kyiv’s troops is in the cards. (AP Photo/Libkos)

Children play in a playground in front of missile-damaged buildings ahead of a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Monday, March 27, 2023. Zelenskyy has been increasing his travel across Ukraine as his country's war with Russia enters its second year. A team of journalists from The Associated Press traveled with Zelenskyy aboard his train for two nights as he visited troops along the front lines and communities that have been liberated from Russian control. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

A Ukrainian tank unit crew takes cover and waits for shelling to cease in a bunker, near the bombed-out eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 29, 2023. (REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura)

A woman sweeps away debris in her heavily damaged home, Sunday, April 2, 2023, after a massive shelling attack in the city of Kostyantynivka, Ukraine, a few miles from the besieged city of Bakhmut. (Heidi Levine/The Washington Post)

A train platform damaged by shelling the night before in Druzhkivka, eastern Ukraine, on Thursday, March 30, 2023. (Mauricio Lima/The New York Times)

People attend a vigil marking the first anniversary of the liberation of the town of Bucha, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 31, 2023. Kyiv says more than 1,400 people were killed in Bucha during the occupation including 37 children, more than 175 people were found in mass graves and torture chambers, and 9,000 Russian war crimes have been identified. (REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach)

[tomorrowusa]

Helping Ukraine ward off an imperialistic totalitarian neighbor is not just a good errand. It's a matter of US national security which has implications for the entire democratic West.

Allowing Russia to win its war in Ukraine would be a self-imposed strategic defeat for the United States.The United States would face the risk of a larger and costlier war in Europe. The United States would face the worst threat from Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a victorious Russia would likely emerge reconstituted and more determined to undermine the United States — and confident that it can. A Russian victory would diminish America’s deterrence around the world, emboldening others with an explicit or latent intent to harm the United States. A Russian victory would create an ugly world in which the atrocities associated with Russia’s way of war and way of ruling the populations under its control are normalized. Most dangerous of all, however, US adversaries would learn that they can break America’s will to act in support of their strategic interests. The ground truths of this war have not changed: Russia still explicitly intends to erase Ukraine as a concept, people, and state; Ukraine’s will to fight remains strong; Russia has made no operationally significant advances this year; and Ukraine’s will combined with the West’s collective capability (which dwarfs Russia’s) can defeat Russia on the battlefield. US interests still include preventing future Russian attacks on Ukraine and helping Ukraine liberate its people and territory. Supporting Ukraine is still the best path for the United States to avoid higher costs, larger escalation risks, and a greater Russian threat.

Putin is a madman who has already sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Russians for his goal of essentially reconstituting the shabby Soviet Union. Don't expect him to negotiate in good faith or to keep his word.

Donald Trump is a compromised tool of Putin. And most of the GOP has displayed unswerving allegiance to Trump.

 If Russia wins in Ukraine because of the collapse of Western aid, it will be because Russia has managed to shape Americans’ understanding of reality such that the United States willingly chooses to act against its interests and values without realizing that it is doing so. Russia will have manipulated America into abandoning its own interests in a fight it could and should have won. That’s a dangerous lesson for China, Iran, and other US adversaries to learn. America’s security now and in the future, in Asia and the Middle East as well as in Europe, depends on remaining solidly connected with our strategic interests and values and demonstrating that we will not fall prey to efforts to manipulate our perceptions of those interests.

Over the remainder of the winter holiday season, contact your House members and demand that they not cave to Putin.

US House members have an office (often more than one) in their home districts. Visit or call your rep. If you just send an email you'll just get some sort of AI response.

Look up your rep here with your ZIP+4...

Find Your Representative

...then click the name of the search result which will take you to the rep's congressional site. The office locations and phone numbers can be found there. It's important to let the rep know that you're not a bot. Be courteous but firm.

[aizenat]

Also queerios and libs need to have a real and honest talk about how trans ideology being attached to liberals and the Democratic Party was a huge reason for people to vote for Trump. No one wants to say it (I’m surprised the radfems haven’t made that point yet, but wait, they’re too busy trying to come up with excuses for why they—white women—voted for Trump in the majority), but exit polls had ppl saying they thought Kamala was “too leftist/progressive.” DESPITE her running a very conservative campaign that was just two talking points away from being a straight up republican campaign.

The trans ad (Kamala cares about they/them, not you) was running almost nonstop in PA—as someone who lives in south Jersey, meaning our local tv programming is based out of Philly, every time I turned my tv on this ad was running. And it’s a good and effective ad. SO MUCH SO THAT I HAD A COWORKER BRING IT UP AS A “MAJOR” THING SHE DISAGREED WITH KAMALA ON THE MORNING OF THE ELECTION.

Libs and tras can pretend the trans stuff wasn’t on ppls minds but it was. Literally up until they stepped into the voting booth. When ppl voted for trump saying he was better for the economy, that’s not based on actual policy. You can tell that because AFTER he was announced the winner, google searches for tarrifs went up. If ppl cared about the economy and how tarrifs would work (Kamala literally referred to them as essentially a tax on all goods to simplify them and yall just said herp durp this won’t hurt me financially at all), they would have been goggling that BEFORE the election.

So why did they think Trump was better for the economy? Because he doesn’t want to send aid to Ukraine, and he doesn’t want to use taxes to fund for trans inmates gender reassignment surgeries. That means fiscal responsibility to them.

When chappel roan got on an interview and said that the biggest “concern” she had was trans rights, people heard that and associated that with the party (democrats) who protect laws allowing for children to medically transition. In my state, hormones and gender reassignment surgeries are covered by most employers’ insurance, but cancer treatments and medically necessary surgeries are not (at least not automatically). THAT signals to the average person that politicians are not prioritizing the right things. Because trans ppl are (per their own words) less than 1% of the population, but they get so much more consideration than the average person. Companies care more about pronouns in their employees’ email signatures than they do about employees feeling like the work environment is racially insensitive or hostile towards women (etc).

And I’m sorry, but you can affirm a child’s gender reasonably without medically transitioning them. And most people, most PARENTS, are not going to be okay with the idea of fearing their child being taking away because they don’t want to pay for or facilitate medical transition until they’re at least 18 and had time to really reflect on if that’s what they want. And they don’t want to be labeled abusive for that.

THAT’S what a lot of people going into the booth were thinking about. That Kamala and democrats would prioritize THAT over raising wages and bringing down inflation and costs. Most working class ppl don’t care about gender identity and stuff: so anyone prioritizing that in a time of financial (and political) strife doesn’t look like someone who is going to prioritize what they need to survive and get by.

Tras need to really sit down and think about 1) how they go about lobbying for their rights (calling people genocidal for messing up a pronoun ain’t it cuz) and 2) what rights are worth lobbying for. For example, it’d be hard to argue against third spaces for gnc ppl in public spaces (bathrooms, changing rooms, etc). Same with third/coed sports leagues IN ADDITION TO mens and women’s leagues. Maybe lobby for your own safe spaces instead of demanding to be on spaces not in alignment with your born sex. Because that push back is only going to get worst and it’s not a battle even most liberals agree with. Especially when you also lobby for self identification over any proof of socially and medically transitions. What’s to stop a man who has no intentions of transitioning to go into a woman’s bathroom or changing room or enter a women’s sport league and claim he has a right to be there because he’s trans and we can’t question it?

And yall REFUSE to answer that honestly and then wonder why people don’t fuck with it. It’d be one thing if there was a barrier of entry, but y’all did away with that. So what are people going to do? At least when black ppl were lobbying for desegregation, it was in coed spaces. And if it was gendered, only the black ppl of said gender would participate (ie, only Black women would be on bathrooms with White women; not Black men as well). But you guys are trying to do away with that. And do away with any determinative way to know who the “real” trans people are vs someone just saying so to get access to a spot. And then if someone pushes back, you call THEM a bigot?

Like, women in Korea just about can’t piss in public because of how widespread hidden cameras are in bathrooms. And all I can think is what will stop an epidemic like that happening here if males can walk in easily and women aren’t even ALLOWED to question him because he MAY be trans?

If yall actually knew anything about Black literature (lol as if yall would read black authors and writers and poets lol), you’d see how all throughout our existence in our country, we have had to defend ourselves from the common perception of us. This is why Black people (well, the educated amongst us lol) are so GOOD at arguing against racist ideas. This is why every time I call a white radfem (or really any white feminist) out in their racism, they go for ad hominem attacks and straw men to try to discredit what I’m saying. And they fail because I straight know what I’m talking about lol.

Y’all’s language and concepts change each year. An argument or talking point is literally thrown away and seen as problematic within 5 years. We used to say that trans ppl are treated how they’re “read,” which helps to explain how their perception of how well or poorly they are able to conform to that read gender affects how others treat them, but now that’s transphobic to say. I literally have no idea what ppl mean when they say transmisogyny these days because it’s SO different from how it was used in 2010-2013. I have no idea what yall are talking about anymore!

Yall have to sit down, LISTEN TO PEOPLE’S CONCERNS instead of writing any pushback as transphobic, and really solidify what trans identity is, the actual signs and symptoms, how to treat it without medical intervention, and be honest on the lack of information and studies on medical intervention. Especially long term; a study following up with ppl who transitioned 50 years ago means nothing because the very concept of what a trans identity is has changed dramatically since then. Especially in the last decade alone!

Yall can’t be super counterculture and then expect the mainstream to rock with you. That’s not how that works. You need to pick a lane and at least come up with a better strategy on how to present the less counterculture aspects to the mainstream so they can understand what trans identities are outside of the radical. Outside of the clickbait titles. But honestly that means YALL coming to at least SOME consensus on what it even means to be trans because all the vague language around it isn’t helping. And when yall refuse to define yourselves, it means anyone else can go out there and define you for the world. This is why yall are losing the war on this. Yall have work to do to fix this shit.

[determinate-negation]

Iaşi– town in Moldavia (northeastern Romania) on the Bahlui River; an important trading center with links to Bucovina, Bessarabia, Ukraine, and Russia; capital of the former principality of Moldavia (1565–1862). The largest and most important Jewish community of Moldavia lived in Iaşi. The presence of Jews was first documented in the late sixteenth century when Sephardic Jews arrived accompanying the new rulers appointed by the Turkish sultan. The oldest tomb inscription in the local cemetery probably dates to 1610.

[...]

The number of Jews in Iaşi increased in the second half of the nineteenth century, reaching 39,441 (50.8% of the town’s population) in 1899. This growth was due both to natural increase and to the arrival of Jews who had been expelled from surrounding villages. In the early twentieth century, the number of Jews fell as a result of economic crisis, discriminatory laws, and emigration. In 1910, there were about 35,000 Jews living in Iaşi.

In the late nineteenth century, Jews were active in small industry and crafts, local and international trade, finance, and liberal and intellectual professions (they were doctors, teachers, writers, journalists, bookshop keepers, editors, public servants, and musicians). They also contributed to the setting up of steam mills and mechanical workshops, as well as to organizing freight. In 1890–1892, there were 3,048 Jewish artisans and 3,404 Jewish merchants. By 1909, Jews accounted for 77 percent of the craftsmen in Iaşi.

Most rabbis in Iaşi in 1859 to 1919 were Hasidim. They included Shemu’el Shmelke Taubes (in Iaşi 1852–1865); his son, Uri Shraga Feivel Taubes; Yeshayahu (Isaia) Shor, an adept of strict Orthodoxy (1854–1879); Dov Ber Rabinovici, also called the Folticener Rebbe (d. 1865); Ḥayim Landau (d. 1908), rabbi of the town, an adept of strict orthodoxy; Yisra’el Gutman (1820–1894), and his son, Shalom Gutman. In 1865, the banker Jacob of Neuschatz established the moderate reform temple that carried his name, Bet Ya‘akov. The preachers in this temple included Antoine Levy of Alsace and eventually Matityahu Simḥah Rabener. Later (from 1897), this position was filled by Iacob Isac Niemirower, who subsequently became the chief rabbi of Romania. Another modern rabbi in Iaşi (in 1915) was Meyer Thenen. A Jewish secondary school was also set up in the early twentieth century.

In 1872, Matityahu Simḥah Rabener published the Hebrew literary–cultural review Zimrat ha-arets. Although only two issues were published, it managed to bring together Hebrew writers from Iaşi with others, especially from Bucovina and Galicia. In 1878, a group of maskilim in Iaşi established the cultural association Ohale Shem, whose purpose was to develop the Hebrew language and spread Jewish culture. Hebrew writers involved in the association included Beniamin Schwarzfeld (1822–1897), Naḥman Fraenkel, Menaḥem Mendel Braunstein (1858–1944, known as Mibashan), and the physician Karpel Lippe (1830–1915). The journalist Eli‘ezer Rokeaḥ (1854–1914) lived for a while in Iaşi, where he published the Hebrew newspaper Yisra’el in 1881, as did the poet Naftali Herz Imber (1856–1909), author of “Hatikvah,” which eventually became the anthem of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel.

In 1876, the first performance of the Yiddish theater, established by Avrom Goldfadn, was given in Iaşi. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Iaşi became a center of Yiddish literature. In 1896, the socialist weekly Der veker (edited by Max Wexler [1870–1917], Litman Ghelerter [1873–1945], and Leon Gheler) was issued in Iaşi; it was published again in 1916, edited by Isac Moscovici. In 1899, the Zionist weekly in Yiddish (with a German title) Die Jüdische Zukunft was published in Iaşi; it was a cultural and general Jewish-interest magazine. Between December 1914 and September 1915, the first literary review in Yiddish in Romania, Likht, was issued in Iaşi; it was edited by a group called by the same name, with Efraim Waldman as editor, and Iacob Botoshanski (1892–1964), Iacob Groper, Lascar Şaraga (Lazar Samson; 1892–1968), Moti Rabinovici, and Arn Matisyahu Friedman as contributors. Several Jewish periodicals in Romanian were also issued in Iaşi. One of them, Vocea apărătorului (The Voice of the Defender; 1872–1873), was edited by Marcu Feldman and Marcu Rosenfeld, and advocated Jewish emancipation and tried to fight against the anti-Jewish attacks in the local Romanian press. The Revista Israelită (The Israelite Magazine), edited by Elias Schwarzfeld, was issued in 1874. Other periodicals issued in Romanian in Iaşi before World War I included Lumina (The Light, 1887) a socialist weekly, edited by Ştefan Stâncă; Propăşirea (The Thriving, 1889–1891), edited by Max Caufman; and Răsăritul (The Sunrise, 1899–1901).

In Iaşi, Jewish writers and journalists writing in Romanian before World War I included Adolf-Avram Steuerman-Rodion (1872–1918), Horia Carp, Enric Furtună, A. Axelrod, the brothers Joseph and Marco Brociner (the former an essayist and historian, the latter a novelist in Romanian and German), the epigrammatist Bernard Goldner (Giordano), the poet Adrian Verea, the journalists Jean Hefter, Alfred Hefter, Carol Schoenfeld (C. Săteanu), Clement Blumenfeld-Scrutator, and A. Glicksman (“Dr. Y”).

Jewish musicians in Iaşi played an important role as preservers of Yiddish folklore, as performers and composers. The most prominent musicians were the Lemes family, Avram Bughici, Berl Segal, and Haim Israel Bernstein. In 1906, a group of maskilim, including Niemirower, Iacob Nacht, Abraham Leib Zissu, Iacob Groper, Iacob Botoşanski and others, founded the Toynbee Hall Association, which was a sort of Jewish popular athenaeum, and organized public lectures on Jewish and general topics in Romanian and Yiddish. Among the lecturers who appeared in Iaşi were Sholem Aleichem, Bernard Lazare, Franz Oppenheimer, and Naḥum Sokolow. The first local committee of the Yishuv Erets Yisra’el organization was elected in February 1882; Karpel Lippe became its president. He eventually participated in the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897.

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LISBON—Maria Brites took one more carnation in her hands from a table covered in them. She carefully set the flower in a glass box. Brites, an accomplished 76-year-old art teacher, has made dozens of these graceful souvenirs for Portugal’s museums to preserve the memory of the so-called “Carnation Revolution” which changed her own and her country’s life. It was April in Lisbon and outside, tourists teemed through the streets in the capital of a liberal democracy ranked among the freest nations in the world. Joined by her two adult daughters, Maria began to sing “Grândola, Vila Morena.” Fifty years ago, the fascist regime installed by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar banned other songs by its author, Zeca Afonso, for his opposition to the dictatorial regime. On April 25, 1974, conspirators played “Gradola Vila Morena” on the radio at 12:20 a.m. The song’s powerful melody and lyrics signaled the beginning of the revolution.

“Land of brotherhood,” the lyrics exclaim, “the people are the ones who rule within you, oh city!”

Exactly half a century later, hundreds of thousands of Portuguese gathered in Lisbon to chant “No to fascism.” Banners strung throughout the city featured happy people hugging with the caption, “Europe is for you.” According to the Migrant Integration Policy Index, Portugal has the second-most favorable citizenship regime in the European Union, in terms of naturalization rates.

Over this period, Portugal has not just shed its dictatorial past, it has become a leader of multilateral democracy. Think of the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon, which helped to manage the bloc after it enlarged from 15 to 27 states, as well as Portuguese native António Guterres ascending to secretary-general of the United Nations in 2017. This spring, an absolute majority of Portuguese—81 percent—told pollsters that they were proud of the way that Portugal became a democracy. This process involved not just ending its dictatorship at home, but also liberating its remaining colonies in Africa.

When I visit Portugal and observe this pride in action, my mind inevitably goes to post-Soviet countries that failed to keep their liberal democracies and rolled back to dictatorial regimes in the decades after the fall of USSR. During my 24 years of covering news in the region, I interviewed many people in Russia, Belarus, the Caucasus, and Central Asia who told me they felt nostalgic for a strong leader like Joseph Stalin. It seemed to me as if they were suffering from the loss of historical memory. Russia targets leaders of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group Memorial that worked hard to preserve painful memories, documenting hundreds of thousands of KGB cases and gulag victims, including the names of 44,000 people executed on personal order of Stalin. But the Portuguese do not hide their history, nor do they miss Salazar. Why? As millions of Ukrainians suffer from a war spurred on by Russia’s imperial ideology, I wanted to find out.

Since the beginning of Russia’s war in 2022, more than 60,000 Ukrainians have found refuge in Portugal. To the amazement of many of them, banners and billboards celebrating the country’s anniversary still feature communist hammers and sickles. Some slogans by the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), including “Mais forca!” are confronting to people from the former Soviet Union. The symbolism carries a valence that is hard to reconcile for them, and the associated iconography cuts against the message of freedom. In occupied Ukraine, these symbols signal the return of the authoritarian era, but in Portugal, communists helped end it.

The PCP was founded in 1921 as a legal party, but in 1926 it was forced underground by the far-right Estado Novo regime. Salazar came to power in 1932 and continued severe repression of anarchists and communists. Lisbon’s former prison, Museu do Aljube, lists the names and photographs of Portuguese opposition members imprisoned, tortured, or executed by the regime in the 1930s. The underground did not stop its struggle for over four decades of Europe’s longest dictatorship, though, and the working class and communist underground played a decisive role in preparing for April 25.

Portuguese communists, whom Moscow denied paying, were widely celebrated for the Carnation Revolution’s victory. Their involvement meant as soon as the people of Portugal embraced freedom from the dictatorship, they had to choose a side in the ongoing Cold War. The same year of the revolution, 1974, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev visited Fidel Castro in Cuba. Brezhnev was pushing European governments, the United States, and Canada to sign a document about security in Europe, recognizing the Soviet military victory in World War II, the acceptance of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, and forced incorporation of Baltic states.

Fortunately for Portugal, the United States played a cautious role in Portuguese internal affairs, while the Soviet Union accepted the choice Portuguese people ultimately made to embrace the democratic path. “By the fall of 1974, communists tried to take over the power but our people made a different choice—we chose democracy,” Brites said.

Portugal signed the Helsinki Accords, along with nearly all other European governments, Canada, the United States, and the Soviet Union in Helsinki on Aug. 1, 1975, confirming the acceptance of post-1945 borders. Later pro-Soviet regimes took power in Portuguese former colonies in Africa, including Angola. After the revolution, Portugal gave independence to Angola, a colony for nearly 500 years (and a source of slaves for Brazil), withdrawing its military forces by November 1975.

On a recent afternoon, I talked about liberal values with immigration lawyer Gilda Pereira, who grew up in Angola where her family enjoyed a wealthy and successful life before the revolution. Portugal’s presence in Angola began with the arrival of the explorer Diogo Cão in 1482, and although Portugal officially changed Angola’s status from a colony to an oversea province in 1951, its landlords continued to use forced labor at local plantations.

I expected somebody who grew up affluent in a former colony might be less in favor of the changes in Portugal but Pereira’s face was illuminated with a big smile when she talked about the revolution and how it transformed her country. The founder of a successful law firm in Lisbon who employs more than a dozen women lawyers, Pereira said she felt “zero nostalgia” for the dictatorship and loved Portugal’s active civil society and its passion for freedom. Portuguese human rights defenders are respected, she said, and investigative journalists are acclaimed.

“I am glad we let Angola and other colonies free, I am happy we have the rule of law, that we are true democrats,” she told me. Under Salazar, Pereira explained, she and her team of women would lack basic human rights. Progress continues, and this year, Portugal has risen to 17th in the Global Gender Gap Index ranking of equality, up from last year’s 32nd place.

Local freelance reporter Claudia Maques Santos explains Portugal’s choice this way: “I think it has to do with memory and sense of freedom.” For many Portuguese, recalling the era of authoritarian rule is far more painful than it is aggrandizing. Maria Brites echoed this, telling me she was “utterly unhappy” under Salazar and his successor in the provincial town where she taught art and raised her daughters. The dictatorship forbade divorce, and hers was a miserable marriage: “Every month he picked up my salary at school,” she said of her husband, “as all men were allowed to do that to women. We had no rights.”

On the morning of April 25, 1974, Brites’s father called to tell her that the revolution had happened, and she rushed to Lisbon to see it for herself, even though, she said, her husband tried to stop her with threats. Arriving in Lisbon, she felt what she described as “complete happiness, freedom to say what you felt like.”

Improbably for a democratic revolution, Portugal’s transition began with a coup, as military officers who opposed the regime rose up against it, in no small part because of the country’s imperial adventures abroad. Under Salazar, Portugal was paying an immense human cost fighting to maintain its African colonies. Over lunch in April, Col. Aprigio Ramalho, one of the officers who led the revolution, told me that the trips he made to Mozambique and Angola under the dictatorship were part of what galvanized his action. Portugal had waged war in Africa for 13 years, and thousands of Portuguese men had died there. “The failing African wars were the turning point for the revolution,” the colonel told me. The analogy to Ukraine was not lost on him: “Russian military men should read their oath well. We did. We were sworn to defend the people, or Portugal, our country, but not the dictatorship.”

Isabel Graca, a history professor at Almada Senior University, told me, “We made the choice to be free: No woman under Salazar could travel abroad without her husband’s permission. … As a student, I ran away from the police many times. We were banned from gathering in groups of more than three people. Punishment was severe.”

For women in particular, the civil liberties they could not have under dictatorship were far more critical than the distant territories that fascist Portugal claimed to control. This is exactly the situation citizens face in today’s Russia, where millions of people suffer from poverty, domestic violence, corruption, and a poor health system and where none of Putin’s imperialistic ideas and promises to build the “new world order” together with China and Hungary can distract from daily miseries.

Once again Portugal has chosen a side in a cold war. More than 70 percent of Portuguese have a negative view of Russia’s influence in global affairs, according to a German Marshal Fund report, and roughly 80 percent want to offer Ukraine NATO and European Union membership. Even PCP—which was the sole political party avoiding condemnation of Russia for starting the full-scale invasion in 2022—has chosen democratic values, not dictatorship. In its latest platform, the party advocates for Portugal to enjoy “a regime of freedom where the people decide their own future.”

Pedro Magalhaes, a senior researcher at Portugal’s Institute of Social Sciences, told me that Portugal has little reason to worry about the role of communists in its political life. On the contrary, he said, “Communists have been reliable democratic actors, involved in revising the constitution, controlling law-abiding unions, and having representatives in parliament.”

This year, Portugal’s far-right party Chega won 48 seats in the parliament. They have been accused of racism: In 2020, the party’s founder, André Ventura, was fined for discriminating of Roma community. That same year, he wrote on social media that Black lawmaker Joacine Katar Moreira should go back “to her own country.” But local democrats are not worried. “Chega is being left alone at the parliament, no one makes alliances with them, neither left- nor right-wing parties,” Marques Santos told me.

Nearly half of Portugal’s population earn less than 1,000 euros a month, many complain about their country quietly becoming an immigration hub, majority want a reduction of emigration. But in spite of the social issues, Portugal continues to resist to the extreme far-right agenda. June poll showed Chega getting 12 percent of support, which was a drop from 18 percent it received in the election.

“Portuguese people have a genuine love for freedom,” Magalhaes said.