#British Empire (Federation

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1825 – Birth of Young Irelander, journalist and promoter of Canadian Federation, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, in Carlingford, Co Louth.

Thomas D’Arcy Etienne Hughes McGee was an Irish-Canadian politician, Catholic spokesman, journalist, poet, and a Father of Canadian Confederation. The young McGee was a Catholic Irishman who hated British rule in Ireland, and worked for a peasant revolution to overthrow British rule and secure Irish independence. He escaped arrest and fled to the United States in 1848, where he reversed his…

[euanpc]

HMS Vagabond

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Canada Must Adopt Own Foreign Policy Says C.C.F. Leader," Ottawa Journal. March 4, 1943. Page 22. --- CORNWALL, March 3.--(Staff) In an address before a joint meeting of local service clubs and civic organizations, M. J. Coldwell, National C.C.F. leader, said tonight he believed the time had come for Canada to take a more active part in international relations and for the Dominion to adopt its own foreign policy and not necessarily follow Great Britain for guidance.

"I believe we should be prepared to lay down a foreign policy for ourselves", declared Mr. Coldwell. "The only hope of smaller nations like Canada, Denmark and Sweden lies in some form of international co-operation which will bring about collective security in the post-war world. Unless we gain some collective security we may find ourselves a satellite nation of the great power to the south of us. It is my hope that the United Nations will be the core of our collective security tomorrow."

The C.C.F. leader spoke on post-war reconstruction, suggesting housing, electrification, irrigation, flood control, reforestation and soil conservation as some of the projects which could be carried out in Canada during the years following the war.

Mr. Coldwell was accompanied to Cornwall by J. E. Noseworthy (C.C.F., South York) who also spoke briefly on post-war reconstruction plans. The meeting was auspices of Cornwall Kinsmen.

[apas-95]

When someone from europe or a peripheral capitalist state does the whole 'oh police violence and repression aren't a problem here that's just a USA thing' song and dance, it's obviously bullshit - the oppositional nature between the enforcers of the ruling class and the classes they rule over is fairly fundamental to the existence of any state - but it would be a lot easier to countermand if usamericans weren't so utterly provincial.

The character of the bourgeois police in, for example, Kazakhstan, is genuinely different than that of the US police, and cannot be neatly understood through just seeing it as a variation on the latter. A more broad, theoretical understanding of policing in general applies to both, but an empiricist understanding of a federal security apparatus descended from British-imperial slave patrols just plainly will not transfer to a unitary state's police force made to replace a workers' militia.

This applies to everything, really - the racial and ethnic dynamics of a given place outside the USA are going to be fundamentally and qualitatively different than those of the USA, and the refusal, of usamericans who have learned, empirically, about the nature of anglo settler-colonial white supremacy, to then develop a deeper and broader theoretical understanding of how systems of racial and ethnic oppression are developed - rather than saying 'its crazy that serbs and croats could hate each other when they're both White, shrimp racism lol' and the like - makes it more difficult, not less, to meaningfully oppose it when someone says 'racism isn't a problem in my country, just the USA', especially when the only response given is regarding supposed oppression of racial categories that may well not exist in that context.

This is, incidentally, why the whole 'I don't need theory, I have lived experience' tripe is wholly insufficient for the real world. You do not have enough experience, and you are going to encounter novel scenarios where mindlessly applying learned dynamics by rote will lead to entirely confident wrong answers. It's not good enough. The world is a lot bigger than you.

[gimmick-irs]

People Currently In Federal* Jail

@washington-offical

(Assault with a deadly environment)

@maryland-officially @maryland-no-rabies @marylandaccountx3 @marylandaccountx4 @maryland6th @mary-the-5th

(Tax evasion and too many usernames)

@yahooo-official

(Arson, tax evasion, second degree murder, first degree manslaughter, grand larceny, petty theft)

@the-principality-of-sealand

(Bomb threat, doubting me)

@real-california-republic @the-real-nevada

(horny jail)

@real-british-empire

(BRITAIN ISNT FUCKING REAL)

@bees-official

(The French can’t get pregnant)

@gimmick-blog-stealer (anonymous tip)

@pennyroyald (how dare you not like Sonic)

@solar-panel-official (I COGHT U)

[thatswhywelovegermany]

November 9, the fateful day of the Germans in history

Nov 9, 1313: Battle of Gammelsdorf - Louis IV defeats his cousin Frederick the Fair marking the beginning of a series of disputes over supremacy between the House of Wittelsbach and the House of Habsburg in the Holy Roman Empire

Nov 9, 1848: Execution of Robert Blum (a german politician) - this event is said to mark the beginning of the end of the March Revolution in 1848/49, the first attempt of establishing a democracy in Germany

Nov 9, 1914: Sinking of the SMS Emden, the most successful German ship in world war I in the indo-pacific, its name is still used as a word in Tamil and Sinhala for a cheeky troublemaker

Nov 9, 1918: German Revolution of 1918/19 in Berlin. Chancellor Max von Baden unilaterally announces the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and entrusts Friedrich Ebert with the official duties. At around 2 p.m., the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaims the "German Republic" from the Reichstag building. Two hours later, the Spartacist Karl Liebknecht proclaims the "German Soviet Republic" from the Berlin City Palace.

Nov. 9, 1923: The Hitler-Ludendorff Putsch (Munich Beer Hall Putsch) is bloodily suppressed by the Bavarian State Police in front of the Feldherrnhalle in Munich after the Bavarian Prime Minister Gustav Ritter von Kahr announces on the radio that he has withdrawn his support for the putsch and that the NSDAP is being dissolved.

Nov 9, 1925: Hitler imposes the formation of the Schutzstaffel (SS).

Nov 9, 1936: National Socialists remove the memorial of composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in front of the Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig.

Nov 9, 1938: November Pogrom / Pogrom Night ("Night of Broken Glass") organized by the Nazi state against the Jewish population of Germany.

Nov 9, 1939: The abduction of two british officiers from the Secret Intelligence Service by the SS in Venlo, Netherlands, renders the British spy network in continental Europe useless and provides Hitler with the pretext to invade the Netherlands in 1940.

Nov 9, 1948: Berlin Blockade Speech - West Berlin mayor Ernst Reuter delivers a speech with the famous words "Peoples of the world, look at this city and recognize that you cannot, that you must not abandon this city".

Nov 9, 1955: Federal Constitutional Court decision: all Austrians who have acquired german citizenship through annexation in 1938, automatically lost it after Austria became sovereign again.

Nov 9, 1967: Students protest against former Nazi professors still teaching at German universities, showing the banner ”Unter den Talaren – Muff von 1000 Jahren” ("Under the gowns – mustiness of 1000 years", referring to the self-designation of Nazi Germany as the 'Empire of 1000 Years') and it becomes one of the main symbols of the Movement of 1968 (the German Student  Movement).

Nov 9, 1969: Anti-Semitic bomb attack - the radical left-winged pro-palestinian organization “Tupamaros West-Berlin” hides a bomb in the jewish community house in Berlin. It never exploded though.

Nov 9, 1974: death of Holger Meins - the member of the left-radical terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF) financed in part by the GDR that eventually killed 30 people, dies after 58 days of hunger strike, triggering a second wave of terrorism.

Nov 9, 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall - After months of unrest, demonstrations and tens of thousands escaping to West Germany, poorly briefed spokesman of the newly formed GDR government Günter Schabowski announces that private trips to non-socialist foreign countries are allowed from now on. Tens of thousands of East Berliners flock to the border crossings and overwhelm the border guards who had not received any instructions yet because the hastily implemented new travel regulations were supposed to be effective only the following day and involved the application for exit visas at a police office. Subsequently, crossing the border between both German states became possible vitrually everywhere.

[mapsontheweb]

The barbarian invasions of the 4th to the 5th century and the Romano-barbarian kingdoms

via cartesdhistoire/instagram

🇩🇪 “TaschenAtlas – Weltgeschichte”, Klett-Perthes Verlag, 2004 

🇩🇪 "Putzger, Historischer Atlas", 1994

4th Century: Barbarian populations begin settling as fœderati (allied peoples) along the borders of the Roman Empire. 378: The Visigoths invade the Balkan Peninsula, reaching as far as Greece. Near Adrianople, they inflict a significant defeat on the Roman army, marking the first serious Roman loss on their own territory. 400: The Burgundians settle in the region between the Rhine and the Main rivers. 402: The Visigoths invade Italy but are stopped by the Roman general Stilicho near Verona. 406: Various barbarian groups, including Vandals, Suebi, and Alans, cross the frozen Rhine, initiating widespread incursions into Roman territory. 407: The Caledonians (native tribes of Scotland) force the Romans to withdraw from Britain. 410: Alaric, king of the Visigoths, conquers and sacks Rome, shocking the empire. 412-418: The Visigoths settle in parts of Gaul and Spain, establishing a federated kingdom. 421: The Franks, led by Clovis, begin settling in northern Gaul. 429-439: The Vandals, under King Genseric, conquer North Africa and parts of Spain. They establish a kingdom that is initially recognized by the empire as federated but later becomes independent. 442: Rome formally cedes all its North African territories to the Vandals. 450: The Jutes, Angles, and Saxons begin settling in the British Isles, marking the start of the Anglo-Saxon migration. 451-453: The Huns, led by Attila, invade the western Roman Empire. 452: Pope Leo I, known as Leo the Great, meets Attila the Hun near the Mincio River and persuades him to abandon his campaign into Italy. 455: The Vandals, led by Genseric, sack Rome and pillage the coasts of Spain, Greece, and Italy. 475: The Eastern Roman Emperor Julius Nepos formally recognizes the Kingdom of Toulouse, established by the Visigoths. 476: The fall of the Western Roman Empire: Odoacer, a barbarian leader, deposes the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, and declares himself King of Italy. 488-489: Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, invades Italy and defeats Odoacer in battles at the Isonzo, Verona, and the Adda River. 493: Theodoric captures Verona and has Odoacer assassinated. As master of Italy, Theodoric seeks coexistence between the Goths and the Roman population. 496-507: Clovis, king of the Franks, defeats the Alemanni at the Battle of Tolbiac (496) and the Visigoths at the Battle of Vouillé (507), expanding Frankish control over Gaul.

[probablyasocialecologist]

London did try to cobble together a three-part strategy for a sustainable, if vastly reduced, postwar empire: first, consolidate smaller colonies into cost-effective confederations; next, control their exports to capture hard-currency profits; and finally, cling to military bases critical for imperial defense. For instance, it merged nine sultanates and two crown colonies into the Federation of Malaya to control the US dollars earned from its rubber exports, which provided, by 1952, 35 percent of Britain’s net balance of payments with the dollar area. So critical was this cash flow that London dispatched 50,000 troops, who would fight for a decade to crush a communist revolt and keep Malaya in the British Commonwealth. Similarly, the Central African Federation combined three colonies to secure the dollars from Zambia’s copper exports while supporting a small number of white settlers in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia), who had been allocated 50 million acres of farmland, compared to only 29 million for Africans. In the Persian Gulf, British Petroleum explored for oil while British advisers led seven sheiks into a federation that later became the petro-rich United Arab Emirates. Over the longer term, the Federation of Malaya and the United Arab Emirates proved relatively stable independent states, while their Central African counterpart broke apart, after mass protests and inept colonial repression, into the nations of Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Alfred W. McCoy, To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change

[writergeekrhw]

what parts of real history were most influential on your writing in ds9?

Off the top of my head:

Bajor - WW2, the Troubles, Israel/Palestine, the Belgian Congo

Dominion - Roman, Mongol, and British Empires

Cardassia - The Cold War, DDR

Federation - The Red Scare, various CIA scandals, post-WW2 America in general

Maquis - The Maquis

Ferengi - late stage Western Capitalism, Robber Barons

[fnordtube]

End of Empire chronicles the last days of British rule around the globe, through the remarkably candid reminiscences of both colonizers and the colonized. The series, a Granada Television production, uses old newsreel film and interviews with former British and colonial officials.

The Beginning of the End - How the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in World War II became a symbol of the British Empire's decline.

India, Engine of War

India, the Muslim Card

Divide and Quit

Palestine - The end of British rule in Palestine and the creation of Israel.

Iran - How the British Empire helped orchestrate the downfall of Mohammad Mosaddegh and returning the Shah to power, in exchange for Iranian oil.

Egypt - Britain took Egypt as protectorate to build the Suez Canal. Nasser decides to take everything back.

Aden - Strategic importance of Aden at the end of the Suez Canal and its transformation into communist Yemen.

Cyprus - Last days of British rule in Cyprus.

The Gold Coast - How Ghana became the first African colony to gain independence and spur the "Winds of Change".

Kenya - The African colony of Kenya is rocked with rebellion by the Mau Mau.

The Rider and the Horse - The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland's failed attempt to build a white state in black Africa.

Rhodesia - The Federation's collapse leads to black-run nation states, with Northern Rhodesia resisting change.

[multiverserift]

I came across the question: If the USA is so bad, and Cardassia is meant as a metaphor for USA, there surely are a lot of illegal refugees wanting to come to Cardassia and become Cardassians, RIGHT?" Let's dissect that. I think the whole question is asked under a false pretense. Because Star Trek cultures are not meant to display "real" feeling cultures. We rarely see cultural diversity in a Star Trek culture. Because they mostly represent an archetype. Klingons all have something to do with honor. Vulcans have something to do with logic. Sometimes those broad strokes of cultural aspects are used to tell the story of a stray (Ferengi scientist Dr. Reyga in TNG: Suspicions) or someone caught between worlds (Spock, T'Pol, Worf, Quark), yes. But the cultures in Star Trek are mostly a canvas for a big problem or aspect, an idea.

The Federation is about hope and humanity. The good in humans won. We did it. The utopia is achieved, it is challenged, from within and without.

The Romulans were about the Cold War. About secrecy, militarism. More about them in a bit.

The Klingons are a bit more complex, because their role in the Star Trek universe changed over the years. Focussing on TNG era Klingons, they were the Proud Warrior Race© of Star Trek, the problems with that culture as a concept. Also, most Klingon stories in TNG were used to grow the character of Worf.

Now to the cultural aspect of Refugees. Ironically, we are first introduced to this concept by the Bajorans, violated by Cardassia. We see them through the eyes of Ro Laren (the one who assimilated into the Federation) and Captain Picard. Refugees, and Picard gives them blankets. How nice of him. Double ironically, we later in DS9 see the Bajorans deal with their own refugee dilemma enbodied by the Skrreeans in DS9: Sanctuary. And it's problematic, to say the least.

Where else do we see refugees in Star Trek? In PIC, and they are Romulans (here they are again). Sadly, PIC isn't very good at tackling those human condition problems, so it's all a bit superficial. Or maybe I should watch S01 PIC again. But I don't want to.

We also have the Caatati, the refugees disenfranchised by the Borg in VOY: Day of Honor, and they are desperate and aggressive, but we get a very Star Trek solution to the problem. Technology and Empathy, and it's kind of okay. Also, there is VOY: Counterpoint. But the refugee stuff is more of a background canvas for Janeway's boyfriend story.

Now to the Cardassians. Short answer to the question "Are there refugees that try to refuge into the Cardassian Empire?" is: We don't know. Long answer: We don't know because it's not the point of the Cardassians. What's the point? Easy: Fascism and Authoritarianism. And the stories about refugees in fascist states are more interesting when refugees try to get OUT from there. Which is what we get in DS9: Profit and Loss and DS9: Ties of Blood and Water.

We see Cardassia lose its authoritarian state to (kind of) moderately democratic rebels, only to get usurped by Dukat, sold out to the Dominion and get eaten by a merciless war machine. Which is ironic, because this is the heart and core of many authoritarian states. Which is, also, kind of the point.

The point is not "refugees". Because that topic isn't a Cardassian topic. Then there would be the topic of the refugees that Cardassia CREATES. Which is also interesting when I'm writing from a western country (Germany here), because, let's face it, we are not exactly the good guys here. Maybe there should be a few Star Trek episodes about this.

So to understand Star Trek, you have to understand that the races mostly embody a central aspect. Ferengi? Predatory Hypercapitalism. Betazoid? British MILFs. Vulcans? Horny math teachers trapped in the bodies of apathetic decathlon athletes. And don't get me started on Andorians, because to understand Andorians, I'd have to get into the context matters of ENT and oboy, it's a deep hot pocket of interesting facts. Lower Decks also did some nice things with Orions and Tendi. ENT failed the Orions. Man, I would have loved to see live action Tendi in SNW. I could ramble on but I stop now. Also, slightly altered repost because I still have no clue how the reblog distribution system of tumblr works.

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1825 – Birth of Young Irelander, journalist and promoter of Canadian Federation, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, in Carlingford, Co Louth.

Thomas D’Arcy Etienne Hughes McGee was an Irish-Canadian politician, Catholic spokesman, journalist, poet, and a Father of Canadian Confederation. The young McGee was a Catholic Irishman who hated British rule in Ireland, and worked for a peasant revolution to overthrow British rule and secure Irish independence. He escaped arrest and fled to the United States in 1848, where he reversed his…

[mariacallous]

History grounds us.

History can help us find our footing. This is not because we can ever know what will happen next. It is rather because history can make familiar some consistent patterns of human life.

Such prompts for further thought are not analogies. When we think in terms of analogies, we get stuck on the differences, and those sticking points then becomes an excuse not to think historically at all. Of course what comes next in the 2020s won't be exactly like the 1790s or the 1860s or the 1930s or the 1990s — the reference points I am choosing here.

But in recalling these epochs (or others) we can start to see certain resemblances, certain patterns, and get ourselves thinking again.

In this spirit, I offer these four scenarios for Trumpomuskovia, the musko-trumpified America that is already upon us.

The 1790s. Rescuing Russia

One possible Trumpomuskovia rescues Russia: actively, passively, or just by collapsing. This scenario draws from the eighteenth century, the time of the partitions of Poland.

Empress Catherine’s Russian Empire, founded just decades before, was in trouble. It had no clear means of succession, and Catherine herself was the German wife of a murdered tsar (her husband). It saved itself by warfare in Ukraine, bringing under its control its fertile territories. Fortunately for Catherine the Great, its western neighbor, Poland, suffered from tremendous inequality of wealth, and was rent by struggles between clans of magnates -- or, as we would say today, oligarchs. One of her former lovers was made king. He did not always do what she wanted, but his Poland was not going to effectively resist. In this situation, Russia was able to intervene in Poland, brings about its partition, and claim Ukraine (beginning the relatively short historical period when Ukraine was ruled from Russia).

Today the Russian Federation, founded a few decades ago, is also in trouble. It has no clear means of succession, as its ruler has done away with democracy and established a personal dictatorship. He has a fantasy of Russian unity with Ukraine, based in some considerable measure on the exploits of the eighteenth-century empress, Catherine. Like Catherine, Putin counts on divisions within (and among) western powers. His campaign for Ukraine has been extremely bloody, and has brought the Russian economy to the point of collapse.

But like Catherine, Putin has favorites that are close to power: Musk and Trump. They will not always do exactly what he wants, but they probably generally will, and their will certainly bring a fractious oligarchy. Putin is counting on the Musk-Trump regime to rescue him by turning American power away from its allies and towards Russia. Quite a few of Trump's proposed appointments, and much of Musk's rhetoric, suggest that rescuing Russia will be the priority.

The 1860s. Secession

When Poland was partitioned at the end of the end of the eighteenth century, it was a shock. Could a major country simply disappear from the map? A second scenario is suggested by the 1860s, when the United States nearly did.

Some of Poland's rebels, such as Tadeusz Kościuszko and Kazimierz Pułaski, crossed the Atlantic to help America's fledgling republic, which they hoped would avoid the mistakes of their own. Kościuszko saw slavery as a curse that could weaken the United States, much as serfdom had weakened Poland. Unlike Poland, the young American republic faced no great neighbor, at least after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 withdrawal of the British after the War of 1812. But the issue of slavery was almost enough to break the American republic anyway. In the aftermath of the Civil War, whites in southern states were able to exert disproportionate political power, by preventing African Americans from voting, and by dominating first the Democratic and then the Republican Party.

The United States in 2025 will be, in some sense, the victory of the old south. But is it a sustainable one? When people think of themselves as rebels they sometimes push too far when they actually have power. The social and cultural policies proposed by Trumpomuskovia are mainstream in much of the country, but not for most of the population. And the implementation of some of them, especially mass deportation, can reveal fault lines inside the federal government, between the federal government and the states, and among the states. An attempt to deport millions of people in 2025 could lead to clashes within and contests for control over the armed forces. Over the longer run, repressive social and cultural policies could lead to shifts of population, making the differences among the states still greater than they are. Trump has already been telling his people that the differences between them and the "enemy within" are greater than those between America and China or America and Russia.

Will Trumpomuskovia be stable? It is not a great leap for people to decide to move to California, on the logic that the state could make it alone, and already has a secession movement. Indeed, these moves are already happening.

From there it is a small step to start thinking of constellations of states that would be wealthier and more functional than the current United States. A west coast union would certainly be richer, and would have its own borders with Canada and Mexico.

It is sad to think about. But the next round of musing could easily follow: a west coast union plus Canada plus the New England, New York and Minnesota would have an economy about 2/3 the size of what was left of the United States, with a far higher GDP per capita, a better standard of living and longer life spans — just going by today’s numbers.

Such a hypothetical country would not have to worry about free trade with Canada, since it would be Canada; and it would not have to worry about free trade with Mexico, since it would have a border with Mexico. Unlike the residual United States, aka Trumpomuskovia, it would not be fighting a trade war with the European Union.

The 1930s: Electoral Fascism

This is the most familiar of the thought experiments and so probably requires the least elaboration. The resemblances are all familiar.

A politician who has attempted a coup d'état comes to power later anyway on the strength of elections, with a minority of the overall vote. He is supported by conservatives who want the Left to suffer and businesspeople who imagine that all he will do is suppress the trade unions. This politician speaks angrily of the media as "the enemy of the people" and condemns his political opponents as "the enemy within." He hopes for some kind of emergency in order to declare a state of permanent emergency -- for Hitler this was the Reichstag Fire of 1933, for Trump it could be something entirely imaginary. At that stage of fascism, an event in the real world could be made an element of a conspiracy; at the current stage, the event in the real world might not even be necessary.

Trump speaks, sensibly enough from his fascist perspective, of "Hitler's generals." What Trump has in mind is Hitler's personal control of the armed forces, which began in 1934 when soldiers and officers began to swear a personal oath to the Führer instead of an oath to the German constitution. It was indeed this event that made of Hitler the Führer, the Leader, rather than simply the chancellor or prime minister. Hitler's men opened their first concentration camp right after he came to power; if Trump's men are able to round up millions of non-citizens, they too will be in camps -- an institution, as we know, that can be turned to other purposes than its initial ones. The first major act of violence of Hitler's SS, aside from establishing those camps and running them, was a mass deportation of non-citizens.

From this scenario come the political lessons that I have tried to make familiar in other posts and in On Tyranny.

The 1990s: Reliving Russia

The fourth and final scenario is one that some of us will remember. Indeed, the 1990s in Russia might be seen not just as a point of reference, but as an origin story of Trumpomuskovia. In my book The Road to Unfreedom, I tried to argue that Russia, with its oligarchy, media monopolies, and fascism, revealed possible futures for the United States. This has never seemed a more reasonable place to begin an analysis than right now.

In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, men who became known as oligarchs struggled to control the parts of the economy that could return quick profits -- the minerals, the metals, the pipelines, the hydrocarbons. All of this took place against the background, especially in the West, of either intensely naive or intensely cynical free market ideology: what ever is happening in Russia must be for the best, since without the state the magical forces of capitalism will ensure growth, freedom, and democracies. Instead, the collapse of the state led to wealth inequality, a battle for final control at the top, the perfection of alternative realities and media disinformation, and now fascism and a war of atrocity against Ukraine.

In that struggle, a doddering elected president, Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by a cluster of oligarchs. The successor they chose, Vladimir Putin, was eventually able to tame them all, and become the oligarch king, the boss of bosses. In doing so he did not clean up the system, but simply insured that all of the dirt was his own. This situation rather strongly resembles the America of today, with an elderly president, Donald Trump, surrounded by a cluster of oligarchs. The oligarchs have chosen his successor: JD Vance.

It is very hard to tell, right now, who is actually running the show, if anyone. All of the headlines are about shocking personalities who do not identify in any sense with the larger interests of the country. Elon Musk and his tame DOGE seem set to dismantle the parts of the American government that are profitable and seize them for himself. All of this recalls late Yeltsin, and thus the transition of Putin. A difference: ketamine and fentanyl for the White House, not vodka as in the Kremlin back then.

Here’s the twist: there is actually an overlap of personnel in the two scenarios, and so now we are perhaps dealing with one history, rather than the past as an inspiration for the present. When Putin was elected president of Russia in 2000, no one would really have imagined that he would not only survive the oligarchs but become their chief and still be ruling a quarter century later. So is the Putin in this scenario… Putin?

It is tempting to imagine that Putin, who has to be regarded now as one of the oligarchs around Trump, could also unexpectedly end up on top, as America relives the Russia of the 1990s. He certainly occupies quite a lot of Trump's mental space. He is working to bully Trump, to make him feel subordinate (for example by showing naked pictures of his wife on television). Nikolai Patrushev, a central figure in the Russian intelligence and security apparatus under Putin, reminds Trump that he has debts to pay. Putin clearly has like-minded allies around Trump, Musk most importantly. Some of the people at the top of Trump's preferred national security team (Gabbard, Hegseth) mix Putinism and anti-qualifications.

Or is the Putin in this scenario Vance? Putin is now 72, and Trump is now 78. Will either of them be around in four years? Putin’s mass murderer client Assad is on the run in Syria and the ruble is well under a penny. At some point, one can at least imagine, Putin’s charisma fades. It is not hard to imagine Trump or Putin or both expelled from oligarchs' island. Putin won after the 1990s as an outsider; who is the dark horse now? Vance is the closest thing to a Putin-like figure in this scenario: odd background, less money than the people around him, rich patrons, clear ideology, smarter than he seems. But might one of his oligarch patrons actually emerge on top?

Or could Trump himself, despite looking like Yeltsin, surprise us and end up being the Putin of the scenario, first getting close to the oligarchs, then using the government to freeze them out, and finally himself getting rich, as he has always wanted?

But if our Reliving Russia scenario is the helpful one, the crucial point of resemblance is the dismantling of government and the oligarchical claim on whatever is left. Who emerges on top is, in some sense, secondary.

Combinations

History helps, because everything that has happened was something that could have happened. And those things that could have happened, usually unexpected at the time, stretch our minds about what might happen.

In the near future, in coming months and years, these four scenarios can intersect and combine. A Trumpomuskovia that seeks to rescue Russia can also be one that relives Russia. A Trumpomuskovia that looks fascist is also one that risks secession.

History warns. It would be wonderful if these scenarios helped people in positions of responsibility to make good choices.

History surprises. Strikingly, we see in most of the scenarios presence of Ukraine: for the old Russian Empire, and for the present one, and for that matter for Hitler, whose chief war aim was the control of Ukraine. Ukraine is a useful shortcut as we try to evaluate Trumpomuskovites: what do they say about Ukraine? As a rule of thumb, those that wish for its fall also want the fall of the American republic. I would expect that the first actions regarding Ukraine will be a harbinger of what is to come for America if Ukraine is sold out, expect America to be sold for parts.

History enlivens. It gets us outside the box of the daily outrages and our emotional responses. As we think outside the box, we sometimes catch a glimpse of what is inside it. In all four of these past moments, we see the problem of inequality somewhere close to the origin of political collapse. Any future rescue operation for the American republic will have to begin there.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“FACTOR PICKS FLAWS! IN DEPORTATION LAW: CALLS FOR CHANGE,” Toronto Globe. November 4, 1930. Page 13.  ---- Foreigners Given Privilege Which Is Denied British-Born People --- DELEGATES IN WARD 4 ---- Eight delegates, four each from the Ridings of St. Patrick and St. Andrew, were elected to represent their respective ridings at the Liberal convention to be held on Dec. 16, at the meeting of the Ward 4 Liberal Association at Apollo Hall last night. The four delegates for the Riding of St. Andrew, which comprises the territory lying between the west side of Spadina Avenue and the east side of Bathurst Street, were T. Harcourt, J. M. O'Brien, Miss Rose Clarke and Mrs. M. Cresswicke. The Riding of St. Patrick, which is that district between University Avenue and the east side of Spadina, elected F. J. G. McDonagh, Dr. M. D. Kinsella, Mrs. Charles Porter and Miss E. O'Leary. 

Samuel Factor, M.P., stated that, with regard to the recent deportations, the very fact of the deportees being British-born was the reason why the deportations could be carried out, as a subject born in the British Isles was not by law obliged to take out naturalization papers, while a foreigner entering the Dominion was obliged to do so. and within five years became a citizen of the same status as a Canadian-born and could not be deported. A British-born subject could not claim this privilege, and was therefore liable to deportation. He stated that this law should be amended as soon as possible. 

F. J. G. McDonagh, one of the rep- resentatives elected from St. Patrick's Riding. declared that Premier Fergu- son was neglecting his duty at one of the most critical times in the history of the Province of Ontario. "Conservatives," he said, amid applause. "have kidded themselves into thinking of this as Tory Toronto, but if they can't do better than they have recently done in East York, then it is high time that some Liberals got in."

[fatehbaz]

“Dutch King apologizes for Netherlands’ role in slavery.”

The Dutch/Netherlands abducted slaves from West Africa; hosted the Dutch West India Company; operated an extensive profitable sugar plantation industry built on slave labor; and established colonies in the greater Caribbean region including sites at Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Bonaire, and the adjacent “Wild Coast” (land between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers, including Guyana and Suriname). Many of these places remained official colonies until between the 1950s and 1990s.

---

Scholarship on resistance to Dutch practices of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism in the Caribbean:

“Decolonization, Otherness, and the Neglect of the Dutch Caribbean in Caribbean Studies.” Margo Groenewoud. Small Axe. 2021.

“Women’s mobilizations in the Dutch Antilles (Curaçao and Aruba, 1946-1993).” Margo Groenewoud. Clio. Women, Gender, History No. 50. 2019.

“Black Power, Popular Revolt, and Decolonization in the Dutch Caribbean.” Gert Oostindie. In: Black Power in the Caribbean. Edited by Kate Quinn. 2014.

“History Brought Home: Postcolonial Migrations and the Dutch Rediscovery of Slavery.” Gert Oostindie. In: Post-Colonial Immigrants and Identity Formations in the Netherlands. Edited by Ulbe Bosma. 2012.

“Other Radicals: Anton de Kom and the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition.” Wayne Modest and Susan Legene. Small Axe. 2023.

Di ki manera? A Social History of Afro-Curaçaoans, 1863-1917. Rosemary Allen. 2007.

Creolization and Contraband: Curaçao in the Early Modern Atlantic World. Linda Rupert. 2012.

“The Empire Writes Back: David Nassy and Jewish Creole Historiography in Colonial Suriname.” Sina Rauschenbach. The Sephardic Atlantic: Colonial Histories and Postcolonial Perspectives. 2018.

“The Scholarly Atlantic: Circuits of Knowledge Between Britain, the Dutch Republic and the Americas in the Eighteenth Century.” Karel Davids. 2014. And: “Paramaribo as Dutch and Atlantic Nodal Point, 1640-1795.” Karwan Fatah-Black. 2014. And: Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800: Linking Empires, Bridging Borders. Edited by Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman. 2014.

Decolonising the Caribbean: Dutch Policies in a Comparative Perspective. Gert Oostindie and Inge Klinkers. 2003. And: “Head versus heart: The ambiguities of non-sovereignties in the Dutch Caribbean.” Wouter Veenendaal and Gert Oostindie. Regional & Federal Studies 28(4). August 2017.

Tambú: Curaçao’s African-Caribbean Ritual and the Politics of Memory. Nanette de Jong. 2012.

“More Relevant Than Ever: We Slaves of Suriname Today.” Mitchell Esajas. Small Axe. 2023.

“The Forgotten Colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, 1700-1814.” Eric Willem van der Oest. In: Riches from Atlantic Commerce: Dutch Transatlantic Trade and Shipping, 1585-1817. 2003.

“Conjuring Futures: Culture and Decolonization in the Dutch Caribbean, 1948-1975.” Chelsea Shields. Historical Reflections / Reflexions Historiques Vol. 45 No. 2. Summer 2019.

“’A Mass of Mestiezen, Castiezen, and Mulatten’: Fear, Freedom, and People of Color in the Dutch Antilles, 1750-1850.” Jessica Vance Roitman. Atlantic Studies 14, no. 3. 2017.

---

This list only covers the Caribbean.

But outside of the region, there is also the legacy of the Dutch East India Company; over 250 years of Dutch slavers and merchants in Gold Coast and wider West Africa; about 200 years of Dutch control in Bengal (the same region which would later become an engine of the British Empire’s colonial wealth extraction); over a century of Dutch control in Sri Lanka/Ceylon; Dutch operation of the so-called “Cultivation System” (”Cultuurstelsei”) in the nineteenth century; Dutch enforcement of brutal forced labor regimes at sugar plantations in Java, which relied on de facto indentured laborers who were forced to sign contracts or obligated to pay off debt and were “shipped in” from other islands and elsewhere in Southeast Asia (a system existing into the twentieth century); the “Coolie Ordinance” (”Koelieordonnanties”) laws of 1880 which allowed plantation owners to administer punishments against disobedient workers, resulting in whippings, electrocutions, and other cruel tortures (and this penal code was in effect until 1931); and colonization of Indonesian islands including Sumatra and Borneo, which remained official colonies of the Netherlands until the 1940s.

[gimmick-irs]

finally time to make a real intro post since mine sucks

this is IRS (also known as Ilia. Yes, after all this time I finally named her)

(credit to the picrew i used)

Ilia’s pronouns are she/they, but primarily she. Also she’s a lesbian ✨ (the mod is also a lesbian and uses she/her pronouns only)

(Ilia has a minor, one-sided crush on NoCal, aka @the-republic-of-california-fr-fr , which I have checked with them to make sure they’re okay with it)

additional side blogs (that u should totes follow):

@totally-california

@unofficially-screaming

@potentially-blahaj

@not-turboflex

@happyinc

@obviously-luxembourg

@god-of-stupid

@sovereign--state-of-britain

@lesbian-naval-fleet

@the-holy-land-of-neu-america

@the-author-anon

@entity-nonexistent-error

@the-crust-of-crust

People Currently In Federal* Jail (will be updated as time goes on)

@maryland-officially @maryland-no-rabies @marylandaccountx3 @marylandaccountx4 @maryland6th @mary-the-5th

(Tax evasion and too many usernames)

@yahooo-official

(Arson, tax evasion, second degree murder, first degree manslaughter, grand larceny, petty theft)

@real-british-empire

(The British aren’t fucking real)

@gimmick-blog-stealer (anonymous tip)

@pennyroyald (how dare you not like Sonic)

@solar-panel-official (I COGHT U)

@clifton-new-jersey (you thought you could get away with it but I SAW. I see ALL.)

*not actually federal jail

Edit with a DNI:

-Homophobes

-Transphobes

-Any proshippers who have child x adult ships (other than that idgaf what you ship ngl)

-Pedophiles

-Arophobes/Acephobes

-Anyone who refuses to accept other people’s pronouns