#Largest army in Europe

[readandwriteclub]

This will last as long as Trump's last ceasefire did in 2019 (meaning, the Russians never actually stopped shelling and shooting and sniping the Ukrainians)...

You think I'm making that shit up??? Look it up. True!

(Also; that's a shitty DMZ. "Peace keeping mission by European troops in the [DMZ]" ...do you mean, NATO? No? Say what you mean.)

Trumps proposed peace plan for Ukraine

by try.balkan/instagram

[merrymorningofmay]

can the us withdraw from nato faster so that trump's opinion on who should and shouldn't be in nato stops mattering

[reasonsforhope]

"With Donald Trump set to take office after a fear-mongering campaign that reignited concerns about his desire to become a dictator, a reasonable question comes up: Can nonviolent struggle defeat a tyrant?

There are many great resources that answer this question, but the one that’s been on my mind lately is the Global Nonviolent Action Database, or GNAD, built by the Peace Studies department at Swarthmore College. Freely accessible to the public, this database — which launched under my direction in 2011 — contains over 1,400 cases of nonviolent struggle from over a hundred countries, with more cases continually being added by student researchers.  

At quick glance, the database details at least 40 cases of dictators who were overthrown by the use of nonviolent struggle, dating back to 1920. These cases — which include some of the largest nations in the world, spanning Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America — contradict the widespread assumption that a dictator can only be overcome by violence. What’s more, in each of these cases, the dictator had the desire to stay, and possessed violent means for defense. Ultimately, though, they just couldn’t overcome the power of mass nonviolent struggle.  

In a number of countries, the dictator had been embedded for years at the time they were pushed out. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, for example, had ruled for over 29 years. In the 1990s, citizens usually whispered his name for fear of reprisal. Mubarak legalized a “state of emergency,” which meant censorship, expanded police powers and limits on the news media. Later, he “loosened” his rule, putting only 10 times as many police as the number of protesters at each demonstration.  

The GNAD case study describes how Egyptians grew their democracy movement despite repression, and finally won in 2011. However, gaining a measure of freedom doesn’t guarantee keeping it. As Egypt has shown in the years since, continued vigilance is needed, as is pro-active campaigning to deepen the degree of freedom won.  

Some countries repeated the feat of nonviolently deposing a ruler: In Chile, the people nonviolently threw out a dictator in 1931 and then deposed a new dictator in 1988. South Koreans also did it twice, once in 1960 and again in 1987. (They also just stopped their current president from seizing dictatorial powers, but that’s not yet in the database.)  

In each case people had to act without knowing what the reprisals would be...

It’s striking that in many of the cases I looked at, the movement avoided merely symbolic marches and rallies and instead focused on tactics that impose a cost on the regime. As Donald Trump wrestles to bring the armed forces under his control, for example, I can imagine picketing army recruiting offices with signs, “Don’t join a dictator’s army.”  

Another important takeaway: Occasional actions that simply protest a particular policy or egregious action aren’t enough. They may relieve an individual’s conscience for a moment, but, ultimately, episodic actions, even large ones, don’t assert enough power. Over and over, the Global Nonviolent Action Database shows that positive results come from a series of escalating, connected actions called a campaign...

-via Waging Nonviolence, January 8, 2025. Article continues below.

East Germany’s peaceful revolution

When East Germans began their revolt against the German Democratic Republic in 1988, they knew that their dictatorship of 43 years was backed by the Soviet Union, which might stage a deadly invasion. They nevertheless acted for freedom, which they gained and kept.

Researcher Hanna King tells us that East Germans began their successful campaign in January 1988 by taking a traditional annual memorial march and turning it into a full-scale demonstration for human rights and democracy. They followed up by taking advantage of a weekly prayer for peace at a church in Leipzig to organize rallies and protests. Lutheran pastors helped protect the organizers from retaliation and groups in other cities began to stage their own “Monday night demonstrations.”  

The few hundred initial protesters quickly became 70,000, then 120,000, then 320,000, all participating in the weekly demonstrations. Organizers published a pamphlet outlining their vision for a unified German democracy and turned it into a petition. Prisoners of conscience began hunger strikes in solidarity.

By November 1988, a million people gathered in East Berlin, chanting, singing and waving banners calling for the dictatorship’s end. The government, hoping to ease the pressure, announced the opening of the border to West Germany. Citizens took sledgehammers to the hated Berlin Wall and broke it down. Political officials resigned to protest the continued rigidity of the ruling party and the party itself disintegrated. By March 1990 — a bit over two years after the campaign was launched — the first multi-party, democratic elections were held.

Students lead the way in Pakistan

In Pakistan, it was university students (rather than religious clerics) who launched the 1968-69 uprising that forced Ayub Khan out of office after his decade as a dictator. Case researcher Aileen Eisenberg tells us that the campaign later required multiple sectors of society to join together to achieve critical mass, especially workers. 

It was the students, though, who took the initiative — and the initial risks. In 1968, they declared that the government’s declaration of a “decade of development” was a fraud, protesting nonviolently in major cities. They sang and marched to their own song called “The Decade of Sadness.” 

Police opened fire on one of the demonstrations, killing several students. In reaction the movement expanded, in numbers and demands. Boycotts grew, with masses of people refusing to pay the bus and railway fares on the government-run transportation system. Industrial workers joined the movement and practiced encirclement of factories and mills. An escalation of government repression followed, including more killings. 

As the campaign expanded from urban to rural parts of Pakistan, the movement’s songs and political theater thrived. Khan responded with more violence, which intensified the determination among a critical mass of Pakistanis that it was time for him to go.

After months of growing direct action met by repressive violence, the army decided its own reputation was being degraded by their orders from the president, and they demanded his resignation. He complied and an election was scheduled for 1970 — the first since Pakistan’s independence in 1947.

Why use nonviolent struggle?

The campaigns in East Germany and Pakistan are typical of all 40 cases in their lack of a pacifist ideology, although some individuals active in the movements had that foundation. What the cases do seem to have in common is that the organizers saw the strategic value of nonviolent action, since they were up against an opponent likely to use violent repression. Their commitment to nonviolence would then rally the masses to their side. 

That encourages me. There’s hardly time in the U.S. during Trump’s regime to convert enough people to an ideological commitment to nonviolence, but there is time to persuade people of the strategic value of a nonviolent discipline. 

It’s striking that in many of the cases I looked at, the movement avoided merely symbolic marches and rallies and instead focused on tactics that impose a cost on the regime. As Donald Trump wrestles to bring the armed forces under his control, for example, I can imagine picketing army recruiting offices with signs, “Don’t join a dictator’s army.”  

Another important takeaway: Occasional actions that simply protest a particular policy or egregious action aren’t enough. They may relieve an individual’s conscience for a moment, but, ultimately, episodic actions, even large ones, don’t assert enough power. Over and over, the Global Nonviolent Action Database shows that positive results come from a series of escalating, connected actions called a campaign — the importance of which is also outlined in my book “How We Win.”  

As research seminar students at Swarthmore continue to wade through history finding new cases, they are digging up details on struggles that go beyond democracy. The 1,400 already-published cases include campaigns for furthering environmental justice, racial and economic justice, and more. They are a resource for tactical ideas and strategy considerations, encouraging us to remember that even long-established dictators have been stopped by the power of nonviolent campaigns.

-via Waging Nonviolence, January 8, 2025.

[newty]

me, using wwi military terms in ffxiv writings: hehehe i do what i want

me, faced w the same debacle of 'work with an underdeveloped military system or force in the one you know at the cost of time period evils' into ffxvi: is this ok

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Interesting thread just popped up on r/AITAH

It reads:

AITA for causing a scene after a class discussion about Holocaust ended up with my son being bullied?

My son (11M) has always been proud of his Polish heritage. Were Polish-American, and weve taught him a lot about our familys history. His great grandfather fought in the Armia Krajowa (the Polish Home army), which was one of the largest underground resistance movements in Nazi occupied Europe. He was wounded during the Warsaw Uprising, an effort where thousands of Polish civilians and soldiers rose up against the Nazis. Unfortunately, he was eventually captured by the Nazis and sent to KZ Stutthof, a concentration camp. Despite the unimaginable horrors there, he survived and later came to USA to rebuild his life, though he never forgot what he fought for. Recently, my sons class had a lesson about World War II and the Holocaust. After school, he came home unusually quiet. When I asked what was wrong, he told me the teacher said Poland helped the Nazis carry out the Holocaust. Apparently, the teacher claimed that Polish people were active collaborators and shared blame for the genocide. My son was horrified and so was I. He told me that after the lesson, one boy turned to him and said I guess that makes you a Nazi sympathizer. Other kids laughed. My son was devastated and just broke down crying. How could anyone say that? Poland was one of the first countries invaded by Nazi Germany, and over 6 million Polish citizens were killed, half of them were Jewish. The Nazis considered Poles to be subhuman and executed entire villages in retaliation for resistance efforts. And yet, even under the threat of death, many Poles risked their lives to save Jewish families. The egota Council was established solely to aid Jews, and people like Irena Sendler smuggled over 2,000 of Jewish children to safety. I emailed the teacher, assuming there was some misunderstanding. But instead of acknowledging the issue, he doubled down saying it was important to explore all perspectives and that Poland wasnt completely innocent. I was furious. Spreading falsehoods like that not only distorts history but also fuels antisemitism and hatred. It also completely disrespects people like my great grandfather, who put their lives on the line to fight the Nazis and endured unimaginable suffering in KZ Stutthof. The next day, I went to the school office and demanded a meeting with the principal. Ill admit, I wasnt calm and could've handled it much better and that's probably where I was the asshole for yelling and swearing at the staff who had nothing to do with it. But I told them how offensive it was to teach blatant misinformation, especially when it led to my son being bullied. I brought up historical facts, ncluding how the Armia Krajowa fought against both the Nazis and the Soviets, and how Polish resistance fighters were often tortured and executed. The teacher was there too, and instead of apologizing, he accused me of overreacting and claimed I was pushing nationalist propaganda. I reminded him that Yad Vashem honors over 7,000 Polish citizens as Righteous Among the Nations for risking their lives to save Jews, more than any other country. Now my wife (who doesn't have Polish ancestry) is saying I've made a scene and embarrassed the teacher, myself and my son and overall disagrees with me doing what I did. My sons still being called names, though the school promised to look into it. My wife thinks I should've handled it differently and not cause a scene or make a big deal about it, but my sister says supports me in my actions. While I agree I could've been calmer and handled it maybe privately, am I really the asshole for standing up for my history and most importantly my son? Am I also wrong to think that it's not acceptable that my wife is okay with my son being bullied in school?

I replied:

ESH, with the asshole scale pointing towards you. The Armja Krajowa was actively anti-Semitic and spent a lot of the time and effort they could have spent fighting the Nazis harassing Jewish partisans instead. They refused to share any intelligence with the Jewish underground and were adamantly opposed to the ghetto uprisings. During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the AK continued to harass Jews, accuse them of being Soviet spies, forced them to do the hardest most humiliating tasks, beat, and murdered them. The Armja Ludowa was better to the Jews, but there was still great anti-Semitism within its ranks. Though subject to genocidal conditions themselves, many Poles were complicit in the Holocaust, and felt strongly that if Hitler had to be there, at least he was getting rid of the Jews. The Polish undergrounds were heroic and exposed to genocidal conditions, but that doesn’t erase their complicity, and that complicity is 800% relevant in the context of Holocaust history. You behaved like a nationalist, revisionist, dick and you owe your child’s school an apology. THAT SAID. Your child’s teacher was also wrong. There were ordinary Poles across all levels of Polish society (the righteous gentiles) who risked their lives to aid the Jews. The righteous gentiles are important, and require a presence in these types of lessons. Source: am a Holocaust historian. My first book, a history of the Jewish resistance in Warsaw, will be released in October. ETA: Your kid's teacher also sucks for not intervening in the situation which led him to tears. Downvotes can't change the past, y'all.

The way Poles and Jews of Polish ancestry choose to remember these events is....fascinating, from a memory standpoint. But NUANCE, always.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Europe is rearming and they have rebuffed Trump, Vance, Rubio, and Musk. Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine Europe has undergone its largest re-armament and modernization program in History. Every country in Western Europe, not just the NATO states, has massively increased their military budgets and some by more than 5 times their pre-invasion spending. Poland has also constructed massive military fortifications along their border with Belarus and Russia that would make a Russian ground invasion collapse or at least grind to a halt indefinitely.

Putin’s military is shattered and has nearly run out of arms, ammunition, and supplies. They have lost nearly a million dead and wounded. The Russian army has proved to be disastrously incompetent and ill equipped. They are relying on conscripts, convicts, and mercenaries. They’ve been supplemented by North Koreans that are even less trained and motivated and are arriving without equipment and riddled with diseases.

Russia has proven it does not have the ability to defeat Ukraine or even a single NATO state, let alone the whole alliance. NATO states have a nuke sharing agreement and even if the US pulls out France and the UK each have enough to destroy Russia many times over. The Germans are furious with the way the Trump administration has been treating them and meddling in their domestic politics. Some months back French president Macron threatened to send his own troops into Ukraine after Putin interfered in the French elections. All the members of the European Union have individually stated they are prepared to go it alone without the US. They are likely meeting now to formalize that. The European Union does not need the US as their joint economy and militaries make them nearly are equal and likely soon to be our superior.

They are not going to be brow beaten into submission like so many states were by Hitler prior to the commencement of a shooting war. Canada has long had not so secret military discussions with both France and the UK regarding military aid should a rogue US administration try to invade them or engage in economic hostilities. It’s commonly known among educated Canadians and there have even been Canadians novels loosely based on this.

Now it may seem like our allies are well prepared and planning for the worst but there are flies in the ointment. The greatest variable is that Putin is a nut job who can only hold power by launching military operations to rally the base around him. He’s done this before every election but with his losses he’s on thinner ice than ever with his own people. He also has a stated policy of “nuclear de-escalation” which NATO officials have written about at length. What it means is he invades a territory then places tactical nukes there and then “de-escalates” by threatening to nuke anyone who tries to dislodge him. Russia hasn’t done this yet as it is a plan reserved for NATO states not his lesser neighbors.

The simple fact is that no matter how much of his power, and his nation’s power crumbles around him, he just doesn’t give a flying f—k. He knows he is a dead man the moment he loses offices so he is prepared to take the world down with him, because that’s what lunatics do.

The other variable is that Trump is an ignorant, drug-addled, madman with delusions of grandeur and dreams of being remembered as one of history’s greatest tyrants alongside Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, etc. Trump is currently attempting to blackmail Ukraine into giving him all of that country’s rare earth minerals that are desperately needed to produce computers, cell tech, and other advanced tech. Now since Trump is an aging idiot he was most likely informed of the need for them by Muskrat and the other tech bros. He’s also going to meet with Putin and MBS in Saudi Arabia to work on a settlement for the Ukraine war. Could you find three bigger villains? The only one missing is Xi of China who is making final preparations to invade Taiwan and seize 99% of the world’s semiconductor production. Xi knows he has Musk and Trump in his pocket and that the US will no longer defend that strategic island.

Likely Trump and Putin are planning to divide up Europe and the Americas like Hitler and Stalin divided Poland while China is given free rein in Asia like the Axis empower Japan to do in World War II. Many Americans, especially some older types, former veterans, and white supremacists have a fascination with Hitler and WWII. They saw Germany as an underdog and wondered (even wished to have seen) what would have happened had Germany won.

Something big is brewing and the European Union leaders know the time has come. Many of them are telling their press as we speak that Europe has relied on the U.S. for too long and that they wish they had increased their military budgets sooner and began their own war preparations without the U.S. as an ally or even a possible foe. The world’s biggest democracy and biggest non-aligned nation, India, also knows something is brewing and has cancelled their military contracts with Russia while placing arms orders with European countries. They are also planning to invest in creating a homegrown defense industry so they will no longer be reliant on others and better able to stand up to the endless border wars China keeps launching against them.

What we’re seeing now is extremely similar to what transpired immediately before both world wars.

In a past life I was a historian and defense analyst before a series of family tragedies forced me to step back and take a local position as an educator and part-time internet know it all. I’ve spent decades researching these things and how they are driven by politics. Nothing is carved in stone, especially when the primary bad actors are as unstable as sh-t house rats.

All the people who still do this for a living are certain that the next several months will see us devolve into a fascist dictatorship unless something dramatic happens. Dear leader passing away, losing his nerve and backing down, or grow tired of Musk upstaging him and removing the South African bastard. There’s also a slim chance he’ll be impeached if the Dems take back both houses of Congress in the mid-terms and even slimmer chance that he will be deposed by a popular uprising. He’s very erratic and not sleeping enough and switching back and forth between coke and Adderall doesn’t help, nor does his obvious cognitive decline.

Putin is more worrisome at this point as he’s slowly but steadily losing control. Xi like all his predecessors is extremely patient but he’d be blind not to see this will likely be his best chance to snatch Taiwan, albeit at a high cost when he would prefer to take it without the expense of a war. Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia remain total wildcards sitting in close proximity to a large part of the world’s oil. All are using proxies or are themselves client states. Israel has nukes. Iran secretly has or will shortly have them. Saudi Arabia is believed to have purchased the technology from Trump with that infamous $2 billion dollar gift to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Empty folders of nuclear secrets at Mar-a-Lago point to this.

In summation few of the outcomes facing us are good. The world is again on the cusp of large regional wars, if not a world war. International lawlessness has already commenced and will certainly escalate. Fascism is imminent at home. The death of America as a super power and the world’s policeman is at hand. Trump’s insane tariffs, dismantling of government agencies, and removal of social safety nets will at the least cause a very large and long lasting recession if not a depression. If a depression takes root it will likely spread worldwide. A worldwide depression could lead to large scale wars as it did with WWII.

Putting lunatics in charge is going to end much worse than Trump’s first reign of terror. And remember a million Americans died that time from his incompetence. This time his people are prepared and are already wreaking havoc at an unprecedented level.

[mesetacadre]

A few weeks ago, Spanish social-democratic president Pedro Sánchez and his government gained some attention from NATO because of the apparent refusal to reach the 2% GDP military expenditure demanded for this summer, originally a goal for 2029. This is happening at the same time as the EU commission's recommendation for households to get a 72 hour emergency survival kit, "in the case of war or some other crisis", and more broadly, the reinstatement of partial drafts in Central-northern Europe and massive increases in military spending in the easternmost NATO members such as Poland.

So, in the face of the very explicit turn towards a war economy in Europe, it might seem like social-democrats such as Sánchez are a good enough ally against that militarization. However what has been less publicised than that initial opposition was the agreement to reach the 2% by the end of this year, and the statements Sánchez made in favor of a "Euroarmy". He knows that standard remilitarization is still widely unpopular, so instead, he proposes to create an army for one of the largest imperialist organisms on Earth, the EU. All the while, the largest NATO naval exercise in years happened in Cádiz with the complete support of this supposedly pacifist government.

At the core of bourgeois pacifism is always a material support for the furthering of imperialism. They kept selling arms to Israel into 2024, they're a wilful and eager support of the EU's so called external borders and managers of one of the most militarized and deadly borders in the world, they hold NATO summits, they act as a vessel for the penetration of European capital in Latinamerica, they continue to permit the leasing of the bases in Rota and Morón to NATO, not to even mention all the key infrastructure held in Spain, such as the Combined Air Operations Center in Torrejón, which "is responsible for some of NATO's special Air Policing arrangements, such as Air Policing over Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Slovenia."

In the face of an imperialist rearmament, the only answer is the independent political organization of the working class, that is, breaking with the promises of social peace (that is, the complete control of the capitalist class) that the managers of capitalism seek in exchange for breadcrumbs and lies. A total and immediate withdrawal from NATO, the EU, and every other imperialist structure.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 6: Athena, Goddess Of Wisdom]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.2k

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Here at the midway point in our journey—like Dante stumbling upon the gates of the Inferno—would it be the right moment to review what’s at stake? Let’s begin.

It’s the end of August. The delegates of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago officially vote to name Aemond the party’s presidential candidate. His ascension is aided by 10,000 antiwar demonstrators who flood into the city and threaten to set it ablaze if Hubert Humphrey is chosen instead. At the end—in his death rattle—Humphrey begs to be Aemond’s running mate, one last humiliation he cannot resist. Humphrey is denied. Eugene McCarthy, dignity intact, boards a commercial flight to his home state of Minnesota without looking back.

Aemond selects U.S. Ambassador to France, Sargent Shriver, to be his vice president. Shriver is a Kennedy by marriage—his wife, JFK’s younger sister Eunice, just founded the Special Olympics—and has previously headed the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Peace Corps, and the Chicago Board of Education. He also served as the architect of the president’s “War on Poverty” before distancing himself from the imploding Johnson administration. Shriver is not a concession to fence-sitting moderates or Southern Dixiecrats, but an embodiment of Aemond’s commitment to unapologetic progressivism. Richard Nixon spends the weekend campaigning in his native California, a gold vein of votes like the mines settlers rushed to in 1848. George Wallace announces that he will run as an Independent. Racists everywhere rejoice.

Phase III of the Tet Offensive is underway in Vietnam; 700 American soldiers have been killed this month alone. Riots break out in military prisons where the U.S. Army is keeping their deserters. The North Vietnamese refuse to allow Pope Paul VI to visit Hanoi on a peace mission. President Johnson calls both Aemond and Nixon to personally inform them of this latest evidence of the communists’ unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. Daeron and John McCain remain in Hỏa Lò Prison. The draft swallows men like the titan Cronus devoured his own children.

In Eastern Europe, the Russians are crushing pro-democracy protests in the largest military operation since World War II as half a million troops roll into Czechoslovakia. In Caswell County, North Carolina, the last remaining segregated school district in the nation is ordered by a federal judge to integrate after years of stalling. On the Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific, France becomes the fifth nation to successfully explode a hydrogen bomb. In Mexico City, 300,000 students gather to protest the authoritarian regime of President Diaz Ordaz. In Guatemala, American ambassador John Gordon Mein is murdered by a Marxist guerilla organization called the Rebel Armed Forces. In Columbus, Ohio, nine guards are held hostage during a prison riot; after 30 hours, they’re rescued by a SWAT team.

The latest issue of Life magazine brings worldwide attention to catastrophic industrial pollution in the Great Lakes. The first successful multiorgan transplant is carried out at Houston Methodist Hospital. The Beatles release Hey Jude, the best-selling single of 1968 in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada. NASA’s Apollo lunar landing program plans to launch a crewed shuttle next year, just in time to fulfill John F. Kennedy’s 1962 promise to put a man on the moon “before the end of the decade.” If this is successful, the United States will win the Space Race and prove the superiority of capitalism. If it fails, the martyred astronauts will join all the other ghosts of this apocalyptic age, an epoch born under bad stars.

The night sky glows with the ancient debris of the Aurigid meteor shower. From down here on Earth, Jupiter is a radiant white gleam, visible with the naked eye and admired since humans were making cave paintings and Stonehenge. But Io is a mystery. With a telescope, she becomes a dust mote entrapped by Jupiter’s gravity; to the casual observer, she doesn’t exist at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

What was it like, that very first time? It’s strange to remember. You’re both different people now.

It’s May, 1966. You and Aemond are engaged, due to be married in three short weeks, and if you get pregnant then it’s no harm, no foul. In reality, it will end up taking you over a year to conceive, but no one knows that yet; you are living in the liminal space between what you imagine your life will be and the cold blade of the truth. Aemond has brought you to Asteria for the weekend, an increasingly common occurrence. The Targaryens—minus one, that holdout prodigal son, always glowering from behind swigs of rum and clouds of smoke—have already begun to treat you like a member of the family. The flock of Alopekis yap excitedly and lick your shins. Eudoxia learns your favorite snacks so she can have them ready when you arrive.

One night Aemond takes your hand and leads you to Helaena’s garden, darkness turned to twilight in the artificial luminance of the main house. You can hear distant voices, chatter and laughter, and the Beatles’ Rubber Soul spinning on the record player in the living room like a black hole, gravity that not even light can escape when it is wrenched over the event horizon.

You’re giggling as Aemond pulls you along, faster and faster, weaving through pathways lined with roses and sunflowers and butterfly bushes. Your high heels sink into soft, fertile earth; the air in your lungs is cool and infinite. “Where are we going?”

And Aemond grins back at you as he replies: “To Olympus.”

In the circle of hedges guarded by thirteen gods of stone, Aemond unzips your modest pink sundress and slips your heels off your feet, kneeling like he’s proposing to you again. When you are bare and secretless, he draws you down onto the grass and opens you, claims you, fills you to the brim as the crystalline water of the fountain patters and Zeus hurls his lightning bolts, an eternal storm, unending war. It’s intense in a way it never was with your first boyfriend, a sweet polite boy who talked about feminist theory and followed his enlightened conscience all the way to Vietnam. This isn’t just a pleasant way to pass a Friday night, something to look forward to between differential equations textbooks and calculus proofs. With Aemond it’s a ritual; it’s something so overpowering it almost scares you.

“Aphrodite,” Aemond murmurs against your throat, and when you try to get on top he stops you, pins you to the ground, thrusts hard and deep, and you try not to moan too loudly as you surrender, his weight on you like a prophesy. This is how he wants you. This is where you belong.

Has someone ever stitched you to their side, pushing the needle through your skin again and again as the fabric latticework takes shape, until their blood spills into your veins and your antibodies can no longer tell the difference? He makes you think you’ve forgotten who you were before. He makes you want to believe in things the world taught you were myths.

But that was over two years ago. Now Aemond is not your spellbinding almost-stranger of a fiancé—shrouded in just the right amount of mystery—but your husband, the father of your dead child, the presidential candidate. You miss when he was a mirage. You miss what it felt like to get high on the idea of him, each taste a hit, each touch a rush of toxins to the bloodstream.

Seven weeks after your emergency c-section, you are healing. Your belly no longer aches, your bleeding stops, you can rejoin the living in this last gasp of summer. Ludwika takes you shopping and you pick out new swimsuits; you’ve gone up a size since the baby, and it shows no signs of vanishing. In the fitting room, Ludwika chain-smokes Camel cigarettes and claps when you show her each outfit, ordering you to spin around, telling you that there’s nothing like Oleg Cassini back in Poland. You plan to buy three swimsuits. Ludwika insists you get five. She pays with Otto’s American Express.

That afternoon at home in your blue bedroom, you get changed to join the rest of the family down by the pool, your first swim since Ari was born. You choose Ludwika’s favorite: a dreamy turquoise two-piece with flowing transparent fabric that drapes your midsection. You can still see the dark vertical line of where the doctors stitched you closed. Now you and Aemond match; he got his scar on the floor of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, you earned yours at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. There are gold chains on your wrist and looped around your neck. Warm sunlight and ocean wind pours in through the open windows.

Aemond appears in the doorway and you turn to show him, proud of how you’ve pulled yourself together, how this past year hasn’t put you in an asylum. His right eye catches on your scar and stays there for a long time. Then at last he says: “You don’t have something else to wear?”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Labor Day, and Asteria has been descended upon by guests invited to celebrate Aemond’s nomination. The dining room table is overflowing with champagne, Agiorgitiko wine, platters of mini spanakopitas, lamb gyros, pita bread with hummus and tzatziki, feta cheese and cured meats, grilled octopus, baklava, and kourabiethes. Eudoxia is rushing around sweeping up crumbs and shooing tipsy visitors away from antique vases shipped here from Greece. Aemond’s celebrity endorsers include Sammy Davis Jr., Sonny and Cher, Andy Williams, Bobby Darin, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Claudine Longet, and a number of politicians; but the most notable attendee is President Lyndon Baines Johnson, shadowed by Secret Service agents. He won’t be making any surprise appearances on the campaign trail for Aemond—in the present political climate, he would be more of a liability than an asset—but he has travelled to Long Beach Island tonight to offer his well-wishes. From the record player thrums Jimi Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower.

When you finish getting ready and arrive downstairs, you spot Aegon: slouching in a velvet chair over a century old, hair shagging in his eyes, sipping something out of a chipped mug he clasps with both hands, flirting with a bubbly early-twenties campaign staffer. Aegon smiles and waves when he sees you. You wave back. And you think: When did he become the person I look for when I walk into a room?

Now Aemond is beside you in a blue suit—beaming, confident, his glass eye in place, a hand resting on your waist—and Aegon isn’t smiling anymore. He takes a gulp of what is almost certainly straight rum from his mug and returns his attention to the campaign staffer, his lady of the hour. You picture him undressing her on his shag carpet and feel disorienting, violent envy like a bullet.

Viserys is already fast asleep upstairs, but the rest of the family is out en masse to charm the invitees and pose for photographs. Alicent, Helaena, and Mimi—trying very hard to act sober, blinking too often—are chit-chatting with the other political wives. Otto is complaining about something to Criston; Criston is pretending to listen as he stares at Alicent. Ludwika is smoking her Camels and talking to several young journalists who are ogling her, enraptured. Fosco and Sargent Shriver are entertaining a group of guests with a boisterous, lighthearted debate on the merits of Italian versus French cuisine, though they agree that both are superior to Greek. The nannies have brought the eight children to be paraded around before bedtime. All Cosmo wants to do is clutch your hand and “help” you navigate around the living room, warning you not to step on the small, weaving Alopekis. When Mimi attempts to steal her youngest son away, he ignores her, and as she begins to make a scene you rebuke her with a harsh glare. Mimi retreats meekly. She has never argued with you, not once in over two years. You speak for Aemond, and Aemond is a god.

As the children are herded off to their beds by the nannies, Bobby Kennedy—presently serving as a New York senator despite residing primarily on his family’s compound in Massachusetts—approaches to congratulate Aemond. His wife Ethel is a tiny, nasally, scrappy but not terribly bright woman, five months pregnant with her eleventh child, and you have to get away from her like a hand pulled from a hot stove.

“You know, I was considering running,” Bobby says to Aemond, chuckling, good-natured. “But when I saw you get in the race, I thought better of it! Maybe I’ll give it a go in ’76, huh?”

“Hey, kid, what a tough year you’ve had,” Ethel tells you, patting your forearm. You can’t tear your eyes from her small belly. She has ten living children already. I couldn’t keep one. What kind of sense does that make? “We’re real sorry for your trouble, aren’t we, Bobby?”

Now he is nodding somberly. “We are. We sure are. We’ve been praying for you both.”

Aemond is thanking them, sounding touched but entirely collected. You manage some hurried response and then excuse yourself. Your hands are shaking as you cross the room, not really seeing it. You walk right into Lady Bird Johnson. She takes pity on you; she seems to perceive how rattled you are. “Oh Lyndon, look, it’s just who we were hoping to speak to! The next first lady of the United States. And how beautiful you are, just radiant. How do you keep your hair so perfect? That glamorous updo. You never have a single strand out of place.” Lady Bird lays a palm tenderly on your bare shoulder. She has an unusual, angular face, but a wise sort of compassion that only comes from suffering. Her husband is an unrepentant serial cheater. “I’ll make you a list of everything you need to know about the White House. All the quirks of the property, and the hidden gems too!”

“You’re so kind. We’ll see what happens in November…”

“Good evening, ma’am,” President Johnson says, smiling warmly. He’s an ugly man, but there’s something hypnotic that lives inside him and shines through his eyes like the blaze of a lighthouse. He pulls you in through the dark, through the storm; he promises you answers to questions you haven’t thought of yet. LBJ is 6’4 and known for bullying his political adversaries with the so-called “Johnson Treatment”; he leans in and makes rapid-fire demands until they forget he’s not allowed to hit them. “I have to tell you frankly, I don’t envy anyone who inherits that den of rattlesnakes in Washington D.C.”

“Lyndon, don’t frighten her,” Lady Bird scolds fondly.

“Everyone thinks they know what to do about Vietnam,” LBJ plods onwards. “But it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t clusterfuck. If you keep fighting, they call you a murderer. But if you pull the troops out and South Vietnam falls to the communists, every single man lost was for nothing, and you think the families will stand for that? Their kid in a body bag, or his legs blown off, or his brain scrambled? There’s no easy answer. It’s a goddamn bitch of a quagmire.”

Lady Bird offers you a sympathetic smirk. Sorry about all this unpleasantness, she means. When he gets himself worked up, I can’t stop him. But you find yourself feeling sorry for President Johnson. It will be difficult for him to learn how to fade into disgraced obscurity after once being so omnipotent, so beloved. Reinvention hurts like hell: fevers raging, bones mending, healing flesh that itches so ferociously you want to claw it off.

LBJ gives Lady Bird a look, quick but meaningful. She acquiesces. This has happened a thousand times before. “It was so nice talking to you, dear,” she tells you, then crosses the living room to pay her respects to Alicent.

The president steps closer, looming, towering. The Johnson Treatment?? you think, but no; he isn’t trying to intimidate you. He’s just curious.

“Do you know what Aemond’s plan is for ‘Nam?” LBJ asks, eyes urgent, voice low. “I’m sure he has one. He’s sworn to end the draft as soon as he gets into office, but how is he going to make sure the South Vietnamese can fend off the North themselves? We’re trying to train the bastards, but if we left they’d fold in months. It would be the first war the U.S. ever lost. Does he understand that?”

“He doesn’t really discuss it with me.” That’s true; you know his policies, but only because they are a constant subject of conversation within the family, something you all breathe like oxygen.

“We can’t let Nixon win,” LBJ continues. “It’s mass suicide to leave the country in his hands. The man can’t hold his liquor anymore, getting robbed by Kennedy in ’60 broke something in him. He gets sloshed and shoves his aids around, makes up conspiracies in his head. He’s a paranoid little prick. He’ll surveille the American people. He’ll launch a nuke at Moscow.”

You honestly don’t know what he expects you to say. “I’ll pass the message along to Aemond.”

“People love you, Mrs. Targaryen.” LBJ watching you closely. “Believe it or not, they used to love me too. But I still remember how to play the game. You’re the only reason Aemond is leading the polls in Florida. You can get him other states too. Jack needed Jackie. Aemond needs you. And you’ve had tragedies, and that’s a damn shame. But don’t you miss an opportunity. You take every disappointment, every fucked up cruelty of life and find a way to make it work for you. You pin it to your chest like a goddamn medal. Every single scar makes you look more mortal to those people going to the ballot box in November. You want them to be able to see themselves in you. It helps the mansions and the millions go down smoother.”

“President Johnson!” Aegon says as he saunters over, huge mocking grin. He thumps a closed fist against the Texan’s broad chest; the Secret Service agents standing ten feet away observe this sternly. “How thoughtful of you to be here, taking time out of your busy schedule, squeezing us in between war crimes.”

“The mayor of Trenton,” LBJ jabs.

“The butcher of Saigon.”

Now the president is no longer amused. “You’ve never accomplished anything in your whole damn life, son. Your obituary will be the size of a postage stamp. I’m looking forward to reading it someday soon.” He leaves, rejoining Lady Bird at the opposite end of the room.

You frown at Aegon, disapproving. You’re dressed in a sparkling, royal blue gown that Aemond chose. “That was unnecessary.”

Aegon is wearing an ill-fitting green shirt—half the buttons undone—khaki pants, and tan moccasins. “I just did you a favor.”

“What happened to your new girlfriend? Shouldn’t she be getting railed in your basement right now? Did she have a prior commitment? Did she have a spelling test to study for? Those can be tricky, such complex words. Juvenile. Inappropriate. Infidelity.”

“You know what he brags about?” Aegon says, meaning LBJ. “That he’s fucked more women by accident than John F. Kennedy ever did on purpose.”

“That sounds…logistically challenging.”

“He’s a lech. He’s a freak. He tells everyone on Capitol Hill how big his cock is. He takes it out and swings it around during meetings.”

“And that’s all far less than admirable, but he’s not going to do something like that around me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s not an idiot,” you say impatiently. “He was perfectly civil. And I was getting interesting advice.”

Aegon rolls his eyes, exasperated. “Yeah, okay, I’m sorry I crashed your cute little pep talk with Lyndon Johnson, the most hated man on the planet.”

“I guess you can’t stop Aemond from touching me, so you have to terrorize LBJ instead.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Aegon hisses, and his venom stuns you. And now you’re both trapped: you loosed the arrow, he proved you hit the mark. He’s flushing a deep, mortified red. Your guts are twisting with remorse.

“Aegon, wait, I didn’t mean—”

He whirls and storms off, shoving his way through the crowd. People glare at him as they clutch their glasses and plates, sighing in that What else do you expect from the worthless son? sort of way. You’re still gaping blankly at the place where Aegon stood when Aemond finds you, snakes a hand around the back of your neck, and whispers through the painstakingly-arranged wisps of hair that fall around your ear: “Follow me.”

It’s not a question. It’s a command. You trail him through the living room, into the foyer, and through the front door, not knowing what he wants. Outside the moon is a sliver; the light from the main house makes the stars hard to see. “Aemond, you’ll never believe the conversation I just had with LBJ. He really unloaded, I think the stress is driving him insane. I have to tell you what he said about—”

“Later.” And this is jarring; Aemond doesn’t put anything before strategy. He grabs your hand as he turns into Helaena’s garden, and only then do you understand what he wants. Instinctively, your legs lock up and your feet stop moving. Aemond tugs you onward. He wants it to be like the very first time. He intends to start over with you, the dawning of a new age in the dead of night.

Hidden in the circle of hedges, he takes your face roughly in his hands and kisses you, drinks you down like a vampire, consumes you like wildfire. But your skull echoes with panic. I don’t want him touching me. I don’t want another child with him. “Aemond…”

He doesn’t hear you, or acts like he doesn’t, or mistakes it for a murmur of desire, or chooses to believe it is. He has you down on the grass under the vengeful gaze of Zeus, the fountain splashing, the sounds of the house a low foreign drone. He yanks off your panties, but he doesn’t want you naked like he always did before. He pushes the hem of your shimmering cobalt gown up to your hips and unbuckles his trousers. And you realize as he’s touching you, as he’s easing himself into you: He doesn’t want to have to look at my scar.

You can’t ignore him, you can’t pretend it’s not happening. He’s too big for that. It’s a biting fullness that demands to be felt. So you kiss him back, and knot your fingers in his short hair like you used to, and try to remember the things you always said to him before. And when Aemond is too absorbed to notice, you look away from him, from the statue of Zeus, and peer up into the stone face of Athena instead: the goddess who never married and who knows the answer to every question.

“I love you,” Aemond says when it’s over, marveling at the slopes of your face in the dim ethereal light. “Everything will be right again soon. Everything will be perfect.”

You conjure up a smile and nod like you believe him.

“What did LBJ say?”

“Can I tell you later tonight? After the party, maybe? I just need a few minutes.”

“Of course.” And now Aemond pretends to be patient. He buckles his belt and returns to the main house, his blood coursing with the possibilities only you can make real, his skin damp with your sweat.

For a while—ten minutes, twenty minutes—you lie there on the cool grass wondering what it was like for all those mortals and nymphs, being pinned down by Zeus and then having Hera try to kill them afterwards, raising ill-fated reviled bastards they couldn’t help but love. What is heaven if the realm of the immortals is so cruel? Why does the god of justice seem so immune to it?

When at last you rise and walk back towards the house, you find Mimi at the edge of the garden. She’s on her knees and retching into a rose bush; she’s cut her face on the thorns, but she hasn’t noticed yet. She’s groaning; she seems lost.

You reach for her, gripping her bony shoulders. “Mimi, here, let’s get you upstairs…”

“No,” she blubbers, tears streaming down her scratched cheeks. “Just go away. Leave me.”

“Mimi—”

“No!” she roars, a mournful hemorrhage as she slaps your hands until you release her.

“You don’t have to be this way,” you tell her, distraught. “You can give up drinking. We’ll help you, me and Fosco and Ludwika. You can start over. You can be healthy and present again, you can live a real life.”

Mimi stares up at you, her grey eyes glassy and bloodshot but with a vicious, piercing honesty. “My husband hates me. My kids don’t know I exist. What the hell do I have to be sober for?”

You weren’t expecting this. You don’t know what to say. “We can help make the world better.”

“The world would be better without me in it.”

Then Mimi curls up on the grass under the rose bush, and stays there until you return with Fosco to drag her upstairs to her empty bed.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next afternoon, you’re lying on a lounge chair by the pool. Tomorrow the family will leave Asteria and embark upon a vigorous campaign schedule that will continue, with very few breaks, until Election Day on Tuesday, November 5th. The children are splashing and shrieking in the pool with Fosco, but you aren’t looking at them. You’re staring across the sun-drenched emerald lawn at the Atlantic Ocean. You’re envisioning all the bones and splinters of sunken ships that must litter the silt of the abyss; you’re thinking that it’s a graveyard with no headstones, no memory. Your swimsuit is a red one-piece. Your eyes are shielded by large black Ray Bans aviator sunglasses. Your gaze flicks up to the cloudless blue sky, where all the stars and planets are invisible.

Jupiter has nearly a hundred moons; the largest four were discovered by Galileo in 1610. Europa is a smooth white cosmic marble with a crust of ice, beautiful, immaculate. Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system and the only satellite with its own magnetic field, is rumored to have a vast underground saltwater ocean that may contain life. Callisto is dark and indomitable, riddled with impact craters; because of her dynamic atmosphere and location beyond Jupiter’s radiation belts, she is considered the best location for possible future crewed missions to the Jovian system. But Io is a wasteland. She has no water and no oxygen. Her only children are 400 active volcanoes, sulfur plumes and lava flows, mountains of silicate rock higher than Mount Everest, cataclysmic earthquakes as her crust slips around on a mantle of magma. Her daily radiation levels are 36 times the lethal limit for humans. If Hades had a home in our corner of the galaxy, it would be Io. She glows ruby and gold with barren apocalyptic fury. You can feel yourself turning poisonous like she is. You can feel your skin splitting open as the lava spills out.

Aegon trots out of the house—red swim trunks, cheap red plastic sunglasses, no shirt, a beach towel slung around his neck, flip flops—and kicks your chair. “Get up. We’re going sailing.”

“I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Great, because I’m not asking you to talk. I’m telling you to get in my boat.”

You don’t reply. You don’t think you can without your voice cracking. Aegon crouches down beside your chair and pushes your sunglasses up into your Brigitte Bardot-inspired hair so he can see your face. Your eyes are pink, wet, desperately sad. Deep troubled grooves appear in his forehead as he studies you. Gently, wordlessly, he pats your cheek twice and lowers your sunglasses back over your eyes. Then he stands up again and offers you his hand.

“Let’s go,” Aegon says, softly this time. You take his hand and follow him down to the boathouse.

Five vessels are currently kept there. Aegon’s sailboat is a 25-foot Wianno Senior sloop, just roomy enough for a few passengers. He’s had it since long before you married into the Targaryen family. It is white with hand-painted gold accents; the name Sunfyre adorns the stern. He unmoors the boat, pushes it out into the open water, and raises the sails.

You glide eastbound over the glittering crests of waves, slowly at first, then faster as the sails catch the wind. Aegon has one hand on the rudder, the other grasping the ropes. And the farther you get from shore, the smaller Asteria seems, and the Targaryen family, and the presidential election, and the United States itself. Now all that exists is this boat: you, Aegon, the squawking gulls, the school of mackerel, the ocean. The sun beats down; the breeze rips strands of your hair free. The battery-powered record player is blasting White Room by Cream. When you are far enough from land that no journalists would be able to get a photo, Aegon takes two joints and his Zippo out of the pocket of his swim trunks. He puts both joints between his lips, lights them, and passes you one. Then he stretches out beside you on the deck, gazing up at the September sky.

You ask as your muscles unravel and your thoughts turn light and easy to share: “Why did you bring me out here?”

“So you can drown yourself,” Aegon says, and you both laugh. “Nah. I used to go sailing all the time when I was a teenager. It always made me feel better. It was the only place where I could really be alone.”

You consider the math. “Wow. You haven’t been a teenager since before I was in kindergarten.”

“It’s weird to think about. You don’t seem that young.”

“Thanks, I guess. You don’t seem that old.”

“Maybe we’re meeting in the middle.” He inhales deeply and then exhales in a rush of smoke. “What do you think, should I get an earring?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It might shock Otto so bad it kills him.”

“I’ll get two.” And then Aegon says: “It’s not cool for you to mock me.”

You are dismayed; you didn’t mean to hurt him. “I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were. You were mocking me. You mocked me about the receipt under my ashtray, and then you mocked me again last night. I’m up for a lot of things, but I can’t handle that. Okay?”

“Okay.” You turn your head so you can see him: shaggy blonde hair, stubble, perpetual sunburn, the softness of his belly and his chest, flesh you long to vanish into like rain through parched earth. “Aegon?”

He looks over at you. “Io?”

“I don’t want Aemond to touch me either.”

He’s surprised; not by what you feel, but because you’ve said it aloud, a treason like Prometheus giving mankind the gift of fire. “What are we gonna do about it?”

If you were the goddess of wisdom, maybe you’d know.

[onetimemacaroni]

Something that really bugs me about Goncharov is I feel like not enough people consider the reason why the movie was made. In the 1970s Italy had the largest communist party in Europe that wasn’t part of the Soviet Bloc, and there always was a very real possibility of Italy becoming a communist state. Scorsese is American-Italian and has Italian citizenship, he would’ve known this when making the movie.

Goncharov takes on a distinct Anti-communist and anti-collectivist tone for a reason, and it’s because Scorsese was aware of the immense amount of social and political turmoil that communism would bring to southern Italy. I mean, the film opens with Goncharov shooting the Soviet Ambassador on his way to Rome, which eventually leads to the Italian army imposing the crackdown on Naples and Goncharov’s death at the end of the film, but the reasoning behind the killing is very apparent: if Italy became a socialist nation, Goncharov and other members of Italy’s mafias would be ruined both economically and socially. Socialist tendencies like collectivism and the state monopoly on politics would crush Mafia culture and power, which is centered around corruption and the ability for individuals to circumvent the system via political leverage. Most Mafias are also very conservative politically, because conservatives and other right leaning groups give Mafia’s more leeway and control. Communism, which is the most left leaning political ideology there is, wouldn’t. This would utterly ruin Goncharov and his gang and they would rather die (and eventually do) than see it happen.

The climax of the film sees the Italian army and Naples police engage in a brief but brutal struggle overnight against the various Naples mafia groups for control over the city, where the Mafia hoist the flag of the independent kingdom of the two sicilies, which ruled from Naples before being annexed by the Kingdom of Italy. This is the Mafia re-asserting political control over Naples, because for most of the film the Gangs and families are fighting amongst one another while their political power is being stripped away. The Mafia (& by extension, Goncharov) do this because they are fighting to keep Communism out of their home. There’s a reason why there’s no villain in these final scenes, just endless waves of faceless & nameless Italian soldiers dressed in red shirts. They represent both collectivist communists that do not have any concept of the individual self, and the members of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s (who was a socialist himself) expedition of a thousand, which was a military invasion of the Two Sicilies that led to the dissolution of the Two Sicilies as an independent nation. The members of this expedition wore red shirts. Meanwhile, the various Mafia groups all wear mismatched uniforms, and we’ve spent the last 2 hours of the film getting to know them, and each of them has their own death scenes, representing their fall to the ideology the movie portrays as fundamentally incompatible with who we’ve seen these people to be.

I see a lot of people complaining about the fact that Goncharov takes on these individualist, anti-communist tones and isn’t the uwu sad gay boy soft story they want, but for crying out loud the tagline of the film is “Winter comes to Naples” (in reference to the Soviet Union, which is in cold climate) and the most famous poster shows the Kremlin, and the film is from 1973 and was written by an American, of course the film is going to be anti-communist. I just wish people would stop and try and understand the thing that the film literally shoves in your face, which is that communism is incompatible with the ways in which some people live their lives and they would rather die than be socialist. Also the North-South divide in Italy is fucked and it prevents a lot of things from happening in the country.

[anastasiareyreed]

Ukraine is under daily russian shelling, people are being killed and cities are being destroyed by russia, while Ukraine's borders are blocked by Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Black Sea. Ukraine is surrounded from all sides, the authorities of neighboring countries are doing nothing to free the borders for the transportation of humanitarian and military aid to Ukrainians.

what is humanity turning into? the world is helping russia to commit genocides in Ukraine and Syria and wage the largest war in Europe since World War II.

it is very sad that the Poles, Slovaks and Hungarians don't understand that they will not be able to block russian tanks the way they block Ukrainian trucks with military and humanitarian supplies.

what is happening in Ukraine and Syria is a consequence of the world's passivity to the criminal terrorist actions of russia. the world must unite to defeat evil.

the citizens of Poland, Slovakia and Hungary should demand from their authorities to do everything to free the borders if they don't want the war to come to their homes one day.

Ukraine is fighting against the second army of the world. terrorist russian army. remember that only the victory of Ukraine can ensure the peaceful life of the whole world, because only by defeating russia we will show that evil will always be punished and destroyed.

[technofeudalism]

this article is posted on /r/politics on reddit. the comments are talking about how this is because of Hegseth and Trump. this is a picture perfect example of what i am talking about. this delusion has got to stop.

Published 7:56 AM EDT, Wed March 31, 2021

Deep in the North Carolina woods, the men trained at night for what they called “seek out and destroy” missions. They fought each other in hand-to-hand combat, running drills at a bucolic encampment near Fort Bragg. Glenn Miller, an ex-Green Beret, ran the place. Wiry and mustached, the Vietnam veteran paced its grounds in fatigues. A smooth talker, Miller used his contacts in the Army to draw dozens of active-duty military personnel from Bragg, one of the largest US military installations in the world, and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. It was the early 1980s and the Vietnam War was over.  But Miller tapped into a burning resentment within some soldiers, not only worn down from battles overseas but from ostracization back home. Once Miller had their ear, he’d spit fire about how Blacks and Jews were the downfall of the country – a nation weakened by liberalism and the Civil Rights Movement that threatened the White man’s perch. Come join my “special forces,” he appealed to his recruits, claiming that together they would create an all-White utopia by waging a race war and toppling the US government.   A former Marine testified that he obtained a staggering cache of military weapons – including 200 pounds of C4 explosives, TNT and ammunition – from active-duty soldiers at Fort Bragg for Miller’s White Patriot Party. Undercover agents ultimately infiltrated his group, Miller was sentenced to prison and his grand plans for a race war imploded. But the fact that Miller’s ploy advanced as far as it did shocked Department of Defense leaders and revealed to them a painful truth: White supremacists and anti-government extremists had found a home within its ranks. Decades later, they still do. Since Miller’s scheme, cases of service members with racist and extremist ideologies have time and again confronted the Pentagon. Over the years, leaders have taken intermittent stabs at the problem – providing training on recognizing extremist tattoos, for example. But they have mainly relied on – and repeatedly revised – a Defense Department policy intended to prohibit extremism in the ranks, a policy that has not led to meaningful change, experts said. “Have the policies worked? No. What have we done about it? I’d say not much,” said Ret. Army Lt. General Mark Hertling, a 37-year veteran who served as the commanding general of the Army in Europe. “So, here we are again.”

if we continue to refuse to acknowledge the history of this country honestly while acting like Trump is the root of all of the problems, we are going to end up in darker and darker places until there is simply no more light.

[whencyclopedia]

D-Day was 80 years ago today!

D-Day was the first day of Operation Overlord, the Allied attack on German-occupied Western Europe, which began on the beaches of Normandy, France, on 6 June 1944. Primarily US, British, and Canadian troops, with naval and air support, attacked five beaches, landing some 135,000 men in a day widely considered to have changed history.

Where to Attack?

Operation Overlord, which sought to attack occupied Europe starting with an amphibious landing in northwest France, Belgium, or the Netherlands, had been in the planning since January 1943 when Allied leaders agreed to the build-up of British and US troops in Britain. The Allies were unsure where exactly to land, but the requirements were simple: as short a sea crossing as possible and within range of Allied fighter cover. A third requirement was to have a major port nearby, which could be captured and used to land further troops and equipment. The best fit seemed to be Normandy with its flat beaches and port of Cherbourg.

The Atlantic Wall

The leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), called his western line of defences the Atlantic Wall. It had gaps but presented an impressive string of fortifications along the coast from Spain to the Netherlands. Construction of gun batteries, bunker networks, and observation posts began as early as 1942.

Many of the German divisions were not crack troops but inexperienced soldiers, who were spending more time building defences than in vital military training. There was a woeful lack of materials for Hitler's dream of the Atlantic Wall, really something of a Swiss cheese, with some strong areas, but many holes. The German army was not provided with sufficient mines, explosives, concrete, or labourers to better protect the coastline. At least one-third of gun positions still had no casement protection. Many installations were not bomb-proof. Another serious weakness was naval and air support. The navy had a mere 4 destroyers available and 39 E-boats while the Luftwaffe's (German Air Force's) contribution was equally paltry with only 319 planes operating in the skies when the invasion took place (rising to 1,000) in the second week.

Neptune to Normandy

Preparation for Overlord occurred right through April and May of 1940 when the Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Air Force (USAAF) relentlessly bombed communications and transportation systems in France as well as coastal defences, airfields, industrial targets, and military installations. In total, over 200,000 missions were conducted to weaken as much as possible the Nazi defences ready for the infantry troops about to be involved in the largest troop movement in history. The French Resistance also played their part in preparing the way by blowing up train lines and communication systems that would ensure the defenders could not effectively respond to the invasion.

The Allied fleet of 7,000 vessels of all kinds departed from English south-coast ports such as Falmouth, Plymouth, Poole, Portsmouth, Newhaven, and Harwich. In an operation code-named Neptune, the ships gathered off Portsmouth in a zone called 'Piccadilly Circus' after the busy London road junction, and then made their way to Normandy and the assault areas. At the same time, gliders and planes flew to the Cherbourg peninsula in the west and Ouistreham on the eastern edge of the planned landing. Paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st US Airborne Division attacked in the west to try and cut off Cherbourg. At the eastern extremity of the operation, paratroopers of the 6th British Airborne Division aimed to secure Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal. Other tasks of the paratrooper and glider units were to destroy bridges to impede the enemy, hold others necessary for the invasion to progress, destroy gun emplacements, secure the beach exits, and protect the invasion's flanks.

The Beaches

The amphibious attack was set for dawn on 5 June, daylight being a requirement for the necessary air and naval support. Bad weather led to a postponement of 24 hours. Shortly after midnight, the first waves of 23,000 British and American paratroopers landed in France. US paratroopers who dropped near Ste-Mère-Église ensured this was the first French town to be liberated. From 3.00 a.m., air and naval bombardment of the Normandy coast began, letting up just 15 minutes before the first infantry troops landed on the beaches at 6.30 a.m.

The beaches selected for the landings were divided into zones, each given a code name. US troops attacked two, the British army another two, and the Canadian force the fifth. These beaches and the troops assigned to them were (west to east):

Utah Beach - 4th US Infantry Division, 7th US Corps (1st US Army commanded by Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley)

Omaha Beach - 1st US Infantry Division, 5th US Corps (1st US Army)

Gold Beach - 50th British Infantry Division, 30th British Corps (2nd British Army commanded by Lieutenant-General Miles C. Dempsey)

Juno Beach - 3rd Canadian Infantry Division (2nd British Army)

Sword Beach - 3rd British Infantry Division, 1st British Corps (2nd British Army)

In addition, the 2nd US Rangers were to attack the well-defended Pointe du Hoc between Utah and Omaha (although it turned out the guns had never been installed there), while Royal Marine Commando units attacked targets on Gold, Juno, and Sword.

The RAF and USAAF continued to protect the invasion fleet and ensure any enemy ground-based counterattack faced air attack. As the Allies could put in the air 12,000 aircraft at this stage, the Luftwaffe's aerial fightback was pitifully inadequate. On D-Day alone, the Allied air forces flew 15,000 sorties compared to the Luftwaffe's 100. Not one single Allied aircraft was lost to enemy fire on D-Day.

Packing Normandy

By the end of D-Day, 135,000 men had been landed and relatively few casualties were sustained – some 5,000 men. There were some serious cock-ups, notably the hopeless dispersal of the paratroopers (only 4% of the US 101st Air Division were dropped at the intended target zone), but, if anything, this caused even more confusion amongst the German commanders on the ground as it seemed the Allies were attacking everywhere. The defenders, overcoming the initial handicap that many area commanders were at a strategy conference in Rennes, did eventually organise themselves into a counterattack, deploying their reserves and pulling in troops from other parts of France. This is when French resistance and aerial bombing became crucial, seriously hampering the German army's effort to reinforce the coastal areas of Normandy. The German field commanders wanted to withdraw, regroup and attack in force, but, on 11 June, Hitler ordered there be no retreat.

All of the original invasion beaches were linked as the Allies pushed inland. To aid thousands more troops following up the initial attack, two artificial floating harbours were built. Code-named Mulberries, these were located off Omaha and Gold beaches and were built from 200 prefabricated units. A storm hit on 20 June, destroying the Mulberry Harbour off Omaha, but the one at Gold was still serviceable, allowing some 11,000 tons of material to be landed every 24 hours. The other problem for the Allies was how to supply thousands of vehicles with the fuel they needed. The short-term solution, code-named Tombola, was to have tanker ships pump fuel to storage tanks on shore, using buoyed pipelines. The longer-term solution was code-named Pluto (Pipeline Under the Ocean), a pipeline under the Channel to Cherbourg through which fuel could be pumped. Cherbourg was taken on 27 June and was used to ship in more troops and supplies, although the defenders had sunk ships to block the harbour and these took some six weeks to fully clear.

Operation Neptune officially ended on 30 June. Around 850,000 men, 148,800 vehicles, and 570,000 tons of stores and equipment had been landed since D-Day. The next phase of Overlord was to push the occupiers out of Normandy. The defenders were not only having logistical problems but also command issues as Hitler replaced Rundstedt with Field Marshal Günther von Kluge (1882-1944) and formally warned Rommel not to be defeatist.

Aftermath: The Normandy Campaign

By early July, the Allies, having not got further south than around 20 miles (32 km) from the coast, were behind schedule. Poor weather was limiting the role of aircraft in the advance. The German forces were using the countryside well to slow the Allied advance – countless small fields enclosed with trees and hedgerows which limited visibility and made tanks vulnerable to ambush. Caen was staunchly defended and required Allied bombers to obliterate the city on 7 July. The German troops withdrew but still held one-half of the city. The Allies lost around 500 tanks trying to take Caen, vital to any push further south. The advance to Avranches was equally tortuous, and 40,000 men were lost in two weeks of heavy fighting. By the end of July, the Allies had taken Caen, Avranches, and the vital bridge at Pontaubault. From 1 August, Patton and the US Third Army were punching south at the western side of the offensive, and the Brittany ports of St. Malo, Brest, and Lorient were taken.

German forces counterattacked to try and retake Avranches, but Allied air power was decisive. Through August 1940, the Allies swept southwards to the Loire River from St. Nazaire to Orléans. On 15 August, a major landing took place on the southwest coast of France (French Riviera landings) and Marseille was captured on 28 August. In northern France, the Allies captured enough territory, ports, and airfields for a massive increase in material support. On 25 August, Paris was liberated. By mid-September, the Allied troops in the north and south of France had linked up and the campaign front expanded eastwards pushing on to the borders of Germany. There would be setbacks like Operation Market Garden of September and a brief fightback at the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, but the direction of the war and ultimate Allied victory was now a question of not if but when.

[todaysbat]

round one: american versus eurasian

Greater Horseshoe Bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) - This species of bat can be found in Europe, Northern Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Asia. It is the largest of the horseshoe bats in Europe. Its name comes from its distinctive horseshoe shaped noseleaf.

Evening Bat (Nycticeius humeralis) - This species of bat is often mistaken for juvenile Big Brown Bats due to their similar appearance yet smaller size. These bats do not spend time in caves, therefore they haven't been negatively impacted by White Nose Syndrome like other bat species in North America.

image description: a closeup of a brown bat showing its uniquely shaped noseleaf image source: Charles J Sharp

image description: a brown bat being held up for the camera with one wing outstretched by a researcher wearing black gloves image source: US Army

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2025

Monday, January 27th, is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration and death camp located in Poland. On this day in 1945, Soviet troops from the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front opened the gates of Auschwitz and witnessed the horrors that had occurred there.

Memorial Day commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, during which one-third of the Jewish population—six million Jews—along with millions of others, were murdered by the Nazis, and victims of other genocides. This is a significant commemorative event held at the former concentration camp on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This site was established by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II.

The music of Schindler’s List, composed by John Williams, is made unforgettable by Itzhak Perlman’s violin. Born in Tel Aviv in 1945, Perlman was already a renowned musician when, at the age of 48, he performed the iconic violin solos for the 1993 soundtrack. The theme music from Schindler's List by John Williams is often played on Holocaust Memorial Day and Remembrance Day.

This memory must be passed on to future generations. For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. We remember and we must never forget.

Never again! 🕯️

#InternationalHolocaust #RemembranceDay #80thanniversary #liberationAuschwitzBirkenau #schindlerslisttheme #johnwilliamsmusic #storybehindthemusic #HolocaustMemorialDay #Filmsguild #Schindler'sList #ItzhakPerlman #LiamNeeson #NeverForget #NeverAgain#WWII

🎥 Schindler’s List

Posted 27th January 2025

@ aria-diary This is not forgotten because was part of the Generalplan Ost - GPO (General Plan East), a plan devised by Nazi leaders in 1941--1942 to resettle Eastern Europe with Germans, and move "inferior" groups within the Nazis' domain.

Nazi Germany's plan for extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Eastern European Jews, Slavs, and other peoples of Eastern Europe categorised as "Untermenschen" (refer non-Aryan people they deemed as inferior) Nazi ideology - was mainly used against "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Belarusians, Czechs, Ukrainians, Russians and Serbs). The territories involved included the occupied Poland, the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), Belorussia, and parts of Russia and Ukraine.

During the war, many of the Nazis' activities were carried out with General Plan Ost in mind. They massacred millions of Jews in Eastern Europe,in addition to millions of Soviet prisoners of war. Millions more were sent to Germany to do forced labour.

The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7, passed in 2005, designated January 27th as the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

This date marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where more than 7,000 prisoners were freed. It is estimated that approximately 1.1 million people perished at Auschwitz during its five years of operation.

The notorious “arbeit macht frei” "work makes you free" sign at Auschwitz

@ aria-diary, I understand your concern. The Holocaust is referred to as the Shoah in Hebrew. (Shoah “calamity” is the term that is preferred by the Jewish community, because ”Holocaust” means “sacrifice by fire”) the systematic murder of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime and their allies during World War II. This plan was known to the Nazis as "The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem" and took place between 1941 and 1945. The Final Solution marked the tragic culmination of the Holocaust.

Auschwitz's liberation is significant because it was the centre of the Nazi campaign to eradicate Europe's Jewish population through extermination camps, whose primary purpose was the mass murder of Jews. Nearly one million of those who perished there were killed by poison gas and their bodies were incinerated in crematoria. The Jewish people were the largest group persecuted by the Nazis, targeted based on racial and political grounds.

There were prisoners in Auschwitz from almost every country in Europe They included Albanians, Belgians, Danes, Dutch, Greeks, Hungarians, Italians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Luxembourgers, Norwegians, Romanians, Slovaks, Spaniards, and Swiss, also died there and were targeted for different reasons.

80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the full impact of these events is still not completely understood. The post-war public often seeks to move on from the trauma of war, and the media tends to favour stories that can be celebrated. However, it is essential to remember the Holocaust context "Not forgiving Not forgetting." This serves as a way to honour and remember the victims of the Holocaust.

[deadpresidents]

Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. -- the eldest son of the 26th President of the United States -- was the only Allied general to land on the beaches of Normandy with the first wave of soldiers during the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944.

Crippled by arthritis, hobbled by old combat wounds from the First World War, and forced to use a cane as he landed on Utah Beach with the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division on D-Day, General Roosevelt was the oldest man to take part in the opening stage of the invasion. He had made three requests to personally lead the assault on Utah Beach before finally being given command despite concerns about his health. During the confusion and chaos of the largest seaborne assault in human history, Roosevelt realized that tidal currents had carried nearly two dozen of the initial landing craft to the wrong location and was said to have announced, "We'll start the war from right here!"

For his actions on D-Day, General Roosevelt would be awarded the country's highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor, on September 21, 1944:

For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty of 6 June 1944, in France. After two verbal requests to accompany the leading assault elements in the Normandy invasion had been denied, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt's written request for this mission was approved and he landed with the first wave of the forces assaulting the enemy-held beaches. He repeatedly led groups from the beach, over the seawall and established them inland. His valor, courage, and presence in the very front of the attack and his complete unconcern at being under heavy fire inspired the troops to heights of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. Although the enemy had the beach under constant direct fire, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt moved from one locality to another, rallying men around him, directed and personally led them against the enemy. Under his seasoned, precise, calm, and unfaltering leadership, assault troops reduced beach strong points and rapidly moved inland with minimum casualties. He thus contributed substantially to the successful establishment of the beachhead in France.

However, the Medal of Honor would be awarded to Theodore Roosevelt Jr. posthumously. On July 12, 1944, thirty-six days after landing in Normandy on D-Day, General Roosevelt died in his sleep at the age of 56 after suffering a heart attack. In a letter to his wife, General George S. Patton would write, "Teddy R[oosevelt] died in his sleep last night. He had made three landings with the leading wave -- such is fate...He was one of the bravest men I ever knew." General Patton would join General Omar Bradley and numerous other generals as honorary pallbearers at Roosevelt's funeral. Roosevelt was buried at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial along with thousands of his fellow American soldiers who died in Europe during World War II. He is buried next to his youngest brother, Quentin Roosevelt, who was killed in action in 1918 after being shot down over France during World War I.

[mariacallous]

MYKOLAIV, UKRAINE—Kateryna Nahorna is getting ready to find trouble.

Part of an all-female team of dog handlers, the 22-year-old is training Ukraine’s technical survey dogs—Belgian Malinois that have learned to sniff out explosives.

The job is huge. Ukraine is now estimated to be the most heavily mined country on Earth. Deminers must survey every area that saw sustained fighting for unexploded mines, missiles, artillery shells, bombs, and a host of other ordnance—almost 25 percent of the country, according to government estimates.

The dogs can cover 1,500 square meters a day. In contrast, human deminers cover 10 square meters a day on average—by quickly narrowing down the areas that manual deminers will need to tackle, the dogs save valuable time.

“This job allows me to be a warrior for my country … but without having to kill anyone,” said Nahorna. “Our men protect us at war, and we do this to protect them at home.”

A highly practical reason drove the women’s recruitment. The specialized dog training was done in Cambodia, by the nonprofit Apopo, and military-aged men are currently not allowed to leave Ukraine.

War has shaken up gender dynamics in the Ukrainian economy, with women taking up jobs traditionally held by men, such as driving trucks or welding. Now, as mobilization ramps up once more, women are becoming increasingly important in roles that are critical for national security.

In Mykolaiv, in the industrial east, Nahorna and her dogs will soon take on one of the biggest targets of Russia’s military strategy when they start to demine the country’s energy infrastructure. Here, women have been stepping in to work in large numbers in steel mills, factories, and railways serving the front line.

It’s a big shift for Ukraine. Before the war, only 48 percent of women over age 15 took part in the workforce — one of the lowest rates in Europe. War has made collecting data on the gender composition of the workforce impossible, but today, 50,000 women serve in the Ukrainian army, compared to 30,000 before the war.

The catalyst came in 2017, years before the current war began. As conflict escalated with Russia in Crimea, the Ukrainian government overturned a Soviet-era law that had previously banned women from 450 occupations.

But obstacles still remain; for example, women are not allowed jobs the government deems too physically demanding. These barriers continue to be chipped away—most recently, women have been cleared to work in underground mines, something they were prevented from doing before.

Viktoriia Avramchuk never thought she would follow her father and husband into the coal mines for DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company.

Her lifelong fear of elevators was a big factor—but there was also the fact that it was illegal for women to work underground.

Her previous job working as a nanny in a local kindergarten disappeared overnight when schools were forced to close at the beginning of the war. After a year of being unemployed, she found that she had few other options.

“I would never have taken the job if I could have afforded not to,” Avramchuk said from her home in Pokrovsk. “But I also wanted to do something to help secure victory, and this was needed.”

The demining work that Nahorna does is urgent in part because more than 55 percent of the country is farmed.

Often called “the breadbasket of Europe,” Ukraine is one of the world’s top exporters of grain. The U.K.-based Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which has been advising the Ukrainian government on demining technology, estimates that landmines have resulted in annual GDP losses of $11 billion.

“Farmers feel the pressure to plow, which is dangerous,” said Jon Cunliffe, the Ukraine country director of Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a British nonprofit. “So we need to do as much surveying as possible to reduce the size of the possible contamination.”

The dogs can quickly clear an area of heavy vegetation, which greatly speeds up the process of releasing noncontaminated lands back to farmers. If the area is found to be unsafe, human deminers step in to clear the field manually.

“I’m not brave enough to be on the front line,” 29-year-old Iryna Manzevyta said as she slowly and diligently hovered a metal detector over a patch of farmland. “But I had to do something to help, and this seemed like a good alternative to make a difference.”

Groups like MAG are increasingly targeting women. With skilled male deminers regularly being picked up by military recruiters, recruiting women reduces the chances that expensive and time-consuming training will be invested in people who could be drafted to the front line at a moment’s notice. The demining work is expected to take decades, and women, unlike men, cannot be conscripted in Ukraine.

This urgency to recruit women is accelerating a gender shift already underway in the demining sector. Organizations like MAG have looked to recruit women as a way to empower them in local communities. Demining was once a heavily male-dominated sector, but women now make up 30 percent of workers in Vietnam and Colombia, around 40 percent in Cambodia, and more than 50 percent in Myanmar.

In Ukraine, the idea is to make demining an enterprise with “very little expat footprint,” and Cunliffe said that will only be possible by recruiting more women.

“We should not be here in 10 years. Not like in Iraq or South Sudan, where we have been for 30 years, or Vietnam, or Laos,” Cunliffe said. “It’s common sense that we bring in as many women as we can to do that. In five to 10 years, a lot of these women are going to end up being technical field managers, the jobs that are currently being done by old former British military guys, and it will change the face of demining worldwide because they can take those skills across the world.”

Manzevyta is one of the many women whose new job has turned her family dynamics on their head. She has handed over her previous life, running a small online beauty retail site, to her husband, who—though he gripes—stays at home while she is out demining.

“Life is completely different now,” she said, giggling. “I had to teach him how to use the washing machine, which settings to use, everything around the house because I’m mostly absent now.”

More seriously, Manzevyta said that the war has likely changed many women’s career trajectories.

“I can’t imagine people who have done work like this going back and working as florists once the war is over,” she laughed.