#National Liberation Day

[denimbex1986]

'What can we learn from a country’s choice of when – or whether – to screen World War II drama Oppenheimer? Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic was released in the US just after the anniversary of the Trinity test, the culmination of the Manhattan Project on July 16, 1945, that paved the way for the postwar Pax Americana. In South Korea, it will hit screens on National Liberation Day, which marks Tokyo’s Aug 15 surrender in World War II – something the bomb is credited with. And in Japan itself, which next month will see 78 years since Little Boy and Fat Man were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, the movie isn’t scheduled for release at all yet. That might reflect the country’s complicated views on the war.

In the US, the movie has reopened the debate on the bomb and whether it was a war crime. These revisionist discussions, which are based on what we know now, aren’t especially helpful. Contrary to some reports, Oppenheimer has absolutely not been banned in Japan – unlike some of its Asian neighbours, the country rarely takes such steps, even for politically insensitive content. But the movie’s distributor has yet to schedule a release date; assuming one comes at all, it will be some time after the Aug 6 and 9 memorials. Even on those anniversaries, Japan tends to avoid discussion of the rights and wrongs. That’s not to say its citizens have a uniform position – far from it. A 2015 poll by public broadcaster NHK found that 40% of the population agreed with the proposition that the US had no choice but to use the bomb. Interestingly, in Hiroshima, that number was 44% – higher than the country at large – and topped those who called it “unforgivable".

But if and when local audiences can have their say on the movie, perhaps it may trigger a discussion instead on Japan’s ambiguous, if not contradictory, stance toward nuclear weapons – a technology it publicly opposes, but simultaneously depends on for its survival in an increasingly hostile neighbourhood. As the country prepares for a historic shift in defense spending, the time for that debate is now. Postwar reality One rather typical headline from Kyodo News on Oppenheimer’s US premiere reads, “Biography of the ‘Father of the Atomic Bomb’ Released; Doesn’t Depict the Devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki". It’s a common sentiment on both sides of the Pacific, but Japan’s own depictions also often lack such historical context, tending instead toward sentimental looks at the rank-and-file caught up in events. The horrors both visited on the country and those Japan committed elsewhere are treated more akin to a natural disaster. Not retreading old arguments might be wiser, of course. While the US is still chewing over decision to use the bomb back then, Japan has largely accepted the postwar reality. In a recent survey, a record 90% praised the US-Japan alliance for helping preserve the country’s peace and safety, a figure that has steadily climbed over the past 40 years.

Last year, Tokyo came close to starting a serious debate on the appropriateness of its three non-nuclear principles, under which the government is committed to not possessing, producing or permitting atomic weapons to be brought into the country. Early in 2022, Shinzo Abe suggested that it was time to discuss hosting US nukes. At the time, Abe was a senior voice in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, one who many then thought could have had a third spin as prime minister. “We should not regard a discussion on how the world’s security is maintained as taboo,” Abe said at the time, referencing a commotion caused in 2006 when then-LDP policy chief Shoichi Nakagawa suggested discussing the building of atomic weapons in response to North Korea’s first nuclear test. Bemusing as it may seem now, concerns ran high at the time over Japanese remilitarisation rather than the rapidly strengthening China, and the comments caused international alarm.

A few years earlier, a deputy vice-minister of defense was forced to resign after making similar remarks. The spectre of a remilitarised Tokyo Many divisions in Japan have moved on since, but this debate isn’t one of them. The idea of weapon sharing was flatly rejected by prime minister Fumio Kishida, whose family hails from Hiroshima and is a lifelong denuclearisation advocate. Abe was assassinated before he could capitalise on Kishida’s relatively weak public support. Lacking a significant voice, the discussion has never really launched. In May, the prime minister took the Group of Seven leaders to view the bomb’s aftermath in Hiroshima, with the premiers pledging to work toward “an ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons with undiminished security for all". Contrast that with the alarmism of former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who the same month said Japan was “heading towards becoming a nuclear power in five years". This is a common refrain of Kissinger’s, who for decades fretted over the spectre of a remilitarised Tokyo and pushed for the US to move closer to China to restrain it. Kishida will have no such plans. But he should not be so quick to dismiss the discussion. In a world where conflict between the US and China seems increasingly possible, Japan must not be afraid to have real talks about how it would respond, including what part atomic weapons would play — and what might happen if the US nuclear umbrella (perhaps in the hands of a less reliable White House) was no longer extended over the country.

Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has powerfully demonstrated that at least some of the post-Cold War assumptions were wrong; Japan can’t afford to be left in a decades-old debate when conflict around Taiwan seems closer than ever. Oppenheimer may have revived an unhelpful reinterpretation of WWII. But assuming viewers in Japan get a chance to experience it, it might trigger a more useful discourse in the country that experienced the horrors firsthand.'

[nico419]

It's my country's National Liberation Day

I wish we could expel the president from our country to celebrate this day because he is fu€king useless assho|e who doesn't values my country and I'm sure he wants give my country to the country that colonized my country

[dragonbonez]

And what’s the first thing I do after finishing finals? Indulge in a little meme redraw of my favorites. 💚💛

Honestly Aang is going to be right there with Toph for these mugshots. The guy went to prison and made friends with all the other prisoners like it was nothing! That and I’m sure whatever they did was probably Toph’s idea and worth it.

[rotzaprachim]

a longer analysis needed maybe but I think we’re giving too much moral credit to white supremacists and white nationalists when we say thing like “it’s just a fight if they hate Jews or Muslims more.” They hate us both and in neither interchangeable nor neatly separable ways, just like how antisemitism and Islamophobia are neither interchangeable nor fully separable and deeply racialized ideologies that often get misunderstood as simply “religious.” What they’re actually doing is making strategic decisions about the political capital they can use. Can someone be radicalized in a given moment against Muslims, or against Jews? What is the best way to advance our movement? Can we push a broad platform of hatred towards jihadi terrorists who are going to invade western society, or get people worked up about the Zionist deep state globalists who control our government from within? What is the most effective way to radicalize someone into not only hatred but the idea entire ethnic and religious groups are at the root of all our social problems and that the nation - or the world - would be better without them? Do not assume innocence. And furthermore, do not assume you are safe from their schema of who the world would be better without, even if they aren’t saying your name, right now

[thedreadvampy]

legitimately insane how to some people, "we should wipe out this ethnic group that we've violently constrained to a ghetto because they're just genetically more violent and dangerous" is a reasonable and justifiable statement but it's Nazi Rhetoric to say something like, "it's bad that Israeli civilians are being killed but acknowledging that as tragic includes acknowledging that the almost daily state-sanctioned murder of civilians by the Israeli government is also tragic and unacceptable"

btw guys speaking of Nazi shit - can we check in, alongside what's been done to Palestinians in the last 75 years, what's the Israeli government's take on the Azerbaijani government's newest round of ethnic cleansing of Armenians? oh are the Israeli government's actions maybe not determined by Jewish identity, but by a commitment to colonial supremacy which puts them on the same page as other violently genocidal states like Azerbaijan, the US, and the UK? god can you Even Imagine?

(framing speaking against Israeli war crimes as inherently antisemitic requires understanding the Israeli state as representing all Jewish people, when it doesn't even represent all Israelis.

framing Israeli war crimes as synonymous with Jewish identity is pretty fucked up if we're being honest. I don't think that controlling water and power and movement for a captive population and shooting children dead for throwing stones is an inherent value of Judaism, any more than I think the torture carried out at Guantanamo Bay is an inherent value of Christianity - in both cases they're atrocities carried out by a far right genocidal government using religious identity as a shield.

Calling statements like "Israel is committing genocide against the people it's displaced" inherently antisemitic is doing more to further the idea that all Jewish people are associated with Israel than saying "the Israeli government is doing war crimes," which is a statement of fact about a country that exists and does war crimes. Is criticism of Israel as a nation often used as cover for antisemitism? Absolutely. Does that mean the Israeli government isn't doing literal war crimes repeatedly, on record, while talking publicly about scrubbing an ethnic group off the map? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh well in the last 48 hours they've definitely cut off water and power to almost 600,000 civilians and allegedly used white phosphorus against civilians so in an extremely factual and unambiguous way yeah man those are Literal War Crimes whoever does them.)

[frc-ambaradan]

Happy April 25th y'all (italians and not)!

Let's always remember on this day that every people and every nation has not only the right, but the DUTY to stand up against oppression and subjugation and to fight for their identity, their culture, their freedom. Always and everywhere.

W il 25 Aprile!

W l'Italia!

"Contestare a un movimento che voglia liberare il proprio Paese da un’occupazione straniera la legittimità del ricorso alle armi significa andare contro le leggi della storia." Bettino Craxi

("To  challenge the legitimacy of armed fight to a movement who wants to free its Country from foreign occupation is to challenge the laws of History".)

[barbieaemond]

O partigiano…

Portami viaaaaa che mi sento di morir

[murderousink23]

05/05/2024 is Dutch Heritage Day 🇨🇦, Liberation Day 🇩🇰, Mother's Day 🇭🇺, Cinco de Mayo 🌎, Orthodox Easter, World Laughter Day 🤣, International Dawn Chorus Day 🌎, Yom HaShoah 🇮🇱, National Cartoonists Day 🇺🇸, National Hoagie Day 🇺🇸, National Totally Chipotle Day 🇺🇸, National Astronaut Day 👩‍🚀👨‍🚀🇺🇸, National Infertility Survival Day 🇺🇸, Lemonade Day 🍋🇬🇧

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

San Diego International Workers' Day Rally & March

Wednesday, May 1 - 4:30 p.m.

Meet at the Federal Building, 880 Front Street, San Diego

[wormonastringtheory]

It's Indigenous Solidarity Day in so-called "canada". I've seen VERY little discussion on here of it. Let's change that. I'm a settler and it's my bare-minimum commitment to challenge colonial silence.

Please dedicate yourself to Indigenous communities. Learn who's land you're on! Build connections with local Indigenous community members and make those connections nourishing and supportive, not tokenizing. Make sure you actually know the history and names and languages of the people's land you occupy. Make sure you actually make intentional and repeated, sustained efforts to support Indigenous mutual aid, food sovereignty, archival work, language revitalization and legal fund efforts. Learn about the health and environmental disparities of the communities around you. But also, engage with Indigenous joy! Engage with Indigenous spaces that you know are open to settlers. Support Indigenous land defenders and Land defence actions and encampments. Learn about sacred medicines and farming practices and art styles and agreements between nations (for example, the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Covenant), with permission. Challenge your relationship with colonial language, relationship dynamics, views on identity and spirituality, and what colonial structures you interact with and uphold and make the commitment to work to distance yourself from that structure and work to dismantle it! Read decolonial literature, attend open workshops and education sessions and never give up on your ongoing learning. Commit to decolonial resistance for your lifetime and beyond.

[harpuiaa]

death to america and to the west bloc if im being honest

[connorthemaoist]

🚨 Joint Statement:

—

Palestine, an indivisible land for an indivisible people.

Today marks the 48th anniversary of Land Day, immortalizing a battle that continues to form the core of the struggle in occupied Palestine. The land remains the title of the Palestinian people's battles since the inception of the zionist project as an advanced tool for global imperialism to seize the region's resources and quash its aspirations for liberation and independence.

This year's anniversary coincides with the brutal genocide war ongoing for about six months against the backdrop of the heroic "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation organized by the brave Palestinian resistance.

The parties and organizations signing below:

- Commemorate Land Day, united in the streets, squares, and arenas with all peoples and free forces opposing imperialism, zionism, and colonialism.

- Salute the Palestinian people and their brave resistance, especially the armed resistance as a legitimate and just revolutionary response.

- Salute the armed resistance in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen for supporting the Palestinian resistance and all the free people of the world who have exposed the essence of zionism as a racist colonial ideology.

- Consider that the land was and still is the core of the conflict, which can only be resolved by liberating the land, all the land, from the sea to the river, returning all refugees, and establishing a secular democratic state with Al-Quds as its capital on the entire Palestinian territory.

- Renew their condemnation of the shameful complicity of the Arab regimes, agents of zionism and imperialism, especially the normalization regimes that fly the flag of the occupation entity in their capitals, suppress the free by arresting them (Jordan, Bahrain), fabricating cases against them and prosecuting them (Morocco), or assaulting them in the streets (Egypt). In this regard, they stand in solidarity with all activists and free individuals, women and men, victims of oppression and tyranny.

- Urge all progressive forces in the region and the world to double their efforts to support the Palestinian people and their brave resistance, boycott the occupation entity, expose its crimes of genocide, starvation, land theft, and violation of human dignity across occupied Palestine, in Gaza, the West Bank, and the occupied interior, and escalate mobilization for the immediate cessation of aggression, opening of crossings, and delivery of aid.

Honor to the resistance

Glory to the martyrs

Victory to Palestine

March 30, 2024

The signing parties and organizations:

1- The Workers' Party - Tunisia

2- The Democratic Working Path Party - Morocco

3- The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

4- The We Can Movement - Mauritania

5- The Democratic People's Party of Jordan (Hashd)

6- The Lebanese Communist Party

7- The Democratic Popular Unity Party - Jordan

8- The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine

9- The Sahrawi Association of Human Rights Defenders CODESA

10- The Unified Democratic Patriots' Party - Tunisia

11- The Popular Socialist Alliance Party - Egypt

12- The Progressive Movement of Kuwait

13- The Jordanian Communist Party

14- The Sudanese Communist Party

https://t.me/PalestineResist/34291

[bardicious]

Nonnie, if you’re out there. I blocked you. I hope one day you can get off your high horse and see that you don’t have to and aren’t in the position to make judgment calls on which atrocities are worse. If your answer to concerns about anti-semitism (in reference to these protestors or other) is to devalue or downplay a certain group of people’s suffering, then you really need to rethink your morality.

I have no problem understanding how fucked up it is that so many Palestinian citizens are dying. That’s a really fucked up situation that I have no control over. Same, mind you, as the many other atrocities happening around the world, that the current trend activists are ignoring. The reality is I don’t have even enough info to give a sound judgment call on that situation (as many Americans here DON’T and it’s always amazing to me the lack of grey area anywhere in politics these days), however, I HAVE seen the antisemitism increase in my area. That I CAN have an opinion on. And that really REALLY pisses me off. And I find it astounding that these so called activists can claim racism/genocide while condoning and supporting Hama’s actions. It really takes a good lack of self awareness to support Hamas. And use the famously fucked up quote “from the river to the sea” (no, no one cares how you’re trying to reclaim it)

Furthermore, shit like this actively turns people against your cause! I hope you realize that! So you’re not helping Palestinian people either. You’re just making everyone else angrier! 🙃 so, yes, hope you and people like you can understand that one day.

[readyforevolution]

[czerwonykasztelanic]

The core tenets of "humanitarian liberalism" (in my view, characterized by an emphasis on pacifism and nebulously-defined "compassion", which is little more than conciliatory rhetoric) can be summarized as such: the violence of the past is to be extolled if it directly contributed to the construction of the status quo - and condemned otherwise; the violence of the present must be lamented when necessary while presented as a series of non-systemic, isolated incidents - and ignored otherwise; and the violence of the future may never be justified, even (especially) if the yet-to-come seeks to bring an end the already-existing.

[frc-ambaradan]

Today, 25th April, Italy celebrates Liberation Day when we commemorate the victory of the Italian Resistance movement against Nazi-fascists.

25th April 1945: the Resistance fighters' triumphant entry in newly freed Milan.

Let this be a reminder to everyone that every man and every nation has the right and the duty to stand up for their ideals, their freedom and their identity.

Resistance movements were born all around Europe: in France, Germany, Poland, Greece... they planted the seeds for a unified Europe in the name of peace, freedom and democracy. Ideals who are shared among all the people. And let me spend a word to remember all the Czechoslovakian and Russian soldiers who joined their arms with italian partisans and fought side by side with them in the name of these common ideals.

The values of the Resistance, today, must translate into cooperativeness and respect for the other's identity and political ideas. Those who come from a partisan family and those who come from a fascist family can and must work together for the greater good of the Country. Nations with diametrically opposite governments can and must work together for Europe's greater good. I know we can do it. We're doing it. We need to keep it going.

This comes from someone whose great uncle's name is engraved in stone along so many others who gave their life for our freedom. Never give up!

W il 25 Aprile!

W l'Italia!

W la libertà!