#Secession war soldiers

[mr-buisson-bosquet]

NATM 3 in a nutshell

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

More critical still was the way the problem of slaves' political allegiance—a problem that had troubled Thomas Jefferson from the birth of the republic—reared up decisively in the face of Confederate politicians, policy makers, and military men, forcing them into a constant confrontation with slaves' own political objectives in the war.' The idea that a republic could be built in war without contending with the political desires of four million slaves strikes moderns as fantastic. But Confederates' hubris on this account is stunning, especially given the troubling hemispheric history in which they operated. For the relationship between war and emancipation weighed heavily on every slave power in the nineteenth century. Since the late eighteenth century, slave regimes at war and chronically short of men had been forced into negotiations with their own slaves, usually to recruit them as soldiers, often on condition of emancipation. In that hemispheric history Saint-Domingue, or Haiti, was the critical case. Confederates were haunted by the history of that island. Indeed, many Southerners embraced secession precisely to avoid the fate of whites in that (to them) dystopian post-emancipation society. But it wasn't just white Confederates who looked to Saint-Domingue. Confederate slaves did too, drawing the opposite lesson that in the maelstrom of war, slaves had been able to fight for their own emancipation and the wholesale destruction of the institution of slavery. Confederate slaves were entirely alert to the meaning of national and international developments. Would the C.S.A. manage to escape the fate of other slave regimes at war? The two remaining slave regimes in the hemisphere, Cuba and Brazil, attended carefully to the answer.

The idea that Southern slaves shaped the history of the American Civil War is now a foundational part of the national narrative. But that new story—about how slaves transformed a war for the Union into a war for emancipation—is really a story about the Union side in the war.' It traces out a particular historical dynamic of slaves' flight to Union lines, labor for the Union military, and eventual enlistment in the armed forces of the United States. Developments in the C.S.A. are of little significance in the drama of emancipation it plots. Yet the slaves' war started in Confederate territory, was first waged against their own masters on their own plantations, and, in ways we have never really appreciated, forced constant revision not just in Union but in Confederate politics and policy. As every enslaved man, woman, and child knew, the destruction of slavery required the destruction of the slaveholders' state, with all of its horrifying national ambitions. The revolt slaves unleashed thwarted every administration attempt to make them an element of strength in war, and fundamentally shaped Confederate military labor policies. Indeed, one of the most dramatic elements of the Civil War story is how slaves compelled Confederates into a competition for the political loyalty, labor, and military service of slave men that implied the recognition of exactly the human and political personhood the proslavery republic had tried to deny. In the end, the proslavery C.S.A. would be forced down its own path to slave enlistment and partial emancipation, recapitulating elements of a struggle that had unfolded across the hemisphere since the American and French revolutions. The C.S.A. was transformed by war, and the Confederate political project was undone by those who had been taken for ciphers in it.

stephanie mccurry, confederate reckoning: politics and power in the civil war south

[mariacallous]

One thing that the confused response to Russians at War makes clear is that eight years after the revelation that Moscow attempted to influence a U.S. presidential election, most Westerners still don’t really know how Russian propaganda campaigns work. Americans have become familiar with AI botnets, salaried trolls tweeting in broken English about Texas secession, deranged Russian TV hosts calling for a nuclear strike on New York, and alt-right has-beens. But what to make of a French and Canadian documentary, tucked between Pharrell’s Lego-animated film and a Q&A with Zoe Saldaña, that seems cozy with the Russian military and blurs the line between entertainment and politics?

...

Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian propaganda has churned out absurd and repulsive lies, such as that Ukraine has biolabs where NATO scientists are working on a virus that targets Slavic DNA, and that Zelensky, who is Jewish, presides over a neo-Nazi regime. Yet, in a way, it has become honest with itself—at least for the domestic audience. There’s no longer a need for platforms like Russia.ru or The Journal, because the message is clear: This is who we are, and you’re either with us or against us. And yet, the entertainment aspect didn’t disappear.

...

One reason Russian propaganda is running circles around the West is that the internet was one of the few domains where the Russian state arrived late, forcing it to co-opt those who understood it. RuNet, the Russian segment of the World Wide Web, was created—and run—by people like Rykov: artsy 20-somethings, filled with cynicism, post-Soviet disillusionment, and a cyberpunk mentality. The collapse of the Soviet Union taught them that truth was whatever they wanted it to be, and that survival was the ultimate goal. The advertising executives, philosophy students, and creatives who once made video art, lewd calendars, and scandalous zines are the same minds who in 2016 said, “Let’s make memes about Hillary Clinton,” and in 2024 suggested using AI to flood X with believable comments. In many ways, this confrontation mirrors what’s happening in Ukraine: This time, however, the West is the massive, unwieldy force being outsmarted by a smaller, more tech-savvy adversary.

The good news is that the Kremlin is a graveyard of talent. In time, every gifted person I knew who went behind its brick walls was devoured by deceit, paranoia, and fear of losing one’s place in the sun. Konstantin Rykov was exceptional at his job, so much so that the Kremlin offered him a seat in the Russian Parliament when he was just 28. He accepted the offer. But being a member of the Duma Committee on Science and High Technologies and the Committee for Support in the Field of Electronic Media wasn’t the same as being the editor of fuck.ru. Despite being involved in some foreign influence operations, Rykov, now 45, hasn’t produced any significant work for Russian audiences since he joined Parliament.

Asked by an audience member in Toronto whether Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine, Trofimova replied, “I think there are a lot of other factors involved. Yeah, like they are definitely sending troops in to solve whatever grievances there are.” Even if it wasn’t financed by Moscow, Russians at War reminds me of a Rykov production: slick, scandalous, and with a ton of free press. The message the film conveys is that war, not the country that started it, is bad in this scenario. Trofimova seems to portray Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the astonishing scale of the atrocities it has committed there, as something impersonal and inexorable, like a tsunami: We can only accept it and sympathize with the victims, including Russian soldiers.

[inkandarsenic]

these hollow empty spaces (3)

"do what is right, not what is easy."

Synopsis: The youngest daughter of Tywin Lannister refuses to stand idly by, and the currents of fate shift.

Pairing: Robb Stark x Lannister!OC

Tags: slow burn, enemies to lovers but like enemies more in the political sense

Pt. 3

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It was truly remarkable how quickly things had gone downhill.

When Ned Stark had first been arrested, Robb Stark had raised his banners and started a march to King’s Landing in protest. Tywin, in response, had called his own banners and gone to meet Robb in war.

Eleyna, in turn, had contacted her uncle — war was expensive, the Iron Throne was already indebted to the Westerlands, and now the westerlords were having their resources and men taken to fight the Iron Throne’s war, a war Joffrey started. It couldn’t continue, and Eleyna had no intentions of keeping the people she would one day be responsible for under the Iron Throne that was draining their coffers and taking their sons.

Her uncle, after several heated letters of argument, agreed that the Westerlands were in a sorry state when compared to just 14 years ago, and agreed to speak to the westerlords and convince them of her plan of secession.

It was… slow-going. Hard, to sit in king’s landing and just trust that her uncle was doing as he said, even as he joined her father in his military encampment. Still, Eleyna had hoped that her plans wouldn’t be needed — that Lord Stark would be released and the war would end before it could really begin.

And then Joffrey had gone and taken Ned Stark’s head, and plunged the realm into veritable chaos.

****

The tree was a sorry outlet for his grief and rage. Robb wanted something that fought back, wanted blood — but he could not take his emotions out on his soldiers, he could not be so weak as to cry in front of his bannermen, so the tree it was.

The raven carrying the news of his father’s death had come in the morning, and Robb hated the pitying, sympathetic looks everyone gave him as he’d read the message out. He’d gone into the woods at the first opportunity.

“Robb.”

It hurt, more than anything he’d felt before. A hollow, empty space in his chest that ached with every grunt, every swing of his sword. Was this how his father had felt, when the Mad King burned his own father and brother? The tree blurred in his vision.

“Robb.”

Wood chips flew with every thudding slice of his blade; he felt nothing but anger. What comfort could the tree offer, what did the bark know of grief? His father was dead. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“Robb!” He stopped, chest heaving, and looked. His mother was in front of him, a shared pain in her eyes. “You’ve ruined your sword.”

So he had. He dropped it into the dirt. His mother met him halfway as he came towards her and he collapsed into her arms as he had when he was a child.

“I’ll kill them all,” he cried into her shoulder, and meant it. He’d been a fool, all these months, imagining that he could still be friendly at the very least with Eleyna — Lady Eleyna, his mind corrected — even as he marched to war against her family. He’d read the letters from Sansa that had mentioned Lady Eleyna being in King’s Landing. But where had she been, when his father was being accused of treason, when Sansa had been forced to write that raven message calling Father a traitor, when his father was executed? Where had friendship been then? No. Lady Eleyna was a Lannister, the heir to the Lannister seat. He’d have her head just as he’d have the rest. “Every one of them. I’m going to kill them all.”

His mother held him close, one hand on the back of his head and for a moment he closed his eyes and imagined he was a little boy again, and the worst thing that had ever happened to him was a scraped knee.

“They have your sisters,” his mother reminded him. “We have to get the girls back.” Her voice turned dark with grief-filled promise. “And then we will kill them all.”

****

So Joffrey was a terrible king. A terrible person, as became more apparent by the day. Even Cersei didn’t seem able keep a rein on his darker tendencies, or if she could, clearly didn’t care to try.

Case in point: Eleyna stood in court silently, to the left of the dais Cersei and Joffrey sat on, trying not to grimace at the bard sitting in the center of the throne room. She’d never really liked Robert, but the song was… distasteful nonetheless.

“—the Lion ripped his balls off aaaand…” The bard glanced up at the Queen Mother and seemed to hesitate before quickly finishing, “theboardidalltherest.”

Eleyna could see Cersei’s faint, polite smile tighten. The court was silent for a moment before Joffrey clapped, and the rest of them followed suit.

“Very amusing,” Joffrey said. “Isn’t it a funny song?” Hesitant laughter rippled through the assembled lords and ladies. “Thank you for your rendition. I imagine it was even better received at that tavern.”

The bard started apologizing, but Joffrey would have none of it, and made the man choose his fingers or tongue to be cut out. Eleyna looked at her elder sister with a hint of disbelief — Cersei watched the proceedings with the same faint smile she regarded all that Joffrey did with. Eleyna huffed — her sister’s parenting left much to be desired.

“I’m done for the day,” Joffrey announced as the bard screamed for mercy, standing and removing his crown. “I’ll leave the rest of the matters to you, mother.” He turned a mocking smile on Eleyna and beckoned her up to the dais. “You must have learned something from Grandfather all those years playing at heir, Aunt, you can give my mother what… little counsel you’re capable of.”

Eleyna watched her nephew walk away and wished desperately for a moment that they weren’t in court so she could smack the boy the way Tyrion often did. He stopped to speak to Sansa Stark — the poor girl was watching the bard lose his tongue with an faraway stare, and Eleyna frowned, concerned. Sansa was still betrothed to Joffrey, and frankly, doing an admirable job of it, but Joffrey was… Joffrey. Eleyna worried that the sweet, idealistic girl she’d met in Winterfell would struggle to survive Joffrey and the Southron courts. Hm. Something would have to be done about that. Maybe arrange for her to spend some time with her sister — surely Arya Stark was bored to tears locked away in her room all the time.

Eleyna watched her nephew leave with his betrothed, then leaned close enough to Cersei to not be overheard. “Will you admit now that you’ve raised a little tyrant who shouldn’t be king?”

“I would be careful were I you, dear sister,” Cersei said just as lowly, a sharp smile on her face. “Those are treasonous words.”

“What has it come to, that the truth is treason?”

“What it’s come to is that Joff is King,” Cersei said sharply. “And he is a wonderful king. There is no truth to your words, sister. I only hear jealousy. No amount of your power grabbing will ever grant you the power of the Throne.”

“Being Father’s heir is not ‘power grabbing’, sister. You’re deliberately misreading my words.”

Cersei ignored her and waved the first petitioner forward. Eleyna sighed and settled in for a long afternoon.

****

“They have Jaime.”

Eleyna blinked. It was so late at night that most of the Keep was abed, but Cersei, as was her wont, had swept into Eleyna’s room unannounced, in a dressing gown and a furious fit. “Sorry?”

“That Northern brat and his army,” Cersei spat, stopping in front of where Eleyna sat. “It’s not enough that he declared war, he’s taken Jaime hostage.” She tossed a piece of paper onto the table. “The message arrived not half an hour ago.”

Eleyna sat frozen for a moment, then leaned forward and seized the letter, scanning quickly. “Northern force 2,000 strong crushed at the Green Fork, Stark’s army of 18,000 defeated Jaime’s forces at the Whispering Wood, Jaime held as prisoner. Oh.” She looked up. “Some good news — Tyrion is with Father.”

“Oh, who cares about the little monster?” Cersei waved away. “They have Jaime.”

“How your care for others warms me,” Eleyna muttered, rolling her eyes. “Do you honestly think Robb is going to, what, execute Jaime? Jaime’s far too valuable a political prisoner, he’s highborn, both Kingsguard and a King’s uncle. If Robb has any sense — and he didn’t strike me as a fool — Jaime will be used for negotiations or a trade or something.”

“Robb?” Cersei’s eyes narrowed. “How… familiar.”

“Don’t start,” Eleyna sighed. “You’re the one who insisted I walk with him at the feast in Winterfell. You can’t be upset that I made friends with him.”

“He’s a traitor to the Crown,” Cersei said flatly. “Whatever friendships you may have formed, they’re through now. Not to mention, he has our brother hostage!”

“What, exactly, do you want me to do about it, Cersei?” Eleyna shook her head. Robb was… he’d been kind, in Winterfell. She had to trust that his honor would lend him to be as kind as possible to his prisoners. “Would you have me storm the Northern army alone, stage a rescue operation? I’m here in King’s Landing, same as you.”

Cersei humphed, glaring into the fire. She knew as well as Eleyna did — there was nothing to be done, not tonight at least, and not by either of them. Were Cersei the type of woman to bite her nails (“It’s horribly common behavior, Eleyna, can’t you at least try to act a lady?”), Eleyna suspected she would have chewed them to the quick by now. As it was, Cersei simply sniffed and barely glanced at Eleyna as she turned to leave. “Well. You’re informed, at the least. For all the good that does.”

Her voice had an angry bite to it, and Eleyna bristled. The raven message crumpled in her fist. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing at all,” Cersei murmured after a long moment. “I’m sure you’re just as worried as I.”She swept out of the room.

“‘For all the good that does’,” Eleyna muttered in a mocking voice. “Gods above, she’s infuriating.”

Still. It was worrying news, that her brother — the one sibling she could usually rely on to be there when she needed him — was a prisoner of war. It made the war seem far too real and far too close to home.

Not that Eleyna thought it would last for very long. She didn’t doubt for a second that her father would do everything in his power and then some to bring Jaime home — he was, after all, the favorite child. She was under no illusions — the only reason she was the heir to Casterly Rock was because Tywin could not convince Jaime to leave the Kingsguard, and he would die before giving it to Tyrion. Jaime was the golden son, the favored child, the intended heir. Eleyna was simply the living reminder of the broken oath to never remarry after Joanna — the oath Aerys Targaryen had forced Tywin to break — and she hadn’t even had the decency to be a son.

****

It was only a few weeks later that Eleyna stood at the gates of the Red Keep, resisting the urge to rub at her eyes. She hadn’t slept well — she heard a gurgling scream, splatters against stone the wet thud of Ned Stark’s head hitting the steps every night, saw bedsheets soaked through to the mattress, lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling his blood drip out and coat white marble whenever she closed her eyes — and the heat of the midday sun was making her feel sluggish.

Tyrion was running late.

Eleyna had jumped at the chance to greet her brother in Joffrey and Cersei’s place — anything to get out of attending Joffrey’s little nameday tourney. She was finding that the less time spent around her nephew, the happier she was.

“Sister! How kind of you to welcome me!”

“Tyrion.” Her brother was followed by a pretty young woman and what looked to be a sellsword — overall, not unusual company for him. “How was the Wall? Everything you dreamed it was?”

“Cold,” Tyrion answered. “I pissed from the edge and nearly froze my cock off.”

“A harrowing experience, I’m sure,” Eleyna drawled. She fell into step next to Tyrion as he entered the Red Keep. “Who are your friends, brother?”

“Ah, yes,” Tyrion nodded, waving behind them at his companions. “This lovely man here is Bronn, a fine swordsman who saved my life in a trial by combat set by Lady Stark —”

“Of course he did.”

“— and this is Shae.”

Eleyna raised an eyebrow when he didn’t continue about Shae — she could make her own inferences about the woman, she knew the kind of ladies Tyrion preferred to keep around him — and lowered her voice. “Does Father know you’ve brought a whore to court?”

“No,” Tyrion said sharply, smiling as if everything was fine when he looked back at Shae and Bronn. “And he won’t be finding out from you. You wouldn’t rat out your dear brother, would you?”

“Hm.” Eleyna tilted her head thoughtfully. “I won’t lie to Father about her if he asks, but I suppose I won’t volunteer the information.”

“Lovely,” Tyrion replied. “Now that that’s all cleared up, I’ll get myself and Shae settled, and then why don’t you accompany me to our esteemed nephew’s nameday tournament?”

“Ah, you know, I’d love to,” Eleyna lied with a smile. “But I find this heat so overwhelming, and I feel rather sick with worry for Jaime.” That part was mostly true, even. “I believe I’ll just retire to my rooms and rest.”

“Oh, dear,” Tyrion said. She could hear the smirk. “Shall I fetch a servant to send the Grand Maester to you? I would hate for Father’s dear heiress to fall ill.”

“I’m sure you would,” Eleyna muttered, then smiled sweetly at Tyrion. “No, brother, that’s quite alright, thank you. Enjoy the tourney!”

She nodded politely to her brother’s friends and split off down a different path. Perhaps she could get some sleep in before her family inevitably interrupted.

****

When she arrived in Tyrion's solar — summoned there well after the sun had already fallen, why did her siblings have such a penchant for disrupting her evenings? — he was pouring himself another cup of wine, looking far more tired than he had when she'd seen him just that morning.

He looked up when she entered, and promptly sent Shae and Bronn from the room. "Eleyna. Good. Come, sit." He poured her a glass of wine. "We are going to put our heads together and think of a way to get Jaime back."

Eleyna looked around the solar in interest. She’d been taught about her father’s tenure as Hand of the King (“The Mad King ordered your father to marry Maryana as punishment for ‘deserting the throne and plotting against him’,” her uncle had told her in a quick, hushed voice — speaking about the way her father’s second marriage had come to be was a risky endeavor at the best of times. “Your father only complied because Aerys threatened to burn Jaime and Cersei alive, and as the Mad King had just burned the Northern lords, Tywin was forced to take his threat seriously.”). The room was rather richly furnished, at the top of a tower that overlooked the entire city. “So all this was Father's once?"

"Yes," Tyrion said impatiently. "You already knew he was Aerys Targaryen's Hand."

"Ah, but I wasn't alive for it. Knowing and seeing are different things." Eleyna took the seat across from Tyrion. "Why are you asking me about getting Jaime back? You're Father's pick for acting Hand."

"But you were friendly with the Stark boy in Winterfell," Tyrion sighed, and drained his cup. "And that is an advantage now, however small. We are losing the war. Robb Stark has proven himself good at warfare." The words were said with a measure of resignated disgust.

"Has he?" Eleyna asked, picking up her cup and feigning disinterest.

"He's won every battle he's fought," Tyrion sighed. "The men we've captured speak of him like he's the Warrior come to earth. They say he rides into battle with that beast of his—”

"Grey Wind," Eleyna supplied. "He's a direwolf, as well you know."

"I don't particularly care what the beast is named," Tyrion snapped pointedly. "I care about getting Jaime back. I would think you'd feel the same! It wasn't too many years ago you were proclaiming him your 'favorite brother' for the entire Rock to hear. Did that only last so long as you needed him not to claim his birthright?"

Eleyna glared at him. "Careful, brother, you're starting to sound like Cersei. Of course I care about freeing Jaime. I'm simply being realistic. Jaime is a valuable hostage. Robb isn't dumb, he knows we have his sisters. He won't kill Jaime whilst he can still be traded for the Stark girls."

Tyrion nodded. "And are you aware that we only have one of the Stark girls?"

Eleyna blinked. "What?"

"Mm." Wine was downed and refilled. "No one has seen Arya Stark since the execution, Cersei says. 'Little animal disappeared,' Cersei says."

"She's a little girl!" Eleyna snapped incredulously. "How did we lose a little girl? I assumed she was being confined to her chambers, not... not missing!"

"I asked Cersei much the same thing and she did not have an answer," Tyrion said conversationally. "There will be no chance of peace, not now that Joffrey's chopped Ned Stark's head off and we've lost one of the Stark children." He shook his head. "Father will be furious."

“An eleven year old highborn girl,” Eleyna sighed. “And the gold cloaks can’t find her? What do we pay them for, then?” She held up a hand to stop him from responding. “Without both Stark girls—”

"I know."

They sat in silence for a long, long moment. The red of the wine was dark and glinted in the flickering firelight when she swirled it. It was very nearly the same color that had stained the Sept stairs when… well. It reminded her of Sansa’s trembling form in her arms that day. She looked up at her brother.

"We can't leave Sansa alone in the Keep as she has been," Eleyna said quietly. "Do you know Joff showed her where he’d staked her father and septa's heads? I… worry for her safety with him." Tyrion hummed thoughtfully. Eleyna pressed on. "I'm going to assign one of my guards to her. From what I've seen, the Hound does what he can for her, but he is Joffrey’s shield. I’d feel better if she had her own.”

“Feel better?” Tyrion repeated. “Are you carrying a guilty conscience, sister? Why? It’s not as though you gave the order for Lord Stark’s death.”

“No,” Eleyna agreed. “But I did nothing to stop it. I want to keep his daughter safe until she can be gotten out, for both Lord Starks.”

"Take Sansa Stark under your protection then," Tyrion said finally, regarding her with an expression that told her he thought her too attached to their enemy. "You are effectively the acting Lady of Casterly Rock in King's Landing right now. Declare Sansa to be your honored guest, or tell everyone that you're teaching her the Southron ways. Either way, a guard won’t be questioned, and the Starkling will be safe until this war with her brother is over.”

"He'll have to send terms for release and surrender soon enough," Eleyna pointed out. “It may be over quicker than we think.”

"Such optimism. Our dear sister and nephew would never agree to them," Tyrion refuted. "To say nothing of Father. He is bound and determined to win this war."

"But at the cost of his favorite child's life?" Eleyna pointed out. "Father rode to war largely because you were Lady Stark's captive. Surely he'd agree to peace for Jaime."

"I suppose we'll have to wait and see." But Tyrion didn't sound at all convinced. "Either way..." He raised his cup in toast. "To the end of peace. May it have mercy and leave us alive.”

taglist: @dipperscavern @justmymindandstuff @thecrownprincessbride

[angelsdean]

Hot take: between Sam and Dean, Sam is the one more at risk of being Republican.

(Maybe he had been at Stanford but, please, the whole Secession War episode. How people are forgetting their two very different reactions at Confederacy?)

hot take: this isn't a hot take dsjfkdsfk. idk if i'd go as far as say republican. but sam def leans toward some brand of conservative liberal. people use stanford to back up the fact that he's a little liberal college boy but imo stanford is what gave him some of these whacky conservative ideas. he drank a bit of the ivy league rich kid kool-aid to fit in at stanford imo. s1 sam and his judgement and opinions toward dean abt how he makes money is not a cute look. esp since he grew up dirt poor alongside dean !! he teases dean abt wanting to use a free bbq to scope out leads for their case in 1x08 and like yea, sibling teasing, but there's def judgement in his tone re: the free food part. like dude !! you were food insecure throughout your whole childhood !! but dean of course bore the brunt of that trauma, made sure sam didn't realize how bad it was. so, to be fair to sam, i think some of these conservative judgements and beliefs stem from sam just being a bit oblivious, ignorant, and unaware.

HOWEVER, yea he's had some questionable things to say on other topics, like you said his attitude re: the civil war and reducing it to a fight between brothers or some shit and trying to be respectful toward the confederate soldier ???? meanwhile dean was like very vocally FUCK THAT. we won. etc etc. also sam in folsom prison blues when dean was like "innocent people are in danger" re: the ghost and sam was like "we're in a prison i wouldn't call these people innocent" like..........this guy was gonna be a lawyer! (yea tax law, but still, you know what i mean). not everyone in prison is guilty !! and even still, they're not ghost bait.

anyways yea, dean (esp in the early seasons) represents the acab fuck authority working class Othered communities living on the fringes of society while sam is coming out of being very much Part of Society and cosplaying as Upper Class and operating with a very ridged view of morality, right and wrong, little room for shades of grey, which is what most of reality consists of (this is the guy who suddenly wanted to become catholic after zero religious upbringing ! like my dude. what) and he's slowly trying to untangle himself from those beliefs that he absorbed during his pretending-to-be-a-normal-guy years. but yea if i had to choose a brother to end up republican it would Not be dean !!!!!!

[fictionadventurer]

I’m not from the US so I don’t know much about it, but someone once told me that the civil war was fighting for two different things. The north was fighting to end slavery and the south was fighting because they didn’t want the government to be able to dictate to them what they did with their property (the only problem was that the south saw people (slaves) as property).

How much of this is correct? Or is it a simplistic view?

It's complicated. There are a lot of historical forces--social, economic, religious, political, legal, cultural--surrounding the lead-up to the Civil War, and you can take as simplistic or as detailed a lens toward it as you'd like.

Before the war, the South did want to protect their property. Slavery in the territories became such a huge issue because slave owners wanted to be able to migrate to these new territories with their property, which included slaves. The majority of the soldiers who'd fought in the Mexican-American War had been Southern--were they going to be barred from the territories that they had fought and bled to win?

Of course, the North argued that people couldn't be property, and their insistence that slavery was evil only made the South get more defensive over it. At the end of the 18th century, a lot of Southerners believed that slavery was an unfortunate evil--not an ideal situation, but not one they could realistically do anything about. (What were they supposed to do with all these free blacks, for one?) But as the South got more defensive, they started to argue that slavery was a moral good, giving these slaves much better lives than they'd have in Africa, and allowing for a white upper-class that could devote itself to civilized culture rather than the rat-race of industry in the North. Their way of life, they believed, depended upon maintaining slavery.

So the war absolutely was about slavery, but the South considered it the main issue long before the North did. Secession started pretty much as soon as Lincoln was elected, because he'd been painted as a "Black Republican" who was going to free all the slaves as soon as he came into office. In his famous "A House Divided" speech, Lincoln argued that the long history of maintaining balance between slave and free states wasn't going to be sustainable. Because Southern slave owners wanted to be able take their slaves through the whole country, and wanted to get their slaves back if they escaped to freedom, either the nation had to abolish slavery or slavery would take over the whole nation--there was no middle ground that would be acceptable to either side. Because everyone knew Lincoln considered slavery a moral wrong, the South thought this speech proof that Lincoln was going to free all the slaves, so they seceded to protect their "states' rights".

The ironic thing was that Lincoln didn't believe he could free the slaves. He was a lawyer through and through, who held the Constitution as a nearly religious document. The Constitution explicitly protected slavery, so as much as Lincoln would have liked to end slavery, he didn't believe the president had the power to do anything about it--that was up to the states. Not long after Lincoln came into office--in an attempt to bring the seceding states back-- both the House and the Senate passed a constitutional amendment that would have explicitly prevented the federal government from interfering with slavery; the war was the only reason it never went to the states for the vote to make it official.

Once the war started, the North was very clear that the purpose was not to end slavery--it was to keep the Union together. Lincoln believed that the Constitution as written did not give the states the right to secede, and that doing so was traitorous and made the Constitution meaningless. Remember, a democratic-republican government had never been attempted on such a scale before; several other similar governments had fallen in recent decades. If this American experiment was going to succeed, the nation needed to prove that an elected government could maintain power even when there was disagreement among its citizens. The war couldn't be about slavery--the North had to bring the rebel states back into the fold and then solve the slavery issue through civilized legislative and judicial measures.

So the North was very careful not to make the war about slavery early on. Early in the war, the ardent abolitionist general John C. Fremont took over Missouri, declared martial law, and issued a proclamation freeing all the slaves. Lincoln was pissed, and he immediately reversed the order. Several border states in the Union still allowed slavery; if they thought the war was about ending it, they'd join the Confederacy, and the problem would get even bigger.

That view only began to shift after the war dragged on. After so much bloodshed, could the North really be okay with going back to pre-war business as usual, with the issue that had led to secession unresolved? Black soldiers were beginning to fight for the Union and showing immense bravery--could we let them fight for freedom and then send them back to slavery?

Ironically, Lincoln was only able to issue the Emancipation Proclamation as a war measure. He still believed the president didn't have the power to end slavery--it's why the order didn't free any slaves in the Union. But slaves were an important resource in the Confederate war effort; men were able to go off and fight because they could leave their families and farms in the care of slaves. Slaves were being used for physical labor in army camps, freeing up the white men to do the actual fighting. By freeing the slaves, Lincoln was furthering the war effort by depriving the South of a vital resource--a legitimate use of his expanded wartime powers, with the added bonus of ending a horrible system of bondage. If the South hadn't seceded, such a measure wouldn't have been legal.

By the end of the war, the North was fighting to end slavery, and the South was desperately trying to spin the narrative to prove that it had been about anything other than slavery. But no matter how you spin it, the South seceded specifically to maintain slavery, and the resulting war was the only reason it was able to end.

[diurnaldays]

Had a thought about a Gundam modern AU where Char (who is a self-described leftist with slight ecofascist leanings) infiltrates the Young Republicans club -- half for shits and giggles and half because he has a personal ax to grind -- and comes up with increasingly elaborate schemes to backstab its executive board (who are all the kids of the Zabi political clan)

Garma is probably the most "normal" one who could be talked out of his family's insane streak of right-wing fascism and become a regular politically moderate bisexual white guy, but only if you don't insult his family while convincing him that neo-Nazism is Bad, Actually

Kycilia is the #girlboss with Kristi Noem energy who says that society needs strong women soldiers and CEOs who will get rid of all the undesirables

Gihren is the unapologetic neo-Nazi who says all the edgy things you'd expect and also acts like a 4channer

Meanwhile, in terms of the older Zabi family members who aren't in the club but sometimes show up at school, Dozle is the military veteran local politician who won't shut up about being a military veteran dad, while Degwin is a decently high-ranking Republican politician at the state level who constantly talks about a culture war and secession but also sometimes pays lip service to bipartisan compromise or whatever

Anyway Garma somehow gets into a freak car accident while on a fishing trip with Char, who was sleeping in his tent at the time and definitely had nothing to do with it

Degwin also "tragically" passes away in a house fire right before Gihren gets shot by an unknown assailant, and Kycilia is assassinated in a similar way by an entirely different unknown assailant *cough*

(Honestly not sure how Dozle's death could fit into a modern AU -- maybe a monster truck accident? Or he chases after Amuro's car for some reason and swerves off of a bridge)

[schmergo]

Living in historic times as we are, sometimes I can't help but imagine what it would be like to live in other historic times. Do you ever do that? For instance, the area where I live has a lot of Civil War history, being in Confederate territory but extremely close to the nation's capital. More than 1,500 soldiers were killed in a battle within walking distance of my home. I'd be able to hear the gunfire from my backyard. I'm also a short drive from Manassas Battlefield. I don't pay much attention to those landmarks now, but it's still wild to think that all of that happened right here, and not terribly long ago.

My home lies along a major route-- until recently named after two Confederate leaders-- and directly across the street from the site of a former 19th century manor (belonging to a pro-secession slave-owner) that was occupied during the war. It's not unlikely that if I lived there in the 1860s, my home would become makeshift sleeping quarters or a hospital for soldiers, whether voluntarily or involuntarily... or it might get burned down, like the manor itself.

It's also not unlikely that I wouldn't live here at all, that I'd have fled to Maryland with my family, as my husband is within the draft age, moved down here from Maryland to be with me, and would not want to fight for the Confederacy. Though I hate to say it, given my geographic location and family ties, I'd almost certainly be one of those people who has family fighting on both sides of the war, and even if everyone miraculously survived, those family relationships certainly wouldn't.

It's hard to imagine what daily life would look like with so much death and destruction happening around here. Every now and then, I see something like a gazebo in a local park with a plaque saying it was built in 1862 and I think, "This is how the local government decided to spend their funds during the gosh darn Civil War?" But that's just a sign that every day life happened during the Civil War, too. Heck, some guy invented Tabasco sauce during the Civil War. Same with jelly beans.

My favorite book, Les Miserables, came out during the war and Union and Confederate soldiers alike couldn't get enough of it. Would I have been able to concentrate on enjoying the book with so much stress and unpredictability? Would I find the violence of its failed revolution too difficult to stomach?

However, I'm pretty sure that no matter how weird and scary life got, I'd probably still have an ongoing debate with my friends over whether Abraham Lincoln is weird looking enough that it loops back around to being hot.

[deathbypixelz]

I was going back and forth on it for a while, but I've decided in very broad terms there will be some sort of Alliance-kaldorei conflict after secession (like, decades after). In-universe it's gonna SUCK for everyone involved but I think it'll be fun to explore.

Shortly after secession the kaldorei and Horde reached an agreement not to intrude on each other's land, but a similar agreement was never made with the Alliance. And after some internal conflict of its own, the Alliance is eager to expand its influence on Kalimdor. The draenei still exist as an Alliance foothold on the continent, but despite an overall friendly relationship with the kaldorei, the draenei were still not permitted to move troops through their lands. The Alliance would have to get creative.

It starts with land surveyors "accidentally" wandering inside Kal'thalas' borders (hc name for the kaldorei nation), then hunters, miners, loggers, and the sort following suit. Diplomats from both sides try to find a compromise, of course, but soon it's soldiers and mercenaries, and skirmishes break out here and there. It's when an Alliance surveyor finds an untapped and extensive source of gold that a true effort to settle inside Kal'thalas is made. Soldiers, miners, civilians... it's close enough to the border, surely the elves will make another exception?

That settlement is razed to the ground in a single night. The ones responsible are never identified.

The war that follows is one fought between former allies, each with extensive knowledge of the other's capabilities... or so they each believe. It will not be won through honorable combat. And having only just regained proper control of their lands, the kaldorei will hold nothing back.

-----

Though Tarinne had long left her days as a Sentinel behind, her sense of duty to her people and her lingering hatred of the Alliance will come to the forefront. For her, this will have been a long time coming.

[deadpresidents]

Latest books you have been reading?

Apparently I haven't shared the books I've been recently reading since the beginning of November. Usually someone reminds me to share my reading list every few weeks, so I think someone should be fired for dereliction of duty.

•Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Jared Cohen -- Just released on February 13th, this is the follow-up to Cohen's excellent 2019 book, Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO).

•Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia (BOOK | KINDLE) by Louis Ferrante.

•Soldier of Destiny: Slavery, Secession, and the Redemption of Ulysses S. Grant (BOOK | KINDLE) by John Reeves.

•The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage (BOOK | KINDLE) by Erika Fatland -- A couple of months ago, I mentioned how much I enjoyed reading Erika Fatland's Sovietistan, and I was equally pleased with The Border, which has a subtitle nearly as long as the Russian border that she wrote about traveling around.

•Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by David Mitchell.

•The Fall of Eagles: The Death of the Great European Dynasties by C.L. Sulzberger.

•George V: Never a Dull Moment (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Jane Ridley.

•Adams and Calhoun: From Shared Vision to Irreconcilable Conflict (BOOK | KINDLE) by William F. Hartford.

•God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America's Most Hated Man (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Jack Kelly.

•Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Peter Sarris.

•Magic: The Life of Earvin "Magic" Johnson (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Roland Lazenby.

•Oracle of Lost Causes: John Newman Edwards and His Never-Ending Civil War (BOOK | KINDLE) by Matthew Christopher Hulbert.

•Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by David Reynolds.

•Mansfield and Dirksen: Bipartisan Giants of the Senate (BOOK | KINDLE) by Marc C. Johnson.

•The World That Wasn't: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) by Benn Steil.

•Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War (BOOK | KINDLE) by Jon Grinspan -- Available for pre-order now and will be published on May 14th.

[blueiight]

Oh yeah, they specifically wanted an african american drummer and pianist.. interesting cause the theatre is more of a horror/peep show based on the posters so why the focus on african american music i wonder hmmm

Historians describe the introduction of the new Black American sounds, coined later as jazz, in two waves after the First and the Second World War. In the first wave, both Paris and Berlin of the Weimar Republic became capitals of jazz thanks to Black American bands that either arrived near the end of or after the war to play for soldiers and civilians. One very well-known example was the James Reese band. Many artists remained afterwards to make a living. Sidney Bechet, Duke Ellington and Louis Amstrong, returned regularly all throughout their careers to Europe with every new assemble and production they put in place. It’s commonly believed that Europeans embraced jazz not only because it was Black American and was considered ‘exotic’, but also because it marked the secession from the older European culture. In parallel, it served the modernism zeitgeist and the avant-garde agenda, with futurism and surrealism aesthetics. …. First in France in the 1920s and later after the Second War War in the UK, labour laws limited Black Americans performances in Europe to protect the white European market.

[triscribeaucollection]

Divided by Deception, But Together We Must Rise

( Posted here on AO3, latest in my What-If AU series. Because I clearly don’t have enough time travel fics yet... )

---

If he thinks hard, Cody can remember Kamino. Vaguely. The white walls, at least, and the deep, muffled roar of rain coming down hard on the windows. Sometimes a half-there sense of needing to do better, be better, or else something terrible would happen; but whenever that feeling swells, he just needs to find a Jedi and it washes away again, cold water replaced by warm light. It never really matters which Jedi, either, just- someone wrapped in the Force, who can spread it out a little, with a soft smile and an easy touch.

The Knights rotate every couple of months, some going out into the galaxy to help people, others coming back to rest and center themselves once more. There are a few older Masters who don’t actually leave the planet, but move between the three Holdfasts where Cody and all his siblings live. More Jedi live at the Temple of Peace, up on top of the mountain, including the actual Force-sensitive younglings and Initiates - batches of them come down a couple times each tenday, to play with friends or train on the Holdfast obstacle courses.

When Cody and the rest of the clones finish growing up, it’ll be their job to protect the Temple, and all the Jedi inside it. On Kamino, they were supposed to become soldiers, trained for war and battle. Here, instead, they’re learning diplomacy and negotiation as well as combat, so that they won’t just serve the Jedi but truly work with them.

It could have been quite different, some of the Masters say, if we had not found you when we did.

---

When a Jedi dies, there is a ripple in the Force. A mark of their passing.

When thousands of Jedi die within moments of each other, betrayed and horrified and so many of them crying out, those ripples become a tidal wave.

Time is linear. The Force is not. Two unknown Jedi meet, and warm to each other in a moment, cheered by the future echoes of the friendship that is to come. A Knight discovers a youngling, and there is joy, comfort, a Padawan bond not yet made announcing its presence.

Time is linear. The Force is not. Death, pain, misery - these things linger in place, the Dark Side refusing to let go, instilling cold and wariness in all who tread the same spot years later. Anger leaves a stain; deadly rage even more-so.

Time is linear. The Force is not.

---

None of the clones are more than three years old when nearly two hundred Jedi Knights and Masters descend upon Kamino. They don’t stay long enough to turn four.

---

There are stirrings of discontent in the Senate, whispers of secession. Politicians focus on their spheres of influence, either to further fan those flames or put them out, intent upon the future of the Republic.

No one notices the Jedi Temple slowly quieting.

By the time they do, by the point that enough calls fail to be answered that a Senator visits in person, the entire Order is gone. From the oldest Master to the youngest crecheling; the refectories and training halls, the numerous gardens and the vast Archives, the Healing Halls and private quarters; all gone. All empty. Equipment moved, vegetation potted and carried off, personal belongings vanished. Not a single Jedi remains, nor any clue as to where they went.

Newly-elected Supreme Chancellor Palpatine dies mere days later.

Two shocks, back to back, and of course the conspiracy theories immediately take flight. Could the Jedi have prevented the assassination, if they’d still been on Coruscant? Had they left because they foresaw the Chancellor’s demise, and wished to avoid the political nightmare that arose afterward? Were they perhaps involved in the freak speeder collision that resulted in his gruesome death?

No one knows for certain. But that hardly keeps them from gossiping all hours of the day, at least until the next scandal: Mas Amedda caught trying to blackmail votes for his ascension to Chancellor, and another Senator revealed to be bribing her way into power, raising hue and cry from all factions of government. Some planetary systems take the opportunity to announce their secession from the Republic entirely, several corporate entities all too happy to support them, and Coruscant becomes an even bigger mess than usual.

---

Elsewhere in the galaxy, ten thousand Jedi and one million clones settle upon their new home. An old Temple restored, new Holdfasts built around it. A few mercenaries who were meant to be combat trainers accompany them; other instructors are found through careful searching, sentients who enjoy putting together lessons on mathematics, reading comprehension, art and science and music.

The Jedi are never completely without friends, after all. And many of those friends, relieved to be allowed to know of the Order’s relocation, are all too happy to provide whatever help they can for the move, as well as what comes after.

---

“Hi, Obi-wan!” Cody drops from the climbing wall and lands in a roll, popping back up with a wide grin. “Oh- and hello, Senator.”

“Just Bail is fine, Cody,” the Alderaani man chuckles. “I’m hardly on duty at the moment, after all. How high up were you, just now?”

“Only a few meters, before I dropped. But I was coming back down! You should’ve seen me all the way at the top, a minute ago.”

Obi-wan hums, glancing up towards the bells situated at the highest point of the wall, even as another cadet reaches them and rings one gleefully. “Very impressive. I wonder, though, if you might be willing to take a break and provide us with some assistance?”

Automatically, Cody straightens up and lifts his chin. “Of course!”

It turns out not to be too terribly impressive - not a mission, or anything dangerous. Senator Bail needs to speak to Master Windu about an ongoing project, but none of the Jedi up at the Temple knew for certain where he’d gone, besides ‘down to Holdfast-One’. Still, Cody gets to put his command skills to work, nabbing all the nearest groups of brothers and directing them to spread out in a search grid. Soon enough a trio comes racing back, eager to report they found Windu, asleep with half a dozen of the littlest cadets in the lower garden.

Obi-wan and Bail aren’t all that willing to wake the older Jedi up, insisting they can wait for him to emerge on his own. So, instead, Cody does his level best to coax them into joining him and his batchmates for a round on the obstacle course. It turns into a hilarious afternoon, Obi-wan setting aside some of his natural grace to try and help Bail along the rolling-logs, only for both of them to slip and fall in the mud underneath. Fox laughs himself silly, so of course Cody trips him into the same pit, only for Wolffe to shout and tackle Cody, and then Ponds jumps in and it all turns to chaos in seconds.

When Master Windu eventually turns up with a toddler still dozing on his shoulder, he does not look impressed by thirty-odd cadets and half as many Jedi Initiates absolutely covered in mud, Bail and Obi-wan standing right in the middle with perfectly serene expressions on their faces.

But then Master Windu looks straight at Cody, and says calmly, “I do hope you were able to shove a handful of mud down Master Kenobi’s tunics, cadet,” and everything explodes a second time.

---

If he thinks hard, Cody can remember Kamino.

He doesn’t bother very often.

[weimarhaus]

Erwin Wendt, (1900-1951), Hup, (Horn), 1928, Collage, 50 × 35,1 cm. Via Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf.

Erwin Wendt grew up in Liebenwerda as the son of master carpenter Robert Wendt and his wife Emma Haupt. In the autumn of 1917 he began studying with Professor Paul Rößler at the State Academy of Applied Arts in Dresden, but then served as a soldier in the First World War. After the end of the war he continued his studies with Rößler in January 1919 and graduated in July 1926 with the title of master student. In 1927 Erwin Wendt moved from Dresden to Düsseldorf, where he created a significant part of his works. At first he worked as a designer in the Sichtermann & Edelmann studio. In 1928/29 he became a student of Professor Heinrich Campendonk at the State Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf and went on a study trip to Holland. From 1929 he was a freelance artist and became a member of the artists' associations Das Junge Rheinland, to which Otto Dix was also a member, and the Rheinische Secession.

[mariacallous]

In mid-September, Russians at War, a documentary by the Russian Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, was supposed to be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. At the last minute, after protests from the Ukrainian community and the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the festival first pulled the picture, only to return it to the program a week later.

What made the documentary so controversial was that, although many films have chronicled the devastation caused by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, including the Oscar-winning 20 Days in Mariupol, Trofimova’s work focused on the invaders. The filmmaker, embedded with a Russian unit for seven months, humanized Moscow’s troops as lost, confused, and disheveled. The men joke, miss their families, and even criticize the Russian government, though they never speak against Putin. A love-on-the-front-lines plot trains the viewer’s sympathy on the soldiers, even while the film avoids any reference to atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.

So is Russians at War a propaganda film, as its Ukrainian critics argue? Financed in part by the Canada Media Fund and produced in partnership with Ontario’s public broadcaster TVO, Russians at War avoids the trope of “Russian savior liberates ancestral lands from NATO invaders” that is typical of Kremlin propaganda. But all of Trofimova’s previous documentaries, filmed in Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Iraq, were made for RT—the Kremlin’s global propaganda network. In an interview with Deadline, Trofimova claimed that she embedded with a Russian unit without any military authorization, and just “stuck around.” In a country where a Wall Street Journal reporter gets sentenced to 16 years for merely handling a piece of paper, an independent filmmaker roaming the front lines, filming military installations, and interviewing soldiers without facing repercussions raises questions. Trofimova did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

One thing that the confused response to Russians at War makes clear is that eight years after the revelation that Moscow attempted to influence a U.S. presidential election, most Westerners still don’t really know how Russian propaganda campaigns work. Americans have become familiar with AI botnets, salaried trolls tweeting in broken English about Texas secession, deranged Russian TV hosts calling for a nuclear strike on New York, and alt-right has-beens. But what to make of a French and Canadian documentary, tucked between Pharrell’s Lego-animated film and a Q&A with Zoe Saldaña, that seems cozy with the Russian military and blurs the line between entertainment and politics?

Here is a clue: The Kremlin’s information war in the West is reminiscent of the one it fought—and won—on the home front. I know this because I was in that earlier war, and, regrettably, I fought on the wrong side.

I began working for Kremlin-linked media during my junior year in college. At the time, the Russian government was apparently hoping that by leveraging high energy prices, it could regain a bit of the influence it had lost after the Cold War. The state called this being an “energy superpower.” In practice, high oil and gas prices abroad translated into more Michelin chefs, German cars, and Italian suits for the select few at home.

In 2005, a close friend introduced me to Konstantin Rykov, known as the godfather of the Russian internet and, later, the man who revolutionized digital propaganda in Russia. In 1998, he launched a website called fuck.ru, which included a provocative magazine and mixed Moscow nightlife, humor, and art. With a blend of pop culture and media savvy, Rykov built an empire of news websites, tabloids, and even online games.

Rykov’s latest endeavor at the time of our meeting was The Bourgeois Journal, a glossy luxury-lifestyle magazine aimed at Russia’s affluent class. He hired me to head up the St. Petersburg bureau, not because of my background in student journalism, but in large part because I grew up in Boston, meaning that I was fluent in English and, apparently, the ways of the West. During my interview (a sushi-and-vodka breakfast), the word Kremlin never came up.

Rykov made the Journal available, for free, only at the most exclusive restaurants, gyms, private clinics, and five-star hotels. Inside, between ads for Richard Mille watches and prime London real estate, were interviews with figures such as Vladimir Medinsky and Alexander Dugin—now the ideologues behind Russia’s war in Ukraine. In a single issue, you could read a review of a restaurant located in a 15th-century building in Maastricht, an essay about the West’s fear of a strong Russia, and a report from Art Basel. The Bourgeois Journal used luxury to mask propaganda aimed at Russia’s elite.

Like many people working in Russian propaganda at the time, I didn’t agree with the narrative that my publication was spreading. And, as most people in propaganda will tell you, I was simply doing my job. I was there a little over a year—selling ads, reviewing restaurants, and occasionally interviewing a Western celebrity. The tedious essays on Russia’s place in the world were outweighed by the benefits of running a magazine for the rich: private palaces, private parties, and escapes to the Caribbean sun—something that the birthplace of Dostoyevsky had little of.

After the success of The Bourgeois Journal, Rykov launched Russia.ru, the country’s first online television network, in 2007. Here, pro-Kremlin news ran alongside obscene reality shows, attracting nearly 2.5 million viewers a month. The network’s slogan, “Glory to Russia”—now a battle cry in Russia’s war in Ukraine—demonstrated just how seamlessly Rykov blended patriotism with entertainment to reach an enormous audience.

Building on this, Rykov introduced ZaPutina (“For Putin”), a movement designed to help Vladimir Putin secure an unconstitutional third term. The project included an online platform that aggregated news from various sources, including original reporting from its own correspondents; a ZaPutina campaign bus to take Kremlin-loyal bloggers across the country; and attractive women—proto-influencers—who attended press conferences, introducing themselves by name and their outlet (“For Putin”) before asking their questions.

My biggest contribution to Russian propaganda came in 2009. By then, Russia was positioning itself as an inventive, Western-oriented economy. Vladislav Surkov—an adman, a poet, a columnist, and a Kremlin ideologue—dubbed this period one of “managed democracy,” which will likely be remembered as the midpoint between Russia’s post-Soviet anarchy and its modern-day fascism. Political parties were numerous, but all controlled from the Kremlin, as was almost every form of media. Yet the country sought a veneer of freedom. That’s where Honest Monday came in—a prime-time talk show that I co-created, wrote, and co-produced.

Our remit was to reach the sorts of viewers who ignored the in-your-face messaging of broadcast talk shows. Each week, the Kremlin assigned these shows a topic it wanted highlighted, and most would comply in a very blunt fashion: Do this, vote for that, Russia’s great. With a young host and a flashy studio modeled on French TV, Honest Monday took a different approach. Every week, I wrote up a summary of the left, center, and right perspectives on the topic we were given; I also delineated a viewpoint that reflected the Kremlin’s stance on the matter and sketched a justification for why this view was better than the other three. The producers would then scour the country for guests whose views reflected each of the three perspectives. The three speakers—politicians, celebrities, or pundits—had to defend their stance to, say, a factory worker we flew in from Siberia whose experience was relevant to the topic we covered. The debates were real, many of them heated, and with views contradicting the Kremlin’s. Still, the house always won.

Toward the end of our first season, the ratings for Honest Monday dipped, and the Kremlin’s tolerance waned. The network introduced a new director. As I recall, he outlined for us his vision of the show’s future: “When the viewers tune in, the first thing they should do is shit themselves.”

The Kremlin instructed us to take aim at the powerless Russian opposition, and in a matter of weeks, the messaging turned into outright bashing of everything that stood against Putin. I resigned—publicly—by sanctimoniously calling the show’s producers and host “Kremlin shills.” A couple of years later, two people connected with the Russian propaganda machine lured me outside and assaulted me in broad daylight (one of them later tweeted that he was motivated by a personal issue rather than a political one). When I hit the ground, half a mile from the Kremlin, I was finally out of the game.

Perhaps Rykov’s greatest contribution to Russian propaganda remains his cadre of media managers and propagandists, who now grace Kremlin corridors (and U.S. Treasury sanctions lists). One such protégé was Vladimir Tabak. Formerly a producer at Russia.ru, he rose to prominence in 2010, when he organized a now-infamous birthday calendar for Putin, featuring 12 female students posing in lingerie and captioned with quotes like “I love you,” “Who else but you?,” and “You’re only better with age.” The calendar, designed to create buzz and cultivate Putin’s image, dominated the news cycle for weeks. In an interview with the model Naomi Campbell, Putin even commented on how much he liked it. Legend has it that Surkov personally approved the project.

Although Tabak’s initial endeavor may have seemed playful, his later efforts illustrate just how insidious his propaganda techniques have become. Since 2020, Tabak has led Dialog, a powerful, Kremlin-affiliated organization tasked with controlling and shaping all social-media narratives in the country. If someone uses social media to criticize, say, the mayor of a small town, Dialog knows about it. According to a joint investigation by the independent Russian outlets Meduza, The Bell, and iStories, the organization took on a significant role during the coronavirus pandemic, virtually monopolizing the flow of COVID-related information in Russia by launching the website Stopkoronavirus.rf as the primary source for daily pandemic updates (the investigation report notes that Dialog denies being associated with this site).

At the height of the pandemic, the Kremlin decided to hold a vote on constitutional amendments that would allow Putin to serve two more terms, and Dialog immediately shifted to encouraging people to go to the polls, downplaying COVID-19 concerns. Later, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dialog was reportedly tasked with spreading fake news about the war not just in Russia, but in Ukraine. Some of the narratives included Ukrainian soldiers selling their awards on eBay, high-ranking Ukrainian officials owning expensive property in the European Union, and Kyiv ordering the mobilization of women.

Tabak’s organization has become a key player in Russia’s digital warfare abroad, including in its most recent campaign targeting Western audiences. On September 4, the U.S. Justice Department seized numerous internet domains allegedly involved in Russia’s Doppelganger campaign—an influence operation designed to undermine international support for Ukraine and bolster pro-Russian interests. The domains, many of them made to resemble legitimate news outlets, were linked to Russian companies, including Dialog. According to an unsealed affidavit, the goal of the operation was to spread covert Russian propaganda, manipulate voter sentiment, and influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Doppelganger appears to be a sophisticated operation that used deepfakes, AI, and cybersquatting (registering domains designed to mimic legitimate websites). But the Kremlin’s real innovations were those it employed in Russia in the 1990s; in the West today, it is simply repeating the same playbook using new technology. Washingtonpost.pm, a fake news website created to spread Russian propaganda, was an evolution of the fake newspapers that circulated in Russia during the ’90s ahead of elections. The purpose of those outlets—made to resemble legitimate media but filled with kompromat, gossip, and propaganda—was to get the right people elected.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian propaganda has churned out absurd and repulsive lies, such as that Ukraine has biolabs where NATO scientists are working on a virus that targets Slavic DNA, and that Zelensky, who is Jewish, presides over a neo-Nazi regime. Yet, in a way, it has become honest with itself—at least for the domestic audience. There’s no longer a need for platforms like Russia.ru or The Journal, because the message is clear: This is who we are, and you’re either with us or against us. And yet, the entertainment aspect didn’t disappear. Rather, it was absorbed into the propaganda machine through the Institute for Internet Development.

Founded in 2015 with Kremlin backing, and currently under the direction of the former Journal producer Alexey Goreslavsky, the IID helps direct state funds toward producing everything from box-office releases to YouTube videos, blogs, and video games. With a yearly budget of more than $200 million, it dwarfs any private film studio or streaming platform in Russia.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the institute has become the go-to hub for content. Initially, its output was dull and overtly propagandistic, but that has changed. Its catalog now includes 20/22, a TV series about a soldier fighting in Ukraine and his anti-war girlfriend, as well as A Thug’s Word, a 1980s period piece about a street gang, which became the No. 1 show in Russia and surprisingly popular in Ukraine—much to the dismay of the Ukrainian government. A Thug’s Word contains no politics, no war, and no Putin, yet IID—a propaganda organization—considers it its greatest success, because it legitimized the institute in the world of popular entertainment, which it fought so hard to break into.

One reason Russian propaganda is running circles around the West is that the internet was one of the few domains where the Russian state arrived late, forcing it to co-opt those who understood it. RuNet, the Russian segment of the World Wide Web, was created—and run—by people like Rykov: artsy 20-somethings, filled with cynicism, post-Soviet disillusionment, and a cyberpunk mentality. The collapse of the Soviet Union taught them that truth was whatever they wanted it to be, and that survival was the ultimate goal. The advertising executives, philosophy students, and creatives who once made video art, lewd calendars, and scandalous zines are the same minds who in 2016 said, “Let’s make memes about Hillary Clinton,” and in 2024 suggested using AI to flood X with believable comments. In many ways, this confrontation mirrors what’s happening in Ukraine: This time, however, the West is the massive, unwieldy force being outsmarted by a smaller, more tech-savvy adversary.

The good news is that the Kremlin is a graveyard of talent. In time, every gifted person I knew who went behind its brick walls was devoured by deceit, paranoia, and fear of losing one’s place in the sun. Konstantin Rykov was exceptional at his job, so much so that the Kremlin offered him a seat in the Russian Parliament when he was just 28. He accepted the offer. But being a member of the Duma Committee on Science and High Technologies and the Committee for Support in the Field of Electronic Media wasn’t the same as being the editor of fuck.ru. Despite being involved in some foreign influence operations, Rykov, now 45, hasn’t produced any significant work for Russian audiences since he joined Parliament.

Asked by an audience member in Toronto whether Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine, Trofimova replied, “I think there are a lot of other factors involved. Yeah, like they are definitely sending troops in to solve whatever grievances there are.” Even if it wasn’t financed by Moscow, Russians at War reminds me of a Rykov production: slick, scandalous, and with a ton of free press. The message the film conveys is that war, not the country that started it, is bad in this scenario. Trofimova seems to portray Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the astonishing scale of the atrocities it has committed there, as something impersonal and inexorable, like a tsunami: We can only accept it and sympathize with the victims, including Russian soldiers.

I stopped working for the Kremlin long before the Russo-Ukrainian war, and whatever I did as the head of a magazine bureau and as a talk-show producer pales in comparison with what some of my former colleagues are doing today. Still, I know that in every bullet flying toward Ukraine—the country where my parents were born—there’s a small part of me. I wonder if Trofimova sees that she’s part of it, too.

[warsofasoiaf]

Was Former President John Tyler a traitor for supporting the secession of the southern states to form the confederacy?

Treason in the United States is a very narrow crime, the Constitution's Text holds that: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Case law for treason defines that you require both the intent to betray the United States and you materially provide aid and comfort to the enemy. Aid and comfort can be many things that "impair our cohesion and diminish our strength" as outlined in Cramer v. United States (1945) but they must be overt acts, not expressions, and the act itself must be evidently clear of the intent to betray the country. So for example, striking in a defense industry plant, even during a time of war, is not treason if the strike is over working conditions, but would be if the goal was to impair defense production to give the enemy an advantage in war.

So, now that we have our definitions, let's look at what Tyler did to see if it rises to that level. John Tyler voted in the Virginia Secession Committee for secession and served in the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy, and this was after the firing on Fort Sumter (which would make the Confederacy a clear enemy). He had been elected to the Confederate House of Representatives and had every intention of serving in that role, but died before the first session ever inaugurated, probably of a stroke. He served on committees to help formalize and regularize Confederate legislature and administrative components like the pay rate for soldiers. While Tyler was of ill health in his later years, he remained clear and coherent, so I don't think any sort of senility defense of diminished capacity might apply when applied to a reasonable person standard. To me, that showcases both the intent to betray and express conduct that provides "Aid and Comfort," so I believe he would qualify as being guilty of treason, yes.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[alphaman99]

HISTORY THAT SHOULDN'T BE FORGOTTEN.

Jefferson Davis was never tried for treason. He was imprisoned for 2 years without a trial, however...

The post-war Jefferson Davis: The famous trial that never was.

By Bill Ward

When the War Between the States ended, the victorious Northerners viewed Jefferson Davis, as the former President of the Confederate States of America, much differently than others who had served the Confederacy.

For example, when Robert E. Lee surrendered to U.S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, the meeting between the two generals was amicable. Lee was received and treated with courtesy as a senior officer. The terms were so apparently lenient, with Grant conceding to Lee’s requests on behalf of his soldiers, the surrender was referred to as “a gentleman’s agreement.”

However, even after signing a loyalty oath, Lee and other former Confederate Army officers and members of the CSA government were later disenfranchised and treated as second-class citizens. But in the eyes of the northern public, Jefferson Davis was set apart for still a different kind of treatment.

On May 10, 1865, about a mile from the town of Irwinville, Georgia, Federal troops captured Davis. With his arrest on that spring morning, his government ceased to exist. His wife, Varina, and their children were sent to Savannah, where she was kept under virtual house arrest and forbidden to leave the city. Because the soldiers, carpetbaggers and Union supporters treated the Davis children so badly, Varina arranged for them to go to Canada along with her mother.

Davis had been taken back to Virginia and imprisoned in Fort Monroe, where he would stay for the next two years. At first, he was bound in leg irons. Guards watched him around the clock but were not permitted to speak to him. He was allowed no visitors; a light burned in his cell day and night; and his only reading material was a Bible. His treatment was a clear violation of the Bill of Rights.

Many Northern Congressmen and newspapers were nothing short of vicious in their public attacks of Davis. They wanted to see him tried for treason and hanged. In one article, and in one very long sentence, the New York Times referred to Davis by every insulting comment and offensive name that was fit to print. Rhetoric far outran legal reasoning.

But if Davis was in an unusual legal predicament, so was the United States government. The dilemma faced by Washington was how to handle the Davis case. The government under Lincoln had created its own major obstacles by spending four years proclaiming that secessionists were “traitors and conspirators.” The U.S. military had silenced opposition to the administration by closing down newspapers that dared challenge the party line or to make the slightest suggestion that secession might be legal. Thousands of Northerners had been jailed for exercising their First Amendment rights, and those thousands had friends with long memories in the Northern bar.

Northern lawyers were angry for having their clients locked in prison with no civil rights as guaranteed by the Constitution; having civilians tried by military courts for non-existent crimes; having a government that ignored the Supreme Court, setting itself above the constitutional plan of checks and balances. They didn’t like having to beg the president for justice for clients convicted by phony courts-martial or locked up for long periods without any trial. Under Lincoln, the U.S. government had become tyrannical, and certainly anything but a free and constitutional society.

The best lawyers of the day were willing to volunteer to defend Jefferson Davis, because they were angry at the way Lincoln’s government had trampled the Bill of Rights and the Constitution for four years. Even those who didn’t believe in secession were repulsed by the conduct of the Republican administration and the U.S. military.

Charles O’Connor of New York, one of the most famous trial lawyers of the era and a man of great stature in the legal profession, volunteered to be Davis’s counsel. Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, would be the trial judge.

But interesting things began to happen, and the government’s dilemma became even worse. University of Virginia Law Professor, Albert Bledsoe, published a book, “Is Davis a Traitor?” Bledsoe methodically took apart the case against secession, delivering a solid blow to the prosecutors and dampening their zeal to try Davis. Prosecutors actually began to look for a way to avoid trying him without vindicating the South.

Then another method was decided on for prosecution. The attorney general would bring in outside, independent counsel, as we have seen in modern times, such as in Watergate or the Clinton scandals. The government needed someone of great standing in the legal community to be the lead prosecutor. It chose John J. Clifford. But after reviewing the case, Clifford withdrew citing “grave doubts” about the validity of the case. The government could “end up having fought a successful war, only to have it declared unlawful by a Virginia jury,” where Davis’s “crime” was alleged to have been committed.

President Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, thought the easiest way out would be to pardon Davis, as he had pardoned many other Confederates. But Davis refused, saying, “To ask for a pardon would be a confession of guilt.” He wanted a trial to have the issue of secession decided by a court of law — where it should have been decided to begin with — instead of on battlefields. Most Southerners wanted the same.

Northerners either forgot or were unaware of a great secessionist tradition in America. Southerners were not alone in their view that each state had the right to determine its own destiny in the Union. The procedure for joining the Union also applied to withdrawing from the Union.

That thought harkens back to an editorial by the Cincinnati (Ohio) Daily Inquirer, in the summer of 1861, after the “traitor” label was let loose by the North: “The Republican papers are great on treason. . . . It is treason to circulate petitions for a compromise or peaceful readjustment of our national troubles . . . to question the constitutional powers of the President to increase the standing army without authority of law . . . to object to squads of military visiting private houses, and to make search and seizures. . . to question the infallibility of the President, and treason not to concur with him. . . It is treason to talk of hard times; to say that the war might have been avoided. It is treason to be truthful and faithful to the Constitution.”

A year after John Clifford withdrew, the government appointed another special counsel, Richard Dana of Boston, who had written the novel, “Two Years Before the Mast.” But after reviewing the evidence, he agreed with Clifford; the case was a loser. Dana argued that “a conviction will settle nothing in law or national practice not now settled…as a rule of law by war.” Dana observed that the right to secede from the Union had not been settled by civilized means but by military power and the destruction of much life and property in the South. The North should accept its uncivilized victory, however dirty its hands might be, and not expose the fruits of its carnage to scrutiny by a peaceful court of law.

Now, over two years after Davis’s imprisonment and grand jury indictments for treason, the stage was set for the great public trial of the century. Davis had been released from prison on a $100,000 bond, supported by none other than Horace Greeley, the leading abolitionist writer in the North and a former Lincoln supporter. Greeley and a host of others were outraged at the treatment Davis had received, being locked up in a dungeon for more than two years with no speedy trial.

Since two famous special counsels had told the government its case was a loser, finally, none other than the Chief Justice, in a quirk of Constitutional manipulation, devised an idea to avoid a trial without vindicating the South. His amazing solution was little short of genius.

The Fourteenth Amendment had been adopted, which provided that anyone who had engaged in insurrection against the United States and had at one time taken an oath of allegiance (which Davis had done as a U.S. Senator) could not hold public office. The Bill of Rights prevents double jeopardy, so Davis, who had already been punished once by the Fourteenth Amendment in not being permitted to hold public office, couldn't be tried and punished again for treason.

Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase secretly passed along his clever argument to Davis’s counsel, Charles O’Connor, who then made the motion to dismiss. The Court took the motion under consideration, passing the matter on to the Supreme Court for determination.

In late December 1867 while the motion was pending, President Johnson granted amnesty to everyone in the South, including Davis. But the Davis case was still on the docket. In February 1868, at a dinner party attended by the Chief Justice and a government attorney, they agreed that on the following day a motion for non-prosecution would be made that would dismiss the case. A guest overheard the conversation and reported what was on the minds of most Southerners: “I did not consider that he [Davis] was any more guilty of treason than I was, and that a trial should be insisted upon, which could properly only result in a complete vindication of our cause, and of the action of the many thousands who had fought and of the many thousands who had died for what they felt to be right.”

And so, the case of United States versus Jefferson Davis came to its end — a case that was to be the trial of the century, a great state trial, perhaps the most significant trial in the history of the nation — that never was.