#political dissidence

[odinsblog]

“This brutal war is not only mass murder of people and destruction of the infrastructure, economy, and cultural sites of Ukraine, but also a severe blow to the future of Russia, a country that is now pushed back into totalitarianism, but this time into a fascist totalitarianism.

We are being punished for daring to criticize authority.” —Oleg Orlov

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

This captures it. Chappell Roan is rightfully disillusioned by the two-party system.

Here are some of the correct responses to her (justified) criticism of the U.S. government.

[vivisecti]

i think its so weird (AS A JEW) that ppl are like "hitler was bad beacuse he killed 6 million jews" he killed 11-12 million people ????? but you dont care about romanis or gays or black people or... list goes on. .. why specify jews its so fucking weird talk about the romani people talk about them 11 million dead.

[djuvlipen]

remember in the 1990s when historians were saying "they were kept in camps with no food, with no heat, and made to sleep in the mud, but gypsies are used to living like that, it's in their culture, so it wasn't so bad actually"

[thefugitivesaint]

"International benefit compilation on digital and cassette (sold out) for on-the-ground humanitarian mutual aid in Gaza. All proceeds minus bandcamp/paypal fees are donated. Free Palestine." If you're looking for some political punk, I suggest the above benefit compilation. "Digital download is pay what you want."

[agentfascinateur]

Somewhere there's a hauntingly beautiful symphony where Pavel Kushnir belongs.

Rest in peace 🕊️

Kushnir was born in Tambov, central Russia, where his father Mikhail was a pianist and educator, and his mother a music school teacher. He started playing piano at the age of two and, at just 17, gave a remarkable two-and-a-half-hour concert featuring the 24 preludes and fugues by composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Later that year, he was admitted to the Moscow Conservatory, where classmate Julia Wertman says he cultivated a “dissident image”, often wearing a shabby coat and black clothes, with a half-litre bottle of vodka sticking out of a pocket. Asked in a 2005 interview what composition he would never perform, he replied: "The Russian national anthem."

Arrested for 4 social media posts objecting to the war in Ukraine. Died from a hunger strike in protest. 💜

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Even MORE great news:

Russian dissident Ilya Yashin is FREE from a Russian prison! It is finally good to hear of a Russian dissident who has been released this time.

Here he is, with members of the late Alexei Navalny's team, including Leonid Volkov (white shirt), Maria Pevchikh, and Ivan Zhdanov behind her.

JUSTICE does come!

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Police commissioner Perry decided to invite three of the “Revolutionary Socialists” to a secret meeting to get a sense of their intentions. Victor Midgley, Bill Pritchard, and Jack Kavanagh were all stalwarts of the Socialist Party of Canada from British Columbia. Midgley was the union official beaten by veterans during the sympathetic strike in Vancouver the previous August. He was one of the main organizers of the Calgary conference, which named him secretary of the One Big Union central committee. Pritchard joined him on the central committee. With his spectacles and a quiff, he had more the appearance of a mild-mannered school teacher than a longshoreman on the Vancouver waterfront. But Pritchard was a fire-and-brimstone orator who had played a pivotal role planning the Calgary conference, then guiding its debate. He would later serve a year in prison as one of the convicted leaders of the Winnipeg General Strike. Kavanagh, also a longshoreman and newly installed as the president of the BC Federation of Labour, was in charge of the committee that was meant to proselytize in favour of the One Big Union [OBU] in British Columbia.

In the report of the meeting that Perry made to his superiors, he described the trio of Reds as “intelligent, well-read men.” “They are tireless in pursuit of their objects,” he wrote, “and have all the fervour of fanatics.” He did not think they were plotting a violent overthrow of the government, but he feared them nonetheless.

I am not prepared to say that they are aiming at a revolution in the ordinary sense of that word, but I do say that they are influencing a section of labour in the West and unchaining forces which, even if they so desire, some day they will be unable to control. Here is grave danger to the peace and security of the country.

Even so, Perry urged caution. He feared that repressive measures would simply radicalize the more moderate members of the labour movement. Returning to the subject of armed revolution, he observed that “it can only succeed if a considerable number of returned soldiers join the movement.” The Reds knew this and were doing their best to court the veterans. He urged the government, therefore, to promote full employment and whatever other policies it could to placate the grievances of the soldiers.

Another crucial document influencing government thinking about the labour situation was a “Memo on Revolutionary Tendencies in Western Canada” prepared in early April by C.F. Hamilton. Hamilton was a former journalist (he covered the Boer War for the Toronto Globe) and wartime press censor. He had been assistant comptroller of the Mounted Police before the war and rejoined the Mounties afterward as an intelligence officer. He was a highly influential official within the force who reported directly to the commissioner. In his thirteen-page memo, Hamilton argued that there was a small but active band of revolutionaries at work in western Canada attempting to subvert the Canadian government.

Their openly avowed aim is to procure the establishment of a Soviet government, with its concomitants of the disappearance of parliamentary government, the subversion of the rule of the majority, the abolition of private ownership of property, and the destruction of the other institutions upon which society is founded.

Hamilton admitted that armed insurrection seemed unlikely in Canada, but he argued that there were circumstances in which it could occur. The key was the troubled labour situation, he said, and he sketched out a plausible scenario for the “would-be revolutionists.”

What they aim at is an intense conflict between labour and capital, embittered by riots and bloodshed; they calculate on a general dislocation of the industrial system, passing into an uprising of the working classes, probably reinforced by masses of discontented returned soldiers. The whole project turns upon the propagation of bad temper and mutual hate between classes …

Despite his dire prognosis, Hamilton did not believe that direct repression was the correct response. Instead, he called for a campaign of counter-propaganda highlighting the failure of Bolshevism to bring social peace and prosperity to Russia.

As alarmist reports piled up on the desks of senior ministers in Ottawa, the acting prime minister, Sir William Thomas White, panicked. White, a Montreal financier who had won his seat in Parliament in the 1911 election as an opponent of freer trade with the United States and had been rewarded with the finance portfolio in cabinet, was filling in for Prime Minister Borden who was still away at the peace negotiations in Europe. He cabled the absent prime minister in mid-April with the news that Bolshevism was rampant in Canada among soldiers and workers, especially in British Columbia. There was a revolution brewing, White reported, and he wanted Borden to ask the British government to dispatch one of its warships to Vancouver where “the presence of such ship and crew would have steadying influence.” Borden was in Paris hobnobbing with heads of state, making the world safe for democracy. He was impatient at White’s bothering him with what no doubt seemed like petty, and exaggerated, domestic problems. “I would very much like to reply, For Heaven’s Sake, let me alone,” he peevishly confided to his diary. Instead he advised White to do the best he could with the armed forces at his disposal. There would be no request for British help."

- Daniel Francis, Seeing Reds: the Red Scare of 1918-1919, Canada’s First War on Terror. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2011. p. 82-84.

[useless-catalanfacts]

Foto utilitzada per Antena3 per il·lustrar els represaliats per l'Estat espanyol...

Lòpez llibertat!

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Earlier this month, while the rest of the country was celebrating the achievements of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., parents and children in the “Dissident Homeschool” network opened a lesson plan and were greeted with the words: “As Adolf Hitler wrote…”

The contents of the MLK lesson plan would be shocking for almost anyone, but for members of the 2,400-member “Dissident Homeschool” Telegram channel, this was a regular Monday at school.

“It is up to us to ensure our children know him for the deceitful, dishonest, riot-inciting negro he actually was,” the administrator of the network’s Telegram channel wrote, alongside a downloadable lesson plan for elementary school children. “He is the face of a movement which ethnically cleansed whites out of urban areas and precipitated the anti-white regime that we are now fighting to free ourselves from.”

Since the group began in October 2021 it has openly embraced Nazi ideology and promoted white supremacy, while proudly discouraging parents from letting their white children play with or have any contact with people of any other race. Admins and members use racist, homophobic, and antisemitic slurs without shame, and quote Hitler and other Nazi leaders daily in a channel open to the public.

VICE News joined the group simply by clicking on a link, though the list of members was not publicly visible.

What’s even more disturbing, however, is that the couple who run the channel are not only teaching parents how to indoctrinate their children into this fascist ideology, they’re also encouraging them to meet up in real life and join even more radical groups, which could further reinforce their beliefs and potentially push them toward violent action.

‘MR. AND MRS. SAXON’

The “Dissident Homeschool” network is run by a husband and wife team who use the aliases “Mr. and Mrs. Saxon.” This week the antifascist research group Anonymous Comrades Collective published a detailed report that unmasked the Saxons as Logan and Katja Lawrence, who live in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, with their four young children.

The researchers were able to identify the Lawrences through biographical details they shared in the Telegram channel’s group chat and on podcast appearances. One of the key clues to identifying them came when they revealed that they owned a German Shepherd called Blondi—the same name as Hitler’s dog.

The researchers found photos that Katja posted on Facebook with her German Shepherd, and were also able to confirm Katja Lawrence’s ownership of this dog through the Wyandot County dog licensing website dog search feature.

The Lawrences did not respond to multiple emails, text messages, social media messages, and phone calls from VICE News to discuss the contents of the report and their neo-Nazi homeschooling group.

Katja Lawrence, who is in her mid-30s, launched the channel in October 2021, because she “was having a rough time finding Nazi-approved school material for [her] homeschool children,” as she told the neo-Nazi podcast “Achtung! Amerikaner” last year.

Later in the same podcast episode, Lawrence expanded on her view on why she wanted to educate her children at home. “We have our children’s best interest at heart and nobody can do a better job than we can because it’s our child. We are so deeply invested into making sure that that child becomes a wonderful Nazi,” she said.

When VICE News asked for comment on the Lawrences and their channel, the host of the podcast, Gordon Hahl, replied: “I think you should kill yourself instead.”

Katja Lawrence, born Katja van den Berg, is originally from the Netherlands and moved to the U.S. after meeting her husband at the Oktoberfest festival in Berlin, according to an old LiveJournal blog uncovered by the researchers. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2017.

Logan Lawrence works as an agent for a local, family-run insurance agency. When reached by phone, an employee at the company told VICE News that they would not be commenting on the story.

Logan is also a member of a local Masonic lodge and features in a number of pictures on its website, where he is listed as an officer of the lodge. The secretary of the lodge did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment.

Both Katja and Lawrence have a limited presence on mainstream social media platforms, and the one Facebook account that was operated by Katja was deleted this week after the Anonymous Comrades Collective report was published.

Katja Lawrence is the main poster on the “Dissident Homeschool” channel, posting classroom schedules, book lists, lesson plans, and other educational resources for like-minded parents.

RACIST LESSON PLANS

Lawrence uses every lesson plan as an opportunity to push racist ideology. In one “math assignment,” children were asked to interpret “crime statistics,” the goal of which was to “realize the demographics to be cautious around.” Another lesson called “IQ Unit Study” discusses IQ scores. “The blacks—on average—have a much lower IQ than whites,” Lawrence wrote.

Last week the group chat channel belonging to the “Dissident Homeschool” network was shut down, but VICE News has reviewed an archive of the chats dating back to October 2021, showing that initially the channel was populated by a small number of core members who contributed most of the comments and content.

However, by the time the chat archive ended on Jan. 4, there were hundreds more people contributing to the conversations, and discussions had expanded from children’s education to the dangers of diversity and how “Indiana Jones” movies are nothing more than “Jewish revenge porn.”

One parent posting in the group last year thanked the Lawrences for their work and explained why they agreed that public school education was not for them.

“This is why I want to make the switch. I don’t even want my kids exposed to the gay loving, anti-family, Jew factory that is public school, I can’t stand it.”

Other parents offered their own educational resources, with one member writing: “Here is an overview of 10 Reason why Hitler was one of the Good Guys:”

When one parent named Nancy recommended three preachers that the group might find interesting, another member responded: “A ni**er, a race mixer, and a guy who literally says that Israel should rule the world. You're 0 for 3.”

Katja Lawrence then added: “Nancy, did you know you are in a chat of dissidents who fully support white nationalism? We do not support Israel and do not listen to black preachers.”

The members of the channel have also expanded beyond the U.S. to include members from other countries, though only those from European countries with acceptable ethnicity, such as Norway, Germany, and the U.K., are welcomed.

At one point in the chat, Katja Lawrence told a UK-based member of the group that she would help put him in touch with the head of one of the biggest white nationalist groups in the U.K., suggesting the Lawrences have made connections with antisemites and white supremacists outside of their own homeschooling community.

BAKING A ‘FÜHRER CAKE’

When the Telegram channel reached its 1,000th subscriber, just months after it launched, Katja Lawrence posted a picture of German schoolchildren performing a Nazi salute in a classroom, writing: “It fills my heart with joy to know there is such a strong base of homeschoolers and homeschool-interested national socialists. Hail Victory.”

The Lawrences also described how their family celebrated Hitler’s birthday by baking a “Führer cake.”

“We had a lovely dinner followed by Führerkuchen,” Katja Lawrence wrote. “Our children celebrated Adolf’s birthday today by learning about Germany and eating favorite German foods.” She later added that she had baked “quite a few swastika items, my latest a swastika apple pie.”

In one chilling, now-deleted post on Telegram, Katla Lawrence posted an audio message of her children shouting “sieg heil.”

While Katja and Logan Lawrence claim in Telegram comments that they warn their children not to discuss their Nazi views with those outside the family, they also don’t limit their activities to the online world and help others to connect with fellow white nationalists in the real world.

SECRET ‘POOL PARTIES’

“There is a huge network of people like us,” Katja wrote on the Telegram channel. “If you are asking what you can do: get vetted and join a local pool party. I would say that’s the best decision Mr. Saxon and I made last year. We joined a pool party and our children now play with other white children where they can speak and play freely.”

A “pool party” is the name for a secretive meetup organized by white supremacist group The Right Stuff and its political wing the National Justice Party. Katja Lawrence even goes so far as to share the direct email for a contact at The Right Stuff who deals with vetting, while an account named the “National Justice Party” posts updates that include calls for “Dissident Homeschool” members to join its supporter group and updates on its Christmas charity drive.

“It has been huge for us to get into that real life network. Contribute by joining. It makes all the difference,” Katja Lawrence wrote.

It is hard to gauge the influence of the “Dissident Homeschool Network,” but in leaked emails from people attempting to join the white nationalist group Patriot Front, applicants list the “Dissident Homeschool” as being “Influential figures, media outlets or platforms.”

The Right Stuff and the National Justice League were described by the Anti-Defamation League as “virulently antisemitic”, while 31 members of Patriot Front were arrested last year inside a U-haul truck on their way to an LGBTQ Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, carrying shields and smoke grenades.

Yet Katja attempts to describe these group’s activities as entirely wholesome.

“To dispel some misconceptions: these groups do not encourage or solicit people to commit illegal activities,” Katja wrote. "It is a nice group of wholesome white people getting together for cookouts and such.”

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔐𝔦𝔰𝔢𝔯𝔶 ℑ𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔵 - 𝔊𝔥𝔬𝔰𝔱𝔰 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔞

[assbestos]

i think we should bring back assassination and the public torture and execution of the ruling class mostly because i want to see Ron DeSantis drawn and quartered on live televison by trans people

For Legal Purposes This Is A Joke

[spectroscopes]

People being genuinely surprised that Andor is continuing production under a strike is so bleakly funny to me.

[thequietabsolute]

Ai Weiwe // FUCK OFF [2000.]

‘My father and I often had occasion to agree that 'fuck off' was very funny. One naturally admired its brutality and brevity — but it was also terribly good.’

Martin Amis, from ‘Experience’

[waterlilyvioletfog]

As ALWAYS. Macbeth fucking SLAPS!!

[fideidefenswhore]

@katherynparr

I also missed the absence of their stormy scenes pre JS, we didn’t get the major hot and cold aspect so many dramas tend to show.

yeah, i think there just wasn’t time...they were obviously aping the tudors in some respects but just didn’t have the screentime to portray everything they did (the downfall of wolsey was not as simple as that, it seems like he was both in and out of henry’s favor at various times before the final arrest, it also had seemed like henry was going to grant mercy and then didn’t, they likely had lots of arguments over wolsey... the shirts incident, the imperial lady, the back-and-forth with france, etc...)