#thousand week reich

[ambasingresident]

"Duality of HOI4 Players"

[charamaestro]

I actually love both TNO's Organization of Free World Nations and Thousand Week Reich's Toronto Accord but cmon, Toronto Accord sounds way fucking cooler

[clarionglass]

here we go :) part one of three, updates to be released weekly!

---

sam says 4 (game master cinematic universe, part 3)

Ruby was at her mum's for a family dinner she couldn't miss on pain of death, apparently, and the Doctor was many things, but a family dinner kind of guy wasn't one of them—particularly when Carla had already slapped him once in the short time he'd known her. He thought he'd broken his streak of bad luck with mums, but… well, seemingly not. So he was companionless for a few hours, and while he could wait for her to get back, maybe catch up on his reading—what was the point of waiting when you had a time machine? 

He ran his hands over the TARDIS console, marvelling at her clean lines and metallic flourishes, the way that even now she felt brand new but familiar, and paused. He’d just pop off for a quick adventure, nothing too dangerous, but—where to go?

He could scan for a distress call nearby, and pitch in to help. He could drop in on Donna and Shaun and Rose, beautiful Rose, and see how they were all doing. Or he could just hit the randomiser button, and jump in feet first wherever he ended up.

He remembered a conversation from a long time ago, when he wore a different face, and his gorgeous TARDIS wore a face too, for the first and only time.

“You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.”

“No, but I always took you where you needed to go.”

He grinned. Who could resist an offer like that? He pressed the button and whooped as the time rotor spun into action, ready to see where the universe would take him.

---

Apparently, he was needed pretty close to where he already was. Earth, 2024. Huh. Same planet, same time—within a few months of where he’d left Ruby, even. The main thing that had changed was the location: he was now in the good old US of A. California, to be more specific, and Los Angeles to be more specific still. And to really narrow it down, the Doctor discovered as he poked his head out of the TARDIS doors, he was in… a broom closet. Not bad, as a parking spot—a bit squeezy, but out of the way. And as he poked his head out of that door, he could finally see he was in the backstage corridors of a studio of some kind. Film or TV, if he was to hazard a guess, it was a different vibe from Abbey Road.

With a shrug, he decided to go exploring.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute before a young woman wearing the full-black outfit, headset, and permanently stressed expression of a production assistant came running up to him.

“Are you the fill-in Sam organised?” she asked breathlessly, and honestly, seeing the look on her face, the Doctor didn’t have the heart(s) to tell her no. And really, what was the Doctor, if not a professional fill-in? This, this was why he had a randomiser button on the control panel, because whatever he was about to get himself into was going to be fun.

“Sure!”

“Oh, thank god,” sighed the production assistant, relief dawning across her face. “When Ally tested positive this morning, I thought we were sunk for the record, because we called around and we couldn’t get a hold of anyone. But then Sam said he could get someone in, and, you know, here you are, and just in time, so—ah, yeah, if you could follow me this way?”

Smiling all the way, the Doctor followed his guide through to hair and makeup, looking around as they went. The studio seemed to belong to a company called Dropout, according to the branding scattered around, and things seemed, at least on the surface, to be… well. Fine. He couldn't tell why he'd been brought here yet, which meant that when he found the reason, it was going to be particularly tangled. He couldn't wait! 

And then he looked back at his guide, still engulfed in a miasma of anxiety, and realised he'd been too busy looking for clues to notice the person right in front of him. 

“Hey, it's cool, you've found me,” he started with a gentle smile. “You can relax. Hi, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?”

“Oh!” she said, startled. “The Doctor, yeah, of course. Um, hi, I'm Kaylin. Look, sorry, it's just that I've been so busy this morning, I'm so distracted… Shit, and I would've completely forgotten to get your details too. There's paperwork to fill in, but you can do that later. Um, just for now, though, can I get your pronouns?”

The Doctor thought for a moment. “He/him, for now.”

Kaylin nodded, making a note on her phone. “Okay, cool! And do you have any socials?”

“Not me, babes,” he replied. “I'm hardly sitting down long enough to be able to update, you know?”

“On a day like this, I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “That's okay, Lou didn't have socials either for the longest time. Right, so if you go through there, the team will get you sorted, and once you're done, someone will take you up to the greenroom. All good?”

“All great,” the Doctor replied. Kaylin flashed him a quick, relieved smile, then hurried off.

Hair and makeup was a fairly quick process, the sound mixer fitted him with a microphone, and before too long, Kaylin was back to take him upstairs. 

“This is the greenroom,” she said, pushing the door open. “The rest of the cast for the episode are already here—they’re great guys, and they’ve both been on the show a lot, so they’ll be able to help if you’ve got questions. And if you need anything else, just come find me or any of the other PAs, okay?”

The Doctor nodded, beamed at Kaylin, and walked in.

---

The greenroom was small but comfortable, and its occupants, two men around the same age as the Doctor appeared, looked up as he entered.

“Oh, you’re new,” the taller of the pair said, clearly giving him the once-over.

The other sighed with a mixture of fondness and exasperation, just as clearly used to his friend’s antics.

“Hey, I’m Brennan,” he said, levering himself up to standing from his perch on a chair arm, and holding out a hand. “That’s Grant.”

The Doctor took it warmly. “The Doctor. Just passing through, and happy to help.”

Grant’s eyebrows quirked. “Doctor… something?” he prompted.

“Or is it just ‘the Doctor’?” Brennan asked.

“Just ‘the Doctor’,” the Time Lord confirmed cheerfully. “You’ll get used to it, everyone does.”

Grant didn’t look convinced, but—

“Copy that,” Brennan shrugged, and settled back on the arm of the chair, returning his gaze to the door.

Grant, in turn, looked at the Doctor and rolled his eyes in a clear expression of ‘no, I don’t know why he’s like this, either’.

“Okay,” the Doctor said after a moment of watching the watching. “I wasn’t going to ask, but now I think I have to. What’s up with the door?”

Brennan huffed a laugh. “Well, the last time there was one of those up—” he pointed to the Out of Order sign stuck to the bathroom door, “—we got locked in here for the game.”

“He’s paranoid,” Grant interjected.

“Well, yeah, maybe,” Brennan retorted. “Or just cautious. Because Sam’s been acting weird lately, and we’re coming up to the last few records of the season, so he’s probably planning something way out of the box for the finale. And the original cast was you, me and Beardsley, so…”

He shrugged one shoulder meaningfully, and Grant nodded, conceding both the point and the potential for chaos.

“So if Sam comes in to give us the briefing, rather than waiting til we’re on set,” Brennan continued, “or there’s anything else weird going on, I’m gonna know about it right from the beginning.”

He turned to the Doctor. “The only reason I'm not quizzing you is because I know for a fact Beardsley was genuinely scheduled for this, so you can't be a plant by the production team. No offence.”

“None taken,” the Doctor smiled. “That sort of thing happen often, does it?”

Grant and Brennan exchanged a look. 

“More than you'd think,” Grant answered with a grimace. 

“Alright,” the Doctor said slowly, then brightened. “So what is it we're actually doing?”

Grant gave him a disbelieving glance. “You don't know—?”

“Very last minute fill-in,” the Doctor said breezily. “But don't worry, I'm a quick study.”

“Well, you're not that much worse off than the rest of us,” Brennan said encouragingly. “You know about Game Changer, obviously, if you know Sam, and we only find out the rules of the game once we get on set. Hopefully,” he added, with a dark look back at the Out of Order sign. 

The Doctor nodded. No, he didn't know Sam, and he didn't know Game Changer, but he could work out the situation from context clues. This was a game show. And with the Toymaker banished, and Satellite Five not coming into existence for another 198000 years, give or take, he found himself smiling. Maybe third time would be the charm. 

“Mmm, hopefully they aren't going to throw you in the deep end,” Grant said. “Because Brennan might seem lovely now, but as soon as we get out there, he's a whore for points. He'll stab you in the back and won't even blink.”

Brennan barked with laughter. “Yeah, and you wouldn't?”

“Excuse you, I'm always a goddamn delight,” Grant replied, the very picture of injured dignity. 

“Oh, absolutely!” agreed a new voice. The Doctor turned to the now-open door to see a bearded man in a pinstriped suit smiling broadly. “That's why we keep inviting you back!”

Grant bowed sarcastically. “Why, thank you, Sam. Good to know I'm appreciated by someone here.”

“Always,” Sam replied, gently but firmly ending that particular path of the conversation. He scanned the room, and his eyes lit up when they landed on the Doctor. 

“Ah, you must be the Doctor!” he said with obvious delight, walking over with his hand outstretched. “I'm Sam—thanks for filling in for us, you've made sure we're going to have a good show. Seriously, it's a pleasure to have you here.”

“Aw, cheers!” the Doctor smiled, shaking the offered hand. “Glad I could help out, I'm really looking forward to this!”

“Well, great!” Sam exclaimed, then took a step back, regarding all three players in turn. “Now, folks, I'm just letting you know that we're just about ready to start the record, so if you can start heading down, that'd be great.”

Grant and Brennan nodded—Brennan, the Doctor noticed, with relief. 

“See you down there,” Sam said, smiling. “Have a great show, and—”

His eyes caught on the Doctor's for a second, twinkling. 

“Good luck.”

---

Backstage, the Doctor, Brennan and Grant were marshalled into podium order and given a final briefing from the crew. And then, with a thumbs-up from Kaylin, that was it.

Showtime.

“Get ready for a Game Changer!” came Sam's voice from onstage. “Tonight’s guests: he can shoot off a monologue with laser accuracy; it’s Brennan Lee Mulligan!”

Brennan, his back to the camera as the curtains opened, spun on his heel and, with a stone-cold expression, pointed finger guns straight down the barrel, before letting the facade crack open. “Hi!” he exclaimed, and walked over to the leftmost podium.

“It’s his first appearance, but he’s already on fire; it’s the Doctor!”

The Doctor leant against the archway to the stage and flashed a broad smile towards the camera, then in a few skipping steps, had bounded over to the next free podium. What the hell, why not make an entrance?

“And even in the toughest of mazes, you’ll always be able to find him; it’s Grant O’Brien!”

Grant dipped his lanky frame into an approximation of a curtsey, spreading his arms wide, then sauntered over to the closest podium with a grin.

“And your host, me!” Sam announced, a ring of manic white showing around his irises as he beamed down the barrel of the camera. “I’ve been here the whole time!”

“This,” he continued, pushing his microphone shut and stowing it in his jacket pocket, “is Game Changer, the only game show where the game changes every show. I am your host, Sam Reich!” 

As he said his name, he looked at his hands, front and back, as if he was pleasantly surprised to be himself, then gestured towards the three podiums.

“I am joined today by these three lovely contestants! Now, you understand how the game works.”

“Of course not,” Grant started. “You know we don't.”

“We can't, Sam, that's the whole point of the theatre you've set up here,” Brennan said over him. 

“Not yet,” was all the Doctor said, anticipation starting to drum a tattoo of excitement against the inside of his ribcage. 

“That’s right!” Sam said brightly, shooting finger guns at the camera. “Our players have no idea what game it is they’re about to play. The only way to learn is by playing. The only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning! So without further ado, let’s begin by giving each of our players fifty points.”

The Doctor, biding his time, watched the reactions of his fellow contestants. Grant looked at the front of his podium, checking the point total, and nodding approvingly when he saw that yes, it was sitting at a round fifty. Brennan, on the other hand, was starting to frown.

“Players, Sam says: touch your nose,” Sam began, and Brennan sighed the sigh of someone who wasn’t happy to be proved right.

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “Oh, you son of a bitch. Wasn’t one this season enough?”

He touched his nose anyway, as did the others, and Sam smiled encouragingly. “Sam says: touch your ear.”

When they all did, Sam nodded. “Touch your other ear.”

Everybody held still, fingers on the ears they had originally touched.

Sam beamed. “Easy, players, right?”

“You say that now,” Brennan said darkly. “Which makes it worse, because all you're doing is setting us up for failure.”

Sam gasped, pretending offence. “Would I do that?”

“Yes,” Brennan and Grant replied in unison, which drew a grin from the Doctor and set Sam off chuckling.

“And I'm not having it,” Brennan continued, leaning his elbows against his podium and pointing at Sam with the hand not touching his ear. “You better watch yourself, because I know how this game works, and you're not going to get one over on me.”

“Strong words, Brennan!” Sam said, clearly delighted by this response. “Okay, then, let's start making things a bit more interesting!”

The game continued as per Sam Says usual, some rounds done as a group and some individual. Points were won, sure, but lost slightly more frequently, and even the Doctor found he was having to concentrate to avoid getting caught in the host's traps. 

It was fun. Genuinely, it was like playing a game with friends, and the Doctor felt himself leaning into it. There wasn't any sign of danger—maybe there wasn't a mystery to solve at all, and the TARDIS just decided he needed a total break. 

Well, probably not. But the way things were going, he was able to let himself hope. 

“Alright, players,” Sam said a good few rounds in, just as pleasantly as he would start any other question, and the screen behind him dinged as a new prompt popped up. “Survive the death beam.”

For a second, everything was frozen perfectly still. 

And then came the crash, the explosive noise of heavy machinery moving relentlessly through a drywall set.

The Doctor was already moving. “Everyone down!”

“Duck!” Brennan yelled at the same time.

The two of them hit the ground within milliseconds of each other, but Grant was still paralysed in the face of the giant, science-fiction type laser cannon that had just ploughed through the wall. 

It whined ominously, screaming its way to fever pitch. And then a sharp pain in Grant’s ankle made him stagger, pitching forwards onto the carpet behind the podiums as the Doctor rolled away to avoid getting pinned.

“Sorry, babes,” the Doctor whispered. “But it was either kick you to get you down, or—”

A hideous metallic screech ripped through the air, and all three of them could feel the crackle of ozone as a beam of energy swept across what had, moments ago, been neck height.

“…Or that,” the Doctor finished with a grimace.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Grant breathed, suddenly very conscious of every inch of his 6’9 frame. “Thanks.”

“Well done, players!” Sam exclaimed delightedly from above them. “But… sorry, I didn’t say ‘Sam says’, so that’s a point off for everyone.”

“What the fuck!” Brennan snapped.

“Are you actually insane?” Grant demanded at the same time, his voice overlapping with Brennan’s.

In response, Sam just wheezed with laughter. “You can come back to your podiums,” he said, cheerfully ignoring them.

Nobody moved.

“Very good!” he acknowledged, and even without seeing his face, the grin was obvious in his voice. “Okay, Sam says: come back to your podiums.”

Although the words were innocuous, and his tone was just as light and breezy as usual, there was nevertheless an edge hiding just underneath the surface. And while the death beam loomed large in the minds of all three players, it was impossible to consider disobedience as an option.

Slowly, they stood, returning to their places. Now they had the time to look at it properly, the death beam was even more sinister, and Brennan and Grant both kept flicking nervous glances its way, ready to move if it looked like it was charging up again.

The Doctor, however, was focused purely on the man standing in front of them. Unbothered, Sam met his gaze like a challenge, a mischievous smile playing about his lips.

“Oh, you’ll love this one,” he said, and the screen changed. “Sam says, starting with Grant: say my name.”

Grant frowned in confusion, but answered quickly nonetheless. “Sam Reich?”

The man himself shrugged tolerantly, moving on. “Brennan?”

Brennan just stared at him coolly. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“Well caught, Brennan!” Sam said happily. “Sam says: say my name.”

“Sam,” Brennan replied, suspicion clear in his voice. “Samuel Dalton Reich.”

He nodded, still with a hint of indifference. “And lastly, Doctor.” His smile broadened. “Sam says: say my name.”

It was easy. Too easy. And as the Doctor looked into the eyes of the man calling himself Sam Reich, he felt his hearts stutter in recognition, because something had changed. He wasn’t hiding himself anymore, and while the face was different yet again, the Doctor would know the shape of that soul anywhere. It was impossible. It was inevitable.

“You can’t be,” he breathed. 

Sam smirked, leaning in across his podium. “Oh, but Doctor… I’ve been here the whole time,” he stage-whispered with a wink.

“He said you lost,” the Doctor said, shaking his head, looking wrong-footed for the first time that Brennan and Grant could recall. “You lost, and he trapped you.”

The other two watched, uncomprehending, but Sam just smiled, drumming his fingers against the podium with an audible beat, fast but distinct. Four taps, four taps, four taps. “I’m waiting.”

The Doctor took a slow, deep breath. Set his jaw. 

“Master.”

---

missed an installment of the game master cinematic universe?

original idea by @ace-whovian-neuroscientist: x

art by @northernfireart concept: x scissor sisters sketch: x sam and his doppelganger: x

writing by me (!) part one (escape the greenroom): x part two (deja vu): x part three (sam says 4): you are here!

[girlactionfigure]

Final Solution, rebranded

After Syria’s 61-year Ba’ath regime was ousted from power last week, harrowing, deeply disturbing images, videos, and testimonies have come out of Sednaya Prison, also known as the “human slaughterhouse.” Many have compared these images to the human rights atrocities that took place during the Holocaust.

This is one time that Nazi references are actually relevant. See, the Ba’athist regime hired former Nazi war criminals to advise them on how to set up an “effective system of repression, inspired by the practices of the Third Reich.”

In particular, Bashar al-Assad’s own father, Hafez al-Assad, developed a close relationship with Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s right-hand man. Adolf Eichmann is known as the architect of the Final Solution.

This got me thinking about the thousands of Nazi war criminals who escaped to the Arab world, all of whom evaded justice because their host countries refused to extradite them.While many of these Nazis chose to live private lives in their new countries, some were hired by Arab governments, many with one objective in particular...to destroy the State of Israel.

IN 1937, THE NAZIS WROTE THE FOLLOWING TELEGRAM

"The formation of a Jewish state or Jewish-led political structure under British mandate is not in Germany’s interest, since a Palestinian state would not absorb world Jewry but would create an additional position of power under international law..."

The Nazis, of course, wanted Jews powerless, and they rightly assessed that Jewish national autonomy would do the opposite.

THE NAZIS WERE HOSTILE TO THE IDEA OF A JEWISH STATE

As early as 1925, Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn’t even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle…”

The Nazis supported Palestinian Arab nationalists, most notably the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, in material ways. In November of 1933, the Nazis themselves revealed that they had established a direct contact with the Arab leadership in Palestine, with the hopes of “adapting the Nazi program” to the Holy Land.

Shortly after the Nazis came to power, they began breaking up Zionist meetings in Berlin; for example, a 1934 Jewish Daily Bulletin headline reads, “Nazi Officials Raid Zionist B’nai B’rith Meeting in Berlin.” By 1941, the Nazis officially banned all Zionist activities in Germany.

In November of 1941, al-Husseini met with German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and with Hitler himself. Hitler promised al-Husseini that once the German troops reached the Arab world, “Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere…”

THE FINAL SOLUTION WAS NOT FINAL. BUT FORMER NAZIS -- AND NAZI SYMPATHIZERS IN THE MIDDLE EAST -- HAD OTHER IDEAS

Ultimately, the Final Solution failed. The Nazis managed to slaughter nearly 70% of European Jewry during the Holocaust, but they did not succeed in exterminating Jewry in its entirety. Instead of admitting defeat, however, many former Nazis shifted their objective: instead of exterminating Jews, they’d exterminate the Jewish state -- or the prospect of the Jewish state.

Following the vote on the 1947 Partition Plan, the Arab Higher Committee warned the British not to intervene in their violence against the Jews. The Arab Higher Committee published a leaflet stating: “The Arabs have taken the Final Solution to the Jewish problem. The problem will be solved only in blood and fire. The Jews will soon be driven out.” 

Between 1948-1949, 1000 former Bosnian Muslim SS members joined the Palestinians in their fight against the Jews. Hundreds of members from the 13th and 23rd SS Divisions volunteered as well.

In early 1948, 30,000 army veterans from various fascist forces created an army known as Black International. Some of the members included Nazi soldiers, a pro-Nazi renegade Soviet battalion, and pro-Nazi Poles and Yugoslavs, as well as the Muslim members of a brigade that al-Husseini had organized to fight alongside the Nazis. Black International attacked Jewish towns and kibbutzim.

A source close to the group commented: “These Poles, Russians, Germans and Yugoslavs…are the Arabs fighting for national liberation…Actually their cynical joy is unbounded at the double gift which has been handed them — the opportunity to butcher Jews, and get paid for it.”

Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, and in 1949, it signed armistice agreements with its Arab neighbors.

But the Arab-Nazi alliance to annihilate the Jewish state did not end there.

NAZI WAR CRIMINALS IN THE ARAB WORLD

Over 4000 Nazi war criminals found refuge in the Arab world after the fall of Nazi Germany (in contrast, it’s estimated “only” 180 to 800 Nazi war criminals fled to South America). Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal estimated in 1967 that between 6000-7000 former Nazis had found refuge in the Arab world. Not a single Arab country ever expelled these war criminals or prosecuted them. Among them were:

FROM EXTERMINATING JEWS TO EXTERMINATING THE JEWISH NATION

During World War II — and shortly afterward — the Palestinian Arab leadership considered the idea of annihilating Jews and annihilating the prospect of a sovereign Jewish state virtually synonymous.

In 1957, a top secret document came to light, which revealed that Germany and Italy recognized the right of the Arabs to “solve the Jewish question” in Palestine and other Arab nations. During the meeting, Hitler told the Mufti: “Germany is resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time to direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well.”

For Nazi war criminals, who’d served under Hitler to exterminate world Jewry, the idea of joining the Arab countries in their quest to exterminate the world’s only Jewish state was deeply appealing. Likewise, many Arab governments accepted such “help” from Nazi war criminals because they, too, held deep disdain not just for Israel and Zionism, but for their own local Jewish communities, which they’d all but decimated in the wake of the 1948 war.

In this way, the Final Solution to the Jewish Question did not end but was simply rebranded. Instead of exterminating Jews, they’d be working to exterminate the Jewish state...where, today, half of the world’s Jews live.

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram and  Patreon. 

rootsmetals

“death to Israel” is just the Final Solution rebranded 🤷🏻‍♀️ honestly kinda wild only South America has a reputation for being a Nazi haven when at least 5x as many Nazi war criminals were given a safe haven in the Arab world…

[eighthman-bound]

In light of everything that’s been happening, I hope it’s okay if I share this scene from a Doctor Who VNA book/ Big Finish Bernice Summerfield story, Just War-

"You say you come from the future, and I know for certain Germany will win the war, that means this Reich will go on for a thousand years."

Bernice laughs, "I’m sorry but that’s just not true. This Reich doesn’t even last for 1000 weeks let alone 1000 years. Oh yes, fascism disappears as a political force in your lifetime Oskar. By the 1990s where my ex husband comes from the only people wearing the Nazi uniform were sad little blokes who can’t get it up any other way. A few gangs of glue sniffing thugs had the swastika tattooed to their foreheads but they never learnt what it really stood for. They hang around on street corners spitting and swearing, trying to shock their parents but they weren't up to anything other than petty vandalism and beating up immigrant women and children. In other words fascism ended just where it started. Your only legacy will be their hatred, their ignorance."

[bouncinghedgehog]

Robert Reich:

Friends,

It can be overwhelming. Trump is trying to “flood the zone” so we focus on a few outrages that we find most offensive and lose sight of the big picture — the larger strategy he and Elon Musk and their cronies are pursuing.

Their major goal is not only or even mainly to impose white Christian nationalism on America, nor to downsize the federal government, nor to wreak vengeance on Trump’s enemies.

It is to concentrate ever more power in Trump’s hands, so he can concentrate ever more wealth in the oligarchy’s hands.

The overall strategy boils down to five tactics.

1. Replace federal civil servants with Trump loyalists.

It’s like the communist witch hunts of the late 1940s and early 1950s, only not with loyalty oaths to the United States but loyalty oaths to Trump.

Under one of Trump’s first executive orders, known as “Schedule F,” job protections shielding tens of thousands of senior career federal workers will be eliminated, making it easier to replace them with loyalists.

This week, Trump (via Musk) issued to all 2.3 million federal workers an offer to quit and get eight months pay or face the possibility of being furloughed without pay or fired. This, too, is aimed at getting rid of the professional civil service and installing people more loyal to Trump than to the United States.

Dozens of career officials at the National Security Council have been sent home while their loyalty is being reviewed. Dozens of other career officials, at the U.S. Agency for International Development, have been put on leave for suspicion of resisting an order by Trump.

Trump has conducted a mass purge of more than a dozen inspectors general (in direct violation of a law requiring written notice to Congress with a “substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons” at least 30 days in advance). The only inspector general who remains is a Trump loyalist.

2. Take over independent decision-making across government.

This past Monday night, Trump froze up to $3 trillion in federal grants and loans to determine whether they “meet his priorities,” even though they had been passed by Congress. This was a direct violation of the Impoundment Act of 1974. (Later in the week, the freeze was rescinded, but it is expected to be reimposed in a form less vulnerable to legal challenges.)

He fired Democratic members of independent agencies — the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — leaving each without enough members to legally act.

This action is also unlawful. The law creating the labor board makes it independent of the White House in part by limiting a president’s ability to fire its members at will, stating: “Any member of the board may be removed by the president, upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.”

3. Put current officials on notice that defiance will be punished.

The media calls this Trump’s retribution for past perceived wrongs, but as a practical matter, it’s Trump’s warning to current officials that he will punish any disloyalty or defiance.

Trump has fired more than a dozen prosecutors from the Justice Department who worked for the special counsel Jack Smith on investigations into Trump.

A memo to the fired prosecutors from the acting attorney general, James McHenry, says a major factor in firing them was disloyalty to Trump: “Given your significant role in prosecuting the president, I do not believe that the leadership of the department can trust you to assist in implementing the president’s agenda faithfully,” he wrote.

Trump’s Justice Department has also opened an investigation into the actions of career prosecutors who criminally charged the Trump supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump has withdrawn security details from former public officials who have criticized him, although the threats on their lives continue — Anthony Fauci, John Bolton, and General Mark Milley. Trump has also rescinded additional protections for certain senior civil servants whose lives have been threatened.

4. Eliminate or intimidate sources of news and facts that have criticized Trump.

Trump has threatened to throw journalists in jail and revoke the broadcast licenses of television networks he perceives as unduly critical of him. He is also threatening universities, scientists, and government research agencies whose findings he dislikes. Trump’s Department of Education plans to control classroom curricula.

The threats are escalating. Days ago, Musk lashed out at the nonprofit Wikipedia after his page there was updated with a description of his controversial Nazi-like salute during Trump’s Inauguration Day celebrations.

5. Divide and conquer.

Trump wants Americans to get so riled up against one another that we don’t look upward and see where all the wealth and power have gone. This, too, is a tactic for consolidating power.

Yesterday, for example, Trump blamed the tragic air crash on Biden and Obama initiatives to make the federal workforce more diverse, claiming they “came out with a directive — ‘too white,’” but that “we want the people that are competent.”

***

It’s important to see Trump’s strategy as a whole. It is designed to consolidate his power. If we see it as a whole, the rest of us are better able to counter it — by demanding action from and fortifying our members of Congress, organizing for the midterm elections in 2026 to take back both chambers, conducting boycotts, and supporting and defending those who are vulnerable to Trump.

Americans don’t want a dictator. We don’t want an oligarchy. We were founded in rebellion against a king and his aristocracy.

Trump’s consolidation of power comes at a time when huge wealth has been amassed in the hands of 640 billionaires, including many who are in Trump’s White House — including the richest person in the world, who is now giving out orders as if he were Trump.

This concentration of power increases opportunities for oligarchic transactions — more power for more wealth, and more wealth for more power — that siphon off wealth and power from everyone else and undermine democracy.

This is the central reality of what has happened during the first 10 days of the Trump regime.

What do you think?

[bopinion]

2024 / 05

Aperçu of the week:

"Remember, democracy never lasts. It soon wastes, exhausts and kills itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide."

(John Adams, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America and its second president from 1797 to 1801)

Bad news of the week:

The war in Gaza threatens to escalate. In response to a drone attack on a US base, the US has bombed pro-Iranian militia positions in Syria and Iraq. More than 85 targets were hit, according to the US military. And Joe Biden made it clear that more military action would follow. It will not be long before Iran retaliates.

The attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on merchant ships in the Red Sea will not stop either. Nor will Israel's military actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon. So will there be the feared conflagration in the region? That will depend on the Pentagon and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Between these two powers are the oppressed peoples of Syria and Iraq. They are as innocent of escalation as the absolute majority of Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the situation of the civilian population in Gaza continues to deteriorate. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has announced that the Israeli offensive will reach Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. What the million of internally displaced people thought was a safe zone. And which, as German Foreign Minister Baerbock aptly put it, "cannot disappear into thin air". For Egypt will continue to keep its border closed.

The parallel negotiations for a cease-fire and the release of the hostages, in which Israel and Egypt as well as Qatar - the seat of the political leadership of Hamas - and the USA are involved, have also come to a standstill. According to media reports, there is no compromise in sight. The majority of Western politicians tirelessly remind us that only a two-state solution can permanently ensure the peaceful coexistence of Israel and Palestine. Rarely has a theory been so far from its practical implementation.

Good news of the week:

While hundreds of thousands of citizens continue to take to the streets against the right and for democracy, the party landscape is also arming itself against the shift to the right. The last general debate in the Bundestag was hardly about the actual item on the agenda, the 2024 budget, but about clearly distancing themselves from the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany) - in rare unity among the so-called established parties across the political spectrum.

These parties are also preparing for the right-wing to remain present in parliament - like the Rassemblement National in France, for example. Currently, the aim is to strengthen the protection of the Federal Constitutional Court. The governing traffic light coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals wants to protect the guardians of the constitution more strongly against possible attempts to remove their power.

Following the experiences of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism in the Third Reich, the authors of the Basic Law built various safeguards into the constitution. These include the "eternity clause", which states that the supporting pillars of the constitution (human dignity, democracy, constitutional state, federal state) may not be changed at all.

The Federal Constitutional Court was also created as a new supervisory body. If the powers of this supervisory body were to be curtailed, the fundamental guarantees could be undermined. The examples of Hungary, Poland and Israel show that right-wing populist governments in particular are trying to disempower the constitutional courts. In order to remove their political actions from any control.

In concrete terms, the core tasks of the Constitutional Court - such as deciding on constitutional complaints or mediating between state bodies - cannot be changed by a simple majority, but many organizational issues can. Since, for example, the election of judges is not regulated in the Basic Law (under the protection of the two-thirds majority), but "only" in a simple law, the legislature could also change key parameters in its favor with a simple majority.

No majority government in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany has ever dared to do this. Because all parties have always felt committed to democratic principles. Until now. It has already been shown several times in the USA that the appointment of judges can be misused for partisan political purposes. A blocking minority would also suffice for a complete blockade here. And the increasing likelihood of this is no longer a dystopia. In this respect, it is a good sign that the largest parliamentary group in the Bundestag - the current opposition conservatives - have also shown themselves to be open to strengthening the independence of the Constitutional Court.

Personal happy moment of the week:

I cleaned the windows. Which I rarely do. And I still prefer to do it myself, because nobody can please me anyway. It's not just the result that makes me happy, but also the positive reactions - from my wife and yes: even from neighbors. Let's see if I learn from it this time and do it more often in the future. After all, I like to be praised from time to time.

I couldn't care less...

...that Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early, mild spring on Groundhog Day. His accuracy is statistically just 40%. I can do the same when I flip a coin. My result: Phil is right. Let's see.

It's fine with me...

...that Taylor Swift's otherwise elusive socio-cultural impact could have a positive effect. According to a Newsweek poll, 30% of 18- to 35-year-olds in the US would follow a proposition from Swift in this November's presidential election - that's more than 13 million votes. No wonder the Republicans are already outdoing each other with conspiracy theories of her being a "Democratic secret weapon". After all, the pop star has already shown a tendency towards Joe Biden in the past, but above all against Donald Trump.

As I write this...

...I am already waiting for next weekend. A little anxious, as the two main sporting events will probably pass by me. Firstly, the top match in the German Bundesliga. Between "my" Munich-based FC Bayern, who strangely enough is only in second place at the moment, and Bayer 04 Leverkusen (Bayer who? Exactly!), who are unbeaten at the top so far this season. And it's only on pay TV, for which I would first have to find a suitably equipped sports bar nearby. Secondly, Superbowl LVIII in Las Vegas between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. This will be broadcast on German free TV, but in the middle of the night in our time zone. From Sunday to Monday. I'm just too old for that. And I console myself with the fact that, in my opinion, Usher lacks the format for the halftime show. Which I will of course still watch on YouTube.

Post Scriptum

It's the fourth anniversary of Brexit. At the end of the last decade, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland left the European Union. Former Prime Minister David Cameron had actually wanted to get backing for Europe through a referendum. The shot backfired and the rest is history: "taking back control" did not work out as the Brexiteers around Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage had hoped. Since then, the island kingdom has been in a political and economic crisis. Without gloating, it can be said that liberal cooperation works obviously better than protectionist isolation.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Imagine this: It’s exactly one year from today, Memorial Day weekend, 2025. It’s 94 degrees in the shade, but the fact that the world keeps shattering monthly temperature records isn’t even making the news — and that’s not what has Philadelphians so hot and bothered. It’s been about two months since Donald Trump, the 47th president of the United States, announced Operation Purify America in an Oval Office address, and about a week since a stunned Philadelphia watched an endless convoy of militarized vehicles and federalized troops from the Texas and South Dakota National Guards roll up I-95. After a week of setting up a base camp at the Air National Guard base in Horsham, the actual operation began at midnight the day before, as a parade of Humvees and armored personal carriers cornered off a wide area in Philadelphia’s Hunting Park section and supported federal immigration agents who went door-to-door in the predawn chaos, bursting into homes and asking Latino residents for their papers. Journalists who’d been kept blocks away by the troops now search for anyone who could confirm the rumors of screaming, scuffling, and dozens of arrests. As the hot sun rises, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, Gov. Josh Shapiro, and several hundred angry protesters gather outside the Horsham gate to denounce the raids. A phalanx of helmeted troops pushes the throng back, firing tear gas to clear the road for the first busload of detained migrants. They are bound for the hastily erected Camp Liberty, an already overcrowded and decrepit holding center on the Texas-Mexico border that Amnesty International calls “a concentration camp.” This might sound like a page from the script of Alex Garland’s next near-future dystopian movie, but it’s actually a realistic preview of the America Trump himself, his cartoonishly sinister immigration guru Stephen Miller, and the right-wing functionaries crafting the 900-page blueprint for a Trump 47 presidency called Project 2025 are fervently wishing for. As polls show Trump in a dead heat nationally with President Joe Biden, and poised to win at least some of the battleground states where Biden was victorious in 2020, the presumptive GOP nominee is making no secret of his scheme for what he calls “the Largest Domestic Deportation Operation in History.” The audacious goal of tracking down and deporting all 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living and working within the United States is, experts agree, all but impossible. But even the forced removal of hundreds of thousands, or one million, would require a massive internal military operation on a scale not seen since the Civil War and Reconstruction. [...] What’s changed in 2024? Everything. Despite the Hannibal Lecter-ized outward chaos of Trump’s rallies, behind the scenes, Team Trump is focused and determined not only to name the most rabid Trump loyalists to key political posts but also todramatically strip civil service protections andremove recalcitrant midlevel government employees. And this time around, Republicans in Congress are going to be on board with whatever Trump wants. [...] It was somewhat amazing to watch the furious debate online and on cable news this week over the weird incident in which small text about a “unified Reich” found its way into a Trump promo video the ex-and-wannabe president posted on Truth Social. The perplexing part, for me, is that this was discussed as some kind of Sherlock-Holmes-magnifying-glass a-ha moment, revealing Trump’s secret plan for Nazi-style rule. Folks, he is screaming his plan out loud at his rallies! The Trump deportation scheme is really Trump’s blueprint for dictatorship.

Will Bunch at The Philadelphia Inquirer on how Donald Trump's proposed deportation plan is a pretext for a fascist MAGA dictatorship (05.23.2024).

Will Bunch nails it in this Philly Inquirer column on how Donald Trump's fascistic plan for mass deportations is a speed-run for a MAGA dictatorship.

[flagwars]

Video Game Flag Wars: Round 1, Bracket 8

[misfitwashere]

ROBERT REICH

JAN 31

Friends,

It can be overwhelming. Trump is trying to “flood the zone” so we focus on a few outrages that we find most offensive and lose sight of the big picture — the larger strategy he and Musk and their cronies are pursuing. 

Their major goal is not only or even mainly to impose white Christian nationalism on America, nor to downsize the federal government, nor to wreak vengeance on Trump’s enemies. 

It is to concentrate ever more power in Trump’s hands, so he can concentrate ever more wealth in the oligarchy’s hands. 

The overall strategy boils down to five tactics. 

1. Replace federal civil servants with Trump loyalists. 

It’s like the communist witch hunts of late 1940s and early 1950s, only not with loyalty oaths to the United States but loyalty oaths to Trump.

Under one of Trump’s first executive orders, known as “Schedule F,” job protections shielding tens of thousands of senior career federal workers will be eliminated, making it easier to replace them with loyalists.

This week, Trump (via Musk) issued to all 2.3 million federal workers an offer to quit and get 8 months pay or face possibility of being furloughed without pay or fired. This, too, is aimed at getting rid of the professional civil service and installing people more loyal to Trump than to the United States.

Dozens of career officials at the National Security Council have been sent home while their loyalty is being reviewed. Dozens of other career officials, at the U.S. Agency for International Development, have been put on leave for suspicion of resisting an order by Trump.

Trump has conducted a mass purge of more than a dozen Inspectors General (in direct violation of a law requiring written notice to Congress with a “substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons” at least 30 days in advance). The only Inspector General who remains is a Trump loyalist. 

2. Take over independent decision making across government.

Last Monday night, Trump froze up to $3 trillion in federal grants and loans to determine whether they “meet his priorities,” even though they had been passed by Congress — in direct violation of the Impoundment Act of 1974. (Later in the week, the freeze was rescinded but it is expected to be reimposed in a form less vulnerable to legal challenges.)

He fired Democratic members of independent agencies — the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — leaving each without enough members to legally act.

This action is also unlawful. The law creating the labor board makes it independent of the White House in part by limiting a president’s ability to fire its members at will, stating: “Any member of the board may be removed by the president, upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.”

3. Put current officials on notice that defiance will be punished. 

The media calls this Trump’s retribution for past perceived wrongs, but as a practical matter it’s Trump warning to current officials that he will punish any disloyalty or defiance.

Trump has fired more than a dozen prosecutors from the Justice Department who worked for the special counsel Jack Smith on investigations into Trump.

A memo to the fired prosecutors from the acting attorney general, James McHenry, says a major factor in firing them was disloyalty to Trump: “Given your significant role in prosecuting the president, I do not believe that the leadership of the department can trust you to assist in implementing the president’s agenda faithfully,” he wrote.

Trump’s Justice Department has also opened an investigation into the actions of career prosecutors who criminally charged the Trump supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

Trump has withdrawn security details from former public officials who have criticized him, although the threats on their lives continue — Anthony Fauci, John Bolton, and General Mark Milley. Trump has also rescinded additional protections for certain senior civil servants whose lives have been threatened. 

4. Eliminate or intimidate sources of news and facts that have criticized Trump. 

Trump has threatened to throw journalists in jail and revoke broadcast licenses of television networks he perceives as unduly critical of him. He is also threatening universities, scientists, and government research agencies whose findings he dislikes. Trump’s education department plans to control classroom curricula.

The threats are escalating. Days ago, Elon Musk lashed out at the nonprofit Wikipedia, after his page was updated with a description of his controversial Nazi-like salute during Trump’s Inauguration Day celebrations. 

5. Divide and conquer. 

Trump wants Americans to get so riled up against one another that we don’t look upward and see where all the wealth and power have gone. This, too, is a tactic for consolidating ;power. 

Yesterday, for example, Trump blamed the tragic air crash on Biden and Obama initiatives to make the federal workforce more diverse, claiming they “came out with a directive — ‘too white’”, but that “we want the people that are competent.”

***

It’s important to see Trump’s strategy as a whole. It is designed to consolidate his power. If we see it as a whole, the rest of us are better able to counter it — by demanding and fortifying our members of Congress, organizing for the midterm elections in 2026 to take back both chambers, conducting boycotts, and supporting and defending those who are vulnerable to Trump. 

Americans don’t want a dictator. We don’t want an oligarchy. We were founded in rebellion against a king and his aristocracy. 

Trump’s consolidation of power comes at a time when huge wealth has been consolidated in hands of 640 billionaires, including many who are in Trump’s White House — including the richest person in the world, who is now giving out orders as if he were Trump. 

This concentration of power increases opportunities for oligarchic transactions — more power for more wealth, and more wealth for more power — that siphon off wealth and power from everyone else and undermine democracy. 

This is the central reality of what has happened during the first ten days of the Trump regime.

[arsene-inc]

A TTRPG collection retrospective

And so my TTRPG in book format collection has reached 70...not books......licences.... and a lot of them are complete. I miss when I had space to tidy stuff.

So here are all my books :

The PBTA and adjacent games

The first style of games that really hooked me

Monster of the week , the first game I ever gm'd

World Wide Wrestling

Masks, my most played game this year

Urban Shadows

Dungeon World, bought because I did not have any "generic" fantasy system.

Apocalypse Keys

Blades in the dark , the game that bought me where I am, introduce me to french ttrpg content creators when I responded to an ad for a player.

Band of Blades

Brinkwood

Sig, City of Blades

City of Mist

English Import

Agon 2nd edition, still a favorite

Kids on broom

Slayers ( and a one)

Nova ( and a two)

Rune ( and a three for GilaRPGs)

DIE RPG ( really need to choose a good group to play this)

Heart the city beneath (yeah i like Rowan, Rook & Deckart)

Dragonbane ( A friend is a die hard Free League fan)

Wildsea

DotDungeon

Liminal

Tattered Magick

International Games translated in French

Mausritter

Thousand year Old Vampire

The Magus

Colostle

Warpland

Troika, my cursed game, the sessions are always canceled

Paleomythic

Vaesen

Spire, the city must fall

Genesys

Dragons conquer America

Sins of the father

Fate core

Nobilis 2nd edition, the big beautiful white book

Mage 20th

Castle Falkenstein

Cryptomancer, the 70th game

French indies ( with quick pitch)

Etoiles - a Stargate game

Aventures a Plumes/ Feathered Adventures - Play diceless Ducktales

Cités abimés / Broken Cities - 30's surrealism the game

Anime was a mistake - play every anime

Prosopopée - Mushishi the game

De mauvais reves - a cursed family in the Great North

Glorieuses - housewives in the 80's trying to escape boredom with wrestling

Temple des vents / Colosse de Grisantre - solo game of a fantasy wanderer

Les veilleurs - solo game / You are the Hero book, with Titan cults

Bois Dormant - post apocalyptic hopepunk gmless game inspired by Sleeping Beauty

Explorateur des Bruines/Libretés - Kids trying to survive an alternate dimension of murderous mermaids hiding in the rain

Les Héritiers de l'Hypogryphe Saoul - Urban fantasy where magic was just revealed to the world, along with things so old even the magicals forgot about them

Argyropée - Renaissance fantasy in a city where murder is impossible and leaving too long makes you die of depression

Speedrun - a system to speedrun TTRPG sessions and campaign

Bigger/Mainstream? French Games

Insectopia - Medfan but you are all insects

Cats la mascarade - Cats are secretly psychic

Donjons et Chatons - medfan but you're kittens and a cartoon planned for 2025

Donjon & Cie / Dungeon, Inc. - Monsters in the dungeon are just corporate employees

Terre 2 - scifi I don't really care about, i just told my parents to buy it when they saw it a -70% in a thrift shop

Nautilus - Play Jules Verne Hundred Leagues under the sea

Meute - French werewolfes with 2 souls : mortal human and immortal wolf

Rotting Christ - The Band. A ttrpg for metalheads

Knight - Epic Horror, The Arthurian Myth with mechas. It's great

Nephilim - the urban fantasy occult french game (basically The Secret World as a ttrpg)

Chroniques Oubliés Contemporain - generic system for modern adventures

Les Héritiers - All sorts of fae in 1901 dreaming of the end of the world in 1914

Ecryme - translation funded on KS, coming soon : Steampunk where the water rose, leaving only small islands, plus the water is highly acidic, melting everything except stone and steel

Les Oubliés - Korrigans & little people the size of a finger in a french city during the Religion Wars

Subabysse - sorta pulpy scifi where water rose so humanity went to live under the sea

Waiting for (dear god all the crowdfunding)

Fabula Ultima translation

Nephilim supplements

Arc Doom translation

Eat the Reich

Meute campaign

Babel, french game of book magic

Break!

Monsterhearts translation

Dragonbane bestiary

Triangle Agency

Wilderfeast

The Hidden Isle

[ambasingresident]

The Different Flavors of Henry in the HOI4 Alt History Mod-Verse

List of Henries present in the drawing and their status in their respective AU

KR! (Kaiserreich) Henry: N.R.P.R White Knight of the Russian State

RF! (Red Flood) Henry: L E P A T R O N of Avant Garde France

FR! (Fuhrerreich) Henry: Thuleschutztruppe of the German Reich (Valkist Germany)

TWR! (Thousand Week Reich) Henry: Master Sergeant (Rear Echelon) of the United States under MacArthur's Presidency

OWB! (Old World Blues) Henry: Warrant Officer 1 of the Texan Enclave

TNO! (The New Order) Henry: General of the Siberian Black Leauge (Omsk)

[charamaestro]

I am very confused at how this post became my most popular post (ik its like 10 people but shh)

Thanks?

[scotianostra]

On December 4th 1937 cartoon character Desperate Dan first appeared in the Dandy comic. on it's launch day.

The face of Desperate Dan was sketched out as Dudley Watkins sat at his desk in Dundee, combining inspiration from the Wild West and English polismen.

The artist originally saw his cartoon character as an outlaw and gave him a stubbly lantern-jaw, the strength to lift a cow with one hand, and an appetite for cow pie, complete with horns. But as the anti-hero of the Dandy caught the imagination of thousands of young readers, Watkins evolved his persona into a champion of the underdog.

Dan made his appearance in the first issue of the Dandy on December 4th 1937. He survived until the comic closed in 2012, reappearing in a short-lived app.

He was just one of many comic book characters which Watkins created for Thomson’s Dundee publishing house. The success was huge, and Oor Wullie and The Broons, written in broad Scots, soon followed and became an essential part of school bairn’s lives.

A devout Christian, Watkins lived in a substantial house in a village near Dundee. It was his ambition to adapt the whole Bible into illustrated format, but that dream was never realised.

On the morning of August 20th, 1969, his wife found him at his desk, a half-finished Desperate Dan strip on his desk. He had died of a heart attack. His strips Oor Wullie, The Broons, Desperate Dan and Lord Snooty continue to be popular to this day.

In a 2006 BBC documentary marking 70 years of Oor Wullie, it was claimed that, due to his frequent mocking of Axis leaders in his comics before and during World War II, Watkins’ name was on a list of enemies of the Third Reich.

The final printed edition of The Dandy was issued on 4 December 2012, the comic’s 75th anniversary, after sales slumped to 8,000 a week. On the same day, The Dandy relaunched as an online comic, The Digital Dandy, appearing on the Dandy website and in the Dandy App. The digital relaunch was not successful and the comic ended just six months later.

[plethoraworldatlas]

Last week, Variety reported that “more than 1,000 Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals have signed an open letter denouncing Jonathan Glazer’s ‘The Zone of Interest’ Oscar speech.” The angry letter is a tight script for a real-life drama of defending Israel as it continues to methodically kill civilians no less precious than the signers’ own loved ones.

A few ethical words from Glazer while accepting his award provoked outrage. He spoke of wanting to refute “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” and he followed with a vital question: “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

Those words were too much for the letter’s signers, who included many of Hollywood’s powerful producers, directors and agents. For starters, they accused Glazer (who is Jewish) of “drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination.”

Ironically, that accusation embodied what Glazer had confronted from the Academy Awards stage when he said that what’s crucial in the present is “not to say, ‘Look what they did then,’ rather, ‘Look what we do now.’”

But the letter refused to look at what Israel is doing now as it bombs, kills, maims and starves Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where there are now 32,000 known dead and 74,000 injured. The letter’s moral vision only looked back at what the Third Reich did. Its signers endorsed the usual Zionist polemics—fitting neatly into Glazer’s description of “Jewishness and the Holocaust” being “hijacked by an occupation.”

The letter even denied that an occupation actually exists—objecting to “the use of words like ‘occupation’ to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years.” Somehow the Old Testament was presumed to be sufficient justification for the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, most of whose ancestors lived in what’s now Israel. The vast majority of 2.2 million people have been driven from their bombed-out homes in Gaza, with many now facing starvation due to blockage of food.

[beardedmrbean]

Germany’s right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was met with massive crowds of protesters Saturday, after a report revealed it had discussed deporting millions of immigrants, including German citizens, late last year. 

Investigative journalism group Correctiv published a report Wednesday on the meeting between AfD and the Identitarian Movement (IM) in November, claiming IM member Martin Sellner presented a plan for "re-migration" of immigrants out of Germany, including those who already have citizenship, but have failed to integrate.

AfD has confirmed the meeting, which was allegedly captured on hidden cameras, took place but rejected assertions that it reflects their party policy.

"The AfD won't change its position on immigration policy because of a single opinion at a non-AfD meeting," a spokesperson told Reuters.

Protesters across Germany held signs on Saturday that read "Never Again is Now," "Defend Democracy" and "Against Hate" as the meeting garners comparisons with the Nazis. 

A protest in Frankfurt on Saturday had around 35,000 people and one in Hamburg had around 50,000, police said. Others took place in cities like Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Hannover. 

Hamburg’s demonstration ended early over crowd size safety concerns. 

Large protests in cities like Berlin and Munich are also planned for Sunday. 

The report and subsequent protests have also renewed calls for a ban on the AfD in the country. 

The AfD was founded in 2013 and polling suggests it has around 23% support in the country. 

AfD was the first right-wing party since the Nazis to win a mayoral and district council election when it did last year. It has also made significant gains in state elections in Bavaria and Hesse. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the AfD and Identarian Movement in a statement on social media last week, comparing them to the Third Reich.

"We protect everyone — regardless of origin, skin color or how uncomfortable someone is for fanatics with assimilation fantasies," said Scholz. 

Although immigration is a top issue in the country, Scholz himself previously admitted "too many are coming."