#ukraine knows the meaning of freedom too

[enchantedephiphany]

I want to go to Ukraine so he can be my president.

Who is the only real leader of the free world?

[mariacallous]

When most Americans think of fascism, they picture a Hitlerian hellscape of dramatic action: police raids, violent coups, mass executions. Indeed, such was the savagery of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Vichy France. But what many people don’t appreciate about tyranny is its “banality,” Timothy Snyder tells me. “We don’t imagine how a regime change is going to be at the dinner table. The regime change is going to be on the sidewalk. It’s going to be in your whole life.”

Snyder, a Yale history professor and leading scholar of Soviet Russia, was patching into Zoom from a hotel room in Kyiv, where the specter of authoritarianism looms large as Ukraine remains steeped in a yearslong military siege by Vladimir Putin. It was late at night and he was still winding down from, and gearing up for, a packed schedule—from launching an institution dedicated to the documentation of the war, to fundraising for robotic-demining development, to organizing a conference for a new Ukrainian history project. “I’ve had kind of a long day and a long week, and if this were going to be my sartorial first appearance in Vanity Fair, I would really want it to go otherwise,” he joked.

But the rest of our conversation was no laughing matter. It largely centered, to little surprise, on Donald Trump and how the former president has put America on a glide path to fascism. Too many commentators were late to realize this. Snyder, however, has been sounding the alarm since the dawn of Trumpism itself, invoking the cautionary tales of fascist history in his 2017 book, On Tyranny, and in The Road to Unfreedom the year after. It’s been six years since the latter, and Snyder is now out with a new book, On Freedom, a personal and philosophical attempt to flip the valence of America’s most lauded—and loaded—word. “We Americans tend to think that freedom is a matter of things being cleared away, and that capitalism does that work for us. It is a trap to believe in this,” he writes. “Freedom is not an absence but a presence, a life in which we choose multiple commitments and realize combinations of them in the world.”

In an interview with Vanity Fair, which has been edited for length and clarity, Snyder unpacks America’s “strongman fantasy,” encourages Democrats to reclaim the concept of freedom, and critiques journalists for pushing a “war fatigue” narrative about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “There’s just something so odd about Americans being tired of this war. We can get bored of it or whatever, but how can we be tired?” he asks. “We’re not doing a damn thing.”

Vanity Fair: The things we associate with freedom—free speech, religious liberty—have been co-opted by the Republican Party. Do you think you could walk me through how that happened historically and how Democrats could take that word back?

Timothy Snyder: Yeah. I think the way it happened historically is actually quite dark there. There’s an innocent way of talking about this, which is to say, “Oh, some people believe in negative freedom and some people believe in positive freedom—and negative freedom just means less government and positive freedom means more government.” And when you say it like that, it just sounds like a question of taste. And who knows who’s right?

Whereas historically speaking, to answer your question, the reason why people believe in negative freedom is that they’re enslaving other people, or they are oppressing women, or both. The reason why you say freedom is just keeping the government off my back is that the central government is the only force that’s ever going to enfranchise those slaves. It’s the only force which is ever going to give votes to those women. And so that’s where negative freedom comes from. I’m not saying that everybody who believes in negative freedom now owns slaves or oppresses women, but that’s the tradition. That’s the reason why you would think freedom is negative, which on its face is a totally implausible idea. I mean, the notion that you can just be free because there’s no government makes no sense, unless you’re a heavily drugged anarchist.

And so, as the Republican Party has also become the party of race in our country, it’s become the party of small government. Unfortunately, this idea of freedom then goes along for the ride, because freedom becomes freedom from government. And then the next step is freedom becomes freedom for the market. That seems like a small step, but it’s a huge step because if we believe in free markets, that means that we actually have duties to the market. And Americans have by and large accepted that, even pretty far into the center or into the left. If you say that term, “free market,” Americans pretty generally won’t stop you and say, “Oh, there’s something problematic about that.” But there really is: If the market is free, that means that you have a duty to the market, and the duty is to make sure the government doesn’t intervene in it. And once you make that step, you suddenly find yourself willing to accept that, well, everybody of course has a right to advertise, and I don’t have a right to be free of it. Or freedom of speech isn’t really for me; freedom of speech is for the internet.

And that’s, to a large measure, the world we live in.

You have a quote in the book about this that distills it well: “The countries where people tend to think of freedom as freedom to are doing better by our own measures, which tend to focus on freedom from.”

Yeah, thanks for pulling that out. Even I was a little bit struck by that one. Because if you’re American and you talk about freedom all the time and you also spend all your time judging other countries on freedom, and you decide what the measures are, then you should be close to the top of the list—but you’re not. And then you ask, “Why is that?” When you look at countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, or Ireland—that are way ahead of us—they’re having a different conversation about freedom. They don’t seem to talk about freedom as much as we do, but then when they do, they talk about it in terms of enabling people to do things.

And then you realize that an enabled population, a population that has health care and retirement and reliable schools, may be better at defending things like the right to vote and the right to freedom of religion and the right to freedom of speech—the things that we think are essential to freedom. And then you realize, Oh, wait, there can be a positive loop between freedom to and freedom from. And this is the big thing that Americans get a hundred percent wrong. We think there’s a tragic choice between freedom from and freedom to—that you’ve got to choose between negative freedom and positive freedom. And that’s entirely wrong.

What do you make of Kamala Harris’s attempt to redeem the word?

It makes me happy if it’s at the center of a political discussion. And by the way, going back to your first question, it’s interesting how the American right has actually retreated from freedom. It has been central for them for half a century, but they are now actually retreating from it, and they’ve left the ground open for the Democrats. So, politically, I’m glad they’re seizing it—not just because I want them to win, but also because I think on the center left or wherever she is, there’s more of a chance for the word to take on a fuller meaning. Because so long as the Republicans can control the word, it’s always going to mean negative freedom.

I can’t judge the politics that well, but I think it’s philosophically correct and I think we end up being truer to ourselves. Because my big underlying concern as an American is that we have this word which we’ve boxed into a corner and then beaten the pulp out of, and it really doesn’t mean anything anymore. And yet it’s the only imaginable central concept I can think of for American political theory or American political life.

Yeah, it’s conducive to the joy-and-optimism approach that the Democrats are taking to the campaign. Freedom to is about enfranchisement; it’s about empowerment; it’s about mobility.

Totally. Can I jump in there with another thought?

Of course.

I think JD Vance is the logical extension of where freedom as freedom from gets you. Because one of the things you say when freedom is negative—when it’s just freedom from—is that the government is bad, right? You say the government is bad because it’s suppressive. But then you also say government is bad because it can’t do anything. It’s incompetent and it’s dysfunctional. And it’s a small step from there to a JD Vance–type figure who is a doomer, right? He’s a doomer about everything. His politics is a politics of impotence. His whole idea is that government will fail at everything—that there’s no point using government, and in fact, life is just sort of terrible in general. And the only way to lead in life is to kind of be snarky about other people. That’s the whole JD Vance political philosophy. It’s like, “I’m impotent. You’re impotent. We’re all impotent. And therefore let’s be angry.”

Did you watch the debate?

No, I’m afraid I didn’t. I’m in the wrong time zone.

There was a moment that struck me, and I think it would strike you too: Donald Trump openly praised Viktor Orbán, as he has done repeatedly in the past. But he said, explicitly, Orbán is a good guy because he’s a “strongman,” which is a word that he clearly takes to be a compliment, not derogatory. You’ve written about the strongman fantasy in your Substack, so I’m curious: What do you think Trump is appealing to here?

Well, I’m going to answer it in a slightly different way, and then I’ll go back to the way you mean it. I think he’s tapping into one of his own inner fantasies. I think he looks around the world and he sees that there’s a person like Orbán, who’s taken a constitutional system and climbed out of it and has managed to go from being a normal prime minister to essentially being an extraconstitutional figure. And I think that’s what Trump wants for himself. And then, of course, the next step is a Putin-type figure, where he’s now an unquestioned dictator.

For the rest of us, I think he’s tapping—in a minor key—into inexperience, and that was my strongman piece that you kindly mentioned. Americans don’t really think through what it would mean to have a government without the rule of law and the possibility of throwing the bums out. I think we just haven’t thought that through in all of its banality: the neighbors denouncing you, your kids not having social mobility because you maybe did something wrong, having to be afraid all the damn time. African Americans and some immigrants have a sense of this, but in general, Americans don’t get that. They don’t get what that would be like.

So that’s a minor key. The major key, though, is the 20% or so of Americans who really, I think, authentically do want an authoritarian regime, because they would prefer to identify personally with a leader figure and feel good about it rather than enjoy freedom.

You mentioned the word banality, which makes me think of Hannah Arendt’s theory of the “banality of evil.” What would the banality of authoritarianism look like in America?

So let me first talk about the nonbanality of evil, because our version of evil is something like, and I don’t want to be too mean, but it’s something like this: A giant monster rises out of the ocean and then we get it with our F-16s or F-35s or whatever. That’s our version of evil. It’s corporeal, it’s obviously bad, and it can be defeated by dramatic acts of violence.

And we apply that to figures like Hitler or Stalin, and we think, Okay, what happened with Hitler was that he was suddenly defeated by a war. Of course he was defeated by a war, but he did some dramatic and violent things to come to power, but his coming to power also involved a million banalities. It involved a million assimilations, a million changes of what we think of as normal. And it’s our ability to make things normal and abnormal which is so terrifying. It’s like an animal instinct on our part: We can tell what the power wants us to do, and if we don’t think about it, we then do it. In authoritarian conditions, this means that we realize, Oh, the law doesn’t really apply anymore. That means my neighbor could have denounced me for anything, and so I better denounce my neighbor first. And before you know it, you’re in a completely different society, and the banality here is that instead of just walking down the street thinking about your own stuff, you’re thinking, Wait a minute, which of my neighbors is going to denounce me?

Americans think all the time about getting their kids into the right school. What happens in an authoritarian country is that all of that access to social mobility becomes determined by obedience. And as a parent, suddenly you realize you have to be publicly loyal all the time, because one little black mark against you ruins your child’s future. And that’s the banality right there. In Russia, everybody lives like that, because any little thing you do wrong, and your kid has no chance. They get thrown out of school; they can’t go to university.

We don’t imagine how a regime change is going to be at the dinner table. The regime change is going to be on the sidewalk. It’s going to be in your whole life. It’s not going to be some external thing. It’s not like this strongman is just going to be some bad person in the White House, and then eventually the good guys will come and knock him out. When the regime changes, you change and you adapt, and you look around as everyone else is adapting and you realize, Well, everyone else adapting is a new reality for me, and I’m probably going to have to adapt too. Trump wants to be a strongman. He’s already tried a ​​ coup d’état. He makes it clear that he wants to be a different regime. And so if you vote him in, you’re basically saying, “Okay, strongman, tell me how to adapt.”

Yeah, we could talk about Project 2025 all day. This new effort to bureaucratize tyranny—which was not in place in 2020—could really make the banal aspect a reality because it’s enforced by the administrative state, which is going to be felt by Americans at a quotidian level.

I agree with what you say. If I were in business, I would be terrified of Project 2025 because what it’s going to lead to is favoritism. You’re never going to get approvals for your stuff unless you’re politically close to administration. It’s going to push us toward a more Hungary-like situation, where the president’s pals’ or Jared Kushner’s pals’ companies are going to do fine. But everybody else is going to have to pay bribes. Everyone else is going to have to make friends.

It’s anticompetitive.

Yeah, it’s going to generate a very, very uneven playing field where certain people are going to be favored and become oligarchs. And most of the rest of us are going to have a hard time. Also, the 40,000 [loyalists Trump wants to replace the administrative state with] are going to be completely incompetent. When people stop getting their Social Security checks, they’re going to realize that the federal government—which they’ve been told is so dysfunctional—actually did do some things. It’s going to be chaos. The only way to get anything done is to have a phone number where you can call somebody at someplace in the government and say, “Make my thing a priority.” The chaos of the administration state feeds into the strongman thing. And since that’s true, the strongman view starts to become natural for you because it’s the only way to get anything done.

You’ve studied Russian information warfare pretty extensively. A few weeks ago the Justice Department indicted two employees of the Russian state media outlet RT for their role in surreptitiously funding a right-wing US media outfit as part of a foreign-influence-peddling scheme, which saw them pull the wool over a bunch of right-wing media personalities. Do you think this type of thing is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Russian information warfare?

Of course. It’s the tip of the iceberg, and I want to refer back to 2016. It was much bigger in 2016 than we recognized at the time. The things that the Obama administration was concerned with—like the actual penetration of state voting systems and stuff—that was really just nothing compared to all of the internet stuff they had going. And we basically caught zilcho of that before the election itself. And I think the federal government is more aware of it this time, but also the Russians are doing different things this time, no doubt.

I’m afraid what I think is that there are probably an awful lot of people who are doing this—including people who are much more important in the media than those guys—and that there’s just no way we’re going to catch very many of them before November. That’s my gut feeling.

While we’re on Russia, I do want to talk about Ukraine, especially since you’re there right now. I think one of the most unfortunate aspects of [the media’s coverage of] foreign wars—the Ukraine war and also the Israel-Hamas war—is just the way they inevitably fade into the background of the American news cycle, especially if no American boots are on the ground. I’m curious if this dynamic frustrates you as a historian.

Oh, a couple points there. One is, I’m going to point out slightly mean-spiritedly that the stories about war fatigue in Ukraine began in March 2022. As a historian, I am a little bit upset at journalists. I don’t mean the good ones. I don’t mean the guys I just saw who just came back from the front. [I mean] the people who are sitting in DC or New York or wherever, who immediately ginned up this notion of war fatigue and kept asking everybody from the beginning, “When are you going to get tired of this war?” We turned war fatigue into a topos almost instantaneously. And I found that really irresponsible because you’re affecting the discourse. But also, I feel like there was a kind of inbuilt laziness into it. If war fatigue sets in right away, then you have an excuse never to go to the country, and you have an excuse never to figure out what’s going on, and you have an excuse never to figure out why it’s important.

So I was really upset by that, and also because there’s just something so odd about Americans being tired of this war. We can get bored of it or whatever, but how can we be tired? We’re not doing a damn thing. We’re doing nothing. I mean, there’s some great individual Americans who are volunteering and giving supplies and stuff, but as a country, we’re not doing a damn thing. I mean, a tiny percentage of our defense budget—which would be going to other stuff anyway—insead goes to Ukraine.

And by the way, Ukrainians understand that Americans have other things to think about. I was not very far from the front three days ago talking to soldiers, and their basic attitude about the election and us was, like, “Yeah, you got your own things to think about. We understand. It’s not your war.” But as a historian, the thing which troubles me is pace, because with time, all kinds of resources wear down. And the most painful is the Ukrainian human resource. That’s probably a terribly euphemistic word, but people die and people get wounded and people get traumatized. Your own side runs out of stuff.

We were played by the Russians, psychologically, about the way wars are fought. And that stretched out the war. That’s the thing which bothers me most. You win wars with pace and you win wars with surprise. You don’t win wars by allowing the other side to dictate what the rules are and stretching everything out, which is basically what’s happened. And with that has come a certain amount of American distraction and changing the subject and impatience. I think journalists have made a mistake by making it into a kind of consumer thing where they’re sort of instructing the public that it’s okay to be bored or fatigued. And then I think the Biden administration made a mistake by not doing things at pace and allowing every decision to take weeks and months and so on.

What do you think another Trump presidency would mean for the war and for America’s commitment to Ukraine?

I think Trump switches sides and puts American power on the Russian side, effectively. I think Trump cuts off. He’s a bad dealmaker—that’s the problem. I mean, he’s a good entertainer. He’s very talented; he’s very charismatic. In his way, he’s very intelligent, but he’s not a good dealmaker. And a) ending wars is not a deal the way that buying a building is a deal, and b) even if it were, he’s consistently made bad deals his whole career and lost out and gone bankrupt.

So you can’t really trust him with something like this, even if his intentions were good—and I don’t think his intentions are good. Going back to the strongman thing, I think he believes that it’s right and good that the strong defeat and dominate the weak. And I think in his instinctual view of the world, Putin is pretty much the paradigmatic strongman—the one that he admires the most. And because he thinks Putin is strong, Putin will win. The sad irony of all this is that we are so much stronger than Russia. And in my view, the only way Russia can really win is if we flip or if we do nothing. So, because Trump himself is so psychologically weak and wants to look up to another strongman, I think he’s going to flip. But even if I’m wrong about that, I think he’s incompetent to deal with a situation like this. Because he wants the quick affirmation of a deal. And if the other side knows you’re in a hurry, then you’ve already lost from the beginning.

[yousaucygirl]

So I watched Ride the Cyclone over the weekend, and OOOOUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH I gotta yap about these characters. (spoiler alerts for people who haven't seen it)

I'll start with Ocean. I feel like almost everyone either knew someone like Ocean or was Ocean. She comes off as overly ambitious, goal oriented, and selfish. And she IS. She starts out as someone you're meant to hate. I mean, she literally sings a song about how she's better than everyone else in the group, even standing on top of them in a human pyramid to show her superiority. But I loved Ocean in the end. Yes, she pressured the others (especially Constance) to vote for her because she wanted to be brought back to life, but she ended up sacrificing a second chance of life in the end. Because Karnak changed the rules, she won the game. Ocean could've easily taken her chance at life, but she realized that she had something she wanted to go back to. They all did except for Jane Doe. As badly as she wanted to live, death taught her to be happy with what she had in the end. She would rather something over nothing.

Noel is an ICON. He's a romantic. In his fantasy, he's a French prostitute in the post-war era. Monique is a tortured woman. She is slapped, thrown to the ground, and her heart is played with until she ends up playing with hearts hearts herself. Noel romanticizes this life. It's shown that he's always had a flair for the dramatic, but Monique is a direct manifestation of Noel's tortured heart. I also LIVE for his friendship with Mischa. Noel could never really fit in, and I don't think he ever wanted to. He mentioned how his mother always wanted him to be more like the other kids, but he's too passionate for that and he knows it.

Mischa is another very interesting character, and not because he's from Ukraine. His adopted parents literally locked him in the basement and only provided basic necessities. It's also clear that he wanted to go back to his home in Ukraine. He understands why his mother had to send him away, but that doesn't mean he didn't miss his home. His desire to go back only got stronger when he was dating Talia long-distance. We only get glimpses into the character's lives, but Talia was Mischa's light. She was the love of his life. Mischa is a genuinely kind person despite his gangster persona, and though he misses Talia, singing her name over and over, is willing to not vote for himself.

Now THE swinging space age bachelor man, Ricky. I think death was the best thing for him. In death, he can speak. He can walk without crutches. All of the effects of his disease are reversed. I only say it's the best thing for him because he most likely thinks the same thing. After his song he takes his name out of consideration for voting. Part of that is because he can't vote for himself and believes that the others are more deserving of a second chance, but he also enjoys the freedom that death gave him. I love you Ricky Potts.

Jane Doe is the most mysterious character of the play and also my personal favorite. She has a lot of funny moments, but everything about her has an undertone of sadness. The others avoid her in the beginning. They don't really view her as a person (Ocean literally refers to her as a super freaky monster). She's a walking existential crisis. She has no memory of her life. Everything about her was gone once she lost her head. To me, the doll head she wears is a representation of what she's longing for. She wants a face of her own. She wants her identity. Until her song, the others avoid her because she's a reminder of what they could have lost in addition to their lives, plus she's creepy (having no head literally took away her balance, so her movements add to the horrifying nature of her character). After her song, the others realize just how much she lost. She knows how she died, but not who she was. The New Birthday Song is one of my favorite scenes in the show. It shows the others reaching out to her. They're trying to console her. Even Ricky lets her have the name Savanah (with the greenest eyes). We find out she's Penny Lamb in the end, but her name is really all we directly learn about her.

Constance is also a deep character. On the outside, she's the nice girl. She loves her friends, family, and has pride in her town. This stuff is true. But she also has a passionate side. She wants a lover and wanted to lose her virginity, which she ended up losing to a carnie. She tried to blend in, hiding her love and the things she was passionate about. She was made to feel ashamed for so much in her life. She was so self-conscious in life, to a point where a lot of viewers could find it relatable. It took death for her to accept that she loved her life, that she loved her family and her town. She misses all of the small things, but she's glad she had them in the first place.

Anyways this is what my brain is fixating on right now.

[cinnamon-lotus]

SHADOWHUNTERS

Can u imagine a place were u are not allowed to read shadowhunters? I'm not talking about the non existence of the book or other books. There is of course place around the world when is almost impossible to find a book.

I'm talking about political figures denying to you your right to read books, the right to choose the ones you want to read.

Booktok says that books shouldn't be a political issue to have in mind when u vote. I'm not from USA, but I have seen that oratory in Internet from people from there.

If I'm right, shadowhunters is not banned like other books. For example The Handmaid tale, hunger games, Fahrenheit 451... and more. I have seen books banned for having lgbt in it.

Books with critical thinking that they don't want people to have. That havs been seen in Germany lot of years ago, but not too long ago.

If u read shadowhunters u can not say the books are not political, what are they then? Everything is political, specially the dark artificial shows the really dark side of the people and how some politics and ideas can make changes, bad changes in that case. And it shows a lot of behaviours we have seen in the past and WE ARE SEEING NOW.

Russia? Israel? Afghanistan? USA? Argentina? Italy? South Corea? North Corea? Some are more subtle than others but that doesn't mean it is not there. Those dangerous ideas.

Do u think what Valentine did was out of the blue? No, he started little and welcoming people to his Cult, and brainwashing them. With others they enter cause they have the same ideas as him. Then they expanded and created Chaos, and scare. There was a war but the ideas were still there. Sebastian was a kid of the war, and it was so much evil in him that he wanted to destroy the world his way. I know he has special characteristics but anyways.

The Cohort were brainwashed since kids by their parents or other people that still have Valentine ideas. And they tried to punish the Downworlders and killed them. The sentiment of hate is dangerous and scare people would follow the hateful ones.

War, War, War, and again War. All again repeated in this books. We had a glimpse of Thule in the Queen of Air and Darkness. Do u think that is fiction? It is, but it isn't at the same time.

Books have the power to get our critical thinking working.

Thule is Ukraine, Thule is the woman in Afghanistan, Thule is the conflict in Syria, Thule is the ruins of Germany when the war stopped and had to rebuilt, Thule is the spanish oppression by the dictator Franco until he died (sebastian).

Thule is everywhere around the world, all broken parts that are oppressed by Politics and Rich evil man who want to exploit and own the land. And the people are the one who recollect the pieces back.

Livvy not leaving Thule showed how important to her was to rebuilt the place she was part of. The resistance of it again.

Thule is the world, u just have to ask urself who is the evil where u are from. Who is the one that don't allow freedom and difference. And their only benefit is themselves and their radical and totalitary ideas.

[odinsblog]

CW rape mention

The new hot take I’m seeing is, “OMG! I can’t believe you’re accusing those nice freedom fighters in Hamas of raping Israeli women. You just believe it so quickly because you’re Islamophobic!”

And I’m like, “HA! Are you truly that gullible?”Islamophobia ain’t got shit to do with it. Know who else’s army used rape as a tool of war? The Russian army in Ukraine and other countries they’ve invaded, the US. army in countries America has invaded, the Japanese army in the countries they invaded, the British army, the French army, the army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and yes, even the Israeli army in Palestine,… I could go on and on

Employing rape as a weapon of war is something that, unfortunately, routinely happens. So why are we required to believe that Hamas is just so uniquely good and pure that they’re above raping women??

Are there racist Islamophobes who will believe anything bad or unflattering about Muslims? Yes. Does that mean Hamas isn’t guilty of committing war crimes? No.

Anyway, look: this sounds like propaganda very specifically designed to make people be wary of criticizing Hamas. But it’s not Islamophobia, it’s acknowledging what has happened before and very likely happened just recently in Gaza

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I want Palestinian freedom. I do not, however, believe that soldiers raping women or killing children and the elderly in cold blood is a necessary part of achieving victory. Stated differently, rape + intentionality killing children is indefensible and inexcusable at all times and under any circumstances, regardless of who is doing it

And finally, let’s not pretend that Israel hasn’t been committing war crimes against Palestinians literally for decades. The IDF is deadass bragging to the world on international media about committing a massive war crime right now, as they are indiscriminately bombing the hell out of hospitals, schools, mosques, children and noncombatant civilian families in Gaza—and Israel is not even giving innocent people anywhere to go. They’ve closed the borders and escape routes. That’s a fucking war crime too

My daily reminders:

TERFs dni

the Holocaust happened

Antisemitism is real

Hamas ≠ Palestine

Israel is an apartheid state

Collective punishment is a war crime

You can support Palestine without being antisemitic

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[jewishbarbies]

Hi, I hope this isn't rude, but could you please breakdown your thoughts on the whole 'people saying celebrities are terrible because they are zionist, or similar things' thing? Because I've seen it a lot.

this is a little long just because I wanted to be thorough in explaining the reasoning and thought processes here so sorry if you weren’t up for that.

well, just based on historical fact, claiming jews are not indigenous to the levant is asinine and antisemitic. so when people are upset someone is a zionist, they’re upset they believe in jewish indigeneity. that, and they grossly misunderstand zionism and its many forms. they hear zionist and immediately jump to “this person hates palestinians, wants them all dead, and bootlicks for the Israeli government” and that’s where 99% of problems lie when discussing it. because that’s not what it means. the root belief of zionism is that jews have the right to self determination in the land they’re indigenous to, not that no one else can too. there’s no tenant of zionism that states you HAVE to wipe everyone else in the region out in order to self determine there.

now, there’s political and Christian zionism which are both corrupt and bigoted versions of zionism (most jews agree with this, from what I can tell). it’s christian and political zionism that’s used in the way leftists think ALL zionism is. christians use their zionism to be Islamophobic and continue voting for republicans because they fetishize jews and the modern state of Israel. politicians use their zionism to beguile american christian voters and further sow seeds of hate in their base. both these camps use jews as scapegoats for their hatred and lust for power, and progressives have fallen for it hook line and sinker because terrorist organizations like hamas know they can work both sides with this and some misinformation disguised as colorful infographics on social media.

just like the russian bots that have been spewing disinformation to rally support for putin and hate for ukraine, terrorists use leftists’ fundamental misunderstanding of zionism, judaism, and their internal bias toward jews to gain support for hamas, claiming hamas is simply fighting back against israel. but they use language leftists have become obsessed with to do it - like colonialism, for example. they know leftists give a strong response to that language and are prone to fall victim to propaganda, and they’ve used it to their advantage for decades. palestinians haven’t had an election since 2007. would freedom fighters do that? no. freedom fighters value - you guessed it - freedom.

my thoughts are that leftists fall victim to disinformation like “zionism = colonialism because jews are all white Europeans” because they refuse to vet their sources and responsibly engage with the things happening in the world. they would much rather scream at and boycott and ostracize a minority community than do the work because screaming is easier and more people hear it. being mad about zionism for these people has become a social competition to see who can seem the most progressive, and it’s only shown their bare asses. they’re refusing to listen to the 70% of palestinians who want a peaceful resolution with Israel, the people of gaza who marched during oppression chanting anti hamas chants, and refuse to acknowledge what happened on Oct 7th because all of it would make supporting hamas the wrong thing to do. they’re too deep in it now. they can’t admit they’ve been fucking up. they can’t admit that they wanted revolution in their own country so bad that they yelled over and trampled the people they claimed to be trying to help, and they can’t admit they’ve fallen for propaganda because they’ve convinced themselves they’re immune. they believe they’d punch nazis and hide jews and they’re soooo progressive there’s no way they’d fall for obvious lies. but they have. and they will continue to do so until it’s their lives being played with by privileged assholes in another country with racial biases.

unless someone who identifies as zionist is actually calling for the death and/or relocation of palestinians in the region, then no, they’re not terrible. it’s truly that simple.

[countlessrealities]

I normally wouldn't do this, because this is a RP blog and one of its purposes is to allow me to take a break from reality, but this is too important and it's heaving me too much not to put it out there.

It's the first and ONLY post I'll ever make on the subject. Anything else can be discussed privately, if you want to talk to me about it. Ofc, with "talk" I mean a civil discussion, otherwise fuck off.

I'll start with saying this: I'm not American, I live in Europe. Still, what happened with the elections affects the whole world, including my country, so I think I have the right to be as bitter and upset and real fucking worried as anyone else.

Also because, you know, Russia and Ukraine are my neighbours, so if someone decides to do something extreme, like dropping a nuclear bomb, well...it was nice knowing you, guys.

However, that's just one of my concerns, and it's not even at the top of the list. What really scares me is what the world has been turning into in the past few years. There are extremists and fanatics everywhere, I see people getting killed every day on the news, and not just war victims. I'm talking deaths in countries that are supposed to be at peace and civilised.

Where I live, every day there's at least one woman who gets killed. The youngest one so far was 14. Every day there's some hate crime happening. Every day there are immigrants who die at sea, because my country prevents rescues and tries to stop humanitarian organisations from saving lives.

Every day our government makes a step further in denying us our rights. Abortion, euthanasia (which has never been legal in my country, btw, and now it probably never will), the right to hold peaceful protests, civil unions for not conventional (hetero cis) couples, a proper accessible health system, and so on. The list goes on and on.

I'm a doctor and I work in the public health system. Around here, the State is supposed to provide free basic care to everyone and make the rest at very accessible prices (with exemptions for some categories, depending on age, income, disability, etc). This sounds nice, but it's becoming less and less of a reality. They keep cutting our budgets, the waiting lists get longer and longer, people are forced to pay for what should be provided by the taxes they pay. It's nowhere as bad as it's in many other counties, not yet, but I see it getting worse every day. Over a year of waiting for an exam. You could literally die while waiting for it, if you can't afford to pay for it. Also, everything in the health system is understaffed. There aren't enough doctors, nurses and the rest of the personnel. A lot of my colleagues leave the public and open their own private practices and, as much as I hate it, I can't even blame them. We're mostly underpaid and the shifts are fucking brutal.

It's getting hard to do everything. Do your work properly, have freedom, be able to be yourself, be allowed to live your life now and with whom you choose.

I know for sure that Trump's winning is just going to exacerbate all of this and honestly I can't help but think that it's gonna end badly for a lot of people, if not for everyone. I'm not saying that the other side is blameless, it's their fault too if we got this far, but at least we wouldn't be risking what we're facing now with them.

I wish I could say that I'm shocked that he won, and with so many votes, but I'm not. If something, this is the umpteenth proof of what I've been thinking for years. Humans suck and we're obviously set on self-destruction. Just look at what we have done to the planet. And what's crazier is that, even with all the consequences of climate change slapping us in the face every day, we still go on as if it wasn't a big deal. Because, of course, unless it happens to you specially, it doesn't really matter, does it?

I'm not saying that I've completely lost the little faith I had in humanity after this, but I've surely become more pessimistic than I already was. Perhaps we should really just go extinct, it would be for the best.

I've rambled enough. I'll end by saying that, if there's at least a little justice in the universe, that man will get stopped before he can do irreparable damage. Does me wishing him the worst make me a bad person? Probably, in the eyes of some. But let's look at the fact. He's old, overweight, eats badly, probably never exercises. Being president of the USA is a highly stressful job. It's a fact that he is an individual with a high risk of cardiovascular events.

Anyway. Don't give up on trying to change things, no matter how little. I won't, even if I'm really tempted to. Stay safe, as much as you can. I hope to see you on the other side.

[russiantapo4ek]

“I like how you draw Rusame, but as a US citizen I will never accept it, bcuz Russia is a terrorist who unleashed a war with Ukraine, it offends me. Russian is wild (???? what 😂) ofc I prefer Usuk more, u now?“ - wrote to me a dude who retweets patriotic American quotes about “freedom“ and mute evidence that Trump is an agent of Putin. Dude, first of all, for what purpose did you write to me about this, given that I deeply don't care about your opinion with preferences, while you so directly assure how terrible Russia is spreading propaganda (let me remind you that there is propaganda in US too, it has always been, especially nothing it does not differ from the Russian one, do not try to deny it, I know what I'm talking about, I once visited my aunt and listened to American political programs for the sake of interest, should I say how much outright nonsense I listened to, my ears almost withered ...) a retweet was made on your page about Trump as about a Russian agent, and do you willingly believe that? Dude, you're 27 years old, you're two years older than me, and you have the mindset of a 14-year old teenager who believes in all sorts of conspiracy theories and other nonsense from the Internet without any logical evidence. Is Trump an agent of Russia? Really?! Where do such conclusions come from? Election 2016? Does anyone else remember them? Why not Obama then? Not John Kennedy? Btw, he was suspected of fictitious collusion with the Communists only bcuz he wanted to improve relations with the USSR, he was not killed bcuz of suspicion, but your state sources will never reveal the truth about the true motives for the assassination of the president. Why only Trump? Does the American community still believe in this? Well, then I have no more questions for you 😂 is it more like paranoia to see the participation of Russians in everything (as some of you still like to call us “commi“, which we have not been for a long time) in the elections bcuz Russia wants to destroy America? Omg…Dude, I don't support the war, don’t support Putin, but that doesn't mean that I think that the US government is a bulwark of justice, it's far from it, I won't list what terrible things the White house did with other countries, including Yugoslavia/Iraq/Syria/Vietnam, and I don't want to talk about how hypocritical the US treats Russia and after that you claim that there is no propaganda in your country, but only the truth is being told? You know, in Soviet Union, they also believed everything that was said on TV, but the country was isolated, people believed everything that Stalin, Brejnev, Gorbachev said, we did not broadcast anything Western (Russians usually learned about Disney, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes and others foreign cartoons after the collapse of the USSR, American delegation often visited Russia, importing a lot of her production, spreading high crime in the country, instead taking away our scientists, Soviet equipment, including the resources of a weakened country). Why ,of all the things that America has done to my country , do I not consider all of America terrible , unlike you ? (Damn it, in the 90’s Russia was literally dying dude, my country could have died if not for humanitarian support, and even after all the hell Russia went through, still wanted to get closer to the US, but the US, oddly enough, was in no hurry to reach out in response…) Were Americans isolated from the world like Soviet Russia ? No. So where does such a superficial judgment about Russia come from? Dude, pls don't provoke me into a polemic with you, you've got the wrong address, I have no desire to continue this meaningless chatter with you, you still won't understand a damn thing from what I've written, bcuz your horizons are limited only by what you are told through liberal channels. They will tell you that every Russian comes home riding bears and that it snows all day in the country, you will believe it without any doubt. Bcuz based on what you wrote to me under the post with art, you think with the logic of the TV 😂

my conclusion: ❌🧠❌->🤡

(guys, I banned this clown, unfortunately, I don't want to show what he wrote, bcuz I deleted all this shit from the comments under my art, you can read my entire answer above, I think adequate people who don't think like him will support me)

Honestly, I still can't understand what he attributed the irl policy with Hetalia to?😂

[clinicshamartia]

FOOTBALL AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

I've tried my best so far on this page to repost, like and share as many links, documents and posts about the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, although I've never actually put out an official statement like this. Maybe it's for selfish reasons that I'm doing it now, and I will take it on the chin, but as a sports blog, and more specifically, a football blog, I feel that my time has now come.

Today (3/11/23), Dutch-Moroccan footballer Anwar El Ghazi's contract has been terminated with the German football club Mainz 05. This is due to the simple fact that he is against genocide. On his Instagram he has been posting statements on his page and his stories to not only bring awareness but explain what you can do to help. The club initially suspended him and he was reintroduced into the team on Tuesday, where he mentioned that he "doesn't regret showing support for Palestine". Now, the club has cut him off completely.

Germany recently has had an abundance of anti-Palestine laws and regulations such as police being allowed to arrest people who wave the flag or attend protests, and now (apparently) to speak out when you know you have a position of power and influence. It's very strange to me how when it was Ukraine FIFA was doing everything in its power to show their support for them. Having the flags in multiple areas on screen throughout the game, allowing people to bring it into stadiums and wave it, holding press conferences, charities etc. But now when it's Palestine, a middle eastern country, they won't do anything. They will allow clubs to suspend and fire their players, they will allow their players to be threatened and abused, they will allow their players to be degraded and humiliated on the internet.

Two weeks ago, French footballer Karim Benzema was accused by a French Minister of having links to the "Muslim Brotherhood" (????) while other French Ministers and politicians called for the removal of his citizenship. All because he posted one thing about Gaza. One tweet can revoke your citizenship in France. Again, France over the past decade has become notorious for its Islamophobic and racist laws such as it being made a crime to wear a hijab/niqab/abaya etc in school or public settings, making it (basically) illegal to attend protests about Palestine, wave the flag or in some places even wear the colours. We can see both examples portrayed perfectly here, because what exactly is the "muslim brotherhood"? Do you mean terrorist? Are you calling him a terrorist for supporting people who are trapped in a cement box being carpet bombed? What about Hector Bellerin, a white Spanish footballer who is speaking out about Palestine on his page? Or Jules Kounde, a non-muslim French footballer who is speaking about Palestine on his page?

FIFA you are scum, you are wretched, you feed off pain and money, you are horrid. You dare make it a law that people who stream illegally can be jailed for 30 years when you are dictating the lives and careers of people who are trying to use their fame and platform for good.

They will never win, we will always fight back. Thank you Ghazi, Benzema, Kounde, Bellerin and the countless others who have the courage to speak up. You do too. It's not too late. Fuck FIFA. Free Palestine.

[misfitwashere]

Talking freedom in Kyiv

Two years ago and today

TIMOTHY SNYDER

SEP 19

We think that freedom is about talking.  But it is just as much about listening.  If we can’t listen, we are trapped in our own story.  I’ve spent the last five years trying to think through the definition and politics of freedom, and the resulting book has just appeared.  I could never have done it without all the conversations, including one with the president of Ukraine.

Two years ago, in September 2022, I went to see Volodymyr Zelens’kyi for the first time.  Russia’s full-scale invasion began that February, and the Ukrainian president had chosen to stay in the country, although Russia had sent assassins to kill him and Americans had expected that he would run.  It was a confusing drive through the city followed by a maze of barriers and sandbags to be cleared on foot.  I had a few things I wanted to make sure he knew, but it was all familiar to him already.  So he looked at me and asked: “What do you want to talk about?”

Over the years I have spoken to a number of heads of government and state, and, much as the conversations were often warm and friendly, none of them had ever asked me such a generous question.  The circumstances made it more remarkable.  Ukraine’s first major counter-offensive was underway.  Ukrainian soldiers had just deoccupied much of Kharkiv region in a lightening operation.  Many leaders would have taken at least a moment to make sure that such a stunning achievement was somewhere near the beginning of the conversation.  Zelens’kyi did not feel the need to speak about it at all.

“I want to talk about the philosophy of freedom!”  That was my response and it was the truth.  I was in the middle of my book about the definition and politics of freedom, and I had asked for the meeting for this reason alone.  I wanted to know what Ukrainians meant when they spoke of freedom, as they so often did and do.  The meeting with him was one of dozens of conversations in the country where I was trying to figure this out.  I wanted to hear the president explain why he had chosen to remain in the country, when the world had anticipated immediate Ukrainian defeat.

Zelens’kyi spread his hands in a gesture of welcome, and responded: “Let’s talk about that!”  We ended up speaking for most of the afternoon, in Ukrainian, about subjects that interested us both.  I wanted to review my philosophical references with him, and there was some overlap, especially in the dissident literature of the 1970s and 1980s.  What he had studied, though, was not philosophy but theater, and his view was that “everything is in Shakespeare.”  I can see it.  Listening to him helped me to clarify basic ideas that figure in the book.

One is what I think of as the Zelens’kyi paradox: a free person can sometimes only do one thing.  If we think of freedom as just our momentary impulses, then we can always try to run.  But if we think of freedom as the state in which we can make our own moral choices and thereby create our own character, we might reach a point where, given who we have chosen to become, we have only one real choice.  That was how Zelens’kyi described his decision to stay in Kyiv: as not really a decision, but as the only thing he could have done and still remained true to himself.  It was not only about defending freedom, although of course it was, but about remaining a free person.

Another has to do with freedom of speech.  The notion of “free speech” has become very inflated, used all too often just to mean the right to offend someone or cause disruption by knowingly telling lies, often from a place of power and wealth.  The reason why we care about freedom of speech, though, is that we want to protect the dignity of the individual and protect the individual from the powers that be.  Freedom of speech is protected so that we can speak our truths to power, not so that power can force its lies on us.  It must be a right, in other words, because truth is risky.  When Zelens’kyi stayed in Kyiv, he posted a selfie video with colleagues in which he assured people that “the president is here.”  This was an expression of freedom of speech, in the deeper, correct sense.  He was taking a risk: the assassins were looking for him, Russian troops were close to Kyiv, and the city was being bombed.  And he was telling the truth.  And the risk was the truth, and the truth was the risk.

A couple of other big ideas in On Freedom relate to that conversation, which was chiefly about other people we admired.  “You don’t really have thoughts, other people think through you.”  That was Zelenskyi’s own radical formulation two years ago, when we were talking about the books and the teachers that had mattered to us.  I saw him again last week, and was able to give him his copy of the book.  It was the first one I had, straight from the printer, which I put right in my suitcase when it arrived.  When I gave it to him, I felt like a circle had closed, and there was a moment of silence as he looked at the dedication.  And then I asked him: “What do you want to talk about?”

[snovyda]

As an American I have to say, just give Ukraine the damn weapons they need to fight

Like human decency aside, Ukraine is a massively good investment in terms for what we get for what we give. Ukrainians are dealing with one of the US's biggest actual threats, and it's costing the US so much less than if we actually had to fight this ourselves

Any American complaining about Ukraine isn't only cruel, they're fucking stupid. Ukraine is showing what an incredible ally they are to NATO

Plus, you want to war over because it's bad for the economy? Great, me too. Tell that to russia, the only ones who can end this war, cause they're invading and it can't end till they leave. You idiots are putting pressure on the wrong side. Russia can withdraw at any moment, Ukraine can only end the war by having enough force to repel the invaders

I mean hell, I'm a pacifist and I'm still not stupid enough not to realize that the way to end this way is more military support to Ukraine. If we gave more sooner things might be further along, get sicks of these half measures even if they're better than nothing

Anyway... your post just made me have some thoughts on all this

Actually one more thing, any American who claims to love freedom better not be shit talking Ukrainians, the ones literally fighting for their freedom

Ukraine is a really good ally to the US, and I get so sick of other Americans complaining. Like I said, you don't have a heart and don't care about the suffering or how badly we fucked over Ukraine in the past? Fine, but it's still worth supporting Ukraine cause we get back so much more than we put in, Ukrainians do so much to keep the US safe just by fighting for their own freedom, and honestly you owe them some thanks instead of running your mouth

That's how I see it anyway as an American, and I mostly wanted to say this stuff cause I know exactly what you were talking about with Americans complaining about Ukraine

Thank you for the nice words! I am in no state to write any long reply, but I really appreciate you supportiveness. Thank you.

[gayhenrycreel]

i am begging you, stop obsessing over things you cant control

i know whats happening in Ukraine and Gaza is stressful. it hurts me too. our brains never evolved to handle large scale things like this.

no, im not telling you to ignore it.

what i am telling you is to stop letting it consume you.

it will destroy your mental health. you personally cant do anything about genocide (boycotts can help though. keep doin that), but you can influence local politics. vote in small elections. thats how you get mayors who support human rights, and they support governers, and in turn presidents.

you can make a difference. you cant overthrow a government on the other side of the planet, but you can join a union. unions crush corporations. theres a reason capitalism is so anti union. the rich fear the working class, because the poor are the majority, and are very capable of overcoming our restraints.

participate in mutual aid, and don't be afraid to receive mutual aid. its there to help you.

mutual aid means that bosses have less power over you. they want you groveling at their feet, unable to survive independently of them. mutual aid gives you freedom to survive without a boss.

call local politicians. send letters. even better, meet them, so they can't ignore you. protest. participate in your community.

thats how you make a difference in the world.

if you focus on what you cant change, the guilt will break you. it will make you feel helpless. focusing on what you can change is better for your mental health, and helps others.

[lunarian-anarchist]

Before You Follow...

So to save myself a headache and having to deal with the bigoted maniacs on this site; I will now be making y'all aware of what I won't tolerate on here and also to make y'all aware of who I am and what I believe.

Firstly; if you are anti Ukraine or Pro Russia this isn't the blog for you. While I have my own criticisms of the Ukrainian government and NATO; that doesn't mean I support Russia. Russia isn't a communist country (which is an oxymoron anyways) and it is not interested in liberating other countries.

I am Pro Palestine but will not tolerate anti antisemitism; and no, I don't consider fair (aka not double standards) criticisms or even the want for Israel to not exist to be antisemitic. I am an anarchist first and foremost. I don't support the existence of any state.

If you go around calling Palestinians terrorists or savages this blog is not for you. If you go around calling all Israelis evil bloodthirsty monsters, this blog is not for you. People are not their governments.

If you support the government of Israel, this blog is not for you. If you support the government of Iran, this blog is not for you. There is no freedom in fascist theocracies or wannabe fascist theocracies.

If you support Hamas or the Houthis, this blog is not for you. There is no liberation in hatred and religious extremism backed by foreign governments who play chess with people's lives.

If you go around accusing random people of being a part of a specific belief you don't approve of, this blog is not for you. I don't believe in witch hunts or smearing other people to make yourself look good. If you want to know what someone believes, have a conversation with them.

Do not send me asks like "OMG!! Are you a _____??!". These asks are always in bad faith and are just looking for an opportunity to scream at someone over the internet and make themselves feel good. If you have a genuine question about what I believe, you can ask me in good faith. If I believe your ask is not in good faith I will delete it and possibly block you, depending on how accusatory it was.

90% of the time; Posting is not a revolutionary act. Alright y'all need to hear this one. While it can absolutely be good to spread awareness or post donation funds; you are not a revolutionary if you spend all your time posting unsourced twitter screenshots or typing up posts like "how come people aren't posting XYZ?" or "If you don't post XYZ you are a bad person!! How can you post anything not related to XYZ? Don't you realize people in XYZ are struggling everyday??!!". These types of posts are self righteous bullshit posted by people who spend all their time online and 99% of the time have never even attended a protest. Internet activism can achieve things sometimes but y'all grossly overestimate how often that is.

People are not morally or politically pure. This doesn't mean we should accept bigotry but it does mean that sometimes people will disappoint you and you should handle that in a mature and reasonable way rather than a callout post or sending death threats.

People make mistakes, people can be wrong. Make space for that. I find it disturbing and hilarious that so many leftists who claim to believe in restorative justice and criticize state punishment are all to willing to put the boot on the second someone is not right or someone doesn't share their exact beliefs. Some of y'all aren't bothered by fascism or state violence, you're bothered that you're not the one deciding who lives and dies, and of course you always believe yourselves to be on the right side of history too. Unlearn that, unpack that, grow.

Lastly, I have a life outside of tumblr and won't always be around to post on the latest horrors going on. Also, while this is a politics blog I do post other things. This is my space, please respect that.

[jyndor]

Would you please share posts about support for Ukraine, too? Not instead of support for Palestine, but in addition to. It seems like you have an audience. Support for Ukraine is dwindling. Posts about Ukraine rarely get above a couple of hundred notes and it's always the same people. I mean, Russia blew up a huge dam earlier this year and barely anyone spoke about it. Ukraine still needs the world's support, they need weapons to defend themselves. Only Eastern Europe seems to still take the threat of Russia seriously (because we know what Russia is like!). Even in the US support is declining, but we need USA to arm Ukraine. Eastern Europe is running out of weapons to donate or sell.

hey anon first off im so sorry, i hope you're okay. first off i absolutely support all people's right to self-determination and freedom from imperialism and occupation, and so yeah fuck russia and yes i support ukraine. because i support the liberation of all peoples i support ukraine against russian imperialism.

i'm generally not keen on who the us arms in its proxy wars but in this case i think it's like the geopolitics happen to have the us on the right side of this war. idk why that's so hard for some people to understand.

there are limits of course - i'm not keen on escalating a war with a nuclear power, as i told a ukrainian friend of mine last year, because first off nuclear war wouldn't behoove anyone (especially not in ukraine). i wouldn't be opposed to a word that sounds like ass and nation of putin because he's gotta go. but no the us and the west in general is too busy fucking around literally everywhere else that we have no business being to deal with putin. also our governments don't care that much to put their necks on the line like that.

i don't think we as the world can allow this sort of shit to go on. and we always end up reacting to the horrors of genocide and war after the fact but never proactively try to stop them. it's not easy of course, war is inherently brutal and puts people at risk.

us support of interventionism is always pretty brief and incumbent on how conditions are for americans at home. whether or not the support is actually for a cause that is just, middle class americans don't like feeling the impact of our interventions domestically - mainly in the costs of goods and services. i cannot stress enough that yes americans actually do care about mass atrocities when we see evidence of them, we are humans too, but we are also highly, highly propagandized to. and when the media stops feeding us images of horrible shit, we tend to stop thinking about them as much. it's... idk it's horrible how individualized our thinking is here.

and also poverty in the us is rampant and it is hard for many to see our tax dollars go to other people when so many of us are struggling. don't get me wrong im not EXCUSING isolationism as an ideology but it's how americans are. we don't often experience the direct impact of war but we do experience the economic toll of our government not supporting us.

ukraine has gotten as much support as it has because of what ukrainians look like, and the geopolitics of the region. when you look at how countries deal with geopolitics you see that it is never about justice or morality or anything like that, it's usually about power. which is gross and i hate it because yall deserve support because you are being brutalized by a fascist imperial power. because you are people.

that said there are plenty of people here who support you all. i still see ukraine flags where i live (and not just because there are ukrainian americans here).

anon if you see this, do you have any insight into what ukrainians feel about palestinian resistance? like is there solidarity that you see? i know your government is decidedly pro-israeli occupation which is nasty as hell but i know that is partly because of zelensky and partly because of geopolitics (ukraine needs the us's support and doesn't want to endanger that - this happens all the time).

[medicinemane]

You know, it bothers me the way it seems like people have totally forgot about Iranians... thought we were all on the same page, wasn't it... women, life, freedom? (I legit don't remember, but the reason for that is it wasn't my slogan to say. Maybe it sounds strange, but that's how I felt, so I never actually wrote it, which makes it harder to remember)

Just feels like for a brief window there we were all talking big talk about supporting them, but then it all kinda dried up

I'll be totally transparent about one of the reasons this keeps coming up for me, russia is a major ally of Iran, Iran supplies the kamikaze drones russia hits civilians with... you know they're not giving them away for free... I worry what the Iranian government uses anything it gets to do... I don't really hear anything from Iranians anymore (though once again I fully admit that most of what I was hearing was second hand, I never had found an Iranian to directly follow... I don't know if anyone's still talking)

I just... I legit worry that people talk a big game about Gaza right now, but will they in a year?

I'm frustrated because a lot of the support people and causes around the world get seems like it's almost more self masturbatory than anything real... sure, everyone really well and truly means it, but then they get bored and it's on to a new cause

So I worry the support will be fleeting... and I see some people really getting down in the mud in ways... well, I'm not a people keeper, I don't get to tell people what to do, but I wouldn't be very pleased if I was acting the way I see some people act and my real point is I worry they're doing all this shit and they're not even gonna stick it out with the cause... seen people get bored and dip to many times to trust it

I'm not perfect... I have a shit memory a lot of the time, and I got a lot on my mind, but I still remember Hong Kong... at least sometimes... even looked into it from time to time and the news never looks good

I remember the Uyghurs, though my shit spelling always makes me look it back up. I think about Syria and how forgotten they are. I do actually still keep up with Ukraine... and then I see connections between russia and Iran and assad and...

I don't know... this stuff eats a me a little... not a lot, not more than the helplessness we all feel about bad things beyond our control usually does... I just worry about people, how they act with shit

Worry that you roll around in the mud too long it starts getting hard to wash off, and I worry that people sometimes get in the mud less cause they're trying to help anything and more cause sometimes it feels good to have an excuse to get dirty... righteous anger that makes any behavior permissible

I don't talk about current events that are on everyone's radar nonstop cause I don't want to burn support out by just overloading people with horror... but I generally find murdering innocent people to be a bad thing, so yeah... I want to see a fucking ceasefire already

Don't talk about it, but I actually do care quite a bit... and I worry... I worry that it'll be forgotten the second the news cycle moves on like everything else is

Worry that every bit of vile behavior I've seen that was for high minded goals will turn out to be dropped in an instant...

Almost like that's not a bug, that's just the point

[camillasgirl]

A German-English speech by His Majesty The King at the State Banquet at Schloss Bellevue, Berlin, 29.03.2023

Sehr geehrter Herr Bundespräsident,

Ich weiß nicht, wie ich Ihnen für Ihre überaus freundlichen Worte und für Ihre unvergessliche Gastfreundschaft in diesem festlichen Rahmen danken soll.

 Es ist wunderbar, heute Abend in so großer Gesellschaft zu sein. Und es ist schön von Ihnen, dass Sie gekommen sind und mich nicht mit einem „Dinner for One“ alleine lassen!      

Meine Frau und ich sind tief gerührt, wie herzlich wir in Deutschland empfangen wurden - genau wie bei jedem unserer früheren Besuche in diesem ganz besonderen Land.

Ich habe festgestellt, dass ich tatsächlich mehr als vierzigmal in Deutschland gewesen bin – darin zeigt sich natürlich, wie wichtig mir unsere Beziehungen sind, aber auch, so fürchte ich, wie lange es mich schon gibt!

An jeden dieser Besuche habe ich Erinnerungen, an die ich sehr gerne zurückdenke.  

I think, Mr President, of the particular kindness and friendship which you and Frau Büdenbender showed to both my wife and myself on our last visits to Berlin in 2019 and 2020.

I also think fondly of the time my wife and I sampled Bavarian sausages at a farmers’ market in Munich, and found ourselves drinking beer and waltzing around at the Hofbräuhaus!  I think I can understand why St Boniface, an English monk, who is famous for having preached in Germany, is also a patron saint of brewers!

I recall, in particular, how much I have learnt from my visits over the years about organic and agro-ecological farming, and I credit German expertise with greatly improving my own farms and soil.  Indeed, I think we all have something to learn from Germany’s enduring respect for what Goethe called ‘die erhabene Sprache der Natur’ [the sublime language of nature].  

Over all these years, and in so many ways, I have been struck by the warmth of the friendship between our nations and by the vitality of our partnership in countless areas.  

It was, Mr President, a friendship which mattered greatly to my mother, The late Queen, who cared deeply about the bond between our two countries.  I did want to thank you all, once again, for the profoundly touching messages of support and affection we received from so many people in Germany following the sadness of her death last year. Ladies and Gentlemen, your kindness meant more to my family and myself than I can possibly express.  

The relationship between Germany and the United Kingdom matters greatly to me, too, Mr President, and I am more convinced than ever of its enduring value to us all. It means so much to us that my wife and I could come to Germany for this very first overseas tour of my reign. I can only assure you, that throughout the time that is granted to me as King, I will do all I can to strengthen the connections between us.  

In this, I know that I will be supporting the extraordinary efforts of countless people who contribute so much to the relationship between the United Kingdom and Germany.

As I look around the room this evening, I see such talented and dedicated individuals who embody the breadth of our partnership in so many fields - engineering, technology, science, the environment, the arts, education and so much more.  

Our countries are working together to promote global health, to help developing countries overcome their challenges and prosper, and to advance the urgent and vital journey towards net zero.

And, of course, we stand side-by-side in protecting and advancing our shared democratic values. This is epitomised so clearly today as we stand together with Ukraine in defence of freedom and sovereignty in the face of unprovoked aggression.  In this regard, I did want to pay a particular tribute to Germany’s extraordinary hospitality in hosting over one million Ukrainian refugees. This, it seems to me, so powerfully demonstrates the generosity of spirit of the German people.  

Herr Bundespräsident, Deutschland und das Vereinigte Königreich haben ein grosses Interesse an der Zukunft des jeweils anderen Landes. Unsere Beziehungen werden noch stärker werden, davon bin ich fest überzeugt, wenn wir gemeinsam auf eine nachhaltigere Zukunft in Wohlstand und Sicherheit hinarbeiten. Möge die Esche, die ich heute Nachmittag in Ihrem schönen Garten gepflanzt habe, ein kleines Symbol für das Wachsen und Erblühen unserer Partnerschaft sein.

Ich hoffe von ganzem Herzen, dass meine Frau und ich lange genug leben werden, damit wir in diese wunderbare Stadt zurückkommen und sehen können, wie unser Baum gewachsen ist, und damit wir weiter unseren Teil zu dieser kostbaren Freundschaft zwischen unseren beiden Ländern beitragen können.  Erheben Sie bitte mit mir das Glas: Auf Sie, Herr Bundespräsident, und Frau Büdenbender. Und auf eine Freundschaft, die nicht nur herzlich ist, sondern auch  — im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes — nachhaltig. Zum Wohl!