#Alternate 1930s Germany

[rondelle55]

The story behind the making of Alternate 1930s Germany

The story behind the making of Alternate 1930s Germany

In this Episode I feature the piece, Alternate 1930s Germany, which was released on The Narrow Road Dreamscape Album. I talk about the songs production and the inspiration behind the lyrics. God loves you, Jesus is the only way. The story behind the making of A Krishton Trek – The Rondelle55 Chronicles In this Episode I feature  the instrumental piece, A Krishton Trek, from the Mount Waddy…

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Gloria Swanson (Don't Change Your Husband, Queen Kelly, Sadie Thompson, Sunset Boulevard)—the absolute BALLS this woman had! an icon of the 1920s, her career had simmered down, decent living in radio, deciding you know what? you know what i'll do? I'll star as the haggard old aging decrepit horror icon in Sunset Boulevard, that's what I'll do. Nobody else in Hollywood would take the part (every other actress didn't want to be framed as a has-been)—gloria said, fuck that, I'll eat this role alive and serve cunt the whole time. she was still so gorgeous when they made Sunset Boulevard they had to intentionally make her up/costume her to make her look older than she was. mad respect for the screen legend who says yeah, i am a screen legend, i was always that bitch and here I am again to prove it

Mary Nolan (West of Zanzibar, Desert Nights)—mary nolan had star quality in spades but her career was sadly plagued by tragedy and scandal (though really a lot of what was characterized as "scandal" by the press was more like "men being physically abusive"). she reinvented her career multiple times, first becoming very popular as a ziegfeld girl in the early 1920s under the stage name imogene "bubbles" wilson (said a columnist of the time, "only two people in America would bring every reporter in New York to the docks to see them off. one is the President. the other is Imogene "Bubbles" Wilson.") but after some shit involving a shitty dude got her fired from the follies for negative media attention she went to europe and made films in germany under the name imogene robertson for a few years. in 1927 she accepted the offer of a contract from united artists and returned to the u.s., taking on the stage name mary nolan. she was received favorably in films like west of zanzibar as lon chaney's daughter, and desert nights opposite john gilbert, but she began having difficulty finding work in the early 30s, having at that point acquired a morphine addiction, and she made her final film appearance in 1933, intermittently working in vaudeville and nightclubs. uh well this propaganda ended up super sad but here's a short clip of her in action in a 1930 movie

This is round 2 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman. (remember that our poll era starts in 1910, so please don't use propaganda from before that date.)

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Gloria Swanson:

She was THE idea of a 1920s sex comedy star, and was a hot (and totally unhinged) older woman in Sunset Boulevard. Hot as a young woman and as an older woman? Yes plz

I feel like she would slay in alternative fashion

her performance as Norma Desmond in sunset boulevard makes me insane. I love her

Mary Nolan:

Shockingly modern style of acting! She could pop up today and be a starlette all over again

[aziraphales-library]

do you have any fic recs for aziracrow in the 1920s/30s? I watched Bright Young Things recently and now all I need in life is Aziraphale attending Gatsby-esque parties or anything similar along those lines. I love your blog btw! Very helpful <3

We have a #1920s tag, so check that out. Here are some 1930s/Gatsby/Bright Young Things fics...

wanna witness your eyes looking by izzyhandsgf (E)

"How could someone so unbearably holy commit such sins in the most beautiful way?" ----------------------------- Or, Aziraphale and Crowley meet in the 1930s, fem-presenting, and both are slightly overcome by their feelings for one another...

I’ll be Seeing You by gothwillgraham (G)

In the early 1930s, both Crowley and Aziraphale are active in London’s high society, without the other realizing it. When their respective orders cause them to cross paths for the first time since 1867, dealing with the tasks at hand is one thing. But dealing with the emotions built up in the last 70 years is quite another.

Lavender Coffin by The_Infamous_Jack (T)

“If Aziraphale had been in any way inclined, he would have been worried about the damnation of his soul if Heaven ever saw what he was up to. He never worried, though, because they couldn't see a damn thing. Aziraphale was not doing anything that involved Heaven at the moment, he was simply spending time with the humans, and as result, his lifestyle was completely invisible to them. They never bothered him, and he was free to act as sordid as the rest of the era if he so chose to.” ~~~ Aziraphale loves the 1920s, and he only wishes that he could share it with Crowley. Unfortunately, the more time that Aziraphale spends with the humans, and the more drunken letters he writes to his absent “husband”, the more he discovers the darker undertones to the era he thought he fitted right into. Eventually, he begins to spiral into questioning his own loyalties, and he desperately needs somebody to save him. It’s rather ironic that the only person who can is a demon, and one which Aziraphale hasn’t seen for over 70 years. Alternatively, the author watched Michael Sheen in Bright Young Things and you know what that means… (Aziraphale in makeup? Yes please).

Maybe This Time by orphan_account (T)

There was a cabaret in a city called Berlin, in a country called Germany, in a Europe that just narrowly escaped the end of the world and was rapidly heading towards another attempt. And in that cabaret, an Angel and a Demon were dancing together. The trumpets signaling end times could have been playing, and they wouldn’t have even heard it over the music.

Such Sweet Sorrow by Eldyra (M)

This work is loosely inspired by the wonderful comic "Jazz Baby" by WhiteleyFoster and "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Crowley and Aziraphale meet in 1923 at a party, which they both attend due to an assignment from their respective head offices. Crowley is having a bad night, Aziraphale still feels bad about the Holy Water argument, neither is in a party mood. So they take off together to make a memory that will remain precious to them both for the rest of their lives.

Celestial Bodies by Justkeeptrekkin (M)

The year is 1923. Aziraphale's friends at the gentlemen's club invite him for a weekend away in Devon. He asks Crowley to join. It gets very silly and very messy very quickly. That's just how things were in the roaring twenties.

- Mod D

[postingonanon]

Hey Everybody, you need to get ready.

I've seen a LOT of posts floating around left-leaning spaces lately about "I'm not voting for Biden next year." And... I get it. I'm not going to even attempt to argue over strategic voting or whatever, because it rings hollow and it's pointless - there are a LOT of people saying this, and whatever reach this tiny scream into the void may have it won't shift those numbers.

So I'm going to be straight - get ready for a second Trump administration. It's obvious that he's going to be the Republican nominee in 2024, and the literal only determiner of whether the Republicans win is Democratic voting turn-out. Biden won because Trump was awful, but Trump won in the first place because people didn't vote for Hillary. That's looking like it's going to repeat itself.

I'm not saying this to shame anybody - you don't want to vote for someone complicit in genocide, I get it. But there isn't going to be a leftist alternative that wins the 2024 American election. There isn't one even running in the major two parties that the system is designed to accommodate.

I'm saying this because you need to get ready now. All that online leftist talk about community self-support, community policing, organizing with like-minded people? If you're just talking about it, you need to stop talking and put it into actions. As soon as you can. BEFORE TRUMP TAKES OFFICE AGAIN. You may not have the MEANS to organize afterwards. The major platforms online are all held by right-wingers who imagine themselves American oligarchs. They WILL turn over your identities upon request by a Trump administration. Even this one.

The Republicans have gone mask-off fascist since 2016, and they weren't meaningfully punished. Project 2025 is a direct, published by conservatives statement that they plan to end democracy and install direct autocratic rule. Even if they don't succeed at that, expect Texas and Florida to be the model of the federal government with targeted persecution of oppressed classes as a direct, OVERT point of policy. Expect direct, OVERT support for genocide of "undesirable" populations in the global south, Palestine, and pretty much everywhere else - including in 'Western' nations. Expect the defunding, privatization, and asset-stripping of all government funded social-support networks. Expect an exponential increase in violence across all right-wing political apparatuses, from the informal (militias and organized hate groups) to the local (police) to the national (military). However bad Trump was through 2020, keep in mind that he's going to be on a revenge tour and will - one way or the other - never have to be worried about getting reelected again. I mean this clearly and with as much seriousness as I can convey: people are going to DIE. People are going to be KILLED.

If you're in the United States, you need to organize resistance NOW. Whatever you're doing in support of Palestine, whoever you're talking to, whatever you're doing to build a community to protest or slow the progress of the decimation of Gaza - you need to keep it going, and prepare to need to apply those same techniques to protect indigenous/oppressed people in the United States in just over a year. Because the left looks like it isn't going to vote for Biden again, but the right is sure as shit going to vote for Trump again. And the United States, as it is today, will not survive another Trump presidency intact. You need to prepare for it like you would a natural disaster. You need to prepare for it like you would an army you know is marching in your direction.

Most people are going to pull a 1930s Germany and hunker down, comply with the demands for brutality, and hope to make it through. That means they will not act to save you, or anyone else, out of fear of being targeted. If you expect to survive without doing so, you're going to have to organize a critical mass of resistance EARLY so that you aren't relying on people to spontaneously organize while staring gun barrels in the face. The 2020 George Floyd BLM protests only happened because people had time due to the COVID shut-downs and the military officials refused Trump's orders to deploy on American soil to "bust heads." The Republican party is currently trying to hold up as many military promotions as possible so that the next Republican president gets to fill them all, to prevent a repeat of that scenario. They LEARNED from that, and will act to keep it from happening again in that way. They're going after mutual aid groups using RICO right now.

I'm serious. Get ready. Start getting ready now. If you don't wind up needing it, it will still help you to have a local organization for support. I hope that you will not need to rely upon this to save your life or the lives of those near you. But I expect this will be necessary.

GET READY.

[dragoneyes618]

Perhaps the most shocking thing about Hamas’s pogrom is not so much the attack itself – although it was horrifying – but the accompanying glee we see on the Western left, most obviously and appallingly on college campuses.

Jewish students were besieged at a library at Cooper Union by a crazed pro-Hamas mob. Jews at Cornell University were threatened with gruesome death. At Harvard, students chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a call for the genocide of Israeli Jews. At George Washington University, jihadist and genocidal language was projected on the library building. A Jewish student was attacked at Columbia University and Jewish students said that they don’t feel safe there.

To add insult to injury, more than 100 Columbia University professors signed a letter defending students who support Hamas’s “military action.” A history professor at Cornell proclaimed that he was “exhilarated” by what happened October 7. A Yale professor sneered that massacres of Israelis are fine because they are all “settlers” anyway and “settlers are not civilians. This is not hard.”

Colleges have long cultivated a simplistic ideology that bifurcates all of humanity into two buckets: the “oppressed” and the “oppressor.” This childish division of all human activity allows for zero nuance. If you’re oppressed, all is allowed, even atrocities. If you’re the oppressor, nothing you do is justified – you are guilty, whatever you do or don’t do.

According to this absurd ideology, Israel is an oppressor. Therefore, everything it does – even existing – is unacceptable.

On the other hand, Hamas is the voice of the oppressed, so anything and everything it does – from wanton massacres to explicitly admitting that it only cares about its fighters, and not for the people of Gaza who, it says, are the international community’s responsibility – is cloaked in righteousness.

Nothing is allowed to penetrate the alternative reality of this dogmatic ideology, which is why posters depicting kidnapped Israelis must be ripped down. Israelis are demons, you see, even the babies.

It is all depressingly reminiscent of an earlier time, between the two world wars, when Jewish students throughout Europe were terrorized by ideological fellow students.

“Polish universities became the stage of the most extreme antisemitic activities,” writes Celia Heller in her book On the Edge of Destruction. Polish universities in 1936 and 1937 had “Jewless” days and weeks. Radical students called for a quota on Jewish students and “ghetto benches” where Jews would be forced to sit. Administrations, weak then as now, caved.

Heller writes, “Violence was condemned in words, but encouraged in deeds through concessions granted to the perpetrators of violence at the cost of the victims of violence. Further violence was the result.” Radical students “took walks in the evening to hunt for the Jewish students.”

All the while, most students and faculty remained silent.

In 1920, under student influence, the Hungarian parliament passed the Numerus Clausus Act, which limited Jews to six percent of the student body of universities. There were continuous antisemitic student riots throughout Hungary in October 1928. Students attacked Jews at a university in Budapest in 1930.

Most notorious are the students of Germany, who were among the most radical elements of the interwar Weimar Republic and the early Nazi period, and an important constituency of the Nazi Party. German students conducted a campaign of intimidation against Jewish students and, infamously, burned more than 25,000 books in 34 university towns on May 10, 1933.

The National Socialist German Students’ Association expressed the need to “cleanse” and “purify” German language and literature from “Jewish intellectuals.” It was this thinking that was behind the book burnings.

The notions of “cleanliness” and “purity” were highly important ones in Nazi ideology. The Nazis desired a Judenrein (“pure of Jews”) Germany, and then Europe (and beyond – the Jews of the Middle East, too, would have been murdered if Rommel hadn’t been defeated at El Alamein).

Fast forward to today. A New York City public school student displayed a poster reading “Please Keep the World Clean” with an illustration of a Star of David in a trash can. A virtually identical poster was held by a Norwegian medical student in Warsaw. This is Nazi language.

Campus radicals today are also intimidating Jewish students while administrators issue mealy-mouthed statements. Students are in thrall to a totalizing ideology that brooks no dissent and burns with hatred for Jews.

American Jews feel that they have seen all this before, and they are right. Universities are once again incubators of moral rot and antisemitism.

[allthegeopolitics]

A leading politician for the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has been convicted by a German court of using a banned Nazi slogan — a decision that is unlikely to dissuade the party’s core supporters in its eastern strongholds.   Björn Höcke, who heads the AfD in the eastern German state of Thuringia, was fined €13,000 for closing a 2021 campaign speech with the phrase: “Everything for Germany!” That phrase is prohibited in political speeches in Germany because it was used by Adolf Hitler’s SA storm troopers, the violent paramilitary that played a pivotal role in the Nazi rise to power in the 1930s. The slogan was emblazoned on the blades of SA daggers.

Continue Reading.

[beautifulpaxiel]

I hate to be the one to teach you about the german political party called AFD, "Alternative for Germany" they are the party that post is about

I just looked them up, and they are an absolute horror show (as I'm sure you well know). Racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, climate change denial, antisemitism - it's all there.

This really does feel like the 1930s all over again. What has been happening in Germany that a good majority of people would willingly vote for a party like this?!

[berniesrevolution]

DISSENT MAGAZINE

At critical times, foreign wars have tested the moral convictions of American leftists and affected the fate of their movement for years to come. The Socialist Party’s opposition to entering the First World War provoked furious state repression but later gained a measure of redemption when Americans learned that U.S. troops had not made the world safe for democracy after all. Leftists proved prescient again in the late 1930s when they rallied to defend the Spanish Republic against a right-wing military and its fascist allies, Italy and Germany. The republic’s defeat emboldened Adolf Hitler to launch what quickly became the Second World War. When, twenty years later, American Communists backed the Soviet Union’s crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, they shoved their party firmly and irrevocably to the margins of political life, which opened up space for the emergence of a New Left that rejected imperial aggressors of all ideological persuasions.

The war in Ukraine has a good chance of turning into another such decisive event. Who to blame for the bloodshed in that country should be obvious: a massive nation led by an authoritarian ruler with one of the world’s largest militaries at his disposal is seeking to conquer and subjugate a smaller and weaker neighbor. In pursuit of that vicious purpose, Vladimir Putin’s soldiers have committed countless rapes and acts of torture. His air force is systematically trying to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure and economy, hoping to undermine its citizens’ will to resist. Yet Ukrainians, with the aid of arms from the United States and other NATO countries, have so far managed to fight this superior force to a stalemate.

A sizeable number of American leftists have embraced an alternate reality. For them, the culprit is NATO’s post–Cold War expansion, fueled by the drive of the U.S. state and capital to bend the world to their desires. The popular author and journalist Chris Hedges cracks that the war in Ukraine “doesn’t make any geopolitical sense, but it’s good for business.” The Green Party condemns the “perpetual war mentality” of the “US foreign policy establishment” and concludes, “There are no good guys in this crisis.”

These critics ignore or dismiss the fact that every nation that joined NATO did so willingly, knowing that Russia was capable of launching the kind of attack now underway in Ukraine. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s demise, the expansion of NATO may well have been too hasty. But not one of its newer members has done anything to threaten Putin’s regime. And every country that joined the alliance enjoys a democratically elected government. They contrast sharply with the handful of nations, besides Putin’s, that voted against a UN resolution last month demanding the Russians withdraw from Ukraine: Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Nicaragua, Eritrea, and Mali. All but the last are one-party dictatorships, and Mali relies on Russian mercenaries to battle Islamist rebels.

It seems not to bother these leftists that they are making common cause with some of the most atrocious and prominent stalwarts of the Trumpian right. Tucker Carlson routinely bashes the U.S. commitment to Ukraine with lines like “Has Putin ever called me a racist?” while Marjorie Taylor Greene recently declared, “I’m completely against the war in Ukraine. . . . You know who’s driving it? It’s America. America needs to stop pushing the war in Ukraine.”

On February 19, some members of the alliance of right and left staged a demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to vent its “Rage Against the War Machine.” Speakers included Ron Paul and Tulsi Gabbard as well as Jill Stein, the Green Party’s 2016 nominee for president, and Medea Benjamin, the founder of Code Pink. Carlson promoted the event on the highest rated “news” show in the history of cable TV. At the Memorial, several protesters flew Russian flags.

To paraphrase August Bebel’s famous line about anti-Semitism, the hostility of those leftists who oppose helping Ukraine is an anti-imperialism of fools—although, unlike past Jew haters, they are fools with good intentions. Wars are always horrible events, no matter who starts them or why. And we on the left should do whatever we can to stop them from starting and end them when they do.

But neither the United States nor its allies forced Putin to invade. In speech after speech, he has made clear his mourning for the loss of the Soviet empire and his firm belief that Ukraine should be part of a revived one, this time sanctified by an Orthodox cross instead of the hammer-and-sickle. As the historian (and my cousin) David A. Bell wrote recently, the United States is not “the only international actor that really matters in the current crisis.” It may have the mightiest war machine, but Biden is not shipping arms to Ukraine in an attempt to subjugate Russia to his will. We should, Bell writes, “judge every international situation on its own terms, considering the actions of all parties, and not just the most powerful one. . . . the horrors Putin has already inflicted on Ukraine, and his long-term goals, are strong reasons . . . for continuing current U.S. policy, despite the attendant costs and risks.”

(Continue Reading)

[mediawhorefics]

✨📚 fav reads of the year 2022 edition

brokeback mountain // annie proulx ➡️ short story | romance | lgbt+ | 1960s

angels in america // tony kusher ➡️ theatre | lgbt+ | 1980s | hiv-aids

the normal heart // larry kramer ➡️ theatre | lgbt+ | 1980s | hiv-aids

bent // martin sherman ➡️ theatre | lgbt+ | 1930s | nazi germany

parfumerie // miklós lászló ➡️ theatre | 1930s | two retail coworkers who can't stand each other have yet to realise they've been falling in love with each other through anonymous letters.

the charm offensive // alison cochrun ➡️ romance | lgbt+ | tv reality inspired | discussions of mental health | dev is a helpless romantic who works as a producer on a bachelor-like reality tv show. when the show casts disgraced tech billionaire charlie, he couldn’t be further from the perfect prince charming the show needs. and yet, as dev helps him open up to the female contestants on the show, the two develop a strong bond that makes charlie question his sexuality and dev his professional ethic. 

the binding // bridget collins ➡️ romance | historical fantasy | 19th c. | lgbt+ | santalone | in a world where books are dangerous objects containing people's painful memories they want to get rid of, emmet farmer is sent to become an apprentice to the local bookbinder after he had some sort of mental collapse.

the house in the cerulean sea // tj klune ➡️ fantasy | lgbt+ | contemporary | found family | standalone | 40 yo caseworker linus baker is given a special secret assignment to check out an orphanage of supposedly particularly dangerous magical children. linus has been a rule follower and someone who doesn't want to rock the boat his whole life, but the children and their caretaker make him reconsider previously held beliefs.

a marvellous light // freya marske ➡️ romance | lgbt+ | historical fantasy | edwardian england | himbo/bookworm pairing | robin blyth gets thrown into an unknown world of magic when a clerical error sees him filling the post of liaison between the regular world and a hidden magical society. there’s a lot to untangle: his predecessor disappeared under mysterious circumstances, his counterpart in the magical bureaucracy is prickly and cold, and he just got cursed for information he most definitely does not possess.

on earth we're briefly gorgeous // ocean vuong ➡️ contemporary | lgbt+ | literary fiction | poetry | epistolary novel | a letter from a vietnamese american son to his illiterate mother.

the kingdoms // natasha pulley ➡️ romance | lgbt+ | historical fantasy | time travel | alternate history | 19th c. | 18h c. | standalone | joe tournier has amnesia. he remembers nothing prior to stepping off a train in londres, england, a french colony. His only clue, a century-old postcard of a lighthouse in scotland, illegally written in english rather than french and signed m.

the bedlam stacks // natasha pulley ➡️ romance | lgbt+ | historical fantasy | 19th c. | magical realism | standalone | merrick tremayne is called upon by the india office to go on a dangerous expedition deep in peru to fetch quinine (essential for the treatment of malaria) despite the debilitating injury that almost cost him a leg. every expedition before his has yielded no results apart from dead bodies, but merrick has family history deep in the country so he goes against his better judgement. there, he meets raphael, a priest surrounded by strange stories of disappearances, cursed woods and living stones, and who might hold the key to his family's past.

i kisssed shara wheleer // casey mcquiston ➡️ ya fiction | romance | contemporary | lgbt+ | a month before graduation, chloe green's academic rival shara kisses her before disappearing. now, chloe is on a hunt for answers alongside unlikely allies.

the other merlin // robyn schneider ➡️ ya fiction | fantasy | arthuriana | retelling | bbc merlin meets a knight's tale but make it gay | years after her father's, legendary court wizard merlin, disappearance, emry takes her far less talented twin brother's place when he is summoned to camelot to train and become prince arthur's right hand wizard. studying magic properly is everything she hoped for, but posing as her brother isn't as easy as it seems. not to mention those sparks that are flying between her and arthur.

book lovers // emily henry ➡️ romance | contemporary | enemies to lovers | nora stephens is a big city cutthroat literary agent, the opposite of a laid-back, small-town, lovable romance novel heroine. which is why her sister drags her to the picturesque town setting of one of nora's client's books for a month-long holiday/life makeover. of course, once she's there she runs into charlie lastra, a no-nonsense book editor she knows (and loathes) from nyc.

v for vendetta // alan moore ➡️ graphic novel | science fiction | dystopia | alternate history | in a future british dystopian society, a shadowy freedom fighter, known only by the alias of "V", plots to overthrow the tyrannical government - with the help of a young woman.

the wayfinders // wade davis ➡️ non-fiction | anthropology | sociology | spirituality | history | every culture is a unique answer to a fundamental question: what does it mean to be human and alive?

time is a mother // ocean vuong  ➡️ poetry | lgbt+

dracula // bram stoker ➡️ horror | gothic fiction | 19th c. | y'all know what this is about.

brotherhood // mike chen ➡️ star wars | anakin & obi-wan adventure set right after aotc

master & apprentice // claudia gray ➡️ star wars | qui-gon & obi-wan adventure set before tpm

padawan // kiersten white ➡️ star wars | 16 yo obi-wan heads out on his own for a solo mission in the midst of doubts about his master. and his pace in the order.

[comeonamericawakeup]

"Our world resembles the 1930s more than we might think," said Hal Brands. As in the run-up to World War II, belligerent authoritarian states "are seeking expansive empires" and forming alliances, while a major "America First" political faction in the U.S. is preaching isolationism. Russia and China are not fully equivalent to Hitler's Germany and Imperial Japan, but as that era demonstrated, "the international order can collapse with devastating thoroughness and speed." China is conducting a massive military buildup in pursuit of its goal of absorbing Taiwan and dominating East Asia. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has escalated into a broad, dangerous conflict with NATO and the West. "The goal of U.S. policy should be to prevent major war," and deterrence will require a much greater capacity to produce artillery shells, other weapons, and air-defense systems to be shared with Ukraine and Taiwan. We also need to build more long-range missiles, ships, and submarines to keep the upper hand in "a great power war." In 1940, "the cost of failing to stop the fascist powers early was ghastly," including 60 million dead.

Containing and deterring Russia and China will not be easy or cheap, "but the alternative could be much worse."

THE WEEK March 29, 2024

[mariacallous]

Russia will not intimidate me, Estonia's Kallas says

MUNICH, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas on Sunday dismissed a warrant issued by Russia for her arrest, saying it was just an attempt to intimidate her amid speculation she could get a top European Union post.

Once ruled by Moscow but now a member of both the European Union and NATO, Estonia has been a supporter of Kyiv and Kallas has been one of Moscow's most vocal critics since the Russian invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.

Russian police placed her and several other Baltic politicians on a wanted list on Feb. 13 for destroying Soviet-era monuments.

"It is meant to intimidate and make me refrain from the decisions that I would otherwise make," Kallas told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

"But it's Russia's playbook. It's nothing surprising and we are not afraid."

The Baltic politicians risk being arrested only if they cross the Russian border, otherwise declaring them wanted has no real consequences.

Kallas's high profile in pushing the EU to do more to support Ukraine has led to speculation in Brussels that she could take on a senior role after the next EU parliamentary elections in June, possibly as foreign policy chief.

She said that speculation was also contributing to Russia's aggression towards her.

"It's hard to be popular," she said ironically. "The Russians have also seen that, and that's why they issued the arrest warrant to really emphasise the biggest argument against me, that I am a provocation to Russia.

When asked whether she was interested in any future European role she said: "We are not there yet. I'm the prime minister of Estonia."

MUNITIONS AND BONDS

Estonia last year initiated talks to boost European munitions' supplies to Ukraine that led to the 27 EU members agreeing to send Kyiv 1 million rounds of artillery ammunition by March this year.

The bloc is expected to only meet half the target.

"What it revealed was that we don't have enough, we don't produce enough, and we are not fast enough," she said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged allies at the global security conference on Saturday to plug a shortage of weapons that is giving Russian forces the upper hand on the battlefield.

Czech President Petr Pavel said his country had identified hundreds of thousands of rounds that could be sourced from outside the bloc quickly, but needed funding to do it.

It is unclear how much support there would be among other EU members for such a move, which could be complicated by export licences and a reluctance among some to buy outside Europe.

"It is definitely a viable option. We all have to realise that we have to do everything to stop the aggressor there," Kallas said.

"What we learned from 1930s is that the price will be higher for everybody with every hesitation, with every delay."

Kallas has also floated the idea of special EU bonds to help fund higher defence spending, a proposal that would need to convince those traditionally sceptical of EU joint borrowing such as Germany, the Netherlands and Nordic nations.

"I know what the counter argument is of some countries that are really against this type of approach, but then I ask: What is the alternative?" she said, adding that a concrete proposal still needed to be put together.

[kp777]

Common Dreams Staff

Feb. 3, 2024

“All together against racism,” the crowd in Berlin shouts. Some held posters that said “Heart instead of hate” or “Racism is not an alternative.”

Up to 300,000 people took to the rainy streets of Berlin, Germany on Saturday as nationwide protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Protests were also taking place in dozens of other cities such as Freiburg, Dresden, Hannover, and Mainz, a sign of growing alarm at growing support for the AfD.

Under the slogan “We are the Firewall” — a reference to the longstanding taboo against collaborating with the far right in German politics — protesters turned the space next to the Bundestag, or national parliament, into a sea of signs, flags, and umbrellas.

“All together against racism,” the crowd in Berlin shouted. Some held posters that said “Heart instead of hate” or “Racism is not an alternative.”

The new wave of mobilization against Alternative for Germany (AfD) was ignited by a January report by investigative outlet Correctiv. It revealed that AfD members had discussed the expulsion of immigrants and “non-assimilated citizens” at a meeting with extremists.

The report sent shockwaves across Germany at a time when the AfD was soaring in opinion polls, months ahead of three major regional elections in eastern Germany where their support was strongest.

“We absolutely must not allow the stories that we experienced in 1930 or even back in the 1920s to happen again ... We must do everything we can to prevent that,” said Jonas Schmidt, who came from the western port city of Bremen told the Associated Press. “That’s why I’m here.”

Kathrin Zauter, another protester, called the strong attendance “really encouraging.”

“This encourages everyone and shows that we are more — we are many,” she said.

Jakob Springfeld, the spokesman for the NGO Solidarity Network Saxony, said he was shocked that it had taken such a long time for mass demonstrations against the far-right, given the AfD had been successful in many smaller communities already. "But there's a jolt now. And the fact that the jolt is coming provides hope, I believe."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz praised the protests, writing in a Saturday post on the social media platform X that citizens’ presence at the gatherings is “a strong sign for democracy and our constitution.”

“In small and big cities across the country, citizens are coming together to demonstrate against forgetting, against hate and incitement,” he added.

Saturday's protest was a collaboration involving more than one thousand entities, including leave none behind, Amnesty International, Echo Iran, and FridaysForFuture, initiated the call for action against right-wing extremism at the Reichstag building. (Photo by HAMI ROSHAN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

A participant holds up a placard reading 'No sex with Nazis' during a rally under the motto 'We are the firewall' called for by international non-profit organisation 'Hand in Hand' against right-wing politics in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany on February 3, 2024. (Photo by ADAM BERRY/AFP via Getty Images)

"We are the firewall" for democracy and against right-wing extremism. With the demonstration, the participants want to set an example of resistance against right-wing extremist activities. (Photo by Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images)

[cynicalclassicist]

Thoughs on Nixon in DW

I don't think that you could do The Impossible Astronaut/The Day of the Moon today. That is due to the prominence of one Richard Milhous Nixon.

This post is inspired by a discussion that I had with my friend @dalesramblingsblog (who you should follow if you aren't already) on Twitter. And I refuse to call it by the other name.

Steven Moffat did not set out wanting to write a story about Nixon. He wanted to do one set during the Moon Landing which had the White House, due to being a fan of The West Wing. I found this on Shannon Sullivan's site (https://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/2011ab.html), recommended if you like looking at the details that went into making DW stories! When he found out who it was he considered a fictional President but went with Nixon. I think that this was the right choice, you can kind of get away with fictional Presidents in a Present-day story but in a historical setting, as in decades ago, it works less well.

Nixon is still mocked for things like Watergate and Vietnam... but the story still ultimately presents him in a positive-ish light.

However... nowadays I doubt that we could do that.

This is partially down to Trump. There hasn't been a President quite like him before... and I do not mean that as a compliment. And there is a lot of re-examination of Nixon now, partially as he feels like the closest thing to some of the scandals around Trump, with impeachment and ideas of Presidential overreach.

Now when TIA/DOTM came out the US was beginning to be viewed a bit better internationally under Obama. The Bush administration was viewed pretty badly around the world, DW even had a caricature of him being killed in a 2007 story. Nixon is still given a sort of... dignity of the office?

He also seems... sort of progressive for the 1960s? In that when Canton Delaware talks of marrying someone who is black Nixon seems ok with it... then when Canton says it's a man Nixon balks a bit. Which is played for comedy in showing progressive for the 1960s attitude.

However, nowadays we are seeing more examination of the horrible things aside from Watergate. The Southern strategy for example, in short using racism to pick up votes in the South, drawing the old Democratic base to the GOP... which has become ever more the GOP platform, with them now pulling in white supremacy.

What Nixon did to Chile, with his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, one of the most notorious war criminals in American history, is horrific as well.

Now the story is aware that Nixon is a pretty despised figure. But I doubt that at a time where the US had a President who is pretty openly a Fascist and who might get in again... well, it would be harder to see this in an amusing light.

I could go on about this and about how Nixon is presented in Futurama is indicative of how he is often seen but in a comical sense as a cartoonish supervillain and whether that can deflect from the true depths of his awfulness.

But that's a topic for another time.

Btw, please vote Democrat if you can. The list of their flaws is long but the alternative is actual Fascism. That is really not an exaggeration. I do not want to look over from Britain and see the US go the way that Germany did in the 1930s and that Russia has gone under Putin.

I hope that this post doesn't become really difficult to look back on next year.

I'll probably think of new things to say later but... well, I'm just putting this down now.

[pathofregeneration]

The Visions of Joseph Parker, part I

“Joseph Parker began having visions during a hypnosis session to cure his painful migraine headaches. He describes his experience of that session:

My body was heavy, then lighter. I flew out of my body. I was like a star—with no body. There were lights… love… yellowish like gold. I was in that light before I was born. I came from that light.

Through this experience, Parker was transformed from his prior atheism to a deep faith in the reality of spirit.

Originally Joseph Schwartz, Parker was born January 6, 1930 to Jewish parents in Stropkof, Czechoslovakia. From an early age, Joseph was recognized as a talented young artist. But his creativity was put on hold with the onset of World War II. The Schwartz family survived Nazi Germany hidden in a hillside bunker for two and a half years, cared for by the kindness of local neighbors. After his sister died in a concentration camp, Joseph lost his faith in God and proclaimed that he was an atheist.

Post WWII, with Europe in chaos, Parker’s family escaped the communist take-over of Czechoslovakia to settle first in Vienna and then Paris. Joseph became fluent in seven languages, including Russian, German, Slovac, Latin, Hebrew, French, English, and Polish. When the family decided to move to Australia, Joseph Schwartz, in order to overcome anti-Semitism, changed his name to Joseph Parker. In order to support himself, Parker studied and became a successful accountant.

In the late ‘50s, extreme migraine headaches drove Parker to seek alternative therapy from an occultist who performed hypnosis. During this session, Joseph had an out-of-body experience where he was absorbed by the bright, pure light of Divine love, birthplace of the Living Soul. This epiphany opened Parker to a spiritual investigation that included a study of Norman Vincent Peale, Rosicrucianism, and other forms of mysticism. Joseph declared that he was no longer an atheist. From that point on, an ‘inner voice’ spoke to Joseph acting as a divine counselor, interpreting his mystical experience.”

— Joseph Parker, Carl Hammer Gallery

* * *

Joseph Parker, Untitled

[mybeingthere]

Yoshishige Saito (1904-2001) was born at the cusp of the Meiji (1868–1912) and Taisho (1912–26) periods, two of the eras in early twentieth century Japan that marked the conclusion of the first phase of the country's fervent Westernization and industrialization and the beginning of its embrace of decadent modernity. Already as a teenager, Saito showed a great interest in art, particularly painting, and was exposed to a wide range of experimental visual and performing arts, literature, and film.

His encounter with Japan’s early avant-garde movement MAVO in 1923 was the first turning point in his formative years. Led by Tomoyoshi Murayama (1901–1977) who recently returned from Weimer Germany, MAVO proposed an explosive alternative to the tame academicism of Japanese modern art of the time. Their activities included the incorporation of everyday materials into art, experimental theater and happenings, as well as socially engaged design and architecture projects, all of which set a precedent for the postwar blossoming of the Anti-Art movement from the late 1950s. Saito was awe-struck by Murayama’s uninhibited creative imagination and from the mid-1920s to around 1930 he nearly abandoned his practice in painting, spending much of his time on critical writing.

During the 1930s, inspired by Russian Constructivism, Saito resumed his work as an artist, producing relief paintings and sculptures whose geometric quality proved consistently important to the artist as it resurfaced repeatedly in his postwar creations like Work from 1963 and in many other installation works produced in his last years. However, in the decade imminently facing the start of World War II, Saito’s unconventional three-dimensional works using plywood, strings, and plastic placed him against the conservatism of officially administrated exhibitions. Rather than compromising under the circumstances, the challenge only encouraged him to embark on a life-long search for the expression that lies between the realm of painting and sculpture.

[racefortheironthrone]

What do you think of Gustav Stresemann. There is a debate that he could stop Hitler and rescue the democracy of Weimar Republic ?Do you think it would have been possible for him

Alternate History folks are obsessed with the guy, but I think that's a fundamental error. Stresemann was a good foreign policy guy, but foreign policy was not the cause of the Weimar Republic's downfall - the Great Depression was. And Stresemann was a leader in a rather conversative political party that was extremely pro-big business and pro-laissez-faire economics, and that's not the economic strategy that would have prevented the mass unemployment that caused the surge of Nazis elected to Parliament in the federal elections of 1930.

This is why the Alternate History of Weimar Germany that I'm writing for some reason focuses its attentions on transforming the Social Democratic Party's approach to economic policy. More on this when that's finished.