@wdlindsy@toad.socialToday's my birthday, my 75th—impossibly old!—and I'm receiving this wonderful video of John Lithgow reading Timothy Snyder's twenty lessons in tyranny as a birthday gift. Which I now offer to readers here….
#tyranny #authoritarianism #dictatorship #Trump #Musk #Republicans #TimothySnyder
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https://snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-lessons-read-by-john-lithgow
#TimothySnyder on #JDVance's trip to #Greenland: "nothing was experienced, nothing was learned, nothing sensible was said. Vance, who never left the base, and has never before visited Greenland, was quite sure how Greenlanders should live. He made a political appeal to Greenlanders, none of whom was present, or anywhere near him. He claimed that Denmark was not protecting the security of Greenlanders in the Arctic, and that the United States would."
“historian Timothy Snyder [taught] a course at Yale University called The Making of Modern Ukraine. And he’s generously making the lectures available on YouTube–so that you can follow along too. All of the currently-available lectures appear above… A syllabus for the course can be found here.”
These are excellent. They were posted a couple of years ago, just as relevant today. I have’t watched all yet but will.
OMG
#TimothySnyder left the country for #Canada
Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, along with Yale history professors Marci Shore & her husband Timothy Snyder, are taking their teaching to the University of Toronto to advocate for #democracy, speak out against #fascism & teach without fear of #academic capitulation to the #Trump White House, they say.
#tyranny #authoritarianism #autocracy #ThoughtPolice #dissent #FreeSpeech #FreedomOfAssembly
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/28/us/yale-university-scholars-toronto-trump/index.html
Three #Yale professors are leaving for #Canada because of #Trump — including #TimothySnyder, whom you'll have seen quoted here.
@wdlindsy@toad.social"Historians and other scholars of authoritarianism have been attuned to the warning signs for years now. They know what these things mean."
#Trump #fascism #immigrants #ICE #students #universities #TimothySnyder #JasonStanley
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@wdlindsy@toad.social"Having studied the Holocaust and historical memory, it’s haunting to be living through a period where cruelty and dehumanization is being normalized in real time. …
On top of everything, we learned that Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, leading scholars of authoritarianism, have left or are leaving the country."
~ Kristin Du Mez
#Trump #fascism #immigrants #ICE #students #universities #TimothySnyder #JasonStanley
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“Yale professors, #TimothySnyder, a historian of totalitarianism and the author of #OnTyranny,
and #JasonStanley, a philosopher and the author of How #Fascism Works, 
move to #Canada”
(to positions at the University of Toronto). https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2025/03/stanley-from-yale-to-toronto.html
Someone just shared this with me. Holy shit. 
“Yale professors, #TimothySnyder, a historian of totalitarianism and the author of #OnTyranny, and Jason Stanley, a philosopher and the author of How #Fascism Works, move to #Canada” (to positions at the University of Toronto).
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2025/03/stanley-from-yale-to-toronto.html
#TimothySnyder on "Antisemitism" and #Antisemitism - The abuse of the word & the spread of the phenomenon
"As the word "antisemitism" becomes the cover for aggression, we lose the concept. And then, when actual antisemitism manifests itself, there will be no way to describe it, since "antisemitism" will have come to mean something like "the power of arbitrary rulers to suppress freedom of assembly and freedom of speech under cover of disinformation and propaganda" #USA
Last night, the PBS NewsHour spoke to "one of the country's leading historians on Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union":
"Strategically, what we are doing, what the United States is doing, is trading a set of Western alliances for an alliance with Russia. Now, the main way Russia engages with us is by stealing our technology and by hacking into our infrastructure. The Russian economy is smaller than Canada's, but we are nevertheless going to trade 80 years of alliance with reliable partners that are 15, 16, 17 times bigger than Russia as an economy for an alliance with Russia."
Worth watching/reading. One should expect no less, but it was still somehow reassuring to hear this sane analysis of what happened at the White House yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11QBNJj_8gM
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/historian-analyzes-devolving-relations-between-u-s-and-ukraine-after-oval-office-spat
Bezos wants that the opinion pages of the Washington Post only write about two topics: personal liberties and free markets. He should read the book from Timothy Snyder about what freedom actually is about. It's about more than the two subjects mentioned. it's also about government that protects the weak and support those in need for example.
https://timothysnyder.org/on-freedom
#bezos #freedom #timothysnyder #washingtonpost #politics
"The occupations that are most relevant to freedom are the caregivers: elementary school teachers, preschool teachers, childcare workers. A society concerned with freedom would respect such people and pay them well.
...
Children borrow from adults a special kind of time: they can repay the loan only much later when they are adults, by giving time to someone of the next generation."
"After his groundbreaking books 'On Tyranny and 'The Road to Unfreedom', historian #TimothySnyder was asked: “What would a better America look like?” This new book, '#OnFreedom ' ( https://www.powells.com/book/on-freedom-9780593728727 ) is his answer."
Tim Snyder speaking about #Freedom at the John Adams Institute on Jan 4, 2025:
Essential #TimothySnyder: "Nothing is inevitable. Do not be alone and do not be dismayed. Find someone who is doing something you admire and join them."
Essential #TimothySnyder: "Nothing is inevitable. Do not be alone and do not be dismayed. Find someone who is doing something you admire and join them."
@erikkemp@tukkers.onlineI was quite shocked by this fragment of #Buitenhof, where #TimothySnyder is interviewed by #TwanHuys. I will probably be sharing this video for the upcoming four years.
If you think that loyal paramilitaries are dangerous in a rule of law state, please share this video far and wide. The interview is in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ_HzpPYJAo&t=161
The part I'm talking about is only about two minutes, from 2:40 until 5:04.
"... the nation doesn't have to be a collectivity. The nation could be something that resides in people, and you can violate their rights by not letting them speak their language ... Taking my schoolbooks away ... De facto not letting me go to university, in my own language ... Not hiring me because I'm known to be somebody who speaks Ukrainian public. These are violations of human rights."
#TimothySnyder, 2022
https://yalepodcasts.blubrry.net/2022/11/28/19-oligarchies-in-russia-and-ukraine/
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This also reminds me another quote from later in the lecture;
"In the 70s and 80s all over the Soviet Bloc, regimes begin to resort to nationalism. But, how do you do that in the Soviet Union? ... a multi-national state. The way that they do it is with nostalgia about the Second World War."
#TimothySnyder, 2022
https://yalepodcasts.blubrry.net/2022/11/16/18-before-and-after-the-end-of-history/
Sound familiar? I'm reminded of a series of public lectures I attended in the Religious Studies department at Otago Uni, on ANZAC as a State Cult.
Another example of the parallels between actual Stalinism (post-Stalin himself) and the ultracapitalist form of conservatism I call "corporate stalinism"!
"Brezhnev was not interested in Marxist theory, at all. The Brezhnev Doctrine is not really about marxism it's about power ... [It] defines what *is* as 'what should be'. So, you just follow the line, whatever it might, and that's it. We're not going to justify it theoretically any more."
#TimothySnyder, 2022
https://yalepodcasts.blubrry.net/2022/11/16/18-before-and-after-the-end-of-history/
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