#timothy snyder

[emilianadarling]

- Timothy Snyder. The first and perhaps most important lesson from On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons for the Twentieth Century (2017)

Snyder's new book, On Freedom, was published in 2024.

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

[liberalsarecool]

MAGA wants to destroy a functioning Blue State as to give power to a guy who raped boys and girls within a sex trafficking operation he built to collect blackmail on fellow pedophiles.

[justacynicalromantic]

[stardustsideblogg]

In Black Earth, Timothy Snyder brings up what he calls the Auschwitz paradox: it is important to remember Auschwitz and what happened there, but by being in such prominent position in remembering the Holocaust, it makes people think that Auschwitz was the only extermination camp. Most people cannot name others. Most people also do not know that the Holocaust didn't start with Auschwitz, it started with bullets and mass graves like Babyn Yar.

It's really a testament to how inadequate Holocaust education is and from what I hear, it's gotten even worse.

[shamanicnoise]

[exhaled-spirals]

« Almost all Americans believed when the full-scale invasion began that Ukraine would immediately collapse under Russian might, and that Zelens'kyi would flee the country. But he did not. His physical courage in remaining in Kyiv, an echo of the physical courage shown by millions of Ukrainians, changed the overall situation. Because Ukrainians resisted, western arms began to flow. The courage of Ukrainians made possible an American and European policy to hold back Russian aggression. That same Zelens'kyi, the man who was brave enough to stay and lead his country when the Russians were approaching the capital and the assassination squads were already there, was yesterday made the subject of a public attempt at humiliation by Americans. No doubt Ukrainians should express their thanks to Americans. As they do. But it is illogical, to say the least, for Americans not to thank Ukrainians, or to treat their courageous president as an object of contempt. The coercive ritual of gratitude hides from Americans the basic reality of what has happened these last three years.

During this war, Ukraine has delivered to the United States strategic gains that the United States could not have achieved on its own. Ukrainian resistance gave hope to people defending democracies around the world. Ukrainian soldiers were defending the basic principle of international law, which is that states are sovereign and that borders should not be changed by aggression. Ukraine in effect fulfilled the entire NATO mission, absorbing a full-scale Russian attack essentially on its own. It has deterred Chinese aggression over Taiwan, by showing how difficult offensive operations can be. It has slowed the spread of nuclear weapons, by proving that a conventional power can resist a nuclear power in a conventional war. Throughout the war, Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and the Ukrainians have resisted the nuclear bluff. Should they be allowed to be defeated, nuclear weapons will spread around the world, both to those who wish to bluff with them, and those who will need them to resist the bluff.

Yesterday Vance and Trump repeated familiar Russian propaganda. One example was Trump's claim that it was the Ukrainians who, by resisting Russia, were risking "World War Three." The truth is exactly the opposite. By abandoning Ukraine, Trump is risking a terrible escalation and, indeed, a world war. Everything that Ukraine has done these last three years can be reversed. Now that the Trump administration has chosen to throw American power to Russia's side, Russia could indeed win the war. (This was always Russia's only chance, as the Russians themselves well knew, and openly said.) In this scenario of an American-backed Russian victory, opened yesterday by American choices in the American capital, the horrible losses extend far beyond Ukraine. Zelens'kyi quite sensibly made the point that the consequences of the war could extend to Americans. This was, in a sense, overly modest: Ukrainian resistance has thus far spared Americans such consequences. He said so very gently, and was yelled at for it -- which is itself quite telling. The Americans have a sense of what they are unleashing upon the world by allying with Russia, and they made noise to disguise that. »

— Timothy Snyder, "The War Trump Chooses"

[adventurespnw]