Jimmy Dore interviews Boogaloo Boi Magnus Panvidya
And what an epic Twitter Bomb it generated:
Pro-LGBTQ anti-war activists, or right-wing extremists? Internet goes ballistic after Jimmy Dore interviews ‘Boogaloo’ member', RT.com, 25 Jan, 2021
I interviewed a member of the Boggaloo Boys, I was completely floored when he said he is:
-Pro LGBTQ
-Pro Black Lives Matter
-Anti Police Brutality
-Anti Racism
-Anti ICE
-Anti WarWTF?!?!
Radicalized Michigan Anarchist Seeks Unity With The Left. https://t.co/nTXQ3gCEg4
— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) January 25, 2021
"Panvidya described himself as an anarchist who had a long history of environmental activism, rejecting the claim that the Boogaloo Bois were white supremacists or right-wing extremists.
He described the movement as a “libertarian/Green Party militia,” arguing that it has been regularly mischaracterized by inaccurate media reports. Known for their Hawaiian shirts, the Boogaloo Bois have been spotted at demonstrations across the United States following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police in May. The group has called for a revolution in the United States, peaceful or otherwise."
.............................
"Unsurprisingly, the discussion split social media, with some insisting that the Bois have been unfairly slandered by the media, while others took the polar opposite view and accused Dore of giving favorable news coverage to “white supremacists.”
However, judging by the responses to Dore’s tweet, the interview was generally not well received. The left-wing commentator was bombarded with mocking memes painting him as naive and gullible.
Some went a step further, accusing Dore of collaborating with “white supremacists” and “Nazis.”
I admit I'm not a fan of Dore's, but I commend him for giving Panvidya a chance to make his case for finding common ground. What else is left in such a divided nation but to listen to one another?
A side note: I tried to listen not watch; still unmanageable, so I advanced the interview until I could see and hear 'Hippie Commune raised Panvidya himself for a few minutes. Panvidya: 'All Wisdoms'?
The floor is yours.

Comments
I watched this interview and am glad Dore had the guts to do it.
And I reccomned anyone who claims to be open minded to watch this.
I had conclude one of two things:
One- Panvidya is playing an elaborate ruse on Jimmy and his viewers by grossly misrepresenting the views and positions of the Boogaloo crowd, or
Two- our MSM has lied to us about who the BB crowd is to stoke divisions, and the BB crowd actually stands for a bunch of things that I stand for as well.
Dore and Panvidya surely have policy disagreements in certain areas, but like Jimmy I was floored by the progressive, anti war and anti fascism positions that he held.
After my experiences being a supporter of Obama (hangs his head in shame) and Sanders I have learned to back positions and policies rather than people. If Panvidya is a charlatan, well I appreciate him coming forward and advocating for policies that I agree with.
There is an interesting bit in this video about censorship as well. In the purge going on on social media platforms the Boogaloos have lost their ability to communicate with the public. In this time as they are silenced they can not effectively communicate to the public that they are not who they are accused of being. As a person who has aligned with movements that get attacked by MSM this problem touches close to me.
Dore is brave to have done this.
well said and constructed.
and thanks for adding a few of the Cliffs notes for me. re: Twitter deplatforming, O, what a bird brain I yam! I'd meant to add this...news, but i couldn't find it on RT.com again.
@birdwatch 22h
We believe this approach has the potential to respond quickly when misleading information spreads, adding context that people trust and find valuable.
@birdwatch 22h
We’re building Birdwatch in public. As a community-driven system, it should be shaped by the community. We’ve taken steps to make Birdwatch transparent: Birdwatch data and its algorithms will be shared publicly so people can help improve them.
Learn more: http://twitter.github.io/birdwatch
@birdwatch 22h
Want to help create a better informed world? Sign up and help us shape Birdwatch: https://twitter.com/i/flow/join-birdwatch
Our DMs are open and feel free to @ us any time
Yes, spread the responsibility and blame, you agitprop grifter, Jack!
‘A model worth trying’
Twitter said that it expects to have between 1,000 and 10,000 Birdwatchers who are being admitted on rolling bases and who will not be paid. In the blogpost, vice president of product, Keith Coleman, said that the notes will ultimately be visible to the global Twitter audience. Following the launch, the firm also said that Birdwatch can be found on a separate section of Twitter - twitter.com/i/birdwatch.
Coleman said, “We know there are a number of challenges toward building a community-driven system like this – from making it resistant to manipulation attempts to ensure it isn’t dominated by a simple majority or biased based on its distribution of contributors. We believe this is a model worth trying”.
In other news, Daris, hero of the fatherland,
received the Iron Cross 2nd class for informing on her father.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
jeezum crow:
whoosh-worthy & excellent riposte. bless your heart.
Glad you liked it :-)
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
My friends & neighbors in former E. Germany have seen this movie
before.
i'll just bet they have.
it would be superb if you'd expand on this.
but i'm reminded of mike pomeo's versioon of the waPo's PropOrNot:
"Send me your tales of oppression and degradation by your Fascist Diktator rulers in Iran, VZ, cuba, china, and Russia". (one at a time, of course.)
I have mixed feelings
On one hand, I largely reject the whole "deplatforming" idea.
OTOH, if this guy really does reject racism, homophobia, etc., it does NOT mean that the Boogaloo Boys aren't exactly what their reputation is.
Basically I'm saying that Dore didn't do his homework before interviewing this guy, and that's poor journalism. He accepted what this guy said at face value. Dore didn't ask any tough questions from information he discovered upon doing research.
On an unrelated note, I hope no one missed me. Work + health issues can grab up all of your time.
i know we all hope that
you're doing better now.
a Q: how do you know dore hadn't done any research on him?
another: this was from the piece at RT.com:
was that in the interview, or was RT just...painting w/ a MSM brush?
i will say i have a great objection to deplatforming. from rob urie at counterpunch:
nominally private companies, but not really...as they're tools of the Capitalist government the government.
I watched the interview
...and Jimmy didn't ask any tough questions.
Basically when someone presents themselves as something contrary to what their group is known for you should be skeptical (as a journalist). That doesn't mean you shouldn't give them a chance.
But it does mean that you should put them into a position to prove that they are 1) telling the truth, and 2) represent more than just themselves.
To do that you must do research ahead of time.
I studied journalism in college a lifetime ago. If you had done your research then you will have tough questions. Or you suck as a journalist.
Check out Convo Couch's interview it has a LOT more questions
an hour?
#KillMeNow. Cliffs Notes?
okay, thanks.
another Q: how would he have researched him (if the group's been deplatformed)?
inquiring minds and all that rot.
Convo couch, armchair journalism at its best, no doubts.
i hear you,
but may i submit that dore is billed as a 'comedian', not a 'journalist'? i'll offer that i don't find him a bit funny, but that seems to be a minority opinion here. ; )
Yup just private companies that can do what they want
Oh wait......
It is not until the tide goes out that you discover who has been swimming naked.
and hadn't you said that
the Atlantic Council (NATO think tank) 'advises' social media as to 'the Truth
iness' of post?Alpabetic, Inc. parent company of Google suppresses whole nonconformist websites that they like, and also owns: youtube, which can and does remove any channels and videos that argue against the current acceptable beliefs. (i've noticed it most in relation to rebuttal on covid-19 statistics and facts.)
Oh yeah
The intelligence agencies have been connected to social media since creation. Hell it’s how most of them got their seed money.
It is not until the tide goes out that you discover who has been swimming naked.
RT.com has a couple
pieces today with quotes from Putin at the WEF in singapore, close to: pfffft to allowing social media companies to control the conversation. yeah.
I have
Glad you're busy if that is good for you and hope you feel better. I still have a roving stomach bug that bothers me in the am, sour stomach, and when I eat certain food. Yuck it and done and then I feel better. Going on a month.
Here that rents are diving in SF. Is that true?
It is not until the tide goes out that you discover who has been swimming naked.
I've heard that too
I think that mostly effects commercial rents and the upper-end of residential rents.
I personally live in a rent-controlled apartment, that's been locked into a lease since 1992. Otherwise I could never have lived in this city.
Of course we missed you!
You had been
conspicuous by your absence.
Welcome back.
Most people outside the PR industry are honest
If somebody says they're not racist, believe them, FFS. The fact that they're being called "liars" is almost a dead-giveaway of what's going on here; these Twits need to read George Lakoff. It is intuitive to believe our political enemies are liars, because they must be because otherwise what they're saying makes no sense - but no, most among them are as sincere as we are.
Today's white supremacists are substantively different from yesterday's, because they have to be. Racism's not cool anymore, yet the real McCoys are open about it. It takes courage and character to go against overwhelming consensus, even when your view is wrong.
The greater danger - the one that enabled the atrocities of the Third Reich/19th-Century imperialists/Salem Witch-Hunters/Conquistadors/Aztecs/Romans/etc etc - still resides within the majority of the populace: Cowardice, conformity, and the idea that the group should override the individual conscience. Evil (at least for most people, I can't speak for guys like Bush or Biden), does not come from the belief that one is somehow entitled to do wrong, but from the belief that one can do no wrong - especially so long as one is acting in the service of some greater authority. It's the Nuremberg Defense, writ large.
As long as we allow majority rule to dictate morality, we are saying that might makes right, because that's all an appeal to numbers can ever be: An appeal not to Ethos, nor to Logos, but to Kratos.
That is the lesson we must learn in our time, not repetitions or do-overs of yesterday's lessons; we clearly still haven't learned it, and we're not out of the woods until we do.
"The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it."
- Adolf Hitler
In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is declared insane when he speaks of colors.
To paraphrase Jodie Foster: Human is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
That's a hell of a quotation.
"The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it."
- Adolf Hitler
I didn't know he was that honest about what a dick he was.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
What did I just say? ^^
I think a better quote for understanding Hitler himself is actually this one:
"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."
― Thomas Paine
In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is declared insane when he speaks of colors.
To paraphrase Jodie Foster: Human is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
Well, you see,
I think of Hitler as being *in* the PR business, not outside it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Oh, who knows???
https://allthatsinteresting.com/pickaway-ohio-hitlers).
I tend to think of him as a Johann Sex-Stein who got lucky - the tiny, funny-looking head of a Hobbesian Leviathan who, in another lifetime, would've spent his life shouting at the TV in his undershirt. Had his syphilis not progressed to the "Cursed With Awesome" stage in almost exactly the time window it had, nobody would know his name (except in Ohio!:In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is declared insane when he speaks of colors.
To paraphrase Jodie Foster: Human is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
Most excellent
and relevant comment Moonbat.
Sounds kind of like an argument for a constitutional republic of limited powers. As opposed to the 'two wolves and one sheep deciding what's for dinner' of pure democracy or autocracy in its various manifestations.
The Hodge twins have a few thoughts on media and white supremacy:
OMFG, what a POS
https://www.orai.com/blog/cluttering-speech/) with responses to what he said in that first clip alone. I had no idea the official corporate media would be so easy to argue with, either. That itself is alarming.
I had no idea Lemon was such a self-incriminating douche. My mind was cluttering (He fucking IS on their side - no, worse, he is on the side that CREATED them!
The real question is: Do the .01% REALIZE they are directly responsible for this? This is EXACTLY how Nazi Germany was created.
These Hodge Twin guys sure are interesting. The fact that you can't tell their ethnicity - and how the PC-racist doctrine informs one how to react to what they're talking about here would hinge hugely on the answer to that (well gee, what if they're mulatto? They're certainly Southern AF) speaks volumes in and of itself. They remind me immediately and in more than one respect of THIS:
In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is declared insane when he speaks of colors.
To paraphrase Jodie Foster: Human is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
Couldn't see the video
That you linked to, Moonbat.
I just discovered the Hodge twins a short while back and must say like their style.
Looks like they have pre-Trump and pre-beard videos up going back to 2013 or so.
(Whatever else you think about the whole MAGA era, it seems pretty clear that it has
made beards great again)
FWIW although light skin and green/blue eyes suggest considerable honky ancestry in the woodpile, they self-identify as black - describe themselves as growing up poor and black in a poor white neighborhood.
Have to be blacker than Shaun King, anyway...
That's funny, it's working for me...
NB: I'm quite certain (let's call it) the Pogonovirus predates MAGA (and I wasn't even aware anyone would particularly connect them):
In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is declared insane when he speaks of colors.
To paraphrase Jodie Foster: Human is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
Got the graphic
I'm in Japan, using a real computer, Brave browser. YT usually
works for me, except for their tendency toward stuff like this:
source: Newsbusters
I appreciate
Dore reaching out to all sorts of people to interview. I want to hear what people have to say.
This second interview needs to be included with the one you posted because it makes Dore's point so perfectly that we need to at the very least, listen to other people even when think we don't like their opinions. I think this is one of Dore's best pieces of work:
i'd read the comments
in order that i might glean some Cliffs Notes, but this was largely the sense of the room:
jerry who?
"Jerry White, of the World Socialist Website"
According to Jimmy Dore in this clip.
Jerry, who is the target of Jimmy's wrath in this segment because he wasn't happy that the Boogaloo guy was on the show before him.
Apparently Jimmy's idea of listening to other viewpoints does not include people who actually disagree with him. Haha. That is truly ironic. I mean come on now... Jimmy Dore does not even listen to people who agree with him! He is notorious for talking over everyone. And as for listening to those who disagree with him, that is hilarious! He steamrolls over anyone who dares to challenge him on anything. Just give a listen to the "Force the Vote Town Hall" for a taste of how JD treats people who he disagrees with, even on a question of tactics. He was aggressive, rude, nasty, name-calling, cutting them off, rolling his eyes and smirking when they do get a word in edgewise, etc. The very epitome of not listening to anyone who does not agree with his every word.
The fact is, Jimmy doesn't "disagree" with the Boogaloo Boi he interviewed. That was the whole point. "See how much we agree!!!" That's why Jimmy had him on the show in the first place.
As soon as JD listens with any respect whatsoever to anyone who actually disagrees with him on anything, then he might have something to say about how we all need to do the same. Sheesh.
Hm — the problem wasn’t “disagreement,” it was that Jerry White
kept mischaracterizing Panvidya and, as Jimmy Dore expressed it, “putting words in his mouth” that were the diametric opposite of everything the man had said.
This after Jerry White had, as a labor expert, been slated to talk about the Hunts Point Market strike but instead opened with a long monologue about Panvidya’s having been the preceding guest, ending with the obligatory reference to the Holocaust.
Jimmy Dore repeatedly invited White to address the case of Panvidya specifically rather than just go on and on about the badness of Boogaloo and right-wing reactionary counter-protest groups in general. Dore only became impatient after White proved unwilling or unable to do this.
If a commenter here said, “Oh, don’t talk to CS in AZ, they believe X and Y and Z” after you just clearly told everyone you sincerely believe the opposite of X and Y and Z, that’s not disagreeing with what you said — that’s lying about what you said.
ta for that alternative take,
amiga.
I don't know why
White's unwillingness, complete intolerance, and the smearing of this person without any proof, reminds me of the bad journalism that is prevalent in the corporate media. It really makes me think twice about the WSWS as a source of news.
Again, I think Jimmy did a great job of not letting White get away with making unsubstantiated claims about this guy, Panvidya. As Jimmy said, it's not fair to just make shit up about someone when you are smearing and vilifying them. It's just plain wrong.
But the real point that makes this pair of interviews so incredible is how it reveals the ugly nature of the so-called left by showing how unwilling, to an almost hysterical degree, they are to listen to people who don't necessarily come from the same background or ascribe to all their beliefs. Once again, the unintentional revelation is that the so-called left thinks people who work for a living are "deplorables"
edited for spelling
ta for those cliffs notes.
as far as this:
it totally depends on the subject/nation, reporters, and timing. post-dec.6? hyperbolic, many of them, imo.
as i'd said in the OP:
i'm not a fan of dore (and he laughs about and mocks things i don't find funny at all.
but having jerry white on was amazing; post-dec. 6 i've found some of the authors there highly questioanlble as far as deplatforiming D trump. yes, i know you and i have disagreed about censoring him in the past.
freedom of speech for all or none, imo. but thanks for the heads-up on who Jerry is.
He is the Labor Editor
From wikipedia;
ta for that.
and i do read there a lot, good, bad, histrionic and covid. ; )
I do as well
I don't know whether this guy is sincere or not.
But I do know that I have no respect for people who can't bear an honest examination of a person and their views. If the people and their views are toxic, you will find it out; it sometimes takes time, but usually not much. And there's nothing stopping you from fighting all the racism and Nazism that is unabashedly apparent while you're waiting to figure out whether or not this particular guy is a racist Nazi. FFS, this isn't a religion; it's not about how much of a good or bad boy or girl you are. It's also not an adolescent family drama; it's not about whether or not you keep company with the right sort of people. If you are a journalist or a commentator or any kind of social or cultural critic, you should be able to examine anyone or any view, as long as you do it honestly. A good strong critical eye is also useful.
I haven't finished watching Dore's video, so I don't know if he's been bamboozled. But even if he has, that doesn't mean people watching his video must follow along and be bamboozled *because he was*. They still have independent judgement, don't they? If they don't, they've got bigger problems than Jimmy Dore.
The real problem here is people who let others think for them.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
yes to this:
I have no way
I suspect that the people who are at these various protests have a much better sense of what is really going on.
a dozen times 'yes'
to this!
This!
Remember Occupy Wall Street and all the other Occupy groups that rose up across the US were branded as being terrorist organizations. And for the record, I participated in Occupy Tallahassee and it was a life changing experience of the most positive nature for me.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
It's a tough problem
Akins also said that our society needs to understand the "Trump supporters" because there are 70,000 of them and they did not just disappear. They are still here. A sizable chunk of them were Obama supporters. Not all of them are irredeemable racists, but many are.
This is the video, I think you may find it interesting:
36 min
Thanks for this report, Wendy,
and it's not surprising that the response to Dore's tweet was overwhelmingly negative; everybody, including my nearest and dearest, absolutely believes that the Boogaloo crowd are a bunch of Nazis trying to establish a 4th Reich.
The problem I've got is the assumption that interviewing a bad person is supporting a bad person. If this is a republic or a democracy, it must rest on the idea that any given member of the public has the capacity for independent judgement, and does not simply swallow, uncritically, what they're told. If we think Dore was bamboozled, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with him, or that we should stop watching his show; it just means that he was in error on this occasion. We don't have to follow him into that error. There's an assumption floating about that we all have fragile little minds that are vulnerable to any taint, so we must silence the views of bad people so we don't hear them, otherwise we will become bad people. That's toxic crap, and a danger to the possibility of a republic or a democracy far more pervasive and effective than the Boogaloo crowd.
As I said elsewhere, I haven't finished watching the video yet--got a lot on my plate today--so I haven't formed a judgement about whether or not this guy is a toxic manipulator. He might well be completely sincere (or be sincere yet be the tool of a nasty organization, as somebody above suggested.) Regardless, knowing more about him and his views leaves us in a better position than knowing less. And the idea that data about him needs to be filtered through approved vetters of political and media content who will tell us how to feel about him is a pretty rotten notion.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
TPTB are inflating Boogymen, and the press is eating it up.
If there is to be a replay of the Nazi Empire I would expect it to come from a confluence of corporate power, a corrupt government, and highly weaponized military, standing army and police force not from a ragtag bunch of citizens with guns.
Without domestic “terrorists” how are they going to be able to justify to the public a new wave of domestic surveillance and media sensorship? Get ready for Patriot Act 2.0, the sequel.
"I fear that monstrous russian dictatorship going to attack the free world with bioweapons it seized in unexisting Pentagon funded humanitarian Ukrainian biolabs."
Greg Galloway 3/14/22
I'm with you.
Got my eyes firmly on my worst enemies. I may not know all their names, but I know who they are, and they're not, as you say, a bunch of gun-toting ragtag guys.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Well stated.
Here's a guy who stated it better:
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
i'm unfamiliar with negative reports
of the boogaloo bois, but on the other hand, many against the Proud Boys who dress in yellow and black: as in Evil Incarnate! by reportage. caitlin johnstone seemed to have been defending/explaining Antifa recently, but don't quote me on that, as an e-friend had sent me one her essays titled close to 'the pendulum is swinging back to smearing the left...again'.
i still have no notion of what Antifa conveys, even after reading a veritable desk encyclopedia of explanation by danny sjurenensen of however it goes. ; )
but i agree that knowing is better than not knowing, deciding as we will, but i sure do wish there were transcripts. at least RT had a bit of one for this program. i did like that he seems to have a sense of humor, maybe even self-deprecating, which i find immensely lacking in so many of us.
@wendy davis watch this guy. He
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ
All this reminds me of the podcast I heard Glenn
Greenwald do the other day when he was discussing some connections between far right and far left. He said he spent time with both the Tea Party people and then later the Occupy Wall Street groups. He found that they had similar if not exact complaints about issues. One major one was the government bail outs of Wall Street, etc.
This could explain why we had people who voted for Obama twice and then for Trump. I also think this bolsters my argument that Bernie could have won because he and Trump actually were on the same side of some issues.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
i'm not sure i subscribe to
that point of view, but when we were discussing the other day here what issues might the putative left and right might agree on, my short list someone had called 'kitchen table issue' which seemed about right to me.
i will say that one of the things i loved about occupying wall street in mancos, co. was that so many times people would stop and chat. what we did was to Listen First, then offer gentle countervailing opinions and suggestions as to What Might Be instead. so many times those same angry folks walked back to their cars nodding their heads with slightly glazed eyes.
of course we got some Fuck Yous and bird fingers from occupants of pickup trucks, lol. this h'yar is Redneck Country, now gentrified, more's the pity.
Gun policy
is a major deal-killer for people who might otherwise have been willing to vote for Sanders.
Democratic focus on depriving people of scary black rifles doesn't inspire confidence as anyone who bothers to check can easily find out that long guns of any type are a very minor component of gun homicides.
Ironically, Vermont has a long history of very libertarian gun laws as well is extremely low rates of violent crime - but Sanders, to me, seems much more NYC than VT in a lot of respects and gun policy seems to be an example.
People paying attention tend to recognize the agenda is not about gun control but simply *control*.
This is exactly how the establishment parties in Germany handed
lasting success to the AfD in the eastern states: accusing a whole bunch of people of being Nazis who weren’t actually Nazis.
For some strange reason, that tends to drive people away and convince them it’s impossible to have any kind of dealings in good faith with said established parties.
Plus, here in Dresden, every February 13th, some Green, Left, etc. politicians and writers, trying to be edgy, basically not only dance on the graves of people who died in the firebombing of Dresden (while also lowballing their number), but imply that anyone who mourns rather than celebrating that event must also be a Nazi.
Write people off and they don’t vote for you but instead go looking for someone who doesn’t act as if anyone of German descent is damned for all time by history — what a counter-intuitive idea! /s
That is amazing about what happens in Dresden.
A lot of people don't know Kurt Vonnegut was a POW there
"...Another significant danger of POW life, especially for those outside of camps, was posed by Allied air raids. POWs were often transported through German territory via railway car, sometimes marked with red crosses to alert Allied fliers, but railyards and boxcars were often strafed. The train carrying Vonnegut and others to Stalag IV-B was unmarked and was strafed and bombed by the RAF on Christmas Eve. At Stalag IV-B, Vonnegut was one of the unfortunates selected for a 150-man labor detachment destined for Dresden.
From January 10th and into February, the American POWs were forced to work extremely long hours in a malt-syrup factory supplied with meager rations and overseen by cruel guards. They were sheltered in a slaughterhouse with the address Schlachthof 5 [Slaughterhouse-Five.] Vonnegut described the seminal event in the history of Dresden in a letter to his family, “On about February 14th the Americans came over, followed by the R.A.F. their combined labors killed 250,000 people in 24 hours and destroyed all of Dresden—possibly the world’s most beautiful city. But not me.”
Vonnegut and the other POWs escaped the firestorm in an underground meat locker. In the aftermath, the POWs were forced to recover bodies and collect corpses for burial or funeral pyres; surviving residents threw rocks and cursed them.
Prior to the Allies reaching Dresden, the POWs were evacuated ahead of liberation, as was often the case with prisoners of war both civilian and military in eastern parts of the German Reich. Vonnegut and the other survivors were eventually liberated by the Red Army in May 1945. RAMP [Recovered American Military Personnel] Vonnegut penned a letter to his father from Camp Lucky Strike in Le Havre.
Just six months prior, but in a different world, in December 1944, Vonnegut had arrived in Le Havre with his unit ready to engage in combat with the Germans. In May 1945, thousands of former POWs were assembled there for processing and repatriation. Vonnegut wrote, “I’m told that you were probably never informed that I was anything other than ‘missing in action.’ Chances are that you also failed to receive any of the letters I wrote from Germany. That leaves me a lot of explaining to do…”
(all emphasis mine)
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/kurt-vonnegut-slaughterho...
what a flashback.
several years in a row i'd marked the fire-bombing of dresden where i was writing at the time, noting the barbaric senseless of it as it was all for demoralization given the epic amount of art there. the pushback was horrific: 'don't you believe in the holocaust???'
anyway, to mark the day and the magical prose of kurt vonnegut's billy pilgrim
War In Reverse
thank you aliasalias.
i'd been hoping you would
have stopped by this discussion the other day. hold that thought, and i'll go fetch the AfD portion. here is is at the end.
here is is:
dw.com, Germany at odds over Twitter ban for far-right AfD partyJohn Silk 1/12/2021