#antifascism — Public Fediverse posts

Germany: this peculiar Frankenstein’s monster of a nation, stitched together from kingdoms, duchies, free cities, dialects, cultures, grudges and several centuries of mutually assured irritation.

Sometimes I wonder whether history might have been kinder if someone had simply left the pieces alone.

A handful of smaller countries. More local identities. Fewer grand national fantasies. Entities the size of the Netherlands, Belgium, or perhaps at times Luxembourg.

Perhaps Europe, and quite possibly the world, might have been better for it.

But no.

Somebody decided that all these differences needed to be hammered into one people, one nation, one destiny.

And once you teach people to worship the container, sooner or later they start asking which humans belong inside it.

Germany did not invent nationalism.

But it demonstrated, with horrifying thoroughness, what happens when a collection of places is turned into a political myth, and that myth is given an army.

#Nationalism #Antinationalism #Germany #Fascism #Antifascism #NeverAgain

Germany: this peculiar Frankenstein’s monster of a nation, stitched together from kingdoms, duchies, free cities, dialects, cultures, grudges and several centuries of mutually assured irritation.

Sometimes I wonder whether history might have been kinder if someone had simply left the pieces alone.

A handful of smaller countries. More local identities. Fewer grand national fantasies. Entities the size of the Netherlands, Belgium, or perhaps at times Luxembourg.

Perhaps Europe, and quite possibly the world, might have been better for it.

But no.

Somebody decided that all these differences needed to be hammered into one people, one nation, one destiny.

And once you teach people to worship the container, sooner or later they start asking which humans belong inside it.

Germany did not invent nationalism.

But it demonstrated, with horrifying thoroughness, what happens when a collection of places is turned into a political myth, and that myth is given an army.

#Nationalism #Antinationalism #Germany #Fascism #Antifascism #NeverAgain

Germany: this peculiar Frankenstein’s monster of a nation, stitched together from kingdoms, duchies, free cities, dialects, cultures, grudges and several centuries of mutually assured irritation.

Sometimes I wonder whether history might have been kinder if someone had simply left the pieces alone.

A handful of smaller countries. More local identities. Fewer grand national fantasies. Entities the size of the Netherlands, Belgium, or perhaps at times Luxembourg.

Perhaps Europe, and quite possibly the world, might have been better for it.

But no.

Somebody decided that all these differences needed to be hammered into one people, one nation, one destiny.

And once you teach people to worship the container, sooner or later they start asking which humans belong inside it.

Germany did not invent nationalism.

But it demonstrated, with horrifying thoroughness, what happens when a collection of places is turned into a political myth, and that myth is given an army.

#Nationalism #Antinationalism #Germany #Fascism #Antifascism #NeverAgain

Germany: this peculiar Frankenstein’s monster of a nation, stitched together from kingdoms, duchies, free cities, dialects, cultures, grudges and several centuries of mutually assured irritation.

Sometimes I wonder whether history might have been kinder if someone had simply left the pieces alone.

A handful of smaller countries. More local identities. Fewer grand national fantasies. Entities the size of the Netherlands, Belgium, or perhaps at times Luxembourg.

Perhaps Europe, and quite possibly the world, might have been better for it.

But no.

Somebody decided that all these differences needed to be hammered into one people, one nation, one destiny.

And once you teach people to worship the container, sooner or later they start asking which humans belong inside it.

Germany did not invent nationalism.

But it demonstrated, with horrifying thoroughness, what happens when a collection of places is turned into a political myth, and that myth is given an army.

#Nationalism #Antinationalism #Germany #Fascism #Antifascism #NeverAgain

I have news for you:

The Brandmauer never existed.

It was always a political convenience, not a democratic principle.

The CDU does not care about the Brandmauer. It cares about power.

And once again, radicalised conservatives are doing what conservatives have done throughout history: convincing themselves that they can use fascists without empowering fascism.

They cannot.

They will.

And when democracy finally lies in ruins, they will insist they never meant for this to happen.

But history will be less forgiving.

It will remember who opened the door.

And who stood beside it, holding the keys.

#Fascism #Antifascism #Germany #Brandmauer #DefendDemocracy #DemocraticBacksliding

I have news for you:

The Brandmauer never existed.

It was always a political convenience, not a democratic principle.

The CDU does not care about the Brandmauer. It cares about power.

And once again, radicalised conservatives are doing what conservatives have done throughout history: convincing themselves that they can use fascists without empowering fascism.

They cannot.

They will.

And when democracy finally lies in ruins, they will insist they never meant for this to happen.

But history will be less forgiving.

It will remember who opened the door.

And who stood beside it, holding the keys.

#Fascism #Antifascism #Germany #Brandmauer #DefendDemocracy #DemocraticBacksliding

I have news for you:

The Brandmauer never existed.

It was always a political convenience, not a democratic principle.

The CDU does not care about the Brandmauer. It cares about power.

And once again, radicalised conservatives are doing what conservatives have done throughout history: convincing themselves that they can use fascists without empowering fascism.

They cannot.

They will.

And when democracy finally lies in ruins, they will insist they never meant for this to happen.

But history will be less forgiving.

It will remember who opened the door.

And who stood beside it, holding the keys.

#Fascism #Antifascism #Germany #Brandmauer #DefendDemocracy #DemocraticBacksliding

I have news for you:

The Brandmauer never existed.

It was always a political convenience, not a democratic principle.

The CDU does not care about the Brandmauer. It cares about power.

And once again, radicalised conservatives are doing what conservatives have done throughout history: convincing themselves that they can use fascists without empowering fascism.

They cannot.

They will.

And when democracy finally lies in ruins, they will insist they never meant for this to happen.

But history will be less forgiving.

It will remember who opened the door.

And who stood beside it, holding the keys.

#Fascism #Antifascism #Germany #Brandmauer #DefendDemocracy #DemocraticBacksliding

There is a political project underway to make transgender existence pathological again.

That distinction matters.

This is not merely about terminology. It is about institutional power: who gets to define a person's identity, whose account of their own existence is considered credible, and what happens when an individual refuses the definition imposed upon them.

The historical pattern is not particularly obscure.
First, difference is classified as disorder.
Then disorder becomes evidence of incapacity.
Incapacity becomes justification for paternalism.
Paternalism becomes coercion.

At that point, the institution no longer has to demonstrate that the person is dangerous. It merely has to establish that the person is not sufficiently competent to define themselves.

This is how medical authority can become a technology of social conformity.

And no, putting this process inside a psychiatric framework does not make it benevolent. Calling coercion treatment does not alter its coercive character. Calling confinement care does not make the locked door disappear.

There is a particularly grotesque irony here: people who insist that transgender identities are merely ideological constructions are perfectly willing to construct an elaborate ideological apparatus around the proposition that trans people are mentally defective.

The objective is not scientific neutrality.
It is disciplinary legitimacy.

So let us dispense with the euphemisms.

If your political programme requires declaring an entire class of people mentally ill because they refuse to live according to your preferred conception of gender, you are not practising medicine. You are practising social control.

And if your proposed remedy is to remove those people from society until they become sufficiently compliant, then the problem is not their supposed pathology.

It is your willingness to manufacture pathology in order to justify their removal.

History has a name for that kind of medicine.

It is not care.
It is not neutrality.
And it is certainly not progress.

We have already seen what happens when institutions are given the authority to decide which identities constitute legitimate human existence. We do not owe anyone the opportunity to repeat the experiment on us.

#TransRights #TransLiberation #TransIsNotAnIllness #QueerLiberation #MedicalEthics #HumanRights #Antifascism #EndTransphobia #NoGoingBack

There is a political project underway to make transgender existence pathological again.

That distinction matters.

This is not merely about terminology. It is about institutional power: who gets to define a person's identity, whose account of their own existence is considered credible, and what happens when an individual refuses the definition imposed upon them.

The historical pattern is not particularly obscure.
First, difference is classified as disorder.
Then disorder becomes evidence of incapacity.
Incapacity becomes justification for paternalism.
Paternalism becomes coercion.

At that point, the institution no longer has to demonstrate that the person is dangerous. It merely has to establish that the person is not sufficiently competent to define themselves.

This is how medical authority can become a technology of social conformity.

And no, putting this process inside a psychiatric framework does not make it benevolent. Calling coercion treatment does not alter its coercive character. Calling confinement care does not make the locked door disappear.

There is a particularly grotesque irony here: people who insist that transgender identities are merely ideological constructions are perfectly willing to construct an elaborate ideological apparatus around the proposition that trans people are mentally defective.

The objective is not scientific neutrality.
It is disciplinary legitimacy.

So let us dispense with the euphemisms.

If your political programme requires declaring an entire class of people mentally ill because they refuse to live according to your preferred conception of gender, you are not practising medicine. You are practising social control.

And if your proposed remedy is to remove those people from society until they become sufficiently compliant, then the problem is not their supposed pathology.

It is your willingness to manufacture pathology in order to justify their removal.

History has a name for that kind of medicine.

It is not care.
It is not neutrality.
And it is certainly not progress.

We have already seen what happens when institutions are given the authority to decide which identities constitute legitimate human existence. We do not owe anyone the opportunity to repeat the experiment on us.

#TransRights #TransLiberation #TransIsNotAnIllness #QueerLiberation #MedicalEthics #HumanRights #Antifascism #EndTransphobia #NoGoingBack

There is a political project underway to make transgender existence pathological again.

That distinction matters.

This is not merely about terminology. It is about institutional power: who gets to define a person's identity, whose account of their own existence is considered credible, and what happens when an individual refuses the definition imposed upon them.

The historical pattern is not particularly obscure.
First, difference is classified as disorder.
Then disorder becomes evidence of incapacity.
Incapacity becomes justification for paternalism.
Paternalism becomes coercion.

At that point, the institution no longer has to demonstrate that the person is dangerous. It merely has to establish that the person is not sufficiently competent to define themselves.

This is how medical authority can become a technology of social conformity.

And no, putting this process inside a psychiatric framework does not make it benevolent. Calling coercion treatment does not alter its coercive character. Calling confinement care does not make the locked door disappear.

There is a particularly grotesque irony here: people who insist that transgender identities are merely ideological constructions are perfectly willing to construct an elaborate ideological apparatus around the proposition that trans people are mentally defective.

The objective is not scientific neutrality.
It is disciplinary legitimacy.

So let us dispense with the euphemisms.

If your political programme requires declaring an entire class of people mentally ill because they refuse to live according to your preferred conception of gender, you are not practising medicine. You are practising social control.

And if your proposed remedy is to remove those people from society until they become sufficiently compliant, then the problem is not their supposed pathology.

It is your willingness to manufacture pathology in order to justify their removal.

History has a name for that kind of medicine.

It is not care.
It is not neutrality.
And it is certainly not progress.

We have already seen what happens when institutions are given the authority to decide which identities constitute legitimate human existence. We do not owe anyone the opportunity to repeat the experiment on us.

#TransRights #TransLiberation #TransIsNotAnIllness #QueerLiberation #MedicalEthics #HumanRights #Antifascism #EndTransphobia #NoGoingBack

There is a political project underway to make transgender existence pathological again.

That distinction matters.

This is not merely about terminology. It is about institutional power: who gets to define a person's identity, whose account of their own existence is considered credible, and what happens when an individual refuses the definition imposed upon them.

The historical pattern is not particularly obscure.
First, difference is classified as disorder.
Then disorder becomes evidence of incapacity.
Incapacity becomes justification for paternalism.
Paternalism becomes coercion.

At that point, the institution no longer has to demonstrate that the person is dangerous. It merely has to establish that the person is not sufficiently competent to define themselves.

This is how medical authority can become a technology of social conformity.

And no, putting this process inside a psychiatric framework does not make it benevolent. Calling coercion treatment does not alter its coercive character. Calling confinement care does not make the locked door disappear.

There is a particularly grotesque irony here: people who insist that transgender identities are merely ideological constructions are perfectly willing to construct an elaborate ideological apparatus around the proposition that trans people are mentally defective.

The objective is not scientific neutrality.
It is disciplinary legitimacy.

So let us dispense with the euphemisms.

If your political programme requires declaring an entire class of people mentally ill because they refuse to live according to your preferred conception of gender, you are not practising medicine. You are practising social control.

And if your proposed remedy is to remove those people from society until they become sufficiently compliant, then the problem is not their supposed pathology.

It is your willingness to manufacture pathology in order to justify their removal.

History has a name for that kind of medicine.

It is not care.
It is not neutrality.
And it is certainly not progress.

We have already seen what happens when institutions are given the authority to decide which identities constitute legitimate human existence. We do not owe anyone the opportunity to repeat the experiment on us.

#TransRights #TransLiberation #TransIsNotAnIllness #QueerLiberation #MedicalEthics #HumanRights #Antifascism #EndTransphobia #NoGoingBack

There is a political project underway to make transgender existence pathological again.

That distinction matters.

This is not merely about terminology. It is about institutional power: who gets to define a person's identity, whose account of their own existence is considered credible, and what happens when an individual refuses the definition imposed upon them.

The historical pattern is not particularly obscure.
First, difference is classified as disorder.
Then disorder becomes evidence of incapacity.
Incapacity becomes justification for paternalism.
Paternalism becomes coercion.

At that point, the institution no longer has to demonstrate that the person is dangerous. It merely has to establish that the person is not sufficiently competent to define themselves.

This is how medical authority can become a technology of social conformity.

And no, putting this process inside a psychiatric framework does not make it benevolent. Calling coercion treatment does not alter its coercive character. Calling confinement care does not make the locked door disappear.

There is a particularly grotesque irony here: people who insist that transgender identities are merely ideological constructions are perfectly willing to construct an elaborate ideological apparatus around the proposition that trans people are mentally defective.

The objective is not scientific neutrality.
It is disciplinary legitimacy.

So let us dispense with the euphemisms.

If your political programme requires declaring an entire class of people mentally ill because they refuse to live according to your preferred conception of gender, you are not practising medicine. You are practising social control.

And if your proposed remedy is to remove those people from society until they become sufficiently compliant, then the problem is not their supposed pathology.

It is your willingness to manufacture pathology in order to justify their removal.

History has a name for that kind of medicine.

It is not care.
It is not neutrality.
And it is certainly not progress.

We have already seen what happens when institutions are given the authority to decide which identities constitute legitimate human existence. We do not owe anyone the opportunity to repeat the experiment on us.

#TransRights #TransLiberation #TransIsNotAnIllness #QueerLiberation #MedicalEthics #HumanRights #Antifascism #EndTransphobia #NoGoingBack