From Folding Ideas’ “Triumph of the Will and the Cinematic Language of Propaganda”:

‘Triumph of the Will’ is not a triumph of film-making. I just want to lay that out before we even start. Chances are good that you’re familiar with ‘Triumph of the Will’ by reputation but have never actually watched it beyond referential clips, and a sizable portion of that reputation is in its value as an advancement of the art of filmmaking. This is propaganda.

Like, that belief is in and of itself propaganda.

Nazi sympathizers spent a lot of time between the film’s release in 1935 and the war promoting the idea of ‘Triumph of the Will’ as an advancement of filmmaking. It was an intentional message to promote Nazi state art as superior, to suggest that the Nazi mechanism can produce better more proficient art than the artist the Nazis were busy throwing in jail.

It is however not a triumph of filmmaking; it is a triumph of budget. None of the ideas or techniques were new it is simply that no one had previously thrown enough money and resources at propaganda on this scale before. We’ll come back to this and develop it in more detail, but I want to be upfront with the fact that you should be highly suspicious of any messaging surrounding propaganda.

I also think the authors that have left Substack have done something admirable, and I agree we should boost their work to encourage more people to follow suit.

I notice you don’t post. I encourage you to give it a try. Following the authors who have left Substack and posting their work in the appropriate communities would be a great introduction to sharing stories on the Fediverse.

It’s a map created by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and they host an interactive map that you can mouseover. They get their data from ICE, whose website includes a non-interactive map in the form of a PDF. ICE is encouraging people to visit their site and write to their local law enforcement, they’re not going to waste resources tracking every visitor to determine if they’re really part of the target audience for their message.

It shouldn’t need to be said that the link is to ice. The link clearly says “ice dot gov” in the text. This warning sounds overly paranoid.

There was significant pushback against Lemmy when I first joined based on the prominent role authoritarian apologists for the Soviet Union played in its infrastructure and federation network. I saw the underlying structure of federation between servers and the collaborative nature of the threaded discussion system as unambiguously anarchist. I joined Lemmy to contribute my own thoughts and share the stories that catch my attention to the decentralized discussion, in spite of those valid concerns. I think I made the right choice. Lemmy is not pure, but it is good enough to build upon.

In February 2025 (Pushing Back Against Big Tech), all of our admins in our capacity as moderators and posters agreed to stop sharing stories from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Google in response to the leadership of those platforms overt support for fascism. We encouraged our moderators to follow suit, which they’ve done with overwhelming support. This is part of a coordinated movement to de-center these platforms from the web.

Many famous people who used Twitter as their main social media have joined the movement also, and moved to alternative platforms to stop bringing traffic to the enemy. This represents a sacrifice on their part, as many do their own social media, and have to learn a new set of media tools. We support those creators who are making that sacrifice.

Substack is one of those platforms many creators have made their new home. It has shown extreme growth since the collapse of Twitter. As an admin, I’m disappointed to hear that fascist voices are also finding a home on Substack. While Substack has declined to censor them, it has not overtly endorsed those voices, and is not boosting them over their non-fascist content. As a corporation hosted in America where censoring fascists is likely to draw attention from the new regime, their stance has an uncomfortable context. I hope they eventually do better.

Assuming the shared goal of de-centering Twitter and dis-empowering its fascist CEO, blacklisting Substack is counter-productive. Substack is the home of several anarchist, left, and progressive voices. Linking to them should be encouraged. While it would be better if everyone joined the Fediverse or self-hosted instead of choosing another form of corporate social media, this is the home that many people fighting fascism have found. If they are producing anti-fascist content, it is counter-productive to our goals not to link to it.

While many remain on Substack in spite of its poor decision, many authors have shown great moral fortitude by leaving the platform in protest. Authors like Jonathan M. Katz, Molly White, Ryan Broderick, and Casey Newton have left Substack and now publish content directly from their own websites. This is widely considered professional suicide, but you can support their ethical antifascist stance by reading their content and sharing it across the Fediverse. If they can survive and thrive without a corporate sponsor, it will encourage other writers to follow their example.

We are living at a time when writing is dangerous. Rewarding authors with positive attention who take bold anti-fascist actions I think will be much more effective than trying to cut off another source of revenue for struggling writers. It is difficult enough to find content when the corporate behemoths are no longer an option. I think removing Substack in its entirety as a source at this point would make the Fediverse worse.

Entity: McHenry County Sheriff's Office
Location: McHenry County, IL
Type of Agreement: Jail Enforcement
Status: Applied, never approved 

The Sootie Awards came and went early last month. XRLA hasn’t updated their website, but things are still happening. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, reach out and find out more. You can learn more about Extinction Rebellion on Wikipedia as well.

How many Teslas are in your fleet currently and which ones?

We have four Tesla Model 3’s and 10 Tesla Model Y’s.

Police riding swastikars, what an unlikely paring.

This will remain the main one for serious discussion for April.

Good answer.

This comment requires at least a ‘Poser’ Tier.

“Rights” like freedom of speech are a government fiction to lull you into a false sense of security – the only protections that can keep you safe are the ones enough people are willing to fight for.

The last two months, Huffman has been censoring Reddit to be more pro-Elon. Elon may have personally requested the ban.

This is some dystopian shit.

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Make a better one then?

Not that it matters, because I didn’t make a whataboutist argument in the first place.

I agree that you didn’t make an argument.

Where a ‘liberal’ is anyone a totalitarian disagrees with, and a ‘source’ is a half-hearted general link to a Wikipedia article.

Edit: Davel has now expanded his low-effort response to be more than a Wikipedia link to Five Eyes.

Yes, this would be an excellent [email protected] post. You can find all of the posts on Maja here, they are categorized as [DEU] because the arrest was due to the agency of the German police, and it is due to the injustice of German courts that they are now being tortured in Hungary. Maja’s voice is most loudly amplified by the Dresden ABC, and I’ve been unable to find an ABC in Hungary; those are also factors in its localization.

If you preface the post with [DEU] and highlight Maja in the title, the post will also be easily searchable. You can copy the [DEU] and Maja search links from any other Maja post text.

That’s some really low-effort whataboutism.

The tactic is an old favorite of the Soviet Union, and Marxists/the far left in general; the strategy was originally used in the form of “And at your place, they hang black people.” The term ‘whataboutery’ itself, however, only dates back to 1974 with its use in The Troubles in Northern Ireland, whereas the term ‘whataboutism’ dates back to 1978 with reference to the Soviet Union.

In recent years, whataboutism made a comeback in Russia under Vladimir Putin’s regime (since they seemingly learned all the wrong lessons from the Cold War), and has also seen a rise in usage by Donald Trump, his support base, and the rest of the far-right.

I wonder how a clothing library could work. Corporate ‘Fits’ are so generic, having a a good logistics system and localized garment industry could make custom fitting clothes possible - adapting garments that not longer fit to new body types and owners could improve the quality of life over what currently exists.