I’m about half way through this one… so far, so interesting…
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Yeah, this is talked about in the biography I read about Primo Levi (which I can’t remember the name of…)… Maybe he talked about it in Drowned and the Saved, too… but he was Italian, and after the fascists came to power, Jewish Italians certainly lived in a kind of second class citizenship, but nothing like what happened in Germany and Eastern Europe. The only reason he ended up in Auschwitz was because he was a partisan who was fighting in northern Italy when the Germans occupied it. He survived because he was young, able-bodied and a chemist. As bad as things got under the Italian fascists for his family, they all lived because they were in Italy and in a part where they were not in the part of Italy that the Germans occupied.
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The Thessalonika Jews were entirely wiped out, just to make that point, but in general it’s true.
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Wasn’t sure where to put this… but she does get into strategies for fighting the kind of dehumanization certain groups face in the political discourse and whether or not marginalized people are being supported:
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Using cash when possible and avoiding retailers rewards programs are also a good idea.
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Based on this, I’m expecting to see more useful strategies from Belle:
The upcoming YouTube changes might make it easier for viewers of pro-democracy channels to coordinate their efforts, too. 
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Jeebus. Maybe some woman are like me and not loyal to specific stores? I probably go to/buy from non-grocery stores maybe once a year each for each store. I generally don’t buy from Amazon, although my boss loves, loves, loves them and gives us Amazon gift cards for yearly bonus.
There is one store (name escapes me right now) that always asks if we want to sign up for a credit card and we’re always telling them that we’re not loyal and shop there maybe once per year. (“But you can save an additional xx% on today’s purchase of $34!” 
)
Bingo. I also get my Rx from a non-chain pharmacy and I will pay more to buy my CoQ10, generic Zyrtec from him because I know him and he doesn’t sell my data.
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Not a strategy, but relevant:
Image reblogged from @astrangergivingthestrangewelcome – @actuallyasisterofbattle on Tumblr
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Had a sympathetic German colleague just send me this link. It’s a philosophical list by some eastern European (mostly East German) survivors entitled:
The Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide
…
Remember – gaining power through a democratic system does not give them permission to cross legal boundaries and undermine said democracy.
Don’t let them divide you – remember you’re one People, one Nation, with one common good.
Fight for every media outlet, every journalist that is being banned, censored, sacked or labelled an “enemy of the state” – there’s no hope for freedom where there is no free press.
See through the chaos, the fake danger, expose it before you wake up in a totalitarian, fascist state.
Always think critically, fact-check and point out the truth, expose ignorance with facts.
…ten more and:
And above all, be strong, fight, endure, and remember you’re on the good side of history.
EVERY authoritarian, totalitarian and fascist regime in history eventually failed, thanks to the PEOPLE.
– With love, your Eastern European friends
Fairly precise and germane for us, i think. -sigh-
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Highly recommended listening:
As our centennial series continues, Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale University and the author of On Tyranny and his latest, On Freedom (Crown, 2024), reviews the history of fascism from the early 1920s until today.
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This is nothing new – the cheesy scandalmongering, the press as golden retriever eager to chase any ball the right-wing information cabal throws for it (Her Emails!) while ignoring really important stuff. Sometimes I wish there was a way to show scale for each story: the Hunter story is approximately the size of Hunter, the climate story is the size of the earth, from the bottom of the ocean to the upper atmosphere, pole to pole.
The monstrous cabinet members Trump is picking affect the whole US and international relations and the environment at every scale. Reproductive rights are the size of everyone who can get pregnant and all the social and economic consequences of having bodily self-jurisdiction or not. Violence against women is largely a hidden thing carried out on the scale of one perpetrator and one victim/survivor, but its pervasiveness affects the approximately four billion women and really, all of us, because it warps the entire social landscape.
There is so much going on. Choose where you put your attention carefully, which often means: don’t take the (click)bait.
Meanwhile I’m just coming out of a two-hour board meeting for the climate group Oil Change International, about whom you’ll be hearing lots more–my year-end fundraiser is coming. Meanwhile the parliament and citizens of South Korea are doing their brave best to overcome a coup attempt by a super-shitty president. May their valor be an example to us, and may they prevail. Eyes on the prize and the perils.
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Along these lines, this article reminds me how I felt after 9/11. Playing music requires so much total concentration, for many weeks it was the only time I was able to not think about the attack.
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I may need to start some really big, ambitious creative projects…
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This looks like it would require some focus.
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Years and years ago I read a magazine1) article about how cartoonists had elevated levels of depression, suicidal tendencies and whatnot.2)
Apparently one of the factors3) was that cartoons are a relatively small format that can be drawn relatively quick,4) so part of a suggested therapy was painting huge pictures with a very small brush.
1) One of those with more pictures than text, IIRC. So, pinch of salt and all that.
2) I also seem to remember that the article mentioned Charles Addams checking himself in after drawing the same cartoon ~200 times.
3) Other than being aware of what goes on in the world and boiling some of it down into concise, drawn comments. Which takes additional thinking about what goes on and why.
4) Possible connection/overlap with impostor syndrome?
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