"Educate, then, at any rate; for the age of implicit self-sacrifice and instinctive virtues is already flitting far away from us, and the time is fast approaching when freedom, public peace, and social order itself will not be able to exist without education."
-Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America"
Sound Familiar? Don‘t say you‘re not because we know what you are.
#ThewholethingIthinkitssick
#Gobacktosleep
#Dontsayyouarentbecausewekbowwhatyouare
pickNaturally, Snyder‘s 20 rules on tyranny are pertinent & should be read & absorbed by everyone. But I am so grateful I was able to listen to this expanded edition. Snyder goes deep into the Ukraine/Russian War and how central Ukraine has been to history.
I learned so much & I cannot recommend this version enough.
"There is a great difference between doing what one does not approve and feigning to approve what one does; the one is the necessary case of a week person, the other befits the temper of a lackey."
-Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America"
"In absolute governments the great nobles who are nearest to the throne flatter the passions of the sovereign, and voluntarily truckle to his caprices. But the mass of the nation does not degrade itself by servitude: it often submits from weakness, from habit, or from ignorance, and sometimes from loyalty."
-Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America"
"The corruption of men who have casually risen to power has a course and vulgar infection in it which renders it contagious to the multitude."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America"
""The will of the nation" is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age. To the eyes of some it has been represented by the venal suffrages of a few of the satellites of power; to others by the votes of a timid or an interested minority; and some have even discovered it in the silence of a people, on the supposition that the fact of submission established the right of command."
I am grateful to these folks, and many more not pictured, for fighting the good fight. Working with them has restored my hope and my faith in humanity. I am so proud to stand with them.
#thoughtsforthursday
"I do not mean that there is no deficiency of wealthy individuals in the United States; I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men, and where the profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property."
-Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America"
I‘m a nonfiction geek, so these are the books that come to mind for when I need an emotional pep talk: Historians of fascism offer their guides to surviving and resisting America‘s recent turn towards authoritarianism. Because those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Thanks for the tag, @Chrissyreadit !
#overcomingevilempires #readingispolitical #antifabookclub
