Anti Fascists

"(about anarchists) we've got a wonderful critique of failure: if you don't fail from time to time, you're not setting your goals high enough."

"(about Leonard Peltier) We always idealize wild rebels who refuse to bow to empire when we read about them in fantasy books, but some of those rebels are alive and imprisoned by the same people who draw their salaries from our taxes."

"There’s no other issue more pressing for everyone alive enough to read these words than climate change. Which is saying something, because we’ve also got a fascism problem — but they’re not unrelated problems."

"(SFP: Where do you think science fiction as a genre is headed?) MK: Well, probably all sci-fi that doesn’t directly address climate change is going to read as nonsensical fantasy soon enough. So I think the future is there. Personally, I hope it heads in the direction of offering alternatives, instead of just saying “here’s some stuff that’s bad.” (2022)"

"it’s just a big inner woven net that is the way to get things done."

"survival isn’t about hoarding supplies, and hiding in the basement, but instead about building connections with community and building resilient communities. And sometimes hoarding food in your basement!"

"That was the first interview I did for the project [the interview with Ursula Le Guin]. And talking about what role fiction has within social change. That really opened my eyes. I saw them as very separate activities. And I no longer do, although I also do believe that it’s also easy to go too far the other way and be like, well, I’m doing my part, I sit at home and take no risks! And, you know, I do think that the actual work of making things change in this world involve organization, and they involve direct action, and they involve confronting oppressive powers directly."

"(Q: Do you see all your creative work across the different bands and projects as being connected?)…they’re also just coming in from the same place in terms of how I see the world, in terms of how I see the physical manifestation of different thematic ideas, of what Gods are and aren’t. All that stuff will tie in together. And it’s fun. I totally get now why so many writers that I love are just 50 years into one wild, weird world building thing. Or just declare all their work a multiverse. So they’d be like, yeah, it’s all tied together somehow. I totally get it now."

"Science, that was going to save the world in H. G. Wells' time, is regimented, strait-jacketed, scared shitless, its universal language diminished to one word, security."

"Silence was her loudest voice."

"They cannot tell me how to run my newspapers any more than I can tell them how to run their tanks."

"All in all they are mediocre and colourless, except of course Pattakos. He is a mediocre man who acts like a clown."

"Is it true that automatically you can jump from capitalism to socialism? No. The ruling bourgeoisie will try to kill you first, suppress you. So when Marx says in the Communist Manifesto, you must win the battle for democracy, it means you must assert your democratic rights: the right to assemble and speak out, and all the other rights. And then, when your mass movement becomes big, then they will try to suppress you. They will come out with fascism. So before you can have socialism, the monopoly capitalist class will unleash fascism under various pretexts. They use chauvinism against immigrants, Sinophobia, Islamophobia and also many other tricks just to hide the roots of the crisis."

"Δεν υπάρχει τέλος της ιστορίας. Το σήμερα έχει συνέχεια το αύριο. Από εμάς τους ίδιους εξαρτάται η συνέχεια αυτή."

"Our political practice followed the same track as that of the right-wing governments; many times we implemented ad hoc policies; we maintained clientelistic relations between government and voters; we made selective allocations of funds and we introduced measures benefiting specific groups. The principle governing our political practice was that the party and the government were always right and that their actions had to be justified;... we do not need attractive slogans that create rising expectations but systematic programming and well-planned action."

"Populism transfers the social problem from the plain of ideology to a level that does not disturb the status quo of social relations. The assistance of the state and the benefits derived from it is the sole objective of political struggles in Greece."

"State authority cannot, and must not, dominate economic and social activity."

"When I took over as Prime Minister, I had already known Andreas for more than thirty years. There were very few PASOK cadres who had been with him for such a long time. Political commentators highlighted our conflicts, the distance that separated us in life and politics, our different behaviors. However, they overlooked our many commonalities: our resistance to the junta, our struggles for the establishment and development of PASOK, our confrontation with the Right, our cooperation for an effective government. We maintained a stable relationship between us, despite any friction."

"Simitis is good, but he is not PASOK."

"We had just set up home. We ended up closing the door, taking only the clothes that were necessary."

"We were told that in two days we would be leaving and that we could only take 5kg."

"It was only a small canoe. We could only go two by two, but in our group there were babies who were with their parents."

"All this leaves its mark on a 20-year-old woman. When people started talking about our liberation, I saw reasons to join the fight."

"I was not under suspicion because I was studying on a loan given by the Portuguese Youth Organisation, a movement led by the fascist government and based, I came to understand, on the Hitler Youth. What the police wanted to do was warn me not to mix with those ‘communists’ at the house of the students of the empire."

"There were very hard moments though."

"I worried the secret police would use our daughter to pressure us and said this to my husband. He said when a person joins this sort of thing, they have to be prepared for anything. It wasn’t easy."

"Once they were in the colony there was almost total silence about their lives."

"When I came to study in Portugal, Guilherme’s family welcomed me, and took me to visit the families of the other political prisoners in Tarrafal."

"People don't like being convinced that they're wrong. In fact, our brains are unmatched in their ability to self-justify, to make us feel that we are right and to shut out any information that contradicts that. On a purely logical level, most people aren't going to be moved on a incorrect belief they have by arguing with them about it."

"Social media platforms are terrible at acknowledging context and power relations when it comes to harassment, this is why so many trans people on Twitter get banned for calling their harassers TERFs, which is categorically not a slur. Hasan’s flagrant use of the word forced them to commit to a position. They committed harder than I expected, considering my ban."

"First and foremost, if you're dealing with somebody who cares about you in any capacity [...] the most valuable tool you have to convince them of any position is the empathy they hold for you."

"The problem with Cuties on Netflix isn't that 11 years are going to watch it and feel represented. The problem is that adults if we're being charitable are going to watch it to reflect on their youth, or if we're being uncharitable they're going to watch it while ******* it to the many provocative dance scenes done by minors."

"The problem with leftists is that they don't have an example to point to, right? What are you going to point to? China? The Soviet Union? No, no. If you're going to make an argument for anything leftist, you're kind of throwing darts at the wall. Not necessarily a bad dart or a bad wall, but you're having to work from first principles a little bit. This is why a lot of lefties struggle with electoralism, because electoralism is the bridge that exists right now that gets us from A to B and bridge-building is tough, but imagining the other side of the river is easy. In fact, you can see it from here, it's in your head."

"I do find myself agreeing with liberals on a lot of stuff. Not, mind you, because I don't have better ideas than them -- I do, and I've argued for them -- but because the other ideas that are being thrown their way are so bad that I can't risk the left being pulled down with them. I want you guys to have a better understanding of liberals so you can better critique them. I don't want you to be complacent like the liberal, I want you to know what you're up against."

""Every day I draw breath is a victory against fascism in my books." Mm-hm! If your life is intolerant to them, then live just to spite them."

"People in America don't care about foreign policy. For evidence to this point, look at the entire history of the United States."

"I think that one of my biggest issues with, like, broader political discourse is that -- especially on the left -- people fixate, like, really, really hard on being a good advocate. God's honest truth is, the first step to winning is being a good person. And I don't just mean good in the sense of, like, being morally good. I mean being good at being a person. Being disciplined and effective. Saving your money when you need to. Being community-oriented. It's not just a matter of being morally correct, it's a matter of being in a position where, if you have the opportunity, you can most effectively advocate for your beliefs. Discipline matters. Community matters. Not just community with other people like you, community with people who you don't like as well. I'm sorry to say, but you gotta know your neighbors. Even if they're Trump supporters, you gotta know your neighbors."

"You can fuckin' support as much genocide as you want or disenfranchise as many people as you want. As long as people are getting cheap personal chauffeurs for their burritos from the local, like, Mexican joint, that's the-- That's their standard for who they're voting for."

"You're gonna have to be smart when, in a better world, in a better time, you could've gotten away with being more frivolous. You're going to have to be withdrawn in times when maybe being more open would've been better. It's going to ask a lot-- the world's going to ask a lot of you, and none of it's going to be fair, but you can do it. And like everything else, this will pass. And things will get better. On a long enough time-scale, the "It's So Over" is always followed by the "We're So Fucking Back". It's just math."

"Doom and gloom doesn't solve our problems, stay strong and weaponize this anger and resentment we've been left with. We must always keep fighting for a better future."

"Sorry that the memory of you being told that you're loved has to be tainted by the moment it was associated with."

"I don't know what you should do. I know what processes you should adopt in order to maximize the likelihood of you making it through this. That you should be calm. That you should befriend your neighbors. Develop close relations with the people around you. [...] Familiarize yourself with the laws of your local environment. Honest to God? Familiarize yourself with the parts of it you don't like as much. [...] Get out of your bubble. Be calm. Walk the neighborhood."

"I think that if you ask me right now, why it went down this way? Ballpark answer: Misogyny, weakened rhetoric on immigration -- that is to say, Democrats stopped pushing back against anti-immigrant sentiment and started kind of adopting it themselves -- and a lack of economic populism. They are fighting for procedural institutionalist rhetoric in a world that is populist."

"People who were born in time to serve for World War I died after the moon landing. You've got a lot of time ahead of you."

"Could they really divide us that well? Could Trump or "The Powers That Be" commit that well to a doctrine of dismantling, not only our democracy, but all of the protections, all of the interconnectedness that queer people, people of different races, whatever, that all of them have managed to build? I don't think so."

"People used to be a lot more willing to wish death on others because people used to be a lot less human to each other. I think it's a little bit easier to sympathize with people in an environment where you can pop open Twitter and just see 'The Enemy' be normal."

"The main thing you want, if you want to survive difficult times, is know your neighbor. You can get more done as a group than you ever can as an individual, and the last thing that you want during socially difficult times is to not have your neighbor's number."

"There are lots of people all around the world who endure worse circumstances than you have up to this point, and what you will endure over the next four or however many years. I'm not saying you got it easy; you don't. I'm not saying that you should be "Oh, y'know, because kids in Africa are starving" or whatever. I'm just saying, they do make it work in a lot of cases."

"Step one is always seeing tomorrow. Step two is figuring out a solution."

"People aren't always rational, countries aren't always rational. Fascism is not rational."