But even the idea that the Supreme Court is coming down 4-vs-4 on a fringe legal theory that says basically that state legislatures can rule on elections however the hell they want, no matter what the state constitutions say, is alarming. And Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s last and least-qualified appointee, being the deciding vote doesn’t exactly inspire confidence you know?
Like I hate to be paranoid
but after the Supreme Court threw out precedent when they overturned Roe v. Wade and endorsed some wacky “originalist” theory there too it’s like… anything is possible. This case would be even more egregious though, this would be overturning 233 years of precedent for a naked power grab by one political party.
Anyway there’s nothing any of us can do about this, just like all the Supreme Court decisions. The only thing I’m glad about is how much the midterm elections showed that “Republicans are trying to end US democracy” is an issue that a lot of voters really care about, even more than climate change or the culture wars or the shitty economy.
On this day, 9 December 1842, revolutionary, scientist, and philosopher Peter Kropotkin was born in Russia. He later abandoned his aristocratic background in favour of the working class struggle.
He participated in the 1917 Russian revolution, and wrote numerous influential works, including Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution. In this work he criticised interpretations of the ideas of Charles Darwin which focused on competition, and highlighted instances of cooperation in the natural world. “If we … ask Nature: ‘who are the fittest: those who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one another?’ we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development of intelligence and bodily organisation.”
These ideas continue to be influential today. Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote of Kropotkin: “I would hold that Kropotkin’s basic argument is correct. Struggle does occur in many modes, and some lead to cooperation among members of a species as the best pathway to advantage for individuals. If Kropotkin overemphasised mutual aid, most Darwinians in Western Europe had exaggerated competition just as strongly. If Kropotkin drew inappropriate hope for social reform from his concept of nature, other Darwinians had erred just as firmly (and for motives that most of us would now decry) in justifying imperial conquest, racism, and oppression of industrial workers as the harsh outcome of natural selection in the competitive mode.”
Kropotkin’s ideas were central in the theoretical foundation of contemporary anarchist communism.
We have made a beautiful new illustrated edition of Mutual Aid, as well as a book about his ideas and more items celebrating his life and work in our online store: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/peter-kropotkinhttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2156190537899418/?type=3
it’s been two years, but i think that an icon like her deserves to be known about by more people.
her name was freddie oversteegen and she, at the age of fourteen, along with her older sister truus who was 16 and their friend johanna “hannie” schaft who was 19, was a part of the netherlands most famous all female resistance cell which was dedicated to fighting the nazis and dutch traitors.
among other things, they are known to have blown up bridges and railroads, smuggled jewish children from concentration camps and, as the tweet mentions, seducing nazis and then shooting them with guns that they had hidden in their bike baskets. freddie is quoted as having said that they “had to do it.” and that it was a “necessary evil, killing those who betrayed good people.”
though freddie and her sister truus were both lucky and survived the war, hannie schaft wasn’t. at the age of 24, hannie was caught and around three weeks later was executed by nazis, only 18 days before the netherlands were eventually liberated. she was shot with one only wounding her, and, before the final shot, hannie is quoted as having told the executioners: ik schiet beter, which translates to“i shoot better.”
though she didn’t survive, hannie is recognized as a national icon and a face of the dutch resistance, with her story even being retold in a movie from 1981 called “the girl with the red hair.” along with this, truus also founded the national hannie schaft foundation in 1992, on which freddie served as a board member.
freddie, at the time of her death, was 92 years old and the last surviving member of the resistance cell, with truus having died two years earlier at the age of 92.
though these women and all that they did played an important part in the dutch resistance, they are often overlooked in history outside of the netherlands. it’s important that they are remembered and that their work to save people isn’t forgotten. it’s incredible what they did, especially given how young they were, and they deserve more recognition than what they’ve gotten.
