*cries in Dissent co-editor*
Posts by Patrick Iber
Here @nilsgilman.bsky.social, a historian who spent years working in Silicon Valley, makes the case that a liberal arts education will be ~more~ valuable in the near future www.noemamag.com/why-a-libera...
Just for the record: UW history has more majors and minors right now than at least since 2015, maybe 2010, and we are starting to hear people leaving, say, computer science, and explaining that the job market is uncertain everywhere so they may as well do what they enjoy
The AHR has launched a new project, Authoritarianism 101: A Global History, as part of the #AHRSyllabus series.
Explore 30 modules from different contributors and key questions on authoritarianism—each paired with primary sources and teaching resources. The first twelve modules are now live.
Yes
I will comfort myself with this knowledge while I cry salty salty tears into my breakfast martini
I'm sad that this is a microblogging site because this post brought me so much joy that I wanted it to go on forever
Agreed; Pinochet lost that plebiscite too (after approximately the same amount of time in power that Orban had). Obviously different regime types, but both under the authoritarian umbrella
Oh, I see how that might have come across in a way that I didn't intended, and I appreciate the reply! I'm also out protesting Trump! The protests definitely have meaning, but I don't think they will affect Trump's behavior. We're protesting to build power against Trump
If you listened to the latest Know Your Enemy episode you will have learned that there is going to be a live Dissent Magazine / KYE / Mike Duncan's Revolutions crossover event on May 14th at 7pm in New. York. City. Tickets are on sale now! dissentmagazine.org/blog/event-m...
If we are still talking about campus protests my two cents are that the Biden administration should have been able to be held to account morally while Trump cannot be held to account for morals which he does not possess
Arrayed around the room were posterboards, which not only asked tenants what problems they faced but sought their input on policy proposals brainstormed by staff, like fining landlords who don’t make repairs, making it easier to form tenant unions, or enabling the city to take over buildings when there are serial violations. Placing a sticker by the proposal signaled approval. But in addition, the public could also write their own policy alternatives on Post-It notes. And they did. “Require transparency on who landlords (LLC) are so [we] can hold them accountable,” read one note. Another suggested a crackdown on charging market rates when the unit is rent-stabilized so the landlord could pocket the difference. “Some management companies list vacant apartments and request non-refundable application fees,” a third person wrote. “They make more money on application fees than collecting rent.” “People came up with interesting ideas!” said Sam Levine, who runs the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP). “For policy development, it’s an interactive process. It’s like nothing I’ve done in my career.”
I love the opening scene, where tenants are asked not just for their challenges but for their policy ideas:
prospect.org/2026/04/10/z...
We believe Jefferson Davis to be the worst man in all history.
On Confederate Surrender Day, I give you the Liberator's take on Jefferson Davis: "We believe Jefferson Davis to be the worst man in all history. He was a repudiator and slaveholder. He has been a secessionist, a traitor and rebel....He has sedulously endeavored to subvert our free institutions."
It's explicitly genocidal rhetoric from Trump, who frequently expresses the view that civilizations exist in a hierarchy of value
We all know exactly what Thomas means: was the Agricultural Revolution a mistake? But if you post your answer, you will get the most tedious conversation in your mentions, and therefore you should not post about it
There were alternatives, but not alternatives that satisfy Trump's demand for grandiosity and power. People are dying not for a better future, but because of his narcissism - which is, for what it's worth, totally incapable of being satisfied
As I argue in this piece, one of the reasons that Iran and Cuba have the regimes they have today is because of U.S. imperialism: you don't get a free license to abuse and bully without blowback
One of the things that is just maddeningly grotesque about the current situations in Cuba and Iran is that Trump imposes mass suffering as a means of ego gratification
I was amazed!
This is one of those topics that if you are like an inch away from someone else's understanding of the situation it gets very prickly very fast, but I did my best to give the state of play in a short piece
Friends: somehow I got to write for Rolling Stone [?!], about Trump's inhumane pressure campaign in Cuba. "Castro’s ego was sustained by rebellion; the David who fought Goliath and won, no matter the cost to others. Trump’s ego demands that he be Goliath, and win, no matter the cost to others."
Congratulations!
ok ok the thread is Frederic Weis and the timeline is Vince Carter
And DuBois wrote for it when it was!
Cover of THY WILL BE DONE, Out April 7th! Learn more, buy the book, and view tour dates at johngmarks.com
Thy Will Be Done is an exceptional book. This is how George Washington should be taught. This is how history should be done.”—Clint Smith, New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
“John Garrison Marks has written an unsparing audit of our inherited memory—proving that the real revolution is in who gets to tell the story." —Alexis Coe, American history columnist at the New York Times and New York Times bestselling author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington
Speaking of promoting books, mine comes out Tuesday and I could use your help. The great @clintsmithiii.bsky.social and @alexiscoe.bsky.social said kind things about it. The book reveals Americans' centuries-long struggle to reckon with George Washington and slavery. bookshop.org/p/books/thy-...
I'm far from an expert here but I suspect that in this case the change may not be as big as people would imagine. That said, if we're in a long-last unpopular war, things might change
When I was working at UTEP Texas passed a law that allowed firearms on campuses, and people joked that they were now allowed on universities but not on Fort Bliss, the major military base in town. But enlisted folks assured me that tons of people had weapons on the base
New @dissentmag.bsky.social piece by Farid Masrour on why Trump's actions in Iran are unlikely to be produce "democratization", even if the present regime is unpopular dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
It's my baseline assumption that being able to convince people to misperceive reality is a short-term gain/long-term loss situation for political movements