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Dave Fortin

@davidwfortin.bsky.social

710 followers 860 following 3.9K posts

History teacher in Philadelphia. APUSH, AP Govt, AP Euro. Dogfather. Irish dance dad. STL Cards, Blues, and STLCity fan. Army vet (Gulf War). Notre Dame alum. Gen X. "The air tasted of lies.” S. De Beauvoir

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · Aug 19

Rewatching "The Watchers of the Skies" which is a hard but beautiful film on genocide. Rafael Lemkin quote:

"It is not the cargo of a vessel that is at stake, but humanity with its spiritual heritage in which the whole world partakes."

youtu.be/1e0HFCKcVhc?...

Watchers of the Sky Official Trailer 1 (2014) - Documentary HD

YouTube video by Rotten Tomatoes Indie

youtu.be

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1h

Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, William Cronon, Robert Caro (esp. Master of the Senate), James McPherson, Donald Miller (his Vicksburg book is excellent!), David Walker Howe....

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1h

Hannah Arendt QOTD from The Origins of Totalitarianism:
“The absence of a ruling clique has made the question of a successor to the totalitarian dictator especially baffling and troublesome. It is true that this issue has plagued all usurpers, and it is quite characteristic that none of the totalitarian dictators ever tried the old method of establishing a dynasty and appointing their sons. Against Hitler's numerous and therefore self-defeating appointments stands Stalin's method, which made the succession one of the most dangerous honors in the Soviet Union. Under totalitarian conditions, knowledge of the labyrinth of transmission belts equals supreme power, and every appointed successor who actually comes to know what is going on is automatically removed after a certain time.”

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 5h

bsky.app/profile/davi...

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 6d

This one is very relevant to what we're seeing today...

Hannah Arendt QOTD from The Origins of Totalitarianism:
“The artificial creation of civil-war conditions by which the Nazis black-mailed their way into power has more than the obvious advantage of stirring up trouble. For the movement, organized violence is the most efficient of the many protective walls which surround its fictitious world, whose "reality" is proved when a member fears leaving the movement more than he fears the consequences of his complicity in illegal actions, and feels more secure as a member than as an opponent. This feeling of security, resulting from the organized violence with which the elite formations protect the party members from the outside world, is as important to the integrity of the fictitious world of the organization as the fear of its terror.”

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 16h

That's terrible baserunning by the Dodgers.

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 17h

There's many books that are difficult reads but are worth the effort, even if they can be a slog to get through.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 18h

I have a love-hate with the city, but know our neighbors won't take crap from Trump and his goons if they show up here. But I'd say that the sports teams regularly create a collective psychosis that is unlike just about anywhere else.

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 23h

Don't they have to Mirandize anyone they take into custody like this?

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

9/There are no markers or other recognition of that event, which was a BFD at the time. Which is why Columbus should go and the Exposition should be recognized instead.

philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/penns...

Pennsylvania Emancipation Exposition (1913) - Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia

the Pennsylvania Emancipation Exposition marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and celebrated African American progress.

philadelphiaencyclopedia.org

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

8/Lawsuits were filed, the box was removed and we're back to Square 1. The real travesty is that much of the landscape of the largish park where he stands is shaped by the Emancipation Exposition of 1913 that was held there on the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

7/A cop was posted there for about a year 24/7 to protect the box (good use of taxpayer money there!). The Parks Dept sent out a city-wide survey on what to do--the results of this were never released but I said the city should send Columbus back to the Centennial grounds.

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

6/After some back and forth, the city's Parks Department decided to stick Columbus in a box while it figured out what to do.

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

5/Dude was not from Philly, go figure. Also, other assholes put up "whataboutism" signs on the fence, trying to downplay Columbus's atrocities.

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

4/In 2020 when the BLM protests were going on, a group of marchers headed down Broad Street and people were worried they were coming after Columbus. So this asshole showed up:

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

3/This statue remained there until 1976, when Mayor Frank Rizzo moved it to Marconi Plaza in South Philly (Broad and Oregon) for the Bicentennial. Yes, Columbus is looking across the street at actual fascist Marconi.

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

2/held the first in a series of annual balls on October 12 and made honoring Columbus one of its central activities. In 1876, Italian-Americans dedicated a monument to Columbus for the Centennial celebration in Fairmount Park.

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

1/Columbus--A South Philly Story: so, we have the second largest concentration of Italian-Americans in South Philly (second only to NYC). Columbus Day was celebrated here starting in 1869 after NYC. The Societá di Unione e Fratellanza Italiana, a mutual aid society,

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

Hannah Arendt QOTD from The Origins of Totalitarianism:
“Since the Leader has monopolized the right and possibility of explanation, he appears to the outside world as the only person who knows what he is doing, i.e., the only representative of the movement with whom one may still talk in nontotalitarian terms and who, if reproached or opposed, cannot say: Don't ask me, ask the Leader. Being in the center of the movement, the Leader can act as though he were above it. It is therefore perfectly understandable (and perfectly futile) for outsiders to set their hopes time and again on a personal talk with the Leader himself when they have to deal with totalitarian movements or governments.”

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

@dicknixon.bsky.social Called it...

www.nytimes.com/athletic/671...

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

There's an interesting body of scholarship on people in the Middle Ages who had near-death experiences and described their visions of heaven or hell. Heaven was almost always a place of abundance.
www.amazon.com/Visions-Heav...

Visions of Heaven & Hell before Dante (Medieval & Renaissance Texts)

Visions of Heaven & Hell before Dante (Medieval & Renaissance Texts) [Bede, Venerable, Gregory the Great, Gardiner, Eileen] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Visions of Heaven & Hell before Dante (Medieval & Renaissance Texts)

www.amazon.com

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

2/And if they drag you down, zip tie you, and stuff you in a car, you have to have your Miranda rights read and have your 5th A rights apply, right? And if you don't speak English they have to have a translator, yes?

So many questions...

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

1/@kenwhite.bsky.social Ken, I'm teaching the Bill of Rights soon and have some issues---if you're a citizen and live in an apartment bldg with undoc people, ICE can't just drag you out, zip-tie you and haul you off for questioning without a warrant, right?

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

a picture of a man with spikes on his head and the words " i have centuries to discover the things that make you wimp

ALT: a picture of a man with spikes on his head and the words " i have centuries to discover the things that make you wimp

media.tenor.com

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

belichick can be had for dirt cheap

Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

There is none—it’s all a PR trick to claim “famous person had special privileges and you can too with our shiny products!”

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Dave Fortin @davidwfortin.bsky.social · 1d

That passage makes zero sense.

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