Valerie Freeland
@valeriefreeland.bsky.social
46 followers 54 following 150 posts
Senior Policy Analyst, author of Power, Patronage and International Norms: A Grand Masquerade
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valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Imposing conditions that force marginalized people to carry signifiers of their identity. Does this remind you of anything?

Oh, and while we're on our feet, do you remember that they promised - not threatened, promised - to do this back in 2015?
govpritzker.illinois.gov
Making people feel they need to carry citizenship papers.

Invading our state with military troops.

Sending in war helicopters in the middle of the night.

Arresting elected officials asking questions.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Aren't they.......armed and masked? Why does ICE need protection at all, let alone from the beautiful, weird, wonderful city it is terrorizing?
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Mme Pelicot, nous sommes avec vous.
winnipegfreepress.com
NIMES, France (AP) — Less than a year after the landmark verdict in a drugging and rape trial that shook France and turned Gisèle Pelicot into a global icon, she was greeted with applause Monday as she arrived at a courthouse for the appeal of a man challenging his conviction.
French appeals court revisits shocking Gisèle Pelicot rape case
NIMES, France (AP) — Less than a year after the landmark verdict in a drugging and rape trial that shook France and turned Gisèle Pelicot into a global icon, she was greeted with applause Monday as she arrived at a courthouse for the appeal of a man challenging his conviction.
www.winnipegfreepress.com
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Oh, some of us have been warning about pre-genocidal rhetoric since 2015, and the surveillance state infrastructure since the early 2000s. Remember, "If you have nothing to hide..."? And genocide studies has understood how mobilization occurs for much longer. Months? Lifetimes. No one listened.
georgetakei.bsky.social
We tried to warn everyone.
Photo of an X post by hasanabi (@hasanthehun
) from 11 hours ago. The post reads: "wild that project 2025 was highlighted for months before the mainstream coverage by independent content creators online. and once it was mainstream, all it took for trump was to deny any affiliation with it publicly. since the election he has followed through on every order." The post includes a profile picture and a verification badge.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Nice cross. Remember the Samaritan?

HOW MUCH MORE SIMPLY COULD THAT PARABLE HAVE ARTICULATED LOVE OF NEIGHBOUR??????
atrupar.com
Leavitt: "When an illegal alien goes to the emergency room, who's paying for it? The American taxpayer."
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
2003.
charlieangus104.bsky.social
At what point will we realize that a new global war is underway? We need to understand the extreme danger that we are in so that we don't stumble further into the darkness.
My latest.
charlieangus.substack.com/p/when-did-t...
When Did the New Global War Begin?
This past week, Russia escalated its incursions into European and North American airspace.
charlieangus.substack.com
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Some have been arguing this is "not political, just vandalism." It's worth keeping in mind that "it's not political" is often a synonym for "I don't want to think about this, let alone talk" and an indicator that the politics of the matter have usually landed in the speaker's favour.
sherwinarnott.org
A First Nations politician's office was set on fire on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This isn't the first act of violence against Nahanni Fontaine's office. Her windows were smashed last week. #cdnpoli www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine's constituency office hit by fire | CBC News
A fire struck Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine's West Kildonan constituency office early Tuesday morning, a week after the windows were smashed.
www.cbc.ca
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
I'll just note that countries governed by patron-client networks pull this off every day. When official lines contained by law are cut off, unofficial, unscrutinized channels pick up the slack. That this post uses the colours of the Ugandan flag is apt, as the US takes Museveni as #GovernanceGoals.
peipolitical.bsky.social
How long will his loyal, brain dead, MAGA followers last with no money? #cdnpoli
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
For a project that never came to fruition, I interviewed ordinary people about their pre- & post-Kamloops knowledge of Canada's genocide. One woman who grew up beside the school said, "we ALWAYS knew more children went in than came out." May we never be unhaunted by the past that isn't even past.
charlieangus104.bsky.social
I spent 12 years working with the survivors of St. Anne's residential school in their attempt to get justice. The government spent millions fighting people who could barely afford the bus ride to the hearings.
There is no reconciliation without justice for St. Anne's.

substack.com/home/post/p-...
The Dark Shadow of the Residential Schools Remain
Last Wednesday, I stood at the gates of the abandoned Fort Qu’Appelle Residential School in Saskatchewan.
substack.com
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Two questions when faced with these types of claim, in order:

*What do you mean by X [e.g., hate-based violence]? What does it look like in action, and how do we differentiate it from its cousins [e.g., criminal or insurgent violence]?

*Data please?
charlieangus104.bsky.social
Canadians can see how the extremist playbook is tearing apart Europe and the United States. MAGA MAPLE have been setting up the ground for it to be unleashed here.
The hate storm is coming.
We need to call this guy out for his manipulations and rage baiting.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
I can't even begin to say how much the author has never been to Uganda. Most of this is achingly normal, just a touch more expensive than I'd have expected, but hey, you're staying chez Mahmood. I hear his son is doing well for himself these days :D
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
It's only harder to fight if you assume the point is to defeat something identifiable. The purpose of cultivating deeply nebulous opponents is that you can locate them anywhere, and any remedy can be framed as necessary. A pogrom against 'haters,' e.g., could target anyone opposed to pogroms.
niais.bsky.social
"How, exactly, do you suppose this is going to work?" is the haunting question of every one of his fevered pronouncements.

And of course, one of the main tricks of fascism. It's always harder to fight what isn't substantial.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
I think Nietzsche had something to say about fighting monsters. Resistance is primarily an inside job, and requires daily efforts not to become precisely that which previously threatened us from the outside.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
The problem is that many professors know what conservatism actually is, and know that those using that moniker have abandoned their Burkean post. Who even adheres to the ideology at all at this point, such that we might either admire or revile them?
jdcmedlock.bsky.social
More than anything, they want to be patted on the head and told they're a good boy by the liberal elites
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
I'm reminded of Vladimer Papava's 'Necroeconomics,' describing a post-Soviet pathology in which a country continues producing commodities for which there is no market. In Georgia-Sakartvelo, this poverty looks like the deflated body of an athlete cut off their steroids. Watch this space for the US.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Most tyrants end up at least tacitly expanding access to numbing agents, no matter their protestations. Marx called religion the opiate of the people, but nominal communism relied on alcohol, other tyrannies on opium and its cousins. At least give the masses Tylenol if you want them passive.
gershbrain.bsky.social
And today in the @nytimes.com...

I suggest that papers stop "suggesting a link" so that reporters stop suggesting that papers are suggesting to readers that there might be a causal relationship. They could alternatively suggest that correlations are sometimes caused by latent variables.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Federally, we came SO close to patronage-based proto-fascism, and some provinces are knowingly implementing policies demonstrated to end trans kids' lives, and using exterminationist rhetoric. Resisting the US is vital, but the primary threat remains within. Elbows up in your heads and hearts.
jamiesonroberts.bsky.social
For all of our Canadian superiority mentality, we really just don't get how far as a country we are down the slippery slope.

Just because we might be (arguable) better off than some countries in terms of the slide to fascism, doesn't mean we get to celebrate it, its a constant struggle and battle
charlieangus104.bsky.social
Canada's parliament started the week giving a standing O for free speech and the memory of Charlie Kirk.
They ended it by joining Orban's Hungary and Trump's America in targeting @kneecapceol.bsky.social an Irish hip hop group for challenging the genocide.
Not our finest hour.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
“We don’t want to have to go through two (tourism) seasons like this last one, and I don’t think we will. I think it will get ironed out and we’ll get normalized again.”

LOL
winnipegfreepress.com
Kay Rone used to spot plenty of Manitoba licence plates outside stores, hotels and restaurants throughout Grand Forks on weekends in past years.
North Dakota missing its Manitobans
State’s hospitality, retail sectors suffer as Pembina border crossings drop by 34% in first half of year
www.winnipegfreepress.com
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Begin with some mistrust for any cis straight man who seems to swoop in to rescue women, alert to whether this "rescue" is opportunistic and/or oppresses others. Those who only support us when we're useful weapons for their true agenda are not allies, and WILL betray us when our utility subsides.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
Alors, on se lève les coudes tabarnak.
charlieangus104.bsky.social
MAGA ambassador Pete Hoosktra is telling Canada that he doesn't like the term "elbows up." He says it's anti-American.
Sorry Pete, your president might be able to fire Jimmy Kimmel but you don't get to tell Canadians how to talk.
Elbows up Mother-stucker.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
To be fair to Chamberlain, he didn't have the benefit of a crystal-clear historical precedent to help predict how appeasement of a fascist tyrant would turn out. Pre-war Chamberlain couldn't learn from WWII Chamberlain. Starmer can, but appears unwilling to do so.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
One major caveat: 2025 is not forever IF Americans take action to change things profoundly. There are many stops between denial and defeatism, both of which are collaboration. These tyrannies ended because people ended them, and this time no foreign powers can impose change on a nuclear superpower.
nicholasgrossman.bsky.social
The Third Reich didn't last 1,000 years.

Pinochet was ousted with a referendum.

And the US isn't exactly dealing with the smartest, most competent fascists.

Those of you insisting that 2025 is forever need to read a book, touch grass, go to therapy, anything other than trying to make others quit.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
If only Americans had been warned about EXACTLY THIS when they gleefully supported the construction of surveillance state infrastructure in the early 2000s.

Remember? "If you have nothing to hide, what's the problem?" Remember being told THIS was the risk, and telling people they were alarmists?
normative.bsky.social
Since Antifa isn’t really an “organization”, this is just carte blanche to arbitrarily declare people terrorists.
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
BREAKING: Trump says he is designating “Antifa” as a “major terrorist organization.”

Such a step being taken this way would be concerning enough, given what it actually is, but, given that Trump sees “Antifa” hiding in every corner of opposition, this could be an extremely alarming escalation.
valeriefreeland.bsky.social
And this is more evidence "divisive" is a lame criticism. It matters immensely from what people are being divided, or dividing themselves, and on what basis they are doing so. Love divides from hate, as it should. Lies divide from truth, and ought to be stopped.
bernybelvedere.bsky.social
George F. Will with a, um, questionable historical parallel.