Maybe I’m careful
My mom (hi mom!) learned a new word from a friend and texted me the Wikipedia page for Kakistocracy:
“a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens” WIkipedia
When I was a teenager, I was pen pals with a guy in a Tennessee punk band called Kakistocracy. That was, as you might have guessed, before Wikipedia existed, and I forgot that I ever knew this word. It certainly is a good word.
Unscrupulous is a word that can be adequately applied too. It means without moral principles, which I would argue hits the nail on the head. This week I’ve been doing a lot of hemming and hawing about the sharing, resharing, commenting and otherwise complete media over-saturation of that one picture. You know the one, I’m sure.
Can I just say that I am irritated as hell that I have to address this? A few years back, I accidentally studied a policy advocacy framework, which I then remixed to apply to educational advocacy. Now, I have opinions. I wish I could have just not had thoughts about this whole thing, but alas, here I am about to drop some knowledge about activism.
- Advocating for learner-centric badge systems > https://blog.weareopen.coop/advocating-for-learner-centric-badge-systems-21a65be4a725
- Finding your activist friends > https://blog.weareopen.coop/finding-your-activist-friends-1fc35a4c4aa0
- Actions Speak Louder than Words > https://www.laurahilliger.com/models/actions-speak-louder-than-words/
Some have argued that resharing this one photo is important to ensure that people are aware that Musk is, in fact, a Nazi. That the threat is real, emboldened and otherwise right here, right now. Awareness is, indeed, an important part of activism.
In Germany, he would be charged. Well, probably not because he’s the richest man on Earth, but hopefully someone would make at least a performative effort. That salute, as well as other Nazi symbols are illegal in Germany. When I first moved here, my American brain couldn’t really wrap my mind around that. I thought that awareness was a basis for refusal, resistance, activism towards anything else. Then I learned that there is absolutely no way in fuck all that people in this country are not aware. Even migrants such as myself have to prove that we know what the Nazis did and what fascism looks like.
Listen, there are some things that we are all aware of. We do not need to interview flat-earthers because it is fact that the Earth is round. We don’t need to give “space” to them or have a platform for them because it’s stupid. The earth is not flat.
The required curriculum on WW2 in Germany is thorough. It is so thorough that in some German states students are required* to visit a concentration camp. This requirement is debated in Germany because the other thing about “awareness” is the fine line between awareness and traumatisation. Students are in at least the 9th grade, and the educational discussion around this part of history is carefully guided and considered. Bearing witness is only part of the activist puzzle, another part is a heightened duty of care for our fellow humans as is refusing to platform stuff that is utter BS.
“Justice is indivisible. You can’t decide who gets civil rights and who doesn’t.” Angela Davis
* ZDF is one of Germany’s biggest news outlets and this article is from yesterday > https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/kz-gedenkstaette-besuch-pflicht-schule-deutschland-100.html
Maybe I’m disobedient
All of this is to say that this week I doomscrolled. A lot. I am angry. Very. On Tuesday I spent over two hours doomscrolling on BlueSky, and it didn’t help me even in the slightest. It’s not helping any of us. It was and is tactical to exhaust us with overtly disgusting and debasing bullshit. We are supposed to be overwhelmed. We are supposed to feel like the wins we’ve made over the last decades in the fight for a better world were irrelevant. We’re supposed to give up, shut up and sit down.
But we’re not going to, are we. Not a question, a demand. We’re not going to be internet activists, we’re going to be in-the-street activists. Today, next week, at your local council meeting. In the grocery store line. Crossing the damn street. That last one is scary, but in my experience the speeding car cutting over the crosswalk as if they have the right of way do stop when faced with running me over. Cities are built for people, not for cars. I’m sick and tired of drivers thinking that they always have the right of way, they don’t. I’m sure my dirty looks are making all the difference. I hear tires squealing more than you can imagine.
If entitled asshats refuse to see our right to exist here are emboldened, then so must we be. Just a little bit of disobedience whenever the opportunity is there. Then, of course, big disobedience and malicious compliance when we have the privilege and the safety to do so.
- Fight. Flee. Freeze. Fawn. > https://theremix.substack.com/p/fight-flee-freeze-fawn
- Journalism’s fight for survival in a postliterate democracy > https://mattdpearce.substack.com/p/journalisms-fight-for-survival-in
- Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital > https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis
- Hidden Writings > https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-01-22-seeds/
- Put your name on the list and be proud of it > https://www.laurahilliger.com/leadership/put-your-name-on-the-list-and-be-proud-of-it/
Maybe I need help?
Sometimes I wonder if people think I’m too woke. Then I think, when did being awake to injustice become a bad thing? I’m here for you, if you need me. Just hit reply.