Author | Lightnews

Jurjen Smies

@clogsoveralabama.bsky.social

200 followers 78 following 970 posts

Originally from the Netherlands, now hip-deep in the Dirty South. History nerd, former UN staff member and Dutch army sergeant, socially liberal, dyed-in-the-wool skeptic and atheist, coffee enthusiast, decent cook. (He/him/his)

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Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 13h

How does one wear two "good fucking riddance" shirts visibly at the same time?

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 16h

Cute premise, fell apart almost immediately by forgetting there's an entire world of people who aren't American TV news viewers out there.

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 5d

For that cyclops in your life.

Or a stoner friend who keeps singeing one eyebrow when he's sparking up.

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 11d

How many KIA did they suffer to retake Kursk oblast again?

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 11d

Another possible response: You and what army?

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Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 11d

Can we seize Andreesen Horowitz' assets and do something useful with them? Build low-income housing, say.

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 12d

"Even when Mr. Trump’s 'determinations' reach the courts, the administration has argued that judges must defer to Mr. Trump’s assertions, too."
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...

The Peril of a White House That Flaunts Its Indifference to the Law

www.nytimes.com

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 12d

"If you cannot recognise the will of the Führer as a source of law, then you cannot remain a judge."
-- Third Reich justice minister Franz Gürtner to district judge Lothar Kreyssig, after the latter protested regarding illegality of Aktion T4

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Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 12d

The napkin is a bit of a giveaway.

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 13d

No, as a historian, I want PoliSci people to write the first draft, and maybe JDs to tweak the wording into being legally binding. I've had way too many arguments with lawyers over what the law says as opposed to what it was supposed to say but evidently didn't.

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Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 13d

You wrote: "Yes, if you’re following closely, he said the people who tried to stop the rise of the Nazis were the bad guys [...]"

Fact check: Antifa 1.0 did not try to stop the rise of the Nazis. They were not the worst guys, but they were Stalinists, and Stalinists don't get to be "good guys."

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 13d

[...] hot heads who unwittingly play into the narrative the fascists like the Proud Boys want to spin.

But again, I'm a historian, I spend way too much time delving into Nazis and their opponents and allies than its healthy.

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 13d

[...] Choosing at name, oh, I don't know, like getting a tattoo of a Totenkopf and claiming ignorance of the baggage attached. And maybe it was genuine ignorance. And maybe it doesn't matter because there's no organized Antifa 3.0, just, as you say, young white men with good intentions but [...]

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 13d

[...] of the name. Yes, I'm aware there was an Antifa 2.0 in West Germany in the '70s and that they're more the inspiration for 3.0 than 1.0 is, but the 2.0 carried over the tendency to label everyone who didn't agree with them as "fascist" whether they were actually fascist or not. [...]

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 13d

[...] The Weimar era and the Spanish Civil War played a large part in that, because those were instances where the socialists were fighting the fascists while the communists occupied themselves with screwing over the socialists.

I have been leery about Antifa 3.0 (the US version) just because [...]

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 13d

[...] My family has voted SDAP/PvdA for three generations. Western European socialists are arguably more scared of communists than the center-right/right wing, because the communists consider them heretics. You can convert the unbeliever, but not the heretic. [...]

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 13d

[...] "social fascists." The KPD claimed to be "the only antifascist party in Germany" but supported that claim by calling everyone else "fascist" including everyone who was neither Nazi nor communist.

For context, I come from what the Dutch call a "red nest." [...]

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 13d

I did. I agree with/am persuaded by 99% of it. That 1% is that Antifascistische Aktion (Antifa 1.0) didn't actually try to stop the Nazis (at least, not until the Nazis were already in power). During 1932-33, Antifa was focused on fighting the Social Democrats, whom Stalin had termed [...]

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 14d

In that Posobiec wasn't entirely wrong in characterizing Antifa 1.0 as bad guys (though not for the reasons he had in mind); where he's wrong is in asserting that there's any continuity between 1.0 and 3.0.

And yes, I'm a historian who spends way more time learning about Nazis than is healthy.

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 14d

Point being, Antifa 3.0 (the US version) has little in common with 1.0 except for the carelessly chosen name.

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 14d

[...] too much. In fact, Antifascistische Aktion spent more time fighting the Social Democrats than they did the SA.

The KPD's pre-Stalin militia, the RFKB, did brawl with the SA in the 1920s, but they had the problem that the KPD had tried to seize power in 1919 and that was fresh in memory.

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 14d

To be fair, Antifa 1.0, which existed from 1932 till ~1935, was an arm of the German communist party, the KPD. Which at the time made them Stalinists, and Stalin had this idea that fascism was the final stage of capitalism before the Revolution, and instructed that the KPD not resist fascism [...]

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 14d

You do see it quite a bit with motor vehicles, however. E.g. "The car mounted the sidewalk" rather than "the driver drove the car onto the sidewalk" or "the driver caused the car to mount the sidewalk."

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 14d

At the risk of sounding pedantic, it's not passive voice; "to discharge" is an active verb. The issue with the sentence is that it ascribed the action to the item rather than to the person operating the item.

Jurjen Smies @clogsoveralabama.bsky.social · 14d

It was my understanding that the term "Antisemitismus" was coined because "Judenhaß" ("Jew-hatred") was too direct for polite 19th century German society (not "Salonfähig"). Not the hatred itself, mind you, just calling it that.