Politics and History

Dachau, Berlin, and Why I Must Resist

four teenagers stand in front of the Berlin Wall, with the Brandenburg Gate visible behind it
~ Eric ~ Leave a comment

My heritage is German.

On my father’s side, my family is from Fort Wayne, Indiana, as one of a number of families that can be traced back to early settler migrations from central Pennsylvania, and ultimately from southern Germany. But that’s not the really German side.

The really German side is my mother’s. She was born in Germany in 1948 and came to the United States in the 50s, which makes me second generation German-American. (As such, I am also acutely aware of the inherent racism and prejudice that was built into the 20th century quota system, and the privilege my family had in coming from a country that was prioritized over others. However, that is not the focus of this particular post.)

In 1987, I took my first (and so far only) trip to Germany. The main focus of that trip was visiting some of the many relatives we had over there, but we also saw a variety of important landmarks and scenic spots. Obviously some of these were the touristy spots: Köln Cathedral, Rothenburg, Neuschwanstein, and so on. But some were important for other reasons.

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A May Revolution in Song

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It’s been a while since I’ve done a song-a-day project, and the last few started to lean more into musical conversation than topical discussion. But with everything happening, I decided it’s high time to get topical again.

For the month of May, 2025, I am diving deep into some of the strongest musical statements I can find. I expect these songs to be in various degrees challenging, inspiring, surprising, and appalling. I want to warn you right now that I am not pulling any punches on this one – there will be explicit language, explicit content, and abrasive opinions. I will post relevant content warnings on every selection, but it’s also completely understandable if you choose to nope out of the whole playlist. I’m also going to be less picky about making sure every song has a video or a live performance. Most of them do, but not all. So sometimes you’ll be staring at album covers or reading lyric videos, but that’s because the songs are important enough that they need to be there anyway.

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Luigi Wins by Doing Nothing

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In the discourse following the violent actions that ended the life of a health insurance CEO, one trend I found particularly alarming was the assertion that this event somehow proved that violence was the only effective means of systemic change. Amidst the absolutely justified anger surrounding the US healthcare system and the profit focus of its C-suite executive class, there was also an underlying frustration that nonviolent action had failed to bring about any change.

The comments I saw displaying this frustration typically showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the uses of both nonviolent and violent actions. More importantly, they too often veered into post hoc defenses of inaction, which has led us to a new type of online poster: the pro-violence slacktivist.

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Resistance Triage

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Well, here we are again. Yes, the irony is not lost on me that I wrote a literal Cassandra post before the election, yet afterwards everyone keeps finger-pointing and talking about the 2024 election as if it is an isolated incident and not the result of 40 years or more of long-term degradation of the US electoral process.

Anyway, we can’t think long-term right now. We are stuck in the moment, and we’re about to have another wave of intentional crises – a veritable Gish Gallop of oppression – that is designed to overwhelm our ability to fight against any of the individual pieces. It happened during Trump’s first administration, and it’s only going to get worse this time. While we don’t know exactly what will happen and when, there’s a lot of panic and anticipation about all the things that could happen.

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Cassandra Is Screaming

~ Eric ~ 1 Comment

As of this writing, we still have about 100 days until the 2024 US election. Things have been absolutely chaotic, and they’re constantly changing, so it doesn’t really make sense to write a reflective blog post about that. Instead, I want to take a look at broader historical trends to gain a sense of perspective on how we got where we are and some general explanations of the goals of those responsible.

But mostly I want to talk about what it’s like to be able to see big picture possibilities and to have a sense of what’s coming when so many people are distracted by narrow, short-term concerns. I want to talk about the steps that led our democracy into its death spiral and why we let them happen.

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