Anton Jäger, New Left Review:

The ‘long decade’ of protest can then be recast less as a successful assault on the Washington citadel from below but rather as a mutation in the methods of managing elite-mass relations. The solution to the 2008 crisis of massively over-leveraged financial institutions—pumping the stock exchange and asset prices—further widened the gap between top and base across American politics, as between capital fractions. Yet it has not tilted the social gradient, and popular oversight over the apparatus of government remains weak.

This presents the chequered board on which the new political surge has been played out. The world hegemon’s public sphere has been reoccupied, yet the burst of re-politicization has not increased popular control over government nor put important areas of policymaking within grasp. The spectacular mismatch between output and input, which American political scientists had long diagnosed—public support for a proposal (for instance, Medicare) being negatively correlated with its chance of being implemented as a policy—has only deepened, as the Biden–Harris record shows.

stolpersteine-berlin.de’s entry for Hilde Coppi includes:

Zunächst im Polizeigefängnis am Alexanderplatz inhaftiert, kam sie wenige Wochen vor der Geburt ihres Sohnes in das Frauengefängnis Barnimstraße. Der Gefängnispfarrer August Ohm lernte sie dort kennen und notierte seine aus Gesprächen gewonnenen Eindrücke: „Hilde Coppi, Hochverrat und Landesverrat, Schulze-Boysen-Kreis, zart, fein, tapfer, ganz selbstlos. Gebar am 27.11.42 ihr Kind. Hinrichtung ihres Mannes durfte ihr nicht mitgeteilt werden, ließ darum ihren Schmerz nicht laut werden. Kind wurde von ihrer Mutter erst in der Woche der Hinrichtung geholt. Stolz, beherrscht und lieb. Kein Hass. Eine rührende Persönlichkeit. Rechnete nie mit ,Gnade‘ der Menschen. Nie bereut.“

„Rechnete nie mit ,Gnade‘ der Menschen. Nie bereut.“

Oskar Lafontaine, Berliner Zeitung:

Die neuen Raketen, die aufgestellt werden sollen, sind Angriffswaffen ohne Vorwarnzeit. Das ist, als ob man einem das Messer an den Hals setzt und dann sagt, das ist eine friedliche Handlung. Gott sei Dank gibt es auch Leute im Pentagon, die erkannt haben, dass das nicht verantwortbar ist. Große Teile der deutschen Politik und des Journalismus befürworten das und erwecken den Eindruck, als hätten sie den Verstand verloren. Zuletzt trommelte Friedrich Merz im Deutschen Bundestag dafür, Taurus-Raketen gegen Ziele in Russland einzusetzen, also faktisch Russland den Krieg zu erklären.

Loffredo says, after three days in solitary confinement in Israel with almost no food or water, the US embassy’s apparent response was to send an Israeli “social worker” to “check on” him.

“I thought to myself, kind of a sigh of relief, like ‘Okay, this person’s at least going to give me water.’ And her first question was, ‘Why did you hurt Israel?? You hurt Israel…’”

“So [even she] is treating me like a terrorist. Did not offer me any food [or] water; only asked why I hurt Israel and if I love Israel…”

Max: “Did the US embassy provide you with any other assistance…?”

Jeremy: “No. […] they [did] nothing for me except send me an Israeli to interrogate me further…”

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
„Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!“ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

„Forward, the Light Brigade!“
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson