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Cinne Worthington's avatar

Read, signed, and shared!! Thank you Tim

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Johan's avatar

Thank you for speaking up against this. This reminds me of the movie that I recently saw at the Zürich film Festival:

Mr. Nobody Against Putin: Authoritarianism as Decay

It follows Pavel “Pasha” Talankin, a school videographer in Karabash, a poisoned industrial town where life expectancy hovers around 38. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, schools were ordered to stage “patriotic displays,” upload footage to state portals, and indoctrinate children with a rewritten curriculum.

Talankin filmed it all. What began as routine documentation became an act of resistance.

It was truly an incredible documentary and it feels very similar to what we see happening in the United States. I also talked about this in detail in my last post if you’re interested in checking it out.

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Potter's avatar

ditto and forwarded

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Shanny P's avatar

Same, and encouraged my four young adult kids to do the same.

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Cheryl Elkins 🦅's avatar

Thank you Prof Snyder. In addition to signing, I sent a note to the Board of Trustees and the Office of the President at my alma mater, MIT. I encourage others to do similarly Let your voice be heard..

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Jeff Lazar's avatar

Bravo, Prof. Snyder. Done, with enthusiasm!!

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Heidi Shusterman's avatar

Professor Synder,

Thank you again for your clarion call to action!!

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Steve Beckwith's avatar

Done and done with pleasure. Thanks for the heads up.

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Sue Miller's avatar

Thanks. Read, signed and forwarded....

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Russell John Netto's avatar

On 14 October, the BBC is airing a Storyville documentary called 'Mr Nobody Against Putin' about Pavel Talankin, a brave teacher in a small industrial town in Russia who covertly made videos of the increasing nationalistic militarism in classrooms following the invasion of Ukraine. It seems relevant in this context and I certainly intend to watch it.

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Ruthy Wexler's avatar

Thank you!

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Russell John Netto's avatar

You're welcome, Ruthy.

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Karen Lewton's avatar

Thank you for this reminder.

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Russell John Netto's avatar

You're also welcome, Karen.

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Phil Balla's avatar

My late night and middle-of-the-night reading lately has been A. J. Liebling.

Particularly his on why, how so many in France and more broadly in Europe collaborated with the occupying German fascists.

My grieving these days extends from how so many U.S. universities fell to the Powell memo's far-right foundations to how so many countries connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- all of them -- have failed to enlist schools so youth learn essaying skills to see others as individuals.

Humanities, the reading of whole books, discussing them, and writing essays on them all disappeared from U.S. schools thanks to the 1971 Powell memo's schemes to commercialize the U.S. entirely. K-12 got testing instead. Higher ed got neutered silos all isolated from each other. Americans lost the arts of appreciating communities. Depraved elites grew instead.

Good to see the role Timothy Snyder now plays with this petition for which he speaks, and which of course I sign, too.

But schools at all levels, worldwide, have got to do so much more so we don't keep being beholden to the grouping, stereotyping, abstracting, labeling, and packaging which now rule.

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tgb09's avatar
Oct 7Edited

Signed and Forwarded. Thank you professor Snyder. ❤️

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Sue Vargas's avatar

Done!

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Elizabeth K. Baker's avatar

Done!

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Karen's avatar

Signed ❤️

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Barbara Laman's avatar

Read signed and shared

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Jane Alynn's avatar

Thank you! Done and shared!

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Sara Frischer's avatar

Thank you, Professor Snyder, Read, Signed and Shared.

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Ruthy Wexler's avatar

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I am forwarding to many.

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