Oh no! Somebody organized to further the interests of the free and open internet, and they didn't invite me even though I was active on some IRC channel in 1995!
Cry me a fucking river.
aasatru
joined 6 months ago
Some background, explaining why this brutalist sculpture was made quite recently, and why it matters:
Resistance in Norway during the war:
During the war in Norway, the organized resistance against the Nazis generally took one of three forms.
One was organized in Britain. Norwegians would generally flee to Sweden, make their way from Sweden to the UK, receive training in the UK, and come back to Norway to do military missions. The heavy water sabotage is the most famous achievement of Norwegians together with British intelligence, but they did a lot of operations. Milorg was a central group here. Keep in mind that organized in Britain does not necessarily mean British, as our legitimate government was in exile in Britain at the time. Milorg had ties both to the Norwegian government and to the British army.
The other was the Norwegian merchant sailors: More than 30 000 Norwegian sailors (some sources say around 100 000) contributed to the Allied effort transporting military supplies along with civilian goods, making them the target of frequent attacks by the Germans. When coastal cities in the US were asked to keep the lights off so that the silhouettes of ships would not be visible, that was largely for Norwegian merchant ships. Both Churchill and Roosevelt highlighted the importance of the merchant sailors after the war, and already in 1942 the British admiral Gerald Charles Dickens gave the following quote:
Had it not been for the Norwegian merchant fleet, we might as well have asked Hitler for his terms.
Point being, there were many of them, they were incredibly important for the war effort, and they were operating as civilians. Many of them had communist ties.
The third strand was the Communist resistance. Important actors in this group was our veterans from the Spanish civil war: People who had gone to Spain to fight fascism there, came back to Norway with combat experience, and continued the battle at home. The most famous group in this regard is the Osvald group, to whom this sculpture is dedicated. There were more than 200 members of the Osvald group, and of course not all had combat experience from Spain: It also featured more regular people, for example police officers working actively against the Nazi regime from the inside. The Osvald group was aligned with the Soviet union, and wanted Norway to become communist after the war.
After the war:
Once the dust settled, the Labour party took hold in Norway, and we were under socialist rule for decades. However, we were aligned with the US, not with the Soviets. While our relationship to the Soviet Union was at times relatively good, we were generally suspicious of Communists, and illegal surveillance of Communists happened during the Labour rule.
For our war veterans, this meant a whole lot. We were praising Milorg almost constantly. The Osvald group, on the other side, was more or less forgotten: As they had fought for Communism, not for the Norwegian king and government, their contribution didn't fit our narrative so well. So we largely ignored it. It wasn't before 2013 that the Norwegian minister of defence had the guts to officially honour eight members of the Osvald group, of the 17 that were still alive.
Things were not much better for the merchant sailors. Their contribution was largely ignored for two reasons. The first, at least by my understanding, is that there were some Communist ties that the government was not too enthusiastic about. The second, possibly more important reason, is that there were too many of them. If we were to recognize their war effort this would mean recognizing them as soldiers rather than as civilians, which would be a slippery slope pay them soldiers' pensions. Keep in mind that we didn't find oil before the 70s; we were not a rich country in the postwar era.
So what about this sculpture, anyway
This statue was erected in 2015, specifically in honour of the Osvald group. Four surviving members of the Osvald group made it to the unveiling.
It's fair to say art critics didn't dig it. But that was never the point. The point was that we were finally willing to recognize the contribution of the communist resistance, and to do it explicitly: In a brutalst fashion, similar to design philosophies in the Soviet union at the time they were fighting as allies of the USSR, and with no uncertain form language. The hammer of communism is beating the shit out of that swastika.
There are two plaques. One lists the fallen from the Osvald group; the other the fallen workers of the national railways. The statue is placed outside of Oslo East Station, where the group conducted it's first act of resistance in 1942.
I am still waiting for the merchant sailors (krigsseilerne) to be properly honoured.
Amazing - I read skimmed through the Wikipedia site for Swatting and tried to search online for it happening other places, but I couldn't watch a video while commenting so I didnt watch the source.
Fantastic case in point.
Still I struggle to understand how it's possible.
How the fuck can Swatting be such a common thing in America. I have never heard about it in any other country.
(This is, of course, a rhetorical question. I know the answer is that American police is beyond incompetent.)
Edit: Oops, read comments below
Not all all of Israel loves Hamas, obviously. There are huge protests against the genocide in Israel by people who very much see things clearly.
Netanyahu and his fascist crooks love Hamas.
A lot of people use Mastodon as an RSS feed where they can leave comments. This would basically allow you to subscribe to the content of a writer, and get it full-form straight in your feed.
I could also imagine following artists on Pixelfed, throwing money in their tip jar to keep posted on their newest creations.
I think there's a lot of potential here. But monetisation is always tricky on the internet, of course.
Yeah, it works better for comments than for actual posts for sure. And then they need to work outside of context and all that.
I think sharing of posts might be better suited for quote posts, if that's ever integrated.
Yeah, the pitchfork crowd manages to shut down everyone who tries to do something genuinely good for the community, while leaving all the bad actors running wild in the background.
I mean, we always knew loud voices in the open source community were toxic as fuck - that's obvious enough from the Linux mailing list. Giving these people their own social network to ruin was wildly optimistic from the beginning. It's a wonder it hasn't gone worse.
It's amazing how computer nerds posting on the fucking fediverse can be so sceptical of seeing their content leave the platform they're currently on. Like that's not the whole goddamn point of posting here in the first place.
Also, Bridgy.fed rules. Anyone out there on Mastodon or Bluesky: Please opt in! :)
There's quite a few people who think the social web is a good term for what this is; websites talking to each other, allowing for two-way communication across platforms.
Not everybody loves the word "Fediverse". And then for those who like it, the connotations might be somewhat different.
You can't really do anything right in this field, as there are thousands of people ready to cry their hearts out at any given decision. But calling communication between web platforms the social web is not extremely controversial, and it's a bit easier to sell to a wider audience (government agencies, media outlets, people who don't know what HTML is) than going on an on about some obscure Fediverse. Different uses.