Asks my husband.

“Cool people who did cool stuff. It’s even more depressing than behind the bastards!” I answer.

There was an episode, not sure which one, where Margaret mentioned a noble who joined the peasant’s war and had the words “no crosses no kings” or something to that effect on the pommel of their sword.

I need new tattoo ideas and I just want to make sure I have the words and the history right. Because whoever that was is super badass and I need a hero right now.

If anyone is looking for a history podcast that young kids can listen to, my six-year old has been loving Historical Records. It’s kind of a kid-friendly Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, and it’s helped me talk about a lot of important historical events/periods with her.

My daughter’s favorite episode so far was Claudette Colvin. Highly recommend!

“Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”

-Terry Prachett, Small Gods.

If Margret ever wants to do a cool people episode about a fantasy author I recommend Prachett based solely on vibes.

So I just learned through one of my more humorous follows that the legendary Harriet Tubman was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General last Nov. 11th. And that she was the first american woman to have military command in time of war.

While the pod has done episodes before on the movement to abolish slavery, and liberate the enslaved, some episodes about this amazing woman would interest me and probably a lot of other people.

She's such an amazing guest everywhere she shows up.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-the-daily-zeitgeist-28516718/episode/despair-is-not-our-only-option-239917774/

I'm a high school English teacher, and I decided the most uplifting story we could read post-election was "We Won't Be Here Tomorrow". (Literally, one of the questions for the story was "Mars thinks this is a hopeful story; do you agree with them or are they crazy?)

We ended up having some really cool conversations around the relationship between justice and survival. Specifically, the conclusion that a lot of my students came to was "You can't have justice if you only care about survival". And, for some reason, I found this comforting. Like, the conclusion, as Mary Walker and Desmond reach at the end of the story, is that you survival is overrated and what you really want to aim for is going out in a flaming ball of justice. With all the scary the world has right now, that made me feel better. Like, yeah, maybe I'm not going to survive. But I'm going to go out fighting, and that's worth something.

If anyone else is a teacher and wants to use the stuff I came up with:

• Here's reading questions
• Here's theme analysis

You'll have to edit a little because I 100% reference myself in there. I photocopied the story out of Margaret's book, so I don't have a web version of that, but I strongly suggest buying your own copy or getting your library's copy.

So a long history rant I think people should know about and keep in mind for the future. I want to talk to people about a little talked about story in the history of WWII, the Rosenstrasse protest: the one time, during the height of the Holocaust, when the German public protested against the deportation of Jews; and they won.

1942-early 1943 was arguably the height of Nazi Germany; with most of the continent occupied, allied, or neutral to them. It was also 2 years into the Final Solution phase of the Holocaust, the planned mass killing of Jews. In February 1943, the government began the final round-up of the 20,000 remaining Jews in Berlin. This included a category of Jews that the government had previously avoided deporting: Jews married to gentile Germans. While the Nazis had cracked down on these relationships since they came to power, there were at this time 1,800 mixed couples remaining in Berlin; almost all Jewish men married to gentile women (After the consolidation of power under Hitler, more German men had divorced their Jewish partners than women).

When these Jewish men were arrested, hundreds of their non-Jewish spouses descended upon the building they were held in, bringing with them friends and families, screaming for their husbands to be released. The protests were so large, that the Nazis could not suppress news of it spreading through Germany and internationally; and they were also genuinely afraid that arresting or shooting these women could cause the situation to spiral even further into an outright uprising. As a result, the men were released, and most of them survived the war.

Now there are a lot of critiques and analyses that can be done of the protest, about privilege and gender, and noting that nothing was said about releasing the 18,000 other Berlin Jews set to be deported to camps. Still, the reaction that the public had to these deportations, combined with the shockingly hopeful story of Denmark in the Holocaust, gives some valuable lessons in how fascists can be thwarted.

Demark was invaded by Germany in 1939 and was given a degree of autonomy, being treated as the "model protectorate." While the Danish government did acquiesce to demands to ban Communist and Socialist political parties, they refused to enact racial laws targeting Danish Jews. While not to say anti-semitism didn't exist in Denmark, for reasons debated by historians and sociologists, Denmark did not have a strong history of "othering" its Jewish community, and it was largely seen as an accepted part of Danish society.

In September 1943, German plans to deport the Danish Jewish community to concentration camps leaked to the Danish government, which then alerted leaders of the Jewish community. Over 3 weeks churches, civil servants (notably mostly working independently of the government), political parties, the Danish resistance (mostly at this point made up of the before mentioned Communists and Socialists), and private individuals helped evacuate 7,220 Jews, plus 686 non-Jewish spouses, by sea to nearby neutral Sweden. For context, the Jewish population of Denmark before the invasion was around 7,800. Of the 580 Danish Jews who failed to escape to Sweden, 464 were arrested; however, work by Swedish and Danish groups saw 425 of them released. Further, when the war ended, it was discovered that 116 Danish Jews had been hidden by their neighbors. In all, a shocking 99% of Denmark's Jewish population survived the Holocaust; the most of any occupied nation in Europe.

I tell both of these stories because they show what fascists and authoritarians are aware of: the limits of their power. They are aware of the simple fact so much of their power comes from average people just accepting what they do with no pushback. These groups thrive on atomization, demonization, and otherization. Because when people refuse to let their neighbors be attacked, that's when issues pop up. There were other individuals and groups in Germany who spoke out against the Nazis (the White Rose and the Edelweiss Pirates to name a few), but they were small and disorganized, they could be arrested or exiled or killed without much effort. But large groups of resistance? How do you arrest or kill those without stopping their families and friends from protesting? And the foot soldiers enacting their agenda tend to get antsy if there is large-scale pushback to them. The big guys in charge might be safe, but them? They are vulnerable to being fired, sued, arrested, or ostracised if they are seen enacting unpopular policies. Such actions put authorities on the defensive, stall them, and make them reconsider their tactics; which in the long run, can save lives.

This is what people mean, whether they know it or not, over the last few days when they have been saying "Help those close to you, keep your friends close." They want you to think they are all-powerful. They want you to think they are unstoppable. They want you to think there is no hope in openly denying them. Because they know that if those few people openly defying them become large groups openly defying them, then things spiral out of control.

I ordered a second copy of Sapling Cage cuz the binding on mine came unglued (it like me fr). Decided to order from Amazon (I know, blech) so I could do a verified purchase review but now I’m stuck on what to mention in the review!

I want to mention the detailed and nuanced character development, and the depth of the world building. Would it be ok to say it would appeal to Potter fans but like…with deeper interpersonal relationships and a more intriguing mystery to drive the plot?

Any suggestions welcome! Well, unless the T**** trolls appear, then they’ll just get downvoted.

Margaret, you are amazing! Thank you so much for everything you do :)

I just listened to the rerun episode about the Jane Collective, and I wanted to share this article I read yesterday about the Black women involved in the collective.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/black-women-abortion-rights-jane/

Trying to organize fellow letter carriers down here in the south (the NALC’s tentative agreement is SHIT. 1.3%? When we’re in year 4 of hot labor summer? Get fUUUUUcked).

I’ve been talking about a lot of labor history. And some folk want to ask about where they could learn more.

I don’t know how to search for specific episodes. But I know Margaret did some brilliant work on the haymarket riots, the battle of Blair mountain, & the IWW. Honestly, I think I know how to search for specific episodes, but Spotify is getting in my way.

Can y’all point me to those? I really appreciate it. Organizing labor in the south is playing on hard mode. And I am so tired.

Genuinely not looking to make fun, just curious. Is pronouncing Chimera “Chih-muh-ruh “ a regional thing? I’ve never heard it pronounced as anything other than “Kai-mare-uh”. (Referencing part 2 of the Halloween special)

I know the CZM team doesn’t have much control the ads that are added automatically by the corporate overlords, but this ad for Secret Service recruitment seems… antithetical to the message of the show.

Am I thinking about the right podcast? I kinda remember it, but can’t find the epidode.

That’s all.

I know she’s on tour and not recording in her usual spot, but I think she sounds just so intriguing and compelling today.

Also Margaret, it’s ok to take some weeks off if you want ❤️

I'm making a quited wall hanging/tapestry as a gift for my partner, and they're a big fan of Margaret. I'm thinking of using quote from the pod (or one of her books?) and need some inspiration. What are your favorites?

Margaret and Prop’s discussion about cosmic horror this week really unlocked something in me. I’ve been unsure how to describe my anxiety of knowing others. “So you have social anxiety, and …” I hear you say. Well yes, and one aspect of it feels very much like cosmic horror.

I recognize that I can never know all of the facets of people. I could never perceive their whole complexity because knowing would be like staring into the sun. The horror comes in when I think about how every person I have met and will ever meet is so deeply complex that it’s as though I am only seeing them out of the corner of my eye.

Maybe for different people this drives them to connect with every person they meet. To listen to their stories and hear the song of their souls.

It has probably been posted here before, but a quick scroll didn't show it had been recently

Just wondering which avenue I should use to purchase Margaret Killjoy novels? I don’t have any small bookstores around and would like to buy from something other than the local conglomerate

(Also planning to request my local library to get them just so they’re available)

During the spooky story episode, I got ads for, in order: a mental health service; Jordan Peterson’s tour; and a brand of adhesive flashing tape.

Either the algorithm does not know me or it’s covering all the bases just in case.

I went and listened to Margaret read some cool folklore from her book world that the Sapling Cage takes place in. It was great. I highly recommend it if you can get to it!