“Imagine if people had been going ‘don’t fight hate with hate’ back when Hitler was around.”
Fam…let me tell you bout Poland.
Let me tell you about how the entire rest of Europe sat ack and watched the invasion of Poland because they thought it would be “improper” to send military aid. How they were unwilling to enforce the treaties that Germany was breaking, because that would make them “just as bad.” They sat back and wrote strongly worded letters while fascists grew in power because they didn’t want to dirty their hands. They thought reasonable discussion and politics would be enough to stop a fascist dictator from rising to power.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t enough.
like yes, people literally did try that argument then too.
Everywhere there’s fascists there are fascist apologists hiding under the guise of pacifism, ready to enable their shit and demonize resistance.
“America First” was their isolationist cover, and then it became the motto of the KKK, and now it’s the slogan of the Orange Nightmare.
“America First” Makes America Worst
Guys, as regards “the entire rest of Europe sat back and watched the invasion of Poland” … you are aware the invasion of Poland is … why the Allies … declared war on Germany and started WWII? And marks the end of Appeasement as policy at least from the French & British governments?
I mean, there certainly were still people in Britain who wanted Appeasement to continue – including the communist party by the way – and the USA took another two years to join in, but the invasion of Poland, September 1939 is literally the starting pistol of WWII. But by all means don’t let the facts get in the way of your argument.
Mate, Utterly aside from “we aren’t complicit in the invasion of Poland just all the other countries prior to that” as a positive being one of the worst arguments I’ve ever heard. (Mostly because yes that complicity is still there).
Britian and France declared war then Poland was given so little actual help during the invasion that this period is called the phoney war, so what actually is your point here?
There were already 6 concentration camps by the time of that declaration of war – no one comes off well in discussions about appeasement and similar post war declaration policies, ‘eventually we actually did something’ is not good enough.
Cai my argument here is this, when you’re talking about the evils of the appeasement policy it is ridiculous to choose as your prime example of appeasement the event that caused the end of appeasement. If OP wanted to talk about how Poland specifically got fucked over by appeasement, by far the better example is what you mention in the tags, when Stalin invades and basically takes over and the other Allies do nothing. [I guess we can speculate at our leisure why tumblr doesn’t like so much to talk about the Soviets doing shitty things.]
[Digression. If I remember my military history correctly, Britain in particular in 1939 did not have the capacity to launch a ground offensive, their land army was really weak at that time. They started naval & some air battles from the very beginning of the phoney war, I know less about the French situation but given just how powerful the German army was, the phoney war is IIRC the Allies trying to actually get their armed forces mobilised and even slightly ready to fight the war they just started. So could France have mobilised faster & done an all-out attack on Germany in the 5 weeks it took them to conquer Poland? Maybe but probably that leads to France getting conquered a year earlier. I mean the Allies basically lose on the land war until about 1943, they were pretty out-gunned. So it’s “you ought to try at all costs” vs “do what helps win the war long-term”.]
I’m not denying that a] appeasement was a terrible policy, b] the phoney war did not see much fighting, or c] Poland got probably as a nation the worst deal out of everyone in WWII. I just disagree with the characterisation of the response to the invasion of Poland as trying to stop it by politics or thinking it would be impolite to start a war when 2 of the 3 major regional powers respond by ending political discussions and declaring war.
But the facts that a) it took until the invasion of Poland to actually declare war b) the non-engagement in Poland even after appeasement as an official policy had ended or generally summed up as ‘what happened around the invasion of Poland’ which is what that post is talking about (and not appeasement and only appeasement) are extremely relevant to the point that a lot of people (some of them in positions of power) were against getting involved and were then subsequently against getting further involved. The reaction of people in the rest of Europe to that declaration of war as ‘this is too far’ is also extremely relevant.
[Digressions and such: I don’t think you are in favour of appeasement as a policy in the 30s (although ‘i never directly said that’ is a silly argument – I am sorry if you took that I thought you were from what I said but then ‘i never said that’ either xD). I do however think you are buying into this general ‘we did as much as we could’/’we went above and beyond’ attitude much of Europe does to discuss the nazis, and the denial of complicity that comes with that. Britain not having the troops would hold a lot more water as an argument if they weren’t simultaneously turning away refugees in this regard for example – this is not making sacrifices now for the long term, that’s actively fucking people over. And, I can absolutely hold small countries (and indeed all countries) to the standards set and proved to be possible by say, Denmark or Albania. And I can hold Britain/France/Russia/the US/etc to the standard that they should and could have done so much more. Denmark is an interesting example as they both successfully prevented some of the worst effects of Nazism (to the extent they could given the countries resources) and post-war hold the position (more or less) of ‘we could have and should have done more’. Most countries did/do neither, that includes Britain, Russia and France (France handle the actions of their country during before and directly after ww2 atrociously – (independent) Latvia, as that’s the example you gave, also beat out France arguably because that’s not very hard – Poland struggle they are also god awful at this, and it’s saying shit like ‘Poland got the worst deal’ that allows them to get away with that btw). In many many countries the policies following the official abandonment of appeasement are still extremely collaboraty or at the very least going as little out of your way to help people as possible (particularly in the case of Britain) and that is still a massive problem as is the acknowledgement of the problems and nature of those policies in the years since. It does not matter why people collaborated and whether that was to do with the policy of appeasement or not, it matters that they did and it matters that people are doing it now]
When we are talking about various countries trying to obtain a temporary peace at someone else’s expense this continued with Poland and elsewhere after the active policy of appeasement was abandoned. Declaring war but then not actually doing much of anything does amount to sitting back and doing nothing while the invasion happened this post is not incorrect (although it may be hyperbolic) in that just because Britain and France had officially abandoned appeasement as a policy and had officially declared war – ‘but that’s when appeasement stopped and war was declared’ just isn’t a very good point against what this post is saying. For example, it specifically states ‘sending military aid’ and not ‘starting a war’ which is what you have taken the post to mean for some reason.
Appeasement is not the only bad policy or approach in this time period and it is not the only one the post is talking about so the fact that it came to an end isn’t that relevant given it coming to an end didn’t change much for Poland itself, or the reaction in the rest of Europe – or indeed for those countries already annexed and those people who had already been sent to camps before countries with enough clout to actually do something started actually preparing to do so and their policies post appeasement continued to allow these things to happen. Fundamentally you have taken the post to be referring to a much more narrow set of reactions than it is, it is talking about the evils of a lot of policies and approaches aside from appeasement.
i dont think yall realise its illegal to take a picture of someone and put it on a social media site without asking their permission and i know thats really cliche of me to say but i mean honestly stop taking pictures of strangers you find attractive and putting it on tumblr
At first I thought this was a tumblr-and-the-internet-are-america-centric thing, but that doesn’t make much sense either?
This is deffinitly not illegal in the UK.
It is not neccessery right, or a polite thing to do but it is not illegal. If every photo with someone in it who did’t know they were was illegal a lot of photographs would be illegal. (Including personal photos with other people in the background, architectural photos where you cant persuade everyone to move out of the way of the building etc but also for journalistic coverage particularly for protests and similar events and ‘cop watch’ type stuff)
If you are interested in why (and what you can get arrested for): it basically comes down to; if you are in a public place you may take photographs of anything (including people, regardless of age) for any use, including comercial gain.
You cannot under law invade someone privacy if they are in a public space. If you are in a public space but you are taking photos through someones window, that’ll probably be an invasion of privacy, as the person has reasonably expectation to privacy there. Public bathrooms and upskirt type shots come under similar laws – though where the line is drawn is a little vague (because ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ is vague – but you don’t have it while you’re in a public space according to the law). You can however take photos of buildings/sculpture/etc that is on private land if you are on public land, if you are on their land they can move you off it and in extreme cases prosecute you for trespassing. (private buildings can make there own rules about photography inside: cinemas and galleries do it often)
You can in theory be prosecuted for harasment if you are taking photos of someone in a public space, but you would have to be being fairly invasive and do it more than once. If you are asked to stop taking photos of anyone or anything it is probably a good idea to however. (you can also maybe get done for obstruction but you having a camera has nothing to do with that)
The other laws you may come up against are anti-terrorism laws, and occassionally breach of the peace. Mosty, if you try and record the police doing something the shouldn’t be – you are absolutley allowed to do this. There has been attempts at trying to stop this being legal that have been widely protested. However, it is illegal to take photos for criminal and terrorism purposes (mostly because it’d be illegal to do anything for those purposes – but you can get arrested if people think you are doing so)
In any situation, photographs are you work and you are entitled to protect them. No one can make you delete them, that one is illegal. For people in authority; security guards do not have stop and search powers let alone those to seize you’re equipment. The police can confiscate your stuff but they also cannot delete any of your photos (partly because if you have broken the law they’d be evidence, if you havent done anything wrong they are innoccent pictures). If you are forced to, or need to for personal safety, remove the memory card immediately and don’t take any more photos on it – image recovery programs have a high success rate.
In europe these rights are covered under freedom of speech in article 10 of the european convention.
The places you can get into trouble are mostly when taking photos not when uploading them to the internet. however, you can come under the data protection act if the photo has any other atatched identification with it.
Again, in most circumstances it is a good idea to stop photographing and/or move if asked to.
(If you are photographing a protest or something similar please look more into this – as this is a time where being asked to move on or stop is something you might want to avoid doing if it is safe to. Journalistic coverage of protests, including photography, is very important and the law protects both your work and your right to take photos at least in theory)
fearlessstateofmind backup 