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Rutger Bregman Profile picture
@rcbregman
Sep 7, 2020 • 5 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
NEWS! I'm so honoured to be guest editor of this week's The Big Issue, UK's wonderful street newspaper. Theme: CYNICISM IS OUT, HOPE IS IN. On the cover: exclusive illustration by the great @charliemackesy! /1 Image
We've got brilliant pieces by @helenlewis and @NesrineMalik on activism and social change. I've interviewed filmmaker Richard Curtis (Love Actually, About Time, etc) about his films, activism and how he's being radicalised by his kids. (Teaser: bigissue.com/latest/richard…) /2
Here's a short version of my own essay about the jaw-dropping generational shift we're seeing right now. If you were young in the 1990s, it was avant-garde to be cynical and nihilistic. Nowadays, activism is the new realism.
bigissue.com/latest/rutger-… /3
Of course we have a piece on the power of universal basic income, or in this case: giving cash to homeless people. An interview with Claire Williams, who's doing an extraordinary experiment in Vancouver with giving money to rough sleepers. /4
Long story short: buy as many copies as you can for everyone you know. Buy from one of the 2,000+ street vendors for just £3, or subscribe, or buy it (if you're not in the UK) in the Big Issue App - you don't want to miss this :)
bigissue.com/magazines/rutg… /5 [the end]

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More from @rcbregman

Rutger Bregman Profile picture
Jun 27
96 private jets full of corrupt elites and celebs flying into Venice, a city destroyed by tourism, to celebrate the wedding of the world’s most shameless tax dodger: Jeff Bezos.

Well, it's the perfect anecdote for future historians writing about this Second Gilded Age --> 🧵
The location is very fitting. The fall of the Republic of Venice is one of history’s most telling examples of how great civilizations can rot from within—not through external conquest, but through elite decadence and corruption.
At its peak, Venice was a marvel of commerce and innovation. A small city built on a lagoon had become a maritime empire, dominating Mediterranean trade routes for centuries.
Read 9 tweets
Rutger Bregman Profile picture
Jun 14
Yes, this is fascism.

For years, historians and experts were cautious about using the f-word to describe today's events. But that hesitation is gone now. 🧵 Image
This thread is a summary of this brilliant piece by my former colleague Rosan Smits. It went viral in the Netherlands—and you can read the English translation now -->
decorrespondent.nl/16177/this-is-…
Let's start with the experts. Robert Paxton, the world’s foremost scholar of fascism, long resisted calling Trump a fascist. But after January 6th, he changed his mind.

“It’s the real thing. It really is,” Paxton told The New York Times in the fall of 2024. Image
Read 29 tweets
Rutger Bregman Profile picture
Jun 13
How to stop authoritarian takeovers, 6 simple lessons from history:

1. Build a broad pro-democracy coalition. No purity politics. Learn to work with people who annoy you. You can go back to dunking on them after democracy is safe.
2. Draft a positive, optimistic agenda. So not just: ‘our institutions must hold!’ Successful movements framed democracy as freedom, dignity, equality.
3. Target blatant corruption and cronyism as rallying issues. This is the soft underbelly of autocrats. Citizens across the political spectrum appreciate a vigorous anti-corruption agenda.
Read 6 tweets
Rutger Bregman Profile picture
May 21
A new analysis of that “One Big Beautiful Bill”: we knew this would happen, but seeing the numbers like out like this...

The con is just so blatant, so obvious, it almost feels like parody. Image
In 2026, the richest 1% would receive $138 billion in tax cuts.

That’s more than the entire bottom 60% of Americans combined — who would receive just $92 billion.

itep.org/house-tax-plan…
What does that look like per person?

The average tax cut for the top 1%: $79,000.

The average for the bottom fifth: pocket change.
Read 6 tweets
Rutger Bregman Profile picture
May 18
A U.S. government plan is being enacted right now to surveil, silence, and deport people who speak out for Palestinian rights.

It’s called Project Esther — and it makes “cancel culture” look like child’s play.

Free speech defenders, where are you? 🧵 Image
Project Esther is the Heritage Foundation’s plan to destroy the pro-Palestinian movement in the U.S.

The same group behind Project 2025 — the authoritarian wishlist for Trump’s second term — is now taking a victory lap.

Because the crackdown has already begun.
They call it a “strategy to fight antisemitism.”

But in reality, it equates any criticism of Israel with terrorism.

The goal? To deport, defund, sue, fire, expel, and cancel anyone who challenges Israeli policies — especially on campus.
Read 11 tweets
Rutger Bregman Profile picture
May 15
Incredibly powerful investigation in Dutch newspaper NRC: Seven of the world’s leading genocide scholars — including renowned Holocaust experts — describe Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocidal.

And according to them, nearly all of their peers agree. Image
These are not activists. They include Holocaust scholars and the heads of major genocide research centers. Scholars from Israel, the U.S., the U.K., Australia and the Netherlands.

And they are not divided. Without exception, they describe Israel’s actions as “genocidal.”
Raz Segal (Israeli scholar): “Can I name someone whose work I respect who doesn’t consider it genocide? No."

Uğur Ümit Üngör (University of Amsterdam & NIOD): "I don’t know them.”
Read 17 tweets

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