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David Josef Volodzko Profile picture
David Josef Volodzko
@davidvolodzko
The Radicalist is a newsletter and podcast about political extremism, available at https://t.co/zaQh8tNCRv.
Dec 23, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Merry Xmas. Gather round and let me tell you a story about a place called Christmas Island, named because Capt William Mynors was the first European to sight it on Christmas Day, 1615. Britain annexed it in 1888, Japan tried taking it in WWII and Australia finally got it in 1958. Christmas Island is known for its natural beauty, which includes magical beaches and stunning wildlife, such as the famous Christmas Island red crab and its annual mass migration—I mean look at this!
Dec 21, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I lived in Nagano for years and still sometimes sing this traffic stop tune to myself or my kid.
Here’s a different version. I prefer the one above but this one gives you the lyrics.
Sep 17, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
In 1982, the IDF surrounded Sabra and Shatila, ordered a Lebanese militia led by Mossad liaison officer Elie Hobeika to clear the camp of PLO using "their own methods," then watched as Hobeika killed up to 3,500 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. "Numerous Israeli officers and officials received reports of killings in the camps but failed to take steps to curtail the massacres."

Listed names include Ariel Sharon, former PM Shamir, Eitan, Aman director Sagi and general Amos Yaron.
scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewconten…
Sep 16, 2022 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
I admit I'm surprised to see #BoycottWomanKing trending, and am still looking forward to it, but I somehow doubt this means folks are ready to talk about African complicity in the Atlantic slave trade. Maybe not. Thread. The slave trade was only possible because it used already existing infrastructure set up by African kingdoms and the Arab slave trade, something else that's still somewhat taboo in US discourse since Arabs are not white.
Sep 16, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Remember when China passed Article 38 of the national security law, outlawing democratic activism anywhere in the world? Well guess what, they've already begun making "arrests"—state-sanctioned kidnapping—totaling 2,500 during Covid alone, and yes, including in the UK and US.
republicworld.com/world-news/chi…
Sep 14, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
So I recently learned in 2019 the Guggenheim hired Chaédria LaBouvier as its first Black curator to organize an exhibition on Basquiat and police brutality, commemorating the murder of graffiti artist Michael Stewart while in NYC transit police custody.
guggenheim.org/exhibition/bas… LaBouvier, who describes herself as one of the world's leading experts of "arguably the most popular artist on the planet," felt her show deserved more press and public attention than it received, and blamed chief curator Nancy Spector (in black below) for sabotaging the event. Image
Apr 21, 2022 • 43 tweets • 16 min read
Today I want to write about wartime rape in the two greatest ongoing wars: Ukraine and Ethiopia. You may be thinking, Ethiopia? Ukraine has the direct involvement of a major power, risk of nuclear conflict, global economic impact, echoes of WWII and is in Europe. So why Ethiopia? Simply put, the death toll, which Ghent University estimates at up to 500,000 civilians. Since Jan 2021, no other conflict even comes close.
Apr 2, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
As Russian troops retreat from the outskirts of #Kyiv in Bucha, images show dozens of civilian corpses in the streets—tied hands indicate Russians killed hostages. And this
Apr 2, 2022 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
For @NYMag, I wrote about the mental journey of Ukrainian refugees and how therapy can literally save lives. Here are a few details that didn't make the final cut...
nymag.com/intelligencer/… In the piece, I describe the attack on Irina's city of Kharkiv. Here's more on that. On Feb 27, Russian forces entered Kharkiv. There was fighting in the streets. The next day, Russia violated humanitarian law by firing cluster bombs into residential areas.
Feb 4, 2022 • 32 tweets • 5 min read
I was in a space yesterday on Uyghurs and the Olympics where @lukedepulford was asked what to do about Xinjiang genocide skeptics. He recommended that skeptics read the Uyghur Tribunal Judgment.

Here's a quick summary. The tribunal is chaired by Geoffrey Nice, who was lead prosecutor in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslavian communist dictator who oversaw the genocide of Bosnian Muslims.
Feb 4, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Marital rape is legal in India, where the high court will rule this month on whether to change that—but the gov’t has told the court to reject the proposed amendment, saying it will lead to false claims against husbands. telegraph.co.uk/global-health/… So, husbands are raping their wives and the gov’t is worried about protecting the husbands.
Feb 4, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
After I wrote that the sexist, homophobic, racist former Tokyo governor Ishihara Shintaro had died, I received fan poetry.

亡くなった方を侮辱する愚か者よ。
口をつぐみなさい。このたわけが！！

A fool who insults the deceased.
Hold your tongue. This idiot!!
Underneath the poem are a few lines of religious chanting and an image of Daiitoku Myoo 大威徳明王, "the Destroyer of Death," who represents the west.
Feb 2, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
No matter how much you read about it you never get used to the everyday brutality, the evil never becomes banal. "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," Adorno famously said, but reading about Xinjiang always reminds me of lines from a few such poems.
Nov 12, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Talking to my dad this Veterans Day, I learned he dragged (guided) Israeli F4 jets during the Six Day War. The jets were painted like US models, but they entered heavy rain over Egypt airspace and the paint washed off. Bad news, since Egypt was cool with the US, but not Israel. They had to race to the border, and barely made it. Also, learned my Russian grandfather worked for US intelligence during the Korean War helping the South.
Sep 1, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Slurred speech is indeed a sign of stroke known as dysarthria, caused by facial/tongue paralysis. Makes you sound like you just got back from the dentist and the Novocaine hasn't worn off yet, which is exactly what we have here.

Also, recall the emergency trip to Walter Reed. Now recall his difficulty drinking water, where it looks like he uses one hand to stabilize and has to pay attention while aiming for his mouth.
Aug 12, 2020 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
The Seokguram buddha, 770 CE, is the greatest sculpture in Korean history and widely seen as one of the greatest buddha sculptures ever made. It's a masterpiece that turns white granite into skin and folded cloth, lit by reflected sunlight in a chamber that actually breathes. "It is about 3.5 meters tall...the largest free-standing stone Buddha statue ever made in pre-modern Korea...constructed so that the rays of the rising sun fall on it and by reflection softly illuminate the holy figures surrounding him..."
korea.net/NewsFocus/Colu…
Apr 19, 2020 • 27 tweets • 7 min read
1. If you spend your free time hate-reading news about Donald Trump's racism, buckle up. Our story begins with one of the most beloved books in neo-Nazism. Not Mein Kampf or The Turner Diaries, but the 1973 novel Les Camp des Saints by Jean Raspail. 2. In the book, a horde of dark Indian peasants invade Europe, led by a farmer named Turd-Eater who carries his "horribly deformed" child around and literally eats shit. The peasants have an animalistic obsession with sex. They have lots of kids and soon outnumber the whites.
Sep 14, 2018 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Fascism has many definitions bit.ly/2xclaCp. FA Hayek said when socialism goes from international and pacifist to nationalist and militaristic, that's fascism. China has done that. But @johndlukacs has said German and Italian fascism were too different compare, 1/ generic fascism doesn't exist and fascism and socialism are just types of extremist populism. Still, I think we can answer the question by reaching for more granular definitions. In "Eternal Fascism," Umberto Eco lists 14 properties. By my count, China meets all but five. 2/