Thom Ratkos
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thomratkos.bsky.social
Thom Ratkos
@thomratkos.bsky.social
Studying behavior, all the time. Antifascist. BCBA-D, PhD. Associate professor. he/him
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
A Black man named Keith Porter was shot and killed by an ICE officer on New Year’s Eve.

Marimar Martinez was shot five times by an ICE officer in Chicago who went on to brag about leaving seven holes in her body.

This is not new but it is expanding.
Your reminder that what happened to Renee Nicole Good is something that happens regularly in America. This is not new, but it is an expanded version of militarized people targeting Black people in particular.

From ICE detention to murder with impunity, we've been doing it. Now it's broadened.
January 8, 2026 at 12:21 AM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
If you're grasping for anything to feel good about right now - and that's a very difficult thing to find - feel good about the fact that not everyone is as much of a spineless, collaborating coward as our elites. Total strangers will risk their lives to stand next to you.
January 7, 2026 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
my goal is the emancipation of the working class from the exploitation of capitalism. my goal is a class conscious working class that seizes the means of production and becomes the ruling class. my goals can be achieved many ways but history shows the capitalist class will not go peacefully.
January 6, 2026 at 3:37 PM
Overheard at the pharmacy in rural GA: "... because we're governed by a dang cheeto"
January 6, 2026 at 4:22 PM
I hope I live to see the fall of the United States
What in the Gestapo is going on in Grand Rapids?

Watch this activist get arrested *mid-interview* for speaking out against U.S. action in Venezuela.
January 5, 2026 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
Had Ursula K. LeGuin’s Omelas on my mind lately “for no particular reason”...

If you’ve never read it before, you should take the time to do so. It’s very short, prose wise, very much worth taking the time to do so and… it resonates in ways that should be strikingly obvious.
shsdavisapes.pbworks.com
January 5, 2026 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
"Maduro is a brutal authoritarian dictator," I wisely intone, as the corrupt demented paedophile US President violating Constitutional Law while operating a gestapo and concentration camps illegally arrests a foreign leader on charges which read like they were written on a paper placemat in crayon.
January 3, 2026 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
the fact that no one at a national level in the democratic party is willing to come out and be against AI and say that musk should be in prison of all you need to know about how voting for democrats will never defeat fascism.
January 2, 2026 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
This Nazi passed a bill to imprison trans kids' parents two weeks ago.
“Our side has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong.” Read the inside story of how Marjorie Taylor Greene went from zealous Trump cheerleader to his loudest Republican critic: nyti.ms/3Lbzi88
December 29, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
In 249 years, this country has yet to outlaw slavery. We change its form, we change its name, but slavery has been constant. Powerful people and businesses just really love slave labor, and a chunk of our economy is built on that.
Private prison company GEO Group allegedly made immigration detainees work for no pay. Now it's at the Supreme Court trying to prevent the detainees from suing. bit.ly/4pfafj2
Supreme Court Considers Private Prison Case
A private prison company seeks a ruling that could help all government contractors evade liability.
www.brennancenter.org
December 29, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
On #marxistmonday remember that the class which has the power to rob you on a large scale, also has the power to control the government and legalize their robbery.

-Eugene V. Debs
December 22, 2025 at 12:52 PM
When you know your field well enough to correctly guess your reviewer 5 sentences in 😅
December 19, 2025 at 6:29 PM
I hope MTG moves away once she resigns. I have half a mind to email her and offer to help load the truck.
December 16, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
ICE sprayed a one-year-old in the face with pepper spray.

The child and parents are US citizens, but that doesn't even matter.

These monsters pepper-sprayed a baby.

We cannot allow ICE to continue this behavior, and they aren't going to reform themselves.

www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...
December 15, 2025 at 3:24 AM
Congratulations to the newest addition to my muted words. I don't know who Tilly Norwood is but apparently they were annoying me at some point
December 12, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Crying in the club saying goodbye to my lab rats getting adopted tomorrow 😭🐁🐁
December 8, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
Every revolution was impossible until it wasn’t.

Get organized. Study liberation theory. Set up networks of mutual aid. We have a world to win.
December 6, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Happy Thanksgiving to my rats and some people too I guess
November 27, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Thankful today for all the people, throughout history to the present, who have resisted oppression in any way, but especially in the effective ways
November 27, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Great article. Increasingly important to not allow under-examined antizionism to let any antisemitism into our movements. Be informed! Be vigilant! Stamp it out!
I think it’s time to put this one back out into the ether, friends

Come and learn about how the tropes undergirding anti-Jewish hatred and conspiracy theories as they exist today came to be…
The Antisemitism Post (tm)
Gotta get the history to know where the tropes live in the discourse today.
www.lifeisasacredtext.com
November 25, 2025 at 5:20 PM
After reviewing rough drafts, I'm cancelling my students' final presentations like a disappointed father.
November 23, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Reposted by Thom Ratkos
hey so even if you do sweep Dems into power again all those people who are openly calling for your murder will still exist so what is your plan because last time Dems were in office they didn’t do anything about it and now we’re here and my god we can’t keep doing this why do you refuse the lesson
November 21, 2025 at 1:01 PM
An anonymous student put a nice complimentary note in my mailbox today 🥹
November 20, 2025 at 11:32 PM
Today in class discussion it was a student, not me, who brought up capitalism. Then I asked the class what capitalism is and got the actual correct answer 😳😳😳
November 13, 2025 at 10:25 PM