Brad Simpson
@bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social
US foreign policy, human rights, decolonization, Indonesia, UConn, DIPG dad. #DefeatDIPG
https://www.bradleyrsimpson.com
My new book from Oxford! https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-first-right-9780199944408?q=the%20first%20right&lang=en&cc=us
https://www.bradleyrsimpson.com
My new book from Oxford! https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-first-right-9780199944408?q=the%20first%20right&lang=en&cc=us
UK folks - I'm giving some book talks in the UK next week:
Monday Nov. 17 Cambridge University
Tuesday Nov. 18 London School of Economics
Wed Nov. 19 Univ. of Exeter
Thurs Nov. 20 Univ. of Glasgow
DM me for more details or to grab a coffee/beer while I'm there.
bsky.app/profile/lseh...
Monday Nov. 17 Cambridge University
Tuesday Nov. 18 London School of Economics
Wed Nov. 19 Univ. of Exeter
Thurs Nov. 20 Univ. of Glasgow
DM me for more details or to grab a coffee/beer while I'm there.
bsky.app/profile/lseh...
November 9, 2025 at 10:38 PM
UK folks - I'm giving some book talks in the UK next week:
Monday Nov. 17 Cambridge University
Tuesday Nov. 18 London School of Economics
Wed Nov. 19 Univ. of Exeter
Thurs Nov. 20 Univ. of Glasgow
DM me for more details or to grab a coffee/beer while I'm there.
bsky.app/profile/lseh...
Monday Nov. 17 Cambridge University
Tuesday Nov. 18 London School of Economics
Wed Nov. 19 Univ. of Exeter
Thurs Nov. 20 Univ. of Glasgow
DM me for more details or to grab a coffee/beer while I'm there.
bsky.app/profile/lseh...
This is a map:
November 5, 2025 at 10:14 PM
This is a map:
If you want to know what a useless loser Van Jones is he was on CNN last night criticizing Mamdani for being an extremist and saying shit like this in his acceptance speech.
November 5, 2025 at 11:57 AM
If you want to know what a useless loser Van Jones is he was on CNN last night criticizing Mamdani for being an extremist and saying shit like this in his acceptance speech.
Aragorn: you will not have forgotten this blade, Sauron.
November 4, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Aragorn: you will not have forgotten this blade, Sauron.
Heinz yellow mustard: If you can’t smell it through your body armor, its not Heinz!
November 4, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Heinz yellow mustard: If you can’t smell it through your body armor, its not Heinz!
Weapons of mass convection
November 4, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Weapons of mass convection
Its hard to overstate just how unhinged @postopinions.bsky.social is now. Its always been conservative platforming MAGA ventriloquists like Mark Thiessen. But it historically has had serious liberal, even leftist voices. Now its basically Bezos/Musk/AEI/Trump slop. An embarrassment.
wapo.st/3X77tQH
wapo.st/3X77tQH
November 3, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Its hard to overstate just how unhinged @postopinions.bsky.social is now. Its always been conservative platforming MAGA ventriloquists like Mark Thiessen. But it historically has had serious liberal, even leftist voices. Now its basically Bezos/Musk/AEI/Trump slop. An embarrassment.
wapo.st/3X77tQH
wapo.st/3X77tQH
This is the front page of the Chicago Tribune: On Halloween, ‘state-sponsored terror’ in Chicago and the north suburbs www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/31/c...
November 1, 2025 at 5:21 PM
This is the front page of the Chicago Tribune: On Halloween, ‘state-sponsored terror’ in Chicago and the north suburbs www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/31/c...
The Trump administration is performatively committing war crimes and mass murder on the high sea. They have no idea who they are bombing.
newrepublic.com/post/202502/...
newrepublic.com/post/202502/...
October 31, 2025 at 4:48 PM
The Trump administration is performatively committing war crimes and mass murder on the high sea. They have no idea who they are bombing.
newrepublic.com/post/202502/...
newrepublic.com/post/202502/...
Headed back to DC after my first round of book talks at Boston University, Northeastern, and Dartmouth. Lots of great questions and discussion, as well as time with friends and colleagues. Thanks to the folks who invited and organized and thought my new book is worth talking about.
October 31, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Headed back to DC after my first round of book talks at Boston University, Northeastern, and Dartmouth. Lots of great questions and discussion, as well as time with friends and colleagues. Thanks to the folks who invited and organized and thought my new book is worth talking about.
I will speak on my new book at Dartmouth College tmw 10/30 at 12:30pm, focusing on the last chapter: Self-Determination in the Age of Globalization: register here forms.gle/C1892JBQZUdy...
To connect via Zoom, follow this link:
dartmouth.zoom.us/j/9655445568....
Meeting ID: 965 5445 5680
To connect via Zoom, follow this link:
dartmouth.zoom.us/j/9655445568....
Meeting ID: 965 5445 5680
October 30, 2025 at 1:19 AM
I will speak on my new book at Dartmouth College tmw 10/30 at 12:30pm, focusing on the last chapter: Self-Determination in the Age of Globalization: register here forms.gle/C1892JBQZUdy...
To connect via Zoom, follow this link:
dartmouth.zoom.us/j/9655445568....
Meeting ID: 965 5445 5680
To connect via Zoom, follow this link:
dartmouth.zoom.us/j/9655445568....
Meeting ID: 965 5445 5680
Andrew Cuomo, with his last breath, as he disappears in a pool of quicksand somewhere: “Uganda is full of Muslims!” “Cheese, bacon, egg sandwich!”
October 29, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Andrew Cuomo, with his last breath, as he disappears in a pool of quicksand somewhere: “Uganda is full of Muslims!” “Cheese, bacon, egg sandwich!”
Read the first chapter of The First Right: Self-determination and the Transformation of International Order, 1941-2000 here: www.google.com/.../The_Firs....
On Kindle here read.amazon.com/sample/B0FR5... !
Order from OUP: global.oup.com/.../the-firs....
and use promotion code AUFLY30 to save 30%
On Kindle here read.amazon.com/sample/B0FR5... !
Order from OUP: global.oup.com/.../the-firs....
and use promotion code AUFLY30 to save 30%
October 26, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Read the first chapter of The First Right: Self-determination and the Transformation of International Order, 1941-2000 here: www.google.com/.../The_Firs....
On Kindle here read.amazon.com/sample/B0FR5... !
Order from OUP: global.oup.com/.../the-firs....
and use promotion code AUFLY30 to save 30%
On Kindle here read.amazon.com/sample/B0FR5... !
Order from OUP: global.oup.com/.../the-firs....
and use promotion code AUFLY30 to save 30%
This is what will save us:
October 26, 2025 at 12:09 AM
This is what will save us:
This is whats going to save us. Not institutions. But the people awakened and enraged to defend their neighbors and communities.
October 26, 2025 at 12:06 AM
This is whats going to save us. Not institutions. But the people awakened and enraged to defend their neighbors and communities.
So, best name for the new Trump ballroom?
The Worst Wing
Pedo Prom hall
Epstein Ballroom
What have you got?
The Worst Wing
Pedo Prom hall
Epstein Ballroom
What have you got?
October 25, 2025 at 8:59 PM
So, best name for the new Trump ballroom?
The Worst Wing
Pedo Prom hall
Epstein Ballroom
What have you got?
The Worst Wing
Pedo Prom hall
Epstein Ballroom
What have you got?
Lots of funny folks on the margins talked about self-determinaton as well. Here is one from 1980 - a US group reproducing an Australian libertarian tract denouncing national self-determination.
October 23, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Lots of funny folks on the margins talked about self-determinaton as well. Here is one from 1980 - a US group reproducing an Australian libertarian tract denouncing national self-determination.
I cut my teeth as an East Timor solidarity activist, and in the 1990s activists used self-determination as a shorthand for independence from the Indonesian invasion and occupation.
October 23, 2025 at 9:58 PM
I cut my teeth as an East Timor solidarity activist, and in the 1990s activists used self-determination as a shorthand for independence from the Indonesian invasion and occupation.
Advocates of Baltic Independence likewise deployed self-determination in a post-colonial frame (here in 1989 during the famous Baltic Way protest)
October 23, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Advocates of Baltic Independence likewise deployed self-determination in a post-colonial frame (here in 1989 during the famous Baltic Way protest)
During the 1980s Central America solidarity groups framed self-determination for Nicaragua and El Salvador in terms of non-intervention.
October 23, 2025 at 9:58 PM
During the 1980s Central America solidarity groups framed self-determination for Nicaragua and El Salvador in terms of non-intervention.
Lots of African Americans thought deeply about Black Self-Determination in a range of formats.
October 23, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Lots of African Americans thought deeply about Black Self-Determination in a range of formats.
But many others used self-determination as well. I have lots of "self-determination buttons" from US civil rights and ethnic movements.
October 23, 2025 at 9:58 PM
But many others used self-determination as well. I have lots of "self-determination buttons" from US civil rights and ethnic movements.
As self-determination became a vernacular for solidarity in the 1960s and 1970s many groups and movements used it to describe their cause or demands - The Palestinian liberation movement perhaps more than any other.
October 23, 2025 at 9:37 PM
As self-determination became a vernacular for solidarity in the 1960s and 1970s many groups and movements used it to describe their cause or demands - The Palestinian liberation movement perhaps more than any other.
Here's a couple of cartoons from the League of Nations period - the first from 1919 concerning US discomfort with the idea of self-determination in post-war Europe; the second a German cartoon from 1935 mocking the League as a circus for its toothlessness in the fact of Italy's invasion of Ethiopia.
October 23, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Here's a couple of cartoons from the League of Nations period - the first from 1919 concerning US discomfort with the idea of self-determination in post-war Europe; the second a German cartoon from 1935 mocking the League as a circus for its toothlessness in the fact of Italy's invasion of Ethiopia.