Ed Akerboom
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eakerboom.bsky.social
Ed Akerboom
@eakerboom.bsky.social
48 followers 84 following 200 posts
Father, technologist, politics junkie, EU federalist, adopted Berliner.
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eakerboom.bsky.social
Eastern European sleeper agent in the White House
July 15, 2025 at 6:58 AM
eakerboom.bsky.social
I learned something new today: the thought-terminating cliché.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought...
Screenshot: "R. J. Lifton's definition The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized, and easily expressed. They become the start and finish of any ideological analysis. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Chapter 22: "Ideological Totalism" (1961)"
April 29, 2025 at 8:25 AM
eakerboom.bsky.social
New polling in the UK: Terrorism is out, the new threat is the US and Russia.
Quote from the Guardian article: "First the bad news: perhaps partly because some now feel they were conned over Brexit, Labour leavers remain very wary of being fooled again. Though most now see the EU as more trustworthy allies than Trump’s US, that confidence is easily knocked: support for a rapprochement with Europe drops quickly when focus groups are shown the kind of rightwing attack messages – charges of surrender and sellout – that would inevitably follow. They still tend to want the good bits of a deal (cheaper energy, lower food prices) without giving much up in return. But if they’re only slowly warming to Europe, they are clear-eyed about the alternatives: Trump’s US and Putin’s Russia are both seen as greater threats to British interests than terrorism."
April 29, 2025 at 7:01 AM
eakerboom.bsky.social
www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...
"Maar terugkijken op onrecht is nooit zo ondraaglijk als het onrecht in het heden te aanschouwen. U en ik weten allemaal wat er gebeurt in Gaza. De politici in de Kamer, met toegang tot zo veel meer informatie dan wij – zij weten het. En ze doen niets. Ik vraag me af: hoe slapen zij, die weten van de misstanden in Gaza, en die alsnog niets doen, niets zeggen, geen standpunt innemen? Heeft premier Schoof misschien een trucje, waarmee hij de feiten die aan hem werden voorgelegd door hulporganisaties, terzijde kan schuiven? Misschien wil hij het met ons delen: hoe een smeekbede tot empathie eenvoudigweg te weigeren. Misschien kan hij mij leren rustig te wachten tot het voorbij is, tot iedere Palestijn dood is, waarna het grote verzwijgen kan beginnen. En we allemaal kunnen zeggen dat we het – echt waar – niet hebben geweten."
April 22, 2025 at 6:35 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
👏

Great article (in Dutch) about how integration is ultimately an impossible and unachievable exercise that is imposed on migrants, asks nothing of the original population, and is ultimately rooted in white supremacy.

www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...
„Ik zeg nee tegen integratie. Dat is een opdracht die eenzijdig bij de migrant is komen te liggen. Na de Tweede Wereldoorlog ontstond een ideaalbeeld van de samenleving: vrij van racisme, gelijkheid tussen mannen en vrouwen zou bewerkstelligd zijn. Het idee is vervolgens dat de migrant, de barbaar, een valse noot is. En die moet zich daarom alle regels van die beschaving nog eigen maken. „Daaronder schuilt een wit superioriteitsdenken: Europa heeft een historische les geleerd en nu gaan wij de migranten een lesje leren. Maar kijk eens hoe wijdverbreid Ihbti-discriminatie en antisemitisme nog steeds zijn in Nederland. Hoe dat weer opduikt in kringen van radicaal-rechts en extreemrechts. Kijk hoe wijdverbreid racisme nog steeds is. Het idee van integratie is gewoon een restant van koloniaal denken. De superieure Nederlanders zijn zogenaamd beschaafd, de rest moet nog bewijzen dat ze erbij mogen horen." • nrc.nl
April 20, 2025 at 11:20 AM
eakerboom.bsky.social
I never understood why people want these devices in their homes
PEOPLE IN THE 60s I better not say that or the government will wiretap my house. PEOPLE TODAY Hey wiretap, do you have a recipe for pancakes?
March 15, 2025 at 6:52 AM
eakerboom.bsky.social
Tweet from @benedictsred: I bet doom scroll meant something way cooler in the middle ages.
March 4, 2025 at 6:15 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
Sunday, 18 May 2014 Fascism: I sometimes fear... I sometimes fear that people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress worn by grotesques and monsters as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis. Fascism arrives as your friend. It will restore your honour, make you feel proud, protect your house, give you a job, clean up the neighbourhood, remind you of how great you once were, clear out the venal and the corrupt, remove anything you feel is unlike you... It doesn't walk in saying, "Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution." - Michael Rosen
February 17, 2025 at 8:11 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
The man in charge of the most powerful army in the world 💀
January 26, 2025 at 7:28 AM
eakerboom.bsky.social
Tech billionaires on the front row, and the guy who bought him the presidency doing a Hitler salute.

The US is a fascist oligarchy.

That’s the reality as of today… and for maybe the first time in history it’s not an exaggeration.
January 21, 2025 at 7:54 AM
eakerboom.bsky.social
Well that’s quite the image
A Tesla Cybertruck burning in front of the entrance to the Trump Tower
January 1, 2025 at 10:05 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
You know it’s true
Screenshot from the Guardian about social media platforms: “X for the rightwing and the raging; centrists and policy nerds on Bluesky; people who hate politics on Threads or Instagram; Gen Z on TikTok; boomers on Facebook.”
November 15, 2024 at 8:52 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
The Onion had some hard-hitting front pages over the years.
"Dastardly Japs attack colonially occupied U.S. non-state" "War declared by all: Austria declares war on Serbia declares war on Germany declares war on France declares war on Turkey declares war on Russia declares war on Bulgaria declares war on Britain" "World's largest metaphor hits ice-berg"
November 14, 2024 at 4:05 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
Eerste vorst van dit najaar gemeten
October 15, 2024 at 4:09 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
Sub 100k, yay?
A virtual certificate with text "Celebrating 10M users on Bluesky, #87,722, Ed Akerboom ‪@eakerboom.bsky.social‬, joined on May 24, 2023"
September 23, 2024 at 8:18 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
Same vibe
April 1, 2024 at 5:55 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
December 4, 2023 at 5:32 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
ChatGPT en Sinterklaasrijmen...

laten we zeggen dat er ruimte voor verbetering is 😂
ChatGPT suggereert niet-bestaande woorden
December 2, 2023 at 7:20 AM
eakerboom.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
November 24, 2023 at 7:45 AM
eakerboom.bsky.social
Amazing analysis and interview with Dominique Villepin, former prime minister of France, about Gaza.

On Twitter: x.com/RnaudBertran...
Screenshot of a tweet: “Absolutely masterful interview on Gaza of Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, who famously led France's opposition to the Iraq war and who, IMHO is the best diplomat the West has produced in decades. This is so important, so incredibly well argued, that I decided to translate it in full: "Hamas has set a trap for us, and this trap is one of maximum horror, of maximum cruelty. And so there's a risk of an escalation in militarism, of more military interventions, as if we could with armies solve a problem as serious as the Palestinian question. There's also a second major trap, which is that of Occidentalism. We find ourselves trapped, with Israel, in this western bloc which today is being challenged by most of the international community… (continued)“
October 29, 2023 at 12:48 PM
eakerboom.bsky.social
Heh
October 5, 2023 at 6:14 AM