Resist and Unsubscribe

07:44 Friday, 6 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 15.49°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 5.73mph
Words: 410

Scott Galloway was a guest on Michael Smerconish's YouTube channel yesterday. This was only the second Michael Smerconish video I've seen. I had to use "Find" in Tinderbox to see if I'd mentioned him before, because he looked familiar, and it was a couple of months ago.

So far, I've found nothing compelling about Smerconish, but he appears on my YouTube algorithmic playlist from time to time, perhaps because of his guests.

Anyway, what was compelling was Galloway in this interview. Now, I'm also somewhat ambivalent about Galloway. I think he's generally correct on many things, but maybe it's the way he presents himself that I find off-putting. Regardless, I think he's dead on about all the things he mentions in this interview about his website Resist and Unsubscribe.

He explains, very clearly, why doing this, unsubscribing even for only a month, is not merely "performative," it's a clear way of sending an unmistakable signal. And it's an action, something that represents our agency in this moment.

To my knowledge, there hasn't been a great deal written about how Germans reconciled themselves to their history following WW II. I've read They Thought They Were Free, by Milton Mayor. Apparently it's problematic for some reason. There was a documentary I saw on a streaming service that interviewed surviving Germans, members of the Nazi party, even an SS officer (who ended up just saying something to the effect that Hitler was right about everything). Certainly, there isn't the same body of literature and film that covers the rise of National Socialism, the war and its aftermath. And there have been attempts to explain or understand it, but little in the way of an account of how people felt following the catastrophe of WW II.

What little I have seen or read mostly suggests embarrassment, or claims of victimization, being misled. Denial mostly. Which is understandable. But I wonder how those people lived with themselves. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a compelling video of his experience growing up in post-war Austria, and the men in his life. The toll their experience took on their lives.

We have a moment now to alter this trajectory. We have to make every effort we can to stop what we can foresee coming.

Every effort includes "performative" things. It includes economic actions. It includes protest in the streets. It includes writing to your representatives. In this moment, "every effort," means every peaceful effort.

While we still can.