If only there was this whole field of study dedicated to chronicling human civilization outside of WW2 that dilbert could get into, we could be spared some of the hot takes.
Someone should really get on that.
Someone should really get on that.
watch this video from the RNLI.
https://twitter.com/rnli/status/1420319 … 71834?s=21
the home secretary has been demonizing this charity, a volunteer organisation who do extremely dangerous work with little funding. previously she demonized human rights lawyers who dared to represent dispossessed and vulnerable people (a knife-wielding maniac went to one of their offices following her outrageous denunciations of good legal practice).
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 … ith-france
Channel deaths: Priti Patel disinvited to meeting with France
priti patel is a uniquely dislikable woman and it defies belief that she holds one of the great offices of state. evidently our neighbours can't bear to work with her or be around her sneering, condescending, rude attitude.
human rights groups and lawyers have been on her case for years.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 … ghts-rules
Priti Patel’s detention policies found to breach human rights rules
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 … me-concern
Priti Patel's record on human rights prompts 'extreme concern'
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 … back-plans
Priti Patel faces three legal challenges over refugee pushback plans
she is incapable of proposing meaningful policies, and instead exists to service the soundbite-friendly extreme tory media sphere. the worst sort of sub-sepoy.
https://twitter.com/rnli/status/1420319 … 71834?s=21
the home secretary has been demonizing this charity, a volunteer organisation who do extremely dangerous work with little funding. previously she demonized human rights lawyers who dared to represent dispossessed and vulnerable people (a knife-wielding maniac went to one of their offices following her outrageous denunciations of good legal practice).
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 … ith-france
Channel deaths: Priti Patel disinvited to meeting with France
priti patel is a uniquely dislikable woman and it defies belief that she holds one of the great offices of state. evidently our neighbours can't bear to work with her or be around her sneering, condescending, rude attitude.
human rights groups and lawyers have been on her case for years.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 … ghts-rules
Priti Patel’s detention policies found to breach human rights rules
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 … me-concern
Priti Patel's record on human rights prompts 'extreme concern'
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 … back-plans
Priti Patel faces three legal challenges over refugee pushback plans
she is incapable of proposing meaningful policies, and instead exists to service the soundbite-friendly extreme tory media sphere. the worst sort of sub-sepoy.
Last edited by uziq (2021-11-26 18:29:01)
She seems to be very unlikeable, but the whole discussion about the channel migrants also kind of reminds me of the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border to be honest.
It's a complex topic. Even more so if we realise that there seems to be less and less public acceptance of migration to western europe in order to seek asylum.
--
Oh wow I don't think I've seen someone who was forced to resign from government for misconduct pop up in another cabinet position. That's pretty bad.
It's a complex topic. Even more so if we realise that there seems to be less and less public acceptance of migration to western europe in order to seek asylum.
--
Oh wow I don't think I've seen someone who was forced to resign from government for misconduct pop up in another cabinet position. That's pretty bad.
Last edited by Larssen (2021-11-27 03:21:12)
Larssen wrote:
Oh wow I don't think I've seen someone who was forced to resign from government for misconduct pop up in another cabinet position. That's pretty bad.
But she's pro-zionist - she'll get all the free passes she wants.she is incapable of proposing meaningful policies, and instead exists to service the soundbite-friendly extreme tory media sphere. the worst sort of sub-sepoy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59346441
Amazing how Israel has all major British political parties by the balls, Starmer is a full-on jewcuck.
Fuck Israel
yep, culpably corrupt and with a totally fucked moral compass. one of the most flagrant examples of the 'peter principle' i have seen. she is inept but licks the boots and toes the line, etc.Larssen wrote:
Oh wow I don't think I've seen someone who was forced to resign from government for misconduct pop up in another cabinet position. That's pretty bad.
letting people drown to death within sight of your shore is not a good look for any first-world country. actually granting asylum or refuge is another matter.
why the govt want to demonize a charity organization who just want to stop people from suffering one of the most horrific forms of death imaginable is bizarre and shows a serious deficit of general humanity. rescuing someone who is in peril is not a political act, it's a basic human one.
Typical Indian in other words.
Fuck Israel
theresa may was behind some grieviously misplaced shite too during her tenure as home secretary.
The problem is that there's barely any/no political cost to drowning/freezing migrants vs. picking them up and ferrying them to your own shores. The conservatives were put in power partly because of rhetoric on stopping migration, and now they're more or less 'delivering' on that promise by refusing to help those who try their luck in the crossings or by pushing them back. And it's likely they have the public's backing too, if you do some polling on the issue.uziq wrote:
yep, culpably corrupt and with a totally fucked moral compass. one of the most flagrant examples of the 'peter principle' i have seen. she is inept but licks the boots and toes the line, etc.Larssen wrote:
Oh wow I don't think I've seen someone who was forced to resign from government for misconduct pop up in another cabinet position. That's pretty bad.
letting people drown to death within sight of your shore is not a good look for any first-world country. actually granting asylum or refuge is another matter.
why the govt want to demonize a charity organization who just want to stop people from suffering one of the most horrific forms of death imaginable is bizarre and shows a serious deficit of general humanity. rescuing someone who is in peril is not a political act, it's a basic human one.
The realities of international law on issues of migration and asylum have created a system that doesn't function all that well and which appears to have awkward legal loopholes built-in. And frankly I'm less and less sure on what a durable solution looks like. Looking at the Poland-Belarusian issue, I hate to see that people are freezing to death because they're unfortunately reduced to pawns in a geopolitical shit-slinging match. Simultaneously, condoning and aiding illegal migration much more is a sure way to put the far-right in power everywhere.
We have to find a middle of the road solution somehow that appeases the desire for many to have tightly controlled borders and eliminate illegal crossings, but also one that avoids culpable death and the inhumane excesses that result from far right demonisation and negligence.
Last edited by Larssen (2021-11-28 03:51:08)
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As I suspected, Russia seems to have just wanted western attention and a show for their domestic politics.
With Russian troops massing along Ukraine’s borders, American and Russian diplomats made clear after an intense round of negotiations on Monday that while the two sides would keep talking, they remain far from agreement on meeting each other’s security concerns.
Russian officials said they told their American counterparts they had no plans to invade Ukraine, in a series of talks that lasted nearly eight hours. “There is no reason to fear some kind of escalatory scenario,” Sergei A. Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, told reporters after the meeting.
“The talks were difficult, long, very professional, deep, concrete, without attempts to gloss over some sharp edges,” Mr. Ryabkov said. “We had the feeling that the American side took the Russian proposals very seriously and studied them deeply.”
They aren't doing it for nothing. The price for a climbdown will be Ukraine not joining NATO and left effectively defenceless.
Fuck Israel
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Ukraine isn't joining NATO anyway. You can't join if you are in a conflict or partially occupied by a other country.
Ukraine should have joined NATO decades ago.
Ukraine should have joined NATO decades ago.
prof. david runciman has written at length before on the dominic cummings saga in the LRB, but he's done a relatively breezy and casual longread for the guardian today, as well.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 … month-blog
worth checking.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 … month-blog
worth checking.
What are the odds of Boris staying in power wrt recent events
could go either way (i edited my opinion; there are important byelections coming up in early spring), although obviously i'm not on the ground to take the temperature. his polling has been very low lately after controversy after controversy - tory cronyism, dodgy fast-track covid contracts fer donors and mates, breaking countless parliamentary rules about, e.g. accepting financial donations to redecorate the downing street flat (as well as generally being way too close to russian billionaires like his quondam newspaper boss, lebedev, who is now, funnily enough, a peer in the house of lords, etc). i mean, talk about a shameless teflon don.
this latest controversy definitely gets to the national marrow. there's no fewer than 5, estimated 7, occasions of downing street parties or gatherings now which weren't work-related and which broke all the social distancing rules. this latest revelation, and the most egregious example, literally on the same day that the home secretary, via the strong arm of the law and police forces nationwide, were cracking down on all forms of rulebreaking or exception. there were stories during that peak summer lockdown of (exhausted, traumatized, etc) nurses and caregivers being arrested for stopping in a park or a spot with a view to have some food/drink outdoors, or gather their thoughts (you were only allowed outside once per day for essential groceries or exercise). meanwhile downing street were inviting 100 people to 'bring your own booze' to a garden party.
the image that pops up right now is the queen, alone, at a vastly reduced (~30 person) funeral ceremony for prince phillip. the monarch sat alone, abiding by the same rules as everyone else ... whilst literally 0.25km away a bunch of unelected SPADs and tory grifters were drinking wine in the downing street garden. just beyond entitled.
BUT ... can he keep the job? the problem is that there are no amazing successors; not within the tory party's own internal churnings and machinations nor generally on a national level. this is partly by design (johnson has arrogated executive power almost exclusively to no 10 and an inner sanctum of advisors, e.g. dominic cummings above) and partly as a consequence of the continued ructions/fallout of brexit: all the good and principled politicians are perforce not in johnson's cabinet of clingers-on, sycophants and cross-eyed ideologues.
rishi sunak, the chancellor next door at no 11 (and it's no accident that some of these garden party photos have leaked from an, ahem, overlooking property) has looked good in the pandemic as he's been the one making the money machine go brrrrrrr, but he's also basically a mario draghi clone (and the richest MP in the entire house of commons, by quite a margin, natch; he married an indian billionaire heiress). do we really want to replace one posho entitled twat with another public school head boy who doesn't know the price of a bottle of milk? this is not a trivial problem, either: the tories have a continuing image or 'optics' problem: previously they were the 'nasty party', under the era of austerity and theresa may, and they've only recently gained the votes of the 'red wall' working-class voters in the north thanks to the populist and polarizing brexit question. johnson has played fast and loose with that political capital (including cancelling his promised plans of massive public transport construction and upgrades in the northern region, oops) and the tories can't just push forward another toff from the 1% when they're dealing with a very major crisis of seeming, well, like a bunch of rich, entitled, corrupted plutocats.
there is literally nobody who i can think of who would make a good tory leader. you have to remember, we need a statesman who is going to be able to actually fucking deal with the post-brexit mess when this more-pressing covid mess is over.
the UK is fucked in the short term future, imo. the electorate got carried away on a tide of populism that is going to take 5-10 years, if not a generation, to compensate and course-correct.
this latest controversy definitely gets to the national marrow. there's no fewer than 5, estimated 7, occasions of downing street parties or gatherings now which weren't work-related and which broke all the social distancing rules. this latest revelation, and the most egregious example, literally on the same day that the home secretary, via the strong arm of the law and police forces nationwide, were cracking down on all forms of rulebreaking or exception. there were stories during that peak summer lockdown of (exhausted, traumatized, etc) nurses and caregivers being arrested for stopping in a park or a spot with a view to have some food/drink outdoors, or gather their thoughts (you were only allowed outside once per day for essential groceries or exercise). meanwhile downing street were inviting 100 people to 'bring your own booze' to a garden party.
the image that pops up right now is the queen, alone, at a vastly reduced (~30 person) funeral ceremony for prince phillip. the monarch sat alone, abiding by the same rules as everyone else ... whilst literally 0.25km away a bunch of unelected SPADs and tory grifters were drinking wine in the downing street garden. just beyond entitled.
BUT ... can he keep the job? the problem is that there are no amazing successors; not within the tory party's own internal churnings and machinations nor generally on a national level. this is partly by design (johnson has arrogated executive power almost exclusively to no 10 and an inner sanctum of advisors, e.g. dominic cummings above) and partly as a consequence of the continued ructions/fallout of brexit: all the good and principled politicians are perforce not in johnson's cabinet of clingers-on, sycophants and cross-eyed ideologues.
rishi sunak, the chancellor next door at no 11 (and it's no accident that some of these garden party photos have leaked from an, ahem, overlooking property) has looked good in the pandemic as he's been the one making the money machine go brrrrrrr, but he's also basically a mario draghi clone (and the richest MP in the entire house of commons, by quite a margin, natch; he married an indian billionaire heiress). do we really want to replace one posho entitled twat with another public school head boy who doesn't know the price of a bottle of milk? this is not a trivial problem, either: the tories have a continuing image or 'optics' problem: previously they were the 'nasty party', under the era of austerity and theresa may, and they've only recently gained the votes of the 'red wall' working-class voters in the north thanks to the populist and polarizing brexit question. johnson has played fast and loose with that political capital (including cancelling his promised plans of massive public transport construction and upgrades in the northern region, oops) and the tories can't just push forward another toff from the 1% when they're dealing with a very major crisis of seeming, well, like a bunch of rich, entitled, corrupted plutocats.
there is literally nobody who i can think of who would make a good tory leader. you have to remember, we need a statesman who is going to be able to actually fucking deal with the post-brexit mess when this more-pressing covid mess is over.
the UK is fucked in the short term future, imo. the electorate got carried away on a tide of populism that is going to take 5-10 years, if not a generation, to compensate and course-correct.
Last edited by uziq (2022-01-14 09:41:21)
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As an American it really amazes me that you guys have been stuck with Conservative rule since the 2010 election with seemingly no hope for labor. Despite the doomer attitude of a lot of people, American politics is much more swingy and fair.
i mean, that's a pretty superficial reading of it. for instance, the labour opposition at the last general election were way, way radical in comparison to anything that the two-party, vanilla-or-butterscotch-sir system in america presents. labour were at least offering something significantly different to conservativism and business-as-usual politics. it failed spectacularly but that will take at least 2,000 words, if not 15,000, to unpick here and i can't be bothered.
the electoral system needs reform but that's a given at this point. i think most representative democracies should probably think about reforming electoral systems set-up in the 18th century at this point. populations, demographics, the needs of institutions, etc, have all changed pretty drastically.
the electoral system needs reform but that's a given at this point. i think most representative democracies should probably think about reforming electoral systems set-up in the 18th century at this point. populations, demographics, the needs of institutions, etc, have all changed pretty drastically.
I don't have hope for the political system being adjusted without some earth-moving crisis forcing it to.
There are some structures in place that are almost immovable, the governance of existing political systems being one. The only times these ever change are during turmoil.
There are some structures in place that are almost immovable, the governance of existing political systems being one. The only times these ever change are during turmoil.
you been asleep for the last 3 years or somethin'? governments are up to their eyeballs in generational levels of debt. inflation is prowling at the perimeter fence. mass death has been normalized.
the queen will die soon. the UK could very likely break up; the union disintegrate. it's conceivable that in the next 10 years england will be a separate political entity looking at the prospect of governing itself as-such. regionalism, devolution, new constituencies and a new parliamentary make-up, etc, are all hypothetically on the table.
the queen will die soon. the UK could very likely break up; the union disintegrate. it's conceivable that in the next 10 years england will be a separate political entity looking at the prospect of governing itself as-such. regionalism, devolution, new constituencies and a new parliamentary make-up, etc, are all hypothetically on the table.
Last edited by uziq (2022-01-14 10:15:04)
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It will all be fine. We have legal weed, video games, and dating apps.
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I can stop this.uziq wrote:
the queen will die soon. the UK could very likely break up; the union disintegrate. it's conceivable that in the next 10 years england will be a separate political entity looking at the prospect of governing itself as-such. regionalism, devolution, new constituencies and a new parliamentary make-up, etc, are all hypothetically on the table.
i'm not catastrophizing. but the last 2 major global pandemics have both occasioned massive, massive upheavals and lasting political changes.
the black death marked the end of the old feudal order in europe as peasants/serfs/landless labourers weren't returning to the status quo ante.
the spanish influenza delivered the coup de grace to europe's bellicose, tottering imperial order. even in the US, where the effects were less severe, it led to the birth of the 'roaring 20s' and an immense abreaction of social and political energy.
the black death marked the end of the old feudal order in europe as peasants/serfs/landless labourers weren't returning to the status quo ante.
the spanish influenza delivered the coup de grace to europe's bellicose, tottering imperial order. even in the US, where the effects were less severe, it led to the birth of the 'roaring 20s' and an immense abreaction of social and political energy.
Last edited by uziq (2022-01-14 10:24:09)
The UK is a special case in Europe and granted I can imagine the Scottish having their next referendum sometime in the near future and opting to split - though most recent polling indicates there's no majority appetite for independence. I don't know about Wales. The death of the queen and Brexit may well be the political hammerblows that could split the union.uziq wrote:
you been asleep for the last 3 years or somethin'? governments are up to their eyeballs in generational levels of debt. inflation is prowling at the perimeter fence. mass death has been normalized.
the queen will die soon. the UK could very likely break up; the union disintegrate. it's conceivable that in the next 10 years england will be a separate political entity looking at the prospect of governing itself as-such. regionalism, devolution, new constituencies and a new parliamentary make-up, etc, are all hypothetically on the table.
Having said so, in general terms, changing the makeup of a nation or democracy itself requires a paradigmatic/epistemic revolution; the sort of sustained event that bombards these systems with facts invalidating their logic and existence. It's interesting to think about what this would entail, or how the status quo is being held together at the moment.
Last edited by Larssen (2022-01-14 10:34:19)
the entire current order and political consensus in the west has been running on fumes since 2008, imo. it is out of fresh ideas and can barely contain crises right now. europe has made the money machine go brrr and it'll be interesting to see in the breathing space of the next 3-5 years what happens. i am particularly interested to see how spain/italy/greece, aka the usual suspects, don't go bankrupt. fun times ahead for you guys.
the global market, stocks, etc, are comically disconnected from the economic base at this point. like to the point where it has become a meme, as in gamestop stock and the controversies around its hedge fund/wall street overlords. what looks like 'healthy' forecasts are really just more of the same shit that caused 2008: highly speculative bullshit and ingenious accounting methods covering up the usual elite blather. a labour crisis, as follows all pandemics historically, should be a rude wake-up call to the massive elite enrichment that has pertained in the crisis thus far.
ordoliberalism is basically a zombie ideology at this point, but you wouldn't know it to look at the EU. there's been enough national-scale elections expressing frustration and discontent with this approach now. and the current coping mechanisms do not seem healthy, to me. france under macron lurching ever more to the right, like the torys pace UKIP/brexit. i would rather there be a climax, some crisis or reorganizing event, than see europe slowly shade more and more into right-wing populism to keep the masses content and the electoral machine humming along.
imo even the fact that these vast 'apolitical' central banks, like the fed and ECB, have stepped in to steady the waters during this pandemic is a tacit acknowledgement that politics-as-such as changed. now we know that the fed are willing to inject literally trillions of dollars into the economy: well, that's something else entirely from the 'paradigm' or 'epistemic model' (not sure what epistemology has to do with it tbh but not going into this again) that has governed political 'common sense' for the last 4 decades. cancelling US tuition debt is suddenly now a common talking point; and, indeed, courts have recently just ordered one of the more sharkish entities in the student loans market to cancel a shitload of debt. when would that have seemed conceivable in the last few decades?!?
the global market, stocks, etc, are comically disconnected from the economic base at this point. like to the point where it has become a meme, as in gamestop stock and the controversies around its hedge fund/wall street overlords. what looks like 'healthy' forecasts are really just more of the same shit that caused 2008: highly speculative bullshit and ingenious accounting methods covering up the usual elite blather. a labour crisis, as follows all pandemics historically, should be a rude wake-up call to the massive elite enrichment that has pertained in the crisis thus far.
ordoliberalism is basically a zombie ideology at this point, but you wouldn't know it to look at the EU. there's been enough national-scale elections expressing frustration and discontent with this approach now. and the current coping mechanisms do not seem healthy, to me. france under macron lurching ever more to the right, like the torys pace UKIP/brexit. i would rather there be a climax, some crisis or reorganizing event, than see europe slowly shade more and more into right-wing populism to keep the masses content and the electoral machine humming along.
imo even the fact that these vast 'apolitical' central banks, like the fed and ECB, have stepped in to steady the waters during this pandemic is a tacit acknowledgement that politics-as-such as changed. now we know that the fed are willing to inject literally trillions of dollars into the economy: well, that's something else entirely from the 'paradigm' or 'epistemic model' (not sure what epistemology has to do with it tbh but not going into this again) that has governed political 'common sense' for the last 4 decades. cancelling US tuition debt is suddenly now a common talking point; and, indeed, courts have recently just ordered one of the more sharkish entities in the student loans market to cancel a shitload of debt. when would that have seemed conceivable in the last few decades?!?
Last edited by uziq (2022-01-14 11:03:22)