Almost everything we argue about is a substitute for the thing we should be arguing about: the immense wealth & power of an oligarchic class, which captures governments, ruins lives and wrecks the living planet.
This class redirects our rage at scapegoats. To resist its lies is to resist its power.
As the war in Iran rumbles on, unresolved, the Trump administration still has its eyes on Cuba. Will Trump “have the honor” of taking it? I spoke to Latin America expert Professor Nicolas Forsans. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...
Trump’s Secret War Fears Leak as GOP Panics: “Alarm Bells”
As Trump worries about becoming Jimmy Carter, a journalist who focuses on the imperial presidency explains why events are slipping away from Trump — and why that gives Democrats an opening.
Fascists and Nazis hate history, and historians; but understand the power of history. Thats why, across the world, they work so hard to control HOW we tell stories about the past, to drive out diverse critical voices and perspectives, to ensure a narrative that makes them look good.
New reporting shows the election denial movement isn’t on the outside looking in anymore—it’s now embedded in the machinery of government.
Over the past several years, billionaires + right-wing foundations poured tens of millions into building that infrastructure. www.propublica.org/article/trum...
Of the many things I didn't expect to live to see, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America working together to end capitalism may be the least expected.
arthursnell.substack.com/p/the-end-of...
The kind of perceptive analysis one can expect of an historian and former diplomat.
Find the conclusions difficult to disagree with.
Important story by Max Colbert here:
🔴 GB News Hosts Reform UK and Conservative Politicians and Activists Posing as Ordinary Voters
The individuals were presented as ordinary members of the public, without informing viewers of their political affiliations, a new Byline Times investigation reveals
Source: tedium.co 1980 The year that Sweden implemented measures that discouraged toy producers and retailers in the country from selling war toys. The effort came about in the late ’70s, the result of a few years of debate within the country. In the midst of the growing discussion of the issue internationally in 1986, the academic journal Prospects - Quarterly Review of Education published a report by a Swedish National Board of Education official that highlighted the progress the nation had made with its restrictions. Other nearby countries, such as Finland, eventually followed suit.
It needs resolve & a societal effort to change people's thinking, behaviour, & attitudes. We all (a majority at least) have to agree & promote whatever makes communities better. Take 'gun culture'. Today's non-violence in Scandinavia isn't just inherited, it's also fostered.
Evangelicals, on a whole, have converted the Bible's message to be entirely about an unseen, internal belief in God's salvation and the future in heaven. They have completely unpaired from all messages directing them to care for this Earth
I suspect the Pope sounds "woke" to many Christian conservatives because the US is steeped in prosperity theology, where the point of worship is to deliver health and wealth to believers. Thus, "feed the hungry" and "show mercy for the poor" sounds needlessly political and "woke."
There's a simple means of telling whether someone can be trusted: when they get something wrong, do they admit it?
A consistent feature of Trump and the Maga crowd, of Farage, Truss, Johnson, Le Pen, Weidel and their counterparts around the world is that they do not admit to getting things wrong.
When you pay your taxes this year, remember: Thanks to Trump's Big Ugly Bill, many huge corporations will pay little to nothing in federal taxes.
[@itep.org]
I know this is me still mourning a long dead world but it does feel remarkable that, not that long ago, British papers on the right would have run editorials and columns arguing that Hungary showed that only a solid, reliable centre-right party could defeat dangerous populists, but now? [crickets]
Aux Pays-Bas, les multinationales bénéficient toujours d’avantages fiscaux considérables, révèle une enquête
The victory of the opposition in Hungary yesterday, like the Polish election in 2023, is a victory for democracy, not just in Europe but around the world.
Guardian says "marathon" peace talks, but without quotes for a mere twenty-hour session.
The talks which led to the Good Friday Agreement took nearly two years, with a longer process of engagement before then.
I remember, in one of the post-referendum, pre A50 days talking with other attendees at a book festival Brexit event.
I asserted that it would make 🇬🇧 poorer, weaker & our national security much reduced. The EU project was a peace project
“ÑO!”, the BREXITERS said, “NATO will provide our security“
they like Trump and they want to help him. This is why 3% unemployment under Biden was presented in headlines as a failure and rising unemployment under Trump gets "the plan is working" headlines.
Highly informative, deeply depressing and horribly alraming in just about equal measures
New — I wrote about the terror and loss of the last few days, mostly so we don’t forget.
www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-iran...
This is brilliant and spot-on.
So there’s no regime change, we lift all sanctions against them going back decades, they retain missile and drone capabilities, they control the strait and can charge tolls, and keep their enriched uranium. So much for “unconditional surrender.”
“Ceasefire” update
Weird that having a set of negotiations in which there are no proper diplomats leads to a situation in which no one has a clue what's actually been agreed.
One aspect that's confusing is the US, like Ireland went from colony to postcolonial (and refkexively anti-colonial) state with all that that implied - republicanism, belief in equality of citizens, cultural cringe, difficulty establishing norms, civil war - in much the same way as Ireland did.
1
In his Orban-endorsement visit, the Vice President of the USA says that the EU planted the seeds of the Ukraine war when EU leaders decided they were going for a clean energy transition.
Does he know that Hungary has become a global leader in solar energy adoption, mostly driven by govt subsidies?
Is this extortion?
EU: We're going to develop sustainable clean energy infrastructure and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
Russia: Buy our fossil fuels or else. *Invades Ukraine*
Vance to EU: See what you made them do?
“To dismiss this crisis of US democracy as 'domestic troubles’ which will have no impact on America’s international affairs is not just cynical, it is the height of folly.”
I wrote that.
In October.