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Post by Admin on Oct 22, 2021 20:31:38 GMT
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Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2021 4:12:52 GMT
Excerpt from "We Are Ruled By Apes With PR Firms": So yeah basically we're watching sociopathic oligarchs shore up more and more control over the global population and our electoral systems are rigged to prevent us from doing anything about it and our information systems are stacked to prevent mass-scale direct action against it. You can't vote your way out of a problem you never voted your way into in the first place. You can't have a revolution while everyone is being successfully propagandized into accepting things as they are. Any solution is therefore going to have to come from somewhere they haven't secured. So we're all just kind of watching this happen and hoping for what amounts to a miracle, or really a stack of miracles. What gives me hope is that I know humans have a lot of surprises within themselves that they haven't even begun to explore yet. We might just get some miracles. The behavior of global oligarchic power structures makes a lot more sense when you see that it's not as much a lucid elite conspiracy as it is a few barely-conscious humans compulsively acting out psychological dynamics within themselves that they don't really understand. Elite conspiracies happen to be sure, but what's ultimately driving them is not a complete and coherent vision for the future which takes all things into account but rather the simple egoic impulses of barely-evolved primates blindly trying to shore up control like chimps asserting dominance. The sociopaths who rule our world are no more conscious of their own inner processes than your average serial killer. They can act out their impulses in a way that looks very organized and efficient, but the driving forces beneath it are the least-evolved aspects of humanity. We are ruled by apes with PR firms. That's why they often behave in ways that are nonsensical. Some ask why they'd continue killing the biosphere and flirt with nuclear war when it can kill them, for example. And the answer is not that nuclear brinkmanship is a phony performance or that climate destruction is a hoax, but that you're dealing with the same dumb stimulus-response impulses as any other basic organism. It is true that the drivers of the US-centralized empire want to live as gods, able to cause famines or rain fire in any part of the world which disobeys them. It is not a coincidence that the few remaining parts of the world where they cannot do this are the parts you're most forcefully trained to hate. But these are not gods enacting grand visions from on high; they are organisms acting out the same forces that have been unfolding since the Big Bang just like the rest of us. And they are less conscious of the way those forces are playing out within themselves than your average healthy human, not more. We Are Ruled By Apes With PR Firms: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/we-are-ruled-by-apes-with-pr-firms
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Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2021 4:31:18 GMT
Twitter’s algorithms promote right-wingers over the left – especially in the UK voxpoliticalonline.com/2021/10/22/twitters-algorithms-promote-right-wingers-over-the-left-especially-in-the-uk/If you’re a Twitter user who has ever wondered why the fascists seem to get more space on that platform, now you know the answer: Twitter’s computerised rules demand it. Twitter casually admitting that their algorithm amplifies the political right far more than the left, in all countries measured except Germany. t.co/2ngStvdzWJ— Another Angry Voice (@angry_Voice) October 22, 2021 Here‘s the story: Twitter has admitted it amplifies more tweets from rightwing politicians and news outlets than content from leftwing sources. The social media platform examined tweets from elected officials in seven countries – the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Spain and Japan. It also studied whether political content from news organisations was amplified on Twitter. The research found that in six out of seven countries, apart from Germany, tweets from rightwing politicians received more amplification from the algorithm than those from the left; right-leaning news organisations were more amplified than those on the left; and generally politicians’ tweets were more amplified by an algorithmic timeline than by the chronological timeline. Under the research, a value of 0% meant tweets reached the same number of users on the algorithm-tailored timeline as on its chronological counterpart, whereas a value of 100% meant tweets achieved double the reach. On this basis, the UK suffered the second-strongest discrepancy between right and left (behind Canada) – although some might think that Labour (112%) is currently even more right-wing than the Conservatives (176%) meaning the results are skewed by the lack of information about left-wing organisations here. The findings indicate problems for Twitter because they suggest that right-wing tweets get preferential treatment as a function of the way the algorithm is constructed. The good news is that Twitter has indicated it may need to change its algorithm to give left-wing tweets a wider – and more equal – audience. Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice. www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/
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Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2021 15:20:01 GMT
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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2021 5:23:23 GMT
OCTOBER 22, 2021 The Rightwing Horror That Won’t Go Away BY EVE OTTENBERG www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/22/the-rightwing-horror-that-wont-go-away/The trauma that was Trump never completely recedes. Every time the Democrats flub something, which happens often, the possibility of Trump’s return looms like an unwelcome visitor at the front door – a visitor clearly determined to barge in on the slightest pretext. No student loan forgiveness? No Medicare expansion? That sprouts heaps of disappointed Dem voters, too let-down and lethargic to turn out on election day. A fiasco withdrawal from Afghanistan? Here comes Trump, bellowing that he could have done it better. Inflation? Trump lies and boasts that he has the answer. Immigrants entering from Mexico? There’s Trump, whipping up a nativist frenzy, no doubt bragging that his next secretary of defense won’t stop him from sending a quarter of a million troops to the border. And don’t get started on mandatory covid vaccines or masks. He holds whole rallies denouncing those. Trump was bad enough. Efforts to dislodge him, specifically, the phony Russiagate fiasco, descended to shocking new lows. I get that Trump was a five-alarm fire and the bi-partisan war party was determined to put it out, no matter what. But sinking to “the Russians are coming?” Or a bunch of ads on Facebook had somehow undermined our putative democracy, which had, in fact, succumbed to terminal oligarchic tyranny sometime back in the Reagan administration – this was opening a Pandora’s box and we are very lucky the supersonic missiles didn’t start flying. Trump was a lethal disease (once covid arrived, literally), but the Russiagate attempt to oust him was deadly medicine. On the very unlikely chance that Trump regains power, how bad would it be? Worse than your worst nightmare. And that’s assuming the powers that be wouldn’t try to resuscitate Russophobia. First, covid would roar back, as Trump would dismantle the Biden architecture of mask and vaccine mandates. Second, he would strip government of career officials and pack it with fanatical Trump parasites, and he would do this at once, having learned from his presidency that he can’t run departments like Justice as his own personal mafia without ditching people marked by any modicum of integrity. Without doubt, he would assault the press in every way possible, up to and including arresting journalists. Trump would also cripple social security by eliminating the payroll tax. Medicare would be in his sights as well. He would inflame his base with wild fibs about migrants, who, in turn, would be brutalized even worse than they are under Biden. Trump would do everything in his power to pollute the planet and make the climate catastrophe worse. We know all this, because he did it before. The ghastly list of Trump horrors is enormous. But standing at the head of it all, looming over humanity’s future like the shadow of death, is war with China. If the human race survives a Trump Reich without nuclear war starting in Taiwan, the only explanation will be divine intervention. Which is not to rule out that explanation for why, against all odds, humanity hasn’t blown itself to smithereens and irradiated the planet in the decades since the first atomic detonations. As Biden bumbles around with China, loath to look anything but tough, refusing a clean break with Trump’s disastrously provocative policies, surrounding China with warships and planting U.S. soldiers in Taiwan, humankind’s supposed rationality seems an unlikely explanation for how it is that nuclear war has not erupted thus far. The supernatural view has much going for it. It may offend secularists, especially in the pentagon, but how else to explain our continued existence, with war maniacs in the military convinced a “limited nuclear engagement” is winnable? Indeed, Trump may belong to that select club of presidents whose arrogance matches that of our generals. Early in his presidency, he horrified some official by asking why we had H-bombs if we couldn’t use them? While it’s true he didn’t start any new wars, don’t try telling that to Chinese leadership. They clearly believed he was a nut ready to nuke them. After all, at a certain point you have to take the most powerful man on the planet at his word, and if he’s babbling about China being a threat, enemy number one and a country that deliberately concocted and released a global plague killing millions of people, because, uh, communism, well, if he’s NOT trying to provoke war, the only word for what he’s doing is stupid. Trump’s advisors reportedly recently had to talk him down from announcing that he will run for president in 2024. But he was ready to announce. How far can a charlatan go on the fib that the last election was stolen from him? Well, in Trump’s case, he’ll just recycle the lies and tell his faithful zombie followers that if he loses in 2024, it’s because Fidel Castro’s ghost rigged the voting machines. His lackeys routinely refer to the Dems as “the communist Democrats,” as if centrists like Biden, Pelosi and Schumer, well to the right of Dwight Eisenhower and the recipients of more corporate campaign cash than anyone can count, have anything remotely resembling a revolutionary bone in their bodies. True, they are not raving lunatics, nor are they out-and-out fascists like Trump and company, but the fact that these bland neoliberals are what stands between us and a twenty-first century Reich – well, God help us. For Trump it’s all a game. Toward the end of his presidency, he was asked about doing something else, and the presidential hotelier replied that he couldn’t see going back to measuring windows for curtains. Trump, you see, had fun being president. Migrant mothers may have had their toddlers ripped from their arms at the border, but Trump was enjoying himself, disparaging disabled journalists, tweeting nasty slurs about celebrities, assassinating an Iranian general, dropping super-bombs on luckless Afghans, going on a last-minute, federal death-row killing spree, demeaning various ethnic groups, banning whole peoples from entry to the U.S., prevaricating with such abandon that it took your breath away and generally going out of his way, at every opportunity, to shock and offend people of conscience. That’s what was such a hit with the MAGA morons. That’s why they loved him. He could do what they longed to do: insult people who couldn’t fight back, demonize the powerless, bully anyone who bothered him like there was no tomorrow, hint at untapped reservoirs of racism. No, he was no hypocrite like Biden, who has the decency to try to hide his defects. For his devoted followers, Trump’s failings were his strengths: his vanity, his narcissism, his boundless, thin-skinned self-love, his brazen lies, his obviously malignant motives, his greed, his infantile lust for Nobel prizes, porn stars and sculpture on Mount Rushmore – his followers reveled in it all, considered it honest, straight-shooting, because that’s what they would do in his place. Trump was the worst of us, and if we are ever so unfortunate as to have to tolerate his so-called leadership again, we can only hope for divine intervention, because short of that, any people of good will, the sane, the rational, the boringly decent who would never dream of mocking a person for a disability because, among other things, they are capable of putting themselves in someone else’s shoes, anyone with an ounce of empathy or human compassion, those people will be sunk. Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest book is Birdbrain. She can be reached at her website.
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Post by Admin on Oct 25, 2021 9:18:56 GMT
The rule of Raab: new justice secretary seeks “mechanism” to overrule ECHR Dominic Raab's plan to defy the European Court of Human Rights, and overrule the rule of law, will delight dictators worldwide yorkshirebylines.co.uk/politics/the-rule-of-raab-new-justice-secretary-seeks-mechanism-to-overrule-echr/A Sunday paper reported that Dominic Raab, reincarnated as injustice secretary after failing so badly as foreign secretary that even Boris Johnson was embarrassed, has a new project. He is apparently devising a “mechanism” to allow the government to “correct” court judgments that ministers believe are “incorrect”. Rule of Raab rather than rule of law The word for this mechanism goes back to Stalin, Hitler and Charles I. It is called ‘tyranny’. Raab appears particularly to have in his sights the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). He has long campaigned to end its jurisdiction in the UK, so it rings true that he would be working on a ‘mechanism’ to bring this about. The rule of Raab rather than the rule of law. It is important not to confuse the Strasbourg-based ECHR with the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice (ECJ), as historically illiterate and sometimes mendacious Brexiters usually do. The ECJ is the supreme court of the European Union, from which we have Brexited. The ECHR is an entirely separate institution, which exists to enforce the European Convention on human rights, which pre-dates the European Communities (which became the EU) by almost a decade. It was instigated in the late 1940s, in the wake of the Nuremberg trials, to guard against a recurrence of fascism and the Holocaust. It now includes Russia and Turkey as well as every European nation bar despotic Belarus. UK has never succumbed to fascism As the largest European state not to succumb to 20th-century fascism or communism, the UK – very much including thoughtful Conservatives, such as Churchill’s home secretary David Maxwell-Fyfe – has been the ECHR’s essential inspiration from the outset. It is a statement of fundamental liberal values, such as freedom from torture and arbitrary arrest or conviction. In more recent decades this has included banning the death penalty. The ECHR requires national courts and parliaments to bring their law into line with its judgments where it finds egregious breaches of human rights. For the UK (at least outside Northern Ireland) this has historically concerned second order issues – except, of course, to those affected – like the abolition of corporal punishment in schools and youth institutions. For Raab and co, defying the ECHR has the same nationalist ‘take back control’ populism as Brexit. When asked why, he claims that our soldiers may be in danger, although we already subscribe to the International Criminal Court in the Hague (which is another separate jurisdiction). Or, heaven forbid, that we might have to give the vote to certain categories of prisoners because of ECHR rulings. Upholding human rights as ‘global Britain’ Johnson has drawn back from formally exiting the ECHR, since such a sinister retreat from multilateralism would undermine any pretence of ‘Global Britain’. The UK would be the only European state to deny fundamental human rights, a bit of a problem in facing up to Russia, where the ECHR’s main activity at present is to try to get Alexei Navalny released from jail. As a member of the Council of Europe – the parliamentary assembly which sits alongside the ECHR and debates reports on human rights abuses four times a year – I can attest to the hawk-like way that Putin’s henchmen cite every other country in alleged breach of the ECHR, from Orbán’s Hungary to our very own Johnson over his attempt to suspend our parliament in 2019 when it wouldn’t do his bidding on Brexit. Justification of a dictator So instead, we have Raab and his ‘mechanism’ to overrule the ECHR, and maybe our Supreme Court too. Putin and Erdoğan will be extremely keen to copy this ‘mechanism’ when it is devised, since most of the ECHR’s pending cases relate to Russia and Turkey. Indeed, this may be its greatest danger. For while I suspect that our parliament won’t ultimately discard the ECHR, if Raab can make his ‘mechanism’ work, it will soon be cited hereafter by every dictator, including Xi of China, to justify their latest obscenities. And it’s not just one rogue minister here. The whole Brexit mafia believe in the rule of Raab. David Frost now says the Northern Ireland protocol of the Brexit treaty he negotiated is “provisional” and declares it must be replaced by the right of Britain to do what it likes in respect of trade in Ireland or he will withdraw from the protocol unilaterally. Priti Patel wants to allow Border Force officials to avoid prosecution if they turn boats back to France and migrants drown. As for the prime minister, the rule of law to him is basically what he can get away with, personally and constitutionally. So beware the rule of Raab. It follows on directly from Brexit and it is coming our way fast.
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Post by Admin on Oct 25, 2021 16:14:32 GMT
2020 was worst year on record for UK government secrecy Exclusive: Landmark openDemocracy report exposes depth of the government’s attack on the Freedom of Information Act www.opendemocracy.net/en/freedom-of-information/2020-was-worst-year-on-record-for-uk-government-secrecy/Last year was the worst on record for government secrecy, new research by openDemocracy has revealed. Just 41% of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests sent to government departments and agencies were granted in full in 2020, down from 43% the previous year. This is the lowest figure since records began in 2005. The findings are published in openDemocracy’s new report, ‘Access Denied’, which exposes the extent of the government's attack on FOI. It follows a major investigation by openDemocracy last year, which revealed how a secretive Cabinet Office unit called the ‘Clearing House’ vetted sensitive requests for information. A judge subsequently criticised the government for a “profound lack of transparency” that might “extend to ministers”. A parliamentary inquiry into the Clearing House – launched by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the wake of openDemocracy’s revelations – opens this week. The Access Denied report also finds that some government departments have far lower FOI disclosure rates than others, with the Cabinet Office among the worst offenders, along with the Foreign Office and the Department for International Trade. Transparency campaigners say “urgent action is required” and that there needs to be a “sea change in attitudes towards FOI within Whitehall to avoid it spiralling it into an accountability black hole”. The question has to be asked: ‘what decisions are they trying to prevent the public from knowing about?’ Earlier this year, opinion polling conducted for openDemocracy found that UK voters are seriously concerned by the government’s secrecy and its failure to answer FOI requests. It comes as the backlog of complaints sent to the information watchdog – the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – has increased by 56%. In 2020-21, it managed to complete 4,000 FOI complaints, which is the lowest number in more than a decade.
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Post by Admin on Oct 25, 2021 16:25:55 GMT
As Labour lurches to the right and continues its purge without end, it is heartening to see quite how out of tune the Party leadership and Party machine are with the younger generation. 67 per cent say they would like to live in a socialist economic system. 75 per cent agree with the assertion that climate change is a specifically capitalist problem. 78 per cent blame capitalism for Britain’s housing crisis. 72 per cent support the (re-)nationalisation of various industries such as energy, water and the railways. 72 per cent believe that private sector involvement would put the NHS at risk. 75 per cent agree with the statement that ‘socialism is a good idea, but it has failed in the past because it has been badly done’. iea.org.uk/media/67-per-cent-of-young-brits-want-a-socialist-economic-system-finds-new-poll/
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Post by Admin on Oct 25, 2021 16:50:27 GMT
Scots want poverty and inequality to be tackled, survey finds morningstaronline.co.uk/article/scots-want-poverty-and-inequality-be-tackled-survey-findsTACKLING poverty and inequality is a top concern for Scots, a new survey suggests. Just over a third of people described dealing with the problem of poverty and inequality as the top issue of concern facing Scotland right now — compared to 26 per cent who cited the economy. The first ever Understanding Scotland survey found that among those living in the most deprived neighbourhoods, 38 per cent were concerned about poverty and inequality, with less than a fifth worried about the economy. By contrast, in the least deprived areas the economy was listed as a top concern by 34 per cent. Its first poll found that the NHS is Scotland’s most trusted institution, with almost a fifth saying they trusted it “entirely” and nearly three-quarters of people giving the service a trust score of seven out of 10 or higher. The research also found that “the government and the political system more broadly, were among the least trusted institutions overall.” The research was undertaken by the Diffley Partnership, whose founder and director Mark Diffley said: “Assessing the public mood as we emerge from the pandemic and start to deal with the economic headwinds coming towards us provides sobering reading for decision-makers.”
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Post by Admin on Oct 25, 2021 17:27:35 GMT
German authorities detain neonazi anti-migrant vigilante squad patrolling border with Poland morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/german-authorities-detain-armed-nazi-anti-migrant-vigilante-squad-patrolling-borderMORE than 50 armed vigilantes who responded to calls from a neonazi group to patrol the Polish border have been detained by German police, officials confirmed on Sunday. Far-right party the Third Way, a split from the fascist National Democratic Party of Germany, had appealed for “border walks” to stop refugees from Iraq and Syria entering the country. Police detained a group of 30 near the village of Gross Gastrose late on Saturday and in the early hours of Sunday and seized weapons, including a machete and a bayonet. Residents of the border town of Guben held a rally on Saturday in opposition to the vigilante squads. "We don’t want to leave the region to the neonazis. We want to send a signal that asylum is and remains a human right,” the organisers said in a statement. Guben Mayor Fred Mahro, a Christian Democrat, said that he rejected any form of vigilantism. Meanwhile, an additional 800 police were deployed to the border to control migrant flows. “Hundreds of officers are currently on duty there day and night. If necessary, I am prepared to reinforce them even further,” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said. Speaking to the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, he hinted that the government may be prepared to build a border wall to keep migrants out. “It is legitimate for us to protect the external border in such a way that undetected border crossings are prevented,” he said. Poland has suggested constructing a €350 million (£295m) wall on its border with Belarus, accusing the latter’s government of deliberately sending migrants there in a bid to put pressure on the European Union.
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Post by Admin on Oct 25, 2021 18:31:28 GMT
The Tories are the biggest government borrowers, and have been since 1946 Posted on May 14 2020 It is often suggested that Labour is profligate and the Toriescare the naturally ‘safe pair of hands’ when it comes to running the economy. The Tories, it is presumed, do not borrow as much as Labour. This is a hypothesis I have tested before. I thought it time to update to to the end of the 2019/20 financial year. The analysis that follows is based on borrowing, as reported by the House of Commons Linbrary and other data supplied by the Office for Budget Responsibility. The government in office was decided by who was at the end of a financial year. I then calculated the total net borrowing in Labour and Conservative years and averaged them by the number of years in office. All figures are stated billions of pounds in all the tables that follow and in this case are in original values i.e. in the prices of the periods when they actually occurred: www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/05/14/the-tories-are-the-biggest-government-borrowers-since-1946/
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Post by Admin on Oct 26, 2021 19:11:08 GMT
How is fascism distinct from other extreme ideologies? These 10 traits offer clues. bigthink.com/thinking/fascism-definition-stanley/Dr. Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale, lays out the 10 traits of a fascist movement. Although authoritarian regimes may exhibit some of these traits, Dr. Stanley proposes that they only become fascist when they demonstrate all of them. This definition of fascism is broader than others but it is also easier to apply. The trouble with discussing political philosophy is that the definitions of philosophers often break down when you try to describe leaders and movements in the real world. Contradictions begin to arise, the nuances of policy begin to enter into the discussion, and questions arise over whether the candidates you see in media are really as bad as others think. Luckily, some philosophers have turned their attention to fleshing out definitions of political ideologies in ways that help them become less abstract and more concrete. One of these thinkers is Dr. Jason Stanley. He is a professor of philosophy at Yale, an expert on propaganda, and the child of refugees who fled Europe as fascism reared its ugly head. In his book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, he proposes that the notoriously slippery ideology comprises 10 traits — many of which can be found in authoritarian regimes which are not fascist — and that the combination of these traits in a regime or movement gives rise to fascism. These traits are: The Mythic Past: The creation of a mythical, idealized past to look to as a moment of national glory to which the country should return. While often based on some easily exaggerated moment in history, it needn’t be based on much at all. Leaders in fascist Italy placed a higher value on the myth itself than its historical veracity, for example. Propaganda: While many political philosophies use propaganda, fascists lean on it to establish a sense of “us and them,” and to frame “them” as an existential threat to the nation. Anti-Intellectualism: The “them” typically include intellectuals or sources of expertise that might disagree with the leadership of the government or the fascist movement. Beyond intellectuals in the humanities, leading figures in the hard sciences can also be targeted if they go against what the leader needs to be true. Unreality: Fascists tend to ignore details that might trouble them and define truth as whatever the leader declares it to be. This can make propaganda more effective because it allows for a leader to get their followers to ignore problems that might derail a more reality-based movement. It can also lead to things like the Nazis trying to find Atlantis. Hierarchy: Pretty much any fascist movement will establish a hierarchy of humanity with a particular group — be it a race, religion, sex, gender, or nation — on top and everybody else below. Equality is denied and the value of the alleged dominant group will be parroted for all to hear. Victimhood: Despite the claims of superiority, the fascist tends to also claim this group has been victimized by others — say, stabbed in the back while they were about to win World War I — and that bold action is needed to right this “wrong” and restore the hierarchy. This also tends to make equality look like discrimination against a group that isn’t being discriminated against. Law and Order: Fascists often promise to bring law and order to a nation, though they often end up more corrupt than anybody else. Sexual Anxiety: Like other right-wing movements, fascism tends to play on fears of and prejudices against homosexuality. Fascist politicians often frame themselves as protectors of women and children in the face of fanatic homosexuals out to harm them. Sodom and Gomorrah: Many authoritarian, right-wing regimes gather support from the countryside by painting the urban parts of the country as the source of decadence, cosmopolitanism, sin, crime, and moral decay. Urban elites are contrasted with the “real” citizens living a wholesome, traditional life in the country. Arbeit Macht Frei: “Work makes you free” was written above the gates at Auschwitz. Not only a dark warning, it expresses the fascist notion that only by working for the nation does a person have value or deserve to be treated as a person. Hard physical labor is often highly valued, while those working in academia or other less physical professions are often looked down on. Still, a nation that possesses only one or a few of these traits is not fascist, as Dr. Stanley told Big Think: “Each of these individual elements is not in and of itself fascist, but you have to worry when they’re all grouped together, when honest conservatives are lured into fascism by people who tell them, ‘Look, it’s an existential fight. I know you don’t accept everything we do. You don’t accept every doctrine. But your family is under threat. Your family is at risk. So without us, you’re in peril.’ Those moments are the times when we need to worry about fascism.” Dr. Stanley’s definition of fascism, as the blend of the above ideas, is a bit broader than that of other academics. We’ve considered that of professor Roger Griffin, which is significantly narrower; he limits its application to Italy and Germany during the darker parts of the 20th century. While Dr. Stanley might be able to apply his definition more widely — say, against the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet — Griffin would say that Pinochet was fascist adjacent, a pseudo-populist despot who lacked certain elements that make authoritarian right-wing governments truly fascist. (This distinction may have been lost on those his regime threw from helicopters, however.) It’s also worth noting that leftist political movements can also be authoritarian and violent; tens of millions of people died under the regimes of communist leaders like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. However, most definitions of fascism would not categorize communist regimes as fascist, in part because commustist movements generally reject private property and the concept of the nation-state. Dr. Stanley’s definition of fascism may be broad and categorize despots as fascists who would otherwise not make other lists. But his definition has the advantage of being understandable and useful for a citizen in a country that is backsliding from liberal democracy toward far-right, authoritarian nationalism. It is one framework for understanding the ideas that fueled some of the most violent political movements in human history.
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Post by Admin on Oct 27, 2021 8:21:50 GMT
‘And that’s the power of Twitter’: Ministers’ U-turn over legal controls against dumping raw sewage into waterways The change follows a public outcry after the Government instructed Tory MPs to vote down similar proposals last week. www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/and-thats-the-power-of-twitter-ministers-u-turn-over-legal-controls-against-dumping-raw-sewage-into-waterways-298454/The Government has climbed down over refusing to implement legal controls on water companies to prevent them from dumping raw sewage into rivers and seas following a voter backlash. Labour has accused ministers of conducting a U-turn in the face of public anger after Conservative MPs were last week whipped to vote down an amendment to the Environment Bill that would have placed legal obligations on water companies to stop polluting England’s waterways during heavy rainfall. But, despite ordering MPs to defeat the proposal, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Tuesday said the bill would be “further strengthened” as it looks to put in place a “duty enshrined in law” to ensure water companies “secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impacts of discharges from storm overflows”. The department said the amendment that would be brought forward in the Commons during the next stage of the Bill would be “very similar to amendment 45”, which peers were debating in the House of Lords on Tuesday – a vote the Government lost, as had been widely expected. Lords vote The Lords backed, by a majority of 153, a move to place a new legal duty on water companies to “take all reasonable steps” to prevent sewage discharges, a result that allows the Environment Bill to be sent back to the Commons where the Government will table its own amendment. Defra’s climbdown comes only hours after Downing Street had defended the decision to whip against last week’s amendment. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said it was “not right to sign a blank cheque on behalf of customers” after the Government put the cost of delivering on the terms of the Commons amendment at more than £150 billion.
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Post by Admin on Oct 27, 2021 17:39:45 GMT
BRAZIL’S MOST EFFECTIVE ANTI-FASCIST STRATEGY abeautifulresistance.org/site/2021/10/23/antifa-in-brazilIn my view, Africana womanism has been the most effective anti-fascist strategy Brazil has ever seen, tackling all realms of oppression from self-esteem to material conditions, infrastructure, community development, and, most importantly, survival. Unlike Western patriarchy, which feeds competition, individualism, and authority through the use of violence or force, the ‘matricommunity’ guarantees all the basic spiritual and practical needs [1] that a fascist government not only fails to provide, but systematically deprives in order to marginalize and exterminate an unwanted contingent of the population. “Models of matriarchal and community societies embarked on the memories of the youth of enslaved black women and existential baggage deposited on their bodies endured all the massacre and the pain and restored strength so as to guarantee the commitment to reorganize the civilization trail of the dispersed black people, outside Africa. [...] [R]ecreating links with communities, the vast majority of whom are black, a population that is shattered by colonialist and Judeo-Christian logic.” [2] Candomblé and Umbanda, as unique expressions of this matriarchal ‘ancestrality’, lay out how women and natural forces can (and should also) be Deities. To reject “God” for its association with a (Christian) State is similar to the rejection of race for its association with racism. There are many other Deities, and to reject all is to give way to a similarly pervasive secular Westernness. Moreover, these religions of the African Diaspora show how Black culture is Brazilian culture, no matter how hard Brazilian ‘fascists’ try to shun it. That is the heart of the matter when speaking of what fascism looks like in this country – There are White-passing Brazilians who do not want people who are Black, Indigenous, and poor to exist within the national milieu. In the Brazilian context, where miscegenation existed in place of segregation, the concepts of ‘white-passing’ and ‘colorism’ are present in everyone’s lives, whether acknowledged or not. Passing for White relates to colorism in the sense that although Brazilians are not White as a people, this society has a structure which rewards the ability to assimilate into Whiteness. In this case, assimilation means entering a room and not having Blackness make someone stand out. There are several ways to tone down Blackness, whether it is through changing one’s hair, clothes, behavior, or even body and facial features. The effectiveness of these attempts, and the extent to which each person is able or willing to go, informs a person’s level of passability and privilege. “Colorism means, in a simplified way, that discrimination also depends on a person’s skin tone and pigmentation. Even among black people or people of African descent, there are differences in treatment, experiences and opportunities, depending on how dark your skin is.”[3] The differences in treatment and opportunities that Santana describes above can be seen as an aspect of privilege. Having a chance to dial a racial identity up or down, depending on not only convenience but often survival, is an advantage. And when it involves a survival-mechanism in the face of White Supremacy, it is not quite the same as dialing up a non-existent marginalized racial identity as entertainment – as is the case of cultural appropriation. Therefore, this issue is not binary – Black or White, privileged or not-privileged. We can simply acknowledge there is a wide range of experiences, approaches toward identity, and personal choices. The choice to access African ancestralidade spiritually, through Brazilian religions of the African Diaspora, is to undermine the societal structure which marginally rewards those who bow to White Supremacist values. “Umbanda, like Candomblé, is a religion African origin. And, considering the assumption of the black race and racism, it is the target, or rather, the enemy of fascism. Any work that seeks to value ancestrality can be of great importance for strengthening the fight against fascism insofar as it does not induce the hierarchy of cultural values over the other. Self-respecting work must denounce the historical processes in which there was an attempt to eliminate or discriminate against the other in their cultural existence.” (Karina Ramos, Head Chef and PhD student of History, specialist in Angolan Food.) Although I’m not black, my dedication to decolonial studies has led me to learn a bit about Orixás. As I learned, I couldn’t help but incorporate beliefs. In Bahia, a northeastern Brazilian state known as the epicenter of the African Diaspora, the colloquialism for this is “botar fé”, to “to put faith” in something. This term is used not only in spiritual contexts, but also in routine conversations. You may say, “Yesterday, I was so tired after working 12 hours straight, I slept as soon as I got home”, and my response would be “boto fé”. Meaning: I have complete faith in everything you just said, I believe, understand and relate to you. Spiritually, botar fé, to me, is to know a certain power and meaning in my heart. That a swim in the salty waters of the ocean or sweet waters of a river, with intention, can clean my mind, body and soul of a myriad of things. That a tree is communicating with everything else around it, including me. That the moon has moods, my blood nourishes, a leaf may have healing properties, and a candle can send a message. I choose to put faith in all that, and more. Eu boto fé. In a world where politicians lie constantly, companies continue to wreck the Earth and our food is processed with things we can’t pronounce, we ought to think carefully about who has our faith. The recent revelation that the Paris Agreement was a sham should be enough to make us re-think where lies our belief. Botar fé in the words of institutional speeches, ingredient lists, brands, bank statements, graph curves, diplomas, signed documents… these are spiritual choices we make day after day. Many of us put faith in a system that often disappoints and annihilates, while plenty is being neglected – The living beings around us, as well as unstoppable forces of nature. We need to give them faith back. FOOTNOTES Marcel Heusinger, “Practical Challenges of Sustainable Human Development: Community-driven Development as Response,” Human Development and Capability Association's Annual International Conference: 'Human Development: Vulnerability, Inclusion and Wellbeing’ (Managua, 2013). Katiúscia Ribeiro, “Mulheres negras e a força matricomunitária,” Revista Cult 254, February 2020, 38-40. Bianca Santana, “Quem é mulher negra no Brasil? Colorismo e o mito da democracia racial,” Revista Cult, May 8, 2018. Santana is also the author of the book Quando Me Descobri Negra (‘When I Discovered Myself as Black’).
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Post by Admin on Oct 27, 2021 17:51:58 GMT
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