Earlier I mentioned the Caroline Farrow case, where a spurious report by a trans activist over a tweet lead to Surrey police attending her house and seizing all her devices for "evidence", including the iPad with bedtime stories for her autistic son.
It took a legal action and several years to make them back down and pay costs - legal action is I think continuing.
I'm not much on Caroline's political tradition - she's essentially a fairly traditionist Catholic (I *think* RC as her Vicar husband is iirc in the Ordinariate - a structure in the RC denomination for Anglican Vicars who transfer), with various affiliations around that.
But overreach and amateurishness because of overdone emphases are an experience across politics.
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
A reminder to readers: Leon is a racist, who objects to being told he shouldn’t be racist and that he should stop saying racist things. This is what he means when he says “Woke is a mortal threat”.
A straw in the wind from the Economist this week, one I have thought for a time is going to be big.
Bagehot points out (PB comments got there before) that the FT minimum wage from 2025 will be at the same level as lots of graduate jobs (if you work 48 hours its about £30K, otherwise about £25K) and that the professional graduate middle is getting squeezed. And this will have consequences, especially as the marginal tax rate on the graduate on over £25K will be 37% - 20+8+9.
IIRC minimum wage is roughly fixed to 2/3 median wage. Which means, like the definition of poverty, it is fixed into the system.
To be fair to the egregious Ms Pearson - I'll believe the police when they publish the footage and it's confirmed by an independent party to be genuine. And not one second before.
It is possible they simply have different slants on the incident.
And it's possible of course that they're all lying.
It'll be interesting to see how much of the full encounter the cams caught.
Its not like its a volatile incident happening without notice. It is a meeting with a senior antagonistic journalist at ta time of the police's choosing. There is near zero chance they don't have all of it.
The police won't have mentioned non crime hate crime, they might have mentioned hate crime but more likely public order act 1986 (yes that is how long this has been the status quo). Pearson will think she has committed no crime and is therefore justified in calling it a no crime hate crime.
"A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."
As an aside, I have never understood how chanting 'from the river to the sea' does not meet this description. As it seems to be 'threatening, abusive and insulting', and also in my view invokes racial hatred against the Jewish people.
I'm intrigued by your view darkage and tbh I don't think I've ever fully understood the opprobrium chanting 'from the river to the sea' receives.
If someone has a view that the creation of the Isreali state was wrong* and the land should revert to being a Palestinian state is there any legitimate way in which they can protest?
Andy McDonald was suspended from the Labour Party after stating in a pro-Palestine rally speech: "We won't rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty". The party described McDonald's comment as "deeply offensive". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Usage
What's 'deeply offensive' about wishing that 'all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty'?
(*For the avoidance of doubt, I fully support Isreal's right to exist.)
A belief that the creation of Israel was 'wrong' is inherently meaningless unless the believer can spell out the method by which they hope to change it. In the British context it would be equivalent to the belief that a multiracial society is 'wrong' and that we should revert to the all-white status quo ante. Anyone espousing such a view should be tasked with explaining how they propose to make it happen. Or stfu.
I believe it's called "ethnic cleansing". FOR THE PURPOSES OF CLARITY AND NOT GETTING BANNED, I AM NOT ESPOUSING IT, merely stating the facts
Ethnic cleansing has absolutely happened, many times, in history, so it is foolish to claim it is impossible. In some situations you can argue that it has been beneficial - eg the swapping of Greek/Turkish populations in the 1920s so as to make Turkey echt Turkish and Greece echt Greek was arguably a success, even though much suffering was caused en route
It largely brought to an end a bloody and seething conflict which had endured for many decades
Until very recently, ethnic cleansing (so long as it was not accompanied by excessive violence), was viewed as statesmanship, rather than a crime.
Unwanted populations just had to leave, so as to ensure the stability of the State. It happened all over Eastern Europe, after 1945.
As the world reverts to older political ethics, I expect we’ll see that again.
The Genocide Convention came into being very shortly after WWII. That does not suggest that ethnic cleansing was regarded as statesmanship.
I'd argue that just the same arguments between the "realists" and the moralists existed then as now. It's just that the scale of population displacement resulting from war in the 1940s - particularly as a proportion of the then world population - was an order of magnitude greater than now (at least 100m in China alone, for example).
As far as Eastern Europe is concerned, the politics were complicated, of course, by many on the left having sympathy with Soviet Communism, which obscured for them the brutal reality - coupled with what was seen as complicity with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Unless we're about to experience worldwide trauma on the same scale (admittedly not completely impossible), it's not a good comparison.
Genocide was a new term, in the 1940's, and not everyone saw ethnic cleansing (or as they would have called it "population transfer") as genocide. In any case, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 outlawed a number of things that had been considered normative in war, just a few years previously, like taking hostages, pillaging the defeated, summary execution of adult males in reprisal for the actions of partisans, and which would be considered normative for quite a while longer.
(As an example, Eric Priebke, who ordered the execution of 335 Italian men in 1944, in retaliation for partisans killing 33 German police, was ultimately, only found guilty of five murders. Back in 1944, it would have been in accord with the Law of Armed Conflict to execute adult Italian males at a ratio of ten to one, in retaliation for the acitons of partisans. Had he limited himself to 330 executions, he would have been acquitted.)
Are you sure on Priebke. My understanding is that he was only prosecuted for 5 murders 50 years after the event was because they were the number for which he could be held personally responsible with certainty - being 5 extras over the number ordered by his supervisor.
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
If so, it's not the only threat, and arguably swallowing the Trump garbage is an even bigger rejection of the values of the Scientific method and Western civilization.
And who could possibly have guessed it would be this group who were first to realise what they have done?
Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1h The cofounder of Muslims for Trump tells Reuters that he is disappointed to discover the president-elect's position on the US approach to Israel, Palestine and the Middle East
"Trump’s second coming marks a historic turning point, comparable in its geopolitical consequences with the Soviet collapse: the definitive end of a liberal world order. With regime change in the US, countries that relied on American protection face an unavoidable choice: arm and defend themselves, or else make peace with the rising authoritarian powers. There is no going back."
Whilst as always with gray it's yes-but-no-but-yes-but-no-but. However from that article I do take this quote";
"...In an age of scientism, it was predictable that they should turn to numbers for reassurance that the battle could be won. With all their high-tech mathematical models, the pollsters proved no better oracles than they were in 2016. The hosts of “knowledge workers” mass-produced by ideologically captured universities were exposed as knowing nothing. The future of this class is bleak..."
I've been banging on about the limits of models for some time. They are a tool for deciding between two or more options, they are not more than that. A model that tells you whether it is going to rain tomorrow is a tool for deciding whether to choose an umbrella. A model that tells you who is going to win the popular vote is a tool for deciding who to bet on. Jumping from that to "this is what is going to happen!" is a mistake and should always be abandoned when real data comes in. There is no point in using a model to see if it is raining when you have a window.
Ok, yes, and you're the man on this, but what Gray says there about the polls is total hyperbole. They did not miss by much. Essentially (on average) they called it a tie and quite a few of them gave Trump the edge. He won by 2 pts. It wasn't 49/49 it was 50/48. Big difference but also not.
There were 2 things to go on beforehand that could have pointed you either way. Ralston's analysis of NV early data said Trump. Selzer's "gold standard" old school poll of IA said Harris. The NV steer proved the one to follow.
But this ...
"The hosts of “knowledge workers” mass-produced by ideologically captured universities were exposed as knowing nothing."
Sorry, that is just grandstanding wank.
The modal result was the actual result, a Trump clean sweep of the marginals and the safe seats as expected. Absurd to say the models failed.
Mr. Malmesbury, China's also making moves in Bhutan. They have a series of border disputes with India, and Bhutan is strategically located.
Apparently, what they are doing in Tibet is in a reaction to what they saw happen in the Baltics at the end of the Soviet Union.
Stalins plans to overwhelm the local populations with ethnic Russians were not fully carried out.
The Chinese intent is not to make that mistake. IIRC they are aiming for a population 80% Han Chinese. At minimum.
Yes, it's surprising, really, that Stalin did not create an overwhelming Russian majority, in those States, if necessary, by deporting most of the locals. He didn't usually leave loose ends.
He was interrupted by a slight case of death. The plans were made and started.
See Kaliningrad, for an example of the finished product.
If some sources are to be believed he was looking at mass deporting the non-Russian population of Ukraine.
Happened of course in parts of Ukraine. E.g. Crimea. Although whether that was really ever actually 'Ukrainian' is, AIUI, questionable.
Mr. Malmesbury, China's also making moves in Bhutan. They have a series of border disputes with India, and Bhutan is strategically located.
Apparently, what they are doing in Tibet is in a reaction to what they saw happen in the Baltics at the end of the Soviet Union.
Stalins plans to overwhelm the local populations with ethnic Russians were not fully carried out.
The Chinese intent is not to make that mistake. IIRC they are aiming for a population 80% Han Chinese. At minimum.
Yes, it's surprising, really, that Stalin did not create an overwhelming Russian majority, in those States, if necessary, by deporting most of the locals. He didn't usually leave loose ends.
That wasn't the Soviet doctrine at the time.
Worldwide communism required that other ethnic states could sustain communism (which in the case of Eastern Europe meant killing or exiling to Siberia the awkward elements).
Poland's postwar borders were designed by Stalin explicitly to ensure an ethnic Polish state, for example.
Were they? Stalin regarded all Poles as potential traitors, and anti-Marxists, and treated them with extreme cruelty. Poles inside the USSR or unfortunate enough to be captured by the USSR (cf Katyn) generallyended up exiled or dead, or exiled then dead. If you look at the stats I believe Poles suffered worse under Stalin, per capita, than any other nationality; they are certainly near the top of this sad chart
Stalin's long term goal might have been the elimination of Polishness entirely
The irony is that in the long run Stalin was right, it was the Poles who rebelled against communism most effectively - Pope John Paul, Solidarnosc, etc - and thereby destroyed it in the end
God Bless Poland! A great country
The Polish 2nd republic was multi-ethnic and contained a lot of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans and Lithuanians. And Jews of course. So by moving Poland westwards and replacing the Germans in the western part largely with Poles from what is now Ukraine, Stalin did indeed create a largely monocultural state. A lot of people were deported from Lviv to Wrocław for example
Mr. Malmesbury, China's also making moves in Bhutan. They have a series of border disputes with India, and Bhutan is strategically located.
Apparently, what they are doing in Tibet is in a reaction to what they saw happen in the Baltics at the end of the Soviet Union.
Stalins plans to overwhelm the local populations with ethnic Russians were not fully carried out.
The Chinese intent is not to make that mistake. IIRC they are aiming for a population 80% Han Chinese. At minimum.
Yes, it's surprising, really, that Stalin did not create an overwhelming Russian majority, in those States, if necessary, by deporting most of the locals. He didn't usually leave loose ends.
He was interrupted by a slight case of death. The plans were made and started.
See Kaliningrad, for an example of the finished product.
If some sources are to be believed he was looking at mass deporting the non-Russian population of Ukraine.
Happened of course in parts of Ukraine. E.g. Crimea. Although whether that was really ever actually 'Ukrainian' is, AIUI, questionable.
It was until Catherine conquered it
It was a Tatar khanate (descended from the Golden Horde) and a tributary of the Ottomans. So Tatar rather than Ukrainian. Plus some Greeks and Goths
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
If so, it's not the only threat, and arguably swallowing the Trump garbage is an even bigger rejection of the values of the Scientific method and Western civilization.
Yeah, that's where I am. Woke is a mortal threat to western civilisation and makes me fear for my children's future. But Trump - actually, Putin, whom Trump enables - is a more immediate threat ti western civilisation and makes me fear for my future.
And who could possibly have guessed it would be this group who were first to realise what they have done?
Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1h The cofounder of Muslims for Trump tells Reuters that he is disappointed to discover the president-elect's position on the US approach to Israel, Palestine and the Middle East
Unless they wish to arrest you on suspicion of a crime, do you not have a fundamental right to tell the police to piss off if they come to your door, just like you do anyone else?
Unless they have a warrant, yes.
This is the bit that confuses about all these new concepts like “non-crime hate incidents”. The principle used to be simple: don’t be impolite, but absent the suspicion of a crime you could just refuse to engage with the police, and and if they persist then you ask them for name, shoulder number, station, and under what powers they are are stopping/disturbing you, and if at home whether they have a warrant.
However these odd new categories seem to break that down. The guidance around NCHIs is written as if the subject is being informed because (and only because) their personal data is being processed within the meaning of GDPR. However it seems like this process often presents as the police confronting someone over their behaviour. It’s all a bit off.
Might be easiest to just have a GDPR carve out, never tell anyone they are mentioned in an NCHI, ensure they can’t affect employment or be declared in court, and move on. Those that want to count them are happy, the police can use them as a soft form of intelligence if they want to (clogging up their systems and not adding very much), and they will have no impact on anyone’s life.
Had a hilarious incident, long ago, when my flatmate let a policeman in, who was enquiring about a crime report.
He managed (the policeman) to hit himself with his own baton. Unassisted.
And who could possibly have guessed it would be this group who were first to realise what they have done?
Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1h The cofounder of Muslims for Trump tells Reuters that he is disappointed to discover the president-elect's position on the US approach to Israel, Palestine and the Middle East
"Trump’s second coming marks a historic turning point, comparable in its geopolitical consequences with the Soviet collapse: the definitive end of a liberal world order. With regime change in the US, countries that relied on American protection face an unavoidable choice: arm and defend themselves, or else make peace with the rising authoritarian powers. There is no going back."
Whilst as always with gray it's yes-but-no-but-yes-but-no-but. However from that article I do take this quote";
"...In an age of scientism, it was predictable that they should turn to numbers for reassurance that the battle could be won. With all their high-tech mathematical models, the pollsters proved no better oracles than they were in 2016. The hosts of “knowledge workers” mass-produced by ideologically captured universities were exposed as knowing nothing. The future of this class is bleak..."
I've been banging on about the limits of models for some time. They are a tool for deciding between two or more options, they are not more than that. A model that tells you whether it is going to rain tomorrow is a tool for deciding whether to choose an umbrella. A model that tells you who is going to win the popular vote is a tool for deciding who to bet on. Jumping from that to "this is what is going to happen!" is a mistake and should always be abandoned when real data comes in. There is no point in using a model to see if it is raining when you have a window.
Ok, yes, and you're the man on this, but what Gray says there about the polls is total hyperbole. They did not miss by much. Essentially (on average) they called it a tie and quite a few of them gave Trump the edge. He won by 2 pts. It wasn't 49/49 it was 50/48. Big difference but also not.
There were 2 things to go on beforehand that could have pointed you either way. Ralston's analysis of NV early data said Trump. Selzer's "gold standard" old school poll of IA said Harris. The NV steer proved the one to follow.
But this ...
"The hosts of “knowledge workers” mass-produced by ideologically captured universities were exposed as knowing nothing."
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
A reminder to readers: Leon is a racist, who objects to being told he shouldn’t be racist and that he should stop saying racist things. This is what he means when he says “Woke is a mortal threat”.
You genuinely think repeating this drivel has some kind of effect. It's poignant
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
If so, it's not the only threat, and arguably swallowing the Trump garbage is an even bigger rejection of the values of the Scientific method and Western civilization.
Yeah, that's where I am. Woke is a mortal threat to western civilisation and makes me fear for my children's future. But Trump - actually, Putin, whom Trump enables - is a more immediate threat ti western civilisation and makes me fear for my future.
The Polar Bear on the Melting Ice Floe
As the inventor of this analogy, it seems to me that the American voters have decided the polar bear is not THAT hungry, and might actually be helpful in steering the ice floe away from lethal warmer waters, given that the end of the ice floe means everyone - bear and voters - drowns
Mr. Malmesbury, China's also making moves in Bhutan. They have a series of border disputes with India, and Bhutan is strategically located.
Apparently, what they are doing in Tibet is in a reaction to what they saw happen in the Baltics at the end of the Soviet Union.
Stalins plans to overwhelm the local populations with ethnic Russians were not fully carried out.
The Chinese intent is not to make that mistake. IIRC they are aiming for a population 80% Han Chinese. At minimum.
Yes, it's surprising, really, that Stalin did not create an overwhelming Russian majority, in those States, if necessary, by deporting most of the locals. He didn't usually leave loose ends.
He was interrupted by a slight case of death. The plans were made and started.
See Kaliningrad, for an example of the finished product.
If some sources are to be believed he was looking at mass deporting the non-Russian population of Ukraine.
Happened of course in parts of Ukraine. E.g. Crimea. Although whether that was really ever actually 'Ukrainian' is, AIUI, questionable.
It was until Catherine conquered it
Crimea was an independent country until Catherine's conquest, not part of Ukraine.
It was afterwards attached to the Novorossiya governate, what we would now call Ukraine, or to various successor entities.
In 1922 it was added to Russia to ensure Ukraine could not access the Black Sea easily, making independence much more difficult.
In 1944 the population of Tartars was mostly murdered, and replaced with a mix of Russians and Ukrainians.
In 1955 Malenkov was persuaded by Khrushchev to transfer it to the Ukrainian SSR because its power and water supplies were difficult to manage and needed to be integrated into the Ukrainian grids.
To be fair to the egregious Ms Pearson - I'll believe the police when they publish the footage and it's confirmed by an independent party to be genuine. And not one second before.
It is possible they simply have different slants on the incident.
And it's possible of course that they're all lying.
It'll be interesting to see how much of the full encounter the cams caught.
Its not like its a volatile incident happening without notice. It is a meeting with a senior antagonistic journalist at ta time of the police's choosing. There is near zero chance they don't have all of it.
The police won't have mentioned non crime hate crime, they might have mentioned hate crime but more likely public order act 1986 (yes that is how long this has been the status quo). Pearson will think she has committed no crime and is therefore justified in calling it a no crime hate crime.
"A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."
As an aside, I have never understood how chanting 'from the river to the sea' does not meet this description. As it seems to be 'threatening, abusive and insulting', and also in my view invokes racial hatred against the Jewish people.
I'm intrigued by your view darkage and tbh I don't think I've ever fully understood the opprobrium chanting 'from the river to the sea' receives.
If someone has a view that the creation of the Isreali state was wrong* and the land should revert to being a Palestinian state is there any legitimate way in which they can protest?
Andy McDonald was suspended from the Labour Party after stating in a pro-Palestine rally speech: "We won't rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty". The party described McDonald's comment as "deeply offensive". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Usage
What's 'deeply offensive' about wishing that 'all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty'?
(*For the avoidance of doubt, I fully support Isreal's right to exist.)
A belief that the creation of Israel was 'wrong' is inherently meaningless unless the believer can spell out the method by which they hope to change it. In the British context it would be equivalent to the belief that a multiracial society is 'wrong' and that we should revert to the all-white status quo ante. Anyone espousing such a view should be tasked with explaining how they propose to make it happen. Or stfu.
I believe it's called "ethnic cleansing". FOR THE PURPOSES OF CLARITY AND NOT GETTING BANNED, I AM NOT ESPOUSING IT, merely stating the facts
Ethnic cleansing has absolutely happened, many times, in history, so it is foolish to claim it is impossible. In some situations you can argue that it has been beneficial - eg the swapping of Greek/Turkish populations in the 1920s so as to make Turkey echt Turkish and Greece echt Greek was arguably a success, even though much suffering was caused en route
It largely brought to an end a bloody and seething conflict which had endured for many decades
Until very recently, ethnic cleansing (so long as it was not accompanied by excessive violence), was viewed as statesmanship, rather than a crime.
Unwanted populations just had to leave, so as to ensure the stability of the State. It happened all over Eastern Europe, after 1945.
As the world reverts to older political ethics, I expect we’ll see that again.
The Genocide Convention came into being very shortly after WWII. That does not suggest that ethnic cleansing was regarded as statesmanship.
I'd argue that just the same arguments between the "realists" and the moralists existed then as now. It's just that the scale of population displacement resulting from war in the 1940s - particularly as a proportion of the then world population - was an order of magnitude greater than now (at least 100m in China alone, for example).
As far as Eastern Europe is concerned, the politics were complicated, of course, by many on the left having sympathy with Soviet Communism, which obscured for them the brutal reality - coupled with what was seen as complicity with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Unless we're about to experience worldwide trauma on the same scale (admittedly not completely impossible), it's not a good comparison.
Genocide was a new term, in the 1940's, and not everyone saw ethnic cleansing (or as they would have called it "population transfer") as genocide. In any case, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 outlawed a number of things that had been considered normative in war, just a few years previously, like taking hostages, pillaging the defeated, summary execution of adult males in reprisal for the actions of partisans, and which would be considered normative for quite a while longer.
(As an example, Eric Priebke, who ordered the execution of 335 Italian men in 1944, in retaliation for partisans killing 33 German police, was ultimately, only found guilty of five murders. Back in 1944, it would have been in accord with the Law of Armed Conflict to execute adult Italian males at a ratio of ten to one, in retaliation for the acitons of partisans. Had he limited himself to 330 executions, he would have been acquitted.)
Are you sure on Priebke. My understanding is that he was only prosecuted for 5 murders 50 years after the event was because they were the number for which he could be held personally responsible with certainty - being 5 extras over the number ordered by his supervisor.
I'd be interested to read an account.
According to Wikipedia (and the article is not very clear) he seems to have been convicted for the massacre despite using "following orders" as a defence. He appealed, at appeal it was noted that five people more than the order had been shot, and a life sentence was equally applicable to 5 murders as it is to 335. It doesn't state what decision, if any, the appeal court came to about the other 330 murders
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
A reminder to readers: Leon is a racist, who objects to being told he shouldn’t be racist and that he should stop saying racist things. This is what he means when he says “Woke is a mortal threat”.
Mr. Malmesbury, China's also making moves in Bhutan. They have a series of border disputes with India, and Bhutan is strategically located.
Apparently, what they are doing in Tibet is in a reaction to what they saw happen in the Baltics at the end of the Soviet Union.
Stalins plans to overwhelm the local populations with ethnic Russians were not fully carried out.
The Chinese intent is not to make that mistake. IIRC they are aiming for a population 80% Han Chinese. At minimum.
Yes, it's surprising, really, that Stalin did not create an overwhelming Russian majority, in those States, if necessary, by deporting most of the locals. He didn't usually leave loose ends.
He was interrupted by a slight case of death. The plans were made and started.
See Kaliningrad, for an example of the finished product.
If some sources are to be believed he was looking at mass deporting the non-Russian population of Ukraine.
Happened of course in parts of Ukraine. E.g. Crimea. Although whether that was really ever actually 'Ukrainian' is, AIUI, questionable.
It was until Catherine conquered it
Crimea was an independent country until Catherine's conquest, not part of Ukraine.
It was afterwards attached to the Novorossiya governate, what we would now call Ukraine, or to various successor entities.
In 1922 it was added to Russia to ensure Ukraine could not access the Black Sea easily, making independence much more difficult.
In 1944 the population of Tartars was mostly murdered, and replaced with a mix of Russians and Ukrainians.
In 1955 Malenkov was persuaded by Khrushchev to transfer it to the Ukrainian SSR because its power and water supplies were difficult to manage and needed to be integrated into the Ukrainian grids.
We should send someone from the International Criminal Court there to investigate. Once they are in situ they can see if there is a crime here.
"Trump’s second coming marks a historic turning point, comparable in its geopolitical consequences with the Soviet collapse: the definitive end of a liberal world order. With regime change in the US, countries that relied on American protection face an unavoidable choice: arm and defend themselves, or else make peace with the rising authoritarian powers. There is no going back."
Whilst as always with gray it's yes-but-no-but-yes-but-no-but. However from that article I do take this quote";
"...In an age of scientism, it was predictable that they should turn to numbers for reassurance that the battle could be won. With all their high-tech mathematical models, the pollsters proved no better oracles than they were in 2016. The hosts of “knowledge workers” mass-produced by ideologically captured universities were exposed as knowing nothing. The future of this class is bleak..."
I've been banging on about the limits of models for some time. They are a tool for deciding between two or more options, they are not more than that. A model that tells you whether it is going to rain tomorrow is a tool for deciding whether to choose an umbrella. A model that tells you who is going to win the popular vote is a tool for deciding who to bet on. Jumping from that to "this is what is going to happen!" is a mistake and should always be abandoned when real data comes in. There is no point in using a model to see if it is raining when you have a window.
Ok, yes, and you're the man on this, but what Gray says there about the polls is total hyperbole. They did not miss by much. Essentially (on average) they called it a tie and quite a few of them gave Trump the edge. He won by 2 pts. It wasn't 49/49 it was 50/48. Big difference but also not.
There were 2 things to go on beforehand that could have pointed you either way. Ralston's analysis of NV early data said Trump. Selzer's "gold standard" old school poll of IA said Harris. The NV steer proved the one to follow.
But this ...
"The hosts of “knowledge workers” mass-produced by ideologically captured universities were exposed as knowing nothing."
Sorry, that is just grandstanding wank.
Isn't he a knowledge worker?
Sort of, yes. He's an opinion-monger journo, isn't he. It's a crowded field and you have to come up with 'takes' the whole time (and quickly) on stuff as it happens, so I suppose you ought to cut them some slack. I do try to.
Unless they wish to arrest you on suspicion of a crime, do you not have a fundamental right to tell the police to piss off if they come to your door, just like you do anyone else?
Unless they have a warrant, yes.
This is the bit that confuses about all these new concepts like “non-crime hate incidents”. The principle used to be simple: don’t be impolite, but absent the suspicion of a crime you could just refuse to engage with the police, and and if they persist then you ask them for name, shoulder number, station, and under what powers they are are stopping/disturbing you, and if at home whether they have a warrant.
However these odd new categories seem to break that down. The guidance around NCHIs is written as if the subject is being informed because (and only because) their personal data is being processed within the meaning of GDPR. However it seems like this process often presents as the police confronting someone over their behaviour. It’s all a bit off.
Might be easiest to just have a GDPR carve out, never tell anyone they are mentioned in an NCHI, ensure they can’t affect employment or be declared in court, and move on. Those that want to count them are happy, the police can use them as a soft form of intelligence if they want to (clogging up their systems and not adding very much), and they will have no impact on anyone’s life.
Had a hilarious incident, long ago, when my flatmate let a policeman in, who was enquiring about a crime report.
He managed (the policeman) to hit himself with his own baton. Unassisted.
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Mr. Malmesbury, China's also making moves in Bhutan. They have a series of border disputes with India, and Bhutan is strategically located.
Apparently, what they are doing in Tibet is in a reaction to what they saw happen in the Baltics at the end of the Soviet Union.
Stalins plans to overwhelm the local populations with ethnic Russians were not fully carried out.
The Chinese intent is not to make that mistake. IIRC they are aiming for a population 80% Han Chinese. At minimum.
Yes, it's surprising, really, that Stalin did not create an overwhelming Russian majority, in those States, if necessary, by deporting most of the locals. He didn't usually leave loose ends.
That wasn't the Soviet doctrine at the time.
Worldwide communism required that other ethnic states could sustain communism (which in the case of Eastern Europe meant killing or exiling to Siberia the awkward elements).
Poland's postwar borders were designed by Stalin explicitly to ensure an ethnic Polish state, for example.
Were they? Stalin regarded all Poles as potential traitors, and anti-Marxists, and treated them with extreme cruelty. Poles inside the USSR or unfortunate enough to be captured by the USSR (cf Katyn) generallyended up exiled or dead, or exiled then dead. If you look at the stats I believe Poles suffered worse under Stalin, per capita, than any other nationality; they are certainly near the top of this sad chart
Stalin's long term goal might have been the elimination of Polishness entirely
The irony is that in the long run Stalin was right, it was the Poles who rebelled against communism most effectively - Pope John Paul, Solidarnosc, etc - and thereby destroyed it in the end
God Bless Poland! A great country
The doctrine was established in the 20s - and as for 'long term goal', the states resulting lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union. (Many, of course, outlive it.)
Stalin was a pragmatist of unparalleled* brutality. Leninist doctrine was secondary.
https://www.kleiohistoricaljournal.com/post/to-what-extent-did-stalin-s-nationality-policy-in-the-south-caucasus-differ-by-ethnic-group ..Korenisatziya became official Soviet policy in 1923[25], mandating the: (a) promotion of the usage of native languages in native administrations; (b) obligatory education for workers to learn native languages; (c) establishment of native-language schools; (d) issue of newspapers, journals, and books in native languages; and crucially (e) the introduction of indigenous non-Russian populations into the cadres of government.[26] Suny surmises the policy of korenisatziya as the ”consolidation of nationality” through three important processes: the state ”support of native languages, the creation of a national intelligentsia and political elite, and the formal institutionalisation of ethnicity in [the] state apparatus.”..
*Comparable 20th C monsters believed in their mad ideologies.
To be fair to the egregious Ms Pearson - I'll believe the police when they publish the footage and it's confirmed by an independent party to be genuine. And not one second before.
It is possible they simply have different slants on the incident.
And it's possible of course that they're all lying.
It'll be interesting to see how much of the full encounter the cams caught.
Its not like its a volatile incident happening without notice. It is a meeting with a senior antagonistic journalist at ta time of the police's choosing. There is near zero chance they don't have all of it.
The police won't have mentioned non crime hate crime, they might have mentioned hate crime but more likely public order act 1986 (yes that is how long this has been the status quo). Pearson will think she has committed no crime and is therefore justified in calling it a no crime hate crime.
"A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."
As an aside, I have never understood how chanting 'from the river to the sea' does not meet this description. As it seems to be 'threatening, abusive and insulting', and also in my view invokes racial hatred against the Jewish people.
I'm intrigued by your view darkage and tbh I don't think I've ever fully understood the opprobrium chanting 'from the river to the sea' receives.
If someone has a view that the creation of the Isreali state was wrong* and the land should revert to being a Palestinian state is there any legitimate way in which they can protest?
Andy McDonald was suspended from the Labour Party after stating in a pro-Palestine rally speech: "We won't rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty". The party described McDonald's comment as "deeply offensive". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Usage
What's 'deeply offensive' about wishing that 'all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty'?
(*For the avoidance of doubt, I fully support Isreal's right to exist.)
A belief that the creation of Israel was 'wrong' is inherently meaningless unless the believer can spell out the method by which they hope to change it. In the British context it would be equivalent to the belief that a multiracial society is 'wrong' and that we should revert to the all-white status quo ante. Anyone espousing such a view should be tasked with explaining how they propose to make it happen. Or stfu.
I believe it's called "ethnic cleansing". FOR THE PURPOSES OF CLARITY AND NOT GETTING BANNED, I AM NOT ESPOUSING IT, merely stating the facts
Ethnic cleansing has absolutely happened, many times, in history, so it is foolish to claim it is impossible. In some situations you can argue that it has been beneficial - eg the swapping of Greek/Turkish populations in the 1920s so as to make Turkey echt Turkish and Greece echt Greek was arguably a success, even though much suffering was caused en route
It largely brought to an end a bloody and seething conflict which had endured for many decades
Until very recently, ethnic cleansing (so long as it was not accompanied by excessive violence), was viewed as statesmanship, rather than a crime.
Unwanted populations just had to leave, so as to ensure the stability of the State. It happened all over Eastern Europe, after 1945.
As the world reverts to older political ethics, I expect we’ll see that again.
The Genocide Convention came into being very shortly after WWII. That does not suggest that ethnic cleansing was regarded as statesmanship.
I'd argue that just the same arguments between the "realists" and the moralists existed then as now. It's just that the scale of population displacement resulting from war in the 1940s - particularly as a proportion of the then world population - was an order of magnitude greater than now (at least 100m in China alone, for example).
As far as Eastern Europe is concerned, the politics were complicated, of course, by many on the left having sympathy with Soviet Communism, which obscured for them the brutal reality - coupled with what was seen as complicity with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Unless we're about to experience worldwide trauma on the same scale (admittedly not completely impossible), it's not a good comparison.
If Trump follows through on his deportations promises, that could be the forcible ejection of ten million people from the USA (or more)
Perhaps not a good time to tempt Fate
Interesting what happens to the (likely very numerous) white collar and high paid workers within that 10 million number. Will the administration quietly make exceptions so that everyone it actually deports is low paid working class, or will it carry out its promises to the letter?
That’s a significant brain drain that we could potentially be in the bidding for. Though Canada is the most obvious destination, as are the richer Latin American and Asian source countries.
I highly doubt there will be many high paid and white collar workers deported from the US. High paid immigrants tend to be in the US legally, and even if not can usually afford the lawyers etc necessary to jam the process up. In practice you're probably looking at poor border jumpers working illegally below minimum wage.
But I actually think that, though there will be a few deportations, the number will probably be in the tens or hundreds of thousands rather than millions, because of all the logistical and legal problems, if they manage to deport anyone at all. And many of them will probably try to jump the border again the moment they get the chance. It won't be the first time that Trump has talked big and delivered nothing but disruption and chaos.
"the number will probably be in the tens or hundreds of thousands rather than millions"
To be fair to the egregious Ms Pearson - I'll believe the police when they publish the footage and it's confirmed by an independent party to be genuine. And not one second before.
It is possible they simply have different slants on the incident.
And it's possible of course that they're all lying.
It'll be interesting to see how much of the full encounter the cams caught.
Its not like its a volatile incident happening without notice. It is a meeting with a senior antagonistic journalist at ta time of the police's choosing. There is near zero chance they don't have all of it.
The police won't have mentioned non crime hate crime, they might have mentioned hate crime but more likely public order act 1986 (yes that is how long this has been the status quo). Pearson will think she has committed no crime and is therefore justified in calling it a no crime hate crime.
"A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."
As an aside, I have never understood how chanting 'from the river to the sea' does not meet this description. As it seems to be 'threatening, abusive and insulting', and also in my view invokes racial hatred against the Jewish people.
I'm intrigued by your view darkage and tbh I don't think I've ever fully understood the opprobrium chanting 'from the river to the sea' receives.
If someone has a view that the creation of the Isreali state was wrong* and the land should revert to being a Palestinian state is there any legitimate way in which they can protest?
Andy McDonald was suspended from the Labour Party after stating in a pro-Palestine rally speech: "We won't rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty". The party described McDonald's comment as "deeply offensive". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Usage
What's 'deeply offensive' about wishing that 'all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty'?
(*For the avoidance of doubt, I fully support Isreal's right to exist.)
A belief that the creation of Israel was 'wrong' is inherently meaningless unless the believer can spell out the method by which they hope to change it. In the British context it would be equivalent to the belief that a multiracial society is 'wrong' and that we should revert to the all-white status quo ante. Anyone espousing such a view should be tasked with explaining how they propose to make it happen. Or stfu.
I believe it's called "ethnic cleansing". FOR THE PURPOSES OF CLARITY AND NOT GETTING BANNED, I AM NOT ESPOUSING IT, merely stating the facts
Ethnic cleansing has absolutely happened, many times, in history, so it is foolish to claim it is impossible. In some situations you can argue that it has been beneficial - eg the swapping of Greek/Turkish populations in the 1920s so as to make Turkey echt Turkish and Greece echt Greek was arguably a success, even though much suffering was caused en route
It largely brought to an end a bloody and seething conflict which had endured for many decades
Until very recently, ethnic cleansing (so long as it was not accompanied by excessive violence), was viewed as statesmanship, rather than a crime.
Unwanted populations just had to leave, so as to ensure the stability of the State. It happened all over Eastern Europe, after 1945.
As the world reverts to older political ethics, I expect we’ll see that again.
The Genocide Convention came into being very shortly after WWII. That does not suggest that ethnic cleansing was regarded as statesmanship.
I'd argue that just the same arguments between the "realists" and the moralists existed then as now. It's just that the scale of population displacement resulting from war in the 1940s - particularly as a proportion of the then world population - was an order of magnitude greater than now (at least 100m in China alone, for example).
As far as Eastern Europe is concerned, the politics were complicated, of course, by many on the left having sympathy with Soviet Communism, which obscured for them the brutal reality - coupled with what was seen as complicity with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Unless we're about to experience worldwide trauma on the same scale (admittedly not completely impossible), it's not a good comparison.
Genocide was a new term, in the 1940's, and not everyone saw ethnic cleansing (or as they would have called it "population transfer") as genocide. In any case, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 outlawed a number of things that had been considered normative in war, just a few years previously, like taking hostages, pillaging the defeated, summary execution of adult males in reprisal for the actions of partisans, and which would be considered normative for quite a while longer.
(As an example, Eric Priebke, who ordered the execution of 335 Italian men in 1944, in retaliation for partisans killing 33 German police, was ultimately, only found guilty of five murders. Back in 1944, it would have been in accord with the Law of Armed Conflict to execute adult Italian males at a ratio of ten to one, in retaliation for the acitons of partisans. Had he limited himself to 330 executions, he would have been acquitted.)
Are you sure on Priebke. My understanding is that he was only prosecuted for 5 murders 50 years after the event was because they were the number for which he could be held personally responsible with certainty - being 5 extras over the number ordered by his supervisor.
I'd be interested to read an account.
The Court’s reasoning was explained to me in detail by Matthias Strohn, who’s Professor of Military History at Buckingham.
I’d expressed surprise when he said that the execution of adult male civilians, in reprisal for partisan killings, was considered lawful on all sides in WWII.
In fact the British and Americans threatened retaliatory executions of male civilians when they advanced into Germany, and feared that Werwolf would be an effective guerilla army.
Unless they wish to arrest you on suspicion of a crime, do you not have a fundamental right to tell the police to piss off if they come to your door, just like you do anyone else?
Unless they have a warrant, yes.
This is the bit that confuses about all these new concepts like “non-crime hate incidents”. The principle used to be simple: don’t be impolite, but absent the suspicion of a crime you could just refuse to engage with the police, and and if they persist then you ask them for name, shoulder number, station, and under what powers they are are stopping/disturbing you, and if at home whether they have a warrant.
However these odd new categories seem to break that down. The guidance around NCHIs is written as if the subject is being informed because (and only because) their personal data is being processed within the meaning of GDPR. However it seems like this process often presents as the police confronting someone over their behaviour. It’s all a bit off.
Might be easiest to just have a GDPR carve out, never tell anyone they are mentioned in an NCHI, ensure they can’t affect employment or be declared in court, and move on. Those that want to count them are happy, the police can use them as a soft form of intelligence if they want to (clogging up their systems and not adding very much), and they will have no impact on anyone’s life.
Had a hilarious incident, long ago, when my flatmate let a policeman in, who was enquiring about a crime report.
He managed (the policeman) to hit himself with his own baton. Unassisted.
Are you sure it wasn't in response to something you were explaining to him, Malmesbury?
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
And who could possibly have guessed it would be this group who were first to realise what they have done?
Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1h The cofounder of Muslims for Trump tells Reuters that he is disappointed to discover the president-elect's position on the US approach to Israel, Palestine and the Middle East
Unless they wish to arrest you on suspicion of a crime, do you not have a fundamental right to tell the police to piss off if they come to your door, just like you do anyone else?
Unless they have a warrant, yes.
This is the bit that confuses about all these new concepts like “non-crime hate incidents”. The principle used to be simple: don’t be impolite, but absent the suspicion of a crime you could just refuse to engage with the police, and and if they persist then you ask them for name, shoulder number, station, and under what powers they are are stopping/disturbing you, and if at home whether they have a warrant.
However these odd new categories seem to break that down. The guidance around NCHIs is written as if the subject is being informed because (and only because) their personal data is being processed within the meaning of GDPR. However it seems like this process often presents as the police confronting someone over their behaviour. It’s all a bit off.
Might be easiest to just have a GDPR carve out, never tell anyone they are mentioned in an NCHI, ensure they can’t affect employment or be declared in court, and move on. Those that want to count them are happy, the police can use them as a soft form of intelligence if they want to (clogging up their systems and not adding very much), and they will have no impact on anyone’s life.
Had a hilarious incident, long ago, when my flatmate let a policeman in, who was enquiring about a crime report.
He managed (the policeman) to hit himself with his own baton. Unassisted.
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it m’lud”.
I came back from an outing to discover him on the hall. He’d been asking about a crime that had happened in the street.
In the hall was a Kukri in a glazed case. The policeman was telling my flatmate that it was a dangerous weapon and should be removed. I said no. Before I could do anything, the policeman flicked out his telescopic batten and tried to break the glass.
Except I had used tough plexiglass. The rebound hit him straight on the fore head. He then tried to remove the case from the wall. It was solidly attached - he couldn’t move it.
He then left.
Not sure under what powers he thought he could smash up the furniture…
Mr. Malmesbury, China's also making moves in Bhutan. They have a series of border disputes with India, and Bhutan is strategically located.
Apparently, what they are doing in Tibet is in a reaction to what they saw happen in the Baltics at the end of the Soviet Union.
Stalins plans to overwhelm the local populations with ethnic Russians were not fully carried out.
The Chinese intent is not to make that mistake. IIRC they are aiming for a population 80% Han Chinese. At minimum.
Yes, it's surprising, really, that Stalin did not create an overwhelming Russian majority, in those States, if necessary, by deporting most of the locals. He didn't usually leave loose ends.
He was interrupted by a slight case of death. The plans were made and started.
See Kaliningrad, for an example of the finished product.
If some sources are to be believed he was looking at mass deporting the non-Russian population of Ukraine.
Happened of course in parts of Ukraine. E.g. Crimea. Although whether that was really ever actually 'Ukrainian' is, AIUI, questionable.
Mr. Malmesbury, China's also making moves in Bhutan. They have a series of border disputes with India, and Bhutan is strategically located.
Apparently, what they are doing in Tibet is in a reaction to what they saw happen in the Baltics at the end of the Soviet Union.
Stalins plans to overwhelm the local populations with ethnic Russians were not fully carried out.
The Chinese intent is not to make that mistake. IIRC they are aiming for a population 80% Han Chinese. At minimum.
Yes, it's surprising, really, that Stalin did not create an overwhelming Russian majority, in those States, if necessary, by deporting most of the locals. He didn't usually leave loose ends.
That wasn't the Soviet doctrine at the time.
Worldwide communism required that other ethnic states could sustain communism (which in the case of Eastern Europe meant killing or exiling to Siberia the awkward elements).
Poland's postwar borders were designed by Stalin explicitly to ensure an ethnic Polish state, for example.
Were they? Stalin regarded all Poles as potential traitors, and anti-Marxists, and treated them with extreme cruelty. Poles inside the USSR or unfortunate enough to be captured by the USSR (cf Katyn) generallyended up exiled or dead, or exiled then dead. If you look at the stats I believe Poles suffered worse under Stalin, per capita, than any other nationality; they are certainly near the top of this sad chart
Stalin's long term goal might have been the elimination of Polishness entirely
The irony is that in the long run Stalin was right, it was the Poles who rebelled against communism most effectively - Pope John Paul, Solidarnosc, etc - and thereby destroyed it in the end
God Bless Poland! A great country
The Polish 2nd republic was multi-ethnic and contained a lot of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans and Lithuanians. And Jews of course. So by moving Poland westwards and replacing the Germans in the western part largely with Poles from what is now Ukraine, Stalin did indeed create a largely monocultural state. A lot of people were deported from Lviv to Wrocław for example
That was absolutely deliberate policy. The pragmatic Polish nationalists accepted the new borders as permanent - before the Germans did - which was remarkably far sighted of them.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
To be fair to the egregious Ms Pearson - I'll believe the police when they publish the footage and it's confirmed by an independent party to be genuine. And not one second before.
It is possible they simply have different slants on the incident.
And it's possible of course that they're all lying.
It'll be interesting to see how much of the full encounter the cams caught.
Its not like its a volatile incident happening without notice. It is a meeting with a senior antagonistic journalist at ta time of the police's choosing. There is near zero chance they don't have all of it.
The police won't have mentioned non crime hate crime, they might have mentioned hate crime but more likely public order act 1986 (yes that is how long this has been the status quo). Pearson will think she has committed no crime and is therefore justified in calling it a no crime hate crime.
"A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."
As an aside, I have never understood how chanting 'from the river to the sea' does not meet this description. As it seems to be 'threatening, abusive and insulting', and also in my view invokes racial hatred against the Jewish people.
I'm intrigued by your view darkage and tbh I don't think I've ever fully understood the opprobrium chanting 'from the river to the sea' receives.
If someone has a view that the creation of the Isreali state was wrong* and the land should revert to being a Palestinian state is there any legitimate way in which they can protest?
Andy McDonald was suspended from the Labour Party after stating in a pro-Palestine rally speech: "We won't rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty". The party described McDonald's comment as "deeply offensive". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Usage
What's 'deeply offensive' about wishing that 'all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty'?
(*For the avoidance of doubt, I fully support Isreal's right to exist.)
A belief that the creation of Israel was 'wrong' is inherently meaningless unless the believer can spell out the method by which they hope to change it. In the British context it would be equivalent to the belief that a multiracial society is 'wrong' and that we should revert to the all-white status quo ante. Anyone espousing such a view should be tasked with explaining how they propose to make it happen. Or stfu.
I believe it's called "ethnic cleansing". FOR THE PURPOSES OF CLARITY AND NOT GETTING BANNED, I AM NOT ESPOUSING IT, merely stating the facts
Ethnic cleansing has absolutely happened, many times, in history, so it is foolish to claim it is impossible. In some situations you can argue that it has been beneficial - eg the swapping of Greek/Turkish populations in the 1920s so as to make Turkey echt Turkish and Greece echt Greek was arguably a success, even though much suffering was caused en route
It largely brought to an end a bloody and seething conflict which had endured for many decades
Until very recently, ethnic cleansing (so long as it was not accompanied by excessive violence), was viewed as statesmanship, rather than a crime.
Unwanted populations just had to leave, so as to ensure the stability of the State. It happened all over Eastern Europe, after 1945.
As the world reverts to older political ethics, I expect we’ll see that again.
The Genocide Convention came into being very shortly after WWII. That does not suggest that ethnic cleansing was regarded as statesmanship.
I'd argue that just the same arguments between the "realists" and the moralists existed then as now. It's just that the scale of population displacement resulting from war in the 1940s - particularly as a proportion of the then world population - was an order of magnitude greater than now (at least 100m in China alone, for example).
As far as Eastern Europe is concerned, the politics were complicated, of course, by many on the left having sympathy with Soviet Communism, which obscured for them the brutal reality - coupled with what was seen as complicity with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Unless we're about to experience worldwide trauma on the same scale (admittedly not completely impossible), it's not a good comparison.
If Trump follows through on his deportations promises, that could be the forcible ejection of ten million people from the USA (or more)
Perhaps not a good time to tempt Fate
Interesting what happens to the (likely very numerous) white collar and high paid workers within that 10 million number. Will the administration quietly make exceptions so that everyone it actually deports is low paid working class, or will it carry out its promises to the letter?
That’s a significant brain drain that we could potentially be in the bidding for. Though Canada is the most obvious destination, as are the richer Latin American and Asian source countries.
I highly doubt there will be many high paid and white collar workers deported from the US. High paid immigrants tend to be in the US legally, and even if not can usually afford the lawyers etc necessary to jam the process up. In practice you're probably looking at poor border jumpers working illegally below minimum wage.
But I actually think that, though there will be a few deportations, the number will probably be in the tens or hundreds of thousands rather than millions, because of all the logistical and legal problems, if they manage to deport anyone at all. And many of them will probably try to jump the border again the moment they get the chance. It won't be the first time that Trump has talked big and delivered nothing but disruption and chaos.
"the number will probably be in the tens or hundreds of thousands rather than millions"
A neat illustration of the gulf between what MAGA believes, and the reality. Trump could claim to have achieved his promises if he were merely to pursue the policies rejected in the compromise bill on immigration last year. I doubt he'll do that, though. I expect something considerably more draconian.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
It didnt happen overnight, no. It started with the Public Order Act 1986 under Comrade Thatcher. The most recent review giving current guidelines was conducted by Trotskyite Braverman.
Why are you happy to live in fantasy land of made up stuff rather than face reality? Pretty pathetic.
Unless they wish to arrest you on suspicion of a crime, do you not have a fundamental right to tell the police to piss off if they come to your door, just like you do anyone else?
Unless they have a warrant, yes.
This is the bit that confuses about all these new concepts like “non-crime hate incidents”. The principle used to be simple: don’t be impolite, but absent the suspicion of a crime you could just refuse to engage with the police, and and if they persist then you ask them for name, shoulder number, station, and under what powers they are are stopping/disturbing you, and if at home whether they have a warrant.
However these odd new categories seem to break that down. The guidance around NCHIs is written as if the subject is being informed because (and only because) their personal data is being processed within the meaning of GDPR. However it seems like this process often presents as the police confronting someone over their behaviour. It’s all a bit off.
Might be easiest to just have a GDPR carve out, never tell anyone they are mentioned in an NCHI, ensure they can’t affect employment or be declared in court, and move on. Those that want to count them are happy, the police can use them as a soft form of intelligence if they want to (clogging up their systems and not adding very much), and they will have no impact on anyone’s life.
Had a hilarious incident, long ago, when my flatmate let a policeman in, who was enquiring about a crime report.
He managed (the policeman) to hit himself with his own baton. Unassisted.
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it m’lud”.
I came back from an outing to discover him on the hall. He’d been asking about a crime that had happened in the street.
In the hall was a Kukri in a glazed case. The policeman was telling my flatmate that it was a dangerous weapon and should be removed. I said no. Before I could do anything, the policeman flicked out his telescopic batten and tried to break the glass.
Except I had used tough plexiglass. The rebound hit him straight on the fore head. He then tried to remove the case from the wall. It was solidly attached - he couldn’t move it.
He then left.
Not sure under what powers he thought he could smash up the furniture…
Heh. Makes me wonder where my grandfather’s Kukri went.
That one was never in a case, and I fondly remember taking it off the wall to play with as a kid. Still have all my limbs though, and so does my brother and cousins.
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
My point exactly. Holding that (bizarre imo but whatever) view can lead a person to feel good about America being delivered into the hands of a narcissistic hate-mongering conman.
New: North Korea sent Russia 50 domestically produced 170mm M1989 “Koksan” self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems that can fire standard rockets and guided ones, according to Ukraine. Some were sent to Kursk region. https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1857777843200999559
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
My point exactly. Holding that (bizarre imo but whatever) view can lead a person to feel good about America being delivered into the hands of a narcissistic hate-mongering conman.
To be serious (i'm in a slightly playful mood, being home and proud of my exciting jeju jams in my pantry) I think Trump is just the beginning, not the culinination, a harbinger rather than the ne plus ultra
Unless things change fast and dramatically, Europeans will elect hardmen that make Trump look like your caricature of him, a silly, biliious narcissistic conman
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
New: North Korea sent Russia 50 domestically produced 170mm M1989 “Koksan” self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems that can fire standard rockets and guided ones, according to Ukraine. Some were sent to Kursk region. https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1857777843200999559
170mm? Odd calibre. The Russians don’t use that do they? Will make logistics an arse.
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
My point exactly. Holding that (bizarre imo but whatever) view can lead a person to feel good about America being delivered into the hands of a narcissistic hate-mongering conman.
To be serious (i'm in a slightly playful mood, being home and proud of my exciting jeju jams in my pantry) I think Trump is just the beginning, not the culinination, a harbinger rather than the ne plus ultra
Unless things change fast and dramatically, Europeans will elect hardmen that make Trump look like your caricature of him, a silly, biliious narcissistic conman
Well, you've described him pretty well there although you missed out 'decrepit' and 'corrupt.'
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
My point exactly. Holding that (bizarre imo but whatever) view can lead a person to feel good about America being delivered into the hands of a narcissistic hate-mongering conman.
To be serious (i'm in a slightly playful mood, being home and proud of my exciting jeju jams in my pantry) I think Trump is just the beginning, not the culinination, a harbinger rather than the ne plus ultra
Unless things change fast and dramatically, Europeans will elect hardmen that make Trump look like your caricature of him, a silly, biliious narcissistic conman
Well to return the seriousness - yes that's a worry. Trump's win empowers and validates those attitudes, and they're already rife.
Anyway, must be off. He's mewing at me and swishing his tail. Needs some Whiskas.
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Let me reflect on that for the afternoon, and I'll come back with an answer later and tag you in.
New: North Korea sent Russia 50 domestically produced 170mm M1989 “Koksan” self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems that can fire standard rockets and guided ones, according to Ukraine. Some were sent to Kursk region. https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1857777843200999559
170mm? Odd calibre. The Russians don’t use that do they? Will make logistics an arse.
Yes, awkward. But the N Koreans do have a LOT of ammunition.
"Trump’s second coming marks a historic turning point, comparable in its geopolitical consequences with the Soviet collapse: the definitive end of a liberal world order. With regime change in the US, countries that relied on American protection face an unavoidable choice: arm and defend themselves, or else make peace with the rising authoritarian powers. There is no going back."
Whilst as always with gray it's yes-but-no-but-yes-but-no-but. However from that article I do take this quote";
"...In an age of scientism, it was predictable that they should turn to numbers for reassurance that the battle could be won. With all their high-tech mathematical models, the pollsters proved no better oracles than they were in 2016. The hosts of “knowledge workers” mass-produced by ideologically captured universities were exposed as knowing nothing. The future of this class is bleak..."
I've been banging on about the limits of models for some time. They are a tool for deciding between two or more options, they are not more than that. A model that tells you whether it is going to rain tomorrow is a tool for deciding whether to choose an umbrella. A model that tells you who is going to win the popular vote is a tool for deciding who to bet on. Jumping from that to "this is what is going to happen!" is a mistake and should always be abandoned when real data comes in. There is no point in using a model to see if it is raining when you have a window.
Ok, yes, and you're the man on this, but what Gray says there about the polls is total hyperbole. They did not miss by much. Essentially (on average) they called it a tie and quite a few of them gave Trump the edge. He won by 2 pts. It wasn't 49/49 it was 50/48. Big difference but also not.
There were 2 things to go on beforehand that could have pointed you either way. Ralston's analysis of NV early data said Trump. Selzer's "gold standard" old school poll of IA said Harris. The NV steer proved the one to follow.
But this ...
"The hosts of “knowledge workers” mass-produced by ideologically captured universities were exposed as knowing nothing."
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
My point exactly. Holding that (bizarre imo but whatever) view can lead a person to feel good about America being delivered into the hands of a narcissistic hate-mongering conman.
To be serious (i'm in a slightly playful mood, being home and proud of my exciting jeju jams in my pantry) I think Trump is just the beginning, not the culinination, a harbinger rather than the ne plus ultra
Unless things change fast and dramatically, Europeans will elect hardmen that make Trump look like your caricature of him, a silly, biliious narcissistic conman
Well to return the seriousness - yes that's a worry. Trump's win empowers and validates those attitudes, and they're already rife.
Anyway, must be off. He's mewing at me and swishing his tail. Needs some Whiskas.
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Let me reflect on that for the afternoon, and I'll come back with an answer later and tag you in.
My other half was gradually losing non-bot followers on Twitter over the last year or so, and has been on Bluesky for a while, but with a far lower follower count.
In the last couple of weeks, they're up to 5k followers which is roughly half where they were at on the other place, but there are far fewer bots.
Well as somebody on the left who is sympathetic to the “culture war” I’m saying I’ve given up. I can’t be alone in that thought.
GE2024 was barely about culture, that issue as far as I can see seems to be receding.
You won, I lost. It’s the economy that matters now - and funnily enough that is all that SKS seems to be focussing on?
I think you’re missing that point that the “other side” to you thinks you have already won, and they need to reverse your victories. They would point at lots of EDI type policies to show why.
Burgum as Interior Secretary is one of Trump's very few sane appointments this time around.
At the risk of triggering some here, he seems onboard with the 15min neighbourhood concept.
https://x.com/AlecStapp/status/1857482478438724063 ..So I think one of the things that that we have to look at as country, our housing costs are high in part because of the way that we've designed our cities. Check out form-based code. There's some really interesting things that are there.
And you guys talked about beginning the granny flats and other stuff, but part of is we've got to get the coffee shop, the barber shop and law firms back into residential neighborhoods in ways that can help lower the cost and create services where you don't need a car for everything."..
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Let me reflect on that for the afternoon, and I'll come back with an answer later and tag you in.
My other half was gradually losing non-bot followers on Twitter over the last year or so, and has been on Bluesky for a while, but with a far lower follower count.
In the last couple of weeks, they're up to 5k followers which is roughly half where they were at on the other place, but there are far fewer bots.
It's work in progress. But the difference is that it's designed to avoid becoming the kind of sewer Musk appears determined that his X should be.
With critical mass it could replace Twitter, but that's far from a certainty. The Musk site is still useful, despite the increased effort required of users to keep it do.
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Let me reflect on that for the afternoon, and I'll come back with an answer later and tag you in.
My other half was gradually losing non-bot followers on Twitter over the last year or so, and has been on Bluesky for a while, but with a far lower follower count.
In the last couple of weeks, they're up to 5k followers which is roughly half where they were at on the other place, but there are far fewer bots.
I assume Threads is doing ok just by capturing those of us with an Instagram account? Is Bluesky more popular?
I dumped Twitter years ago and find Threads to be unobjectionable but not something I actively scroll through because it doesn’t have the peak Twitter benefit of it feeling like EVERYONE is on it; and the algorithm making it a useful amalgamator for live news events. I don’t think anything will ever quite be that again now the audience has split.
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
I think that is right, that the new situation will have similar problems and contradictions. However the calculation that I have made is that its arrival is inevitable, and now is the time to embrace it, because the status quo is probably beyond the point of saving.
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Let me reflect on that for the afternoon, and I'll come back with an answer later and tag you in.
My other half was gradually losing non-bot followers on Twitter over the last year or so, and has been on Bluesky for a while, but with a far lower follower count.
In the last couple of weeks, they're up to 5k followers which is roughly half where they were at on the other place, but there are far fewer bots.
It's work in progress. But the difference is that it's designed to avoid becoming the kind of sewer Musk appears determined that his X should be.
With critical mass it could replace Twitter, but that's far from a certainty. The Musk site is still useful, despite the increased effort required of users to keep it do.
My biggest issues with Twix currently are: *) Bots, bots and more bots. *) Musk's latest brainfarts being put at the top of your feed. *) Porn in too many random threads.
As for the latter: I don't mind porn, but I don't want to be perusing a thread about steam trains only to see a scantily or non-clad woman in it. The posts are getting everywhere. Twix seem to have a handle on it for a few weeks (or I see less of it...) but then it becomes infested again.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
"This thing is bad. We must use it against those we hate"
You could, y'know...just disassemble it?
If recording non-crime-hate-incident reports is bad... stop recording them. My preference would be to deindividualize them, aggregate the data and use it for statistical purposes. Ideally move it under the ONS and away from the criminal justice system.
New: North Korea sent Russia 50 domestically produced 170mm M1989 “Koksan” self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems that can fire standard rockets and guided ones, according to Ukraine. Some were sent to Kursk region. https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1857777843200999559
170mm? Odd calibre. The Russians don’t use that do they? Will make logistics an arse.
Well as somebody on the left who is sympathetic to the “culture war” I’m saying I’ve given up. I can’t be alone in that thought.
GE2024 was barely about culture, that issue as far as I can see seems to be receding.
You won, I lost. It’s the economy that matters now - and funnily enough that is all that SKS seems to be focussing on?
I think you’re missing that point that the “other side” to you thinks you have already won, and they need to reverse your victories. They would point at lots of EDI type policies to show why.
I don’t think “we” have won, if you consider me as part of any group which I don’t.
But regardless, as I said things are being pushed back. We’ve defined what a woman is as the PM said during the election, Cass is being implemented, etc.
I find it hard to conclude the other side hasn’t won. It will just take time to roll it back that’s all.
Burgum as Interior Secretary is one of Trump's very few sane appointments this time around.
At the risk of triggering some here, he seems onboard with the 15min neighbourhood concept.
https://x.com/AlecStapp/status/1857482478438724063 ..So I think one of the things that that we have to look at as country, our housing costs are high in part because of the way that we've designed our cities. Check out form-based code. There's some really interesting things that are there.
And you guys talked about beginning the granny flats and other stuff, but part of is we've got to get the coffee shop, the barber shop and law firms back into residential neighborhoods in ways that can help lower the cost and create services where you don't need a car for everything."..
So in the US you need a lawyer as often as you need a coffee or the barber? I haven't used a lawyer since moving house. Although that does remind me I ought to update my will.
Well as somebody on the left who is sympathetic to the “culture war” I’m saying I’ve given up. I can’t be alone in that thought.
GE2024 was barely about culture, that issue as far as I can see seems to be receding.
You won, I lost. It’s the economy that matters now - and funnily enough that is all that SKS seems to be focussing on?
I think you’re missing that point that the “other side” to you thinks you have already won, and they need to reverse your victories. They would point at lots of EDI type policies to show why.
I don’t think “we” have won, if you consider me as part of any group which I don’t.
But regardless, as I said things are being pushed back. We’ve defined what a woman is as the PM said during the election, Cass is being implemented, etc.
I find it hard to conclude the other side hasn’t won. It will just take time to roll it back that’s all.
“They” consider you to be part of a group. That’s the point. The “progressive” side of this argument will always be lots of disassociated smaller groups after different rights and changes, unified only by a general liberal choice to permit the requests; while the opposition is much more of a block which sees the links, and takes a different view about one right impeding another. So it will always look different to you than to “them”.
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
America reelecting Trump is certainly a world-changing event. It doesn't change the challenges we face, but it makes most of them more difficult and adds a new one. It's hard to see an upside to it unless you're one of these people that views "woke" as some sort of mortal threat to civilisation. Most Trump apologism/fandom comes from that quarter, I'd say.
Woke is a mortal threat to Civilisation. Next
If so, it's not the only threat, and arguably swallowing the Trump garbage is an even bigger rejection of the values of the Scientific method and Western civilization.
Yeah, that's where I am. Woke is a mortal threat to western civilisation and makes me fear for my children's future. But Trump - actually, Putin, whom Trump enables - is a more immediate threat ti western civilisation and makes me fear for my future.
@Cookie As an aside - I am not sure if you have read 'Submission' by Michel Houllebecq, but I would recommend it.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
"This thing is bad. We must use it against those we hate"
You could, y'know...just disassemble it?
If recording non-crime-hate-incident reports is bad... stop recording them. My preference would be to deindividualize them, aggregate the data and use it for statistical purposes. Ideally move it under the ONS and away from the criminal justice system.
No
1. We want revenge, atavistic and emosh, but true
2. The Left needs to suffer the way the rest of the world has suffered their Woke madness, so they FINALLY understand
3. Maybe we can crush the Woke left forever: a good thing
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
"This thing is bad. We must use it against those we hate"
You could, y'know...just disassemble it?
If recording non-crime-hate-incident reports is bad... stop recording them. My preference would be to deindividualize them, aggregate the data and use it for statistical purposes. Ideally move it under the ONS and away from the criminal justice system.
No
1. We want revenge, atavistic and emosh, but true
2. The Left needs to suffer the way the rest of the world has suffered their Woke madness, so they FINALLY understand
3. Maybe we can crush the Woke left forever: a good thing
I see you’re using the RAGE method of staying awake through the jet lag.
A straw in the wind from the Economist this week, one I have thought for a time is going to be big.
Bagehot points out (PB comments got there before) that the FT minimum wage from 2025 will be at the same level as lots of graduate jobs (if you work 48 hours its about £30K, otherwise about £25K) and that the professional graduate middle is getting squeezed. And this will have consequences, especially as the marginal tax rate on the graduate on over £25K will be 37% - 20+8+9.
IIRC minimum wage is roughly fixed to 2/3 median wage. Which means, like the definition of poverty, it is fixed into the system.
A related problem is that starter salaries for "good" jobs are at the level of 10 or 20 years ago. Another is that a combination of automation and offshoring means that many starter jobs barely even exist in this country.
Well as somebody on the left who is sympathetic to the “culture war” I’m saying I’ve given up. I can’t be alone in that thought.
GE2024 was barely about culture, that issue as far as I can see seems to be receding.
You won, I lost. It’s the economy that matters now - and funnily enough that is all that SKS seems to be focussing on?
I think you’re missing that point that the “other side” to you thinks you have already won, and they need to reverse your victories. They would point at lots of EDI type policies to show why.
I don’t think “we” have won, if you consider me as part of any group which I don’t.
But regardless, as I said things are being pushed back. We’ve defined what a woman is as the PM said during the election, Cass is being implemented, etc.
I find it hard to conclude the other side hasn’t won. It will just take time to roll it back that’s all.
OK, I'll bite. Starmer briefly mentioned this several times, each one different. Which of these numerous definitions are you thinking of?
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
"This thing is bad. We must use it against those we hate"
You could, y'know...just disassemble it?
If recording non-crime-hate-incident reports is bad... stop recording them. My preference would be to deindividualize them, aggregate the data and use it for statistical purposes. Ideally move it under the ONS and away from the criminal justice system.
No
1. We want revenge, atavistic and emosh, but true
2. The Left needs to suffer the way the rest of the world has suffered their Woke madness, so they FINALLY understand
3. Maybe we can crush the Woke left forever: a good thing
I will never give you a vase to carry across a room.
To be fair to the egregious Ms Pearson - I'll believe the police when they publish the footage and it's confirmed by an independent party to be genuine. And not one second before.
It is possible they simply have different slants on the incident.
And it's possible of course that they're all lying.
It'll be interesting to see how much of the full encounter the cams caught.
Its not like its a volatile incident happening without notice. It is a meeting with a senior antagonistic journalist at ta time of the police's choosing. There is near zero chance they don't have all of it.
The police won't have mentioned non crime hate crime, they might have mentioned hate crime but more likely public order act 1986 (yes that is how long this has been the status quo). Pearson will think she has committed no crime and is therefore justified in calling it a no crime hate crime.
"A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."
As an aside, I have never understood how chanting 'from the river to the sea' does not meet this description. As it seems to be 'threatening, abusive and insulting', and also in my view invokes racial hatred against the Jewish people.
I'm intrigued by your view darkage and tbh I don't think I've ever fully understood the opprobrium chanting 'from the river to the sea' receives.
If someone has a view that the creation of the Isreali state was wrong* and the land should revert to being a Palestinian state is there any legitimate way in which they can protest?
Andy McDonald was suspended from the Labour Party after stating in a pro-Palestine rally speech: "We won't rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty". The party described McDonald's comment as "deeply offensive". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Usage
What's 'deeply offensive' about wishing that 'all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty'?
(*For the avoidance of doubt, I fully support Isreal's right to exist.)
A belief that the creation of Israel was 'wrong' is inherently meaningless unless the believer can spell out the method by which they hope to change it. In the British context it would be equivalent to the belief that a multiracial society is 'wrong' and that we should revert to the all-white status quo ante. Anyone espousing such a view should be tasked with explaining how they propose to make it happen. Or stfu.
I believe it's called "ethnic cleansing". FOR THE PURPOSES OF CLARITY AND NOT GETTING BANNED, I AM NOT ESPOUSING IT, merely stating the facts
Ethnic cleansing has absolutely happened, many times, in history, so it is foolish to claim it is impossible. In some situations you can argue that it has been beneficial - eg the swapping of Greek/Turkish populations in the 1920s so as to make Turkey echt Turkish and Greece echt Greek was arguably a success, even though much suffering was caused en route
It largely brought to an end a bloody and seething conflict which had endured for many decades
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
"This thing is bad. We must use it against those we hate"
You could, y'know...just disassemble it?
If recording non-crime-hate-incident reports is bad... stop recording them. My preference would be to deindividualize them, aggregate the data and use it for statistical purposes. Ideally move it under the ONS and away from the criminal justice system.
No
1. We want revenge, atavistic and emosh, but true
2. The Left needs to suffer the way the rest of the world has suffered their Woke madness, so they FINALLY understand
3. Maybe we can crush the Woke left forever: a good thing
I see you’re using the RAGE method of staying awake through the jet lag.
I know this sign. I sometimes cycle past it. I'm pleased someone else has noticed it. It is "legit" though - makes sense as two big cross country routes cross.
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
I think that is right, that the new situation will have similar problems and contradictions. However the calculation that I have made is that its arrival is inevitable, and now is the time to embrace it, because the status quo is probably beyond the point of saving.
For me, maybe it is clear that stuff in changing, but do we know enough about its principal features to know how to plan for it once you go beyond the most basic generalisations. By which I mean that nationalist populism is on the rise, and liberal high minded internationalism is on the back foot.
So, you say, 'adapt quickly'. Take just two unignorable specifics.
We do not know what the USA will do if a NATO member is invaded. So how do others plan?
I suspect climate change due to CO2 is real. America will lead that world who prefers to think otherwise in very practical and attractive ways. How do others respond?
Finally, which 'intractable problems' are easier to solve now than they were on 5th November?
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Let me reflect on that for the afternoon, and I'll come back with an answer later and tag you in.
My other half was gradually losing non-bot followers on Twitter over the last year or so, and has been on Bluesky for a while, but with a far lower follower count.
In the last couple of weeks, they're up to 5k followers which is roughly half where they were at on the other place, but there are far fewer bots.
It's work in progress. But the difference is that it's designed to avoid becoming the kind of sewer Musk appears determined that his X should be.
With critical mass it could replace Twitter, but that's far from a certainty. The Musk site is still useful, despite the increased effort required of users to keep it do.
My biggest issues with Twix currently are: *) Bots, bots and more bots. *) Musk's latest brainfarts being put at the top of your feed. *) Porn in too many random threads.
As for the latter: I don't mind porn, but I don't want to be perusing a thread about steam trains only to see a scantily or non-clad woman in it. The posts are getting everywhere. Twix seem to have a handle on it for a few weeks (or I see less of it...) but then it becomes infested again.
One problem with unsolicited TwiX porn is that it can be career-ending if you happen to be doomscrolling at work as a backbench Conservative MP with an interest in farm equipment, say, or as a schoolteacher.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
With all due respect, what the Holy Sweet Fuck are you on about?
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
I'm pretty sure his tit status regarding class-A drugs remains firmly on the "off" setting.
New: North Korea sent Russia 50 domestically produced 170mm M1989 “Koksan” self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems that can fire standard rockets and guided ones, according to Ukraine. Some were sent to Kursk region. https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1857777843200999559
170mm? Odd calibre. The Russians don’t use that do they? Will make logistics an arse.
Forgot to mention: Apparently, the Koksan re-used 17cm guns supplied by the Russians.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
ALSO, I'm genuinely unsure that anyone is having a nicer time than me
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
ALSO, I'm genuinely unsure that anyone is having a nicer time than me
Surprised you've got time to post - I assumed you'd have joined Musky's happy band of 180+ IQ DOGE warriors by now.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
With all due respect, what the Holy Sweet Fuck are you on about?
When you were, as you have explained many times before, having carnal knowledge of a minor celebrity in a French church whilst, as you have admitted on here, worse the wear for self medicated narcotics, you were most likely not concerned by people's race, religion or sexual preferences. Being not concerned by other people's race, religion or sexual preferences seems to be a good space to find oneself.
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
It's a bit quiet and stodgy frankly. As far as women are concerned, it seems to have the same faults that old Twitter had. A number of well regarded practising lawyers, academics and others who have scarcely issued any messages have been labelled as "intolerant" simply because they have different views to those of the owners. Repeating old Twitter's faults is not the way to go IMO.
X has become harder to use and there is a lot of rubbish on it. But if you make the effort you can still find good interesting stuff on it. It's just that it takes more effort. For those interested in the classical word and photography there are some very good sources.
For news stuff a good rule of thumb is to verify elsewhere and do some checking because a lot is not at all reliable. But that applies to Bluesky as well. A lot of the messages on Amsterdam were unreliable. As is @kinabalu above. There have been continuing planned attacks on Jews in Amsterdam long after Israeli football fans went home, which suggests that the idea that this was all justified reaction to provocation to be .... well .... somewhat less than the whole truth. Bluntly, we are in danger of turning a blind eye to the increase in Jew-hatred in the last year and the effect it is having on Jews in this country. From my personal knowledge, many feel very worried and scared and, above all, alone in a way that it is hard for the rest of us to understand.
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Let me reflect on that for the afternoon, and I'll come back with an answer later and tag you in.
My other half was gradually losing non-bot followers on Twitter over the last year or so, and has been on Bluesky for a while, but with a far lower follower count.
In the last couple of weeks, they're up to 5k followers which is roughly half where they were at on the other place, but there are far fewer bots.
I assume Threads is doing ok just by capturing those of us with an Instagram account? Is Bluesky more popular?
I dumped Twitter years ago and find Threads to be unobjectionable but not something I actively scroll through because it doesn’t have the peak Twitter benefit of it feeling like EVERYONE is on it; and the algorithm making it a useful amalgamator for live news events. I don’t think anything will ever quite be that again now the audience has split.
I don't do Facebook stuff, so never tried Threads. That and no-one in their 50s can detach the name from nuclear nightmare TV.
I use Mastodon for tech stuff, but Bluesky suddenly feels like Twitter did before the fall. Most everybody is there now (as of the last few weeks) and the conversations have picked up. And you can detach yourself from troll retweets and that kind of thing so it is better than Twitter ever was for self-preservation.
ETA: except Geoff McGivern. He's still refusing to leave.
Milei is a fascinating politician. Of all the populists misnamed as far right, he is surely the most misnamed.
He’s basically the love child of John Redwood (vintage 1995, before he discovered trade protectionism) and LuckyGuy, plus a dose of dinosaurian misogyny and the after effects of a night on the happy pills.
Slash and burn libertarian, ultra-Thatcherite, climate denier, but also a stalwart anti-Putinist and not as far as I’ve noticed either an ethno-nationalist, a Falklands imperialist, an oligarchic crony-capitalist or a homophobe.
Based on current evidence I’d take him over Trump, Bolsonaro or Farage any day.
I’d also rather have a climate change denier in power in Argentina than Brazil or the US.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
ALSO, I'm genuinely unsure that anyone is having a nicer time than me
Surprised you've got time to post - I assumed you'd have joined Musky's happy band of 180+ IQ DOGE warriors by now.
Elon/Leon? The anagrammatical coincidence seems too much to dismiss.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
With all due respect, what the Holy Sweet Fuck are you on about?
When you were, as you have explained many times before, having carnal knowledge of a minor celebrity in a French church whilst, as you have admitted on here, worse the wear for self medicated narcotics, you were most likely not concerned by people's race, religion or sexual preferences. Being not concerned by other people's race, religion or sexual preferences seems to be a good space to find oneself.
Ah, so you just found an extra-obscure way to make your normal boring, vacuous, low-wattage points
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
ALSO, I'm genuinely unsure that anyone is having a nicer time than me
Surprised you've got time to post - I assumed you'd have joined Musky's happy band of 180+ IQ DOGE warriors by now.
Elon/Leon? The anagrammatical coincidence seems too much to dismiss.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
With all due respect, what the Holy Sweet Fuck are you on about?
When you were, as you have explained many times before, having carnal knowledge of a minor celebrity in a French church whilst, as you have admitted on here, worse the wear for self medicated narcotics, you were most likely not concerned by people's race, religion or sexual preferences. Being not concerned by other people's race, religion or sexual preferences seems to be a good space to find oneself.
Ah, so you just found an extra-obscure way to make your normal boring, vacuous, low-wattage points
Yes.
Although to be ultra dreary I could try hijacking a political betting site into a personal travelogue.
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Let me reflect on that for the afternoon, and I'll come back with an answer later and tag you in.
My other half was gradually losing non-bot followers on Twitter over the last year or so, and has been on Bluesky for a while, but with a far lower follower count.
In the last couple of weeks, they're up to 5k followers which is roughly half where they were at on the other place, but there are far fewer bots.
It's work in progress. But the difference is that it's designed to avoid becoming the kind of sewer Musk appears determined that his X should be.
With critical mass it could replace Twitter, but that's far from a certainty. The Musk site is still useful, despite the increased effort required of users to keep it do.
It tipped over for me personally a few weeks ago. My timeline was a total sewer, I was starting to see more bot tweets, largely about the US Election, and I just stopped bothering to go to the site.
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
It's a bit quiet and stodgy frankly. As far as women are concerned, it seems to have the same faults that old Twitter had. A number of well regarded practising lawyers, academics and others who have scarcely issued any messages have been labelled as "intolerant" simply because they have different views to those of the owners. Repeating old Twitter's faults is not the way to go IMO.
X has become harder to use and there is a lot of rubbish on it. But if you make the effort you can still find good interesting stuff on it. It's just that it takes more effort. For those interested in the classical word and photography there are some very good sources.
For news stuff a good rule of thumb is to verify elsewhere and do some checking because a lot is not at all reliable. But that applies to Bluesky as well. A lot of the messages on Amsterdam were unreliable. As is @kinabalu above. There have been continuing planned attacks on Jews in Amsterdam long after Israeli football fans went home, which suggests that the idea that this was all justified reaction to provocation to be .... well .... somewhat less than the whole truth. Bluntly, we are in danger of turning a blind eye to the increase in Jew-hatred in the last year and the effect it is having on Jews in this country. From my personal knowledge, many feel very worried and scared and, above all, alone in a way that it is hard for the rest of us to understand.
Interesting, thanks
It is blindingly obvious to me that the "new" anti-Semitism - courtesy mainly of Islamists, and their lefty "friends" - is real, and really nasty, and Amsterdam (and Stockholm around the same time) was a particularly blatant outbreak of it, even though the Israeli soccer fans are indeed thugs (and they are thugs: I'm probably the only person on this board that has been to Israel to expressly, personally report on racist thuggery amongst Israeli football fans; anyone else here done that? No, thought not)
I still like TwiX and find it jolly entertaining and useful: it's just got more annoying rightwing nutters on it whereas before there were many more leftwing nutters. I filter both out
Genuine question. Do you enjoy Bluesky? Is it not a boring liberal echo chamber?
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Let me reflect on that for the afternoon, and I'll come back with an answer later and tag you in.
My other half was gradually losing non-bot followers on Twitter over the last year or so, and has been on Bluesky for a while, but with a far lower follower count.
In the last couple of weeks, they're up to 5k followers which is roughly half where they were at on the other place, but there are far fewer bots.
It's work in progress. But the difference is that it's designed to avoid becoming the kind of sewer Musk appears determined that his X should be.
With critical mass it could replace Twitter, but that's far from a certainty. The Musk site is still useful, despite the increased effort required of users to keep it do.
It tipped over for me personally a few weeks ago. My timeline was a total sewer, I was starting to see more bot tweets, largely about the US Election, and I just stopped bothering to go to the site.
Im getting there. Not yet. And if I leave Twitter it won’t be for bluesky or the vacuous threads, but a full detox of political social media.
Like with others, the porn bots, the Russian bots and the drop shipping ads are making it an unappealing place to spend time.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
With all due respect, what the Holy Sweet Fuck are you on about?
When you were, as you have explained many times before, having carnal knowledge of a minor celebrity in a French church whilst, as you have admitted on here, worse the wear for self medicated narcotics, you were most likely not concerned by people's race, religion or sexual preferences. Being not concerned by other people's race, religion or sexual preferences seems to be a good space to find oneself.
Ah, so you just found an extra-obscure way to make your normal boring, vacuous, low-wattage points
Yes.
Although to be ultra dreary I could try hijacking a political betting site into a personal travelogue.
Or you could do one of your amazing flounces when you leave the site in a flamboyant huff.... and no one notices for a fortnight that you've gone, indeed no one notices when you return, either, because no one cares. Do one of those, I like those
To be fair to the egregious Ms Pearson - I'll believe the police when they publish the footage and it's confirmed by an independent party to be genuine. And not one second before.
It is possible they simply have different slants on the incident.
And it's possible of course that they're all lying.
It'll be interesting to see how much of the full encounter the cams caught.
Its not like its a volatile incident happening without notice. It is a meeting with a senior antagonistic journalist at ta time of the police's choosing. There is near zero chance they don't have all of it.
The police won't have mentioned non crime hate crime, they might have mentioned hate crime but more likely public order act 1986 (yes that is how long this has been the status quo). Pearson will think she has committed no crime and is therefore justified in calling it a no crime hate crime.
"A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."
As an aside, I have never understood how chanting 'from the river to the sea' does not meet this description. As it seems to be 'threatening, abusive and insulting', and also in my view invokes racial hatred against the Jewish people.
I'm intrigued by your view darkage and tbh I don't think I've ever fully understood the opprobrium chanting 'from the river to the sea' receives.
If someone has a view that the creation of the Isreali state was wrong* and the land should revert to being a Palestinian state is there any legitimate way in which they can protest?
Andy McDonald was suspended from the Labour Party after stating in a pro-Palestine rally speech: "We won't rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty". The party described McDonald's comment as "deeply offensive". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Usage
What's 'deeply offensive' about wishing that 'all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty'?
(*For the avoidance of doubt, I fully support Isreal's right to exist.)
A belief that the creation of Israel was 'wrong' is inherently meaningless unless the believer can spell out the method by which they hope to change it. In the British context it would be equivalent to the belief that a multiracial society is 'wrong' and that we should revert to the all-white status quo ante. Anyone espousing such a view should be tasked with explaining how they propose to make it happen. Or stfu.
I believe it's called "ethnic cleansing". FOR THE PURPOSES OF CLARITY AND NOT GETTING BANNED, I AM NOT ESPOUSING IT, merely stating the facts
Ethnic cleansing has absolutely happened, many times, in history, so it is foolish to claim it is impossible. In some situations you can argue that it has been beneficial - eg the swapping of Greek/Turkish populations in the 1920s so as to make Turkey echt Turkish and Greece echt Greek was arguably a success, even though much suffering was caused en route
It largely brought to an end a bloody and seething conflict which had endured for many decades
Carry on like that and you'll be banned for EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPITALS ;-)
London, Seoul, Manila, Yerevan, Tbilisi, Paris…
Back in London now. My journey from Sirgao island to Heathrow took 28 fucking hours. EEEEEK
And when I arrived at LHR at 6.40 this morning I was greeted with the news that Sadiq Khan has suspended all Heathrow Express and Liz Line services for the weekend
So a £100 taxi it was
Still, it's nice to be home. I have unwrapped my souvenirs and they all look very fancy in my kitchen
Too proud for the Picaddily line?
I just can't bear that procession of null places. Hounslow. Hounslow Central. Osterley, Northfields. Where and what the fuck is "Northfields"
After my glorious procession around Japan, Korea and the Pihilippines a slow Tube through "Northfields" would have been bathetic and intolerable. So I caught a fast black and as it was so early it was indeed fast. And pricey. Fuck it. I haven't spent a penny of my own money for weeks
The line will be much improved within about 12 months when they install the new hi-tech carriages. The current ones date from 1975.
Regarding America. John Gray describes Trump's victory (in the article linked to earlier) as being similar to the soviet collapse, but the more I think about it, I don't agree with that analysis. My sense is that 'the soviet collapse' scenario would have been likely to occur if business carried on as usual, because the western liberal order was unable to adapt to numerous intractible issues it was encountering, the Ukraine war being the most obvious one; and was beholden to intolerant extremists. So the opportunity with Trump is for evolution, in to a new world order that has none of the illusions and baggage of the old 'liberal world order'. It is essentially up to Europe how it wants to deal with this but what should be clear to everyone now is the old world is not coming back or being restored, and those that adapt fastest will succeed. It is unfortunate for the UK that we have Labour in power at this moment, who have failed to make any preperation for what has just happened, despite the election of Trump being a highly likely outcome. They need to adapt very quickly.
Yes, stuff is changing, but I am not sure Darkage has made allowance for the fact that whatever is the new world order will have its own 'illusions and baggage'.
Further, liberalism being unable to deal with 'numerous intractable issues' it is encountering may be true, but that may be a reality of the human condition - the thing Matthew Parris compares with the unopenable pistachio nuts at the end of the party. They are still there because you can't open them. Some non liberals are remarkably bad at running countries too.
Also, the only other government available is a Tory one. Is there any evidence it is prepared any more than anyone else for what is coming. And what would you do in Labour's position?
I think that is right, that the new situation will have similar problems and contradictions. However the calculation that I have made is that its arrival is inevitable, and now is the time to embrace it, because the status quo is probably beyond the point of saving.
For me, maybe it is clear that stuff in changing, but do we know enough about its principal features to know how to plan for it once you go beyond the most basic generalisations. By which I mean that nationalist populism is on the rise, and liberal high minded internationalism is on the back foot.
So, you say, 'adapt quickly'. Take just two unignorable specifics.
We do not know what the USA will do if a NATO member is invaded. So how do others plan?
I suspect climate change due to CO2 is real. America will lead that world who prefers to think otherwise in very practical and attractive ways. How do others respond?
Finally, which 'intractable problems' are easier to solve now than they were on 5th November?
These are very hard questions. Essentially my point at the moment is that we need to move on from anger/denial to realism and action, I realise this sounds like a platitude, but too many people are seeing only despair and not opportunity.
But my broader point/theme is that the cultural/intellectual worldview of the current 'liberal elites' is too limited to find solutions to urgent, pressing and even existential problems; and the danger is that they won't be able to adapt to the changes in America. Too many issues have become taboo and untouchable. So a 'paradigm shift' is necessary.
I did a post yesterday, which I have copied out below
"The level of change needed is beyond the extent of action possible in the current 'paradigm'. IE: if you want to build 1.5 million homes, the problem identified yesterday by a senior civil servant, was that even if you start finding sites and working on it now, you can only really expect to get planning permission in 5 years time, with a massive wind behind you. If you want to change this, you have to wipe out 70 years of legislation, which won't happen. The international system of asylum would need to be effectively abolished to get a grip on illegal migration. The 'laws of the sea' would need to be changed to deal with small boats. Domestically you would need to fundamentally revisit the framework of discrimination and equalities laws. Many institutions have embdedded 'woke' culture. I've made the point several times that the civil service could not 'fundamentally revisit the framework of discrimination and equalities laws' because such principles have the status of a fundamental right within the working culture of the organisations concerned, to such a degree that they are not politically neutral as they purport to be. There are enormous vested interests in the process state which has emerged over the last 30 years which will act to thwart every attempt to undermine its commercial interests. These are a few issues out of many thousands where there is no solution, they are all too difficult
He has just as much right to post here as anyone else. People rightly were annoyed when people jumped on another user the other day, so I would just hope we can provide Pete the same courtesy.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
The world was a happier place when people like you were off their tits on class A drugs, whilst drinking and shagging with gay abandon. The side effect of coming off the all time high has been a propensity for miserable prejudice against anyone they believe might be having a nicer time than themselves.
ALSO, I'm genuinely unsure that anyone is having a nicer time than me
Surprised you've got time to post - I assumed you'd have joined Musky's happy band of 180+ IQ DOGE warriors by now.
Elon/Leon? The anagrammatical coincidence seems too much to dismiss.
Comments
I'm skeptical of Pearson's account as I hope I've highlighted, but I'll keep an open mind on it.
Bagehot points out (PB comments got there before) that the FT minimum wage from 2025 will be at the same level as lots of graduate jobs (if you work 48 hours its about £30K, otherwise about £25K) and that the professional graduate middle is getting squeezed.
And this will have consequences, especially as the marginal tax rate on the graduate on over £25K will be 37% - 20+8+9.
IIRC minimum wage is roughly fixed to 2/3 median wage. Which means, like the definition of poverty, it is fixed into the system.
I'd be interested to read an account.
And who could possibly have guessed it would be this group who were first to realise what they have done?
Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social
·
1h
The cofounder of Muslims for Trump tells Reuters that he is disappointed to discover the president-elect's position on the US approach to Israel, Palestine and the Middle East
https://bsky.app/profile/sundersays.bsky.social/post/3lb2qw4lbac2a
He managed (the policeman) to hit himself with his own baton. Unassisted.
As the inventor of this analogy, it seems to me that the American voters have decided the polar bear is not THAT hungry, and might actually be helpful in steering the ice floe away from lethal warmer waters, given that the end of the ice floe means everyone - bear and voters - drowns
An arguable position. Risky, but arguable
It was afterwards attached to the Novorossiya governate, what we would now call Ukraine, or to various successor entities.
In 1922 it was added to Russia to ensure Ukraine could not access the Black Sea easily, making independence much more difficult.
In 1944 the population of Tartars was mostly murdered, and replaced with a mix of Russians and Ukrainians.
In 1955 Malenkov was persuaded by Khrushchev to transfer it to the Ukrainian SSR because its power and water supplies were difficult to manage and needed to be integrated into the Ukrainian grids.
The World Bollard Association are on BlueSky as well as Twitter.
And the airbag ejecting the MAGA hat out of the tonka-truck is glorious.
https://bsky.app/profile/worldbollardassoc.bsky.social/post/3laynjcdkjk2u
I've seen a few lefty friends desert TwiX for BlueSky, as they once left for Threads and Mastodon, but returned
However, maybe this time they mean it. I'm curious what attracts them, because they lose all the followers they had built up on TwiX, so it is a proper sacrifice
It will be a shame if there is no one space where we can all argue, and Twitter was that, albeit biased to the left before and biased to the right now
Stalin was a pragmatist of unparalleled* brutality. Leninist doctrine was secondary.
https://www.kleiohistoricaljournal.com/post/to-what-extent-did-stalin-s-nationality-policy-in-the-south-caucasus-differ-by-ethnic-group
..Korenisatziya became official Soviet policy in 1923[25], mandating the: (a) promotion of the usage of native languages in native administrations; (b) obligatory education for workers to learn native languages; (c) establishment of native-language schools; (d) issue of newspapers, journals, and books in native languages; and crucially (e) the introduction of indigenous non-Russian populations into the cadres of government.[26] Suny surmises the policy of korenisatziya as the ”consolidation of nationality” through three important processes: the state ”support of native languages, the creation of a national intelligentsia and political elite, and the formal institutionalisation of ethnicity in [the] state apparatus.”..
*Comparable 20th C monsters believed in their mad ideologies.
In 2023 there were 1.1 million people deported from the USA according to https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-people-were-deported-from-the-us/country/united-states/
I’d expressed surprise when he said that the execution of adult male civilians, in reprisal for partisan killings, was considered lawful on all sides in WWII.
In fact the British and Americans threatened retaliatory executions of male civilians when they advanced into Germany, and feared that Werwolf would be an effective guerilla army.
Next.
In the hall was a Kukri in a glazed case. The policeman was telling my flatmate that it was a dangerous weapon and should be removed. I said no. Before I could do anything, the policeman flicked out his telescopic batten and tried to break the glass.
Except I had used tough plexiglass. The rebound hit him straight on the fore head. He then tried to remove the case from the wall. It was solidly attached - he couldn’t move it.
He then left.
Not sure under what powers he thought he could smash up the furniture…
The pragmatic Polish nationalists accepted the new borders as permanent - before the Germans did - which was remarkably far sighted of them.
"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
https://x.com/thackerpd/status/1857777696253857855
Trump could claim to have achieved his promises if he were merely to pursue the policies rejected in the compromise bill on immigration last year.
I doubt he'll do that, though. I expect something considerably more draconian.
Why are you happy to live in fantasy land of made up stuff rather than face reality? Pretty pathetic.
That one was never in a case, and I fondly remember taking it off the wall to play with as a kid. Still have all my limbs though, and so does my brother and cousins.
https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1857777843200999559
Unless things change fast and dramatically, Europeans will elect hardmen that make Trump look like your caricature of him, a silly, biliious narcissistic conman
What about this caricature of him you refer to?
Anyway, must be off. He's mewing at me and swishing his tail. Needs some Whiskas.
But the N Koreans do have a LOT of ammunition.
GE2024 was barely about culture, that issue as far as I can see seems to be receding.
You won, I lost. It’s the economy that matters now - and funnily enough that is all that SKS seems to be focussing on?
In the last couple of weeks, they're up to 5k followers which is roughly half where they were at on the other place, but there are far fewer bots.
At the risk of triggering some here, he seems onboard with the 15min neighbourhood concept.
https://x.com/AlecStapp/status/1857482478438724063
..So I think one of the things that that we have to look at as country, our housing costs are high in part because of the way that we've designed our cities. Check out form-based code. There's some really interesting things that are there.
And you guys talked about beginning the granny flats and other stuff, but part of is we've got to get the coffee shop, the barber shop and law firms back into residential neighborhoods in ways that can help lower the cost and create services where you don't need a car for everything."..
But the difference is that it's designed to avoid becoming the kind of sewer Musk appears determined that his X should be.
With critical mass it could replace Twitter, but that's far from a certainty. The Musk site is still useful, despite the increased effort required of users to keep it do.
I dumped Twitter years ago and find Threads to be unobjectionable but not something I actively scroll through because it doesn’t have the peak Twitter benefit of it feeling like EVERYONE is on it; and the algorithm making it a useful amalgamator for live news events. I don’t think anything will ever quite be that again now the audience has split.
*) Bots, bots and more bots.
*) Musk's latest brainfarts being put at the top of your feed.
*) Porn in too many random threads.
As for the latter: I don't mind porn, but I don't want to be perusing a thread about steam trains only to see a scantily or non-clad woman in it. The posts are getting everywhere. Twix seem to have a handle on it for a few weeks (or I see less of it...) but then it becomes infested again.
You could, y'know...just disassemble it?
If recording non-crime-hate-incident reports is bad... stop recording them. My preference would be to deindividualize them, aggregate the data and use it for statistical purposes. Ideally move it under the ONS and away from the criminal justice system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_cm_SK_L/40_gun
But regardless, as I said things are being pushed back. We’ve defined what a woman is as the PM said during the election, Cass is being implemented, etc.
I find it hard to conclude the other side hasn’t won. It will just take time to roll it back that’s all.
As an aside - I am not sure if you have read 'Submission' by Michel Houllebecq, but I would recommend it.
1. We want revenge, atavistic and emosh, but true
2. The Left needs to suffer the way the rest of the world has suffered their Woke madness, so they FINALLY understand
3. Maybe we can crush the Woke left forever: a good thing
Ooh, ooh, I know that one.
... everybody's talking 'bout pop musi(k).
So, you say, 'adapt quickly'. Take just two unignorable specifics.
We do not know what the USA will do if a NATO member is invaded. So how do others plan?
I suspect climate change due to CO2 is real. America will lead that world who prefers to think otherwise in very practical and attractive ways. How do others respond?
Finally, which 'intractable problems' are easier to solve now than they were on 5th November?
Trump loves Milei; Milei's scrapping import tariffs; Trump's ramping them up. Everything's fine.
https://x.com/jnkmf/status/1857712274087059637
X has become harder to use and there is a lot of rubbish on it. But if you make the effort you can still find good interesting stuff on it. It's just that it takes more effort. For those interested in the classical word and photography there are some very good sources.
For news stuff a good rule of thumb is to verify elsewhere and do some checking because a lot is not at all reliable. But that applies to Bluesky as well. A lot of the messages on Amsterdam were unreliable. As is @kinabalu above. There have been continuing planned attacks on Jews in Amsterdam long after Israeli football fans went home, which suggests that the idea that this was all justified reaction to provocation to be .... well .... somewhat less than the whole truth. Bluntly, we are in danger of turning a blind eye to the increase in Jew-hatred in the last year and the effect it is having on Jews in this country. From my personal knowledge, many feel very worried and scared and, above all, alone in a way that it is hard for the rest of us to understand.
I use Mastodon for tech stuff, but Bluesky suddenly feels like Twitter did before the fall. Most everybody is there now (as of the last few weeks) and the conversations have picked up. And you can detach yourself from troll retweets and that kind of thing so it is better than Twitter ever was for self-preservation.
ETA: except Geoff McGivern. He's still refusing to leave.
He’s basically the love child of John Redwood (vintage 1995, before he discovered trade protectionism) and LuckyGuy, plus a dose of dinosaurian misogyny and the after effects of a night on the happy pills.
Slash and burn libertarian, ultra-Thatcherite, climate denier, but also a stalwart anti-Putinist and not as far as I’ve noticed either an ethno-nationalist, a Falklands imperialist, an oligarchic crony-capitalist or a homophobe.
Based on current evidence I’d take him over Trump, Bolsonaro or Farage any day.
I’d also rather have a climate change denier in power in Argentina than Brazil or the US.
#justkidding'
Although to be ultra dreary I could try hijacking a political betting site into a personal travelogue.
It is blindingly obvious to me that the "new" anti-Semitism - courtesy mainly of Islamists, and their lefty "friends" - is real, and really nasty, and Amsterdam (and Stockholm around the same time) was a particularly blatant outbreak of it, even though the Israeli soccer fans are indeed thugs (and they are thugs: I'm probably the only person on this board that has been to Israel to expressly, personally report on racist thuggery amongst Israeli football fans; anyone else here done that? No, thought not)
I still like TwiX and find it jolly entertaining and useful: it's just got more annoying rightwing nutters on it whereas before there were many more leftwing nutters. I filter both out
Like with others, the porn bots, the Russian bots and the drop shipping ads are making it an unappealing place to spend time.
https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/piccadilly-line-upgrade
But my broader point/theme is that the cultural/intellectual worldview of the current 'liberal elites' is too limited to find solutions to urgent, pressing and even existential problems; and the danger is that they won't be able to adapt to the changes in America. Too many issues have become taboo and untouchable. So a 'paradigm shift' is necessary.
I did a post yesterday, which I have copied out below
"The level of change needed is beyond the extent of action possible in the current 'paradigm'. IE: if you want to build 1.5 million homes, the problem identified yesterday by a senior civil servant, was that even if you start finding sites and working on it now, you can only really expect to get planning permission in 5 years time, with a massive wind behind you. If you want to change this, you have to wipe out 70 years of legislation, which won't happen.
The international system of asylum would need to be effectively abolished to get a grip on illegal migration. The 'laws of the sea' would need to be changed to deal with small boats.
Domestically you would need to fundamentally revisit the framework of discrimination and equalities laws.
Many institutions have embdedded 'woke' culture. I've made the point several times that the civil service could not 'fundamentally revisit the framework of discrimination and equalities laws' because such principles have the status of a fundamental right within the working culture of the organisations concerned, to such a degree that they are not politically neutral as they purport to be.
There are enormous vested interests in the process state which has emerged over the last 30 years which will act to thwart every attempt to undermine its commercial interests.
These are a few issues out of many thousands where there is no solution, they are all too difficult
He has just as much right to post here as anyone else. People rightly were annoyed when people jumped on another user the other day, so I would just hope we can provide Pete the same courtesy.