"The 71-year-old audience member who was arrested at Charlie Kirk’s UVU event says he told cops he shot Kirk to distract police so the real shooter could escape.
“I shot him, now shoot me,” George Zinn allegedly said immediately after Kirk was shot.
While speaking to investigators, Zinn said he was trying to “draw attention from the real shooter.”
Zinn was charged with obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony."
According to reports, he has also been charged with having child porn found on his phone.
The number of people who -- when collared for offence X -- turn out to have that is genuinely disturbing.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
Chile has a left wing government now.
The president is from "The Party of Dignity" a sort of left wing popular front.
It's so bad that I was actually looking at Windows 11 earlier on my laptop and thinking this is more coherent and legible than the crap that Apple has just shipped. I genuinely think my phones, iPad, and Mac are all worse off today thanks to Apple's vibe coding or whatever has lead to this.
The most delicious thing about the latest asylum boat debacle is the revelation that even if we manage to deport one migrant, they will be kept in a non secure hotel type place, completely free to come and go. So if they want they can walk out the door and go to Calais and cross the Channel again
My family is basically turning Nazi because of this
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
Chile has a left wing government now.
The president is from "The Party of Dignity" a sort of left wing popular front.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
And the situation in Spain was also messy. The west worked very hard not to categorise Franco as fascist after WW2; undignified grovelling towards terrible people who might be useful isn't a novelty in diplomacy.
Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.
Speaking of Opus Dei and Roman Catholicism, the Duchess of Kent's funeral today at Westminster Cathedral was the first Roman Catholic funeral of a member of our royal family since the early 16th century
I'm sorry to be really pedantic, but Mary I had a Requiem Mass at Westminster Abbey in 1558.
You're not really sorry are you? If you were running this site would make you weep.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
And you've offered no clues.
The definition of Fascism is notoriously impalpable, as we all know. I was going by the wanky socialist liberal-left @bondegezou-esque typology, which would defintely call Pinochet a FASCIST in a loud falsetto shriek
On Communism and Fascism, Camus said it all decades ago -
"Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed but in every case it is someone else's blood . That is why some of our thinkers feel free to say just about anything."
Tony Judt summed it up well too -
"Totalitarianism of the Left, much like an earlier totalitarianism of the Right, was about violence and power and control, and it appealed because of these features, not in spite of them."
It's so bad that I was actually looking at Windows 11 earlier on my laptop and thinking this is more coherent and legible than the crap that Apple has just shipped. I genuinely think my phones, iPad, and Mac are all worse off today thanks to Apple's vibe coding or whatever has lead to this.
Sorry I can't see what you wrote I have been blinded by looking at my mac....
How many meeting about meeting about meetings did they have in the doughnut where it was collectively agreed yes this is a definite improvement to the UI/UX on what we have!
The reasoning seems to be that Apple want to close the gap in UI terms with iOS, the Mac, and the AVP. This is nuts. Forcing hundreds of millions of users into this dead-end in order to hopefully get a few more apps for a device that has sold hundreds of thousands.
This is even more extreme than Windows 8 with the full-screen start menu and attempt to bolt mouse gestures on for things that were otherwise done by dragging a finger through the border of a touch screen. At least there the ratio of touch to non-touch devices wasn't as extreme, and you could switch to the normal desktop easily.
I didn't like the look of the previews, but using the new software myself has astounded me that Apple thought it was fit to ship. I will not be surprised if they revert a lot of this for next year's operating systems, a bit like Microsoft did with Windows 10.
And I think the 'issue' is that Communism is seen mostly as a set of economic beliefs...
Well, yes. But those economic beliefs govern what you can own, how you are medicated, surgeried, fed, watered, housed and employed, how your children are schooled, and specifically prevents you from trying something better on your own initiative. It sounds good but it's stupid at best and murderous at worst.
Indeed: it's why communism is doomed to fail.
And also - of course - why little experiments at communism are perfectly allowable within capitalist systems. If you want to join a communist kibbutz, you could.
Communism in its original form is the ideal economic system for the context in which humans evolved: small kinship groups of hunter gatherers. Any other system in that situation tends to lead to conflict and social breakdown. Communism doesn’t however work in any other economic setting, not even subsistence cultivation or livestock grazing.
Perhaps this is why many are instinctively drawn to the ideal of communism. It represents some deep evolutionary vestige in the human brain.
But Marxist theory is predicated on an, and requires an industrial society. Lenin and Stalin* starved millions of agricultural peasants to develop one (built by Americans) so that they could have communism.
IOW, it was bollocks from the very start.
(And what China has now isn't communism in any sense, apart from the label they still insist upon.)
*Trotsky was more of your straightforward mass murderer.
What's your take on Castro?
Also a murderer, wasn't he? Anf mass-imprisoner? Also impoverished Cuba. I may be way off beam here, but my understanding is that Cuba and Puerto Rico were roughly equal in 1958. Not now. And you never got people risking death to flee Pherto Rico.
He may have looked good on a t-shirt but he the oboy reason he isn't considered one of tge twentietg centiry's greatest villains is that there was so much competition.
Lots of debits for sure. But it's more of a mixed picture than many other communist horror shows, I'd say. Certain things improved, at least for a while. There's a good BBC iplayer doc on him that I watched recently.
But things improved in the Soviet Union too. The question is, what would have happened in tge counterfactual?
Happily for political economists, the world has given us exactly three counterfactuals: pairs of two societies which started off from roughly the same place, but one went down tge communist path and the other did not: Cuba and Puerto Rico from 1959, North and South Korea after the Korean war, West and East Germany after WW2. I think on that basis it's hard to argue anything other than that communism was awful - both for the freedom of the people and for their material well being.
I run in dark mode, I switched to light just to see if that was even worse....I could feel my retinas being burned away.
I like it.
Not liking Apple at the moment, I get my Watch Ultra 3 and new Airpods Pro on Friday but my new 2TB 17 Pro Max in Orange won't be delivered until the middle of October.
As it happens TechRadar's explanation of how to turn off ios 26 liquid glass interface features example pictures showing Radiohead Kid A LP cover.
You would think that essentially every review of iOS 26 saying "if you hate this use the reduce transparency option in the accessability settings" would be a pretty big clue that Apple has got this wrong. Not that that fixes everything, there's a lot of very poor design beyond the liquid glass effects.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Where has capitalism worked?
Nowhere, as pure capitalism has never been attempted. It has always had a 'public' aspect - even in the USA.
Pure capitalism as described by Adam Smith has a very strong role for Government.
Indeed. Conspiracy of the merchants stuff. Incidentally I seem to recall that one then very prominent right-winger deleted some of that stuff from an edition of the Wealth of Nations to make the Kirkcaldy sage, erm, more 'libertarian'. But that was a long time ago.
Have I downloaded a different iOS 26 to the rest of you?
MacOS Tahoe with Liquid Glass is ... unfinished.
It's got the polish of a prototype, and a prototype that ought to result in the boss saying "back to the drawing board".
This is what happens when your visionary founder dies and your chief designer leaves.
There is a story about Jobs when the Mac was being launched. He didn't like the radius of the corners on the calculator app. Every time the designer showed him, he didn't like it, so instead he coded a knob that Jobs could tweak until he was happy with it.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
And you've offered no clues.
The definition of Fascism is notoriously impalpable, as we all know. I was going by the wanky socialist liberal-left @bondegezou-esque typology, which would defintely call Pinochet a FASCIST in a loud falsetto shriek
So not fascist then.
Thanks for clearing it up
I was last in Chile in the summer of 2001, when I went skiing there.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
And you've offered no clues.
The definition of Fascism is notoriously impalpable, as we all know. I was going by the wanky socialist liberal-left @bondegezou-esque typology, which would defintely call Pinochet a FASCIST in a loud falsetto shriek
So not fascist then.
Thanks for clearing it up
I was last in Chile in the summer of 2001, when I went skiing there.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
And you've offered no clues.
The definition of Fascism is notoriously impalpable, as we all know. I was going by the wanky socialist liberal-left @bondegezou-esque typology, which would defintely call Pinochet a FASCIST in a loud falsetto shriek
So not fascist then.
Thanks for clearing it up
I was last in Chile in the summer of 2001, when I went skiing there.
Are you seeking a genuine debate? Coz I am just off a plane and home after 7 brilliant but exhausting days in Sardinia, and I do not have the energy
FWIW I would say Yes Chile was Fascist when Pinochet siezed power, but it then evolved away from that. Which is kinda my point
But if you want me to argue it coherently you'll have to wait until tomorrow
Great country, Chile. Certainly my favourite in South America. It has everything, including relative safety
I'm happy to report that Three Days of the Condor held up remarkably well.
Outstanding moment was the 70s style phone hacking. Pure nostalgia.
The only Oscar nomination it got that year was best editing...
A remarkable year, not least for Fate Dunaway, who also appeared in Chinatown. Godfather II dominated the Oscars; and Mel Brooks released both Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles; and criminal that The Conversation, a paranoid thriller even better than Condor (and another great piece from Coppola) didn't get a best actor nomination for Gene Hackman.
I run in dark mode, I switched to light just to see if that was even worse....I could feel my retinas being burned away.
I like it.
Not liking Apple at the moment, I get my Watch Ultra 3 and new Airpods Pro on Friday but my new 2TB 17 Pro Max in Orange won't be delivered until the middle of October.
Not surprised that a special one off build takes a while to arrive...
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
And you've offered no clues.
The definition of Fascism is notoriously impalpable, as we all know. I was going by the wanky socialist liberal-left @bondegezou-esque typology, which would defintely call Pinochet a FASCIST in a loud falsetto shriek
So not fascist then.
Thanks for clearing it up
I was last in Chile in the summer of 2001, when I went skiing there.
Chile under Pinochet was classic authoritarian traditionalist, like most of the European regimes in the pre-war period. Church, family, obedience. But more economically literate than most of its authoritarian peers. Not dissimilar to some Asian dictatorships now. Or arguably Franco’s Spain. Different from liberal democracy and different from fascism, or indeed from authoritarian populism of the Trump sort.
Proper fascist polities aren’t that common, though I’d say modern day Russia has all the elements.
In the last 10 days, I’ve spoken to people in Birmingham, Eastleigh, Bognor Regis, Bexley, Wearside, Southend, & Halifax. I am telling you Westminster has no idea what’s coming. The hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding, forgotten majority has had enough of what is happening to their country. I’ve never felt energy like this. It’s bigger than Brexit."
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
And you've offered no clues.
The definition of Fascism is notoriously impalpable, as we all know. I was going by the wanky socialist liberal-left @bondegezou-esque typology, which would defintely call Pinochet a FASCIST in a loud falsetto shriek
So not fascist then.
Thanks for clearing it up
I was last in Chile in the summer of 2001, when I went skiing there.
Chile under Pinochet was classic authoritarian traditionalist, like most of the European regimes in the pre-war period. Church, family, obedience. But more economically literate than most of its authoritarian peers. Not dissimilar to some Asian dictatorships now. Or arguably Franco’s Spain. Different from liberal democracy and different from fascism, or indeed from authoritarian populism of the Trump sort.
Proper fascist polities aren’t that common, though I’d say modern day Russia has all the elements.
Fascism, like communism, is best seen as a spectrum of right wing authoritarianism. Pinochet seized power violently, killed thousands, installed a dictator (him), tortured and repressed, vaunted patriotism and flag waving, That puts him on the spectrum, but at the softer end, with Franco and Salazar, not as fash as Mussolini and obvs not anything like Hitler
The commie spectrum goes from wet NPXMP euro communism through rigid Soviet Leninism to hardcore Maoism to the total insanity of the Khmer Rouge
It is fruitless to impose rigid definitions, viewing these political codes as spectrums of belief, even constellations, makes much more sense
16 September 1858. Conservative politician Andrew Bonar Law was born in Rexton, New Brunswick, Canada. He’s the shortest serving PM of 20th century (211 days- 1922-1923). Bonar Law and Boris Johnson are the only 2 UK PM’s born outside the UK and Ireland.
And I think the 'issue' is that Communism is seen mostly as a set of economic beliefs...
Well, yes. But those economic beliefs govern what you can own, how you are medicated, surgeried, fed, watered, housed and employed, how your children are schooled, and specifically prevents you from trying something better on your own initiative. It sounds good but it's stupid at best and murderous at worst.
Indeed: it's why communism is doomed to fail.
And also - of course - why little experiments at communism are perfectly allowable within capitalist systems. If you want to join a communist kibbutz, you could.
Communism in its original form is the ideal economic system for the context in which humans evolved: small kinship groups of hunter gatherers. Any other system in that situation tends to lead to conflict and social breakdown. Communism doesn’t however work in any other economic setting, not even subsistence cultivation or livestock grazing.
Perhaps this is why many are instinctively drawn to the ideal of communism. It represents some deep evolutionary vestige in the human brain.
But Marxist theory is predicated on an, and requires an industrial society. Lenin and Stalin* starved millions of agricultural peasants to develop one (built by Americans) so that they could have communism.
IOW, it was bollocks from the very start.
(And what China has now isn't communism in any sense, apart from the label they still insist upon.)
*Trotsky was more of your straightforward mass murderer.
What's your take on Castro?
Also a murderer, wasn't he? Anf mass-imprisoner? Also impoverished Cuba. I may be way off beam here, but my understanding is that Cuba and Puerto Rico were roughly equal in 1958. Not now. And you never got people risking death to flee Pherto Rico.
He may have looked good on a t-shirt but he the oboy reason he isn't considered one of tge twentietg centiry's greatest villains is that there was so much competition.
Lots of debits for sure. But it's more of a mixed picture than many other communist horror shows, I'd say. Certain things improved, at least for a while. There's a good BBC iplayer doc on him that I watched recently.
But things improved in the Soviet Union too. The question is, what would have happened in tge counterfactual?
Happily for political economists, the world has given us exactly three counterfactuals: pairs of two societies which started off from roughly the same place, but one went down tge communist path and the other did not: Cuba and Puerto Rico from 1959, North and South Korea after the Korean war, West and East Germany after WW2. I think on that basis it's hard to argue anything other than that communism was awful - both for the freedom of the people and for their material well being.
America put Cuba in the freezer to make damn sure it struggled economically.
But, look, you will not - NOT - manoeuvre me into arguing that Communism is something to aspire to rather than avoid at all costs (other than going fascist). That isn't where I came in and it's not where I'm going out.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
And you've offered no clues.
The definition of Fascism is notoriously impalpable, as we all know. I was going by the wanky socialist liberal-left @bondegezou-esque typology, which would defintely call Pinochet a FASCIST in a loud falsetto shriek
So not fascist then.
Thanks for clearing it up
I was last in Chile in the summer of 2001, when I went skiing there.
Chile under Pinochet was classic authoritarian traditionalist, like most of the European regimes in the pre-war period. Church, family, obedience. But more economically literate than most of its authoritarian peers. Not dissimilar to some Asian dictatorships now. Or arguably Franco’s Spain. Different from liberal democracy and different from fascism, or indeed from authoritarian populism of the Trump sort.
Proper fascist polities aren’t that common, though I’d say modern day Russia has all the elements.
Fascism, like communism, is best seen as a spectrum of right wing authoritarianism. Pinochet seized power violently, killed thousands, installed a dictator (him), tortured and repressed, vaunted patriotism and flag waving, That puts him on the spectrum, but at the softer end, with Franco and Salazar, not as fash as Mussolini and obvs not aything like Hitler
The commie spectrum goes from wet NPXMP euro communism through rigid Soviet Leninism to hardcore Maoism to the total insanity of the Khmer Rouge
It is pointless to impose rigid definitions, viewing these political codes as spectrums of belief, even constellations, makes much more sense
Some see it as a spectrum, others see a break point in how and where authority is derived. With traditional authoritarians appealing to organised religion while true fascists dispense with that because l’etat c’est moi.
Where fascists seem to fail is through either military overreach, defeat and economic collapse, or cronyism and corruption which brings stagnation. Putin will hopefully soon fall because of both.
And I think the 'issue' is that Communism is seen mostly as a set of economic beliefs...
Well, yes. But those economic beliefs govern what you can own, how you are medicated, surgeried, fed, watered, housed and employed, how your children are schooled, and specifically prevents you from trying something better on your own initiative. It sounds good but it's stupid at best and murderous at worst.
Indeed: it's why communism is doomed to fail.
And also - of course - why little experiments at communism are perfectly allowable within capitalist systems. If you want to join a communist kibbutz, you could.
Communism in its original form is the ideal economic system for the context in which humans evolved: small kinship groups of hunter gatherers. Any other system in that situation tends to lead to conflict and social breakdown. Communism doesn’t however work in any other economic setting, not even subsistence cultivation or livestock grazing.
Perhaps this is why many are instinctively drawn to the ideal of communism. It represents some deep evolutionary vestige in the human brain.
But Marxist theory is predicated on an, and requires an industrial society. Lenin and Stalin* starved millions of agricultural peasants to develop one (built by Americans) so that they could have communism.
IOW, it was bollocks from the very start.
(And what China has now isn't communism in any sense, apart from the label they still insist upon.)
*Trotsky was more of your straightforward mass murderer.
What's your take on Castro?
Also a murderer, wasn't he? Anf mass-imprisoner? Also impoverished Cuba. I may be way off beam here, but my understanding is that Cuba and Puerto Rico were roughly equal in 1958. Not now. And you never got people risking death to flee Pherto Rico.
He may have looked good on a t-shirt but he the oboy reason he isn't considered one of tge twentietg centiry's greatest villains is that there was so much competition.
Lots of debits for sure. But it's more of a mixed picture than many other communist horror shows, I'd say. Certain things improved, at least for a while. There's a good BBC iplayer doc on him that I watched recently.
But things improved in the Soviet Union too. The question is, what would have happened in tge counterfactual?
Happily for political economists, the world has given us exactly three counterfactuals: pairs of two societies which started off from roughly the same place, but one went down tge communist path and the other did not: Cuba and Puerto Rico from 1959, North and South Korea after the Korean war, West and East Germany after WW2. I think on that basis it's hard to argue anything other than that communism was awful - both for the freedom of the people and for their material well being.
America put Cuba in the freezer to make damn sure it struggled economically.
But, look, you will not - NOT - manoeuvre me into arguing that Communism is something to aspire to rather than avoid at all costs (other than going fascist). That isn't where I came in and it's not where I'm going out.
We'd need to see a counterfactual: a capitalist Cuba with the ability to trade with every country bar the US.
The US blockade was and is a mistake; it allowed the Cuban people to blame the US rather than their government.
Have I downloaded a different iOS 26 to the rest of you?
I thought it was just me. Haven’t had any issue with any of the upgrades. Couple of small irritations (suggesting a password should be filled in whilst I’m typing this, etc) but rather nice.
Clean. Much quicker. Little bit retro with hints of skeumorphism. All devices updated. No issues with apps, servers, VMs.
Really don’t know what you’re all grumbling about…
And I think the 'issue' is that Communism is seen mostly as a set of economic beliefs...
Well, yes. But those economic beliefs govern what you can own, how you are medicated, surgeried, fed, watered, housed and employed, how your children are schooled, and specifically prevents you from trying something better on your own initiative. It sounds good but it's stupid at best and murderous at worst.
Indeed: it's why communism is doomed to fail.
And also - of course - why little experiments at communism are perfectly allowable within capitalist systems. If you want to join a communist kibbutz, you could.
Communism in its original form is the ideal economic system for the context in which humans evolved: small kinship groups of hunter gatherers. Any other system in that situation tends to lead to conflict and social breakdown. Communism doesn’t however work in any other economic setting, not even subsistence cultivation or livestock grazing.
Perhaps this is why many are instinctively drawn to the ideal of communism. It represents some deep evolutionary vestige in the human brain.
But Marxist theory is predicated on an, and requires an industrial society. Lenin and Stalin* starved millions of agricultural peasants to develop one (built by Americans) so that they could have communism.
IOW, it was bollocks from the very start.
(And what China has now isn't communism in any sense, apart from the label they still insist upon.)
*Trotsky was more of your straightforward mass murderer.
What's your take on Castro?
Also a murderer, wasn't he? Anf mass-imprisoner? Also impoverished Cuba. I may be way off beam here, but my understanding is that Cuba and Puerto Rico were roughly equal in 1958. Not now. And you never got people risking death to flee Pherto Rico.
He may have looked good on a t-shirt but he the oboy reason he isn't considered one of tge twentietg centiry's greatest villains is that there was so much competition.
Lots of debits for sure. But it's more of a mixed picture than many other communist horror shows, I'd say. Certain things improved, at least for a while. There's a good BBC iplayer doc on him that I watched recently.
But things improved in the Soviet Union too. The question is, what would have happened in tge counterfactual?
Happily for political economists, the world has given us exactly three counterfactuals: pairs of two societies which started off from roughly the same place, but one went down tge communist path and the other did not: Cuba and Puerto Rico from 1959, North and South Korea after the Korean war, West and East Germany after WW2. I think on that basis it's hard to argue anything other than that communism was awful - both for the freedom of the people and for their material well being.
America put Cuba in the freezer to make damn sure it struggled economically.
But, look, you will not - NOT - manoeuvre me into arguing that Communism is something to aspire to rather than avoid at all costs (other than going fascist). That isn't where I came in and it's not where I'm going out.
Other choices are available.
There’s quite a long list of successful liberal democratic regimes. They tend to fill the top ranks of both GDP per capita and the human development index.
16 September 1858. Conservative politician Andrew Bonar Law was born in Rexton, New Brunswick, Canada. He’s the shortest serving PM of 20th century (211 days- 1922-1923). Bonar Law and Boris Johnson are the only 2 UK PM’s born outside the UK and Ireland.
And I think the 'issue' is that Communism is seen mostly as a set of economic beliefs...
Well, yes. But those economic beliefs govern what you can own, how you are medicated, surgeried, fed, watered, housed and employed, how your children are schooled, and specifically prevents you from trying something better on your own initiative. It sounds good but it's stupid at best and murderous at worst.
Indeed: it's why communism is doomed to fail.
And also - of course - why little experiments at communism are perfectly allowable within capitalist systems. If you want to join a communist kibbutz, you could.
Communism in its original form is the ideal economic system for the context in which humans evolved: small kinship groups of hunter gatherers. Any other system in that situation tends to lead to conflict and social breakdown. Communism doesn’t however work in any other economic setting, not even subsistence cultivation or livestock grazing.
Perhaps this is why many are instinctively drawn to the ideal of communism. It represents some deep evolutionary vestige in the human brain.
But Marxist theory is predicated on an, and requires an industrial society. Lenin and Stalin* starved millions of agricultural peasants to develop one (built by Americans) so that they could have communism.
IOW, it was bollocks from the very start.
(And what China has now isn't communism in any sense, apart from the label they still insist upon.)
*Trotsky was more of your straightforward mass murderer.
What's your take on Castro?
Also a murderer, wasn't he? Anf mass-imprisoner? Also impoverished Cuba. I may be way off beam here, but my understanding is that Cuba and Puerto Rico were roughly equal in 1958. Not now. And you never got people risking death to flee Pherto Rico.
He may have looked good on a t-shirt but he the oboy reason he isn't considered one of tge twentietg centiry's greatest villains is that there was so much competition.
Lots of debits for sure. But it's more of a mixed picture than many other communist horror shows, I'd say. Certain things improved, at least for a while. There's a good BBC iplayer doc on him that I watched recently.
But things improved in the Soviet Union too. The question is, what would have happened in tge counterfactual?
Happily for political economists, the world has given us exactly three counterfactuals: pairs of two societies which started off from roughly the same place, but one went down tge communist path and the other did not: Cuba and Puerto Rico from 1959, North and South Korea after the Korean war, West and East Germany after WW2. I think on that basis it's hard to argue anything other than that communism was awful - both for the freedom of the people and for their material well being.
America put Cuba in the freezer to make damn sure it struggled economically.
But, look, you will not - NOT - manoeuvre me into arguing that Communism is something to aspire to rather than avoid at all costs (other than going fascist). That isn't where I came in and it's not where I'm going out.
We'd need to see a counterfactual: a capitalist Cuba with the ability to trade with every country bar the US.
The US blockade was and is a mistake; it allowed the Cuban people to blame the US rather than their government.
Every country on earth would be better as a liberal democracy with a mixed economy and the whole of the population equal under the law. I find this truth to be self-evident.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
And you've offered no clues.
The definition of Fascism is notoriously impalpable, as we all know. I was going by the wanky socialist liberal-left @bondegezou-esque typology, which would defintely call Pinochet a FASCIST in a loud falsetto shriek
So not fascist then.
Thanks for clearing it up
I was last in Chile in the summer of 2001, when I went skiing there.
Chile under Pinochet was classic authoritarian traditionalist, like most of the European regimes in the pre-war period. Church, family, obedience. But more economically literate than most of its authoritarian peers. Not dissimilar to some Asian dictatorships now. Or arguably Franco’s Spain. Different from liberal democracy and different from fascism, or indeed from authoritarian populism of the Trump sort.
Proper fascist polities aren’t that common, though I’d say modern day Russia has all the elements.
Fascism, like communism, is best seen as a spectrum of right wing authoritarianism. Pinochet seized power violently, killed thousands, installed a dictator (him), tortured and repressed, vaunted patriotism and flag waving, That puts him on the spectrum, but at the softer end, with Franco and Salazar, not as fash as Mussolini and obvs not aything like Hitler
The commie spectrum goes from wet NPXMP euro communism through rigid Soviet Leninism to hardcore Maoism to the total insanity of the Khmer Rouge
It is pointless to impose rigid definitions, viewing these political codes as spectrums of belief, even constellations, makes much more sense
Some see it as a spectrum, others see a break point in how and where authority is derived. With traditional authoritarians appealing to organised religion while true fascists dispense with that because l’etat c’est moi.
Where fascists seem to fail is through either military overreach, defeat and economic collapse, or cronyism and corruption which brings stagnation. Putin will hopefully soon fall because of both.
Donald Trump is a wannabe fascist. If he can manage to get there he will.
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
And I think the 'issue' is that Communism is seen mostly as a set of economic beliefs...
Well, yes. But those economic beliefs govern what you can own, how you are medicated, surgeried, fed, watered, housed and employed, how your children are schooled, and specifically prevents you from trying something better on your own initiative. It sounds good but it's stupid at best and murderous at worst.
Indeed: it's why communism is doomed to fail.
And also - of course - why little experiments at communism are perfectly allowable within capitalist systems. If you want to join a communist kibbutz, you could.
Communism in its original form is the ideal economic system for the context in which humans evolved: small kinship groups of hunter gatherers. Any other system in that situation tends to lead to conflict and social breakdown. Communism doesn’t however work in any other economic setting, not even subsistence cultivation or livestock grazing.
Perhaps this is why many are instinctively drawn to the ideal of communism. It represents some deep evolutionary vestige in the human brain.
But Marxist theory is predicated on an, and requires an industrial society. Lenin and Stalin* starved millions of agricultural peasants to develop one (built by Americans) so that they could have communism.
IOW, it was bollocks from the very start.
(And what China has now isn't communism in any sense, apart from the label they still insist upon.)
*Trotsky was more of your straightforward mass murderer.
What's your take on Castro?
Also a murderer, wasn't he? Anf mass-imprisoner? Also impoverished Cuba. I may be way off beam here, but my understanding is that Cuba and Puerto Rico were roughly equal in 1958. Not now. And you never got people risking death to flee Pherto Rico.
He may have looked good on a t-shirt but he the oboy reason he isn't considered one of tge twentietg centiry's greatest villains is that there was so much competition.
Lots of debits for sure. But it's more of a mixed picture than many other communist horror shows, I'd say. Certain things improved, at least for a while. There's a good BBC iplayer doc on him that I watched recently.
But things improved in the Soviet Union too. The question is, what would have happened in tge counterfactual?
Happily for political economists, the world has given us exactly three counterfactuals: pairs of two societies which started off from roughly the same place, but one went down tge communist path and the other did not: Cuba and Puerto Rico from 1959, North and South Korea after the Korean war, West and East Germany after WW2. I think on that basis it's hard to argue anything other than that communism was awful - both for the freedom of the people and for their material well being.
America put Cuba in the freezer to make damn sure it struggled economically.
But, look, you will not - NOT - manoeuvre me into arguing that Communism is something to aspire to rather than avoid at all costs (other than going fascist). That isn't where I came in and it's not where I'm going out.
Other choices are available.
There’s quite a long list of successful liberal democratic regimes. They tend to fill the top ranks of both GDP per capita and the human development index.
Exactly. And the left leaning variety will one day be the end of history.
Musicians should be afraid, very afraid. Somebody has taken two very distinctive voices in country and created an original track using AI that is as good as anything they have actually released...I genuinely didn't realise it wasn't a new track they had recorded when it autoplayed on YouTube.
I would be amazed if the libdems or greens score at all. This electoral system is not conducive to proportionality. The 5th or 6th party is unlikely to get anything under the dhondt system.
They're abolishing the D'Hondt system and going with List PR.
Have I downloaded a different iOS 26 to the rest of you?
I thought it was just me. Haven’t had any issue with any of the upgrades. Couple of small irritations (suggesting a password should be filled in whilst I’m typing this, etc) but rather nice.
Clean. Much quicker. Little bit retro with hints of skeumorphism. All devices updated. No issues with apps, servers, VMs.
Really don’t know what you’re all grumbling about…
It's just a bit... 'meh'? The stuff they've ripped off from raycast I can see being useful for a small percentage of users. But it's not like they've tried something like Omarchy and pushed things forward.
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
Plus, the trans boyfriend thing turned out to be true:
FWIW: Some time ago I sent Tim Cook a letter offering him a "Free Tibet" bumper sticker, on the condition that he display it prominently. Curiously, he has not yet accepted my offer -- but he's a busy man.
(I see that there is a book out concluding that Apple has become a ChiCom property. I haven't seen the book, but -- sadly -- the argument doesn't seem implausible.)
16 September 1858. Conservative politician Andrew Bonar Law was born in Rexton, New Brunswick, Canada. He’s the shortest serving PM of 20th century (211 days- 1922-1923). Bonar Law and Boris Johnson are the only 2 UK PM’s born outside the UK and Ireland.
You Canuck be serious!
It would be so much better for the history of political humour if he had an E not an A .
I rocked up to the last seat selection hustings I went to completely without notes. Knew my opening and closing comments verbatim and my key points. Completely flummoxed one of the other candidates who had reams of notes and even then kept forgetting her point.
It's much better if you can. I gave my maiden speech in Parliament entirely from notes, as I was nervous. It was a bit rubbish, whereas later speeches without notes were better (though I'll never sway the millions).
I’ve taught myself to play an extrovert and to be able to speak in public over the years, with bullet points and cue cards for a familiar subject - but a maiden speech in Parliament is one of those you’re going to want in front of you written out in full!
As somebody who regularly gives speeches to large meetings I've learned it is best to write bullet points down (and key gags) down rather than the whole speech.
I once used a teleprompter and it was a bigger disaster than the Liz Truss premiership, I kept on looking at that and completely losing my focus.
Had I become an MP my first speech to Parliament would have begun like this
'Hello, my name is Mr Eagles, and I'm an alcoholic, oh wait, wrong speech.'
Started my father's speech at my daughter's wedding, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in this matter...oh, sorry, wrong speech."
Our middle son got married in Australia just before Christmas and Fitaloon as father of the groom thought he would simple be doing the wedding toast with the Quaich and a very special malt whisky he brought from home to celebrate their first drink as a married couple. It was only when we arrived in Australia for the wedding that he discovered that our son and daughter in law had decided they wanted both fathers to give a speech at the reception, both speeches were very good as both Dads had a bit of fun sharing notes when they wrote their speeches.
Named by both The New York Times and The Economist as one of the best books of the year so far, this “scrupulously reported” (The New Yorker) and “astonishing” (The Daily Telegraph, London) book rivets with its portrayal of how Apple allowed itself to become dependent on China for a huge percentage of its manufacturing, making it vulnerable and unwittingly laying the groundwork for the Asian superpower to rival the US in technological expertise.
I'd be interested in seeing reactions -- pro and con -- from those who have read the book.
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
Or maybe it took rhem a week to fake it. Given the current state of lies in the US, it's not beyond the bounds...
I'm happy to report that Three Days of the Condor held up remarkably well.
Outstanding moment was the 70s style phone hacking. Pure nostalgia.
The only Oscar nomination it got that year was best editing...
A remarkable year, not least for Fate Dunaway, who also appeared in Chinatown. Godfather II dominated the Oscars; and Mel Brooks released both Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles; and criminal that The Conversation, a paranoid thriller even better than Condor (and another great piece from Coppola) didn't get a best actor nomination for Gene Hackman.
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
Or maybe it took rhem a week to fake it. Given the current state of lies in the US, it's not beyond the bounds...
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
Or maybe it took rhem a week to fake it. Given the current state of lies in the US, it's not beyond the bounds...
I think it's highly likely that he was left wing, and that his partner was trans.
On the other hand, the murderer of Melissa Hortman - Speaker of the Minessota House - and her husband was very definitely right wing. And David DePape who broke into Nancy Pelosi's house and seriously injured her husband was also very definitely right wing.
There are people in the US who will use violence to further their ideology, and I don't think it's a left-right thing.
What is genuinely shocking about the Charlie Kirk murder, though, is the extent to which his supporters seem completely unable to concieve of the possibility that there have been attacks on people of a leftist persuasion. Indeed, it's almost like these attacks never happened.
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
The full indictment, instead of the NYT summary, can be found here:
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
Or maybe it took rhem a week to fake it. Given the current state of lies in the US, it's not beyond the bounds...
I think it's highly likely that he was left wing, and that his partner was trans.
On the other hand, the murderer of Melissa Hortman - Speaker of the Minessota House - and her husband was very definitely right wing. And David DePape who broke into Nancy Pelosi's house and seriously injured her husband was also very definitely right wing.
There are people in the US who will use violence to further their ideology, and I don't think it's a left-right thing.
What is genuinely shocking about the Charlie Kirk murder, though, is the extent to which his supporters seem completely unable to concieve of the possibility that there have been attacks on people of a leftist persuasion. Indeed, it's almost like these attacks never happened.
That -to me- is the genuinely shocking thing.
I forget who said it, on the subject of Northern Ireland - “This is place where they remember every detail of a wrong to Their Side in 1783. And can’t remember the name of the postman, from The Other Side, who bleed to death, across the road, last Thursday.”
But only in the same way as we're all gradually "getting used" to the start menu on windows 11 - ie we tolerate it, because we have no choice.
The sad reality is that the Windows UI peaked at the fairly minimalist version of Win 7, and everything since has just added complexity and disfunction for no useful purpose.
At least with windows boxes you don't have to pay twice the going rate for the hardware to run a badly laid out OS.
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
Or maybe it took rhem a week to fake it. Given the current state of lies in the US, it's not beyond the bounds...
I think it's highly likely that he was left wing, and that his partner was trans.
On the other hand, the murderer of Melissa Hortman - Speaker of the Minessota House - and her husband was very definitely right wing. And David DePape who broke into Nancy Pelosi's house and seriously injured her husband was also very definitely right wing.
There are people in the US who will use violence to further their ideology, and I don't think it's a left-right thing.
What is genuinely shocking about the Charlie Kirk murder, though, is the extent to which his supporters seem completely unable to concieve of the possibility that there have been attacks on people of a leftist persuasion. Indeed, it's almost like these attacks never happened.
That -to me- is the genuinely shocking thing.
I forget who said it, on the subject of Northern Ireland - “This is place where they remember every detail of a wrong to Their Side in 1783. And can’t remember the name of the postman, from The Other Side, who bleed to death, across the road, last Thursday.”
That -sadly- is spot on.
Of course, it's all a symptom of what George W Bush identified:
“Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions”
I'm sure JD Vance doesn't see any similarities between himself and David DePape or Vance Luther Boelter. Yet he is very comfortable tarring all Democrats (and people with even vaguely left wing views) with the actions of Tyler Robinson.
But only in the same way as we're all gradually "getting used" to the start menu on windows 11 - ie we tolerate it, because we have no choice.
The sad reality is that the Windows UI peaked at the fairly minimalist version of Win 7, and everything since has just added complexity and disfunction for no useful purpose.
At least with windows boxes you don't have to pay twice the going rate for the hardware to run a badly laid out OS.
All while the Linux experience is getting better and better.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
And you've offered no clues.
The definition of Fascism is notoriously impalpable, as we all know. I was going by the wanky socialist liberal-left @bondegezou-esque typology, which would defintely call Pinochet a FASCIST in a loud falsetto shriek
So not fascist then.
Thanks for clearing it up
I was last in Chile in the summer of 2001, when I went skiing there.
Chile under Pinochet was classic authoritarian traditionalist, like most of the European regimes in the pre-war period. Church, family, obedience. But more economically literate than most of its authoritarian peers. Not dissimilar to some Asian dictatorships now. Or arguably Franco’s Spain. Different from liberal democracy and different from fascism, or indeed from authoritarian populism of the Trump sort.
Proper fascist polities aren’t that common, though I’d say modern day Russia has all the elements.
Fascism, like communism, is best seen as a spectrum of right wing authoritarianism. Pinochet seized power violently, killed thousands, installed a dictator (him), tortured and repressed, vaunted patriotism and flag waving, That puts him on the spectrum, but at the softer end, with Franco and Salazar, not as fash as Mussolini and obvs not anything like Hitler
The commie spectrum goes from wet NPXMP euro communism through rigid Soviet Leninism to hardcore Maoism to the total insanity of the Khmer Rouge
It is fruitless to impose rigid definitions, viewing these political codes as spectrums of belief, even constellations, makes much more sense
Where are you getting the flag waving and patriotism from?
There were no flag waving rallies, and Pinochet himself kept a pretty low profile.
The only thing that possibly comes close was the annual military parade - but I defy you to look at photos from a 1965 Parada Militar and a 1980 one and to see any particular differences.
Siezing power violently does not make one fascist, otherewise pretty much every tinpot Middle Eastern dictator would be one.
Fascism, like communism, is best seen as a spectrum of right wing authoritarianism. Pinochet seized power violently, killed thousands, installed a dictator (him), tortured and repressed, vaunted patriotism and flag waving, That puts him on the spectrum, but at the softer end, with Franco and Salazar, not as fash as Mussolini and obvs not anything like Hitler
The commie spectrum goes from wet NPXMP euro communism through rigid Soviet Leninism to hardcore Maoism to the total insanity of the Khmer Rouge
It is fruitless to impose rigid definitions, viewing these political codes as spectrums of belief, even constellations, makes much more sense
Have I downloaded a different iOS 26 to the rest of you?
MacOS Tahoe with Liquid Glass is ... unfinished.
Some of the IOS betas were shocking bad, stuff like broken backwards and forwards buttons on Safari, and the whole thing falling over with 50 tabs open, incoherent window switching and application switching, a right mess.
One has to wonder if software companies even do the very basics of QA any more. Steve Jobs would be turning in his grave.
Still can't believe we had an opinion poll today/yesterday putting Labour on 14% in Wales.
I can't believe some PBers were unfamiliar with the ‘perverted science’ description of fascism when Winston Churchill used it in one of the most famous speeches in British and indeed world history.
What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_was_their_finest_hour
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
But I'm struggling to understand what was fascistic about it.
And you've offered no clues.
The definition of Fascism is notoriously impalpable, as we all know. I was going by the wanky socialist liberal-left @bondegezou-esque typology, which would defintely call Pinochet a FASCIST in a loud falsetto shriek
So not fascist then.
Thanks for clearing it up
I was last in Chile in the summer of 2001, when I went skiing there.
Chile under Pinochet was classic authoritarian traditionalist, like most of the European regimes in the pre-war period. Church, family, obedience. But more economically literate than most of its authoritarian peers. Not dissimilar to some Asian dictatorships now. Or arguably Franco’s Spain. Different from liberal democracy and different from fascism, or indeed from authoritarian populism of the Trump sort.
Proper fascist polities aren’t that common, though I’d say modern day Russia has all the elements.
Fascism, like communism, is best seen as a spectrum of right wing authoritarianism. Pinochet seized power violently, killed thousands, installed a dictator (him), tortured and repressed, vaunted patriotism and flag waving, That puts him on the spectrum, but at the softer end, with Franco and Salazar, not as fash as Mussolini and obvs not anything like Hitler
The commie spectrum goes from wet NPXMP euro communism through rigid Soviet Leninism to hardcore Maoism to the total insanity of the Khmer Rouge
It is fruitless to impose rigid definitions, viewing these political codes as spectrums of belief, even constellations, makes much more sense
Where are you getting the flag waving and patriotism from?
There were no flag waving rallies, and Pinochet himself kept a pretty low profile.
The only thing that possibly comes close was the annual military parade - but I defy you to look at photos from a 1965 Parada Militar and a 1980 one and to see any particular differences.
Siezing power violently does not make one fascist, otherewise pretty much every tinpot Middle Eastern dictator would be one.
I'm a little surprised at Leon, since it's always been one of his specialist subjects.
Kristi Noem personally joined ICE in Chicago for a raid—but arrests U.S. citizen by mistake.
He was woken up by an explosion—that literally blew the doors off his house.
Agents handcuff him and feature him in propaganda video—which they released even after arrest was proven to be a mistake.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shared the video on social media of four men—including Joe Botello—being dragged out of his house.
Neither the video nor her message admits that Joe Botello is a U.S. citizen—who they were forced to release.
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
Worth bearing in mind that the charging document will selectively quote from the questions that the police chose to ask.
The quote you cite sounds like an answer to “did you son become more pro-gay and trans-orientated over the last year?”
Named by both The New York Times and The Economist as one of the best books of the year so far, this “scrupulously reported” (The New Yorker) and “astonishing” (The Daily Telegraph, London) book rivets with its portrayal of how Apple allowed itself to become dependent on China for a huge percentage of its manufacturing, making it vulnerable and unwittingly laying the groundwork for the Asian superpower to rival the US in technological expertise.
I'd be interested in seeing reactions -- pro and con -- from those who have read the book.
That’s next on my list after Two and Twenty. I’ll give feedback
Named by both The New York Times and The Economist as one of the best books of the year so far, this “scrupulously reported” (The New Yorker) and “astonishing” (The Daily Telegraph, London) book rivets with its portrayal of how Apple allowed itself to become dependent on China for a huge percentage of its manufacturing, making it vulnerable and unwittingly laying the groundwork for the Asian superpower to rival the US in technological expertise.
I'd be interested in seeing reactions -- pro and con -- from those who have read the book.
That’s next on my list after Two and Twenty. I’ll give feedback
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
Or maybe it took rhem a week to fake it. Given the current state of lies in the US, it's not beyond the bounds...
I think it's highly likely that he was left wing, and that his partner was trans.
On the other hand, the murderer of Melissa Hortman - Speaker of the Minessota House - and her husband was very definitely right wing. And David DePape who broke into Nancy Pelosi's house and seriously injured her husband was also very definitely right wing.
There are people in the US who will use violence to further their ideology, and I don't think it's a left-right thing.
What is genuinely shocking about the Charlie Kirk murder, though, is the extent to which his supporters seem completely unable to concieve of the possibility that there have been attacks on people of a leftist persuasion. Indeed, it's almost like these attacks never happened.
That -to me- is the genuinely shocking thing.
Shocking but unsurprising, sadly.
US news media are such distorting windows on the world that you don't need very much bad faith to conclude that your side is triumphant and wholly virtuous and the other side is slithering towards an inevitable and deserved destruction.
And whilst neither side is good, one side is far more sealed off and far worse for this than the other.
UK news media have their flaws, but are nowhere near as bad. Here, you do still need a degree of bad faith or foolishness to come to similar conclusions.
I'm pretty sure this is why liberal democracy is preferable to autocracy of the left or right. Cut off the feedback loops and those in charge tend to lose the accurate flow of information they need to run things.
That’s the one. Not very good - too one sided and not hugely insightful.
I’m halfway through and all I’ve learnt is that PE executives are amazing, the brightest of the bright, really hard working and have the uncanny ability to take a completely dispassionate perspective on long term investment.
This morning’s funny. Well, it’s funny if it wasn’t you that did it.
One Spirit Airlines pilot not paying attention over New York yesterday, got a little too close to a large blue & white plane heading towards the UK, and had to be told several times to alter his course by the controller.
Comments
The president is from "The Party of Dignity" a sort of left wing popular front.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apruebo_Dignidad#:~:text=Apruebo Dignidad ([aˈpɾweβo ðiɣniˈðað],for the Constitutional Convention election.
The President of Uruguay too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamandú_Orsi
I dont think either country looks back fondly on its military dictatorship.
They are not stupid and they can see what happened to the countries in LatAm that went Left
If you were running this site would make you weep.
And you've offered no clues.
Tho to be fair I was unaware Guyana had surged to the top: all that oil wealth
"Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed but in every case it is someone else's blood . That is why some of our thinkers feel free to say just about anything."
Tony Judt summed it up well too -
"Totalitarianism of the Left, much like an earlier totalitarianism of the Right, was about violence and power and control, and it appealed because of these features, not in spite of them."
Now I dunno
This is even more extreme than Windows 8 with the full-screen start menu and attempt to bolt mouse gestures on for things that were otherwise done by dragging a finger through the border of a touch screen. At least there the ratio of touch to non-touch devices wasn't as extreme, and you could switch to the normal desktop easily.
I didn't like the look of the previews, but using the new software myself has astounded me that Apple thought it was fit to ship. I will not be surprised if they revert a lot of this for next year's operating systems, a bit like Microsoft did with Windows 10.
Not liking Apple at the moment, I get my Watch Ultra 3 and new Airpods Pro on Friday but my new 2TB 17 Pro Max in Orange won't be delivered until the middle of October.
There is a story about Jobs when the Mac was being launched. He didn't like the radius of the corners on the calculator app. Every time the designer showed him, he didn't like it, so instead he coded a knob that Jobs could tweak until he was happy with it.
Nobody at Apple cares that much any more
Thanks for clearing it up
I was last in Chile in the summer of 2001, when I went skiing there.
Or just Chile?
FWIW I would say Yes Chile was Fascist when Pinochet siezed power, but it then evolved away from that. Which is kinda my point
But if you want me to argue it coherently you'll have to wait until tomorrow
Great country, Chile. Certainly my favourite in South America. It has everything, including relative safety
Proper fascist polities aren’t that common, though I’d say modern day Russia has all the elements.
@GoodwinMJ
In the last 10 days, I’ve spoken to people in Birmingham, Eastleigh, Bognor Regis, Bexley, Wearside, Southend, & Halifax. I am telling you Westminster has no idea what’s coming. The hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding, forgotten majority has had enough of what is happening to their country. I’ve never felt energy like this. It’s bigger than Brexit."
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1968062020642558038
You'll begin on the SureStart screen.
The commie spectrum goes from wet NPXMP euro communism through rigid Soviet Leninism to hardcore Maoism to the total insanity of the Khmer Rouge
It is fruitless to impose rigid definitions, viewing these political codes as spectrums of belief, even constellations, makes much more sense
@FXMC1957
16 September 1858. Conservative politician Andrew Bonar Law was born in Rexton, New Brunswick, Canada. He’s the shortest serving PM of 20th century (211 days- 1922-1923). Bonar Law and Boris Johnson are the only 2 UK PM’s born outside the UK and Ireland.
But, look, you will not - NOT - manoeuvre me into arguing that Communism is something to aspire to rather than avoid at all costs (other than going fascist). That isn't where I came in and it's not where I'm going out.
Where fascists seem to fail is through either military overreach, defeat and economic collapse, or cronyism and corruption which brings stagnation. Putin will hopefully soon fall because of both.
The US blockade was and is a mistake; it allowed the Cuban people to blame the US rather than their government.
Clean. Much quicker. Little bit retro with hints of skeumorphism. All devices updated. No issues with apps, servers, VMs.
Really don’t know what you’re all grumbling about…
There’s quite a long list of successful liberal democratic regimes. They tend to fill the top ranks of both GDP per capita and the human development index.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/us/politics/kirk-shooting-suspect-motive-messages.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
There. Finally. An end to this nonsense
It is incredible that the left spent a week trying to gaslight us all into believing this dude was a far right Republican nutter when he actually and literally wrote “here fascist! Catch!” on his ammo
“A charging document filed by prosecutors in court said that Mr. Robinson’s mother told investigators that her son had grown more political, and that his political views had moved to the left over the last year or so. She also told the police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.” Mr. Robinson’s partner, who was living with him, had been transitioning to being a woman from a man, prosecutors said”
Jelly Roll ft. MIley Cyrus - Through My Soul
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyfARr4rdsQ
Then I check their channel and they have loads of tracks that are as good as the original artist.
https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1968029967134204162
(Who says "my love"? Is this 1954?)
(I see that there is a book out concluding that Apple has become a ChiCom property. I haven't seen the book, but -- sadly -- the argument doesn't seem implausible.)
One for TSE.
Is Kash Patel wearing an LFC tie, whilst getting his arse handed to him by Adam Schiff?
On the other hand, the murderer of Melissa Hortman - Speaker of the Minessota House - and her husband was very definitely right wing. And David DePape who broke into Nancy Pelosi's house and seriously injured her husband was also very definitely right wing.
There are people in the US who will use violence to further their ideology, and I don't think it's a left-right thing.
What is genuinely shocking about the Charlie Kirk murder, though, is the extent to which his supporters seem completely unable to concieve of the possibility that there have been attacks on people of a leftist persuasion. Indeed, it's almost like these attacks never happened.
That -to me- is the genuinely shocking thing.
I knew everyone would eventually see I'm right.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/16/us/tyler-robinson-charges.html
Be kind. Especially if you don't agree.
The sad reality is that the Windows UI peaked at the fairly minimalist version of Win 7, and everything since has just added complexity and disfunction for no useful purpose.
At least with windows boxes you don't have to pay twice the going rate for the hardware to run a badly laid out OS.
Of course, it's all a symptom of what George W Bush identified:
“Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions”
I'm sure JD Vance doesn't see any similarities between himself and David DePape or Vance Luther Boelter. Yet he is very comfortable tarring all Democrats (and people with even vaguely left wing views) with the actions of Tyler Robinson.
There were no flag waving rallies, and Pinochet himself kept a pretty low profile.
The only thing that possibly comes close was the annual military parade - but I defy you to look at photos from a 1965 Parada Militar and a 1980 one and to see any particular differences.
Siezing power violently does not make one fascist, otherewise pretty much every tinpot Middle Eastern dictator would be one.
Until a few days ago, Salisbury was the only Conservative seat in the country that was totally surrounded by other Tory seats.
There aren't any anymore, because one of those was East Wiltshire which is of course now a Reform seat.
One has to wonder if software companies even do the very basics of QA any more. Steve Jobs would be turning in his grave.
Weight loss jabs? Has he had some work done?
For instance, this Times Radio clip from yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TFv7XRKp-w
What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_was_their_finest_hour
He was woken up by an explosion—that literally blew the doors off his house.
Agents handcuff him and feature him in propaganda video—which they released even after arrest was proven to be a mistake.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shared the video on social media of four men—including Joe Botello—being dragged out of his house.
Neither the video nor her message admits that Joe Botello is a U.S. citizen—who they were forced to release.
The ICE raid occurred in the Chicago suburb of Elgin, Illinois.
https://x.com/LongTimeHistory/status/1968088755383804182
Actually, two out of the four were US citizens.
The quote you cite sounds like an answer to “did you son become more pro-gay and trans-orientated over the last year?”
So what’s your outrage level on Melissa Hortman?
That’s next on my list after Two and Twenty. I’ll give feedback
This Two and Twenty? https://www.amazon.com/Two-Twenty-Masters-Private-Equity/dp/0593239598
US news media are such distorting windows on the world that you don't need very much bad faith to conclude that your side is triumphant and wholly virtuous and the other side is slithering towards an inevitable and deserved destruction.
And whilst neither side is good, one side is far more sealed off and far worse for this than the other.
UK news media have their flaws, but are nowhere near as bad. Here, you do still need a degree of bad faith or foolishness to come to similar conclusions.
I'm pretty sure this is why liberal democracy is preferable to autocracy of the left or right. Cut off the feedback loops and those in charge tend to lose the accurate flow of information they need to run things.
I’m halfway through and all I’ve learnt is that PE executives are amazing, the brightest of the bright, really hard working and have the uncanny ability to take a completely dispassionate perspective on long term investment.
One Spirit Airlines pilot not paying attention over New York yesterday, got a little too close to a large blue & white plane heading towards the UK, and had to be told several times to alter his course by the controller.
https://x.com/thenewarea51/status/1968135487601930590