Young Master Smeet
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Indeed, there were specific historical instances for the Hitler & Mussolini regimes. But we have an ideologically fascist government in Italy right now, but the historic circumstance of Italy now means they can’t just sweep away democracy (or that they have no interest in doing so). I think there is a real chance that the front national will have the next presidency of France, but I think they are unlikely to behave in office much different than Trump did in the states.
To discuss this meaningfully, we need a working definition of fascism that distinguishes from conservatism, authoritarianism, militarism and nationalism – things we have seen in government many times over.
Voted: they only cursorily checked my ID (just to make sure there was a photo there at all), then handed my ID to a supervisor. I made a wee fuss, but she explained they were just tallying use of council issued ID.
I forgot my stickers, so had to spoil my ballot long hand.
Missed this:
City Hall election: "send a message that you want a world of common ownership and democratic control"
Socialist Party of Great Britain candidate Bill Martin on their London Assembly platformhttps://t.co/VEkT9AZOG3
— BarnetPost (@BarnetPost) April 28, 2024
Old English, possibly wrong but:
Medmicheleras gewrites [Moderator’s note]
We habbaþ þine cwíþingas “Berniciphobias” aræddon.
We habbaþ afundon þa ne bið naht ma to us to donne.
[We have read your complaint of “Berniciaphobia”. We have found there is no further action].Face is a matter of propaganda: Iran and it’s proponents are lauding the missile attack, saying it was a strategic stroke of genius, Israel says they shot down all the missiles and proved Iran powerless: sometimes you have to take the L, we saw this through the cold war: they will fight, they will devastate countries and kills thousands upon thousands, but will avoid total war if they can: the memory of Britain losing its Empire through fighting Germany lingers.
Just as a note, with all four Ridings getting Mayors plus Teesside, that could be a useful bloc for Yorkshire to start making some noise on the national stage. That is an area with an equivalent population to Scotland: I’m sure there’ll be no playing areas off against each other…
Let’s just say we have form:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrimage_of_Grace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrying_of_the_NorthKind of telling that there is not even a token ‘left’ mayoral candidate, and all the rightward ones are CEOs of one sort or another.
It is also a master class in political leaflet design: Khan’s section is colourful with close to zero argument, he’s relying on being a known factor: Hall’s is too wordy and woeful. Michli and Campbell are great from a design POV.
The SDP candidate is strange, a clear cut through message is that she’s against woke: the current SDP pitch is socially conservative, but economically interventionist, she is quiet about the second part.
It’s amazing how many candidates call London a cess pit.
Not sure we could bullet point the way they do, but it’d be interesting to try, I suppose it would be:
Abolish the state
Abolish the need for money
For common ownership and democratic control.The Guardian has an IDF response to the story:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-defence-forces-response-to-claims-about-use-of-lavender-ai-database-in-gaza“The “system” your questions refer to is not a system, but simply a database whose purpose is to cross-reference intelligence sources, in order to produce up-to-date layers of information on the military operatives of terrorist organizations. This is not a list of confirmed military operatives eligible to attack.”
So, they admit Lavender exists, but maintain that its contents/output was subject to further verification, this is important because:
“According to international humanitarian law, a person who is identified as a member of an organized armed group (like the Hamas’ military wing), or a person who directly participates in hostilities, is considered a lawful target. This legal rule is reflected in the policy of all law-abiding countries, including the IDF’s legal practice and policy, which did not change during the course of the war.”
and ” In accordance with the rules of international law, the assessment of the proportionality of a strike is conducted by the commanders on the basis of all the information available to them before the strike, and naturally not on the basis of its results in hindsight.”
The point is, you can make such calculations very quickly, and apply a lower than usual bar.
“The IDF outright rejects the claim regarding any policy to kill tens of thousands of people in their homes.”
Again, note the precise formulation, it has a policy to kill Hamas militants, and a procedure that locates them in their homes, that is not a policy to kill them in their home.
Pinch of salt/war propaganda time, so lets see how far this story travels, according to this article Israel used an AI system to identify targets, i.e. Hamas operatives, and positively targeted them at their family homes.
They stayed within the rules of war because they were targeting military operatives (or reasonably believed them to be so) and allowed a margin of civilian casualties (rather than directly targeting civilians intentionally, this is a legalistic hair splitting argument, and it may be that international jurisprudence may not like it – my rough opinion is Israel has worked out what it wants to do, and constructed enough legal cover to enable it).
“In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians; in the past, the military did not authorize any “collateral damage” during assassinations of low-ranking militants. The sources added that, in the event that the target was a senior Hamas official with the rank of battalion or brigade commander, the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.”
Note the IDF’s official formulation “The IDF does not carry out attacks when the collateral damage expected from the attack is excessive in relation to the military advantage.” The wiggle room is: what is excessive (especially as they are claiming the threat from Hamas is existential for Israel).
About 160 leaflets delivered door to door in Finchley Central, I’ve got some more spots lined up. A small start… I suspect, on average, only 1 of those leaflets will get read, let’s see if the QR lights up.
There are 142 posts he’s created, I mean, it is possible to edit them one by one to blank them, (and I could in theory go through and delete them one by one, but that would take far too much time).
It’s starting to get a bit disturbing, people are beginning to imply that the Labour Party is under the thumb of Israel (or Labour Friends of Israel), or that “agents of a foreign power” are directing policy.
Of course, there is an Israel lobby, and rightly so, there will be lobbies for every country on Earth: and, just as Winston Churchill lobbied for the UK in the US, Israel pitches for its interest in the UK and US. It may well be more successful than others, but largely because it aligns with UK/US interests in the region.
But, the implication that “foreign agents” are directing British policy has some ugly forbears, and could lead to some very dark places. The egregious Galloway is feeding on that, with his patriotic party, and, seemingly, the SWP are becoming more extreme.
EU cannot sanction Russian foodstuffs, but can impose tariffs (given the strife over tariffs for Ukraine, these may be substantial).
“In a call between Von der Leyen and the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, on March 15 – where the possibility of trade restrictions against Russia was raised – the stated concern was “how to support agriculture in Poland and Europe”. Or put another way, how to address Polish farmers’ protests about EU imports of Ukraine grains, which are hurting the internal EU market. The call was not about how to punish Russia, although it could be argued the two are inextricably linked.”
Let’s remember our case that Tariffs are a fundamental cause of strife between capitalist factions.
Pointedly, the EU will not prevent transit of Russian foodstuffs.
