You can buy a huge media conglomerate with money you don't have using leveraged debt you'll never pay off and then immediately start firing its workers, but people will still say that capitalism is compatible with democracy and is capable of "reform" or "regulation"

The A.V. Club@avclub.com · 6d ago

Following the final approval of the Warner Bros.-Paramount merger, CEO David Ellison promises "difficult decisions that affect our workforce." tinyurl.com/5n7jnxe4 That's all, folks—Skydance immediately hints at massive layoffs

Israel is an ethnostate. Ethnostates are racist. It's rationale for being one is zionism. Ergo zionism is racism. It's not hard. 🤷🏽‍♂️

*That is only about five episodes, in fairness, but that is still a 100% hit rate, which seems unusually high.

On the topic of extremism, by the way: every episode of this guy’s podcast that I’ve listened to* has included a section where he’s had to explain to either his wingnut cohost or a crank guest that Israel can’t just kill everyone then call anyone who complains Hamas, because that will upset people.

flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · last wk.

Sure Jon, why the fuck not, if we are just making shit up? I heard they’ve got a factory making WMDs within forty five minutes, maybe we should invade them and settle this shit once and for all

It is bizarre that we are arresting OAPs for holding anodyne placards while people like Berger fulminate about non-existent demands and fictional party policies. A sincere and modest expression of belief is criminalised while brazen lying and hyperbolic emoting are indulged.

The core of this worldview isn't rooted in partisanship or foreign policy positions but about who has the right to political expression. Purity tests must only be applied against out-groups, not the in-group, and any attempt to shift the border will be resisted furiously.

Nowadays, the media (and media-friendly politicians) are the main conductors of such tests. The growing limitation on free speech is coming from two directions: repressive laws on protest and a media ecosystem that has taken on the role of the thought police.

That is a genuine purity test: a demand that you toe the line or be deemed beyond the pale. It's also important as a key example of a shift over time. Political purity tests were originally about drawing factional lines between or within parties that the media merely reported on.

None of the claims made here are true, but that's beside the point. What matters is the suggestion that certain people should not be subject to purity tests, while others should. For example, raise Palestine and you will be asked if you think Israel has the right to exist.

A badge of honour from a government that is committing genocide, ethnic cleansing and left premature babies to die in the incubators of Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital.

Politics UK@politicsuk.com · last wk.

🚨 BREAKING: Zack Polanski has been banned from ever visiting Israel after the Green Party vote declaring “Zionism is racism”

The extent to which we are expected to tolerate being called racists and Nazis by people who very happily sit across the table from bona fide white supremacists and who will plead endless nuance and genuine concerns for islamophobes is really quite something.

Wandered into the UK politics thread on ResetERA for the first time in many many years to see what the temperature was over the Zionism is Racism motion, only to remember that it's generally just full of wealthy Labour melts and Lib Dems.

Staff at Radio Rwanda were given thirty years in prison for their role in enabling genocide, and rightly so.

Not particularly bothered by Green MPs shrinking away from the "Zionism is Racism" motion. There's a degree of cowardice to be priced in when it comes to elected officials, which is why it's so important party members keep a hot poker at their backs to remind them at whose pleasure they serve.

When you disagree with Nigel Farage at the Reform Conference

talking about "hairshirt environmentalists" in the first few paragraphs just demonstrates the author's own agenda is a lot more sinister than anything coming out of the mouths of data center protesters

The Economist@economist.com · last mo.

There is a respectable argument for slowing down AI research, but it rests on the danger to all humanity of the technology being abused or going rogue—not the local harms of data centres

The exact people who bring up appeasement any time there's an anti-war protest will turn around and say it's best to just ignore fascists blockading British ports.

Spookably UnAwake@lamentablyawake.bsky.social · last mo.

"...if the fash go beyond merely blockading ports with impunity then of course we'll do something *then*."

No point complaining about getting Farage on tax evasion, like Al Capone. They did the same to Johnson: chose a scandal minutely targeted at him personally, one that did not involve repudiating any bit of Tory ideology or policy. The aim being to zap him with a laser, leaving the structure intact.

right-wing intimidation squads allowed to run around unmolested, while geriatric vicars are arrested on terror charges isn't some sort of inconsistency of position worthy of a "gotcha" from liberals, it's ideologically very consistent indeed and requires a response liberalism just cannot stomach

Could somebody fill me in with the vagueposting about a landlord MP, please and thank you.

Perplexed by some of the reactions to the Greater Manchester mayoral race. You didn't really think the Greens could win it this time, did you? Getting Labour to break the glass on their least hated guy is helpful, but them not having the Starmer stink on them anymore was more of a boon.

Just an absolute shout out to everyone out there who helped manufacture doubt around the question of this guy being a Nazi, particularly after the Nazi salute.

Spooky Snigdha@snig.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Tweet from Elon Musk: “Anyone who opposites remigration is a traitor” posted yesterday.

I do think, fundamentally, the anti-trans movement is best understood as an elite version of the satanic panic.

Miffythegamer@miffythegamer.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Rowling looming over a progressive Irish cultural festival with her menacing insinuations & a phalanx of expensive lawyers dashing off legal letters. And all because the organisers don’t want transphobes peddling hate at their event. A nauseating spectacle of spite.

Whenever a very right-wing person tells me they are grinding 24 hours a day, I assume they are working less than a normal person and a total liar and a hypocrite.

Allowing genocidal ethnonationalists to define what Judaism and antisemitism are inevitably leading to the Jewishness of anyone who doesn't support genocidal ethnonationalism enthusiastically enough being denied.

The Jewish Chronicle@jewishchron.bsky.social · 3mo ago

So just how Jewish is Ed Miliband? www.thejc.com/news/politic...

i have bad news about neo-nazis and the police

Al Jazeera English@aljazeera.com · 3mo ago

Austrian politicians hope the change will prevent neo-Nazis from visiting the building as a place of pilgrimage.

This is who you’d expect it to be, but consider how wild it is to say this in a country wrecked by long years of highly ideological austerity cuts. where the vital public services that haven’t been sold as rent-seeking opportunities, have been outsourced to private service companies.

New "change the things that need changing and that is the change I will bring about" just dropped www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Andy Burnham to promise to ‘fix the big things’ in first speech as Labour leader

Burnham, who is set to take the job on Friday, will promise to give back control to communities and spread growth

theguardian.com

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