Protests may need to be stopped in some cases, Keir Starmer suggests
Posted by BabylonianWeeb@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 123 comments
Posted by BabylonianWeeb@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 123 comments
Ma_Bowls@reddit
This man is turning more into the U.K.'s version of Joe Biden every single day. His election was supposed to mark an end to feckless, unpopular right wing governance but he's refusing to fix any of the problems his country is facing and it looks likely he may usher in an era of even more extreme right wing governance.
ZiiZoraka@reddit
I wish Starmer was our Joe Biden. I would kill to have a leader that actually pushed progressive policies in my country.
bradicality@reddit
Absolute state of the art Brandonization, yes
bonfireball@reddit
Starmer has been flirting with authoritarianism ever since he first stepped into office, the conservatives before him put restrictions on protest as well.
The recent attack we saw was not as a result of the protests we have seen, no protest I have seen surrounding Palestine has been openly calling for violence, rather the opposite much of the the time actually.
If you go in any UK subreddit though you wouldn't know this to be the case, though as we always say, bots can't go to the polling station.
Starmer is just looking for a reason to further restrict our personal freedoms, he's practically paving the way for a reform govmt atp.
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
I am curious why successive prime ministers since at least Theresa May go to the side of restricting freedom of speech
ChefCurryYumYum@reddit
Look at what money has done to American politics.
Those forces are at play in the UK as well.
GianfrancoZoey@reddit
Because there's a decided direction that the 'West' is heading and authoritarianism is required to facilitate that
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
What is this "direction", what are its defined endpoints, who drive it, and how exactly nominally elected office holders are pushed into that direction?
chambreezy@reddit
The WEF basically outlines it publicly and transparently.
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
What exactly they outlined?
BurialA12@reddit
Some stuff
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
And what exactly you want to point out on this particular instance? Considering most of policy planning and implementation is done at national level
BurialA12@reddit
You asked what they outlined, those are pretty outline-y
I thought you wanted to know, not just scoring some rhetorical gotcha
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
So something like AI Safety, and then a 2000 study that modelled the demographic change, and has made an interesting note that population would age and the predicted migration would not fully compensate it. Something really illuminating indeed, suggesting that some technical sections of the UN Secretariat had correctly done their math, or that a UN body organized a discussion forum. What exactly are you going to say?
This is not a game of doing anything, and I Don't have anyone to perform for rhetorical games. I am just asking for concrete facts, and the best anyone have produced something for me is a statistical study for a topic everyone was discussing at that time. Is there anything particularly nefarious other than a name that sounds so offensive for a generation that never even shot from a gun or worked with their muscles.
Illesbogar@reddit
Modern feudalism, pushed by the rich people who have the easiest job gaming two party systems.
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
How exactly the rich people convert their preferences into political action of the governments?
Maeglom@reddit
The supreme Court said money is speech, so they go out and talk to politicians.
Show_Me_Your_Rocket@reddit
This is called lobbying.
Scientific_Socialist@reddit
Upbeat_Commission124@reddit
If you want to get down the rabbit hole, start with Palantir and see where all your questions and links take you.
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
When the Palantir got active? And why the elite would follow them instead of forging their own way?
travistravis@reddit
It is inside the system as well. Labour Together was an internal group that was largely responsible for deselecting most of the left-leaning part of Labour and largely instrumental in replacing Corbyn with Starmer.
FlashyHeight9323@reddit
It’s the Oracle/Palantir combo
CreamofTazz@reddit
Because governments do A LOT of things outside of their campaign promises once elected. Starmer didn't run on limiting the right to protest, yet here he is, in a position of power to do exactly that anyway.
So instead of saying what you're going to do (strip away rights) you instead focus on some small niche group that doesn't bother anyone but isn't really big or unified enough to mount a defense, claim those people are the problem, and then once elected you strip away everyone's rights
Hidden_Land_Mine_183@reddit
If you're that interested in the issue, you should probably start by doing actual research than relying on reddit comments to teach you about it.
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
Actual research into what? I am already reading quite a lot, in multiple languages.
Besides, talking with people in any environment can produce insights. That includes the insane taxi driver.
Illesbogar@reddit
They own the media, like almost every news org and print what is benefitial to them. At the same time the ruling parties depend on their donations.
The people only get to choose between people that the rich already promoted to such positions. And going against their interests is almost impossible. The democratic system allows on paper for people to elect anyone, but in practice not everyone has a fair chance.
Just check out how every single mainstream left wing party in the left, social-denocratic parties, all left thwir ideologies behind and now do right-wing politics. And whenever the people elect these parties for a change of pace, they get a right-wing leader from them.
It's just kinda rigged all around. This is not to shit on democracy, but to point out that it needs reforms to survive.
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
Who are "they"? The old Marxists might mean the monopoly capital. The neonazis might mean the Jews.
Ruling parties depend on donations for activities, but they are also electoral machines who ultimately need votes to exist. If they can't get votes those money go to nowhere. What is interesting is that both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have largely destroyed their future, which means the instrument of "them" largely failed.
The media argument might work 20 years ago, but even then nobody stops opening a new newspaper or journal, Shinbun Akahata in Japan, the newspaper of the Japanese Communist Party who are hell bend on financial independence, got popular a few times when it exposed what mainstream media didn't cover sufficiently. Social media makes smaller studios with independent outlook more viable economically, why there is no counter-media?
Why major left wing parties became parties of capitalism plus regulations and some taxes can be easily explained but the organizational and ideological decline of socialism in the West that was caused but the Soviet tanks in Budapest, middle class consumerism, and those moderate platforms actually delivering the results people wanted while the western street Marxists promised fantastical revolution where everybody will live in hippie utopia and have drug fueled sex all day (yes, I really "like" western leftists, it doesn't apply to all others). Of course those moderate platforms stopped working eventually, but they built momentum that started breaking up in the last 16 years.
Ultimately the source is the system and its fundamental ideas. The problem is that the ideas that justify the system largely continue to exert a gargantuan influence over society, and the only people who break up from it are intellectuals who actually study people and understand those ideas apply to people who exist in books but not in real life, and people who idealize Russia as anti-gay tradwife utopia where all men are bodybuilders with Belgian blue cow-like muscles and all women are tied to their kitchens with iron chains.
Illesbogar@reddit
I started with "the rich" so I left nothing up to interpretation.
You can't really say that anyone can have a newspaper, because it needs money to work at a large scale. Same is true for modern social media, where propagamda and misinformation festers better than ever.
The USSR doesn't represent leftism. It doesn't effect it much. Left wing parties couldn't compete electorally. Part of that is that capitalism satisfied people for a while and part is all that I talked about. In the end they had to cave to capitalist influence too.
You have a weird view of leftism, but most leftist advocacy is asking for fair pay, normal working conditions, the possibility to own a house etc. Nothing unreasonable.
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
The rich themselves are a very diverse category. You can put a doctor who earns a lot of money through private practice, a person who just inherited an estate and spends just enough to maintain a luxurious lifestyle while the wealth management firm guarantee their income, the people who make profits from land rents, and many others into a unified structure, even though they do not necessarily act in that matter, even if they have shared interests. The major tech executives might have some interesting ideas about how the world should work, but they need to convince all others to join the project. Even Kim Jong Un needs support of the North Korean elite, and he spent the first 10 years of his rule in convincing, reshaping, and selectively destroying parts of the elite as to enact his policies. No where is Kim Jong Un and where is Elon Musk.
The USSR point is beside the point of conversation, but in the minds of many people at that time it did, Marxism has suffered a massive blow after the Soviet Union fell, Japanese universities closed down Marxist economics courses en masse, class politics became unfashionable, liberal triumphalism began assumed reality.
Weird view of leftism is what I encountered on the streets in the West, talking with people who have zero understanding of what they talk about. I have grown up occasionally reading old Soviet textbooks, Marxist-Leninist philosophy, political economy, and "scientific communism", absorbing the values of people whose life were shaped by the central objective of building the material and technical foundation of communism - priority of production over consumption, one for all and all for one, and the willingness to jump under the tank with a grenade in your mouth. What ideas, what values, and what thinking I encountered has more to do with the hippie culture then the movement that came to shape the entire 21st century. What you describe are basic class demands, but the instruments people conceive are often outdated and can be easily dismantled, the environment is completely different.
Scientific_Socialist@reddit
NogardDerNaerok@reddit
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technofeudalism
Fadingwalker@reddit
Indeed. As the climate shortages and forever wars rachet up, the government is gonna push harder for stuff like this.
Ok_Whereas8080@reddit
I think you mean the entire world is heading that way. We are now easier to control due to smart phones, social media, etc.
Exostrike@reddit
The trigger point seemed to have been extinction rebellion. It's sustained, large scale disruptive but non-violent civil disobedience the state has no answer to do the only solution was to clamp down on protest more generally
JoJoeyJoJo@reddit
Wasn't Insulate Britain before Extinction Rebellion? Similar tactics but the added irony that they had completely milquetoast demands to better insulate British homes, which was just saying the same thing as government papers.
The reaction seemed completely disproportionate - it's like the government just went mental when faced with a protest it couldn't ignore and has been going mental ever since.
Exostrike@reddit
No, insulate was 2021, extinction started in 2018. You might be thinking of Just Oil which started in 2022.
A big trigger for further repression seems to be when these big protests movements are anti-capitalist
travistravis@reddit
Globally it was before extinction rebellion. Occupy Wall Street was one of the points where there seemed to be a major shift. Likely not coincidentally, this was also when a large part of the anti-trans rhetoric started appearing (possibly due to a few of the focal organisers for a bunch of Occupy people were trans).
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
So here is the starting point, and yes, the ER does seem to be the moment, considering what kind of movement it was and how it was covered.
Though the structural forces that were unleashed by it must have grown before that, otherwise the response would have been milder. The guardian did report the department of education taking interest in the school class discussions around capitalism at least since 2017 if I remember correctly.
kekbooi@reddit
Don't have to be the good guys anymore after the fall of the ussr
Kaymish_@reddit
Capitalism is in decay so the elites turn to fascism to protect themselves. The masses are seeing a decline in living standards and are getting restless. It is harder for the population to identify problems and then organize the to demand changes if speech is restricted.
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
Why wouldn't they just breakup the civil groups in organized manner, strengthen control over the civil society like in Hungary through both penetration by select actors and legal restrictions, and capture the internet with support for the current government? It's much easier and a proven method tested in multiple countries.
itcheyness@reddit
Because that still leaves a proper state to potentially go back to. These people have no intention of doing that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
What do you mean? Can you elaborate what you mean?
I have read about the Dark Enlightenment since a long time ago and read some of the key NRx texts. Not something serious but still curious.
ModernirsmEnjoyer@reddit
I would say that
1) there is a comprehensive slow burning political, politcal-econonic, and cultural crisis of capitalist liberal democracy as a system of society
2)it produces dysfunctions from multiple directions that affect the people unevenly.
3) the more agitated are the ones at the margins of the society while the key social groups that form the social base of capitalist liberal democracy are largely intact and remain supportive even if idealistic belief is gone
4) those marginal groups demand change, but lack strength to change the system alone, but produce a lot of trouble for the system of society
5) Like any hierarchical social system, the elite individuals of the capitalist liberal democracy see those issues as originating not from the system, but from the malicious activities of domestic freaks and foreign powers
6) Which then produces the natural elite reaction - restriction through state power, and it results in schizophrenic ideology of repressing freedom in the name of freedom. The language of harm is emphasized to soften the cognitive dissonance.
BergamotZest@reddit
Labour values don’t seem to matter to those highest up in the party. Just look at Blair now; deals with oil tycoons and part of the horrific plans for the aftermath of Gaza.
Starmer seems on the same path; his Labour isn’t socialist and seems more like a right wing Trojan horse.
Saorren@reddit
wasnt the first victim a muslim? ishmail hussain?
Stubbs94@reddit
Yeah, but that doesn't fit into the lies about the stabbings having anything to do with opposition to genocide as opposed to the truth that it was someone having a mental health episode.
Loose_Spray1678@reddit
bro stabbed one guy he knew personally, and then spent well over an hour travelling to a Jewish neighborhood to go stab Jews. no mental illness would excuse a single one of these three stabbings.
lufan132@reddit
Learning a lesson from the colonies...
"Surely! Surely, if the opposition candidate is just nutty and wild enough, we can just do a series of unpopular things and choose not to campaign effectively!"
Election results come in, choosing not to campaign obviously didn't work
"Where did we go wrong?"
SabziZindagi@reddit
The Palestine protests in London have a Jewish block, their flags are visible at the marches. These are peaceful protests.
Conversely, Starmer is allowing a far right march to take place in London this month. At this same march last year, 26 police officers were injured, 4 seriously.
Livelih00d@reddit
Pretty sure Starmer made his MPs support the act that restricted protests. He was like this when he was the "opposition" too.
cambeiu@reddit
He and his party were supposed to be the "good guys" that would replace the Tories, right? With this kind of Labour, no wonder the far-Right is gaining ground.
CurvyMule@reddit
lol, you’re clearly too young to remember 97 and Blair and Brown
Withermaster4@reddit
Personally, I am. What about them
ChickenInASuit@reddit
People had much the same reaction to Blair’s New Labour winning after 18 years of Tory government. Celebration, cries of “a new era”, etc.
And to be fair, I don’t think this is an absolutely 1-to-1 comparison because the first term of the Blair/Brown government was actually an improvement, particularly the Good Friday Agreement brokering peace in Northern Ireland, the devolution of government creating Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, and the introduction of the minimum wage.
Then 9/11 happened and everything went to shit.
Kimantha_Allerdings@reddit
I think the current government under Starmer is awful. I also think it’s a massive improvement over the government it replaced (and the successive governments before it)
That’s the thing - don’t let how bad Starmer is or how vile the policy of trying to court the Reform voters while just assuming that the Labour core would stick around because they had no choice is (was?) let us forget how much worse the Tories were and how much worse Farage would be than either
Honestly, I think our best bet for a reasonable government is for Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales to be ruled by their respective regoinal parties, and for Labour (and the Tories) to do absolutely miserably in England, losing to the Greens & Lib Dems. Have that re-frame those parties as being genuine contenders in voters minds. And then have whoever the next Labour PM is after Starmer is forced to resign at last realise that the only way Labour will even have a foot in the door at the next general election is if we finally stop pretending that we’re still a 2-party country and abandon first past the post for a better system which forces coalitions and cooperation between all parties
Then we can start to get actual left-wing parties in positions where they can have a meaningful voice when it comes to policy
rogersdbt@reddit
I mean the starmer government is an improvement in that it functions unlike the end of the conservative governments. It's not much of one though.
evil__brain@reddit
Labour are the far right. They're happily sending weapons to facilitate a genocide in Gaza. They let the Trump fly planes from the British mainland to illegally bomb Iran, even after the primary school massacre. Many of the weapons the RSF used create that pile of bodies big enough to be seen from space came from the UK. Many of the key members of the ruling coalition in Ukraine are self-identified Nazis who seig heil each other openly. Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain are brutal dictatorships of the worst kind.
And at home, they've been as authoritarian as they can get away with, all to protect capital. They're far more interested in cracking down on anti-war protesters than the people burning down migrant hotels.
Labour is basically the SPD in Weimar Germany. They brand themselves as leftists, but they'll ally with fascists to protect capital every time it's threatened. They'll murder Rosa Luxembourg, and shoot marching workers on May Day. But they'll still end up in the same camps alongside us.
Czart@reddit
Lol. Lmao. Incredible thing a tankie mind.
ParagonRenegade@reddit
Or it’s just hyperbole used by a person angry about the huge lurch rightward?
Czart@reddit
They're literally accusing them of working with nazis. No it wasn't a hyperbole.
ParagonRenegade@reddit
They are making common cause with the far-right (Reform) though. They’ve conceded ground on ethnonationalist framing of immigration, failed on Brexit, support mass censorship, support imperial foreign policy, and have accepted the corporatist free market model.
Czart@reddit
Uh-huh. Being opposed to unrestricted migration isn't ethnonationalism.
Wow, failed at the thing they were not in power to stop?
Yeah that's problematic.
Huh?
HUH?
ParagonRenegade@reddit
bruh nothing I said is confusing or complicated
travistravis@reddit
They made Palestine Action a terrorist group, but didn't press for terrorism charges when people were trying to burn down a building full of asylum seekers.
But this is every "centrist" government. Left wing coalition won in France and the "centrists" would rather team up with the far right than risk a coalition that might make things more equitable.
mrs_ouchi@reddit
yeah remember when everyone was excited bout the Tories losing...
cambeiu@reddit
But Labour was quick to remind everyone why the Tories were in charge before.
HockeyHocki@reddit
He's not wrong, slogans like globalize the intifada incite violence and protest groups that allow it need to be held accountable. Anybody genuinely pro-peace would have zero problems with this
sumquy@reddit
how is a protest group going to stop me from saying it? are they supposed to do your dirty work for you and be held "accountable" themselves if they refuse?
HockeyHocki@reddit
They can stop the march and insist you stop. If someobody is in breach of the law and form a part of your protest it is in your own interest to stop the behavior before law enforcement step in and potentially shut the whole thing down. Failing instead of turning a blind eye they can request authorities remove them
Decent_Cheesecake_29@reddit
And here you are directly calling for violence against protesters.
HockeyHocki@reddit
No i didnt, if protestors are unwilling to obey the law when requested it should be referred to the authorities
KingDarius89@reddit
...how exactly do you think the authorities would enforce such a law? Invite them for tea?
Hint: its violence. So yes, you are calling for violence against peaceful protesters.
HockeyHocki@reddit
Violence would not be required unless they resist arrest, at which point they've ceased being peaceful protestors
sumquy@reddit
lol, you talk like somebody who has never been to a march.
there it is again. the insistence that someone else needs to do your dirty work. you get to decide what is and is not okay to say, and then demand self enforcement from those who disagree with you.
HockeyHocki@reddit
you don't get to decide, the government decides. Are you some sort of sovereign citizen whackjob, you think the law of the land doesn't apply to you lmao
sumquy@reddit
i am someone who has no faith at all in that statement. maybe that makes me a scw, but you didn't have to resort to name calling.
and you still keep avoiding answering why members of a protest group need to be held accountable for someone else's words, or else...
HockeyHocki@reddit
I'm not avoiding it, it's just so blatantly obvious it shouldn't need answering, groups hold a level of accountability for the actions of their group members
ItsCalledRegret@reddit
Man you are really going to hate the Wikipedia list for war crimes for Isreal is longer than the Nazis then
HockeyHocki@reddit
Godwins law strikes again
MaestroRozen@reddit
Gotta love the mask slipping from all these supposed "anti genocide" people who are in fact just upset that it isn't the Jews who are being genocided.
TrueBigorna@reddit
Globalize the intifada
MaestroRozen@reddit
The state of Israel thanks you for your service. After all, it is the main beneficiary of useful idiots and hatemongers delegitimizing protests and making Jews feel unsafe. Plus, it doesn't even have to pay you for it! You're going out and being the best supporters they could ask for completely free.
TrueBigorna@reddit
"This doesnt help your cause" ahh comment lol
Shane-8300@reddit
Thank you for your loyal support goy!
SabziZindagi@reddit
Can you please explain how "globalize the intifada" is a call to target Jewish civilians?
HockeyHocki@reddit
Seriously? The slogan was born out of the second intifada, characterised by more than 100 suicide bombings on jewish civilians
SabziZindagi@reddit
Intifada just means uprising, there's no claim to any specific event in this slogan.
SymphoDeProggy@reddit
holocaust just means "conflagration" yet nobody's confused on what's talked about when you use it.
SabziZindagi@reddit
Protesting in itself can be an 'intifada'. It's not equivalent.
SymphoDeProggy@reddit
burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes can be a 'holocaust'. but if someone was calling to globalize the holocaust you'd rightly infer that burning of Guy Fawkes effigies isn't what they're trying to achieve.
Withermaster4@reddit
Just because you interpret it that way doesn't mean that's what those people are communicating. I have never heard it said with the purpose of "we need to kill all Israelis and remove the state of Israel". The people who I know who say it say it because they believe that isreal will not stop hurting Palestinians unless we as a globe stop them.
Maybe if Israel didn't globalize their support, Palestinians wouldn't have had to.
SymphoDeProggy@reddit
You not hearing a dogwhistle is not an indication of it not being a dogwhistle.
The people committing attacks against random jews around the world heard it just fine.
IAMADon@reddit
Clearly you've never seen Guy Fawkes night if you think it counts as, to quote Cambridge dictionary:
SymphoDeProggy@reddit
the definition of holocaust you're invoking is one tailored to current usage of the term.
the use of the term shifted from a neutral descriptor of something being consumed by fire - such as a burnt offering, or an effigy - to a catastrophic destructive event.
this is my point. the term intifada has a very specific meaning in I/P discourse, but when people defend "globalize the intifada" they are intentionally invoking an alternative definition that is external to the context of the discussion.
the intuition that makes you reject the use of holocaust to describe burning an effigy is exactly the intuition that makes me reject the use of intifada to describe a protest. i can easily tell you that you've never seen an intifada if you think chants and placards amount to an intifada by that logic.
IAMADon@reddit
That's how words work. It's also the definition that long predates WW2.
If you want to use the literal medieval definition, which is weird, but okay, it referred to the "burnt offering" of a sacrifice to a deity. So you can go back 1,000 years, but burning Guy Fawkes effigies still isn't a holocaust.
koziello@reddit
UN GA Resolution 181, brother. Stick to it and you won't hear about global initifadas again.
Logical-Breakfast150@reddit
I interpret what you just said to be inciting violence against those protest groups and also against free speech advocates.
We should also hold you accountable for your speech. You may not have actually committed any violent acts or directly called for it, but your framing of the situation feels very dangerous to me. A free society simply can't allow people to speak the way you just spoke.
You should be dragged away by the police.
TearOpenTheVault@reddit
Hmm, I wonder what might be different between ‘globalise the intifada’ and other statements that lead some to believe the former incites violence?
I don’t even like Starmer and think his continuing crackdowns on freedom of Expression are despicable, but this is an F-tier response.
Decent_Cheesecake_29@reddit
You’re quite literally calling for government violence against protesters. It is a far more direct call for violence than globalize the intifada.
TearOpenTheVault@reddit
Please point to me where I ‘literally called for government violence.’
Logical-Breakfast150@reddit
I wonder too. Better let politicians decide for us what we do and don't mean by what we say.
TearOpenTheVault@reddit
They’ve always done this dumbass, it’s what incitement and libel laws are about.
Logical-Breakfast150@reddit
Yeah it's called manufacturing consent.
HockeyHocki@reddit
Why would we care about your interpretation, get yourself elected into government then get back to me
Logical-Breakfast150@reddit
So you're saying if someone can gain political power they get to decide what words mean and what we're allowed to talk about?
If we had had laws like this in the 20th century, it would have been a lot easier to put down those violent racist Irish separatists that wanted to harm benevolent, loving, Britain.
Your comment is literally saying, "why would we care what a peasant thinks? I look to our leaders to tell me what the acceptable positions and opinions are."
HockeyHocki@reddit
No I'm saying someone elected by the people has more credibility than a random goober on reddit. Nobody gaf about your hot takes
Status_Winter@reddit
> Anyone genuinely pro-peace would have zero problems with this
People aren’t protesting in the UK for more wars you dingus
HockeyHocki@reddit
aww precious
JoJoeyJoJo@reddit
Starmer is set to lose 1850 seats at the council elections next week - the biggest loss of any party ever, they'll be sent into electoral irrelevance just as the Tories have been.
The thing is, he knows Labour voters and what they believe - none of this shit to defend Israels genocide: banning protests, arresting elderly people with signs, trying to get Glastonbury acts arrested and preventing them from getting VISAs, etc has won him a single vote with the Labour base, let alone any other.
He simply would rather burn his party to the ground permanently than stop supporting Israel, and you have to wonder why. Complaining that our democracy used to be controlled by Israel was the domain of Neo Nazis once, now it's basically table stakes.
Irr3sponsibl3@reddit
The next prime minister will likely be the same, no matter how hard they signal now. Politics in modern democracy is a game of hacky sack.
Obujen@reddit
It's always about the money.
SirLadthe1st@reddit
It is absolutely mind blowing to see how politicians are willing to blow up their own careers, set their own communities on fire, and abandon their own supporters to protect the state of israel. For what reason? I mean its certainly not because of the voters, stats show Israel is viewed VERY negatively in every single country. Even in nations with rabidly pro israel politicians, like Germany or the US, the actual public opinion on Israel is negative. I mean, this was one of the major issues that costed Democrats the election in 2024, and yet they have learned nothing besides that "voters are dumb" and the mainstream of the party are hell bent on continuing on this path.
And its not like being "allies" with Israel is in any way worth it. For America it repeatedly ends with their soldiers dying in the name of israeli interests, Ukraine which was insanely pro israel was rewarded with Israel buying their stolen grain from Russia.
And yet we saw the european military shoot iranian missiles to defend israel when it was in the finding out stage of fucking around (something they repeatedly said is "impossible" to do for Ukraine), and the leaders of "free and democratic" nations like the UK openly working to curb their own citizens freedom so that Israel wouldnt get their feeling hurt. Absolute madness.
BatHickey@reddit
Maybe in Europe, but in the US I don’t think people really expect the govt to help them or represent their interests anymore. If you’re a politician, might as well make money compromising and saying ‘it’s complicated’—Ukraine doesn’t have that money, one country does.
travistravis@reddit
I mean, the government in the UK is opting to not do anything about British Citizens going to participate in Israeli war crimes, but when a girl was groomed and convinced to join ISIS, they were willing to make her stateless.
Irr3sponsibl3@reddit
I don't take the British government's stance on radical Islam at face value either. They knew Anjem Choudary was recruiting hundreds of British citizens to go to Syria and join radical Islamist movements, including ISIS, and let him operate freely for over a decade, letting him set up networks in Belgium and Germany, even as up to 40% of the perpretrators of terrorist attacks in Britain itself had direct links to his group, Al-Muhajiroun. They're probably cracking down on ISIS now because it accomplished its goal of toppling Assad.
Kaymish_@reddit
She didn't really even join ISIS. She went and got married to one of their guys and had children with him. When was it last ok to punish a woman and her children for the actions of her husband?
Irr3sponsibl3@reddit
Bribes, lobbying, blackmail... It's not that hard to imagine the kind of pressures/influence that work on politicians at the highest level. Lewis Rosenstiel provided boy prostitutes to J. Edgar Hoover at parties and Meyer Lansky had compromising photos of Hoover "in some kind of gay situation." We have at least two US presidents who regularly flew with Epstein, and Roy Cohn was a direct connection between Hoover and Trump (and Joseph McCarthy, strangely). Cohn's close friend Cardinal Francis Spellman was linked to several pedophilia scandals, both his own and those of priests that he ordained. America's history is ridden with sexual blackmail rings, from the Bronfman family to the Chickens and the Bulls. Epstein was funded by a group of billionaires.
It's clear that at least America is not a democracy, because it's almost impossible to have a political career without facing pressure from a cabal that spans the criminal underworld, to religious institutions, to virtually every industry in this country. I don't know if it's worse in Europe. America was an especially important country to fix for the zionist project
PropJoesChair@reddit
So I'm now only allowed to protest for one side of a genocide? On behalf of the ones performing the genocide? Nice one Keir, maybe try going and fucking yourself mate
imunfair@reddit
Only when the genocide is performed by someone Starmer's wife doesn't support.
smltor@reddit
I'm open to ideas but I genuinely think that humour and education is a better path than some of the ideas being thrown around.
If people realised that both people in a bar fight could be (and probably are) cunts it might be a good step.
But the whole "I have to have an opinion and join a side" thing seems to be the dominant trope at the moment.
Just-another-weapon@reddit
This is amazing!
If we don't need to protest any more then that must mean that Israel's genocide of the Gazans, pogroms in the West Bank and ISIS style destruction of cultural and religious sites must have ended.
Great news.