We had streets, but now there's just police
The aftermath of the hate march barrels on. Once again reality proves it can get away with the parallelism so often denied fiction, as the judge who refused to dismiss charges against non-violent protesters pepper-sprayed by police turns out to have a history of pepper-spraying violence himself. Handcuffing a woman for doing her legal job is horribly less surprising in the current climate, but it's still not a good look. While we have a corruption scandal breaking, yet. Dammit, Boston.
In political news of countries not my own, I am interested by the order of voting operations laid out by David Schraub in his consideration of Tory Islamophobia, Labour anti-Semitism, and the existence of the Lib Dems, who he feels strongly deserve more attention: "What It Means for Jews to Vote Tory."
Courtesy of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch: I did not realize until I saw this tweet that it was Werner Herzog's birthday. I am charmed to see him on location for Fitzcarraldo (1982); that's Fitzcarraldo's parrot on his shoulder, inclining me to believe it was actually Herzog's parrot in a cameo role. I have belatedly realized that there are ways in which I link this movie with A Canterbury Tale (1944).
I appear to be fending off a cold. Dammit, body.
In political news of countries not my own, I am interested by the order of voting operations laid out by David Schraub in his consideration of Tory Islamophobia, Labour anti-Semitism, and the existence of the Lib Dems, who he feels strongly deserve more attention: "What It Means for Jews to Vote Tory."
Courtesy of
spatch: I did not realize until I saw this tweet that it was Werner Herzog's birthday. I am charmed to see him on location for Fitzcarraldo (1982); that's Fitzcarraldo's parrot on his shoulder, inclining me to believe it was actually Herzog's parrot in a cameo role. I have belatedly realized that there are ways in which I link this movie with A Canterbury Tale (1944).I appear to be fending off a cold. Dammit, body.
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*support support*
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Thank you! At the moment I just feel rather scratchy and sniffly, but I am drinking goat's milk with honey and hoping.
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I don't think he's wholly off-base, but I'd want to add a lot of nuance. The problem with the Tories right now isn't just Islamophobia and Brexit. Johnson's a wholly amoral sociopath and has now committed himself to going full Trump, embracing a very scary kind of hard-right populism, and planning a deliberate "culture war" strategy for the general election. He happily went along with massive corruption of the democratic process in the Vote Leave campaign and is already threatening democratic procedures. Tories winning now would be equivalent to Trump winning in 2020; it would give him permission for everything.
Plus, war in Northern Ireland.
Plus, the Tory "grave and systematic" violation of the human rights of disabled people, which has literally killed hundreds of people and will continue to kill people (and force others into institutions) unless assorted cuts and rule-changes are reversed.
(One of the issues some people have with the Lib Dems is their past willingness to form the coalition with the Tories under which some of these human rights violations started.)
So I'd skew much more heavily towards the major priority right now being to block/eject the Tories by voting for whoever the non-Tory front-runner in your constituency is (whether that's Lib Dem or Labour or SNP or Plaid Cymru or Green), unless said front-runner is an anti-Semite (or TERF or homophobe etc. etc., lots of shit going around).
I think Jeremy Corbyn's a anti-Semite (I started out thinking he was maybe merely naively willing to overlook it in people on his side, ended up concluding that he's outright anti-Semitic himself) and also STUNNINGLY INCOMPETENT AND STUPID. The fact that the Tory party are collapsing in front of us and he still might not win the election is a measure of how incredibly inept and toxic he is.
But, horrifyingly, he's not the worst possibility out there right now.
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I am familiar with the necessity of this strategy; it's what the American left did not manage to do in 2016 (with no help from extra-national interference) and what I am terrified they will not manage in 2020, being caught up in purity wars instead of recognizing the apocalyptic cliff we are currently in the process of driving off. But I also understand that the fear that the lesser of two evils—or even my supposed allies—will still manage to get me killed. Right-wing anti-Semitism is much more likely to walk into a synagogue with an assault rifle, no question. But left-wing anti-Semitism normalizes; accelerates; closes the circle of leaving nowhere safe.
At least from here it looks as though Johnson's full Trump is blowing back on him, which I hope it continues to do.
The fact that the Tory party are collapsing in front of us and he still might not win the election is a measure of how incredibly inept and toxic he is.
What would you like to see happen, if he does manage to stave off a Tory consolidation by winning?
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Yes. *sighs*
What would you like to see happen, if he does manage to stave off a Tory consolidation by winning?
If I got to pick, I think my top choice would probably be a hung Parliament and a Labour-Lib Dem-SNP coalition of some kind; that has some potential to be healthy, if the various parties could keep each other honest.
If Corbyn actually wins, I want a second Brexit referendum that Remain wins and for Corbyn to be shoved forcibly and rapidly into retirement and replaced by someone like Keir Starmer (who currently looks like he might be both competent and decent, despite not yet having been cast into outer darkness by the Corbynite inner circle).
I don't even want a sparkly pony.
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I hope you get at least a decent zebra.
*hugs*
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And I wouldn't assume that they're not now; the Tories are classic examples of a group that think that being Islamophobic and pro-Israeli-government equates to being Not Anti-Semitic (as opposed to, you know, actually not being anti-semitic). There's a long tradition of Tories treating Jewish colleages as Not Quite One Of Us, You Know. Not to mention all the dogwhistling about Soros and "cultural Marxism" and so on, cozying up to Steve Bannon, etc..
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I hope you fend the cold off successfully.
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I don't think better of Boston because of its historical attitudes; like most American cities, it has centuries of institutionalized racism. But I have seen this city handle protests much less violently and less wrongheadedly and that's what I'm disappointed in. I'm hoping the SJC steps in with the judge and the police violence is curtailed rather than encouraged. As I was saying on another friend's post, I do not want this state of affairs to become the new normal.
I hope you fend the cold off successfully.
Thank you.