We had streets, but now there's just police

[sovay]

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 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.

Comments

[owl]

The terrifying thing about Johnson and the current set controlling the Tories is the instant they think antisemitism will give them some advantage, they'll become so even if they aren't personally antisemitic. The only people for whom it's safe to vote Tory are well-off white Englishmen.

[rydra_wong]

The terrifying thing about Johnson and the current set controlling the Tories is the instant they think antisemitism will give them some advantage, they'll become so even if they aren't personally antisemitic.

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..

[owl]

Oh I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they were. Look at how fast they "revived" their traditional anti-Irish prejudice when Ireland had the temerity to stand up for themselves over Brexit, they're partying like it's 1919.