Everything is Political

[Holdrüholoheuho]

we're up to 51 lawsuits the trump has lost

In Slovakia, many high-ranking cops and judges were arrested (are facing trials) lately (for taking part in organized crime structures).
Among them is also a "Special Prosecutor of Slovakia" (organized crime prosecutor) Dušan Kováčik who canceled 61 prosecutions and not a single 1 brought anyone in jail (his score was 0).
Helping local maffia this staunch way he was nicknamed "Mr. 61:0" by the Slovak press.

Kovacik personified the public distrust towards the justice system in Slovakia, earning himself the nickname “Mr 61:0”, representing the number of cases that he assigned to himself from 2008 but never actually prosecuted.

Maybe Trump will get a similar nickname after the end sum of lost cases will be known?!
So far, we can call him "Mr. 51:0".

[Holdrüholoheuho]

POLITICAL FASHION CORNER
besides all those paintings, i also stumbled upon this pic on the twitter profile of someone who calls himself/herself "Cunt from Prague"...


i was never a fan of Che merch.
i would never wear such a tee.
but somehow with a MAGA cap it makes sense to me and i can imagine going out dressed like this.

or attending a MAGA RATM gig in such an outfit.
https://youtu.be/02R2Cq0qjFw

[rischka]

https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/13 ... 65187?s=20

will it ever end?

[Pretentious Hipster]

POLITICAL FASHION CORNER
besides all those paintings, i also stumbled upon this pic on the twitter profile of someone who calls himself/herself "Cunt from Prague"...


i was never a fan of Che merch.
i would never wear such a tee.
but somehow with a MAGA cap it makes sense to me and i can imagine going out dressed like this.

This is a right-wing shirt made by Steven Crowder:

[thoxans]

like my trolls f*cking edgy yet hilariously irresolute

[Holdrüholoheuho]

This is a right-wing shirt made by Steven Crowder:

omg, then the outfit is becoming completely pointless and i have to stick to my non-political normcore attire or find a better Che tee to combine with MAGA hat if ever going to MAGA RATM gig.

[rischka]

https://twitter.com/BrendanNyhan/status ... 61024?s=20

presidential medal of freedom winner ya'll. but i'm glad glenn greenwald still finds this funny

[---]

do you not want the stupid states to secede?

[rischka]

a few days ago the AZGOP posted on twitter a clip from rambo with the mssg 'would you die for your country?'

tbf i only know one person who insists trump won the election but there are too many heavily armed nuts out here for comfort

hillary should've sued. pussy-hat revolution

https://twitter.com/JanNWolfe/status/13 ... 55681?s=20

https://twitter.com/ZackBornstein/statu ... 23108?s=20

[kanafani]

https://twitter.com/catarinacmrg/status ... 5056907265

[Pretentious Hipster]

Since you've mention che jiri, he did some problematic things, but I do think that Cuba is doing a pretty good economically, and would say it's proof that far left policies can work. They are stable even with all these sanctions. The problem is that people compare them to first world countries which is definitely unfair. You gotta compare them to the area, and if you do that they are doing pretty well.

Not to mention that americans sneak in there to take their lung cancer vaccine, and that they've sent doctors to multiple countries for covid.

They also do a decent job with elections. Some flaws, but definitely better than America. They make it an even playing field for all candidates so a candidate can't buy their way into a seat thanks to lobbyists and corporate donors.

[Pretentious Hipster]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5s3wR9peCI

[St. Gloede]

I'm guessing there are no other Norwegians here but I'm am getting increasingly pissed off that no one in power are calling out the Progress Party for stealing bizarre and racist rhetoric/culture war BS from America.

They recently promoted the message that it is called "Christmas Party" not "Winter Party", with a copy claiming that people are trying to destroy the Christmas cheer to appease "our New countrymen" ...

*Luckily, going back to source it today they had actually removed the image, and added a disclaimer that "very few people are doing this" and "we are not blaming the immigrants" so I guess someone caught it after all.

**Though in some ways the changes are even more bizarre as it now opens with the claim that people who call a party "winter party" as opposed to "Christmas party" hate their country ............

(This is not a fringe party, but the second biggest Liberal party in Norway, and were in government just up to last year).

[Holdrüholoheuho]

Since you've mention che jiri

I witnessed the entrance of neoliberal capitalism in a post-communist country, so I can imagine what would happen in Cuba if neoliberalism seizes it. (Tho, I expect it would be much wilder & nasty than what I have seen in Middle Europe.)

BUT I have my petty personal reasons for NOT to wear a tee with Che (unless combined with a MAGA hat) and those are as follows:
As opposed to the teens in "The Cucumber Hero", I was not reading poems by František Hrubín while coming-of-age.
Instead, I had a teen episode of obsessing about plays by Jean-Paul Sartre.
It was still during the reign of the local commie regime (in 1980s).
Those translations I was reading were usually from 1960s.
In 1970s and 1980s Jean-Paul Sartre (an alike) has not been translated anymore.
And besides all those plays which I liked, I also grabbed to read Jean-Paul Sartre's account of his visit to Cuba called "Hurricane Over Sugar" (published in Czech in 1961).
I remember reading that book (being surrounded by Soviet satellite absurdities of the 1980s) was quite a bizarre experience.
I thought (at that time) Jean-Paul is a bit off in this issue.
Maybe it might be interesting to re-read the book now with my "seize of neoliberalism in post-communist country" experience.
(Maybe my perception of "Hurricane Over Sugar" would be different.)
(Tho, I watched Agnes Varda's "Salut les Cubains" with already the neoliberal experience but I still perceived that film with quite mixed feelings — it is certainly not my fav Agnes' film — tho "Lion's Love" is even worse — anyway).
So, as a teen (under the influence of Jean-Paul Satre plays) I started (together with my teen best friend) to write existential plays too.
(Tho, they were rather dada & surreal than existential.)
In one of my plays, I needed to enter the plot with my alter ego persona, and maybe under the influence of "Hurricane Over Sugar" I got the idea I will call the character impersonating me as "Chairman of FCFC".
Here the "FCFC" was an abbreviation for the "Fidel Castro Fan Club".
There was not such a club existing in those days, it was just virtual reality (a product of teen imagination).
My best friend opted for himself a character called "Vice-chairman of FCFC".
HOWEVER, about half a year later my best friend informed me that he and some other boys and girls from the town really founded the (mock) Fidel Castro Fan Club and that the part of the founding meeting (besides loud reading of "Hurricane Over Sugar") was the expulsion (in absence) of the past FCFC Chairman (me) from the Club and electing the new leadership (in the best tradition of the show trials and Stalinist purges of the 1950s).
He told me all the details of my show-trial-in-absence and we had a lot of FCFC teen fun (in our 1980s Soviet satellite millieu).
Now, I guess it is clear that I (with my bitter history of deposed FCFC Chairman) can't wear Che tee (without MAGA hat or alike).
In any case, to think Che is for f*gs is even more deluded than writing with a great deal of naivety the "Hurricane Over Sugar" (Uragán nad cukrem).




https://youtu.be/5-HkPLFjQc8

my true object of admiration related to revolutionary Cuba is Ricardo Porro's, Vittorio Garatti's, and Roberto Gottardi's national art school buildings (displayed in "Salut les Cubains" too)...
https://www.archdaily.com/427268/ad-cla ... t-gattardi

In 1961, Fidel Castro said: “Cuba will count as having the most beautiful academy of arts in the world."

[Lencho of the Apes]

expulsion

Does this mean you're the FCFC Trotsky?

[Holdrüholoheuho]

Does this mean you're the FCFC Trotsky?

that's exactly me!
tho I am still awaiting my assassin in vain.
i already missed becoming a member of "27 Club" (and thus i will never be expelled from "27 Club" by Jim Morrison or Amy Winehouse).

[St. Gloede]

I largely agree with you there about the 'defends, gets dragged in' phenomenon, but I think Corbyn is just over the line of plausible deniability at this point (and Williamson is waaaay over the line, see below). The Long-Bailey thing was clearly just clever political manoeuvring from Starmer who used it as an excuse to purge a pro-Corbyn MP from his shadow cabinet, but it was still a stupid mis-step in the same way that Corbyn's suspension was, as you say - don't give people more ammunition than they need.

As for Williamson, perhaps this is a better link:
https://www.thejc.com/comment/opinion/i ... n-1.493936

Galloway is a massive anti-Semite as well, that's a really funny quote.

I didn't really want to go back to this as it is a clearly a very sore topic leading into quite strong posts here as well, but as I could not see anything I would classify as clearly anti-semitic in this new link either I was wondering what you mean when you say anti-semitic. Is it a hatred of jews/prejudice against jews or does it tie in with something more structural?

I think there was one potential smoking gun here:

"On Twitter Williamson had also defended a man who was expelled from Labour for saying we should boycott two major supermarket chains which have “Jewish blood”"

Though following the link the sources were deleted and it was only Williamson saying "I'm sure he said no such thing" - followed by a deleted response (by someone else) to which Williamson replied that the person had "Apologised". If the person actually said this and Williamson brushed it aside after an apology - that would be a potential sign of antisemitism (or at least tolerating antisemitism) - but as the actual content was missing it is hard to judge.

To be clear: It was probably the right decision to suspend this person, as his rhetoric is pretty damn unprofessional (and frankly, a bit scary), and if we are talking about structural harm in dismissing claim of antisemtism, I see it, but if we are talking about specific hatred/prejudice I don't.

[MrCarmady]

There were tweets which described those highlighting antisemitism in the Labour Party as “traitors” and “smear merchants”, and compared the antisemitism row to a witch hunt.

He’d even liked a tweet which said of people speaking out against antisemitism that “they have all power, media, lobbies, money. We must resist them trying to silence us. Bonhoffer paid price for speaking out against Nazis”. I felt then, and I feel now, that this was a clear example of a racist depiction of Jews as all-powerful, media and money controlling, and compared us to Nazis.

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/ch ... ets-in-uk/

This is boilerplate anti-Semitic rhetoric. Jews are on the inside, they are on the top, they are controlling us, they are the new Nazis.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Re: intersectionality of occupied people.

Trump unilaterally recognizing Western Sahara as a trade for normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel is another example of people's struggles being used flippantly as pawns by nations with ridiculously un-nuanced perspectives. My Moroccan friends refuse to discuss this in any way, as it is apparently illegal to mention Western Sahara in a political context.

The Western Sahara conflict is baffling to me. It's obviously less sexy to western media than Israel/Palestine, so you never see anything about it... until its being sold out is mentioned as a footnote in news stories about normalization.

[St. Gloede]

There were tweets which described those highlighting antisemitism in the Labour Party as “traitors” and “smear merchants”, and compared the antisemitism row to a witch hunt.

He’d even liked a tweet which said of people speaking out against antisemitism that “they have all power, media, lobbies, money. We must resist them trying to silence us. Bonhoffer paid price for speaking out against Nazis”. I felt then, and I feel now, that this was a clear example of a racist depiction of Jews as all-powerful, media and money controlling, and compared us to Nazis.

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/ch ... ets-in-uk/

This is boilerplate anti-Semitic rhetoric. Jews are on the inside, they are on the top, they are controlling us, they are the new Nazis.

Reading this in good faith I would have assumed this was a reference to the Israel lobby and/or the right-wing (generally in favour of Israel), not jews.

Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is certainly offensive, but fairly common rhetoric on the left. It is used broadly to highlight the abuses of Palestinians by comparing Israel in the position of being the oppressor to Nazi Germany. I'm not sure if it is effective rhetoric or get supporters of Israel to second guess themselves but that is a different issue.

[MrCarmady]

I would advise against good faith when it comes to Chris Williamson. When British Jews inside the Labour Party are speaking about their personal experiences with anti-Semitism, and someone else claims they're trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn because of the 'Israel lobby', I don't get why you would give that person a pass. If you really still don't see it, I don't know how I can convince you.

[---]

I hate Israel bur it's not really comparable to Nazi Germany. It's definitely a racist regime, but it's not forcing shift after shift of people into a tiny room and turning on the gas, then forcing others from the community to bury the corpses. Israel is evil but the Nazis were the most evil group of the 20th/21st century....there simply isn't a comparison

Comparing them to Israelis in particular is antisemitic because Israelis are primarily comprised of the descendants of the Nazi's biggest victim

It's wrong to yell at someone, but accusing a sexual assault victim of sexual abuse because they keep yelling at someone is a bad look, especially when the (non-sexual) abuses they perpetrate on others are in part a result of the (sexual) abuses they suffered

[rischka]

happy hanukkah guys

one of my friends is a hispanic jew and gave me some hanukkah coins yesterday. her name is antonaya like the desert queen in l'atlantide! trying to get her to watch

[flip]

yes, this has come up before, because damian was so fond of comparing israel to nazi germany. as bure points out, it's disgusting to compare israelis to their genocidal oppressors, rather than to the dozens of more closely comparable regimes in recent history (no one ever compares israel and palestinians to turkey and kurds or indonesia and east timorese, say).

but the comparison is also tantamount to holocaust denial. taking data from 2000-2014 from vox, because that's what i found on the internet first, during that fifteen year period, roughly 7000 palestinians were killed, of the 2 million or so in israel, gaza and the west bank. if nazi germany had killed the same proportion of european jews in just the four years of the holocaust, roughly 5.97 million of the 6 million jews killed in the holocaust would actually have survived. to say nazi germany was like modern israel is essentially to say nearly 6 million jewish lives are meaningless.

israel is a criminal and murderous state. it's not nazi germany. the comparison is obviously anti-semitic.

[kanafani]

the comparison is obviously anti-semitic.

I agree with pretty much all you say except that last bit. It’s not ‘obviously’ anti-Semitic, though it can be. I think there is a tendency with a lot of people to call their enemies ‘nazis’ even though it’s pretty much always an exaggeration (except maybe for neo-nazis?). I even remember an incident a few years ago where someone at Fox News called npr “nazis”. Lol. The word is often just a lazy stand-in for generalized evil and crime in general.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

I think this is a logical stretch. I don't believe we should compare Israel to Nazi Germany. But I also think it shouldn't be too difficult to understand why those who have seen/live under Israeli oppression often do so. There are, at very least, aesthetic similarities (walling Palestinians into Ghettos that their own labor built, stopping random arabs to ensure their papers are in order, labelling all leftists who question the state's treatment of Arabs as Traitors, etc.) It's an overall bad comparison that is very easily coopted by anti-semites, which is all the more reason to avoid it.

But would you argue that calling MAGA supporters Nazis is tantamount to Holocaust denial simply because they killed far fewer people than even Israel has? Or does the rhetorical analysis, and general willingness to look the other way from the dehumanization of minorities mean that the comparison comes from an honest place... even if it's Naïve?

[flip]

But would you argue that calling MAGA supporters Nazis is tantamount to Holocaust denial simply because they killed far fewer people than even Israel has?

i wouldn't call maga supporters nazis except for the ones who are nazis (which is some of them, clearly). but it's a different thing, to talk about whether people (e.g. some maga supporters) are nazi sympathizers, and whether an actual country is comparable to nazi germany. maga supporters don't have the option to mobilize the entire apparatus of the state to the single end of murdering millions of people from some religious, racial or ethnic group. a country does have that option, and if a country hasn't even tried to avail itself of the option, the country is not nazi germany. the issue i have with these comparisons to nazis is they dramatically understate just how horrifying the holocaust was. it was systematic genocide of a kind so unprecedented in human history that the word 'genocide' needed to be invented to describe it.

[---]

i do call magats nazis, but it's different in my view. they're obviously not literally nazis, nazis no longer exist as there's no such party of which one can be a member. when anyone contemporary gets called a nazi, it's a metaphor

i call magats nazis because they have the same types of prejudice: they hate immigrants, non-whites, queer people, communists etc

israel is not oppressing the same people as nazi germany did, in fact they are privileging the people that nazi germany oppressed. and if they're incomparable in direction, and you're comparing them, are you not comparing them in magnitude? (think about vector values)

as far as athletes go, lebron james is like sidney crosby because they're both at the top of their game. and christian dvorak is like sidney crosby because they both play hockey. but spencer dinwidde is not like sidney crosby

edit: i probably have the distinction of being the first person on the internet to liken sidney crosby to nazi germany by way of an analogy. that's very good, that's all i ever wanted out of life tbh

[Monsieur Arkadin]

[ it was systematic genocide of a kind so unprecedented in human history that the word 'genocide' needed to be invented to describe it.

Yes. I'm in complete agreement here. I just think the comparisons aren't intended as comparisons of quantifying suffering, but rather from similarities in authoritarian, ethno-supremacist regimes. The fact is that in order to make that comparison we have to ignore the scale of the Holocaust. And that is what makes it such in ill-chosen simile. But to assume bad-faith and anti-semitism on the part of those suffering and just looking for a way to break through the world's apathy towards their suffering smacks as lacking in empathy.

Obviously, a better point of comparison is Apartheid South Africa, or the Jim Crow South (for those Palestinians living in Israel)... but the need to make a comparison is interesting, because the human rights abuses should stand on their own. However, the world can't seem to empathize without reference to the suffering of other victims who have been canonized as deserving of our empathy.

[flip]

But to assume bad-faith and anti-semitism on the part of those suffering

to be clear, that's not what i said. i said "the comparison is anti-semitic". i didn't say (nor mean) anything about people making the comparison; many people making it might not be anti-semitic at all, and might just not have thought about it, or might be uninformed, or might think it's a good rhetorical strategy to engage in that kind of grotesque exaggeration, etc.