I am a child of Thatcher. I say this with no pride, just that I lived through her administration and my parents benefited from some of her policies, enough to enable us to move from the working class to the middle class, of course to the detriment of other working class families. I am a young adult of the Blair era, when – putting aside illegal wars – the social contract was renewed in many ways.

I am a by product of the post WW2 liberal progressive democracy of the West. And while as nation states we still have much to apologise for, for empire, for imperial aggression, for nationhood exceptionalism, we were raised to understand that democracy is good, fascism is bad. Racism is bad, inclusion is good. Reading and learning is how you make your way in the world. Learn the facts. Don’t be ignorant. The world can be what you make of it as long as you don’t build your house on sand. That was the promise. That was the deal.

And yet here we are:
Climate change is bollocks as the world burns
The big lie
The culture wars
The rise of the far-right undermining democracy everywhere
Brexit reality and its attack on democracy
The GOP
The Tories
The Anti-vaxxers
The Anti-maskers
The actual fucking fascists that sit in both our legal chambers
I could go on but you understand the intent of my narrative.

We were promised the Promised Land if we played by the rules and stood on the side of the righteous. Now? We live in the land of the uncertain. How quickly things can fall into chaos. It is exhausting and disappointing and so very scary.

The Venn Diagram between Anti-Vaxxers, Trump voters and the All-lives / blue lives matter crowd is a circle.
And quite frankly as he holds his own un-vaxxed life with utter disregard, one might suggest that the dissonance of this message fits completely with fact free life of those that live within this particular Venn.

... the lack of urgency from world leaders just got way more serious...


Graphic mine.

Of course we cannot wait until 2050, apart from anything else, although this is a good analogy - if we don't stop dicking about the icebergs will have melted well before then... flood, fire, famine in 3...2...1...


[link:https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/09/humans-have-caused-unprecedented-and-irreversible-change-to-climate-scientists-warn|]

I'm not sure even this report will be enough to move the dial of denial TBH.

I don't know how you can live with yourselves.

Graphic mine

Could there be a better quote to describe the rottenness at the heart of the 'ruling' class? Fat, a bit stupid and heartless - could almost be describing the PM!?!?!. Heh. Oh my. 👀 (For Americans - Public Schools in the UK are fee paying schools. State Schools are what in America you would call Public Schools)

Spot on protest sign!!!

Here in the UK they have literally just passed a law to stop people making noise at protests because of the BLM marches and statutes of slave owners being razed from the ground as part of the movement... they have quite literally silenced protest cause male pale and stale descendants of slavery and Empire have hurt feelings about history being pointed out to them... definitely more racists than pigeons *sigh* 👀

Listening to the bunker podcast this morning and it was an interview with Paul Mason on his new book How to Stop Fascism.
He said two things in particular that helps differentiate the old and the new when it comes to fascism.


Graphic mine

For the far-right leaders hijacking democracies around the world, democracy is sooooo last decade. They are the new face of fascism 2021 styleee.

You have to feel sorry for all the satirists out there these days. Prediction or parody, that is the question!

https://twitter.com/davidschneider/status/1423947673414033414

The future has arrived and it is very burny indeed. Terrifying