5434a
21hr ago
I started that one a few years ago out of interest in Jungian archetypes but I quickly tapped out when I realised it's not about Jungian archetypes, it's about Men Who Take Turns Crying Together.
My impression is it's one of those books where any people who need it will never read it and the people who'll read it probably don't need it.
5434a
4d ago
All sides have their accelerationists who imagine that just x% more of what they hate will shock the masses out of their false consciousness. What that strategy ignores is that the polity can remain unfavourable longer than you can remain politically relevant.
5434a
4d ago
Shamima Begum is back in the news with news that the European Court of Human Rights are questioning the UK Home Office's decision to remove her citizenship on the basis that she may have been "groomed" and "trafficked" into joining ISIS.
In a document published by the ECHR earlier this month, it states that Ms Begum is challenging the decision to revoke her British citizenship under Article 4 of the European Convention of Human Rights - prohibition of slavery and forced labour.
The four questions posed by judges in Strasbourg to the Home Office, include: "Did the Secretary of State have a positive obligation, by virtue of Article 4 of the Convention, to consider whether the applicant had been a victim of trafficking, and whether any duties or obligations to her flowed from that fact, before deciding to deprive her of her citizenship?"
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Ms Begum "chose to go and support the violent Islamist extremists".
He added: "She has no place in the UK and our own Supreme Court found that depriving her of citizenship was lawful.
"It is deeply concerning the European Court of Human Rights is now looking at using the ECHR to make the UK take her back."
If the UK is manoeuvered into allowing Begum to return at the the behest of the European courts it will be political suicide for the government, an open goal for the far right, but what gets me is how it will foreseeably be consequently counterproductive for the very demographics that human rights activists seek to defend! It will pour fuel on reactionary sentiment and division. I think that the functional part of Labour understand this, and will be working hard to make sure it doesn't happen, but I worry that the activist section of the back benches will work against them, ignorant (wilfully?) of the prospect of ushering in a Reform government on a swelling tide of rightist sentiment. It's like a moral puritanism that denies the political reality of trade-offs. Sure, there might be a hard right UK government, but it won't be their fault - they stood against it!
5434a
5d ago
Has it stopped?
Sorry, I'm being flippant. I don't follow Israel/Palestine beyond it being the background radiation of international news for my entire life. As such it strikes me as almost humorous to predict it might re-ignite when its continual conflict appears as perennial as the sun rising.
I wonder whether blood donation might offer some reduction or whether that's overly simplistic.
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