[Primateus]

Cause, on 07 November 2022 - 12:26 PM, said:

I just learnt that Denmark will go and play soccer at the World Cup in an all black uniform to protest Qatars humans right record.

I find this more silly than if they did nothing. They are still going to play, the games will have fans in the stadium and watching at home. Money will be made.

This feels less like a protest and more like the thing you do to assuage your guilt. Either you think what your protesting is a serious matter for concern or you don't. I'm not even sure if this counts as a half measure.

I do not care about football, at all, but I really fucking wish that they would have just stayed home instead. But, you will never get DBU (That's the Danish national football association) to show any kind of spine at all when money is involved.

[Macros]

its a crock of shit.

A few high profile players pulling out is whats needed

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Germany Arrests Dozens Suspected of Planning to Overthrow Government

Many of those detained had military training [...]

Among those detained were a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany party who had served in the German Parliament, a member of the German nobility and a Russian citizen accused of supporting the group's plans. [...]

The group's plans included an armed attack on the German Parliament building, known as the Reichstag [...] the group's members had also formed a sort of shadow government that they intended to install [...]

[...] influenced by the ideologies of the conspiracy group QAnon and a right-wing German conspiracy group called the Reichsbürger, or Citizens of the Reich, which believes that Germany's post-World War II republic is not a sovereign country but a corporation set up by the victorious Allies.

Many of those arrested had military training and included former German soldiers[...] and were known to have been heavily armed with weapons acquired illegally.

[...] According to the members of the group, liberation is promised by the imminent intervention of the "Alliance," a technically superior secret coalition of governments, intelligence services and militaries of various states, including Russia and the United States.

[...] Right-wing extremists in 2019 killed a local politician in the German state of Hessen, and in the same year attempted to attack a synagogue.

[...] In April, officers arrested four people who had been plotting to kidnap the health minister[...] and cause nationwide power outages. [...] the suspects were linked to the Reichsbürger'

Germany Arrests 25 People Suspected of Plotting to Overthrow Government

Wonder if they ever got in touch with Drumpf Trump?... (Or Kanye for that matter... I hope Germany has the foresight to deny him entry before he can complete his transformation into Black Hitler!)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 07 December 2022 - 11:11 AM

[Tsundoku]

What is it about RWNJs and their inability to lose with dignity?

https://www.news.com...1b94a85462d2bf9

Jair Bolsonaro supporters storm Brazil Congress over President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s inauguration
Supporters of Brazil’s far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro have stormed into the national Congress building in a dramatic protest.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Bolsonaro used Trump as a model---Trump, but (arguably) more violent (it's difficult to imagine Trump slapping a female reporter...). Since Brazil was ruled by the military from the 1964 coup to 1985, Bolsonaro is former military, and militarized policing was being touted as a solution to organized crime in the favelas, a military coup seems more within the Overton window there than in most democracies (so Bolsonaro supporters have been camping out near military bases calling for a coup...).

But I'm a little surprised that:

- they did it when Congress and the President were away---no equivalent of 'Hang Mike Pence'

- Bolsonaro apparently isn't encouraging them, beyond mimicking Trump's lies about voter fraud---perhaps because he realizes that the military is not going to go along, and he wants to avoid being prosecuted in Brazil (the US would have no qualms about extraditing him)



'"He's a Trump with no 'winning,' [...] He was trying to copy-paste every Trump behavior, but without the effectiveness or the luck."'

'"I will pay a large commission for a painting of this photograph of Brazil's disgraced ex-president Jair Bolsonaro eating KFC in Orlando, Florida on the day of Lula's inauguration." According to Twitter's metrics, Adler's post has been viewed 4.3 million times.


David Adler on Twitter: "I will pay a large commission for a painting of this photograph of Brazil's disgraced ex-president Jair Bolsonaro eating KFC in Orlando, Florida on the day of Lula's inauguration https://t.co/OFzGNWrSai" / Twitter

[...] someone associated with awesome power, tailored suits, and diplomatic summits in the Alps—seated at a Formica tabletop, head hunched over his body, lips barely maintaining their purchase on a moist, dangling string of chicken and loose breading that was purchased for something like six dollars in central Florida. It is what Alexander Pope would call bathos.

[...] another viral tweet posted six days later, to which is attached a video of Bolsonaro walking in a circle, by himself, at a Publix supermarket—presumably also in Florida, where there's a significant Brazilian population—without having possessed himself of a cart or basket:

(1) Jonathan L. Krohn on Twitter: "Jair Bolsonaro wandering around a Publix. https://t.co/PKX3EJ1QgT" / Twitter

[...] Comedy professionals told me that the contrast between Bolsonaro's menacing personal goals and their history of being undercut by Mr. Bean-like misfortune may explain why an image of his face can trigger positive feelings. "He's basically Squidward or Wile E. Coyote," [...] "It's the same reason that photos of Trump standing are funny. [Bolsonaro] presents himself as an infallible alpha male but every photo of him in the hospital looks like a Looney Tunes cartoon." [...] "Also, he is constantly giving a stupid thumbs up when he looks like the sickest man on the planet."'

Jair Bolsonaro memes: Why the left-wing internet can’t resist the former president of Brazil

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 09 January 2023 - 12:19 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'the full measure of the danger posed by authoritarian populists like Trump and Bolsonaro is only apparent if we recognize that this is not simply a matter of one would-be dictator imitating another. [...] what is happening in Brazil and the U.S. owes much to the underlying logic of the populist movements that have been in the ascendant in democracies around the world over the past decade.

Populists invariably claim to give voice to the true will of the people. This gives them a powerful reason to deny the outcome of any election they do not win. For if you embody the people’s will, losing at the ballot box should be impossible. When you lose, you either have to concede that your claim was a fiction or seek refuge in the conviction that your country’s electoral institutions are fraudulent.

But if one thing is consistent in the history of populism[...] it is that populists can hold onto a significant presence in the political system even after they lose an election[...] poised to surge back to power.'

Brazil’s ‘January 6 Moment’ Is a Warning

[Primateus]

Another assassination attempt directed at a Japanese Prime Minister.

[Macros]

How hard will the tories hit the propaganda labour are evil trail after this kicking?

[Tiste Simeon]

Well they're experts at deflection so I'm guessing pretty darn hard.

[Tsundoku]

Macros, on 05 May 2023 - 01:58 PM, said:

How hard will the tories hit the propaganda labour are evil trail after this kicking?

Tiste Simeon, on 05 May 2023 - 02:20 PM, said:

Well they're experts at deflection so I'm guessing pretty darn hard.

???

[Macros]

Local council elections in engerland.
Tories lost about 1000? Seats out of the 3000 odd they held (total up for grabs was 8000?)
All we can do is hope this rolls into a gen and labour have the balls to kill first past the post

[worry]

Translation: UK had a bunch of local elections where Tories were broadly trounced, so now we’re going to find out — quite coincidentally— that immigrants and trans folks and labor movements are actually much scarier than previously thought before (again, coincidence) this election. Also the right to vote will be found to be a top tier threat to UK democracy.

[Tiste Simeon]

worry, on 05 May 2023 - 10:31 PM, said:

Translation: UK had a bunch of local elections where Tories were broadly trounced, so now we’re going to find out — quite coincidentally— that immigrants and trans folks and labor movements are actually much scarier than previously thought before (again, coincidence) this election. Also the right to vote will be found to be a top tier threat to UK democracy.

I'm going to find this post in a year or so and be saddened by how prescient it is.

[Tsundoku]

The architects of their downfall were ... themselves.

Shell-shocked and self-pitying, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson finally face the consequences of their actions
At the heart of the criminal case against former US president Donald Trump lies one utterly gobsmacking fact.

https://www.news.com...1e11b5b3841f3e6

"Mr Trump claims he’s been treated harshly and unfairly, because that is what he always claims about everything. Perhaps a jury will agree with him. But if the government’s account is even half-accurate, it handled him with kid gloves – appropriate, given his juvenile behaviour – and far more patience than he deserved. It spent months bending over backwards to ask nicely for his co-operation, and only resorted to firmer methods out of necessity. Any other person who’d stolen classified information and refused to give it back would have found the FBI banging on their door long before the raid of Mar-Lago in August of 2022.

So spare us the self-pitying tantrums. Mr Trump’s existence since he lost the presidency has been one long, eardrum-rending primal scream of victimhood. He stops to draw breath only for his daily round of golf, then it’s right back to bellowing in all-caps about the imagined injustices he’s suffered. It’s desperately sad."

And on BoJo:

"I did mention Mr Johnson as well, at the start of all this. Parallels are drawn between the two men far too often, but in this respect they are twins: nothing is ever their fault.

In a damning report released on Thursday, the Privileges Committee of Britain’s parliament concluded Mr Johnson had repeatedly “misled” MPs about his knowledge of illegal parties in Downing Street during the Covid pandemic, which breached his own government’s lockdown rules. (His staff were enjoying workplace piss-ups while ordinary Brits were banned from seeing their dying loved ones to prevent the virus’s spread.)

The parliamentary language is too charitable. Mr Johnson lied, brazenly and repeatedly. A committee dominated by his own party has concluded as much. If he hadn’t announced his resignation from parliament, the Conservative-dominated House of Commons would have voted to suspend him, and he likely would have faced a by-election in his Conservative-dominated seat. He chose to bail instead of offering his neck to the voters.

It isn’t a politically-motivated witch hunt, nor is it a sinister plot from the public service. Mr Johnson, like Mr Trump, did this to himself. He pushed and pushed and pushed, crossing new frontiers of deceit, until even his own party could no longer stomach the stream of tripe he was feeding them.

“This decision means that no MP is free from vendetta, or expulsion on trumped up charges by a tiny minority who want to see him or her gone from the Commons,” he fumed after the report was released. Technically, it should not be possible for a written statement to be spittle-flecked, yet here we are.

“For the Privileges Committee to use its prerogatives in this anti-democratic way, to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination – that is beneath contempt.”

Anti-democratic! An elected parliament using its oversight powers for their intended purpose is “anti-democratic” now. Again, what was parliament supposed to do here? Let the prime minister lie to it without sanction?

Mr Johnson has always been quite the political contortionist, twisting this way and that into structurally dubious pretzels of hypocrisies and contradictions, but this final circus act is surely his most impressive. I’ve been assassinated by the thrust of a knife, he complains – having somehow managed to stab himself in the back."

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 16 June 2023 - 11:22 PM

[Macros]

Good on Brazil supreme court or whatever.
Bolsanaro banned for 8 years for blanltant lies and bullshit.

Take this world wide baby!

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

"The Israeli right is now positioning itself behind a program that is no less than a constitutional coup," [...]"The dismantlement of the state's institutions … splitting the spoils between party bosses who are battling one another for power and resources, loss of public security, looting of the public coffers and deterioration into general lawlessness."

[...] the director of the Mossad, told a group of his concerned operatives what would happen if it suddenly became unclear who was in charge of the country [...] "If things come to a constitutional crisis, [...] I will be on the right side"—intimating that he would side with the court against the government.

What that would look like is difficult to imagine. The security establishment against the government? The government denying the Supreme Court's authority? The tacit agreements that have held Israel together for 75 years are unraveling at an unimaginable pace.

[...] former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave voice to our worst fears. Israel, he said, "is heading into civil war."

'The Country's Already Been Destroyed' (msn.com)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 27 July 2023 - 12:57 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Xi Jinping Is Done With the Established World Order

[...] Ditching the [G20] summit marks a dramatic turn in China's foreign policy. [...] Now Xi is positioning his country as a full-on opponent—ready to align its own bloc against the United States, its partners, and the international institutions they support.

[...] In place of institutions like the G20, Xi has been pushing rivals that he thinks he can dominate or pack with friendly clients. [...] BRICS [...] which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Xi has been lobbying for a rapid expansion of the BRICS membership[...] Six additional countries were invited to join, including at least three (Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iran) with close political and economic ties to China. [...] aims to "turn the BRICS group into a support organization for China's geopolitical agenda" and a "venue for anti-US political activism."

[...] While other world leaders gather at the G20 summit, Xi will be hosting state visits from the presidents of Venezuela and Zambia, two countries that are highly indebted to China.

[...] By vacating the stage, the Chinese leader is turning it over to Biden, who can exercise his influence at the summit free of Chinese competition. ['You're all dog-faced pony-soldiers!' ::Falls asleep:: afterwards, White House press secretary says it was all a gaffe --- classic Biden diplomacy ... 'Old age? I've been like this my whole life! Haven't changed since I was a toddler... and that's why I'm the only other human in the United States who can beat Trump!' ...]

[...] an insult to this year's [G20] host, [...] Modi, whose support Xi requires if he is to refashion BRICS. [...] coincides with Beijing's release of a new "official" map of China that has infuriated New Delhi—and a large part of the rest of Asia—by including contentious territorial claims in the South China Sea, the entire Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, other disputed lands on the Indian-Chinese border, and an island that the Chinese had previously agreed to share with Russia.

The map controversy suggests that Xi's nationalist pursuit of global power could undermine his push to lead a new bloc against the West. [...]

Xi seems to perceive the future as a binary competition between his China and the United States. [...] The global order that is now emerging has multiple centers of power, each with its own goals and interests. China will not automatically be the primary beneficiary of the coming world order

Xi Jinping Is Done With the Established World Order (msn.com)

The claim that Xi's now declaring China a 'full-on opponent' of the US and Western Europe seems overblown and unsupported, but IDK....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 09 September 2023 - 02:15 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

The South China Morning Post covered it very differently:

Quote

G20 summit: Chinese Premier Li Qiang urges group to be inclusive, not confrontational

Speaking at an event [...] Xi [...] skipped, Li calls for joint effort to boost world economy and urges 'unity not division'.

G20 summit: Chinese Premier Li Qiang urges group to be inclusive, not confrontational | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)

Quote

As West exploits India-China cracks, Asia must rise above the divisive ideology

[...] the more the West seeks to weaken the India-China axis crucial to regional cooperation, the more Asia's statesmen must stand together.

As West exploits India-China cracks, Asia must rise above the divisive ideology | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)

Granted, they're an English-language newspaper based in Hong Kong.

Quote

India has been trying to take advantage of its role as the host of the G20 Summit to promote its own agenda and harm China's interests, a Chinese think tank affiliated with the country's top spy agency said

[...] India has been trying to use the issue of debt restructuring to attack China, and has frequently cooperated with the United States and the West in hyping the "debt trap" theory, when Beijing has offered loans to poorer countries to build needed infrastructure like ports or roads.

China think tank says India is 'sabotaging' G20 for its own agenda | Reuters

... which will now be undertaken by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Modi, and the United States (very possibly Trump by the time it gets underway) instead.

Biden unveils infrastructure project to connect India, Middle East and Europe (axios.com)

g20 summit: PM Modi announces rail, port connectivity deal with US, UAE, Saudi Arabia at G20 Summit - The Economic Times (indiatimes.com)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 10 September 2023 - 02:21 PM

[Maark Abbott]

The tory party conference was insane enough that it somehow wound up with fucking BORIS of all people coming across as the sanest component. BORIS. SANE. Make it make SENSE.

It boggles my mind that we've had thirteen years of these twats and yet all they do is deflect, deflect, deflect. Braverman frothing about migrants again. Sunak with the raging and flaming transphobia. And claims that somehow they are the correct, fit party to lead this country despite how it's fallen utterly apart with them in charge.

We need change.

[QuickTidal]

Maark Abbott, on 05 October 2023 - 07:50 AM, said:

The tory party conference was insane enough that it somehow wound up with fucking BORIS of all people coming across as the sanest component. BORIS. SANE. Make it make SENSE.

To be fair, the "dopey, messy hair, idiot" Boris was always an act to rope in the people who thought he was on their level....Boris Johnson is highly educated (He went to Eton, and then studied Classics at Balliol) and underneath the facade is very sane....he just knew what would sell to his voters back when he put in the "Herpa Derp" routine.