#Protestant Reformation Resignation

[hedgehog-moss]

In other news, this week a French publisher on his way to the London Book Fair was arrested by British counter-terrorist police to be questioned about his participation in protests in France.

A French publisher has been arrested on terror charges in London after being questioned by UK police about participating in anti-government protests in France.

Moret arrived at St Pancras [...] with his colleague Stella Magliani-Belkacem, the editorial director at the Paris-based publishing house, to be confronted by the two officers. [...] He was questioned for six hours and then arrested for alleged obstruction in refusing to disclose the passcodes to his phone and computer. [...] He was transferred to a police station in Islington, north London, where he remained in custody on Tuesday. He was later released on bail.

Éditions la Fabrique is known for publishing radical left authors. Moret also represents the French science fiction novelist Alain Damasio and had arranged more than 40 appointments at the London book fair. [...]

[Quoting publishing house’s press release] “The police officers claimed that Ernest had participated in demonstrations in France as a justification for this act – a quite remarkably inappropriate statement for a British police officer to make, and which seems to clearly indicate complicity between French and British authorities on this matter.” [...] “There’s been an increasingly repressive approach by the French government to the demonstrations, both in terms of police violence, but also in terms of a security clampdown.”

(Guardian link - BBC link) (article in French)

The publishing house (here’s their latest statement in French) and the publisher’s lawyer mention that the British police asked him “Do you support Emmanuel Macron? Did you attend protests against the pension reform?” and he was also asked to name the authors with anti-government views that his employer has published. They add, “Asking the representative of a publishing house, in the framework of counter-terrorism, about the opinions of his authors, is pushing even further the logic of political censorship and repression of dissenting thought. In a context of social protests and authoritarian escalation on the part of the French government, this aspect [of the questioning] is chilling.”

Being an accomplice to thoughtcrime by publishing dissident authors gets you treated like an international terrorist now... The publisher’s lawyer suggests that French authorities asked the UK to help them get their hands on the publisher’s contacts in the radical left sphere. But on the face of it, we’ve got: Exercise your right to protest your government in France -> get arrested by counter-terrorist UK police in London. That’s literally the reason he was given for being greeted by police at the train station...

[head-post]

Bangladesh Nobel winner Yunus appointed head of interim government

Bangladesh’s microfinance Nobel winner Muhammad Yunus has been appointed head of the interim government after mass protests forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee.

The appointment came quickly after student leaders urged the 84-year-old Yunus, credited with lifting millions out of poverty in the South Asian country, to lead the government. He declared himself ready to do so.

If action is needed in Bangladesh, for my country and for the courage of my people, then I will take it.

The decision “to form an interim government with… Yunus as its chief” was taken at a meeting between President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military leaders, and the heads of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group, according to Shahabuddin’s press office.

The president has asked the people to help ride out the crisis. Quick formation of an interim government is necessary to overcome the crisis.

Yunus will have the title of chief advisor, according to SAD leader Nahid Islam.

Hasina, 76, had been in power since 2009 but was accused of rigging elections in January. She then watched as millions of people took to the streets over the past month demanding her resignation. Hundreds of people were killed as security forces tried to quell the unrest, but protests escalated and Hasina fled aboard a helicopter on Monday as the military turned against her.

Read more HERE

[tsukimefuku]

kintsugi :: higuruma hiromi

Higuruma, former lawyer, curse user, and reformed jujutsu sorcerer tries to make sense of what his life has become after the war is finally over.

content warning: spoilers for jjk 269. hinted kusahigu. mostly fluff and introspection, some hurt and comfort if you squint.

wc: 1.8k

notes etc.: written to the sound of “here I dreamt I was an architect” by the decemberists. Inspired by this stunning higuruma fanart by @valleyofwater.

The sun hung high, and fully illuminated the classroom with the golden spring warmth. The blue sky surrounding it would be pristine, if not for a few stray clouds that on occasion cast its shadows over Jujutsu High, only adding to the idyllic, leisurely ambiance. 

“I didn’t understand that very well,” Yuji admitted as he sheepishly scratched the back of his neck, earning him the indignant grunts from Megumi and Nobara.

“What do you mean? Higuruma-san explains things much better than Gojo sensei ever did and you learned from him, of all people!” Nobara complained, leaning over her classmate’s chair and smacking the back of Yuji’s head with her fist. She then proceeded to adjust her eye patch and sink into her chair with her arms crossed over her chest.

“His explanation was, indeed, very clear,” Megumi chimed in as Yuji attempted to soothe his pain by brushing his fingers over a growing bulge on his scalp. 

Higuruma, unaccustomed to juggling three teenagers, solely watched the unfolding scene in utter helplessness. With a sigh, he reclined back against the black board while looking at Itadori.

“What exactly did you fail to understand?” 

Yuji cleared his throat for a second, knowing full well his answer would earn him another round of getting kicked around like a poor puppy.

“Everything,” he whispered, lowering his gaze towards the floor before Nobara’s protests in disbelief reverberated like a roar throughout the vicinity.

With a sigh of resignation, Higuruma relaxed his shoulders while checking his wrist watch.

“You do better with practical lessons, Itadori,” the reformed jujutsu sorcerer remarked.

“I do!” Yuji confirmed, starting to pull a contented smile on his face.

“That wasn’t a question.” 

“Oh.”

That smile left as quick as it came.

Megumi covered his face with his palm, and wondered for a second when the elation for being back to normal life gave place to the mundane, every-day annoyance of dealing with Itadori and Kugisaki’s shenanigans.

“Let’s wrap this up for the day, and tomorrow we can have a practical lesson at the Dojo,” Higuruma concluded, crossing his arms.

After some fumbling around, the three students finished packing their things. Nobara and Megumi stepped outside, as she tried to place a bet on who would get to the vending machines first. Megumi’s grumpy demeanor did little to hide the fact that he had, even if begrudgingly, taken her up on her challenge.

Yuji remained on his chair, though, still ruminating on his hardship to learn about the inner workings of the cursed energy world as quickly as his classmates.

Higuruma looked at the boy, and remained silent for a short while before asking him what was the matter.

“It’s just… I don’t know, after everything that happened, I thought I could learn these things faster now, you know?”

Softly brushing his hand around his jaw, Higuruma pondered for a moment.

“Each person has a different learning process. I learned jujutsu by reverse engineering my own cursed technique and figuring out how it worked. Most learn about cursed energy and then go onto training their own CTs all the way up to domain expansion. It’s fine. With only three students, we can tailor classes for each and every one of you.”

His words seemed to soothe Yuji, who looked at Higuruma and spared him a relieved smile.

“I guess you’re right,” Yuji conceded, pondering for a few moments before proceeding, “you remind me of someone.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” Yuji replied, getting up and walking towards the door. For a second, Higuruma’s suited up, responsible demeanor brought him flashbacks of a much lighter colored suit, a blonde, side parted hair and a pair of green shades. “He was a very serious person, and kind, just like yourself.”

Higuruma’s mouth fell slightly open, but no words came out before Yuji waved at him, bidding his teacher goodbye before sprinting towards Nobara and Megumi.

I am so out of my element. Why did I agree to come here, of all places? Higuruma asked himself while sinking down on his desk’s chair. 

“Rough class?” 

The familiar, low baritone voice came accompanied by a few footsteps inside the classroom. Hiromi lifted his gaze to see the signature brownish-beige trench coat, along with the man who wore it.

“Good afternoon, Kusakabe,” Hiromi offered, nudging himself over his seat while motioning to get up. Kusakabe signaled for him to keep seated with one of his hands, before leaning himself on the desk’s side with his hands in his pockets and a lollipop shoved into his mouth.

“Rough life,” Higuruma replied, half in jest. Truth was, those past few months — nearly half a year after the fight at Shinjuku against Sukuna — felt like some sort of uncomfortable fever dream to Higuruma.

He was offered the opportunity to atone for his crimes as a teacher at Jujutsu High, and he seized said opportunity. However, the former lawyer caught himself struggling to fall asleep most nights while pondering. He didn’t know, unfortunately, what had made his soul so uneasy.

“At least we are not shacked up like sardines inside a makeshift bunker while fighting for our lives against a genocidal maniac,” Kusakabe promptly replied, earning him a nod from Higuruma.

”I guess you’re right. How has life as the new NSS headmaster been?”

“Almost pushing me back into smoking. Sometimes, I wish these lollipops were made out of pure nicotine.”

At that, Higuruma spared a quick, discreet smile.

“That bad?”

“Don’t even get me started on it,” Kusakabe grunted, glancing over towards the windows. “It’s a beautiful day, huh?”

Higuruma looked down at his hands, which sat together over the desk. After Kusakabe was done admiring the view, he turned his eyes to Higuruma, noticing the man sinking further into himself.

”Higuruma, how have you been? Is everything alright?” 

“I…” Higuruma let his voice drag, uncertain just as his feelings had been about everything that had happened ever since that fateful day in Keita’s trial, “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what?” Kusakabe inquired, confused.

“I thought I was supposed to die back at Shinjuku. I believed that I would fulfill my duty, and… I don’t know, achieve some sort of spiritual absolution if I died while playing my role in the battle against Sukuna. But I just lived. It doesn’t make sense, it’s not adding up to me.” 

Kusakabe quickly realized this was the first time Higuruma was effectively putting these feelings into words, and conceded him the moments’ reprieve necessary for the man to collect his thoughts.

“Everything I’ve learned since gaining my CT was how to fight a war.” 

Higuruma sighed, and upon further contemplation, realized that what he said wasn’t the entire truth.  

“Actually, ever since I was a lawyer, all I ever did was fight a war, be it symbolically or literally. No one told me how to live my life after it was over, in peaceful times. I don’t think I quite know how to do that.”

“No one does,” Kusakabe quickly interjected.

“What?” Higuruma asked, his voice slightly surprised.

“No one knows how to live life. We’re just… living it, and doing what’s needed to get by. Clinging to what might give it some meaning from time to time.” 

Higuruma looked down, and let his colleague’s words sink in slowly. For all this time, he’d felt like a movie that overstayed its welcome, dragging along its plot for much longer that it should have. Upon experiencing the warmth of the sun coming through the wide set windows caressing his skin, however, Higuruma thought it didn’t seem so bad, after all.

“Everything I had ever believed in was broken, and I guess I was, too. My life,” Higuruma remarked, “and I’m finding it hard to piece things back together. I don’t know if that’s possible.” 

“I suppose you’ve heard of kintsugi,” Kusakabe said while pulling another lollipop from his pocket and replacing the already finished candy with a new one.

Higuruma was taken aback by the sudden shift in the conversation.

“The practice of fixing broken ceramic pieces with gold? Yes, I’m familiar.”

“Your life is the broken ceramic.”

… What?

Kusakabe had no ease for metaphors, and it showed in Higuruma's completely puzzled expression.

With a grunt, the seasoned sorcerer pulled the lollipop from his mouth and began gesturing around, as if trying to pull the words to have himself make sense out of thin air.

“What I mean to say is… broken things can be fixed, and sometimes the way they’re fixed can make them more valuable than they were before. Or something like that.”

Higuruma’s confusion subsided for the most part, but he remained silent to see if Kusakabe would offer some final commentary.

He did. 

“There is value in the healed cracks. That’s all. Perhaps this second chance you’ve been given is an opportunity to do just that. Heal those cracks with something valuable, I mean.”

Higuruma’s eyes traveled gently over the classroom in front of him, and he finally gazed out the window while actually paying attention to it for the first time in a long while. He saw the golden rays of sunshine projecting a soft, welcoming light over the students’ desks, noticed how clear the sky truly was, and the cloud-scattered blue that encompassed it all together as a visual symphony.

“It really is a beautiful day, after all,” Higuruma remarked, looking back at Kusakabe with a smile.

Kusakabe’s eyes met Hiromi’s, and this was probably the first time he had actually seen the man smiling with actual joy.

In a second, Kusakabe coughed, feeling his face warming up, and averted his gaze while covering his mouth with his fist.

“Is everything alright?” Higuruma asked, gently tilting his head to the side. “Did you choke on your lollipop?”

“No. It’s okay, I’m fine,” the other man answered, mentally pulling himself back to normal. “I just really have to go back to work.”

“Oh. Okay. I should probably leave this classroom too and get something to eat.” 

Kusakabe nodded and propped himself up, walking towards the door. However, he stopped as he was nearly past it, and turned around.

“Higuruma.”

The former lawyer had just gotten up himself, and turned to face his colleague.

“What?”

“Me and some other people from jujutsu high — assistants, mostly — will have a happy hour this Friday. Would you like to join us?”

The question caught Hiromi completely off guard, and he faltered for a few seconds before clearing his throat and answering, “yes. I appreciate the invite.”

Kusakabe nodded once more. “Okay. See you this Friday, then.”

As he watched Kusakabe leaving, Higuruma could feel the liquid gold slowly seeping into the cracks of his broken life, gluing things back in place.

written by tsukimefuku ㋡ comments and reblogs are appreciated. do not copy, translate or repost. copycatting is for losers.

[mariacallous]

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Georgia in the South Caucasus in recent weeks to protest a controversial proposed new law that many fear, if passed, would be the death knell of a once-promising young democracy and drive the country firmly into Moscow’s orbit.

The “foreign agents” law would require organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence.” It is modeled on similar legislation that Russia enacted in 2012 and has used to cast independent media and civic society groups as doing the bidding of foreign governments and to crack down on dissent.

Georgia has been convulsed by bouts of street protests in recent years over the proposed law and other actions by the ruling Georgian Dream party that critics fear could consolidate its power and draw the country closer to neighboring Russia, a deeply unpopular move in the former Soviet nation where an overwhelming majority of the population supports joining the European Union, according to opinion polls.

Georgia was offered long-awaited EU candidate status by the bloc last year, which could be placed in jeopardy if the foreign agents legislation is adopted. In a statement last month, Brussels’s diplomatic service urged the country’s leaders to “adopt and implement reforms that are in line with the stated objective of joining the European Union, as supported by a large majority of Georgia’s citizens.”

On Thursday, Georgia’s ambassador to France resigned in protest over the proposed legislation, becoming the first senior official from the country to do so. “I no longer see my role and resources in this direction: the move towards Europe,” said Gotcha Javakhishvili in a post on social media.

The law was first introduced in February 2023 but was quickly withdrawn in the face of massive street protests in the capital, Tbilisi. It was then reintroduced in April of this year. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who is independent of the Georgian Dream, has promised to veto the legislation if passed, but her veto would likely be overridden by the government’s parliamentary majority.

“It seems clear to me, anyway, they have made a decision to go the path of one-party rule, of shutting down basically all checks and balances on executive power, and this Russian law is the last instrument that they need to put in place,” said Ian Kelly, former U.S. ambassador to Georgia.

The protests this time around are markedly different from earlier iterations, though—but not because of the demonstrators or their demands. What makes the latest round of unrest different is the level of violence and intimidation meted out against protesters and civil society as well as the government’s apparent determination to pass the law, which is due for a final reading on May 13, despite the public outcry and condemnation from the European Union and the United States.

Security forces have used water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas in a bid to disperse crowds of demonstrators in the capital, Tbilisi, while protesters have reported being violently assaulted by groups of men dressed in black in what they say appear to be premeditated attacks.

In recent days, civil society activists, journalists, and their relatives have reported receiving menacing phone calls from anonymous callers threatening them in Georgian and reciting their home addresses in an apparent bid to intimidate them, said Eka Gigauri, executive director of Transparency International Georgia. Gigauri said she had received dozens of calls from unknown numbers in recent days but declined to answer them.

On Wednesday evening, four government critics, including two members of the United National Movement opposition party, were attacked by unknown assailants outside their homes and in the street. Overnight on Wednesday, posters featuring the faces of prominent civil society activists, journalists, and opposition politicians branding them as enemies of the country and foreign agents were plastered near their homes and offices across the capital.

“What happened during these two days is just an unprecedented level of targeting,” said Eto Buziashvili, a former advisor to the Georgian National Security Council based in Tbilisi.

In 2019, when police used water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas to disperse protesters, it sparked a national outcry and further protests calling for snap elections and the resignation of the interior minister, Giorgi Gakharia.

Now, accusations of more sinister tactics are afoot as the role of the unknown assailants dressed in black has drawn comparisons to pro-government thugs known as titushki who were allegedly paid for by the embattled government of Viktor Yanukovych to cause disruption and attack protesters during the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, Buziashvili said.

After a 2003 uprising known as the Rose Revolution, Georgia embarked on a dizzyingly ambitious reform program under the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, who was then a darling of Washington’s. He sought to stamp out corruption and put the country on a firmly Western trajectory, tilting it away from Moscow, which fought a short but shocking war with Georgia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008.

Saakashvili was imprisoned in 2021, accused of abusing power while in office. His supporters see the charges as politically motivated.

The Georgian Dream, established by the eccentric Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, came to power in 2012 promising a less confrontational approach to Moscow while paying lip service to the country’s aspirations to join NATO and the European Union.

Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Moscow in the 1990s, served as prime minister for just over a year, stepping down in 2013, but has widely been viewed as the one still calling the shots behind the scenes as the Georgian Dream has undermined the country’s hard-won democratic gains and poured salt on the relationship with the United States.

“The person who seems to be driving all of this is Bidzina Ivanishvili,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaking about the foreign agents law.

In October, the Georgian government accused the United States Agency for International Development of trying to foment a coup in the country.

The Georgian government’s claims echo similar allegations made by Moscow over the years that have accused Washington of pulling the strings in a series of pro-democracy uprisings in the former Soviet Union known as color revolutions, including in Ukraine.

“I think it’s Russian disinformation. It’s a deliberate effort by Russia to stoke divisions in the country,” said Shaheen, who has a long-standing focus on Georgia.

On April 29, in a rare public address infused with conspiracy theories, Ivanishvili—who formally serves as the party’s honorary chairman—depicted the country as wrestling for its independence against shadowy, unnamed foreign forces, describing Georgia’s nongovernmental organizations as a “pseudo-elite nurtured by a foreign country.”

Although Ivanishvili’s personal wealth is equivalent to roughly a third of the country’s gross domestic product, he is “borrowing from the Orban and Trump playbook, highlighting how the urban elite is running counter to Georgian traditional values,” Kelly said, referring to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and former U.S. President Donald Trump.

In March, a senior member of the Georgian Dream announced a raft of constitutional amendments cracking down on LGBT rights and banning any public efforts to promote same-sex relationships, echoing Russia’s “gay propaganda” law passed in 2013.

In the April speech, Ivanishvili explicitly referenced parliamentary elections set to be held later this year as a motivation for reintroducing the foreign agents law and the anti-LGBT legislation, noting that it would force civil society to “expend the energy” ahead of the vote, saying it would leave them “weakened” and “exhausted.”

Kelly criticized the Biden administration for not taking more concrete steps to deter Georgian politicians from pursuing the legislation. “Right after April 29, they should have started the first round of imposing costs, and the really easy one is, ‘You’re not welcome to get a visa,’” he said.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller condemned the violence against protesters on Thursday and called for a “full independent and timely investigation,” but Kelly said that such statements don’t go far enough.

“It’s useless. It’s worse than useless,” he said. “I don’t know if they really take us seriously.”

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Montreal to express their fury about Quebec’s housing reform bill and “unfair” rent increases. They also called for France Elaine Duranceau, the minister responsible for housing, to resign. Park Extension resident Edward Fell was among the demonstrators. The septuagenarian is retired after a 50-year blue collar career. He lives off his pension and says his landlord is doing everything he can to raise his rent. “That cheque is going to mean that I don’t get groceries for a month. I don’t go out for a month. I don’t pay my car insurance for a month,” he explained.

Continue Reading

Tagging @politicsofcanada

[zvaigzdelasas]

Last week, Togo postponed legislative elections that had been scheduled for April 20, following a contentious constitutional reform. The office of President Faure Gnassingbé said more “consultations” over the changes were needed before a new election date could be announced.

On March 25, Togo’s National Assembly adopted a charter that will transform the country from a presidential to a parliamentary system. Executive power will lie with a “president of the council of ministers,” effectively a prime minister, while Togo’s existing presidency will be reduced to a ceremonial role. The National Assembly will elect the president to a single six-year term, abolishing direct elections.

Togo’s opposition argues that the reforms are a ploy to keep the unpopular Gnassingbé in power, avoiding being voted out by a public weary of presidents serving for life. “He was never elected … and he knows that the Togolese people are lying in wait for him in the next election,” opposition politician Brigitte Adjamagbo-Johnson told [French State Media] Radio France Internationale.

Togo gained independence from France in 1960 and has been largely run by the Gnassingbé family since. Gnassingbé’s father seized power in a 1967 military coup, and the younger Gnassingbé succeeded him in 2005 after his death in office. He’s served four terms since then—which was possible because in 2002, the constitution had been amended to abolish a two-term limit and allow the elder Gnassingbé to stand again.[...]

The capital, Lomé, experienced nearly a year and half of protests between 2017 and 2018, with demonstrators demanding that Gnassingbé resign. They ended only when the government agreed to reestablish a two-term limit for the presidency in a truce brokered by [ECOWAS][...]

Togo’s ruling government is comprised exclusively of members of Gnassingbé’s Union for the Republic party. A group of major opposition figures boycotted the last legislative elections in 2019, claiming that the country’s electoral commission was not independent.

10 Apr 24

[drsonnet]

(2024)

APRIL 1968..#ColumbiaUniversity In 1968, students occupied buildings and hundreds were arrested. Credit...Larry C. Morris/ TheNewYorkTimes

A protest 56 years ago became an important part of Columbia’s culture.

During the Vietnam War, students seized campus buildings for a week until university officials and the police cracked down.

By Vimal Patel April 18, 2024

Columbia University is no stranger to major student protests, and the uproar that unfolded at the institution on Thursday had echoes of a much bigger revolt in 1968 — another time of upheaval over a war many students deeply believed was immoral.

That year, in April, in the throes of the Vietnam War, Columbia and Barnard students seized five campus buildings, took a dean hostage and shut down the university.

By April 30, a week after the protest started, university officials cracked down.

At about 2 a.m., police began clearing students from Hamilton Hall “after entering the building through underground tunnels,” according to the student newspaper, The Columbia Daily Spectator. Minutes later, police entered Low Library, again through tunnels, removing occupying students by force.

By 4 a.m., they had cleared all buildings, resulting in more than 700 arrests — one of the largest mass detentions in New York City history — and 148 reports of injuries, the student newspaper reported. Officers trampled protesters, hit them with nightsticks, punched and kicked them and dragged them down stairs, according to a New York Times report.

Most of the injuries were cuts and bruises, relatively minor as compared to some of the brutal arrests of protesters at the height of antiwar and civil rights demonstrations at the time. The university also sustained some property damage, including smashed furniture, toppled shelves and broken windows.

In the end, the protesters won their goals of stopping the construction of a gym on public land in Morningside Park, cutting ties with a Pentagon institute doing research for the Vietnam War and gaining amnesty for demonstrators.

The protests would also lead to the early resignations of Columbia’s president, Grayson L. Kirk, and its provost, David B. Truman.

The fallout from the violence hurt the university’s reputation and led to reforms favoring student activism. Today the university touts its tradition of protest as part of its brand.

On Thursday, another Columbia president, Nemat Shafik, took what she called an “extraordinary step” and authorized the New York Police Department to clear out a student encampment on campus.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ron Kapeas

Published: Jan 8, 2024

JTA — In a speech marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, Rep. Ritchie Torres likened protesters who have celebrated Hamas’s October 7 massacres to white people in the Jim Crow era who celebrated after the lynching of Black people.

“I was profoundly shaken not only by October 7, but by the aftermath,” Torres, a Black Bronx Democrat, said Friday in a speech at Central Synagogue, a prominent Reform congregation in midtown Manhattan. “I found it utterly horrifying. To see fellow Americans openly cheering and celebrating the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. And for me, the aftermath of October 7 revealed a barbarity of the American heart that reminded me of an earlier and darker time in our nation’s history, a time when the public mobs of Jim Crow would openly celebrate the lynching of African Americans.”

Protests have proliferated since October 7, when Hamas terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, kidnapped around 240 and brutalized thousands more in an invasion from Gaza. They have grown as Israel has waged a war in Gaza to eliminate the terror group, and especially as casualties mounted: So far, close to 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, which does not differentiate between fighters and non-combatants and is also believed to tally civilians killed by errant rockets fired by terror groups.

A number of the protests have decried the October 7 violence on Israelis, but others have skated over the initial massacres or have embraced Hamas and described its atrocities as resistance.

Torres, a member of the progressive caucus in Congress, has garnered a reputation as an unstinting supporter of Israel. He has duked it out online with fellow progressives in debates over Israel, a dynamic that has only intensified since October 7. Torres is heavily funded by AIPAC and donors aligned with the pro-Israel lobby, and spoke at a massive rally for Israel in Washington on November 14.

In his speech, Torres alluded to the controversies that assailed elite universities after the presidents of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania told Congress that calls to commit genocide against Jews did not necessarily violate the schools’ codes of conduct. The ensuing uproar drove Harvard’s and Penn’s presidents to resign.

“What we’ve seen in the aftermath of October 7, is appalling silence and indifference and cowardice from so called leaders in our society from institutions that we once respected and admired,” he said. “And if we as a society cannot bring ourselves to condemn the murder of innocents with moral clarity, then we must ask, what are we becoming as a society? What does that reveal about the depths of antisemitism in the American soul?”

I had the honor of delivering the annual MLK sermon at Central Synagogue.  My speech touches on a range of topics and themes: October 7th, Jim Crow, Leo Frank, MLK, Elie Wiesel, silence, indifference, moral clarity, nonviolence, Israel, Am Yisrael Chai, Hatikvah, and hope. pic.twitter.com/stxqxzgyLi — Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) January 16, 2024

Central is a locus for some of the city’s wealthiest liberal Jewish families, many of whom are also firm supporters of Israel. Dr. Shonni Silverberg, the synagogue president, introduced Torres as a champion of progressive priorities as well as an advocate for Israel, and noted that he is the first openly LGBTQ representative elected from the Bronx.

“Ritchie remains steadfastly focused on the priorities of his South Bronx constituents, expanding access to safe and affordable housing, rebuilding New York economically and ensuring that no child goes hungry and that all receive a good education,” she said. “But he has also shown himself both in and out of Congress to be a great friend of the American Jewish community and Israel.”

--

==

I was shocked, but not surprised. Shocked at how openly, how loudly and how quickly pro-Hamas, pro-terrorism supporters emerged from their Postcolonial Studies, Gender Studies, Intersectional Feminism Studies and other fraudulent sewers in the ivory towers long before Israel ever fired a shot back.

I was not surprised, however, since antisemitism is a cornerstone of Intersectionality, as I posted about more than two years ago:

I naïvely expected that they'd go, "whoa, we didn't mean it like that, that's not what we were after," the standard No True Scotman tactic to distance their enlightened antisemitism from the antisemitism of murderous Islamic jihadists.

But they went the other way and leaned into it, cheering it on, while others tried to gaslight everyone with the usual array of denials that they weren't saying what they were openly saying, and that anyway, if they were saying it, that's not what they meant.

[fideidefenswhore]

Do we know what Luther, Calvin and other Protestant leaders thought about Anne Boleyn's guilt/innocence after her fall and execution? I read somewhere that Luther was against Katharine and Henry's divorce, but I also read that Luther thought that the rise of the Reformist Anne to the English throne was a good omen).

Do we know if they current Pope, or any of the main Catholic rulers (Spain, France, Portugal) made some comment about it?

Is free from the projected journey to England, for, after these tragic occurrences there, plans have greatly changed. The second Queen, more accused than convicted of adultery, has been executed. These vicissitudes denounce the anger of God against all men, and show him that their own misfortunes and dangers should be borne with resignation. Melancthon to Joachim Camerarius.

+

Now Sir, because [the Quene] was such a favorer of God’s word […] I tell you few men would believe that she was so abominable[…] T. Amyot (ed.), ’A memorial from George Constantine’, in Archaeologica, 23 (1831), 50-78

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Afterwards, in the great chamber with the others, drew a parallel between the fall of Lucifer and that of queen Anne, congratulating Sir Francis that he was not implicated.

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Henry VIII, the League of Schmalkalden and the English Reformation, Rory McEntegart

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Couriers of the Gospel: England and Zurich, 1531-1558, Carrie Euler

Tudor and Stuart Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty (2022)

"In the years following her death, Anne had few defenders. One of them, though, was Étienne Dolet, former French embassy secretary in Venice and practically minded commentator on diplomacy. In 1538, he published an epitaph for the queen ‘falsely condemned of adultery’. The news of Anne’s arrest travelled rapidly south through Europe. It must have been a shock to the men who had toiled for six years to achieve her marriage to Henry, but then political conspiracies and swift executions were far from rare in Rome." The Divorce of Henry VIII, Catherine Fletcher

I don't recall if Luther remarked on it specifically; although he did refer to her supplanter as an 'enemy of the gospel', so if one was so inclined, one could read into that...?

The Pope, iirc, mainly believed it presaged Anglo-Papal reconciliation (he was mistaken); Chapuys forwarded letters from Charles V where he expressed shock and horror at Henry's near-miss from regicide (whether he believed this himself or thought it was politic to express that he did...things that make you go hmmm), Mary of Hungary was skeptical yet essentially said she deserved to die regardless, so no great wrong was committed.

[ultimateog100]

For my fellow USAmericans… this is just kinda written in a rambling state, so apologies for not being the best well-written, but… Honest question:

With pretty much everyone universally hating Joe Biden now with him being the least popular president since WW2 and all but guaranteed to lose, and with Trump being the only other option, is now not the ideal time to try to push for voting outside of the bi-partisan system?

I mean, SO MANY people are just saying that they won’t vote for Biden (as we damn well shouldn’t!). But what’s the alternative—just voting for no one (and letting Trump win by default)?

So many people hate the two-party system we have, but are resigned to vote Democratic just to keep Republicans from winning. But party allegiance seems like it’s at an all time low. It seems like, since everyone pretty much universally hates both options we have anyway, it doesn’t matter if we “throw away our vote” anymore, does it? So, I’m thinking about voting for the Green Party. Aside from the obvious pro-environmentalism at its core, their other positions seem much more aligned with what pretty much all younger liberals want, with being pro-universal healthcare, pro-LGBT+ and advocating for accessible trans care, in favor of reparations, tuition-free colleges, and—most importantly for pretty much everyone rejecting Biden this election—advocate for cutting US aid to Israel.

I don’t reasonably actually expect Green Party to win. Of course I don’t. But, with pretty much everyone HATING the Democratic Party for being spineless cowards and desperately wanting reform—fuck it, if the Green Party can even gain an INCH more influence in our current system, god, that’d be better than what we’ve got.

Maybe I’m wrong, and I mean, I probably don’t plan on solely voting Green down the ballot. But, if there’s any time to make a dent in our god-awful two-party system, now is the time, right? Or am I missing something? I don’t know.

I’m interested to hear what other USAmericans have to say about this—but, with the world gone to hell and pretty much everyone in agreement about being hopeless in the state of the establishment, alongside protesting, I’m not seeing any better route than to hope that this is the moment to try to push for third-party options.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

While Buckley's view prevailed on April 30, over the years, Columbia came to embrace the protests — and political activism — as an important part of its legacy. In the aftermath of the police raid, the university sided with the protestors, "canceling the gym and severing ties with a weapons-research institute affiliated with the Defense Department." Kirk resigned as president within a year.  It also resulted in structural reforms at Columbia that were designed to give students and faculty a more formal role in setting university policy. In 1969, the University Senate, a 100-person body consisting mostly of faculty and students, was created by referendum. Today, the University Statutes stipulate that a president may only consider summoning the NYPD (or other "external authorities") to end a demonstration if it "poses a clear and present danger to persons, property, or the substantial functioning of any division of the University." Even then, the University Statutes require "consultation with a majority of a panel established by the University Senate’s Executive Committee" before the president takes action.  [...]

Columbia University in 2024

On April 18, 2024, Columbia President Minouche Shafik wrote the NYPD regarding a group of students who were occupying the campus' south lawn. The day before, the students had established a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" in protest of Israel's operations in Gaza — and Columbia's investments in companies allegedly profiting from the war. The Israeli assault on Gaza, launched in response to Hamas' October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, has killed thousands of civilians and created a humanitarian crisis. Shafik accused the Columbia students, whose tuition costs $66,000, of trespassing on their own campus. She requested "the NYPD’s help to remove these individuals." Shafik claimed the students were not authorized to protest on the lawn and posed a "clear and present danger." (A policy limiting protests to designated areas was only put in place in February.)

The NYPD responded to the request by descending on the University and arresting 108 students. Some students were restrained in zip ties for several hours and transported to a local police precinct before being released. Shafik also said that all students "participating in the encampment" have been "suspended" for an indefinite period.

According to the NYPD, the protest was entirely non-violent. "To put this in perspective, the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner," NYPD Chief John Chell said.  Antisemitism exists on and off the Columbia campus. But the mass arrests conflated peaceful pro-Palestinian protests with prejudice and hatred toward Jewish people. Shafik claimed she "complied with the requirements of Section 444 of the University Statutes." Section 444 requires "consultation" with the University Senate Executive Committee. While Shafik informed the committee of her decision, it is unclear if a genuine consultation occurred. "The executive committee did not approve the presence of NYPD on campus," Jeanine D’Armiento, chair of the Committee, told the Columbia Spectator. 

Like in 1968, shortly before Shafik called in the NYPD, she faced substantial political pressure from the right. On April 17, 2024, the day before the NYPD raid, Shafik testified for three hours before the Republican-controlled House Committee on Education. The hearing, Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism, was modeled after prior hearings that forced the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania to resign. (Shafik missed the earlier hearing because she was traveling internationally.)

Throughout last week's hearing, Shafik and other representatives of Columbia touted their "work with external investigators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to identify and discipline students who breach policy." Shafik assured members of the committee that Columbia students "are getting the message that violations of our policies will have consequences."  During the hearing, Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA) told Shakik that, in the Bible, God is "real clear" that "if you bless Israel, I will bless you" and "if you curse Israel, I will curse you." Allen asked Shakik if she wanted "Columbia University to be cursed by God?"  "Definitely not," Shafik replied. 

[...] Shafik's actions, however, appear to have backfired. In the wake of mass arrests, the protests on the south lawn have continued and inspired others to protest in solidarity across the globe. The Columbia protesters are now calling not only for divestment but, in an echo of the 1968 protests, "an end to Columbia expansion into West Harlem."

Students at Columbia University launched Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the campus's south lawn to protest the Israel Apartheid State's occupation of Palestine and the university's investments in companies alleged to be profitting off the Gaza Genocide.

The university's chancellor, Minouche Shafik, called on the NYPD to arrest the students involved in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. The NYPD called the protesters and protesters peaceful and non-violent.

The heavy-handed actions by Shafik have led to Gaza Solidarity Encampments spreading to other campuses, such as MIT, Tufts University, and Michigan.

[globaltrendingnews247]

Watch Video

[learnwithmearticles]

French Politics Update

Since the 2024 French elections earlier this year, we left off with a more balanced National Assembly. Left-wing politicians became the highest population at 188 seats with centrist Emmanuel Macron still the president. The centrist party is not far behind with 161 seats and the right-wing party with 142.

Many networks at the time discussed the expectation of a hung parliament, as no one party holds the 289-seat majority.

Some things stay the same. In July, the National Assembly voted to keep centrist party member Yaël Braun-Pivet as speaker, winning by 13 votes. Additionally, many people have called for Macron to step down as President, but he will likely stay for the rest of his term until 2027. 

New PM

On the other hand, there have been major changes. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal resigned in July, and was replaced by Michel Barnier in September. He is a conservative, the leader of the 2016-2019 Brexit negotiation, and his appointment was met with much criticism from the left-wing parties.

Days after his appointment, over 100,000 people participated in protests across France. Many people view President Macron’s PM choice as disruptive to democracy, as the PM is most often chosen from the dominant National Assembly party.

Macron states that he made this choice based on the belief that Barnier seemed the most capable of dealing with political deadlocks, as is expected of the Parliament with no party holding majority.

I have to wonder, though, if this was also out of spite for the left-wing parties winning more seats than his centrist party. Barnier’s politics are expected to rely on joint support from the centrist and conservative parties. If the right or center opposes him on anything, he almost certainly will face loss after loss with his proposed policies. Will this lead France backward after the left finally gained some political power?

Barnier’s Address

Barnier delivered his first parliamentary address on Tuesday, October 1st. Summarily, he emphasized the hazard of French finances and debts, and the environment.

France is more than 3 trillion euros in public and environmental debt, which Barnier addresses first. His goal is to bring the deficit down from 6% of the national GDP to 5% in 2025, with the goal of under 3% by 2029.

His outline for achieving this is reducing spending, being more efficient in government spending (addressing corruption and unjustified spending), and taxes. He phrases higher taxes as a temporary measure, and states that large companies as well as the richest and wealthiest French people will be asked for exceptional contributions.

Barnier also addresses environmental debt. He plans to continue reducing GHG emissions, and for France to be more active in the EU and in the Paris Agreements, which push for countries to collectively act against climate change. He also mentions encouraging industry transitions in energy and recycling, encouraging nuclear energy development, and developing renewable resources of energy more, like biofuels and solar energy.

He has also conceived of a large national conference to act on the matter of water, the scarcity of which is an imminent issue for France.

Additionally, he plans to propose a yearly day of citizens consultations. In his idea, doors will be open for citizens for people of all levels of government to ask questions and start discussions and debates on various topics.

Another noteworthy statement from Barnier is that the pension reform bill voted on in 2023 might have to be changed, which received a loud reply from the audience.

As someone living in a country where an entire political party is built on denying factual evidence and realities, it is surprising to hear someone who does not deny climate change, and calls for equitable taxes to address debt.

About 30 minutes into his address, though, New Caledonia comes up. This is more in line with expectations of conservatives. New Caledonia is still a colonized territory of France, and a recent bill from Macron was going to disadvantage native Kanak people for the advancement of French loyalists on the archipelago. After fatal protests, the bill has been suspended before ratification, likely to be readdressed in 2025.

Also in conservative spirit, Barnier calls for stricter immigration policies in effort to meet “integration objectives”. France faces a cost-of-living crisis and an affordable housing shortage that has buttressed the right’s stance on needing stricter border measures.

Le Pen Trial

Also straining politics, especially for right-wing support, is recent news about popular right-wing figure Marine Le Pen.

On September 30th, Le Pen faced charges of embezzling European Parliament money. The right-wing party Rassemblement National is accused of filing false employee records in order to improperly use funds to pay members of the party. Le Pen is one of many senior party members involved in the alleged embezzlement.

This trial is expected to go on for seven to nine weeks, so the final outcome is some time away. But for now we can expect this will have negative impacts if Le Pen still vies for presidential election in 2027. It will likely also decrease citizen’s trust in the conservative party’s ability to make responsible economic decisions.

If found guilty, Le Pen and the other defendants could face up to ten years in prison and lose the eligibility to run for office.

After the 2024 shock vote instigated by President Macron, the French National assembly gained a left-leaning majority, though not enough for an automatic 289-vote majority. In most cases, this would mean a left-wing Prime Minister as well as a left-wing president, though that’s because the presidential vote is usually shortly after that of the national assembly.

Contrarily, Macron went with a conservative candidate that he believed to be stronger for the job. This increases the political unrest in the country, and increases the likelihood of delays and blockages in legislation development.

While the conservative Prime Minister has stated many intentions that people in the U.S.A. might call left-leaning, regarding climate change and tax targets, his appointment has upset many. His views on immigration, especially, contrast with most left-wing groups who want integration and safety for others. Overall, this decision from Macron calls into question his loyalty and dedication to the wants of the French people.

Additional Resources

1. New Prime Minister

2. Barnier on Borrowed Time

3. Le Pen on Trial

4. Barnier Address

5. Barnier Address Summary

[mariacallous]

A month after the Hamas attack that murdered 1,400 Israelis, including entire families, the country is still at war. Israel has launched a ground offensive aimed at “defeating Hamas.” Israelis are mourning their lost ones, attending funerals, dealing with well over 200,000 people displaced from their homes near the border, identifying bodies, and fearing for the fate of the more than 240 remaining hostages,

The country is caught between the front lines in the Gaza Strip, where the death toll of Palestinians has reached nearly 10,000 people, and the ongoing conflict with Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah in the north. Settler violence has surged in the West Bank, with armed militants raiding villages, torching fields, and firing at Palestinians, and even targeting Israeli peace activists. The West Bank death toll has surged to 154 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire since Oct. 7.

But after a month of conflict, is it still possible to imagine not just a cease-fire, but a peace? A bruised peace movement is struggling to come to terms with the brutality of Oct. 7—but some see the possibility of hope among the ashes.

Normally, during wartime, citizens rally in support of their government—the so-called rally-around-the-flag effect—and a wave of national unity is evident. Israelis are helping farmers in the south with the harvest, members of the ultra-Orthodox community have volunteered to cook and serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and mothers have donated breast milk for orphaned infants. It is estimated that almost 50 percent of Israelis have volunteered since the war began, all while the public and the military are engaged in a substantial activation of reservists.

But the sense of popular determination stands in sharp contrast to the profound decline in trust toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. Public confidence in Netanyahu is at a historic low. According to a recent poll by Israeli Channel 13 News: Some 44 percent of respondents believe that Netanyahu is directly responsible for Hamas’s attack, and 76 percent believe that he should resign, with 47 percent suggesting he should do so after the war and 29 percent calling for his immediate resignation.

A verse from Haim Nachman Bialik, widely considered Israel’s national poet, has begun to circulate on social media suggesting anger at the government juxtaposed with the cohesion of the populace: “It is the unseen wind that propels the ship forward, not the sails flapping noisily above the mast.”

Despite the resilience of civil society, it’s hard to imagine what comes next. Popular frustration has not coalesced into the organized demonstrations seen in the past, such as in the wake of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, when hundreds of thousands of Israelis called on then-Security Minister Ariel Sharon to resign, or after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, with a protest that partially led to the resignation of Prime Minister Golda Meir. Nor have they matched the scale of more recent protest movements, such as the demonstrations against an attempted judicial overhaul.

Even before the Oct. 7 attacks, Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, was already under pressure. He was contending with charges of bribery and fraud, and his efforts to enact judicial reforms—which aimed to diminish the power of the Israeli Supreme Court and potentially make it more difficult to oust him from office—had triggered some of the largest public protests in the nation’s history.

The Israeli liberal left has suffered a setback because the momentum of the anti-judicial reform and anti-Netanyahu protests was stopped in its tracks. Though Netanyahu is widely blamed for the security failure, that frustration hasn’t been channeled into renewing the movement; instead, demonstrations have been mostly limited to installations and peaceful protests to raise awareness to the hostages.

“Israeli society is in a state of shock. We are still identifying bodies, still attending funerals. People feel that this is not the moment to restart protests,” said Ido Dembin, the executive director of Molad, a liberal think tank, in an interview with Foreign Policy. “Moreover, there is a deep disconnect between the public’s desire for Netanyahu’s departure and the political leadership, which has yet to acknowledge this pressing demand.”

The hurt on the left is all too physical. Some of the kibbutzim that were worst hit by the Hamas attack, such as Be’eri, Nahal Oz, and Holit, are strongholds of leftist ideology. Among those murdered was Hayim Katzman, a peace activist; among those kidnapped was Vivian Silver, a dedicated peace advocate. Hundreds have been murdered, including many who devoted their lives to peace, Arab-Jewish solidarity, and the pursuit of ending the occupation. Maoz Yinon, whose parents both were murdered, has been vocal about his support for peace.

Public outrage at the right-wing government, with individuals such as Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who controversially suggested dropping on atomic bomb on Gaza, is evident. Ministers are chased away from hospitals by relatives of the injured.

“We’re seeing the unraveling of the right-wing doctrine that managing the conflict without end while weakening the voices of moderation is sustainable,” Labor Party Knesset member Naama Lazimi said in an interview with Foreign Policy. “Netanyahu and his colleagues have long empowered Hamas, because it served their interest by halting progress toward political dialogue. This approach has significantly undermined the Palestinian Authority and resulted in one of the gravest crises since Israel’s foundation.”

Yet there’s little public appetite for a cease-fire. According to a poll from the Israel Democracy Institute, even though Israelis lack clarity about the objectives of the operation in Gaza in relation to the government’s goals, they support the army and its mission. Save for Ayman Odeh, the head of the left-wing Hadash-Ta’al coalition, who along with 35 Israeli Jewish and Arab rights groups issued an open letter, no other Israeli leader has called for a cease-fire.

Many Israelis view the war as a necessary action to eliminate the threat of Hamas—and don’t put a lot of weight on Palestinian lives. The same Israel Democracy Institute poll showed that nearly 48 percent of Jewish Israelis surveyed think that Palestinian civilian suffering should not influence Gaza conflict strategies, and 36 percent say it should be given  “not so much” consideration. Meanwhile, 83 percent of Arab Israelis feel “very much” or “quite a lot” in agreement that it should be taken into account.

There are several reasons for this, beyond the sense of anger over the attacks. First, the lack of leadership has led Israelis to place an overinflated trust in the IDF. They trust it because with 300,000 reservists called up, most Israelis know someone who is serving.

Second, Israelis aren’t aware of the magnitude of destruction in Gaza. “Israelis are among the least aware of what’s happening in Gaza,” Dembin said.

The Israeli media, influenced by Netanyahu over the years, has also normalized extreme right-wing rhetoric. This includes people such as researcher Eliyahu Yossian, who suggested that the IDF should adopt the brutal behavior patterns of Hamas militants: “Zero morality, maximum bodies,” he declared on a prime-time TV show. “Liberalism has become the cult of the devil.”

Ratings have shot up for Channel 14, a Netanyahu-loyal TV channel that has taken a jingoistic line. Channel 12, the most popular channel, provides little coverage of the ongoing bombardment in Gaza—in part because journalists either need to get authorization from Israeli authorities to enter the enclave or enter another way.

As Shimrit Meir, once an advisor to right-wing former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, wrote, “Someone decided about 20 years ago that coverage of the other side is leftist, and since then, the coverage of the opposing perspective has been minimal. This has strategic implications. For example, the heavy price Gaza already paid with bombardment. The feeling in Israel is that until we enter by land, nothing has happened.”

Protests against the situation, or even expressions of solidarity with the hostages, have also been met with censorship, suppression, or even violence.

Four former Arab Israeli Lawmakers were arrested over plans for anti-war protests. Uri Horesh, a professor at Achva College, was suspended from his job for posting against the war. Additionally, the police banned anti-war protests in the cities of Umm al-Fahm and Sakhnin.

Violence broke out at a Tel Aviv protest when a bystander accused the father of one of the abducted children of being a “traitor” and told him that he wished for “your daughter to die.” Left-wing activist Yona Roseman wrote, “Unlike the impunity the police have extended to far-right mobs, left-wing activists are facing detention and arrests for much less.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has been particularly provocative. A former Kahanist—an outlawed party that advocates for a Jewish theocratic state and supports the annexation of the occupied territories—Ben-Gvir, who was convicted of expressing sympathy for terrorism, attempted to incite animosity against Israel’s Arab population at the onset of the war by claiming that there were indications of planned riots.

When those failed to materialize, Ben Gvir called to simplify the process for citizens to acquire firearms. Just last week, an Israeli rapper called the Shadow, known for his extreme right-wing views and online activism, was spotted on the Tel Aviv boardwalk carrying a gun.

“Unfortunately, there are those who have taken this tragedy as a chance to become vengeful and violent” said Alon-Lee Green, the director of Omdim Beyachad. “Right now, we are concentrating on Jewish-Arab solidarity,” Green said. “We are able to show people that Arab society is equally appalled by the murder of Israelis, and that we are in this together.”

The left, already marginalized domestically, feels further betrayed and alienated by a global left that has often engaged in apologism for the massacre, framing it as just another salvo between the oppressed Palestinians and their Israeli oppressors. Israel’s left find itself caught between the trauma of Hamas’s violence, a feckless government, and the dehumanization and abandonment by those who claim to stand up for human rights.

Yet despite the absence of leadership, the suppression of anti-war views, and a profound sense of alienation from the international community, there are signs of an increasing recognition of the conflict’s consequences and the potential for civil society and international actors to pave a new way toward resolution.

There is a growing awareness among Israelis and the international community that Hamas is distinct from the Palestinian people and their aspirations for self-determination. The actions and comments of Hamas leaders have solidified the movement’s status as an outcast, regardless of whether Israel can “erase” it.

Indicative of this perspective is the suggestion by Tzachi Hanegbi, the head of Israel’s National Security Council and a known security hard-liner, that the Palestinian Authority should take over governance in Gaza if Hamas were to be defeated. While it’s a controversial suggestion, it underscores an acknowledgment by some Israelis of the Palestinian Authority as the legitimate governing body for the Palestinians.

Emboldened by recent electoral gains—which saw Ben-Gvir ascend to the role of internal security minister and Bezalel Smotrich become finance minister (both of whom have been under investigation by the Shin Bet in the past)—the settler movement had overreached, underestimating the determination of mainstream liberal Israel. The liberal public began to connect the dots between the assault on the Supreme Court by the government and the attacks by settlers in Palestinian villages such as Hawara. “Where were you in Hawara?” became a chant in the anti-judicial overhaul protests.

The public has also become aware that on Oct. 7, just two battalions were deployed to maintain security at the Gaza border, while 32 units were dedicated to protecting the settlements.

This overstep by the settler leadership has unintentionally cast a spotlight on the immediate threats to democracy that many Israelis now perceive with growing clarity. The settlers and their allies not only benefit from the occupation, but also endorse an agenda that erodes democratic values. They promote a model of Israeli governance that is in sharp contrast to the pluralistic, democratic values held dear by a substantial segment of the population.

This animosity may lead Israelis to acknowledge that reining in the settler initiative, dismantling illegal outposts, and granting the Palestinian Authority more autonomy is not just a partisan issue; it’s a matter of existential importance. Settlers have used the cover of war to increase their violence in the West Bank, a phenomenon that the U.S. White House has called out aggressively

Another powerful factor is the White House’s renewed vigor in seeking to resolve the conflict with a sustainable long-term solution. As President Joe Biden’s approval ratings decline domestically, in Israel, his unequivocal support for the Israeli populace—and his critiques of leadership—have garnered respect even from those who were previously doubtful.

“Since the war began, Biden has proven that he is a true leader in this conflict. Even right-wingers, who had until recently written him off as senile and ineffectual, have started to change their tune,” Dembin said.

A Maariv poll showed that if elections were held today, a centrist coalition would have 78 seats. This would give it a mandate to govern effectively the day after. The old right/left paradigm is dead for now. This could give the White House a way in to create a package that could suit a wide range of the Israeli population.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that Gaza “must not be reoccupied” discussed the Palestinian Authority taking control over Gaza when the war is over. PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s approval—albeit as part of a wider Palestinian state—shows that there is some possibility of that proposal working

Yair Lapid stated in an Al-Arabiya interview that the Palestinian Authority should govern Gaza post-conflict, with backing from the global and Arab communities. He added that this could revive two-state talks. And Netanyahu himself has remained implacable, suggesting that Israel will control Gaza for the foreseeable future. However, in a private conversation, Biden suggested that Netanyahu’s reign is on borrowed time.

And so, amid this crisis, a window has opened to find a sustainable solution to the conflict. Members of the Abraham Accords, along with states contemplating the normalization of relations with Israel—such as Saudi Arabia—hold potential sway in convening an international conference.

When it comes to the Israeli public’s readiness to support a process leading toward Palestinian sovereignty, Dembin is cautiously optimistic.

“I would think yes, they might get on board, but it would need to be a measured, gradual approach that reassures Israelis that their safety is front and center—not just an American push for regional peace,” he explained. “Israelis seem to warm up to the idea of peace and coexistence when there’s a solid proposal in play and tend to reject it when there’s nothing tangible in sight.”

[grimogretricks]

JKR has ruined things in my country

TW/CW: Transphobia, homophobia, Scotland and the UK being a transphobic hell hole right now. Brief mention of sexual assault.  Also this is a depressing rant.  

 JKR has ruined things in my country.

 That sounds pretty hyperbolic, but, it's, surreally, unfortunately probably true.

 The SNP's Nicola Sturgeon has long been one of the few UK politicians who could provide an articulate, progressive, well argued voice in support of important left leaning principles against a prevailing right wing tide. In complete contrast to the total mealy mouthed nonsense spouted by the likes of the labour leader, who's afraid to stand up for anything at all lest he do a poor job of pandering enough to tory ideas to get voted in. She's the closest thing the UK has had to an opposition to tory principles, standing up for worker's rights, equality and the NHS.

 And now, she's resigned. And regardless of what she says, I do believe it's because of the rampant transphobia stirred up by JKR, who personally made Scotland's gender reform bill an ignition point for anti-trans hate in the UK. Transphobia from the media, transphobia stirred up in her OWN party, transphobia from all sides, is causing rifts and schisms due to the deeply morally regressive panic JKR gave so much voice to.  

 Now Nicola Sturgeon has resigned, and it's like a mask has fallen off the SNP. What had seemed to be a progressive party, with commitment to LGBT rights and equality, now shows itself as riddled with transphobia and homophobia. Because among those slated to replace here, there are.. a right wing religious lunatic who doesn't believe in gay marriage, and a woman who supported 'Alba' - which was Alex Salmond's transphobic, Russia pandering party (the ex SNP leader, a man who could not be left alone with women without sexually harassing and groping them). Granted, there is also Humza Yousaf, who is pro-LGBT rights, and hopefully will become our leader, but that these people even exist in the party, let alone want to become the leader, is alarming in itself.  

 It was fun for five minutes to think that maybe transgender rights would split the UK  but what's this fuss from the media against Nicola Sturgeon has  actually done is removed one of the last progressive and articulate voices in British politics willing to actually call the tories out on their bullshit. And now this has also created articles saying things like 'maybe joining with the greens and trying to be progressive about trans rights was a mistake from the SNP as trans rights aren't popular'.

 Apparently, it's not worth sticking up for Scotland's own ability to put bills into place in its own country and stopping Sunak from trying to block our reforms if it's about transgender rights.

 It's despair inducing, that fighting for trans rights has been made into such a divisive issue, and genuinely, that JKR has actually been at the forefront of a massive wave of senseless and cruel moral panic that is diverting people in Britain away from actually caring about actual massive, huge problems in the UK. Like people dying due to NHS waiting times, like the massive inflation, like the unprecedented cost of living increase, like tories actually proposing further reducing our human rights, our rights to protest, and worker's rights, and various disasterous consequences of Brexit. Things are DIRE right now, and hating transgender people has been whipped up into a fury not solely by JKR, but SHE made this gender bill into an ignition point for UK anti-trans hate.

 The tories meanwhile, are loving this massive diversion in attention, especially since to 'fix' it requires that they do literally nothing except get in the way of further progress. They found a way to curb Scotland's right to determine their own bills without upsetting the majority of Scots by counting on people to be transphobic, and it worked.

[irithnova]

A lot of people assume that in a hypothetical situation, if Mongolia could bring back one of his past leaders back to life, it would be Genghis Khan. Whilst that would be fun, 

1) Genghis Khan is from the 13th century and so wouldn't know what the hell was going on.

2)Wouldn't look good for diplomacy to say the least (if we're being serious about this resurrection thing)

3)I don't think he dwells on the past all the time and acknowledges that that time has passed 

4)You could argue that he died "happy" because upon dying he wasn't aware that his empire would soon crumble after his death so he'd rather leave it on that chapter 

5) Also uh… the dude was buried in secret for a reason 

So. Who would Mongolia bring back? Someone a bit more modern actually.

Zorig.

By many Mongols, Zorig was labelled the "golden magpie/swallow of democracy." During the 1990's democratic revolution of Mongolia, he was a politician who played a leading role.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall on December 10th 1989, 200 activists - led by Zorig, conducted a protest. They called for a free-market economy and free elections.

The next month, in January 1990, Zorig began organising weekend protests in the centre of Ulaanbaatar (capital of Mongolia) - Sukhbaatar square, with his fellow Mongolian Democrats. 

As January became February, the protests became larger and rowdier, to the point when the communist government at the time debated using violence to put an end to the protests.

Soldiers were eventually sent in and they began scuffling with the protesters. Sensing imminent violence, Zorig made himself visible to the crowd by sitting on a friend's shoulders, pulled out a megaphone and called for peace. By doing this, he effectively mitigated the oncoming violence. An image of this event has become a powerful and famous symbol of Mongolia's peaceful revolution.

Zorig ascended to the People's Great Khural in June 1990.

His political journey continued to unfold as he clinched victories in the State Great Khural elections of both 1992 and 1996. Initially, first as a minority member. During his second term, Zorig joined the ranks of the Democratic Union, spearheading Mongolia's first non-Communist government since the historic Communist revolution of 1921. 

However, even amidst this triumph, Zorig voiced concerns regarding the rapidity of free-market reforms implemented after the Democrats assumed power. With unwavering conviction, he foresaw the potential consequences of such reforms, fearing that they would exacerbate societal inequalities and plunge many Mongolians below the poverty line.

In 1998, Mongolia found itself grappling with a political crisis that gripped the nation. As April unfolded, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj assumed the mantle of Prime Minister. Seizing the opportunity, he sold the state-owned Reconstruction Bank to the privately owned Golomt Bank, which incidentally belonged to the Mongolian Democrats. This move was met with strong opposition from members of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, who protested by staging a walkout. 

Elbegdorj's tenure was cut short as he was compelled to resign, lacking the necessary parliamentary majority to sustain his position.

In the wake of closed-door meetings and extensive deliberations, political parties strived for a compromise candidate to assume the role of Prime Minister. S. Zorig, who had been serving as the Minister for Infrastructure, emerged as the consensus choice. The announcement of his appointment was slated for Monday, the 5th of October, signifying a new chapter in Mongolian politics under the stewardship of this respected and pragmatic leader.

However.

Just three days before the announcement took place, death descended upon Zorig. His apartment in Ulaanbaatar was broken into by two assailants, who subsequently tied his girlfriend up and held her hostage, and bided their time until Zorig would inevitably enter.

Upon entering, he was viciously stabbed. It was fatal.

What's peculiar is, the assailants robbed his apartment of… A bottle of vinegar and soy sauce before fleeing? (Priorities…)

His death was a huge blow to the optimism about the future that a lot of Mongolian people had.

At the time, some members of Parliament were asked about this tragedy. One of them, Hashbat Hulan, stated

"This is the end of the romantic phase of Mongolian democracy."

Mr Jargalsaikhan, who was the director of the Buyan company who dealt with cashmere, stated,

''He was an honest, principled and educated person. These qualities of his were not liked by some people.''

Indeed, when many Mongolians were asked about Zorig, they saw him as an honest, intelligent man.

There were various rumours and conspiracies surrounding his death, and can you blame Mongolians for latching on to some of them? The fact that he was assassinated just three mere days before his ascension to the presidency could not be seen as a coincidence after all.

A testament to his honesty was unravelled when his widow - Bulgan, tearfully confessed during an interview that Zorig was being offered bribes - and that he adamantly refused them. Had he not refused, she speculated, he may have lived.

Others believe that he was murdered because once he took his place as president, he would expose the rotten underbelly in Mongolia's sell-off of state industries, or that he might even have exposed the misuse of foreign aid. Others believed it may have been the Russian Mafia! However, the precious rumours stated are far more plausible - and it only made the debacle even more tragic as Mongolia lost, potentially, one of the best presidents he could have ever had.

For two whole months, the Mongolian government was trapped in a crisis, before the mayor of Ulaanbaatar was finally declared the new president in place of Zorig.

Candlelight vigils were held, a statue was erected in his memory, and the Zorig foundation, a "a Mongolian non-profit organisation promoting democracy through social action, youth activities, and good governance programs." was established shortly after his death.

To this day, many Mongolians speak highly of Zorig and admire his honesty, intelligence, and peaceful conduct. There's lots of "what ifs-" that emerge during discussions surrounding Zorigs death.

At the time, Zorigs death came as a huge shock to Mongolia. This almost perfect candidate, brutally killed just three days before he could ascend to the presidency. It would be a lie if I said it wasn't a slap in the face to Mongolia's somewhat optimistic vision of the future at the time. It was an incredibly stressful period as his plans that were so close to fruition were so swiftly snatched away from him. 

He doesn't enjoy dwelling on things that upset him because honestly what use is there in that? He's a very forward driven person after all. Also he has a tendency to overthink when he falls into these pits and that's… Not good for anyone LMAO he'd rather be using his brain power for something useful (like fighting people on Reddit and quora) rather than giving himself reasons to drink himself into a stupor (which he kind of does anyways but… no one wants to be sad and drunk).

But even now, sometimes he finds himself pondering on the "what ifs" of Zorig's presidency after a particularly stressful day, or when he's staring blankly at a politician he despises, or maybe even if he's just doing nothing and the thought just enters his mind out of seemingly nowhere.

Rose-tinted glasses or not, Mongolia considers the loss of Zorig as a great loss to the country as a whole. 

So yeah. Mongolia, being pragmatic, would probably bring Zorig back if he were given the chance to resurrect any past ruler/potential ruler.

Anyways Zorig meme from r/Mongolia (I think the girls vs boys meme is... Kind of stupid but uhh this meme is sort of relevant to my point ig):

This comment also made me cackle a bit

Let me say: Of course not all Mongols love Zorig I mean it's a country with millions of people. We also can't say definitively that he would have made a good president. However generally he is held in high regard. I am also not trying to spread a political agenda with this post, this post simply is trying to encapsulate the general feelings that Mongols have towards Zorig and towards this tumultuous time.