#pro-democracy coalition

[yellow-yarrow]

i fucking hate hungarian politics, who am i supposed to vote for, the centrist liberal party, the other centrist liberal party, or the coalition of the social democrats and center-right party that used to be full of nazis (what a joke)

[hussyknee]

Trying to explain what the fuck just happened in Lankan politics today.

The leftist party has won 159 seats out of 218 in the Parliamentary elections. The single biggest landslide win since we broke from the British and achieved universal franchise in 1948.

Any party achieving a super majority in the executive and legislative is, objectively speaking, bad. It disables checks and balances, which is a catastrophic thing for any democracy, and the only two other times it's happened for us has irrevocably eroded the fabric of civic rights and democratic freedom. Also, the reason the NPP won the North and East is that the colonized, genocided and subjugated people there have no faith in electoralism anymore. The way this government has engaged minority issues has been utterly abysmal and now they've been rewarded for it.

On the other hand:

The winners. Are all. Grassroots. Candidates.¹

We have voted out every single career criminal that's been barnacled into the Lankan political arena since before I've been alive. The fascist party has only three seats.² The other fascists didn't win a single seat. The neoliberal legacy party won none. There are only forty people in Parliament that represent any sort of dynastic political legacy. After 76 solid years of nothing but political dynasties.

This is barely five years after the Rajapaksas swept in and absolutely glutted the Parliament with their family members and cronies end to end.

This is the illegitimate interim government we had for most of the last 18 months. We literally, physically, chased the Rajapaksas out of the country and this fucking demon set up a puppet government just so he could finally sit in that goddamn chair and be the despot he'd always dreamed of in exchange for letting them all come back. He's now gone. His entire circle is gone.

THEY ARE ALL FUCKING GONE.

In US terms, just imagine that, five years from now, when Trump's GOP has control of everything, the entire GOP and the worst of the Dems are all purged from Congress and Senate, the Green Party in control of all three branches of government under a pro-union left-wing President and an unmarried female LGBT rights activist Vice President, and the Dems reduced to barely 20% of the House.

This is my anthropology professor. She joined politics from the small nascent leftist coalition to help keep the government accountable. She's now the Prime Minister and the most popular Parliamentary candidate in the nation's history. (Edit: She was knocked off first place by a dude in the final result. Boo.)

(On the other hand— the woman who helped make me a radical anarchist and literally helped write a book on political dissent and resistance...now is the state. Uh.)

But there are so many women in Parliament! We had the lowest female representation in a South Asian Parliament and some of them were from the list of seats reserved for parties rather than elected ones. Most were either anti-feminist conservative embarrassments, widows and daughters of elite politicians and neoliberal shills. It's still only an increase of a few percentage points (Edit: from the previous 5% to 10% in the final result!) but now we have elected academics, feminist advocates, activists! There Is a representative for Malaiyaha Tamils in the Central Province for the first time in history and it's a young woman! (Edit: now it's two female Malaiyaha MPS!!) This is the plantation community that still live in conditions closest to the slavery the British forced upon them two hundred years ago!

I'm like. Completely mindfucked. To be very very clear, the NPP coalition formed around the nucleus of the JVP that used to be communist but haven't been in 30 years, they're now just social democrats who are left of places like the US and UK, whose "left" is now center-right. They're only threatening to the Western mainstream media for some reason who can't stop bleating about how we have a "Marxist" government now. In reality, the actual chances for radical reform are still quite low, and the opportunity for further erosion is quite high with a super majority government regardless of affiliation.

On the other hand:

What the fuck.

Sometimes living through historical events is really damn amazing.

---

¹ Well, nearly. There are a few career politicians and a nepo baby but they aren't so bad either.

² Goddamn it, Baby Rajapaksa and Sri Lanka's answer to JD Vance have wormed their way in using the list of Constitutionally reserved party seats for non-elected members. FUCK the National List.

[contemplatingoutlander]

The Supreme Court began another term this week. Most court watchers and other analysts have been reluctant to accept the truth of something I’ve long argued: that the Roberts Court is as agenda-driven as the House or Senate Republican caucuses. They have already put their thumbs on the scale in this election and are poised to intervene again if the results don’t suit them. 

We are at least a decade past the point when we should be convinced of what Abraham Lincoln stated in his first inaugural address: 

"The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon the vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.1 " [emphasis added]

[...] The interests behind the Federalist Society (FedSoc) – in particular the Kochs, Leonard Leo, and other plutocrats and theocrats – are the same interests who have spent the 21st century funding and organizing the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party. I’ve coined the portmanteau “plutotheocratic” as a compact way of describing this coalition of interests. (See the Appendix for a brief overview of the history and major players in the plutotheocratic coalition.)  The six FedSoc justices are properly understood not as “umpires” scrupulously “calling balls and strikes,” but as politicians in robes. However, it’s important to recognize what kinds of politicians we are dealing with. The FedSoc Six are first and foremost Federalist Society operatives. That means that they usually act in the interests of the Republican Party – except when the partisan agenda of the day conflicts with the long-term plutotheocratic agenda.  [...]

Creating a Death Spiral for Democracy 

For about 40 years, we saw a fairly predictable ebb and flow in the federal commitment to advancing greater freedom and equality and to constraining corporate threats to consumers, working people, and the environment. Under Republicans, this commitment would ebb; under Democrats, it would flow. But beginning in 2010 with the Citizens United decision, if not a bit earlier, Roberts’s agenda-driven majority turned that ebb and flow into a death spiral for American democracy. 

Decision after decision shifted more and more electoral power to the FedSoc Six’s plutotheocratic sponsors – who in turn used that power to take greater control of Red state governments and purge Republican congressional caucuses of RINOs – which in turn was used to place more and more Federalist Society true believers on the Federal bench, and eventually the Supreme Court. 

[See more excerpts below the cut.]

[...] The Supreme Court has, of course, made many rulings that overturned previous major precedents or led to significant social change. But consider:

Brown v. Board of Education - Earl Warren and the other eight justices joining him did not owe their positions to a cabal of civil rights activists who had contributed billions of dollars to law schools, foundations, think tanks and political campaigns.

Roe v. Wade - Harry Blackmun and the six justices joining him on Roe v. Wade did not owe their positions to a cabal of pro-choice activists who had contributed billions of dollars to law schools, foundations, think tanks and political campaigns. 

Gideon v. Wainwright - Hugo Black and the eight other justices joining him did not owe their positions to a cabal of indigent prison inmates who had contributed billions of dollars to law schools, foundations, think tanks and political campaigns.  

But the members of the Roberts majority do owe their positions to a cabal of plutocrats, who directly benefited from rulings like Citizens United and Loper Bright, and theocrats, who have a fierce ideological commitment to outcomes like Dobbs and Hobby Lobby, who together have contributed billions of dollars to law schools, foundations, think tanks and political campaigns. Again, per Lincoln, we have ceased to be our own rulers.

The Federalist Society literally planned and executed an unprecedented transfer of unchecked political power to their own loyalists.5 They brag about this in unguarded moments and in their “safe spaces.”

[phantom-of-the-memes]

⚠️ The general election in the Republic of Ireland is happening tomorrow, November 29th⚠️

Here’s what you need to know if you are a leftist/ just want Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael out of government.

Firstly, why do we need to get them out?

Because they have been in power for almost 100 years! 100 years of a “centre” right government. We have not even had a centre left government in all this time, never mind a left government. Something has to fucking change. Even if you’re not a socialist like me, you have to acknowledge that all the problems currently in Ireland have been caused, or at least not dealt with by them. They’re the ones in power! And yet they talk about the issues in Ireland and how something has to be done… Simon Harris is a joke with his “a new energy” signs. Cunt you’re the current fucking Taoiseach!

So, who should you vote for?

If you truly want change, and a government that is for the people, vote People Before Profit number one. They are actually putting actions behind their words. They have explicitly said that they will refuse to go into government with FF or FG. They want the other left parties to form a left coalition with them, and also make a stand to refuse a right government. Other left parties, however, are quite lukewarm on the situation, and won’t join the coalition. But still put other left parties for number two and three. Some are more preferable than others. But change is change.

Ok if you’re not a socialist like me, there are other options. Sinn Féin is centre left, so if a bit more conservative than others. This makes it the third most voted for party generally. It’s a bit more palatable to the general public than the commies I vote for lol. I don’t agree with the majority of their policies, especially with them dialling back their support for trans people. I assume to appeal to FF and FG supporters. As a trans person I wouldn’t personally vote for them. But I understand the logic of being strategic about your vote. They’re the most likely to win out of the left parties.

Why should you still vote for parties that likely won’t win the overall vote?

Because they will still get seats! This isn’t a presidential election where it’s all or nothing. The majority winner gets to be the ones in power. But this is a democracy. More votes for a party means more seats for them in the Dáil. So it does matter.

What is each party’s stance on taking action against Israel?

Here’s a very helpful graphic from the ucd bds group on Instagram (ucd_bds):

See FF and FG’s stance? Exactly.

Who you should definitely not vote for?

Aontú are literal nazis. Their main selling point is that they hate immigrants. They want to strip their rights and practically stop immigration all together. They also hate women, and want to criminalise abortion again. The members of the party were big parts of the pro life movement that tried to stop the abortion referendum. Of course they also hate trans and queer people. Basically any and all minorities. They aim to bring fascism to our government. Don’t let this happen. This is also why voting is so important, so we can prevent this.

And this should go without saying, but don’t fucking vote for the joker independent candidates that have signs around saying shit like “make crime illegal”. It’s not even a joke to vote for them. You’re an asshole if you throw your vote away like that.

Remember to find out where your local polling station is, and bring your polling card, on Friday the 29th of November.

[opencommunion]

since zionists want to act obtuse about why we're criticizing a superbowl ad, here's an explanation from before the ad even aired. it was openly designed to act as pro-genocide propaganda. fighting antisemitism is a worthy goal but that's not what's happening here:

"The New England Patriots’ 81-year-old owner, Robert Kraft, writes seven-digit checks to the right-wing Israeli lobbying machine AIPAC, but his personal, political, and financial ties to Israel run deeper than the occasional donation. The multibillionaire married his late wife, Myra, in Israel in 1963 when Kraft, then 22, was older than the nation itself. Together they set up numerous business, athletic, and charitable ties to Israel, a record of which is proudly proclaimed on the Kraft company website. In particular, the Kraft Group boasts of its 'Touchdown in Israel' program, where NFL players are given free, highly organized vacations to see 'the holy land' and come back to spread the word about 'the only democracy in the Middle East.' (Not every NFL player has chosen to take part.) Kraft also attends fundraisers for the Israel Defense Forces, currently—and in open view of the world—committing war crimes in Gaza."

Now, as Israel wages war against the civilians of Gaza—more than 25,000 Palestinian have been killed with at least 10,000 of them children—Kraft is again flexing his financial and political muscles in order to defend the indefensible. His Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) will be spending an estimated $7 million to buy a Super Bowl ad titled 'Stop Jewish Hate' that will be seen by well over 100 million people. Under Kraft’s direction, the ad’s goal is to create a propaganda campaign to counter the reports and images from Gaza that young people are consuming on social media. 

... The content of the Super Bowl ad is not yet known, but FCAS has afforded Kraft the opportunity to make the rounds on cable news saying things like, 'It’s horrible to me that a group like Hamas can be respected and people in the United States of America can be carrying flags or supporting them.'

This is Kraft enacting the mission of FCAS: fostering disinformation. He is far from subtle: A Palestinian flag becomes a 'Hamas flag,' and people like the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets of Washington, D.C., last month to call for a cease-fire and end the violence are expressions of the 'rise in antisemitism.' Without a sense of irony or the horrors happening on the ground in Gaza, Kraft says he is giving $100 million of his own money to FCAS, because 'hate leads to violence.'

Let’s be clear: What Kraft is doing politically and what he will be using the Super Bowl as a platform to do is dangerous. He appears to think any criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. For Kraft, it is Jews like myself, rabbis, and Holocaust survivors calling for a cease-fire and a Free Palestine that are part of the problem. Kraft seems to think that opposition to Israel, the IDF, and the AIPAC agenda is antisemitism.

... Right-wing Christian nationalists, with their belief in a Jewish state existing alongside their conviction that Jews are going to Hell, are welcome in Netanyahu’s Israel and Kraft’s coalition. Left-wing anti-Zionist Jews are not. The greatest foghorn of this evangelical right-wing 'love Israel, hate Jews' perspective is, of course, Donald Trump. Kraft, while speaking of being troubled by events like the Charlottesville Nazi march and the right-wing massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, counts Donald Trump as a close friend and even donated $1 million to his presidential inauguration.

No one who provides cover for the most powerful, public antisemite in the history of US politics should ever be taken seriously on how to best fight antisemitism. No one who funds AIPAC and the IDF and opposes a cease-fire amid the carnage should be allowed a commercial platform at the Super Bowl. But given that the big game is always an orgy of militarism, blind patriotism, and big budget commercials that lie through their teeth, perhaps that ad could not be more appropriate. We can do better than Kraft’s perspective on how to fight antisemitism. Morally, we don’t have a choice."

[collapsedsquid]

No-one now believes - or pretends to believe - that Silicon Valley is going to connect the world, ushering in an age of peace, harmony and likes across nations. That is in part because of shifting geopolitics, but it is also the product of practical learning. A decade ago, liberals, liberaltarians and straight libertarians could readily enthuse about “liberation technologies” and Twitter revolutions in which nimble pro-democracy dissidents would use the Internet to out-maneuver sluggish governments. Technological innovation and liberal freedoms seemed to go hand in hand. Now they don’t. Authoritarian governments have turned out to be quite adept for the time being, not just at suppressing dissidence but at using these technologies for their own purposes. Platforms like Facebook have been used to mobilize ethnic violence around the world, with minimal pushback from the platform’s moderation systems, which were built on the cheap and not designed to deal with a complex world where people could do horrible things in hundreds of languages. And there are now a lot of people who think that Silicon Valley platforms are bad for stability in places like the U.S. and Western Europe where democracy was supposed to be consolidated. My surmise is that this shift in beliefs has undermined the core ideas that held the Silicon Valley coalition together. Specifically, it has broken the previously ‘obvious’ intimate relationship between innovation and liberalism. I don’t see anyone arguing that Silicon Valley innovation is the best way of spreading liberal democratic awesome around the world any more, or for keeping it up and running at home. Instead, I see a variety of arguments for the unbridled benefits of innovation, regardless of its benefits for democratic liberalism. I see a lot of arguments that innovation - especially in AI - is about to propel us into an incredible new world of human possibilities, provided that it isn’t restrained by DEI, ESG and other such nonsense. Others (or the same people) argue that we need to innovate, innovate, innovate because we are caught in a technological arms race with China, and if we lose, we’re toast. Others (sotto or brutto voce; again, sometimes the same people) - contend innovation isn’t really possible in a world of democratic restraint, and we need new forms of corporate authoritarianism with a side helping of exit, to allow the kinds of advances we really need to transform the world.

From "rapid technological development will save the world, it'll be great" to "there is no alternative to rapid technological development, no matter how much it sucks"

[probablyasocialecologist]

Many on the right have sought to depict the protesters as extremists, but the sheer scale and regularity of the protests and actions are in fact a sign of how mainstream pro-Palestinian feeling is within British society. The question, assuming the movement succeeds in ending the Israeli assault, is where does it go next? What becomes of movements when they stop moving? Traditionally, social movements went through phases of emergence, coalescence, institutionalisation and decline, followed by dissipation and co-optation by mainstream parties. This usually took decades, the classic case being the US civil rights movement. Yet the era since “Occupy Wall Street” in 2011 has been one of so-called “flash movements”. From Black Lives Matter to the gilets jaunes, movements have coalesced around hashtagged slogans with astonishing celerity, producing deep political crises – and then subsiding. The Gaza campaign resembles a flash movement. It didn’t come out of nowhere. Palestine has been a cause of the international left since the six-day war in 1967, and the UK has seen repeated protests over Israel’s flattening of the West Bank, invasion of Lebanon and serial bombardments of Gaza. There is a network of organisations doing the groundwork, such as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War. But the turnout for these protests shows the virtues of the flash movement: it can rapidly mobilise masses of people, tolerate a diversity of tactics and keep focus on a simple, morally obvious demand. In many respects, it is succeeding. In the UK, despite efforts to demonise the protests as “hate marches”, and the then home secretary Suella Braverman’s inept provocation of the far right against the protests, the demonstrations brought up to 800,000 people to the streets on 11 November. This was the largest such demonstration since the invasion of Iraq. Nor was the UK alone. There have been mass protests everywhere from Tokyo and Kerala to Cairo, Washington DC and Rio de Janeiro. In France and Berlin, protesters have defied official bans. In the US, the Jewish left has led the movement and often engaged in the most militant tactics,including blockading Manhattan Bridge. The embattled Israeli left has also staged protests, despite a climate of police repression and mob violence. The movement has done what successful movements do: win over public opinion, catalyse cracks in elite consensus and expose divisions in the state. These splits were visible in the form of staffer dissent in the US state department, frontbench resignations in Labour over Keir Starmer’s refusal to support a ceasefire, protests by Dutch civil servants and EU employees, Macron’s ceasefire demand, and recently the call from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, three of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing coalition countries, for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”. Only the US now vetoes UN ceasefire resolutions.

[mesetacadre]

On Spain, Palestine, and socialdemocracy

I'm sorry to my spanish-speaking friends but this post is mostly meant for the various people who aren't that familiar with Spanish politics so they fully understand the context of Spain's recognition of Palestine, so it'll be written in English instead of Spanish.

Ever since the Spanish government decided to recognize Palestine, amongst other events, I've seen many friends celebrating. This is normal, of course, but the over-enthusiasm makes me think some of you are lacking context.

First, the arms trade. At least since 1995, Spain has sold arms, munitions, explosives, and vehicles to Israel, according to the government's own sources. The total value of arms and munitions exports since 1995 amounts to 36,616,066.21€ ($39,730,901) and 800,417.6kg (1,764,616.6 pounds). The total of "airships and spatial vehicles" amounts to 233,622,074.13€ ($253,495,704.46). Officials have repeatedly stated that, since Oct 7 2023, there have been no arms sales to Israel. However, in November of 2023, this website shows an arms export worth 987,000€ ($1,070,961.56) in the subcategory of "bombs, grenades, torpedoes, missiles". In December of 2023 there is another export with the same category as the last one worth 125,240€ ($135,893.85). The government has stated that the November export was made up of "medium caliber munitions without explosives" (which is weird that it was classified under bombs, grenades, torpedoes and missiles but whatever) and that it had already been agreed upon before Oct 7th. I'm sure that the Palestinians appreciate the munitions they are being killed with do not explode, and that the 552kg (1,216.95 pounds) of "gunpowder and explosives" exported in 2023 will also go very well with those non-explosive munitions. And, regardless, we all know that the Palestinian genocide did not start last October. This is also just the publicly available data, but I think we can trust them to be honest :)

For some context on the political situation. In July of 2023 we had general elections in which a coalition government was formed. The biggest party in this coalition is the PSOE, the president's (Pedro Sánchez) party, a socialdemocratic party that has governed on-and-off since the establishment of the current liberal democracy in 1978, this will be important later. The other member of this coalition is Sumar, a further-left socialdemocratic party that is itself a broader coalition of almost all parliamentarty "leftist" groups, such as IU (United Left) and the PCE (Spanish Communist Party, don't get too caught up on the name because their eurocommunist turn in the 60s has rendered then just another socdem party). The election was very closed and the coalition was almost not formed, and in the end PSOE had to reach an agreement with the pro-Catalan independence parties. All of this means that it has been a weak government without much cohesion, which in turns means every member of the coalition has been doing everything they can to reinforce their position. One example of this was Pedro Sánchez's letter contemplating resigning because of the verbal attacks he and his wife had been recueveing from the opposition. That letter forced every entity in the parliamentary and even some in the extra-parliamentary left to express support for Sánchez, and after announcing he would not be resigning, polling shows support for his government increased, though this is disputed by some and I'm suspicious of it myself.

Anyhow, this is important because the parties that make up the government are being very conscious about their support, more than usual. The decision to finally recognize Palestine (and I'm not even getting into the Palestinian National Authority, which is what they're actually recognizing) comes in this context of insecurity regarding their support, and comes after weeks of encampments and other protests in universities across the entire country. The continued arms exports, the delay in taking the decision and the context of the decision makes it quite obviously an opportunistic move to garner support. But is the recognition actually meaningful for Palestinians suffering a genocide? Barely. It might pave the way for Palestine's inclusion in the UN (the US will veto anyway) (and it's not like the UN can do more than stern condemnations). What does not change is the continuous arms exports since at least when export data was first published, and the commercial relations the government and Spanish monopolies have with Israel, all of which allow Israel to carry out genocide. And even if Spain had never sold even a grain of gunpowder to Israel, and even if no economic relations had ever been established, Spain is an important member of NATO and the EU.

A few days ago it was 43 years since Spain officially joined NATO in 1982 without a referendum, since polling showed only 18% supported joining NATO, and 52% outright opposed it. It was only 4 years later, in 1986, when PSOE carried out a referendum on remaining in NATO (note: the PSOE had gone from fully opposing NATO membership when they were in the opposition to defending it after winning the elections). The question was "Do you consider Spain remaining in the Atlantic Alliance under the terms agreed upon by the Nation's Government to be convenient". This question did not actually say "NATO" (OTAN in Spanish) and it did not make clear what people were actually voting on. 52.24% voted yes. One of the unwritten prerequisites for joining the EU in 1985 was to also be a member of NATO.

NATO is an imperialist alliance that has always defended the continuity of Israel, and its member states have always supplied it with the resources necessary to displace, opress, and kill the Palestinian people. The economic benefits of this fact permeates the economy of every NATO member state. The same goes for the EU, which is one of the most significant trade partners of Israel. And the increase of intensity in the genocide Israel commits is happening parallel to the EU's turn towards a military economy. For example, the European Stability Mechanism, founded in 2011, has given the EU member states 400,000,000,000€ ($434,059,923,120) to invest in the "defense" industry and the "green transition". The European Commissioner Thierry Breton said in early April of this year that "we need to change the paradigm and transition to the mode of war production", amongst other warmongering statements by European leaders. Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany have already expanded military service. This is all, of course, driven by the interimperialist war in Ukraine, but the investment in the war industry will undoubtedly continue to fuel Israel's occupation.

There is no group within the Spanish parliament (and very few outside the parliament) that even begins to question NATO and EU membership. The government can get away with this apparent pro-Palestine (more like two-state solution but that's beyond the point) posturing because regardless of Spain's own exports and positions, its membership in NATO and the EU will be the most relevant factor in its ties with Israel. Recognition of a nation as a "legitimate" country does not have a material effect on the Palestinians' situation, and the unquestioned participation in these imperialist alliances does. PSOE's slogan for next week's European elections is "More Europe". Do not let empty actions distract you from the real facts of Spain's unbroken complicitness in this genocide

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON – Four weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes power, all his rhetoric and appointments are indicating that his campaign's vow to crack down on pro-Palestinian sentiment in America will be a defining factor of his administration's early days.

Throughout the campaign, both Trump and the Republican Party insisted that such a clampdown would be quick and complete. After Trump's speedy cabinet appointments and ahead of a Congress ruled by a GOP majority, the fight against the pro-Palestinian movement might be one of the only things that has a clear path across the government.

Once Trump's picks for the top diplomatic positions are in place, such as Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Elise Stefanik as UN ambassador, the harshest step – the deporting of pro-Palestinian protesters who have student visas – could be the first move. Both Rubio and Stefanik are well-known proponents of such a step, one of Trump and the GOP's few solid policy commitments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the campaign.

In October, Rubio wrote to the current secretary of state, Antony Blinken, urging him to "immediately perform a full review and coordination effort to revoke the visas of those who have endorsed or espoused Hamas' terrorist activity."

Stefanik, meanwhile, has doubled down on her star-making turn as university-president interrogator by calling for students' deportation. She told Fox News in May that these students "are pro-Hamas members of a mob who are calling for the eradication of Israel. They are calling for genocide against Jews around the world and in America. It is unthinkable that we are allowing this to happen at U.S. universities."

The blueprint is there

Other nominees more focused on domestic matters have also suggested that the pro-Palestinian protest movement will be a key issue. Among them is Pam Bondi, Trump's second attempt at a nominee for attorney general. The former Florida attorney general has called for a revocation of visas and condemned the campus protests.

The thing that's really the most troubling to me [are] these students in universities in our country, whether they're here as Americans or if they're here on student visas, and they're out there saying 'I support Hamas,'" she told Newsmax last year.

Bondi added: "Frankly they need to be taken out of our country or the FBI needs to be interviewing them right away."

Trump's choice to lead the FBI is controversial loyalist Kash Patel. While the former federal prosecutor doesn't have much of a record on campus protests, he is most notorious for his desire to remove any of Trump's critics and doubters from the national security apparatus.

Further, Patel's experience as the National Security Council's senior director of counterterrorism during Trump's first term positions him to crack down on pro-Palestinian sympathizers. A blueprint for this is detailed in Project Esther, a plan to combat antisemitism unveiled by the Heritage Foundation, which is behind Project 2025, the 922-page paper outlining conservatives' plans to fundamentally alter the government.

The underlying thesis of Project Esther – a more tractable 33 pages – is that "America's virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-American 'pro-Palestinian movement' is part of a global Hamas Support Network (HSN)."

The task force's mission statement calls for a coalition to "dismantle the infrastructure" that purportedly sustains the alleged network. This would take one to two years. "Supported by activists and funders dedicated to destroying capitalism and democracy, the HSN benefits from the support and training of America's overseas enemies," the document states.

It adds that this network "seeks to achieve its goals by taking advantage of our open society, corrupting our education system, leveraging the American media, coopting the federal government, and relying on the American Jewish community's complacency."

The document suggests how a potential Trump administration would crack down on protesters, something he has promised. It also calls for the deporting of protesters in the United States on student visas and the targeting of universities' tax-exempt status. It notes laws that might "exploit [the network's] vulnerabilities," require representatives of foreign entities to disclose their connections, and target organized crime and racketeering.

Hardliner Harmeet Dhillon

One bill that will not be in the law books anytime soon is the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which is aimed at combating campus antisemitism. It also requires the Education Department to take the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism into account when determining if an action or practice that violates Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was motivated by antisemitism.

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the act earlier this year, despite concerns on the left that criticism of Israel would be conflated with antisemitism and on the right that the bill had dramatic implications on freedom of speech. There were also tropes from far-right Republicans that the bill would state that Jews killed Jesus.

Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has kept the bill off the Senate floor for a vote by attaching it to various other packages that he hopes to push through.

Amid this stalemate, another notable opponent has emerged: Harmeet Dhillon, Trump's choice to lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which will play a major role in enforcing federal action combating antisemitism.

Dhillon, one of Trump's top legal minds behind his efforts to challenge the 2020 election results, slammed the Antisemitism Awareness Act upon its House passage. "I have been a First Amendment and religious liberties lawyer for minority and majority faith communities for decades and this bill is knee-jerk anti-constitutional dreck," she wrote on X.

She added: "Do better, think harder, and be smarter, Congress. 'Hate speech' laws are a liberal concept." But Dhillon has joined her new colleagues in being a vocal advocate for cracking down on the campus protest movement.

"Sue Yale," she wrote on X in April. "Sue every university that refuses to keep students safe based on their religion. Make them regret their choices. Deplete their endowments. Sue each and every violent protester and organizers. Drain their bank accounts. Sow salt in their career plans."

Dhillon followed that post by laying into a protest at UCLA: "I defend the right of these jackass terrorist apologists to protest, but they do NOT have the right to block access to other students or prevent them from going to class. My tax dollars are subsidizing UCLA and the Regents need to get their act together ASAP or be sued!"

Linda McMahon, Trump's education secretary nominee, has also publicly committed to prioritizing the issue, even if the incoming president has vowed to dismantle her department.

"Certainly. I don't think we should have any kind of discrimination anywhere, and I absolutely abhor any kind of violence that we have seen on campus. It should not be allowed," she told Jewish Insider without specifying what plan she supports. "We have lots of priorities that I'm going to be dealing with, and certainly anything that is against the safety and welfare of any of our students will be a priority."

The proposed defunding of the Education Department is perhaps the plank in Project 2025 that most concerns the American-Jewish community. The Office of Civil Rights, which is responsible for investigating and adjudicating allegations of antisemitism, is part of this department and has opened at least 145 investigations into such complaints.

Hardliner Brian Mast

This past summer, a rare coalition of nearly two dozen Jewish organizations across the political and denominational spectrum urged Congress to "provide the highest possible funding" for the Office of Civil Rights, despite the deep disagreements regarding antisemitism on Capitol Hill and in the Jewish world.

House Republicans, though they deemed the office's funding insufficient, voted to cut $10 million more after accusing it of failing to prioritize antisemitism. Several Trump-allied Republicans have also highlighted the office's role in culture war issues like Title IX and what they call "forcing women to compete against males in sports."

Holding a razor-thin majority and already plagued by infighting, the House GOP might find that advancing legislation relating to the Palestinians is the only influential work it can get done in the next session of Congress.

In a surprise development, Rep. Brian Mast has been slated to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee after Trump advocated on his behalf. The Florida congressman has long been considered the U.S. lawmaker most hostile to the Palestinians. He has decried efforts to bolster humanitarian aid for Gaza and dismissed the notion of innocent Palestinian civilians.

"I don't think we would so lightly throw around the term 'innocent Nazi civilians' during World War II. It is not a far stretch to say there are very few innocent Palestinian civilians," he said in remarks that led to an unsuccessful effort in the House to formally rebuke him.

Mast, an evangelical Christian, once volunteered with the Israeli military, and he wore his uniform in Congress in the days after the October 7 attack. That was a way to protest Rep. Rashida Tlaib's placing of a Palestinian flag outside her office.

Mast has also condemned the concept of a two-state solution while spearheading legislation to permanently cut U.S. funding for the UNRWA refugee agency, among other hostile bills. He has also slammed U.S. efforts to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and advocated for expedited and expanded weapons sales to Israel.

[eugenedebs1920]

“It could never happen in our country”. It is. As many stand behind this vulgar and violent fascist movement happening in America, embracing the division, promoting the hatred, cheering on the would be dictator, it’s difficult not to be in awe of the spectacle. To see our fellow Americans, so willing to relinquish their rights and freedoms due to a manufactured fear that has gripped their soul. A fear created by Trump and his sycophantic minions, warning of dangers that do not exist, scapegoating the vulnerable and defenseless as the “vermin” who are responsible for all the hardship one endures. It is difficult not to be disheartened by it. As a title wave of lies and deception, misinformation and falsities bombard is from all directions, cover ups and excuses, justification of the unjustifiable, normalizing what is absurd. It’s difficult to not be discouraged. As we watch this fascist coalition threaten the very principles upon which this country anchor to, we see calls for the termination of news networks for not bending to the will of the autocratic leader by fact checking him, as we hear calls for imprisonment of legislators who’s crime is calling out the anti-democratic behavior and rhetoric, the calls for military intervention against us, the citizens of this nation, calls for executions of those who would dare stand for democracy, those who stand with our Constitution, those who stand for freedom. It’s difficult to not feel powerless.

Let me tell you my pro-democracy friends. These anxious feelings, although normal, are unwarranted. For we are the people. We are the vast majority of this nation. It goes beyond our sheer numbers. This vast and beautiful collection of diverse peoples that we are, we are the soul of the nation. Our love is stronger than their hate. Our bravery dwarfs their fear mongering. Our positivity counteracts their negativity. Our desire for freedom outmatches their want of oppression. Together we will arise victorious from this darkness that has blanketed our land. We will over these forces of old and evil as we did in 1865, as we did in 1945, as we did in 1964, and when this perilous struggle is over, it not only cauterizes the wounds inflicted by those who have assaulted the character of our nation, it will once again tamp down the notion that racism is acceptable in any way, sending the bigots back to their shadows, it will send the message that hate has no home in the United States of America, that the only superiority is that which is written in our founding documents. That all are created equal, that we are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Do not fret friends. Organize. Do not worry. Organize. Do not give in. Speak out. I truly believe that good is stronger than bad, that light is more powerful than darkness, that peace overcomes violence, that unity triumphs over division, that love supersedes hate. ☮️💟🇺🇸

[qqueenofhades]

Do you know of any good US-based progressive and pro-democracy causes which allow donations from non-US citizens. As a foreign national, I (quite rightly) can't donate to any election/get out to vote campaigns, but I am very, very scared and would like to do something to feel less powerless - recommendations much appreciated!

I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would explicitly allow financial donations from a foreign national, but here are some good places to start looking for somewhere to contact/take action with:

If you set the "Headquarters location" (the box on the far left) to "United States," it will pop up the (very long!) list of all the pro-democracy organizations headquartered in the US and affiliated with the Global Democracy Coalition, which works worldwide and has a broad international presence (so they would obviously have ideas for how people from different countries can get involved). I haven't gone through the list for every single organization, but there are a lot of them there, and anything that catches your eye might be worth contacting for more information and asking how you can help.

This isn't directly related to elections, but the Carter Center (founded by US President Jimmy Carter) also works worldwide and undertakes pro-health, peace, and democracy initiatives, so might have ideas on how to get involved as an international/non-US citizen:

Likewise, check out International IDEA/Supporting Democracy Worldwide:

And Democracy International:

Thank you for your desire to help out here in the US, and I hope you find something that will work for you and help alleviate your anxiety! To US citizens: yet another reminder that the rest of the world is just as terrified as we are and counting on those of us who can actually vote to do so. Don't let our international friends down. Thanks.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil’s Lula Made Progress on Deforestation, but “Agribusiness Is Winning”

“Members of the agrarian caucus vote together…This gives them immense leverage.”

When Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in January 2023, he inherited environmental protection agencies in shambles and deforestation at a 15-year high. His predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, had dismantled regulations and gutted institutions tasked with enforcing environmental laws. Lula set out to reverse these policies and to put Brazil on a path to end deforestation by 2030. 

Environmental protection agencies have been allowed to resume their work. Between January and November of 2023, the government issued 40 percent more infractions against illegal deforestation in the Amazon when compared to the same period in 2022, when Bolsonaro was still in office. Lula’s government has confiscated and destroyed heavy equipment used by illegal loggers and miners, and placed embargoes on production on illegally cleared land. Lula also reestablished the Amazon Fund, an international pool of money used to support conservation efforts in the rainforest. Just this week, at the G20 Summit, outgoing US President Joe Biden pledged $50 million to the fund.  

Indeed, almost two years into Lula’s administration, the upward trend in deforestation has been reversed. In 2023, deforestation rates fell by 62 percent in the Amazon and 12 percent in Brazil overall (though deforestation in the Cerrado, Brazil’s tropical savannas, increased). So far in 2024, deforestation in the Amazon has fallen by another 32 percent. 

Throughout this year, Brazilians also bore witness to the effects of climate change in a new way. In May, unprecedented floods in the south of the country impacted over 2 million people, displacing hundreds of thousands and leaving at least 183 dead. Other regions are now into their second year of extreme drought, which led to yet another intense wildfire season. In September, São Paulo and Brasília were shrouded in smoke coming from fires in the Amazon and the Cerrado.  

And yet, despite the government’s actions, environmental protections and Indigenous rights are still under threat. Lula is governing alongside the most pro-agribusiness congress in Brazilian history, which renders his ability to protect Brazil’s forests and Indigenous peoples in the long term severely constrained. 

“I do believe that the Lula administration really cares about climate change,” said Belen Fernandez Milmanda, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Trinity College and author of Agrarian Elites and Democracy in Latin America. “But on the other side, part of their governing coalition is also the agribusiness, and so far I feel like the agribusiness is winning.”

Continue reading.

[hussyknee]

it’s rare to find a sinhalese person (online atleast) who is supportive of tamil self-determination. genuine question: among leftist circles in sri lanka, how common is such a stance?

I don't know whether I'm a reliable source to answer this question because I'm very jaded about this in general. A couple of days ago, someone on the Sri Lanka Reddit started up discourse about Maitreyi Ramakrishnan's choice to reject identifying with the country that tried to genocide her people, which I'm still chewing wire about. I'm a very isolated person with a very small social circle of like-minded leftist friends. They're mostly not SinBud and anti SinBud nonsense, but none of them are Tamil and I'm the one who really convinced them about Eelam I think. The people I learned from, who are out there doing the work of building inter-ethnic dialogue and overturning Sinhalese propaganda, might have a more hopeful view.

Thing is, there's no one "leftist" faction here because "left" doesn't mean the same thing as it does in the West. The Rajapaksas' party SLPP is socialist, a legacy of the SLFP that they branched off from, who was the party aligned with the USSR. They and their voters and their saffron terror acolytes (Buddhist priesthood) are all for public infrastructure they can rob blind and central government they can use to crush minorities, and build on the nationalist fervour of genocidal Sinhalese Buddhism that's served both major parties independence. There's quasi-communists, descendants of the ethnonationalist Marxist JVP that rose in opposition to the class corruption of ethnonationalist USSR-aligned socialist SLFP and enthonationalist US-aligned neoliberal UNP. The current JVP party itself is no longer communist; their coalition the NPP are mostly just very pro-union social democrats, and they've since distanced themselves from their ethnic myopia, possibly due to suffering much of the same state terrorism as minorities via militarisation and policies like the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). They're the most vocal about the abolition of the executive presidency, the removal of all martial law mechanisms and the PTA, defunding of military and police, and restructuring and executing the long-mismanaged socialist infrastructure. These are usually the working class and university students, but their base has been growing in other demographics too, since we "held our noses and voted" for the Yahapalana government in 2015 and it ended up fucking us over. But despite their sympathy with the suffering of Tamils and Muslims and favouring the devolution of power, most still cling to the idea that Sinhalese majoritarianism is a fair result of democracy.

The kind of pro-LGBT, anti-racist, feminist liberals that would pass muster with the western left otoh, are a minority of urban, English-speaking middle class. The younger of this crowd is increasingly favouring the aforementioned NPP (that is rapidly marrying the economic left with the social consciousness led by western dialogues that go against their traditional rural working class base), but that is very new and hampered by decades of Red Scare propaganda. The minority communities and the urban liberals traditionally vote for the current neoliberal party, that has distanced itself from their virulent nationalism over the last thirty years and basically modelled itself after the US Democrats (diet right-wing as opposed to nuclear right-wing) Their idea of reducing corruption and increasing efficiency is privatizing everything, makes the right pro-feminist and pro-LGBT noises, and coasts on the minority votes on the promise of never actively feeding ethnosupremacy, even if they won't do anything about it either. The Sinhalese affiliated with this party are deeply uncomfortable with if not entirely resistant to the idea that the North and East are Tamil lands colonized by the Sinhalese. Just like the quasi-communists, urban liberals are aware of the corruption and complicity of the Buddhist priesthood in ethnofascism and are prepared to do exactly as much nothing about it.

What I'm trying to say is that Sinhalese Buddhist ethnosupremacy is baked in to the Sri Lankan political fabric. "Left" means jack shit when it comes to whether Tamils have rights, in much the same way that the western left agrees on everything except Palestine. It's a political no man's land everyone tries not to look at.

The fundamental problem is that Sinhalese people who know enough about 1958, 1983, or the full scope of genocide perpetrated against Tamils during the last push of the war, let alone all 26 years of it, are very much in the minority. It takes a particular education to understand that "Sri Lanka" is a post-colonial invention that took over from "Ceylon", which was nothing but a construct for the ease of British administration. As far as I know, this education is confined to activist organizations and whoever followed my sociology program. So my kind of anarchist leftism that calls the war a Tamil genocide with their whole chest, calls the priesthood saffron terrorists, and recognises Eelam, is vanishingly small, afaik.

To be honest, I never really questioned the propaganda and narrative we've been spoon fed myself until I went to Canada when I was 23 to complete my anthro degree (became disabled and dropped out after). One thing that struck me was how racist the Sinhalese diaspora was. I was raised SinBud, my school didn't admit any non-Sinhalese, half my uncles were in the military, but these people that had left the country decades ago still hated Tamils and Muslims in a way that nobody else I knew did. I wondered whether this was what it had been like when it had all started; whether this hatred that seemed to have been preserved in amber was a true taste of what had ignited Black July. Suddenly the attitude of the Tamil diaspora towards the Sri Lankan government and Sinhalese people didn't seem so unreasonable.

Then, later in the same uni term, I went to an art exhibition of a white artist who travelled the world collecting information about their genocides and made art about them, and found a painting depicting Sri Lankan Tamils in 2008. Promptly had a meltdown. Went to the lady and told her tearfully that it was all propaganda, we didn't really hate Tamils, not even my uncles in the army hated Tamils, it was a war, the LTTE had terrorized us for my whole lifetime. Bless the woman, she didn't fight me, just let me cry at her and patted my hand and pretended to take me seriously. This made it easier for me to really think about what I knew once I'd stopped wailing and stamping. It prompted a years-long self-interrogation and fact finding that made me unearth how much brainwashing had been done to us by everyone, from our families to our school textbooks to news media. It's like the air we breathed was propaganda. And I still didn't know a fraction of what life had been like for Tamils (or Muslims) and the scope of atrocities perpetrated by the Sinhalese until I began my Society and Culture degree at the Open University when I was 30. The first year textbooks were only broadstrokes facts, but at last I found out about Gnananth Obeysekera, Prageeth Jeganathan, Stanley Thambaiya, Malithi DeAlwis. Their work on nation-making, ethnicity, historical revisionism, genocide and ethnic conflict and state terrorism...everything I should have been taught as a child. The chapters on the rapes and murders and shelling and war crimes and IDP camps were..indescribable. That was what properly radicalised me about Tamil self-sovereignty, because there's clearly no possible way the Tamil people will ever be safe and safeguarded under a Sinhalese majoritarian government.

I had to drop out of that programme too because of my health. But during the mass protests against the government in 2022, I learned even more about Tamil indigeneity, the extent of JR Jayawardena's crimes, and the persecution of Marxists and victims of the '71 and '89 insurrections. So much of the protests and their encampments were directed and galvanized by social media, that organised online and in-person lectures, teach-outs, and live discussions that anyone and everyone could attend right alongside the protests. I've never seen that kind of truly democratized, free, egalitarian civic education and discourse before. That was the very first time I saw academics, survivors, refugees and human rights activists being given a respectful platform, the masses hearing firsthand accounts from people of the North and East and witnesses of Black July. April to July 2022 was a truly golden bubble of time where I saw people finally start listening, believing, and challenging all their convictions. It was the closest we ever came to realising the hope that things could be different; that we could, as a society, understand how Sinhalese ethnosupremacy had been the black rot killing this country from the first, stop being racist Sinhala-first cunts and actually hold any of these murderers accountable.

Teach us to hope, I guess.

But I suppose it's no small thing that I learned about the Tamil resistance and struggle and taught all my friends about it. I'm sure they're informing their own circles in small ways too. These tendrils are hard to see, but they exist and grow. Especially with the fall of the Rajapaksas and their Bhaiyya contingent, more people can see ethnosupremacy for the grift that it is, and the younger generations are less defensive, more willing to listen and eager for justice and change. So I guess the answer is: not very common, but less uncommon than it used to be.

[bopinion]

2024 / 05

Aperçu of the week:

"Remember, democracy never lasts. It soon wastes, exhausts and kills itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide."

(John Adams, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America and its second president from 1797 to 1801)

Bad news of the week:

The war in Gaza threatens to escalate. In response to a drone attack on a US base, the US has bombed pro-Iranian militia positions in Syria and Iraq. More than 85 targets were hit, according to the US military. And Joe Biden made it clear that more military action would follow. It will not be long before Iran retaliates.

The attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on merchant ships in the Red Sea will not stop either. Nor will Israel's military actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon. So will there be the feared conflagration in the region? That will depend on the Pentagon and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Between these two powers are the oppressed peoples of Syria and Iraq. They are as innocent of escalation as the absolute majority of Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the situation of the civilian population in Gaza continues to deteriorate. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has announced that the Israeli offensive will reach Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. What the million of internally displaced people thought was a safe zone. And which, as German Foreign Minister Baerbock aptly put it, "cannot disappear into thin air". For Egypt will continue to keep its border closed.

The parallel negotiations for a cease-fire and the release of the hostages, in which Israel and Egypt as well as Qatar - the seat of the political leadership of Hamas - and the USA are involved, have also come to a standstill. According to media reports, there is no compromise in sight. The majority of Western politicians tirelessly remind us that only a two-state solution can permanently ensure the peaceful coexistence of Israel and Palestine. Rarely has a theory been so far from its practical implementation.

Good news of the week:

While hundreds of thousands of citizens continue to take to the streets against the right and for democracy, the party landscape is also arming itself against the shift to the right. The last general debate in the Bundestag was hardly about the actual item on the agenda, the 2024 budget, but about clearly distancing themselves from the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany) - in rare unity among the so-called established parties across the political spectrum.

These parties are also preparing for the right-wing to remain present in parliament - like the Rassemblement National in France, for example. Currently, the aim is to strengthen the protection of the Federal Constitutional Court. The governing traffic light coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals wants to protect the guardians of the constitution more strongly against possible attempts to remove their power.

Following the experiences of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism in the Third Reich, the authors of the Basic Law built various safeguards into the constitution. These include the "eternity clause", which states that the supporting pillars of the constitution (human dignity, democracy, constitutional state, federal state) may not be changed at all.

The Federal Constitutional Court was also created as a new supervisory body. If the powers of this supervisory body were to be curtailed, the fundamental guarantees could be undermined. The examples of Hungary, Poland and Israel show that right-wing populist governments in particular are trying to disempower the constitutional courts. In order to remove their political actions from any control.

In concrete terms, the core tasks of the Constitutional Court - such as deciding on constitutional complaints or mediating between state bodies - cannot be changed by a simple majority, but many organizational issues can. Since, for example, the election of judges is not regulated in the Basic Law (under the protection of the two-thirds majority), but "only" in a simple law, the legislature could also change key parameters in its favor with a simple majority.

No majority government in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany has ever dared to do this. Because all parties have always felt committed to democratic principles. Until now. It has already been shown several times in the USA that the appointment of judges can be misused for partisan political purposes. A blocking minority would also suffice for a complete blockade here. And the increasing likelihood of this is no longer a dystopia. In this respect, it is a good sign that the largest parliamentary group in the Bundestag - the current opposition conservatives - have also shown themselves to be open to strengthening the independence of the Constitutional Court.

Personal happy moment of the week:

I cleaned the windows. Which I rarely do. And I still prefer to do it myself, because nobody can please me anyway. It's not just the result that makes me happy, but also the positive reactions - from my wife and yes: even from neighbors. Let's see if I learn from it this time and do it more often in the future. After all, I like to be praised from time to time.

I couldn't care less...

...that Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early, mild spring on Groundhog Day. His accuracy is statistically just 40%. I can do the same when I flip a coin. My result: Phil is right. Let's see.

It's fine with me...

...that Taylor Swift's otherwise elusive socio-cultural impact could have a positive effect. According to a Newsweek poll, 30% of 18- to 35-year-olds in the US would follow a proposition from Swift in this November's presidential election - that's more than 13 million votes. No wonder the Republicans are already outdoing each other with conspiracy theories of her being a "Democratic secret weapon". After all, the pop star has already shown a tendency towards Joe Biden in the past, but above all against Donald Trump.

As I write this...

...I am already waiting for next weekend. A little anxious, as the two main sporting events will probably pass by me. Firstly, the top match in the German Bundesliga. Between "my" Munich-based FC Bayern, who strangely enough is only in second place at the moment, and Bayer 04 Leverkusen (Bayer who? Exactly!), who are unbeaten at the top so far this season. And it's only on pay TV, for which I would first have to find a suitably equipped sports bar nearby. Secondly, Superbowl LVIII in Las Vegas between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. This will be broadcast on German free TV, but in the middle of the night in our time zone. From Sunday to Monday. I'm just too old for that. And I console myself with the fact that, in my opinion, Usher lacks the format for the halftime show. Which I will of course still watch on YouTube.

Post Scriptum

It's the fourth anniversary of Brexit. At the end of the last decade, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland left the European Union. Former Prime Minister David Cameron had actually wanted to get backing for Europe through a referendum. The shot backfired and the rest is history: "taking back control" did not work out as the Brexiteers around Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage had hoped. Since then, the island kingdom has been in a political and economic crisis. Without gloating, it can be said that liberal cooperation works obviously better than protectionist isolation.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Jonah Fried

MONTREAL – B’nai Brith Canada is greatly disturbed by the prospect of a “Youth Summer Program” planned by participants in the illegal anti-Israel encampment on McGill University’s property.

Flyers promoting the “revolutionary summer program,” which organizers are framing as their answer to a “transnational student callout to #Revolt4Rafah,” feature images of keffiyeh-clad fighters brandishing submachine guns. Activities would be held from June 17 to July 12, 2024, on the lower field of McGill’s downtown campus, which has been unlawfully occupied by a coalition of radical anti-Israel groups since April 27.

“This is appalling,” said Henry Topas, Quebec Regional Director for B’nai Brith Canada. “Look at how they have moved the goalposts. First, they started holding demonstrations every week, despite their tendency to spout violent and antisemitic slogans. Then, they illegally occupied the campus, bullied Jewish students, harassed McGill administrators at their homes, and broke into university buildings.

“Now, we have a ‘summer camp’ openly being advertised with images of masked men holding weapons. Is McGill going to allow its campus to be used to brainwash youths into thinking that terrorism is acceptable?”

The announcement of the planned summer program comes only days after McGill offered amnesty to all students involved in the encampment and offered to accept some of the protesters’ “demands” – even as the university continues to seek a court order authorizing police to remove the illegal occupants.

In a social-media post, the McGill chapter of Students in Solidarity with Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) promised to “redefine McGill’s ‘elite’ instutional [sic] legacy by transformining [sic] its space into one of revolutionary education.”

SPHR says in its literature that “physical activity” as well as “revolutionary lessons” will be included in the so-called “program.”

The signup sheet:

The sheet lists options such as classes on “Islamic Resistance,” “pan-Arabism,” and the so-called “Axis of Resistance” – an apparent reference to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s network of proxies dedicated to destroying Israel and the United States.

The launch of this alarming “youth program” follows a violent incident on June 6, when a group of radicals broke into and vandalized the James McGill administration building, occupying it for two hours. This marked the most extreme escalation on campus since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. Police in riot gear used necessary force to disperse the crowd and access the building, which protesters had barricaded with construction fencing and other materials.

At least 15 people were ultimately arrested in connection with the clashes, some for throwing rocks at police officers.

“The situation at McGill is well out of control and has been for some time,” said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s Director of Research and Advocacy. “We call on McGill and the local authorities to ensure that the university’s property is not used as a forum to incite violence against Israel and Jews.

“The plan for this so-called program further disproves the myth that these illegal encampments are about democracy and peaceful protest. They are, in fact, a hypocritical assault on Canadian values and Western norms as a whole.”