#the years we suffered under british rule?

[ad15124]

it stinks of sore loser and oh! imbecile

[doberbutts]

I’m wondering if you have thoughts on James Baldwin’s “open letter to the born again”? I’m struggling a bit with what his point is in that piece; it feels kinda dismissive on Jewish zionists agency in creation of Israel? But I may be missing parts or not getting things

The text in question.

And the segment I think anon is struggling with:

I know what I am talking about: my grandfather never got the promised “forty acres, and a mule,” the Indians who survived that holocaust are either on reservations or dying in the streets, and not a single treaty between the United States and the Indian was ever honored. That is quite a record.

Jews and Palestinians know of broken promises. From the time of the Balfour Declaration (during World War I) Palestine was under five British mandates, and England promised the land back and forth to the Arabs or the Jews, depending on which horse seemed to be in the lead. The Zionists—as distinguished from the people known as Jews—using, as someone put it, the “available political machinery,’’ i.e., colonialism, e.g., the British Empire—promised the British that, if the territory were given to them, the British Empire would be safe forever.

But absolutely no one cared about the Jews, and it is worth observing that non-Jewish Zionists are very frequently anti-Semitic. The white Americans responsible for sending black slaves to Liberia (where they are still slaving for the Firestone Rubber Plantation) did not do this to set them free. They despised them, and they wanted to get rid of them. Lincoln’s intention was not to “free” the slaves but to “destabilize” the Confederate Government by giving their slaves reason to “defect.” The Emancipation Proclamation freed, precisely, those slaves who were not under the authority of the President of what could not yet be insured as a Union.

It has always astounded me that no one appears to be able to make the connection between Franco’s Spain, for example, and the Spanish Inquisition; the role of the Christian church or—to be brutally precise, the Catholic Church—in the history of Europe, and the fate of the Jews; and the role of the Jews in Christendom and the discovery of America. For the discovery of America coincided with the Inquisition, and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Does no one see the connection between The Merchant of Venice and The Pawnbroker? In both of these works, as though no time had passed, the Jew is portrayed as doing the Christian’s usurious dirty work. The first white man I ever saw was the Jewish manager who arrived to collect the rent, and he collected the rent because he did not own the building. I never, in fact, saw any of the people who owned any of the buildings in which we scrubbed and suffered for so long, until I was a grown man and famous. None of them were Jews.

And I was not stupid: the grocer and the druggist were Jews, for example, and they were very very nice to me, and to us. The cops were white. The city was white. The threat was white, and God was white, Not for even a single split second in my life did the despicable, utterly cowardly accusation that “the Jews killed Christ’’ reverberate. I knew a murderer when I saw one, and the people who were trying to kilI me were not Jews.

But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests. This is what is becoming clear (I must say that it was always clear to me). The Palestinians have been paying for the British colonial policy of “divide and rule” and for Europe’s guilty Christian conscience for more than thirty years.

Finally: there is absolutely—repeat: absolutely—no hope of establishing peace in what Europe so arrogantly calls the Middle East (how in the world would Europe know? having so dismally failed to find a passage to India) without dealing with the Palestinians. The collapse of the Shah of Iran not only revealed the depth of the pious Carter’s concern for “human rights,” it also revealed who supplied oil to Israel, and to whom Israel supplied arms. It happened to be, to spell it out, white South Africa.

Well. The Jew, in America, is a white man. He has to be, since I am a black man, and, as he supposes, his only protection against the fate which drove him to America. But he is still doing the Christian’s dirty work, and black men know it.

My friend, Mr. Andrew Young, out of tremendous love and courage, and with a silent, irreproachable, indescribable nobility, has attempted to ward off a holocaust, and I proclaim him a hero, betrayed by cowards.

For context: Andrew Young, considered the right hand of MLK Jr, had a longstanding and occasionally fraught relationship with the Jewish community. He stepped down from Congress shortly after being forced to choose between voicing support for Palestine and continuing to work towards black-jewish interests by his constituents and fellow politicians, as he felt very strongly about supporting both. This was a fairly unpopular move. While I don't believe he ever called himself Jewish by the strictest sense, he was actively involved in Jewish communities and the known "white" ancestry within him is a Polish Jew in his great grandparents.

To be honest, I don't really see much a problem with this as I think it fairly closely matches up not only with my understanding of the history of this problem but also my own country's part in it as well as my personal feelings on it decades later. It pretty blatantly says that Zionism is utilizing a machination of white supremist colonism due to the extensive history of antisemitism and having had the ancestral land dangled in front of them like bait on a hook from the British Empire, which owned Palestine at the time. It also goes on to say that many Zionists aren't even Jewish and are antisemitic in nature, but are Christians happy to get rid of as many Jews as possible and how that tracks due to the Christian church's millennia-deep history of antisemitism.

I don't think it lets anyone off the hook. I think it pretty much flat out says this is a problem caused first and foremost by white Christians who hate Jews and Arabs alike and have a vested interest in getting the two populations to fight because it'll be easier to kill off just the one group instead of both of them, if one ends up eradicating the other. It even talks about the friction between the black community and the Jewish community, what caused it, what drives it, how that friction in itself is a tool of white supremacy to hurt us both.

[matan4il]

Hello. Can I ask why everybody is calling Israel a "colonial" state? Because it annoys me very much when I see that for three main reasons:

1. My country was a former member of the British colonial rule. Do you know what happens when a country gets colonised? Every bit of the wealth generated went to the Crown, every political decision had to be approved by the Crown, laborers were exploited as much as possible, my people were directly under the orders from a British Monarch who actively hated them. The economy was in shambles after we got independence. As far as I know, since the state of Israel was created, it does not answer to any foreign country (the UN is not a country). How is this a European 'colony'?

2. Most(All?) people who immigrated to Israel were refugees. If Jewish people living in Europe did not have any ties to the land of Israel and were completely 100% European, why were most of them killed horrifically during the Holocaust for not being the right race? Why does nobody talk about the expulsion of Jews from the surrounding Arab countries? Where should these people go?

3. People also seem to forget that governments can be stupid. Just because they are the ruling party does not mean they're capable of making sound decisions for their people. Even a non-colonial government makes bad decisions. If you can separate Trump from the rest of the US, why can't you do the same for Israel?

I do not want to reduce the suffering of the Palestinian civilians. However using the wrong terminology is not the way to help these people. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm really tired of this 'colonizer' takes.

(I hope I made my point clear as English is not my first language?)

Hi, lovely Nonnie!

Please, your English is great! I would have never guessed you're not a native speaker. :D

And you are absolutely right about every single point. Also, my heart goes out to you! I'm so sorry that your people have also suffered due to colonialism. I'm sending you BIG hugs!

Colonialism is what destroyed my people. After our homeland was repeatedly colonized, the Roman colonizers went even further than previous regimes, and expelled most of our ancestors from this land (a small Jewish minority wasn't, and that's why there has been a documented continuous Jewish presence in Israel for over 3,000 years). The expelled Jews became a spread out minority in other countries. With such small numbers in each country, it was easy to vilify us, we were vulnerable to every attack, with hardly anyone defending us, and no real option to defend ourselves. The Holocaust happening to us is directly linked to this way that we were forced to exist for almost 2,000 years in the diaspora.

Meanwhile, our land continued to be repeatedly colonized by different regimes. Each one did exactly as you said, exploited our country for their own benefit. The Ottomans, as just one example, cut off so many trees to build the Hejaz railway (which connected today's Syria to today's Saudi Arabia for the purpose of Muslim pilgrimage to the Saudi mosques), that the Land of Israel went through a desertification process. When Jews started returning in substantial numbers (because in small ones, there were always individual Jews who tried returning to our ancestral land), we did exactly what native populations try to do, restore the land, through continued research and development, to its pre-colonized state.

That's on top of the fact that, as you mentioned, we don't answer to or serve any European (or western) country. Colonies serve a metropole, but there is none for Israel. It's just our country. It's just the place where we live, even when it's incredibly difficult, because it's our ancestral homeland, which we've returned to, after our ancestors prayed for that for almost 2,000 years.

You're also spot on about the fact, that Jews were always discriminated against and persecuted in every country in the diaspora (with a few exceptions in South East Asia, the most important one being India). We were treated that way precisely because there was a historic recollection that we are foreigners. That we were south west Asians, living as a minority in countries that never truly wanted us, like Norway, or Spain, or Morocco. That's why it was so easy to kill us in the Holocaust. That's why it was so easy to expel us from Arab countries. Because we were never truly accepted by the locals.

But even after expulsions and surviving the Holocaust, there are so many places in the world Jews could have turned to! Places where there would be less resistance to us forming a country. Yet, the overwhelming majority of Jews rejected such suggestions. If they hadn't, then we would have truly been colonizers. But that's not what we yearned for. We always dreamed of returning to our homeland, so eventually it became evident to everyone that there's only one real option for a Jewish state, and that is in the Jewish ancestral land.

The reason why people claim that Jews are colonizers of their own land (some deny all historic ties Jews have to Israel, despite every piece of evidence to the contrary, while others acknowledge the Jewish history of Israel and the continued Jewish presence there, but claim that it's been so long ago, it doesn't count anymore. I've never seen any other native group being told that there's a time limit on their native rights. Have you?) is because it allows a narrative that once again vilifies Jews.

When the worst thing Jews could have been was of an evil religion, they described us as evil in religious terms (accusing us of having killed Jesus, and accusing us of using the blood of non-Jewish kids to bake a special kind of bread meant for religious purpose). When the worst thing Jews could have been was of an evil race, they described us as evil in racial terms (describing us as being sub-human, and accusing us of wanting to take over the world, to destroy it for the rest of the human race). Now that de-colonization is such a powerful (rightfully so) narrative, the worst thing Jews can be is evil colonizers... So guess what we're suddenly described as? Evil colonizers, who plot, steal, abuse and genocide another population (when in reality we consented to coexist with it 76 years ago).

I hope that sort of answers it? Basically, it's the newest form of the same age old antisemitism. Find the worst thing Jews can currently be, and depict them as that.

Thank you for seeing past the vilification! It means a lot. I'm sending you lots of love! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[scotianostra]

November 12th 1869 saw Edinburgh University first admit women to the study of medicine.

The first two women were Sophia Jex-Blake and her friend Edith Pechy, who, after much hard campaigning on Sophia’s part. They never had it easy, students and other Edinburgh folk were very nuch against them training to be doctors.

Jex-Blake describes the scene here as the two friends went to take their exams……

"On the afternoon of Friday 18th November 1870, we walked to the Surgeon’s Hall, where the anatomy examination was to be held. As soon as we reached the Surgeon’s Hall we saw a dense mob filling up the road… The crowd was sufficient to stop all the traffic for an hour. We walked up to the gates, which remained open until we came within a yard of them, when they were slammed in our faces by a number of young men.”.

A sympathetic student emerged from the hall; he opened the gate and ushered the women inside. They took their examination and passed with flying colours. Although both passed, university regulations only allowed medical degrees to be given to men. The British Medical Association therefore refused to register the women as doctors.

Jex-Blake took herself off to Ireland where she finally obtained her licence to practice from the Dublin College of Physicians. Sophia Jex-Blake then devoted her life to the cause of women in medicine - both improving the treatment of female patients and creating better opportunities for female medical education, eventually founding the revolutionary Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women.

Their strength and decency under pressure went on to inspire many others, right up to the present day. Although Jex-Blake and Petchey were the most famous and seem to get most of the plaudits, There were other women and they are collectively known as The Edinburgh Seven, the others were Mary Anderson, Emily Bovell, Matilda Chaplin, Helen Evans and Isabel Thorne.

Jex-Blake seems to have been the most successful of the seven, in June 1878 she opened a medical practice at 4 Manor Place; three months later she established a dispensary (an out-patient clinic) for impoverished women at 73 Grove Street, just round the corner from where I used to stay at Upper Grove Place. These ventures were highly successful but after the death of one of her assistants, she suffered from depression. She closed her practice and left the dispensary in the care of her medical colleagues.

She remained inactive for a time before opening Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women in 1887, in its second year the school was disrupted by disputes between Jex-Blake and several of the students who resented her imposition of strict rules of conduct. The school also struggled financially and had to be bailed out by Jex-Blake’s father.

When a rival institution, the Medical College for Women, was opened by Ina Cadell, Grace Cadell, and Elsie Inglis, former students of Jex-Blake, the Edinburgh School of Medicine could no longer compete.The school folded and closed its doors in 1898.

In 1899 Jex-Blake retired but continued to campaign for women’s suffrage until she passed away on 7th January 1912.

The Edinburgh Seven were recognised with posthumous degrees in July this year, the degrees were collected on their behalf by a group of current students at Edinburgh Medical School.The seven’s efforts eventually forced through legislation in 1877 to ensure women could study at university.

The pics show Edith Pechy and Dr Sophia Jex-Blake.

[kvetchlandia]

So...

The racist, nationalist, Islamophobic and antisemitic National Front (or whatever stupid, slightly less terrifying name they're giving themselves this month) is set to be the largest single party in the French parliament after next week's final round of elections. Italy is already governed by a party that's the direct descendant of Mussolini's Fascists. The neo-fascist Alternative for Germany was the second largest block in the recent German elections to the European Parliament and is expected to grow significantly in next year's elections to the Bundestag. Geert Wilders's reactionary party in the Netherlands took nearly 50% of the Dutch seats in the European Parliament (6 of 14). In the 2023 national elections in the Netherlands, Wilders' party took a whopping 37 seats in the Dutch House of Representatives, making it the largest single party in the Dutch legislature. Fortunately for the Dutch, they don't have another national election scheduled until 2028, but one could be held earlier should the government fall. It's hard for me to grasp that these countries, each of which was either conquered and occupied by the nazis and betrayed by collaborators, or was directly governed by nazis and fascists, is now electing precisely those same nazis and collaborators. Of course, we here in the United States, are facing the bizarre choice in the two "official" parties of American capitalism, of one candidate who's clearly cognitively impaired and another who is a dictator wannabe; a man already convicted of numerous felony charges and facing many, many more; a racist and misogynist; a man millions of dollars in debt on account of the fines levied against him after he was found liable for the civil sexual abuse of a woman and then libeling his victim and a man who has made it clear that if/when he's re-elected he's going to go after his political opponents and that he's also going to dismantle what little bit of social safety net we have in the United States. It looks as though Mushroom Dick, as Stormy Daniels referred to this monster, with whom she shared a brief and forgettable sexual encounter, is going to win the election in this country. This world is rapidly becoming an even sicker and sadder place than it's long been. I guess we should take a teensy bit of hope that Britain is bucking the trend and that Labour is expected to trounce the Tories in the upcoming election. Of course, this doesn't reflect that Britain is immune to the tide of the racist fear of immigrants that's sweeping over the rest of Europe and the United States but rather, it reflects the fact that the tide hit Britain first and that the British people have been suffering under the effects of Brexit for several years already, and that the long-term rule by the Tories has devastated the British working class and sucked much of the life out of the National Health System, which used to be a model for the world until the Tories slashed its budget to the bone. I guess all I can say is we're really screwed. The world is entering an ugly time and things are going to get worse before they get better.

OK, now I've totally depressed myself. I'm gonna pour myself a stiff drink and then stick a pillow over my head and try to go to sleep. I'm not in the mood to engage in my usual late night Tumblr silliness. Maybe I'll get back to posting tomorrow?

[schizopositivity]

Aight, I had a stroke of misfortune (related to my schizophrenia, or rather my disability benefits). I was getting the max amount of money from the British Columbia government (relevant) and it was going ok. I met someone and we decided to move in together and get engaged! Nice! I did my research, I was under the impression I could live with my fiance and still get support, at least till we became common law (which takes two years according to bc law) or get married. bOY WAS I WRONG. Apparently you become common law when "living in a marriage like relationship" (ei when you live together). I lost every penny of my disability support because my partner makes more thank 19k in a YEAR. For record the poverty line in bc is 25k. It boggles my mind they want me to live in actual poverty because I fell in love. I cried for days, I have pretty bad schizophrenia, the government declared me unable to work, but now that I'm living with someone I don't deserve support. Which by the way, we were going to be homeless in four months if something didn't happen. Thankfully I found a job. The big question is if I can keep it. For now we're ok, we can keep our apartment. But I wanted to warn other people to please do better research than I did, you need to know the rules of your disability support backwards and forwards. Call the government itself to get crystal clear answers. And if you live in BC, canada, don't fall in love I guess? Anyway this has been a PSA. I hope everyone is having a better time with their government than me.

I'm really sorry to hear that, that rule is so messed up and harmful. It's completely unjust, no one should lose their right to live (and we all need money to live sadly) just for falling in love. I firmly believe that we do not have marriage equality yet because of this. It's so enraging to me that many governments force their most vulnerable populations to remain in poverty, and suffer for having conditions/illnesses they can't control.

I hope you are both able to get other types of government support like money for food or rent that can be applied for separately (although my understanding of the system is my experience in the USA). Or some other outside support system to make sure neither of you have to face homelessness.

Good luck with your job! You shouldn't have had to get it in the first place, but I wish you the best. Just go easy on yourself and don't push yourself too much (because employers will often encourage or expect it). Just try and do the bare minimum to keep the job. Maybe you can ask for disability accommodations if you are comfortable doing that.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Douglas Murray

Published: May 21, 2024

THE President of Iran died at the weekend in a helicopter accident – news that the BBC marked with the headline “President Ebrahim Raisi’s mixed legacy in Iran”.

“Mixed legacy” is an interesting way to sum up the life of someone better known as the “Butcher of Tehran”.

Raisi rose through the ranks of the revolutionary Islamic Government that overthrew the Shah in 1979.

And he made his name in the usual revolutionary Islamic way.

By killing his political opponents — including the leftists who the regime rounded up, imprisoned and murdered by the thousands in their jails.

Some of the obituaries have noted that Raisi helped speed up the backlog of trials in Iran.

That is true. He did it in the same way Stalin did — by killing his opponents fast.

The United Nations noted his passing in its own unique way.

At the Security Council, the member States were invited to stand and observe a minute’s silence for Raisi.

Those taking part shamefully included our own deputy ambassador to the UN, James Kariuki.

At the same time, Iranians were letting off fireworks and handing out sweets in their own streets.

There has been more mourning at the United Nations than there has been in Iran.

Perhaps that is because the Iranian people are the first ones who have had to suffer under the cruel rule of President Raisi.

It was on his watch that students and others who have protested against his regime have been abducted, tortured and killed.

It is Raisi’s regime which has overseen the harshest rule of Islamic law — which includes the hanging of women who have been raped.

That’s right. If you are a woman who has been raped in Iran, you are the culprit.

And you will be the one that is hanged.

Are the women who suffered that horror worth a minute’s silence at the UN? I would have said so.

Is their hangman? I’d have said not. Yet the UN and others continued with this gross spectacle.

Today, the organisation flew its flags at half-mast at its HQ in New York.

How morally sick can an organisation be?

We seem to have come to the stage where international bodies, as well as some sick people at home, will love anyone so long as that person hates us.

And Raisi and his foreign minister, who died with him, certainly did hate us.

Theirs is a regime which has, for 44 years, called for “Death to America” and “Death to the UK”.

It is a regime which has caused a numberless loss of lives inside Iran and in the wider region.

It is a regime which has been trying to expand its power in its own region and whose assassins have made it as far as New York and London.

Only last month, a member of the Iranian opposition was stabbed outside his house in London.

Almost certainly by assassins sent to the UK by the government in Iran.

All the time, Raisi and his friends have tried to make their regime invincible by gaining a nuclear weapon.

So far they have had that project delayed many times.

But they still seek the bomb and are one of the very few regimes on Earth that has said they would like to use it.

We should take them at their word.

It is the regime in Iran that has, for years, funded and trained terrorists across the region and indeed the world.

‘Mass slaughter’

In October last year, when Hamas terrorists broke into Israel and carried out the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, it was Iran which backed them.

It is Iran that has funded Hamas. It is Iran that has trained Hamas. And it is Iran that has armed Hamas.

Just as they have also trained, funded and armed their other terrorist groups.

Notably in Yemen. Where Iran’s Houthi friends have fired missiles and attacked British ships.

But also in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, where Iran’s weapons have killed British and American soldiers.

And that is before even getting on to the 150,000 missiles Iran has helped Hezbollah store up in southern Lebanon.

Or the drones and other munitions it has been giving to Vladimir Putin’s Russia as he tries to overrun Ukraine.

All of his foul life, Raisi hoped to start and win a massive regional war.

Why should the man who oversaw all this and very much more be given any respect?

You might say it makes political sense to keep doors open — as most of our Foreign Office seems to think.

But it is quite another thing to mourn, or lament, the passing of this man.

The BBC, Foreign Office and United Nations may not know what a tyrant is. But the Iranian people do.

If only we could show that we are on their side.

We could start by showing that we are also on our own.

==

Good fucking riddance. The Earth is a better place with him as a splatter stain upon it.

The absolute moral confusion that has infected our institutions is truly dire.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

The Death of Liam Payne

The British singer and former One Direction member died this month at the age of 31 after plunging from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires.

Staff at the hotel had requested urgent police assistance shortly before Payne’s death Wednesday, according to an emergency call obtained by CNN’s Argentine affiliate Todo Noticias. “We have a guest who is overwhelmed with drugs and alcohol,” the hotel manager said on the call. “He breaks things up. He is tearing the whole room apart.” The manager told the call operator that because Payne’s room had a balcony, “we’re a little afraid that he’ll do something.”

Argentinian investigators found what appeared to be narcotics and alcohol strewn about broken objects and furniture in 31-year-old Payne’s hotel room, leading the public prosecution to surmise Payne had suffered a substance abuse-induced breakdown around the time of his fall. The prosecution said Payne could have plunged from his hotel room balcony in a state of “semi or total unconsciousness”. A cocktail of drugs called “pink cocaine” – containing methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA – had been found during a partial autopsy, along with crack cocaine and benzodiazepine. Both outlets cited anonymous sources familiar with the preliminary tests. Payne’s autopsy concluded that the traumatic injuries that caused his death were consistent with his three-story fall from the hotel window. Prosecutors have ruled out anyone else being involved. Photos purportedly taken from inside Payne’s hotel room published by local media showed snowlike powder left on a table and a smashed-in TV screen. Police also discovered a blister pack of clonazepam, a central nervous system depressant, and over-the-counter medications scattered among Payne’s belongings. Shortly before Payne’s death, the hotel manager called 911 to report a guest acting aggressively and under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Investigators are also trying to figure out who sold Payne the drugs he took at the CasaSur hotel in Palermo, a chic neighbourhood of the Argentinian capital. Police have taken statements from at least three hotel employees, as well as two women (reportedly prostitutes) who visited Payne’s hotel room a few hours before his death.

[misschinablue]

welcome to the UK, where world leading healthcare is free at the point of use! hopefully you don't need it though. underfunding and shitty management of the public health sector by non clinicians mean you could wait up to six months for an urgent referral. hope all your organs are in good working order because you could die waiting if they're not :) and god forbid you should need to see a GP or a practice nurse for something more minor - the demand highly outweighs the supply and you'll be engaging in the hunger games to maybe get a 10 minute telephone appointment in September 2026 :) mental health suffering? well you are shit out of luck my friend - again, demand far outweighs supply - everything has been cut down to less than the absolute bare minimum - and the criteria for services is sky high now. make a cup of tea and take the crisis line number. you'll be fine right?

welcome to the UK, one of the richest economies in the world! how is it then that living standards are as low as they were in the 1970s, what with the old cossie lives and wages that were already laughably meagre now completely out of sync with how fucking expensive everything is?? i know you worked hard to get your education and onto your graduate scheme and did everything society asked of you to make it in life, but things are different now so here's your mouldy room in a shared house where the rent is a million pounds a month and lol what disposable income aren't you just happy to have a roof of your head?? stop going to Costa every morning for your soy triple shot vanilla latte you entitled little shit! it's not like we've had 14 years of complete mismanagement of the economy or anything! ps. aren't you so tired of hearing that it's all your fault?

welcome to the UK, where we have a welfare system designed to help people.in need, I.e. those out of work and those too sick to work! but good luck accessing that too. and if you want to try - LMFAO! oh honey no one LIKES working. but all this pretending to be too unwell to work ain't fooling anyone! come on mate drop that defeatist attitude and get on indeed.com. none of your conditions are even real. stop using your multiple sclerosis/depression/long covid/terminal cancer as an excuse. fucking sickness culture in this country. the high rates of mental illness especially have no obvious cause at all do they?

welcome to the UK, a tiny country that prides itself on tolerance and has historically seen great benefits to the economy and culturally from immigration! but god forbid we make this an easy place to live for trans people! this Woke has gone too far! and oh my GOD aren't all these refugees SO annoying?! they clearly just want to come here for the free healthcare (you know that non existent thing) and to get welfare benefits (you know asylum seekers aren't entitled to benefits apart from a pittance allowance from the home office right?) and they're absolutely not braving a life threatening journey to escape horrific conditions and persecution in their own country. but whatever. not our problem. off to Rwanda with you. human rights are stupid lmao. empathy? compassion? never heard of her.

welcome to the UK, where we support genocide and saying certain things in opposition of it is actually fucking illegal. i wish i was kidding.

welcome to the UK, where nothing works and everyone is sad.

welcome to the UK. god i fucking hate it here.

british tumblr - even if you don't think it will make a difference, even if you recognise there is just a lesser of two evils here, even if you don't trust any of them, even if you're fucked off and burnt out, i am BEGGING you to vote to get these absolute cretins out of power. we cannot have another five years under tory rule. there will be nothing left.

[dragoneyes618]

"[Vladimir] Jabotinsky (1880 - 1940_ was the founder of the Revisionist party, a political group that represented Zionism's "maximalist wing." The Revisionists demanded that Britain grant the Jews sovereignty over both sides of the Jordan. Future Israeli prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzchak Shamir regarded Jabotinsky as their ideological and political godfather.

"We all realize, that of all the conditions necessary for national renaissance, the ability to know how to shoot is unfortunately the most important."

- Vladimir Jabotinsky, 1933; Ktavim (collected writings), Vol. 11, page 90.

In 1937, Jabotinsky was invited to testify before the British-appointed Peel Commission, then investigating the possibility of partitioning Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. At the time, German Jewry already had lived under Nazi rule for four years, while their three and a half million Polish brethren were suffering from widespread antisemitism.

Conscious of the urgent need to arrange for the emigration of large numbers from both communities, Jabotinsky explained to the commission why it was impossible for the Jews to make territorial compromises in Palestine:

"I would remind you of the commotion which was produced...when Oliver Twist came and asked for "more." He said "more" because he did not know how to express it; what Oliver Twist really meant was this: "Will you just give me that normal portion which is necessary for a boy of my age to be able to live?" I assure you that you face here today, in the Jewish people with its demands, an Oliver Twist who has, unfortunately, no concessions to make....We have got to save millions, many millions. ...What can the concession be on the part of Oliver Twist? He is in such a position that he cannot concede anything; it is the workhouse people who have to concede the plateful of soup."

- Jabotinsky's entire speech before the Peel Commission can be found in ARthur Hertzberg, ed., The Zionist Idea, pages 559-570.

During the same testimony, Jabotinsky responded to the Arab contentions that Palestine should be an Arab, not a Jewish, state:

"It is quite understandable that the Arabs of Palestine would also prefer Palestine to be an Arab state no. 4, no. 5, or no. 6 - that I quite understand; but when the Arab claim is confronted with our Jewish demand to be saved, it is like the claims of appetite versus the claims of starvation."

As of 1994, there are twenty-one Arab states in the world, and only one Jewish one. The Arab states' total landmass is 5,414,000 square miles, whereas Israel's is 8,290 square miles. In short, the Arabs occupy 540 times as much land as the Jews."

- Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, pages 584-585

[cigarette-catgirl]

Today marks 76 years since the forced expulsion and annexation of Palestinians by Zionist forces in 1948, an event dubbed “Al-Nakba” or, “The Catastophe”.

Even though Israel was officially founded as an occupation on that year, I cannot stress enough how this is a project that has been in planning and conspiracy since World War II, since the defeat of the Ottomans under the British, since the Belfor Agreement. I’m sure by now, many of the people who would even bother to read this know that mainstream media, pundits, grifters and politicians, will try and have tried to say that this all started with the Hamas attacks on October 7th, but never had and never will have started there. The current killings, expulsions and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza is only another brick on an colonialist, racist and horrific project led by the Zionist Movement to break down and discourage Palestinians from ever fighting back.

This year has been a year of very personal spite and vitriol for me, spite and vitriol that’s been bubbling since my grandfather told me how his mother almost left him at 10 months old in the village of Bayt Mahsir when Zionists invaded in 1948. I have nothing but hatred for the powers that be, the political west that has benefited and built itself upon the bodies of my ancestors and my family, for the spineless cowards who continue to insist it’s a conflict, a war, a battle between two sides with equal power.

For the Americans and English who continue to live in willful ignorance, for the ones who continue to ignore boycotts, protests and refuse to advocate, for those who engage in their comfort fast food chains and their shitty coffee. You do not deserve comfort, nor do you deserve any form of happiness, not when your enjoyment continues to exist due to a system that funds the murder of human beings and the theft of their homes. You do not have the right to tell me of your mental struggles, of your inability to process this horrific situation, when I have lived my entire life knowing that I am not recognized as human by the occupation that dares to rule over me, when my father and mother were born into an occupied Palestine, when my father had to watch uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews all drop one by one, buried under the rubble or mangled beyond recognition.

I hope every single one of you suffer tenfold the amount of suffering my Palestine has been made to suffer.

76 years of oppression and 76 years of struggle, and we will continue to struggle for 76 more years if we have to. But I believe, sooner rather than later, I will get to see a free Palestine in my lifetime, and the crimes this world has committed against my home will be etched into history forever.

From the River to the Sea.

[esther-dot]

or that she can singlehandedly Elizabeth the first it…

Sansa could do it, if she really wanted, but the historical Elizabeth did not have an easy time with her decision. She had dozens of suitors and was even on the cusp of betrothal a couple of times. Her privy council nearly lost their minds in fear of her dying without an heir. They were so desperate that for a moment they were willing to accept Robert Dudley as a husband, which was a terrible choice for a number of reasons.

My point is, Elizabeth remains, 500 years later still the only (adult) British sovereign who never married. Her personal and historical circumstances were unique, and have never been repeated. She was an outlier, the exception, not the rule.

Sansa knows her duty is to produce an heir, and I doubt George wrote all that motherhood foreshadowing for nothing.

(about this ask)

!!! And the Starks don’t have a great record here. Think about the previous generation. Rickard and his heir die, then that happens to the canon generation with Ned and Robb, and they’ve lost the other boys too...I mean, the heir issue is just not something that can be dismissed. Especially when the North has suffered so and Winterfell has been taken...there's such recent reminders of how precarious it all is. It wouldn't be reasonable for the Northern Lords ignore the issue.

I don't know what D&D were thinking with the Elizabeth I stuff other than, they had just killed off the two other queens, one in a way that would infuriate fans, so it's possible they thought that framing Sansa that way would help counter what they had to know was coming for them? Right after the show ended some of us speculated that we got a scrambled eggs version of events and that Sansa was to be QitN much earlier.

I have a few hangups when it comes to resolving the Northern succession crisis because it isn’t clear to me which path answers all the issues.

Considering Jon's repressed desire for Winterfell, I don't think he'd ever be able to take it, not after Robb's death and while trueborn Starks lived. Some have suggested that the show's version of he's KitN and Sansa is LoW is the compromise, but if we're basing KitN on Robb's Will, I don't see how the Lords accept and push for him to be king regardless, if he's refusing to inherit? That’s what the will was for.

This is where Jonnel/Sansa comes in and I've said before, Jonsa could be the contrast where the marriage where, rather than taking from the girl, it’s actually the way to give her home back to her/rectify a wrong. And I don't want to dismiss the precariousness of the situation and that Jon (at Sansa's urging) might go along with inheriting or being KitN in order to unite the North and prepare for war, but the guilt. And also, that works in the specific scenario, what of the overall issue of girls being passed over? Is Martin merely pointing it out or will he offer a sign of progress ie the Northern Lords opting for Sansa to inherit or be queen? I mean, Jon will have lots of rumors floating around him post rez, not sure that he could be a unifying force? And the idea of a bastard rising up to lead them...idk.

That brings me to the bastard issue! How society looks at bastards is obviously horribly unfair to the kids, so is Martin gonna progress the North on this issue by them rallying behind Jon or will it be Sansa having a child who may or may not be legitimate but is her heir? As in, she’s still married to Tyrion, will the North say fuck it and have Jon and Sansa marry under their own religion or if R+L=J isn’t widely known yet or Jon is controversial in the North, they secretly marry and Sansa “legitimizes” her child later and that progresses the issue?

[hgejfmw-hgejhsf]

WIP Word Search

Hello, my loves! Thank you, thank you, thank you to @anincompletelist @kiwiana-writes @cricketnationrise @leaves-of-laurelin @sparklepocalypse @getmehighonmagic @indestructibleheart and @firenati0n for tagging me in this super fun game! I so hope I at least get SOMETHING worth posting haha so here we go:

RULES: use this generator to generate three random words (or however many you'd like to do!) and share the lines where they show up in your wips!

My words are *drum roll please*: old, routine, and mind. Of the three, routine is the only word that does not yet appear in any of my WIPs, so enjoy the other two!

Old (from Come Back to Me, a canon divergent songfic that will soon be gifted to @thinkof-england)

Alex could almost convince himself that he’s pulled up an old interview from the day of Philip’s wedding. Henry is dressed in the very same clothing that was once smeared with thick globs of buttercream…so probably not the exact same clothing, Alex thinks with the smallest of fond smiles. But to look at Henry’s face, at the hollowed out expression in his eyes, his sunken cheeks, the gray tinge to his skin that not even the royal makeup artists could cover, is more than enough to indicate that this is not the same prince Alex once had convinced himself he hated with every fiber of his being. This shell of the Henry he knew, the Henry he still loves, is suffering under the weight of his family’s legacy.

Mind (from my upcoming New Year's Eve AU and my first ever actual AU to be born of my own mind haha)

“Everything all right over here?” the man asks. Another British accent. Maybe a boyfriend who followed Henry here to the US to chase after his dreams of owning a gay bar and painting incredible murals on the ceiling of said gay bar. Alex’s stomach drops as he stares at the man, streaks of every color of the rainbow vibrant in his hair. His downturned lips are literally glowing in the dark, the bright pink lipstick emitting its own light. Alex’s overly imaginative mind can’t help but form the picture of glowing pink smears running across Henry’s cheek, down his neck, and over the hint of collarbone exposed by the buttons undone on his shirt, and he has to swallow the urge to vomit. He quickly shakes the thought from his head, watching as the image fades before his eyes as he takes another sip of his drink, unsure why he’s already so desperate for the attention and the touch of someone whose face he can’t even see entirely.

Unsure who's already participated, but throwing out some tags behind the cut for:

@affectionatelyrs @clottedcreamfudge @daisymae-12 @duchessdepolignaca03 @happiness-of-the-pursuit @heybuddy-drabbles @indomitable-love @inexplicablymine @littlemisskittentoes @lizzie-bennetdarcy @magicandarchery @ninzied @priincebutt @rockyroadkylers@roseharpermaxwell @ships-to-sail @songliili @ssmtskw @statueinthestonetoo @suseagull04 @thinkof-england @tintagel-or-cockleshells @vanillahigh00 @violetbaudelaire-quagmire @whimsymanaged @wordsofhoneydew

[internet-angelmp3]

Ireland is an extremely old country. Our history is long and varied. Each of the four provinces has it's own specific history and mythology. I am from Ulster so I can only tell you what I know.

I'm not sure which parts of history you would like to hear, so I'll start with one thats near to my heart.

The first thing you need to know about the Famine, is that it wasn't a famine. In Irish it's called An Ghorta Mhór (The Great Hunger). A famine is when a country doesn't have food for it's people. There was a lot of food in Ireland. But it was 1845 so we were under British rule and they were (are) greedy bastards.

Years before this, a man called Oliver Cromwell came to Ireland with an army. He went to every city and every settlement and kicked everyone out. He told them "To Hell or to Connacht" meaning they could die or they could leave their homes and flee to the west. Most ran. Many died. The ground in Connacht is bad and hard to farm. You had to plant a lot of a crop to get anything back. Around this time, potatoes came to Ireland. They were easy to grow, filling to eat and you could cook them a million ways. So we planted them and relied on them.

Cromwell and his men stole our land. And then they decided if we wanted to live in our own country, we would have to pay rent. We didn't have money, just our crops, so that's how we paid. Our landlord would gives us some land, say 2 acres, and then would demand all the crops from the first acre should be his. When the potato blight hit Europe, Ireland suffered the most. Even though we had moved away from the rocky terrain of Connacht, we still had to produce huge amounts of crops. We were still growing the potatoes and relying on them.

1845, the potatoes failed. No one could pay their rent. Our landlords did not accept this excuse. Any healthy food was given to them. Irish people starved in the streets, and these English landlords ate three course meals everyday. So obviously we hated them (still do honestly).

There's a lot more to cover on the Famine but I have to go now. This was quite depressing but it's Irish history. Most of it is depressing.

- ⚓☘️

I actually did know that the 'famine' was the fault of the British but hearing the specifics is incredibly sad. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to educate me on it. I've always hated the Brits because they're the biggest colonizers I know. I've also heard of them destroying Irish history as well as other countries' but I don't know much on that.

But thank you, ⚓☘️Anon! I'm very grateful for your help!

[mightdeletelater]

rishi, the only extremist in the room is you

Rishi Sunak's speech yesterday about the need to "protect democracy" is incredibly rich coming from an unelected PM, and it proves the closeness we are to despotism.

I am speaking from someone who partly grew up under a dictatorship. In some ways, I actually think that we're entering an even scarier era. Where I was growing up, at least officials were open about their regime. Yes, they made their people suffer greatly. But they did it openly. Still very horrible, but fascism under the disguise of democracy is, in my mind, more dangerous. And so very near.

Sunak's speech, filled with falsities, continued what his government have parroted ever since October in reaction to what is happening in Israel and Palestine. And that is the broadening of the definition of extremism to encompass dissenting voices, potentially criminalising those opposing political and financial support for Israel. That's not an exaggeration. Sunak said as much in his rambling speech.

A ceasefire should be the minimum expectation, yet leaders of the 'free world' can't even support that. If we lived in a just world, we'd have sanctions, trials and prosecutions. We'd have an end of diplomatic ties and an end of the occupation. We'd have war reparations, restoration of land and a right of return for all Palestinians.

This week, we've witnessed the extreme act of protest in the form of self-immolation, which saw a US air force airman dousing himself in gasoline outside the Israeli embassy in Washington and lighting himself on fire. Days later, the IDF targeted Palestinians seeking aid and food after killing over 30,000 of them. It's very concerning that 24 hours after the most grotesque image of someone being bulldozed by a clearly labelled IDF tank went viral on social media, that was the statement Sunak chose to make.

And yes, his speech is in reaction to what is happening in the Middle East, but its implications go beyond. His words run deep even if the current situation was magically solved tomorrow. The very act of protesting is under threat, making his lecturing on division exploitation outside Downing Street hypocritical, considering that is the driving force behind his government. He is right. There is a group in the UK fostering extremism and threatening democratic freedoms – the Conservative Party led by him. Sunak's warnings about extremism would carry more weight if his tenure as prime minister hadn't consistently promoted it.

His speech also included an endorsement of Voter ID, disenfranchising thousands. You cannot claim to protect democracy by making it harder for people to vote. The man, who again became PM through clearing and without a public vote, also said that people voting for an MP he disagrees with is an attack on democracy. It's like we're living in a dystopian satire that not even the greatest writers of our time could imagine.

And Sunak's assertion that Britain has never been on the wrong side of history in his concluding remarks is particularly troubling, considering his background and lack of acknowledgement for his ancestors who endured colonial rule for nearly 90 years in British India.

The worst part? Sunak is just one of many. If he goes, there is someone next in line to replace him and crackdown even further.

It's like playing an endless game of whack-a-mole. You get rid of one, but another pops up, and then another and another and another until we all get sicker, poorer, and sadder and die.

[warningsine]

Democracies are no better than other forms of government at avoiding catastrophic mistakes. But they are much more effective at rectifying them. While the 2024 British general election might have seemed a long time coming, as the country meandered from one failure to the next, the utter scale of defeat for the Conservatives is testament to the ability of a democratic system to reject, reverse and renew.

It also places a singular challenge on the desk of the new prime minister, Keir Starmer. He will be judged by his ability to restore probity to government and address the damage suffered by the country.

It is easy to see this election in the tradition of other big defeats like 1997 or 1979 or 1964. A powerful theme of “time for a change” was at play and the governing party seemed to have run out of steam. It can even be interpreted as sending a powerful message to Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party that voters wanted to inflict punishment for incompetence, economic mismanagement and sleaze.

But this one is more than that.

The now former governing party, returned with a majority of 80 in 2019, has been beaten to within an inch of its life. A generation of politicians long criticised for treating public life with contempt, have been ejected from office and parliament.

Step back, and this election can be seen as democracy rectifying the catalogue of its own glaring mistakes. Since the calamitous Brexit referendum eight years ago, Britain has suffered economic decay and a cost of living crisis (briefly exacerbated by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous so-called “mini-budget”).

It has endured a government with a lengthy record of rule breaking reflected in the UK falling to its lowest ever ranking in the Global Corruption Index. It has seen dodgy pandemic procurement contracts handed out, party donors appointed to the House of Lords and a sustained attack on its constitution, institutions, and rule of law. Tiresome culture war crusades have divided communities and polluted public life.

Denigration of public services from education to the NHS to the armed forces, crises in housing, the climate and inequality have been left unchallenged. Damage has been done to the country’s international reputation and relations strained with the UK’s closest allies in Europe.

What these errors have in common is that each one sits firmly at the door of 10 Downing Street and its four most recent inhabitants. This election emphatically draws a line under them.

Parties can fall

For so long in opposition and even during this campaign, Starmer’s party has danced to the populist tune of the government and its media cheerleaders. The challenge for his new administration as it takes power is to recognise that this election is a watershed, a rejection of this catalogue of mistakes, and an expectation of political renewal.

The more existential question is whether this election is also a watershed moment that will permanently change the shape of British politics. Could we be witnessing the demise of the Conservative party and the end of its hegemonic position at the centre of public life?

It happened to the previously dominant Liberal party a century ago when it split down the middle and was replaced by a new emerging Labour party. Such a shift is rare, of course, and requires some sort of major disruption.

In the years following the fist world war, Labour’s rise was fuelled by an extension in the franchise so significant that it makes the proposed votes for today’s 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds appear trifling. Indeed the Representation of the People acts more than doubled the electorate by giving the vote to women and the 40% of (working-class) men who were also previously disenfranchised.

There is nothing quite so seismic heading Westminster’s way today (though plans for automatic registration could add millions of voters). But the potential for comparison should not be dismissed.

Post-Brexit realignment, realigned

Party identification in the electorate, which has been in decline since the 1960s was turned on its head in 2019 when Boris Johnson’s Tories won a swathe of red wall seats in the Midlands and the north of England. For the first time, Labour voters were wealthier than Conservative. Labour, of course, went down to its worst defeat since 1935. There was talk of a new political cleavage, where class divisions had been replaced by leavers and remainers.

That this has all been reversed in the space of one parliament demonstrates the incredible fluidity in the electorate today. The more than 70 seats that have gone to the Liberal Democrats show the determination of the electorate to vote tactically to remove Conservatives in spite of an electoral system that has historically kept them in office.

And then there is Reform. Nigel Farage’s rag bag of a party has proved to be the ultimate protest vote for disenchanted Tory voters, attracted to the open acknowledgement that few if any seats could be won but the higher the vote, the harder the beating for the Conservatives.

As it happens, millions more voted Reform than was reflected in their seat share. While there are some leading Tories who would still welcome him into the fold, Farage perhaps overplayed his hand during the campaign making the Conservatives defensive of a rival, hell bent on their destruction. Time will tell if the Conservatives can resist the onslaught but for now the psychodrama of the right will be a political sideshow to the main event: an innocent new government and a refreshed parliament.

Britain’s parliamentary democracy facilitated this catalogue of mistakes which have proved so damaging to the country over recent years. But in this election it has also proved highly effective at beginning the work to rectification. If Starmer gets a moment to catch his breath, he might reflect upon this as the key reason he has been handed such a decisive majority.