#why you did that to corbyn

[ohagi-bites]

🎶🤍✨when u get this, list 5 songs u like to listen to, publish. then, send this ask to 10 of your favourite followers (positivity is cool)🎶🤍✨

In no actual order

- Bad Intentions by BM

- One Look by Leo

- ATAP by BM

- Don’t Run by Corbyn Besson

- Blood On The Floor by Kuiper

(There are so many others that I want to include omfg having to choose is my least favorite thing on the planet 😩)

Whoever sent this to me, I wanna give you smooches because you’re sweet🥰🫂🫂🫂

[knapptapp]

Elevator- JamesPotter x GN!Reader

WC: 950

You are stuck in a muggle elevator with James Potter, Who wont stop flirting with you

Tags: Fluff, angst(?), Sarcastic reader, Slytherin reader, Flirty James Potter, Insecure reader

A/N: Wrote this from a prompt, trying to dip my toes into the Marauders fandom not a fully fleshed out fic or anything. A little experiment

“This might be a bad time to mention it, but I really like your perfume.”

“Oh shut up,” You said with a scowl as you once again pushed the emergency button.

Professor Corbyn had thought it a wonderful idea to assign the seventh year class a lengthy list of ‘muggle activities’ to complete. She had also thought up the brillant of idea of assigning partners randomly. Though you had your doubts about the “randomness”.

Still, it was a project worth a good chunk of your grade. As much as you wanted to, you couldn't blow it off. Which is how you ended up stuck in an elevator with James fucking Potter. James who thought your perfume was of utmost importance at the moment.

“No seriously, it's quite lovely.”

You ignored him and pressed the call button. A moment passed…..Nothing. Great, not even the phone was working.

“Where did you get it? From Diagon alley or-”

“Can you be useful for once?” You interrupted.

James pushed himself away from the wall he had been leaning on, “Can you apparate?”

“No.” You admitted begrudgingly. Getting your license was on your to do list, there just hadn't been enough time. You were really starting to regret not putting it up higher on your list. You fanned yourself with your hand.

“Someone will come for us eventually.” James said with a shrug. He seemed completely care free and not at all worried about the situation at hand.

“Yeah. If we don't die from heatstroke before then.” You settled against the wall opposite of him and slid down till you were seated. It was just a tad bit cooler down on the floor.

“I know how you could cool off.” James said with a smirk. Just in case you hadn't understood his comment, he lifted just the hem of his shirt to reveal a sliver of tanned skin. You quickly looked away, but not before you caught a glimpse of a dark trail of hair disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans.

“Oh fuck off.”

James copied you and slid down to the floor. Instead of sitting with his legs tucked up to his chest like yours, he instead stretched them all the way out. The elevator was tiny and James’ legs were long, the sides of his red converse knocked against your thighs. Cloth shopping had been another part of the project.

“Have I told you your shoes are ugly?”

“Many times,” James responded unphased, “You just don't like them because they're red.”

“Horrible color.”

“I think you'd look really nice in red. Got one shade specifically in mind actually.”

“Yeah, no” You fidgeted with the fraying sleeve of your dark green jumper. House pride was taken very seriously in Hogwarts. Wearing gryffindor red was an act of betrayal.

“You would,” He insisted, “I even have a jumper that would look perfect on you! Says ‘Potter’ right across the back.”

“Careful now James, I might think you're hitting on me.”

“Did it take you this long to notice?”

You knocked his foot away with your palm. James allowed it before he returned it back to tapping against your thigh. He was such a tease. He had been on this since you two got assigned partners.

“Ha Ha very funny,” You replied dryly.

He tapped his foot rhythmically against your leg, you tried your best to ignore it. The elevator was completely silent. The music had cut off when the elevator had come to a sudden stop with a metallic screech. There was nothing but the sounds of James and your breathing.

Your whole body was on edge. You couldn't help but keep anticipating the worst. Any movement made you feel like the elevator would go crashing to the ground below, You were stuck on the seventh floor and you had heard one to many horror stories.

“I'm bored,” James said, “We should do something.”

“Like what?”

“Why don't we play a game of truth or dare?” suggested James.

“Truth or dare? Seriously?”

“What else do you have in mind?” he replied smugly.

“Fine, let's play.” you agreed reluctantly.

“Okay, I'll start. Truth or dare?” James challenged.

You sat for a moment, mulling over your choices. There weren't many dare options while stuck in an elevator, but everyone and their mothers knew James Potter was a master prankster. He could probably come up with something within a second. Hell, he probably already had fifty dares planned out. Better to play it safe then.

“Truth.”

“Okay..” James pretended to think for a moment, he stroked his chin and gazed up at the roof dramatically, “Why don't you like me?”

Oh. Straight into it. You looked away from him uncomfortably. The thing was, you didn't not like him. Honestly, it was the opposite. But you couldn't let him know that. You would never hear the end of it.

“I don't not like you…You're just loud…” You said carefully.

“I think i’m quite charming honestly,” James smirked.

“Yeah, you think that.” You said with an eye roll

“You don't think I am?” James tilted his head to the side, one loose curl fell in front of his eyes. God damn it. Yes, you wanted to say. I've thought that you are charming since fourth year. But of course, you don't say any of it.

“Not at all.”

“You're forgetting the rules of the game again.” He teased. He leaned forward, only a couple inches closer than before, but still all too close.

“I’m not lying.” You attempted to sound confident and self assured but you couldn't manage to bring your voice above a whisper.

The gods must have heard your prayers because the phone on the wall rang. James and you stared at each other for a moment. He finally pulled his eyes away from you and stood up to answer the phone. You and your feelings were safe for another day.

[toaarcan]

I need the anti-voting crowd to understand that not voting isn't going to cause the Democrats to take a long, hard, look in the mirror and suddenly decide that they need to swing left to appeal to more leftists.

When these centre-left parties lose, they get more centrist. They try to broaden their appeal and make themselves as appealing to as many people as possible.

The example I'll point to is my local centre-left party, Labour, who are currently poised on the brink of one of the largest victories they've ever had. By the time you read this, it may have already happened, election day is today.

Labour have been drifting rightwards on several fronts for a while now. One of the biggest examples of this was the 1997 elections. After repeatedly failing to defeat Margaret Thatcher and then subsequently losing once to John Major, Tony Blair became the new leader of the party, and reinvented it as New Labour, adopting a much more neoliberal economic approach and promptly got a historic victory.

Now there are a lot of reasons why Blair won as hard as he did, and I don't have time to break them all down, but at the end of the day, their adoption of neoliberal economic policies worked out enormously for them. Not only did Blair romp to victory, he maintained most of his popularity afterwards, reigning for an entire decade before finally stepping down in 2007.

Labour is also a handy demonstrator of why they don't lean leftwards after a defeat, because they actually did try that and it failed spectacularly.

After Ed "Wrong Milliband, wrong Ed" Milliband's dismal performance in the 2015 election, Labour actually decided to try and lean leftwards again, and selected Jeremy Corbyn as their leader.

Unfortunately, Corbyn was useless. Many a Brit will accuse him of not even actually wanting to be Prime Minister, instead just wanting to sit opposite an actual PM and oppose them. They're probably right.

The 2017 snap election, called by Theresa May, should've been an open goal. May was embattled largely by her own party, many of whom were strongly opposed to her attempt at a moderate Brexit deal. She was an unelected PM, chosen by internal party mechanisms after David "Bae of Pigs" Cameron fucked off post-Brexit disaster. The massive, and ever-growing pro-EU voting block were entirely unrepresented. The Liberal Democrats, normally a bit of a thorn in Labour's side in terms of hoovering up more left-wing votes, were still trying to recover from the massive hit in popularity they took after the disasterous Tory-Lib Dem coalition. Blood in the water for any left-wing party worth its salt.

Yeah so Corbyn fucked it up and lost. While May only ended up weakening her position, losing 13 seats and dropping below a majority, the Tories still got their largest vote share since the 80s and held onto power for grim death.

Corbyn stuck around, still didn't get any better, and promptly lost the 2019 election in a landslide. To this guy.

People didn't vote for Corbyn. In the media, he was pilloried as a communist and an antisemite (and he did such a terrible job of fighting that second one that to this day I still have no idea whether it was true or just a smear campaign), and his determination to take the high road only made him look weak and avoidant to the public. His policies got little attention and his campaigning was likely deliberately weak, shooting for the role of opposition rather than government.

It also didn't help that the people for whom Labour wasn't Left Wing Enough still didn't turn out. They still voted Green or didn't vote at all.

To the party itself, though, the message was clear. They'd gone leftward, and it had backfired spectacularly.

Corbyn promptly fucked off at long last and was replaced by Starmer, who is, as expected, another milquetoast neoliberal in most regards. And now, with the polls open for the 2024 election, and Starmer projected to win by such a massive margin that the term "Supermajority" has been thrown around like it's an inevitability, Labour has been engaging in what's been called a "purge" of its leftmost members, with most of Corbyn's base, including Corbyn himself, being barred from running as Labour candidates and instead having to run as independents.

Now, that might horrify you as a leftist, but to them, it's a course-correction. Corbyn and co. represent an era of failure for the party, where a leftward lean cost them two elections.

To swing back around to American politics, if the Democrats lose because of voter apathy, they aren't going to take it as a sign that they need to appeal to the left. They're going to take it as a sign that their appeal wasn't broad enough and they need more outreach to right-wingers.

They already lost in part due to voter apathy in 2016, they didn't move left to compensate. They found the Most Neoliberal Average Establishment Guy they could, rallied behind him, and it partially paid off for them. They at least won.

You want a more leftist Democrat party? Not voting isn't going to get you that. In fact, it will most likely have the exact opposite effect.

[bitterkarella]

JK Rowling: hello children Rowling: i want you to sssay hello to Rowling: graham lineham Lineham: [wearing foil hat] free masons run the country Rowling: he'sss got sssome great ideasss you should hear

Poe: joanne you don't need to bring him here Poe: like, you really don't Rowling: he hass thingsss to sssay and you're ALL going to hear them Poe: this is really kind of off topic for us here Rowling: EVERYONE will hear them

Rowling: ssssee, yearsss ago i disssmisssed graham lineham'ssss babble as the bad opticsss ravingsss of a lunatic Rowling: but now that the overton window hass sshifted Rowling: i'm proud to sssay thessse bad opticsss ravingsss are quite good actually!

Rowling: go ahead, graham, tell them what you told me Lineham: trans people produce no great films, no music, no art Lineham: they're incapable of doing this basic human thing because they're subhuman Lineham: untermensch, if you will Rowling: isssn't he great?

Lineham: trans books are always universally panned because of their incoherence Billy Martin: Hailey Piper: Eve Harms: Gretchen Felker-Martin: Joe Koch: M. Lopes da Silva: Arden Powell: Lor Gislason: Julya Oui: LC von Hessen: GE Woods: Michelle Belanger: Rain Corbyn: SA Chant:

FT Catulla: Viktor Athelstan: Meagan Hotz: Ziggy Schutz: Rose Sable: WN Derring-Judith: Charles Maria Tor: Devaki Devay: Dayna Ingram: Ori Jay: Ai Burton: Gabriel Valentine: Cosmin-Mihai Birsan: Jei D Marcade: Rhiannon Rasmussen: Max Turner: Taylor J Pitts: Vincent Endwell:

Bri Crozier: Theo Hendrie: Derek des Anges: Briar Ripley Page: Winter Holmes: gaast: Maya Deane: Charles-Elizabeth Boyles: Layne van Rensburg: Amanda M Blake: May Leitz: Alison Rumfitt: Rivers Solomon: Lillian Boyd: Torrey Peters: Taliesin Neith: Daniel M. Lavery: Joss Lake: Aubrey Wood: Jonah Wu:

Daphne du Maurier: Patricia Highsmith: Franz Kafka: Kafka: wait Kafka: why did the camera pan to me

Barker: oh you know why haha Poe: clive Kafka: why Kafka: [hugging blåhaj] i don't know what you mean

[jalwyn21]

I did. And I hope Joe saw it too. Just another reason to the mile long list of reason why NOT marring her was the right decision for Joe. 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭 I love how everyday she proves him right. 😹😹😹 // sorry why is that? (i don’t really understand😅)

Well, considering that Jeremy Corbyn is a family friend and Joe is clearly a left leaning, Guardian reader (2 family members were journalists at the Guardian ), Labour voting man.. I would be shocked if Joe were a monarchist. He never said anything about it, but looking at the evidence... You know? I think Joe's personal preference is for Britain to become a republic......

[tobacconist]

Okay like i actually feel so guilty and this isnt even a joke. i dont know how to say this without sounding insane but yes; wizards are real. i am one of them. no, i havent been to hogwarts. yes, i do have a wand. no, i won't show it to you. etc, etc. genuinely this weighs heavy on my soul. ive talked about this before but i feel like its important for me to write this out once again. j confess it: j was party to them what put that curse on jk rowling. (iykyk) like, bitch, im actually so sorry. it was never meant to go this far. i mean i never meant for... well, i dont think any of us did (originally) but now we are where we are, and theres no turning back. not now.

basically, there was a big uproar in the wizarding community after that play 'the cursed child' came out. idk, i never saw it. you see, jk rowling didnt actually 'write' the harry potter series. she 'wrote' it, but it was not actually 'wrought' by her, like... to put it bluntly, the original was all based off of real events (albeit with significant alterations) and ,madame, was the one chosen to write the 'muggle-redacted' version, because she has (distant) wizard ancestry. she herself is completely unaware of this. well then, anyway, then there was the fantastic beasts saga; and, like, we were ALL pissed off. even the muggles sensed that something wasnt right. it wasnt 'magical'. it was a disgrace. so... yeah... we did it. we... uh... put that powder on her doorstep, so to speak. we crossed some bones. it was actually nothing to do with transness at all to begin with, it was about some political shit to do with the labour party and jeremy corbyn? or something like that? idk, were not supposed to vote and be political, we have our own kings and queens. anyway yeah we were just sore about how we were portrayed in it and especially how she distorted the whole plotline about grindelwald and harrys children. like bitch, if youre listening, tell me: WHY DIDNT YOU WRITE 'THE FOUR MARAUDERS' LIKE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO!? OR 'THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE' OR 'HOGWARTS A HISTORY'? or ANYTHING ELSE! it could have all been so different... 'fantastic beasts'??? sorry what??? it was genuinely like smearing dogshite upon our screens. im sorry love, but were still right angry about it. we loved you... how... how could you? 'newt scamander' - who is this fellow? we have never heard of him. oh, what? did you feel some tingle of inspiration? some new character, who loves magical creatures. he was expelled from hogwarts... fond relationship with dumbledore... THATS HAGRID! THATS THE YOUNG HAGRID! FUCK! anyway yeah, i didnt watch any of the other ones cus it was just embarrassing to see johnny depp dressed up like that.

and ofcourse there was all the other stuff before that (dont forget to be awesome!) but basically we cast a spell, several spells, and sent evil fortunes to be upon her. i regret it deeply. but by gum was the woman strong! i beg you all to realise that she literally was not transphobic until we caused this incessant stream of abuse to be directed towards her. like, we literally did this to her. on purpose. it was a targeted campaign of psychic harassment and manipulation that we have put her through for YEARS, and its only a few months ago that she truly started to crack. weve all since disbanded, because covens never stay together very long; thats why hogwarts is only a dream - but the spells have been spoken and the weird it is weft, and it would be a strong hand that would unweave them. that is to say - it is ongoing, and i am so sorry sorry sorry sorry

and for the record :- transexuality/homosexuality/genderqueerness/goatfucking is literally not an issue in wizard society we literally have potions that can change your gender in an instant or turn it back again, most of us have non-human ancestry, and we regularly trade our sperm and eggs with other species such as elves and the chinese. so there.

[indiekidsupremacist]

I’ve been reading about anti-Vietnam War protestors who turned violent, groups like the Weathermen. They talk about the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Fred Hampton, both of whom advocated for non-violence, as what radicalised them. The fact that they’d been protesting and getting their heads cracked by cops for years now, and the war only seemed to grow bloodier, guided by its own brutal logic. The feeling that peaceful protest has reached the end of its usefulness. 

In modern terms: 38 American states have anti-BDS laws, as do many European countries. Unarmed protestors walking to the Gaza border fence in 2019 were shot by the IDF. Students are currently being harassed and deported for doing as little as appearing next to pro-Palestine protests, the UK has charged a rapper with terrorism for waving a flag, and now the US has announced that those who criticise Israel will be denied entry visas. All this is to aid a country committing the most documented genocide of the twenty-first century, a country where literal riots take place in defence of the right to rape prisoners. Where does it all lead? 

On Instagram, but really any social media, the comments under any post by a Jewish person are absolutely riven with antisemitism, ‘promised 2000 years ago’ jokes, and it’s no surprise. Equating Israel with Jews is the single most dangerous thing you could do if you care about the safety of Jewish people. Calling people antisemitic for opposing mass starvation, little children getting their limbs blown off, bombings of hospitals and assassinations of aid workers is not going to make them start supporting all that horror. It will make them think it’s good to hate Jewish people. Repressing and destroying the lives of student protestors is not going to make them change their opinions. It will create people who hate the state and now have nothing left to lose. 

Now, the violence in the states —  two Israeli diplomats shot and killed, the arson attack on the rally for hostages — and with the attacks come the measly denunciations of ‘violence’. Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the Manchester bombing is maybe the only good statement on terrorism that I’ve seen from a politician. To clarify: obviously, Killing People Is Bad. Who needs to be told this? But political violence happens for a reason — Hamas didn’t attack the music festival because they thought it’d be fun, they did it to counter the Abraham Accords and the increasing marginalisation of the Palestinian cause in the region. We have to understand why people resort to violence in pursuit of their political goals to prevent it from happening. 

When a vase falls and shatters, who do you blame? The glass on the ground? Or the one that pushed it?  

[phoenixyfriend]

Suggested Listening

I've heard a few distinct takes on the UN vote and the comparison of the US and Israeli actions in light of it. I don't fully understand everything about the politics around this vote, because it's a complicated dance and trying to understand what people are thinking is close to impossible when we don't know what's going on behind the scenes and what's just political theater... but I think listening to multiple perspectives might get us closer to understanding than just listening to one.

I have provided approximate bias/political spectrum position for each, as well as giving my reasoning or summary of why I think it's a useful listen.

This post includes The NPR Politics Podcast, Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera: The Take, and the BBC Global News Podcast.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post.

The NPR Politics Podcast - March 27, 2024 - Left-leaning, though not as far as some of the others. This contextualizes the relationship between Netanyahu and Biden among the history between Netanyahu and multiple past presidents, including Trump, Obama, and Clinton. It focuses in part on the domestic political dynamics and ramifications that Biden is facing, the question of funding, and the apparent self-contradiction of the US government when it comes to the possibility of conditions, sanctions, or other reprisal if Israel continues to disregard US concerns about the ground invasion of Rafah.

Democracy Now! - Several parts of the March 26, 2024 episode were focused on the UN vote and results - This is a far-left radio broadcast show that gets repackaged for online video and podcast dissemination. This coverage is much more critical, without 'well, maybe they're trying to [action]' as we see in some others, of the United States and its handling of the UN vote and subsequent fallout. The interview with Craig Mokhiber gets into some nitty-gritty details of something called the "General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace," which I didn't really understand. I can't speak to supporting that we take that part at his word, because it's not something I understand enough to endorse. He also refers to the United States as not only Israel's principal sponsor, but also its co-belligerent.

Short section: U.N.-Commissioned Report Lays Out Evidence of Israeli Genocide in Gaza

Short section: UNSC Approves Its First Gaza Ceasefire Resolution Ater U.S. Abstains

Full story: Ex-U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber: Israel Must Be Held Accountable for Violating Ceasefire Resolution

Full story: Jeremy Corbyn Applauds U.N. Ceasefire Resolution, Says World Must Prevent “Another Nakba”

Al Jazeera - March 26/27, 2024 (timezone-dependent, it was the 26th for EST) - I hesitate to place Al Jazeera on the standard left-right scale since it's outside the Western framework, as an independent Qatari news organization with some degree of funding from the government of Qatar. What I will say is that Al Jazeera provides a vital non-Western lens, even if some of the reporters are Western, when viewing politics in the Middle East. In this particular case, it also appears that they had a reporter much closer to the action in the UN than the others, as Al Jazeera has an office in the UN headquarters in NYC.

They also address a few curious things about last-minute negotiations on the floor of the UN, the immediate consequences of the US ambassador referring to the resolution as 'non-binding,' and asserts that the US warned Israel that they would be abstaining this time, which is why the US is seemingly confused at how upset Israel is about it. I'm not sure how intentional it is, but the message I got is that Israel tried to call the US's bluff and was then upset when the US followed through, because the US... wasn't bluffing. And did in fact abstain.

BBC Global News Podcast - March 27, 2024 - Dead center, variably left or right depending on the issue - This is a twice-daily podcast and generally contains three or four separate stories. Their coverage of Netanyahu walking back the cancellation of his officials' trip to the US is first, however, and I'm not sure how much it adds to analysis of the vote, but it is the most recent and has the latest of the updates.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post.

[acti-veg]

why don’t you support Keir Starmer?

He hasn’t really given me or many others on the left a good reason to support him. He gutted the left of the party when he came into leadership, he has continued to suppress leftist candidates in local elections, he helped stitch up Corbyn with the anti-senitism smear job only to never talk about it again, and literally told us that if we don’t like it then we can leave - which a lot of us did.

More than that, He has failed to take up a principled stance on Palestine, has failed to offer anything even approaching reasonable measures to avert a climate crisis or to address the growing wealth gap between rich and poor, which are the biggest issues he needs to address. His last news worthy act was to take in a member of the Tory party who was a right-wing xenophobe even by Tory stands, that didn’t exactly signal a shift to the left when he gets in power.

Labour are trying to occupy the centrist space at the moment to poach disaffected Tory voters, and while I understand that strategy, it is losing him the left wing vote. He’s ultimately an electoral opportunist whose values seem to change depending on what he thinks will get him the votes. I realise that isn’t exactly new for Labour politicians, but personally I find it hard to vote for someone when you have no idea what they or their party even stand for anymore.

[mariacallous]

Liz Truss is the most disastrous and unpopular leader in modern British history. Mortgage holders and small businesses still loathe her for sending interest rates through the roof. Her short, catastrophic premiership is routinely compared unfavourably to the shelf life of a lettuce. (A comparison first made by the bright leader writers at the Economist to give credit where it is due.)

When Labour wins the next election, its triumph will be in part the result of the public’s reaction against her vast and dogmatic economic folly.

If you were Liz Truss, you might retire from public life. At the very least you would apologize and hang your head in shame.

If readers expect contrition, however, they have yet to learn that being on the radical right means never having to say you are sorry.

Truss’s demotion from national leader to national joke has not embarrassed her in the slightest but pushed deep into paranoid conspiracism.

Her autobiography, bizarrely titled Ten Years to Save the West, as if the fate of liberal democracy depended on the advice of an epic failure,  shows that, despite all she did to this country, her eyes still shine with a bright, self-righteous fanaticism, as if the sockets are backlit by an idiot’s lantern,

Chutzpah used to be defined as murdering both your parents and asking the court for clemency because you are an orphan. In Truss’s case it is using the power of the prime minister to crash the economy and then claiming she was a powerless victim of the liberal elite.

Her writing is as lacking in self-awareness as it is powered by self-righteousness.

At one point she says in all innocence that, when Boris Johnson resigned in the summer of 2022, her agent encouraged her to join the race to be prime minister, as the campaign might be good for her profile.

But she reports that he then wisely added “it would be for the best if I came second”.

Later she informs us that during the leadership campaign she “frankly lost trust in many of my erstwhile ministerial colleagues who were supporting my opponent [Rishi Sunak].

“They had spent the last six weeks not just attacking me but seeking to undermine my plans, saying my agenda was unworkable."

Truss never stops to think that the few people who will finish this book will believe that her agent was right, and it would clearly have been for the best if she had never been prime minister.

Nor does she contemplate the possibility that her agenda was indeed “unworkable”, and was proved to be unworkable when her unfunded tax cuts and fuel subsidies sent the price of gilts shooting up, the value of the pound crashing down, and caused a crisis in the pension industry for good measure.

And yet, and yet…Mock her as much as you like. Please don’t hold back on my account. But you cannot dismiss her.

There are two reasons why Truss is still dangerous. The first lies in the strength of the right-wing clique that brought her to power.

It is true that Liz Truss did not become prime minister by winning over Conservative MPs. As with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party, Truss’s career illustrates the danger of expecting leaders who do not have the support of a plurality of their colleagues to function in a Parliamentary democracy.

But she still beat Rishi Sunak with the votes of 57 percent of Tory members.

And with the honourable exception of the Times, the Tory press was all for her. “In Liz We Trust”, said the Express “Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Woman”, cried the Mail. “Liz Puts Her Foot on the Gas”, cheered the Sun.

Kwasi Kwarteng set off a market panic as he put Truss’s ideas into practice in the mini budget of September 2022. The reaction of right-wing papers was not one of alarm, however, but of adoration.

“At last”, gushed the Daily Mail, “a True Tory Budget”. A Daily Telegraph commentator said it was “the best Budget I have ever heard a British Chancellor deliver”.

Meanwhile the Truss premiership allowed the voodoo economics of the US-influenced (and in all probability US-financed) think tanks to finally impose itself on this luckless country.  The Centre for Policy Studies welcomed the mini-budget saying it was “exactly what we would have hoped for”. The Taxpayers’ Alliance called it “the most taxpayer-friendly budget in recent memory”.

Robert Saunders of Queen Mary University made the unarguable point that Truss was not an aberration or some alien figure that had appeared from nowhere to take over the Conservative party.

Follow  the money that cascaded in from party donors, he said, and “the Truss premiership begins to look less like the personal failure of a flawed individual, and more like a systemic disaster for which the party bears collective responsibility”.

Those forces will dominate the Conservative party after its defeat and drive it to the radical right. Indeed, in opposition the members, the think tanks, the  press and the ideologue donors will become more important, for they will be all the party has.

In a sign of things to come, Truss is already allying with Nigel Farage, and even Rishi Sunak says he will not ban Farage from joining Conservative party.

Despite her failure, Truss remains a potent figure on the radical right because of her championing of revanchism, which is now its dominant emotion.

This isn't a book. It’s a 300-page wail of resentment at a world that will not do as it is told.

I have no problem with conservatives complaining about woke policies taking over institutions. Only a fool or liar maintains that progressive biases among supposedly impartial organisations are an invention of the right,

But the woke conspiracy Truss invokes is of a wholly different order. It is utterly fantastical.

To recap, Truss's unfunded subsidies and tax cuts panicked the bond markets.  They would not lend to a country whose leaders lacked plausible means of meeting its debts. Or if they did lend they would demand an additional yield on government bonds, which  became known in plain-speaking financial markets as the “moron premium”: the extra cost that comes with lending to a nation run by idiots.

In her apologia Truss, who still poses as a Thatcherite, no longer sees markets as an expression of the wisdom of crowds, but as a conspiracy to do her down.

 “I came to realise there is no such thing as ‘the market’ in this sense. Rather, there are groups of influential individuals in the financial establishment, all of whom know and speak to one another in a closed feedback loop. The Treasury, the Bank of England, and the OBR are deeply embedded in these social networks and share the same beliefs in the established economic orthodoxy."

The markets were at fault for not seeing her financial genius. Financial traders were the world’s unlikeliest lefties. Even though she and Kwarteng fired the permanent secretary at the Treasury and cut out the Bank of England and Office for Budget Responsibility from policy making, they were still, somehow, responsible for Tory failure.

“The powerful vested interests there pushed back, made my life very difficult and ultimately got me fired,” Truss concludes.

Older readers may remember a time when Conservatives insisted on personal responsibility. You were not allowed to blame crime on poverty or your failings on a bad childhood. You were accountable.

But the case of Liz Truss proves that these morality tales were only ever for the poor. In her mind, the economy collapsed not because of decisions she made but because of “a sustained whispering campaign by the economic establishment, encouraged and fueled by my political opponents in the Conservative Party who refused to accept my mandate to lead”.

Trumpism is the end point of such conspiracism and revanchism, and Truss goes all the way down the line to the terminus.

She mutters about the “deep state” a Trumpian phrase she uses without irony or self-knowledge.

And even though her support for Ukraine was her redeeming feature during her time as foreign secretary and prime minister, she is now supporting the pro-Putin Trump and his allies in Congress who are denying aid to Kyiv.

Truss is finished. But the resentment born of failure and the fury at modernity ensures Trump is still very much with us. 

If he delights Putin and wins in November, the UK and Europe will learn the hard way that the real threat to Western civilisation comes from  Liz Truss and her friends.

[corbanleigh]

November

As I get older, I have become more anxious about what I am doing day-to-day and long-term. "Am I wasting the day away?" , "What if I'm letting my good years pass by with nothing to show for it?", "You are only 24, you shouldn't be a homebody." I beat myself up for doing the things I like or not doing anything at all. When I visit family or family friends, they just HAVE to ask about what I am doing with my life, my job, more school...

When did it become a bad thing to want to be a homebody and to have and enjoy hobbies? When did it become a bad thing to just want a peaceful life filled with the people you love, in a place you love, doing the things you love.

I LOVE to read. I have read 20 books this year, over 8,000 pages. Yet, they never ask about what I'm reading, or the worlds I'm immersed in.

I cross stitch and craft and sew. Yet, they never ask what I have created recently. I've made multiple holiday and birthday gifts for my friends, and sewn multiple pillows for around the house. I am constantly looking at old patterns and getting ideas of what to make next.

I avidly research the genealogy of all sides of my family. I want, no, NEED to know the story of my ancestors and the places and stories they left behind. I've gotten as far back as the 10th century on the Corban/ de Corbyn side, yes we were French royalty. Yet, when I try to show this off I get told how boring it is.

I don't understand why the things I like to do can't just "be my life". Why do I have to strive for this lifelong career in Education, where I am constantly abused and disrespected by my students, teachers, and admin alike. Why is a simple life looked down upon now?

I've noticed that the people who look down on what I do are also the people who are so brainwashed to LOVE this capitalist society where you are worked until death, and for what? I want to actually LIVE my life doing the things I truly enjoy doing, with the people I love. I want to be rich in ways that aren't monetary. Maybe that will result in me being looked down on by others, but I'll argue that I won't be as miserable and bitter when I look back on my life. I'll end this brain dump with one of my favorite quotes that has been rattling around in my head for a while now, and be ready for updates on all the things I truly love to do.

-Corban

[libdeminomenon]

There are a few posts on here about Ed Davey, leader of the Lib Dems, having a terrible voting record. People say the same about Rory Stewart, an ex-Tory, now most known for The Rest Is Politics podcast with Alastair Campbell.

I think people are too stuck on voting records. We need to remember the role of whips, and the consequences of disobeying them. Several Labour MPs, including Zarah Sultana, were recently suspended from the Labour Party for voting in favour of removing the Two-Child Benefit Cap.

While some people have supported their voting against their party, as the MPs are being true to their own beliefs or perhaps following their constituents' views, this display of division weakens parties as we saw with the Tories over Brexit, or with Labour and its split between the centre-left (Keir Starmer) and the further left (Jeremy Corbyn). This is probably why Starmer suspended his MPs - he can't afford for his party to look any weaker.

Getting themselves suspended is not going to help these rebel MPs remove the Two-Child Benefit Cap. They are now much less likely to be put in key positions under Starmer when they return, from which they could have had more of an influence on this matter and others.

While you may not agree with voting for things you believe to be wrong, you can surely see why people like Ed Davey, Rory Stewart, or even Nick Clegg felt that they had to do that. Davey and Clegg obviously did not want to raise university tuition fees - it was against what they had promised! But they had to compromise this in order for the government to continue to function and to show a strong, united front. They likely believed that it was better for the country for them to stay in power, to block as many austerity policies as they could, even if they lost on tuition fees.

I think we should be more sympathetic to UK politicians' voting records. We shouldn't write off the Lib Dems because of the coalition - coalitions are a very Liberal and very Democratic concept, where as many voices as possible are listened to, instead of just having one party in power - and this makes it clear why Nick Clegg entered the coalition, despite knowing he would have to concede things to to Tories. What do you think?

[thegalievthought]

The Palestinian War Issue 2: International Solidarity

The war in Palestine which began early this morning was met with solidarity with many groups, from groups in the MENA whose support was unsurprising and expected. Nations like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were almost certainly going to support the zionist state without question; this was again not surprising. Outside of the MENA, it gets more complicated and many parties like Sinn Fein in light of the war have turned their heel on the Palestinian issue, the Sinn Fein spokesperson on foreign affairs and defense Matt Carthy put out a statement calling for an “urgent end to the hostilities in Gaza and Israel.” This heel turn is saddening yet not surprising for the European ‘socialists’, a few French and UK parties who were pro-Palestine before the war have backstepped to a liberal notion of peace. The Palestinian people have assured the world today that peace is not an option, nor was it ever. After 70 years of occupation and then the genocide of the Nakba, peace was not an option for Palestine when their people were beaten, and killed, and their land was stolen every day. You see in Ireland when the Troubles were the topic of the day, Palestinians did turn away and say, “Oh those are Europeans why should we care” or “They should find peaceful solutions to the oppression of Irish people in Northern Ireland”. No, they stood with us in solidarity calling for the liberation of the North from the occupation of the UK. And in those days Irish Republicans stood with Palestine against the genocide. I am foremost not here to point and say names, but I am here to talk about such ideological issues as the turncoats in Sinn Fein that have refused to support the war of liberation for oppressed peoples in Palestine. Even people who 15 years ago were calling for the liberation of Palestine in this way just as they called for the liberation of Ireland like Jermery Corbyn have called for a ceasefire. Let me make it clear Palestine doesn't care if you're Jermery Corbyn, Cornel West or Sinn Fein's whole voter base. Calling for peace when facing a certain continuation of genocide is an unacceptable demand the only demand that is acceptable for peace is the end of the genocide, the end of all illegal settler colonies and the immediate end to violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque none of these quite simple and most moderate demands will be met without the violence that Sinn Fein and the others ive so mentioned called for an end of. The liberation of Palestine from genocide is a moderate demand.

[thatcheeseycandle]

//WAKE UP YOU LOT TW FOR MAJOR SPOILERS ON IPOS'S CHP. 35 BLUE PETER ITS TIME FOR A READING

Ogdkayahahhaaa OFHHAHgAHANAHAHZHSBSXUGCGDAGCSKHVSBVS

YOU ANEKAY

THE SUMMARY IS ALREADY FRYING UP MY THROAT

wait WIA TWIA TIAUJAIAIAA OLIVA REAT UP FOR GODS SAKE

OLIVIA DO NOT NO NO

North NORTHHRHAHAHDHDVAHAHHAJAAOAOOAOAOA NORHTA REASEARCH

HIS RESEARCH

I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID OLIVIA GO THROIGH THEM FILES

Wait WAIT. PEONY JUST- OH YEAH THAT MAKES SENSE NGL

STILL NOTING DOWN

Wait A HOUSE??????? WDYM AT ROOSTERA FARM. OKAY YEAH. CONAIDERING A LOT I'D HAVE TO STRETCH OUT A GUESS THAT THIS IS WHERE GNSJOURNAL TOOK PLACE WITH THE LIGHTING

But like I said THATS A FAR ATRETCH SO YEAH COUGHA YEAH

Wait AY AY WAIT. IM GUESAING THAT WAS POLLY NGL YEAH. YEAH THAT WAS POLLY DEF DEF

OKAY I GOTTA SPEEDRUN YHIS READ ITS NEARLY DINNER FOR ME RN AS OF WRITING THIS YEAH THIS SENTENCE

Ay AY. I

I newd I NEED. TO NOT. SCREAM. Give me a sec

Okay I screamed MYAHAIAAAAAAAA MU GOSH

I

I SCREAMED AGAIN WHAT AY AY AY AY OLVIAII OLVIAIA SAAN KA NAAAAAAAA

GOOD GOSH- THIS IS WHY YOU WRITE DOWN ADDRESSES PEONY THIS IS WHY

Ay AYAYAYAYAYAY KING GEORGER CORBYN AYYYYYY

Oh. Oh right Merfyn and his uh COUGH COUGH. BLACK SMOKE. Ah.

Wait so- WAIT. OH THAT LITTLE SHIT. SO WAIT HE MEANT ALL THAT THE ENTIRE TIME. THAT LITTLE PRICK I SWEAR

Oh OH??? WELL DANG. AT LEAST HES BETTER AMIRIGHT-

Well crap thats THATA GONNA BE A SHORT ATORY ISNT IT

Blue pink?? TV GIR- NO NO NOT A TV GIRL REFERENCE DW

Woah WOAH WE GOING ALL NUMBERS NOW AY? THISLL BE INTEREATING NGL

I. Yeah uh COUGHS. A CERTAIN CAPRICORN WILL NOT BE PLEASED AT THAT MERFYN (the names are starting to confuse me IM SORRY)

ah gosh I GOTTA GO EAT SEC

AAAAAAAAA AI HAVE NEVER EATEN DINENR THAT FATS OGAHHSHS MY STOMAVH YEAH ITS GONNA EXPLODE

RIGHT BACK TO YEAH

My goah GOOD GOSH- MERFYN????? YOU PRICK YOUR LITERALLY MORE THAN A PRICJ NGL

Oh OG???????? NO WAY NO WAYAYHABDHDHDHAHAHHDDH

TAKE THAT KING II

Ah gosh KING GEORGE YOU DID THE ONLY THING YOU COULD DW

WAIT. LET ME PROCESS ALL OF THAY PLEASE

AY AYAYAYYYYYY BLUE PETER

HEREA TH MAN OF THE HOUR LETS GO LETA GOOOOO

Oh. Right good gosh- RIGHT. I KEEP FORGETTING THAT. OUGH. IT HURTS

WAAAAITYTT

I JUST SCREAMED IM SO SORY BUT GOODF SOH

STH AND EMOLY

Insrrt me reading all fo this wjusy speechless until-

"I just don't know! I'm confused, alright! What is this, a therapy session?!" I JUST. I BURSTED IM SORRY

THATS WHAT EVERY SCENE LIKE THIS FEELS LIKE GAGAHAHAHDGDHDHDH

IDK WHY I JUST BURSTED INTO LAUGHTER FOR THAT LONG DHFJFHJSHS

BACK TO SERIOUS MODE

Insrry me getting up and just ranting and rambling and sayung a kot after reading that yeah the thing Blue Oeter asked being "Are you offering mr a place on Sodor, sir?"

OHMYGAHAHAHAHAHGDJDUDDH

I COULDNT CONTAIN MYAELF I HAD TO I NEEDED TO JUST LET OUT ALL THE WORDS ALL THE SVREAMEA

MY GOASYJAJAJAIDH

I

IK SAINT MUNGO IS HAVIGN FUN WITH TORNADO AND CHARLIE

BUT GOOD GOSH HE NEEDS TO GET BACK TO BLUE OETER RN

RN. AS IN RN RN.

"AAGUWUAHABAAAAA MY THROAT" -what I just screamed out

Ay AY AY AY ITS THE BTI

WE'RE FINALLY HERE WITH THE AUSSIES LETS GO

Oh gosysb GREY GREY NONONOONONO

INSERT ME JUST AAYIMG VARIATIONS OD NO DONT DO IT IRL YEAH

OH THANK YOU PENDENNIS THANK GOD AND ABOVE GOSH

Ay ay AY AY

RIGHT TRURO- RIGHT. GOD UH. RIGHT

Bittern OFUJDDHDH I LOVE YOU GOOD GOSH FINALKY SOMEONE SAYING AOMETHING LIKE TGAT

"Course not! He's out in his human build right?" gREY MY GIRL HAGSHDHDH GOOD GOD

HDFHDJSHSH YEAH JUST CASUAL CASUAL

Ah God whos gonna tell Pendennis HAGHAGAHAGSHSGD

Insert me standong up just saying variations of oUGFFHHF and just irl jeyboard smashes

Insert me just being shocjed and hust rambling lshocked at what Horatio just did and how he looks

OHNSFAJAGAHAHHAHDD

PAUSE. SIT. CALM. I NEED TO PROCESS THAT

SERIOUSLY I MEAN. CONSIDERING HOW EXPOSED WE, THE READERS, ARE TO GDCS ALREADY I MEAN YEAH I WAS NEAR THE LEVEL OF SHOCK-NESS GREY AND GOLD HAD

Look LOOK IK ITS BEEN SAID LIKE HEY YEAH GDCS ARENT MUCH NORMAL AND YEAH MOST ENGINES ARENT AWARE OF THAT YADAYADAYADA YKNOW

but sraly I DIDNT KNOW IT WAS THIS SEVERE

Wait. QUICJSILVLERR?????

JAQUELINE- JAQULEINEGSHAJAAAAAAAAAAAA

OKAY IM YEAH YEAH

WDYM HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITG HER PAST??????

.

WAIT

HOW ON EARTH DOES JAQUELINE KNOW THAT. WAIT- IS SHE OKAY????????? NAH NAH SRSKY IS THIS WOMAN OKAY LIKE GOOD GOSH.

WDYM YOU JUST KNOW??????? WDYM. LIKE

WDYM RAT OUT TO THE GOLDEN ORDER???????

I

WHAT

WHTAAYAUAAAAAAAA

INSETRRYREY ME HAVING A HEART ATYACJ OHGMAUAUAOAB MERRY IS JAQUELINE BUT EAIT HOW I MEAM HOW HOW I JSYTS DID SHE DIE OR DID NORTH WHAT HUH WHAT HAPPEHHAJAAAAAAAAAA

[omnitricks]

this is a bunch of nothing but i made it so im going to post it somewhere. but its for me first and foremost

and for your reading pleasure im going to post a bunch of shit under a readmore

okay so, if you know me, you know that i have some level of bipolar disorder. i was tentatively diagnosed by a therapist i went to when i was about 17, and while i never got that formal diagnosis tattooed onto my body, it, frankly, was kind of fucking obvious in retrospect.

i have talked.. a LOT. about how my teens were filled with a near constant level of homicidal anger. a lot of it was comprised of your standard teen loneliness, going through the wrong puberty, and maybe a sprinkling of childhood emotional abuse, but. whatever. you get it.

i am also autistic, which is fun. the two are.. 'comorbid,' or something, maybe thats the wrong term, but i dont care. nobody is reading this. anyway. basically this means whenever i do feel something, which isn't always, i feel it in a Fun and Unusual way. so far i have been able to cope with my fun and unusual emotions by rationalizing them, or like.. anthropomorphizing them, but in reverse. i dont know. i am angry a LOT, and i form that anger in my head as a smilodon. again, autistic. not the point.

but i've never really thought about what my bipolar disorder itself felt like in my brain. until, y'know, this. this inexplicable thing i can't get rid of but makes my life harder. you know how it is. but.. anyway. back to the near constant level of homicidal anger.

im not going to blame the myriad shitty things i did as a kid exclusively on my mental illnesses, and how poorly they were managed, but im confident i wouldn't have been nearly as bad had i gone to a proper psychiatrist. and gotten medicated, probably. but then again i probably would've done better with *no* mental help considering the first therapist my parents took me to essentially pushed me back into the closet for a few years. that was fun.

point is. i've come to terms with a lot in the past few years, but only recently have i been able to like.. help with it? i have a very supportive partner and she helps so much in calming me down. but its still, yknow, a mental illness that i have.

which is why it's so upsetting to me when people refer to intrusive thoughts and become upset with you if you talk about yours and they're not fun and innocent and quirky enough. people with intrusive thoughts about murder rise up. 'eww theres something wrong with you' WHAT DO YOU THINK MENTAL ILLNESS IS, *CORBYN.*

sorry to any corbyns in the crowd tonight i bet you're a great 17 year old trans boy who hangs out in your high school's library during lunch.

this is a lot of rambling. but like. point is. i have bipolar disorder and it makes living hard and i never feel properly 'safe' in my own home. because, though i know this isn't true, i feel as if i could at one random moment just snap and enter another one of those white-hot rage states where i do something ill regret for the rest of my life. you know?

but all in all, im a lot better than i was. im not great *now* but im a lot better too

[captainarchmage]

Independence Day, UK

Declaring Independence from the Far-Right %$#@

Again I didn't want to make this blog about politics, but given events I have to. It's election day in the UK, and I had my vote in the post a long time ago. Specifically, I voted for the Liberal Democrats, because they had a decent standing in this constituency and explicitly said they're going to try to reverse Brexit. Reaction GIF below.

That doesn't mean the EU will accept, or that the deal we'll get will be the same as last time, but it's a critical move to fixing wrongs. Without rejoining at least the Single Market, Customs Union, and getting freedom of movement back we're going to be having issues with our own supply chains that won't go away. They can't go away, because we're not self-sufficient, because self-sufficiency isn't on these islands all it's cracked up to be, and because setting ourselves out as being a "global player" requires us to be able to easily trade and work with our biggest and most reliable partners, which is to say Europe.

If you're voting today, and are reading this, you should take care to understand what that *means* in terms of action as a citizen. Obviously if you live in Scotland, vote SNP, as they've taken a sensible stance on this and have always been for remain and rejoin in recent history. If you live in Wales, vote Plaid Cymru, for similar reasons. If you live in England, there's no explicit "English National Party" that is for working in a civic manner, but you have a choice between the Green Party and Liberal Democrats, and mostly the latter. Corbyn in Islington (and a few others) - I don't think Corbyn's stance on Ukraine is good, but that doesn't actually matter as he's likely not going to be a kingpin in making any of those decisions. This is about sending a message to the other reactionaries, and will cover this later.

On the matter of Ukraine... if anything DOES happen and Ukraine starts to fall back, this invasion is coming here. That's what history says. There's a lot of excuses, but the fact Russia launched a massive invasion in February of 2022 indicates they're not going to stop. The global conservative movement is behind these people, because something about "transgender anarchy in Ukraine" or "wokeness", according to the talking heads, or for that matter just genociding the Ukrainian people which is literally what's being said on Russian telly.

If Russia gets Ukraine, then they'll push westward. That's why it has to stop in Ukraine, and without Ukraine giving up any land. You know what would also help with defending Europe? An EU Army. This is why we need to rejoin, so you vote for a party that's going to put us on this path.

Note from the list of parties, I exclude from this Labour, as Labour has attempted to court the same socially conservative, anti-migrant, and prejudicial element responsible for running the Conservative Party into the ground. The Conservative Party already had issues before it swallowed the agenda of this reactionary element, but things in Britain took a steep downturn after brexit, with the disastrous handling of the pandemic, and finally the "markets" (hardly a communist creation) finally cracked when the agenda of CPAC-attending Liz Truss was launched. All this at the whim of this "reactionary element". You know, maybe it's better not to court those people AT ALL? At some point you gotta say enuf is enuf, not that it wasn't plain obvious beforehand where that agenda was going.

Trying to placate these people is... how much better than trying to placate people like Putin or The Former Guy? Seriously, people tried that. It didn't work, and none of the systems we thought would snap in to play or individuals we relied on to take action did. It didn't work "last time" either, save for the British PM to arrange re-armament of the country without relying on an alliance of countries that it turned out were quite fascist-curious as well. At least, however, Chamberlain acted in a manner that admitted this was not a long term solution and the push would come to shove. We don't seem to have that notion anymore. You know what's a good idea? Making sure they don't have "their guys" in Parliament in a significant number.

The advantage of getting rid of both Conservatives, and Reform, and knocking them into at least third place (if not fourth place), is that it also ensures these parties don't get a bullhorn in Parliament as they will not be the official opposition. That's due to Parliamentary rules. It means eliminating them from the running. Quite possibly this means the "end" of the conservative party, which is the "ultimate prize" here. It means making sure the main parties in coming decades are ones that are liberals, environmentalists, and civically-minded. Given that Labour seems to be in course for a large majority based on polling, giving your vote to other parties that are more progressive, more internationalist, understanding the coming challenges, more competent, and are also not so willing to let a vocal reactionary minority derail them, is a good idea.

And regards not letting a vocal reactionary minority derail a party, this is critical. How do you deal with these people? You don't give them an inch and you say the buck ends with you. Backing down in any sense of the word is weakness to these people. It's not going to give you any respect, and it may well not give you their vote, or actually telling these people to get stuffed may give you their vote, or you had their vote already and you didn't need to do anything about it. Ask yourself why these peoples' idols are often autocrats and the like. Don't ask me to make it make sense. Their view is more in line with "might is right" than any enlightenment ideals. You don't think like that, I don't think like that, but these people do think like that and you "act accordingly". The sooner you start pushing back, the sooner you free yourself from their %$#@.

Go Vote, and make it Independence Day from these people.