Cutting benefits for the most vulnerable in society in order to increase defence spending, whilst refusing to increase taxes for the most well-off.
Reminder: this is a LABOUR government, with a MASSIVE majority, and yet THESE are the choices they're making. Remember this next time they come asking for your vote.
"These have been the inextricable evils of our day; we cannot address one of them apart from the two others. ...
Greed is racism's fuel. Only when this history is understood can the proper theological and ethical interventions take place.”
~ Ibid., pp. 6-7
#MartinLutherKing #capitalism #racism #WhiteSupremacy #militarism #greed
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“Notably, [Martin Luther] King, especially in the last few years of his life, drew attention to the three-headed evil that has plagued Western civilization: racism, materialism, and militarism."
#MartinLutherKing #capitalism #racism #WhiteSupremacy #militarism #greed
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~ Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2025), p. 6
https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-anti-greed-gospel/419161
Still valid after all those years....
UK Media Beating War Drums
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/uk-media-beating-war-drums/
Des Freedman asks: “When did you last see someone interviewed on the BBC who opposed spending more money on the military?” By Des Freedman Declassified UK The airwaves are currently dominated by gung-ho politicians, military “specialists” and defence correspondents talking…
#Politics #Commentary #Media #Militarism #Russia #Ukraine #UnitedKingdon #Bbc #DesFreedman #PresidentDonaldTrump #PresidentVladimirPutin #PrimeMinisterTonyBlair #SkyNews #TheSun
Alberto Garzón nails it here:
"How the Demise of Neoliberalism is Paving the Way for Militarisation, Economic Warfare, and a New Geopolitical Order."
https://agarzon.substack.com/p/from-austerity-to-war-a-change-of?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2728206&post_id=157241440&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=36y41&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
#ColdWar #militarism #NATO #OTAN
#PublicArt. This is the best term for it, not statues or street art, because the public is involved, so you know you gotta think about the public response - intended and incidental - as well as the artist's intention.
Older public art is particularly interesting because of change. Mostly - but not always - the artist's intentions don't change over time, but the public's reaction certainly does.
#TrafalgarSquare is a good example. It was built 180 years ago or so. Later than you might think, but earlier than I expected. It commemorates a naval battle of the #NapoleonicWars, but it wasn't originally going to - they were going to call it #WilliamIV Square or something. The theme changed from #royalism to #militarism, but that change isn't visible in the statues.
After 1815 and before about 1880, the #BritishEmpire was mainly #India, the #WestIndies, #Ireland, and an archipelago of #navy bases dotted around the world. The #UnitedKingdom was figuring out how to deal with its #democratic deficit, so there were a series of reactionary governments that paradoxically passed #ReformBills to extend the franchise. There were #labour riots, and an #industrial boom, and huge cities - particularly #London, but also #Manchester, #Birmingham, #Liverpool, #Belfast - growing like galloping weeds over the countryside. This was #Dickens 's England. This was the time of #TheMakingOfTheEnglishWorkingClass.
So what did they mean at the time by building Trafalgar Square? It has #propaganda value. Lord #Nelson was a controversial figure in his own time, but I can imagine the Duke of #Wellington trying to link his own political fortunes to a safely-dead hero in the 1830s. The square was built with #parliamentary approval and funding, and with quite a lot of public subscription too - though what a 'public' means in that context isn't obvious. Probably wealthy #industrialists, the #techbros of the age, but I'm guessing.
Since it was built, more - but much smaller - naval commemorations have been added. So its original goals weren't forgotten, but extended - artist intentionality changing over time.
The #Suffragettes used Trafalgar Square extensively for protests. I think we can reasonably link their use of the square to the original political use of the square. It was built in an era of Reform Bills that didn't reform the vote for #women. They could hardly do better than to make their protest clear in a space which modeled the thing they were protesting about - a powerful, militarist, partly-democratic England that didn't include women.
#Labour also used Trafalgar Square for protests. One of my favourite photos is of #KeirHardy - the Keir who the current prime minister is named for - speaking from the base of #NelsonsColumn in 1908. You have to know about it, but Trafalgar Square is a labour monument.
And to this day, Trafalgar Square is a traditional rally point for demonstrations and protests. No important London protest or demo happens without going through Trafalgar Square.
This use of their commemorative art would be totally alien to people who funded its construction. They're more likely to have been the backers of the #PeterlooMassacre.
The square was famously sandbagged during the Second World War, to preserve it from being damaged, and I gather many Londoners at the time considered that to be symbolic of resistance and survival. So the art became invisible to the public, but people were still aware of it.
These days, Trafalgar Square is a landmark of London, in many ways as iconic and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. That might please its builders, but probably wasn't what they expected. It's also a rendezvous point, with its tube station and its buses. A gathering place. It hosts incidental modern art on the famous empty plinth.
Public art is inspirational. This is just Trafalgar Square - all the things I've seen give me the shivers when I think about how much embattled history is locked up in stone and bronze, under which people eat sandwiches, kiss lovers, wave placards, make speeches, and which get periodic paint douses, get stood on, relabeled and reinterpreted, dressed up and eventually pulled down.
Another time I'll write about other public art I've seen. #StPetersburg and #Moscow are rather heavy on such art, but there is so much important stuff to say about it.
George Grosz, 'War' (1924)
#fascism #Germany #Prussia #Faschismus #Preußen #Deutschland #antifa #militarism #war #Militarismus #Krieg #art
Callout for anti-militarist agitation
We are being made afraid of war. Politicians are talking about reintroducing the draft. In the meantime, the #Netherlands and related countries are supplying the bombs that are being used to bombard #Gaza.
Weapons' fairs are being organised as if they're a day trip. Universities claim that their contribution to the machine of war and colonialism is merely for the purpose of science. And in 2025 the #NATO summit will take place in the Netherlands for the first time.
Let's resist the wars that will still come. Every action can be a beginning for more actions, for a countermovement, for a #struggle against the elite.
Taking this in mind, we encourage everyone to act against #militarism, #nationalism and #war between 1st and 8th of February
We call out to a week of agitation:
Spreading propaganda, pamphlets, and other material
Organising events and info evenings
Doing above ground and underground actions
Against the militarisation around us!
https://acties.todon.nl/event/callout-for-anti-militarist-agitation
The Chris Hedges Report: America’s Academic Gulag
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/01/23/the-chris-hedges-report-americas-academic-gulag/
“Putting dangerous technology in dangerous hands” — MIT PhD students Prahlad Iyengar and Richard Solomon discuss their school’s collaboration with Israel’s extermination campaign and how dissidents are being suppressed. By Chris Hedges The Chris Hedges Report This interview is also…
#Politics #AdvancedTechnologies #Censorship #Commentary #FreeSpeech #Israel #Militarism #Palestine #U.s. #Ai #AntiSemitism #AntiZionism #Biotechnology #C.WrightMills #ChrisHedges #ChrisHedgesReport #CoalitionForPalestineAtMit #CoresetCompressionAlgorithms #DanFeldman #DanielHale #DanielaRus #ElbitSystems #FacialRecognition #InformationTechnology #IsraeliMinistryOfDefense #KillerDrones #LockheedMartin #MachineLearning #Mit #MitComputerScienceAndArtificialIntelligenceLaboratory #Nanotechnology #NationalScienceFoundationFellowship #PrahladIyengar #RichardSolomon #Robotics #SheikhJarrahEvictions
Violence is Deeply Rooted in American Culture: An Interview With Henry A. Giroux
By C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout, January 17, 2013
"There is little doubt that the role of the #NRA is instrumental in the violence haunting American culture, or that gun control is important, but it is only one factor in the culture of symbolic and institutional violence that has such a powerful grip on the everyday cultural apparatuses and workings of American society. The issue of violence in America goes far beyond the issue of gun control. When gun control is the focus — instead of a broader consideration of violence — it can actually serve to deflect the most important questions that need to be raised. The grave reality is that violence saturates almost every aspect of North American culture. Domestically, violence weaves through the cultural and social landscape like a highly charged forest fire burning everything in its path. Popular culture, extending from Hollywood films and sports thuggery, to video games, embraces the spectacle of violence as the primary medium of entertainment. The real issue here is the existence of a pedagogy of violence that actually makes the power of deadly violence attractive. Representations of violence dominate the media and often parade before viewers less as an object of critique than as a for-profit spectacle, just as the language of violence and punishment now shapes the U.S. culture — with various registers of violence now informing school zero-tolerance policies, a bulging prison-industrial complex, and the growing militarization of everyday life. There is also the fact that as neoliberalism and its culture of cruelty weaves its way through the culture it makes the work place, schools, and other public spheres sites of rage, anger, humiliation, and misery, creating the foundation for blind rebellion against what might be termed intolerable conditions. Accepting the logic of radical individual responsibility, too many Americans blame themselves for being unemployed, homeless, and isolated and end up perceiving their misery as an individual failing and hence are vulnerable to forms of existential depression and collective rage. We have seen such violence among students reacting to bullying and among postal workers responding to intolerable work conditions. There is no one cause of violence, but a series of a number of causes that range from the war on drugs and the militarization of police departments to mass incarcerations in prisons to the return from brutal wars of many trained killers suffering with #PTSD. All of these factors combine in an explosive mix to create an dangerous culture of violence and cruelty and as Jeff Sparrow points out a 'willingness of ordinary people to commit unthinkable atrocities.'"
https://truthout.org/articles/violence-is-deeply-rooted-in-american-culture-interview-with-henry-a-giroux/
#CultureOfViolence #Militarism #MilitaryExtremism #USMilitary
Interview with Israeli dissidents taking action for #Palestine
#PalestineAction #PalestineSolidarity #Elbit #ShutElbitDown #UKpol #militarism #IsraelWarCrimes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3Ga4DiV7eM
How Israeli hooligans fueled fascism in the Netherlands
https://www.doorbraak.eu/how-israeli-hooligans-fueled-fascism-in-the-netherlands/
"These events in our city have become worldwide news, portrayed as a targeted ‘pogrom’ against jews, by mass-murderers such as Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe Biden."
Trump Doesn’t Hide Plan to Use Military Against Protestors & Immigrants
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/11/13/trump-isnt-hiding-plan-to-use-military-to-quash-protests-deport-immigrants/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trump-isnt-hiding-plan-to-use-military-to-quash-protests-deport-immigrants
The recent Supreme Court decision granting presidents nearly absolute immunity for official acts leaves fewer guardrails to prevent Trump from abusing his authority, writes Marjorie Cohn. By Marjorie Cohn Truthout “The next time, I’m not waiting” before committing troops to suppress…
#Politics #CivilRights #Commentary #Election2024 #Immigration #Legal #Militarism #Military #Protests #U.s. #U.s.SupremeCourrt #14ThAmendment #1878PosseComitatusAct #AttorneyGeneralWilliamBarrGeorgeH.w.Bush #BlackLivesMatter #CitizensForResponsibilityAndEthics #Deportations #DonaldTrump #GeorgeFloyd #Gov.PeteWilson #HaroldHongjuKoh #InsurrectionAct #Lawfare #MarjorieCohn #MarkA.Milley #MichaelLoughlin #NationalGuard #NationalLawyersGuild #PresidentGeorgeH.w.Bush #RodneyKing #SecretaryOfDefenseMarkT.Esper #UniformCodeOfMilitaryJustice
TrumpPick For Defense Sec Pete Hegseth Spent College Years Crusading Against ‘Glorification of Diversity’ & ‘Homosexual Lifestyle’
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trumps-pick-for-defense-sec-spent-his-college-years-crusading-against-glorification-of-diversity-and-the-homosexual-lifestyle
#PeteHegseth #DefenseSec #ManhattanInstitute #USpol #Trump2 #GOP #militarism
#fascism #authoritarianism #extremism #disinformation
#Christofasciam #antiLGBT #homophobia #antiDEI
Trump to nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/12/g-s1-33970/trump-pete-hegseth-fox-news-defense-department-military
* past CEO, Concerned Veterans for America, veteran advocacy organization
* Fox News contributor 2014+
* 1 House Republican Committee chair shocked at nomination
* Hegseth was not on known list of names under consideration
* no sense of his background/vision
#PeteHegseth #FoxNews #DefenseSec #ManhattanInstitute #USpol #Trump2 #GOP #militarism
#fascism #authoritarianism #extremism #disinformation
Trump’s Plans for Military & Defense Spending
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/07/trump-military-defense-spending-policy-pentagon/
unpaywalled: https://archive.fo/KJTPx
* domestic deployment
* Iron Dome missile defense shield
* Schedule F: fire woke left-wing Democrats ASAP
* no DEI
#USpol #Trump2 #MAGA #Trumpism #GOP #USmilitary #militarism #MIC #NuclearWar
#fascism #authoritarianism #extremism #disinformation
#antiLGBT #transphobia
#HeritageFoundation #Project2025
#capitalism #billionaires #Musk #AmericaPAC #libertarianism
#Christofascism #misogyny
What the Air Force doesn’t want us to notice on election night
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/11/05/what-the-air-force-doesnt-want-us-to-notice-on-election-night
reposted: https://www.nationofchange.org/2024/11/05/what-the-air-force-doesnt-want-us-to-notice-on-election-night
* while everyone’s attention on U.S. pres. election, U.S. Air Force will test-launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile w. dummy hydrogen bomb
* does this several times a year
* launches are always at night while Americans sleeping
As Election Nears, Kelly Warns #Trump Would Rule Like a #Dictator
#JohnKelly, the Trump White House’s longest-serving chief of staff, said that he believed that #DonaldTrump met the definition of a #fascist.
By Michael S. Schmidt
Oct. 22, 2024
"In response to a question about whether he thought Mr. Trump was a fascist, Mr. Kelly first read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online.
"'Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a #FarFight #authoritarian, #ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a #dictatorial leader, centralized #autocracy, #militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,' he said."
Original article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/us/politics/john-kelly-trump-fitness-character.html
Archived version
https://archive.ph/fSCbl
#WeDontNeedThatFascistGrooveThing #CharacteristicsOfFascism
#Fascism #DictatorOnDayOne
#Fascist #FullOnFash
