1. The thing is, everyone falls into the same pattern time and time again:
a) Outrage on Twitter 2) Sign petitions 3) Email our MPs 4) Rinse and repeat ad nauseam.
2. (You know I'm pee'd off if my come in paragraphs with sub-paragraphs, btw)
3. Then tomorrow or the next day it will be overtaken by some new scandal, and nobody will even remember, or if they do, will barely care.
Round and round and round it goes. Where it stops, nobody knows.
4. The ERG headbangers, notionally led by our PM, actually shut down Parliament illegally. Do you remember that? To run down the Brexit clock and make sure there was no Vote of No Confidence until they were ready for it, they wrecked the constitution.
5. Don't get me started on the No Deal Brexit they were clamouring for, for years. Or the pure evil of the govt's response to Covid. And Dominic Cummings. Remember him? Because he was running the govt., not Johnson.
6. So yeah, we can all have a good moan on social media about how corrupt the govt. is, but are any of you actually going to DO anything about it? Are you still clinging on to the delusion that Sir Keith will ride up on his white horse and save you all?
7. Listen very carefully. I will say this only once:
You cannot rely on a system that is corrupt to its core to reform itself, no matter what "side" MPs claim to be on.
8. We are facing the worst existential crises in living memory. Capitalism has run out of corporations to asset-strip, and less-developed countries to "structurally adjust" to leech dry, so now they are moving on to devour developed countries.
9. The people running the country are dismantling every asset our parents and grandparents built, and stripping every last penny out of country while they still can.
10. You have two options:
a) kvetch all day on social media
b) do something.
I vote we do something.
Organise with like-minded people. Build a movement in your communities. Get active with NGOs. Get off your butts and create the country you want to live in, from the ground up.
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1. The Tory govt. - ably assisted by Labour, who imo under Blair were one of the worst govt's in terms of civil liberties - are seeking to push through social media legislation in the name of "safety" that, effectively, amounts to a new sedition law: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition
2. Free speech is not the freedom to incite hatred, criminal acts, or put people in fear of their lives. Freedom of expression is defined in Art. 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in the following terms:
1. Raab may be right to say that it's ridiculous for someone convicted of domestic violence to claim right to family life with his victim to stop his deportation. If (unlike Theresa May's cat story) this genuinely happened, you can bet your bottom dollar the courts rejected it.
2. But what Raab is seeking to do is take that right away from everyone - however sustainable their claim may be - on the basis of a few that might push their luck.
3. To put it in context: the right of appeal against a Deportation Order per se was taken away by this govt. in 2014. You can only appeal on the basis that it is either a breach of your Human Rights or a breach of the Refugee Convention.
1. This is my Scottish Papa, Joseph Nicol Bell - 2nd from the right in the back row. He lied about his age to sign up to fight in WW1. He was injured in the Somme.
2. He was a Labour man all his life, and worked as a forester after the war. He was in the Home Guard during WW2.
Keir Starmer was DPP between 2008 and 2013.
Some of these spy cops are likely to have infiltrated protest and opposition movements during that period.
No wonder he wanted to abstain on the Spy Cops bill.
Congratulations to @fruitbatmania
Don't support her persecutors!
1. At the time of the #ChickenCoup, on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in an area of Liverpool known for one or two rough pubs, a window was smashed at the side of a building that just so happened to have Angela Eagle's constituency office at the back of it.
2. I'm sure you all remember the claims that a brick (it wasn't) had been thrown through her window (it wasn't) by Corbyn supporters to threaten Eagle. In fact, the police later confirmed it was a bit of masonry, but never found out who did it.
3. Then there was the "cancelled meeting in Luton" due to the "hotel receiving threats". Except there was no evidence of any threats being made. The reason given by the hotel was that they became aware of the nature of the meeting (maybe they were Tory supporters)
1. People often think that Buddhists should be nice. It is a myth perpetrated by a West that has no understanding of Buddhism.
Thing is, sometimes being "nice" is not compassionate.
It is not "nice" to blithely sit by and let a govt. destroy a country and its people.
2. It is not "nice" to see suffering all around you and sit in your corner, gazing at your naval and wishing for a better world.
It is not "nice" to be silent and calm when the world around you is crying out for help.
3. I will always strive to be compassionate. That might mean that I am not "nice". And compassion means that I must fight this evil goverment, and the structure that underpins it, with every fibre in my being. #NotNice