We need to talk about drugs. Of course we do. Even @CommonsSpeaker does. But, unlike me, he’s just picking up traces from the loos near @BorisJohnson’s office.
I’ve been watching Yellow Submarine. And it got me thinking about the state of the world.
A trip … I mean, thread./1.
If you’re sensible, unlike me you’ll have had better things to do than hang out with the crowd who are busy trying to dismantle the foundations of what we’ve fondly thought of as civilised life. /2.
(We’ll be a lot fonder of it once it’s gone. So let’s not overdose on the self-criticism …).
Who are they? Political actors. Massively wealthy, often cynical, self-appointed visionaries. Journalist & academic satraps. Forget voters: the whole point is they should be putty. /3.
Before we go any further, allow me to underline that my experience is there are some very fine people. In politics. Among billionaires. And in journalism & academia. It’s just that they’re losing. And have been for a couple of decades at least. Much worse in the last decade./4.
What is it which unites the wreckers?
I’m naming no names.
But if I say we’ve seen bizarre & erratic thought processes detached from any rational appreciation of external reality, I suspect a few famous faces will come to mind. /5.
It’s hardly controversial to say we’ve experienced aggressive, irritable, panicky, even psychotic behaviour, by numerous prominent figures in public life.
An extreme & unreasonable distrust of others is well-evidenced in the heightened xenophobia of the last years. /6.
In private, it’s routine to be deluged with disorganised thinking, paranoia, mood changes & phantasmagorical beliefs of such a scale & nature its hard to believe the individuals concerned aren’t having visual, auditory & perhaps other as yet unknown kinds of hallucinations./7.
Now I don’t know about you, but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck … etc., then it doesn’t really matter if it is one.
It might as well be.
(OK, that’s a cat, below, in case you were getting worried). /8.
Since everything I’ve described corresponds to US National Institutes of Health cocaine & LSD symptoms guidance, perhaps I’ve just been unlucky with the particular anarcho-authoritarians I’ve got to know best
Or there’s a pattern here.
Multicoloured & shifting, no doubt./9. End
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Donald Trump saying “Ukraine is finished” once again, starkly, highlights the question of what the world’s first & only (with the possible exception of Britain), & still remaining, hyper power would do geopolitically under his leadership.
But it isn’t just about Trump.
A 🧵/1.
I’ll be unashamedly Eurocentric.
There’s a broader & deeper story, of course. But Europe is a vital part of it.
The decision the USA has to make, as it did in the 1940s, & repeatedly at intervals after that, is whether it cares about Europe, & if so how much of it, & why. /2.
Does that include all of western Europe? Does it extend to central Europe? And eastern Europe? If so, should Ukraine be part of what the USA cares about (in the 40s that didn’t really play a role, given Ukraine’s status within the USSR)? And if so, how much of Ukraine? /3.
Brexit ripped us out of our $19 trillion GDP domestic market & reduced us to one a 6th of it, thumped our economy, fractured the UK, threw our governance into chaos, & generated perilous geopolitical effects.
And (if you mean it seriously) wildly naive about what actually takes place, legally (although you’d say “in my opinion this is unconstitutional”: good luck!) in the USA.
Still, if we just look at England/UK: yes, there are many concerns. /1.
I never said or, I hope, implied (to a fair, reasonable reader) that there weren’t.
For example (not the subject of my already long 🧵which focused on the way criminal incitement & freedom of expression relate) I personally deeply dislike revocation of citizenship. /2.
But you know that’s a thing in the USA as well, including for natural born citizens.
Involuntary self-revocation (in the guise of “voluntary relinquishment”) of citizenship sounds about as Kafkaesque as it gets.
But there it is, lurking malignantly in the Land of the Free. /3.
Twitter’s full of people trumpeting near zero understanding of English law or of the convictions in respect of the violence of the last 10 days or so.
Nor does the US 1st Amendment mean what many (often Americans) seem to think.
Frustrated? Maybe this will be some use.
A🧵/1.
“Incitement” was an offence under English common law pretty much forever.
In 2008 the Serious Crime Act 2007 replaced common law “incitement” with statutory offences of encouraging or assisting crime.
Incitement in respect of specific statutory offences remains. /2.
“Assisting” means roughly what you probably think it does. But, for clarity, it doesn’t require direct presence at the scene of the crime being “assisted”, or actions which are themselves part of that crime: if they assist the commission of it, that’s a criminal act itself. /3.
I’m not sure we yet know the whole truth about these men’s possible involvement, potentially as inciters to or participants in violence or even terrorism.
There are legitimate questions.
A 🧵/1.
To be guilty of terrorism in England, you don’t have to be physically present (see CPS guidance ⬇️). Similar considerations apply to some other crimes relevant to the current violent disorder.
“I was only tweeting” or “I was just asking questions” are far from safe defences. /2.
For the likes of Mr Musk or Mr Farage one might think their respective, prominent positions could protect them from criminal charges and severe consequences.
One might.
If one thought the AG, DPP, courts, police etc in England to be corrupt, weak or both.