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Jun 22, 2022 20 tweets 7 min read Read on X
#THREAD

The foreign/non-dom billionaire-owned UK "news" media exists to protect & prioritise the interests of a handful of greedy, cruel, & grotesquely wealthy elites against #SocialDemocracy. But don't take my word for it, listen to Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse & Albert Einstein: ImageImage
But what is 'social democracy'?

If you listened to representatives of the UK Govt, the right-wing UK media, or any of the usual 'outrage porn' culture war extremists, you'd think it was some kind of Marxist plot against humanity, because that's what voters are told to believe. Image
In reality, social democracy is the most successful, fair, & sensible political ideology to have come to prominence in the twentieth century, resulting in a sensible 'mixed economy', improvements in quality of life, & the reduction of wealth & opportunity #inequalities. Image
Social democracy is characterised as a political ideology that originally advocated a peaceful evolutionary transition of society from capitalism to socialism using established political processes, although this formulation has been significantly modified over the last century.
In the second half of the 20th century, following the the Wall St crash, the Nazi regime & WWII, there emerged a moderate version of the doctrine, generally espousing state regulation, rather than state ownership of the means of production, & extensive social welfare programs. Image
Based on 19th-century socialism & the tenets of Marx & Engels, while social democracy does share common ideological roots with communism, it opposes & fiercely eschews its militancy, authoritarianism, & totalitarianism - characterising social democracy as communism is absurd.
Social democracy was originally known as revisionism because it represented a change in basic Marxist doctrine, primarily in the former’s repudiation of the use of revolution to establish a socialist society. Image
The social democratic movement grew out of the efforts of August Bebel & Wilhelm Liebknecht who cofounded the Social Democratic Workers’ Party in 1869, which merged with the General German Workers’ Union in 1875 to form what became known as the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Bebel imbued social democracy with the belief that socialism must be installed through lawful means rather than by force.

After the election of two Social Democrats in 1871, the party grew in political strength until in 1912 it became the largest single party in voting strength.
The success of the Social Democratic Party in Germany encouraged the spread of social democracy to other countries in Europe, including Britain.

The growth of German social democracy owed much to the influence of the German political theorist Eduard Bernstein. Image
Bernstein challenged the Marxist orthodoxy that capitalism was doomed, pointing out that capitalism was overcoming many of its weaknesses, such as unemployment, overproduction, & to some extent, the inequitable distribution of wealth.
Furthermore, ownership of industry was becoming more widely diffused, rather than more concentrated in the hands of the few.

Whereas Marx had declared that the subjugation of the working class would inevitably culminate in socialist revolution, Bernstein disagreed.
Bernstein argued that success for socialism depended not on the continued & intensifying misery of the working class, but rather on eliminating that misery, noting that social conditions were improving, & that with universal suffrage the working class could establish socialism. Image
Despite fierce opposition from the press baron brothers Alfred & Harold Harmsworth, to both universal suffrage & the Liberal's plans to bring in a welfare state based on the German model, Britain's Liberal Party won a landslide victory in the 1906.

The violence of the Russian Revolution of 1917 & its aftermath precipitated the final schism between the social democratic parties & the communist parties.

After WWII, social democratic parties came to power in many western European nations eg West Germany, Sweden, & Britain. Image
The western European social democratic parties - in Britain Clement Attlee's transformative @UKLabour Party - laid the foundations for a much fairer & much more equal society by introducing radical modern European social welfare programs, including in Britain, our amazing #NHS. Image
With its ascendancy, social democracy changed gradually, most notably in West Germany. These changes generally reflected a moderation of the 19th-century socialist doctrine of wholesale nationalisation of business & industry, leading to a functional & effective 'mixed economy'.
Although the principles of the various social democratic parties began to diverge somewhat, certain common fundamental principles emerged: in addition to abandoning violence & revolution as tools of social change, social democracy took a stand in opposition to totalitarianism.
The Marxist view of democracy as a “bourgeois” facade for class rule was abandoned, & democracy was proclaimed essential for socialist ideals. Social democracy adopted the goal of state regulation of business & industry as sufficient to further economic growth & equitable income. Image
Social democracy delivers fairer societies, & better-informed, happier citizens, & is still dominant across much of western Europe - as it was in the UK & USA until the 1980s, since when, power & wealth has again become concentrated in the hands of elites.

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More from @docrussjackson

Nov 2
#THREAD

English neo-Nazi who stabbed asylum seeker was a serial stalker.

Terrorist Callum Parslow was previously jailed for sending 10 women sexually explicit and misogynistic messages, and even targeted a black former GB "News" presenter.

theguardian.com/politics/2024/…
A neo-Nazi terrorist who was found guilty last month of the attempted murder of an asylum seeker is a prolific online stalker who had previously been jailed and referred to the #Prevent counter-terrorism scheme.

Parslow was convicted on 25 October of attempted murder after stabbing an asylum seeker at a hotel in April. He was jailed in 2018 for targeting 10 women and girls with messages describing sexually motivated murder, torture and rape, and then changed his name after his release.
Read 6 tweets
Oct 16
🧵ASYLUM QUIZ

We hear A LOT about Small Boats & Migrant Hotels, but basic facts are often misrepresented.

Q1 When compared to EU countries plus Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein & Norway, where did the UK rank in 2023 by per capita asylum applications? (1st=most)

DON'T CHEAT
ANSWER to Q1:

When adjusted by population size, the UK received the 20th highest number of applications: 12.5 per 10,000 residents.

Q2 Where did the UK rank in 2023 in ACCEPTING/APPROVING per capita asylum applications?

(1st=most, 31st=last).
ANSWER TO Q2

Adjusted for population size, the UK ranks 10th: in 2023 we granted protection to 9 asylum seekers per 10,000 of our resident population.

Germany had 351,000 asylum applicants (compared to our 80,000), granting protection to 135,000 people (compared to our 62,000). Image
Read 31 tweets
Oct 14
#THREAD

'Divide and Rule'.

What if the 1% are deliberately manufacturing deeply polarised societies?

What if the differences between, for example, the "woke and anti-woke", Leavers and Remainers, migrants and non-migrants are deliberately exaggerated, or entirely manufactured? Image
What if the 1% remain powerful because they invest in the strategy of Divide & Rule?

For many reasons, including ignorance, desperation, trauma, stupidity & selfishness, millions of people respect & even vote for shameless, divisive, dangerously irresponsible sociopathic liars. Image
One way to account for this is to look at the gradual & shameless normalisation of lies & inflammatory speech. Another (related) way is to look at the role of ourselves and our media.

Professsor Ruth Wodak has spent decades examined the former.

Read 25 tweets
Oct 3
#THREAD

A January amendment to the Online Safety Act 2023 allows for the prosecution of those who convey information they know to be false & “if the person intended the message, or the information in it, to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience”. Image
The #Southport stabbing was on 29th July. At 4.44pm on 30th July, Tommy Robinson posted a tweet to his more than 1 million followers on @X, referring to Muslims and saying "people need to rise up", and "our daughters are being butchered in dance classes".

theguardian.com/uk-news/articl…Image
Bernadette Spofforth, alleged to have been the first to tweet Southport disinformation on @X, was arrested on 8th August, but on 18th September police said that following an investigation... “no further action will be taken due to insufficient evidence.”

Read 29 tweets
Sep 30
#THREAD

'The Left' can be defined on the basis of its 'egalitarian drive': its credo is to remove—also through state intervention—barriers that make people unequal, advocating equal rights & opportunities for all.

So how might we define 'the far-right'?

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
The following 🧵quotes extensively from the 2022 article 'Far right: The significance of an umbrella concept', by Andrea Pirro, published in Nations and Nationalism, a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers research on nationalism and related issues.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/146981…
The Right is described as non-egalitarian, precisely because its models of political and social order are rooted in the necessity and legitimacy of institutionalised inequality.

Broadly, the right seeks to maintain a status quo whereby differences between people are entrenched.
Read 87 tweets
Sep 25
#THREAD

I missed this story about Kevin Roberts - President of the Heritage Foundation & the man behind #Project2025, who has close ties to Truss, Patel, Oliver Dowden & Jenrick (who have all given speeches at the Heritage Foundation) - KILLING HIS NEIGHBOUR'S DOG WITH A SHOVEL!
Image
Allegedly, Roberts told university colleagues he'd killed a neighborhood dog with a shovel because it was barking and disturbing his family.

He didn't mention THAT when he spoke to fellow free-market fundamentalists at the #NatCon conference in London!

“He was discussing in the hallway with various members of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been barking pretty relentlessly... he kind of lost it & took a shovel and killed the dog. End of problem,” said Kenneth Hammond, chair of the History Dept at the time.
Read 31 tweets

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