Write about music & things happening in the place I moved to long ago. Plays guitar & records on the radio, sings, paints. Also @robertrotifer@mastodon.sdf.org
Apr 7, 2021 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
I share @bertholdseliger's lack of surprise at the “revelation” that Vienna's Gestapo chief was recruited for West-German intelligence post-war. Good to see this stuff get more traction now, but it's only half the story. A thread about my grandfather Zalel Schwager for context /
Returning from emigration in '45, as a Jewish (by birth not faith) communist, he was encouraged by the Party to take a job in the Austrian police to make sure it wasn't infiltrated by ex-Nazis. In fact, he sat on a commission that checked on individual policemen's Nazi pasts /
Apr 6, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Missed this strong and justifiedly furious piece on Friday.
What's happening with global vaccine supply is such an abysmal failure of humanity. Would say history won't look kindly on our behaviour, but that'd assume fairness in who gets to write it.
A short thread on the unbearable hypocrisy in some reports and reactions to the chief rabbi's words on Jeremy Corbyn. Seeing how social media tends to reduce everything to the personal, I'm going to try and keep this as general as possible and not name names. 1/15
I know there is a place for the word “whataboutery.” But it's also a word people use to shut down any exploration of context. When the chief rabbi writes his piece on the day Labour unveil their race & faith manifesto it is clearly legitimate to see the two as not unrelated. 2/15
Nov 15, 2019 • 20 tweets • 8 min read
As this landed on my TL yet again, I don't think I can keep quiet anymore. Sorry for the long thread but I haven't yet read anybody else's reaction to this letter that satisfyingly spelled out what I, in my hubris, think needs to be said here. 1/20
First of all, while admittedly I don't care what Tony Parsons thinks these days I don't doubt these people are sincere in what they're saying. Le Carré's written a whole novel about the stupidity of Brexit for a start, he clearly knows what's at stake in this election. 2/20
Aug 28, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Thread from foreigner's point of view (just what you needed): Having been pompously patronised on the subject many times in my 23 years living in this country, I'm less than surprised to see a constitutional monarchy with unwritten constitution turns out to be a flawed idea 1/8
Whatever side she's on (and I absolutely don't care) the Queen really couldn't go against her own government as she has no popular mandate. It would only have replaced one constitutional crisis with another. That's why having an elected head of state is such a useful thing. 2/8
