@Guardian columnist, @WeekOnWednesday co-host, theatremaker, commentator, TV dilettante. Email: asstvanbadham@gmail.com. In my spare time I write books.
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Jul 20 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
The discursive trap, a thread 🧵
We are all seeing a lot of content - a lot of it bot-driven and trollfarmed - spreading calls for the *crucially popular in swing states* Joe Biden to step aside. When this call is seen to come from Democrats who EVERYONE KNOWS WOULD VOTE FOR…
… HIM ANYWAY, it reinforces a particular nasty and demobilising, classist frame.
The proposition is that *outside* the elite political discourse are politically ignorant rubes whose votes are up for grabs, but who are so simplistic they may not recognise the the threat that…
Apr 20, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
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“Full Employment” policy puts responsibility on government for creating ACCESSIBLE jobs for ALL Australians of working age, in the service of building shared infrastructure & community resources.
Today, that would mean things like building housing, meeting climate goals etc
Below is the White Paper of 1945, which outlines Full Employment as a basis for policy making. There are crucial services that improve our lives as Australians that markets will *never* build; public infrastructure investment meets those needs AND EMPLOYS PEOPLE at the same time.
Sep 5, 2022 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
Hey, friends!
This is a simple thread 🧵 about how to identify an “astroturf” Twitter campaign.
An astroturf campaign is one that *pretends* to be grassroots activism, but is fake.
They’re used to pretend a “mass” movement exists, when it doesn’t & to drive disinformation.
There’s one running right now that crossed my feed this morning.
An astroturf campaign usually appears with a single-purpose hashtag.
It starts appearing in Twitter trend lists when a whole host of accounts start pushing it out.
Oct 20, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I’ve been obliged to talk about this a lot recently in the wake of the anti-lockdown protests; the emergence of the culturalist far right is NOT an uprising of the economically disenfranchised or a restless working class. The movement is driven by a resentful MIDDLE CLASS, or…
… what @RadioFreeTom has correctly identified as a lumpenbourgeoisie. The Czech philosopher Karel Kosik defines the lumpenbourgeoisie as “a militant, openly anti-democratic enclave” within a democracy. This SHOULD sound familiar to you, and if it doesn’t, just have a look at…
Jul 31, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
This presser with Hazzard is a textbook example of why diversity is necessary - integral! - to good decision making. So the NSW government had not prepared appropriate translation systems to meet a public health crisis. There is a crisis of trust in vulnerable communities, and
… the NSW government doesn’t have the relationships with those communities to overcome that. Hazzard says “some of these people are refugees who’ve had bad experiences with their own government” is a *clanger* - dude, YOU and your federal mates *are that government*, do you…
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