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The Rise of the Far Right

A powerful message from India Willoughby (Twitter). We all need to be very aware of what is occurring both here in the UK and, the US red states, Russia and other oppressive authoritarian states and view it from a basic human rights and civil liberties perspective. It is what it is and we need to call it out.
 

New Contrapoints video time! Very relevant to this thread as it deep-dives the current right-wing culture-war and places it in a wider historical context. Very well researched, articulate, intelligent and frequently very funny. Her attention to detail is as ever superb. Highly recommended.

Warning: features clip of Lee Anderson.

PS The Campbells soup can as prop at the end is genius!
 
And here Peter Oborne provides an articulate account of Tory Islamophobia- of which nothing was or is heard from those who crucified Corbyn’s supposed antisemitism. Got a lot of time for Oborne as an inside figure who has come to realise just how toxic the Tory party is and is speaking out. Likewise Warsi, how she can remain a Tory is a mystery.

 
Finnegan said:
Got a lot of time for Oborne as an inside figure who has come to realise just how toxic the Tory party is and is speaking out. Likewise Warsi, how she can remain a Tory is a mystery.
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This is exactly what is needed. The message needs to get through to any who still think voting Tory has any connection to the Conservative Party of 20-40 years ago. The penny needs to drop that this, like its US Republican equivalent, is now a highly corrupt, illiberal and authoritarian far-right entity. It is without exaggeration or hyperbole the National Front, BNP, UKIP etc in ideology, policy and hate-rhetoric. There is zero space left in this party for the ‘compassionate conservatism’ of Heidi Allen, Sarah Woolaston, Ken Clarke etc. They are gone replaced by a legion of Bullingdon class-warriors, oligarchs, Trump clones or actual Yaxley Lennons like Lee Anderson. We desperately need decent voices like Oborne and Warsi to speak up. Good on them.
 
“55 years ago today, Enoch Powell gave his poisonous "Rivers of Blood" speech, filled with claims about 'alien inflows' and 'fraudulent entry'.

We were founded the same year.

The 'Illegal' Migration Bill returns to Parliament next week, with that same dehumanising rhetoric.”

The Runnymead Trust (Twitter). More to read in the link.
 
Just thinking about my original post...

Having read much of this thread, I'm beginning to think that the rise of the far right is a bad thing.

Live and learn, I suppose.
 
droodzilla said:
Having read much of this thread, I'm beginning to think that the rise of the far right is a bad thing.

Live and learn, I suppose.
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Sadly Labour are still ‘both sides’-ing it all, e.g. I notice from Twitter (can’t remember where exactly) that Rosie Duffield is on the front cover of the Daily Express today with a Tory MP in a typical trans-panic/TERF piece.

It does appear that we are at the stage both here and in red-state America where the political centre-ground is refugee, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ panic, scapegoating and demonisation. Lee Anderson asked for a far-right racist/transphobic culture war and Starmer’s Labour, the BBC and the mainstream-right press have very happily obliged. No one will address the real reasons for the UK’s crippling decline and inequality (Brexit, failed Tory ideology and endemic government corruption), so all we have is a political and media class actively creating fake panic and punching downwards as hard as they can. It is truly sickening. I now understand how societal collapse works as it is happening right in front of my eyes.
 
Finnegan said:
I know, I know, Jonathan Freedland, but a decent survey of historical and contemporary fascism nonetheless.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001l1ws
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Another excellent podcast from Freedland called The Man Who Escaped from Auschwitz. First of a two parter about the only two men to escape from Auschwitz and the rather depressing tale of what happened when they tried to tell the world of the horrors they had escaped.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0...re joined,is a Goalhanger Podcasts production.
 
Finnegan said:
Yes, but as someone else observed, it’s two wings of apartheid Israel arguing how best to oppress Palestinians.
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Always worth listening to Ilan Pappé

“Western media’s depiction of the protests – as an attempt to save Israeli democracy from political overreach – is hopelessly distorted. The movement is not seeking to protect the rights of minorities (the first duty of any democracy) let alone the rights of the Palestinians on either side of the green line. During the first hundred days of the new administration, while secular Israeli Jews fought to preserve their hegemony, almost a hundred Palestinians – many of them children – were killed by Israeli forces. This killing spree did not feature in any of the demonstrations. Those who tried to raise Palestinian flags alongside the Israeli ones were forcibly ejected. Arabs evidently have no place in this feud between the Jewish families of Israel.”

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/fantasies-of-israel
 
Our fascist overlords ‘will now only detain refugee children in “exceptional circumstances”’ (Guardian). All fine, nothing to see here…

PS Good to see thar even some post-Johnson-purge Tories are starting to view this policy as utterly deranged, cruel and totally unnecessary.
 
I see ‘National Conservatism’ is apparently a thing and is trending on Twitter.

Adding ‘national’ in front of things has such a great history. I’ll abbreviate this one to ‘Nat-C’, it has a nice ring to it.

PS There’s a ‘Nat-C’ convention in That London in May, event site here. All our favourites are present.
 
Tony L said:
Our fascist overlords ‘will now only detain refugee children in “exceptional circumstances”’ (Guardian). All fine, nothing to see here…
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Do you think that'll be (like) the water companies only releasing untreated sewage into our rivers in “exceptional circumstances”?
 
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