seanl

Aspiring dialectician. RTs imply agreement.
Elsewhere m:[email protected]

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Starmer’s legacy is genocide. He provided military and intelligence support to Israel as it perpetrated the crime of crimes against the Palestinian people. That is how he will be remembered.

[Jonathan Shainin @jonathanshainin]

He fucked it so bad that he had to resign to give Labour any chance of surviving: that’s his legacy

[Philip Proudfoot @PhilipProudfoot]

Starmer calling Corbyn's Labour morally bankrupt in his resignation speech — from a man who defended collective punishment in Gaza, fed intelligence to Israeli génocidaires, and had activists trying to stop it arrested as terrorists. Not a decent man. An indecent sociopath.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

I disagree that we are in a "New Cold War".

Rather, we are in a continuation of what we might call the Long Cold War, or the Great Anti-Sovereignty War, which has been waged by the imperial core against liberation movements and sovereign-seeking states in the periphery that have sought to break from their subordination and exploitation within the imperialist world-system.

The Long Cold War encompasses Western attacks against the Russian revolution and the Chinese revolution, through the long series of invasions and regime-change operations that targeted Korea, Guatemala, the DRC, Brazil, Ghana, Indonesia, Vietnam, Chile, Burkina Faso, etc, continuing well beyond the fall of the USSR with the invasions of Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc., all the way to the strangulation of Cuba and the invasions of Venezuela and Iran in 2026.

As I see it, the usual claim that the Cold War runs from 1945-1991 doesn't work, the periodisation is wrong. The core states sought to destroy the USSR as soon as it was founded, long before 1945, and in any case their violence was never only just against the USSR, or just against USSR-aligned states, nor even just against socialism; it was fought against any sovereign-seeking state in the periphery - including non-aligned states - that threatened to escape the imperial arrangement.

The Long Cold War is, in other words, an imperialist backlash against the long struggle for liberation in the periphery. This aggression didn't end in 1991, it continues today, and it will continue well into the 21st century until it is defeated. And defeated it will be.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

Today’s ruling to uphold the UK government's proscription of Palestine Action is a travesty of justice.

One by one, the very foundations of our democracy are being destroyed — all to oil the wheels of British complicity in genocide.

Our government has participated in the mass murder of Palestinians. That is the real crime, and we must bring about justice.

[john teufel @JohnTeufelNYC]

SpaceX IPO so perfect for right now. A company without profit, sold on a market detached from reality, based on fake promises about things it will never do. Layers and layers of bullshit.

[bat020 @bat020]

why is this happening. every public service in this country is fucked after 15 years of austerity + neglect. why the fuck are we pouring money into this shit. why has this just been decided by important people with no warning or public debate. WHY DO WE WORSHIP DEATH NOT LIFE.

[John Duncan @Johntheduncan]

This is an absurdly irresponsible piece filled with straight up lies, misinformation, and corporate propaganda lines straight from Anthropic

Comparing this to the climate crisis while advocating private data centre build is disgusting. These data centres are an eco nightmare!

[Tom Gann @Tom_Gann]

People will make their political choices, of course, but I can’t help feel there’s something sad in what is being given up to be enthusiastic about Andy Burnham. And that’s a moral giving up too given Burnham’s record on imperialism & borders.

[barbarism critic @barbarismcrit]

I’m smart enough to know that I’m 100% gonna die if the food system collapses

[Chłoddy @OfSymbols]

The roll over play dead instinct, the if we play fair they will respect us eventually position is at this point unequivocally disproven.

We all wish it wasn’t, and that it was that easy, but like, come on.

[usaama @yoUsaama]

this is essentially adding an IMMEDIATE CONVICTION on a charge that DOES NOT EXIST in the courtroom and HAS NOT BEEN TRIED outside of the imagination of Judge Johnson.

it's the death of due process and liberal democracy in the UK.

[Kyle 🚄 @KyleTrainEmoji]

Socialism with Chinese characteristics is by far the worst political economic system, except for all other political economic systems that have ever been tried

[Rangzen @revoltinghippie]

Starmer's Briton

[Rob @robrousseau]

It's a pretty funny bit to look around at what is happening in every major liberal democracy and come to the conclusion "liberal democracy is good"

[🇱🇧 pickwick 🇱🇧 @pickwickpick]

YP died when Corbyn & Co reacted the way they did to the initial launch, it's moot whether what Sultana did was right or wrong. Considering the shit he was happy to swallow of the Lab right, all he needed to do was swallow his pride and not demolish the momentum

[Dr Vira Ameli | ویرا عاملی @viraameli]

I appreciate your efforts in opposing the war, and also in challenging the propaganda around inflated death tolls.

I agree that the Guardian Council is not identical to political party systems in the UK or elsewhere. But different mechanisms can lead to similar outcomes. Anti-establishment candidates, in both systems, face structural barriers to reaching executive power.

Also, the head of state in the UK is the King. In Iran, the Supreme Leader is not simply a fixed lifetime ruler in the way it is often portrayed. The Assembly of Experts, which is elected, has the authority to review, remove, or replace him.

I am writing this as an Iranian who is fully aware that there are limitations in who can become a candidate for president. But this is not a simple binary of Tudeh versus non-Tudeh, or left versus right. Political organisation in Iran is deliberately not structured along Western ideological party lines. As a result, you can see both highly socialist and neoliberal policies within the same system. I myself am fiercely critical of the shift toward privatisation, but these directions are not fixed, and they do change. In some areas, Iran produces more equitable and socialist oriented outcomes than most other states, and in others, less.

The broader point is that, as an Iranian woman aware of some limitations, I see this as a distinct and evolving model of sovereign governance, one that is fundamentally shaped by being anti-imperialist and, importantly, resistant to coups. Any state that takes an anti-imperialist position is subjected to intense external pressure. Iran has faced relentless economic warfare, information warfare, assassinations, and now direct military force. Under such conditions, a fully open political system is not realistically possible, and institutions like elections, the press, the police, and security structures have to be understood within that context. It is imperialism that pressures our systems of governance.

If and when those imperialist pressures are lifted or fully neutralised, the Islamic Republic has the capacity to become far more open than many existing forms of governance.

The Islamic Republic is not a theocracy. It is, as the name states, a republic with institutional mechanisms of representation, alongside an Islamic constitutional framework.

Finally, given that you are using your platform to oppose war, which I respect, I would ask that engaging with Iran’s government in a more precise and less reductive way is not a waste of time. Terms like “regime” are not neutral; they help construct the very narratives that have historically been used to justify sanctions and war.

All systems of governance have limitations. But a state that has endured decades of sustained external pressure and intervention cannot be assessed in the same way as those that have imposed such conditions on others.

[Séamus Malekafzali @Seamus_Malek]

yeah i've got nothing, this is just fucking insane

[Bikrum Gill @bikrumsinghgill]

Iran and Ansarallah are not restricting movement of resources and capital, but are insisting that it must happen in ways that uphold an emergent post-imperial international legal architecture, where genocide of non-Western peoples is illegal and will be held to account

[Chłoddy @OfSymbols]

Unfortunately basically everyone who has risen to any position with real power or influence has this mercenary sociopath ideology. It’s not a prerequisite, it’s just a very much that it gives you a competitive advantage. So overtime, it begins to overwhelm every institution.