Rhys ap Rhobert

Layed, relayed, parlayed, fucked, flustered and very far from home.

[I Am… @HarmoniEquality]

A colonized mind will fight harder to protect the master’s image than to recover its own dignity.

- Frantz Fanon

[The Palestinian @InsiderWorld_1]

Do you see any difference?

[The Fraud @StarmertheFraud]

I've now had a chance to read this Bill. It is a genuinely alarming piece of legislation and typical of the draconian, authoritarian politics of the Labour Together Project, in which Mahmood has been a key player.

The Bill gives the Home Secretary nearly untrammelled power to designate any "group" working to advance a "foreign state threat." They are a "threat" if they pursue any objective that is inimical to the "interests" of the UK. Anyone who "supports" a designated group, like endorsing it or sharing its messages online, faces 14 years in prison.

This is so broadly written that it invites - almost guarantees - abuse. In the context of a potential far-right government, it is madness to put such draconian legislation on the books.

We already have two examples of how the state or political actors have effectively fabricated foreign state connections.

First, in manufacturing consent towards the proscription of Palestine Action, it was leaked to the press that there were links between the direct action group and Iran. But this was entirely false, as the government's Counter-Extremism advisor sheepishly admitted months later to Channel Four.

Second, I have personal experience of this. We now know that in response to my investigations into the unlawful conduct of Labour Together and Morgan McSweeney, Labour Together hired APCO Worldwide to investigate me, my colleagues and associates. The end result was a mad dossier alleging that I was a catspaw of foreign intelligence services, working to disrupt British democracy. I've now seen some of the "raw intelligence" on which this was based: literally everything I have seen was fabricated out of whole cloth, the thumb-suck of some swivel-eyed "intelligence" source. We now know that the most senior people in the Labour Party knew about this and didn't seem to bat an eye. Some of them even seemed to believe this web of absurd idiocy.

Anybody who has spent time at the coalface of investigating powerful people or standing up to militarism and forever-wars knows how legislation like this works. Secret intelligence is used to designate groups and people. That intelligence is classified, so the accused can't even see what they're accused of. Judges are given secret briefings where intelligence officials deliver doom-laden analysis, but they can't be cross-examined by the lawyers of the accused. Whispers and innuendo, the lubricant of the sort of "intelligence" that led to war in Iraq, are spun into concrete facts and grave national security threats.

This is not hyperbole - it is literally what has happened when campaigners have tried to challenge the sale of arms to Israel and Saudi Arabia, where campaigners themselves were not able to see, hear or test the evidence of the state at trial. In every instance, judges have then decided that they have no power to gainsay the State.

As this government collapses under the weight of unpopularity and scandal, it is now delivering for the reactionary forces that helped to put it in place through systematic and pre-meditated dishonesty. The result is a lattice-work of legislation and practice designed to criminalise and constrain dissent in the face of genocide, war, environmental degradation and the sort of corruption that turns state murder into money and misconduct into power.

There is every chance that within a week, Andy Burnham will be challenging Starmer for power. It is plausible Burnham could be Prime Minister by September.

His task, amongst many, will be to seek accommodation with progressive voters and movements that have abandoned the Labour Party. There will be plenty of discussion about the wisdom of that move from both sides. But it is likely to fail unless a Burnham government reverses course on the Starmer project's assaults on protest, jury trials, dissent, free speech and basic civil liberties.

And none of that is plausible as long as Mahmood, or any other Labour Together alumni, remains in post.

[Emelia🌙 @Em21brave]

How will you continue your day after hearing that a father in Gaza, trapped beneath the rubble, begged rescuers not to save him?

Not because he had lost hope in life, but because he could hear his daughters’ final breaths beneath the debris. Their tiny hands were holding his in the darkness, as if pleading with him one last time. He was the father who had always been their safe refuge, yet this time he was powerless to pull them from the dust and shattered concrete.

Only his head was visible above the wreckage. He looked into the eyes of the rescuers, his own eyes exhausted by fear and helplessness, and said:
“Leave me… my daughters are here… I do not want to come out alone.”

What heart can bear such a scene? What language can describe the agony of a father who realizes he is losing his daughters one by one, while still holding their hands until they grow cold, unable to offer rescue or even one final embrace?

How will your day go on after knowing this story? How will you sit at your table in peace, or laugh at something trivial, knowing that somewhere there was a father whose last wish was not to survive alone?

And the question that continues to haunt the human conscience remains:

How much pain must the world witness before it finally hears the cry of a single father there?

[Israel Exposed @xIsraelExposedx]

I cant get her out of my head. May God forgive us for our sins.

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

A weapon designed to specifically maim and kill children.

Illegal under the Geneva Conventions for numerous reasons, including being disguised as an ordinary object, and being specifically targeted against civilians.

A War Crime of the highest order.

[‏ً @omgsidewalks]

We are in the final stage of capitalism where global capital can’t expand or sustain past profits. It now consumes public institutions and key systems, sacrificing democracy, welfare, infrastructure, education, healthcare, and ecosystems for short-term gain.

[Gordon Dimmack @GordonDimmack]

One of these people is an 83 year old Priest who held up a sign expressing her right to free speech. The other has decapitated his political enemies with a knife.

Guess which the UK government calls a terrorist, and which gets invited to number 10 for dinner.

[Israel Exposed @xIsraelExposedx]

Today is day 982 of the genocide.

The worst crimes ever commited against children, recorded, and broadcast to the world.

Almost all of the journalists who shared these have been murdered. They sacrificed their lives to get the truth out.

[Hamza Yusuf @Hamza_a96]

This is misleading framing by the BBC.

Completely omitting from the headline that the synagogue hosted an event that was encouraging and facilitating Palestinian land theft.

Instead it’s worded as though a place of worship itself was the target.

[Huda Ammori @HudaAmmori]

This is not a loss.

Palestine Action was so effective in disrupting the Israeli weapons industry, that the state threw all its might at us.

By doing so, they've exposed how they prioritise the Zionist regime over its own citizens.

As long as we continue to resist, we've won.

[Earth Hippy 🌎🕊️💚 @hippyygoat]

One of the most painful images to come out of Gaza.

A child struggles to process the unimaginable after seeing his parents killed before his eyes in Gaza.

[Wici Cymru @WiciCymru]

On this day in 2005, Gaeilge / Irish became an official language of the 🇪🇺 EU! 🇮🇪

The 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Welsh language did not, even though it has 5–6 times more speakers. Why not?

🇮🇪 Ireland is an independent country; 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales is not.
https://t.co/uqKRbYDF2j

[ADAM @adamemedia1]

🚨 🇮🇱 THIS IS MASSIVE

An ISRAELI CYBER FIRM just got exposed for running a GLOBAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE OPERATION across five countries, simultaneously.

Read that again.

The moment journalists called BlackCore for comment, the company DELETED ITS ENTIRE INTERNET PRESENCE

This is what a ROGUE STATE does when it can’t win the argument.

[More details in the replies 👇🏼 ]

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

The human species has essentially been transformed into a giant profit-generating machine for corporations.

Under capitalism, humanity exists to serve the interests of the corporation. We are all livestock; beasts of burden used to carry margin expansion forward from quarterly statement to quarterly statement. Enjoyment of life has no value other than the extent to which it can be used to increase the net worth of the shareholders.

That’s why everyone’s so unhappy. We’re not living with purpose. We’re not working together to build a better world and a better future, we’re just pulling levers to turn gears to make the arrow line go up on the graph in the conference room. It’s a hollow, pointless way for people to live.

It makes our whole culture vapid and soulless.

Music is made to be as profitable as possible, which means giving it the broadest possible appeal using formulaic song structure calculated to cause a chemical response in the largest number of human brains.

Movies are designed to draw the largest possible box office revenue at the lowest possible risk to studios and investors, often by just rehashing a movie that’s already proven successful in the past or by slapping together a story about an IP with pre-existing mass appeal.

Food is made to be fast and addictive rather than nourishing.

Healthy human connection has been commodified as social media intertwines with friendships and dating apps insert themselves into the development of romantic relationships.

Human sexuality is being warped and twisted as internet porn normalizes violence and degradation for the maximum number of clicks.

Attention and engagement have been monetized, creating an information ecosystem dominated by conflict and gossip designed to appeal to our baser instincts.

Advertisement is injected into every possible corner of our waking sensory experience, with any available space where the eye might rest or the ear might listen being flooded with psychological manipulation compelling us to consume. They’ll start running commercials in our dreams the instant they have the technology to do so.

You spend eight hours at the office working to generate corporate profits, then you come home and consume products to profit other corporations. You need your beer and snacks to unwind, your streaming services and social media to distract your mind from the stress of it all, your online clothing purchase to try to feel good about yourself, and your prescription drugs to get to sleep at night. People live their entire lives like this.

And that’s those of us who are lucky enough to be living in the global north. In the global south you get wage slavery and exploitation with far more toil, far less relaxation time, and no cheap products made by impoverished workers on other continents with which to comfort yourself.

All of humanity has been roped into this mess. And for what? To make the numbers in some bank accounts increase. To get some green arrows pointing upward on the stock exchange. To enable a few billionaires to buy islands and elections.

All while destroying the biosphere we all depend on for survival.

This, we are told, is the best possible system we could possibly be living under.

I personally do not believe this is true. I personally believe we can have better. Those who benefit from this current arrangement are going to assure us it’s impossible and do everything they can to stop us from changing it, but we do have the means to reclaim the wealth, dignity and happiness that they have stolen from us.

They built this whole machine on our backs. All we need to do is stand up.

[Richard Sanders @PulaRJS]

Jeremy Johnson - in 50 years time this will be the only 1.39 minutes of your life you'll be remembered for. It'll be played in genocide museums to sum up the complicity and callous brutality of the British state in the face of the slaughter of the Palestinian people - and the courage of those who opposed it.

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

Gut wrenching to see four young people jailed for direct action against an arms supplier to Israel.

Years in prison for protesting to save lives in Gaza, with 'terrorism' used despite no jury convicting them of it.

A truly dangerous attack on the right to protest.

[Israel Exposed @xIsraelExposedx]

As you show up to your 9-5 job, remember that your hard earned tax dollars are being spent on this.

[Earth Hippy 🌎🕊️💚 @hippyygoat]

If you watch anything today, watch this Palestinian man's testimony about what's happening in Israeli prisons.

UPDATE
They released him over a year ago and we heard he had been
abducted AGAIN because he spoke out about Ben Gvir putting him in a black plastic bag and dancing on his body.
We don't even know if he's still alive.

[Daniel Mayakovski @DaniMayakovski]

"Si los israelies no donan su propia piel ni sus órganos, por motivos religiosos, ¿como es posible que tengan el mayor banco de piel y órganos del mundo? ¿De donde lo sacan? Están expoliando a un pueblo hasta llegar a quitarles la piel".

La activista turca Aycin Kantoglu, miembro de la flotilla humanitaria Sumud, se cuestiona de donde salen los órganos y la piel que compone el banco donante más grande del mundo de "Israel".