Morning, apologies about yesterday being late. Literally two minutes before pressing send yesterday morning the power went off and remained off all day.
We have a few new people so I’ll quickly reiterate what this is, perhaps firstly what it’s not. It’s not some high level geopolitics opinion piece that’s crafted over time, polished, and fact checked. It’s me getting up, making a brew, turning the computer on and scrolling my X feed. When something comes up that makes me go ‘hmm, ok’ then I chuck it in here and say what I think about it. I don’t hunt for stories, I try not to worry too much about it being similar themes, it’s purely what turns up for me each day. That’s it 👇🏻
So let’s see what the timeline holds for us today… oh good, tyranny 🫠
The problem with when you see dark shit coming from Balaji, is that he’s right, a lot. “The aim is to create a comprehensive overview of citizens’ assets” - Before your brain goes anywhere else on this, just start with - what is the mindset of people who think they have a right to do this? It’s not a good answer is it? Why is my property any business at all of the State or a Supranational organisation like the EU. There is only one reason that they want to know what you have and that is so they know what they can take. You see the same lines trotted out to justify it - transparency, (for them, not you) and to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. In cases where there is a need to access this information due to suspicion of criminal activity, they already have means to obtain it. This is not that, this is preemptive gathering of private information. If their justification is honest, then it treats everyone as a criminal as standard. This hasn’t been finalised yet, but that it’s even a possibility, that this kind of thing has been normalised - ‘well they already have all your information anyway’, ‘if you’ve got nothing to hide why do you care’, - is something we should be concerned about, spread knowledge of and push back against wherever we can. Yes I know this is the EU not the UK, but how many times have we seen something trialed in one place to prove concept and gauge reaction to it and then taken up elsewhere. Before you think what Balaji says about seizure is bullshit, remember the US Government seized all citizens gold in the 30’s - it can happen again. Yes they were paid a going rate for it, but gold appreciates, so by requiring citizens to hand it over to them they removed the citizens ability to profit from that appreciation and stole that right themselves.
If you’re not familiar with the term ‘astroturfed’ here you go:
In political science, it is defined as the process of seeking electoral victory or legislative relief for grievances by helping political actors find and mobilize a sympathetic public, and is designed to create the image of public consensus where there is none.[1][2] Astroturfing is the use of fake grassroots efforts that primarily focus on influencing public opinion and typically are funded by corporations and political entities to form opinions.[3]
Basically it’s fake, lying. Looks like grass, is not grass.
This is how Government communications work now - to some extent probably always did, but it’s certainly easier to do so now due to the internet, social media, influencers, algorithms and advert targeting. Your average NPC just takes the programming and uploads it with no question.
I think there’s a lot of truth to this. I’ve seen parts of this interview and what I saw chimes with what is said above, I’ve seen no positive comments about it, they’re all similar to this. I don’t think anyone is trying to take away anything from Peterson, you have to respect the stand he’s taken and the struggle he’s been through personally and professionally to get to this point. But he’s not a well man and hasn’t been for a while. You have to take that into account when you’re listening to him, I’m not saying don’t listen to him, just know there’s something going on there you have to keep in mind.
Thoughts on this, potentially unpopular but they deal with reality. Firstly, don’t be in uniform outside of work, especially if you’re on your own. Chicks are not sliding off their chairs on the train because you’re in MTP. This isn’t the US, you just look like ‘look at me’. Travel in civvies and get changed if you live out, especially on the pads. Sometimes it’s unavoidable if you’re traveling as a group and go to the services etc, fine, at least you’re likely not alone. One of the best things about being at SFSG was that we couldn’t move in uniform, or wear anything regimental in life outside of camp (yes you can spot soldiers in civvies regardless if you have the eye for it, but why make it easy). Secondly and most importantly you must accept that as a British serviceman/women you are at war all the time - to someone. You’re a legitimate target - perhaps not legally, but you are to someone. I thought the same about Lee Rigby and I think the same here. Just because you are not at war with someone/somewhere, doesn’t mean they’re not at war with you. You have to be alert to that all the time and live your life accordingly. That’s really fucking annoying, but just like getting out of your doss bag and sitting in a muddy puddle in the middle of the night is really fucking annoying, it is part of the job.
None of that takes away from the actions of the attacker.
This seems odd to me. I agree with the statement that you cannot give in to the mob. But surely if the situation with the children was so serious for them to be removed from their family in the first place, then with a duty of care you cannot just give them back to the parents and place them back in danger?
Barrett is a good follow for his law and constitutional read. Packham doesn’t appear too bright to me, he’s also autistic. If you know autistic people then you know certain flavours of them have a very well engrained sense of justice - their own - and also have ‘their things’, interests and obsessions that they KNOW about, that if you question they take as a personal attack. I think a lot of that informs Packham’s world view. He also made a programme for Channel 4 in which he asked ‘is it time to break the law’ in relation to climate stuff. Well Chris, perhaps some people believed you and now they’re in prison. FAFO. Gutted.