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#overtonwindow

2 posts2 participants0 posts today

It beats me why anyone in #Labour is paying for their #PR! I am frequently critical of the #maladministration, but recognise they have made some progress - a limp defence of the employment rights bill is simply not good enough - it just promotes the rightward shift go the #OvertonWindow with a generally hostile press in the UK. Frequently the only cold blooded assessment of what they are getting right happens in the #FinancialTimes on its ownyo.

theguardian.com/business/live/

the Guardian · Keir Starmer admits government has ‘asked a lot’ of business, and defends employment rights bill – business livePM tells BCC conference businesses have made a ‘huge difference’, following the tax rises in the last budget

Browsing in the "other place" I have seen claims that Reform is the new Conservative party because the Conservatives are now 'woke'.

They've got it completely wrong. There is a new Conservative party, and it's headed by Keir Starmer. His policies are pretty much in line with what you'd have expected from traditional Conservatives, right up to David Cameron and Theresa May.

Meanwhile the current Conservative party has moved further right into populism and neo-liberal economics. Reform are outright fascist, combined with greed and kleptocracy where they openly say they will replace the NHS with insurance.

Continued thread

At the risk of stating the obvious, it would be nice if media minions on my TV would spend any time at all analyzing Trump's fascist ICE kidnapping spree as part of a larger plan, with an eye on what the regime is actually trying to accomplish here. Maybe American media outlets are spooked by living in a country where it's increasingly illegal to admit racism exists, but it's not like it's impossible to do the legwork; even for corporate media. Take for example this piece in the international edition of The Guardian, pointing out that it's almost certainly not an accident all of DHS's targets for fascist ideological policing and deportation are people of color, even though a majority of the folks participating in campus anti-genocide protests the regime is claiming represent a threat to our national security, were white folks born in America.

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/m

‘A warning for students of color’: Ice agents are targeting certain protesters, say experts

"Now, at least five students and academics of color at US universities have been targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), as a part of the Trump administration’s ongoing push to punish noncitizens over their support of Palestine.

“What we’re seeing is the use of immigration law to go after visa holders, permanent lawful residents, [over] their speech,” said Samah Sisay, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). “He’s trying to suppress political speech that goes against what the administration wants.”

Despite white students, professors and academics also being heavily involved in pro-Palestine protests, people of color have disproportionately faced sudden arrests and threats of deportation or had their visas revoked.

“We’re just seeing the focus on very specific people,” said Sisay, referring to academics of color. “I think it really is to try to create a wedge in solidarity, the multiracial, multiethnic solidarity that’s been created in support of Palestinian human rights.” Ice’s actions, she said, have “set a warning for students of color at these universities who rely on scholarships and educational support to improve their lives or better the situations for their family.”

So look, maybe you don't need to be a genius to figure out why an openly white nationalist, Islamophobic, and deeply xenophobic Trump administration is starting its attempts to criminalize protest and dissent, with non-white academics, the overwhelming majority of whom are Muslim. These guys are fucking nazis, and that's the kinda shit nazis do; although I'll be honest with you, the next time I see a corporate media outlet explain the actions of the Pork Reich by directly saying "well they're fascists, obviously" it'll probably be the first.

The truth however, is that Stephen Miller, who is definitely running Trump's immigration policies and his fascist war to crush dissent, is the kinda crudely cunning fascist who absolutely "uses the whole cow." Sure the regime is stacked to the brim with raving white nationalists, but they're also clearly working to break the solidarity of the anti-genocide protest movement, while simultaneously targeting people Americans have already been taught to hate in order to shift the Overton Window far enough towards fascism to allow them to start black bagging and imprisoning *anyone* of *any* immigration status, who opposes the regime. It is irresponsible to simply repeat regime propaganda to justify illegally disappearing protestors, without helping your audience put these events in a larger context that would explain why it's important for all of us to oppose Trump's fascist repression of people many Americans don't care about and have been taught to dislike, if they don't want the regime's next assault on civil rights to strike closer to home.

The Guardian · ‘A warning for students of color’: Ice agents are targeting certain protesters, say expertsBy Gloria Oladipo
#Fascism#ICE#DHS

I remember Richard #Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre, which precipitated the #impeachment hearings which triggered his #resignation. Only one person was actually fired — Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor investigating Nixon. Two resigned because they refused to fire Cox — Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Total of three gone, and it was a scandal.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday

Make America great again.

en.wikipedia.orgSaturday Night Massacre - Wikipedia
Replied in thread

@Lydie you don't understand how the #OvertonWindow ratchets. The next dem administration will be very slightly better than #Trump 2.0, so considerably worse than Trump 1.0; then the rep admin after that will be *much* worse than Trump 2.0; and the next Dem will be almost but not quite as bad as that... And so we slide steadily to the right.

This isn't just the US, by the way. It's everywhere that allows politicians to be bought by oligarchs. In the UK, #Starmer ("#Labour") is right of Thatcher.

Not only have we used our greed to devastate the living conditions for life on earth and created an economy that only benefits the oligarchs, but now we will make children suffer the diseases we didn't because of the wonder of vaccines.

Oh well, too many people anyway, but it would be just for the originators of the collapse to suffer instead.

Stealing all hope, and now health, from youth is all the right wing kleptocracy has anymore.

Listening to Today on Radio 4 this morning, I noticed that they repeatedly referred to the left-wing members of the French Assembly who just voted against Barnier as "hard left".

Is that in any way a fair characterisation of them, or is that just the way that the BBC does their bit towards shifting this thing to the right?