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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 8th, 2023

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  • I agree with a lot of this but this bit is a non-sequitur:

    One thing many people don’t realize is that the Zionist colonial project was in motion long before WWII, as far back as the late 1800s.

    Political zionism did get started in the late 1800s, as a proposed solution to the centuries of pogroms, expulsions and discrimination against Jews in Europe. Prior to the horrors of WWII, most Jews considered it literal heresy. It was the Holocaust that convinced many that Zionism was their only option, not least because most of the free world closed its borders to Jews fleeing the Holocaust and its aftermath. There was nowhere else to go.

    This is a very useful short piece by a Jewish anti-zionist, pleading with the pro-Palestinian movement to take more care with their understanding of history: Zionism, Antisemitism and the Left Today

    The Palestinians are paying the price for Europe’s crimes. The problem cannot be solved by denying that those crimes ever happened.





  • Normal people shops, late '80s, early '90s mebbe? This potted history reckons 1968 for M&S (which is not a normal person shop when it comes to food):

    A cultural history of the avocado

    1968: What on Earth?

    Marks & Spencer claim they introduced avocados to UK supermarkets, when they stocked them as ‘avocado pears’ in 1968. At the time, we Brits did not take to them.

    People were confused by the name: when one customer complained after she’d stewed her avocado pear and served it with custard, M&S even started selling them with leaflets explaining they were intended to be a salad item.






  • I grew up under Thatcher, looked on with disbelief in 1983, 1987 and 1992, and celebrated with almost everybody in 1997. Then they attacked single parents, loaded the NHS and schools up with PFI debt, failed to reregulate the banks and deliberately reinflated the housing bubble. Inequality continued rising and the Tories supported them every step of the way.

    Voting for the least worst option means you end up with no good options. Do what you feel you have to at the ballot box but don’t pretend it means anything. If you won’t fight them, you’re helping bury us all.


  • I’m assuming you mean for voting, the least important thing you can do, politically.

    It doesn’t matter much. Protest vote (if there’s a good protest vote available to you), spoil your ballot (if there’s something you want to say because it will be read by bored candidates), or stay at home (so that you don’t add to turnout). In the vanishingly unlikely event that your local Labour candidate is an actual leftist, vote for them.

    For more meaningful action, whatever works for you. Protest, direct action, letter-writing. In the vanishingly unlikely event that your local Labour candidate is an actual leftist, campaign for them (and turn out to support them when the leadership inevitably comes for them).

    Just don’t pretend that voting for the least worst option will give you better options in future. It will not.