Lisa Nandy contra Scotland and democracy
Labour MP and former leadership candidate Lisa Nandy thinks Scots should be beaten up by Westminster thugs for daring to exercise their right to self-determination:
A Labour leadership candidate has claimed that the UK should "look to Catalonia" for lessons on how to defeat Scottish nationalism.
Lisa Nandy made the comments as she argued that a "social justice agenda" could beat "divisive nationalism".
Hundreds of people were hurt when the Spanish authorities used force to try to stop the disputed independence referendum in Catalonia in 2017.
If Nandy was a more intelligent or reflective person, she might realise that it is the attitude of Westminster MPs like her that makes many Scots not what to be ruled by Westminster.
Parisian demonstrators contra slavery
Demonstrators in Paris have demanded the EU ban products made with slave labour:
Demonstrators gathered in Paris on Saturday to demand an EU ban on products linked to the use of forced labour of Uighur minorities in China’s Xinjiang province. Speaking to FRANCE 24, Raphaël Glucksman, member of the European Parliament, accused European companies with interests in China of attempting to block EU efforts to ban forced labour products.
Activists gathered at Place de la République in Paris on Saturday to demand EU action on Beijing's human rights violations against ethnic Uighurs in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province.
The demonstration came weeks after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced plans for an import ban on products made with forced labour.
In her State of the Union speech on September 15, von der Leyen said the EU can “never accept” that products made by forced labour “end up for sale in shops here in Europe”.
I hope the proposed EU ban turns out to be a real ban and not just a figleaf that importers of products made by enslaved workers can easily evade (e.g. by saying "It wasn't us, we didn't know, it was our subcontractors").
Tories contra good governance
Led By Donkeys notes corruption in UK PPE procurement:
Stubb wants EU to aid UK
Former Finnish PM Alexander Stubb thinks the EU should be ready to send aid to Britain:
The European Union must stand ready to send aid to Britain when it is crippled by food and supplies shortages because of Brexit, the former prime minister of Finland has said.
Alexander Stubb, who unsuccessfully ran to be European Commission president in 2019, said the EU should help a stricken UK even though it was all Britain’s fault.
He said, "If the EU would play its cards right, it would offer assistance to the UK now or later when the supply of basic goods and services takes a turn for the worse. “This is what friends do, even if the pain has been self-inflicted, stupid and unnecessary.”
Mr Stubb, who led Finland for 11 months and was the country’s finance minister, predicted the only way to save Britain would be for it to renew closer ties with the EU. The former MEP and vice-president of the European Investment Bank suggested that the offer of help could tempt the UK back into the fold.
Stubb is probably right here. Britain won't rejoin EU under Johnson, because doing so would make him look ridiculous. But Johnson won't be PM forever, and when he goes the EU should offer to let Britain back in. Quite a lot of people in Britain (not just those who voted remain) would want to take them up, as Brexit has delivered exactly nothing for us.
Facebook and Google want to own the internet
America’s tech giants already own the online world. Now they want to own the internet's infrastructure, too.
No surprises there!
Let's clap MPs
@slaveto4cats has a wonderful idea regarding MPs' pay rises:
Why is Westminster against Scottish independence?
Paul Kavanagh says it's not out of altruism:
Yet they also insist loudly and vociferously that Scotland is a massive drain on the UK Treasury requiring the transfer of billions of pounds of English taxpayers’ money in order to keep those ungrateful Caledonian natives in deep fried heroin mars bars and the worst state pension in Europe. And we are supposed to believe that they do all this out of charity and altruism, seeking nothing in return even though Scotland remains stubbornly immune to the dubious charms of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and so resistant to voting Conservative
But rather because it would encourage NI and Wales to leave UK too, and England on its own wouldn't be a big or important country:
Scottish independence could make the reunification of Ireland more likely [and] would also put rocket boosters under the campaign for Welsh self-determination
The independence of Scotland could have as its eventual outcome an England shorn of the countries and territories that Anglo-British nationalists regard as appendages properly ruled over and dictated to by Westminster. That would be an England which was unable to maintain the Anglo-British conceit of greatness.
When the Tories warn that Scotland is too small too poor and too powerless to go it alone, it’s really their fears for England that they are airing. An independent Scotland wouldn’t be going it alone, one of the most pressing reasons for Scottish independence is so that Scotland can restore and rebuild the close ties with Europe that Anglo-British nationalists severed with Brexit. Scottish independence would leave Brexit England small, isolated and alone, unable to avoid the truth that it’s neither great nor exceptional and facing the realisation that it is utterly incapable of imposing its will on other countries, even the smaller nations of this archipelago.
I have independently come to the same conclusion as Kavanagh here.
Hanania on wokeness
Richard Hanania suggests corporate wokeness is mostly caused by fear of lawsuits:
How would a rational system handle [complains of racism in the workplace]? Perhaps the law can have strict rules like “If an employee says certain words, you must fire him or be legally liable.” You can do the same for racist cartoons. Seems harsh, but it would at least provide clear guidance.
Instead, you have a completely subjective system. The Iraqi mukhabarat did not tell you what phrases or words to avoid in order to be left alone. And the government never passed a law saying everyone must worship Saddam. Likewise, civil rights law never explicitly said you have to invite Robin DiAngelo to talk to you about how she has no time for your white woman tears. It just gives you some vague standards, empowers the most sensitive individuals, and creates huge payoffs for attorneys looking for racism along with serious penalties for businesses that fail to guess what will or won’t be declared discriminatory after the fact.
[...] The entire debate over “cancel culture” revolves around what it is or isn’t reasonable to be offended about. For corporations and non-profits, this is a legal question. But although being too aggressive in rooting out “racism” will never cost you $137 million, being not anti-racist enough might.
ACLU contra civil liberties
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) deliberately falsified a quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in order to make it fit in with their current orthodoxy:
In a tweet on Saturday to mark a year since Ginsburg's death, the powerful civil rights group noted that the liberal and feminist icon popularly known as "RBG" was a "champion for abortion and gender equality."
The ACLU tweet was accompanied by a quote from Ginsburg: "The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a [person's] life, to [their] well-being and dignity... When the government controls that decision for [people], [they are] being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for [their] own choices."
The quote was taken from Ginsburg's Senate confirmation hearing in 1993 when she said: "The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman's life, to her well-being and dignity... When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices."
Replacing "woman" with "person," and the female pronouns "she" and "her" with "they" and "their" was apparently intended to be more inclusive, taking into account trans men and nonbinary individuals who may seek an abortion.
Here's the ACLU tweet:
The job of the protagonist of Orwell's 1984 was literally to falsify history to make it compatible with the political orthodoxy of the day. Thus, the ACLU demonstratrate that they see 1984 as an instruction manual and not a warning. I think they do so deliberately, because:
(1) if they had wanted to say something pro-trans they could have easily done so without misquoting RBG.
(2) if they wanted to praise RBG, with the intent of canonising her as a saint of the woke religion, they could easily have done so by quoting something she said that doesn't go against current woke orthodoxy.
Since the ACLU see 1984 as an instruction manual, maybe they should change their name to "Anti-Civil-Liberties Union", as that would be more accurate.