#Rising fascism

[miniar]

Wanna look at another nation's political situation and go "wow, I guess it could be worse" Iceland edition?

any of you remember a while back when I talked about how our minister of finance eventually responded to the backlash after selling parts of a nationalized bank to his own father by "resigning" his position as the minister of finance....

... by becoming our foreign minister, in which position he promptly revealed to the world that he has no idea what was going on at all, was completely incompetent and unprepared and then followed that all up by refusing to follow through Iceland's already granted asylum to Palestinian refugees until the parliament agreed to whatever legislative changes he wanted?

Well... he's not our foreign minister any more.

You see... this year is presidential election season (WAIT FOR IT!). The President of Iceland doesn't have a lot of formal political power, but is often a beloved figurehead.

The highest political power in Iceland is the prime minister.

The leader of the (so-called) left-green party that formed the coalition government with the independence party which is lead by the aforementioned former minister of finance and now former foreign minister, has just resigned her position as prime minister of Iceland... to run for president.

As a result, that chair was left vacant.

Want to guess who's our current prime minister?

Yes, it's Björn Bjarnarsson. A man who's been involved in about 30 or so scandals, each one of the sort that would lead to the permanent disappearance from politics in any vaguely functional democratic nation that had any sense of propriety or dignity.

And you wanna guess what one of the first fucking things he did was?

Appear on television and blame asylum seekers for how he and his party have systematically underfunded Icelandic infrastructure of Every Kind for Decades.

...

on a slightly more positive note... there's a petition making the rounds wherein over 10% of the voting population has signed a statement objecting to him being the PM... not that he's actually going to acknowledge that petition nor do anything about it...

This country is so much more fucked than any of you have any idea.

[thoughtlessarse]

For much of his five-month tenure as publisher of The Washington Post, former Murdoch tabloid impresario Will Lewis has been plunged into the seamy saga of his Fleet Street past—chiefly the role he played, during his tenure at The Telegraph, in Britain’s long-running phone-hacking scandal. Now a new report from The Guardian suggests that Lewis’s unseemly exploits went further than that: He also allegedly turned the same sleazy skill set to the political advantage of his longtime crony in the corridors of Tory power, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. After Lewis had wound up his tenure as publisher of the Murdoch prestige property The Wall Street Journal, he settled into a role as an informal adviser to Johnson’s government, helping to steer a consortium of flacks dedicated to saving Johnson’s comically scandal-ridden premiership. Lewis and his colleagues worked under a code name seemingly lifted from an Armando Iannucci production: Operation Save Big Dog. Guardian reporters Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Anna Isaac cite three unnamed sources close to Johnson’s government who say that Lewis told Johnson officials to scrub their digital communications in the wake of the disclosure that Johnson and his inner circle had defied Covid lockdown restrictions by drinking and partying in luxe venues. The scandal badly damaged Johnson’s already flailing government, and Lewis reportedly sought to stanch the bleeding by personally urging staffers to disappear WhatsApp and text messages pertaining to the episode—advice that contradicted a December 2021 e-mail directive from Johnson officials to save all such communications as a civil service investigation proceeded. Representatives for both Lewis and Johnson denied these claims to The Guardian. As well they might. It’s a poor look for the successor of Katharine Graham—the former Post publisher who defied the strong-arm press-suppression tactics of the Nixon White House during the Pentagon Papers and Watergate scandals—to be purportedly engineering a cover-up on behalf of a publicly humiliated political leader. Yet such overtures appear to be second nature to Lewis, who previously arranged for Johnson to assume a cushy sinecure as a columnist at The Telegraph in 2008—a gig that paid £250,000 a year, or more than 100,000 quid more than Johnson pulled down at his then–day job as mayor of London.

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[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

Is the world going to Hell in a handcart?

Expect that to be reflected by the programme at some point.

[slidehead]

hello online feminist do you hate men as an extension of the hierarchical class they create, uphold and coercively enforce in society or do you hate men because you genuinely believe they are evil through an inherent biological heritage that cannot be mended

[sparkleofstardust]

europeans how are we all feeling tonight

[lil-tumbles]

I don't care what you think about just stop oil, the fact that peaceful protesters are going to jail for five years for *planning* to protest, not even doing the damn - once again, *peaceful* - protest should be enough to fill you with rage.

[freedom-in-truth]

News: US police attack peaceful Jewish and allied vigil for Gaza

US police throw Jews down stairs, interrupting their peaceful candlelight vigil

Have you called your reps yet?

[miraculouslumination]

If you're in 2023 still thinking that labels like pansexual (and other mspec labels), asexual, aromantic, any aspec label, any xenogender, any neogender, anything MOGAI, mspec lesbians/gays, transmasc lesbians, transfem gays, and any other micro label is somehow encroaching on your identity and community

Then I'm sorry but you seriously just need to get over yourself

People are just trying to exist and live like you and I. If that offends you, then the only problem here is you

[sher-ee]

We are up next America!

Vote Blue 💙

[tempestimes]

:)

[ciricegh0st]

shows be like

heterosexual character storyline: full of romance and victorian style miscommunication with stares full of longing

queer character storyline: blood and gore violence lover probably dies in a saw-like trap they'll forever be lonely sadness sadness they cannot confess their love to bff sadness blood ultimately kills themselves

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

feel like im going to jitter out of my skin so it’s time to sit down, set a timer for an hour, and play a rapid fire round of “will these vintage scifi books capture my interest or will they be extremely unpleasant”

[guavagyal]

it's annoying to talk to Americans about politics bc they reference pop culture/mainstream media too much in replacement for actual political theory. like they always reference Handmaid's Tale, 1984, Idiocracy, Muggles from Harry Potter, superhero movies when some authoritarian shit goes down.

I think it's a cope from learning about how genocidal American history & American foreign policy is. or it could be that leftist theory was hard to obtain in the US bc of capitalist propaganda & it's crazy expensive at times.

[cryptidjeepers]

So we're all just experiencing the concequences of western governments letting white supremacist far right sentiments simmer with no attempts to stop it for decades. Thats how you get white british rioters buring down mosques and doing the nazi salute in the streets. The fact that there are still areas of the US that are dangerous to step foot in as a non white person. Dont even get me started on the deep rooted anti indigenous attitudes of white Canadians. Years of white supremacy in governments only for them to think the oppressed black and brown people (immigrants or not) are somehow being treated better than white people. Give me a fucking break

[manicpixiedreamguy]

Good morning my fellow Europeans how are we feeling

[dagwolf]

"According to the Moms for Liberty website, the group now has over 265 chapters in 43 states with a total membership of over 110,000. As the maps from the group’s website shows, the movement is strongest in its home state of Florida, but it is clear that Moms for Liberty is now very much a national organization, with dozens of chapters in blue states like New York and California.

In Pennsylvania, the leader of a local Moms for Liberty chapter allegedly hijacked a dead woman’s Facebook page to harass her enemies, including using the N-word and saying they should hang from a noose. In Arkansas, the head of communications of the Lonoke County chapter said that librarians should be 'plowed down with a freaking gun.' In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a member of a local Moms for Liberty chapter harassed an opposing group, threatened to report them for child abuse, and called them 'pedophile sympathizers.' In Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, police had to be called to a school board meeting after members of Moms for Liberty accused attendees of being 'groomers' and wanting to show explicit pictures to children. In Charleston, South Carolina, a Moms for Liberty-affiliated member of the local school board publicly stated he would show up at his son’s teacher’s doorstep with a gun if the teacher came out as transgender."