The thing is that they're true Thatcherites - they genuinely don't believe in society.

They see the neoliberal project as emancipatory (for them) because it theoretically broke a more aristocratic political power structure into a corporatist one where they could be lower-middle class (or occasionally 'working class' in the sense their mum was a teacher and they were quite comfortable or whatever) and through having the right grades and the right jobs and importantly the right opinions they can reach the heady heights of middle-managers for capital and the remnants of that aristocratic political power structure.

And they can justify whatever evil needs to be done as hatchetmen for billionaires and eugenicists and the US global hegemon because they 'made it' (although often only high enough up the ladder to make the same as, say, a private dentist who owns a practice or two), which conversely means that they can rationalise their reactionary cruelty by believing that everyone who didn't can be written off as lazy, shiftless types or unfortunate but necessary collateral of their supposed greater good.

The other thing that's pretty much universal amongst them is that they fucking love America. Sure, they grumble about Trump like they grumble about Bush, and tactically invoke very selective, mild indignation about British sovereignty vs being an obvious vassal when needed. But they nearly all dream of exiting British politics by getting a bullshit job that lets them live in the US. This lot of MPs (and previous on the right of the party) in particular are absolutely obsessed with this, because they're often close enough they can taste it when they're actually in government and connecting with think tanks etc. Them and their staff are constantly clambering all over one another to secure spots on various paid trips to the states from lobbyists, think tanks, Dem working committees etc.

In the months running up to the 2024 US presidential election when some Labour MPs and staff went to the US to put their forensic Midas touch on the Kamala campaign absolutely eating shit, one of them was sending selfies to our local non-league football team watching pub chat from three different MLS games they'd been given hospitality tickets for in the one week they were there before coming back and talking about how they spent 12 hour days campaigning and strategizing for the Kamala campaign.

One of them has a subscription to The Atlantic and started reading it in the pub a couple of times before I started taking the piss out of them for it.

You have no idea how deep the burgerland simping goes.

Supporters were mostly oblivious, 'Keir seems like a man of his word' types who reacted like I was telling them Santa Claus was a member of the Bilderberg Group when I would mention his craven, shady, intelligence-linked wrecker career before joining the Corbyn leadership.

The two active career Labour guys (including the assistant) weren't full Corbyn is a terrorist, but we're definitely 'the public agrees he's too divisive and radical' type wreckers who consistently put the boot in but stopped short of the more extreme stuff in case it the party takeover didn't work out. Ghouls-lite basically.

They are extremely full of shit and while I've gotten into it with a bit in the past, I was happy to just turn the screw a little bit and bask in their misery for once while grinning into my pint.

(This is just a smug anecdote because I rarely get the opportunity to do so in Hellworld-on-Sea)

People were talking about the Starmer government seeming to be following the Trump one 'a bit too closely on some things' in the pub this weekend and I pointed out it was much more than that. It's on almost everything.

On slashing government, on foreign policy, on welfare demonisation, on AI boondoggles, on deportation & immigration, on the prosecution of protesters and anti-genocide activists, begging for tarrif excemptions in exchange for cutting all tax on American tech companies instead of arguing against them, and on and on.

Even the still active Labour people (including an assistant to an MP) were basically like, 'yeah, that's depressingly true but what else are we gonna do' (faux, there is no alternative self-pitying bullshit naturally) instead of even trying to fight the point or do the party line.

I was kind of surprised how fucking deep in the toilet even their morale is apparently.

In fact, they only got a little bit indignant when I concluded by pointing out that the major difference between the Starmer admin and Trump's is that Trump is still popular with his base and Starmer's got exactly fuck all.

Even then they didn't have much will to push back beyond some harrumphing and 'come on now'.

I enjoyed it tremendously.

Man jerks off for more than 24hrs in workplace standoff

This is cultural appropriation because that chef is Swedish (allegedly).

I honestly didn't know there was. It's a fairly interesting film that doesn't do much new if you're familiar with Laiback or the NSK movement. I remember it getting a bit of a buzz back in the mid-teens when it came out but haven't really heard about it since. Where has it been popping up recently?

Shoutout to the people who at least made this the second most upvoted comment:

Enough about our horrific past. Let's talk about our horrific future.

I think I'm burnt out on / done with Balatro. I came to it late (maybe two months ago when it got added to games pass) and it's... a little compulsive, good, but I don't really get the narrative of addictive genius.

I've been playing a bit of Football Manager 2024 and it's a fantastic reminder of both what you can build out of an old game that was basically an excel spreadsheet and also how little I know about modern football after 10-20 years of watching mostly to exclusively non-league.

I've found myself going back to State of Decay 2 whenever I can't sleep. At some point, if anyone is even remotely interested, I might have to try and explain my repeating return to this slightly janky, rather outdated, zombie (ugh, genre) game. But for now it's just a very satisfying, familiar game that's perfect for playing with audiobooks and longer podcast series.

UK anti-terror police & intelligence services detained journalist Richard Medhurst recently and have now arrested Palestine activist and Gaza linked journalist on terrorism charges.

She gave the details of her impossible to abide by bail conditions in an interview someone else had to set up as she's forbidden from travelling, touching any electronic device.

I've had to remove the link entirely. The female journalist in question Sarah Wilkinson. Her Twitter account seems to be being run by a friend or her son now and you can search out the couple of interviews she's given so far

~~Sorry for the rubbish links. Xcancel just 403s for me and none of the four Hexbear recommended YouTube link alternatives work. All either don't work at all or are not allowing new users / posts. If the links are too tricky or you don't have time to watch the 30-45min interview here's the key points.~~

• First thing in the morning her home was raised by anti-terror police who wouldn't identify themselves, some even wearing balaclavas to hide their identities
• They claimed a warrant exists but would not show it or tell her what was contained in it as anti-terror legislation says they don't have to
• She wasn't allowed to dress, call anyone, or get her medication (she suffers from Crohn's disease).
• The tightness of the cuffs caused injuries to her hands but weren't loosened
• They ransacked her house and physically restrained her son, including throwing him up against the wall.
• They confiscated any and all electronic items, phones, and computers, as well as files, address books and more. These are the items that were on the official itemized list they provided her.
• They also stole money, personal items, and her passport, taking them without listing them.
• Taking her passport without itemising it guarantees she cannot meet the terms of her bail as she is required to turn it in on a future date. Her bail conditions also stop her applying for a replacement. The penalty for not being able to hand it in is likely to be 5 years in prison without a trial or legal representation.
• She also cannot travel, including buying any form of train or bus ticket despite living in a rural village, seeming including to her required 'check ins' on future dates.
• They deliberately desecrated her parents' ashes, spreading them so she couldn't retrieve them all, and damaged the urn.
• They loaded her into an unmarked black van, cuffed but unsecured and gave her a rough ride.
• They deliberately drove 45 minutes in the wrong direction, away from the police station they said they were taking her to. At this point she seriously considered that she might be being kidnapped as they still hadn't shown her a warrant or verifiable ID and were hiding their identities.
• While being held, they denied her any medication meaning that she also couldn't eat, essentially denying her food or drink.
• They eventually brought her a cup of tea and said she could have her meds as soon as she'd drank it. When she did, they then denied her meds again in an apparent attempt to make her ill.
• When she demanded to see a doctor they eventually sent in someone they claimed was a nurse. However, she seemed to have little to no medical knowledge, didn't seem to actually know anything about Crohn's disease despoite claiming to and couldn't even spell it when asked to. She did not appear to be a qualified medical professional and wouldn't give any details of her qualifications.
• They tried to deny her access to a lawyer, claiming she didn't have that right until she repeatedly demonstrated that she knew she did under Section 12 of the law. They eventually relented for the interrogation.
• She gave a no comment interview, but the questions they asked over several hours were apparently very interesting. They were riddled with racist comments and questions that implied Palestinian's weren't human, they repeatedly asked her "why she would value Palestinians over people like us" which she took to mean white and/or Zionist.
• She also says that her interrogators frequently used talking points, language, and tactics that organisations like the IDF and Shin-Bet do.
• Most notable was their interrogation and demand that she give details of the people in Gaza that she works with via a charity that digs wells and provides water. They wanted names, locations, contact details, phone numbers etc. Naturally she refused as she suspects they would be then given to Israel to use for targeting purposes.

In a bid to increase productivity in its economy (now mostly owned by Northern Europe after the financial crisis) and 'fill gaps in skilled work' Greece is now moving to a 6 Day Work Week in many sectors.

Congratulations European technocrats, you've managed to roll back hard won progress by almost 200 years.

The BBC refused the air the South African prosecution's case at the ICJ.

It aired Israel's defense live, and in full.

I feel a little sorry for the Lemm.ee users here that came to make measured, personal posts specific to the annoucement. There's a fair amount of long off-topic arguements happening in bits of the thread now and that probably makes it harder to read and manage.

This is something that's often been pointed to as a pure result of Hexbear users or federation with Hexbear and given rise to accusations of 'brigading here and in the past'. While I don't think every segue into debate has been useful here, and have also told comrades that I didn't think this was the place for specific comments (which they removed) I also think there's some important context to point out - and I hope it helps lemm.ee users wondering about all this traffic not to fall into the trap of assuming the worst based on a couple of comments:

• Hexbear is a very big and very active instance. A very small proportion of users posting in a thread (especially one explicitly about them) can seem like a lot to a lot of instances.
• Hexbear doesn't have downvotes and Hexbear users do not have the ability to downvote posts or comments on other instances. This creates a culture where if people disagree, they tend to reply, not downvote instead. Another reason we're very active.
• This thread has constantly been at the top of people's feeds on Hexbear. if they're not only set to 'local'.
• Finally - and I say this fully acknowledging and appriciating the many ordinary, good faith, pleasant lemm.ee commenters that I've enjoyed reading and talking too even when I totally disagreed with them - a lot of these off-topic arguements and more heated comments do not come from nowhere. While not at all the majority, I do see a pretty shocking amount of actively hostile, hateful, and insulting behaviour here. Sadly, quite a bit of it would be banned under Hexbear's moderation policy against things like slurs and hate speech too.

So try to keep in mind if you see salty Hexbear users replying to people that, just in reading through this thread myself, I've the following instances of abuse or smears against my comrades (and they continue popping up). So I absolutely support them defending themselves (as long as they stay within the rules here):

• Dimissal as the pejorative "tankie" - 4 times (although we actually think this one is pretty funny usually)
• Users stating that Hexbear users are propagandists - 8 times
• Stating that people from Hexbear are specifically paid Russian/Chinese bots/propagandists - 10 times
• Direct equivalences of Hexbear posters to Nazis or just straight up calling us Nazis/fascists - 7 times
• Insults regarding mental health or IQ that would be classed as ablism on Hexbear - 8 times
• Dismissing users as children - 2 times
• Claiming Hexbear users are using vote-manipulation (impossible, as explained above) - 4 times
• Accusations of deliberate brigading rather than just commenting, being active - 11 times

I've tried not to count repeated instances from the same users. But sadly that's not all. Just a handful of the following are comments that have been made against Hexbear users in this thread, without any kind of equal hostility. As far as I can tell they all still remain:

• "You guys are like cancer"
• "Braindead fucking tankies"
• "Get fucked"
• "Asshole" (multiple)
• That our beliefs are "moralistic bullshut"
• That some of our beliefs are "a criminal ideology"
• A comment that simply states "No Russians"
• That we're "evil" (multiple times)
• An elaborate comparison to us "vandalising a Jewish graveyard" and other Nazi equivalences
• And of course a comment that explictly minimised the Nazi death toll with glee, seeming to imply they should have killed more. On the subject of disagreeing with equating the hammer and sickle to the swastika (hidden with spoiler tag, for those who don't want to see it repeated)...
  
  spoiler

  "you are right, it is nor really fair to nazis, who killed measly 17 million people, compared to impressive 100 million killed by communists."

There's also been numerious instances of users misgendering Hexbear users. I'm not going to put all of these down to malice, but at Hexbear we display our pronouns for a reason - we love our trans comrades! You don't have to, but could you please at least respect them and not misgender them?

Again, this isn't the majority, but it's honestly disappointing and worth keeping in mind amongst some of the louder, minority yells of 'brigading' etc.