“So while we ought noisily to challenge her incitement to hatred and violence against the most vulnerable groups in society and to condemn the fact that major media outlets are providing her with the microphone to do this, we also need to organise for a different kind of politics in which those escaping war and poverty are welcomed and not left to drown in the seas that surround us.“ Des Freedman regards Katie Hopkins as merely a sideshow in an age of neoliberal politicians protecting uninhibited cross-border flow of capital while barring people fleeing poverty and persecution and refusing to help them when they vanish into the sea.
Tag: responsibility
Europas Schuld
“Natürlich kann Europa nicht jeden Krieg verhindern und jeden gescheiterten Staat aufbauen. Doch Europa muss für instabile und Not leidende Staaten bei Weitem mehr tun als bisher. Ansonsten darf es sich nicht wundern, wenn deren verzweifelte Bewohner in Richtung Hoffnung aufbrechen—und sich weder von Meeren noch von Zäunen aufhalten lassen.” Markus Becker sieht eine klare Mitverantwortung Europas für das Flüchtlingsdrama. Pflichtlektüre.
David Cameron used swarm instead of plague in case it implied that God had sent the migrants
“There has to be something wrong with a world where the best employment option for a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa isn’t being a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa, but crossing the Mediterranean on a punctured lilo, only to spend days dangling under a lorry so that he can end up selling lollipops in a nightclub toilet. Our indifference is staggering.”
Frankie Boyle
Meet Fethullah Üzümcüoğlu and Esra Polat, the Turkish couple who spent their wedding day feeding 4,000 Syrian refugees.
How to let altruism be your guide
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“However complex politically, economically, scientifically the question of the environment is, it simply boils down to a question of altruism versus selfishness.”
Matthieu Ricard
David Simon on why he created The Wire¹
“Collective responsibilty without personal freedom or without personal liberty is tyranny, it’s totalitarianism. Conversely, personal freedom and personal liberty without a collective responsibility where we have a shared sense that you are part of society and that you owe it to society to participate fully and to seek utilitarian solutions to society’s problems—that’s just selfish. That’s just bad citizenship. That’s a recipe for a second rate society. [sic]” David Simon speaking at the Observer Ideas festival 2014 in London.
1. “Despite only receiving average ratings and never winning major television awards, The Wire has been described by many critics as one of the greatest TV dramas of all time.”
Robin Cook is dead
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Robin Cook, one of few political figures to command my lasting respect, has suddenly died on August 6, 2005. If you are only ever going to read one personal statement made to the House of Commons, read Robin Cooks’s resignation speech from 17 March, 2003.