A Tattered Scrapbook

Time for a proper introduction. I am a literature teacher, mostly retired. I love reading, music, baking, nature & cats. I am learning to boost a lot, which includes my passion for a truly inclusive world, so lots of support for Black, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, Women, Working Class, & other rights. I understand users who want Mastodon to be a quiet corner, but I am more concerned about what happens if we look the other way when people suffer.

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Last Notes

2025-06-30 11:29:10 UTC

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More than 5000 wounded! That’s more than 100 people per day, shot for being desperate for food, by the people starving them.
If someone equates opposing this with anti-semitism, what do *they* think about Jewish people?

2025-06-29 21:57:45 UTC

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Whenever I see Starmer, I think “England prevails”, he’s so like the grubby little fascists in V for Vendetta.

2025-06-13 11:29:55 UTC

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Despite its appalling history, I have never been so ashamed to be a UK national.

2025-06-09 22:53:04 UTC

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Appropriate selfie for child murdering Zionists.

2025-06-06 22:56:09 UTC

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As a fellow mastodon social user, I wonder if you know that your posts are often half-hidden under other posts on the Mastodon app? Aral Balkan was criticizing the instance’s pro-Israeli bias. Perhaps it’s time we looked for another instance?

2025-06-05 03:32:43 UTC

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Because Liberals always serve the same interest groups as Conservatives…

2025-05-13 20:55:28 UTC

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The right media attacked him on two grounds; appearance and communist Russia. The same approach was used with Corbyn, until they used AS to get rid of him. The power of propaganda wins elections.

2025-05-09 11:18:00 UTC

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I have made this point many times. Israel Zangwill disagreed with Herzl’s plan for settling Palestine when he found out how many people lived there. Zangwill was a foundational Zionist, but he changed to favour a homeland in South America in order to avoid displacing Palestinians. Zangwill knew; therefore, Herzl knew. He just didn’t care.

2025-03-15 22:52:16 UTC

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Courageous and principled. You’re an excellent example.

2025-03-03 11:01:47 UTC

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If not for Japan, the US would never have fought Hitler.

2025-02-25 20:07:07 UTC

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I’m an old school socialist. I have some sympathy with anarchism, while also having some questions. I’ve encountered some pretty right-wing capitalist-anarchists, who, like Musk, want to dismantle the state to enable greater corporate predation. Class-consciousness is essential, in my opinion.

2025-02-25 10:41:27 UTC

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A lot of this is the hangover of how effective McCarthyism was.
People like Malcolm X or Muhammad Ali got it…

2025-02-05 02:53:43 UTC

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You would think by now that “liberals” would have realized that the strategy of giving right-wingers what they want so that the right doesn’t win actually means that the right has *already* won. One does not stop fascism by doing fascists’ work for them.

2025-01-14 11:26:13 UTC

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Where are the Trade Unions? It’s clear (and has been clear since Starmer took over) that this version of the party cares nothing for the workers, the retired, the sick, the poor,… The party is supposed to be the political arm of the Trades Union movement. Where is the Union action? Where is the threat of defunding? Is there nobody left in Britain that gives tuppence for the working class?

2025-01-14 11:15:58 UTC

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The world’s self-described greatest democracy showing that it can’t protect itself from a grubby gang of con-men…

2024-12-10 05:48:20 UTC

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And now I understand why you blame the electorate.

2024-12-10 03:19:14 UTC

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Sadly, I’m not sure that it is the reality anymore. I imagine that the appalling corruption of the USian two party state is about to mutate into something worse.
And, from a distance, I blame the conservatism of the Dems, who failed to make the most of a four year opportunity, believing that they could appease the GOP.

2024-12-09 22:55:55 UTC

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The Democrats weren’t really opposing the status quo, were they?
Blaming the electorate for the outcome of a two party state system is something of a conservative strategy, no? Like the “good” mom blaming the child for the beating it’s going to get from dad.

2024-11-22 21:43:09 UTC

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A quarter of a million old folk should have enough kids and grandkids to put fear into this wooden fake socialist. It’s about time Brits reminded the Labour government that it is there to serve the people.

2024-10-24 03:22:21 UTC

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Make them useful. Plant a tree on top of every billionaire grave.

2024-10-22 11:33:52 UTC

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Bearwashing?

2024-10-11 23:24:01 UTC

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At a slight tangent, Japan’s experience of Western design is beautifully captured at Meiji Mura.
Definitely not European, but a beautiful project preserving the influence of European and American architecture in the Meiji period.
I’m sure you have featured it; but I really love the place!

2024-10-08 08:14:16 UTC

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How about the US, arming and supporting this behaviour?
It might be time to revisit Bush’s “Axis of Evil” and think about who deserves such a name.

2024-10-07 01:04:12 UTC

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Both seem to be doing fine with Biden…

2024-09-27 12:40:14 UTC

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Agreed.
But without political action, an award is just sending a ribbon to *go with* the bombs that the US is sending.
An election is coming up in which neither main candidate will stop the slaughter. Awards can too easily mask inaction.

2024-09-27 09:48:55 UTC

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I’ve just read Jack London’s ringside report on the Johnson vs Jeffries fight in 1910. Johnson’s importance to black people cannot be overlooked. And I think that is also true of Bruno, Conteh,…
Boxing is horrific; and still these brave men were symbols in a country that really needed prominent black figures.
People like my dad had a choice, cheer for the black guy or stop cheering for the Brit. It mattered.

2024-09-27 09:38:48 UTC

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I am sorry that you think my comment is ridiculous. It was not meant to demean, in any way, a wonderful journalist’s achievements in horrific conditions.
Rather my target was the US’ tendency to give ‘awards’ of conscience while electing people who enact blood-soaked policies, from the nation’s foundation to the present.

2024-09-27 03:36:46 UTC

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Same day as the country of the awards ceremony gives $8.7 billion in military aid to the country murdering Bisan’s people, hidden behind the US President calling for a ceasefire.
I hope that the award will be refused, until the US no longer has a President complicit in genocide, whenever that may happen to be.

2024-08-07 21:15:20 UTC

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Worldwide. Just one of the USian problems that doesn’t stop at the border.

2024-06-21 12:09:42 UTC

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I live in Japan and I used to live in China, so I have an interest in peace.
It would probably help if successive US presidents stopped dumping on China. I swear for every banned product or trade embargo, the US pushes China closer to Putin and Kim.

2024-06-20 22:14:35 UTC

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I disagree with the take here. I don’t think China is “testing the US response”. I also think that the Philippines placing military on the disputed island is “escalation”. This is not to defend Chinese actions. It is merely to indicate (typically American) anti-Chinese bias.

2024-05-03 14:38:57 UTC

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While you are right, they don’t even have to explicitly want to “support” Palestinians. They just need to want to separate themselves from businesses and interests willing to slaughter civilians. And, as the original poster noted, that should not be a hard ask for a place of higher learning.