Who let the dogs out? Brexit
- September 12, 2016
- by
- Matt
More than two months after the Brexit referendum, the surge in hate crime and racism unleashed by the referendum shows no sign of abating, and the politicians who did so much to help bring it about continue to deny any responsibility for it. Farage has done this on various occasions, and now MEP and arch-Brexiter Daniel Hannan has joined the dismal chorus.
Asked by Dermot Murnaghan on Sky News whether he felt there had been ‘an increase in hate crimes involving foreign nationals in the UK’, Hannan denied that any such increase...
Troll Nation
- September 01, 2016
- by
- Matt
Anyone who has published, tweeted or posted anything on the Internet will be aware that the worldwide web can be a dank and hateful environment in which all kinds of wild and extremely poisonous creatures flourish. Whether it’s the anonymity provided by an avatar, or simply the fact that the Internet provides a tool...
The World According to Bono
- April 15, 2016
- by
- Matt
I’ve got nothing against famous people getting involved in politics or embracing political causes. On the contrary, there’s no reason why the accident of fame and the weird cult of celebrity-worship that comes with it should place anyone above politics or preclude celebrities from taking moral and political positions on issues that...
Europe’s ‘Migration Crisis’ : Repression with a human face
- March 08, 2016
- by
- Matt
Many years ago Franco Solinas, the scriptwriter for Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterpiece The Battle of Algiers, was asked by an interviewer why the French colonel Mathieu – a pragmatic exponent of torture – was portrayed as ‘ too much of a gentleman in fatigues, excessively noble. He is elegant, cultured….’ Solinas replied that...
Hope I die before I get old
- March 06, 2016
- by
- Matt
There was a time when living longer was considered to be a desirable goal, and rising life expectancy was regarded as a metric of social progress. In those not so distant times, ‘developed’ capitalist societies and already existing socialist societies alike assumed that work was a preparation for an old age in which you...
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