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UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

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Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

#31

It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.

You truly believe this change is because of Israel?

Did it happen when people protested Russian invasion? No

Did it happen when people protested China for the treatment of Uyghurs? No

Did it happen when people speak up (no protests, yet) about UAE involvement in Sudan? No

I made my own conclusions based on these and other similar data points.

Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

#32
post #4

It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” History, just like everything else in Nature, is cyclical.

That's deep bro! I think this was coined by Joe Rogan, right?

Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

#33

It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.

In Ireland opposition to the ongoing Genocide in Palestine is a wholly secular and humanitarian concern, divorced entirely from any correlation with race, religion, ethos or creed - despite agitators attempts to label it to the contrary. We are, however, unique in Western Europe in this regard - but it is not a mono-culture and the reasons are very contextual.

While Germany is not an advocate of genocide in any sense, it is a major arms exporter to Israel and has also barely been re-admitted into the human race as a result of their egregious human rights violations and war crimes in the previous century. This over-erring on the side of caution for their previous victims can thus be explained, if not excused.

The UK, however, have distinguished themselves instead by trying to prosecute Irish Rappers for Terrorism, and proscribing Palestine Action a terrorist organisation - putting it alongside Al Qaeda and ISIS, and making support of the group a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison. It seems that to protect democracy under the current newspeak you have to arrest Placard wielding Pensioners.

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/uk-arresting-pe...

British police have made over 1,300 arrests using terrorism legislation at Palestine Action protests this summer — five times more than the total number of arrests for terrorism-related activity in the U.K. in all of 2024. From a retired British colonel to a Catholic priest, half of the 532 people arrested in the Parliament Square protest alone were 60 or older.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/aug/16...

Those participating in anything akin to the Coal Miner's Strikes of the 80s under Thatcher would no doubt find themselves charged with 'domestic terrorism' and put on no-fly lists alongside other societally chilling measures. In short, this is to distract from the economic black-hole they find themselves in post-Brexit, with incitement to hatred spurred on by paid agitators like Tommy Robinson who is in turn backed by Elon Musk/Russia, or Nathan Gill the former MEP who was jailed for accepting around £40,000 in bribes from a Russian-linked individual to support pro-Russian politicians.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/world/europe/uk-far-right...

France has its own particularly xenophobic issues - but they are focused on Islamic migration from North Africa as a follow-on from France's appalling history of Colonial abuse in the region. Thus the French far-right, typified historically by their anti-semitism, end up as uneasy bedfellows and proxy Zionists by virtue of Marine Le Pen's stance since kicking her father out of their far-right party over his persistent refutation of the Holocaust.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/world/europe/france-jews-...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/06/marine-le-pens...

Our colonial legacy in Ireland, as the oppressed, however, grants us a special insight and advocacy for those in analogous circumstances - be it historically re: refusing to handle goods from Apartheid South Africa, or contemporarily with our Occupied Territories Bill (or whatever watered down version passes American MNC muster).

https://mandate.ie/2024/07/the-day-10-workers-changed-the-wo...

Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

#34

It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.

You truly believe this change is because of Israel?

Not to say there hasn’t been creeping authoritarianism, growing mass surveillance, etc. for the last few decades, but it has seemed that this one issue has stood out as utterly unique, especially in the UK in that there was basically bipartisan accord from those in power across all the mainstream political views, and the only “allowed” position from them was uncritical support for that country’s Government and their military actions.

At the same time, there seemed to be a much larger group of people in the normal population who disagreed with those in power than most other issues (when at least some representatives in a major party might roughly align with the people)

Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

#35

It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.

You truly believe this change is because of Israel?

The uk has specifically banned support for Palestine Action so it's a reasonable conclusion

Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

#36

It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.

Looks like a typical too good to be true funnel to get most people on board and then rug pull. Bait and switch, only executed on longer timeframe

Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

#37

It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.

it never has. see McCarthyism for instance

Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

#38

It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.

> Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel.

It's not sudden. The West's hate speech laws have been coming for ages. Anyone silly enough to put that much enforcement over speech into play cannot now complain that it's being used against people they like.

Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

#39
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You truly believe this change is because of Israel?

The uk has specifically banned support for Palestine Action so it's a reasonable conclusion

Didn't that group attack an RAF base?

Re: UK Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as 'subversion'

#40
post #4

It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel. It’s truly shameful to see such developments.

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” History, just like everything else in Nature, is cyclical.

It's a protofascist phrase, part of the problems we have is people adopting this worldview, that life has to be hard in order to create "good men". It's used to defend rightwing social darwinism.

If anything, history goes the other way around. Fascism ("strong men") comes from good times, as a reaction. They create authoritarianism and discrimination ("bad times"), which slowly liberalizes and equalizes (gives rise to "weak men"). This makes situation better until another fascist takeover.

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