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UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

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Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#341

Post by pfortuny »

haltingproblem wrote: post #83
gerdesj wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Britain is not a democracy in any modern sense of the word." Demos kratos - things/doings of the people (or similar) - Old Greek. Nowadays it describes a generally agreed form of government and approach to governing. After that it gets pretty complicated - your democracy may not match mine ... I'm going to be voting for councillors soon in Somerset, along with everyone else here who can be bothered to turn out. We a…

Yours is the most honest answer, but yes, lets agree that Democracy means one person/one vote and everyone's vote is equal. The Brits have a pretty good form of government for its citizen but a one-person/one-vote-and-equal vote it is not. Similarly a country where the Majority's choice does not become President (like the US) does not qualify no matter how loudly they proclaim themselves to be the world's oldest demo…

No, democracy is NOT one person one vote. That is a specific kind of democracy, which may or may not be acceptable for whatever reasons. Democracy means “the people” as a group decide the outcome. But how it is done may defer a lot.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#342

Post by filoeleven »

somenameforme wrote: post #159
Lukineus wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to have a paper trail for an electronic system, then why not just use the paper system? It's like there's a pro-electronic movement that's looking for every excuse to move to electronic... Ok, so we go electronic. We put in all these extra checks and balances to account for it's downsides. It runs well. People start questioning the need for the checks and balances, since it's so full-proof. So we remo…

> "For the people that complain about the staffing requirements for a paper-based election: it's a feature, not a bug. The sheer number of people involved make it virtually impossible to rig an election." There are two ways to rig an election. The first is miscounting or changing votes but I think the other is the real risk and likely dates to the very first time we as a species ever started having votes by anonymous…

I’d argue that gerrymandering is a far bigger issue than ballot stuffing. Its sole purpose is to ensure that elections go in favor of the party who draws the map. If that ain’t rigging an election, I don’t know what is.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#343

Post by pfortuny »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #54
haltingproblem wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I'm trying to understand why the toys flew out the pram when I said "democracy". Did it offend, as if to say "Hey we live in a democracy and by implication all other countries are shite" ? I didn't mean that. It's a very loaded word, so sorry if it "triggers". Notice I didn't say functional democracy. I guess along with it goes a whole slew of hidden values, like how we expect public figures to behave, and how we exp…

Because it goes against the facts: the government is chosen by vote of the people.

It may not have the rule of law or separation of powers, but that is totally different.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#345

Post by voxic11 »

KarlKemp wrote: post #119
Jenk wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current home secretary, Priti Patel, was forced to resign from her previous (lesser) role as Minister for International Development for secretly (and thus illegally) meeting with Israeli diplomats. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41923007 It is completely unsurprising that there is little care shown by our government.

Doesn't the fact that she had to resign point to the opposite conclusion, namely that these governments are distinct entities with sometimes conflicting interests?

It points to there being some pressure, probably from the public. But like police officers who get fired only to be rehired the next town over she now has a even more prestigious position in government. So there is no actual accountability here, just theater.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#346

Post by foxhill »

cloutchaser wrote: post #245
mschuster91 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I can't believe you've been downvoted to oblivion. Labour party antisemitism goes way beyond criticism of isreal, including support for hezbollah and hamas. https://labourhatesjews.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/29-examples... Also: Jeremy Corbyn faces fury after praising ‘brilliant’ book which claims Jews control world banks https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8975188/jeremy-corbyn-praises-... Corbyn also backed the artist behi…

> Labour party antisemitism goes way beyond criticism of isreal, including support for hezbollah and hamas.

corbyn famously laid a wreath on the grave of a hamas fighter[1]. an interpretation - more in line with how corbyn has historically treated war and violence - reads:

> "They insist Jeremy Corbyn was at the service to commemorate the Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in 1985"

i'll leave "support for palastine is equivalent to antisemitism" argument to the side here, needless to say i don't think i'm unique in thinking that this isn't the case.

> Jeremy Corbyn faces fury after praising ‘brilliant’ book which claims Jews control world banks

if this is in reference to the hobson book foreword, then, this would be very similar in nature to calling me misogynistic for recommending the 1st edition K&R C book, because it presumes the programmer is a man.

the book in question, Imperialism, is a treatise on how capatilism causes imperialism. which does sound like something corbyn would be interested in. i implore you to read it and tell me how antisemitic it is.

> Corbyn also backed the artist behind the mural clearly depicting evil jews controlling the world like a board game:

look at the damn mural![2] where is the antisemitic message? it's literally called "freedom for humanity". it seems clear to me that this is a complaint on the power the rich have over the rest of us.

every single one of the threads i've ended up going down over years has always been a variation on: corbyn, or the labour party, is decried as antisemitic for something. this "something" is rarely made clear or obvious when it gets media coverage. surface level investigation makes claims of antisemitism look not particularly strong.

in the meantime, i need to learn advanced memory keeping techniques to keep track of conservative government scandals from the last 6 months.

> The excusing away of this behaviour on HN is crazy, it's not just about isreal. Not by a long shot.

if corbyn is antisemitic, then let me be clear: fuck him. it would be at odds though with his otherwise radical socialist and humanitarian track record: views on which he has been remarkably consistent on for the majority of his political career. somehow, even today.

the only thing that seems crazy to me is just how effective the campaign against him was.

[1]: https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-jeremy-cor...

[2]: https://i0.wp.com/inspiringcity.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/...

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#347

Post by BoxOfRain »

strbean wrote: post #128
KarlKemp wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the fact that she had to resign point to the opposite conclusion, namely that these governments are distinct entities with sometimes conflicting interests?

She is now Home Secretary of the UK. She got fired upwards.

The current Cabinet is suffering from a serious lack of talent in my opinion; several political purges related to Brexit has meant the only real qualifying characteristic for some of the highest offices in the land is being a yes-man for Johnson.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#348

Post by yyyk »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #335
yyyk wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair enough. We can discuss arguments to a large extent divorced from who made them. This is often useful. However, the quote in question goes a bit further, Chomsky says Eban started a specific strategy of using antisemitism to Eban's own ends, almost directly paraphrasing something Eban allegedly said. I think I'm entitled to ask what's Chomsky's source, and if there isn't any, than it rests on Chomsky's cre…

I followed a chain of links to see if I can pinpoint the origin of the quote, but that only resulted in, as you indicated, in Chomsky's own words[1]. As such, you are right, for that reason his credibility is more relevant since I was not able to verify Eban's words. Separately, I did some basic googling of Eban quotes and his positions[2] do not seem at odds with the gist of Chomsky's quote though: "One of the chief…

>his positions[2] do not seem at odds with the gist of Chomsky's quote though

I would like to differ slightly. Chomsky has it that Eban wants to tar criticism of Israeli policy as antisemitic* - which leads to the 'oh well, they just accused Corbyn of antisemitism because of his Israel position' argument you see in the comments.

Eban wants to argue against a specific ideological position which at least is aimed at completely modifying the Israeli state (not 'policy criticism') and he has his argument for it - an argument we can safely say Israel has lost in the West. People may defend Israel, but they usually do not consider their opponent antisemitic per se.

* There's also the 'neurotic self-hatred' part, where Eban supposedly is naming Chomsky specifically, but I think we can safely discard that.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#349

Post by FerretFred »

Someone1234 wrote: post #2

I'm surprised this isn't a major diplomatic incident between the UK and Israel too, since the Israeli intelligence company was supposedly "closely monitoring how their customers were using the software" or akin to that. Like, yeah, blame the UAE mostly for this but let's also have a discussion about why this was sold to anyone who would pay with no oversight at all. Western countries need to do better.

> surprised this isn't a major diplomatic incident

It all depends who the (UK) Government is "friends" with. Let's not forget the infamous Russian Novichok poisoning cases in Salisbury - those naughty Russians! The Saudis execute 81 citizens in a day, and Boris visits the day after to beg for oil and gas - those naughty Saudis!

I'm not surprised it isn't a major diplomatic incident!

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