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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart
@munross.bsky.social
1K followers 3.2K following 460 posts
@[email protected] no X, no FB Poetry (Faber, Drunk Muse) Fiction (Dedalus). Social theory (Routledge) #Istanbul, Photos. Drums. Greens, Kirk, #LUFC.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 16h
Today in "British Government Does Mad Stuff That Will Divert Shed Loads of Policei Officers From Their Real Jobs At Huge Public Expense"

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 1d
apologies for not tagging @moiradonegan.bsky.social
munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 1d
SCOTUS binning the Voting Rights Act:
"it will no longer be illegal ... to racially gerrymander congressional districts to minimize and dilute Black voter power. But it will be illegal to use race to redistrict in such a way that restores Black voter power."
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The US supreme court appears ready to nullify the Voting Rights Act | Moira Donegan
Court has repeatedly expanded states’ leeway to make voting laws that would have previously been deemed discriminatory
www.theguardian.com
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Reposted by Harry Smart
robertpjones.bsky.social
Robert P. Jones @robertpjones.bsky.social · 4d
Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Trump’s Columbus Day proclamation is a celebration of white Christian nationalism that is a threat to pluralistic democracy. It praises Columbus for "dedicating the land to God" and for "the ultimate triumph of Western civilization."
www.whitetoolong.net/cp/176006073
Columbus Day Celebrates an Ongoing Christian Nationalist Threat to American Democracy
The roots of Christian Nationalism reach back before the founding of our Republic to Columbus and the Christian Doctrine of Discovery.
www.whitetoolong.net
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 4d
Haggard, pugnacious, with the style sense of a radish*.
Bless him and all who sail in him.

*arguably unfair to radishes.
munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 4d
If you have Insta, look at this by @geraldknaus.bsky.social on the ICC
Knaus, with Rory Stewart, wrote a book on reconstruction in Bosnia / Balkans which should be on the reading list of anyone concerned with the practical politics of peacemaking.
www.instagram.com/reel/DPJf_R8...
Login • Instagram
Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.
www.instagram.com
munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 5d
David's the tricky one: 'man after God's own heart', faith rather than armour v. Goliath, 'psalmist of Israel'.

Also, adulterous pyschopath, bitterly vengeful. Hands too stained with blood to build a temple.

Easily read, uncritically, as legitimating the brutal warrior as man of God.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 6d
The NHS spends £billions paying off loan shark debts .. PFI - Private Finance Initiatives

Wes Streeting wants more money for the loan sharks

Help @everydoctor.org.uk defend an NHS where the money goes to helping staff care for patients

everydoctor.org.uk/stand-with-n...
Stand With NHS Staff and Patients: Sign the EveryDoctor Charter – EveryDoctor
everydoctor.org.uk
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 13d
'hegemony' is a bit of a stretch. That said, watching the dismantling of US higher ed and research capacity is bizarre.
munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 14d
Not to over-biblify this but there's a psychological insight in Revelations where it describes the devil's increasing fury 'because he knows his time is short'.
munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 14d
And it's a sign of how driven the people are for whom he's a useful idiot. They have no guarantee of a smooth Vance succession and they see what you've named here.
munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 14d
Some have been calling for large-scale conscription for a couple of years. İt may well become a NATO imperative, an Article 5 activation looks increasingly likely.
That will be one big wake-up call.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 14d
The US citizens slowly waking up to domestic disaster have little conception of the scale of the US' enemy-making and support-losing globally.
But the generals, like those of us outside the US, do know this.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 14d
The other issue that occurs is, Hegseth et al, and most Americans, feel secure in the continental US. The military knows it has countless assets around the globe that are eminently hittable.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 14d
'them' = generals, admirals et al.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 14d
I hope so. The best hope surely is a large number of them recognising that their oath to defend the constitution requires them to refuse Executive autarchy.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 15d
I see that, but I fear it's too late.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 15d
David, as a US-watcher, my jaw is probably permanently damaged from hitting the floor - hard. But this is ..

words honestly, genuinely, fail.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 19d
Ibrox has a not dissimilar vibe, and we have a mutual just round the corner from it.

Or play the Kaiser Chiefs' I Predict A Riot at unfeasible volume and you could almost be in Leeds.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 19d
There's a saying in story-structure teaching that action (in a movie) is not spectacle, it's decision. Politically, action requires decision. That there is a crisis and therefore we must act, or speak. The danger is the unrecognised decision-by-default in favour of silence.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 19d
Yep. İf he had a shred of decency, and wanted to introduce Anthea to life in the UK, he'd invite her to Elland Road. None of your barista nonsense there.
City of dreaming spires to city of shattered dreams
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 19d
İt's a place of such privilege that the vast majority of us Brits have next to no hope of living or studying there.

And you deserve it.

May your time there be everything you need to heal and recharge. Slainte!
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Reposted by Harry Smart
tparsi.bsky.social
Trita Parsi @tparsi.bsky.social · 22d
This terrified girl in Gaza is too young to know that we had the power to stop the bombs falling on her family, but we chose not to.

She doesn't know of our profound and inescapable complicity. But we do.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 25d
btw İ say this as a believer. Any Christian anywhere in the world Church should be exercised by this blasphemy coming from one of the most globally prominent, vocal and visible communions in the world.
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munross.bsky.social
Harry Smart @munross.bsky.social · 25d
I see at least one banner saying Jesus in bold over what looks almost like a version of England's St George's cross.

I'd like to see a close reading of the iconography of this event. I assume there's a lot more footage out there to work with.
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