Making Athens Great Again | The Atlantic |

What happens when a society, once a model for enlightened progress, threatens to backslide into intolerance and irrationality--with the complicity of many of its own citizens? How should that society's stunned and disoriented members respond? Do they engage in kind, resist, withdraw, even depart? It's a dilemma as old as democracy itself.

Twenty-four centuries ago, Athens was upended by the outcome of a vote that is worth revisiting today. A war-weary citizenry, raised on democratic exceptionalism but disillusioned by its leaders, wanted to feel great again--a recipe for unease and raw vindictiveness, then as now. The populace had no strongman to turn to, ready with promises that the polis would soon be winning, winning like never before. But hanging around the agora, volubly engaging residents of every rank, was someone to turn on: Socrates, whose provocative questioning of the city-state's sense of moral superiority no longer seemed as entertaining as it had in more secure times. Athenians were in no mood to have their views shaken up. They had lost patience with the lively, discomfiting debates sparked by the old man. In 399 b.c., accused of impiety and corrupting the young, Socrates stood trial before a jury of his peers--one of the great pillars of Athenian democracy.

○ The people's tyrant: what Plato can teach us about Donald Trump
○ What can Plato teach us about Donald Trump? - BBC Newsnight

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Her AND Corbyn together could, but they won't work together.

I don't want this to come across as some kind of defense of May -- as y'all know, I can't stand her -- but looking at it from afar it seems like there's really no deal to be had here that can pass with the EU and Parliament.  The makeup of Parliament makes it unworkable.

Neither she nor Corbyn can square the circle here.

Often times when I see Brexiteers spout their nonsense on the TV or in Parliament I get this almost uncontrollable urge to let them have an almighty comeuppance: to wish the hardest of hard Brexit on them followed by an inexorable decline. But then I remember it will be the weakest in British society who will suffer the most.

Yep.  Exactly this.  Alas, lots of people who didn't want it get crushed.

Now the ones who wanted it though, and refuse to see the light?  Yeah, fuck'em.

Netanyahu's attempted alliance with Holocaust revisionists falls apart.

Poland on Monday pulled out of a summit in Jerusalem, triggering the collapse of the entire meeting, after the acting Israeli foreign minister said that Poles "collaborated with the Nazis" and "sucked anti-Semitism with their mothers' milk.

They can't suck in very much of it as Polish women switch to formula very quickly....The acting foreign minister is different from the deputy foreign minister, the one who revived the Judenzählung libel.

○ Jeremy Corbyn's biggest Jewish backer sows discord within UK Labour party | Times of Israel - Jan. 2018 |
○ Labour MP Mike Gapes to quit over antisemitism | The Jewish Chronicle - Aug. 2018 |
○ Seven Labour MPs resign citing 'institutional', 'sickening' antisemitism | The JC - Feb. 20, 2019 |

Highlighted from article above ...

But Umunna was created in that New Labour laboratory. Elected in 2010, I first noticed his presence in 2011 when he hosted a Fabian Society reception for new MPs called "Thinkers and Doers". In its communications, Umunna offered to meet supporters in a "very informal drinks reception" which was "made possible by the support of A4e." The big party was paid for by workfare corporation A4e, which was entirely dependent on huge government contracts, and disappeared four years later amid allegations of fraud, corruption and cheating claimants.  

Umunna then became one of the Labour Shadow Ministers who relied on accounting multinational - and friend of tax-dodgers - PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to supply them with research assistance. PwC were one of the main architects of PFI, and have been an important advocate in NHS privatisation. Umunna's "assistance" from the company amounted to almost £100,000.

○ Staffline later bought A4e before rebranding the new composite company "PeoplePlus"

○ Fabian Society: Power and principle: Labour as a government-in-waiting
○ The Fabian Society: a brief history | The Guardian - Aug. 2001 |

Influencing opinion

In a further attempt to influence the opposition, Shai Masot said that he was involved with the youth arm of the Fabian Society, an influential Labour Party think-tank, and that he once "took a group of Fabians to Israel".

My earlier dairies ...

○ Israel Lobby is Leading in Attack on Corbyn
○ War On BDS, Progressive Left Under Attack

From Tikun Olam and America ...

○ Israel Lobby Seeks to Muzzle Ilhan Omar, Sabotage Democratic Resurgence

reading the reactions on the Labour blogs this is already being relegated to tomorrow's chip wrappers.

Nobody thinks it's gonna amount to much, nobody thinks any of the leavers, nnounced or possible, are people of consequence. All of them are has-beens or never-gonna-bees, even Umunna is more a legend in his own mind than reality.

Mostly it's "Small earthquake in Westminster; A nation yawns!

 PEOPLE AND KLATSCH 

ON THIS DATE

 LIVING ON THE PLANET 
 Society, Culture, History, Information 

LIVING OFF THE PLANET
Environment, Energy, Agriculture, Food

 WORLD 

TRUMP

BREXIT

EUROPE

They are registered as a company rather than as a political party. Which means that their sources of income are opaque.

Howevr, it has been noted that their website is registered in Panama

yea right, just like all the other japanese countries that have bailed since it became obvious we were gonna be outside the customs union.

"The Senator Next Door," a nasty badass?
pedal faster, right through that ceiling, baby

it's difficult to argue with that essay. We probably do need a big doese of hubris. Whether the media will ever allow the public to see the evidence of this disaster is another thing entirely

the view amongst the realists is that the Japanese thought they had a deal with Thatcher that the Japanese would site their industry here and, in return, HM Govt would deliver access to the EU.

The Japanese Govt delivered a short memorandum 2 years ago about its fears for brexit and the likely consequences. The Tories chose to ignore that and, since then, Japanese companies have gradually, one by one, withdrawn from the UK.

Those blue passports better be worth it

Labour will be stronger without them, sometimes criticism becomes a cancer and you have to cut it out. Real Labour MPs will replace them and be welcome.

These people have hated everything Corbyn has done and, even tho' brexit is a Tory initiative and a Tory policy, they have NEVER criticised the Tories. Indeed, this split is intended to make it easier for the tories to remain in charge.

Can't wait for Owen Smith and Stephen Kinnock to bugger off and join them.

Apparently gun-boat diplomacy doesn't work so well for the Brits any more, and for some strange reason the Japanese are not prepared to simply cut and paste their recent deal with the EU into a UK FTA. Who'd have thunk?

Yesterday's Ma

Good article and that is exactly how I feel about the "split". If the answer is Mike Gapes, you're asking all the wrong questions.

A bunch of self-appointed generals in search of an army. They'll be media darlings all the way to the next election at which EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. WILL. LOSE.

Europe would welcome Corbyn's Brexit plan, says Coveney

Proposals put forward by the British Labour party leader for a deal on Brexit would be welcomed by Brussels, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said on Monday.

But such proposals must come from London and could not be tabled by the EU, he insisted.

"The EU is very open to that solution if the UK will actually pursue it," he said. "But the onus has to be on London. ...the logjam and problems are in London and the solutions have to come out of London.

"We can't put things to the British government that they don't want..."

Mr Corbyn has proposed that the UK sign up to permanent membership of the Customs Union and a substantial part of the single market. He wants British negotiators then to seek a mechanism to allow a British say in future EU trade negotiations.

Westminster observers say such a solution could potentially command a Commons majority but it remains deeply anathema to Mrs May who believes it would split her party irrevocably. In Brussels, many believe that the Corbyn option remains the only viable route out of the impasse to avoid a no-deal departure.

Honda bails out. NOT due to Brexit, the timing of the announcement is just a coincidence.

Justin Tomlinson, the North Swindon Conservative MP whose constituency includes the plant, said he had spoken to the company and insisted its decision was "due to global trends and not Brexit". Last month Tomlinson, a vocal Brexit supporter, tweeted that Honda was preparing for any scenario and was "committed" to Swindon.

I wonder how much of the UK-Japan dispute has to do with lack of diplomatic expertise within the UK as a result of a few decades of relying on the EU to do the negotiations. ???

Britain needs a day of reckoning

There is something surreal about these last days before Brexit - just 39 now. There is still no visibility on a deal, and no clarity on a no deal. There is no parliament that seems to have a grasp on managing the slide into the unknown, other than humiliating the prime minister in vote after vote and then proposing little as an alternative. The scene outside parliament is a collection of Brexit doomsday soothsayers and naysayers, each with chants and flags and signs and regalia.

Elsewhere, stranger things are happening: pro-remain campaigners have started stripping off, we are arguing about Winston Churchill and Boer War concentration camps, and children are marching in the streets chanting: "F**k Theresa May." It feels like the last days in the compound of a cult that once flourished but is now finally and fatally besieged.

The end of such a cult, that operates outside the bounds of common sense, is inevitable. Not only that, it should be welcomed. It is time. It is time for the country to come to terms with the fact that it has for too long been in denial about some of its fundamental flaws - and if a messy unplanned Brexit is the way to do that, then so be it.

These past few weeks are proof that Brexit, maybe even a hard Brexit, is now looking more likely. Yet, counterintuitively, it also looks like it is necessary. The country is paralysed and polarised ahead of next month's deadline in a fever of predictions, lies and anticipations that will only break when the reality bites.

It's McKinsey ethos aka seagull management. Fly in, shit on everything, fly out with promotion

Word is, Pelosi deleted her sympathy for Smollett.
Looks like Harris and Booker are taking the Al Sharpton route to 20 Hateen Hate Awards. It wouldn't do to question the police after all; That's not their portfolio.
Haven't the foggiest where christ Bernie or saint Alexandria are behind the line.