First they came for …
The Fascist playbook at work …
“… large swaths of the nation today seem more likely to say that they fear DHS itself than terrorists from overseas. Roughly half the country now supports outright abolishing ICE.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/09/11/9-11-dhs-mistakes-terrorism-01070759
‘Careless People’ is worth reading …
‘Careless People’ is worth a read. SW-W was eager to join the new future as she, and we, saw it at the time, a new form of direct, useful and bonding communication among hitherto voiceless people. But already in the first few chapters the bullshit spreads like a haze.
And this is where we are at today! Just shut up is the new rule of law:
https://x.com/PeynsaertBill/status/2070847418166337924?s=20
‘Commissario Ricciardi’, one of the best detective stories I’ve seen on TV.
‘Commissario Ricciardi’, one of the best detective stories I’ve seen on TV. Set in Mussolini’s Italy, the ominous and sinister presence of the Fascists grows as the murder stories unroll; marvellous sets; engrossing characters; a serious perspective on social class in pre-war Neapolitan Italy.
Streaming on Channel 4 in the ‘Walter Presents’ catalogue.
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-learned-helplessness-of-2026-655
“So many normie friends of mine have just stopped engaging the news. Every day, another headline is like another electric shock we have become used to.”
Not surprising that AI can be ‘trained’ to know what makes an employee effective … and then fire them! Continue reading “Worker Exploitation AI Style”
Just watched the film Nuremberg. Russell Crowe great as always, based on an interesting back story.
The psychiatrist Kelley ended up in a very bad way personally and psychologically. He killed himself in 1958 in a particularly situation that was particularly horrible.
I was struck by the clip where, on a radio show, and already drinking heavily, he is forcefully raising the alarm that fascism is endemic, evil is in us all, Nazis are here!
Reminds me of the ending of 1956 film ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ where the protagonist rushes onto a busy highway screaming “they’re here, they’re here…”. At the time this was read by some reviewers as a reference to the widespread propaganda that communists had infiltrated US society (it was the McCarthy era after all).
So fascists AND communists!!! Hardly any room left for Americans!
(Mind you, not so far off about Fascists. Have also just read ‘Numero Zero’ by Umberto Eco where he writes about ‘Operation Gladio’, a post-war NATO/CIA orchestrated project to maintain organised networks of fascist ‘stay behinds’. Who knew? I didn’t! Chilling stuff. And no wonder we are fucked …)
Excellent write-up of King Charles’ speeches in the US. (Thanks to @johnnaughton for the link)
https://deanblundell.substack.com/p/king-charles-takedown-of-trump-was
Iron served in velvet. Genius! (You can bet its subtlety was lost on the Orange One.)
Blundell’s article made me weep, both for joy and for despair.
An excellent, interesting book about the French origins of Fascism (with a little help from America)
The First Fascist: Marquis de Morés (amzn.to/3OVZjKA)
‘Fascism’ (the apostrophes are deliberate & signify not-a-real-thing) is so very dangerous for it rises not from the mind but the belly. It is not a thoughtful style of politics but a lurking crocodile waiting to snap at whatever passes. Born of the limbic brain as Koestler would have said.
No fascist ever produced great literature or reasoned theses; worse they never read them as a pastime. What is eerie is that the fascists of history were all so unenlightened, so wilfully ignorant yet somehow they are so alike and share common, limbic, attributes …
For reference: this idea, that the political geography of the fascist arises spontaneously, (as opposed to developed in some manner by thinking) was prompted by reading a very striking book: ‘The First Fascist’ by Sergio Luzzato. A ‘must read’ if you are interested in the history of hate. Note: apparently it first arises in France, (pace!), may have something to do with the disappointments of the 1789 revolution, but grows to become a widespread European phenomenon where those disappointments are acutely felt …
Example: what is particularly striking about Trump – who probably cannot read – is that he comes across as a ‘genetic’ descendent of these European monsters, an ignoramus who simply appears as though stamped out of a template …
Given what we know about Palantir – its carefree devising of remote, automated murder – that it should be associated with the UK health service is truly mind-numbing. Palantir is not to be trusted, And now the UK Labour Party is complicit in this dark enterprise.