First they came for …
Just a reminder of where we are at:
“Far from the promises of educational enhancement, ed-tech has created educational dependencies – bureaucratic dependencies and now, with “AI,” cognitive ones. This is not some weird fluke; this is by design.”
(Audrey Watters)
I can’t help but see this as ‘creeping fascism’:
It’s not merely the injustice here but the bureaucratic laziness, a wilful torpor, the refusal to even ask the question ‘is this right?’ The willingness to cause hurt; and of course the impact, which is major, on the poor, the powerless victims of indifference (the sort that is encouraged by the likes of Farage and his stoolies) built into the very systems that are supposedly there to provide support.
The Labour government under Starmer is of course where the proverbial buck stops. I always assumed, it turns out naively, that the civil service acted in accord with the government, indeed, was strongly directed by elected policies and strategies, but clearly not. Instead it is a self-serving, covert power centre of weasels. (I am trying to avoid the idea here of a ‘covert state’ – or, as the BigBaby in the Amerikan White House calls it, the Deep State – but it sure feels like an independent hub bureaucratic power.
Dunkelflaute (dark lull) – a useful/fun word? Not too significant but tells you about Germany’s situation with respect to energy supply (specifically its reliance on wind power) and from there is its lack of a nuclear energy infrastructure (versus nuclear weapons,which it isn’t contemplating, except indirectly):
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-02-18/germany-has-a-simple-nuclear-decision-to-make
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Palantir is the ultimate symbol of techno-evil on the planet. Absolutely blood oriented, servile to conquerors and dictators everywhere, greedy and spendthrift.
https://www.ft.com/content/92c3beda-3cb9-4a3b-8563-f869c32bce59
From Jonathan Rauch, 25/1/26
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/america-fascism-trump-maga-ice/685751/
Rauch has reached a point where it is clear that fascism is at large in America. Not so long ago people might have pooh-poohed the idea. It was still avoidable, but not now – there is an ID parade and what the MAGA mob is doing matches the surveillance pictures.
Writing a year ago, I argued that Trump’s governing regime is a version of patrimonialism, in which the state is treated as the personal property and family business of the leader. That is still true. But, as I also noted then, patrimonialism is a style of governing, not a formal ideology or system. It can be layered atop all kinds of organizational structures, including not just national governments but also urban political machines such as Tammany Hall, criminal gangs such as the Mafia, and even religious cults. Because its only firm principle is personal loyalty to the boss, it has no specific agenda. Fascism, in contrast, is ideological, aggressive, and, at least in its early stages, revolutionary. It seeks to dominate politics, to crush resistance, and to rewrite the social contract.
He puts forward a list of 18 characteristics, a ‘constellation’ or features. Some or all might be present. He believes they are all present in the political life of the US (from the UK here it looks that way too).
For all of us the question is how many do you need to be living in a fascist state? In Amerika it seems clear that to some degree or other most if not all are present. In the UK we do not yet reach a threshold although the attempt by Labour to designate Palestine Action was one step on the road. Thankfully that has now been ruled unlawful by the High Court. The UK is dithering and although there are proto-fascists hanging around in the wings they do not yet have the kind of power that might be needed to ‘set things rolling’.
Here is his list. Fill in the blanks:
1. Demolition of norms
Trump: Mocking, insulting, demeaning etc.
“Fascists know that what the American Founders called the “republican virtues” impede their political agenda, and so they gleefully trash liberal pieties such as reason and reasonableness, civility and civic spirit, toleration and forbearance.
2. Glorification of violence
Violence is enabled, embraced, encouraged. Trump openly talks about physical violence, executions dissenters, facilitates mob violence (e.g. Jan 6 22; ICE)
3. Might is right
The humiliation of Zelenskyy, threats of military interventions etc.
4. Politicised law enforcement
ICE! Trump flouts his ‘absolute immuncity’ immunity and ignores all due process
5. Dehumanisation
Look at the ay Trump talks about immigrants; if he could get away with it he would talk in the same way about African American, Native Americans etc. (Perhaps he will!)
6. Police-state tactics
ICE!
7. Undermining elections
Currently attempting to ‘federalize’ elections procedures (even though States are constitutionally responsible managing elections in their own regions). Also, Trump will not shut up about the 2020 election.
8. What’s private is public
For example interfering in University education, demanding that DEI policies everywhere are deleted …
9. Attacks on news media
So many examples …
10. Territorial and military aggression
Venezuela, Canada, Greenland, Iran, Gaza (watch this space).
11. Transnational reach
Alliances with right wing governments, deference towards Puin
12. Blood-and-soil nationalism
Immigration and the revocation of birthright citizenship. ‘Heritage’ Americanism
13. White and Christian nationalism
Christianity!
14. Mobs and street thugs
ICE! Control over school libraries. Gun laws
15. Leader aggrandizement
Ballrooms; Kennedy Centre; third person self-referencing
16. Alternative facts
A hangover from 2016; the deletion of science as process and content; habitual lies and distortions.
17. Politics as war
Saving the nation, a ‘lie and death battle’ (Michael Anton); (the Volk)
18. Governing as revolution
See all of above … !
New additions (mostly mine)
19. Revisionism
This covers the entire attempt to ‘rewrite’ the broadly accepted history of the US and the rest of the world. Issues such as the removal of reference to slavery; the revival of deprecated Civil War combatants, The erasure of social-called DEI policies (i.e. ‘woke’)
Examples: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/18/constitution-museum-philadelphia-jeffrey-rosen
Geoffrey Hinton’s (very dark) Nobel Speech …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f5WQAk3dYo
Might he (Hinton) become a modern Midgley? A pioneer who turns away from his key work. He developed one technology only to be depressed about tis effects and then developed another, which in the end proved to be equally flawed After all he is one of the great pioneers of the technology he is warning us about.
Or he is more like Oppenheimer – swept up into creating an invention that he realised was too dangerous to exist and spent the remainder of his life resisting it … (unsuccessfully)?
Thomas Midgley discovered the usefulness of lead in petrol engines. Great!
But, the story goes, the serious harm to public health caused by lead additives (to himself and widely) shocked him. To do better he went on to develop improved refrigeration methods using CFCs …
…he didn’t live long enough to see how well that turned out!
This is one of those fantasies that won’t disappear. The design of ‘cities of the future’ is a techno-fantasy, i.e. the intensive embedding of technology in urban infrastructure. It is usually presented as a hybrid of ‘enhancement’ as well as a ‘solution’ … but people don’t live like this – we like the ragged and the quirky, the private and the park … and above it all is the phenomenon of ‘desire lines’ …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path
https://www.azuremagazine.com/article/messy-cities-planning-for-an-unplanned-city/
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They, and their lackeys, just won’t stop their cruel appropriation …
https://theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/04/florida-ban-west-bank-schools-state-agencies-bill
It just gets worse … the idea that a childish sleaze bucket like Mandelson not only slurped at Epstein’s trough but also engaged in self- aggrandisement (and took the money) with the most evil tech company is almost too much to contemplate (for by definition dealing with Palantir is dealing with one of the most extreme anti-humanity machines on the planet.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/04/peter-mandelson-palantir-jeffrey-epstein-government
There are many ongoing posts about Palantir and its gangsterish, inhuman attitudes. Here’s one from just a few days ago …
https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/03/palantir_lethal_magical_china_middle_east/
Killing people is their business, no matter how they try to soothe it with garbled techno-jumbo
And incidentally (or not) their business is closely linked to the near total collapse of the concept of a Constitution:
https://www.lawdork.com/p/the-minnesota-julie-le-show-cause-transcript?hide_intro_popup=true
There is, gladly, pushback against the gangster government’s use of barely legal squadristi, though as yet no one is attacking Trump directly for his sickening (but easily explained by stupidity) approach to governance
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A serious policy problem, but simple to fix by a change of assumptions, is that “…the future will behave like the past…” . But climate change does not work like that …
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Ethically I don’t like educational elitism which is based on the idea of selecting people (youngsters) according to a menu of policy driven aptitudes and talents … yet it might be a strategy to help the UK counter American imperialism …
https://www.ft.com/content/68f60392-88bf-419c-96c7-c3d580ec9d97
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On that point, it seems to me that the worst case is the self-identifying genius who simply makes money enough to pay other geniuses to make stuff …
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/31/elon-musk-2026-election-donations-00758992
And then, as if to rpve the point that he is more dork than genius up pops this:
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Space travel is different: https://www.m1roofers.co.uk/02-164062-albert-einstein-predicted-it-and-mars/
“What’s actually happening isn’t sci‑fi at all; it’s general and special relativity doing exactly what they’ve always promised to do. On Mars, gravity is about a third of Earth’s. That means spacetime is less “curved”, so time ticks slightly faster on the surface than it does here. Satellites around Mars, flying high and fast, feel their own distortions: special relativity slows them because of their speed, while the weaker gravity speeds them up.
“Put it all together and you get a messy ballet of clocks. Earth time, Martian surface time, orbital time. **Future human crews won’t just carry watches; they’ll live inside a field of shifting seconds**. And every maneuver, landing, and emergency response will depend on tracking those shifts.”
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“…it is puzzling that the question of screen time [used for teaching] in schools is left out of discussions. … No social media ban will compensate for an education system that conditions [students] to turn to screens for every task.”
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Robots that smell:
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-smelly-snapshot-current-state-electronic.html
Reading Sinclair Lewis’s ‘It Can’t Happen Here’. Excellent and timely satirical rendering of Nazism/Fascism. Way too familiar (writing as a UK observer). Prescient? Yes, a lot. Best joke? The president’s surname is ‘Windrip’ and, like ‘Trump’, a euphemism for a noisy, obnoxious fart.
Spoiler alert: good summary here – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here