NM's blog

Richard Seymour  pictures what the  BBC cannot picture . – Once again, Ulster’s peace-loving bampots determined that such violence could only have been brought to Northern Ireland by brown-skinned interlopers. Never mind that the province has its own gory history of  knife violence . Never mind that Ogilvie himself had previously been  tortured  by a gang linked to the Ulster Volunteer Force, the loyalist paramilitaries that murdered Catholics with the  collusion  of the British state during the “Troubles.” – To an extent, as Séamas O’Reilly  argues  in the  New Statesman , this is a new expression of old violence: loyalists in Northern Ireland have decades of experience in burning people out of their homes and violently policing community purity. – Among all demographics in Northern Ireland, Catholic or Protestant, young or old, anti-immigrant racism is  pervasive . – Far from “two tier policing” disadvantaging whites, the evidence...

  Palestinian “struggle today continues to be one between a collaborationist PA and a pro-liberation resistance intent on ending settler-colonialism.” Related Google AI summary of the number killed, wounded or sent into exile. The figure of 8,000 Palestinians killed in 1939 alone [ as mentioned by Massad ] is  not historically accurate , but it closely mirrors the total estimated casualties suffered by the Palestinian Arab population across the entirety of the  Great Arab Revolt (1936–1939) .  [1]  Historical data from British archives, Palestinian historians, and independent researchers outline a more precise breakdown of the casualties and dynamics of this period. Total Casualties of the Arab Revolt (1936–1939) The Great Arab Revolt was a nationalist uprising against British colonial rule and its support for Zionist immigration. The cumulative death toll for Palestinians over the three-year uprising is generally accepted by historians to be around  5,000...

Russian operatives ran their sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and the messaging app Telegram, we found, creating fake online far-right and Muslim groups, which were used to organise acts of vandalism in the UK and stir up division and fear . Accounts based in Russia posted lies about the motive for the arson attacks targeting Starmer, which were spread by figures such as far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.

It is nice that what eventually became the late British Empire has not been ruled by an ‘English’ dynasty since the early eleventh century: since then a motley parade of Normans (Plantagenets), Welsh (Tudors), Scots (Stuarts), Dutch (House of Orange) and Germans (Hanoverians) have squatted on the imperial throne. No one much cared until the philological revolution and a paroxysm of English nationalism in World War I. House of Windsor rhymes with House of Schöonbrunn or House of Versailles. —Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities – Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2016 ed. , p. 83

What is rational and irrational about someone saying 'my country'? Saying "my country" reflects a mix of logical human organization and emotional, instinctual behavior. Here is what makes this statement both rational and irrational: 👤 The Rational Aspects Using the phrase "my country" is a practical way to describe your legal, social, and physical reality. Legal citizenship:  You possess passport, voting, and residency rights in a specific nation. Tax obligations:  You financially support that specific government's infrastructure and services. Shared culture:  You understand the local language, social norms, laws, and history. Geographic reality:  It defines the physical borders where you sleep, work, and live. Administrative shortcut:  It is an efficient linguistic shorthand to tell others where you are from. [ 1 ] 🧠 The Irrational Aspects Using "my country" becomes irrational when it implies literal ownership, moral superiority, or biologic...