@lowtuff.bsky.social
i mean. there's a lot of stuff that's gotta happen between now and un member: england, but leaving the english flag as a shibboleth for team racism between now & then really isn't viable. i just kinda worry that people aren't going to move on that until & unless wales and scot hand in their notices
October 24, 2025 at 9:01 AM
i mean. there's a lot of stuff that's gotta happen between now and un member: england, but leaving the english flag as a shibboleth for team racism between now & then really isn't viable. i just kinda worry that people aren't going to move on that until & unless wales and scot hand in their notices
not excited at just how behind we are on the project of just letting ethnic minorities Be English, but it looks like the rubber is really going to hit the road on that one way or another so the english left should really get their boots on about that!!
October 24, 2025 at 8:57 AM
not excited at just how behind we are on the project of just letting ethnic minorities Be English, but it looks like the rubber is really going to hit the road on that one way or another so the english left should really get their boots on about that!!
& like, clearly the MMP systems in Germany and NZ work well enough & they would be a relatively simple reform. But that assymetry with some MPs having a clear local link & others having a much broader one? I can see that having a rough reception
August 16, 2025 at 6:31 PM
& like, clearly the MMP systems in Germany and NZ work well enough & they would be a relatively simple reform. But that assymetry with some MPs having a clear local link & others having a much broader one? I can see that having a rough reception
Ends up being such a no win scenario for proportional representation frameworks, too - either you bite the bullet of ditching a meaningful constituency link or you accommodate it by increasing the total number of MPs
August 16, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Ends up being such a no win scenario for proportional representation frameworks, too - either you bite the bullet of ditching a meaningful constituency link or you accommodate it by increasing the total number of MPs
But to speak with moral clarity I think we then need to have definitions that can rebut those bad faith arguments. Apologies if I've been muddled but I hope I come across as genuine & trying to speak in a way that jives with your politics and moral principles.
August 11, 2025 at 2:42 AM
But to speak with moral clarity I think we then need to have definitions that can rebut those bad faith arguments. Apologies if I've been muddled but I hope I come across as genuine & trying to speak in a way that jives with your politics and moral principles.
sort of language and saying that actually Israeli Jews are indigenous versus Arab Palestinians are colonisers - that's going to land flat w many people like us who'll think of Herzl & explicit framing of the Zionist mission as one of colonial settlement
August 11, 2025 at 2:40 AM
sort of language and saying that actually Israeli Jews are indigenous versus Arab Palestinians are colonisers - that's going to land flat w many people like us who'll think of Herzl & explicit framing of the Zionist mission as one of colonial settlement
For me I feel treating that impulse in us with the seriousness it demands asks us to ask these questions, to ask when exactly a colonized population can decide a settler population has to leave & how to define both. I'm sure you know many Zionists have a strategy of appropriating this
August 11, 2025 at 2:37 AM
For me I feel treating that impulse in us with the seriousness it demands asks us to ask these questions, to ask when exactly a colonized population can decide a settler population has to leave & how to define both. I'm sure you know many Zionists have a strategy of appropriating this
for justice to be applied to the oppressed and marginalised the world over & are tired and disgusted of people in power & people accustomed to their norms accepting or ignoring casual and continuous atrocities and moral abomination the world over, right?
August 11, 2025 at 2:35 AM
for justice to be applied to the oppressed and marginalised the world over & are tired and disgusted of people in power & people accustomed to their norms accepting or ignoring casual and continuous atrocities and moral abomination the world over, right?
I dont mean to whataboutism here - just a direct moral claim, I think that if we grant that oppressed people have the right to expel settler populations and their descendants we should treat that seriously and ask where and how that would apply. I think you care a lot about consistently fighting
August 11, 2025 at 2:33 AM
I dont mean to whataboutism here - just a direct moral claim, I think that if we grant that oppressed people have the right to expel settler populations and their descendants we should treat that seriously and ask where and how that would apply. I think you care a lot about consistently fighting
Not sure I follow here. Let me parse it out. Ongoing atrocities and suffering in the DRC, Sudan & Myanmar don't make a persons disgust & horror at the genocide in Gaza less legitimate if they don't equally decry the others - I think you're sincere while 'why Gaza and not Sudan' is usually insincere
August 11, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Not sure I follow here. Let me parse it out. Ongoing atrocities and suffering in the DRC, Sudan & Myanmar don't make a persons disgust & horror at the genocide in Gaza less legitimate if they don't equally decry the others - I think you're sincere while 'why Gaza and not Sudan' is usually insincere
We can recognise the ongoing injustice and brutality of settler colonialism while still recognizing that the legitimacy of indigenous peoples & their struggle for justice against settler states is not reliant on them being the first and only population there.
August 11, 2025 at 2:21 AM
We can recognise the ongoing injustice and brutality of settler colonialism while still recognizing that the legitimacy of indigenous peoples & their struggle for justice against settler states is not reliant on them being the first and only population there.
Which wasn't so clearly the case when the Greeks in Greece and Cyprus gained independence - but I wouldn't suggest the situations are equal or parallel - just that they represent another case of liberatory nationalism of a subjugated people facing off against the descendants of imperial settlers
August 11, 2025 at 2:14 AM
Which wasn't so clearly the case when the Greeks in Greece and Cyprus gained independence - but I wouldn't suggest the situations are equal or parallel - just that they represent another case of liberatory nationalism of a subjugated people facing off against the descendants of imperial settlers
Even if you take the (wrong) narrative conjured by anti-Palestinian zealots as fact, that of them being descended solely from foreign populations that expelled the pre-existing Jewish population there - that wouldn't make Palestinians illegitimate or less deserving of self determination
August 11, 2025 at 2:12 AM
Even if you take the (wrong) narrative conjured by anti-Palestinian zealots as fact, that of them being descended solely from foreign populations that expelled the pre-existing Jewish population there - that wouldn't make Palestinians illegitimate or less deserving of self determination
Israeli notions of Palestinians as some totally foreign population - whether claiming the expansion of the caliphate = total population replacement and/or dismissing Palestinians as 1800s migrants from Egypt - are v much incorrect! But even if they were 100% true, would that make a moral difference?
August 11, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Israeli notions of Palestinians as some totally foreign population - whether claiming the expansion of the caliphate = total population replacement and/or dismissing Palestinians as 1800s migrants from Egypt - are v much incorrect! But even if they were 100% true, would that make a moral difference?
Greek nationalists would respond with a litany of brutalities and oppression from Ottoman rule - v different from Palestine in multiple ways, but I think still shouldn't implicitly concede that if you take their narrative as given it would justify the expulsion of european Turks.
August 11, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Greek nationalists would respond with a litany of brutalities and oppression from Ottoman rule - v different from Palestine in multiple ways, but I think still shouldn't implicitly concede that if you take their narrative as given it would justify the expulsion of european Turks.
Sincerely, how far could that go? Would your principle there also hold for, say, newly independent Greeks deciding whether Turkish communities would need to be expelled from the territory of their state?
August 11, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Sincerely, how far could that go? Would your principle there also hold for, say, newly independent Greeks deciding whether Turkish communities would need to be expelled from the territory of their state?
Could also have something similar with Belize & Guatemala.
August 5, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Could also have something similar with Belize & Guatemala.
Guyana would have some narrative potential as a major space launch centre, it could fit that sort of stateside diaspora dynamic - not obvious when/how it could join up though. Maybe Venezuelan irridentism makes it a more attractive proposition?
August 5, 2025 at 1:07 AM
Guyana would have some narrative potential as a major space launch centre, it could fit that sort of stateside diaspora dynamic - not obvious when/how it could join up though. Maybe Venezuelan irridentism makes it a more attractive proposition?
Pushing back a 60th state to a later date could give you more wiggle room for some options - something like a small nation ending up with a stateside diaspora similar in size to the national population. A couple of caribbean nations sorta fit that but none strike me as obvious.
August 5, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Pushing back a 60th state to a later date could give you more wiggle room for some options - something like a small nation ending up with a stateside diaspora similar in size to the national population. A couple of caribbean nations sorta fit that but none strike me as obvious.
You'd need the permanent population to be quite a bit higher than it ever got IRL, but that should be doable by the 60s. Statehood would make for a phenomenally messy relationship with Panama proper though - esp since major CZ cities would be right next to Colon & Panama City.
August 5, 2025 at 12:54 AM
You'd need the permanent population to be quite a bit higher than it ever got IRL, but that should be doable by the 60s. Statehood would make for a phenomenally messy relationship with Panama proper though - esp since major CZ cities would be right next to Colon & Panama City.
There's something to that, but I can't help but feel much of Scotland (particularly the wealthier/more populated areas many big names in colonialism came from) would more accurately be described as that imperial core than a periphery.
July 31, 2025 at 8:18 AM
There's something to that, but I can't help but feel much of Scotland (particularly the wealthier/more populated areas many big names in colonialism came from) would more accurately be described as that imperial core than a periphery.
British unionism ends up juggling that same issue one way or another, but, well, I can't help but look at how minorities are historically quicker to identify with being British, how the right is turning against the idea someone can be non-white and English and wonder.
July 23, 2025 at 12:46 PM
British unionism ends up juggling that same issue one way or another, but, well, I can't help but look at how minorities are historically quicker to identify with being British, how the right is turning against the idea someone can be non-white and English and wonder.
A confident and inclusive identity for England, though. Well. I'd be worried about its chances.
July 23, 2025 at 12:42 PM
A confident and inclusive identity for England, though. Well. I'd be worried about its chances.
I mean best wishes to Wales & Scotland in the case they gain independence. It might be a rocky transition but I can see spots for optimism beyond that - there's the prospect of confident but inclusive identity in both coming into their own on the world stage.
July 23, 2025 at 12:41 PM
I mean best wishes to Wales & Scotland in the case they gain independence. It might be a rocky transition but I can see spots for optimism beyond that - there's the prospect of confident but inclusive identity in both coming into their own on the world stage.
late question; but how did they run the referendum (and the later formosa one for that matter), fptp or some kind of ranked system?
July 21, 2025 at 2:10 PM
late question; but how did they run the referendum (and the later formosa one for that matter), fptp or some kind of ranked system?