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๐Œ๐จ๐ซ๐ž๐ฆ๐ข: ๐Ž๐ฌ๐ฐ๐ข๐ง & ๐ˆ ๐‡๐š๐ฏ๐ž ๐Œ๐จ๐ซ๐ž ๐‘๐ž๐ฌ๐ฉ๐จ๐ง๐ฌ๐ข๐›๐ข๐ฅ๐ข๐ญ๐ฒโ˜ ๏ธ Orlando Pirates winger Tshepang Moremi says since Rele Mofokeng has left, himself & Oswin Apollis have more responsibility & theyโ€™ll work much more harder #OrlandoPirates #OnceAlways โ˜ ๏ธ

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#TicketToHeaven #GeminiFourth #เน€เธˆเธกเธตเน„เธ™เธ™เนŒเน‚เธŸเธฃเนŒเธ— ๐Ÿ’ญ: since youโ€™ve previously worked with GeminiFourth in Moonlight Chicken was there any moment when you felt, โ€œhooo theyโ€™ve really grown a lot as actors..โ€ Phi Aof: the first clear thing we see in the change is the maturity of both of them, in responsibility and in being actors. its clearly visible that theyโ€™ve gone through many different experiences working in the industry. even tho its only around two years, they came back in a more grown up form, a more understanding form and are more sensitive overall in how they approach this work. what feels different and clearly grown up is their way of thinking about acting. the characters has very high stakes in taking on such risky and challenging roles and the characters background is very heavy. the audience will likely already have seen how much the characters has to go through and how intense it is. it requires drawing from personal life experience or imagination and investing emotional energy into this series quite a lot. but both of them are very ready to jump into those situations and enjoy it. that is clearly the growth we see (๐Ÿฅน๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿป) : and what remains consistent is that working with Fourth is very fun bc heโ€™s the type of person who says โ€œi understand phi. i dont understand phi. what is this? i cant find it, i cant think of it, please explain phi.โ€ it becomes very fun bc thereโ€™s internal debate in his head like โ€œwhy am i thinking this?โ€ we slowly help each other find the answer in each scene. after acting, we check โ€œis it okay? i think its like this. what do you think Fourth?โ€ : In the scene at the end of EP2 where the character walks into the bathroom, we talk with Fourth about what Fourth thinks is going on. what Fourth is thinking. Fourth doesnt need to tell me either bc only Fourth knows what will happen in that bathroom. so we let Fourth interpret it by himself. its up to Fourth. from my point of view, i see it one way, but Fourth as Tanrak, Fourth knows the character better than me, so Fourth might think in another way as well (๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿป)

๐—š๐—ฒ๐—บ ๐—™๐—ผ๐—ฟ ๐— ๐˜† ๐—™๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ๐˜๐—ต๐ŸŒป

14,232 Aufrufe โ€ข vor 1 Monat

๐Ÿ’ฅ๐Ÿ”Ž Alexander Volkanovski, in the most delicate way possible, explains why he believes Diego Lopes has low fight IQ and weak footwork He says Lopes still hasnโ€™t learned how to cut off the cage from both sides, fight effectively as the aggressor, or properly understand distance. โ€œIn camp, we were sure his team would work on how to cut off the cage. But you can cut off the cage the wrong way โ€” for example, if you step in too close, you walk straight into my shots. Obviously, I knew I probably wouldnโ€™t be able to circle only one way the whole time, so I thought heโ€™d prepare better to cut me off from both sides. But as soon as I started circling to the right like in the first fight, he got excited โ€” โ€˜Aha!โ€™ โ€” and immediately tried to cut me off. So I simply switched directions and started moving left. And suddenly there it was โ€” my exit was wide open (laughs). He couldnโ€™t cut me off from there. I could turn freely and get out. I didnโ€™t even have to take risks. I kept turning him from side to side, and whenever he got too aggressive, I punished him. Yeah, heโ€™s good โ€” but maybe he needs more IQ, more footwork, more understanding. People said he was going to cut me off โ€” sure, but would he do it correctly? If you cut too aggressively, you walk into even harder shots. He wasnโ€™t cutting me off properly โ€” he just stepped straight into the angle and ran into my right hand. And even if you do cut me off, Iโ€™ve got so many layers in my footwork, so many defensive layers. Honestly, I almost feel bad for him because Iโ€™m probably the worst matchup for him. And not enough time had passed since the first fight for him to truly prepare. When he came forward as the aggressor, he wasnโ€™t in position. He was blitzing, forcing it, trying to cut me off โ€” and I kept countering him with heavy shots. Cutting the cage correctly is an art. He was chasing me, which made it hard for him to structure his offense. I kept turning him. Heโ€™d end up square [both toes pointing forward], thinking we were about to trade โ€” and Iโ€™d already be gone. I kept turning him and hitting him when his feet werenโ€™t set, before he was ready to throw. Itโ€™s like heโ€™s used to hitting pads โ€” the target stands in front of you, you throw, it steps back, resets, and you throw again. But when youโ€™re cutting off the cage, your feet have to be underneath you. He talked a lot about how much he improved since our first fight, how everything got better. Against Jean Silva he looked great โ€” the wrestling helped him win easily. But when it came to using IQ, footwork, understandingโ€ฆ It felt like someone just gave him a basic plan โ€” be patient, use the jab โ€” but there was no real strategy behind it. Okay, youโ€™ll be patient and throw a jab, but you still donโ€™t understand distance or footwork. He didnโ€™t get better since the first fight. I didnโ€™t see any growth.โ€ ๐ŸŽฅ Demetrious Johnson

Home of Fight

357,919 Aufrufe โ€ข vor 5 Monaten

Earlier today I made a big move in anticipation of this announcement. In a single transaction, I locked 500 million coins...forever. A movement does not belong to the person who lit the match. It belongs to the people who carry the flames. As Iโ€™ve mentioned publicly, Iโ€™m dealing with an ongoing family crisis involving my children. It has taken a real toll on my mental health. On top of that, the daily pressure of โ€œdo more to pump our bagsโ€ - when Iโ€™ve already done more than any person leading a CTO in this space ever has - is disheartening at best. And beyond all of that, Iโ€™m losing some of my passion for crypto in general. For $WhiteWhale holders: yes, there is a continuity plan. While permanently locking $13 million worth of supply should be the greatest parting gift I could give you, I know the The White Whale Meme Official page needs to stay active and keep producing fresh, creative, and funny content. My dear friend and loyal companion @vincenzomaiett has agreed to selflessly take on that responsibility. DEX LP operations will also continue under one of the sharpest LP minds I know, with my ongoing oversight behind the scenes. When you look at my record - with millions given to charities on-chain, millions distributed to members of CT, and millions more spent accumulating a more proper supply structure for $WhiteWhale - the reality is that, since 10/10, I have officially given more to crypto than Iโ€™ve taken from it. Iโ€™m okay with that. I believe in karma. I donโ€™t believe good deeds should be performed with the expectation of reward, but I do believe the universe provides in due course. I came into crypto deeply passionate about what I believed it represented: the original promise. Permissionless finance. Decentralization. True financial freedom. Ironically, the reason for my prior success in this space is the same reason Iโ€™m now losing my passion for it. Before 10/10, I had accumulated nearly $100 million in PnL from a trading thesis that began with a very simple assumption: everything is manipulated. From there, my thesis evolved into this: a traderโ€™s job is to identify the signs of manipulation and move in harmony with the Apex Predator class, rather than becoming its prey. Eventually I had to confront the contradiction in that. How can I be passionate about free and open finance while operating under a thesis that says, at its core, itโ€™s all a lie? That kind of cognitive dissonance has a cost. It shows up as stress, guilt, shame, and anxiety when your actions no longer align with your beliefs. Knowing something academically - and even profiting from that knowledge - is one thing. Seeing how the sausage is made with your own eyes is another. Running a coin opened my eyes to a lot. On one hand, if I ever go back to trading, Iโ€™ll be better equipped than ever, with sharper instincts and a deeper understanding of the brutal arena that is crypto. On the other hand, itโ€™s hard to feel excited about magic internet money when you know how much of this space actually works. The sad truth is that founders and thought leaders in this space know what I know, and many of them know much more. That is part of why we need to break the culture of idolizing founders. We praise them as honorable people building better tools, but underneath it all, they know just as well as I do that much of what they are building on top of is rotten to the core. And yes, I believe a beautiful cake sitting on a pile of dung eventually takes on the taint of dung. But the reality is that there is not much anyone can do about it. That is one of the consequences of so-called decentralization. Crypto is global. You cannot regulate an entire planet. A VPN and a protocol hiding behind the letters D-E-X mean that nothing will ever fundamentally change because somebody in power decided it should. If real change comes, it will come organically - when the people stop feeding the machine. And while those comments are about crypto more broadly, let me say something directly to the trenches. is a cancer on this space. You know it, I know it, and yet you keep engaging with it. Its entire business model is built on volume and volatility. The trenches are fragile because they were designed to be fragile. Iโ€™ve been preaching liquidity design and liquidity shape for months now. But hereโ€™s the harder truth: most of you would not show up for a proper liquidity shape. Because the 1,000x fantasy would be mathematically reduced, even though very generous returns could still remain on the table. You have been sold a dream with odds closer to a national lottery ticket than an investment opportunity. You see the occasional winner and cling to the hope that one day it might be you. Meanwhile, the real winner is the machine that keeps you playing. Narrative matters far less than mechanics. If narrative alone were enough, Punch would have broken through the way its mindshare deserved. With all that attention, and with all that narrative weight, it still could not break the nine-figure curse even while being actively crimed. Only a couple of coins have managed that in recent history, and $WhiteWhale was proudly the first. Same with Kilroy - the original meme, an incredible narrative, and still: crickets. Because mechanics matter more than people want to admit. (I am not an active holder of any examples I've given). So this is me stepping away from CT. Not out of hatred. Not out of self-pity. And not without love. My biggest reward from my crypto journey has been meeting some really wonderful avatars from all across the globe. (Ironically the really nasty avatars are the worst part of all of this) I am choosing my children. I am choosing my mental health. I am choosing to step back before this space takes any more from me than Iโ€™m willing to give. For long ago in life I learned that you're no good to anyone if you're not okay. And right now, I'm not ok. And it's okay to admit that. To the people who truly believe in me, believe in this movement, and stood beside me through all of it - thank you. I will carry that with me. Always. This was always for you. I trust you'll continue to bear the torch. And as for the future: Iโ€™m not closing the door. Maybe one day, when the storm has passed and the fire returns, Iโ€™ll have something left to say. Maybe one day Iโ€™ll come back. But if that day comes, it will be because itโ€™s authentic and not because I feel the public pressure to "dance puppet, dance". In the mean time...take care of yourself, and each other. Protect what's worth protecting, and abandon the things that aren't. ๐Ÿซก From the depths โ€” The White Whale ๐Ÿ‹

The White Whale

1,022,281 Aufrufe โ€ข vor 4 Monaten

Continuing in my series of showing you the Woke Right's meltdown about talking with Jordan Peterson about Woke, thus them, I bring you some clips from Blaze Media propagandist "Auron MacIntyre." These require more analysis because unlike Carl Benjamin, Auron MacIntyre is a relatively skilled propagandist. So in this clip Auron begins by mocking Peterson and me for allegedly not understanding the slang term "based" (which is demonstrably false, btw -- I've detailed its history and uses elsewhere -- a typical sort of lie a propagandist tells). He mocks us as being out-of-touch old people ("old man shakes fist at sky") for believing "based" should refer to being "based in reality," which it should, so a digression to reveal the malicious technique. The origin of the term "based" used by the Woke Right was from a rap song about freebasing cocaine, and it became slang for being bold and edgy and saying socially taboo things. In 2021, the conservative movement at large started picking it up, understanding it to mean "based in reality and principle and willing to say uncomfortable truths as such." The "willing to say uncomfortable [things]" in both cases is where the confusion lies because it can be done two ways: responsibly (truths) or irresponsibly (edgy transgression). This is basically my point with bringing it up with Peterson. Setting aside the digression of whether we want a term associated with being the opposite of Woke to mean "based in reality and principle" or "high on ideological cocaine," Auron is particularly keen within the first few moments of speaking (~1 min) to drive the old versus young wedge that the Woke Right is so keen on pushing. Just like the Bernie Bros of 10 years ago, they want to invest their movement with "Ok Boomer" energy and cause a generational split. Historically, this is Red Guard behavior, which is cultural Maoism, which is... where Woke comes from in the specific sense we're familiar with and hate. So, he's being Woke in a particularly damaging and dangerous way. So using the classic Jon Stewart (Woke) trick of opening with mockery to create an atmosphere of humor that discredits his targets (Peterson and me) particularly with a target audience (young radicalizing right-wing) that he signals alignment of, he steps into his "analysis" by accusing me of a "pivot." Spoiler: I have not and never pivoted, and that's why they're pissed off at me. I didn't go along with THEIR pivot, which has been unfolding for a couple of years (particularly at the Blaze, since Glenn Beck retired and they hired a bunch of "Schmittians," including Auron) and went on steroids last fall in the lead-up to the election. His specific accusation that he's accusing me of is claiming that I said "the Left wanted to get rid of all racism, so these guys [Woke Right] want to bring back all the racism." This isn't my claim, but it will happen to some degree and is happening. Auron is creating plausible deniability around that here, but what was my actual claim? My claim was that Woke on both sides is characterized by the transgression of mainstream norms using the opposite side's radicals as the justification. The Woke Left transgressed against the term "racism" and successful and majority races with CRT by expanding the definition and reversing the classic racism "directions" under roughly Ibram Kendi's "antiracist" program of ending discrimination by discriminating. They did this in the name of "stopping racism," which they associated with the "far right" and claimed was endemic through all of society. It was society's norm of identifying actual racism correctly and not being racist in any direction they were actually targeting. The Woke Right transgresses against this same norm the other direction ("same energy, opposite direction") by leaning into racism in "based" defiance of the Left and CRT norms. They're violating a lot of taboos the mainstream depends on in the process, like not being racist, on justifications like "if every other group gets to be racist/tribal, we have to too for self-defense," which they're actually arguing pretty widely. The point is that both Woke groups are transgressing against norms against racism in different ways. Same energy, opposite direction. Auron directs his audience away from this point and builds a strawman that he can press into the train of mockery he already started. But what he actually does is shifts to make out that my real point is that "the most important issue we have to care about in society is racism," trying to place me in the CRT/Leftist camp, which I'm literally actually opposing in the clip he's commenting on (and that I've done more to oppose than anyone in the world, without any doubt to anyone familiar with my work for the last seven or eight years). He uses this straw man to lump together "center left, classical liberals, IDW" and to say we're "revealing ourselves" effectively as crypto-Leftists, which the portion of the clip of me that he played (aside from all my previous work) directly refutes. "Their religion," Auron opines, "is still antiracism." [So does he mean like being not-racist, like we actually are (not religiously), or like Kendi means it? Has he accepted Kendi's framing that there's only "racist" and "antiracist" and then tried to project that onto people who want to be not racist? Sure looks like it.] "James Lindsay, as much as he's against it, as much as he's written against it, as much as he's claimed to want to expose it, ultimately, he doesn't disagree with 'antiracism' as the core religion of the United States." That's a pretty astonishing sentence in its calculated falseness, and we have every reason to believe it was made deliberately and maliciously (Auron has a very long track record of precisely this behavior). The effect is to flatten all "center left" and "classical liberals," along with me and my work specifically, into a kind of crypto-CRT "religious" belief in an effort to discredit us and name us part of the problem (the "dialectical flattening"/psychopathic splitting I also discussed with Peterson comes to mind here, for those who saw the whole show). He aims to treat different things as though they're the same thing (Woke context and language blurring) in order to cast us as secretly in alignment with Kendi and the rest of CRT. "He, he, he thinks that that ['antiracism'] should be the 'civic religion' of the United States." No, I don't. This is called lying. It's also mind reading through secret (Gnostic) interpretation of hidden clues in my language and work that reveal that I mean the exact opposite of what I'm consistently saying. "He just doesn't like the extreme version of it." Still lying, but trying to make it sound more plausible. "He's like a moderate jihadist. Ok, he wants moderate jihad. M-m-moderate Sharia. That's what James Lindsay demands." So beyond being ridiculous and defamatory that's a really weird association to make, but it should be obvious why he's making it. The game is to discredit me through mockery and association with things his audience already doesn't like. Also, the Iron Law of Woke Projection never misses.... The Woke Right holds to a "No Enemies to the Right" policy of extremism, and I do not. Mockingly pretending his speaking my voice: "Ok, I still want Sharia Law. I still want a woman beaten if she's walking outside alone. I- You, you know, u-use a small rod instead of, like, you know, a large stick. That's kinda James Lindsay's stance on this, right?" No, "Auron," not right. "So, so he still wants racism to be, like, the central concern of the United States; it just needs to have a more reasonable definition. Stop looking at the [Woke examples] of racism; just go back to the good old 'antiracism' that we used to have." It's called being not racist, which reveals what "Auron" is really arguing for, as with his take on "based" at the start of the clip (he wants transgressive ideological high on cocaine, not based in reality and principle and courageous enough to stand for them). He has completed his straw man, erected him, and is showing the audience Straw James for mockery and rejection. "The problem for James is that the entire reason you [sic] got there is that there's a gradient to the logic [so it's all 'antiracism' on a slippery slope -- dialectical splitting again]." "Auron" is explaining here yet again that "liberalism," which he is deliberately unclear about, is just another manifestation of Communism, a quieter, more moderate crypto-Communism (or, specifically Race Marxism, here). This bit of propagandizing depends on the fact that his audience uses the word "liberal" inaccurately and blends together many things including classical liberalism, traditional liberalism, European social and economic liberalism, neoliberalism, progressivism, socialism, Marxism, and Communism for a lot of bad reasons that are too much to cover here. The point is that as a propagandist, he's not just relying upon this lack of clarity and exploiting it, he's also deliberately sowing more confusion in the name of clarity (...disguised as an angel of light, since his stream is all about Lucifer anyway), deliberately and maliciously. "Again, you'll notice that he wants those 'liberal' norms [not being racist] back, but what James never admits, what James never makes clear, is that the 'liberal' norms got him Wokeness." If I thought this was true, I would have said it. I'm not hiding anything. I just think it's completely false and have dedicated an insane amount of effort into making it clear for people around the world. Maybe "Auron" should listen to any of the hundreds of talks, lectures, or podcasts in which I quoted directly from the book Critical Race Theory: An Introduction where the authors (Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic) explicitly state that one of the reasons Critical Race Theory exists is to attack "Enlightenment liberalism" (just like the Woke Right does!). Much of the writing in Critical Race Theory is explicitly, and at length, a criticism and rejection of liberalism and liberal norms in favor of completely different radical ones. If "Auron" did that, though, he'd risk exposing that Woke Right shares this in common with CRT while liberals do not. "The liberal obsession with equality, the liberal obsession with racism, is what brought you to Wokeness." This is a few misarticuated truths married to a lot of lies (that is, propaganda). It's a lot to unpack. Liberalism means equality before the law, not everyone is literally equal. CRT attacks liberalism exactly the same way, consider Robin DiAngelo's book titled Is Everyone Really Equal? As documented, say by Shelby Steele in White Guilt, it is true that the values of American equality and the circumstances of the Civil Rights Movement were hijacked by Race Marxists to open the door to the CRT racial dialectic, but that's not liberalism being obsessed with race or bringing us Woke. That's Communists exploiting people with certain sensibilities. That is, this is propaganda. This is already extremely long, and the rest devolves into him talking about ethnic hatred instead of "racism." I guess he needs more politically correct terms for it, "as a Christian," he says. The only reason to mention it is how he ends it. "However, James wants a much, much broader definition of 'racism.' He wants a political definition of racism. He doesn't care about how you treat people one-to-one [remember, I'm the individualist here...], he cares about using that definition to cancel you, right? And that's the plan. That's the plan." It's really more of the same thing, but it bears mentioning because it's the completion of his malicious straw man. It's not only completely false but obviously false except outside of the Woke Right narrative that he also pushes that I only created the term "Woke Right" (again, I didn't create it at all) to cancel people, which is the narrative he needs to get people to believe. That's underscored by his repetition of "that's the plan." My objectives with naming the Woke Right were abundantly simple: name a dangerous phenomenon in the hopes that it can be identified and stopped. I would not like to see people cancelled, but I won't tolerate this bad behavior either, not for any rewards they might dangle or withdraw. I hope every one of them realizes they are acting "Woke" and backs off from it. We need all the help we can get in stopping the huge global effort to subvert us and steal our liberty. My verdict here? This is among the rankest of rank propaganda. The Blaze, if (and only if) it wants to be considered a serious outlet in any regard, should be ashamed to be associated with this guy and what he's doing. I can't really even say this, though, because in light of the straw man built about me throughout, they'll say this is a Woke accusation on my part too, and an attempt to cancel him, but it's just a simple, plain fact. Rank propaganda isn't reporting or even really commentary, and there's nothing respectable about it. For years I've made the point that there's a key difference between "cancellation" and "taking responsibility." Anyone can find ample evidence of this. Why did I do that? Because the Woke Left claimed that anything that identified their bad behavior in our institutions was an attempt to "cancel" them too. It's a Woke (and psychopathic) technique called DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. Deny that you're doing anything wrong, attack the person who called you out, and make yourself out to be the victim of their "cancellation" attempt. Of course, adding this here will guarantee they'll howl with laughter as they yet again insist that's what I'm doing to them with this.

James Lindsay, anti-Communist

53,212 Aufrufe โ€ข vor 1 Jahr

Clive Lewis's Water Bill - bringing water back to the people ๐Ÿ’ฏ Please watch, listen or read this transcript. Because this is the sort of leadership Labour needs ๐Ÿ‘ Clive Lewis MP He even calls for PR ๐Ÿ‘ Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab) Margaret Thatcherโ€™s revolution tore up the rulebook on political and economic management. She rewrote it with a single unwavering principle: that the pursuit of profit would serve the public good, even when it came to vital public servicesโ€”even when it came to water. We often say that society stands on the shoulders of giants, but giants cast long shadows, and Thatcherismโ€™s shadow looms dark over our water system today. Whether we see ourselves standing on her shoulders or trapped in her shadow, one thing is undeniable: she proved that the world can be made differently. And if it can be made differently once, it can be made differently again. That, as the brilliant anthropologist David Graeber understood, is the hidden truth of the world. It is something we create and can choose to create anew. We can do it better. Today, I want to show this House and this country that water is the lens through which we can imagine something betterโ€”a better way of running our economy, a better way of safeguarding our environment and a better way of empowering the public, for whom democracy supposedly exists. But that requires something very difficult: it requires us to break free from the constraints of our imagination and to let go of the idea that this economic model is all there is or all there ever could be. It saddens me to say that the Governmentโ€™s Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 perfectly exemplifies this failure of imagination. One of its leading proponents has a particular rhetorical flourish they love to use when dismissing calls for public ownership of water. They say, โ€œIโ€™m more interested in the purity of our water than the purity of our ideology.โ€ I love that quote. I love it because it lays bare just how deeply the ideology of privatisation, and all that goes with it, has embedded itself. So entrenched is it within our collective consciousness that we no longer recognise it as an ideology. We no longer see it for what it is: a systemic exploitation of a common resource for private gain. Instead, it has simply become the natural order of things. But how much longer can this go on? Since the crash of 2008, this ideology has been faltering under the weight of its own contradictions, yet its grip on British politics remains vice-like. Austerity, exploitation and corporate price gouging are still treated not as choices but as inevitabilities. Why? Because too many politicians on both sides of the House refuse to contemplate alternatives. For those on the other side of the Houseโ€”on the Opposition Benchesโ€”I get it: this is their ideology. They are defending their class, and I would imagine they would go further still if they could. But on this side of the House, we have no excuse. We should be standing up for our class: working-class peopleโ€”the public. Instead, we wrap their ideology in the language of fiscal responsibility, economic prudence and stewardship of the economy. But it is not fiscal responsibility when we balance the books on broken backs. It is not stewardship when the ship has been sold off and the crew left to drown. It is not prudence. It is power maintenance. Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab) I hope the engineers can check that the microphones and speakers are working while I ask a quick question. My hon. Friend mentions Members on this side of the House. There are far more of us on this side since July last year than there were in 2019, with a very different approach taken in our manifestos. Does he fear that the shift in tone he is suggesting is one of the reasons that we did so badly in 2019 but so well last year? Clive Lewis No, I do not. We have a distorted electoral system. Bring on proportional representation, because if we had PR, we would have had a different Government in 2019 and most definitely in 2017. Sometimes politicians have to do what they believe to be right and lead from the front. I think we should lead from the front. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind) I compliment the hon. Member on his Bill. To help his argument, there was overwhelming opinion poll support for public ownership of water in 2017 and 2019, and there still is today. Clive Lewis I thank the right hon. Member for his point. I will come on to this later, and I hope other Members will pick up on it, but the fact that the public are way ahead of this House on the issue of public ownership is one of the reasons why so many people are losing faith in the two-party political system. One only has to look at some political parties whose Members are not in their placeโ€”at the Reform party, for example, which has a policy of public ownership of water. Yes, its Members will privatise the NHS, but they understand how popular this is, and they are ahead of the curveโ€”they are ahead of us on this side. Neil Coyle Really? Clive Lewis On the issue of water, yes, I would say they are, because whether I like it or not, Reform has a policy for water to be owned 50% by pension companies and 50% by the public. As much as it grieves me to say it, that is a policy of public ownership. They are populist; they are listening to a popular voice. Mr James Frith (Bury North) (Lab) Will my hon. Friend give way? Clive Lewis I will make some progress and then give way, and I will also try to keep the volume down a little bit. This is about the maintenance of a political and economic model that was never built to serve the publicโ€”a model designed to shield the wealth of asset holders, landlords, shareholders, corporations and, yes, privatised water companies. But here is the great irony: the very greed, recklessness and contempt of the water industryโ€”its excessesโ€”have cracked open the door, and through that crack, we glimpse an opportunity. It is an opportunity to shatter the myth of privatisationโ€™s inevitability, to break free from the narrow, self-imposed rules that have caged our Governmentโ€™s economic choices, to expose its failures, to challenge its dominance and, above all, to show this country that there is an alternativeโ€”an alternative that is democratic, sustainable and run in the interests of the many, not the few. We can do it better. Mr Frith My hon. Friend is making a typically impassioned speech. He says the general public are ahead of us. Where might that same public be when faced with the bill for bringing in the nationalisation he is clearly wedded to? Furthermore, in the event that we do not have to buy the water industry but seize it, the implications of that seizure will cause an economic collapse. At what point will he take responsibility for either of those scenarios when confronting a public who are, he says, ahead of us on this issue? Clive Lewis I will obviously come to many of those points later in my speech, but let me make this point now: I do not believe in nationalisation, and this Bill has nothing to do with nationalisation. This is about giving the public a say over their water. It is about governance, standards and democracy. Mr Frith Will my hon. Friend give way? Clive Lewis No, my hon. Friend has made his point. Mr Frith On this point? Clive Lewis No, I am going to carry on and make some progress. You made your point. Let the publicโ€” Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani) Order. Mr Lewis, I do not believe I was making a point at all. Clive Lewis My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker; I should have said that my hon. Friend made his point. The clock is ticking. The climate crisis is no longer a distant warning. It is our lived reality. Rising droughts, creeping desertification, depleted aquifers, wildfires, systemic collapseโ€”these are no longer projections; they are the forecast turned fact. Preparing for this future and adapting to what is now inevitable has never been more urgent. The evidence is sobering. The UKโ€™s water resources are under mounting pressure and not just from the climate emergency, but from rising demand and population growth. Experts now project that England could face significant water supply deficits as early as 2034 unless we act decisively. That is not a distant horizon; it is a little over a decade away. But while the threat has grown, our resilience has shrunk, because while the climate crisis has intensified, our water infrastructure has stood still, or, worse, been sold off, hollowed out and left to rot. In the 35 years before privatisation almost 100 reservoirs were built; in the 35 years since privatisation, not one major English reservoir has been built. But it gets worse, because in that same period private water companies have sold off 25 reservoirs without replacing one. Instead of investing in resilience, they have extracted value: ยฃ72 billion paid out in dividends while pipes leak, rivers choke, and the public pays the price. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Frith) asks how we can afford it; how can we not afford it? That is not mismanagement; it is a betrayal. If scientists tell us the climate crisis is an existential threat to humanity and to this countryโ€” Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab) Will my hon. Friend give way? Clive Lewis One second. If scientists tell us the climate crisis is an existential threat to humanity and to this country, we must treat it as such: an existential conflict. In that context, the actions of these companiesโ€”selling off reservoirs, failing to invest, polluting our waterโ€”are not just negligent; they are acts that actively undermine our national water security. In any other existential crisis, we might call that what it is: sabotage. And in a time of national peril, sabotage has another name: treason. Let me explain why this matters to me personally. When I served on tour in Afghanistan back in 2009โ€”not in a boy bandโ€”I experienced something utterly alien to me: the gnawing fear of thirst; not the mild irritation of forgetting a water bottle, but the deep physical worry that there may not be enough clean water to get through the day. In Britain, we have been blessed: water falls from the sky; it fills our rivers, it soaks our fields, and we joke about itโ€”it is part of who we are. But in Afghanistan there was no humour; only heat, dust and desperation. There I saw children trekking miles through the desert, not for food, not for money, but to beg for clean bottled water. Once we have seen that, and once we have felt that fear, we can never take water for granted again. We never again believe it is something we can waste or pollute or privatise without consequence. That is why I have brought forward this Bill: because anger is not enough; outrage, no matter how justified, will not fix the pipes, stop the sewage or fill the reservoirs. We need a plan. We need a strategy. We need a future. We can do it better. My Water Bill delivers that. It sets out the high standards our country deserves and the democratic governance our water system desperately needs. First, it establishes clear, ambitious targets to stop the sewage in our rivers and on our beaches, to restore our water to high ecological and chemical standards, and to deliver universal, affordable access to water as a basic human rightโ€”a right we have never had before in this country. It demands a system designed not just to extract profit but to adapt, to build resilience in the face of climate change, and to harness nature-based solutions that work with the environment, not against it. Secondly, it transforms governance. The Bill introduces representation for workers and local communities on the boards of water companies. It gives voting rights to employees and customers, so that those who use and maintain a system have a real say in how it is run. Water is not a commodity but a common good, and those who depend on it and pay for it should help govern it. Thirdly, the Bill lays the foundations for a democratic future. It establishes a commission on water ownership to advise the Secretary of State on long-term strategy, looking at international best practice, especially in OECD countries, where public water ownership is the norm, not the exception. Crucially, it creates a citizens assembly on water ownership to bring the public into the process, to deliberate, debate and decide how we can govern this most precious of resources. The public care, but how do I know that? I know because a small fraction of them are in the Public Gallery today, having travelled here from all over the country; I know because of the thousands of emails that have been sent to MPs across the House; and I know because those people will never stop campaigning until this injustice is resolved. They know that we can protect something not by selling it off, but by standing up for it, involving people in its care and ensuring that it serves the public, today, tomorrow and for generations to come. My Bill offers a pathway out of crisis. It offers control, resilience and democracy. It is not just about cleaning up our rivers, but about cleaning up the system that allowed them to be polluted in the first place. Privatisation is not just a problemโ€”it is the problem. We can do it better. I can hear some people on the Labour Benches thinking, โ€œBut we have just passedโ€โ€” Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab) You can hear thinking? Clive Lewis I can nowโ€”for my next trick, I can hear thinking! I can hear them thinking, โ€œBut we have just passed the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, Clive, so what are you talking about?โ€ Yes, we have, but I am afraid to say it has been watered downโ€”[Interruption.] Sorry, I had to get that one inโ€”it was all going so well. The Act does not live up to what was promised, it does not deliver what is needed, and it certainly does not live up to its name. Do not get me wrong: it is a start. Grahame Morris I congratulate my good and hon. Friend on making an excellent speech and on advocating for public ownership of water and the opportunity to make things better. Does he agree that the mismanagement of the water companies under privatisation is a huge indictment of the whole principle? In my area, bills are way above inflation and huge dividends are being paid by borrowing money. At the very least, should our Government not be looking at stopping the payment of bonuses and share dividends while sewage pollution continues, and we have appalling mismanagement of the industry? Clive Lewis I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I agree with him wholeheartedly and I am just about to come to that point in relation to what the Water (Special Measures) Act does and does not do. It addresses some of those points, but as we have already discussed, privatisation is not just a problem, but the problem, and it is a big part of why so much has gone wrong. Unfortunately, the Water (Special Measures) Act does not live up to what was promised or what is needed, and it certainly does not live up to its name. However, it is a start, and I praise my colleagues on the Front Bench, including the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), who has done so much work in this area. Unfortunately, the Act is not a solution. Remarkably, my Governmentโ€™s Water (Special Measures) Act does not even define what clean water means. There are no standards or targetsโ€”just vague intentions handed over once again to a regulatory system that has already failed us and to the companies that caused the mess in the first place. It says nothing about better governance, and absolutely nothing about the big, fat, humongous elephant in the room: who owns our water? If we do not deal with ownership, we cannot deal with accountability. If we cannot deal with accountability, we can forget clean water. Noโ€”we must go further on clean water standards, corporate accountability and what happens when companies fail. Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab) Does my hon. and gallant Friend accept that there is increased accountability in the Water (Special Measures) Act through the fact that many companies in the industry are now rewriting their articles of association to ensure that they are accountable not just to shareholders, but to the customers and users of water? Clive Lewis After 35 years of abject failure, it is too little, too late. My Bill would put the final nail in the coffin of this sorry chapter of our countryโ€™s water and water system. Neil Coyle Sticking with the puns, I commend my hon. Friend on his gallons of passion; he is always making waves. He criticises the Governmentโ€™s legislation, which is obviously not yet in effect, but does he think that the Cunliffe commission will go any way towards addressing some of the concerns he has outlined? Clive Lewis Unfortunately, I do not, because again the elephant in the roomโ€”who owns our waterโ€”has been ruled out of the Cunliffe commissionโ€™s operational process. It cannot actually look at that issue. I have no issue with Sir Jon Cunliffe, but let us not forget that he originates from the Treasuryโ€”he probably has Treasury brain. That economic orthodoxy is part of the reason why we are in the place that we are. I do not have so much confidence in the Cunliffe commission, but I do have far more confidence in the Peopleโ€™s Commission on the Water Sector, which is being run by academics and which will report at the same time. I will be very interested to hear what it says. Neil Coyle Will my hon. Friend give way? Clive Lewis Those are the reasons why I have brought forward this Bill. The Governmentโ€™s Act does none of those things, but my Bill does. Take just one exampleโ€” Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani) Order. I believe Mr Lewis probably cannot hear interventions, because he is so loud himself. Members should intervene loudly if they wish to intervene. Clive Lewis I did hear the intervention, but I wanted to make some progress. Take this one example. Under this Bill, if a water company breaches the terms of its licence with a major sewage discharge, it can forget shareholder payout and piling on more debt. If it does it twice, it is in the last chance saloon. After three strikes, it is outโ€”licence terminated and on its bikeโ€”and those price-gouging, asset-stripping, river-killing vulture capitalist outfits will be rolled into the sunset without a penny in compensation. What about those water infrastructure assets that they have been sweating for private gain? They go back into the public realm, thank you very much. If they start whining about debts, do not worry: we will do a full audit of what they invested, what they racked up in debt, what they paid out in dividends and what they stuffed into bloated executive pay packets. I will tell you this, Madam Deputy Speaker: I am yet to see a single privatised English water company walk away with anything other than a well-earned spanking and a sharp haircut for its creditors. Those assets will belong to the public once again, and we will not pay a penny more than they are worth. I can hear people thinking, โ€œWhere will the money come from? How will you invest in publicly owned water without the private sector?โ€ I will tell them where it has not come from in these past 35 yearsโ€”I am mind-reading again. Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab) Will my hon. Friend give way? Clive Lewis I will just make some progress, and then I will give way. I am on a roll. Let me tell the House where the money has not come from for these past 35 years. It has not come from private shareholders or long-term thinking, and it certainly has not come from some mythical well of benevolent capitalism. The private companies have put in less than nothing; in fact, they have racked up more than ยฃ60 billion in debt. Thames Water has paid more than ยฃ7.2 billion in dividends since privatisation, and is now ยฃ15.2 billion in debt and countingโ€”work that out. Now, it is trying to plug the hole with a ยฃ3 billion emergency loan that will cost 10% in annual interest. That is more than half a billion pounds a year, just for interest payments, courtesy of our bills. That money will not build a reservoir, fix a pipe or clean a river, but it will keep a rotten system afloat for a little longer. Noah Law My hon. and gallant Friend makes an impassioned case for public ownershipโ€”something that, in the right context, I am sure Members on all sides of the House can celebrate. On the point about the cost of financing to the public, though, does he agree that while there are some serious indiscretions in parts of the industry, such as in Thames Waterโ€™s case, this conversation about the appropriate financing model would be better entertained at a time when the cost of capital in the private water industry was not lower than the cost of public sector borrowing, on which, of course, we are in a very difficult situation? Clive Lewis The cheapest borrowing in the country, without a doubt, is public sector borrowing. The private water industry, which has had 35 years to sort this mess out, is not going to find investment. It is up to its eyeballs in debt. It is relying on a 50% increase in our bills by 2030, if we include inflation, and that is in the middle of a cost of living crisis. How can we justify that? The answer is that we cannot. Mr Frith The day after the seizure of public assets that my hon. Friend is describing, billions and billions of pounds of debt will come with it. What does he propose to do with that debt, other than refinancing, which is exactly where we are at now with the industry requirement to refinance the debt to try to keep bills down? Instead, he is advocating that the public purse take on that private debt. Clive Lewis At the beginning of my now seemingly rather long speech, I think I referred to a failure of imagination. Ask what Margaret Thatcher would have done when she was faced with similar problems. She would have fought her way through it. She changed the very fabric of our economy, our democracy and our politics, and she made it work. We can do the same, because the public are behind us. They want this to work. Mr Frith roseโ€” Mark Ferguson roseโ€” Clive Lewis I will make some progress. Let us recap, because I do not want to go on too long; I want to conclude, if I can. That money from Thames Waterโ€”that half a billion pounds in interest paymentsโ€”will keep a rotten system afloat for just a little longer. The myth of privatisation is that the private sector will act in the long-term interests of the British public because it wants to turn a profit. That is preposterous, as is proven by the state of our water, and exhibit A is Thames Water. We can now turn to the question of where the investment will come from. Under public ownership, it will come from the only place it ever should haveโ€”from us, the publicโ€”and every penny of it will go back into the system. It will go into the pipes, the rivers, the seas we swim in and the water we drink. There will be a direct relationship between what we pay and what we get, with no offshore dividends, no bloated bonuses and no debt-laden shell gamesโ€”just clean, accountable, democratic water. When I was in Afghanistan, every soldier had one critical duty: to stay hydrated. To dehydrate was considered a military offence, because it put the soldier and their team at risk. If someone ran out of water, we did not debate markets or metrics; we shared what we had. We had each otherโ€™s backs. As the desert-dwelling Fremen in James Herbertโ€™s novel โ€œDuneโ€ believed: โ€œA manโ€™s flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribeโ€. It is time our water returned to the tribe, to the people, to the public. We can do better; we must, and with this Bill, we will. I commend it to the House.

Farrukh

24,528 Aufrufe โ€ข vor 1 Jahr

Wowโ€ฆ. Donald Trumpโ€™s rally in Tucson, Arizona was a mess. Bro was totally slurry and as utterly incoherent heโ€™s ever been. Letโ€™s recap it: JD Vance is nowhere to be found. Bro hasnโ€™t been invited to a rally in a while. Telling. He starts by hyping up the crowd despite the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall only having a capacity for 2195 people. There were empty seats too. In comparison, VP Harris had 8600 people at her rally today. You could tell his tiny crowd size was bothering him. He claimed he had a โ€œmonumental victoryโ€ against VP Harris in the debate. Sure, broโ€ฆ He said she โ€œspewed lies.โ€ Pure projection. He whined about Linsey Davis and David Muir. He had issues saying โ€œindustry,โ€ โ€œSnopesโ€ (he called it โ€œSnoopsโ€), โ€œconfiscation,โ€ โ€œnotice,โ€ โ€œand,โ€ โ€œinterest,โ€ โ€œRussia,โ€ โ€œjokingly,โ€ and โ€œwoman." The cognitive decline is fierce. He lied about the abortion after birth thing again, disgusting. Heโ€™s giggling at his own jokes. I think heโ€™s on something. This is super weird. He called VP Kamala Harris โ€œthe leader of the movement Defund the Police.โ€ Uh, no. He says Project 2025 โ€œnever had my authorization.โ€ He implemented over 2/3 of their policies in 2017. He says that crime is so much worse now than when he was in office. False. Crime has gone down since the spike when he was POTUS. He falls back on his Twitter polls as proof that he โ€œwon the debate.โ€ Nah, bro. He seems to think that his debate with Biden counts as debating Harris. Not the case. He claims his weird โ€œTown Hallโ€ with Tulsi Gabbard had the best ratings. It didnโ€™t. He tried to diss David Muirโ€™s hair. Odd since Iโ€™d take Davidโ€™s hair over Donaldโ€™sโ€ฆwhatever that isโ€ฆany day of the week. He claims VP Harris is โ€œa threat to democracy.โ€ So much projection. Heโ€™s slurring calling Harris and Tim Walz โ€œweird.โ€ He clearly doesnโ€™t like being called weird himself, so we should keep doing it. A lot. He called Tim Walz โ€œthe future Vice President.โ€ Well, he got one thing right! He repeats that he wonโ€™t do a โ€œthird debateโ€ because itโ€™s โ€œtoo lateโ€ since early voting has already started. Donald Trump is a chicken. He goes on an angry rant about immigrants and migrants. He whines that VP Harris smiled during the debate. Bro, she was LAUGHING AT YOU. Heโ€™s pushing lies about Springfield, Ohio. FAFO in a swing state, bro. I canโ€™t wait for Haitians to help flip Florida. He claims people in Hollywood vote for him because of โ€œlow taxes.โ€ Further proof Donald only cares about giving tax cuts to the wealthy. He says they lie and say theyโ€™re not voting for him and then secretly vote for him. Not happening, bro. He claimed he got โ€œmore votes than any sitting president in the history of the countryโ€ in 2020. HE LOST THE ELECTION and heโ€™s once again claiming he didnโ€™t lose after admitting he did multiple times in the past month. He said โ€œweโ€™re never gonna let that happen again.โ€ We all need to be prepared for what heโ€™s gonna make his base do when he loses AGAIN. He claims that โ€œin a couple more years theyโ€™ll be firedโ€ about Linsey Davis and David Muir. Is he threatening them if he wins? He called Linsey Davis โ€œnasty.โ€ What a dick. He now goes back to people in Hollywood voting for him. Delusional man canโ€™t even keep his own train of thought. He claims someone named Martha cried when he won the debate. Uh. Heโ€™s bragging about crowd size again. Heโ€™s also saying he did 7 rallies in 2 days. He did not. Heโ€™s now asking how many rallies Biden would doโ€ฆhe keeps forgetting who heโ€™s running against. He tries to get the crowd excited and it sounded like less than 50 people were clapping. Sad. Heโ€™s now talking about Venezuelans taking over places with AK47s. He was the one who stayed the deportation of Venezuelans right before he left office. Heโ€™s now calling Kari Lake โ€œBorder Kari Lake.โ€ Super lame nickname and of course he praises himself for it. Heโ€™s crying about Biden again. Yikes. Broโ€™s mind is mashed potatoes. Heโ€™s back talking about Venezuelans with guns and heโ€™s trying to do math. No joke. He claims Harris is flying in migrants on jets. He whines about the Forbes 400 and claims Forbes โ€œisnโ€™t doing so well.โ€ Heโ€™s still butthurt that they dropped him from their list. Heโ€™s back to demonizing โ€œ20,000โ€ Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. FAFO bro. He said โ€œtheyโ€™re taking the geeseโ€ฆand walking off with their pets. My has been stolen.โ€ He keeps talking about someone named โ€œArt.โ€ Iโ€™m smirking. He says heโ€™ll โ€œstop World War 3.โ€ Bro is gonna try to start it. Heโ€™s crying about Biden not talking to Putin. He claims that immigrants and migrants canโ€™t pay rent. He immediately talks about the โ€œexplosion in rentโ€ in Springfield, Ohio. Pick one or the other, doofus. Heโ€™s talking about sleeping with a chart โ€œevery night.โ€ I mean, thatโ€™s more than Melania is sleeping with him. She wonโ€™t even be in the same state as him, let alone the same bedroom. Heโ€™s going to โ€œban mortgages for all illegal aliens.โ€ I thought he said they canโ€™t pay rent but now they can afford to buy a home? Again, pick a lane dingleberry. Youโ€™re embarrassing. He claimed the average income raised $7000 under him. False. 3 million people lost their jobs. Donald says heโ€™s going to save the average person in Arizona โ€œ$800 and $1000 a monthโ€ on their mortgages. Is he planning on giving away free homes? Bro is straight up lying. He arbitrarily says heโ€™s going to cut their power bills by 50% in the first year. How do people believe this absolute bullsh*.t? He said people โ€œcanโ€™t afford to buy cerealโ€ and that people bring three apples to the checkout and then put one back because they canโ€™t afford it. Fruity Pebbles near me are $3.49 and an apple costs $.59. He wants to repeal โ€œevery unnecessary ruleโ€ for construction of homes. Letโ€™s make houses implode again! He claims โ€œgovernment regulationโ€ is to blame for โ€œ40% of the cost of single family homes.โ€ Bro is legit just making up numbers as he goes along. This is painful to watch. He says heโ€™s going to cut the cost of new homes by 30-50%. Is he gonna give away land for free? FFS. Bro is mental. Ah. He just said heโ€™s going to open up federal land for โ€œlarge scale housing development.โ€ Great. Letโ€™s turn Yellowstone into a strip mall while weโ€™re at it. Heโ€™s complaining that the media covers his inability to say words and calling him โ€œcognitively impaired.โ€ The media genuinely needs to call this out. He calls Melania โ€œour great First Lady.โ€ Sheโ€™s not the First Lady, and sheโ€™s not great either. He said Melania complains about his hair at his rallies. Good. He looks like a bum with an animal living in that weird hair nest. Heโ€™s complaining about low income housing. Heโ€™ll take away any safety net that people who are struggling have. He said he โ€œdoesnโ€™t have problems with womenโ€ and that suburban women love him. E. Jean Carroll would like a word. So would Stormy Daniels. He said women โ€œdonโ€™t want to be hurt, molested, killed.โ€ I donโ€™t want to have to carry my rapistโ€™s baby, bro. And thatโ€™s now happening to women in 13 states thanks to you. He asked โ€œwhy wouldnโ€™t they like meโ€ about women. UHHHHHHHH. How much time do you have, Donald? He said women want choice and that heโ€™s for choice. But heโ€™s talking about school choice, not bodily autonomy. I hate this man. Heโ€™s whining about โ€œcopycatโ€ VP Harris saying โ€œno taxes on tips.โ€ Hahahaha. She still lives rent free in his head about this. Heโ€™s now trying to bribe people by saying that heโ€™ll end taxes on overtime. We all know heโ€™ll never implement this. Heโ€™s bragging about Bidenโ€™s student loan debt elimination being stopped. Vile. He claims he took in more money from the IRS after he cut taxes for the wealthy, โ€œby a lot.โ€ Not true. Our national debt was skyrocketing under him even prior to the pandemic. The crowd cheers the loudest for his hateful speech about transgender people. He lies and says schools are transing kids after parents drop them off. He claims VP Harris was โ€œthe leader of that.โ€ Fake news. He lies about the boxers in the Olympics again. I really hope they sue the ever-loving sh-i.t out of him. He does some lewd gestures and talks about โ€œgetting it up.โ€ I want to vomit in my mouth. He makes up a story about a trans swimmer who won the Olympics and some female swimmer getting โ€œwind burnโ€ as a result. WHAT THE ACTUAL EFF?!?! See the video below. I couldnโ€™t stop laughing. Sorry for that! Heโ€™s begging people to get their friends to vote. He knows heโ€™s gonna lose. Oh. Now he's doing the air jerk dance going off the stage. It makes my skin crawl. - Fin Iโ€™m sorry this one took a while. I kept pausing and leaving the tv because he was royally pissing me off. I genuinely cannot wait until I donโ€™t have to do these anymore. This man is one giant ball of hatred and we need this cancerous negativity removed from our society. Is the media gonna cover any of this or nah?

Art Candee ๐Ÿฟ๐Ÿฅค

448,696 Aufrufe โ€ข vor 1 Jahr

My cousin, Jonathan Ord asked me to teach the Come Follow Me lesson to his mission yesterday over zoom. This is the video I did and the full text. Hi. I am Brad Smith. I have ALS, which is a really weird disease that kills the motor neurons in my body. That means that I lose the connections between my brain and my muscles. My mind is still running at the normal rate. So, I can understand everything you say to me, but I canโ€™t respond very quickly! I am getting faster, though. Last November I was the 3rd person in the world to receive the Neuralink brain implant. So I am controlling this computer with my brain. This is my old voice, recreated by AI from just two hours of me talking to my phone. I have come to see ALS as a calling, and I am trying to magnify it. I used to talk easily, but now I have to choose my words carefully, because it is hard and slow to type what I want to say. I joke that the Lord gave me ALS to get me to shut up. Those who knew me when I could talk laugh the hardest. President Ord is my first cousin. So we share grandma and grandpa Smith. Our grandma Smith was a character. When she taught at church, she would put a sign up that read: โ€œthus saith the lord:โ€ so I will try to keep this within what the Lord has actually said, while trying to teach you to look at a basic principle of the gospel in a different way. Ironically, the first verse of Doctrine & Covenants 93 starts with โ€œVerily, thus saith the Lordโ€. This is an amazing section of scripture, Jesus Christ telling us to step up and be better! You should study it often. I will start with a story. I asked AI to make a video to dramatically tell the story. During college, I lived in Damascus, Syria, for a semester. It was a fantastic and wonderful experience. I especially loved exploring the Old City of Damascus. The Old City is built around the huge beautiful Umayyad mosque. Within the walls of the old city is a maze of narrow, winding, confusing streets and one really long straight street, as Saul found out in Acts 9:11. One day when a group of us were trying to get through this maze from the mosque to the Christian quarter of the Old City, we asked a man for directions. He thought for a second, then pointed and said, โ€œGo left and then right, and then left and then right, and then left and then right, and then left and right, and youโ€™ll be there.โ€ Arenโ€™t those the most ridiculous directions you have ever heard? We could have ignored him. But, we thought, he did know the city better than we did. So, with some laughter, off we went. Left. Right. Left. Right. And so on until, much to our surprise, we popped out at our destination. Life is a confusing maze. We face difficult choices, unexpected events, surprises, sorrows, opportunities, roadblocks. The Lord has given directions on how to get through to where we want to go. Sometimes the Lordโ€™s directions seem odd, and we may struggle with the decision to follow. The Lord will not force us. It is our choice whether to choose and follow him. Wasnโ€™t that fun? AI is getting crazy! I will be much less entertaining for the rest, but hopefully the spirit will teach you something new. The phrase โ€œkeep the commandmentsโ€ (or โ€œkeepeth my commandmentsโ€) appears at least 4 times in Doctrine and Covenants Section 93, in verses 1, 20, 27, and 28. There are other references, like โ€œkeep my sayingsโ€ in 52 and โ€œobeyeth my voiceโ€ in 1. So, commandments are really important in this Revelation. I suggest that making the gospel a more central part of our lives depends largely on how we look at commandments. When you think of commandments, do you think โ€œI canโ€™t. Iโ€™m Mormonโ€? (That was a popular T-shirt slogan during my college years.) Although, with the recent guidance from President Nelson, it probably should be โ€œI canโ€™t, Iโ€™m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saintsโ€. Itโ€™s a common reaction: โ€œThou shalt not do Cool Things.โ€ People LOVE to focus on all the things we CANโ€™T do, as if we are trapped and deserve pity for our beliefs. No pity is needed. Commandments are opportunities, not constraints. Commandments are awesome! Allow me to illustrate. Imagine a spectrum between Good and Evil. Somewhere in the middle is โ€œthe Lineโ€ that divides Good from Evil. As a teenager, I wanted to know where the Line was, so I could get close to it without going over it. I wanted to be on the โ€œGoodโ€ side but still be able to do as many โ€œCool Things" with my friends as possible. From my experience, I believe God gives us two types of commandments: 1) Get Back over the Line commandments and 2) Come Further into the Light commandments. Type 1, the Get Back over the Line commandments, could also be called โ€œMisery Avoidanceโ€ commandments. They are designed to keep us out of misery or, if weโ€™ve crossed the Line, to bring us out of misery and back into the Good side. These are generally commandments with a clear and defined point of success, such as โ€œThou shalt not kill.โ€ You will know, at the end of each day, whether you have successfully followed that commandment. I think all of the Ten Commandments fall into this category. The law of Moses was very black and white. The children of Israel had been in Egypt without a prophet for a long time when Moses received the law, and they needed to work on the basics. So, if you follow the Type 1 commandments, you will refrain from doing things that make you miserable. You will know you are in the Good if you can answer the baptismal interview and temple recommend questions honestly and faithfully. If you can do that, you have taken the basic steps necessary to avoid misery and are on a solid foundation for the next type of commandment. Type 2, the โ€œCome Further into the Lightโ€ commandments, are the really cool commandments. Once we are out of the misery category, we can really start to pursue joy. So, God commands us to do things that he knows will make us happier and more like Christ. These commandments are the principles of eternal development, such as โ€œLove thy neighborโ€ (Matthew 22:39). There is no clear end to loving our neighborโ€”it requires positive and eternal progression. We can always love more, and we can always find another neighbor who needs our love. It is an eternal principle taught by Jesus Christ. And if we truly love our neighbor, refraining from killing him becomes pretty easy. It is through these commandments that we find joy in Jesus Christ. Elder Christofferson taught about this spectrum in the October 2018 general conference: โ€œMost of us find ourselves at this moment on a continuum between a socially motivated participation in gospel rituals on the one hand and a fully developed, Christlike commitment to the will of God on the other. Somewhere along that continuum, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ enters into our heart and takes possession of our soul. It may not happen in an instant, but we should all be moving toward that blessed state.โ€ Our goal is to go THAT WAY (toward Christ) as much as possible. So first, get back across the line and stop doing things that will make you miserable. Then make every effort to try and be like Jesus, to โ€œlove one another as Jesus loves you.โ€ The gospel of Jesus Christ is more than just โ€œnot doingโ€ stuff. It is about coming unto Christ, being perfected in him, and denying ourselves of all ungodliness. Discuss with your companion what commandments and mission rules are for โ€œMisery Avoidanceโ€ and which are โ€œCome Further into the Lightโ€! And, remember, commandments are ALWAYS connected to huge blessings. The Lord promised, โ€œThere is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicatedโ€”and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicatedโ€ (Doctrine and Covenants 130:20โ€“21). Whenever we obey any of Godโ€™s commandments, we will get the blessing associated with that commandment. Elder David A. Bednar said: โ€œThe gospel of Jesus Christ encompasses much more than avoiding, overcoming, and being cleansed from sin and the bad influences in our lives; it also essentially entails doing good, being good, and becoming better. Repenting of our sins and seeking forgiveness are spiritually necessary, and we must always do so. But remission of sin is not the only or even the ultimate purpose of the gospel. To have our hearts changed by the Holy Spirit such that โ€œwe have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continuallyโ€ (Mosiah 5:2), as did King Benjaminโ€™s people, is the covenant responsibility we have accepted. โ€œThis mighty change is not simply the result of working harder or developing greater individual discipline. Rather, it is the consequence of a fundamental change in our desires, our motives, and our natures made possible through the Atonement of Christ the Lord. Our spiritual purpose is to overcome both sin and the desire to sin, both the taint and the tyranny of sin.โ€ I LOVE this conceptโ€”and as I have paid attention, I feel like apostles are trying to teach us this all the time. Are we listening? Let me repeat what Elder Bednar said. He said that the commandments help us change what we WANT. Why is that important? Remember my teenage desires? I wanted to be as close to the line as possible so I could still look cool for my friends. That is a good example of the โ€œtyrannyโ€ of sin. Even though I was not actually sinning (probably because I was afraid of my mother), I still had some small desire to sin. I said, โ€œI canโ€™t. Iโ€™m Mormonโ€ with many dramatic sighs. Overcoming the tyranny of sin is getting to the point where the sin no longer looks remotely interesting or fun because we are too busy loving our neighbors and trying to be like Jesus. Elder Dallin H. Oaks said: โ€œThe Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil actsโ€”what we have done. It is an acknowledgment of the final effect of our acts and thoughtsโ€”what we have become. It is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. The commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become.โ€ This talk was given when I was on a mission, before most of you were born. It completely changed my perspective on the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is called The Challenge to Becomeโ€ and I recommend that you study it. When the Lord says keep the commandments, he isnโ€™t just telling us to stop sinningโ€”he wants us to become like Christ and to have joy. Take a moment and think, Where am I on this continuum? Remember that none of us is perfect like the Savior, and we all need to lift one another. That is why we worship together. That is why we have priesthood quorums and the Relief Society, Primary, and youth organizations. The Lord taught us that truth when he said we all have different gifts: โ€œTo some is given one [gift], and to some is given another [gift], that all may be profited thereby. To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world. To others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithfulโ€ (Doctrine and Covenants 46:12โ€“14). The Savior is still WAY over there: a thousand miles away somewhere. That is why we have quorums. We all have a long way to go. Letโ€™s link arms and run together. Let me finish by telling a story from my mission to support my testimony of Jesus. Years ago my mission president said something interesting: โ€œEither the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is truly the kingdom of god on the earth... or it is the greatest fraud ever in history.โ€œ It is audacious to claim to be the true Church of Jesus Christโ€”but let me explain exactly why I know that to be true. I always BELIEVED that I was raised in the gospel of Jesus Christ. My parents taught me well and I felt good following the commandments and studying the scriptures. That led me to serve a mission in Brazil. My turning point of testimony came when I was 20โ€“at least 2/3rds through my mission. We were invited into a house in the โ€œfundosโ€ of a propertyโ€”a small structure built behind a larger house. The man was polite and allowed us to share our message. As I had done hundreds of times, I shared the story of Joseph Smith, a boy who sought the truth through prayer. I recited Josephโ€™s own words in response to his prayer: โ€œI saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me... When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the otherโ€”This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!" I felt the strongest feeling I had ever experiencedโ€”an undeniable confirmation that what I said was true. It hit me in a way I can never forget! I knew that Joseph Smith was truly a prophet, and therefore the Book of Mormon was the word of god. What about the man we were teaching? How had he responded to my life-affirming spiritual experience? He shrugged and politely thanked us for the message. I was stunned. I felt like the windows of heaven opened on meโ€”and he felt nothing. I learned that receiving answers to our prayers is like tuning a radio: not everyone is on the right frequency. For some reason, the Lord decided to broadcast on my frequency that day. I received the undeniable confirmation that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. I have built on that foundation brick by brick since then. And every time someone has challenged me on Joseph Smith, I go back to that day in Brazil. I know that he was a prophet. My life has been blessed in ridiculously good ways since then. As I have tried to follow Jesus Christ, great things have happened to me. Even my hardest and most frustrating times have turned out to have a purpose. God has upturned my best laid plans over and over. But I look back and realize that I could never have planned any better. With the prophet Nephi I say: โ€œI know that [God] loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." (1 Nephi 11:17) When I say that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, that does not mean we have a monopoly on truth. I know Christians and Muslims who teach me to be betterโ€”and Members of the church who are far from disciples of Christ. We just have more truth: scriptures, living prophets, ordinances, personal revelation, and answers to many of lifeโ€™s biggest questions! That is pretty cool. But we canโ€™t be prideful about the truth we have. You have all probably met people to admire both inside and outside of the church. So, I am all in. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is trueโ€”not a big fraud. And we are all trying to get closer to Christ. I know that Heavenly Father has a plan for me. Life has not been what I expected, but I trust him! I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of Jesus Christ and that the Book of Mormon is true. This is โ€œintelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. Light and truth forsake that evil one.โ€ With that knowledge, keep the commandments! In the name of Jesus Christ, amen .

Bradford G Smith (Brad)

20,383 Aufrufe โ€ข vor 11 Monaten

Finally, Ed Davey calls for the UK to join the EU Single Market ๐Ÿ‘ "We meet at an extraordinary moment. Vladimir Putin is still waging war on our continent. Donald Trump's chaos in the Middle East goes on. And our government, our own government is paralysed by infighting, waiting for Makerfield to release them from their agony." "And yet, despite all that, standing with you here today, I feel hope. And not just about England's chances against Croatia tonight, but hope about our country's future." "Not hope because the path ahead is easy. It isn't. Not hope because everything will magically get better. It won't." "But hope because finally, after ten long, difficult years, I believe we can move on. We can finally fix the Brexit damage, end the Brexit chaos and get our country back on track." "Because the story the media won't tell you, as they fawn over the rise of Farage, as they hang on his every empty press conference, is that the country is with us. We hear it on the doorsteps, we see it in the polls, we feel it in our communities." "People are fed up. They've had enough. Enough of the chaos in government, the queues at ports, the queues at airports, the bills that just keep on going up." "They know the hard truth that most politicians won't admit. The Brexit experiment has failed. And it's failed all of us." "ยฃ90 billion a year. That's how much it's costing us all as taxpayers" "ยฃ90 billion every year, gone" "That's ยฃ250 million every single day. Taken away from our schools, our hospitals, our armed forces. Taken out of everyone's pockets in the form of unfair tax rises." "Not because of a pandemic, not because of a war, not because of some force of nature out of our control, but because of their Brexit experiment. Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and the rest. An experiment that has now consumed a decade of British politics. That has tangled British businesses up in pointless red tape, that has pushed up prices for British families and that has left us all poorer." "Well, not all of us, apparently. Farage says that the five million he got from a crypto billionaire was his reward for Brexit. So when he said 'We'll be better off after Brexit,' it turns out he was using the royal we." "But friends, it's not only the economic and financial impact, as disastrous as those have been. It's the way they have poisoned our relationship with our nearest neighbours and friends, making it harder to work together on all the things we need to. Energy security and climate change, migration and refugees, AI, and above all, defence." "Britain has always been at its best when we stand tall with our European allies, not when we shut ourselves off. Now they promised us global Britain, but they have left us isolated at the worst possible time. Poorer, weaker and more insecure." "Their experiment has failed. We all know it. So it's time to move on." "But what do they say? The ones who caused all this. The people responsible. Farage and the Conservative Party. They say 'Tough.' They say you can't move on. They say you can't question Britain's relationship with Europe now. You can't dare to suggest there might be a better way. Doesn't matter how bad it gets, doesn't matter how much you're struggling. You just have to live with it, they say." "We say 'No.' We say Britain shouldn't have to live with a bad deal they've lumped us with. We say our country deserves far better than that." "Theirs is old thinking. It's 2016 thinking. The world has changed dramatically since then. It's time for us to change too. It's time for us to move on, move forward." "Just look around. Vladimir Putin is bombing schools and hospitals in Ukraine, murdering innocent civilians. He's testing NATO's resolve and setting his sights on the rest of Eastern Europe. He has shown that territorial conquest is not some relic of the distant past. It is happening now on European soil to our friends and our allies who share our values and our way of life." "And Donald Trump, he's torching the world economy for fun with his tariffs and his trade wars and now his actual war with Iran. He's ripping up the rules-based international order that generations of British leaders, American leaders, European leaders, painstakingly built after the Second World War. Trump threatening NATO, emboldening Putin and actively meddling in our democracies." "And then there's China, increasingly using trade supply chains and strategic dependencies as instruments of geopolitical competition." "And to add to all those political changes, there's the billionaire tech barons taking more and more control of our lives and our jobs with their empires of AI and social media, that no one nation can govern on its own." "The assumptions we have lived by for decades, that global trade would keep expanding, that international rules would broadly be respected, that our security would be underwritten by stable alliances. Those assumptions no longer hold. The world has changed more rapidly than at any time since the end of the Cold War. And our politics must change too." "Now we obviously can't turn to those who wrecked it. Farage and the Conservatives. They only want to make things worse. Even now, pushing for Brexit 2.0 with their plans to rip up the European Convention on Human Rights. They would just rerun all the old arguments, forcing Britain to replay the last ten years over and over in a never ending Brexit doom loop." "But nor, I'm afraid, can we look to Labour. Labour who failed to act with anything like the urgency this moment demands. Who don't seem to grasp the scale of the change we need in our relationship with Europe. Labour, who still kept us hemmed in the red lines they set more than five years ago. No single market, no customs union. Red lines they set before Putin invaded Ukraine, before Trump returned to the White House. Red lines that were wrong then and are even more wrong now." "The world has changed and it's time to move on. We cannot be trapped by that old thinking anymore. We have to look to the future. Not back to 2016 but to 2036 and beyond." "And that's why we're all here today, isn't it? Not because we are bitter about the past, but because we believe in a better future. Because we love our country and we know its brightest days still lie ahead." "We're here for our children and our grandchildren because we want them to inherit a country that is growing, that is confident, that is leading, not one that is shrinking, stagnating and standing alone." "That's what drives us. We're here because the world has changed, because the challenges we face to our economy, to our society and to our national defence are real and urgent. And because we believe Britain deserves ambition that matches the scale of this moment." "So what does that ambition look like? Well, first the government needs to drop those old red lines that stop us getting rid of the Conservatives' red tape. Those red lines are holding Britain back. They're hurting the British people and they are playing into the hands of Farage and Reform." "So my message to Andy Burnham, to Wes Streeting, to whoever the next Prime Minister may be, is drop those red lines. Drop them now." "If we do, we can move on from the torpor and timidity that has marked out Labour's approach to Europe so far. We can put an end to the endless talk of a reset that so far seems to just mean saying no more politely than the Conservatives did. And we can get on with properly fixing our relationship with Europe, for our economy, for our security, for our future." "Our party has led that debate for years. Last year, days before Trump took office, we set out plans for the UK to join a new customs union with the EU. And today I want to build on that and go further, much further." "Today we are calling for a new growth and defence partnership with the European Union. A new growth and defence partnership with the European Union. A bold new deal that will make Britain richer, safer and stronger, including a customs union, but also crucially taking Britain back into the single market." "Tearing down the barriers to trade. Ending the mountains of paperwork, the cost, the delays, the queues. Giving our young people the chance to study and work, live and love anywhere in the EU. Undoing the damage of the Johnson Farage Brexit deal that has held our economy back for so long." "Giving British businesses the certainty they need to invest, to hire and to grow. Giving Britain's economy the boost it needs after years of stagnation. Crucially, giving Britain's public finances a growth dividend. Tens of billions of pounds that we would use to cut the cost of living, to fix the NHS and to strengthen our armed forces." "And this new partnership must go beyond trade and growth. In the age of Putin, Xi and Trump, this must be about defence and security too. No country can be prosperous and free if it is not safe." "And Britain can help lead on defence in Europe as we have so decisively in the past. Despite the Conservatives' short-sighted cuts to our armed forces and Labour's chaos over investing in them now, Britain is still one of Europe's foremost military powers. We are a leading intelligence nation, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the third-biggest contributor to NATO." "We should be using those strengths. We should be at the table, helping to shape Europe's security future, not watching from the sidelines. And Europe wants us at the table. They know they need our leadership on defence." "So let's seize the initiative from a position of strength to form a new partnership that strengthens both Britain's economy and our collective security. That is why our new partnership would be about defence as much as it is about growth." "That means financial cooperation through a new European rearmament bank, alongside securing UK access to the one hundred and fifty billion euro safe programme. It means joint defence procurement, creating jobs in Britain while strengthening our collective capabilities. It means deeper cooperation on intelligence, on cyber security and on protecting critical infrastructure." "It means working together on energy security so that none of us can be held hostage by an authoritarian regime turning off the gas. It means political cooperation through a new European Security Council with a permanent seat for the UK, ensuring that Europe can shoulder greater responsibility for its own security within NATO." "As Trump's actions remind us every day, that we cannot afford to rely so much on the United States. Friends, this is not a choice we can afford to dodge any longer. In the face of Putin's threats and Trump's unpredictability, a new defence pact with Europe, with allies on whom we can depend, allies who share our interests and our values, is frankly the only way to keep Britain safe and defend our values in a dangerous world." "A new defence pact with Europe is not a choice, it is a necessity. So let's get on with it." "That is the ambition we need when it comes to our relationship with Europe. No more tinkering around the edges of a bad deal. No more shackling ourselves to the arguments of the last ten years, but building something new. A partnership fit for the enormous challenges we face today." "A new growth and defence partnership with a new pact for our collective security. Forming a customs union, joining the single market. A new partnership to make us richer, safer and stronger." "I think it's the best hope our country has to stop the chaos and end the crisis. And, my friends, it is the biggest step we could take now back towards membership of the EU." "And there's another big step we need to take too. Defeating Nigel Farage and Reform. We have to stop them from turning our United Kingdom into their version of Trump's America." "And here's the point. Until we do defeat them, many in Europe will not countenance Britain joining." "Let's remember why this matters, why it's so crucial for Britain to be there at the heart of Europe, at the table with our nearest neighbours." "I've been privileged to see it for myself, the power we have when Britain leads in Europe. When Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea in 2014, we recognised then that the way to defeat him would be to get Europe off its dependence on Russian oil and gas, to take away the money that was funding his aggression, to bankrupt the Russian war machine." "So I led Britain's efforts to bring Europe together behind that common cause, and we succeeded. We wrote Europe's energy security strategy. Britain did that, sitting at the table, leading in Europe." "But then, instead of seeing it through, the Conservatives walked away. They gave up Britain's seat at the table. They locked us out of those discussions at the worst possible time." "Just imagine where we could be now if Britain had continued to lead on energy security. Imagine how much weaker Putin would be now. Imagine how much safer Ukraine and the rest of Europe, including Britain, would be now. What a terrible waste. What an indictment of the Conservatives." "And that is why I am so determined to get us back at the table, back at the heart of Europe. Britain leading again." "Now I want to speak for a moment about the bigger picture. Because our ambition is not limited to Europe alone. It's about Britain's place in the world." "The old assumption that trade, security and prosperity could be treated as separate issues no longer holds. Supply chains can be disrupted. Energy can be weaponised. Economic security and national security are now inseparable." "At a time when authoritarian powers are doing so much to undermine our security, democratic nations must work more closely together to enhance it. As Mark Carney said in Davos, middle powers must act together, because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu. He is right." "Fixing our relationship with Europe is the essential foundation, but it's not the ceiling. The UK can be an incredible force for good when it stands tall on the world stage. Our history, our alliances and our relationships across every continent gives us a unique position for us to act as a bridge, not just between Europe and the US but between Europe and the whole wider democratic world." "We are here because we believe that our country and our people thrive when we are open and outward looking. That is Britain at its best. Not a small inward looking island clinging to the wreckage of a failed experiment, but a leader, a convening power, a country that helps shape the international order rather than being buffeted by it." "That is the Britain we can be." "But friends, I want to be honest with you about the task ahead. What we are proposing is bold. It is ambitious. It requires courage, requires leadership. And it will not happen without all of us." "We know the obstacles we face, the arguments ahead, the opponents who would rather replay the last ten years instead of moving on from them. Who will tell us we can't even talk about a new deal with Europe, let alone make one. The politicians who will claim change isn't possible because the status quo works for them. But it doesn't work for anyone else." "So our job is to get out there and show people that change is possible, that it doesn't have to be like this, that there is a way forward. A better future for our country. Leading in Europe once again." "This isn't just because we believe in Europe. It's not just about friendship or shared history, or the fact that a divided Europe has always ended in misery. Fixing it is about us, our country, our future, our hopes and our dreams." "Britain needs a new plan. A plan for growth, for jobs, for defence. A plan to give our children the better future they deserve. A new deal with Europe. The only way to fix the cost of living crisis. The only way to get our country back on track." "So let us stand together. Let us end the chaos. Let us show the world what Britain can be. Not a small island clinging to a failed experiment, but a leader, open, outward looking. At the table, not on the menu." "A Britain that is richer, safer and stronger. That is the future we are fighting for." " Thank you. Thank you very much."

Farrukh

10,909 Aufrufe โ€ข vor 1 Monat

This is beyond insane: Keith Kellog, Trumpโ€™s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, confirms that Europe will NOT have a seat at the table in the negotiations to end the war. When asked at the Munich Security Conference โ€œCan you assure this audience that Ukrainians will be at the table and Europeans will be at the table?โ€, his response was: โ€œthe answer to that last question is no.โ€ By โ€œlast questionโ€, he meant whether Europeans will be at the table. Later on in the conversation, he was asked to confirm this: โ€œSo the Europeans [...] you don't think should be at the table directly?โ€. His answer again was โ€œIโ€™m from the school of realism, I think thatโ€™s not going to happenโ€, and that he understood hearing this might be โ€œlike fingers on a chalkboard, may grate a little bit but I'm telling you something that's really quite honest.โ€ He was very clear though that he still expected Europeans to provide security guarantees and abide by the deal: โ€œyou have to understand, when you sign up for these security guarantees, that is an obligation and the reason I say that and I challenge many people that are out there, right now, 2014 Wales declaration, all the NATO allies, 2% of GDP, 20% of that was modernization, there are still 8 nations who've not even gotten to that number, okay? So when we get to it make sure you check your 6 as they say that the obligation is upon YOU when WE make these commitments.โ€ So to sum up, the US position is that Europe should stay out of negotiations that will fundamentally affect their security architecture - yet bear the primary responsibility and cost for the negotiations' outcome. And on top of that, itโ€™s quite clear from previous Trump declarations (like here: that the U.S. will be looking in the deal to take control of Ukraineโ€™s rare earth minerals as payment for the military aid it has provided, leaving presumably nothing to Europe. Iโ€™ve repeatedly warned that Europe was fast walking towards its own century of humiliation if it continued on its current path. I think itโ€™s now pretty damn clear that weโ€™re very much there already. If this goes through, this would possibly be unprecedented in European history - never before, to my knowledge, has Europe's security architecture been redrawn without any European power at the table. Even during Europe's darkest moments - including the Mongol invasions, the Ottoman expansions, or the Yalta Conference - European powers always had some voice in negotiations affecting their future. To be clear, the primary culprit here isnโ€™t the U.S. or Trump: any student of history knows that we live in a deeply unfair world where, as ancient Greek historian Thucydides wrote 2,500 years ago, โ€œthe strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." As such the blame lies almost entirely on us Europeans, or more precisely on our immensely incompetent leaders. And I want to stress this last point: they are literally incompetent on a millennia scale, given that they've managed to reduce Europe to a position that lacks any historical parallel, where it's expected to simply accept and implement whatever security arrangements others decide for it. Trump himself does whatโ€™s best for the U.S. - โ€œAmerica firstโ€, remember? - and to be fair to him the Biden administration left him with a pretty bad hand. Itโ€™s crystal clear that Russia won in Ukraine, despite all of NATOโ€™s efforts, and as such the U.S. very much risked coming out of it looking like the loser that it objectively is. Faced with this, Trumpโ€™s strategy clearly is to reframe this defeat into an โ€œart of the dealโ€ victory by securing U.S. access to Ukraine's natural resources while offloading the costs and responsibilities of the post-war security arrangement onto Europe. Meanwhile Europe, which has failed to develop any meaningful strategic autonomy over the past decades (in fact itโ€™s moved in the opposite direction), finds itself with little leverage to prevent this. In fact, European โ€œleadersโ€, in their treasonous meekness, are already signaling that theyโ€™ll resign themselves to their fate. Mark Rutte, NATOโ€™s Secretary General, for instance enticed Europeans not to complain about the situation ("to my European friends, I would say, get into the debate, not by complaining that you might, yes or no, be at the table, but by coming up with concrete proposals, ideas, ramp up (defense) spending", And Keir Starmer, invited by Macron at a โ€œcrisis summitโ€ in Paris to discuss the situation, said that his primary goal in the meeting would be โ€œto ensure we keep the US and Europe together. We cannot allow any divisions in the alliance to distract from the external enemies we face.โ€ ( I let you appreciate the perfect illustration this provides of the very mindset that has led Europe to this unprecedented position of weakness - responding to diplomatic humiliation with calls for even more subservience. So what could Europe do? After all, it is true that they have very little leverage, mainly due to the fact that they are โ€œprotectedโ€ by the very power that decided to put them on the menu instead of at the table. One idea could be to out-Trump Trump, and to angle for a deal where the U.S., not Europe, ends up the loser. They could for instance finally tell the truth about what led to the war in the first place, namely NATO expansion pushed by the U.S., as well as the U.S.-led coup in Ukraine in 2014, and dissociate themselves from this, just the way Trump is very conveniently trying to dissociate himself from his own countryโ€™s previous policies. They could make it clear that they reject any deal that gives the U.S. access to any of Ukraine's resources, and signal to Russia that they're open to a different kind of security architecture in Europe - one that doesn't rely on U.S. leadership or NATO. After all, if Trump can say he'll make deals with Putin, why couldn't Europe do the same? They could also reach out to China, which has already made it very clear that it opposed a deal in Ukraine without Europe at the table ( and which is anyhow much better positioned to negotiate with Russia than Trump is. We could end up with a Europe freed from American tutelage for the first time since 1945, establishing a new multipolar equilibrium with China and Russia - turning Trump's attempt to exclude Europe into the very catalyst that finally enables European strategic autonomy. But this would require a level of strategic thinking that current European leaders have consistently shown themselves incapable of. Instead Iโ€™m afraid they'll continue their current path of attempting to maintain the faรงade of transatlantic unity even as they're being openly humiliated.

Arnaud Bertrand

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