We need to stop referring to people as “violent” for damaging the means of oppression. Also people might technically be violent if they defend themselves against violent attacks by the authorities, but that again should not be accepted as a framing.

Australia can learn from Finland’s comprehensive security policy, says [Australian National University] ANU’s Medcalf: “Public-private sector co-operation is key.” Indeed, Hakamies of the Confederation of Finnish Industries says the system “is not based on law, it’s based on co-operation – companies talk to each other, they rehearse what they will do in a crisis, they train in all the sectors that are crucial when the borders are closed”.

Interestingly, Australia has committed to a similar concept of “whole of nation” security, involving society and business, as recommended by the Albanese government’s defence strategic review, but that’s where it remains – in the review, on paper only.

Far right corporate security dystopia is a terrible idea. Like Australia isn’t already running prison camps for the people who somehow managed to flee there by boat, where people often commit suicide, sexual abuse and torture by the guards is widespread and people are denied access to legal representation. Piling on top of it private profit interests is going to spiral things even further.

Talking about “value based alliances” in that context seems extraordinarily cynical.

Someone with the flick of a piece of wood can just murder you outright, with you having no way of defending against it. Before they learn to control it, the magic of the children just “flows” in uncontrollable ways. Maybe doing something silly like coloring hair, but maybe also destroying things and hurting people. For a non magical person in an entirely unpredictable way, without any possibility to intervene or repair the damage as easily.

Keep in mind that there is no mention of the Dursley’s ever receiving any sort of guidance on how to deal with a magical child. They are just expected to figure it out by themselves. Imagine you would have to deal with a special needs child, just that nobody is giving you any information, you can not reach out to anyone about it, you must keep it a secret as otherwise you get booked in the closed psychiatry and on top of it all the child at any point may burn down your house.

I mean whatever “rule of law” by the West, especially the US always was situational if it served the rule by force. Especially with the support of Israels genocide that point is really hammered home, which i believe will be a huge detriment to the EU countries down the historical line.

I would also not speak of an age of “enlightenment”. The supposed “enlightenment” was joined at the hip by genocidal imperialism and subsequently lead to the ultra nationalism that brought on WW1 and reached its peak in the Fascism that brought WW2 and the Holocaust.

What we see here imo. is another case of western arrogance and overt and subtle beliefs of supremacy standing in the way of securing a stable world order that could have been built on rule of law.

The article in the Guardian also refers to this comment on Bidens strategic blunder in regards to Ukraine and its fallout, where the double standard is also discussed. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/26/ukraine-russia-war-nato-biden-putin

To be fair his aunt was really shitty to him. But that makes me remember the whole thing how from their perspective Harry ruined the once in a lifetime business deal of Vernon when he tossed the cake onto the business partner over dinner. They couldn’t know about the whole Dobby business. And even if they did. Some strange run down creature just popping into your house to cause havoc, so your nephew gets kicked out of school, what the heck is that madness?

Because of that he develops anger issues and kind of locks the child in, which of course isn’t okay, but he doesn’t know what else to do. There is no government resources to help him. He doesn’t know how to reach the people who dropped the child off, however they seem to keep tabs on him and his family. Again from all he understands they are involved in some paramilitary actions.

Germany tosse out the Gepard systems, of which some also got a revival in Ukraine with great effect.

Turns out explosive autocannons are still very much the way to go against close by targets you can track from the ground. They are cheap, they can’t be countered with the typical decoy mechanisms against missiles and in an emergency they can be used in direct fire.

I wholeheartedly agree that Germany is falling significantly below these standards and should face repercussions by the EU. Unfortunately the sanctioning mechanisms for members in the EU are still lackluster.

When it comes to countries joining the EU, it is easier to scrutinize the adherence to the EU standards.

I am afraid that Germany will rather blow up the EU than stop its descend into authoritarianism.

I’d add to that the demand that the UK must fully comply with EU standards on human and civil rights, especially the right to freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly and the prohibition of torture.

Specifically this refers to the criminalization of Stop Oil and Palestine Action and the torture of Julian Assange.

As i said, i don’t doubt that there is corruption including in the PSOE, as there is specific evidence of it. The question i want to raise is, how extensive that corruption is and whether it justifies calling Sanchez a “crook”.

As a German speaker you maybe remember the media campaign against former German President Christian Wulff, accusing him of extreme corruption, whcih subsequently lead to him stepping down. Two years later and with ever more absurd accusations being piled on, the whole thing fell apart in court as nothing actually stuck.

There is an ongoing campaign against Sanchez, which mixes facts and fiction. For instance the charges against his wife come from a far-right-proxy trade union, which even acknowledged that it is “possible” for the accusations to be based on fake news.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Sánchez#Third_term_in_office

On 24 April 2024, due to a court investigation of his wife, Begoña Gómez, for alleged influence peddling charges presented by Manos Limpias, a far-right proxy trade union,[95][96][97][98] Sánchez announced through a letter in the X social network that he was considering his resignation from the position of prime minister, citing a right-wing media offensive to wear him down.[99][100][101] Several media noted how Manos Limpias’ charges against Sánchez’s wife were based on press headlines and fake news,[102][103] a fact that the trade union acknowledged as possible.[104] On 26 April 2024 and in a joint investigation, elDiario.es, El País and La Vanguardia newspapers revealed a plot by the PP, dating back to Mariano Rajoy’s government in 2014, to spy and produce information on Sánchez’s and Gómez’s relatives to “politically kill him” by using Manos Limpias to present criminal charges.[105][106][107] On 27 April, thousands gathered outside the PSOE’s headquarters in Calle Ferraz, Madrid, in an effort to persuade Sánchez not to resign.[108] The case has drawn comparisons to António Costa’s resignation in Portugal over the Operation Influencer investigation, which attracted criticism for several mistakes.[109][110][111][112] On 29 April, Sánchez announced that he would not be resigning despite a “harassment and bullying operation” and that he would be fighting “even harder” as prime minister.[113]

Lezs see what comes out of it. Columbia for instance has stopped its coal shipments to Israel. If there is an organized effort, the countries could throw around quite some weight, especially if China decides to support or join the group, rather than just talk.

Working together in a coordinated fashion also allows to protect each other and make it easier for countries to join that are currently scared of repercussions by the US, UK, Germany, Italy and France.

If Ireland, Spain and Portugal take an active role as supporter or also join the group, it will pressure the EU once again to decide, if it wants to be an Union of human rights and international rules, or if it wants to be an Union of genocidal racism and colonialism.

With the continuation of the association agreement with Israel despite the blatant human rights violations by Israel, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and the other supporter of Israel really did a number on the EU in that way already.

Will it be enough to end the genocide now? No it wont. Nothing short of military action to force Israel back into its borders will. Still it is better and more than anything that the EU has produced in the past two years. To its utter disgrace and shame.

Question is how much of it is genuine and how much of it is exacerbated by the PP, who keep calling for the government to end and new elections, while they themselves have a history of major corruption.

I am extrapolating a bit from Germany here, where corruption also is a major issue. The center right SPD in Germany, which seems to be the PSOE equivalent, do have some scandals every now and then, however nowhere close to the far right CDU/CSU, which would be the PP equivalent or the Fascist AfD, which would be the Vox equivalent. Same in Austria, where the far right and fascists are deep diving in corruption, with both Germany and Austria having a mainly right to far-right media landscape that reports on corruption disproportionately.

The US of course having nothing to do with Somalias messed up 20th and 21th century history…

Sort of too shy to follow through previously

Worst thing to happen realistically is that you get a “no thank you, i’m good”.

Don’t worry. It will come back worse soon enough. Climate change doesn’t just mean everything gets hotter. It also means everything gets more extreme, including cold events or these storms that prevent the heat from forming.

Question is, if it is a 1:1000 year event locally, state level, country wide?

These terms are often thrown around rather broadly by media, which does not help their use and makes it easy for cliamte change deniers to attack it.

These terms also provide a false sense of security. For instance we had a “thousand year” flood in parts of Germany in 2021 that killed about 200 people. The statisticians then said that because of climate change, this is now a “four hundred year flood”. But the kind of weather event that is producing these enormous rainfalls leading to the flooding actually occurs about twice a year now. It is just the question where the downpour comes and if it can dissipate in flat land, or if it comes down in the mountains, washing away everything in the valley. So that “four hundred year flood” is probably occurring more like once a decade but in different places in the future.

Don’t worry, it is not just in the US.

There was devastating floods in Germany about 4 years ago, killing some 200 people. Just a few months before the ruling “conservative” party CDU lead coalition in one of the states affected badly had scrapped some flood protection laws. During the election campaign for the federal election the chancellor candidate of the “conservative” party was laughing his ass off in the background as the German president held a commemoration speech for the victims in one of the villages heavily destroyed.

The CDU came out strongest again in the next state level elections, including in the areas that were destroyed by the floods and had many people killed.

“i can have a bbq with you” is not what i would call “close friends”. A close friend is someone i can bitch to about my personal problems and trust him not to pass any of it on. A close friend is someone on whose couch i could crash in an emergency with little to no questions asked.

From your description i would have thought more of the first category, but maybe i am wrong and you all stick it out for each other like that. In this case props to you all and i hope it lasts.

More like the DOJ needs to be turned upside down and all the criminals in it put behind bars for a long time.

The apparent abuse of the governments power and how he handled the whole show so far makes him a hero, regardless of whether he did anything or not.

What is sad about it though is that most people think that making memes and sharing them is enough to honor that. The US should have had mass protests demanding the oligarchs to hand over all the money they have robbed off the people unless they want the people to take it back.