European NATO allies have begun hitting 2% targets in recent years and there are heated debates about going way above that in multiple capitals.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-announces-turning-point-in-european-security-as-uk-set-to-increase-defence-spending-to-25-by-2030

I will note that in the UK case the situation described in the picture is particularly grotesque, if you consider the development of food bank statistics. The Trussel Trust distributed 3.1 million food parcels in 2023/2024, of these 1.1 million to children.

In 2008/2009 the number of parcels distributed was 26'000.

https://www.trusselltrust.org/news-and-blog/latest-stats/end-year-stats/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/

This is good analysis, but begs the question: why the government has not and does not protect workers to the extent that it could/should? Who has an interest in weak workplace protections for workers?

If the government is bad on worker's rights it is because it is a government run by and for capitalists. The state is consistently instrumentalised by the capitalist class to hamstring labour's bargaining power to suppress wages to increase profits.

Basically that is to say: these laws are not archaic, they are in fact working as intended, the intent is simply not to support working people, it is to secure and grow profits.

edit: I just realised where this was posted, so perhaps I underestimate your familiarity with these points, but I'll leave it up anyway in case of curious third parties

this is great, we need more agitprop in this kinda style

beyond absurd

I'm afraid the political problem you describe is much deeper and more entrenched.

The class of aggregated economic interests that brought the western world the "centrist ditherers", as you describe them, are increasingly backing right wing politicians to divide and confuse discontent majorities, now that the social contract is in obvious and advancing decay around us, due to decades of aggressive privatisation of public goods like utilities, education, healthcare as well as related but also wider economic slowdown.

Ironically it was precisely this kind of "centrist ditherer" that spent the last half century destroying these public goods and therefore inflaming the social discontent, which capital must now fuel right wingers to quell.

OH NO A TERRIFYING AUTHORITARIAN KILL WEB

so unlike our amazing and humanitarian full spectrum dominance

is militarised austerity edible?

parenti quote

so what does this potentially mean? i need a translation

chickens and roosting and and and

aipac zombie is a good line

his WEF speech is a bingo game, insert dicaprio pointing meme, it's so good

while i agree with this, which underlying factors would you say are you basing this on?

spread these posts out a bit my guy no need to blow em all at once hahaha

edit ah nvm u addressed it disregard

I spent quite a bit of time a few days ago reading the tricontinental report and was quite impressed by the half i got through

clean

i particularly like that the extent of his internet safety measures is nordvpn or something, like please mr bond after you

I never considered how fertile a farcical cordon sanitaire 2 would be for creative writing fetishists

north korea reporting is about to go global! sharpen your pencils uninformed reporters of the world!

classic, ive clipped the last third of this before too

Is it time to retire "Joe"?