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George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social |
11820 followers 61 following 458 posts
Ungainly on land
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Here's our conversation about the remarkable time in which we live: where we are, how we got here, and where we need to go. We explore what I think are the really big questions. I hope you will find it an hour well spent: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGe1...
0 replies 8 reposts 20 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”* William Blake (*subsequent findings, leading to a change in scientific opinion, reveal that reptiles do not spontaneously generate in standing water)
6 replies 8 reposts 71 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Changing your mind when the evidence changes is not a bad thing. It is a good thing. There is no hope of learning or improvement if we are not prepared to change our opinions.
3 replies 13 reposts 90 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Throughout recorded history, closed-minded people have attacked and demonised open-minded people. To the fixed mindset, the sight of someone changing their mind is profoundly threatening. It cannot go unpunished.
2 replies 7 reposts 47 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Responding to them is pointless – it only makes things worse. You just have to let them get on with it, and recognise that it’s the water in which you swim.
1 replies 0 reposts 24 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Because I’ve changed my mind quite often, I’m now cyberstalked by a pack of these obsessives, some of whom have been scribbling furiously about me for over 20 years. They lace together every thoughtcrime I’ve committed, to construct a narrative of pure evil.
2 replies 2 reposts 48 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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One of the penalties of changing your mind about a topic is that it provokes a certain kind of glitter-eyed fanatic, who will see you thenceforth as the devil incarnate. From that day on, in my experience, they will devote a large part of their lives to hounding you. 🧵
6 replies 9 reposts 79 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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We'll be in the High Court tomorrow, which is hearing the case that Fighting Dirty (@FightDirtyOrg) has brought against the government, demanding proper regulation of sewage sludge spreading on farmland. Crowdfunded by you. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
3 replies 16 reposts 51 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Unless the new government confronts oligarchic power and makes a major, tangible difference to our lives, it opens to the door to the far right, which rises in response to the political failures of centrism. My latest video with the great DoubleDown News.
www.doubledown.news/watch/2024/j...
5 replies 22 reposts 61 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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As in all cases, either our values or our positions can remain unchanged, but not both. Consistently defending our values - such as opposition to imperialism, fascism and wars of aggression - means being ready to alter our assessments as the nature of these threats changes.
1 replies 3 reposts 42 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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With great discomfort, I find myself open to arguments for rearmament. I now believe we need to enhance our conventional capabilities, both to support other European nations against Russia and – something that seemed unimaginable a few years ago – perhaps to defend ourselves.
5 replies 4 reposts 55 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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If Trump gets in, our new government will need to stop seeing the US administration as an ally, and recognise it as our greatest threat. And that changes everything. I explore some of the shocking implications in today's column: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
10 replies 46 reposts 136 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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If a foreign state had done what the Tories have done to the UK, we would call it sabotage and treat it as a hostile act.
15 replies 62 reposts 328 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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After 14 years of corruption, destruction, chaos and misrule, today, 4th July, is our Independence Day.
9 replies 12 reposts 132 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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In this talk for the Hay Festival, now free to view, I seek to define capitalism and neoliberalism, show how they have trashed our lives and propose some radical alternatives.
Do watch if you have a chance. Thanks.
www.hayfestival.com/p-21301-geor...
1 replies 17 reposts 58 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Whether the far right talks and dresses like Russell Brand or like Nigel Farage, it leads in only one direction: The persecution of minorities, scapegoating as a substitute for policy and the triumph of capital over humanity.
0 replies 35 reposts 149 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Biden is the physical manifestation of the incapacity of the old, liberal order, as it confronts a reinvigorated extreme right. Mumbling liberalism was never going to be enough. Without a radical, uplifting left politics, we stand to lose everything.
1 replies 22 reposts 76 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Last night’s debate reminds us that we can afford no tepid or faltering response to the resurgence of oligarchic power. Defending democracy against plutocracy demands steely determination and a powerful new story. They are lacking almost everywhere. 🧵
3 replies 5 reposts 66 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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In 1945, the Allies understood that facism, imperial conquest and mass murder all arose from oligarchy. They went to great lengths to destroy it in Japan and build a political and economic democracy to prevent its resurgence. Now the same nations open their doors to oligarchy.
1 replies 6 reposts 42 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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If we want to sustain even a modicum of democracy, equality, fairness and a functioning state, we need not the accommodation with economic power that Starmer seeks, but the mother of all battles with it.
2 replies 2 reposts 28 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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The lessons from history I discuss are hard and unpalatable. But unless we learn from them, the arc of the moral universe will keep bending towards injustice. The default state of political systems is oligarchy, and fierce resistance is needed to arrest its resurgence.
4 replies 8 reposts 48 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Timid measures of the kind Labour proposes won't stop the rise of a new oligarchy. Instead we need a political and economic programme of the kind that General MacArthur oversaw in Japan.
This week's column.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
7 replies 45 reposts 131 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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But it contributes to our massive blind spots and blatant double standards. Through its Assured scheme, it actively promotes animal suffering. If you care about animal welfare, support organisations like Animal Rising, which exposed the latest horrors promoted by the RSPCA.
2 replies 4 reposts 28 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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In aggregate, animals would be better off if it ceased to exist. I see the purpose of the RSPCA as being to make us feel better about ourselves. If we see someone abusing their pet, we can report it and consider ourselves a better citizen.
1 replies 3 reposts 16 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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What’s the common thread in these extraordinary omissions and commissions? Power. It will take on the little guys: the pet owners and smallholders mistreating one or a few animals. But it won’t touch the people doing it on an industrial scale.
4 replies 3 reposts 29 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Type the word “pheasant” into the RSPCA search bar, and you will see just two returns. 1. Pheasants are included on a list of birds that might suffer avian flu. 2. There’s a report that briefly mentions their mistreatment: not in the UK, but in Chinese markets.
2 replies 2 reposts 10 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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How about the 3rd biggest - industrial shooting? Some 30 million pheasants and 10 million partridges are released for the sole purpose of being blasted with lead shot every year in Britain. Many are wounded, and suffer long and painful deaths. RSPCA response? You guessed it.
2 replies 2 reposts 17 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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The second biggest must be industrial fishing, trashing entire marine ecosystems, leaving vast numbers of non-target species dead or dying, while the target species slowly asphyxiate on board. What does the RSPCA have to say about it?
1 replies 2 reposts 17 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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So, on the biggest animal welfare issue of all, industrial agriculture, the RSPCA not only fails utterly to campaign against the abuse of tens of millions of animals, but actually promotes and encourages it. What about the other big issues?
1 replies 2 reposts 28 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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How Britain’s oldest animal welfare charity became a byword for cruelty on an industrial scale.
My column on the RSPCA's astonishing betrayal of its principles. It now does more, in my view, to promote animal cruelty than to prevent it. Plus bonus🧵
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
6 replies 34 reposts 81 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Philip Adams, one of the greatest broadcasters of our age, is about to retire. This is one of his last ever interviews for ABC. Please do listen.
www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...
0 replies 14 reposts 42 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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The Israeli government's devastation of Rafah and its people intensifies, yet Joe Biden, having promised to cut off the supply of weapons if it went ahead, still equips Netanyahu's administration with all the deadly arms it needs to pursue genocide in #Gaza.
2 replies 12 reposts 55 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Our joint column on what's good about Labour's manifesto, what's bad and what just isn't there.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
3 replies 11 reposts 24 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Everything that Labour ought to stand for - but doesn't - is in the Green Party manifesto. My column.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
4 replies 31 reposts 77 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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How do we tell a new political story? My interview with the wonderful Ayeisha Thomas-Smith for the New Economics podcast: neweconomics.org/2024/06/how-...
2 replies 6 reposts 26 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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In some ways, elections are the opposite of democracy. But these two entirely different concepts have been hopelessly confused. The result? Oligarchic rule continues, regardless of which party wins. It's time to explore better ways.
My column.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
5 replies 29 reposts 69 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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The persistent trick of modern politics is to disguise economic and political conflicts as cultural conflicts. The media faithfully reports the diversion, not the manoeuvres; the noise, not the signal.
2 replies 39 reposts 111 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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#IDThought 7: Nigel Farage and his ilk are human smoke bombs, generating a camouflaging cloud of xenophobia and culture wars. What are they hiding? The economic warfare waged against us by the predatory capital which funds their campaigns.🧵
3 replies 44 reposts 127 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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My talk in Oxford on Wednesday is sold out. But don't worry - now I'm doing another on Thursday, at Wolfson College. Do come if you can: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/george-mon...
0 replies 6 reposts 35 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Many thanks to Peter Geoghegan for this very kind review of The Invisible Doctrine. www.theguardian.com/books/articl...
2 replies 13 reposts 42 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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There are many different ways of doing it, and I don’t intend in this thread to be prescriptive. We explore some of them in The Invisible Doctrine, but hundreds more are available. But the key takeaway is: WE DO NOT HAVE TO BE GOVERNED LIKE THIS.
0 replies 6 reposts 36 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Once we have real democratic power, these examples show, we take it seriously and use it responsibly. Short-term thinking gives way to long-term thinking. The results tend to be much fairer, greener and more responsible than the results of representative democracy alone.
1 replies 1 reposts 11 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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You may scoff, but a remarkable property of deliberative, participative democracy is that it works much better in practice than it does in theory. As we have seen in places such as Rojava and Porto Alegre, it transforms people into democratic citizens.
1 replies 5 reposts 16 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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Representative democracy should be tempered by participatory democracy. If we are going to have two chambers, one should be the House of Commons, the other should be the entire population of 67 million people.
1 replies 0 reposts 14 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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But that’s not enough. Today, we have a wide range of tools for making democracy a real and living proposition. They enable us to refine our choices and engage directly in politics whenever we wish. I’m talking about deliberative, participatory democracy.
1 replies 3 reposts 20 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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I don’t believe we should do away with representative democracy altogether, though we should improve it through proportional representation and radical campaign finance reform, both of which have been demanded here, without success, for 160 years.
2 replies 3 reposts 34 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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I don’t believe we should do away with representative democracy altogether, though we should improve it through proportional representation and radical campaign finance reform, both of which have been demanded here, without success, for 160 years.
5 replies 8 reposts 43 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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This is an 18th-century political system, designed at a time when only the richest and most powerful people could vote. It is used in the 21st century to protect capital and established power from the challenges that real democracy would present.
1 replies 8 reposts 39 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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We are also given no choice but to submit to governance by a remote authority, surrendering our will to people we have never met, but who nonetheless claim to speak with our voices and represent our views. We all know this is a fiction, but we have to go along with it.
2 replies 0 reposts 21 likes
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George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
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There is no means of refining our choice, of accepting some items and rejecting others. With one decision, we are presumed to have consented to thousands of further decisions. We do not accept the principle of presumed consent in sex. Why should we accept it in politics?
1 replies 2 reposts 31 likes