Mick Hartley

Author: Mick Hartley

  • At the Palestinian kindergarten

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • Abandoned America

    758238910-1.jpg” style=”width: 550px” title=”Worobiec10″ />

    Worobiec12

    Worobiec13
    School at Robinson, North Dakota

    Worobiec14
    Elevator, Glengarry Montana
    [Photos © Tony Worobiec Photography]

    See also, Ghosts In The Wilderness: Abandoned America – now out of print.

  • A ruthless desire for conformity at any price

    ‘normal’ knowledge.' 1/5https://t.co/nPNlm033r6

    — J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 28, 2024

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Full thread:

    We're all used to the obfuscatory language gender activist medics and their cheerleader, insist upon. 'Gender affirming care/treatment' is so much nicer sounding than 'sterilisation, surgical mutilation and provision of toxic drugs to troubled minors'. 2/5

    But this paper breaks new ground. It acknowledges that by the usual medical standards ('old normal knowledge') transitioning minors has not been found to be the unqualified success many have claimed. The proposed solution? Jettison the old knowledge. Redefine success. 3/5

    'Yes, some young people given irreversible surgeries and hormone regimes regret it. Yes, some have complex problems that transition doesn't fix and may worsen. But hey, they wanted it and were given it. That should be the new metric of success!' 4/5

    I'm not sure I've ever read a better example of what Arendt described when analysing those determined not to break ranks, yet who felt the need to justify their participation in atrocities: 'self-deception, concealing a ruthless desire for conformity at any price.' 5/5

    You start with the ideology, which you cannot possibly gainsay as your whole livelihood is bound up in it, and then find ways to present the facts to fit. Obscure language and as much "technical" jargon as possible always help.

    [As I've argued before, Arendt was wrong about Eichmann: he was no dim bureaucrat but a committed Nazi. His defence – that he was just obeying orders – fooled Arendt, but didn't fool the Israeli court. But Arendt's more general point about the banality of evil still stands.]

  • The end of the Iranian regime?

    EinatWilf/status/1873013013231665262?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>December 28, 2024

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • Cecilia Sala

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • Refusing to describe Israeli actions in Gaza as genocidal

    From the Times:

    Britain’s cultural world has turned its back on Jewish creatives according to a series of allegations gathered by The Times.

    Artists, writers and performers have stated that they are being frozen out of British cultural life because they refuse to describe Israeli actions in Gaza as genocidal.

    While many have chosen to remain anonymous because of the “chilling” cultural climate in the country, others have decided to speak out.

    A film producer, who is planning to build one of the biggest film studios in Europe in Sunderland, said his industry was “institutionally antisemitic” while the organiser of the UK Jewish Film festival said cinemas were making it “impossible” for it to book venues for screening.

    A series of literary figures meanwhile have described how they have been dropped by their agents because they refuse to use the word “genocide”, how authors are refusing to have their books transcribed into Hebrew and how they are being excluded from literary festivals and other readings.

    Shocking, but not a surprise. Whatever one may think about Israel's response to the October 7th pogrom, one thing it clearly isn't is a genocide of the Palestinian people.

    There are a number of possibly genocidal campaigns going on at the moment, including the Uighurs in Xinjiang, Ukraine at the hands of Putin's Russia, and the Arab massacre of Africans in Sudan. There's also the matter of the 600,000 Syrians slaughtered by Assad and his Russian and Iranian friends next door, but I doubt that should count as genocide. But the Palestinians in Gaza? Obviously not. Brutal, yes. Justified? Open to debate. But genocidal? Of course not.

    The enthusiasm with which the accusation of genocide is now thrown at Israel – and the Holocaust-inversion rhetoric on those pro-Palestinian marches – clearly shows what's behind all this. These people just can't wait to turn the tables on those Jews and throw the genocide charge back at them.

    There's a name for that.

    As has been said often enough, Jews will never be forgiven for the Holocaust.

  • Maida Vale 1970s & 80s

    bab69e202e860de2ad3200b img-responsive” src=”http://mickhartley.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/mt_imported_image_1758238928.jpg” style=”width: 550px” title=”Sheila+Burnett+Maida+Vale +London+1970–1986web120016″ />
    [Photos © Cafe Royal Books/Sheila Burnett]

  • Disseminating lies, hatred and historical misinformation

    Hamas’s cruelties, having each been imprisoned and tortured, for example for participating in the We Want to Live protests to which no one in the West paid any attention, Western writers and organisations choose not to campaign for true freedom and a sustainable peace for Palestinian-Arabs.

    Instead they repeat and disseminate the lies, hatred and historical misinformation that keep Palestinians locked in perpetual struggle against their Israeli neighbours….

    It is perhaps one of the biggest lies of all to pretend that Gaza is a state whose inhabitants would live “free” and prosperous lives if it weren’t for Israel and America or, simply, “the West”. Gazan women have no rights. Gay people have no rights. Non-Muslims have no rights. There are no Jews allowed – at all – in the land; not even Jewish graves. It is Judenrein. The level of inhuman hatred inculcated in the Gazan population against Jews was on full display on October 7 and in the days following, when even ordinary civilians were spitting on and beating Israeli hostages.

    And is it any wonder, when their education system, including in Unrwa schools, teaches hatred from the day Gazans are born?

    The fact that this was written by "a UK university professor who wishes to remain anonymous" tells its own story.

  • The UN General Secretary speaks out

    p>

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • The Kafkaesque approach

    The law on searching is supposed to protect people from being searched by members of the opposite sex. But British Transport Police is taking the Kafkaesque approach of saying that if a male person with a government-issued piece of paper searches a woman, that search is “being done by a female”.

    “We are bringing this case to ensure that no woman in the UK has to suffer this degrading treatment, and to protect female officers from being forced to search male suspects who decide to declare themselves ‘women’.”

Powered by