Author: Mick Hartley

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[Photo: Shorpy/John Vachon for the Office of War Information]

died from beatings because he could not do his work properly,” the source said.

“And on June 1, an inmate in his 50s with an acquired visual disability at Camp 18 [in Pukchang, South Pyongan Province] was beaten to death in the dining hall when he complained about the meager food he was given because he could not perform his work in either quantity or quality.”

He literally fucked around and found out. Should never have been in the women's prison in the first place of course. https://t.co/o75rBOMYlf

— Clive Simpson (@QueensSpeechUK) July 11, 2024

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He's serving a life sentence for murdering his parents, and then ended up in the women's prison after claiming he was trans – as you do if you live in Washington state.

Continuing with the trucking theme – here getting down to the nuts and bolts. John Vachon, March 1943. "Baltimore, Maryland. Associated Transport Company trucking terminal. Truck service shop."

[Photo: Shorpy/John Vachon for the Office of War Information]

jobs in arts organisations because they refuse to go along with nonsense about “gender identity”?

She didn’t say. But Nandy 2.0 would have to be a very different creature for any of us to be reassured. She is one of the most intransigent supporters of transgender ideology in the party’s senior ranks, once calling for women who disagreed with her to be expelled. She also insisted that male rapists who “identify” as women should be housed in women’s prisons. Last year, she said children as young as 13 who want to change gender should be “taken seriously”, ignoring evidence that most young people grow out of dysphoria.

Nandy’s use yesterday of the phrase “culture wars” signals an astounding lack of self-awareness. It’s a lazy sneer, trivialising justified concerns about the impact of identity politics on a wide range of issues, from prisons policy to sport. Anyone who uses it is taking a side in a conflict they dismiss as spurious, while pretending to be above such petty behaviour. And that exactly describes the position of the Cabinet minister currently responsible for culture, media and sport….

If ever there was a moment to stand up for free speech in publishing, theatre and the arts more generally, this is it. But we now have a culture secretary whose grasp of the serious issues facing her department resembles that of a self-righteous teenager.

"Mélenchon is a person who is a threat against the Jews," said Yonathan Arfi, the chairman of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (Crif) in a interview with The Jerusalem Post earlier this week.

The French Jews’ main fear so far is that as the leader of the New Popular Front, a leftwing coalition that won a plurality of seats in the new National Assembly on July 7, he will be asked to form the next cabinet or at least to support it.

Which is why so many French Jews are now thinking seriously about moving to Israel.

Right before the general election’s second round, Arfi joined Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia and two other communal leaders to warn French Jews against voting for France Unbowed or alternatively for the right-wing National Rally, the party that replaced the National Front more than a decade ago and whose leader is Marine Le Pen, Jean-Marie’s daughter.

However, many French Jews, including former Crif chairman Richard Prasquier or Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, the famous Nazi-hunters, don’t subscribe to such a parallel. They point to the National Rally’s transformation under Marine Le Pen into a law-abiding, democratic conservative party, that has repudiated antisemitism thoroughly (and expelled Jean-Marie in the process).

Moreover, the National Rally, who garnered 10.1 million votes on July 7, is currently the most pro-Israel party in France.

Even more awkwardly, discarding both Mélenchon and the younger Le Pen would mean voting and supporting President Emmanuel Macron. But French Jews wonder whether he is really a friend.

He shocked them last autumn, when he declined, unlike almost everybody in his cabinet, to take part in a march against anti-semitism. He shocked them again, one month ago, when he banned 74 Israeli firms from EuroSatory, France’s World Armament Fair. A move seen as BDS’ biggest victory so far in a democratic country.

Jo Bartosch in the Telegraph on Annaliese Dodds, our new women and equalities mnister:

Despite having given birth to two children, she has been reticent to explain what a woman is. When asked on Woman’s Hour in 2022 for her definition, Dodds replied that it depended on the context. Like Starmer – who has shifted from “transwomen are women” to “99.9 per cent of women don’t have a penis”, to a women is an “adult female” – for the new women and equalities minister, “context” seems to depend on the political winds. …

An optimist might say that Dodds is not ill-meaning, but simply naive. Yet that downplays the danger. For as we have seen time and again on this issue, naivety is too often a green light for activists to advance policies that endanger women’s hard-won rights. Weakness, or lack of clarity, becomes an enabler of harm.

The fact that Dodds is surrounded in Cabinet by MPs known to have adopted radical positions on this issue in the past is a worrying sign. While the new PM has tacked back towards the dry land of reality, other figures have shown a worrying lack of clarity or understanding of the debate. Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister no less, has said that women’s rights are not in conflict with trans rights. This would seem to ignore the many cases – from prisons to public toilets and sport – where this is untrue.

It also ignores the extent to which there is institutional resistance to attempts to resist extreme gender policies. As Suella Braverman reflected on Monday, despite 14 years in power, the Tories failed to stop the march of the “trans fanatics” across the Civil Service. Again, a lack of clarity at the top – or worse – will see this flourish.

Dodds might even be tempted to take advantage of the honeymoon period to rush through legislation to placate the gender lobby. Many of the new intake will have bought into the idea that this whole debate is a “culture war”, somehow manufactured by the Conservatives. The parliamentary freshers are unlikely to be as aware that pledges such as reform of the GRA will have huge, unpredictable ramifications.

Time will tell whether Dodds can withstand the pressure from trans lobby groups, civil servants and her own colleagues. But when it comes to the needs of 51 per cent of the population, our new women and equalities minister would do well to remember a slogan beloved of her party’s previous leader: policy should be made in the interests of the many, not the few.

Placating the gender lobby, or looking after the needs of 51% of the population? I'm not optimistic….

John Vachon, February 1943. "Truckers talking outside a diner on U.S. Highway 40 in Delaware."

[Photo: Sh0rpy/John Vachon for the Office of War Information]

e Iranian system’s response to a variety of crises — for example the murder of Mahsa Amini in 2022 — which have won him the misleading moniker of “reformist,” he has never defected or departed from Tehran’s party line: adherence to the supreme leader’s rule and the founding precepts of the Islamic Republic….

Khamenei is looking for individuals he can control. And Khamenei would never have allowed Pezeshkian to run if there was a risk of him being a true wild card. Pezeshkian hits a sweet spot for Khamenei as he is untested, unknown on the international stage and carries the brand of being a “reformist” which could prove useful in creating fissures in the international community to neutralise pressure campaigns….

In the end, these narratives serve Iran’s interests. The portrayal of the Islamic Republic’s political system as a cosmic battle between enlightened moderates versus dour conservatives provides an accessible way for Westerners, particularly liberals, to project their own domestic political debates onto a hostile and subversive foreign state. Some promoters of this thinking believe it provides a “nuanced” view of Iran. But in the end it warps sobre policymaking and provides a deeply distorted window into a deeply predatory and irredeemable regime.

Also:

Iran's President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday reaffirmed Tehran's dedication to destroying Israel, saying its proxies across the region will not allow the Jewish state's "criminal policies" to continue.

"The Islamic Republic has always supported the resistance of the people of the region against the illegitimate Zionist regime. The support of the resistance is rooted in the fundamental policies of the Islamic Republic," Pezeshkian wrote in a missive to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

"I am certain that the resistance movements in the region will not allow this regime to continue its warmongering and criminal policies against the oppressed people of Palestine and other nations of the region," Iranian media quoted the supposed reformer president as saying.

A film club with a difference, as North Korea's determination to fight the spread of ideologically impure films from South Korea continues apace. From the Daily NK:

South Pyongan Province’s party committee recently organized screenings of Korean War-era films, requiring viewers to submit written impressions afterward.

A source in South Pyongan Province, speaking anonymously for security reasons, reported Tuesday that the provincial party committee ordered all local areas to screen films set during the “Fatherland Liberation War” (North Korea’s term for the Korean War). Viewers were instructed to watch three films daily, each about 90 minutes long, and submit written impressions.

Sunchon’s party committee implemented this order from June 26 to 29, mandating all local organizations and residents to participate. Well-known films like “An Unattached Unit” and “Nation and Destiny” were designated for viewing.

The committee emphasized focusing on how the films portrayed “enemies’ vile means to weaken us internally” and “how our wartime heroes defended our fatherland.” They also urged viewers to “learn from the indomitable will and spirit” of these heroes and to resist “South Korea’s plots” involving leaflets and loudspeaker broadcasts.

Specific guidelines were provided for the written impressions, including pledges of ideological determination such as: “I will actively follow the passionate love and patriotism for the party, leader, fatherland and people,” and “I will never fall for the enemies’ contrivances and believe only in the party, fatherland and leader.”

The elementary party unit of Sunchon Catfish Farm conveyed these directions, stating that “the more people write, the clearer their ideology becomes.” Employees submitted statements pledging to “protect the fatherland in any situation” and “not be fooled by the enemies’ base propaganda schemes.”

The source added that South Pyongan Province’s party committee intends to provide more such “study opportunities” to strengthen public ideological education.