Novara Media

I audibly said ‘what a load of fucking nonsense, they must think we’re daft’. People around me thought I was being an idiot. If only.

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) August 17, 2023

the prescience of Aaron Bastani, he knew Starmer Labour was going to be bad while the rest of us applauded like mindless clapping seals!

I think it is of consequence for GB News getting a broadcast license that these wankers make appearances on their shows. I'm not clear on how it works but don't they have to meet some political balance criteria with their guests or they face the wrath of ofcom?

don't think it's at all "painful" for you to agree w/ the regressive "colourblindness" of bigots. this is just ur normal shtick. now the electoral wave you sailed to prominence on has collapsed you need new ways to stay "current" so you tack further right & discipline the "wokes"

— michael richmond (@Sisyphusa) August 22, 2023

A v gd qn:

The entire point of developing a left media outlet with associated figures prominent enough to get invited onto mainstream shows is to challenge right and far-right domination of the media space. Why promote and elevate right and far-right talking points?

— Ben Miller (@benwritesthings) August 23, 2023

Grifter recognise grifter

Was annoying to see some people on the left automatically shit on this guy and presume he’s a conservative. Seems a thoughtful enough sort from this. https://t.co/tFLiRvBY5h

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) August 25, 2023

I have managed to avoid any of the bearded bear discourse, he looks like one of the Murdaugh family!

A serious person at the bad place.

"Ah, but won't your children feel happier that it's a fiscally prudent, Labour-governed ceiling falling in on their heads?"

— James B (@piercepenniless) September 5, 2023

Bad tweet.

Broke: London is never going to recover from Covid & Work From Home shift.

Woke: We need to turn SE England into mega-London, creating a city on the scale of Tokyo.

Bespoke: We need to turn Oxford-Cambridge into Waitrosegrad, with a higher GDP per capita than the capital. pic.twitter.com/EjbOS7D3zD

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) September 5, 2023

I know it's just a frivolous post by an excitable teenager thinking about cool dystopic sci-fi fantasies, but I think having a MORE and BIGGER THAN TOKYO ambition in urban planning realised is only going to make millions of people's quality of living even worse.

Actually really not quite sure what AB is saying here, or if he is serious about any of it.

I don't get how it squares with his professed love of natural spaces and traditional architecture.

even though I don't even know what the definition of a "mega city" is - the most horribly giant cities don't ever seem to have expanded so grotesquely because they planned to be in the big club and love their occupants to choke to death. They seem to grow over decades of chaotic piecemeal development and seem more to be a symptom of things getting out of control rather than something you aim for. Like as if London isn't already a big enough city - no we need Mega-London. Even as a frivolous throway post it's really dumb.

It's a much-abused format, but my read is that it's "Here's a problem" - "Here's a stupid solution" - "Here's an even more stupid solution"

I have had some engagements with what appear like blood and thunder characters but in person they are shambolic figures incapable of doing things like basic hygiene (this is a specific reference to a journalist). I just thought "why did I ever take what this guy says seriously?"

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) September 12, 2023

Sometimes scruffiness and bad hygiene can be symptoms of someone having a mental health crisis, but either way it isn't a reason to invalidate people, that would be a very arch-tory Thatcher attitude to take. If he's talking about centrist journalists - you don't need to find superficial reasons to invalidate them. This dickhead might be the best turned out useful idiot on GB News, but the Left will never take him seriously again. His luxury communism book - I'd be embarrassed to have that in my house.

Michael js Walker rn pic.twitter.com/KlDIJWJ8k5

— Y (@tinscognito__) September 15, 2023

Once they were defeated by the EU it was only a matter of time.

I suppose ending up being run by a shipping executive marks Syriza’s real absorption into the Greek political establishment. Very bleak that a left-wing party should elect a leader whose primary argument is that they should turn themselves into the DNC. https://t.co/jKmT1D6gIP

— James B (@piercepenniless) September 25, 2023

oof! that is grim.

syriza was always already an uneasy coalition of left and very-much-not-left (something butler used to know and vociferously say!)

(i've actually grown to like butler, who i found insufferable back in the occupy days -- but i like him primarily because he's a haven of high-cultural reflection, which is only a good reason when nearly no one else takes on this role any more)

vault boy just seems so dreadful

I met him the other week at a friend’s book launch. Liked him based on that brief interaction.

just for some clarity in case it's needed. I meant mr thumbs up shipping exec in the pic there, not James B!

anyone else think PASOK are owed a bit of an apology here

Very funny disagreements

You are misreading the tweet if you think it's an objection to periodising capitalism in any sense, rather than bad writing from people wanting to appear sophisticated by using muddy and vague jargon.

— James B (@piercepenniless) September 26, 2023

would he prefer "very naughty laissez-faire economics" or something. Seeing as though it is driving the end of human civilisation through climate catastrophe "late-period" sounds about right because it is used in the epochs and usually describes a period before a mass extinction event.

Please save GB news (so I can go on it)

https://twiyter.com/AaronBastani/status/1707164509448618256?s=20

This is a really extraordinary conclusion from Boulton. Basically: a station should be punished for transgressing ofcom rules (I obviously agree - and the Fox incident clearly does that in my view) but also that a station should be shut because it damages a ‘fragile broadcast… https://t.co/ep9pZH33Kx

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) September 27, 2023

Lol they are not even getting paid to go on Sky News

The real-time, mid-interview realisation that this man is, in fact, being paid when I was not, as I was talking about how tiring it was to constantly have this discussion about misogyny redirected by media figures who deny misogyny even exists pic.twitter.com/ycDRi1UYHK

— Moya Lothian-McLean (@mlothianmclean) September 27, 2023

That’s not funny; she probably has a vast claim against the news orgs that paid her opposite number in papers reviews/debates but ‘couldn’t get budget’ to pay her.

It’s SAR time!

The real-time, mid-interview realisation that the Wallet Inspector is not actually in a position of genuine authority

To me it's funny; Novara are, in my view, meant to build their own news and networks with other left-wing media and ultimately their own ecology and not supply lone leftie voices to other news orgs. Would've thought they'd make sure of an appearance fee.

(i've actually grown to like butler, who i found insufferable back in the occupy days -- but i like him primarily because he's a haven of high-cultural reflection, which is only a good reason when nearly no one else takes on this role any more)

― mark s, Monday, 25 September 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Very good set of reflections here, sparked off by a review of a new translation of Homer.

My Greek is fairly good, yet I would be wary about pronouncing on the virtues of a translation in a review. Let alone a translator's supposed agenda. Striking that a lack of Greek (and a somewhat spotty grasp of the poem) proves no obstacle for the bold minds of Compact. https://t.co/dK051jSwok

— James B (@piercepenniless) September 29, 2023

Sad to read the editor's letter. Horizons narrowed, bits of writing around the five minutes' worth of possibilities is all that's there.

We're really excited to (finally!) publish the first batch of pieces in our CLASS edition. Lots more still to come, but for now, we hope you enjoy it! https://t.co/o6elnDbTQm

— New Socialist (@NewSocialistNS) September 30, 2023

https://newsocialist.org.uk/more-than-meets-the-eye/

If Bastani went on his right-wing shows like this it would be better, but also he wouldn't be allowed to go after a few weeks.

Holy SHIT this man is COOKIN pic.twitter.com/SPZ44J3K45

— 🫡🏴 (@corncommunist) October 5, 2023

so fucking concise and sharp, everything Bastani isn't

These people will @ you as if you wrote the 2019 Labour manifesto. I'm not a pacifist. I believe oppressed people deserve to fight for freedom in the ways that they deem appropriate. Incidentally, you believe this too, but only if the victims are imperial powers. https://t.co/Ev98hViZER

— Rivkah Brown (@rivkahbrown) October 7, 2023

Rivkah is solid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL5ACBwO9cg

good short piece on Palestinian voices on UK media. Imagine being Palestinian and getting accused of "minimising" by Boris fucking Johnson's sister.

well not strictly UK, but they face the same shit in the US

Bastani is a cop part #2722556271

hope you’re happy to have promoted this https://t.co/IJQaxWNPMZ

— Nihal | نهال (@nihalist___) October 16, 2023

Bastani has seriously fucked any remaining good will he had from the left and i'm amazed he's continuing to defend this

It's bro-y doubling down, which is often my default mode online, but not when it comes to handing people over to the pigs.

Lol

I couldn't be opening my mouth as big as you are doing right now, when you were throwing rocks at bank back in 2011. Want to talk about shame? Let's talk about your criminal record. https://t.co/WsRT5p8STy

— Dan🇨🇴 (@LTAD_98) October 17, 2023

agree that Bastani is not good and is actually getting worse. Ash Sarkar meets Gary Younge was a good interview though.

did somebody say doubling down?

it shouldn't need saying at this point, but this man is not a comrade, not part of anything worth calling a left, he is a fucking clown pic.twitter.com/7mjieXV6Pq

— michael richmond (@Sisyphusa) November 12, 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBU8fM34Jkg

this compact and insightful Ash Sakar interview with Rashid Khalidi is very good. The Brits thought a Jewish population in the Palestinian Mandate could be like a Middle Eastern loyalist Ulster doing their Arab oppression for them, the Jewish population told the Brits "suck it"!

The El Salvador elections are a real challenge to liberal left (of which I'm generally part).

Due process went out the window, human rights quashed, but crime fell dramatically and the vast majority loved it.

— Michael Walker (@michaeljswalker) February 5, 2024

Human rights groups say that thousands have been arbitrarily arrested during his anti-gang drive.
Amnesty International criticised the "gradual replacement of gang violence with state violence".

the pro-Duterte wing of the liberal left, what a fucking tool he is.

I don't know that much about El Salvador, but the impression I got is that Bukele's policies have 'worked' in as much as crime has reduced dramatically? So it's a challenge to the liberal left in as much as the liberal left often argues that tough-on-crime policies are counterproductive, don't actually reduce crime because other criminals take the place of the ones you've taken off the streets, when you eventually release the people you lock up they are more likely to be involved with gangs and commit serious crimes - Bukele has shown that if you brute force it, lock up enough people, get around the problem of what happens when you let them out by just not letting them out, then you can significantly reduce crime this way. And if the negative consequences of eliminating due process are concentrated on a specific 10% of society then that still leaves you with the support of 90% of the population.

Has Bukele's success in reducing crime been overstated? I know some have pointed out that crime was already falling before he took office and have accused him of secretly negotiating with gangs, but even his critics seem to acknowledge that what he's done has had a big effect. Or is his policy unsustainable, something that 'works' to reduce crime for a period of time but will eventually lead to negative consequences even for the 90% who aren't currently targets of the crackdown?

Only eight months before the election, the Legislative Assembly passed a reform that introduced a new method of counting votes. The D’Hondt formula is a proportional seat allocation system, which, for many analysts, implies favoring the majority parties. This could even go against the pluralistic system of political parties guaranteed in the Inter-American Democratic Charter because there is a high risk that Nuevas Ideas -Bukele’s party- will become the only ruling party in the Assembly, leaving out the political opposition necessary in any representative democracy.

erasing all opposition parties through dodgy electoral reform bills, mass arbitrary arrests - but at least crime is down. It shouldn't even require a 2nd thought to condemn this shit if you are the so-called liberal left.