redline

But isn’t so much journalism nowadays characterised by unsubstantiated speculation? (i.e. propaganda, if not simply clickbait filler pretending analysis)

It seems to me your criticism amounts essentially to your dislike of the thesis of this piece. This can be legitimate, but not what you’ve argued here.

Isn’t this piece an example of precisely the supposed promise of the internet, in the sense that journalism becomes democratised and anyone can publish and disseminate analysis, which can be evaluated on its merits rather than institutional validation and inertia based on opaque criteria? (I would of course argue the aggregated needs of capital, but I won’t force that in)

what the fuck are you talking about

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.