#the-west — Public Fediverse posts

Bit of an off-the-wall connection, but the point of #Scifi IS to explore ideas through a lens of fiction...

I've been watching #StarTrek #Enterprise lately, with episodes like "Dear Doctor", "#Cogenitor", "North Star", and "Observer Effect" going into the realm of "why we don't interfere with other cultures, no matter what".

I've also been watching the #IranWar, with absurd projections of impossibly wishful scenarios of an instant transition to pro-US democracy with the low-cost application of a few hundred bombs, contrasted with the reality of an #Iran now galvanized against "#TheWest" by the completely unprovoked and sudden attack by the #US and #Israel alone against the will of all allies.

I don't think even Crazy Captain Archer would approve, and it seems to me like most of us should've learned this lesson the hard way by 2004, to the point where scifi writers were putting it on UPN.

#USpol #war #ENT

Shada Islam

'Racial logic is woven into our laws as well as our political, economic and social systems. It shapes access to jobs, housing, education and justice. It informs policing practices, border controls and foreign policy choices. Racialised biases are being stamped into our AI tools'

#euPol #racism #policy #europe #theWest

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/27/orban-europe-eu-racism-migration-border

Multilateralism for middle powers

" Multilateralism is shorthand for the much-invoked “rules-based international order”; multipolarity is the world of competing spheres of interest, what Stubb calls “an oligopoly of power”, where the strong do what they will and the weak do what they must.

We are not simply in a transition; we are in a fight for a future world order. And the path to a healthy outcome necessarily runs through international institutions, from the UN to settings far beyond it, where we must rethink membership and power for global cooperation to survive.The world is being reshaped by the “structural” forces of demography, climate and technology,

Part of the problem, Stubb argues, is that “the US is not a modern society by European or Asian standards”. This helps to explain the growing influence of a radical form of evangelical Christianity within the Trump administration. But it also accounts for the absence of adequate healthcare, education and housing that plagues the US, in particular, and neoliberal economies like Australia’s more generally.

Without strong multilateral systems, all interstate deals become transactional. A multipolar world runs on self-interest. A multilateral world makes the common interest a self-interest. " >>
https://theconversation.com/finlands-president-alexander-stubb-has-some-ideas-to-save-the-international-order-and-ourselves-280153
#Multilateralism #MiddlePowers #Australia #TheWest #InternationalOrder #SelfInterest #oligopoly

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/03/tuesday-march-31-2026/

Illumination in dark times
A genealogy of modern Western selfhood and a post-Western world

"Smith ... outlines a genealogy of modern Western selfhood: a radically individual, hypermasculine character that was formed during the rapid nineteenth-century expansion of the white man’s world. “Bold, conquering, and altogether assertive,” it was “dedicated to action,” hostile to reflection, indifferent to community and the environment, and guilty of possessing, Smith writes, an “undeveloped heart,” a term borrowed from E. M. Forster’s assessment of the British elite." "

" “We must alter our very relations with the world around us.” This means giving up the exalted and exaggerated idea of the West that boosts a masculinist self-image but severely constricts thought and feeling. “We should welcome our era’s uncertainties,...the not-knowing of how the post-Western story will come out.” Smith’s final warning—that “we will not survive the Western notion of the individual much longer”—should resonate today, as nineteenth-century individualism reasserts itself in the degraded Nietzscheanism of Peter Thiel and Stephen Miller." >>

* Mishra, P. (2026, April). "The Authority of Thought". Harper's Magazine.
https://harpers.org/archive/2026/04/the-authority-of-thought-pankaj-mishra/

* Somebody Else's Century: East and West in a Post-Western World by Patrick Smith. 2010 >>
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/169395/somebody-elses-century-by-patrick-smith/
#TheWest #WhiteSupremacy #masculinity #ImpulseControl #EthnoNationalism #WesternCivilization #AngloAmerican #parochialism #individualism #subjectivity #SettlerSociety #Culture #RacialInequality #war #EastWest #PostWesternWorld #DarkTimes #illumination #narrative #environment

Image: Double Bay War Memorial, Steyne Park, Sydney

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/02/wednesday-february-11-2026/

* The White Nationalist Agenda, the "missing white voter" and hate mongering
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-01/stephen-miller-donald-trumps-immigration-policy-architect/106272938

* "Jean Guerrero, Hate Monger, a book that investigated the making of Miller. Miller has been seen as a link between the white nationalist agenda and the Trump White House."
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/905403716/hatemonger-paints-trump-advisor-stephen-miller-as-a-case-study-in-radicalization

* The Apparatus of Whiteness, Linda Martín Alcoff »Cultural Racism« (2/3) Adorno Lecture >>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhUu9nCzxvs
#hate #immigration #WhiteRage #Whiteness #settlersociety #EthnoNationalism #TheWest #modernity #whitesupremacists #CulturalRacism #EthnoEssentialism #SocialCohesion #SocialFabric

"Those in the West who pretend this is about human rights, and not about eliminating the last elements of physical resistance to Greater Israel, are sickeningly hypocritical.

Opposition to the government of Iran and support for its violent overthrow has become the new entry ticket to the Overton Window Show of British media and politics. It is the new “Do you condemn Hamas?”

Those who bow the knee before the latest ruse of Western Imperialist conquest, in the interests of maintaining their establishment respectability, should be treated with contempt."

#Iran #Israel #Palestine #TheWest

New social and technological “giants” like loneliness, addiction, distraction, lies and complexity threaten the West and coordinated government action is needed to restore social cohesion, focus and trust. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/12/02/world/government-must-restore-social-cohesion-focus-trust/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #commentary #worldnews #ai #artificialintelligence #socialmedia #fivegiants #westernsocieties #thewest #us #sweden #finland #mentalhealth

While driving west on I-80 I think I could see Maynard Dixon’s inspiration.

#maynarddixon #art #thewest

I just read this message from @ruaa (sharing it with her permission):

“I was just coming back with some food for my family I’m in Al-Mawasi, near the sea when suddenly, boats started firing all at once, one strike after another. I ran for 30 minutes straight, without stopping, and finally made it back to the tent terrified.

Thinking the tent would somehow shield me from the bullets and shrapnel.

I think genocide back again :(

Its not stop at all”

I don’t know what more there is left to say. If humanity refuses even to stop genocide what good is there in its existence?

#israel #genocide #settlerColonialism #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #EU #USA #theWest #complicity #Gaza #Palestine #StopIsrael #StopTheGenocide #FreePalestine

...i finish my evals of #arab nation #genocides in #africa..my heart shatters cos turns out its just perpetual #exploitation that ISNT only #western nations 2blame.

...#uae backs #rsf to gain #gold, agriculture, and #port access...#ksa backs #saf as rival for regional control against #iran and a foothold in #yemen, #egypt, #redsea

brothers?...how could you! SHAME! and how dare you set yourselves above "#thewest" WHEN YOU ARE NO BETTER than them with your evil schemes?!!

#sudan #chad #somalia

"#Finland’s foreign minister to #theWest: #Ukraine doesn’t need help to surrender — it needs strength to win

#ElinaValtonen said #Kyiv has all it takes to keep fighting #Russia and the West must help it defend, not capitulate"

On one hand, it's fucking obvious

On the other hand, "obvious" is in short supply

We need all the clear thinking we can get

There's a lot of stupidity out there, and madness in seats of power

Thank you Elina Valtonen

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/10/21/finlands-foreign-minister-to-the-west-ukraine-doesnt-need-help-to-surrender-it-needs-strength-to-win/

#UkraineWar

Kevin Costner apresenta ‘O Velho Oeste’ no History

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://mauricioaraya.com/2025/10/05/kevin-costner-apresenta-o-velho-oeste-no-history/

Western media often portray violent uprisings and disasters in the Global South as heroic revolutions or tragic spectacles, applying double standards by portraying similar events at home through a different moral lens. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/10/03/world/media-hypocrisy-on-insurrections-and-revolutions/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #commentary #worldnews #globalsouth #media #nepal #philippines #madagascar #indonesia #thewest #africa #southamerica

Western countries can watch this genocide unfold without lifting a finger. That is their prerogative. But what they cannot do – what they will never again be able to do – is to pretend that they give a damn about human rights or democracy or international law. What they cannot do is claim to be civilised.

If you cannot or will not stop genocide, you are not a civilised society.

You cannot lecture anyone on ethics or morals or values. You are barbarians who have accepted the law of the jungle.

So be afraid. Very afraid. Be always afraid.

And make sure you’re strong. Very strong. And endlessly cruel.

Become monsters.

Otherwise, you will be next.

And no one will lift a finger to help you.

For that is the law of the jungle.

But also ask yourselves, those of you who still harbour humanity and are burdened with a conscience: what kind of life is that? And is that what I want for myself and my children?

And if not, shut it down!

Shut it all down now until our governments take action and stop this genocide!

Or learn to live as the people who let it happen.

If you can.

https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2025/9/17/palestinians-march-south-as-israel-ethnically-cleanses-gaza-city

#israel #USA #germany #EU #TheWest #genocide #ethnicCleansing #settlerColonialism #apartheid #Gaza #Palestine #StopIsrael #StopTheGenocide #FreePalestine

@istone826 @randahl

the #budapestMemorandum was a flimsy document with no security guarantees

i'm not letting the west off the hook

whatever the nature of the document, the west's tepid response to the invasion of #ukraine by #russia is disgusting

but there is a common misunderstanding of strong guarantees in the budapest memorandum that do not exist

in fact it feels a little like #kremlin disinfo:

the redirection of anger at #theWest instead of where it belongs, directed at #moscow

#JonathanCook | The West is in panic as Israel's plan for 'full control' of Gaza heralds a new Nakba

'Every Palestinian understood [Nandy's] real message, which could be paraphrased as: “We’ve lied to you about a Palestinian state for decades, and we’ve allowed a genocide to unfold before the world’s eyes for the past two years. But hey, trust us this time. We’re on your side.”'

https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/the-west-is-in-panic-as-israels-plan

#Gaza #Genocide #TheWest #UK #WarCrimes #Nakba #NewNakba

Al Jazeera on China and the West

'During the low-wage era of the 1990s, China’s export-to-import ratio with the core was extremely high. In other words, China had to export very large quantities of goods in order to obtain necessary imports. Today, this ratio is much lower, representing a dramatic improvement in China’s terms of trade, substantially reducing the core’s ability to appropriate value from China.'

#china #foreignAffairs #usForeignPolicy #SouthEastAsia #theWest #EndOfEmpire

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/8/3/the-real-reason-the-west-is-warmongering-against-china

I see that @tama was interviewed in The West about the social media ban. I'd link to it, but it's The West and paywalled.

#Ban #AusPol #TheWest

@Crispius The West just leaving the door open to whatever authoritarian regime has the cash.....all the while calling US 'terrorists?!'

#CCP #TheWest #Canada #UK

It is a war, and like with all existential crises, Liberal Western Democracy just isn't dealing with it. Or actively surrendering to it, to spite a Minority or too...

#Politics #Russia #TheWest

In today’s tech rivalry with China, scale — especially in AI — is now a vital edge the West must build and share with allies to stay ahead. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/07/22/world/scale-is-the-key-to-success/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #commentary #worldnews #china #us #europe #thewest #technology #ai

My latest article, “Terribilis Occidentalis: A Dialectical Critique of Oikophobia,” will appear in the journal, Critical Perspectives, which is the new journal of the Institute for Critical Social Theory, published by Ekpyrosis Press. https://www.criticalsocialtheory.con
#philosophy #sociology #psychoanalysis #politics #politicalscience #academicchatter #MENA #globalsouth #theWest

Be so ashamed…

https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/s/zjWCqHpgZH

#israel #genocide #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #settlerColonialism #eu #europe #usa #theWest #complicity #Palestine #Gaza

Thank goodness if they implement this in WA. GPs already have limited authority to prescribe here but can only issue the patient's current dose, as my son's GP confirmed at his last appointment.

In other ADHD-related-weirdness news, I know the percussive, Pavlovian sound of a shaken Concerta bottle, I realised with shock at the chemist when I got up to collect it without being called!

https://thewest.com.au/news/health/gps-hail-life-changing-adhd-medication-rule-change-c-18813110

#ADHD #TheWestAustralian #TheWest #Concerta