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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

𝕍∃, Cyber closed shell syndrome relief fund coordinator @vortexegg.com · 12h

It turned out this was an effective tactic to one-shot corporate, legal, and civil society, with many people who would explicitly disavow nazism happily constructing the information architecture for its dominance because they were obsessed with the perceived wounded liberaties of white people.

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

𝕍∃, Cyber closed shell syndrome relief fund coordinator @vortexegg.com · 12h

The dominant dynamic in the information environment for the past 8 or so years has been literal nazis using rhetorical games to claim anything hindering dominance of pro-nazi ideas as censorship, and pretty much everyone in a position of control of information and social spaces going along with it.

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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 12h

This is literally how the Roman Republic fell.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 13h

Trump: "I had a very wealthy person who called -- a donor, a great gentleman -- and he said, 'if there's any money necessary, shortfall, for the paying of the troops, then I will pay it.' Meaning he will pay it. How about that?"

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Conor Hogarty @conorhogarty.bsky.social · 12h

Ireland has ‘individually tailored plan with Nato’ on sub-sea, cyber security

www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

Ireland has ‘individually tailored plan with Nato’ on sub-sea, cyber security

Taoiseach raises ‘need to get over any squeamishness’ about EU security in current times

www.irishtimes.com

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Dietmar Pichler @dietmarpichler.bsky.social · 12h

Dictatorships use our freedom of speech to spread their propaganda, misuse our legal system to silence us, exploit our economic freedom to buy us, and amplify our sense of self-criticism to make us think it’s all our own fault.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 11h

Yah - the mental gymnastics and contortions these guys do every night to explain everything away must be exhausting.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 19h

Yeah - seems to be the plan. While it's good news the hostages are out and people in Gaza can start to receive aid, the fundamentals remain unresolved. Now that he's gotten his photo-op and praise, he'll probably quickly lose interest in pushing this any further. And we may be back to square one.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 19h

EU seems to have decided to put the squeeze on Kaliningrad - the Russian enclave on the Baltic surrounded by Poland and Lithuania which has always been a potential security liability.

Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 21h

Squeezing what remains of overland rail trade and travel. Turn Kaliningrad into an expensive liability. Further increase naval and air patrols just outside its waters and airspace to squeeze its military usability. Inspections of all tankers leaving its waters

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 20h

Trump operates by claiming he's made a *deal*, followed by a spectacular event full of pagentry in which he basks in the praise of others, declares victory and then just loses interest in the whole thing.

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 20h

I fear that is the case. I don't see Trump having the attention span or bandwidth to concentrate on the difficult work of actually making this work in the long term. And now that he's got his photo-op and lots of praise, it's highly likely that he'll lose interest.

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

James Ball @jamesrball.com · 5d

"There is a danger that everyone is playing a game here to appease an increasingly erratic Trump, who often seems detached from reality. The fear is that all sides are signing a “deal” they have no intention to keep to, in the hope that they can find a way to collapse it and blame the other side."

This Gaza deal is full of danger - starting with an increasingly erratic Trump

There is a danger that everyone is playing a game to appease an erratic Trump

inews.co.uk

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Dr Emma L Briant 🐸🎃 @emmalbriant.bsky.social · 20h

We will look back on those days when media researchers would critique the commercial right wing bias of mainstream media and cheer public media as an bygone naively optimistic sepia colored time... A new era of mainstream media beckons far more commercial, brutal and propagandistic than the last.

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Archy @archiecarter.bsky.social · 1d

Attention is the most valuable resource I stg most people can’t go deep on a subject

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah -seems to be getting worse as well. A couple of bullet points is about the maximum a lot of senior people seem to be capable of digesting. As for nuance, complexity... that's dead and buried.

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 1d

Carole Cadwalladr was right and we’d be in a better world if more people had listened.

Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 16d

This tweet has been doing the rounds on Twitter now that Nathan Gill has pleaded guilty.

If only someone had tried to investigate UKIP & Russian interference 🧐

There’s another timeline where the Guardian supported me, doubled down on the investigation & I look 5 years younger ..

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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 1d

I find this very touching…& also worrying. Historian @timothysnyder.bsky.social has been an absolutely essential guide to this era. And if he thinks I’m right then we’re in more trouble than we realise

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 1d

Carole Cadwalladr was right and we’d be in a better world if more people had listened.

Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 16d

This tweet has been doing the rounds on Twitter now that Nathan Gill has pleaded guilty.

If only someone had tried to investigate UKIP & Russian interference 🧐

There’s another timeline where the Guardian supported me, doubled down on the investigation & I look 5 years younger ..

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1d

Turn off all the room lights, open the door to the corridor and maybe it'll fly to the light outside?? I've done that successfully a couple of times. Good luck!!!

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1d

A lot of those long emails (sent at 1am on Sunday night) are about covering your arse by giving you written proof that you told somebody about a problem (even though you know they never read it) and/or looking busy to impress your boss.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely - most large orgs have a filtering mechanism where the higher you are in the food chain, the less detailed information you receive.
You're presented with options to make a decision on.
Key is that the people who do the filtering understand the complexities & can explain them to their boss

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 3d

Interesting piece. Reform currently control Staffordshire CC and the company HQ is at Rocester with major facilities at nearby Uttoxeter. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/uk/...

The right’s love affair with JCB

The British firm has acquired an obsessive fanbase and influential political allies in the UK. But in India and the West Bank, its big yellow diggers ...

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 1d

Incredible amount of China-panic over at the other place, apparently they might be trying to influence the UK away from democracy.

Funnily enough not mentioned is the other superpower whose leaders have explicitly stated their intentions in that direction.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah -seems to be getting worse as well. A couple of bullet points is about the maximum a lot of senior people seem to be capable of digesting. As for nuance, complexity... that's dead and buried.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1d

Collapsing attention spans aren't confined to school and college kids. You cannot effectively run and manage a large complex bureaucratic system like this - long term planning, managing political pressure, understanding nuance, seeing beyond the immediate crisis need people to read and write stuff

dcthings.bsky.social @dcthings.bsky.social · 1d

Genuinely embarrassing that no senior leaders I interact with actually read anything (yes this also applies to Biden appointees). No one responds to emails, no one reads past two sentences, no one does anything. The rest of the Pentagon follows along.

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Zach Dorfman @zachsdorfman.bsky.social · 1d

This is a very important point for understanding my field. It accounts for why journalists who speak primarily to “principals” often have radically different reporting than those who are closer to mid-level bureaucrats or on-the-ground operatives.

dcthings.bsky.social @dcthings.bsky.social · 1d

Genuinely embarrassing that no senior leaders I interact with actually read anything (yes this also applies to Biden appointees). No one responds to emails, no one reads past two sentences, no one does anything. The rest of the Pentagon follows along.

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

mattie lubchansky @mattielubchansky.com · 1d

what did she call us | patreon.com/lubchansky

PANEL 1: MATTIE and one other person are handcuffed on a platform over a big cylindrical vat full of glowing liquid. Behind them, TWO ARMED TROOPERS stand. One is shouting, next to a big lever.
TROOPER: You have all been charged with sexual deviance under the new statutes!
TROOPER: You are hereby sentenced…

PANEL 2: Closer in on MATTIE and the person next to her.
TROOPER (VO): …To being dropped into a big vat of acid, thus dissolving your perverted bodies!
MATTIE: I sure did prefer life before we were overrun by fascist stormtroopers.

PANEL 3: The TROOPERS look at each other.
TROOPER 2: Sorry…What did she-he call us?
TROOPER 1: NOT Cool…

PANEL 4: The other TROOPER from panel 3. He's crying, and pulls the lever. Some acid splashes into the frame.
TROOPER: STOP BULLYING ME!
SFX: CLUNK
SFX: SPLASH

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

one thing that has been obvious for a while is this aspect of the authoritarian internationale: they recognize that their allies abroad are not *countries* but *political movements* within foreign countries.

time we liberals woke up and recognized this--because it's the truth.

Rigorous, Fred-based Reporting @thefred.bsky.social · 1d

Or maybe, just maybe, what was obvious in 2024 was correct: Netanyahu fully backed Trump and would not deal with Biden because Trump would give him a free hand to escalate the starvation, bombing, and do full ethnic cleansing. Which he then did, until Netanyahu embarrassed him by bombing Qatar.

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