• I’ve got a friend trying to move from the United States to England to escape our current shit show, and I’ve been telling him that England tends to do what America does, just with a posh accent to give it an air of legitimacy.

  • Pardon my ignorance, but is wearing a shirt with the word Palestine on it and arrestable offense in England?

    • Palestine Action yes. An activism organization called Palestine Action was classified as a terrorist organization a few weeks ago by the UK government.

        • Some people of Palestine Action threw ink on a military plane parked on some airbase which is normally used for the surveillance flights of Gaza that the UK is doing to give the data to Israel, hence they were officially classified by the Home Secretary - Yvette Cooper - as “terrorist group” via a process which has no strict well defined criteria or Judicial oversight at all.

          Because of that anybody who supports them in any way (including merelly voicing their support for them or holding a written paper with the name of the group) risks a prison sentence of (if I remember it correctly) up to 10 years.

          Hence in the UK wearing a t-shirt with the words “Palestine Action” in it is a terrorist offense with a prision sentense of up to 10 years: it’s all pretty similar to the legislation Putin has to stop people in Russia demonstrating against the invasion of Ukraine, only I believe the prison sentences in Russia are actually lower.

          (Britain isn’t quite at the “hold up blank piece of paper” stage like Russia yet, but judging by the copper arresting somebody wearing a “Plasticine Action” t-shirt, the police are already thinking along similar lines - the coppers in Britain are well aware that their job is to “serve the powerful” not “serve the public”)

          Britain is a complete total authoritarian clown shown nowadays, though this shit is a pretty natural stage in the evolution of authoritarianism and represssion masquerading as Rule Of Law over there since around Tony Blair’s time.

          • so weird how we’ve mangled the word terrorism around to mean impeding a military machine or body. maybe this is just my brain turning to worm food but I could have swore it was explicitly when you kill civilians or destroy infrastructure in order to coerce a policy change. but that alteration probably wasn’t intentional or for any specific purpose.

            • 25 years ago, the day I stopped watching TV news- the dramatic talking head told me that terrorists had attacked a US military base in Afganistan.

    • About five minutes later, the arresting officer approached him again. “He said: ‘I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.’ I said: ‘What’s the good news?’ He said: ‘I’m de-arresting you.’

      “And I said: ‘What’s the bad news?’ He said: ‘It’s going to be really embarrassing for me.’ And then I walked free, while all the real heroes are the people that are actually getting arrested.”

      The officer seems to understand his mistake at least