Vlad Vexler
@VladVexler
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Philosopher - ethics, politics, music | Slowly writing a book on Isaiah Berlin | Grew up in USSR, Isr, UK. Home is London | Living with ME since 2003. | 🔗 🎥
London
Joined June 2010
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Pinned Tweet
Know the difference between Soviet and Russian Propaganda:
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A flop for both Carlson and Putin. Or a limited success: a destructively productive concept poorly executed.
I will analyse Putin's part. 1/8
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Our bigger problem isn’t that a political arsonist owns our public square, but that a political arsonist *can* own our public square.
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YouTube experts told me it couldn’t be done: “you can’t grow a channel with your health condition if it limits you to 2 hours work per day.” They were right! It proved almost impossible! I only made 20 videos in a year - but they got 6 million views and 100k subscribers.
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I am 41 today. I am deeply happy - which feels extraordinarily given that I have had ME for 19 years. It’s a condition that takes you to another world - it’s real, common and amazingly challenging. I want to see a world in which we take ME seriously, justly, without denial.
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Q: Won’t the Russian people wake up if they get better information?
A: No. They are not ignorant but resistant to the truth. Accepting the truth would mean accepting that their entire arrangement with politics, which they believe is unchangeable, has ended in catastrophe.
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Conservatives are increasingly disappearing from our politics, to be replaced by anti-democratic revolutionaries who disguise themselves in conservative clothes ⤵️
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The West has never been committed to Ukraine’s victory - it is committed to Ukraine’s survival. Changing this requires strategic vision, and strategic vision requires our democracies being in a better place than they are.
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Physical suffering, when it’s part of a chronic illness, generates uncertainty. How long will this episode last? Will I permanently get worse? Is this something new? What does this mean for my life expectancy?
If you go through this every day, I am holding your hand!
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Ukrainians have every right to find empathy for Russian civilians difficult. But cappuccino sippers in the West who tweet that civilian casualties are “richly deserved” don’t express support for Ukraine. They express narcissism: intoxication with the theatrics of exploiting news.
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6 tips for Western citizens to protect themselves from Russian propaganda:
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Yes, the West should fear Putin’s fall, but we should fear Putin staying in power more. If you are reading this, wherever you are in the world, my guess is that you will be safer in a world without Putin. Western policy making hasn’t quite got this point yet.
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Understanding
#LongCovid
needn’t be complex. Quick thread.
Think of it not as ‘struggling to recover from Covid’ but as a syndromic illness triggered by Covid. By implication, a mild Covid infection can trigger life-altering Long Covid in some of the population.
1/10
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Severe ME is lying in darkness wondering how you can be so ill without being dead, while the world stymies medical research that will make you better. Severe ME patients are the most socially abandoned group I can think of in the Western world. Millions of them.
#SevereMEday
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I am 40 today.
I've lived with ME since I was 22. For years I couldn't walk, talk, or read.
It has been a life-altering experience.
But also an unnecessary one.
We have known enough to act for decades. But we failed & allowed research to be obstructed.
#MEawarenessweek
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The internet causes village idiots to form entire villages made up only of village idiots who have no idea they are village idiots.
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Patients who are badly knocked by Covid can be helped by exercise, but patients who develop
#LongCovid
as a syndrome can be irreversibly harmed by exercise. We know this - from decades of ME research. This isn't 1980. There is no excuse to get this wrong.
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Today feels like I am being beaten with sticks, crushed in a garlic crusher & poisoned.
If a healthy person felt this for 5 min, they’d freak out.
I rarely tweet like this - but this is what a below average day with moderate - not severe or very severe - ME feels like.
#pwME
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Most people with
#LongCovid
are undiagnosed or still in the closet. It will be another year or longer before our society recognises the extent of the problem.
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It's
#SevereMEDay
today. ME stands for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. It used to be called - and this name is a cruel, minimising joke - chronic fatigue syndrome.
I think about society for a living and I don't believe there is a bigger social injustice in the West today.
1/4
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My thought on the Putin regime -
We are dealing with an increasingly fanatical, somewhat apocalyptic, escalatory project which connects regime security with war and is dogmatic about our democratic collapse.
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My commentary:
1. There is no global order into which to re integrate a future Russia - the post-1989 order is broken.
2. The Russian opposition’s promise of a democratic Russia is apolitical.
3. It’s magical thinking to think Russia will go away.
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For patients with severe ME death can feel enticing even though they are desperate to live. This is not about depression, or even hopelessness about the state of medical research. It’s about minute by minute suffering from severe symptoms, 24/7.
#MEawarenesshour
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Putin & Kursk incursion:
Putin is pissed but not v worried.
Putin thinks he is winning a big war against the West, albeit slowly.
Putin doesn’t sharply distinguish between Kursk region and Ukrainian territory - he’d happily bomb Kursk if his regime security depended on it.
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My condition (ME) reacted badly to Covid: I was getting better, but now for a few days I’m getting worse. This means facing uncertainty. Facing uncertainty means having faith. Faith is the virtue of bridging today with tomorrow when there is deep uncertainty. 🌻
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Whatever act of the drama we are in, an irreversible politicisation of the Russian space has taken place. Political questions can now be asked, and cannot be unasked, about an alternative to Putin. Putin’s aura of inevitability and legitimacy has lapsed into real politics.
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Navalny’s death is a political killing by a regime that is only at the beginning of a series of totalitarian turns. Navalny stood out as a political animal. His opposition to the regime was always more than just moral: he was trying to politicise the Russian space.
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Putin's speech reveals weakness and new possibilities for the politicisation of the Russian space.
We shouldn't exaggerate the crack in Putin's aura of legitimacy, but it is there, it is irreversible, and he feels it himself.
Thread 1/6
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I am extremely lucky to have good mental health. I feel deep joy every day. I have no depression. I am not anxious. It is bizarre seeing psychiatrists who are much less mentally well than me going on about a ‘mental health block’ to recovering from ME.
#pwME
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Meanwhile, here are two take aways for us in the West.
First, we may lose everything if we don't keep our democracies. Second, what Navalny fought, and what Ukrainians fight daily, is not just a problem for the ex Soviet space. It is our problem too. 13/13
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I want to express my gratitude to the ME community and say a word about
#severeME
, which affects 25% of the millions with ME globally.
I was in the severe category for 2-3 years. I know that these people are invisible to the world, mostly abandoned by medical systems, mostly
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The Kursk invasion may contribute to Putin’s downfall, but it doesn’t contribute to his downfall in the near future. Commentators shouldn’t confuse a long-term desacralising effect (on Putin’s aura of legitimacy) with a short term de-throning effect.
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Conservatives are increasingly disappearing from our politics, to be replaced by anti-democratic revolutionaries who disguise themselves in conservative clothes.
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Musk’s interventions aren’t about UK politics. They are about Musk struggling to live in his own head. It’s not nice being in his head, but that doesn’t make behaving like a compulsive bot cool.
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I agree with George Monbiot that ME (CFS) is the greatest medical scandal of the 21st century. I don't need to be as sick as I am with this illness. This is the story of a near-conspiracy level denial of medical science obstructing research and care. This must stop.
#pwME
It’s the greatest medical scandal of the 21st Century. Intransigent doctors and gullible journalists have made the lives of ME/CFS patients a living hell.
A massive and shocking story in this week’s column.
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When I was bed-bound with ME I did not feel tired. I felt poisoned, drugged, squashed, unable to speak - but not tired.
Tiredness implies a well person feeling less well.
But ME patients aren’t well people in a bad patch. They are systemically and profoundly physically ill.
The exhaustion/tiredness label onto
#ME
#LongCovid
#MECFS
has trivialised and done terrible damage for decades. Wrong diagnoses and lack of research, respect and care follow these words.
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Putin’s speech -
He didn’t mention Prigozhin’s name, but behind the words there was incandescent rage at Prigozhin, who, in Putin’s mind has committed the highest moral crime: betrayal. Putin looked fatigued and shaken.
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On nuclear risk, we’ve got to hold two things in mind at the same time:
(1) The risk of nuclear war is real.
(2) We can’t give in to nuclear blackmail.
Most people believe either (1) or (2), but it’s both.
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Why aren't we seeing Russian civilian militias fighting Ukraine's invasion in Kursk? Part of the answer is that many Russians experience it as a natural disaster, not a foreign invasion ⤵️
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Joke about Russian depoliticisation.
- Which concentration camp are we being driven to?
- Sorry, I don’t take an interest in politics.
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Suffering, whether in war or illness, doesn’t make better people. It makes traumatised people.
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Anybody new to the field would be struck by how few ME patients are depressed, even if they are housebound and bed bound.
#pwME
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I am sorry, but it is pious and delusional to go on about keeping the rules-based, liberal international order alive. It is broken. Putin didn’t break it by invading Ukraine - he invaded Ukraine because it was broken. Our challenge is bigger than merely keeping something alive.
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Putin's war messaging to Russians, and the West's illusions about stopping the war.
Very quick thread. 1/7
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Watching someone gain in confidence is one of the most lovely things you can witness. Kamala is growing into her role.
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People in Kursk region are struggling to connect what’s happening to them with the cause of why it is happening.
We can mock this. Or, we see it as an extreme version of a problem we also have in the West: citizens relating to politics outside of cause and effect.
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Virtually the entire expert community is arguing for the upside of supporting Ukraine to win. They warn the West about being complacent.
But the problem is not complacency.
Quick thread. 1/4
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I regularly speak about democracy to a Western audience. I know what Putin needed to say to impact the 2024 US election. But he failed to engage with Western citizens' feelings of (1) unsafety (2) powerless (3) betrayal and (4) opacity about their political systems. 8/8
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Dugin sharing high quality content today:
“You all have only a limited time to say goodbye to the West. So start going over to only using Russian things. Sure it doesn’t work, doesn’t drive, doesn’t function and isn’t tasty. But it’s ours. So let’s rejoice over that.”
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I am not an American citizen, but here is what I know as a political philosopher. In an age of democratic decline and distrust, you don't play it safe - you need to go on the offence, not play defence. To beat Trump, the Democrats must be bold.
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ME patients are living in the Middle Ages - the medical system doesn’t exist for them. And they are really ill, and very disabled. Our society goes on as though they don’t exist. This has to change now.
#MEawarenesshour
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I rarely laugh at the tyrant, but I laughed uproariously around minute 18. This was the ludicrousness of a human being ludicrously victimised by his own unfiltered power. 4/8
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New video on my main YouTube channel: "How Putin Fooled the Western Left."
I explore why the anti-imperialist western left is often soft on Putin's destructive imperialism.
* Link in bio.
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It's really shocking for people to get
#LongCovid
- Western civilisation is largely oblivious to disability.
It's a kind of double shock - I didn't think this would happen to me, and I didn't know that this is common.
#MEawarenessHour
1/3
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Very special to see a man whose work I really admire today.
@davidtuller1
has done so much to shine a light on truth and good science in ME.
#pwME
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Reflections on the Putin regime in light of Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk:
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My thoughts on insufficient US support for Ukraine: the US was never committed to a Ukrainian victory, only to Ukrainian survival. This constitutes an absence of strategic vision, secondary to democratic incapacity at home. But it is not primarily a failure of willpower.
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For the most severe ME patients, it takes imagination, hope and courage just to survive. Getting through the day - in darkness, silence, uncertainty, medical neglect and toxic pain - is already a great human achievement.
#meawarenesshour
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I challenge the view that the Kremlin isn't a rational actor. The Kremlin has a strategy against us, what and how and why it's trying to achieve 5 years from now, and we don't have one against it. Denying the Kremlin's rationality actually blinds us to its destructive threat.
Just sick. But we in the West need to listen to Medvedev/Putin and stop pretending that "Russia" is a "rational actor."
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The history lecture was bad - bad by Putin's own standards. He was compulsive about all the dates he had memorised. 892. 988. 1922. He kept pulling out historical dates and clinging to them for dear life. When Carlson tried to move the conversation on, Putin couldn't bear it. 3/8
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Most people’s idea of ME symptoms is still modelled on a well person feeling less well.
#meawarenesshour
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Navalny stood out among the Russian opposition for being a political animal. He was interested in power, agency, change - not merely moral condemnation of the Putin regime.
A thread 1/13
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Europeans will be moaning a lot about the terrible prospect of a Trump presidency. Instead, we should focus constructively on European security - and the war going on in Europe. And not mock Americans - their crisis of democracy is not unique and it is brewing for us too.
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Terrifying “white identity” politics is coming in the 2030s, on a scale beyond anything today. One way to avert it, is to stop grounding the rights of disadvantaged groups in difference and separateness and instead ground them in solidarity and the public good.
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Putin's motives for war mean that he sees negotiations as a means of winning the war, not a means of achieving lasting peace -
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Most doctors' idea of ME symptoms is still modelled on a well person feeling less well. There are no words to describe the cruelty of this error.
#meawarenesshour
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Putin's ask is clear. Can we please do politics without ethical pretence? Can we stop pretending there is a difference between authority and power, or that small countries can have sovereignty. Putin said: we won't invade Latvia because we don't have an interest in it. 6/8
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You actually can state a position on the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2 minutes flat:
An imperial project which has nothing to offer (except violence) invading a country which wants to be free, motivated by regime security and a quasi-mystical desire to overturn global arrangements.
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ME community - I need advice
#pwME
💛
I have ME. Only 2 astras 2021. Likely have my first Covid. Very ill. Shaking, struggling to breathe & swallow (brainstem!), heart rate out of control despite beta b.
TIPS for what to ask for in hospital with this pls.(In case Covid or not)
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Narratively, the 2 hours had 3 parts. (1) A half hour long history lecture by Putin (2) an hour on how Putin is a victim of the West - which has tricked him over and over and (3) a half hour on how mistreating Russia hurts the West. 2/8
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My message about the treatment of Severe ME patients in NHS hospitals: patients, families, carers feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.
#SaveCarlasLife
#ExposeMENow
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Threatening nuclear war is in itself a moral crime. Everybody on the Russian side who does this, including strategists, are enemies of the human race.
My latest video on the main YT channel is not about nuclear risk, but about the ethics of nuclear threats.
Link on bio...
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Wokeism is a real challenge to democracy. One way to think about it is as a project to get public institutions to adopt the latest progressive fashion until it becomes people’s identity. If we don’t challenge it responsibly, toxic anti-woke authoritarians will do it for us.
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We need to depoliticise
#LongCovid
. We need to be truthful about how many people have got sick and how sick they are. This should not be confused with agreement on ideology, justice, or pandemic policy.
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Managing Myalgic Encephalomyelitis is not doing nothing. People with ME make 100s of micro decisions every single day, striving to gain some freedom from limitations they don't control.
#meawarenesshour
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When ME patients emerge into the world, they fake their way through life.
Sitting at the dinner table, 80% of their attention may secretly go to ensuring they sit upright, connect their words, smile through pain and fabricate spontaneity.
#MEAwarenessWeek
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Our democracies are wonky, but they won’t collapse just because they are in crisis. It’s still reasonable to be hopeful about the future. It’s going to be OK.
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Tim Walz’s speech was a good example of non-woke, inclusive, constructive populism - softening feelings of betrayal, soothing feelings of powerlessness - and not going on about “existential threats to democracy”, which make any politician sound both weak and elitist.
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It's genuinely weird what happens to (most) doctors when chronic illness comes up. I have seen 100+ doctors for a chronic illness on 3 continents. It's like a switch - the eyes are there, they are still talking, but the brain is turned off.
#meawarenesshour
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Finally, Putin appealed to the West to stop being self-destructive. This was a big missed opportunity for him. A good strategist would've told Putin to drill down: 'Western citizens, your politicians are your enemies and your institutions are betraying you'. 7/8
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Trump’s deliberately ambiguous line “you won’t have to vote again’ in itself harms democracy: the rituals of democracy depend on a sacredness which dissolves if you question them.
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Know the difference between collective responsibility and collective guilt, with help from Thomas Mann:
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ME is a devastating physical illness that makes rubble of the lives of patients and families. Clinically, we’ve known it’s real for decades; biologically, we proved it’s real by the 1990s. Our societies are still acting like it’s not real - this is an historic injustice.
#pwME
Myalgic encephalomyelitis: Lives devastated - and sufferers told it's made up
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Stalin's USSR was incomparably more evil than Putin's Russia. But Stalin's evil was less nihilistic: Stalinism retained -with murderous hypocrisy- the idea of humanity attaining a better tomorrow. Putinism has no constructive ideals: it's destructiveness is closer to nihilism.
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I have seen over 200 doctors for ME. 3 were completely amazing. With them I often stopped thinking about my health, and even medicine - I just felt moved by a human being flourishing at their profession.
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I’m 8/10 on Kamala’s speech and 9/10 on her performance. The speech was family, unity, America, security, opportunity and Trump unserious. The performance was more mature, embodied, formidable than in her past - no play acting.
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I’m receiving feedback on YouTube that Biden didn’t do that badly. It’s really important - for democracy - that Biden supporters don’t deny reality. That’s what Trump does.
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The destruction of life in Gaza exceeds the moral limit to what is acceptable “collateral damage”. Israel has largely freed itself from active intent not to kill civilians. This is not acceptable ethically, and it will prove counter-productive politically.
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On Valentine's day, I am thinking of all the healthy partners, families, carers whose lives are forever transformed when their loved ones get sick. This is something that strikes relationships and families, not just individuals.
#pwME
#LongCovid
.
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It’s OK to be outraged by an issue in the world. But you don’t need to feel outrage at reactions to the issue, and reactions to those reactions. Your energy is better spent trying to understand the issue better.
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Discrimination against the ill & disabled is not caused by empirical error.
It is caused by the inability of human beings to tolerate their own fragility and limitation.
It is an internal intolerance that takes a social form.
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Accepting a life-altering illness does
not mean feeling OK that it happened. Humans don’t feel OK when terrible things happen to them!
Rather it means accepting a world in which tragic & unjust things happen, accepting that you are in that world & that it happened to you.
#pwME
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Then came Putin's perennial victimhood. This part was mildly revealing. The central thread was Putin's sincere astonishment at what he sees as the utter hypocrisy of Western political elites, and the sham that he thinks Western ideals turn out to be in practice. 5/8
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When I am stopped from doing what I love by myalgic encephalomyelitis, which happens every day, I feel two things. First, gosh this is a bad illness for people to have. Second, it is a wonder of the world, and a privilege, how much I do manage to do despite my illness.
#pwME
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My video on Russian propaganda in full, covering:
* Soviet vs Russian Propaganda:
* 'Political entrepreneurs' vs 'post-truth populists'
* The 4 key feelings of democratic distrust
* Tips for Western citizens
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