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madoc cairns

@madoc.bsky.social
945 followers 110 following 156 posts

writer, editor at plough magazine, personalist, catholic. awaiting the cossacks and the holy spirit

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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
So much of what’s disturbing about politics currently - the nihilism, conspiratism, extreme (and delusional) confidence in state power, the weird racism, and most of all this mania for violence - leads back to the continual murder continually underwritten by our governments for nearly 2 years
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
I’ve lost track of the number of unselfconsciously extreme arguments for the use of deadly force against civilians I’ve seen over the last year, largely from the right of centre but also from the left. Usually they’re distorted versions of rhetoric first posed by the Israeli govt & its apologists
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
The US’s ongoing assassination wave obviously draws on longer trends, but it can’t, imo, be disentangled from the past two years of moral & legal norms about violence being publicly trashed. You can’t have nonviolent dialogue at home & murderous nihilism overseas. This kind of war always comes home
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
recently found out archaeological evidence suggests Jerusalem, across much of the period covered in the Hebrew Bible, may have had as few as 400 inhabitants, therefore meaning many biblical events fall under the remit of the reknowned adage: "try that in a small town"
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Alternatively, if you take the UK at their word, the below images depict the single largest terrorist action in British history
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Mike Higgins, who is blind and wheelchair bound, has joined today’s protest against the Palestine Action ban after being arrested at the last. He, and over 1000 others, risk arrest as a “terrorist” & up to 14 years in prison for displaying seven words: I OPPOSE GENOCIDE. I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
One of the largest acts of civil disobedience in British history is currently underway in Parliament Square, with over 1000 protestors risking arrest & jail time as ‘terrorists’ for public display of seven words: I OPPOSE GENOCIDE. I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION.
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Amnesty International UK @amnestyuk.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
🚨BREAKING: Defend Our Juries leaders arrested in clear violation of international law This is a terrifying example of UK authorities’ willingness to use authoritarian practices. amn.st/63327A6z3d
amn.st
Five members of group supporting Palestine Action ‘arrested in police raids’
Defend Our Juries said a number of its spokespeople were held ahead of plans to announce a fresh mass protest against the ban on Palestine Action.
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
The number of children a single BBC investigation found to have been killed by IDF snipers (90+) is more than double the number of children killed on October 7 & falls within the lower estimates of the number of children killed by Hamas over the organisation's entire history
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Tom Jamieson @tomjam.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
And we’ve been very much across this on press day. 👀👀👀
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
The UK in 2025: it’s now a terrorist offence, carrying a sentence of up to fourteen years in prison, to hold this cartoon from Private Eye
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
Imagine if Charlie Brown had hoes…
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
You do realise that’s a more serious charge than the one they claimed to suspect him of?
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
they make the arguments they do. what possible context could mean they are doing something quite different? I can't think of any - multiple unambigious assertions complete to themselves in this
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
it's a cultural colonisation from the usa - "thin blue line" flag patch
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
I think if you feel it's not possible to know what's going on in the video that's a comprehension issue at your end and not due to the editing. certainly what is clearly said is damning enough as it is
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
you're not making a lot of sense i'm afraid. could you rephrase with a more conventional sentence structure so i can follow your argument better
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
?
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Palestine Action is the first large-scale direct action campaign in British history I can think of where a large majority of Britons share their aims and only a tiny majority those of the government
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
45 sorry! But a month ago so probably not far off
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
A reminder that according to a Yougov poll from last month (18.06.2025): 55% of British adults oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza (only 15% support) And 45% of British adults think Israel is committing a genocide.
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
55 percent per yougov
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Well if a view led them to reasonably suspect you did in fact support Palestine action they would be obliged to take you in as a dangerous terrorist
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Police in Canterbury today informed a protestor that the phrase "Israel is committing genocide in Gaza" could be considered a declaration of support for Palestine Action and therefore a terrorism offence.
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Marie Coronel @mariecoronelsd.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
‘In death, as he was in life, he will remain a sign of contradiction.’ @madoc.bsky.social on the life & legacy of the 266th Pope, ‘Pope Francis. 1936–2025.’ Via The Lamp Magazine thelampmagazine.com/issues/issue...
thelampmagazine.com
The Lamp Magazine | Pope Francis 1936–2025
A symposium on the late pontiff.
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Some Popes are different. Francis was one such Pope. My biographic introduction to The Lamp's symposium on the last pontificate is online here: thelampmagazine.com/issues/issue...
thelampmagazine.com
The Lamp Magazine | Pope Francis 1936–2025
A symposium on the late pontiff.
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
posting "what would your job in the new moral universe instituted by those who overcome" and all the answers are "intoning dithyrambs"
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James Crane @jamescrane.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
have to admit though that my favorite of Horkheimer’s critical recoveries of Nietzsche is from Dämmerung (1934), “Nietzsche & the Proletariat”!
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e.g.n. lafleur @egnlafleur.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
"Perhaps most divisive of all was Francis’s own personality: authoritarian and anarchic, austere and ambiguous; the silence and the noise. He remained, always, La Gioconda: wearing a smile that seemed to—and perhaps did—reveal everything."
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
i only found out you can't use papacy this way whilst writing this article so im on a learning curve
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
lmfao chase
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Some Popes are different. Francis was one such Pope. My biographic introduction to The Lamp's symposium on the last pontificate is online here: thelampmagazine.com/issues/issue...
thelampmagazine.com
The Lamp Magazine | Pope Francis 1936–2025
A symposium on the late pontiff.
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
The british government understands it as such, and so self-presents as a democracy in no equivocal way. That's what I'm referring to. If we adopt a non-binary definition, I'm happy to grant the above. But in this case there is an enormous gap between reality and how it is presented to us
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karl rove knausgård @uhactually.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
What’s happening in the UK is pathetic and dystopian
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
By that standard Iran is a democracy!
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Jack Jones @storiesfromjack.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
If true that PA have dissolved, it now appears to be an offence to show support for the memory of an organisation which no longer exists, but at the time it existed, wasn't proscribed.
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
but your read sounds right to me
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
she behaves in consistently stupid ways so I don't know what else can be said
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
Not a terrorist offence: Participating in direct action like Palestine Action's Organising direct action like PA’s Supporting direct action like PA’s Being a former PA activist who does all of the above. Terrorist offence carrying up to 14 years in prison: Saying “I support Palestine Action”
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
As mentioned above: a thread laying out how the High Court's judgement, Cooper's explanation of the proscription, and the nature of palestine action as a group have highlighted the absurd practical consequences of the redefinition of "terrorism" which began...in 2023. bsky.app/profile/mado...
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
what kompromat could possibly exist regarding yvette cooper, one of the most boring of an almost legendary dull generation
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
Aquinas actually implicitly argues this in the bit of the summa dealing with jokes iirc
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Paolo Sandro @paolosandro.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
I expect this thread to become national news this week. Excellent, as well as infuriating, public service
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
i don't know about that. I think it's probably just that's she's stupid
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Dan McCrum @mccrum.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
Thread on how MPs were told the Terrorism Act would not be used - as it is now being used against Palestine Action
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
This argument recommends that we assume that neither we nor MPs know what our laws are in discussing & voting onthem. All that matters is the law, as (re)interpreted by those MacIntyre called the clergy of liberalism, lawyers. But if this is our situation, we do not live in a democracy at all.
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
I'm very sorry! What a slip up
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Stephen Smith @gsds3.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
It’s an excellent thread and fine research, thank you. Charles Clarke was minister of state, one step down from Home Secretary, at the time of this legislation
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madoc cairns @madoc.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
such a thing is not a crime but an obligation
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