European NATO allies have begun hitting 2% targets in recent years and there are heated debates about going way above that in multiple capitals.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-announces-turning-point-in-european-security-as-uk-set-to-increase-defence-spending-to-25-by-2030

I will note that in the UK case the situation described in the picture is particularly grotesque, if you consider the development of food bank statistics. The Trussel Trust distributed 3.1 million food parcels in 2023/2024, of these 1.1 million to children.

In 2008/2009 the number of parcels distributed was 26'000.

https://www.trusselltrust.org/news-and-blog/latest-stats/end-year-stats/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/

nooo don't stop, this always makes me laugh

I should not have looked at that

rest in peace

i feel this one in my bones

I started reading his book "the myth of the good war: america in the second world war" because of this interview. I really like it at about half way through.

that is so fucked

just saw an article about the brugge nazis, nice to see there were some antifascists representing against those clowns

they lost 1-0 apparently too heh

is this japanese crash going to snowball? pull out your crystal balls and bet the house

how is the demiurge these days

reminds me of the white rose in germany

https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/ obligatory

particularly after october '23 even Americans must know the deal deep down, there's a lot of choosing to ignore the realities

I'm afraid the political problem you describe is much deeper and more entrenched.

The class of aggregated economic interests that brought the western world the "centrist ditherers", as you describe them, are increasingly backing right wing politicians to divide and confuse discontent majorities, now that the social contract is in obvious and advancing decay around us, due to decades of aggressive privatisation of public goods like utilities, education, healthcare as well as related but also wider economic slowdown.

Ironically it was precisely this kind of "centrist ditherer" that spent the last half century destroying these public goods and therefore inflaming the social discontent, which capital must now fuel right wingers to quell.