Peter Garbutt

Good idea

Septle - The Seven Letter Wordle Guess the hidden word in 8 tries. New puzzles are available each day.

Septle 1511 - 🔥 34 day streak - septle.com

#Septle: 3/8
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YouTube video by Richard J Murphy Why the UK can’t go broke – and why Gary Stevenson shouldn't imply it could

The UK can’t run out of pounds any more than it can run out of inches or centimetres. In this response to Gary Stevenson, I explain why money is a public good, created by the state, and why it’s wrong to claim the government is broke.

youtu.be/2aaKGm9zZlU?...

Everyone's nonchalance at burning fossil fuels...
Don't do it.

Ecopolitical Psychology at the Capital-Climate Nexus: A Research Agenda for the Capitalocene - Carlie D. Trott, 2025 Psychology as a discipline has been slow to engage with capitalism as a lens through which to understand and explain the human experience, yet neoliberal capita...

🚨New Publication Alert! 🚨

Ecopolitical Psychology at the Capital-Climate Nexus: A Research Agenda for the Capitalocene - by yours truly*

Article in Special Issue on "The Next Big Ideas in Psychology" in Review of General Psychology

*Link to free download, end of 🧵 1/n

doi.org/10.1177/1089...

“Our fear of abandoning this economic system is so immense, people would rather live with the inequality, exploitation and slavery it breeds than dare to contemplate a day without capitalism”
open.substack.com/pub/georgets...

The Great Illusion of Freedom. Surely This Must Be a Democracy? We are paying a hefty price for having confused capitalism with democracy.

“Truth and justice are neither easy nor convenient, but they are the foundations of any society that wishes to consider itself a society”
open.substack.com/pub/georgets...

It doesn't matter what colour we go on - like sheep - electing, the Party is merely a filter for the policies their paymasters demand of them.

ICYMI: Lina Khan wrote at @nytopinion.nytimes.com about our campaign's connection to small businesses and why we need to fight the concentrated economic power that too often suffocates them.

It's not just good for a thriving local economy — it's good politics too.

Activism in The Age of Autocracy: Memoirs of An Introverted Activist A paid subscriber recently asked me to write about my 11 years in the US, and more specifically, reference my evolution as an advocate.

“Even back then, USA was an authoritarian military state carefully concealed behind a free-market economy and a multi-billion-dollar education industry that my parents, me, and millions of other foreign students fell for”
open.substack.com/pub/georgets...

Not yet Robin. I'm getting there, very slowly.

9
How will it win a General Election?
By appealing to all those fed up with successive government failures. By awakening the possibility that we, the people, can do it better.
Not of the Left; not of the Right.
But of all of us.

Questions?

8
How do we get there?
We use the one powerful democratic tool left in place to convince us we live in a democracy; elections.
We form a political party whose stated aim is to abolish Parties (including itself) and elections after its single term in office, and to establish Citizens Assemblies

7
It also ensures policy is made on evidence; our crises will be addressed
Selectees will receive training in Critical Thinking, Deep Listening and Deliberative Debate.

6
The answer is government by Citizens Assemblies selected by sortition
Sortition ensures a representative selection of the populace; not from the poltical classes
Rotation (eg one third a year) ensures a) continuity and b) a much lesser ability for powerful interests to influence policy

5
This leaves changing the government so it can't accept money for policy
Any elected government, however virtuous, will come under enormous pressure to favour powerful interests
Therefore logic dictates we need non-elected government
How do we do that, but still retain democracy?

4
Observation, logic, critical thinking all suggest we need to break the money for policy highway; changing or getting rid of big corporations seems outside our power; making money less persuasive ditto; legislation, even if we're successful at enacting it, will be circumvented.

3
But we just go on voting in governments of a different colour, hoping they will be different, finding they aren't
Civil society tries in many ways to influence policy
Books
Letters
Petitions
Marches
Rallies
Speeches
Stunts
NVDA
The effect, if any, is marginal

2
We've known about these crises for years
But
Governments have done next to nothing to address them.
In the meantime, the wealth of the obscenely rich has fattened even more
Because government policies are bought and paid for
Corruption, in plain terms.

1 (thread)
We're in the midst of several crises;
Climate
Biodiversity
Cost of living
Migration
Conflict
Hollowed-out democracy

I'm not much of a fiction reader, but Any Human Power by Manda Scott is very good.
Non-fiction; Less is More by Jason Hickel; The Invisible Doctrine by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison; Against Elections by David Van Reybrouck; and my current read Deep Listening by Emily Kasriel

Why limit it to Republicans?

Which nation will be the first to UN-RECOGNISE the genocidal state of Israel?

Although I’m not sure I support that motion, I think that every nation should either recognise BOTH Israel and Palestine or NEITHER.

Those who only recognise the occupier are a joke

Close up of black man wearing white T-shirt looking up, with letters and numbers projected onto him

Wrongly threatened with deportation, artist turns ordeal into powerful solo show

Tafadzwa Muchenje turns his three-year immigration battle into Ripples, a bold solo show debuting in Sheffield this September

yorkshirebylines.co.uk/region/wrong...

Last-ditch negotiations for a treaty to 'end' plastic pollution have hit a hurdle Final negotiations on a treaty to end plastic pollution are underway in Geneva. But with the United States lining up in opposition to Australia and about 100 other nations, hopes are dimming for the m...

Plastics are a great example of uncosted externalities. The Lancet has put an estimate on the cost of that policy and economic gap - $1.5tn per year.

The US is representing the interests of fossil fuel companies, against the planet.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

I’ve been checking the labels and boycotting.

70 questions the UK government must answer about Gaza ‘Mainstream’ journalists have failed to investigate the UK’s complicity in Israel’s genocide. Here is what every minister should be asked.

Mainstream’ journalists have utterly failed to investigate the UK’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.

Here is what every minister should be asked.

👉 70 questions the UK government must answer about Gaza

www.declassifieduk.org/70-questions...

“There is much discourse about changing the system, but almost none about changing the human, by addressing the fundamental dogmas of growth, profit and supremacy”
open.substack.com/pub/georgets...

Asia’s longest free-flowing river faces threats of dams and diversions The Salween River, at around 3,300 kilometers, or 2,000 miles, is Asia’s longest free-flowing river, running from Tibet through Myanmar to the Andaman Sea. But Indigenous groups and communities…

The Salween River is Asia’s longest free-flowing river, running from Tibet through Myanmar to the Andaman Sea.

But Indigenous communities living along its banks in China, Myanmar & Thailand say they fear hydropower development might cause the river to suffer the same fate as the Mekong River.

England’s swimming waters five times more likely to be polluted than in EU, research finds Experts warn country is in danger of becoming ‘dirty man of Europe’ as it falls to bottom of bathing water leaderboard

Nowhere in EU-27 has a higher proportion of bathing water sites designated 'poor quality' than England

#Brexitbenefit

"UK waters are in crisis. Polluting‑for‑profit water comps, industrial‑scale agriculture, & toothless regulation have failed people & nature"

www.theguardian.com/environment/...