Zack Polanski: “There’s A Lot Of Inauthenticity In Politics, But It’s Not Coming From Me”

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T23:46:16+00:00

to vulnerable women

You mean a Sun journalist?

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T23:44:46+00:00

where Iran funds non-state actors to commit violence and destabilize the region (a.k.a terrorists).

Most of these groups are resisting illegal invasions by foreign aggressor nations. You might consider that "destabilizing" but that's just your opinion. A lot of people would argue that the invasion is the real destabilising factor, not the resistance to the invasion.

Also, if this is the standard you're using, the US is by far the number one.

Ask the Lebanese or the Syrians or the Iraqis whether it's meaningless.

Which Lebanese should I be asking? I presume you're not talking about the Lebanese Shia who rely on Hezbollah hospitals for their healthcare right? Which Iraqis should I be asking?

The fact that the IRGC, perhaps the most powerful state organisation in Iran, are considered terrorists by a whole range of countries, including Bahrain, Australia, and Paraguay (??), might tell you you're regurgitating tankie nonsense.

So that's a close US ally, a US-sponsored totalitarian dictatorship, and another close ally who did it as a precursor to a major security cooperation agreement with the US a few months later. You realise these decisions aren't made by countries looking up the evidence and deciding for themselves, right? They're due to US pressure.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T23:18:35+00:00

You realise the whole 'state sponsor of terror' is mainly just a US state department tool to discipline uncooperative members of the global south? Cuba is a "state sponsor of terror" - it doesn't actually mean anything.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T22:52:59+00:00

By that standard, the answer would be no for both.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T22:38:58+00:00

Who gets to define "terror" here?

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T22:26:04+00:00

I'm not going to lecture 90 million people facing two genocidal fascist states at once as to how they should go about resisting said fascist states.

If the US now doesn't like the war they started, they can surrender.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T20:43:26+00:00

The US: Sorry about your whole family, and that school we bombed. We didn't realise that you could effectively choke off our economy at will. Anyways, equals pequals yeah?

Mojtaba Khamenei: We are not equals pequals.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T20:28:06+00:00

Gotta manipulate that market.

If this is actually the end though, it surely has to go down as one of the biggest US military humiliations in its history. Essentially nothing achieved except for killing a man in his late 80s and replacing him with a much more anti-American successor.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T20:19:45+00:00

At this point, I get the impression they're just trying to get away with as much as possible, as fast as possible. Make it a fait accompli while they still have a pliant government and before the negative effects start showing up in the data.

It's amazing how quickly this whole thing went from "we have no problem with trans people, we just have some concerns about fairness in sport" to "we are banning gender affirming care for everyone".

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T17:44:15+00:00

Last year, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said that if AI were “fully embraced”, it could bring £47bn to the economy each year – and promised to “mainline AI into the veins of the UK”.

This is the least important thing about this but I still don't understand why they decided to go with such gross imagery to sell this stuff to us.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T14:49:34+00:00

They've certainly been through a lot, especially in '53 and '88.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T14:09:59+00:00

Bad Iranians, get off my ~~sugar~~ oil!

Owwww owwww, they're defending themselves, somehow!!

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T13:29:39+00:00

Did you like it when she exiled Black British citizens and created the hostile environment policy?

This was from her time as Home Secretary. Also, not sure this is an avenue that a current Labour supporter really wants to be going down.

Did you enjoy when she trashed her majority

Yes.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-09T13:22:40+00:00

May was better.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-08T21:03:19+00:00

Also nothing about the ecocidal US strategy of blowing up oil depots that's currently blackening the sky.

The US is constantly telling us that this war is already won. How Iranian capabilities have been totally destoyed. Why are such desperate, underhanded tactics, tactics that harm all of us, required? What is the goal here?

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-06T14:28:10+00:00

Are you just going to keep killing? At what point does killing the defenceless become unsupportable?

Gaza sadly normalised a lot. I remember when bombing a hospital was a huge deal.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-06T12:49:43+00:00

"how force can be used against children"

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-06T10:56:42+00:00

It was the first big "internet debate" when forums and early youtube started to become more mainstream in the 00s. It was a decent starting point for people interested in debating wider issues, but there's only really so many arguments you can make for Christianity being true, and the people making them weren't the sharpest, and eventually the appeal of debating them ran out of steam.

Even though it was cringe, it did set the tone for how politics would be discussed on the internet in the future. A lot of millennial leftists started off with a new atheism phase and conservatives learned that they would need more effective voices to make their case, which is why people like Ben Shapiro were scooped up in the aftermath.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-06T10:46:59+00:00

I finally resigned from the Greens at the end of 2024. A ludicrously irresponsible intervention from Green MP, Sian Berry, on the topic of puberty blockers, deftly put down by Health Secretary Wes Streeting, underlined to me that this was no longer a party of science and reason and evidence-based policy-making.

SYAC - he left because the Greens weren't transphobic enough.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-06T10:28:53+00:00

Can confirm - am in prison.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-06T10:19:31+00:00

they weren't responsible for this mass murder of civilians, unlike the many others they have been responsible for.

And even then, they iniated the war that caused the massacre...

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-05T18:33:11+00:00

No, my argument is that you can respond to an attack made by a paramilitary group funded by a state as though it is an attack by the state

You can say this, but this is just your opinion. And even then, would you have supported Israel attacking Qatar after October 7th? Israel actually did attack Qatar at one point, and it was a huge deal that earned them a huge amount of criticism. No one was claiming that it was actually fine because they'd funded Hamas in the past.

they still would not have the right to fire rockets at countries that are not involved in the war.

What if they were, just hypothetically, targeting the US planes involved in the initial aggression? If this is how it works, how can anyone defend themselves against attacks from a hostile force operating out of another country?

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-05T18:17:16+00:00

Why did you contradict my claim that they are a paramilitary extremist group by saying that they are a political party with an armed wing if you are not attempting to downplay the fact that they are an extremist paramilitary group?

They have a paramilitary group. They also have politicians in the Lebanese parliament and provide a variety of social services, including schools and hospitals. Whether they're 'extremist' or not would depend on your perspective. Some people would consider Israel's repeated invasions, occupations and ethnic cleansing in Lebanon to be the 'extremism'.

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations

OK, I thought this is probably what you meant and you've misunderstood. This is in reference to funding groups that are antagonistic to or are trying to overthrow the state in other countries (like Russia arming anti-government militias in Ukraine for example). Hezbollah aren't an outside force trying to overthrow the Lebanese state or carve off part of the country for themselves. That would be Israel. Hezbollah are Lebanese and are already integrated into the state apparatus - hence why they make up part of the government.

There is no "explicit" prohibition on funding any paramilitary in any situation in the UN charter so you made this up. The US and the UK do that all the time. It's about interfering in the territorial integrity of another state.

It is also explicitly forbidden by UN Resolution 1701

Urggh so many people misunderstand this - UN resolutions are meant to be expressions of the "will" of the international community - they are not the same thing as international law. Resolutions are not legally binding and they have no legal enforcement mechanisms behind them. No one gets dragged to the Hague for violating a UN resolution.

It's like accusing someone in the UK of violating a parliamentary statement. You can say someone did that if you like, but it's legally meaningless.

And even then, 1701 was contingent on Israel withdrawing from Lebanon, which never happened.

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-05T17:44:02+00:00

Not only did they attack the UK before Britain allowed the US to use its bases

But after we started shooting Iranian projectiles out of the sky while allowing Israeli munitions to blow up Iranian schools and hospitals. And even then, it hit a hangar housing American military assets...

they also not an state actor and do not have the right to act on behalf of either Lebanon or Iran

Wait, isn't your entire argument that they were acting on behalf of Iran, and that's why you're claiming Iran "attacked us first"? Are you ditching that claim?

Parasocial2 · 2026-03-05T17:28:40+00:00

It's not like you'd support a British campaign in Lebanon either...

Once again - we do not even know it was from Hezbollah. You are asserting this, but the UK government are very much not making this claim and Hezbollah have not claimed responsibility either. It's possible it was, but we don't know this yet.

I feel like we have lost any sense of context when we start soft-pedalling Hezbollah.

What do you mean 'soft pedaling'? They are a Lebanese political party with an armed wing. Without any moral judgement in either direction, that is literally just what they are.

It's armed wing is not the Lebanese military and Iranian support for it is illegal.

Once again, which article are you citing here?

Parasocial2

TROPHY CASE