A pattern's emerging and it's similar to Germany in the 1930s
Now it's alleged that her book is one of nearly 400 books removed from the prestigious US Naval Academy's Nimitz Library. Why? Just following orders from the US defence secretary to review and remove books promoting diversity, equality and inclusion.
But if I wanted to, I could borrow one of their two copies of Mein Kampf. There's a pattern emerging here. In the latest escalation of Donald Trump's war on the judiciary, the FBI arrested a sitting Wisconsin judge, Hannah Dugan, accusing her of helping a man evade immigration authorities.
READ MORE: Labour MPs angered as Keir Starmer ignores calls for change of course
Attack the judiciary, take steps to remove and silence the very people meant to consider, interpret, defend and apply the law, then who is safe? There's a pattern emerging here.
Two high-profile cases, two people, have become the face of fight back to the picking up and forced removal of thousands from the US. One is the pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student facing deportation Mahmoud Khalil, picked up and detained without an arrest warrant.
The other is Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk, with her full legal credentials swept away. If you can remove people from the streets, their homes, without legal due process, who is safe? There's a pattern emerging here and it's similar to Germany in the 1930s.
That pattern has carried on with the far right now even smarter with its blitzed-up propaganda. Everything's wrong. Others made it wrong, it's their fault. But 'they and only they' will make it better.
Much as I hate acknowledging it, what Trump said pre-election, he did ASAP. So with Trump as a real change factor, not a weak slogan in freebie attire, is it any wonder that the main traction for change here is coming not from the mainstream, but from the far-right?
Politicians are dressing up more of the same as change or asking us to rally against Reform as a diversion away from their failure to deliver. I'm just wondering if a square round table bash will cut it. That initiative seemed to depend on a lot of trickledown, from those present, to us on the outside.
We can't rely on bogeyman tactics or the other Unionists losing out to Reform in 2026. Even if they do, how will that further Scotland's move to independence? What's on offer? Why vote for independence?
Why not offer something revolutionary? Why not have pro-indy parties offering radical change as part of a managed phase, the foundation laying for independent Scotland, such as control over land? Land reform that puts Scotland and its people in control, how it's used, where, by whom and taxed.
Or taxing profit before wages. Or control over our energy: creation and supply. At the Waterwise Conference in London in March, it was stated that the country (whose country?) could face insufficient water supplies in 25 years. But fear not since part of the solution was 'cross-country water transfer schemes'. Now I know whose country!
It's too cheesy to paraphrase it thus, but having come for the oil, then wind and wave, then when drought hits, they come for the fresh water, what's left?
Spain and Portugal have just demonstrated the importance of central power of supplies and infrastructures in the life of a country and its people. Can we afford to have someone else controlling basic energy creation and supplies? I doubt it.
That would be unimaginable ... like someone else being in control of all our money through their banks, and not having our own currency and banks.
Selma Rahman
Edinburgh
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