I joined X at the beginning of my international development journey. It helped me connect with inspiring thinkers, and engage in courageous conversations, with entrepreneurial pioneers. As the platform evolves it feels right to move on. You can reengage me bsky.app/profile/richardjcat…

How many ways can #colonization be reinvented?

I was challenged yesterday why the financial returns projected for #NZ #housing #impactinvestment are lower than overseas. Market & political failure are still converging. Over 500,000 older people will seek to RENT by 2030. How much influence will they have on these conditions?

By the time u blink, Mehdi’s already shredded 3 lies and cited 4 sources 😂 Mehdi crushes Israel’s top 10 Gaza genocide lies in under 3 minutes.

Best thing he’s ever said

Anxiety can drop naturally, not because risk disappears, but because you are less afraid of your own navigation. I left a toxic environment at the end of March and had two anxiety attacks in early April. I consider these as old stress amplifying the new stress. I over revved.

I donated to help Sadiq. In the face of total destruction of education infrastructure most of my network in Gaza seeks to keep contributing through academia. Sadiq has secured a rare PhD scholarship and now needs to resource relocating his family out. gofund.me/90eec79a

If we can levy a #windfalltax on oil companies after an unearned benefit, why can’t we do it to the 1%?

My partner is p*ssed about this having been born in a non-western and largely anti-capitalist “developing” country. I was born western and in a capitalist country and I’m seething too. Direct transfer from pensions of working people to people with power.

I know what it feels like when immigration status becomes uncertain. I’m under no illusion about that it takes for some migrants to pursue the promise of what the US offers. That promise is not just being broken - institutions and individuals are racked with fear and real threats

As we are so distracted by Trumps indirect control of the. Red we consume, this is a sobering insight into the narrative untold.

Instead of saying “it isn’t genocide,” states should be asked why they’re not honouring their legal duty to prevent it. The Genocide Convention doesn’t just punish—it obliges action at the first serious risk.

BREAKING: The DOJ has informed European officials that the U.S. is withdrawing from a multinational group established to investigate war crimes in Ukraine and hold those responsible accountable, including Vladimir Putin, The New York Times reports. The US can no longer claim to be the leader of the free world

It’s been some time since we paused our conversation yet life didn’t filter it, it supercharged how it restarted. With hours together Regis and I did a volcano 🌋 and the panoramic views kept it all in perspective. Actually I went back up and watched him fly home.

Positive news. Much to be negotiated inc precise sharing of powers. But there’s now a process.

The European Commission has just made it clear that the rigid constraints they had placed on public finance were totally artificial. They have now lifted them to enable massive military production. The EC could have done the same thing to achieve rapid decarbonization and ensure good housing, healthcare, and public transit for all. They could have abolished deprivation, unemployment and economic insecurity. But they did not. This exposes an extraordinary betrayal. It reveals that the European working classes have been lied to, over and over. The European Commission has suppressed production of public services, not because it has been fiscally necessary to do so, but because it ensures the conditions for capital accumulation.

I’ve watched all of “#NoOtherLand”. It’s powerful & disturbing - and incredibly well made. However I have decided to delete my previous post and post this amended version. As I said in the original post- It tells a story of one community in #Palestine. It shows their bravery & dignity in the face of gross injustice. It shows the immense cowardice of the occupiers who engage unarmed Palestinians when they feel with weapons in large numbers. You get a glimpse of how many Palestinian end up in jails or killed. Their experience is different to #Gaza and #AlQuds. But shows how the ethnic cleansing happens in villages. There are too many shocking and moving moments to share. But the scene of a Palestinian mother who says that she hopes Allah takes her son to relieve him of his life after he was paralysed from the neck down after being shot by the IOF - when they aren’t allowed to build a house for him to live in their own village, or drive a car to take him to hospital is unforgettable. There is a scene Tony Blair as Middle East envoy visits the village and then demolitions are stopped and Basel says he learned that power what decides their fate, not any justice (I am paraphrasing). For me that represents the worst of the colonial occupation. Blair’s visit might have stopped the demolitions in one village for while. It did not stop the ethnic cleaning nor give the people of Masafer Yatta any sense of long term security. But more than that it shows the western powers know detail of the cruelty and injustice Palestinians face. The filmmaker @basel_adra is very brave because he faced enormous violence & risks filming the footage. Originally I had considered Yuval’s bravery for speaking out. But I have since learned that he holds many problematic views that cast a suspicion on his motives for making this film. Put together they suggest he wants a different sort of occupation- not a liberation for the people of Palestine. He clearly holds on to the hope that there will be a a truly just democratic non-apartheid state. However, he’s living in a place that 80% of “Israelis” disagree with him. That absence of mainstream opinion from the occupiers is a journalistic weakness on his part (because he was a journalist at the time of its filming). An ill-informed observer might think he represents a large constituency. The truth is that he doesn’t. And it’s even smaller since 7/10/23. Some have commented that it is sad that Palestinian voices cannot be heard without being coupled to “soft Israeli” voices. This is indeed sad, but the film probably only made it to the Oscars because of that. Others have said that it’s a step to normalisation because it is billed as a joint “Israeli-Palestinian” venture. That is definitely the case. It continues to normalise the idea of two states. But watch the film and you will see there is nothing normal about this occupation. You can dress it up with the bling of “Tel Aviv”and tourism of “Eilat”. But there’s only so much perfume you can apply on a rotting corpse.