Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: Society

  • End Times Fascism

    That’s the title of a new book by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor. Here’s a short video from Klein and Taylor introducing the main themes of the book:

    I found the video after I had listened to this podcast from the London Review of Books. It’s an interview of Klein and Taylor by Adam Shatz.

    On the strength of this, I’ve ordered the book. With every passing day there seem to be less “Reasons to be cheerful” (thank you, Ian Dury), but Klein and Taylor offer some glimmers of hope. However, they need putting into action and that’s down to each and every one of us to do what we can.

  • Delusional and Dangerous

    That’s Kenneth Roth’s summation of Donald Trump after hearing Trump’s speech to the UN this week. Delusional because Trump’s mind is obviously going, and dangerous because of the position he holds and the fact that his administration seems determined to indulge his every whim.

    The article is worth reading and reflecting on. As Roth says:

     It is sad and dangerous that at such a perilous moment, the United States is saddled with a president who excels mainly in disseminating self-promoting fantasies while flouting the most basic rules of decency. His UN speech put that all on painful display.

  • Vitality Club Challenge

    Here in the Netherlands, we have more than 100 “Vitality Clubs”. A Vitality Club is a group of people aged 55 and over who exercise together outdoors in a public space in a city or village. These Vitality Clubs operate on the basis of peer coaching – someone from the group who takes the lead during the exercise session. Since there is no need for a paid professional or an expensive venue, costs remain low. The accessibility, social atmosphere, and lack of obligation are important attributes of the Vitality Club.

    Yesterday the clubs set themselves a challenge: to break their existing record to exercise with as many people aged 50+ as possible.

    There’s a club that meets in our village, and I was asked to make a video using my drone. Here’s some photos from the day…

  • How To Become a Centaur

    Here’s another book recommendation for you – and a question. Are you a centaur or a reverse centaur?

    Confused? Then don’t be. Just read Cory Doctorow’s book: The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI.

    And as Brian Eno says in his blurb on the back: “Doctorow is the most lucid and generous guide I know of, and this book – ostensibly about AI, but more broadly about the new world of hyper-capitalism and high tech – is stunning in its clarity and breadth of vision”

  • The Castle

    That’s the title of Jon Ronson’s most recent book. I’ve almost finished it, and am gobsmacked by it. I don’t know whether to feel pity for, or be aghast at, the flawed humans he has encountered. Highly recommended reading.

  • A Warning…

    A film from the 1940s that is very relevant to the USA (and beyond) today…

    Thank you to Robert Reich.

  • The Oligarchic Endgame Theory

    An interesting article in today’s Guardian from Ingrid Robeyns – a Belgian-Dutch economist and philosopher. In it she argues that extreme wealth (with Elon Musk as the most extreme example) is damaging to wider society. At one point she writes:

    The ultimate danger is the so-called oligarchic endgame theory, whereby power is concentrated among the super-rich. Governments, captured by the richest, then do everything to protect the privileges of this group and its supporters. Democracy itself is at risk if the rigid social hierarchy implied by this concentration of power among the wealthiest comes to pass.

    It seems to me that the “so-called oligarchic endgame theory” is no longer a theory, but a cold hard fact..

  • The Backlash is coming?

    Russell T. Davies has a new drama called Tip Toe that is currently showing on Channel 4 in the UK. It charts the rise and consequences of a feud between two next-door neighbours: Leo, the gay owner of a gay bar on Manchester’s Canal Street and Clive, an electrician who has a wife and family.

    The feud is powered by what’s happening at large in today’s social media-driven society. Here’s an early scene where Melba spells out to Leo just what is going on.

    I can sympathise with Leo when he says, in effect, now that he’s 60, he wants to take it easy – he went on the marches in his younger days – let the bright young things take over. I’m older, but I did the same when I was young. But Melba’s message is that things are going backwards for us LGBTQ folks – perhaps we will need to man (and woman) the barricades once more.

    This drama is geofenced by Channel 4 to the UK, so I can’t watch it. I hope that it will be picked up by a Dutch TV channel or, better still, come out on DVD/Bluray. It deserves to be seen.

    Addendum: 25 July 2026

    Dammit – I see that YouTube has now pulled the video. A pity, because Melba’s speech is very powerful and very true.

    One good thing is that the series has been picked up by HBO Max here in the Netherlands, so Martin and I have now been able to watch the five episodes.

    We’ve just finished watching the final episode and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus – we’re both still shaking. That was awful, brilliant, riveting, tragic and horribly plausible.

    Kudos to all concerned in the making of this – to Russell T. Davies for the script and the actors, production team and director for bringing it to life. Gobsmackingly good – and a warning to be heeded.

    And on tonight’s Dutch TV News was a report over research that they did about the experience of LGBTQI youth between 13 and 19 years. Of the 8,000 responses, around half said that their parents did not know that they were gay for fear of negative reactions… We’ve still got a long way to go… Veel jonge lhbti+’ers voelen zich onveilig thuis en op school

  • RIP Marjane

    Marjane Satrapi has died. We have lost an eloquent voice against the oppression in Iran. In this Guardian article about her, take a moment to click on her image of the Revolutionary Guards. Notice how their eyes are underlined blood-red. That is what is so chilling and so telling about her showing of the world in which she lived.

  • Thank you, Sir David

    David Attenborough turns 100 years old today.

    He is not just a National Treasure, but a World Treasure.

    Thank you, Sir David, for all that you have done in this sorry world.

  • Running Amoc

    The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) – delivers heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic – I used to know it as the Gulf Stream, and know that it is responsible for tempering the effects of winter in much of Northern Europe.

    If Amoc were to shut down, it would mean that there would be a massive drop in winter temperatures here. While I suppose that the silver lining might be that the Elfstedentocht could resume, that would count as nothing beside the existential crisis that would be provoked in societies at large. It has the potential to be a civilisation-ending event.

    George Monbiot spells it out for us.

    We should be preparing to man the lifeboats – but, whoops, there are no lifeboats for planet Earth, and contrary to Musk’s delusions, there won’t be any cities on Mars either.

  • RIP Jesse Jackson

    Robert Reich has reposted Jesse Jackson’s speech to the Democratic National Convention in 1988.

    Read it and weep. We have lost a giant who sought to unite us. The loudest voices in politics today are those that seek to divide us.

  • A Showstopping Celebration

    I have zero interest in American Football, but I was curious about the Super Bowl Halftime Show that this year was performed by Bad Bunny, his guest artists and a host of performers. So I watched it…

    I thought it was outstanding – the performance, the choreography, the camerawork – a showstopping celebration of Spanish culture and community. I don’t speak a word of Spanish, but I didn’t need to – I was smiling at the pure joy that radiated from everyone involved.

    Needless to say, Trump and his MAGA followers hated it. Trump posted on his Truth Social account that:

    The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying…

    Odd, that, since Spanish, so Wikipedia tells me:

    …is a global language with 519 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain, and about 636 million speakers total, including second-language speakers. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries, as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Spanish is the world’s second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world’s fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world’s most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico.

    It’s also, according to Wikipedia again:

    …the second most spoken language in the United States, after English. Approximately 45 million people aged five or older speak Spanish at home, representing about 14% of the U.S. population. Broader estimates place the total number of Spanish speakers—including native speakers, heritage speakers, and second-language speakers—at around 59 million, or roughly 18% of the population.

    I particularly liked Bad Bunny’s saying “God Bless America” – and making clear that his America consists of the entire continent and its islands by naming all the countries that go to make up America. That was a unifying statement at a higher level than anything Trump has ever done. Trump seems only intent on dividing us, including society itself in the USA, at every opportunity.

    If anything is an “affront to the Greatness of America”, it is Trump and his administration. I suspect that what he would have wanted for a Halftime Show would be a modern-day version of Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will.

  • RIP Carlos Hernández

    His last words.

  • A Nightmare Unfolds

    Are you sleeping comfortably? Secure in the knowledge that your AI agents are serving you well? Then better just hope that they haven’t taken it on themselves to join Moltbook. I suspect if there are any AI agents active in Military systems, then it will be game over if they decide to join…

  • Be Afraid…

    …be very afraid.

    I’ve read Nick Cohen’s journalism for years and always found him to be very perceptive about politics and society. So I thought I’d watch his interview of, and discussion with, Claire Berlinski.

    It started out being interesting, but by the end it was both interesting and downright scary…

  • Let’s Cultivate Xenophobia

    I see that the US Administration thinks that:

    Europe faces “civilisational erasure” within the next two decades as a result of migration and EU integration, arguing in a policy document that the US must “cultivate resistance” within the continent to “Europe’s current trajectory”.

    I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the current US Administration would espouse the Great Replacement Theory along with its other dubious morals.

    I await the time when I’m deported back to India, because that was where my great-great-grandmother came from.

  • Rewriting History

    I see that the Trump virus that causes the rewriting of history has apparently reached the Netherlands.

    The Guardian reports today that displays commemorating African American servicemen in the visitors’ centre at a Dutch War Cemetery have been removed.

    At least the local community and others are up in arms about it. The provincial government of Limburg will be formally asking the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), which runs the cemetery and the US Ambassador to put the commemoration panels back on display.

    “Lest we forget” – well, unless you are a member of a group in Trump’s crosshairs of course – then you will be marginalised and swept aside at the earliest opportunity…

    Addendum 12 December 2025: It’s now been reported in the Dutch newspaper the Gelderlander that it was the then Secretary of the AMBC himself who caused the displays removal out of fear following the publication of Trump’s “Anti-Woke decree”.

    On March 19 of this year, he emailed the staff of ABMC about Trump’s decree, which put an end to the ‘discriminatory equality ideology’. Although the ABMC was not mentioned, the then Secretary Charles Djou emphasized that the committee had to comply with Trump’s anti-woke policies to avoid negative publicity.

    He wanted to make sure that the databases on fallen African Americans and Native Americans did not violate the decree. And he asked the head of the visitor service, to check whether there are “panels” in the visitor centres in the overseas cemeteries that could cause problems for the committee.

    A day later, the head of education and public information, responds saying that certain texts have been removed from the ABMC site and that the database is not accessible to the public. He also suggests the removal of the panels from the Visitor Centre.

    The Deputy Secretary at the time, Robert Dallesandro agrees, saying in an email: “That panel has to go. Frankly, it never should have been there in the first place.”

    I note that Charles Djou has since departed from the ABMC, and Dallesandro has taken over as acting Secretary. He clearly sees no problem with rewriting history.

  • Swinging to the Right?

    The dust has now settled following the Dutch election. While the result won’t be officially given until next week (after the postal votes from Dutch ex-pats have been counted), it seems almost certain that the D66 party, led by Rob Jetten has got the most votes.

    It was a close-run thing, with the PVV of Geert Wilders matching the 26 parliamentary seats garnered by D66.

    For a governing majority in the Dutch parliament, Jetten needs more than 75 seats, so, as usual in Dutch politics, he needs to form a coalition with other parties. And there’s the rub. He has said that his ideal would be to form a coalition with the Groen-Links/PvDA, VVD and CDA parties. That would make a Centrist coalition, with the GL/PvDA on the left wing and the VVD on the right, However, the fly in the ointment is the leader of the VVD, Dilan Yeşilgöz. She has made it clear that she won’t work with the GL/PvDA party. Her party has been moving increasingly rightwards, and the gulf between it and the socialist GL/PvDA is now seemingly too great.

    Personally (because I am a life-long socialist, just like my parents were), I would be happy with Jetten’s preferred coalition, because it would seek to serve the broadest spectrum of the population. He himself has said that he wants to serve all of us.

    Yeşilgöz on the other hand will want to supplant GL/PvDA with a hardline Rightist party, such as JA21, which would push the coalition to the Right.

    If that happens, then I fear that Dutch politics will remain in the quagmire of blaming all the country’s ills on immigrants, and fail to address the real issues and problems as happened with the last government. Ironic really, since Yeşilgöz herself is an immigrant.

  • On The Eve Of Elections

    We have a general election tomorrow to choose who will lead us in the next government in the Netherlands.

    I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the outcome; after all the good people of the USA voted in Donald Trump for a second term and similarly in Argentina they have just voted for Javier Milei in the Midterms, thus doubling the number of seats he has. It seems that rational thought is a diminishing resource in humanity.

    Here, people say that they are losing their trust in politicians, yet the last time around they put Geert Wilders in front. On the other hand, I can quite understand the loss in trust – it’s just been revealed that two government members of Wilders’ PVV party have been behind some truly slimy AI-generated ads attacking Frans Timmermans, leader of the GroenLinks/PvDA party. Of course, they lied in parliament about it, so I can totally understand the loss of trust in some politicians.

    Martin and I will be casting our votes tomorrow in an attempt to restore balance towards a society that believes in equal opportunities for all and one that does not demonise migrants.