I've previously apologised for any behaviour in which I was rude to people, beyond those whom bully others who I have called out repeatedly. They were deserving of such action.
I never said you were a racist, I said it seems you have a blindspot for it, it seemed to me that you redefined Trump's remarks as bullying as opposed to racist. If that was not the case then that's fine, I apologise for misunderstanding.
It's really a simple question though, do you think Trump was racist, I note you didn't answer. And I wonder if that's because if you say yes, you'll have to agree Johnson has said similarly racist things.
I'm not sure why you needed to attack me personally anyway, I get the sense you've lost the argument and you're making it personal. I recall Mrs Thatcher used to consider that victory for herself in such a case.
We can consider our conversation closed as you wish to end it, no worries - all the best.
Stick to just "who". You don't know when to use "whom", and it makes you look dafter than you would with the odd incorrect "who".
What a sad life you must lead.
It'd be even sadder if I asked people "whom are you?"
Worth bearing in mind that the runoffs in Georgia will have a considerable bearing on how easy Biden finds it to get posts approved.
I personally don't think the Senate will cause a major problem with Biden's cabinet appointments.
Firstly, Biden will go for moderate appointments because he is a moderate and has shown no sign of reaching out too far to the left. Indeed, I'd not be surprised to see one or two moderate Republican former senators and governors get posts.
Secondly, there are several moderate Republicans who either temperamentally don't want to play that game, or feel under pressure by representing a blue or purple state.
Thirdly, I don't think McConnell sees it as good politics unless they've got a really good bit of dirt on someone where they can make a virtue of it. The game for McConnell is to play the game of appearing reasonable and bipartisan, whilst watering down or blocking major reforms. Blocking cabinet appointments can appear petty and obstructive, and I think he'd rather save his petty obstructiveness quota for better things. Remember, he wants to get some policy "wins" and position himself for 2022 when he's defending 20 seats and Democrats just 12. Just being "computer says no" isn't the most effective tactic.
Past history suggest the game for McConnell is deny, deny, deny
He will block all appointments and all legislation by a Democrat President for as long as he can.
I really don't know what McConnell will do. The GOP must have an eye on 2022 mid-terms already. So the calculation must be around, how do we take the House in the mid-terms - will obstructionism help us, or will some, even if only modest, cooperation be more what the American people will reward at this point? I strongly believe the US public would reward the latter more, but will McConnell come to the same conclusion? I don't know.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
That I suspect however is an aberration. I live in a large muslim town and I have only had it be explained to me as I described it. Mostly of pakistani origin not yemen. If I walked through town with a t shirt proclaiming scientology is a cult I would be arrested as others have. Walking through town with a garment that brands all men rapists should be the same.
I don't know yemenis so cant comment and no doubt some wear it for different reasons. However I know when I see a woman in a burqa thats the rebuke I feel. Let us not forget as well its labour that passed the law saying its a hate crime if the victim feels it is. I am the victim here being labelled
I've Googled and maybe I'm being dim, and I haven't found any cases of people being arrested anywhere for wearing "scientology is a cult" T-Shirts. Can you point me to an example?
There seems to be a fair bit of anecdotal evidence that Trump's insistence on continuing legal cases is actually a cover for raising money for campaign debts.
Yes I think monetize monetize monetize will be his top 3 priorities. And staying out of jail.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
Plato used to post interesting insights from her experience at a fairly high level in the civil service (although perhaps as a contractor) but with time her claims became inconsistent (and my own, wrong, suspicion at the time was that two people, of different generations, shared the Plato account). By 2016 she was a supporter of Donald Trump, often relying on the analysis of cartoonist Scott Adams. She was perhaps the only PBer to take Trump seriously, though she rated his chances of beating Hillary Clinton at only around 30 per cent. The trouble is she followed Trump supporters too far and disappeared down the alt-right rabbit hole, forwarding any nonsensical conspiracy theories that crossed her timeline. She even managed to get herself caught up in a Twitter (or was it Facebook?) purge of Russian troll farms. And then she became ill, isolated, and died. RIP Plato.
Woke is just a term used to be racist or sexist, or generally horrible that is still acceptable.
No, it really isn't although that's what its defenders (almost always) say in its defence.
Woke is a warped Marxist theory that's transmuted from academia into the real world and views everyone through a complex hierarchical and intersectional power dynamic where we are all classified by race, gender and sexuality and bracketed (and treated) as relative oppressors or victims accordingly. It uses this as a starting point to undercut some of the established values and historical foundations of our society in the hope that by breaking it down something better (Marxist utopia) that they believe will take its place. It cleverly condemns its opponents as racists and sexists to enforce its dogma and silence dissent. It's a big reason why they say "don't expect minorities to educate you on racism" - because they fear they wouldn't be on message; just look at how they attack those who are not - and instead say, please read my favoured best-selling culturally marxist book and 'educate yourself'.
Example: an unWoke person would be concerned that some Black people still experience some racial discrimination in the UK and would want to talk to them about it to understand it and change it. They wouldn't take a knee, tear down statues, or talk about White Privilege. They would emphasis the common-bonds they have of shared Britishness, they would demonstrate empathy they would talk about fairness, and they would talk about opening up opportunities for them and increasing role models. They would try harder to think about things from their point of view in future and bring everyone of all backgrounds, races and politics along with them. They wouldn't plaster what they're doing all over social media out of insecurity narcissism.
A Woke person would say either you buy into the whole lot, or you're suspect.. or worse.
Great post CR.
I don't think it's a particularly great post to be honest and seems to contradict a lot of what he says when he just mindlessly calls others woke.
I don't think anyone here fits into that view of "wokeness" - and I am about 99% sure if you asked the average person what woke means, they would not say that.
For me what being woke is used for is just today's politically correct, it's saying something you know is offensive but you feel like this gives you cover to say it without being challenged. You have an opinion, air it and we will debate it. End of story.
Who's defending saying anything offensive?
I would challenge anyone who said something racist, but I won't go down on one knee, or label myself and others as having White Privilege.
That might get some initial attention, or make sense in an academic thesis, but, when translated into the real world, divides far more people than it unites.
It's been said before that challenging the disgraceful comments Johnson has made about Islam, or Obama, makes you "woke" and "PC". I am not saying that's you, I am saying your definition is not shared by most/many, especially and including the MSM at large who people look to for their definition.
I think that the problem is that Johnson is was journalist with a live of colourful phrases.
The comment about Muslim women in full burkas looting like “letterboxes” was in an article defending their right to do so.
But people have chosen to focus on his perceived insult to Muslim people rather than his defence of their rights.
And yet they idolise Macron who had banned the things.
Funny old world isn’t it when what people say matters more than what they do
"Colourful phrases", I wonder if you'd use the same defence about a Labour MP, I bet not.
Yes I would. You see I believe in freedom of speech
He says racist things, I'll call them out.
Of course we could go over the other racist things he's said, like attacking Obama's heritage but it doesn't matter as the Democrats haven't forgotten.
Still not a defence of your position just an attack on someone else. This is very revealing
I believe calling out racist things that people have said is often said to be "woke" when in years gone by this would have "PC crowd gone mad".
Johnson can say what he wants but calling him out for racism is not "woke" or "PC", it's doing IMHO the right thing.
We clearly have different views of what racism is, you seem to think being racist is "using colourful phrases" whereas I think it's quite simply being racist, or saying racist things, of which Johnson has undoubtedly done.
Of course you're pretending to be somehow impartial when we know full well you're just as partisan as me.
You are taking a single line in an article that was intended (although failing) to be humorous.
And ignoring the content of the article that was standing up for the rights of Muslim women to wear the burqa.
(I am actually much more troubled by the burqa than Johnson seems to be, because I suspect that - in many cases - women are forced to wear it, or conditioned to believe that it is somehow right that men can do what they want while women must be modest in order to avoid inflaming men's passions.)
No that was only one example of Johnson's racism and history of bigotry, the fact you focus on only that shows you either know and you don't care, or you have a blindspot for racism which seems to be evident.
When I called Trump's remarks racist you changed them to being bullying, you either think Trump was a racist or you don't. And if you do, you can only conclude Johnson is too as he has said similar things. So which is it?
You may not have noticed, but the comment about "bullying remarks" was a response to @kinabalu NOT you.
But enough of this conversation.
You are a self-righteous individual who likes to call other people unpleasant names when they disagree with you.
I've previously apologised for any behaviour in which I was rude to people, beyond those whom bully others who I have called out repeatedly. They were deserving of such action.
I never said you were a racist, I said it seems you have a blindspot for it, it seemed to me that you redefined Trump's remarks as bullying as opposed to racist. If that was not the case then that's fine, I apologise for misunderstanding.
It's really a simple question though, do you think Trump was racist, I note you didn't answer. And I wonder if that's because if you say yes, you'll have to agree Johnson has said similarly racist things.
I'm not sure why you needed to attack me personally anyway, I get the sense you've lost the argument and you're making it personal. I recall Mrs Thatcher used to consider that victory for herself in such a case.
We can consider our conversation closed as you wish to end it, no worries - all the best.
Those WHO bully others
And who gave you the job of "calling out" anyone over anything? Please stop trying to make the site all about you, or all about any other contributor to it. It's tiresome.
Feel free to just ignore my comments then, you don't need to reply to them.
And you feel free, if you want to document your utterly riveting inner journey of self-discovery online, to start your own blog. Do you go round the place defecating on other peoples' doorsteps and telling them "you can always step round it"?
I've previously apologised for any behaviour in which I was rude to people, beyond those whom bully others who I have called out repeatedly. They were deserving of such action.
I never said you were a racist, I said it seems you have a blindspot for it, it seemed to me that you redefined Trump's remarks as bullying as opposed to racist. If that was not the case then that's fine, I apologise for misunderstanding.
It's really a simple question though, do you think Trump was racist, I note you didn't answer. And I wonder if that's because if you say yes, you'll have to agree Johnson has said similarly racist things.
I'm not sure why you needed to attack me personally anyway, I get the sense you've lost the argument and you're making it personal. I recall Mrs Thatcher used to consider that victory for herself in such a case.
We can consider our conversation closed as you wish to end it, no worries - all the best.
Stick to just "who". You don't know when to use "whom", and it makes you look dafter than you would with the odd incorrect "who".
What a sad life you must lead.
It'd be even sadder if I asked people "whom are you?"
I bet you're fun at parties.
When I want everyone to think I am, I go around accusing people of racism. It's a real fucking hoot.
Woke is just a term used to be racist or sexist, or generally horrible that is still acceptable.
No, it really isn't although that's what its defenders (almost always) say in its defence.
Woke is a warped Marxist theory that's transmuted from academia into the real world and views everyone through a complex hierarchical and intersectional power dynamic where we are all classified by race, gender and sexuality and bracketed (and treated) as relative oppressors or victims accordingly. It uses this as a starting point to undercut some of the established values and historical foundations of our society in the hope that by breaking it down something better (Marxist utopia) that they believe will take its place. It cleverly condemns its opponents as racists and sexists to enforce its dogma and silence dissent. It's a big reason why they say "don't expect minorities to educate you on racism" - because they fear they wouldn't be on message; just look at how they attack those who are not - and instead say, please read my favoured best-selling culturally marxist book and 'educate yourself'.
Example: an unWoke person would be concerned that some Black people still experience some racial discrimination in the UK and would want to talk to them about it to understand it and change it. They wouldn't take a knee, tear down statues, or talk about White Privilege. They would emphasis the common-bonds they have of shared Britishness, they would demonstrate empathy they would talk about fairness, and they would talk about opening up opportunities for them and increasing role models. They would try harder to think about things from their point of view in future and bring everyone of all backgrounds, races and politics along with them. They wouldn't plaster what they're doing all over social media out of insecurity narcissism.
A Woke person would say either you buy into the whole lot, or you're suspect.. or worse.
Great post CR.
I don't think it's a particularly great post to be honest and seems to contradict a lot of what he says when he just mindlessly calls others woke.
I don't think anyone here fits into that view of "wokeness" - and I am about 99% sure if you asked the average person what woke means, they would not say that.
For me what being woke is used for is just today's politically correct, it's saying something you know is offensive but you feel like this gives you cover to say it without being challenged. You have an opinion, air it and we will debate it. End of story.
Who's defending saying anything offensive?
I would challenge anyone who said something racist, but I won't go down on one knee, or label myself and others as having White Privilege.
That might get some initial attention, or make sense in an academic thesis, but, when translated into the real world, divides far more people than it unites.
It's been said before that challenging the disgraceful comments Johnson has made about Islam, or Obama, makes you "woke" and "PC". I am not saying that's you, I am saying your definition is not shared by most/many, especially and including the MSM at large who people look to for their definition.
I think that the problem is that Johnson is was journalist with a live of colourful phrases.
The comment about Muslim women in full burkas looting like “letterboxes” was in an article defending their right to do so.
But people have chosen to focus on his perceived insult to Muslim people rather than his defence of their rights.
And yet they idolise Macron who had banned the things.
Funny old world isn’t it when what people say matters more than what they do
"Colourful phrases", I wonder if you'd use the same defence about a Labour MP, I bet not.
Yes I would. You see I believe in freedom of speech
He says racist things, I'll call them out.
Of course we could go over the other racist things he's said, like attacking Obama's heritage but it doesn't matter as the Democrats haven't forgotten.
Still not a defence of your position just an attack on someone else. This is very revealing
I believe calling out racist things that people have said is often said to be "woke" when in years gone by this would have "PC crowd gone mad".
Johnson can say what he wants but calling him out for racism is not "woke" or "PC", it's doing IMHO the right thing.
We clearly have different views of what racism is, you seem to think being racist is "using colourful phrases" whereas I think it's quite simply being racist, or saying racist things, of which Johnson has undoubtedly done.
Of course you're pretending to be somehow impartial when we know full well you're just as partisan as me.
You are taking a single line in an article that was intended (although failing) to be humorous.
And ignoring the content of the article that was standing up for the rights of Muslim women to wear the burqa.
(I am actually much more troubled by the burqa than Johnson seems to be, because I suspect that - in many cases - women are forced to wear it, or conditioned to believe that it is somehow right that men can do what they want while women must be modest in order to avoid inflaming men's passions.)
No that was only one example of Johnson's racism and history of bigotry, the fact you focus on only that shows you either know and you don't care, or you have a blindspot for racism which seems to be evident.
When I called Trump's remarks racist you changed them to being bullying, you either think Trump was a racist or you don't. And if you do, you can only conclude Johnson is too as he has said similar things. So which is it?
You may not have noticed, but the comment about "bullying remarks" was a response to @kinabalu NOT you.
But enough of this conversation.
You are a self-righteous individual who likes to call other people unpleasant names when they disagree with you.
I've previously apologised for any behaviour in which I was rude to people, beyond those whom bully others who I have called out repeatedly. They were deserving of such action.
I never said you were a racist, I said it seems you have a blindspot for it, it seemed to me that you redefined Trump's remarks as bullying as opposed to racist. If that was not the case then that's fine, I apologise for misunderstanding.
It's really a simple question though, do you think Trump was racist, I note you didn't answer. And I wonder if that's because if you say yes, you'll have to agree Johnson has said similarly racist things.
I'm not sure why you needed to attack me personally anyway, I get the sense you've lost the argument and you're making it personal. I recall Mrs Thatcher used to consider that victory for herself in such a case.
We can consider our conversation closed as you wish to end it, no worries - all the best.
Those WHO bully others
And who gave you the job of "calling out" anyone over anything? Please stop trying to make the site all about you, or all about any other contributor to it. It's tiresome.
Feel free to just ignore my comments then, you don't need to reply to them.
And you feel free, if you want to document your utterly riveting inner journey of self-discovery online, to start your own blog. Do you go round the place defecating on other peoples' doorsteps and telling them "you can always step round it"?
You have a lovely evening, all the best to your family.
Mildly unnerving news out of Denmark. The mutated version of Covid-19 spread from mink has apparently been detected in c. 200 people (so presumably an underestimate).
The mutation is in the spike protein, the feature of the virus targeted by nearly all vaccines under development. There also seems to be a suggestion immunity from original Covid-19 infection won't be as effective, but little is really known at this stage.
The Danish authorities seem to be moving, but I have a horrible feeling the horse has already bolted. Not good news I fear.
There seems to be a fair bit of anecdotal evidence that Trump's insistence on continuing legal cases is actually a cover for raising money for campaign debts.
Yes, there’s a clause in the small print apparently that they can be used for this purpose.
Although he is cherrypicking the pollster (NYT/Siena) to compare Trafalgar to.
If he'd gone for (for example) Inside Advantage, he'd have had very different results.
If you look at the RCP polling averages, you'd say that the pollsters got it broadly right in Pennsylvania (RCP average Biden +1%), Georgia (Trump +1%) and North Carolina (Trump +0.2%). In Michigan they thought it would be Biden by 4%, and it was actually Biden +3%, so I'd count that as pretty accurate too. In Arizona, they were pretty close too, reckoning on it being Biden by 0.9%.
In two states, they got it very wrong: in Wisconsin, they thought it would be Biden by 7% and it ended up as under 1% in his favour. And in Florida, the pollsters thought it would be Biden +1%, and it turned out to be Trump +3%.
It was the national that surprised me. The 8 was 4. That's quite a big miss.
Is it not possible it will still reach as much as 6?
6%? Will track with interest but I don't think so. If it does, that gets into moe territory. But still bad because 8 was the weighted average of loads of polls.
I've previously apologised for any behaviour in which I was rude to people, beyond those whom bully others who I have called out repeatedly. They were deserving of such action.
I never said you were a racist, I said it seems you have a blindspot for it, it seemed to me that you redefined Trump's remarks as bullying as opposed to racist. If that was not the case then that's fine, I apologise for misunderstanding.
It's really a simple question though, do you think Trump was racist, I note you didn't answer. And I wonder if that's because if you say yes, you'll have to agree Johnson has said similarly racist things.
I'm not sure why you needed to attack me personally anyway, I get the sense you've lost the argument and you're making it personal. I recall Mrs Thatcher used to consider that victory for herself in such a case.
We can consider our conversation closed as you wish to end it, no worries - all the best.
Stick to just "who". You don't know when to use "whom", and it makes you look dafter than you would with the odd incorrect "who".
What a sad life you must lead.
It'd be even sadder if I asked people "whom are you?"
Reluctant to join in but in the disputed sentence there is a single letter 'm' which has wandered off into about 12 spaces before it should be - ideally after the second 'who'. 'M' is a letter which occasionally does that but it does no harm and the meaning is clear.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
Plato used to post interesting insights from her experience at a fairly high level in the civil service (although perhaps as a contractor) but with time her claims became inconsistent (and my own, wrong, suspicion at the time was that two people, of different generations, shared the Plato account). By 2016 she was a supporter of Donald Trump, often relying on the analysis of cartoonist Scott Adams. She was perhaps the only PBer to take Trump seriously, though she rated his chances of beating Hillary Clinton at only around 30 per cent. The trouble is she followed Trump supporters too far and disappeared down the alt-right rabbit hole, forwarding any nonsensical conspiracy theories that crossed her timeline. She even managed to get herself caught up in a Twitter (or was it Facebook?) purge of Russian troll farms. And then she became ill, isolated, and died. RIP Plato.
I liked her. Quite a lot. She was brutally honest (about herself and her life and her failings), she was often wry, and sometimes rather funny, she was also politically astute (if her emotions weren't invested). She was self aware (even if she did go a bit loopy at the end)
I never met her. But I think if I had met her we'd have got on well. She became quite lonely - and told us so.
It's funny how you can become attached to people online, but you can, and her death saddened me more than I expected. RIP indeed
Woke is just a term used to be racist or sexist, or generally horrible that is still acceptable.
No, it really isn't although that's what its defenders (almost always) say in its defence.
Woke is a warped Marxist theory that's transmuted from academia into the real world and views everyone through a complex hierarchical and intersectional power dynamic where we are all classified by race, gender and sexuality and bracketed (and treated) as relative oppressors or victims accordingly. It uses this as a starting point to undercut some of the established values and historical foundations of our society in the hope that by breaking it down something better (Marxist utopia) that they believe will take its place. It cleverly condemns its opponents as racists and sexists to enforce its dogma and silence dissent. It's a big reason why they say "don't expect minorities to educate you on racism" - because they fear they wouldn't be on message; just look at how they attack those who are not - and instead say, please read my favoured best-selling culturally marxist book and 'educate yourself'.
Example: an unWoke person would be concerned that some Black people still experience some racial discrimination in the UK and would want to talk to them about it to understand it and change it. They wouldn't take a knee, tear down statues, or talk about White Privilege. They would emphasis the common-bonds they have of shared Britishness, they would demonstrate empathy they would talk about fairness, and they would talk about opening up opportunities for them and increasing role models. They would try harder to think about things from their point of view in future and bring everyone of all backgrounds, races and politics along with them. They wouldn't plaster what they're doing all over social media out of insecurity narcissism.
A Woke person would say either you buy into the whole lot, or you're suspect.. or worse.
Great post CR.
I don't think it's a particularly great post to be honest and seems to contradict a lot of what he says when he just mindlessly calls others woke.
I don't think anyone here fits into that view of "wokeness" - and I am about 99% sure if you asked the average person what woke means, they would not say that.
For me what being woke is used for is just today's politically correct, it's saying something you know is offensive but you feel like this gives you cover to say it without being challenged. You have an opinion, air it and we will debate it. End of story.
Who's defending saying anything offensive?
I would challenge anyone who said something racist, but I won't go down on one knee, or label myself and others as having White Privilege.
That might get some initial attention, or make sense in an academic thesis, but, when translated into the real world, divides far more people than it unites.
It's been said before that challenging the disgraceful comments Johnson has made about Islam, or Obama, makes you "woke" and "PC". I am not saying that's you, I am saying your definition is not shared by most/many, especially and including the MSM at large who people look to for their definition.
I think that the problem is that Johnson is was journalist with a live of colourful phrases.
The comment about Muslim women in full burkas looting like “letterboxes” was in an article defending their right to do so.
But people have chosen to focus on his perceived insult to Muslim people rather than his defence of their rights.
And yet they idolise Macron who had banned the things.
Funny old world isn’t it when what people say matters more than what they do
This - "saying" vs "doing" - is the false distinction typically rolled out to downplay the toxic real world impact of people like Donald Trump.
"I don't like what he says and how he says it sometimes but ..."
"He might come over as racist but black employment has gone up and that's far more important."
Nonsense, isn't it. Total nonsense. Strictly for the apologists. If I abuse somebody using only words have I not abused them?
Which is worse, clipping a child around the ear or destroying their confidence with a barrage of ridicule and putdowns?
The difference between an aside in an article written by a journalist and a President standing up using the authority of his office to make bullying remarks?
Indeed, and if I recall correctly, the article in question was saying almost exactly the opposite of what Boris is accused of. He said something like:
You may think the Burqua ridiculous. You may think it makes a woman look like a letterbox. But we are a freedom loving country. The state should not be regulating what people wear. #
Would you equally accept the "water melon smiles" critique of Blair as just satire, free of racist stereotyping?
It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.
- Boris in The Daily Telegraph, 10 January 2002
How can anyone read that and not twig that it was satire? Seriously?
Because it is so similar to the sort of language he normally uses.
Precisely he uses (or used, past tense) colourful language about everyone. Which is precisely why it wasn't meaningful.
Corbyn used anti-Semitic language against Jews repeatedly. Only Jews. Always Jews.
You deleted my points about Mr J always trying to make jokes and often ending up with offcolour or worse results.
Consider his quoting Kipling in Myanmar. And he was Foreign Sec at the time, not some DT hack.
I didn't delete them, they weren't part of what I quoted. Your post says edited so you must have edited it in after I quoted it. Why would you assume I'd deleted it then?
The point of someone always making jokes makes it more likely that these remarks are jokes not less likely.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
It makes a lot more sense if you know that at the time of writing Hegel was the accepted wisdom.
Now that's buggered you, hasn't it. You gotta go read Hegel now.
By comparison, Marx is positively racy.
Wasn’t Marx the synthesis of Schleimacher and Hegelian philosophy?
Not sure but if they played together that would have been one hell of a half-back line.
Football and philosophy do have quite an overlap. My favourite quote is the Sartre one.
There seems to be a fair bit of anecdotal evidence that Trump's insistence on continuing legal cases is actually a cover for raising money for campaign debts.
Yes I think monetize monetize monetize will be his top 3 priorities. And staying out of jail.
Trouble is, he is trashing the Trump brand, which brings in vast licensing fees. For that reason, along with zero chance of success in his legal actions, the President appears to be acting quite irrationally.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
Plato used to post interesting insights from her experience at a fairly high level in the civil service (although perhaps as a contractor) but with time her claims became inconsistent (and my own, wrong, suspicion at the time was that two people, of different generations, shared the Plato account). By 2016 she was a supporter of Donald Trump, often relying on the analysis of cartoonist Scott Adams. She was perhaps the only PBer to take Trump seriously, though she rated his chances of beating Hillary Clinton at only around 30 per cent. The trouble is she followed Trump supporters too far and disappeared down the alt-right rabbit hole, forwarding any nonsensical conspiracy theories that crossed her timeline. She even managed to get herself caught up in a Twitter (or was it Facebook?) purge of Russian troll farms. And then she became ill, isolated, and died. RIP Plato.
Indeed, she used to come to the PB meet ups in London. She was also a cat lady, if I remember correctly.
My only friend over here who correctly predicted Trump's win in 2016 also relied on Scott Adam's analysis of Trump in terms of Robert Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion"
There seems to be a fair bit of anecdotal evidence that Trump's insistence on continuing legal cases is actually a cover for raising money for campaign debts.
Yes I think monetize monetize monetize will be his top 3 priorities. And staying out of jail.
Trouble is, he is trashing the Trump brand, which brings in vast licensing fees. For that reason, along with zero chance of success in his legal actions, the President appears to be acting quite irrationally.
Has he announced that he will prevail through the purity of his fluids yet?
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
Plato used to post interesting insights from her experience at a fairly high level in the civil service (although perhaps as a contractor) but with time her claims became inconsistent (and my own, wrong, suspicion at the time was that two people, of different generations, shared the Plato account). By 2016 she was a supporter of Donald Trump, often relying on the analysis of cartoonist Scott Adams. She was perhaps the only PBer to take Trump seriously, though she rated his chances of beating Hillary Clinton at only around 30 per cent. The trouble is she followed Trump supporters too far and disappeared down the alt-right rabbit hole, forwarding any nonsensical conspiracy theories that crossed her timeline. She even managed to get herself caught up in a Twitter (or was it Facebook?) purge of Russian troll farms. And then she became ill, isolated, and died. RIP Plato.
I liked her. Quite a lot. She was brutally honest (about herself and her life and her failings), she was often wry, and sometimes rather funny, she was also politically astute (if her emotions weren't invested). She was self aware (even if she did go a bit loopy at the end)
I never met her. But I think if I had met her we'd have got on well. She became quite lonely - and told us so.
It's funny how you can become attached to people online, but you can, and her death saddened me more than I expected. RIP indeed
Although he is cherrypicking the pollster (NYT/Siena) to compare Trafalgar to.
If he'd gone for (for example) Inside Advantage, he'd have had very different results.
If you look at the RCP polling averages, you'd say that the pollsters got it broadly right in Pennsylvania (RCP average Biden +1%), Georgia (Trump +1%) and North Carolina (Trump +0.2%). In Michigan they thought it would be Biden by 4%, and it was actually Biden +3%, so I'd count that as pretty accurate too. In Arizona, they were pretty close too, reckoning on it being Biden by 0.9%.
In two states, they got it very wrong: in Wisconsin, they thought it would be Biden by 7% and it ended up as under 1% in his favour. And in Florida, the pollsters thought it would be Biden +1%, and it turned out to be Trump +3%.
It was the national that surprised me. The 8 was 4. That's quite a big miss.
Is it not possible it will still reach as much as 6?
6%? Will track with interest but I don't think so. If it does, that gets into moe territory. But still bad because 8 was the weighted average of loads of polls.
And even Robert's citation of the RCP poll average relied on the likes of Cahaly to bring it that close to the outcome, when many on here (myself included) argued for the exclusion of Trafalgar's numbers.
A trade deal would never be negotiated in 100 days. These are multi-year endeavours
Everyone (at least everyone involved with trade deals) knows that.
When Truss said "“It is the government’s ambition to secure free trade agreements with countries covering 80 per cent of UK trade by 2022” she must have known it takes at least another two years from then before an agreement translates into a set of rules that officials at border posts are enforcing.
Perfectly possible Johnson knew but lied: equally possible that Truss is just too thick to know. And the fact that the Telegraph thinks the story's news implies that opinionators never knew. But when those of us who depend on global trade started reminding people about this we got the usual Leaver Trumpery.
"Trumpery": a technical term among us hard-core Remainers to describe an complete denial of reality wrapped up in obnoxious (and derangedly unfounded) smearing of the person describing the facts. ALWAYS ends in the collapse of the Trumperer.
If I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt...
Securing a deal might be possible & that is not the same as implementation.
Moreover, I looked at official stats for imports (can't be bothered to average everything) for 2016
Although he is cherrypicking the pollster (NYT/Siena) to compare Trafalgar to.
If he'd gone for (for example) Inside Advantage, he'd have had very different results.
If you look at the RCP polling averages, you'd say that the pollsters got it broadly right in Pennsylvania (RCP average Biden +1%), Georgia (Trump +1%) and North Carolina (Trump +0.2%). In Michigan they thought it would be Biden by 4%, and it was actually Biden +3%, so I'd count that as pretty accurate too. In Arizona, they were pretty close too, reckoning on it being Biden by 0.9%.
In two states, they got it very wrong: in Wisconsin, they thought it would be Biden by 7% and it ended up as under 1% in his favour. And in Florida, the pollsters thought it would be Biden +1%, and it turned out to be Trump +3%.
It was the national that surprised me. The 8 was 4. That's quite a big miss.
The DKs all went Trump. You can make a pretty good argument for a shy Trump vote there.
I had expected to see the solidify for Trump in the polling before election day (indeed I failed to take someone up on the bet that it would be within 4 or 5 by election day) but that did not materialise. They stayed DK to the bitter end.
I've previously apologised for any behaviour in which I was rude to people, beyond those whom bully others who I have called out repeatedly. They were deserving of such action.
I never said you were a racist, I said it seems you have a blindspot for it, it seemed to me that you redefined Trump's remarks as bullying as opposed to racist. If that was not the case then that's fine, I apologise for misunderstanding.
It's really a simple question though, do you think Trump was racist, I note you didn't answer. And I wonder if that's because if you say yes, you'll have to agree Johnson has said similarly racist things.
I'm not sure why you needed to attack me personally anyway, I get the sense you've lost the argument and you're making it personal. I recall Mrs Thatcher used to consider that victory for herself in such a case.
We can consider our conversation closed as you wish to end it, no worries - all the best.
Stick to just "who". You don't know when to use "whom", and it makes you look dafter than you would with the odd incorrect "who".
What a sad life you must lead.
It'd be even sadder if I asked people "whom are you?"
Reluctant to join in but in the disputed sentence there is a single letter 'm' which has wandered off into about 12 spaces before it should be - ideally after the second 'who'. 'M' is a letter which occasionally does that but it does no harm and the meaning is clear.
Yes. Those pesky ‘M’s. It’s amazing how they wander. Any idea where this one came from?
Woke is just a term used to be racist or sexist, or generally horrible that is still acceptable.
No, it really isn't although that's what its defenders (almost always) say in its defence.
Woke is a warped Marxist theory that's transmuted from academia into the real world and views everyone through a complex hierarchical and intersectional power dynamic where we are all classified by race, gender and sexuality and bracketed (and treated) as relative oppressors or victims accordingly. It uses this as a starting point to undercut some of the established values and historical foundations of our society in the hope that by breaking it down something better (Marxist utopia) that they believe will take its place. It cleverly condemns its opponents as racists and sexists to enforce its dogma and silence dissent. It's a big reason why they say "don't expect minorities to educate you on racism" - because they fear they wouldn't be on message; just look at how they attack those who are not - and instead say, please read my favoured best-selling culturally marxist book and 'educate yourself'.
Example: an unWoke person would be concerned that some Black people still experience some racial discrimination in the UK and would want to talk to them about it to understand it and change it. They wouldn't take a knee, tear down statues, or talk about White Privilege. They would emphasis the common-bonds they have of shared Britishness, they would demonstrate empathy they would talk about fairness, and they would talk about opening up opportunities for them and increasing role models. They would try harder to think about things from their point of view in future and bring everyone of all backgrounds, races and politics along with them. They wouldn't plaster what they're doing all over social media out of insecurity narcissism.
A Woke person would say either you buy into the whole lot, or you're suspect.. or worse.
Great post CR.
I don't think it's a particularly great post to be honest and seems to contradict a lot of what he says when he just mindlessly calls others woke.
I don't think anyone here fits into that view of "wokeness" - and I am about 99% sure if you asked the average person what woke means, they would not say that.
For me what being woke is used for is just today's politically correct, it's saying something you know is offensive but you feel like this gives you cover to say it without being challenged. You have an opinion, air it and we will debate it. End of story.
Who's defending saying anything offensive?
I would challenge anyone who said something racist, but I won't go down on one knee, or label myself and others as having White Privilege.
That might get some initial attention, or make sense in an academic thesis, but, when translated into the real world, divides far more people than it unites.
It's been said before that challenging the disgraceful comments Johnson has made about Islam, or Obama, makes you "woke" and "PC". I am not saying that's you, I am saying your definition is not shared by most/many, especially and including the MSM at large who people look to for their definition.
I think that the problem is that Johnson is was journalist with a live of colourful phrases.
The comment about Muslim women in full burkas looting like “letterboxes” was in an article defending their right to do so.
But people have chosen to focus on his perceived insult to Muslim people rather than his defence of their rights.
And yet they idolise Macron who had banned the things.
Funny old world isn’t it when what people say matters more than what they do
This - "saying" vs "doing" - is the false distinction typically rolled out to downplay the toxic real world impact of people like Donald Trump.
"I don't like what he says and how he says it sometimes but ..."
"He might come over as racist but black employment has gone up and that's far more important."
Nonsense, isn't it. Total nonsense. Strictly for the apologists. If I abuse somebody using only words have I not abused them?
Which is worse, clipping a child around the ear or destroying their confidence with a barrage of ridicule and putdowns?
The difference between an aside in an article written by a journalist and a President standing up using the authority of his office to make bullying remarks?
Indeed, and if I recall correctly, the article in question was saying almost exactly the opposite of what Boris is accused of. He said something like:
You may think the Burqua ridiculous. You may think it makes a woman look like a letterbox. But we are a freedom loving country. The state should not be regulating what people wear. #
Would you equally accept the "water melon smiles" critique of Blair as just satire, free of racist stereotyping?
It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.
- Boris in The Daily Telegraph, 10 January 2002
How can anyone read that and not twig that it was satire? Seriously?
Because it is so similar to the sort of language he normally uses.
Precisely he uses (or used, past tense) colourful language about everyone. Which is precisely why it wasn't meaningful.
Corbyn used anti-Semitic language against Jews repeatedly. Only Jews. Always Jews.
No he did not. Corbyn did not use AS epithets against Jews (not even as an Arsenal supporter did he use the Y-word for Spurs).
He didn't even use the Y-word? That changes everything, scrap the EHRC. 🙄
Although he is cherrypicking the pollster (NYT/Siena) to compare Trafalgar to.
If he'd gone for (for example) Inside Advantage, he'd have had very different results.
If you look at the RCP polling averages, you'd say that the pollsters got it broadly right in Pennsylvania (RCP average Biden +1%), Georgia (Trump +1%) and North Carolina (Trump +0.2%). In Michigan they thought it would be Biden by 4%, and it was actually Biden +3%, so I'd count that as pretty accurate too. In Arizona, they were pretty close too, reckoning on it being Biden by 0.9%.
In two states, they got it very wrong: in Wisconsin, they thought it would be Biden by 7% and it ended up as under 1% in his favour. And in Florida, the pollsters thought it would be Biden +1%, and it turned out to be Trump +3%.
It was the national that surprised me. The 8 was 4. That's quite a big miss.
It’s almost as though the state polls recognised they got wrong in 2016 and tried to rectify the faults, whilst the national polls convinced themselves they were right with no need to fix anything.
However - I wonder how the state polls would look if Trafalgar / Rasmussen, which many doubted, were taken out of the equation
Worth bearing in mind that the runoffs in Georgia will have a considerable bearing on how easy Biden finds it to get posts approved.
I personally don't think the Senate will cause a major problem with Biden's cabinet appointments.
Firstly, Biden will go for moderate appointments because he is a moderate and has shown no sign of reaching out too far to the left. Indeed, I'd not be surprised to see one or two moderate Republican former senators and governors get posts.
Secondly, there are several moderate Republicans who either temperamentally don't want to play that game, or feel under pressure by representing a blue or purple state.
Thirdly, I don't think McConnell sees it as good politics unless they've got a really good bit of dirt on someone where they can make a virtue of it. The game for McConnell is to play the game of appearing reasonable and bipartisan, whilst watering down or blocking major reforms. Blocking cabinet appointments can appear petty and obstructive, and I think he'd rather save his petty obstructiveness quota for better things. Remember, he wants to get some policy "wins" and position himself for 2022 when he's defending 20 seats and Democrats just 12. Just being "computer says no" isn't the most effective tactic.
Past history suggest the game for McConnell is deny, deny, deny
He will block all appointments and all legislation by a Democrat President for as long as he can.
I really don't know what McConnell will do. The GOP must have an eye on 2022 mid-terms already. So the calculation must be around, how do we take the House in the mid-terms - will obstructionism help us, or will some, even if only modest, cooperation be more what the American people will reward at this point? I strongly believe the US public would reward the latter more, but will McConnell come to the same conclusion? I don't know.
Well, I like to go on what people have done previously.
McConnell does deny, deny, deny - and has for years. Why should he change? So far his strategy has sewn up the US Federal Court system for maybe 2 generations...
I am not a badge of honour, I am not a racist smear, I am not a fashion statement, To be worn but once a year, I am not glorification Of conflict or of war. I am not a paper ornament A token, I am more.
I am a loving memory, Of a father or a son, A permanent reminder Of each and every one.
I'm paper or enamel I’m old or shining new, I’m a way of saying thank you, To every one of you.
I am a simple poppy A Reminder to you all, That courage faith and honour Will stand were heroes fall.
Worth bearing in mind that the runoffs in Georgia will have a considerable bearing on how easy Biden finds it to get posts approved.
I personally don't think the Senate will cause a major problem with Biden's cabinet appointments.
Firstly, Biden will go for moderate appointments because he is a moderate and has shown no sign of reaching out too far to the left. Indeed, I'd not be surprised to see one or two moderate Republican former senators and governors get posts.
Secondly, there are several moderate Republicans who either temperamentally don't want to play that game, or feel under pressure by representing a blue or purple state.
Thirdly, I don't think McConnell sees it as good politics unless they've got a really good bit of dirt on someone where they can make a virtue of it. The game for McConnell is to play the game of appearing reasonable and bipartisan, whilst watering down or blocking major reforms. Blocking cabinet appointments can appear petty and obstructive, and I think he'd rather save his petty obstructiveness quota for better things. Remember, he wants to get some policy "wins" and position himself for 2022 when he's defending 20 seats and Democrats just 12. Just being "computer says no" isn't the most effective tactic.
Past history suggest the game for McConnell is deny, deny, deny
He will block all appointments and all legislation by a Democrat President for as long as he can.
Mark Steyn is always a useful portal into how the American Right thinks and feels. He sounds genuinely sad and devastated for Trump. The reasons for the defeat (in no particular order):
The liberal establishment, media and legal system (unsurprisingly) Jared Kushner Rupert Murdoch Canadian voting software
Woke is just a term used to be racist or sexist, or generally horrible that is still acceptable.
No, it really isn't although that's what its defenders (almost always) say in its defence.
Woke is a warped Marxist theory that's transmuted from academia into the real world and views everyone through a complex hierarchical and intersectional power dynamic where we are all classified by race, gender and sexuality and bracketed (and treated) as relative oppressors or victims accordingly. It uses this as a starting point to undercut some of the established values and historical foundations of our society in the hope that by breaking it down something better (Marxist utopia) that they believe will take its place. It cleverly condemns its opponents as racists and sexists to enforce its dogma and silence dissent. It's a big reason why they say "don't expect minorities to educate you on racism" - because they fear they wouldn't be on message; just look at how they attack those who are not - and instead say, please read my favoured best-selling culturally marxist book and 'educate yourself'.
Example: an unWoke person would be concerned that some Black people still experience some racial discrimination in the UK and would want to talk to them about it to understand it and change it. They wouldn't take a knee, tear down statues, or talk about White Privilege. They would emphasis the common-bonds they have of shared Britishness, they would demonstrate empathy they would talk about fairness, and they would talk about opening up opportunities for them and increasing role models. They would try harder to think about things from their point of view in future and bring everyone of all backgrounds, races and politics along with them. They wouldn't plaster what they're doing all over social media out of insecurity narcissism.
A Woke person would say either you buy into the whole lot, or you're suspect.. or worse.
Great post CR.
I don't think it's a particularly great post to be honest and seems to contradict a lot of what he says when he just mindlessly calls others woke.
I don't think anyone here fits into that view of "wokeness" - and I am about 99% sure if you asked the average person what woke means, they would not say that.
For me what being woke is used for is just today's politically correct, it's saying something you know is offensive but you feel like this gives you cover to say it without being challenged. You have an opinion, air it and we will debate it. End of story.
Who's defending saying anything offensive?
I would challenge anyone who said something racist, but I won't go down on one knee, or label myself and others as having White Privilege.
That might get some initial attention, or make sense in an academic thesis, but, when translated into the real world, divides far more people than it unites.
It's been said before that challenging the disgraceful comments Johnson has made about Islam, or Obama, makes you "woke" and "PC". I am not saying that's you, I am saying your definition is not shared by most/many, especially and including the MSM at large who people look to for their definition.
I think that the problem is that Johnson is was journalist with a live of colourful phrases.
The comment about Muslim women in full burkas looting like “letterboxes” was in an article defending their right to do so.
But people have chosen to focus on his perceived insult to Muslim people rather than his defence of their rights.
And yet they idolise Macron who had banned the things.
Funny old world isn’t it when what people say matters more than what they do
This - "saying" vs "doing" - is the false distinction typically rolled out to downplay the toxic real world impact of people like Donald Trump.
"I don't like what he says and how he says it sometimes but ..."
"He might come over as racist but black employment has gone up and that's far more important."
Nonsense, isn't it. Total nonsense. Strictly for the apologists. If I abuse somebody using only words have I not abused them?
Which is worse, clipping a child around the ear or destroying their confidence with a barrage of ridicule and putdowns?
The difference between an aside in an article written by a journalist and a President standing up using the authority of his office to make bullying remarks?
Indeed, and if I recall correctly, the article in question was saying almost exactly the opposite of what Boris is accused of. He said something like:
You may think the Burqua ridiculous. You may think it makes a woman look like a letterbox. But we are a freedom loving country. The state should not be regulating what people wear. #
Would you equally accept the "water melon smiles" critique of Blair as just satire, free of racist stereotyping?
It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.
- Boris in The Daily Telegraph, 10 January 2002
How can anyone read that and not twig that it was satire? Seriously?
Because it is so similar to the sort of language he normally uses.
Precisely he uses (or used, past tense) colourful language about everyone. Which is precisely why it wasn't meaningful.
Corbyn used anti-Semitic language against Jews repeatedly. Only Jews. Always Jews.
No he did not. Corbyn did not use AS epithets against Jews (not even as an Arsenal supporter did he use the Y-word for Spurs).
He didn't even use the Y-word? That changes everything, scrap the EHRC. 🙄
It refutes your claim that "Corbyn used anti-Semitic language against Jews repeatedly. Only Jews. Always Jews." Moving on to the EHRC report, often cited, never read, it dealt with complaints that Corbyn and hence Labour had not dealt properly with allegations of antisemitism among other Labour members, and not that Corbyn himself was wandering about insulting Jews.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
That I suspect however is an aberration. I live in a large muslim town and I have only had it be explained to me as I described it. Mostly of pakistani origin not yemen. If I walked through town with a t shirt proclaiming scientology is a cult I would be arrested as others have. Walking through town with a garment that brands all men rapists should be the same.
I don't know yemenis so cant comment and no doubt some wear it for different reasons. However I know when I see a woman in a burqa thats the rebuke I feel. Let us not forget as well its labour that passed the law saying its a hate crime if the victim feels it is. I am the victim here being labelled
I've Googled and maybe I'm being dim, and I haven't found any cases of people being arrested anywhere for wearing "scientology is a cult" T-Shirts. Can you point me to an example?
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
Plato used to post interesting insights from her experience at a fairly high level in the civil service (although perhaps as a contractor) but with time her claims became inconsistent (and my own, wrong, suspicion at the time was that two people, of different generations, shared the Plato account). By 2016 she was a supporter of Donald Trump, often relying on the analysis of cartoonist Scott Adams. She was perhaps the only PBer to take Trump seriously, though she rated his chances of beating Hillary Clinton at only around 30 per cent. The trouble is she followed Trump supporters too far and disappeared down the alt-right rabbit hole, forwarding any nonsensical conspiracy theories that crossed her timeline. She even managed to get herself caught up in a Twitter (or was it Facebook?) purge of Russian troll farms. And then she became ill, isolated, and died. RIP Plato.
I liked her. Quite a lot. She was brutally honest (about herself and her life and her failings), she was often wry, and sometimes rather funny, she was also politically astute (if her emotions weren't invested). She was self aware (even if she did go a bit loopy at the end)
I never met her. But I think if I had met her we'd have got on well. She became quite lonely - and told us so.
It's funny how you can become attached to people online, but you can, and her death saddened me more than I expected. RIP indeed
I know a couple of pb'ers who'd met her although, sadly, I never did.
There seems to be a fair bit of anecdotal evidence that Trump's insistence on continuing legal cases is actually a cover for raising money for campaign debts.
Yes I think monetize monetize monetize will be his top 3 priorities. And staying out of jail.
Trouble is, he is trashing the Trump brand, which brings in vast licensing fees. For that reason, along with zero chance of success in his legal actions, the President appears to be acting quite irrationally.
Has he announced that he will prevail through the purity of his fluids yet?
We’ve got some pretty smart people on this board. We come from many parts of the UK, and abroad. We represent a wide variety of professions, and we come together, mostly anonymously, because of our shared love of politics and interest in gambling or probability.
From what we can see in our professions and our towns - and realising that with a couple of exceptions we are speaking without knowledge of epidemiology - do we think that we are going to have a a second full fat lockdown this winter?
I’ll go first. I think in education the odds of getting through to Christmas are no better than even. Large numbers of cases are spreading in schools, and it’s going to become increasingly difficult to cover staffing gaps as they open up. And the ‘no better than even,’ incidentally, assumes that about 25% of students will be isolated or otherwise sent home at some point.
I think they’re hoping the new testing modalities (cf the Liverpool trial) will bail them out. But as they don’t yet seem to have worked out how to use the results - determined and systemic isolation of infected individuals - I’m not sure it will work. Another couple of cases in my wife’s primary last week. And it’s getting a bit cold to teach with doors and windows open.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
It was due to more than her marital breakdown sadly, she got hit by a lot of shit in succession one after the other. While she went a little odd towards the end I am not surprised.
It was a rapid decline from being poster of the year to ban hammer from the internet.
Antifrank was cruising to victory in the POTY stakes when tim had a go at Plato, provoking a late surge of compassionate voting that put her in front by a nose. Poor Antifrank was never quite the same, and eventually changed his name and moved to Essex.
That was in the days when we still had a "Tory Herd".
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
Woke is just a term used to be racist or sexist, or generally horrible that is still acceptable.
No, it really isn't although that's what its defenders (almost always) say in its defence.
Woke is a warped Marxist theory that's transmuted from academia into the real world and views everyone through a complex hierarchical and intersectional power dynamic where we are all classified by race, gender and sexuality and bracketed (and treated) as relative oppressors or victims accordingly. It uses this as a starting point to undercut some of the established values and historical foundations of our society in the hope that by breaking it down something better (Marxist utopia) that they believe will take its place. It cleverly condemns its opponents as racists and sexists to enforce its dogma and silence dissent. It's a big reason why they say "don't expect minorities to educate you on racism" - because they fear they wouldn't be on message; just look at how they attack those who are not - and instead say, please read my favoured best-selling culturally marxist book and 'educate yourself'.
Example: an unWoke person would be concerned that some Black people still experience some racial discrimination in the UK and would want to talk to them about it to understand it and change it. They wouldn't take a knee, tear down statues, or talk about White Privilege. They would emphasis the common-bonds they have of shared Britishness, they would demonstrate empathy they would talk about fairness, and they would talk about opening up opportunities for them and increasing role models. They would try harder to think about things from their point of view in future and bring everyone of all backgrounds, races and politics along with them. They wouldn't plaster what they're doing all over social media out of insecurity narcissism.
A Woke person would say either you buy into the whole lot, or you're suspect.. or worse.
Great post CR.
I don't think it's a particularly great post to be honest and seems to contradict a lot of what he says when he just mindlessly calls others woke.
I don't think anyone here fits into that view of "wokeness" - and I am about 99% sure if you asked the average person what woke means, they would not say that.
For me what being woke is used for is just today's politically correct, it's saying something you know is offensive but you feel like this gives you cover to say it without being challenged. You have an opinion, air it and we will debate it. End of story.
Who's defending saying anything offensive?
I would challenge anyone who said something racist, but I won't go down on one knee, or label myself and others as having White Privilege.
That might get some initial attention, or make sense in an academic thesis, but, when translated into the real world, divides far more people than it unites.
It's been said before that challenging the disgraceful comments Johnson has made about Islam, or Obama, makes you "woke" and "PC". I am not saying that's you, I am saying your definition is not shared by most/many, especially and including the MSM at large who people look to for their definition.
I think that the problem is that Johnson is was journalist with a live of colourful phrases.
The comment about Muslim women in full burkas looting like “letterboxes” was in an article defending their right to do so.
But people have chosen to focus on his perceived insult to Muslim people rather than his defence of their rights.
And yet they idolise Macron who had banned the things.
Funny old world isn’t it when what people say matters more than what they do
"Colourful phrases", I wonder if you'd use the same defence about a Labour MP, I bet not.
Yes I would. You see I believe in freedom of speech
He says racist things, I'll call them out.
Of course we could go over the other racist things he's said, like attacking Obama's heritage but it doesn't matter as the Democrats haven't forgotten.
Still not a defence of your position just an attack on someone else. This is very revealing
I believe calling out racist things that people have said is often said to be "woke" when in years gone by this would have "PC crowd gone mad".
Johnson can say what he wants but calling him out for racism is not "woke" or "PC", it's doing IMHO the right thing.
We clearly have different views of what racism is, you seem to think being racist is "using colourful phrases" whereas I think it's quite simply being racist, or saying racist things, of which Johnson has undoubtedly done.
Of course you're pretending to be somehow impartial when we know full well you're just as partisan as me.
You are taking a single line in an article that was intended (although failing) to be humorous.
And ignoring the content of the article that was standing up for the rights of Muslim women to wear the burqa.
(I am actually much more troubled by the burqa than Johnson seems to be, because I suspect that - in many cases - women are forced to wear it, or conditioned to believe that it is somehow right that men can do what they want while women must be modest in order to avoid inflaming men's passions.)
No that was only one example of Johnson's racism and history of bigotry, the fact you focus on only that shows you either know and you don't care, or you have a blindspot for racism which seems to be evident.
When I called Trump's remarks racist you changed them to being bullying, you either think Trump was a racist or you don't. And if you do, you can only conclude Johnson is too as he has said similar things. So which is it?
You may not have noticed, but the comment about "bullying remarks" was a response to @kinabalu NOT you.
But enough of this conversation.
You are a self-righteous individual who likes to call other people unpleasant names when they disagree with you.
I've previously apologised for any behaviour in which I was rude to people, beyond those who bully others who I have called out repeatedly. They were deserving of such action.
I never said you were a racist, I said it seems you have a blindspot for it, it seemed to me that you redefined Trump's remarks as bullying as opposed to racist. If that was not the case then that's fine, I apologise for misunderstanding.
It's really a simple question though, do you think Trump was racist, I note you didn't answer. And I wonder if that's because if you say yes, you'll have to agree Johnson has said similarly racist things.
I'm not sure why you needed to attack me personally anyway, I get the sense you've lost the argument and you're making it personal. I recall Mrs Thatcher used to consider that victory for herself in such a case.
We can consider our conversation closed as you wish to end it, no worries - all the best.
Trump is a racist (in my view). Corbyn was an anti-semite.
I don't believe Johnson is a racist - he is a journalist in love of a colourful phrase and an equal-opportunist when it comes to offending people
I didn't expect Biden to win the popular vote by more than 6% and didn't expect Biden to win Arizona and Nevada by more than 2-3% or Wisconsin/Pennsylvania/Michigan by more than 5-6%.
I didn't bet on this election because I didn't feel confident on North Carolina, Florida, Georgia or ME-02.
It was weird the Trump vote didn't show up in polls (even though I sort of expected in some places like Florida) as said but I never really expected Trump to poll less than 44-46% nationally.
The biggest surprises in this election for me were the closeness in Wisconsin, the scale of the Trump overperformance in Miami-Dade and the scale of the Dem underperformance in the Rio Grande counties and Houston.
Loving that Trump campaign staffer who, having suffered numerous humiliations working for Trump and now facing imminent loss of their job, when told to book the “Four Seasons” for yesterday afternoon’s campaign press conference, deliberately booked the Four Seasons Landscaping car park between the porn shop and the crematorium.
By the time he or she told them where to go, it was too late for them to find anywhere else.
Of course, we don’t know for sure that it happened that way.
Mark Steyn is always a useful portal into how the American Right thinks and feels. He sounds genuinely sad and devastated for Trump. The reasons for the defeat (in no particular order):
The liberal establishment, media and legal system (unsurprisingly) Jared Kushner Rupert Murdoch Canadian voting software
Happy days. I had forgotten he existed. How are his predictions (sustained and lengthy) that American invasion will turn Iraq into the home of freedom, tolerance, peace, love, the American way of life, liberalism (steady on) and democracy getting on?
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
It makes a lot more sense if you know that at the time of writing Hegel was the accepted wisdom.
Now that's buggered you, hasn't it. You gotta go read Hegel now.
By comparison, Marx is positively racy.
Wasn’t Marx the synthesis of Schleimacher and Hegelian philosophy?
Marxist 'dialectical materialism' is a bogus development of a bogus Hegelian idea. I suspect they have both contributed their little bit to the legendary hostility the English have to any sort of theory about how reality works. Hegel took off a bit more in Scotland, where they have less sense of humour, are less able to spot the absurd and have a slightly less sure touch when confronted with long words and solemn faced theory.
It also goes some way to explaining why Corbyn supporters, like Marxists generally, are humourless, dull, impractical, wrong and talk wordy rubbish all the time.
Don't drag Schleiermacher into this. He is genuinely interesting and nice.
I like Schleiermacher! And Schumacher, Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. Descartes bores me, as does Rousseau, but Tocqueville is magical.
Although he is cherrypicking the pollster (NYT/Siena) to compare Trafalgar to.
If he'd gone for (for example) Inside Advantage, he'd have had very different results.
If you look at the RCP polling averages, you'd say that the pollsters got it broadly right in Pennsylvania (RCP average Biden +1%), Georgia (Trump +1%) and North Carolina (Trump +0.2%). In Michigan they thought it would be Biden by 4%, and it was actually Biden +3%, so I'd count that as pretty accurate too. In Arizona, they were pretty close too, reckoning on it being Biden by 0.9%.
In two states, they got it very wrong: in Wisconsin, they thought it would be Biden by 7% and it ended up as under 1% in his favour. And in Florida, the pollsters thought it would be Biden +1%, and it turned out to be Trump +3%.
It was the national that surprised me. The 8 was 4. That's quite a big miss.
It’s almost as though the state polls recognised they got wrong in 2016 and tried to rectify the faults, whilst the national polls convinced themselves they were right with no need to fix anything.
However - I wonder how the state polls would look if Trafalgar / Rasmussen, which many doubted, were taken out of the equation
Do you still think Robert Cahaly is a legitimate pollster, or just quite an astute political commentator/analyst who wears a bow tie? I am conviced it is the latter.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
That I suspect however is an aberration. I live in a large muslim town and I have only had it be explained to me as I described it. Mostly of pakistani origin not yemen. If I walked through town with a t shirt proclaiming scientology is a cult I would be arrested as others have. Walking through town with a garment that brands all men rapists should be the same.
I don't know yemenis so cant comment and no doubt some wear it for different reasons. However I know when I see a woman in a burqa thats the rebuke I feel. Let us not forget as well its labour that passed the law saying its a hate crime if the victim feels it is. I am the victim here being labelled
I've spent a great deal of my life working in the Middle East and Pakistan. This includes stays of various duration in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Yemen, Djibouti, Sudan, Turkey, and Pakistan. Saudi is the only place on that list where what you describe sounds remotely close to reality.
Granted, expatriate communities in Western countries can be more culturally conservative than the mother country, but I do not recognize the place of women in Islamic society that you describe.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
Plato used to post interesting insights from her experience at a fairly high level in the civil service (although perhaps as a contractor) but with time her claims became inconsistent (and my own, wrong, suspicion at the time was that two people, of different generations, shared the Plato account). By 2016 she was a supporter of Donald Trump, often relying on the analysis of cartoonist Scott Adams. She was perhaps the only PBer to take Trump seriously, though she rated his chances of beating Hillary Clinton at only around 30 per cent. The trouble is she followed Trump supporters too far and disappeared down the alt-right rabbit hole, forwarding any nonsensical conspiracy theories that crossed her timeline. She even managed to get herself caught up in a Twitter (or was it Facebook?) purge of Russian troll farms. And then she became ill, isolated, and died. RIP Plato.
I liked her. Quite a lot. She was brutally honest (about herself and her life and her failings), she was often wry, and sometimes rather funny, she was also politically astute (if her emotions weren't invested). She was self aware (even if she did go a bit loopy at the end)
I never met her. But I think if I had met her we'd have got on well. She became quite lonely - and told us so.
It's funny how you can become attached to people online, but you can, and her death saddened me more than I expected. RIP indeed
I know a couple of pb'ers who'd met her although, sadly, I never did.
I regret that.
I met her once I think, at a PB meet about 12(?) years ago at the NLC. I definitely remember trying to defend her after that when tim was being an utter arse to her on here.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
That I suspect however is an aberration. I live in a large muslim town and I have only had it be explained to me as I described it. Mostly of pakistani origin not yemen. If I walked through town with a t shirt proclaiming scientology is a cult I would be arrested as others have. Walking through town with a garment that brands all men rapists should be the same.
I don't know yemenis so cant comment and no doubt some wear it for different reasons. However I know when I see a woman in a burqa thats the rebuke I feel. Let us not forget as well its labour that passed the law saying its a hate crime if the victim feels it is. I am the victim here being labelled
I've spent a great deal of my life working in the Middle East and Pakistan. This includes stays of various duration in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Yemen, Djibouti, Sudan, Turkey, and Pakistan. Saudi is the only place on that list where what you describe sounds remotely close to reality.
Granted, expatriate communities in Western countries can be more conservative than the mother country, but I do not recognize the place of women in Islamic society that you describe.
You dont agree then the hiding of womens faces is to prevent the inflaming of male passions? Would you care to explain what is the purpose behind only women having to hide?
We’ve got some pretty smart people on this board. We come from many parts of the UK, and abroad. We represent a wide variety of professions, and we come together, mostly anonymously, because of our shared love of politics and interest in gambling or probability.
From what we can see in our professions and our towns - and realising that with a couple of exceptions we are speaking without knowledge of epidemiology - do we think that we are going to have a a second full fat lockdown this winter?
I’ll go first. I think in education the odds of getting through to Christmas are no better than even. Large numbers of cases are spreading in schools, and it’s going to become increasingly difficult to cover staffing gaps as they open up. And the ‘no better than even,’ incidentally, assumes that about 25% of students will be isolated or otherwise sent home at some point.
I think they’re hoping the new testing modalities (cf the Liverpool trial) will bail them out. But as they don’t yet seem to have worked out how to use the results - determined and systemic isolation of infected individuals - I’m not sure it will work. Another couple of cases in my wife’s primary last week. And it’s getting a bit cold to teach with doors and windows open.
At the moment all i can see the Liverpool testing experiment doing is condemning that city to extended misery. Because it'll just find large numbers of "additional" people who will be told to self-isolate. Towns in the south everywhere must be dreading being announced as the pilot being announced tomorrow.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
Plato used to post interesting insights from her experience at a fairly high level in the civil service (although perhaps as a contractor) but with time her claims became inconsistent (and my own, wrong, suspicion at the time was that two people, of different generations, shared the Plato account). By 2016 she was a supporter of Donald Trump, often relying on the analysis of cartoonist Scott Adams. She was perhaps the only PBer to take Trump seriously, though she rated his chances of beating Hillary Clinton at only around 30 per cent. The trouble is she followed Trump supporters too far and disappeared down the alt-right rabbit hole, forwarding any nonsensical conspiracy theories that crossed her timeline. She even managed to get herself caught up in a Twitter (or was it Facebook?) purge of Russian troll farms. And then she became ill, isolated, and died. RIP Plato.
I liked her. Quite a lot. She was brutally honest (about herself and her life and her failings), she was often wry, and sometimes rather funny, she was also politically astute (if her emotions weren't invested). She was self aware (even if she did go a bit loopy at the end)
I never met her. But I think if I had met her we'd have got on well. She became quite lonely - and told us so.
It's funny how you can become attached to people online, but you can, and her death saddened me more than I expected. RIP indeed
Well expressed and poignant. Although before my time. And what about these days? Are you getting attached to me at all?
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
It was due to more than her marital breakdown sadly, she got hit by a lot of shit in succession one after the other. While she went a little odd towards the end I am not surprised.
It was a rapid decline from being poster of the year to ban hammer from the internet.
Antifrank was cruising to victory in the POTY stakes when tim had a go at Plato, provoking a late surge of compassionate voting that put her in front by a nose. Poor Antifrank was never quite the same, and eventually changed his name and moved to Essex.
That was in the days when we still had a "Tory Herd".
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
If left-leaning means former- Remainers, yes. If left-leaning means supporters of the Labour Party, no.
Mark Steyn is always a useful portal into how the American Right thinks and feels. He sounds genuinely sad and devastated for Trump. The reasons for the defeat (in no particular order):
The liberal establishment, media and legal system (unsurprisingly) Jared Kushner Rupert Murdoch Canadian voting software
Happy days. I had forgotten he existed. How are his predictions (sustained and lengthy) that American invasion will turn Iraq into the home of freedom, tolerance, peace, love, the American way of life, liberalism (steady on) and democracy getting on?
I think he's a rather marginalized figure these days - does the occasional talking head on Fox News but I'm not aware that he still writes for any mainstream publications. You'd never guess from his recent pronouncements that back in the day he was one of the most fanatical advocates of those Middle-East interventions in Fleet Street.
I didn't realise Johnson had made insulting racist comments about Obama. Somehow I missed it but it's now being reported everywhere. He really is a piece of work. A humiliation to the UK and the Tory Party.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
That I suspect however is an aberration. I live in a large muslim town and I have only had it be explained to me as I described it. Mostly of pakistani origin not yemen. If I walked through town with a t shirt proclaiming scientology is a cult I would be arrested as others have. Walking through town with a garment that brands all men rapists should be the same.
I don't know yemenis so cant comment and no doubt some wear it for different reasons. However I know when I see a woman in a burqa thats the rebuke I feel. Let us not forget as well its labour that passed the law saying its a hate crime if the victim feels it is. I am the victim here being labelled
I've spent a great deal of my life working in the Middle East and Pakistan. This includes stays of various duration in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Yemen, Djibouti, Sudan, Turkey, and Pakistan. Saudi is the only place on that list where what you describe sounds remotely close to reality.
Granted, expatriate communities in Western countries can be more conservative than the mother country, but I do not recognize the place of women in Islamic society that you describe.
You dont agree then the hiding of womens faces is to prevent the inflaming of male passions? Would you care to explain what is the purpose behind only women having to hide?
According to the BBC seven states are still at less than 90% counted (with Alaska at 53%) and none are at 100% yet.
They do take their time, don't they?
Many states still haven't reached deadlines for receiving ballots. Or being allowed to "cure" errors in absentee ballots. And processing provisional ballots takes upto 20 minutes per ballot.
Woke is just a term used to be racist or sexist, or generally horrible that is still acceptable.
No, it really isn't although that's what its defenders (almost always) say in its defence.
Woke is a warped Marxist theory that's transmuted from academia into the real world and views everyone through a complex hierarchical and intersectional power dynamic where we are all classified by race, gender and sexuality and bracketed (and treated) as relative oppressors or victims accordingly. It uses this as a starting point to undercut some of the established values and historical foundations of our society in the hope that by breaking it down something better (Marxist utopia) that they believe will take its place. It cleverly condemns its opponents as racists and sexists to enforce its dogma and silence dissent. It's a big reason why they say "don't expect minorities to educate you on racism" - because they fear they wouldn't be on message; just look at how they attack those who are not - and instead say, please read my favoured best-selling culturally marxist book and 'educate yourself'.
Example: an unWoke person would be concerned that some Black people still experience some racial discrimination in the UK and would want to talk to them about it to understand it and change it. They wouldn't take a knee, tear down statues, or talk about White Privilege. They would emphasis the common-bonds they have of shared Britishness, they would demonstrate empathy they would talk about fairness, and they would talk about opening up opportunities for them and increasing role models. They would try harder to think about things from their point of view in future and bring everyone of all backgrounds, races and politics along with them. They wouldn't plaster what they're doing all over social media out of insecurity narcissism.
A Woke person would say either you buy into the whole lot, or you're suspect.. or worse.
Great post CR.
I don't think it's a particularly great post to be honest and seems to contradict a lot of what he says when he just mindlessly calls others woke.
I don't think anyone here fits into that view of "wokeness" - and I am about 99% sure if you asked the average person what woke means, they would not say that.
For me what being woke is used for is just today's politically correct, it's saying something you know is offensive but you feel like this gives you cover to say it without being challenged. You have an opinion, air it and we will debate it. End of story.
Who's defending saying anything offensive?
I would challenge anyone who said something racist, but I won't go down on one knee, or label myself and others as having White Privilege.
That might get some initial attention, or make sense in an academic thesis, but, when translated into the real world, divides far more people than it unites.
It's been said before that challenging the disgraceful comments Johnson has made about Islam, or Obama, makes you "woke" and "PC". I am not saying that's you, I am saying your definition is not shared by most/many, especially and including the MSM at large who people look to for their definition.
I think that the problem is that Johnson is was journalist with a live of colourful phrases.
The comment about Muslim women in full burkas looting like “letterboxes” was in an article defending their right to do so.
But people have chosen to focus on his perceived insult to Muslim people rather than his defence of their rights.
And yet they idolise Macron who had banned the things.
Funny old world isn’t it when what people say matters more than what they do
"Colourful phrases", I wonder if you'd use the same defence about a Labour MP, I bet not.
Yes I would. You see I believe in freedom of speech
He says racist things, I'll call them out.
Of course we could go over the other racist things he's said, like attacking Obama's heritage but it doesn't matter as the Democrats haven't forgotten.
Still not a defence of your position just an attack on someone else. This is very revealing
I believe calling out racist things that people have said is often said to be "woke" when in years gone by this would have "PC crowd gone mad".
Johnson can say what he wants but calling him out for racism is not "woke" or "PC", it's doing IMHO the right thing.
We clearly have different views of what racism is, you seem to think being racist is "using colourful phrases" whereas I think it's quite simply being racist, or saying racist things, of which Johnson has undoubtedly done.
Of course you're pretending to be somehow impartial when we know full well you're just as partisan as me.
You are taking a single line in an article that was intended (although failing) to be humorous.
And ignoring the content of the article that was standing up for the rights of Muslim women to wear the burqa.
(I am actually much more troubled by the burqa than Johnson seems to be, because I suspect that - in many cases - women are forced to wear it, or conditioned to believe that it is somehow right that men can do what they want while women must be modest in order to avoid inflaming men's passions.)
No that was only one example of Johnson's racism and history of bigotry, the fact you focus on only that shows you either know and you don't care, or you have a blindspot for racism which seems to be evident.
When I called Trump's remarks racist you changed them to being bullying, you either think Trump was a racist or you don't. And if you do, you can only conclude Johnson is too as he has said similar things. So which is it?
You may not have noticed, but the comment about "bullying remarks" was a response to @kinabalu NOT you.
But enough of this conversation.
You are a self-righteous individual who likes to call other people unpleasant names when they disagree with you.
I've previously apologised for any behaviour in which I was rude to people, beyond those who bully others who I have called out repeatedly. They were deserving of such action.
I never said you were a racist, I said it seems you have a blindspot for it, it seemed to me that you redefined Trump's remarks as bullying as opposed to racist. If that was not the case then that's fine, I apologise for misunderstanding.
It's really a simple question though, do you think Trump was racist, I note you didn't answer. And I wonder if that's because if you say yes, you'll have to agree Johnson has said similarly racist things.
I'm not sure why you needed to attack me personally anyway, I get the sense you've lost the argument and you're making it personal. I recall Mrs Thatcher used to consider that victory for herself in such a case.
We can consider our conversation closed as you wish to end it, no worries - all the best.
Trump is a racist (in my view). Corbyn was an anti-semite.
I don't believe Johnson is a racist - he is a journalist in love of a colourful phrase and an equal-opportunist when it comes to offending people
I think you can be a racist without knowing it. Johnson fits that category perfectly.
Just some people take it to another level: as you say, Corbyn and Trump being examples.
We’ve got some pretty smart people on this board. We come from many parts of the UK, and abroad. We represent a wide variety of professions, and we come together, mostly anonymously, because of our shared love of politics and interest in gambling or probability.
From what we can see in our professions and our towns - and realising that with a couple of exceptions we are speaking without knowledge of epidemiology - do we think that we are going to have a a second full fat lockdown this winter?
I’ll go first. I think in education the odds of getting through to Christmas are no better than even. Large numbers of cases are spreading in schools, and it’s going to become increasingly difficult to cover staffing gaps as they open up. And the ‘no better than even,’ incidentally, assumes that about 25% of students will be isolated or otherwise sent home at some point.
I think they’re hoping the new testing modalities (cf the Liverpool trial) will bail them out. But as they don’t yet seem to have worked out how to use the results - determined and systemic isolation of infected individuals - I’m not sure it will work. Another couple of cases in my wife’s primary last week. And it’s getting a bit cold to teach with doors and windows open.
At the moment all i can see the Liverpool testing experiment doing is condemning that city to extended misery. Because it'll just find large numbers of "additional" people who will be told to self-isolate. Towns in the south everywhere must be dreading being announced as the pilot being announced tomorrow.
You do realise that breaking the transmission is the easiest and best way to get back to normal don't you?
If additional people are told to self isolate then that should lead to fewer people being infected. That will lead to less misery not more.
Quarantining the actually infectious is better than locking down everyone.
I didn't realise Johnson had made insulting racist comments about Obama. Somehow I missed it but it's now being reported everywhere. He really is a piece of work. A humiliation to the UK and the Tory Party.
I didn't realise Johnson had made insulting racist comments about Obama. Somehow I missed it but it's now being reported everywhere. He really is a piece of work. A humiliation to the UK and the Tory Party.
Weren't you the polanski apologist? While no fan of Boris personally I don't think you have a leg to stand on when casting stones
We’ve got some pretty smart people on this board. We come from many parts of the UK, and abroad. We represent a wide variety of professions, and we come together, mostly anonymously, because of our shared love of politics and interest in gambling or probability.
From what we can see in our professions and our towns - and realising that with a couple of exceptions we are speaking without knowledge of epidemiology - do we think that we are going to have a a second full fat lockdown this winter?
I’ll go first. I think in education the odds of getting through to Christmas are no better than even. Large numbers of cases are spreading in schools, and it’s going to become increasingly difficult to cover staffing gaps as they open up. And the ‘no better than even,’ incidentally, assumes that about 25% of students will be isolated or otherwise sent home at some point.
I think they’re hoping the new testing modalities (cf the Liverpool trial) will bail them out. But as they don’t yet seem to have worked out how to use the results - determined and systemic isolation of infected individuals - I’m not sure it will work. Another couple of cases in my wife’s primary last week. And it’s getting a bit cold to teach with doors and windows open.
At the moment all i can see the Liverpool testing experiment doing is condemning that city to extended misery. Because it'll just find large numbers of "additional" people who will be told to self-isolate. Towns in the south everywhere must be dreading being announced as the pilot being announced tomorrow.
You do realise that breaking the transmission is the easiest and best way to get back to normal don't you?
If additional people are told to self isolate then that should lead to fewer people being infected. That will lead to less misery not more.
Quarantining the actually infectious is better than locking down everyone.
That's all very well if they have a clear plan to enforce self isolation.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
That I suspect however is an aberration. I live in a large muslim town and I have only had it be explained to me as I described it. Mostly of pakistani origin not yemen. If I walked through town with a t shirt proclaiming scientology is a cult I would be arrested as others have. Walking through town with a garment that brands all men rapists should be the same.
I don't know yemenis so cant comment and no doubt some wear it for different reasons. However I know when I see a woman in a burqa thats the rebuke I feel. Let us not forget as well its labour that passed the law saying its a hate crime if the victim feels it is. I am the victim here being labelled
I've spent a great deal of my life working in the Middle East and Pakistan. This includes stays of various duration in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Yemen, Djibouti, Sudan, Turkey, and Pakistan. Saudi is the only place on that list where what you describe sounds remotely close to reality.
Granted, expatriate communities in Western countries can be more conservative than the mother country, but I do not recognize the place of women in Islamic society that you describe.
You dont agree then the hiding of womens faces is to prevent the inflaming of male passions? Would you care to explain what is the purpose behind only women having to hide?
No, I really can't be bothered.
Then I have to go by what I have been told by muslim men really dont I as you refuse to elucidate, the couple of muslim women as well I have worked with that have worn it and felt they had to
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
Regular readers will know that I'm not exactly the greatest fan of Boris, but there is nothing racist in any of those examples:
1. "piccaninnies with watermelon smiles" This was quite clearly a lampoon. He deliberately used a very obsolete phrase to emphasise and give colour to his point that Blair and Cherie were like late nineteenth century or early twentieth century colonialists, condescending and patronising, and expecting the local people to be grateful.
2. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more. It's a fairly silly point, but no-one is seriously going to argue that there is good governance throughout British ex-colonies in Africa. So what's racist about it?
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
4. "To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke... Judged purely on its scripture — to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques — it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers." Nothing racist in that, it's an opinion about a religion which (it may surprise you to hear) has been responsible for many violent acts this century.
I'm ok with (1). I think (2) would be ok if it gave direct before/after comparators - for example, in the Gold Coast, Zimbabwe or Jamaica - and a hat tip for how things would be run by us today to make a point.
I'm less convinced by (3). I detest the burka/niqab but I am aware Muslim women sometimes get abused by these names, which I don't think is right - particularly since they don't always have a choice. So I personally wouldn't use it.
I think (4) is too broad-brush. It tries to apologise for Islamophobia whereas I'd prefer to distinguish between the parts of the Koran that are violent and how extremists exploit that, rather than insinuate it's vicious as a whole and heartless to any unbelievers. I'd prefer to encourage and motivate the liberal reformers and isolate the extreme voices.
I knew a gorgeous Muslim girl (moderate) who I really fancied once, and I think she did me. It irritated me that nothing could or would ever happen unless I converted, and she made it clear she would never be able to do the same.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
It was due to more than her marital breakdown sadly, she got hit by a lot of shit in succession one after the other. While she went a little odd towards the end I am not surprised.
It was a rapid decline from being poster of the year to ban hammer from the internet.
Antifrank was cruising to victory in the POTY stakes when tim had a go at Plato, provoking a late surge of compassionate voting that put her in front by a nose. Poor Antifrank was never quite the same, and eventually changed his name and moved to Essex.
That was in the days when we still had a "Tory Herd".
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
It seems inconceivable now but I am sure that like me you can remember a time in the distant past when the place was lousy with LibDems.
This morning over breakfast, Wor Lass gave a powerful advocacy of eco-authoritarianism, and berated the leadership of the Green Party for not being sufficiently focused on the environmental agenda.
I didn't realise Johnson had made insulting racist comments about Obama. Somehow I missed it but it's now being reported everywhere. He really is a piece of work. A humiliation to the UK and the Tory Party.
This is what Nick Cohen, formerly of the PB parish, had to say about it:
Boris Johnson is a former editor of this newspaper, and as such has the right to be treated with a courtesy Spectator journalists do not normally extend to politicians who do not enjoy his advantages.
I am therefore writing with the caution of a lawyer and the deference of a palace flunkey when I say that Johnson showed this morning that he is a man without principle or shame. He is a braying charlatan, who lacks the courage even to be an honest bastard, for there is a kind of bastardly integrity in showing the world who you really are, but instead uses the tactics of the coward and the tricks of the fraudster to advance his worthless career.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
It was due to more than her marital breakdown sadly, she got hit by a lot of shit in succession one after the other. While she went a little odd towards the end I am not surprised.
It was a rapid decline from being poster of the year to ban hammer from the internet.
Antifrank was cruising to victory in the POTY stakes when tim had a go at Plato, provoking a late surge of compassionate voting that put her in front by a nose. Poor Antifrank was never quite the same, and eventually changed his name and moved to Essex.
That was in the days when we still had a "Tory Herd".
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
If left-leaning means former- Remainers, yes. If left-leaning means supporters of the Labour Party, no.
The Labour Party aren't the only leftists on the site. We also have SNPers, independent, Lib Dems etc.
Richard Nabavi. The thing about racism is that you often don't realise you're saying it or thinking it until it's pointed out. Your examples are all racist. Period.
Take some time to reflect and use it as a learning experience.
No doubt Johnson is a racist, just not a very obvious one. He covers everything he ever does in smoke and mirrors that mean you have to see through the magician's sleight of hand.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
It is interesting to see that those brave defenders of the burqa ignore the innate sexisim in wearing the garment. First you have those women who are coerced into it. Secondly the act of wearing the garment whose express purpose is "So you dont inflame the desires of men" labels all men as people unable to control their desires. If a woman walked down the street screaming rapist at every man we would call her misandrist. The burqa explicitily does that without the need for her to scream it
Or, as was the case in Yemen when I first arrived there, young educated women at the University of Sana'a started wearing it instead of either traditional Yemeni dress or Western attire as a fashion statement, and to assist in flirtation.
We really don't advance understanding if we insist on seeing complex social issues as either or.
That I suspect however is an aberration. I live in a large muslim town and I have only had it be explained to me as I described it. Mostly of pakistani origin not yemen. If I walked through town with a t shirt proclaiming scientology is a cult I would be arrested as others have. Walking through town with a garment that brands all men rapists should be the same.
I don't know yemenis so cant comment and no doubt some wear it for different reasons. However I know when I see a woman in a burqa thats the rebuke I feel. Let us not forget as well its labour that passed the law saying its a hate crime if the victim feels it is. I am the victim here being labelled
I've spent a great deal of my life working in the Middle East and Pakistan. This includes stays of various duration in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Yemen, Djibouti, Sudan, Turkey, and Pakistan. Saudi is the only place on that list where what you describe sounds remotely close to reality.
Granted, expatriate communities in Western countries can be more conservative than the mother country, but I do not recognize the place of women in Islamic society that you describe.
You dont agree then the hiding of womens faces is to prevent the inflaming of male passions? Would you care to explain what is the purpose behind only women having to hide?
No, I really can't be bothered.
Then I have to go by what I have been told by muslim men really dont I as you refuse to elucidate, the couple of muslim women as well I have worked with that have worn it and felt they had to
The burqua isnt a muslim thing its a cultaral thing prevalent in some cultures that happen to be muslim. I admitted I dont know yemeni's but the reason for wearing it in pakistans culture I have been told by many
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
It was due to more than her marital breakdown sadly, she got hit by a lot of shit in succession one after the other. While she went a little odd towards the end I am not surprised.
It was a rapid decline from being poster of the year to ban hammer from the internet.
Antifrank was cruising to victory in the POTY stakes when tim had a go at Plato, provoking a late surge of compassionate voting that put her in front by a nose. Poor Antifrank was never quite the same, and eventually changed his name and moved to Essex.
That was in the days when we still had a "Tory Herd".
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
It was due to more than her marital breakdown sadly, she got hit by a lot of shit in succession one after the other. While she went a little odd towards the end I am not surprised.
It was a rapid decline from being poster of the year to ban hammer from the internet.
Antifrank was cruising to victory in the POTY stakes when tim had a go at Plato, provoking a late surge of compassionate voting that put her in front by a nose. Poor Antifrank was never quite the same, and eventually changed his name and moved to Essex.
That was in the days when we still had a "Tory Herd".
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
If left-leaning means former- Remainers, yes. If left-leaning means supporters of the Labour Party, no.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
It was due to more than her marital breakdown sadly, she got hit by a lot of shit in succession one after the other. While she went a little odd towards the end I am not surprised.
It was a rapid decline from being poster of the year to ban hammer from the internet.
Antifrank was cruising to victory in the POTY stakes when tim had a go at Plato, provoking a late surge of compassionate voting that put her in front by a nose. Poor Antifrank was never quite the same, and eventually changed his name and moved to Essex.
That was in the days when we still had a "Tory Herd".
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
It seems inconceivable now but I am sure that like me you can remember a time in the distant past when the place was lousy with LibDems.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
Regular readers will know that I'm not exactly the greatest fan of Boris, but there is nothing racist in any of those examples:
1. "piccaninnies with watermelon smiles" This was quite clearly a lampoon. He deliberately used a very obsolete phrase to emphasise and give colour to his point that Blair and Cherie were like late nineteenth century or early twentieth century colonialists, condescending and patronising, and expecting the local people to be grateful.
2. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more. It's a fairly silly point, but no-one is seriously going to argue that there is good governance throughout British ex-colonies in Africa. So what's racist about it?
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
4. "To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke... Judged purely on its scripture — to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques — it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers." Nothing racist in that, it's an opinion about a religion which (it may surprise you to hear) has been responsible for many violent acts this century.
I'm ok with (1). I think (2) would be ok if it gave direct before/after comparators - for example, in the Gold Coast, Zimbabwe or Jamaica - and a hat tip for how things would be run by us today to make a point.
I'm less convinced by (3). I detest the burka/niqab but I am aware Muslim women sometimes get abused by these names, which I don't think is right - particularly since they don't always have a choice. So I personally wouldn't use it.
I think (4) is too broad-brush. It tries to apologise for Islamophobia whereas I'd prefer to distinguish between the parts of the Koran that are violent and how extremists exploit that, rather than insinuate it's vicious as a whole and heartless to any unbelievers. I'd prefer to encourage and motivate the liberal reformers and isolate the extreme voices.
I knew a gorgeous Muslim girl (moderate) who I really fancied once, and I think she did me. It irritated me that nothing could or would ever happen unless I converted, and she made it clear she would never be able to do the same.
That annoyed me then and it still does!
The proposed ban on incitement to “religious hatred” makes no sense unless it involves a ban on the Koran itself; and that would be pretty absurd, when you consider that the Bill's intention is to fight Islamophobia.
Woke is just a term used to be racist or sexist, or generally horrible that is still acceptable.
No, it really isn't although that's what its defenders (almost always) say in its defence.
Woke is a warped Marxist theory that's transmuted from academia into the real world and views everyone through a complex hierarchical and intersectional power dynamic where we are all classified by race, gender and sexuality and bracketed (and treated) as relative oppressors or victims accordingly. It uses this as a starting point to undercut some of the established values and historical foundations of our society in the hope that by breaking it down something better (Marxist utopia) that they believe will take its place. It cleverly condemns its opponents as racists and sexists to enforce its dogma and silence dissent. It's a big reason why they say "don't expect minorities to educate you on racism" - because they fear they wouldn't be on message; just look at how they attack those who are not - and instead say, please read my favoured best-selling culturally marxist book and 'educate yourself'.
Example: an unWoke person would be concerned that some Black people still experience some racial discrimination in the UK and would want to talk to them about it to understand it and change it. They wouldn't take a knee, tear down statues, or talk about White Privilege. They would emphasis the common-bonds they have of shared Britishness, they would demonstrate empathy they would talk about fairness, and they would talk about opening up opportunities for them and increasing role models. They would try harder to think about things from their point of view in future and bring everyone of all backgrounds, races and politics along with them. They wouldn't plaster what they're doing all over social media out of insecurity narcissism.
A Woke person would say either you buy into the whole lot, or you're suspect.. or worse.
Great post CR.
I don't think it's a particularly great post to be honest and seems to contradict a lot of what he says when he just mindlessly calls others woke.
I don't think anyone here fits into that view of "wokeness" - and I am about 99% sure if you asked the average person what woke means, they would not say that.
For me what being woke is used for is just today's politically correct, it's saying something you know is offensive but you feel like this gives you cover to say it without being challenged. You have an opinion, air it and we will debate it. End of story.
Who's defending saying anything offensive?
I would challenge anyone who said something racist, but I won't go down on one knee, or label myself and others as having White Privilege.
That might get some initial attention, or make sense in an academic thesis, but, when translated into the real world, divides far more people than it unites.
It's been said before that challenging the disgraceful comments Johnson has made about Islam, or Obama, makes you "woke" and "PC". I am not saying that's you, I am saying your definition is not shared by most/many, especially and including the MSM at large who people look to for their definition.
I think that the problem is that Johnson is was journalist with a live of colourful phrases.
The comment about Muslim women in full burkas looting like “letterboxes” was in an article defending their right to do so.
But people have chosen to focus on his perceived insult to Muslim people rather than his defence of their rights.
And yet they idolise Macron who had banned the things.
Funny old world isn’t it when what people say matters more than what they do
"Colourful phrases", I wonder if you'd use the same defence about a Labour MP, I bet not.
Yes I would. You see I believe in freedom of speech
He says racist things, I'll call them out.
Of course we could go over the other racist things he's said, like attacking Obama's heritage but it doesn't matter as the Democrats haven't forgotten.
Still not a defence of your position just an attack on someone else. This is very revealing
I believe calling out racist things that people have said is often said to be "woke" when in years gone by this would have "PC crowd gone mad".
Johnson can say what he wants but calling him out for racism is not "woke" or "PC", it's doing IMHO the right thing.
We clearly have different views of what racism is, you seem to think being racist is "using colourful phrases" whereas I think it's quite simply being racist, or saying racist things, of which Johnson has undoubtedly done.
Of course you're pretending to be somehow impartial when we know full well you're just as partisan as me.
You are taking a single line in an article that was intended (although failing) to be humorous.
And ignoring the content of the article that was standing up for the rights of Muslim women to wear the burqa.
(I am actually much more troubled by the burqa than Johnson seems to be, because I suspect that - in many cases - women are forced to wear it, or conditioned to believe that it is somehow right that men can do what they want while women must be modest in order to avoid inflaming men's passions.)
No that was only one example of Johnson's racism and history of bigotry, the fact you focus on only that shows you either know and you don't care, or you have a blindspot for racism which seems to be evident.
When I called Trump's remarks racist you changed them to being bullying, you either think Trump was a racist or you don't. And if you do, you can only conclude Johnson is too as he has said similar things. So which is it?
You may not have noticed, but the comment about "bullying remarks" was a response to @kinabalu NOT you.
But enough of this conversation.
You are a self-righteous individual who likes to call other people unpleasant names when they disagree with you.
I've previously apologised for any behaviour in which I was rude to people, beyond those who bully others who I have called out repeatedly. They were deserving of such action.
I never said you were a racist, I said it seems you have a blindspot for it, it seemed to me that you redefined Trump's remarks as bullying as opposed to racist. If that was not the case then that's fine, I apologise for misunderstanding.
It's really a simple question though, do you think Trump was racist, I note you didn't answer. And I wonder if that's because if you say yes, you'll have to agree Johnson has said similarly racist things.
I'm not sure why you needed to attack me personally anyway, I get the sense you've lost the argument and you're making it personal. I recall Mrs Thatcher used to consider that victory for herself in such a case.
We can consider our conversation closed as you wish to end it, no worries - all the best.
Trump is a racist (in my view). Corbyn was an anti-semite.
I don't believe Johnson is a racist - he is a journalist in love of a colourful phrase and an equal-opportunist when it comes to offending people
Does he equally aim offensive comments at his chums who are fellow members of the undeserving plutocracy?
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
It was due to more than her marital breakdown sadly, she got hit by a lot of shit in succession one after the other. While she went a little odd towards the end I am not surprised.
It was a rapid decline from being poster of the year to ban hammer from the internet.
Antifrank was cruising to victory in the POTY stakes when tim had a go at Plato, provoking a late surge of compassionate voting that put her in front by a nose. Poor Antifrank was never quite the same, and eventually changed his name and moved to Essex.
That was in the days when we still had a "Tory Herd".
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
If left-leaning means former- Remainers, yes. If left-leaning means supporters of the Labour Party, no.
The Labour Party aren't the only leftists on the site. We also have SNPers, independent, Lib Dems etc.
In my view the left are in a clear majority here now. That comes with 10 years of CON led government.
In the old days the right were much more in evidence!
I didn't realise Johnson had made insulting racist comments about Obama. Somehow I missed it but it's now being reported everywhere. He really is a piece of work. A humiliation to the UK and the Tory Party.
I didn't realise Johnson had made insulting racist comments about Obama. Somehow I missed it but it's now being reported everywhere. He really is a piece of work. A humiliation to the UK and the Tory Party.
Weren't you the polanski apologist? While no fan of Boris personally I don't think you have a leg to stand on when casting stones
What a ridiculous post. Polanski is a film director whose behavior has no bearing on the UK or indeed anywhere else. Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. His behaviour has a reach well beyond himself affecting up to 67 million people. Get a grip!
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
It was due to more than her marital breakdown sadly, she got hit by a lot of shit in succession one after the other. While she went a little odd towards the end I am not surprised.
It was a rapid decline from being poster of the year to ban hammer from the internet.
Antifrank was cruising to victory in the POTY stakes when tim had a go at Plato, provoking a late surge of compassionate voting that put her in front by a nose. Poor Antifrank was never quite the same, and eventually changed his name and moved to Essex.
That was in the days when we still had a "Tory Herd".
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
It seems inconceivable now but I am sure that like me you can remember a time in the distant past when the place was lousy with LibDems.
Regular readers will know that I'm not exactly the greatest fan of Boris, but there is nothing racist in any of those examples:
1. "piccaninnies with watermelon smiles" This was quite clearly a lampoon. He deliberately used a very obsolete phrase to emphasise and give colour to his point that Blair and Cherie were like late nineteenth century or early twentieth century colonialists, condescending and patronising, and expecting the local people to be grateful.
2. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more. It's a fairly silly point, but no-one is seriously going to argue that there is good governance throughout British ex-colonies in Africa. So what's racist about it?
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
4. "To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke... Judged purely on its scripture — to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques — it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers." Nothing racist in that, it's an opinion about a religion which (it may surprise you to hear) has been responsible for many violent acts this century.
I'm ok with (1). I think (2) would be ok if it gave direct before/after comparators - for example, in the Gold Coast, Zimbabwe or Jamaica - and a hat tip for how things would be run by us today to make a point.
I'm less convinced by (3). I detest the burka/niqab but I am aware Muslim women sometimes get abused by these names, which I don't think is right - particularly since they don't always have a choice. So I personally wouldn't use it.
I think (4) is too broad-brush. It tries to apologise for Islamophobia whereas I'd prefer to distinguish between the parts of the Koran that are violent and how extremists exploit that, rather than insinuate it's vicious as a whole and heartless to any unbelievers. I'd prefer to encourage and motivate the liberal reformers and isolate the extreme voices.
I knew a gorgeous Muslim girl (moderate) who I really fancied once, and I think she did me. It irritated me that nothing could or would ever happen unless I converted, and she made it clear she would never be able to do the same.
As someone who has been slowly making their way through a compilation of Marx's writings my two main takeaways are:
1. Most of it is tedious in the extreme; hundreds of pages to say that workers add more value than they get paid - well isn't that amazing. 2. He offers no solutions. Throw over the oppressors, then what? Get back to work, do what you're told and we are in charge now.
How this can form the basis of an ideology, or a means to motivate the masses baffles me. You can see right through it.
As the great man said: What's the point in saying destroy? I want a new life for everywhere.
I guess that's why I'm a Democratic Socialist, rather than a raving Commie.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to Marx here - there really is quite a lot more than this to his writings (yes, I have studied him). On politics, history, economics, and philosophy he covers a broad sweep of stuff. And, agree with him or not, he has had a huge influence on both intellectual thought and real-life politics (some will say wholly negative) over the last 150 years. Much more than any right-wing thinker or philosopher, I'd venture.
His thinking changed many people in the twentieth century. It changed a lot of people from being live people to dead people under Stalin,Mao and Pol pot etc
Given that Marx died in 1883, I'm not sure you can blame him for the atrocities you cite. But it is common to do so from those who don't understand (or have never read) Marx yet somehow deduce what he would have thought about various movements that used his name in vain.
He attempted to reduce political/economic theory to a solved problem.
The slight flaw with that, is the humans and their constructs are fundamentally non-linear.
So Marx's disciples were faced with an ocean of proles not doing what they were supposed to do, according to The New Testament.
So, with solemn fervour, they set about fixing the problem. By applying the logic of Procrustes to the real world.
Have you ever read the 18e Brumaire of Louis Napoleon?
It’s the one serious attempt Marx made to fit his theories to actual events.
And it’s absolutely hilarious how they keep not matching.
No - I haven't. Interesting.
Reality - wrong since Plato....
Ah,Plato. Bless her, reality was not her long suit towards the end. It is perhaps as well she did not live to see this, as it would have caused her much trauma and confusion.
Plato was a bit of a tragid case. People from here met her in real life and at the time was a perfectly reasonable individual. But in later years, i think her marriage breakdown, lot her comfortable existance and became lonely and isolated and became caught up in all thr crazy stuff that has now morphed into the QAnon conspiracy loons.
It was due to more than her marital breakdown sadly, she got hit by a lot of shit in succession one after the other. While she went a little odd towards the end I am not surprised.
It was a rapid decline from being poster of the year to ban hammer from the internet.
Antifrank was cruising to victory in the POTY stakes when tim had a go at Plato, provoking a late surge of compassionate voting that put her in front by a nose. Poor Antifrank was never quite the same, and eventually changed his name and moved to Essex.
That was in the days when we still had a "Tory Herd".
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
If left-leaning means former- Remainers, yes. If left-leaning means supporters of the Labour Party, no.
The Labour Party aren't the only leftists on the site. We also have SNPers, independent, Lib Dems etc.
In my view the left are in a clear majority here now. That comes with 10 years of CON led government.
In the old days the right were much more in evidence!
It's natural on sites like this that opponents of the government become the majority.
The Tory herd was after a dozen years of Labour Government. After a decade of Tory led government things change.
If you opposed Labour because of anti-Semitism - a noble thing to do - you cannot support Johnson as he is also a racist.
To attempt to modify his remarks from racist/sexist to something else is utterly insulting.
Replace Boris Johnson with Jeremy Corbyn and let's see the difference in reaction.
Regular readers will know that I'm not exactly the greatest fan of Boris, but there is nothing racist in any of those examples:
1. "piccaninnies with watermelon smiles" This was quite clearly a lampoon. He deliberately used a very obsolete phrase to emphasise and give colour to his point that Blair and Cherie were like late nineteenth century or early twentieth century colonialists, condescending and patronising, and expecting the local people to be grateful.
2. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more. It's a fairly silly point, but no-one is seriously going to argue that there is good governance throughout British ex-colonies in Africa. So what's racist about it?
3. Comparing Muslim women who wear burqas to "letter boxes" and bank robbers.. Well, that's fair enough, it's an opinion that those particular clothes look pretty silly, as a Guardian article had said a few months earlier using exactly the same phrase. Are we not allowed to comment on dress without being accused of racism, for heaven's sake? Especially as, as has been pointed out zillions of times, Boris was arguing against a ban on burqas. If you're looking for racists on the basis of attitude to burqas, perhaps you should turn your attention to France, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, which have actually banned them.
4. "To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke... Judged purely on its scripture — to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques — it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers." Nothing racist in that, it's an opinion about a religion which (it may surprise you to hear) has been responsible for many violent acts this century.
I'm ok with (1). I think (2) would be ok if it gave direct before/after comparators - for example, in the Gold Coast, Zimbabwe or Jamaica - and a hat tip for how things would be run by us today to make a point.
I'm less convinced by (3). I detest the burka/niqab but I am aware Muslim women sometimes get abused by these names, which I don't think is right - particularly since they don't always have a choice. So I personally wouldn't use it.
I think (4) is too broad-brush. It tries to apologise for Islamophobia whereas I'd prefer to distinguish between the parts of the Koran that are violent and how extremists exploit that, rather than insinuate it's vicious as a whole and heartless to any unbelievers. I'd prefer to encourage and motivate the liberal reformers and isolate the extreme voices.
I knew a gorgeous Muslim girl (moderate) who I really fancied once, and I think she did me. It irritated me that nothing could or would ever happen unless I converted, and she made it clear she would never be able to do the same.
That annoyed me then and it still does!
The proposed ban on incitement to “religious hatred” makes no sense unless it involves a ban on the Koran itself; and that would be pretty absurd, when you consider that the Bill's intention is to fight Islamophobia.
Comments
I really don't know what McConnell will do. The GOP must have an eye on 2022 mid-terms already. So the calculation must be around, how do we take the House in the mid-terms - will obstructionism help us, or will some, even if only modest, cooperation be more what the American people will reward at this point? I strongly believe the US public would reward the latter more, but will McConnell come to the same conclusion? I don't know.
Much better to let the President tell us who has won.
Seriously, it does suggest he is trying to buy time. Has Vladimir called in the loans?
The mutation is in the spike protein, the feature of the virus targeted by nearly all vaccines under development. There also seems to be a suggestion immunity from original Covid-19 infection won't be as effective, but little is really known at this stage.
The Danish authorities seem to be moving, but I have a horrible feeling the horse has already bolted. Not good news I fear.
I never met her. But I think if I had met her we'd have got on well. She became quite lonely - and told us so.
It's funny how you can become attached to people online, but you can, and her death saddened me more than I expected. RIP indeed
The point of someone always making jokes makes it more likely that these remarks are jokes not less likely.
My only friend over here who correctly predicted Trump's win in 2016 also relied on Scott Adam's analysis of Trump in terms of Robert Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion"
Securing a deal might be possible & that is not the same as implementation.
Moreover, I looked at official stats for imports (can't be bothered to average everything) for 2016
https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/internationaltrade/articles/whodoestheuktradewith/2017-02-21
EU + EFTA + USA + China/HK + Japan >80% of UK imports.
Clearly by 2022 is what might be loosely called "an ambition" i.e. sounds good but never going to be achieved. But it's not absolutely impossible.
I had expected to see the solidify for Trump in the polling before election day (indeed I failed to take someone up on the bet that it would be within 4 or 5 by election day) but that did not materialise. They stayed DK to the bitter end.
Lead moves up a touch to 19,348.
However - I wonder how the state polls would look if Trafalgar / Rasmussen, which many doubted, were taken out of the equation
McConnell does deny, deny, deny - and has for years. Why should he change? So far his strategy has sewn up the US Federal Court system for maybe 2 generations...
I am not a badge of honour,
I am not a racist smear,
I am not a fashion statement,
To be worn but once a year,
I am not glorification
Of conflict or of war.
I am not a paper ornament
A token,
I am more.
I am a loving memory,
Of a father or a son,
A permanent reminder
Of each and every one.
I'm paper or enamel
I’m old or shining new,
I’m a way of saying thank you,
To every one of you.
I am a simple poppy
A Reminder to you all,
That courage faith and honour
Will stand were heroes fall.
.........................................
Paul Hunter.
Guinness West Indies Porter.
Was on offer at Waitrose a few weeks ago, and is rather nice.
The liberal establishment, media and legal system (unsurprisingly)
Jared Kushner
Rupert Murdoch
Canadian voting software
https://www.steynonline.com/10749/election-day-plus-five
ok I misremembered was a placard not a t shirt
I regret that.
Set CRM-114 to OPE, Set CRM-114 to OPE
But as they don’t yet seem to have worked out how to use the results - determined and systemic isolation of infected individuals - I’m not sure it will work.
Another couple of cases in my wife’s primary last week. And it’s getting a bit cold to teach with doors and windows open.
That's gone now, and I think left-leaning posters are in a clear majority now.
I don't believe Johnson is a racist - he is a journalist in love of a colourful phrase and an equal-opportunist when it comes to offending people
I didn't bet on this election because I didn't feel confident on North Carolina, Florida, Georgia or ME-02.
It was weird the Trump vote didn't show up in polls (even though I sort of expected in some places like Florida) as said but I never really expected Trump to poll less than 44-46% nationally.
The biggest surprises in this election for me were the closeness in Wisconsin, the scale of the Trump overperformance in Miami-Dade and the scale of the Dem underperformance in the Rio Grande counties and Houston.
By the time he or she told them where to go, it was too late for them to find anywhere else.
Of course, we don’t know for sure that it happened that way.
But I bet it did.
https://twitter.com/AlbertoNardelli/status/1325526769483603973
Granted, expatriate communities in Western countries can be more culturally conservative than the mother country, but I do not recognize the place of women in Islamic society that you describe.
They do take their time, don't they?
https://twitter.com/fr4ser/status/1325476752483897345?s=20
Just some people take it to another level: as you say, Corbyn and Trump being examples.
If additional people are told to self isolate then that should lead to fewer people being infected. That will lead to less misery not more.
Quarantining the actually infectious is better than locking down everyone.
I'm less convinced by (3). I detest the burka/niqab but I am aware Muslim women sometimes get abused by these names, which I don't think is right - particularly since they don't always have a choice. So I personally wouldn't use it.
I think (4) is too broad-brush. It tries to apologise for Islamophobia whereas I'd prefer to distinguish between the parts of the Koran that are violent and how extremists exploit that, rather than insinuate it's vicious as a whole and heartless to any unbelievers. I'd prefer to encourage and motivate the liberal reformers and isolate the extreme voices.
I knew a gorgeous Muslim girl (moderate) who I really fancied once, and I think she did me. It irritated me that nothing could or would ever happen unless I converted, and she made it clear she would never be able to do the same.
That annoyed me then and it still does!
I guess most of them finished up in Jack's pies.
Meanwhile, I had porridge.
Boris Johnson is a former editor of this newspaper, and as such has the right to be treated with a courtesy Spectator journalists do not normally extend to politicians who do not enjoy his advantages.
I am therefore writing with the caution of a lawyer and the deference of a palace flunkey when I say that Johnson showed this morning that he is a man without principle or shame. He is a braying charlatan, who lacks the courage even to be an honest bastard, for there is a kind of bastardly integrity in showing the world who you really are, but instead uses the tactics of the coward and the tricks of the fraudster to advance his worthless career.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-s-attack-on-barack-obama-belongs-in-the-gutter
Take some time to reflect and use it as a learning experience.
No doubt Johnson is a racist, just not a very obvious one. He covers everything he ever does in smoke and mirrors that mean you have to see through the magician's sleight of hand.
Are you a centrist Tory/Lib-Dem or similar then?
Boris in the D T, 21 July 2005
In the old days the right were much more in evidence!
Er, okay.
Good night.
The Tory herd was after a dozen years of Labour Government. After a decade of Tory led government things change.