Although broadly sympathetic to the BLM movement, it does seem as if the government is losing control of the streets
(Having already lost control of policy around the epidemic).
Yes, there is also a risk these escalate into a riot. Devil of a job though to clamp down though, govt having forfeited the moral high ground.
Moral high ground doesn't come into it. Either the authorities want to police the law or they don't. Personally I couldn't care less what these knuckledraggers do, but then I live in suburbia so it doesn't affect me.
Let’s see what happens this evening, at the Embassy. V likely, the statue toppling has encouraged the more disruptive elements.
Anyone defending this will permanently forfeit my respect.
You don't substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law. If you do, there is no telling where it will end. And sometimes it never does.
This has got to stop. Now.
Where you and I might part company is the response to the violence.
I wouldn't advocate using the violence as a response to close down the protest - that would be in my view wrong. Prosecute those responsible for violence and destruction by all means but that can't be an excuse to ban protest or prosecute those organising the protests.
The right to protest peacefully is sacrosanct as far as I'm concerned and the death of George Floyd was completely unacceptable and inexcusable and regrettably far from the first instance.
There are deeper questions about race in this country - we are much better than the US, no question but that doesn't mean we can't improve and strive to achieve a genuinely better society for all citizens irrespective of colour or creed. We've taken huge questions since the bad old days of the 70s and before but we can't rest on our laurels.
I've never said the right to protest peacefully should be banned or stopped.
I was referring to the kid gloves over the violence, vandalism and desecration.
Listening to the Scots Justice Minister this lunchtime, who is himself BME, pleading with Scots to obey the five mile rule, social distancing and no more than 8 meeting together in a vain attempt to stop the very clear threat to the health of us all was so depressing as we know it will be ignored. He even said they were doing this at the exact time the BME community were at a high risk of covid
If these protests do so happen to cause a disease spike amongst non-white people, then that will doubtless be blamed on various forms of institutional racism and not on the marches themselves.
The protestors (most of whom appear to be white) will be delighted by this. It will give them more to scream about.
I'm confident all this stuff won't make a blind bit of difference to the spread of COVID-19.
Phew that has made it all right then
I don't think it's alright, but I find it hard to get annoyed about behaviour with regards to COVID-19. How people behave during autumn and winter will be much more important, in my opinion.
Hopefully we make it to winter without another lockdown. A lot of irresponsible behaviour going on.
The crowds heading to the US Embassy are mind-bogglingly ridiculous.
Individual stupidity isn't the fault of government, however to say that the Westminster government are in control of Covid-19 transmission issues would be way off the mark. Loss of control, that is where the Cummings escapade comes into the equation.
In one sense the US embassy is the more logical place to protest this .
For once I agree with Priti Patel. Nobody should be protesting mid pandemic.
I have an image of a convoy of PB Tories (each in a Lexus) heading towards Manchester to haul down the statue of Engels.
A better idea - as suggested upthread although I can’t remember by whom - would be to leave it in place and opposite it put a memorial to the roughly one billion victims of Communism.
It is a bit of a stretch to hold Engels responsible for the actions of Stalin, Mao, et al.
Is it? Stalin in particular seems to have believed that by acting as he did he was building a communist society based on Marxist ideals. Mao is a more complex character but to suggest he wasn’t influenced by Communism in his actions is to put it mildly, a bit of a stretch.
I think it's harsh on Marx and Engels to blame them for what followed. Same with Ratzel and lebensraum.
Really?
there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.
Personally, it's Marx & Engels leaden prose I found particularly offensive. Killing the bourgeoisie through revolutionary terror is only a minor sin in comparison.
"A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism" is an electrifying way to start a book. Never got any further with it though.
By far his best is The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon.
The palatable frustration as he tries to get his theories to fit real events and slowly understands that they don’t because his theories are a crock of horse shit is absolutely hilarious.
We had a lecture on this in my first year at University. It is the only lecture I walked out on.
Is mobs tearing down statues "getting to grips with history"?
It's certainly physically getting a grip I suppose.
Clive Lewis is the MP for Norwich South, which includes the historic City Centre.
He could continue his campaign for social justice through monument destruction be opening a petition to have the Castle bulldozed. It was an instrument of feudal oppression, built on land confiscated from the Saxon peasantry and on their burial grounds.
Once that's done then he could conduct an investigation into which of the monuments and memorials in the Cathedral should be ripped out because they were erected by or to morally questionable persons or causes? Then again, the Cathedral itself is another edifice built to glorify Norman imperialism. He should propose having it dynamited.
That should keep him busy for a while.
In Leicester there’s a statue to a mass murderer, child killer and would be incestuous rapist outside the Cathedral.
Why do the mobs not think that should be pulled down?
Edit - incidentally, no, I don’t think it should be removed.
Is that Herod?
It is as the late, great Ronnie Barker would say, a small, brown Richard III.
Wasn't he recently looking for a transfer from Leicester City to York City?
I reckon Richard III would have turned in his grave over that dispute if he hadn’t already been dug up.
Listening to the Scots Justice Minister this lunchtime, who is himself BME, pleading with Scots to obey the five mile rule, social distancing and no more than 8 meeting together in a vain attempt to stop the very clear threat to the health of us all was so depressing as we know it will be ignored. He even said they were doing this at the exact time the BME community were at a high risk of covid
If these protests do so happen to cause a disease spike amongst non-white people, then that will doubtless be blamed on various forms of institutional racism and not on the marches themselves.
The protestors (most of whom appear to be white) will be delighted by this. It will give them more to scream about.
I'm confident all this stuff won't make a blind bit of difference to the spread of COVID-19.
Phew that has made it all right then
I don't think it's alright, but I find it hard to get annoyed about behaviour with regards to COVID-19. How people behave during autumn and winter will be much more important, in my opinion.
Hopefully we make it to winter without another lockdown. A lot of irresponsible behaviour going on.
The crowds heading to the US Embassy are mind-bogglingly ridiculous.
Individual stupidity isn't the fault of government, however to say that the Westminster government are in control of Covid-19 transmission issues would be way off the mark. Loss of control, that is where the Cummings escapade comes into the equation.
In one sense the US embassy is the more logical place to protest this .
The morons have little to bother them protesting about events in the USA. Where are they on Yemen where UK is involved in helping the Saudi's kill children , not a peep. Yet one botched arrest in the US where the culprits have been arrested and charged with murder and the morons are wrecking the country, unbelievable.
I see "woke" has joined the collection of pejorative terms used by some on the Right - it can proudly take its place alongside "liberal", "metropolitan elite", "Guardian reading", "intellectual", "lefties", "progressive" and so many others.
It's odd how it's become an insult. Implies that the opposite - comatose - is something desirable. Still, observing many of those 'some on the Right' you refer to, perhaps it is!
The point is that the term condescendingly implies that the 'woke' possess some superior level of consciousness relative to the rest of the poor benighted population. Whereas all it means in practice is that some people have imbibed a leftwing ideology that has filled them with righteous fury and they're going to ram it down everyone else's throats by whatever means necessary.
It really doesn't. It's a very apt term because it's about becoming aware of something you were previously oblivious to. Not due to lack of intelligence or moral fibre, just simply because you were probably concentrating on other things, your radar was set in a certain way. That's how it is with people. There's only so much bandwidth. And (imo) it's why people can get irritated by this stuff. It can sound self-righteous. Pompous even. Overly intellectualized and a teeny bit precious and wanky.
But it isn't. This is not what woke means. It specifically means being alert to insidious and structural disadvantages of race and gender. At least having an open mind about the fact these can and often do exist in ways less stark than (say) the Lawrence murder or the industrial levels of sex trafficking of women by men.
That's it. I consider myself woke and I assure you that is all it means to me. I don't go around with a face like a lemon saying right-on things and sneering at the unenlightened. I'm just a normal bloke. I like a pint and a fag. Bit of banter. I like talking about the football. About girls. See how I said girls there and not women? All of that. I get as distracted by the sight of a well turned ankle as the next man. I don't want to live next to a Mosque.
But I am woke. Or rather, and this is key, I try to be. Why would I not?
Why not make the effort to become a woke bloke too? You don't have to - it doesn't make you a pariah if you don't - but I do recommend it and there is certainly nothing to be frightened of.
I'm aware of all the different forms of historical and / or structural disadvantage and have no particular problem with acknowledging them or having public policy (slowly and gently) ameliorate them.
But to be honest, you're a bit of a crap woke bloke, and not the hardcore type I have my actual issue with. Those are the people who take this stuff to the nth degree, who do want monuments destroyed, the literary canon replaced, the entire historical and cultural fabric of this country and the West in general turned into a palimpsest and rewritten to suit their version of the truth and no other. Those people are seizing on this moment, and I will never give them so much as an inch.
I suspect you need this extreme adversary to draw energy from and therefore exaggerate its prevalence or influence outside niche corners.
I have an image of a convoy of PB Tories (each in a Lexus) heading towards Manchester to haul down the statue of Engels.
A better idea - as suggested upthread although I can’t remember by whom - would be to leave it in place and opposite it put a memorial to the roughly one billion victims of Communism.
It is a bit of a stretch to hold Engels responsible for the actions of Stalin, Mao, et al.
Is it? Stalin in particular seems to have believed that by acting as he did he was building a communist society based on Marxist ideals. Mao is a more complex character but to suggest he wasn’t influenced by Communism in his actions is to put it mildly, a bit of a stretch.
I think it's harsh on Marx and Engels to blame them for what followed. Same with Ratzel and lebensraum.
Really?
there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.
Personally, it's Marx & Engels leaden prose I found particularly offensive. Killing the bourgeoisie through revolutionary terror is only a minor sin in comparison.
"A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism" is an electrifying way to start a book. Never got any further with it though.
By far his best is The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon.
The palatable frustration as he tries to get his theories to fit real events and slowly understands that they don’t because his theories are a crock of horse shit is absolutely hilarious.
We had a lecture on this in my first year at University. It is the only lecture I walked out on.
Really! I had a lecture on this as part of my MA in politics. We were all riveted as Roger Price (who is a Marxist, incidentally) described in more and more detail how reality shows Marxism doesn’t work.
I particularly remember his explanation of the class struggle:
‘What Marx couldn’t get his head round was that some of these bloody proles fought on the wrong side.’
I seem to be the only person on here, broadly proud of the “Empire” (without which my home country would not exist), broadly sympathetic to BLM, a bit disconcerted to see a Grade II statue topple, but with an intemperate loathing of Trump and Johnson.
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Wait until the criminal behaviour ends up on their doorstep. Then they'll be howling into the seven heavens about the injustice. Proper "what have I done" Alec Guinness stuff.
It'll be too late by then, of course.
Well the Wills building in Bristol is another one the mob don't like, because the family made the money from slaves picking tobacco. I hope nobody decides now that is fair game given all the cheerleading the twaterrati are providing.
"First of all they came for the statues, and I did nothing"
Rivers of Blood
"That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. "
I guess where people would say he was wrong was that it is interwoven with the history and existence of Britain too, just not physically in the UK as it was in the States
Is mobs tearing down statues "getting to grips with history"?
It's certainly physically getting a grip I suppose.
Clive Lewis is the MP for Norwich South, which includes the historic City Centre.
He could continue his campaign for social justice through monument destruction be opening a petition to have the Castle bulldozed. It was an instrument of feudal oppression, built on land confiscated from the Saxon peasantry and on their burial grounds.
Once that's done then he could conduct an investigation into which of the monuments and memorials in the Cathedral should be ripped out because they were erected by or to morally questionable persons or causes? Then again, the Cathedral itself is another edifice built to glorify Norman imperialism. He should propose having it dynamited.
That should keep him busy for a while.
In Leicester there’s a statue to a mass murderer, child killer and would be incestuous rapist outside the Cathedral.
Why do the mobs not think that should be pulled down?
Edit - incidentally, no, I don’t think it should be removed.
Is that Herod?
It is as the late, great Ronnie Barker would say, a small, brown Richard III.
Wasn't he recently looking for a transfer from Leicester City to York City?
I reckon Richard III would have turned in his grave over that dispute if he hadn’t already been dug up.
I see "woke" has joined the collection of pejorative terms used by some on the Right - it can proudly take its place alongside "liberal", "metropolitan elite", "Guardian reading", "intellectual", "lefties", "progressive" and so many others.
It's odd how it's become an insult. Implies that the opposite - comatose - is something desirable. Still, observing many of those 'some on the Right' you refer to, perhaps it is!
The point is that the term condescendingly implies that the 'woke' possess some superior level of consciousness relative to the rest of the poor benighted population. Whereas all it means in practice is that some people have imbibed a leftwing ideology that has filled them with righteous fury and they're going to ram it down everyone else's throats by whatever means necessary.
It really doesn't. It's a very apt term because it's about becoming aware of something you were previously oblivious to. Not due to lack of intelligence or moral fibre, just simply because you were probably concentrating on other things, your radar was set in a certain way. That's how it is with people. There's only so much bandwidth. And (imo) it's why people can get irritated by this stuff. It can sound self-righteous. Pompous even. Overly intellectualized and a teeny bit precious and wanky.
But it isn't. This is not what woke means. It specifically means being alert to insidious and structural disadvantages of race and gender. At least having an open mind about the fact these can and often do exist in ways less stark than (say) the Lawrence murder or the industrial levels of sex trafficking of women by men.
That's it. I consider myself woke and I assure you that is all it means to me. I don't go around with a face like a lemon saying right-on things and sneering at the unenlightened. I'm just a normal bloke. I like a pint and a fag. Bit of banter. I like talking about the football. About girls. See how I said girls there and not women? All of that. I get as distracted by the sight of a well turned ankle as the next man. I don't want to live next to a Mosque.
But I am woke. Or rather, and this is key, I try to be. Why would I not?
Why not make the effort to become a woke bloke too? You don't have to - it doesn't make you a pariah if you don't - but I do recommend it and there is certainly nothing to be frightened of.
I'm aware of all the different forms of historical and / or structural disadvantage and have no particular problem with acknowledging them or having public policy (slowly and gently) ameliorate them.
But to be honest, you're a bit of a crap woke bloke, and not the hardcore type I have my actual issue with. Those are the people who take this stuff to the nth degree, who do want monuments destroyed, the literary canon replaced, the entire historical and cultural fabric of this country and the West in general turned into a palimpsest and rewritten to suit their version of the truth and no other. Those people are seizing on this moment, and I will never give them so much as an inch.
I suspect you need this extreme adversary to draw energy from and therefore exaggerate its prevalence or influence outside niche corners.
I think my type of wokeness is more common.
You'll have to tell that to the people in Bristol and London. And I'm afraid it's an attitude that sadly grows ever more prevalent away from the barricades, in the higher circles of academia, the media, and public service. I wish I were imagining it!
I was so shocked and angry I've just written to my MP.
And I'm not going to stop there. I will be writing to Boris as well.
Not for the first time, a justifiable concern has been hijacked by those interested only in lawlessness and destruction and a little bit of anarchy.
I've no issue with anger especially over the death of George Floyd which was inexcusable. I've no issue with peaceful protest which is allowed in our free society. There are some serious and fundamental questions which are worth proper debate.
The problem is violence closes down that debate - as @NickPalmer told us, a dignified silent protest can achieve so much. Unfortunately, as soon as violence rears its ugly head, the law-abiding are justifiably repulsed and the debate goes nowhere.
I'm sure that's not what BLM wants but I suspect those causing the violence don't care. It's just an excuse for them to damage and destroy.
Thank you.
Anyone defending this will permanently forfeit my respect.
You don't substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law. If you do, there is no telling where it will end. And sometimes it never does.
This has got to stop. Now.
Hang on. As I recall, everyone who voted Labour in the last GE has already forfeited your respect. Unless we got it back at some point and it's now at risk again?
Would be nice to know this before I risk another post, one way or the other.
I have an image of a convoy of PB Tories (each in a Lexus) heading towards Manchester to haul down the statue of Engels.
A better idea - as suggested upthread although I can’t remember by whom - would be to leave it in place and opposite it put a memorial to the roughly one billion victims of Communism.
When I visited the Communist sculpture park in Moscow, there was a great piece of modern sculpture to one side, acting as a backdrop. Lots of stone heads in a long wall like cage. It is called the monument to the victims of totalitarianism. I thought it rather well done.
The statue of Stalin is backed by this.
How Russia, and Germany memoralise the darker aspects of their history, without being obsessed is worth emulating.
On topic, this article highlights the issues that I raised in my video "What Chance a US-UK Free Trade Deal".
The fundamental problem the UK has is that it's put itself under an incredibly tight deadline.
We want a FTA with the US. We don't want to accept unequal terms with the EU. And we want everything to happen right now, because Mr Johnson has promised negotiations will not be extended beyond the end of this year, despite (you know) a global pandemic that might have resulted in some governments having better things to do.
Something has to give.
Either we crash out, with few FTAs to replace the EU's existing ones.
Or we end up accepting terms - from the US or the EU - that we will probably come to regret in 18 months time.
Conservative MPs for farming constituencies may find themselves in very difficult positions. Support the government on a US FTA, to the wrath of their constituents. Or support their constituents, weakening the government's negotiating hand further.
I am inclining towards crash out. Which is probably not what the UK economy needs post CV-19.
Weird how twitter / labourites were anti loosening the lockdown and sending kids back to school as all too dangerous. Boris is deliberately trying to kill people, especially minorities. Now it is yeaahhh get on the streets, smash shit up.
" But the former senior military official presented a scenario that he found particularly alarming: if the election is disputed, Trump could conceivably ask a friendly governor to deploy the National Guard to Washington, D.C., to support him. The official told me that the Guard, with separate leadership in each state, does not necessarily adhere to the same rigid standards as the regular U.S. military. “Some of the leaders are blatantly political,” he said. “The fear is that President Trump refuses to leave, and National Guard troops surround the White House.” "
I seem to be the only person on here, broadly proud of the “Empire” (without which my home country would not exist), broadly sympathetic to BLM, a bit disconcerted to see a Grade II statue topple, but with an intemperate loathing of Trump and Johnson.
I am “centrist Dad”.
New Zealand was in theory settled by agreement*, and Maori rights protected in law from the beginning, so a bit different to other colonies.
* yes, I know the treaty has been disputed from the beginning, and that there were three Maori wars as well as continuing land disputes etc.
On topic, this article highlights the issues that I raised in my video "What Chance a US-UK Free Trade Deal".
The fundamental problem the UK has is that it's put itself under an incredibly tight deadline.
We want a FTA with the US. We don't want to accept unequal terms with the EU. And we want everything to happen right now, because Mr Johnson has promised negotiations will not be extended beyond the end of this year, despite (you know) a global pandemic that might have resulted in some governments having better things to do.
Something has to give.
Either we crash out, with few FTAs to replace the EU's existing ones.
Or we end up accepting terms - from the US or the EU - that we will probably come to regret in 18 months time.
Conservative MPs for farming constituencies may find themselves in very difficult positions. Support the government on a US FTA, to the wrath of their constituents. Or support their constituents, weakening the government's negotiating hand further.
I am inclining towards crash out. Which is probably not what the UK economy needs post CV-19.
One questions why on Earth you thought Brexit advisable, then - given much of this was predicted.
The State is giving money away willy-nilly A deep recession is a certainty People are on the streets ripping down Colonial statues
.. and yet they laughed when Jeremy Corbyn said he'd won the argument!
Not sure it’s quite the clincher some people think if we say Corbyn’s policies were so offbeat that they only make sense in the middle of the worst public health crisis in over 100 years.
Just days ago he was a celebrated anti-fascist. How quickly times change.
That statue of Churchill always gets defaced. I remember him getting a grass mohawk when some green group did their protests a few years back. That was a bit more imaginative than this of course.
Boris needs to get a grip. He's looking like a helpless, passive observer as events explode around him. Covid, street anarchy, crashing out of the Single Market - these are not the features of a government in control. It's madness.
Sky interviewing people at Schiphol ahead of the quarantine coming in. Not one of them was asked why they are travelling at all during this time.
We have a lot of jet setters on here. Has anyone travelled during the crisis? I know some on here returned to the country at the start, but has anyone actually got on a plane to go somewhere and then come back?
Not Conservative or Labour in all likelyhood, unless Sir Keir refuses to condemn Jezza's little soldiers
Green Surge I say
Why won't Labour go for the Woke vote? Their MPs are busy today cheering them on.
The self styled sensible Tories, (I think they call themselves Cameroons but that sounds like cultural appropriation to me) who are revolted by Boris' Brexit aren't likely to vote for a party that takes the side of people vandalising the country are they?
Just days ago he was a celebrated anti-fascist. How quickly times change.
That statue of Churchill always gets defaced. I remember him getting a grass mohawk when some green group did their protests a few years back. That was a bit more imaginative than this of course.
Wasn’t that the anti-capitalism protests in London in the late 90s?
Sky interviewing people at Schiphol ahead of the quarantine coming in. Not one of them was asked why they are travelling at all during this time.
We have a lot of jet setters on here. Has anyone travelled during the crisis? I know some on here returned to the country at the start, but has anyone actually got on a plane to go somewhere and then come back?
Boris needs to get a grip. He's looking like a helpless, passive observer as events explode around him. Covid, street anarchy, crashing out of the Single Market - these are not the features of a government in control. It's madness.
I think the authorities believed that people would have a protest for a day and that would be it and so better to let people protest for a day than shut it down. I think they are repeating the mistakes of 2011, where they went too easy for too long. When the real scumbags see that the police are allowing widespread vandalism, they will be emboldened to use it as cover for worse.
Two very thoughtful thread headers. Particularly welcome Mr Meeks willingness to listen and reconsider his views, which in my experience is relatively uncommon in older men. Personally I think I have in the past been a bit disinterested in issues like structural racism, and am going to make more of an effort to understand it.
As for Cyclefrees header, I think she is right to raise the question as to whether the Tories are taking rural communities for granted. My suspicion is that rural communities are in the bag for the Tories regardless.
The relevance of agriculture and food standards and american trade deals I think is to tie Boris to Trump. Trump animates the left and gets them to the polls. Of course if he goes this year, he may not be very relevant in 2024.
Sky interviewing people at Schiphol ahead of the quarantine coming in. Not one of them was asked why they are travelling at all during this time.
We have a lot of jet setters on here. Has anyone travelled during the crisis? I know some on here returned to the country at the start, but has anyone actually got on a plane to go somewhere and then come back?
I haven't left SE London!
I either jet around Europe or work from home. At the moment all clients are happy for me to work from home.
Just days ago he was a celebrated anti-fascist. How quickly times change.
He still is to the majority. I doubt anyone cares about Colston and backwaters like Bristol, but the folk damaging Churchill have just done massive damage to their cause. Dare I say they don't care about George Floyd but are just petty criminals with extreme views.
Just days ago he was a celebrated anti-fascist. How quickly times change.
That statue of Churchill always gets defaced. I remember him getting a grass mohawk when some green group did their protests a few years back. That was a bit more imaginative than this of course.
Wasn’t that the anti-capitalism protests in London in the late 90s?
Yes, as with the confederate statues in the USA which were also defaced, with some toppled, they should be moved to a museum or storage as the statue of Lee for instance ultimately was, not vandalised and defaced
Weird how twitter / labourites were anti loosening the lockdown and sending kids back to school as all too dangerous. Boris is deliberately trying to kill people, especially minorities. Now it is yeaahhh get on the streets, smash shit up.
Fortunately, only a minority - and not the leadership any more. One threat to the UK that has been mitigated.
BBC News interviewing a molecular epidemiologist from the University of Basel who literally just said: "racism and the consequences of racism have killed many many more people than the coronavirus."
Well that's alright then, let's stop worrying about COVID-19.
I expect a lot of the vandals will be spraying swastikas on their own grandparents headstones as payback for laughing at Bernard Manning jokes in the 70s.
Well, if Jones thinks that nobody knows what Colston did, he’s a fool as it is very well known in Bristol who he was and what his business empire included. Only a few years ago the main concert hall was renamed over this very issue.
What these people may be unaware of is that there were a number of debates over this statue a few years ago and the clinching argument against removal came from the descendants of slaves, who found it actually stimulated interest in and concern for the links of Bristol to the slave trade, and were afraid that removing it would just erase them from common memory.
Yeah, they seem to think erasing history is the way to go.
On the last thread an argument was made by many that this was exactly the way to go. That in addressing the issue of race today in the UK, our history of Empire and Colonialism ought not to feature at all. I'm guessing those making the argument to forget history where it illuminates now wish to remember it where it shames and offends. I suggest they have it the wrong way round.
Both views are equally dumb. Instead, I give you George Santayana: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’
The balancing statue is a very good idea. I would enthusiastically support that. And you could make it bigger and more prominent than the Colston statue so it would overshadow it.
The museum might be a possible solution although these things become out of sight out of mind.
A braying mob that looks like a fascist rally and is about as racially diverse as an Icelandic convent school tearing down statues because they are trying to pretend they are politically right-on is not a solution to anything.
I picked up the balancing statue idea from vague memories of a previous statue-related dispute in the States. It was one of these cases where a university or college had been founded by a Confederate general or some such similar person, and the community split into two factions that wanted it either ripped down or preserved at all costs.
The solution was to let one faction keep the statue and the other pick an appropriate local figure who was acceptable to modern tastes to memorialise nearby. The founder thus continued to be commemorated but had to share the space with an image that celebrated the defeat of the ideology which he had defended. This defused the argument.
I'm not sure whether these demonstrators are sophisticated enough to come to a compromise, but - once the Colston statue has been fished out of the water and put back on its plinth - it would be worth a try.
Yes, as with the confederate statues in the USA which were also defaced, with some toppled, they should be moved to a museum or storage as the statue of Lee for instance ultimately was, not vandalised and defaced
I don't see why they should be moved at all. Certainly not in response to behaviour like this.
Agreed, he shouldn't be the poster boy of sensible logic and understanding history. I think you could pick pretty much any decent person in society right or left who could make a strong argument that defacing a Churchill statue is the act of an idiot and these rioters have harmed 'their' cause
1. The equestrian statue of Charles I, licenser and supporter of slave traders, that looks along Whitehall.
2. The statue of Charles II, charterer of the Royal African Company founded in 1660 shortly after the restoration, in Soho Square.
3. The statue of James II, the leading figure in the said Company who as Duke of York had his slaves branded "DY" and gave his name to the city and state of New York, in front of the National Gallery.
There's nothing stopping Boris Johnson from addressing the country tonight and saying we get the point, we're with you, there was no justification for slavery then and there's none for honouring slavers now, we'll take them down.
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
Yet the decision was made at the local level to keep it. Why should that decision, made democratically, be overruled by the mob?
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
Bristol have an elected mayor. They have a democraticly elected council. Lobby them to have it removed...oh wait they did, and the people of Bristol, including descendants of the slave trade, said no leave it.
So instead a load of white folk decided to rip it down.
Well, if Jones thinks that nobody knows what Colston did, he’s a fool as it is very well known in Bristol who he was and what his business empire included. Only a few years ago the main concert hall was renamed over this very issue.
What these people may be unaware of is that there were a number of debates over this statue a few years ago and the clinching argument against removal came from the descendants of slaves, who found it actually stimulated interest in and concern for the links of Bristol to the slave trade, and were afraid that removing it would just erase them from common memory.
Yeah, they seem to think erasing history is the way to go.
On the last thread an argument was made by many that this was exactly the way to go. That in addressing the issue of race today in the UK, our history of Empire and Colonialism ought not to feature at all. I'm guessing those making the argument to forget history where it illuminates now wish to remember it where it shames and offends. I suggest they have it the wrong way round.
Both views are equally dumb. Instead, I give you George Santayana: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’
The balancing statue is a very good idea. I would enthusiastically support that. And you could make it bigger and more prominent than the Colston statue so it would overshadow it.
The museum might be a possible solution although these things become out of sight out of mind.
A braying mob that looks like a fascist rally and is about as racially diverse as an Icelandic convent school tearing down statues because they are trying to pretend they are politically right-on is not a solution to anything.
I picked up the balancing statue idea from vague memories of a previous statue-related dispute in the States. It was one of these cases where a university or college had been founded by a Confederate general or some such similar person, and the community split into two factions that wanted it either ripped down or preserved at all costs.
The solution was to let one faction keep the statue and the other pick an appropriate local figure who was acceptable to modern tastes to memorialise nearby. The founder thus continued to be commemorated but had to share the space with an image that celebrated the defeat of the ideology which he had defended. This defused the argument.
I'm not sure whether these demonstrators are sophisticated enough to come to a compromise, but - once the Colston statue has been fished out of the water and put back on its plinth - it would be worth a try.
Maybe that was Washington and Lee University? Refounded by Robert E. Lee and named after him. Sounds possible, anyway.
A statue of Olaudah Equiano, not named but standing for all salves kidnapped in Africa, with an information board between, would be a much better way of both remembering and overcoming Bristol’s past.
I seem to be the only person on here, broadly proud of the “Empire” (without which my home country would not exist), broadly sympathetic to BLM, a bit disconcerted to see a Grade II statue topple, but with an intemperate loathing of Trump and Johnson.
I am “centrist Dad”.
New Zealand was in theory settled by agreement*, and Maori rights protected in law from the beginning, so a bit different to other colonies.
* yes, I know the treaty has been disputed from the beginning, and that there were three Maori wars as well as continuing land disputes etc.
I think the modern tendency in this country to say the Empire was unredeemingly awful is regrettable.
It was what it was, and once it became both militarily and morally unsustainable, it was wound up pretty quickly.
I literally would not exist without the Empire, and although NZ is perhaps at one end of the spectrum when it comes to post-imperial states (and not without its own flaws), I tend to think the world is a better place with NZ in it.
There are still Empires. China and the USA are both Empires. If we accept that, we can see that not all Empires are equal, and that perhaps Empires are an unavoidable element of human history.
1. The equestrian statue of Charles I, licenser and supporter of slave traders, that looks along Whitehall.
2. The statue of Charles II, charterer of the Royal African Company founded in 1660 shortly after the restoration, in Soho Square.
3. The statue of James II, the leading figure in the said Company who as Duke of York had his slaves branded "DY" and gave his name to the city and state of New York, in front of the National Gallery.
There's nothing stopping Boris Johnson from addressing the country tonight and saying we get the point, we're with you, there was no justification for slavery then and there's none for honouring slavers now, we'll take them down.
A high percentage of all statues are going to be men or women of war, or men or women of extreme wealth (who made it 'off the backs' of the poor). It's great when we have statues of Florence Nightingale etc. who pass (mostly) the virtue test with flying colours, but those clearly aren't going to be the only people who get memorialised. Have a strong objection to seeing a statue every day? Walk the other bloody way and get over yourself.
There's nothing stopping Boris Johnson from addressing the country tonight and saying we get the point, we're with you, there was no justification for slavery then and there's none for honouring slavers now, we'll take them down.
1. The equestrian statue of Charles I, licenser and supporter of slave traders, that looks along Whitehall.
2. The statue of Charles II, charterer of the Royal African Company founded in 1660 shortly after the restoration, in Soho Square.
3. The statue of James II, the leading figure in the said Company who as Duke of York had his slaves branded "DY" and gave his name to the city and state of New York, in front of the National Gallery.
There's nothing stopping Boris Johnson from addressing the country tonight and saying we get the point, we're with you, there was no justification for slavery then and there's none for honouring slavers now, we'll take them down.
A high percentage of all statues are going to be men or women of war, or men or women of extreme wealth (who made it 'off the backs' of the poor). It's great when we have statues of Florence Nightingale etc. who pass (mostly) the virtue test with flying colours, but those clearly aren't going to be the only people who get memorialised. Have a strong objection to seeing a statue every day? Walk the other bloody way and get over yourself.
Daily? I'm not sure if I could stand being triggered that often.
I literally would not exist without the Empire, and although NZ is perhaps at one end of the spectrum when it comes to post-imperial states (and not without its own flaws), I tend to think the world is a better place with NZ in it.
Are you implying that the world would be a worse place if New Zealand were Polynesian?
There's a story, possibly apocryphal, about an Ulster capitalist who said the best way of keeping the proles from socialist tendencies was to raise a Union Flag.
The proles would then start fighting each other.
I wonder how similarly useful issues of race will be to the rich in future.
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Amazing all the labourites cheering on criminal behaviour. Remember their outrage at Big Dom behaviour and.claims he would encourage the dangerous behaviour by the public.
Now we literally have labourites advocating forget covid (that think that disproportionately kills BAME individuals) and get into mobs to go smash shit up.
Lots of stuff used to be illegal that shouldn't have been. Some stuff is still illegal that shouldn't be. Sometimes doing what's right matters more than obeying the law. Plenty of stuff would never have changed if nobody had been willing to break the law. A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
So give me an apology for your role in the Irish Potato Famine.
Now.
Are you drinking already? That doesn't even make sense.
Comments
I was referring to the kid gloves over the violence, vandalism and desecration.
That must stop. Now.
Stay at Home, protect the NHS, stay safe.
Red is Labour VI lead
Navy is Smith/Balir lead over Major in Net Satisfaction
Light Blue is Smith/Blair lead over Major in Personality
I think my type of wokeness is more common.
I particularly remember his explanation of the class struggle:
‘What Marx couldn’t get his head round was that some of these bloody proles fought on the wrong side.’
I am “centrist Dad”.
"That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. "
I guess where people would say he was wrong was that it is interwoven with the history and existence of Britain too, just not physically in the UK as it was in the States
Would be nice to know this before I risk another post, one way or the other.
The statue of Stalin is backed by this.
How Russia, and Germany memoralise the darker aspects of their history, without being obsessed is worth emulating.
The fundamental problem the UK has is that it's put itself under an incredibly tight deadline.
We want a FTA with the US. We don't want to accept unequal terms with the EU. And we want everything to happen right now, because Mr Johnson has promised negotiations will not be extended beyond the end of this year, despite (you know) a global pandemic that might have resulted in some governments having better things to do.
Something has to give.
Either we crash out, with few FTAs to replace the EU's existing ones.
Or we end up accepting terms - from the US or the EU - that we will probably come to regret in 18 months time.
Conservative MPs for farming constituencies may find themselves in very difficult positions. Support the government on a US FTA, to the wrath of their constituents. Or support their constituents, weakening the government's negotiating hand further.
I am inclining towards crash out. Which is probably not what the UK economy needs post CV-19.
Red is Con VI lead
Navy Blue is Cameron lead over Ed in Net Satisfaction
Light Blue is Cameron lead over Ed in Personality
* yes, I know the treaty has been disputed from the beginning, and that there were three Maori wars as well as continuing land disputes etc.
https://twitter.com/EveningStandard/status/1269677273927557121
A deep recession is a certainty
People are on the streets ripping down Colonial statues
.. and yet they laughed when Jeremy Corbyn said he'd won the argument!
Sorry, very interesting read. Got sidetracked by various Deplorables into a frenzy of culture war posting.
Feeling tired and floppy now so cannot continue on this thread.
Not Conservative or Labour in all likelyhood, unless Sir Keir refuses to condemn Jezza's little soldiers
Green Surge I say
We have a lot of jet setters on here. Has anyone travelled during the crisis? I know some on here returned to the country at the start, but has anyone actually got on a plane to go somewhere and then come back?
As for Cyclefrees header, I think she is right to raise the question as to whether the Tories are taking rural communities for granted. My suspicion is that rural communities are in the bag for the Tories regardless.
The relevance of agriculture and food standards and american trade deals I think is to tie Boris to Trump. Trump animates the left and gets them to the polls. Of course if he goes this year, he may not be very relevant in 2024.
Well that's alright then, let's stop worrying about COVID-19.
Erected by / citizens of Bristol / as a memorial / of one of the most / virtuous and wise sons of / their city / AD 1895
The solution was to let one faction keep the statue and the other pick an appropriate local figure who was acceptable to modern tastes to memorialise nearby. The founder thus continued to be commemorated but had to share the space with an image that celebrated the defeat of the ideology which he had defended. This defused the argument.
I'm not sure whether these demonstrators are sophisticated enough to come to a compromise, but - once the Colston statue has been fished out of the water and put back on its plinth - it would be worth a try.
I remember him moaning about Sikh soldiers in 1917 not realising that Sikh soldiers actually served there.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51233734
https://twitter.com/Theophite/status/1269517561692971013
1. The equestrian statue of Charles I, licenser and supporter of slave traders, that looks along Whitehall.
2. The statue of Charles II, charterer of the Royal African Company founded in 1660 shortly after the restoration, in Soho Square.
3. The statue of James II, the leading figure in the said Company who as Duke of York had his slaves branded "DY" and gave his name to the city and state of New York, in front of the National Gallery.
There's nothing stopping Boris Johnson from addressing the country tonight and saying we get the point, we're with you, there was no justification for slavery then and there's none for honouring slavers now, we'll take them down.
A statue of a man who became wealthy on the bloody murder of the slave trade should have been taken down years ago. If this was the only way to get it done, I am happy to applaud it.
Now.
So instead a load of white folk decided to rip it down.
So who are the modern plantation holders ?
The middle class leftists who exploit grievances for political purposes and exploit people for economic purposes perhaps.
A statue of Olaudah Equiano, not named but standing for all salves kidnapped in Africa, with an information board between, would be a much better way of both remembering and overcoming Bristol’s past.
It was what it was, and once it became both militarily and morally unsustainable, it was wound up pretty quickly.
I literally would not exist without the Empire, and although NZ is perhaps at one end of the spectrum when it comes to post-imperial states (and not without its own flaws), I tend to think the world is a better place with NZ in it.
There are still Empires. China and the USA are both Empires. If we accept that, we can see that not all Empires are equal, and that perhaps Empires are an unavoidable element of human history.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08669JX7M/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
The proles would then start fighting each other.
I wonder how similarly useful issues of race will be to the rich in future.
👀
https://twitter.com/LabourAgainstAS/status/1269672617935548416
though not to you it seems