BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Feb 16 - 06:52 AM

"Why am I reminded of speeches in 1930's Germany when I read this?"
You notices that too?
Thought I was beginning to imagine it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Feb 16 - 06:43 AM

Dear me, what a lovely pompous old booby that Steve is. As windable-up as my grandmother's old brass elephant clock. I hope he keeps it up: it's really quite entertaining.

(Wonder where that went BTW Had a lovely chime & I loved it as a child. Think my cousin in Washington DC might have grabbed it when she died.)

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Feb 16 - 06:37 AM

"...neither do I participate in cursing or name calling."


"If so, you're as daft as Jim.
Why don't "you people" grow up?"


Plenty more of that on this board.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 11 Feb 16 - 06:35 AM

" Of course I believe in public ownership of transport, power, production, even farming, but our people have become weak in mind and body unfit for the struggle, because they believe that individual "rights" are more important that the construction of a better society, they feel entitled to everything that life can give without having to contribute or conform"

Why am I reminded of speeches in 1930's Germany when I read this?

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Feb 16 - 06:02 AM

"Jim, I just cant be bothered playing your childish games."
You mean you're not prepared to defend your claims and your behaviour - didn't think for a moment that you would
You make your dishonest statements, you defend the indefensible, you insult people left right and centre - nothing new there Ake
I quote nothing out of context - what Breivik has to say, worth listening to or not, was drowned out by the sound of his gunning down 77 young people.
Nobody who commits such an atrocity has anything to say worth listening to.
If you make claims, you need to discuss them - that's the idea of public forums.
Stick behind 'The Fifth' - far safer
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Feb 16 - 04:56 AM

Jim, I just cant be bothered playing your childish games.
I always try to be truthful and give my views honestly.
I have never knowingly lied on this forum and do not misrepresent what people say. I rarely quote out of context, you do it continuously.

I could take any part of your posts Quote them out of context and make it look as if you meant something different....I do not participate in these sorts of games, neither do I participate in cursing or name calling.
I come here for decent discussion of serious subjects not a war of attrition.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Feb 16 - 03:46 AM

"A post devoid of truth Jim, full of misrepresentation."
Nothing untrue there Ake - and your blanket denial proves that.
Be happy for you to take my points one by one and hold them up for examination, but I don't believe for one moment you are prepared to do that.
Your remark about Brievik having something worthwhile to say is archived and part of the dark history of this forum.
Your excuse for that remark only serves to underline the horror of that statement - it is a perfect companion to yor support for forcing asylum seekers to wear armbands and have their front doors painted red - which is still running.
Your claim to socialism still needs to be explained - you remain silent on that one, probably on the grounds that anything you do say might incriminate you (it's known as 'pleading the fifth' in the U.S.)
Your "political socialist and a social conservative" is in fact acute schizophrenia - the two terms are opposite - socialism is a desire to change society, conservatism is a desire to keep it from changing - and ne-er the two shall meet..
The ink is still dry on your contempt for our rights, but just in case it was uttered in a moment of madness, a reminder:
"to be replaced by a bunch of whining, rights inspired, entitlement seeking, parasites."
You are not against immigrants in the same way as you are not against homosexuals - you "support" them in the way a rope "supports" a hanging man".
"And, Jim: you impress nobody with your wallowing in so much self-pity; "
Don't you dare use your squalid Tory clichés on me Mike.
I have never at any time sought 'pity'
I did well with what we had - I worked all mu life and was able to retire comfortably on what we had.
If I popped my clogs tomorrow, I would be happy with whate Pat and I have left behind after decades of work in a field we believe to be important.
My concern is not for me but for what you people have made of the world - the wasteland of acquisition and bloodshed you have left to our children
How one gets from Pyotr Kropotkin to 'The Ghastly Gargoyle of Grantham' will remain for me one of life's great mysteries (and before you embark on another series of unpleasant accusations, I'm not an Anarchist, just an admirer of dedicated writing)
Yoy really picked up a nasty dose of 'me-me-me' during her reign of terror - please don't assume the rest of us did.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: GUEST,Larsen E. Pettifogger
Date: 11 Feb 16 - 03:04 AM

...and who are prepared to lie, distort and misinterpret in their vain attempts to achieve their goal?"


As my dear old grandfather Litvak said (just before they swung the trap), he said "You can't cheat an honest man. Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump."

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Feb 16 - 02:21 AM

A post devoid of truth Jim, full of misrepresentation.

Most of it is unworthy of comment......but regarding Brievik, you have as usual quoted me out of context, you do that to everyone with whom you disagree. What was I was discussing in the Brievik thread, was the effect of unregulated and overly quick immigration on the population of the Scandinavian countries and the backlash it was likely to provoke.

Recent events have proved me correct.

I am not against immigration per se, but it must be managed in such a way as to allow immigrants to be assimilated into what is a totally alien society. This can never happen when the flood of immigrants is so great that the infrastructure cannot cope.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 07:19 PM

"No Jim, you are the one who has it wrong I'm a political socialist and a social conservative"
You are an extremist right-winger - pure and simple
Socialism is about the fair distribution of wealth and equality of opportunity the fact that you refuse to respond to that fact makes you what you are - a caricature of an extremist.
"a bunch of whining, rights inspired, entitlement seeking, parasites."
You seem to be suffering from severe dyslexia, to boot - rights are what they are - rights.
They are not privileges, nobody gave them as a favour - they were hard-fought-for over centuries, the right to vote, the right to combine, the right to decent housing, sanitation, the right to work, to education, to decent health care.....
The last half century has seen the gradual whittling away of those hard-won rights - by people like you, and now, with the few we have left, when we claim them we're told we are "whining".
I ask again - what are you on? You certainly haven't overdosed on humanity.
You lie in defence of practices which have even been condemned by theh rightest-of-right Daily Mail, you sneer are people who regard laying human beings open to the worst of racist thugs in Britain as evil.... you defend every right wing statement, every move that would seek to improve the lot of homosexuals who have been at the mercy of bigotry and oppressive laws for many centuries......
If you are a 'socialist', my jack's a kipper.
I still have in mind that you are the only human being(sic) to have ever suggested that mass-murderer Brievik, who ruthlessly slaughtered all those young people, "was saying something worth listening to".
Time to open the window and let some fresh air in, I think
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 06:43 PM

Michael, at your age you should have learned that light-hearted banter may be conducted in whatever playful tone the participants connive in. But serious conversation, particularly where some antagonism is involved, needs to ditch the patronising stupidity of the childish modes of address of the kind you resort to. It's about outcomes, dear boy, outcomes. And the outcome of your wit-free childish talk is that we all think that you're a bit of a twat. You bring it on yourself. In the illiterate terms of the common yank, go figure. Sorry to be less than gentle with a chap of your advancing years, but you really do need to be told.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 05:58 PM

Steve:- What conceivable warrant do you imagine yourself to have to address me in that patronising tone? What, out of interest, do you claim to have said worth addressing, that I have failed to 'address'?
Off with you and - ah - satisfy your needs, would you please?

And, Jim: you impress nobody with your wallowing in so much self-pity; nobody feels sorry for you. 'Oick', is it? You really think that how we regard you and that's the whole trouble? Ah diddums... Sorry meanwhile to see you once again embracing the esoteric discipline of the Higher Point-Missing, in which you have good claims to be one of the leading exponents in the history of the Universe.

Traditional greetings

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 05:10 PM

Silly post, Michael, even for you. Do try to address what people say, otherwise don't bother replying, if you don't want to look bloody stupid. Been here before so many times, haven't we?

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: akenaton
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 03:10 PM

No Jim, you are the one who has it wrong I'm a political socialist and a social conservative.....is that so difficult to work out

I don't know of any proper socialist regime which was "liberal ...they are not the same thing at all.
Do you think Fidel Castro was a liberal..:0)?
Fidel was and probably still is, very socially conservative.

Of course I believe in public ownership of transport, power, production, even farming, but our people have become weak in mind and body unfit for the struggle, because they believe that individual "rights" are more important that the construction of a better society, they feel entitled to everything that life can give without having to contribute or conform.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 02:51 PM

Will resound to your post fully later Mike - probably tomorrow.
In the meantime - wonder why "A Real Friend Of The People" has become almost as insulting as "do gooder" or "bleeding heart"... or all the other once complementary phrases in the mouths of you right wingers - in the same way as a yearning for equality of opportunity has become "the politics of envy" - a bit "I'm the king of the castle" or, as we used to say in Liverpool "Ding - ding, I'm on the bus".
Personally, I find it smugly elitist and unpleasant - but then again, I'm only an 'oick'.
Some of us try to think outside Thatcher's 'dog-eat-dog' world and tend to worry about what's happened to society.
Your babytalk really isn't one of your most dmirable traits, Im afraid.
"to be replaced by a bunch of whining, rights inspired, entitlement seeking, parasites."
Christ almighty - hate to be the bearer of bad news Ake but the nearest you'll ever come tosocialism is National Socialism - what the hell are you on?
You are probably one of the most intolerantly vicious and dangerously right-wing fanatic I have ever encountered.
You describe yourself as a "conservative socialist", which is actually a contradiction in terms - Socialists wish to change thins for the better while Conservatives are quite happy with the way things are and are prepared to fight tooth and nail to conerve the status quo.
I once asked you your vies on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution (Socialism) - I received no answer; still working it out, I presume.
I assume I'm not going to get either an apology for or explanation of your dishonesty - didn't expect one really.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 02:18 PM

Well, you are A Real Friend Of The People, aren't you, Steve.   Perhaps, just maybe-waybe-waybe, a teensy-weensy itsy-bitsy ickle bit patronising, knowing so unerringly where their true interests lie so much better than the poor little dears can work it out for themselves?

Oh, dearie-wearie-wearie-me NO!: why, perish the very thought!

But don't, if you would be so kind, patronise me as if I was one of your tame·sweeti·pie-ickle·proles. I'll decide what I'll choose to remember while I vote about Europe, thankyouverymuch·justasame -- and come and go by Carterhaugh, while I'm about it, ask nae leave of thee!

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: akenaton
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 02:04 PM

Keith and Michael hit the nail on the head, the left have all but disappeared, to be replaced by a bunch of whining, rights inspired, entitlement seeking, parasites.

Of course the poor in thrall to a corrupt media would rather watch the prancing freaks on "Big Brother", or any of the other "reality" shows which dominate TV ....and now even radio.
The entertainment and information media is a disgusting pit of propaganda, crass, witless and foul mouthed.

The Herald was a serious newspaper, it was replaced by the more downmarket Sunday Herald, but most of the population have the concentration span of a midge on pot.
Real Socialism will be unpleasant for the middle classes, for those who believe they have the right to behave in any manner they like regardless of the cost to society.

We are all going to have to grow up, start educating our young people properly providing meaningful jobs for everyone whether they are interested in working or not....socialism will mean compulsion for the common good.....there will be no room for a liberalism which hands out houses benefits and food to immigrants while our own poor fester.

I wonder why the great powers cannot construct "safe areas" in the middle East as they did in the Balkans.....the flood of immigrants may be of benefit to Big Business and The NHS, to provide cheap labour, but in the long term they will change our countries beyond recognition.....and we won't bloody well like it, not even our Mudcat whining, rights inspired, entitlement seeking ideologues.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 01:15 PM

Superfluous post, Michael. I'm resigned to the way things are. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to point out that an overwhelmingly right-wing media is bad for democracy, bad for helping people to make fair choices and good for keeping people semi-literate politically (which suits the right-wing down to the ground. No-one not of their ilk would ever vote Tory if they know what they are really like, self-interested, grabbing bastards whose número uno priority is to look after the well-heeled). Democracy is the best of a bad job, mainly because democracies hardly ever wage war on other democracies. Try to remember that when you're voting us out of Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 12:50 PM

... and now I have demonstrated that, yes, it has been tried, just try asking yourself, Jim, why it hasn't been tried AGAIN...

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 12:17 PM

"it's never been tried"

Yes it has, Jim -- see above about the Daily Herald. It was the organ of the TU movement & Labour Party, explicitly established to sell alongside the publications of Beaverbrook & Kemsley & printed in similar format, and we had it at home in the 1930s. And where is it now? Ah, you are glad I asked you that, aren't you?

Will's plays have always played to big audiences, from The Globe onward. What other playwright's works have gone on filling theatres, non-stop & worldwide, for nearly half a millennium? Dickens sold millions in his day. Hardy made a good living, built a big house,, & still sells steadily. But where are the million-sellers of the likes of Ethel M Dell which come & go like mayflies? Sorry, can't get your point here at all.

Will just have to soldier on, living with the grief which your 'disappointment' in me induces, won't I alas! Mind you, your 'disappointment' [how caused BTW? -- still on about this 'mask, which I've never worn, are we?], strikes me as somewhat unmannerly & patronising. My remarks, as Dr Johnson remarked to a detractor of a work he admired, "were writ with little thought of pleasing you".

Best regards as always notwithstanding --
≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 11:57 AM

"Because the 'mass' wouldn't buy them if they were leftwing, "
You don't know that Mike - it's never been tried.
Even so, if we decide our culture on how it will sell, we may as well make a bonfire of Shakespeare, Hardy and Dickens and replace them with pop-pap
As far as the news media goes - the idea that it only prints what will sell is frightening - "anything fit to market" - now there's a twist on an old saying.
You never cease to disappoint me,
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 11:45 AM

But you keep beginning in medias res, Steve. Why are the 'mass media' rightwing? Because the 'mass' wouldn't buy them if they were leftwing, that's why. Where's The Daily Herald gone? I dimly remember it from my childhood. In common with all soi-disant believers in democracy, you can't adjust to, or get your head around, the fact that the δεμος won't take to socialism in any form - don't like it, don't trust it, don't want it. Don't you just despise the pathetic contemptible proles, eh, who are so easy to manipulate coz they are 'semi-literate politically' -- which means they have the temerity not to share your utterly discredited idealistic egalitarian vision, even after all the societies that have been supposed to practise it -- USSR, Maoist China, Tito's Yugo et al -- have been such conspicuous successes and exemplars to us all!

Oh, what's the use

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 11:42 AM

By the way - if the Government "loves immigration" - why as stopping it become such a feature of their policy?
Please don't deny it - just read what Theresa the Teaser says
As you say "crackers"!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 11:38 AM

"So you are back to claiming it was all a government plot!"
Sigh..... no Keith - I know it was the idea of two companies, the doors known about by the government for at least four years before they did anything about it.
I'm saying it was a possibility that the Govenment was happy to let it go ahead and take advantage of it - stranger things have happened at sea
Are you still claiming I suggested that the government wanted to "persecute" asylum seekers - not there's crackers for you - dishonest ones, to boot.
I don't expect either of you dickshits to withdraw the accusation, let along apologise for it.
]Piss off and let the adults talk
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 11:13 AM

Steve,
That's what I meant by softening people up in order to get them to take illiberal immigration policies onboard.

You have it the wrong way around.
Government loves immigration. It keeps big business happy by supplying lots of supine workers ready and willing to work for less and who have been trained at someone else's expence.
It also provides rich folks like us with plenty of gardeners, plumbers, child minders, nannies and care workers for rock bottom money.

It is the poor who suffer the hardship of reduced wages, opportunities, housing, school places, overcrowded hospitals and services.
It is the ordinary people who are desperately begging government to introduce "illiberal immigration policies," not the other way round.

Cameron made no promises on immigration last election because he was shown to be incapable or unwilling to keep the immigration promises he made the previous time!

Why are you and the Left so in favour of even more liberal immigration policies?
Who benefits?
Working people see it as a betrayal by those who are supposed to speak for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 10:49 AM

jim,
The doors and bands, I suspect, were not to actually persecute the wearers or the tenants, that would be counter-productive, but to be able to find them in a hurry if the need arose, ie. to fulfill election promises and to keep an eye on us.

So you are back to claiming it was all a government plot!
Crackers Jim!

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 10:38 AM

Ukip's doorstep popularity was all about its stance on immigrants and very little else. Europe on its own has never really fired up the electorate that much. Ask William Hague. They were able to cash in gleefully on the fact that the Tories had dismally failed to keep a promise on immigration numbers that they should never have made (ask yourself why they did make it). One of the penalties of democracy is that we have to permit unscrupulous politicians to appeal to people's prejudices and baser instincts, as well as allowing right-wing mass media to side with them. Couple that with a semi-literate population, politically-speaking, and fighting it can be bloody hard. Ask Jeremy Corbyn. I'm amazed that anyone posting here with pretensions to intelligence can't see right through Ukip.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 10:36 AM

I agree that these ad hoc single-issue fly-by-night parties are unsatisfactory phenomena sub speciæ æternitatis. I still keep on my lavatory wall as a sort of souvenir a "Referendum Party -let the people decide" badge; and had to re3sort to wikipedia even to remember what election it was [1994] and what the guy's name was [Sir James Goldsmith], both of which bits of info had faded entirely from my memory. And Farage & UKIP will doubtless go the same way. But from my

'out at all costs before the French & Germans who unite in hatred of us if in nothing else whatever succeed in ruining us beyond repair'*

pov, they're all we've got.

≈M≈

*Only a day or two since I quoted on some other thread that indispensable principle which I now have cause to iterate yet again, that "just becoz I'm paranoid doesn't mean that the buggers ain't out to get me!"

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 10:20 AM

Unhappily, Jim, I have no memories. They were my father's memories of about 1912 or so -- he was born in 1901. I have written all I know of them 4 or 5 posts back.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 10:12 AM

"My grandfather BTW, a Yiddish journalist and Jewish political activist, knew Kropotkin; my father remembered his visiting their home during his adolescence. "
'Peter the Great' - would loved to be a fly on that wall Mike - hope you wrote down some of those memories!
Don't agree with your points about Ukip - its leadership is hardly inspiring, it can't even manage the extremist nutters it attracts and it has a one-theme policy.
But there you go - we're not going to see eye-to-eye about everything
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 10:07 AM

If you are happy in Europe, Steve -- your privilege. And I hope it keeps fine for you & doesn't all end in tears. As I say, not going to affect me for that much longer, any way you slice it.

But I find an odd sort of paradox in someone who would, I am sure, regard himself as an enlightened believer in the democratic process using a term like "Ukip's burgeoning popularity" in tones of pejorative putdown! Democracy fine, so long as the unenlightened proles all vote the way you think they should, hey? Have you even thought of asking yourself why their popularity was 'burgeoning'?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 10:00 AM

"you might as well be a real racist for all the difference it makes"
Quite agree Steve - the effect to the recipient is the same either way, but in terms of what we are discussing, the driving force behind that racism is not Xenophobia or hatred of other races, as I perceive 'racism' proper to be, but a cynicism to use other people racism.
The doors and bands, I suspect, were not to actually persecute the wearers or the tenants, that would be counter-productive, but to be able to find them in a hurry if the need arose, ie. to fulfill election promises and to keep an eye on us.
This doesn't just apply to Asylum Seekers or even immigrants, but to all of us - hence Michael Howard's efforts to store as much information about us on identity cards.
None of this is beyond the realms of possibility - it's the desire of all Governments - democratic or otherwise - modern technology has put this within their grasp.
Over the last few months I've used the net extensively - to buy books or computer software or to find hotels.
THe minute you log off you're inundated with ads for similar products - recently been getting a load of ads for Dublin hotels appearing as pop-ups on my screen - from a dozen different companies - sorry, but I find that disturbing.
Of course, there is no evidence that this was a deliberate ploy by the Government to tag asylum seekers - I described it as only a possibility from the beginning, but it's what's happening more and more in the world today - particularly in the U.S., and where they go, we invariably follow.
None of this has anything to do with "persecution asylum seekers, as these two dickbrains lyingly claim, but simply a method of keeping tabs on them.
Some people don't mind what's happening - I do - I don't trust a society that can elect a fascist who uses our police force as a private army and describes a South American mass murderer as 'her kind of democrat' as a Prime Minister, or has a police force that even finds itself "institutionally racist".
If anybody wants a peep at how safe a pair of hands our economy is in at present - I suggest they seek out the somewhat difficult film, 'The Big Short', about the 2008 economic crash - anger-making and frightening at the same time.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 09:49 AM

You can't deny that much of the Tory "strong on immigration" rhetoric before the election was made in fear of Ukip's burgeoning popularity. They were running scared. As for Ukip, OK so they wrong-headedly want us out of Europe, which they demonise, xenophobic but not in itself racist, but they also also demonise immigrants by suggesting that they may have terrorists embedded, etc., and they talk up, inaccurately, the supposed burden on our benefits system, our jobs market and infrastructure. All on the record and all very close to what many would see as full of the usual, dismal racist undertones that we'd condemn if it were about black people. Ukip signally fails to draw a line in the sand in order to separate what's acceptable in their own ranks and what isn't. The Tories at the very least had to go along with all this and try to look even stronger than UKIP. It was an unedifying spectacle. Principles and fair play could go hang. The effect on the people's perception of immigrants was far less important to the Tories than watching their arses. Pragmatic racism? You say tomayto, I say tomato...

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 09:23 AM

I say again that it is a great error to equate UKIP with the explicitly racist parties. I just do not believe that to be its motivation, either implicit or explicit. IMO the 1974 Europe con was a disgrace, in the toils of whose iniquitous outcomes we are still enmeshed with no hope of escape but for some sort of policies equating to those of UKIP. At 84 it is not likely to affect me for much longer, and I have no children -- tho now I have step-children thru my second marriage, I feel a bit more personally concerned than I did a few years ago.

I agree, Jim, with your postulation that "The British political system has long abandoned any pretence of representing the people of these islands - it has become a political scrabble to hold office - a career move...". And not only the British, but all. I have always said [& have probably posted here before] that the existential paradox is that anyone who wishes to make his livelihood and career in politics is the last person on whom the responsibility for governing others should ever devolve. But the problem is, what to do about it. Anarchy was probably one putative attempt at an answer -- but the built-in absurdity of anyone's seeking office on an 'Anarchist' ticket is only too explicit & obvious. My grandfather BTW, a Yiddish journalist and Jewish political activist, knew Kropotkin; my father remembered his visiting their home during his adolescence.

This is not meant to be a constructive post; rather one of despair... Anyone see any way out of the impasse I postulate?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 08:52 AM

Well if you're a pragmatic racist, as you put it, in other words letting your policies of trying to keep immigrants out and treating those who are here differently to everyone else do the talking for you, very likely because you feel the need to trump UKIP, you might as well be a real racist for all the difference it makes. In fact, demonisation is more efficient when it's done more subtly, as opposed to doing it the BNP way. Read akenaton's 09 Feb. 5.55pm post again. That's the effect that politicians' rhetoric has on feeble-minded people. That's what I meant by softening people up in order to get them to take illiberal immigration policies onboard. I should thank him for providing me with the example.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 08:20 AM

"Pick me up on detail any time, Jim. My brain can be slow at times!"
Don't think it is really Steve – but it's a mistake we've all made to write of the present Government as simply "racist" - in my opinion, it's a bit more complicated than that.
For me, the present refugee crisis and the tags and front doors have been an eye opener.
The British political system has long abandoned any pretence of representing the people of these islands - it has become a political scrabble to hold office - a career move and a way to make sure the wealthy stay wealthy, nothing more.
Labour - Conservative and (so called) Liberal parties have become indistinguishable and interchangeable, swinging one way or the other in coalitions in order to retain power.
More and more, 'the strangers among us' have become an issue at election time, pawns used by politicians playing on a xenophobia which has been part of our lives for the length of my lifetime at least
This cynicism goes back at least as far as the mid 19th century when the British newspapers were peddling a racist image of the simian Irish, and our hotels and boarding houses were putting up signs like "No Irish – no dogs, while at the same time, our politicians and industrialists, particularly mill and mine-owners, were welcoming the starving Famine refugees with open arms as a method of driving down the wages of the indigenous working people.   
In the nineteen - thirties, we had political racism and cultural hatred in the form of the Antisemitism of Mosley, Ramsey, Arthur Wellesley the 5th Duke of Wellington, Lord Rothermere of The Daily Mail, set alongside a moral obligation of accepting refugees from Nazi Germany and an influx of impoverished workers who would work for what they could get.
In the latter half of the 20th century, we had the rabble-rousing racism of Powell's 'Rivers of Blood, against all immigrants, alongside a political acceptance that we "couldn't send them all back to where they came from, coupled with a pragmatic recognition that immigration was beneficial to the economy and the community.
Nowadays, apart from Ukip (maybe), the unlamentedly late National Front and the BNP, I don't believe genuine racism to be a passionately-felt part of British politics - not really – Ukip is an oddity in the sense that it attracts racist nutters, but this is set beside a talentless leadership of wannabe-parliamentarians who are happy to use racism, immigration and anti-Europeanism as their stairway to the stars - pragmatic racism.
Our politics today consists of a bunch of cynics from all the major parties who will use every dirty trick in the book to hold office, and sadly, immigration has become a trump card at election time.
The present appalling situation in the world today, much exacerbated by our own policy of arms sales and general trade to and friendship with despots, the past destruction of our home manufacturing industries, which has flooded our shops with slave-condition-produced goods from abroad, not forgetting our reliance on oil, has led directly to a massive refugee crisis - producing a winning trump card at election time.
Want to win an election - simple - promise to stop immigration - nothing to do with racism, just simple parliamentary tactics (Britain isn't alone in this, of course.
Similar things are happening in Europe with the Le Pen dynasty in France, or in Turkey, or in Hungary.... or all those countries slamming the doors on desperate people to appease national Xenophobias – a terrifying re-emergence of extreme rightism.
I think it would be wrong to put what is happening today to political racism – parliamentary politics are guided by widening the wealth gap and staying in office.
Sure – there are racists in every section of society, politics included, sadly among working people too, but as far as politicians are concerned, pragmatism rules O.K. and it always did.   
If you believe that this lot are driven by racism – I disagree with you - you are assuming they have a guiding philosophy, which I don't believe they have
If you are saying that they are happy to use our inherent Xenophobia as a nation to stay in office and protect their privileges – I'm with you all the way.
Both are racist in effect, but not every racist is a RACIST, if you know what I mean.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 07:19 AM

Tin Eye may have been referring to 1984. I'm a bit slow this morning after too many pancakes so I don't get the significance.

Keith, I'll give you a minute, though I don't know why I bother. When I say that these things are not debatable IN MY OPINION (nota bene), I mean that all decent people should condemn, unanimously, nem con, the painting of the doors and the enforced wearing of the wristbands. Anyone who defends these ugly practices, or says that they are trivial or that they don't matter and what's all the fuss about, is, IN MY OPINION, out of order and is very likely uninformed at best, or uncaring, or bigoted at worst. That's what I meant. As I am actually debating it, that should tell you clearly what I think of you and your allies. And, as a footnote, Jim and I are not and never have been in cahoots with each other. Your childish attempts to drive a wedge are simply laughable.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 07:03 AM

So?

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 05:44 AM

Steve, what is to misunderstand? You stated your case very clearly.
I asked if you still think that and you do.
Fine.
I asked Jim if he agreed, but he declined to answer.
I think he would have supported you if he felt he could.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 05:27 AM

Tin Eye, I don't think Televisions have been made compulsory ....yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 05:26 AM

You clearly don't understand the point I was making, Keith. If you don't agree with it, or any of it, bring it on. It seems rather pointless to ask me if I agree with something I said.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 04:57 AM

Jim Carroll - PM
Date: 29 Jan 16 - 07:23 AM

"It is extreme paranoia to imagine a government conspiracy in any of this."
Yeah - sure it is

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 04:24 AM

This finishes here as far as I'm concerned
Apart from the possibility of a Government feeling out a tagging system for Asylum Seekers the only 'conspiracy theory' I will give my support to is that Keith's campaign is aimed at deliberately closing down a thread on what has happened in Middlesborough and Cardiff.
He has not come up with one shred of backing for his claims and nobody is supporting him here - it is a one-man-band again,
Even Ake, who started this "persecution of asylum seekers" accusation, has fallen silent and has left him to stew in his own juice - like the hero we know him to be.
The point has been made over and over again of what effect this tagging and identification of asylum seekers has had on those wretched refugees - the old usual handful have rolled out to support them, the red doors and the identification bands have been abandoned for the abominably inhuman idea that they were - an experiment failed, one of the companies is being examined for possibly defrauding the taxpayer and the world has moved on.
Now, what we are left with is desperate attempt by Keith to save face - for his naff campaign to compare 4* hotels to asylum seekers seeking assistance, and more than that, to his blatant dishonesty in rewriting other people's opinions - it ain't going to happen - face well lost Keith, as deep as the Titanic in the Grand Banks.
I really have no more to say to him, and I truely hope the rest of you has taken the lesson.
"Get a life."
I'll take that as "I don't want to be involved" then Woodie - can't say I blame you - neither do I.
Happy to continue the discussion on the topic - but not with this pair of saddoes.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Feb 16 - 02:57 AM

"Then how about helping to put a stop to it Woodie - can you show anything to back up Keith's claims, or would you rather keep your distance too?"

I left school and started work in 1963. Unlike The Usual Suspects on this forum, I left childishness and bike-shed behaviour behind at that point. Stupid, childish, "Yah-Boo you" bickering may give you lot a huge boner, but it does nothing for me. I tried, earlier, to inject some sense and realism, and hopefully bring the squabbling to a close, but to no avail. I know better than to try to breathe life into a dead horse.

I've got a lovely wife, a nice house, two nice cars, a grand little dog, a good pension, half-a-dozen guitars and a mandolin most players would sell their first-born in order to own, two nice holidays a year, and decent health. I'm having a good life. Why in the name of God would I want to waste it pointlessly arguing with two factions of OCD idiots whose aim isn't to reach consensus, but simply to "win", and who are prepared to lie, distort and misinterpret in their vain attempts to achieve their goal?

Get a life.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!
From: GUEST,Tin Eye
Date: 09 Feb 16 - 11:58 PM

Raggytash, aren't Telescreens required in the UK? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Feb 16 - 11:06 PM

Because Israel does not commit atrocities

Plenty of Israelis think otherwise, Bearded Fred.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 16 - 10:38 PM

which never criticises Israeli atrocities

Because Israel does not commit atrocities, unless you are implying that defending your country from attack is an atrocity.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Feb 16 - 10:17 PM

Steve,
"I'll tell you what I think. I think we are being softened up to hate immigrants by a nasty, racist Tory government which never criticises Israeli atrocities, which cosies up to the despicable Saudi regime and which allows fat cats to get away without paying tax. We are told that there are bunches of migrants threatening to swarm into the country. The fact that we can even be having a discussion about marking out asylum seekers as separate by painting their doors a certain colour or making them wear wristbands is testament to the fact that the cynical softening up is working on the more bigoted and feeble-minded among us. These things are not debatable in my opinion."

Is that still your view Steve?
Do you agree with it Jim?

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Feb 16 - 10:13 PM

Jim,
Nothing about Government persecuting anybody yet

Me,
"It is extreme paranoia to imagine a government conspiracy in any of this."
You,
"Yeah - sure it is."

That is you disagreeing that it is extreme paranoia to imagine a government conspiracy in any of this, and so do all your other quotes.

I acknowledge and accept that you have now changed your mind.
Your embarrassment over your previous position does you credit.
We are now in agreement.
I think that a good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Beats yellow stars, I suppose!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 16 - 09:22 PM

Pick me up on detail any time, Jim. My brain can be slow at times!