BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!

Subject: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Mar 21 - 12:49 PM

What activists get wrong about Britain's history!!

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Mar 21 - 01:04 PM

I'm wearing a white ribbon today to raise awareness to 'over activism' and addiction to raising awareness of all the other colored ribbons.
One can be bonkers about raising awareness with every day and month dedicated to a multitude of conscious raising causes, diseases, and pains in the ass. ;^)
lest we forget-
The last country to successfully/effectively use slavery was Nazi Germany.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Mar 21 - 05:18 PM

Good article. Slavery is still alive and well, but at least it ain't legal to do in nationally any more...

Anybody see The Long Song on Masterpiece? It is a very mini series, 3 parts, about the end of slavery in Jamaica.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: DaveRo
Date: 06 Mar 21 - 06:00 PM

That article is a good example of whataboutism.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Raedwulf
Date: 07 Mar 21 - 05:18 PM

About what I'd expect from Bonzo. The article isn't wrong. But it's also one-eyed drivel...

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Mar 21 - 05:22 PM

one eyed drivel, no three legged doggerell

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Mar 21 - 05:45 PM

I thought it was an excellent article. Living here is the Southern US, I'd like to see more coverage like this.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Raedwulf
Date: 07 Mar 21 - 06:18 PM

Mrrzy, as a Yan... No, wait, Southern? You ain't no Yankee, then! ;-)

You've a different perspective, north or south. The Spectator is not an unbiased publication. I wouldn't necessarily characterise it as "right wing"; but it's very much free market capitalist. Its general thrust is that it doesn't like rules that get in the way of Making Money. Which, yes, is right wing, but only a part of that philosophy.

As a Yoos, rather than a Yook, you are much more likely to be sympathetic to their arguments. The US is much to the right of where the UK, let alone the EU, is. From a UK perspective, no this wasn't fair or balanced. It takes a reasonable premise & distorts it. Considerably. Just my opinion, but you've seen my name before & can make your own mind up as to whether I try to press a point of view...

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Mar 21 - 06:44 PM

God help you if you thought it was "an excellent article." It was an exercise in total right-wing bollix. The Spectator is owned by the Barclay brothers, well-known billionaire tax exiles and offshore tax parasites who also own the Daily Torygraph. It's editor is soft-face, hard-case Tory Fraser Nelson. Lovely if you like being hoodwinked by a bunch of people who aren't, shall we say, exactly Brit patriots...

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Rain Dog
Date: 07 Mar 21 - 07:24 PM

Just the one Barclay brother now.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Mar 21 - 07:52 PM

Bejaysus, I must keep up! Cheers for that.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: robomatic
Date: 07 Mar 21 - 09:20 PM

Are the Barclay Bros analogous to the Koch Bros? The Koch Bros are very well off financiers of the American Right, and also of various scientific pursuits. And, there is only one of the two left. I've visited a refinery that used to be owned by one of their companies in Alaska. It had a historical wall display of their pioneering work developing the oil industry in America and worldwide.

I've heard of Barclay as a bank, but in no other manner.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: robomatic
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 12:03 AM

Just read the article. It was certainly not trying to be objective, but I've often wondered about the details of the anti-slavery campaign that was waged by the British government at what I'm sure was great expense. Well ahead of the rest of Europe, although I'm not sure that all countries in Europe were engaged in slaves or the trade of slaves. But for sure the American world was, top to bottom.

Now I've looked over the Spectator web site and I can see that it frames an extremely different point of view from most of the people in this part of the Mudcat world. But it's not obvious to me that it's extremist in the sense that say Breitbart or Drudge is. And the article itself covers real dates and events that can be branded as false if indeed they are.

There is much that is being said and written that will eventually fall by the wayside of useful ideology NOT. Some of it will be filtered through these threads as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Rain Dog
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 03:23 AM

"But it's not obvious to me that it's extremist in the sense that say Breitbart or Drudge is."

We live in an age where something/someone can be labelled extremist if their views differ from ones own.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 04:28 AM

Extremist isn't the right word, but The Spectator is decidedly right-wing. Unlike the sensationalist right-wing tabloids such as the Daily Mail, it dresses up its ideology in studiously-constructed English which tries to look measured and scholarly. Don't be fooled.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 12:33 PM

Steve Shaw, none of your arguments address the actual article. You have attacked its source, but not it, itself. What *in the article* is so wrong?

Raedwulf, two comments: I have been told that the difference between a Yankee and a Damn Yankee is that a Yankee is a Northerner who comes down South, and a Damn Yankee is one who stays.

I also heard, a long time ago, that the definition of a Yankee depends on your geography:
Outside the US, it's an American.
In the US, it's a Northerner.
In the North, it's a New Englander.
In New England, it's a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is someone who doesn't like cheddar cheese on their apple pie. Because apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without the squeeze.

I grew up 4° north of the equator, waaaaay farther south than the southernmost southern US states, but I am considered a Yankee here in Cville as I lived in the Boston area for a few years before moving here. In 1985.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 12:44 PM

I read every word of it as soon as Bonzo posted it. Read the first eleven detestable lines of it, which set the tone for the rest of it. If you can't see from that what's up, I can't help you.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 03:22 PM

Mrrzy are you from Ecuador?

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: robomatic
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 03:32 PM

Steve:

Beware, the medium IS the message, these days, or damn near. So if you've got a quarrel with the article, at least throw us a bone.

I often take the Churchillian adage as a model as follows: "Democracy is a terrible political system, except for all the others."
"Capitalism is a terrible political system, except for all the others."

What the Spectator article referenced in the OP might rightfully refer to is:
"The English were a terrible colonial power, except for all the others."

Which I think is a tolerable argument. I remember having an Indian roommate in college who said as much.

And I used to suspect that the Chinese would disagree, but in fact I'm not so sure. They did get Hong Kong back on schedule and I suspect a majority of the residents are wishing they hadn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 04:29 PM

The piece is full of whataboutery and of-its-timery. It lionises Britain as heroic in the abolition of slavery with regard to the time when colonialism was at its height and at its worst. It attempts to divert responsibility from the country to the major religions. You get the feeling that if only the author could descend just a little into tabloidese he'd be openly demonising the woke (he actually does that anyway). Wow. It's ok to be very bad as long as you can identify others who are very very bad. That's how it reads to me and that's why I reject the sentiment.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 04:48 PM

"demonising the woke" is a great thing to do!!

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Mar 21 - 01:32 PM

Côte d'Ivoire, Bonz.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Mar 21 - 02:54 PM

Ah, just around the globe!

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Mar 21 - 05:23 PM

In 1993, the Barclay brothers bought the tenement of the island of Brecqhou, a small sister island of Sark, one of the Channel Islands. Their mock-Gothic castle on Brecqhou, designed by Quinlan Terry, features 100-foot (30 m) granite walls, battlements, two swimming pools and a helicopter pad.
Net worth: GB£7billion (Sunday Times Rich List, 2020)
Died: David Rowat Barclay; 10 January 2021 (aged 86)

no conection to barclays bank.
so the spectator is owned by a very rich, right wing financier. the editorials and articles reflect that kind of opinion

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Mar 21 - 06:18 PM

That's right. And it isn't unreasonable to view any political opinion expressed in the publication through that lens.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Mar 21 - 09:02 PM

It is very interesting to witness some real emotional antipathies which we on the west side of the pond are simply unaware of. I was unaware of the Barclays much as I was unaware of some of the London criminal class until I heard Monty Python's sketch about Doug and Dinsdale Pirhana (the Kray brothers).

but there is (was) a great British tradition of appreciating good arguments well expressed even if they don't come from a normally approved source. I had an Irish friend who just loved telling the story of Samuel Johnson's letter to Lord Chesterfield, which while it was greatly to the Lord's detriment, was so well written that the Lord himself displayed the letter ever after.

I am NOT holding up the movie Amazing Grace (2006) as equivalent to history, but it represents an English abolition movement that led to historic developments well ahead of anything on this continent. Surely an article in any English paper that brings this up is entitled to some tolerance.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Mar 21 - 09:14 PM

I don't mind where good arguments well expressed come from, but this piece was decidedly not that. It was a piece of quasi-revisionism constructed from a jaundiced, right-wing, imperialist point of view. I've already said why.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Mar 21 - 09:40 PM

Well, not really. You have explained well why you don't like the source. But what you don't like about the article serms to be that, well, you don't like the article.

The piece is full of whataboutery and of-its-timery. Opinion without any supporting example. We get it, you don't like it.

It lionises Britain as heroic in the abolition of slavery with regard to the time when colonialism was at its height and at its worst. Yes, but they *did* abolish slavery when colonialism was at its height. That is what the article is about. Should they be vilified for it? Praise seems not inappropriate.

It attempts to divert responsibility from the country to the major religions. Well, the religions *were* often more influential than any individual nation.

Anyway. Thank you for taking the time to detail your arguments. It was just nice to see reportage admitting that white Europeans did not invent slavery, and that many of the Africans brought to the new world were purchased, already enslaved.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 02:29 AM

I think slavery goes back to turtles (it's all the way down). It reminds me of the saying: "Everybody complains about it but no one does anything about it."

Well, Britain did. And later on, the States did. And it almost broke us, and DID remake us.

Well, SOME of us. In 2011 a resurgent Republican house sponsored a reading of the Constitution, only with some portions left out.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 03:48 AM

William wilberforce played a major part it was true he was british BUT he met with alot of oppostion from the British political establishment.
the problem with this article is that it gives the impression that the british establishment abolished slavery without pressure qhich was not the case
In 1787, he came into contact with Thomas Clarkson and a group of anti-slave-trade activists, including Granville Sharp, Hannah More and Charles Middleton. They persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition, and he soon became one of the leading English abolitionists. He headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.

Wilberforce was convinced of the importance of religion, morality and education. He championed causes and campaigns such as the Society for the Suppression of Vice, British missionary work in India, the creation of a free colony in Sierra Leone, the foundation of the Church Mission Society, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. His underlying conservatism led him to support politically and socially controversial legislation, and resulted in criticism that he was ignoring injustices at home while campaigning for the enslaved abroad.

In later years, Wilberforce supported the campaign for the complete abolition of slavery, and continued his involvement after 1826,
    the fact that slavery was abolished by british campaigners such as Wilberfoprce does not excuse britains previous involvement

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 05:44 AM

Absolutely it doesn't, Dick. The tone of the article is that it's not fair to criticise Britain because (and there are plenty of examples, including two major religions as well as other countries) others were worse, or slower to abolish, and it ignored the fact that we were ravaging the riches of other countries whilst getting their peoples to kneel down and pray with their eyes shut, then leaving those countries for dead a bit later on when they got awkward with us or got a bit too expensive to look after. Like I said, don't shout at me just because I'm very bad, because there are others who are very very bad. As for "And it almost broke us, and DID remake us," you'll get plenty of arguments about that. You had segregation right up to the time I was doing my science in secondary school, you have been the most bellicose nation on earth for many decades, you interfere in democracies and prop up despicable and murderous totalitarian regimes the world over, you have gun indulgence that kills tens of thousands of your citizens every year and you still endure outrages that lead to such movements as Black Lives Matter.

And you managed to drop nuclear bombs on thousands of children while you were playing God, you are one of the world's worst polluters and you somehow managed to elect Reagan, Dubya and Trump. I think you could use another remake.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 07:58 AM

And how else do you think the japs would have been defeated without massive allied loss of life??????????

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 08:22 AM

I dislked the article at first, but as Steve and Sandman have illuminated, now I know why.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 09:15 AM

Now you are too heavy handed Steve. The US is not the only nation that has committed Ecocide and Genocide in its past.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 09:26 AM

I didn't say it was, and throughout this thread I've excoriated my own country, thanks.

Don't want to get into that, Bonzo, but even with the use of a nuclear weapon they could have done a shot across the bows in an unpopulated area.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 09:40 AM

I am 100% in favor of a make over. Today we have a relief bill for workers, small business', families and children. It is the biggest bill since FDR began his New Deal make over. Recently CEOs make 500 times their average worker. Workers have been starved and not allowed to organize.
This is a crucial time to make amends financially, socially and morally. The development, production and operation of the F-35 has amounted to 1.7 TRILLION dollars over time. This relief bill is 1.9 TRILLION dollars all at once.
Yep this is the wealthiest nation in history.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 11:12 AM

Enjoying the recent posts which manage to shed light AND heat. Well done.

Playing through my head: Steve Goodman's What have you done for me lately?

"Cast your bread upon the waters, and what do you get?
Some hard luck stories, and your bread gets wet!"

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 11:44 AM

"The japs" - ? Really?

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 12:26 PM

I once described a person as "a good chap", which I don't think would've been picked up as anything out of the ordinary in Blighty.

BUT, this was California.

I was immediately asked if I'd called him "a good J-p" and I think my shocked reaction cleared me, but not really.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 05:37 PM

Nothing wrong with Japs.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 05:40 PM

No different an abbreviation than Argies, Ozzies or even Brits!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 05:56 PM

You ok with Pakis, Chinks, ragheads, redskins and dagos too, Bonzo?

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Mar 21 - 06:22 PM

Funny how abbreviation is sutch a long word!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Jos
Date: 11 Mar 21 - 04:02 AM

My passport says that I am British, but I do NOT like to be called a 'Brit'.
To me, a 'Brit' is a drunken yob, or the female equivalent, making a lot of noise on the streets of Benidorm and Torremolinos.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Mar 21 - 03:43 AM

We used to have an annual holiday at Playa San Juan, which is a considerably more up market area than Benidorm, which on a clear day can just about be seen accross the bay, some 42km away.

Both Benidorm and Torremolinos can be guaranteed to be full of the most hideous scum imaginable during the holiday season!!! However, the old parts of both are quite nice.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Mar 21 - 07:01 PM

I've met more than a few Davids who do not wish to be called "Dave". And one Michel who would not have "Mike".

So I have avoided the concatenation (another long word, B3Legs) of the word "Japanese" for many years. Same thing for "Nipponese", BTW.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Raedwulf
Date: 15 Mar 21 - 08:08 AM

Chinks, ragheads, redskins and dagos

None of those are abbreviations are they, though, Steve, O Mudcat English Didact?

False argument as per usual.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Mar 21 - 08:23 AM

So you're OK with Bonzo's pejoratives too, then. Fine.

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 15 Mar 21 - 09:01 AM

Keyboard warriors with nothing to do!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Mar 21 - 11:09 AM

You started it!

Subject: RE: BS: Activists are bonkers about history!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 15 Mar 21 - 05:58 PM

Ah but I do have something to do - WORK, remember that???