BS: What Is Woke?

Subject: BS: What Is Woke?
From: PHJim
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 01:58 AM

I was reading a thread above the line and noticed this comment:
____________________________________________________________________
Subject: RE: Where have all the folkies gone?
From: GUEST,akenaton - PM
Date: 12 Feb 22 - 06:23 AM

Folkies have become Wokies, RIP folk music.
____________________________________________________________________

I've heard the word "woke" used a lot lately, usually by right wing folks, but I was never quite sure what it meant. Was it a real word, or just something that someone made up? (I guess all words were made up by someone)
I checked a couple of on line dictionaries and found that they all were very similar to this:

Merriam-Websterhttps://www.merriam-webster.com › dictionary › woke
Woke - aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)

Strangely enough, Most of the right wing sites seem to use this word as an insult. This definition sounds pretty complimentary to me.

This led me to find some definitions of other right wing "insults".
One of the worst insults for a right winger is to call someone a "liberal".

liberal adjective
1.
willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas.
2.
relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.

Similar: tolerant, unprejudiced, unbigoted, broad-minded, open-minded, enlightened, forbearing, permissive, free, easygoing, laissez-faire, libertarian, latitudinarian, unbiased, impartial, nonpartisan, indulgent, lenient, lax, soft

Opposite: narrow-minded, bigoted

liberal noun
1. a supporter of policies that are socially progressive and promote social welfare.
2. a supporter of a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.

This also sounds more like a compliment than an insult.

While I wouldn't use these words to describe myself, I sure wouldn't feel insulted if you want to use 'em to describe me.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 02:16 AM

Ditto, PHJim.

I treat both woke and lefty as compliments. And liberal as long as it not in the UK political sense :-)

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 02:48 AM

Me too! I see it as being tolerant, understanding, kind, informed and without nasty prejudice.
But the word can be flaunted as a badge of moral rectitude by people who support, for example, allowing transgender women (who are really men) to compete in sporting events against actual women. Or letting them enter women's private spaces (toilets, changing rooms) which in my humble opinion could be rather dangerous. Perhaps I'm not as 'woke' as I'd like to think?

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 03:29 AM

I agree with the sport bit, Sen, but not sure what can be done. Disagree about the rest though. There have been mixed changing rooms and bathrooms for years with no problems.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 03:46 AM

Before "woke", we had "political correctness gone mad". It is the "gone mad" bit that turns it from a positive to a negative attribute. Someone who is described as "woke" may have good intentions but can still be a pain in the arse.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 04:08 AM

This is a blatant attempt by a person banned from membership here to start what is clearly a non-music topic, regardless of the way the thread title dresses it up.

---

The "Where have all the folkies gone" thread is certainly a legitimate music discussion, and the person in question is not prohibited from posting music posts to music threads. It's appropriate to move the "woke" discussion here, since that gets away from the topic of music.
Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 04:11 AM

Sorry, I didn't mean you, Jim - I'm reading on my phone without reading glasses. I'm talking about the bloke you quoted. Apologies.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Pete from seven stars link
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 04:26 AM

OP seems a fair assessment to me    The words certainly have a wide meaning!   I tend to observe though ,that the tolerance of those who might be described as liberal , often excludes those who don’t share what they perceive as liberal values , which may well include woke issues!

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 05:30 AM

I got that wrong, Joe. I just saw the attempt to bring "woke" into a music discussion by you-know-who as a blatant attempt at infiltration, that's all. I'm typing this on a iPad with my reading glasses on, by the way.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 06:09 AM

I studied Soviet propaganda tactics in the 1970s, and I read the East German Neues Deutschland newspaper every morning for a couple of years. The newspaper had at least one terrific Berliner dialect cartoon every day, but most of the rest of the newspaper was propaganda rather than news. At the time, I didn't dream that the techniques of agitation and propaganda (Agitprop) would ever take hold in the West. But now it seems they have - and labeling is one of the most effective techniques of agitprop. If one can define a label (like "woke") as something bad, and then pin that label on something that may be perfectly valid (like respectful treatment of all races), one can completely destroy a completely valid concept without every actually discussing it.

This has been done very effectively with CRT, which is rarely expressed as Critical Race Theory. This is a very good label, because very few people in the world actually know what CRT is, and yet the propagandists have been able to convince many that CRT is bad. And then they label every discussion of racism as CRT, and convince the world that this is an awful thing.

They've done the same with LGBTQ, and socialism, and Marxism, and so many other labels. How many other propaganda techniques have come into common use in the Western world?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 07:25 AM

The right demonized the word tolerence so of course woke is on their naughty list. Woke is not full blown enlightenment but it is the dawn's early light compared to darkness. When cancel culture types on the left use woke it is in the extremist sense just as the right is extreme in it criticism. So woke can have 3 meanings if you are left, right or center.

Being woke in regards to racism begins with admitting it exists and extends to accepting that institutionalized racism may stupidly advantage or disadvantage people today depending upon what shade they may be.

At least thats the way I hear it.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 07:41 AM

Getting us to use the word at all is a good example of successful propagandising. It's excluded from my lexicon.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 07:50 AM

I quite like it as Woke=Dawned. If it has dawned on you that everyone is equal and the old stereotype jokes are insulting, you have woke. If you are still stuck in Bernard Manning's Embassy club in the 1960s, you have not yet woke and are, quite possibly, brain dead :-)

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 08:58 AM

"Getting us to use the word at all is a good example of successful propagandising. It's excluded from my lexicon."

I agree Steve. I never use the word myself but, like Dave, I regard it as a compliment when used by others (e.g. my wife's Hard-Right family) to try to insult her and me - it drives them nuts when we don't react! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 11:12 AM

Sadly, once the meeja get the wrong end of the stick with a word, that's that. In the software world, "hacker" used to be a badge of pride, and a "hack" described a bit of creative cleverness; nowadays, any act of electronic vandalism or online lockpicking gets called a "hack", and I end up shouting at the TV. It's largely careless labelling by newspaper reporters and subeditors who would themselves be offended by being called "hacks".

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 11:29 AM

If I'd seen Ake's post it would have been deleted. Nothing leaves his mouth without being divisive and intending to insult members of the group. That's why he isn't a member any more.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 03:58 PM

Cheers, Maggie.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 05:04 PM

Cancel culture corporals like censorship. Free speech requires more speech not less.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 02:33 AM

Like all new terms, 'woke' will gradually fade from modern vocabulary. It will be seen as out of date, then a new term will emerge. Sometimes old words such as 'cool' are resurrected. I suppose younger people seize on a new word and disseminate it.
However, the important thing about words is that they're fully understood by all, in order for them to convey thoughts and opinions.
By the way, I do feel uneasy about entering a public toilet or cubicle in a clothes shop to try on a garment and finding a physically male person there. I don't mind at all if a man wants to wear female clothes. But women are somewhat at risk in these places from predatory men posing as transgender etc as a cover for unacceptable actions.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 03:32 AM

I checked a couple of on line dictionaries and found that they all were very similar to this:

Merriam-Websterhttps://www.merriam-webster.com › dictionary › woke
Woke - aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)

"Woke" in this context is not in my Chamber's dictionary app. I guess it’s too recent for Chambers 13th edition. It is in my WordWeb dictionary app That offers two definitions:

1. Aware of and alert to social injustices.
2. Perceived as smug, virtue signalling and intolerant of other view points.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 05:22 AM

Interesting article for you here, Sen. Should put you mind at rest and, hopefully, demonstrate, that the predetor issue is a myth,

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 07:11 AM

Woke is a word that I've never seen used in a complimentary way. Yet people who are "woke" are actually showing concern for issues - isn't that supposed to be a good thing? - that their lazy accusers are not. I hereby suggest that a suitable antonym for "woke" would be "brain-dead."

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 07:56 AM

See my post of 22 Apr 22 - 07:50 AM, Steve :-D

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 08:42 AM

I saw it. I was agreeing with you! (Don't start...) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 09:23 AM

Yet people who are "woke" are actually showing concern for issues - isn't that supposed to be a good thing?

Ideally, yes - but there are those who want to be seen to be showing their concern, like the celebrities who fly across the Atlantic to take centre stage in Trafalgar Square to protest against climate change. Virtue signalling, together with a certain amount of revisionism = "woke".

DC

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 09:34 AM

If you're virtue-signalling, aren't you exhibiting "fake woke?"

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 09:53 AM

Taking Jon's definitions above:

1. Aware of and alert to social injustices.
2. Perceived as smug, virtue signalling and intolerant of other view points.

It would be nice to go with #1 but too often #2 applies, and it's not just "perceived".

DC

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: leeneia
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 10:24 AM

I've never been comfortable with all the forms of "wake."

I woke up. I was awakened. I awoke. He woke me up. (Is that correct?) Whatever the case for those forms, I am sure that there has never been a past participle pronounced "woke".

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 11:26 AM

The past participle is "woken."

Scroll down and look for past participle.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 12:50 PM

Fake woke could morph into foke wake. Which is what I hope to have at my funeral :-D

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 12:54 PM

Or you could have a fake wake before someone dies or a fake woke which is what happens when roused from slumbering through The Famous Flower Of Serving Man

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 01:46 PM

Sorry, the last one should have been a foke woke but the spilling chucker got me again!

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 08:09 PM

Not quite on-topic, but I can't resist. It was my uncle's funeral yesterday (I wasn't close and I didn't go), at Blackley cemetery near Heaton Park. As the coffin slowly disappeared from view, the song played was Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" ...

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 09:17 PM

From Wikipedia, possibly one of the earliest uses of the word:

Black American folk singer-songwriter Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly, uses the phrase near the end of the recording of his 1938 song "Scottsboro Boys", which tells the story of nine black teenagers accused of raping two white women, saying: "I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there – best stay woke, keep their eyes open."

Jay

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Apr 22 - 04:44 AM

That last post of mine is absolutely in the wrong thread! Sorry about that.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Apr 22 - 06:42 AM

According to today's Sunday Telegraph, Google predictive text is now going to include an inclusive language function which suggests alternatives to those words which are not considered inclusive enough. This includes "stay-at-home spouse" for "housewife" and objects to the term "motherboard" for electronic circuits.

"Woke", as in definition #2 above, seems to me to be appropriate to describe this over-zealous policing of the written word. It is intrusive and patronising.

Will Mudcat have to change the various MOAB threads to "the Parent of all BS"?

DC

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Apr 22 - 06:54 AM

"Stay-at-home spouse" excludes unmarried people, of whatever gender, who maintain a home as part of a stable, family relationship.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Apr 22 - 06:58 AM

I'm struggling to glean anything that could be remotely pejorative about "motherboard..."

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 24 Apr 22 - 09:23 AM

Motherboard: mum when she was fed up. (from a tea towel)

Mind you, I'd need to verify anything from the Torygraph. They never seemed to fact-check Alexander B**** de Pfeffel's articles. Disengage rant mode.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 May 22 - 02:11 PM

Why Critics of Angry Woke College Kids Are Missing the Point an interview with Wendy Brown from the New York Times

Orient them how? Or, put another way, where’s the most common disagreement between student views on free speech and those of you and your colleagues?

Certainly we have had for some time a debate about whether hate speech is free speech or ought to be covered by free speech, and if not, what qualifies as hate speech. There are excellent — I can’t believe I’m about to use this term — critical race theorists who have written volumes on the question of whether hate speech can be specified, what it means to specify it and whether it can be categorized as an exception to free speech. That’s an important zone and a difficult one. Many students today go quickly to the position that there is such a thing as hate speech, that they know it when they see it that and it ought to be outlawed. For me that’s a topic to teach, not to simply honor or denounce. I’m revealing myself here as a person whose chords and arpeggios and scales are always the history of political thought: John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” is the place to start. He says that the line between your freedom and its end is where it impacts on another’s freedom. That’s the question with hate speech: When does it do that? I’ll also mention Charles Murray. That’s tricky, because his science has been discredited by his peers, and his conclusions are understood by many as a form of hate speech, because he makes an argument about the racial inferiority of Black people in their capacity to learn and to succeed in this society. It feels terrible to give him a podium and a bunch of students who would sit and imbibe that as the truth. I think if Murray is invited to campus, you can picket him, you can leaflet him, but I don’t think it should be canceled. The important thing is for students to be educated and educate others about the bad science, the discrediting of his position, and then ask, Why does he survive in the academy, and why does that bad science keep getting resuscitated? Those are important questions for students to ask and then learn how to answer. That’s what’s going to equip them in this political world.

And this (the important "follow the money" message):

Questions about what’s happening on college campuses keep turning into questions about politics, which happens a lot these days but which maybe also conflates various things. A debate over cancel culture on campus, for example, is a different thing from legislators’ enacting laws limiting what can be taught in schools. So where are the useful connections and what are the unhelpful conflations as far as politics and on-campus issues?

Here I think it’s time to talk about the very serious right-wing effort to use free speech and freedom more generally as a flag for a political, social and moral project. On campus, for example, the constant harangues about cancel culture and wokeness on the left that you get from the right keep us from seeing enormous amounts of foundation money and use of the state to try to control what is taught, to build institutes and curriculums that comport with a right-wing engine. Guilford College, this little Quaker school in North Carolina takes half a million dollars from a foundation in love with Ayn Rand. Every econ and business major in the college for the next 10 years had to be given a copy of “Atlas Shrugged,” and at the center of the curriculum there had to be a course in which “Atlas Shrugged” was the required textbook. This story has been repeated over and over. Then you have colleges and universities not so desperate but nonetheless willing to take large amounts of Koch and other right-wing-foundation money to set up institutes, even hire faculty. All of this is under the aegis of free speech, organized as correcting for wokeness and cancel culture. The right is also mobilizing the state. Not just to cancel math textbooks in Florida but the “Don’t Say Gay” bills, the C.R.T. bills. It’s important that we have our eyes wide open about that. Little episodes about cancel culture make great tidbits in newspapers and talk shows, but they don’t represent this larger and deeper project of the right of mobilizing state power and corporations for their agenda in schools. They also don’t represent the deeper problem with which we began: the confusions and the loss of boundaries between something like academic freedom and free speech. That boundary is just totally messed up.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Rain Dog
Date: 02 May 22 - 02:42 PM

"Before "woke", we had "political correctness gone mad". It is the "gone mad" bit that turns it from a positive to a negative attribute."

A couple of weeks ago an acquaintance in the pub told me he was fed up with political correctness. He said he felt he had to be careful talking in public, in case somebody overheard and got upset.

I asked him if he ever swore in front of his parents. Turns out that he had not. I sighed and shook my head. That political correctness gets everywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: meself
Date: 02 May 22 - 04:05 PM

Was the term 'political correctness' ever used in a 'positive' way?

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 May 22 - 06:47 PM

It's an expression used pejoratively for something that's generally a good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 May 22 - 07:36 PM

Wokism is the disease that white nationalists say that only liberals have.

Woke is the opposite of awake for those who believe in the American dream because you have to be asleep to have a nightmare.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: PHJim
Date: 13 May 22 - 09:59 PM

RE: political correctness:

I'm glad that the "N-word" has gone out of acceptable use. Score one for political correctness.
I do, however, think that "person hole cover" is taking it too far.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 May 22 - 12:58 PM

Man hole covers were condoms.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 May 22 - 07:16 PM

"Person hole cover." I bloody love that and from now on I'm adopting it! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 May 22 - 01:46 AM

My favourite little black pony at the riding school, which I rode every Saturday 60 years ago, was called ...er...(the 'N' word). And my father always wore jumpers of a colour known as 'n..... brown'. Nobody was aware this might be offensive, it was just a word in those days.
I read that St John's Ambulance volunteers have been given a very long list of 'woke' pronouns for use with prospective patients/casualties.
And Norfolk Police have been instructed sternly about which pronouns they can/can't use while going about their duties. God help us!

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 May 22 - 05:55 AM

Interesting how much "nigger" was used in one of my favourite films, Blazing Saddles. To very good effect in m'humble!

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 May 22 - 05:29 PM

I wouldn't regard it as too great a compliment.
"Woke" carries the imputation of self righteousness, intolerance - and the tendency to point out the speck of dust in one's neighbour's eye, whilst ignoring the plank in one's own.

If the cap fits - keep relishing the compliment.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 15 May 22 - 06:22 PM

It's come to mean that only in the eyes of people who are never likely to be woke.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: gillymor
Date: 15 May 22 - 06:58 PM

Well said, Manitas. It's a term that trump supporters use to denigrate people who are concerned with social justice. The fact that trump himself uses it to slur people that don't adhere to his corrupt, amoral world view makes me proud to be woke.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 May 22 - 02:38 AM

I've been giggling about Norfolk Police and their 'wokeness'. Imagine arresting an aggressive burglar, in Woke Norfolkese:
Police officer to colleague: "'Ello 'ello 'ello! It seems ter be troying ter run orf! Ken yew git them handcuffs on it?"
(Man, wearing dress and high heels, extends his arms to be handcuffed)
"Oim not an 'it' oim a 'they'. And moind me frawk, yer tearing it."
Officer : "Oooh, oim so sorry, person. Yew cum alonger us."
Monty Pythonesque!

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 May 22 - 04:12 AM

No Manitas - I'm afraid that is the common usage meaning of the term. Its got the same sort of vibe as 'liberal' used to.

If the criticism implied in the term doesn't worry you, well it should, because it loses elections...don't the names Kinnock and Corbyn and the methods they employed to lose against really bloody awful tory administrations stir any memories?

Poor people do better under a right wing Labour government than they do under a tory government. That's the choice - if you truly care about the poor choose leaders with a realistic chance of getting elected.

"Woke" means one more thing - perpetual opposition.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 16 May 22 - 04:24 AM

It's a word that's being hijacked and you're just proving it. Also, your definition doesn't appear to be in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 May 22 - 05:16 AM

I think you need to appraise yourself of the real meaning, Al. Here is a very good article on it by Tiffany Markman. Look her up. She seems to really know her stuff.

From the article

"woke implies social activism, nationalism, and collectivism. It suggests rage, passion, resistance, action; seeking to draw a line against the unacceptable"

Which is where you and I got involved in a heated exchange some time back. You believed that saying "People in my home county Lincolnshire are very. upset at the influx of Eastern Europeans, and the lawlessness they have bought to towns like Boston" and "then along comes the free movement of European citizens. they all want council houses, free education, free health care" was acceptable. I didn't. Was I woke to challenge you on that? Yes, probably. I had hoped that it made you think too. Has it?

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 May 22 - 05:55 AM

"Poor people do better under a right wing Labour government than they do under a tory government."

The gap between rich and poor widened inexorably during the New Labour years.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 May 22 - 08:15 AM

And it’s widened even more during the following Tory years. I would take any Labour government, no matter whether ‘left’, ‘right’, or ‘centre’ of the party, over every Tory government we’ve ever been subjected to. Which is why Labour needs to make itself electable, which it clearly was NOT under Kinnock and Corbyn.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 May 22 - 08:19 AM

Oops..pressed the ‘Go’ button too soon!

…which it clearly was NOT under Kinnock and Corbyn. And it seems unlikely to be under Starmer either. What’s the betting on Wes Streeting?

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 May 22 - 08:29 AM

Kinnock did pretty well in 1992 (Was it?) and Corbyn did OK in 2016. Both events resulted in massive campaigns against them by both the right wing wing press and the right wing of their own party. Given support within the party and the tenacity to stand up to the Tory puppet masters I think they both could have achieved a political recentering but it was not to be and, yes, nowadays, we have to make do and mend :-(

Still, more a topic for UK politics than this thread I think.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 May 22 - 08:53 AM

well of course I could be wrong.

Suppose though someone had said Churchill wasn't fit to be in charge during the war, because he was chuffing on acigar whilst everyone else couldn't get enough ration points together for a packet of woodbines.

We KNOW them at the top see themselves allright. That's a given. Just what the fuck was partygate about.

This miasma of finger pointing and silliness is just so typical. Mean while a nuclear war is about to make Johnson's sausage rolls and prosecco look about as fatuous as its always been.

Someone ought to be making links with forces of democracy within Russia. Gorbachev showed us that they exist. It would make Johnson's pratting about in Churchillian mode look exactly what it is.

The woke people wouldn't recognise an important issue if it bit them on the arse. Starmer is frankly too stupid to realise that the possible conflagration of the world is more important than how toffs conduct themselves. He's not going to change that.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 May 22 - 09:20 AM

The woke people wouldn't recognise an important issue if it bit them on the arse.

I consider myself to be socially aware of both the rights of the oppressed and of global issues. They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, to say that because someone is considerate of the rights of people of colour, LGBT, gender or immigtation status, they cannot be aware of Russia trying to oppress Ukraine is a bit of a silly conclusion.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 May 22 - 09:24 AM

Oh, and 'Partygate' has nothing to do with anyone's prosecco, sausage rolls or cigars. It is all to do with the undermining of democracy by a shameless leader who is trying to stay in power at all costs. Much like Putin. But again that is a subject for the UK politics thread, not here.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 May 22 - 09:45 AM

Larger forces can always be to blame such as a lack of food and water due to climate change increases immigration and its woes. The more you look at one thing the more it will look like what you are looking for.

Accidents, misunderstanding and mistakes will plague any politician or political organization. Too bad it takes a genius to define the problem, identify the larger forces involved and create/choose the best solution.

Having the enlightenment to properly problem solve is woke to me.
To bad its not the way the term is used.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 May 22 - 09:48 AM

Name calling and turning the perception of positives into negatives is in the GOP playbook now. Name calling. Assigning nicknames. Making sure that anything that calls attention to social imbalance by denigrating it is classic Trump and his allies. Usually for Trump there is a direct line from what he fears to how he labels his opponents. "Crooked Hillary" from a man who is morally corrupt, accused of and eventually on trial for sex and financial crimes. Smear her before she can smear him. He definitely wants "woke" to be an insult.

Long ago the idea of "politically correct" met the same fate. The simple idea that you be polite and aware of your surroundings and not say things to offend others became strained. From one of the online dictionaries: Someone who is politically correct believes that language and actions that could be offensive to others, especially those relating to sex and race, should be avoided.

Woke is more comprehensive, with the many nuances one encounters with LGBT+ that involve actually sorting one's pronouns, so essentially political correctness has morphed into "woke" - aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)

There is everything right about that, but people who are threatened by criticism of their behavior and language will turn the term into a pejorative, hoping to cut off the activism behind it. Hoping to influence those who weren't paying attention to assume that what is happening socially is bad for them (because they still don't know what it is.)

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 May 22 - 10:38 AM

"Just what the fuck was partygate about."

it was a cover-up for the fact that the political Leader of the whole of the United Kingdom had lied to the Head of State, to Parliament, and to the entire UK population.

His cronies did it because, whilst they could not condone his lying and undermining our democratic system and whilst doing so, justify their own positions, passing off the spectacle of Johnson and his staff having a few bottles of wine and a cake or two as 'unimportant compared with the real issues' was easy, and carried no risk.

It's subversive, and it's shameful.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 May 22 - 12:18 PM

Just saw a very applicable meme

THEY MAKE FUN OF BEING
"WOKE" BECAUSE THEY
THINK IT SOUNDS MUCH
MORE INSULTING THAN
BEING "ENLIGHTENED" OR
"EMPATHETIC." ALSO
BECAUSE THEY CAN'T
SPELL ENLIGHTENED OR
EMPATHETIC.

:-D

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 May 22 - 02:53 PM

Well God keep you in that mind as we run into another drubbing at another election.

A mild interest in the acquisition of power instead declaring they are how whiter than white, woker than woke would make refreshing change, as far as I can see. I notice its the same characters who picked a real winner with Corbyn.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 May 22 - 03:10 PM

WTF are you on about, Al?

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 May 22 - 03:37 PM

Whiter than white woker than woke and now with 10 times the stain fighting power, Proud Powder is made for tough dirt.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 May 22 - 04:13 PM

Ditto Don!

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 May 22 - 04:40 PM

Seriously I get what he's saying. Power and money rules the landscape and seas. You should see some of Putin's mansions on the Black Sea such as Vladamir Castle.

White America is fine encouraging blacks as a minority to stick to it, you can make it but as soon as whites actually become the minority themselves its - time out - wait we support white nationalist killing of any and all blacks. A third of the US actually believe in the 'replacement conspiracy' that Jews are deliberately using immigration to attack white supremacy.

The crazy thing is the black population will stay the same proportionally. It is the Hispanics and Asians that will hold a majority.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 May 22 - 05:20 PM

Toxic masculinity doen't begin to touch the dog eat dog competiveness that teachs men the unempathetic path to rule and dominate by any means neccesary. US Presidents are often members of the collegiate skull and bones society.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 May 22 - 08:35 PM

skull and bones...?

Starmer is definitely an improvement on Corbyn, who seemed to espousing some totally unpopular cause every time you switched on the box.

You can't help but wish though he had some genuine empathy - a deeper insight into why people vote labour.

if you want 'woke', you should have stuck by Corbyn. He was the most woke man in the world.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 May 22 - 09:50 PM

skull and bones


Perhaps the most inclusive political party would be the hypocrite party.
Everyone is a hypocrite about something. When people wake up they will overcome denial and realize everyone is a hypocrite.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 May 22 - 10:24 AM

In what way is that post constructive or helpful to this discussion?

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 May 22 - 01:19 PM

I think maybe he just wants to join in. Why not? It does no harm.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 May 22 - 01:46 PM

One huge impact that Mudcat has had on me is the realisation that some people are just not on my wavelength. I used to blame myself for not being able to understand but it is not that. It is no-ones fault. We just either speak a different language or think in different ways. Ne'er the twain shall meet! It all goes to make up the rich tapestry of life. Sadly, there are times when threads are pulled and the tapestry unravels but c'est la vie as they say in Wigan...

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 May 22 - 06:26 PM

The thing is, Al, he thinks we are all hypocrites. I try very hard to not be a hypocrite, possibly failing many a time. But the message I'm getting is that thinks he's a hypocrite, and can't bear to think that we are not all in the swamp with him. The remark is, quite simply, not constructive. I'm perfectly capable of examining my own conscience, and I certainly don't need it to be examined by people like him. That's all.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 May 22 - 02:11 PM

I agree with Miss Manners that hypocrisy is a social skill.

Government by people who hide what they really think is a hypocracy. Or is that government from underneath, or by syringe?

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 May 22 - 07:00 PM

the author of Waking Up    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dC_nRYIDZU
PS
Our carbon footprints make us all hypocrits.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 May 22 - 07:22 PM

I think you need to find out what "hypocrite" actually means. I'm a hypocrite if I preach one thing yet behave against that thing knowingly and brazenly. Boris Johnson is a hypocrite because he stood on a platform and told us that we mustn't mix socially whilst holding parties in Downing Street. I'm not a hypocrite if I have to act against my principles because the government, or even social mores, requires me to or because I would suffer greatly if I didn't. If you feel that you're a hypocrite, good for you. But it is not up to you to say that we are all hypocrites. We may be trying our best and falling short at times. But please keep your generalisations to yourself and try to assuage your own guilt and leave the rest of us out of your personal horrors. You are certainly not the kind of person that I would ever choose to throw in my lot with.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 May 22 - 08:54 AM

I've just seen a photo online of a police officer in Cambridge wearing a special helmet decorated with rainbow colours to declare his support of LBGTQ. I just can't imagine this being accepted by the upper echelons of the Police Force. It's making a mockery of their role. Why don't they stop this nonsense and go out to stop crime?

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 May 22 - 09:35 AM

We are all sinners - is the same. I know you alone are above all that.

You may be doing your best to sow l'haine but you are running a bit thin lately. Try pretending I wronged your father. If you are going to be a hater be a good one. You could really do a much better job pf deluding yourself in your nonsensical screeds..

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 May 22 - 09:51 AM

Here is a woke guy we can both like Lee Cronin

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 May 22 - 10:25 AM

When you can not change your mind you are a leaf floating in a river, you are predictably unpredictable with no substantial free will.
The current and wind will eventually push you to the sticky river bank where you float no more.

Being woke is also learning how to control your senses. What is amazing is that you can train your emotions just like your senses. I would include emotions as part of our sensory apparatus just like premonition is a 6th sense. This concept expands our senses instead of limiting them.

I'll take all the nondeterminalism and randomness to crack open problems that others have given up and fall back on old dogma.
Think of assembly be it chemical or subatomic and you will begin to see new rules to predict life in the coming and entropy in the going.

Now this is a better screed than Steve might think of but predictably he would say "no its not"

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 May 22 - 10:56 AM

I know when it's time for my Morrisons ultra thick toastie bread, butter and jam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 May 22 - 12:19 PM

well I like the idea of the gay lib policemen. The Russians are nasty to gays as well as Ukranians

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 May 22 - 02:20 PM

So does supporting LBGTQ hinder your ability to stop crime?

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 May 22 - 03:54 PM

"Now this is a better screed than Steve might think of but predictably he would say 'no its not'"

No I wouldn't. I'd say "No, it's not."

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 May 22 - 08:32 PM

ha ha'' The cop sounds like a great character.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 21 May 22 - 08:46 PM

This age may be a true renaissance as we see many of our presumptions of truth that are being disproved. The example of assuming we have a brain with a reptillian core with an emotions layer with a cerebrum for a higher control. This old fashioned notion has effected the way law is written and prosecuted. The evolution of the brain is shown to be much different by way of our gene evidence. That is not to say that predation gave rise to an evolution of thinking in animals that ate other animals and had to determine "will this eat me or will I eat this?"

Brains of some other species are remarkable and not as instinctive as we thought. Only humans can convey meaning and emotions around the world without being seen or heard with mere words. Whales had low frequency long distant communication until the oceans have become too noisy with human ships.

Social and market assumptions regarding monopolies and just in time production and distribution systems needs revamping as the pandemic has shown. Even the US miitary is finally calling a spade a spade when it comes to real mysterious objects.

So the false old timey dogmas may be changing faster than in previous decades. Thats a woke I hope we get but with the controvery over a simple mask in a pandemic, it does not give me hope regarding self sacrifice and behavior change to reverse climate change,. Thankfully many other changes yet to come should come. When tethers are removed from the brain as with psylocybin there is even more creativity.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 May 22 - 04:01 AM

Supporting LGBTQ doesn't stop an officer from fulfilling his crime-stopping duties, no, but it's all about authority and dignity. Prancing about in a flamboyantly decorated rainbow helmet just isn't appropriate.
When I was a schoolteacher, I always liked a bit of fun to keep my class interested and alert. But if I'd appeared at the school wearing a silly hat or a hula-skirt or something, my authority and position would have been compromised. I was Head of Department, so had other teachers under my leadership too.
When I was young (millions of years ago) everyone respected the Police, and always replied with "Yes Officer." etc. I just can't imagine the reaction if a policeman had appeared in this get-up!

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 May 22 - 09:03 AM

"Prancing about in a flamboyantly decorated rainbow helmet just isn't appropriate"

Absolutely, it's virtue signalling nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 May 22 - 03:26 PM

I'm afraid time moves on and we have to roll with it.
My Dad was a cop in the 40's 50's and 60's - and in that time homosexuality was illegal. P art of his duty was staking out the toilets in the park , where the towns gays used to do their cottaging.

I loved my Dad and cherish his memory but theres no doubt about it - by todays standards, he was homophobic. Because of the thoroughness with which my Dad and his colleagues did their job, there is a residue of hatred and distrust between gays and the cops. Putting a few gay characters in TV police series is not going to solve this.

Overtures have to made to overcome generations of distrust and hatred. As to the cop in question, I say more power to his tutu.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 May 22 - 04:39 PM

”My Dad was a cop in the 40's 50's and 60's - and in that time homosexuality was illegal.”

Homosexual acts between males, even consenting adult males, was illegal, but not homosexual acts between females. It’s always struck me as very strange, not to mention extremely unjust, that Gay men were denied the right to follow their natural sexual instincts and preferences, whereas there were no such constraints on Lesbian women.

Thank goodness we live in considerably more enlightened times today (although homophobia still rears it’s ugly head from time - including, unfortunately, on this forum).

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 May 22 - 05:39 PM

Can blue men sing the whites,
or are they hy-po-crites ...

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 22 May 22 - 05:40 PM

Oliver Sacks knows all about it.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 May 22 - 09:22 PM

Well I don't know about the copper's rainbow helmet, but I do know that some of the politicians who drew up our strict lockdown rules were at a party wearing party hats while the rest of us, unlike them, were following the rules. I suppose that the copper was still able to go out to stop crime, whilst the politicians were, well, getting pissed.

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 May 22 - 05:57 AM

100!

Subject: RE: BS: What Is Woke?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 May 22 - 07:00 PM

101
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