The Politics Thread 2020

[Highgate]

1 hour ago, jono said:

Or alternatively consider that in a historical time, historical people decided they would like a statue. Times change people change and subsequent generations LEARN about those differing attitudes because the statue invites inquiry. We will raise our statues and their legacy will be examined by future generations.

I’d give you the statue at Old Trafford .. there is George Best ... sublime footballer, alcoholic womaniser ... history, it’s interesting, poignant, sad, outrageous, spectacular, grim but it’s History. 

I think you risk trivializing the slave trade there if you are comparing it with frequent consensual sex and a weakness for the drink.  That's not comparable to buying and selling human beings for profit.  

I know you didn't intend to belittle the awfulness of slavery, I'm just saying you chose a bad example in George Best. How about Jimmy Saville as an example? His crimes are much closer to the level of awfulness that Colston was guilty of. 

Let's say there was a statue erected to him in his Jim'll Fix It days, when most people just thought of him as a charitable eccentric rather than the monster he was.  Applying yours and @Alpha's logic about respecting historical statues, would you be happy to leave the statue of Jimmy remaining in it's place. Our opinions of Saville have changed in the intervening years but the people who erected it thought it was appropriate at the time. So would tearing down his statue be an unacceptable 'erasing of history' too. ?  Should the quantity of time that has passed really matter?

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

5 hours ago, Curtains said:

It could be.  

Wipe out history for all I care. 

Parents evening, History teacher tells us our little Jonny could do better if he took interest in history. So i asked him are you not interested ?

He replied, it's all in the past.

PS: That was a few years ago...

[Eddie]

50 minutes ago, maxjam said:

Talks about focussing on the amazing work of Marcus Rashford and the need to unite - then goes on to insinuate racism for anyone that doesn't comment ?

I stopped commenting in this thread precisely because of comments like this.  WTF does it matter what colour his skin is?  He has just helped secure free school meals for deprived kids over the summer - top bloke ?

Don't tow the PC narrative?  Question motives behind BLM?  Dare to suggest that there maybe additional factors at play, such as poverty or culture rather than simply institutional racism?  I cba with the not-so-subtle accusations anymore.

 

I read some of the comments on Marcus Rashford's Facebook page.

It might surprise you to discover that there are some people about (or at least the personas they project) who make Katie Hopkins resemble, by comparison, a benevolent broad-minded liberal icon.

[Comrade 86]

4 hours ago, Archied said:

On the statue thing , vandalism stuff , isn’t it interesting how fast the person urinating next to a memorial was identified, found ,named in the media and jailed yet no such speed regards the vandalism of statues ? 

Us crusty Trots live in trees and broken down buses mate. Makes it way harder to track us down ?

[Chester40]

18 minutes ago, Highgate said:

I think you risk trivializing the slave trade there if you are comparing it with frequent consensual sex and a weakness for the drink.  That's not comparable to buying and selling human beings for profit.  

I know you didn't intend to belittle the awfulness of slavery, I'm just saying you chose a bad example in George Best. How about Jimmy Saville as an example? His crimes are much closer to the level of awfulness that Colston was guilty of. 

Let's say there was a statue erected to him in his Jim'll Fix It days, when most people just thought of him as a charitable eccentric rather than the monster he was.  Applying yours and @Alpha's logic about respecting historical statues, would you be happy to leave the statue of Jimmy remaining in it's place. Our opinions of Saville have changed in the intervening years but the people who erected it thought it was appropriate at the time. So would tearing down his statue be an unacceptable 'erasing of history' too. ?  Should the quantity of time that has passed really matter?

You advised against analogies... Then made a poor one yourself.

Contemporaries of Jimmy Saville were not ambivalent to child abuse, they were just unaware. His behaviour was abhorrent at the time to everyone, they just didn't know. So people of the time would disagree with his statue themselves. 

You are talking about revisiting the time and disagreeing with what was a commonly held belief. 

I will likewise recklessly go into dangerous analogy territory...would we pull down the Coliseum because they  killed gladiator slaves or knock down the pyramids? 

 

[Rev]

37 minutes ago, maxjam said:

Talks about focussing on the amazing work of Marcus Rashford and the need to unite - then goes on to insinuate racism for anyone that doesn't comment ?

I stopped commenting in this thread precisely because of comments like this.  WTF does it matter what colour his skin is?  He has just helped secure free school meals for deprived kids over the summer - top bloke ?

30 years ago, I was a young Marcus Rashford.

Last of six kids in a single parent family, with an Irish immigrant mother, who worked multiple jobs to scrape enough to just about survive, if we could keep quiet and out of sight when the council rent man came calling.

Even though I was entitled to free school meals, my mother's pride wouldn't let me take them, as she didn't want the other kids and parents to look down on us, so I either walked home for lunch, which frequently was nothing, or just walked around Spondon for an hour until lunch was ove

My dad, on the infrequent occasions we'd see him, would take us back for the night to the caravan he lived in behind his place of work.

To hear Rashford speak out on such issues, identify himself as one of us and advocate for change so powerfully is simply wonderful, I only wish we'd have had a similar figurehead in my day, life would perhaps have been more equitable.

And when I say one of us, I'm coming from a poverty perspective, not race.

 

 

[Sasha]

1 hour ago, maxjam said:

Talks about focussing on the amazing work of Marcus Rashford and the need to unite - then goes on to insinuate racism for anyone that doesn't comment ?

I stopped commenting in this thread precisely because of comments like this.  WTF does it matter what colour his skin is?  He has just helped secure free school meals for deprived kids over the summer - top bloke ?

Don't tow the PC narrative?  Question motives behind BLM?  Dare to suggest that there maybe additional factors at play, such as poverty or culture rather than simply institutional racism?  I cba with the not-so-subtle accusations anymore.

 

I'd you can't feed your children don't have them. I was a single parent for 12 years from 1988. I never expected handouts and grafted through 3 jobs, 60 hours a week to feed clothe and educate my daughters.  It was MY responsibility not other taxpayers. I was determined that my children would work hard. My eldest is a doctor.  All without handouts from other people.  

[Sasha]

Just now, Sasha said:

I'd you can't feed your children don't have them. I was a single parent for 12 years from 1988. I never expected handouts and grafted through 3 jobs, 60 hours a week to feed clothe and educate my daughters.  It was MY responsibility not other taxpayers. I was determined that my children would work hard. My eldest is a doctor.  All without handouts from other people.  

In case you're wondering their father fooked off to play cricket in Barbados and never came back but I never felt disadvantaged. We live in a great country.  Nobody is discriminated against. If you work hard you can make it 

[May Contain Nuts]

Mentioning Jimmy Saville in this thread...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

 

It's basically that but updated for modern times.

[Highgate]

3 minutes ago, Chester40 said:

You advised against analogies... Then made a poor one yourself.

Contemporaries of Jimmy Saville were not ambivalent to child abuse, they were just unaware. His behaviour was abhorrent at the time to everyone, they just didn't know. So people of the time would disagree with his statue themselves. 

You are talking about revisiting the time and disagreeing with what was a commonly held belief. 

I will likewise recklessly go into dangerous analogy territory...would we pull down the Coliseum because they  killed gladiator slaves or knock down the pyramids?

At least I managed to use a human example  ? 

I think we can safely say that the buildings themselves were blameless in the horrors that were committed within them or during their construction.  They should stay put.

The statue of Colston wasn't erected at his death, but 170 years afterwards in 1895 at a time when slavery and the slave trade was already abhorrent to many people, even if imperialism and racism (you can't have the former without the latter after all) were still depressingly in full swing.  Did the contemporaries of Colston really know the true nature of the slave trade, or did the people who erected his statue nearly 200 years later think about it at all, or did they just consider his selective philanthropy?

If we change our opinions on someone, whether just through the ever shifting zeitgeist or through new information coming to light, shouldn't we be allowed to change or statues and memorials accordingly?

[Highgate]

And as far Marcus Rashford, I'm annoyed at him for making like and admire a Manchester United player.  It doesn't feel right...

[A Ram for All Seasons]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

I read some of the comments on Marcus Rashford's Facebook page.

It might surprise you to discover that there are some people about (or at least the personas they project) who make Katie Hopkins resemble, by comparison, a benevolent broad-minded liberal icon.

The comments under the articles on the Derby Telegraph site are pure Katie Hopkins. There are a lot of people like her about.

[jono]

48 minutes ago, Highgate said:

I think you risk trivializing the slave trade there if you are comparing it with frequent consensual sex and a weakness for the drink.  That's not comparable to buying and selling human beings for profit.  

I know you didn't intend to belittle the awfulness of slavery, I'm just saying you chose a bad example in George Best. How about Jimmy Saville as an example? His crimes are much closer to the level of awfulness that Colston was guilty of. 

Let's say there was a statue erected to him in his Jim'll Fix It days, when most people just thought of him as a charitable eccentric rather than the monster he was.  Applying yours and @Alpha's logic about respecting historical statues, would you be happy to leave the statue of Jimmy remaining in it's place. Our opinions of Saville have changed in the intervening years but the people who erected it thought it was appropriate at the time. So would tearing down his statue be an unacceptable 'erasing of history' too. ?  Should the quantity of time that has passed really matter?

Not quite. Their crimes were discovered in the lifetime of the statues commissioners. Whole different story. There are living victims. It isn’t really history. It’s current events and vastly vastly different .. so yes the passing of time matters. Or we should be knocking down the colluseum ? I don’t for one minute trivialise the slave trade, but is is history. There are echos that need continued efforts to silence but the hyperbole in the UK over these demos is disproportionate. The thought police and cultural dictators  are out in force and too many moderate voices are too frightened to argue. 

I  enjoy our discourse Highgate. We disagree but we exchange views (yes Besty wasn’t the best example) but I’m going to have to take time out on this thread. I just see so many entrenched positions that it isn’t really worth engaging. There are different views that have validity and reason, but the blind zealotry of some truely disturbs my karma.

Trevor Phillips remarked the other day that the BBC allowed a BLM spokesman to compare without Challenge, Churchill and Hitler

he also said that it was no accident that so many Caribbeans were called Winston. 

I honestly respect your views and enjoy chewing the cud with you as an individual but for the time being I am out of here. 

 

[Alph]

31 minutes ago, Highgate said:

If we change our opinions on someone, whether just through the ever shifting zeitgeist or through new information coming to light, shouldn't we be allowed to change or statues and memorials accordingly?

Yeah, definitely. 

But have we changed our opinions on Colston?

Or do the people of Bristol still consider him a to be a huge part of local history. A philanthropist that used the means of the times and all of time before him? 

For Colston in particular I'm not fussed. I didn't have a clue who he was and have only read the wikipedia page. 

I'm just trying to put myself in the place of... er Colston fans... because one day it might be a piece of mine or your history. 

I think from what I've seen that they were probably ready to let that piece of history be removed from plain sight? So he was probably a goner anyway. 

Just it should have been done the right way. 

Just what we've been seeing with statues in Britain and the states it looks like there's not enough respect for the times these people were born in. 

I know we need to respect the times we live in now. But there are positive steps we can take there instead of destructive ones.

I reckon Katie Hopkins is the person to defend a Saville statue! She'd love that!! Knob head isn't she?

[TuffLuff]

3 hours ago, Alpha said:

I'm not sure who you mean. 

But Katy Hopkins is nothing. She doesn't give her opinions she just tries to be controversial. 

Rashford however has gone out his way to help out people who didn't ask him for help by doing something that doesn't hurt Katy Hopkins or anyone else. I'm sure he's being applauded across the internet?

I’m not gonna go round naming people in a big ‘gotcha’ style post, that’s not my style and I’m not really interested in the spats or the blame game. Also ofcourse I’m not making the Rashford story about race, that would completely undermine not just what he’s done but the BLM protests etc.  I just wanted to mention that we have a bit of ‘i don’t see race as a problem’ on this thread and the silence over a positive story on a young black footballer is also noticeable. I’m just using it as a clear example of what’s going on. 

Hopkins is whatever, but she’s not the story here. Problem is guess who’s name is trending no.1 in the UK right now? Guess why Rashford was brought on this forum? We talk about not having an issue with race on this thread and the general conversation, but who on here was interested in discussing his his point in the last 72 hours? Problem was, we were talking about statues which itself was a distraction from what the Black Lives Matter protests. We’ve been here before, many times.

When I posed the question that did anyone know what racism was I kinda presumed responses (with apologies to @Eddie and @Curtains) would be low. The point is, no one really wants to know or understand what racism is. We want to some righteous or that ‘we don’t see colour’ but maybe these responses are wrong. For example to ignore colour is to ignore identity. To ignore colour we don’t care to understand the reasons behind covid deaths being higher in ethnic minorities. We don’t care to discuss the windrush scandal and we look to move on against the injustices involved in Grenfell. To not see colour is basically saying ‘this doesn’t effect me’.

 I’m going on and on again so I’ll stop, again I don’t want to undermine what Rashford did today because that’s the important story. Applaud what he did and leave Hopkins out of it.

 

[Eddie]

One thing I really would like explaining to me - why on Earth did a number of people in Nuneaton feel moved to 'guard' the statue of Mary Ann Evans?

[Mick Brolly]

13 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

I’m not gonna go round naming people in a big ‘gotcha’ style post, that’s not my style and I’m not really interested in the spats or the blame game. Also ofcourse I’m not making the Rashford story about race, that would completely undermine not just what he’s done but the BLM protests etc.  I just wanted to mention that we have a bit of ‘i don’t see race as a problem’ on this thread and the silence over a positive story on a young black footballer is also noticeable. I’m just using it as a clear example of what’s going on. 

Hopkins is whatever, but she’s not the story here. Problem is guess who’s name is trending no.1 in the UK right now? Guess why Rashford was brought on this forum? We talk about not having an issue with race on this thread and the general conversation, but who on here was interested in discussing his his point in the last 72 hours? Problem was, we were talking about statues which itself was a distraction from what the Black Lives Matter protests. We’ve been here before, many times.

When I posed the question that did anyone know what racism was I kinda presumed responses (with apologies to @Eddie and @Curtains) would be low. The point is, no one really wants to know or understand what racism is. We want to some righteous or that ‘we don’t see colour’ but maybe these responses are wrong. For example to ignore colour is to ignore identity. To ignore colour we don’t care to understand the reasons behind covid deaths being higher in ethnic minorities. We don’t care to discuss the windrush scandal and we look to move on against the injustices involved in Grenfell. To not see colour is basically saying ‘this doesn’t effect me’.

 I’m going on and on again so I’ll stop, again I don’t want to undermine what Rashford did today because that’s the important story. Applaud what he did and leave Hopkins out of it.

 

Why have you had to mention the colour of Mr rashfords skin? 

[TuffLuff]

3 minutes ago, Mick Brolly said:

Why have you had to mention the colour of Mr rashfords skin? 

I think I explained it but simply put. I’m talking about the forum and that posters are saying that racism isn’t a problem and I’m using it as a example to point out what they aren’t seeing. It’s not really about Rashford, I’m using it as an example. Hence why I don’t really go on about it in detail?

[TuffLuff]

13 minutes ago, Eddie said:

One thing I really would like explaining to me - why on Earth did a number of people in Nuneaton feel moved to 'guard' the statue of Mary Ann Evans?

If people are talking about statues they aren’t talking about the black lives matter movement.

[Chester40]

25 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

I’m not gonna go round naming people in a big ‘gotcha’ style post, that’s not my style and I’m not really interested in the spats or the blame game. Also ofcourse I’m not making the Rashford story about race, that would completely undermine not just what he’s done but the BLM protests etc.  I just wanted to mention that we have a bit of ‘i don’t see race as a problem’ on this thread and the silence over a positive story on a young black footballer is also noticeable. I’m just using it as a clear example of what’s going on. 

Hopkins is whatever, but she’s not the story here. Problem is guess who’s name is trending no.1 in the UK right now? Guess why Rashford was brought on this forum? We talk about not having an issue with race on this thread and the general conversation, but who on here was interested in discussing his his point in the last 72 hours? Problem was, we were talking about statues which itself was a distraction from what the Black Lives Matter protests. We’ve been here before, many times.

When I posed the question that did anyone know what racism was I kinda presumed responses (with apologies to @Eddie and @Curtains) would be low. The point is, no one really wants to know or understand what racism is. We want to some righteous or that ‘we don’t see colour’ but maybe these responses are wrong. For example to ignore colour is to ignore identity. To ignore colour we don’t care to understand the reasons behind covid deaths being higher in ethnic minorities. We don’t care to discuss the windrush scandal and we look to move on against the injustices involved in Grenfell. To not see colour is basically saying ‘this doesn’t effect me’.

 I’m going on and on again so I’ll stop, again I don’t want to undermine what Rashford did today because that’s the important story. Applaud what he did and leave Hopkins out of it.

 

I would suggest no one wants to answer your 'do you know what racism is' question, as it's the most unappealing bear trap I have ever seen. 

Oh yes, please allow me to sally-forth with my middle-aged white man's incredibly knowledgeable reply to be instantly met with high praise and commendation for nailing it first time.