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The Political Thread

Started by The Legendary Shark, 09 April, 2010, 03:59:03 PM

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Funt Solo

It's a bizarre argument because the (right-wing) response never addresses the reason for the protest.

It goes something like this:

Person taking a knee during the anthem: "I'm protesting against racial violence towards black Americans."
Right-wing person: "Stop disrespecting our heroic military veterans."
Nike: "No, listen, they said they were protesting about racial violence".
Right-wing person: "I'm burning my shoes now."

It could only be worse if they first formed their shoes into the shape of a cross before setting them on fire.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

sheridan

Quote from: Professor Bear on 06 September, 2018, 01:47:12 PM
Nike have sponsored ex-NFL player - and originator of the "take a knee" protest - Colin Kaepernick as the face of their brand.

I'd almost be tempted to buy something from Nike just to counter-act the boycott!

Dandontdare

So ... our new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland wasn't aware that people there tend to vote along deeply rooted sectarian lines. Who'da thunk it?

That's a level of knowledge that I would expect a 16 year old school leaver from anywhere in the UK to have, even if they weren't interested in politics. For a politician, never  mind the minister who's supposed to be responsible, it's mind-bogglingly depressing.

Is there some kind of competition in the party to see who can advance the furthest with the least impressive track record? Leadsom and Grayling must be getting worried.

JayzusB.Christ

I see what you mean.

QuoteI didn't understand things like when elections are fought for example in Northern Ireland - people who are nationalists don't vote for unionist parties and vice-versa.

Sweet Jesus.  With Brexit looming too, I worry about Northern Ireland.  As an outsider, I believed things had really improved North of the border, but it's not looking too good these days.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

TordelBack

#14494
Reading medical supply companies and health professionals working through their Brexit projections and preparations on Twitter is a lot like the end of the first third of a Stephen Baxter novel: the bit just after the scale of the imminent world-ending disaster becomes public, but just before everyone starts killing each other to get a place in the Government's giant bunker/spaceship.  Hint: the password is 'Spaceba, tovarich'.  Or maybe just 'Floreat Etona'.

IndigoPrime

The blame game is in full effect. "Surely the EU wouldn't be cruel enough to withhold vital medical supplies?" FFS. This isn't hard. The UK is CHOOSING to leave the EU. The British government, egged on by disaster capitalists has CHOSEN to remove itself from all of the EU's frameworks, entirely unnecessarily. This is our own damn fault, and has nothing to do with the EU. Yet that's going to be the spin for years, as the UK rapidly heads to the abyss.

I don't think it's hyperbole now to say that we're rapidly heading towards a very frightening place, with a real possibility of massive social unrest, where people are going to die. With luck, enough Tories will grow spines and steer us somewhere else before we hit no deal. But I see no evidence of that happening. (The customs union vote showcased that there are enough votes for no deal.) So we can no look forward to a point where there are massive food shortages, a lack of vital medical supplies, at least two million job losses, the expulsion of thousands of people (cf Rees-Moog and "EU citizens should have no more rights than any other foreigner"),  permanent austerity, the eradication of the entire social layer of the country, and possibly – according to an increasing number of very clever people – the army on the streets dealing with unrest.

At this rate, May's lot may as well just rebrand as Norsefire and be fucking done with it.

sheridan

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 08 September, 2018, 11:54:00 AM
I see what you mean.

QuoteI didn't understand things like when elections are fought for example in Northern Ireland - people who are nationalists don't vote for unionist parties and vice-versa.

Sweet Jesus.  With Brexit looming too, I worry about Northern Ireland.  As an outsider, I believed things had really improved North of the border, but it's not looking too good these days.


With the possibility of a hard Irish border looming, Johnson brings up suicide vest imagery in his latest desperate attempt to keep in the limelight.

TordelBack

#14497
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 10 September, 2018, 12:48:43 PMThis is our own damn fault, and has nothing to do with the EU. Yet that's going to be the spin for years, as the UK rapidly heads to the abyss.

That's the bit that really bothers me more than any other.  If even a fraction of current 'no deal' projections come to pass, I can see genuine hatred for the EU being stoked in favour of the far right.  Given that we in the RoI are almost certainly going to suffer the severest collateral damage if the UK goes down in flames, I can see the same shit happening here.

My own touchstone for secessionist opinion, my mother, subsisting as she does entirely on a diet of Daily Mail, genuinely thinks Ireland (and Britain) leaving the EU will return her to a childhood world where the Royals are above reproach, where Muslims only exist in those countries you wouldn't visit, and everything is safe and nice. She seems to forget that her own grandmother had to give up her children to a church-run home, from which my great-uncle ran away to join the navy at 15 only to be blinded when his ship was sunk in the war, and where her mother was worked so hard that her hands and knees were almost useless for most of her life, suffered appalling nightmares for the rest of her days, and was apparently completely incapable of being a loving parent.  That her father's family essentially disowned him for marrying a catholic.  Or that she herself barely survived TB. That she had to leave her bank job when she got married, her RTE job when she had me, that divorce and contraception were unavailable. Or that we were caught up in an IRA bombing when I was a baby. 

But yeah, the past, totally awesome, sign your grandkids up for some of that.

When she reads me the latest headline about reclaiming our own laws, I ask her my usual Brexit question, "name one single EU rule or regulation you want to get rid of", and she refuses to answer, which I read as her tactful way of saying "keep the Arabs out". She's having a rough time of it at the moment, and knowing that she used to love holidays in France when she was younger, I sketch out a simple trip that I could take her and my ailing father on before it's too late, and her response is: "I wouldn't like France now, it's full of Muslims.  It must be awful, such a lovely country ruined."  I tell her that from two recent visits that wasn't my experience at all, that specific places I know she loves appeared to be completely unchanged from when she was last there, but she dismisses this testimony: "It's not safe there any more.  And it's almost gone that way here now too".

My mother is a well-travelled intelligent and compassionate person, has been all over the world, was a shop-steward, was an art teacher, a book keeper, worked on the floor in a supermarket for 25 years, has friends from all walks of life: but this is how she thinks now.

And this is what you're up against: my mother, and her likeminded friends, have votes, and they're not going to be swayed by anything other than the doorway to fucking Narnia.



The Legendary Shark

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The Legendary Shark

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Definitely Not Mister Pops

You may quote me on that.

The Legendary Shark


Or yes and no. There's probably no single reason but a whole lot of little reasonlets, of which this may very well be one.

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maryanddavid

TB, that's not too far removed from my Dad, my Mam is more even handed. That said, even though he does't like some of the EU regulations, he sees the benefit and the market (farming background) of the EU. You would be hard pushed to find anyone agreeing with an Ireland Exit out west (my experience) except for John Waters and Co!

Funt Solo

Australian newspaper cartoonist (Mark Knight), and his editor, say this isn't racist:



I don't know if they're lying or if they just don't realize.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

TordelBack

Lying.  Although as others have pointed out, if proof of supreme ignorance of your subject was required for a defence, it would be drawing Naomi Osaka as a skinny blond white girl with a ponytail.   

The treatment of Williams in this matter is appalling anyway: the single greatest player in the history of the game has a bad day, is harshly sanctioned, loses the Open and her temper, and then is harried across the media as some kind of petulant child.  No doubt her behaviour was poor, but nowhere near as bad as many male, white players across the years.  Her vocal remorse over the incident overshadowing Osaka's victory was ample evidence of her character as a sportswoman.