The Political Thread

[shaolin_monkey]

Is anyone else following the furore around the white folk on BBC Politics telling Dawn Butler that accusing Johnson of racism was 'totes rude?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000fzvf/politics-live-04032020

This screen grab from iPlayer sums up the outcome.





As if there's any doubt, here's a great reminder of Johnson's racism record, with sources, courtesy of @uk_domain_names

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XzAujyzN9JxpUl9rN7EIIX0AlgaXL8rE/view

[sheridan]

My point isn't about money – it's about the fact a range of large corporations with the funds to do solid risk assessment are banning most staff from travel to Italy, unless it is of vital importance. Apple is just one example – there are dozens of others, some of which are British companies. That a school would just allow children to travel to Italy during an outbreak baffles me.

Doesn't that make the point about money - as you say, large corporations with the funds to do solid risk assessments are banning staff - very few state schools would have those kinds of funds available?

[Professor Bear]

Is anyone else following the furore around the white folk on BBC Politics telling Dawn Butler that accusing Johnson of racism was 'totes rude?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000fzvf/politics-live-04032020

This screen grab from iPlayer sums up the outcome.





As if there's any doubt, here's a great reminder of Johnson's racism record, with sources, courtesy of @uk_domain_names

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XzAujyzN9JxpUl9rN7EIIX0AlgaXL8rE/view

The idea that politics has become less civil is the driving force behind modern centrism: that all problems ultimately stem from a lack of education and/or deportment, and the underlying belief - they have just enough self-awareness not to voice - that certain people don't deserve to be heard, to vote, or to have any say in how things are run, because that's how you get Brexit, Trump, Johnson, Corbyn, and Bernie.

But then it's long been preferable to attack people who demand accountability than address the problems that made them angry.  During the International Anti-Anarchist* Conference of 1898, all nations agreed that attempts to institute social change were technically violent acts against the state, because their intent was transformative.  The result was that anarchism (any social and political reform movement) was to be stamped out and the first step was to wage a PR war to make sure that reformists were painted as violent and illegitimate actors so that extreme measures against them could be justified.  Again: this was in 1898, and it's the playbook the BBC is still using - when those fancy universities call it a "classic education", they aren't kidding.


*  "Anarchy" being, OFC, a euphemism for labor and civil rights movements of the time which were challenging power structures, and even assassinating members of the ruling classes

[Funt Solo]

Is anyone else following the furore around the white folk on BBC Politics telling Dawn Butler that accusing Johnson of racism was 'totes rude?

Aye: get your doublethink right here!

Tories: racism isn't racism, and suggesting otherwise is rude - but then what do you expect from a black? (And why can't we ship all these blacks back to where they came from?*)

*Reference to Windrush Scandle: not just me being randomly hyperbolic.

[Professor Bear]

To be entirely fair to the Tories and their record on Windrush, they don't just ship black people back where they came from, they also ship black people to places they've never been.

[shaolin_monkey]

To be entirely fair to the Tories and their record on Windrush, they don't just ship black people back where they came from, they also ship black people to places they've never been.

Quote of the Day. ^^^

Did any of you watch Dawn Butler having to defend her position about being better people than the Tories, when the Tory voter sat next to her had literally the previous second denied the racism in the Tory party?! Is there a new phrase that sits somewhere between cognitive dissonance, and lying outright?

24 minutes in. It really is quite astonishing. Power to Dawn Butler, who remained remarkably calm and polite throughout, while quoting the racist epithets used by our glorious leader to aforementioned Tory voter..

[Professor Bear]

I didn't see it, but apparantly BBCQT excelled themselves last night by managing to pack the audience with people desperate to ask questions about how immigrants had spread Covid19 through the UK's open borders.

[Funt Solo]

I didn't see it, but apparantly BBCQT excelled themselves last night by managing to pack the audience with people desperate to ask questions about how immigrants had spread Covid19 through the UK's open borders.

As opposed to just people on skiing holidays.

Humanity: "Ha! I escaped the quarantine by cleverly flying through a neutral airport - and now I've effectively murdered half of my relatives! Win!"

[IndigoPrime]

100% of Iceland's current infection is from rich nobs who went on Italian skiing jollies. But, yeah, immigrants are teh evilz.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

100% of Iceland's current infection is from rich nobs who went on Italian skiing jollies. But, yeah, immigrants are teh evilz.

Sorry, I'm unclear, is demonising people wrong, or is it ok when they're not completely destitute?

[Funt Solo]

It's a sliding scale. Basically lay off the tramps and feck the rich.

Unless I get rich.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I may be wrong, but I think the point was that the virus is indiscriminate.  Rich, poor, foreign, native: if you've been abroad in a danger zone you may well be bringing the danger home.

But in today's Brexity, Trumpish climate I have a feeling that the people to whom 25 - 50% of those adjectives apply are going to get the lion's share of the blame.

[IndigoPrime]

Sorry, I'm unclear, is demonising people wrong, or is it ok when they're not completely destitute?

The news cycle there shifted very noticeably, according to my wife, from hardly giving a shit to "oh no – it turns out that the wealthy are affected". It was _instant_. Also, that entitled bullshit of flying back through alternate airports to avoid quarantine restrictions on an island where the vast majority of the population is packed into a single small city, and then boasting about that on social media(!), while – like here – people increasingly clamour to point the finger of suspicion at migrants? Yeah, some people deserve a bit of demonisation at this point.

[Professor Bear]

My favorite story from all this remains the cabin staff on the cruise liner that was quarantined who were forced to go about their duties from cabin to cabin to keep the passengers happy.
700 additional infections after the quarantine was initiated.

[Professor Bear]

The people who would never vote Labour in a million years finally have the leader of the Labour Party they wanted and I'm calling it now: a lot of them won't even last until the end of the day before they start renouncing the centrist nonentity they've been clamoring for these last five years, saying he can't win because of Coronavirus and/or Corbyn and how everyone should have listened to them years ago but it's too late now.