The Political Thread

[Professor Bear]

Attacked a whole group of them in their own police station and reverse-outnumbered them!
Then just to make their jobs harder, he fiddled with the knobs on the evidence-recording machines to make them stop working properly - thank goodness the UK doesn't practice a legal system based on the prosecution proving their case - or following their own rules of conduct or evidence - or he'd have gotten away with it, too.

[ZenArcade]

The decision does seem balance of probability more than beyond reasonable doubt. I'm not party to the detail in any objective manner, but I'd on instinct side with the Prof. Bad sh*t all around. Z

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I presume that some of the forum must've been present throughout this court case, so as to hear all the facts which is what poor Sharky was probably found guilty because of.

[ZenArcade]

Can't speak to that, I wasn't there. What I can do is to offer my best wishes and hopes to Shark. Z

[Professor Bear]

I don't think I'd be able to sleep at night if I ever found myself publicly criticising the CPS.



I live in Northern Ireland, so I mean that literally.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I can't think of another one for it.

Anyway the whole Rolf Harris thing got me thinking about the past; and though Russell Brand puts it better than I do, it's like a huge chunk of your childhood has crumbled away. Savile always seemed a little bit creepy, but Harris seemed like a source of decency, kindness and trustworthiness.

Similarly, while we've had a couple of decades here in Ireland to get used to the fact that the church that everyone let dictate morality was in fact a festering sewer of corruption and depravity, and still it continues to horrify as more and more of its past crimes come to light - the mass graves of children in the news lately are an example.  The church could, at the time, commit pretty much as many sex crimes and murders as they liked while remaining safe in the knowledge that nobody would prosecute them.

Murders may not have been as common one hundred years ago, but it was perfectly acceptable for governments to wipe out almost a whole generation of young European men in World War 1.

The tabloids like to make us believe that crime is rampant these days; and there's a general feeling that things were safer in the past.  The Rolf Harris has made me think that maybe this is all bullshit - it's just that rape and murder were covered up more in the past; and all that nostalgia that older people feel for the more tranquil life they used to have is just a memory of the lacquer that authority figures painted over the brutality and cruelty that has always been part of being human.

Maybe, in fact, things are safer today than they were - while there may indeed be more criminals on the streets, at least if someone rapes or murders children they can be made accountable for it.

[Theblazeuk]

That's been my opinion for a long, long time. All this stuff happened, you just never heard about it - if it didn't happen to someone you knew I suppose.

Hell, today even the most common sicko is a source of national hatred and the celebs and powerful figures are an even bigger target for attention and attack. As Cyril Smith's communications have made clear, it was much easier to lean on people to be quiet back in the day. Today an  MP would have to have some serious dirt of their own to suppress such a story, rather than just their political position.

[Professor Bear]

I'd say the political thread is exactly the place for a discussion of how societies have always been keen on hiding their failures rather than fixing the problems that cause them.

Another good example is how the Tories turned down hundreds of millions in EU funding for food banks and poverty relief because they are engaged in an ongoing campaign of denying such things are a problem in "their" Britain to the extent that people now have to actually die for that illusion, or the Everyday Sexism Project's soul-crushing legions of female stories of being sexually harassed and/or assaulted and then being told to not make a fuss about it by the people who are supposed to protect them from such things.  Even our own Sharky relates his story of getting a raw deal and then gets called a liar for it.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

A liar, where you in court, as you seem to know all the facts about the case!

Plus, can you post up where I said he was a liar, as yet again you see things that others don't!

[The Legendary Shark]

People get away with crimes all the time, they always have and they always will. Dig deep enough into the past of any large group of people - in this case, 60's and 70's celebrities - and you will find dirt. I find it interesting that of all the crimes that must be there, from drink driving to embezzlement to murder, the government and media are concentrating on sex crimes, specifically paedophilia. This feels to my cynical soul like a co-ordinated attack on our childhoods. Why? Maybe to make us hate one another a little bit more, loathe ourselves a little bit more, distrust strangers and friends a little bit more, drive us all a little further apart, drive us all a little closer to the authority who promises to stop this sort of thing with more laws and powers, and all like that kind of socially toxic negativity.
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Compared to the handful who have been convicted of these crimes, what percentage of that large group of 60's and 70's celebrities are innocent or actually did good or even heroic things which were never brought to light at the time? Why are the government and media not trawling the past for light to counter the darkness? Someone to point at to prove that not all people are inherently vile.
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My own childhood wasn't exactly idyllic or euphoric or walked by heroes and neither was it particularly dark or miserable or haunted by paedophiles. In fact, I was in my mid teens before I got sexually assaulted by a bloke I worked with in the summer holidays. Two other blokes stopped him and no more was ever said about it. it was just one of those things. The overwhelming majority of the people I knew as a child treated me decently enough. Some were jerks, some were okay, a very few were a joy to know and a very few were vile. But why give so much coverage to the vile and virtually none to the joys?
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It's almost as if they want you to live in darkness, past, present and future - so they can sell you candles, I guess.

[The Legendary Shark]

I don't think CF called me a liar - and even if he did, he can't be trusted you know...  ;-)

[Professor Bear]

Plus, can you post up where I said he was a liar, as yet again you see things that others don't!

That wasn't in relation to you, CF, and I'm not going to search the thread for it as I've since blocked the forum member who posted it so I couldn't find it anyway, but it was something along the lines of "I don't know him so he could be bullshitting for all we know."

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Cheers for that professor and you are right, searching through this would take for ever.

Oi Sharky, seeing as you have no home phone number to call anymore. Have you managed to get your hands on a cheap mobile!

[Proudhuff]

Sorry to hear that Sharkie, good luck with your next step whatever you chose to do.

CF your faith in the British justice system is touching, i really hope you never get on the wrong side of it.
My father was very similar to you about the police, until one day someone reversed into his car.
Just a bump but insurance details etc were called for.
When presenting his DL to the police they notice that he never had the type of car he was driving ( amended as he was disabled) ticked on the back. Thus started a lengthy and stressful battle with the police who actively pursued him, (stopping him driving - even home from the station home), and were going to take him to court for driving without the correct DL for over 40 years, DVLC couldn't help as they had distroyed all records when they moved to computers from paper(we think this was when the mistake happened). he was only saved by the fact that he had kept an old DL from the fifties where it was marked accordingly (he'd lost his leg in a MC accident in the early fifties so was disabled then)  Police response? a scowled 'you're very lucky mate, that would have been a jail sentence'.

As I say, i hiope you and yours never come into their sights.

[The Legendary Shark]

It gets more like the USSR every day.
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CF, I'm still on the same mobile number.