The Political Thread

[Theblazeuk]

I used to think so Kev, but a quick look around confirms that it's very much alive, well and more vocal than it has been for a long time.

[TordelBack]

Just to clarify, I don't support violent protest like the UCBerkeley stuff at all.  And I fear for the fuel this gives all sorts of parties (to the point at which my False Flag radar is tingling).  But I'm afraid I do find it absolutely bloody hilarious to see someone whose entire career has been based around denigrating anyone that isn't him as weak and over-sensitive, as well as being a smirking face behind the real-world threats made to individual women and others, being subjected to this kind of aggression. You can't go around inciting contempt and focused hatred and then complain when it finds you.

He's always played the victim of the 'extreme left', now he actually is.

[The Legendary Shark]

Hear, hear.

I think this Milo guy is what's known as a "useful idiot" - a person whose actions generate situations that can be used by The Powers That Shouldn't Be to further their own agendas.

[Professor Bear]

Theory: there's no more bigots than usual, and they're no more bold than usual, what's changed is that now the media is putting them front and center more often.

[Theblazeuk]

I'd like to think so but you don't have to look at those given prominence in the media to see the hundreds of chuckle****s bellowing their support.

[Modern Panther]

But I'm afraid I do find it absolutely bloody hilarious to see someone whose entire career has been based around denigrating anyone that isn't him as weak and over-sensitive, as well as being a smirking face behind the real-world threats made to individual women and others, being subjected to this kind of aggression. You can't go around inciting contempt and focused hatred and then complain when it finds you.

The Faragists can through a strop over a joke sign being held up in parliament making fun of him, but it wasn't too long ago he was throwing insults at his follow MEPs, including telling a former surgeon that he'd never had a real job. 

"Help, help, I'm being oppressed" said every bigot ever. 

[Frank]

I think this Milo guy is what's known as a "useful idiot" - a person whose actions generate situations that can be used by The Powers That Shouldn't Be ...

Specifically, Breitbart proprietor and Bob The Galactic Bum lookalike Steve Bannon, Trump's unrelected defacto co-President. Yiannopoulos is no pawn though; he's a self declared troll, following the Katie Hopkins play book (the same tactics that put Trump in the White House).

I've no time at all for Millennial Glenn Beck ^[1], his predictable schtick or his stupid hair, but I defy anyone to read the words of his tormentors and not come to the conclusion that this is a real world demonstration of Team America's metaphor concerning the utility of dicks deriving from their ability to fuck arseholes:

Protest organiser Yvette Felarca defended the demonstration, describing the actions of students as "self-defence". "We have the right to defend ourselves," she said, adding: "This shutting down Milo Yiannopoulos, and doing whatever's necessary to do that, is our right to self-defence."

BBC News 02/02/2017

^[1] I predict a similar career trajectory to Beck. Five years from now, Yiannopoulos will have undergone a Damascean conversion so he can work the opposite side of the ideological divide for dollars.

[The Legendary Shark]

It's not a case of being a pawn, it's a case of taking advantage of situations he causes all by himself. To a certain extent I think Trump is the same - just sit back and take advantage of the things he does. There's no need for either of them to be controlled or directed.

[Frank]

It's not a case of being a pawn, it's a case of taking advantage of situations he causes all by himself ... There's no need for (him) to be controlled or directed.

It's not worth arguing over, but agency and awareness would mean he wasn't a useful idiot.

[sheridan]

The Faragists can through a strop over a joke sign being held up in parliament making fun of him, but it wasn't too long ago he was throwing insults at his follow MEPs, including telling a former surgeon that he'd never had a real job. 

"Help, help, I'm being oppressed" said every bigot ever.

Didn't he announce in European Parliament that none of them had done a day's work in their lives (sitting right behind him was a Nazi concentration camp survivor).

[M.I.K.]

Theory: there's no more bigots than usual, and they're no more bold than usual, what's changed is that now the media is putting them front and center more often.

I've anecdotal evidence which would suggest otherwise.

On the 12th of November last year, I unfriended someone on facebook because I noticed my "people you may know" section was suddenly packed to the effin' gunnels with friends of his with Pepe the frog and blatant nazi imagery all over their profile pictures. I didn't need to look far to discover that a few of these were clearly actual neo-nazis/white supremacists, with troubling views on race, a penchant for jewellery shaped like swastikas, and not a hint of irony.

Whether my facebook acquaintance was aware of this fact, I do not know. He'd previously demonstrated mildly right-wing views, had quoted Milo Yiannopoulos a few times and had a growing obsession with Donald Trump, (most of this conveyed via annoying memes), but he also had plenty of friends of varying ethnicities and cultural backgrounds and had only just recently broken up with his black girlfriend, so I took him for a slightly trollish half-wit who mistakenly believed himself to be a full-wit.

Anyway, suddenly that facebook section was flooded with frogs and Trumps and nazis to an alarming degree. I hadn't noticed them before, so I assumed he must've recently added a load of them in one go. Upon checking out his profile, I saw Trump's victory had sent him into hyper-troll mode, spouting irritating guff about "liberal tears" and "collecting salt". Advertent friend of nazis or not, I decide he's certainly an annoying prick, and unfriend him.

Having found the sequence of events somewhat worrying, I mention it in a public facebook status update.

Couple of days later, I learn Trump has appointed Steve Bannon as his chief strategist. A few days after that, Richard Spencer's nasally yelling "Hail Trump" in a room full of folk doing nazi salutes.

[Tjm86]

This will no doubt come as unsurprising, certainly its a view i've held for a long time.  It seems that South Park have decided to  'back off' from lampooning trump because its too ridiculous.  It does seem like a pretty bad black comedy, sort of Monty Python meets Dr Strangelove. 

The more I read about the new American President and his team, the more I think that a really juvenile bunch of college kids have taken over and are determined to show the adults up.  Unfortunately they also have a nuclear arsenal. 

Then again, we've got BoJo and Farage.  Not fully in the same league to be sure, sort of the geeky kids that try to hang around pretending to be cool and sucking up all the time.  You know, the more I think about it, the more I can see where they're coming from.

[Rately]

Multiple reports coming out that Trump's White House staff turned off the recording equipment while Trump was on the phone to Putin.

If we are blessed to look back on this period of history, the Trump White House, and all the nasty, seething hatred that seems to have finally overflowed these last few years, i can only hope we don't repeat the same mistakes again.

[Jim_Campbell]

Tweet from neo-Nazi punchee, Richard Spencer.



I don't even know where to start with this...

[Hawkmumbler]

What a colossal twat.