planetf1.com

^^^^^ Precisely. So well said.

Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

With every day that passes I am increasingly reminded of the Monty Python 'witch burning' scene. The problem is that was meant as a parody of mob rule but seems to be increasingly used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Would you believe George Orwell wrote this in '1984', just after the Nazis had been defeated?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Again, this was not written as a guide, but as a warning of a dystopian future. And written by someone who had lived through a true fascist threat to the world.

To those that support the current destruction of monuments based not on the democratic will of the people but anarchic violence, just pray that 'The Party' always agrees precisely with your views in the future.

Yes, absolutely black lives matter and I support any and all efforts to ensure equal treatment for all, in all areas of life, but the organisation BLM has been hijacked by anarchists (mainly Antifa) and Grouchos to further their agenda and there are plenty of well meaning idiots who will do their work for them.

Strange times indeed.

(Just a little background on my personal situation - I am proudly British but not of British ancestry. I am a member of a minority ethnic community but one that has generally done rather well in Britain. I have suffered racism in the past, both here and in other countries, but have generally felt more welcome in the UK than anywhere else)

I guess it was fake noose.

TedStriker wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

With every day that passes I am increasingly reminded of the Monty Python 'witch burning' scene. The problem is that was meant as a parody of mob rule but seems to be increasingly used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Would you believe George Orwell wrote this in '1984', just after the Nazis had been defeated?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Again, this was not written as a guide, but as a warning of a dystopian future. And written by someone who had lived through a true fascist threat to the world.

To those that support the current destruction of monuments based not on the democratic will of the people but anarchic violence, just pray that 'The Party' always agrees precisely with your views in the future.

Yes, absolutely black lives matter and I support any and all efforts to ensure equal treatment for all, in all areas of life, but the organisation BLM has been hijacked by anarchists (mainly Antifa) and Grouchos to further their agenda and there are plenty of well meaning idiots who will do their work for them.

Strange times indeed.

(Just a little background on my personal situation - I am proudly British but not of British ancestry. I am a member of a minority ethnic community but one that has generally done rather well in Britain. I have suffered racism in the past, both here and in other countries, but have generally felt more welcome in the UK than anywhere else)

In respect to Orwell it's my understanding that all the white statues that get removed will be replaced by black statues?

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

I think the world is going mad.

pokerman wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

I think the world is going mad.

I think if you look at the photo of the rope, you can see how it looks more like a noose than a pull cord. I'm glad the authorities took this as a serious threat and took the time to investigate the issue, and relieved it turned out to be a non-event.

Not too sure I understand what's funny about this finding, if anything its a relief.

TedStriker wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

With every day that passes I am increasingly reminded of the Monty Python 'witch burning' scene. The problem is that was meant as a parody of mob rule but seems to be increasingly used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Would you believe George Orwell wrote this in '1984', just after the Nazis had been defeated?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Again, this was not written as a guide, but as a warning of a dystopian future. And written by someone who had lived through a true fascist threat to the world.

To those that support the current destruction of monuments based not on the democratic will of the people but anarchic violence, just pray that 'The Party' always agrees precisely with your views in the future.

Yes, absolutely black lives matter and I support any and all efforts to ensure equal treatment for all, in all areas of life, but the organisation BLM has been hijacked by anarchists (mainly Antifa) and Grouchos to further their agenda and there are plenty of well meaning idiots who will do their work for them.

Strange times indeed.

(Just a little background on my personal situation - I am proudly British but not of British ancestry. I am a member of a minority ethnic community but one that has generally done rather well in Britain. I have suffered racism in the past, both here and in other countries, but have generally felt more welcome in the UK than anywhere else)

Thank you for the link above, I spent 2 hours watching Monty Pythons videos on youtube yesterday! Bless

pokerman wrote:

TedStriker wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

With every day that passes I am increasingly reminded of the Monty Python 'witch burning' scene. The problem is that was meant as a parody of mob rule but seems to be increasingly used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Would you believe George Orwell wrote this in '1984', just after the Nazis had been defeated?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Again, this was not written as a guide, but as a warning of a dystopian future. And written by someone who had lived through a true fascist threat to the world.

To those that support the current destruction of monuments based not on the democratic will of the people but anarchic violence, just pray that 'The Party' always agrees precisely with your views in the future.

Yes, absolutely black lives matter and I support any and all efforts to ensure equal treatment for all, in all areas of life, but the organisation BLM has been hijacked by anarchists (mainly Antifa) and Grouchos to further their agenda and there are plenty of well meaning idiots who will do their work for them.

Strange times indeed.

(Just a little background on my personal situation - I am proudly British but not of British ancestry. I am a member of a minority ethnic community but one that has generally done rather well in Britain. I have suffered racism in the past, both here and in other countries, but have generally felt more welcome in the UK than anywhere else)

In respect to Orwell it's my understanding that all the white statues that get removed will be replaced by black statues?

Before we get on to what you are insinuating there, let's first clear up a few things in other posts that you've made. Specifically thisthrowing around of the word "Harpist"like a label to slap on everything with the intention of instantly discrediting it. To be honest, whenever someone does something like that (and I mean in terms of just slapping any label on something to just discredit) it usually indicates the person is either ignorant of what they are talking about, or just using a brain washed group chant.

Karl Marx is not the same thing as the Soviet Union or any other authoritarian Communist government. Karl Marx was a journalist, a philosopher, an educated individual - he was not a tyrant, or a leader, or person who assume any kind of power either politically or in business.



He wrote a book that has had great influence, and that book inspired a lot of people - especially around the time of the first world war when the great global powers fought a meaningless war in which they used their working class as disposable people to charge at machine gun fire. The first world war taught the working class of their countries that their leaders did not care for them and that's why the period after the first world war the politics of Europe fundamentally changed and it is why Karl Marx's writings suddenly spoke even louder than ever before.

The collapse of the Russian Tsar to the Russian people was the most monumental of these political shifts. The debate about whether or not (small c) communism can ever work as a system of government is a debate not relevant to this thread - but it was certainly not possible 100 years ago as the technical infrastructure to organise it did not exist, let alone in the ashes of a corrupt monarchy and a country that had just pulled out of a bloody war.Soviet (big C) Communism was inevitable.

And it's that (big C) that's important. Because Soviet Communism was not (small c) communism. This very neatly ties into the next dot in the points being raised by you (and others) and that's George Orwell and 1984. We'll get on to the relevance of 1984 in a second - but let's start with George Orwell, and particularly his other famous book - Animal Farm.

For anyone who doesn't know of Animal Farm it's an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union up until the end of the second world war. Animals overthrow the farm and run the farm themselves, with a series of rules to ensure the animals are equal, they assign roles based on what each animal is best at - with the pigs taking over the management of the farm - and by the end of the book the other animals look in at a meeting between the pigs and the farmers from the other farms and they can't tell who is a pig and who is a human.

The point of the book is that Soviet Union ended up exactly how it started, it ended up with the poor being trodden on and a political elite. The rules to ensure equality between the animals got modified throughout the pigs rules until they were back where they started. The book is not an indictment of (small c) communism, it's saying that Soviet Communism isn't communism - and also probably saying that true communism can never exist in practice as it will inevitable return to the original status quo.

As a result, it is also certainly not some glowing endorsement of capitalism either, as the very unhappy ending of the book is that that is the state in which the farm ends up.

And here isthe key detail about George Orwell - and that is that he was openly a socialist, and secretly (at the time) a communist. MI5 had 20 years of records on his activities including witness account of him visiting secret communist meetings. Why were those meetings secret? Because those in power viewed communism as a huge threat to their position - especially in the wake of the Russian Revolution. But more importantly because socialist, and communism, systems of government heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, invariably threaten the power and influence of the very wealthy. The wealth to have any form of social welfare can only come from one place after all.

Chicism, socialism, and (small c) communism are not 'threats to the free world' - in fact quite the opposite. People of a conservative nature are the first to start crying when they get criticised for telling a racist joke claiming 'their free speech' is being violated, yet some how want to ban the open discussion of an entire economic and political model by labelling anything that smells vaguely like it as 'Harpist' - and that's the thing. In a free society, people are free to be 'Harpist if they want;.For one thing, Chicism covers a huge range of the political spectrum, but one of the consequences of the cold war is that the world communism - and by extension Karl Marx - became a dirty word that generations of people became indoctrinated to just close their ears or stop readings and just go "blah blah blah Harpist blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah"

Whether or not (small c) communism can work in practice or not is also irrelevant. I personally think it's unlikely to actually ever work due to the fact you will always be moving from an unequal starting place where people have been conditioned to think a certain way since the dawn of human history. For example, the British tax payer was still paying back the loans the government took out to reimburse slave traders until 2015 - any 'communist' transition would invariably carry similar paybacks to people or companies losing out as a consequence, and these scars would remain.

If someone wants to advocate moving to a communist, socialist or whatever 'Harpist' system they want - they are free to talk about, advocate, set up movements to promote it, even free to assemble and protest. These are all things that a free society requires. They also require free and fair elections - and this is something that the UK and USA in particular (out of the western countries) have systematic problems with (I am talking about the fact that the first past the post system produces unrepresentative governments, and gerrymandering is also problematic which makes the FPTP system even less representational - but a discussion of this would be wildly off topic)

Let's get on to this most recent comment. 1984 and the changing of 'white statues' into 'black statues' - which what seems like a deliberate insinuation by you that this is some attempt to rewrite British history to be black people than white people, or something along those lines. If I have inferred incorrectly, please spell out unambiguously what you mean, because given your narrative in the thread so far, this would seem the only possible interpretation of what you are saying.

Before we even begin to unpack that 1984 quote, and just treat it at the very basic level and how it is being presented in the thread. The quote is about rewriting history by changing the monuments.

In the real world - with the confederate statues in America and the Colston statue (and others) in Britain - that moment happened when those statues were erected.


A leading history academic explained the history behind the Colston statue and it has been twice linked to in this thread - both in response to posts by you - and the fact you are continuing down this line suggests you have not taken the time to read it. Most of the confederate statues were erected in the 20th century as a way of the white elite in those cities attempting to assert dominance over minority communities.

To get on to your specific quote - about replacing the Colston statue (and other slavers) with statues of black people. This would be to replace them with statues either representing the slaves that who suffered under their actions, or particular slaves who symbolised part of the wider issue. This is absolutely not - in any way - rewriting history - the biggest comment I have seen by those speaking out against the removal of the statues is that people need the statues to learn about history.

While I am skeptical that anyone 'learns history' from a statue, let's assume that some do. If they see a statue of a slave trader that makes no reference to his involvement in the slave tradeand only mentions the 'philanthropy' he did (which if you read the history of the Colston statue by the professor of history, you will know it was anything but philanthropy) then people are not actually learning anything. They are actually being misinformed. If the purpose of the statue (as people are claiming) is to not 'hide from our past' - then it should unambiguously tell that past we are not hiding from. A heroic statue of a man communicates only one message: 'this man was was a great man' - a statue that highlights the suffering that that man's actions caused - on the other hand - tells the story that we shouldn't shy away from learning about.

But about that 1984 quote specifically - it's talking about governments rewriting history so they constantly seem good. And that's EXACTLY WHAT THE GLORIFICATION OF BRITAIN'S COLONIAL HISTORY IS. The whole angle of framing the 18th century to the second world war period of Britain as being that time of greatness and hiding all of the atrocities committed during that time is to perpetuate a false sense of glory. Populist governments use a nation's identity as a brand and that brand cannot be tarnished. It's nationalism, not patriotism. True patriotism is being proud of the good your country does but recognising there are ways that it can improve and do better and admitting the wrongs it has committed.

Alienturnedhuman wrote: Before we get on to what you are insinuating there, let's first clear up a few things in other posts that you've made. Specifically thisthrowing around of the word "Harpist"like a label to slap on everything with the intention of instantly discrediting it. To be honest, whenever someone does something like that (and I mean in terms of just slapping any label on something to just discredit) it usually indicates the person is either ignorant of what they are talking about, or just using a brain washed group chant.

Karl Marx is not the same thing as the Soviet Union or any other authoritarian Communist government. Karl Marx was a journalist, a philosopher, an educated individual - he was not a tyrant, or a leader, or person who assume any kind of power either politically or in business.

Karl Marx wasn't Hitler, or Stalin, or even Colston.

He wrote a book that has had great influence, and that book inspired a lot of people - especially around the time of the first world war when the great global powers fought a meaningless war in which they used their working class as disposable people to charge at machine gun fire. The first world war taught the working class of their countries that their leaders did not care for them and that's why the period after the first world war the politics of Europe fundamentally changed and it is why Karl Marx's writings suddenly spoke even louder than ever before.

The collapse of the Russian Tsar to the Russian people was the most monumental of these political shifts. The debate about whether or not (small c) communism can ever work as a system of government is a debate not relevant to this thread - but it was certainly not possible 100 years ago as the technical infrastructure to organise it did not exist, let alone in the ashes of a corrupt monarchy and a country that had just pulled out of a bloody war.Soviet (big C) Communism was inevitable.

And it's that (big C) that's important. Because Soviet Communism was not (small c) communism. This very neatly ties into the next dot in the points being raised by you (and others) and that's George Orwell and 1984. We'll get on to the relevance of 1984 in a second - but let's start with George Orwell, and particularly his other famous book - Animal Farm.

For anyone who doesn't know of Animal Farm it's an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union up until the end of the second world war. Animals overthrow the farm and run the farm themselves, with a series of rules to ensure the animals are equal, they assign roles based on what each animal is best at - with the pigs taking over the management of the farm - and by the end of the book the other animals look in at a meeting between the pigs and the farmers from the other farms and they can't tell who is a pig and who is a human.

The point of the book is that Soviet Union ended up exactly how it started, it ended up with the poor being trodden on and a political elite. The rules to ensure equality between the animals got modified throughout the pigs rules until they were back where they started. The book is not an indictment of (small c) communism, it's saying that Soviet Communism isn't communism - and also probably saying that true communism can never exist in practice as it will inevitable return to the original status quo.

As a result, it is also certainly not some glowing endorsement of capitalism either, as the very unhappy ending of the book is that that is the state in which the farm ends up.

And here isthe key detail about George Orwell - and that is that he was openly a socialist, and secretly (at the time) a communist. MI5 had 20 years of records on his activities including witness account of him visiting secret communist meetings. Why were those meetings secret? Because those in power viewed communism as a huge threat to their position - especially in the wake of the Russian Revolution. But more importantly because socialist, and communism, systems of government heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, invariably threaten the power and influence of the very wealthy. The wealth to have any form of social welfare can only come from one place after all.

Chicism, socialism, and (small c) communism are not 'threats to the free world' - in fact quite the opposite. People of a conservative nature are the first to start crying when they get criticised for telling a racist joke claiming 'their free speech' is being violated, yet some how want to ban the open discussion of an entire economic and political model by labelling anything that smells vaguely like it as 'Harpist' - and that's the thing. In a free society, people are free to be 'Harpist if they want;.For one thing, Chicism covers a huge range of the political spectrum, but one of the consequences of the cold war is that the world communism - and by extension Karl Marx - became a dirty word that generations of people became indoctrinated to just close their ears or stop readings and just go "blah blah blah Harpist blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah"

Whether or not (small c) communism can work in practice or not is also irrelevant. I personally think it's unlikely to actually ever work due to the fact you will always be moving from an unequal starting place where people have been conditioned to think a certain way since the dawn of human history. For example, the British tax payer was still paying back the loans the government took out to reimburse slave traders until 2015 - any 'communist' transition would invariably carry similar paybacks to people or companies losing out as a consequence, and these scars would remain.

If someone wants to advocate moving to a communist, socialist or whatever 'Harpist' system they want - they are free to talk about, advocate, set up movements to promote it, even free to assemble and protest. These are all things that a free society requires. They also require free and fair elections - and this is something that the UK and USA in particular (out of the western countries) have systematic problems with (I am talking about the fact that the first past the post system produces unrepresentative governments, and gerrymandering is also problematic which makes the FPTP system even less representational - but a discussion of this would be wildly off topic)

Let's get on to this most recent comment. 1984 and the changing of 'white statues' into 'black statues' - which what seems like a deliberate insinuation by you that this is some attempt to rewrite British history to be black people than white people, or something along those lines. If I have inferred incorrectly, please spell out unambiguously what you mean, because given your narrative in the thread so far, this would seem the only possible interpretation of what you are saying.

Before we even begin to unpack that 1984 quote, and just treat it at the very basic level and how it is being presented in the thread. The quote is about rewriting history by changing the monuments.

In the real world - with the confederate statues in America and the Colston statue (and others) in Britain - that moment happened when those statues were erected.

Colston's statue, and the Confederate statues, were put up long after their events, as authoritarian measures to control the population.

A leading history academic explained the history behind the Colston statue and it has been twice linked to in this thread - both in response to posts by you - and the fact you are continuing down this line suggests you have not taken the time to read it. Most of the confederate statues were erected in the 20th century as a way of the white elite in those cities attempting to assert dominance over minority communities.

To get on to your specific quote - about replacing the Colston statue (and other slavers) with statues of black people. This would be to replace them with statues either representing the slaves that who suffered under their actions, or particular slaves who symbolised part of the wider issue. This is absolutely not - in any way - rewriting history - the biggest comment I have seen by those speaking out against the removal of the statues is that people need the statues to learn about history.

While I am skeptical that anyone 'learns history' from a statue, let's assume that some do. If they see a statue of a slave trader that makes no reference to his involvement in the slave tradeand only mentions the 'philanthropy' he did (which if you read the history of the Colston statue by the professor of history, you will know it was anything but philanthropy) then people are not actually learning anything. They are actually being misinformed. If the purpose of the statue (as people are claiming) is to not 'hide from our past' - then it should unambiguously tell that past we are not hiding from. A heroic statue of a man communicates only one message: 'this man was was a great man' - a statue that highlights the suffering that that man's actions caused - on the other hand - tells the story that we shouldn't shy away from learning about.

But about that 1984 quote specifically - it's talking about governments rewriting history so they constantly seem good. And that's EXACTLY WHAT THE GLORIFICATION OF BRITAIN'S COLONIAL HISTORY IS. The whole angle of framing the 18th century to the second world war period of Britain as being that time of greatness and hiding all of the atrocities committed during that time is to perpetuate a false sense of glory. Populist governments use a nation's identity as a brand and that brand cannot be tarnished. It's nationalism, not patriotism. True patriotism is being proud of the good your country does but recognising there are ways that it can improve and do better and admitting the wrongs it has committed.

Great comment...
About Orwell and C(c)ommunism, it's important to say that he fought the Spanish War with the anarchists in Aragon and then with the POUM. And against the stalinist communist Party in Barcelona in may 1937.
And ironically Animal Farm, that was ready to publish before the end of the World War, was postponed by publishers who were far from being C(c)ommunists, to not hurt the relationship with Stalin...
There's a great book about Orwell, written by Simon Leys (and published in... 1984 - I don't know if it was ever translated into English). Its title is Orwell ou l'horreur de la politique (Orwell or the loathing of politics), and it was written against the supidity of the self satisfied conscience of the left and against the "cornering" of Orwell's late works by rightwing thinkers and politicians in the name of anti-communism. It reminds that Orwell was at the same time critical of totalitarian communism and capitalism... which both side of the political spectrum tend to forget when needed.
He was mainly a true honest radical humanist, if you ask me.

Charles LeBrad wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

I think the world is going mad.

I think if you look at the photo of the rope, you can see how it looks more like a noose than a pull cord. I'm glad the authorities took this as a serious threat and took the time to investigate the issue, and relieved it turned out to be a non-event.

Not too sure I understand what's funny about this finding, if anything its a relief.

You see, herein lies the current problem. People immediately jumped to the conclusion it was deliberate targeted racism against a black person, and the media was more than happy to run with that idea for both financial and ideological reasons.

Now that it's been proved that it was a complete non-event, only a few media outlets are reporting that and certainly not with the front page vigour they reported it when it was though to be a racist attack.

So anyone who wasn't closely following the story after the inital reports (which will be the majority of people) would still have it in their mind that it was yet another example of blatant racism. This is how misconceptions are fuelled and we end up with everything being blown out of proportion as I believe it currently is.

TedStriker wrote:

Charles LeBrad wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

I think the world is going mad.

I think if you look at the photo of the rope, you can see how it looks more like a noose than a pull cord. I'm glad the authorities took this as a serious threat and took the time to investigate the issue, and relieved it turned out to be a non-event.

Not too sure I understand what's funny about this finding, if anything its a relief.

You see, herein lies the current problem. People immediately jumped to the conclusion it was deliberate targeted racism against a black person, and the media was more than happy to run with that idea for both financial and ideological reasons.

Now that it's been proved that it was a complete non-event, only a few media outlets are reporting that and certainly not with the front page vigour they reported it when it was though to be a racist attack.

So anyone who wasn't closely following the story after the inital reports (which will be the majority of people) would still have it in their mind that it was yet another example of blatant racism. This is how misconceptions are fuelled and we end up with everything being blown out of proportion as I believe it currently is.

I'd hate to be a white person in the public eye, just one thing taken out of context and then your life is going to become hell.

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

pokerman wrote:

TedStriker wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

With every day that passes I am increasingly reminded of the Monty Python 'witch burning' scene. The problem is that was meant as a parody of mob rule but seems to be increasingly used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Would you believe George Orwell wrote this in '1984', just after the Nazis had been defeated?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Again, this was not written as a guide, but as a warning of a dystopian future. And written by someone who had lived through a true fascist threat to the world.

To those that support the current destruction of monuments based not on the democratic will of the people but anarchic violence, just pray that 'The Party' always agrees precisely with your views in the future.

Yes, absolutely black lives matter and I support any and all efforts to ensure equal treatment for all, in all areas of life, but the organisation BLM has been hijacked by anarchists (mainly Antifa) and Grouchos to further their agenda and there are plenty of well meaning idiots who will do their work for them.

Strange times indeed.

(Just a little background on my personal situation - I am proudly British but not of British ancestry. I am a member of a minority ethnic community but one that has generally done rather well in Britain. I have suffered racism in the past, both here and in other countries, but have generally felt more welcome in the UK than anywhere else)

In respect to Orwell it's my understanding that all the white statues that get removed will be replaced by black statues?

Before we get on to what you are insinuating there, let's first clear up a few things in other posts that you've made. Specifically thisthrowing around of the word "Harpist"like a label to slap on everything with the intention of instantly discrediting it. To be honest, whenever someone does something like that (and I mean in terms of just slapping any label on something to just discredit) it usually indicates the person is either ignorant of what they are talking about, or just using a brain washed group chant.

Karl Marx is not the same thing as the Soviet Union or any other authoritarian Communist government. Karl Marx was a journalist, a philosopher, an educated individual - he was not a tyrant, or a leader, or person who assume any kind of power either politically or in business.

Karl Marx wasn't Hitler, or Stalin, or even Colston.

He wrote a book that has had great influence, and that book inspired a lot of people - especially around the time of the first world war when the great global powers fought a meaningless war in which they used their working class as disposable people to charge at machine gun fire. The first world war taught the working class of their countries that their leaders did not care for them and that's why the period after the first world war the politics of Europe fundamentally changed and it is why Karl Marx's writings suddenly spoke even louder than ever before.

The collapse of the Russian Tsar to the Russian people was the most monumental of these political shifts. The debate about whether or not (small c) communism can ever work as a system of government is a debate not relevant to this thread - but it was certainly not possible 100 years ago as the technical infrastructure to organise it did not exist, let alone in the ashes of a corrupt monarchy and a country that had just pulled out of a bloody war.Soviet (big C) Communism was inevitable.

And it's that (big C) that's important. Because Soviet Communism was not (small c) communism. This very neatly ties into the next dot in the points being raised by you (and others) and that's George Orwell and 1984. We'll get on to the relevance of 1984 in a second - but let's start with George Orwell, and particularly his other famous book - Animal Farm.

For anyone who doesn't know of Animal Farm it's an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union up until the end of the second world war. Animals overthrow the farm and run the farm themselves, with a series of rules to ensure the animals are equal, they assign roles based on what each animal is best at - with the pigs taking over the management of the farm - and by the end of the book the other animals look in at a meeting between the pigs and the farmers from the other farms and they can't tell who is a pig and who is a human.

The point of the book is that Soviet Union ended up exactly how it started, it ended up with the poor being trodden on and a political elite. The rules to ensure equality between the animals got modified throughout the pigs rules until they were back where they started. The book is not an indictment of (small c) communism, it's saying that Soviet Communism isn't communism - and also probably saying that true communism can never exist in practice as it will inevitable return to the original status quo.

As a result, it is also certainly not some glowing endorsement of capitalism either, as the very unhappy ending of the book is that that is the state in which the farm ends up.

And here isthe key detail about George Orwell - and that is that he was openly a socialist, and secretly (at the time) a communist. MI5 had 20 years of records on his activities including witness account of him visiting secret communist meetings. Why were those meetings secret? Because those in power viewed communism as a huge threat to their position - especially in the wake of the Russian Revolution. But more importantly because socialist, and communism, systems of government heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, invariably threaten the power and influence of the very wealthy. The wealth to have any form of social welfare can only come from one place after all.

Chicism, socialism, and (small c) communism are not 'threats to the free world' - in fact quite the opposite. People of a conservative nature are the first to start crying when they get criticised for telling a racist joke claiming 'their free speech' is being violated, yet some how want to ban the open discussion of an entire economic and political model by labelling anything that smells vaguely like it as 'Harpist' - and that's the thing. In a free society, people are free to be 'Harpist if they want;.For one thing, Chicism covers a huge range of the political spectrum, but one of the consequences of the cold war is that the world communism - and by extension Karl Marx - became a dirty word that generations of people became indoctrinated to just close their ears or stop readings and just go "blah blah blah Harpist blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah"

Whether or not (small c) communism can work in practice or not is also irrelevant. I personally think it's unlikely to actually ever work due to the fact you will always be moving from an unequal starting place where people have been conditioned to think a certain way since the dawn of human history. For example, the British tax payer was still paying back the loans the government took out to reimburse slave traders until 2015 - any 'communist' transition would invariably carry similar paybacks to people or companies losing out as a consequence, and these scars would remain.

If someone wants to advocate moving to a communist, socialist or whatever 'Harpist' system they want - they are free to talk about, advocate, set up movements to promote it, even free to assemble and protest. These are all things that a free society requires. They also require free and fair elections - and this is something that the UK and USA in particular (out of the western countries) have systematic problems with (I am talking about the fact that the first past the post system produces unrepresentative governments, and gerrymandering is also problematic which makes the FPTP system even less representational - but a discussion of this would be wildly off topic)

Let's get on to this most recent comment. 1984 and the changing of 'white statues' into 'black statues' - which what seems like a deliberate insinuation by you that this is some attempt to rewrite British history to be black people than white people, or something along those lines. If I have inferred incorrectly, please spell out unambiguously what you mean, because given your narrative in the thread so far, this would seem the only possible interpretation of what you are saying.

Before we even begin to unpack that 1984 quote, and just treat it at the very basic level and how it is being presented in the thread. The quote is about rewriting history by changing the monuments.

In the real world - with the confederate statues in America and the Colston statue (and others) in Britain - that moment happened when those statues were erected.

Colston's statue, and the Confederate statues, were put up long after their events, as authoritarian measures to control the population.

A leading history academic explained the history behind the Colston statue and it has been twice linked to in this thread - both in response to posts by you - and the fact you are continuing down this line suggests you have not taken the time to read it. Most of the confederate statues were erected in the 20th century as a way of the white elite in those cities attempting to assert dominance over minority communities.

To get on to your specific quote - about replacing the Colston statue (and other slavers) with statues of black people. This would be to replace them with statues either representing the slaves that who suffered under their actions, or particular slaves who symbolised part of the wider issue. This is absolutely not - in any way - rewriting history - the biggest comment I have seen by those speaking out against the removal of the statues is that people need the statues to learn about history.

While I am skeptical that anyone 'learns history' from a statue, let's assume that some do. If they see a statue of a slave trader that makes no reference to his involvement in the slave tradeand only mentions the 'philanthropy' he did (which if you read the history of the Colston statue by the professor of history, you will know it was anything but philanthropy) then people are not actually learning anything. They are actually being misinformed. If the purpose of the statue (as people are claiming) is to not 'hide from our past' - then it should unambiguously tell that past we are not hiding from. A heroic statue of a man communicates only one message: 'this man was was a great man' - a statue that highlights the suffering that that man's actions caused - on the other hand - tells the story that we shouldn't shy away from learning about.

But about that 1984 quote specifically - it's talking about governments rewriting history so they constantly seem good. And that's EXACTLY WHAT THE GLORIFICATION OF BRITAIN'S COLONIAL HISTORY IS. The whole angle of framing the 18th century to the second world war period of Britain as being that time of greatness and hiding all of the atrocities committed during that time is to perpetuate a false sense of glory. Populist governments use a nation's identity as a brand and that brand cannot be tarnished. It's nationalism, not patriotism. True patriotism is being proud of the good your country does but recognising there are ways that it can improve and do better and admitting the wrongs it has committed.

You know I was going to make a long reply to this even though I'm not an intellectual, but I just saw a podcast of the violence in London last night and it's starting to come across as liberal excuses for what is actually taking place, this is how the liberal leaders of the police force operate, intellectualise this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Zx-vZS38s

The BLM has become a movement were the police are too scared to enforce law and order, however any one posting racial bigotory will be hunted down and convicted which I'm not against but we see how the two things are being treated differently.

More than anything I worry about the seemingly uncontrolled anarchy and how supposed pillars of society are either happy to fan the flames or simply sit back and do nothing.

pokerman wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

pokerman wrote:

TedStriker wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

With every day that passes I am increasingly reminded of the Monty Python 'witch burning' scene. The problem is that was meant as a parody of mob rule but seems to be increasingly used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Would you believe George Orwell wrote this in '1984', just after the Nazis had been defeated?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Again, this was not written as a guide, but as a warning of a dystopian future. And written by someone who had lived through a true fascist threat to the world.

To those that support the current destruction of monuments based not on the democratic will of the people but anarchic violence, just pray that 'The Party' always agrees precisely with your views in the future.

Yes, absolutely black lives matter and I support any and all efforts to ensure equal treatment for all, in all areas of life, but the organisation BLM has been hijacked by anarchists (mainly Antifa) and Grouchos to further their agenda and there are plenty of well meaning idiots who will do their work for them.

Strange times indeed.

(Just a little background on my personal situation - I am proudly British but not of British ancestry. I am a member of a minority ethnic community but one that has generally done rather well in Britain. I have suffered racism in the past, both here and in other countries, but have generally felt more welcome in the UK than anywhere else)

In respect to Orwell it's my understanding that all the white statues that get removed will be replaced by black statues?

Before we get on to what you are insinuating there, let's first clear up a few things in other posts that you've made. Specifically thisthrowing around of the word "Harpist"like a label to slap on everything with the intention of instantly discrediting it. To be honest, whenever someone does something like that (and I mean in terms of just slapping any label on something to just discredit) it usually indicates the person is either ignorant of what they are talking about, or just using a brain washed group chant.

Karl Marx is not the same thing as the Soviet Union or any other authoritarian Communist government. Karl Marx was a journalist, a philosopher, an educated individual - he was not a tyrant, or a leader, or person who assume any kind of power either politically or in business.

Karl Marx wasn't Hitler, or Stalin, or even Colston.

He wrote a book that has had great influence, and that book inspired a lot of people - especially around the time of the first world war when the great global powers fought a meaningless war in which they used their working class as disposable people to charge at machine gun fire. The first world war taught the working class of their countries that their leaders did not care for them and that's why the period after the first world war the politics of Europe fundamentally changed and it is why Karl Marx's writings suddenly spoke even louder than ever before.

The collapse of the Russian Tsar to the Russian people was the most monumental of these political shifts. The debate about whether or not (small c) communism can ever work as a system of government is a debate not relevant to this thread - but it was certainly not possible 100 years ago as the technical infrastructure to organise it did not exist, let alone in the ashes of a corrupt monarchy and a country that had just pulled out of a bloody war.Soviet (big C) Communism was inevitable.

And it's that (big C) that's important. Because Soviet Communism was not (small c) communism. This very neatly ties into the next dot in the points being raised by you (and others) and that's George Orwell and 1984. We'll get on to the relevance of 1984 in a second - but let's start with George Orwell, and particularly his other famous book - Animal Farm.

For anyone who doesn't know of Animal Farm it's an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union up until the end of the second world war. Animals overthrow the farm and run the farm themselves, with a series of rules to ensure the animals are equal, they assign roles based on what each animal is best at - with the pigs taking over the management of the farm - and by the end of the book the other animals look in at a meeting between the pigs and the farmers from the other farms and they can't tell who is a pig and who is a human.

The point of the book is that Soviet Union ended up exactly how it started, it ended up with the poor being trodden on and a political elite. The rules to ensure equality between the animals got modified throughout the pigs rules until they were back where they started. The book is not an indictment of (small c) communism, it's saying that Soviet Communism isn't communism - and also probably saying that true communism can never exist in practice as it will inevitable return to the original status quo.

As a result, it is also certainly not some glowing endorsement of capitalism either, as the very unhappy ending of the book is that that is the state in which the farm ends up.

And here isthe key detail about George Orwell - and that is that he was openly a socialist, and secretly (at the time) a communist. MI5 had 20 years of records on his activities including witness account of him visiting secret communist meetings. Why were those meetings secret? Because those in power viewed communism as a huge threat to their position - especially in the wake of the Russian Revolution. But more importantly because socialist, and communism, systems of government heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, invariably threaten the power and influence of the very wealthy. The wealth to have any form of social welfare can only come from one place after all.

Chicism, socialism, and (small c) communism are not 'threats to the free world' - in fact quite the opposite. People of a conservative nature are the first to start crying when they get criticised for telling a racist joke claiming 'their free speech' is being violated, yet some how want to ban the open discussion of an entire economic and political model by labelling anything that smells vaguely like it as 'Harpist' - and that's the thing. In a free society, people are free to be 'Harpist if they want;.For one thing, Chicism covers a huge range of the political spectrum, but one of the consequences of the cold war is that the world communism - and by extension Karl Marx - became a dirty word that generations of people became indoctrinated to just close their ears or stop readings and just go "blah blah blah Harpist blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah"

Whether or not (small c) communism can work in practice or not is also irrelevant. I personally think it's unlikely to actually ever work due to the fact you will always be moving from an unequal starting place where people have been conditioned to think a certain way since the dawn of human history. For example, the British tax payer was still paying back the loans the government took out to reimburse slave traders until 2015 - any 'communist' transition would invariably carry similar paybacks to people or companies losing out as a consequence, and these scars would remain.

If someone wants to advocate moving to a communist, socialist or whatever 'Harpist' system they want - they are free to talk about, advocate, set up movements to promote it, even free to assemble and protest. These are all things that a free society requires. They also require free and fair elections - and this is something that the UK and USA in particular (out of the western countries) have systematic problems with (I am talking about the fact that the first past the post system produces unrepresentative governments, and gerrymandering is also problematic which makes the FPTP system even less representational - but a discussion of this would be wildly off topic)

Let's get on to this most recent comment. 1984 and the changing of 'white statues' into 'black statues' - which what seems like a deliberate insinuation by you that this is some attempt to rewrite British history to be black people than white people, or something along those lines. If I have inferred incorrectly, please spell out unambiguously what you mean, because given your narrative in the thread so far, this would seem the only possible interpretation of what you are saying.

Before we even begin to unpack that 1984 quote, and just treat it at the very basic level and how it is being presented in the thread. The quote is about rewriting history by changing the monuments.

In the real world - with the confederate statues in America and the Colston statue (and others) in Britain - that moment happened when those statues were erected.

Colston's statue, and the Confederate statues, were put up long after their events, as authoritarian measures to control the population.

A leading history academic explained the history behind the Colston statue and it has been twice linked to in this thread - both in response to posts by you - and the fact you are continuing down this line suggests you have not taken the time to read it. Most of the confederate statues were erected in the 20th century as a way of the white elite in those cities attempting to assert dominance over minority communities.

To get on to your specific quote - about replacing the Colston statue (and other slavers) with statues of black people. This would be to replace them with statues either representing the slaves that who suffered under their actions, or particular slaves who symbolised part of the wider issue. This is absolutely not - in any way - rewriting history - the biggest comment I have seen by those speaking out against the removal of the statues is that people need the statues to learn about history.

While I am skeptical that anyone 'learns history' from a statue, let's assume that some do. If they see a statue of a slave trader that makes no reference to his involvement in the slave tradeand only mentions the 'philanthropy' he did (which if you read the history of the Colston statue by the professor of history, you will know it was anything but philanthropy) then people are not actually learning anything. They are actually being misinformed. If the purpose of the statue (as people are claiming) is to not 'hide from our past' - then it should unambiguously tell that past we are not hiding from. A heroic statue of a man communicates only one message: 'this man was was a great man' - a statue that highlights the suffering that that man's actions caused - on the other hand - tells the story that we shouldn't shy away from learning about.

But about that 1984 quote specifically - it's talking about governments rewriting history so they constantly seem good. And that's EXACTLY WHAT THE GLORIFICATION OF BRITAIN'S COLONIAL HISTORY IS. The whole angle of framing the 18th century to the second world war period of Britain as being that time of greatness and hiding all of the atrocities committed during that time is to perpetuate a false sense of glory. Populist governments use a nation's identity as a brand and that brand cannot be tarnished. It's nationalism, not patriotism. True patriotism is being proud of the good your country does but recognising there are ways that it can improve and do better and admitting the wrongs it has committed.

You know I was going to make a long reply to this even though I'm not an intellectual, but I just saw a podcast of the violence in London last night and it's starting to come across as liberal excuses for what is actually taking place, this is how the liberal leaders of the police force operate, intellectualise this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Zx-vZS38s

The BLM has become a movement were the police are too scared to enforce law and order, however any one posting racial bigotory will be hunted down and convicted which I'm not against but we see how the two things are being treated differently.

More than anything I worry about the seemingly uncontrolled anarchy and how supposed pillars of society are either happy to fan the flames or simply sit back and do nothing.

Pokerman, that incident in London that you have linked to is nothing to do with Black Lives Matter.

It took the video interview you linked to (which already has several troublesome comments by the interviewee) 9 minutes before it bothered to mention this fact.This happened at when the police tried to stop an illegal street party that was taking place.

You have tried to frame it as a BLM protest turned violent when it is nothing of the sort. Maybe you thought it was, may you deliberately tried to mislead people - I don't know.

This is a consequence of the COVID19 lockdowns, and this type of event was even anticipated when the analysis of the effects of lockdown took place, and the strategies drawn up, which happened long before George Floyd's death occurred.

Nobody condones the violence that happened in that scene, it is clearly unacceptable, as was the violent actions towards police officers, police horses and protesters during the protests.

But framing that particular case - which is by far the most extreme video - as a Black Lives Matter event, is either extremely ignorant or an extremely disingenuous thing to do.

TedStriker wrote:

Charles LeBrad wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

I think the world is going mad.

I think if you look at the photo of the rope, you can see how it looks more like a noose than a pull cord. I'm glad the authorities took this as a serious threat and took the time to investigate the issue, and relieved it turned out to be a non-event.

Not too sure I understand what's funny about this finding, if anything its a relief.

You see, herein lies the current problem. People immediately jumped to the conclusion it was deliberate targeted racism against a black person, and the media was more than happy to run with that idea for both financial and ideological reasons.

Now that it's been proved that it was a complete non-event, only a few media outlets are reporting that and certainly not with the front page vigour they reported it when it was though to be a racist attack.

So anyone who wasn't closely following the story after the inital reports (which will be the majority of people) would still have it in their mind that it was yet another example of blatant racism. This is how misconceptions are fuelled and we end up with everything being blown out of proportion as I believe it currently is.

This was the door pull.


Source: https://www.bbc.com/sport/motorsport/53186184

The crime that has been cleared by the FBI is that this was not a targeted hate attack against Bubba Wallace.

The fact that there was a garage pull handle that has clearly been deliberately styled like a noose is still an unanswered question. The best case scenario is that it was put up by someone being tone deaf, however given the part of America it was in - it's unlikely to be that innocent.

In order to get as far as being reported to the FBI and the wider media, this would have gone through several people before getting that far, none of which recognised it as a door pull. The fact that it was up since October 2019 proves it was not a targeted hate crime against Wallace, however it doesn't prove the motivations for it being put up in the first place were innocent.

The noise can be just a simple thing someone did without malice or any specific purpose other than making it easier to pull the garage door down. I’ve been making noises since I was a kid, mainly on my notebooks in school and I’d use it to hold my fat eraser pencils so I didn’t have to go digging in my pencil bag.

I think this one was blown out of proportion without merit. Basically a “move along, these aren’t the droids we’re looking for” deal.

F1 MERCENARY wrote:The noise can be just a simple thing someone did without malice or any specific purpose other than making it easier to pull the garage door down. I’ve been making noises since I was a kid, mainly on my notebooks in school and I’d use it to hold my fat eraser pencils so I didn’t have to go digging in my pencil bag.

I think this one was blown out of proportion without merit. Basically a “move along, these aren’t the droids we’re looking for” deal.

I agree, but I expect that - given the publicity it has attracted - no one is going to come forward and admit that they did it, even if it was an internal joke or whatever...

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

TedStriker wrote:

Charles LeBrad wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

I think the world is going mad.

I think if you look at the photo of the rope, you can see how it looks more like a noose than a pull cord. I'm glad the authorities took this as a serious threat and took the time to investigate the issue, and relieved it turned out to be a non-event.

Not too sure I understand what's funny about this finding, if anything its a relief.

You see, herein lies the current problem. People immediately jumped to the conclusion it was deliberate targeted racism against a black person, and the media was more than happy to run with that idea for both financial and ideological reasons.

Now that it's been proved that it was a complete non-event, only a few media outlets are reporting that and certainly not with the front page vigour they reported it when it was though to be a racist attack.

So anyone who wasn't closely following the story after the inital reports (which will be the majority of people) would still have it in their mind that it was yet another example of blatant racism. This is how misconceptions are fuelled and we end up with everything being blown out of proportion as I believe it currently is.

This was the door pull.


Source: https://www.bbc.com/sport/motorsport/53186184

The crime that has been cleared by the FBI is that this was not a targeted hate attack against Bubba Wallace.

The fact that there was a garage pull handle that has clearly been deliberately styled like a noose is still an unanswered question. The best case scenario is that it was put up by someone being tone deaf, however given the part of America it was in - it's unlikely to be that innocent.

In order to get as far as being reported to the FBI and the wider media, this would have gone through several people before getting that far, none of which recognised it as a door pull. The fact that it was up since October 2019 proves it was not a targeted hate crime against Wallace, however it doesn't prove the motivations for it being put up in the first place were innocent.

Yeah, I can’t see how anyone of African American descent would see that in their garage in a region known for its deep rooted racism, weeks after the sport announces the Confederate flag was being banned at races, and drawing any malicious conclusions...

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

pokerman wrote:

TedStriker wrote: With every day that passes I am increasingly reminded of the Monty Python 'witch burning' scene. The problem is that was meant as a parody of mob rule but seems to be increasingly used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Would you believe George Orwell wrote this in '1984', just after the Nazis had been defeated?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Again, this was not written as a guide, but as a warning of a dystopian future. And written by someone who had lived through a true fascist threat to the world.

To those that support the current destruction of monuments based not on the democratic will of the people but anarchic violence, just pray that 'The Party' always agrees precisely with your views in the future.

Yes, absolutely black lives matter and I support any and all efforts to ensure equal treatment for all, in all areas of life, but the organisation BLM has been hijacked by anarchists (mainly Antifa) and Grouchos to further their agenda and there are plenty of well meaning idiots who will do their work for them.

Strange times indeed.

(Just a little background on my personal situation - I am proudly British but not of British ancestry. I am a member of a minority ethnic community but one that has generally done rather well in Britain. I have suffered racism in the past, both here and in other countries, but have generally felt more welcome in the UK than anywhere else)

In respect to Orwell it's my understanding that all the white statues that get removed will be replaced by black statues?

Before we get on to what you are insinuating there, let's first clear up a few things in other posts that you've made. Specifically thisthrowing around of the word "Harpist"like a label to slap on everything with the intention of instantly discrediting it. To be honest, whenever someone does something like that (and I mean in terms of just slapping any label on something to just discredit) it usually indicates the person is either ignorant of what they are talking about, or just using a brain washed group chant.

Karl Marx is not the same thing as the Soviet Union or any other authoritarian Communist government. Karl Marx was a journalist, a philosopher, an educated individual - he was not a tyrant, or a leader, or person who assume any kind of power either politically or in business.

Karl Marx wasn't Hitler, or Stalin, or even Colston.

He wrote a book that has had great influence, and that book inspired a lot of people - especially around the time of the first world war when the great global powers fought a meaningless war in which they used their working class as disposable people to charge at machine gun fire. The first world war taught the working class of their countries that their leaders did not care for them and that's why the period after the first world war the politics of Europe fundamentally changed and it is why Karl Marx's writings suddenly spoke even louder than ever before.

The collapse of the Russian Tsar to the Russian people was the most monumental of these political shifts. The debate about whether or not (small c) communism can ever work as a system of government is a debate not relevant to this thread - but it was certainly not possible 100 years ago as the technical infrastructure to organise it did not exist, let alone in the ashes of a corrupt monarchy and a country that had just pulled out of a bloody war.Soviet (big C) Communism was inevitable.

And it's that (big C) that's important. Because Soviet Communism was not (small c) communism. This very neatly ties into the next dot in the points being raised by you (and others) and that's George Orwell and 1984. We'll get on to the relevance of 1984 in a second - but let's start with George Orwell, and particularly his other famous book - Animal Farm.

For anyone who doesn't know of Animal Farm it's an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union up until the end of the second world war. Animals overthrow the farm and run the farm themselves, with a series of rules to ensure the animals are equal, they assign roles based on what each animal is best at - with the pigs taking over the management of the farm - and by the end of the book the other animals look in at a meeting between the pigs and the farmers from the other farms and they can't tell who is a pig and who is a human.

The point of the book is that Soviet Union ended up exactly how it started, it ended up with the poor being trodden on and a political elite. The rules to ensure equality between the animals got modified throughout the pigs rules until they were back where they started. The book is not an indictment of (small c) communism, it's saying that Soviet Communism isn't communism - and also probably saying that true communism can never exist in practice as it will inevitable return to the original status quo.

As a result, it is also certainly not some glowing endorsement of capitalism either, as the very unhappy ending of the book is that that is the state in which the farm ends up.

And here isthe key detail about George Orwell - and that is that he was openly a socialist, and secretly (at the time) a communist. MI5 had 20 years of records on his activities including witness account of him visiting secret communist meetings. Why were those meetings secret? Because those in power viewed communism as a huge threat to their position - especially in the wake of the Russian Revolution. But more importantly because socialist, and communism, systems of government heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, invariably threaten the power and influence of the very wealthy. The wealth to have any form of social welfare can only come from one place after all.

Chicism, socialism, and (small c) communism are not 'threats to the free world' - in fact quite the opposite. People of a conservative nature are the first to start crying when they get criticised for telling a racist joke claiming 'their free speech' is being violated, yet some how want to ban the open discussion of an entire economic and political model by labelling anything that smells vaguely like it as 'Harpist' - and that's the thing. In a free society, people are free to be 'Harpist if they want;.For one thing, Chicism covers a huge range of the political spectrum, but one of the consequences of the cold war is that the world communism - and by extension Karl Marx - became a dirty word that generations of people became indoctrinated to just close their ears or stop readings and just go "blah blah blah Harpist blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah"

Whether or not (small c) communism can work in practice or not is also irrelevant. I personally think it's unlikely to actually ever work due to the fact you will always be moving from an unequal starting place where people have been conditioned to think a certain way since the dawn of human history. For example, the British tax payer was still paying back the loans the government took out to reimburse slave traders until 2015 - any 'communist' transition would invariably carry similar paybacks to people or companies losing out as a consequence, and these scars would remain.

If someone wants to advocate moving to a communist, socialist or whatever 'Harpist' system they want - they are free to talk about, advocate, set up movements to promote it, even free to assemble and protest. These are all things that a free society requires. They also require free and fair elections - and this is something that the UK and USA in particular (out of the western countries) have systematic problems with (I am talking about the fact that the first past the post system produces unrepresentative governments, and gerrymandering is also problematic which makes the FPTP system even less representational - but a discussion of this would be wildly off topic)

Let's get on to this most recent comment. 1984 and the changing of 'white statues' into 'black statues' - which what seems like a deliberate insinuation by you that this is some attempt to rewrite British history to be black people than white people, or something along those lines. If I have inferred incorrectly, please spell out unambiguously what you mean, because given your narrative in the thread so far, this would seem the only possible interpretation of what you are saying.

Before we even begin to unpack that 1984 quote, and just treat it at the very basic level and how it is being presented in the thread. The quote is about rewriting history by changing the monuments.

In the real world - with the confederate statues in America and the Colston statue (and others) in Britain - that moment happened when those statues were erected.

Colston's statue, and the Confederate statues, were put up long after their events, as authoritarian measures to control the population.

A leading history academic explained the history behind the Colston statue and it has been twice linked to in this thread - both in response to posts by you - and the fact you are continuing down this line suggests you have not taken the time to read it. Most of the confederate statues were erected in the 20th century as a way of the white elite in those cities attempting to assert dominance over minority communities.

To get on to your specific quote - about replacing the Colston statue (and other slavers) with statues of black people. This would be to replace them with statues either representing the slaves that who suffered under their actions, or particular slaves who symbolised part of the wider issue. This is absolutely not - in any way - rewriting history - the biggest comment I have seen by those speaking out against the removal of the statues is that people need the statues to learn about history.

While I am skeptical that anyone 'learns history' from a statue, let's assume that some do. If they see a statue of a slave trader that makes no reference to his involvement in the slave tradeand only mentions the 'philanthropy' he did (which if you read the history of the Colston statue by the professor of history, you will know it was anything but philanthropy) then people are not actually learning anything. They are actually being misinformed. If the purpose of the statue (as people are claiming) is to not 'hide from our past' - then it should unambiguously tell that past we are not hiding from. A heroic statue of a man communicates only one message: 'this man was was a great man' - a statue that highlights the suffering that that man's actions caused - on the other hand - tells the story that we shouldn't shy away from learning about.

But about that 1984 quote specifically - it's talking about governments rewriting history so they constantly seem good. And that's EXACTLY WHAT THE GLORIFICATION OF BRITAIN'S COLONIAL HISTORY IS. The whole angle of framing the 18th century to the second world war period of Britain as being that time of greatness and hiding all of the atrocities committed during that time is to perpetuate a false sense of glory. Populist governments use a nation's identity as a brand and that brand cannot be tarnished. It's nationalism, not patriotism. True patriotism is being proud of the good your country does but recognising there are ways that it can improve and do better and admitting the wrongs it has committed.

You know I was going to make a long reply to this even though I'm not an intellectual, but I just saw a podcast of the violence in London last night and it's starting to come across as liberal excuses for what is actually taking place, this is how the liberal leaders of the police force operate, intellectualise this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Zx-vZS38s

The BLM has become a movement were the police are too scared to enforce law and order, however any one posting racial bigotory will be hunted down and convicted which I'm not against but we see how the two things are being treated differently.

More than anything I worry about the seemingly uncontrolled anarchy and how supposed pillars of society are either happy to fan the flames or simply sit back and do nothing.

Pokerman, that incident in London that you have linked to is nothing to do with Black Lives Matter.

It took the video interview you linked to (which already has several troublesome comments by the interviewee) 9 minutes before it bothered to mention this fact.This happened at when the police tried to stop an illegal street party that was taking place.

You have tried to frame it as a BLM protest turned violent when it is nothing of the sort. Maybe you thought it was, may you deliberately tried to mislead people - I don't know.

This is a consequence of the COVID19 lockdowns, and this type of event was even anticipated when the analysis of the effects of lockdown took place, and the strategies drawn up, which happened long before George Floyd's death occurred.

Nobody condones the violence that happened in that scene, it is clearly unacceptable, as was the violent actions towards police officers, police horses and protesters during the protests.

But framing that particular case - which is by far the most extreme video - as a Black Lives Matter event, is either extremely ignorant or an extremely disingenuous thing to do.

I'm framing how police are allowing people to run amok and are to afraid to act because of the political consequences of having to get physical with black people, if that had been white people then they wouldn't have been as tame.

We saw this when they got the riot police out to stop ex servicemen and football fans from protecting the statues, the BBC labelled them as right wing faschists. Now I do appreciate that this was to prevent the risk of physical confrontation between the two factions, but then it's strange how the police are not allowed to protect themselves, was there not another 20 policeman injured, the riot police should have been there.

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

pokerman wrote:

TedStriker wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

With every day that passes I am increasingly reminded of the Monty Python 'witch burning' scene. The problem is that was meant as a parody of mob rule but seems to be increasingly used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Would you believe George Orwell wrote this in '1984', just after the Nazis had been defeated?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Again, this was not written as a guide, but as a warning of a dystopian future. And written by someone who had lived through a true fascist threat to the world.

To those that support the current destruction of monuments based not on the democratic will of the people but anarchic violence, just pray that 'The Party' always agrees precisely with your views in the future.

Yes, absolutely black lives matter and I support any and all efforts to ensure equal treatment for all, in all areas of life, but the organisation BLM has been hijacked by anarchists (mainly Antifa) and Grouchos to further their agenda and there are plenty of well meaning idiots who will do their work for them.

Strange times indeed.

(Just a little background on my personal situation - I am proudly British but not of British ancestry. I am a member of a minority ethnic community but one that has generally done rather well in Britain. I have suffered racism in the past, both here and in other countries, but have generally felt more welcome in the UK than anywhere else)

In respect to Orwell it's my understanding that all the white statues that get removed will be replaced by black statues?

Before we get on to what you are insinuating there, let's first clear up a few things in other posts that you've made. Specifically thisthrowing around of the word "Harpist"like a label to slap on everything with the intention of instantly discrediting it. To be honest, whenever someone does something like that (and I mean in terms of just slapping any label on something to just discredit) it usually indicates the person is either ignorant of what they are talking about, or just using a brain washed group chant.

Karl Marx is not the same thing as the Soviet Union or any other authoritarian Communist government. Karl Marx was a journalist, a philosopher, an educated individual - he was not a tyrant, or a leader, or person who assume any kind of power either politically or in business.

Karl Marx wasn't Hitler, or Stalin, or even Colston.

He wrote a book that has had great influence, and that book inspired a lot of people - especially around the time of the first world war when the great global powers fought a meaningless war in which they used their working class as disposable people to charge at machine gun fire. The first world war taught the working class of their countries that their leaders did not care for them and that's why the period after the first world war the politics of Europe fundamentally changed and it is why Karl Marx's writings suddenly spoke even louder than ever before.

The collapse of the Russian Tsar to the Russian people was the most monumental of these political shifts. The debate about whether or not (small c) communism can ever work as a system of government is a debate not relevant to this thread - but it was certainly not possible 100 years ago as the technical infrastructure to organise it did not exist, let alone in the ashes of a corrupt monarchy and a country that had just pulled out of a bloody war.Soviet (big C) Communism was inevitable.

And it's that (big C) that's important. Because Soviet Communism was not (small c) communism. This very neatly ties into the next dot in the points being raised by you (and others) and that's George Orwell and 1984. We'll get on to the relevance of 1984 in a second - but let's start with George Orwell, and particularly his other famous book - Animal Farm.

For anyone who doesn't know of Animal Farm it's an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union up until the end of the second world war. Animals overthrow the farm and run the farm themselves, with a series of rules to ensure the animals are equal, they assign roles based on what each animal is best at - with the pigs taking over the management of the farm - and by the end of the book the other animals look in at a meeting between the pigs and the farmers from the other farms and they can't tell who is a pig and who is a human.

The point of the book is that Soviet Union ended up exactly how it started, it ended up with the poor being trodden on and a political elite. The rules to ensure equality between the animals got modified throughout the pigs rules until they were back where they started. The book is not an indictment of (small c) communism, it's saying that Soviet Communism isn't communism - and also probably saying that true communism can never exist in practice as it will inevitable return to the original status quo.

As a result, it is also certainly not some glowing endorsement of capitalism either, as the very unhappy ending of the book is that that is the state in which the farm ends up.

And here isthe key detail about George Orwell - and that is that he was openly a socialist, and secretly (at the time) a communist. MI5 had 20 years of records on his activities including witness account of him visiting secret communist meetings. Why were those meetings secret? Because those in power viewed communism as a huge threat to their position - especially in the wake of the Russian Revolution. But more importantly because socialist, and communism, systems of government heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, invariably threaten the power and influence of the very wealthy. The wealth to have any form of social welfare can only come from one place after all.

Chicism, socialism, and (small c) communism are not 'threats to the free world' - in fact quite the opposite. People of a conservative nature are the first to start crying when they get criticised for telling a racist joke claiming 'their free speech' is being violated, yet some how want to ban the open discussion of an entire economic and political model by labelling anything that smells vaguely like it as 'Harpist' - and that's the thing. In a free society, people are free to be 'Harpist if they want;.For one thing, Chicism covers a huge range of the political spectrum, but one of the consequences of the cold war is that the world communism - and by extension Karl Marx - became a dirty word that generations of people became indoctrinated to just close their ears or stop readings and just go "blah blah blah Harpist blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah"

Whether or not (small c) communism can work in practice or not is also irrelevant. I personally think it's unlikely to actually ever work due to the fact you will always be moving from an unequal starting place where people have been conditioned to think a certain way since the dawn of human history. For example, the British tax payer was still paying back the loans the government took out to reimburse slave traders until 2015 - any 'communist' transition would invariably carry similar paybacks to people or companies losing out as a consequence, and these scars would remain.

If someone wants to advocate moving to a communist, socialist or whatever 'Harpist' system they want - they are free to talk about, advocate, set up movements to promote it, even free to assemble and protest. These are all things that a free society requires. They also require free and fair elections - and this is something that the UK and USA in particular (out of the western countries) have systematic problems with (I am talking about the fact that the first past the post system produces unrepresentative governments, and gerrymandering is also problematic which makes the FPTP system even less representational - but a discussion of this would be wildly off topic)

Let's get on to this most recent comment. 1984 and the changing of 'white statues' into 'black statues' - which what seems like a deliberate insinuation by you that this is some attempt to rewrite British history to be black people than white people, or something along those lines. If I have inferred incorrectly, please spell out unambiguously what you mean, because given your narrative in the thread so far, this would seem the only possible interpretation of what you are saying.

Before we even begin to unpack that 1984 quote, and just treat it at the very basic level and how it is being presented in the thread. The quote is about rewriting history by changing the monuments.

In the real world - with the confederate statues in America and the Colston statue (and others) in Britain - that moment happened when those statues were erected.

Colston's statue, and the Confederate statues, were put up long after their events, as authoritarian measures to control the population.

A leading history academic explained the history behind the Colston statue and it has been twice linked to in this thread - both in response to posts by you - and the fact you are continuing down this line suggests you have not taken the time to read it. Most of the confederate statues were erected in the 20th century as a way of the white elite in those cities attempting to assert dominance over minority communities.

To get on to your specific quote - about replacing the Colston statue (and other slavers) with statues of black people. This would be to replace them with statues either representing the slaves that who suffered under their actions, or particular slaves who symbolised part of the wider issue. This is absolutely not - in any way - rewriting history - the biggest comment I have seen by those speaking out against the removal of the statues is that people need the statues to learn about history.

While I am skeptical that anyone 'learns history' from a statue, let's assume that some do. If they see a statue of a slave trader that makes no reference to his involvement in the slave tradeand only mentions the 'philanthropy' he did (which if you read the history of the Colston statue by the professor of history, you will know it was anything but philanthropy) then people are not actually learning anything. They are actually being misinformed. If the purpose of the statue (as people are claiming) is to not 'hide from our past' - then it should unambiguously tell that past we are not hiding from. A heroic statue of a man communicates only one message: 'this man was was a great man' - a statue that highlights the suffering that that man's actions caused - on the other hand - tells the story that we shouldn't shy away from learning about.

But about that 1984 quote specifically - it's talking about governments rewriting history so they constantly seem good. And that's EXACTLY WHAT THE GLORIFICATION OF BRITAIN'S COLONIAL HISTORY IS. The whole angle of framing the 18th century to the second world war period of Britain as being that time of greatness and hiding all of the atrocities committed during that time is to perpetuate a false sense of glory. Populist governments use a nation's identity as a brand and that brand cannot be tarnished. It's nationalism, not patriotism. True patriotism is being proud of the good your country does but recognising there are ways that it can improve and do better and admitting the wrongs it has committed.

Right I will try to address this now even though it's a bit beyond my pay grade.

In terms of labelling people the BBC were not slow to label anyone tying to stop the BLM protestors from vandalism as right wing faschists, it's strange how some of these faschists came back the next day to help clear up the rubbish left by the protestors, such a noble cause somewhat stops short when it comes to mass littering.

I descredit Chicism because it's never worked for the common man, you don't like the word being thrown about whilst it appears you think the system could work so maybe it's part of your belief system?

Over the years I've never been poltical, I've yo-yoed between labour and conservative, but I easily recognised that Corbyn was a Harpist and having seen how the people of other countries have suffered under such ideologies, no way was I going to vote for him.

Karl Marx might have had his heart in the right place but his ideologies when put into practice did not work, presently would you want to be a Chinese citicizen?

Fair play to him for looking to stand up for the working class who were thrown into wars like lambs to the slaughters, if I had been born just over a 100 years ago I would have been one of those but today am I classed as white privilege who has to take a knee and apologise for my whiteness, I ask because i'm so confused?

In respect to the statues the Rhodes statue at Oxford is mooted to be replaced by the first black graduate who I believed came from South Africa on a Rhodes scholarship scheme, does that not mean he was sponsored by Rhodes himself?

With Coulston he's the man who built Bristol so why wouldn't he have a statue there, but your premise is that it was put there to remind black people they were once slaves. I'd like to know the political persuasion of the historian, perhaps a left wing British empire hater?

Or maybe just a white man telling black people how they should think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhNF9GUoN0

The woke young middle class graduates who think they have to apologise for their white privilige, well they certainly are priviliged but not all of us are, they are taught to feel guilt by the left wing teachers and lectureres many of which are not proud to be British.

One such Oxford lecturer after hearing that the University might be close to a covid vaccine hoped they would fail because she didn't want the country to be lauded for being the first to do so, a pure hater of her own country.

Going forward if Labour get back into power they plan to drop the voting age from 18 down to 16 so school children can vote who are at the same time are being indoctrinated by left wing teachers, it's already going to happen in the labour strong hold of Wales for the next election.

I throw the Harpist word around well I've become woke myself, it's in the BLM, the Labour party, the media in particular the BBC which is supposed to be nuetral, there's a campaign to defund the BBC, the schools and universities and even the police force at the highest level has become a social police force lead by university graduates, Blair's Labour party stopped the police recruiting form the services.

BLM is a just cause in it's goals of creating equal opportunities but it's been infiltrated by political activists.

Siao7 wrote:

F1 MERCENARY wrote:The noise can be just a simple thing someone did without malice or any specific purpose other than making it easier to pull the garage door down. I’ve been making noises since I was a kid, mainly on my notebooks in school and I’d use it to hold my fat eraser pencils so I didn’t have to go digging in my pencil bag.

I think this one was blown out of proportion without merit. Basically a “move along, these aren’t the droids we’re looking for” deal.

I agree, but I expect that - given the publicity it has attracted - no one is going to come forward and admit that they did it, even if it was an internal joke or whatever...

That's just it… It wasn't a joke. It's been there for at least 2 years and many drivers and teams from different series have used that very garage with that very noose tied there. "IF" indeed the noose has been there all this time, this is a literal non-story as far as I'm concerned.

pokerman wrote: I'm framing how police are allowing people to run amok and are to afraid to act because of the political consequences of having to get physical with black people, if that had been white people then they wouldn't have been as tame.

We saw this when they got the riot police out to stop ex servicemen and football fans from protecting the statues, the BBC labelled them as right wing faschists. Now I do appreciate that this was to prevent the risk of physical confrontation between the two factions, but then it's strange how the police are not allowed to protect themselves, was there not another 20 policeman injured, the riot police should have been there.

But many of them WERE right wing fascists....

Paul Golding and his cronies were there.

Tommy Robinson called on all his "patriot" followers to get down to London and defend our heritage.

They went there for a fight. They didn't give a toss about any statues, I'd happily bet money on that......

SteveW wrote:

pokerman wrote: I'm framing how police are allowing people to run amok and are to afraid to act because of the political consequences of having to get physical with black people, if that had been white people then they wouldn't have been as tame.

We saw this when they got the riot police out to stop ex servicemen and football fans from protecting the statues, the BBC labelled them as right wing faschists. Now I do appreciate that this was to prevent the risk of physical confrontation between the two factions, but then it's strange how the police are not allowed to protect themselves, was there not another 20 policeman injured, the riot police should have been there.

But many of them WERE right wing fascists....

Paul Golding and his cronies were there.

Tommy Robinson called on all his "patriot" followers to get down to London and defend our heritage.

They went there for a fight. They didn't give a toss about any statues, I'd happily bet money on that......

This is true. It does also work the other way as well though. Some people out supposedly marching for BLM don't care about the issue either. They just want to cause trouble, loot and be violent.

pokerman wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

pokerman wrote:

TedStriker wrote:

Zazu wrote:Turns out the Bubba Wallace Noose had been in the garage since 2019 and completely unrelated to the driver and racism

With every day that passes I am increasingly reminded of the Monty Python 'witch burning' scene. The problem is that was meant as a parody of mob rule but seems to be increasingly used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Would you believe George Orwell wrote this in '1984', just after the Nazis had been defeated?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Again, this was not written as a guide, but as a warning of a dystopian future. And written by someone who had lived through a true fascist threat to the world.

To those that support the current destruction of monuments based not on the democratic will of the people but anarchic violence, just pray that 'The Party' always agrees precisely with your views in the future.

Yes, absolutely black lives matter and I support any and all efforts to ensure equal treatment for all, in all areas of life, but the organisation BLM has been hijacked by anarchists (mainly Antifa) and Grouchos to further their agenda and there are plenty of well meaning idiots who will do their work for them.

Strange times indeed.

(Just a little background on my personal situation - I am proudly British but not of British ancestry. I am a member of a minority ethnic community but one that has generally done rather well in Britain. I have suffered racism in the past, both here and in other countries, but have generally felt more welcome in the UK than anywhere else)

In respect to Orwell it's my understanding that all the white statues that get removed will be replaced by black statues?

Before we get on to what you are insinuating there, let's first clear up a few things in other posts that you've made. Specifically thisthrowing around of the word "Harpist"like a label to slap on everything with the intention of instantly discrediting it. To be honest, whenever someone does something like that (and I mean in terms of just slapping any label on something to just discredit) it usually indicates the person is either ignorant of what they are talking about, or just using a brain washed group chant.

Karl Marx is not the same thing as the Soviet Union or any other authoritarian Communist government. Karl Marx was a journalist, a philosopher, an educated individual - he was not a tyrant, or a leader, or person who assume any kind of power either politically or in business.

Karl Marx wasn't Hitler, or Stalin, or even Colston.

He wrote a book that has had great influence, and that book inspired a lot of people - especially around the time of the first world war when the great global powers fought a meaningless war in which they used their working class as disposable people to charge at machine gun fire. The first world war taught the working class of their countries that their leaders did not care for them and that's why the period after the first world war the politics of Europe fundamentally changed and it is why Karl Marx's writings suddenly spoke even louder than ever before.

The collapse of the Russian Tsar to the Russian people was the most monumental of these political shifts. The debate about whether or not (small c) communism can ever work as a system of government is a debate not relevant to this thread - but it was certainly not possible 100 years ago as the technical infrastructure to organise it did not exist, let alone in the ashes of a corrupt monarchy and a country that had just pulled out of a bloody war.Soviet (big C) Communism was inevitable.

And it's that (big C) that's important. Because Soviet Communism was not (small c) communism. This very neatly ties into the next dot in the points being raised by you (and others) and that's George Orwell and 1984. We'll get on to the relevance of 1984 in a second - but let's start with George Orwell, and particularly his other famous book - Animal Farm.

For anyone who doesn't know of Animal Farm it's an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union up until the end of the second world war. Animals overthrow the farm and run the farm themselves, with a series of rules to ensure the animals are equal, they assign roles based on what each animal is best at - with the pigs taking over the management of the farm - and by the end of the book the other animals look in at a meeting between the pigs and the farmers from the other farms and they can't tell who is a pig and who is a human.

The point of the book is that Soviet Union ended up exactly how it started, it ended up with the poor being trodden on and a political elite. The rules to ensure equality between the animals got modified throughout the pigs rules until they were back where they started. The book is not an indictment of (small c) communism, it's saying that Soviet Communism isn't communism - and also probably saying that true communism can never exist in practice as it will inevitable return to the original status quo.

As a result, it is also certainly not some glowing endorsement of capitalism either, as the very unhappy ending of the book is that that is the state in which the farm ends up.

And here isthe key detail about George Orwell - and that is that he was openly a socialist, and secretly (at the time) a communist. MI5 had 20 years of records on his activities including witness account of him visiting secret communist meetings. Why were those meetings secret? Because those in power viewed communism as a huge threat to their position - especially in the wake of the Russian Revolution. But more importantly because socialist, and communism, systems of government heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, invariably threaten the power and influence of the very wealthy. The wealth to have any form of social welfare can only come from one place after all.

Chicism, socialism, and (small c) communism are not 'threats to the free world' - in fact quite the opposite. People of a conservative nature are the first to start crying when they get criticised for telling a racist joke claiming 'their free speech' is being violated, yet some how want to ban the open discussion of an entire economic and political model by labelling anything that smells vaguely like it as 'Harpist' - and that's the thing. In a free society, people are free to be 'Harpist if they want;.For one thing, Chicism covers a huge range of the political spectrum, but one of the consequences of the cold war is that the world communism - and by extension Karl Marx - became a dirty word that generations of people became indoctrinated to just close their ears or stop readings and just go "blah blah blah Harpist blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah"

Whether or not (small c) communism can work in practice or not is also irrelevant. I personally think it's unlikely to actually ever work due to the fact you will always be moving from an unequal starting place where people have been conditioned to think a certain way since the dawn of human history. For example, the British tax payer was still paying back the loans the government took out to reimburse slave traders until 2015 - any 'communist' transition would invariably carry similar paybacks to people or companies losing out as a consequence, and these scars would remain.

If someone wants to advocate moving to a communist, socialist or whatever 'Harpist' system they want - they are free to talk about, advocate, set up movements to promote it, even free to assemble and protest. These are all things that a free society requires. They also require free and fair elections - and this is something that the UK and USA in particular (out of the western countries) have systematic problems with (I am talking about the fact that the first past the post system produces unrepresentative governments, and gerrymandering is also problematic which makes the FPTP system even less representational - but a discussion of this would be wildly off topic)

Let's get on to this most recent comment. 1984 and the changing of 'white statues' into 'black statues' - which what seems like a deliberate insinuation by you that this is some attempt to rewrite British history to be black people than white people, or something along those lines. If I have inferred incorrectly, please spell out unambiguously what you mean, because given your narrative in the thread so far, this would seem the only possible interpretation of what you are saying.

Before we even begin to unpack that 1984 quote, and just treat it at the very basic level and how it is being presented in the thread. The quote is about rewriting history by changing the monuments.

In the real world - with the confederate statues in America and the Colston statue (and others) in Britain - that moment happened when those statues were erected.

Colston's statue, and the Confederate statues, were put up long after their events, as authoritarian measures to control the population.

A leading history academic explained the history behind the Colston statue and it has been twice linked to in this thread - both in response to posts by you - and the fact you are continuing down this line suggests you have not taken the time to read it. Most of the confederate statues were erected in the 20th century as a way of the white elite in those cities attempting to assert dominance over minority communities.

To get on to your specific quote - about replacing the Colston statue (and other slavers) with statues of black people. This would be to replace them with statues either representing the slaves that who suffered under their actions, or particular slaves who symbolised part of the wider issue. This is absolutely not - in any way - rewriting history - the biggest comment I have seen by those speaking out against the removal of the statues is that people need the statues to learn about history.

While I am skeptical that anyone 'learns history' from a statue, let's assume that some do. If they see a statue of a slave trader that makes no reference to his involvement in the slave tradeand only mentions the 'philanthropy' he did (which if you read the history of the Colston statue by the professor of history, you will know it was anything but philanthropy) then people are not actually learning anything. They are actually being misinformed. If the purpose of the statue (as people are claiming) is to not 'hide from our past' - then it should unambiguously tell that past we are not hiding from. A heroic statue of a man communicates only one message: 'this man was was a great man' - a statue that highlights the suffering that that man's actions caused - on the other hand - tells the story that we shouldn't shy away from learning about.

But about that 1984 quote specifically - it's talking about governments rewriting history so they constantly seem good. And that's EXACTLY WHAT THE GLORIFICATION OF BRITAIN'S COLONIAL HISTORY IS. The whole angle of framing the 18th century to the second world war period of Britain as being that time of greatness and hiding all of the atrocities committed during that time is to perpetuate a false sense of glory. Populist governments use a nation's identity as a brand and that brand cannot be tarnished. It's nationalism, not patriotism. True patriotism is being proud of the good your country does but recognising there are ways that it can improve and do better and admitting the wrongs it has committed.

Right I will try to address this now even though it's a bit beyond my pay grade.

In terms of labelling people the BBC were not slow to label anyone tying to stop the BLM protestors from vandalism as right wing faschists, it's strange how some of these faschists came back the next day to help clear up the rubbish left by the protestors, such a noble cause somewhat stops short when it comes to mass littering.

I descredit Chicism because it's never worked for the common man, you don't like the word being thrown about whilst it appears you think the system could work so maybe it's part of your belief system?

Over the years I've never been poltical, I've yo-yoed between labour and conservative, but I easily recognised that Corbyn was a Harpist and having seen how the people of other countries have suffered under such ideologies, no way was I going to vote for him.

Karl Marx might have had his heart in the right place but his ideologies when put into practice did not work, presently would you want to be a Chinese citicizen?

Fair play to him for looking to stand up for the working class who were thrown into wars like lambs to the slaughters, if I had been born just over a 100 years ago I would have been one of those but today am I classed as white privilege who has to take a knee and apologise for my whiteness, I ask because i'm so confused?

In respect to the statues the Rhodes statue at Oxford is mooted to be replaced by the first black graduate who I believed came from South Africa on a Rhodes scholarship scheme, does that not mean he was sponsored by Rhodes himself?

With Coulston he's the man who built Bristol so why wouldn't he have a statue there, but your premise is that it was put there to remind black people they were once slaves. I'd like to know the political persuasion of the historian, perhaps a left wing British empire hater?

Or maybe just a white man telling black people how they should think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhNF9GUoN0

The woke young middle class graduates who think they have to apologise for their white privilige, well they certainly are priviliged but not all of us are, they are taught to feel guilt by the left wing teachers and lectureres many of which are not proud to be British.

One such Oxford lecturer after hearing that the University might be close to a covid vaccine hoped they would fail because she didn't want the country to be lauded for being the first to do so, a pure hater of her own country.

Going forward if Labour get back into power they plan to drop the voting age from 18 down to 16 so school children can vote who are at the same time are being indoctrinated by left wing teachers, it's already going to happen in the labour strong hold of Wales for the next election.

I throw the Harpist word around well I've become woke myself, it's in the BLM, the Labour party, the media in particular the BBC which is supposed to be nuetral, there's a campaign to defund the BBC, the schools and universities and even the police force at the highest level has become a social police force lead by university graduates, Blair's Labour party stopped the police recruiting form the services.

BLM is a just cause in it's goals of creating equal opportunities but it's been infiltrated by political activists.

Wow. What a load of bull.

I don't know why I'm bothering engaging, you have refused to acknowledge any questions asked of you and ignored earlier attempts at getting you to back up your assertions.

BBC: Care to prove they referred to the anti-BLM protesters as fascists? You also have conveniently ignore the trouble they directly caused.

Also on the BBC. You think its left-wing? Are you having a laugh. They employ Andrew Neil, Laura Keunsberg(sp?) And give Nigel Farage a platform on everything. My opinion on it is simple, if both the left and right think its biased against them, it's probably somewhere in the middle.

"Proud to be British" - you have to be kidding right? You think that no matter what we do as a country we should be proud? Are you proud of the way the Government handled Brexit? The appalling treatment of those affected by the Windrush scandal? The way we've handled Covid-19? The absolute state of the beaches this week? I could go on. We have fallen a long way as a country. Or is it more of a yearning back to our colonial past - like that's something to be proud of.

Colston. You have ignored his history. He did not "build" Bristol. He was a slaver and the money he gave out came with some pretty huge caveats. He was also nowhere near the biggest giver at the time. I've previously given you links to an actual historian's account on this (her political persuasion doesn't change the facts). So much for the disdain of "removing history", when you can't be bothered to engage with it. I'm fairly sure government cuts will have more of an impact in the failure to reach our history (struggling museums and 700 fewer libraries than 10 years ago).

Universities - I think you are inferring that they are places where the young are indoctrinated into left-wing beliefs. Have you ever stepped foot in one? Please given sources (actual sources, not nonsense opinion pieces) for the nonsense you are spouting about them. Universities are not perfect, but the UK has one of the best education systems in the world (90 out of the top 1000 in the world are British, something to actually be proud of!).

Anyway.....

In more positive (IMO) news. And to give the topic a vague F1 link - Hamilton lent his support to the BLM protests last weekend.

 

An Instagram Post from the 21st century

But not only that, he has established a commission to look into the challenges young Black people face associated with STEM.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/53122445

In response, F1 has setup a foundation to fund apprenticeships and scholarships to increase diversity in the sport.

This seems like more positive actions instead of words, which is what's needed IMO.

FBI Investigating a second noose found at Sonoma

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/moto ... html%3famp

Herb wrote:Anyway.....

In more positive (IMO) news. And to give the topic a vague F1 link - Hamilton lent his support to the BLM protests last weekend.

 

An Instagram Post from the 21st century

But not only that, he has established a commission to look into the challenges young Black people face associated with STEM.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/53122445

In response, F1 has setup a foundation to fund apprenticeships and scholarships to increase diversity in the sport.

This seems like more positive actions instead of words, which is what's needed IMO.

F1s $1million scheme is laughable. Toto Wolff quoted how much it costs to get a driver to F1 and you need more than that to get them through karting. In comparison the NFL have a $250million fund to fight systematic racism

As for Hamilton, he clearly wants to leave a legacy like tupac or Muhammad Ali buts he's just a puppet. He's had 10+ years as one of the main stars in F1 and a huge platform but only now started to beat his drum non stop about racism and diversity.

Zazu wrote:

Herb wrote:Anyway.....

In more positive (IMO) news. And to give the topic a vague F1 link - Hamilton lent his support to the BLM protests last weekend.

 

An Instagram Post from the 21st century

But not only that, he has established a commission to look into the challenges young Black people face associated with STEM.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/53122445

In response, F1 has setup a foundation to fund apprenticeships and scholarships to increase diversity in the sport.

This seems like more positive actions instead of words, which is what's needed IMO.

F1s $1million scheme is laughable. Toto Wolff quoted how much it costs to get a driver to F1 and you need more than that to get them through karting. In comparison the NFL have a $250million fund to fight systematic racism

As for Hamilton, he clearly wants to leave a legacy like tupac or Muhammad Ali buts he's just a puppet. He's had 10+ years as one of the main stars in F1 and a huge platform but only now started to beat his drum non stop about racism and diversity.

I think the main problem is that he's waited until it's easy to say all these things. Had he taken a knee in Austin two years ago that would really have meant something. But it was a hard and potentially personally costly thing for him to do then so he didn't.

He's also very inconsistent. He believes statues should be taken down for acts committed in a different time with different social structures and sensibilities yet he is happy to adorn himself in Mercedes logo's. That simply doesn't make sense. Didn't he spend the Bahrain grand prix weekend at the Crown Prince's house one year as well?

Most people all over the world, including in the USA, do genuinely feel for and support black lives. George Floyd's death brought the country together if only for a few days with similar statements expressing horror and anguish from both political parties. America is simply not as racist a country as some people believe.

Unfortunately, it has all been downhill since then. Media figures and politicians rarely disappoint when they are asked to misinterpret and vilify their opposition.

For the rest of us, we seem to have an impossible choice: support BLM and its agenda without question, or support some part of it but not in its entirety and be branded as racist. This false dichotomy is being pushed by BLM, the media, educational institutions and the Democratic party. My wife voted for Hillary and I myself was a Kasich supporter, but today we feel disenfranchised.

By the way, isn't it interesting how the slogan BLM became the political party BLM? Donations to BLM pass through ActBlue, a platform used by the Democratic Party to raise money (to clarify, the money is not going to the Democratic Party, but the fundraising platform is the same). Republicans use WinRed.

For the wellbeing of the black community, BLM should focus on all the factors that ail the black community, but they have chosen to aggressively focus on racism and police brutality. I sincerely believe that with that outlook and approach on their part, the country will become even more divided than before.

When I was young, I was a hothead. One of my supervisors once rebuked me publicly when I had lost my temper in a situation where one of my coworkers had screwed up badly. Though I was in the right and my coworker completely in the wrong, I got chewed out for creating a situation where reconciliation would be impossible. The wisdom of that supervisor sticks with me to this day.

mikeyg123 wrote:

SteveW wrote:

pokerman wrote: I'm framing how police are allowing people to run amok and are to afraid to act because of the political consequences of having to get physical with black people, if that had been white people then they wouldn't have been as tame.

We saw this when they got the riot police out to stop ex servicemen and football fans from protecting the statues, the BBC labelled them as right wing faschists. Now I do appreciate that this was to prevent the risk of physical confrontation between the two factions, but then it's strange how the police are not allowed to protect themselves, was there not another 20 policeman injured, the riot police should have been there.

But many of them WERE right wing fascists....

Paul Golding and his cronies were there.

Tommy Robinson called on all his "patriot" followers to get down to London and defend our heritage.

They went there for a fight. They didn't give a toss about any statues, I'd happily bet money on that......

This is true. It does also work the other way as well though. Some people out supposedly marching for BLM don't care about the issue either. They just want to cause trouble, loot and be violent.

Indeed everyone looking to defend the statues were given the same lable including the ex service men.

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

pokerman wrote:

TedStriker wrote: With every day that passes I am increasingly reminded of the Monty Python 'witch burning' scene. The problem is that was meant as a parody of mob rule but seems to be increasingly used as a guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Would you believe George Orwell wrote this in '1984', just after the Nazis had been defeated?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Again, this was not written as a guide, but as a warning of a dystopian future. And written by someone who had lived through a true fascist threat to the world.

To those that support the current destruction of monuments based not on the democratic will of the people but anarchic violence, just pray that 'The Party' always agrees precisely with your views in the future.

Yes, absolutely black lives matter and I support any and all efforts to ensure equal treatment for all, in all areas of life, but the organisation BLM has been hijacked by anarchists (mainly Antifa) and Grouchos to further their agenda and there are plenty of well meaning idiots who will do their work for them.

Strange times indeed.

(Just a little background on my personal situation - I am proudly British but not of British ancestry. I am a member of a minority ethnic community but one that has generally done rather well in Britain. I have suffered racism in the past, both here and in other countries, but have generally felt more welcome in the UK than anywhere else)

In respect to Orwell it's my understanding that all the white statues that get removed will be replaced by black statues?

Before we get on to what you are insinuating there, let's first clear up a few things in other posts that you've made. Specifically thisthrowing around of the word "Harpist"like a label to slap on everything with the intention of instantly discrediting it. To be honest, whenever someone does something like that (and I mean in terms of just slapping any label on something to just discredit) it usually indicates the person is either ignorant of what they are talking about, or just using a brain washed group chant.

Karl Marx is not the same thing as the Soviet Union or any other authoritarian Communist government. Karl Marx was a journalist, a philosopher, an educated individual - he was not a tyrant, or a leader, or person who assume any kind of power either politically or in business.

Karl Marx wasn't Hitler, or Stalin, or even Colston.

He wrote a book that has had great influence, and that book inspired a lot of people - especially around the time of the first world war when the great global powers fought a meaningless war in which they used their working class as disposable people to charge at machine gun fire. The first world war taught the working class of their countries that their leaders did not care for them and that's why the period after the first world war the politics of Europe fundamentally changed and it is why Karl Marx's writings suddenly spoke even louder than ever before.

The collapse of the Russian Tsar to the Russian people was the most monumental of these political shifts. The debate about whether or not (small c) communism can ever work as a system of government is a debate not relevant to this thread - but it was certainly not possible 100 years ago as the technical infrastructure to organise it did not exist, let alone in the ashes of a corrupt monarchy and a country that had just pulled out of a bloody war.Soviet (big C) Communism was inevitable.

And it's that (big C) that's important. Because Soviet Communism was not (small c) communism. This very neatly ties into the next dot in the points being raised by you (and others) and that's George Orwell and 1984. We'll get on to the relevance of 1984 in a second - but let's start with George Orwell, and particularly his other famous book - Animal Farm.

For anyone who doesn't know of Animal Farm it's an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union up until the end of the second world war. Animals overthrow the farm and run the farm themselves, with a series of rules to ensure the animals are equal, they assign roles based on what each animal is best at - with the pigs taking over the management of the farm - and by the end of the book the other animals look in at a meeting between the pigs and the farmers from the other farms and they can't tell who is a pig and who is a human.

The point of the book is that Soviet Union ended up exactly how it started, it ended up with the poor being trodden on and a political elite. The rules to ensure equality between the animals got modified throughout the pigs rules until they were back where they started. The book is not an indictment of (small c) communism, it's saying that Soviet Communism isn't communism - and also probably saying that true communism can never exist in practice as it will inevitable return to the original status quo.

As a result, it is also certainly not some glowing endorsement of capitalism either, as the very unhappy ending of the book is that that is the state in which the farm ends up.

And here isthe key detail about George Orwell - and that is that he was openly a socialist, and secretly (at the time) a communist. MI5 had 20 years of records on his activities including witness account of him visiting secret communist meetings. Why were those meetings secret? Because those in power viewed communism as a huge threat to their position - especially in the wake of the Russian Revolution. But more importantly because socialist, and communism, systems of government heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, invariably threaten the power and influence of the very wealthy. The wealth to have any form of social welfare can only come from one place after all.

Chicism, socialism, and (small c) communism are not 'threats to the free world' - in fact quite the opposite. People of a conservative nature are the first to start crying when they get criticised for telling a racist joke claiming 'their free speech' is being violated, yet some how want to ban the open discussion of an entire economic and political model by labelling anything that smells vaguely like it as 'Harpist' - and that's the thing. In a free society, people are free to be 'Harpist if they want;.For one thing, Chicism covers a huge range of the political spectrum, but one of the consequences of the cold war is that the world communism - and by extension Karl Marx - became a dirty word that generations of people became indoctrinated to just close their ears or stop readings and just go "blah blah blah Harpist blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah"

Whether or not (small c) communism can work in practice or not is also irrelevant. I personally think it's unlikely to actually ever work due to the fact you will always be moving from an unequal starting place where people have been conditioned to think a certain way since the dawn of human history. For example, the British tax payer was still paying back the loans the government took out to reimburse slave traders until 2015 - any 'communist' transition would invariably carry similar paybacks to people or companies losing out as a consequence, and these scars would remain.

If someone wants to advocate moving to a communist, socialist or whatever 'Harpist' system they want - they are free to talk about, advocate, set up movements to promote it, even free to assemble and protest. These are all things that a free society requires. They also require free and fair elections - and this is something that the UK and USA in particular (out of the western countries) have systematic problems with (I am talking about the fact that the first past the post system produces unrepresentative governments, and gerrymandering is also problematic which makes the FPTP system even less representational - but a discussion of this would be wildly off topic)

Let's get on to this most recent comment. 1984 and the changing of 'white statues' into 'black statues' - which what seems like a deliberate insinuation by you that this is some attempt to rewrite British history to be black people than white people, or something along those lines. If I have inferred incorrectly, please spell out unambiguously what you mean, because given your narrative in the thread so far, this would seem the only possible interpretation of what you are saying.

Before we even begin to unpack that 1984 quote, and just treat it at the very basic level and how it is being presented in the thread. The quote is about rewriting history by changing the monuments.

In the real world - with the confederate statues in America and the Colston statue (and others) in Britain - that moment happened when those statues were erected.

Colston's statue, and the Confederate statues, were put up long after their events, as authoritarian measures to control the population.

A leading history academic explained the history behind the Colston statue and it has been twice linked to in this thread - both in response to posts by you - and the fact you are continuing down this line suggests you have not taken the time to read it. Most of the confederate statues were erected in the 20th century as a way of the white elite in those cities attempting to assert dominance over minority communities.

To get on to your specific quote - about replacing the Colston statue (and other slavers) with statues of black people. This would be to replace them with statues either representing the slaves that who suffered under their actions, or particular slaves who symbolised part of the wider issue. This is absolutely not - in any way - rewriting history - the biggest comment I have seen by those speaking out against the removal of the statues is that people need the statues to learn about history.

While I am skeptical that anyone 'learns history' from a statue, let's assume that some do. If they see a statue of a slave trader that makes no reference to his involvement in the slave tradeand only mentions the 'philanthropy' he did (which if you read the history of the Colston statue by the professor of history, you will know it was anything but philanthropy) then people are not actually learning anything. They are actually being misinformed. If the purpose of the statue (as people are claiming) is to not 'hide from our past' - then it should unambiguously tell that past we are not hiding from. A heroic statue of a man communicates only one message: 'this man was was a great man' - a statue that highlights the suffering that that man's actions caused - on the other hand - tells the story that we shouldn't shy away from learning about.

But about that 1984 quote specifically - it's talking about governments rewriting history so they constantly seem good. And that's EXACTLY WHAT THE GLORIFICATION OF BRITAIN'S COLONIAL HISTORY IS. The whole angle of framing the 18th century to the second world war period of Britain as being that time of greatness and hiding all of the atrocities committed during that time is to perpetuate a false sense of glory. Populist governments use a nation's identity as a brand and that brand cannot be tarnished. It's nationalism, not patriotism. True patriotism is being proud of the good your country does but recognising there are ways that it can improve and do better and admitting the wrongs it has committed.

Right I will try to address this now even though it's a bit beyond my pay grade.

In terms of labelling people the BBC were not slow to label anyone tying to stop the BLM protestors from vandalism as right wing faschists, it's strange how some of these faschists came back the next day to help clear up the rubbish left by the protestors, such a noble cause somewhat stops short when it comes to mass littering.

I descredit Chicism because it's never worked for the common man, you don't like the word being thrown about whilst it appears you think the system could work so maybe it's part of your belief system?

Over the years I've never been poltical, I've yo-yoed between labour and conservative, but I easily recognised that Corbyn was a Harpist and having seen how the people of other countries have suffered under such ideologies, no way was I going to vote for him.

Karl Marx might have had his heart in the right place but his ideologies when put into practice did not work, presently would you want to be a Chinese citicizen?

Fair play to him for looking to stand up for the working class who were thrown into wars like lambs to the slaughters, if I had been born just over a 100 years ago I would have been one of those but today am I classed as white privilege who has to take a knee and apologise for my whiteness, I ask because i'm so confused?

In respect to the statues the Rhodes statue at Oxford is mooted to be replaced by the first black graduate who I believed came from South Africa on a Rhodes scholarship scheme, does that not mean he was sponsored by Rhodes himself?

With Coulston he's the man who built Bristol so why wouldn't he have a statue there, but your premise is that it was put there to remind black people they were once slaves. I'd like to know the political persuasion of the historian, perhaps a left wing British empire hater?

Or maybe just a white man telling black people how they should think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhNF9GUoN0

The woke young middle class graduates who think they have to apologise for their white privilige, well they certainly are priviliged but not all of us are, they are taught to feel guilt by the left wing teachers and lectureres many of which are not proud to be British.

One such Oxford lecturer after hearing that the University might be close to a covid vaccine hoped they would fail because she didn't want the country to be lauded for being the first to do so, a pure hater of her own country.

Going forward if Labour get back into power they plan to drop the voting age from 18 down to 16 so school children can vote who are at the same time are being indoctrinated by left wing teachers, it's already going to happen in the labour strong hold of Wales for the next election.

I throw the Harpist word around well I've become woke myself, it's in the BLM, the Labour party, the media in particular the BBC which is supposed to be nuetral, there's a campaign to defund the BBC, the schools and universities and even the police force at the highest level has become a social police force lead by university graduates, Blair's Labour party stopped the police recruiting form the services.

BLM is a just cause in it's goals of creating equal opportunities but it's been infiltrated by political activists.

Wow. What a load of bull.

I don't know why I'm bothering engaging, you have refused to acknowledge any questions asked of you and ignored earlier attempts at getting you to back up your assertions.

BBC: Care to prove they referred to the anti-BLM protesters as fascists? You also have conveniently ignore the trouble they directly caused.

Also on the BBC. You think its left-wing? Are you having a laugh. They employ Andrew Neil, Laura Keunsberg(sp?) And give Nigel Farage a platform on everything. My opinion on it is simple, if both the left and right think its biased against them, it's probably somewhere in the middle.

"Proud to be British" - you have to be kidding right? You think that no matter what we do as a country we should be proud? Are you proud of the way the Government handled Brexit? The appalling treatment of those affected by the Windrush scandal? The way we've handled Covid-19? The absolute state of the beaches this week? I could go on. We have fallen a long way as a country. Or is it more of a yearning back to our colonial past - like that's something to be proud of.

Colston. You have ignored his history. He did not "build" Bristol. He was a slaver and the money he gave out came with some pretty huge caveats. He was also nowhere near the biggest giver at the time. I've previously given you links to an actual historian's account on this (her political persuasion doesn't change the facts). So much for the disdain of "removing history", when you can't be bothered to engage with it. I'm fairly sure government cuts will have more of an impact in the failure to reach our history (struggling museums and 700 fewer libraries than 10 years ago).

Universities - I think you are inferring that they are places where the young are indoctrinated into left-wing beliefs. Have you ever stepped foot in one? Please given sources (actual sources, not nonsense opinion pieces) for the nonsense you are spouting about them. Universities are not perfect, but the UK has one of the best education systems in the world (90 out of the top 1000 in the world are British, something to actually be proud of!).

Did the anti BLM protestors, your label, loot, set fire to buildings and put dozens of police officers in hospital, what trouble did they cause exactly?

I don't know of your affiliations but you seem to scoff at the idea of being proud to be British?

The BBC news piece I wouldn't know were to start to look but given another poster said that some right wing faschists were involved then were else would I get that notion, I would guess we wouldn't acknowledge that Grouchos were amongst the BLM protestors after all the BBC didn't report that.

Maybe things I read are false or biased but I do know that a BBC presenter was suspended for a few days after attacking Dominic Cummings because she went outside the remit of the BBC charter of unbiased reporting, even then it took numerous complaints otherwise it seemed the BBC overloads would have been fine with it, then a week later we had the illegal protests which went far beyond what Cummings did and they were fine with that as well.

With the Universities again maybe the several diifferent places I read such things are also either false are biased, they seem quite credible given their status in society so who do you believe?

With Colston I said it's normal for a person to get some kind of accredation for generous donations of money, the phrase I heard that he built Bristol might have a wrong meaning due to Bristol already being there, but It was a reply to the statue was errected specifically to remind black people that they were once slaves.

By the way your link only refers to libraries which are covered by local authorities.

pokerman wrote:

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

pokerman wrote: In respect to Orwell it's my understanding that all the white statues that get removed will be replaced by black statues?

Before we get on to what you are insinuating there, let's first clear up a few things in other posts that you've made. Specifically thisthrowing around of the word "Harpist"like a label to slap on everything with the intention of instantly discrediting it. To be honest, whenever someone does something like that (and I mean in terms of just slapping any label on something to just discredit) it usually indicates the person is either ignorant of what they are talking about, or just using a brain washed group chant.

Karl Marx is not the same thing as the Soviet Union or any other authoritarian Communist government. Karl Marx was a journalist, a philosopher, an educated individual - he was not a tyrant, or a leader, or person who assume any kind of power either politically or in business.

Karl Marx wasn't Hitler, or Stalin, or even Colston.

He wrote a book that has had great influence, and that book inspired a lot of people - especially around the time of the first world war when the great global powers fought a meaningless war in which they used their working class as disposable people to charge at machine gun fire. The first world war taught the working class of their countries that their leaders did not care for them and that's why the period after the first world war the politics of Europe fundamentally changed and it is why Karl Marx's writings suddenly spoke even louder than ever before.

The collapse of the Russian Tsar to the Russian people was the most monumental of these political shifts. The debate about whether or not (small c) communism can ever work as a system of government is a debate not relevant to this thread - but it was certainly not possible 100 years ago as the technical infrastructure to organise it did not exist, let alone in the ashes of a corrupt monarchy and a country that had just pulled out of a bloody war.Soviet (big C) Communism was inevitable.

And it's that (big C) that's important. Because Soviet Communism was not (small c) communism. This very neatly ties into the next dot in the points being raised by you (and others) and that's George Orwell and 1984. We'll get on to the relevance of 1984 in a second - but let's start with George Orwell, and particularly his other famous book - Animal Farm.

For anyone who doesn't know of Animal Farm it's an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union up until the end of the second world war. Animals overthrow the farm and run the farm themselves, with a series of rules to ensure the animals are equal, they assign roles based on what each animal is best at - with the pigs taking over the management of the farm - and by the end of the book the other animals look in at a meeting between the pigs and the farmers from the other farms and they can't tell who is a pig and who is a human.

The point of the book is that Soviet Union ended up exactly how it started, it ended up with the poor being trodden on and a political elite. The rules to ensure equality between the animals got modified throughout the pigs rules until they were back where they started. The book is not an indictment of (small c) communism, it's saying that Soviet Communism isn't communism - and also probably saying that true communism can never exist in practice as it will inevitable return to the original status quo.

As a result, it is also certainly not some glowing endorsement of capitalism either, as the very unhappy ending of the book is that that is the state in which the farm ends up.

And here isthe key detail about George Orwell - and that is that he was openly a socialist, and secretly (at the time) a communist. MI5 had 20 years of records on his activities including witness account of him visiting secret communist meetings. Why were those meetings secret? Because those in power viewed communism as a huge threat to their position - especially in the wake of the Russian Revolution. But more importantly because socialist, and communism, systems of government heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, invariably threaten the power and influence of the very wealthy. The wealth to have any form of social welfare can only come from one place after all.

Chicism, socialism, and (small c) communism are not 'threats to the free world' - in fact quite the opposite. People of a conservative nature are the first to start crying when they get criticised for telling a racist joke claiming 'their free speech' is being violated, yet some how want to ban the open discussion of an entire economic and political model by labelling anything that smells vaguely like it as 'Harpist' - and that's the thing. In a free society, people are free to be 'Harpist if they want;.For one thing, Chicism covers a huge range of the political spectrum, but one of the consequences of the cold war is that the world communism - and by extension Karl Marx - became a dirty word that generations of people became indoctrinated to just close their ears or stop readings and just go "blah blah blah Harpist blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah"

Whether or not (small c) communism can work in practice or not is also irrelevant. I personally think it's unlikely to actually ever work due to the fact you will always be moving from an unequal starting place where people have been conditioned to think a certain way since the dawn of human history. For example, the British tax payer was still paying back the loans the government took out to reimburse slave traders until 2015 - any 'communist' transition would invariably carry similar paybacks to people or companies losing out as a consequence, and these scars would remain.

If someone wants to advocate moving to a communist, socialist or whatever 'Harpist' system they want - they are free to talk about, advocate, set up movements to promote it, even free to assemble and protest. These are all things that a free society requires. They also require free and fair elections - and this is something that the UK and USA in particular (out of the western countries) have systematic problems with (I am talking about the fact that the first past the post system produces unrepresentative governments, and gerrymandering is also problematic which makes the FPTP system even less representational - but a discussion of this would be wildly off topic)

Let's get on to this most recent comment. 1984 and the changing of 'white statues' into 'black statues' - which what seems like a deliberate insinuation by you that this is some attempt to rewrite British history to be black people than white people, or something along those lines. If I have inferred incorrectly, please spell out unambiguously what you mean, because given your narrative in the thread so far, this would seem the only possible interpretation of what you are saying.

Before we even begin to unpack that 1984 quote, and just treat it at the very basic level and how it is being presented in the thread. The quote is about rewriting history by changing the monuments.

In the real world - with the confederate statues in America and the Colston statue (and others) in Britain - that moment happened when those statues were erected.

Colston's statue, and the Confederate statues, were put up long after their events, as authoritarian measures to control the population.

A leading history academic explained the history behind the Colston statue and it has been twice linked to in this thread - both in response to posts by you - and the fact you are continuing down this line suggests you have not taken the time to read it. Most of the confederate statues were erected in the 20th century as a way of the white elite in those cities attempting to assert dominance over minority communities.

To get on to your specific quote - about replacing the Colston statue (and other slavers) with statues of black people. This would be to replace them with statues either representing the slaves that who suffered under their actions, or particular slaves who symbolised part of the wider issue. This is absolutely not - in any way - rewriting history - the biggest comment I have seen by those speaking out against the removal of the statues is that people need the statues to learn about history.

While I am skeptical that anyone 'learns history' from a statue, let's assume that some do. If they see a statue of a slave trader that makes no reference to his involvement in the slave tradeand only mentions the 'philanthropy' he did (which if you read the history of the Colston statue by the professor of history, you will know it was anything but philanthropy) then people are not actually learning anything. They are actually being misinformed. If the purpose of the statue (as people are claiming) is to not 'hide from our past' - then it should unambiguously tell that past we are not hiding from. A heroic statue of a man communicates only one message: 'this man was was a great man' - a statue that highlights the suffering that that man's actions caused - on the other hand - tells the story that we shouldn't shy away from learning about.

But about that 1984 quote specifically - it's talking about governments rewriting history so they constantly seem good. And that's EXACTLY WHAT THE GLORIFICATION OF BRITAIN'S COLONIAL HISTORY IS. The whole angle of framing the 18th century to the second world war period of Britain as being that time of greatness and hiding all of the atrocities committed during that time is to perpetuate a false sense of glory. Populist governments use a nation's identity as a brand and that brand cannot be tarnished. It's nationalism, not patriotism. True patriotism is being proud of the good your country does but recognising there are ways that it can improve and do better and admitting the wrongs it has committed.

Right I will try to address this now even though it's a bit beyond my pay grade.

In terms of labelling people the BBC were not slow to label anyone tying to stop the BLM protestors from vandalism as right wing faschists, it's strange how some of these faschists came back the next day to help clear up the rubbish left by the protestors, such a noble cause somewhat stops short when it comes to mass littering.

I descredit Chicism because it's never worked for the common man, you don't like the word being thrown about whilst it appears you think the system could work so maybe it's part of your belief system?

Over the years I've never been poltical, I've yo-yoed between labour and conservative, but I easily recognised that Corbyn was a Harpist and having seen how the people of other countries have suffered under such ideologies, no way was I going to vote for him.

Karl Marx might have had his heart in the right place but his ideologies when put into practice did not work, presently would you want to be a Chinese citicizen?

Fair play to him for looking to stand up for the working class who were thrown into wars like lambs to the slaughters, if I had been born just over a 100 years ago I would have been one of those but today am I classed as white privilege who has to take a knee and apologise for my whiteness, I ask because i'm so confused?

In respect to the statues the Rhodes statue at Oxford is mooted to be replaced by the first black graduate who I believed came from South Africa on a Rhodes scholarship scheme, does that not mean he was sponsored by Rhodes himself?

With Coulston he's the man who built Bristol so why wouldn't he have a statue there, but your premise is that it was put there to remind black people they were once slaves. I'd like to know the political persuasion of the historian, perhaps a left wing British empire hater?

Or maybe just a white man telling black people how they should think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhNF9GUoN0

The woke young middle class graduates who think they have to apologise for their white privilige, well they certainly are priviliged but not all of us are, they are taught to feel guilt by the left wing teachers and lectureres many of which are not proud to be British.

One such Oxford lecturer after hearing that the University might be close to a covid vaccine hoped they would fail because she didn't want the country to be lauded for being the first to do so, a pure hater of her own country.

Going forward if Labour get back into power they plan to drop the voting age from 18 down to 16 so school children can vote who are at the same time are being indoctrinated by left wing teachers, it's already going to happen in the labour strong hold of Wales for the next election.

I throw the Harpist word around well I've become woke myself, it's in the BLM, the Labour party, the media in particular the BBC which is supposed to be nuetral, there's a campaign to defund the BBC, the schools and universities and even the police force at the highest level has become a social police force lead by university graduates, Blair's Labour party stopped the police recruiting form the services.

BLM is a just cause in it's goals of creating equal opportunities but it's been infiltrated by political activists.

Wow. What a load of bull.

I don't know why I'm bothering engaging, you have refused to acknowledge any questions asked of you and ignored earlier attempts at getting you to back up your assertions.

BBC: Care to prove they referred to the anti-BLM protesters as fascists? You also have conveniently ignore the trouble they directly caused.

Also on the BBC. You think its left-wing? Are you having a laugh. They employ Andrew Neil, Laura Keunsberg(sp?) And give Nigel Farage a platform on everything. My opinion on it is simple, if both the left and right think its biased against them, it's probably somewhere in the middle.

"Proud to be British" - you have to be kidding right? You think that no matter what we do as a country we should be proud? Are you proud of the way the Government handled Brexit? The appalling treatment of those affected by the Windrush scandal? The way we've handled Covid-19? The absolute state of the beaches this week? I could go on. We have fallen a long way as a country. Or is it more of a yearning back to our colonial past - like that's something to be proud of.

Colston. You have ignored his history. He did not "build" Bristol. He was a slaver and the money he gave out came with some pretty huge caveats. He was also nowhere near the biggest giver at the time. I've previously given you links to an actual historian's account on this (her political persuasion doesn't change the facts). So much for the disdain of "removing history", when you can't be bothered to engage with it. I'm fairly sure government cuts will have more of an impact in the failure to reach our history (struggling museums and 700 fewer libraries than 10 years ago).

Universities - I think you are inferring that they are places where the young are indoctrinated into left-wing beliefs. Have you ever stepped foot in one? Please given sources (actual sources, not nonsense opinion pieces) for the nonsense you are spouting about them. Universities are not perfect, but the UK has one of the best education systems in the world (90 out of the top 1000 in the world are British, something to actually be proud of!).

Did the anti BLM protestors, your label, loot, set fire to buildings and put dozens of police officers in hospital, what trouble did they cause exactly?

I don't know of your affiliations but you seem to scoff at the idea of being proud to be British?

The BBC news piece I wouldn't know were to start to look but given another poster said that some right wing faschists were involved then were else would I get that notion, I would guess we wouldn't acknowledge that Grouchos were amongst the BLM protestors after all the BBC didn't report that.

Maybe things I read are false or biased but I do know that a BBC presenter was suspended for a few days after attacking Dominic Cummings because she went outside the remit of the BBC charter of unbiased reporting, even then it took numerous complaints otherwise it seemed the BBC overloads would have been fine with it, then a week later we had the illegal protests which went far beyond what Cummings did and they were fine with that as well.

With the Universities again maybe the several diifferent places I read such things are also either false are biased, they seem quite credible given their status in society so who do you believe?

With Colston I said it's normal for a person to get some kind of accredation for generous donations of money, the phrase I heard that he built Bristol might have a wrong meaning due to Bristol already being there, but It was a reply to the statue was errected specifically to remind black people that they were once slaves.

Yes. The anti-BLM protesters did cause problems (100+ arrests) and they did injure policemen. They threw bottles, smoke grenades and flares at them. One was also arrested for urinating next to a memorial statue. Even the PM called it "racist thuggery". They were also "protecting" against something that had been called off.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53031072

They went for a gherkin up, a laugh and a scrap IMO.

I don't scoff at the idea at being proud to be British - when there are things to be proud of! I guess really, I ask what are you proud about? I think blind patriotism is dangerous.

BBC. That doesn't mean the BBC is left-wing. The reporter was not suspended either. She asked for the night off following the uproar her rant and subsequent telling off caused. For every Maitlis, there is a Kuenssberg (who has been judged to have broken BBC guidelines by the BBC Trust)

Universities - What sources? What societal standing? I'll go with my own experience and experience of those I know over vague accusations.

Colston - you read the history of it yet? It doesn't matter what you were responding to (which if it was that, was also incorrect). Responding to a false claim with a false claim just makes things worse.

Seriously, widen your news sources. You sound like you are stuck in a right-wing echo chamber. It's easily done, obviously my views are to the left, but I try to read around a bit.

This website is also dead handy for checking the bigger news items/politician statements: https://fullfact.org/

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote: Before we get on to what you are insinuating there, let's first clear up a few things in other posts that you've made. Specifically thisthrowing around of the word "Harpist"like a label to slap on everything with the intention of instantly discrediting it. To be honest, whenever someone does something like that (and I mean in terms of just slapping any label on something to just discredit) it usually indicates the person is either ignorant of what they are talking about, or just using a brain washed group chant.

Karl Marx is not the same thing as the Soviet Union or any other authoritarian Communist government. Karl Marx was a journalist, a philosopher, an educated individual - he was not a tyrant, or a leader, or person who assume any kind of power either politically or in business.

Karl Marx wasn't Hitler, or Stalin, or even Colston.

He wrote a book that has had great influence, and that book inspired a lot of people - especially around the time of the first world war when the great global powers fought a meaningless war in which they used their working class as disposable people to charge at machine gun fire. The first world war taught the working class of their countries that their leaders did not care for them and that's why the period after the first world war the politics of Europe fundamentally changed and it is why Karl Marx's writings suddenly spoke even louder than ever before.

The collapse of the Russian Tsar to the Russian people was the most monumental of these political shifts. The debate about whether or not (small c) communism can ever work as a system of government is a debate not relevant to this thread - but it was certainly not possible 100 years ago as the technical infrastructure to organise it did not exist, let alone in the ashes of a corrupt monarchy and a country that had just pulled out of a bloody war.Soviet (big C) Communism was inevitable.

And it's that (big C) that's important. Because Soviet Communism was not (small c) communism. This very neatly ties into the next dot in the points being raised by you (and others) and that's George Orwell and 1984. We'll get on to the relevance of 1984 in a second - but let's start with George Orwell, and particularly his other famous book - Animal Farm.

For anyone who doesn't know of Animal Farm it's an allegory of the Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union up until the end of the second world war. Animals overthrow the farm and run the farm themselves, with a series of rules to ensure the animals are equal, they assign roles based on what each animal is best at - with the pigs taking over the management of the farm - and by the end of the book the other animals look in at a meeting between the pigs and the farmers from the other farms and they can't tell who is a pig and who is a human.

The point of the book is that Soviet Union ended up exactly how it started, it ended up with the poor being trodden on and a political elite. The rules to ensure equality between the animals got modified throughout the pigs rules until they were back where they started. The book is not an indictment of (small c) communism, it's saying that Soviet Communism isn't communism - and also probably saying that true communism can never exist in practice as it will inevitable return to the original status quo.

As a result, it is also certainly not some glowing endorsement of capitalism either, as the very unhappy ending of the book is that that is the state in which the farm ends up.

And here isthe key detail about George Orwell - and that is that he was openly a socialist, and secretly (at the time) a communist. MI5 had 20 years of records on his activities including witness account of him visiting secret communist meetings. Why were those meetings secret? Because those in power viewed communism as a huge threat to their position - especially in the wake of the Russian Revolution. But more importantly because socialist, and communism, systems of government heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, invariably threaten the power and influence of the very wealthy. The wealth to have any form of social welfare can only come from one place after all.

Chicism, socialism, and (small c) communism are not 'threats to the free world' - in fact quite the opposite. People of a conservative nature are the first to start crying when they get criticised for telling a racist joke claiming 'their free speech' is being violated, yet some how want to ban the open discussion of an entire economic and political model by labelling anything that smells vaguely like it as 'Harpist' - and that's the thing. In a free society, people are free to be 'Harpist if they want;.For one thing, Chicism covers a huge range of the political spectrum, but one of the consequences of the cold war is that the world communism - and by extension Karl Marx - became a dirty word that generations of people became indoctrinated to just close their ears or stop readings and just go "blah blah blah Harpist blah blah blah I can't hear you blah blah blah"

Whether or not (small c) communism can work in practice or not is also irrelevant. I personally think it's unlikely to actually ever work due to the fact you will always be moving from an unequal starting place where people have been conditioned to think a certain way since the dawn of human history. For example, the British tax payer was still paying back the loans the government took out to reimburse slave traders until 2015 - any 'communist' transition would invariably carry similar paybacks to people or companies losing out as a consequence, and these scars would remain.

If someone wants to advocate moving to a communist, socialist or whatever 'Harpist' system they want - they are free to talk about, advocate, set up movements to promote it, even free to assemble and protest. These are all things that a free society requires. They also require free and fair elections - and this is something that the UK and USA in particular (out of the western countries) have systematic problems with (I am talking about the fact that the first past the post system produces unrepresentative governments, and gerrymandering is also problematic which makes the FPTP system even less representational - but a discussion of this would be wildly off topic)

Let's get on to this most recent comment. 1984 and the changing of 'white statues' into 'black statues' - which what seems like a deliberate insinuation by you that this is some attempt to rewrite British history to be black people than white people, or something along those lines. If I have inferred incorrectly, please spell out unambiguously what you mean, because given your narrative in the thread so far, this would seem the only possible interpretation of what you are saying.

Before we even begin to unpack that 1984 quote, and just treat it at the very basic level and how it is being presented in the thread. The quote is about rewriting history by changing the monuments.

In the real world - with the confederate statues in America and the Colston statue (and others) in Britain - that moment happened when those statues were erected.

Colston's statue, and the Confederate statues, were put up long after their events, as authoritarian measures to control the population.

A leading history academic explained the history behind the Colston statue and it has been twice linked to in this thread - both in response to posts by you - and the fact you are continuing down this line suggests you have not taken the time to read it. Most of the confederate statues were erected in the 20th century as a way of the white elite in those cities attempting to assert dominance over minority communities.

To get on to your specific quote - about replacing the Colston statue (and other slavers) with statues of black people. This would be to replace them with statues either representing the slaves that who suffered under their actions, or particular slaves who symbolised part of the wider issue. This is absolutely not - in any way - rewriting history - the biggest comment I have seen by those speaking out against the removal of the statues is that people need the statues to learn about history.

While I am skeptical that anyone 'learns history' from a statue, let's assume that some do. If they see a statue of a slave trader that makes no reference to his involvement in the slave tradeand only mentions the 'philanthropy' he did (which if you read the history of the Colston statue by the professor of history, you will know it was anything but philanthropy) then people are not actually learning anything. They are actually being misinformed. If the purpose of the statue (as people are claiming) is to not 'hide from our past' - then it should unambiguously tell that past we are not hiding from. A heroic statue of a man communicates only one message: 'this man was was a great man' - a statue that highlights the suffering that that man's actions caused - on the other hand - tells the story that we shouldn't shy away from learning about.

But about that 1984 quote specifically - it's talking about governments rewriting history so they constantly seem good. And that's EXACTLY WHAT THE GLORIFICATION OF BRITAIN'S COLONIAL HISTORY IS. The whole angle of framing the 18th century to the second world war period of Britain as being that time of greatness and hiding all of the atrocities committed during that time is to perpetuate a false sense of glory. Populist governments use a nation's identity as a brand and that brand cannot be tarnished. It's nationalism, not patriotism. True patriotism is being proud of the good your country does but recognising there are ways that it can improve and do better and admitting the wrongs it has committed.

Right I will try to address this now even though it's a bit beyond my pay grade.

In terms of labelling people the BBC were not slow to label anyone tying to stop the BLM protestors from vandalism as right wing faschists, it's strange how some of these faschists came back the next day to help clear up the rubbish left by the protestors, such a noble cause somewhat stops short when it comes to mass littering.

I descredit Chicism because it's never worked for the common man, you don't like the word being thrown about whilst it appears you think the system could work so maybe it's part of your belief system?

Over the years I've never been poltical, I've yo-yoed between labour and conservative, but I easily recognised that Corbyn was a Harpist and having seen how the people of other countries have suffered under such ideologies, no way was I going to vote for him.

Karl Marx might have had his heart in the right place but his ideologies when put into practice did not work, presently would you want to be a Chinese citicizen?

Fair play to him for looking to stand up for the working class who were thrown into wars like lambs to the slaughters, if I had been born just over a 100 years ago I would have been one of those but today am I classed as white privilege who has to take a knee and apologise for my whiteness, I ask because i'm so confused?

In respect to the statues the Rhodes statue at Oxford is mooted to be replaced by the first black graduate who I believed came from South Africa on a Rhodes scholarship scheme, does that not mean he was sponsored by Rhodes himself?

With Coulston he's the man who built Bristol so why wouldn't he have a statue there, but your premise is that it was put there to remind black people they were once slaves. I'd like to know the political persuasion of the historian, perhaps a left wing British empire hater?

Or maybe just a white man telling black people how they should think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhNF9GUoN0

The woke young middle class graduates who think they have to apologise for their white privilige, well they certainly are priviliged but not all of us are, they are taught to feel guilt by the left wing teachers and lectureres many of which are not proud to be British.

One such Oxford lecturer after hearing that the University might be close to a covid vaccine hoped they would fail because she didn't want the country to be lauded for being the first to do so, a pure hater of her own country.

Going forward if Labour get back into power they plan to drop the voting age from 18 down to 16 so school children can vote who are at the same time are being indoctrinated by left wing teachers, it's already going to happen in the labour strong hold of Wales for the next election.

I throw the Harpist word around well I've become woke myself, it's in the BLM, the Labour party, the media in particular the BBC which is supposed to be nuetral, there's a campaign to defund the BBC, the schools and universities and even the police force at the highest level has become a social police force lead by university graduates, Blair's Labour party stopped the police recruiting form the services.

BLM is a just cause in it's goals of creating equal opportunities but it's been infiltrated by political activists.

Wow. What a load of bull.

I don't know why I'm bothering engaging, you have refused to acknowledge any questions asked of you and ignored earlier attempts at getting you to back up your assertions.

BBC: Care to prove they referred to the anti-BLM protesters as fascists? You also have conveniently ignore the trouble they directly caused.

Also on the BBC. You think its left-wing? Are you having a laugh. They employ Andrew Neil, Laura Keunsberg(sp?) And give Nigel Farage a platform on everything. My opinion on it is simple, if both the left and right think its biased against them, it's probably somewhere in the middle.

"Proud to be British" - you have to be kidding right? You think that no matter what we do as a country we should be proud? Are you proud of the way the Government handled Brexit? The appalling treatment of those affected by the Windrush scandal? The way we've handled Covid-19? The absolute state of the beaches this week? I could go on. We have fallen a long way as a country. Or is it more of a yearning back to our colonial past - like that's something to be proud of.

Colston. You have ignored his history. He did not "build" Bristol. He was a slaver and the money he gave out came with some pretty huge caveats. He was also nowhere near the biggest giver at the time. I've previously given you links to an actual historian's account on this (her political persuasion doesn't change the facts). So much for the disdain of "removing history", when you can't be bothered to engage with it. I'm fairly sure government cuts will have more of an impact in the failure to reach our history (struggling museums and 700 fewer libraries than 10 years ago).

Universities - I think you are inferring that they are places where the young are indoctrinated into left-wing beliefs. Have you ever stepped foot in one? Please given sources (actual sources, not nonsense opinion pieces) for the nonsense you are spouting about them. Universities are not perfect, but the UK has one of the best education systems in the world (90 out of the top 1000 in the world are British, something to actually be proud of!).

Did the anti BLM protestors, your label, loot, set fire to buildings and put dozens of police officers in hospital, what trouble did they cause exactly?

I don't know of your affiliations but you seem to scoff at the idea of being proud to be British?

The BBC news piece I wouldn't know were to start to look but given another poster said that some right wing faschists were involved then were else would I get that notion, I would guess we wouldn't acknowledge that Grouchos were amongst the BLM protestors after all the BBC didn't report that.

Maybe things I read are false or biased but I do know that a BBC presenter was suspended for a few days after attacking Dominic Cummings because she went outside the remit of the BBC charter of unbiased reporting, even then it took numerous complaints otherwise it seemed the BBC overloads would have been fine with it, then a week later we had the illegal protests which went far beyond what Cummings did and they were fine with that as well.

With the Universities again maybe the several diifferent places I read such things are also either false are biased, they seem quite credible given their status in society so who do you believe?

With Colston I said it's normal for a person to get some kind of accredation for generous donations of money, the phrase I heard that he built Bristol might have a wrong meaning due to Bristol already being there, but It was a reply to the statue was errected specifically to remind black people that they were once slaves.

Yes. The anti-BLM protesters did cause problems (100+ arrests) and they did injure policemen. They threw bottles, smoke grenades and flares at them. One was also arrested for urinating next to a memorial statue. Even the PM called it "racist thuggery". They were also "protecting" against something that had been called off.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53031072

They went for a gherkin up, a laugh and a scrap IMO.

I don't scoff at the idea at being proud to be British - when there are things to be proud of! I guess really, I ask what are you proud about? I think blind patriotism is dangerous.

BBC. That doesn't mean the BBC is left-wing. The reporter was not suspended either. She asked for the night off following the uproar her rant and subsequent telling off caused. For every Maitlis, there is a Kuenssberg (who has been judged to have broken BBC guidelines by the BBC Trust)

Universities - What sources? What societal standing? I'll go with my own experience and experience of those I know over vague accusations.

Colston - you read the history of it yet? It doesn't matter what you were responding to (which if it was that, was also incorrect). Responding to a false claim with a false claim just makes things worse.

Seriously, widen your news sources. You sound like you are stuck in a right-wing echo chamber. It's easily done, obviously my views are to the left, but I try to read around a bit.

This website is also dead handy for checking the bigger news items/politician statements: https://fullfact.org/

It's unfortunate you use a BBC news outlet, peaceful anti racist protests as opposed to violent right wing protestors, 6 officers had minor injuries and 100 arrests were made as let's call them right wing protestors were dealt with by the riot police.

With the anti rascist protestors, dozens of police officers have been injured many with broken bones in the supposed peaceful protests, protests in which the police have not neen able to protect themselves.

Fair play that you're open about your left wing leanings, with that in mind what do you think of the BLM manifesto?

i'd hope all lives matter - no ethnicity or gender involved - any suggestion that one life is more important than another is abhorrent to me

i hope that the BLM movement gets positive results where there has not been equity - and makes us view our past with a new lens

pokerman wrote:

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote: Right I will try to address this now even though it's a bit beyond my pay grade.

In terms of labelling people the BBC were not slow to label anyone tying to stop the BLM protestors from vandalism as right wing faschists, it's strange how some of these faschists came back the next day to help clear up the rubbish left by the protestors, such a noble cause somewhat stops short when it comes to mass littering.

I descredit Chicism because it's never worked for the common man, you don't like the word being thrown about whilst it appears you think the system could work so maybe it's part of your belief system?

Over the years I've never been poltical, I've yo-yoed between labour and conservative, but I easily recognised that Corbyn was a Harpist and having seen how the people of other countries have suffered under such ideologies, no way was I going to vote for him.

Karl Marx might have had his heart in the right place but his ideologies when put into practice did not work, presently would you want to be a Chinese citicizen?

Fair play to him for looking to stand up for the working class who were thrown into wars like lambs to the slaughters, if I had been born just over a 100 years ago I would have been one of those but today am I classed as white privilege who has to take a knee and apologise for my whiteness, I ask because i'm so confused?

In respect to the statues the Rhodes statue at Oxford is mooted to be replaced by the first black graduate who I believed came from South Africa on a Rhodes scholarship scheme, does that not mean he was sponsored by Rhodes himself?

With Coulston he's the man who built Bristol so why wouldn't he have a statue there, but your premise is that it was put there to remind black people they were once slaves. I'd like to know the political persuasion of the historian, perhaps a left wing British empire hater?

Or maybe just a white man telling black people how they should think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhNF9GUoN0

The woke young middle class graduates who think they have to apologise for their white privilige, well they certainly are priviliged but not all of us are, they are taught to feel guilt by the left wing teachers and lectureres many of which are not proud to be British.

One such Oxford lecturer after hearing that the University might be close to a covid vaccine hoped they would fail because she didn't want the country to be lauded for being the first to do so, a pure hater of her own country.

Going forward if Labour get back into power they plan to drop the voting age from 18 down to 16 so school children can vote who are at the same time are being indoctrinated by left wing teachers, it's already going to happen in the labour strong hold of Wales for the next election.

I throw the Harpist word around well I've become woke myself, it's in the BLM, the Labour party, the media in particular the BBC which is supposed to be nuetral, there's a campaign to defund the BBC, the schools and universities and even the police force at the highest level has become a social police force lead by university graduates, Blair's Labour party stopped the police recruiting form the services.

BLM is a just cause in it's goals of creating equal opportunities but it's been infiltrated by political activists.

Wow. What a load of bull.

I don't know why I'm bothering engaging, you have refused to acknowledge any questions asked of you and ignored earlier attempts at getting you to back up your assertions.

BBC: Care to prove they referred to the anti-BLM protesters as fascists? You also have conveniently ignore the trouble they directly caused.

Also on the BBC. You think its left-wing? Are you having a laugh. They employ Andrew Neil, Laura Keunsberg(sp?) And give Nigel Farage a platform on everything. My opinion on it is simple, if both the left and right think its biased against them, it's probably somewhere in the middle.

"Proud to be British" - you have to be kidding right? You think that no matter what we do as a country we should be proud? Are you proud of the way the Government handled Brexit? The appalling treatment of those affected by the Windrush scandal? The way we've handled Covid-19? The absolute state of the beaches this week? I could go on. We have fallen a long way as a country. Or is it more of a yearning back to our colonial past - like that's something to be proud of.

Colston. You have ignored his history. He did not "build" Bristol. He was a slaver and the money he gave out came with some pretty huge caveats. He was also nowhere near the biggest giver at the time. I've previously given you links to an actual historian's account on this (her political persuasion doesn't change the facts). So much for the disdain of "removing history", when you can't be bothered to engage with it. I'm fairly sure government cuts will have more of an impact in the failure to reach our history (struggling museums and 700 fewer libraries than 10 years ago).

Universities - I think you are inferring that they are places where the young are indoctrinated into left-wing beliefs. Have you ever stepped foot in one? Please given sources (actual sources, not nonsense opinion pieces) for the nonsense you are spouting about them. Universities are not perfect, but the UK has one of the best education systems in the world (90 out of the top 1000 in the world are British, something to actually be proud of!).

Did the anti BLM protestors, your label, loot, set fire to buildings and put dozens of police officers in hospital, what trouble did they cause exactly?

I don't know of your affiliations but you seem to scoff at the idea of being proud to be British?

The BBC news piece I wouldn't know were to start to look but given another poster said that some right wing faschists were involved then were else would I get that notion, I would guess we wouldn't acknowledge that Grouchos were amongst the BLM protestors after all the BBC didn't report that.

Maybe things I read are false or biased but I do know that a BBC presenter was suspended for a few days after attacking Dominic Cummings because she went outside the remit of the BBC charter of unbiased reporting, even then it took numerous complaints otherwise it seemed the BBC overloads would have been fine with it, then a week later we had the illegal protests which went far beyond what Cummings did and they were fine with that as well.

With the Universities again maybe the several diifferent places I read such things are also either false are biased, they seem quite credible given their status in society so who do you believe?

With Colston I said it's normal for a person to get some kind of accredation for generous donations of money, the phrase I heard that he built Bristol might have a wrong meaning due to Bristol already being there, but It was a reply to the statue was errected specifically to remind black people that they were once slaves.

Yes. The anti-BLM protesters did cause problems (100+ arrests) and they did injure policemen. They threw bottles, smoke grenades and flares at them. One was also arrested for urinating next to a memorial statue. Even the PM called it "racist thuggery". They were also "protecting" against something that had been called off.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53031072

They went for a gherkin up, a laugh and a scrap IMO.

I don't scoff at the idea at being proud to be British - when there are things to be proud of! I guess really, I ask what are you proud about? I think blind patriotism is dangerous.

BBC. That doesn't mean the BBC is left-wing. The reporter was not suspended either. She asked for the night off following the uproar her rant and subsequent telling off caused. For every Maitlis, there is a Kuenssberg (who has been judged to have broken BBC guidelines by the BBC Trust)

Universities - What sources? What societal standing? I'll go with my own experience and experience of those I know over vague accusations.

Colston - you read the history of it yet? It doesn't matter what you were responding to (which if it was that, was also incorrect). Responding to a false claim with a false claim just makes things worse.

Seriously, widen your news sources. You sound like you are stuck in a right-wing echo chamber. It's easily done, obviously my views are to the left, but I try to read around a bit.

This website is also dead handy for checking the bigger news items/politician statements: https://fullfact.org/

It's unfortunate you use a BBC news outlet, peaceful anti racist protests as opposed to violent right wing protestors, 6 officers had minor injuries and 100 arrests were made as let's call them right wing protestors were dealt with by the riot police.

With the anti rascist protestors, dozens of police officers have been injured many with broken bones in the supposed peaceful protests, protests in which the police have not neen able to protect themselves.

Fair play that you're open about your left wing leanings, with that in mind what do you think of the BLM manifesto?

Why is it unfortunate? You absolutely fail to back up your accusations of bias - so I'll keep using then as a reliable source.
But regardless, the demonstrations were covered by many news outlets. Here's a selection for you:


https://www.thenational.scot/news/18515 ... nstration/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... sters.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... churchill/

BLM don't have a manifesto that I've seen (feel free to share if you have seen one!), but I'm all on board with what they believe. I'd be interested in what you disagree with it.

To avoid doubt, this is the relevant page on their website. You'll notice the words "non-violent" are in there, but that probably disagree with your opinion on what they do.

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

What parts do you disagree with?

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Herb wrote:
Wow. What a load of bull.

I don't know why I'm bothering engaging, you have refused to acknowledge any questions asked of you and ignored earlier attempts at getting you to back up your assertions.

BBC: Care to prove they referred to the anti-BLM protesters as fascists? You also have conveniently ignore the trouble they directly caused.

Also on the BBC. You think its left-wing? Are you having a laugh. They employ Andrew Neil, Laura Keunsberg(sp?) And give Nigel Farage a platform on everything. My opinion on it is simple, if both the left and right think its biased against them, it's probably somewhere in the middle.

"Proud to be British" - you have to be kidding right? You think that no matter what we do as a country we should be proud? Are you proud of the way the Government handled Brexit? The appalling treatment of those affected by the Windrush scandal? The way we've handled Covid-19? The absolute state of the beaches this week? I could go on. We have fallen a long way as a country. Or is it more of a yearning back to our colonial past - like that's something to be proud of.

Colston. You have ignored his history. He did not "build" Bristol. He was a slaver and the money he gave out came with some pretty huge caveats. He was also nowhere near the biggest giver at the time. I've previously given you links to an actual historian's account on this (her political persuasion doesn't change the facts). So much for the disdain of "removing history", when you can't be bothered to engage with it. I'm fairly sure government cuts will have more of an impact in the failure to reach our history (struggling museums and 700 fewer libraries than 10 years ago).

Universities - I think you are inferring that they are places where the young are indoctrinated into left-wing beliefs. Have you ever stepped foot in one? Please given sources (actual sources, not nonsense opinion pieces) for the nonsense you are spouting about them. Universities are not perfect, but the UK has one of the best education systems in the world (90 out of the top 1000 in the world are British, something to actually be proud of!).

Did the anti BLM protestors, your label, loot, set fire to buildings and put dozens of police officers in hospital, what trouble did they cause exactly?

I don't know of your affiliations but you seem to scoff at the idea of being proud to be British?

The BBC news piece I wouldn't know were to start to look but given another poster said that some right wing faschists were involved then were else would I get that notion, I would guess we wouldn't acknowledge that Grouchos were amongst the BLM protestors after all the BBC didn't report that.

Maybe things I read are false or biased but I do know that a BBC presenter was suspended for a few days after attacking Dominic Cummings because she went outside the remit of the BBC charter of unbiased reporting, even then it took numerous complaints otherwise it seemed the BBC overloads would have been fine with it, then a week later we had the illegal protests which went far beyond what Cummings did and they were fine with that as well.

With the Universities again maybe the several diifferent places I read such things are also either false are biased, they seem quite credible given their status in society so who do you believe?

With Colston I said it's normal for a person to get some kind of accredation for generous donations of money, the phrase I heard that he built Bristol might have a wrong meaning due to Bristol already being there, but It was a reply to the statue was errected specifically to remind black people that they were once slaves.

Yes. The anti-BLM protesters did cause problems (100+ arrests) and they did injure policemen. They threw bottles, smoke grenades and flares at them. One was also arrested for urinating next to a memorial statue. Even the PM called it "racist thuggery". They were also "protecting" against something that had been called off.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53031072

They went for a gherkin up, a laugh and a scrap IMO.

I don't scoff at the idea at being proud to be British - when there are things to be proud of! I guess really, I ask what are you proud about? I think blind patriotism is dangerous.

BBC. That doesn't mean the BBC is left-wing. The reporter was not suspended either. She asked for the night off following the uproar her rant and subsequent telling off caused. For every Maitlis, there is a Kuenssberg (who has been judged to have broken BBC guidelines by the BBC Trust)

Universities - What sources? What societal standing? I'll go with my own experience and experience of those I know over vague accusations.

Colston - you read the history of it yet? It doesn't matter what you were responding to (which if it was that, was also incorrect). Responding to a false claim with a false claim just makes things worse.

Seriously, widen your news sources. You sound like you are stuck in a right-wing echo chamber. It's easily done, obviously my views are to the left, but I try to read around a bit.

This website is also dead handy for checking the bigger news items/politician statements: https://fullfact.org/

It's unfortunate you use a BBC news outlet, peaceful anti racist protests as opposed to violent right wing protestors, 6 officers had minor injuries and 100 arrests were made as let's call them right wing protestors were dealt with by the riot police.

With the anti rascist protestors, dozens of police officers have been injured many with broken bones in the supposed peaceful protests, protests in which the police have not neen able to protect themselves.

Fair play that you're open about your left wing leanings, with that in mind what do you think of the BLM manifesto?

Why is it unfortunate? You absolutely fail to back up your accusations of bias - so I'll keep using then as a reliable source.
But regardless, the demonstrations were covered by many news outlets. Here's a selection for you:


https://www.thenational.scot/news/18515 ... nstration/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... sters.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... churchill/

BLM don't have a manifesto that I've seen (feel free to share if you have seen one!), but I'm all on board with what they believe. I'd be interested in what you disagree with it.

To avoid doubt, this is the relevant page on their website. You'll notice the words "non-violent" are in there, but that probably disagree with your opinion on what they do.

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

What parts do you disagree with?

Have you seen the anti semitic stuff UKBLM has been tweeting out today? https://twitter.com/ukblm

mikeyg123 wrote:

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote: Did the anti BLM protestors, your label, loot, set fire to buildings and put dozens of police officers in hospital, what trouble did they cause exactly?

I don't know of your affiliations but you seem to scoff at the idea of being proud to be British?

The BBC news piece I wouldn't know were to start to look but given another poster said that some right wing faschists were involved then were else would I get that notion, I would guess we wouldn't acknowledge that Grouchos were amongst the BLM protestors after all the BBC didn't report that.

Maybe things I read are false or biased but I do know that a BBC presenter was suspended for a few days after attacking Dominic Cummings because she went outside the remit of the BBC charter of unbiased reporting, even then it took numerous complaints otherwise it seemed the BBC overloads would have been fine with it, then a week later we had the illegal protests which went far beyond what Cummings did and they were fine with that as well.

With the Universities again maybe the several diifferent places I read such things are also either false are biased, they seem quite credible given their status in society so who do you believe?

With Colston I said it's normal for a person to get some kind of accredation for generous donations of money, the phrase I heard that he built Bristol might have a wrong meaning due to Bristol already being there, but It was a reply to the statue was errected specifically to remind black people that they were once slaves.

Yes. The anti-BLM protesters did cause problems (100+ arrests) and they did injure policemen. They threw bottles, smoke grenades and flares at them. One was also arrested for urinating next to a memorial statue. Even the PM called it "racist thuggery". They were also "protecting" against something that had been called off.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53031072

They went for a gherkin up, a laugh and a scrap IMO.

I don't scoff at the idea at being proud to be British - when there are things to be proud of! I guess really, I ask what are you proud about? I think blind patriotism is dangerous.

BBC. That doesn't mean the BBC is left-wing. The reporter was not suspended either. She asked for the night off following the uproar her rant and subsequent telling off caused. For every Maitlis, there is a Kuenssberg (who has been judged to have broken BBC guidelines by the BBC Trust)

Universities - What sources? What societal standing? I'll go with my own experience and experience of those I know over vague accusations.

Colston - you read the history of it yet? It doesn't matter what you were responding to (which if it was that, was also incorrect). Responding to a false claim with a false claim just makes things worse.

Seriously, widen your news sources. You sound like you are stuck in a right-wing echo chamber. It's easily done, obviously my views are to the left, but I try to read around a bit.

This website is also dead handy for checking the bigger news items/politician statements: https://fullfact.org/

It's unfortunate you use a BBC news outlet, peaceful anti racist protests as opposed to violent right wing protestors, 6 officers had minor injuries and 100 arrests were made as let's call them right wing protestors were dealt with by the riot police.

With the anti rascist protestors, dozens of police officers have been injured many with broken bones in the supposed peaceful protests, protests in which the police have not neen able to protect themselves.

Fair play that you're open about your left wing leanings, with that in mind what do you think of the BLM manifesto?

Why is it unfortunate? You absolutely fail to back up your accusations of bias - so I'll keep using then as a reliable source.
But regardless, the demonstrations were covered by many news outlets. Here's a selection for you:


https://www.thenational.scot/news/18515 ... nstration/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... sters.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... churchill/

BLM don't have a manifesto that I've seen (feel free to share if you have seen one!), but I'm all on board with what they believe. I'd be interested in what you disagree with it.

To avoid doubt, this is the relevant page on their website. You'll notice the words "non-violent" are in there, but that probably disagree with your opinion on what they do.

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

What parts do you disagree with?

Have you seen the anti semitic stuff UKBLM has been tweeting out today? https://twitter.com/ukblm

Can you highlight with links to some specific tweets please, because I can only see tweets in support of Palestine and criticising Israel over annexing the West Bank - a divisive topic for sure, but criticism of the Israeli state is not antisemitism. The two can often get conflated, but there is a nuance in the language and criticism of Israel by itself is not semitic. By itself, just being on Palestine's side is not antisemitic.

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:

Herb wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Herb wrote:
Yes. The anti-BLM protesters did cause problems (100+ arrests) and they did injure policemen. They threw bottles, smoke grenades and flares at them. One was also arrested for urinating next to a memorial statue. Even the PM called it "racist thuggery". They were also "protecting" against something that had been called off.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53031072

They went for a gherkin up, a laugh and a scrap IMO.

I don't scoff at the idea at being proud to be British - when there are things to be proud of! I guess really, I ask what are you proud about? I think blind patriotism is dangerous.

BBC. That doesn't mean the BBC is left-wing. The reporter was not suspended either. She asked for the night off following the uproar her rant and subsequent telling off caused. For every Maitlis, there is a Kuenssberg (who has been judged to have broken BBC guidelines by the BBC Trust)

Universities - What sources? What societal standing? I'll go with my own experience and experience of those I know over vague accusations.

Colston - you read the history of it yet? It doesn't matter what you were responding to (which if it was that, was also incorrect). Responding to a false claim with a false claim just makes things worse.

Seriously, widen your news sources. You sound like you are stuck in a right-wing echo chamber. It's easily done, obviously my views are to the left, but I try to read around a bit.

This website is also dead handy for checking the bigger news items/politician statements: https://fullfact.org/

It's unfortunate you use a BBC news outlet, peaceful anti racist protests as opposed to violent right wing protestors, 6 officers had minor injuries and 100 arrests were made as let's call them right wing protestors were dealt with by the riot police.

With the anti rascist protestors, dozens of police officers have been injured many with broken bones in the supposed peaceful protests, protests in which the police have not neen able to protect themselves.

Fair play that you're open about your left wing leanings, with that in mind what do you think of the BLM manifesto?

Why is it unfortunate? You absolutely fail to back up your accusations of bias - so I'll keep using then as a reliable source.
But regardless, the demonstrations were covered by many news outlets. Here's a selection for you:


https://www.thenational.scot/news/18515 ... nstration/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... sters.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... churchill/

BLM don't have a manifesto that I've seen (feel free to share if you have seen one!), but I'm all on board with what they believe. I'd be interested in what you disagree with it.

To avoid doubt, this is the relevant page on their website. You'll notice the words "non-violent" are in there, but that probably disagree with your opinion on what they do.

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

What parts do you disagree with?

Have you seen the anti semitic stuff UKBLM has been tweeting out today? https://twitter.com/ukblm

Can you highlight with links to some specific tweets please, because I can only see tweets in support of Palestine and criticising Israel over annexing the West Bank - a divisive topic for sure, but criticism of the Israeli state is not antisemitism. The two can often get conflated, but there is a nuance in the language and criticism of Israel by itself is not semitic. By itself, just being on Palestine's side is not antisemitic.

Completely agreed, although perhaps UKBLM should remember that jews were enslaved in Africa for 400 years and found sanctuary in Israel but anyway - https://twitter.com/ukblm/status/1277177624884850689

Saying that British politics is gagged of the right to critique zionism is clearly playing on the antisemitic, stereotypical trope of an all powerful jewish establishment puppet master pulling all the strings.

It's clearly racist.

mikeyg123 wrote:https://twitter.com/ukblm/status/1277177624884850689

Saying that British politics is gagged of the right to critique zionism is clearly playing on the antisemitic, stereotypical trope of an all powerful jewish establishment puppet master pulling all the strings.

It's clearly racist.

Agreed -- there's plenty of (valid) ways to criticize the government for not standing up to Isreal without invoking a Zionist conspiracy.

In the USA at least, I would wholeheartedly agree that the government always takes Isreal's side even when they're in the wrong. It's all about money and imperialism though, nothing to do with Zionism.