EU referendum are you in or out

[tufty]

That's - peculiar.

[gilesgoat]

That's - peculiar.

I am reading stuff about Churchill on Wikipedia .. interesting .. which poses a question "by extension" then .. what about anyone with "imperialist" ideas ?

.. I can see so many statues that should be taken down then ...

[tufty]

Britain has an imperial past, and tearing down statues willy-nilly seems stupid. Far better to use them to explain history than to pretend the people they represent never existed. But then I say that from a position of white privilege.

Churchill, as a case in point, wasn't famous because he was a racist. His statues weren't put up because he stomped down the darkies. He was famous because he (with the aid of Roosevelt, Stalin and De Gaulle, amongst others) beat off Hitler's troops, which kept them all busy for the better part of 5 years. Stop sniggering in the back there. Yes, I'm looking at you, Liddon. Sit up straight, boy!

That statue in Bristol, however - he was, as I understand it, famous for being a slave trader and bringing in a lot of money to the town. I don't see a lot of justification for that staying up, to be honest.

So yeah. Meh.

[gilesgoat]

Britain has an imperial past, and tearing down statues willy-nilly seems stupid. Far better to use them to explain history than to pretend the people they represent never existed. But then I say that from a position of white privilege.

Churchill, as a case in point, wasn't famous because he was a racist. His statues weren't put up because he stomped down the darkies. He was famous because he (with the aid of Roosevelt, Stalin and De Gaulle, amongst others) beat off Hitler's troops, which kept them all busy for the better part of 5 years. Stop sniggering in the back there. Yes, I'm looking at you, Liddon. Sit up straight, boy!

That statue in Bristol, however - he was, as I understand it, famous for being a slave trader and bringing in a lot of money to the town. I don't see a lot of justification for that staying up, to be honest.

So yeah. Meh.

What I mean is "if you start digging into the past" you'll find fuckload of shit .. shit that today is certainly seen different than how it was in its times and context .. and that even "famous characters that done famous things" can have their own dark past.

Sure I don't know if it's more dangerous to have "a bad past" and be able to have a look at it, discuss it, compare it and say "let's not repeat some errors" rather than destroy it completely and pretend it never existed.

Like someone said "there's a bit of hero and a bit of a bad guy in each one of us" past and history is always far from perfect, you can't change that any more but we can design our future.

Anyway history also tells that "humans have tendency to go from one excess into another", when you get a point of "tearing down statues" certainly there's a point reached when "something is really wrong".

.. also when you get to the point of Brexit but that's all another story

[edit] - also to be "more clear" at some point in history, "most nations" had let's say "an imperial past" where they were trying to build/expand someway their land/resources/etc.

Which in essence in a way or another "most of the times" ended up in "conquer and grab" .. but that was THE PAST, now is "the now".

But "now" is different, "conquests" seems to be more played in "market" and "business" rather than going there with troops and say "this land is mine" ( even if it still does happen ) it's more an "economical imperialism".

Now, this would open an interesting "philosophical / social discussion".

Now .. saying in advance that I am "quite extremely contrary" to "excess capitalism" I think that seeing it as an "economic" concept or again in its original concept I think that "imperialism" is "fundamentally wrong", I belive in free commerce and free maket but I don't believe in "monopolisation" and/or "excessive expansion" where something "wants to grab all it can grab destroying all competition".

There should be a "balance of things" where "everyone is happy and no one pushes to expand into this or that".

There should be a space for everything, big and small and no one should feel is "less" or "more".

[KlaxonCow]

That statue in Bristol, however - he was, as I understand it, famous for being a slave trader and bringing in a lot of money to the town.

Yeah, Colston only got a statue because he was rich from the slave trade - and then splashed the dirty cash around Bristol "to charities which supported people aligned with his political and religious views" [Wikipedia], so even his supposed "philanthropy" had conditions attached.

He was a Tory MP - quelle surprise! - and eventually became the Deputy Governor of the Royal African Company, which held the monopoly on the English trade in African slaves.

Like, his statue is not there to commemorate some great talent nor good deed - and he just so happened to be a slave trader - but rather he was promoted to "local benefactor of Bristol" because he splashed cash on the town and local causes that he politically approved of, and all that cash came from him rising the ranks to become Deputy Governor of the slave trade monopoly and profiting handsomely from it all.

In Colston's case, I feel it's fairly cut-and-dried that the bloke was a slave trading cunt, and he only has a statue by buying Bristol's favour with his tainted cash.

And there had been letter writing campaigns, petitions and all sorts attempting to get the statue removed officially, as it's an affront to humanity itself that a slave trader gets a prominent statue in the city. But this fell on deaf ears, with nothing ever happening.

All reasonable democratic means were first attempted to get the statue removed in a civil and polite capacity, but it was ignored. So they just did it themselves.

I can't in any way bring myself to condemn them for doing so.


Though perhaps neither side - left or right - appreciate it, this image really shows "shat-upon poor man aids other shat-upon poor man, away from their common enemy of the fascist bully boys, who enforce the inherent violence underlying the system", but they get hung up on skin colour and shades of Marxism to realise they have far greater commonality than difference:

Not to remotely defend the Nazi twat, but just to explain where so many of them are coming from - emasculated working class men who increasingly have no place in the system at all, erroneously blaming "foreigners", with great irony, because it's an Australian American who surrendered his original nationality for tax purposes, who's defining their understanding of "British patriotism" on page 5, after the tits on page 3 and the "this female teenage star is 'sweet sixteen' today and, therefore, legally fuckable" on page 4, underneath a piece about how evil paedophiles are (and let's just ignore that if you ran that "sweet sixteen" story one day earlier, it would endorsing paedophilia and, come on, being bang on exactly 16 that very day might cross the legal line, in certain ways, but 24 hours does not make a moral difference to glorifying Emma Watson's legal fuckability, say, the instant that it ceases technically to be a crime).

The Marxist left / right is a false dichotomy.

Society is composed of individuals. The individual, collectively, forms society.

The singular of "society" is "the individual". The plural of "the individual" is "society".

They are one and the same thing at different levels of abstraction, and the notion of sacrificing one for the other is paradoxical.

I'm a humanist and I can't help - looking at that image - seeing the injustice wrought on the black man, the injustice wrought on the white working class man (who's a fucking idiot for being lead astray by neo-Nazi bullshit that doesn't help him. but I understand the unfair conditions that invade this man's life to dupe him into being a "useful idiot" so) and even the injustice wrought on the police officer too. They also get paid inadequately and have families to go home to.

Stop labelling these people and just look at the human being. The shocked distress of the neo-Nazi. The fear in the eyes of the black man helping him - as they say, fearlessness is not a lack of fear, it's carrying on in spite of it. In the background, a black man with determined anger. A girl struggling to process what her eyes see before her. And if we could see the faces of the police officers, they're also nervously shitting themselves too - because, truth is, they're always outnumbered and they bloody well know it.

Who wins in this situation? Do you see anyone expressing happiness or elation here? There is no justice, no peace, no victory, for anyone here.


We do it to ourselves, we do. And that's what really hurts.



Rich and poor. Black and white. Male and female. Every nationality. Every creed. Every age.

We're all on the same rocky mudball spinning through nothingness, with absolutely no-one or nothing out there to assist us in any way, and no appreciable biological differences whatsoever, in the grand scheme of things - and even if it were true, then what difference would it make to our isolated predicament anyway, even if we were a million different species? As it doesn't change the fundamental that we have to pull ourselves out of our own shit, because there's absolutely nothing and no-one out there that can do it for us. Simple as.

[Harlequin]

What I mean is "if you start digging into the past" you'll find fuckload of shit .. shit that today is certainly seen different than how it was in its times and context .. and that even "famous characters that done famous things" can have their own dark past.

Sure I don't know if it's more dangerous to have "a bad past" and be able to have a look at it, discuss it, compare it and say "let's not repeat some errors" rather than destroy it completely and pretend it never existed.

Like someone said "there's a bit of hero and a bit of a bad guy in each one of us" past and history is always far from perfect, you can't change that any more but we can design our future.
…
[edit] - also to be "more clear" at some point in history, "most nations" had let's say "an imperial past" where they were trying to build/expand someway their land/resources/etc.
…
But "now" is different, "conquests" seems to be more played in "market" and "business" rather than going there with troops and say "this land is mine" ( even if it still does happen ) it's more an "economical imperialism".

Yes, look beneath the surfaces and we all have some darkness in our pasts, both as individual humans and as countries (not to exclude, say, the black Africans who sold their slaves to white traders). If we tear down every monument to persons who did not share twenty-first century sensibilities there would be very few left standing. I think it is probably healthier to hold the past up to examination than to erase remembrance of it. Recognise that all Great People (of whatever political, religious or identity persuasions) are myths built upon flawed human beings and consider what deeds are being commemorated. If Churchill is being celebrated for getting us through a war then fair enough. The likes of that Colston statue, however, probably belong in a museum.

There is now, apparently, pressure to change school curriculums to present a more balanced picture of the past, including the nastier aspects of the British Empire and its legacy.

I think only a minority of nations have had empires. Within Europe those would include Britain, Italy and maybe France, Spain and Portugal. And then we have that middle strip of northern America which has established what I see as cultural colonisation, due not just to products and multinationals but primary its entertainment industries.

Though perhaps neither side - left or right - appreciate it, this image really shows "shat-upon poor man aids other shat-upon poor man, away from their common enemy of the fascist bully boys, who enforce the inherent violence underlying the system", but they get hung up on skin colour and shades of Marxism to realise they have far greater commonality than difference:

I am reminded of a recent exchange between Ken Loach and Spike Lee:

The long and terrible exploitation of black people lies at the heart of continuing brutal racism, not only in the US, but here as well. Christopher Logue wrote this in his poem Know Thy Enemy: “He does not care what colour you are / Provided you work for him.” How do we unite people of all races to know their real enemy?
…
But Ken, this is a great question. You gotta hold the mirror up. They gotta see what they look like, what they sound like and the hate they’re representing.

The Marxist left / right is a false dichotomy.

Society is composed of individuals. The individual, collectively, forms society.

The singular of "society" is "the individual". The plural of "the individual" is "society".

They are one and the same thing at different levels of abstraction, and the notion of sacrificing one for the other is paradoxical.

Is the difference not more one of emphasis, of how much freedom one should have to be selfish over how much one should sacrifice to help others? I happen to think, most of the time, that helping others helps to create an environment that eventually benefits myself. That is a philosophical position, however, with which many people can disagree.

[tufty]

I think only a minority of nations have had empires. Within Europe those would include Britain, Italy and maybe France, Spain and Portugal.

Plus Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Germany, and Sweden, at least.

In Europe, it's probably easier to list the non-ex-colonial powers.

[KlaxonCow]

I happen to think, most of the time, that helping others helps to create an environment that eventually benefits myself. That is a philosophical position, however, with which many people can disagree.

Indeed. And I'd go further than that.

"Selfish versus altruistic" is the real false dichotomy. If you like, this is the underlying false dichotomy upon which the rest is built.

Ever read "the Selfish Gene"?

This touches on the idea that that which looks "altruistic" - a mother animal taking on a predator to defend her young - can be re-formulated as a "selfish" act of gene preservation.

The mother sacrifices her own life for the sake of her children. Could there be a more "altruistic" act than that?

But if we switch to the gene's point of view, then it's a purely selfish act of gene preservation. The children survive, they go on to have their own children, and the genetic inheritance continues.

So which viewpoint is the correct one? And the answer to that is "yes".

Because both points of view - the altruistic sacrifice, the selfish gene preservation - are both equally true. It is both things simultaneously.

Let's take another example. A soldier fighting in a war.

Now, if that solider is fighting to defend you, then she is a "hero", as she is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to defend our way of life. The soldiers will be hailed, upon their return, with ticker tape parades and medals and honours, and great celebration.

But what to make of this very same solider when you're on the other side of her gun? How do the parents of those she's killed on the battlefield feel about our "hero"? The invading army is "the Great Satan" who brings death and destruction.

Same act. But whether it's "ultimate altruism" or "ultimate selfishness" entirely depends on what side of the gun you're standing.

How about another example? We have two doctors in the midst of an infectious disease.

One is a "bleeding heart" and rushes, with no thought of themselves, to aid their patients. They rush in where angels fear to tread, to provide assistance. But, yeah, in not looking out for themselves, they end up getting the disease - at which point, they're now useless to their patients. They're ill themselves and have to go into self-isolation and quarantine. They're "altruism" is now looking very unwise, as their impatience to help has rendered them unable to help. So this could be interpreted as them "selfishly" knocking themselves out of the picture and becoming useless to their patients.

Meanwhile, the other doctor practices some proper "emotional detachment". They're not going in to help anyone until they've got all the correct PPE to guarantee that they don't get it themselves. This could be interpreted as "selfish" as they're "looking out for number one" first, before considering anyone else. But this doctor - avoiding ever catching the disease themselves - is able to continue aiding his patients all the way through. It can also be seen as "altruistic" as they are ensuring that they remain of maximum use to the most people at all times.

The former might look, in a superficial "virtue signalling" kind of way, like the more altruistic act. But, actually, the latter - for its "emotional detachment" - proves to be the more pragmatically useful for saving the most lives (and, yes, there is a reason why doctors are trained to apply some Vulcan-like "emotional detachment" from their patients - they are simply more useful when they're calm and rational and clinical, than when they're flapping about the place being all melodramatic, even if, superficially, the one making the song and dance of their virtue might seem more "human", I'd rather have the Vulcan who stops to consider their actions every time, personally).

Hopefully, you're getting the gist of what I'm saying through these examples. That "selfish" and "altruistic" are interpretations. Points of view. Or, if you like, every single act is ultimately "selfish" from some angle.

Let's say I feed the 5000 with some fish and bread. I'm feeding the hungry - how altruistic. But, well, those fish are dead. They were living creatures. And whilst we might have less sympathy for plants, as they lack eyes and faces, the wheat was reaped, by Death's scythe, to gather up the harvest. They had lives that were cut short for our own selfish purposes.

Indeed, ultimately, there's the predicament that every single living thing on this planet in some way thrives and survives on the death of others. Plants and animals are obvious. But bacteria eats dead organic matter - that's what "rotting" is, of course - and their waste products seep into the soil as "nutrients" upon which the plants feed.

There's always this other way of looking at things.



I can both see the beauty of nature, and also recognise that, really, what I'm looking at is a vast graveyard. Layers and layers of dead organic matter - the soil - being feasted upon by unstoppable parasitic weed, known as "grass". We're evolutionarily trained to see beauty - to psychologically respond positively to all that green, which makes us feel calm - but put on your "Vulcan glasses" for a second. This is a scene of incalculable levels of "shit and death" over millions and billions of years, covering nearly every last inch of land on this fair planet of ours, and all that green stuff is feasting, like vultures, on the organic nutrients in the soil. Which all got there by living things dying and rotting, or from animals shitting all over the landscape (but what is shit? Well, it's "processed living thing", isn't it?).

Shit and death, as far as the eye can see. And what's shit but the waste product of death?

So what is it? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

The answer is "yes". Both perspectives are accurate. It is a thing of natural beauty, that can elicit awe and wonder in me. It's also just "shit and death, fed on by parasitic weed, as far as the eye can see" (which, to be fair, is also capable of eliciting awe and wonder in me too, but in a rather different way).

Adopting this duality of perspective, there are no absolutes of "selfish" and "altruistic". They are interpretations relative to some desired goal. There's always some angle that you can view the scene and see its inherent "selfishness", or conversely its "selflessness".

I'm no fan of corporate power and "free market" bullshittery, but we should also recognise that, during this pandemic, Tesco (as well as a smattering of local corner shops, one being part of the "Spar" franchise) being open has kept me alive. Sure, this is absolutely not without criticism, but their greed does allow me to eat. Dell's "greed" has given me this laptop by which I can talk with you. You get the gist - "selfish" acts can serve selfless goals and vice versa.

I'm a humanist. To me, all of us are stuck on this spinning mudball in a vast ocean of nothingness, with limited resources, and no-one's coming to save us. We have to lift ourselves up out of our own shit, as no-one and nothing out there is going to come and rescue us. It's just us humans - that's all there is - so we need to sort out a way for all of us to have a decent enough existence, while we've got one.

(Well, okay, there are the animals - though they're really not going to help us much with this problem, are they? - and maybe, somewhere out there, there are space aliens. But, well, the statistical odds of us ever meeting those space aliens are extremely low and why, of course, should we expect them to have any better handle on the futility of existence than we've got, anyway?)

And, in this view, helping others is helping ourselves. Building a better environment for all of us suits all our selfish interests.

As a humanist, I follow the philosophy of "human first" - so I don't see a black man, a neo-Nazi or a police officer, I see human beings who're all suffering different kinds of injustice in their own way (some perhaps more "worthy", you might think, than others - but, like, police work is dangerous and they don't get paid particularly well and they're not immune from the trials and tribulations of paying the mortgage, dealing with family issues, and grief from the loss of a loved one. Indeed, in a dangerous job, they might have a higher statistical probability of encountering that last one than the rest of us).

There is no "us and them". Or, if you like, "them" is a proper subset of "us". Every human being is "us". Within that, we can pick out some groups of "them" here and there. But they're still "us". Because there's no mutual exclusion there. One and the same thing, just viewed from a different angle.

[gilesgoat]

Heard on BBC4 on the radio while we were going to get that fish & chip see the other thread ( Coronavirus one ) ..

So "thanks to Brexit" we'll have to prepare for cholrinated chicken and now also OGM foods, now the thing about OGM "is not only about the food" .. it's about the SEEDS you plant to get that food.

Which LONG story made short == "you'll become slave of Monsanto and the like" == THEY will control all the food in the world or sorta.

Because if you start using that kind of stuff you end up in having some stuff "that can only be made in lab" plants that CAN NOT replicate themselves and forces you to buy shit from a super powerful multinational that has super secret patents all the world and all the only ones capable to supply what you need.

Then it'll get like in USA where you are a farmer and you CAN ONLY DO what Monsanto tells you to do cause various legal issues.

"Of course" .. now you'll get out of EU and customs and such will be in place again "it could be not so good" to make commerce with all the rest of EU again .. say welcome to "all the USA garbage they can't even sell in USA" or such .. "because of special deals" ..

.. we are certainly living times whers it's NOT nice/good to even think or look at "the future" .. there's no future ..

[merman]

This Far right thug was beaten and injured …

A very nice image. How do we know that he is far-right (or rightist at all), though, and who beat and injured him?

He was inside the barriers, he was part of the "counter-protestors" that started trouble with the police because BLM had not turned up.

And here is the added irony of the image. The white guy is a former policeman. That is precisely why BLM was protesting.

[merman]

Liam Fox can't even get the name of the WTO right.

And Britain just asked the EU for permission for border checks/passport controls in Northern Ireland.

In other words the "totally unacceptable" border down the Irish Sea that Boris Johnson repeatedly said would never happen.

[gilesgoat]

Liam Fox can't even get the name of the WTO right.

And Britain just asked the EU for permission for border checks/passport controls in Northern Ireland.

In other words the "totally unacceptable" border down the Irish Sea that Boris Johnson repeatedly said would never happen.

The more politics goes on, the more it seems like "they are all compulsive LIARS" .. ALL they "promise" they NEVER keep it and ALL the worse you can think of they could do .. ultimately is THAT happens.

Seriously "what is democracy for ?" "What is VOTING for ?" when "there's NOTHING 'safe' to vote NOTHING that will do what they said they'll do .. NOTHING that will really make it change the state of things for something 'better' " ??

You ALWAYS go for "hopefully the least of the worst" and even that logic does not work.

"Politics is dead" .. all is dead ..

[merman]

So more of "Project Fear" is becoming real.

Border checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

Chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef from the USA as part of any Trumpian trade deal - although many supermarkets are already refusing to stock such products.

And now a huge lorry-park to be built, bulldozing huge areas of Kent countryside, because of the lengthy customs checks needed at Dover.

We told you so.

[gilesgoat]

So more of "Project Fear" is becoming real.

Border checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

Chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef from the USA as part of any Trumpian trade deal - although many supermarkets are already refusing to stock such products.

And now a huge lorry-park to be built, bulldozing huge areas of Kent countryside, because of the lengthy customs checks needed at Dover.

We told you so.

.. let me know when the bombings restart ...

[KlaxonCow]

"Project Fear"

It's like the political version of "psychological projection".

These guys calling the other side "Project Fear":



Simply for pointing out that Brexit will not be some magical wonderland of rainbows and unicorns, and there will be a very real price to pay for it.

And then you've got Trump coining the term "fake news", when he's the biggest generator of bullshit there is. Trump is the definition of "fake news".

So the fear-mongers call the other side "fear-mongers", and the living embodiment of "fake news" accuses everyone else of being that.

Oh, the ironing.