# How left wing is this forum?



## Benjy1992 (Jul 5, 2019)

I'd say it's very left wing. 

Been looking round for a discussion forum that fits my political views for a while and I think I've found it. 

Thanks guys


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## 8ball (Jul 5, 2019)

It is liberal-authoritarian with pockets of Stalinism and the odd anarchist.


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## Supine (Jul 5, 2019)

Far too lefty


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## mx wcfc (Jul 5, 2019)

Bloody liberals, most of them on here.  Wouldn't back a proper Stalinist revolution if it came along.

But welcome on here!


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## Santino (Jul 5, 2019)

How left wing? I'd say about 4.


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## Puddy_Tat (Jul 5, 2019)

8ball said:


> and the odd anarchist.



and a few anarchists who aren't so odd


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## Supine (Jul 5, 2019)

Santino said:


> How left wing? I'd say about 4.



4 Marx?


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## UrbaneFox (Jul 5, 2019)

4/5


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## Puddy_Tat (Jul 5, 2019)

Supine said:


> 4 Marx?


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## not-bono-ever (Jul 6, 2019)

the anarchists have left the U75 building


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## petee (Jul 6, 2019)

it's "a bunch of triangulating, anti-american third worldists" lefty, but not proper internationalists.


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## mx wcfc (Jul 6, 2019)




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## mx wcfc (Jul 6, 2019)

Puddy_Tat said:


> and a few anarchists who aren't so odd


Benjy1992   Ignore this.  Puddy Tat is oddness personified.


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## Puddy_Tat (Jul 6, 2019)




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## Supine (Jul 6, 2019)




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## mx wcfc (Jul 6, 2019)

Puddy_Tat said:


> View attachment 176448


 Benjy1992
On a good day, we are an odd bunch of people who take the piss. On a bad day,,,,,

(but, please, hang around, it's fun)


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Jul 6, 2019)

not-bono-ever said:


> the anarchists have left the U75 building



An anarchist with an Audi is still a fuckin’ anarchist


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## Nine Bob Note (Jul 6, 2019)

I wasn't aware this place had a politcal agenda. I only come here for the sport and superlative weather forecast.


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## JudithB (Jul 6, 2019)

It's all cake sales and charity work from what I've seen


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## abstract1 (Jul 6, 2019)

JudithB said:


> It's all cake sales and charity work from what I've seen



You need to try harder JudithB


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## JudithB (Jul 6, 2019)

Oh yeah you need to ignore the casual sexism


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## Puddy_Tat (Jul 6, 2019)




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## Supine (Jul 6, 2019)

JudithB said:


> Oh yeah you need to ignore the casual sexism



LOL


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## tim (Jul 6, 2019)

not-bono-ever said:


> the anarchists have left the U75 building


They should have blown it up!


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## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 6, 2019)

I did a test entitled “who are you in 1917 russia” and it said I was an anarchist. HTH.


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## BristolEcho (Jul 6, 2019)

I came here looking for a Momentum forum, but it's not quite worked out like that.


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## Sprocket. (Jul 6, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> Bloody liberals, most of them on here.  Wouldn't back a proper Stalinist revolution if it came along.



Proponents of Factionalism are on the list.
Rounding up is in progress.


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## editor (Jul 6, 2019)

Nowhere fucking left wing enough in my book. The Brixton forum is full of gentrifiers, entrepreneurs, self satisfied home owners and sneering Blairite Tory boys. It's a bloody embarrassment.


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## Saul Goodman (Jul 6, 2019)

It's about as far left as you could expect from a load of middle-class, middle-aged, overpaid 'lefties'


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## Humberto (Jul 6, 2019)

Saul Goodman said:


> It's about as far left as you could expect from a load of middle-class, middle-aged, overpaid 'lefties'



speak for yerself


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## Saul Goodman (Jul 6, 2019)

Humberto said:


> speak for yerself


I'm speaking on behalf of those who are to embarrassed to admit it 
I couldn't possibly be overpaid, even if I was paid.


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## SpineyNorman (Jul 6, 2019)

I'm the only proper communist on here so not that left wing. Everyone else reads the guardian and votes green


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## JimW (Jul 6, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> I'm the only proper communist on here so not that left wing. Everyone else reads the guardian and votes green


Revisionist capitulationist


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## Sodapop (Jul 6, 2019)

Do you belong to the Illuminati?


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## JuanTwoThree (Jul 6, 2019)

This is more for the Penumbrati.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 6, 2019)

JudithB said:


> Oh yeah you need to ignore the casual sexism



If you say so, luv.


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## Santino (Jul 6, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> If you say so, luv.


Great stuff.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 6, 2019)

Santino said:


> Great stuff.



I'm here all week, etc


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## seventh bullet (Jul 6, 2019)

It's not what it used to be.


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## Poi E (Jul 6, 2019)

Down with the Regent!


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## Anju (Jul 6, 2019)

It's about this left wing, though mostly populated  by people who are  upset at the lack of pamphlets in today's politics.


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## Poot (Jul 6, 2019)

You all lied to me when you said this was the Ann Widdecombe fan club.


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## Tankus (Jul 6, 2019)

not as left as it used to be


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## Yossarian (Jul 6, 2019)

There has been a very slow drift rightwards - somebody actually got a hard time a day or two ago for talking about killing landlords.

"In a society as stable as our there is no lawful or moral excuse for murder of people..."


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 6, 2019)

It's more the modern style of left wing that likes to drift into the centre, rather than the old style that hugs the left touchline and tries to skin the right back.


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## Proper Tidy (Jul 6, 2019)

UrbaneFox said:


> 4/5


4/10


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## Proper Tidy (Jul 6, 2019)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> An anarchist with an Audi is still a fuckin’ anarchist


Wanarchist


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## Supine (Jul 6, 2019)

Yossarian said:


> There has been a very slow drift rightwards - somebody actually got a hard time a day or two ago for talking about killing landlords.
> 
> "In a society as stable as our there is no lawful or moral excuse for murder of people..."



I'm out well before killing begins if the country is becoming that lefty (or righty).


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 6, 2019)

Tension between fairly orthodox socialist positions and the more left-liberal guardian reading types underpins a lot of the disagreements on here.


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## Yossarian (Jul 6, 2019)

Supine said:


> I'm out well before killing begins if the country is becoming that lefty (or righty).



Yeah, I'm more in favour of moderate penalties, ranging from simple expropriation to exile, but general hyperbole about killing landlords isn't usually challenged.


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## JuanTwoThree (Jul 6, 2019)

Sunset Tree said:


> Tension between fairly orthodox socialist positions and the more left-liberal guardian reading types underpins a lot of the disagreements on here.




It's not unlike debates between Octobrists, Kadets, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. 

Plus ca change...


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## beesonthewhatnow (Jul 6, 2019)

Saul Goodman said:


> It's about as far left as you could expect from a load of middle-class, middle-aged, overpaid 'lefties'


Happy to hold my hand up for 2/3 of those.

Still waiting for the money part though


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## Santino (Jul 6, 2019)

Supine said:


> I'm out well before killing begins if the country is becoming that lefty (or righty).


140,000 deaths caused by austerity.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 6, 2019)

The great thing about killing people is you can always find a reason to feel like the good guy whilst doing it.


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## 8ball (Jul 6, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> The great thing about killing people is you can always find a reason to feel like the good guy whilst doing it.



See? Squeamish hand-wringing wiberals everywhere!


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## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 6, 2019)




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## mauvais (Jul 6, 2019)

Yossarian said:


> There has been a very slow drift rightwards - somebody actually got a hard time a day or two ago for talking about killing landlords.
> 
> "In a society as stable as our there is no lawful or moral excuse for murder of people..."


Nasal voice: "Well I did appreciate The Dead Kennedys for their exciting and politicised attitudes on songs like _Kill The Poor_, until they went a bit too far for my tastes with that number, _Let's Lynch The Landlord_, which I must say as someone adding a lot of value to tenants through my BTL portfolio I _do_ find distasteful"


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## seventh bullet (Jul 6, 2019)

Like I said on another thread, people should have the chance to redeem themselves in a labour camp rather than just being shot.

To paraphrase Mao with regard to landlords etc, trash can be useful, other than just something to be buried.


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## planetgeli (Jul 6, 2019)

Supine said:


> I'm out well before killing begins if the country is becoming that lefty (or righty).



And take your horseshoe with you.


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## 8ball (Jul 6, 2019)

Santino said:


> 140,000 deaths caused by austerity.



Ah, but that’s not “killing” is it?
That’s just letting nature take its course.


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## StoneRoad (Jul 6, 2019)

definitely not left wing enough ...


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## Smangus (Jul 6, 2019)

no one here but us baby eaters......


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## maomao (Jul 6, 2019)

Yossarian said:


> There has been a very slow drift rightwards - somebody actually got a hard time a day or two ago for talking about killing landlords.
> 
> "In a society as stable as our there is no lawful or moral excuse for murder of people..."


I wouldn't exactly call it a hard time but I was shocked to be called on it at all. And to clarify I was calling for bookmakers to be hung _with the landlords_. I thought landlord hanging was something we were pretty much all in agreement about.


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## DotCommunist (Jul 6, 2019)

to be fair, feral hadley rolls in regularly to shit himself in public about lefty hypocrites, ranting away like a tinpot evil scientist from a b-movie. So unrepresentative.

Also I don't think the thread has mentioned the handful of trots


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## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 6, 2019)

DotCommunist said:


> to be fair, feral hadley rolls in regularly to shit himself in public about lefty hypocrites, ranting away like a tinpot evil scientist from a b-movie. So unrepresentative.
> 
> Also I don't think the thread has mentioned the handful of trots



Crikey! Trots. I remember them.


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## Flavour (Jul 6, 2019)

I think it's still pretty left wing all things considered. More than we give it credit for. And I think it's been a useful resource in politicizing people. I'm not the only one on here who has become more left wing by participating.


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## SpineyNorman (Jul 6, 2019)

I'd like to state for the record that when I talk about killing people I'm almost always joking and don't have any actual plans to actually murder anyone. Except Jamie Oliver. The cunt.


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 6, 2019)

Smangus said:


> no one here but us baby eaters......



Them were the days, the place has been taken over by vegans.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

Benjy1992 said:


> I'd say it's very left wing.
> 
> Been looking round for a discussion forum that fits my political views for a while and I think I've found it.
> 
> Thanks guys



Don’t mention the working class or they’ll tell you that you’re using it as code for the white working class and ergo you’re being racist.
So about as left wing as a theme park.


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## DotCommunist (Jul 6, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Crikey! Trots. I remember them.


still a handful about the place. Fifth columnists


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## FridgeMagnet (Jul 6, 2019)

A few years ago every other thread in politics was about the SWP and the latest terrible thing they'd done to the point where mods were thinking of banning the topic. Now that seems very retro.


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## Serge Forward (Jul 6, 2019)

How left wing? Fair to middlin'.


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## Tankus (Jul 6, 2019)

Gettin' gentrified


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## editor (Jul 6, 2019)

Tankus said:


> Gettin' gentrified


The Brixton forum already smells of artisan craft beer and manbags.


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## andysays (Jul 6, 2019)

maomao said:


> I wouldn't exactly call it a hard time but I was shocked to be called on it at all. And to clarify I was calling for bookmakers to be hung _with the landlords_. I thought landlord hanging was something we were pretty much all in agreement about.





> Men will never be free until the last bookmaker is strangled with the entrails of the last landlord.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

I also got banned from a feminism thread for mentioning class dynamics. It’s about as left wing here as Blue Peter.


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## planetgeli (Jul 6, 2019)

We can’t overthrow capitalism but we’re the dog’s bollocks at whinging.


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## clicker (Jul 6, 2019)

Blue Peter or Magpie was always very telling.


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## Poot (Jul 6, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> I also got banned from a feminism thread for mentioning class dynamics. It’s about as left wing here as Blue Peter.


Lol. We just wouldn't be told, would we.


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## Favelado (Jul 6, 2019)

I'd really like everyone to be forced to print their bank balance and total net worth on here. I've got a feeling we've got some millionaires who aren't owning up.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 6, 2019)

Also, let's face it, the anarchist credentials of this place took a serious hit once Paddick stopped posting.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

Poot said:


> Lol. We just wouldn't be told, would we.



Middle class people aren’t used to it and so seldom enjoy it I find.


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## Supine (Jul 6, 2019)

Favelado said:


> I'd really like everyone to be forced to print their bank balance and total net worth on here. I've got a feeling we've got some millionaires who aren't owning up.



I'm just shy by about a million


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## cantsin (Jul 6, 2019)

editor said:


> Nowhere fucking left wing enough in my book. The Brixton forum is full of gentrifiers, entrepreneurs, self satisfied home owners and sneering Blairite Tory boys. It's a bloody embarrassment.



sounds like Labour on Lambeth council from what I've heard


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## cantsin (Jul 6, 2019)

Saul Goodman said:


> It's about as far left as you could expect from a load of middle-class, middle-aged, *overpaid* 'lefties'



jeez, I wish


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## maomao (Jul 6, 2019)

Supine said:


> I'm just shy by about a million



I'm about 1.2 million short.


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## Poot (Jul 6, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Middle class people aren’t used to it and so seldom enjoy it I find.


You keep telling those women off, that's the main thing.


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## cantsin (Jul 6, 2019)

BristolEcho said:


> I came here looking for a Momentum forum, but it's not quite worked out like that.



Lansman would have prob shut it down by now if that did exist - yr not the only SW Mom bod on here if you are a member


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## Favelado (Jul 6, 2019)

cantsin said:


> jeez, I wish



Well, it doesn't include you, but it's the ones who don't post when this comes up. The quiet ones. They've got the cash.
*
Everyone declare your poverty now* - by omission we'll know who's got a flat worth 800k.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

Poot said:


> You keep telling those women off, that's the main thing.



I mentioned class, not sex. Top work trying to twist it though.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

I was arguing in defence of some women regarding class dynamics. How ghastly.


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## cantsin (Jul 6, 2019)

Favelado said:


> Well, it doesn't include you, but it's the ones who don't post when this comes up. The quiet ones. They've got the cash.
> *
> Everyone declare your poverty now* - by omission we'll know who's got a flat worth 800k.



yes, flush them out


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## Poot (Jul 6, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> I mentioned class, not sex. Top work trying to twist it though.


I remember exactly what you said but I'm going to drop it rather that goading you because you have already been banned.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

Poot said:


> I remember exactly what you said but I'm going to drop it rather that goading you because you have already been banned.



I’m going to insinuate that you said something else but not bother backing it up. Ok. See ya.


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## Favelado (Jul 6, 2019)

I'm just posting to say I'm not posting about this.


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## Favelado (Jul 6, 2019)

Hmm. A  passive aggressive "like". Can't see where this can go after that. They could turn on me now maybe.


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## geminisnake (Jul 6, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> I'm the only proper communist on here so not that left wing. Everyone else reads the guardian and votes green



Fuck off  I would cheerfully shove the guardian down throats before setting light to it! And pretty sure I've only voted green once.

Not sure it's as left as it was back in the day, but not much is tbh


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## Favelado (Jul 6, 2019)

cantsin said:


> yes, flush them out



See how quiet it went? Rich bastards.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

How can a like be passive aggressive?



Poot said:


> You keep telling those women off, that's the main thing.



I’m still reading it. There’s quite a few men on there ‘telling a woman off’ currently and not a peep from you about it!


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## Poot (Jul 6, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> How can a like be passive aggressive?
> 
> 
> 
> I’m still reading it. There’s quite a few men on there ‘telling a woman off’ currently and not a peep from you about it!


I suggest meditation. Or yoga.


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## Favelado (Jul 6, 2019)

Yeah, they're totally over it. Not posting about it anymore.


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## cantsin (Jul 6, 2019)

geminisnake said:


> Fuck off  I would cheerfully shove the guardian down throats before setting light to it! And pretty sure I've only voted green once.
> 
> *Not sure it's as left as it was back in the day, but not much is tbh *



where the hell is Butchers ?


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

Poot said:


> I suggest meditation. Or yoga.



For the men telling her off, or the woman?


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## kebabking (Jul 6, 2019)

cantsin said:


> yes, flush them out



What's the definition?

Property value - mortgaged or not?

Pension entitlement?

kabbes used to do an anonymised 'how rich are you?' thread - I can't remember when the last one was though...


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## kabbes (Jul 6, 2019)

kebabking said:


> What's the definition?
> 
> Property value - mortgaged or not?
> 
> ...


It was quite a few years ago now.  I remember though that the median income level had distinctly risen as the years had gone by.


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## Supine (Jul 6, 2019)

kabbes said:


> It was quite a few years ago now.  I remember though that the median income level had distinctly risen as the years had gone by.



We got older


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## imposs1904 (Jul 6, 2019)

Anarcho-Corbynism . . . Plus Butchers


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## eatmorecheese (Jul 6, 2019)

Chucklist tendency with cats


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## bellaozzydog (Jul 6, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


>


That just freaked me out a bit


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

White middle class guilt with varying penchants for social democracy. Not actual communism or anything.


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## Mr.Bishie (Jul 6, 2019)

!VIOLENT ANARCHISM FOR FULL COMMUNISM!


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## friedaweed (Jul 6, 2019)

I think the term 'wing' is a bit outdated tbhwu. I'd much more prefer it if we talked about cheeks, like left cheek, right cheek and occasionally a bit about all the arseholes in between


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## A380 (Jul 6, 2019)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> An anarchist with an Audi is still a fuckin’ anarchist



Yeah fuck those petite-bourgeoise  rules like ‘using the indicators’ and ‘not driving 18 inches from the car in front on the motorway’.


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## Santino (Jul 6, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> White middle class guilt with varying penchants for social democracy. Not actual communism or anything.


As I recall your idea of class politics is that working class people don't like complicated things or feminism.


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## bellaozzydog (Jul 6, 2019)

Should I buy the socialist worker at a quid or two quid


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## mx wcfc (Jul 6, 2019)

bellaozzydog said:


> Should I buy the socialist worker at a quid or two quid


It was 15p when I first sold it.


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## tim (Jul 6, 2019)

clicker said:


> Blue Peter or Magpie was always very telling.



Blue Peter Mandeleson

v

Magpie Thatcher


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

Santino said:


> As I recall your idea of class politics is that working class people don't like complicated things or feminism.



It starts with working class people and their direct needs, so unsurprising that you’d find issue with that given you’re about as working class as Tofu on Artisan Toast.


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## friedaweed (Jul 6, 2019)

bellaozzydog said:


> Should I buy the socialist worker at a quid or two quid


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## Pickman's model (Jul 6, 2019)

bellaozzydog said:


> Should I buy the socialist worker at a quid or two quid


No


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

Santino said:


> As I recall your idea of class politics is that working class people don't like complicated things or feminism.



Have you cunts ever considered shutting your beaks regarding class politics? For the damage you may be doing by being unrecognisable to those we need to draw in?


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## mx wcfc (Jul 6, 2019)

Given that we need new blood in here generally, has Benjy1992 been back?

Seriously comrade, don't worry about this shit.  get involved - we were largely just pissing around, and you are very welcome.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 6, 2019)

I may sound mean but I swear to god the working class are looking at Tommy Robinson for answers because this direction all they can see is condescending cunts.


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## Fozzie Bear (Jul 7, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Have you cunts ever considered shutting your beaks regarding class politics? For the damage you may be doing by being unrecognisable to those we need to draw in?



Draw in... on Urban75... in 2019?


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## andysays (Jul 7, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Have you cunts ever considered shutting your beaks regarding class politics? For the damage you may be doing by being unrecognisable to those we need to draw in?


Just as well we've got you here, the Only Proper Working Class in the Urban Village...


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## Sprocket. (Jul 7, 2019)

Favelado said:


> See how quiet it went? Rich bastards.



I got my butler to give you a like!


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## Sprocket. (Jul 7, 2019)

seventh bullet said:


> To paraphrase Mao with regard to landlords etc, trash can be useful, other than just something to be buried.



I truly believe that in this age of environmental awareness we should use the trash in a more useful purpose.

If we ploughed them into the fields as organic fertiliser instead of just burying we solve two problems in one furrow.


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## Supine (Jul 7, 2019)

Sprocket. said:


> I truly believe that in this age of environmental awareness we should use the trash in a more useful purpose.
> 
> If we ploughed them into the fields as organic fertiliser instead of just burying we solve two problems in one furrow.



So you have the means of production and some land. Your now proposing to make artisan fertiliser. Sounds like we need to knock you off next


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## Sprocket. (Jul 7, 2019)

Supine said:


> So you have the means of production and some land. Your now proposing to make artisan fertiliser. Sounds like we need to knock you off next



By strange coincidence I’ve put my name on the list. It’s hitting myself in the head with a hammer that’s not going to pla...


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## planetgeli (Jul 7, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> I may sound mean but I swear to god the working class are looking at Tommy Robinson for answers because this direction all they can see is condescending cunts.



See, there's an element of truth in this but I'm not sure you even see you're part of the problem.

SLY uses language (about immigration etc) that uses the same fears we are used to hearing, that the ruling class have normalised to keep us in our place. While the left, while we're not condescending or squabbling with ourselves (sectarian till we die), often argues in archaic (linguistic) terms about the correct brand of Marxism or whatever theory it feels should be in fashion. The left have rarely been able to speak to the working class in the terms it needs to get them onside. People get put off if they feel they haven't read the right theory and get lambasted for it. If we stuck to talking about the rich being rich because the working class are poor, without feeling we need to bang on about the surplus value of labour, we might get further. And if we start, just for one example, to talk about, as I've seen on here many times, "well, you can't be working class if you own your own home" how many working class people do you think that isolates who bought their own council homes under Thatcher?

It seems we hate those people more than we hate Thatcher. And if you hate people you need on your own side, how does that further the revolution? It doesn't. It just descends, as you do sometimes, into circular arguments about who is the most working class, and "how left wing" are _you_?

Tl:dr? We don't even know how to talk to each other on a message board. Let alone create a mass movement. The right own the tropes Robinson uses. We need to make our own more user-friendly. It's a long time since I heard talk about 'the rich' and 'general strike'. You don't need to have swallowed _Capital _to do that. The left has always been fragmented.


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## Sprocket. (Jul 7, 2019)

Excellent post and points planetgeli.


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## Gromit (Jul 7, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> I may sound mean but I swear to god the working class are looking at Tommy Robinson for answers because this direction all they can see is condescending cunts.


He lost his deposit. I don't think the working class are looking at him for answers.

Farage however...


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## A380 (Jul 7, 2019)

clicker said:


> Blue Peter or Magpie was always very telling.


No, my mum -chid of a care home worker ( as we’d call it now) and power station stoker, communist party member from 14 and working full time for the CP till I was about 11-wouldn’t let me watch kids ITV (except for Batman).


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## A380 (Jul 7, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> See, there's an element of truth in this but I'm not sure you even see you're part of the problem.
> 
> SLY uses language (about immigration etc) that uses the same fears we are used to hearing, that the ruling class have normalised to keep us in our place. While the left, while we're not condescending or squabbling with ourselves (sectarian till we die), often argues in archaic (linguistic) terms about the correct brand of Marxism or whatever theory it feels should be in fashion. The left have rarely been able to speak to the working class in the terms it needs to get them onside. People get put off if they feel they haven't read the right theory and get lambasted for it. If we stuck to talking about the rich being rich because the working class are poor, without feeling we need to bang on about the surplus value of labour, we might get further. And if we start, just for one example, to talk about, as I've seen on here many times, "well, you can't be working class if you own your own home" how many working class people do you think that isolates who bought their own council homes under Thatcher?
> 
> ...


This. ^ I might get it put on a tee shirt.


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## SpineyNorman (Jul 7, 2019)

I have a well established scale for the left/right spectrum that I just made up. It uses well known people from politics and popular culture to grade people. The guardian for example is a Chukka.

This forum is a Lord Longford. Who also gives me the horn.


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## maomao (Jul 7, 2019)

A380 said:


> No, my mum -chid of a care home worker ( as we’d call it now) and power station stoker, communist party member from 14 and working full time for the CP till I was about 11-wouldn’t let me watch kids ITV (except for Batman).


My parents were trots but had similar restrictions on CITV. Must be in a chapter of Capital I haven't read*.

*ie. all of them


----------



## maomao (Jul 7, 2019)

Though tbf I haven't told my kids there are other channels apart from Cbeebies yet. My mum would never have put up with Nick Jr.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 7, 2019)

I don't know any forums like it - there's less arses on it than elsewhere and there's empathy and genuine passion that gladden the heart. I guess the right wing Trumpists would have a meltdown trying to comprehend urban, those that I deal with see anything that's not GOP as "far left/liberal/socialist/Marxist" and other (apparently to them) interchangeable descriptions. It's certainly educated me over the years and helped me change/modify my outlook on a number of subjects. The posturing from some can be a bit boring, but overall urban is a place of left learning and left love.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 7, 2019)

I've just finished writing a fantasy story where a bunch of slaves and criminals kill the city's ruling families and burn all city govt buildings to ash.

On the other hand my imagination doesn't need a home, a job, or any friends, so it's way more radical than my everyday reality


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jul 7, 2019)

In amongst the detritus you can still find a jewel. Great post planetgeli


----------



## A380 (Jul 7, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I've just finished writing a fantasy story where a bunch of slaves and criminals kill the city's ruling families and burn all city govt buildings to ash.
> 
> On the other hand my imagination doesn't need a home, a job, or any friends, so it's way more radical than my everyday reality


I am mojo pixy 

No,

I am mojo pixy


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 7, 2019)

(Will the real Saiyali Bilandu'te Saliki'we Nashivaar Ambon please stand up?)

May cowards flinch and traitors sneer.


----------



## sleaterkinney (Jul 7, 2019)

FridgeMagnet said:


> A few years ago every other thread in politics was about the SWP and the latest terrible thing they'd done to the point where mods were thinking of banning the topic. Now that seems very retro.


It's moved into the Labour party now.


----------



## petee (Jul 7, 2019)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> I did a test entitled “who are you in 1917 russia” and it said I was an anarchist. HTH.



i was a Menshevik Internationalist, actually a little left of that.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

Every time McDonnell opens his mouth, more votes desert Labour.

His £125,000 'lifetime gift' idea will alienate thousands.

One of the reasons that a lot of people bought a house, rather than renting, was to have something to pass on to their children. The fucking arsehole interferes with that at his peril. We would be heading back to the 90% income tax days with the lunatic Corbyn, which is why he will never be PM.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Every time McDonnell opens his mouth, more votes desert Labour.
> 
> His £125,000 'lifetime gift' idea will alienate thousands.
> 
> One of the reasons that a lot of people bought a house, rather than renting, was to have something to pass on to their children. The fucking arsehole interferes with that at his peril. We would be heading back to the 90% income tax days with the lunatic Corbyn, which is why he will never be PM.


----------



## chilango (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Every time McDonnell opens his mouth, more votes desert Labour.
> 
> His £125,000 'lifetime gift' idea will alienate thousands.
> 
> One of the reasons that a lot of people bought a house, rather than renting, was to have something to pass on to their children. The fucking arsehole interferes with that at his peril. We would be heading back to the 90% income tax days with the lunatic Corbyn, which is why he will never be PM.



...and it's this kind of thing that will persuade me to vote Labour


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

8ball said:


>


Care to have a small wager on Corbyn ever being PM? A tenner?


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

chilango said:


> ...and it's this kind of thing that will persuade me to vote Labour


Fair enough, I don't hate my child.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Care to have a small wager on Corbyn ever being PM? A tenner?



Sure, I’ll stick down £100 saying he won’t ever be Prime Minister to match your tenner in favour.


----------



## chilango (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Fair enough, I don't hate my child.



Just other people's?


----------



## maomao (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Every time McDonnell opens his mouth, more votes desert Labour.
> 
> His £125,000 'lifetime gift' idea will alienate thousands.
> 
> One of the reasons that a lot of people bought a house, rather than renting, was to have something to pass on to their children. The fucking arsehole interferes with that at his peril. We would be heading back to the 90% income tax days with the lunatic Corbyn, which is why he will never be PM.


You're surprisingly certain about what other people think for a reactionary old dinosaur. It's not the 80s or even the 90s anymore. Those that benefitted from the insane housing policies of the last forty years are getting fewer and fewer and with the majority of young families unable to even contemplate buying public support for slightly more radical policies on housing and inheritance is not nearly as marginal as you think. I'm a house 'owner' (in another twenty years if I don't die first) and I don't want my kids having to put up with the shitty self-entitled landlords taking half their wages and decades of forced moving about that I did.


----------



## maomao (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Fair enough, I don't hate my child.


That's just offensive. Fuck off.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 8, 2019)

I think a labour govt under Corbyn would be pretty much as disappointing as every other labour govt but the prospect they might overhaul inheritance tax will be more than enough to make me get off my arse and vote for them. If they promise to crack down on trusts and prohibit them in almost all circumstances then I'd probably knock a few doors for the cunts


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Every time McDonnell opens his mouth, more votes desert Labour.
> 
> His £125,000 'lifetime gift' idea will alienate thousands.
> 
> One of the reasons that a lot of people bought a house, rather than renting, was to have something to pass on to their children. The fucking arsehole interferes with that at his peril. We would be heading back to the 90% income tax days with the lunatic Corbyn, which is why he will never be PM.


Excellent stuff, got everything you could ask for in a tory rant. Starts from the strong foundation of complete and utter irrelevance to the subject under discussion and just gets better.

I for one am impressed.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 8, 2019)

As if people won't have to sell off their houses to pay Virgin Health for medical bills and nursing anyway.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

FridgeMagnet said:


> As if people won't have to sell off their houses to pay Virgin Health for medical bills and nursing anyway.



Well, you choose to live in the wrong country...


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

maomao said:


> That's just offensive. Fuck off.



You are offensive. Fuck off.

What I said was absolutely correct, if you hate your children, support this vile policy.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

chilango said:


> Just other people's?



Nope. Everyone's child has a place in society.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 8, 2019)

If my parents vote Tory I don't want their fucking money.

Thankfully they are not that dim.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> I may sound mean but I swear to god the working class are looking at Tommy Robinson for answers because this direction all they can see is condescending cunts.



Yep.


----------



## peterkro (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Nope. Everyone's child has a place in society.


"there is no such thing as society".  Milk Snatcher


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

FridgeMagnet said:


> If my parents vote Tory I don't want their fucking money.
> 
> Thankfully they are not that dim.


 Don't look now, but your left wing class prejudice is showing. Which of course is just as undesirable as any prejudice.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

peterkro said:


> "there is no such thing as society".  Milk Snatcher


 Have you read the whole interview, instead of inanely parroting an inaccuracy?

What was actually said was:

All too often the ills of this country are passed off as those of society. Similarly, when action is required, society is called upon to act. But society as such does not exist except as a concept. Society is made up of people. It is people who have duties and beliefs and resolve. It is people who get things done. She prefers to think in terms of the acts of individuals and families as the real sinews of society rather than of society as an abstract concept. Her approach to society reflects her fundamental belief in personal responsibility and choice. To leave things to ‘society’ is to run away from the real decisions, practical responsibility and effective action.


----------



## friedaweed (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Care to have a small wager on Corbyn ever being PM? A tenner?


I'll have a bigger wager on you coming up with a viable alternative to your current Tory offerings...







Make way for Harold Lloyd...


----------



## peterkro (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Have you read the whole interview, instead of inanely parroting an inaccuracy?


Yes and fuck off.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Don't look now, but your left wing class prejudice is showing. Which of course is just as undesirable as any prejudice.


"Oh thanks Mum, you're wrecking the country I have to live in but woo I get a bit of a house, I guess that makes it okay if you assume I'm a selfish bastard who can't see beyond his own bank balance, cheers for the support there."


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

peterkro said:


> Yes and fuck off.



Fuck you you rude cunt.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

FridgeMagnet said:


> "Oh thanks Mum, you're wrecking the country I have to live in but woo I get a bit of a house, I guess that makes it okay if you assume I'm a selfish bastard who can't see beyond his own bank balance, cheers for the support there."



Whatever. I've had enough bitter wee leftie whinging for the present.


----------



## peterkro (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Fuck you you rude cunt.


No second prizes,bollock brains.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

friedaweed said:


> I'll have a bigger wager on you coming up with a viable alternative to your current Tory offerings...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sadly, you are right.

Politicians of every hue these days are utterly pathetic. I can understand why they go into politics, they wouldn't command anything like the salary elsewhere.

I cannot think of a single Conservative politician at present who is PM material.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 8, 2019)

peterkro said:


> No second prizes,bollock brains.



At least I have a brain, you are a stand in for Muffin the Mule.


----------



## planetgeli (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Have you read the whole interview, instead of inanely parroting an inaccuracy?
> 
> What was actually said was:
> 
> All too often the ills of this country are passed off as those of society. Similarly, when action is required, society is called upon to act. But society as such does not exist except as a concept. Society is made up of people. It is people who have duties and beliefs and resolve. It is people who get things done. She prefers to think in terms of the acts of individuals and families as the real sinews of society rather than of society as an abstract concept. Her approach to society reflects her fundamental belief in personal responsibility and choice. To leave things to ‘society’ is to run away from the real decisions, practical responsibility and effective action.



"Too many people...if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it....theyre casting their problem on society. And, you know, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SOCIETY. There are individual men and women and there are families."

Woman's Own October 1987.

So fuck off.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Jul 8, 2019)

maomao said:


> That's just offensive. Fuck off.


He's an offensive Tory cunt. What did you expect?


----------



## chilango (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Whatever. I've had enough bitter wee leftie whinging for the present.



I think you started the whining when you started harrumphing about the wealthy having to pay a bit of tax....


----------



## Saul Goodman (Jul 8, 2019)

chilango said:


> I think you started the whining when you started harrumphing about the wealthy having to pay a bit of tax....


He doesn't mind people paying tax, so long as it's people with less money than him!


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> At least I have a brain, you are a stand in for Muffin the Mule.


You're coming out with pure gold tonight, excellent work.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 8, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> Well, you choose to live in the wrong country...


This is probably my favourite one. We should all vote tory but live in Scotland so the edge is taken off tory policy by the SNP or something.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 8, 2019)

_Feel_ the internecine hate. That's how left wing


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 8, 2019)

Sass is a tory though to be fair. 

That said, don't fucking get me started on the green party


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 8, 2019)

Or the SNP.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 8, 2019)

Or Labour


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 8, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> See, there's an element of truth in this but I'm not sure you even see you're part of the problem.
> 
> SLY uses language (about immigration etc) that uses the same fears we are used to hearing, that the ruling class have normalised to keep us in our place. While the left, while we're not condescending or squabbling with ourselves (sectarian till we die), often argues in archaic (linguistic) terms about the correct brand of Marxism or whatever theory it feels should be in fashion. The left have rarely been able to speak to the working class in the terms it needs to get them onside. People get put off if they feel they haven't read the right theory and get lambasted for it. If we stuck to talking about the rich being rich because the working class are poor, without feeling we need to bang on about the surplus value of labour, we might get further. And if we start, just for one example, to talk about, as I've seen on here many times, "well, you can't be working class if you own your own home" how many working class people do you think that isolates who bought their own council homes under Thatcher?
> 
> ...


Great post, find the homeowner tag bizarre, it has to be middle class people throwing that one around as we all know people who bought their homes under thatcher or by saving up for a deposit or getting help with one  as the mortgage payments are ***lower*** than many rents so why the fuck wouldn’t you given the opportunity. I would, my mum did(we’re both carers).


----------



## seventh bullet (Jul 8, 2019)

Exactly. I chuckle to myself at the thought of a posturing lefty trying to excommunicate me from the w/c because I have the temerity to not be at the mercy of a parasite landlord.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jul 8, 2019)

.


HoratioCuthbert said:


> Great post, find the homeowner tag bizarre, it has to be middle class people throwing that one around as we all know people who bought their homes under thatcher or by saving up for a deposit or getting help with one  as the mortgage payments are ***lower*** than many rents so why the fuck wouldn’t you given the opportunity. I would, my mum did(we’re both carers).


I remember a proper row in the LSE "Socialist Workers Student Organisation".  There was one working class bloke, whose parents had bought their council house and who argued that it was their dream and a good thing.  The middle class kids like me were all far more "on message".  I really don't think selling council houses to council tenants was the issue (though it succeeded in its sole purpose of winning votes for the tories)  the issue was the complete absence of replacement with new social housing and the fact that most of "that generation's" ex-council homes ended up being sold on to buy to let landlords who now screw the fck out of everyone - students/tenants/taxpayers/councils.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 8, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> .
> 
> I remember a proper row in the LSE "Socialist Workers Student Organisation".  There was one working class bloke, whose parents had bought their council house and who argued that it was their dream and a good thing.  The middle class kids like me were all far more "on message".  I really don't think selling council houses to council tenants was the issue (though it succeeded in its sole purpose of winning votes for the tories)  the issue was the complete absence of replacement with new social housing and the fact that most of "that generation's" ex-council homes ended up being sold on to buy to let landlords who now screw the fck out of everyone - students/tenants/taxpayers/councils.


Yep.. I’ve always been pretty vocal about the govt selling off social housing, to the point when the council housing guy gave me my keys to my current house and he told me I didn’t have right to buy I went on a red as fuck rant about it GOOD, GOOD, I’M GLAD (Jesus shut up haha)
But I’ve noticed increasingly since brexit the word “homeowners” has been used  on here almost to describe a class, which is a bit annoying.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jul 8, 2019)

Benjy1992 - don't be a stranger - come and comment - the above is largely jokey.  This is a great lefty board if you ignore the bullshit!


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 9, 2019)

Who mentioned home owners? I certainly didnt.


----------



## Poi E (Jul 9, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> .
> 
> I remember a proper row in the LSE "Socialist Workers Student Organisation".  There was one working class bloke, whose parents had bought their council house and who argued that it was their dream and a good thing.  The middle class kids like me were all far more "on message".  I really don't think selling council houses to council tenants was the issue (though it succeeded in its sole purpose of winning votes for the tories)  the issue was the complete absence of replacement with new social housing and the fact that most of "that generation's" ex-council homes ended up being sold on to buy to let landlords who now screw the fck out of everyone - students/tenants/taxpayers/councils.



One significant issue is a complete lack of a land reform movement in England, a country with an extremely concentrated land ownership and one heavily derived from the crime of the enclosures. The rot at the heart of England goes back a long way, to the point where the attachment to the land is so diminished it is seen as the notional "countryside" for a few posh activities or a walk if you're poorer. Fucking sad to realise this-a people bereft of attachment to land in all senses cannot form a nation, hence English nationalism only being able to express itself through imperial tropes. The citizenry of England don't even get to be sovereign over their land-that's reserved for the Queen in Parliament. For shame.


----------



## A380 (Jul 9, 2019)

Poi E said:


> One significant issue is a complete lack of a land reform movement in England, a country with an extremely concentrated land ownership and one heavily derived from the crime of the enclosures. The rot at the heart of England goes back a long way, to the point where the attachment to the land is so diminished it is seen as the notional "countryside" for a few posh activities or a walk if you're poorer. Fucking sad to realise this-a people bereft of attachment to land in all senses cannot form a nation, hence English nationalism only being able to express itself through imperial tropes. The citizenry of England don't even get to be sovereign over their land-that's reserved for the Queen in Parliament. For shame.



This^ . You can also express this national shame thusly:



Get off moi lannnnnnd.


----------



## planetgeli (Jul 9, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Who mentioned home owners? I certainly didnt.



You certainly didn't. And nobody said you did. Can't think why you're being so defensive.

Yes, I quoted your post as an introduction to my post. Yes, you are guilty of implying you are the only WC in the Urban village from time to time, and the way you speak on here, from time to time, is illustrative of some of the wider points I was making. You do isolate people you supposedly want on your side with your invective. However, I did not say "and Magnus McGinty even says...home owners blah blah". Never said you.

In fact, you know what? I'll even defend you. Because I know you agree with me because you've made a similar point about home ownership and the WC yourself. Here.



> So given the collapse of social housing we can either privately rent (where the landlord benefits) or buy privately (not everywhere in the UK has London prices btw) where upon some lefty will demand you lose the home. *I think this is why a lot of the WC don’t like the far left.*



Happier now?


----------



## planetgeli (Jul 9, 2019)

Poi E said:


> One significant issue is a complete lack of a land reform movement in England, a country with an extremely concentrated land ownership and one heavily derived from the crime of the enclosures. The rot at the heart of England goes back a long way, to the point where the attachment to the land is so diminished it is seen as the notional "countryside" for a few posh activities or a walk if you're poorer. Fucking sad to realise this-a people bereft of attachment to land in all senses cannot form a nation, hence English nationalism only being able to express itself through imperial tropes. The citizenry of England don't even get to be sovereign over their land-that's reserved for the Queen in Parliament. For shame.



This is an excellent post.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 9, 2019)

Poi E said:


> One significant issue is a complete lack of a land reform movement in England, a country with an extremely concentrated land ownership and one heavily derived from the crime of the enclosures. The rot at the heart of England goes back a long way, to the point where the attachment to the land is so diminished it is seen as the notional "countryside" for a few posh activities or a walk if you're poorer. Fucking sad to realise this-a people bereft of attachment to land in all senses cannot form a nation, hence English nationalism only being able to express itself through imperial tropes. The citizenry of England don't even get to be sovereign over their land-that's reserved for the Queen in Parliament. For shame.




andrew phemister, '"the surging tide of pauper democracy": irish boycotting and anglo-american liberalism', in radical history review 134 (2019)

the irish national land league of great britain remains probably the last proper mass land reform movement in the history of *this* island.


----------



## Benjy1992 (Jul 9, 2019)

Wow. I didn't expect seven pages worth of thread when I posted this. 

Fair play. So you're all a bunch of right wing loons then, yeah?


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 9, 2019)

Benjy1992 said:


> Wow. I didn't expect seven pages worth of thread when I posted this.
> 
> Fair play. So you're all a bunch of right wing loons then, yeah?



Say something controversial and you'll get a further 107 pages.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 9, 2019)

The personal allowance should be 30k and the IHT threshold should be 25k then taxed at 100%


----------



## 8ball (Jul 9, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> The personal allowance should be 30k and the IHT threshold should be 25k then taxed at 100%



Nice in concept, but I fear the sudden splurging of the accumulated wealth of the rich and decrepit, while creating a massive economic stimulus, would bugger the climate irreversibly within weeks.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 9, 2019)

8ball said:


> Nice in concept, but I fear the sudden splurging of the accumulated wealth of the rich and decrepit, while creating a massive economic stimulus, would bugger the climate irreversibly within weeks.


In isolation probably. Just have to be a holistic overhaul of tax to close off any legal means to move wealth without getting battered with tax liabilities and then prosecute the fuck out of anybody who adopts illegal means. Like the cartels, hang them from the bridges as a warning to the others


----------



## Supine (Jul 9, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> The personal allowance should be 30k and the IHT threshold should be 25k then taxed at 100%



Let's make everyone poor. Good solution!


----------



## 8ball (Jul 9, 2019)

Supine said:


> Let's make everyone poor. Good solution!



You'd have to move those limits pretty quickly because inflation would go mental.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 9, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Have you cunts ever considered shutting your beaks regarding class politics? For the damage you may be doing by being unrecognisable to those we need to draw in?




You don’t get it... there are loads- FUCKTONS- of working class people that think their left wing views and their love of Corbyn sets them apart from the alien UKIP voters in their communities, and you’re just encouraging them. I was probably bad for that myself when I was younger- I hope not, but I was certainly slow on the uptake a lot of the time   Having a massive hard on for Tommy Robinson isn’t the default working class identity. We need everyone “onside”- that is to say we need everyone to start engaging with the people around them again, and recognise that they share struggles, interests and concerns etc with the “UKIP type” next door - or the Muslim or whoever the enemy is in yer heid. In erroneously disregarding all condescending wc lefties as enemies of the class you are just helping maintain those divisions. And then you’ve got twats like that Guy Matthews going out canvassing for labour and really not getting why people are telling him he doesn’t understand working class issues. Help him understand, don’t tell him to shut his beak.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 9, 2019)

Supine said:


> Let's make everyone poor. Good solution!


Dunno about you mate but reckon most people would be doing a lot better with no income tax up to 30k


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 9, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> The personal allowance should be 30k and the IHT threshold should be 25k then taxed at 100%


And 150% on all earnings over 100k. That'll make the bastards froth


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 9, 2019)

The thing about tax is that it is the state robbing money off you. Basically agree with the libertarians that it's a violent act. I'm just happy when it happens to the wealthy.


----------



## chilango (Jul 9, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> And 150% on all earnings over 100k. That'll make the bastards froth



They'd have to start dipping into their other "revenue streams" then.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 9, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> The thing about tax is that it is the state robbing money off you. Basically agree with the libertarians that it's a violent act. I'm just happy when it happens to the wealthy.



Re-education team has been dispatched.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 9, 2019)

8ball said:


> Re-education team has been dispatched.


No reeducation required. I'm not a social democrat and perfectly happy for ordinary people to put more money in their pockets by dodging tax where they can, although there are a lot less opportunities than for the rich. I don't think most people should pay tax. I think some people should pay a fucking lot of tax.


----------



## DotCommunist (Jul 9, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> No reeducation required. I'm not a social democrat and perfectly happy for ordinary people to put more money in their pockets by dodging tax where they can, although there are a lot less opportunities than for the rich. I don't think most people should pay tax. I think some people should pay a fucking lot of tax.



what about from each according to his ability. Tho.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 9, 2019)

DotCommunist said:


> what about from each according to his ability. Tho.


Yeah. Would be good. But short of that, some aggressive downward wealth redistribution within a capitalist framework would be sound


----------



## 8ball (Jul 9, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> Yeah. Would be good. But short of that, some aggressive downward wealth redistribution within a capitalist framework would be sound



. - might have misread post


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 9, 2019)

> All levels of income are better off than they were in 1979. But what the honorable member is saying is that he would rather the poor were poorer provided the rich were less rich. That way you will never create the wealth for better social services as we have. And what a policy. Yes. He would rather have the poor poorer provided the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal (British Socialists) policy. Yes it came out. He didn’t intend it to but it did.


Guess who's company Supine is keeping.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 9, 2019)

Supine said:


> Let's make everyone poor. Good solution!



I'd love to be the kind of poor 30k a year would buy me.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 9, 2019)

DotCommunist said:


> what about from each according to his ability. Tho.



A meaningless concept without any specifics about what is being taken, how it's being taken, to what end it's being taken and exactly what constitutes an 'ability' to provide it.

Like, I could donate eight pints of blood in one go or one pint at a time over a period of years for a much higher overrall total. If asked, I'd definitely have a preference.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 9, 2019)

SpookyFrank said:


> A meaningless concept without any specifics about what is being taken, how it's being taken, to what end it's being taken and exactly what constitutes an 'ability' to provide it.
> 
> Like, I could donate eight pints of blood in one go or one pint at a time over a period of years for a much higher overrall total. If asked, I'd definitely have a preference.


It's context is that each person does the work they can ('to their ability') and takes what they need ('to their need') eg a cooperative society. Marx didn't coin it, it's older.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 9, 2019)

I saw a political cartoon a few years back lampooning the Tories which was:

From each according to their vulnerability
To each according to their greed


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 9, 2019)

SpookyFrank said:


> I'd love to be the kind of poor 30k a year would buy me.


Even just for a year to clear these fucking loans I’ve got...


----------



## Gaia (Jul 10, 2019)

Saul Goodman said:


> It's about as far left as you could expect from a load of middle-class, middle-aged, overpaid 'lefties'



Overpaid…?! If I was being overpaid the DWP would demand it back - with interest.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 10, 2019)

I feel a bit too hopeless about the shape of society to feel "left wing" any more.  I don't even know what "left wing" means.  I know that I think capitalism is at the root of a lot of our problems, that social inequality is possibly the single biggest problem we face, that I would like to rip the whole thing to pieces, that there should be no limited liability corporations with shareholders, that housing should mostly be a public good, that _most_ things should be public goods.  I know that Marx got a lot of things spot on.  But I have no road map for how we get to where I would like to be.  So politically, I'm just a useless dreamer whilst my embodied self in the real world gets on with maintaining the base in my working life and the superstructure in my personal life.  Is it "left wing" just to believe in left wing ideals?  It doesn't feel it.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jul 10, 2019)

kabbes said:


> I feel a bit too hopeless about the shape of society to feel "left wing" any more.  I don't even know what "left wing" means.  I know that I think capitalism is at the root of a lot of our problems, that social inequality is possibly the single biggest problem we face, that I would like to rip the whole thing to pieces, that there should be no limited liability corporations with shareholders, that housing should mostly be a public good, that _most_ things should be public goods.  I know that Marx got a lot of things spot on.  But I have no road map for how we get to where I would like to be.  So politically, I'm just a useless dreamer whilst my embodied self in the real world gets on with maintaining the base in my working life and the superstructure in my personal life.  Is it "left wing" just to believe in left wing ideals?  It doesn't feel it.


Very much this. You are left wing, we all have to adapt to cope to life and I share you pain re the lack of a realistic road map.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 10, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> Very much this. You are left wing, we all have to adapt to cope to life and I share you pain re the lack of a realistic road map.



I swing between lethargic pessimism and HULK SMASH!!! but I’ve not gone as far as supporting (this) Brexit yet.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jul 10, 2019)

8ball said:


> I swing between lethargic pessimism and HULK SMASH!!! but I’ve not gone as far as supporting (this) Brexit yet.


Bugger brexit.  Lefties were for and against it. It is not a defining factor as to whether you are a leftie.  Comrade.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 10, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> Bugger brexit.  Lefties were for and against it. It is not a defining factor as to whether you are a leftie.  Comrade.



It supports a capitalist banking hegemony but left liberals like things like open borders as they think it improves the lives of those less fortunate whilst ignoring any negative factors that may be imposed upon those on the lowest rung such as accelerated gentrification.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jul 10, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> It supports a capitalist banking hegemony but left liberals like things like open borders as they think it improves the lives of those less fortunate whilst ignoring any negative factors that may be imposed upon those on the lowest rung such as accelerated gentrification.


Sad thing is that too many "lefties" still think that open borders is for their benefit. It isn't.  It is for capital's benefit (as I am sure you understand). I voted remain, but I am less and less convinced as to why.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 10, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> Sad thing is that too many "lefties" still think that open borders is for their benefit. It isn't.  It is for capital's benefit (as I am sure you understand). I voted remain, but I am less and less convinced as to why.



 No borders, no nations is a great concept. Some of the principles don’t carry over well for sure. For instance we’re all just vessels for producing profit. There’s no humanitarian reason for open borders under capitalism but the liberals paint it as such for some weird reason.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 10, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> Bugger brexit.  Lefties were for and against it. It is not a defining factor as to whether you are a leftie.  Comrade.



Absolutely agree.  I do think it was fantastically naive to support a Brexit controlled by the current powers, though.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 10, 2019)

8ball said:


> Absolutely agree.  I do think it was fantastically naive to support a Brexit controlled by the current powers, though.



But the one opportunity to break that hegemony existed under a shit govt. have we ever had a good one?


----------



## mx wcfc (Jul 10, 2019)

"Lexit" was a "thing" before the referendum.  iirc, respected lefties like Bob Crow and Attila were anti EU for the "the EU exists to protect big companies"  thing that you allude to.  

Bob Crow died too early, Attila switched sides on Brexit when he saw the nasty right wing lining up to support Brexit.  

EU State aid regulations have changed from trying to block countries supporting "lame duck" domestic industries, to blocking innovation and new companies challenging big business.  No-one voted for that ever.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 10, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> But the one opportunity to break that hegemony existed under a shit govt. have we ever had a good one?



We’ve had better ones.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jul 10, 2019)

8ball said:


> We’ve had better ones.


Not sure we've ever had a "good" government.  possibly the post war Labour government that set up the NHS etc.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 10, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> Not sure we've ever had a "good" government.  possibly the post war Labour government that set up the NHS etc.



With US money (the Marshal Plan) to stunt the possibility of social revolution following WWII.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jul 10, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> With US money (the Marshal Plan) to stunt the possibility of social revolution following WWII.


The US would have done better just to waive our war debt.  We were paying it off for years, whilst the US benefited from access to European markets.

FFS, they only turned up half way through the second half.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 10, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> FFS, they only turned up half way through the second half.



Fair point, but let’s not pretend we piled in for altruistic reasons.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 10, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> The US would have done better just to waive our war debt.  We were paying it off for years, whilst the US benefited from access to European markets.
> 
> FFS, they only turned up half way through the second half.



It was to prevent key countries falling to the Soviets.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jul 10, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> It was to prevent key countries falling to the Soviets.


Well, exactly.  There is an "interesting" point around whether the US generals let the Soviet Army get to Berlin first, with a view to "running the commies down" - letting the Red Army take the losses, so that the yanks could steam through afterwards.  The US generals certainly wanted to.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 10, 2019)

8ball said:


> Absolutely agree.  I do think it was fantastically naive to support a Brexit controlled by the current powers, though.


I voted leave, I’m hardly surprised the Tories have arsed it up. 
But as for the news that’s meant to shock us..... “the poor will be poorer!” “Business will fuck you up the ass without lube”

Get fucked man. Middle class people that are now in a state of terror and stocking up on tinned food were obviously living in a state of fantastical naïveté for years..... oh hey I didn’t mean the french version, but I’ll leave it like that anyway cause it makes me sound learned.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

kabbes said:


> I feel a bit too hopeless about the shape of society to feel "left wing" any more.  I don't even know what "left wing" means.  I know that I think capitalism is at the root of a lot of our problems, that social inequality is possibly the single biggest problem we face, that I would like to rip the whole thing to pieces, that there should be no limited liability corporations with shareholders, that housing should mostly be a public good, that _most_ things should be public goods.  I know that Marx got a lot of things spot on.  But I have no road map for how we get to where I would like to be.  So politically, I'm just a useless dreamer whilst my embodied self in the real world gets on with maintaining the base in my working life and the superstructure in my personal life.  Is it "left wing" just to believe in left wing ideals?  It doesn't feel it.


So much agree with you but particularly on limited liability entities. It’s a legal perversion of a statute. Internationally.


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 11, 2019)

mx wcfc said:


> Not sure we've ever had a "good" government.  possibly the post war Labour government that set up the NHS etc.


The same one that started its term by calling in the troops against striking dockers, etc.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

Serge Forward said:


> The same one that started its term by calling in the troops against striking dockers, etc.


Yeah. So fuck the welfare state and Clement Attlee then? Is anything enough?


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> Yeah. So fuck the welfare state and Clement Attlee then? Is anything enough?


Welfare state didn't come about because capital decided to be benevolent or because of some great crusading labour party. Even if tories had been elected in '45 we'd have seen many of the same gains/concessions. Capital in crisis and a heavily armed and trained working class will do that.

So no to the former but the latter, yeah fuck Attlee


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> Welfare state didn't come about because capital decided to be benevolent or because of some great crusading labour party. Even if tories had been elected in '45 we'd have seen many of the same gains/concessions. Capital in crisis and a heavily armed and trained working class will do that.
> 
> So no to the former but the latter, yeah fuck Attlee


Bollocks. That was the greatest victory of the left in the history of this country and there's no way the Tories would have brought it in. That's a complete assumption on your part.
 So is there anything to celebrate? Or should Attlee and Bevan hang their heads in shame?


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> Bollocks. That was the greatest victory of the left in the history of this country and there's no way the Tories would have brought it in. That's a complete assumption on your part.
> So is there anything to celebrate? Or should Attlee and Bevan hang their heads in shame?


Was William Beveridge a Labour man then? Had no idea


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> Was William Beveridge a Labour man then? Had no idea


More assumptions. I can't believe I've just read 'fuck Attlee'. So nothing to celebrate then (answer the question)?


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 11, 2019)

You think the Labour government was responsible for the NHS?


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> More assumptions. I can't believe I've just read 'fuck Attlee'. So nothing to celebrate then (answer the question)?


What am I assuming here exactly?


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

We are not living in an alternative history timeline. In this one (reality) the NHS was created in 1948 by Bevan under a Labour government. And if that (and the welfare state) aren't things to celebrate (and defend as they're currently under attack) then I guess I'm not idealogically pure enough. Good luck to Beveridge for some excellent ideas (not all Tories are mental) but his party (my assumption now) would have been a lot less likely to enact them than Labour.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> What am I assuming here exactly?


That the Tories would have enacted Beveridge's ideas.


----------



## chilango (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> More assumptions. I can't believe I've just read 'fuck Attlee'. So nothing to celebrate then (answer the question)?


.





> He commisioned an independent nuclear deterrent for the UK. He used 13,000 troops and passed special legislation to promptly end the London dock strike in 1949



Yeah. Fuck Attlee.


----------



## DotCommunist (Jul 11, 2019)

Clem 'malayan emergency' Atlee.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

chilango said:


> .
> 
> Yeah. Fuck Attlee.


Well with regards to nukes. Smart move. The genie was out the bottle. Better to have something and not need it. Don't at all agree with his actions regarding the strike. I'm an ex CPSA union rep and I've helped organize and stood on a picket line by the way. But it doesn't invalidate the creation of the NHS and the welfare state.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

DotCommunist said:


> Clem 'malayan emergency' Atlee.


Wars. We'll never see the end of them. Being the leader of a country can be a difficult thing in the times that you live in.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

Any thumbs ups for the welfare state and the NHS? On this left wing forum.


----------



## DotCommunist (Jul 11, 2019)

Lets hear it for the crumbs, ladies and gentlemen, a big hand for the crumbs that have fallen from the table. Which we built. And stocked.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> That the Tories would have enacted Beveridge's ideas.


Did the tories, like the rest of the political class, accept and adopt keynesianism in post war period?


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 11, 2019)

Nowt wrong with ushering in the NHS but I think you're giving the Labour Party a bit too much credit.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> Did the tories, like the rest of the political class, accept and adopt keynesianism in post war period?


Stick with reality. Not alternative timelines. It was Labour who created the welfare state and the NHS. I'm aware that Keynes was trying to save capitalism from itself but let's stick with the facts yeah?
So. Again. Any cheers for the welfare state and the NHS comrades?


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> We are not living in an alternative history timeline. In this one (reality) the NHS was created in 1948 by Bevan under a Labour government. And if that (and the welfare state) aren't things to celebrate (and defend as they're currently under attack) then I guess I'm not idealogically pure enough. Good luck to Beveridge for some excellent ideas (not all Tories are mental) but his party (my assumption now) would have been a lot less likely to enact them than Labour.


Also Beveridge wasn't a tory as well as not being labour


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

Serge Forward said:


> Nowt wrong with ushering in the NHS but I think you're giving the Labour Party a bit too much credit.


So more a slow hand clap than a cheer? Jesus. Any Tories reading this must be pissing themselves. I'm out.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> Also Beveridge wasn't a tory as well as not being labour


Liberal. Sorry.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

I'll reverse the argument. What's the left's greatest victory then? That has improved the lives of the greatest amount of people in the most meaningful way?


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> I'll reverse the argument. What's the left's greatest victory then? That has improved the lives of the greatest amount of people in the most meaningful way?


The right to collectively bargain and withdraw labour


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> The right to collectively bargain and withdraw labour


Well, that's a hard one to disagree with (lol).
OK, I like Attlee, Bevan and the welfare state and the NHS. There. I've said it.


----------



## planetgeli (Jul 11, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> The right to collectively bargain and withdraw labour



And how is this victory going now comrade? You been in a strike since the miners were defeated? I have. No fucking fun.

Get real.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> I'll reverse the argument. What's the left's greatest victory then? That has improved the lives of the greatest amount of people in the most meaningful way?


Fuck "the left". What's changed the lives of labour is it's own actions, it's own organisation and empowerment. The Labour Party didn't create the NHS, the working class did.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

redsquirrel said:


> Fuck "the left". What's changed the lives of labour is it's own actions, it's own organisation and empowerment. The Labour Party didn't create the NHS, the working class did.


Clue's in the name.


----------



## chilango (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> Any thumbs ups for the welfare state and the NHS? On this left wing forum.






			
				Some dead bloke with a beard said:
			
		

> It is the production and reproduction of that means of production so indispensable to the capitalist: the labourer himself.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> Clue's in the name.


And so the LP, the party that sold out, attacked and betrayed workers repeatedly, the party who's purpose is to manage the working class becomes synonymous with the working class.

This is almost as mad as your crap about Cameron secretly supporting the leave vote.

This right here is the real division.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

redsquirrel said:


> And so the LP, the party that sold out, attacked and betrayed workers repeatedly, the party who's purpose is to manage the working class becomes synonymous with the working class.
> 
> This is almost as mad as your crap about Cameron secretly supporting the leave vote.
> 
> This right here is the real division.


Erm. So fuck Attlee? Fuck Labour, fuck the welfare state and fuck the NHS?
ETA: And you say I'm crazy.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 11, 2019)

The first two - absolutely. The second two - has anyone said anything remotely like that, no.


----------



## chilango (Jul 11, 2019)

I'll defend the NHS and the welfare state on the basis that the "changes" proposed are not in our interests either, and what we've got is better than what we're being offered.

But ultimately I want a damn sight more than what we've got.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 11, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> And how is this victory going now comrade? You been in a strike since the miners were defeated? I have. No fucking fun.
> 
> Get real.


Yeah I have and yeah it's pretty shit. Still, collective bargaining and action has delivered many of the improvements the working class has gained since it was born. Whether working class organisation equals the left is debatable tho


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 11, 2019)

And yeah fuck the labour party the absolute shower of cunts and albatross on our necks


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 11, 2019)

chilango said:


> But ultimately I want a damn sight more than what we've got.


For our demands are modest, we only want the earth.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 11, 2019)

Fuck it lets storm the heavens


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

redsquirrel said:


> The first two - absolutely. The second two - has anyone said anything remotely like that, no.


So the first two had nothing to do with the second two then?


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> So the first two had nothing to do with the second two then?


Less than you think


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

chilango said:


> I'll defend the NHS and the welfare state on the basis that the "changes" proposed are not in our interests either, and what we've got is better than what we're being offered.
> 
> But ultimately I want a damn sight more than what we've got.


Agree with you. But every step forward is a victory and those two are very large steps forward.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> So the first two had nothing to do with the second two then?


They were in place when the working class forced concessions from capital. Oh and they backtracked, introducing charges.


----------



## chilango (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> Agree with you. But every step forward is a victory and those two are very large steps forward.



_Aufhebengefung_ or something comrade.

They were simultaneously a victory and a defeat.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> Stick with reality. Not alternative timelines. It was Labour who created the welfare state and the NHS. I'm aware that Keynes was trying to save capitalism from itself but let's stick with the facts yeah?
> So. Again. Any cheers for the welfare state and the NHS comrades?



Top down bollocks. The welfare state and NHS have been of massive benefit to the working class. Nobody objects to that claim. It's the claim that the NHS happened because Attlee was a nice bloke (conveniently ignoring Bevans contribution and robbing the rest of the population of any kind of political agency) that's rightly being ridiculed. No left wing historian I'm aware of would agree with your position. Top down right wing bollocks is what you're spouting. The great man theory of history. It's making you look a bit of a tit.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 11, 2019)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> I voted leave, I’m hardly surprised the Tories have arsed it up.
> But as for the news that’s meant to shock us..... “the poor will be poorer!” “Business will fuck you up the ass without lube”
> 
> Get fucked man. Middle class people that are now in a state of terror and stocking up on tinned food were obviously living in a state of fantastical naïveté for years..... oh hey I didn’t mean the french version, but I’ll leave it like that anyway cause it makes me sound learned.



Actually, not particularly learned.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> Top down bollocks. The welfare state and NHS have been of massive benefit to the working class. Nobody objects to that claim. It's the claim that the NHS happened because Attlee was a nice bloke (conveniently ignoring Bevans contribution and robbing the rest of the population of any kind of political agency) that's rightly being ridiculed. No left wing historian I'm aware of would agree with your position. Top down right wing bollocks is what you're spouting. The great man theory of history. It's making you look a bit of a tit.


I’’m not saying that grass roots activism isn’t very important. Essential. That’s obvious. I’m right wing now???


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 11, 2019)

8ball said:


> Actually, not particularly learned.


That’s a shot from 2 metres, I obviously know this.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 11, 2019)

Ming said:


> I’’m not saying that grass roots activism isn’t very important. Essential. That’s obvious. I’m right wing now???


Your view of how it happened certainly sounds more like a right wing or at least Liberal account. Its pretty widely accepted that the Beveridge report was going to be implemented whoever won that election. There were differences, the liberals and tories both favoured more of an insurance based welfare state as opposed to the solidaristic model introduced by Labour but there would have been a welfare state and an NHS whoever the government was. And I do think the NHS is/was better as introduced by Labour than it would otherwise have been but I credit bevan with that, not Attlee and bevan was a very different kind of politician. But the fact remains that we've got the NHS and a welfare state because the entire political class had it forced upon it from below, not because there was a Labour government. Labour's Keynesian social democracy was the consensus for at least two decades after (there is debate over exactly how long especially on the left) and there's a reason for that.


----------



## Dandred (Jul 11, 2019)

It has swung to the right since I joined.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 11, 2019)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> That’s a shot from 2 metres, I obviously know this.



‘Tis but a scratch.


----------



## Ming (Jul 11, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> Your view of how it happened certainly sounds more like a right wing or at least Liberal account. Its pretty widely accepted that the Beveridge report was going to be implemented whoever won that election. There were differences, the liberals and tories both favoured more of an insurance based welfare state as opposed to the solidaristic model introduced by Labour but there would have been a welfare state and an NHS whoever the government was. And I do think the NHS is/was better as introduced by Labour than it would otherwise have been but I credit bevan with that, not Attlee and bevan was a very different kind of politician. But the fact remains that we've got the NHS and a welfare state because the entire political class had it forced upon it from below, not because there was a Labour government. Labour's Keynesian social democracy was the consensus for at least two decades after (there is debate over exactly how long especially on the left) and there's a reason for that.


So we got public health care rather than an insurance based system. Good. I actually agree with you that change comes from the grassroots. I remember Chomsky talking about the anti war and civil rights movements that radicalized him rising from below (and MLK being an important figurehead but not to forget he was just that...don’t forget the freedom riders).


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 11, 2019)

8ball said:


> ‘Tis but a scratch.



THERE ARE MORE THINGS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH, HORATIO etc etc


----------



## A380 (Jul 12, 2019)

Ming said:


> Yeah. So fuck the welfare state and Clement Attlee then? Is anything enough?



No, for some professional revolutionaries nothing is pure enough. After all if it was how would they know they were better than everyone else?



Ming said:


> I'll reverse the argument. What's the left's greatest victory then? That has improved the lives of the greatest amount of people in the most meaningful way?



I believe the left’s greatest triumph was a 1987 double sided Gestetna mimeographed pamphlet put out by the people’s revolutionary socialist party (Marxist /Leninist ( popular front) )  that, in font size six, with no paragraphs, proved that every other revolutionary group active at the time, and in the 60 years before were, in fact, counter revolutionary running dogs as evidenced by their line on Lenin’s 1919 pamphlets on the role of automatic telephone exchanges in supporting socialism. And if you disagree it’s because you are a fascist.


----------



## stuff_it (Jul 12, 2019)

More left win than Voat.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

A380 said:


> No, for some professional revolutionaries nothing is pure enough. After all if it was how would they know they were better than everyone else?
> 
> 
> 
> I believe the left’s greatest triumph was a 1987 double sided Gestetna mimeographed pamphlet put out by the people’s revolutionary socialist party Marxist /Leninist ( popular front) )  that, in font size six, with no paragraphs, proved that every other revolutionary group active at the time, and in the 60 years before were, in fact, counter revolutionary running dogs as evidenced by their line on Lenin’s 1919 pamphlets on the role of automatic telephone exchanges in supporting socialism. And if you disagree it’s because you are a fascist.


Yeah i remember that one. Very soft and absorbent.


----------



## 1979 (Jul 12, 2019)

Hipster anarchists. Strong Left. When will there be a multicultural far right group .


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 12, 2019)

1979 said:


> Hipster anarchists. Strong Left. When will there be a multicultural far right group .



Sleeper account activated.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

1979 said:


> Hipster anarchists. Strong Left. When will there be a multicultural far right group .


Paleo-hipsters mate. The real deal. Not these 'neo-hipsters'.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

krtek a houby said:


> Sleeper account activated.


Ninj, Firky, TP or Ernesto?


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 12, 2019)

Ming said:


> Ninj, Firky, TP or Ernesto?



Data not available yet. Processing.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

krtek a houby said:


> Data not available yet. Processing.[/QUOT


Who ever it is i'm sure they'll call out our tainted souls and arrogant Guardianista hypocrisy in double quick time.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 12, 2019)

Ming said:


> Who ever it is i'm sure they'll call out our tainted souls and arrogant Guardianista hypocrisy in double quick time.



I imagine it will play out exactly as it has done, hundreds of times, before. Sigh. Such predictability.


----------



## Humberto (Jul 12, 2019)

Ming said:


> Who ever it is i'm sure they'll call out our tainted souls and arrogant Guardianista hypocrisy in double quick time.



It is a truism though that we get nothing given to us, that is, the working class. What we have we have taken, demanded and got through extra-parliamentary pressure.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

Humberto said:


> It is a truism though that we get nothing given to us, that is, the working class. What we have we have taken, demanded and got through extra-parliamentary pressure.


Very true.
 I work in psychiatry and i have a firm belief that there's a strong correlation between empathy (a biological function rooted in the amygdala) and a person's politics. The less empathic you are the more right wing you are likely to be. Try reading  'Snakes in Suits' by Robert Hare (who created the psychopathy rating scale) and Paul Babiak. It's about psychopaths in the work place (and high places generally). Psychopaths don't give up their assets and power easily and without a fight. 
I think this issue in the coming years will effect everything (particularly selection for high office, the law and criminal culpability). Boris and Trump are probably going to score quite high on the Hare PCL-R.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

A380 said:


> No, for some professional revolutionaries nothing is pure enough. After all if it was how would they know they were better than everyone else?
> 
> 
> 
> I believe the left’s greatest triumph was a 1987 double sided Gestetna mimeographed pamphlet put out by the people’s revolutionary socialist party (Marxist /Leninist ( popular front) )  that, in font size six, with no paragraphs, proved that every other revolutionary group active at the time, and in the 60 years before were, in fact, counter revolutionary running dogs as evidenced by their line on Lenin’s 1919 pamphlets on the role of automatic telephone exchanges in supporting socialism. And if you disagree it’s because you are a fascist.


Just as an aside. Everyone hates 'New Labour' right? Not me. I got a career out of them. My nursing cohort (2004) was the biggest in John Moores Uni's history (according to the head of the course). And i was coming off the back of about 4 years of addiction and mental health problems. They had the money to take a chance. When i was mentoring a newly qualified on her preceptorship a few years after i qualified she told me how difficult it was to even get a place. And no bursary and fees. Barriers deliberately put in place to under source the NHS to soften it up for privatisation. That's the real world difference between going 'that way' (to the left) and going 'that way' (to the right).


----------



## Humberto (Jul 12, 2019)

I've heard that argument Ming. Me dad for instance (builder) did really well under Blair, but always got piss take wages (he was self-employed) under Tories. They are rotten bastards in other words.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

Humberto said:


> I've heard that argument Ming. Me dad for instance (builder) did really well under Blair, but always got piss take wages (he was self-employed) under Tories. They are rotten bastards in other words.


They are bastards. No doubt. Do you know were the derivation of 'Tory' comes from? Gaellic. It means 'pursued man' or brigand.
Aaah! My dad sold mobile cranes for Coles!
So he's the one nation tory (he wasn't that political to be honest) and my mum used to be a member of the young socialists. How they ever got together is beyond me. But anyway on with the story.
My dad and i used to argue politics a bit (i don't think he was that arsed but i was). I pointed out that when his sales career started was right at the end of WW2 and he did really well up until about 1979. Then his sales dried up (the tories attack on the unions in manufacturing and heavy industry...Mersey Docks and Harbour Board were one of his major repeat customers). He just refused to accept that one thing (Tory election/Unions/Liverpool) had anything to do with the other (no sales). But again, to be fair, he really wasn't political other than reading the Express ('for the crossword') and always voting tory.
ETA: And containerisation at Seaforth. The Mersey couldn't handle the size of the ships. But he covered that bit too. So politics and technology really. Like advances in communication tech have shifted jobs to China (and next stop West Africa).


----------



## Humberto (Jul 12, 2019)

All me family are from the Birkenhead area. So factory jobs (both grandads) their parents were all dockers. Where they lived, Cleveland Street/ Corporation Road, was subject to the Nazi bombs. There was still quite a bit of that neighbourhood around when I was a youngster, but they knocked most of it down in recent years. Me great grandad drove a horse and cart round the docks, (so he was well off relatively). They didn't have much rights then in their employment. They'd throw tokens into the crowd and whoever was quickest got a days work on the docks.

When the bombs came down (this is my sixty year old dad's grandad), they requisitioned houses over the other side of Birkenhead Park. So massive posh houses, although shared amongst quite a few. One of my dad's uncles, 18 years old, didn't want  to go and fight in WW2. So he was hidden by the family. His brother -in- law was some kind of warden and caught him and grassed him up.

So then they built the likes of the Woodchurch and Leasowe estates in the 50s I think. And so we went on. Cool story etc.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

Humberto said:


> All me family are from the Birkenhead area. So factory jobs (both grandads) their parents were all dockers. Where they lived, Cleveland Street/ Corporation Road, was subject to the Nazi bombs. There was still quite a bit of that neighbourhood around when I was a youngster, but they knocked most of it down in recent years. Me great grandad drove a horse and cart round the docks, (so he was well off relatively). They didn't have much rights then in their employment. They'd throw tokens into the crowd and whoever was quickest got a days work on the docks.
> 
> When the bombs came down (this is my sixty year old dad's grandad), they requisitioned houses over the other side of Birkenhead Park. So massive posh houses, although shared amongst quite a few. One of my dad's uncles, 18 years old, didn't want  to go and fight in WW2. So he was hidden by the family. His brother -in- law was some kind of warden and caught him and grassed him up.
> 
> So then they built the likes of the Woodchurch and Leasowe estates in the 50s I think. And so we went on. Cool story etc.


GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!! I'm originally from Moreton and my folks shifted me over to Meols after i passed the 11 plus (Caldy). Fucking small world man!


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

I've played gigs at Stairways.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

Did you ever drink in The Commodore?


----------



## Humberto (Jul 12, 2019)

Ming said:


> Did you ever drink in The Commodore?



No mate but Stairways was the only place me and my mates could get into as scrawny 15 YOs

I knew you from the same area. You must have mentioned it. I'm a lurker mainly.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

Humberto said:


> No mate but Stairways was the only place me and my mates could get into as scrawny 15 YOs
> 
> I knew you from the same area. You must have mentioned it. I'm a lurker mainly.


The Wirral is a strange place. Original but weird. Warrior Soul played Stairways once.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

Humberto said:


> No mate but Stairways was the only place me and my mates could get into as scrawny 15 YOs
> 
> I knew you from the same area. You must have mentioned it. I'm a lurker mainly.


Just realised you're taking the piss!


----------



## Humberto (Jul 12, 2019)

Ming said:


> Just realised you're taking the piss!



No I'm really not honestly. My fault though cos I've been rude to you and you've been generous to me.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

Humberto said:


> No I'm really not honestly. My fault though cos I've been rude to you and you've been generous to me.


Say something funny.


----------



## Humberto (Jul 12, 2019)

Ming said:


> Say something funny.



Honestly I was cunty to _you_. You're great. I read these boards all day, and must have picked up on the fact that you are from the same area as me.


----------



## planetgeli (Jul 12, 2019)

Well, at least we got around to this sensible post from the purism. Tbh Ming I’d been surprised that up until then you hadn’t been castigated for not knowing how a Liberal Party eugenicist had been responsible for the plan that helped create the NHS, thus invalidating any good that came of it and making all users fascists by their support of such a system. But then, to be fair, Serge weighed in with a bit of sense.



Serge Forward said:


> Nowt wrong with ushering in the NHS but I think you're giving the Labour Party a bit too much credit.



Which is right. Although of course we’d also had to cope with Squirrels arguments which say the Labour Party had nothing at all to do with the creation of the NHS, it all being down to the working class. Obviously it being the working class, not Bevan, who got doctors on side through hard negotiation and not a little compromise, doctors being, as they were, extremely reluctant to join in the fun.

But then we had the ideological pure Dotty weighing in with what sounds like sense, good working class sense that can’t possibly be questioned because Dotty said it right?



DotCommunist said:


> Lets hear it for the crumbs, ladies and gentlemen, a big hand for the crumbs that have fallen from the table. Which we built. And stocked.



Do you know how much that sounds like total disrespectful bollocks to your average working class person, Not to mention to the working class within the NHS, while of course claiming to be ideologically pure non-bollocks of the highest order? To someone like me, who has now had two £20000 cancer operations that aren’t even covered by medical insurance in any other country in the world, let alone affordable to anyone on my sort of wage. Crumbs? Some fucking crumbs mate. It’s the greatest example I can think of of ‘according to need’ to which I’ve contributed (significantly less) from my ability to do so.

But no. Let’s hit Dotty’s comment with likes, because he’s a veteran on here and he speaks pure, ideological, surely unarguable, truths. In the real world. That real people understand and can get behind with their experience. And god forbid anyone who should think further than hitting ‘like’ on such bollocks. God forbid anyone who’s experience doesn’t match the ideological purity of Urban 75.

Like fuck. It’s just another example, as was some of the ranting against Ming instead of cooling correcting what he said that was wrong, of the ‘better than thou’, ‘ooh look, Ming doesn’t even know Beveridge was a Liberal’ ‘I’m so smarter than those I profess to want to help’ bollocks of what this forum is like sometimes. The bit that has no idea whatsoever how to connect with the working class because it’s too far up its own arse trying to be ideologically sound.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> Well, at least we got around to this sensible post from the purism. Tbh Ming I’d been surprised that up until then you hadn’t been castigated for not knowing how a Liberal Party eugenicist had been responsible for the plan that helped create the NHS, thus invalidating any good that came of it and making all users fascists by their support of such a system. But then, to be fair, Serge weighed in with a bit of sense.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


oooh. Do you fancy a middle of the day coffee? might be a laugh. no worries if noy.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

Yeah. Divide to Conquer.And divide to rules. 
*Bread and circuses*


----------



## kabbes (Jul 12, 2019)

Ming said:


> Very true.
> I work in psychiatry and i have a firm belief that there's a strong correlation between empathy (a biological function rooted in the amygdala) and a person's politics. The less empathic you are the more right wing you are likely to be. Try reading  'Snakes in Suits' by Robert Hare (who created the psychopathy rating scale) and Paul Babiak. It's about psychopaths in the work place (and high places generally). Psychopaths don't give up their assets and power easily and without a fight.
> I think this issue in the coming years will effect everything (particularly selection for high office, the law and criminal culpability). Boris and Trump are probably going to score quite high on the Hare PCL-R.


Every brain function is biological.  Every thought, every emotion is biological.  Biological is not the same as deterministic or fixed though.  Empathy is learnt or suppressed by experience or conscious decision.  The fact that it is processed in the amygdala (or, more accurately, that the amygdala is involved in its processing) doesn’t change that — everything you think or feel has to be processed somewhere.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

kabbes said:


> Every brain function is biological.  Every thought, every emotion is biological.  Biological is not the same as deterministic or fixed though.  Empathy is learnt or suppressed by experience or conscious decision.  The fact that it is processed in the amygdala (or, more accurately, that the amygdala is involved in its processing) doesn’t change that — everything you think or feel has to be processed somewhere.


Do you believe in free will?


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 12, 2019)

Yes total ideological purity - a couple of (ex-)trots, some non-aligned communists and two anarchists. 

You want to talk about ideological purity how about this 


Ming said:


> Yeah. So fuck the welfare state and Clement Attlee then? Is anything enough?


Where Serge Forward's criticism of a government attacking workers (how terribly ideologically pure!) necessarily entails "fuck the welfare state". 

To use danny la rouge's example, it is not ideological purity to insist that a sofa is not a table. 
Nor is is ideological purity to see Ming's description of the creation of the NHS as an essentially liberal one (as Spiney posted), it quite clearly is. It's the type of version of history that you'd have presented by Marr. 


In fact the main person on this thread insisting on ideological purity is Ming, by constructing a left is little more that "not-Tory"* and then obliterating all political differences between liberalism, social democracy, and socialism.

In fact it's worth noticing that in Ming's politics the creation of the NHS/welfare state becomes the work of one political party and could not come about otherwise. Contrast that with the argument that the creation of the welfare state (a process that occurred in a similar manner across the West under governments of different stripe) came about through the force of the working class with all its varied ideas, politics, contradictions, demands and wants. And it is the latter that is ideologically pure?	 

*and apparently more empathetic. Seriously if people want to talk about ideologically purity, then that "thesis" might be the place to start!


----------



## kabbes (Jul 12, 2019)

Ming said:


> Do you believe in free will?


I believe that question contains its own implied answer.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

kabbes said:


> I believe that question contains its own implied answer.


just a bad gig man.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

kabbes said:


> I believe that question contains its own implied answer.


Still hopeful. Nature of our thing.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

kabbes said:


> I believe that question contains its own implied answer.


It's not all 
*algorithmical*


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## kabbes (Jul 12, 2019)

We are not anything.  There is no self — it is an illusion.  A story we tell ourselves.   But we believe that story so hard, it ends up determining our behaviour.  So long as that is true, there is no free will.  But *if* we can identify the story and see its beats for what they are, we have the absolute freedom to make a different decision to our self-determined default.  That is the only freedom we have and it can be the most powerful thing or meaningless in equal measure.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

kabbes said:


> We are not anything.  There is no self — it is an illusion.  A story we tell ourselves.   But we believe that story so hard, it ends up determining our behaviour.  So long as that is true, there is no free will.  But *if* we can identify the story and see its beats for what they are, we have the absolute freedom to make a different decision to our self-determined default.  That is the only freedom we have and it can be the most powerful thing or meaningless in equal measure.


Weird isn't it? If you get into quantification of valuing things, things can get really abstract.


----------



## Mr Moose (Jul 12, 2019)

kabbes said:


> We are not anything.  There is no self — it is an illusion.  A story we tell ourselves.   But we believe that story so hard, it ends up determining our behaviour.  So long as that is true, there is no free will.  But *if* we can identify the story and see its beats for what they are, we have the absolute freedom to make a different decision to our self-determined default.  That is the only freedom we have and it can be the most powerful thing or meaningless in equal measure.



Sorry, but our ability to identify the ‘story’ is in itself limited by the ‘story’ and all the historical and social factors that made it. It’s an illusion, a vanity that we can transcend it. Just enjoy the ride.


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 12, 2019)

Incidentally, the... ahem... "ideologically pure" Anarchist Communist Group has recently brought out a pamphlet on this very subject: Our NHS?




			
				ACG said:
			
		

> The Anarchist Communist Group’s new pamphlet on the NHS,_ Our NHS? Anarchist Communist Thoughts on Health_. With sections on: Health and Capitalism; The NHS, Why We Should Defend It and Move Beyond It; Working For The NHS; What Changes in Health Services Do We Want To See? and Conclusion: Why Should We As Anarchist Communists Defend The NHS. An important new pamphlet, it clearly lays out Anarchist Communist views on health, a must get.



Let it not be said that I'm not one to miss a trick in my quest for ideological purity


----------



## kabbes (Jul 12, 2019)

Mr Moose said:


> Sorry, but our ability to identify the ‘story’ is in itself limited by the ‘story’ and all the historical and social factors that made it. It’s an illusion, a vanity that we can transcend it. Just enjoy the ride.


That doesn’t change what I said one iota.


----------



## planetgeli (Jul 12, 2019)

redsquirrel said:


> Yes total ideological purity - a couple of (ex-)trots, some non-aligned communists and two anarchists.
> 
> You want to talk about ideological purity how about this
> Where Serge Forward's criticism of a government attacking workers (how terribly ideologically pure!) necessarily entails "fuck the welfare state".
> ...



Your sarcasm doesn’t come across as particularly approachable.

I’m not here to defend Ming, but your quote of him replying to Serge’s point about troops being set on workers is particularly disingenuous, ignoring as you do Ming’s  post about 12 posts later where he says he doesn’t agree with such government tactics. But you also characterise this as Ming believing it “necessarily entails fucking the welfare state”. Ming never said that. And if anything, Serge’s (good and proper) point was in relation to Ming saying what a good government Atlee was. A point that could be characterised, by you, if you were on a different side of the argument, as saying that the welfare state, being put in place by the same government that attacked workers, couldn’t possibly be a good thing. Like I said, surprised nobody bought eugenics into it.

I reckon you’ll find Ming’s mischaracterisation as the welfare state and NHS being a Labour Party only thing is one shared by a lot of the working class. Many people think Labour government, Nye Bevan = welfare state + NHS. Do you go around telling lol these people how superior you are for knowing the nuances involved?

I hope you talk to them better than you talk to people on here. But I doubt it. Because you really do come across as a supercilious political know all.

This place is stale. Ever wonder why you can’t attract new members through the rankling and arguments that laughingly pass for debate?

Anyway Serge Forward nice sounding pamphlet. Where do I pick one up? Edit. I clicked. But I don’t do PayPal.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 12, 2019)

You slated off people for being ideological pure while ignoring the fact that the only real position of ideologically purity was propounded by Ming, proposing that criticism of the LP/Attlee government was equated with "fuck the NHS/welfare state", and then coming out with this bizarre (and frankly somewhat dodgy position).

If you want to talk about debate, then in reply to Proper Tidy's very reasonable claim


Proper Tidy said:


> Welfare state didn't come about because capital decided to be benevolent or because of some great crusading labour party. Even if tories had been elected in '45 we'd have seen many of the same gains/concessions. Capital in crisis and a heavily armed and trained working class will do that.


You have, this.


Ming said:


> Bollocks. That was the greatest victory of the left in the history of this country and there's no way the Tories would have brought it in. That's a complete assumption on your part.
> So is there anything to celebrate? Or should Attlee and Bevan hang their heads in shame?


I'm very happy to have a debate on how the welfare state came about and the role of the LP. But don't pretend that in response to perfectly valid points about the limitations of the LP the response was not a load of "when did you stop hitting your wife?".


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 12, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> Well, at least we got around to this sensible post from the purism. Tbh Ming I’d been surprised that up until then you hadn’t been castigated for not knowing how a Liberal Party eugenicist had been responsible for the plan that helped create the NHS, thus invalidating any good that came of it and making all users fascists by their support of such a system. But then, to be fair, Serge weighed in with a bit of sense.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I get your anger and I'm replying because I liked DotCommunist 's "crumbs" post.

I've benefitted from the NHS, I'd be dead by now at least twice without it.

That doesn't change the fact that it is, from a w/c pov, 'crumbs'. Waiting lists. "Treatment unavailable". No appointments at the GP. No A+E dept within 20 miles. Meds instead of counselling. Systematically importing foreign staff because what, British ppl can't do those jobs? Or is it to keep wages down? Not to mention the brain drain from places who need doctors and nurses just as badly as we do. Hospitals renting operating theatres from private equity firms. etc.

It was a great achievement, but it's disrespectful to nobody to recognize it was a sop to (as someone astutely put it upthread) a well-armed and empowered working class after two wars.

And it's being worn down now exactly because the working class are tame again, three generations since we were handed guns and trained to kill each other and we're falling apart.

So I appreciate treatment we've all had at times couldn't have been got for free in the US, but that doesn't mean it wasn't basically crumbs that we've been saved by. A human can survive a surprisingly long time on scraps.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 12, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I get your anger and I'm replying because I liked DotCommunist 's "crumbs" post.


Did you mean to quote me here or planetgeli?


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 12, 2019)

redsquirrel said:


> Did you mean to quote me here or planetgeli?



Meant to be planetgeli , I've edited, sorry!


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 12, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> Meant to be planetgeli , I've edited, sorry!


No probs, I thought it probably the case but just thought I'd check.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 12, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> I hope you talk to them better than you talk to people on here. But I doubt it. Because you really do come across as a supercilious political know all.



I liked this, not to single out a particular poster because I've no wish to ignite an argument but the _know it all approac_h of a _few_ posters can be off-putting. Esp for those of us, even if we've been here for years, who are still learning and taking on board stuff every day. Which is why I think it's better to share knowledge, rather than use it to denigrate/take down other posters who may not be as well-learned or savvy as they.

I've learned a lot over the years here and I appreciate urban as a very valuable resource for knowledge. And it's not as black and white as this party/ideology trumps that party/ideology because (I feel) ideologies are in a state of flux, being built upon or (healthily) questioned/improved upon. Just an opinion, natch. Others are available.

I don't know of any other site that caters for such discussions and also where people (despite disagreements) can come together.


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 12, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> Anyway Serge Forward nice sounding pamphlet. Where do I pick one up? Edit. I clicked. But I don’t do PayPal.


We're in the process of setting up other means of payment but in the meantime, you could go old skool and just send £2.50 worth of stamps or a postal order to our address.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 12, 2019)

Honestly tho, fuck old Clem


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> Your sarcasm doesn’t come across as particularly approachable.
> 
> I’m not here to defend Ming, but your quote of him replying to Serge’s point about troops being set on workers is particularly disingenuous, ignoring as you do Ming’s  post about 12 posts later where he says he doesn’t agree with such government tactics. But you also characterise this as Ming believing it “necessarily entails fucking the welfare state”. Ming never said that. And if anything, Serge’s (good and proper) point was in relation to Ming saying what a good government Atlee was. A point that could be characterised, by you, if you were on a different side of the argument, as saying that the welfare state, being put in place by the same government that attacked workers, couldn’t possibly be a good thing. Like I said, surprised nobody bought eugenics into it.
> 
> ...


Just stop.
(joking).


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

Like Ozzy. I love you all.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 12, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> Welfare state didn't come about because capital decided to be benevolent or because of some great crusading labour party. Even if tories had been elected in '45 we'd have seen many of the same gains/concessions. Capital in crisis and a heavily armed and trained working class will do that.
> 
> So no to the former but the latter, yeah fuck Attlee


Denigration? 



Ming said:


> Bollocks. That was the greatest victory of the left in the history of this country and there's no way the Tories would have brought it in. That's a complete assumption on your part.
> So is there anything to celebrate? Or should Attlee and Bevan hang their heads in shame?


Not denigration? 



planetgeli said:


> And how is this victory going now comrade? You been in a strike since the miners were defeated? I have. No fucking fun.
> 
> Get real.


Not denigration? 

If we want to have a discussion about how to make P&P more "fuffly" ok, but take the beams from you own eyes brothers and sisters.


----------



## Ming (Jul 12, 2019)

redsquirrel said:


> Denigration?
> 
> Not denigration?
> 
> ...


I'm into 'fuffly'. I'm a very socially progressive person. Got my Tinder account.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 12, 2019)

Ming said:


> I'm into 'fuffly'. I'm a very socially progressive person. Got my Tinder account.



Uh, oh. "Progressive"


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 12, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> Well, at least we got around to this sensible post from the purism. Tbh Ming I’d been surprised that up until then you hadn’t been castigated for not knowing how a Liberal Party eugenicist had been responsible for the plan that helped create the NHS, thus invalidating any good that came of it and making all users fascists by their support of such a system. But then, to be fair, Serge weighed in with a bit of sense.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What the fuck


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 12, 2019)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> What the fuck


I’ll expand- I’m working class and I thought your post was a load of unnecessarily snide bollocks. I couldn’t connect with one single part of it.  Most of those designated  Know It Alls on here I find enjoyable to read even if I can’t always weigh in myself, which is a lot of the time- a lot of this is taste in writing styles isn’t it. Aren’t most of them(all?) not working class themselves?  You can come up with any statement in the world and some working class people may connect with you and others will call you cunt. Given that, why would you as DLR and RS put it, lie and call the sofa a table, call it a sofa. Even if they call you a smart arse know it all and would prefer you shut up, much like a condescending teacher that feels threatened by a clever pupil. “Know it all” style, Jesus.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 12, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> Well, at least we got around to this sensible post from the purism. Tbh Ming I’d been surprised that up until then you hadn’t been castigated for not knowing how a Liberal Party eugenicist had been responsible for the plan that helped create the NHS, thus invalidating any good that came of it and making all users fascists by their support of such a system. But then, to be fair, Serge weighed in with a bit of sense.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hi planetgeli, I realise that this post is full of rhetorical irony and black-humour-filled hyperbole. It’s an enjoyable rant.  However, what you’ve done is construct a straw man, and then riduculed it. Which, to be fair, you seem conscious of doing, and seem implicitly to acknowledge doing. So fair do’s.

However, much in the tradition of bulletin board discussions, this thread is creating more heat than light by people talking past each other and making sarcastic quips people of their own ideological grouping will enjoy, but which others will miss and misinterpet.  This is of course not your doing.  It's the nature of online debate.

redsquirrel kindly linked to an old post of mine that outlines my views on political stances and the accusation of ideological purity-seeking.  I have re-read that old post, and I still stand by it.  If you have the time or inclination, I'd be happy to field your questions or comments on it.  (It's here, should you be so inclined).

You are of course correct that the NHS is a prize worth having and defending.  It has saved my life more than once, and like you, I've had expensive treatment I probably wouldn't have had on my income under the US-style insurance system.  (The US health system and its deficiencies was once an interest of mine, and I kept myself informed on it, although my knowledge these days is restricted to the more general.  But I have a couple of old books that I think are still relevant on the ideology and practicalities of such a private insurance-based system, and which I'm happy to reference once I lay my hands on them).

As you probably know, nobody to whom you are imputing such views is arguing that the NHS is not a worthwhile institution.  The disagreement such as it is involves differing analyses of socio-economic historical forces.

I am an anarchist communist (although not a member of the ACG - although I am considering membership once I get a few personal circumstances straightened out).  My view is that the NHS and more general Welfare State were created by the establishment as a response by the state to various pressures it knew it had to respond to.  Both of those post-War institutions had their roots in the (capital L) Liberal Party intellectual ruminations that were responding to conditions.  What were the conditions?  By the time of the creation of the institutions, the historical weight of two world wars, a depression, the social change resulting from those, and decades, centuries even, of organised working class pressure on the working week, the working day, employment conditions, employment security, safety at work, and numerous other worthwhile and necessary battles .  The establishement knew it was at an historic point where it had to make consessions.  (capital L) Liberal politicians had been arguing this for a long time.  Papers and reports had been written.  Even the (capital C) Tory establishment (Yes, I know.  It's a joke) acknowledged this.  Indeed, during WWII Churchill realised that coming out of the war he'd have to act on these if he was to keep a returning demobbed, army of ex-conscripts satisfied.  It was necessary to reach a compromise between (small l) labour and capital. The historic point came after Armistice, and it was a result of decades of working class action, and historical conditions.

So, yes, _whoever_ had won that post war General Election would have established a welfare state.  In the event, it was Atlee's government, but based on the work of Liberals (such as William Beveridge, who reported _during the war_ on its need).  Had it been Churchill, his government would have based their institutions on the same reports.  No doubt the results would have differed, but the fact that the post-War Consensus held until the mid-70s (when the _Callaghan_ government was the first UK government to start introducing monetarist principles, and to question the role of state education etc.) shows that it would not have differed by all that much.  For an idea of why I think that, search the term "Butskellism").  (Incidentally, if you're wondering why the US conditions were different, that's because the balance of power between labour and capital in the US was different, and because inter-war developments such as the New Deal had already used Keynsian ideas to release some of the pressure that had built up there).

So, as I think that fleshes out a little, nobody arguing from a generally "socialist" stance (ie from a class-analysis-informed, pro-social ownership, pro-workers' self management stance) that the NHS and Welfare State were not a good thing.  And they're actually giving more agency in their establishment than some passages in your post seem to be willing to give.

None of this is to say you have to agree with that analysis.  But it is - generally speaking - the sort of analysis you'd expect from someone from the (small c) communist end of the socialist spectrum.  Other positions will have their own analyses. 

I hope you find this helpful, and that it contributes to a discussion in which we can talk past each other a bit less.

All the best.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 12, 2019)

Bravo


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 12, 2019)

I doff my anarcho communist hat!


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 12, 2019)

And I doff my proper communist working man's flat cap


----------



## 8ball (Jul 12, 2019)

<doffs stovepipe hat...>


----------



## chilango (Jul 12, 2019)

I doff my cap to no one. 

But we need more posts like danny la rouge 's
.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 12, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> Hi planetgeli, I realise that this post is full of rhetorical irony and black-humour-filled hyperbole. It’s an enjoyable rant.  However, what you’ve done is construct a straw man, and then riduculed it. Which, to be fair, you seem conscious of doing, and seem implicitly to acknowledge doing. So fair do’s.
> 
> However, much in the tradition of bulletin board discussions, this thread is creating more heat than light by people talking past each other and making sarcastic quips people of their own ideological grouping will enjoy, but which others will miss and misinterpet.  This is of course not your doing.  It's the nature of online debate.
> 
> ...


Well said Danny.
Only thing I'd want to add to that results from my reading of John Bew's biog of Attlee; "Citizen Clem". Not a tome I'd necessarily have picked up, but my aged Father-in-law lent it and...you know...they then ask you about it!

Howsomedever...the thing that I remember about the early/mid WW2 negotiations between Churchill & Attlee was Bew's admiration for the skill with which Attlee convinced Churchill of the need to carry the working class on the basis of the future NHS/Welfare state. I didn't approach the biog with an open mind, but my respect for Attlee's wartime political acumen rose after reading it.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 12, 2019)

Yep I echo all the above posts. On the money as usual Danny.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 12, 2019)

I confess to having a real soft spot for Bevan. Proper trade union MP, father blacklisted when he was a kid. Great turn of phrase too, whether its stuffed their throats with gold or no amount of cajolery. Resigned over the introduction of prescription charged too iirc (not sure if that makese him an ideological purist?)

But the conditions that allowed him to be minister of health and allowed him to force the NHS through were created by wider forces well beyond his control. 

Someone will probably come along and tell me he supported Altlee calling in the troops on striking dockers and spoil my illusion now


----------



## imposs1904 (Jul 12, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> Someone will probably come along and tell me he supported Altlee calling in the troops on striking dockers and spoil my illusion now



When Bevan was Minister of Health:

"_The hard core of habitual vagrants, including men who are work-shy, anti-social or recalcitrant, should also be given suitable treatment. For the limited number of men in this group firmness must, when necessary, be applied if reasonable discipline is to be maintained, and a spread of idle vagabondage discouraged._”
(Reynold's News, 7/6/46.)

Sorry.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 12, 2019)

imposs1904 said:


> When Bevan was Minister of Health:
> 
> "_The hard core of habitual vagrants, including men who are work-shy, anti-social or recalcitrant, should also be given suitable treatment. For the limited number of men in this group firmness must, when necessary, be applied if reasonable discipline is to be maintained, and a spread of idle vagabondage discouraged._”
> (Reynold's News, 7/6/46.)
> ...


Bastard 

No more heroes any more


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 12, 2019)

For the record I'm a massive advocate of idle vagabondage and practice it whenever the opportunity arises.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 12, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> For the record I'm a massive advocate of idle vagabondage and practice it whenever the opportunity arises.


I too am now grudgingly awaiting the time I can use that in a sentence. I’ll do it if I go out to this gig tonight, if my mum asks what I’m doing.


----------



## JuanTwoThree (Jul 12, 2019)

Idle vagabondage is my life's work. Loafing, dodging responsibility, light shoplifting.

But the more austere left takes a dim view and Bevan was not unlike Marx & Engels in their attitudes to layabouts

Lumpenproletariat - Wikipedia




However leftwing this place is, it's not the po-faced kind. I remember the IMG saying that drugs were a bourgeois distraction


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 12, 2019)

JuanTwoThree said:


> Idle vagabondage is my life's work. Loafing, dodging responsibility, light shoplifting.
> 
> But the more austere left takes a dim view and Bevan was not unlike Marx & Engels in their attitudes to layabouts
> 
> ...


When I was a trot I knew an older trot who hated swearing to the point that even a stray shit or knob would make him visibly distressed, a fuck or cunt would get you a lecture on how cadres should act like working class leaders or some bollocks


----------



## kebabking (Jul 12, 2019)

I was always rather a fan of the _austere _left.

Sorry.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 12, 2019)

The mental imaginary of the middle class and their grammar of class is hilarious. The do-gooding end most. 2019 and they still think fascists are skinheads. Or Loachesque hearts of gold. Maybe a skill recognised by high culture to finally make them fully human? Or surprisingly tolerant?


----------



## brogdale (Jul 12, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> The mental imaginary of the middle class and their grammar of class is hilarious. The do-gooding end most. 2019 and they still think fascists are skinheads. Or Loachesque hearts of gold. Maybe a skill recognised by high culture to finally make them fully human? Or surprisingly tolerant?


Good to see you back.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 12, 2019)

brogdale said:


> Good to see you back.


Thank you


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 12, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> The mental imaginary of the middle class and their grammar of class is hilarious. The do-gooding end most. 2019 and they still think fascists are skinheads. Or Loachesque hearts of gold. Maybe a skill recognised by high culture to finally make them fully human? Or surprisingly tolerant?


Hey, good to see you posting again 

(Off down to see Somerset beat Yorkshire at Headingley tomorrow)


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 12, 2019)

redsquirrel said:


> Hey, good to see you posting again
> 
> (Off down to see Somerset beat Yorkshire at Headingley tomorrow)


Ta. (What you going to do sunday though? Best leave that for the cricket thread - keep your speedometer on jamie overton though, fire this season)


----------



## kabbes (Jul 12, 2019)

Butchers is back!


----------



## Santino (Jul 12, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> The mental imaginary of the middle class and their grammar of class is hilarious. The do-gooding end most. 2019 and they still think fascists are skinheads. Or Loachesque hearts of gold. Maybe a skill recognised by high culture to finally make them fully human? Or surprisingly tolerant?


Where have you been you big bastard?

England are in the World Cup Final!


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 12, 2019)

Santino said:


> Where have you been you big bastard?
> 
> England are in the World Cup Final!


 Somerset doing good things too. All coming together.


----------



## Santino (Jul 12, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> Somerset doing good things too. All coming together.


Are they going to come second again?


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 12, 2019)

Santino said:


> Are they going to come second again?


Yep. Twice.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 12, 2019)

We've shifted leftwards with talk of cricket and what not.


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## Puddy_Tat (Jul 12, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> We've shifted leftwards with talk of cricket and what not.



or towards the leg side


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 13, 2019)

Leg before picket.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jul 13, 2019)

do you have a good strike rate?


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 13, 2019)

About four. Howzat?


----------



## Supine (Jul 13, 2019)

I'm feeling a little bit silly mid off


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## SpineyNorman (Jul 13, 2019)

I broke my thumb playing cricket in the 4th year at school. My mum wrote me a note to say I wouldnt be able to do PE until further notice. Since I was to bring in the letter further notice never came and I never did PE again. True story.

Probably explains why I'm such a fucking adonis now.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 13, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> I broke my thumb playing cricket in the 4th year at school. My mum wrote me a note to say I wouldnt be able to do PE until further notice. Since I was to bring in the letter further notice never came and I never did PE again. True story.
> 
> Probably explains why I'm such a fucking adonis now.


I used to skive PE. It all started when I discovered that orienteering was easy to scam. Me and a mate would climb a tree just inside the woods at the start of the lesson, then sit up the tree smoking until people started coming back. We’d get a crib sheet from a returner and use a badge to make the correct pin prick patterns to recreate the punch marks you were supposed to collect. 

I’ve never understood spectating or participating in sport. The PE teachers always told me how inept I was, so that didn’t help. It took me a long time to work out that sport and exercise aren’t synonyms. 

The only sport I’ve ever enjoyed watching was cricket. Had no idea what was going on, but sitting around in a park eating sandwiches and drinking tea with good company is a pleasant way to spend a sunny day.


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## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

I had a PE teacher in primary school who was regularly and openly rude about my PE skiving. When I went to secondary I left him behind - only for him to reappear four years later in that school.

The first time he saw me in PE class, he literally groaned (in front of the whole changing room) _Oh not you again_...

My sport life, yay!


----------



## 8ball (Jul 13, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> I used to skive PE. It all started when I discovered that orienteering was easy to scam. Me and a mate would climb a tree just inside the woods at the start of the lesson, then sit up the tree smoking until people started coming back. We’d get a crib sheet from a returner and use a badge to make the correct pin prick patterns to recreate the punch marks you were supposed to collect.



One of the plus points of having a congenital heart condition was that such machinations were never necessary for me.



danny la rouge said:


> The only sport I’ve ever enjoyed watching was cricket. Had no idea what was going on, but sitting around in a park eating sandwiches and drinking tea with good company is a pleasant way to spend a sunny day.



I'm guessing some guys in the background milling about randomly would have done as well as actual cricket.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 13, 2019)

My brother always said PE only existed so thick people could be good at something


----------



## kebabking (Jul 13, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> My brother always said PE only existed so thick people could be good at something



I think PE teachers are the proof of that. And something about jobs for nonces....


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

One of the things I hate most about the radical left is having to constantly hang around with people who got picked last for every team.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 13, 2019)

There's an swp member (think he's still a member anyway) who comments a lot on a mutual friends Facebook posts about football being the opium of the people and generally parroting the Chris bambery football is reactionary and competitive sports are capitalist line.

Didn't think anyone still believed stuff like that, none of the swpers I know took it seriously.


----------



## maomao (Jul 13, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> There's an swp member (think he's still a member anyway) who comments a lot on a mutual friends Facebook posts about football being the opium of the people and generally parroting the Chris bambery football is reactionary and competitive sports are capitalist line.


My mum (an ex SWP member of several decades) recently denied ever teaching me anything like that when I was a kid but it was definitely a thing in the 70s and 80s.


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## Proper Tidy (Jul 13, 2019)

My favourite was the late teens/early 20s lad who used to dress like Lenin at various conferences and I'm pretty sure grassed me up for smoking weed outside some shithole b&b we got put up in. If anything can convince you of the horror of vanguardism it's looking at who the vanguard is


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> My favourite was the late teens/early 20s lad who used to dress like Lenin at various conferences and I'm pretty sure grassed me up for smoking weed outside some shithole b&b we got put up in. If anything can convince you of the horror of vanguardism it's looking at who the vanguard is



Don't worry mate, they're not the vanguard. They just cosplay as the vanguard.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Jul 13, 2019)

kebabking said:


> I think PE teachers are the proof of that. And something about jobs for nonces....


My junior school PE  teacher was a nonce. He used to stand and watch the boys taking a shower after PE. He was a proper horrible cunt. He used to sit kids (usually girls) on his knee and twist their wrist until they cried. He had long greasy hair, with a veritable snowstorm of dandruff on his shoulders, and he absolutely stunk of BO. He wore white shirts and there were always massive yellow stains under the armpits.
My brother got expelled from the school, when him and his mate said enough is enough, and they beat up the paedo after a PE lesson.
Fast forward 20 years and paedo got banged up, when two ex pupils reported him for noncing them in the showers.
So yeah, I reckon A lot of PE teachers are nonces, just like boy scout leaders.


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

Feel minded to offer some defence of PE teachers. One of my PE teachers was one of the very few teachers who liked me and was generally sound to me. Despite the fact I was quite academically bright and generally the 'bright' kids are better liked by teachers. 

Mind you, I was captain of the school rugby team. And the other PE teacher that hated rugby really fucking hated me. So probably not significant.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 13, 2019)

SpackleFrog said:


> Feel minded to offer some defence of PE teachers. One of my PE teachers was one of the very few teachers who liked me and was generally sound to me. Despite the fact I was quite academically bright and generally the 'bright' kids are better liked by teachers.
> 
> Mind you, I was captain of the school rugby team. And the other PE teacher that hated rugby really fucking hated me. So probably not significant.


PE teachers are so noncey that simply bring a PE teacher is effectively an act of paedophilia. Like moustaches.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 13, 2019)

Having said that, not all PE teachers are child murdering nonces. Some of them are just nonces.


----------



## kebabking (Jul 13, 2019)

We had a PE teacher who went down for noncing.

I think every school has one.


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## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

At ours, the complaint was always about a female PE teacher. All the girls complained that she stared at them in the showers etc. 

Did always wonder if this could just be nastiness directed at an older unmarried woman etc. But it does seem like every school has one so maybe it was her at ours. Certainly there weren't even rumours about the male PE teachers being nonces. There was a rumour that one had only one bollock due to an unfortunate trampoline accident though. He was always more into gymnastics and stuff than football and rugby.


----------



## 8115 (Jul 13, 2019)

Do you mean the politics forum or the whole boards? The politics forum is pretty radical if not uniformly left wing, the boards seem to be migrating ever-rightwards even since I joined.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 13, 2019)

Neither of the male PE teachers in my school were nonces. But we had a geography teacher who had married a pupil a couple of months after she left school (at 16, no sixth form) in the 70s and an english/drama teacher who was always suspect and later convicted circa 2000s


----------



## Baronage-Phase (Jul 13, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> Neither of the male PE teachers in my school were nonces. But we had a geography teacher who had married a pupil a couple of months after she left school (at 16, no sixth form) in the 70s and an english/drama teacher who was always suspect and later convicted circa 2000s



We had a french teacher who married a pupil after she graduated...aged 18. 
Always thought he was a nonce but he married her and they had a family. 

I'm always wary of any teacher who thinks they should supervise shower rooms. It's a red flag imo.


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## Proper Tidy (Jul 13, 2019)

Lupa said:


> We had a french teacher who married a pupil after she graduated...aged 18.
> Always thought he was a nonce but he married her and they had a family.
> 
> I'm always wary of any teacher who thinks they should supervise shower rooms. It's a red flag imo.


Yeah this fella had stayed married but I've never accepted that as a defence, also he was always weird around girls


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## Proper Tidy (Jul 13, 2019)

Derailing a bit and should put it on that thread about things that have improved socially, but reckon this stuff has improved. Obviously it still goes on but we had the two aforementioned teachers who were fairly clearly nonces and it was just treated a bit like a joke, by pupils and teachers. Also at 3.30pm the road by the front gate would have loads of lads (men) aged 18-25 in their cars picking up their 13-16 y/o girlfriends. I don't think (I hope anyway) that kind of shit is tolerated any more


----------



## cantsin (Jul 13, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> Somerset doing good things too. All coming together.



never had you down as an England fan ? 

( am totally mixed up about it , always have been - can't help getting swept along if it's vs a powerful Aussie side and the like, but would deffo enjoy a kiwi upset on sun - )


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

Lupa said:


> I'm always wary of any teacher who thinks they should supervise shower rooms. It's a red flag imo.



Hmmmm... I guess someone should though...? 

Can be quite dangerous, shower rooms, slippy, hard surfaces. I'm speaking as someone who went to a school where some lads would fight in the showers and the teachers couldn't be arsed to check. Never happened to me but I can remember thinking if it did and someone fell and cracked their head it wouldn't be good. 

Tricky.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 13, 2019)

SpackleFrog said:


> At ours, the complaint was always about a female PE teacher. All the girls complained that she stared at them in the showers etc.
> 
> Did always wonder if this could just be nastiness directed at an older unmarried woman etc. But it does seem like every school has one so maybe it was her at ours. Certainly there weren't even rumours about the male PE teachers being nonces. There was a rumour that one had only one bollock due to an unfortunate trampoline accident though. He was always more into gymnastics and stuff than football and rugby.


They just covered it up well that's all. After all, how did anyone know he only had one bollock?


----------



## Baronage-Phase (Jul 13, 2019)

SpackleFrog said:


> Hmmmm... I guess someone should though...?
> 
> Can be quite dangerous, shower rooms, slippy, hard surfaces. I'm speaking as someone who went to a school where some lads would fight in the showers and the teachers couldn't be arsed to check. Never happened to me but I can remember thinking if it did and someone fell and cracked their head it wouldn't be good.
> 
> Tricky.




We got round it. No more showers. They wear PE gear in and no changing gear either. 
Nobody wants to supervise anyone in shower rooms.


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> They just covered it up well that's all. After all, how did anyone know he only had one bollock?



The story went it happened in the middle of a PE class. Before I actually got to the school. It was claimed that's why they got rid of the trampolines. I don't know, weren't anyway when I was there. 

He had actually been some sort of amateur gymnast and that somehow involved trampolines.


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

Lupa said:


> We got round it. No more showers. They wear PE gear in and no changing gear either.
> Nobody wants to supervise anyone in shower rooms.



Bet no one wants to teach the smelly fuckers either


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 13, 2019)

We had one noncey PE teacher and one that was just a bit sadistic. I didn’t have either often but the latter one made me go into the staff bit and apologise to him in Gaelic in front of the other teachers after me and this girl had to walk round and round the field as we forgot our kit. That’s not by far the worst thing he’s done but it stuck in my mind as being a wee bit weird- I don’t know you had to be there sort of thing?  He was a cunt when the cane and that was legal I hear. 
The nonce one was always groping people seemingly, but I don’t think I ever had him as a teacher.


----------



## A380 (Jul 13, 2019)

Lupa said:


> We got round it. No more showers. They wear PE gear in and no changing gear either.
> Nobody wants to supervise anyone in shower rooms.


How do your pupils learn the traditional art of towel flicking then?


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

I've been surprised recently at how much liberal "aww live n let live" there seems to be here about religion. Considering how socialist states (let's for fun say there's been such a thing) have tended to treated religion in the past.

Not very lefty at all IMO.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I've been surprised recently at how much liberal "aww live n let live" there seems to be here about religion. Considering how socialist states (let's for fun say there's been such a thing) have tended to treated religion in the past.
> 
> Not very lefty at all IMO.


Self defining socialist states having a great track record of not being oppressive bastards, success, and continued existence of course


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I've been surprised recently at how much liberal "aww live n let live" there seems to be here about religion. Considering how socialist states (let's for fun say there's been such a thing) have tended to treated religion in the past.
> 
> Not very lefty at all IMO.


Post needs examples. Do you think people shouldn’t practice it at all?


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I've been surprised recently at how much liberal "aww live n let live" there seems to be here about religion. Considering how socialist states (let's for fun say there's been such a thing) have tended to treated religion in the past.
> 
> Not very lefty at all IMO.


“Socialist” states have been authoritarian.  Whereas many of us are libertarian.

Banning things is pretty counterproductive anyway.


----------



## editor (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I've been surprised recently at how much liberal "aww live n let live" there seems to be here about religion. Considering how socialist states (let's for fun say there's been such a thing) have tended to treated religion in the past.
> 
> Not very lefty at all IMO.


Fuck organised religions with all their shiny gold baubles, moralising, demonising, homophobia and hypocrisy.


----------



## discokermit (Jul 13, 2019)

A heart in a heartless world.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 13, 2019)

There's a difference between being critical of religion and going full Sam Harris. 

The power the orthodox Church wields in Russia right now suggests the Soviet policy wasn't especially effective.

Banning religion doesn't kill it off, it makes it stronger.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

I'm really only talking about 'being critical' since not one of us can do more than that in reality. I'm just expressing surprise at how my (admittedly quite strong) anti-religious views get received on a board with so many lefties. I'm all for tolerance but religion is like fascism, give an inch and they take a mile.


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I've been surprised recently at how much liberal "aww live n let live" there seems to be here about religion. Considering how socialist states (let's for fun say there's been such a thing) have tended to treated religion in the past.
> 
> Not very lefty at all IMO.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> Banning religion doesn't kill it off, it makes it stronger.



Isn't that true for most things?


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 13, 2019)

It's the whole "Thou shalt not" mentality you really have to worry about... whether coming from the religious or some ideologue.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

Serge Forward said:


> It's the whole "Thou shalt not" mentality you really have to worry about.



Politics is full of Thou Shalt Not. Entire legal systems are based on it. Rules aren't what I dislike about religion. Mass delusion and hypocritical moralising, 'praying for peace', preaching love while practising intolerance and supporting war are more my betes noires. Appropriating compassion. Fuck em, seriously.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I'm really only talking about 'being critical' since not one of us can do more than that in reality. I'm just expressing surprise at how my (admittedly quite strong) anti-religious views get received on a board with so many lefties. I'm all for tolerance but religion is like fascism, give an inch and they take a mile.


It's probably simplistic, broad brush statements like the last one in this post that provoke that reaction to be fair. That's my final word on it though, arguments about religion are about as interesting and productive as Jamie's school dinners.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 13, 2019)

Serge Forward said:


> It's the whole "Thou shalt not" mentality you really have to worry about... whether coming from the religious or some ideologue.


Like, for example, thou shalt not practice religion?


----------



## LDC (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> Politics is full of Thou Shalt Not. Entire legal systems are based on it. Rules aren't what I dislike about religion. Mass delusion and hypocritical moralising, 'praying for peace', preaching love while practising intolerance and supporting war are more my betes noires. Appropriating compassion. Fuck em, seriously.



I sympathize, but thinking you can easily separate religion from someone's culture, country of origin, ethnicity, and family is a mistake, so being cautious and mostly respectful in criticism of religion is something I've found to generally be much more productive.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Jul 13, 2019)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I sympathize, but thinking you can easily separate religion from someone's culture, country of origin, ethnicity, and family is a mistake, so being cautious and mostly respectful in criticism of religion is something I've found to generally be much more productive.


You're not thinking long term. All religions should be ridiculed. It'll bring about their demise a little faster.


----------



## LDC (Jul 13, 2019)

Saul Goodman said:


> You're not thinking long term. All religions should be ridiculed. It'll bring about their demise a little faster.



Depends on the context a bit, but generally I find ridiculing people's beliefs doesn't usually end up with the discussion going in a productive direction, and surprised you find it does. Unless you really mean you just like watching some risque stand-up comic slagging off religion, in which case... meh.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> It's probably simplistic, broad brush statements like the last one in this post that provoke that reaction to be fair. That's my final word on it though, arguments about religion are about as interesting and productive as Jamie's school dinners.



I could do analysis, give examples, but nobody cares so why bother. It surprised me, is all I was saying.

I agree arguments about religion are as pointless and annoying as religion itself tbh.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I sympathize, but thinking you can easily separate religion from someone's culture, country of origin, ethnicity, and family is a mistake, so being cautious and mostly respectful in criticism of religion is something I've found to generally be much more productive.



Religion can be separated but faith people don't like it happening so we indulge them. And if we don't they just kick off. So it goes on.

Anyway fuckit. I've had enough of being the weirdo who cares about the harm religion is doing to our world because everyone's like oh leave it,  so I'll leave it. I've got dinner to make and plants to water.


----------



## seventh bullet (Jul 13, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> There's a difference between being critical of religion and going full Sam Harris.
> 
> The power the orthodox Church wields in Russia right now suggests the Soviet policy wasn't especially effective.
> 
> Banning religion doesn't kill it off, it makes it stronger.



Religion generally was not outright banned, some indeed encouraged as part of nationalities policy as we see with the Muslim peoples. Also running alongside strong atheist propaganda and education.  There were much harsher measures against Orthodox Christianity (seen as intimately linked with the Tsarist autocracy) with its lands confiscated and it's priests persecuted by the authorities, but it depends on when. The Soviet government also dealt with anti-Semitism depending on the conditions.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Jul 13, 2019)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Depends on the context a bit, but generally I find ridiculing people's beliefs doesn't usually end up with the discussion going in a productive direction, and surprised you find it does. Unless you really mean you just like watching some risque stand-up comic slagging off religion, in which case... meh.


I don't find it productive in the slightest, short-term. But for the long-term benefit of the planet, all religions should be ridiculed at any and every opportunity, and if god botherers don't like it, let them take up knitting and stop talking to imaginary sky people. Imaginary friends shouldn't be a thing after 4 or 5 years of age. Or, as the comic states, if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.


----------



## seventh bullet (Jul 13, 2019)

There's also just not being a dick.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Jul 13, 2019)

seventh bullet said:


> There's also just not being a dick.


I wouldn't go so far as to call them dicks, but they certainly need to get a grasp on reality.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 13, 2019)

The state not giving religion an inch generally turns pretty ugly. Women up in court for wearing the veil, or having it yanked off in public by police. Bombing they knuckle dragging Muslims seems surprisingly palatable for some if you tell them it’s in the name of secularity. I suppose you have to be able to see abuse, fascism in the name of religion or anything else etc for what it is, which is more complicated than simply trying to eradicate religion.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 13, 2019)

Saul Goodman said:


> I don't find it productive in the slightest, short-term. But for the long-term benefit of the planet, all religions should be ridiculed at any and every opportunity, and if god botherers don't like it, let them take up knitting and stop talking to imaginary sky people. Imaginary friends shouldn't be a thing after 4 or 5 years of age. Or, as the comic states, if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.


Not sure that ridicule is the most effective stance, long-term or otherwise. IMO it's more effective to consistently identify supernatural belief systems as just that. It seems needlessly confrontational to adopt a relentless position of ridicule when confronting what are, obviously, deeply held beliefs. Maybe it's just my ignosticism coming through, though?


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

seventh bullet said:


> There's also just not being a dick.



I seriously don't think religion has earned the right to ask the non-religious ('aposates', 'blasphemers') not to be dicks. We have learned our most dickish moves from people of faith over the ages.


----------



## seventh bullet (Jul 13, 2019)

I don't see how productive it would be to mock my Muslim co-worker, for example. Nor do I see him as responsible for the things you mention.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

Mocking people personally isn't actually the point. Nor is demolishing churches, temples, mosques etc. The point is disestablishing religion, facilitating its evolution into a purely personal thing with no wider state or social support, and then taking it from there


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 13, 2019)

I'm all for the end of organised religion, I don't see how taking the piss out of people with religious views or state banning of religion gets us there.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> The point is disestablishing religion, facilitating its evolution into a purely personal thing with no wider state or social support


If that had been your starting point you’d have had more takers. That position is pretty much uncontroversial.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

Disestablisment is the starting point, and personally all I'd demand. I'd vote for almost anyone who had it in their manifesto.

And taking the piss out of people is mean and counterproductive, but treating delusional beliefs with a degree of mockery, why not? We do it with other beliefs, all the time. But not religion. That's beyond the pale, for some reason.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> If that had been your starting point you’d have had more takers. That position is pretty much uncontroversial.



It's always my starting point, in all seriousness.

My actual starting point _here_, was surprise that religion gets so much tacit support / indulgence / sympathy from a bunch of commies


----------



## Humberto (Jul 13, 2019)

Its just as likely others will spring up to replace it in some form though. Perhaps In quasi-religious forms of politics. I'm not saying people haven't the intelligence to make progress as a society, rather that, create a vacuum and something will fill it.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

Conspiracism


----------



## brogdale (Jul 13, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> If that had been your starting point you’d have had more takers. That position is pretty much uncontroversial.


Though conflating state & 'social support' is not unproblematic. As an anarchist I'm find myself (ironically) drawn to strangely authoritarian positions about state support for supernatural beliefs

I really can't be doing with state support for schools that admit (& exclude) children on the basis of their parents' professed supernatural beliefs. But 'social support'? Hmm...I'm really not sure about that.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> It's always my starting point, in all seriousness.
> 
> My actual starting point _here_, was surprise that religion gets so much tacit support / indulgence / sympathy from a bunch of commies


Remember that the 'commies' killed the anarchists before they got round to stringing up the priests with the entrails of....


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> We do it with other beliefs, all the time. But not religion. That's beyond the pale, for some reason.


It's also bad practice to take the piss out of people you work with or live alongside because they have different non-religious views. If I did that, I'd be taking the piss out of everyone all the time (apart from those in the very small political group I belong to), we wouldn't have won any of the gains we recently won from management at work, my neighbours would hate me and my wife would leave me.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> It's always my starting point, in all seriousness.
> 
> My actual starting point _here_, was surprise that religion gets so much tacit support / indulgence / sympathy from a bunch of commies


I’m an atheist myself. But I do happen to think there’s something in the human mind that fits with religion. I don’t think you need a supernatural belief to get all the things that religion delivers (I think “spirituality” is just a way of describing a perfectly this-world set of human experiences), but the sense of belonging and community that is one of the chief benefits isn’t easily found elsewhere in modern “western” society.  

When I was younger I used to argue with religious people, but it’s not especially clever to do that.  If someone asks me what my religious beliefs are I’ll tell them. But I’ve no interest in converting anyone to atheism. Not sure it’s even possible anyway. 

I’ve recently become interested in Secular Buddhism. I find its ideas and practices personally useful.  But I won’t be taking to the streets with placards.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 13, 2019)

If that seems really vague and disjointed it’s because I’ve got a migraine coming on.


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I'm all for tolerance but religion is like fascism



Maybe people just don't wanna tolerate idiocy like this.


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> Disestablisment is the starting point, and personally all I'd demand. I'd vote for almost anyone who had it in their manifesto.



Worrying.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 13, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> If that seems really vague and disjointed it’s because I’ve got a migraine coming on.


Sorry to hear.
My family has sufferers and I'm always sympathetic to those prone to its debilitating effects.
btw it didn't across as you feared. 
Once read an interesting book about neolithic religious beliefs that placed 'shamen' as migraine sufferers. Something about altered states and visual disturbance and all those funny squiggles in the caves. 
My only excuse for such disjointed rambling is Bishop's Finger


----------



## DexterTCN (Jul 13, 2019)

SpackleFrog said:


> Worrying.


So your position could be described as one of antidisestablishmentarianism?


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

Serge Forward said:


> It's also bad practice to take the piss out of people you work with or live alongside because they have different non-religious views.



Just to be clear, I don't take the piss out of almost anyone, for almost anything, unless they're an actual friend. I've never supported, endorsed or applauded mocking religious people for their beliefs.

I can't say this enough because I feel I'm being shoehorned into a position I don't support.


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 13, 2019)

Okay. Shoehorn withdrawn. Fnarrr.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

SpackleFrog said:


> Maybe people just don't wanna tolerate idiocy like this.



Maybe there's too much emotion clouding judgement. Religion is a form of fascism. It can be equivocated, but what would be the point?

Obviously people who worship will disagree. People with significant others who worship, friends who worship, kids who worship. All tolerate religion for the sake of an easy life, and when someone fails to tolerate then they get called an idiot.

At least I'm not calling anyone names. Might not be much moral high ground, but I can see your house from here.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> I’ve recently become interested in Secular Buddhism. I find its ideas and practices personally useful.  But I won’t be taking to the streets with placards.



Buddhish


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

marty glaberman said:
			
		

> It's essential to reject the idea that nothing can happen until white workers are no longer racist. I don't know what anybody thinks the Russian workers in 1917 were. They were sexist. They were nationalist. A lot of them were under the thumb of the church. But they made a goddamn revolution that began to change them. Whether there's a social explosion or not doesn't depend on any formal attitudes or supporting this particular organisation or that particular organisation.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

cantsin said:


> never had you down as an England fan ?


Why not?


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> It's essential to reject the idea that nothing can happen until white workers are no longer racist. I don't know what anybody thinks the Russian workers in 1917 were. They were sexist. They were nationalist. A lot of them were under the thumb of the church. But they made a goddamn revolution that began to change them. Whether there's a social explosion or not doesn't depend on any formal attitudes or supporting this particular organisation or that particular organisation.



Desperation is what makes a revolution, it's not driven by a coherent, shared set of beliefs. The post-hoc political justifications for mass outbreaks of violence are just that. Intellectuals appropriate the rage and make it work for them. It's hunger that make us kill the king, not principles. And every revolution is followed by purges of those who were more angry than priincipled. Or more principled than angry, I forget who the true counterrevolutionaries are. The thinkers, or the angry.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> Desperation is what makes a revolution, not a coherent, shared set of beliefs. The post-hoc political justifications for mass outbreaks of violence are just that. Intellectuals appropriate the rage and make it work for them. It's hunger that make us kill the king, not principles.


So don't centre and front your own anti-religion principles as the dividing line between anything.

Seriously, this stuff is reading like a teenage shit-metal album/pencil case.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

Ffs, all I really said was disestablish, and now I'm Satan.

See what I mean? And this, from lefties.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> Ffs, all Ireally said was disestablish, and now I'm Satan.
> 
> See what I mean? And this, from lefties.


You did say a lot more than that as well didn't you though? You argued for a militant aggressive atheism (not secularism) to be be at the heart of what it means to be left wing. That's just crazy on every level - politically, tactically, strategically anything.

The holding onto and insistence on atheism as a philosophical/political position is itself a result of the sort of religious thinking  that it claims to be  beyond. 

Religions bad and growing effect in educational segregation = bad etc (and many other examples) . That doesn't get challenged by saying that a particular god is shit/dead/ a nonce - but arguing for secular funding etc and the wider thing of why belief exists is to be challenged by challenging the material conditions that produce the beliefs. You get nowhere shouting god is a cunt except teenagers pencil cases.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> So don't centre and front your own anti-religion principles as the dividing line between anything.
> 
> Seriously, this stuff is reading like a teenage shit-metal album/pencil case.



Great digs btw, glad you're back too.



butchersapron said:


> You did say a lot more than that as well didn't you though? You argued for a militant aggressive atheism (not secularism) to be be at the heart of what it means to be left wing.



I didn't. I expressed opinions, _argued for _nothing in any meaningful way. No, I _argued for_ disestablishment. I will always. The rest is opinion, if that wasn't clear before then let it be clear now.

And my actual point was, based on a number of interactions with a number of posters in a number of threads over a number if years, I'm surprised at the way religion is argued about here. I would expect more miltancy, especially in these days of IS, The Zionist Entity, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the US of goddamn A and so many other entities using (their) religion as a pretext for so much horror. Not to mention this is hardly new. Yes, I think I probably would expect more militancy, and recognition that religion has it's place in our violent, capitalist, poisoned world and that place is at he very heart of it all. That this thing not only justifies it all but teaches to accept it because after you die you'll be fine.

I'm surprised, that's all. It doesn't matter, it's not a fucking wedge issue. It's how things are. 

And fuck religion 

(Yeah fuck me but I'm just sentient bacteria anyway, there's no insult for that)


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> Great digs btw, glad you're back too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nah, you ended up at disestablishment - never saw you argue for it at all. In fact, it was offered you as a sort of get out.

That's because people don't think these things that you list are results of religious conflict.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> *The holding onto and insistence on atheism as a philosophical/political position is itself a result of the sort of religious thinking  that it claims to be  beyond. *
> 
> Religions bad and growing effect in educational segregation = bad etc (and many other examples) . *That doesn't get challenged by saying that a particular god is shit/dead/ a nonce *- but arguing for secular funding etc and the wider thing of why belief exists is to be challenged by challenging the material conditions that produce the beliefs. You get nowhere shouting god is a cunt except teenagers pencil cases.



This is some poor straw man stuff, especially for you. Not just if my posts but this whole part of the tread. Nobody's said those things.

I think _you're_ awesome wells today


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> Nah, you ended up at disestablishment - never saw you argue for it at all. In fact, it was offered you as a sort of get out.
> 
> That's because people don't think these things that you list are results of religious conflict.



I mentioned it at the end, once I was being challenged I went from chucking opinions about to taking an actual position (one I hold and have for a long time). It's how I play.


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

DexterTCN said:


> So your position could be described as one of antidisestablishmentarianism?



No. But well done on getting that in.


----------



## cantsin (Jul 13, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> Why not?



standard " revolutionary defeatism X basic anti imperialism / nationalism X  majority of England Test cricketers are w*nkers ( due mainly to class background of the game)  factors


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

cantsin said:


> standard " revolutionary defeatism X basic anti imperialism / nationalism X  majority of English cricketers are w*nkers ( due mainly to class background of the game)  factors


Weirdo


----------



## cantsin (Jul 13, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> Weirdo



yr such a tease


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

After all my posts on  here you think i'd do revolutionary defeatism plus anti-imperialism like some ghastly trot.

I either haven't been quite clear enough in my rejection of this nonsense or...


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

Up the bosses tmw!


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> After all my posts on  here you think i'd do revolutionary defeatism plus anti-imperialism like some ghastly trot.
> 
> I either haven't been quite clear enough in my rejection of this nonsense or...



Rejection is fine. Nonsense is your opinion. One more can't hurt, after all.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

Hang on, now you hate  ENGLAND too?

Blimey this is hard stuff.

( was talking to cantsin btw)


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

OK fair enough, no. England is just my birthplace, I had no say in it. It's alright here.
Fuck spectator sports too, particularly in their current form.

Might as well go for a sheep as a lamb


----------



## cantsin (Jul 13, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> After all my posts on  here you think i'd do revolutionary defeatism plus anti-imperialism like some ghastly trot.
> 
> I either haven't been quite clear enough in my rejection of this nonsense or...




"basic anti imperialism / nationalism X majority of English cricketers are w*nkers "

vs

"butchersapron "

( The 'Butchers Apron' ~  aka the 'Union Jack' - UK Indymedia )


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

Is that an argument, or a fixture?

Tickets?


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> OK fair enough, no. England is just my birthplace, I had no say in it. It's alright here.
> Fuck spectator sports too, particularly in their current form.
> 
> Might as well go for a sheep as a lamb


That's wales.

(back one day and doing old old racist jokes)


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

Seriously. Awesome Wells, right here.


----------



## xenon (Jul 13, 2019)

SO if you support your national team you're tassitly supporting the imperial adventures of that nation. Since to reject the latter must mean you reject the former.


Cartoon rubbish.



cantsin said:


> "basic anti imperialism / nationalism X majority of English cricketers are w*nkers "
> 
> vs
> 
> ...


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 13, 2019)

cantsin said:


> "basic anti imperialism / nationalism X majority of English cricketers are w*nkers "
> 
> vs
> 
> ...


But what of my posts would make you think i buy into that hateful anti-people reading of life and it's possibilities?


----------



## xenon (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> Seriously. Awesome Wells, right here.



Eh? I reckon I've spotted him not far away though.


----------



## planetgeli (Jul 13, 2019)

cantsin said:


> standard " revolutionary defeatism X basic anti imperialism / nationalism X  majority of England Test cricketers are w*nkers ( due mainly to class background of the game)  factors



That's a fucker to do in BIDMAS


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 13, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> Maybe there's too much emotion clouding judgement. Religion is a form of fascism. It can be equivocated, but what would be the point?
> 
> Obviously people who worship will disagree. People with significant others who worship, friends who worship, kids who worship. All tolerate religion for the sake of an easy life, and when someone fails to tolerate then they get called an idiot.
> 
> At least I'm not calling anyone names. Might not be much moral high ground, but I can see your house from here.



Religion is not a form of fascism. Just to be clear, I'm an atheist, not a worshipper, and you're a complete simpleton.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

By any definition of fascism I've ever read, yes it is. and I'm an agnostic, let's say. Not a militant atheist.


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 13, 2019)

It's not fascism it's... er... religion


----------



## cantsin (Jul 13, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> But what of my posts would make you think i buy into that hateful anti-people reading of life and it's possibilities?




Have you been off on some kind of esoteric  retreat or sthn ?


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

Serge Forward said:


> It's not fascism it's... er... religion



_A form of_




			
				Benito Mussolini said:
			
		

> Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the 19th century were the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State.
> 
> The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.
> 
> ...everything in the state, nothing against the State, nothing outside the state.



Change the word _State _to the word _Church_, and how does it look? He even goes on to talk about fascism in religious terms.

Church / State. working together for the _common good_ since both came into being, _for each other's benefit_.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 13, 2019)

I really don't want to get started again, especially with SpackleFrog , so fuck this. I'm out, comrades.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 14, 2019)

cantsin said:


> Have you been off on some weird retreat or sthn ?


The question remains.

I was parodying religious and sports views. They seem to be crude in one instance but not the other.

But serious, you thought i was that sort of dick.  Fucking hell.


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> The question remains.
> 
> I was parodying religious and sports views. They seem to be crude in one instance but not the other.
> 
> But serious, you thought i was that sort of dick.  Fucking hell.



Sitting on an anti-imperialist thrown at a trot retreat, watching cricket while wearing Rupert trousers and going rah rah rah.

Yeees, I cant say many aspects of that picture are a good fit for the impression of your beliefs you have delivered consistently here over the years.


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2019)

I would make a small plea for the occasional merits of the teenage pencil case though.

In so much as there are certain forms of naivety that actually carry the potential for positive change, just as there are certain forms (or quantities) of cynicism that can be self-defeating.

However I tend to believe the merits of naivety are best applied when considering what may ultimately be possible, eg what we can demand, and not so much when trying to construct coherent beliefs about the mechanisms of everything, or what is directly linked to what, or what logical conclusions absolutely must follow a belief.

I had a migraine earlier. I have a limited sense of how much shit I am or am not talking in this post.


----------



## cantsin (Jul 14, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> The question remains.
> 
> I was parodying religious and sports views. They seem to be crude in one instance but not the other.
> 
> But serious, you thought i was that sort of dick.  Fucking hell.


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2019)

I demand inspiring slogans, come on, out with them.


----------



## Humberto (Jul 14, 2019)

elbows said:


> I demand inspiring slogans, come on, out with them.



No. Go and sit in the corner and think about your behaviour. Come back when you've worked it out.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 14, 2019)

All sensible people rejoice at gatting getting an apartheid ball. What year is it now?


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2019)

Humberto said:


> No. Go and sit in the corner and think about your behaviour. Come back when you've worked it out.



I tried sitting in the corner but Lenins corpse was looking at me funny.


----------



## Humberto (Jul 14, 2019)

elbows said:


> I tried sitting in the corner but Lenins corpse was looking at me funny.



I'm considering the fact that you may be a snake. Generally or just on this thread I don't know. Its up to you. I know you can write good stuff, but that's no excuse.


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2019)

Humberto said:


> I'm considering the fact that you may be a snake. Generally or just on this thread I don't know. Its up to you. I know you can write good stuff, but that's no excuse.



Define snake. I'm not really sure my sense of humour has come through in this thread and I already said I had a migraine earlier today, which makes my mind more prone to error.


----------



## Humberto (Jul 14, 2019)

Yeah right. You come across that way to me.


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2019)

That criticism is fuck all use to me. Give me something I can grasp. I have no idea what you are on about at all. I havent expressed much in this thread at all, so it should not be hard to be specific.

I respect butchersapron a lot by the way. I might have said some things in the past that they liked, and they might go easy on me when I say something stupid these days. There are some big holes in my game, I might learn more of use if they let rip on me from time to time! I dont mind either way.


----------



## Humberto (Jul 14, 2019)

"I tend to believe the merits of naivety are best applied when considering what may ultimately be possible, eg what we can demand, and not so much when trying to construct coherent beliefs about the mechanisms of everything, or what is directly linked to what, or what logical conclusions absolutely must follow a belief."

Naivety isn't a merit, doesn't have merits. We don't need 'coherent beliefs about the mechanisms of everything'.


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 14, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> By any definition of fascism I've ever read, yes it is. and I'm an agnostic, let's say. Not a militant atheist.



So what you're saying is you might be a fascist but you're not sure?


----------



## xenon (Jul 14, 2019)

Humberto said:


> I'm considering the fact that you may be a snake. Generally or just on this thread I don't know. Its up to you. I know you can write good stuff, but that's no excuse.



Pish. What you talking about? Nothing wrong with elbows.


----------



## SpackleFrog (Jul 14, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I really don't want to get started again, especially with SpackleFrog , so fuck this. I'm out, comrades.



Good.


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2019)

Humberto said:


> "I tend to believe the merits of naivety are best applied when considering what may ultimately be possible, eg what we can demand, and not so much when trying to construct coherent beliefs about the mechanisms of everything, or what is directly linked to what, or what logical conclusions absolutely must follow a belief."
> 
> Naivety isn't a merit, doesn't have merits. We don't need 'coherent beliefs about the mechanisms of everything'.



OK I will try to explain myself so you can decide whether it was a poor choice of words or a shit concept. Or further poor choices of words.

I get quite depressed after years of seeing various people whose contribution is effectively lost because they have seen so many brutal realities in this world that their sense of what change is still possible is crushed to some extent. And from the age of about 9 or 10 up I witnessed and was part of a cynicism at school that was at times informative and useful, but also limiting.

By contrast, there are examples of people who didnt really understand all the forces that stood in the way of the change they struggled for, didnt believe the terrible odds, and manged to achieve something.

Perhaps naiverty is the wrong word to use. Perhaps I should have expanded on the 'limitations of cynicism' more, but my brain hurts and I'm sure its a theme I've mentioned before.

And yes there are lots of dangerous forms of naivety, and I am in no way praising ignorance as being an advantage. I spend a lot of my forum time spouting off about all sorts of situations whre I think other peoples analysis of the situation is overly simplistic, naive or based on various myths.

And yeah, I'm not a fan of that 'coherent beliefs about the mechanisms of everything' phrase I used, brain rot, I will try to figure out what I was trying to say on that tomorrow.


----------



## Humberto (Jul 14, 2019)

elbows said:


> OK I will try to explain myself so you can decide whether it was a poor choice of words or a shit concept. Or further poor choices of words.
> 
> I get quite depressed after years of seeing various people whose contribution is effectively lost because they have seen so many brutal realities in this world that their sense of what change is still possible is crushed to some extent. And from the age of about 9 or 10 up I witnessed and was part of a cynicism at school that was at times informative and useful, but also limiting.
> 
> ...



Alright elbows. I took issue, you spoke to it. All's well here.


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2019)

Groovy.

Cynicism may be a risky word for me to use the way I do at times too. Really it depends what direction the cynicism is pointing, since in some configurations it seems to be a foundation of various right-wing positions (cynicism about human behaviour, relations and motivations), whereas somewhat different results will be obtained if the cynicism is directed at the state, institutions, corporations, international power structures, whatever.

All the shit about supposed 'human nature' vs observations about the terrible things people may do when placed in absurd and disgraceful situations and conditions and structures of power.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 14, 2019)

Bring a PE teacher is a form of fascism, also when your mum tries to make you eat your greens.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 14, 2019)

brogdale said:


> Once read an interesting book about neolithic religious beliefs that placed 'shamen' as migraine sufferers. Something about altered states and visual disturbance and all those funny squiggles in the caves.


I think I read that too, although it was Palaeolithic in my recollection. Is it the Mind in the Cave?


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 14, 2019)

elbows said:


> I had a migraine earlier. I have a limited sense of how much shit I am or am not talking in this post.


Solidarity fist bump, comrade. 

One of the things that non sufferers don’t always understand is that migraine isn’t just a word for a really bad headache. There’s a host of other symptoms that come with it, one of which is this neurological disturbance that we associate with the “aura”: the vagueness and confusion and spaciness. 

I’m in the “hangover” phase right now.  It can go on a day or two for me. 

I wish you wellness.


----------



## Edie (Jul 14, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> I've been surprised recently at how much liberal "aww live n let live" there seems to be here about religion. Considering how socialist states (let's for fun say there's been such a thing) have tended to treated religion in the past.
> 
> Not very lefty at all IMO.


Dangerous and authoritarian.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 14, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> I think I read that too, although it was Palaeolithic in my recollection. Is it the Mind in the Cave?


Spot on; the David Lewis Williams book on the Upper Palaeolithic cave art; (just checked bookshelf  )

I read it after I'd visited the amazing Pech Merle cave. Think I might re-read it tbh.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 14, 2019)

I’d love to visit Pech Merle. It looks amazing.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 14, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> I’d love to visit Pech Merle. It looks amazing.


Yeah, it is. So rare to get the opportunity to get in and see this stuff. Top tip if you do get there; turn up early...it's first come, first in and the numbers are limited to a daily max.

Genuinely awesome/spiritual (?) to see what our ancient ancestors painted on the interface with the netherworld.

Earlier this year I managed to get to see some of the neolithic stone carvings inside some of the Megalithic structures of Southern Brittany; also not to be missed IMO.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 14, 2019)

brogdale said:


> Earlier this year I managed to get to see some of the neolithic stone carvings inside some of the Megalithic structures of Southern Brittany; also not to be missed IMO.


I’ve been to Carnac, which was literally awesome. I have no idea what they were up to, but they really really wanted to achieve whatever it was. It’s just stones, but the human endeavour is palpable.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 14, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> I’ve been to Carnac, which was literally awesome. I have no idea what they were up to, but they really really wanted to achieve whatever it was. It’s just stones, but the human endeavour is palpable.



I went with Aubrey Burl's (1985) guidebook and he describes the Carnac area as a Megalithic wonderland...with good reason.

The Dolmen weighing up to 300 tonnes, FFS  Imagine the contemporary technology that would be required to transport & erect lumps like that!

Have to say that I found the smaller, less popular sites the most rewarding, where you could take your time and get up close to the stones and feel the carvings. One such highlight was a passage grave at Locmariaquer called Mané Lud.



Probably not the thread for any more of this, though?


----------



## Red Cat (Jul 14, 2019)

elbows said:


> All the shit about supposed 'human nature' vs observations about the terrible things people may do when placed in absurd and disgraceful situations and conditions and structures of power.



Isn't the latter most of the time though? Human nature is what people do and that includes terrible things.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 14, 2019)

Red Cat said:


> Isn't the latter most of the time though? Human nature is what people do and that includes terrible things.


True.  What you do sometimes notice, though, is that people take recourse in appeals to “human nature” in order to back up the need for various authoritarian measures, because in their version of “human nature” the terrible things are dominant. The truth, though, is that both the good and bad are there, and that the pro-social, the cooperative impulses, are what made the species successful: we are a social species. The cooperative _can_ mitigate and guard against the terrible. It is the cooperative in human nature that needs to be given space and nurtured.


----------



## Red Cat (Jul 14, 2019)

But both need space. Where I work, there's an emphasis on cooperation, positivity, and quick fixes to complex human suffering. What is denied is the reality and tenaciousness of suffering and cruelty. 

Questions about how we can live with our destructiveness, individually and in groups, in ways that mean it is mitigated in favour of cooporation, are probably the basis of any left wing politics. And you could say religion too.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 14, 2019)

Red Cat said:


> But both need space. Where I work, there's an emphasis on cooperation, positivity, and quick fixes to complex human suffering. What is denied is the reality and tenaciousness of suffering and cruelty.
> 
> Questions about how we can live with our destructiveness, individually and in groups, in ways that mean it is mitigated in favour of cooporation, are probably the basis of any left wing politics. And you could say religion too.


This all relates to where I’m finding Secular Buddhism useful in my personal life. Swirling around in my head right now is the ways in which these ideas support and enhance my collectivist tendencies:  my anarcho communism. It may seem counterintuitive, but finding more personal peace really does improve social relations.

But I should probably take this to my Secular Buddhism thread in Philosophy & History.


----------



## cantsin (Jul 14, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> All sensible people rejoice at gatting getting an apartheid ball. What year is it now?


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 14, 2019)

I don't know either mate! - probably meant something about the crude hyped up -counter-nationalism of the abe lot. And how surprised i was to find someone expecting me to be one of them...


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 14, 2019)

I love this thread. It has everything.


----------



## Jon-of-arc (Jul 14, 2019)

planetgeli said:


> Well, at least we got around to this sensible post from the purism. Tbh Ming I’d been surprised that up until then you hadn’t been castigated for not knowing how a Liberal Party eugenicist had been responsible for the plan that helped create the NHS, thus invalidating any good that came of it and making all users fascists by their support of such a system. But then, to be fair, Serge weighed in with a bit of sense.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've been following this thread from a distance.  Because I was, to quote wayward bob on this, assigned middle class at birth, I often don't feel able to contribute to urban threads about class without feeling like a massive imposter (I suspect I am one of the people being talked about when the middle classes are referred to disparagingly - even though I don't currently have a pot to piss in and now that my mum has passed away don't have unconditional family support, I still get some benefits of being the son of a middle class family, like my dad taking me on holidays  where he pays for pretty much everything). Not asking for sympathy for my accident of birth and minor associated privileges, just saying why I rarely comment on threads like this, even though I have a wide range of thoughts, beliefs and opinions- I'm not part of the club and not sure if I ever can be.

That said, I've hit like on various conflicting posts on this thread  because- guess what? - I liked what the poster was saying. I liked your 30+ like post because you seemed to be talking sense and made an impassioned plea in a convincing and erudite manner. But then I liked the post that pretty much destroyed what you said by pointing out that TR/SYL got less than 2% vote share and lost his deposit, and is therefore less of a threat than this thread, the left and me have been assuming for some time (still, 2% too much and any form/amount of fash support should never be dismissed out of hand).

I've liked posts slagging off The Labour Party, even though I've soradically (and currently) been a member since Corbyn got in.  This hypocrisy I justify to myself because my level of radicalism has changed over the years but I'm still sympathetic to my previous views.

I liked DCs post because I enjoyed the bitter sarcasm that was dripping from every word. It was a legit funny and well crafted post, and made a point worthy of consideration also. Of course we live in a comparatively pampered and over privileged top 5 economy sized country in the world, but we are still all mugged off by the super rich and powerful, by corporations, institutions and politicians on a daily basis, and however much we might have in comparison to poorer nations, we still have nothing in comparison to the wealthy of our own country, and we need to remember that it's not a race to the bottom, that we will never win by being satisfied with what they give us, that we should always be pushing for more.

There was plenty in that post that was worth keeping in mind. I don't think DC is considered any kind of urban royalty, as your post implied (I rarely see him post these days, as it happens), and we are all free to like what post we like. The meanings behind a like shouldn't imply unthought complete agreement - see that thread about what a like means to see the multitude of possible meanings each time a poster hits that button. It's by no means black and white and can be quite nuanced.

I feel a bit put out at having to explain all this. After all, I liked your post what you did earlier a!!!!


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 14, 2019)

elbows said:


> OK I will try to explain myself so you can decide whether it was a poor choice of words or a shit concept. Or further poor choices of words.
> 
> I get quite depressed after years of seeing various people whose contribution is effectively lost because they have seen so many brutal realities in this world that their sense of what change is still possible is crushed to some extent. And from the age of about 9 or 10 up I witnessed and was part of a cynicism at school that was at times informative and useful, but also limiting.
> 
> ...





elbows said:


> I would make a small plea for the occasional merits of the teenage pencil case though.
> 
> In so much as there are certain forms of naivety that actually carry the potential for positive change, just as there are certain forms (or quantities) of cynicism that can be self-defeating.
> 
> ...


Migraines are terrible, if I’m going through a depressive phase I get loads, so already limited sense of shit talking compounded and compounded again. 

I think there’s some things of use in those posts. A lot of energy behind the XR stuff for example as it was kids getting that off the ground, it may all go to the bad but it’s movement at least which we don’t seem to have much of- but then the usual suspects turned up to control it where I live within weeks.  
People of limited grasp of how much shit they are talking... come together!


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> Solidarity fist bump, comrade.
> 
> One of the things that non sufferers don’t always understand is that migraine isn’t just a word for a really bad headache. There’s a host of other symptoms that come with it, one of which is this neurological disturbance that we associate with the “aura”: the vagueness and confusion and spaciness.
> 
> ...



Cheers very much. Sometimes I get a sort of euphoria rather than a hangover, which often (but not always) means I will have further migraines in the coming days. I aint going to complain too much because, since starting to get lots of migraines in clumps throughout the year from the start of 2013 onwards, this year of 2019 has been a record low number of migraines for me so far. Ibuprofen changed the game for me too, its mostly just 2-3 hours of pain and/or nausea now, and just a bit dishevelled after that.

I woul like to tie this post back to left wing stuff but nothing has popped into my head that would let me do that, although I am usually tempted to start shouting about Marxs carbuncles!


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2019)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Migraines are terrible, if I’m going through a depressive phase I get loads, so already limited sense of shit talking compounded and compounded again.
> 
> I think there’s some things of use in those posts. A lot of energy behind the XR stuff for example as it was kids getting that off the ground, it may all go to the bad but it’s movement at least which we don’t seem to have much of- but then the usual suspects turned up to control it where I live within weeks.
> People of limited grasp of how much shit they are talking... come together!



Cheers, I feel this post deserves a nice reply, but I am discombobulated so I will just send warm wishes instead.


----------



## cantsin (Jul 14, 2019)

Hope the anarcho patriots are happy with the 4 overthrows that’s won that - no justice


----------



## brogdale (Jul 14, 2019)

One for those dastardly, posh anarcho-nationalists...


----------



## brogdale (Jul 16, 2019)

Thread reminded me of this gem from 1985...


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 16, 2019)

Edie said:


> Dangerous and authoritarian.



The problem is that when the state and religion enter some Faustian pact it usually ends up being dangerous and authoritarian.
But then that also tends to happen with atheists also.
Long live centrist Dad secularism in some liberal Costa coffee set up I think.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 16, 2019)

cantsin said:


> View attachment 177367


Is that the conspiracy nut singer from Muse bottom right?


----------



## cantsin (Jul 16, 2019)

S☼I said:


> Is that the conspiracy nut singer from Muse bottom right?



yep, after some debate on twotter whether he was a Tory or not, the boot cut jeans, cheezy soft prog histrionics and £30m in the bank combo sealed it : gulag ( and no weird cricketing related defence from Butchers will be accepted ).

PS : the dark haired bloke next to Bellamy/Muse, can't place him - not the v avge superstar DJ Steve Lawler am hoping ?

PPS : Is Ashley Giles twice the size of everyone else in shot ?


----------



## Dom Traynor (Jul 17, 2019)

I'm struggling to think of any progressive social change in either country I've lived in that hasn't had Christians at the heart of fighting for it. I know neither would have a union movement if it wasn't for Christians engaging as Christians.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 17, 2019)

Quite astounding that in a predominantly Christian country you find a lot of Christians in the Labour movement. 

There's apparently a few catholics in the Vatican too.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

Oh God not more Christian bashing. How original.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 17, 2019)

cantsin said:


> PS : the dark haired bloke next to Bellamy/Muse, can't place him - not the v avge superstar DJ Steve Lawler am hoping ?


Jon Hamm?


----------



## cantsin (Jul 17, 2019)

Dom Traynor said:


> I'm struggling to think of any progressive social change in either country I've lived in that hasn't had Christians at the heart of fighting for it. I know neither would have a union movement if it wasn't for Christians engaging as Christians.



summery tues night on the sauce was it  ?  ( jumpers for goalposts etc)


----------



## cantsin (Jul 17, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Oh God not more Christian bashing. How original.



nothing original has happened on this forum for a decade, we're still vigorously (ish) debating Marxism 2011 vs TWT on another thread, and quite rightly so - with that in mind, it's always open day on Christians (UK wing) , and will be till the C of E 's charitable status-tax evasion is ended, the bishops out of the Lords ( prior to abolition) , and the ever more empty churches seized for community useage / housing


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

cantsin said:


> nothing original has happened on this forum for a decade, we're still vigorously (ish) debating Marxism 2011 vs TWT on another thread, and quite rightly so - with that in mind, it's always open day on Christians (UK wing) , and will be till the C of E 's charitable status-tax evasion is ended, the bishops out of the Lords ( prior to abolition) , and the ever more empty churches seized for community useage / housing



I agree with you in regards to the house of Lords, but why on earth would you take away charitable status from the CofE? Are you under the impression that most churches are rich? 

I can assure you as someone that works very close with churches that most are in the red, and yet despite this continue to provide both material and spiritual support to the most vulnerable in society.

As for your idea of appropriating churches for community usage, they _are_ used for community use right now. To take them away from believing people would be nothing more than an act of spite, motivated by bigotry.


----------



## chilango (Jul 17, 2019)

Bashing bishops is the Urban way.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

Individual churches and dioceses may not be flooded with cash, but I was under the impression that the church of england has about £2 billion worth of land on its books, and getting on for £7 billion of assets in total.


----------



## cantsin (Jul 17, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> I agree with you in regards to the house of Lords, but why on earth would you take away charitable status from the CofE? Are you under the impression that most churches are rich?
> 
> I can assure you as someone that works very close with churches *that most are in the red,* and yet despite this continue to provide both material and spiritual support to the most vulnerable in society.
> 
> As for your idea of appropriating churches for community usage, they _are_ used for community use right now. To take them away from believing people would be nothing more than an act of spite, motivated by bigotry.



just bollocks :

"The Church’s property portfolio and investments are immense. It is sitting on a combination of ancient endowments and investments worth £8.3bn, which last year alone increased by £400m "

https://inews.co.uk/news/why-is-the-church-of-england-worth-so-much-and-how-does-it-make-money/


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

elbows said:


> Individual churches and dioceses may not be flooded with cash, but I was under the impression that the church of england has about £2 billion worth of land on its books, and getting on for £7 billion of assets in total.



No doubt it does. I imagine you could make the same case for the National Trust. The parallel between the two organisations is fairly apt, because the CofE, for historical reasons is responsible for the upkeep of some of the most iconic and beloved buildings in England. Would you appropriate National Trust property too?


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> No doubt it does. I imagine you could make the same case for the National Trust. The parallel between the two organisations is fairly apt, because the CofE, for historical reasons is responsible for the upkeep of some of the most iconic and beloved buildings in England. Would you appropriate National Trust property too?



I havent announced my own policies on this matter at this time. I have read something about the Centre for Theology & Community and Housing Justice (a Christian campaign group) doing a report in 2015 that said the CoE should sell its land to help with the housing crisis.

Church of England must sell some off of its land in response to housing crisis, says report


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

elbows said:


> I havent announced my own policies on this matter at this time. I have read something about the Centre for Theology & Community and Housing Justice (a Christian campaign group) doing a report in 2015 that said the CoE should sell its land to help with the housing crisis.
> 
> Church of England must sell some off of its land in response to housing crisis, says report



If the church decides to do that then great. Jesus even said to sell your property and give the money to the poor. But it's a completely different thing for the government to step in and take that property, especially if the intention is to strip the buildings of all religious significance.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 17, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> I agree with you in regards to the house of Lords, but why on earth would you take away charitable status from the CofE? Are you under the impression that most churches are rich?
> 
> I can assure you as someone that works very close with churches that most are in the red, and yet despite this continue to provide both material and spiritual support to the most vulnerable in society.
> 
> As for your idea of appropriating churches for community usage, they _are_ used for community use right now. To take them away from believing people would be nothing more than an act of spite, motivated by bigotry.


Your hard work supporting your local church is just free labour that is subsidising the incredibly wealthy institution of the Church.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 17, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> I agree with you in regards to the house of Lords, but why on earth would you take away charitable status from the CofE? Are you under the impression that most churches are rich?


matthew 22:21


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

Pickman's model said:


> matthew 22:21



I agree. Charitable status keeps money out of Caesar's hands, allowing the church to do more good works than it otherwise would be capable of doing.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 17, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> I agree. Charitable status keeps money out of Caesar's hands, allowing the church to do more good works than it otherwise would be capable of doing.


if it wants to do good works, then those can become a charity. it's having the religious aspect as a charity to which i object


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

Pickman's model said:


> it's having the religious aspect as a charity to which i object



I know. Your motivations are more than clear to me.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 17, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> I know. Your motivations are more than clear to me.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

Blessed are the ethical portfolio holders.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

Pickman's model said:


> View attachment 177668



Cute, I'm sure. But neither Christianity nor Christians are a monolith, so banal sweeping generalisations, however poetically rendered they might be, do not add much at all.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 17, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Cute, I'm sure. But neither Christianity nor Christians are a monolith, so banal sweeping generalisations, however poetically rendered they might be, do not add much at all.


yes, i know christians are not a monolith - as well as the anglican church there are the various orthodox ones, the catholics, the copts, the lutherans, calvinists, plymouth brethren, moravians, hussites, and doubtless the odd arian here or there as well as dozens if not hundreds of other sorts of christian. a bit like all the sorts of marxist-leninism, none of them fit for human consumption.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

Pickman's model said:


> yes, i know christians are not a monolith - as well as the anglican church there are the various orthodox ones, the catholics, the copts, the lutherans, calvinists, plymouth brethren, moravians, hussites, and doubtless the odd arian here or there as well as dozens if not hundreds of other sorts of christian. a bit like all the sorts of marxist-leninism, none of them fit for human consumption.



Fine. Then leave us alone instead of trying to consume us.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

Ooh parasitic, not analytic.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

Interlude.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

elbows said:


> Interlude.




Great song. I felt the same when I was a petulant teenage rebel. I've no idea if Mr Lydon has remained in a state of arrested development since this was written, but I'd like to think life experience has added some nuance to his worldview.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

Oh its just a phase we are going through, sensible god fearing folk will soon return to the safe confines of the establishment church.

I dont believe in religious persecution, its a terrible idea for a number of reasons that hardly need stating. It also plays heavily into some of the narratives and themes of certain religions. Harking back to the vidid landscape of persecution in the origin stories. Never mind the modern establishment realities, the special status, the privilege, the influence, the power.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

> When Robert Runcie retired as Archbishop of Canterbury, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, encouraged by her former Parliamentary Private Secretary, Michael Alison MP, put Carey's name forward to the Queen for appointment.[_citation needed_] The religious correspondent for _The Times_, Clifford Longley, commented that "Mrs Thatcher's known impatience with theological and moral woolliness ... will have been a factor.









Smell the hierarchy, like a panto version of Camerons Big Society.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

Our Lord of the arbitrary authority, your ethical investment portfolio reminds me of the stench of New Labours ethical foreign policy.

Still, a 7.1% return on your hypocrisy aint bad, even if it turns the other reek.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

Lords and crowns, kingdoms and flocks, robes and globes and misplaced cocks.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 17, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Oh God not more Christian bashing. How original.


Not from me, went to church every Sunday till I was 10 and I don't believe any more but a lot of the principles that inform my politics were learned from there and my Christian mother. I just don't think the fact that a lot of Christians have been involved in trade unionism says a lot when you consider its a predominantly Christian nation, even more so back then.

There is some interesting stuff about how the organisarional forms that were learned through the church, especially methodist, were taken and used in friendly societies and the early trade union movement but I don't think it's the Christian content as much as ways of organising people that was most useful.

You do find Christian theology used to critique capitalism back in the 1700s and 1800s though, I think that's important.

P. S. Stop blaspheming


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 17, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> Not from me, went to church every Sunday till I was 10 and I don't believe any more but a lot of the principles that inform my politics were learned from there and my Christian mother. I just don't think the fact that a lot of Christians have been involved in trade unionism says a lot when you consider its a predominantly Christian nation, even more so back then.
> 
> There is some interesting stuff about how the organisarional forms that were learned through the church, especially methodist, were taken and used in friendly societies and the early trade union movement but I don't think it's the Christian content as much as ways of organising people that was most useful.
> 
> ...


you find christian theology being used to justify regicide back in the sixteenth century, e.g. duplessis-mornay, so it's not all useless


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> Not from me, went to church every Sunday till I was 10 and I don't believe any more but a lot of the principles that inform my politics were learned from there and my Christian mother.



I went to a church of england first school and remember being informed by a few things there. Only went to Sunday school once or twice, and my only really vivid memory from first school of the religious aspect was some weird stuff involving oranges, and the word trespass in the lords prayer being a word I was not too familiar with at the time. Oh and there was a trendy vicar that used a mouse puppet as part of his act. I think my mum took us to the local church after we moved house, and was horrified to discover it was a church run by some evangelical nuts, so we only went once. I'm not sure why we went at all really, my family do not practice religion.

Since then I suppose I bumped into some things that gave the impression of being partially informed by a soft church of england morality thing, from the likes of Tony Benn and Dennis Potter. Likewise, some Quaker concepts are of mild interest to me. Faith and rigid dogma I can do without.

Just say no to born again hierarchies.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

The last few posts have made me happy again. See, we can all disagree and yet be friends.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jul 17, 2019)

Pickman's model said:


> you find christian theology being used to justify regicide back in the sixteenth century, e.g. duplessis-mornay, so it's not all useless



It's nice to find common ground. Ecumenism for the win.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 17, 2019)

The Sally Army are cunts, mind.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 17, 2019)

I went to a youth club run by the pentacostal church when I was about 9 or 10. Lovely people but completely bonkers!


----------



## JuanTwoThree (Jul 17, 2019)

I am a product of the Low Anglican church and can see how much the dominant religion here in Spain is at odds with the austere tradition of directly praying to one's own God, without the intercession of saints or virgins, without the woo of transubstantiation, the silliness of papal infallibility and so on. The 39 articles describe a fairly simple set up for being a Christian:

The Thirty-Nine Articles

None of which I believe a single word of.


----------



## chilango (Jul 17, 2019)

some preacher or other said:
			
		

> . All property should be held in common’ and should be distributed to each according to his needs, as the occasion required. Any prince, count, or lord who did not want to do this, after first being warned about it, should be beheaded or hanged.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

I would find it much easier to be a simple adherent to crude anti-religious sentiment if it promised an end to sectarianism. But it does not, for religion does not have a monopoly on such things.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 17, 2019)

The real Tommy


----------



## A380 (Jul 17, 2019)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Oh God not more Christian bashing. How original.


Everyone has their cross to bear.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2019)

I had forgotten how funny parts of Bertrand Russells 'Why I Am Not a Christian' are.

Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell - The Bertrand Russell Society


----------



## JuanTwoThree (Jul 17, 2019)

AJ Ayer told a story about getting a taxi in Oxford and the driver said "It's Freddie Ayer, isn't  it? Oh yes I get a lot of philosophers in my cab. Once I had Bertrand Russell and I asked him 'What's it all about then Bertie?'  And the bastard told me that he didnt know.'


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 17, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> The Sally Army are cunts, mind.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 17, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


>




Similar to Stand up for Judas, although your one is true where as I think this might just be a concept.


----------



## Dom Traynor (Jul 17, 2019)

cantsin said:


> summery tues night on the sauce was it  ?  ( jumpers for goalposts etc)


It's the winter


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2019)

> A Christian family who refused to pay income tax because it went "against God's will" have been ordered to pay more than A$2m (£1.1m $1.4m) to Australia's tax office.
> 
> Rembertus Cornelis Beerepoot and Fanny Alida Beerepoot, of Tasmania, had not paid income tax since 2011.





> Mr Beerepoot had argued that the law of God is the "supreme law of this land" and making people pay tax was weakening their dependency on God, an act which was leading to "curses... in the form of droughts and infertility".
> 
> "Transferring our allegiance from God to the Commonwealth would mean rebelling against God and therefore breaking the first commandment," he said, according to the public broadcaster.



Australia family argued taxes 'against God's will'


----------



## Proper Tidy (Jul 18, 2019)

Great names tho


----------



## Irwin Winton (Jul 18, 2019)

JuanTwoThree said:


> AJ Ayer told a story about getting a taxi in Oxford and the driver said "It's Freddie Ayer, isn't  it? Oh yes I get a lot of philosophers in my cab. Once I had Bertrand Russell and I asked him 'What's it all about then Bertie?'  And the bastard told me that he didnt know.'



Derek and Clive ?


----------



## LDC (Jul 18, 2019)

elbows said:


> Australia family argued taxes 'against God's will'



Tasmania is full of them, mainland Australia too really. Both full of weirdos and racists.


----------



## JuanTwoThree (Jul 18, 2019)

Irwin Winton said:


> Derek and Clive ?



Could easily be. It googles as


C: I had f*cking Bertrand Russell in the back of my cab. I said, “’Ere, Bertie, you’ve written the history of the f*cking Western world, what’s the f*cking answer?” He looked round, didn’t f*cking know. And I said, “Look, Bertie, Bertie, Bertie..... GET OUT THE CAB.” He said: “What is the meaning of getting out the cab?” I said, “There’s no f*cking meaning, it just means ‘get out the cab’.” And he went into some philosophical argument about whether getting out the cab was the same as getting in the cab. All that crap, I thought, “F*ck it.”

D: F*cking dualistic world crap.

So the Freddie Ayer part is an addition. Unless they nicked it from him?


----------



## Irwin Winton (Jul 18, 2019)

JuanTwoThree said:


> Could easily be. It googles as
> 
> 
> C: I had f*cking Bertrand Russell in the back of my cab. I said, “’Ere, Bertie, you’ve written the history of the f*cking Western world, what’s the f*cking answer?” He looked round, didn’t f*cking know. And I said, “Look, Bertie, Bertie, Bertie..... GET OUT THE CAB.” He said: “What is the meaning of getting out the cab?” I said, “There’s no f*cking meaning, it just means ‘get out the cab’.” And he went into some philosophical argument about whether getting out the cab was the same as getting in the cab. All that crap, I thought, “F*ck it.”
> ...



Seems even more genius when written down.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 18, 2019)

elbows said:


> Australia family argued taxes 'against God's will'


Reminds me of celebrity creationist and conspiraloon Kent Hovind. He had a creationist theme park and didn't pay any tax. Claimed all profits belonged to God so we're not liable. Ended up in the slammer lol


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 18, 2019)

JuanTwoThree said:


> Could easily be. It googles as
> 
> 
> C: I had f*cking Bertrand Russell in the back of my cab. I said, “’Ere, Bertie, you’ve written the history of the f*cking Western world, what’s the f*cking answer?” He looked round, didn’t f*cking know. And I said, “Look, Bertie, Bertie, Bertie..... GET OUT THE CAB.” He said: “What is the meaning of getting out the cab?” I said, “There’s no f*cking meaning, it just means ‘get out the cab’.” And he went into some philosophical argument about whether getting out the cab was the same as getting in the cab. All that crap, I thought, “F*ck it.”
> ...


That gives me the horn.


----------



## Ranbay (Jul 18, 2019)

The left, The left, The left.... etc


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

8ball said:


> It is liberal-authoritarian with pockets of Stalinism and the odd anarchist.



Autonomists, you politically-ignorant hamster!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

Benjy1992 said:


> I'd say it's very left wing.
> 
> Been looking round for a discussion forum that fits my political views for a while and I think I've found it.
> 
> Thanks guys



Firk off.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

JudithB said:


> Oh yeah you need to ignore the casual sexism



What about the not-so-casual sexism?


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 18, 2019)

Ranbay said:


> The left, The left, The left.... etc


To the left 
To the left 
To the left 
Everything you own in the box to the left 
In the closet, that’s my stuff


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> I'm the only proper communist on here so not that left wing. Everyone else reads the guardian and votes green



But Norm, Laurie Penny says you're a racist!!!  How can you be a proper communist if you're a racist?


----------



## 8ball (Jul 18, 2019)

ViolentPanda said:


> Autonomists, you politically-ignorant hamster!



Some odder than others...


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

cantsin said:


> sounds like Labour on Lambeth council from what I've heard



Pretty much. I have a sneaking suspicion that a few Brixton forum posters are Lambeth Labour cllrs.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

8ball said:


> Some odder than others...



I'm as odd as they come, baby!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

cupid_stunt said:


> Them were the days, the place has been taken over by vegans.



Fucking *meat-shy etiolated wan twats! 

*I think I hit all the tropes there.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

cantsin said:


> where the hell is Butchers ?



Watching the cricket.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

bellaozzydog said:


> Should I buy the socialist worker at a quid or two quid



You can buy kindling at your local garage for less.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2019)

ViolentPanda said:


> What about the not-so-casual sexism?



The forms got lost in the post.


----------



## Irwin Winton (Jul 18, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> That gives me the horn.



get'out the facking cab


----------



## Serge Forward (Jul 18, 2019)

JuanTwoThree said:


> Could easily be. It googles as
> 
> 
> C: I had f*cking Bertrand Russell in the back of my cab. I said, “’Ere, Bertie, you’ve written the history of the f*cking Western world, what’s the f*cking answer?” He looked round, didn’t f*cking know. And I said, “Look, Bertie, Bertie, Bertie..... GET OUT THE CAB.” He said: “What is the meaning of getting out the cab?” I said, “There’s no f*cking meaning, it just means ‘get out the cab’.” And he went into some philosophical argument about whether getting out the cab was the same as getting in the cab. All that crap, I thought, “F*ck it.”
> ...


The cant!


----------



## Irwin Winton (Jul 18, 2019)

Serge Forward said:


> The cant!



He looked round, he was nonplussed.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

Sasaferrato said:


> At least I have a brain, you are a stand in for Muffin the Mule.



Whereas you were sentenced to two years hard labour for muffin' the mule.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Say something controversial and you'll get a further 107 pages.



As Bill Grundy DIDN'T say to Steve Jones.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

Proper Tidy said:


> My favourite was the late teens/early 20s lad who used to dress like Lenin at various conferences and I'm pretty sure grassed me up for smoking weed outside some shithole b&b we got put up in. If anything can convince you of the horror of vanguardism it's looking at who the vanguard is



True, plus their general attitude to the working class being people you work *on*, not people you work *with*.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> PE teachers are so noncey that simply bring a PE teacher is effectively an act of paedophilia. Like moustaches.



The fact that 95% of male PE teachers in the 70s and 80s wore skintight RonHills only contributed to the noncery.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

kebabking said:


> We had a PE teacher who went down for noncing.
> 
> I think every school has one.



Went down on who?

Gets coat.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

mojo pixy said:


> Maybe there's too much emotion clouding judgement. Religion is a form of fascism. It can be equivocated, but what would be the point?
> 
> Obviously people who worship will disagree. People with significant others who worship, friends who worship, kids who worship. All tolerate religion for the sake of an easy life, and when someone fails to tolerate then they get called an idiot.
> 
> At least I'm not calling anyone names. Might not be much moral high ground, but I can see your house from here.



Religion isn't fascism, unless you're the catholic church's hierarchy in Nazi Germany.
Religion is, however, an excellent method of social control that is often taken advantage of in states with significant numbers of believers.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> Bring a PE teacher is a form of fascism, also when your mum tries to make you eat your greens.



My mum never had to force me to eat my greens. It was the turnips I objected to. Bleurgh!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

elbows said:


> Australia family argued taxes 'against God's will'



Either Dutch, Flemish or Boer heritage, with names like that. The Low Countries sent a lot of ultra-Protestants out into the wider world.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 18, 2019)

Serge Forward said:


> The cant!


----------



## vanya (Jul 18, 2019)

ViolentPanda said:


> Religion isn't fascism, unless you're the catholic church's hierarchy in Nazi Germany.
> Religion is, however, an excellent method of social control that is often taken advantage of in states with significant numbers of believers.



I support Satan; he's more fun.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2019)

ViolentPanda said:


> Either Dutch, Flemish or Boer heritage, with names like that. The Low Countries sent a lot of ultra-Protestants out into the wider world.



Yeah. Dutch and that family only migrated in the 1980s according to this:

Christian siblings who refused to pay taxes come from Dutch honey-farming family

The father was apparently called Hendricus and snuffed it in 2013.


----------



## ferrelhadley (Jul 18, 2019)

ViolentPanda said:


> Either Dutch, Flemish or Boer heritage, with names like that. The Low Countries sent a lot of *ultra-Protestants* out into the wider world.


Can you tell is someone is ultra-catholic, ultra-jew or ultra-muslim  from their surname? Or is it just ultra-protestants you can smell out. 
Your a fucking thick clown.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 18, 2019)

ViolentPanda said:


> But Norm, Laurie Penny says you're a racist!!!  How can you be a proper communist if you're a racist?


Ive not been on twitter since lol


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

ferrelhadley said:


> Can you tell is someone is ultra-catholic, ultra-jew or ultra-muslim  from their surname? Or is it just ultra-protestants you can smell out.
> Your a fucking thick clown.



It's called applying Occam's razor, arseface.

You're (note correct spelling) a dog-fucking self-righteous shitcunt.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

SpineyNorman said:


> Ive not been on twitter since lol



I have a go at her and that goon Alex Drummond occasionally. They're so full of their own middle class wiberal weft bullshit.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

vanya said:


> I support Satan; he's more fun.




True. Satan has all the best choons, too.


----------



## ferrelhadley (Jul 18, 2019)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's called applying Occam's razor, arseface.


"His name was Cohen, obviously an ultra-Jew, occam's razor!"


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jul 18, 2019)

ferrelhadley said:


> "His name was Cohen, obviously an ultra-Jew, occam's razor!"



Go have a lie down.


----------



## Humberto (Jul 18, 2019)

vanya said:


> I support Satan; he's more fun.



But the 'fun' is supposedly followed by the worst hangover ever known. 

-


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 18, 2019)

ViolentPanda said:


> Whereas you were sentenced to two years hard labour for muffin' the mule.


----------



## Dom Traynor (Jul 19, 2019)

ferrelhadley said:


> "His name was Cohen, obviously an ultra-Jew, occam's razor!"


I once wrestled a rare deepwater Jew


----------



## Dom Traynor (Jul 19, 2019)

ferrelhadley said:


> Can you tell is someone is ultra-catholic, ultra-jew or ultra-muslim  from their surname? Or is it just ultra-protestants you can smell out.
> Your a fucking thick clown.



If they have a Hugenots


----------



## Libertad (Jul 19, 2019)

Dom Traynor said:


> I once wrestled a rare deepwater Jew



Fresh or salt water?


----------



## Dom Traynor (Jul 19, 2019)

Libertad said:


> Fresh or salt water?


Salt so particularly tough


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2019)

Oh God!


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 23, 2019)

elbows said:


> Oh God!




I wonder how little wisdom, insight and concern for the common good the new PM would need to have before he'd start to wonder if that wasn't actually working.


----------



## DotCommunist (Jul 23, 2019)

well, I've prayed for the plagues of biblical egypt to strike thier houses, so we'll just have to see who god listens to.


----------



## Bollox (Jul 31, 2020)

Largely Faux-Lefty in the mould of early eighties studes throwing parties for the miners on strike
with a core group of cockwombles


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jul 31, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Largely Faux-Lefty in the mould of early eighties studes throwing parties for the miners on strike
> with a core group of cockwombles



Tell us more bollox.


----------



## NoXion (Jul 31, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Largely Faux-Lefty in the mould of early eighties studes throwing parties for the miners on strike
> with a core group of cockwombles



Oh nose, we've failed your ideology test. Who are you again?


----------



## Bollox (Jul 31, 2020)

Some are born to fail.
Eugenics could sort that out (not that I'm a fan)


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 31, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Largely Faux-Lefty in the mould of early eighties studes throwing parties for the miners on strike
> with a core group of cockwombles



Oh not this again


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 31, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Some are born to fail.
> Eugenics could sort that out (not that I'm a fan)



If you're not fan, why bring it up?


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 31, 2020)

Judging by reactions on here to the pandemic, if there was an actual revolution with actual people being strung from actual lampposts, this forum would be full of people clamouring for Lieutenant-General Urch to deploy enough troops to enable orderly queueing outside Sainsbury’s. So about as left wing as Tony Benn.


----------



## JimW (Jul 31, 2020)

Oh no, we've disappointed Bollox


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jul 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Judging by reactions on here to the pandemic, if there was an actual revolution with actual people being strung from actual lampposts, this forum would be full of people clamouring for Lieutenant-General Urch to deploy enough troops to enable orderly queueing outside Sainsbury’s. So about as left wing as Tony Benn.



Weren’t you the one arguing that Corbyn should have been replaced with someone more acceptable to capital last week? Bizarre. Are you Paul Mason?


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 31, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Weren’t you the one arguing that Corbyn should have been replaced with someone more acceptable to capital last week?



No


----------



## brogdale (Jul 31, 2020)

JimW said:


> Oh no, we've disappointed Bollox


Judging by the title of a PM received from Mr Bollox, I have an inkling that I may have particularly disappointed him/her?



30 odd posts into their membership of the boards they don't seem very happy with what they've found?


----------



## NoXion (Jul 31, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Some are born to fail.
> Eugenics could sort that out (not that I'm a fan)



What a bizarre post. Are you drunk?


----------



## ska invita (Jul 31, 2020)

NoXion said:


> What a bizarre post. Are you drunk?


theres a clue there in his name and tagline
kamakaze bin runner


----------



## ska invita (Jul 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Judging by the title of a PM received from Mr Bollox, I have an inkling that I may have particularly disappointed him/her?
> 
> View attachment 224429
> 
> 30 odd posts into their membership of the boards they don't seem very happy with what they've found?


what was in the PM?


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jul 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> No



You account has been hacked then:


[IMG alt="platinumsage"]https://www.urban75.net/forums/data/avatars/m/79/79532.jpg?1590335656[/IMG]
*platinumsage
Member*
Saturday at 4:46 PM

Add bookmark
#28,252



> JimW said:
> But that's exactly what happened with the polling surge. Find your line on this pretty odd.


The surge was never enough. It's easy to win over people who will readily support any left-wing leader, but to win over the additional people sufficient to actually win an election, you need to be able to convince them to move out of their comfort zone. Putting forward cogent arguments is always a good start.

But no, let's just blame the press and right-wingers in the Labour party. Eliminating both of those would have surely ensured his victory.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jul 31, 2020)

NoXion said:


> What a bizarre post. Are you drunk?



He could have crashed his motorbike and banged his head..


----------



## Ax^ (Jul 31, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Largely Faux-Lefty in the mould of early eighties studes throwing parties for the miners on strike
> with a core group of cockwombles



who shat in your porridge this morning


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 31, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> You account has been hacked then:
> 
> 
> [IMG alt="platinumsage"]https://www.urban75.net/forums/data/avatars/m/79/79532.jpg?1590335656[/IMG]
> ...



It's weird that you think someone who can "put forward cogent arguments" means someone who is "more acceptable to capital". The only specific person I named as an example capable of such was Michael Foot, so that makes it even more weird.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jul 31, 2020)

DotCommunist said:


> well, I've prayed for the plagues of biblical egypt to strike thier houses, so we'll just have to see who god listens to.




Yeah, fucking nice one Dotty


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jul 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It's weird that you think someone who can "put forward cogent arguments" means someone who is "more acceptable to capital". The only specific person I named as an example capable of such was Michael Foot, so that makes it even more weird.



You said a bit more than that, which we can return to. But let’s focus on the quote you’ve chosen. On one hand U75 is condemned by you for its failure to move beyond Bennism. Reformists. On the other, you posit Michael Foot as a left leader of value. A man who popularised left ideas and from whom we can learn. Can you see any problems here?


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 31, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> You said a bit more than that, which we can return to. But let’s focus on the quote you’ve chosen. On one hand U75 is condemned by you for its failure to move beyond Bennism. Reformists. On the other, you posit Michael Foot as a left leader of value. A man who popularised left ideas and from whom we can learn. Can you see any problems here?



Why do you keep making stuff up that you wish I had said? I didn't "condemn U75 for its failure to move beyond Bennism" did I? I just said it was about as left-wing as Benn, which considering the range of people on here, seems about right to me.


----------



## CNT36 (Jul 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Why do you keep making stuff up that you wish I had said? I didn't "condemn U75 for its failure to move beyond Bennism" did I? I just said it was about as left-wing as Benn, which considering the range of people on here, seems about right to me.


Yet on the thirteenth of March we were three cat memes from full communism.


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Jul 31, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Some are born to fail.
> Eugenics could sort that out (not that I'm a fan)


Are you a Richard Dawkins fanboy by any chance? He was wrong, eugenics doesn't work.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 31, 2020)

ska invita said:


> what was in the PM?


Cryptically, he called me a cunt for outing his trolling.  



Something seems to have him/her mildly piqued!


----------



## DotCommunist (Jul 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Yeah, fucking nice one Dotty


turns out when god does requests he does them in a sly manner like some trickster god. Ok so I didn't specify that the plague on their houses had to be lethal but surely thats implied, yet BJ still walks among us. And did I need to say 'just their houses and no-one else'? apparently I did. Mysterious ways my arse, I'd get a better result from Zoltar


----------



## Bollox (Jul 31, 2020)

Count C, I agree in part with some of his idea, but at the end of the day it all starts with the Genes....

You say nuture - I say Nature - lets call the whole thing off    (its both of course)


----------



## kropotkin (Jul 31, 2020)

Stop saying it's nature then?


----------



## mod (Jul 31, 2020)

ive become more left wing over the last couple of decades. Probably in part due to U75. 

And at 45.....I feel young (which is nice). That last bit isn't very relevant,


----------



## DexterTCN (Jul 31, 2020)

U75 was certainly majorly to the left when I joined in 2004, during the fury of the Iraq war.

Not so much now.

Now it's much more bellingcat.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jul 31, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> Yet on the thirteenth of March we were three cat memes from full communism.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 31, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Count C, I agree in part with some of his idea, but at the end of the day it all starts with the Genes....
> 
> You say nuture - I say Nature - lets call the whole thing off    (its both of course)



Let's call off the trolling instead.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

8ball said:


> and the odd anarchist.



I think they prefer to be called charming eccentrics here


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

editor said:


> Nowhere fucking left wing enough in my book. The Brixton forum is full of gentrifiers, entrepreneurs, self satisfied home owners and sneering Blairite Tory boys. It's a bloody embarrassment.


 
Why not just get rid of the Brixton forum then.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Some are born to fail.
> Eugenics could sort that out (not that I'm a fan)



eugenics isn’t a singular philosophy or practice though. What sort of eugenics could sort it out


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 1, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Why not just get rid of the Brixton forum then.



That's a bit cutting off your nose to spite your face


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

Removing an infected digit surely


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 1, 2020)

Never mind the bollox


----------



## NoXion (Aug 1, 2020)

Count Cuckula said:


> Are you a Richard Dawkins fanboy by any chance? He was wrong, eugenics doesn't work.



Only because it's never been consistently practiced for long enough with any particular population of humans. Selective breeding takes multiple generations to produce stand-out traits, even when complete control is taken over the reproduction of a population. Since humans tend to live for quite a few decades, seeing results could take centuries.

The problem with eugenics is not that it won't work. The problem with eugenics is that getting it to work will require running roughshod over the autonomy of a large number of people, for generations. Objecting to eugenics on the grounds that it "doesn't work" is like objecting to nuking a random selection of 50% of the cities on Earth, because doing so won't reduce the population. It misses the real point which makes such proposals objectionable.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 1, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Removing an infected digit surely



I prefer antibiotics to pitch and saw


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 1, 2020)

eugenic principles  work in the broad sense.  selective breeding to produce desired results is quite evident when we look to domesticated species. (although this is not  without side effects)

if we ask does eugenics work in humans  we have  to define the goal conditions and the test first.

that or just go with the idea that eugenics is  unethical in humans. (I subscribe to this one)


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2020)

No, eugenics will not “work” in the sense that its proponents mean.  It presupposes that the features it is trying to improve (which are always based on culturally-defined concepts like “intelligence”, because that’s what it’s actually all about) exist on a scale and that the scale is genetically determined.  Generally, both these things are untrue.  The defining evolutionary characteristic for humans (ie the thing that above all is genetically human) is plasticity.  We have an extraordinary ability — uniquely so — for our genes to produce completely different outcomes depending on environmental context.  The genetic regulatory system is regulated by an epigenetic system that is regulated by a physiological system that is regulated by a cognitive system that is regulated by a social system.  Environment affects and is affected by all parts of those embedded systems except the genetic one, and this is what produces the visible variation for almost all features we care about.  The only real genetic determinism humans have is (a) that which produces no evolutionary advantage within a range, so whose variation is irrelevant (such as hair colour), (b) that which produces no variation in the first place (like number of teeth or positioning of the nose and ears); and (c) some discontinuous and discrete genetic abnormalities that produce specific disorders.  The last of these are the only type of variation that could be “usefully” eugenically eliminated but they are a narrow set and rarely the things people actually mean when they suggest that eugenics “works”.


----------



## NoXion (Aug 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> No, eugenics will not “work” in the sense that its proponents mean.  It presupposes that the features it is trying to improve (which are always based on culturally-defined concepts like “intelligence”, because that’s what it’s actually all about) exist on a scale and that the scale is genetically determined.  Generally, both these things are untrue.



It's my understanding that intelligence has a genetic component, and could therefore be amenable to artificial selection, at least far as that component goes.



> The defining evolutionary characteristic for humans (ie the thing that above all is genetically human) is plasticity. We have an extraordinary ability — uniquely so — for our genes to produce completely different outcomes depending on environmental context. The genetic regulatory system is regulated by an epigenetic system that is regulated by a physiological system that is regulated by a cognitive system that is regulated by a social system.



Other animals apart from humans (including animals we have successfully bred) can have all of those things as well. Cows (and the wild aurochs that they were bred from) are _herd animals_, are you claiming that they don't have any social system? Even chickens have a pecking order.



> Environment affects and is affected by all parts of those embedded systems except the genetic one, and this is what produces the visible variation for almost all features we care about.



Control of the environment is necessary for artificial selection to work, no matter the species. This changes nothing.



> The only real genetic determinism humans have is (a) that which produces no evolutionary advantage within a range, so whose variation is irrelevant (such as hair colour), (b) that which produces no variation in the first place (like number of teeth or positioning of the nose and ears); and (c) some discontinuous and discrete genetic abnormalities that produce specific disorders.  The last of these are the only type of variation that could be “usefully” eugenically eliminated but they are a narrow set and rarely the things people actually mean when they suggest that eugenics “works”.



This is simply because there has never been a human population consistently subjected to eugenic practices long enough for measurable results to be attained. Humans evolved, and indeed are still evolving today. With enough effort this could be pushed in specific directions, but the actions necessary in order to do that successfully would _inevitably_ be a moral and ethical _disaster area_.

Why isn't that good enough? I think that nuking random cities is an utterly reprehensible method of reducing the global population and that only a complete monster would do such a thing, I don't think there's any need to question the lethality of nuclear weapons, in order to sensibly reject such a proposal.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2020)

In short, there is no evidence that stands up to scrutiny that there is such a thing as a general “intelligence” that is measurable on a scale, let alone that this is a thing with genetic variation.  Meanwhile, there is a huge amount of both theoretical and empirical evidence to suggest the opposite.  The fact that the myth of g has dominated the last 100 years of popular imagination and government policy has been of enormous detriment to our social systems.  So no, there is no reason to think that humanity can be made “more intelligent” through eugenics.

This is a principle that applies across all the cultural constructs eugenicists have historically wanted to “improve”.

ETA: and it matters because scientific racism isn’t just something that should be rejected because of its human cost, but also the erroneous thinking that lies behind it is a major impediment to actual future development.  It encourages a “middle-ground” compromise of “well we won’t go as far as eugenics but that makes it okay for us to take some of the ideas behind it forward“.


----------



## Doodler (Aug 1, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Only because it's never been consistently practiced for long enough with any particular population of humans. Selective breeding takes multiple generations to produce stand-out traits, even when complete control is taken over the reproduction of a population. Since humans tend to live for quite a few decades, seeing results could take centuries.
> 
> The problem with eugenics is not that it won't work. The problem with eugenics is that getting it to work will require running roughshod over the autonomy of a large number of people, for generations. Objecting to eugenics on the grounds that it "doesn't work" is like objecting to nuking a random selection of 50% of the cities on Earth, because doing so won't reduce the population. It misses the real point which makes such proposals objectionable.



Exactly. 'Wouldn't work' is wrong and irrelevant. The question is about groups of professionals defining what constitutes human worth (hint: be more like them) and then using state power to play at cattle breeder with the human population.


----------



## NoXion (Aug 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> In short, there is no evidence that stands up to scrutiny that there is such a thing as a general “intelligence” that is measurable on a scale, let alone that this is a thing with genetic variation.



So how did human intelligence arise in the first place? We didn't just magically appear one day with the huge brains necessary for complex social behaviours. There must have been pressures within our ancestral environment that pushed our species towards the big brains and degree of social complexity we observe today.



> Meanwhile, there is a huge amount of both theoretical and empirical evidence to suggest the opposite.  The fact that the myth of g has dominated the last 100 years of popular imagination and government policy has been of enormous detriment to our social systems.  So no, there is no reason to think that humanity can be made “more intelligent” through eugenics.



A hundred years is merely four or five human generations, so even if those policies both consistent with each other, and were themselves applied consistently (I'm guessing that neither of those things happened), that's not enough time.



> This is a principle that applies across all the cultural constructs eugenicists have historically wanted to “improve”.
> 
> ETA: and it matters because scientifically racism isn’t just something that should be rejected because of its human cost, because also the erroneous thinking that lies behind it is a major impediment to actual future development.  It encourages a “middle-ground” compromise of “well we won’t go as far as eugenics but that makes it okay for us to take some of the ideas behind it forward“.



Ironically considering the history of eugenics, selective breeding of humans would be more effective _without_ the racism. A larger gene pool would mean greater variation to work with.


----------



## Little Piranha (Aug 1, 2020)

Intelligence is a completely reified concept. It isn't a measurable quantity as there is no defined meaning. If by intelligence you are talking about having a high IQ this has been repeatedly shown to be a flawed measure of a very limited understanding of intelligence. It is affected by class, ability at test taking, practice etc. As kabbes says, even if there is some small genetic predisposition towards being good at taking IQ tests it would be far more heavily effected by nuture. 

Even if it wasn't, is it really desirable to have everyone be really good at non verbal reasoning? This is a misunderstanding of evolution and natural selection, it isn't a constant striving to be 'better', it is adaption to the environment in order to procreate more successfully, therefore passing on the adapted genes. 

The language of eugenics is very telling of a flawed world view- 'criminality', 'imbecility', 'deviance'.  These are not genetic traits, or even concepts that we would generally subscribe to now.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2020)

NoXion said:


> So how did human intelligence arise in the first place? We didn't just magically appear one day with the huge brains necessary for complex social behaviours. There must have been pressures within our ancestral environment that pushed our species towards the big brains and degree of social complexity we observe today.


It’s just so enormously more complex than that when it comes to intelligence.  Intelligence is too complicated and too big an evolutionary advantage to think that a simple additive model of good vs bad alleles makes it go up and down.  And without an additive model, you don’t get the commonly perceived concept of g.


----------



## yield (Aug 1, 2020)

NoXion said:


> So how did human intelligence arise in the first place? We didn't just magically appear one day with the huge brains necessary for complex social behaviours. There must have been pressures within our ancestral environment that pushed our species towards the big brains and degree of social complexity we observe today.


Are huge brains even necessary for complex social behaviours? Ants, bees, termites, aphids, mole rats etc.


----------



## NoXion (Aug 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Is just so enormously more complex than that when it comes to intelligence.  Intelligence is too complicated and too big an evolutionary advantage to think that a simple additive model of good vs bad alleles makes it go up and down.  And without an additive model, you don’t get the commonly perceived concept of g.



You don't even need to know that there are such things as genes in order to select for traits. Consistent selection will eventually produce results.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2020)

NoXion said:


> You don't even need to know that there are such things as genes in order to select for traits. Consistent selection will eventually produce results.


Only if there is a meaningful scale to measure the trait against and the variation in the trait is genetically determined.


----------



## NoXion (Aug 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Only if there is a meaningful scale to measure the trait against and the variation in the trait is genetically determined.



So it would work if athletic ability was the trait under consideration? Pretty sure that can be directly measured.


----------



## krink (Aug 1, 2020)

Has benjy gone yet?


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2020)

NoXion said:


> So it would work if athletic ability was the trait under consideration? Pretty sure that can be directly measured.


But is it genetic ability or cultural adaptation that you are measuring?


----------



## NoXion (Aug 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> But is it genetic ability or cultural adaptation that you are measuring?



Well, I think answering that question would require a comparison of the respective genomes of the selected and non-selected populations. A hypothetical that will hopefully remain as such in the case of humans.


----------



## Doodler (Aug 1, 2020)

yield said:


> Are huge brains even necessary for complex social behaviours? Ants, bees, termites, aphids, mole rats etc.



I don't know about aphids but all those other creatures in your list are eusocial. Depends how complex you mean, mole rats aren't going to get into ancestor worship, metallurgy or making pots any time soon.


----------



## Bollox (Aug 1, 2020)

krtek a houby said:


> Let's call off the trolling instead.




I've had a few bottom dwelling arseholes like yourself doing that "lets accuse someone of doing what I am actually doing myself" thing, it seems to be a pastime here... and does little fto advance debate

Now fuck off you ,miserable little cockwomble


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 1, 2020)

I hadn’t really thought about it before, but if the male and female are respectively cockwombles and henwombles, are the young chickwombles? Or does it throw a curve here and go with something else?


----------



## NoXion (Aug 1, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I've had a few bottom dwelling arseholes like yourself doing that "lets accuse someone of doing what I am actually doing myself" thing, it seems to be a pastime here... and does little fto advance debate
> 
> Now fuck off you ,miserable little cockwomble



You just slagged off the majority of the posters on this forum. If that's not trolling, then I'm a Martian.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2020)

Just ignore it


----------



## Ax^ (Aug 1, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I've had a few bottom dwelling arseholes like yourself doing that "lets accuse someone of doing what I am actually doing myself" thing, it seems to be a pastime here... and does little fto advance debate
> 
> Now fuck off you ,miserable little cockwomble




So who did you use to be

I mean i could figure it out but feeling lazy today


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 1, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I've had a few bottom dwelling arseholes like yourself doing that "lets accuse someone of doing what I am actually doing myself" thing, it seems to be a pastime here... and does little fto advance debate
> 
> Now fuck off you ,miserable little cockwomble





Bollox said:


> Largely Faux-Lefty in the mould of early eighties studes throwing parties for the miners on strike
> with a core group of cockwombles





Bollox said:


> Some are born to fail.
> Eugenics could sort that out (not that I'm a fan)



Great debate


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

I just tried to get my nephews (7 and 9) to watch the animated animal farm. They weren’t having it.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 1, 2020)

BTW "cockwomble" is not good swearing any more, if it ever was which it wasn't.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 1, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Why not just get rid of the Brixton forum then.



Good to keep tabs on the enemy, though


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

krtek a houby said:


> Good to keep tabs on the enemy, though



Brixton?


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

Fuckkng hell this board has changed


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 1, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Brixton?



The people editor referred to his post! Not Brixton.


----------



## yield (Aug 1, 2020)

Doodler said:


> I don't know about aphids but all those other creatures in your list are eusocial. Depends how complex you mean, mole rats aren't going to get into ancestor worship, metallurgy or making pots any time soon.


You're moving the goal posts a little. Plenty of non-primates use tools. Crows use sticks to get to grubs. Bees have "pots" in their honeycombs. etc.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

krtek a houby said:


> The people editor referred to his post! Not Brixton.



The inhumanity of the left.


----------



## yield (Aug 1, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> The inhumanity of the left.


We eat babies*. What do you expect?

(*no babies were actually harmed)


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 1, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> The inhumanity of the left.



The unbearable shiteness of gentrifying


----------



## two sheds (Aug 1, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> I just tried to get my nephews (7 and 9) to watch the animated animal farm. They weren’t having it.



Bored by it?


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

yield said:


> (*no babies were actually harmed) and we all vote Lib Dem



Place has gone downhill


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Bored by it?



Yes. Agonisingly so. They settled on watching some b-movie Hercules film with that woman from hollyoaks. I think they may be fash


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 1, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Place has gone downhill



Brixton?


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

Never lived there.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 1, 2020)

In some areas Urban75 is quite left wing but in others it is not. 

When I joined I was more right wing than I am now. U75 does have a leftwards effect if you stick around.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 1, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Yes. Agonisingly so. They settled on watching some b-movie Hercules film with that woman from hollyoaks. I think they may be fash



Mind you one of my favourite films when I was a young'un was Zulu ... 

... ah yes fair point


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 1, 2020)

Mine was The Man Who Would Be King. Kipling corrupts the young mind


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2020)

after my time


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> In some areas Urban75 is quite left wing but in others it is not.
> 
> When I joined I was more right wing than I am now. U75 does have a leftwards effect if you stick around.



WeltWelt has surpassed all others in baby eating for the 3rd year running. Puts the rest of us to shame


----------



## weltweit (Aug 2, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> .. Puts the rest of us to shame


I somehow doubt that. 
While I have moved leftwards over my time at U75, I am still probably a mixed economy supporting liberal.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 2, 2020)

The British Road to eating babies


----------



## sovereignb (Aug 2, 2020)

extremely.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 2, 2020)

With cucumber sandwiches and polite conversation.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Aug 2, 2020)

Well I'm a proper communist who enjoys whippet breeding and freestyle farting so you can all fuck off.


----------



## alsoknownas (Aug 2, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> I just tried to get my nephews (7 and 9) to watch the animated animal farm. They weren’t having it.


Don't worry kids will always disappoint you.  I had a magical viewing of Gregory's Girl planned for my yoots.  They thought it was shit and zoned out a third of the way through .  Cretins!


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Aug 2, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> BTW "cockwomble" is not good swearing any more, if it ever was which it wasn't.



Surely a double warning is in order for the erroneous comma?




Bollox said:


> Now fuck off you ,miserable little cockwomble


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 2, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Now fuck off you ,miserable little cockwomble



On closer inspection, it kind of reads like:

Now fuck off you

Lots of love,

Miserable little cockwomble


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 2, 2020)

Love kills communists. They don’t even believe in Jesus


----------



## SpineyNorman (Aug 2, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Love kills communists. They don’t even believe in Jesus


I did once but I think I got away with it


----------



## Marty1 (Aug 2, 2020)

If I had to categorise this site, from my experience of it so far I’d say it was very mainstream.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 2, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> If I had to categorise this site, from my experience of it so far I’d say it was very mainstream.


There's another one now...you can relax and go down the pub.


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Aug 2, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> If I had to categorise this site, from my experience of it so far I’d say it was very mainstream.


Hipster


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 2, 2020)

Count Cuckula said:


> Hipster


He means we tend not to watch alt right videos and believe conspiracy theories.


----------



## Flavour (Aug 2, 2020)

makes you miss phildwyer really doesn't it.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 2, 2020)

Flavour said:


> makes you miss phildwyer really doesn't it.


It does not, no.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 2, 2020)

Flavour said:


> makes you miss phildwyer really doesn't it.


No. I know what you mean. But no.


----------



## Flavour (Aug 2, 2020)

I was kidding, obviously. You know, like mainstream people do.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Aug 2, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> If I had to categorise this site, from my experience of it so far I’d say it was very mainstream.


CNN = far left
Urban = mainstream 
Marty1 = dogs face wearing deviant


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 2, 2020)

Flavour said:


> I was kidding, obviously. You know, like mainstream people do.


I’m delighted to learn that my views are mainstream now.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 2, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I’m delighted to learn that my views are mainstream now.


Overton window blown out of its frame!


----------



## editor (Aug 2, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> If I had to categorise this site, from my experience of it so far I’d say it was very mainstream.


1/10. Very poor.


----------



## Marty1 (Aug 2, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> He means we tend not to watch alt right videos and believe conspiracy theories.



lol - but no.

Guardian/Independent/CNN, Twitter etc links and moaning about mainstream guff isn’t exactly ‘anarchist’ now is it?

Im not saying doing any of that is particularly bad or egregious as I do it myself in part.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Aug 2, 2020)




----------



## Supine (Aug 2, 2020)

editor said:


> 1/10. Very poor.



Ahhh, don't do yourself down. I'd give this site at least a 6/10


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 2, 2020)

I’d donate to the site but I don’t want Moscow getting my bank details


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Aug 2, 2020)

Flavour said:


> makes you miss phildwyer really doesn't it.



Still waiting for his rational proof of god's existence thread from 2005 to explode, oh wait.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 2, 2020)

Have faith Dial. Have faith.


----------



## Flavour (Aug 2, 2020)

dialectician said:


> Still waiting for his rational proof of god's existence thread from 2005 to explode, oh wait.



yeah that was great. god exists cos the world exists. boom. saved you hours of trawling there


----------



## Ax^ (Aug 2, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> lol - but no.
> 
> Guardian/Independent/CNN, Twitter etc links and moaning about mainstream guff isn’t exactly ‘anarchist’ now is it?
> 
> Im not saying doing any of that is particularly bad or egregious as I do it myself in part.



How about repeatably linking to right wing sources and generally having a semi for trump,

what would you call that


----------



## Raheem (Aug 2, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> He means we tend not to watch alt right videos and believe conspiracy theories.


But the only reason is because we know that's what they want us to do, so we're actually much more radical than Marty.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 2, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> How about repeatably linking to right wing sources and generally having a semi for trump,
> 
> what would you call that



Disingenuous.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 2, 2020)

Tedious as well. 

We’ve all had that friend who will spam us on WhatsApp with dodgy (and boring) YouTube stuff.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 2, 2020)

Watch this - 5 hour long - series of videos about the federal reserves role in cultural Marxism!


----------



## Marty1 (Aug 2, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Watch this - 5 hour long - series of videos about the federal reserves role in cultural Marxism!



Yeah - YouTube is for people who like cardigans, TikTok is far more present with short 15sec - 1mins or content per video


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 2, 2020)

Right


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Aug 2, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> He means we tend not to watch alt right videos and believe conspiracy theories.


Whatever. Fucking Hipsters!


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 3, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Tedious as well.
> 
> We’ve all had that friend who will spam us on WhatsApp with dodgy (and boring) YouTube stuff.



Far right cunt Marty ain't no friend of urban.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Aug 3, 2020)

Flavour said:


> yeah that was great. god exists cos the world exists. boom. saved you hours of trawling there



Oh but it's the best trawl after you've smoked a henry.

Not that I'm young enough for such frivolous pursuits anymore, but...


----------



## Bollox (Aug 3, 2020)

krtek a houby said:


> Far right cunt Marty ain't no friend of urban.




I'm beginning to realise how this place works, alternative views are not to be engaged with but simply attacked in an often infantile manner, its not a left wing place at all its a forum full of narrow minded  fascists
How fucking boring and weak.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 3, 2020)

Only the strong survive


----------



## Chilli.s (Aug 3, 2020)

Cut off your own face, make it into a mask, let your dog wear it to the park.
When another dog fucks your dog you'll feel like you're getting some.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 3, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I'm beginning to realise how this place works, alternative views are not to be engaged with but simply attacked in an often infantile manner, its not a left wing place at all its a forum full of narrow minded  fascists
> How fucking boring and weak.



Load of aul' bollox


----------



## SpineyNorman (Aug 3, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I'm beginning to realise how this place works, alternative views are not to be engaged with but simply attacked in an often infantile manner, its not a left wing place at all its a forum full of narrow minded  fascists
> How fucking boring and weak.


That's what your mum said poo face


----------



## JimW (Aug 3, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I'm beginning to realise how this place works, alternative views are not to be engaged with but simply attacked in an often infantile manner, its not a left wing place at all its a forum full of narrow minded  fascists
> How fucking boring and weak.


All you've done since you showed up is piss and whine, which I can reveal is not an interesting or strong look either. Maybe this is your spiritual home.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 3, 2020)

JimW said:


> All you've done since you showed up is piss and whine, which I can reveal is not an interesting or strong look either. Maybe this is your spiritual home.



Marty will like his posts, mind.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Aug 3, 2020)

It's Arjen Robben


----------



## Doodler (Aug 3, 2020)

yield said:


> You're moving the goal posts a little. Plenty of non-primates use tools. Crows use sticks to get to grubs. Bees have "pots" in their honeycombs. etc.



There is a general pattern for social species to have bigger brains as a proportion of body mass compared to solitary-dwelling ones. You are right about crows and iirc they along with parrots have a high brain-to-body mass ratio relative to other birds.


----------



## Doodler (Aug 3, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Yeah - YouTube is for people who like cardigans, TikTok is far more present with short 15sec - 1mins or content per video



YouTube is pretty blokeish. I always end up watching Mark Felton's military history videos.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 3, 2020)

Bollox said:


> How fucking boring and weak.





Another piss-poor troll.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 3, 2020)

Bollox has been quiet for an hour or so, and during that time new trolling sensation, Scotty1977 came and went. He did post this corker:

"Britain opened its doors to the dregs of the world."

Sounds familiar. Of course, could just be pure co-incidence.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 3, 2020)

Or possibly  Britain opened its doors of the dregs to the world.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Aug 3, 2020)

Posting this to try to re-establish U75’s radical bonafides. 

Never mind the bollox....


----------



## Serge Forward (Aug 3, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I'm beginning to realise how this place works, alternative views are not to be engaged with but simply attacked in an often infantile manner, its not a left wing place at all its a forum full of narrow minded  fascists
> How fucking boring and weak.


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Aug 3, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I'm beginning to realise how this place works, alternative views are not to be engaged with but simply attacked in an often infantile manner, its not a left wing place at all its a forum full of narrow minded  fascists
> How fucking boring and weak.


No ones forcing you to stay here


----------



## CNT36 (Aug 3, 2020)

Count Cuckula said:


> No ones forcing you to stay here


Narrow minded fascists aren't what they were.


----------



## CNT36 (Aug 3, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I'm beginning to realise how this place works, alternative views are not to be engaged with but simply attacked in an often infantile manner, its not a left wing place at all its a forum full of narrow minded  fascists
> How fucking boring and weak.


It's more that some views are so boring and weak and repeatedly engaging with them so tedious that the only rational response is an infantile one.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 3, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> BTW "cockwomble" is not good swearing any more, if it ever was which it wasn't.



swear word + animal = spectacularly unfunny  attempted edgyness by vanilla online middle class boomers.


----------



## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 3, 2020)

Jeff Robinson said:


> swear word + animal = spectacularly unfunny  attempted edgyness by vanilla online middle class boomers.


fuck off you shitbadger


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 3, 2020)




----------



## JimW (Aug 3, 2020)

Jeff Robinson said:


> swear word + animal = spectacularly unfunny  attempted edgyness by vanilla online middle class boomers.


What about fucknugget? Say not so.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 3, 2020)

nuggets are not animals.

well except in old mcdonalds adverts


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## danny la rouge (Aug 3, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I'm beginning to realise how this place works, alternative views are not to be engaged with but simply attacked in an often infantile manner, its not a left wing place at all its a forum full of narrow minded  fascists
> How fucking boring and weak.


“Wah wah wah! My views aren’t being heard”.
_We heard them. They’re shit._
“But unless you agree with them, you’re fascists!“
_Boo fucking hoo. You’ve found people who don’t agree with you._


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## JimW (Aug 3, 2020)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> nuggets are not animals.


This is my point and hence the request for a ruling.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 3, 2020)

shitehawk is also exempt


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## SpineyNorman (Aug 3, 2020)

Is calling someone a dogs cock ok? Goats penis too?


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 3, 2020)

DotCommunist said:


> shitehawk is also exempt


What about fecesraptor?


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## kebabking (Aug 3, 2020)

Shitgibbon?

Witless ape?

Loathsome slug?


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## Doodler (Aug 3, 2020)

The grandparent of feeble efforts like cockwomble and wankpuffin must be arsecandle, which was in some Chris Morris program.


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## Raheem (Aug 3, 2020)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> nuggets are not animals.



Neither are wombles, TBF.

The contents of the set would be things like clanger-flaps and arsemoomin.


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## fishfinger (Aug 3, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Neither are wombles, TBF.
> 
> The contents of the set would be things like clanger-flaps and arsemoomin.


Or fuckmuppet.


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## Chilli.s (Aug 3, 2020)

Fishbollock


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## Jeff Robinson (Aug 3, 2020)

JimW said:


> What about fucknugget? Say not so.



Not approved.

The following terms are acceptable: fuckhead, fuckwit, fuckface, fucko.


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## Idris2002 (Aug 3, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Cut off your own face, make it into a mask, let your dog wear it to the park.
> When another dog fucks your dog you'll feel like you're getting some.


Ah, if only it were that simple.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Aug 3, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Neither are wombles, TBF.
> 
> The contents of the set would be things like clanger-flaps and arsemoomin.


Fictional animals I think are still animals.

jizzdragon

mingeunicorn


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## Raheem (Aug 3, 2020)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> Fictional animals I think are still animals.
> 
> pissdragon
> 
> mingeunicorn


You could be right. I've always been a bit of a scrotumflump when it comes to this sort of thing.


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## Raheem (Aug 3, 2020)

fishfinger said:


> Or fuckmuppet.


Wankertweenie


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## brogdale (Aug 3, 2020)

You're all culturalMarxistfascists and I can't cope with it anymore...it's all too much for me to take...


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## Shechemite (Aug 3, 2020)

What’s the beef with the federal reserve anyway?


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## JimW (Aug 3, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> What’s the beef with the federal reserve anyway?


Related to fiat money wibble maybe?


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## Marty1 (Aug 3, 2020)

krtek a houby said:


> Marty will like his posts, mind.



Ive just liked your post.

Your mind: now fucked.


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## Pickman's model (Aug 3, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Ive just liked your post.
> 
> Your mind: now fucked.


Pisspoor


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## Idris2002 (Aug 3, 2020)

Onar An was the last half-decent troll we had, and that was nearly a decade ago.


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## krtek a houby (Aug 3, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Ive just liked your post.
> 
> Your mind: now fucked.



Your mind: usually Fox


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## SpineyNorman (Aug 3, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Ive just liked your post.
> 
> Your mind: now fucked.


If you ever like one of my posts I will find out where you live a burn you in your bed.


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## krtek a houby (Aug 3, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> If you ever like one of my posts I will find out where you live a burn you in your bed.



Just lure it out from under the bridge in daylight.


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## Bollox (Aug 4, 2020)

I was right then......as you were titnibblers


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## JimW (Aug 4, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I was right then......as you were titnibblers


Another self declared win on the Internet   Must make your mum proud.


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## 8ball (Aug 4, 2020)

fishfinger said:


> Or fuckmuppet.



I think you'll find the term is "ventroloquised sex worker".


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## CNT36 (Aug 4, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I was right then......as you were titnibblers


Seriously you've engaged with nothing, thrown accusations around and got stroppy if someone disagrees with or challenges you. It's a compliment if you don't like the place.


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## Bollox (Aug 4, 2020)

Too reactionary for you?
Diddums


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## CNT36 (Aug 4, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Too reactionary for you?
> Diddums


That must be it.


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## andysays (Aug 4, 2020)

JimW said:


> Another self declared win on the Internet   Must make your mum proud.


Even his mum thinks he's a cunt.


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## 8ball (Aug 4, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Too reactionary for you?
> Diddums



Is there a point coming?


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## brogdale (Aug 4, 2020)

I can't be alone in thinking that if I ever chose to use my time trolling a forum populated predominantly by ideological opponents, I'd be able to make a much better stab at it than clowns like this fella.
Why are they so shit at it?


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## JimW (Aug 4, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I can't be alone in thinking


Well, there's one poster here who's not doing his share at least.


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## brogdale (Aug 4, 2020)

I mean...go through the bother of signing up just to yell into the void _you're all a bunch of cunts!   _


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## two sheds (Aug 4, 2020)

_you're all a bunch of cunts!  Diddums! _


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## brogdale (Aug 4, 2020)

two sheds said:


> _you're all a bunch of cunts!  Diddums! _


I stand corrected


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## Pickman's model (Aug 4, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I was right then......as you were titnibblers


i suppose that would make you a sucker


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 4, 2020)

What's wrong with nibbling tits?
Much better than droning knobs.


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## Pickman's model (Aug 4, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What's wrong with nibbling tits?
> Much better than droning knobs.


he's called bollox because he's seedy


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## krtek a houby (Aug 4, 2020)

Bollox said:


> I was right then......as you were titnibblers



Yes. You very much "right".

What purpose was your sockpuppet yesterday?


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## brogdale (Aug 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> he's called bollox because he's seedy


_Never mind..._


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## Pickman's model (Aug 4, 2020)

brogdale said:


> _Never mind..._


he's firing blanks


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## 8ball (Aug 4, 2020)

krtek a houby said:


> Yes. You very much "right".



Hard to conclude - I hadn't seen anything except general insults.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 4, 2020)

8ball said:


> Hard to conclude - I hadn't seen anything except general insults.


and not particularly good ones.


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## brogdale (Aug 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> and not particularly good ones.


Cunt called me a cunt.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 4, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Cunt called me a cunt.


insults which would have been looked down on in at the birth of this site, let alone a quarter of a century later. Bollox has let us down, he's let the site down but most of all he's let himself down.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> insults which would have been looked down on in at the birth of this site, let alone a quarter of a century later. Bollox has let us down, he's let the site down but most of all he's let himself down.


Very much so; he needs to go away and reflect on that, now.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 4, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Cunt called me a cunt.



What a cunt.


----------



## JimW (Aug 4, 2020)

It's cunts all the way down.


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## Ax^ (Aug 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> insults which would have been looked down on in at the birth of this site, let alone a quarter of a century later. Bollox has let us down, he's let the site down but most of all he's let himself down.



and we not angry just disappointed


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 4, 2020)

Bollox has shriveled, it would seem.


----------



## Bollox (Aug 5, 2020)

Doesn't the Cockwombles Tag Team have anything better to do?......................tsk tsk


----------



## two sheds (Aug 5, 2020)

No, we're arguing in our time off


----------



## Dogsauce (Aug 5, 2020)

Jeff Robinson said:


> swear word + animal = spectacularly unfunny  attempted edgyness by vanilla online middle class boomers.



but ‘bummer dog’ has a long West Country heritage that precedes boomerism or any kind of edgyness.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 5, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Doesn't the Cockwombles Tag Team have anything better to do?......................tsk tsk



They're in negotiations with the Narrow Minded Fascists, Cunt Collective and PC Brigade to form an alliance


----------



## brogdale (Aug 5, 2020)

I don't think his heart is in this, tbh.


----------



## CNT36 (Aug 5, 2020)

I think we have a good idea when and how often Bollox takes a dump and it's not looking healthy.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 5, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> I think we have a good idea when and how often Bollox takes a dump and it's not looking healthy.


The trump diet?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Aug 5, 2020)

Bollox said:


> Doesn't the Cockwombles Tag Team have anything better to do?......................tsk tsk


At least put some effort into it for fucks sake boy


----------



## JimW (Aug 5, 2020)

I'm on the darts team anyway, tag is much too rough.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 5, 2020)

Darts. PFWC these boards


----------



## brogdale (Aug 5, 2020)

JimW said:


> I'm on the darts team anyway, tag is much too rough.


Didn't know we had a darts team; "...w_rong bed, cockwomble's delight!"_


----------



## brogdale (Aug 5, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Darts. PFWC these boards


More that and I'll chalk a big fat "C" above your scores.


----------



## Shechemite (Aug 5, 2020)

I’m too refined to know what that means, but I’m glad we’re upholding boundaries


----------



## MikeMcc (Aug 5, 2020)

I came across here as a Tory-lite to take the piss but actually stayed because I enjoyed sensible conversation.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 28, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Well I'm a proper communist who enjoys whippet breeding and freestyle farting so you can all fuck off.



I thought you'd given up the dog-bumming?


----------



## campanula (Aug 29, 2020)

ViolentPanda said:


> I thought you'd given up the dog-bumming?


 VP! Nice to 'see' you,  Stay well.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 29, 2020)

campanula said:


> VP! Nice to 'see' you,  Stay well.



Thought I'd better let people know I hadn't shuffled off this mortal coil yet!


----------



## redsquirrel (Aug 29, 2020)

ViolentPanda said:


> Thought I'd better let people know I hadn't shuffled off this mortal coil yet!


Yeah good to see you comrade


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 29, 2020)

ViolentPanda said:


> Thought I'd better let people know I hadn't shuffled off this mortal coil yet!


Glad to hear it.


----------

