# In what ways is Wales an oppressed country today?



## llantwit (Dec 13, 2006)

OK - English oppression obviously gets the blood boiling with a lot of folk on the Cymru boards. Myself the nationalism thing has never really got me going. So I thought I'd invite yous all to educate me, as I really don't think I know the facts. I really am willing to be persuaded on this, this isn't a wind-up or anything.
So, here goes:
How is Wales oppressed today? What are the material conditions of colonial oppression in our country today and in what ways would a free Wales make these better?




Point of information (just so yous know I'm not a right-wing trollbot):
I am a pretty political person (anarchist/libertarian socialist), Have been more active than I am at the moment, but still do some stuff. I'm welsh, and I indulge in soft (cultural) nationalism as well as anyone (love the rugby). I do feel proud to be welsh, and make a point of telling people I'm welsh when they assume I'm English.
I also realise that asking about injustices that exist *today* can't be neatly separated from historical injustices, but I was thinking of having another thread for them - what do peeps think?


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## ZIZI (Dec 13, 2006)

I think Welsh People have been so used to English oppression because of times gone by that they are content to carry on thinking that way. On the other side of the coin, the English are so used to oppressing the Welsh and other Celtic nations thay they think they can continue it..However, because of the class system that still exists in this country the English in particular will continue their opressive ways and whether you are Welsh, Irish or Scots the majority of people will still feel that their big English neighbours still have their thumb firmly on our nations. Until our own attitude changes and self esteem improves it will continue into generations.

So, I guess what I m saying, is it oppression or the class system that makes the Celtic nations feel like Englands poor relations?


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## llantwit (Dec 13, 2006)

So are you saying that the actual idea that Walles is oppressed is all psychological - based on historical oppression that doesn't exist any more?


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## ZIZI (Dec 13, 2006)

It probably is physcological and that can have an impact on how people live their lives. Historical oppression is written in the history books and into people's beliefs, more so I think in the Welsh valleys than in Cardiff for instance.

I have listened to peoples conversations talikng about the old days and the times of the mining industry, English school masters and English gentry ruling the villages. Whilst the art of story telling is still an important part of community life, do we have to truly beleive that oppression should still exist in Wales. Why should it? Are we not capable of change? 

I also think that the more socially deprived and poverty striken areas of Wales is the more oppressed its people will feel. But, if a survey was done with your questions asked to the general public of Wales it would be a mixed bag. A high % in the poorer parts of Wales and a low % in the more affluent areas. Again, that I think that goes back to the class system more than the oppression and that I think is another discussion.


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## llantwit (Dec 13, 2006)

It's a fair point to make, I reckon - that class/economic opression can often go hand in hand with feelings of being on the recieving end of colonial opression.


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## bendeus (Dec 13, 2006)

The mere fact that John Redwood was made Welsh secretary? Kind of says a lot about the prevailing attitude of  metropolis towards satellite.


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## llantwit (Dec 13, 2006)

Weapon of mass destruction.


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## ICB (Dec 13, 2006)

bendeus said:
			
		

> The mere fact that John Redwood was made Welsh secretary? Kind of says a lot about the prevailing attitude of  metropolis towards satellite.



Not saying it isn't relevent, sure it is, but that's true of just about everywhere beyond the M25, bunch of parochial gits


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## Brockway (Dec 13, 2006)

Well most of us have to learn Welsh as a foreign language instead of our native tongue - that makes me feel culturally oppressed.

We've got the British army flying all over the shop; blowing up things; and generally getting on my cock - that makes me feel oppressed.

We've got English twerps who voted Tory under Thatcher coming here coz it's cheaper and I'm not allowed to kill these people - that makes me feel oppressed.

You're allowed to call the Welsh c**nts on the BBC - that makes me feel oppressed.


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## ICB (Dec 13, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Well most of us have to learn Welsh as a foreign language instead of our native tongue - that makes me feel culturally oppressed.



There are welsh language schools in english speaking areas though.  



> We've got the British army flying all over the shop; blowing up things; and generally getting on my cock - that makes me feel oppressed.



They let Welsh people into the army too you know, in fact it seems like they've been cunningly targetting deprived communities in Wales.   The army have an equal rights policy when it comes to fucking people off, they get on English, Scottish and Northern Irish people's nerves as well.



> We've got English twerps who voted Tory under Thatcher coming here coz it's cheaper and I'm not allowed to kill these people - that makes me feel oppressed.



Eh?  Tories coming here cos it's cheaper?  Yer having a larf.  Well obviously you are cos you wouldn't really want to kill them.  I hope.



> You're allowed to call the Welsh c**nts on the BBC - that makes me feel oppressed.



You can call anyone a cunt on the BBC, but I'm pretty sure you won't get away with it when it comes to national identity, did you have a specific example in mind?  

I agree that prejudice on the basis of national identity is shit, of course that cuts both ways.  Humour is more of a grey area, although it tends to work best when taking the piss out of one's own nation rather than someone else's


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## zog (Dec 13, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Well most of us have to learn Welsh as a foreign language instead of our native tongue - that makes me feel culturally oppressed.
> 
> We've got the British army flying all over the shop; blowing up things; and generally getting on my cock - that makes me feel oppressed.
> 
> ...




Well, if you have to learn Welsh as a foreign language then blame your parents for not teaching it to you from birth. From what I've seen English is your national language as thats what most people speak fluently.

I thought the army stopped bombing Gabalfa a few years back after cutbacks.

Feel free to kill the English (and Welsh) tories. We won't stop you, and we might even buy you a pint before they arrest you.

You cunt, feel that oppression.


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## zog (Dec 13, 2006)

the only oppression we face is the shite they put on BBC Wales and S4C.


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## untethered (Dec 13, 2006)

We sent an English architect to give you a shopping centre instead of an elegant civic building for your national assembly.


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## Brockway (Dec 13, 2006)

ICB said:
			
		

> There are welsh language schools in english speaking areas though.
> 
> _Yeah there are - what's your point? And they are learning Welsh as a foreign language._
> 
> ...




...


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## Brockway (Dec 13, 2006)

zog said:
			
		

> the only oppression we face is the shite they put on BBC Wales and S4C.



You could always fuck off back to Coventry.


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## Brockway (Dec 13, 2006)

zog said:
			
		

> Well, if you have to learn Welsh as a foreign language then blame your parents for not teaching it to you from birth. From what I've seen English is your national language as thats what most people speak fluently.
> 
> I thought the army stopped bombing Gabalfa a few years back after cutbacks.
> 
> ...



My parents didn't speak Welsh.

We've got an army barracks in Gabalfa.

Don't call me a cunt Zog, it's not nice.


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## Brockway (Dec 13, 2006)

Zara Phillips winning Sports Personality of the Year instead of Joe Calzaghe - that makes me feel oppressed.


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## ddraig (Dec 13, 2006)

llantwit said:
			
		

> OK - English oppression obviously gets the blood boiling with a lot of folk on the Cymru boards. Myself the nationalism thing has never really got me going. So I thought I'd invite yous all to educate me, as I really don't think I know the facts. I really am willing to be persuaded on this, this isn't a wind-up or anything.
> So, here goes:
> How is Wales oppressed today? What are the material conditions of colonial oppression in our country today and in what ways would a free Wales make these better?
> 
> ...



and post #3



			
				llantwit said:
			
		

> So are you saying that the actual idea that *Walles* is oppressed is all psychological - based on historical oppression that doesn't exist any more?



did u do  that on purpoise?!?!?


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## ddraig (Dec 13, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Zara Phillips winning Sports Personality of the Year instead of Joe Calzaghe - that makes me feel oppressed.



fuckin A! shit like that, all the facking time!  

anyway... i am thinking about it llantwit and will get back to ya


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## Brockway (Dec 13, 2006)

ddraig said:
			
		

> fuckin A! shit like that, all the facking time!
> 
> anyway... i am thinking about it llantwit and will get back to ya



I think Llantwit is trying to upset everyone before xmas with this thread. The  miserable git...


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## rhys gethin (Dec 13, 2006)

llantwit said:
			
		

> How is Wales oppressed today? What are the material conditions of colonial oppression in our country today and in what ways would a free Wales make these better?



Well, it is manifestly much poorer than the State which has 'devolved' certain of its powers to Cardiff, but for my money it remains oppressed in exactly the same way that the Black People in the States are oppressed - not so much in material terms (though those problems are still there) but psychologically.   We mustn't ever _say_ it, but we have been being treated like crap for so long that, underneath, an awful lot of us have a sort of suspicion that there must be something in it, particularly when so many of us attend to the English media, which keep up the process of ignorant, boorish insult.   Why do we call ourselves 'Welsh' (which means foreigner) or 'Taff', which is a crude English imitation of someone saying 'Dafydd' in a thick accent if we are so liberated?   Then add to that our voting for a Party that appeals mainly to 'Middle England' - i.e. foreign rich people - and appears to detest our country, and examine the self-contempt and divisiveness that comes from losing the language, and who needs more?    The struggle for freedom from all this drivel is what will make all these things better, as it does everywhere.   Read old Franz Fanon.


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## Funky_monks (Dec 13, 2006)

I think you can probably substitute 'English' with 'Bourgoise' in this case.

The hatred of the English purely because of the fact that they were born in England is the reason I haven't been down my local yet.

I'm quite happy to put up with anti english jokes at work, but throw booze into the mix and suddenly the Garw valley seems a scary place....


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## zog (Dec 14, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> My parents didn't speak Welsh.
> 
> We've got an army barracks in Gabalfa.
> 
> Don't call me a cunt Zog, it's not nice.



It was ment in the nicest possible way.


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## zog (Dec 14, 2006)

> but for my money it remains oppressed in exactly the same way that the Black People in the States are oppressed



Sorry, but what utter rubbish.

Welsh people were not chained and dragged half way accross the world to work as slaves. They are more likely to go to college than prison; the british police force are no more likely to beat up and frame them than they are English people; As far as I can remember there was no segregation of the Welsh in this century; You never had to use different toilets from the English....

The above statement makes a mockery of Welsh nationalism. If you sincerely believe that the state of the Welsh nation is comparable to blacks in the USA then you realy need to get a grip.


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## Gavin Bl (Dec 14, 2006)

zog said:
			
		

> Sorry, but what utter rubbish.
> 
> Welsh people were not chained and dragged half way accross the world to work as slaves. They are more likely to go to college than prison; the british police force are no more likely to beat up and frame them than they are English people; As far as I can remember there was no segregation of the Welsh in this century; You never had to use different toilets from the English....



Agreed, and I agree that sometimes the word English is substituted for Bourgeois, i.e the same kind of problems you might see in Redcar, would be refracted through a partially nationalist prism in Ebbw Vale.

But there is a sort of cultural oppression that still exists - an example of Redwood is good. Not just him gettin the job, but he didn't learn the national anthem, because it wasn't important to him - he thinks Welsh isn't a proper language, so why should he bother. Its that kind of stuff that marks the Welsh psyche, and constitues our 'oppression', such as it is.

Wales isn't like Scotland, it doesn't have that intellectual and economic heritage coming out of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Edinburgh was the second city of the Empire, and today half the cabinet seems Scottish. Wales doesn't have that same weight, it was subsumed into England politically before the 1707 deal that kinda created modern britain - also why we are not on the union jack. We are a much more junior and frankly, unimportant figure in 'The Union'.

We are not oppressed in the true immediate sense of the word, but there is the mark of oppression on Wales and the Welsh.


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## lewislewis (Dec 14, 2006)

Wales is regarded as a horrible little sore by the UK establishment and media, stuff like jokes about Wales and national rivalry is harmless enough, and being tied to the Union equates to economic oppression. I think an important question is whether we want Wales to remain a backward part of the UK forever (which it will be if we stick with London rule), or whether we want Wales to perhaps govern itself and find solutions to these problems. The solutions might be any number of policies but it's certain that nothing is going to come out of London to help us.

We pay our taxes to London, where politicians spend them on things that have nothing to do with Wales such as the war in Iraq, attacks on civil liberties and all kinds of things that go along with being part of an empire. It's heart-breaking that an enitre historic nation has been subsumed and made second-class citizens by Britain. 

Putting history and psychology aside, there IS a material aspect of Wales being an unecessary peripheral region of the UK, useful for cheap labour and natural resources but basically exploited.


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## llantwit (Dec 14, 2006)

lewislewis said:
			
		

> Wales is regarded as a horrible little sore by the UK establishment and media, stuff like jokes about Wales and national rivalry is harmless enough, and being tied to the Union equates to economic oppression. I think an important question is whether we want Wales to remain a backward part of the UK forever (which it will be if we stick with London rule), or whether we want Wales to perhaps govern itself and find solutions to these problems. The solutions might be any number of policies but it's certain that nothing is going to come out of London to help us.
> 
> We pay our taxes to London, where politicians spend them on things that have nothing to do with Wales such as the war in Iraq, attacks on civil liberties and all kinds of things that go along with being part of an empire. It's heart-breaking that an enitre historic nation has been subsumed and made second-class citizens by Britain.
> 
> Putting history and psychology aside, there IS a material aspect of Wales being an unecessary peripheral region of the UK, useful for cheap labour and natural resources but basically exploited.



Agreed. Thanks. Nicely put.


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## LilMissHissyFit (Dec 14, 2006)

Regarding the beeb thing... If anne robinson said the things she said about the welsh about any other racial group the programme would never have been aired and its possible her job would be under consideration

That says alot about how the england centric BBC operates and what they think is acceptable, I dont think Ive ever heard any anti english nor any other racist jokes or comments made on prime time television. We pay our licence fee too
Saying its 'Harmless enough' almost legitimises it. Its the little things which get passed as 'harmless' often enough just serve to reinforce the negativity.. like some anti welsh opinions are acceptable because we as a nation should get a sense of humour.
If the same things were being said about people from any other community they wouldnt be being told to get a sense of humour would they?Trevor Phillips and co would be messing their pants in outrage


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## llantwit (Dec 14, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> Well, it is manifestly much poorer than the State which has 'devolved' certain of its powers to Cardiff, but for my money it remains oppressed in exactly the same way that the Black People in the States are oppressed - not so much in material terms *(though those problems are still there)* but psychologically. We mustn't ever _say_ it, but we have been being treated like crap for so long that, underneath, an awful lot of us have a sort of suspicion that there must be something in it, particularly when so many of us attend to the English media, which keep up the process of ignorant, boorish insult.


That comparison is a bit rich, rhys! Slavery, segregation, and the rest of the incredibly violent history of black oppression doesn't really compare with what has happened here, and especiallywith what's happening now.




			
				rhys gethin said:
			
		

> Why do we call ourselves 'Welsh' (which means foreigner) or 'Taff', which is a crude English imitation of someone saying 'Dafydd' in a thick accent if we are so liberated?


Doesn't Cymraeg also  mean 'foreigner'? 




			
				rhys gethin said:
			
		

> Then add to that our voting for a Party that appeals mainly to 'Middle England' - i.e. foreign rich people - and appears to detest our country, and examine the self-contempt and divisiveness that comes from losing the language, and who needs more?


I dunno - voting Labour is a legacy of the rich history of class struggle in Wales (it is, of course, mistaken, but  it can be understood historically). Should those who fought to organise workers in Wales in the past be dismissed also as self-hating uncle Toms? I'm not sure what point you're making here, but if you're implying that the history of the labour movement in wales is somehow tainted by its links with an English party then you're talking out of your hat.




			
				rhys gethin said:
			
		

> The struggle for freedom from all this drivel is what will make all these things better, as it does everywhere. Read old Franz Fanon.


As with the slavery stuff - to compare revolutionary algeria with present-day wales is very strange indeed. I guess you're talking about the pyschological theory of colonial oppression Fanon puts forward, but even so, out of the context of the kind of violence suffered by the algerians under French rule, the comparison is a bit empty, I think.


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## llantwit (Dec 14, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> I think Llantwit is trying to upset everyone before xmas with this thread. The  miserable git...


 
Bah fucking humbug


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## la ressistance (Dec 14, 2006)

we have to put up with bbc 2W instead of good television


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## zog (Dec 14, 2006)

Just think Satellite City or the Charlotte Church show to feel what real cultural oppression is.


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## Belushi (Dec 14, 2006)

> Doesn't Cymraeg also mean 'foreigner'?



It means 'Compatriot' I believe.

Re Welsh, in his History of Wales John Davies argues that meaning of its root was more that of a Romanised native of the Empire, rather than foreigner.


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## Brockway (Dec 14, 2006)

la ressistance said:
			
		

> we have to put up with bbc 2W instead of good television



Wales is practically invisible in British culture. Apart from Huw Edwards reading the news from an autocue how are we represented on "British" TV for example?

So Welsh TV is absolutely necessary. But you're right it _is_ diabolical. There are plenty of talented people in the Welsh broadcasting industry but the ones who commission programmes for the Beeb and S4C have decided that their target audience is an 87 year old farmer from Carmarthen. Until that changes and they develop the balls to embrace new ideas we're stuck with it.  

Welsh telly is more depressing than oppressing.


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## rhys gethin (Dec 14, 2006)

zog said:
			
		

> Sorry, but what utter rubbish.
> 
> Welsh people were not chained and dragged half way accross the world to work as slaves. They are more likely to go to college than prison; the british police force are no more likely to beat up and frame them than they are English people; As far as I can remember there was no segregation of the Welsh in this century; You never had to use different toilets from the English....
> 
> The above statement makes a mockery of Welsh nationalism. If you sincerely believe that the state of the Welsh nation is comparable to blacks in the USA then you really need to get a grip.



I see you have difficulty with tenses.   I said nothing about the past but about the state of mind of many people NOW.   You seem, on the face of it, to exemplify that.


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## rhys gethin (Dec 14, 2006)

Belushi said:
			
		

> It means 'Compatriot' I believe.
> 
> Re Welsh, in his History of Wales John Davies argues that meaning of its root was more that of a Romanised native of the Empire, rather than foreigner.



Or, of course, 'slave'.


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## zog (Dec 14, 2006)

> but for my money it remains oppressed in exactly the same way that the Black People in the States are oppressed



are you trying to say that Wales today is as oppressed as black people in the US are today?

Tense doesn't come into it. still more black people in the US today go to gaol rather than college. when the english can bring that sort of oppression to Wales then you can really start comparing.


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## Belushi (Dec 14, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> Or, of course, 'slave'.



No, I dont think that was its meaning.


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## Gavin Bl (Dec 14, 2006)

Belushi said:
			
		

> It means 'Compatriot' I believe.
> 
> Re Welsh, in his History of Wales John Davies argues that meaning of its root was more that of a Romanised native of the Empire, rather than foreigner.



Whatever the meaning, I have heard 'outsider', apparently the WAL bit is the same in Cornwall and Walloon.


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## rhys gethin (Dec 14, 2006)

llantwit said:
			
		

> That comparison is a bit rich, rhys! Slavery, segregation, and the rest of the incredibly violent history of black oppression doesn't really compare with what has happened here, and especiallywith what's happening now..



As I've just said, I didn't say the experience was the _same_, obviously.
Have your ever read anything about the Brád (bloody thing won't print a to bach) y Llyfrau Gleision'?   The English Education Report put down the Language, as did Times editorials.   Everybody makes out that there was serious opposition to that, but in fact it caused Blairlike grovelling, and the actual result was that _no-one_ at the relevant time demanded that compulsory education  be in the language spoken by the majority, Cymraeg;  the famous 'Welsh Not' was not imposed by the Government but was supported by parents only to happy to have their children turn monoglot English and 'get on' as quickly as possible.   I remember the loathesome George Thomas (he proposed to an Auntie of mine, incredibly enough), who hated us and himself, and some of the other Cymraeg-hating filth who used to dominate the LP in the South East.   On the Family History Boards, even lately, I've been in contact with a weirdo Gog who agrees with the struttingbuggers that it is 'rude' to talk his own language in his own country when the foreign Officer Class are present.    And why, come to that, don't YOU know what Cymro, Cymry and Cymraeg mean?   This is pretty sick stuff, which is why Fanon's relevant.




			
				llantwit said:
			
		

> I dunno - voting Labour is a legacy of the rich history of class struggle in Wales (it is, of course, mistaken, but  it can be understood historically). Should those who fought to organise workers in Wales in the past be dismissed also as self-hating uncle Toms? I'm not sure what point you're making here, but if you're implying that the history of the labour movement in wales is somehow tainted by its links with an English party then you're talking out of your hat..



No - what is disgusting is those who allow themselves to be instructed by English comrades with _their_ rich tradition of wet defeatism.   Except during the time of the Spanish War, 'internationalism' with us almost always means servility to English attitudes and ideas - and, of course, defeat.




			
				llantwit said:
			
		

> As with the slavery stuff - to compare revolutionary algeria with present-day wales is very strange indeed. I guess you're talking about the pyschological theory of colonial oppression Fanon puts forward, but even so, out of the context of the kind of violence suffered by the algerians under French rule, the comparison is a bit empty, I think.



Since I didn't make the comparison, I can't comment.   I just said Fanon's relevant:  what _is_ is regarded as normal, and the colonised always fight one another as an avoidance behaviour to avoid fighting the colonialist.   I think that is perhaps as relevant as rugby to the question.


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## Belushi (Dec 14, 2006)

Gavin Bl said:
			
		

> Whatever the meaning, I have heard 'outsider', apparently the WAL bit is the same in Cornwall and Walloon.



Yes, thats my point, the outsider.foreigner thing is a bit of a simplification of a term that was actually more complex.

The root can also be seen in terms like Wallachia, Vlach etc.


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## la ressistance (Dec 14, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Wales is practically invisible in British culture. Apart from Huw Edwards reading the news from an autocue how are we represented on "British" TV for example?
> 
> So Welsh TV is absolutely necessary. But you're right it _is_ diabolical. There are plenty of talented people in the Welsh broadcasting industry but the ones who commission programmes for the Beeb and S4C have decided that their target audience is an 87 year old farmer from Carmarthen. Until that changes and they develop the balls to embrace new ideas we're stuck with it.
> 
> Welsh telly is more depressing than oppressing.




your right on all points there.i've had many an argument with bbc wales people and s4c people that they should be making quality tv in wales,not about wales.

dereks welsh weather,high hopes,continuous coverage of the fucking urdd!! 


shit english tv gets broadcast nationally (my family,thermoman) shit welsh tv (satelite city ,high hopes) gets broadcast in wales.

welsh programmes need to compete on an international stage for it to gain recognition (doctor who,babinogs) 

Derecks welsh weather and jamie owens trips around wales in a fucking boat will never compete on an international stage as there shite.


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## llantwit (Dec 14, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> As I've just said, I didn't say the experience was the _same_, obviously.


No but you implied close similarities - which is what I thought was a bit misguided.



			
				rhys gethin said:
			
		

> Have your ever read anything about the Brád (bloody thing won't print a to bach) y Llyfrau Gleision'?   The English Education Report put down the Language, as did Times editorials.   Everybody makes out that there was serious opposition to that, but in fact it caused Blairlike grovelling, and the actual result was that _no-one_ at the relevant time demanded that compulsory education  be in the language spoken by the majority, Cymraeg;  the famous 'Welsh Not' was not imposed by the Government but was supported by parents only to happy to have their children turn monoglot English and 'get on' as quickly as possible.


And that was a terrible injustice, agreed.



			
				rhys gethin said:
			
		

> And why, come to that, don't YOU know what Cymro, Cymry and Cymraeg mean?   This is pretty sick stuff, which is why Fanon's relevant.


Everybody knows why I don't know the meaning of the word, and nobody's claiming what happened to the Welsh language is a good thing. Seriously.



			
				rhys gethin said:
			
		

> No - what is disgusting is those who allow themselves to be instructed by English comrades with _their_ rich tradition of wet defeatism. Except during the time of the Spanish War, 'internationalism' with us almost always means servility to English attitudes and ideas - and, of course, defeat.


Again, nobody's saying the suppression of the language was a good thing mate, and I'm sure spineless Labour Party lackeys played their part.



			
				rhys gethin said:
			
		

> Since I didn't make the comparison, I can't comment.   I just said Fanon's relevant:  what _is_ is regarded as normal, and the colonised always fight one another as an avoidance behaviour to avoid fighting the colonialist. I think that is perhaps as relevant as rugby to the question.


Yeah, but, again, you implied the comparison with Algeria when you invoked Fanon, which is why I made the point I did.

I have a question - and I'm surprised Udo hasn't been along yet to put it. Do you think that a welsh worker has more in comon with an English worker than a welsh boss?
That's at the heart of my unease about expending my (dwindling ) political energy on the nationalist cause, personally. There's only so much llantwitty political goodness to go around, and I'd rather devote my time to class-centred politics than territorial/national identity politics.


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## nwnm (Dec 14, 2006)

yep welsh workers have more in common with english (spanish, south american, chinese, African etc etc) workers than they do with welsh bosses.  What was it Marx wrote in the Communist manifesto - "The workers of the world they have no country"


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## Brockway (Dec 14, 2006)

nwnm said:
			
		

> yep welsh workers have more in common with english (spanish, south american, chinese, African etc etc) workers than they do with welsh bosses.  What was it Marx wrote in the Communist manifesto - "The workers of the world they have no country"



And he'd know all about that of course being a bourgeois intellectual...  

Would an English Jewish worker have more in common with a Ugandan worker or an English Jewish businessman? 

Would a ginger-haired Scottish worker who likes punk music and the films of Martin Scorcese have more in common with a Ugandan worker or a ginger-haired Scottish businessman who likes punk music and the films of Martin Scorcese. 

People are defined by all sorts of things not just class - they can be cultural, religious or psychological. Marx is a one-eyed bourgeois intellectual.


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## ICB (Dec 15, 2006)

Brockway - you get the English taking the piss out of the English all the time, usually out of some different aspect from their own e.g North vs South, yokels in SW, working class vs middle class, etc. but there's quite a lot of self-targetted humour amongst some of the post-alternative comedy lot.  Of course this happens in Wales too, south coast vs gog, etc.  Not being too up ourselves and prone to blowing our own trumpets in an hilariously unashamed fashion like the Americans is rather a nice British trait, not just an English one. 



> we have to put up with bbc 2W instead of good television





> the only oppression we face is the shite they put on BBC Wales and S4C.



I was at a presentation by Ofcom recently where the presenter was talking about the problems with English broadcast signals being available across the border and it diluting the coherence of cultural programming or some such, with installers often pointing aerials at those transmitters as a matter of course without consulting their customers.

There was some rather amusing debate about this and just about everyone in the audience (representing every local authority in Wales) either said how great they thought it was that they could pick up English signals and that every aerial in their street was deliberately pointed that way, or how annoying it was that they couldn't get a terrestrial English signal.  It was one of those cross-purposes sort of discussions.  What was broadly agreed was the point made here by la ressistance and brockway that unless the programmes are well made and interesting people won't want to watch them.  Welsh soap operas and never ending Eisteddfod are just dire.  There are similar issues with the rather twee, hackneyed and dumbed down presentation of Welsh history both in the media and literature generally.


----------



## Brockway (Dec 15, 2006)

ICB said:
			
		

> Brockway - you get the English taking the piss out of the English all the time, usually out of some different aspect from their own e.g North vs South, yokels in SW, working class vs middle class, etc. but there's quite a lot of self-targetted humour amongst some of the post-alternative comedy lot.  Of course this happens in Wales too, south coast vs gog, etc.  Not being too up ourselves and prone to blowing our own trumpets in an hilariously unashamed fashion like the Americans is rather a nice British trait, not just an English one.
> .



You don't get English comedians taking the piss out of England per se. You don't get England reduced to a few stereotypical characteristics. There is no English equivalent of Taffy, Jock or Paddy. You're talking about regionalism. And quite frankly if the English want to be rude about other parts of England it's their business. But we aren't a region of England we are a different people, so it's racist. But you touched on something there - Wales is seen as a region more than a country by a lot of English people.

I don't think there is any such thing as a British trait. British is a colonial construct. Great Britain means greater England and always has done.


----------



## llantwit (Dec 15, 2006)

I think we should all chill out and have a mince pie.


----------



## bendeus (Dec 15, 2006)

> You don't get English comedians taking the piss out of England per se. You don't get England reduced to a few stereotypical characteristics. There is no English equivalent of Taffy, Jock or Paddy. You're talking about regionalism. And quite frankly if the English want to be rude about other parts of England it's their business. But we aren't a region of England we are a different people, so it's racist. But you touched on something there - Wales is seen as a region more than a country by a lot of English people.



If you dig back on some of the U75 Wales/England threads of the past you'll find exactly that: an attitude that Wales is a region only, and an uppity one that should know its place at that. Some of the opinions espoused in such threads on these 'left wing' boards are frankly shocking, and evidence enough of a prevailing attitude of superiority and condescension towards Wales and the Welsh. 

In the light of this, a degree of cultural resistance based on or around a sense of national identity is understandable and, IMO, to be encouraged.


----------



## rhys gethin (Dec 15, 2006)

llantwit said:
			
		

> Yeah, but, again, you implied the comparison with Algeria when you invoked Fanon, which is why I made the point I did..



My point is that past oppression remains in the heads of the living and effects their behaviour, just as people don't just _forget_ being abused as children, even if they pretend to (and no, I don't think' 'the English' abused our children, before someone starts another hare).   All oppressed peoples need to face the nature of their past oppression before they can put it behind them. 




			
				llantwit said:
			
		

> I have a question - and I'm surprised Udo hasn't been along yet to put it. Do you think that a welsh worker has more in comon with an English worker than a welsh boss?.



In my view, yes - as long as they experience themselves _as_ 'Welsh workers' and not as inadequate imitations of English ones.   Otherwise they have more in common _psychologically_with 'house niggers' serving masters on a plantation.




			
				llantwit said:
			
		

> That's at the heart of my unease about expending my (dwindling ) political energy on the nationalist cause, personally. There's only so much llantwitty political goodness to go around, and I'd rather devote my time to class-centred politics than territorial/national identity politics.



I've spent a fair bit of time in class-centred politics - which has all to often involved the demand that I cease to be myself with my own concerns and pretend to be some other person from somewhere else (bit like the women back in early 'sixties politics, I should think, except I never made tea).    Everything personal to me was 'nationalism', whereas _they_ just had wide (English) interests  I think that once we start acting in terms of _our own_ class experience within a revival of national self-respect, we shall be enormously more effective ( and, incidentally, stop picking on lonely Englishmen in pubs, as someone complained we did earlier).


----------



## Gavin Bl (Dec 15, 2006)

llantwit said:
			
		

> I think we should all chill out and have a mince pie.


you'll have Bara Brith and like it, you sell-out!


----------



## llantwit (Dec 15, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> My point is that past oppression remains in the heads of the living and effects their behaviour, just as people don't just _forget_ being abused as children, even if they pretend to (and no, I don't think' 'the English' abused our children, before someone starts another hare).   All oppressed peoples need to face the nature of their past oppression before they can put it behind them.
> In my view, yes - as long as they experience themselves _as_ 'Welsh workers' and not as inadequate imitations of English ones.   Otherwise they have more in common _psychologically_with 'house niggers' serving masters on a plantation.
> I've spent a fair bit of time in class-centred politics - which has all to often involved the demand that I cease to be myself with my own concerns and pretend to be some other person from somewhere else (bit like the women back in early 'sixties politics, I should think, except I never made tea).    Everything personal to me was 'nationalism', whereas _they_ just had wide (English) interests  I think that once we start acting in terms of _our own_ class experience within a revival of national self-respect, we shall be enormously more effective ( and, incidentally, stop picking on lonely Englishmen in pubs, as someone complained we did earlier).


Cool. Thanks for that answer, I appreciate it. Agreed all round.


----------



## lewislewis (Dec 15, 2006)

Class-politics always attracted me , and I actually attended three SWP meetings during the late 90's/early 00's, but the kind of things discussed during those meetings were so abstract and removed from what people really think I quickly lost interest, and sadly gained much disdain for the SWP. I've tarred all similar sects with the same brush because although the people have good intentions they are all infighting against each other when they're all meant to be on the same side, and it was just really sad and boring.


----------



## Brockway (Dec 15, 2006)

llantwit said:
			
		

> I think we should all chill out and have a mince pie.



 

You are so off my Christmas card list.


----------



## mtbskalover (Dec 15, 2006)

bit late to this,
but according to my welsh mates on wednesday, its all my fault wales is oppressed by the english.  im english btw...

so blame me


----------



## ICB (Dec 15, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> You don't get English comedians taking the piss out of England per se. You don't get England reduced to a few stereotypical characteristics. There is no English equivalent of Taffy, Jock or Paddy. You're talking about regionalism. And quite frankly if the English want to be rude about other parts of England it's their business. But we aren't a region of England we are a different people, so it's racist. But you touched on something there - Wales is seen as a region more than a country by a lot of English people.
> 
> I don't think there is any such thing as a British trait. British is a colonial construct. Great Britain means greater England and always has done.



And if the Welsh want to take the piss out of other parts of Wales is that their business too or are the English allowed to find it amusing?  Plenty of regionalism about both sides of the border.  I didn't say Wales was a region of England, do you think I'm a yank or summat?   Clearly its a country in the UK of GB and NI.

England is an arbitrary construct as well, as is Wales and any other idea of country or nation, racial or ethnic identity, etc.  "England" covers a lot of diversity, which is why people don't really take the piss out of it as a whole, other than in terms of rather outdated ideas about stiff upper lip, sexual repression, etc. which are just as silly as the self-congratulatory ones about freedom of speech, tolerance, etc.

Some people identify with British rather than English because of a shared language, culture, etc., or because they were part of a wider colonial context and saw Britain as the motherland that represented certain values, aspirations and opportunities that they wanted to be part of when they came here.  Others don't, we all have different perceptions of history and culture and our place in it, or lack of.  There's not really a right and wrong about it as far as I can see provided we accept others' ideas can and will be different from our own.  It's when we start saying "you should call yourself/think of yourself as xyz" or that it starts getting iffy.  Identity politics are important and interesting to some people, irrelevant and tedious to others. 




			
				bendeus said:
			
		

> If you dig back on some of the U75 Wales/England threads of the past you'll find exactly that: an attitude that Wales is a region only, and an uppity one that should know its place at that. Some of the opinions espoused in such threads on these 'left wing' boards are frankly shocking, and evidence enough of a prevailing attitude of superiority and condescension towards Wales and the Welsh.



Some people are just wrong/stupid, others are on a mission to get a reaction.  Cross-border trolls. 




			
				Bendeus said:
			
		

> In the light of this, a degree of cultural resistance based on or around a sense of national identity is understandable and, IMO, to be encouraged.



Understandable certainly, don't really have a view on whether it should be encouraged or discouraged, clearly it's going to happen, sometimes it will be enlightening, interesting and good-humoured, other times it will be more strident and angry.  I'd suggest the latter is more likely to be counter-productive and possibly backfire than the former.  I tend to prefer life when everyone tries to get on rather than pick fights.


----------



## Brockway (Dec 15, 2006)

ICB said:
			
		

> And if the Welsh want to take the piss out of other parts of Wales is that their business too or are the English allowed to find it amusing?  Plenty of regionalism about both sides of the border.  I didn't say Wales was a region of England, do you think I'm a yank or summat?   Clearly its a country in the UK of GB and NI.
> 
> England is an arbitrary construct as well, as is Wales and any other idea of country or nation, racial or ethnic identity, etc.  "England" covers a lot of diversity, which is why people don't really take the piss out of it as a whole, other than in terms of rather outdated ideas about stiff upper lip, sexual repression, etc. which are just as silly as the self-congratulatory ones about freedom of speech, tolerance, etc.
> 
> Some people identify with British rather than English because of a shared language, culture, etc., or because they were part of a wider colonial context and saw Britain as the motherland that represented certain values, aspirations and opportunities that they wanted to be part of when they came here.  Others don't, we all have different perceptions of history and culture and our place in it, or lack of.  There's not really a right and wrong about it as far as I can see provided we accept others' ideas can and will be different from our own.  It's when we start saying "you should call yourself/think of yourself as xyz" or that it starts getting iffy.  Identity politics are important and interesting to some people, irrelevant and tedious to others.



Of course Welsh people can take the piss out of each other - that's our business just as it is theirs (like I said). But when the English reduce Welsh people to stereotypical characteristics that's racist. Wales is an area of land ruled by London - it's an English colony. We won't be a proper country until we rule ourselves.

Most older people were socilaized into having a British identity mainly as a result of two world wars. Some people get positively dewy eyed about it. Watch propaganda films from WW2 Britain mysteriously gets renamed England. Go further back and you find that Welsh schoolchildren were forced to speak English instead of their mother tongue. Colonization and cultural imperialism are something the Welsh have had to put up with for far too long.

Do those people in England who identify themselves as British see themselves as partially Welsh then? I doubt it. The common language you refer to is the one which has been forced upon us. Do the common values include closing down industry in the Valleys and replacing it with feck all? British as you see it is just English from where I'm standing. Great Britain equals greater England is as true today as it has always been.

Your vision of a benevolent England as some motherland inviting the people it exploited and colonised to come over and share the wealth is frankly ludicrous.  

Of course there is a right and wrong. England colonised the Welsh - that's wrong. Until they stop doing so then Welsh people have every right to be pissed off (if they choose to be).


----------



## Karac (Dec 15, 2006)

llantwit said:
			
		

> OK - English oppression obviously gets the blood boiling with a lot of folk on the Cymru boards. Myself the nationalism thing has never really got me going. So I thought I'd invite yous all to educate me, as I really don't think I know the facts. I really am willing to be persuaded on this, this isn't a wind-up or anything.
> So, here goes:
> How is Wales oppressed today? What are the material conditions of colonial oppression in our country today and in what ways would a free Wales make these better


Why is it Nationalism though?
All the time on the tv its "British troops" hassle some Iraqis,Afghanis etc.
Bomb the fuck out of these countries
Gordon Brown rants on about "British values"-making immigrants learn english-making them do tests
A huge undercurrent of anti-Islamic hatred
Not Nationalism-oh no
The main problem is British Nationalism


----------



## Karac (Dec 15, 2006)

"nationalism Is in The Eye Of The Observer"


----------



## Karac (Dec 16, 2006)

All parties in the UK are nationalist-Tories,Labour,libdems,Respec-its just their nation is slightly larger than others


----------



## Karac (Dec 16, 2006)

Its true-all UK Mainstream political parties are nationalist-British nationalist-the fucking labour party just organised the killing of 600,000 Iraqis.
Maybe indirectly-but it still happened-and now the whole region is going down the bog due to those twats.
Lesson 1-never vote Labour again
Even if they say-"oh no the tories will get in"
FUCK OFF YOU WERE WORSE THAN THE TORIES AND I WASNT VOTING TORY ANYWAY.


----------



## durruti02 (Dec 16, 2006)

whats really nasty is all the commuter and retirement places going up that are generally for english people .. and way beyond the proce of locals .. but this isn't specific to wales .. generally i shy away from the ideaof national oppression .. i thinnk people are generally oppresssed and n parts of wales that woudl include the language ... many w/c welsh now feel oppressed by the m/c class cymreig


----------



## nwnm (Dec 16, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> And he'd know all about that of course being a bourgeois intellectual...
> 
> Would an English Jewish worker have more in common with a Ugandan worker or an English Jewish businessman?
> 
> ...




Of course people are defined by all sorts of things, the things you list old one eyed charlie would have defined as part of the social superstructure of society whereas social class is something defined at the economic base of society. Therefore subjectively an english jewish worker may feel he has more in common <culturally> with an english jewish businessman <unless he happens to work for him of course - then he just thinks he's a bastard> but objectively has more in common with a ugandan worker. <And its when people realise their objective circumstances you get the rise of great movements such as anti apartheid as was>.  A ginger-haired Scottish worker who likes punk music and the films of Martin Scorcese would have more in common with a Ugandan worker than a ginger-haired Scottish businessman who likes punk music and the films of Martin Scorcese on the basis that the scottish businessman is probably screwing lots of money out of him to gain his prized cultural artifacts


----------



## Fullyplumped (Dec 16, 2006)

nwnm said:
			
		

> A ginger-haired Scottish worker who likes punk music and the films of Martin Scorcese would have more in common with a Ugandan worker than a ginger-haired Scottish businessman who likes punk music and the films of Martin Scorcese on the basis that the scottish businessman is probably screwing lots of money out of him to gain his prized cultural artifacts


Oi - that's rascist, that is!


----------



## ICB (Dec 18, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Of course Welsh people can take the piss out of each other - that's our business just as it is theirs (like I said).



You didn't answer my other question, are you allowed to be amused when the English take the piss out of themselves?  Am I when the Welsh do it?  Or is this somehow being racist?



> But when the English reduce Welsh people to stereotypical characteristics that's racist. Wales is an area of land ruled by London - it's an English colony. We won't be a proper country until we rule ourselves.



We all stereotype to some extent or another, like I said as long as it's in good humour then I don't tend to have a problem with it.

Only partially ruled by London these days.  Arguably the Cornish have it a lot worse off.  Say I want to go back a bit further and emancipate the Kingdom of Wessex?



> Most older people were socilaized into having a British identity mainly as a result of two world wars. Some people get positively dewy eyed about it. Watch propaganda films from WW2 Britain mysteriously gets renamed England. Go further back and you find that Welsh schoolchildren were forced to speak English instead of their mother tongue. Colonization and cultural imperialism are something the Welsh have had to put up with for far too long.



More through being part of a broader British Empire than WW2 I'd say but perhaps we're thinking about different people.

Wales hasn't been colonised in the same way that Australia, Canada and America were, using the same terms is misleading, although I suppose it's rhetorically appealling.



> Do those people in England who identify themselves as British see themselves as partially Welsh then? I doubt it.



I don't know, you'd have to ask them.  My point is it is up to someone if they choose to call themselves British-Asian, Italian-Welsh, Scottish-AfroCaribean, or English-Jamaican, and it's not your place or mine to tell them they're right or wrong.



> The common language you refer to is the one which has been forced upon us. Do the common values include closing down industry in the Valleys and replacing it with feck all?



Ask the miners in Yorkshire and Cornwall, the shipworkers on the Tyne, the Clyde and in NI, etc. and I think you'd find they do.



> British as you see it is just English from where I'm standing. Great Britain equals greater England is as true today as it has always been.



You don't know that, you're being lazy and hegemonising about an English identity in exactly the way you accuse others of doing about a Welsh one.  I've no particular attachment to any sort of national identity be it English, British or anything else.  I only have to go back two or three generations to find Welsh, Irish and Cornish ancestors, as is typical of many people.  So what?



> Your vision of a benevolent England as some motherland inviting the people it exploited and colonised to come over and share the wealth is frankly ludicrous.



I didn't say anything remotely approaching that, a weak charicature that much better expresses your views than mine.  I said that some people historically have seen the British Empire in that way, wanted to move here and been proud to call themselves British, which is very different from having a "vision" of my own.



> Of course there is a right and wrong. England colonised the Welsh - that's wrong. Until they stop doing so then Welsh people have every right to be pissed off (if they choose to be).



And if they don't choose to be are they then wrong?  I've spoken with lots of people who think that the biggest thing oppressing Wales today is this attitude and those shoving it down their throats and that they'd rather move to England than see a fully independent Wales where people are forced to learn the language.  Are they somehow not proper Welsh, sad deluded victims of an Imperialist/Colonialist conspiracy and not fit to share this soil with the "true" Welsh? 

Personally I'd blame mtbsalover


----------



## rhys gethin (Dec 18, 2006)

ICB said:
			
		

> I've spoken with lots of people who think that the biggest thing oppressing Wales today is this attitude and those shoving it down their throats and that they'd rather move to England than see a fully independent Wales where people are forced to learn the language.  Are they somehow not proper Welsh, sad deluded victims of an Imperialist/Colonialist conspiracy and not fit to share this soil with the "true" Welsh?
> 
> Personally I'd blame mtbsalover



They are exactly like the people 'threatened' by a non-existent 'political correctness', I'd say, grovelling, like those others, to the powers-that-be and supposing, like the other grovellers, that they are showing immense independence of mind - especially when they write to the English papers that 'immigrants' should learn 'our language' - i.e. English.   But thank you for putting us peasants right, all the same, bwana.


----------



## Brockway (Dec 18, 2006)

ICB said:
			
		

> You didn't answer my other question, are you allowed to be amused when the English take the piss out of themselves?  Am I when the Welsh do it?  Or is this somehow being racist?
> 
> I've never seen an English comedian take the piss out of Englishness so i couldn't tell you if it's amusing or not.
> 
> ...



.


----------



## ICB (Dec 18, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> They are exactly like the people 'threatened' by a non-existent 'political correctness', I'd say, grovelling, like those others, to the powers-that-be and supposing, like the other grovellers, that they are showing immense independence of mind - especially when they write to the English papers that 'immigrants' should learn 'our language' - i.e. English.   But thank you for putting us peasants right, all the same, bwana.



That doesn't make any sense, I don't see how the two groups relate, can you elucidate without resorting to personal abuse?  Do you think "incomers" should learn Welsh and/or that Welsh people should be forced to?




			
				Brockway said:
			
		

> They do what?



The common values include what happened in the valleys when one looks at what happened elsewhere as well, that was clear from my reply as I took the trouble to separate out my comments from yours.  What I did pick up on was that your notion of Welshness is political not ethnic yet you talk about racism, which strikes me as rather confused.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 18, 2006)




----------



## Brockway (Dec 18, 2006)

ICB said:
			
		

> That doesn't make any sense, I don't see how the two groups relate, can you elucidate without resorting to personal abuse?  Do you think "incomers" should learn Welsh and/or that Welsh people should be forced to?
> 
> 
> 
> The common values include what happened in the valleys when one looks at what happened elsewhere as well, that was clear from my reply as I took the trouble to separate out my comments from yours.  What I did pick up on was that your notion of Welshness is political not ethnic yet you talk about racism, which strikes me as rather confused.



An English government destroying its own industrial heartlands is bad enough but when it is destroying another country's that's even worse.

Nothing confused about that at all. Welshness can be political or ethnic. An independent Wales would contain people of every ethnic origin who would be politically Welsh.


----------



## Yossarian (Dec 18, 2006)

Last time I checked, Wales still had democratic institutions in place and the option of voting for pro-independence nationalist parties - if people there are feeling 'oppressed' by being part of the UK then they should be blaming each other for it.


----------



## ICB (Dec 18, 2006)

Thanks mwgdrwg, I hope that's


----------



## Brockway (Dec 18, 2006)

Yossarian said:
			
		

> Last time I checked, Wales still had democratic institutions in place and the option of voting for pro-independence nationalist parties - if people there are feeling 'oppressed' by being part of the UK then they should be blaming each other for it.



What would happen if everyone voted Plaid Cymru? We'd have a lot of Plaid Cymru MPs.


----------



## Yossarian (Dec 18, 2006)

What would happen if the Welsh Assembly was full of pro-independence politicians who voted to secede? I can't really see the troops being sent in to keep Wales British...


----------



## Brockway (Dec 18, 2006)

Yossarian said:
			
		

> What would happen if the Welsh Assembly was full of pro-independence politicians who voted to secede? I can't really see the troops being sent in to keep Wales British...



They haven't got the power to have that vote. It would be like me declaring myself to be the King of Wales. Which of course I am...


----------



## kyser_soze (Dec 18, 2006)

Tell ya what, let's blow the Severn Bridges, separate the parliaments and England gets to keep the £23bn in taxes that Wales is a net receiver of. This is oppression in the heads of men looking to find something to be oppressed by.

And as for the comment on S4C/BBC Wales - ever seen the BARB data for their viewers? It probably IS mainly 85 year olds...instead of all this 'talent' relying on BBC and S4C to come up with the money why don't they try and tap some rich Welsh nationalists to make the programmes then take them to BBC Wales and S4C, who I'm sure would be massively greatful that someone had made a programme worth watching!


----------



## Brockway (Dec 18, 2006)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> And as for the comment on S4C/BBC Wales - ever seen the BARB data for their viewers? !



Apparently they won't let people see them. The local paper is taking them to some kind of tribunal over it. I phoned the Beeb up once asking where I could see viewing figures for individual programmes and they told me they didn't exist! I was pissing myself.


----------



## durruti02 (Dec 18, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> An English government destroying its own industrial heartlands is bad enough but when it is destroying another country's that's even worse.



only trouble with this is the welsh in LA's / etc are doing as much damage as any one else .. what do you put this down too? .. you can not blame the english ..

and surely capitalism is hard to say that is is single ethnic as in english .. 

you would have to prove that the english govt was actively shutting down welsh industry NOT english industry .. i have never seen this alledged let alone proved

and what do you think of my point that many w/c welsh now see ( to an extent) welsh speaking taffia as their enemy/oppressors


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 18, 2006)

May I take this opportunity to personally thank each and every single Englishman (or woman) that pays his taxes. We'd be well fucked without you.


----------



## Brockway (Dec 18, 2006)

mwgdrwg said:
			
		

> May I take this opportunity to personally thank each and every single Englishman (or woman) that pays his taxes. We'd be well fucked without you.



Seconded


----------



## llantwit (Dec 18, 2006)

ICB said:
			
		

> Thanks mwgdrwg, I hope that's


Welsh Brew's always completely confused me. Not many tea growing hill stations in Brecon Beacons, like. Maybe there's a few plantations around Aberystwyth I've been missing all my life.


----------



## Brockway (Dec 18, 2006)

durruti02 said:
			
		

> only trouble with this is the welsh in LA's / etc are doing as much damage as any one else .. what do you put this down too? .. you can not blame the english ..
> 
> and surely capitalism is hard to say that is is single ethnic as in english ..
> 
> ...



British government equals English government. The British government killed the coal industry in Wales and replaced it with nothing. Where's your evidence that the Welsh working class see the welsh speaking taffia as their enemy/oppressors? That's nonsense. I'm Welsh working-class and I don't see it that way at all.


----------



## Belushi (Dec 18, 2006)

llantwit said:
			
		

> Welsh Brew's always completely confused me. Not many tea growing hill stations in Brecon Beacons, like. Maybe there's a few plantations around Aberystwyth I've been missing all my life.



Its the same hardy strain of tea that they grow in Yorkshire.


----------



## Brockway (Dec 18, 2006)

llantwit said:
			
		

> Welsh Brew's always completely confused me. Not many tea growing hill stations in Brecon Beacons, like. Maybe there's a few plantations around Aberystwyth I've been missing all my life.



Merry Xmas cheesehead.


----------



## ICB (Dec 18, 2006)

llantwit said:
			
		

> Welsh Brew's always completely confused me. Not many tea growing hill stations in Brecon Beacons, like. Maybe there's a few plantations around Aberystwyth I've been missing all my life.



innit, same with yorkshire  (edit bah, Belushi beat me to it  ) 



> I'm Welsh working-class and I don't see it that way at all.



You should, no war but the class war, or something.

*puts self up against wall and shoots*


----------



## durruti02 (Dec 18, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> 1* British government equals English government. The British government killed the coal industry in Wales and replaced it with nothing.
> 
> 2*Where's your evidence that the Welsh working class see the welsh speaking taffia as their enemy/oppressors? That's nonsense. I'm Welsh working-class and I don't see it that way at all.



1*but they destroyed the coal industry everywhere .. didn't they? you have to demonstrate that there is bias against wales ..

2*all the welsh i know .. they hate them!!    .. they see it as a class issue and hate the way the taffia ponce about speaking welsh .. 

so you have more in common with these people than someone w/c in bristol or beeston or bathgate??


----------



## rhys gethin (Dec 18, 2006)

ICB said:
			
		

> That doesn't make any sense, I don't see how the two groups relate, can you elucidate without resorting to personal abuse?  Do you think "incomers" should learn Welsh and/or that Welsh people should be forced to?



They relate because they are both far away from reality in a neo-nazi fugue about retribution/'enemies'.  You are,  obviously, the kind of extreme-right weirdo who believes that the small minority of Muslims in England can somehow impose Sharia law on the majority - as we are so often told by the weirdo English press.   I do not believe you have met any such people as you describe outside tory clubs in our Country, however, unless they are Labour politicians ranting their tired old bogeytalk.   How _exactly_ could the fifth/quarter of our people who have been allowed to retain our language impose it on people who didn't want it?   It is your friends have the power and the money, after all. isn't it?   Who can force anyone to do anything if they don't want to?   _Who_ has the power to impose this 'force' upon the poor whimpering monoglots?   You are simply mouthing the standard colonialist blather which has to do not with reality but with your fantasy that one day others may treat you as the people you identify with have treated us.   Grow up and stop writing propagandist drivel!

Obviously anyone who moves into a country and _can_ should lean its language.   That is the merest good manners.   Why?


----------



## Brockway (Dec 18, 2006)

durruti02 said:
			
		

> 1*but they destroyed the coal industry everywhere .. didn't they? you have to demonstrate that there is bias against wales ..
> 
> 2*all the welsh i know .. they hate them!!    .. they see it as a class issue and hate the way the taffia ponce about speaking welsh ..
> 
> so you have more in common with these people than someone w/c in bristol or beeston or bathgate??



1. Like I said it's bad enough that they destroyed their own industrial heartlands without doing it in somebody else's country. 

2. The Welsh-speaking "taffia" are irritating - they are responsible for so much bad culture but how politically powerful are they? Not very. I think there's a danger you can equate Welsh-speaking with middle-class which is not the case at all outside of Cardiff. Go to Carmarthen and the bloke delivering your post speaks Welsh. In Aberystwyth Welsh-speakers work on building sites. And there are plenty of places in Wales run by self-serving local politicians who don't speak Welsh at all and are unionist in outlook. 

And yes, of course I have more in common with someone from Pontcanna than someone from Beeston or Bathgate or a bunch of worzels. I'm more likely to meet someone who drinks Brains, supports Cardiff City and Wales in Pontcanna than Worzel-central aren't I. Do people in Beeston say "daps"? Can someone in Bathgate count to ten in Welsh? Do they read the _Echo_; buy their records in Spillers?

People aren't just defined by class whatever that bearded bourgeois german bloke said.


----------



## ICB (Dec 19, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> You are,  obviously, the kind of extreme-right weirdo who believes that the small minority of Muslims in England can somehow impose Sharia law on the majority -



yeah, sure  you are a one

not been around here very long have you?


----------



## llantwit (Dec 19, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Merry Xmas cheesehead.


I've got a real warm glow now.
Oh... no I don't, I just pissed myself.


----------



## rhys gethin (Dec 19, 2006)

ICB said:
			
		

> yeah, sure  you are a one
> 
> not been around here very long have you?



Long enough to distinguish between message and messenger, I reckon.


----------



## Yossarian (Dec 19, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> They haven't got the power to have that vote. It would be like me declaring myself to be the King of Wales. Which of course I am...



Yeah, but if there was enough demand for a referendum on independence there'd be one, and if the vote was for independence then the London government wouldn't stop it. I don't think the people of Wales can consider themselves oppressed any more than the Quebecois can.


----------



## rhys gethin (Dec 19, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> Long enough to distinguish between message and messenger, I reckon.



By which I mean that it is very easy to be 'left' or 'revolutionary' in English terms, because it is as very very long time since there were any serious choices to be made there.   The drivel about 'imposing Welsh' which those who support Blair and the tories generally _always_ bleat is standard colonialist crap, like the faithful old Indian retainer who would assure any generous _sahib_ that Independence would mean not a virgin was unviolated or a merchant unrobbed in India - it is standard, tired old vomit.   We have never had a tory majority since there was any kind of democratic vote, and Labour (real Labour, in the old days) has been the majority for about eighty years - whereas the English almost always vote tory.   Objectively these colonialist craphounds want to keep _us _tory under their own superior leadership, and I don't care _what_ attitudes they strike.   There can never be an English socialism, only world socialism, so _why the hell _ should we be wasting our time with these allegedly 'left 'colonialists.   What _are_ they worth to us, or the world?


----------



## kyser_soze (Dec 19, 2006)

Like I said Rhys, get your independence and own parliament and the English can have the £23bn in government support that currently leaves England and goes to Wales. Like the casy majority of my countrymen I couldn't give a toss about Wales, and like a growing number of my countrymen I want the union split - England is a net contributor to both Wales and Scotland, and London is a net contributor of about £13bn a year to the UK economy as a whole so as far as I can see for colonialists we're wasting a shit load of money on you.


----------



## Brockway (Dec 19, 2006)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> Like I said Rhys, get your independence and own parliament and the English can have the £23bn in government support that currently leaves England and goes to Wales. Like the casy majority of my countrymen I couldn't give a toss about Wales, and like a growing number of my countrymen I want the union split - England is a net contributor to both Wales and Scotland, and London is a net contributor of about £13bn a year to the UK economy as a whole so as far as I can see for colonialists we're wasting a shit load of money on you. QUOTE]
> 
> Yeah but what about all the reparations you'll owe us for the psychic damage caused by centuries of colonisation. I'm putting in my claim now.
> 
> ...


----------



## Yossarian (Dec 19, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Yeah but what about all the reparations you'll owe us for the psychic damage caused by centuries of colonisation.



That can go to the Patagonians...


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 19, 2006)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> Like I said Rhys, get your independence and own parliament and the English can have the £23bn in government support that currently leaves England and goes to Wales. Like the casy majority of my countrymen I couldn't give a toss about Wales, and like a growing number of my countrymen I want the union split - England is a net contributor to both Wales and Scotland, and London is a net contributor of about £13bn a year to the UK economy as a whole so as far as I can see for colonialists we're wasting a shit load of money on you.



Says it fucking all...lol.


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## Brockway (Dec 19, 2006)

Yossarian said:
			
		

> Yeah, but if there was enough demand for a referendum on independence there'd be one, and if the vote was for independence then the London government wouldn't stop it. I don't think the people of Wales can consider themselves oppressed any more than the Quebecois can.



Welsh people are fucked up though Yoss - you've got to remember that. You're talking about centuries of psychic pain and not being able to make our own decisions. We need therapy.


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## Brockway (Dec 19, 2006)

Yossarian said:
			
		

> That can go to the Patagonians...



I agree with you on that.


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## rhys gethin (Dec 19, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> kyser_soze said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## kyser_soze (Dec 19, 2006)

> and there is the little question of your armies strutting about the world at our expense



Ummm...how can it be at your expense since Wales gets more out of the UK state than it puts in?

As for the coal...you'd have been paid for it back then so fuck off.


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## Brockway (Dec 19, 2006)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> As for the coal...you'd have been paid for it back then so fuck off.



oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!


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## kyser_soze (Dec 19, 2006)

Well, looking at Rhys I can see the terrible effect that English colonisation of Wales has done to _him_...


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## durruti02 (Dec 19, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> 1. Like I said it's bad enough that they destroyed their own industrial heartlands without doing it in somebody else's country.
> 
> 2. The Welsh-speaking "taffia" are irritating - they are responsible for so much bad culture but how politically powerful are they? Not very. I think there's a danger you can equate Welsh-speaking with middle-class which is not the case at all outside of Cardiff. Go to Carmarthen and the bloke delivering your post speaks Welsh. In Aberystwyth Welsh-speakers work on building sites. And there are plenty of places in Wales run by self-serving local politicians who don't speak Welsh at all and are unionist in outlook.
> 
> ...



1 .. if you want to make it a nationalist issue though you have to show it was done deliberately and  seperately to thatchs attack on all w/c people in the rest of britain .. you have not showed that it is 

2 of course over in caerfryddin its differrent .. the point is though is yer postie in the west and yes builder in aber may speak welsh BUT they are NOT in charge of anything .. the taffia are MORE than irritating. they run the things that matter ...  and yes there are plenty of unionists and independents who are welsh to the core and right wing as fck .. so wales problems do not ALL relate to london   at all do they ??

3 you have again ignored what i am saying .. that DO you have more in common with a welsh speaking taffia fking up some hospital or a working class person from beeston bathgate or wherever else thats w/c and begins with B  ????

and i agree that people are not defined JUST by class .. i would say it is in terms of wales most important


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## rhys gethin (Dec 19, 2006)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> Ummm...how can it be at your expense since Wales gets more out of the UK state than it puts in?
> 
> As for the coal...you'd have been paid for it back then so fuck off.



Are you really that dim?   What would _we_ need your footling armies for?   And where is the money for all that was ripped out of the earth here.   _We_ haven't got it, that I do know.    Call it two million each, since you're so awkward.


----------



## rhys gethin (Dec 19, 2006)

durruti02 said:
			
		

> 1 .. if you want to make it a nationalist issue though you have to show it was done deliberately and  seperately to thatchs attack on all w/c people in the rest of britain .. you have not showed that it is



Well, there is the little point that _we_ never voted for that person or her party.   It is _you_ want us to stay with those who did.




			
				durruti02 said:
			
		

> 2 of course over in caerfryddin its differrent .. the point is though is yer postie in the west and yes builder in aber may speak welsh BUT they are NOT in charge of anything .. the taffia are MORE than irritating. they run the things that matter ...  and yes there are plenty of unionists and independents who are welsh to the core and right wing as fck .. so wales problems do not ALL relate to london   at all do they ??



Are you serious?   A few bi-lingual officials?   Come _on_ - you are having colonialist nightmares for them!  There are very few really right-wing people in our Country other than my cousins - and they are moving out, Duw diolch!

I've done my bit on the rest - it isn't we who pick on the worzels, it's the other way around.


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## durruti02 (Dec 19, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> Well, there is the little point that _we_ never voted for that person or her party.   It is _you_ want us to stay with those who did.
> 
> Are you serious?   A few bi-lingual officials?   Come _on_ - you are having colonialist nightmares for them!  There are very few really right-wing people in our Country other than my cousins - and they are moving out, Duw diolch!
> 
> I've done my bit on the rest - it isn't we who pick on the worzels, it's the other way around.



sorry ???? only 25% voted for maggie and the miners of yorks and durham cerrtainly did not .. so you are still not proving that it is a colonialist/anti welsh attack ... and i doubt you can 

so rhys .. who do you have more in common with .. the new, welsh speaking, m/c or w/c from wherever ??


----------



## Brockway (Dec 19, 2006)

durruti02 said:
			
		

> 1 .. if you want to make it a nationalist issue though you have to show it was done deliberately and  seperately to thatchs attack on all w/c people in the rest of britain .. you have not showed that it is
> 
> 2 of course over in caerfryddin its differrent .. the point is though is yer postie in the west and yes builder in aber may speak welsh BUT they are NOT in charge of anything .. the taffia are MORE than irritating. they run the things that matter ...  and yes there are plenty of unionists and independents who are welsh to the core and right wing as fck .. so wales problems do not ALL relate to london   at all do they ??
> 
> ...



The point, for the third time, is not that Thatcher was targeting Wales but that she was able to exert influence here in the first place. Thatcher was a unionist like you - why do you want to defend her for heaven's sake?

Why do you insist on calling the Welsh-speaking middle class "the taffia". What are the non-Welsh middle-classes called? 

What do Welsh speakers run that matters? Welsh telly and a few quangos? Big deal. The things that matter are run by Labour: Westminster; Assembly; most councils. 

You're so paranoid about Welsh speakers it's actually funny. Why do you suggest Welsh speakers fuck up hospitals? I've met 2 people in my life who decide how many kidney machines etc hospitals get to have and they were both non Welsh-speakers from Rhiwbina. How come you're more bothered by Welsh-speaking middle-class people than non Welsh-speaking middle-class people?

And to repeat myself - yes, as a council estate w/c person I have more in common with a Welsh-speaking middle-class person from Pontcanna than some carrot-crunching fecker from over the bridge.


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## nwnm (Dec 19, 2006)

Fullyplumped said:
			
		

> Oi - that's rascist, that is!


shurrup ginge


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## rhys gethin (Dec 19, 2006)

durruti02 said:
			
		

> sorry ???? only 25% voted for maggie and the miners of yorks and durham cerrtainly did not .. so you are still not proving that it is a colonialist/anti welsh attack ... and i doubt you can
> 
> so rhys .. who do you have more in common with .. the new, welsh speaking, m/c or w/c from wherever ??



I have never understood what 'middle class' means in this sort of discussion, particularly since the 'upper class' have disappeared themselves.   Clearly working people have more in common with one another than they do with _capitalists _, but there are clearly far more capitalists in England than in Cymru.   Local government workers are, obviously, workers.

What we are arguing about is whether it is better for us to be ruled by English tories or by 'Welsh' social democrats, and I see no earthly reason why we should be pushed around by the blairies as a sort of comradely gesture for those locked up in England.   Those who want us to be so show all the standard colonialist attitudes and suggest _NO_ benefits we might obtain by their favoured course of action.


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## Baron Samedi (Dec 19, 2006)

We will be the Alpha and Omega of the English empire.


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## kyser_soze (Dec 20, 2006)

> And where is the money for all that was ripped out of the earth here. We haven't got it,



All spent on sheep gussets probably. Or strepsils for the male voice choirs.


----------



## llantwit (Dec 20, 2006)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> All spent on sheep gussets probably. Or strepsils for the male voice choirs.


Or Pot Noodles?


----------



## kyser_soze (Dec 20, 2006)

AHH, I forgot the pot noodles!!!

Fuel of Britain, isn't it?


----------



## zog (Dec 20, 2006)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> All spent on sheep gussets probably. Or strepsils for the male voice choirs.




Shame on you you English Tory oppressor.


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## rhys gethin (Dec 20, 2006)

zog said:
			
		

> Shame on you you English Tory oppressor.



Aye - why should we pay for anything to do with English attacks on our sheep?


----------



## Baron Samedi (Dec 20, 2006)

zog said:
			
		

> Shame on you you English Tory oppressor.



You come over here doing good and stealing our jobs, contributing to our society - shame on YOU !


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## ICB (Dec 20, 2006)

zog said:
			
		

> Shame on you you English Tory oppressor.



  yeah, kyse is a right fascisist, his years of posting liberal shite ain't foolin no one




			
				llantwit said:
			
		

> I've got a real warm glow now.
> Oh... no I don't, I just pissed myself.



Too much Welsh Brew mate


----------



## durruti02 (Dec 21, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> 1*The point, for the third time, is not that Thatcher was targeting Wales but that she was able to exert influence here in the first place. Thatcher was a unionist like you - why do you want to defend her for heaven's sake?
> 
> 2* Why do you insist on calling the Welsh-speaking middle class "the taffia". What are the non-Welsh middle-classes called?
> 
> ...



1* i hate thach .. and i'm an anti unionist .. i support federalism of all the british islands .. so am anti nat .. saw a plaid guy once argue that wales should build a motorway up our side of border from cardiff to wrecsam!!.. how stupid is that!!

2* and i'm not just against welsh speaking m/c .. against all m/c .. i just hate the way in the south the m/c have appropriated welsh 

 3* think you are underestimating .. adn you miss i am against welsh non cymreig m/c too!!

4*para about welsh speakers??  how do you get that??.. i'm in favour of people speaking welsh!!! was brought up around it and learning myself now ju ju ach a fie etc etc no i am against this knee jerk reaction that one race .. and lets be honest we are as mongrels as the english ...  is somehow better than another ... or differrent .. 

5* sorry but on what basis do you have more in common with a welsh m/c than a english ( who may well be from a welsh background) council estate dweller ..  your comment smacks of irrational nationalism

caradoc evans barmy army! we are no better than any one else .. sure we have a great history but theres a lot of shit in there too .. maybe partlya  consequence of english imperialism .. but then what is our culture? i like gwyn williams idea that the welsh nation blosomed with even started with the american revolution .. which finished afew years after when the curtain fog of puritanism came down


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## Brockway (Dec 21, 2006)

You remind of one those Japanese soldiers stuck on a Pacific Island who doesn't know the war is over. 

But have a good Christmas anyway.


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## durruti02 (Dec 22, 2006)

nadolig llawen to you 2 but sorry how am i like a japanese soldier??


----------



## Karac (Dec 22, 2006)

!


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## Karac (Dec 22, 2006)

!


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## rhys gethin (Dec 23, 2006)

durruti02 said:
			
		

> 1* i hate thach .. and i'm an anti unionist .. i support federalism of all the british islands .. so am anti nat .. saw a plaid guy once argue that wales should build a motorway up our side of border from cardiff to wrecsam!!.. how stupid is that!!
> 
> 2* and i'm not just against welsh speaking m/c .. against all m/c .. i just hate the way in the south the m/c have appropriated welsh
> 
> ...




_What_ are you arguing about, and to what purpose?    _What_ is this 'middle class', and between what other classes does it come?   Give three examples.   _What_ is the grovelling shite Caradoc Evans doing in this discussion?   And what, _for goodness sake_ is your last paragraph about?   Christmas started early or something?


----------



## durruti02 (Dec 24, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> _What_ are you arguing about, and to what purpose?    _What_ is this 'middle class', and between what other classes does it come?   Give three examples.   _What_ is the grovelling shite Caradoc Evans doing in this discussion?   And what, _for goodness sake_ is your last paragraph about?   Christmas started early or something?




???? strange question ... the thread is "in what ways is wales an oppresed nation.."  ..  you claim wales is an oppressed nation? .. then show proof that it is .. so far you can not apart from a bit as regards the iaith

BUT  the w/c and people generally of wales remain oppressed as they are everywhere .. not only by the capitalists but by the bureucrats in their hundeds of thousends that seem to run out country today .. in wales as well as england .. 

your national solution is deeply depressing and little different form other worse forms of nationalism ... i support the language and all attempts to support it and the communities it is in but to look toward independence as an answer as oppossed to federalism of the islands is nonsense 

p.s. what are the real problems in wales today .. employment/ house prices etc .. but this is the same in cornwall durham east london and any where else the m/c are cashing in

so would you have a motorway built up offas dyke??? and you know what lets kick the saesson out of dewchurch .. out of golden valley , out of oswestry .. lets push the border  back to the severn !!


----------



## Karac (Dec 24, 2006)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> Tell ya what, let's blow the Severn Bridges, separate the parliaments and England gets to keep the £23bn in taxes that Wales is a net receiver of.


Where are these figures from?-your tiny pea-sized brain?


----------



## lewislewis (Dec 25, 2006)

durruti02 said:
			
		

> so would you have a motorway built up offas dyke??? and you know what lets kick the saesson out of dewchurch .. out of golden valley , out of oswestry .. lets push the border  back to the severn !!



Why are you saying these stupid things?

We don't care about 'Saessons' or borders or Oswestry, just time for Wales to govern itself.


----------



## rhys gethin (Dec 26, 2006)

lewislewis said:
			
		

> Why are you saying these stupid things?
> 
> We don't care about 'Saessons' or borders or Oswestry, just time for Wales to govern itself.



Well, I care about Oswestry a bit, because I used to live in that town, which is much more 'Welsh' than, say, Wrecsam.   It should be allowed a vote, at least.

Durruti is doing the usual caricature bit - because some part of England, or Cornwall, may be as badly off as we are, he wants to convince us that it is 'nationalism' to want to change the ludicrous political arrangements caused by extreme tory centralism, and somehow 'socialist' to keep us living under tory governments voted in by the English home counties.   To do this he builds up straw men and knocks them down.   These Islands are part of Europe, and particular populations within that political structure are best represented by their own governments - and in establishing these they will also be having effects - various in the various places - on the class balance of the whole.   A socialist Cymru would be important in Europe as Blairite England (an American trojan horse) can never be - except perhaps negatively.


----------



## lewislewis (Dec 26, 2006)

Sorry Rhys, didn't mean to offend mate, I visit Oswestry once a year and know it's part of historical Wales. 

I'm just trying to say that we have real political concerns, we aren't obsessed anymore with romantic notions of driving out the Saxon invader, we just want freedom for Wales and everyone in it, no matter what nationality they are or languages they have.


----------



## durruti02 (Dec 26, 2006)

see lewis  

apologies though i was being a bit ott and was actually scratching to see what reaction i would get .. that was dishonest shouldn't have done it .. apologies .. twp!

BUT it is true that plaid people HAVE proposed a motorway .. now that is silly 


the thing about your nationalism is you do not think thru the consequences .. a perpetual tory govt in westminister for example .. hey thats nice for us who live here .. and woul;d no doubt fk up wales too .. 

you do not think of what happens when the little things start snow balling ... did anyone expect cyprus or bos-herz to go up the way they did??? 

it was wrong how wales was conquered .. though remember the tudurs were the kings of england .. what did they do?   what went wrong there?

and how the language was destroyed .. though there is a strong arguement that it was the chapel that destroyed much of welsh culture ..  

BUT we all of us are now in one island .. i am in favour of the assenbly even with increased powers .. but nationalism .. no .. you say as do scots nats independendence within europe .. fair play but why not therefore state absolutely that federation NOT independence is the way forward?


----------



## rhys gethin (Dec 27, 2006)

durruti02 said:
			
		

> see lewis
> 
> apologies though i was being a bit ott and was actually scratching to see what reaction i would get .. that was dishonest shouldn't have done it .. apologies .. twp!
> 
> ...




Durruti - What is the _logic_ of all this?   We are to stay in a tory-dominated UK because 'we are now in one island' (we've always been in one island - and in one continent) and because the English are otherwise going to have to face the consequence of their own political idleness?   Are you in favour of the Westminster Parliament giving up to Europe_ all_ the powers they hold and our Assembly does not?   If not, you are in favour of the English Parliament having powers over us.   Why?   Have they done us such good previously?   And why - unlike Plaid Cymru - do you so constantly harp on about 'blame' for events that happened in the past?   It is the future we need to be concerned with, surely?


----------



## durruti02 (Dec 27, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> Durruti - What is the _logic_ of all this?   We are to stay in a tory-dominated UK because 'we are now in one island' (we've always been in one island - and in one continent) and because the English are otherwise going to have to face the consequence of their own political idleness?   Are you in favour of the Westminster Parliament giving up to Europe_ all_ the powers they hold and our Assembly does not?   If not, you are in favour of the English Parliament having powers over us.   Why?   Have they done us such good previously?   And why - unlike Plaid Cymru - do you so constantly harp on about 'blame' for events that happened in the past?   It is the future we need to be concerned with, surely?



yes of course i am in favour of european federation too (not to the EU as it is now mind!) and westminister giving up powers .. 

of course i am against what you call england having power over wales .. though actually it is the ruling class who have power over ALL of us, and who do not give a damn about anything . .. england or wales 

BUT 
 lose scotland and wales and i think england is perpetual tory ( new lab or con.) govt  .. do you not think that will affect wales??? 

but also this betrays your prejudice .. 

".. the English are otherwise going to have to face the consequence of their own political idleness?" 

.. sorry but this is crap .. and an insult to all the decent people in england .. many of whom regard themselves as welsh like me .. if i believed in race .. (and i do not) i would say that is a racist statement 

p.s. got my Hafrens mixed up with my Gwys! 24/12 5:03


----------



## niclas (Dec 27, 2006)

durruti02 said:
			
		

> BUT
> lose scotland and wales and i think england is perpetual tory ( new lab or con.) govt  .. do you not think that will affect wales???


Now that *is* confusing. The "UK" is ruled by Tory or New Labour already, so losing Wales and Scotland won't change that. The only chance - under  present conditions - to challenge that reactionary duopoly is the break-up of Britain. It would certainly lead to more progressive governments in Wales and Scotland.
 As to what it would do in England, you have to hope that losing that reactionary mantle of "Britishness" will bring out the progressive side of people there. What happens in England is important to us all - it's a large European nation - but the sight of good comrades rejoining Labour out of desperation for the alternatives there suggests that things will get worse before they get better.


----------



## neprimerimye (Dec 28, 2006)

niclas said:
			
		

> Now that *is* confusing. The "UK" is ruled by Tory or New Labour already, so losing Wales and Scotland won't change that. The only chance - under  present conditions - to challenge that reactionary duopoly is the break-up of Britain. It would certainly lead to more progressive governments in Wales and Scotland.
> As to what it would do in England, you have to hope that losing that reactionary mantle of "Britishness" will bring out the progressive side of people there. What happens in England is important to us all - it's a large European nation - but the sight of good comrades rejoining Labour out of desperation for the alternatives there suggests that things will get worse before they get better.



The idea that the breaking up of Britain along national lines will bring about progressive governments in Wales and Scotland and may even push England to the left is moronic. Lets be clear there are other alternatives even if they are unpalatable to the nationalists of all the nations of Britain.

For example rather than seeking to break up Britain on national lines how about seeking to mobilise the workers of all three nations, and those from other nations who make up a considerable portion of the working classes in Britain, along the lines of class against class? That is to say why not advocate a class struggle policy that prioritises the unity of the working people against the unity of the national state?

In any case the idea that Scotland and/or Wales would form more progressive governments after forming independent state(s) is plain silly. After all we know that the main nationalist parties in both countries are as happy to enforce cuts budgets at local government level just as much as any Tory, Lib Dem or Labour councils are. Moreover subject to the need to compete in world markets such national governments would be under considerable pressure to become more competitive and to attack the living standards of the working masses.


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## lewislewis (Dec 28, 2006)

I disagree Nep, "nationalist parties enforcing cuts at local government level" is not a solid footing to trash any idea of a progressive national government. At the level of the nation-state there are all kinds of societal trends, ideas and movements that can be unleashes. In local government, it's arguing about local tourism, rubbish collection etc (a vital thing to have, but not much room for nation-building or nation-changing ideas).


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## neprimerimye (Dec 28, 2006)

lewislewis said:
			
		

> I disagree Nep, "nationalist parties enforcing cuts at local government level" is not a solid footing to trash any idea of a progressive national government. At the level of the nation-state there are all kinds of societal trends, ideas and movements that can be unleashes. In local government, it's arguing about local tourism, rubbish collection etc (a vital thing to have, but not much room for nation-building or nation-changing ideas).



So vague nationalist noises are of more importance than the very real practioce of cutting service provision?

C'mon boyo these petty nationalist parties make vague progressive noises from time to time and in office attack our living standards.

By their deeds shall ye know them. Don't be naive.


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## rhys gethin (Dec 28, 2006)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> So vague nationalist noises are of more importance than the very real practioce of cutting service provision?
> 
> C'mon boyo these petty nationalist parties make vague progressive noises from time to time and in office attack our living standards.
> 
> By their deeds shall ye know them. Don't be naive.



How _exactly_  are we going to convince the English Working Class to engage in serious class politics - we've been trying that for years?   What you want - evidently - is for us to play the idiots' chorus in your Let's-Pretend revolutionism - again, and again, and again, and again, and again.   We've been there, got the bloody Tshirt.   What it means is perpetual toryism policed by 'socialists' like you, who want to be English provincials instead of internationalists.   It has grown totally tedious.   Pack it in!


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## neprimerimye (Dec 28, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> How _exactly_  are we going to convince the English Working Class to engage in serious class politics - we've been trying that for years?   What you want - evidently - is for us to play the idiots' chorus in your Let's-Pretend revolutionism - again, and again, and again, and again, and again.   We've been there, got the bloody Tshirt.   What it means is perpetual toryism policed by 'socialists' like you, who want to be English provincials instead of internationalists.   It has grown totally tedious.   Pack it in!



Have you really spent any time at all attempting to persuade anybody to engage in class politics? Frankly I think you're telling a porky on that one sonny. Though I suspect that like many a sad bastard you have a Che T shirt.

And now you mention it who the fuck is talking about an English working class? Can't you read? If you could you would have noted my mention of the Polish workers in Britain. Are they the English working class you mean? As a communist I acknowledge no nation as my own and see only one world wiode working class which nationalist vermin seek to divide in order to rule over us in the interests of capital.

As for your moronic insult regarding being an English provinical I find that laughable coming from a parochial nationalist twit such as yourself. Happily I plan on moving to London a city characterised by its lack of provincialism or indeed Englishness.


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## Karac (Dec 28, 2006)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> As for your moronic insult regarding being an English provinical I find that laughable coming from a parochial nationalist twit such as yourself. Happily I plan on moving to London a city characterised by its lack of provincialism or indeed Englishness.


Then you obviously dont know much about London-you only have to move a few miles out of central London to find plenty of provincialism and indeed Englishness-ever been to Romford,Basilsdon etc?


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## Karac (Dec 28, 2006)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> Tell ya what, let's blow the Severn Bridges, separate the parliaments and England gets to keep the £23bn in taxes that Wales is a net receiver of. This is oppression in the heads of men looking to find something to be oppressed by.


Its also £13Bn more than the entire Welsh Assembly budget-where are your figures from?


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## Brockway (Dec 28, 2006)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> Happily I plan on moving to London a city characterised by its lack of provincialism or indeed Englishness.



You're in for a rude awakening there then. You've got to remember London is largely populated by people who have fled the provinces and they don't always manage to shake off their provincialism. Also the worst examples of racism towards black people I ever witnessed were during my 12 year stint in London. It is surprisingly ghettoised too and not quite the coffee-coloured utopia you might be hoping for. 

That said, it's a great city and I loved living there.


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## Brockway (Dec 29, 2006)

durruti02 said:
			
		

> saw a plaid guy once argue that wales should build a motorway up our side of border from cardiff to wrecsam!!.. how stupid is that!!
> 
> *Given the lack of a decent road from North to South Wales that's  not at all a bad idea.*
> 
> ...



..


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## neprimerimye (Dec 29, 2006)

Karac said:
			
		

> Then you obviously dont know much about London-you only have to move a few miles out of central London to find plenty of provincialism and indeed Englishness-ever been to Romford,Basilsdon etc?



Ye Gods no I would never venture into such areas. These days I find anything too far from Harrods and Harvey Nicks quite unbearable.


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## neprimerimye (Dec 29, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> You're in for a rude awakening there then. You've got to remember London is largely populated by people who have fled the provinces and they don't always manage to shake off their provincialism. Also the worst examples of racism towards black people I ever witnessed were during my 12 year stint in London. It is surprisingly ghettoised too and not quite the coffee-coloured utopia you might be hoping for.
> 
> That said, it's a great city and I loved living there.



So all those people frm the indian sub-continent, from the Caribbean and from Eastern Europe are really from 'the provinces'?

If such is your attitude then the only provincial here is yourself.

By the way there are no areas in London or indeed britain which meet the usual definitions of ghetto. Unless one is a devotee of the Daily Mail. A good nationalist paper if ever there was one.


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## Karac (Dec 29, 2006)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> Ye Gods no I would never venture into such areas. These days I find anything too far from Harrods and Harvey Nicks quite unbearable.


Thought as much


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## neprimerimye (Dec 29, 2006)

Karac said:
			
		

> Thought as much



Judging from your posts I can find no evidence of anything resembling thought on your part.


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## Karac (Dec 29, 2006)

Come of it Nep-your just an elderly trot who used to be a leading member of the Militant-then got kicked out and became a swper-and then got kicked out-and are now are the only member of the Unionist Ultra  Party leftist alone in Wales


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## neprimerimye (Dec 29, 2006)

Karac said:
			
		

> Come of it Nep-your just an elderly trot who used to be a leading member of the Militant-then got kicked out and became a swper-and then got kicked out-and are now are the only member of the Unionist Ultra leftist alone in Wales



My dear chap one was never a member of the RSL/Militant tendency. As for being an ultra-leftist that is as untrue as your moronic allegations of 'unionism'.

If however you can prove any of your rather silly allegations I shall leave money behnd the bar of any of the, no doubt low, dives you frequent in order for you to have a drink.


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## Karac (Dec 29, 2006)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> My dear chap one was never a member of the RSL/Militant tendency. As for being an ultra-leftist that is as untrue as your moronic allegations of 'unionism'.
> 
> If however you can prove any of your rather silly allegations I shall leave money behnd the bar of any of the, no doubt low, dives you frequent in order for you to have a drink.


If your not Michael Newman then i apolgise


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## neprimerimye (Dec 29, 2006)

Karac said:
			
		

> If your not Michael Newman then i apolgise



I think you now owe me a drink.  

Mike Pearn.

PS Who the feck is Michael Newman?  I know a guy with that name but he's non-political. Mind thats no barrier to joining the SWP these days.


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## Brockway (Dec 29, 2006)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> So all those people frm the indian sub-continent, from the Caribbean and from Eastern Europe are really from 'the provinces'?
> 
> If such is your attitude then the only provincial here is yourself.
> 
> .



Does being Asian, Caribbean or Eastern European stop you from being provincial then? Or are all those people automatically hip and metropolitan in your estimation?


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## rhys gethin (Dec 29, 2006)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> Have you really spent any time at all attempting to persuade anybody to engage in class politics? Frankly I think you're telling a porky on that one sonny. Though I suspect that like many a sad bastard you have a Che T shirt.
> 
> And now you mention it who the fuck is talking about an English working class? Can't you read? If you could you would have noted my mention of the Polish workers in Britain. Are they the English working class you mean? As a communist I acknowledge no nation as my own and see only one world wiode working class which nationalist vermin seek to divide in order to rule over us in the interests of capital.
> 
> As for your moronic insult regarding being an English provinical I find that laughable coming from a parochial nationalist twit such as yourself. Happily I plan on moving to London a city characterised by its lack of provincialism or indeed Englishness.



Your fatuity is beginning to show.   If the working man has no country, why do you hang on like grim death to being an English yes-man?   Like all posturing 'revolutionaries' all you can do _at best_ is quote Marx:  at worst you fall to vacant cursing and supporting the status quo.   The English working class is composed of people working for wages (or being unemployed) in England, as you know.   Do you know anything else, other than 'Rule Britannia'?


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## neprimerimye (Dec 29, 2006)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Does being Asian, Caribbean or Eastern European stop you from being provincial then? Or are all those people automatically hip and metropolitan in your estimation?



Quite truthfully I'm uninterested in whether or not people are hip, how positively antediluvian of you to use such an anachronism, or metropolitan. But those peoples I mentioned are hardly likely to be characterised by English provincialism. Moreover character as outsiders in this society does mean that they are potentially more open to socialist arguments than such parochial nashies as yourself.


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## neprimerimye (Dec 29, 2006)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> Your fatuity is beginning to show.   If the working man has no country, why do you hang on like grim death to being an English yes-man?   Like all posturing 'revolutionaries' all you can do _at best_ is quote Marx:  at worst you fall to vacant cursing and supporting the status quo.   The English working class is composed of people working for wages (or being unemployed) in England, as you know.   Do you know anything else, other than 'Rule Britannia'?



Grow up sonny. You can no more prove I support the status quo than Karac knew my identity, which has never been concealed mark you. Would an English yes-man hold the position that the Assembly should constitute itself as a soveriegn body? Would an English yes-man argue that failing that it should have a parity of powers with the Scottish parliament? C'mon sonny argue against the views I hold not your own peurile parody of somebody I'm not.

As for the English working class being composed of all those working for wages in England that is plain silly. Many such people do not cdonsider themselves to be either English or working class. They are however workers whether they know it or not and that is of primary importance to how they live and their social revolutionary potential as a class for itself. By contrast many such people of Polish, Afro-Caribbean and other national/ethnic origins will never be English or indeed Welsh. for the good reason that such an ideintity is imaged having no purchase on reality.

See you next year.


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## rhys gethin (Dec 29, 2006)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> Grow up sonny. You can no more prove I support the status quo than Karac knew my identity, which has never been concealed mark you. Would an English yes-man hold the position that the Assembly should constitute itself as a soveriegn body? Would an English yes-man argue that failing that it should have a parity of powers with the Scottish parliament? C'mon sonny argue against the views I hold not your own peurile parody of somebody I'm not.
> 
> As for the English working class being composed of all those working for wages in England that is plain silly. Many such people do not cdonsider themselves to be either English or working class. They are however workers whether they know it or not and that is of primary importance to how they live and their social revolutionary potential as a class for itself. By contrast many such people of Polish, Afro-Caribbean and other national/ethnic origins will never be English or indeed Welsh. for the good reason that such an ideintity is imaged having no purchase on reality.
> 
> See you next year.



I think you are a bit of a poseur, undoubtedly, and on an ego trip certainly.   The only knowledge I can have of your views - or that you can have about my class-experience - _here_ can only be based on what information we individually choose to give, obviously - and if people are  full of competitive adrenalin that won't take us far, will it?  

It isn't really necessary to tell me about the difference between a a class in itself and a class for itself, nor to explain why so many workers - unlike you - dislike the associations of 'English'.   The key point is that you evidently want us to accept the grotesque current political arrangements and remain, as I said, English provincials, kow-towing to the vast revolutionary experience of those who have been, until now, cushioned against reality by imperialist subsidies and never achieved _anything_ except a happy sense of superiority.   I do not think that a sensible plan.


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## Brockway (Jan 2, 2007)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> Quite truthfully I'm uninterested in whether or not people are hip, how positively antediluvian of you to use such an anachronism, or metropolitan. But those peoples I mentioned are hardly likely to be characterised by English provincialism. Moreover character as outsiders in this society does mean that they are potentially more open to socialist arguments than such parochial nashies as yourself.



Who mentioned English provincialism? Not me. I'm talking about provincialism per se.  

So an Asian shopkeeper is going to be more open to socialism than me is he? You don't have talk some shite. And I'm not parochial.. I'm a man of the world me.


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## zog (Jan 2, 2007)

...but the world stops at Western Ave.


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## Brockway (Jan 2, 2007)

zog said:
			
		

> ...but the world stops at Western Ave.



You know there's a Midlands forum now don't you...


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## zog (Jan 2, 2007)

ha ha. been banished for developing a daft accent.


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## Brockway (Jan 2, 2007)

zog said:
			
		

> ha ha. been banished for developing a daft accent.



"Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free..." We'll take anyone in Cardiff, it's our heritage, we're not fussy


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## neprimerimye (Jan 2, 2007)

Brockway said:
			
		

> So an Asian shopkeeper is going to be more open to socialism than me is he?



Your imaginary Asian shopkeepers pet cat is more open to socialism than you soft lad.


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## neprimerimye (Jan 2, 2007)

rhys gethin said:
			
		

> The key point is that you evidently want us to accept the grotesque current political arrangements and remain, as I said, English provincials....



Which statement you know to be a lie.

As i pointed oput before I campaigned FOR the Assembly and hold today that it should declare itself a sovereign body or at least have the self respect to demand equal rights with the Parliament in Edinburgh.

Learn to read fuck wit.


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## Brockway (Jan 3, 2007)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> Your imaginary Asian shopkeepers pet cat is more open to socialism than you soft lad.



Hey Mr Generalisation would a Polish immigrant whose family has had to endure being part of the Soviet Empire be more open to socialism than me as well? 

Karl Marx was posh.


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## neprimerimye (Jan 3, 2007)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Hey Mr Generalisation would a Polish immigrant whose family has had to endure being part of the Soviet Empire be more open to socialism than me as well?



I'll ask my girlfriend who happens to be from a Polish immigrant family, but is also posh.


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## Brockway (Jan 3, 2007)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> I'll ask my girlfriend who happens to be from a Polish immigrant family, but is also posh.



Cool. Ask her what she thinks of the Palace of Culture in Warsaw. Poland's great I spent a few weeks there. Good drinkers. Krakow's full of nuns.


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## Belushi (Jan 3, 2007)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Cool. Ask her what she thinks of the Palace of Culture in Warsaw.



Its fucking ace, Soviet wedding cake architecture in all its glory.

Love Poland.


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## lewislewis (Jan 3, 2007)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> I think you now owe me a drink.
> 
> Mike Pearn.
> 
> PS Who the feck is Michael Newman?  I know a guy with that name but he's non-political. Mind thats no barrier to joining the SWP these days.



Don't knock it Mike, SWP/Respect recruited 10,000 members a few months ago (they actually claimed this...). At least both of us would rather stick to our own positions rather than become a political opportunist in Galloway's coalition.


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## Brockway (Jan 3, 2007)

Belushi said:
			
		

> Its fucking ace, Soviet wedding cake architecture in all its glory.
> 
> Love Poland.



I agree. When I saw it I was thinking what the fuck is that!! How come that building isn't more famous? It's supercool. Apparently the locals hate it tho because it reminds them of the Soviets.


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## neprimerimye (Jan 3, 2007)

Brockway said:
			
		

> Cool. Ask her what she thinks of the Palace of Culture in Warsaw. Poland's great I spent a few weeks there. Good drinkers. Krakow's full of nuns.



Don't need to she may be posh but her family suffered under both the Nazis and Stalinists both. With the result that all the works of that pair of abominations are anathema to her.

I guess to really believe in nationalism one must drink a fair bit.


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## neprimerimye (Jan 3, 2007)

lewislewis said:
			
		

> Don't knock it Mike, SWP/Respect recruited 10,000 members a few months ago (they actually claimed this...). At least both of us would rather stick to our own positions rather than become a political opportunist in Galloway's coalition.



Strange really but my politics these days have more in common with those of the SWP when founded than the SWP itself has.


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## Brockway (Jan 3, 2007)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> I guess to really believe in nationalism one must drink a fair bit.



You wouldn't deny the Poles the right to run their own country would you? I wouldn't. If that's Nationalism then I'm a Nationalist.


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## zog (Jan 3, 2007)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> Strange really but my politics these days have more in common with those of the SWP when founded than the SWP itself has.




Does that mean that 2 of you sit in a pub?


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## neprimerimye (Jan 3, 2007)

Brockway said:
			
		

> You wouldn't deny the Poles the right to run their own country would you? I wouldn't. If that's Nationalism then I'm a Nationalist.



I wouldn't deny any nation the right to self determination. But when there is no positive gain for that nation I would not advocate the formation of an independent state either.

In relation to Wales, a nation that cannot be convincingly shown to be oppresed, this means that I support the Assembly assuming the rights of a constituient body and acting as the sovereign power. It also means opposing any demands for an independent state at present as such a state cannot benefit either the nation as a whole or the working classes.

As for poland the positions historically adopted by revolutionary communists can be ttraced in the writings of Marx, Luxemburg, Lenin and, in relation to the situation after 1945, in the works of Cliff and Harman. it is always a position of support for national where the nation is oppressed by another and it is of benefit the working masses.

The nation itself meaning nothing to Marxism as it is a transitory social phenoeman that was born with capitalism and will die with that noxious system.


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## neprimerimye (Jan 3, 2007)

zog said:
			
		

> Does that mean that 2 of you sit in a pub?



Yeah taking the piss out of idiots such as you.


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## zog (Jan 3, 2007)

neprimerimye said:
			
		

> Yeah taking the piss out of idiots such as you.



splitter!


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## neprimerimye (Jan 3, 2007)

zog said:
			
		

> splitter!



Been there, done that, got the t shirt.


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## nwnm (Jan 3, 2007)

Karac said:
			
		

> If your not Michael Newman then i apolgise


good god! He's not Mike Newman. He moved to London donkey's years ago. He left Militant over their attitude to Labour Party Black Sections, and joined the SWP after a lot of discussions over the nature of Russia, the Labour party, etc. Remember him well....


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## neprimerimye (Jan 3, 2007)

nwnm said:
			
		

> good god! He's not Mike Newman. He moved to London donkey's years ago. He left Militant over their attitude to Labour Party Black Sections, and joined the SWP after a lot of discussions over the nature of Russia, the Labour party, etc. Remember him well....



Proving yet again that Nwnm's claim not to read my posts is a lie.


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