02-19-2016, 01:45 PM
(02-19-2016, 01:43 PM)I.J Wrote: Doubt it, the Irish and Germans have a very special understanding going back decades.
02-19-2016, 01:50 PM
02-19-2016, 01:52 PM
What is it with "righties" and terrorists, btw?
11-15-2016, 02:34 PM
(02-13-2016, 04:40 AM)shaun.lawson Wrote: Again: that's up to Congress. But it's not as though they're somehow unattainable. It's up to enough people to vote for both Sanders and a Democratic Congress. The people still have the power; but old habits and world weary cynicism die hard, sadly.
11-15-2016, 02:37 PM
11-15-2016, 02:37 PM
11-15-2016, 02:38 PM
11-15-2016, 02:40 PM
What a gobshite eh
11-15-2016, 02:41 PM
Shaun is just a microcosm of the monkeys with typewriters theory.
He posts so much about things that he expresses just about every single viewpoint on the matter, no matter how contradictory the screeds of posts are.
11-15-2016, 02:41 PM
(Edited 11-15-2016, 02:41 PM by Roger H. Sterling.)
11-15-2016, 02:45 PM
11-15-2016, 02:54 PM
(08-07-2015, 06:27 PM)shaun.lawson Wrote: It's not that frightening. Why? Because the Republicans have no chance. And Trump running as an independent would turn "no chance" into "even less than no chance", handing the election to Clinton on a plate.
11-15-2016, 02:55 PM
It's poor patter to pick up someones posts from ages ago because opinions do change, but the tone of Shaun's posts and the patronising manner he speaks to people makes it pretty funny
11-15-2016, 03:07 PM
Page 7 of this thread though.
11-15-2016, 03:11 PM
oh Shaun
11-15-2016, 03:25 PM
11-15-2016, 05:12 PM
11-15-2016, 07:00 PM
(Edited 11-15-2016, 07:07 PM by shaun.lawson.)
(11-15-2016, 02:55 PM)Alan Partridge Wrote: It's poor patter to pick up someones posts from ages ago because opinions do change, but the tone of Shaun's posts and the patronising manner he speaks to people makes it pretty funny Yes, I certainly see that too. I'm not embarrassed though. Those posts are from August 2015 and February 2016. Well, a heck of a lot's happened since then, more or less all of it bad. We've gone from an odd state of political affairs in the UK - and a huge crisis facing the Labour Party - to a massive crisis facing the West itself. More or less, a crisis imperilling everything we all grew up taking for granted. We've also gone from very early in the Democratic race - when Sanders had it all to play for - to it becoming clear only weeks later that he just wasn't cutting through among anyone other than liberal lefties and whites. Nobody (apart from, tip of the hat here, Dank) saw Trump coming. That didn't just include the media; it also included forecasters, ie. those who crunch the data based on qualitative and quantitative research. That data, like facts, are suddenly becoming irrelevant is completely new: in the modern age, at least. Now, feelings are what seem to count at elections - but how do we ever quantify feelings? As for myself: well, notice the urging from many of recent days. "We must reach out, empathise, listen to people's concerns and stop ridiculing them". Yes, I completely agree - but there's such polarisation now that to do so risks either being seen as a sell-out or actually being a sell-out: it risks normalising racism, bigotry and hatred. It is a horrendously difficult circle to square - because the Overton window keeps moving ever-further rightwards, and what was extreme a decade ago is seen as totally normal now. Not only that - but politics are (and have always been) so complicated that you'll find tons of examples all over the place of even great politicians constantly contradicting themselves. Churchill, most people's idea of greatest Briton, changed his party as often as his socks. Tony Blair led, in my view, the most liberal government the UK will ever know; yet wanted terrorist suspects to be detained for 90 days without charge, ID cards, and it amounted to government by Daily Mail at least half the time. Cameron's government was viewed (in my view, rightly) by many as the most right wing in living memory; yet his party didn't even think he was a Conservative. We all discuss the many contradictions in the SNP constantly; and Obama, comically described as a "socialist" by his many enemies, disappointed his supporters through things like drones, mass deportations, and failure to hold criminal bankers to account. Now OK, it's all getting rather extreme now. Boris Johnson switching from Remain to Leave's biggest cheerleader in one weekend. Donald Trump, lifelong liberal, suddenly turning into an alarmingly plausible fascist. Theresa May privately warning of the dangers of Brexit to the economy, then bemoaning the "liberal elite" the moment it suits her. But then, events are moving unbelievably fast. Frighteningly fast. All sorts of things which seemed unthinkable very very recently are now happening - and the biggest threat facing Western societies is that respect for alternative views, and awareness of the need for compromise and pragmatism, is vanishing into thin air. One tribe is turning on the other tribe instead. That's a catastrophe, but it's happening. If those divides get much worse, how will Britain come together as a nation if war breaks out? Same (worse) story in the US. Same, at least potentially, in France. Weird though it might sound, I think we need more contradiction, not less; more trying to look at things from many points of view. In politics, I distrust ideologues more than anyone else: I don't understand people whose views don't change as events and the reality on the ground changes. And I think the desire to look at things simplistically - to think there's simple answers, when there aren't and never have been, and angrily blame leaders who can't deliver everything we want - is destroying democratic politics and ultimately destroying us as a species. But I absolutely accept that, even though it's always done in good faith, I'm way, way too forceful in arguing one case at one point, only to argue the opposite with equal force later. That's been a lifelong problem.
11-15-2016, 07:03 PM
(Edited 11-15-2016, 07:04 PM by Drederick Shanktum.)
^^^^
"Throw enough shite at the wall and some will stick" Or "Cover all the bases"
11-15-2016, 07:15 PM
(11-15-2016, 07:03 PM)Drederick Tatum Wrote: ^^^^ Never consciously though. Never ever consciously. I've mentioned this before, but at LSE, I'd sit in seminars arguing about five different cases at the same time. None of that was for attention; it's what academics tend to do. Fortunately, friends of mine found it endearing, and were laughing with me, not at me. Um, I think. Imagine if Twitter, Facebook, message boards etc had been around in the past. If they had, I bet there'd have been constant contradiction, constant apparent hypocrisy, from leaders, politicians, thinkers and Joe Bloggs all the time. Now, with anything someone's ever said put so under the microscope*, it's becoming increasingly impossible: and with so much pride taken in being part of a 'team', any apparent hypocrisy disillusions the public. "Politicians, they're all the same. Say one thing, do another. They're only in it for themselves". Which in some cases, is indeed true - but nowhere near as many as the public's started to believe. And when the public starts to believe it, it wants to throw the whole lot of 'em out and start again, regardless of the consequences. It's scary. I'm at the stage now where I think if Facebook and Twitter don't find some miraculous way to control what's spread on those platforms, democracy won't be able to recover. *Not that I can complain about that, given the Lawssier. |
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