jaywalker

wasp

Yes, I often fail to understand what people write - please forgive me. Yes, satire is tasteless. Isn't that the whole point of effective satire? Would you say to Swift (I do truly recognise that I do not have those skills but one must try): "boiling babies for breakfast" is so tasteless; especially in the 'nappy valley' of ED? Would you say to Bret Easton Ellis (satirist of all this Trump nonsense avant la lettre): that is obscene and so tasteless? As for new threads, perhaps I will be banned. If so, good bye.

Loz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Irrelevant who the Der Spiegel cover actually > depicted - it's concept was extraordinarily > tasteless. how can what is depicted (here the statue of liberty) be "irrelevant". That is post-truth Loz.

Thanks to Der Spiegel for getting it right with such great precision. Not "tasteless" as the eurocrat would have it; but right. Perhaps we should move our children to safer places. But then I thought: usually Hiroshima not Tokyo. And if the conflagration is total then probably doesn't matter (although I note that multi-billionaires are buying up remote parts of New Zealand with some urgency).

Cacaolat said: "Social Democrat ? of course you can't help, you must put everyone into a category." Well, we probably find-ourselves entrammelled to. With apologies to B Russell: you have put her in a category of those who must put everyone into a category. Suggest read Hegel.

One of the things that has occurred to me as a champagne-swilling (well once a year perhaps) self-appointed guardianista (actually rarely read it) - or, as one Christmas card generically described me "a snivelling cosmopolitan elitist remoaner" (well that's one less stamp next year) - is that I'm too polite. So I just cancel my xmas card, or turn away from the offensive personalised stupid post. The Christian solution for sure: but then what? They just keep on slapping the other cheek in their self-righteous derision of my virtue-signalling, fascism, stupidity, privilege, or whatever. There is, in the end, nothing to be said. One can act in 'polite' ways: I will vote lib-dem again having sworn I never would after the Melbourne Grove fiasco. I will be lured into thinking that the federal stay of Trump's latest edict is a victory (it won't be). The 'democratic' vote (founded in ressentiment - see Nietzsche) will sweep me away, and I will think: well they had grounds for feeling that way (and, of course, they did). This is what civil war must have felt like, and it is so very sad ("all of the various envies, all of them sad" Auden).

Jenny1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I hope this link will work > > https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/ > 03/how-to-build-an-autocracy/513872/ > > to a long and interesting piece in The Atlantic > Monthly Great post Jenny, and thanks. That is terrifying reading.

I have the Booth map on my wall. At the end of the C19th ED was relatively prosperous. You can see this both from how nice some of the semi-detached houses are (especially when they've been cleaned) and also from the tendency of developers to start packing houses really close together (especially on the East side of LL) to profit from the relative prosperity. My 'quite poor' comment referred to what happened after WW2. There was I believe a significant downturn in the relative incomes of people here, with properties not maintained and so on. Isn't it really only in the last 15 years or so that ED became so prosperous? I have in mind things like RELATIVE house prices, kind of shop, and so on.

The rent hikes are a serious concern. It absolutely hammers useful specialist independent shops like these who were making a modest but viable return before the hike. With the housing market cooling rapidly we may also see amalgamation of estate agents (as we saw already with banks for different reasons). I wonder if this might mark a watershed in the fortune of Lordship Lane (visions of the Threshers site I fear). ED used to be quite a poor part of London: there is no guarantee it will not return to that if both central and local government are not more careful with their policies.

Very much appreciated - defying a 3 line whip is never an easy thing to do. East Dulwich should (and I think the vast majority is) proud of you. Penguin, it has nothing to do with being a conduit of her constitutents' wills. That would be populism not representative-democracy. We elect representatives who then exercise their reason BECAUSE they participate in extensive debate inside and outside parliament so that they are more acquainted with the arguments than our busy selves, that dialogue includes those they have with ALL their constituents NOT just those who voted for them. I am so fed up with anti-democratic moves (such as the referendum) being banded about as the essence of 'democracy'.

His main problem currently is that the Democrats have withdrawn supply: so he cannot get new cabinet members nominated. There was a popular backlash against those Democrats who nodded through earlier appointments. Part of the US constitution is that at least one opposition member must at least be present for an appointment to be ratified: so if they are not there can be no new post. Wonderful!

er, like I said, because the cost of leaving is not the same as the cost of staying in? For example, you might say, it only costs me ?100 a year to stay in this house (insurance, council tax) but to leave it will cost me ?1000 (lawyers fees). You are trying to create an equivalence where none exists.

I think we should celebrate our great Parliamentarians. For me, the greatest in these dark times is Ken Clarke: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/38811312

keano77 Wrote: > > Guy replied that current and future commitments by > the time the UK leaves will be ?600 Billion. Evan > Davis didn't pick him up on this and I haven't > seen anything in the papers or on the news about > it. What he said in the interview was that this was the implied cost of leaving, not the cost of 'being in'. Those two things are not at all the same (for a start they would refer to different time horizons). These are highly technical issues. We know what the net annual cost of being in the EU is because we have been paying it (after rebates) for years. It was for that reason we (well, I know not quite all of us) knew that the lies about the ?350m per week we would gain for the NHS were lies and not truth.

Returning to the OP, which for me indexes something new (as will the nomination of the Supreme Court Justice and the impending 'cable of dissent' that may lead to hundreds of sackings), this seems to me to be quite alarming - the precedent for this sort of action (politics against the advisory-of-law), is Nixon ... just before he was impeached. All building up to quite a picture - and for me we should have threads for everything new going (not duplicates of course). There will be some highly dangerous days ahead - for the integrity of the EU particularly. What was said very clearly today by Tusk suggests to me that is perhaps the most worrying of all. But no new thread allowed apparently even though that has not been the focus of any previous thread.

so a state visit for a lunatic. very childish to oppose that, of course. did you read the comments by the previous permanent secretary at the foreign office today? is he also childish? This is a monumental blunder by May: it will define her term in office.

Alan Medic Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- What is > the point of objecting? May has just done an arms > deal with Turkey. Object about that too. It is at > least as distasteful. I think there are two reasons. 1. (as the leader writers in the FT, Times and Standard all made clear today) the refugee decree potentially damages the UK's national interests (as it, and like measures, will for example risk fostering terrorism). 2. We claim to have a special relationship in which our nuclear security is founded on absolute trust with them - it matters far more that we can trust them than countries like Turkey or China where deals are made for purely commercial benefit. There is also the growing sense that the EU itself is being undermined in an unholy alliance between the USA and Russia. As May to her credit has made clear, that is certainly NOT in our interests.

It was a success in one sense, and May will be absolutely fuming: at a stroke Boris has been reinstated in the media as a serious politician (crikey) as he immediately said the decree was intolerable whilst she prevaricated.

OK, back from rather a long day to find I've been condemned as a fascist. Great. Google suggests these sorts of things to spot one: authoritarian, totalitarian, autocrat, Nazi, extreme/far right-winger, rightist, blackshirt, militarist. Not sure which of my posts qualify me here, but we all have our blind spots. And it is, probably, for me, too raw an expression to use as a trope (given what those who literally qualify actually did). It is also, in political rhetoric, perhaps something of a weakened clich? - because it tends to get banded around like a debased currency.

intexasatthe moment Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Thanks for the links ianr - as said ,v helpful . > > and I'm glad to read this > > "Prime Minister Theresa May has told her foreign > secretary and home secretary to contact their US > counterparts about a travel ban imposed by > President Trump. > Boris Johnson and Amber Rudd will make > representations about the order barring refugees > and visa holders from seven Muslim majority > countries for 90 days. > Earlier Mr Johnson tweeted it was "divisive and > wrong" to stigmatise people on the basis of > nationality." > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38789821 Good for her. Strangely, this is not what she said when asked for her own opinion in Turkey. But I guess that wisdom comes late in the day for us all.

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ok start another thread on Trump yo, we can have > 10 on the front page - it's just some basic forum > etiquette which post did I start which you think breaches forum etiquette?

uncleglen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I believe that the Brexit vote and the pro Trump > support is a backlash against "the liberal elite > propaganda we have pumped out of the BBC." as > rendelharris quoted. Unfortunately because of the > actions of Tony Crosland and his pals the working > classes have been denied a decent education to > enable them to compete rhetorically, and in the > workplace, with the 'elite' and the voting was a > result of their personal experiences and > frustrations. > On Newsnight TM was allowed to actually say her > speech but as soon as DT started speaking- you > could see his lips moving- some idiot bloke was > doing a voice over- telling us all what the BEEB > wanted us to hear- not what Trump actually said- > bloody fascists And then there is what he did rather than said. Has that not worried you?

no ???? I am not a fascist, and I deplore fascism. as for open-mindedness (or, say, tolerance) I think most people who deplore Trump are just that - so they are against these decrees. otherwise you will find yourself defining tolerance to include anything said or done - even where it is unspeakable.

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > No - of course it's significant but we don't need > 5 threads* do we? Somewhat self indulgent and not > very utilitarian if everyone starts saying I NEED > MY OWN THREAD ON TRUMP NOW! (caps again, > especially for you). > > * see also Brexit Who are you speaking for when you say 'we'? I find I am excluded.

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Shouting Trump Out is not political discourse; and > a completely subjective observation is that most > people who go on marches of this sort aren't > really up for discourse anyway, or only a > discourse within their comfort/political zone..... > strikes me your not that much one for discourse > either to be honest. > > U/C on the internet is well known, among us plebs > anyway, of being indicative of shouting, which was > my point, as I'm sure most people realised before > your academic deconstruction.... I guess you mean 'dialogue' rather than 'discourse' here. If so, no I do not want any dialogue with Trump, his supporters or those who cravenly submit to his will. The pleasures of hand-holding aside, what would be the reason for doing so?