Westministenders: I can't believe it's not butter

[RedToothBrush]

Nigel Farage @ Nigel_Farage
Cannot believe we're seeing Nazi salutes in 21st century America.

Yeah, that's what we said on 16th June 2016, when some dickhead stood in front of a poster.

The thing is, what Farage says with faux surprise isn't unusual or isolated to him. It's widespread. It's perhaps the norm rather than the exception in many circles.

It's represents a total lack of self awareness. It represents the disconnect that what comes out of your mouth tends to have an effect on the people around you, whether intentioned that way or not when you talk about 'others' or 'not belonging'.

It's a direct effect of nationalism.

Patriotism seems to be something that people have totally lost the plot with and don't understand. It's used as a defence for nationalism. It is the last defence of the scoundrel. Patriotism and being pro-EU or not being a racist dick are not mutually exclusive, though you'd be forgiven for thinking differently these days.

I think a lot of people will sit and go, "Look at America, that is awful. I'm glad we are not like that".

Except we are far more than we realise. Grenfell says much about that.

There's an phrase and Southern Wolves and Northern Wolves when it comes to racism in America. The UK is like the Northern Wolf. Sly and silver tongued to justify and hide racism because 'Look they are worse than us. We are the good guys'.

A bit like saying, you talked to an EU citizen and they were just as racist as me, so Brexit is ok.

It's the twisted desperation to justify the othering rather than take responsibility for enabling and emboldening racism. Then dressing it up as some legitimate political cause which actually you have zero understanding or comprehension of the consequences of.

Brexit has some deep roots in Nazi type fantasies. You can not separate the idea that Britain is superior and Brits are better than Europeans from too much Brexit logic. The Empire was not a pretty thing for much of the world. It's worrying.

Not to mention we've had a right wing attack on a group of people outside a mosque in this fashion before the US had that attack yesterday.

Let's not think that because we haven't had blokes with tiki torches providing a photographic opportunity and theatre for the TV producer that we are somehow 'better'. Or not as bad as America.

The only real difference between them and us is the brash openness about it and the fact they have a bunch of guns.

This was predictable. Indeed I expected and I expect more. There will be more and it will get far, far worse in the US. Yesterday was just the start. Trump wants it. He will fuel it. He will capitalise from it. Yes your mate Donald loves a bit of bigotry, Nig.

There no guarantees it won't happen here for various reasons. It just is characterised in a slightly different way because we are British and don't really do brash in anything as it's not our way.

It's too easy for Farage. Or Johnson. Or May. Or whoever to just walk away and innocently say they are shocked and bear no responsibility because they don't wave Nazi flags about.

You don't have to do that, to share the same values or believe the same thing. Salutes and flags are just branding. A repackaged version for the 21st century is even more dangerous.

We won't forget who Farage hangs out with or courts for publicity and attention. Farage only says and does what he thinks he can get away with. That's part of the ugly truth.

We still have not even started to confront the relationship between racism and Brexit. Indeed, much seems to be happening to suggest that after blaming EU, that there are a Brexit opportunities for scapegoating opening up.

For me yesterday was depressing not because it happened, but because we saw it coming and because our country is in denial about being the same.

Farage is the very personification of it.

I do know my children would have had many more living relatives if the enablers hadn't, last time the nazis were in power.

If Theresa May continues to stay quiet about Trump,

For all their luvviness, Thatcher was quite capable of tearing Reagan a new one - and did one at least 2 occasions (which the transparency mad Americans have faithfully recorded).

Sarah Champion has gone ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40952224

I'll be interested to read that LH, having just read The Divide which puts a case that structural adjustment policies of the World Bank and the IMF, and brute military power in the West fomenting coups to prevent non-neoliberal economics taking root in colonised countries, result in persistent poverty in countries outside the G7.

Where the LD have often generated PR it has been when the LD press office has gone humorous / sarcastic / controversial. But as a rule, its difficult to break through into the media for them.

I'm sure this is true. He needs to leave policy to more prudent, clued up people though - ie stick to his area of expertise.

I'm thoroughly enjoying what he's doing even though right now I wouldn't vote for it (actually I wouldn't be able to, since bizarrely one of his policy ideas seems to be to give EU citizens in the UK a vote in GEs - but not UK citizens in the EU!)

bizarrely one of his policy ideas seems to be to give EU citizens in the UK a vote in GEs - but not UK citizens in the EU!

Borrowed from Alex Salmond's Referendum Rules playbook it sounds like. Many non-Scotland dwelling Scots were peeved that they couldn't vote in the Indyref whereas EU citizens resident in Scotland could.

Sarah Champion has gone ..

Yet what she said is little different from what has been widely (and correctly) written about the Catholic priesthood - that it has huge cultural issues with regards to its attitudes towards sex, its safeguarding of vulnerable members of its congregation, and its willingness to report and discipline rapists.

I appreciate that there are cultural and political factors which make it harder to talk about this issue without giving offence. But it can be done sensitively, as it has been by health professionals working with people from cultural backgrounds where cousin marriage is common (and therefore a serious health risk for women and their children).

Chapman also proposes £150 000 pay for remain MPs, like the DUP bung.

Borrowed from Alex Salmond's Referendum Rules playbook it sounds like. Many non-Scotland dwelling Scots were peeved that they couldn't vote in the Indyref whereas EU citizens resident in Scotland could.

Different context, no such thing as a "Scottish citizen". Whereas denying votes to citizens is the exception rather than the rule in comparably developed democracies.

Yet what she said is little different from what has been widely (and correctly) written about the Catholic priesthood

I don't think this is the place to get into the debate on detail, but I do have to say that the Catholic priesthood is an organisation. The Catholic church has a hierarchy and rules. Priests are trained and employed by the church. It is a complex business, but it is basically a business. You can therefore argue there is a cultural issues that the church should be expected to address. This is not the same as stating everyone from a particular country thinks in the same way and should be responsible for the actions of everyone else from that country.

I do love a good Brexit metaphor. Here is Fintan O'Toole on the UK government's proposals for the Irish/NI border:

But to understand how this seems to the Irish government and to most people on the island, imagine you are in a decent job. It is reasonably paid, apparently secure and the working environment is quite amicable. Your neighbour, who you like but do not quite trust (there’s a bit of history there) comes to you with a proposition. She’s establishing an extremely risky start-up venture with a high probability of catastrophic failure. Will you join her? Well, you ask, what are the possible rewards? Ah, she says, if – against the odds – everything goes splendidly, you’ll get the same pay and conditions you have now.

Sarah Champion has gone ..

I am simply amazed that this debate is still revolving around ethnicity and so rarely does anyone point out the bleedin' obvious that the thing that the perpetrators have in common is their gender (as do the victims, albeit the other gender)

As Red has so often pointed out on these threads - what isn't being said is just as important as what is.

Sarah Champion was extremely naive if she didn't realise how the Sun would spin/latch on to anything she wrote.

She said that the Sun had rewritten her words but, afaik, hasn't released the draft she did write which makes me think of all those people who claim that they were misquoted and still screech about it when the journo produces the tape showing that they weren't .

I'm sorry but this is just stupid on too many levels. The wider situation as well but I mean come on, Britain is one of the least patriotic countries in the world, it is also one of the less racist ones, certainly the style of racism here is more inclined to a divisive permissiveness rather than a rejection of different cultures or indeed individuals of different racial backgrounds. I get it, there are still a lot of people in this country who look to America for their social cues but you don't have to pretend that we are particularly similar to them to feel less me you are a part of the great internet debate.

This is not the same as stating everyone from a particular country thinks in the same way and should be responsible for the actions of everyone else from that country.

Of couse.

The common points here are religious culture and men. No liberal would bat eyelid if someone was to criticise troubling attitudes towards women among many white evangelical males in the US - and no one would deny that their troubling attitudes, while not shared by all white American evangelicals, were nevertheless intimately connected with their religion and culture. Freedom to express your religion or culture in any way you like stops at the point where it impinges on someone else's rights.

@jameschappers 12m
I hope all decent businesses in UK will boycott *@DailyMailUK as long as Dacre is in charge #doublec** #byebyepaul #BVIs 9.9.17

@waylandforge
Replying to @jameschappers @DailyMailUK
We need an immediate and total #boycott of all pro-brexit businesses and propaganda outlets.

It's a thought?

There was a boycott DM thread, now gone.

Any lists around?

misti I just can't agree that writing "Britain has a problem with British-Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls." is the same as expressing concerns about attitudes to women amongst American evangelical Christians. One is accusing a groups of people connected in no other way then they happen to come from a particular country of raping specifically white girls, the other is expressing concern about a specific group who openly share a set of beliefs and cultural norms.

I grew up in an area with a large Pakistani population and they had a range of beliefs and attitudes to race and women. They should not be talked about as a single group in this way and the language used was quite frankly shocking.

Gary Lineker on TM
Happily criticises the silencing of a big clock, but silent in her criticism of a giant cock.

Well the border issue and GFA between NI/ROI is sorted now....

EU to agree with klaxons within 24hours.

DRTFT so here is an ROI report anyway.

www.independent.ie/business/brexit/revealed-the-uks-position-paper-on-northern-ireland-and-what-it-means-for-the-republic-36039331.html

Misti I am sorry but this once you are reducing an issue to stereotypes. I say this as someone who grew up dealing with these sorts of attitudes from some young Pakistani men. The issue of grooming by Pakistani man in places like Rochdale isn't simply down to culture or religion, it is an issue of class, education, gender, a predisposition to abuse, and above all a criminal sub culture that sprang up as a result of an opportunity to exploit vulnerable girls abandoned by the rest of mainstream society.

Islam does not condone such behaviour, there is no more any justification for it in the Koran than there is in the bible for abuse by Catholic priests. It was a Muslim Lawyer who took the bull by the horns and prosecuted the men involved in the Rochdale case. It is true that theologically some Christians and Muslims argue against equality for minorities, and for the subordination of women in particular, but in both religions there are plenty of people with more liberal points of view.

Obviously whilst some men from all backgrounds might abuse women not all men do, and whilst they come from all backgrounds they are more likely to abuse if they are less educated and from certain social backgrounds, as are the vulnerable women they abuse.

Living in a city with a large Pakistani community I used to have to deal with catcalling in the street from young and ignorant Pakistani boys which we treated just as you do with the cat calling from builders with the contempt it deserved but I also knew far more Pakistani boys who were decent and respectful. There was no reason why those men would grow up to groom and abuse, any more than builders do, some of them didn't. However a criminal subculture grew up amongst some working class Pakistani men as a result of the opportunity to get away with grooming and abusing young girls from disadvantaged and negligent backgrounds who were marginalised by the authorities.

Similarly the majority of Catholic priests did not abuse. You cannot argue that given the probable incidence of 6%, the figure that emerged from the Boston Globe investigation that suggests an awful lot has been covered up here, that it is an issue with Catholicism as a religion. Rather the issue is that the culture of the organisation presented a few with that predisposition with the power and opportunity to get away with abuse.

That Sun article by their former political editor Trevor Kavanagh referred to "the Muslim problem"

Was he deliberately aping a certain regime that talked about their "Jewish problem" - and then "solved" it.

Must have been deliberate; surely even Scum journalists aren't that ignorant

bigchoc any idea what draft of his solution he's on?

Seriously though, we've fallen quite far from where we were a few short years ago. People will bury their heads in the sand for as long as possible though.

I am no doubt being a bit dozy, but what is the significance of 9.9.17 in James Chapman's tweets?

The People's March for Europe arb