Westministenders: The Truth Isn't A Made Up Concept

[RedToothBrush]

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Not George Orwell but often attributed to him. But a powerful statement with resonance nonetheless

The only trouble with vegan / vegetarianism as an environmental action in Britain is that most of the island, the north and the west, is prime sheep and cattle land. Not arable. I'll just leave that lying here.

Au contraire, Louise, the Vietnam war was not winnable in any meaningful sense. A victory regardless of cost on either side is a pyrrhic victory, and the name of America would have gone down in (even more) infamy - to the same degree and for the same reasons we revile the Third Reich.

"Limited" in the sense of not allowing nukes or wholesale massacres or mass fire-bombing of towns
but they did use Agent Orange
there was a Pullitzer prize-winning photo of a little girl running burning from a napalm bomb
and My Lai wasn't the only massacre, just the most documented.

The US lost the war because they had an unacceptable level of casualties in conscripted armed forces,
too many US atrocities came to light
and they were using a very corrupt S Vietnamese puppet govt that had little public support in Viet Nam

is that most of the island, the north and the west, is prime sheep and cattle land. Not arable.

And prime sheep land because it's totally unsuited to arable.

Still who knows ? We might like chlorinated chicken.

It does taste a bit like chicken, to be fair.

math what does the bit that doesn't taste of chicken taste like? Domestos?
Donald Duck might just get bleach in our diets after all.

13 March: BJ told Italian PM he wanted ‘herd immunity’

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-no-10-fails-to-deny-reports-boris-johnson-told-italian-pm-he-wanted-herd-immunity/ar-BB1520Eh?ocid=spartanntp

“I spoke with Conte to tell [him] that I’d tested positive.
And he told me that he’d spoken with Boris Johnson and that they’d also talked about the situation in Italy.
I remember he said, ‘He told me that he wants herd immunity’.
“I remember that after hanging up, I said to myself that I hope Boris Johnson goes for a lockdown.”

Had they not taken excessive control and instead allowed the military to wage the war it wanted to, then I suggest the outcome there would have been somewhat different.

Ah, that's a very simplistic answer that used to be trotted out by some, but not all, of the US military personnel who I worked alongside in the 1980's: ."if only the politicians hadn't tied our hands"....

The French tried total warfare and that didn't work. They even told the Americans it wouldn't work.

The US got their fingers burnt as much as anything because they interfered in a civil war/war of independence - they of all people should have known better - and their opponent was much more ideologically committed to the cause than were the conscripts (both US and South Vietnamese).

- it's chicken like...

You can't taste the chlorine, honestly.

I remember my DCs sitting at my mum's table in Dublin many years ago exclaiming that all the meats they had eaten in Ireland had their own distinctive taste.

Please, not the "one hand tied behind our back" nonsense.

What else would have worked? Bombing China? Bombing Vladivostock? Three million dead Vietnamese. How many more millions would have done the trick? Rather like that village they 'saved' by burning it to the ground, do that to the entire nation, as in "Let's get rid of these Gooks," to quote the heroic Lt Calley?

The Saigon govt was a corrupt military dictatorship. The problem with the Burns documentary is that it buys into the "The" "Vietnam War" fantasy about the American War in South East Asia, the fantasy that there was a country called South Vietnam that was attacked by a foreign country called North Vietnam.

Tonkin was a lie. The body count was a lie. Domino Theory was a lie. The whole thing was a bright shining lie.

Chlorine-washed chicken:

US farms are allowed to dip or wash chicken carcasses in water containing chlorine dioxide in order to kill potentially harmful organisms such as E coli, campylobacter and Salmonella on the surface of the meat.
The process is known as pathogen reduction treatment (PRT) in the industry. Other chemicals are also used instead of chlorine dioxide with the most common being acidified sodium chlorite, trisodium phosphate and peroxyacids. Meat besides poultry can also be treated.
The EU does not allow producers to wash meat with any substance other than water unless the substance is explicitly approved by the European Commision (EC Regulation 853/2004).
Advocates of this approach say that it leads to higher standards of hygiene and animal welfare because farmers must take care at each stage of the process rather than relying on a chemical bath to kill any harmful pathogens after animals are slaughtered.

It could bring into sharp focus meat rearing and production practices, which are quite off-putting.

I can see a rise in vegetarianism, which will also be very helpful for the planet at this time.

I know many people who are drastically reducing meat consumption already, also lots who are trying to grow some vegetables. (Of course it’s virtually impossible to be self-sufficient in veg, as you quickly discover! But you can do a bit in summer.)

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/is-chlorinated-chicken-bad-for-our-health-and-the-environment-a7860866.html%3famp

I think stocking up on food and alcohol is going to be the only sensible way forward if Johnson does not make progress before the end of this month. He won't ask for an extension.

I will personally need a lot of gin if I am homeschooling the DCs in December whilst the country crumbles outside.

The problem with the Burns documentary is that it buys into the "The" "Vietnam War" fantasy about the American War in South East Asia, the fantasy that there was a country called South Vietnam that was attacked by a foreign country called North Vietnam.

I think Burns interviewed a few who hold that POV but I don't think he/it buys bought into that line of thought.. .quite a few of the commentators, particularly those interviewed in the later episodes, very strongly point out they felt they were dragged into a civil war..

As far as the French and the idea that you could overwhelm the VietMinh....

May I recommend Martin Windrow's "The Last Valley"...

Read The last valley.
Absolutely riveting. The French lost but all credit to their paras and legionnaires.

One problem for the US, conscription was heavily biased, and they lost the support of the American public early on.

The Vietnamese saw off alot more than just the French and Americans over the 20th Century. Very tough people indeed.

Tragic. What a pointless waste. The Cummings fallout isn’t over.

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/04/doctor-quits-nhs-over-dominic-cummings-refusal-to-resign-dominic-pimenta-second-wave-covid-19

UK military intelligence told successive PMs early on that the US was on a hiding to nothing in Vietnam (not that you needed much nous to see it).

The problem with Vietnam was that it simply wasn't really a war in the sense the US thought they "knew" wars. It was much closer to the sort of religious conflicts that plagued Europe for the middle ages. And it all stemmed from what I still consider to be a mentally diseased horror of communism or socialism. a condition which seems to afflict only the United States of America. For a country which claims to practice separation of Church and state, the evangelical zeal of US anti-communism is as much a religion as anything else with fancy dress and sky fairies.

Quite aside from chlorine, won't US chicken have a lot of air miles on it ?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3929610-Westminstenders-Just-another-DEADline?watched=1
New thread.

But I am so glad these threads have kept going.

Anyway. Covid.

Good news: Michael Rosen (who became ill before lockdown) took his first step today. Which is great.

Bad news: London's R rate has actually doubled. Other areas are near 1 or past it. But London has gone from being 0.5 to being at 1, very quickly. And I single it out because the lowering of the R rate in London was an amazing thing. And now all of that has been undone - and undone so quickly, it bodes really badly.

I can't get over how depressed I feel that we have this government, with its huge majority, inflicted upon us - with predictable results.

And just No Deal Brexit to look forward to.

I could cry.

And it all stemmed from what I still consider to be a mentally diseased horror of communism or socialism. a condition which seems to afflict only the United States of America. For a country which claims to practice separation of Church and state, the evangelical zeal of US anti-communism is as much a religion as anything else with fancy dress and sky fairies

Couldn't agree more. There is something absolutely pathological about it and the effects on American society and politics are enormous and tragic.

It's a horror of authoritarianism, twisted into a horror of redisributive taxes. (Or taxes full stop.) The great irony is that it's lead a huge number of Americans - not just right wing ones - to genuinely believe the whole "shining city on a hill" bullshit, so they've not learned anything from anyone else unless they've been one of the rare people to live abroad for any significant length of time.

Certain Americans
who were GOP members all their lives
and descended from generations of GOP grandees
have realised that Universal healthcare is a good thing it only took him 80 years
but
are very saddened by the looting as it so so damages the cause
but understands the looting because it arises from visceral anger
BUT
Trump's key vote live in white rural states that have had almost no COVID deaths
so the liberal conspiracy line works a treat as the Electoral College folks will know /know of NOBODY who got sick or died
so they love the bible stunt

THe only way to change it is massive electoral reform of the College
which will happen just after the UK moves to full PR

@Singasonga

I moved to the US in 1988. Ronald Reagan was president, though George H.W. Bush was about to replace him. People were very proud of America, of being American, America was Number 1, and Americans had very little knowledge of the rest of the world - I was asked if we had phones in Ireland. (At the time, Ireland was developing the infrastructure that would allow it to take advantage of the digital revolution, so not only phones but, you know, engineers).

People flew American flags everywhere. Cities, towns, and suburbs were awash in a hyperpatriotic tide of red, white and blue. Many, many people I met were sure the rest of my family would follow me to the US. It was unthinkable to them that people might be living happy, middle class lives in a comfortable suburban house that they owned, mowing the lawn every weekend, watching sports on TV - all the normal life things including being free to research information, and to have and express opinions. Many Americans I met were sure America was The Only Free Nation On Earth. There were taboos which were very startling to me after life in Ireland in the 70s and 80s. You couldn't discuss racial inequality. You couldn't wear black. You couldn't criticise Ronald Reagan. It was like stumbling into the massive compound of a very weird cult.

Rural America is suffering greatly from covid, @ListeningQuietly.

The impact has been felt by suburbanites and urbanites who have periodically found meat sections with signs limiting purchases to 5 lbs per customer. This happens when meat packing facilities are stricken.

www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-05-12/covid-19-now-reaching-into-rural-america

It was like stumbling into the massive compound of a very weird cult.

I've the BBC documentary on Jim Jones lined up for later ...

@mathanxiety I am not surprised to hear your experience of the US in the 80s. I grew up in Canada around that time, and we got a lot of US media - so it was pretty clear to us that Americans just didn't hear about other countries through tv or radio. The ignorence and lack of curiousity about the enormous country lurking between the main bulk of states and Alaska was pretty amazing.

As a teen in the 80s, I met American tourists who genuinely wondered where all the snow was after crossing the border in July, or asked where I'd learned such good English, or (in the case of a really nice American lady I met on an exchange to Japan) earnestly asked if we could get rice in Canada.