Tory expelled for dressing as Madeleine McCann

[RockinSockBunnies]

Here

Does the reaction strike anyone else as a little OTT? Of course it's in bad taste, but the point of the evening was that it was a Bad Taste Party. Friends of mine have been to these dressed in a variety of outfits (Nazi uniforms - the party was held by Jewish people in a Jewish area), one went dressed as an anorexic, two people stuck themselves together as conjoined twins.

Obviously it's sick and twisted, but that's the point of the party. A black sense of humour sometimes helps people get through life.

Will probably get flamed for this but I think it's a bit of an over-reaction to boot someone out of the Tory Party for going to a Bad Taste Party wearing something in bad taste. Mind you, the guy was an idiot for posting photos on facebook if he aspired to a political career

mostly i do agree lol - and a small part of me is just being argumentative. having spent a long time as a woman in the military i am able to draw all sorts of parallels lol. the fact that a culture exists of course does not make it right. but the fact that people who are not involved take offence where no offence was intended or taken does grate a little. if i posted some of the comments i have received over the years most mners would advise me to go to tribunal yesterday lol, but the comments would not have been made to my face if i were not a member of the group - they would have been made behind my back. i knew those commenting well, and i knew they valued me as a member of the team.
of course you will probably tell me i am in denial.

an earlier point about being a poster being upset at a homophobic comment when she wasn't gay is an example - she had every right to point it out as she found it offensive, whether she was gay, bi, straight, whatever, as the comment was made in her company. the really interesting thing is that peole who do not understand the immediate context are finding comments made years ago offensive - and i really don't know how individuals and organisations are going to cope with this in the facebook age.

the big brother omnipresence of the media is having an enormous effect on all sorts of previously entirely private scenarios.
it's going to be some time yet before i make up my mind whether, after all, it will have a positive effect. your gut reaction would that it will winkle out all the horrors left in antiquated and brutal cultures, and of course anything that eradicates the real 'isms' are of course a force for the good.
im just a little disturbed by the fact that everyone's personal and individual comments are being dug up and pored over for taste and style without any understanding of the culture or context the comments were intially made in. there is no doubt that exporting them into other cultures and asking for opinion is going to cause an uproar.
shock! - military use (block your ears i'm going to use the word again) banter horror!

apols if i'm not making sense... all those typos have given me a headache...

That's an interesting post madwoman. I don't think you're in denial - of course as an individual you're capable of determining whether something upsets you or not. However, part of my point is that so long as this sort of thing is the pervasive military culture, the military will only attract/retain those for whom this sort of thing is acceptable. Anyone who is offended or upset will presumably leave rather than face a lifetime of what seems to them like abuse. And it seems to me that the military is not so overwhelmed with high-calibre applicants that it can afford to alienate that many people.

Beyond that, I still maintain that this sort of thing can bleed into really shocking behaviour in conflict situations.

I think you're quite right about the wider implications of the Facebook culture - something that few people anticipated I guess. It will be interesting to see how things pan out. I suppose any of us who have any sort of online 'presence' will have to get used to the idea that our online and RL personas cannot be kept seperate for long, unless we work very hard to disguise ourselves.

FWIW, I've seen quite a lot of people making the argument you make about 'context' (WRT the Brand/Ross business - ie, in the context of Brand's listenership, the item was not as offensive as it was when exposed to the DM readship). So it's not the case that everyone leaps on the condemnation bandwagon.

I'm of the school of thought that some things are just plain wrong, and sod the context. IMO it's no bad thing if Brand and Ross/Harry/Tory boy realise that their personal tribal behaviour is considered beyond the pale by most people - seems like a useful corrective to me. Preferable to people like that living their lives ignoring the context of the wider society.

and just wanted to add - it's not a case of civilians not understanding (i think it's really funny you used that term btw as it hadn't crossed my mind - and idly wondered about the word 'civilian' being used as an abusive term in a military context - bloody civvies lol), it's a case of the people who were not present not understanding. the term paki can of course be used as a term of abuse, or taken offence at, in both a military and civilian context, to argue anything else would be ludicrous.
in reality, of course, the fact that i have been arguing that the comment took part in a military context does not rule out the possibility of it being a racial slur, but as you say, the cops and the military always trot out the same old excuse lol.

in actuality, i am just another person who wasn't present, and therefore doesn't really have the right to make any pronouncement on what was, or wasn't meant, or whether it was, or wasn't a racial slur...
i just wanted to offer an alternative viewpoint - my opinion lol.

Agree totally with dumbledores girl

sorry - x-post!

you are of course right about the recruitment and retention issues. in RL we could have had a really interesting discussion about why i (half) left lol. so much has changed in e&d terms over the last twenty years that i wouldn't be surprised if another twenty would see off the vestiges of what remains of the 'chalky' culture. the military does slooooooowly start to compensate internally for whatever is going on in the (eek) civilian mainstream.

it doesn't mean that using a racially motivated nickname a la harry is necessarily a slur in the current military context, it just means that the existing dinosaurs will be replaced by new blood, who just wouldn't use that sort of expression in any circumstance. that said, i think the chances of finding many people who are willing to get shot at for a living are fairly slim over the next twenty years!

What's e&d?

madwoman - your posts are really insightful. This is MN at its best - really learning about people who have experienced different cultures/working enviroments and listening, rather than jumping which ever way the media tells us to jump.

Haven't trawled the whole thread, so apologies if this has already been said but don't you think Prince Harry and Toryboy are a bit like Jade Goodey on Celeb big brother, when they are just too stupid to even realise they are being actually 'racist' or whatever?

They are unable to even comprehend the basic premise in the first place.

bags - no, sorry, couldn't disagree more.

aw shucks, thanks violet - i do get on my high horse a bit, but mostly for exactly that reason, to put across a point of view that just might get people to make their own minds up, rather than being sheep lol. i was just really worried earlier that the majority of mners were, well, a bit woolly. we are all entitled to our own opinions, as long as, well, they are our own opinions and not recycled from the daily mail or the news of the world without any discerning thought in the interim lol.

Prince Harry clearly isn't Brain of Britain, but actually, I think it's not as simple as that, because he was conforming to the accepted culture of the military, as has been described on other posts.

Imagine if you were suddenly 'outed', 3 years later, for some comment made to a work colleague, that NO ONE at the time had been offended by, and which was exactly the type of comment which would be made hundreds of times a day. because this is what it is.
I am not a fan of the Royals in any way, and my personal opinion is that a lot of what is accepted in the military is something I'm not comfortable with - but then I wouldnt choose to work in that environment. I just think we need to see this for what it is. Of course it makes a great news story - which is why it's on the front pages today. But if you think that's because the journalists of Fleet Street are all morally outraged then don't be so naive. They just want to sell a good story. And god knows what obscenities you hear behind closed doors among journalists!!

As for Jade Goody - well, she's just very thick!

and apols to everyone for the appalling harry hijack - sorry!

sorry - that last post was to bagsforlife.
X posted with yours Mad!

Yes, I agree is the accepted culture of the military and basically everything you say, Violethill and madwoman.

Still think he and Toryboy are thick though

I think madwoman's perspective is interesting as well. It also irritates me when people take offence on other people's behalf ie a remark made between two friends (who understand each other perfectly well) is siezed on by some squawking twat who doesn't actually realise that telling someone else they should be offended when they aren't remotely so is actually really patronising and unhelpful.

wouldn't know lol, don't know either of them.

harry seems nice enough - by all accounts he seems to be taking over from where his mum left off in the charity support stakes, and i get the impression he tries to do the right thing - just that as someone in the media spotlight he maybe needs to think a bit harder about the other contexts his actions/ words might be viewed in, but after the nazi thing i think he learnt that lesson though. he seems like a fairly normal 'lad' when partying/ working... i did chortle a little about the 'a' level saga if we're talking more traditional 'intelligence' lol, and i think we would probably agree that maybe in the academic sense he wasn't the sharpest knife in the box...
i'm actually not even interested enough in toryboy as an individual to bother thinking about whether he's thick or not tbh - does that make me a bad person? i was more interested in the media and public outrage concerning what a total non-entity dressed as at a private party lol. tbh i haven't even read the article

Well, how about, say, I overhear two people on a bus having a private conversation in which one of them audibly called the other a 'Paki'. I wouldn't tell the person on the receiving end that s/he ought to be offended - as I said below, I realise that individual people can decide for themselves whether they're offended. (Whether they own up to being offended is of course a different matter.) However, an audible conversation involving racist epithets isn't the sole concern of the people participating in it; it's also, to some extent, the concern of the people who can hear it. And there might well be people within earshot who are offended. If the two people are entitled to use racist terms in casual public conversations (as I believe they are), then those who overhear them are also entitled to tell them that their conversation is offensive.

yes - you have to have the sense as the participant to recognise that you are in a public context - it is the same thing as listening to teenagers swearing at each other on a bus in front of (my - lol) small children. as long as it doesn't look like i'm going to get stabbed, i'd certainly do the mad woman thing and point out politely that i would rather they not use that terminology in front of me/ my kids. but it is all about judging the context etc. another similar discussion could be had about 'spaz', 'crip' etc. there is the same sort of emotional response that they must automatically be wrong, but also terms that have been reclaimed by some extent like the 'nigger' debate lol...
equally though, both sides have to respect the other's opinion, and refrain if offence is taken, even if not meant.
i do sound like a right old whingebag, don't i?

although - in certain circumstances i might just eavesdrop for the rest of the journey as a bit of an insight into someone else's life lol...

...or talk about it with the kids later as an introduction into how different words can mean different things to different people lol... and when not to use them preferably...

Well as you say, if the people having the conversation look rough I wouldn't say anything either. I'd probably give them dirty looks when their backs were turned though.

I suppose the thing is - to bring it back to what you were saying earlier - Facebook isn't private. The internet isn't private. People have to get used to the idea that if they want a private space on the internet, they need a password-only space.

exactly - which is what we keep telling the boys and girls at work, and why we're really quite picky if people start taking pictures at social events these days... not only is it a bit dodgy on security grounds, it is really easy for even the most innocent 10 pints to be misconstrued...
we've even been known to spend an hour looking at what our boys and girls have posted for, erm 'content' lol. big brother indeed. (not to take any disciplinary action i should add, just to point out that some of it may not be, er, 'advisable', unless they want to end up on the front page of the news of the world...)

i just think the whole thing is fascinating. i even joined facebook for the first time last week (passworded, natch), when it became really obvious that even work-wise it was becoming a recognised tool... pros and cons, eh? it's always this public/ private thing that causes the bother, tsk.

PW at dirty looks when their backs are turned. How about if you are on a bus talking to Onebatmother about your post birth vagina and the old couple in the row behind you tell you they have never heard such a vulgar conversation in all their days? Do they have a right to speak out?

bagsforlife - Prince Harry has had access to a great education and professional training, as well as a life in the spotlight to prepare him for what he should or should not be heard saying. When she appeared on Big Brother, Jade Goody had not had those advantages and whilst I can't really abide her, I would forgive her more easily than I would Harry. I even had to wait five minutes to be able to cross the road last week, whilst he swanned past in his chauffeur-driven car, flanked by police...I cannot BEAR the royal family!!

solidgold - i love your posts btw, they've been making me grin all day.
it's the sort of thing i've been saying to dh when the headlines come on lol, and i may even borrow 'squawking twats' for the ten o clock version

Swedes you've been following us!

I'm not sure that it's quite comparable, really. If I was talking about my cunt then I'd fully expect someone to tell me to shut it (my mouth, that is). If I was talking about my vagina, then I'd say that it's an anatomical term and is not recognised by any known dictionary as scatalogical or abusive.

Actually, I wouldn't talk about my vagina in public anyway, because I don't like making other people uncomfortable unless there's a good reason; I'd censor myself. Or mouth things and twitch and gesture with my eyes.

DS1 has been known to ask me about my 'volva' in a delighfully resonant, piping voice in public toilets. In that context, I'd say - sorry if you're offended, but he's five, and I'm teaching him proper anatomical terms, and really there are much worse things he could call it.