State of the parties as 2015 General Election looms.

[MrGongGong]

Why is it that the forum's main faux-leftists have such an elitist attitude towards the wider population?

You really are a bit confused.
Have a lie down
Listen to some Can

[Beef Oven!]

You really are a bit confused.
Have a lie down
Listen to some Can

Well, the last bit makes sense......

[MrGongGong]

I think (apart from the Spinal Tap quote)

This

Nonsense. Money talks BS walk. No-one will turn down our orders, BMW, Mercedes, etc

Makes the huge assumption that the driving motivation for everything in the world is money and the acquisition of more and more.

It isn't.

Many people have other concerns which are much more important in how they do things.

I said that race was a taboo subject

Where ?
Not in UK media which is full of it
and of folks saying that they "can't talk about it" while talking about it all the time

[Beef Oven!]

[QUOTE=MrGongGong;444070]

Makes the huge assumption that the driving motivation for everything in the world is money and the acquisition of more and more.

It isn't.

Many people have other concerns which are much more important in how they do things.

Big business, including Merc & BMW are, which is the point.

Where ?
Not in UK media which is full of it
and of folks saying that they "can't talk about it" while talking about it all the time

You've missed the point completely. Another victim of cultural Marxism, you is.

[MrGongGong]

Big business, including Merc & BMW are, which is the point.

They are BUT why would you want these undemocratically elected organisations control the way things happen in the world ?

You've missed the point completely. Another victim of cultural Marxism, you is.

The point being that the thing that is "taboo" is talked about all the time?

I think you might be needing the dictionary that Barrys Tea is so fond of

One big problem IS that many of your fellow Kippers (and I'm not suggesting this is YOU) ARE obsessed with "race" and like to align themselves with rather nasty racist parties.

(to which you will do the "big boy did it and ran away" defence)

and i'm not a "Marxist" I follow the way of Lucier

[P. G. Tipps]

I think you might be needing the dictionary that Barrys Tea is so fond of

:laugh uproariously:

One rarely visits a public forum where one can witness the fairly regular spectacle of a participant running around in argumentative circles and then tying him/herself in illogical knots.

It can be highly entertaining at times, though ...

[Richard Barrett]

This is the kind of thing I've been trying to say (Owen Jones in today's Forum Bible):

... forms of racism that had been driven to the fringes are now being legitimised once more and injected back into the mainstream.

Forms of bigotry that were once seen as publicly acceptable had become stigmatised. Because of the determined campaigning of anti-racism activists, many of us learned to treat each other with respect. Each generation, the evidence suggests, was more accepting than their parents. Yes, there has always been backlash – the “political correctness gone mad” brigade – but the direction of travel seemed pretty obvious.

No more, though. I can already hear the howls of protest from Ukip supporters. Here is another desperate attempt to shut down any discussion of immigration by the metropolitan liberal elite, they will cry. Ludicrous, of course, given that immigration has been one of the central issues of political debate for years now. Let’s keep on having that debate, but make sure all voices are heard. As other commentators have noted, it is actually those who resist the political elite’s desperate scramble to outdo each other on anti-immigration rhetoric who are shouted down.

(...)

A few months ago, the British Social Attitudes survey suggested public attitudes on race had gone backwards. Racist incidents in the NHS were reported to have dramatically jumped at the end of last year. These are warnings that we need to heed.

Beef Oven, do you not recognise yourself and your talk of breaking (nonexistent) taboos in this?

[Beef Oven!]

[QUOTE=MrGongGong;444080]

They are BUT why would you want these undemocratically elected organisations control the way things happen in the world ?

They don't, they sell us cars.

The point being that the thing that is "taboo" is talked about all the time?

Get outta here, white liberals squirm and then experience a bout of politically correct-induced obsequiousness.

Talked about all the time? Even your idol, Lucier dedicated his seminal work "There's An Elephant Sitting In The Room" 1968 to this very subject!!

I think you might be needing the dictionary that Barrys Tea is so fond of

The Irish in me died out two generations ago!

One big problem IS that many of your fellow Kippers (and I'm not suggesting this is YOU) ARE obsessed with "race" and like to align themselves with rather nasty racist parties.

Aligning is the strong word for coopting a misguided, but rehabilitated politician onto your group because the EU fascists have plotted to take away your funding.

(to which you will do the "big boy did it and ran away" defence)

That sounds more like you matey!

and i'm not a "Marxist" I follow the way of Lucier

I never said are were a Marxist, I said you are victim of cultural Marxism (political correctness, to you)

[Richard Barrett]

the EU fascists

Farage's chums, you mean?

cultural Marxism (political correctness, to you)

Respect for one's fellow humans, to you.

[Beef Oven!]

Beef Oven, do you not recognise yourself and your talk of breaking (nonexistent) taboos in this?

Not even in the slightest.

Owen Jones' analysis, as usual, is the sepia-tinted nostalgic Marxist yearnings that he likes to go in for.

I enjoyed very much, his last two books, and I will eagerly buy his next one. But he is no more than a polemicist. I enjoy reading his romantic views on class and race, but at the end of the day, we cannot take him entirely seriously.

As a middle-class privileged lad (his own admission), who has moved to Hackney (to be cool?) I expect him to dive headfirst into cognitive dissonance the minute race or immigration rears its head.

He is completely denying the purpose of mass immigration (cheap disposable workers, for big business, driving down wages and maintaining super-normal profits for owners and shareholders). And of course having a sensible grip on who comes into your country and you doesn't, is anathema to OJ (and yourself) because he does see nation states and borders as legitimate, in the first place.

You may recognise me in that OW quote, because you put me there. I don't, because it's pure polemic.

P.S. and if that's 'the kind of thing you've been trying to say', at the risk of sounding patronising, I think you could do a better job yourself, anyway.

[Richard Barrett]

As a middle-class privileged lad (his own admission), who has moved to Hackney (to be cool?) I expect him to dive headfirst into cognitive dissonance the minute race or immigration rears its head.

And this from someone who gets hot under the collar when ad-hominem remarks are directed at him. Anyway: you have indeed been sneering at "political correctness" (characterising it as "cultural Marxism" which as you'll know is a mantra of right-wing commentators who prefer to cleave to old-fashioned values like open racism, sexism, homophobia etc., NB not that I am accusing you of any of these), and you have also indeed been claiming that there's a "taboo" on discussing race and immigration whereas in fact the media (to name only this aspect of society) have never for a moment stopped mentioning it. Jones' article could be a portrait of you. If you don't recognise it maybe you haven't looked at yourself closely enough.

Regarding the "purpose of mass immigration", the economic impact of EU immigration into the UK is a contentious subject, as you know: there are arguments on both sides depending on how the data is collected, viewed and interpreted. But you say it yourself: it's big business that's actually behind driving down wages - the "free market" which Farage et al. are at least as committed to as their counterparts in the older parties. The idea that EU withdrawal is somehow going to stop big business from driving down wages in the UK, if that's what you're saying, is surely pure fantasy.

[visualnickmos]

Owen Jones' analysis, as usual, is the sepia-tinted nostalgic Marxist yearnings that he likes to go in for.

What rot! I wish there were more like Owen Jones.

and as for "sepia-tinted nostalgic Marxist yearnings" do you mean you prefer your "black-shirted nostalgic yearnings?" I had no idea the Daily Mail could be that damaging to one's health!

[Beef Oven!]

And this from someone who gets hot under the collar when ad-hominem remarks are directed at him. Anyway: you have indeed been sneering at "political correctness" (characterising it as "cultural Marxism" which as you'll know is a mantra of right-wing commentators who prefer to cleave to old-fashioned values like open racism, sexism, homophobia etc., NB not that I am accusing you of any of these), and you have also indeed been claiming that there's a "taboo" on discussing race and immigration whereas in fact the media (to name only this aspect of society) have never for a moment stopped mentioning it. Jones' article could be a portrait of you. If you don't recognise it maybe you haven't looked at yourself closely enough.

Regarding the "purpose of mass immigration", the economic impact of EU immigration into the UK is a contentious subject, as you know: there are arguments on both sides depending on how the data is collected, viewed and interpreted. But you say it yourself: it's big business that's actually behind driving down wages - the "free market" which Farage et al. are at least as committed to as their counterparts in the older parties. The idea that EU withdrawal is somehow going to stop big business from driving down wages in the UK, if that's what you're saying, is surely pure fantasy.

All you know about me, is that I want out of Europe, I see a properly managed national borders as a sensible policy and I can't stick political correctness. And of course that I, as a classical liberal, see UKIP as the best chance of getting the debate on all that going, and maybe even seeing it implemented. Why that puts me into your OJ portrait is a mystery to me. Please don't portrait me, or suggest that I haven't looked closely enough at myself.

And as we agree, it is big business that drives down wages. But their main tool in this for many years now, has been mass immigration - make no mistake. Withdrawal from the EU won't stop big business with its agenda, but it is a necessary pre-requisite to implementing a sensible management of Britain's borders.

[Beef Oven!]

What rot! I wish there were more like Owen Jones.

and as for "sepia-tinted nostalgic Marxist yearnings" do you mean you prefer your "black-shirted nostalgic yearnings?" I had no idea the Daily Mail could be that damaging to one's health!

I like Owen Jones very much. I too wish there were more OJs. But 'Chavs - The demonization Of The Working Class' for example reads like a series of Polly Toynbee and Guardian quotes, interlinked with bits of SWSO polemic! There's little by way of research or political analysis.

Your false dichotomy (you'll have MrGG and Pabsmusic on your back for that!) about the choice between sepia-tinted nostalgic Marxist yearnings and blackshirts, is a bit naughty.

I have never, ever, read a copy of the Daily Mail. I am ashamed to say that I have read that other polemical rag, The Guardian (incl bought and read yesterday's edition). But at least with the Guardian, it has a low circulation/readership.

[Richard Barrett]

You don't know anything about me. For all you know, I could have come into this world working class, born and bred in Hackney, the son of an immigrant, in an interracial marriage of 25 years, whose wife and offspring (his own flesh and blood) are muslims, who 'knows' a fair bit about bigotry, and approaches immigration and race as real issues, not polemical material.

I'm really not interested in your background, but if it's as you say things are even worse than I thought.