I thought, given the interesting reception my recent posts about Grenfell Tower and Climate Change received, that I may as well come out of the closet as a qualified fan of *some of* the ‘Alt-Right’.
The above video is provocative and mocking but y’know, boo-fucking-hoo. Non left-liberals have had to put up with far worse for decades on the BBC.
I don’t expect many on here to like videos such as this, but isn’t there just a tiny sense that maybe a pricking (insert own joke here) of an overly comfortable, complacent worldview mightn’t be such a bad thing?
Any informed rebuttals of the points made (however snarkily) in the video eagerly awaited, as well as more general comment about ‘no-platforming’, ‘generation snowflake’ etc.
There is some truth in what he says, here and there, but:
1: right-wing demagogues and left-wing demagogues coexist in echo chambers where they can get away with gigantic broad-brush generalisations and be applauded for it. The rest of us just muddle along.
2: the Finsbury Park attack happened in JC’s own constituency, just up the road from where he lives. Imagine the fuss if he’d stayed away.
3: *overdub squeaky voice here* I persist in believing with every fibre of my being that demonising all Muslims because of the repellent actions of a few is not the way forward, particularly when it pushes confused people into committing their own atrocities. I have no idea what is.
4: On the other hand, I persist in believing with every fibre of my being that Islamic terrorism and hate preaching is repellent and not to be excused under any circumstances. Just like him.
5: Which is generally the point at which I say to myself, fuck it Dude, let’s go bowling.*
Over and out.
*I rewatched The Big Lebowski the other day, which is why you’ve had it quoted at you twice in one week.
A fair reply Mike. I would however respectfully submit that your point below…
…doesn’t entirely accurately reflect the outlook of the BBC / C4 / Sky News / St. Gary of Lineker / even Piers-fucking-Morgan, who have often found that it is far easier and more palatable to their core constituency to have a Robinson or a Hopkins thrown in the stocks than to ask more searching questions. Andrew Neil is the magnificent exception that proves the rule.
You’re right, but see point 1.
OK I lasted about twenty seconds with that shitty video.
Let me spell this out S.L.O.W.L.Y. and C.A.R.E.F.U.L.L.Y using words of very little syllables.
– If a brown person attacks a predominantly white gathering, people like Douglas Murray, will write, in right wing media outlets, about how this represents a problem with Muslims as a whole.
– When a white person attacks a predominantly brown gathering, not necessarily Douglas Murray himself, but certainly the reporters who work for the outlets that he likes writing for, will use terms like “lone wolf” in their reporting or they will suggest that this person is potentially mentally ill.
– This is a double standard. Pure and simple. Brown people are held to have a collective responsibility for the actions of their nut jobs in a way that white people aren’t.
– Which is textbook racism pure and simple.
– Now my ad hominem moment.
– The person you have posted a video by styles himself as the UK representative of Infowars
– A website run by a guy who thinks that the Sandy Hook massacre was acted out by liberals and didn’t actually take place
– which is FUCKING REVOLTING.
– You have respect for a lickspittle of Alex Jones? REALLY?
– And “Non left-liberals have had to put up with far worse for decades on the BBC.” REALLY?
– The BBC’s Andrew Neil is a FUCKING CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER. Read his twitter feed. He’s also still a chairman in the company which produces The Spectator. Even though I admit he’s a damn fine interviewer, his obvious partisanship, I think, makes him unqualified to be a BBC interviewer. But he is. I have yet to write to The Guardian about this. Because, fuck it, even people at the BBC are allowed opinions. But given that I am not a whining right winger, I put up with this.
– Evan Davis, according to the London Review Of Books, was part of the economic team which came up with Thatcher’s Poll Tax. Pretty crap lefty then.
– Nick Robinson was the president of the tories at his university.
– Nigel Farage is on FUCKING SPEED DIAL.
– As is Fraser Nelson.
– When he left the BBC Jeremy Paxman admitted he was a tory. I am pretty certain that’s where John Humphrys political views lie though obviously, I do not actually know if this is the case.
– My point is, please. The BBC is not a hot bed of lefties in the slightest.
So to conclude
– That twat on that video is not pricking a complacent left wing view, he is pandering to a certain, idiot right wing view whilst pretending to be a victim himself.
– And here is my point. Right wing people decry the left, it seems to me, for claiming victimhood but they do this by actually claiming false victimhood for themselves.
– Seriously, fuck off. You genuinely can’t have it both ways. “You know who the real victims are? Rich white bankers” is idiotic forth division contrarianism of the worst kind.
About the only kind thing I have to say to you here Dougie, is at least you expect disagreement and to be rebuffed. I can’t tell if you expect to persuade people round to this point of view or if you are just trolling, and another grumpy fuck off from the likes of me is just something which you get some strange kick from. Literally the only reason I bother responding at all is because I like this site and the thought that it could turn into some awful reddit/4chan nightmare actually bothers me so I feel I should.
But this “pretty poor me, boo ho, lefties all pick on me and rule the world” shite spouted by the crybaby right is just the single most pathetic political movement in the world today. By a fucking mile.
Man up.
Precisely, very well said Gangle
So Boris Johnson or Michael Gove should expect an easy ride from Andrew Neil should they? Bollocks. You are again playing the man not the ball. Even Andrew Marr accepts the BBC has an in-built metro-liberal-left bias. Only employees of the Beeb near retirement like Michael Buerk feel able to air points like these.
You say you are defending the purity of this site. Well as I’ve said previously, I’ve seen countless posts on here that offend and depress me. The difference is – I don’t ask for those people to be silenced as you are very obviously implying should happen to me.
Nobody is saying you should be silenced – but *you* invited “Any informed rebuttals of the points made (however snarkily) in the video eagerly awaited” – and you got it as far as I can see. You asked for a shoeing and you got it.
If you find this site bereft of people that don’t Offend or Depress You then there is always the unregulated bear-pit of Twitter – where you can duke it out with the whole spectrum of political opinion (who will Offend and Depress you way beyond anything you’ll get in this relatively well-meaning ‘walled garden’)- or Facebook where you can chose the friends who read and respond to your views and Right Wing videos, and they can echo and reinforce your opinions and make you feel better.
If you didn’t get a good reaction here – well surprise surprise -this is a site dedicated to mainly music and pop culture – and by doing so leans toward Peace, love and understanding – now why would that be?
I FUCKING SAID HE WAS A DAMN FINE INTERVIEWER YOU PRICK.
Quit putting words into my mouth and if you must reply, reply to what I actually said rather than what you wish I say which you reckon feeds into your weird world view.
I don’t care if Andrew Neil is right wing. I think given his history he’s too partisan for the BBC. That is not the same thing as take him off air.
And I have given you ample evidence that the BBC is not the hotbed of lefties that you think it is.
And I am not telling you to shut up. I am telling you that you are full of shit and that I think your posts are flat out wrong and ill informed. That is not no platforming you or silencing you. It is calling you a crybaby though.
I think laying into Dougie rather than the video is not on. Be angry, don’t start insulting people.
While I agree broadly with you, I have to say your argument is devauled when you employ all caps insults, dude.
Fair comment. But I dislike having words put into my mouth and this somehow being a “Gotcha” of some kind, and sometimes actual genuine irritation comes through. Few things annoy me more than the “alt right.” Call them what they are, which is the “cry baby” right.
Where’s the “like” button?
It is my contention that the optimum state for a harmonious future world is that “in-built metro-liberal-left bias” that you find such difficulty accepting.
Therefore your adherence to a harder, rightist view, while it saddens and wearies me, does not have any effect on my view, which is case-hardened in this respect.
The end.
Funny how one person’s conspiracy theories are another’s plain honest truth. A week before the election Paxman called May “a blowhard who collapses at the first sign of gunfire” on liveTV, but that doesn’t suit our story so we ignore it. We prefer to concentrate on his 2014 answer to Boris Johnson’s question “Are you the last Tory at the BBC?” Paul Mason, whose unbiased reporting for Channel 4 influenced many of us, is now openly hard left – so which was doublespeak, him them or him now?
Davis worked for the Institute of Fiscal Studies and was briefly seconded to work on shaping a new local taxation scheme. For not refusing the posting and leaving his job, we decide everything he has said in the 30 years since can be discounted.
Both left and right-wing social media commentators do this, so it’s not a criticism of any individual. Thank god we have the BBC to give us a balance between the two.
Spot on. Hilarious how the BBC having been condemned as rabidly anti- Corbyn (not least in the often grotesque trolling of Laura Kuennsberg) appears now to be metropolitan liberal lefties sticking it to the Tories.
Alex Jones is an all round 100 percent fully certified cunt. Anyone who willingly associates themselves with him and his right wing fever swamp website is also a cunt.
Kind of feel like I’d have saved myself about 5 paragraphs if I’d just said “Up” to this.
*frantically searches for “up” button*
Dougiej,Dougiej,Dougiej.
What are, we going to make of you.
😜
It felt very unsettling listening to that. I feel like I need a shower.
I was going to respond but the more I read @ganglesprocket‘s post, the more it became apparent that I would just be saying the same thing.
Exactly. I will just add that video literally made me want to vomit.
Seriously. Why does anyone treat every one they meet on social media an immediate enemy?
I didn’t watch it. I didn’t listen to it. I didn’t have to.
Ok, fair do’s. In hindsight I maybe shouldn’t have posted the OP here but again I would make the point that on this site there are plenty of political threads and comments therein that I have vehemently disagreed with. I’ve either ignored these or said my piece as I’ve seen fit. What I’ve never done is to become outraged and use the ‘how dare you post this stuff on a music site’ tactic. Anyway, that’s all from me on contentious topics for now.
Dougie, it’s not a question of contrary opinions, it’s a question of quality control. I *like* the Spectator, for example – but this alt-right conspiracy theory stuff is just shite.
I’m genuinely angry over their Sandy Hook nonsense. To go to a parent grieving over the death of their child and claim it is some sort of scam, that they are pretending to mourn at an empty grave… Theae people are objectively vile.
Ok fair comment, but I’d just point out that the video in the OP isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s a polemic (as the likes of Michael Moore do on the other side) highlighting what he sees as an inconsistency in how issues like this are covered.
I have never knowingly watched an Alex Jones video but from what I’ve read this morning he does indeed seem to be a (insert pejorative term of choice here).
But many of you will know I am a huge admirer of Martin Samuel. Does that mean that I slavishly follow everything else in the Mail, or even read most of it? No. I even disagree with Samuel occasionally (he’s a staunch Remainer for example). Equally, I disagree with the Guardian’s editorial position on most things but I’ve even enjoyed the occasional piece in that esteemed organ.
Finally, again 😉 I think if there wasn’t such a stultifying culture of ‘you can’t say that’ about legitimate questions such as mass migration then we wouldn’t have the ‘wrong sort of people’ airing their views.
Michael Moore is also a gobshite and just as much to be ignored.
Well put, but I somehow doubt I’d have had quite the vitriolic reaction I’ve had if I’d posted one of his efforts on here.
I have no problem with you posting this Dougie; on the contrary. That said I think it’s a ludicrous and loaded polemic. Using a few prats tweets to sound off about ‘the left’ or ‘the right’ as if they were single blocks is to build nothing on sand. I have heard no serious politician or media outlet describe Islamist terrorism as anything other than what it is. This includes Corbyn. I hold no brief for him, but in, for example, arguing that our foreign policies in the Middle East may have an impact on our vulnerability to such terrorism – whilst not for one nano second excusing it – he was simply stating the obvious.
As for the Finsbury Park attack everyone from May to the BBC, The Times, Corbyn et al did indeed fall over themselves to describe it as a terrorist attack because they were rightly sensitive to the risk of presenting something like this as somehow less awful than attacks by Islamists. By the way I haven’t seen anyone suggest that far right terrorism is as much of a threat as Islamist – another straw man the guy on the video seems to think is it clever to knock down. But we should all be outraged about a violent attack on an innocent group of people for no other reason than that they are Muslim. And in the present climate such attacks – and Islamophobia – are real dangers we should all be trying to prevent as much as we should any other kind of hate crime or terrorism.
I lasted 20 seconds. He is just taking a view that supports his prejudices. No one (I know of) is talking of loving terrorists. Just victims and innocent people caught up in the grief and society. If he can be so wrong, deliberately, in order to prove a point so quickly, I’m not keen to listen to the rest of it.
My question would be. Why do you want to believe this stuff?
Answer to last question: cos it pisses off liberals. I think it’s that simple.
Maybe. It’s a bit hopeless isn’t it?
We still love you, Dougiej. Remember that.
Wait, I’ve just noticed – without clicking play because I’m not jacking up some InfoWars eejit’s play count or adding an interest in these things to Google’s algorithmic profile of my viewing habits – that the face on the video still is Paul Joseph Watson. Is it his video?
If so, then it’s a LOL from me.
There’s a difference between an unnecessary ad hom and just immediately discounting a source based on provenance. In this case, PJW is a noted asocial attention-desperate shut-in, posting drivel from his mum’s back bedroom and never going outside (the latter by his own admission). This is the bloke that offered money to any “journalist” who was “brave” enough to spend a weekend in a multicultural area of Sweden, in order to back up Trump’s hilarious-but-not-actually-funny assertion that Sweden is a hotbed of constant Islamist murder. He was flooded with acceptances, then had to backpedal hard. From memory, he ended up sending some fellow-traveller from the alt-Nazi “community”, but I might be wrong. Either way, the whole thing was pretty funny.
He used – like Alex Jones – to be a garden-variety 911-truther/lizards/Icke-style conspiracy theorist, but – again like Jones – realised that there’s more clickbait to be had in cosying up to the extreme right. Anything he says can reliably be discounted unless thoroughly corroborated by a someone who doesn’t have form for making shit up out of whole cloth.
By the way, I worked in Finsbury Park for nearly 5 years. The idea that it’s some terrifying alien den of Other, where white people fear to tread – pah. I regularly made house calls on its estates, taught its kids (yes, lots of them were Muslims), cajoled its parents, got drunk in its pubs and walked home unsteadily on its streets. The worst thing that ever happened to me in 5 years was some scrote trying to snatch my phone outside the tube, and then shitting himself when I instinctively tightened my grip so he couldn’t, then chasing him down the road.
I’m not having a fraction of a man like PJW even begin to talk about it. He knows fuck all.
Oh, incidentally, before anyone decides that “I would say that cos kneejerk bleeding-heart lefty”, I spent some hours getting grief from random strangers on Twitter the other day. The reason? They were doing the whole “why won’t the MSM* call the Finsbury Park attack terrorism? If it was a brown person, they’d waste no time calling it terrorism!”
I pointed out that this was balls, and that all media outlets – including FOX, FFS – were indeed calling it terrorism, and that the Met designated it as such within 8 minutes of being notified of it. I backed this up with screenshots. I had to, because two people in particular from the Left told me in no uncertain terms to shut up, because they’re experts, and they KNOW, for a FACT, that there’s a horrid right-wing media conspiracy to deny white terrorism when it happens, which is patently false.
(However, it is fair to say that the words “mentally ill” and “lone wolf” never come within 500 miles (or 500 more) of the reporting when a brown person does something terroristy.)
Re. the Beeb, as always I say this: when both the hard left and hard right accuse it of bias in favour of the other, it’s probably about right.
*like “false flag”, the use of the phrase “MSM” is now becoming a nailed-on indicator that the writer is a div.
I too lived for a year in Finsbury Park. The worst thing to happen in that time was Arsenal celebrating the double, it was awful! I got up early and went to Richmond for the day.
I don’t get/hear the BBC bias we’re always told exists. It completely passes me by.
All I can say is that if the organisation that gives me Radio 4, Radio 4 Extra, Test Match Special etc. is some sort of Metropolitan elite … firstly, where do I join? … and, secondly, wtf would I listen to if it wasn’t there?
I’ve never quite seen what’s supposed to be so bad about being a metropolitan elite, I have to say. From Athens on down, cities have historically been the places where the human magic happens. Where people live side by side with difference, and realise it’s not so different after all. After the invention of the seed drill, I’m struggling to think of a major bit of human progress that wasn’t cradled in a metropolitan context.
As for “elite”, I think it was either Hugo Rifkind or Alex Massie – those awful pinkos writing for their leftist propaganda rags The Times and the Spectator – who wrote that the rebellion against “elites” is really just some people’s dislike of the school swot writ large. Me, I *want* to be run by the elite. That’s what’s supposed to happen: the clever kids need to be in charge.
The clever kids are in charge, always have been. Not always in charge of the money or the government, but in charge of the human race – that’s the only reason we’ve got this far…
Oh I know, it’s the *resentment* of that fact that I don’t understand.
You’ll be okay to move back to Finsbury Park if you want, Arsenal will never do the double again.
You can’t win. Looking at the comments on the Mail (shocking habit, but sometimes I’m weak) the most recommended comment, not some fringe nutter but the most recommended comment, explained how the Finsbury Park atrocity was a ‘revenge crime’ and not terrorism. I can only imagine the comments which they didn’t think fit for approval.
On the BBC, I generally think that they set themselves up to be in favour of the government of the day, but try ball achingly hard to be inoffensive too. It’s not always a comfortable match. Then again, I also thought that Laura Kuenssberg decided early in the election campaign that her narrative was going to be ‘traditional Labour voters turned off by Jeremy Corbyn’. Every bulletin I saw seemed to have a voter how said that they had voted Labour all their life, but wouldn’t this election, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they advertised on Facebook, or maybe just called ahead to the local Conservative association to find them.
Feel free to take these comments as the virtue signals of a liberal, pseudo-metropolitan, echo-chamber dwelling pinko. I wouldn’t necessarily disagree.
Is “now becoming ” ?
Ha, yeah, point taken 😉
DisappointmentBob for President!
Prime Minister surely. I love the idea of a politician with the first name of Disappointment. Seems apt.
Almost a job description.
I put up with 65 seconds of that reprehensible twat’s rant. If you are sympathetic to his views @dougiej I pity you.
After the EU referendum result and Trump’s election I thought maybe I should take a look for content further afield and had a poke around on Brietbart, Infowars and a few others, but all I got was a sense that rubbing my eyes with bleach would be as productive. A highlight was Infowars blowing off Spingsteen’s support for Clinton because they had Rick Derringer. Yes, Rick Derringer.
It’s easy to live in your own self imposed echo chamber, but I’ve struggled to find anything that didn’t come with heaps of bigotry, or wasn’t just a recast of The Daily Mail hate fest. Best I could do / still do is an read the Sunday Times.
And the BBC – left leaning for sure in the past, but that’s long gone. Just contrast C4 news and Peston to emasculated BBC output.
BBC “left-leaning”. I remember their coverage of the Miners strike and laugh very, very hard.
I like the cut of your jib today Bob. Find myself agreeing with all of that.
Ha, sorry, I just deleted it. Decided I was going on a bit today! 🙂
Go on, go on, go on, go on….
Well I disagree that you should have deleted. There. Proof I am not just sucking up to Bob today!
Meanwhile, Dacre seems to be having a full on, front page hissy fit. You can catch most of it here without benefiting the Mail in any way
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/owen-jones-gleefully-brands-daily-mail-an-open-sewer_uk_594b7656e4b01cdedf0058cc
There’s much here to enjoy (“fascist left” caught my eye) but by far the most jaw dropping is this bit – ““Earlier this week, a Guardian writer attacked the Daily Mail for carrying comments by the controversialist Katie Hopkins. That was a lie. The Guardian and its writer know that Ms Hopkins has nothing to do with the Daily Mail, but works for Mail Online – a totally separate entity that has its own publisher, its own readership, different content and a very different world view.”
Well, that’s cleared that up then.
“The Guardian knows this, because the Mail has told it countless times, but, hey, why let a little lie get in the way of a good smear.”
They hate each other, Mail Online and the paper. Dacre thinks Mail Online is tawdry and downmarket; Martin Clarke thinks the paper is outdated and irrelevant.
It’s like the Guardian in reverse. The revenue generated by the rubbernecking clickbait on the Mail Online is keeping the whole group going in tough times, including the Daily Mail newspaper – so Dacre is rather biting the hand that feeds there. And don’t even mention the poisonous rivalry with the Sunday title.
Over at the Graun, the physical paper is dying on its arse because of the website.
…..but in general, bald men and combs….
The Daily Mail – The Mail Online – The Mail on Sunday …
Strewth! It would be a bleedin’ difficult “Spot the Difference” competition.
I’d want a good prize!
All that vitriol/sniping aimed at people who, presumably, are on your own side anyway is amazing, isn’t it?
No wonder the Dacres of this world all look old before their time.
Whatever they’re being paid, they deserve double, no, treble, just to save me from having to do it.
Bloke on Twitter this morning: ‘I feel for the Daily Mail – I’m a much bigger cunt online too.’
Could have been worse, @dougiej – try posting a video of the Mumfords with an approving comment and see what happens.
See this?
*taps tin leg*
I posted a good review of Sting back in ’13.
Never again.
Ye ken noo! As do I it seems 😉
What defines the word terrorism and what are its origins? It seems to me to be a fuss over a word that doesn’t necessarily mean very much. The press, politicians and public seem to be on agreement that its abhorrent why do we need to label it?
Not sure that’s really the point. The point is, whatever we call it, we’ve got to call it the same thing regardless of who’s doing it.
It’s not just murder or attempted murder. It has a distinct quality, and needs a distinct name. Since terrorism is the one we’ve got, we might as well stick with it and apply it fairly.
Seems like a reasonable question, though. When people leave bags about full of explosives it seems the principal objective is to kill people, but the secondary objective is to terrorise – to make people sh*t themselves when some dude steps of the train and forgets his bag, to force security to ban back packs at concerts and all the airport shenanigans which keep the possibility that something horrific could happen at any moment somewhere buzzing about in your brain even as you try to go about your mundane life. Mowing down pedestrians with a van might be gratuitous murder based on hate of another group or some ideology, but as an act of “terrorism” is it’s not going to cause folks walking along a footpath to be constantly wary of every approaching vehicle – it can’t be said be said to “terrorise” in the same way, non?
(With the obvious exception of the unfortunate witnesses, who I’m sure are traumatised beyond belief..)
Yeah, it would seem to me that in the absence of a group saying that we or our adherents did this, and they did it in our name, then what Osborne did was a hate crime. Maybe it doesn’t matter what you call it. I dunno.
Well, if the Finsbury Park thing wasn’t terrorism then neither was the Westminster thing, or Borough.
As for the group backing thing, I don’t think that’s required. IS love to claim responsibility for things that they had no direct involvement in. But if people (esp. the alt-right) are prepared to take them at their word and use phrases like “inspired by” and see IS radicalisation in every Islamist act of murder, then whether they like it or not the alt-right themselves have to take the same level of responsibility for their “inspriration” of people like this twat. Wanting to kill a lot of Muslims isn’t something that develops in a vacuum. He may have been acting alone, but something turns a garden-variety “complete cunt” (to quote his brilliant Cardiff neighbour) into someone who hates Muslims enough to want to mow lots of them down in a van.
As lots of people have mockingly said, lately – we need to ask what is radicalising these white men? Why doesn’t the white man community condemn and root out these people? Maybe we should be asking whether white men as a whole are too tolerant of the radicals in their midst. Maybe they tacitly approve of white male violence. 😉
Seems that the default position for IS/Al Quaeda etc. is to claim responsibility for everything whether they were actually involved or not. The default position for EDL etc. is to deny involvement in anything. About the same credibility for either.
The Taliban used to do this too.
A squaddie in Camp Bastion stubs his toe on the leg of his camp bed, and three hours later some beardie bastit is on YouTube claiming that this is “a famous victory for our brave freedom fighters in the holy war against the infidel foreigners”…
Terrorists ain’t what they used to be. You knew you were with the IRA. Mostly, you were buried in the middle of f***ing nowhere with no kneecaps, but at least you knew it was them!
Have an Up Bob – was going to post in similar vein but you’ve said it better than I would have done
I think the usage of the word “terrorism” has moved on beyond the original derivation “act or acts intended to terrorise”. There are other, more primary reasons that people do these things.
I certainly don’t think it sound to dismiss an act from being one of terrorism (in it’s general interpretation) just because no organisation planned it’s commission.
I guess. But we’re also hearing that anti-Muslim hate crime has risen. Why isn’t that terrorism too? (Albeit a more low-level, less damaging example.)
Sometimes you just have to chuckle at the brilliantly circular logic of one’s own echo chamber.
There’s a very common structure to alarmist protest that goes:
a) Massively Unlikely Bad Thing is going to happen!
b) (Massively Unlikely Bad Thing doesn’t happen)
c) We stopped Massively Unlikely Bad Thing happening!
For example, this Facebook discussion with some very dear, tub-thumping, barricade-manning friends of mine:
Friend A: Boris Johnson just had a car crash interview with Eddie Mair!
Friend B: It’ll be suppressed by the biased BBC!
Me (next morning): It’s third lead and Most Viewed on the BBC website
Friend A: They’re running scared! The cultural shift is happening, people!
Oh, why not wade in to this madness?
The problem with your opening argument Dougie is that you feel the need to make it in terms of provocation or confrontation: “The above video is provocative and mocking but y’know, boo-fucking-hoo…maybe a pricking of an overly comfortable, complacent worldview mightn’t be such a bad thing?” You’re making an assumption that to have reached a liberal perspective hasn’t taken reflection and work. That to maintain or evolve that perspective doesn’t require engagement, or action.
I’ve been voting for 25 years. I seem to buck the trend by becoming more left-leaning the older I get and the more money I supposedly have. I am not the person I was 10, 20, 30 years ago. I believe we’re all in this together. I can’t begin to fathom the difficulties that the people who become adults in the 2030s will face. I hope I’ll be a different person in 10, 20, 30 years time. It’s certainly not a virtue to never change your mind. I’m sure we would agree on that.
But yeah, if you’re going to start your argument by having a go, it seems to me you’ve already lost.
Peace & love.
Oh-kay. Rather tragically, I’ve spent a good half hour of my life transcribing the video in the OP, so people don’t have to add to the reprehensible individual’s page views. See below. Yes it’s a polemic but y’know, there’s plenty of this stuff on both sides. But some may wish to compare and contrast the text below with what dreadful hate speech they imagine lurks within. The first person to reply to my post – @mikethep, at least had the fortitude to actually watch the video and even conceded that ‘there was some truth in what he says, here and there’.
But the vast majority of other responders have, with respect, committed the logical fallacy of dismissing him out of hand because of who runs the channel the video is uploaded to, or because he ‘posts stuff from his mum’s back bedroom’. Thing is – Beelzebub himself could state that Glasgow is a post-industrial city in West Central Scotland with higher than average levels of precipitation and it wouldn’t be any less true.
Anyway – transcription in comment below.
A right-wing terrorist drove a van into a group of Muslims near a North London mosque.
Disgusting, tragic, reprehensible.
But wait – I thought the reasonable way to respond to terror attacks was just to unite and love everybody. Why is everyone so outraged? I mean surely we should just tweet ‘PrayFor’ hashtags, light candles, arrange pop concerts and sing Don’t Look Back in Anger?
Or maybe our main concern should be white people being stereotyped and harrassed. Maybe we shouldn’t antagonise violent right-wingers because they might get offended and carry out more attacks. Maybe we just aren’t giving violent right-wingers enough roles in movies. Maybe violent right-wingers just haven’t been hugged enough. Surely we should just carry on exactly as before. I mean that’s what happens after every other terror attack – so why change now?
But seriously, Islamic terrorists have killed 1263 people in the last 23 days alone. To equate the sporadic threat of right-wing terror with the mechanised, industrial level of bloodshed carried out in the name of Islam is intellectually dishonest and crass. Every death is a tragedy. Every attack is an outrage. But for the left to be selectively outraged about only this while making excuses every time there’s an Islamic massacre is rampant hypocrisy. In the time that people were reacting to this there were two more attempted Islamic terror attacks in London and Paris. Violent extremism of any kind is unacceptable, but the threat posed by right-wing terror and Islamic terror are clearly not comparable.
Displays tweet from random person – ‘my thoughts are with Manchester and the UK tonight, and I’m disgusted and unsurprised at Trump supporters exploiting this tragedy’
So he’s angry about people exploiting terror attacks for political gain. Wonder what he said about this one?
‘This is a terrorist attack. The perpetrator is a white terrorist. We need to say these things out loud as much as possible.’
Right, so not all Muslims are responsible for terrorism, and to even hint that there’s a connection between Islam and violence is racist, but the first thing you do after an attack by a white guy is to point out the colour of his skin to collectively demonise white people.
Another tweet from a different random person:
‘Mainstream media – call it what it is. The FP attack was TERRORISM by a TERRORIST. Don’t downplay it because he’s white.’
Literally no mainstream media outlet is calling this anything other than a terror attack, you utter moron.
The Independent actually called the Police on Tommy Robinson. More leftists are calling for Tommy Robinson to be arrested than have ever called for actual terrorists to be deported. Let that sink in. JK Rowling said that the terrorist was radicalised by – Katie Hopkins.
The assistant secretary of the Muslim Council compared Douglas Murray, the conservative writer who warns about the dangers of mass immigration, to Anjem Choudary – an open supporter of terrorism and a cheerleader for Isis. No. Not Comparable. Actual hate preachers directly call for violence. We’re trying to stop violence. Pretty big difference there.
Displays tweet from Brendan Cox:
‘When islamist terrorists attack we rightly seek out hate preachers that spur them on. We must do the same to those who peddle islamophobia.’
Oh you mean hate preachers like Anjem Choudary, who was given free rein and a platform on television for years to celebrate terror attacks. Hate preachers like Abu Qutada who was allowed to radicalise terrorists in Britain for over ten years before being deported. Hate preachers like Abu Hamza, who supported terror attacks, Osama Bin Laden and radicalised terrorists at the Finsbury Park Mosque for five years before he was arrested. Yeah – we really seek out hate preachers, don’t we? We really seek out the thousands of jihadists who roam our streets…no, we don’t. We don’t do any of that. Largely because the left has made it politically incorrect to do so.
The same people who said that nothing should change after endless terror attacks are now calling for all kinds of new laws. The same people who refused to say ‘Islamist terror’ jump at the chance to say ‘Islamophobic terror’. The same people who rail against surveillance of mosques are now calling for surveillance and imprisonment of journalists and commentators. The same people who say ‘keep calm and carry on’ are now saying ‘be afraid’.
No. You don’t have the moral high ground. Your insistence that terrorism be ignored has fanned the flames of extremism, on both sides. Because of the vacuum left by the refusal to implement actual, rational and legal solutions and genuine border security has been filled by desperate extremists. That’s on you. It’s not on me, it’s not on Tommy Robinson, it’s not on Katie Hopkins. It’s on you.
And who was the first on the scene to exploit the terror attack – within hours? Jeremy Corbyn. You know that’s odd because I don’t recall him visiting the scene of the London Bridge attack, Westminster or Manchester, looking sad.
Diane Abbott labelled this a terror attack within hours, while the Manchester one, which killed and maimed little kids? Just an ‘incident’.
Political violence of all stripes, be it right wing, left wing or Islamic, should be denounced. The Right disavows its violent extremists. The only institutionalised groups that have legitimised violence for political goals are on the Left and Islamists, and until that changes you’re not in any position to lecture us about violent extremism.
You know why I didn’t watch the video DougieJ? A bit like Mr Disappointment, but stronger.
I live near DC. I have, for my sins ventured into town for brunch. I really did it a lot when I was seeing a lass in town. One of the places we would go – and I think I’ve mentioned it before – was Comet.
The place that Alex Jones managed to get shot up. (Incidentally, the shooter went down for 4 years today)
Here’s what your video making chum said at the time: “Our main concern after the Comet Pizza gunman incident should be the harassment and abuse of other #PizzaGate researchers.”
You know what? He’s a cunt. There’s enough bad shit happens around here without the sort of stuff that he creates or adds to. So, no, I won’t increase his click count by watching his video. And fairly or unfairly, and I tend to think ‘fairly’ myself, I won’t give the time of day to anyone who supports him. He’s not only a cunt, he’s a dangerous one. So thanks for that Dougie.
Well said.
Well it’s a clear position and that’s fine if that’s what works for you.
We’ll have to agree to differ.
Personally I judge something on its own merits regardless of where it is posted / published. Your first thought seems to be to look to the funding, backing etc.
Here’s an example:
Nick Cohen and Matthew Parris are columnists I admire, even though I disagree strongly with many of their views. For example – I’m with Cohen on his stance that the Left has ventured into some very murky waters in recent years / decades, particularly in its your-enemy-is-my-enemy approach to Islam but disagree with his stance on CAGW (true believer) and Brexit (staunch Remainer).
If I may say so (and I think I may) the approach that you and many others take is to not even engage in the debate at all if you feel it comes from a source you believe to be unworthy of your attention. As I’ve commented previously – we may fantasise about intellectually sparring with learned, cultured folks with the right opinions but that’s sadly not always possible.
Like I said above – a logical fallacy.
It’s not a logical fallacy. It’s refusing to give credence to the opinions of someone with a nasty agenda whose entire track record is one of one-sided exaggeration, propaganda and outright fiction. Giving him houseroom in your head isn’t open-minded: it’s gullible and silly. (By the way: my issue with him is that, not his mum’s back bedroom, as you well know. The fact that he’s a pathetic wee shut-in is just local colour.)
Plus, when it comes down to it – consider the purpose. Is he trying to unite, or trying to divide? To heal or to hurt? No argument can be made for the former in either case.
Would you listen to what Anjem Choudhary has to say? Stroke your chin? Say “Hmm, yes, some compelling points there, Anjem”? Course you wouldn’t. If you did, you would be an appeaser and an idiot. Same goes for this man, and for Katie Hopkins. Yes: they are as bad as each other.
Oh God, where to begin with this.
You know one of the things they teach you when you study history – all those factors that you just listed as being worthy of being ignored. Is it primary or secondary evidence? Where does it come from? What are the possible sources of bias of this source.
Some poor soul is doing 4 years right now because of this guy and his friends. A good business is suffering because of it. Staff at that business have been traumatized. You honestly can’t see the knock on effect of this? The more he gets clicks, the more prominent his videos can become – more people get exposed to his vile ideas. And then maybe it isn’t Comet. Maybe it’s the Democrat baseball team who get shot up at the Y in Alexandria. Hey fun fact – some of the kids I coach go there. Still, if they get shot, at least it was because people had watched those videos with an open mind, so that’s OK.
You’re the little kid running around screaming “watch this! watch this!”
“What is it little DougieJ?”
“It’s a really interesting video on why the Earth is only 6000 years old. I think we should at least consider the idea”
“Little DougieJ, is this from the fundamentalist Christian sect who also think that homosexuals should be forced to go through conversion therapy and that the races shouldn’t mix and that women shouldn’t work? Them?
“Yes. You should approach them with an open mind”
Little DougieJ, you have to apply some judgment. Are these people serially wrong? Do they have a track record of lying and misleading? Do they promulgate dangerous ideas? Do they ever acknowledge a mistake? Because, Little DougieJ, that’s called using your judgment. It’s what grown ups do. One day Little DougieJ, one day. Oh, and that guy? He’s still a cunt. And people who encourage him bear some of his guilt. And lastly wee guy, if you post shit up, don’t be surprised if people call it shit to your face. That’s another thing that adults do”
Best post on here for a long, long time.
OOAA. And mine is that this ‘reply’ from sitheref2409 is patronising beyond belief. Yes I would say that. The point in my posting the text was to point out that from the responses to the OP (from people who admitted they could only watch a tiny portion of it) you’d have thought he was calling for all muslim first borns to be drowned alive in a vat of fine olde English best bitter of the kind favoured by Nigel Farage.
But despite all the hysterical ad homs flying all over the place, the fact remains that what this video is saying (yes in a sneering, snarky, nasty way) is something that I agree with. The left (particularly the Galloway / Livingstone / Corbyn faction) has made a dangerous accommodation with radical Islam in recent years. Nick Cohen’s book ‘What’s Left?’ brilliantly covers this disturbing (at least to me anyway) trend. This has been enabled by a wider sense that to be thought racist is the Worst Thing in the World, and people across the centre left and centre right have bent over backwards to avoid causing offence. This has led to rampant hypocrisy, contradictions and conflicts with traditional left liberal causes like feminism and gay rights. Inexplicably, they have largely chosen the side of radical Islam. The grooming gangs scandals in Rochdale and elsewhere are probably the most notorious example of this.
To point out that the left has been hugely conflicted on issues like this is not as mainstream as I’d like it to be but to try and make out that what he’s saying in the OP is some outrageous fringe view is just false.
As I’ve said many times, the OP is a polemic done in the style of Michael Moore’s kind of schtick. It’s not as if I claimed the guy was the fount of all knowledge on this issue. We’ve heard all kinds of outrageous claims from (***trigger warning –
pejorative term approaching***) Social Justice Warriors for years but particularly in the last few weeks and months. ‘Theresa May has blood on her hands over Grenfell’ to name but one.
Sauce for the goose and all that. No, this does not mean that I’ll be posting vids like this on here again or that because I found the one in the OP to be quite well put together and, to be honest, pretty accurate that I share all the views of the alt-right. Far from it. My exact words in the OP were that I am a qualified fan of some of the alt-right, and I still stand by that. The to my mind hysterical reactions to this kind of satire on this thread and elsewhere have been an eye-opener for me, and to think I’m the one that’s been called a crybaby. Not quite sure how that accusation stands up – if you look back through my responses not once have I said ‘Sir – everyone’s being mean to me. Please make them stop!’ sitheref2409’s above comment is surreal but hey, maybe I just don’t recognise the ‘best post on here for a long, long time’.
Thing is, if you do believe all that about the Left being too accommodating of Islam, you’ve just articulated it far better than that drivel you transcribed. I’m sorry, but it really is utter whiny bollocks, long on windbaggery and short on things like substantiation and attributions. It’s asinine juvenile shite from beginning to end. Maybe there is a discussion to be had about the issue, but if so it isn’t this one.
You know why it was patronizing? Because you’re the person with the moral value system and intellect of an alt-right believer who gives publicity to a dangerous prick like Watson.
There are tons of debates to be had between left and right. The challenges of Islam and Zionism; gun control; what social equity really means; capitalism versus a center left economic model.
These are serious questions to be discussed by serious people, with a full and free exchange of ideas and values.
What we shouldn’t be doing is indulging people like this dick – for (hopefully) the last time, he’s dangerous. He kept proposing the idea of a pedophilia ring operating in the basement of a business THAT DOESN’T HAVE A FUCKING BASEMENT. The end result of which was someone going in there tooled up and shooting the shit out of it. Do I sound irate? Good, because I fucking well I am. I have brunch there. I could have gotten shot. That sort of thing DOES disturb me. A Congressman got shot at the same gym that some of the kids I coach go to. There is an atmosphere of antagonism right now, and that dick you follow and think I should indulge is a key mover in it.
Have you looked at his track record at all and considered your position? Have you looked at his lies? And lies? And more lies? His backtracking? Have you? Because if you have, and you still posted that, then you are beneath contempt.
If you haven’t, then I suggest you do so. Oh. Wait. You’re a qualified fan of the alt-right. That’s a bit like saying you’re a bit of Nazi. Much like DoctorJ, the older I get the more liberal I lean – but with an open mind to the issues in front of me.
That fuckknuckle isn’t worthy of any reasonable person’s time. As I’ve said before, he’s a cunt. And since, by your own admission, you’re a qualified fan of the alt-right, I can say with no fear of libelling you, you’re also a qualified cunt.
Wowsers!
While I’m not remotely conceding the point, I can’t engage in this thread anymore. All I can do is to leave people to make their own judgements about how I’ve responded to comments and the CAPS LOCK abuse I’ve received from many, which, to be fair, one or two people have been decent enough to point out. Over and out.
C’mon Dougie you must have known when you started it that this was the only way this thread could end. I’d have preferred it if no one had picked up the gauntlet, just met that video with the silent contempt that, ironically, many of them have said it deserves. People get very brave with a crowd behind them and sooner of later someone with applause still ringing in their ears from their last response will call you a cunt. So then the aggressor becomes the victim and the moderate voices are embarrassed by their own extremists. As my mum used to say when us kids used to squabble; you’re all as bad as each other.
Well said that man.
I’ll also just add, reading the shit spouted by Mr Watson is no less unpleasant than watching him. Shit remains shit.
Dougie, he’s a racist hate preacher. Comparing him to Nick Cohen or Matthew Parris is a flat out insult to Cohen and Parris.
The alt right seems to be a movement split between ghastly self promotors, actual racist hate preachers and sad young men angry that girls say mean things about their computer games and then wont have sex with them. They are simply the most pathetic specimens with a public profile in the world today. I don’t engage with their ideas because they have none worth engaging with.
You are very intellectual the lot of you, but if you do not concede doubt on your argument then it just becomes an idea for academia. It solves nothing but to inflate yourself. You don’t want to be a fatty sweaty no neck do you?
Sometimes, Bri, in the middle of a really interesting/provocative discussion you make me want to come out to The Island and do you severe damage. Love & Peace
That’s not very nice.
Apologies – trying to be funny under a combination of wine & painkillers was not a wise idea…
Here’s the other thing that hasn’t come up. Sincerety.
Love you, Lodestone.😉
Curveball.
“Israel” is the problem. Who’s up to solving it?
Israel was once considered to be the problem. But it could be “solved” to the satisfaction of both sides and still IS and the rest would want to kill us.
They hate us because they hate us. Politics has very little to do with it, which is why comparisons with the IRA/NI are a mistake.
Well done for falling for it, fellow AWers.
The general guidlines for the site clearly state ‘ Don’t feed the trolls’.
Just because you have a vocubulary doesn’t mean you aren’t a troll & Dougie clearly just outed himself.
I thought it was on the cards with the previous Grenfell Tower comment mentioning something along the lines of ‘ the unfortunate rolling back of Friedmanism’ – nobody specifically bit then, so in predictable fashion, the troll is obliged to push harder next time & from what I see, there are now some pretty upset people & a nice bit of division has been sown.
I’ve been away from the site for a few days & I have not watched the OP video OR read most of the thread. I don’t need to. The original post has succeeded in generating more heat than light which is the intention.
Fuck debating with any section of the alt right. How many steps do you think it is before you find the David Irving fan club, or the ‘US Civil War was about States rights’ crap?
I recall the biggest periods of upset on this blog were when previous charming trolls successfully stirred the shit to the extent that a number of quality posters simply walked away, thus impoverishing the blog overall.
Stick to the guidelines & don’t feed the trolls. You know it makes sense.
Ah I genuinely think that’s unfair. I think Dougie is sincere – misguided but sincere. To call him individually a troll isn’t quite right, but as I’ve observed before, the entire alt-right is essentially purely a trolling movement. Anything that outrages “liberals” must be correct, is what it boils down to. There’s certainly more than a hint of that in Dougie’s posts, but I do actually think he really believes the world will be better when government is small enough to be drowned in the bathtub (and perhaps, given his sympathy to PJW, when western society is a monoculture of the type it has never ever been except in Steve Bannon’s fever dreams).
As Dougie has demonstrated, he wasn’t paying attention in history when they covered usefulness and reliabity of sources, so like many of his fellow travellers he appears to think that truth is a relative concept. So while I do think he’s onto a hiding to nothing despite his articulacy, I don’t think he’s individually a troll.
Dougie’s not a troll. If you’d read the thread you’d know that. He has deliberately introduced a controversial topic, but he’s stayed mostly polite, unlike others. We’ve had this discussion before – is the troll the person who lays down the gauntlet, or the one who picks it up, slaps themselves round the face with it and summons a mob to beat up the challenger? The answer is somewhere in between I think.
Having now watched the verbal excrement from the cretin in the video, and having read the thread in its entirety, I’m taken aback at my own earlier restraint.
Nobody can post that ‘as a starting point for discussion’ & not expect utter villification.
It is drivel & from a source whose fellow travellers would have been firmly on the side of Hitler & co. The world will never be completely rid of their kind even in good times, but in ‘interesting times’ like the present it is especially important not be fooled by them as they seek to pop up again with a ‘modern’ face.
There is very good case to be made for civil debate with those we disagree with – in order if nothing else to allow governance in political democracies to continue to function.
This however does not apply to the ”alt. right’. – they know what they’re about & if we don’t, more fool us.
I feel no need to consider the standpoint of the bacteria lurking in my loo, I just reach for the bleach.
Up, Mr Jungle, Up
I have been reading this all diligently once a day, delighted I don’t get so angry, disappointed sometimes I don’t, but the Galloway/Livingstone/Corbyn faction? What’s that then? Like the Thatcher/Farage/Heath faction, clutching 3 UK names from a similar ragbag of oversimplification. (And, yes, I know views have occasionally come together in the first 3 as they have/did in the last, but that don’t make ’em a movement.)
Yep. When someone starts talking about the ‘Left’ like it is some monolithic single minded lockstep thinking entity, it’s normally a pretty good indication that I can stop paying attention.
I tend to look hard at another person’s point of view to try and understand it. However, I’m stumped with these right wing conspiracy theorists. Considering the UK and the U.S. pretty much always have a ‘conservative’ government that believes in market forces, even when Labour or the Democrats are in power, what’s the beef? Why would the right wing Bush administration conspire to fake 9/11, for example? To make it possible to bomb Iraq? Doesn’t that help the arms industry? Don’t the right like guns? The only straw I can cling to is that when a government needs to be seen to be doing something about terrorism, they are inclined to introduce laws allowing invasion of privacy and restricting freedom for citizens to do as they please. Perhaps, the right thinks that is why governments fake attacks?
On another note, I have never heard anyone from the left defend Daesh inspired acts. Maybe I don’t listen in the correct places.
@DougieJ its probably best to walk away from this thread but not the site, I love your random football posts and stuff. There is always a risk here of rattling cages and has as been said, this subject, climate change and Grenfell is going to do that. I have no issues with people having an opposite view whether I agree or not. I’ve got myself in some right pickles of Brexit, Trump and May recently. The ones who disagree are generally more angry and have more time and energy. I hope you’re ok, words on here can hurt regardless of what the argument is and whether tour post was provocative or not. It can get personal and nasty some have an awful track record of abuse on here and need to look at themselves in the mirror before they let their bile loose again while commenting on someone they believe is a cunt. Have a song Dougie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycc6UCmS2Fs
not heard that for years – good stuff
30th anniversary of “Waking Hours” next year, there’s talk of a tour………
Just seen this thread, how unedifying.
Dougie has posted on here for years, always (as far as I’m aware) politely and with courtesy. He hasn’t just wandered in off the street trying to stir things up. If he says he has some sympathy for these views, I think he should be taken at face value.
For those who disagree (which, let’s face it, is virtually all of us), I’d suggest we at least attempt to respond in the same tone of general civility that Dougie has deployed throughout this “discussion”, often in the face of severe provocation.
I don’t agree with what’s said in that video. However, nor do I think it’s fair to make Dougie a proxy and punchbag for all the crimes of the alt-right movement. If a friend gets a daft idea in their head, you attempt to reason with them. You don’t take turns to jump up and down on their head.
I’d also query where the moderators are in all this. Either what Dougie has said here is totally unacceptable, in which case the OP should be removed and the thread closed, or it’s not, in which case shouldn’t he be entitled to the same basic level of courtesy afforded to everyone else by the blog’s posting guidelines?
I really, really don’t see what’s achieved by calling someone a cunt and ostracising them. Particularly in the name of keeping this a nice, friendly place.
OOAA
Yep.
“Daft Ideas”? That’s it, I’m outtahere
i agree
It’s hard not come to the conclusion that anyone who thinks there is even a modicum of truth in what that dreadful video tries to portray is a c**t. However, based on Dougie’s previous postings ,many of which were funny and/or thought-provoking, it seems impossible that he is indeed a c**t.
My own feeling, whatever that is worth, that Dougie expected these reactions and also expected the (admittedly offensive) swearing as well as the character assassination thus no Moderator intervention needed?
Cheers for the comments from many of you. I haven’t flounced off the site, just decided I can’t get involved in this thread anymore. Look, at the end of the day, I probably shouldn’t have posted it here but I genuinely didn’t do it purely to wind people up. I knew it was controversial and I’ve tried to answer points made throughout as best as I can. That’s all I can say. Peace.
Don’t go, don’t nobody go. The only echo chamber that’s worthwhile is the one at Lee Perry’s Ark.
Here’s what the Alt-right propose:
White nationalism.
Nativism.
Islamophobia.
“Its members reject the American democratic ideal that all should have equality under the law regardless of creed, gender, ethnic origin or race” – Associated Press.
Opposition to miscegenation.
Anti immigration, both legal and illegal.
Attacks on Jewish Community Centers.
That list is not complete, but exemplary.
As I have said before, I believe that there is room for – in fact, there must be – debate between the right and the left. Neither side is completely right. But these are serious ideas that should be discussed rationally and with thought.
DougieJ came on here and a) posted that video and b) said that he was a qualified supporter of the alt-right. It might be easy to attach to these ideas in the UK, where politics is (still) relatively mainstream. For those of us in the countries where that group is increasingly to the fore, it’s a very different reality, and a worrying one.
I’m left with two possible conclusions:
DougieJ hasn’t done any real research into the alt-right, who they are and what they believe, and just attached himself to an ‘awkward squad’ label. If that’s the case, then his posting and his statements are pretty damn shoddy.
Or he has done the research and posted his statement of support anyway. If that’s the case, I stand by my statement, and ask – specifically, which bits of the alt-right do you support and which do you reject?
oh FFS. I’ve answered at length on this. I agree with pretty much all of the polemic in the OP and have said so clearly. That said, however much I agree with his points in the video I have also said (twice) that I probably shouldn’t have posted it on here as it is inflammatory (even though, like I’ve said, I’ve seen plenty of what I could view as inflammatory posts on here from a different perspective to mine and I have never reacted in a remotely similar way to some of the responses I’ve had on here from you and others).
I’ve watched a few other vids by the same guy about responses to Islamist terror and the left-liberal response to this and broadly agree with those too. He’s also made a couple of interesting vids about things like internet censorship and one in particular (the truth about popular music) – about the dumbing down of pop and the fact that about 4 super-producers create just about all of what we used to call ‘the charts’ – that many on here would agree with. I’m not interested in any of the conspiracy theory vids etc.
That was the kind of thing I was referring to. I never said anything close to that I thought the alt-right were correct on all issues. I just raised the thought that *some* of what they say might be a welcome corrective to a stultifying media consensus on issues which need to be addressed.
Clear enough for you? If not, then tough, frankly.
As it is unlikely that I will post on topics such as these for the foreseeable future I may as well put the tin lid on things by signposting my influences on this same thread.
Mark Steyn interviewing Douglas Murray – uploaded this very day.
I accept that Steyn is a bit of a Marmite character but while not agreeing with his every utterance or the style of presentation he sometimes uses, I do feel he is a very articulate advocate and someone worth listening to.
Murray I would endorse pretty much without caveat. Have just started reading his book The Strange Death of Europe and he is someone not easily dismissed as a swivel-eyed bigot, despite the best efforts of many.
That’s more like it blud.
DM is someone I disagree with a lot but at least he’s a fucking grown-up.
Actually, this is what you said, which is a tad different from what you just posted:
“My exact words in the OP were that I am a qualified fan of some of the alt-right, and I still stand by that.”
(Which, by the by, is not what you put in your OP)
Oh dear. How behind the times I am. I thought it was still inappropriate to use the word ‘cunt’ as a term of abuse, but apparently not.
Not when it comes to these cunts.
One of the central planks of the US Alt-Right is their very deep hatred of women, usually expressed in “Dapper-Laughs-But-Not-Even-Pretending-It’s-A-Joke” terms. Calling such people “cunts” is… kind of ironic.
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0043680/mediaviewer/rm4258138368
Ok folks, if any of you are annoyed at any language I used in my contributions here, let me explain myself.
In the OP there is the sentence “The above video is provocative and mocking but y’know, boo-fucking-hoo.” This contains both a provocation along the lines of “you metropolitans can’t handle the content” and indeed an actual swear word.
Both of these facts allow me to use profane language in any reply because it was invited in the OP. He’s being provocative and sweary so I can be to. Had he not been then I wouldn’t have been either.
When I called Dougie a prick, this was entirely because, in his subsequent reply he had, in my opinion behaved like a prick by putting words into my mouth. You don’t get to be provocative and then try to twist the subsequent argument into something you would prefer it to be. You have the courtesy to engage with my actual point. If you can’t then, if I may again quote the OP “fucking boo hoo.”
And I replied only because, like the others, I don’t consider Dougie to be a troll. I do think he believes this shit, which is why I generally suggest he takes it to a forum which appreciates it.
But people grumbling about the tone? It wasn’t set by me or anyone else who weighed in. That was set in both the OP and the video.
Up.
Yes, I think perhaps you’ve both made your positions clear by now.
Good to see the old “he started it” defence getting an airing. When they go low, we go lower.
Chiz, buddy. We’ve shut this one down.
😜
Well I have re-read this thread and I still can’t find where anyone called Dougie the c-bomb.
And my other observation is how a thread as potentially explosive as this one actually self moderates pretty well.
I did. It was a qualified statement, but I did.
Oh. I missed it in that context. I knew you had dropped the c-bomb. I couldn’t stand more corrected if I tried.
If there’s one thing worse than a PITA crackpot it’s a PITA crackpot troll who, no matter how many times their arguments are refuted, persists in spouting them at length, over and over again and at the drop of a hat. Anybody’s hat.
It might strike you as amusing for a little while that they can be so far off the plot, but eventually it stops being even remotely funny and just feels poisonous.
No matter what, they will never ever STFU.
The only rational response is to just let them chunter on to themselves and by themselves and occupy yourselves with other things. That’s difficult to do, but it’s the approach I’m going to attempt.
Well only after reading all the contributions here did I bother with the video. The most annoying thing for me was him saying right /left wing-er rather than winger. Why?
I did think “Let me spell this out S.L.O.W.L.Y. and C.A.R.E.F.U.L.L.Y using words of very little syllables” was an incredibly patronising way to start a post (actually should it have been “few syllables”?) .
The idea that some posts are acceptable for the blog and some should be posted elsewhere is a slippery slope. I’m a leftie but I don’t think lefties have a monopoly on the love of music. Ever since all this heated political debate came on the blog- Brexit, elections it has sapped a lot of the goodwill and in some instances driven people off the blog who may have had views of a less liberal bent.
Simply apply it where it hurts!
Hahaha!😂😂😂
I have no idea what this means.