bobbins

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/10/25/wa...sters-to-nazis/

Adam Boulton, what a cunt.

The Guardian leader is worth a read. Highlighting the failures of local authorities to provide anywhere near sufficient sites for travellers in accordance with human rights law.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...rm-pitch-battle

The scenes from Dale Farm yesterday morning were stomach-churning. The vivid images that will stay in the mind were of young mothers fleeing with babies in their arms, of old ladies frightened faces lit by blazing fires. Violence of this kind demands explanation. On the face of it, the case is entirely straightforward. The Travellers have broken planning laws by setting up, albeit on land they owned, homes for which they do not have planning permission. Basildon council's right to send in the bailiffs has been exhaustively contested in the courts.

 

Although the strength of yesterday's police response, which included the first ever use of tasers in crowd control, will raise difficult questions, the proportionate use of force was sanctioned in law: and it should be remembered that the sympathisers with the Travellers, if not the Travellers themselves, were ready to use force too. There is almost nothing good to be said for the long and miserable saga that has culminated in the eviction of 80 families from their homes

So there's a secret bankers conspiracy to go to war with anyone who doesn't bank with them, and the whole muslim terrorism, oil, urge for living space for the german people, every other historical reason behind the major wars was just a conspiracy by bankers who secretly rule the world?

He didn't actually say anything even approaching that.

But that's not why he went though, the media are having a few hints about it, cos it makes the story a bit juicier. But him lying about what the bloke was up to, and the clear shadyness of the whole set up. Whether he not he took it up the ass from him doesn't come into it.

Exactly, it's been quite frustrating to hear the BBC refer to "allegations about his private life". It's not about his private life, it's about massive corruption.

OK, at first glance it seems daft to take money off people just to give it back again;

Yes, yes the tax credit system is daft - plus it's expensive to manage, prone to error and quite often didn't actually work, with people not understanding the system and being screwed out of their rebates. It's exactly the sort of system that Labour used to love - one that purported to be progressive but was actually a big waste of money and a creator of unnecessary levels of bureaucracy. Spend money collecting tax, then spend more money giving it back. Brilliant.Raising the lowest tax threshold, however, is incredibly simple to do and helps ALL tax payers. It's money in people's wage packets every month, not something possibly winging its way back to you when the pencil pushers get round to it.Government needs to be fair, and it needs to be efficient.

as long as the system is doing everything in its power to keep wages as low as possible.

This would be the same system that instituted a guaranteed minimum wage, right? No more people working for

As long as we're living under this system of neo-liberalism, the problem of it not paying to work instead of signing on will always be there. At the moment you have the Hobson's choice of working your arse off and scraping by or going on the dole and scraping by. Our society and political system is set up to depress wages and living standards, to remove labour rights and to suck all the wealth out to be ferreted away by a handful of billionaires. A million different reforms of the welfare state are never going to solve that problem as long as the system is doing everything in its power to keep wages as low as possible.

The only alternative solution that could make it worthwhile to work, involves shoving vulnerable people on to the streets, creating ghettos, demonising the underclass and then locking them up, removing access to free healthcare, creating a two-tier education system and the destruction of the idea of a fair and civilised society with equal opportunities for all. And funnily enough, that's the solution that the Tories and Libs are trying to put in place right now. Abandoning neoliberalism is not on the cards. It's a race to the bottom so the top 1% can continue to acquire grotesque wealth at the expense of the other 99%.

Pat's experiences with DWP and with the call centre should be a massive wake up call politically. That isn't down to individual incompetence, that's deliberate policy.

And, does anyone really want Ed M in charge of the country, and Ed B in charge ofthe economy?

Yeah, who needs two genuine heavyweight intellectual economists when we've got PR guru Cameron and whatever the fuck Gideon is supposed to be?

Bobbins is alright, he's just too earnest at times, and so fails to distinguish between actual casual racism and someone making a joke about casual racism.

I don't really get the joke if that's true (and you've got to agree pretty bad taste given the context of what's going on), but I'll take your word for it.

Butch, I don't get the complaints about using too many long words and shit, I just try to communicate as well as possible. That's not my strong point. I'm not exactly Will Self though.

In fact, a quick scan over the last couple of months of my posts and I couldn't find anything that fit your description. I used "egalitarian" and "false consciousness" at one point but nothing as pseudo-intellectual as "ethos" or "proactive". As for talking down to people, I turned into a sarcastic patronising sod for the purposes of repelling the flamebaiting idiocy of the RIOT thread. I don't think I've done that in pointing out my objection to a racist joke here. But you can't really blame people if they overreact to this kind of stuff. It's an emotive issue for people who have sympathy for the travellers.

I don't wear my politics as a badge or try to make it a competition. The only reason I've marked up LoKi for being "illiberal" in the past, is because of his long history of proudly proclaiming himself a liberal with all that that entails, and a recent history of expressing opinions that run in direct contradiction to that. I've never done anything similar with anyone else. I think I just generally try and argue the points. It just seems to me that LoKi's politics have taken quite a dramatic shift to the right since the election, and he's someone I used to agree with most of the time so it's been really noticeable and I've pointed it out. It's not "My politics are better than yours and everyone elses!!", it's "What happened to Lefty LoKi?". Maybe it's just a case of previously discussing stuff that brought out the Lefty side, and more recently discussing the stuff that showed off the Righty side.

I actually totally agree with Kiffy that liberalism isn't necessarily something to hang your hat on.

So, no proof then. Just your unsubstantiated opinion.

It's pretty much impossible to prove guilt over individual acts of discrimination. But statistics can show where the authorities are institutionally discriminatory against certain groups, and the statistics regarding planning permission for travellers are incredibly damning. The idea that the council's reasoning for denying the planning permission is purely because it's green belt land just doesn't stand up to any scrutiny.

Your face burning with embarrassment?

 

Honestly, can you not tell when someone's pulling your plonker?

Obviously not. So you were just being racist? Guess I gave you too much credit for being ashamed of it and trying to lie your way out of it.

The site in question was a former scrapyard, hence my comment about not needing to worry about running out of metal. You seem to have got your knickers in quite the twist here, bobbins!

Your gag was about the site being a scrapyard in the 60s? Any connotations about travellers stealing scrap metal were entirely coincidental yeah? What's that smell?

Do black people nick metal as well do they?

As well as everything else? Yeah.

The idea of stealing metal to sell for scrap to fund a crack habit was pretty much invented by stoop niggers in America. It's only recently been copied over here by the pikey rats. If people are going to make stereotyping jokes about certain crimes as if they're exclusive to a specific heavily-persecuted ethnic minority, the least they can do is give credit where it's due. Or they could fuckoff with their racist bullshit.

Thought this was rather funny from the BBC:

 

In contrast, jubilation came from the travellers when they heard the news.

 

There were cheers and cries of "We have won".

 

Mr Puxon, now chained to a fence, said: "This news is a great relief. But we will stay here to guard our metal so it isn't taken away.

 

"We are doing it for our children and grandchildren. It's been a rollercoaster but a three night reprieve is a relief."

 

I would have thought they'd be the last people to worry about scrap metal theft.

Them and the niggers yeah.

Where are all these houses built on green belt land by construction companies?

Erm, they're in Basildon and neighbouring boroughs. Along with every other borough in the country.

Hurrah! Nice one Duane!

Hurrah! You're on the same side of the argument as Duane, Mickey and Tommy Atkins! Hurrah!

Boo, another delay due to an injunction. The tension is killing me.

Seriously, even if you're just a stickler for planning laws (no matter how institutionally discriminatory they are), (and this is a bit like Mickey's EDL as a food-labelling pressure group), surely you can see that boorishly cheering for the forced displacement of a heavily-persecuted ethnic minority is in unbelievably bad taste and is grossly illiberal.

Can't wait for the Live Eviction tomorrow. Come on the Bailiffs!

Seriously Littlejohn?

Yes, I think Chilton would have been unlucky not to have got a shot at England after Atherton retired as a like-for-like opener.

Steady on. I appreciate how important Chilton's been to the club over the years, but he was never approaching Test class.

I'm not sure if the move to Liverpool especially has made as much of a difference as some people think. I think, on average, the pitches at Old Trafford are overall the best in the country. They quite often have everything - pace and bounce, some turn right from the start, but good even bounce that you could get runs on.

I think it's more to do with Aigburth being a harder surface to score runs on, no-one's saying it's a better pitch than Old Trafford. And fewer days lost to rain has helped.

Bizarrely this is the first season in years I haven't made it to a day of county cricket at Aigburth. Much easier to let it pass you by when there's so many days to choose from.

Seriously, can we not keep the EDL troll bollocks in its own thread?

Good line "you can't bomb terrorism out of existence"

 

Soo, maybe let's bomb Muslims out of existence and see how that goes then? (and before anyone shits themselves I don't actually mean that obviously)

What do you mean?

I think there is a bit of a difference in sending a message saying "lets go and loot Asda lol"

Funny you should say that. Someone just got convicted for posting this on facebook:

"I think we should start rioting, it's about time we stopped the authorities pushing us about and ruining this country. It's about time we stood up for ourselves for once. So come on rioters

The other problem with Milliband besides his rubber-mask looks, is that he's quite obviously some sort of PR robot.

 

If you haven't seen it before, check out this classic BBC interview where he gives the same answer again and again regardless of the question.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZtVm8wtyFI

 

He's just not human!

Ahem... http://blogs.channel4.com/gurublog/changin...-interview/1472

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-20...rupted-son.html (Ugh, the Mail)

 

13 year old girl allegedly raped during last weeks riots.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/1...pe-riots-police

Turns out it was nothing to do with the riots. Good old Mail.

Despite what everyone says about the Conservatives they're not doing anything that that Labour wouldn't have done if they'd won the election.

This is completely untrue.

Yeah, they've allowed themselves to be too subsumed into the Tories, and haven't highlighted their successes nearly enough. Clegg in particular made a mistake by getting too close to Cameron.

This is the key problem for the Libs. You're right that the electorate aren't used to coalition governments so don't know how they work, but the same can be said for MPs, the Lib Dems in particular. It's one thing to vote for policies in order to keep the coalition together, it's another to be the frontline voice for the most appalling and anti-liberal of those policies. They've been completely scammed by the Tories into buying the idea that you've all got to stick to the party line on every issue. It's a ridiculous and self-defeating aspect of modern British politics even for majority governments, cooked up by spin-doctors to try and outwit the ravenous, simplistic press.

They've let themselves be the patsies for the worst and toughest-sell policies, and whenever there's a chance to look good or strong, there isn't a Lib-Dem in sight. That's not how coalitions work in Europe, the minority parties are smart enough to not let themselves lose their independence. Clegg still hasn't clicked.

I'm not disputing that and never have....but when I think of how far we have fallen since during WW2 and our "Blitz Spirit", it makes me very sad.

There was shitloads of looting during the Blitz.

This is another excellent one, about the effect the riots could have on the causes of the left.

http://www.labourlist.org/the-riots-are-a-catastrophe

They are a catastrophe for communities traumatised by looting, arson and petrol bombs - in many cases, such as Tottenham and Hackney, among the poorest areas in Britain. "It's poor people like who suffer because of these riots," one young woman told me just off Mare Street - where the worst of Monday's rioting in Hackney took place - her obviously shaken child clutching her leg.

 

They are a catastrophe for residents of London, Birmingham, Manchester and elsewhere, who feel terrorised in their own cities and even besieged in their own homes. Like all Londoners, I was pretty anxious on Monday as I cycled through Hackney at 10pm. There is a disconcerting feeling that trouble could flare up anywhere, at any time. Normal life still feels suspended.

 

They are a catastrophe for those who took part in the rioting and looting. I won't make a habit of quoting David Cameron, but when he told rioters that "you are potentially ruining your own lives, too", he had a point. There will be irresistible demands for the harshest possible sentences; Westminster council is already threatening to evict tenants involved in the disorder; and those who have taken part in the disturbances - on however big or small a scale - may well pay for the rest of their lives.

But the riots are a political catastrophe, too. The right was already the great beneficiary of the economic crisis. They are now set to emerge strengthened from these riots, too.

 

This is far from an unpredictable consequence. When riots shook US cities in the 1960s and 1970s, millions of formerly Democratic-voting, white working-class people drifted into the waiting arms of the populist right. It was called