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Tim Healys Chutney Spoon

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5 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

Massive news from NY.

 

 

Am I missing context or is that a wheelie bin?

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Nope they're taking NY to the future with wheelie bins. I mean we already knew they were behind the times what with the gun laws and all that.

Cant wait for them to shoot each other for putting the wrong colour bins out.

 

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28 minutes ago, FLips said:

Am I missing context or is that a wheelie bin?

Was expecting to see something more like this (except ideally with less U2): 

 

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Posted (edited)

I can't believe this video just turned France into a socialist state.

Big up the leftist coalition for winning the most seats though, most of the media were saying the far right were going to run away with it. Sadly things are going to be held up for a while seeing as there was no majority.

Edited by Merzbow
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The left in France winning the most seats is significant, and winning is what counts, but I've seen some commentary and reaction that suggests a corner has been turned and that the right is in retreat. Its worth keeping in mind that Frances electorate is almost identical in size to the UKs, and in both rounds of voting the RN coalition got more votes than our Labour party won a landslide with. It also got 3.6 million more votes than the winning party with 11% higher share of the vote. It goes without saying that this isn't how elections work and RN being kept out of power is important, but anyone looking to this result as a sign of France rejecting this kind of politics is perhaps being overly optimistic. 

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I know we're meant to be wary and vigilant the far right have drummed up that much support to begin with, but seeing Marine Le Pen stuck on a loop of trying and ultimately failing to get into power is fucking great stuff. 

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I heard a French political correspondent describe their election as 2 separate mini-referendums. The first being a vote on Macron which the public rejected massively. The 2nd then being on the NA. They claimed this was very much the French voting against what they didn't want rather than a positive endorsement. 

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48 minutes ago, Dead Mike said:

They claimed this was very much the French voting against what they didn't want rather than a positive endorsement. 

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1 hour ago, Dead Mike said:

I heard a French political correspondent describe their election as 2 separate mini-referendums. The first being a vote on Macron which the public rejected massively. The 2nd then being on the NA. They claimed this was very much the French voting against what they didn't want rather than a positive endorsement. 

Yeah, that's very much how friends of mine in France have been describing it - the first is a protest vote, the second is much closer to what they actually want; round one was about putting the frighteners on Macron, round two probably shocked a few people into action on seeing how well Le Pen did, but there was very little in the way of actual positive voting.

The old adage about French elections is that in round one you vote with your heart and in round two you vote with your head.

What is worrying is how the far-right have been able to make themselves this much of a political force in France in the first place, particularly while still under the Le Pen name, it speaks to a changing political/historical memory and the potential collapse of the post-war consensus, as fewer people in France have a lived memory of fascism and the importance of staying vigilant and fighting against it. Similar things seem to be happening in Italy. 

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22 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

fewer people in France have a lived memory of fascism and the importance of staying vigilant and fighting against it. Similar things seem to be happening in Italy. 

To be honest, I think the same could be said of a big chunk of Western Europe. Spain and Portugal are less likely to be susceptible, as their dictatorships ended in the late 70s. France doesn't remember Vichy nor Italy Mussolini, but the UK's been skirting perilously close, as has the Netherlands and Germany. 

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absolutely. It's obviously a bit of a truism to say that "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it", but I think it's important to consider why, and I think part of that is a failure to keep alive why these things are bad, because it was always seen as a bit taboo to actually talk about it. 

Something I've really grown to dislike is comparisons to Nazism or historical fascism - it's obviously a shorthand for evil, but I saw a lot in pro-trans rights circles of "the first thing the Nazis did was attack trans and queer people", which doesn't really tell you anything beyond the assumed connection of "this is a bad thing because the Nazis did it". It's getting things backwards; the lesson should be that the Nazis were unforgivably evil because of these things that they did, rather than that things are bad because Nazis did them. Because that loses its potency the further removed we get from lived memory of Nazism. 

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4 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

absolutely. It's obviously a bit of a truism to say that "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it", but I think it's important to consider why, and I think part of that is a failure to keep alive why these things are bad, because it was always seen as a bit taboo to actually talk about it. 

Something I've really grown to dislike is comparisons to Nazism or historical fascism - it's obviously a shorthand for evil, but I saw a lot in pro-trans rights circles of "the first thing the Nazis did was attack trans and queer people", which doesn't really tell you anything beyond the assumed connection of "this is a bad thing because the Nazis did it". It's getting things backwards; the lesson should be that the Nazis were unforgivably evil because of these things that they did, rather than that things are bad because Nazis did them. Because that loses its potency the further removed we get from lived memory of Nazism. 

That's the balancing act that Godwin's Law is supposed to regulate, isn't it? It's become a bit tiresome in itself when someone trots it out every single time someone draws a comparison to the Nazis, legitimate or no, but, used correctly, I'd say it was meant for just that purpose.

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