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U-Know! Forum » U-Know has gotten quite boring |
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Lawrence 9547 posts |
Edited Aug 07, 2010, 07:55
Aug 07, 2010, 07:54
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this past month and I think I know who to blame. Geoffrey, your stand-up comedy shtick is getting rather stale...
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Lawrence 9547 posts |
Aug 07, 2010, 08:10
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Ruining every thread with your Thatcherite/con-tard BS...
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pooley 501 posts |
Aug 07, 2010, 10:51
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Lawrence wrote: Ruining every thread with your Thatcherite/con-tard BS... That's unfair. We need opposing viewpoints on here. Otherwise it just becomes a back patting party. It practically is anyway!
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sanshee 1080 posts |
Aug 07, 2010, 12:35
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Ah but you love it, don't you? What's the point (as Pooley sez) of a nodding shop? After all, it's only 'the internet'. ;-) x
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Edited Aug 07, 2010, 13:53
Aug 07, 2010, 13:45
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Lawrence wrote: this past month and I think I know who to blame. Geoffrey, your stand-up comedy shtick is getting rather stale... I last posted on this forum in November 2009. Today I decided to pop my head round the door and see if anything had changed in the intervening time. Sadly it appears that not much has. Lawrence, you suggest that it's down to geoffrey_prime and his ilk, with their "Thatcherite / con-tard BS". Personally I disagree. geoffrey_prime is simply a troll and they are an inevitable part of any online community. He doesn't actually involve himself in the discussions, prefering instead to derail them with insults and challenges. He's a like a single gnat. Irritating, but not worthy of cancelling the picnic. No, my problem was (ironically, considering geoffrey_prime's insistence that this is "a closed shop", "safe territory" where "you guys seem to just talk amongst yourselves") how conservative the general tone of the place had become. I've been a member here pretty much from the start and it's shifted from being a place where genuinely radical ideas were discussed, to being a slightly left-of-centre forum where the occasional radical idea surfaces only to get attacked. It also used to be a place (and perhaps this is the rose-tint of nostalgia talking) where people debated issues in good faith. Excluding the ever-present trolls, forum members would not engage in that dismaying tendency to deliberately misunderstand opposing viewpoints. There was a willingness to view an issue (or at least try to view an issue) from alternative perspectives. I actually had my mind changed on several issues, making this place a rarity among online forums -- genuinely informative. For several years, however, it has drifted rightwards. Not due to the presence of the lonely geoffry_primes of this world grasping for attention through disruption (a strategy we all learn as infants but which some people fail to identify as infantile behaviour, so never leave behind). But instead due to a gradual influx of mainstream thought. It got to the point where I found it difficult to distinguish a thread on this board from the comments on an average article on the Guardian website (on balance a deeply conservative consensus holds sway in the Guardian comments despite the supposedly left-wing credentials of the paper). Whereas once the collective psyche of this place embraced the wholesale replacement of the current economic and political system with something radically different, it now seems content to tinker around the edges. Long discussions regularly sprang up (and I see, still do) about whether or not protests should inconvenience people! Seriously, this is undergraduate stuff. Anyone who has spent any time at all studying this issue quickly discovers that protests need to inconvenience people if they are to have any success at all. There's no longer any debate about this among informed political theorists. By far the most successful protest in the past 20 years in the UK was also by far the most disruptive... the fuel protests of 2000. Successful because it actually got the Labour government at the time (and this was prior to the Iraq debacle when New Labour was immensely popular and commanded a massive majority in the house) to freeze fuel duty and implement changes in the way overseas haulage companies were taxed while in the UK. Anyone who understands the way modern politics and economics works can't help but be impressed by that outcome. Via direct action, a group of people forced a popular government to make changes to the taxation system, alter their budget plans and force a renegotiation of EU regulations. This was a massive success and it was achieved through massive disruption. It didn't require the acquiescence of the majority of the population. It didn't matter that millions of people were furious at the inconvenience they had to suffer. It hit the government where it hurt, and it forced them to alter their policy. Now. Let's go one step further. Let's go somewhere a lot less comfortable. I described the fuel protests as the most successful in the past 20 years. I should have described them as the most successful non-violent protests in the past 20 years. Let's say that there was another protest that was even more disruptive and an even bigger success. Let's call it the July 7th bombings in London. A tiny group of radicals strapped explosives to their bodies and blew themselves up on public transport, ostensibly in protest at the UK's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't imagine there's a single person here who will sympathise with their actions. But anyone who suggests that it wasn't highly effective is beyond naive. The intense flurry of repressive legislation that followed the bombings is an indication of that success. No, they didn't force the removal of British forces from the places they'd invaded. But that isn't the intention of a Jihadi. These were people who sought to increase tensions between communities, to increase the paranoia of the authorities, to ultimately spark a war of civilisations... one which they foolishly believed themselves destined to win. The results are plain to see; from the murder of Charles de Menezes to the rendition and torture of suspects. From the regular "Threat Assessments" released by the authorities to the constant tabloid debates about multiculturalism. There may be some here who deliberately choose to misunderstand me. Who will sneer, "So you think we should blow ourselves up to achieve our aims then?" as though they were making some kind of incisive point rather than demonstrating the paucity of their intellect. The kind of people who read "A Modest Proposal" as a genuine incitement to eat babies. It's symptomatic of the terrible anti-intellectualism that has gripped our culture; one which equates "to understand" with "to condone". I unequivocally condemn the actions of the July 7th bombers (that I even need to state that openly frustrates me). Personally I feel that protests can be incredibly disruptive without being violent. More than that, I feel that if we wish them to be genuinely successful, they need to be incredibly disruptive. And if we wish history to smile kindly upon us, they need to be non-violent. The fuel protests of 2000 should be our template (though obviously our aims need to be the precise opposite) and the objections that "but you'll inconvenience people just going about their business" should be viewed with the pity they deserve. Going about our business... and this goes for almost everyone reading this, as well as the guy writing it... means being part of a process that is causing significant damage to the ecology of which we are part. The closing down of a few BP service stations is a decent start, and frankly being more concerned with the livelihoods of the franchise owners than the continued well-being of our ecology demonstrates a staggering lack of perspective. But it is only a start. I don't know the best way forward. If I did, I'd be out there doing it instead of researching and writing. But I do know that it isn't about tinkering around the edges.
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Lawrence 9547 posts |
Edited Aug 07, 2010, 15:02
Aug 07, 2010, 15:01
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Yeah I miss you Grufty. Anyways I know I've said my share of off-the-wall stuff (the past fights with trolls notwithstanding), although it's been tempered these days by anti-depressants and a calmer outlook. I dunno if this place has gotten more conservative, but I've noticed in the US that alot of people on the left are unwilling to criticize Obama for not following up on his promises (i.e. the war and the ecomony, et cetera.) Although I'd hate to see this place fall into a PC trap also. In short, Dog 3000 is one dissenting voice that at least has a sense of intelligence, and jshell has at least some interesting things to say although I disagree with much of it. But Geoffrey-Prime has been hanging around here too much as though the world revolves around him and him only. (As a footnote, giantleech has revealed himself to be a complete coward when it comes to debate. Sounds like a snotty teenage hipster at best...)
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Popel Vooje 5373 posts |
Aug 07, 2010, 16:29
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pooley wrote: That's unfair. We need opposing viewpoints on here. Otherwise it just becomes a back patting party. It practically is anyway! No it's not. No we don't. No it doesn't. No it isn't.
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pooley 501 posts |
Aug 07, 2010, 17:20
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Popel Vooje wrote: pooley wrote: That's unfair. We need opposing viewpoints on here. Otherwise it just becomes a back patting party. It practically is anyway! No it's not. No we don't. No it doesn't. No it isn't. We don't need opposing view points?? Wouldn't that make this place a bit lame. A bit lamer??? Jesus, would be a very dull place if you had your way!!
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Popel Vooje 5373 posts |
Edited Aug 07, 2010, 19:01
Aug 07, 2010, 18:55
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pooley wrote: Popel Vooje wrote: pooley wrote: That's unfair. We need opposing viewpoints on here. Otherwise it just becomes a back patting party. It practically is anyway! No it's not. No we don't. No it doesn't. No it isn't. We don't need opposing view points?? Wouldn't that make this place a bit lame. A bit lamer??? Jesus, would be a very dull place if you had your way!! ...erm... irony, anyone?
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pooley 501 posts |
Aug 07, 2010, 19:04
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Popel Vooje wrote: pooley wrote: Popel Vooje wrote: pooley wrote: That's unfair. We need opposing viewpoints on here. Otherwise it just becomes a back patting party. It practically is anyway! No it's not. No we don't. No it doesn't. No it isn't. We don't need opposing view points?? Wouldn't that make this place a bit lame. A bit lamer??? Jesus, would be a very dull place if you had your way!! ...erm... irony, anyone? Yes please, could you do me some shirts.
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