Always worth sharing.
The usual warnings on language apply. So long as that does not trouble you, worth watching.
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i do despair. The left are crawling over themselves screaming solidarity with Gary Lineker – Sorry, is this the same Gary Lineker who posted this:
https://twitter.com/GaryLineker/status/854672020616957953
“Bin Corbyn”.
Or this: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gary-lineker-hard-brexit-labour-conservative_uk_5955494fe4b05c37bb7d0051
who is just as bad as all of the tories, if not Worse. At least the tories don’t hide their evil, they are viscious and dogmatic – but Lineker and his ilk ENABLED it. Which to me, is even worse. He was part of that “guardian reading” (I doubt he reads the guardian) centrist establishment, you know, the Change UK types, who did everything they could to destroy Corbyn.
well this is the result, Gary, well done. No point crying about immigration bills now is there?
But hang on, Keir starmer is surely Gary’s wet dream right? The perfect centrist robot. Who is unable to criticise the bill either for fear of losing votes – which is what you’d expect from a centrist – oh look at that we’ve come fulll circle. It’s almost like being in the centre, actually undermines your own position and enables a lurch to the right! Who’d have thought it!
Please take the award for one of the most stupid comment on here for some time.
Lineker did not like Corbyn so he has no right to free speech now?
That’s not just stupid. That is fascist.
I don’t like Starmer. But he is a democrat and people have the right to agree with him.
You have no place here. You offend the democratic freedom I stand for.
And fir the record, Corbyn was incompetent, as was John McDonnell, who was a neoliberal committed to austerity, which his why I refused to work for him.
I agree with what was said.
I have, on this blog been criticised in the past for “language and rhetoric” specifically for the phrase “tory-scum”. I appreciate the need for measured language/discourse both in social and political matters otherwise it all descends into a potty mouthed slanging match. However, in some cases one eventually reaches the point where a spade needs to be called a spade, or in this case tory-scum.
Of course, not all tories are evil, but on current viewing and given the events of the last year or so it is difficult not to conclude that a majority of the tory party (circa 90k people) made up of members and elected politicians both in local and national government, given their support for tory government policy, are human scum, tory-scum. The majority (all?) lack a key requisite to qualify as human: empathy. Their actions and their support for government actions show they have none. They are scum. They are not recognisably human. They pick on defenseless people that have NOTHING and use them to bolster their crumbling political position, aided and abetted by the media.
Not to lower the tone too much, but I believe it was Iain Banks who said: there are decent people in the tory party, but they are like pieces of sweetcorn in a turd. They may be technically intact, but they’re tainted by their surroundings.
Pie tells it like it is, as usual, Richard, so thanks for sharing.
One thing I’d add, though, is that I can’t be the only one who finds it extremely offensive and sick making that Braverman, and before her, Patel, backed by Sunak and various other – all of whom are the children of immigrants – are so anti-immigrant. What’s all that about?
Furthermore, in the row over Lineker’s tweet Braverman has the audacity to highlight that her husband is Jewish as a reason why she’s even more offended (pretends to be, more like) while being completely blind to the fact that this government’s approach to immigration is not dissimilar to the views of the British government at the Evian Conference in 1938, where: ‘During the nine-day meeting, delegate after delegate rose to express sympathy for the refugees. But most countries, including the United States and Great Britain, offered excuses for not letting in more refugees…Commenting on the Evian Conference, the German government gleefully noted how “astounding” it was that foreign countries criticized Germany for its treatment of the Jews, yet none of them opened their doors.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/emigration-and-the-evian-conference
Well said
The video, absoutely spot on, good on that man, even with the F words.
I’m minded to bring up the issue of how Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party was treated?
I remember being told stuff along the lines of Labour under him were an ‘existential threat’ etc., something I found hard to stomach, it went too far, although there were legitimate concerns also.
So what you get when the science of fascism is used by anyone is justified angst and concern mixed with more hyperbolic language and claims of injury. It can be confusing but also very damaging and divisive.
All I see is fascist manipulation. And I agree with the American comedian Chris Rock – it’s ‘selective outrage’ at work here.
We should be outraged at Braverman – but the tables are turned on Lineker instead and we are encouraged to be outraged at him. And the BBC selects Lineker and not Neil or any number of right reprobates it puts up with to stick the boot in.
But also, it makes you wonder if we have learnt anything from history? The ‘Road to Unfreedom’ (as Tim Snyder says in his book of that title) is a well trodden road to hell with well known landmarks and terminus.
My view is that we should never turn down that road; we shouldn’t even look at the turnoff – we should put our foot down and drive past it as quickly as possible.
But we are not – time and time again we are taken down this road by bad politicians and other actors acting in bad faith in order to win an argument for vested self interest, usually at a loss to society.
The loss to society at the moment is the possibility that it realises that the penny has dropped about the Conservative Party . That most of what it has advocated over its Thatcherite history – privatisation, BREXIT, austerity policies and state capacity to deal with events like Covid, just do not work.
So, the Conservative Party is going to fight like the fascist extremists they are, to retain power. To prevent ‘the epiphany’.
One thing strikes me though. It’s how we tolerate fascism. We need to not tolerate fascism at all. Left, Centrist, the Right. They all use it. It’s got to stop. We need to be intolerant of an intolerant idea. I wonder if the Liberals amongst us can handle that?!
The fascist politics of defeating your opponent no matter how good their ideas are has got to be defeated. It underpins FPTP and even the shenanigans of the Boundary Commission. In fact, fascist political science (the way they get into power) is not even politics at all, is it? It is a mode aimed at one thing in this country at least – to prevent change, to maintain the status quo, to prevent ‘the new’ being born. To perpetuate what is – TINA.
You might like this from comedian David Eagle:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpsd9arjwIp/
🙂
Jonathan Pie’s tone doesn’t really entertain me, I agree with most of his points but the greatest BBC scandal was actually the Hutton inquiry under Greg Dyke. This is the problem with neutrality, you want to balance opinion but when it comes to speaking out the government or the SIS gets in the way.
I’m not offended by the language, I am by the disgusting policies produced by the disgusting politicians in this ‘government’. Who use, as Gary Lineker said, the same language as was used in Nazi Germany in the 1930’s which ended up with genocide. As do their equally foul propagandists in the right wing sewer press.
And then as in the case of Braverman and Jenrick try to claim they are the victims; in much the same way that the Nazis claimed that Jews represented a threat to the very existence of Germany. And behind these wretches are the tory party membership. It’s very difficult not to use language like ‘scum’, ‘vermin,and ‘filth’ about people who as Mike points out have no empathy at all for others, and cynically use this issue in a desperate attempt to shore up their support amnongst the electorate.
Ironically, some one like Braverman actually proves how correct the left are in their belief that we should treat people equally regardless of their religion, skin colour, gender etc. In other words, we all have potential and should not be discriminated against or viewed as inferior because of these innate characteristics.
She, as a woman of colour and daughter of an immigrant, has proved herself to every bit as stupid, arrogant, dishonest, vindictive and generally loathsome as any privileged white man could be. As have other members of this government like Priti Patel, James Cleverly, Sunak, etc. Their achievements are purely negative. Way to go folks!
It seems that the right are organising their hate mail to me on this issue….
I know I am not alone
Are the right whingers having a go at you for calling them out as fascists then Richard? As you pointed out last week, they really don’t like it when people point out their increasing viciousness and extremism do they?
The right’s hypocritical cancel culture in operation yet again. You, Lineker, and others apparently have no right to attack and criticize them, poor little dears; but they can sling any amount of insults and threats at others.
Mysteriously they are all the grandchildren of Polish Jews who seem to be universally angry with France over Brexit….
Our country is in a situation similar to that in 1945. The task facing the next government is horrendous. In my 82 years on this earth I have no seen anything like it. Throughout my adult life I have been interested in politics. Born into the industrial working class my parents were staunch Labour supporters. I joined the Young Socialists in 1956 at the age of 16. I remained a member until the Corbyn affair. The treatment of Corbyn is a national disgrace. He was the victim of a well planned and brutally executed assassination. Everyone should be concerned about the description of him by the media and others. Most of the attacks on him were lies and misrepresentation He is not a Marxist. He was not intent on getting rid of capitalism. Nor is he antisemitic. Recent reports and documentaries have cleared him . He is the very last man to be antisemitic in the UK. It is tantamount to accusing Mandela of antisemitism or martin Luther King. The fact is the only way this country can recover from the current chaos is by implementing socialism. The Corbyn manifestos were exactly the correct policies for rescuing us from the nightmare of neoliberalism. Corbyn was accused of being extreme Left. The policies he put before the electorate are commonplace in Northern Europe. It his his opponents who are extreme . Just look at the havoc they have perpetrated on our country. Who would have believed in the 1960s ordinary people would be starving if they couldn’t find a food bank to feed them. Who would have believed the health service would be in a state where 500 people were dying every week because of a shortage of medical staff. The NHS in those days was the envy of the world. This is the result of real existing extremism by a government which deserves the description Fascist. The Labour Party has jettisoned socialism. It will do nothing to create a real recovery. The media whipped up fear of the Loony Left. There is no such thing . The reality is there now for all to see. It ia the Right who are the greatest danger to our country. History will be kind to Jeremy Corbyn. His plans were exactly what was needed. The establishment were terrified of him and his progressive beliefs. They set out to prevent us re-establishing the social democracy I benefitted from in the 30 years after WW2. Those who slagged him off bear a responsibility for the regression to the decades before WW2. They may not have intentionally done so but the truth is visible to all