the PC Brigade

[EIM]

I was just about to highlight LM's use of it over in the other thread, but noticed Ad Hoc had got there before me. It's something I battle with all the time with the idiots on another forum I frequent.

Basically, people use this phrase, PC Brigade, to somehow justify their prejudice not as an actual prejudice, but as cutting edge satire, or an aim to upset this joy killing, laugh swatting, tight underpant wearing, PC Brigade.

So, who the fuck are the PC Brigade?

(Stewart Lee's brilliant political crrectness skit)

[E10 Rifle]

the PC Brigade

It's riven with factions, is the world of PC-ness. For example, the PC Brigade are reformist wusses compared to the PC Thought Police.

[EIM]

the PC Brigade

We're all living in PC World.

Ah, wait a minute...

[Lucia Lanigan]

the PC Brigade

Thing is, who you gonna call when political correctness goes mad? The metropolitan elite aren't going to help. You need the PC brigade.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

the PC Brigade

"Basically" in EIM#'s post above = "by way of lazy sweeping generalisation"

Different people use expressions in different ways. I don't personally care much what the kind of people who like Richard Littlejohn might have in mind by the expression. What I have in mind is the following kind of thing, just by way of random example:

- a bunch of feminist Christians who are trying to get the words of Christmas carols rewritten to be less "sexist", e.g. replacing "Oh come let us adore him" with "Oh come in adoration"

- a bunch of troublemakers who were trying a while ago to get some senior copper subjected to disciplinary sanctions for racist offence because he had, in all innocence, used the expression "nitty gritty", which apparently we should all know is some kind of reference to debris on slave ships.

There are countless instances of this kind of idiocy perpetrated by left wing special interest lobbies up and down the country every week.

[E10 Rifle]

the PC Brigade

Are there? Do you want to supply some evidence?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

the PC Brigade

I've just given you two examples. I haven't got the time or resources to mount a frigging nationwide example-gathering exercise.

[E10 Rifle]

the PC Brigade

Have you got a link to those then? They don't strike me as things that have exactly had a widespread impact on many people's day to day life.

And your argument that this sort of stuff happens up and down the country week after week does, you know, warrant a bit more backing up, even if it goes against your lazy trolling style.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

the PC Brigade

Here is a report of a follow-up development to Nittygrittygate. And the carol-rewriting debate took up a chunky part of the Today programme just before Christmas a few weeks ago.

[Guest]

the PC Brigade

Didn't the Sun get done years ago for making up a load of these kinds of stories? I think it might have been when Kelvin MacKenzie was editor.

[Gerontophile]

the PC Brigade

Is there an army you can sign up for? I will be first in the queue, because its required for my behaviour modification (techniques) to continue to work.

To Lord M: I dont see any problem in changing the words to 'Oh come in adoration' for a (possibly) fictional character, who may even have been female.

Dont understand the 'nitty-gritty' thing, but will Google, as I like to learn something new everyday.

Why, Lord M, do you think its idiocy? Behaviour and morals make the world go easier, and unfortunately, not many people have enough (myself included, before you say a word, ad hoc).

Whats wrong with special interest lobbies either? They can lobby, and if their special interest is good enough, they will be listened to. And if its a bag of shite, they will be ignored... until the daily mail catch up with them and invite them into our/your sphere of reference, to annoy the rest of the world, with.

Alternatively, you can fuck off. Or I can. We all have any option within our range. Some people have no options. And we all have opinions, which we apparently have a right to, and to express. So, while I think you may be wrong (or, indeed, a tosser), you have every right to say this.

And, in your mind, does 'troublemakers' = left wing?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

the PC Brigade

"Trolling" is, I believe, the practice of posting stuff to provoke and running away from the reaction. I can't see that you can make that accusation stick here as I took a fair bit of time to respond carefully to EIM's attack above. As it happens, I now have to actually turn back to the job I'm being paid to do right now so I'll have to be away from here for a while.

[Lucia Lanigan]

the PC Brigade

They often turn out to have been made up by the anti-PC brigade, though, m'Lord. Or at the very least, not the result of "left wing groups" so much as "people in low-ranking government jobs not knowing what they're supposed to be doing".

I used to work for a council that made national TV news when it "banned Christmas". A TV crew burst into the town hall reception room of this "loony left" council (which was actually run by a Tory-Lib Dem alliance at the time) to ask why they were refusing to put up Christmas lights in town - as the Christmas lights on the street outside winked at them through the windows, and a massive, fuck-off Christmas tree loomed behind them. And all this in the borough with the most visible Christian presence I've ever known.

One off-hand comment by a confused Lib Dem Councillor caused all that.

[Gerontophile]

the PC Brigade

oh, and that link was for 2002.

Almost certain that I can find many, MANY more examples of right wing nonsense from the last week.

If political (which should read 'personal') correctness is a bad thing, then I am as bad a person as I can possibly be.

[Tubby Isaacs]

the PC Brigade

Nitty gritty, albeit in 2002:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1394248/Nitty-gritty-is-not-PC-minister.html

I'd like to see the alleged manual talked about here. And there's no doubt a deliberate attempt to conflate this, where someone might remind a police officer of the origin, and those which lead to disciplinary charges. What's the betting the insensitive language in those was nearer to "darkie"?

I too don't like the phrase PC,but there was one occasion recently where something or other had gone mad. The New Statesman had a full page advert (no doubt paid for by some part of government somewhere) calling for a ban on smoking in films. It graciously allowed films to show smoking where the "context" permitted, and gave the example of a film about "Winston Churchill", or where it's risks were shown. What a script that would be!
It didn't think "this character smokes because that's how the writer has conceived him" was sufficient.

This may on reflection be health Nazism not PC.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

the PC Brigade

I do feel the urge to make one further point though. You say

They don't strike me as things that have exactly had a widespread impact on many people's day to day life.

As you'll see from that BBC link I posted above, the PC furore around the term "nitty gritty" can result in disciplinary proceedings against police officers, even if they are unaware they were causing any offence (as most people would be; the orgins of the expression are not generally known). I'd have thought that, as a representative of organised labour, you would have pause for thought where unfair disciplinary measures are threatened against employees. That is quite an "impact" on some individuals' life at work.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

the PC Brigade

I do feel the urge to make one further point though. You say

They don't strike me as things that have exactly had a widespread impact on many people's day to day life.

As you'll see from that BBC link I posted above, the PC furore around the term "nitty gritty" can result in disciplinary proceedings against police officers, even if they are unaware they were causing any offence (as most people would be; the orgins of the expression are not generally known). I'd have thought that, as a representative of organised labour, you would have pause for thought where unfair disciplinary measures are threatened against employees. That is quite an "impact" on some individuals' life at work.

[Tubby Isaacs]

the PC Brigade

Gero, indeed. Nice bit of rightwing correctness is the Guildhall Art Gallery near me. A nice collection of PRB stuff, a Constable etc. The Corporation of London charge £2 to go in, which I happily pay, but the gallery's empty. Wouldn't it be better free? Wouldn't a few more of the 300,000 or so City workers come in? Apparently, the Corporation thinks it's right in principle to charge. A funny principle.

[Gerontophile]

the PC Brigade

(assuming your remarks were addressed to me Lord M)

Nah, bollocks mate. I may be many shades of twat, but I hope that 'trolling' is not one of my many faults.

[NHH]

the PC Brigade

Those dastardly feminist christians. You can't move for them (because they're all fat lesbians, no doubt) trying to stop me worshipping the lord in time-honoured tradition.

I've yet to meet or converse with a single person for whom there existed a 'pc brigade' who had at some point of other gone mad who wasn't the tired regurgitator of stories first featured in either the Sun or the Mail and which either were simply not true or were trying to suggest that because they could find one person who was the holder of a view then this view was in fact an oppressive orthodoxy which left naysayers cowering lest they be hoisted on pitchforks from rampaging packs of feminist christians and their perfiduous ilk.

In fact, all the users of this tired and reactionary bilge do is confirm their almost-desperate desire to become part of a group of identifiable and persecuted victims who demand attention, which is funny, since that's exactly what they accuse their erstwhile opponents of doing.

[Tubby Isaacs]

the PC Brigade

LM, there's no evidence that anyone has been disciplined for using "nitty gritty".

[Gerontophile]

the PC Brigade

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

Gero, indeed. Nice bit of rightwing correctness is the Guildhall Art Gallery near me. A nice collection of PRB stuff, a Constable etc. The Corporation of London charge £2 to go in, which I happily pay, but the gallery's empty. Wouldn't it be better free? Wouldn't a few more of the 300,000 or so City workers come in? Apparently, the Corporation thinks it's right in principle to charge. A funny principle.

Cant comment on that sir. I thought all museums in the UK were free, except for the big 'guns' of art?

And the last time I went to my favourite museums and galleries in London, you had the option of throwing a few quid in a bucket?

(What does PRB mean?)

[EIM]

the PC Brigade

Hang on. Attack? HArdly, man. Was just saying is all.

[E10 Rifle]

the PC Brigade

'Health nazidom' has erroneously been bundled onto the PC Brigade's charge sheet in recent times, but yer PC-ers (such as they exist) tend not to be that exercised by people smoking tabs in films and the like.

[Hofzinser]

the PC Brigade

LM, spouting utter bollocks that has no foundation that you know will wind up people - for example, "There are countless instances of this kind of idiocy perpetrated by left wing special interest lobbies up and down the country every week" - and then offering risible evidence such as an almost 7-year old news story before buggering off, is pretty much a textbook example of trolling.

If that's really the best you can do, then I'd like to offer the much more recent Jerry Springer: The Opera furore as evidence that right-wing special interest lobbies are perpetrating countless instances of idiocy up and down the country every week.