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    He's anti-Brexit. He's one of these "Hard Brexit is all Corbyn's personal masterplan" types. Anyway yeah, best left alone now I think

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      Originally posted by E10 Rifle View Post
      He's anti-Brexit. He's one of these "Hard Brexit is all Corbyn's personal masterplan" types.
      Fucking hell, this Corbyn that they believe in is a fucking genius machiavellian puppet master extraordinary isn't he? He's manipulating the Tory party, the DUP, as well as his own party and probably all of the 27 governments too. Hats off to the man coming across like just some harmless bloke with an allotment

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        Anyway he's gone for the traditional desperate-to-have-the-last-word sneering supercilious put down just to really cement his place in the tosspot "centrist" former music journalist pantheon

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          Can I recommend posting this piece by Lisa Goldman on his wall
          and the wall of every other fucker who lightly chucks around accusations of anti-semitism and/or thinks the word "Hamas" justifies Israeli killing of Palestinians in Gaza or anywhere else.

          https://twitter.com/bungarsargon/status/997243382811459590

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            Anyway he's gone for the traditional desperate-to-have-the-last-word sneering supercilious put down
            Bad enough trying to smear you as anti-semitic, but comparing me to Steve Wright in the Afternoon? I've a mind to report that kind of hate speech

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              Blimey. That really HAS escalated quickly

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                The man's out of control, he's lost all sense of proportion and propriety

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                  I feel like I'm reading the transcription of an unusual sketch from The Now Show.

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                    I love Twitter drama so I'm gonna dig this out.

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                      It's the Facebooks, not Twitter

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                        Still found it, we have mutual friends.

                        That guy was my number 1 suspect.

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                          In another entirely different thread elsewhere I got called a "libtard" this evening. So that's something I can cross off my bucket list

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                            Was this a centrist mate thread or a TEFL thread , or a Brits in Romania thread?

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                              This was a thread started by someone I know in ELT. I have no idea who I was arguing with. A racist cunt obviously but he probably has some other identity somewhere.

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                                https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/999398002526769153

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                                  Egypt was exhibit A for this. I do think the worst of the Stop Brexit Jolyons would put up with jackboots if it meant staying in.

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                                    That link's interesting. In part cos it shows the naivety of the parliamentary/electoral left who seem to believe that they can win power and then the rest of the country will be good democrats and meekly allow them to set their agenda.

                                    I guess I'd question whether the establishment liberals, who've rebranded as centrists since Brexit, are the same as the "centrists" of the survey though - given that decided "centrism" based on values, rather than self-id. In stuff like reversing brexit, they're dramatically out of step with the values of the rest of the country. Self-descriptors like "Centrist" and "leftist" are more tribal distinctions (imo) than rigid, values-based positioning - hence how some of the most aggressively "radical" elements within the labour movement can frequently demonstrate reactionary politics.

                                    IMO the Brexit Jolyons would probably have been counted as left/centre-left between 2010 and 2014 when the data was compiled, while the centrists would have been cheerleading on austerity and Cameron's Big Society of Foodbanks.

                                    I get that the Stop Brexit Jolyons are annoying and clearly very wrong in their belief that Brexit can just be stopped, but I'm not sure they're the people this survey is referring to.

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                                      Labour centrist Chris Leslie has been going off on one yesterday. I like this take on what he says:
                                      https://twitter.com/Mc_Heckin_Duff/s...60635579912192
                                      https://twitter.com/Mc_Heckin_Duff/status/1008960635579912192

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                                        What if the centre also represents an extreme? People who claim their view is above ideology, are full of shite.
                                        Last edited by Lang Spoon; 19-06-2018, 12:39.

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                                          But the political centre, as currently defined, is notable for identifying with a pre-existing status quo - broadly speaking, the world as it was before 2015 - which means they're on one SIDE of the debate, have an interest in the power relations that stood then. And centres shift with status quos. Corbyn's Labour would have been economically centrist 40 years ago.

                                          Reminds me of the old quote, "washing one's hands of the struggle between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful"

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                                            Originally posted by Bruno
                                            Let's stipulate that trying to see the world as it is is a good thing and that the political extremes are generally worse at that, not because they can't but because they typically decide that it's less expedient toward their ends. It doesn't (or shouldn't) mean that so-called centrists are above it all, it should mean that they're trying harder to cross-examine basic premises, i.e. be good critical thinkers. I would question the label itself, which implies a greater concern for splitting the difference between two extremes than for fact-based, reality-based action.
                                            The notion of "political extremes" largely functions to legitimise the "centre-ground" as the only realistic political terrain in terms of changing the world.

                                            But that's not actually true. I was at a prison abolition conference at the weekend, and what struck me was how practical a lot of the discussions were. Because we are abolitionists, we can be honest about our intentions - about how the political changes we want to make are intended to function. We can set goals and measure them. Hard-nosed practicality is rendered possible because we're clear-sighted in what our objectives are.

                                            Managerial technocracy, on the other hand, does the exact opposite. It can't be honest about its intentions, for it has none beyond self-preservation. As such, it balances competing interests as necessary for its survival. Decisions are made not with outcomes in mind, but to appease various factions. Critical thinking goes out the window in favour of broad appeals to moralism and invoking phantom voters.

                                            This has been proven historically. When you think of the struggles of the 20th century, the extreme left has led the way in all of them: lgbt liberation, reproductive rights, women's liberation, antiracism; while the centre has trailed behind - only adopting those causes when they became a sufficiently powerful faction to threaten the centre's survival.

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                                              Originally posted by Bruno
                                              If we identify the center with the powerful we're just being sloppy with labels. The powerful are an extreme minority. An actual centrist would skew far more toward the powerless.
                                              Who is the 'we' in that sentence? It's the Centrists who call themselves the Centre. And they are the people we're talking about in this thread - very much the 'no alarms and no surprises please' mentality, as Radiohead once put it (but described in far more detail on page 1).

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                                                If "centrists" means "represents the political interests of the median person globally" surely the true centrists are like the Communist Party of India (Maoist) leading peasant guerilla armies in armed struggle against the Indian state and mining interests, rather than say Chris Leslie, but I'm not sure that's what anyone means when they say "centrist".
                                                Last edited by Bizarre Löw Triangle; 19-06-2018, 14:12.

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                                                  Isn't "centrism" by the definition of the thread, stupid two-sidesism? The idea that it's better to find the middle ground between the two sides regardless of the correctness of the positions on either side. That we should always see the good motivations of the people on the opposite side and try and accommodate them, no matter how fucking odious. It's a version of Blairite/Clintonite triangulation. It's not a deeply held belief in anything at all...

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                                                    When you stand for nothing, you fall for everything.

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