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It's great how we've adopted a test which gives false negatives so often that if you are genuinely feeling unwell, you'll be sent for another test because no doctor in their right mind respects the results. There's a thing on facebook claiming that the NHS' entire UK Primary care budget is 9bn, and test & trace just got bumped from £22bn to £37bn. But no, ham man sad the press can no longer be racist is the real story today.
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Mar 10, 2021 16:03
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radmonger posted:Monarchism and nationalism are fundamentally different ideologies that sometimes avoid restarting a civil war over that fact. But this isn't remotely true. It should be, for the reasons described, and there absolutely are examples of the concept of nationalism being constructed to attack ruling monarchs, for example in the French Revolution and arguably earlier in the the various revolts against absentee Habsburg rulers (e.g. the Netherlands), in the former case at least led by the bourgeoise and in essentially liberal capitalist interests. And yes, nationalists and royalists have in different contexts been opposed. However, how do you explain the UK, which after the Glorious Revolution somehow managed to achieve an alliance between aristocratic old money and capitalist new money in the framework of a constitutional monarchy held together by an emergent sense of nationhood? Or Germany, where the Prussian King was able to use the vague notion of German 'nationality' to successfully push for the creation of the Empire by unifying the many tiny warring principalities? Or Italy, where a similar process occurred? Why do the monarchists and the nationalist right tend to overlap so heavily? Whatever the philosophical contradictions, nationalism in Europe has in practice by no means always been opposed to the idea of royalty, and in some cases the two ideologies have directly fed off one another. radmonger posted:That is only true if you define class on a genetic basis. An aristocrat is, literally, someone with feudal ancestors. With the arguable exception of the Duke of Atholl, there is no one actually currently living as a feudal lord in the mainland UK. And so no _current_ economic difference between an aristocrat acting as a landlord or capitalist, and anyone else, of whatever ancestry, in those economic classes. In practice you're right - capitalists and aristocrats have as of 2021 become materially integrated and have similar class interests (though the latter would probably turn up their nose at the thought). But this wasn't always the case. The question I'm getting at is how this alliance between apparently opposed classes came to be. I would also argue that there are plenty of landowners who act as de facto lords over their property - over half of Scotland's land is owned by a few hundred people. Sure, they can't just kill peasants and as easily as they once could today (though...), but they are absurdly powerful. quote:And if you look at the actual current royals, and not their genetic predecessors, they are clearly _not_ rootless. As Meghan and William have just demonstrated by being unable to move between countries without changing socioeconomic class This is actually an interesting point, and the racist garbage surrounding megan may be reflection of the fundamental contradiction between the two ideologies. During the twentieth century you did have the royals tie themselves to ideas of nationhood much more firmly for pragmatic reasons, though this was a late manoeuvre that as we are now seeing isn't particularly sustainable at all in the twenty first century, and could never have been beyond a generation or two. ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Mar 10, 2021 |
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Mar 10, 2021 16:08
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The Perfect Element posted:Given that Tories are asking for content warnings and disclaimers to be added to it, I really struggle to believe that it can be construed as pro-royal propaganda.
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Mar 10, 2021 16:10
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ThomasPaine posted:But this isn't remotely true. It should be, for the reasons described, and there absolutely are examples of the concept of nationalism being constructed to attack ruling monarchs, for example in the French Revolution and arguably earlier in the the various revolts against absentee Habsburg rulers (e.g. the Netherlands), in the former case at least led by the bourgeoise and in essentially liberal capitalist interests. And yes, nationalists and royalists have in different contexts been opposed. However, how do you explain the UK, which after the Glorious Revolution somehow managed to achieve an alliance between aristocratic old money and capitalist new money in the framework of a constitutional monarchy held together by an emergent sense of nationhood? Or Germany, where the Prussian King was able to use the vague notion of German 'nationality' to successfully push for the creation of the Empire by unifying the many tiny warring principalities? Or Italy, where a similar process occurred? Why do the monarchists and the nationalist right tend to overlap so heavily? Whatever the philosophical contradictions, nationalism in Europe has in practice by no means always been opposed to the idea of royalty, and in some cases the two ideologies have directly fed off one another.
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Mar 10, 2021 16:14
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Borrovan posted:I haven't seen the show & don't have an opinion, but this is how the best propaganda works. Look at the BBC, half of the population genuinely seem to believe that it has a left wing bias, the gammons won't stfu about it, and most of the other half just go "oh everyone thinks the BBC is biased against them so it must be balanced" - despite it literally being a matter of public record that all of their politics reporters are lifelong Tory shills and the higher-ups direct political appointments by the Tory party. Now that's good propaganda. These things are not mutually exclusive. The BBC are both unashamedly pro-Tory and have a left wing bias from the perspective of the gammon half of the population, because the gammons are far enough right to make Hitler look like a liberal.
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Mar 10, 2021 16:30
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Flayer posted:The practicality of power. It depends on the situation and who's trying to claim it. This feels like an oversimplification
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Mar 10, 2021 16:36
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The Question IRL posted:I saw this on Twitter and is done so well. Was waiting for the Curb Your Enthusiasm music tbh but good nevertheless
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Mar 10, 2021 16:51
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https://twitter.com/shornKOOMINS/status/1369262784660316162
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Mar 10, 2021 19:13
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Jedit posted:These things are not mutually exclusive. The BBC are both unashamedly pro-Tory and have a left wing bias from the perspective of the gammon half of the population, because the gammons are far enough right to make Hitler look like a liberal. The BBC is made of various sections with quite different leanings. The news is clearly centre-right/outright Tory but the art and drama section is quite left, so lots of people see the bit they don't identify with and brand the entire organisation as having that ideology.
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Mar 10, 2021 19:15
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Yeah there are at least certain people at the beeb who would find it most distasteful to fire all the artsy people (not enough to fight it, mind you, but they'd feel bad about it)
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Mar 10, 2021 19:22
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ThomasPaine posted:However, how do you explain the UK, which after the Glorious Revolution somehow managed to achieve an alliance between aristocratic old money and capitalist new money in the framework of a constitutional monarchy held together by an emergent sense of nationhood? A ‘monarchy’ where someone gets to say who the monarch is is similar to a ‘democracy’ where someone gets to say what the election result is. The last major battle fought on mainland Britain was Culloden. Nationalism and monarchism fought, and nationalism won. Bonnie Prince Charlie fled over the sea to Skye, and none of his descendants fancied their chances in a rematch. Consequently, right wing nationalists in actual republics (France, the USA) are not noticeably different from those in nations that keep a monarch as a legacy. if two sets of things have no current structural difference, you can’t expect them to have any systematic ideological differences. If you want a country where the monarchists actually won the corresponding civil war, look to Jordan, or maybe North Korea.
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Mar 10, 2021 19:24
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Marmaduke! posted:Yeah there are at least certain people at the beeb who would find it most distasteful to fire all the artsy people (not enough to fight it, mind you, but they'd feel bad about it) That's confusing the issue. Artists tend to be left wing, their patrons tend to be right wing. The people at the BBC who wouldn't want to fire the artists are the patrons.
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Mar 10, 2021 19:29
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Jippa posted:Keep going on this one is gets better and better. It's mentioned in the comments of that Twitter thread but someone needs to look into the 'BritishAlba' Twitter account. It's very clearly staffed by a team of people owing to it's ridiculous posting powers and it's always the first reply to pretty much any political tweet posted from a mainstream source. Very dodgy.
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Mar 10, 2021 19:37
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radmonger posted:A ‘monarchy’ where someone gets to say who the monarch is is similar to a ‘democracy’ where someone gets to say what the election result is. Never heard of the Holy Roman Empire or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth I take it.
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Mar 10, 2021 19:48
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ThomasPaine posted:I would also argue that there are plenty of landowners who act as de facto lords over their property - over half of Scotland's land is owned by a few hundred people. Sure, they can't just kill peasants and as easily as they once could today (though...), but they are absurdly powerful.
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Mar 10, 2021 20:19
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Scotland has its own chinless grouse blasters.
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Mar 10, 2021 20:25
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When gammons talk about the BBC being left wing, they aren't talking about coverage of politics or economics, they are talking about minority representation. They think the BBC is left wing because they see people who aren't straight white males on it.Payndz posted:This raises a point: if Scotland does gain independence, would these aristos (in the trad and new-monied senses alike) still have that power? I can't imagine the SNP deciding to set up their own House of Lords and importing a bunch of chinless grouse-blasters from south of the border so they can hold on to their "ancestral land". The SNP have been talking about land reform for like a decade plus, but haven't done anything
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Mar 10, 2021 20:28
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Payndz posted:This raises a point: if Scotland does gain independence, would these aristos (in the trad and new-monied senses alike) still have that power? I can't imagine the SNP deciding to set up their own House of Lords and importing a bunch of chinless grouse-blasters from south of the border so they can hold on to their "ancestral land". The original proposal neatly avoided that issue, just spoke about devolving the crown estate to presumably councils. They were proposing taxation policies to encourage land use eg development or agriculture as food security was a weirdly significant part of the proposal. IIRC Common Weal have proposed a lot of land reform stuff which is getting grassroots traction with some of the SNP + support from the Greens.
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Mar 10, 2021 20:30
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Re the BBC, I think it's less that there's a right/left split so much as all of it, from the news to the arts to the production side, skews heavily towards metropolitan Liberal, which gammon and the mail et al decry as "lefty." This means there is something approximating institutional cultural norms, but as far as I can tell they're exclusively related to social ideals. My pet theory is that this is part of why the BBC, and British media more broadly (in all forms, from news to drama to comedy) was basically incapable of offering any critique or insight into the coalition, because it's overriding project of economic austerity was something that metropolitan liberals basically gave no fucks about as it didn't affect them or their social bubbles. Which is why the thick of it goes rapidly downhill after the film imo
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Mar 10, 2021 20:36
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Also Brexit (rather, providing any positive reason to remain in the EU beyond 'other side racist') because similar.
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Mar 10, 2021 20:38
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It's why Rachel Riley didn't realise she was a baddie and had to scramble to it being anti Semitism to reconcile things for herself.
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Mar 10, 2021 21:13
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They've found the missing girls remains in woodland in Kent.
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Mar 10, 2021 21:33
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feedmegin posted:Never heard of the Holy Roman Empire or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth I take it. Yes, I am aware of the existence of elective monarchies, and how that is an entirely different political system from hereditary monarchies. It’s interesting that those systems found it useful to claim to be monarchies, in the same way that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea finds it useful to challenge for the HRE’s long standing record for ‘most lies in the official name of a state’.
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Mar 10, 2021 21:43
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serious gaylord posted:They've found the missing girls remains in woodland in Kent. Someone that I follow on twitter who knew her has been retweeting all her missing appeals from the police. Incredibly grim. 
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Mar 10, 2021 21:43
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radmonger posted:Yes, I am aware of the existence of elective monarchies, and how that is an entirely different political system from hereditary monarchies. 'Claim to be'? They were monarchies, mate, universally accepted at the time as such. Monarchy==hereditary is in your head, and succession even in hereditary monarchies can be...fuzzy to say the least. The Tudors come to mind. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Mar 10, 2021 |
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Mar 10, 2021 21:48
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What it suggests it that heredity is not a necessary requirement to be a monarchy.
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Mar 10, 2021 21:50
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Jippa posted:Someone that I follow on twitter who knew her has been retweeting all her missing appeals from the police. Incredibly grim. Oh no. Keep safe Jippa.
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Mar 10, 2021 21:51
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radmonger posted:Yes, I am aware of the existence of elective monarchies, and how that is an entirely different political system from hereditary monarchies. Sounds like someone needs to play some Crusader Kings
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Mar 10, 2021 21:52
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https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/mar/10/society-of-editors-chief-quits-after-row-over-meghan-racism-statement The Society of Editors chief has resigned over that lovely statement earlier this week.
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Mar 10, 2021 22:17
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serious gaylord posted:They've found the missing girls remains in woodland in Kent. Partner knew the missing girl from schooldays so the mood round here has been a bit sombre lately. Gonna go and break the news now.
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Mar 10, 2021 22:43
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serious gaylord posted:https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/mar/10/society-of-editors-chief-quits-after-row-over-meghan-racism-statement 
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Mar 10, 2021 22:44
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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I don't think BBC is particularly left/right or tends towards a particular political party in either its news or broader political programming (although some of its more long-standing pundits clearly skew Tory, primarily as they tend to come from those demographics: old, white, male, rich). But, it is kind of institutionally 'pro-establishment', and tends towards sustaining status quo and treating extreme views of all types cautiously, ending up with something that looks a little like socially progressive and economically/politically liberal centrist (and quite globalist).
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Mar 10, 2021 22:52
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The BBC is painfully centrist which means it's been getting more right wing over the last decade imo
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Mar 10, 2021 22:53
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Ewan posted:I don't think BBC is particularly left/right or tends towards a particular political party in either its news or broader political programming (although some of its more long-standing pundits clearly skew Tory, primarily as they tend to come from those demographics: old, white, male, rich). But, it is kind of institutionally 'pro-establishment', and tends towards sustaining status quo and treating extreme views of all types cautiously, ending up with something that looks a little like socially progressive and economically/politically liberal centrist (and quite globalist). Yeah pretty much this. It's pro whatever doesn't rock the boat.
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Mar 10, 2021 22:54
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https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1369764975955357697?s=20 I mean, he hasn't put a winking emoji with it or anything...
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Mar 10, 2021 22:58
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That might be fun. Alternatively they could hire Ash Sarkar and so many heads would explode.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:09
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Ash going on the telly and killing gammony old men through horny/rage induced heart attacks is praxis.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:11
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WhatEvil posted:https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1369764975955357697?s=20 https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1369774501941161985 did have my hopes up for a brief moment there
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Mar 10, 2021 23:19
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Ash Sarkar In The Morning is what Britain needs but does not deserve
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Mar 10, 2021 23:23
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Oh yeah. On the 37 Billion quid thing. I was doing a thought experiment with my wife yesterday about that, about where the money's gone, how much money that actually is, and how much you need to run a track and trace system. Like, how many people do you need to run a track and trace system? So back when T&T started in May last year, daily cases had not topped 5000. I don't know how many people you need to do the work of track and trace for that kind of system but let's say it's a 1:1 relationship, so for each case you need one person for one day to go through, talk to that person and contact everybody and let them know to isolate etc. So let's say 5000 people working at it, you buy each of them a pretty high spec PC for 2 grand. That's 10 million quid. OK so not actually that much on a nation-wide budget scale. So let's say we've done that, and we're paying each of them £30k/year (or about £15 an hour). If they work at it for an entire year (which they still haven't quite been doing at this point) that's another 150m quid, so 160m total. Let's say that I've got it wrong, and that for each case you need *5* people to go through and do the tracking and tracing. So we multiply the above by 5. That's £800 million. Quite a bit of cash. Still not enough. Let's be really generous and say that for each person who gets covid you need a HUNDRED PEOPLE working for a day, (remember, we're working at 5000 cases/day which is what the max was before September, so *half a million people in total*) all skilled enough to be paid £30 grand a year (let's not get into what we think the minimum wage *should* be, here). That's still only £16 billion to run for a year. Less than half of what's actually been spent on it. So if we're assuming that the people doing it are paid an average of £30k/year plus a bit extra for training and overheads and stuff you would need to have had A MILLION PEOPLE working on it. Now that's *if* they were all being paid 30k/year BUT I saw on Twitter the other day, somebody saying that their son or their friend's son was working on it, that he was getting paid minimum wage (which is £8.21/hr at the moment I believe), that he had to use his own laptop, his own phone, and work from home, basically wiping out all kinds of overhead costs except maybe some software and administration... Not only that, but a lot of the work seems to be done by the person with Covid logging onto a website and entering in contact details of people they've seen as per here: https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-52442754 quote:People who have tested positive for coronavirus are contacted by app, text, email or phone. Which presumably just automatically enters that stuff into a database and then fires texts off and stuff without or with very little human intervention. So where the gently caress has the money gone? To look at it another way, the UK has had 4.23m cases, and £37bn spent, that's over £8,700 PER CASE which has been spent on the track and trace system. For that much cash, you could have three people working on each case for a month, and pay each of them £34,800/year (ignoring any overheads). It's just absolutely flabbergasting. It has to be the largest fraud ever carried out, at least in the UK. There are literally 10's of billions of pounds missing.... and the system clearly hasn't even worked because not only have cases continued to rise but people have been telling stories of stuff like a literal member of their household getting covid and not getting a notification about needing to isolate 'til 2 weeks later.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:23
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