BF2S Forums DAST Chat

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

who has the extreme world view? the muslim family living in massachusetts? they are not the same people as the cleric in saudi arabia. is the mild-mannered southern episcopalian the same as the latter-day prophet in his waco spread?

didn't black militants call for the same thing during the civil rights era?

Is it intolerant to be intolerant of the intolerant? I say no.

We have two options:

Be intolerant of muslims and other groups whose intention is not to assimilate but to dominate, maintain our otherwise tolerant culture and take the criticism.

Tolerate muslims etc who seek to impose their views over everyone elses, and end up in a less tolerant situation than before.

I'm fine with option 1. If muslims don't like it they're free to live in muslim countries or pick another cult.
Its fine to be intolerant of Nazis, white supremacists etc, I'm fine with not tolerating brown supremacists too, they aren't a special case.

"But they just want to quietly get along"
They don't, as soon as they achieve critical mass in a country they seek to dominate they start agitating and throwing their weight around.
"the muslim family living in massachusetts" will quietly support the cleric in Saudi Arabia.

This.


I will also follow it up and say Coptic Egyptians and Christian Lebanese are fine people. Our country should do more to protect those people even if that means letting them immigrate.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

who has the extreme world view? the muslim family living in massachusetts? they are not the same people as the cleric in saudi arabia. is the mild-mannered southern episcopalian the same as the latter-day prophet in his waco spread?

didn't black militants call for the same thing during the civil rights era?

Is it intolerant to be intolerant of the intolerant? I say no.

We have two options:

Be intolerant of muslims and other groups whose intention is not to assimilate but to dominate, maintain our otherwise tolerant culture and take the criticism.

Tolerate muslims etc who seek to impose their views over everyone elses, and end up in a less tolerant situation than before.

I'm fine with option 1. If muslims don't like it they're free to live in muslim countries or pick another cult.
Its fine to be intolerant of Nazis, white supremacists etc, I'm fine with not tolerating brown supremacists too, they aren't a special case.

"But they just want to quietly get along"
They don't, as soon as they achieve critical mass in a country they seek to dominate they start agitating and throwing their weight around.
"the muslim family living in massachusetts" will quietly support the cleric in Saudi Arabia.

This.


I will also follow it up and say Coptic Egyptians and Christian Lebanese are fine people. Our country should do more to protect those people even if that means letting them immigrate.

yes, i agree. the phalangists were very fine people. christians need to be protected at all costs. they are the innocent, unstained peoples of the middle east.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and … a_massacre

https://twitter.com/michaelmphysics/sta … 5425241089

Last edited by uziq (2018-12-15 15:55:13)

Does the West’s obsession with Vladimir Putin prevent it from genuinely understanding Russia? In Russia Without Putin (Verso), LRB contributor and Russophile Tony Wood argues that the core features of Putinism—a predatory, authoritarian elite presiding over a vastly unequal society—are integral to the system set in place after the fall of Communism, a legacy of Yeltsinism rather than a resurgence of Soviet authoritarianism.   Tony Wood was in conversation with James Meek, LRB Contributing Editor and author of Private Island (Verso).

http://media.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk … s-meek.mp3

So how about this Brexit tho?

bit late to be getting into it now, isn’t it, DF?

well done!

it's a turning point for europe, too. they are all shitting it. the need to force a no deal brexit is an existential dilemma for europe. the currency is fucked and has been for a while. big members have been bullying small members for a long time fo the continued existence of the union. the german economy could still go into a recession at this point. the eurozone has been in the doldrums for a while and the narrative of national self-sacrifice for international peace and stability clearly isn't going down very well. you have anti-immigrant parties in germany, bordering on the far-right; anti-globalists/anti-capitalists in france; strong men in central europe stressing nationalist mythology, etc. the whole project is faltering.

i voted remain and have always looked outwards to europe. but i realise that my attachment to europe is to its culture and wider history, not to any particular legal-bureaucratic institution such as the EU. the way the EU has bullied members such as greece, italy, and forced negotiations with the UK shows it for what it is, ultimately: a neoliberal order run for the interests of german banks and a certain centrist status quo. there are rational arguments to be made from both the right- and left-wing for national self-determination.

it's a clusterfuck and the drawn out, ugly process has turned me from an idealistic remain voter into someone far more equivocal.

what worries me is that areas of the UK that were most virulently anti-EU, e.g. the post-industrial, working-class north, were actually the recipient of a lot of EU funding. people are voting exclusively based on emotions and against their self-interest. it has unlocked a purely irrational force in politics again that appeals more to popular mythology and nostalgic fantasies than any real notion of politics. these people are going to be pissed when the self-imposed fiscal pain kicks in, and they are going to get even further entrenched in their far-right fantasies of victimhood.

you are right that using a plebiscite for a huge political choice was a massive fuck-up. now you have two schools: the 'one referendum establishes the inviolable will of The People for eternity' and the 'let's have a new referendum every 6 months' camp. the entire process has been badly delegitimized.

Last edited by uziq (2019-02-11 01:32:53)

for anyone interested, norma percy, who is probably one of the best documentary-makers in the world active today (she did ‘the death of yugoslavia’, among others), has done a 3-part documentary on brexit. it’s on the bbc.

there’s been a lot of deplorable and tendentious attempts to address brexit, either via documentaries/extended news coverage or dramatisations, and this is far and away the best thing i’ve ever seen on the subject.

Dilbert_X wrote:

I'm tired of hearing about it and the dumb fucking morons involved in it on every side.

Morons
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles … -heartland
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wale … t-15664529
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 … r-job-cuts

Ignore it then...

An author in a conservative magazine wrote an article about rebuilding positive male masculinity through military service. I liked this one comment

[The author] as someone who admires you and your intellect, you’re much too far removed from the real state of the military. Please don’t preach false rhetoric based on completely removed experiences. With all due respect, you were a JAG officer in the reserves. That makes you an alien in the world of the average service-member. Military service isn’t the coming of age story that you stereotype it to be. Male purpose and military aren't some sort of exclusive being. The military’s first order of business is to strip its trainee of their individual identity to make them a member of the collective. This is followed by a litany of free benefits (college, medical care, food, and housing) that was meant for returning soldiers who participated in World War 2 (and has since become indentured servitude in exchange for socialist welfare).

The active duty service member is regulated to an assortment of mundane tasks (whether it be labor or administrative). Service members are assigned specific careers regardless of what they were promised by their recruiters. They’re then required to work as long as their specific leadership (a vast chain of command engulfed in constant miscommunication) assigns them to work (as long as it’s “8 hours before the next shift”). Yet they (overtime workers, labor workers, educated workers, combat soldiers) get paid the same as someone who is sent home early everyday. Service-members are introduced to programs designed to help them with debt (young service-members typically relieve their stress by investing in expensive vehicles) and alcoholism (alcohol abuse and military service is like water and basic survival). If life is about meaning then your typical service-member is missing out on the quintessential aspects to life. Military service isn't exactly something to praise or encourage, and it is definitely a far cry from what we want to label "male purpose". We shouldn't look to a Government institution (primarily one meant to send people off to kill and be killed) to promote masculinity or purpose anyway.

uziq wrote:

it's a turning point for europe, too. they are all shitting it. the need to force a no deal brexit is an existential dilemma for europe. the currency is fucked and has been for a while. big members have been bullying small members for a long time fo the continued existence of the union. the german economy could still go into a recession at this point. the eurozone has been in the doldrums for a while and the narrative of national self-sacrifice for international peace and stability clearly isn't going down very well. you have anti-immigrant parties in germany, bordering on the far-right; anti-globalists/anti-capitalists in france; strong men in central europe stressing nationalist mythology, etc. the whole project is faltering.

i voted remain and have always looked outwards to europe. but i realise that my attachment to europe is to its culture and wider history, not to any particular legal-bureaucratic institution such as the EU. the way the EU has bullied members such as greece, italy, and forced negotiations with the UK shows it for what it is, ultimately: a neoliberal order run for the interests of german banks and a certain centrist status quo. there are rational arguments to be made from both the right- and left-wing for national self-determination.

it's a clusterfuck and the drawn out, ugly process has turned me from an idealistic remain voter into someone far more equivocal.

Depending on which way you look at it the project has been 'faltering' since its inception. Yet it hasn't. Important developments in the EU are driven by and through crises. This institution wouldn't move at all if not for looming international disasters. The 'bullying' is part of a process to iron out the creases. Monetary union without oversight or a higher degree of political control was bound to end up in disaster. With that in mind, the first crisis being in Greece was a good thing - Greece's political position & its relatively limited impact on the rest of the EU allowed for a smoother process than if the first crisis were in Italy or anywhere else.

The narrative of national sacrifice is one touted institutionally but not by the members. On their end it's mostly an internal narrative of reluctant necessity. Despite the strongman rhetoric in Eastern Europe, or other nationalist tendencies in Northern Europe, or the beligerence in the South, at the end of the day all parties will pull up a chair at every new European Council because they know they cannot go it alone. Some are very dependent on EU funding for agriculture and other national industries, others need to seek out the institution to deal with the migration crisis, others will focus on economic policies or Russia - all of these subjects impossible to deal with outside of the international framework. Returning to their national capitals, many 'leaders' then (ab)used EU compromise agreements to score cheap political points back home by pointing the finger to Brussels whenever difficult decisions were made. This reluctance to claim ownership while the PM's autograph was on a given agreement was most of all the case in the UK, where noone in establishment camps seriously attempted to reign in nationalist anti-EU sentiments (instead riding with them for political expediency).

One of the few countries actually intent on proactively using the EU as a vehicle to advance its national interest is France - if only other member states were as driven or involved as they were, institutional development would move much faster. But as we know many governments are not. Instead, they continually ask themselves 'how can I ensure the EU impacts my autonomous decision making as little as possible?'. And don't confuse that drive for self-determination with national interest. It's about the preservation of the power national governments have internationally, over their people and over their territories. Regardless of that power actually serving the interest of the people. Something I'm seeing with increasing regularity in a world as globalised & interconnected as ours, but I digress.

uziq wrote:

what worries me is that areas of the UK that were most virulently anti-EU, e.g. the post-industrial, working-class north, were actually the recipient of a lot of EU funding. people are voting exclusively based on emotions and against their self-interest. it has unlocked a purely irrational force in politics again that appeals more to popular mythology and nostalgic fantasies than any real notion of politics. these people are going to be pissed when the self-imposed fiscal pain kicks in, and they are going to get even further entrenched in their far-right fantasies of victimhood.

you are right that using a plebiscite for a huge political choice was a massive fuck-up. now you have two schools: the 'one referendum establishes the inviolable will of The People for eternity' and the 'let's have a new referendum every 6 months' camp. the entire process has been badly delegitimized.

Well, I agree. Wish the UK luck in solving that shitshow - should've listened to lord buckethead from the outset.

Dilbert_X wrote:

I wonder if Merkel wasn't a long term Russian sleeper and throwing open Europe's doors to millions of middle-eastern migrants wasn't part of a great plan to destroy Europe.

I cannot facepalm harder

Last edited by Larssen (2019-02-26 02:38:31)