BF2S Forums Where are all the whiny peaceful "Enlightened" European now?

and majored in one of the most disparaged social sciences/humanities subjects of all: communication studies (aka media studies).

He read to students at the Maryland School for the Blind during his service project for Eagle Scout. He cites this as one of the reasons that he became interested in narrating and writing.[6][7]

narrating and writing stories? but what's the point? culture is useless.

you sure do know how to structure an argument, dilbert.

Last edited by uziq (2022-07-26 04:54:37)

tradespeople are relatively insulated from the sort of privations and precariousness that typify the UK economy at present. they are not part of the 'precariat', forming as they do something that used to be called 'skilled working class'. most tradespeople make way above the median wage; more, in fact, than university graduates when you factor out the student loans repayments and concentrations of graduate work in hyper-expensive london (not saying there's anything wrong with that, either, just they are wholly irrelevant in this discussion).

the majority of people affected in the UK by the cost-of-living crisis do not lack a work ethic. they are being exploited and eaten up in work which is, by design, precarious, poorly represented/unionized, and open to abuse. the industries they work in are often posting record profits. just they are seeing none of it. workers are being asked to eat a lot of shit whilst their bosses enjoy bumper salaries and endless bail-outs. the recent transport union strikes are emblematic of this; to say nothing of nurses, teachers, and other 'frontline' professions which have taken endless shit during the pandemic. even highly qualified and highly paid GPs (physicians to you yanks) are quitting the NHS in droves following years of stagnation, exploitation and short shrift. this is Tory-Brexiteer UK for you in all its magnifence (no accident that many of the subordinate or support roles in hospitals and care were staffed by ... europeans who got kicked out).

and yet dilbert loves to pretend that the issue here is one of 'shirkers' and 'those who get on in life'. or, again, and endlessly, between effete humanities people who are afraid to get their hands dirty and 'honest' bluecollar workers. his self-invented little rants are totally inapt and irrelevant.

Last edited by uziq (2022-07-26 05:15:14)

Tradespeople have on occasion quite low opinions of engineers as a stereotyped bunch of air conditioned, boneheaded office workers with no field experience, who will throw you under the bus before admitting fault to their bosses, clients, or the bureaucrats. Calculator men.

Imagine being an engineer upselling one of the biggest mascots of the trades on the planet.

It is really comical how the former Warsaw Pact countries are sending literally every piece of Soviet equipment they still have to use against Russia. The Soviets bankrupted themselves tooling up the countries that are now helping Ukraine. What a twist.

https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status … MFmQBvLOkw

greedy lazy workers.

watch the whole thread.

Last edited by uziq (2022-07-26 12:02:57)

Larssen wrote:

Seen this already somewhere, top bloke 100%.

nah this is the top bloke recently.

https://twitter.com/saulstaniforth/stat … 3cTePmf_ag

it's not overly right-wing in the way that, say, a fox news or tucker carlson-adjacent show would be. we don't quite have that sort of thing on the UK television (a bunch of nutjobs tried to make their own post-brexit populist tv channel, but it crashed and burned within 6 glorious weeks).

but it's insidiously right-wing in that sort of cosy, establishment way. the conversations are always nudged and framed thus so as to make some things seem 'reasonable' and others not. it's sub-BBC (which is generally pretty good, i find, on anything except direct political commentary). jeremy vine himself is something of an 'everyman' figure, not someone you'd associate necessarily with right-wing beliefs, but one of those thin-lipped 'commonsense' types who would probably surprise you if you asked for their opinion on, say ... worker's rights and trade union strikes.

uziq wrote:

it's not overly right-wing in the way that, say, a fox news or tucker carlson-adjacent show would be. we don't quite have that sort of thing on the UK television (a bunch of nutjobs tried to make their own post-brexit populist tv channel, but it crashed and burned within 6 glorious weeks).

but it's insidiously right-wing in that sort of cosy, establishment way. the conversations are always nudged and framed thus so as to make some things seem 'reasonable' and others not. it's sub-BBC (which is generally pretty good, i find, on anything except direct political commentary). jeremy vine himself is something of an 'everyman' figure, not someone you'd associate necessarily with right-wing beliefs, but one of those thin-lipped 'commonsense' types who would probably surprise you if you asked for their opinion on, say ... worker's rights and trade union strikes.

That puts it more clearly I suppose. I just noticed a lot of that sort of thing blasting off in its own direction with Limbaugh and his crowd. Some of the right wing hosts would even fume and stamp their feet and be all like "It's MY show, I do what I want! Get your own show and you can do what YOU want! NEXT CALLER!" to the chortling of commuter-listeners. And that's when they're in a good mood. Of course if brought to task, they are just acting in the capacity of an entertainer. Like, suuuure you are.

Maybe it's survivorship bias when I see older broadcasts and interviews where guests are allowed to speak.

https://twitter.com/rmtunion/status/155 … 1vjYkz_WAg

this guy smashes it out the park every time.

unions in the 1970s situation are not the same as now. comparisons are self-serving. what we precisely do NOT need is a thatcher figure and market neo-liberalist to come along and smash the overweening unions. workers’ rights, especially in the current legal framework and power balance, made all the worse by modern technologies, are at a LOW ebb. workers are more isolated and less covered by contract than in the 1970s.

it is the right moment for unions. especially in workforces like amazon’s, who are quickly turning the world into a dystopia so that one guy can keep popping to low-earth orbit in a giant silver phallus.

Last edited by uziq (2022-07-27 03:01:01)

I remember the 1990s, thanks, unions suck ass.

Workers rights =/= Unions

Unions give about as much of a fuck about actual workers as your average Thatcherite.

Have you ever been a member of a union?

Here the unions, which have set up their own super funds which they've forced members into, now control the govt and are pushing through financial deregulation of super funds.

https://twitter.com/politicsjoe_uk/stat … pHWiDCD94Q

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