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

must be because the european’s are all conniving to undermine ... anglo-saxon civilisation in general? i’m really not sure where you’re going with that anecdote. compare to how BMW have treated their UK concerns?

Ford cars are just known as bad in America with the only exception being their pickup truck. If it wasn't for the Ford 150 the company would be bankrupt. Their stock already lost nearly half its value in the last 4 years.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Ford cars are just known as bad in America with the only exception being their pickup truck. If it wasn't for the Ford 150 the company would be bankrupt. Their stock already lost nearly half its value in the last 4 years.

F150 sucks too. The Japanese make better, more durable pickup trucks.

uziq wrote:

american cars are bad and it is down to corporate shenanigans and european corruption that their cars don't sell well in a country that has the world's best automotive industry. very hot take, dilbert.

anyway, back to reality. this is good enough for now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFJ7IEPUUAo

concise, well chosen, masterful – an unanimous decision. i am grateful for our courts and institutions.

He said parliament was being prorogued, for an unusually long time,  to prepare for a Queens speech but with no evidence there was another reason I don't see how the judges made the leap to say he lied or acted illegally.

their reasoning seems quite clear to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGq5MAC9GfI

The tabloid comment sections are a hilarious read today.

My guess is a general election will be called now.

uziq wrote:

must be because the european’s are all conniving to undermine ... anglo-saxon civilisation in general? i’m really not sure where you’re going with that anecdote. compare to how BMW have treated their UK concerns?

It was more my experience of working with Germans than pushing any particular car brand.

the labour conference set out some of the most radical domestic politics for quite some time. i wouldn't say they are 'devoid of thoughts'.

the conservative party has taken the country – the union, even – to the brink of distintegration for the sake of their pet peeve, the EU, and internecine warfare. their election manifesto is basically 'we are going to deliver brexit', and that's it. they are sounding increasingly like the single-issue UKIP party. meanwhile boris is trying to throw a few sops to the much-immiserated populace, claiming to u-turn on their decade of austerity and suddenly start spending left, right and centre. law and order stuff, mostly, of course. really just no vision at all. 

labour have outlined a wide programme of nationalisation, cutting the work week to 32 hours, increasing the minimum wage, giving workers a dividend for their company, etc. they even tabled and passed a motion to abolish private education, tout court. regardless of what you think about it (and i have many misgivings), to say that they are without ideas is pretty much nonsense. it's the most out there, blatantly ideological political programme in quite some time, totally outside of the mainstream of centrist politics.

Last edited by uziq (2019-09-25 06:12:28)

not sure what news you're reading. corbyn has refused the conservatives' cynical attempts to call a general election ... twice. and probably a third time, seeing as they are calling for a third shortly. corbyn's team don't want an election right now.

labour do have an incredibly tough task in handling the conservatives' brexit psychodrama. their traditional voting base is hopelessly divided on both sides of the issue. the best they can come up with is 'we'll let the people decide it', which isn't exactly convincing. but it does look somewhat reasonable next to the conservatives 'out at any cost by october 31' or the lib dems 'we will cancel the whole thing'.

corbyn is a terrible leader and has categorically failed in his role as leader of the opposition during brexit. he is a life-long eurosceptic (for some quite shaky left-wing theoretical reasons). but i don't envy labour's predicament.

Last edited by uziq (2019-09-25 06:35:17)

the problem started when we opted to accommodate populism in a democracy. the politicians in control (cameron et al) didn't have a clue what they were unleashing in the era of social media, big data and dodgy interests (look at who funded, and by what means, all of the patently dishonest adverts and disinformation campaigns online). people get their information from facebook and twitter adverts that are designed to make them angry and pissed off, clickbait essentially, not from open sources of 'facts' as referenda are supposed to work.

we have essentially pitted two forms of politics against one another, representative democracy and direct populism, and we are in a constitutional crisis as a result. we have a prime minister appealing to 'the will of the people' in parliament, to turn his executive against parliament, to quash the ruling of the judiciary, to call parliament-approved acts and bills 'surrender acts', 'coward bills', etc. he goes into the commons chamber to shout and posture over the heads of those in the room to the audience at home, hoovering up untruths from rancorous tabloid front-pages or carefully edited 5 second video clips for the facebook pages.

same shit as with trump in the US. politics is lagging badly behind the way people receive information and organise nowadays.

where did you get that from? there are lots of ultra-remainer, pro-EU types that are equally as infuriating and insufferable to me.

the issue is that a prime minister trying to galvanise and unite the far-right tendencies in politics (i.e. the UKIP vote) is flouting democratic protocol to do it. in case you haven't been following, in the short weeks he has been in the role, he has: lost all 6 votes in parliament, excluded 21 senior MPs from his own party, destroying his own majority and precipitating a state where there is no government able to execute parliamentary politics, illegally shut down parliament and presented a case to the queen that was 'null and void'. any one of those would be enough to finish a PM. but the logic here is that he isn't playing the 'game' of parliament with its normal operating 'rules'. he is appealing directly to 'the people', so says, to do and act exactly as he wishes, without contrition of any kind. he is prepared to frustrate parliament, mislead the queen, and incite the people.

rather than be humble in the face of a unanimous defeat in the supreme court, he stands in parliament saying he believes they were wrong. there wasn't a single dissenting opinion in the supreme court, in which the full 11 judges were called; it's pretty rare for there to be a unanimous decision with anything over 6 judges, really.  but no, he thinks the top legal authorities in the land were wrong. he continually repeats that the defeat he suffered in parliament, passing a new act, is a 'surrender bill'. an MP was murdered in the streets over this brexit issue by a far-right activist shouting out 'traitor!' this is a shocking and shameless state of affairs -- and it's not the remainers acting this way.

i am remarking on what has led to the quite unbelievable scenes in parliament yesterday, for example, where a prime minister found to be acting illegally held the courts, parliament and entire process in contempt. if it was a remainer faction being enabled to act in the same way, i would say the same thing; if the remainers were doing the same, i would absolutely have the same complaint.

in any other time before this, a prime minister in such a situation would have had to resign. cabinet ministers and PMs have resigned in the past for far less grievous states of affairs.

my point about representative democracy is nothing that wasn't well-covered and accepted as common wisdom by the founding fathers, a few centuries ago. i don't think populism or appealing directly to 'the people' as political currency leads anywhere good, and is generally dangerous. people acting as a mass are irrational and quick to turn against their so-called tribunes.

also where have i ever identified myself as an 'anarcho-syndicalist'? i'm pretty sure i've only ever mentioned those terms in those discussions, repeated ad nauseam, where you consistently mis-used all sorts of 'leftist' terms, tossing out a blather of bad terminology. i had my noam chomsky phase when i was 17 and quickly put it to bed, as seems entirely normal, tbh. quite sure every political view i've espoused on d&st in my time here is broadly generic social-democratic. just because i know how to use terms correctly, doesn't mean i spend my free time going around as an antifa, jay. read a few more books mate.

Last edited by uziq (2019-09-26 02:26:37)

i don't know why you keep making out i am some ultra-remainer or corbynite type. i have never voted for corbyn and have been willing to move forward with brexit, so long as saner heads prevail than those who are currently leading things off a cliff at present.

uziq wrote:

where did you get that from? there are lots of ultra-remainer, pro-EU types that are equally as infuriating and insufferable to me.

the issue is that a prime minister trying to galvanise and unite the far-right tendencies in politics (i.e. the UKIP vote) is flouting democratic protocol to do it. in case you haven't been following, in the short weeks he has been in the role, he has: lost all 6 votes in parliament, excluded 21 senior MPs from his own party, destroying his own majority and precipitating a state where there is no government able to execute parliamentary politics, illegally shut down parliament and presented a case to the queen that was 'null and void'. any one of those would be enough to finish a PM. but the logic here is that he isn't playing the 'game' of parliament with its normal operating 'rules'. he is appealing directly to 'the people', so says, to do and act exactly as he wishes, without contrition of any kind. he is prepared to frustrate parliament, mislead the queen, and incite the people.

rather than be humble in the face of a unanimous defeat in the supreme court, he stands in parliament saying he believes they were wrong. there wasn't a single dissenting opinion in the supreme court, in which the full 11 judges were called; it's pretty rare for there to be a unanimous decision with anything over 6 judges, really.  but no, he thinks the top legal authorities in the land were wrong. he continually repeats that the defeat he suffered in parliament, passing a new act, is a 'surrender bill'. an MP was murdered in the streets over this brexit issue by a far-right activist shouting out 'traitor!' this is a shocking and shameless state of affairs -- and it's not the remainers acting this way.

i am remarking on what has led to the quite unbelievable scenes in parliament yesterday, for example, where a prime minister found to be acting illegally held the courts, parliament and entire process in contempt. if it was a remainer faction being enabled to act in the same way, i would say the same thing; if the remainers were doing the same, i would absolutely have the same complaint.

in any other time before this, a prime minister in such a situation would have had to resign. cabinet ministers and PMs have resigned in the past for far less grievous states of affairs.

my point about representative democracy is nothing that wasn't well-covered and accepted as common wisdom by the founding fathers, a few centuries ago. i don't think populism or appealing directly to 'the people' as political currency leads anywhere good, and is generally dangerous. people acting as a mass are irrational and quick to turn against their so-called tribunes.

also where have i ever identified myself as an 'anarcho-syndicalist'? i'm pretty sure i've only ever mentioned those terms in those discussions, repeated ad nauseam, where you consistently mis-used all sorts of 'leftist' terms, tossing out a blather of bad terminology. i had my noam chomsky phase when i was 17 and quickly put it to bed, as seems entirely normal, tbh. quite sure every political view i've espoused on d&st in my time here is broadly generic social-democratic. just because i know how to use terms correctly, doesn't mean i spend my free time going around as an antifa, jay. read a few more books mate.

You've been quite pro-democracy here on the board over the years, but like most pro-democracy people, you've now shown that you are only in favor of it when your voice is in the majority. You basically called your countrymen rubes who get their news from 5 second facebook videos. How do you know this? Wasn't the remain side the one that pushed Project Fear?

Besides, the most serious act out of this whole business was your 10 year old Supreme Court deciding to nullify proregotion (sic) based on no precedent. Congratulations, you've just enabled judicial review and nullification by unelected judges. The House of Lords hath returneth.

uziq wrote:

let me know when the 'far left' and 'anarcho-syndicalists' on the remain side are acting like this, jay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemies_of_the_People_(headline)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD-4vs7He6M

https://twitter.com/RupaHuq/status/1177121180815437825

https://twitter.com/bendepear/status/11 … 03329?s=20

Doesn't help that the opposition strategy seems to be to put up a sour face and tell Boris to 'please as a human being' moderate his language. They're letting him appear much stronger than he is. Man has lost every engagement so far, the best way to go about it would be to do so through humour and ridicule honestly. I want to hear more 'not a good start Boris'-es.

Last edited by Larssen (2019-09-26 02:45:11)