The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[RickBFA]

This tweet summed it up nicely.




@FlygerianFiddy 9m9 minutes ago

Great The Way Cameron Says Terrorism Is An Attack Against Our Freedom, Then When There's Terrorism, He Takes Away More Of Our 'Freedom'

Not an easy position for any government though is it?

Don't do the level of monitoring they want to and when we get attacked get pulled to pieces for not doing enough.

I have no problem with them looking at anything I do personally if they can minimise and reduce the risks of innocent people here getting massacred.

They have been doing it for years, outlaying billions and billions and we just see the scale and success of attacks increase. It shouldn't be the basis of our defence.

When you look at the evidence for the number of plots they have stopped because of their spying, there are none of note. Yet when you look at the number of international laws they have broken, the fact they even eavesdropped on the international committee designed to discuss their eavesdropping and law breaking, and the number of times they have used 'their counter terrorism SKILLS' to gain economically and politically you realise you are accepting that our fear of one kind of mindset of people is leading us to erode our own freedoms our own rights, and our own abilities to be a democracy that we champion to the rest of the world about so gleefully.

Do we actually have any real idea of how many plots and attacks they have prevented? I don't think we have a clue, how would we know the evidence?

[titaniumbean]

This tweet summed it up nicely.




@FlygerianFiddy 9m9 minutes ago

Great The Way Cameron Says Terrorism Is An Attack Against Our Freedom, Then When There's Terrorism, He Takes Away More Of Our 'Freedom'

Not an easy position for any government though is it?

Don't do the level of monitoring they want to and when we get attacked get pulled to pieces for not doing enough.

I have no problem with them looking at anything I do personally if they can minimise and reduce the risks of innocent people here getting massacred.

They have been doing it for years, outlaying billions and billions and we just see the scale and success of attacks increase. It shouldn't be the basis of our defence.

When you look at the evidence for the number of plots they have stopped because of their spying, there are none of note. Yet when you look at the number of international laws they have broken, the fact they even eavesdropped on the international committee designed to discuss their eavesdropping and law breaking, and the number of times they have used 'their counter terrorism SKILLS' to gain economically and politically you realise you are accepting that our fear of one kind of mindset of people is leading us to erode our own freedoms our own rights, and our own abilities to be a democracy that we champion to the rest of the world about so gleefully.

Do we actually have any real idea of how many plots and attacks they have prevented? I don't think we have a clue, how would we know the evidence?

because it went through the american courts, and after lying multiple times, they came back and had to say ZERO.

That's none. Not a single one stopped by blanket surveillance. Human intelligence is how they've found out and stopped a bunch of other 'attacks'. Remembering of course that many of the 'attacks' the FBI stop are ones they set up to look good and get funded.

The sick thing is that if they hadn't viciously abused our worlds technology for personal and nationalist economical gain then it would be alot more reasonable to think we could trust them to regulate themselves with these intrusive abilities.  Those in power in the US, the UK and elsewhere have shown themselves to be untrustworthy, bigoted and working down their own little personal crusades. All of which make us LESS safe rather than more.

[nirvana]

Anyway, titters, excellent points in so many of your posts - you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist  to appreciate how consistently lied to and misdirected we are. It may be a stretch to accuse Western governments of welcoming terrible events such as these but it's far from the worse thing that could happen to dovetail with their realpolitik.

[titaniumbean]

Anyway, titters, excellent points in so many of your posts - you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist  to appreciate how consistently lied to and misdirected we are. It may be a stretch to accuse Western governments of welcoming terrible events such as these but it's far from the worse thing that could happen to dovetail with their realpolitik.

the article that Tighty linked from the BBC where I quoted a line sums it up well, what we do supports and benefits the people we are trying to fight, which is why this methodology of mindless violence is in no way productive. Yet we will continue to do so because the people in charge also have vested interests in the military establishment and the economy surrounding it.  Please do read the article about the Syrian chapter in the Wikileaks book, with the internet and leaks and 'traitors' like Edward Snowden we can actually be more informed than we ever imagined, and then once we are, we can target our anger at the root causes rather than just seeing stuff on the news getting very upset, then reacting quickly and without any clear thoughts.


Lebanon had 44 die yesterday I think, but it doesn't even make the news, because they are arabs and foreigns and we don't give a single shit. Many many Africans will have died yesterday also to things that we could have been working to mitigate, instead we invest in weapons and then give them to angry people and expect to have control of them when they have served their very limited and biased purpose. We never seem to learn from history or our own mistakes.

[kukushkin88]

Anyway, titters, excellent points in so many of your posts - you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist  to appreciate how consistently lied to and misdirected we are. It may be a stretch to accuse Western governments of welcoming terrible events such as these but it's far from the worse thing that could happen to dovetail with their realpolitik.

the article that Tighty linked from the BBC where I quoted a line sums it up well, what we do supports and benefits the people we are trying to fight, which is why this methodology of mindless violence is in no way productive. Yet we will continue to do so because the people in charge also have vested interests in the military establishment and the economy surrounding it.  Please do read the article about the Syrian chapter in the Wikileaks book, with the internet and leaks and 'traitors' like Edward Snowden we can actually be more informed than we ever imagined, and then once we are, we can target our anger at the root causes rather than just seeing stuff on the news getting very upset, then reacting quickly and without any clear thoughts.


Lebanon had 44 die yesterday I think, but it doesn't even make the news, because they are arabs and foreigns and we don't give a single shit. Many many Africans will have died yesterday also to things that we could have been working to mitigate, instead we invest in weapons and then give them to angry people and expect to have control of them when they have served their very limited and biased purpose. We never seem to learn from history or our own mistakes.

Great post.

[DaveShoelace]

Question of the day

Where do you get your news from? In particular what are the good resources outside of the mainstream press.

TitBean I'm looking at you on this one.

[Doobs]

Question of the day

Where do you get your news from? In particular what are the good resources outside of the mainstream press.

TitBean I'm looking at you on this one.

Jesus, can't we get this board back to where it was before yesterday's decent in to full on lunacy?

Cheers

[TightEnd]

Clarkson defends Corbyn

Click to see full-size image.

next week, Billy Bragg defends Katie Hopkins

[kukushkin88]

Question of the day

Where do you get your news from? In particular what are the good resources outside of the mainstream press.

TitBean I'm looking at you on this one.

http://www.ft.com/home/uk

FT is the only way to go really and I think qualifies as being outside the mainstream press.

It's a real shame if anything that doesn't conform to the right leaning main stream view is dismissed as full on lunacy.

[kukushkin88]

Clarkson defends Corbyn

Click to see full-size image.

next week, Billy Bragg defends Katie Hopkins

It's extraordinary that Clarkson has the platform that he does to comment on politics. The News Review in the Sunday Times used to be the highlight of the Sunday papers.

[titaniumbean]

Question of the day

Where do you get your news from? In particular what are the good resources outside of the mainstream press.

TitBean I'm looking at you on this one.

Hard to just say xyz as an answer. It's more a case of read widely and believe very little, question everything and then after that be super fucking cynical.  Rather than trying to read the outliers, I like to read a bunch from a wide range of 'different opinions' and generally you can see, at least to some degree, where the basis of the overall story is and then where certain peoples biases come in.

Pretty much anyone the US get annoyed at I take a liking to 

I like to look at the UK bias via bbc news. I check the guardian, The Intercept, Independent, huffington post occasionally if people link an interesting article. I often read articles linked from the 'prestige' US papers, but mainly like bbc news to see their inherent bias for what it is, though occasionally they do actually do journalism. Private Eye is a good and frustrating read nearly every time.  The Economist and FT are useful too although their fking pay wall and limits are moronic. Vice news does some excellent exposes, and although it started a lot more gritty and believable it still churns out some really good articles amongst the more sanitised dross.

I find it very useful to follow many of these journalists on twitter and follow articles they link. I am currently reading the wikileaks book which is exceptionally interesting, and i've read a few of Greenwalds books about US policy already. I find that vox news does some really really good diagrams and conversation interviews to explain things that I have little knowledge of. I obviously follow the wikileaks twitter and a few others like it which often link to sites i'm not familiar with, so you have to do some quick searching to find out who is populating what you are reading but they are often respected hosts with very in depth articles, often quoting primary sources which are provided so I have a decent respect for their accuracy, but as with anything you still have to keep questioning it. Given my proximity to technology I try to always read anything by the ACLU guys that I see go past on twitter.

Then when all else fails and I want to know the real news, I check the dailymail 

[DaveShoelace]

Question of the day

Where do you get your news from? In particular what are the good resources outside of the mainstream press.

TitBean I'm looking at you on this one.

Hard to just say xyz as an answer. It's more a case of read widely and believe very little, question everything and then after that be super fucking cynical.  Rather than trying to read the outliers, I like to read a bunch from a wide range of 'different opinions' and generally you can see, at least to some degree, where the basis of the overall story is and then where certain peoples biases come in.

Pretty much anyone the US get annoyed at I take a liking to 

I like to look at the UK bias via bbc news. I check the guardian, The Intercept, Independent, huffington post occasionally if people link an interesting article. I often read articles linked from the 'prestige' US papers, but mainly like bbc news to see their inherent bias for what it is, though occasionally they do actually do journalism. Private Eye is a good and frustrating read nearly every time.  The Economist and FT are useful too although their fking pay wall and limits are moronic. Vice news does some excellent exposes, and although it started a lot more gritty and believable it still churns out some really good articles amongst the more sanitised dross.

I find it very useful to follow many of these journalists on twitter and follow articles they link. I am currently reading the wikileaks book which is exceptionally interesting, and i've read a few of Greenwalds books about US policy already. I find that vox news does some really really good diagrams and conversation interviews to explain things that I have little knowledge of. I obviously follow the wikileaks twitter and a few others like it which often link to sites i'm not familiar with, so you have to do some quick searching to find out who is populating what you are reading but they are often respected hosts with very in depth articles, often quoting primary sources which are provided so I have a decent respect for their accuracy, but as with anything you still have to keep questioning it. Given my proximity to technology I try to always read anything by the ACLU guys that I see go past on twitter.

Then when all else fails and I want to know the real news, I check the dailymail 

Bah, was expecting some sort of rebellious anti establishment dark web wikileaks hacker shit.

[titaniumbean]

Vice posted this report 5 days ago, just before the attacks.

Grim, grim viewing.

[rfgqqabc]

I've been a touch perturbed after the most recent Paris tragedy by the spate of "Oh this happened in Lebanon too". I'm sorry that people don't seem to understand that terrorist attacks in Western Europe are both unusual and important events that reflect much more with me than a bombing in Lebanon. I don't really understand why Angelina Jolie is getting praised for the post on instagram. I really believe human life is equally valuable but that doesn't mean people should be looked down upon from taking more from news that resonates with them, even if that is only because of the location. It's not even the subject matter, I would read more about a factory collapsing if it happened in England or Budapest than in China.

This is a real mess and I can't help feel that celebrating bombs being dropped on Raqqa is just pointless. It doesn't seem like much of a solution to me.

[DaveShoelace]

I've been a touch perturbed after the most recent Paris tragedy by the spate of "Oh this happened in Lebanon too". I'm sorry that people don't seem to understand that terrorist attacks in Western Europe are both unusual and important events that reflect much more with me than a bombing in Lebanon. I don't really understand why Angelina Jolie is getting praised for the post on instagram. I really believe human life is equally valuable but that doesn't mean people should be looked down upon from taking more from news that resonates with them, even if that is only because of the location. It's not even the subject matter, I would read more about a factory collapsing if it happened in England or Budapest than in China.

This is a real mess and I can't help feel that celebrating bombs being dropped on Raqqa is just pointless. It doesn't seem like much of a solution to me.

100% this

Grief shaming is a disgusting thing to do. It's a real false dichotomy that because X happened you can't be upset by Y. The fact that any of us are upset by events in another country is surely a good thing. The only shaming that should be done is to people who are being trolls about the whole thing. I've had tons of people on my timelines grief shaming people and (IMO) all they care about is they themselves looking virtuous, they don't care about the actual causes. If you want to do good, do good, don't point the finger at others for not doing enough.

And yes spot on, this has particular relevance to us, because France is a very similar country to ours.