What Do You Think Today?

[Skyweir]

[peter]

Hey Sky, what do you think of this guy Tony Abbott - used to be Ausie PM at one point I believe - who has been (for some reason) approved for appointment to the UK Board of Trade by the Johnson administration? There's a certain amount of hoo-ha about it in the UK, the feeling seemingly being that he is a bit too outspoken in his opinions about things he would better to be quiet about.I think he recently said that given the situation of our countries in the Covid world, it would be kinder to 'let nature take its course' when it comes to treatment of elderly sufferers. This kind of comment has not endeared him to the middle and left commentariat in the UK, but he should fit in perfectly with Johnson and crew.

[Skyweir]

100% ... hes a country nationalist in the worst possible way. Remember the ugly we referred to upthread? He got himself into a lot of hot water here sticking his feet into his mouth.

Not a popular PM and was ousted by his own party.

Yes I feel sure he will fit in perfectly but hes a total tosser and a liability on legs.

I am not surprised he said that ... an Abbotism to be sure.

[peter]

Turns out he is a close friend (apparently) of Boris Johnson which explains a lot. He was a big Brexit supporter and the post on the Board of Trade (now confirmed) will involve advising on any trade relations drawn up with the EU post the end of the transition period. Interestingly it is being touted that the position is 'unpaid' in the reportage on the subject. Yeah right! Payment comes in many forms in this world and doesn't always (or even in the majority of cases) involve anything that appears on bank ledgers.

[Skyweir]

Yeah right. Plus Abbot isnt likely you do anything for the mere reward of an altruistic investment.

[peter]

It was great to see Ed Milliband on the rostrum in the House yesterday savaging Boris Johnson over his duplicity in respect of the reneging on the withdrawal agreement with the EU. Kier Stamer had bowed out due to a COVID problem at home and we got the chance to see what a good Commons performer his predecessor [but one] had been. What a shame that we lost such an able politician over his inability to look good while......eating a bacon sandwich.

I kid you not. The establishment owned press found his Achilles heel in their ability to portray him as a fool, standing under halo's, gurning with said sandwich, exiting under - you guessed it - an exit sign, and they ran with it. Never a day went by when some image or another showing the Labour leader in a foolish or 'freudian slip' like picture of seeming prescience was aired in the papers, accompanied by some ridiculing sub-heading - and it worked. By this drip, drip process they reduced this able politician's image in the public eye until he became a laughing stock.

Corbyn was of course a different animal. He was not easy to ridicule i n this way, but searching around they tried and tried to come up with a formula to break him. IRA sympathiser, Terrorist bed-fellow, Communist in waiting - all tried and none of it stuck, until they eventually struck upon the seam of golden invective that would finally bring him down. Corbyn the anti-Semite. Over and over we heard it - over and over again; trading on the absolute horror of what that poor people endured in the Second World War, the charge was levelled in such a way that no-one could say it nay, and the job was done. I said in the pre-election period that once Corbyn was ousted from the Labour leadership the issue would 'as if by magic' disappear - and so it has. Ther have been the last few desultory references in order to make good, but new leader Stamer has batted these aside as if nothing - in fact has made capital out of them by presenting himself as the 'man who will not tolerate'..... but the truth is that the media has lost interest. Corbyn is gone and it's time to find a new ploy.

As yet they have not been successful; Boris Johnson has effectively said as much in his strafing his Downing Street crew for sending him into the House 'unprepared' [now there's a laugh - as if Johnson has prepared himself for anything in his political career]. Stamer has to date been presented as the highly effective lawyer whose scalpel-like dissection of the PM in the Commons has won him plaudits, but this will not last. Trust me - behind the scenes the search is on for the subtle-knife [or perhaps not so subtle] whith which to begin the 'death by a thousand cuts' with which they will destroy him before the next election. That is unless they decide that he is 'one of us' by just enough margin for him to be allowed to win an election or two [in order to promote the illusion that we are more than a 'one party state'] for the sake of appearances.

Because we wouldn't want the people to get the idea that the whole thing is just a show and that above them all sits an untouchable elite who really run the show, call the shots and decide the fate of millions with their un-voted for and unaccountable programme. No that would never do now, would it.

[Skyweir]

It’s almost like reading a spoof summary of reality lol

Yes the bacon sanga eating episode should not be a credible methodology for judging the suitability of a politician lol

[peter]

Odd that you should say that (the spoof reality bit) Sky.

A couple of nights ago I watched an episode of the Batman spinoff show Pennyworth followed by an episode of Lovecraft Country. Watching the news after these, it crossed my mind that, given the stuff I was seeing about the PM's intention to ditch the withdrawal agreement and break international law and the banning of groups of more than 6 people as a result of the Covid situation, had I twelve months ago, seen this news as a fictional story ala the two I'd watched earlier, it wouldn't have seemed that out of place as an outrageous fantasy cum dystopian drama. Such are the times that we live in that it is not!

[peter]

My email site has an annoying little message "Hooray - Inbox is empty!" when no emails are in it. How the fuck do they know whether it's a case of "Hooray!" or not? Maybe I'm waiting for some really important confirmation or something and the box's emptiness is a scource of serious concern. I wish these sites would stop making assumptions and just stick with the business of doing what they are supposed to do without the unnecessary 'frills'. I can see the frikkin' box is empty - I don't need some stupid little message to tell me!

[Skyweir]

You should watch The Social Dilema.

[Avatar]

My email site has an annoying little message "Hooray - Inbox is empty!" when no emails are in it. How the fuck do they know whether it's a case of "Hooray!" or not?

Haha, that relates to the ongoing quest for "Inbox Zero" and is actually meant to refer to the fact that you have done all of your work i.e. dealt with all of your emails.

My inbox is never empty, because I never delete anything in case I need to refer to it later.

Social Dilemma

It was interesting, but that guy was a bit sanctimonious...also they sorta glossed over the whole "human agency" thing, people still have choice etc.

--A

[peter]

I'm not keen on till checkouts (the self-scanning ones) that 'speak' to you as if they are pouring honey all over you either. We have a chain of one-pound shops in which the tills speak in Elvis and other recognisable tones; much better - but not a patch on a machine that simply knows its place and stays silent. I suppose as the AI gets better the human attributes of these machines will be increased until they, at their acme, will be able to replicate the surly rudeness of their flesh and blood counterparts. I look forward to the day!

[Sorus]

My email site has an annoying little message "Hooray - Inbox is empty!"

My bank's ATM has a message that says "Happy Friday! Enjoy your weekend!"

Annoyed the heck out of me when I was working weekends.

[Avatar]

Mine prints my name on the screen after I insert my card and prefaces it with "Hello..."

Also annoys me.

Peter, I doubt either of us will live to see it, but you never know...

--A

[peter]

Margret Thatcher would be horrified. She laboured long and hard to place the limitations on state aid that allowed us to join the single market, membership of the greatest network of trading relationships on earth and on which we have thrived for three plus decades.

Yet Boris Johnson and his crew of unelected puppeteers seem happy to cast it away like so much chaff and are even prepared to break international law in order to be able to do so, the legendary Thatcher's proclamation that "Britain does not break treaty's," notwithstanding.

Perhaps our Prime Minister would do well to remember the words of his forbear William Pitt the younger "Where Law ends, tyranny begins." Or maybe that's the point.......

[peter]

Embarrassing for that bastion of English gentility The National Trust that in a report (commissioned by itself, no doubt in order to draw the teeth from the issue before someone else did the same) it transpires that ninety three of its properties (to which tourists and the gentle middle classes flock in their millions each year) have messy and less than honourable connections with the slave trade.

Simply reinforcing the undisputed fact that huge amounts of the aristocracy and upper-end wealth of this country was built, and still rests upon the foundations of the torn backs of Africans (regarded as little more than animals by the traders who transported them and 'owners' who utilized them) enslaved thereby, I'm not sure this preemptive action should be allowed to work the oracle.

Perhaps the day approaches when a visit to these properties will be more attuned to the visiting of the Commandant's house at Auschwitz, with the Trust providing information as to the scource of the riches which the owners evidently enjoyed to the fullest extent. If it is done, no doubt it will be done so in the most genteel of manners, small plaques discreetly placed but no description of the true horror that these wealth farmers actually oversaw.

I'm torn by this; these places are often beautiful to visit - oases of peace and tranquility on a summers afternoon and a hugely needed break from the stress of modern day living. Is it better that the beauty of these houses and gardens should be allowed to continue to do good even in the face of the vile nature of the individuals who created them, so that some balancing of the books (as it were) be achieved. Small, tailored down noticing allows for this, but does no or little justice to the poor people destroyed by this iniquitous period of history. Or should every property be flooded with images of the lashings, the hangings, the forced 'matings', the brutal work regimes, that ownership entailed.

Better to let the flowers do their work, be a tribute to the lives of the ones who paid the highest price - or use the visit to expose the horror of our imperial past (a horror not even broached to this day in the history books of our schools). You decide.

[I'm Murrin]

It seems to me that not acknowledging the history behind these places, or allowing people to ignore it, so that they can enjoy the fruits of that history is like saying "well, at least we got something nice out of it", which is skirting on the edge of saying the ends justified the means.

There will still remain places of both natural and man-made beauty that were not built on either the labour or wealth of slavery, which can be enjoyed untainted.

[sgt.null]

I was never a slave holder. I feel no responsibility for what people did in the past.

[Avatar]

And you're not responsible for it, so no reason you should. However, acknowledging that much of what you have and have been able to do arises from what they did in the past is something different.

As for the National Trust, (whom I have an ambivalent opinion about usually), I would be fine with in-situ acknowledgement of the connection of those properties to such things. (Nor do I consider it a taint per se.)

--A

[sgt.null]

avatar - when my people moved to America it was to New Hampshire. Not a slave state. My mother's side came from Canada . The French part. My father's side straight from England .

My family has always been blue collar workers. Not slave holders.