The West has lost its freedom of speech

[wayneL]

I'm worried what happens if it goes on for too long. It's very "lord of the flies" at the moment.

I've been rummaging through my drawers looking for my old tin foil hat.

I don't even want to contemplate the dots that I see lining up just begging to be joined.

 

[sptrawler]

I'm worried what happens if it goes on for too long. It's very "lord of the flies" at the moment.

Saying that all the problems stem from colour prejudice, therefore implying that their behaviour doesn't contribute to the problem, is fraught with danger IMO.
Talk about positive re inforcement of poor behaviour, it is a weird World we moving toward, very 'mad Max' stuff.lol
I would say Australia is fortunate, with its gun control laws, during this period.

 

[qldfrog]

too bad about the protester the statue fell on (now in critical condition in hospital)

Was that irony or karma?
Darwin challenge:does not deserve human title

 

[basilio]

One perspective on the ducking of Edward Colston


Fighting over statues obscures the real problem: Britain's delusion about its past
Martin Kettle
A collective failure to look the history of empire in the eye stops us from being the kind of country we could be

There were two historically striking things about Bristol’s statue of Edward Colston. The first, most obviously, was that the statue of a slave trader could still have had pride of place in a British city in 2020. The second, much less remarked, is that the statue was only erected there in 1895, fully 200 years after Colston’s life and almost 90 years after the abolition of the slave trade.

Why did the statue go up when it did? It wasn’t to celebrate slavery. It was because, at a time when Britain’s empire stretched around the globe, what seemed to matter most about Colston to the city’s rulers was not how he had got his riches but his enduring and formidable legacy of philanthropy. Like most late Victorian British cities, Bristol was governed by Gladstonian Liberals not by Tories. The Liberals abhorred slavery and extolled their abolitionist forebears. But they celebrated their own enlightenment, in the form of the charitable schools, hospitals and research centres that they endowed, even more.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...real-problem-britains-delusion-about-its-past

 

[Smurf1976]

Saying that all the problems stem from colour prejudice, therefore implying that their behaviour doesn't contribute to the problem, is fraught with danger IMO.

We're living in a world where very few people be they white, black, green, blue, red, orange or any other colour, are willing to consider that they may well be the cause of a particular problem.

The few who are able to think that way tend to do well in whatever they pursue from sports to finance. Only by acknowledging our own flaws do we have any chance of improving.

 

[sptrawler]

We're living in a world where very few people be they white, black, green, blue, red, orange or any other colour, are willing to consider that they may well be the cause of a particular problem.

The few who are able to think that way tend to do well in whatever they pursue from sports to finance. Only by acknowledging our own flaws do we have any chance of improving.

Yes it boils down to a do as you want, it is all our fault ticket, it should be interesting seeing how it plays out IMO.

 

[Smurf1976]

Yes it boils down to a do as you want, it is all our fault ticket, it should be interesting seeing how it plays out IMO.

"Every child wins a prize" and there's no such thing as failure. Etc.

In the real world, a common theme among people who've had major success in any field is that they failed along the way. Plenty of inventors and scientists came up with things that didn't work, plenty of now famous musicians were booed of stage early in their careers, plenty of business people went broke on their first attempt. Etc. Failure is often a key to later success.

 

[qldfrog]

One perspective on the ducking of Edward Colston


Fighting over statues obscures the real problem: Britain's delusion about its past
Martin Kettle
A collective failure to look the history of empire in the eye stops us from being the kind of country we could be

There were two historically striking things about Bristol’s statue of Edward Colston. The first, most obviously, was that the statue of a slave trader could still have had pride of place in a British city in 2020. The second, much less remarked, is that the statue was only erected there in 1895, fully 200 years after Colston’s life and almost 90 years after the abolition of the slave trade.

Why did the statue go up when it did? It wasn’t to celebrate slavery. It was because, at a time when Britain’s empire stretched around the globe, what seemed to matter most about Colston to the city’s rulers was not how he had got his riches but his enduring and formidable legacy of philanthropy. Like most late Victorian British cities, Bristol was governed by Gladstonian Liberals not by Tories. The Liberals abhorred slavery and extolled their abolitionist forebears. But they celebrated their own enlightenment, in the form of the charitable schools, hospitals and research centres that they endowed, even more.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...real-problem-britains-delusion-about-its-past

Wow..a sensible article from the guardian? Is the left intelligencia now scared by the devil they have unleashed on the west after decades of consistence push?
All fanatical movements from communists to Nazis end up knifing their funders as not radical enough
It will not take long for this battle to be seen in vocal outposts like the guardian.
@basilio could maybe keep us all aware of the various changes at the editorial board etc will quickly reflect the winning side.for the sake of the world, let's hope the red Talibans loose.

 

[basilio]

Wow..a sensible article from the guardian? Is the left intelligencia now scared by the devil they have unleashed on the west after decades of consistence push?
All fanatical movements from communists to Nazis end up knifing their funders as not radical enough
It will not take long for this battle to be seen in vocal outposts like the guardian.
@basilio could maybe keep us all aware of the various changes at the editorial board etc will quickly reflect the winning side.for the sake of the world, let's hope the red Talibans loose.

I'm delighted you can now recognise a balanced , nuanced position even when it is espoused by a writer through The Guardian.

By the way you did read the whole story and not just the first two paragraphs I pasted ?
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...real-problem-britains-delusion-about-its-past

 

[qldfrog]

Of

I'm delighted you can now recognise a balanced , nuanced position even when it is espoused by a writer through The Guardian.

By the way you did read the whole story and not just the first two paragraphs I pasted ?
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...real-problem-britains-delusion-about-its-past

Course not,so there is a trick..:-(
I only read the guardian when in stuck in China
the CCP is very happy to let it spread its stories, to give you a hint even the Australian ABC ended up blocked.
I believe this says it all as to the way CCP consider the helpfulness of the guardian toward the western world.
Just think about it.
More seriously i really hope there are still a bit of balanced articles there but every click on their site is a support so i gave up with them
I do an exception for you and will rise my blood pressure by following the link..once only

 

[qldfrog]

The whole storyread
Usual bias..at least some knowledge and IQ, disagree with conclusions but hey that is not surprising.
Type of opposing side i would nearly find decent even if twisted and wrong.

 

[basilio]

Qldfrog there is no "trick" in seeing the big picture and a nuanced argument. Some arguments around statues of famous people who were also responsible for some pretty awful events is having an additional plaque made up to add further information about what they were responsible for.

As the article said they could well be placed in a museum which remembers the whole picture of their achievements.

In the real world Saddams statutes were the first thing to go when the US invaded. Same of course in Romania when Clouseau was deposed. In Soviet Russia Stalin was still revered after his death even when Khrushchev revealed the tyranny of his labour/death camps and the arbitrary imprisonment and execution of millions of people.

A point about statutes of Confederate Generals and other memorials in the US.

These did not up just after the Civil War. They were constructed largely from 1900-1920's when there was a revival of the Ku Klux Klan and a nationwide strengthening of White Supremacy. The salute to the Confederacy was a way of highlighting the people who stood up for White Supremacy.

This is very much like DW Griffiths epic film "Birth of a Nation" which reflected and inspired this White Supremacist movement. It became the recruiting tool for the Ku Klux Klan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation

 

[moXJO]

Qldfrog there is no "trick" in seeing the big picture and a nuanced argument. Some arguments around statues of famous people who were also responsible for some pretty awful events is having an additional plaque made up to add further information about what they were responsible for.

As the article said they could well be placed in a museum which remembers the whole picture of their achievements.

In the real world Saddams statutes were the first thing to go when the US invaded. Same of course in Romania when Clouseau was deposed. In Soviet Russia Stalin was still revered after his death even when Khrushchev revealed the tyranny of his labour/death camps and the arbitrary imprisonment and execution of millions of people.

A point about statutes of Confederate Generals and other memorials in the US.

These did not up just after the Civil War. They were constructed largely from 1900-1920's when there was a revival of the Ku Klux Klan and a nationwide strengthening of White Supremacy. The salute to the Confederacy was a way of highlighting the people who stood up for White Supremacy.

This is very much like DW Griffiths epic film "Birth of a Nation" which reflected and inspired this White Supremacist movement. It became the recruiting tool for the Ku Klux Klan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation

Where does it stop. Book burning not enough?
Let's start wiping history into a beige blob of leftist retardary.
Mount Rushmore, pyramids what else should we tear down?
While I could care less about a statue, it's a slippery slope once it kicks off.

 

[SirRumpole]

Where does it stop. Book burning not enough?
Let's start wiping history into a beige blob of leftist retardary.
Mount Rushmore, pyramids what else should we tear down?
While I could care less about a statue, it's a slippery slope once it kicks off.

I agree, although as far as King Leopold is concerned, what did he ever do for us ? For all we know he had never heard of Australia. The same goes for a lot of places named after English Lords who have never been here.

We need more local names, not just of indigenous people, but others who contributed to the development of this country in a practical way.

 

[qldfrog]

Qldfrog there is no "trick" in seeing the big picture and a nuanced argument. Some arguments around statues of famous people who were also responsible for some pretty awful events is having an additional plaque made up to add further information about what they were responsible for.

As the article said they could well be placed in a museum which remembers the whole picture of their achievements.

In the real world Saddams statutes were the first thing to go when the US invaded. Same of course in Romania when Clouseau was deposed. In Soviet Russia Stalin was still revered after his death even when Khrushchev revealed the tyranny of his labour/death camps and the arbitrary imprisonment and execution of millions of people.

A point about statutes of Confederate Generals and other memorials in the US.

These did not up just after the Civil War. They were constructed largely from 1900-1920's when there was a revival of the Ku Klux Klan and a nationwide strengthening of White Supremacy. The salute to the Confederacy was a way of highlighting the people who stood up for White Supremacy.

This is very much like DW Griffiths epic film "Birth of a Nation" which reflected and inspired this White Supremacist movement. It became the recruiting tool for the Ku Klux Klan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation

Are you not a teacher? I can not believe it so the US civil war was a matter of slavery of course and slave owners vs freedom and race equality?
As a Japanese will tell you WWII was to blame on the US? And chinese kid tell you the greatness of the gread jump forward?
Honestly, I am not kidding or joking : I feel like crying reading that type of sxxit from someone teaching some kids, so sad.
Take 1 week of your time reading causes of US civil war, confederates vs union, etc...I am sure even leftist authors could have handle the subject properly
You will not take this well, but you would have been a perfect red book holder or hitlerian youth in different times and places .A brain is used to think and critical analysis, otherwise why are you on earth for?
Anyway back to our usual jest but please educate yourself and value facts not ideology

 

[moXJO]

I agree, although as far as King Leopold is concerned, what did he ever do for us ? For all we know he had never heard of Australia. The same goes for a lot of places named after English Lords who have never been here.

We need more local names, not just of indigenous people, but others who contributed to the development of this country in a practical way.

Yep change it through consultation.
Don't just mob tear it down.

 

[basilio]

QFrog I researched and taught American History. Likewise with Soviet and Chinese history. Do I understand it all ? No way.. But I can recognise a range of factors in the history of any country. And it is complicated.

It is always rewarding to discover the elements of history that are overlooked or ignored or even deliberately misrepresented to suit a particular ideology.

I referenced DW Griffths "Birth of Nation" in my previous post. That was one of the most influential movies ever produced. But what was it about ? How did it depict US history ? What was its message ? How did it get used ?

Despite its controversial story, the film has been praised by film critics, with Ebert mentioning its use as a historical tool: "The Birth of a Nation is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil."[112]

According to a 2002 article in the Los Angeles Times, the film facilitated the refounding of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915.[113] History.com similarly states that "There is no doubt that Birth of a Nation played no small part in winning wide public acceptance" for the KKK, and that throughout the film "African Americans are portrayed as brutish, lazy, morally degenerate, and dangerous."[114] David Duke used the film to recruit Klansmen in the 1970s.[115]

In 2013, the American critic Richard Brody wrote The Birth of a Nation was :


...a seminal commercial spectacle but also a decisively original work of art—in effect, the founding work of cinematic realism, albeit a work that was developed to pass lies off as reality. It's tempting to think of the film's influence as evidence of the inherent corruption of realism as a cinematic mode—but it's even more revealing to acknowledge the disjunction between its beauty, on the one hand, and, on the other, its injustice and falsehood. The movie's fabricated events shouldn't lead any viewer to deny the historical facts of slavery and Reconstruction. But they also shouldn't lead to a denial of the peculiar, disturbingly exalted beauty of Birth of a Nation, even in its depiction of immoral actions and its realization of blatant propaganda. The worst thing about The Birth of a Nation is how good it is. The merits of its grand and enduring aesthetic make it impossible to ignore and, despite its disgusting content, also make it hard not to love. And it's that very conflict that renders the film all the more despicable, the experience of the film more of a torment—together with the acknowledgment that Griffith, whose short films for Biograph were already among the treasures of world cinema, yoked his mighty talent to the cause of hatred (which, still worse, he sincerely depicted as virtuous).[109]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation

 

[basilio]

The Right to Challenge authority in the US.

 

[moXJO]

The Right to Challenge authority in the US.

They:
Put up walls.
Deport who they don't like.
Restrict immigration.
Walk around with high powered weapons.
Beat up the media they don't like.

Yeah... umm

 

[basilio]

They:
Put up walls.
Deport who they don't like.
Restrict immigration.
Walk around with high powered weapons.
Beat up the media they don't like.

Yeah... umm

Excellent as usual.
A perfect description of the current administration and its White Supremacists followers