UKMT August 2016: The Month of the Dull Knives

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT August 2016: The Month of the Dull Knives

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

thespaceinvader posted:

Just a tad bit, yes.

The argument that it's all just Labour party members seems more than a little suspect.

Then again, considering how fast the party's growing... :v:

# ¿ Aug 1, 2016 20:25

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 13:19

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

HorseLord posted:

Well my first bit of critical thinking is: How come everyone who makes the mass murderer claims uses a different death toll? It's always a big multi millions number, but it's never the same one. I've heard everything from 20, to 50, to 100 Million dead. The second bit of critical thinking is how would any of those figures fit within known Soviet demographics, what would the birth rate even have to be?

My third bit of critical thinking is, why do you think proper practice in a debate is to go "uh well I don't actually know anything about the subject, BUTANYWAYHERE'SANOTHERTHING bet you can't handle that, huh"? Be honest, you bring up death tolls and gulags in order to bail out from antisemitism into a subject of your choice that you think you might fare better with. Otherwise you would not have brought any other subject up.

My fourth bit is wondering why you think I'd even care that people went to gulags.

You're aware of the ЧСИР, right? Even if you assume that everyone deemed a traitor in the USSR was fairly and accurately judged to be a threat to Russia, you still have to take into account that their entire families would automatically be gulag'd with them for the crime of being their families - or, in the case of their kids, put into NKVD-run orphanages where they were treated as traitors due to the social environment they'd been raised in (translation - they were abused like whoa), and then gulag'd if they were found 'difficult'.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2016 00:41

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Oberleutnant posted:

Lots of the people stalin had killed were longstanding party members you shitlord.

And their wives and children. I really want to stress this bit.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2016 00:43

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

30.5 Days posted:

He was watching Eagle drown and went "oh I can do better than that" and he wasn't wrong but I guess he forgot there was someone else in the race.

I really disagree about this, that Smith is doing the best he can. Grillo was right, if he stayed on message about the GE and would also stop saying loving stupid things about policy, this could probably be winnable. There are days even pissflaps can manage that. He'd also need to throw some red meat for those who see this as a proxy war with the PLP. Of course doing that would put him into contention with the PLP but he'd also probably win and it wouldn't be his seat in danger of deselection.

Smith is specifically in play to defend the current system, with its elitism and unhealthy ties to extraparliamentary financial interests. You really expect a guy who's spent his whole career cycling between Labour Party posts and pharma jobs to encourage the unwashed masses to cripple his own livelihood?

# ¿ Aug 5, 2016 01:38

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Guavanaut posted:

Is he a Jew?

I will accept Twitter politics becoming relevant, but I will never accept student politics becoming relevant.

Don't tell the Maoists.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2016 18:05

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

nothing to seehere posted:

Getting a degree should not be a finacial requirement: People shouldn't get a degree because they feel they have to. We should be encouraging more people to go to university because education is a inherently valuable thing: Getting people to study a subject of interest in-depth for 3 years makes them a better person. While the financial benefits should be on the mind of student, and people shouldn't be told that a degree in art leads to stable employment when it will not, people should go to university to learn: not to train.

It's also worth remembering that people in Britain aren't just workers, but members of a democracy. A more educated populace with a deeper and broader pool of knowledge is better at running the country.

On that note, Corbyn did a Q&A in the Mirror.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2016 16:44

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Tesseraction posted:

Owen Smith took that news about the court decision badly I guess.

That speculation, or you got a link?

# ¿ Aug 8, 2016 12:56

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Dredd didn't really sing to me. It was really dour, without much of the fun, campy black comedy that's one of 2000AD's main selling points. It was an OK actioner, but could have leaned way more into its inherently silly premise.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2016 22:15

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

On the topic of Corbyn articles, this got posted earlier, but is a good piece of writing that deserves more clicks.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2016 11:25

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Ewan posted:

Yeah just get a provisional driving licence or passport?

An adult passport costs �72. That's a shitload of money for something you might not use very often if you're on minimum wage or benefits (or not even that).

# ¿ Aug 13, 2016 14:57

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Again, the current forms of ID (excepting free stuff like buss passes for pensioners and the disabled) are pretty expensive, and often used rarely for that expense. Especially passports. Unless you do something to fix that, you're limiting the franchise to people above a certain income level.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2016 17:26

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

The judge who endorsed the NEC block on new members voting was Philip Sales, one of Tony Blair's old law firm buddies who gained a high-profile government job in 1999 in unusual circumstances.

Well now.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2016 01:11

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

hakimashou posted:

If there really are Trotskyists and Corbyn really is a communist then shouldn't the British security services be doing something about it though?

In principle I mean. I really don't think after seeing all these polls that Corbyn has even an outside chance of getting any power.

I think people forget that politics pretty much always is the good guys vs the bad guys, and if your side doesn't win then the bad guys do instead, and get the run of the place for years and years.

Surely any labour government is better than any conservative government, so pretending that any consideration matters more than getting the Tories out and Labour in is just destructive self-indulgent vanity.

It is a shame to see Britain really going down the toilet like this.

I just hope it isn't a portent of things to come in November and that we keep this poo poo quarantined on your side of the Atlantic.

The problem is that the political consensus has now shifted so far to the right that this is no longer true enough to be meaningful for many folks (including myself - I've brought up my disabled relative before, and I shudder to think how he - and we - would deal with a social safety net that continues to collapse under underfunding from austerity and understaffing from tight immigration controls). Both parties are now wedded to a dangerous, unsustainable worldview, and helped drive the country off a cliff a couple of months ago because of it (yes, Corbyn has backed off hard from the Tory-lite ideology increasingly favoured by the Very Setious People in Labour, but that ideology still helped lay much of the groundwork for Brexit). At that point, looking around for plausible options for reform seems pretty vital, and an internationalist, anti-austerity resurgence within one of the two main parties seems amongst the most plausible, particularly since it's already in charge now.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2016 17:03

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Pissflaps posted:

What progressive policies does Corbyn propose for his next Labour government?

Well, here's one he headlined today.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2016 21:02

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

hakimashou posted:

I'd say that the part you quoted about overthrow by politicial means would cover it nicely.

Communism isn't some abstract idea, the second half of the 20th century was a blood soaked exhibit of concrete evidence about it.

Corbyn is for sure the closest thing to a commie to have that high a position in either of our countries, singing about red flags and stuff. I mean you couldn't really blame any competent security service for at least keeping an eye on him to make sure he's harmless. It's not every day you get to see the leader of a major political party in the anglosphere sing "though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we'll keep the red flag flying here."

The Red Flag has been the official anthem for the British Labour Party since its founding in the 1920s. Britain hasn't devolved into a Stalinist dystopia yet.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 13:49

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

hakimashou posted:

Communism isn't part of politics in our country, it's why it seemed so disconcerting. Nobody who believes that stuff is taken seriously, they're like sovereign citizens or anti-vaxxers or something.

If corbyn was actually a communist then it would have gone a ways to explaining why everyone wants him out at least.

I don't think the Democratic Party has an anthem at any rate so I didn't realize the labor party did. I remember people posting videos of Cornyn singing the red flag thing when he won like it was a big deal.

Just to be clear, Corbyn is a democratic socialist, not a communist. Communism is the pursuit of a stateless, classless communal society - a form of anarchism, basically. Since it involves the dissolution of government, it's inherently revolutionary. Socialism is the philosophy that state governance, as opposed to private market forces, is the most beneficial way of running society. It's seen as a mid-point on the road to communism by communists, and as an end-point (or, at least, an acceptable compromise) by socialists. Democratic socialism is the stance that the state should be democratically-elected and highly accountable to the public, in order to ensure that it works in the public interest. Totalitarian socialism is the argument that the state should be run by a single, unassailable political force so that ~~the people at the top can live like kings~~ the state has a single, clear vision that it can efficiently pursue without having to worry about getting bogged down in messy compromises or being overthrown by predatory capitalist forces.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 14:06

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

The Saurus posted:

Good article by Paul Mason in The Guardian today about how any comparisons with Labour in the 80s are utter bollocks:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2016/aug/15/the-parallels-between-jeremy-corbyn-and-michael-foot-are-almost-all-false

And a very funny blog post from a labour member who says all the party elite's actions have just made Corbyn more popular than ever, even Burnhamites, Cooperites and Kendallites from last year are backing him because they've been such twats.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2016/aug/15/the-parallels-between-jeremy-corbyn-and-michael-foot-are-almost-all-false

Nice job PLP, you've sold out any kind of dignity or ideals you might have had to try to keep the poor in chains, and you didn't even manage to achieve anything but your own defeat. Useless fucktards.

Same link twice here.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 16:14

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Dabir posted:

Works out alright to me though I got no idea what my accent is aside from vaguely middle-class. A posho would probably say 'sinsuhh' and 'yah'.

The super-posh RP pronunciation is 'sin-sear'. Source: my British Empire colonial stereotype grandparents (my other grandparents, for the record, were a Sunderland mining family).

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 19:52

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Guavanaut posted:

Do both sets pronounce Kenya completely differently?

Unfortunately, one of them isn't around for me to check. A combo of coal dust, WWII diesel-electric submarines, and vast amounts of cigarettes will do that to you.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2016 20:02

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Renaissance Robot posted:

I know I've been reading Kill Six Billion Demons too much because I can't quite tell if you're joking.

Consider: there is no such thing as a trolley.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2016 20:44

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

namesake posted:

I started reading KSBDs when it started (no idea how) but despite the excellent presentation it seemed weird and a bit meandering. I'm guessing it's better when the plot hits?

Edit: The trick is not to divert the trolley, that is impossible, but to divert yourself.

It works much better when you marathon it. Re-reads help, too.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2016 20:58

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Junior G-man posted:

I didn't see the debate, but this made me cackle like a maniac:

'A feminist, but does not cry often'?

Add another one to the ever-increasing stack of peculiar comments from Owen Smith about women, I guess.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2016 13:03

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Speaking of the Three Brexiteers...

# ¿ Aug 18, 2016 00:10

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Is there a clip or a full transcript of the Corbyn NATO thing? I'm only seeing partial quotes.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2016 02:06

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Pissflaps posted:

Id rather blame the guy who can't do his job properly.

... which one? Because part of the problem seems to be that a majority of the PLP aren't and won't.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2016 12:21

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Last time I checked, British air-strikes in Syria weren't killing anyone. We were sending four little planes just drop explosives on scarred, empty patches of desert that had previously been oil-fields before huge American strategic bomber wings had rolled through. I'm not sure we've even used the glorious, almighty BRIMSTONE yet.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2016 10:53

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Gonzo McFee posted:

To do what, exactly?

To stabilise Syria you'd need a huge influx of ground troops and peace keeping forces in order to keep the peace long enough for a stable democracy to form. And the troops would need to be there for decades. A venture that would cost trillions and end up being incredibly unpopular within five years.

Bombing campaigns isn't that. It's the Foreign policy equivalent of trying to put out a fire by adding more wood.

That said, the Americans have shown that a big enough and well-coordinated enough bombing campaign to support local troops can work wonders. The SDF are basically waltzing through IS territory at the moment.

Our problem is that our military's just too weedy to let us meaningfully contribute to that.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2016 10:59

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

spectralent posted:

It's also notable that "Labour are divided", "Labour are a shambles", and "No confidence in Labour" all boil down to basically the same thing and when put together make up 40% of the poll, suggesting the infighting is much worse than JC alone ("Labour are divided" and "Labour are a shambles" are literally the same thing in different words, and are 30% alone).

Yeah, that's a weirdly bad poll for a pro company like YouGov. Even given their chief's known Conservative slant.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2016 17:04

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Serotonin posted:

I just can't work out why Virgin, a private train operator have picked a fight with the kindly old scruffy man who wants to nationalise the railways.

In other 'Virgin can gently caress off and I hope Branson the creepy woman bothering letch dies painfully news ', Virgin Care are gong to take over most health and social care services in Bath from April 2017 with a massive 7 year contract.

Which, speaking personally, is loving terrifying. Remember my relative with the mental-health issues? Guess which service he uses.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2016 00:05

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

OwlFancier posted:

I wouldn't object to targeted state assassination as a method of press regulation.

Vlad, buddy? Is that you? How's that American presidential campaign going?

# ¿ Aug 26, 2016 08:39

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Corbyn talkin' Scotland.

https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/769088475010260992

# ¿ Aug 26, 2016 11:20

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

MikeCrotch posted:

Does Smith actually have any policies that he hasn't just nicked from Corbyn? I don't think i've heard any cases for him other than CORBYN BAD and UNITED LABOUR

He's going to introduce one-hour contracts and negotiate with ISIS.

I know, I'm excited too.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2016 14:48

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Prince John posted:

Well, originally I was just saying you were being a bit harsh about people who find relief with alternative medicine and quoting you bits from the NHS website to support my view that there could be a sensible role for it in the NHS.

I think its got no basis in science and I don't believe it's a substitute for medicine. That's irrelevant to my argument though, because there's a measurable placebo effect, even when the patient knows they're being given a placebo (albeit a smaller one than in the examples given by CoolCab, where the patient is ignorant). I'm "advocating" homeopathy if there's no alternative medical treatment and it relieves symptoms.

My Dad has chronic arthritis and used to get acupuncture to help him keep mobile. There was no alternative treatment available and the NHS website doesn't list arthritis as one of the conditions where treatment by acupuncture is supported by evidence.

Yet I could see measurable improvements in his pain levels and general mobility in the week after a session. It's undeniable that his quality of life improved as a result of it, and no other remedy was available to him. The sensible answer isn't to call him and others like him an idiot, but to consider whether people's lives might be improved by alternative medicine. Keeping him mobile would presumably stave off a whole bunch of other medical conditions that would have cost the NHS more in the long run.

Besides, as homeopathy is basically water, I would have thought it would be the cheapest possible type of pain relief that could be dispensed, so what's the harm if it improves people's lives? As long as it's not being touted as real medicine, or leading to people declining proper treatment, I find it hard to get worked up about it.

The main problem with homeopathy is that it runs pretty hard into the code of medical ethics. Basically, deceiving a patient about what a treatment does is a massive no-no, because it breaches the bond of trust between doctor and patient that keeps healthcare going.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2016 14:03

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Alchenar posted:

I really do waver back and forth on this but I do think it's important to note that the consequence of shaping constituencies on population size is that Labour gets to win elections with far less of the popular vote than the Conservatives. It makes sense viewed purely within a constituency based system but I struggle to see the broader democratic legitimacy in claiming that because your voters happen to live in the same area as a group of people who don't vote, then you get to claim both sets of people when we're divvying up seats in Parliament.

e: really the problem is that rather than take the opportunity to do a deal in the last parliament, Miliband voted the whole thing down on partisan grounds in the expectation of winning in 2015 and making boundary changes on Labour's terms. Now that opportunity is gone and a Tory majority will vote through what they want.

On the other hand, you could easily frame this as a useful protection against voter suppression. As in, poorer people with more uncertain backgrounds are less likely to find it easy to vote, and if you start to ramp up the difficulty of registering... well, you get the picture.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2016 10:26

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 13:19

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

thespaceinvader posted:

Oh, it absolutely makes a big difference for locals. But we have the council pretty much sewn up in my city, and the Tories have the county sewn up so... I don't see what's likely to change with that, except factional infighting on the left with the greens. And either way the council goes, the Government is still in charge of the budget, so the amount of actual difference we can make even locally by election even a solidly labour council is minimal.

This is really my key frustration with the whole process - I'm all fired up, but the system is set up to resist change as much as it's possible to resist it, and I can see that change is absolutely required right now.

But I don't see how to implement it, I don't know what I can do to actually help.

Better integration between CLPs? Have safe seats support swing seats as much as election law allows? Use that membership as a way to engage with the community and allow Labour-held seats to better respond to their constituents' needs, giving those seats more reason to stay/become safe? Given that political party members are parts of factions in the ruling body of the country, it makes sense to have them help with that rule.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2016 23:57

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