Punshhh - I love the Boris Isles! In my own opinion, certain parts of England have very rich traditions, and have dialects as different from Standard as Scots. One or my daughters has been researching revolutionary traditions in and around Bradford for instance, and it would be interesting to follow through the elimination of Elmet and Loidis from memory. I'm rather fascinated by the way history is managed - the way we were told that the four-to-five million people of Roman Britannia were 'driven west' by a few thousand German mercenaries, for instance, or the complete disappearance of so much working-class action from history, the Physical Force Chartists, for instance. Who's ever heard of the Merthyr Rising these days. It seems to me that, just as we did in the Eighteenth Century, the English could build a very satisfactory national tradition by cutting out a good deal of boss-class propaganda. As a people rather than as a gang of imperialists they have a very great deal to be proud of!

Half a million people in Wales can speak Welsh; that's around 19% of the population.

Why should you be bothered about 81% of the population of the country you claim as your own? No reason at all, let them eat cake. Now I really am done. — unenlightened

What is all that supposed to be about? If there are no areas of the Country where the language is used, it ceases to be in any meaningful sense a country. Are you a big capitalist or something - all these obsessive attempts to work up hatred do look remarkably like it!

744

↪iolo Eton is the finishing school for Tory Prime Ministers. It's just like a Victorian museum, you expect Phileus Fogg, or Jacob Rees Mogg to walk round the corner at anytime. Plus it's a five minute walk from Windsor castle and many Royals went to school there. — Punshhh

It seems to me that they manufactured rather more convincing Prime Ministers back then. I rather suspect that Johnson is a rather late example of the sixties satire boom!

To wish to keep your own culture alive is normal. It doesn't need defence or political guff. I would notice whether your wife spoke the language of her country. Why should I be bothered about anything else? I don't see why I have to suffer all this tedious irrelevance, really I don't.

My wife is a very real mixed race culture person, Welsh and Caribbean. Her father's name, his slave name was 'Williams'. What is peculiar is to imagine that the dreadful abusive history of Britain stopped at the border and left Wales innocent. How very complacently racist you are again to think that nation has a reality that race does not. Imagine a Jew in the Death camps or a slave on the plantation saying 'races are imagined'! Now that would be peculiar. But coming from you as represented in what you — unenlightened

You speak a language or you don't: it's not difficult to grasp, surely.
? The language gives you access to a particular culture. Still with me? 'Race' is a nonsense thought up by imperialism to allow one lot to be persuaded that those the rich wanted them to fight were quite other than themselves, whereas cultures are real and can be experienced. I don't quite see how geographical concepts can be innocent or guilty of anything, and quite obviously races were imagined to allow slavery and mass murder. I rather gather that you were too superior to learn the language of the country you were settling in: you certainly seem to be getting extremely worked up about imagined things, so I take that to be the reason! :) No need to be so sensitive: our struggle to survive had hardly got going back then!

↪god must be atheist Did he really reject democracy? Gramsci conceived the connection between democracy and hegemony. (Sorry I'm just making a paper about this, I want to be sure) — isaacmoris

I don't know whether that might be addressed to me, in which case I am not the man to ask, since I seem to have had an attack of extreme theory-amnesia when I left the SWP, but mightn't the meaning of democracy depend rather on class and historical context?

I agree with all you say. The point about our culture is that it makes the history of these things easier to remember. It is astounding to me how, in English, the rich revolutionary traditions of mining areas like this get rubbed away, whereas a minority culture things are better remembered - though even there the increasing commercialisation is doing what it can. We are fortunate in that our fake history is mainly cultural, especially the National Eisteddfod, rather than political.

Seriously, forget the self parody, this is a racist trope. — unenlightened

If you like to think in that peculiar way. The only point of any country is its culture, and if that is destroyed, what's it matter who replaces it? That's about it, as far as I can see, and what it has to do with imagined 'races' escapes me.

That is frankly racist. — unenlightened

Duw, there's awful! Better call me 'Taff''! :) As a believer in 'races' I don't get started, I'm afraid! I don't know where you are/were, so it's difficult for me to comment, but if the Government has more-or-less consciously destroyed all employment opportunities, what do you suggest people should do? What we tend to care about is the survival of our language-communities and our own future as a people rather than our being replaced by rich foreigners. Seems to me a fairly normal reaction!

I don't think, after the last few years, that if I were rich I should even be tempted to send a child of mine to Eton, if I ever had been before. What on earth are parents thinking of, and ought there not be some discussion of possible child-abuse?

I am a geriatric English remainer in Wales. But I think the blame for the school and pub closures has to be laid more at the doors of the Welsh emigrants than the English immigrants. Is there not a certain logic there? — unenlightened

This is sadly true of most of the brexit majority regions, and how the rich have convinced them that it is the bloody foreigner shitting on them and not the bloody elite, is truly wonderful to behold. But the incomer and foreigner almost invariably improve the economy. Not the second homers, but the long term residents support the local economy; even idlers like myself bring our pensions and savings into the area. — unenlightened

The incredible robbery that has gone on over the last few hundred years, as in Ireland, does mean that those who want to 'get on' have to move out, but there were still plenty of people until their houses were all bought up. I don't think most of those who move in contribute anything whatever, frankly - that is just a politeness. Persons like yourself are always welcome, but have you bought a house in an area where our language is spoken, and have you learned any? That's what this is all about.

It's a long time since I read Gramsci, an experience I recall as liberating - but you always have doubts about your earlier self when people speak with such apparently textual authority. Was Gramsci really naïve enough to accept bourgeois 'democracy'? If so, I was very dim indeed back then.

I don't find it depressing though. It makes it interesting how to come to an accurate assessment about situations. Usually withholding judgment for a month or three is a good rule of thumb for anything political. — Benkei

All that means is that the various powers-that-be have made up their minds what to say. They will never give out any serious facts.

741

↪iolo Interesting, as Wales as a whole voted to leave the EU. But lastnight Plied Cymru's Adam Price was speaking of an independent Wales in the EU. — Punshhh

It's always been so. One third of the population are English now - mainly geriatrics, fortunately, but they and the holiday-homers close down our schools and pubs for us - and a whole lot of people never hear 'Welsh' news or read a 'Welsh' newspaper, so progress is very slow. However, in the first Referendum for Devolution the Labour Government was unpopular, so it lost, but then the mugs found that English government meant Thatcherism, so then it was victorious on the second. Similarly, they voted Brexit because they are treated like shit and thought it meant they mattered, but as they begin to learn what it will actually mean there is more support for and discussion of Independence. It's a slow learner, my suffering Country, but it does learn - eventually.

↪iolo I would say that those who don't care about our union are a minority. The Lib Dems hold a legitimate position. Is there much of a Welsh independence sentiment in your area? — Punshhh

Yes, and growing. But the centuries of serfdom take a hell of a time to get over.

This is an interesting response but this would be about the British definition of "stingy" or "ungenerous" when this is more about the asshole kind of being mean. Someone being mean to a person. — schopenhauer1

Yes, I can see that. Though I think they are connected, it is difficult to think outside your own idioms. I think that spiteful people are always trying to get back at somebody rather than improving things, presumably because they give up hope early on. Thus Brexit?

Like so many things, it is surely a matter of economic background? My Mother's family were Cardis, people who regard Scots and Yorkshiremen as wild, drunken spendthrifts. Cardiganshire was one of the few British regions that had near-Irish poverty and potato-dependence, but they were lucky enough to live in the first majority-industrial country on earth, so they could move to the mining valleys and open shops. As compared with the free-spending miners they appeared despicable, but they made better things possible for their young, I suppose. I find it difficult to blame people for things, as if they had serious choices in this economic system.

That's not going to happen, even for a few weeks to prevent the no deal that is the Lib-Dem signature policy this week they will not support Labour. They're just tories without tax havens. — unenlightened

It is becoming very evident that trying to monopolise the 'Remain' position is the Liberals' great hope of a political comeback after they destroyed themselves with their 'personal pledges' and putting the tories in. I find it rather shocking that they should so obviously put their own interests before those of the Country, but I suppose I'm old fashioned. It's sad that my own nation should be the only one of those involved that seem to care about the UK. I put it down to drink! :)

I'm not sure how this relates to my earlier comment. What do you mean? — Benkei

Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying. Automatically the people on one side are convinced while those on the other believe it is propaganda. My informants had various political positions, so it seems very likely, but we won't be allowed to know, will we? Don't you, as a person involved with a philosophy site, find that depressing?

If we spend too much time speculating about 'God' I think we disappear into the clouds. I'd suggest that ever since the development of agriculture it has been possible for thugs to demand tribute, and they gradually managed to brainwash the masses they were robbing into believing that they were somehow 'superior'. Every so often someone comes along to suggest that ordinary people are as good or better, though they have often to bring in the god stuff to justify what they are saying. If they get a good hearing, the powers-that-be have to do a quick conversion job to turn them into idols and confuse the issue, as the state capitalist bosses have done with Marx.

Frank - 'A Chinese friend tells me there was never any chance of that. Do you disagree?'

Some sort of diplomatic fudge, conceivably: they still find Hong Kong commercially useful.

benkei - competitive international politics is deeply depressing, isn't it!

I gather from some of my HK sources that he whole business is getting mixed up with the Trump/China conflict, with American sources providing all sorts of useful subsidies for the protestors. Pity: it will stop their case being seriously heard by the Chinese bosses.

The Tory project, ever since about 1910, has been to prevent any government from representing the working majority's interests and those interests ever being seriously considered by a majority, and Farage is a part of that nonsense, as is the constant hymn of hate let out by the boss-class media against a famous villain called 'Corbyn', a literary creation on which they have worked very hard. The purpose of this Brexit crap is to distract the people from their worsening conditions, and Farage is meant to mop up those who are pissed off, as did the Brexit project itself. A dictatorship would be a lot less tedious and messy. Perhaps they'll bring Bliar back from the grave: he is totally unpopular and could still (just) be associated with 'Labour'.

'I don't know who you are referring to with your "nutters" and "drunken mob".

At present, in both the U.S. and England, I see all sides as nutters who put their affiliations ahead of their moral and social responsibilities.'

By 'nutters' I mean the brainwashed persons who vote against their own interest to benefit a very few, very nasty capitalists. By 'drunken mob' I mean those who howl down any attempt to tell the truth. I don't live in England: here the Brexit voters were voting against total misgovernment and to spite immigrants who they read about in their captitalist English newspapers and never meet here - only English immigrants who come here in vast herds.

[reply="Gnostic Christian Bishop;334434"


@ Not to the Brexit crowd who voted to take the hit for the benefits of having control of their borders, immigration and governance unhampered by yet another one of our way too many controlling body.

We all already pay too much for the garbage governance that our politicians are producing.'

Who cares about the nutters? It's our families the sane are worried about. Why should we let a drunken mob destroy their futures?

Trump is in a vile class all of his own and if the poor want help, they are voting the wrong way.

Brexit, FMPOV, is wanted for a different reason. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Like Trump, Brexit was something that nobody had any thought of before a tiny minority of extreme-right oddoes pushed for it, and, as with Trump, millions voted for it out or resentment at others and all sorts of other odd reasons, though, compared with the American voter, they were lied to much more hugely. As with Trump, but much faster, the result is deep division and looming disaster.

As I understand a great deal of modern theory, almost anything can be 'art' - it just depends on how we choose to see, say, an urinal or an unmade bed. In that case, more or less anything that can affect its environment can create art.

I can't see any hate in this girl. She's just stating facts.

The second. The way the world is organised, a vast number of people are pushed about all the time and can't do much about it - except perhaps vote for Trump or Brexit! :)

I'm pleased that Law has been re-established today. Let's hope it doesn't bring American intervention! :)

On the one hand, who owns land: it's just there. On the other hand, it has always been regarded as a sort of property, and those who got there first have the prior claim. The Protestant settlements in Northern Ireland are still regarded as disputable, but they mostly happened a lot earlier than the European settlements in North America. We fought the Normans for our land here for about two hundred years, and a lot got stolen at the annexation of our country by England. I think the best way to look at all these issues is in terms of what they call 'frozen violence'. The racist colonisation of Palestine by Zionists is getting too powerful to stop for the moment, but unless the Arab peoples are wiped out, it will come up back, and the Native American, Native Australian Western 'Chinese' peoples are owed, sometime, at least huge compensation. Time will tell, if the world survives. Probably great wedges of desert will be there for the taking well before that!

Swan

American politics is an absolute shit show. It hasn't gotten better in the past few years, either. Politics is everything emotion; and for a majority of people it is filled with nothing but emotion and ideological zombies. — Swan

Thanks - got it now. I find that the difficulty with leaving politics alone is that the politicos rush off and pull some insane trick like Brexit, threatening your children with unemployment and stretching the Bank of Mum and Dad to its limits. I think it's better to hang on in there fighting the weirdoes! :)

Shamshir - I'll have to ask my Wife: it's she who has the Mathematics degree. She's an existentialist, however, and doesn't believe in much! :)

My own notion is that early hunter-gatherer peoples got the idea that a pre-enactment of a hunt would help the real one, giving rise to the concept of a magic ritual. Rituals do catch on, and when people changed over to farming, the purpose of these dances were no longer obvious. People had dressed up as animals for the ritual dance, and to make sense of what was done, they gradually turned into some sort of magic beings, the early 'gods,' who are also animals. I think they probably produced the 'god-sensation', and people like Jesus, people with sensible proposals for human development, used that sensation to move us on.

Swann - Agreed. What is amazing to me is that so much of American political discourse nowadays seems to be about people's hating one another. I think it is a willed thing, making serious political discussion impossible by fixing people into positions that suit their masters. The Brexit arguments in the UK are having a very similar effect: sensible people just don't discuss politics any more with anyone they need to get on with. It's pathetic.

S - I think a number of forces, especially political ones, encourage us to indulge hatred for their own purposes, I was brought up a Christian Socialist and not so encouraged. The problem with all such discussions, I think, is that it's a bit like discussions about whether we all see the same thing when we describe something as 'red'. Who can tell if we are using the word 'hatred' to mean the same thing? In my family we were all encouraged to laugh at the ridiculous people who behaved badly: it does seem a better bet, but how can we really analyse the starting-point of either?

I'm more on Swan's side than not - hatred is a mere silly self-indulgence, even if it's only for adverts and such. For grown-up apes, the question is what do we want to do about things that don't seem right, and such questions are best not approached in a state of childish emotionalism.

Punshhh - Very well put. It has been a huge mistake (Wilson's at first) to abandon representative democracy, where we chose people who know something about such questions to decide, and, if we felt they'd made a mistake, elect some others who knew something about such things to do better. Mobs 'know' about their football teams, at best.

If some tory clown got a majority to execute me, my children, and all educated people in the UK, would I accept a majority of four percent, few of whom had ever thought of the matter previously, and who had been told huge lies? Why should they rob us all, then, to no personal benefit to anyone but a few tories? This whole situation has been caused by ambitions clashing in the tory party. It ought to be settled by duels between tories, preferably with machine-guns. What it has to do with democracy escapes me.

ssu - those the German foreigners called 'Welsh' (or 'foreign') were normally called Britons or British all through actually. The word was pinched to label the union with Scotland, and before that Elizabeth 1 used it because Dee convinced her that there had been an earlier 'Welsh' Empire she could reclaim.