current topics in the uk?

[fela fan]

But you're wrong fela. There is plently of analysis in the British media about Africa. Maybe not in those organs of the media designed to have mass appeal because they have the small matter of selling copy to contend with and I'd bet the circulation figures of the Sun would drop if page 3 suddenyl became the Africa page. However there is a very broad spectrum of media available here, if we want it. The New Statesman, Private Eye, to name but two mainstream punblications. Freedom of speech has been severely tested here recently but we still have it.

What you may be saying is that many people don't pay heed it because they're just not interested. Not sure that's entirely true either.

Perhaps it's you doing the stereotyping?

Ah, no look mate, i know all about media like private eye and NS (hardly mainstream, and not your dailies), but c'mon, the vast majority of the population are served by the sun mirror star mail express. Even the guardian and times and telegraph have their own discourse. The ones you mention serve a relatively tiny part of the british population.

I'm always doing my best to avoid stereotyping, while at the same time i do recognise the positive reasons for generalising. I've said already i'm happy to be wrong, but nothing thus far has led me to that conclusion.

I now continue reading the thread...

 

[TeeJay]

Show me a single source of information that doesn't have it own "discourse". I think you are dreaming if you think that there is any such thing as entirely objective and value free information - it just isn't possible, even in theory.

 

[fela fan]

Africa not being an issue except for natural disasters? You can tell you haven't been in the UK recently fela. As for people 'swallowing the line' about Iraq, how does that work? The level of debate was intense all the way through the build-up and up to the present day. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

I think the standard of public debate in the UK, concerning many, many issues is astonishingly high relative to much of the world, and it makes me proud to be British.

How can you know what the standard of debate is in other countries? How many languages do you read?

As for africa, well, that whole live aid thing last year with bob geldof exposed the british thinking for being insular, far from being astonishingly high. Not a single african act!!

The level of debate over iraq may have been intense, but it never stopped the briitsh leader from illegally waging a disgraceful 'war'. Y'see the media called it a war, but in reality it was an act of barbarity, an act of mass killing by us and uk soldiers. Is that what was debated in the high standard media?

Are a large proportion swallowing the bullshit being spun about iran?? Or not?

 

[fela fan]

Show me a single source of information that doesn't have it own "discourse". I think you are dreaming if you think that there is any such thing as entirely objective and value free information - it just isn't possible, even in theory.

I've never said that though. You've gotten yourself emotional and in your last post that is too long for me to reply to, with too much about the poster (what the fuck has your wrong perceptions about my beliefs over 911 got to do with this topic? and i can't have an opinion about britain if i don't live there?), i really don't want to reply to you too much.

But in essence i'm saying that i'm worried about what is not discussed in the media, coz it is then a non-issue, a non-story, it is not debated by the majority of the population, and in fact to them it just isn't.

And actually mate, don't tell me that i'm belittling what to you is a serious subject. Firstly i don't belittle, secondly i'm very justified in claiming that blair acts in insane ways. To then take that further by saying he is insane is no big leap. The fact that no-one thinks this in the uk does not make it right per se.

Stop throwing me rules-according-to-teejay. I'll say just as i please thank you.

 

[fela fan]

Sorry. You are not allowed to call people "gullible", it makes you a "snob" you see. What will also be argued is that people have the right to stupified ignorance founded on a diet of celeb toss and "news" delivered through soundbites and hyperbole. Besides which, if people started thinking politically for themselves there could be all sorts of trouble. Best to just watch some ads and read about the sexlife of someone off TV you'll never meet.Now, enough of your questions, can you just be half-wit islamaphobe like you're supposed to be this week?

Thank you mate. You and tbaldwin have said far better than me what i'm trying to get across. But suddenly, as i expected, i have to contend with defensive british posters who think that coz i no longer live there i cannot be right and i cannot say what i think and i am not allowed my opinions. I trust of course that they never post on the world forum...

Well, fuck them. That's exactly the sort of thing i started this thread for. Conditioned mass thinking.

 

[fela fan]

I certainly don't agree with that, definitely compared to many parts of europe: Spain, France, Germany, etc. it is particualry less prominent when it comes to the issues of welfare, despite affecting millions.

Well, i agree mate, but if slaar speaks spanish and french and german, then let's hear him offer some kind of support for his claim...

 

[fela fan]

Coming from someone who believes and regurgitates the most wacky 9/11 conspiracy shite this comment is laughable.

You are in no position to know what impacts on most people's lives in the UK - you don't even live here at the moment.


Where do you get your information about the world from?

I'm now going to chack and see what threads you have started recently...

This post of yours was rather rude and contained an overly amount of rubbish, these bits of which i wish to reply to.

First bit: false. So don't write such blatant lies about me thank you.

Second bit: everyone's in a position to know things. And no-one needs to be on one particular bit of earth to know what's going on. Plenty of ways of gathering information these days.

Third bit: plenty of sources, and not excluding many years of my own experiences leading to my own insights.

Last bit: what did you find out after chacking then? Two non-negative threads eh? Or did you not find them? I can point you in the right direction if you want.

Now then mr defensive, cut out the bullshit next time you reply to me. And try and achiece a lower level of hostility. You are kind of proving my points here on this thread...

 

[TeeJay]

But in essence i'm saying that i'm worried about what is not discussed in the media, coz it is then a non-issue, a non-story, it is not debated by the majority of the population, and in fact to them it just isn't.

Me too.

There are millions of people dying every year on Africa yet all everyone wants to bang on about for the last few years has been a far smaller number of people dying in Iraq.

 

[TeeJay]

Stop throwing me rules-according-to-teejay. I'll say just as i please thank you.

Now then mr defensive, cut out the bullshit next time you reply to me. And try and achiece a lower level of hostility. You are kind of proving my points here on this thread...

I can't say your "post profound lyrics from song writers" is going to be setting alight the political debate in the UK. I didn't comment on the threads you have started over the last few months because I didn't feel that spending a lot of time laying into you was really worth it. I can say however that you don't seem to have recently started any threads on subjects that were otherwise ignored by people here. The ones which you have done that stick in my mind are those about Thailand, where you actually seem to talk more sense than when trying to psychoanalyse people you have never met.

 

[slaar]

Firstly, I don't live in the UK right now, I live in Sierra Leone and have done since September. In the past two weeks two people I know here have lost their wives in childbirth, so nobody needs to point out to me the realities of African poverty. I happen to think that it is remarkably difficult to do anything about poverty out here for many, many reasons. I think the standard of debate in the UK is pretty good considering that fact. Only yesterday here I read a newspaper piece by a member of the Temne tribe which included the immortal phrase "...all Mendes are fucking bloody hypocrites". Draw your own conclusions on that. Linked to that, how is the Live 8 organisers' decision not to showcase African talent an indictment of British debate? How is the action of a government executive a similar indictment? You seem to stereotype and generalise to a much greater extent than most people in the UK do.

Secondly, and on a related point, I do read Spanish and French to a fair level. I find the French papers more matter of fact, but the standard of debate to be roughly comparable. The contrast between the UK response to humanitarian crisis in Sierra Leone and the French response to current turmoil in Ivory Coast should provide just one example of the generally reasonable nature of action taken by the UK with regard to Africa in the modern age. I suspect that if, as many people out here say they should, the UK were to recolonise this country there would be a larger outcry in the UK than if France took similar measures.

...the media called it a war, but in reality it was an act of barbarity, an act of mass killing by us and uk soldiers. Is that what was debated in the high standard media?

Yes, that's pretty much what the Independent and Guardian was saying at the time. I happen to disagree, but at least it was debated.

 

[tbaldwin]

Me too.

There are millions of people dying every year on Africa yet all everyone wants to bang on about for the last few years has been a far smaller number of people dying in Iraq.

Good post Teejay, Stop it or i may start to like you again....

 

[slaar]

Why would people debate what they have less control over? African poverty is an entrenched function of a hideously complicated historical process. The Iraq war was a simple, at root, decision by the executive of an elected democratic parliament. Obviously the second is going to be debated more.

 

[bigbry]

.

What about having a prime minister who is a war criminal and insane?

What about having a prime minister who is a war criminal and insane? We don't want another one - we've already got one who's a war criminal - don't know about the insane, I think he knows exactly what he's doing. Not that I agree with it.