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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Let's just say I loved the UK just as I loved South Korea, and I'm starting to love Ireland. I always think optimistically about the places I live, despite pushing insiders on the obvious blind spots they have, whether its the abandonment and dirtiness of Dublin, the pollution and disregard for safety in Seoul, or the lack of policing and expensive public transport in the UK (and did I mention that dank, stinky, mobile connectivity black hole called the London Tube?).
The delusions of grandeur in England (not sure about GB or the UK as larger entities), are beyond compare thus far in my life. The talk of greatness, and the self marveling is a tea partyesque Internet fantasy, and isn't even close to reality. The best thing about the the UK is the accumulated history, not present life, and certainly not present political reality.
Indeed, Europe might be best to rid itself of the UK, if the data is anything to go by. I mean, surely this great superiority would show up somewhere in the data. Yes, but GB did defeat Argentina in the Falklands in 1982, surely a sign of greatness!
Honestly, nationalism and racial fixation eats people's brains like nothing on earth has the ability to do.
Perhaps a spot of Where's Wally as we try to pick the superior democracy of the UK in the data...err, somewhere in the data...I think...
http://magpies.net/nick/bb/files/uk_too_awesome_for-europe_lol_1.jpg
http://magpies.net/nick/bb/files/uk_too_awesome_for-europe_lol_2.jpg
(Search for the various surveys on the web to see the full list). |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Another timely reminder of why the UK needs the EU. Having just lost two wars, the war lunatics and dangerous imperialists need to be countered.
As posted in the thread on Saudi Arabia, with a different emphasis. It's a pity the usual violent ba$tards ensured it was non-binding, but it still matters:
| Independent wrote: | European Parliament votes for EU-wide arms export embargo against Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has been accused of bombing civilians with European-made equipment during in its war in Yemen
The European Parliament has voted in favour of an EU-wide embargo on selling arms to Saudi Arabia.
A resolution calling for a ban on all weapons sales to the country was passed by 359 votes to 212, with 31 MEPs abstaining.
The non-binding motion calls on member states to stop selling weapons to the country, which is currently conducting a widely-criticised military operation in neighbouring Yemen marked by high civilian casualties.
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Criticism of the country’s military operation have however included the bombing of multiple hospitals run by the charity Médecins Sans Frontičres and the deaths of thousands of civilians, including 130 at a single wedding.
While international observers have recognised abuses on all sides, in late December UN human rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein said that a “disproportionate” number of attacks of civilians in Yemen had come from the Saudi-led invasion force.
“I have observed with extreme concern the continuation of heavy shelling from the ground and the air in areas with high a concentration of civilians as well as the perpetuation of the destruction of civilian infrastructure – in particular hospitals and schools – by all parties to the conflict, although a disproportionate amount appeared to be the result of airstrikes carried out by Coalition forces,” Mr Zeid said.
The UN has also said Saudi Arabia is contributing to a “humanitarian disaster” in Yemen.
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Recent opinion polling by Opinium found that 62 per cent of UK adults oppose arms sales to Saudi Arabia, with only 16 per cent supporting them.
Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said the sale of European weapons to the region was fuelling the war in the region and that EU member states should listen to the European Parliament.
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Parliament’s International Development Committee earlier this month said the UK should suspend all arms sales to Saudi.
David Cameron has defended British support to the operation, arguing that the UK’s relationship with the petro-state was “important for our security”.
Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond said in November that he wanted to sell even more munitions to Saudi Arabia.
“We’d always like to do more business, more British exports, more British jobs and in this case very high end engineering jobs protected and created by our diplomacy abroad,” he told the BBC’s Newsnight programme when asked about the issue.
He admitted that the weapons were being used in Yemen but said that Saudis “deny there have been any breaches of international humanitarian law”.
A Government spokesperson said of arms exports to Saudi Arabia: “We operate one of the most rigorous and transparent arms export control regimes in the world with each licence application assessed on a case by case basis, taking account of all relevant information, to ensure compliance with our legal obligations. No licence is issued if it does not meet these requirements.
“We regularly raise with Saudi Arabian-led coalition and the Houthis, the need to comply with international humanitarian law (IHL) in Yemen. We monitor the situation carefully and have offered the Saudi authorities advice and training in this area.” |
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/saudi-arabia-arms-export-embargo-european-parliament-eu-wide-arms-export-embargo-uk-a6895226.html
Yep, that bolded blue bit is the UK tea party "superior democracy" fantasy in action. Arms sales are not necessary medicine, like a needed tax increase which we all naturally hate; arms sales - especially to authoritarian, suffering-causing regimes - are a bloody obvious evil which everyone but psycopathic narcissists oppose. There's no long game world improvement or visionary leadership about them. Zero. Zip. Zilch.
The UK has just come off two war losses which caused mass world havoc and refugee crises which are still with us today, not to mention at the time helped trigger the GFC through a spike in oil and uncertainty inflation, and massive unproductive military expenditures.
It can't afford to have its Old Empire war loons and sicko arms and oil dealers leading the country down that path again, robbing the population of the works and services it needs to live an HQ life in an HQ society.
On international relations, the UK desperately needs the balance brought to bear by the EU, or it will never escape the BS cycle whereby the nation is endlessly denied the spending it needs due to this, that and the other BS military pretense caused by the usual criminal money grabbers.
(The bit about arms jobs in the article is repulsive enough to be dismissed out of hand. What a lowlife to blackmail the population like that: Support violent death and destruction, or you won't have jobs! What a creepy piece of work indeed.)
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Five minutes ago, Ye Olde Imperialists spouted whatever nonsense came to mind to downplay the push for Scottish independence. Now, they're stealing lines from the Scottish independence argument to rail against the EU lol.
The only consistency here, of course, is boneheaded, post-imperial chest beating and denial.
English Tantrum: "But we used to control everything, and the British Navy ruled the waves!
An article noting the irony and implications for Scottish independence and Irish unification should there be a Brexit:
| The Irish Times wrote: | World View: Brexit would rapidly put Irish unification on the agenda
It is helpful to read the UK referendum on leaving the EU through a Scottish lens
From an Irish perspective, it helps to read the forthcoming British referendum on whether to remain in or leave the European Union through a Scottish lens. Irish-Scottish relations have been transformed for the better in recent years and are set to become much closer as the UK makes this decision and then decides on whether and how it can hold itself together.
The uncanny resemblance between the unionist case for keeping Scotland in the UK to preserve access and influence and the case for the UK staying in the EU for the same reasons is now more frequently recognised. The two issues are organically linked in a dual sovereignty crisis faced by the UK . If the UK votes to leave the EU, Scotland will have to decide whether it wants to follow suit even though it prefers to remain a member.
A recent British Social Attitudes survey indicates that Scots are only 5 per cent less Eurosceptic that the rest of Britain, measured by support for reducing EU powers or leaving; but a higher proportion want to remain than in England. Other polls show a 5-6 per cent swing to independence if the Leave side wins. Support for Scottish independence is diminishing even as the SNP looks set to sweep May’s Scottish Parliament elections. Realists point to the collapse in oil prices from $110 to $30 a barrel since the independence referendum in 2014. A fear factor about the Scottish economy affected votes then and is set to permeate the debate on Brexit at UK level.
Whatever the outcome, Scotland will have to adjust to a British decision increasingly at odds with its own preferences. The sense of Scottish nationhood has strengthened enormously and with it a desire to fashion its own international role alongside the UK’s or independent from it. The tussle between the two sentiments was visible at a recent meeting in Edinburgh organised by a university group determined to put the question in a European and Irish setting as well as a British one.
Constitutional crisis
Andrew Scott of Edinburgh University pointed out that if the UK votes to leave, many of the competences in justice, environment, agriculture and fisheries now allocated to Brussels would revert to Scotland not London under the current deepening devolution arrangements. That would provoke a constitutional crisis irrespective of whether the independence question is reopened, as SNP leaders strongly hint it would be.
Should Scotland want to maintain a relationship with Brussels, it might open talks for a deal separate from London’s, short of independence. If that proved legally impossible Scotland could claim successor state status as an EU member if another independence referendum were passed. And if the UK votes to remain an EU member, Scotland could seek its own powers to deal directly with Brussels as well as claiming more power to determine the UK’s negotiating stance. The UK negotiations on the package concluded last week were highly centralised, with little or no specific Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish input.
Common interests
Scottish political leaders and officials are keen to learn more about Ireland’s international experience as they forge a new Scottish foreign policy concentrated on a small state within a larger EU. Scotland’s experience of union with England, of empire and industrialisation was quite different from Ireland’s; but history since then has brought a greater convergence and a rediscovery of common interests and identities after decades of political and religious sectarianism separated them. The loyalist bonds between Presbyterian Scotland and Northern Ireland have diminished, a transformation echoed in the collapse of support for the Labour Party in Scotland by voters with an Irish Catholic background in the referendum, last year’s general election and in the forthcoming parliament vote.
The effects of these changes on Northern Ireland are potentially cathartic. Letter writers to this newspaper underline how strange it is to see the Democratic Unionist Party supporting a Brexit vote that could trigger Scottish independence. Where would they then be in a diminished UK minus their historical Scottish inheritance and which is less willing to support a weak periphery? It is not scaremongering but prudent foresight to say this decision could undermine the powersharing arrangement and disrupt cross-Border relations in Ireland with risk and uncertainty.
Structural change in the British state’s external and internal sovereignty can have unanticipated effects on Ireland North and South. It would put Irish unification on the political agenda more rapidly than is expected or desired. More political debate and research on these issues are urgently required. |
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/world-view-brexit-would-rapidly-put-irish-unification-on-the-agenda-1.2550106
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Some German 'humour' in the Jon Stewart mode. 
https://youtu.be/w0Y89dfR8v8
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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Oh goodie a bash Britain thread! If you posted the diatribes above in a Serbia or aboriginal thread, it would be racist. But yeah white people, you can bash them.
At least fix the spelling in the title!!
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Who's bashing white people? The only people I see being laughed at are the British. 
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| think positive wrote: | Oh goodie a bash Britain thread! If you posted the diatribes above in a Serbia or aboriginal thread, it would be racist. But yeah white people, you can bash them.
At least fix the spelling in the title!! |
I would have thought as a white Brit I can do what I like in that regard!  It's a paranoid, tabloid-driven sulkfest over there at the moment. Cringeworthy for a country with such a strong intellectual tradition.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| David wrote: | | Who's bashing white people? The only people I see being laughed at are the British. |
And just where do your $Ł$%^%%$ chain marks originate from, unless your gunna tell me you have aboriginal heritage
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| pietillidie wrote: | | think positive wrote: | Oh goodie a bash Britain thread! If you posted the diatribes above in a Serbia or aboriginal thread, it would be racist. But yeah white people, you can bash them.
At least fix the spelling in the title!! |
I would have thought as a white Brit I can do what I like in that regard! It's a paranoid, tabloid-driven sulkfest over there at the moment. Cringeworthy for a country with such a strong intellectual tradition. |
Thanks to good old American freedom of speech you can do what the **** you like, and thanks to my British blood I'm allowed to be offended, and thanks to my bogan Aussie upbringing, I'm allowed to tell you about it.And thanks to my being a white, heterosexual, female, your allowed to offend the hell out of me. Cheers
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| think positive wrote: | [quote="David"]Who's bashing white people? The only people I see being laughed at are the British. [/quote]
And just where do your $Ł$%^%%$ chain marks originate from, unless your gunna tell me you have aboriginal heritage |
What kind of people are you talking about? |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| think positive wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: | | think positive wrote: | Oh goodie a bash Britain thread! If you posted the diatribes above in a Serbia or aboriginal thread, it would be racist. But yeah white people, you can bash them.
At least fix the spelling in the title!! |
I would have thought as a white Brit I can do what I like in that regard! It's a paranoid, tabloid-driven sulkfest over there at the moment. Cringeworthy for a country with such a strong intellectual tradition. |
Thanks to good old American freedom of speech you can do what the **** you like, and thanks to my British blood I'm allowed to be offended, and thanks to my bogan Aussie upbringing, I'm allowed to tell you about it.And thanks to my being a white, heterosexual, female, your allowed to offend the hell out of me. Cheers |
Umm, like I said...
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Morrigu 
Joined: 11 Aug 2001
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| think positive wrote: | | At least fix the spelling in the title!! |
 fixed - sorry was unintentional
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“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| think positive wrote: | | David wrote: | | Who's bashing white people? The only people I see being laughed at are the British. |
And just where do your $Ł$%^%%$ chain marks originate from, unless your gunna tell me you have aboriginal heritage |
Er... Club X? 
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| pietillidie wrote: | | think positive wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: | | think positive wrote: | Oh goodie a bash Britain thread! If you posted the diatribes above in a Serbia or aboriginal thread, it would be racist. But yeah white people, you can bash them.
At least fix the spelling in the title!! |
I would have thought as a white Brit I can do what I like in that regard! It's a paranoid, tabloid-driven sulkfest over there at the moment. Cringeworthy for a country with such a strong intellectual tradition. |
Thanks to good old American freedom of speech you can do what the **** you like, and thanks to my British blood I'm allowed to be offended, and thanks to my bogan Aussie upbringing, I'm allowed to tell you about it.And thanks to my being a white, heterosexual, female, your allowed to offend the hell out of me. Cheers |
Umm, like I said...
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no worries, whatever, but your looking in the mirror
you whinge about everything everywhere, somewhere else is always better, but what do you actually do about it?? you fixed you silly rubbish drama yet? pulled out a plastic bag and gone collecting or is that beneath you? you just sit and judge the lackys
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either!
Last edited by think positive on Wed Mar 16, 2016 12:15 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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