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Four Members of Extremist Right-Wing Party Jailed

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bob_the_fisherman On January 30, 2023
Anatidaephobic





, Angola
#91New Post! Jun 26, 2020 @ 13:23:13
@dookie Said

I must say your comments concerning your Tommy Watching come across to me as astonishingly naive. You watch hour upon hour of what Tommy chooses to show, you even know many of his friends! You then conclude he must feel he has nothing to hide! Have you ever watched the various films of Leni Riefenstahl of Nazi Germany? Obviously not in "real time" but those 1936 Olympics sure look great, as do the Nuremburg Rallies. What a great place to live! And Hitler? How he loves his dogs and pinching the rosy cheeks of the adoring youngsters all decked out in lederhosen ! And as for Hitler's friends, they haven't got a bad word to say about him. Goebbels even bought his Fuhrer some Disney cartoon films for his birthday which the benign old guy loved to watch and chuckle at.


We have two ways we can know someone (assuming anything can be known). The first is to have contact with the person directly. The second is to listen to what other people say about them.

The latter way, of only hearing of a person filtered through the perception of others, does not lead to knowledge of the person, but rather, knowledge of the opinion of that person held by another. This may lead to an accurate perception of who the person is, but there is no way to determine this to be true.

The best way is to listen to the person and watch what they do - preferably in person. But I obviously can't do that from where I am in the land that does not exist

As far as Tommy goes, he speaks often of what he believes, and his actions overall support that belief. He is not attacking Muslims as a unified group. His words and actions bare this out.

The reason I watched a lot of Tommy speaking is because I was interested in finding out about this man who was maligned as all kinds of things. Listening to him speak and watching him act, it soon became clear that the narrative was woefully wrong. He grew up in a multicultural working class area. He started the EDL with his black friends, burned a Nazi flag, got charged for assault for bashing a Nazi who infiltrated the EDL, then later left when the racist infiltration became too much. So far as I know the BBC has not mentioned any of this.

And far from presenting only nice, polished propaganda for an adoring crowd, Tommy often goes out onto the streets and meets with people and is being livestreamed from multiple sources. Under these circumstances I have witnessed him being attacked, and watched how he responded in real time, not in edited video.

I watched Tommy go and hunt down a Muslim who threatened to kill his wife and children once. When Tommy found the guy (after the police had refused to do anything about it), Tommy confronted him and it quickly turned out that the guy was a bit retarded. Tommy spoke to him for a few minutes and explained to the guy why he should not say that stuff. He then shook his hand and walked off.

I watched Tommy react to violent Muslims in Oldham in real time. He placed women with babies in his car, and had the driver take them to safety while he stayed. That was being livestreamed by multiple sources. Tommy did not ask people to fight the Muslims, instead, he asked them to protect women and children while his Muslim friend spoke to the rioting Muslims and invited them to listen.

I saw him react to being attacked in other cities too. And I saw his reaction to his young daughter being inappropriately touched by a Muslim man at Centre Parcs. There is little if any correlation between this type of thing - real life as it happens, and stage managed propaganda. That is not to say that this is all there is to him either. Obviously it isn't. I do not claim to know all there is to know. I only know enough to know the media lies, or at least is pathetically inept at telling the truth.

As you note, people are complex, yet the media narrative about Tommy is not. The BBC has had their bias against him exposed more than once. That does not prove Tommy innocent of all charges, it merely shows me that the media narrative is untrustworthy.

For the record, I do not condone everything Tommy has done. However, to me, he is a legitimate hero. He knew the risk he took when starting the EDL (hence using a false name). Yet despite that, he spoke out about grooming gangs and radicalisation occurring in the Islamic community. He was attacked and vilified for doing so, yet the things he spoke of are now indisputable facts. There have been Muslims radicalised in the UK, and there have been a large number of grooming gangs belatedly taken to court. The things he spoke of were not imagined, they were very real.

I do not believe in a sanitised version of humans. Any person claiming to be morally virtuous is morally deficient and a liar of the highest sort, as they lie even to themselves (by this I obviously do not mean that we are always evil all the time, rather, that evil is seconds away from us at our best).

I understand nuance. Try to read what I say in that way. It is rather patronising otherwise, which is not conducive to reasoned conversation
dookie On December 16, 2023
Foolish Bombu





, United Kingdom
#92New Post! Jun 26, 2020 @ 16:10:18
@bob_the_fisherman Said

We have two ways we can know someone (assuming anything can be known). The first is to have contact with the person directly. The second is to listen to what other people say about them.

The latter way, of only hearing of a person filtered through the perception of others, does not lead to knowledge of the person, but rather, knowledge of the opinion of that person held by another. This may lead to an accurate perception of who the person is, but there is no way to determine this to be true.

The best way is to listen to the person and watch what they do - preferably in person. But I obviously can't do that from where I am in the land that does not exist

As far as Tommy goes, he speaks often of what he believes, and his actions overall support that belief. He is not attacking Muslims as a unified group. His words and actions bare this out.

The reason I watched a lot of Tommy speaking is because I was interested in finding out about this man who was maligned as all kinds of things. Listening to him speak and watching him act, it soon became clear that the narrative was woefully wrong. He grew up in a multicultural working class area. He started the EDL with his black friends, burned a Nazi flag, got charged for assault for bashing a Nazi who infiltrated the EDL, then later left when the racist infiltration became too much. So far as I know the BBC has not mentioned any of this.

And far from presenting only nice, polished propaganda for an adoring crowd, Tommy often goes out onto the streets and meets with people and is being livestreamed from multiple sources. Under these circumstances I have witnessed him being attacked, and watched how he responded in real time, not in edited video.

I watched Tommy go and hunt down a Muslim who threatened to kill his wife and children once. When Tommy found the guy (after the police had refused to do anything about it), Tommy confronted him and it quickly turned out that the guy was a bit retarded. Tommy spoke to him for a few minutes and explained to the guy why he should not say that stuff. He then shook his hand and walked off.

I watched Tommy react to violent Muslims in Oldham in real time. He placed women with babies in his car, and had the driver take them to safety while he stayed. That was being livestreamed by multiple sources. Tommy did not ask people to fight the Muslims, instead, he asked them to protect women and children while his Muslim friend spoke to the rioting Muslims and invited them to listen.

I saw him react to being attacked in other cities too. And I saw his reaction to his young daughter being inappropriately touched by a Muslim man at Centre Parcs. There is little if any correlation between this type of thing - real life as it happens, and stage managed propaganda. That is not to say that this is all there is to him either. Obviously it isn't. I do not claim to know all there is to know. I only know enough to know the media lies, or at least is pathetically inept at telling the truth.

As you note, people are complex, yet the media narrative about Tommy is not. The BBC has had their bias against him exposed more than once. That does not prove Tommy innocent of all charges, it merely shows me that the media narrative is untrustworthy.

For the record, I do not condone everything Tommy has done. However, to me, he is a legitimate hero. He knew the risk he took when starting the EDL (hence using a false name). Yet despite that, he spoke out about grooming gangs and radicalisation occurring in the Islamic community. He was attacked and vilified for doing so, yet the things he spoke of are now indisputable facts. There have been Muslims radicalised in the UK, and there have been a large number of grooming gangs belatedly taken to court. The things he spoke of were not imagined, they were very real.

I do not believe in a sanitised version of humans. Any person claiming to be morally virtuous is morally deficient and a liar of the highest sort, as they lie even to themselves (by this I obviously do not mean that we are always evil all the time, rather, that evil is seconds away from us at our best).

I understand nuance. Try to read what I say in that way. It is rather patronising otherwise, which is not conducive to reasoned conversation


Forget it Bob, in other words you watch edited highlights. And of course, you only want people to be free, your not right-wing or anti-muslim yourself. Talk about not believing in sanitised versions!

Enough for now.
bob_the_fisherman On January 30, 2023
Anatidaephobic





, Angola
#93New Post! Jun 26, 2020 @ 23:19:00
@dookie Said

Forget it Bob, in other words you watch edited highlights. And of course, you only want people to be free, your not right-wing or anti-muslim yourself. Talk about not believing in sanitised versions!

Enough for now.


Livestreams from multiple sources are not edited highlights. Do you know what a livestream is?

Of course I want people to be free. If a person chooses to be a Muslim and is happy for other people to be what they want to be - whether it be gay, straight, atheist, Christian, Buddhist or some imaginary gender they pretend to be for whatever reason, then I have literally no problem with them. Have at it.

People should be free to be whatever they want, except for an asshat that wants to stomp on the freedom of others [edit to add] - this does not include be free to be engage in crimes like child abuse etc., obviously.
dookie On December 16, 2023
Foolish Bombu





, United Kingdom
#94New Post! Jun 27, 2020 @ 06:08:57
@bob_the_fisherman Said

Livestreams from multiple sources are not edited highlights. Do you know what a livestream is?

Of course I want people to be free. If a person chooses to be a Muslim and is happy for other people to be what they want to be - whether it be gay, straight, atheist, Christian, Buddhist or some imaginary gender they pretend to be for whatever reason, then I have literally no problem with them. Have at it.

People should be free to be whatever they want, except for an asshat that wants to stomp on the freedom of others [edit to add] - this does not include be free to be engage in crimes like child abuse etc., obviously.


Yes, I know what a livestream is. It is when someone is in control of the time and place, who knows he is "on air", and thus can act and speak accordingly. My comment regarding exactly what you watch of Tommy stands.......ultimately "edited highlights" of a life and mind that potentially contains far more than you see or are even prepared to see.
bob_the_fisherman On January 30, 2023
Anatidaephobic





, Angola
#95New Post! Jun 27, 2020 @ 06:39:12
@dookie Said

Yes, I know what a livestream is. It is when someone is in control of the time and place, who knows he is "on air", and thus can act and speak accordingly. My comment regarding exactly what you watch of Tommy stands.......ultimately "edited highlights" of a life and mind that potentially contains far more than you see or are even prepared to see.


So, even though I explicitly said that I do not see all of what Tommy is and does because that is obviously true, I do not understand what I understand because my understanding differs from yours.

Fair enough. I wonder though, do you apply that same logic to yourself? Is there possibly more to Tommy than you know based on listening to what other people say about him and the carefully crafted little snippets you may have encountered?

I wonder how much of the disdain people have for Tommy comes from the fact he is from a hard working class area and does not have a letter "T" in his lexicon? I suspect it is a lot, to be honest.

Anyway, we are clearly set in our ways regarding Tommy. I watch and admire him while acknowledging he has said and done wrong things, and you sneer from a distance. That is fine, but it does seem pointless.

Have a good one my friend
As always, we are free to believe as we choose.
dookie On December 16, 2023
Foolish Bombu





, United Kingdom
#96New Post! Jun 27, 2020 @ 08:32:28
@bob_the_fisherman Said

Livestreams from multiple sources are not edited highlights. Do you know what a livestream is?




Goebbels to Hitler:- "I have a good idea mien Fuhrer"
Hitler:- "What is that Herman?"
Goebbels:- "Liveübertragung!"
Hitler:- "Liveübertragung"?
Goebbels:- "Yes Mein Fuhrer. Such will convince the gullible herd of our benign intent"
Hitler:- "How so Herman?"
Goebbels:- "We actually control time, place, and - knowing the cameras are rolling - can act and speak accordingly"
Hitler:- "This has promise, you have come up trumps again Herman"
Goebbels:- "Exactly mien Fuhrer. We can handpick the Brownshirts (sorry, Hans Fickt and of course, Heinrich Brut, will have to stand down, we can't have any of that on camera) and head down to the Jewish Quarter for a speech. Hopefully we will strike lucky. Perhaps a Jew, his relatives incarcerated in Dachau and his business closed down, will throw a brick"
Hitler:- "If so, how should I react Herman?"
Goebbels:- "Reach down and take the brick in hand, speak of donating it to the Jewish Builders Union (most will forget no such things exist) to assist in the construction of Jewish Orphanages. By no means let spittle issue from your mouth when announcing this"
Hitler:-"What would I do without you Herman! And next.......? "
Goebbels:- "A peaceful walk to a local park, some book or other carried under your arm"
Hitler:- "Mein Kampf?"
Goebbels:- "Alas, no, mein Fuhrer. A great book indeed but to carry it now would risk Stalin thinking that you remain serious about expanding the Volk living space to the east and thus might well become suspicious when you offer him the Peace Pact. No, mein Fuhrer, safer with an edition of the Brothers Grimm. Whatever, there will sure to be a buxom frau with child somewhere in the park. An opportunity to pinch the cheek of the tiny das schatzchen and smile. Then, mein Fuhrer, find a dog............... "
Hitler:- "Enough! Enough! You convince me! But how can we pay for all this now that I have virtually bankrupted our country by spending on armaments?"
Goebbels:- "Simply raise once more the tax on Jewish possessions"
Hitler:- "I say again, what would I do without you Herman?"

Well, all good fun and games. I think we are about point F in our current dialectic, our quite possibly interminable conflict in reason and exchange of views.

But "Madhyamika does not oppose one thesis with another. It seeks the flaw both in thesis and in antithesis. It investigates the beginningless illusion that holds 'views' to be true in so far as they appeal to us and when they appeal to us we argue that they are not 'views' but absolute truth."

"Madhyamika is critical of thought, open to experience. It accepts the phenomenalization of the absolute and knows this as twofold. 1) Avidya: through ignorance and defilements. 2) Prajna: “the free conscious assumption of phenomenal forms activated by wisdom and compassion.”

(T.V.Murti, on the "Central Philosophy of Buddhism" )

And Merton adds:- Hence, not escape from the world into idealism, but the transformation of consciousness by a detached and compassionate acceptance of the empirical world in its interrelatedness. To be part of this interrelatedness

(Merton's emphasis)
bob_the_fisherman On January 30, 2023
Anatidaephobic





, Angola
#99New Post! Jun 27, 2020 @ 22:45:33
@dookie Said

Well yes Bob, no point at all. That is what I said! Then you proceed to point G, irrespective, ignoring my attempt to place this onto another level entirely.

Because of your apparent disdain for this attempt, you imply that I see Tommy as "evil incarnate", filling your post with further irrelevancies and repetitions.

You really do need to stop pursuing "a good argument" just for the sake of it.

Edit:- Oh, and the first section of my last post was essentially "humour", as used by you in your own profile. But its essential point was not to liken Tommy to Hitler or whatever, but to suggest that even a Livestream is no guarantee of authenticity. Truth is far more difficult to discover!



Indeed. Again, I agree with you. I am actually unsure why yo uare debating me on a point in which we are in complete agreement. I do not say I know "The Truth" about Tommy. My fundamental point is that I know significantly more than anyone else here who speaks about him simply because I do not know only that which I am told by others.

What I do know of him does not comport to what the media says (and some of what the media has said is so wildly inaccurate based on what I actually do know, and so blatantly cavalier when it comes to fact, that it discredits them more broadly). The media has been caught out lying, and has been shown to be blatantly biased. This does not mean Tommy is some mythical figure of beauty and grace, it just means if you rely on other people - especially the media and their allies, to inform you of who TR is you have propaganda and the opinions of others, not knowledge of Tommy.

We may not be able to know the thing in itself by studying the thing itself, but we absolutely will never know anything at all of the thing in itself if we ignore the thing in itself to rely on what others say of it.

Anyway, I think we have danced in this circle long enough, my friend. I will cede you the final word should you desire it, and move on. But just to clarify, I am happy to engage in pointless debate, but only about pointless things - ideas in philosophy and things of that nature

When it comes to issues of substance, I see pointless debate as ultimately futile and too labour intensive to bother with.
dookie On December 16, 2023
Foolish Bombu





, United Kingdom
#100New Post! Jun 28, 2020 @ 07:03:01
@bob_the_fisherman Said

Indeed



Indeed. Pointless.
Jennifer1984 On July 20, 2022
Returner and proud





Penzance, United Kingdom
#102New Post! Jun 29, 2020 @ 08:40:21
Mayor of London - Strategy For Dealing With Extremist Terrorism

Snip

We need to root out inequality and poverty which all too often lie at the heart of disenchantment and resentment, feelings extremists seek to exploit.

We must do more to empower communities to speak out and challenge hate crime and extremist views. We need communities to report concerns to the police and local authorities and we need to find lasting solutions that will stop the spread of violent extremism completely.”


- Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London


It seems like a worthwhile contribution to me. Sadiq Khan sees deprivation and poverty as a fertile breeding ground for discontent which can be exploited by extremists. By expressing fake concern for people's legitimate grievances it is only a short step to indoctrinating people with extremist notions of how those people can "take back control."

Of course there is nothing in it for these people really. They're just the cannon fodder for the real cause which is to attack whichever group is the target of their hate, usually in the case of British extremists, Muslims.

If Sadiq Khan can implement a strategy that adequately expresses those grievances, recruitment to extremist causes becomes much harder.

Can Khan achieve his aims..? Naysayers will pooh-pooh such an idea. But let's give it a try.
dookie On December 16, 2023
Foolish Bombu





, United Kingdom
#103New Post! Jun 29, 2020 @ 10:29:03
@Jennifer1984 Said

Sorry Dookie, but I'm afraid you've allowed yourself to be sucked into the classic Bob trap.



It's your call.



I knew the trap from past experience. Bob loves a "good argument". But yes, this time it has led again to my agreeing with him that further exchanges are totally pointless.
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