Arise Sir Tony (Blair)
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You're going to the extreme lengths of doubling down on nonsense if you ask me.
Genocide and lying to the world in order to wage an illegal imperialist war that caused the mass suffering and death and all the other ramifications it caused is undoubtedly extremist.
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This
Is this why Sasaferrato has a prejudice against football players? Plus how atleast some of them (such as Gary Neville and Marcus Rashford) have criticised the government and been accused of being left wingers?
Ex-Liverpool player Howard Gayle turns down MBE
Liverpool's first black player reveals he has turned down an MBE nomination because "accepting it would be a betrayal to Africans".
www.bbc.co.uk
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
The problem with the definition you link to is its relativism. So, in Nazi Germany, someone who rescued Jews was an extremist; in North Korea, someone who thinks liberalism is the way forward would be an extremist. Likewise, here in the UK, someone who thinks it's wrong to bomb and invade another country and cause well over a million deaths is an extremist.
Such relativism serves no useful purpose (other than to justify crimes by the ruling class of any type of political system). We have to look at ideas, actions and the consequences of those actions. Then we can talk about extremism in a meaningful sense.
So, the world’s richest 1% have more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people and almost half of humanity is living on less than $5.50 a day.
Now that's fucking extreme. But according to the relativist definition, it's those who oppose such a state of affairs who are the real extremists.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I reckon most people in the uk would "oppose" such a situation. Therefore "opposing such a state of affairs" (whatever that actually means) would not be an extremist view.
The disagreement would come about how to bring about a change in this situation.
For example, many people on this forum propose to remedy the situation by sending politicians, the royal family and various other people off to a concentration camp in the Antarctic.
I would call that an extremist view because most people in the UK don't think concentration camps are ok (and neither do I).
Sending people to a concentration camp might seem to some people who post a lot on urban75 to be a moderate policy, but they forget that the people who post here are tiny in number and are unrepresentative of the society we live in.
The disagreement would come about how to bring about a change in this situation.
For example, many people on this forum propose to remedy the situation by sending politicians, the royal family and various other people off to a concentration camp in the Antarctic.
I would call that an extremist view because most people in the UK don't think concentration camps are ok (and neither do I).
Sending people to a concentration camp might seem to some people who post a lot on urban75 to be a moderate policy, but they forget that the people who post here are tiny in number and are unrepresentative of the society we live in.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
teuchter many people marched against the war. Once the invasion started, however, opposition was minimal. Therefore, by your relativist definition, the majority non-extremists did not oppose the war and its consequences.
As for your "Sending people to a concentration camp might seem to some people who post a lot on urban75 to be a moderate policy" is clearly in bad faith.
As for your "Sending people to a concentration camp might seem to some people who post a lot on urban75 to be a moderate policy" is clearly in bad faith.
Since you mention concentration camps :
With the Peasants of Aragon
Augustin Souchy With the Peasants of Aragon Libertarian Communism in the Liberated Areas 1982 With the Peasants of Aragon: Libertarian Communism in the...
theanarchistlibrary.org
You will find it's not what you have in mind though. Some of us are interested in alternatives to retributive justice.
Shared interests there.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure about calling him an extremist as such. I do think Blairs "Third Way" wasn't centrist either. Blair was the figurehead and main mover. But the political project wasn't only him.
I actually think his intentions were that the USA along with its allies ( foremost the UK) had to be the world's policeman.
Been here before with the British Empire. What surprises me about Blair and his ilk is their blindness to this countries history.
What I think really winds people like me up is his absolute refusal to see Iraq was for this country a monumental foreign policy mistake.
And since leaving 10 Downing Street he hasn't shut up. When Corbyn was leader he was writing in press how appaling this was.
I take your point on millions voting for him. I did. At election after Iraq I had Labour Party canvassers saying to me that whilst you might oppose his foreign policy the Labour government had in UK brought better funding for NHS etc etc. So vote on domestic issues. I did. When they got in Blair thought this was a vindication of him. It was not on my part. Later I felt I had made a mistake.
I don't think he is a mass murderer. But his Third Way politics along with others in Labour Party at the time led to Iraq.
On personal level seeing him being given airtime as some kind of elder statemen personally gets to me.
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8ball
Decolonise colons!
Tbf, I think this is unfair to regulatlr schmoes getting something for setting up a charity or cleaning the streets for 40 years or whatever.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
It's usually OBEs and MBEs for people who do actual stuff. Knighthoods are reserved for stuff like being a tax exile and then losing at driving a car.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Sign the Petition
Tony Blair to have his "Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter" rescinded
www.change.org
Half a million people signed. Me included.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Very true (discussed a bit earlier).
The former is a fig leaf of legitimacy for the latter.
Though I think you are underplaying your hand if you are portraying the knighthoods systems’ worst excesses as involving rewarding some creative accounting and spirited sporting failures.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Sign the Petition
Tony Blair to have his "Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter" rescinded
Half a million people signed. Me included.
Tactical voting?
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Well I've been reading some of comments. Mixed bag of people politically. No not tactically voting but I'd say even though the establishment left it until 2022 he is still a controversial figure. Giving him an honour has stirred it up again.
Its been taken up in Mirror and Mail. Guardian has been surprisingly silent. Given their support for Labour Party returning to the "centre" ground perhaps not surprising.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Yeah, but the petition’s whole logic rests on the idea of a legitimate honours system being besmirched. I can understand wanting to create a little productive mischief but I was surprised to see you apparently buying into the legitimacy of the underlying position.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
So what?
Rightly or wrongly, many people saw the war as justified for one reason or other.
Even if many people were opposed to it, before or during, many weren't. Yes, there were loads of people who I would not call extremists, who did not oppose the war.
Of course, many of those people, with hindsight and seeing the consequences, later became of the opinion that it was a mistake.
But even of those people, few would describe Blair as an extremist.
You say you have an objection to the "relativist definition" of extremism but you actually you just want to define it relative to your own views. It can only ever be relative to something else and the only useful thing to make it relative to, is to some kind of spectrum of reasonably widely held views. Otherwise everyone can just accuse anyone they disagree with, of being an "extremist".
It's just silly hyperbole to try and claim Tony Blair is an extremist.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
With regards to this, I invite all posters to publicly and unambiguously distance themselves from the Antarctic concentration camp programme being promoted on these forums, to ensure they do not end up on my "deranged and/or dangerous extremists of urban75" list.
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
By and large most people in Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Russia etc would not have described their rulers as 'extremist' in, say, the 18th and 19th centuries. Yet their rulers were responsible for mass murder, genocide, slAvery, expropriation, environmental destruction and enormous crimes against human rights, natural justice and similar. But yes, after all, they were quite nice really. Not like those extremists on Urban.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Would you accept you are quite probably an "extremist" and basically terrible person - judged against the norms of some future society?
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
Speak for yourself. Future societies will probably look back at me in awe and wonder.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
"My name is kevbad the bad, troll of trolls
Look upon my posts, ye mighty, and despair"
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
teuchter
Surely, terms like extremist have to be based on a sense of what's right and what's wrong rather than it being defined by the rich and powerful? So, any regime that carries out mass bombings which kill thousands of people is extreme; a regime that invades another regime for economic and strategic gain and effectively causes millions more deaths and further destabilisation over a wider region is extreme; a society that is based on wealth inequality and exploitation and that systematically enforces scarcity and poverty is extreme, a government that criminalised rights to protest is extreme...
Or shall we say, fuck humanity, let's just stick the the top dogs' definition?
Whereas, in effect, you are accusing anyone who disagrees with the ruling class ideology, anyone who opposes the wars, mass murders, genocide, State terror and the legally enforced inequality, poverty and enforced scarcity of good old "liberal democratic" values as an extremist.
Surely, terms like extremist have to be based on a sense of what's right and what's wrong rather than it being defined by the rich and powerful? So, any regime that carries out mass bombings which kill thousands of people is extreme; a regime that invades another regime for economic and strategic gain and effectively causes millions more deaths and further destabilisation over a wider region is extreme; a society that is based on wealth inequality and exploitation and that systematically enforces scarcity and poverty is extreme, a government that criminalised rights to protest is extreme...
Or shall we say, fuck humanity, let's just stick the the top dogs' definition?
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
Most people historically would have known very little of the wider world, and been fed a diet of relentless propaganda by the church and the powerful to reinforce their ignorance. Aided and abetted by ruthless violence if they stepped out of line and vocalised their discontent too loudly. Still, despite all that, there were minorities who did express their criticism of their rulers. These norms of society you talk about are the norms of the ruling class.
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