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GB News: a thread so you never have to watch it

LDC said:
I've just been involved in producing a book. We only got 1500 copies (all we could afford) of a 150 page journal-ish size (slightly bigger than A5) spine bound book with only the cover in colour, and it's cost us a bit over £3,500 just for the printing and the layout/design person. None of the writers got paid as it's a political project. Plus then they'll be other costs like ISBN number, etc. that I haven't stuck in there. We're working on it being about £4,500 when everything is in.

It's been done at a decent printers that pay well, and there might have been cheaper options (although looked at plenty of print-on-demand stuff and they never worked out significantly cheaper tbh) but from others experience they often come out of poorer quality and have other issues.

Raw materials and production costs have massively gone up for books in the last bit of time. It'll cost us about £3.00 per copy to print in the end, but then you give some away (writers, reviews, etc.) a few get damaged or lost. We're charging £4.50 a copy to cover some of those losses/free copies, but then distros and bookshops take a cut, and it ends up being £12 or more on the shelves. Then you have postage costs, envelopes, a website if you want to do that, etc etc. I'll be surprised if we break even in a year.
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Sounds about right actually. The History of Brixton I spoke of was about £5,000 I believe.
Was 104 pages similar page size to yours - all photos were black and white with colour cover.
All councillors got a complimentary copy (64) plus some officers.
The rest were sold at £9.99 each (still on sale - but had a revised 2nd printing)
 
A380 said:
I know you are cross but please think about your disabelist language. I'm sure you wouldn't dream of using racial or sexist epithets as strong.

Or should us poor little disabled know our place?
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What 'disableist' language are you referring to? I'm sure I have not knowingly or intentionally been disableist.
 
A380 said:
Just try and reflect and move on.
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I've never in my life thought of that as being a disableist word and have never been informed that it was. Its always been a commonly used word, Johnny Rotten used the word in God Save the Queen didn't he - I never knew he was being 'disableist'.
 
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AmateurAgitator said:
I've never in my life thought of that as being disableist and have never been informed that it was. Jonnhy Rotten used the word in God Save the Queen didn't - I never knew he was being 'disableist'.
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And black people use the N word all the time in songs. Doesn't mean YOU can throw it around.Are you fucking 12?
 
A380 said:
And black people use the N word all the time in songs. Doesn't mean you can throw it around.
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Yeah and I've always been very aware that the N word was a bigoted slur - unlike moron being 'disableist' (which I must admit I'm having a lot of difficulty with).
 
A380 said:
You are a bigot, it’s just how far your bigotry extends that’s at issue.. I presume your fantasy revolution will be run by you and a coterie of loyal Stakhanovite white men leading the rest of us for our own good?
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I'm a bigot am I? How interesting. And how very convenient for people like you, because then everything I say, no matter how factual, can just be dismissed and I can also be banned and people like you can continue not having to deal with views that you can't tolerate and can carry on living in your little bubble.
 
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AmateurAgitator said:
I'm a bigot am I? How interesting. And how very convenient for people like you, because then everything I say, no matter how factual, can just be dismissed and I can also be banned and people like you can continue not having to deal with what I'm saying and can carry on living in your little bubble.
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I see, as always the poor victimised white man is the true victim here. The sad thing is I imagine you actually believe you are.

Anyway. I've told you that I, and many other people living with disabilities, find a word used in eugenics as abhorrent. You choose to use it and defend your use. I'm not going to engage with you on this any longer. You obviously never learn.
 
A380 said:
I see, as always the poor victimised white man is the true victim here. The sad thing is I imagine you actually believe you are.

Anyway. I've told you that I, and many other people living with disabilities, find a word used in eugenics as abhorrent. You choose to use it and defend your use. I'm not going to engage with you on this any longer. You obviously never learn.
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Strawman idpol nonsense.

And why would I stop using a word when I've been provided with absolutely no evidence that its 'bigoted' and have never been informed that it was bigoted before?

This all just seems like you policing language in order to desperately try and get me banned.
 
Here's an article from Teen Vogue about it, as you're struggling: The Origins of the Word "Moron" Are Actually REALLY Sinister.

Generally I'd say it falls into that category of "disputed" slurs, where a commonality of use often bypasses its original meaning to project it as simply meaning something akin stupid or foolish, but it remains both historically and, less consistently, contemporaneously a term used to insult and degrade people with disabilities. Generally speaking you could go a month saying it to people who either won't care or won't bother to say owt about it, but for some people it'll be hurtful.

Which I suppose if you don't care about upsetting people won't matter to you all that much, but then you'll just have to live with being called a dickhead once in a while – and if so, you don't really have a leg to stand on re: complaining about feeling insulted. After all, if you don't respect them why would expect them to respect you?
 
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A380 said:
And black people use the N word all the time in songs. Doesn't mean YOU can throw it around.Are you fucking 12?
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I think there’s something quite dodgy about reclaiming a term and then aggressively policing it tbf.
 
8ball said:
I think there’s something quite dodgy about reclaiming a term and then aggressively policing it tbf.
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Just as a thought experiment, do you think that's true of the N word?

Seriously asking as, unlike Amateur Agitator, you seem to me to be capable of reflection and rational discussion. I take this seriously ( unlike most of my interventions on Urban TBF) as it often seems to me that people with disabilities are one of the last 'groups' that otherwise reasonable people feel can have their concerns and experiences dismissed out of hand.

This probably merits a thread of its own, rather than the double derail, but I don't have the will at the moment.
 
AmateurAgitator said:
Strawman idpol nonsense.

And why would I stop using a word when I've been provided with absolutely no evidence that its 'bigoted' and have never been informed that it was bigoted before?

This all just seems like you policing language in order to desperately try and get me banned.
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You've been advised on the use of language that can be derogatory, if you want to keep using it, that's down to you.

But it might not be a good look, all the same.

Also, why is this neverending "discussion" on a thread about GB news?
 
I think the N word is a really interesting example of the use of language as a sort of touchstone of cultural power. It's done because it must be shown that it can be, it's defended against white use because its reclamation and position is constantly a site of conflict and attack. It sits in a similar position to "queer" in some ways (maybe closer to "faggot") in the sense of its historic use for repressing an out group, but in those cases the reclaiming process is very differently managed and good faith use from most quarters is much more accepted (or at least less contested). I'd be interested to read around why that might be one of these days.
 
A380 said:
Just as a thought experiment, do you think that's true of the N word?

Seriously asking as, unlike Amateur Agitator, you seem to me to be capable of reflection and rational discussion. I take this seriously ( unlike most of my interventions on Urban TBF) as it often seems to me that people with disabilities are one of the last 'groups' that otherwise reasonable people feel can have their concerns and experiences dismissed out of hand.

This probably merits a thread of its own, rather than the double derail, but I don't have the will at the moment.
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I don’t think it leads anywhere good, no matter how it is done. Let’s say we take back the word “cripple”, say, and people with disabilites or related issues start using it, then I don’t think it serves anyone to treat the word as a positive when someone “qualified” uses it and a negative when someone “unqualified” uses it.
It gives one group a tiny measure of power in terms of being able to restrict the vocabulary of others, but I don’t think that is a privilege worth having.
I think it is better to either turn the term into an unqualified universal positive, or to let it rot in history.

This is mostly down to my own bias as seeing language as a shared resource rather than property that can be claimed.

For terms that no one is going to make into a positive, like “moron”, I think we need to understand that the words we choose to rule out due to their history have a certain arbitrariness to them. If we are going to ditch idiot, cretin and imbecile (and possibly other terms) due to this specific history, then I guess that’s at least consistent, but I don’t think the unsavoury history is driving things as hard as linguistic convention is.
 
8ball said:
I don’t think it leads anywhere good, no matter how it is done. Let’s say we take back the word “cripple”, say, and people with disabilites or related issues start using it, then I don’t think it serves anyone to treat the word as a positive when someone “qualified” uses it and a negative when someone “unqualified” uses it.
It gives one group a tiny measure of power in terms of being able to restrict the vocabulary of others, but I don’t think that is a privilege worth having.
I think it is better to either turn the term into an unqualified universal positive, or to let it rot in history.

For terms that no one is going to make into a positive, like “moron”, I think we need to understand that the words we choose to rule out due to their history have a certain arbitrariness to them. If we are going to ditch idiot, cretin and imbecile (and possibly other terms) due to this specific history, then I guess that’s at least consistent, but I don’t think the unsavoury history is driving things as hard as linguistic convention is.
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A few friends of mine in the disability rights world have done exactly that with 'cripple'; now personally I don't like it, but as I'm not living with a physical condition I don't feel my views are that relevant.

But this has nothing to do with GB news...
 
A380 said:
A few friends of mine in the disability tights world have done exactly that with 'cripple'; now personally I don't like it, but as I'm not living with a physical condition I don't feel my views are that relevant.

But this has nothing to do with GB news...
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Do you think it is counterproductive, or is it maybe uncomfortable for a less definable reason?

And what’s this GB News thing that everyone is talking about all of a sudden?
 
8ball said:
Do you think it is counterproductive, or is it maybe uncomfortable for a less definable reason?

And what’s this GB News thing that everyone is talking about all of a sudden?
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I just don't like toe word. But that's the point of course.

Fuck knows, no one watches it...
 
A380 said:
I just don't like toe word. But that's the point of course.
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Personal experience, I guess. And these reclaiming efforts can be difficult when everyone has different experiences.

You see the word “queer” being used everywhere these days, but a gay friend of mine hates it because, of all the words used to mean gay, “queer” was the one that was always spat at him with the most venom.
 
Rob Ray said:
Here's an article from Teen Vogue about it, as you're struggling: The Origins of the Word "Moron" Are Actually REALLY Sinister.

Generally I'd say it falls into that category of "disputed" slurs, where a commonality of use often bypasses its original meaning to project it as simply meaning something akin stupid or foolish, but it remains both historically and, less consistently, contemporaneously a term used to insult and degrade people with disabilities. Generally speaking you could go a month saying it to people who either won't care or won't bother to say owt about it, but for some people it'll be hurtful.

Which I suppose if you don't care about upsetting people won't matter to you all that much, but then you'll just have to live with being called a dickhead once in a while – and if so, you don't really have a leg to stand on re: complaining about feeling insulted. After all, if you don't respect them why would expect them to respect you?
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I'll read that later. What I find interesting though is that you even admit it's disputed but then go on to make it clear that really I'm not to use the word and say that I'll be a 'dickhead' if I do. It does come across a bit like policing language in an unreasonable and unrealistic way. Its also interesting that no one has been told not to say "fucking imbecile" or "thick" etc which are also unpleasant and derogatory terms to use. Why not just have a blanket ban on all insulting and derogaroty language and enforce it?

I'm also unfamiliar with the term disableist - I'd always thought the correct term was ableist. And ofcourse, like the vast majority of people I have always used the 'M' word to mean foolish/stupid, I was completely unaware that it might have meant anything else.
 
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AmateurAgitator said:
I'll read that later. What I find interesting though is that you even admit it's disputed but then go on to make it clear that really I'm not to use the word and say that I'll be a 'dickhead' if I do. It does come across a bit like policing language in an unreasonable and unrealistic way. Its also interesting that no one has been told not to say "fucking imbecile" or "thick" etc which are also unpleasant and derogatory terms to use. Why not just have a blanket ban on insulting/derogaroty language and enforce it?

I'm also unfamiliar with the term disableist - I'd always thought the correct term was ableist.
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I didn't tell you to do anything, I said if you don't care whether you're upsetting someone you don't have much of a case against them if they treat you in kind. I also didn't "admit" anything, I proactively noted that it's a disputed topic because unlike you, I'm actually engaging with the subject rather than treating every criticism as a personal slight/competition.
 
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