Rochdale grooming trial: Nine men jailed

[phildwyer]

Read the fucking thread Danny. If your concern is on welfare grounds, then you should be refusing to serve (and eat) most other meat sold in the UK. It is virtually all halal compliant. (see Tesco letter to the EDL). It is very easy to ascertain whether meat is unstunned because it would have to be especially sourced and retailer would know (because they get asked this question a lot).

It's not me wriggling here, it's a bunch of people who can't admit that they fell for some propaganda shite, and that they are just as guilty of cultural relativism as the other type of cultural relativist that they so rightly dismiss. Get a fucking grip. Most of you are much, much better than this.

You're mad you are.

 

[ViolentPanda]

As a wild guess, it might be to ensure the quality of the meat - an animal that doesn't seem fully alert may have been drugged to make capture/transport easier, or it could be sick.

As I mentioned a while back, that's been mooted as one of the reasons for the original dietary laws - the animal needs to be conscious so that the slaughterer can tell whether it is ill.

 

[purenarcotic]

Her grammar is shite too. Still I don't think we should give a fuck about their grammar. I don't judge people on that, but their actions and how they are as a person. And Tommy is a bellend.

I know. But the guy's a massive bellend as you say, so I say anything extra he does is fair game.

 

[danny la rouge]

My point was that the notions of 'race' and biological phenomena are not important in most modern discussions of racism and to introduce them and to contrast them to 'culture' obscures rather than clarifies the issues at stake.

I know what your point is. I disagree. I think any rational critique of how anti racism got entangled with Multiculturalism, and where what passes for anti racism has taken us, requires those issues to be raised. I think you have misunderstood my point. I also think it's perhaps a tangent too far to labour the point here.

But for what it's worth, I'm saing the opposite of what you think.

 

[purenarcotic]

We always used to rib my nan that her love of spicy food was her making up for having had her tastebuds blanded out during childhood. She absolutely loathed potatoes because that was one of the main things they ate as kids, along with cabbage.
And yep, agree about the mammoth portions, like that makes up for the rest of it!

Hah, exactly. I don't know why they have to worry about quantity vs quality so much, I'd far rather get a smaller portion that tasted excellent. Home cooking with my family is just fine, it's eating out / weddings etc that it all goes to pot.

 

[ViolentPanda]

No, that is checked out beforehand. Any animal killed for kosher must be in good enough health to live for at least another year should it not be slaughtered (i.e. it needs to be completely healthy). That stuff is checked out prior to the slaughterers going in to kill the animal itself.

Nowadays, yes. As recently as the '30s and '40s over here, not all the time, even for kosher, especially at certain times of year.
Nowadays vetinary checks and sampling are S.O.P. Back then any healthchecks were dependent on throughput, even at kosher slaughterhouses.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Any halal butcher can tell you where their meat came from. They're not fucking Tesco.

Yes, they can.

The local wholesaler or, if they're in London, a trader at Smithfield market.

 

[ViolentPanda]

No but tesco are aren't they?

Tesco are Zionists. They'd probably lie.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Can you tell us what concerned consumers should do when using cheap meat markets where almost all the meat is imported? Thanks.

Stop being such pissants if they want to remain omnivores?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Louis MacNeice mentioned your class blindness in his last post and I suspect that's also behind this. The cheaper meat markets don't source their produce locally, most of it comes from abroad, much of it off the back of a lorry, and there's no way for even the retailer to know where it came from.

And sometimes it is local and came from "a field near you", freshly "rustled" a couple of days before market day.

 

[bamalama]

Not strange at all. Ashkenazis, innit?

I've developed a wee interest in their culture and way of life recently,could you point me in the right direction?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I've developed a wee interest in their culture and way of life recently,could you point me in the right direction?

Hmm, not as easy as it sounds, even when just reduced to Yiddish-speakers (4 linguistic variants of Yiddish at one time, BTW!), and the Ashkenazim arguably spread at least as far east as the Caucasus. Then you've got the various factions, fractions and sub-sects of Jewry, covering everything from the spiritually-relaxed to the ultra-Orthodox. Probably a good starting point in terms of general history would be anything dealing with the Pale of Settlement, how and why it came about, and the social engineering (besides pogroms) that took place to shift Jews there.

 

[purenarcotic]

I've developed a wee interest in their culture and way of life recently,could you point me in the right direction?

If you want a look at 'modern ultra orthodox Ashkenazi life' there are a few docus on youtube which are interesting to watch:

Jewish Law (I linked to a clip from this earlier in the thread - a look at the Manchester orthodox community)

The Hasidic Drug Dealer (this follows a member of the ultra orthodox Hasidic community in Stamford Hill who has recently been released for smuggling drugs. It basically follows his attempt to reintergrate back into the community and also looks at how they live their life. These are the ultra end of the spectrum)

A Hasidic Guide to Love, Marriage and Finding a Bride (our drug dealing friend features in this too, although it's not directly about him. It looks at the extensive matchmaking services that exist within the ultra orthodox community)

A bit less academic than what VP has suggested, but great watches nonetheless.

 

[purenarcotic]

I should say, there's not a lot 'modern' about it, really.

 

[bamalama]

Hmm, not as easy as it sounds, even when just reduced to Yiddish-speakers (4 linguistic variants of Yiddish at one time, BTW!), and the Ashkenazim arguably spread at least as far east as the Caucasus. Then you've got the various factions, fractions and sub-sects of Jewry, covering everything from the spiritually-relaxed to the ultra-Orthodox. Probably a good starting point in terms of general history would be anything dealing with the Pale of Settlement, how and why it came about, and the social engineering (besides pogroms) that took place to shift Jews there.

I know a bit of the history and the whole yiddish thing.That was told to me when me and some german mates were watching blazing saddles pissed I'm quite interested in the ultra-orthodox lot,and i was hoping you could recommend a good book which could explain their beliefs and how they live today.There is a yank book called postville,but i'm not sure i'd want to spend my money on it.I'd like to find some sort of anthropological study or maybe a book by someone whose left the life.I'll be looking up the pale of settlement,cheers vp

 

[bamalama]

If you want a look at 'modern ultra orthodox Ashkenazi life' there are a few docus on youtube which are interesting to watch:

Jewish Law (I linked to a clip from this earlier in the thread - a look at the Manchester orthodox community)

The Hasidic Drug Dealer (this follows a member of the ultra orthodox Hasidic community in Stamford Hill who has recently been released for smuggling drugs. It basically follows his attempt to reintergrate back into the community and also looks at how they live their life. These are the ultra end of the spectrum)

A Hasidic Guide to Love, Marriage and Finding a Bride (our drug dealing friend features in this too, although it's not directly about him. It looks at the extensive matchmaking services that exist within the ultra orthodox community)

A bit less academic than what VP has suggested, but great watches nonetheless.

Cheers pure i've seen those,except the manchester one i think.They were interesting but i thought they were a wee bit flat,not enough meat,i didn't think i was any the wiser after watching them.I'll see about looking the manchester one later

 

[purenarcotic]

Cheers pure i've seen those,except the manchester one i think.They were interesting but i thought they were a wee bit flat,not enough meat,i didn't think i was any the wiser after watching them.I'll see about looking the manchester one later

I suppose it depends what you already know about them. The Manchester one is quite good as it does explain why certain things are done (i.e. stuff like in kosher bakeries the portion of dough set aside to make holy which has to be respectfully disposed of). It's worth having a search of youtube for some of the Chief Rabbi's wee videos about various topics which explain more about the specific bits of the Torah / Talmud that dictate the reasons behind a specific practice. Stuff like The Big Jewish Book of Why also gives specific reasoning behind practices.

The Jewish Encyclopaedia also.

 

[bamalama]

I suppose it depends what you already know about them. The Manchester one is quite good as it does explain why certain things are done (i.e. stuff like in kosher bakeries the portion of dough set aside to make holy which has to be respectfully disposed of). It's worth having a search of youtube for some of the Chief Rabbi's wee videos about various topics which explain more about the specific bits of the Torah / Talmud that dictate the reasons behind a specific practice. Stuff like The Big Jewish Book of Why also gives specific reasoning behind practices.

The Jewish Encyclopaedia also.

The big jewish book of why.There should be one of these for all organised religions.or we could cut to the chase and just call it the big religious book of why?ffs why?

 

[purenarcotic]

The big jewish book of why.There should be one of these for all organised religions.or we could cut to the chase and just call it the big religious book of why?ffs why?

There are now two big jewish books of why, there may even be a third. It's quite the thing now to give it as a bar / bat mitzvah present, because it just has the answers to absolutely hundreds of questions relating to jewish practice and you dip in and out all your life. Great books.

 

[bamalama]

There are now two big jewish books of why, there may even be a third. It's quite the thing now to give it as a bar / bat mitzvah present, because it just has the answers to absolutely hundreds of questions relating to jewish practice and you dip in and out all your life. Great books.

I'm there!

 

[goldenecitrone]

There was a good Wonderland on BBC2 recently about my ex-neighbours up in Stamford Hill. Some great characters in it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011crqs

 

[danny la rouge]

My point was that the notions of 'race' and biological phenomena are not important in most modern discussions of racism and to introduce them and to contrast them to 'culture' obscures rather than clarifies the issues at stake.

What the hell, I've decided to labour the point. Perhaps it'll inject something new into the thread.

I didn't think it necessary to say until now, but I should make it clear that I do not think race is valid a scientific category; it is neither consistent nor reliable nor reproducible. It is instead a social construct.

However, that is not the same as saying that it is unreal. Racial differences are a fact of life. The question is how to respond that. I think antiracism has taken a wrong turn.

There is now in what passes as antiracism a trend that demands we treat people differently. It says that respecting difference means that someone’s culture, ethnicity, religion and so on are so fundamental to their being, that we must treat them not according to universalised principles, but according to the internal mores of each individual culture.

The big cause is to seek and protect cultural “authenticity”. Often this is an ersatz authenticity. I saw a programme on TV some time ago in which people were using mitochondrial DNA to trace their haplogroups. British people were tracing back their genetic ancestry. In one episode, some black Britons traced their genetic origins to specific areas of Africa. They had not known they had any connection with these specific areas before, nor of the culture of the area. But they came away saying that they had found out something about their own cultural identity. This is the sort of thing I meant when I said that there is a tendency to view cultural identity as a biological phenomenon.
I submit that these people were mistaken in thinking they’d discovered anything about their cultural identity. Cultural identity is passed socially, not by mDNA. This is the biologicalisation of the politics of difference. This is what makes distinguishing racism from antiracism increasingly difficult.

This fetishism of “authenticity” (however ersatz) has been amongst the causes that propelled the most conservative sections of minority communities back to prominence, allowing them to reassert their reactionary impulses at the expense of more vulnerable groups.

The ridiculous antirationalism of postmodern cultural relativism has served to baffle people and make them distrust any questioning of cultural mores. Thus women with a reactionary minority culture can be condemned to accepting standards that would not be thought acceptable more generally, merely because “it’s their culture”, when police guidelines advise that sensitivity to “cultural differences”. In Australia, for example, courts often accept that Aborigines should be treated according to their own customs rather than Australian law (which is presumably seen as colonialist), resulting in people convicted of rape being treated differently according to their race. (C/f the case of Pascoe Jamilmira in 2002).

We become so cowed by reactionary politics of difference that we shy from “disrespecting” cultural identity by challenging or offending their values, beliefs or ways of being.

It is this racialisation that I think should be challenged, along with traditional racism.

In the face of relativism, we need to rediscover the courage of our convictions. If we believe something to be anti progressive, we should say so.

 

[Frances Lengel]

Tell us about rochdale,,,,,no way can anyone

 

[SpineyNorman]

Stop being such pissants if they want to remain omnivores?

I agree. The only things I care about in meat are taste and price!

 

[SpineyNorman]

Tell us about rochdale,,,,,no way can anyone

I'm told it's hard being a cowboy there.

 

[Belushi]

One of the best posts I've read on urban in a long time danny.

 

[Das Uberdog]

potentially warrants a new thread

 

[ViolentPanda]

The big jewish book of why.There should be one of these for all organised religions.or we could cut to the chase and just call it the big religious book of why?ffs why?

Unfortunately for the world, not all cultures are quite as inquisitive and argumentative as Jews? "Why" is the first word we learn after birth!

 

[bamalama]

Unfortunately for the world, not all cultures are quite as inquisitive and argumentative as Jews? "Why" is the first word we learn after birth!

Dunno about the argumentative bit,irish catholics'd give ye a run for your money on that one

 

[temper_tantrum]

No, it warrants a response.