shit MANarchists say

[co-op]

The rec is dominated by older hard lads, where they, especially young girls, feel uncomfortable - one of the few spaces where certain older teens/young adults feel they can control their surroundings. Not everyone can live in a sub-system where a dose of charity/mutual aid can put things rights.

Where I live every playground is definitely "owned" by a gang of some sort (i.e. not a formal gang but a loose group). I have had real issues trying even to use pre-booked and paid for pitches for football coaching because some of my boys do not feel safe going to them even with adults. It's been a real problem. (and my coaching is definitely mutual aid, I don't get paid). It depends alot on time of day etc, I wouldn't want to overstate it - certainly for me, but for kids safe space barely exists in cities now outside their own houses.

 

[8ball]

Just in case the point isn't obvious - that slide shows a statistically significant relationship i.e. it's not a chance finding

It would be interesting to see the relationship between income level and obesity for the individual countries, rather than just inequality.

 

[ViolentPanda]

"Brains floating in jars"

Lovely turn of phrase.

Made me think of pickled walnuts.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Have you tried it in the streets of a major city?

Some demand the young kids go to the rec - occasionally the police step in. Community PC duo's letter came around to remind resident adults saying it was an offence. (And it is potentially dangerous with cars passing by). The rec is dominated by older hard lads, where they, especially young girls, feel uncomfortable - one of the few spaces where certain older teens/young adults feel they can control their surroundings. Not everyone can live in a sub-system where a dose of charity/mutual aid can put things rights.

I live in an inner city area and yes, the local rec is often not an option for the kids round here because it's simply not safe for them or they're likely to run into too many bad influences.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Sounds like you're backpedalling and you knew your earlier pie-eating comments were stupid, Spocky

Perhaps, but they were made as response to someone even stupider than me (a quoted source, not a poster on here) conflating the suffering of obese people with racist oppression.

I don't object to this attitude because I hate fat people, I object to it because it contributes to a victim mentality that is counterproductive to any efforts to improve the situation.

I would never insult someone because of their weight, or presume to understand the causes of their problem, but I would stop short of agreeing with the idea that they have no responsibility for their condition. Obesity is not a 'class issue' but rather an issue where class is one of many contributing factors. As usual the same people as always are denying this fact and acting like this, like everything else, is only about class because they have a class-shaped axe to grind. And just like with every other issue, this reductionist attitude discredits and cheapens the working class these people are claiming to stick up for.

 

[co-op]

It would be interesting to see the relationship between income level and obesity for the individual countries, rather than just inequality.

The general rule is that there is no relationship with income level as such (ie there is no statistical likelihood that a poorer country will have higher obesity levels than a richer one) - that is why you get countries like Greece and Portugal up near the obese end of the graph despite the fact that they are much poorer than countries like NZ, Australia, the UK, the US etc who are also clustered up that end.What they have in common is high levels of wealth inequality.

But I can't find a graph showing this ^ relationship off hand, it's out there somewhere.

At the other end you do see a slight correlation with wealth - most of the lower obesity countries are richer - although, e.g. Spain is down there. This could be a confounder produced by the fact that more equal countries tend to perform better economically and are therefore richer (which has some evidence support). But it's getting a bit complicated after that so I'm bailing out here.

 

[co-op]

Obesity is not a 'class issue' .

The lowest levels of obesity are found in the UK in poor men and rich women...so if it is a class issue it's certainly not a simple one. But the inequality correlation holds pretty well.

 

[8ball]

The general rule is that there is no relationship with income level as such (ie there is no statistical likelihood that a poorer country will have higher obesity levels than a richer one) - that is why you get countries like Greece and Portugal up near the obese end of the graph despite the fact that they are much poorer than countries like NZ, Australia, the UK, the US etc who are also clustered up that end.What they have in common is high levels of wealth inequality.

That wasn't quite what I meant, I meant it would be interesting to see how obesity varies with income bracket in each country.

I also notice that it is quite a small group of countries shown on that graph.

 

[SpookyFrank]

That wasn't quite what I meant, I meant it would be interesting to see how obesity varies with income bracket in each country.

I also notice that it is quite a small group of countries shown on that graph.

The line on that graph doesn't immediately look like a statistically significant trend but I'll take co-op's word for it.

Inequality as a single figure also doesn't tell you much about the class structure in a particular country. A country with lower income inequality could have just as great a distance between the lowest earners and the middle class, but those low earners might simply represent a smaller proportion of the population. A small difference in the number of mega-earners, while irrelevant to most of the population, could also have a disproportionate effect on that income equality number.

 

[8ball]

A small difference in the number of mega-earners, while irrelevant to most of the population, could also have a disproportionate effect on that income equality number.

Conversely, mega-earners might take a liking to mega-pies.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Conversely, mega-earners might take a liking to mega-pies.

I have it on the good authority of several hundred Nottingham Forest fans that Derby County's goalkeeper ate all the pies.

Not knowing how much he earns of course, that fact alone isn't much use to us.

 

[8ball]

I have it on the good authority of several hundred Nottingham Forest fans that Derby County's goalkeeper ate all the pies.

Not knowing how much he earns of course, that fact alone isn't much use to us.

If he can fatten himself into a rectangle 8 yards wide and 8 feet high then Derby County will be unstoppable.

 

[Delroy Booth]

I like the idea of there being a Fat Community. With Fat Community centre and everything,

 

[SpookyFrank]

I like the idea of there being a Fat Community. With Fat Community centre and everything,

They can keep skinny people out by fitting the place with a cattle grid.

 

[co-op]

If he can fatten himself into a rectangle 8 yards wide and 8 feet high then Derby County will be unstoppable.

Neil Shipperley's becoming a goalie you say?

 

[sihhi]

The lowest levels of obesity are found in the UK in poor men and rich women...so if it is a class issue it's certainly not a simple one. But the inequality correlation holds pretty well.

I don't think anyone suggests it's a simple class issue, it's a complex cross class reality, but there was a study in the Lancet I think reviewing lots of studies concluding that obesity amongst lower classes is much more likely to come with other health problems, than the highest classes.

The trend for women (most alienated/alone in society, often as domestic workers/homemakers) is fairly conclusive according to that graph you posted it's at 28% for women in the bottom fifth and drops to 16% for the top fifth on a steady trend. The men's one doesn't show that trend, but obesity comes more often with other health complications in the case of lower sociological 'classes'.

What is undeniable is that poor nutrition affects working-class people more, including many men in the non-obese category of the bottom fifth. Not having enough and being hungry is something many parents go through, many would rather give to their kids than have good food themselves, that's a situation affecting the lower fifths.

 

[co-op]

I don't think anyone suggests it's a simple class issue, it's a complex cross class reality, but there was a study in the Lancet I think reviewing lots of studies concluding that obesity amongst lower classes is much more likely to come with other health problems, than the highest classes.

The trend for women (most alienated/alone in society, often as domestic workers/homemakers) is fairly conclusive according to that graph you posted it's at 28% for women in the bottom fifth and drops to 16% for the top fifth on a steady trend. The men's one doesn't show that trend, but obesity comes more often with other health complications in the case of lower sociological 'classes'.

What is undeniable is that poor nutrition affects working-class people more, including many men in the non-obese category of the bottom fifth. Not having enough and being hungry is something many parents go through, many would rather give to their kids than have good food themselves, that's a situation affecting the lower fifths.

Oh aye I'm not disagreeing with anything you have said, I just posted that graph to show that it is complex. There are lots of reasons why poorer people end up with worse health (being poor = having a generally shitter life, that's the point of it really), but one thing I find really interesting is the inequality stuff since it tends to show that nearly everyone would be healthier (i.e. all classes) if wealth inequalities are narrower. Maybe I'm just showing my miserable snivelling liberal side here but that should be a sellable bit of public policy I'd think.

 

[co-op]

Anyway how did this thread get here? I thought it was supposed to be slagging off I.D politics?

 

[Das Uberdog]

the Weekly Worker students section have published this, imo, quite an enlightening article on the Assange/Galloway/NUS issue raised earlier on in this thread...

Michael Chessum – leftish bureaucrat and mainstay of the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts – lays out the essential case.1
“A – Giving known and unrepentant rape apologists a platform is a fundamental barrier to creating a safe space. It effectively excludes a lot of people, especially survivors and victims of rape and sexual assault.
“B – Giving rape apologists a platform contributes to a dangerous culture of not taking rape seriously, and excuses potential rapists for their actions. Rape apologism normalises rape. This is a direct and present danger to real people.”

The argument is rehearsed because ‘official’ feminism has come up with this notion of a ‘safe space’. Does it mean rough stewards at the door, keeping hordes of marauding rapists out? Of course not: it means defining, a priori, the terms of debate in a meeting room so that nobody will feel unduly intimidated by what is said. It is, in short, a weapon of the bureaucracy. It serves selectively to protect dubious political arguments from the level of attack they deserve. (As an aside, the AWL wheels out bureaucratic ‘feminist’ technicalities to get its way and attack enemies as a matter of course.)

Without opening up the specificities of the Assange case again, and the author's opinions on legal definitions, I think the above quoted paragraphs really illuminate some other fundamental problems created by privilege politics and the 'safe space' corrollary which appears to have come with it. It is inherently bureaucratic - as the author notes, the whole purpose is to pre-define the terms of debate in favour of self-identified oppressed minorities before a discussion has even begun.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The discussion over on libcom is straightforwardly hilarious now. Even most of the people over there who at some level must know better are now terrified of being called patronising and dismissive. I've now come to the conclusion that this stuff really is going to fly on the British anarchist scene.

 

[co-op]

I'm really surprised this stuff hasn't been all argued through a 1000 times already, I remember having these exact same debates in the 1980s.