Distracted by Covid? What else is going on.

[BFTD]

43 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Never mind, your wife will be impressed.

She'll be wanting to know why he doesn't take after his horse. Again.

2 hours ago, MixuFruit said:

Consumers will drive supermarkets to voluntarily label stuff even if they try to change the rules. It's not American chickens on the meat shelf in Tesco that concerns me, I and millions of others simply won't buy them. It's the chicken in processed foods that would worry me, where it's not so easy to check and vet it. There are barcode scanner apps to make your shopping more ethical which I use for palm oil avoidance but even so I still find things I've bought that I never thought to scan contain it (organic baby dried apple crisps FFS). We're all going to have to be more careful with what we buy.

Noticed a few folk giving it, "just don't buy it if you don't want to" a while back. Of course, you can extend that premise as far as you like, to all sorts of extreme and dangerous degrees, but I'll leave that to the bigwigs in the Tory Party to consider.

The main thing that occurs about low-standard food from America is that it'll undercut food produced from sources that still meets EU standards and become the standard diet for the expanding underclass on low incomes. Which is the whole reason why the government at Westminster won't give a single solitary f**k about health or animal husbandry implications.

[BFTD]

2 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

I dunno. I earwig into conversations wee ones are having with their parents in shops and 10 year olds are much more engaged about this than we are. I have hope.

Blimey. The idea of eating any chicken other than what was put in front of me would've blown my mind at that age.

[hearthammer]

1 hour ago, welshbairn said:

Never mind, your wife will be impressed.

If only he'd been second.

[welshbairn]

6 minutes ago, hearthammer said:

If only he'd been second.

She'd probably be happier if he was 4th.

[Antlion]

3 hours ago, Detournement said:

I don't think the union has taken on the same sort of magical qualities as the EU has since June 2016. People's ignorance of the EU's functions combined with the shock of the first political defeat most middle class people have experienced in their lives led to mass hysteria for most of last year. 

The perception of the union whatever you think of it is far more grounded in realities like currency and cross border networks of family and economic relations. It's far less cultural than the EU split. 

Ah, and your opposition to capitalist political institutions (boo! Hiss!) melts at the first question of your support for the glorious capitalist project of the UK. That one’s just worthy of exception and not so sullied with those filthy foreign workers with their cheese- and pasta-eating cultures and their non-familial bloodlines.

[NotThePars]

4 hours ago, Antlion said:

And so because BritNats think leaving the UK was invented by the dastardly SNP is another reason why we should leave?

*putting Hegel hat on* the idea of leaving the UK was invented by it's creation 

[Tight minge]

A lot of activity here in relation to Hong Kong and Chinas claims on the South China Sea.


https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3088199/hong-kong-security-law-wealthy-chinese-fret-about-citys

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/China-says-not-legally-bound-to-50-years-of-Hong-Kong-autonomy

UK offer visas for British overseas passport holders:


https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/britain-could-change-immigration-rules-for-hong-kong-citizens

US ‘fly over Taiwan’

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1191355.shtml

China overfly Taiwan after missile tests

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3088755/taiwan-fires-missile-test-part-asymmetric-warfare-against

Indonesia warn China and build up their defences.

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/indonesia-deploys-anti-air-system-in-s-china-sea

Malaysia have a spat with China on exploratory drilling off Borneo.

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

UK offer visas for British overseas passport holders

I can't see anything China does would make many non political Hong Kongers think they could have a better and more prosperous life in post Brexit and Covid UK. They already control most things anyway on the political side, economically they don't want to f**k around with a cash cow, so they'll want to keep business happy, which includes many billions of US private investment. The capitalist world wants it to keep going, nobody's going to make it a bad place for business. Might be shit for free expression, fair judiciary, political activity etc, but most people probably don't worry too much about that. I could easily be wrong, never been , but my guess is if the clamp down doesn't result in Tienanmen Square style slaughter, first the West will do nothing and two, life will carry pretty much as normal and there won't be a huge queue for the new blue non EU British Passports. And it isn't that long till 2047 anyway, in terms of dynastic history.

Edited June 13, 2020 by welshbairn

[Tight minge]

They already control most things anyway on the political side, economically they don't want to f**k around with a cash cow, so they'll want to keep business happy, which includes many billions of US private investment. The capitalist world wants it to keep going, nobody's going to make it a bad place for business.

Another thing that happened is the US offering any US company in Hong Kong (extended to mainland China); if they want to move back to the US, the government will pay the move.

The US has also started the process of removing Hong Kongs ‘special status’ which has a significant impact on its financial sector.

All of this is posturing and probably, especially for China, CoVID-19 deflection.

If/when Hong Kong is finally enveloped back into China is not going to have the significance it once had and will probably find out hard to compete with many of Chinas major cities.

The Philippines has also u turned on its stance with America extending their agreements of free access to US troops that it said it was cancelling last year.

China has also encroached into India and Nepal in May.

A lot of posturing by all. One suggestion being Chinas escalated rhetoric is to build internal support/patriotism as things start to unravel internally due to the impact of CoVID-19.

At the same time, the US/Trump led ‘blame of China for CoVID-19’ which has economic and protectionist thinking behind it applies pressure and the extended military support to the collective South China Sea nations being bullied by China heaps more pressure on them.

I don’t particularly see any war (although maybe some flashpoints and already has been), but this will be a cold war-esque economic battleground.

[Detournement]

15 hours ago, Antlion said:

Ah, and your opposition to capitalist political institutions (boo! Hiss!) melts at the first question of your support for the glorious capitalist project of the UK. That one’s just worthy of exception and not so sullied with those filthy foreign workers with their cheese- and pasta-eating cultures and their non-familial bloodlines.

There is little gain in swapping a neoliberal UK for neoliberal Scotland.

If you think that relations to the Union and the EU are similar then fair enough. I think the situations are massively different. 

[Antlion]

3 hours ago, Detournement said:

There is little gain in swapping a neoliberal UK for neoliberal Scotland.

If you think that relations to the Union and the EU are similar then fair enough. I think the situations are massively different. 

But you claim to believe that swapping partial governance by a neoliberal EU for supreme rule by an an ultra-neoliberal, increasingly far-right UK, run by racists for the benefit of their elite friends and fellow disaster capitalists, will strike a glorious blow for socialism.

And you are right - the UK is different from the EU. The UK is an even more right-wing enterprise founded on making the rich richer and exploiting every other nation on Earth. It has always been and continues to be a capitalist’s wet dream, and your inability to countenance a word against it makes your pretended socialism (when you remember to invoke it) all the more laughably transparent.

[Comrie]

Ah, Detournment and his collection of mismatched political ideas. The old "throw them in a bin and boot it down the stairs and I'll post what is still in there" game is still going strong.

[Detournement]

20 minutes ago, Antlion said:

But you claim to believe that swapping partial governance by a neoliberal EU for supreme rule by an an ultra-neoliberal, increasingly far-right UK, run by racists for the benefit of their elite friends and fellow disaster capitalists, will strike a glorious blow for socialism.

And you are right - the UK is different from the EU. The UK is an even more right-wing enterprise founded on making the rich richer and exploiting every other nation on Earth. It has always been and continues to be a capitalist’s wet dream, and your inability to countenance a word against it makes your pretended socialism (when you remember to invoke it) all the more laughably transparent.

Pretended socialism lol.

Similar 'pretended' socialism to Tony Benn, Corbyn and anyone who's politics are informed by Marxism. Your criticism of the UK is accurate but the EU is also extremely racist and even more of a capitalist club. There is literally no possible way to get left wing reforms though the European Commission whereas it is possible at Westminster. 

 

[NotThePars]

The UK proved in 2019 that it's never going to be reformed. I'd rather take my chances in the EU collapsing in the near future and building something better up here.

[Antlion]

1 hour ago, Detournement said:

Pretended socialism lol.

Similar 'pretended' socialism to Tony Benn, Corbyn and anyone who's politics are informed by Marxism. Your criticism of the UK is accurate but the EU is also extremely racist and even more of a capitalist club. There is literally no possible way to get left wing reforms though the European Commission whereas it is possible at Westminster. 

 

So you support one of the most capitalist enterprises in human history (which is even now run by far-right racists for the benefit of the ultra-rich) in the belief that you and yours will somehow change it one day, maybe, hopefully, despite never have managed to do so in the past. But you also oppose a capitalist club because you’ve thrown your hands up and claimed it’s just too dang hard to change? That bloody Marxism, eh - good, but only good enough to maybe one day change the lives of lovely British subjects. Everyone else can bally well sod orf whilst Mr Johnson and his cabal are politely asked to be a bit more socialist.

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Detournement said:

There is literally no possible way to get left wing reforms though the European Commission whereas it is possible at Westminster. 

Eh? The Working Time Directive and expanded minimum paid holidays were both forced through by the EU, the second of which I used to force an employer to honour it for my colleagues. Or is that just centrist mollycoddling that will delay the imminent uprising of the working classes?

[Antlion]

8 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Why advocate for something which might deliver what you want when you can opt for something which definitely won't.

Because the thing that won’t isn’t supposed to be questioned. Its famously progressive systems and traditions and institutions of power are refreshingly older and British and therefore better than these newfangled, foreign-smelling capitalist institutions built over there by people who don’t even speak English. Besides, why would a socialist want to question a political union spear-headed by those well-known bastions of Marxist thought the Earl of Glasgow and the Duke of Queenferry, and championed today by notable progressives like Boris Johnson and Mark Francois? The EU is clearly the sluggish and self-interested beast here in comparison to that fit-for-purpose and famously forward-thinking UK, which has never fought change.

[Antlion]

1 hour ago, MixuFruit said:

To be fair he said he voted yes but would vote no now, because something something growth commission.

Aye, apparently because he doesn’t like the SNP’s route to independence (and apparently their route will be set in stone forever because the state of Scotland would be utterly unchangeable, unlike the UK, which has Marxism just around the corner - for really realz this time). But, conversely, he apparently voted to Remain but is glad we’re leaving, presumably because Johnson, Cummings and Gove are delivering a socialist paradise.

[NotThePars]

3 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Eh? The Working Time Directive and expanded minimum paid holidays were both forced through by the EU, the second of which I used to force an employer to honour it for my colleagues. Or is that just centrist mollycoddling that will delay the imminent uprising of the working classes?

And Bismarck gave the German workers a basic pension, it's hardly the dictatorship of the proletariat. 

[welshbairn]

On 13/06/2020 at 02:15, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

China has also encroached into India and Nepal in May.

Killed an Indian officer and two squaddies on the disputed border today, with clubs allegedly.