Friend's partner is a raving Reformist (she could and should do so much better).
When you try to debate/argue/fight with him, he just claims you've been brainwashed by the MSM. Sadly, it's very hard for people to accept that actually, no, they're the fcukin idiot who could do with doing some of their own research, rather than just thinking what Farridge and "Our Tommy" tell them to.
Right. So if he’s going to get wedged whatever answer he gives the correct thing is just to say whatever Reform thinks he should say. Whether or not that’s what he thinks.
This is how the least powerful get thrown under the bus again and again. Edgy rappers, immigrants, trans people, poor people.. if the reactionary’s and the media that promote them are on the attack, everyone’s gotta tow their line. Including the guy with a huge mandate from the public to not be like them.
So, y’know, personally I don’t think that ‘Farrage will be mean about me if I don’t say what he wants me to say’ is a great reason for saying something. YMMV.
If I am deciphering tricky’s many words (over many topics) a thread running through it is that there are powerful interests driving things in a direction we do not like. And, I think, that getting ‘distracted’ by stuff like this is what they want. So we shouldn’t.. we should focus on the big thing.
The problem with that is that these ‘distractions’ are the very tool by which those interests achieve their goals. They don’t just throw vulnerable people under the bus for kicks, they do it because creating the environment in which that happens is what has built their support and enables them to do the looting. So we can’t just cede that ground to them, as doing to makes them more powerful.
So it might all be a distraction from their real agenda, but the distractions are still fundamental to that agenda. There is no support for the looting, but there is lots of support for the oppression.. so it’s the oppression that we should be fighting them on.
(Whether the edgy rapper is a great representative for this cause is both not the point, and entirely the point. He’s probably a twat.. but go look at America for where things go when expressing any kind of solidarity with Palestine is accepted as ‘supporting terrorism’)
"We're looking at it" (for the purposes of deflecting fascist propaganda). We're not really looking at it - no tangible suggestion that glastonbury can't book this act.
You can get your panties in a twist about how this is being handled media wise, versus the forces levied against any organisation trying to empower and make change for the people....but it's a bit different when you have to pick the team, and play the shots.
I absolutely promise you that sweating the small stuff where nothing has actually happened, but is being amplified from both sides, is exactly how putins campaign manager engineered an environment where he won power. You get on board that train if you want. I wont.
Right. So isn’t this just a twist on what I suggested he said. As opposed to what he did say.. which was a clear taking of sides and validation of the idea that the edgy rapper shouldn’t be booked?
Yeah, I much prefer ‘not my counter, babe’ to a lie about ‘looking at it’. But either beats what he actually said by a distance.
By all means get angry at everything Starmer does or says, even rubbish like this that no one really cares about. But all it is doing is leading to a Reform government. Remember we tried the harder left ‘terrorist sympathiser’ approach under Corbyn and that didn’t go too well.
If commenting on whether a band should be playing at Glastonbury or not bothers you too much then god help you in 4 years time.
It’s a stupid hill to fight on. No disputing that.
Edgy rapper will be fine. But this is no different to, say, immigration issues, or trans rights, or whatever other wedge issue the fascists have made up and keep winning ground on.
It’s easy to say that Starmer should be unambitious and very selective with his battles when you’re not ever going to be collateral damage of him avoiding a ‘distraction’.