10-15 years? OK I don't know how that's an issue I'm an adult I was an adult over a decade ago as well. No I don't live there but due to the internet I'm quite able to follow what happens there...various sources too mind. Well I guess if you're "pretty sure" then you must feel good assuming things about me, I do hate to disappoint you, but I don't mix my politics and art (including music) I enjoy, do you? Why would I shut myself off from good art due to politics? Do you?

Have you not? I lived through 8 years of Obama, I've seen plenty and everyone you mentioned has been grilled a hell of a lot harder than Obama ever was. Carl Benjamin on the BBC the other day faced a tougher line of questioning than Obama ever has.

Fine Shapiro terminated an interview, I don't care it's erroneous to the current discussion. If you believe The BBC is right wing then I don't know what to tell you other than "Can you see the edge from where you're standing?"

OK so UKIP and Brexit Party don't represent the people, the people who voted for Brexit...so who does represent those people the Tories? Labour? Change UK?

Why bring up Gandalf? I thought it was you and me that were having a nice discussion where I'm politely asking you questions in order to better understand your position and you're (and maybe this is my not being able to discern tone here) taking shots at me for asking those questions . OK so you're not ok with my having an opinion on British politics....alright then fine I'll go back to my own thread and leave you to sort everything out....


One last thing though....

"I am not telling you how you came to your views. That is abundantly clear"

vs

"It seems you will never accept this whatever he does because he represents something else to you, and that is because you have relied on only heavily distorted propaganda to come to that conclusion. I understand it is the same ignorance that made Ben Shapiro call Andrew Neil a lefty this week "


Cognitive Dissonance.....what's that?[/QUOTE]


REPLY
It is only because you constantly quote from the same sources that I came to such a conclusion. You of course would think that the internet is a good substitute for boots on the ground because that is part of your generations way of looking at the world. When my stepsons (who is 30) friends made rape jokes in the past it became quite clear that generations view things differently. It doesn't mean that you are incapable of reaching more rational and reasonable conclusions than somebody of my age but it does explain the difference.

And yes of course i mix my politics and art. I have staked almost everything on it, as have virtually all of my closest friends. They are at times inseparable. There is a whole wall of local venue covered in massive blown up versions of my work and in the very centre of it all is an anti-fascist flag. Even if i am skint or knackered I will always make time for an anti-racist gig or to support a charity supporting refugees or abused kids etc. I have got on a night bus to work in London on many occasion to support the fight against censorship and the killing of what so many now just call 'the elite media class' of journalists all over the world. I am the living embodiment of an SJW crusty hippy punk photo-journalist limp and all, that has had the privilege of spending some of my working life talking to the people who worked with Strummer and the people who helped start Rock against Racism and the Anti-Nazi league. I make no apologies for it. In the end it has kept me alive and helped support two generations.

Benjamin is not Obama and while Obama may have deserved a personal droning, Benjamin certainly deserves at least a bucket of milkshake for many reasons, selling out an electorate to a corrupt party being one of many. The amount of racist shite Obama caught by people prefacing it with provisos that is was not because they were racist that they hated the muslim non american with the fake birth certificate made it quite clear, even from here across the pond, that he was not given the easy ride you are suggesting. I never defended the war monger but did not feel the need to pretend that Trump is not corrupt, inept and as neck deep in corruption as the Clintons and all the others.

You are mistaking my not buying into the right wing propaganda as an indication that I must buy into the other end. That is not the case. Nuance, and complexity are what life is about and you will find no more nuance in the Morning Star than you will in the Daily Mail.

I never said that UKIP does not represent the people that voted for Brexit. Of course they do but no more than the tories , the labour party etc do. That is kind of the point. People across the spectrum voted quite equally to stay and leave, It literally split the nation as evidenced in the close result. How we leave and what we would do if we did was never even discussed.

And yes of course you can have an opinion on British politics. I have tried for months to leave the Trump thread alone but your opinion is as valid as anyone else.

You have to remember though that it is American interests that are being used to shape British and European politics in an effort to make everyone hyper nationlist and isolationist. There is a right wing corporate elite push back happening and it is there because it hates the idea of cooperation and commons and community.

Like yourself it views even quite moderate fair capitalist ideas as communism and a threat. What Yanis proposes would represent real change and people are terrified of that. Ironically that is what those voting Brexit really have in common with many Blairite (or LIB DEM traitorous) remainers. THey want either a regression to the past or 'The same as it ever was'.

You cannot get any more establishment than Farrge the toffs and multinational corporations that installed him. He is no alternative just as UKIP the party he formed is not. Benjamin represents a desire to regress as does Tommy because change is just too challenging to them personally.

Its a lot to digest, and you may find it too unpalatetable, but I have nothing to gain by telling lies.

For me the forum, like life, is kind of wasted if all we all think we can't learn anything from others.

I have found it most instructive, if baffling at times, to be surrounded by people quite unlike most of my mates and family etc.


I brought up Gandalf because he has been one of the most vocal on these things and in this thread but he is speaking from a place between us both.


Most people don't even want to speak about it so don't take me or his word for it and certainly look further away from the narrow prism of Tommy, Carl and that whole 'scene'.

It really is not very representative.[/QUOTE]

If you say so then it must be so. I can't comment since I'm not in England and you refuse to answer any questions which would of course show your dedication to attempting to be better and more understanding of each other.

Well.....enjoy yourself