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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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An alarming twin-track movement is coming into existence about what to ban on Facebook et al. The ban-hate-speech folk are subtly including anti-vaxxers, climate deniers, conspiracy theorists et al in their mix of people who must be de-platformed. People can, if they so wish, advocate either group should be banned but at least one of them should be recognised as the baby rather than the bathwater, even if it isn't their baby.
AE would presumably oppose the banning of heterodox views but personally I would like to see an alternative Facebook where absolutely anything goes. There should be a place for hate speech in this world open-to-all-the-talents of ours. Perhaps they'd all go off and hate one another on it.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Parler
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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No, no, these are just for the boys. What I want is a real, honest-to-goodness, five billion users, generic platform that happens to let anything go. Headquartered in Vanuatu or somewhere.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I had no idea the hatred the Left bears for Boris Johnson until I read John Kampfner in his Guardian review of Anne Applebaum's latest. John admires Anne's personal recollections of various centrists-gone-right extravagantly until they both arrive at Boris Johnson
| My empathy with the author takes a dip when she turns her attention to Britain and a dinner she had with Boris Johnson, when he was mayor of London. Not for the first or last time, the wannabe prime minister confessed that leaving the EU would be a disaster. Indeed, Applebaum recalls him saying that “nobody†wanted it. |
That was worth hearing but now...
| But why was she friends with him in the first place? It was clear from the get-go what Johnson was – a charlatan. Why were people on the centre-right so titillated by him and his set? |
Strewth, you've really got to watch who you break bread with when John Kampfner is doing his rounds, torch in hand. But what really gets up his goat is all of us...
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| It is worth turning to Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes’s book to understand how liberal democracy went so badly wrong after 1989, and how the right dominated the agenda. |
Blimey, I though that was the year we won the Cold War. Exactly, says Mr Kampfner
| At every step, the west suffered from a toxic mix of hubris, naivety and ineptitude. It undermined its political offer to former communist states from the moment the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed, through what Krastev calls its “casual condescensionâ€. The liberal democratic state could not be improved on, eastern Europeans were told: just import it and adopt it. This new identity was implanted from abroad. As a result, it “would never be fully theirsâ€. |
Too right, John, I was there. I remember it vividly. They had carte blanche after forty years of Soviet Communism. They could have anything they liked: feudalism, right wing dictatorship, military government, traditional monarchy with a Grand Vizier. But no, the mad fools insisted on our very own liberal democracy, the system they had been gazing at with envy for forty years. But you're quite right, it wasn't for them, so they're trying the other sorts now.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Another admiring documentary about Cuba on Al-Jazeera. Why can't they get enough of this little old island? I imagine being a socialist state that has managed not to kill vast numbers of its citizens has a lot to do with it. Nevertheless having the worst economic record over a sixty year span of any country in recorded history by a country mile does lead to some unintentional comedy
"We're fighters. At the very least, I'd like a fan. To have good pots and pans. To have more cups and plates. To have nice things like anybody else. That makes me a bit sad."
"Capitalism will never exist in this country. Capitalism? So, every so often somebody shoots a bunch of people in a school? That doesn't happen in Cuba. You don't see anyone with a gun. Here, they don't sell firearms to the public, not to anybody. The capitalists do. They sell firearms to everybody. I've never wanted capitalism."
"This was the Hotel Bristol 24 or 25 years ago. They closed the hotel because there was a leak. We lived here illegally for a bit until they legalised us."
"We are here in my house. They gave it to me during the Revolution. I came here in 1959 because I was a rebel. Me and my brother and sister-in law. I was alone and they told me to go find a house and I chose this because it was small. But now I have a lot of people living with me. I have four kids, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Even great-great grandchildren. I sleep in the living room."
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Another admiring documentary about Cuba on Al-Jazeera. Why can't they get enough of this little old island? I imagine being a socialist state that has managed not to kill vast numbers of its citizens has a lot to do with it. |
That was down to Che. He was certainly up for it but he was a romantic idealist, so was rubbish at administration.
| Mick Harper wrote: |
Nevertheless having the worst economic record over a sixty year span of any country in recorded history by a country mile does lead to some unintentional comedy
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This was also down to Che as, when he got put in charge of the economy, he remained a romantic idealist, rubbish at administration.
When Castro realized that Che was actually a bit of a disaster in running things, he allowed him to go to Bolivia. Unfortunately Che was not a good military leader, a bit like Custer only worse.
Still popular in death. Good motorcycle diarist. Liked by Romantics. Good looking with Beard.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I don't think you've quite grasped the exigencies of getting an entire country to do what it wouldn't ordinarily do, Wiley
a socialist state that has managed not to kill vast numbers of its citizens has a lot to do with it.
That was down to Che. He was certainly up for it but he was a romantic idealist, so was rubbish at administration. |
Nobody's 'up for it'. Nobody kills people on the grand scale just for the hell of it. All revolutionaries are idealists by definition. They are all rubbish at administration to start with, again by definition.
having the worst economic record over a sixty year span of any country in recorded history
This was also down to Che as, when he got put in charge of the economy, he remained a romantic idealist, rubbish at administration. |
As you say, he pushed off to (or was pushed off to) Bolivia after a couple of years. Are you saying that Cuba was well-administered after that? If so that would make socialism rather worse than I thought.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Che wrote: | | Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red whilst slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands. My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood |
Sounded up for it to me. Still happy to take it back.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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So you should. It's not the the gun-toting happy-clappers you have to worry about but the men behind the desks beside the filing cabinets.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Socialism is an especially useful case study for Applied Epistemologists. After a hundred and forty-seven attempts and a hundred and forty-seven failures you would think people would be having doubts. But, as with conspiracy theories, there is always the next one that will work the oracle. Same cast of mind of course. One left wing, the other right.
I find it weird that this cabal of Applied Epistemologists should divide into the two groups. Plus me.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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There are commies among us???
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Calm yourself. Not Bolshevists, just well-meaning British lefties who believe in the collectivist approach to solving political problems. Just as you believe it's every man for himself when manning the lifeboat-of-state.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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I personally think Raoul has got it just right, ie you slowly liberalize the economy, encourage self employment, let in some capitalists, let the economy spurt a bit and then arrest some of the above and some regional party hacks for corruption, to keep the masses happy. cf China.
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