Comments by "Edward Lindon" (@EdwardLindon) on "Pod Save the World" channel.

  1. Let's make it clear: there is NOTHING wrong with showing support for Palestinians at a moment when they are being bombed into oblivion and blockaded to death by Israel, which is using genocidal rhetoric ("human animals") and killing indiscriminately ("quantity of damage, not accuracy"). BOTH sides in this conflict are currently committing war crimes and the international establishment's universal unwillingness to recognise this will lead to a humanitarian catastrophe.
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  2. Who pays for facial reconstruction for car crash victims? Who pays for mental health care? Who pays for medical care for diseases resulting from smoking, or alcoholism, or drug use?
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  3. It was a last-minute decision. Cameron got called back from his heroic overtures in Albania. There's a whiff of Tory back-stabbing to this decision: Sunak pulled the lever before the party could stick the knife in and chuck him out the clown car.
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  4. ​ @coopsnz1 Home ownership is unnecessary. If protections for renters are adequate, there's no reason not to rent. See Germany and Japan.
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  5. "I definitely would rather they just shut the fuck up" has such an anthemic feel to it. T-shirts and mugs perhaps...
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  6.  @spindizzy64  No-one's asking any politician to refrain from ever offending anyone. What is being suggested is that generalized, ungrounded expressions of contempt should not be aimed at Black women in public, given that they represent two vulnerable demographics. Public figures should make their criticisms based on policy, words and actions, not mere likeability, because women and Black people consistently lose out in popularity contests.
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  7. Unless you're speaking to us from a tiny village 6 weeks in the future, I think you might be alright.
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  8. If only someone had seen this coming...
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  9. You're being over-generous to the public. It's not journalists' fault that the general public are uninterested in detail, nuance and complexity. The story was out there and many of us knew about it. It took a TV drama to make it a scandal because people are oblivious and uncurious.
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  10. He's always been a bully. Now he's a rich bully.
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  11. There is so clearly a strong racial dimension to this whole situation. In mainstream discussions, Israelis are being coded as civilised and white, while Palestinians are seen as uncivilised and brown. This can be seen in the abominable abandonment of British nationals in Gaza by the UK govt. Contrast this with the unconditional solidarity for Britons in Ukraine and the generous visa waiver for fleeing Ukrainians. Everyone was busy supporting white Ukrainians, while Black Africans fleeing war were pushed back into Poland. The last decade has seen a reversion to a racist past in Europe, most clearly in Windrush, Brexit, COVID, French islamophobia, Italian neo-fascism etc. The war in Gaza is providing racists with some nice cover for their hatred of brown people (including the UK Prime Minister and Home Secretary). Meanwhile the antisemites are also having a field day. All the worst people win.
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  12. Unbridled hysteria is a key part of the Nu Right ethos.
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  13. "Lewis Hamilton backs peaceful Just Stop Oil protest at British Grand Prix" in the Guardian today.
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  14. That's not the point. The general view, which I find plausible, is that Philips was leveraging the widespread and vitriolic hatred suffered by Abbott to gain easy cred. In fact, I'm no Abbott fan, but the level of abuse and groundless attacks she has received constantly for decades is completely bananas. There is no doubt in my mind that a large proportion of it is racially motivated, which is why soft critics/near allies of Abbott should be much more circumspect. The intrinsic and historical failures of feminism vis-a-vis people of colour is very well documented.
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  15. This is incorrect. Some masks helped, but hand washing did little. The main channel of infection is droplets suspended in exhalations. Distancing and ventilation are very effective.
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  16. That's because you're apparently thinking of whiteness as something substantive or real rather than structural. The point is a system of domination and exploitation, an ordered racial hierarchy and the treating of human beings as instrumental means to an end. Actual skin colour is irrelevant.
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  17. As a POC, I feel that there's no need to jump on a bullying bandwagon for clout. Deriding Abbott for her many failings is perfectly fine. Showing off about a general, unsubstantiated contempt for her suggests Philips has no clue about how bad things can be for Black women in the UK, or perhaps that she just doesn't care. It's graceless and it's bullying.
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  18. ​ @alexharrison2743 Or it was just a mistake. Incompetence is usually a better explanation than nefarious intent.
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  19. Sure, if you don't know anything about British history at all, you might think that. And if you happened to be inordinately "proud" of being "just English", you might well pretend to think that.
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  20. It comes down to the simple fact that occupation is not sustainable without casualties. Occupiers have to quell every uprising, but rebels only have to pierce the shield once to have an impact. Sooner or later it will happen. The only alternative to constant war is actual peace.
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  21. Hamas didn't exist when "this" started.
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  22. They're fundamentally unserious and treat the public with utter contempt. They speak as if words meant nothing and they can just bend them to their will.
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  23. Hear, hear.
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  24. Learning to be tolerant of other dialects is a great opportunity for personal growth. We put up with your "fanny packs" and "pants".
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  25. Coco is dead right on the Philips-Abbott story. Personal insults should not be thrown against women of colour in public, precisely because they already get a raw deal from open and closet racists. Philips concludes by saying she didn't intentionally do so, and this is credible. Implicitly, she recognises that she stoked an already unfair situation, and this is why she should have apologised as soon as the story came out. She didn't commit a mortal sin, but her comment was graceless, unfair and ignorant.
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  26. Also, tax rates are marginal. No-one's paying 60% on the entirety of their income.
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  27. Israel helped create and fund Hamas in the 70s and 80s in order to undermine the PLO, who were too secularist and leftist for their taste. But sure, go off...
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  28. ​ @Jay_Johnson Dear random white guy, please stop using the word "slavery" to make an easy rhetorical point.
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  29. It didn't go wrong. It's going just fine as far as Netanyahu's concerned. The only downside for him is the growing criticism from outside.
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  30. ​ @SusanOnTVShows You did because he didn't. He said the mechanisms of government apart from the White House, eg State Department, will keep a broad continuity.
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  31. The idea that unless you have an alternative tactical suggestion, you aren't allowed to have an opinion on this, is absurd and immoral. We're not military experts, but we're allowed to have opinions on what the professionals are doing. If a dentist f*cked up your teeth, you wouldn't say, "Well, I couldn't do any better, so never mind..."
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  32. It wasn't glib or nonchalant in the slightest, though you might easily consider him naive or uninformed. His point was that (1) US institutions are strong, (2) that policy is largely consistent and (3) that democracies are entitled to freely pick/change their leaders. Bear in mind also that Lammy will in all likelihood have to deal directly with the next White House, so he can hardly come out publicly and call the presumptive Republican candidate a fascist and a criminal.
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  33. Because they're incredibly rich and powerful and have been sabotaging efforts at both research and regulation for decades? In any case, you seem to be in favour of the goal, so why does this particular method get up your nose?
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  34. Your blithe assertion leaves me in little doubt about your colour. Amazing how people who never have to experience racism are so sure it doesn't exist.
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  35. It's not a black rod. It's Black Rod.
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  36. It is true. I can see why that might be inconvenient.
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  37. ​ @Nortarachanges I don't think a liberal society should compel anyone to listen to anyone. That's just moral theatre. I know it's hard, but we do actually have to let people be as bad as they want to be. You can't compel people to be decent.
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  38. How TF do you know what's in his head?
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  39. Still a Tory. Don't buy it.
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  40. No, it's like a platter of cookies.
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  41. And yet here you are, looking for a conversation on precisely that basis... Israel has to date killed three Palestinian children and four adults for every Israeli killed on 7 October. There has to be some sense in which that is clearly wrong, or those words cease to have any meaning.
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  42. Neither is native to the UK.
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  43. ​ @antigonemerlin As a resident of Taiwan, I do not find this an agreeable prospect.
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  44. Does the US not control its borders? Cos there's still an awful lot of illegal drugs coming in. Could it be that "control" is not total and that smuggling is an inevitability. 😱
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  45. It's instructive that there's a slew of comments from guys under this video, moaning about the supposed superficiality of the discussion. OTOH it strikes me that it stems from the British tendency to trivialise pleasure (especially other people's). It also doesn't escape my notice that here are two brown working-class women talking about their professional experiences and insight, and that just might be too much for some to handle.
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  46. ​ @ghostf6321 That, of course, is a poor argument based on an appeal to authority. Ukraine did this to please its allies and defuse the Russian lies about Nazification.
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  47. Was Ben calling in from a 1970s episode of Doctor Who?
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  48. Not sure those are the only two options, but be my guest...
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  49. ​ @sloine-q5l  No, that's whataboutery. It's a preferred disinformation tactic for the Russians.
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  50. You seem to have disqualified yourself from this discussion.
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  51. If that were true, the Hamas attack would be morally justified then, wouldn't it?
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  52. Yes, they know. That's the joke.
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  53. I have misophonia and insomnia, so I'm sympathetic to your position, but your comment does not represent the content of this discussion at all. It's very clear that British culture is separated into "high" and "low" and that it's highly politicised in terms of gender, class and race. No-one was "harping on about" anything. They were just talking freely, with very specific references to gentrification.
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  54. You spoke to a lot of lovely people there.
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  55. No, it's not about "treating all people equally" for the very obvious reason that people do not all start from the same position of advantage. Feminism, like any humanism, is about treating people *justly*, in order to correct historical inequalities. Diane Abbott has been a punching bag for racists for decades, and Philips should be mindful of this, restricting her public criticisms to substantive and specific disagreements, rather than popularising the idea that it's ok to be unpleasant and abusive to people just because you "don't like them". This "Mean Girls" model of civic discourse is intrinsically racist and sexist because in a society where racism and sexism still exist, POC and women will always be easy targets.
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  56. There's nothing absurd about challenging white feminists about their behaviour towards people of colour.
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  57. Beth, your argument that Britain is not racist is incoherent. If there were not a seam of racism lying below the surface, it would make no difference how our leaders respond. The cascade effect happens because there is a widespread dormant racism waiting to be reactivated. Mainstream culture and media - and, to be quite direct about it, white British people - need to face up to this and stop burying their heads in the sand. We've been telling you about this for decades, and the line has always been that we're paranoid, we're too sensitive, we're imagining it, we're making it up. No more hiding from this truth. Come out of your cosy little fantasy and face the monsters we face every day.
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  58. You're right, but the two conditions are: (1) intention and (2) action. The current definition-mincing apologism is that there is no intention. If you believe that... 🤷🏾‍♂️
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  59. He looks like I feel. (And also rather like how I look, too, actually...)
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  60. Counterpoint: no-one needs a billion pounds.
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  61. I think by "Forget about weapons for Taiwan" he means "not to mention" rather than "don't do it". But it's true that Democrats and leftists have a poor record of supporting, or even understanding, Taiwan. Half the Bernie bros think we're a fascist state.
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  62. What a bizarrely superficial comment. At the very least, it's a serious economic problem: jobs existed, now they don't; money circulated, now it doesn't; a culture thrived, now it doesn't. Personally, I loathe clubbing, but even I can see this is a substantive problem.
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  63. It's magic.
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  64. This is what it sounds like when someone is thinking out loud. Negative airtime, like negative space on a canvas.
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  65. ​ @alexharrison2743 The off-white tone policing continues. You people are consistent and committed, I'll give you that.
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  66. ​ @AKCFTW  Riot, ion, lion, bio, biology, biography, Orion, scion, Dion, Briony, Briony, Niobe... The answers are there, if you can be bothered to look, but I suppose that takes effort and an interest in truth rather than just a smug sense of superiority.
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  67. Indeed.
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  68. ​ @maxamed4yare Awkward for Israel.
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  69. English nationalism is a mix of racism, faux-imperialism and thuggery. All the performative scepticism in the world will not change that. But if you genuinely want to inform yourself, rather than just to spread disinformation, there are detailed reports in all the major newspapers.
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  70. How could you possibly know that he is?
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  71. If that were true, strategic voting would be a universal moral imperative.
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  72. The colours "in" the rainbow are culturally relative, you muppet.
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  73. The News Asians lol 😆
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  74. Indeed, they were funded and supported by Israel...
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  75. I'm fascinated to learn that Nish is a former member of the armed forces who served in the Middle East. More importantly, black pudding and pig's feet are delicious!
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  76. Does it have 20,000 hostages?
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  77. Austerity came in in 2010, when he was 17. I think he gets a pass.
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  78. Remember how we laughed when he illegally invaded Iraq?
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  79. Scream that again, please?
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  80. A very reasonable comment. (This is high praise.)
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  81. Yes, you do. What a perfectly silly notion.
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  82. Perhaps you have misunderstood the meaning of the phrase "puff piece".
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  83. Welcome back, Sun Tzu.
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  84. Hear, hear. Arrogance and ignorance in equal measure, as usual.
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  85. Is David Lammy sitting in a hole again?
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  86. ​ @AllUserNamesTaken111 The stupidest take resurgent.
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  87. It's a real account of a real person whose real son was really killed. It's not entertainment that can be "spoiled".
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  88. ​ @mygenericusername  You're really scraping the barrel of bad faith scepticism there. It's a safe assumption that the thousands of dead Palestinian children weren't in Hamas. Shame on you.
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  89. I mean, you just sound genocidal.
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  90. I strongly agree with both your points here. From a suicidal justice perspective, the main problem with giving police additional powers is that they invariably use them against vulnerable minorities first and foremost.
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  91. Lol
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  92. Was it manufactured when the Israelis killed two Palestinian teenagers in July?
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  93. Don't let Gordon Ramsay catch you with that blue dressing, Nish.
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  94. Cambridge scientists have just invented a way to produce very low emission concrete using steel arc furnaces. Look up "Cambridge Electric Cement". The point is not what the UK can accomplish all by itself, but how it can lead the way.
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  95. Expecting white feminists not to pile on in the bullying of Black women? Hardly.
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  96. Now do the Nation-State Bill.
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  97. He did also resign. Although, I confess that at that moment I loathed him more than ever.
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  98. Well, I used to be ashamed, then I was angry, and now I'm just tired and disgusted.
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  99. Interesting info, thanks. But RP is far from neutral. It is (or rather was - true RP is basically extinct) the hegemonic centre of our dialects, a tool of repression and social immobility.
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  100. To be fairer, July 4th is the day when Americans celebrate their independence from British colonial rule. That's the symbolism. None of the other details matter.
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  101. Thanks for your comment. Goodness knows we need a nice hard laugh these days.
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  102. Deep
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  103. ​ @alexharrison2743 How could it possibly be *sarcasm*? Irony, perhaps. Not rude in the slightest. Typical English banter of the sort that ex-public schoolboys live and breathe on. Perhaps shocking to American ears and people who expect brown women to be nothing but subservient and grateful.
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  104. Gender dysphoria as a new drapetomania.
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  105. It's not like they're eating ALL the animals, though is it?
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  106. Lib Dems always equals "What's the point?", with an occasional "Those c#@ts!"
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  107. Mea culpas all round yet?
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  108. A Tory-lite travesty who's helped to give the lie to every principle Labour supposedly stood for, from the public order bill to the hierarchy of racism? A hold-your-nose-and-vote candidate ne plus ultra?
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  109. Positing China as somehow lacking agency in its warlike behaviour is just parroting CCP propaganda.
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  110. No, it's not that it's not serious; it's that it's ridiculous. Which it is.
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  111. ​ @alexharrison2743 Either that's a tiny bonnet or a massive fucking bee you've got there.
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  112. There is, objectively, no such thing as objective virtue.
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  113. It's excellent. People all round the world eat blood pudding of one sort or another. The English have got nesh about their own food.
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  114. The need to change Parliamentary rules would not arise if other MPs had shown Butler some solidarity.
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  115. Well he didn't say "I could" and he was making a very clear point about democratic freedoms, which the hosts clearly took in the spirit it was offered. Maybe, listening as an American, you find it hard not to hear a Black man in power as "aggressive".
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  116. ​​ @TheStrangeBloke You called a Black man "aggressive" because you didn't like his tone, in the face of the very obvious joviality of the exchange, so I'd say there's every need for that. I understand, of course, why you wouldn't want me to say it out loud.
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  117. Remember how Hitler wasn't just a Polish problem? Ditto for Putin
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  118. The first point that should always be made about Tater Tots and his band of uglies is that they are total c*nts.
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  119. ​ @jakelesnake It's not a "catchphrase" they "came up with". It's an idiom that exists in various forms, this particular one invented by Jamie Vardy in 2011. You sound like an American troll looking for an easy fight.
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