Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

Between this and the Farage poster this morning this is honestly the worst single day I can remember in British politics. Just... where does this end?

Also let's stop pretending that mental illness has nothing to do with government policy or structural conditions in society ffs.

yep. "loner" is the sun's favourite way of eliding that direct link.

which is part of what i meant by "complexly" political. beyond his immediate Party goals is all that stuff + misogyny + christ alone knows what else

understood and you make a fair point.

Not a fan of The Spectator (well, it's editor, anyway) but that piece posted above is good.

When you shout BREAKING POINT over and over again, you don’t get to be surprised when someone breaks. When you present politics as a matter of life and death, as a question of national survival, don’t be surprised if someone takes you at your word. You didn’t make them do it, no, but you didn’t do much to stop it either.

I cannot recall ever feeling worse about this country and its politics than is the case right now

that last picture her husband posted on Twitter at 2:50 is devastating, can't imagine what he was feeling like at that exact point

XP (sorry - they were supposed to be block quotes, rather than bold text)

It might be a good idea for me to stay off the internet for a while.

various reporters and MPs looking like they're going to break down and cry on C4 News, feeling a bit that way myself

Between this and the Farage poster this morning this is honestly the worst single day I can remember in British politics.

as always someone (often Matt DC actually!) puts into words what is spinning in my head ..

i cracked badly at the picture of her and bloke and kids in the boat from yesterday ..

Like, what I would LIKE to come out of this situation would be an acceptance from Blue Team 79 and Red Team 97 that they have FAILED, that the country isn't actually a better place as a result of what they and their glorious leaders have done. That this is, if not the obvious endpoint of the politics of divide-and-rule, then at least a big signpost on the way to that. And maybe if they had the basic humility to accept that then they might actually work out what to DO about it, rather than stubbornly protecting their own reputations, and we might actually prevent that endpoint from happening.

I've been saying for years that Cameron's greatest skill as PM has been projecting strength from a position of weakness, but in doing so he's thrown the lid off, and exacerbated, resentments going back decades - resentments that have obviously contributed to his weakness. If this DOES turn out to be the last week of his premiership (and I have a feeling that it now won't), then he will only have himself to blame. And everyone else will blame him for the shitfest that follows.

feeling very bad for her former UNICEF co-worker struggling to keep it together on C4 news

Jason Keen ‏@Jason_Keen 3h3 hours ago

Jo Cox told me about her new project when I saw her a few days ago - a cross-party commission to tackle loneliness. There are no words.

Last year Paula Sherriff had to improve her security after receiving death/rape threats on social media.

don't read the comments on that Spectator piece unless you want your last vestige of hope to go pop.

They keep editing it. The first one was blistering, now they've taken out all the stuff blaming the right wing and pointed the finger at mental health

This might be the original version
http://web.archive.org/web/20160616183957/http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/a-day-of-infamy/

Not that long after the grim WYP statement on R4 earlier, came Jimmy Tarbuck's stern defence of Cliff Richard. And then him saying false child abuse victims should be horsewhipped - it reminded me of everything I love about this country.

Why on earth are all people on Newsnight going on and on about social media as a cause to this tragedy? Social media isn't some alien entity, it's a means people discourse over. We never questioned people speaking on telephones to each other having a poisonous effect on society did we? Social media redlects humanity just as awfully truthful as any other form of communication or 'tone'. Don't blame the medium, blame the people who abuse it ffs.

Easier to say than a whole historical and interlinked toxic system of hysterical and biased hatred of things unknown.

as someone who was seemingly a long-term subscriber to white supremacist fanzines he probably wasn't exactly relying on twitter to help form his opinions

Perhaps. Excrutiating to watch.

England just had a political murder/hate crime. A member of parliament was butchered in broad daylight, possibly because of her conviction or beliefs. It echoed the one we've had this century. We've had thousands of people protesting on the night it happened, mayors taking the stage, speaking to the masses in shock. Not that that was right, there's no right or wrong here, but it strikes me as bizarre to see no real massi reaction or denouncement of that today in the uk. And Newsnight focuses solely on that vile social media. Ok...

it strikes me as bizarre to see no real massi reaction or denouncement of that today in the uk

Are you in the UK? Just asking because there's been plenty of denouncing and reacting going on.

Not in the UK at present no, lived there for years though. Perhaps just affected severely by today's events, and aghast.

Still think Newsnight got it all wrong tonight, and I'm trying to figure out why. Ah well.

In case anyone argues this wasn't political:

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/06/16/alleged-killer-british-mp-was-longtime-supporter-neo-nazi-national-alliance

The SPLC has records of his support of the Neo-Nazi U.S. group the National Alliance and an invoice for a manual on how to make a gun.

the national alliance make no bones about being straight-up unreconstructed nazis - "the foremost organization working for the interests of men and women of European descent worldwide" - oh that's nice, pet

The mention of 'social media' presumably worked up because someone somewhere has realised they can use this to do more Prevent stuff, monitoring people's conversations, convicting people for what they post etc

About spectator commenters - they're fucking vile. The way they queued up to have a go at that piece, absolutely refusing to accept any bit of connection between Leave campaign shouting and this

Have they closed the comments? I can't see any but wondered it it was a platform thing.

Britain first's actual statement was that "this kind of behaviour we do not condone."

"This kind of behaviour"

"DO NOT CONDONE"

they don't condone murder. They don't condemn it, they just don't condone it.

Feeling crazy here. Apologies.

Yes, comments were taken down on the Spectator piece. Britain First are sticking to the line that the (several) people who heard him shouting during the attack and while being arrested are lying. Lots of people on the far right are still claiming it was not targeted violence and she just intervened in an altercation on the street. Just an unfortunate coincidence he had a history of supporting 'South African patriotism', it was the 40th anniversary of the Soweto uprising, a year since the Dylann Roof shooting commemorating that uprising and the MP who was shot was one of the most vocal advocates of anti-racism and refugee rights.

The Spectator piece in its original format was correct not to limit the blame to Britain First though. Everyone from the Sun to the Guardian is pushing the 'loner with mental health issues' line. Yr man who killed Lee Rigby was a borderline schizophrenic. Whether directed or influenced, extremist propaganda targets the vulnerable.

It's not party political - all parties have chipped in to the climate that saw an 18% rise in hate crimes last year - but looking at some of the Leave messaging recently, even before the new poster Goebbel's estate could sue for copyright infringement on - vote Remain and get ISIS, vote Remain and share a border with Syria, vote Remain and let in 20m Muslims, vote Remain and have your identity erased, we must take our country back, etc, this doesn't feel all that shocking. It may turn out he had another motive but the feeling that the national environment we creating doesn't make the murder seem completely alien and outlandish is real. We have laws against incitement for a reason and politicians and commentators juuuust skirting round the edge of them need to have a proper look at themselves.

Lots of people on the far right are still claiming it was not targeted violence and she just intervened in an altercation on the street. Just an unfortunate coincidence he had a history of supporting 'South African patriotism', it was the 40th anniversary of the Soweto uprising, a year since the Dylann Roof shooting commemorating that uprising and the MP who was shot was one of the most vocal advocates of anti-racism and refugee rights.

From what I've seen, that's lots of people on the RIGHT not the far right.

Indeed, and given the information coming out about mair, you could view this as just one more act of racially-motivated violence, something we have never been rid of, something that is always bubbling even in the most benign of political climates, let alone in the current fetid hate-swamp

Xp

When "three shit tweets we've managed to find" is good enough for the headline "Labour MP criticised for politicising the shocking murder of Jo Cox"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/17/labour-mp-criticised-for-politicising-the-murder-of-jo-cox

I think it's going to be quite difficult not to politicise the murder of a politician by someone who disagrees with her political views

How the fuck is this not political? This guy is basically Anders Brexit

a pun that ought to catch on tbh

Also - printing the headline 'Labour MP criticised for politicising the shocking murder of Jo Cox' in a right-wing newspaper is politicising the issue!

Maybe not. Looks like complaining about politicization is, uh, politicization to me. (XP!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Of course, if the murderer had been an immigrant, the Leave side would still be maintaining a dignified silence ...

('maybe not' refers to the pun. too soon to pun?)

Leave campaign = stoking the fires of racism, but fortunately the PLP and their Cameronite bros have been more than ready to counter that thru repeatedly moaning about the need to address working class people's "very real concerns" about immigration rather than deviate from their own Neolib economic orthodoxy. Inasmuch as heightened racial tensions led to this there are a lot of parliamentarians with dirty hands who should be thinking hard before they open their mouths in future but hey no the game's still afoot.

'Politicise' in this instance means 'draw conclusions we don't like'. If there's one thing politicians don't like it's confronting the social consequences of their own economic policies.

It'd be interesting to compare and contrast with the Telegraph/Spectator's coverage of the Lee Rigby murder but also frankly too depressing to bother.

This tweet seemed apposite: https://twitter.com/Mendelpol/status/743713966954668032

We never questioned people speaking on telephones to each other having a poisonous effect on society did we?

Actually we totally did

"nothing to see here just a lone nutter" is so infuriating on so many levels