Is it OK to book bands who sing about killing Tories?

[gigpusher]

3 hours ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

If you feel you can negotiate with and persuade someone you know through civilised discussion then go for it.  I guess I'm talking in more general terms about tactics that work and don't work against the fash - who're very much back with a vengeance.  And the usual paradigms of political discourse don't apply.  You can't debate your own continued existence with someone who thinks that you have no right to it.

I guess I've always been more of a you catch more flies with honey than vinegar kind of person. I moved to Manchester a few months after the IRA blew it apart and as an Irish person back then got called a lot of pretty nasty names by people. I made a point of not taking the hump and talking to a lot of very bigoted people about how I didn't support what had happened and that the majority of people in Ireland didn't support it. I'd doubt I changed everyone's mind but I know I changed a couple. 

I just find in the past couple of years some people on the left have gotten insufferably smug, righteous and condescending. I agree with them and they piss me off so I think if you are not sure about them/ on the fence then they are never going to win you over. 

[CaledonianGonzo]

5 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

Don't get me wrong I'm not crying over the sight of Tommy covered in milkshake but I think if anything it makes people think more sympathetically towards him and Farage and that I don't want to see. I'd rather someone exposed the weakness in their arguments and policies (or lack thereof) and made them look like the opportunistic idiots that they are. 

The 'exposing the arguments' approach doesn't work, though. Through a combination of naivety and vanity the people who attempt it just wind up holding the door open for the far right.  It lets them set the rules of engagement and broadcast their arguments. It allows them to mainstream themselves. It gives them credibility. And you can't win a debate against someone acting in bad faith, who doesn't even care whether or not they've managed to convince you.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

The BNP got their most ever votes in this country after Griffin appeared on Question Time.

The marketplace of ideas shite is fairytale bollocks that puts people at risk. 

The success of the anti Tommy Robinson electoral campaign didn’t hinge on debating him, because as shown by people like him and Trump, it just doesn’t work. It hinges on actual activism and prevention.

[Amy Lawn]

And the far right aren't counting on reason or valid arguments, they themselves know they don't have that and they don't try to. They appeal to anger and fear, the sort of things that rational discussion doesn't touch.

[CaledonianGonzo]

5 minutes ago, thesecretingredientiscrime said:

The marketplace of ideas shite is fairytale bollocks that puts people at risk. 

Yup. Not every idea is up for debate - and that some people think they are is usually dependent on the fact that the people doing the debating have got little to lose and won't actually face any consequences, regardless of which way things turn out.

[danmarks]

I guess the big isssue is -is every Tory far right. The answer is no- so much as it sticks in my craw - do denigrate a whole ethos into one easily dealt with 'you are this' is never going to work. Back in 1969 some of the far left applauded every time a squaddie got shot in northern ireland. Hardly anyone would hopefully think thats a good thing but im guessing most would happily be called left- some even far left. People are mostly not one thing as muxh as it makes it easy for us to then rationalise.

[CaledonianGonzo]

3 minutes ago, danmarks said:

I guess the big isssue is -is every Tory far right. 

Nope. But as a party they have swung right in an attempt to attract the votes of the far right - cos that demographic has swollen in recent years.

[danmarks]

That is very true. Not as much a swing as blair made but at least he did it after election so im vaguely guilt free on that vote.

[danmarks]

I mean obviously the whole internet phenomenon has changed the way people talk and rationalise and these are uncharted times. It used to be that you were exploited by only being fed news or ideas people wanted you to believe and you could of a fashion find people who thought the same but it took effort. These days its effort for many people to hear an alternative idea/point of view. 

[priest17]

32 minutes ago, thesecretingredientiscrime said:

The BNP got their most ever votes in this country after Griffin appeared on Question Time.

The marketplace of ideas shite is fairytale bollocks that puts people at risk. 

The success of the anti Tommy Robinson electoral campaign didn’t hinge on debating him, because as shown by people like him and Trump, it just doesn’t work. It hinges on actual activism and milkshake.

Ftfy

[CaledonianGonzo]

A visit to the Shaken Udder before heading in to see Zac Goldsmith.

[HotChipWillBreakYourLegs]

56 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

I guess I've always been more of a you catch more flies with honey than vinegar kind of person. I moved to Manchester a few months after the IRA blew it apart and as an Irish person back then got called a lot of pretty nasty names by people. I made a point of not taking the hump and talking to a lot of very bigoted people about how I didn't support what had happened and that the majority of people in Ireland didn't support it. I'd doubt I changed everyone's mind but I know I changed a couple. 

I just find in the past couple of years some people on the left have gotten insufferably smug, righteous and condescending. I agree with them and they piss me off so I think if you are not sure about them/ on the fence then they are never going to win you over. 

Let's say the BBC put a holocaust denier on QT.  The rest of the panel would completely destroy any argument they could come up with and show how that person's views are completely wrong.  However by giving the platform to air that view they will have convinced some weak minded people to believe them and also emboldened those that already hold that view that others think similar and can say so on the telly. 

[LoveLikeThis]

Wouldn't it be nice if all debates, especially those on the internet, were this reasonable?! Not a fan of the song, though I liked how at the end it said 'Tories should be murdered.. at the ballot box.. by voting.. OBVIOUSLY'.  Or not obviously for anyone that read The Times, Daily Mail or... the BBC (that lot that film it), since no-one mentioned it...

[frostypaw]

I think you're right in the normal approach with normal people, but they're playing a clever game where they try to paint themselves the victims all the time

Oh I'm being silenced, oh the msm are trying to suppress this, oh why won't they listen to the people 

It's why there's the clip of Tommeh saying about staying calm and getting the other side riled up, and once you watch them they try it all the time pretending to be being the reasonable ones while doing all they can to incite action from the other side so they can play victim some more - and if the other side does nothing then it's just grand, they get to spout their rhetoric unchallenged.

Making them look silly crying over spilt milk is a better response. 

 

[eFestivals]

10 hours ago, GETOFFAMYLAWN said:

And the far right aren't counting on reason or valid arguments, they themselves know they don't have that and they don't try to

do you think that far right supporters don't have reasons or arguments they find valid, then?  

Jeez.

[eFestivals]

9 hours ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Not every idea is up for debate

Care to tell me how you change someone's mind without debate?  Is your mind changed by a beating? 

[babyblade41]

Debate is healthy but the name calling is ridiculous .. Not everyone who goes to GF is left wing and some peoples mind changes like the wind.

 

The chants of "oh Jeremy Corbyn" last time was insufferable but I wonder if it will be chanted again this time with the same vigour . 

 

Extreme s are distasteful on whatever side of the fence you are on but on here some of the replies are pretty horrific, I just wonder if those  who are pretty vocal about their hatred for a tory would be quite the same in person when stood next to each other in front of the Pyramid

stage

 

Behind a keyboard it is just too easy... healthy debate will always win , when insults are thrown then the argument has been lost 

 

Yes I think to pull this band was sensible without it being a knee jerk reaction and to keep  major artists attracted to the festival you have to draw a line somewhere,

 

I can't believe every artist that headlines or plays some part in the entertainment are all left wing hardliners ... the pool would be too small 

[CaledonianGonzo]

26 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Care to tell me how you change someone's mind without debate?  Is your mind changed by a beating? 

I'm not sure it's possible for the rational to persuade the irrational purely by using rational means like negotiation. And not by giving it a fair hearing.

[CaledonianGonzo]

17 minutes ago, babyblade41 said:

The chants of "oh Jeremy Corbyn" last time was insufferable but I wonder if it will be chanted again this time with the same vigour . 

I wouldn't have thought so, but not because the place has got any less left-wing.

[eFestivals]

Just now, CaledonianGonzo said:

I'm not sure it's possible for the rational to persuade the irrational purely by using rational means like negotiation. And not by giving it a fair hearing.

Hmmmm .... there's all sorts of issues with that line of argument.

There's you deeming yourself as right minded, and deeming those you disagree with as inferior. Who else does that? 

And if those cannot have their minds changed and they're so very dangerous, what's the answer? Round them up and gas them, perhaps? 

[CaledonianGonzo]

Sorry, but I don't buy into this horseshoe theory stuff. 

I'm pretty left wing, so much so that all the reasonable centrists with their civility politics and 'both sides are as bad as one another' maybe see me as extreme, but they're the ones that throughout history have made things easier for the fash and - when push comes to shove - will pick a fascist over a socialist.

You can't persuade a Nazi by negotiating with them, but in the current age of big tech where people can organise at great distance I'm not really sure what tactics work. The 'sunlight is the best disinfectant' view has failed utterly.  The Brazilian version of Have I Got News For You used to have Jair Bolosonaro on regularly to rip the piss out of him.  Now he's president and invading the universities to burn the history books.

Whereas the example of Milo Yiannopoulos seems to show that deplatforming works.

[Mardy]

Man, I hate it when I have to upvote Calgon

[eFestivals]

3 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Sorry, but I don't buy into this horseshoe theory stuff. 

I'm pretty left wing, so much so that all the reasonable centrists with their civility politics and 'both sides are as bad as one another' maybe see me as extreme, but they're the ones that throughout history have made things easier for the fash and - when push comes to shove - will pick a fascist over a socialist.

You can't persuade a Nazi by negotiating with them, but in the current age of big tech where people can organise at great distance I'm not really sure what tactics work. The 'sunlight is the best disinfectant' view has failed utterly.  The Brazilian version of Have I Got News For You used to have Jair Bolosonaro on regularly to rip the piss out of him.  Now he's president and invading the universities to burn the history books.

Whereas the example of Milo Yiannopoulos seems to show that deplatforming works.

if you can't change their minds and they're so evil they're not allowed to exist, what's your plan?  

The options are: kill them, or change their minds.

[Winslow Leach]

‘Ad hominems? Methinks you are out of arguments good sir’ I chuckle ruefully as they unscrew my skull to use as an ashtray.

[CaledonianGonzo]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

if you can't change their minds and they're so evil they're not allowed to exist, what's your plan?  

The options are: kill them, or change their minds.

See my last sentence.