Yes this is an important thing to understand. People are interested in their own lives and a crazy ruler is just a form of entertainment in most people's lives. If they are effective with delivering quick economic results then they are good entertainers and are delivering some positives then fine - so why think more about this? It's demeaning to even take a fascist seriously so why bother doing so? In Germany we know why.

It is worrying that the far right parties are gaining to much support in Europe, and we should never take our eye off the ball and learn from history what can happen when you do...

You speak like leftism is the only legitimate political ideology.

Sadly we going to be finding out very soon that the majority of Americans want a semi-Fascist state the same with the uk population too

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but there is no left what we have are a bunch of globalists run by the rich (WEF) pretending to be left(the right aint much better) while sending lots of our tax payers cash and weapons to a bunch of nazi`s who took over Ukraine in a coup financed by the US who by the way also funded the 3rd Reich and only joined the fight in Europe when it looked like their little puppet the mad Austrian was going to get his butt kicked and Germany occupied by the Red Army.
Their plan is sinister it is to send all you youngsters to die in battle so they dont end up with a pension crisis after stealing all the pension monies.
Yes the 3rd great human cull has already started.

the nature of misinformation is to use real facts and riff bullshit forward. that's sad in this case because there are some valid points that can be drawn from the cupla truths you have here.

ring really reminds me of the gestapo, they rolled almost exclusively through ordinary informants. people with fucked up biases are having their day.

why do they keep designing things to look like hal? doesnt anyone remember how the movie ends?

I usually pass out way before the end

not to worry its the worst part

where there are informants there is vendetta, blackmail and corruption

Any smart device

Why the dystopian views are always referred to Nazism and not to Communism? They are basically the same shit, and Communism looks much more dangerous to me, because it "succeeded" for many more years, in many more countries, and for some reason has that glamorous look to so many idiots...

Germany became increasingly polarized with people espousing Marxism on one side and Law and Order on the other. This is exactly how it feels in America now.

LOL very interesting take on history there

? pretty much the mainstream view on this for germany as well as austria and italy

AND JUST LIKE IN NAZI GERMANY YOU HAVE PEOPLE BEING APOLOGISTS BECAUSE OF "COMMUNISM". AT LEAST IT WAS ACTUALLY FUCKING COMMUNISM BACK THEN AND NOT JUST WHATEVER IS NOT ON THE RIGHT

and fucking communism works wonders for the ugly

from each according to his sperm

Watching the Plot Against America on Sky and it’s easy to see how Facism takes hold. Not dissimilar to Trump’s America.

In times of economic and political strife extremists always rise, whether left or right wing...it doesn't matter, they are reactionary's. For example the liberal left intend destruction of things about history that upset them much in the same way Nazi's in Germany burned books. People need to learn from History and rarely do, the same mistakes are repeated and things somehow trundle on. 'Good times bring weak people', 'Weak people bring bad times', 'Bad times bring strong people' & 'Strong people bring good times'. The great circle of human history.

I thought it was the republicans (ie the right) in America banning certain aspects of history they don’t like.

Who are the liberal left?

Edit
I’m not trying to start an argument I’m trying to understand

lol it's different in different countries. A conservative in the US is different from a conservative in the UK.

As an example the BLM movement (btw I support equal rights for all races, genders etc.) have tried to expunge slavery and that part of history. Taking down statues of former slaveholders and so on won't change anything, we must remember these things happened so that they don't happen again.

Because of slow or no change for certain groups there is an attempt to accelerate that change from an evolution to a revolution. People will only be backed into a corner for so long whatever their political inclinations. Some people think they're pushing for positive change but real change is when we've learned the lesson.

Thanks for the response mate.

I still don’t get the tearing down statues of slave owners equates to trying to erase the history. Statues aren’t history they glorify the subjects for posterity.

Is it still a massive issue over there around the teaching of CRT?

Well the statues are an example. They are subjects for posterity but they also memorialise history and certain points in history. As such they connect themselves to that history.

I basically agree with you though, they aren't the history themselves and so it shouldn't matter. It's what they represent that makes the difference.

I feel that whether right or left wing, people have an agenda and push that. Both different sides of the same coin I'd say.

Also CRT?

Thanks for the response mate.

I see statues as a way to venerate the individual and what they stand for. Cultures generally don’t put up statues of twats. So the slavers statues should all come down imo.

CRT
Critical Race Theory

Yeah np, I don't mind a bit of debate.

Again I do agree with the first part of what you said. Statues certainly venerate people, but also events. However cultures not putting up statues of 'twats'...well...that's a matter of perspective.

There are many examples of people that put up statues of people who are considered great or influential in their time and place. Those same people and statues are considered later, or by another group to be somehow offensive or detestable.

I'm not gona say that something like slavery in the U.S. wasn't a terrible thing, it defo was. I do think that removing something that is generally offensive to the majority should be considered. It's just that we also need to learn from these things and replace them with something that educates people about the history surrounding them so as to understand the bigger picture.

But yeah CRT, I am familiar with it...bit of a deep and complicated topic. But to answer your original question about that, yes I believe it is still something of a hot topic within education in the UK. I believe the Tories here (conservatives) said they felt CRT was biased, in other words trying to ram anti-racism down kids throats without opposing viewpoints.

This is a quote from the Equalities Minister, "Any school which teaches these elements of critical race theory, or which promotes partisan political views such as defunding the police without offering a balanced treatment of opposing views, is breaking the law".

So yeah interesting, jeez this turned into an essay XD

Thanks man I do appreciate your time and input.

It’s good to hear it from someone on the ground so to speak we just get fed what the media want us to hear

I do find CRT and the defund the police movements different. One is a collection of scholars etc critically evaluating how society has impacted people of all races and the defund the police is a social movement in response to innocent black people getting killed by police

Have I got that right?

You sound very naïve & to support CRT is crazy, hope you don't spout the sort of nonsense politics we see above IRL.

I don’t know how supporting a data driven legal critical evaluation by experts as naive maybe I’m missing something in your post as it doesn’t really make sense and yes i do discuss this topic and others with real people

an act of desecration is often more a monument of history than the original statue

suck up

Pmsl! I sit corrected by dancing nazi cat!

That's a bit mean mate... Haha ;)

Love dogs too really...just not the police ones!
They won't mind anyway...too busy biting chunks out of protesters n sniffing out stashes lol

i adore dogs. really in a good sweet and sour sauce they are hard to beat.

Chow chow mein?

Lol

we can either accept the fascist dogs or face this

I resent that remark...

I saw a racist telepathic dog on misfits the other night;)

I guess you never heart about kitler.

Basically it derives from the same origins. There are certain laws of ethnic relations in history of humankind, such as:

1. law of percentage: lets say a black person somewhere in gothenburg or copenhagen would trigger an amused curiosity and the outpouring of sincere sympathy, however, if you "inject" immigrant workers up to the fateful threshold of 4-8 percent and you will already have a racial situation - the nature of social relationships changes, engendering ethnic tensions, global reflexes painful to describe. The more the percentage increases, the more class struggle transforms itself into racial confrontation. Basically, this percentage is sufficient to make racial discrimination appear spontaneously in people who previously believed itself wholesome and devoid of any racist sentiment.

2. The law of assimilability: If majority and the minority belong to the same large ethnic group (all are white, or all a asian), then assimilation occurs progressively. For example, Spanish or Portuguese workers despised in France not so long ago, integrated themselves into population within the space of one generation; same for descendants of corsicans and the poles during napoleonic era, same for bambara minority living in senegal. But if the ethnic and cultural gap is too big, tensions are exacerbated with time. Like African Blacks and Arabs find themselves in this situation in Europe. Coexistance basically becomes possible only in a truly Socialist state or a state that has adopted a high morality philosophy.

3. the law of distance: like two ethnic groups that are not fighting over the same living space or same market and occupy different territories separated by space can enter into normal relationships. Like that an alliance can be explained during world war 2 between hitlers germany and japan. or relationship of pretoria with israel state.

4. the law of phenotype: basically physical appearance. It would matter little tgat botha and zulu in africa have the same genotype (same genes in the chromosomes) and it would have no influence on their daily lives because their external features are so different.
Laws of class struggle according to history applies only to societies previously made homogeneous by violence. Funny, that the most modern nations actually went through this bestial struggles before (Americas, australia, new zealand, good part of asia, greenland, huge part of pacific, scandinavia, etc, etc).For example Blacks of Americas were brough over to work the land, while the indigenous races were being destroyed. So, the "more advanced" barbarious conquerors exterminated/drove out whole populations, devastated or abandoned productive forces they they simply did not know how to use. This specific law is one of my favourite... how spartan domination ended by crumbling particularly because of the great numeric weakness of their REAL citizens. Because their society consisting of spartan conquerors and lowly helots both belonged to the same large white-skinned 'race', ethnic differences became blurred and it allowed class differences appeared only in an economic sense.
Same goes for Rome and Carthage, Rwanda-Burundi, Francs and Gallo-Romans.
Have a look at the american immigration laws and how it progressed throghout 19-20 centuries. This law also gave birth to so called intra-european racism, etc.

We forget that the passage from a clan to a monolingual tribe and to ethnic group and to nationality historically was a result, a consequences of clans exogamy. It is still widely discussed by specialists. But it marked starting point of the current civilization.
Endogamy was prohibited and we, humans, just started fucking people from the outside kkk several neibourhing clans contracted marriage ties that led them eventually to speak same languages despite that their original idioms were different.
The number of clans to gather together to work a more or less powerful tribe didnt follow any rules and depended mostly on the fertility and extent of the lands occupied by the group. Thus was born nationality.

In the course of history, when two groups of people argued over a vital economic space, the slightest ethnic difference can be magnified, temporarily serving as a pretext for social and political cleavage: differences in physical appearances, colour of your passport, language, religions, morals and customs.

We forget that basically future generations must forget about the dead so that the conquering people can undergo a rebirth with an angelic consience.
Why do we almost idolise, for example, conquistadors, holy crusaders and vikings? Pillagers, rapists, murderers and worse.

Most of the things we learn and follow, most of the times, blindly, things we consider as truths and solid facts, the very foundation of our personal universes - it was predominantly build based on someones ideologies.

Books, that our kids and us read, are also written under certain circumstances, conditions, requirements, with certain motivations. Dictated by an ideology.

Sooo.... sorry for the massive message. It just questions like this trigger something inside me, something that i consciously try to understand and overcome. For before we are races or nationalities, boys or girls, gays or straight, we are humans.

Peace yo.

Interesting points. I just came across this forum and will make a contribution. Meanwhile, on the topic of Scottish Nationalism, I have myself proposed Independence For England! We English (whatever that means through consensus) vote in a referendum to dissolve the union of England and Scotland. Never mind what they want, how about what we want, which may be to separate from them, along with the subject nation of Wales. We'll have our own oven ready breakfast and our own national covid death toll, while we surrender the last shreds of our integrity to the fucking Yanks and the fucking Chinese whose government leaders wouldn't make the groove as a couple of Pox Doctor's clerks.

Please dont have the idea that all Scots want independence
. Plenty are and always will be happy to be part of the union. There is more at play than just Scottish Independence, certain elements see Scottish independence as a means to help another cause. Understand that Independence of Scotland is not the endgame for a lot of SNP supporters.

The whole SNP "independence" thing is a facade.

The SNP want to leave our union and join the EU club because they'll give them more money than Westminster does.

They still want to be financially "dependent", just a more generous sugar daddy.

I'm talking about the SNP, not all Scots :)

High Raskolnikov. Your post showed as a comment on mine so You're addressing me, then. I have no intention of stating anything about what Scots want. My point is that I consider an English Independence Referendum is incumbent on ourselves to determine our Englishness without the input of the other three nations. Devolution, revolution, phooey! We want ablution. Wash our hands of the lot of you. Do we? Who does? Has anyone got this underway? Sturgeon and Salmond? Something fishy about those two!

I certainly don’t need a referendum to establish my Scottishness.

I am British not Scottish or Welsh or Irish or English but British.
So the idea of England going on its own is kind of laughable.
I prefer this great country as one nation,I have lived all over UK so I class myself as British. Ever since devolved countries we had loads of petty arguments enough of the arguments and do there jobs.
The Scottish independence route will end up like n ireland scottish people are divided straight down the middle so can see issues battle grounds comes to mind bombings etc etc just like n ireland AND its not going to happen anyway thank god.:D
Or you english going be invaded of all the people that do not want there countries independent lol.

Plus the Queen will never allow it to happen she is still the most powerful lady in this country and can override any laws in the UK set by government it is in the small print when she signed it over to the government. She has her palaces all over the UK.

She wants to send to her son to America to answer for the crimes he is guilty as fk otherwise he would have gone over and answered there questions on very serious sex crimes.
Guilty as fk he is by dodging the request of the FBI and CIA law to himself hiding behind mummy he is.

I am British loud and proud !!!

I’m British and Scottish mate. Think it is possible to be both. I’m not interested in Independence and believe it will not happen and will be a disaster if it does. In Scotland Salmond courted a certain block vote and got it. That is what has got the snp to where they are. That and shortbread tin thinking. They will soon want to let over 14 s vote. As I said in another post, Scottish Independence is not the endgame for a lot of snp.

Just curious, what do you believe to be the SNP's ultimate goal?

I wouldn’t blame the English people if they started to see things this way but we are still all better as a union and I think you know this. Sturgeon and Salmond are just typical politicians mate who lying is a big part of the job description. There has been a huge change in Scotland in my lifetime where the working class vote has moved away from labour to the snp. Labour has shot themselves in the foot so many times but also the snp politics has changed. I have been on this earth a long time and the snp have changed so much. Sturgeon is still using her bloody daily briefing up here to try to indoctrinate the nation. I’m going to stop here as I am ranting.

British here too. I feel like the silent majority of my country are the same

Not English, then. To be born an Englishman is to win first prize in the lottery of life. That life being the infliction of Imperialism on 25% of the world's population. Nothing wrong with that, was there?

Cool. What were you born?

Obviously, not britain. Tiocfaidh ár lá.

Sturgeon's manifesto was just a wish list, impossible to accomplish. I don't want Scotland to leave. We may rib each other on things but I'd like to think we have each others back when things get tough. We live on the same island. Crazy to break up.

Wait do Scotts not have bangers and mash?

What an outstanding post thank you

this bigga

Not necessarily, Scottish nationalism is an attempt to escape racism

good one, i guess that goes for any anti colonial movement like vietnam for example

It was a joke mate but fuck, Vietnam. Is that what you are comparing Scottish Independence to?

Sounds like something a Scottish nationalist would say.

lol. ok, i'll bite...

nationalism is a term for those with common interests as citizens of the same country working together for mutual benefit and/or pride.

racism is a hatred of one or more person/s where skin colour is the basis used for the defining attribute.

neither is mandatory last I heard.

Scotland's nationalist party don't want to exclude races, they want independence from another countries rule. It's not about racism.

Unless is the European Union.

Proper kettle of fish this one! but I couldn’t resist throwing my 2 cents in.

Racism is an inherent belief that one group are superior to another based purely on membership to said group; that for example being white would mean that you are superior to non-whites by virtue of your whiteness. Although this is of course the most common example, it’s important to remember that racism has been perpetrated by, and against, a multitude of groups such as the current situation in China with Uighur Muslims and so on.

Nationalism is the identification with ones nation and the desire to see that nation succeed. often, but not exclusively, to the detriment of other nations.

One can be a nationalist but not a racist, but I would argue that it’s quite rare to meet a racist who is not also a nationalist.

I don’t think nationalism is always a bad thing - we saw for example at the onset of COVID-19 in Europe a large degree of nationalism as all of these countries that are part of the Schengen Agreement suddenly conveniently ignored the treaty in order to shut their borders and protect their citizens (uselessly, as it turned out) against the spread of C19.

However, nationalist sentiment needs to be controlled carefully because the downside to it could be seen, you could argue, In the Capitol siege/riots on January 6th as nationalist fervour tends to spread and morph very rapidly and almost always ends in violence and almost always ends in Fascism

Sorry for the wall of text but this is such a fascinating topic!

Just like you would naturally have a preference for feeding your own family in your own home, before you concerned yourself with feeding anyone else.

This would not mean you hated other people, or didn't wish the best for them.

I think Nationalism is often confused with extreme Right wing ideologies, when it could be Left or Right really.

Sounds kinda like racism.

The national front! They were nationalists that says all you need to know!!!

national socialists also skew a little right

Look into snp and the past. They have changed a lot.

Yes you could look into the SNPs distant past or alternatively you could look at what the Tories are doing right now as we speak under your very nose.
It is funny how a conversation about nationalism is related to the SNP when anyone with eyes can see that British nationalism is the one being pushed everywhere in Britain.
The SNP didn't spend 2 million quid on a set of blue curtains and two Union Jacks and it is not the SNP who are plastering everything with the Butcher's apron either!

Because we can change our nationality as it’s make believe. You cannot change your DNA which is real

Not synonymous, but it's an interesting point.
In some sense, I think it is an individual and academic choice to be patriotic (even that is turned into a dirty word now), root for your country or be proud of it voxally. It's OK to like your country if you really do. You do live there after all. It's just a country. Other countries are not minorities in their own country as the British are not here.
As you allude to, it is a lottery, not a skill, being British (or Irish for that matter). There is little merit to being "proud" I agree. But it doesn't oppress anyone or anything in itself. It is a way to preserving culture and way of life. You can't pick who you think should be able to do that.
Otherwise, the takeaway is, only the oppressed are allowed to be proud of anything and preserve culture. What kind of world is that?
I do think that no matter what, being proud of your race is pointless, stupid and divisive.
It suggests a nexus between a superiority or exceptionality and racial group.
After all, skin colour is decided only by a few alleles in the genome and indicates very little about one's charachter.
E

Racism is necessarily exclusionary. But Nationalism isn't.

In general I am wary of nationalism, but there are times when it has achieved positives.

I think it is oxytocin that causes the problems as it creates aggressive in-grouping, be it from the innateness from skin colour or the innateness from where someone was born.

There was a study I linked to but there is more out there about the dark side of oxytocin. There was quite a few articles in the dumber section of media about giving men oxytocin to fix their aggression problems when in fact it might be a major factor in causing them.

Nationalism has more positive range for example promoting culture. Racism is usually associated with negative feelings about other races.

They both seem doomed if you ask me.

only in touchy feely places like the uk ... not in most other countrys ... too much self hatred in this country ...

There seem to be a prevailing perspective of an individualistic view on what racism is, i.e. the hatred or superiority of another race, nation, or ethnicity, however this view is overly simplistic as racism is structural and systemic and is only dependent on the individual when their actions are supported by the larger system.
One can be xenophobic, discriminatory and/or prejudiced against others from other places without it being racism if they are not the dominant race/ethnicity/or culture.
Racism = power + prejudice. That is the current understanding and definition of racism in social sciences and some dictionaries (as with Merriam Webster, which was updated two or three years ago). That is not to say that racial prejudice or discrimination is allowable or tolerable. It's not. However to quantify both types of prejudice (the one that is solely individual and the one that is supported by systemic structures) as the same thing or equivalent is false.
One is an individual opinion and has no greater repurcussions than that person's world's or actions, the other however plays into a wider narrative of oppression that reinforces the structural oppression and contributes to and reinforces societal and structural discrimination.
Nationalism is different in several ways.
Firstly, pride in ones nation does not mean an inherent prejudice or discrimination against those that come from other nations (although all too often it does manifest in such a way).
Secondly, if those expressing nationalist sentiment are not the dominant authority over said nation, then it is not racism but discrimination and prejudice as they lack the power to manifest that discrimination through institutions or on a structural scale. This type of nationalism often manifests as a resistance to colonial and imperial forces. In those cases the nationalism is not being the of an ideological superiority or innate belief in the dominance of one nation over another, but rather a resistance to such.
Therefore nationalism and racism only become the same when said nation propogates their dominance and superiority over others while simultaneously systemically oppressing other nations or supporting existing structural oppression and prejudice.

https://www.dismantlingracism.org/racism-defined.html

I'm a nationalist. I want England and all our major cities to be English and not resemble Bangladesh. That makes one a racist nowadays.

If the reason you give for those cities resembling Bangladesh is people of other races, that's kinda the definition of racism. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a closet racist.

If it's the colour of people's skin you're referring to, and you're suggesting you have to be white to be regarded as english, then yes, you are. Not just nowadays, always.

The next dictator needs to be A.I. please, I can't take watching this shit.

He already is X)

and their name is GOD 😱

they have been here all along :)

If fascism does come, it will ride in on the wings of "anti-fascist" socialist, who use racism, bigotry, and violence as thier vehicle.

The best way to stop it is to simply check out. There are more alternatives to corporate partipation than ever before.

hmm ill check out checking out

About 100 years ago

Hopefully the US Judiciary will clip the wings of the Trump Circus! The media is losing patience with that crew as well.

trump prints money for the media that's what fuels the whole thing, conflict on tap.

Using a pixel 3xl with chrome browser and everything seems fine to me. Although it can take a while to load pages at certain times.

I agree with the incredibly slow loading times. I've noticed it's typically on vendors pages who have alot of threads / topics to load. If you go to a newer vendor, or someone with not many threads / comments, it seems to load fine ( in my experience ).

I wonder if there's a way LB can limit the amount of threads that have to load when you first view a vendors page? And maybe add a "see more" option at the bottom to look further if you wish. But loading EVERYTHING they have ever posted seems to be the main cause of the slow loading times for me (I'm using a new android device so it's unlikely a hardware issue)

Mines acting up at the moment things are really slow, Im getting restricted pages and can't send a message without it crashing on me

what browser?

Everytime I go to send a message to drugs Inc. My page freezes and crashes. I was wondering if it was a known problem

What browser

I'm using android, regular Google.. ?

Yeah I've noticed a big slowdown the past week or so. Some pages and topics won't even open and just crash the site if I try. Hard to engage with the community at the moment because of it.

I cannot see a send button on the ratings page.
Using Huawei with android

I've got the same phone and find it a lot better since last month or so.

i have a problem on text input for example this post, when the text box opens the way the page then zooms is a freak show, and the auto correction does not work maybe its the way its defined in the code. i'd be happy to contribute to the bounty if anyone fixes this.

Login screen is shite.

This seems to have improved on my phone

bitpanda, no complaints really

Bit panda as well you can use normal bank or credit cards if u want less traceability but need photo id

Switchere , paybis or coinmama are my preferences

Yes, Coinmama is good, once verified, it's very easy to buy Bitcoin etc for a newbie!,
Usually complete after 20 mins via CC payment. I didn't realise it was so simple..

BittyLicious, pretty much instant transactions and ID verification was only a few hours, site looks shady as but I've had no problems using my bank account to buy my coin there. Not sure how much more their fees are as I haven't used any other method to buy coin. Bitpanda kept refusing my ID and didn't try coinbase as I've heard they keep suspending people's accounts.

What bothers you about Coinbase if you don't mind me asking buddy? I only ask as I just started using them, lower fees than BTC.com who I currently use?

bitquick.co was good for my 1st transaction because i didnt have my ID handy and they do up to $400 without it. fast but dear.

I spend the entire week trying to set up exchanges and wallets. I initially registered with coinbase because most say they are reliable and easy to use. Coinbase somehow did not work for me. Coinmama refused my verification (no idea why). After several attempts with others I finally managed to get it all to work with Binance to buy the BTC and an Exodus wallet. I just placed my first order here so I assume that combination works ok. Phew

Check out hodlhodl , its peer to peer. No ID needed.

cex.io

Agree with the guys below... BitPanda is very good. You can also try BittyLicious, the rates are a bit higher but pretty instant. SpectroCoin is another OK site.