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This is a normal post ah, so it created a time loop and reversed 100s of years of slavery, like superman flying around the earth, did it?
because that was the thing that was bad, not the fact that there's a statue in a park. I mean perhaps if Bristol were having a "we love Colston" parade that might be something. That's the issue with many on the left, they conflate symbols of the thing that's bad with the thing that is bad itself, and spend most of their energy attacking those symbols, be it statues or words like "manholes" or actors putting on blackface. Attacking symbols is easy and makes people think they've done something significant, but guess fucking what? The world didn't actually get any less unfair because of your sanctimonious gestures toppling statues and street name-changing. Some black kid on a council estate didn't turn into a vauxhall driving middle-class suburbanite because you joined in that twitter attack about an actor wearing blackface. That would take actual, difficult change like reforming the tax system to reduce social inequity on a fundamental level. Dealing with symbols is easy. "sparked a debate" my arse. It's the self-congratulatory smugness that shits me
(, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 22:28, , Reply)
This is a normal post There was actually a Colston parade which the toppling also put a stop to
www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2020-09-14/bristols-colston-society-to-end-after-275-years-at-the-end-of-this-year
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 5:50, , Reply)
This is a normal post ha. I stand by my rant, nevertheless
picture some poor wretch from dahomey lying in a crude hut, manacled on some alabama plantation, the skin flayed off his back from a recent lashing and weeping pus, the latest of many arbitrary punishment whippings as he's slowly worked to death picking cotton. But he hears a voice in his ear:
"don't worry, someday a bunch of earnest middle class whites will unite and together they'll have a brass statue of a long dead figure who had an indirect commercial relationship with your bondage in another country removed from a park. you see, it all evens out in the end and everyone's happy thanks to their sacrifice and struggle on your behalf. swings and roundabouts, really"
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 7:23, , Reply)
This is a normal post "indirect commercial relationship"
He was deputy governor of the only English company allowed to trade slaves at that time. What's indirect about that?
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 7:37, , Reply)
This is a normal post your retreat to pedantry has nowt to do with my point, I tend to assume it's some sort of coping mechanism to avoid facing the reality that I'm right, as it tends to crop up at this stage in those of a certain mindset
but for arguments sake, let's say you're unfamiliar with the terms.
if i say " indirect commercial relationship with your bondage" in reference to our nominal slave, it means he has no physical relationship with the slave. he didn't capture the slave, whip the slave, own the slave as personal chattel. he probably never got closer than 4000 miles to the slave, though the organisation he was deputy director of profited commercially from the slave trade. that's what indirect means. there's a relationship, but it's not a direct one with this slave, its through a whole series of intermediaries and behind contracts made with those intermediaries. it's an "indirect" relationship with the slave.
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 8:16, , Reply)
This is a normal post You could at this point just admit that you know absolutely nothing about the man, his activities, or Bristol
But sadly you won't
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 8:24, , Reply)
This is a normal post at least your pedantry had an indirect relationship to my point
(pssst. "indirect" in this sense means while not really addressing my argument at least it references part of it however irrelevantly
but the "no, you're dumb" is the final stage of coping and the one that signifies to me there's no more interest to be had in it
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 8:39, , Reply)
This is a normal post I'm not saying you're stupid
I'm saying that for some reason you've got it into your head that you should have an opinion on all this without first knowing some quite basic facts (or even reading the original article I posted it seems). And now you can't back down.
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 8:56, , Reply)
This is a normal post i made a point about the futile waste of focus and pointless misdirected sense of achievement gesture political symbolism like pulling down statutes gives people, in comparison to dealing with the actual serious problems themselve
so far you've talked about parades, made pedantic points on terminology, and now seem to be intent on ad-hominen face-saving. What you're not doing is saying anything pertinent to the point I made or making any counterargument. It's just dull, beni. I'm not infallible, but it'd be nice once in a while to have someone capable of responding to the actual point.
Now reading between the lines (the counterpart to accusing me of not knowing anything about Bristol is that in contrast, you do know it intimately) my guess is that you were personally somehow involved in this statue campaign, and by pointing out it's cosmic fucking pointlessness, I'm attacking something that hitherto you've taken some sort of unwarranted sense of achievement out of. I know that as you've basically reached the name-calling part of the debate it's not something you're likely to confess. But I suspect I'm right
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 10:10, , Reply)
This is a normal post i generally steer clear of calling you names, or indeed interacting with you at all, because this is the result
And I simply cant be arsed to decipher it all
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 11:52, , Reply)
This is a normal post well, it is true that you don't go out seeking arguments with me
and it must be going on a year since I had a decent rant on b3ta. so sorry that I picked your post in particular. I think there was some merit in the wider point I was making about such gestures which is why I said it, but it seems you're only interested in the details of the colston case you posted and I guess that's your prerogative
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 12:08, , Reply)