Who said immigrants have to go back?

And you probably persuaded the undecided that there was no point them trying to watch such a "boring" and incomprehensible account of the LEGAL FACTS. Well done! Very helpful.

I would have thought, that right before a referendum, that it was the undecideds that needed to be "educated". What on earth was the point in you and others trying to get me, who was never going to change my mind about which way to vote, to listen to it all the way through?

In the days leading up to the election, I was essentially trying to talk to the undecideds.

it didnt go over my head.

So there are real experts, and non real ecperts?

I am sorry, but as I happen to have a son who would be considered an "expert", and of course I know other "experts" too, they are the first people to tell others that there are many layers of bias and politics going on in unis, and research centres, right across many areas and subjects.

OBone
You couldn't be bothered even trying to understand what that video was about. You watched the first few minutes listening to him tell you WHY he knew what he was talking about, found that boring, so opted out of WHAT he was going to tell you.

What makes you think no-one can understand that?

If you thought that it was all going over your head, did you ask someone who HAD understood it to explain it to you? You have always been very quick to ask about things that are not clear to you in the past.

You passed up the chance to hear what an expert on EU law said, because "one expert contradicts another" No! Other REAL experts in EU law said the same thing.

(This below also applies to others who couldn't distinguish real expertise from bias and prejudiced assumptions and myths)

Experts in other fields gave expert views.

EU law - those who make and interpret those laws explained their relevance.

Finance - those whose job it is to keep the Uk solvent gave their analysis.

Employment statistics - those who keep and interpret records of who is in and out of work and where they came from told us their facts.

Since I have been told on here before that I can be patronising, I will have to have a good think about that!

Thank you for explaining thatbags

For fuck's sake, obi! Could you please try to make your posts seem just a tad less patronising!

Yes, ab and I agree that racist doesn't mean "I don't agree with you". I don't think MrB thinks it does either. He was speaking metaphorically which, I grant you, is not always the clearest way to express something.

He certainly is pissed off with how much that isn't racist is called racist.

I dont expect some people to understand what I am talking about, eg about the video.
And I am actually glad, because it is preciesly that sort of thing which is part of the reason that remain lost.

I only thought it fair to mention it, but now I have, I dont feel the need to do so ever again on this forum. Yippee!

Agreed. Racism does not mean "I don't agree with you". But the word "racist" is increasingly flung at people who have said nothing racist, but said something that someone else doesn't agre with. You yourself, anniebach have complained about being accused of being racist when what you said was no such thing.

You and thatbags have common ground there, and there are others on that ground too.

So many threads were started which just became catfights, yes. But also a lot of respected established posters gave links to FACTUAL stuff which were ignored.

A very prominent example - the video that I myself praised for its clear account of how things work in the EU, as did about a dozen other people - people generally known for their sensible views. Yes, you had to actually LISTEN TO IT. For all of 25 minutes! A quarter the length of a Disney film!

That is the trouble LISTEN, THINK AND EVALUATE WHAT YOU HEAR. Other people's digested views, simplified into a few words come down to either "You should vote leave and we'll be separate" or "You should vote remain and we'll be together" There is too much detail on either side to condense it and get EVERYTHING into it. Anyone who has been ignoring the subject for the last 40 years will continue to knw nothing or to believe the loudest voice shouting half-truths and downright lies at them.

But don't say that no-one tried to inform you, obieone It is impossible to tell anyone anything if they won't listen to you. None so deaf as those who won't hear.

thatbags, you put forward a persons interpretation of racist as - I don't agree with you , unless the person you quoted posts here I said nothing about anyone who posts here

Racism does not mean - I don't agree with you .

I don't think people realise also, that not all gransnetters are retired.
Time is precious
And yet by your own admission, obieone you are on "13 threads"?!!
What I alwasy think is, if something is said simple, concise, and easily accessible, than just about everyone has access to it
Make it long, boring, big words, etc etc, and you immediately probably lose 75% of the listeners, even on this forum
See how many members gransnet has, and compare it to how many post on the politics threads. The numbers is very small indeed
(Sic - copied and pasted, not my typos this time)
So you are saying we should all use easy short words, and sentences. Would you like them double spaced as well?
Are correct spelling and grammar permitted?
No disrespect to *Elegran but you are managing to insult everybody else by your insistence on the Ladybird version. When in a hole.....etc
I clearly remember your complaint that you were encountering "long" words which you did not understand in your previous incarnation. Well, here we go again.
I just can't see the relevance of your current moan,and as you are * so much busier* than everybody else, fail to see why you are wasting your time in this way at all.
.

Ooh, look! I've found something I completely agree with you about, anniebach: there is no excuse for excusing racism. Agreed. So far so good.

However, you seem to think that someone posting on gransnet has excused or is excusing it. Please could you point out where this occurred?

Probably on this thread, most readers have long gone for example.

Even the fact it is on news and politics, mean that lots may not have even started reading it.

Before the referendum, I purposely started some threads on chat, so that more gransnetters were likely to at least read the start of it.

Elegran, but there was a huge amount of twisting going on. And double speak. It leads to mistrust of posts and the posters who write it. And a number, probably about 6, were posting daily.

It is probably worth adding that for every one "expert" saying one thing, there is another "expert" arguing it the other way.
Especially when it comes to bigger subjects.

I dont think people realise also, that not all gransnetters are retired.
Time is precious.

Also worth saying that average IQ is probably way below yours.

What I alwasy think is, if something is said simple, concise, and easily accessible, than just about everyone has access to it.
Make it long, boring, big words, etc etc, and you immediately probably lose 75% of the listeners, even on this forum.
See how many members gransnet has, and compare it to how many post on the politics threads. The numbers is very small indeed.

The referendum was open to everyone. Any messages needed and need to be suitable for everyone.

I am impressed with the total absence of prejudice among my children and their spouses and friends. I know that when I was their age, we all appeared unprejudiced but there was a hint of discomfort around those whose cultures we did not understand. That has gone I am glad to say.

It is sad that there are those who harbour such prejudices - in the main I see them as people who are afraid: for their jobs, for their homes; and who feel angry and impotent as the bankers squirrel away their bonuses and they continue to scrape along the bottom. People who are from other cultures are an easier target for their anger than the fatcats who are good at hiding.

Successive governments have done nothing to alleviate this problem and much to make it worse. It is frightening.

I think it has been to some avail, lully, even a lot of avail. Listening to stuff Minibags tells me about her fifteen and sixteen year old peers, young people harbour a lot less prejudice on all sorts of topics than the media hype would have one believe.

Thanks, elegran. Some people seem to be severely afflicted by the "what you say is awful" bug that they cannot see what one is actually saying. That's my kinder way of putting it. I could have said that they won't see what one is actually saying because of they remain stuck in a rut of prejudice.

Either way, I feel sorry for them.

Racism is prejudice plus power. That was the description.in the 80s
However not sure these people abusing children as vermin have much power, unless they gang up together in violent armies. I am very concerned how many people seem to be so ignorant that they are shouting such hate at people in the street. Schools have worked so hard in the last 30 years to teach tolerance, obviously to no avail.

alea but also and

I am reminded of the traditional Scottish anecdote about the wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Day of Judgement as described by a minister of the kirk one Sunday

......And the people will say
"oh, Lord, we didnae ken we didnae ken "
And the minister continued, "the Lord will look doon in his infinite mercy, and say

"Weel, ye ken noo!"

You missed out a bit of Thatbags "don't agree with you", post, those who think it a terrible thing to say. she wasn't saying she thinks it means that at all. she says (or rather Mr B. says) that the word these days has been so overused and abused that to most people it no longer means what it used to - it seems less critical than being called hysterical.

Here is the whole sentence "Because he reckons it is such an abused term nowadays that it has lost its bite and doesn't mean anything other than "I don't agree with you."

That is what happens all the time - people read into a post what they WANT to read into it, what they think that a poster is going to say. Lazy reading, lazy thinking.

obieone That could be the epitaph of thse threads!!! " Gransnetters on here . . . Instead of educating gransnetters, how they went about it, seemed worse" But they did, they did!!!

There was an immense effort by some to educate on these threads. FACTS were researched and posted. Links to experts were posted. People with experience and knowledge gave their opinions.

What happened? Fact, experience, sense, experts - all sank under the weight of tons of myth, anecdotal stories, ignorance, blame, complaining that facts were boring, ranting and raving at one section ot other of the population, or at each other in personal vendettas.

That all happened on one forum, with a reputation for containing members of above-avaerage intelligence and sophistication. No wonder there was no hope across the whole electorate for reasoned consideration of the evidence on which to base a major decision!

Read your link bags and this is something I've noted myself when working in 'deprived' areas of the country. It's a complicated issue, with no short-term solution, but one which is now out in the open.