A bad day for the world

Jane

re the name Trump. I read (?Wiki) that it was originally Drumpf and they changed it to be more anglicised.

A friend sent this to me ?

Today's photos of Drumpf (still his real name, not changed officially apparently) and Farage - grinning from ear to ear in that golden lift - are just so sickening and terrifying- unless you actually believe that they are working on helping the 'little people' man of whom actually voted for them.
Do you believe they are?

Whitewave, did you see Andrew Marr apologising for an interview with Marine le Pen today of all days? He justified it by saying she could be president of France next Spring.
The horror. She likes Putin, too.

dj I know she was on but I didn't watch her. Today of all days. That is definitely a shooting yourself in the foot by the BBC. I think that we should hear what she has to say, but not today.

She stands a good chance according to the pundits. Given what has happened this year nothing will surprise me.

I didn't watch it, either. I switched off after he apologised.

Good article by Neil Oliver:

We claim to value democracy yet treat some votes with contempt.
Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” So said Winston Churchill, in November 1947.
It’s beginning to look as though we are sleepwalking towards some other form of government, right enough. Look at the US for heaven’s sake — the land of the free invited to choose between a heart attack and a stroke.
True democrats are few and far between, of course. On hearing the result of a democratic vote, it ought to behove those in the minority to accept the decision and set their shoulders to the wheel in hopes of making a successful reality of the wishes of the majority. That would be democracy in its purest form — acceptance of the primacy of the will of the many over that of the few.
How many of us are wired up that way? Instead we grit our teeth, bear grudges and wait for the next plebiscite in hopes of getting our own way. In the meantime we bitch and moan — dragging our heels to stymie the progress of the victors. In this way we mostly make a mockery of democracy.
Now, it seems, we are poised to take the next step and blatantly champion the rightness of ignoring, utterly disregarding, the majority view.
I wanted to remain in the EU — not because it’s my favourite thing, but because I felt the whole circus tent was about to collapse anyway. Better to be seen to be inside the tent peeing out, I thought, than outside peeing in. If I may mix a metaphor, it’s never a good idea to be remembered as the first rat to abandon a sinking ship.
Anyway — more than half of those who voted favoured shuffling out through the tent flap door while the big top’s pole was still upright. So be it, I thought — that’s that and we’ll have to get on with it.
Except we are developing a tradition in this United Kingdom whereby the results of a referendum are not worth the paper the question was printed on.
Since the moment the die was cast on June 23, the “remainers” have been pretending the vote didn’t happen, or didn’t count because it was somehow the wrong answer to the question.
Up here in the north, the practice of disregarding the settled will of the people is already up and running. The once-in-a-generation referendum on breaking Scotland out of the Union returned a comfortable 55-45 result in favour of the status quo. No sooner was that result announced, however, than the 45 — led by the SNP — set about pretending the majority had made a mistake.
They didnae mean it, you might say, and so we found ourselves facing the prospect of the neverendum. It would appear the SNP may see fit to demand always one more vote — and if the fabled “yes” to so-called independence is ever handed down, that, and only that, will be the result that makes all the difference. The SNP only has to be lucky once.
All this Brexit malarkey raises a different possibility: since the High Court has decided parliament must have its say in advance of the enactment of article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, maybe any proposed break up of the Union would require something similar. Maybe a successful vote for “yes” could be challenged as well. Who knows — the only certainty is that we live in interesting times in which “down” might actually be “up” and “no” might very well mean “yes”.
It seems we have grown contemptuous of democracy. At the very least we have tired of the complexities of grown-up debate. Rather than allow that complicated matters affecting the lives of millions might require sophisticated, multifaceted answers, now we settle for flicking a switch. Referendums are binary: the switch is either on or off.
I’ve come to the conclusion it’s because we are spoilt. This existence we have in the United Kingdom is not the real world. I’ve been around a bit, and I know this. We live under an invisible dome made of our painful history — protected from reality just as astronauts are kept alive by their helmets in the vacuum of space. As the saying goes: “I wear a suit of armour, made only of my mistakes.”
Europe isn’t the real world either, but their helmets have cracks in them. The real world is Africa, the Middle East. Elsewhere billions more people exist in circumstances that would cause most of us — were we ever to find ourselves out there without our helmets — to curl up and die and blow away on the wind.
Here in the UK we live in a wonderland, protected by the rule of law, free from oppression — the sort of place the tattered outcasts of the Earth tell their wide-eyed children about.
We are so spoilt we are throwing stones inside our magical dome.
I’ve begun to think that for those of us born since the end of the Second World War, this unreality we have enjoyed has come to seem like something that just happened — that has always been and always will be.
What will it take before we realise what a precious place this Britain is? When will we see it as others do — as an elegant cruise liner, afloat on a storm-tossed, shark-infested sea.
Places like this don’t just happen. This Britain is the product of millennia of strife and it’s a safer, better place to be than anywhere else on Earth.

uk.news.yahoo.com/best-joe-biden-memes-truly-130135950.html

For a bit of light relief after reading all that.

The existence we have in the UK is our real world. If Oliver wants to go and live in what he thinks is the real world, he's quite welcome, but he wouldn't live like the masses he talks about. He'd probably have an even more materialistic and privileged existence.

As a historian he should know that democracies develop through the protests and demonstrations of ordinary people. Only in totalitarian states is such action banned. He could of course abandon the privileged, protected life he leads and move into an inner city area in the UK where there is real deprivation and see how protected and safe he feels there.

I saw just a very small part of Marine Le Pen - she is already peddling lies about the EU just the same as in Britain.

I don't know why they broadcast it on Remembrance Sunday unless it was as a warning - not that we can do anything about the French elections.
I put her on mute.

Surely in a democracy Marine Le Pen has as much right as the next person to air her views? Why on earth should Andrew Marr feel that he has to apologise for interviewing her? We do far better talking to people we disapprove of (the IRA) than pushing them and their views under the carpet in the hopes that they might go away. She won't! Like DT she may even win! Then people will have to talk to her!

I think that Neil Oliver's article is thought-provoking.

And even an inner city existence in the UK is better than starving in some areas of the world.

It is unbelievable in this day and age that we can send men into space, pipe oil and gas across continents but cannot pipe water into places that need it so that people can grow their own food, feed their animals.

Marine LE Penn represents the National Front, another name for facism. Facism was responsible for WW11, the slaughter of millions of Jews, gypsys, special needs and political dissidents amongst others- and you think that on today she should be given a voice niggly

I don't recall the BBC apologising every time they let Anjem Choudary spew out his hatred of this country.

Not sure of your point petra

I agree with Niggly, she is a politician who is standing for election in an EU country next year , why apologise , she was not part of politics in 1930's

Just a couple of thoughts on Neil Oliver's article. 1) Is it any kind of democracy when Hillary Clinton gets more individual votes than Donald Trump but the vagaries of the US system mean that he is elected? 2) When a referendum vote is based on misinformation and promises which are not subsequently kept (e.g. in the Scottish Referendum when voting NO was said to be the only way that Scotland could remain in the EU) or when the referendum decision is not legally competent or binding (e.g. Brexit) then surely there should be a way to re-run the referendum or alternatively have a General Election where a firm commitment to In or Out, YES or NO is the main item in the contesting Parties manifestos?

Corbyn who is a friend of terrorists and is a militant was given a voice,

Marine Le Pen's father started the FN and had some questionable connections (Nazi/communist) she is following on in the same footsteps - dangerous people. Last time she got through the first round of the Presidential elections but failed at the second round.

annie how different is Le Penns ideological stance to the fascists pre- war?

I get the impression that all the french political parties are slightly to the Left of the equivalents in the UK. And even more to the Left compared with the USA.
So Marine's FN isn't as extreme as the british National Front. She fellout with her father last year.
But leaning towards fascism, and wanting to be out of the EU.

whitewave, makes no difference, she is standing in the elections next year , she is not responsible for her father, she is a vile woman but is a politician . Wait for the state visit of Trump, rolling through London in queenies carriage