After Eight on this morning’s Today Programme on Radio 4, there was a discussion of Trolling on the Ask.fm website that has been linked to the suicide of a young person.
“How,” asked the incredulous Justin, “can people use such language?”
Well, you don’t even need directing to the BEAR PIT of the Grauniad’s “Comment is Free (of conscience)” or the BBC’s own “Have Your S(l)ay” comments, when fewer than twenty minutes earlier, they’d had their own Jim Naughty egging on racist language from UKIP MEP Godfrey “Bongo Bongo” Bloom, who denies we have a duty to other people if they're in other countries.
When challenged that his language was “a wee bit offensive”, the unrepentant xenophobe said:
"If I've offended anybody in Bongo Bongo Land I will write to their ambassador at the Court of St James."
To which I answer: Well, in that case I challenge you to prove that even ONE pound has been spent on the citizens of “Bongo Bongo Land” or admit that you are a TOTAL FRAUD AND LIAR.
Obviously, this UKIP nut has been encouraged to play this ever-more unpleasant populist charade by the STUPID AND OFFENSIVE “Go Home Vans” that some MORON at the Home Office has had driving round London. And the Border Agency’s “stop-and-search checkpoints” that were even TOO RACIST FOR UKIP!
(And actually, Hard Labour have contributed to this as well with Mr Milipede’s “apology” for “getting it wrong on immigration”.)
Liberal Democrats were TOO SLOW to condemn those things, and we must stop them ever happening again!
When Mr "Something of the Night" Howard hissed “It’s not racist to talk about immigration”, the country responded with a resounding: “It IS the way YOU talk about immigration!”
How FAR we have FALLEN!
Liberal Democrats, we NEED to be the INTERNATIONALISM Party – we need to be the PRO-Immigration, PRO-Europe, and PRO-International Development Party!
We need to stand up and say (as Mr Vince DOES say) Immigration is GOOD for Great Britain!
We need to stand up for EUROPE and say that it is GOOD for JOBS and TRADE and TRAVEL and PEACE.
And we need to stand up and say International Aid is NOT “just” charity – it is our FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE. If we can help the poorest in the World live in even SLIGHTLY healthier conditions, get clean water and vaccinations, then we PROTECT OURSELVES against PANDEMICS. If we intervene with education and development to make impoverished countries even SLIGHTLY better off, we REDUCE the PRESSURE on people to become ECONOMIC MIGRANTS and REFUGEES. If we ACT to reduce TENSIONS in the most difficult regions in the World, we PREVENT international FLASHPOINTS and CONFLICT from becoming WAR and TERRORISM.
And of course, DECENT people would recognise that as one of the RICHEST countries ON EARTH, even if that WASN’T as a result of PILLAGING the PLANET during our IMPERIAL past, we would still, of course, have DUTY to offer help to the less well off.
It’s what we call OLD-FASHIONED BRITISH DECENCY!
So Godfrey Bloom is not JUST saying things that are EVIL and OFFENSIVELY RACIST, they are DEEPLY STUPID and ANTI-BRITISH too!
If Britain’s Favourite Banker, Mr Nigel Farrago, is SERIOUS about his claim that he will “purge” UKIP of racists, then I hope Mr Bloom will get more than just a "slap on the wrist" and should soon be seeking new employment. Not that I’m VERY impressed by the way UKIP keep on getting RACISTS and FRAUDSTERS and “hilarious characters” elected and then firing them and then claiming “ooh, no, it’s not US, we got rid of the bad apples!”
Clue: STOP picking BAD APPLES in the FIRST PLACE!
Meanwhile, the PROPER political Parties – and the MEDIA – need a KICK UP THE BACKSIDE about the kind of LANGUAGE that is acceptable.
Trolling on the Internet does NOT happen in isolation; it’s merely more EXTREME, but its origins lie in the way we are willing to talk to each other in public. Never mind “political correctness gone mad”, this is political correctness just GONE!
UKIP deserves NO RESPECT because they treat PEOPLE with NO RESPECT.
But the same goes for the rest of us too. We need to be BETTER to each other, people. We need to be better.
2 comments:
International Aid is NOT “just” charity – it is our FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE. If we can help the poorest in the World live in even SLIGHTLY healthier conditions, get clean water and vaccinations, then we PROTECT OURSELVES against PANDEMICS. If we intervene with education and development to make impoverished countries even SLIGHTLY better off, we REDUCE the PRESSURE on people to become ECONOMIC MIGRANTS and REFUGEES.
Everything you say here is good, but this is my favorite. I'll find this useful, I can tell. :)
Well said. Really, just very well said.
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