"we'll change the things that need changing and that's all we'll change": the paSUKification of post-brexit politics 2021

what a foul, cheap asshole

Call me cynical but main commitments that will come from #COP26 key leaders will be climate investments in false, capitalist greenwashing solutions (carbon markets, net zero); and ecofascist climate security strategies that further border securitization & defense infrastructure.

— Harsha Walia (@HarshaWalia) November 1, 2021

you don't say!

is that senile old twat who lives in 40 room mansion going to tell us we need to live more frugally again?

Specifically?

I mean, could be Boris, Jacob, Toffo, Lumley, Phil the g.. Oh wait not him... (etc)

lol I meant Sir David Frederick Assenborough or is it Twattenborough. Shitbird has done a zillion air miles and lives in a fucking castle with an entourage of butlers and had the gall to say *we* need to live more frugally

Ah right, salut.

I was sure it was the Queen too!

she's that close to physical death that the incoming collapse of human civilisation is no biggie to her, which is actually a more defendable position than her son trying model himself as eco-prophet whilst flogging biscuits that cost twenty quid in Fortnum & Mason or that hypocritical chimpanzee shagger!

From a twitter acc bcz it hasn't been reported on.

Amazing how Owen Paterson’s corruption, Rose Paterson’s death, Robert Jenrick’s Housing scandal and Dido Harding’s government contracts are all explicitly linked to the Jockey Club and not a single journalist can touch it with a barge pole.

— jonny (@sensiblehuman96) November 3, 2021

it's a real classy touch that Paterson is using his partner's suicide to try and deflect attention away from his central role in what should be a major scandal.

Your attacks are normally spot on and justified, Calz, but attacking David Attenborough for his air travel and relatively luxurious lifestyle is a low blow. If it is *literally your job* to travel round the world and make wildlife documentaries about plants and animals, how the hell are you supposed to do it without getting on a plane? And so what if he lives in a big house and might employ a few domestic staff, the scale of which you have expressed hyperbolically to no useful purpose? I think given the way he has entertained millions of people and enhanced their knowledge, he kinda deserves it, unlike the Queen and the aristos and the industrialists who have enhanced our lives not one iota! FFS!

I had a look at this tweet earlier but idk enough about Attenborough's Malthusianism.

Just thinking about how one of the pieces I would have really liked for the edition was a critique of Attenborough - the Malthusianism, obviously, but the functions of being a national treasure and a consideration of the ideological effects of the form of the documentaries.

— Tom Gann (@Tom_Gann) November 3, 2021

didn't he fall for the old "it's overpopulation!" bit at some point? might be thinking of someone else.

Not sure how it is possible to be a 'Malthusian' in the 21st century. What would that entail? Wanting to limit the human population by encouraging people to have fewer kids? This would undeniably be better for the environment and as long as nobody's forced to stop procreating I don't see the issue with it. Does this Gann character you've dredged up from the Twittersphete inhabit some fantasy world where Attenborough is advocating forced sterilisation or genocide???

Gann is more than just a standard twitter shitposter and is rarely wrong. Old wealthy Tory dude preaching frugality for the lumpen masses whilst living in a mansion and presumably not living on a simple diet of mung beans, bread and water is Malthusian enough for me.

Putting the onus of solving the climate crisis on "having fewer kids" means shifting the focus to where ppl are having lots of kids, which aren't the regions most responsible for emissions but ARE the regions eco-fascist fringes would prefer we focus on.

xpost

Not sure that your assumptions about where in the world people are having fewer kids are accurate based on recent data, Daniel. Plenty of people in the UK having big broods and not necessarily people living in poverty. Jamie Oliver, Alex dePiffle, the couple on Our Yorkshire Farm on Channel 5 (nine and counting, Amanda Owen wants more). All doing far more than replacing themselves when they shuffle off this mortal coil. Meanwhile in the countries you are talking about rises in GDP and moves to the cities rapidly shrink the size of families.

Err, I'm willing to be corrected but don't think an anecdotal listing of celebrities is the way to go about this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

There seemed little point to me in listing a bunch of random members of the public who breed like rabbits! Christ.

you're on a tear today Grandpont Genie

I'd be interested to hear what you have to say in defence of richard attenborough

Please don't be a fan of Gandhi GG we have enough terrible opinions on the film poll

Xpost - I was 11 when Gandhi came out and haven't seen it since then. Anyway, R Attenborough...

Don't know much about him. He acted. He directed some films. Seeing as he's been dead 7 years he's almost as irrelevant to a contemporary politics thread as Thomas Malthus.

The third brother John Attenborough ran the UK Alfa Romeo dealership and before then the Mann Egerton division that sold Rolls-Royces, so he's obviously the worst of the family (and also dead).

I didn't ask about john attenborough

The fact you seem oblivious to the way conversations work is hardly my fault, Conrad.

he was a very memorable creepazoid in 10 Rillington Place but wasn't worth shit as a director!

Attenborough has definitely done the "too many people" bit over the last few years and fuck him for that

I think the idea that in 2021 lavish flying round the world to make TV shows about nature shows are a necessity that can't be rethought is open to a good deal of rethinking too

love his work sure, but not sure he's helping

also whenever somebody says "there are too many people" the subtext of "but not people like me" is so fucking loud it's all you can hear

There seemed little point to me in listing a bunch of random members of the public who breed like rabbits! Christ.

Yeah, there's very little point in listing individuals either way! If we accept overpopulation as the main (or one of the big) problems to tackle to help with the climate crisis, it's not gonna be about a few celebs who've decided to have a buncha children - it's gonna be focused on the countries where the population at large is having the most children, and those are not going to be in Europe.

The thing is that this is a bad premise to start from, because the countries where ppl ARE having the most children are countries where the average person contributes far less to emissions than they do here in the UK, say. It's a way to draw attention away from the companies that are the main culprits and towards economically underdeveloped nations.

This is not to say that anyone who voices these concerns is some sort of eco-fascist - but it is playing into their hands.

OK, Daniel. That makes sense.

Back to DA, he's doing less travel anyway now than in his old documentaries on account of being 95. I suspect that, come the day he pops his clogs and everyone's sad except Calz and the mysterious Mr Gann, they won't replace him with anyone directly as, like John Peel, he's kinda irreplaceable. That would be a good opportunity to do some good EDI stuff and get some local teams of indigenous peoples presenting in the various countries but this is the BBC so they'll probably stuff it up.

he was a very memorable creepazoid in 10 Rillington Place but wasn't worth shit as a director!

― calzino, Wednesday, 3 November 2021 17:24 (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Bullshit! "Magic" with Tony Hopkins as an insane ventriloquist is an all time classic.

Dicky Attenborough also brilliantly sinister as Pinky Brown in Brighton Rock(and probably lots of other roles in less-remembered British films that always turn up on Talking Pictures TV).

I'm probably bad, but I thought Brighton Rock was not good and didn't find him sinister at all. Maybe a re-watch might change my mind. My fave insane ventriloquist is the one in Dead of Night and that's that!

David Attenborough is a Malthusian, with all that that entails, so absolutely no. https://t.co/GH443piaXe

— Tom Gann (@Tom_Gann) December 3, 2018

just for you GG. Two of your fave posters!

'overpopulation' always a massive red flag, nu malthusianism is simply prepping for the acceptability of 'lookit, the famine is tragic, but'

i read a pretty convincing article a year or so ago that said if you solve the top 5 women’s rights issues globally the climate issues all become much more manageable, can’t find it now tho

I'm probably bad, but I thought Brighton Rock was not good and didn't find him sinister at all. Maybe a re-watch might change my mind. My fave insane ventriloquist is the one in Dead of Night and that's that!

― calzino, Wednesday, 3 November 2021 17:49 (thirty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah worth a rewatch I'd say. One of those films with a lot of twee 1940s period trappings but with an undercurrent of viciousness below the surface, which kind of fits with the themes of the original novel.

"Seance on a Wet Afternoon" is another good Dickie performance.

Owen Paterson has told Sky News said he "wouldn't hesitate" to act in the same manner again tomorrow he was heavily criticised for by a standards body

The former minister said he would "absolutely" do anything he was reprimanded by the Committee on Standards' report once more

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) November 3, 2021

i think if david attenborough can criticize the unsustainable lifestyles of the global population, i think it is fair in turn to point out that very few in this world have a lifestyle as unsustainable as his.

i think

I think if he really cared he'd lead by example by volunteering to be euthanized and his physical remains processed into some green cattle feed that would save farmers buying a few pounds of soya pellets from deforested zones in Brazil #COP26 - save the rainforest one square millimetre a day lads!

Always think of Richard Attenborough as the UK's answer to Peter Lorre.

that's charles laughton

Back to DA, he's doing less travel anyway now than in his old documentaries on account of being 95. I suspect that, come the day he pops his clogs and everyone's sad except Calz and the mysterious Mr Gann, they won't replace him with anyone directly as, like John Peel, he's kinda irreplaceable. That would be a good opportunity to do some good EDI stuff and get some local teams of indigenous peoples presenting in the various countries but this is the BBC so they'll probably stuff it up.

― Grandpont Genie, Wednesday, 3 November 2021 bookmarkflaglink

It's not your post so much as that I was just reading this long read on Saville talking about the reverence shown, how entertainment builds up and places certain on a pedestal where even the whiff of mild criticism is pounced on, and how -- as it's shown here and in many other examples -- leaves a trail of victims or unquestioned worth of what it is they've made.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/02/jimmy-savile-bbc-journalists-risked-jobs-reveal-truth

In the current climate it's the poor that gets most attacked for having most children and are seen as recklessly consuming. There are enough dark mutterings from Tories on this and social murder caused by austerity and of covid as a blessing that reduced the numbers of elderly and the pension 'burden'.

It may not be referred as Malthusian but there are plenty who want to see a reduction in population. It's a thing in politics!

i've heard that people's name can continue to index ideas with an enduring significance, sometimes for a long period after their death

It only get used by mysterious people on apps such as twitter dot com. Who cares about them when compared to the grandfather of the nation, Sir David Attenborough!

I wonder if he regularly commands his servants to nosh on his ancient ballsack like Prince Charles does!

I thought people had come to terms with John Peel being a thoroughly rotten person and a [redacted]. But hey that was cracking session from Bastard Kestrel in 1989, you don't get that kind of thing on evening radio these days.

yeah i think john peel is weinsteined rip