Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

To save Hungary's liberal democracy, centrists must work with the far right
Cas Mudde

that's exactly what I love about them " ".

Comments by Labour disputes panel chair who quit come as Corbyn tries to draw a line with Passover message

Comments by Labour disputes? Who quit come?

The Guardian view on B-sides

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/12/ultra-processed-truth-10-bestselling-foods-cherry-bakewell-fray-bentos-pies

This is my least favourite article that I’ve seen in the Guardian for a while. The uncritical acceptance of the opening sentence As the saying goes: if your granny wouldn’t have recognised what’s in it, it’s probably not real food. intensely annoys me, and it just gets worse from there.

I hope they publish a response from someone like Ruby Tandoh or Anthony Warner.

that sentence is one of my biggest pet peeves because there's a certain... I don't know if I'd go so far as to say "casual racism," but a certain thoughtlessness to it. namely, that the hypothetical granny probably wouldn't recognize food from almost anywhere else in the world

(I realize I say "____ is one of my biggest pet peeves" about once a week, but this one really does bother me. see also "it's full of CHEMICALS!")

oh wait, never mind, here's the casual racism: A gold star for anyone who knows how surimi is made.

at least it wasn't 'a gold star for anyone who knows how gefilte fish is made' i guess

damn

I love at least half of the stuff in that list but tbf I'm not a middle class wanker

The editorial backing bombing the Syrian government is terrible.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/12/the-guardian-view-on-arms-control-signing-up-must-mean-something

At least the Mail doesn’t wrap their banging of the war drums up in evasion and appalling, meandering prose.

You UKers are lucky, at least you don't have Brigid Delaney in your edition. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/series/brigid-delaneys-diary

Oh dear, that wasn't good

AusGuardian articles do little to dispel the idea that nobody there can write beyond a high-school level (or if they can, they emigrate).

oh yeah, i saw a brigid delaney piece linked from the front page of the grauniad yesterday and it was stunningly poor - still not quite entirely sure what it was about other than she missed a gig because russell crowe tweeted at her? classic polly filla stuff

She was also responsible for the masterful cockup referenced here, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thezenpagan/2017/01/welcome-to-tiny-train-world/

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/apr/14/gigs-cost-live-music

ok which of you buggers is this ?

Not impressed. Calls himself an obsessive but only goes to 50 gigs a year.

You UKers are lucky, at least you don't have Brigid Delaney in your edition. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/series/brigid-delaneys-diary

since clicking on that link, every time i open the app it takes me to that page. so yes my guardian app is definitely worse than it used to be.

sorry!

So I guess we're just uncritically reporting nazi propaganda now https://t.co/OgCdmVaYWz

— Crowsa Luxemburg (@quendergeer) April 26, 2018

just when their Windrush coverage was getting them deserved applause, they go do a much worse than they used to be thing like this.

"Wave of Immigration" is a not bad Pixies song iirc

Pixies outed as MAGA hat wearers shockah!

come on if there's anybody you wouldn't be surprised to see Trumping it up

the graun piece is just parroting some racist Trump supporting former Republican senator's ignorant claptrap, not good.

we have to secure a future for white Christendom tho

While you're here, we have a favour to ask...

I know it's hardly the worst of the Graun's crimes, but this guy should probably try reading Watchmen
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/apr/27/what-if-superheroes-arent-really-the-good-guys

El guardián de toledo, 1650:

Are popular romances of chivalry actually a bit silly and preposterous?

tbf the article does mention watchmen (once!) but yeah it's an insight-free rehash of every 'wot if the good guys... are actually bad' article written since 1987

zoe williams has a piece in today's grauniad on 'bad nationalism' which begins

i was on a panel last week, talking about good nationalism and bad nationalism. The difference, to me, is pretty plain, though not without controversy. Good nationalism is a certain specific solidarity based on the things you have created together, as a nation, and the things you aspire to create: you could call it, for short, Danny Boyle nationalism, and it takes in the NHS, the industrial revolution, the internet, as well as other less cinematic things, such as the sewage system.

i mean you could call it 'danny boyle nationalism' for short but you know what's shorter? 'socialism'

NHS: created together as a nation as thousands of doctors flocked to give up their lucrative private practices and demanded it
the industrial revolution: FUCK OFF ZOE YOU HIGH

i certainly feel a swell of pride when i think of enclosures and child labour and the brutal exploitation of our foreign empire

the internet is cinematic now?

just off to the local picturehouse to read insta brb

nationalism is one of these things that are a certain kind of liberal is desperate to reclaim because so many good honest people feel it, but the same liberals seem less bothered about reclaiming racism, homophobia and the lust to execute wrong'uns

It's a bit like masculinity discussions where every time ppl try to come up with a "good" version it turns out to be stuff so generic that there's really no point in attributing it to a specific group at all.

both things suffer from essentialist, exclusive definitions. despite the badness of this sort of collective pride, unilaterally dispensing with widely-used parts of ppls identity doesn't seem like a winner in the medium term

i don't think there's anything you could or should do to interfere with people's enjoyment of these feelings, just don't cheerlead for them in the press

I am not aggressively against ppl wanting to claim them in harmless contexts but I don't think I can take that very seriously w/o feeling like I am fundamentally trying to fool myself.

xpost

Good Nationalism: taking pride in things you were in no way responsible for, which often were very bad things, because your ancestors were either too badly fucked over by said things to be able to escape them or too comfortable and complicit in them to have the imagination to move somewhere else.

she addressed that when she said "a few dead children are a price well worth paying for a stirring Danny Boyle tribute to James Bond at the Olympics"

"also remember when we gathered together as a nation to make Cambridge Metallica the number name in whatever it is they actually do"

All these 'we need a progressive patriotism' pieces, when they don't just descend quickly into obnoxious Strasserism, are always just pure waffle. I'm prepared to believe Zoe Williams' piece is more the harmless second type than the former type (I'm not gonna read it, lol)

the one hand sieg heils the other tbf

there's a gap left between the desirability & probable long term benefits of individuals being able to at least nominally disengage from these collective definitions, and collectively being able to deal with them as real extant forces in the world as it is

From the article

I have no problem with a bordered civic identity: our borders describe the limits of our democratic agency. Patriotism is democracy, distilled: satisfaction and solidarity rooted in having created the conditions in which generosity and innovation could thrive. I could admire another country – it’s most likely Denmark, let’s face it – but I wouldn’t take pride in it, except at the generic level of the species.

Scottish Nationalists love to tell you their brand of nationalism is different because it's about escaping from Tory rule and into the arms of the SNP's socialist-leaning policies. And in a way, they're right, but at it's core, it's still about creating a divide between People Like Us and People Like Them. I hate nationalism because so many times in my life I've been a Them and not an Us and it's the worst. I hate that people think closing the border and protecting our own is a morally better position than having our 55 MPs in Parliament making it difficult for the Tory Government to easily enact all the cuts and policies they would like to.

^wtf, jeezo.