Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

it's essentially all bollocks is how i break it down

xp it's the other way around, I thought - when arseholes chat shit about being the indigenous settlers of the land, they mean the Britons, but there isn't anyone left who's pure Briton without some of that hyphenated Anglo-Saxon blood in them.

Historically at least, in England, it's always been about being Anglo-Saxon as opposed to ("Celtic") Britons, otherwise they may as well be Welsh and we can't have that. But NV OTM, of course.

a lot of it is legit hangover from 19th century calipers shit, also afaik it's still very much up for debate the extent to which the labels really describe cultural markers rather than genetic ones

I'm quite into the serious DNA science of this, after learning why I've got a genetic predisposition for alcohol abuse, am quite handy with an axe and don't mind being out in the cold!

*(using this terminology since idk what the UK equivalent would be)

That would be English.

Also Partick now has a huge Chinese community and lots of Asian restaurants, supermarkets etc which she seems completely oblivious too.

I'm reminded of this exchange from From Episode 12 of The Boaby Chronicles:

STUART (squirming slightly): Well, I think that's a... (*clears throat*)... a good question... em... I mean, Glasgow isn't as ethnically diverse as most American cities...
BOAB: Bollocks.
MODERATOR: Pardon me?
BOAB: There's loats o' Asians in Glesga fur a stert.
MODERATOR: Really? I had no idea, do you have... like a Chinatown?BOAB: Ye whit?
AL (to the moderator): He means South Asians.
BOAB: Aye, well a loat o’ them dae live in Pollokshields and Govanhill but ye dae get some north o' the river an' aw.

as far as celtic, brittonic, anglo-saxon, etc go I think there's still a lot of projection of modern national and racial categories going on even in good history because it's hard to think outside our familiar boxes and early "british" history/historiography seems like such a baffling and murky free for all with so much mythic baggage that looms way larger than whatever actual evidence we have

Good points all, it was absolutely poor word choice on my part, when people in question say indigenous they _don't_ mean the Britons (and so leave themselves open to cutting but useless irony) - but they don't mean Anglo-saxon either, they mean "shut up and let me be racist".

Yes, I was thinking more in terms of how English history was recorded and taught, which tended to erase the (foreign - "Welsh" literally means foreigner) "Celtic" aspects and emphasize the (English) Anglo-Saxon ones. I blame the Venerable Bede personally.

how do you base your nationalism on the alleged unification of two broad groups of "germanic" immigrants and still claim you're indigenous to these here isles?

incoherence only seems to make nationalism stronger which is immensely frustrating especially in this weird entity where we have nationalisms on top of nationalisms in a way that really shouldn't work

bede was literally trying to save souls and if it took making shit up it was worth it. what are today's nationalists trying to save? cucumber sandwiches? even the religious ones don't seem to believe in anything these days except insofar as belief is proxy for whatever national/racial identity they want to hold onto

https://imgur.com/a/32Wb8Au

so sayeth the man who was so upset by the prospect of a j. crobbins government that he gave himself a heart attack

https://i.imgur.com/VcTLEp6_d.jpg

this is actually good?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/02/brianna-ghey-name-killers-transphobia-children

although it obviously fails to note the guardian's own role in perpetuating transphobia

Friend of mine was forced to contact the Guardian after Alexis Petridis' obituary of Wayne Kramer described Fred Smith and Rob Turner as the singer and bassist respectively of the MC5. It got changed later.

... whoops, Rob Tyner! Grauniadness is catching.

Saw another mistake noted on twitter

Sorry saw that mistake noted on there.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/04/russia-china-iran-could-target-uk-irish-backdoor-thinktank-warns?CMP=twt_b-gdnnews

I think I'll pass again on the Guardian subscription in 2024

Racism update: it's fine now

Monday's @guardian cartoonhttps://t.co/kmWf6mrfmf#Houthis #Hamas #Gaza #YemenUnderAttack #RedSeaAttacks #Iran #Biden #IsraelHamasConflict pic.twitter.com/ByEmfrh5My

— Ella Baron (@EBaronCartoons) February 4, 2024

ugh

thank god for the labels. I usually think it's bullshit when people try to define antisemitism based on the etymology but sometimes there's something there

you know those racist cartoons from ww2 that repurposed 19th century anti-chinese tropes against the japanese? or the anti-"mexican" stuff from today that looks exactly the same as anti-italian stuff from 100 years ago? why does history work like this? why do we never learn anything from it?

i think the people who do learn something are not the same people who have cushy media jobs

the cartoon Bell got sacked over wasn't even published and it was referencing a LBJ cartoon from the 60's, yet this scummy shit was deemed ok. Very even-handed approach to racism.

lmao the artist can’t think of enough things for the imam to be controlling so he just repeats “hamas” and “houthis” over and over to match the number of threads

Liew is good, shame he works for such a bigoted rag.

a mysterious right-wing think-tank takes an abrupt interest in Parkrun. useful idiots in the media do their bidding. now, this thing that hardly anyone cared about before has grown into a sinister campaign. this week’s column, on how to start a culture war https://t.co/NhalSp1tVf

— Jonathan Liew (@jonathanliew) February 14, 2024

I clicked on the Twitter link by mistake. Jesus CHRIST the replies.

Guess I'm completely desensitised to all that

The bigots were throwing back a "so what if trans athletes win everything" from Liew as if it's a gotcha.

UK full of lots of frothing weirdoes on this topic its true

I heard people being interviewed about this on the radio the other day and they were like unanimously, who gives a fuck, it’s a fun run

(xp) All of them on Twitter it seems.

Yes twitter does seem to be the main way transphobic radicalisation spreads

Imagine giving up a couple of hours to be interviewed by the Guardian, and then buying the paper to see that they've opened with this. pic.twitter.com/D0upv1DNCM

— Benjamin Partridge (@benpartridge) February 25, 2024

Found myself irritated that someone was paid to write this:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/25/i-have-been-forced-into-a-month-of-minimalism-and-i-hate-it

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/28/islamophobia-antisemitism-uk-politics-grim-symmetry

Shitty article which tries to link Islamophobia in the Conservatives Party to antisemitism in "the Left". Completely ignores the fact that it was Behr's hero Starmer and his cohorts who tried to excuse Azhar Ali's remarks because he was their representative. If he wants to play that game then I don't remember any ex-chairperson of the Labour Party or ex-cabinet minister during the evil Corbyn's reign accusing Tory mayors of being controlled by Zionists or Tory leaders being in hock to Zionists.

I seem to remember that when one kind of racism is the topic, clearly this week islamophobia, it was racist to introduce or compare it to any other kind of racism. This apparently was Corbyn's fault when he added "and all other kinds of racism" to his apologies and refutations of antisemitism. I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now, but I'm sure the columnists like Behr/Freedland etc are guilty of hypocrisy here

I seem to remember a lot of "Are you trying to tell Jews what is and isn't antisemitism? How dare you!" outrage. Apparently this does not apply to Muslims and Islamophobia. Funny that.

Bang on cue.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/28/more-than-half-of-tory-members-in-poll-say-islam-a-threat-to-british-way-of-life

I used to like when Corbyn would condemn anti-semitism along with all racism, and people would scream that he didn't care about jews, then he'd condemn anti-semitism and not mention other forms of racism, and people would scream that he was singling out jews, good times great memories

Tories seem to be embracing Islamophobia in way that Labour did anti- semitism under Corbyn

— John Crace (@JohnJCrace) February 28, 2024

This cunt works for the guardian, so he goes here too

Old Etonians STFU TYVM

if Crace went to Eton his expensive education hasn't prevented him being extremely thick

Thick Etonians, whoever heard of such a thing? Maybe all that heroin affected his brain.

It's certainly super odd how the most recent, notable and universally upheld examples of antisemitism are from Starmer's Labour and the right wing of the party, yet Crace and Behr etc reflexively cannot help but refer back to Corbyn's Labour, almost as if it's a deflecting tactic, or a salve of a wretched conscience, or pure political partiality.

having a smackhead adventure is a jolly good wheeze for an Etonian, another one to tick off the bucket list. Parents can send you to a Swiss clinic for a controlled withdrawal and then you can drone on about how you used to be an addict for the rest of your fking life!

"You are receiving this email because you are a subscriber to Swift Notes."

I'm bloody not! How the fuck did my barely-used spare email address end up on a Taylor Swift-themed Guardian mailing list?! Fuck off Laura Sn@pes

lol i just got this too

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Phew!