Rayvin

I've told you repeatedly why I dislike her. I've not trusted her since she claimed to land under sniper fire in Bosnia and was actually greeted by a small girl holding a flower or something like that. And more generally, it's the stuff about the centreground, prolonging the inevitable, the establishment and the ultimate downfall of Western civilisation

True. Both Trump and Clinton are arguably too old for this anyway. Although you could say the same about Sanders so there wasn't really much choice this time around.

That's awesome.

That's a shame actually, because her gender has been a sideshow to the whole thing and been an easy thing to use for deflecting criticism of her. Annoyingly though, the Democrats could have had Warren (I remain amazed that Hillary didn't choose her as VP). Warren would have been a much more supportable candidate.

I don't see her as the antichrist (who does?) I see her as a liar and standard bearer of the establishment. They may not be big issues to you, but they are to me. For the things you've mentioned, I've googled a bit to see if I can help you out with why other people take issue with her: Her bid to prevent her emails from causing her problems by pressuring the FBI certainly doesn't look good. The mass deletions of emails, coupled with the fact that the FBI found she and her associated had been deleting classified emails and claiming they were personal and therefore not of interest, is problematic. The FBI didn't charge her for that in the end, but called her extremely careless, and set out that no reasonable person could have been ignorant of what she was doing. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/17/hillary-clinton-accused-of-collusion-and-corruption-over-secret/ This article in the Economist on the Clinton Foundation is also worth a look - it sounds problematic at best: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2016/02/economist-explains-4 Put it this way, if she was David Cameron, and he had the kind of financial infrastructure and corporate lobbying bods around him, we'd be crying foul all over the place. Not sure why Hillary gets a free pass. There are of course plenty of crazy theories as well, but these two seem to have some credence. She's certainly a member of the super rich elite, and one of the most powerful families in the the US.

What would you consider to be 'worrying dirt', out of interest?

Hah, the cyborg future. Is it weird that I've thought about how convenient it would be to be able to pull back the top of my finger and plug it into a usb port

Hm, I've not see that one but maybe the principle is very similar. I'm sure the one I'm thinking of was more of a modern throw away sci fi of the 'Minority report' ilk. It wasn't the core of the film either, just something they used for a couple of scenes as context. Either way, my thinking is kind of that if you were able to do this, and others you know could do this too, you could live your later years out as 'young' people once again. Kind of depressing and sad from an outsiders point of view, but also probably quite desirable for elderly people with very little left in their lives.

Yeah that's true - I suppose it's easy to think '£500k isn't a lot of money' in a footballing sense, but it'd be a big contribution towards the academy. Also, we've had some amazing success stories on that front (Carroll) so we should really see the value in it more than others.

I hope it takes off since I'm wedded to the idea of being able to upload myself into a virtual world in my old age, and relive my youth. There was a film that covered this as a concept but I don't remember what it was called. A sci-fi of some description. People took a hallucinogenic drug to prevent them from being 'aware' that they were in the game. When I'm 107 and have finally retired, it's the first thing I'll do. In the more immediate future, if it offers improved immersion I'm all for it

I'd agree with that - economic policy failure gave us the whole thing. This is perhaps where that article Chez posted has weight though, if it sets out that actually, this was inevitable.

Appreciated. This is all just my opinion of course, I'm not saying it's gospel. Maybe I'm being a bit too strident.

I agree to an extent... but the MSM has led people around by the nose in this country for decades. Look at the legions the Sun can call on to vote whichever way it tells them. And the Mail. They keep hitting people with the same stuff until eventually they've penetrated multiple generations of the same family, each affirming the other's views, thus giving rise to the echo chambers that are now popping up all over the internet (Facebook and so on). Social media has had its part to play as well, but I would wager that media used to be much more restrained and much less pervasive in the pre-Murdoch era. I don't know for sure though, maybe someone can enlighten me? This is a side point though - really I just mean that the 'facts' of the matter seem less important now. We need change for the sake of releasing some of the pressure on our political consciousness before we do any more stupid Brexit style shit.

I didn't mean your argument, I meant the overall consideration of the success/failure of Neo-Liberalism and where we're headed. I've tried to set out why there is a movement towards the fringes on both the right and left, and assumed that your contribution was effectively to state that people who think turning away from the centre-ground is the answer are misinformed, as nothing better waits beyond the horizon. I've then simply stated that the reality of that, whether true or not, isn't what we're talking about anymore. The Economist ran an article a few weeks back setting out that we're in a post-truth era. We absolutely are. The MSM have dragged us down there and now public distrust for media outlets and institutions is low enough that people are very literally making their own truths. I think my real point here is that I can only see this being reversed by the current political powers being forced into retreat, and some of the populist options being given a try. Sadly, this means things like Brexit. But then, if the establishment had listened to people's concerns, hadn't pushed austerity, and had perhaps looked at integrating immigrants into communities better, maybe we wouldn't be where we are on that front. The lack of trust people now have in the status quo is considerable. I suspect too much damage has been done. Then again. I was thinking the other day in another post that, like us with Ashley at NUFC, if the establishment were to pull something out of the bag that gave enough positive change to enough people (Rafa) maybe they'd quieten things down. I'm just not sure they have it in them when they're conspiring to keep centre left options like Corbyn and Sanders out of power while calling them 'extreme left'. Disagreeing doesn't help much on it's own, no. But thanks? Not sure how you can disagree with an analysis of people's perceptions unless you think I'm just making up a number of the complaints people have, or that these people don't understand their own minds. Unless you're disagreeing with my assessment of what the article is saying. If so, I'd welcome the opportunity to learn where I've gone wrong, as ever.

That's all well and good Chez, but it doesn't take into consideration the fact that people's perception of things is quite different. The perception is that you have lots of baby boomers with two houses, forcing up property prices which they made a killing with over the last 20 years, who tanked the economy due to misregulation of banks, and who honestly couldn't give a shit about the plight of young people brought up to believe that all of this was on offer to them before the carpet was very literally pulled out from under them. You can't have obvious largesse by some in society and then simply turn around and say that 'well, these things don't last forever and basically you're just unlucky that you're not living through such a period'. Which is effectively what that article implies. Rationally, I can see the point. The problem is that rationally, I can also see why so many people are so disappointed with the way things are, and so desperate for change. I don't believe that anyone has the magic wand here, but the pain needs to be spread equally, and judging based on how things are developing (Brexit), it looks like it will be spread more equally than it has been in the past. The real crux here is that your article doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things irrespective of how right it may be. Too many people have too little in their lives to even care. The argument isn't going to be won by people who have telling those who have not that they're just unfortunate. It's going to be won by people who have not taking control away from those who have, and very likely discovering the same point that way.

I can't recall us ever being great at getting youth through the system. Certainly most of the younguns we talk about these days never seem to be able to make it in the end. Maybe under Rafa that will change a bit.

That's awful, if he's killed the kid and moved the body elsewhere. How self centred would you have to be to leave his parents wondering all these years? He might not have even been sent down for it, I'd imagine it would be nigh on impossible to see a kid from a digger if the kid has suddenly entered the area.

FFS we have Trump at the door of the presidency. If not for the resurfacing of one very poor taste video, he might well have won. How much more of a message does the centreground need that they are failing too many people?

I'm not so much advocating for it as commenting on what I'm seeing. And I agree with you, evolution is immensely preferable. That's why I keep saying that Hillary getting in and prolonging what we've got in the form it currently exists will only make more drastic measures more likely in the future - and this is not a good thing. The way to address this now, is for someone like Corbyn to get in. As ridiculous as that may sound to you. There's a pressure valve here that needs to be loosened before it explodes. The centre needs to be forced to back down, forced out of power, if anything just to remind people and politicians alike that 'we, the people' are in control.

What's all this about the dead rising if she wins? Is Trump a necromancer?

...At the risk of heading further over to the 'park' side (although I'll maintain I've been universally anti-aggression for years and that critical analysis of what states are doing doesn't make you a conspiracy theorist), the US certainly seems to have encircled Russia. I'm actually surprised people don't think this is intentional, given how high stakes the game tends to be. I found this map of US military bases, and they all cluster around Russia (and China). https://futuristrendcast.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/u-s-bases-near-russia.jpg It looks as though it's largely on one side, but of course doesn't consider that the US itself is on the other side. I think at best you could say that they've unintentionally encircled Russia. Although I can't think why anyone would give them the benefit of that doubt. I think the fact that NATO still exists (and has expanded since the collapse of the USSR) would eliminate most of the doubt for me, in truth. That said, I don't know anything about how involved Clinton is in any of this. My issue with him and her really boils down to the fact that they're going to simply prolong the death of a status quo that is failing all over the West.

What do you mean no criticism of China? In the MSM? I'll criticise China to anyone who'll listen.

He's quit I gather. UKIP looked fucked to me. Tearing themselves apart more efficiently than even Labour were now. Good news, they can fuck off. Apparently a nothing party without Farage.

Agreed.