15 August, 2011

 

Quote of the day

Dreda Say Mitchell appeared on last Friday's Newsnight discussion about the week's festival of arson, looting, mayhem and impromptu vibrancy, alongside Owen Jones and David Starkey. Or possibly alongside Owen Jones against Dr Starkey.

Owen Jones is some kind of minor political apparatchik wot has wrote a book about chavs, so I can see why he was on. Ms Mitchell's qualifications are less clear. She seems to be a novellist specializing in crime novels. Perhaps all the usual "Black community leaders" were busy on other programmes, so she was invited on as the token articulate Darkie. (Given that the festival was supposedly of a non-racial nature, I wonder why a Black community leader was required on every occasion. No White or Brown community leaders, then?)

Anyway now she gets a chance to at least try to give the crafty old shitstirrer a supplementary kicking on CiF. Judge her arguments for yourself, but this one's a real doozy,

Do we really need to compare gangsta rap with other forms of "outlaw" music, like country and western?

Say what?


Comments:
Country and Western?
Dolly Partons issues with working nine to five are the cause of the riots?
Bloody rednecks!

 
Isn't there already a melange of gangsta-rap with country & western? Certainly, the theme song to 'Justified' would seem to indicate there is!

 
What, Kanye West and Jay-Z wearing giant stetsons and check shirts and singing "Yee Ha, Bitch!"?

The mind doesn't quite boggle, but it certainly simmers nervously.

 
That whole Starkey segment was a set-up. Watch the presenter of the show check her clip-board after Starkey first mentions Powell's speech and just before she says something to the effect of "Ah yes, Powell's famous Rivers of Blood speech given in 1968": it was on the agenda, everybody was primed to expect the name of 'Voldemort', beg pardon, 'Enoch Powell' to be spoken out loud. Normally Beebistas would go incandescent when He Who's name Should Not Be Spoken is uttered within the hallowed halls of Hogwarts, sorry, the BBC.

Secondly, Starkey fluffs the issue: the whole point about Powell's speech is that he percieves that the real danger of mass immigration to be the way 'the system'(define it how you will) will be skewed in favour of the immigrants and to the detriment of society as a whole. We call it 'PC' nowadays; Powell did not have that term in his vocabulary, but could see the inevitability, and the consequences, of 'positive discrimination', etc. NB I'm not quoting from memory, but do have a look at the text of the speech. He's right on the nail, very percipient. However, THAT particular dimension of the current problems is utterly ignored.

Starkey's assertion that White Yoof have adopted a Black-inspired cultcha is valid:- faux-patois speech patterns, innit? Violent, misogynistic, homophobic rap music; baggy traaahsas (or was that Madness?); gait like a spavined orang-utang, etc etc. Well, yes they have, and its a lamentable, negative and ugly culture at that; although, of course, under the rules of PC it can't be challenged, mocked or villified in any way cos its Effnick, innit? But its worth bearing in mind that the Boradwater farm riots would have had a sound-track of St. Bob Marley and Depeche Mode, if anything.

It seems to be coming apparent that the original riots were a decoy to allow tightly organised criminal elemants to loot a number of trading estates in London whilst Plod's attention was focussed elsewhere, with riots in other areas being opportunistic and copy-cat in nature. The issue is how can a criminal underclass be allowed to grow to a point where it can mobilise in sufficient numbers to seriously challenge the rule of law? Of course, how a criminal sub-culture with a specific cultural alignment can be ENCOURAGED to grow BECAUSE its cultural weighting exempts it from any criticism by other sections and agencies of society is a different issue, and brings us nicely back to Old Aynock's speech.

Rant over.

 
I recall laughing when Dreda told us that it was all our fault for creating a society that celebrates material gain. So it's not surprising that the community took the opportunity to gain some materials.
But at least tshe kept hewr cool with Mr Starkey unlike the shouty Owen Jones.

 
Being the sort of oik that reads books and takes an interest in these things I had noticed Owen Jones' book (thanks to a CIF piece by Ms Moore on it) but after watching the infamous Newsnight, I'm inclined to think Owen Jones is indeed an apparatchik and his book is a Guardianista attempt to muscle in on the territory carved out by Un-PC Michael Collins and his excellent Un-PC book The Likes of Us .

So I won't be buying Owen Jones' book now. Ta very much.

I know you're from ooop norf originally dogwash, but a lot of The Likes of Us is written about the part of London you live in. A great book and well worth a read.

On a slightly differnt note, have you seen this? The funniest youtube clip I've seen in ages:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsAewwtlXfU&feature=feedf

 
I've just had a quick listen to "Long Hard Times to Come", the Justified theme tune, Julia, courtesy of YouTube. Amazing resource this Internet thingy, innit.

As you suggest, it seems to be a rather staid rap lyric on top of a generic country backing. Interesting combination, though I'm not entirely convinced it works.

 
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