Birthstone wrote:
Mootinie wrote:
I'm surprised that we have a thread here about free speech and propaganda in the UK and nobody has mentioned the UK media's never-ending smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn. He is treated here as Donald Trump is treated in the US, both are subject to gross sensationalism, the kind that is making mainstream journalism less and less credible with each passing day.
For example, Trump is ridiculed over the deal about the wall but where is the discussion about Mexico's drug trafficking problem and how it impacts on the United States? What about the discussion on Illegal Immigrants? I guess the latter cases aren't hot button issues. You sell the newspaper by calling Trump an idiot but what's the viable alternative to building a wall? Would it not cost just as much money to significantly increase manned border patrol?
What has happened with Trump is exactly what has been happening to Corbyn and what is happening now in fact with the Salisbury nerve agent attack and the tension with the Russian government.
Completely different scenarios, Corbyn is a generally good guy with a career of public service behind him who is being smeared because powerful people disagree with him.
Trump is a con-artist and compulsive liar who hates literally everybody who isn't named Donald Trump. He is being smeared by those who dislike compulsive lying con-artists who hate everybody but themselves.
We do have a drug trafficking problem. But the majority of drugs are smuggled through planes and boats (both of which aren't hindered by walls in case you weren't aware). We do have a problem with illegal immigration. But the majority of illegal immigrants come here legally with visas, and then overstay their visa. They also tend to take planes, again, not something a wall really stops.
Viable alternatives? 1. End NAFTA. It fucked Mexico's economy hard. Let them recover their economy with fair trade deals that make it so that people aren't desperate enough to move here illegally (an expensive and often dangerous process). 2. End the war on drugs, and legalize / regulate them (similar to Portugal's system). If there is no financial motivation for Mexican cartels to smuggle the vast majority of cocaine and heroin into the U.S., then they won't do it. 3. Literally anything other than spending funds on a wall that will have its construction halted as soon as a liberal gets back into the White House.
Also, I'm not sure if 2 weeks counts as a necro, but consider locking this thread perhaps? I'd like to continue this discussion with you, Mootinie.
I absolutely agree about the differences and you're right that Trump is hardly the humanitarian that Jeremy Corbyn is. I wonder if the media backlash towards both is more an institutional situation. I can't speak for the press in the United States but the Conservative party here backs big corporations and is against heavier taxation of the upper class, hence why the media is so dead against Jeremy Corbyn and seemingly intent on destroying his political career before he gains too much power. I draw the parallel because Trump strikes me as being similarly anti-establishment whilst retaining rooted to his convictions.
With regards the situation in Mexico, thank you for bringing up NAFTA. I've heard that spoken about before in other forums and I've heard it said that Trump will never repeal that because it was signed during a Republican term and it remains beneficial to the United States. Legalisation and/or regulation sounds feasible and would generate millions of dollars in taxation but with the money spent already on the war on drugs, I wonder if it's political death to sign such a measure. That and cocaine is horrible. Anybody here ever taken it? I've heard about the effects and sheesh, no thank you. You cannot flood the streets with that stuff. Heroin? Isn't it basically Morphine? I imagine you could have Legal Heroin.
But staying on topic, to say free speech is dead in the U.K. is somewhat overt in my opinion. Speech and public expression has been policed in the UK for as long as I can remember. We've never really had free speech as the United States knows it and we certainly don't defend our rights to it as ardently as Americans do. But if there is any crime being committed here against those with a voice, it is definitely the left and the far-left more so than the right and the far-right. You can be anti-immigration and euroskeptic here without much backlash from the public or the press but we draw the line at racism and Islamophobia as most of it comes across as a faux justification for one's own poor well-being.
Synthic
