Huguenot

Indeed, here is the piece

TLS you still can make no assumptions about individuals in any particular racial group apart from the fact that a different group of people you asked answered in a particular way to a particular question at a particular time in a particular environment. That's claiming that 'because your mates are homophobic and share your skin colour, you must be homophobic'. Even the respondents may change their mind over time. The point is about drawing inferences about an individual based on your experiences of people of a similar racial background. If the first Inuit you see mugs you for your mobile, you can't imprison the next on the grounds that you've got a 100% criminal rate in the sum of your experiences so far. On race and culture you're already in hot water: sharing racial characteristics doesn't mean you share culture. It is ridiculous to claim that Ainsley Harriot, Barack Obama and Thomas Lubanga share culture regarding homophobia, family values or religion. It's not racist to note cultural differences, but it is racist to extrapolate from the individual to the general. In your example above you use one extremist website that supports your prejudices to cast aspersions on the entire afro-carribean community. You argue that because you've found it here, it applies to everyone of similar racial descent. That's racism.

All you're doing TLS is using one group's prejudice to justify another. This isn't reasonable. 'Truisms' are prejudices. You, and they, are both judging people on their racial background. You and they are both being racist. I'm not challenging any figures about the prevalence of any trait in any community, what I'm saying is that it is racist to use this data to form generalisations which make assumptions about any individual. Your quotes and figures are utterly immaterial - you're just using them to justify racism.

"The natural social model for ontological anarchism is the child-gang or the bank-robbers-band. As my uncle Melvin used to say, stolen watermelon tastes sweeter. The world is already re-made according to the heart's desire- -but civilization owns all the leases & most of the guns. Our feral angels demand we trespass, for they manifest themselves only on forbidden grounds." So in the end it all comes out - jackboot gangs and theft, because stolen watermelon tastes so much sweeter. I guess you parade these threats because they make you feel strong? You don't realise that in then end your victims feel nothing but pity for your emaciated spirit. Followers of these ideals go the grave as broken misers, because all they did was take when giving back seemed so much like hard work. This is Pirate radio - the last gasp of the inadequate.

Poetic Terrorism by Hakim Bey... "avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what must be defaced" "Art Sabotage is the dark side of Poetic Terrorism--creation- through-destruction--but it cannot serve any Party, nor any nihilism, nor even art itself." A magical recipe for self-indulgence. A wanton manifesto for wiping turd on your face and squealing "Look, look what I did". And of course you 'did' nothing, nothing that marked you at any higher level culturally or socially than a dung beetle. You just demanded attention like a screaming six year old who didn't get more cake than everyone else. "Public book burnings-- the New York Times bestseller list; feminist tracts against pornography; schoolbooks (especially Social Studies, Civics, Health); piles of New York Post , Village Voice & other supermarket papers" So it appears your ambition is so much more than demanding attention? You'd burn schoolbooks and newspapers? To be replaced in the whirlwind of your own cultural revolution with an evisceral manifesto of Glastonbury outhouse sweepings? And you accuse me of being unenlightened?

LOL! I would have thought the Sun was more populist than Radio 4, but it is of course known for metaphors to be mixed during a rage. I empathise with your husband's white van, I've driven one myself and know what it's like: the intense frustration that builds up. The OP was nevertheless about pirate radio, and if it's a catalyst for Nunhead's Meltdown Massive then the case to contain it is already made. I rather think that Radio 4 would probably ask nicely that you could act within the laws of our fine democratic nation, but otherwise feel free to pursue your home entertainment. If enough people support your cause you'd be welcome to the airwaves with open arms. In contrast the Meltdown Massive would smash the state, kick the "raas arse" of pensioners (whatever that is), and force the community to listen to their own tyrannical anschluss of crack-house beats. Your dystopia has more in common with the Clockwork Orange than cultural balance. Your strategies are more baseball bat than ballot box, and I don't need to quote you for you to know that ;-)

As my wife's father is a professor in anarcho-syndicalism, I don't struggle for literature on the subject AFN ;-) One thing about your choice of books is clear, that being published is no signpost of merit. Anarchy is the stamping ground for redneck terrorists, not the union Dreamtime. You don't throw off the shackles of wage slavery, but capitulate to a jack-booted intellectual underclass. You'd have white van man in teams of six knocking on your door with pick-axe handles forcing you and your kids to make dysfunctional hinges that nobody wants to buy. The anarchist political heartland is dominated by middle-aged ne'er-do-wells who, embarrassed by having achieved little in their lives, convince themselves that their failure will be less obvious if they destroy everything that everyone else has made. Scatalogical Anarchy Poetic Terrorism has a more honest ring to it, don't you think? :-)

Tony old chap, if you make assumptions about someone because of their race, that's racist. If you want to know if a guys is homophobic or not, you have to ask him. You can't hang him for the crime because of the colour of his skin.

Racism is about drawing inferences or assumptions about someone based on their race. It's not racist (but may be statistically wrong) to observe that a high proportion of a individuals from a particular racial background may be homophobic, but it is racist to assume that someone is likely to be homophobic because of their race. The most pernicious opinions are those that attempt to argue that some assumptions about an individual are okay simply because a particular trait is pervasive (or even dominant) in those from a particular racial background. This includes arguments about undercover detectives and comedy clubs. They're nasty because they try and construct an argument that it is okay to make assumptions and construct prejudices about someone so long as the percentages are high enough. It's not. It's racist. There's no cloudy area. The same applies to people who argue that people from ED have a particular political affiliation, or that people on this forum have a particular attitude to baby shops. It's just prejudice. It's poisonous and divisive, it's a weapon used by the petty to split communities and gain influence amongst stupid people. (For any still wondering about a previous thread... it is not racist to observe that a criminal was black, it is racist to assume that if someone was black they are a criminal. This isn't a subtle distinction.)

Seems the 3m watts isn't sufficient locally, the OP said he was having difficult receiving Radio 4 as the pirate station was interfering? Presumably if the pirate radio station is permitted here, then it's permitted everywhere, so your proposal doesn't seem scalable? I don't think Pirate radio is dangerous, I think anarchy is destructive and tends to be dominated by those with the most aggressive agenda. I think characterising Pirate radio as kooky, creative and cuddly is disingenuous. It simply isn't all John Peel. I don't like John Peel either ;-). To make a case for Pirate radio you need to make a case for anarchy (either in radio bandwidth management specifically, or for society in general), and I don't see anyone doing that - just saying it's cute isn't enough.

Exams in Sept, jollybaby - that's an unusual time of year? Best of luck of course, what are you studying for?

I can see that these pirate stations are a hotbed of creativity, but aren't those who want to listen to Radio 4 entitled to do that as well? Bandwidth is limited, so surely it makes sense that we should legislate to ensure that those that use it have the infrastructure and responsibility to use them wisely? Pirate radio isn't all John Peel, there's plenty of maim-yo-muvva and slap-yo-beatch that poisons our society. I welcome the efforts of those who make the airwaves anarchy-free and the ownership of all. There are local radio slots, so it's not necessarily a question of who's got the most cash - if certain radio stations have limited niche appeal, then they're quite welcome to pursue their interests online or in nightclubs. Can I add that fees for bandwith auctions are paid back into our democratically appointed exchequer and consequently to the people of our great nation. A free for all is something that benefits no-one but the violent.

Not sure what you mean by regulate Brendan - that's exactly what a law and order system does: regulate between social, antisocial, and morally inappropriate behaviour Privacy issues are about how far they can go to do this and what the cost/benefit curve looks like (cost can be calculated in moral as well as financial currencies). MM, I can see what you mean by voluntary disclosure - it means that people who do sign up consider they get more in reward for signing up to these services than they feel they pay in disclosure. I wouldn't get too comfortable about how discrete your internet usage behaviour is when you're online: the 'disclosure' element is poorly understood. For example Yahoo! actually own Flickr, and the data from this is pooled. Yahoo! also own a company called Right Media, which supports advertising across 2,000 or more individual websites, and the data on these is also pooled. Google own Blogger (the world's largest blog site), Youtube, GMail and Picasa photo site. That's around 20% of online activity. They also own Doubleclick, which provides data collection across a million plus websites every month. The data from that is also pooled. With things like Streetview, Google are also taking photos of your house and putting them online along with the address. Here you don't even have an opt-in. They're just doing it. That's commercial organisations for you. Perhaps the ID card for example should be sold as a solution for the 800 million quid stolen from our tax fund every year by benefit fraud. That seems more appealing than 20 clubcard points.

Good for you beaver for raising your head and letting us know what it's like to be on the other side of the Oystercard reader! Shocking behaviour from a beneficiary of the driver's help. Shame on them, and I hope the DNA shows him/her up.

The only thing I can't rationalise is that the public seems quite happy to hand over all of it's data to non-democratic commercial organisations without batting an eyelid. The big search engines and email companies routinely examine and share data such as search habits and email content for advertising purposes, and to influence your behaviour online. I don't see anyone dropping Google, Yahoo! or Facebook to protest this? Major stores routinely match our shopping habits with our personal profiles and credit ratings to send us direct mail promoting various goods and services, but I don't see anyone boycotting Tesco or their Clubcard in protest. The Oystercard even records our journeys and our destinations with our age and gender. If people were as worried about fascist dictatorships as all that, then why don't they see these non-demoncratic organisations as a greater threat? Incidentally, Ben Goldacre does a great job here about demonstrating why mass email content modelling is a mathematically pointless exercise.

Halls of residence?

Sue, I think to get the money committed they need to start it before the end of the financial year, but not necessarily complete it. As a result London always gets this huge rash of holes dug in roads from late February to March - where no-one's fixing them because they're too busy starting more holes elsewhere.

Bah! Disenfranchised and disempowered, anyone else fancy a rumble? Brendan, can we embroil ourslevs in a debate about eucalyptus leaves and lemon juice?

Seconded

There, you see. Like a cultural whale you're hooting your love across five hundred miles. Or 8,500. Neverthless, your twenty quid is an investment, you should consider it as such. Do you have any oil?

Yarp, no cameras linked to the machine.

Oh Fizz. That'll be the reductionism I referred to. It makes you a king amongst men TM, a King.

Ah, TM, maybe you're right. Perhaps British culture is not defined by its product, but by its process, its method. It's shared across the border - not the music, the architecture or the language (the consequence) - but the facetious belief that we will pursue rational solutions and be trustworthy. Was this the great loss to Hollywood? Surrounded by cellulose idiots we lost our faith in our neighbours? British culture is daunting, not Scottish, Welsh or English, but our approach to enormous political and social travesties (Prima Notte anyone?) and our desire to solve them amicably for the long term.

Is not the original influence apparent... Secular but ambitious? Idealistic but reductionist? Independent but cohesive? Creative but dismissive? Blair rocked the boat becuase he tempted the British people with rousing dynamic concepts that celebrated the positives without the traditional Brit balance. The Brits felt that they had been teased by their desires but hadn't tempered it with their clunky traditional anchors. We'd tossed out dismissive, cohesive, reductionism to the wind of greater glory. We got our c*ck out in the pub and thought the world was laughing with us, not at our expense. This is British culture, gained at the expense of our colonies. The rest is just ephemeral waft.

Culture as a pervasive stylistic and intellectual influence?