Dorethy, I would very much like to believe that your comments about bye, bye clive, etc was not against me but rather against some other members who have taken a healthy debate to an undeserved low level by mounting personal attacks on me. Such attacks are not objective but sadly subjective.
If I have missunderstood your intentions then I appologise completely.
Yes, quite possibly Dorothy but it wasn't very clear to me.
Yes Cate, I would have liked you to read my post carefully - you are 100% right. Had you done so you would not be making such insidious remarks and we may well have moved on to talk about lighter swubjects instead of trying to defend your very personal attacks on my character. There is no meat on the bone of your arguements - just insults.
Cate - The point I am trying to make is clearly beyond your comprehension. Perhaps I should put it in baby talk for you....a,bbbb,cccc.
Interestingly and according to the website stats 935 people have viewed this article with just 6 kicking up and trying to put words into my mouth that I never used. It seems to me that the DM has a lot to answer for in Adult reading standards.
Thank you Cate.
PS - please put the first two words on file, just to show I DO know them ;-)
yes before you all shout out that I should have said "sticks and stones" not "sticks and bones".
Some people are just resorting to name calling now and making up stupid little rhymes - how childish and school-like. Just remember "sticks and bones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".
As Ley so correctly put it in his post. Thank you Ley and of course these people are guilty of mass-hysteria and their conduct only goes further to prove my point about the hated that is being generated out there by the Cameron government and it's chief ally the DM. There wiull be ropes hanging from, every tree with nooses in them if such people get their way.
If only people would read that which is written rather than that which is in their own minds.
Dorothy - your post must qualify for the most childish of the year.
I am really shocked by the responses to Clive's original post. It seems not one person has responded to the actual content or meaning in the post but rather mass-hysterically pounced upon one part that they didn't approve of. It feels very dangerous and rather apt to what Clive was hinting at in his post, to gang together and to deny the point a n other is trying to make because you don't like the way he is making it. Feels a bit fascist to me. Maybe I am naive as I am fairly new and inexperienced on this site but this has felt tasteless in the extreme. I am nervous to post my view or take part in future ones, lest the harpies come a-circling.
I am a civil servant, I get an allowance on top of my salary because I have dependent children. It isn't very much, about 20 euros a month or slightly less, but as my salary is paid by the taxpayer (which includes me and probably you!) I still have to justify it every year. It doesn't seem that much of a big deal, proving you are entitled to something, really. Tedious having to do it, but hardly a big deal. We are all tax-payers & I don't have a problem justifying I'm not ripping US off.
With reference to your photo and comments thereon, no, you do not understand what you are talking about when you compare a request to confirm you are still alive with the Jewish question and its solution in Nazi Germany. That is just a cloud cuckoo fantasy. You also seem to think people are ganging up on you ; all they are doing is pointing out how silly your comments are.
You ask if we have read the Daily Mail recently. What would possess me to do that ? I live in France, not Great Britain. I am more interested in what is going off here. The French television carries excellent news services and their national papers are of a better journalistic quality than the English based papers.
Time to show my credentials before I am really accused of something nasty. The little guy in the centre of the picture is a very dear friend of mine from the past. I am the idiot standing on his right side wearing a spotted blue tie. On my right is his new wife who he married when they were both 83. They met at Leicester University where they were both studying. Eric Lewinsohn (my friend) passed his MA in German Political History. When he was 81, he told me the terrible story of his Jewish parents deaths in a Nazi Concentration Camp and how it was his dying wish to get an MA in German Political History in memory of them. He tod me he felt guilty because as a young lad he had been smuggled out of Germany before the roundup started. He was haunted by the thoughts of what he could imagine.
Eric was still teaching part time in a local college and couldn't affford the university fees. It was my honour and priviledge to sponsor him and to share a great feeling of pride this man had in making it through. I have never gone public on this somewhat private matter but having been abused by so many on here today and quite wrongfully, I decided to talk about it. I shared this man's grief with him at times and so I do know what it was all about.
Clive, you are a polemicist. As with all of them you are never, can never be wrong. Therefore you dismiss the opinions and feelings of all people responding here who find your way of expressing yourself wrong.
Well, my humble little opinion is that you have lost a number of erstwhile supporters on SFN by use of polemics that are considered offensive. That is by no means the way to win an otherwise justifiable battle.
Good evening Brian Milne- sounds like your glasses are steamed up a bit tonight too! I did not compare the issuing of a form to expat pensioners only (as opposed to all penioners) with the brutal slaughter of over 6 million innocent people. The point I was trying to make but everyone is busy jumping to the wrong conclusion is this. When the jewish people were made to wear the yellow star of David with the German word "Jude" emblazoned in the middle of it, it could have appeared harmless physically but nonetheless hate filled. These poor people were not aware at the time of what was really to come. However, they were aware of the hatred being spat out by the government run by Hitler and "enjoyed" and "glorified" by the followers of that government . This is where my likening of the continual harrassment of expat pensioners by this British government, lapped up by sleezy newspapers and repeated even here in this ongoing debate by the general public; was made. The comparison began and ended there. Some people on here are deliberately distorting what I said e.g "When I think of all the expats who are going to suffer this xmas because the malevolent government is out to strip them of their right to drink a decent sauterne with their foie gras my heart bleeds" Could have come straight from the DM or IDS's lips but again showing a disdain of expat pensioners akin to the teachings of MAC. The comment beggars belief.
And : -
"....you seem to believe it is reasonable to make a comparison between some bloke on the Costa Brava who has to put on an extra sweater because the evil government won't give him 200 quid to pay for his heating (boo hoo) or for trying to force him to fill in a simple form (how aweful!), and a catagory of people who were stigmatized, persecuted and ultimately subjected to genocide simply because they belonged to a particulart religion".
I Certainly do not believe that such a comparison is reasonable and you should not make it!r comment You, it seems are more interested in what you want to believe I said rather than what I actually did say. Perhaps you should read things properly before jumping in with the lynch mob.
Some of the vitriolic comments on here based on a 'guilty without trial' basis go to the very heart of my arguement. Even decent people are becoming angry at the mere mention of the 'expat pensioner'. The government has worked wonders with its propaganda and its encouragement of the politics of envy.
News Flash… I agree with Brian! Going into a dark room now to have a look at myself.
Clive, I find the comparison with Nazi Germany and use of the Judenstern offensive. Your bit of history below is rather imprecise when and if you bother to read Mein Kampf you will find it was to do with Hitler's disdain for intellectuals and the likes of bankers. He believed there were too many who were Jews, etc... ridiculous reasoning but not to do with religion in any way. I too may have called the present government's actions fascist, but going as far as a Judenstern comparison, now way!
Lib - Your're not Ian Duncan Smith in disguise are you?
Lib is that picture of you all dark because you have the blackout curtains up or is it because you dont have a camera?
Yes Keith- Good pun!
Lib - Spoken like a true dictator. Why should I or anyone else take orders from you? And you are?