h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've talked from direct experience that the Irish gypsies here stuffed into that horrible concrete reservation are a heck of a lot more pleasant to come to your door than all the pushy capitalist types trying to sell you their wares.

And like I said earlier I'd be more proud to live in a country that could accomodate their culture.

In French Guiana where I visited, a French colony strictly run according to French Law. The French were big enough to allow the indigenous Indians to live outside that Law and according to their own cultural Laws.

Britain has become a pygmy nation with a pygmy PM that only has the balls for playing to the gallery. (And yes I'm aware of the irony of using that metaphor.)

Do some research then Kea - I think you'll be shocked at the misogyny. Nearly 80% of traveller women are the victims of domestic abuse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/14/gypsies-travellers-domestic-abuse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/25/truth-about-gypsy-traveller-life-women

http://welshpaediatrics.org.uk/domestic-abuse-gypsy-and-traveller-community-cardiff


There may sometimes be very good reasons cultures die out.

>> At least *most* people here are talking from direct experience.

Really? Tell me how many Irish Travellers you know personally, and in what ways you know them, and what conversations you've had with them about this subject.

Like I said, I've accepted that there are people here who've had experiences of being around Irish Travellers, but I've not seen anyone yet talk about knowing them personally, esp not in a positive sense. That perspective is missing.



>>No different to the generalisations made here regularly about Americans and Israelis

Waaay worse. I only have to mention anything even remotely negative about USians and I'll either have fkf or Zagreb on my case and then a whole bunch of about how it's so wrong to hate Americans. In this thread we've had one person advocate genocide, and many other posts have just been full of prejudice - not about the actions of these people, but about the people themselves.

I know you speak similarly about muslims, and look where that got you

But there won't be stats for the maiming of people's psyches by this empty celebrity culture..that poisons everything including our countryside in the south east around London..and the main area for making money for the rest of Britain, thanks to Thatcher.

I don't know any personally. I'm just going on their behaviour when coming to my door to sell rugs and carpets as opposed to all the other sht coming here to sell religion or trying to manipulate me to switch utilities or selling Sky.

look at google maps street view of the site, then lets start this topic again????

Actually post 64 doesn't make much logical sense. But hopefully the gist is clear. And I'm too angry about all this. And lets face it this thread has been fairly distorted by people with a lot of hate against those people.

But I'm going to unsub again.

SWL, I think you are making a bunch of incorrect assumptions about what I think and believe here. There seems to be this idea that because I'm not agreeing with you I must think that the travellers are glorious. I don't.

I'm aware of the sexism and misogyny within traveller and gypsy cultures. That's not news to me at all. Think about it swl, I'm a feminist who's studied other cultures alot. Why would I not know this?

I also know, from direct experience and from study, that pretty much every time people start in with the judgements about cultures from the outside, that there are important perspectives being missed from the people themselves. It is such a common thing to happen that I'd say it's universal. And it always means bad things.


>>There may sometimes be very good reasons cultures die out.

And that's genocide. The only way you can kill culture is to kill the people.


btw, 1 in 4 women of your society have been raped or sexually assaulted. Can we kill off your society too then?

Post a link Taff

Effers, post 164 made sense to me

This post has been removed.

look

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=dale+farm+essex&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

I never said anything about killing travellers or their culture. Sometimes cultures die out because the world moves on. The lived experience as witnessed here and as evidenced by those Links tell us that there are real conflicts going on culturally, exacerbated by the large rise in specifically Irish travellers due to the Irish taking action against them.

OK, posting hidden eh? Let's see if we're allowed to respond in another way...

"I've accepted that there are people here who've had experiences of being around Irish Travellers"

I dispute that. Because you go on to say, IN THE SAME POST:

"many other posts have just been full of prejudice "

Newsflash: it's prejudice if it's a judgement you've made based on no evidence. If you make a judgement based on extensive evidence, that's not prejudice. That's just... judice. Or something.

"I've not seen anyone yet talk about knowing them personally"

You're talking about a notoriously insular culture with a (some might say justified) suspicion of outsiders. Also, you don't need to know people personally to judge them on their actions.

"That perspective is missing."

Says a woman sitting on literally the opposite side of the planet.

A woman who, I assume, has never spent hours filling bags with rubbish, including soiled nappies and piles of cans and bottles, left behind when a group of these people had illegally camped a couple of hundred metres from her home.

Don't you dare lecture on perspective.

>>I never said anything about killing travellers or their culture.

No, but Hoo did.


Tiggy, I yikesed your post because it was mean spirited towards me with intentional insults. I'm here for the debate, but I'm not interested in being treated meanly by you. Lots of people are really sick of h2 at the moment because there is so much personal nastiness going on.

I just wanted to be clear that it's not what you are arguing that led to the yikesing, it's about how you are relating with me.

">>I never said anything about killing travellers or their culture.

No, but Hoo did"

You'd better have a link to a post to back that up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F19585?thread=8271370&skip=0&show=20#p110143146

this post is going to be out of context *backlogue since this morning *gasp* and it's all fighty * I've not even tried to catch up

Anyway I've been thinking about the OP in terms of planning permission and about having somewhere to go



Where to go and what to do?

As it stands 17% of Gypsies and Travellers are on unauthorised camps, the majority of camps being on land owned by themselves. This can be resolved in two humane ways, either grant planning permission for the use of the land or find alternative sites that are mutually acceptable

Gaining planning permission is at best difficult, it is a complicated, long winded and fraught process and applications frequently fail.

So what about providing alternative sites, time and time again I am finding that there simply isn’t the provision there, for a multitude of reasons. In some cases there is the lack of will to provide, in others PP for public sites have been granted but there are not funds to develop the site for more settled dwellings or for those in transit, or provision has been inappropriate in terms of meeting needs of Gypsies or Travellers (keeping family units together, proximity to employment, type of site or housing)

In short I do not see that there is anywhere to go for those who are living or staying on unauthorised encampments.

Now that I’ve said that and I hate to take the words out of peoples mouths, but I am hearing ’ but at Dale Farm they have had 10 years to find somewhere to go,’ I look at differently, they have spent 10 years trying to find somewhere to stay and now they are being forced to go.

It will be harrowing, distressing and frightening for all those involved, but sadly that’ll be ok for too many observers of the situation because those (insert derogatory term) brought this upon themselves didn’t they? *does not spit because it is against the house rules *

kea - please be more careful. Twiggster used the quotes in the post he linked to for a reason. (the one to which you just linked) It came from the previous post, by swl who I think was also quoting the traveler, the one who had smashed her own windows.



I think the whole tone of this thread has been a dreadful example of people taking personal issues as being more important than actual discussion and of listening to each other's points of view.

"The only way you can kill culture is to kill the people."

Absolute garbage. Such easily demonstrable nonsense that it's almost, but not quite, rude to point it out, because it's so much like shooting particularly dim-witted fish in an undersized barrel.

There are numerous cultures around this country and the world that have been very, very effectively killed (or changed beyond all recognition, which for a culture is the same as killing_ by simply exposing them to a superior, desirable or simply more numerous alternative.

Nobody, for instance, has gone around killing people who speak Cornish, or Occitan. Nobody is actively "killing" that culture. If it dies, it will be through natural selection - through the people born into it preferring to identify with the majority culture, for whatever reason.

Suggesting that the only way to kill a culture is to kill its people is hysterical nonsense. Show them a better way to live, and people take it, every time. Bleeding heart do-gooders complain about seeing Masai tribesmen in Nike t-shirts, but there's a reason they adopt Western styles and crave a Western lifestyle - it's because it's *better* than grubbing in the dirt for food. Sod "tradition" and "culture", people want a more comfortable, safer, happier life. Sadly, there will likely always be parasites on that culture. But when you've an itch, there's nothing wrong with scratching it.

Reading comprehension FAIL.

THAT is your evidence that I "talked about killing travellers"?

Is it surprising that I'm insulting towards you? Good grief.

Just to make this absolutely, crystal clear and unambiguous:

1. Traveller woman smashes all the windows in HER OWN HOME because of "stress" that she's about to be evicted. She further, with almost comic hysteria, ludicrously asserts that "every time eviction is talked about, someone dies". This is something so doltish it's incredible the person to whom the quote was addressed didn't simply laugh in her face. There's overstatement, there's hyperbole, and then there's just being ridiculous, and this is well into the obviously ridiculous territory.

2. In an effort to point out how incredibly stupid this statement is, how very obviously simply false it is, how contemptibly she's trying to garner sympathy, I make the OBVIOUSLY joking suggestion that, on that basis, if we simply talk about eviction enough times, then every person on the site will die, thus removing the problem.

3. You, keafied, incredibly, take BOTH statements entirely seriously, and accuse me of advocating KILLING because I suggested TALKING ABOUT EVICTING PEOPLE.

And you wonder why I may be moved to insult you.