Article on Montauban publicity combat ............

[powerdesal]

[quote user="Paysages de France"]"It was a joy to live there" - but only a small minority were allowed to vote or govern!!!!!

Doris Lessing, Britain's best woman writer, was born and raised in S Rhodesia. Her many books on the country paint a telling picture of the arrogant, cruel and superior ways of the minority white rulers.

 She was a card carrying communist briefly (as were many others at the time), and she's spent the last fifty years denouncing the communist party and the USSR. (up to the demise of communism in that country)

.  Never, has she gone back on her appraisal of the white minority rulers in S Rhodesia, however.

[/quote]

Doris Lessing, Britain's best woman writer

A personal opinion, not necessarily shared by others.

She was a card carrying communist briefly, so does that give her more or less credence?

Never, has she gone back on her appraisal of the white minority rulers in S Rhodesia, however.

She is of course entitled to her own opinion, as are you, as am I.

I have said it as I experienced it, on the ground, in person.

As I said earlier, the white people in Rhodesia were as much Rhodesians as the black people, but because of the colour of their skins they have been and continue to be vilified. If thats not racialist, what is??????????

[cooperlola]

Sadly, this argument has become horribly polarised because of the way in which Mugabe has r*ped his own country.  No, it was not perfect before.  Apartheid is and was evil and thank goodness is in the process of being stamped out, slowly, worldwide, although other horrors appear in its place.  Because Mugabe is mad/evil/greedy/a megolomaniac (whatever you believe) it does not make the old regime good in any way - better for some, possibly the majority, in terms of their prosperity and freedoms - but not right in any way, shape or form.  The fact that the country is worse off now than it was, does not justify the system as it existed before.

[powerdesal]

As the topic of this thread has been hijacked ( by me I must admit) I think it should revert to its original format.

[cooperlola]

Agreed.  Where's PdF when you need him/her?

[TreizeVents]

[quote user="Russethouse"]

I would suggest to you that neither you or PdF came to your conclusions overnight, you took time. I don't think its unreasonable of me personally, or as a moderator to ask for some answers to some basic questions, most people respect a different view if it is well thought out and explained, I'm trying to encourage PdF to go back to basics a little and explain his ideas, not bombard us with his dislike of the advertising industry and the ills of the present system only. So far PdFhas met what I would term a mixed response to his ideas on three seperate forums, whatever he is doing isn't gaining him any/many supporters..........just perhaps, if he took a deep breath and broke his argument down in to baby steps to begin with maybe he would find that he did have some support after all, at least for parts of his idea.

That aside, it doesn't answer the question I posed. How do we feed the current population with locally produced, better quailty food when many of the producers have made a lifestyle choice to limit their output ? Are you hoping that more people would become interested in agriculture ? What happens in cities? Have we actually gone past a point where this was viable - and if not how could it be achieved. Is it being achieved anywhere within the wealthier nations?

[/quote]

Breaking it down into baby steps.  A sensible request.  The

problem with that is obvious.  Any of us on the forum who have been

teachers of anything can easily spot it.  On this board one would have no

idea where to start.  That is, each of us are such complex individuals,

with such complex and sometimes long histories and experiences, where would you

cut into the whole problem.  Because it is not just that the billboards

are illegal or ugly.  You gotta admit they are ugly, I think.  No one

drives or walks many K to view a billboard for its beauty.  They are part

of an entire system that comes quickly under examination when you start to

look.  OK, you might say that's obvious, everything is connected.  I

would agree.  Yet there are decent people on the forum, who would like to

keep bill boards because they help them locate services from high speed

autoroutes in towns they don't know.  That's why they like them. 

There are others who also share a sneaking suspicion that advertising has gone

too far.  They might be football supporters who have seen the stadium, the

cup competitions, the jerseys, salaries, team loyalties, the scheduling, etc

change before the onslaught of the advertising/media pressures.  Yet some

footie freaks think this is fine and some think it is awful.  Cycling fans

might find the increasing coverage of space on the garments of the riders (they

have, for a few years now, put adverts on their buttock area, an opportunity

for one line humorists to reply!) is going too far, no part of the body is

exempt.  Some accept capitalism as the only alternative possible. 

Others suspect it might have a flaw or two.  Some even share PdF's and my

antipathy toward it.  A wild few think there even could be an alternative,

but most see no other possibility.  Others go no further than declaring,

with triumphant words and a following "well then", that PdF or me or

some other critic of capitalism actually use and benefit from "the

system".  Like we go shopping in supermarkets of drive a car, or take

a train or watch TV. How they think anyone can escape is not clear.  Are

you beginning to get lost?  Or confused?  Imagine PdF faced with

people demanding "baby steps", logical and coherent explanation,

answers and solutions for everything.  So exactly where does he

start?  In relation to which people on the forum.  You can see the

problem.  And of course, some people are just trying to wind him up or

shut him up or just make him go away so they can think and act like they always

have.

Its no good when someone says "So what's your solution for the Third

World", for example.  I mean really, the entire world, each of us in

our own way, knows full well there are problems in the Third World. 

People who live there.  People who HAVE lived there.  People who have

been holiday.  People who have read books or watched TV.  And people

on this forum, somehow think that if PdF can't answer that question, himself,

on this forum, in less than 500 words, that he is an ignorant jerk or his

"programme" is incomplete.  Goodness, he just runs a Mexican restaurant

and is from Biggin Hill, how can he have all the answers?  What utter

arrogance for anyone to even demand that.  Same goes for some of the other

questions.  Like "How will the whole world be fed if we have only

local producers tomorrow in France?".  Well, the answer is obvious.

It won't be put in place tomorrow, and if it did many more people would starve

within a few weeks.  You can't just alter a complex system drastically in

a few months.  So we all knew that.  The real question might be how

is it that certain possible answers, like local production of food in the poor

countries, and here, are not really funded, given R and D money, encouraged and

are generally not presented as realistic solutions.  This local production

by smaller, more labour intensive, local producing units is not a stupid idea

at all.  Instead subsidised BIG French agricultural production ruins

markets and production locally in nearly every country it touches.  This

outcome by now is quite well known, and needs no more details in this three

paragraph piece, although they can be provided.  And the last point is

that people on the forum don't seem to really do their homework.  They

don't go off and read a bit more than what PdF can produce in a few minutes of

typing.  People who were really interested in an alternative would do

that, and then maybe make comments based on what they read.  You really do

have to study it, not rely on one Brit immigrant who has to make tortillas as

well.  And spend time doing the billboard actions too.  I get the

impression that some of the people on the forum just ask lists of huge

questions and mock PdF for not answering them, are just trying to avoid

thinking.  They don't really want to know.  OK, forums are for fun,

and chopping someone up is fun for some.  I am probably too serious. 

I should just laugh and enjoy life by forgetting about these problems. 

Yeah, well .. there is more to life than "fun".  For me.

So in my mind, from reading the posts, there are two problems.  One is

that we are all quite complicated and you just can't find a universal starting

point.  Even for the same question (what to do about India and China, or

CO2), the way you begin to respond to the question depends on the person who is

asking.  You actually HAVE to know where they are coming from, what they

know, what they doubt.  The second is that most of the "critics"

of the critic are not the least interested in learning more.  They are

threatened by having to maybe look at their own lives and their own habitual

practices.  Most people, again obviously, don't want to do that.  We

like life to be pretty much like it was yesterday.  So they just attack

PdF, try to make him into a simpleton, a fanatic, an ill-mannered guy, basically

some kind of nutter.  Maybe he doesn't help by sometimes getting easily

exasperated (he seems to have got better lately, would you not agree?), but

looking at it from his point of view, its not hard to sympathise.  Surely

we can agree on that.  Who likes to get attacked by people who are being

closed-minded and disingenuous.  It would wind someone up and then they

might say less than carefully phrased things. 

In the end, none of us learn very much.  Which is a shame.  Because

on this sort of question, we have people on the forum who can learn from other

people on the forum.  And there are people on the forum who might find

that their doubts and questions might be amplified or answered.

By the way, I don't have any idea what you mean by "lifestyle

choices" being a problem.  A small producer cannot produce in the

same way as an industrial producer.  Similarly, without huge inputs of

fossil fuel, the current methods of production are not viable.  So the

change has to happen with shoppers AND producers AND distributors.  To put

it simply, in a sensible society, we simply are not going to be able to have

bananas, oranges, kiwi fruit, mange touts, and quite a few other foods, ALL THE

YEAR AROUND and cheaply.  That way of life is something we have to give up

eventually.  Obviously.   Mind you, most people on earth won't have

to give it up, they never had it.  So I always ask someone if they are

willing to give up all year round supplies of everything forever.  If they

say yes, they recognise something dumb about it, I talk.  If they say no,

I have a hunch I am wasting my words.  They want the world we have. The whole

point of the exercise is to make another world, because this one is not good

enough.  We deserve better.

[Paysages de France]

I wonder if I 'm the only one who read all of 13 vents last posting - if so it's a shame because he sums up pretty well what's been occurring here.

 And Russet House, please join a library or get hold of some  real  literature somehow  - Waitrose's 'in house magazine' isn't going to enlighten you very much on the pressing problems the world is facing!

   If you read French try 'Courrier Internationale' for the global view 'Politis' (more left wing) 'Charlie Hebdo'  (for the insolent viewpoint on current affairs) 'La Décroissance' (for obvious reasons!) and 'Liberation' as a daily paper .........

 As for the other  French mags  (Nouvel Obs, Le Point, L'express, Marianne etc) they are so full of glossy publicity that it's a sure bet that they won't raise any real questions or suggest any real remedies to the problems the planet is facing.

[Bugsy]

[quote user="Paysages de France"] And Russet House, please join a library or get hold of some  real  literature somehow  - Waitrose's 'in house magazine' isn't going to enlighten you very much on the pressing problems the world is facing!

   [/quote]

Do you know PdeF, I have really tried to understand where you're coming from and even try to help you. It seems to me that you are just a tired old individual, with probably no sex life, whose only buzz in life seems to be rude to people.

.................................... so why don't you just **** *** (Go away)

[Paysages de France]

Paysages de France wrote:

And Russet House, please join a library or get hold of some  real  literature somehow  - Waitrose's 'in house magazine' isn't going to enlighten you very much on the pressing problems the world is facing!

 And Bugbear 'came to the rescue' with:

 Do you know PdeF, I have really tried to understand where you're

coming from and even try to help you. It seems to me that you are just

a tired old individual, with probably no sex life, whose only buzz in

life seems to be rude to people.

.................................... so why don't you just **** *** (Go away)

  Well, there you go...........I've  never, ever, referred to anyone's sex life here or on any other forum, nor have I ever told anyone to **** ***  ('Go away' doesn't fit the asterisks by the way).

  So, who's being rude?

 

 

[cooperlola]

PdF I do read 13W's posts (and yes, I know that vent is French for wind, thank you - it's just shorthand) and I do find them absolutely fascinating.  I also read Russethouse's posts a lot and I know from other threads (which I have no doubt you ignore as they are not relevant to your cause) that she reads books - indeed she has recommended many.  Your own cause is in no way promoted by the insulting way in which you treat some of those who are your opponents here.  R/H has a tough job to do in that it is her role to edit posts so that they conform to the terms and conditions of this forum - which you sign up to every time you log in.  Making sweeping (and wrong) accusations about her is allienating you on here.  13W rarely does this which is why I like to read what he writes.  Your own posts, I largely ignore because you cannot make your point without resorting to insults.   If you believe that this is the way to have a proper debate about a serious matter then I am afraid you are not helping your own cause - you will allienate far more people than you convince.

[Paysages de France]

I read a lot of other threads .........one that came to my notice referred to 'Books and literature in France' ....ahh, that's interesting I thought  -but was very disappointed to find it completely empty!

 

 I started it off  by proposing Louis Ferdinand  Celine and  Albert Cohen as authors that should be read - but I don't suppose anyone has..as the thread  soon deteriorated into a quite banal exchange of views on the merits of the latest offering  from 'popular' authors as opposed to the more 'challenging' ones I was championing.

 

[powerdesal]

[quote user="Paysages de France"]I read a lot of other threads .........one that came to my notice referred to 'Books and literature in France' ....ahh, that's interesting I thought  -but was very disappointed to find it completely empty!

 

 I started it off  by proposing Louis Ferdinand  Celine and  Albert Cohen as authors that should be read - but I don't suppose anyone has..as the thread  soon deteriorated into a quite banal exchange of views on the merits of the latest offering  from 'popular' authors as opposed to the more 'challenging' ones I was championing.

 

[/quote]

PdF,

I have been a member of this forum for quite some time and I have never felt the urge to be insulting to someone.....until now. You really do come across as a totally self opinionated, superior, arrogant know it all. You give the over riding impression that you think everything you say must be the only acceptable opinion and anyone who disagrees with you is automatically wrong. Grow up.

[Paysages de France]

Someone even mentioned Peter Mayle on the thread 'Books and literature in France' - claiming he was  an author!

It's unbelievable how  many problems there are with 'fosse sceptics' .................

[Bugsy]

How to Win Friends & Influence People 
by Dale Carnegie

 

[Smiley]

[quote user="Paysages de France"]It's unbelievable how  many problems there are with 'fosse sceptics' .................


[/quote]

PdF, is this comment aimed at starting another debate so you can attack others in France who ask questions about subjects other than those on your personal agenda. :

http://www.french-news-forum.com/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=2652&start=1

With regards to Treize Vents posting I have read it fully and it makes for interesting reading. Very much to the point of how he feels. Also quite a realistic viewpoint.

I don't agree with all he says but at least he explains his view with a tone of sarcasm.

[Quillan]

I rather think this thread has run it's course now so I have locked it.

I think it's reasonable to assume that advertising boards and their location is not of any great interest to many members and to those that are interested you can always find further information on the subject by contacting PDF direct via PM or Email (buttons in the normal place at the bottom of all his posts).

Any further posts or threads on this subject will be deleted wthout warning. If you have an issue with this then contact Forum Admin using the following link " http://www.livingfrance.com/lvfra/content/contactUs.asp " .