Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front line

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

Funny, your original post doesn't exactly suggest you're a future Mastermind winner yourself.

 

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

This thread probably shows why we shouldn't have "political" debate on this board. There's far too much sensationalism.

If you look at this programme in isolation, there's no doubt about it that these people are scum. They're not victims. Much as I might like it to be, this can't be blamed on Thatcher, Cameron or any other PM. These people could go out looking for work but they choose not to. The best they might be able to hope for is a job on a production line but they don't want to do this. They could live an honest life but they'd rather thieve and scrounge. Their choice. They deserve nothing but our contempt.

No one in their right mind would compare these people to the honest bloke who was made redundant six months ago and spends every day applying for anything he can. It's ludicrous to suggest otherwise. It's equally ludicrous to suggest these people don't exist. Not liking them doesn't make you right wing or lacking compassion for your fellow man. It just means you're sick of people taking out all their lives and never putting in.

We all know that the rich are feathering their nests at the expense of the honest people but this doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold the feckless in contempt. The two issues are not related. They may contribute to the same problem but it doesn't make one group better or worse than the other.

 

Re: Dek - I'm not a facist - far from it - just saying out loud what the vast majorit

Seriously I cannot watch programmes like that because I get mad, not at the people portrayed but by the TV companies taking on the Tory mantra to get folks in fighting - the most disgraceful TV.

 

Re: Dek - I'm not a facist - far from it - just saying out loud what the vast majorit

I feel the same when they show programmes about bankers excesses.

 

Re: Dek - I'm not a facist - far from it - just saying out loud what the vast majorit

But that kind of street isn't a new phenomena. They've been around for years. It's only with modern media bringing it to our rooms after a hard days work in times of financial hardship that there is such outrage caused.

 

Re: Dek - I'm not a facist - far from it - just saying out loud what the vast majorit

I'm sorry but TV and the BBC and Channel 4 in particular are overwhelmingly left-wing organisations who would never follow the Conservative agenda, have you ever actually seen Channel 4 news?

 

Re: Dek - I'm not a facist - far from it - just saying out loud what the vast majorit

Yes but back then they made "comedies" like Bread about them.

In RL they're not quite so loveable.

 

Re: Dek - I'm not a facist - far from it - just saying out loud what the vast majorit

Utter ******, ITV left wing ha ha, their journalism is appalling. BBC has that Nick fella as its Political editor, a Tory. Perhaps Channel 4 doesn't tow the Govt line and therefore is seen as left wing by fecking Tories.

 

Re: Dek - I'm not a facist - far from it - just saying out loud what the vast majorit

As Jeremy Clarkson said presenting Channel 4 news is easy, just put on a bright tie and read out The Guardian.

Channel 4 news is the most left-wing news programme on TV, even more than the BBC so i don't know what you've been watching.

 

Re: Watcher - I apologise for not agreeing with you - as you say I'm just a vile lovely person

pigeon with balsamic dressing,roast pheasant,aromatic duck,rabbit stew and rabbit pie,nowt wrong with these,in fact its nice to know that I'm eating straight from natures larder

 

Re: Watcher - I apologise for not agreeing with you - as you say I'm just a vile lovely person

I'm sure no-one on here would condone the actions of the people portrayed on the tv programme, but it would be nice to have a more balanced view of the problems in our society. As the quotes from Owen Jones suggest, there aren't many programmes about the evil, greedy members of the upper classes and yet there seems to have been a plethora of programmes recently showing the dregs of our society and how they live and behave. These shows are simplistic, easy to make and are just like the old Victorian freak show, appealing to the basest senses.

Of course criminality, drink and drug abuse and anti-social behaviour are present in our country, but what are we doing about it? Introducing the bedroom tax and slashing public services massively which went some way to try and deal with these problems? And letting the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is fact that in 1945 the top 1% of the population had about 17% of total wealth. That was gradually reduced between 1945 to 1979, when it about 6%. Thatcher came to power, introduced her economic policies and it has now in 2014 returned to the figure of approx 17-18%. Surely that's a bigger issue than the people portrayed on this programme...

 

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

The "feckless" were often good honest people too.

You can still condone them whilst appreciating that there are often plenty of reasons as to why people end up this way. Several generations of unemployment and few job prospects is bound to affect some people to the point where they just give up. Throw in alcohol abuse, drug abuse, mental health issues, poor schooling, depression, self esteem problems, parents who don't give a fu.ck - rinse and repeat and what chance do some people have?

And yes one group is clearly worse than the other - the rich have feathered their nests, put people on the scrapheap, removed jobs, sold companies and work abroad and closed down traditional industry - all to keep themselves well off at the expense of others. What in the name of the lord do you think has been happening in the last 25 years under Thatcher, Blair and now Cameron?

Many are interested in maintaining their profit margins and syphoning off the money into offshore tax havens. So of course they are worse. They could change lives and society for the better - but they are greedy feckless ****ers who are only in it for themselves.

 

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

Divide and Rule still works. If you're defending programmes like this, you're a traitor.

£1.2bn benefit fraud
£130bn in tax avoidance & evasion.

Yet the media constantly pick on the poorest in society.

Way to go.

 

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

Tax Havens

But that 'feckless ****er' in Brum? Yeah, let's make a programme about him instead. Some folk need a reality check.

"There's no money left - cuts are necessary" - f.ck that.

 

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

I don't see much goodness or honesty in the people in that programme. As I said, I would not like to hazard a guess as to the percentage these make up of the unemployed. I would think (hope) it's very small but to my mind even it's 1% then it's still too much.

As I said these people are not victims. They might have been brought up to be this way but that's the fault or choice of their parents - not of society.

The bankers argument is bonkers but it's not relevant. It's a massive problem but has no bearing on the lifestyle choices of these characters. That's why the in it together argument is a load of ********. These people aren't with you and never will be. Makes no sense to even try and defend them.

 

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

Straight over your head isnt it??

 

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

Let's say it is. Why don't you explain it to me.

 

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

When Channel 4 makes a documentary series about one of the poorest streets in Britain in 2013, you're no longer expecting (as you might have done in, say, 1983) a reflective and contextualised look at how people make lives for themselves in adverse circumstances.


Benefits Street, which started on Monday, goes much further than that. I've never seen a programme so obviously edited in order to generate Twitter posts. You can call a series anything you like – and at least Benefits Street, though inflammatory, isn't as crassly judgmental as the BBC's equivalent, Saints and Scroungers – but Channel 4 knows what it's doing here, and shows that it's quite happy to do the government's dirty work.


The series jettisons the long, commentary-free scenes of true observational filmmaking in favour of trailer-sized soundbites designed to circumvent real debate and instead generate a million variations on the phrase "prole scum", under the hashtag #benefitsstreet , which keeps flashing up.


The first episode introduces a number of residents of James Turner Street, a road of terraced houses in walking distance from Birmingham city centre, taking care to splice every scene in which someone looks happy with footage showing them to be nothing more than common scruffs who are off their rocker.


Dee, a likeable and level-headed mother, is pigeonholed from the moment she appears. She is not simply bringing up two children, the narrator tells us, but "bringing up two children on benefits". When Danny, a youngish recidivist, is talking about his litany of convictions, the Benefits Street hashtag flashes handily on screen. No opportunity to think or reflect; no chance to observe that Danny is perfectly aware of the petty stupidity of his life as it is now. Not a chance. Only instantaneous judgments are invited, in 140 characters or less.


A third of children in Birmingham live in poverty. As well as Winson Green, they live in places like Kingstanding, and Stechford, and Hockley – none of which the programme-makers are likely to have had heard of, given that they're poor without being edgy. In the words of geographer Danny Dorling, they're the kinds of places where, as streets and neighbourhoods become more polarised over time, "just to get by is extraordinary".


There's a wilful ignorance at play here; a casual blindness to the fact that the people living on James Turner Street lose any say they have in how they are portrayed as soon as Love Productions, the makers of Benefits Street, enter the editing suite. Some residents are said to feel betrayed yet the imbalance of power from the outset determined how their lives would be shown.


The imbalance of power from the outset determines how some people's lives will be shown. The sort of lives that make sense to TV producers – middle-class lives, the lives of people they know and associate with – are infinitely more likely to be shown in the whole and documented without judgment. The lives of people who rarely get to speak, in full, about their day-to-day experiences will be subject to a travesty of that whole. The blunt immediacy of TV only makes that imbalance of power more pronounced, with a disproportionate and detrimental impact on those without power.


Benefits Street is, in spirit, straight out of Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle: a sort of visual vomit-fest in which you can binge on images of things you purport to hate the sight of and then purge yourself on Twitter, venting empty outrage and then going back for more.


How I long for circumstances in which Channel 4, true to its original spirit, actually sets up home in Winson Green, asks people what they think a programme about their lives should show, and involves them in every aspect of its making. That would be difficult, wouldn't it? It would require communication, responsibility and an understanding that people who seem to be utterly unlike you are also human.

 

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

Thing is white dee was from all indications a very smart woman with a fundamental knowledge of benefit and housing law amongst many things

Mostly self taught.

She would be more of an asset to a number of charities as an advisor even more so than the loons employed by some organisations now.

The question has to be asked why doesn't she?

Oh and I very much doubt love productions and their team told her not to do washing up and sling half of primark around her room.

 

Re: Benefits street on ch 4 now - wither zombie coma or send them to afghan on front

Nail hit firmly on head, well done young sir, a very good and powerfull post, I wish I could write posts like that.