uziq
Member
+492|3619
not sure how you can say stalin and mao were 'frustrated artists'.

mao wrote some poetry for entertainment, in a highly print-based era and in an overwhelmingly scholarly confucian culture without televisual media or even radio entertainment. you know, your grandparents probably wrote some light verse for amusement when they were youngsters, too. it doesn't make them 'frustrated artists' with a lifelong chip on their shoulder about their thwarted artistic ambitions.

stalin trained at a seminary and wanted to go into religious orders. again, not exactly noteworthy or a standout personality trait for the time, it being a typical route of education and advancement in a serf-based feudal order. the church or formal education, normally of a theological or philosophical bent, were the normal ways for rubes from georgia to 'get on' in imperia russia. evidently he didn't have a sincere or earnest calling to his faith, as he went on to become a mass-murderer presiding over an atheistic nightmare state. he famously said that 'artists are the engineers of the soul', a comment that speaks as much of his high-esteem for, you know, the vast engineering projects that typified the soviet union as it says for his views on art.

what can be said generally about historical figures from the late-19th or early 20th centuries is that the arts, plural s, as well as crafts were more present and ubiquitous in all aspects of life. people dabbled. popular arts and folk arts were still relevant. amateurism was the order of the day in the 19th century. people had artistic hobbies rather than watching tv at home after work. it doesn't make your average weekend dauber or lyical dabbler a 'frustrated artist seeking to wreak his vengeance on the world'.

what all of those people have in common in megalomania. that's not exclusive to the arts. you don't have to look very far to find megalomaniac scientists, megalomaniac military men with no time for arts, megalomaniac financiers, etc.

you really are a hopeless dweeb. worse, you haven't grown or matured a bit in evidently about 25 years. you are not your undergraduate discipline. let the imperial tribalisms go. you can't give the art school kids down the road with their trendy trousers their comeuppance anymore. it's not the 1980s. everyone has moved on. except you.

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-02 05:37:44)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3887

Dilbert_X wrote:

80% Of Govt are pond-life from the same isolated ankle-deep pool, lets try fishing somewhere else.

Not frustrated artists though, we've had that discussion.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/assets/news_crops/89208/eight_col_Hitler-Stalin-Mao.jpg?1570493206

What is with these guys and their outfits and symbolism?
They all like shirts with chest pockets. Hitler and Stalin were both pedophiles who also had lovers who killed themselves.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3619
here's some examples of unfrustrated artists, as it were.

https://www.beachamjournal.com/.a/6a01053653b3c7970b0263e9834bb3200b-800wi

https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/411913/774517/main-image

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Goethe_%28Stieler_1828%29.jpg/1200px-Goethe_%28Stieler_1828%29.jpg

a frightening pattern!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6273|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

here's some examples of unfrustrated artists, as it were.

https://www.beachamjournal.com/.a/6a01053653b3c7970b0263e9834bb3200b-800wi

https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/411913/774517/main-image

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Goethe_%28Stieler_1828%29.jpg/1200px-Goethe_%28Stieler_1828%29.jpg

a frightening pattern!
None of whom were elected to run a country though.
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+492|3619
goethe was literally the guiding figure of the entire european enlightenment and was pretty key to it’s history and politics. wow you are dumb. read a book.

of all your fatuous arguments, ‘people with arts degrees are the problem with politics’ is really way down there. you know you have a robust argument when you have to talk about hitler and stalin. it’s a sign that someone is a bona fide historical expert when all of their prattling opinions seem to involve ww2.

you’re literally beyond parody.

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-02 23:08:36)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6939|PNW

Dilbert's familiarity stretches beyond WW2. He is very proud of knowing who Isildur is. Maybe if it were something only vaguely mentioned in the Silmarillion that he could recall off the top of his head. Or even Tom Bombadil, something skipped out on in the Jackson movies.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/505/017/4fa.jpg
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6273|eXtreme to the maX
The only thing I can remember about The Silmarillion was wondering "why the fuck did I persevere with that?" having got bored about 1/3rd of the way through.
Fuck Israel
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3887
I never liked Lord of the rings. Star Wars was good once.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6939|PNW

*lord of the spring
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+796|6852|United States of America
You could always watch the 1978 Lord of the Rings if you think the older versions were good.

https://i.imgur.com/De7BnAn.jpeg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6939|PNW

I wish they'd gotten to finish Rotoscope Rings. It had its moments.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6273|eXtreme to the maX
I give Johnson until Friday, I'm confident he will be voted out.

Not sure the UK is ready for Richy Rich Sunak - and its just been leaked that he was photographed at the same parties as Johnson.
And apparently some of the photos were taken by the taxpayer funded official photographer, so they're coming out one way or another.

The jockeying has already begun.

https://mobile.twitter.com/borisjohnson … 2702810112
Fuck Israel
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6273|eXtreme to the maX
Man who gets paid GBP600,000/yr tells people not to ask for more money.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60252340
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+492|3619
staggered and ashamed it’s taking this long tbh.

the tory party have gone full trumpian. nothing makes this more clear than this sad, sorry debacle.

like the capitol insurrection and election overturn efforts this is clearly lawbreaking and deviousness at the very highest level of the executive. and yet the party machines are still clunking into place out of blind obedience and electoral calculating.

johnson’s rhetoric and performance is full trump too. when the highly redacted ‘update’ was published, even though it laid out in short prose that a toddler could parse that there were no fewer than 16 separate incidents and serious failures of leadership, johnson stood at the despatch box and told his critics that black was white and the report said nothing whatsoever had implicated him or been his fault. it just beggars belief. whether he thinks everyone around him, and ultimately the british public, are so thick as to not be able to read a public document … nope, just keep reiterating the soundbites. keep repeating the same empty points until it is suddenly minted as true (reminds me of you with covid).

the bizarre spectacle of seeing him double-down and reply to kier starmer’s questions by slandering him over the savile scandal is just trump 101. what a horrendous way to misread the room.

just astonishing really.

i don’t believe for a second that his private office is actually melting down with all these resignations. it’s carefully managed political theatre on his part. the idea that his very closest campaign assistants and deputies, some of whom have worked with him for near-on 15 years, are only now realising that he’s a narcissistic lying sociopath, is really just beyond credibility. they want to give the idea he’s in peril and at his last hour but it’s very much a choreographed changing of the guard there. johnson knows that the average voter doesn’t give an actual damn about courtier politics and special advisers, especially in the midst of a giant cost-of-living crisis. all these ‘high-profile’ resignations only have a profile in the politico and media bubbles.

let’s hope the tory party actually manages to see through all this bullshit and regain its senses. if it ever had any. the modern party has been just as thoroughly corrupted by russian money and bedevilled by cranks, misinformation and populist rabble rousers as our american counterparts.

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-05 00:44:59)

uziq
Member
+492|3619

Dilbert_X wrote:

Man who gets paid GBP600,000/yr tells people not to ask for more money.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60252340
another insane story from Normal Island.

the energy cap has been raised, crippling most working families with an additional £700+ of annual energy bills. that’s not small change for the vast majority of britons, especially after the last decade of wage stagnation and austerity under the tories.

in the same week as the energy crisis deepens, Shell announce record profits.

meanwhile in france their response to the same circumstances is to bring in a new windfall tax on the major energy companies.

we instead have a billionaire chancellor offering fucked working people a ‘£200 loan’ to help pay for their +£700 bill hike. genius.

ironically british people and the right-wing media have been getting into fits of rage over environmental activist groups who were blocking roads and doing their usual thing all winter. their cause? a very modest one: to insulate britain and upgrade her housing stock to obviate the need for winter gas consumption. you really couldn’t make this shit up.

the same chancellor and bank of england who just pumped hundreds of billions into the economy, mostly to bail out already rich industries and to write endless fraudulent cheques for their mates (now handily written off with little attempts to recover it) … are telling working people not to ask for wage raises because runaway inflation is of course their fault. they’re spending too much on sweets from the morrisons fresh bakery section and driving the consumer price index haywire.

£30 billion on a hastily arranged insider-appointed track & trace system that did nothing. £9 billion wasted on PPE gear for 'fast-track' contracts also divvied out amongst their mates and close networks. £4 billion of outright fraud written off by HMRC/the cabinet office; just openly giving away the money and letting a lot of newly minted millionaires disappear to their new parcels of property in the turks and caicos islands. but working people have to turn down raises and find another 10-15% to pay on the national insurance bill ... because the NHS needs help, you see. yes, that NHS that was going to get an extra £350 million a week thanks to brexit. the fucking government just wasted the equivalent of the entire annual takings from national insurance on PPE/covid fraud alone.

meanwhile the cabinet office are busy producing whitepapers on ‘levelling up britain’, except without spending any money or making any real major investments. all the promised money from brexit hasn’t appeared, and current analysis seems to suggest that the tory party’s pattern of investments swings heavily towards already rich constituencies in the south, no doubt where all their donors and property developer mates live. we’re going to level up the north with vibes only, apparently. what they needed all along was a better attitude, not things like rail and bus investments. some think tank prat just today released a report saying britain needs now to emulate ‘renaissance florence’. answers on a fucking postcard …

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-05 04:32:55)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6273|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

i don’t believe for a second that his private office is actually melting down with all these resignations. it’s carefully managed political theatre on his part. the idea that his very closest campaign assistants and deputies, some of whom have worked with him for near-on 15 years, are only now realising that he’s a narcissistic lying sociopath, is really just beyond credibility. they want to give the idea he’s in peril and at his last hour but it’s very much a choreographed changing of the guard there. johnson knows that the average voter doesn’t give an actual damn about courtier politics and special advisers, especially in the midst of a giant cost-of-living crisis. all these ‘high-profile’ resignations only have a profile in the politico and media bubbles.
They're saving their own skins and lining themselves up for a nice job when the next person is in.

None of these people had anything to say when Johnson slandered the IICSA, they haven't just discovered he's a great steaming turd.

Britain is well into failed state territory at this point. What next, govt ministers flying to Luxembourg with suitcases full of cash?
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+492|3619
you can look squarely to populism, little englander'ism, and empire nostalgia for that.

if britain accepted it was a second-tier small island nation now, divested of empire and with a new and dynamic polity/economy to tap into, we could all be quite happy on, say, a northern european socialist democratic footing. i would be quite happy to live in denmark-on-thames for the rest of my life.

instead we still want to kid ourselves we can set the global security/defense agenda with the USA/china; we want to kid ourselves that the phantom wealth and speculative hoodoo traded in london is an exchange for a real booming economy; and we think because we launder the money from the criminal corporate enterprises of major banks/corporations, russian oligarchs, saudi princelings, etc, that we are genuinely swimming with the big fish, rather than just the slimy oleaginous yes-men and fishwives that we actually are.

the UK should focus on transitioning to a green economy and pumping up the north with suitable infrastructure/industry plant projects to that end. the UK should renationalise a bunch of its public services and admit that, in contrast to europe, our neoliberal experiment failed miserably. it's currently 2.5x the price to travel from london to scotland by train than via a fucking car. the energy rate is set at the most expensive unit rather than the state-mandated average cost price, as in france. our water utilities companies are almost majority owned by chinese conglomerates. our train fares subsidize the (cheap) dutch rail system due to similar ownership shares. just beyond barmy. who could have predicted that selling off our public service monopolies to vast foreign corporations wouldn't end up in cheaper, better service and instead give us extortionate costs with a generalized four-decade lack of investment? i am shocked.

instead we're a financial services outfit in the costume of a post-imperial country, doing the dodgy accountancy for global capitalism's worst and sending aircraft carriers and diplomats to the russian and chinese borders.

sad! and it's only the old fogeys who are holding onto this vision, fearful of the outside world and weirdly defensive over britain. young people are fine with modest UK.

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-05 04:37:52)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6273|eXtreme to the maX
^ That all sounds great but how does it benefit the wealthy?

Britain has been run by plutocrats since forever. This bunch have figured out that populism works for them at the present time.
If it didn't they wouldn't give the plebs a second glance.

Don't worry, it will get worse before it gets better.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-c … 07771.html

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2022-02-06 00:43:53)

Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+492|3619
rees-mogg appointed ‘minister for brexit opportunity’ in a cabinet reshuffle, aimed to send the message that boris is cleaning out the stables.

rees-mogg, presumably the same guy who owns an offshored, untaxed hedge fund which has been paying him millions a year since the brexit debacle as he hedges against britain’s economic demise.

the guy who rushed to move his registrations and paperwork to ireland as soon as he had a chance following brexit.

it gets better.

his first act as minister? to take out a full page advert in the Sun, tabloid of choice for hateful illiterate plebs, to ask for ‘reader’s suggestions’ about which EU-era policies and regulations to junk. yes, that’s right: the cabinet are now doing a round-robin for new thinking on brexit.

this has been tried before, which makes it even funnier. a london radio host kept asking brexit-raving callers to name some specific EU policies that had affected them. j don’t think a single one was ever successfully mooted.

staggeringly incompetent. populism conducted by self-enriching millionaires.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6273|eXtreme to the maX
Someone wheeled out John Major, so funny to think that people used to profess to care about form or what you could and couldn't do.

Maybe a Russian oligarch will buy up the conservative party and be the next PM, or Rishi Sunak, best of luck chaps.
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+492|3619
the cabinet is exclusively made-up of creeps and weirdos now, sycophants hanging on to the furry underbelly of johnson for all they've got. a huge collective demonstration of the peter principle, of people promoted way beyond their depth and without any qualifications for their portfolios.

we have a culture minister, nadine dorries, who is hell incarnate. a total harpie.



she's either medicated up to the hilt, a daytime lush, or suffering from some advanced neurodegenerative disorder.

the last 2-3 culture ministers the tories have appointed have been culture-free zones.

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-10 05:40:38)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3887
Saw a quote from Putin's recent speech that was critical of Lenin. Putin said it was a mistake for Lenin to make communist Russia into a federation of Soviet Republics. Is this Russia's version of 'historical abuse'?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3887
The Russians did it. They are invading Ukraine.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6273|eXtreme to the maX
UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Tsar Nicholas I on Wednesday, adding that British forces “kicked the backside” of the former Russian leader during the Crimean War in the 1850s and “can always do it again.”
Well thank god we have history buffs running the show, we can't lose.
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+492|3619
did you watch the actual clip? it’s quite clearly a bit of ‘professionals’ regiment banter between a minister who fancies himself a wit and a few soldiers.

way to blow it out of context.

ben wallace is a graduate of sandhurst military academy. not an oxford history graduate. he is officer-class military. making jokes about military history and the fucking tsarist era is something the inbred military haw haw’ers would do. 

must you be so committed to making everything into the most fucking asinine argument ever? “a career military man made a joke about military history. we have far too many useless history and humanities grads in power”.

aren’t you the only person here who actually reads bone-dry fucking military history? lmao.

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-24 00:39:32)

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