UKMT Summer 2020 - Two Pints of Saline and Abacavir for Drip

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Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Dave Graeber definitely has a relevant perspective on the current round of poo poo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6oOj7BzciA

e: 1790s, Britain begins the first organized otter hunts, which turn out to be bad.

Guavanaut fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Jun 28, 2020

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:02

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# ? May 27, 2024 18:06

gh0stpinballa: Mar 5, 2019

idk where else to post this but the 25th anniversary of the srebrenica massacre is approaching, and that plus us about to brexit i feel like there's discussion to be had about what "europe" actually is, what its purpose is, etc. does anyone know of any good articles, docs, etc exploring the relationship between the yugoslav wars, sectarianism and ethnic conflict in europe up to the present, and the role of the EU in the wars themselves, their relationship to the balkan states today, etc?

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:10

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Guavanaut posted:

Dave Graeber definitely has a relevant perspective on the current round of poo poo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6oOj7BzciA

e: 1790s, Britain begins the first organized otter hunts, which turn out to be bad.

I can't watch the last few minutes of Ring of Bright Water. Makes me sob.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:13

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

No but I like some of the tunes that go on games
Call of Duty had some good ones. (One of my nephews used to play that all the time when he was living at my mum's - his mum had died and my brother was homeless for a bit).

I like bangy 'classical' music sometimes which some of these tracks are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCVvhfyV5wQ

Are you perhaps familiar with a gentleman named Keiki Kobayashi?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML4Jx76vSTk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L2TsEp-Nxw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg5guTIUhZM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kVdCaczLE8

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:15

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

gh0stpinballa posted:

idk where else to post this but the 25th anniversary of the srebrenica massacre is approaching, and that plus us about to brexit i feel like there's discussion to be had about what "europe" actually is, what its purpose is, etc. does anyone know of any good articles, docs, etc exploring the relationship between the yugoslav wars, sectarianism and ethnic conflict in europe up to the present, and the role of the EU in the wars themselves, their relationship to the balkan states today, etc?

Well this is just one thing, don't know if it contributes to what you want: how the European Parliament pulled an exhibition on the massacre.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2018/07/11-lessons-srebrenica-genocide-unwelcome-brussels-180711151335396.html

quote:

An exhibit titled Genocide in Srebrenica: Eleven Lessons for the Future has opened in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, after it was turned away from its original event location in Brussels by certain members of the European Parliament (EP) for displaying "too many skulls and bones".

Exhibit organiser Hikmet Karcic, an author and genocide researcher from Sarajevo, told Al Jazeera that he had been in contact for a year with some members of the EP, who had agreed to host his exhibit in parliament on July 11, commemorating the 23rd anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide.

More than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in the worst atrocity on European soil since World War II.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:16

gh0stpinballa: Mar 5, 2019

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Well this is just one thing, don't know if it contributes to what you want: how the European Parliament pulled an exhibition on the massacre.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2018/07/11-lessons-srebrenica-genocide-unwelcome-brussels-180711151335396.html

yes, this is in the ballpark. i think as well as politicking, the EU is also still mightily embarrassed that the same year they were celebrating the end of history and all that, a genocidal series of wars kicked off in europe. and when they weren't indifferent, EU member states were busy arming their preferred clients and so on.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:21

gh0stpinballa: Mar 5, 2019

there is also the role islamophobia played too, we forget that a lot of european politicians still buy into talk of "christian europe" and all that. bosnia was/is seen as a country of outsiders in that regard.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:23

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

gh0stpinballa posted:

there is also the role islamophobia played too, we forget that a lot of european politicians still buy into talk of "christian europe" and all that. bosnia was/is seen as a country of outsiders in that regard.

Friend of mine who lives in Egypt is from Slovenia. She is a muslim and wears the long black abaya and headscarf (but doesn't cover her face). She said Slovenians are very anti-muslim and it's quite tough if, as she is, your interpretation of Islam is that she must cover to the extent that she does. (By no means do all muslims agree).

On the other hand she is a great supporter of Tito (She's early 40s so she would have been a small child at the time) on the grounds that 'everyone has a free house, free health and a good education and ok he killed 100000 people, but that was worth it and dictatorship is essentially of benefit. I did ask her if she would like to volunteer her kids to be in the 100000 but she didn't answer that.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:32

Jose: Jul 24, 2007; Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

we have none of those things and a minimum 180k dead

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:38

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Jose posted:

we have none of those things and a minimum 180k dead

On the other hand the population of Slovenia is about 2m. (I don't know what the pop of Yugoslavia was).

In 1987 population of Yugoslavia was 23.4m and that of the UK now is 66.65m so 100k of 23.4 m is equivalent to about 285k of UK now.

I'm surprised how small the Yugoslavia pop was.

Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Jun 28, 2020

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:41

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

gh0stpinballa posted:

yes, this is in the ballpark. i think as well as politicking, the EU is also still mightily embarrassed that the same year they were celebrating the end of history and all that, a genocidal series of wars kicked off in europe. and when they weren't indifferent, EU member states were busy arming their preferred clients and so on.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/13/white-christian-west-us-them-identity-christiantity-islam-we-are-not-who-we-think-we-are/

This article is essentially a review of this book https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/how-the-west-was-lost/

but it loads the pay wall screen too quickly to capture it - I skim read it through the right click 'view page source' option on google chrome - seems to cover things you mention.

Here are a couple of paras from the 'view page source' option:

quote:

As far as Ryan is concerned, Westerners themselves are to blame for it�because a critical mass of them no longer seem persuaded by the current formulations of what it means to be Western, and thus the West fails to be a convincing proposition altogether. Yet, as Ryan posits, there is a chance to rescue the West from its own travails�if only Westerners could construct a new myth to gather around as they move forward in the 21st century.

Ryan identifies the West as an intellectual space, rather than solely a geographical one. His model of what the West entails has three pillars: �the belief in a moral endpoint; the trio of republican values (liberty, equality, solidarity); and universalism.� Ryan correctly points out that all of these pillars are in crisis�and yet, the situation is, he argues, �not entirely hopeless.� The final section of the book, following Ryan�s take on what has happened to each of these pillars, is about identifying ways to rebuild and renew those pillars. For Ryan, rebuilding them is a necessity, because the Western model remains the best hope for a future world order that finds its root in virtue and morality.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:45

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/13/white-christian-west-us-them-identity-christiantity-islam-we-are-not-who-we-think-we-are/

This article is essentially a review of this book https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/how-the-west-was-lost/

but it loads the pay wall screen too quickly to capture it - I skim read it through the right click 'view page source' option on google chrome - seems to cover things you mention.

Here are a couple of paras from the 'view page source' option:

quote:

There is something strangely comforting about a community that seems preoccupied with the notion that it is in crisis. Throughout what is commonly known as the West, there has been a slew of books, articles, and public interventions calling attention to the notion of a cultural crisis within. Such a phenomenon ought to be followed by self-reflection, self-interrogation, and retrospection. By and large, however, the past decade has seen far more of the opposite: The alarm surrounding crisis has been more of a call for �us� to attack and problematize �them,� which invariably leads to propositions such as �conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board,� as Douglas Murray, a hardcore right-wing pundit, once argued�not to mention conspiracy theories that blame all the ills of the modern world on those who look different than �us,� meaning white Europeans, or, worse, pray differently than �we� do.

The West does, of course, face challenges in an age when movements of people happen far more quickly across vast distances than ever before; an age in which the notions of meaning and virtue are more contested; an age where technological advancements and their corresponding impacts on society develop more rapidly. All of that has understandable impacts on how communities and societies think of themselves and conceptualize their common bonds. The question is, how do societies address these challenges and find answers that are likely to heal the rifts that exist rather than exacerbate them on the altar of �saving ourselves,� when the notion of �ourselves� is a wholly mythical construct?

A new book by the British writer Ben Ryan, who worked until recently for the religion and politics-focused think tank Theos, seeks to tackle this question. His book, How the West Was Lost: The Decline of a Myth and the Search for New Stories, takes this distinctly Western anxiety and characterizes what many consider to be �the West� as something of a myth that is reaching a point of decline that may lead to its extinction as an idea.

As far as Ryan is concerned, Westerners themselves are to blame for it�because a critical mass of them no longer seem persuaded by the current formulations of what it means to be Western, and thus the West fails to be a convincing proposition altogether. Yet, as Ryan posits, there is a chance to rescue the West from its own travails�if only Westerners could construct a new myth to gather around as they move forward in the 21st century.

Ryan identifies the West as an intellectual space, rather than solely a geographical one. His model of what the West entails has three pillars: �the belief in a moral endpoint; the trio of republican values (liberty, equality, solidarity); and universalism.� Ryan correctly points out that all of these pillars are in crisis�and yet, the situation is, he argues, �not entirely hopeless.� The final section of the book, following Ryan�s take on what has happened to each of these pillars, is about identifying ways to rebuild and renew those pillars. For Ryan, rebuilding them is a necessity, because the Western model remains the best hope for a future world order that finds its root in virtue and morality.

Ryan identifies the West as an intellectual space, rather than solely a geographical one.

Ryan�s background within the world of political theology�which is evident in his writing, but also in his new professional capacity as a home affairs advisor for the Church of England, means that readers legitimately expect a discussion of higher morals and ethics, rather than a focus on the merely earthly domain of politics.

That�s an important element in the debate around the future of the West as well, which Ryan does touch on in terms of identifying the importance of Christianity to the formation of the West. In this regard, he�s not positing Christianity as a rallying cry for promoting difference�as Hungary�s Prime Minister Viktor Orban does�nor in some kind of secular tribalistic fashion�as Murray does�but as the source of positive virtues, and a recognition of what he considers to be the historical roots of the West.

Much of what Ryan writes is a good place to start. He is thoughtful and attempts to be inclusive, drawing far more on civic notions of patriotism rather than any reliance on ethnic nationalism, or even nationalism rooted in a religious identity. That approach gives readers hope for progress toward a better future. At the same time, however, some readers will be left hoping that Ryan had gone deeper and further, at times writing more critically than he does.

When it comes to conceptualizing themselves as a Western �us,� European Christendom has historically done so by positioning itself against the Muslims of the Mediterranean, be they Ottomans or Arabs. Indeed, the construction of national identities throughout the European part of the West�and in places like the United States and Australia�have ended up viewing Muslims in a particular way, usually negatively. And when such societies consider how they go forward in the 21st century, that�s an obstacle that requires a massive rethinking.

That rethinking, if it is to be meaningful, needs to not construct new myths of the future�but rediscover large swaths of the past. It�s a project that institutions such as the British Council have tried to bring to fruition, through enterprises like �Our Shared Europe� and �Our Shared Future,� which sought to uncover the huge amount of historical evidence that showed that Muslims and Islam played much wider historical roles internally in the West than was hitherto understood.

At a time when the likes of the far-right Orban in Hungary claim they are defending Christian values, while carrying out patently xenophobic policies, it�s tremendously important to transcend such rank tribalism with facts that provide a bedrock for a sustainable future. Indeed, those inhabiting the intellectual universe of Christendom need to be clear that given the choice, they see the likes of Gabor Ivanyi�a Hungarian Christian minister who fought communism in the 1970s and now rails against Orban�s xenophobia�as their paragon, rather than Orban. Ivanyi may not be perfect, but a form of Christianity that focuses on solidarity with the oppressed, rather than promoting tribalistic hate against the �other,� is precisely what Europe needs more of.

Such an understanding could help Westerners hold on to such values of inclusivity and pluralism, and at the same time respond to the concerns that certain people have about this multiculturalist modern age. Ryan knows this, but his three pillars are still too narrowly defined. And all of these three pillars have already been deconstructed by some of the best minds in Western intellectual thought, due to their internal contradictions�not simply in terms of ideas, but in terms of empirical realities. After all, is �liberty, equality, solidarity� really what the West stood for in terms of its engagements with minorities at home, and colonized peoples abroad? If the West is to look for a better future, intellectuals ought to be transcending untenable readings of their history and looking for better ideas.

Ryan is admirably clear-eyed about the dangers of other ideologies masquerading as defenses of the West, including the �great replacement� theory that underpins much current white nationalist discourse�but Ryan could identify the problems with some of these theories even more pointedly. When he describes the U.K.-based academic Eric Kaufmann�s analysis of how, �what is deemed to be the majority culture is more elastic than people might think�; and that, �The category of what counts as �white� is most likely to simply expand as the majority of the population inter-mixes and inter-marries,� I instinctively wonder: should these cultures really be described as white at all?

Rather, perhaps Ryan ought to take the critique of writers such as Jonathan Portes fully on board. Moving beyond Kaufmann�s suggestion to give preference to immigrants from ethnic or cultural backgrounds that are supposedly easier to assimilate, Portes suggests the British government should advocate �a more positive approach to the impacts of immigration on communities and services at a local level � by promoting integration and channelling funding to areas where there are pressures resulting from population growth.�

In this regard, perhaps Ryan is not thinking as much out of the box as he might want to, though I suspect his argument would actually dovetail quite neatly with Portes�s. But being more explicit is warranted, given the current caustic tone of public debate in Britain.

The same reflex comes up when Ryan describes Islam as a newcomer to the West: �In short, the task facing the West as it relates to newcomers and Islam is essentially the challenge of this book: to find a story and moral vision through which a diverse people can come together, and to find a way to create this collective ideal without betraying what the West fundamentally is.� That is a perfectly noble goal; the only problem is that Islam isn�t a newcomer.

A decade ago, I wrote a book titled Muslims of Europe: The �Other� Europeans that included an examination of Islam�s long European history. But one could write an encyclopedia that focused only on the history of Muslim European communities and figures, be they in premodern Spain and Portugal or the Emirate of Sicily or indeed the many Northern and Western Europeans who became Muslims. Framing Islam as a newcomer immediately restricts the scope of discussion that is needed. And such framing leads to a focus on salvaging broken models rather than seeking a new model for the West.

There are two fault lines here that will be crucial to the future of the West. The first relates to the issue of �rootedness,� that people like the British writer David Goodhart�who has recently renounced the center-left and joined the chorus of anti-immigration voices on the right�define as those who are �Somewheres,� as opposed to the so-called Nowheres, who, in his view, are cosmopolitans with no real loyalty to a place. It is also tied to concern around Blue Labour, a movement within the British Labour Party that prioritizes emphasis on what it means to be English and British (at least in Blue Labour�s conception of both) and that seeks to restore some sense of patriotism to the left.

There is already a well-developed school of thought that takes the notion of common interest and many of the imperatives of so-called progressive patriotism very seriously�it�s the subject of works by scholars such as Tariq Modood of the University of Bristol, and it�s a topic I�ve written on myself. Indeed, many writers discuss the remaking of common citizenship and national identity, not their ending. But recently much of the discussion around rootedness has become infiltrated with undercurrents of bigoted notions about nonwhite foreigners, leading to proposed solutions like Murray�s�ones that are basically anti-immigrant. The West needs better than that.

Any progressive patriotism must include all citizens and give all of them proper agency in defining what inclusive means. They shouldn�t be included as the result of debate; they should be included in actually defining the terms of that debate.

The second fault line relates to religion, as most religious minorities in the West come from nonmajority ethnic groups. The fear of Islam is where all of these insecurities come together�a world religion being caricatured to represent all the trials of the world coming upon �us.� It causes even normally thoughtful, interesting writers about these wider issues, such as the British Christian writer John Milbank, to make fanatical and outrageous assertions, as he did when he described the Irish singer Sinead O�Connor as a �civilisational traitress� when she converted to Islam.

That fault line of religion comes up every so often in Ryan�s book�and when it does, this reader came away wanting more. After all, the subject of religion always arises when pundits and intellectuals discuss the ostensible faltering of the West. Either it is the instrumentalization of a bigoted interpretation of Christianity (� la Orban, but also many others) to support a renewed core at the heart of Western civilization�or it is the demonization of a skewed view of Islam to create an other that the Western �we� should wage against with all their might. It�s something Ryan hints at, but he doesn�t go far enough.

As Ryan notes, the sociologist Rogers Brubaker has characterized this stance as �a secularized Christianity as culture. � It�s a matter of belonging rather than believing.� He further describes the attitude as being one in which, �We are Christians precisely because they are Muslims. Otherwise, we are not Christian in any substantive sense.�

Here, Ryan is to be applauded for correctly noting, �This says far more about the West�s insecurities over the depth and commonality of its own values than it does about a real threat posed by Western Muslims. It is not a lack of certainty over who Muslims are, but rather a lack of confidence in who Westerners are.� But Ryan doesn�t quite seem to recognize that Muslims are not only a part of the current Western story�they have been part of the West�s story since its inception.

That said, Ryan�s book is a thought-provoking read even though it stops slightly short of taking the argument to its logical conclusions in certain places�especially in terms of correcting the mistakes around dominant discourses of who �we� and �they� are.

Righting that wrong means not simply reimagining a new national myth to gather around, but Westerners forging a new narrative that dispenses with the historical marginalization of �them� in favor of creating what has always been a mythical �us.� What is needed is a new notion of �us� that emerges strongly and true, based on values and principles that the peoples of the West will be able to rally around in a cohesive manner for generations to come. Ryan�s book is a welcome addition to that debate.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:49

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

I can't watch the last few minutes of Ring of Bright Water. Makes me sob.

Otters (and ferrets/polecats too) have always stood on the middle ground of 'animals that hunt for us' vs. 'animals that hunt against us'. My grandad had Jack Russells that he loved dearly but were definitely there to get rabbits that would end up in pies, and a lot of landowners would have viewed that as poaching because of where those rabbits happened to be when the rabbits were got. The only moral difference in the eyes of the law was that dogs were definitely people's property that belonged to people (so the people were at fault) and otters and polecats were wild animals that were by happenstance being controlled by people but were also declared vermin. It resulted in a weird and bad state of animal law.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:51

gh0stpinballa: Mar 5, 2019

thanks for these links asjil

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:55

gh0stpinballa: Mar 5, 2019

this is a great piece of writing

http://glineq.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-i-lost-my-past.html?m=1

quote:

In almost all recent literature that analyzes Br-exit and Trump-entry, there is a constant theme of a fall from the heady days at the end of the Cold War, of pining for a time when unstoppable victory of democracy and neoliberal economics was a certainty and liberal capitalism stood at the pinnacle of human achievement.

Such narratives always filled me with discomfort. It is in part because I never believed in them and because my personal experience was quite different. Rather than believing in the end of history, I saw the end of the Cold War as an ambivalent event: good for many people because it brought them national liberation and the promise of better living standards, but traumatic for others because it brought them the rise of vicious nationalism, wars, unemployment and disastrous declines in income.

I know that I was influenced in that by a very clear realization that, once the Berlin Wall fell, the civil war in Yugoslavia was inevitable (I still remember a rather somber dinner that I shared with my mother on that day in November) and by the first hand experience of sudden misery that befell Russia in the early 1990s when I travelled there working for the World Bank. So, I was aware that my discomfort with triumphalism could be explained by these two, rarely found together, circumstances. It was perhaps an idiosyncratic discomfort.

But reading other books, and especially the highly acclaimed Tony Judt, I realized that the discomfort went further. In a deluge of literature that was written or published after the end of the Cold War, I just could not find almost anything that mirrored my own experiences from the Yugoslavia of the 1960s and 1970s. However hard I tried I just could not see anything in my memories that had to deal with collectivization, killings, political trials, endless bread lines, imprisoned free thinkers and other stories that are currently published in literary magazines. It is even stranger because I was very politically precocious; without exaggeration I think I was more politically-minded than 99% of my peers in the then Yugoslavia.

But my memories of the 1960s and the 1970s are different. I remember long dinners discussing politics, women and nations, long Summer vacations, foreign travel, languid sunsets, whole-night concerts, epic soccer games, girls in mini-skirts, the smell of the new apartment in which my family moved, excitement of new books and of buying my favorite weekly on the evening before the day when it would hit the stands�. I cannot find any of that in Judt, Svetlana Alexeevich or any other writer. I know that some of the memories may be influenced by nostalgia, but as hard as I try I still find them as my dominant memories. I remember many details of each of them to believe that my nostalgia somehow �fabricated� them. I just cannot say they did not happen.

gh0stpinballa fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Jun 28, 2020

# ? Jun 28, 2020 01:58

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

gh0stpinballa posted:

this is a great piece of writing

http://glineq.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-i-lost-my-past.html?m=1

You've got me remembering a film I saw years ago - Shot Through the Heart - about the war in Sarajevo. (Fiction but based on a true story).

quote:

(from wiki)
Plot
The horrors of war are examined from the view points of lifelong friends and expert sharpshooters Vlado Selimović (Linus Roache) and Slavko Stanic (Vincent Perez), who end up on opposing sides of the Bosnian War in Sarajevo. Slavko, an ethnic Serb and unemployed bachelor, becomes a sniper and instructor training the Army of Republika Srpska snipers who used to terrorize the city. Vlado, a Muslim married father and successful owner of a furniture factory, rejects his friend's offer to gain an escape from the city. Instead, he becomes a marksman in the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and attempts to counter the sniper threat. Vlado soon realizes his friend, an exceptionally skilled marksman, is the enemy sniper responsible for a number of seemingly impossible shots against residents of their own neighbourhood. The two friends eventually have to face-off and only one survives.

I think at the time I saw it couldn't imagine people who had been such firm friends becoming enemies but having lived through the revolution and its aftermath with Morsi then Sisi and now here with Brexit and seeing it happen in real time, it's all too believable.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 02:13

gh0stpinballa: Mar 5, 2019

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

You've got me remembering a film I saw years ago - Shot Through the Heart - about the war in Sarajevo. (Fiction but based on a true story).

I think at the time I saw it couldn't imagine people who had been such firm friends becoming enemies but having lived through the revolution and its aftermath with Morsi then Sisi and now here with Brexit and seeing it happen in real time, it's all too believable.

you should check out pretty village pretty flame, that's a similar story of two friends fighting on opposite sides in bosnia. very dark comedy too.

yeah the real reckoning wrt brexit is still coming, i hope we can brace for impact cos of its sky fallin in levels of bad well...look at the football lads in london the other week. arkan's gammon.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 02:22

radmonger: Jun 6, 2011

OwlFancier posted:

Righting that wrong means not simply reimagining a new national myth to gather around, but Westerners forging a new narrative that dispenses with the historical marginalization of �them� in favor of creating what has always been a mythical �us.� What is needed is a new notion of �us� that emerges strongly and true, based on values and principles that the peoples of the West will be able to rally around in a cohesive manner for generations to come.

You mean, �We are all us�?

# ? Jun 28, 2020 02:33

Comrade Fakename: Feb 13, 2012

The Tories just murdered tens of thousands of people in an attempt not to disrupt businesses in the country too much, so I suspect that they will settle for what is basically a soft Brexit with some minor concessions (that the EU get way more in return for) and the Tory media will largely herald it as an unmitigated triumph because the only paper left that actually wants hard Brexit is the Express.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 02:36

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Comrade Fakename posted:

The Tories just murdered tens of thousands of people in an attempt not to disrupt businesses in the country too much, so I suspect that they will settle for what is basically a soft Brexit with some minor concessions (that the EU get way more in return for) and the Tory media will largely herald it as an unmitigated triumph because the only paper left that actually wants hard Brexit is the Express.

Yeah, I expect they'll go something along that truthline for a reasonable brexit just to keep the press quiet, assuming that businesses raise their voices against him.

A full no-deal gets bad thought against him in the Times and other outlets that he doesn't want denouncement in.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 02:50

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

gh0stpinballa posted:

you should check out pretty village pretty flame, that's a similar story of two friends fighting on opposite sides in bosnia. very dark comedy too.

yeah the real reckoning wrt brexit is still coming, i hope we can brace for impact cos of its sky fallin in levels of bad well...look at the football lads in london the other week. arkan's gammon.

OK found the first 20 mins of that film online - have to pay 5Euros to see the rest but as it is 3am I am going to bed!

https://easterneuropeanmovies.com/comedy/pretty-village-pretty-flame

# ? Jun 28, 2020 02:51

Beefeater1980: Sep 12, 2008; My God, it's full of Horatios!

DickEmery posted:

Does anyone know of a serious counterpoint to Graeber's argument?
it rings so true and conforms to my own ideas to such an extent I'd like to see the alternative.

Other posters have highlighted the flaws already but I do think he�s right about the professional/managerial class functioning as ablative armour for the 0.1%. Most people have no interactions with the ridiculously wealthy and so the targets of righteous anger are always society�s NCOs.

I suspect this also ties into the rash of corporate sackings of / suspensions of serial abusers or harassers after they are outed. It seems clear to me that these people are not a few bad apples, but are instances of a harmful system; also that what gets them sacked isn�t their abusive behaviour as such, but the possibility that it will threaten the wealth of the shareholders of the companies they work for. You can see the same thing here in China when officials get arrested for corruption: the individuals are necessary sacrifices to keep the system going (from the perspective of the people who actually run the system).

radmonger posted:

You mean, �We are all us�?

Surely �I fought, we won�?

# ? Jun 28, 2020 03:55

ronya: Nov 8, 2010; I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.

gh0stpinballa posted:

this is a great piece of writing

http://glineq.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-i-lost-my-past.html?m=1

there's often very little literature in postcolonial countries that is set in the interregnum between the initial national awakening and dash to independence (with the exception of India). It can be before, or after, but that period in between...

it's the 'colonial space' - that life of hill stations, clubs, forts and cantonments, education in the metropole, long journeys by sea. That life existed and may have applied to a surprisingly large number of social groups making up the nativized civil service - not just the white colonial elite - but there is little enthusiasm for memorializing its high society, even as (or especially because) those same native elite groups largely went on to govern their successor states

the past is already a foreign country, it doesn't help if it is literally so

I don't see that observation on Yugoslavia to be different, really; it's not a conspiracy to whitewash the successes of Yugoslav socialism (if it can be called as such) inasmuch as that nobody particularly identifies with the life of the Yugoslav upper class after the fact

ronya fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Jun 28, 2020

# ? Jun 28, 2020 05:38

Lord Ludikrous: Jun 7, 2008; Enjoy your tea...

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

No but I like some of the tunes that go on games
Call of Duty had some good ones. (One of my nephews used to play that all the time when he was living at my mum's - his mum had died and my brother was homeless for a bit).

I like bangy 'classical' music sometimes which some of these tracks are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCVvhfyV5wQ

Bangy and �clashical� you say?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf0P4WZ45v8

# ? Jun 28, 2020 07:24

bessantj: Jul 27, 2004

Jose posted:

https://twitter.com/JarJarFan69/status/1276936635007959040?s=20

Should have shopped around for a hospital that has a two for one deal on the twins.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 08:08

GazChap: Dec 4, 2004; I'm hungry. Feed me.

A local woman on one of my sleepy little town�s FAcebook groups wrote a post yesterday with a copy/paste of an article by a �Dr. John Lee�, NHS pathologist. It was from a few days ago and basically talked of how lockdowns don�t do any good.

The only place I could find referencing the article with any substance was the lockdownsceptics.org site run by eugenicist and poor man�s Heston Blumental, Toby Young, and a mention in The Spectator.

She then went on to claim that many scientists from all across the political spectrum agree, and that now the �fatality rate has been confirmed as 0.26� the lockdowns are unnecessary, and shared a link to this video: https://youtu.be/kZqGSnVt8c8

She hasn�t responded to my reply yet, where I ask for sources on this confirmed fatality rate, funnily enough.

But who is this Scott Atlas chap? And Dr Lee for that matter. Are they actually respected science bods, or are they (as I suspect) bought and paid for, as it would appear is the case for Karol Sikora?

# ? Jun 28, 2020 08:40

ThomasPaine: Feb 4, 2009; We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

No but I like some of the tunes that go on games
Call of Duty had some good ones. (One of my nephews used to play that all the time when he was living at my mum's - his mum had died and my brother was homeless for a bit).

I like bangy 'classical' music sometimes which some of these tracks are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCVvhfyV5wQ

Battlefield 5 wasn't an amazing game for the most part but this tune is one of the best in a videogame imho

https://youtu.be/4Xm-6Px299I

# ? Jun 28, 2020 08:56

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

GazChap posted:

A local woman on one of my sleepy little town’s FAcebook groups wrote a post yesterday with a copy/paste of an article by a “Dr. John Lee”, NHS pathologist. It was from a few days ago and basically talked of how lockdowns don’t do any good.

The only place I could find referencing the article with any substance was the lockdownsceptics.org site run by eugenicist and poor man’s Heston Blumental, Toby Young, and a mention in The Spectator.

She then went on to claim that many scientists from all across the political spectrum agree, and that now the “fatality rate has been confirmed as 0.26” the lockdowns are unnecessary, and shared a link to this video: https://youtu.be/kZqGSnVt8c8

She hasn’t responded to my reply yet, where I ask for sources on this confirmed fatality rate, funnily enough.

But who is this Scott Atlas chap? And Dr Lee for that matter. Are they actually respected science bods, or are they (as I suspect) bought and paid for, as it would appear is the case for Karol Sikora?

You can check the big list of doctors but a brief look shows it's a fairly common name and there's 300,000+ names on the register

# ? Jun 28, 2020 09:02

Jose: Jul 24, 2007; Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

Joke country

https://twitter.com/Mr_Considerate/status/1277001046632673281?s=19

# ? Jun 28, 2020 09:14

bionic vapour boy: Feb 13, 2012; Impervious to fun.

His form fuckin sucks :colbert:

# ? Jun 28, 2020 09:19

Jose: Jul 24, 2007; Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

Sacha baron Cohen joined in some right wing militia event

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ryIztqI5g

# ? Jun 28, 2020 09:28

The Question IRL: Jun 8, 2013; Only two contestants left! Here is Doom's chance for revenge...

Jose posted:

Joke country

https://twitter.com/Mr_Considerate/status/1277001046632673281?s=19

Wouldn�t a Butcher�s dog spend all their time inside the butcher�s store (guarding the store) and just be eating scraps of meat they were given?

So likely not that fit.
Unless this is some really old expression that I�m not familiar with.

Also Glinner may have bookmarked a Google listing for what seems to be a knocking-shop.

https://twitter.com/stupacabra/status/1276886052758831106?s=21

The Question IRL fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Jun 28, 2020

# ? Jun 28, 2020 09:30

namesake: Jun 19, 2006; "When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

My 'able to support my own grotesque frame' newspaper headline has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my headline.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 09:35

Niric: Jul 23, 2008

GazChap posted:

A local woman on one of my sleepy little town’s FAcebook groups wrote a post yesterday with a copy/paste of an article by a “Dr. John Lee”, NHS pathologist. It was from a few days ago and basically talked of how lockdowns don’t do any good.

The only place I could find referencing the article with any substance was the lockdownsceptics.org site run by eugenicist and poor man’s Heston Blumental, Toby Young, and a mention in The Spectator.

She then went on to claim that many scientists from all across the political spectrum agree, and that now the “fatality rate has been confirmed as 0.26” the lockdowns are unnecessary, and shared a link to this video: https://youtu.be/kZqGSnVt8c8

She hasn’t responded to my reply yet, where I ask for sources on this confirmed fatality rate, funnily enough.

But who is this Scott Atlas chap? And Dr Lee for that matter. Are they actually respected science bods, or are they (as I suspect) bought and paid for, as it would appear is the case for Karol Sikora?

Dr Lee looks like he's a regular spectator writer:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/writer/dr-john-lee

He's a retired pathologist and director of Cancer services (as per wiki), but I don't think he's an especially respected science bod when it comes to pandemics. At least, the only place he seems visible is the spectator, and that seems purely to fuel their contrarian line

Niric fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Jun 28, 2020

# ? Jun 28, 2020 09:41

jaete: Jun 21, 2009; Nap Ghost

Guavanaut posted:

We were going to take covid on the chin until scientists spent 10 days yelling at Johnson like the prick he is and then McDonald's did the lockdown for him, so there's a chance that he gets berated into taking the deal that was given to him (May's deal with minor tweaks) when all the large manufacturers tell him what a massive babby he is for hours on end and then all the press celebrate that we won Europe.

Uh, how exactly do you mean, taking that deal? Also what deal exactly, the one that determines the relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK? Because May's deal, as I understand it, was something that was roundly rejected by Johnson, who then won the election on a campaign a part of which was that rejection, and he then did a completely different deal with the EU, a deal that is now already a matter of international law... right? I'm a bit confused here

From my understanding, the only things that could avert no deal at the end of this year would be 1) some kind of deal, any kind, with the EU and/or 2) delay, agreed with the EU. But any deal would have to be agreed in principle by... now, wasn't it? Before this big EU summit in early July, where the EU would have to start the process of ratifying it and all that? So unless Johnson does a complete U-turn on everything he's been saying for the past year or two (lol), this deal with the EU will never happen.

And for a delay, Johnson would first need to ask for it, which he's said for a year or so he will never ever do, and then the EU would have to agree to it, and then it would be for a maximum of two years at most. So even in the best case there it wouldn't actually help much.

I guess I just really don't see any feasible, realistic way for avoiding no deal. To avoid it Johnson would first need to care, then he'd need to understand, then he'd need to decide to do something about it (in a humiliating U-turn), then parliament would have to agree with him, then the EU would have to agree with him, etc, etc, it just goes on and on

# ? Jun 28, 2020 10:04

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

The Question IRL posted:

Wouldn’t a Butcher’s dog spend all their time inside the butcher’s store (guarding the store) and just be eating scraps of meat they were given?

So likely not that fit.
Unless this is some really old expression that I’m not familiar with.

The assumption would be that the dog is strong because it's well fed, as opposed to weak and starving. And certainly Boris has missed no meals.

It's not that old, though. As late as the 1850s to look like a butcher's dog meant that there was something you wanted but couldn't have.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 10:10

Jose: Jul 24, 2007; Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

johnson accepting whatever deal the EU ultimately offers works for him because it avoids just how hosed things are going to get with no deal, he's implemented brexit and we can all move on from it. I'm not saying he's going to do it and think no deal is happening but its really not embarrassing for him except with the true loonies to take a deal

# ? Jun 28, 2020 10:11

Communist Thoughts: Jan 7, 2008; Our war against free speech cannot end until we silence this bronze beast!

There's no check on the pm so he'll do what he wants but I think were probably due another round of tory confidence boosting. They just got done killing thousands and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Like how they originally thought people would stop their austerity excesses and a lot of our current position comes from them realising there's nobody to save Britain from them.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 10:18

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

https://twitter.com/iresimpsonsfans/status/1277166342647492608?s=19

# ? Jun 28, 2020 10:21

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 27, 2024 18:06

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

The Question IRL posted:

Also Glinner may have bookmarked a Google listing for what seems to be a knocking-shop.

https://twitter.com/stupacabra/status/1276886052758831106?s=21

that's not a google listing that's a slack channel, judging by the icon.

I suspect coincidence.

# ? Jun 28, 2020 10:30

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT Summer 2020 - Two Pints of Saline and Abacavir for Drip

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