Cheer up! It's not all bad

[Louis VI the Fat]

WHERE WILL I MOVE TO

Hey!


Did you not like that picture I send you of my sister after all?

[Strike For The South]

Hey!


Did you not like that picture I send you of my sister after all?

Oh don't get me wrong I loved the picture, it's just I don't speak French.

I guess if you promised her as my ahem translator for my first couple of months I'll buy the ticket today

[Louis VI the Fat]

No.

I told you to send us the ring first. Then she'll do, erm, some 'translation work' for you.

[Strike For The South]

No.

I told you to send us the ring first. Then she'll do, erm, some 'translation work' for you.

The ring? I thought this was a freelance gig!

You're lucky I had your translation work before her translation work

hairy, sweaty, rough and completely awesome.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Meh. He should've written a letter without spelling mistakes. If he is lysdexic, then he's been so for a long time and should've had his letter corrected. Other than that, I would not care very much about his 'disrespectful' behaviour. An Americanization of politics indeed. Driven by the sensationalist press. Who focus on irrelevant trivialities, blow these up way out of proportian, and make them the focus of political debate. That is, continual outrage.

Also, I dislike politicians remembering wars in an altogether too military fashion. And I disapprove of them wearing poppies, flags, or pink breast cancer symbols altogether. Symbolism and silly populism. It is the banner of politicians firmly on the leash of this world's Rupert Murdochs.
I prefer them with a spine, proudly showing themselves to be well above the annual Daily Mail November poppy campaign, which comes a few weeks before the 'teh foreigners and PC are killing Christmas' campaign.


Not to mention, I think the poppy itself is a pseudo-fascist symbol in the first place, the result of that most obscene poem in the history of European literature, 'In Flanders Fields'.

[Pannonian]

Meh. I disapprove of politicians wearing poppies, flags, or pink breast cancer symbols altogether. Symbolism and silly populism. It is the banner of politicians firmly on the leash of this world's Rupert Murdochs.
I prefer them with a spine, proudly showing themselves to be well above the annual Daily Mail November poppy campaign, which comes a few weeks before the 'teh foreigners and PC are killing Christmas' campaign.

Not to mention, I think the poppy itself is a pseudo-fascist symbol in the first place, the result of that most obscene poem in the history of European literature, 'In Flanders Fields'.

I approve of having these symbols. But not to the point of fetishising them, of promoting them to the point where they're seen as more important than what they're supposed to represent. That's the kind of image-based politics that Subotan is referring to, and that kind of politics is what's propagating the political domination of the odious, unbelievably selfish, suburban middle class. If Thatcher hadn't been the person who brought this political battleground into being, I'd wish for someone like her to appear and rip the consensus apart like she did to the old order.

[drone]

Who doesn't want to wear the ribbon?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Meh. He should've written a letter without spelling mistakes. If he is lysdexic, then he's been so for a long time and should've had his letter corrected. Other than that, I would not care very much about his 'disrespectful' behaviour. An Americanization of politics indeed. Driven by the sensationalist press. Who focus on irrelevant trivialities, blow these up way out of proportian, and make them the focus of political debate. That is, continual outrage.

Also, I dislike politicians remembering wars in an altogether too military fashion. And I disapprove of them wearing poppies, flags, or pink breast cancer symbols altogether. Symbolism and silly populism. It is the banner of politicians firmly on the leash of this world's Rupert Murdochs.
I prefer them with a spine, proudly showing themselves to be well above the annual Daily Mail November poppy campaign, which comes a few weeks before the 'teh foreigners and PC are killing Christmas' campaign.


Not to mention, I think the poppy itself is a pseudo-fascist symbol in the first place, the result of that most obscene poem in the history of European literature, 'In Flanders Fields'.

I could say some very rude things here.

I shall instead say this: Form is important, lack of care for the proper forms and protocols is symptomatic of disrespect.

In Britain, form and protocol was once social glue, now it has been abandoned and our society is litterally coming apart at the seams.

[gaelic cowboy]

In Britain, form and protocol was once social glue, now it has been abandoned and our society is litterally coming apart at the seams.

The problem is not lack of form and protocoll but the fact you have not yet fully replaced the old forms and protocols with new more fitting one for use in todays world.

[Pannonian]

I could say some very rude things here.

I shall instead say this: Form is important, lack of care for the proper forms and protocols is symptomatic of disrespect.

In Britain, form and protocol was once social glue, now it has been abandoned and our society is litterally coming apart at the seams.

Wrong. Approval of society was once social glue. Form and protocol was just an outward form of that, a way for people to share the experience. Form and protocol still exists, but the desire to be approved by society, which was what held society together, has gone. Thatcher was the reformer who destroyed that, and replaced it with the neo-liberal outlook which is now the political norm. She encouraged Britain to show more energy, but it's come at the expense of social coherence, something she was quite aware of and willing to accept.

[gaelic cowboy]

Wrong. Approval of society was once social glue. Form and protocol was just an outward form of that, a way for people to share the experience. Form and protocol still exists, but the desire to be approved by society, which was what held society together, has gone. Thatcher was the reformer who destroyed that, and replaced it with the neo-liberal outlook which is now the political norm. She encouraged Britain to show more energy, but it's come at the expense of social coherence, something she was quite aware of and willing to accept.

I would agree with that assesment

[InsaneApache]

It's the tories!

I dunno how many of you were around in the 70s but it wasn't a very nice time to live in. A bit like now, nothing worked. Thatcher was a response to the growing awareness that the unions had buggered up the economy. The winter of discontent did for Labour then as sure a McRuin has done for Labour today.

It's bit simplistic to blame Hilda. IMO the rot had started many years before. I know, I was around. To me the biggest act of social vandalism was when whole swaths of the country were 'developed' in the sixties. Entire communities were uprooted and sent packing to 'new towns'. Great examples of which are Cumbernauld, Milton Keynes and last, if not the worst, Skelmersdale.

This fractured communities that had developed over the previous centuary. We still havn't recovered forty years on. When I was a nipper, everyone in the adjacent streets knew who I was, where I lived and who my parents were. The chances of getting away with mischeif was low. Not so today.

Coupled with the failed social engineering experiment of the last couple of decades, it is and was a recipe for disaster.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Much of the changes in British society that are lamented in this thread, resonate elsewhere too. This would suggest the blame can not be put on Thatcher, or on any specific British policy.

I could say some very rude things here.

Do speak your mind.



I dislike poppies. With a passion. I hate 'In Flanders Fields' with a vengeance - the most shameless, obscene, murderous poem ever written. Moral bankruptcy in verse. The poem does not respect the death, rather it exhumes the fallen and parades their rotting corpses around, using them to blackmail others to follow them to their doom. It is the work of the devil, granting neither the living nor indeed the fallen any peace, even in death.
I could not think of a graver sign of disrespect than a poppy.

(I do however, understand that the intention behind wearing a poppy is for most people rather more innocent, or merely the result of social pressure)

Likewise, I consider a militaristic remembrance of the dead by civilian society a continuation of what caused their deaths in the first place.
Lastly, I mistrust militaristic politicians and politics. I find it a comforting sign if a politician is disinterested in precise miltary/istic protocol.

We've seen across the Atlantic in recent years how clouded the judgment of politicians and the electorate can become once in the grip of overt militarism. And all of that fades into insignificance compared to the same thing happening on a far larger scale in Europe a century ago.

A democracy respects its military death, because the democratic process is ultimately responsible for their death. But beyond that kind of respect and remembrance, madness lies.

[Pannonian]

Much of the changes in British society that are lamented in this thread, resonate elsewhere too. This would suggest the blame can not be put on Thatcher, or on any specific British policy.

The fault lies in the ramping up of liberalism-capitalism, or the self as overwhelmingly more important than wider society. In Britain, this was done by Thatcher. She assessed, probably correctly, that encouraging the seeking of self-interest would help shatter the stagnation that Britain had suffered for a decade. In addition to policies that gave free rein to exploitative capitalism, she also encouraged the view that society was nothing. She was undeniably a great politician, the most influential since Attlee's government, having completely reshaped the political norm. What IA and others fail to recognise though is that the bad things they complain about are the natural flipside of the good things they credit Thatcher with.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Much of the changes in British society that are lamented in this thread, resonate elsewhere too. This would suggest the blame can not be put on Thatcher, or on any specific British policy.

Perhaps, I blame the principle that all men are equal before the Law, equal in station, or equal in merit.

Do speak your mind.

Sorry, I'm English.

I dislike poppies. With a passion. I hate 'In Flanders Fields' with a vengeance - the most shameless, obscene, murderous poem ever written. Moral bankruptcy in verse. The poem does not respect the death, rather it exhumes the fallen and parades their rotting corpses around, using them to blackmail others to follow them to their doom. It is the work of the devil, granting neither the living nor indeed the fallen any peace, even in death.
I could not think of a graver sign of disrespect than a poppy.

Wiki: context http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields

Soldiers are not normal people, the problem is not in the poem itself, it may be in the use of it. However, at the time the War was considered to be one of "Good and Evil" in a way that most wars have not since the Crusades, I think.

[Beskar]

Hey!


Did you not like that picture I send you of my sister after all?

Why didn't I get to see?