The Political Thread

[Old Tankie]

I don't have a problem with the image but surely it's not beyond the wit of man to make it fit on the coin properly.  I'm certainly no designer but, to my untrained eye, that looks crap!

[JamesC]

A horrible artifact. There's nothing in the design to suggest that the War was bad in any way, or that we should learn a lesson from it or even that lots of people died and it's them that we should remember.
It seems to me that, as well as being ugly, the design doesn't even do the job it's supposed to.

[M.I.K.]

It's apparently the first of five coins to commemorate WWI, one for each of the years it went on, so presumably they'll get a bit less jingoistic with each new design. Still more than a bit daft, though.

[TordelBack]

It seems to me that, as well as being ugly, the design doesn't even do the job it's supposed to.

I suspect the 'job' is to suggest that 'we' won the war against the ghastly hun only because ordinary people mindlessly sacrificed themselves in vast numbers on the instructions of their vastly more-intelligent rich white male betters.  And please keep it up.

It seems so at odds with sentiment towards WWI both in the immediate aftermath (witness the distinctly untriumphant Cenotaph and its largely bombast-free remembrance ceremony) and in the near-century since.  The Kitchener poster has only ever appeared in my consciousness in a context of mockery or near-aghast recollection of what it represented.

It's apparently the first of five coins to commemorate WWI, one for each of the years it went on, so presumably they'll get a bit less jingoistic with each new design. Still more than a bit daft, though.

Gods I hope so.

[Old Tankie]

I don't agree that it doesn't show the bad side of war.  A Lord, pointing with his finger, and saying "Your country needs you", and then hundreds of thousands of gullible young men flocking to the colours, a great many of them never to return.  I think it's a brilliant image of what's wrong with war.

[TordelBack]

... hundreds of thousands of gullible young men ...

Potentially millions, Tankie, our relatives among them.  Although it didn't prevent the introduction of conscription just two years later.  I think you're being very charitable ascribing that level of subtlety in your reading of the use of that image.

[Old Tankie]

Yes, TB, over 5 million British and Irish men served, taking into account conscription, as you mentioned, and various other advertising campaigns of the time, I thought it a tad unfair to blame all of them joining up on Lord Kitchener!!  Maybe you're right about the subtlety of the image but it certainly puts me off war.

[The Legendary Shark]

Apologies, Jim - that wasn't a dig at you.  I certainly hate the thing as well but possibly for slightly different, slightly insane, reasons.

.
I think I've mentioned before that neither WWI or WWII (or any of the wars since) could have happened without fiat currency like this loathsome object because there simply wasn't (and isn't) enough gold and silver in the world to pay for it. To me at least, the poor design is the least of its worries. They could've gone back in time and got Mars himself to design the thing in the Celestial Mint but it would still be a slap in the face for all those who thought they were fighting and dying for principles.

.
All those uncountable millions dead and dying for profit disguised as honour and then this coin comes along - almost rubbing our noses in it. Apologies again, Jim, I could have worded my initial (angry) post a lot better than I did.

[Spikes]

Just heard on the radio that Nick Griffin has been declared bankrupt. I didn't catch whether it was morally, or financially.

[NapalmKev]

Just heard on the radio that Nick Griffin has been declared bankrupt. I didn't catch whether it was morally, or financially.

After going bankrupt he's now going to advise others on their finances.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25590155

The man's an Arse!

Cheers

[The Legendary Shark]

The man's designed to be an arse - that's his role on the political stage. His purpose is to curtail serious debate by reinforcing the idea that only racists, bigots and idiots ask certain questions and also to control dissent and opinion in entirely the same way that Lab and Con exist only to bolster the false left/right paradigm. Nick Griffin, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, David Cameron - they're all doing exactly the same thing: telling us what we should be thinking about and what our opinions should be. "If you're like us, you should think this way - if you think another way, you're like them and not one of us."
.
Look past the actors, the stage and the script.

[Ancient Otter]

Question for the U.K. boarders - is it mentioned much there in the U.K of Kitchener's use of concentration camps in the Boer War?

[Spikes]

The 1976 film The Eagle Has Landed made passing reference to it. Apart from that......

[Modern Panther]

Oh, Sharkey...Sometimes a cigar, is just a cigar. 

Kitchener's use of concentration camps in the Boer War

certainly not mentioned in the usual school curriculum.  In fact, having done history for four years of high school, the whole of the Boer War was mentioned only once in passing.  British atrocities of any kind were completely ignored - WW1 was all patriotic but badly led Tommies in trenches, whilst WW2 was all horrible, nasty Nazis.

[Frank]

Question for the U.K. boarders - is it mentioned much there in the U.K of Kitchener's use of concentration camps in the Boer War?

The fact that the two Boer campaigns led the UK to invent the concentration camp is pretty much the only thing anyone knows about those conflicts. Apart from Breaker Morant.