The Political Thread

[The Legendary Shark]

I do not ascribe 'intricate, Machiavellian schemes' to governments but to small factions within and behind governments. The vast majority of parliamentarians and civil servants are, in my view, as clueless as the rest of us.

[Banners]

Just had an email from Jeremy, which I guess means I'm in and seems remarkably well organised compared to the other three candidates. However, the email is inconsistent in its use of en dashes and hyphens, so he's not getting my vote now.

[Hawkmumbler]

Grammer nazi.

[Professor Bear]

Nazis and communists are natural enemies.

And yet Corbyn is the only one with a plan to improve education - oh cruel irony!

[sheridan]

Nazis and communists are natural enemies.

And yet Corbyn is the only one with a plan to improve education - oh cruel irony!

That proves it - if he'd had an improved education he'd have got the hyphens and en-dashes in the right places!

[Professor Bear]

WELLCOM TO CAMERONS' BRITTAN

[The Legendary Shark]

One of my favourite podcasters, James Corbett, produced this podcast on the history of the US Federal Reserve, which is of course (like all central banks) modelled on our very own Bank of England.
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Of course, most of you won't want to listen to it because you've been conditioned to regard the subjects of finance, money and banking as boring. But fear not, this podcast tells you how you've been conditioned - even if you think you're too strong-minded to fall for such things.
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Enjoy!

[Professor Bear]

I don't know, Falcon, I think most can follow finance talk easily enough, it's when people start talking about the integrity of the blockchain and fluctuating interrelated cryptoratings that I start to tune out   The Kaiser Report was banging on about crypto until I had to stop watching, as Max K was basically reassuring viewers that his online payment system was completely sound and much better than real currency without ever explaining - in a financial programme - where crypto is initiated, how it accrues value, how it retains it, or how/why the values fluctuate - essentially decrying traditional financial systems as "criminal" while asking us to believe in one that may as well be magic.

[The Legendary Shark]

Just have a listen to the first podcast and tell me what you think. Digital crypto-currencies are mentioned near the end - I admit I don't fully understand them myself but, from what little I do understand, they do seem far safer and more stable than the properly magic money we all use at the moment. Whilst I think old Mad Max is on the right track, in my view he doesn't go far enough; he seems to think that if we just clear up all the corruption in the system everything will be fine.

[The Legendary Shark]

Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives.
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All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you.
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Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had not cooperation from you? What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves?
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You sow your crops in order that he may ravage them; you install and furnish your homes to give him goods to pillage; you rear your daughters that he may gratify his lust; you bring up your children in order that he may confer upon them the greatest privilege he knows — to be led into his battles, to be delivered to butchery, to be made the servants of his greed and the instruments of his vengeance; you yield your bodies unto hard labor in order that he may indulge in his delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures; you weaken yourselves in order to make him the stronger and the mightier to hold you in check.
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From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free.
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Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.
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Extract from "The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude," by Étienne de La Boétie (1530 - 1563)

[sheridan]

Grammer nazi.

Can't... resist...

Grammar Nazi.

Does that make me an orthography Communist?

[The Legendary Shark]

Ortholigarch?

[Professor Bear]

I thought you might like this one, Falcon.

[The Legendary Shark]

Heh, nice one.

[Fungus]

Grammer nazi.

Can't... resist...

Grammar Nazi.

I hear you. The internet is a constant struggle.
Your weakness here means you lose 2 points.